Atonement Theology

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Albrecht Dürer , Christ on the Cross

The Atonement or Atonement theology is a fundamental meaning of the death of innocent life in Christian theology. It also plays a role in the Christian doctrine of the redemption of man ( soteriology ). The crucifixion of Christ can in this case of the Old Testament texts to Christian in the light of interpretations sins , repentance and conversion as Menschenopfertod for reconciliation of the Christian God with the people and the forgiveness of original sin to be interpreted.

Christianity

The word “Atonement” has become common in theological discussion, but does not appear in the Jewish Bible . The term “atonement” itself comes from the Germanic language area. It is used there in a juridical - i.e. not in a cultic - context.

Christian Bible

Old testament

With "atone / atonement create" is the Hebrew word in various German Bible editions kippär translated. However, the basic meaning of the Hebrew word stem is "to cover". In the Hebrew Bible, kippär occurs primarily in a cultic context, but not at all in a juridical context. “Atonement rituals” should enable the encounter between people who have missed each other and God in the cult.

Here describes kippär not a concrete ritual execution, but sums up the goal unterschiedlichster rituals: "It propitiation for him the priest before his sin, it is forgiven" - Lev 4.20 (Translation: Martin Buber). The rituals described as tilting range from animal sacrifices ( 3 Mos 4,22–26  EU ) and vegetable sacrifices ( 3 Mos 5,11–13  EU ), through which a disturbed relationship with God is brought back to order, to the consecration of the Altars ( 3 Mos 8.15  EU ) and the cleaning of a “leper” house ( 3 Mos 14.48–53  EU ).

The fact that vegetable sacrifices also bring about “atonement” ( 3 Mos 5 : 11–13  EU ) shows that neither the (vicarious) death of an animal nor the use of blood is a prerequisite for restoring the relationship with God.

Nevertheless, the blood of sacrificial animals, which is applied to people or objects in some of these rituals, has an important function. To understand the meaning of the blood in the Old Testament cult, Lev 17.11  EU can be used: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I [sc. YHWH] gave it to you on the altar to atone for your life, for it is the blood that atones through life ”. "Atonement through blood application rites can therefore be described as a consecration event, which is made possible by the life in the blood." Thomas Pola gave a critical reply to this position .

Old Testament life, however, is not the individual life of a human or an animal. For the Old Testament all life is and remains part of God's own creative life force: “See, all life is mine” ( Ez 18.4  EU ). So God himself is present in the blood. "Here is the explanation of the atonement rite: through the life contained in the blood, the life force diminished by sin can be renewed".

The use of the term “atonement” for the Old Testament cult is problematic according to this finding. Because the German term “atonement” always includes the idea of ​​reparation on the part of what has become guilty, while the forgiveness of guilt in the Old Testament cult is much more likely to come about through contact with the holiness of God - mediated by the divine life that is found in the blood .

New Testament

In the writings of the New Testament , the death of Jesus Christ is unanimously interpreted as God's salvific action . In addition to other models for the explanatory description of this saving effect, the interpretation of the death of Jesus as an atoning sacrifice can be found in the New Testament, through which sin and its effects are eliminated analogous to the sacrifices in the Old Testament. This idea of ​​the Atonement can be found particularly explicitly in Rom. 3:24 f. EU :

“... through the redemption that came through Jesus Christ. God presented it for faith as a place of atonement through faith in his blood ... "

and on the other hand in Heb 9, 12, 26  EU :

“Nor did he [Jesus Christ] enter the sanctuary once and for all through the blood of goats or calves, but through his own blood, and he has acquired eternal redemption. ... But now, at the end of time, he has appeared once and for all to lift sin through his own sacrifice. "

Furthermore, this is attested, among other things, by 1 Cor 15.3b  EU :

"Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures ..."

as well as from 2 Cor 5,19  EU and from 1 Joh 2,2  EU .

Theological discussion

The theological discussion about the concept of the Atonement deals, among other things, with the question of what exactly the atoning effect of Jesus' death consists, so why his violent death has the power to undo sins and the effects of sin. The so-called Satisfaction Doctrine of the medieval theologian Anselm von Canterbury is influential in this context . The doctrine of satisfaction and the presentation of the Atonement are in some cases falsely identified and Anselm is thus presented as the inventor of the Atonement. Anselm tried to explain the atoning effect of Jesus' death with the model of reparation ( satisfaction ), which was necessary to restore a prince's injured sovereign honor. This concept of honor , which was central to the medieval image of society , is alien to our present-day view of the world and of man , which is why the doctrine of satisfaction is sometimes cited in popular theological discussions as an example of theological mistakes in the area of ​​the atonement.

In addition to the discussion about the “how” of an atoning effect of the death of Jesus, there is also a fundamental dispute in the more recent theological discussion about whether the concept of the Atonement should be retained as an appropriate interpretation of the death of Jesus or whether it should be completely withdrawn in favor of other interpretations. The critics of the conception of the Atonement object that God in his freedom can forgive sins without killing a person. The Atonement theology can only be inadequately proven in the Bible and was actually essentially shaped by Anselm of Canterbury. Representatives of this view include the theologians Wolfgang Huber , Nikolaus Schneider , Eugen Biser , Klaus-Peter Jörns and Burkhard Müller.

Judaism

The word “Atonement” has no equivalent in the original languages ​​of the biblical writings of Judaism.

Jewish Bible

Judaism knows the cleansing offering or atonement (Hebrew "Chatat"; Leviticus 4) in the Jewish Bible . It was given for sins committed unintentionally.

Purification sacrifices (Chatat) without genuine repentance and repentance were invalid ( Jonah 3.5–10  EU , Dan 4.27  EU , Prov 18.8: “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to God”). The ritual sacrifice can be thought of as a psychologically very relieving burden on the conscience , since sins committed unintentionally, e.g. B. by accidents, ignorance, carelessness, can disturb people. To this day, Jews pray for forgiveness on the annual Day of Atonement (Heb. Yom Kippur ; Leviticus 16) "for the wrongdoings that we have committed before you under duress or of free choice (..), or ignorantly or deliberately". Even modern jurisprudence differentiates conscious from ignorant negligence.

Formally, the purification sacrifice Atonement of the Jewish Bible differs from all other forms of sacrifice through the ritual treatment of the sacrificial blood. If the unwitting sinner was an anointed (i.e., Messiah ) priest , the blood was brought into the holy ; something was sprinkled against the holy of holies and something was painted on the horns of the golden smokehouse. The sacrificial animal carcass was cremated outside the camp. If the unintentional sinner was a secular prince, king or of the people, the blood was put on the horns of the main altar and the meat was eaten by the priests. In both cases, the fat from the sacrificial animals was burned in the temple.

In the temple of Ezekiel , the third temple in Jerusalem, the Jewish Mashiach , who is still to come, will offer the chatat , the cleansing offering or atonement .

Comparison with other religions

From all sacrificial rites and practices of the ancient peoples surrounding the people of Israel and also of today's non-Jewish religions, including Christianity, the cultic processes in the tabernacle and in the Jerusalem temple were always clearly different. At no point does the Jewish Bible assume that God - or people - need the bloody sacrifices and repeatedly emphasizes the opposite (Psalms: 50.12-13, 40.7, 51.19). The "sacrifice of the heart" , that is prayer and repentance to God , was and is more important than the sacrifice in the temple ever was.

The Israeli sacrifice was a kind of democratic act of connection with God. The king was never the main beneficiary of the income of the temple and its sacrificial service, and the priesthood was regularly and steadily maintained, even if there were occasional benefits. Most of the sacrificial rites were joy and communion with God. The best-known form of sacrifice was associated with a communal feast (Leviticus 3; joy sacrifice Sevach Schlamim ). Often times, expensive carnal food could only be eaten by poor people or families in connection with animal sacrifices, in contrast to our modern world of excess meat consumption in most countries. Poor sections of the population could also use cheaper offerings at any time (e.g. wheat flour).

Role of the synagogue and prayer

The biblical prophets' criticism of the sacrificial service of the temple never had the goal of installing a new type of worship without sacrificial rites and temple services. Prophetic criticism aimed against the replacement of the ethical God-willed behavior of the individual Jewish responsible person with the ritual, which was a fundamental part of the Jewish temple service with its sacrifices. The priesthood never had that central role as in other pagan religions.

Already in the 1st century BC The religious leadership passed from the priesthood to the Pharisees or rabbis and the synagogues . The individual and communal Jewish prayer has its roots even before the time of the First Jerusalem Temple and the synagogue, as a house of prayer and building, has historically been proven to have existed since the time of the Second Jerusalem Temple, also right next to the temple. The Jewish temple cult finally ceased to exist in AD 70 with the burning, looting and destruction of the temple and Jerusalem by the Roman occupying forces. While direct prayer to God has always been the far more important form (besides Tzedaka and sacrifice in the temple) of atonement with God and conversion to God (Hebrew Tschuwa ), Jewish prayer has continued to develop since that time and developed over time a great order of prayer ( siddur ). It symbolically records prayers, praises and songs of joy and thanks accordingly for the former daily victims of the temple.

The synagogue also retains its biblical form and does not integrate an altar after the temple's destruction, as is found in Christian churches and prayer rooms. Also, no symbolic offerings, such as the Christian Eucharist with its preparation and communal eating of the offerings, bread and wine as the equivalent of the blood and flesh of the Christian Son of Man , are admitted into the synagogue after 70 AD. The Jewish worship service does not know a comparable position of a priest or an ordained person in Christianity; Kohen and Levites have no special roles in Jewish synagogue worship; Rabbis and prayer leaders are spiritually on the same level as all Jewish prayers. The Hasidim later even developed the idea that inner compassion and immersion, i.e. concentration and connection with God, is much more decisive for the spiritual quality of the Jewish praying. In Hasidic stories, a rabbi with a distracted heart could stand under the really deeply praying illiterate simple Jew and a Hasidic master could meditate far beyond the spiritual worlds of the normally gifted. The rabbis therefore took the study of the sacrifices, especially the 3rd Book of Moses (Leviticus), as a correspondence and just as effective as the offering of the sacrifice in the former temple itself. In Judaism, prayer has always been more effective than the sacrifice.

Rejection of an atonement theology

The Judaism , with its strict ethical monotheism , has firmly rejected the Christian Sühnopfertheologie. At the same time it has denied the basis of the Gentile Christian concept of the Incarnation of the Son of God . From a Jewish point of view, the Jewish Bible speaks against the idea that a person who comes from God is God or God himself became man and sacrifices himself as a human sacrifice . Such ideas refer outside of the Jewish tradition, especially to the New Testament of the Christian tradition.

“God is not a man to deceive, not a son of Adam to repent. Should he speak and not do, speak and not stop? "

- Num 23:19

literature

  • Georg Baudler : Redemption from the bull god. Christian experience of God in dialogue with myths and religions. Munich / Stuttgart 1989.
  • Meinrad Limbeck: Farewell to sacrificial death - Rediscover Christianity. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 2012, ISBN 978-3-7867-2945-7 .
  • Karl Josef Wallner : Atonement: Search for the meaning of the cross , Media Maria Verlag, 2015, ISBN 978-3-94540-172-9 (with reference to the Ark of the Covenant, especially atonement plate)
  • Died for us. The meaning of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. A basic text of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) . Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2015, ISBN 978-3-579-05976-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Atonement fem .: Satisfaction, retaliation, punishment for injustice committed, reconciliation. Origin not clear ... has no extra-Germanic connection possibilities ”(Etymological Dictionary of German, DTV 1997, p. 1395).
  2. ↑ See Ludwig Köhler, Walter Baumgartner : Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros . Leiden 1958, p. 451.
  3. ↑ 70 of 101 documents relate to the priestly script, cf. Christian Eberhart: Art. Atonement (AT) . ( Memento from December 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) WiBiLex.
  4. ^ Translation by Christian Eberhart: Art. Atonement (AT) . ( Memento from December 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) WiBiLex.
  5. ↑ Michael Rau: There is life in blood! - A critical demand for the biblical justification of the theological thought pattern of the “substitute atonement” . In: Deutsches Pfarrerblatt , 3/2002, pp. 121–124, here p. 123, online p. 4 .
  6. ↑ Thomas Pola: Statement on the article “In the blood is life!” In: Deutsches Pfarrerblatt, issue 7/2002.
  7. ↑ Walter Kornfeld: Leviticus (= The New Real Bible. Commentary on the Old Testament, Vol. 6). Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 1983, p. 68.
  8. ↑ Michael Rau: There is life in blood! - A critical demand for the biblical justification of the theological thought pattern of the “substitute atonement” . In: Deutsches Pfarrerblatt , 3/2002, pp. 121–124, here p. 124, online p. 6f .
  9. ↑ Wilfrid Haubeck: Art. Atonement b) biblical . In: Evangelical Dictionary of Theology and community , Vol. 3: R-Z . Wuppertal, 2nd edition 1998.
  10. ↑ Eberhard Hahn: Art. Atonement c) systematic-theological . In: Evangelical Dictionary of Theology and community , Vol. 3: R-Z . R. Brockhaus, Wuppertal, 2nd edition 1998.
  11. ↑ Burkhard Müller: Died for our sins? CMZ-Verlag, Rheinbach 2010, ISBN 978-3-87062-111-7 .
  12. ↑ Why did Jesus Christ die on the cross? Welt online, March 23, 2009.
  13. ↑ Why theologians doubt Jesus' atoning death. Welt online, March 28, 2009.
  14. ↑ { Page no longer available , search in web archives: Did the cross die for us? Questions to the sacrificial death theology. (PDF; 137 kB) WDR, April 2, 2010.}@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wdr5.de
  15. ↑ a b c d Wajikra = Ṿa-yiḳra = Leviticus. , 3rd edition, 1st edition of the special edition. Edition, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2008, ISBN 9783579054940 , p. 13ff. and 50ff ..
  16. ↑ The exception is the rather deliberate refusal of a legal testimony (Leviticus 5: 1, 5).
  17. ↑ Even King David and many more people were "anointed one" d. H. each a messiah . In addition to Bar Kochbar and Schabtei Zwi , Jesus is considered a false messiah among many in Judaism: They all have in common that they died and did not fulfill any of the biblically required prophecies, such as universal world peace and the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple.
  18. ↑ An image of God, such as the Christian crucifix , over an altar is absolutely unthinkable in Judaism.
  19. ↑ See desecration of the host , legend of ritual murder