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Saturday, November 22, 2014

 

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The Purifying of The Heavenly


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Christadelphian, 1913-1915

 

THERE are four expressions scripturally applied to Christ that those who cannot accept the key truth concerning Christ's offering "first for himself" have difficulty with. We find these expressions treated very gingerly or laboriously explained away. They are: "sinful flesh," "sin in the flesh" "made sin," "our sins in his own body" (Rom. 83; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24).

As brethren Thomas and Roberts so beautifully and satisfyingly explain, these passages reveal the very heart and meaning of Christ's sacrifice. To grasp their significance, as brethren Thomas and Roberts so robustly and soundly expound them, is the only way to get a clear understanding of that sacrifice, and to escape the orthodox confusion of "substitution" and "vicarious sacrifice."

We hope (perhaps next month) to point out brethren Thomas and Roberts' very forthright and robust expositions of these passages, as applied to Christ's purifying and redeeming offering for himself.

The following is on one of these passages. It appeared in the 1913-15 Christadelphian Magazine. It is clear and conclusive and very much to the point, on a vital first principle.

"HAMARTIA" and "PERI HAMARTIAS"

 

"God, sending His Own Son in the likeness of flesh of sin, and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh"' (Rom. 8:3 RV and marg.).

"Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. 5:21 RV).

 

Of all the lesser emendations made by the revisers of the N.T., none is more acceptable than that of Rom. 8:3. In this short passage are included the doctrines -

That sin is a constituent of the fleshly organization; (Note this clear, forthright statement as applied to Christ's flesh: no fencing or equivocation.)

That our Lord was constituted as to his physical nature in this likeness (compare 1 Cor. 15:49);

That he was sacrificed as a sin-offering; and

That since this sacrifice was of a Holy One who did no sin, yet "died unto sin" (Rom. 6:10), sin became condemned in human nature, and so could be taken away from it - in the person of the risen Savior - with full satisfaction to the justice of God.

 

Some translators and expositors have not shown the same wisdom and knowledge as the revisers, but have allowed themselves to insert "sin- offering" in quite a number of passages where the original does not warrant it. Before we give examples, we will show upon what their action is based.

We are given to understand that "sin" and "sin- offering" are the same in the Hebrew of the O.T. These translators therefore assume that the same rule applies to the Greek of the N.T.: hence their errors.

The Greek for "sin" in these cases is hamartia. The translators of the Septuagint (LXX), faced with the need to render clearly in Greek what might be doubtful if translated literally, used the phrase peri hamartias, "concerning sin," to indicate "sin offering." Consequently, where they did not use this phrase, but rendered the Hebrew by hamartia, they made it clear that in such passages "sin" was meant.

One is sometimes directed to Hos. 4:8, as being a place where "sin" means "sin-offering," but RV, supported by LXX, makes it plain enough that the priests "fed on the sin of the people": they made sins a source of profit, like the Roman Church.

From its use in the LXX, peri hamartias became the current and proper expression in Greek, just as "sin-offering" is in English; whilst hamartia continued to be used for "sin." The revisers were therefore abundantly justified in their emendation in Rom. 8:3, and wherever else Peri hamartias is found. Examples of this phrase in the LXX are found in Num. 7:16 and Psa. 40:6; and in the Greek N.T. in Gal. 1:4 and Heb. 10:6, 8, 18, 26 - as well as Rom. 8:3.

The attempt, then, to force upon hamartia a meaning which it will not bear is to be condemned, and the consequent endeavor to foist unwarranted meanings on texts of scripture is to be resisted. Examples are (1) Heb. 9:28, "Apart from sin," wrongly rendered in Young's translation "Apart from a sin-offering," and (2) the second verse at the head of this article.

The force of the latter passage (2 Cor. 5:21) lies in the antithesis between sin and righteousness: that Jesus was, though sinless, constituted of our sinful nature in order that we, through him, might "become partakers of the divine nature." The erroneous rendering "made a sin offering" (Diaglott, etc.) obscures the antithesis and weakens the passage as a testimony to our Lord's nature. - Christadelphian, Dec., 1913

The (above) Dec., 1913 article has aroused criticism from certain who hold the "clean-flesh" theory of the nature of the Lord Jesus. The article condemns their translation of hamartia in selected passages of the N.T. by "sin-offering." It states -

That thus to render the Greek word is to force on it a meaning it will not bear, and results in foisting an unwarrantable meaning on such texts as 2 Cor. 5:21 and Heb. 9:28;

That the correct Greek equivalent for "sin-offering" in the N.T. is peri hamartias;

That this phrase is derived from the Septuagint (LXX), which uses it as the Greek translation of the Hebrew word for "sin"' when that word signifies, as it also does, "sin-offering."

 

The critic strenuously antagonizes these views, and invokes a number of "authorities" to his aid. Perhaps a brief rejoinder may not be out of place.

To begin with, some of these "authorities" deal with the meaning of the Hebrew, which is not in dispute, and has nothing to do with the matter. We will, therefore, not waste any space over these.

But others say that the Greek word hamartia alone, means not only "sin," but also "sin-offering." Parkhurst, Bullinger and Cremer amongst the theological lexicographers, Cruden and Stewart of the commentators, Robert Young and Benjamin Wilson from the translators, are all against us.

Well, we know enough of commentators to regard their views as of little or no weight. As to lexicographers, the lexicon which, perhaps alone, in English commands universal respect is "Liddell and Scott," and it knows of no such meaning as "sin- offering" for hamartia. Whilst as for translators, it should be enough to point out that the Revisers of the N.T., with all their ecclesiastical bias, with all the support of various translators, commentators and lexicographers, have not IN ONE SINGLE INSTANCE rendered hamartia "sin- offering." This is one of those "mountain facts" which are not to be removed by any amount of faith in translators and others with doctrinal axes to grind.

Another was appealed to about the meaning of peri hamartias. Far more satisfactory would it have been if my critic had asked his "undoubted Greek scholar" -

"Were the Revisers right or were they wrong in rendering this phrase "offering (or sacrificed) for sin" in Rom. 8:3 and in Heb. 10:6,8?"

 

For myself, I much prefer to trust the "undoubted Greek scholars" of the Revision Committee when they give us a translation which tends to tell against their own theological views. We may also here add that the "Handbook to N.T. Grammar," published by the Religious Tract Society, which cannot be accused of bias toward Christadelphian doctrine, says definitely, "peri hamartias ... is sin- offering."

The greatest effort of criticism is directed against my statement that the LXX renders the Hebrew word by hamartia when it means "sin," and by peri hamartias when it means "sin-offering." The critic cites authorities and passages to prove hamartia is used for both, in precisely the same way as the Hebrew word. Let us see.

"Sin-offering" is represented some 55 times in the LXX. We are justified, therefore, in expecting - if hamartia alone is sufficient and adequate to translate the Hebrew word when it means "sin- offering" to find it frequently, if not almost invariably, so doing. The truth is, if the reading can be trusted (and it is not altogether beyond doubt), that hamartias is found (for sin-offering) only 5 times: twice in Lev. 4:21, 24; twice more in the next chapter with the genitive hamartias ["sin's" or "of sin"] as alternative reading; and once in Ex. 29:14 the genitive occurs unquestioned. More about these later.

In the meantime, to establish beyond cavil our own contention, we can point to OVER 40 instances, scattered through Lev., Num., 2 Chr., Ezra, Psa., Isa. and Ezek. of the use of peri hamartias to translate the Hebrew when "sin-offering" is meant. To vary the application of a sentence of my critic -

"We can see where the New Testament got the expression."

In point of fact, the very phrase itself is quoted by the apostle in Heb. 10:6, 8 from the LXX of Psa. 40:6.

But if the LXX uses the word "hamartia" at all for "sin-offering," does not that alone dispose of my contention? Not so. It most strongly confirms it by showing how the translators in their desire to be literal, first essayed to make the word serve a double purpose (But even then only in places where the real meaning could not possibly be mistaken, or where ambiguity did not matter. W.J.Y. [And in the very few early cases where LXX appears to use "hamartia", for "sin offering," is it not possible that they felt "sin" and not "sin-offering" was the meaning of the Hebrew in these places? See the comments at the beginning of the article about the meaning of Hosea 4:8.], despite the fact of it having no such meaning as "sin-offering" amongst the Greeks themselves (see Liddell and Scott), but quickly realized that to do so was to force their own Hebrew idiom on another language - an idiom which it could not tolerate.

Had the LXX translators been satisfied that hamartia alone was adequate to signify "sin- offering," they would not - we may be quite sure - have used it so very rarely (if, indeed, they used it at all), and then have dropped it altogether.

We have made allusion to the genitive form of the word, as though it conveyed a difference in meaning from the nominative hamartia, and so it does. In the passages referred to above (Lev. 4:21, 24 and Ex. 29:14), it marks as much difference as exists between "It is John" and "It is John's." So whereas in Lev. 4:24 the LXX reads when rendered literally into English, "It is sin," in the variant readings where the genitive occurs it means, "It is [something] in respect of sin" - truly a distinction with a mighty difference, and undeniable.

But even thus, the LXX translators deem to have recognized the weakness and imperfection, to say the least, of this rendering, for after being used only three times it was abandoned for the unmistakable and idiomatic phrase "peri hamartias" and its slight variants.

My critic quotes Cremer against us on Lev. 6:25. If he had looked up the passage for himself, he would have found that it gives the very phrase for which we are contending. And anyone who knows anything of Greek idiom will notice here the demonstration that peri hamartias is constituted a definite technical phrase to represent "sin- offering," since it is preceded by the article.

Our attention is also invited to Lev. 4:25, as an example of the use of hamartia alone for "sin- offering." And here again we find things other than as represented, for the phrase is tou tes hamartias, which means, "of the thing in respect of sin": once more, of course, "of the sin-offering." An abundance of examples of such a construction is found in the Scriptures. There is nothing in it to bolster up the notion that hamartia means "sin- offering," but much to the contrary.

Even were we snowed under with "authorities," the iron truth would remain as stated ... "HAMARTIA" MEANS "SIN," and cannot be rendered "sin-offering" without doing it violence. The LXX recognized this truth, and therefore introduced and used in over forty places the phrase peri hamartias as the technical equivalent in Greek for the Hebrew word when it meant "sin-offering," in order to avoid all obscurity or ambiguity.

We may be certain also that the inspired writers of the New Testament would not be less clear in marking such an important difference in meaning.

And now these expositors and one-time fellow laborers want to turn back to obscurity and ambiguity, that by so doing they may gain some semblance of support for their views on the nature of the Lord Jesus in the days of his flesh. As we have already remarked, all such endeavors to foist unwarranted meanings on texts of Scripture are to be resisted. -Christadelphian, March, 1915.

SEVERAL things will be noted from the foregoing -

1. The Hebrew words for "sin" (ahshahm and chattahth) are also used for "sin-offering."

2. The Greek language does not have this peculiarity, and the LXX translators had to decide how to translate these words in their two meanings. They first ran into this problem in Ex. 29 and 30, and Lev. 4 and 5.

3. In two of the earliest places (Lev. 4:21,24) they appear to have used the nominative hamartia (sin) for "sin-offering." In three more places (Ex. 29:14; Lev. 5:9, 12) they appear to have used the genitive hamartias (something in respect of sin). In all the other places (about 50), they appear to have settled on peri hamartias (concerning sin) wherever they decided the Hebrew word meant "sin- offering."

4. This expression (peri hamartias) occurs for "sin-offering" often in Lev. 4 and 5, and later.

5. In places they attached the article "the" to this expression, making it the name of something ("the thing concerning sin"), and giving it a definite technical meaning.

6. It is quite possible that in the very few places in question (4 maximum) that LXX employed the nominative (sin), they believed the meaning to be "sin" and not "sin-offering."

7. "Hamartia" in the N.T. (as in 2 Cor. 5:21 does NOT mean "sin offering," and should not be so rendered to suit a theory. It means "sin": Christ was "made sin."

8. Those who published the Christadelphian Magazine in 1913-15 recognized and believed this truth, and considered it important in the defense of the Truth.

9. Some who had formerly been in fellowship were strenuously arguing for "sin offering" in such passages as 2 Cor. 5:21 and Heb. 9:28 in order to support the Clean Flesh theory. This error, in its various forms and degrees, is not new: it is one of the oldest and most dangerous.

If brethren and sisters are not prepared to put away their toys, and make the effort to look into these things as their life's interest, and take them seriously, and defend them, the Truth will soon be lost. Don't leave it all lazily to your leaders, like the religious world does. Christadelphians used to be deeply and individually interested in these truths so vital to their salvation. They used to be, in truth, the "People of the Book." As the current generation of leaders notes with apparent amazement the brethren and sisters of 100 years ago wouldn't dream of going on a vacation without taking Eureka with them. They didn't go to play, but to be spiritually refreshed. Is it too much to hope that there are still many such today? -G.V.G.

 


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