Recall the description of high-handed sin from Numbers 15:30–31:

But whoever acts high-handedly [i.e., "defiantly" (NET), "brazenly" (NLT)], whether native-born or an alien, affronts the Lord and shall be cut off from among the people. Because of having despised ["treated with contempt" (NLT)] the word of the Lord and broken his commandment, such a person shall be utterly cut off and bear the guilt. (NRSV)

As I've described, the high-handed, brazen, and defiant sin falls outside of sacrificial remediation. The individual was to be "cut off" to "bear the guilt."

Now, if such a calamity befell a person could that person ever be welcomed back into community? The answer seems to be yes, and one place where we see that happen is in the case of David and Psalm 51.

You know the story of David and Bathsheba, and how David conspired to have Uriah killed. In 2 Samuel, David's sin is described as being high-handed. As Nathan says to David:

"Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.”

As set out in Numbers 15, David despises and utterly scorns the Lord. The sin falls outside of sacrificial atonement. And yet, the Lord elects to extend grace. However, as Nathan recounts, David must, in the words of Numbers 15, "bear the guilt" of his sin. David will face hard consequences, consequences that will haunt him for the rest of his life. 

Psalm 51 is described as being the prayer of David in light of his sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah. Scholars have noted that the prayer is that of a high-handed sinner. Without sacrificial recourse, the sinner must appeal directly to God for mercy: 

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!

The lack of sacrificial remedy is also highlighted later in the prayer:

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

The relationship is not repaired with sacrifice but through a profoundly repentant posture and broken spirit. 

Also, as described in Numbers 15, the high-handed sinner of Psalm 51 fears being "cut off" from the Lord:

Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Finally, the sinner of Psalm 51 "bears the guilt," suffering punishment from the Lord:

Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

I'll have more to say about the restoration of the high-handed sinner in the next post. But for now, the case of David and Psalm 51 illustrates a few things I'd like to underline for the purposes of my train of speculation:

1. The vision of a sinner being cut off from the covenantal community and the sacrificial remedies for sin.
2. How, without sacrificial remedies, the sinner must "bear the guilt" of their sin and suffer the painful consequences.
3. The sinner's return requiring a profoundly repentant posture and broken spirit.
4. Finally, the sinner making a direct appeal to God for a mercy that comes from outside of the sacrificial system. There is a grace at work here that falls beyond what Leviticus and the Day of Atonement imagines.

Since my recent reflection on "falling from grace," bringing Numbers 15 into that conversation, I've been ruminating and messing around with a very speculative reflection about the relationship between atonement and punishment and how all that might be translated into an eschatological framework. This one of those series that I'm beginning where I don't know where I'm going or how it'll end. Experimental theology ahead. 

To get started, in this post let me recap some of the things I recently shared about atonement, filling those thoughts out a bit, and nudging forward.

First, in the Levitical imagination atonement did not restore a broken relationship but rather maintained an ongoing relationship. This insight, right here, flips the script on how we tend to think about atonement. In a penal, forensic framework we are "lost." Atonement is made for us and we become "saved." But that's not how atonement functions in Leviticus. On the Day of Atonement the Israelites were not lost. They were already in relation with God. Atonement was made to maintain that relation. 

Simply put, in Leviticus atonement wasn't forensic, it was cultic. Atonement decontaminated the space allowing Israel to maintain proximity to the holiness of God. 

In the book of Hebrews Jesus is described as providing a "better sacrifice" than the blood of bulls and goats. But the Levitical framework is carried over. Jesus' blood decontaminates the space allowing the faithful yet sinful community to maintain proximity to the holiness of God. Again, the issue isn't forensic but cultic. Due to the decontamination provided by Jesus, we can draw near to God, even into the Holy of Holies. A previously unimaginable closeness. Hebrews 10: 

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

The distinction that Hebrews makes between Jesus' blood and the Levitical sacrifices doesn't concern the function of atonement. It concerns, rather, how the ongoing decontamination is provided. The decontamination provided by the Levitical sacrifices could only be achieved via repetition. Jesus, by contrast, provides a once for all decontamination that doesn't have to be repeated. The decontamination provided by Jesus is ongoing because it is perpetual. Hebrews 10:

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Again, notice that the function of atonement--a decontamination that maintains relation--is the same. Atonement isn't a forensic verdict. It is, rather, a cultic act that allows the sinful community to maintain proximity to the holiness of God. See, for example, 1 John 1:

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It's the same cultic framework from Leviticus, atonement providing an ongoing decontamination, a continual cleansing, that maintains relation to God's holiness in light of our sinfulness. Atonement is less about moving outsiders to insiders than keeping insiders on the inside. 

That said, as I described in my recent series, high-handed and defiant sin, throwing off the yoke of the Torah, would cause a person to be "cut off" from the community and covenantal relation with God. As described in Numbers 15, atonement would not cover such sin. Such a person was "lost" and "dead." The Levitical sacrifices provided no remedy. And once again the logic carries over in the New Testament vision. Again from Hebrews 10: "For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins."

In such a case, the issue is no longer cultic decontamination. Resurrection was necessary. 

I've been reading Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. Chesterton. The book pointed me toward some of Chesterton's reflections about Satan, demonology, and exorcism in his Europe to Palestine travelogue The New Jerusalem. Chesterton's reflections echo much of what I cover in my book Reviving Old Scratch. These passages come from the chapter "The Battle with the Dragon":

For it is only when we understand that Christ, considered merely as a prophet...that we can feel that tremendous and tragic energy of his testimony to an ugly reality, the existence of unnatural things. Instead of taking a [single Biblical] text as I have done, take a whole Gospel and read it steadily and honestly and straight through at a sitting, and you will certainly have one impression, whether of a myth or of a man. It is that the exorcist towers above the poet and even the prophet; that the story between Cana and Calvary is one long war with demons. He understood better than a hundred poets the beauty of the flowers of the battle-field; but he came out to battle. And if most of his words mean anything they do mean that there is at our very feet, like a chasm concealed among the flowers, an unfathomable evil...

I say such things in no mood of spiritual pride; such things are hideous not because they are distant but because they are near to us; in all our brains, certainly in mine, were buried things as bad as any buried under that bitter sea [Chesterton was looking out over the Dead Sea plain where Sodom and Gomorrah are believed to be located], and if He did not come to do battle with them, even in the darkness of the brain of man, I know not why He came. Certainly it was not only to talk about flowers or to talk about Socialism. The more truly we can see life as a fairy-tale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the Dragon who is wasting fairyland. I will not enter on the theology behind the symbol; but I am sure it was of this that all the symbols were symbolic. I remember distinguished men among the liberal theologians, who found it more difficult to believe in one devil than in many. They admitted in the New Testament an attestation to evil spirits, but not to a general enemy of mankind. As some are said to want the drama of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, they would have the drama of Hell without the Prince of Darkness. I say nothing of these things, save that the language of the Gospel seems to me to go much more singly to a single issue. The voice that is heard there has such authority as speaks to an army; and the highest note of it is victory rather than peace. When the apostles were first sent forth with their faces to the four corners of the earth, and turned again to acclaim their master, he did not say in that hour of triumph, "All are aspects of one harmonious whole" or "The universe evolves through progress to perfection" or "All things find their end in Nirvana" or "The dewdrop slips into the shining sea." He looked up and said, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

There are some great lines here:

"the exorcist towers above the poet and even the prophet"

"the story between Cana and Calvary is one long war with demons"

"there is at our very feet, like a chasm concealed among the flowers, an unfathomable evil"

"such things are hideous not because they are distant but because they are near to us"

"in all our brains, certainly in mine, [are] buried things as bad as any buried under that bitter sea, and if He did not come to do battle with them, even in the darkness of the brain of man, I know not why He came." 

And the most famous of all these lines:

"The more truly we can see life as a fairy-tale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the Dragon who is wasting fairyland."

The late Henri Nouwen wrote a lovely book entitled The Selfless Way of Christ. The book seems timely and prophetic to me given how, on the Christian Right, the "downward mobility" of Christ is increasingly being stigmatized as a feminized Christianity for beta males. These voices have become acolytes of Nietzsche who railed against the slave morality of Christianity. For his part, Nietzsche saw the choice clearly: Christ or the Antichrist? Tragically, there are many on the Christian Right who have chosen the Antichrist. Against these Dark Christians, I stand with Nouwen on this one.   

In The Selfless Way of Christ Nouwen contrasts the cultural push for "upward mobility" with Christ's example of "downward mobility." Nouwen's description of the lure of upward mobility and how we work to support its mythology in our culture:

We are taught to conceive of development in terms of an ongoing increase in human potential. Growing up means becoming healthier, stronger, more intelligent, more mature, and more productive. Consequently we hide those who do not affirm this myth of progress, such as the elderly, prisoners, and those with mental disabilities. In our society, we consider the upward move the obvious one while treating the poor cases who cannot keep up as sad misfits, people who have deviated from the normal line of progress.

In contrast to this upward progress, Nouwen points to the downward mobility of Christ:

The story of our salvation stands radically over and against the philosophy of upward mobility. The great paradox which Scripture reveals to us is that real and total freedom is only found through downward mobility. The Word of God came down to us and lived among us as a slave. The divine way is indeed the downward way.

This downward way, thus, marks the path of discipleship and interrupts the mythology of our culture:

The disciple is the one who follows Jesus on his downward path and thus enters with him into new life. The gospel radically subverts the presuppositions of our upwardly mobile society. It is a jarring and unsettling challenge.

Nouwen goes on to discuss the three great temptations of upward mobility:

Three temptations by which we are confronted again and again are the temptation to be relevant, the temptation to be spectacular, and the temptation to be powerful.

Nouwen then reflects on each temptation. Mainly this becomes a discussion about how we form our identities. The desire to be relevant, spectacular or powerful are all attempts to justify our worth and existence before others. In the face of that desire Nouwen asks an unsettling question:

Who am I when nobody pays attention, says thanks, or recognizes my work?

As I describe in The Shape of Joy, a question like that threatens my "superhero complex," the games of significance I play to justify by value, worth, and significance. We face here what Brené Brown has called "the shame-based fear of being ordinary." I'm mindful here of something St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 4.11):

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.

The juxtaposition here is interesting. Make it your ambition to lead an unambitious life.

One of the most impactful parts of the book is Nouwan's reflection on the temptations of power. As Nouwan observes, "There is almost nothing more difficult to overcome than our desire for power."

Why is that? Because our culture of upward mobility constantly tells us that power is a good thing and that powerlessness is a bad thing:

It seems nearly impossible for us to believe that any good can come from powerlessness. In this country of pioneers and self-made people, in which ambition is praised from the first moment we enter school until we enter the competitive world of free enterprise, we cannot imagine that any good can come from giving up power or not even desiring it. The all-pervasive conviction in our society is that power is a good and that those possessing it can only desire more of it.

And yet, the downward path of Jesus is the way of powerlessness:

Surrounded by so much power, it is very difficult to avoid surrendering to the temptation to seek power like everyone else. But the mystery of our ministry is that we are called to serve not with our power but with our powerlessness. It is through powerlessness that we can enter into solidarity with our fellow human beings, form a community with the weak, and thus reveal the healing, guiding, and sustaining mercy of God. We are called to speak to people not where they have it together but where they are aware of their pain, not where they are in control but where they are trembling and insecure, not where they are self-assured and assertive but where they dare to doubt and raise hard questions; in short, not where they live in the illusion of immortality but where they are ready to face their broken, mortal, and fragile humanity. As followers of Christ, we are sent into the world naked, vulnerable, and weak, and thus we can reach our fellow human beings in their pain and agony and reveal to them the power of God's love and empower them with the power of God's Spirit.

"a double-edged sword in their hands, inflicting vengeance on the nations"

We're coming to the end of this series! One more difficult psalm to deal with.

There is a tension in Psalm 149, with its sharp and abrupt pivot from jubilation to judgment. Here is the celebration of the opening five verses:

Hallelujah!
Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel celebrate its Maker;
let the children of Zion rejoice in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing
and make music to him with tambourine and lyre.
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
he adorns the humble with salvation.
Let the faithful celebrate in triumphal glory;
let them shout for joy on their beds.

This jubilation then turns toward vengeance and judgment upon the nations:

Let the exaltation of God be in their mouths
and a double-edged sword in their hands,
inflicting vengeance on the nations
and punishment on the peoples,
binding their kings with chains
and their dignitaries with iron shackles,
carrying out the judgment decreed against them.
This honor is for all his faithful people.
Hallelujah!

Historically, we can appreciate how Israel would have experienced triumph and vindication when they experienced victory or release from oppressive powers. The political worry, of course, is how Psalm 149 would be put to use (and can still be put to use) in justifying violence. This was a temptation that shows up in the Passion narratives. When the people are presented with a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, who was a violent insurrectionist/terrorist, they call for Barabbas. It's a choice we continue to face today: Jesus or Barabbas?

In light of the Incarnation, the interpretation of Psalm 149 shifts toward the cosmic and the eschatological. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens" (Eph. 6.12). On the cross Jesus "disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them" (Col. 2.15).

I wonder if the "divine council" backdrop of the Old Testament creates a bridge here. As moderns, we tend to view the conflict between Israel and the nations in a wholly disenchanted and material way. But ancient Israel saw this battle as cosmic and angelic in nature. The nations were held in thrall by malevolent "archons." Thus, "binding the kings" of the nations had a spiritual, angelic aspect. Pulling on this thread, you can see a continuity of imagination between Psalm 149 and the New Testament vision of Christ's battle with Satan, the god of this age. We go to battle with "the sword of the Spirit," the Word of God.

A sword remains in our hands, but it has been transformed.

Yesterday, the Global Flourishing Study made the data from Wave 1 and Wave 2 from their project available to the public. The dataset includes approximately 200,000 participants, across 22 countries, surveyed across six domains of flourishing, and with a longitudinal design.

To date, some of the headline findings from the Study are, quoting from the GFS press release:

Young people are struggling. Across countries, younger adults now report lower well-being than older populations. In many nations, the 18-to-24 age group reported the lowest flourishing scores...

The development paradox. One of the study’s most provocative findings is a negative relationship between a nation’s wealth and its citizens’ reported sense of meaning and purpose. Economic progress, it turns out, does not automatically translate into lives that feel meaningful...

Faith communities and flourishing. Across diverse cultures, religious participation emerged as one of the strongest predictors of overall well-being. The finding held even in highly secular societies, suggesting that faith communities cultivate something essential to human thriving that warrants serious attention from researchers and policymakers alike.

I bring the Global Flourishing Study to your attention to make the point that the GFS findings are tracing the shape of joy. As I describe in the book, transcendence is good for your mental health, an association that has been, as I put it, one of the best kept secrets in psychology. Truly, The Shape of Joy is one of the few books in this genre that makes this connection explicit, and works to explain why as it cites the research along the way. But thanks to research like that of the Global Flourishing Study, the secret is slowly starting to get out. 

In 2022 I shared a lecture at a conference hosted by my school, reflections I shared online shortly after. A recent conversation with some of my university colleagues reminded me of that original lecture as its message is as timely as ever.

As I shared back then, there is a problem within the institutions of Christian higher education. More specifically, it concerns a theological habit that quietly shapes how many Christian universities think about their work, their mission, and their measures of success. I call this warrant theology.

By “warrant” I mean the justification, reason, cause, rationale, or basis for making a claim or taking action. Like we see in a police warrant, the warrant states the justification for your arrest. Similarly, if you draw a conclusion from some observations, we can ask: Is your conclusion warranted by the evidence? That is, is your conclusion justified and founded upon good reasons?

So, what is warrant theology?

Warrant theology uses the logic that “Jesus is the reason” for doing something. Jesus becomes the warrant. Jesus becomes the justification, rationale, and cause. We do X in the world because of Jesus.

The reason warrant theology is so pernicious is that, most of the time, it works. For followers of Jesus, Jesus is the reason we do everything in life. And if that's the case, what’s the problem? The problem lies in a subtle confusion between means and ends.

When we say “Jesus is the reason,” what exactly are we saying? We could be saying that Jesus is the end, the telos, the target, and the goal. We are doing X in order to move toward Jesus. We are imitating Jesus. We are conforming to the image of Jesus. In this sense Jesus is the destination.

But the phrase “Jesus is the reason” can also imply that Jesus is being used, not as the end, but as the means. Jesus becomes the justification for doing something we already wanted to do. This framework, Jesus as means toward an end, is much more problematic.

Consider the prosperity gospel. Is Jesus the end there, or the means? Is wealth a Christlike goal? Or is Christ being used, rather, as the religious justification for the pursuit of wealth?

Consider Christian nationalism. Is Jesus the end there, or the means? Is the pursuit of political power a Christlike goal? Or is Christ being used as the religious warrant for the pursuit of political power?

These examples show how warrant theology works in some well-known cases. But the same dynamic can also appear in much subtler places, including the life of Christian institutions. Let me give an example.

A friend of mine, a high school Athletic Director, invited me to address all the coaches at their start-of-year orientation meeting. The topic he asked me to address was this: What makes a high school athletic program Christian? By “Christian” we mean something unique and distinctive as compared to athletic programs in public schools.

I started by asking the coaches to share their coaching values and commitments. What do you say, over and over again, that captures the goals you have for your athletes and your teams?

In my experience with sports, both in school and watching my eldest son play three sports in high school, most coaching values boil down to a few familiar themes.

First, there is effort and commitment. Coaches want you to give 110%. They want you to be all in.

Second, is a team-first mentality. As coaches love to say, “There is no I in TEAM.”

Third, is an aspirational commitment. You have to believe. As Ted Lasso famously put it on the locker room wall: Believe.

Effort. Team first. Believe. These are the value commitments found in most athletic programs, and they were the commitments expressed by the coaches I was speaking to. So I asked them a question: Would you find these same commitments in the athletic programs of public schools? Of course you would. And if that is the case, what exactly is the difference between a Christian school athletic program and a public school athletic program? Not much. Both programs preach effort. Both preach unselfish teamwork. Both preach belief.

The reason we don’t find much difference is because of warrant theology. In Christian school athletics we don’t change the goals. We change the warrant. We do the exact same things everyone else is doing. We just do them for different reasons.

The most common devotional talk in Christian athletic programs illustrates this point. A coach or chaplain will reflect on the Parable of the Talents. In the parable the servant who invests his talents is praised. The servant who buries his talent is chastised. In the hands of Christian athletics this becomes a message about effort and excellence. God has given you gifts, so you must be a good steward. You must give your best. You must maximize your opportunities.

Now, I’m not interested here in debating whether that’s the correct interpretation of the parable. I’m simply pointing out how it functions.

The goal of the talk is not to point toward a distinctive Christian telos. The goal is to keep the existing goal, excellence, while supplying it with a Christian warrant. We should pursue excellence because God wants us to be good stewards.

Now, to be clear, God does want us to be good stewards. And young people absolutely need the virtues shaped by effort, teamwork, and aspiration. I’m not denying any of that. But I challenged the coaches with this question: If Jesus only ever functions as the warrant, when do we ever stop to think about distinctively Christian outcomes? If all we do is baptize the same goals everyone else has, Christian athletic programs will never develop Christian distinctiveness. The goals remain the same. Only the justification changes.

A truly Christian athletic program would eventually have to ask a different question: What are we doing with our teams that only makes sense in light of our Christian commitments?

That question shifts the focus away from warrant theology and toward Christ-shaped goals.

Now return to the institutions of Christian higher education, where the dynamics of warrant theology often become even clearer.

I’m a professor at a Christian university, and one thing I’ve noticed over the years is that working at a Christian university often isn’t all that different from working at a public, secular university. To be sure, there are differences. We pray before departmental meetings. We sing hymns at faculty gatherings. We hold chapel services. Devotional language runs through campus life.

But much of this can feel performative. What makes the meeting “Christian” is that we tack on a prayer. What makes the mission statement “Christian” is the invocation of God. A lot of what makes a Christian university “Christian” is devotional and rhetorical. It is the language we sprinkle around our work and decision making. Work and decision making that often isn’t all that different from what happens at secular universities.

Let me put it this way. The “Christian” at a Christian university should affect the engine. It should shape how the car actually runs. But far too often the “Christian” feels more like the paint job, something that affects how the car looks from the outside.

If that’s the case, what is actually configuring the engine?

Christian universities exist in a highly competitive marketplace. Schools compete for students, prestige, grants, rankings, and reputation. As a result, Christian universities generally adopt the same metrics of success used throughout higher education. These metrics are usually gathered under a single banner: the pursuit of excellence.

We want higher rankings. We want larger enrollments. We want bigger endowments. We want productive faculty. We want winning athletic programs. We want research grants and institutional prestige.

And because these are the metrics shaping the system, life at a Christian university can start to feel remarkably similar to life at a public university. The tenure and promotion process looks the same. The institutional anxieties look the same. The strategic plans look the same.

This is where warrant theology quietly enters the picture.

Warrant theology provides the Christian justification for the pursuit of excellence. Jesus becomes the reason our rankings go up. Jesus becomes the reason our enrollments grow. Jesus becomes the reason our faculty publish and our teams win.

The result is predictable. The engine under the hood remains exactly the same as every other university in the marketplace. The only thing that changes is the paint job.

Now, to be clear, I am not suggesting that Christian universities should stop caring about enrollments, endowments, or academic quality. A university is still an institution that must survive financially. And no one wants professors who are incompetent teachers or unserious scholars.

The issue is not excellence itself. The issue is that warrant theology prevents Jesus from interrogating our definition of excellence.

When Jesus only functions as the reason we pursue excellence, we quietly default to the marketplace’s definition of excellence. We end up chasing the exact same metrics as everyone else.

But if Jesus were allowed to function not as the warrant but as the end, something interesting might happen. Jesus might begin to trouble our assumptions about success. Jesus might challenge our metrics. Jesus might force us to ask whether faithfulness, humility, service, reconciliation, and hospitality ought to count as institutional achievements in ways that don’t show up in rankings or revenue reports.

In other words, we might finally stop fussing about the paint job.

And start lifting the hood to take a hard look at the engine.