Friday, March 18, 2022

Deuterononomy 24:16 And The Death Of Jesus

The death of Jesus can be misunderstood as a sort of human sacrifice or some other event manipulated by Yahweh without regard for the wishes of Jesus himself.  Several key verses in the Old Testament like Deuteronomy 24:16 addressing the injustice of executing someone for another person's sin (and thus by extension punishing them in any way, not just by capital punishment) are relevant to the issue, yet none of them contradict the goal or method of the atonement.  Whether or not Christianity is true, the theological concept of Christ's sacrifice is not one of God forcing someone to be punished on behalf of someone who has sinned in the sense that they were an oblivious or mistreated pawn.  There is even a major aspect of the death of Jesus that is completely overlooked by most people with regard to the issue at hand about the injustice of his fate.

First of all, Roman-style crucifixion is a heinously abusive and therefore unjust punishment by the standards of Mosaic Law as it is, rendering anyone's crucifixion evil according to Biblical moral ideas from the start.  Everything from its combination of flogging and execution to its intentionally prolonged duration to its infliction specifically on non-citizens and foreigners is unjust [1].  Second, there is an enormous distinction between a voluntary sacrifice and a forced death when a person has not committed a capital sin (a sin deserving capital punishment).  The Bible forbids the latter as an injustice, while the former is something any person is morally free to enact if they desire so, even though no one is obligated to sacrifice themselves for others--no one sins for not allowing himself or herself to die for someone else.

Deureronomy 24:16 does condemn executing a parent for the crimes of their son or daughter, and vice versa, but this is specifically about intending to punish the innocent by arbitrarily or maliciously killing people who had nothing to do with an offense.  While this idea is obviously already present in every command to punish someone for a given sin that qualifies as a Biblical crime, since it says to punish the wrongdoer and not a friend, family member, or unrelated person, there are records suggesting some ancient cultures actually did punish family members for someone else's real or imagined wrongs.  Perhaps Deuteronomy 24:16 specifies something that is already an inherent part of Mosaic Law's commands because of this.  However, punishing a person for their sins is a foundational part of Biblical justice.

Now, the death of Jesus as described by the Bible is not a case of a random, unwilling person killed for the offenses of others and is not condemned by Deuteronomy 24.  The Jesus presented by the Bible is autonomously willing to give his life for the sake of others, and he even says this directly in John 10.  Multiple times in this chapter of John, he makes this point.  He first introduces the analogy of a benevolent shepherd before he identifies himself as the "good shepherd," adding that he lays down his life for his flock (John 10:11).  Shortly after comes a vital clarification about the giving of his own life: "No one takes it from me, but I give it of my own accord" (10:18).  The sacrifice of Jesus as the Bible describes it is a voluntary one.

Thus, within the context of Christian theology, the death of Jesus is quite different from an unwilling innocent getting arbitrarily killed for another being's sins.  That Mosaic Law condemns things that are far from possessing the cruelty of Roman crucifixion only further demonstrates that the death of Jesus was not a moral necessity out of justice, for nothing about his crucifixion or any crucifixion is just according to Biblical standards.  Either this fact about Christian moral theology or the open admission of Jesus that he chooses to give his life is enough to refute the notion that the sacrificial death of Jesus contradicts previous Biblical claims about justice (also, Jesus did not need to be crucified, only killed for the basic soteriological outcome to be achieved [2]).  This might be subjectively bothersome to some people, but nothing is true or false, probable or improbable, or knowable or unknowable because someone wants it to be that way.



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