Every Stick of Wood in the Old Testament

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Lord of Spirits – “Every Stick of Wood in the Old Testament”

Podcast: The Lord of Spirits
Hosts: Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, Fr. Stephen De Young
Episode Date: April 11, 2025
Episode Theme: The Cross, Crucifixion, and the Union of the Seen and Unseen Worlds in Orthodox Christian Tradition

---

Episode Overview

In this rich and expansive episode, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen De Young delve into the meaning of the Cross and crucifixion within the Orthodox Christian tradition. The hosts unpack the complexities of atonement, ransom, purification, and participation in Christ’s sacrificial offering by exploring biblical, historical, and spiritual dimensions. They challenge common misconceptions, particularly penal substitutionary atonement, and highlight the participatory nature of redemption as opposed to mere substitution. This episode is especially timely as it leads into Holy Week, connecting theology to practical Christian life.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Meaning of Crucifixion

• Historical Roots:

  • Crucifixion was not invented by the Romans but by the Persians; Romans later perfected it as a tool of terror and humiliation, particularly for non-citizens (06:04–07:26).
  • The process included public torture, nakedness, and sometimes creative cruelty to maximize humiliation and deterrence (10:00–12:34).

• Roman Practice and Pontius Pilate:

  • Pilate was notorious for using crucifixion to instill fear and suppress revolt, notably crucifying hundreds during Passover for intimidation (14:22–15:54).

• Biblical Significance:

  • Crucifixion for Jews connoted public curse, referencing Deuteronomy 21:22–23: "anyone who is hanged is accursed" (19:01–22:15).
  • The removal of bodies before sundown in the Gospel accounts is rooted in their concern to prevent the spread of ‘curse’ or spiritual pollution before Passover (26:56–28:10).

2. Curse, Corruption, and the Law

• Meaning of ‘Curse’:

  • ‘Curse’ encompasses metaphysical taint from sin, resulting in uncleanness, decay, and disunity between humanity, God, and creation (30:18–34:28).
  • The New Testament focus is not that the Law (Torah) is itself a curse, but that the ‘curse of the Law’ refers to the consequences outlined in Torah, notably exile and death for refusing God’s commandments (34:57–38:58).

• Blessings and Curses in the Torah:

  • Leviticus and Deuteronomy spell out blessings for those in unity with God, and curses (poverty, barrenness, exile, death) for those who are not (36:36–39:08).
  • St. Paul’s reference to Christ redeeming "from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us" is directly tied to this context, not to a penal transaction (41:42–42:01).

3. Participation, Not Substitution

• Not ‘Instead of,’ but ‘With’:

  • Unlike substitutionary theories, Orthodox theology stresses our participation in Christ: dying with Christ, rising with Christ, being baptized into His death and resurrection.

  “The language that's used in the New Testament is not language of substitution, it's language of participation. And those are two very different things.” – Fr. Stephen (52:46)

• Baptism and Union with Christ:

  • Baptism is the entry point:

    “That's the point in which we're initiated into that.” – Fr. Stephen (77:02)

  • Salvation unfolds as our life participates in what Christ has already accomplished.

• Martyrdom and Christian Life:

  • The suffering of martyrs is transformative in Christ, not by its own merit (60:20).
  • The ultimate aim is theosis and ongoing participation in divine life.

4. Redemption as Manumission (Release from Slavery)

• Passover Image:

  • The dominant scriptural metaphor is Exodus: Christ’s death as the Passover (Pascha), freeing humanity from slavery to sin and death (86:05–86:33).

• Slavery and Debt Metaphors:

  • Sin is likened to debt; Christ’s sacrifice ransoms, redeems, and frees us, not by ‘paying God’ but by destroying sin and death’s claim (89:31–92:14).

• Universal Resurrection and Judgment:

  • The freedom Christ wins is universal:

    “Everyone will be raised, but some will be raised to life and some will be raised to damnation.” – Fr. Andrew (110:05)

  • Christ has authority to judge all because He has redeemed all (111:55).

5. Sacrifice, Purification, and Self-offering

• “Atonement” and Its Limitations:

  • “Atonement” (AT-one-ment) is a late English invention. The more accurate rendering of biblical terms refers to purification or purgation, especially wiping away impurity to allow union with God (126:11–127:32).

• Christ as Sin Offering:

  • In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Christ is made a “sin offering”—the Greek and Hebrew play on words implies ‘offering,’ not ‘becoming’ sin (128:44–129:44).
  • Martyrdom, as seen in 2 Maccabees, is a prefiguring: the righteous can offer their lives for Israel’s cleansing, yet only Christ’s offering is cosmic and final (133:11–135:17).

• Living Sacrifice:

  • St. Paul commands:

    “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1; 167:13)

  • Sacrifice is literal in the Eucharist, metaphorical in pouring our entire lives into love, mutual service, and union with God and each other (173:06–174:53).

---

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Crucifixion’s Origin (06:04):

  “It was actually the Persians … The Romans kind of perfected it … They used it constantly on non-Romans. … Romans got beheaded. That’s why St. Peter was crucified, St. Paul was beheaded.” – Fr. Stephen

• On Substitution vs. Participation (53:07):

  “Substitution models would be Christ dies instead of us. … The language that’s all through the New Testament: we die with Christ, we die in Christ, and then we rise with Christ and we rise in Christ.”

• On God's Judgment and Redemption (112:01):

  “Everyone is raised. Everyone is raised. … He has redeemed everyone. … But that means Christ is going to judge everyone.”

• On "Curse" in Scripture (34:28):

  “Being cursed is living at your worst. Being blessed is living at your best.”

• On Atonement Language (127:05):

  “Pretty much everyone is agreeing that a better way to translate those verbs is something like purification or purgation.”

• On Propitiation and Wrath (161:24):

  “The problem with the idea that what humanity is trying to do is to make it so God is not mad at us … is it suggests that God is the one who needs the therapy, not us.”

• On Living Sacrifice (168:01):

  “It’s not substitution, it’s participation. Christ, who is the firstborn from the dead … we then follow him, so he’s made a way and then we walk the way.”

---

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [05:51] – Introduction to the Roman and Persian origins of crucifixion
• [18:01] – Deuteronomy, the curse, and its relevance to Christ’s death
• [34:57] – What is “the curse of the law” and its biblical context
• [53:03] – Substitution vs. Participation: New Testament language
• [60:41] – The role of baptism, ongoing participation, and grace
• [86:05] – Christ’s death as the new Passover/Exodus—manumission and ransom
• [92:06] – Sin as debt and Christ as the canceler of that debt
• [110:05] – Universal resurrection and Christ as judge of all
• [126:06] – The limitations of “atonement”; the language of purification
• [128:44] – Christ as the ultimate sin offering (2 Corinthians 5:21)
• [167:13] – Romans 12:1—“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice...”

---

Call-in Questions and Noteworthy Interactions

• Jack from Charlotte, NC [66:01]: Asks about the cosmic/once-for-all atonement and ongoing struggle with sin—how does Christ’s work apply daily?

  • Fr. Stephen: “Each of us comes to participate in the reality of what Christ has done over the course of our lifetime... You are now having what Christ has done enter into your personal experience” (73:26–76:45).

• Deacon Danilo from Reno, NV [78:11]: Saint Athanasius and being “lifted up”—does Christ’s crucifixion conquer aerial spirits?

  • Fr. Stephen affirms: “He is crucified at this center point of all creation, drawing all that was separated back together through his death” (82:34–84:35).

• Brian from Pittsburgh [140:06]: Are there relics of St. Dismas's cross?

  • The hosts discuss cross relics’ traditions; Fr. Stephen: “There are a bunch of traditions about St. Dismas in Egypt…” (141:55).

• Roger from Canada [147:11]: Explores Hebrew and Greek grammar, biblical interpretation.

  • Fr. Stephen: “You can’t really understand the New Testament if you just go and learn classical Greek… You have to know some Hebrew and/or Aramaic” (151:39–152:48).

---

Final Reflections

On the Cross and Christian Life

“What Christ is presenting to us is a different path. And that path begins when we take the suffering of this life... we shoulder it, we own up to it, we bear up under it, and we go forward, nonetheless, because we’re following Christ.” – Fr. Stephen (177:41–184:02)

On Participation and Love

"We present our bodies as a living sacrifice... that the way that we live should function as a unifying movement between us and God, and also between each other... as we look upon the cross, let it transform you... so that we join our suffering to his suffering, our love to his love, our sacrifice to his sacrifice for the life of the world and its salvation." – Fr. Andrew (168:01–176:51)

---

Conclusion

This episode offers a comprehensive, theologically rich exploration of the Cross that roots the Christian experience in the reality of Christ’s self-offering, ongoing redemption, and transformative participation. In challenging common Western atonement models, the hosts call listeners to live out the mystery of the Cross in active, loving unity—both with God and within the community of the Church.

---

Recommended Listening for Further Insight:

• Previous episodes on Atonement, Blessings and Curses, and Participation in Christ
• For questions or follow-up, contact: [e-mail]

Transcript

[A]

He will be a staff for the righteous with which for them to stand and not to fall. And he will be the light of the nations and the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship him. And they will praise and bless and celebrate with song the lord of spirits. First Enoch, chapter 48, verses 4 through 5. The modern world doesn't acknowledge, but is nevertheless haunted by spirits and angels, demons and saints. In our time, many yearn to break free of the prison of a flat secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it? Well, how do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence? Orthodox Christian priests Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen DeYoung host this live call in show focused on enchantment in creation, vision, the union of the seen and unseen as made by God and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits.

[B]

Hey, Good evening, giant killers, dragon slayers, critter crushers. You are listening to the Lord of Spirits podcast. You're about to waste another perfectly good 3, 4, 5 hours of your life. My co host, Father Stephen DeYoung, Romper in Chief of the Romper room, is with me, straight from the swamp in Lafayette, Louisiana.

[C]

Two things concerning that.

First, to this day, every time I read the names during the great entrance, I feel like I'm doing the magic mirror bit.

[D]

Mm.

[C]

But also number two, I know we're supposed to be one big happy family at Ancient faith.

But you need to put someone else on before this show. Oh, yeah, that tired of being associated with that modernist.

I don't know why you have him on.

[B]

I will. I'll speak to the manager. Thank you.

I'm Father Edger Steven Davick and I'm in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, perched precariously atop the arcane tower of podcasting, hovering dozens, dozens, I tell you, of stories above a disused gateway to the underworld. And we are live. And if you are listening to us live, you're you can call us at 855-237-2346. That's assuming that Mike has gotten the phones working again and you can talk to us. We'll get your calls in just a moment. And the aforementioned Mike, spic and span Dgan, will be taking your calls.

So before we begin tonight's episode, which is on the Cross, I wanted to mention to everybody an opportunity for our listeners or their friends or their family who are Orthodox Christians aged 18 to 23. Ages, ageism. Yeah, yeah. You're not. You're not invited. Father, you are more than twice the age.

[C]

I know.

[B]

The oldest of these people.

[C]

Unfair, I tell you.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

If I want a third act anyway.

[B]

Yeah. And if you're, you know, Orthodox Christians, those ages 18 and 23 interested in Orthodox media. So, this July 17th through 20th, at our headquarters in Chesterton, Indiana, Ancient Faith Ministries is going to hold the second annual Lampstand Institute. That is an introductory training opportunity for young people to interact directly with and be mentored by the professionals on the Ancient Faith staff. It's completely free and even includes a travel stipend. But only 10 people will be accepted after review of all of the applications. So you can get info about that and you can [e-mail] events.

[C]

That's especially cruel to say I don't qualify based on age and then make it free.

[B]

I know, I know. It's like. It's like catnip for Dutch people, right?

[C]

Yes. You're just. You're just deliberately trolling me.

[D]

No.

[B]

Well, you could come in and say that you are, like, two and a half applicants.

[C]

Yeah. There we go.

[B]

There you go.

[C]

Free things to other people. Just not right. Believable.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So another thing that you can do at that same URL ancientfaith.com events is you can read up and Register for the second Lord of Spirits Conference, October 2nd through 5th this year at the Antiochian Village. Last I checked, only about a quarter of the rooms at Antiochian Village are still left. And it's been like a week since I checked, so I'm not even really sure what the current status of all that is.

[C]

I am invited to that. Right?

[B]

You are. You. In fact, I think we have a room reserved for you.

[C]

Okay, good.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't have to turn in an application like we made you do last time.

[C]

Yeah, I'm surprised I made it through the process. It's pretty rigorous given my outrageous demands.

[B]

So we've talked a number of times about atonement, which is what most people associate with the cross of Christ. And in our last episode, we put atonement talk into the context of the Apocalypse of Abraham, including a pretty direct and thorough rejection of the Calvinist, Calvinist doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. Death is what brought Christ into the underworld to destroy the power of death and the devil. But why was that? Death through crucifixion, in particular? What is it about the cross? Why did Jesus choose to give up his life in this manner, in particular? So that's where we are tonight. So, Father Stephen, did the Romans invent crucifixion? Is this all their idea?

No. Oh, okay. Well, I guess we have some reading to do.

[C]

They did not.

It was actually the Persians.

[B]

The Persians, yes. Huh.

[C]

I do not know if this is in any way related to their predilection for chandeliers.

[B]

Huh.

[C]

Both involve hanging things or carpets.

But.

Yes. So the Persians. And when we say invented it. Right.

What are we talking about? Right. We're talking about crucifixion as such. As a method of execution.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And to define it as a method of execution, it is attaching a human by some means to a pole, a stake, a tree. Right. An object, a wooden object of some sort.

[B]

When you said stake, all the Jehovah's Witnesses in our audience got really excited.

[C]

Yeah. The torture stake. Yeah. That puts them in a stress position.

Which, through a slow and agonizing process, results in their death.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

That is what we're talking about.

So, you know.

The Assyrians, for example, before the Persians, were very creative in ways to do horrible things to people.

But they did not have this as a regular method of execution.

So that's what we mean when we say the Persians invented it, but the Romans kind of perfected it.

Meaning they used it constantly on non Romans. It was illegal to crucify a Roman citizen because it was such a horrible way of executing someone. Such a horrible way of dying. Romans got beheaded. That's why St. Peter was crucified, but St. Paul was beheaded because he was a Roman citizen. Beheading was considered more humane.

[B]

Yeah. Because it was faster. Typically.

[C]

Typically. Well, crucifixion, yes.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, sometimes. Sometimes it's not over in one blow with beheading, unfortunately.

[C]

Right. But.

Crucifixion, as we were saying.

This mode of execution.

That is literally so tortuous and painful that we invented a word to describe the pain, that word being excruciating.

And the way it works, as we said, is a person is affixed in such a way that they're in a stress position.

Meaning they're in. Their body is in a position where it is unable to rest. Right.

And in particular, this was generally set up so that the person was unable to flip fully taken a breath.

Without sort of contorting themselves.

And so eventually your body will do a lot to try to breathe and try and keep you alive. But eventually, over the course of often two or three days.

With no water or food hanging on something, the person, eventually their body just gives out. They're unable to get into a position where they can breathe and they die of asphyxiation.

[B]

Yeah, Pretty awful.

[C]

We probably should have had some kind of warning at the beginning of this episode.

[B]

I don't know, maybe. I mean, crucifixion talk is moderately common, I guess.

[C]

Yeah. Pretty early on we just went right into this. But okay.

Yeah. And so that. That is how. That is how people died. But.

Being in a stress position like that is a form of torture in and of itself.

Right. So it's not just things were pretty horrible for a couple days and then they died. It is two to three days of just constant.

Physical and mental torture until you're like your whole system finally gives out.

Added to that is the fact that the Romans in particular.

Used this as a deterrent. So it was also a form of public humiliation. People were crucified naked.

And publicly along roads, along thoroughfares. So it could serve as a deterrent to crime or rebellion or whatever it was that was being punished.

And they often.

Well, that's what's going on with what's called the titulus in Latin, the sign that Pontius Pilate has put over.

Christ's cross, declaring him to be the King of the Jews.

[B]

Yeah, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

[C]

The idea is this is a way of mocking someone and also sending a message to any other would be messiahs out there who might see it that this is what's in store for you. The Romans also, and very perversely Roman soldiers who are assigned to this task of executing people were very creative and inventive in how they would do it. So we hear these stories about certain saints being crucified on their sides, or St. Peter being crucified upside down, or St. Andrew's Cross being like an axe and different things. That's all very real. Romans did that kind of thing all the time.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Just to. I guess they got bored.

Executing people because sometimes crosses were used for max executions.

For example, Spartacus's slave revolt ended with Spartacus and all of his men being crucified.

So because they were slaves, not Roman citizens, they could be. They could be crucified. So you can imagine the soldiers assigned this duty. It's a grisly duty. It's a horrible duty. And it's the kind of.

Doing this kind of duty is the kind of thing that coarsens and hollows out a person to the point where they would start to find things funny like crucifying someone upside down.

And this sort of thing. But that was very much the Case among the Romans.

Pontius Pilate in particular, as governor of Judea, was a big fan of using crucifixion.

As a tool for population control.

Basically, as governor, Pontius Pilate was assigned to keep the peace in the Roman province of Judea. That was his whole job, right? Just keep the peace.

And in order to do that, he could do just about anything he wanted to to the local population.

Especially if they weren't Roman citizens. If they were Roman citizens, he had some more rules he had to follow. But if they're not Roman citizens, no one cared. They're essentially considered like animals.

And so no one cared what you did to them. And of course, if he failed to keep the peace in Judea, he would be the one getting beheaded. Right? He'd be the one getting executed. And that's ultimately what happened to him when he was recalled to Rome.

But he got a bum assignment in that regard, in that during the first century, especially the mid first century A.D. there were almost constant would be messiahs and Jewish revolts breaking out, culminating in what happened in A.D. 70, and then the Bar Kokva rebellion later on.

[B]

Where.

[C]

The Romans just ended up wiping out Judea and the Jewish people in response.

But so he was sent to a place where there wasn't really any peace and told you better make sure there's peace here. To that end, he did a lot of.

Things that now are very clearly atrocities to us, but that the Romans thought nothing of.

[B]

Shock and awe. Yeah.

[C]

One of those Christ actually refers to, there's. In Luke 13, Christ refers to some Jewish people whose blood was mingled with the sacrifices by Pilate.

And you said, well, what's that about? That is.

At a previous Passover in the early 20s, word Passover, there's all of these thousands and thousands of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem from all over the world for the feast. And Pilate got word that there was going to be some kind of issue, someone was going to try to start a rebellion. There was some would be Messiah going to try and start something. And so as the time was approaching, he decided to head that off of the pass. He grabbed 150 random Jewish men, women and children off the streets literally at random, and crucified them, men, women and children along all the roads leading into Jerusalem. So the pilgrims would walk past them all on the way into the city.

To send them the message not to cause any trouble.

[B]

Wow.

So, yeah, but again, I mean, this is pretty normal for Rome.

[C]

Yes, this was typical for Rome. Right. That was good tactics from the perspective of Roman Governors, we don't appreciate how little the pre Christian pagan world looked like our world a lot of the time.

And just how monstrous it was.

But that's, that's the kind of guy who Pilate was.

When you read skeptical scholars talking about the stories of Christ's crucifixion in the Gospels, the thing that they find unrealistic is that Pilate gave him a trial.

[B]

Right.

[C]

That's the part they find unrealistic. They're like, why would he bother talking to him right now? I think that's answered by what we find in the Gospels, that his wife had had this dream.

Because as brutal as the Romans could be, they were also incredibly superstitious about omens.

And dreams and things. Right. And so if his wife had a dream, oh, there's going to be this man brought before you today. Don't do anything to him because it'll go badly for you. He would take that very seriously. At least seriously enough to exchange, you know, a few sentences with the person in the crowd. Right.

It's not like he gave him a real trial. Right.

But that gives you an idea of the kind of person Pilot was.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So.

This, of course is crucifixion as it existed at the time of Christ. This is of course what happens. What happens to Christ. He is crucified by Pontius Pilate, by the Romans. But in terms of understanding what's going on with crucifixion and Christ's crucifixion in particular.

The New Testament authors especially, but not only St. Paul, go back to the Torah.

And they go back to Deuteronomy chapter 21, which is, I know, everyone's favorite chapter of Deuteronomy where it's talking about capital punishment.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So Deuteronomy 21 chapter or chapter 21, verses 22 and 23.

Are going to talk about another mode of execution, but previous to that, it's talking about stoning.

Things when someone is going to be stoned to death, which was the normal method in which if an execution had to be performed in Israel, that it was performed. And we see that continue obviously into the New Testament with, for example, St. Stephen, with St. Paul a couple of times.

The reason for that is that that is a mode of execution that can be sort of brought about by mob violence.

Like you can use it as a quasi judicial mode of execution. It doesn't require any specialized equipment or hardware or anything.

But you could also just get a mob to do it.

Which is how it works with like St. Stephen. You have St. Paul, inciting a mob. Right. To do it.

And what happens to St. Paul? Mobs sort of get incited to go after him and do it. But Deuteronomy is the rules for when it's carried out. Right. Because of a situation where someone has violated certain commandments of the Torah that call for death is completely unrepentant and sort of exile isn't a reasonable possibility.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, is it like, is the idea of execution by mob.

Aside from being, you know, kind of practical, you know, no special equipment whatever, is it also about rejecting that person from the community? Like everyone is casting them out effectively.

[C]

You know, and it diffuses.

The guilt. It's a collective action.

[D]

Right.

[B]

They're all doing it. It's not just one guy, it's not.

[C]

One person executing them. Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And that's.

When execution has been carried out. In modern. In modern times, they have found various ways to try to do that, something similar to that kind of diffuse the responsibility for taking a human life. Right. Like you have a firing squad where some of the guns have blanks. Right. You have a. You know, so that the people doing it never know if they actually had a bullet or not. You know.

That kind of thing.

So. But then in. In verses 22 and 23 of chapter 21, it turns from that to executions by hanging.

Now, it is not talking about crucifixion.

[B]

Yeah. It's like a noose.

[C]

Right. It's talking about hanging someone or taking their dead body and hanging it.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Right. On public display.

And specifically, what it is, it is giving commandments for if you're going to do that.

As a mode of execution or for some other reason.

Then the bodies have to be taken down before nightfall.

[B]

Yeah. What's that all about? I mean, there's a reference to that in the Gospels.

[C]

Yes. So Deuteronomy is not commanding that this be done. Right. It is not saying you should do this, you should go and hang people from trees.

[B]

Right.

[C]

It is not saying that. What it is saying is when that happens, the commandment is you must take the body down before nightfall and give it a proper burial.

And give it a proper burial. And the reason for that, it says, is that anyone who dies in that manner is seen to be cursed.

And that curse will sort of rub off. If he's left there.

Even just overnight, that curse will sort of taint and rub off on the ground, the tree, the land around it. Right. And then that will also be cursed.

[B]

Yeah. This sort of sin contamination idea.

[C]

Right. And so by burying the body.

You're sort of removing the body's cursed state.

And laying it to rest.

And we see an incident where this part of Deuteronomy sort of plays out. Right. We just get instructions here. But we see that kind of play out historically in the book of Joshua.

And that's why the book of Joshua, as well as Judges, Ruth and 1st through 4th kingdoms, or 1st and 2nd Samuel, and 1 and 2 kings are called the Deuteronomistic history sometimes.

Because you see principles.

That are laid out in the book of Deuteronomy sort of play out historically then through the history of Israel.

This is one example in Joshua, chapter seven and eight.

Which deal with the siege of AI.

[B]

Yeah. Isn't this one of those giant clan cities?

[C]

Yes, yes. This is the home of one of the giant clans. Some of you as kids may have heard of this as the siege of AI.

[B]

The siege of AI? Yeah.

[C]

This is not the Butlerian Jihad. This is an entirely different.

[B]

I caught that reference.

[C]

Yes.

So. But the siege of the city of AI. And so God has told them this is one of the giant clans. This city needs to be wiped out. You're executing my judgment on it. Therefore you're not allowed to take any spoils. You're not allowed to take any wealth. Right?

[B]

Yeah. You can't take the women. You can't.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, none of that.

[B]

Which is completely ridiculous in ancient warfare. Like, why would you take a city and not take their stuff?

[C]

Right? But the point here is they're like the fire falling from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah, right? Like, they're just executing God's judgment. This isn't about enriching them. Right. Or any of that.

[B]

So.

[C]

They go. They attempt to lay siege to Ay. The siege fails. So they're like, well, wait, what happened? God told us to go do this. He told us he'd be with us as long as we were keeping his commandments. We went. We failed. Something's not right here. So they have this sort of investigation and they find this guy named Achan.

Has.

Done some looting and pillaging when he wasn't supposed to and is sort of hiding his the proceeds in his tent.

So Achan, for doing this, gets stoned to death.

[B]

Right?

[C]

He's cut off from the people.

And then they lay siege to AI again. This time they are successful. They kill the king of AI and they hang him on a tree.

This guy who was the God king of the city of AI gets hung on a tree. But.

In Joshua, chapter eight, even this Guy, even this Nephilim God, King of AI, who the judgment of God was against him, and that judgment and his accursed status is being displayed by him being hung from a tree. They take him down and they bury him before nightfall.

So that the curse on him won't spread on the land.

This is why there is so much concern in the Gospels.

When Christ is crucified on a Friday, on the day of preparation before the Sabbath. Not only is it the Sabbath, that Sabbath, as the King James says, was a high day.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

It's the Passover. Right. There is so much concern that Christ and those being crucified with him be taken down before.

Nightfall. And this is why the soldiers are sent to go break the legs.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Because of course, if you break someone's legs, they're not going to be able to change their position. They're going to succeed very quickly.

[B]

Yeah. It'll speed up. Speed up the death.

[C]

And so then, of course, as we read in St. John's gospel, they come to Christ. He's not. He's. He's already dead. And so they do not break his legs, but to make sure he's dead, they plunge a spirit to his side. Right. To verify that there's no reaction and that he is indeed dead.

[B]

Right. Yeah.

[C]

But. So that's why they were concerned about the bodies coming down, because they believed that the bodies were still hanging there on the Sabbath, on that Passover. It would sort of curse and taint the whole affair that is supposed to be holy. Right. And there's a certain irony there in the text of, like, well, didn't you already taint it by, you know, turning Christ over to the Romans to be crucified?

[B]

Right.

[C]

You know, talk about following the letter of the law and not the Spirit. Right.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's the same reason that, like, the.

I can't remember which of the leaders of the. Of the Jews. They don't want to go into the praetorium so that they don't.

[C]

So they can eat the Passover.

[B]

So they can eat the Passover. Yeah.

[C]

So we can't go into this Roman. Yeah.

So what do we mean when we say, you know, this person is under a curse and.

That curse can sort of spread to the tree, the land, the elements of creation around it if the body isn't taken care of.

[B]

We did do a whole. A whole episode on that.

[C]

So pause right now, even if you're listening live.

[B]

Yeah, go, go listen to those three hours or whatever blessings and curses. But. Well, we'll say Something briefly right here, especially for those of you who are live.

[C]

All right. Yeah, yeah. Because you're really saying live. I don't know that it's possible to DVR this. So I don't know that you can actually pause this.

Like, live TV and.

Go take care of that TiVo. Does anyone have a TiVo anymore?

[B]

My kids don't even know what live TV is. They have no concept that you can't just watch something when you want to watch it. It's amazing.

[C]

This generation.

[B]

I know, I know.

[C]

This wicked and adulterous generation.

Wow.

[B]

So.

[C]

Yeah. And so. But just to quickly kind of COVID some sort of main bullet points from that episode, the curse section of that episode.

Curse refers to a couple of different closely related things. So curse can be used to refer to the sort of metaphysical taint that's left behind by sin. Right. Sort of uncleanness. State of uncleanness.

[B]

That's why the Jewish leaders didn't want to go into the praetorium, because in the sense of it's a dirty place, spiritually speaking.

[C]

Right. And that could, of course, be purified. There's the various ways of dealing with that. Washings. And there's the sort of metaphysical taint and stain left by sin in the sanctuary that's purified on the day of atonement.

[B]

Right.

[C]

We'll get into that more in a little bit.

The curse also refers to corruption, which is really referring to the. The effect of that stain left by sin.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

So like Adam is told, cursed is the ground because of you. So when you go to work the ground to bring forth food, there's going to be thorns and thistles.

[B]

Right. I mean, corruption is the idea. It's like we tend to. It's funny, like the word corruption now in modern English, you know, Here in early 21st century modern English, we use it almost always only in a moral sense.

[C]

Like, that guy's corrupt.

[B]

Yeah. You know, but financial.

[C]

Yeah, but it's actually.

[B]

But that's actually a metaphorical usage. Corruption literally means, you know, breaking apart decay, rot, rot turning bad. You know, like if you pull out moldy bread from your fridge, you can say, ah, this bread is corrupt. And you would be literally correct.

[C]

Yes. And then analogically, that was used to refer to people's moral state.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Decayed.

[B]

Which, like, we could say, oh, he's rotten, you know, and that. That gives, you know, that still participates in both the literal.

[C]

To the core.

[B]

To the core. Do people have cores?

[C]

Not just a little bit of rot that you could cut off and still eat the banana or the apple.

[B]

No, it's very Dutch of you.

[C]

Rotten to the core. To the core.

[B]

Just cut the core out.

[C]

So, yeah. Who to apple cores anyway?

Horses. I know. So sorry. Horses. All of our horse listeners, I apologize. Don't want Mr. Ed calling in and getting all these.

[B]

All the equine fans.

[C]

Yes.

So, but yeah, so corruption in that sense, Right. Of decay.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And then also we talked about, and this is probably the preeminent use, the ones that one that the other things flow from is the idea of disunity, the idea of a person's will and the will of God and the wills of other created things being misaligned.

Right. This kind of disunity, this fracturing. So the most obvious is the fracturing between man and God.

[B]

Right.

[C]

But this also produces a fracturing, as we said in that episode, between man and the rest of creation, which is why animals now prey on humans. Right. And why, you know, there are particular saints, for example, who, because of their way of life, because they have been forgiven and purified of sin, they're further along the road than us. They're able to live at peace with wild animals.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Because the animals don't feel threatened or scared by them. Right. But the. The opposite state that most of us find ourselves in is because of the other. So all of this is.

Sort of included under that concept of curse.

Being cursed is living at your worst.

Being blessed is living at your best. The great man once said.

But importantly. Right, importantly, when we're talking about curse in terms of way the New Testament talks about that passage in Deuteronomy we just read, and Christ's crucifixion.

It'S not just curse in general or like a curse or cursedness in some abstract sense, but specific reference is made to the curse of the Torah, usually translated as the curse of the law.

Right.

And the problem with the phrase curse of the law in English is not just. We've talked before on the show about how law, the way law is used today is not really a good translation of the word Torah, but also.

When we say, for example, St. Paul does in Galatians that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. Right. A lot of people read that and think that's saying that the law is itself a curse, for example.

[B]

Right. Which.

[C]

That's crazy looking at you German monks of the 16th century.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

That the law itself is somehow a curse that we've been freed from. We've been freed from the law. Oh, happy condition.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Which is A complete misread and a complete misunderstanding of what this is talking about.

The curse of the Torah is referring to the curse enumerated in the Torah. I know there's a wild thought from the Torah. Yeah, Right. But you have to, like St. Paul and the other New Testament writers, read the Torah to understand this.

And you have to read a couple of places that people don't read all that often, frankly. One of them is Leviticus, chapter 26.

I know that's everyone's favorite passage of Scripture.

And the second is, like it, Deuteronomy 28:30.

But in both of those places, God sets forth. You should expect to find things doubled in Deuteronomy, because that's devtoros nomos. It's the second law. Right. The second Torah.

Lays out blessings and curses.

Right. The blessings being if you follow these commandments, if you're living in a way that is in unity.

With the will of God as it's expressed in creation and with the rest of the created order, you will be blessed. These are the things that will happen. He enumerates, you'll have crops in their seasons. The rains will come. Everything will be good. You'll have lots of kids. You'll live a long time. Everything will be good. That'll be the result. Notice result.

And then on the flip side, if you do not, this is what will be the result.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's from this that we have the basic sense that God rewards righteousness and punishes sin.

[C]

Yeah, but the problem is with the word reward and punishment.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, of course.

[C]

Because those are extrinsic.

[B]

Right, right, right.

[C]

And that's not what the texts say. The texts are talking about result.

[B]

This is what will happen.

[C]

Not, this is what I will do to you.

This is what will happen.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And among the curses, right. The sky will be like iron, the earth will be like bronze. Good luck growing crops.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And feeding yourself and your family. And things will be bad.

[B]

Right.

[C]

You will not have children. The children you have, bad things will happen to them. Most notably, you will be taken off into exile and a lot of you will be killed violently. Right. This is what's going to happen when you disobey. Lo and behold. We were just talking about the Deuteronomistic history, what happens in first and Second Kings.

[B]

Right.

[C]

They don't keep the Torah, and these are the results.

And so those two things are sort of the big headings.

The ultimate things of the curse that are going to result.

If you're mastered by sin and you don't keep the commandments are you're going to end up either dead or in exile.

And we've talked before on the show about how those things in the ancient mind were kind of commensurate.

Right. Being cut off from the people, being exiled from your community, being cut off from your society and your family and just being dead were almost the same thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

These drinks, the hemlock, rather than be exiled from Athens.

[B]

Yeah. And. And, you know, both on the kind of sense of like, I don't want. I don't. I don't want to, or can't live apart from my home and place and family, but also, I mean, particularly, like, if you're wandering around in the Sinai desert for 40 years, if you are left behind, if you are pushed out of the camp, you're probably gonna die.

[C]

Yeah. But there's also a sense, and we've talked about this before on the show, too. Remember, all of these external factors. Right. Of relationships. That's your identity.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

If all of those are broken, who are you?

Do you even exist?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And we all kind of acknowledge this still, because you'll get people, for example, who move to another country, maybe even change their name to get a whole fresh start.

To sort of become a new person.

[B]

Right.

[C]

I'm not the person I was back then.

[B]

All right.

[C]

And in a sense, that's true. They're literally not the person they were.

Now. They have this whole other web of relationships they exist in.

[B]

But.

[C]

So exile and death. It's worth noting that in the day of atonement ritual.

One goat dies and one is exiled.

[B]

Yeah. Kind of covering both bases.

[C]

It's worth noting that the northern kingdom of Israel died and the southern kingdom of Judah was exiled.

[B]

Israel is both goats.

Huh.

[C]

Well. And Christ is Israel. But we'll get.

[B]

Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's everything coming together.

[C]

Yes, Yes.

[B]

I love this show. So I'm just saying that for all the.

[C]

You do say so yourself, thinking that.

[B]

Right now, you know.

[C]

Right. So.

What'S going on, then, in, say, Galatians 3:13.

[B]

Yeah. Where it says, christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

I, you know, it's funny to me. I. I. My sense is that a lot of attempted analysis of this verse skips the second half, like it's trying to come up with some explanation that has nothing to do or very little to do with that Torah reference.

[C]

The actual Old Testament. Yes.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Oh, yes. No, I I have had.

Protestants of a Calvinist stripe tell me that it is wrong to look up the passages quoted in the New Testament to see what they mean in their original context.

[B]

I have no response for that other than to say that is profoundly stupid.

[C]

Because the New Testament authors were inspired to use those verses however they used them.

[B]

Yeah. They're just pulling out.

[C]

Sounds to me like God gave them the gift of reading the Scriptures badly.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But to good end.

[B]

Right. I'm going to quote that. But don't look that up. I don't like those words. They mean something completely new in this context.

[C]

Yeah. So I don't know what the point of the court was.

[B]

Right.

[C]

But. Right. And then closely related to that verse is Romans 8:3.

[B]

Yeah. Which says, for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.

[C]

Right. Both of these are referring to the same image.

Now notice in Romans, St. Paul says that God has done what the Torah weakened by the flesh could not do. Because all through Romans, St. Paul wants to be very careful to say he is in no way criticizing the Torah.

[B]

Yeah. It's just what it can't accomplish.

[C]

The problem isn't the Torah. The problem is the sinful people who were trying to keep the Torah and their sinful flesh. That's the problem.

[B]

The Torah is from God. It is like. It's like. Like this idea that the Torah is this bad thing and we're free from it now, thank God.

Means that God is really nasty. Like, you know, like I'm going to put this terrible, terrible experience on you, and then I'm going to save you from it later.

[C]

Well, and let's. Let's hit creepy. Let's hit pause. Let's hit pause.

[B]

Okay. Okay.

[C]

Because we do have Protestant friends listening.

[B]

Okay. We do. We do.

[C]

Who for various doctoral reasons, still want to read. Read it kind of that way. Okay.

[B]

I know. Okay.

[C]

But on your own accounting, Protestant friends, on your own accounting, what parts of the Torah are we freed from?

Here's what I mean. We're not free to commit adultery. Right. Or murder or to steal. Right. Like all of that still applies. The parts that you're going to call the moral law. That still applies to us as Christians.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, usually they'll say sacrificial stuff, kosher.

[C]

Is that the onerous part?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Is that the part that was really hard to keep?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Like, oh, keeping a pure heart. Never committing adultery in my heart. That's easy. Now that I could wear a cotton polyester blend shirt.

That was the super difficult part.

[B]

That should go on a T shirt, though. And it should be a cotton polyester blend T shirt.

[C]

I mean, any, you know, like anybody can refrain from hating their brother, but it takes, it takes a lot of work not to plant two different kinds of seed in your field.

That argument doesn't make any sense, guys. Yeah, the parts were set free from are not the onerous parts, the difficult parts that we can't keep, that we struggle to keep, Those are the ones that still apply. So we are in no sense freed from it. On your own accounting.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, right. This is, I mean, there, there are real antinomians out there who will say, we're free from all of it. Do whatever the heck you want.

[C]

Yeah. They don't mean it, but.

[B]

Yeah, but, but I go up and.

[C]

Punch an anarchist in the face and see what happens.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[C]

They're going to sue you, right? They're going to take you to court.

[B]

Yeah.

Yeah, but I, you know, but it is a position. I mean, you know, this is 2025. Every position conceivable is somewhere someone takes it.

[C]

Right. Rhetorically, people. Well, that's the point. That's the point. That's, that's the point. On this and many other issues, folks, there are lots of things that sound good rhetorically and that make sense rhetorically. Right. As rhetoric, you know, oh, no one can keep the law, but now, praise God, we're set free from it. That works rhetorically, that preaches.

[B]

Okay, sure.

[C]

But what did I just do a minute ago? I got down to brass tacks.

Right? Let's move past rhetoric. Let's get to reality. What am I free to do now that an observant Israelite or Jewish person.

Wasn'T free to do?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

And it's none of the onerous parts, it's none of the difficult parts.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Except maybe eating bacon. I'll give you bacon.

[B]

Okay, I'll give you bacon stuff that is tough.

[C]

But.

I have a really off color joke about that, but I'll refrain.

[B]

Thank you.

[C]

But. So both of those verses were Galatians 3, 13, Romans 8, 3. They're talking about the crucifixion and on the cross, Christ bearing sin in his flesh.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Where it is condemned. And Christ bearing the curse.

Right. Specifically the curse of the Torah. Right. Now remember, as Hebrews makes the point, Christ is crucified outside the city, outside the camp.

[B]

Right. Exile.

[C]

Right. And of course he's executed. He's killed, he dies. More appropriately, he dies.

Right.

He suffers these fates bearing sin. What does that sound like?

Yeah, it sounds like the goat that's sent out into the wilderness. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

We're coming back to Christ as both goats, people spoilers.

[B]

Right.

[C]

But the goat. Right. That the sins were placed upon the sin and all the taint and all the curse and everything. Right. He wasn't punished for that sin. He wasn't guilty of that sin.

But he bore it and he took it. And where did he take it? He took it out in the wilderness. He took it back to Azazel. Right. Return to sender.

So this imagery, when it's applied to Christ, is talking about Christ. Right. Taking the sin of the people upon himself and taking it where.

[B]

Yeah, where it belongs.

[C]

To the underworld, to Sheol, to Hades, back to the devil and leaving it there. Return to sender.

[B]

Right.

[C]

This is that same imagery.

There's nothing in either of those passages we read about God the Father punishing the Son.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Right. It doesn't say he condemned Christ. It says he condemned sin. Yeah, in Christ's flesh. Condemned it to what?

To death, in the underworld, Hades, hell. Right. Not Christ the sin.

[B]

Yeah, Christ. As we said in Romans 8, Christ was not damned.

[C]

Yes, we talked about this last time.

[B]

Yep, yep.

[C]

Right. That's penal substitutionary atonement. That's what people. Substitutionary atonement said. And like we said last time, if you don't believe that, you don't actually believe in penal substitutionary atonement.

Part of what we were getting at last time is that a lot of the people who think they believe in penal substitutionary atonement really don't.

And a lot of the people who try to defend it don't believe it because they don't understand what that means. Right.

So. But we'll continue tonight. But so this brings us to an important point, right? Because sometimes, Sometimes. And.

I don't know how to characterize this, I'm sorry, except as a kind of soft ecumenism. Right.

There are folks even within the Orthodox Church who will try to say, well, can't we say that we believe da, da, da, da, da, like kind of, you know, like trying to offer an olive branch either to Roman Catholicism or Protestantism on some topic or some form of Protestantism or some form of evangelicalism. You know, like, we could kind of say that, you know, this is true. You know, and it amounts to. We can agree on these words as long as we just mean two totally different things by them. And I don't know what the value of that kind of ecumenism is. Right. Like.

Okay, we agreed on some wording that we're both going to read in completely different ways and act like, what, what did we accomplish here? We're just, we're nice people.

I've never cared to be a nice person. So I guess that's why this has never appealed to me.

[B]

But that explains why you're so bad at it.

[C]

Yes. I don't even try. What are you talking.

And so one of those is you'll get the folks who try to say, well, there's, you know, there's substitution, just not penal substitution. And these are a lot of, these are good hearted people. They're much nicer people than me. They're trying to be nice. They're trying not to, you know, come down on other people.

And that's okay. Right. To be nice. I guess. Not for me. But.

You miss something critical. There's something really critical in how the New Testament talks about Christ's crucifixion and death and atonement in general and all these things when you do that.

Because the language that's used in the New Testament is not language of substitution, it's language of participation. And those are two very different things.

An example that is right on point.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Substitution models or substitution ideas would be Christ dies instead of us.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Or in place of us.

[B]

Yeah. Which makes like no one seems to actually believe that because we still die.

[C]

Right.

[B]

We still die physically. Yeah.

[C]

Right. So if you're a Calvinist who believes in penal substitutionary atonement, you believe that Christ died spiritually, that causes all kinds of Christological and trinitarian problems, like we said last time, but they at least have legit substitution there. Christ dies spiritually, so we don't. Yeah, right. It just screws up the rest of their systematic theology.

That's. But right. Whereas so, so substitution is Christ dies instead of us or in place of us.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Whereas the language that's all through the New Testament, that we die with Christ, we die in Christ and then we rise with Christ and we rise in Christ.

[B]

Right.

[C]

En Christo language is. I mean, this is. You can't swing a dead cat in the New Testament without hitting it. I don't know why you'd be swinging around a dead cat and how you would do that in the New Testament.

[B]

I have to say. Why is this a metaphor? I don't know.

[C]

Unless this is just the most disturbing episode of Easy Reader ever filmed for the Electric Company. I don't Know.

But you get my point, right? And if you're even casually familiar with the New Testament, you know that language is everywhere. And this instead of and in place of. Right. Is just not there. And the few places where it shows up in English translations.

It'S because the translator has a particular theological bent. And they're translating the Greek preposition iper, as in the place of.

That's not really what hyper means.

Hyper means more like on behalf of or with benefit toward someone else. Right.

To use an example, that can. I can say, I went to the store for you. That could mean I went to the store so you wouldn't have to go to the store. Right? Here's the things you would have bought at the store, but I got them for you, so now you don't have to. That could mean, hey, I wanted to give you a gift, so I went to the store and I bought you this.

[B]

Right?

[C]

All it means is I went to the store. And my going to the store benefits you in some way.

But that wrong translation. This is why. Here's a practical consequence of it. That wrong translation is why people go crazy about the whole baptism for the dead reference in 1st Corinthians 15.

Because the for the dead there is hyper.

And if you translate that as in place of, you get like, the Mormon idea. We're baptizing people in. In the place of dead people who weren't baptized.

So at least the Mormons are being consistent in translating it that way.

Right. I don't know if they believe in penal substitutionary atonement or any kind of substitutionary atonement.

[B]

I don't know. I have to look that one up.

[C]

Yeah, they have interesting blood atonement stuff going on, but it translates that way. If you understand it's just someone being baptized that in some way benefits the dead.

Right. And you understand especially that St. Paul uses the dead meaning dead with the article to refer to deceased Christians. Then you understand, oh, he's talking about patron sainthood here. Like it comes together and it makes sense.

[B]

Right? Yeah. And there's some people. I mean, I've also heard some people try to make the distinction between in behalf of and on behalf of.

But throughout the whole history of the English usage of those phrases, it's never been strictly, you know, distinct that in that on behalf of means as an agent of and in behalf of means for the benefit of. Both have been used to mean both things over time. But the point is that the text in the original languages mean for the benefit of, for the benefit of Right.

[C]

And so now a very critical element of this and this participatory aspect, we already alluded to it, right. But this is the major theme of the central portion of the Book of Romans.

Is that Christ embodies Israel.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

And in embodying Israel, he recapitulates Israel's history.

Now within that.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Christ, for example, goes and is tested in the wilderness and proves faithful rather than unfaithful the way Israel did when they were tested in the wilderness for 40 years. It was 40 days for Christ. Right?

[B]

Yeah. He does it all, right, where they.

[C]

Do it wrong, but undergoes death, exile. He's cut off from among the people anyway. Yeah, right. He still recapitulates what happened to them.

But then because Christ is righteous, he comes out the other side. And so Christ's resurrection is the beginning of the resurrection of Israel, which is the beginning of the resurrection of the whole creation.

This is why we read the dry bones passage from Ezekiel on Holy Saturday.

The dry bones passage in Ezekiel is not talking about Christ coming back from the dead. It's talking about God bringing Israel back from the dead.

That's what it's talking about. But we read it there because Christ's resurrection is the beginning of the resurrection of God's people. It's the first fruits, which is the beginning of the resurrection of the whole cosmos.

[B]

Yeah, Right.

[C]

And so.

But Christ doesn't do this so that we don't have to.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Christ doesn't die so that we don't physically at least. Right. He doesn't repent so that we don't have to. He doesn't go through this process so we don't have to, or Israel doesn't have to.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Christ does this, and then we come along centuries later, everyone listening to this.

And we participate in it.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it makes it so that.

By entering into what Christ has done, then it becomes salvific for us. Like, so that, for instance, the martyrs, when they suffer their suffering and death, becomes transformative for them because they're in Christ, not because suffering and death is in itself beneficial.

[C]

Right. And the way we primarily participate in this is baptism. And this is abundantly clear throughout the New Testament. Right. But St. Paul is Exhibit A. Right. We're baptized into Christ, we put on Christ, we die with Christ, we rise.

[B]

Again with Christ baptized into a death like his. We raised in a resurrection like his.

[C]

Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, he doesn't die, so we won't have to then get raised so we won't have to.

[B]

Right, Right.

[C]

And to me, it doesn't make any sense.

[B]

All of this is implied by the Incarnation. Like, if he's going to do this instead of us so we don't have to, why did he become man? You know, his becoming man means that man is now doing this. It's not instead of man doing it, it's man doing this in Christ.

You know, so there's even a. It's really almost a Christological problem, too. I mean, every soterological problem is a Christological problem, I think. And it goes. Yeah, both ways, actually.

Although usually, I mean, usually the implications of that are not obvious to those who are clinging to some of these, these aberrant theories.

But it's true. It's true. All right. Well, having said all that, we're going to go ahead and take our first break. And we'll be right back on this episode of the Lord of Spirits.

[A]

Father Andrew Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[B]

Neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, and it gives light unto all that are in the house. Ancient Faith's Lampstand Institute is an introductory media training forum for Orthodox Christians aged 18 to 23 who are interested in learning skills in digital media and applying them to the service of the church. Ten students will gather to learn the essentials of podcasting and video production and the why and the how of Orthodox.

[C]

Christian media while exploring their own digital media projects.

[B]

The weekend will include sessions on podcasting, audio production, flash radio, video making, marketing and media ministry, plus open work sessions for recording radio material, refining a personal project and preparing a live radio broadcast. Lampstand Institute, July 17th through the 20th.

[C]

At the ancient Faith headquarters in Chesterton, Indiana.

[B]

Less than two weeks. To apply to sign up or learn more, you can go to ancientfaith.comevents that is ancientfaith.com events.

[A]

We're back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[B]

Hey, we're back. You know, Father, when I when what?

[C]

I off there with her, abandoned us for Hollywood in her commercial actress career.

[B]

I know, I know. Trudy's gotten too important for everybody, putting on airs.

I didn't actually know they were going to roll that commercial when I, you know, read the bit at the beginning. So. Sorry to double up, everybody. But hey, it's actually, it actually was a really great event last year I was there. So if you, if you come this year, I will be there. Now, for some people, that might be a feature. For others, it will be a bug. So make your. Make your choice.

[C]

So, yeah, you're going to teach them how to co host podcasts.

[B]

It's an idea. Maybe we could bring you up for that and, like, make them co host a podcast with you.

[C]

You want it to be Hell week, Is that what you're saying?

Because, I mean, you know, sit down.

[B]

Next to the ogre.

[C]

Yes. Try and keep up with him and try and keep him from saying anything inappropriate on live radio. Good luck to you.

[B]

Make sure you take notes as to which parts we have to cut out later.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

If you're not listening live, you're missing all my best jokes.

[B]

And the thing is, they'll never know.

[C]

You'll never know what you're missing.

[B]

They'll never know.

[C]

This is appointment listening.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, it actually looks like we are getting a call in, but it's not fully in yet. Should we just take it like. Yes, you know, completely unprocessed and do it? Whoever the person says, okay. All right.

[C]

I have no time for this bureaucracy. Put the meds in or what?

[B]

Okay.

Mike, I command you to just let this person straight through on the air.

[C]

If they actually make it through, let our caller go.

[B]

There we go. Supposedly they are from. Wait. Okay. It's funny. It's like being in a seance. I feel like something is coming in.

[C]

I'm seeing a name. A J. A John or a J. Yeah.

[B]

So do we have Jack from North Carolina on the air right now?

[D]

Yep, that's me.

[B]

Hey, welcome, Jack. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast. Where in the old north state are you?

[D]

Charlotte area.

[B]

Charlotte. Okay.

[C]

Do you know where Pfeffer Town is with a P?

[D]

I do not.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

So, okay, since you are. Since you are from Charlotte, I. I have a local question for. Are you. Are you from there or do you just live there now?

[D]

Yeah, I grew up here.

[B]

Okay. Okay. So is it. This is a two parter. I'm going to ask you a question. Two questions. Is it the case that all the kids from Gastonia go to Charlotte to party?

[D]

Yeah, probably.

[B]

Okay. Okay.

[D]

Estonia has its own little reputation, right?

[B]

So that being the case, is it then also the case that all the kids from Shelby go To Gastonia, to party. Is that true?

[D]

I'm not sure, but I'm not sure why they would either.

[B]

Oh, I mean, there is plenty of cow tipping in Shelby. I mean, I. This is not like a stereotype. I knew people from Shelby when I lived in Raleigh, and they told me this. They said we literally tipped cows in Shelby, North Carolina.

[D]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. All right. Sorry to distract you from whatever was on your mind, Jack, but, you know, as. As a. As. As a former.

See, I'm not going to say.

As. I'm not gonna say Tar Heel, because I was not. I did not go to Chapel Hill High.

I went to North Carolina State.

But you can say I'm a wolf pack. Like, that doesn't make any sense anyways. They'll have to work on that. So what is your question, Jack from. From Charlotte.

[D]

Okay, so in the last episode, you guys kind of described how atonement was done. The atonement ritual in the Old Testament was done as, like, a mitigation person had to be done each year.

And it was not just for the sins, but it was for the stain and effects of sin.

And because of this, the fact that they had to repeat it.

They were anticipating. And you guys described how they were anticipating this. In the Apocalypse of Abraham, there being a cosmic atonement in which the sin problem is finally solved once and for all. So that being the understanding if Christ saving acts on the cross and his resurrection do actually represent this, like, final solution to the problem, then.

Like, how does that apply to our lives in the Christian era.

On a personal level, but also on a sort of theological basis. You know, I was baptized in the Orthodox Church, but I still sin. And I'm not saying, obviously, my baptism worked. It was canonical and everything, but.

It'S not as though, like, I'm. I was suddenly made into a saint.

[B]

Are you sure?

[D]

And I still have to go to confession.

[B]

I'm just checking. I mean, you could be a saint.

[D]

Yeah, I'm still. I'm still working, Father, but. But, yeah, so I guess, like. And therefore, I see this, like, analogous relationship. Like, they repeated the Old Testament. Old Testament atonement ritual every year in order to cleanse our sins.

Sort of on a temporary level. But I experience the same thing every time I go to confession, and it's still kind of on this routine basis.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

So how does this. How does Christ's cosmic atonement act in our lives, given the daily struggle of being a Christian and repenting?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, this is the $64,000 question. I think.

[C]

Really? So when I answer it, you're going to give me $64,000?

[B]

I'll write you a check.

[C]

An ancient faith check?

[B]

No, no, not an ancient faith check.

[C]

That one might not bounce.

[B]

No, sorry. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's.

So. I mean, the way that I understand it, which I don't know that this is necessarily the best way of expressing it, but I know that Father Stephen will just actually me if I get anything wrong or incomplete here, so that's, that's cool.

Is that it's. So the. This cosmic atonement has happened and is happening, right? So there is a cleansing of the whole creation that has occurred.

Such that we no longer have to do rituals to push sin outside of the camp. Now, in some sense, the universe is the camp, right? But we still sin, just as the people of Israel still sinned, even when the atonement had occurred. And so there are. I mean, there are echoes in a sense of this, right? So we still use incense for purification. We still bless homes, we still bless our churches, even because of the same kind of dynamic occurs.

But what has changed is that it is now possible to defeat sin in a way that was not possible before, right? And also, of course.

You know, theosis is possible for us in Christ in a way that without his. His sacrifice and resurrection, it was not before. But it's. I don't know. I think a. Both now and not yet is the way that I kind of understand what's happening in this Messianic age. It's.

[C]

You had to drop that. You had to. You had to go there. You're doing well.

[B]

Oh, thanks.

[C]

Who cut it on you that, that.

[B]

You know, the messianic age is about in some ways making pervasive.

You know, what Christ has done? I don't know. Okay, go ahead, take me apart there, Father. You don't like.

[C]

Well, no, you're on the right track there. When you got to theosis especially, right? This is. This is related to what we were just talking about in the first half with participation.

[B]

Right?

[C]

So human beings, I, as a human being, my existence is spread out in time.

It's also spread out in space, right? I'm not just referring to, like they say in Texas, when you get married, once you settle down, you start to spread out. But like I move around in space, right? Not as much or as quickly as I used to.

But we're also spread out in time, right? This is a difference between us and an angel, right? And not just us individually, but us collectively in the Sense that the church is not just spread out throughout the world in space, but is also spread out through time.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[C]

The saints don't all live at the same time.

And so each of us comes to participate in the reality of what Christ has done over the course of our lifetime.

Over the course of our identity, over the course of our personhood.

And so.

While we can say definitively Christ did certain things at his cross, at the resurrection, at his ascension and enthronement, right. At his conception and the incarnation, right. He did these things. They're done. He did them. Right. But you and I, like, I didn't start participating in any of that until like very late in 1974 when I was conceived, right? Like, I didn't exist before that.

But when I come into existence sometime in early September, late August of 1974, I begin to participate in that.

Between then and whatever the moment is in the future when I physically die.

[B]

Everybody's doing the math on when your birthday must be now, Right?

[C]

It's easy. My birthday is the mark of the beast, anyway. It is.

[B]

So.

Yes, it is.

[C]

You just realized it?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I never. I mean, there's two marks of the beast, everybody. So.

[C]

Yeah, but so.

Yeah, so our existence is spread out time, and so we come to participate in this. So the cleansing from of sin in our life throughout our lifetime, the healing, the cleansing, the purification, all of those things that we experience over time, all of that was accomplished by Christ already.

[B]

Right?

[C]

This is one of the points that St. Paul is making in Romans. It's already done. That's why you can have confidence.

[B]

Right?

[C]

You can have confidence that some nothing's going to change. It's already accomplished. Right. We just have to walk in it now is the language St. Paul uses.

Right? We come to participate in it, but that also opens up the possibility then that someone can reject it.

And not come to participate in it.

Yeah, right, but so.

There'S a fundamental difference between what you experience when you go to confession and what the ancient Israelite experienced when they brought a sin offering.

And that's that they were doing something that was a stopgap and an anticipation and a looking forward to what Christ would do.

Whereas you are now having what Christ has done. Enter into the world of your personal experience, your phenomenological world. It's becoming real for you.

[B]

Right.

[C]

As you come to participate in it.

Ever more deeply.

That makes some kind of sense. Okay.

[D]

Yeah, it does. So in that context, should we understand baptism as the sort of starting point of that?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. For Us.

[C]

Yes. That's the point in which we're initiated into that.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So, all right. I have one last question. I mean, I used to be a North Carolinian, so I just have to ask another.

[C]

I have one last question. Where's my 64 grand?

[B]

I'll write you a check.

[C]

Okay.

Yeah.

[B]

So, okay, you know, Eastern Carolina or Western Carolina? Barbecue? What's your preference there, since we're almost to Pasco?

[D]

Oh, Eastern for sure.

[B]

Yes.

[D]

It's all about Eggersoft.

[B]

Yes. See, even out in the hinterlands where you live.

[D]

Yep.

[B]

All right. That makes me feel very happy. Okay.

[D]

Also, Father, I have been to Bayo's Books and Brews. I heard you talk about that on Areopagus.

[B]

Yes, I hopped in there one day and saw one of my neighbors from Emmaus, Pennsylvania, there. It was crazy. Crazy.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Cool play.

[B]

Yeah. All right, well, thanks for calling, Jack.

[C]

That was with your B tier co host.

[B]

No, I was there by myself. But yes, you're happy. Yeah. So we're going to take one more call. And actually, this is somebody that I met recently for the second time because he's been to the Lord of Spirits conference. And that's Deacon Danilo from. From Reno, the biggest little city in the world. Deacon Danilo, welcome. Lord Spears podcast.

[D]

Greetings, Father. Forgive my voice. This is. I'm a longtime listener, first time caller. Your blessing. I'm grateful for your efforts which have improved my understanding of scripture and orthodoxy.

[C]

And this is the wrong time of year to lose your voice.

[D]

Yeah, it is. I mean, I did. I did free sanctified yesterday, and I was at a volume level of one. It was still. It wasn't.

[B]

Oh, God bless you. I hope you get there quickly.

[D]

Yeah, me too.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

It's big, Big weekend and week coming up.

I'm grateful for all the things you've illumined me on. And one of them, probably one of the more significant ones, is that the Flintstones is actually set at a post apostolic age. I didn't understand that, so I'm grateful for that.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

All seriousness aside, I seek your understanding of Saint Athanasius writing in on the Incarnation and the Life of Anthony.

Saint Athanasius says when he's explaining the crucifixion, that the devil wanders about our lower atmosphere and tries to hinder them that are going up and further. The Lord came to cast down the devil and clear the air and prepare the way for us up into heaven. And then in the Life of Anthony, he relates a vision that Anthony had of looking up, looking up in the air and air, someone being born upwards. This is regarded the passing from death to life of a monk, Adam. Later, he writes about Anthony's vision of himself that a certain bitter and terrible being stood in the air and wished to hinder him from passing through. So given this and other things, many other things about the crucifixion.

Is one to understand that Christ being lifted up was victorious as subduing aerial spirits, thereby opening up the way for us up to heaven. Is that the way I should look at that?

[B]

Yeah. Father, is there something about being lifted up in particular that has to do with this?

[C]

Well, that's St. John's gospel, right? John's Gospel in particular. Christ uses that language over and over again to refer to his crucifixion. When I am lifted up, right? When I'm lifted up, I'll draw all men to myself, right?

That's why it always cracks me up when I hear those evangelical hymns with choruses that are like, lift him up. And I'm like, oh, yeah, maybe you want to look at how that's used in Scripture.

Right. And so there isn't. There is an element of that, right. And you'll find in the Fathers, you'll find meditations on this in particular, when they're talking about the shape of the cross.

Particularly the vertical axis, right? They'll talk about the vertical axis of the cross, of the horizontal axis of the cross.

Right? Where the vertical axis is going, it's, you know, in the ground, like the underworld, and then up into the air.

And then the horizontal axis of the cross is going, you know, to the east and to the west, right. To the ends, Right. Toward the end of the earth.

Right? And they connect this to the idea. And we use this on Feast of the Cross, we use the solemn verse, he has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.

[B]

Right.

[C]

As a procurement.

And that in the midst of the earth is literally in the middle, the center.

Right? And this has to do with Jerusalem being the navel of the world, right? Like it's the sort of dead center. And then you have this cross that has this vertical axis and this horizontal axis. And so.

They'Ll connect the crucifixion to Christ.

Uniting not just the earth and the heavens, but even the underworld, even Sheol or Hades, the grave, to the heavens, right. He who descended also ascended. So he'd fill all things, as St. Paul says, right? Same St. Paul who calls the devil the prince and power of the air.

So the idea is that Christ is crucified sort of in this center point of the whole creation.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Thereby drawing all of this that was disparate, that was separated, that was shattered and broken apart, drawing it back together.

Right through his death. And then in his resurrection, he then gives all of it rebirth and part of that death. And we're going to get into that more here. The second and third halves has to do with the overcoming of the evil spiritual powers.

[B]

Does that make sense, Deacon Danilo?

[D]

Yeah, yeah, I think so. Just kind of summarize it. So Christ being baptized in the waters.

He'S victorious over the demons in the waters, sanctifying the waters, and then being lifted up in the air, he's victorious over the demon, the aerial spirits, and thereby opening up the opportunity for us to make it to heaven.

[C]

Yeah. And he goes into the underworld and is victorious over the spirits there. Right. And there's even an element in some of our.

Ascension hymns.

They'll quote the Psalm about, lift up your heads, O ye gates, which is that BAAL language we've talked about. So there's even in his enthronement, he sort of kicks all of the right demonic powers who might have been in high places out of there, too.

[B]

Yeah.

Yeah.

[D]

All right, well, thank you for your time and. Go ahead.

[B]

Yeah, I was going to say thank you for calling, and I hope you feel better real quick, you know, lots of tea and honey, as they say. Of course.

[D]

Yeah. Right. And one last pitch. We at St. Anthony, the great Greek Orthodox Church here in Reno, are looking eager to receive Father Andrew on 10, 11, October. And, Father Andrew, my own agenda is that I invite you to my home for a meal and we can watch Wrathicon together.

[B]

Yes. Although the thing with the ears and the worms in the ear freaks me out.

[C]

Bible. Ratha Khan.

[B]

There you go.

[C]

Kind of the same thing.

[B]

Anyway.

[D]

All right, thank you. Take care.

[B]

Thank you. God bless you. Holy week in Pasca. All right.

So let's learn a new word, or maybe a new word for a lot of people. Father Stephen Manumission, man, you mission.

[C]

Yeah, no, no, Neither is this. Men on a mission for the fans of old school wrestling.

Or mom, as it was abbreviated.

[B]

Yes, yes.

[C]

Manumission, which is to release someone or buy someone out of slavery.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And this is an important word because.

When the Scriptures talk about Christ's death, we were talking about the day of atonement last time. We've talked about the day of atonement a little, but this time we're not done. But here in our second half, it's important that we make clear that that's not the day of atonement. And atonement in general is not the primary way that the scriptures talk about Christ's crucifixion and death.

[B]

Yeah, isn't it? Mostly it's Passover stuff is far and away.

[C]

Primarily Passover.

[B]

Pascha.

[C]

Yeah, right. That's the. And obviously. Right. That's what we celebrate. We're about to celebrate at Pascha. But it's Passover language. And Passover.

Was about what it was about a bunch of slaves in Egypt being set free.

So this is the primary metaphor.

The atonement stuff is there. Christ is both goats, but this is more primary.

And so if your view of the atonement does not hold this as primary, there's a problem with your view of the atonement.

But we have to understand how slavery worked in the ancient world, specifically the ancient near east.

There were two kinds of slaves and indentured servants. One was people taken in war and enslaved.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[C]

That's not primarily the kind of slavery that is being talked about. Primarily the kind of slavery that's being talked about in these metaphors in this language, when it's used in the New Testament to talk about Christ's death, is talking about debt slavery.

[B]

Yeah. Where if you owe too much money that you can't pay back, then you might sell your kids, you might sell your wife, you might sell yourself.

Yeah. The whole family until. And then they have to work until such time as the debt is paid off.

[C]

Right. For some period of time.

[B]

But it's not, it's not like, it's not like getting a part time job. You know, as a slave, you were at the bottom of society and subject to all kinds of horrifying mistreatment. So like it's a pretty scary institution.

[C]

In the Roman world. Primarily sexual mistreatment.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

So.

Right. So. But it's making this analogy to debt slavery. And part of this analogy is understanding sin as debt. Sin being compared to debt.

And that happens a lot. You could probably think of some examples right off the top of your head in the New Testament. But just to throw out a few, of course, Matthew 6, 9, 13, when St. Matthew in his Gospel gives us the Lord's Prayer, he refers to forgiving our debts as we forgive our debtors.

[B]

Yeah, that's what it literally says, everybody.

[C]

Right. And it's talking about sin, but it's using the language of debt.

And.

Luke 11, 4, St. Luke has forgive us our trespasses in the Lord's Prayer. But in Luke 11, 4. Christ says, if we do not forgive.

Our debtors, we will not be forgiven. Right. So he uses the same kind of language, just separate from the Lord's Prayer. You can look at Matthew 18, 23, 35, Luke 7, 36, 47. You think about parables like the unmerciful servant, right? This man has his debt forgiven and then goes and is violent towards someone who owes him a much smaller amount.

[B]

Right? Yeah. I mean, and if you have. If you have your debt forgiven, then you don't have to be a slave and you don't have to pay the debt anymore.

[C]

You're now free.

[B]

Yeah, you're free. Which is, which is why, I mean, it's interesting, sometimes people might say, well, if God forgives my sins.

Why do I keep sinning? And I mean, to me, one good way of understanding that is like, well, you're in the habit of paying the debt, the debt to sin, which is you're sinning, but you don't have to sin anymore. You don't have to pay the debt anymore.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You know, you can. You can stop.

[C]

And as St. Paul says, right. The wages of sin is death. Right. So through sin, you become enslaved to sin.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And when you're enslaved to sin, the payoff you get at the end of the day is death. The consequence is death. Right. For St. Paul, he says this explicitly, right. If it's wages, it's not a reward. If it's wages, it's not a punishment.

[B]

Yeah. It's what you're owed.

[C]

If it's a wage, it's what you're owed. It's what you've earned.

[B]

Right.

[C]

It's the result. And St. Paul's makes this extended argument in Romans, chapter six and seven.

Talking about using this idea of death and. Or of debt and debt slavery to sin.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And that's why you'll say he says it there explicitly. You don't owe the flesh anything.

That you need to make right. You don't owe your flesh, you don't owe your passion something.

That you have to pay off. They're not entitled to anything. He uses this metaphor in extended way. And forgiveness, of course, starts out as a financial term.

We now think about it primarily, again, like we talked about before, we think with corruption, we think about it in its metaphorical usage.

[B]

Yeah. We think that forgiveness is like a religious word, but it's really a financial word. You know, like, you can have a debt forgiven, you don't have to pay it anymore.

[C]

Yes.

Wouldn't it be nice if student loans were Forgiven. For those of us with student loans. For those of you without student loans who don't want them to be forgiven, stop being a hater.

[B]

So just declare bankruptcy like Michael Scott.

[C]

You can't declare bankruptcy.

[B]

I know, I know, I know.

[C]

Thanks to a certain senator who later became president, who I guess I can't mention on this show because you'll delete it, that's why.

[B]

It's a joke, Father.

[C]

It's a factual, factual statement anyway.

[B]

So.

[C]

Yeah, so within this extended metaphor, right, the devil, right, Satan is presented as the party who sort of comes and presses the claim of the debt.

Right. A debt collector, as it were.

[B]

Right.

[C]

That's suitably demonic and devil.

Diabolical.

Right. And this is the idea of the devil or Satan as an accuser, right? He's the one who wields the power of death. And so he comes and he points to the sins of the righteous, right? Accuses them to try to claim them for death. So if you want to think about exhibit A of this, that would be the episode with the body of Moses that St. Jude refers to.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that's Jude 9. Because there are no chapters in Jude, it's just the one chapter. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said the Lord rebuke you.

[C]

Right? So as cool as it might be to imagine, this isn't about the archangel Michael and the devil having a sword fight.

[B]

Oh, man.

[C]

Next to Moses corpse.

This is about.

The devil trying to claim specifically his body for corruption. Right? Accusing Moses of his sins and the archangel Michael.

Defending Moses. And ultimately Moses body is taken up into heaven.

But this idea that sin gives the devil some kind of claim, and that claim allows him.

As sort of the Lord of the underworld or the Lord of the dead.

To lay some kind of claim to the sinner. Right? This claim of corruption, of curse is found a lot in the New Testament.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So we've got a small pile of examples here for you.

[B]

Yes. Okay. So From John, chapter 10, verses 17 through 18, this is the Lord speaking for this reason. The Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my father.

[C]

So this is Christ making clear that he dies voluntarily.

[B]

Yeah. No one, Right. He doesn't owe it to anybody.

[C]

He can't be killed. He is not, strictly speaking, mortal.

[B]

Right, right.

[C]

Because he is not sinful.

[B]

Right. And it's. I mean, it's notable that the detail, really interesting detail is how on the cross it says he bows his head and then he gives up his spirit, which is like the opposite of weight it would be for most of us.

[C]

Which is he performs an action. Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

He actively dies for us.

[B]

The spirit goes. And then our head slumps over.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You know?

Yeah. Okay. So John, chapter 14, 30 and 31. Again, this is Christ speaking. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.

[C]

Yeah. And this is. This is buried in that first Gospel reading on Holy Thursday night. That's super long.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But notice the rule of this world. The devil is coming. He has no claim on Jesus because he has not sinned.

Right. But he is going to go and lay down his life. The devil's coming wide to kill him. Right. He's inhabiting Judas at the moment, according to the earlier text.

[B]

Yeah. Says the devil entered him. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Also got Acts 2, 2:27. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your holy one see corruption.

[C]

That's a quote from a psalm, but it's there being applied in Acts 2 by St. Peter to Christ.

[B]

To Christ. Yeah, Right.

[C]

That he sort of couldn't stay dead.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Right. Or as his soul couldn't remain in Hades and his body couldn't decompose and become corrupt because he is righteous and holy.

[B]

Or as I love how St. Basil puts it in his anaphora where he says that the author of life could not be held by corruption.

[C]

Right.

[B]

It's just a very memorable phrase. Yeah. Okay. First Corinthians 15, 3. For I delivered to you as of. This is St. Paul speaking. For I delivered to you as of first importance. What I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. So, yeah, this is. What does it mean that Christ died for our sins?

[C]

Right. And this is. You'd be amazed the number of times I get this verse quoted at me as if this is teaching penal substitutionary atonement.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Christ died for our sins there. Penal substitutionary. Wait, what.

[B]

What does it mean that Christ died for our sins?

[C]

So you have to look. And this is a perpetual problem with.

To some extent, New Testament scholarship To a great extent, New Testament translators.

[B]

And.

[C]

That'S that.

They will go and try to interpret the Greek of the New Testament based on Greek. Just other general Greek sources.

I've said before, the dialect of Greek, people want to call it kini or koine or something. Oh, it's the common Greek. There's no other example of it outside the New Testament.

[D]

Sorry.

[C]

It's Biblical Greek. It's New Testament Greek. And New Testament Greek relates to Greek the way Yiddish relates to German.

It is a Jewish dialect of Greek the New Testament is written in that is based on the Greek translation of the Old Testament. So if you want to understand what a phrase, a word or a phrase means in the New Testament, the first place, and really the only place you need to go is the Old Testament.

Because that's where they're getting their language. Okay. And if you look for this language of dying for sins, what you find is places in the Greek Old Testament, all over the place where it talks about people dying for their own sins.

He will die for his sins.

Right. Sometimes those passages are translated when they occur in the New Testament as he will die in his sin.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So the idea is, when I die, someday I will be dying for my sins, for my own sins. That is what will bring about my death.

[B]

Yes. Right.

[C]

All sin, therefore all die. Romans 5. Death comes to all men because all men sin. Right, Right. That's it. I will die for my own sins. Christ doesn't have any sins.

Of his own.

So when he dies, he doesn't die for his sins. He doesn't die as a result of his sins.

He dies for our sins. He dies as a result of our sins.

That's what that's saying.

[B]

Yeah. It's because of our sins.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. Our sins kill us. And they also.

Well, he gives up himself because of them. Yeah.

[C]

Right. But that's why he died. This is why all of the Church Fathers are clear who speak on this topic. Right. So you got to take a subset, and you got to take the subset of Church Fathers we still have. But we find Church Fathers speaking on the subject, speculating about what if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned.

[B]

Right.

[C]

They generally agree that in that case Christ still would have been incarnate, but they generally agree that he wouldn't have died.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Because we wouldn't have died.

[B]

Right. Death would not be a thing.

[C]

Right. For humans, at least. It wouldn't be a thing. Right. So.

That'S what that's saying.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, you know, it's funny. It's Interesting. Actually, I was just kind of curious and I found.

St. Ambrose of Milan commenting on that particular verse. He says, he says the son loses nothing when he bestows upon all, just as he also loses nothing when the Father receives the kingdom. Nor does the Father suffer loss when he gives what is his own to the Son. So, I mean, like this idea that Christ gets damned makes, I mean, obviously that would be crazy. To St. Ambrose.

[C]

Yes, yeah, that would be blasphemous. To St. Ambrose. Yes.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

[C]

So, and then final verses on this topic.

[B]

Yes, okay. Hebrews, two verses.

[C]

We've alluded to this already a couple.

[B]

Of times, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. Which, I mean, this, this is, this goes all the way back to Genesis 3. You know that the, the serpent is going to eat dust, he's going to eat dead humanity. That's what, that's the one power left to him. And now, you know, even that is, is going to be destroyed by Christ. Right.

[C]

And so Christ dies. Right, to defeat the one who has the power of death.

And to set free from slavery.

Those who are enslaved to death by sin.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[C]

It's kind of just spelled out there, right? All of that language in one place. And note we talked about one aspect of the first half. Now we're talking about a different aspect of this in the second half. But notice both aspects involve.

The evil spiritual powers.

Right.

Both of these have. Guess what? We're going to talk about a third one in the third half. And spoilers it will too.

So this isn't some kind of quote unquote, Christus Victor model of the Atonement or whatever. Right. Starring Gustav Allen. Right.

I greatly support his attempts to continue. Well, I don't think he's with us anymore. But the attempt of people to reform Lutheranism and getting closer to the truth. But.

This isn't Christmas, Vicar. Battle of the atonement. This is just the fact that all through the Scriptures teaching about the death of Christ is the idea of him defeating, subduing, disempowering, et cetera, et cetera, the hostile spiritual powers.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[C]

That's just everywhere in this. It's not a quote unquote theory. Right.

[B]

So.

[C]

This, then that language of being set free from slavery to sin and to death also then that metaphor spills over into the language of ransom.

[B]

Right.

[C]

The kind of ransom, redemption, purchase.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Language.

[B]

You know, another way of putting it is that you buying a slave and letting him go like you're paying off his debt on his behalf.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You know, I mean, the existential point is the freedom. That's what's actually happening is the freedom.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Slavery. But there's various. Various images used. Yeah. So in Matthew 20:28 and then Mark 10:45, you get almost identical language.

I didn't look at the Greek, so I'm not sure if it's actually identical, but it's translated about the same here. So in Matthew 20:28, even as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And then Mark 10:45 is the same. Right.

[C]

And so you have that ransom language.

[B]

Right.

[C]

We can roll through these kind of quickly. But this is.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

Because from slavery, right?

[B]

From slavery.

[C]

A hostage, not a kidnapping. Right. This is not Mel Gibson yelling, give me back my son. Right. This is.

[B]

Okay, first Peter 1, 18 and 19, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb, without blemish or spot. I mean, it's notable there. You're ransomed from what? From the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, like from this way of sin that has been going on all this time.

[C]

And Christ is like, what, a lamb?

[B]

Passover. That's Passover language. Yeah.

[C]

Freedom from slavery, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Because Passover is freedom from slavery in Egypt, Everybody. So, yeah. 1 Corinthians 5, 7. Cleanse out the old leaven. There you go. This is Passover language that you may be a new lump. Yeah, be a lump, everybody. As you really. Be a good lump.

[C]

It's lump my head.

[B]

I caught that reference, too. As you really are unleavened for Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.

And then Revelation 5, 6, and between the throne and the four living creatures, four cherubim. Right. And among the elders, I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Don't literalize that, everybody.

[C]

Yes. The Quiddiss Ex Council forbids it.

[B]

As a matter of fact, people get excited. Seven horns, seven eyes.

[C]

And we don't want to go around doing things that are forbidden by the Quintus Ex Council because start down that road. What's next? Clerical celibacy? Come on.

Oh, man.

It'S not even past 9.

[B]

O' clock here in Eastern time. You're already taking some shots.

[C]

People, People catching strays.

[B]

That's right.

So. Right.

[C]

But you see, they're just over and over again, Right. That language directly connected to Passover. Whenever that ransom language is used, tying it back into this idea of manumission, of being set free from slavery. What slavery? Slavery, descent and death, of which the slavery in Egypt was an image.

And so what we're talking about here, this element, this redemption. Right. And redemption, again, this is a financial term.

This is a financial term. People are always talking about how there's juridical language in the New Testament. There's very little juridical language in the New Testament. There's lots of financial language in the New Testament.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

This redemption, Right. Buying back. That's what redemption means, to buy back. So buy back out of slavery. This redemption language. Redemption is the element of salvation that is universal.

[B]

Yes. Everyone gets redeemed.

[C]

Yes. Universalist friends have. Have trouble separating different elements of salvation.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, but Christ doesn't take all.

[C]

The language about salvation to try to throw it all together.

[B]

I mean, Jesus is pretty explicit that.

Everyone will be raised, but that some will be raised to life and some will be raised to damnation.

[C]

Right. So everyone rises from the dead. Yep, everyone. Everyone is resurrected.

[B]

And some. Some will have a resurrected body with a resurrected soul enlivening it. And some will have a resurrected body with a dead soul.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And deadening it.

[C]

Someone takes these dreams away that point me to another day.

Materialistic house of prayer. Conquistadors who took their share.

[B]

Nice.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Right, so Ariel rises from the dead and Christ judges everyone.

Yeah. Because Christ, when he descends into Hades, he takes back everyone.

Death and the devil have a claim over no one.

[B]

Right, right.

[C]

But that means Christ is going to judge everyone.

[B]

Yeah, because He's. Yeah, this is part of that language of him. You know, all authority in heaven, on earth has been given to me. Like, he has no. Everything is his territory. He has no limited territory. You know, he can judge everybody because he's the local magistrate everywhere and for.

[C]

The people desperate for it. This is why you can't take the toll house thing literally, because demons don't have any authority to condemn or judge you.

[B]

Yeah.

Yeah.

[C]

Notice I didn't say it's all wet, I just said you can't take it super literally.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. John 5, Christ says explicitly verses 22 and 23. For the Father judges no one, but is given judgment to the Son that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Yeah. So, I mean, it said multiple places that Christ is the judge.

[C]

He's the one who judges everyone because they all belong to them. Because he has redeemed everyone.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

Everyone has been brought back for the power of death. This is why you get all the language we're about to hear at Pasca. Not a single soul remains in the grave. Right. Not a single right. Everyone. Everyone is raised. Everyone is raised. That's all true. It's just, you know, some of our friends want to leave off the. Then the judgment part.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Which is taught equally clearly in Scripture.

[B]

Right, yeah.

[C]

And so all of this has prepared us.

To understand Colossians 2, verse 14.

[B]

Yeah. Which says this.

Dot, dot, dot. By canceling the record of debt, which in the King James is the handwriting of our sins. That's a very literal translation. By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

[C]

Right. So, yeah. So as Father Andrew mentioned, the King James Version translates that word as handwriting because they're being woodenly literal. It is a Greek compound word. It's the word for hand hair, and then the word for writing, gravitos, record, literally hand and then something written the records. But that doesn't always work. Right. Like, what's a butterfly?

[B]

It's a butterfly.

[C]

It's a fly with butter on it.

[D]

What?

[C]

Right. And that word, in and of itself is a word that was used at the time that St. Paul is using it to refer to a promissory note, like a record of debt.

Right. So the idea here is that's why it's translated. What is that ESV that you read?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

That's why they just translate it, record of debt. Now, because that's what the word was used for, to refer to a promissory note that stood against us. Right. This claim that the devil had on us based because of our sins, Christ set it aside, nailing it to the cross. He set it aside. Right. Debt. If you are the holder of the debt.

You can cancel it.

You don't have to pay yourself.

Right.

If I am the holder of the debt. There have been people who have done this. I'm trying to remember who it was. There was some celebrity who went and took a bunch of money and bought up a bunch of people's Medical debt, like from collections agencies.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And then he just canceled it.

[B]

Yeah. He just said, I'm not going to make you pay me.

[C]

Yeah. Because you could do that if you're the one who holds the debt.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, there are whole foundations out there that you can do that through because people will sell off debt for less than the total amount owed because.

[C]

They figure they're never going to get it. Right. Someone else will get the debt. So if you hold the debt, if you hold the promissory note, you can tear it up.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You don't have to pay your again yourself. Right, Right. And slaves, if they're your slaves in the ancient world, you can set them free.

[B]

Yeah. You don't have to make them do it anymore.

[C]

You don't have to pay yourself for them.

[B]

Right.

[C]

You can just set them free.

And so the fact that this sounds bizarre to people is in itself bizarre to me. That Christ could just forgive your sins.

[B]

Yeah. There's this. I mean, there's this idea that a lot of people have that Christ has to cooperate with some metaphysical principle that.

[C]

God has to pay himself.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

That like he, before he could dismiss.

[B]

The debt, he must do this. He must punish sin. He must, you know, whatever it might be. Like, you know, if there's something that God has to be obedient to, that's God. You should worship that, that higher whatever.

[C]

And you can say to me, well, you're taking that metaphor too literally. Well, this is the metaphor God gave us to understand it.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

He didn't give us another metaphor. The way St. Paul talks about it, nailing it to the cross, setting it aside.

That's not language of paying somebody.

[B]

Right. Yeah.

[C]

Right. That's canceled. He canceled the debt, which anyone can do who is the holder of debt. Yeah.

Right. So this is very basic. Right.

God can just forgive you.

[B]

Yeah. And we also have a passage from Isaiah 43, which I think maybe a lot of people don't take into account when talking about this kind of stuff.

[C]

Right. Because we have to look for this language in the Greek Old Testament to understand what they're doing with that language in the New Testament.

[B]

Yeah. So this is what the prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 43, 3, 7. And this is from the Lord. That's why it starts out this way. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy one of Israel, your Savior. I listen to this, everybody. I give Egypt as your ransom. Kush and Sheba. Is that Sheba in exchange for you? Because you are precious in my eyes and honored and I love You, I give men in return for you peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. And everyone who's called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. So you've got this image of bringing in everyone from everywhere.

[C]

Right. The prophetic element is God is promising a second Exodus.

[B]

Yeah, right, right.

[C]

He's promising another Exodus. Their people are going to be brought back. Right. Because there's been this exile, this dispersement of the people all over the world. But there's going to be this second Exodus. And so at the beginning of this passage, God refers them back to the original Exodus.

[B]

Yeah. Egypt as your ransom.

[C]

The original Exodus. And notice he called your savior.

So here's your salvation. Language.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

Right. What is salvation?

Right. And here he describes the original Exodus as giving Egypt and Cush and Sheba, meaning the whole region.

Right. This is what's now Ethiopia. Yeah, Right. And Sudan. Right. That whole region.

He gave them as a ransom.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

What does that mean?

[B]

Yeah. Right. Like, okay, wait, who? It's funny how a lot of people obsess over the question of, well, who is the ransom being paid? Paid to?

[C]

Right.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I think the church.

[C]

Who did he give Egypt to them to? Yeah, he gave them to the devil. No, no, Right.

[B]

I mean, when. I mean, as I recall, when the church fathers address this question head on, like, who is the ransom paid to? Especially, like the ransom of Christ, they say it's to death. Death is the one that the ransom is given to, you know, within this.

[C]

It's something in the sense that. Yeah, we're ransomed from death.

[B]

From death. Right?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, like, so he's not saying that he didn't give Egypt to someone in order to free Israel.

[B]

Right.

[C]

In the Exodus. Right. That didn't happen. He didn't punish Egypt for Israel's sins. He punished Egypt for their own sins.

[B]

That's right, Right.

[C]

Remember, because they're going and killing. Exodus chapter one, they're going and killing the male Israelite infants. Right. And then the ultimate plague at the Passover is they lose their firstborn sons.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Right. So they're not being punished for Israel's sins so that Israel could go free from Egypt.

So what does it mean? Well, it seems pretty clear that what it has to mean in terms of the story of the Exodus, the only thing that makes sense is that what he's saying is that Egypt suffered.

Egypt suffered so that Israel could go.

[B]

Free, which is literally the story of the Exodus.

[C]

Right.

Egypt suffers so that Israel could go free. Now, if we take that same language and we see how that's being used in the New Testament when that same language is applied to the death of Christ, what are St. Paul and the other New Testament authors saying? They're saying Christ suffered so that we could go free.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

This is manumission. This is freedom from slavery.

[B]

Yeah.

All right. Well, you've spent another perfectly good hour of your life listening to the Lord of Spirits podcast. We'll be back in a second with the third half of this episode.

[A]

Father Andrew Stephen Damick and father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[B]

The centuries after the Protestant Reformation brought.

[C]

About a radical reinterpretation of The Epistles of St. Paul, disconnected from any historical reality.

[A]

But Paul operated during his entire life as a faithful Pharisee within the Roman Jewish world.

[C]

In St. Paul the Pharisee, Jewish apostle.

[A]

To all nations, Father Stephen DeYoung surveys Paul's life and writings, interpreting them within.

[C]

The holy tradition of the Orthodox Church.

[A]

This survey is followed by DeYoung's interpretive.

[B]

Translation of St. Paul's appointment epistles, which.

[A]

Deliberately avoids overly familiar terminology. By using words and ideas grounded in.

[C]

1St century Judaism, DeYoung hopes to unsettle.

[B]

Commonly held notions and help the reader reassess St. Paul in his historical context.

[A]

Available now at store.ancient faith.com Again, that is store.ancient faith.com we're back now with the Lord of Spirits with Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF-RADIO.

[B]

Welcome back. What do you think, Father? Should we all buy a copy of that book?

[D]

Sure.

[B]

I mean, it's good. It actually, I mean, you cover some of this stuff in there.

[C]

I'm not capable of self shill, but.

[B]

I know, I know a lot of.

[C]

People seem to like that book.

[B]

This is why you have me the Stan Lee. Yes. You know. Yeah.

[C]

I am the Jack Kirby slaving away excelsior, producing content a mile a minute beyond one could imagine.

And you're out there selling it to the masses. See, that's a cooperative venture.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, Chris Stanley also took credit for all of it. So I don't, I don't try to refrain from that.

[B]

I don't do that. I don't do that. Yeah. I only take credit for the stuff that I do. Although I do sometimes suffer you being given credit for stuff that I have done.

[C]

Oh, yeah, well, there's people all over recommending, you know, Father Andrew Stephen Damek's book, Religion of the Apostles, so.

[B]

That's right. And Father Steven Deong.

[C]

It works both ways.

[B]

The Lord of Spirits. Yes, yes, yes.

[C]

Well, no, when they say that it's just because my foreword is the best part of the book.

[B]

That's.

[C]

I mean, that's what they're getting at there.

[B]

That 750 words is the best 750 words in a 68,000 word book. For sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

[C]

I mean, I kind of. You asked me to do a forward. I'm like, okay, follow that. Right. You know.

[B]

Okay. I mean. Yes. So now let's talk about it. The.

Well, there was one that was leaking in and then it disappeared. Somebody calling from New York and then it just. It went away. I don't know, they. They ran off.

Yeah, I don't know. If we get somebody then that, that looks promising. That's not, you know, asking about basketball scores or something?

I don't know. You big basketball fan, Father Stephen? No, no, I didn't.

[C]

And March Madness is over, is it? Well, it's April, so I mean, you know.

[B]

But doesn't it even, like.

[C]

It would not be March Madness at the beginning of.

[B]

I know, but there's an April insanity, I think, that follows Mark.

[C]

Okay, but Mark's madness is over. Why are you, why are you quibbling about this? You're just being fractious.

[B]

Now for the alliteration recalcitrant and the assonance.

What did you say, young man?

[C]

Welcome. Churlish. You have veered into the churlish, sir.

[B]

Do you bite your thumb at me, sir? I do bite my thumb at you, sir.

Okay, yeah. We're talking about the cross. We're talking about Christ's offering.

I mean, I don't want to belabor this point, but like, what is atonement? Even the right translation for a lot of the stuff that.

[C]

Not really.

[B]

Not really, but yes.

[C]

Now we return to the other piece of bread. In our atonement sandwich.

We have moved past the beef of manumission, the bread.

[B]

That is not corrupt.

[C]

To the.

[B]

The.

[C]

The final element and yes, so it's become increasingly popular as we've talked about in the Atonement episodes in the past. Right. The word atonement is just a neologism coined for translating the Bible into English.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

From AT one Mint. And then we've talked about all the cool, weird things like mercy seat that happen in the translation process. But.

Underlying that, of course, are Kepher verbs. Right. As in the Kapoor in Yom Kippur.

That are translated atonement. And more and more, pretty much everyone is agreeing that a better way to translate those verbs is something like purification or purgation.

[B]

Yeah. Because it means literally. I mean, we covered this in the Atonement episode, but I mean, it literally means like wiping or something like that.

[C]

To wipe or to smear.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

And so the idea of something being purified or purged or wiped away. Right. Like.

Covered over, those kind of ideas. So you'll find a lot of stuff. Like if you start reading scholarly literature about atonement, you'll start finding a lot of references to the day of purgation instead of the day of atonement or the day of purification.

So.

We talked way back in the first. Way back in the long ago time when the show began tonight, we talked about. In the first half, eight minutes.

In the first half, we talked about.

The goat. That's the goat for Azazel, the goat that's sent out from the camp. Okay, just lay our cards on the table. This third half now, we're talking about the second goat. We're talking about the goat for Yahweh. We're talking about the goat that gets offered as a sin offering.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And to that point, St. Paul speaks in 2nd Corinthians 5.

[B]

Yes. Where he says, for our sake he made him so. The Father made Jesus for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him, Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God.

[C]

That's how most English translations read, something like that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

That Christ was made to be sin.

And this is, again, this is one of those verses that people have been trained to read in this penal, substitutionary atonement way. Okay. But.

Here'S the thing they're missing, right? We've been talking about the Greek of the New Testament already. If you back translate this into Hebrew or Aramaic.

There'S a wordplay that underlies this, what St. Paul is doing here.

[B]

Yeah. There's a pun, right.

[C]

Because the word for sin and the word for sin offering, hatah in Hebrew are the same word.

Okay. So beyond the wordplay, what this is actually saying, if you translate the Greek, knowing the Semitic language that it represents, it's for our sake. He made him to be a sin offering who knew no sin, or he who knew no sin was made to be a sin offering.

So that in him we might become the righteousness of God. So this is saying Christ, who was sinless, we've already talked about Christ's sinlessness.

Becomes a sin offering.

[B]

Yeah. And as I recall from our discussion earlier.

That we were having off air, Saint Cyril of Alexandria says this. Like he makes this point. He interprets it this way.

[C]

This isn't just, oh, you know, I'm showing up with my new fangled Hebrew knowledge, you know, that none of the church fathers had. And reinterpreting all these things, the church fathers maintained this interpretation.

Even though most of them didn't know a lick of Hebrew. Now, St. Cyril of Alexandria happens to have been involved with the Jewish community in Alexandria in various ways. So he has a lot of knowledge of Jewish stuff at a relatively late date in the early 5th century.

[B]

Whether he can actually read Hebrew or not, he knows people who can.

[C]

Yes.

This is in the church fathers. They've maintained this. Right? So this isn't just a point about the Hebrew. So Christ makes himself a sin offering. What does that mean? How would that have been understood by someone to whom St. Paul is writing or to St. Paul, someone in that milieu? Well, it helps if you've read Second Maccabees, which I know a lot of our listeners haven't.

I'm not here to chide you for it, but. But, hey, you've read a lot of junk, man, in your life. Why haven't you read Second Maccabees?

[B]

I mean, I love a good Maccabees.

[C]

I'm reminded of one of my Protestant seminary professors. So you got to take into account. This is like 1999, right? Way back in the long ago time before many of our listeners were born.

[B]

It's true. It's true, Father.

[C]

Yes.

He publicly shamed all of us by saying, now, you gotta remember this is in a Protestant circumstance, right? He said, how many of you could get up here and recite the Nicene Creed right now? Right? And he's like, yeah, I bet you all know the lyrics to, like, five Britney Spears songs.

He said with some disgust, Right?

[B]

Yes.

[C]

So, you know.

If we take into account everything you've read in the last year, did you really not have time for Second Maccabees?

[B]

But anyway.

But there is, it so happens Some martyrdom going on in Second Maccabees.

[C]

So the central element of Second Maccabees, sort of the hub of the text of Second Maccabees, is the martyrdom of a woman and her seven sons and an old man named Eleazar, right? Where the Greek Seleucid.

Forces overlords.

Try to force her and Eliezer and her sons to violate the Torah in various ways, mostly by eating pork. And they refuse. And so she has to watch her sons one by one, be tortured to death in front of her to try to get her to violate God's commandments. And she refuses. And so this is important. This text is probably written in the first century B.C, the early first century B.C.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But it's important for understanding at the time of Christ how this idea, within the variegated Judaism of the time, how martyrdom was kind of understood. Right. This is exhibit A, the Maccabean martyrs, right. Who are also saints in the Orthodox Church, by the way, you could find icons of the Maccabean martyrs. The shrine where their relics were in Antioch was taken over by Christians, and St. John Chrysostom preached sermons there. But so within this martyrdom story, if you read the prayers that are being prayed by the people being tortured to death and by their mother and by Eliezer, the prayers talk about them asking God to receive their. Their deaths, sort of receive their lives that are being taken from them, to receive them as an atoning offering, as a sin offering on behalf of the people of Israel.

Because they have this awareness that, hey, we're suffering these things. In the case of the Maccabeean murderers, we're suffering these things because of our sins, right? The reason why we have these horrible overlords who are persecuting us and everything is because we have sinned, right? We have done wrong. We have not kept the commandments. We are under the curse of the Torah, right? And so they're asking God to receive their deaths where they're attempting to die faithfully, to receive their deaths as a sin offering, right? And to offer forgiveness to the people and thereby freedom, right, from these overlords. And so this is sort of this understanding of martyrdom. Now, if the Messiah. Right, which is what Christos. Which is what Christ means. He means the Messiah. If the Messiah himself.

Offers his life to God the Father as a sin offering, this would be sort of the sin qua non, the ultimate example of this.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[C]

That could be conceived of. And this is sort of the idea that St. Paul is working from when he talks about this.

So this is like the day of atonement. Sin offering.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Now remember, sin offerings in general did not require killing because they did not require an animal.

[B]

Yeah. Because there were some offerings that were not animals.

[C]

Sin offerings that were wheat cakes with oil poured on them.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And you could, you could kill a box of Little Debbies for sure. But that's metaphorical.

Right.

[B]

They're already dead.

And they may kill you.

[C]

Well, yeah. And after you're done killing that box of Little Debbies, you will feel dead in your sins and trespasses and wonder, what have I done? Be filled with shame. I love those.

[B]

In high school, though.

I used to sneak out during lunchtime.

I should not have been leaving campus and get a box of Little Debbie's. And then that was my lunch. It was very, very bad for me.

Probably still suffering from that 30 something years.

[C]

So don't necessarily require killing. Right. But it's something that's being offered to God. So that offering has an important step. That thing is taken and it is consecrated to God. It is set apart for God. This is what the general. Right. So there's this particular act that's performed on the goat that's sent out into the wilderness where when hands are laid upon it, the sins of Israel are pronounced over it.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

The text says that Leviticus 16.

[B]

Yeah. That's the, that's the goat for Azazel.

[C]

All the other places where hands are laid on an animal, it says nothing about that.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Now if you want to come to Ted to me and tell me. Oh, well, they just understood that when they were laying on hands, it meant that. Then why does Leviticus 16 have to spell it out.

[B]

And not say, and henceforth when you lay your hands on an animal, it means this.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

You know.

[C]

Yes. That's the only place you're told to do that. That doesn't make sense as an explanation. It's the only place you're told to do that. That means that's the only place they did that. The other times when they lay hands on an animal, they're consecrating it. They're setting it apart for God.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Just like one. Someone is ordained by the laying on of hands of the bishop. They don't then take him and kill him.

[B]

You didn't have the bishop speak his sins or somebody else's sins over you.

[C]

People said, I have enough of my own. I didn't need anybody else's put on me. Right. Yeah.

[B]

Usually quite on a man's mind as he's Being ordained actually are his sins.

[C]

You're consecrating it. You're setting it apart. You're saying, out of all the goats in Israel, this goat is the goat we're going to offer to God as a sin offering. Or this bull or this ram, or this sheep or this lamb. Right.

This is the one that we're setting apart for God. You do that through the laying out of hands. Likewise, ordination, I lay hands on you, you are now set apart for this particular purpose. Right. This holy purpose. Okay. And so this explains the language that we get in Scripture, particularly. Here's an example, though. There's several places, John 17, 19, that talk about Christ consecrating himself.

[B]

Yeah. Which if you think that consecrate means make this into a holy thing. That's. That's not what it means.

[C]

It means Christ was already holy.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Obviously. It means set aside, set apart, or set aside for this purpose. Like. Like, literally. Although you would never talk this way. I could say, you know, when I was making my cup of coffee before the show, I consecrated one of the mugs from my collection to be the one that would.

[C]

I would drink my coffee from, because that is not a holy purpose.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You don't even get good coffee, like rootless coffee from Flint, Michigan.

[B]

I do have good coffee, actually. I received three different bags of very good coffee during my many, many travels over the past few months.

[C]

Yes, rootless is better anyway.

But so, yeah, John 17, you have to think of when that comes in the narrative. Right. John 17 is where Christ is giving his long prayer before he's arrested.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So he says he's consecrating himself, meaning he's preparing to offer himself as a sacrifice. Right. He was already holy. He was holy through his whole life. He was pure through his whole life.

He definitely didn't mean he was putting all of the people's sins upon himself at that moment.

In John 17 before he was arrested. That doesn't make any sense.

[B]

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

So there's that first. Yeah.

[B]

I was gonna say before you. Before you go on for that. We actually have gotten a couple of calls. All right, so, yeah, so we've got Brian, who is from Pittsburgh, and he has a question about relics of the cross. At least that's what he told Mike. Spick and span again. So, Brian, are you there? Welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast.

[D]

Am Fathers, can you hear me?

[B]

Yeah, we hear you. What's up?

[C]

How was your life, Brian?

[D]

I tried not to watch that movie at this time of the year.

[B]

Ideal Ideal.

[D]

Yes. So actually my question was about relics of Saint Dismas's Cross. If there is a tradition of relics of Saint Christmas Cross and how they interact with the true cross, if at all. Or that something that is sort of like in church tradition. Is that sort of. Is that there or is it, is it known? Do they exist? Are they.

And yeah, how are the, how are they viewed? Do they. Yeah, that's kind of an open ended question. And then after you answer that, I actually have, I have something I wanted to shoot back to a previous episode real quick, but since I'm from Pittsburgh, I. Some Pittsburgh trivia, I wanted to answer that you guys brought up in a recent episode, but.

[B]

Oh yeah, all right.

[C]

I will briefly stall for time while Father Andrew does Google Fu.

[B]

I mean, I can do some Google Fu, I guess, but like, I'll say right off the head, off top of my head, that I've never heard of.

I've never heard of relics of Saint Dismas's Cross.

[C]

I would bet cash money they exist in Egypt.

[B]

Yeah, I mean there are, there are.

[C]

A ton of traditions about Saint Dismas in Egypt.

[B]

Oh, okay. I, I'm actually seeing now that.

There, there are. It is said that there are relics of Saint Dismas in a reliquary chapel.

In, at Notre Dame University and. Yes, yes. Believe it or not. Yes.

[C]

Where did the British steal them from? That's question.

[B]

Yeah, right, exactly.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Including a piece of his cross, it says.

So I don't know. I mean, I don't know anything about those relics. It wouldn't surprise me though because like when, when St. Helena found the, the cross. Right, the cross of the Lord, it was buried along with two other crosses. And so there was, you know, a question of which one is the Lord's cross. And you know, there are these stories about there was Basil growing over it, but also that they. I can't remember if it was a sick person or a dead person that they touched to. The dead person touched to, you know, them and came back to life when touching one particular set of, you know, these relics of the cross and they were able to determine that that was it. But you know, those other crosses were there, so it wouldn't surprise me.

[C]

There are, there are that kind of stuff.

[B]

I just never heard of that before.

[C]

There are icons of Saint Dismas. He is on the calendar for Holy Friday, actually.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And there are, in Egypt. There are a bunch of traditions about Israel, including that he and the other robber tried to rob Saints Mary and Joseph and James. When they were on their way to Egypt.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's that. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

[C]

Like earlier in Jesus life. So there are some sort of expansive Saint Dismas traditions out there.

[B]

Yeah. Such as, for instance, there's a town in California named San Dimas after him, which, as they say, San Dimas High school football rules.

[C]

Although I hear strange things that are afoot there at the Circle K.

[B]

So I don't know if that answers your question or not, Brian, but.

[D]

I was.

[B]

You asked how they're related to relics of the true cross? I mean, I would say that they're related in the sense that any relics are related.

But they're not. They're not considered pieces of Christ's cross. They're very clearly designated as something else.

Yeah.

So what's your Pittsburgh stuff that you've got?

[D]

I think it was two episodes ago. Oh, I'm sorry. I think it was two episodes ago you guys were joking that you could give the Presbyterians credit for producing one saint, and that was Fred Rogers.

[C]

I wasn't joking and I'm serious about that.

[D]

Well, well. So in Pittsburgh, though, there's a little bit of contention about. About who he ended up belonging to denominationally.

[B]

Really?

[D]

I happen to. Yes, Catholics will claim that he converted on his deathbed, and. And it's a. It's a jealously. Not jealously guarded secret anymore, but I actually knew the priest who claimed to be there and receive his. Or confirm him into the Catholic faith on his deathbed. That priest is now himself passed away, God rest his soul. But there. If you get into the weeds of this in the Catholic Church in Pittsburgh, there is a lot of claiming like, well, actually, we got him and he's one of ours.

[C]

Well, when's the Pope gonna canonize him?

[D]

You know what? I'm just gonna refrain from saying anything about the current page.

[C]

What could anybody of any political stripe have against Mr. Rogers? Here's what I say.

[B]

Well, I see. Okay. So I am doing a little Google Fu. And it is the case that at the very least, there is an article on the. It's called uscatholic.org and the article is titled the Saintliness of Fred Rogers.

[D]

Oh, there you go.

[B]

I don't know.

Yeah, I think. I mean, the idea that he. Yeah. Did he have a deathbed conversion to Catholicism? We may never know.

[D]

Well, we probably won't really ever know. But it is interesting, though, that in the cemetery he's buried, which is a Presbyterian cemetery, there is a stained glass window of Saint Uriel the archangel over his tomb.

Which is kind of surprising for a Presbyterian.

Burial.

[B]

Yeah, how about that?

[C]

Those Northern Presbyterians, man, they get up to some stuff.

[B]

They let you do just anything here in Pennsylvania. It's a land of freedom.

Religious freedom. Anyway. All right, well, thanks very much for calling, Brian. Interesting question. Interesting little Pittsburgh.

Yinzer lore there.

All right, we're going to take one more call, and we've got Roger calling all the way from the Great White Zephone.

[C]

So Roger from Wajo neighbor to continue a joke.

[D]

Hello, Father, thank you for taking my call.

[B]

Yes, yes, you're welcome.

[D]

It's still cold here. But.

My question is about the grammar. I've always been intrigued about the ancient Hebrew. Like the first Hebrew, you used to use, like symbols, and then it kind of evolved. Is there a book that show us the grammar that they used to use back then? Or it was kind of evolved later on. And about the Greek Dionysius Starks did. Was the grammar from Dionysius kind of impose its grammar to the New Testament writers or. It seems a little bit complex for me to go into and study all that with philology and etymology, and I just want to know if any.

It seems a little bit misleading sometimes if I go too much into it because it's like a new area by itself. So I don't know if you can comment on that a little bit.

[B]

Well, this is definitely your question, Father Stephen.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. So Paleo Hebrew, which is what that's called, has a. Basically a different way of writing, the same Alphabet. It looks very different. Right. So the Hebrew Alphabet you're used to seeing, if you've looked at Hebrew writing, like modern Hebrew or even a biblical Hebrew text, that is actually the Aramaic block lettering. That is an Aramaic writing style, not the way Hebrew was written. Paleo Hebrew is the way Hebrew was written through most of the period of the Old Testament. But that is again, that's a different Alphabet. That's a different writing style. It doesn't really have different grammar. Now, Hebrew grammar in and of itself is a completely different beast.

Than Indo European language grammar. So, like Greek and Latin follow very similar structures, and those are structures that continue to exist in languages like French and Spanish and English even.

But Hebrew really doesn't do that. They don't really have verb tenses. There are two things that are called tenses, but there's only two of them, and neither of them has anything to do with time.

So either of them could be used. They're called the perfect and the imperfect. That's confusing, too, because that's not what perfect and imperfect mean like in English grammar or Greek grammar.

They could be past, present or future, depending on context. So, like, the kind of structures we take for granted in grammars don't exist in Hebrew and most other Semitic languages by the time you get to like Arabic, like especially modern dialects of Arabic. There are things that are a lot closer to the kind of structures we're used to just because of the give and take culturally and the development of languages.

But.

Hebrew in particular, and even into Aramaic and even into Syriac has a very different kind of grammar. And so then that is part of what I'm talking about with the New Testament is there's, there's chunks of the New Testament that the words are Greek and the letters are Greek, but they're using Hebrew and Aramaic grammatical constructions.

[B]

That.

[C]

Are not correct Greek grammatical constructions. So I've told this story, I think before on the show, that when I was taking classical Greek, I was at a classical Greek graduate seminar. And on the last day, as a prank, the professor handed out some pages from the Gospel of John and the students all freaked out and didn't know what to do. They're like, this isn't Greek.

Because like, it doesn't follow the rules of classical Greek at all, right? I mean, it's Greek words and it's Greek letters. But the grammar St. John uses is mostly Semitic grammatical forms.

And so you can verify even by somebody who, you know.

Wants to buy into this whole Kini Koine Greek thing, that this is a real Greek dialect beyond just the New Testament. Like Wallace, right? Compare Wallace's.

New Testament Greek grammar, Greek grammar, beyond the basics. Compare his Greek grammar to like Smythe's classical Greek grammar. They're completely different. Like it's like two different languages because it's two different languages.

So I've said before, and I'll say again, you can't really understand the New. If you just go and learn classical Greek, you cannot understand the New Testament. You will misunderstand the New Testament over and over and over again.

You have to know some Hebrew and, or Aramaic.

To really understand the New Testament. If you can't do that, then you just need to go and take a look, like I've said tonight several times, take a look at the Old Testament Greek.

How they translated the Hebrew into Greek. And you can derive from the Greek Old Testament, you can derive the kind of rules that you need to understand the Greek of the New Testament.

But that's kind of an after the fact thing because what you're really learning by looking at the Greek Old Testament is you're really learning Hebrew grammatical principles.

Just through this lens of Greek translation.

[B]

I don't know if that helps you, Roger, or it makes you think, oh, that's just too much.

[D]

No, absolutely. Like, I find it intriguing that.

The Jews and the Dead Sea scroll or other, they never wrote, like, a grammatical book.

And I'm like, this is like, there must be something why they didn't do that.

Either it was simpler than what we think, or I don't know.

[C]

But, yeah, it's very flexible. Very flexible. Like in Greek and Latin, especially Latin, there are tons of rules, right? Hebrew grammar, there are far less rules. And what that lets you do is it's great for poetry.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

Like in the Psalms and stuff, right? You could just put words near each other. You could put words in different orders. You can move things around. You could have words and phrases that mean two different things, and you could do that on purpose, just kind of mean both of them at the same time. Right. And. And so the Hebrew language has its own beauty in that way. They exploit the ambiguousness of their grammar.

But you don't have the kind of precision. So if you try to approach it the way you'd approach Latin, which is a very precise language, that's why it's still used for things like law, like jurisprudence and medical terminology and stuff. Latin is a very precise language. Hebrew is not. And Hebrew authors and poets use that to their advantage, turn that into a. It's more of an artistic language than a precise language.

[B]

All right, well, thank you very much for calling in, Roger. It's good to. Good to hear from you.

All right, we're going to roll on. So we were talking about Christ consecrating himself. I don't want to say. Yes, consecrating himself. And what exactly that means that he's set aside for. For the sacrifice.

[C]

Right. And so that's sort of the first movement of offering a sacrifice is you consecrate the thing.

[B]

Yeah, Right. This. This thing.

[C]

But then once the thing has been consecrated and offered as a sacrifice.

Right, this includes, like, food that's offered as sacrifices. This includes incense, Right. Then the product of that offering.

[B]

Right?

[C]

So if it's an animal that's being sacrificed, it's blood. If it's incense or a wheat cake that's being sacrificed, it's the smoke, right? The product of the offering, the sort of byproduct of offering that as a sacrifice, because that is being produced from this now sacred thing that has been consecrated and moved into sacred space that now, that blood or that smoke is now holy and has the ability to purify. Right. And so the smoke from the altar of incense, the incense is taken, put into sensors, carried around to purify, as we've talked about on the show before. Right. The blood from the sin offering on the day of atonement is taken and used to cleanse and to purify the sanctuary. Right. And in one John, First John, short letter, but is actually the book of the New Testament that uses the term translated atonement the most times in the New Testament. Right. And it's fascinating to me that despite that, despite the fact that it talks about atonement more and more clearly than any other book of the New Testament, when atonement conversations come up and conversations about Christ's cross, almost no one refers to one John.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

It's all the passages at St. Paul that we've already got over tonight.

[B]

Right. Okay. So this passage we're going to look at right now from First John, chapter one is verses seven through nine. 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. So note the cleansing language there. I mean, this is atonement language attached.

[C]

To the blood of Christ.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[C]

Like the blood of the goat that's given as a sin offering, washed in the blood. And so this, of course, brings up the word propitiation in Latin. We've talked about this before, the atonement episodes, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

But there are folks out there who want to say propitiation always means someone's angry, that propitiation means to turn aside wrath.

And we'll see how much people have been paying attention so far this episode. When they try to argue for that interpretation, they'll point to the Greek word and they'll say, well, look. Okay, well, they'll say, well, look, every case we have of these words being used in Greek outside of the New Testament, it's referring to some spiritual being. See, we're getting vague here. That should be your first tip off some spiritual being that is angry or wrathful in some way being appeased.

So as soon as you start hearing vague terms like spiritual being instead of God, and you start hearing terms like.

Angry or Wrathful in some way. Quasi quidum.

And appeased in some sense.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Those kind of vague words. You should think to yourself, okay, they just said all the references, and then they got real fuzzy here at the edges because they're trying to include a whole bunch of different things under one heading. Right. And trying to kind of blur them all together. Right. So. And there are a bunch of things they're not telling you. Like, none of these words are used in any extra biblical sources outside of the Greek Old Testament and the New Testament until the third century ad.

[B]

Oh.

Yes. I mean, clearly the way that we use English words now determines how you should understand English from 200 years ago.

[C]

Yes, yes. No, no, no. Better than that. The way pagans used a term 200 years later tells you how you should interpret Jewish people using those words 200 years before.

[B]

Yeah.

Yeah.

[C]

Right. And then when you go and investigate, the reason they have to say, like, supernatural beings is there's stuff about ghosts.

There's stuff. Right. They're taking all these very disparate stories.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And trying to pull them all together.

[B]

You know, I mean, one of the things. One of the things about this that. That always comes to my mind.

There was. I think it was. It was very memorable. I think it was Metropolitan Hirothius Vlakos who talks about.

At least for this one thing, he says that the problem with the idea that.

What humanity is trying to do is to make it so God is not mad at us. Right. Is he says that this suggests rather than man needing the therapy. And he means that in the most literal sense of therapy not to be healed, rather than man needing the therapy, that we think that God needs the therapy. It's God who needs to change.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, God is the one who needs to calm down.

[C]

Yeah. God changes his attitude toward us, and we don't change anything. It doesn't sound like the New Testament to me.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it turns out that repentance actually is a thing that humans have to do.

[C]

Yeah. But so. Yeah. So propitiation very simply means something aimed at rendering someone propitious.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Which means pleased or happy with you. Right. Something that is pleasing, so that can involve wrath.

Right. If I stop and get flowers on the way home, it may be because my wife is mad at me for trying to build a shelf ziggurat in my library. True. Smiles. Very upset at me about this.

[B]

Take photos next time you do that.

[C]

I had plans, but. Did I tell you I invented the library island?

[B]

Oh, yes, I remember this.

[C]

I invented a Piece of furniture. The library island. It's like a kitchen island, but it's for your library. Right. I got four short bookcases, identical. Sent them back to back at a rectangle. Got a piece of wood, made a flat top, put it on top. So there's shelves around the outside of the island. And then you have a work table in your library.

[B]

There you go. And there's shelves down.

[C]

But I was threatening to turn it into a shelf ziggurat by getting a slightly smaller layer of shelves above that. And then possibly at an end, she became quite irate. So it might be that's why I'm buying her flowers on the way home.

[B]

The great or lesser ziggurat of Lafayette.

[C]

To appease her wrath at my Tower of Babel. Esque. I was gonna say library activities.

[B]

Descend and scatter the nations.

[C]

I will get a stack of books that reaches to the heavens.

Or this is the most on topic.

[B]

Digression ever on the Lord.

[C]

Or she might have gotten over the whole shelf ziggurat thing. And I may just be buying her flowers because I love her.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And I think it will make her happy if I come home with flowers for her.

[B]

Make her propitious.

[C]

Either of those are possible. Right. The fact that she's angry is not implied by the fact that. That I'm trying to do something to please her.

[B]

Yeah. Right.

[C]

It doesn't even imply that she's displeased.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Right.

So, yes.

Christ's self offering to God the Father was a propitiation. He offered himself as a pleasing offering to his Father. His faithfulness, his righteousness, his holiness are pleasing to God the Father.

Doesn'T mean he's angry. Certainly not at Christ.

[B]

Right, Right.

[C]

But not even at us. Right.

So once again, we come back to see some of the themes here tonight. Participation rather than substitution.

[B]

Yeah. How do we participate in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Every time we have the Divine Liturgy, particularly.

[C]

Right. And that's in two ways. So the one that we've hopefully made clear in a few past episodes is eating. Right. That's how you participate in a sacrifice.

By eating part. Right.

[B]

By the way, I have to tell you that your wife has weighed in.

[C]

On the shelf cigarette.

[B]

The YouTube chat. Yes. She says, quote, I'm not over the ziggurat, so you may need to have to do a little more propitiation.

[C]

Yes. There may be some more propitiation required.

So see, this is verifying that this is true. This was a scheme I actually tried.

So.

So there's the Participation in the Eucharist.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And that's what eating the body and blood of Christ is all about. Right. It's St. John's Gospel. Right. This is something that when people are interpreting John six, they never bring up. Is all of this sacrificial language related to Christ later in St. John's Gospel. Right. You got to take the whole thing. Right. What are the themes in St. John's Gospel?

So we participate in the Eucharist, right. But the whole course of the Divine Liturgy, we repeat this over and over again, again and again. We repeat it that we are offering ourselves to God and our whole lives and our whole selves and each other, our whole community, our whole family, we are offering to God. Right. So we participate in Christ's self offering. Eucharistically, we also participate in Christ's self offering by offering ourselves and our lives to God. Just as Christ offered himself and his life to God the Father, he doesn't do it in our place, so we don't have to. Right. We do it in and with Christ.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And this is exactly what St. Paul is talking about in Romans 12, which even though it comes after a therefore. Right.

Some of our Calvinist friends start ignoring romans after chapter 11, right. Chapter 12, verse 1. It's right after that though. And the therefore means this is the result of all the stuff I was just saying.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Having said all that stuff in the first 11 chapters now.

[B]

Yeah. In verse one says this, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present yourself, your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

[C]

Yeah, There you go. Right. The result of those passages we quoted earlier from Romans, those arguments from Romans in the first two halves, what does that lead to? That leads to us as Christ consecrated himself and offered himself to God, we do the same.

[B]

Yeah. You know, as we, as we finish up this episode.

The thing that struck me the most, of course, is this sense that, you know, it's not, it's not substitution, it's participation. Right. Christ, who is the firstborn from the dead, the first, first, first in so many ways that we then follow him, so he's made a way and then we walk the way. Right. And so we, we live the life of Christ, meaning we do the things that he did and live the way that he lived. And then, and then this ultimate thing that St. Paul says here, that we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And, and I think.

This of course is a very well known verse in the scriptures. And I think in a lot of ways it gets kind of evacuated of meaning because of the way that worship is understood here in modern America as meaning any kind of religious thing that you do or religious feeling thing that you do. I mean, I, I've said this before and I don't know in other places probably, but I don't remember if I've said it on this show or not. But I mean, I've heard, obviously, you know, singing songs is called worship, hearing sermons is called worship. But I've even heard, you know, getting together with a group of friends and having a beer at a restaurant called worship. Meaning that. What does that word mean in all those contexts? Well, it means we got together and felt religious, whatever that means. Exactly. And so, you know, when you say, then present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

Then that means nothing if sacrifice doesn't have any positive content. You know, spiritual worship, it doesn't have any positive content, just means getting together and feeling religious or something like that.

But I think, I mean, one of the problems that we have in the modern world is that a lot of times we've taken these words that do have a literal sense and then there's a metaphorical sense which is perfectly good, but we've forgotten the literal sense and we keep only the metaphorical sense. Right? I mean, we've talked about this a lot of times on this show.

And this verse is talking about.

Human beings being a sacrifice in a metaphorical sense, that this is a spiritual worship in a metaphorical sense. Now, metaphorical does not mean unreal, right? Because the literal sense of our bodies being a sacrifice would mean that we are being killed and put on altars and burnt before God. You know, like that is what a sacrifice is. You know, it's about foodstuffs being put on an altar and burned up to God. I mean, read Leviticus. So obviously that's not what St. Paul is advocating here. He's not talking about human sacrifice. And he clues us in. He says, a living sacrifice, right? So he's saying, hey, I'm using a metaphor here, you guys.

So, so what does that, what can we take away from that metaphor then? Well, I mean, number one, everything we've just said for the last three hours, but also in terms of application.

Understanding all that we've just said, you know, connected to what, like one of the callers said, he says, well, there is this cosmic atonement that's occurred, but I have to live my life. And what does that mean for my life. So what exactly is a sacrifice? So understand the literal so that the metaphorical makes sense. Right? So, so a sacrifice in the literal sense is this food that is put in front of your God as a shared meal with your God, and it's unitive between you and your God. Right? It's this offering of hospitality to your God, and you are connected. And of course, part of what's going on in the Christian sacrifice, the Christian Eucharist, is that it's God who's actually the one offering the hospitality. He offers himself and shares himself. That's all going on there. He's the priest. He's also the one who's being sacrificed and so forth. So if we understand that that's what it is, is a shared meal with your God. So when he says offer your bodies with living sacrifice, and it has these same purposes, then that means that the way that we live should function as a unifying.

Movement between not just us and God, but obviously, number one, between us and God, but also between each other. That the way that we live ought to bind the Christian community together. Right? Because that's what sacrifices do. Among other things, the way that we live should be a hospitality that invites people in and makes them part of our community.

Right? And the reason why we can do this and it's effective is because Christ has done it and he's doing it in us. This is why we say Christ is in our midst. He's not just in our midst so that we have this presence. He's in our midst to enliven us, to live his life in this world, to be in the world, but not of the world. And the point is, you know, as Christ did not come to condemn the world, but to save it, we are here living the life of Christ, not to condemn the world, but to save it. Right? And so this language of living sacrifice is actually much more potent when we understand what the sacrifice of Christ is, and this is everything we've just been talking about in this episode, and we understand more broadly what sacrifices are, what the general category of sacrifice is, which we have spoken about many, many, many times throughout this whole podcast for almost five years now.

Bringing all of that together, then that should invigorate us, number one, so we have a clear vision of what this Christian life is.

And then having that vision, then to live it in such a way that that passes on that vision to other people, but. But most especially invites them in so that our act of love is joined to what Christ did and is doing. And continues to do in us, through us, you know, in his saints, through his saints. And that's the way that this.

Cleanses the whole world is, is that he's just as he sent out the apostles, as he was about to ascend into heaven, he has also sent us out. Now, we may not all be preachers, we may not all be called to baptize, right? But we are all called to participate in that Great commission. And the way that all of us are called to participate in that great Commission is to love one another. Christ said, by this will, all men know that you are my disciples, that you have love for one another. This is. This is a powerful, powerful thing. And I think especially here in. In 2025, where we know that people feel more and more isolated, people feel more and more alone, and people. There is a real meaning crisis that has occurred, people looking for meaning. Well, meaning is not just something that. That lands like in your head. It's a life that you live. Like you can become convinced of a truth or, okay, but you got to live somewhere, right? And what is it that we have as the church? We have the life, we have the way, we have the truth, we have the life. Christ himself. And so as we look upon the cross, and I mean, and not just the things we've said in this episode, but, you know, we're. We're inches now from Holy Week when we're recording this episode. As we look upon the cross, as we look upon the suffering of Christ. I mean, this is part of why we timed this episode for right now, because we're about to enter into that suffering and a ritual liturgical way.

You know, let it transform you to the extent that you're able at this point in your life. Let it transform you so that, you know, when we sing that line, glory to thy long suffering, O Christ.

That we are there and joining our suffering to his suffering, joining our love to his love, joining our sacrifice to his sacrifice for the life of the world and for its salvation.

Father.

[C]

So hopefully this episode was a suitable answer to folks about. We kind of get asked, you know, well, you've kind of torn apart penal substitutionary atonement and this other kind of atonement views. What's a more positive view then of Christ's Cross and what it does? Hopefully, we've kind of provided that.

In tonight's episode. So what I want to talk about now is sort of the. Therefore, brethren proceeding forth from that. And to do that, I kind of want to talk about another passage that talks about the Cross that we haven't mentioned yet tonight, where Christ says, if anyone would follow me, he must take up his cross and follow me.

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Or what would a man give in return for his soul?

I think this is a text that gets misunderstood a lot. Maybe it gets interpreted in some odd ways. But I think we need to see it in light of a passage we did.

Talk about this evening in Hebrews that talked about.

The devil being the one who wields the power of death and that our slavery, our slavery to sin is a product of the fear of death.

Because the reality is every one of us who's born into this world.

[D]

Is.

[C]

Going to, at some point.

If we live for very long, at least going to face suffering and eventually is going to face death. We're going to face struggles, we're going to face difficulties, we're going to face hardships.

Both from our own sin and from the sin that's out in the world.

And we can't avoid it. It's not like we could just opt not to do it.

Right? Sometimes people talk about taking up the cross as if, right? The other option is, oh, well, I just won't suffer. I'll just have a happy, nice life.

That's not reality.

The reality is the actual alternative.

That pretty much all of us, I think, and especially me, fall into is.

The fear of that. The fear of suffering, hardship and struggle and death, and therefore the avoidance of it at all costs. And we find different ways to avoid it.

Some of us think, well, if I could just get enough money.

Then I'll be safe. I could protect myself. I won't have to suffer. Maybe I could even keep myself alive forever.

I won't have to think about it. I won't have to worry about it. I can pad everything. Or we think, if I could just get enough control of my life, or we think, well.

I can't get enough money or I can't get enough control of my life to stop this stuff from happening. But I can forget about it.

I can drink or drug myself into oblivion. I can immerse myself in entertainment to avoid at least thinking about it for hours and hours at a time. I can shut everything off and just avoid thinking about it until I'm absolutely confronted by it. And then I will escape from it and the thought of it as quickly as I possibly can.

But that doesn't work.

We don't actually game the whole world.

Christ is asking that as a rhetorical question. Even if that was successful. Even if you got all the money in the world.

You'Re a richest Croesus, right? Jeff Bezos was coming and asking him to borrow money from you.

Right? What does that do for your soul?

What does that do to stop you from having to face death, from having to face trouble and struggle and difficulty and suffering?

Nothing.

And you can't be blitzed out of your mind all the time, not without dying. And then you've run right into the thing you were running away from.

So what Christ is presenting to us is a different path. And that path begins when we take the suffering of this life.

We take the fact that someday we're going to die and we shoulder it.

We own up to it, we bear up under it, we accept it, and we go forward. Nonetheless.

We remain faithful to God in what we do. Nonetheless.

We engage in the struggles we suffer, the heartbreak we suffer, the pain and the difficulties of life.

Because we're following Christ.

We know the path that Christ took led him through unbelievable suffering. Not just talking about the cross.

[B]

The.

[C]

Rejection and alienation he faced his whole life.

The ridicule by people.

Culminating, of course, in the kind of death we talked about at the very beginning of this show. The horrific, nightmarish, torturous death that he suffered voluntarily.

But we know that that's not the end of his journey. That's not the end of the road. He walked.

The other side of that death and that pain and that suffering was glory.

Was consolation, was joy.

That doesn't have an end.

That exists in the world to come.

None of the things of this world can save your life.

And when the time comes that you face death, because you have to, and there's no way around it.

You can't exchange all that stuff you've accumulated.

To try and get your life back.

But if we follow Christ through the difficulties and pains of this world, through the struggles and the hardships that are all very real.

And we continue following him, we will follow him through to the other side.

And enter into the light and the joy of Pascha and the resurrection and of a life that has no end.

So those are my final thoughts for tonight.

[B]

That is our show for tonight. Thank you very much, everyone, for listening. If you didn't happen to get through us, live this time, we'd still like to hear from you. You can email us@lordofspirits and ancientfaith.com, you can message us at our Facebook page, or you can leave us a [e-mail] LordOfSpirits and if you have basic questions about Orthodox Christianity or you need help to find a parish, head over to orthodoxintro.org join us for a live broadcast.

[C]

On the same second and fourth Thursdays of the month at 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific. Am I wrong? Have I run too far to get home? Have I gone and left you here alone?

[B]

If you're on Facebook, you can follow our page, you can join our discussion group, leave reviews and ratings in all the places and share this show with a friend whom you know is going to love it or someone who will hate it.

[C]

And finally, be sure to go to actionfaith.com stroke support and help make sure we and lots of other AFR podcasters stay on the air. If I would, could you thank you.

[B]

Good night. God bless you all.

[A]

You've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Frank Stephen DeYoung, a listener supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio and I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and Blessing. Revelation, chapter 5, verses 11 through 12.