Tag Archives: Unpunishable

02/23/21

“Unpunishable” is Unpalatable, Part 4

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In chapter 6 of Unpunishable, “Discipline in the New Testament,” Danny Silk opened with an anecdote of a situation where his sixteen-year-old son stayed out all night. Silk’s assessment of story was that it illustrated discipline, not punishment. He said although the two words are often used interchangeably, “biblically they are completely different experiences that produce very different results.” He then referenced another anecdote from chapter 1 with a pastoral staff member of his home church of Bethel who had committed adultery … twice. The man assessed what happened to him as a contrast between punishment and discipline: “When the first affair happened, I was punished . . . The second time, I was disciplined.” Silk then quoted a passage in Hebrews, saying it was a famous passage on discipline, showing us “what, how and why we learn,” and yet again his interpretation of the passage was biblically unpalatable.

Silk began by saying the word discipline comes from the same word as disciple, meaning learner. He seems to be drawing on the English meaning of the word. Merriam-Webster said discipline comes from discipulus, the Latin word for pupil, which also was the source for the word disciple. However, dicipline can mean punish or chastise as well as teach or train. In fact, the earliest known use of discipline appears to be punishment-related. It was first used in the 13th century to refer to chastisement of a religious nature, such as self-flagellation.

The English sense of discipline does not have a stark difference from the word punishment, at least as Silk uses the two terms in his discussion of the punishment paradigm. But he claimed there were biblical differences that produce very different results. So, let’s look at Hebrews 12:1-11, which he referred to as the famous passage on discipline. He quoted from the Passion Translation, a paraphrase favored by Bill Johnson, a senior leader of Bethel Church.

Note first that he edited out the beginning of verse 1 and completely left verses 2 and 9-10 out of his quote. The initial part of verse 1 (TPT) edited out was: “As for us, we have all these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds.” As Silk is using the passage to support his sense of discipline, it seems he edited out the reference to the “great cloud of witnesses” in chapter 11 in order to center the passage on the point he wanted to illustrate.

Verse 2 in the Passion Translation translated a phrase as “conquered its humiliation” that in the ESV is given as “despising the shame.” This may be the reason for editing out verse 2, as the footnote in the Passion Translation said the Greek meaning is “thinking of its shame.” The Louw-Nida lexicon said the Greek word used here means “a painful feeling due to the consciousness of having done or experienced something disgraceful—‘shame, disgrace.’ Silk connected shame with Adam and Eve realizing they were naked as the consequence of their sin of eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The core belief of his punishment paradigm is shame-based.

In the section of Unpunishable where he quoted Hebrews 12, “Punishment vs. Discipline,” Silk is contrasting the two, punishment and discipline. Quoting a verse that even obliquely alluded to shame would confuse the point he was trying to make, so it seems he did not include it. See Part 1 for more discussion on shame and its relationship to the core belief of the punishment paradigm.

Excluding verses 9-10 seems to have a similar intent, as the verses compare the discipline of God and human fathers. In verse 9, the comparison is an a fortiori argument, from the lesser to the greater: if we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, how much more should we respect God our Heavenly Father. In verse 10, the comparison is between temporal and eternal discipline: our earthly discipline has value in this world, but God’s discipline is eternal, for a life that never ends. The verses suggest a greater and lesser discipline, or a temporal and eternal one. The nuance does not fit with the stark contrast Silk wants to portray between punishment and discipline.

After giving his edited quote of Hebrews 12:1-11, Silk said: “The first thing to notice here is that in the new covenant, discipline is a relational exchange between the Father and His children.” Although we do experience discipline by human authority figures, that discipline only functions correctly when those figures accurately represent the heart of the Father. Silk wants to position his sense of discipline in the new covenant as fundamentally between us and the Father. The second thing to see is that the Father’s goal in this exchange is “to heal us of our wounds, train us to overcome sin, and transform our character.”

In other words, in the new covenant, discipline is focused on benefitting the person who has made the mess. In the punishment paradigm, the focus in on protecting the interests of everyone but the offender. . . . This is His process for helping His kids unlearn the punishment paradigm and rebuild their lives in His punishment-free relational paradigm of love, trust, and freedom. Where else can He best show us that His heart is not to punish us, but to remove our shame, forgive us, free us from the fear of punishment, and lead us into loving, safe connection with Him than in our messes and mistakes?

Silk wants to represent his punishment paradigm as the antithesis of Godly discipline. Discipline is what happens in progressive sanctification, as the Father seeks to heal and transform us. Punishment occurs when we are disconnected from the Father, and as a result, strive to avoid punishment, making self-preservation our priority. On page 108, he presented the following as a basic breakdown of the stark differences between punishment and discipline.

Punishment Discipline
Upholding the rules Restoring the relationship
Pain is inflicted/imposed Pain is embraced
Worldly sorrow Godly sorrow
Repentance is irrelevant Repentance is essential
Forgiveness is irrelevant Forgiveness is essential
Requires submission of control Requires responsibility, self-control
Stopping bad behavior Transforming heart
Good behavior is compliance and manipulative Good behavior is fruit of love
Powerless Powerful
Fear-driven Love-driven
Goal of self-preservation Goal of connection
External law Internal law

In summary, it is clear Silk sees an antithetical contrast between punishment and discipline as he describes the punishment paradigm. He said that biblically, they were different experiences, producing very different results. His comment that the word discipline comes from the same word as disciple had some nuance that casts doubt on how he conceived the contrast between punishment and discipline. The Latin word discipulus was the source for disciple. Yet it could also mean punish or chastise. In the 13th century it was used to refer to religious chastisement, such as self-flagellation.

If as Silk said, there is a clear biblical difference between the two terms punishment and discipline, we should see this difference reflected in what he called “the famous passage on discipline,” Hebrews 12:1-11. The Passion Translation is problematic here with some key verses, 12:5b-6: “My child, don’t underestimate the value of the discipline and training of the Lord God, or get depressed when he has to correct you. 6 For the Lord’s training of your life is the evidence of his faithful love. And when he draws you to himself, it proves you are his delightful child.” The Passion Translation said in a footnote that the phrase “draws you to himself” means scourges or chastises in the Greek, but then seems to improperly derive its meaning from the Aramaic word nagad, which can mean “scourge” or “draw.”

There is absolutely no justification for incorporating an Aramaic word into the text here. All other translations Silk uses in Unpunishable, the NIV, the NKJV, and the NASB translate the word in Hebrews 12:6 as chastens or scourges. The Greek word used here in Hebrews 12:6 is mastigoi, which means to chastise or punish with discipline in mind. Used in John 19:1, it has the sense of flog or scourge: “And Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.” The Theological Word Book of the New Testament said mastigoi was used in Hebrews 12:6 to mean to impart corrective punishment. “As the education of a beloved child may sometimes demand blows, so God may sometimes smite His children.”

The Greek word translated as discipline in the Passion Translation, the ESV and the NIV, is paideia, which is derived from pias, meaning “child.” It is not derived from mathetes, meaning disciple, as Silk suggested. David Allen, in his commentary on Hebrews said paideia’s meaning can range between training and corporal punishment: “Generally speaking, it refers to education in Greek tradition and to discipline by punishment in Hebrew tradition. Allen added the following comments:

Sometimes, however, God employs chastising hardships to punish sin in our lives. Along with discipline, God employs fatherly correction. This is not to be thought of as the damning wrath of God, but rather as the corrective punishment of a parent. Verse 6 tells us of these heavenly spankings: “[He] chastises every son whom he receives.” The key word is mastigoi, which means scourging or whipping as an intense form of punishment. If we think God would never do that, we are obviously mistaken. While we are not judicially punished by God as Judge—Christ having borne all the penalty of our sin on the cross—God as Father gives painful, corrective punishment the way any loving parent does, because he wants us to grow up the right way. Many Christians have gratefully testified that the only way God got through to them in their sin and stubbornness was to allow a painful ordeal—the loss of a job, a severe illness, persecution for their faith. Eventually they recognized this as a sign of fatherly care, the kind that only beloved children receive from God.

Allen is not alone in this opinion. In his commentary on Hebrews, Paul Ellingworth also said the meaning of paideia ranges between training and corporal punishment: “Broadly speaking, the Greek tradition emphasized paideia as education, whereas the Hebrew tradition stressed the positive value of (especially God’s) discipline of his people by punishment.” Ellingworth further said:

In Hebrews, as in Proverbs, paideia is explicitly seen as including unpleasant elements; indeed, the theme is introduced because the readers are experiencing the pain of persecution; yet the physical aspect of parental discipline conveyed by mastigoi is not mentioned in the exposition.

An antithetical contrast between discipline and punishment does not exist in Hebrews 12:1-11, nor does it seem to be supported by the meanings attributed to paideia or mastigoi. Instead of biblically being “completely different experiences that produce very different results,” they appear to be biblically complementary.

Silk’s belief system regarding the punishment paradigm cannot be said to have a biblical warrant to support it. As he attempted to demonstrate the biblical reality of his concepts, he disregarded the clear biblical theological significance of Romans 1, claiming the full arc of the biblical story was to set us free from the punishment paradigm. He read the core belief of the punishment paradigm into the text, ignoring how it called for our need for a Savior because of original sin and rebellion in the Fall. Blinded by his belief system, he imputed it into his interpretation of the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, and the Fall. As a result, he ignored or missed the hope that was inserted in the story by God Himself, the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15. I believe Silk failed in his attempt to present Unpunishable as a biblical way to lead people in repentance, reconciliation and restoration.

Read other sections of this article, “Unpunishable is Unpalatable” here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

02/16/21

“Unpunishable” is Unpalatable, Part 3

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As he began the section titled “Addicted to Control,” in Unpunishable, Danny Silk said: “The progression of human behavior we see in Genesis 3-6 is exactly what Paul describes in detail in Romans 1.” After an extended quote from Romans 1, he said: “This passage gets right to the heart of what is wrong with us and how we’ve ended up in the state we’re in.” He correctly said the passage got right to the heart of what is wrong with us and how we ended up in the state we’re in. But I do not agree that it gives us the point of origin for the core belief of his punishment paradigm. It seems he made an interpretive leap and read the punishment paradigm into the text, again making Unpunishable biblically unpalatable.

Rather than applying proper exegesis as he interprets Scripture, Danny Silk has repeatedly imputed his sense of the punishment paradigm onto the texts he examined. As a result, he often missed what Scripture was really saying. This was true with how he presented the text in Genesis about Adam and Eve and the consequences of the Fall, and continues to be true here with Romans 1. It is one thing to conceive of a belief system such as the punishment paradigm, but it quite another to say (as Silk does on page 66) that the central mission of the Biblical story was to free humanity from it: “The full arc of the story of the Bible shows us that God’s entire mission in human history is to set us free from the punishment paradigm and lead us into a completely new, punishment-free relational paradigm with Him, ourselves, and others.”

Does the full arc of the biblical story show us how God’s mission in human history was to set us free of the punishment paradigm? Let’s first be clear of what Silk means by the punishment paradigm. On page 38 of Unpunishable, Silk presented the following description of the punishment paradigm:

The Punishment Paradigm
Core Belief My flaws and failures make me unworthy of love, belonging, and connection. I deserve disconnection and punishment. So does everyone else with flaws and failures.
Motive Fear of punishment/disconnection
Behavior Strategies 1.Avoid punishment—either by hiding and fitting in through ‘pleasing, perfecting, and performing,’ or by refusing to fit in by rebelling and making my own rules.

2.Punish others when they scare, hurt, or offend me.
Goal Self-preservation

In the punishment paradigm, the person is aware their flaws and failures make them unworthy of love, belonging and connection. This awareness leads to a fear of punishment or disconnection and to behavioral strategies of avoiding punishment and punishing others. The goal of these strategies is said to be self-preservation. This sense of the punishment paradigm was seen in Silk’s discussion of Romans 1:28, where he said our unwillingness to honor God’s worth and our attempt to place other things, including ourselves, in that place of supreme value introduced shame, “the painful belief in our own unworthiness.”

The idea of feeling shame also suggests an awareness that the person’s rejection of the true knowledge of God makes them unworthy of love, belonging and connection and deserving of punishment. But there is nothing in the text of Romans 1:28 to indicate this awareness. Other texts in the passage support this lack of awareness. Rather, it is the opposite of what Silk suggested—they are not aware. God gave them up to a debased mind since they did not see fit to acknowledge Him. Because of their unrighteousness, they suppressed the plain truth God revealed to them. They became futile in their thinking and their hearts were darkened (Romans 1:18-19, 21-22, 28).

According to Robert Mounce in his commentary on Romans, the “worthless mind-set,” indicates our ability to think about moral issues is undermined. “Turning from the light of revelation disqualifies a person to think correctly about the issues of life.” Douglas Moo, in his commentary on Romans indicated that when God gives someone over to a worthless mind-set, they are disqualified from being able to understand and acknowledge the will of God.

Paul stresses that people who have turned from God are fundamentally unable to think and decide correctly about God and his will. This tragic incapacity is the explanation for the apparently inexplicable failure of people to comprehend, let alone practice, biblical ethical principles. Only the work of the Spirit in “renewing the mind [nous]” (Rom. 12:2) can overcome this deep-seated blindness and perversity.

This inability is suggestive of Augustine’s discussion of the fourfold state of the Christian life in The Enchiridion (see Part 2), where he said after the Fall we were not able not to sin (non posse non peccare). If as Moo suggested, a debased or worthless mind-set makes people unable to comprehend, let alone practice, biblical ethical principles, how could they recognize their flaws and failures? How would they be able to see they deserved disconnection and punishment? How could they feel shame for behaviors they were not aware of as wrong?

This is a troubling reinterpretation of the redemptive-historical storyline of the Bible. Silk seems to substitute his personal belief system, namely the punishment paradigm, for the biblical theological center of God’s redemptive plan in salvation history. There is an organizing principle to the Biblical story, but it is not centered around God’s intent to set us free from the punishment paradigm. Rather, it is centered around the redemptive plan of God: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. This is the big picture, the grand narrative, the full arc of the story of the Bible. This is what centers the Biblical story.

When Silk said the “full arc” of the biblical story, that “God’s entire mission in human history” is to free humanity from the punishment paradigm and lead humanity into “a completely new, punishment-free creational paradigm with Him,” he was submitting the theological belief system of his punishment paradigm as the biblical-theological perspective that describes the unfolding of God’s purposes in salvation history. On page 73 he said from the very beginning God was after the hearts of His people. He wants to bring them out of their old slavery mindset into “the relational culture He wants to establish with them.” Yet as the biblical story unfolds, God’s people repeatedly fail to make the internal shift from “the fear of punishment to the fear of God.”

According to the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, “Biblical theology is principally concerned with the overall theological message of the whole Bible.” It seeks to understand the parts as they relate to the whole canon of Scripture. Biblical theology maintains a conscious focus on Jesus Christ. Both the Old and New Testaments are read as being about Jesus and “God’s faithfulness, wisdom and purpose in the progress of salvation history.” It is an approach that describes the ‘world views’ and literary shapes of the Bible. In biblical theology, it is important to be sure your interpretation corresponds to the communicative intention of the text. “Otherwise interpreters will describe not the theology of the text but only their own agendas and ideologies.”

Biblical theology emphasizes the progressive nature of biblical revelation in Scripture from Genesis through Revelation. It approaches the Bible as a story that develops and unfolds as it progresses through each book of the Bible. “It notices developing concepts, patterns of thought, and symbols or imagery that begin perhaps with some suggestive significance but are later filled with deeper significance.” In his pursuit of a biblical foundation for his punishment paradigm, Silk sees evidence for its core belief in Romans 1, where he should notice signs of Paul’s discussion of the continuing effects of original sin.

In a brief YouTube video, “What Every Christian Know About Biblical Theology?”, Greg Beale, a professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, said the first thing a Christian should know about biblical theology is that it is “the organic development of biblical supernatural revelation from the beginning of the canon to the end.” In other words, there is a storyline of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration—new creation and ultimately consummation of the new creation. “The whole Bible is unified by that storyline.” This unification rests on the assertion that there is ultimately one divine Author behind the story.

In Part 1 of this article, we saw where Silk’s reinterpretation distorted the redemptive-historical sense of the Fall. In Part 2 we noted how Silk disregarded the biblical theological significance of avon described by Tim Mackie of the Bible Project in his video—the same one Silk cited and quoted from in Unpunishable. In Romans 1 he inserted the punishment paradigm and made the passage about transforming what he called the core belief of the punishment paradigm rather than our need for a Savior because of original sin and rebellion in the Fall (Romans 7:15 ff).

In order to illustrate this error, rephrase Silk’s above-quoted statement about the full arc of the Biblical story and make it about original sin instead of the core belief of the punishment paradigm. “The full arc of the story of the Bible shows us that God’s entire mission in human history is to set us free from original sin and lead us into a completely new, sin-free relational paradigm with Him, ourselves, and others.” The rephrased statement does capture the biblical theological center of God’s plan in salvation history—our redemption from original sin, not the punishment paradigm.

There are many different resources available if you want to do further study on biblical theology. But let me point you to one the Gospel Coalition presents titled, “What is Biblical Theology?” This course is based on a book by James Hamilton by that same name, and uses Hamilton’s book as the course textbook. If you follow the link to the Gospel Coalition website, you will find three sermons by James Hamilton, “The Bible’s Big Story,” “The Bible’s Symbolic Universe,” and “The Bible’s Love Story.” The sermons can be listened to for free, and there are additional resources available to you on biblical theology without requiring you to purchase Hamilton’s book.

Read other sections of this article, “Unpunishable is Unpalatable” here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 4.

02/9/21

“Unpunishable” is Unpalatable, Part 2

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In his book, Unpunishable, Danny Silk said the state of disconnection from God, others, and themselves experienced by Adam and Eve as a consequence of their sin was the worst punishment any human being could experience. He noted how they had put themselves in that state, and that getting out of it was complicated. Silk then asked an important question: Could Adam and Eve have repented for their sin in the Garden? “Could they have experienced reconciliation and restoration with God and prevented the human race’s long legacy of bondage to sin, shame, and death?” Silk pointed to Genesis 4, which is the story of Cain and Abel, as an answer to his questions, but again I find his interpretation of the text and explanation for what happened unpalatable.

The short answer to Silk’s questions is no, they could not have repented and as a result prevent the legacy of bondage to sin, shame and death. The immediate consequence of eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a change in their nature from that of able to sin or not sin before the Fall to not able not to sin. They now needed a Savior, which was God’s plan all along. Otherwise, they were headed towards the eternal judgment/torment of separation from God, others and themselves—which is ultimately the worst punishment any human being could experience. Intent on using the encounter of God with Adam and Eve in the Garden to illustrate what he calls the punishment paradigm, Silk either missed or ignored the redemptive-historical context of what is happening.

As was pointed out in Part 1, Silk missed a significant point of the text as he described the encounter of God with Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. When Adam replied to God’s question, “Where are you?” in Genesis 3:9, he said that he was afraid because he was “naked,” so he hid. Here, both God and Adam use the Hebrew word, êrōm for naked, which means spiritual and physical nakedness (3:10, 11).  As a consequence of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve knew they were “êrōm” (verse 3:7). This nakedness is in contrast to Genesis 2:25, where Adam and Eve were naked (ʿārôm), meaning physically naked with the sense of also being vulnerable. Therefore Genesis 2:25 is highlighting that before the Fall, Adam and Eve were naked and vulnerable, but they weren’t ashamed of it.

Afterwards, God gave them what they wanted: knowledge of good and evil apart from God. The first thing they realized was they were physically and spiritually naked and separated (disconnected) from God as a consequence of their sin and they couldn’t undo it. Missing this important point, Silk then imports his sense of the punishment paradigm onto the text, saying Adam and Eve went fully into an “every man for himself” mode, highlighted by blame-shifting and pointing the finger away from themselves in response to God asking them did they eat of the tree they were commanded by Him not to eat. This was an immediate consequence of their sin and not a result of them clinging to their shame, as Silk said. They were not able to do anything else; they were not able not to sin. See Part 1 for a fuller discussion of the states of human nature before the Fall, after the Fall and after the redemption we receive in Christ.

Silk then appeared to gloss over the details of three “pronouncements” made by God to the serpent, Eve and Adam, summing up the consequences each will face. First, look as the Hebrew word used to introduce these pronouncements. In Genesis 3:14, God said to the serpent “Because you have done this, cursed [ʾārûr] are you above all livestock.” Cursed (ʾārûr) is another wordplay on the earlier “crafty” (ʿārûm) in Genesis 3:1 and is the typical way of introducing a decree or judgment of doom (Genesis 4:11; 9:25; 27:29; Deuteronomy 27:15-26; 28:16-20). It connects how the ill-use of the serpent’s craftiness led to divine censure, curse and punishment: as a result of his craftiness ʿ(ārûm), the serpent was cursed (ʾārûr).

“Eating” dust reflects Eve’s temptation to “eat” of the tree and Adam and Eve’s fall by eating. In his commentary on Genesis, Kenneth Matthews said eating dust was a common figure for personal humiliation in Scripture. The serpent was responsible for the demise of man, who returns to dust, just as the serpent’s diet—all the days of its life—is a perpetual reminder of its crime. The curse upon the serpent includes its final destruction by the seed, the descendent of the woman (Genesis 3:15): “The serpent was instrumental in the undoing of the woman, and in turn the woman will ultimately bring down the serpent through her offspring.”

“Between you [serpent]” has the singular pronoun (as elsewhere in the verse), meaning that this hostility begins with the beast and the woman as individuals. Yet their experience is shared by their offspring too; the serpent and woman are distinct from their offspring yet also one and the same with them. Here we have the common case where an individual represents many. Eve and her adversary are the progenitors of a lifelong struggle that will persist until a climactic moment when the woman’s offspring will achieve the upper hand.

Christian tradition has referred to Genesis 3:15 as the protoevangelium or the first gospel. Kenneth Matthews said in his commentary the passage pointed to Christ as the vindicator of the woman, who would soon crush Satan under his feet (Romans 16:20). Jesus alluded to Genesis 3:15 when he said the Pharisees were children of the devil because of their spiritual apostasy (John 8:44), contrary to their claims they were Abraham’s children (8:39). This contrast was heightened in 1 John 3:11-15, where John said from the beginning, we were to love one another and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. Christ is the offspring (seed) of the woman.

Silk disregards this redemptive-historical allusion and said God was essentially saying, “I created you to function out of connection with Me and one another. Choosing self-protection over reconnection cuts you off from the only thing that causes you to flourish in every department of life and that means life is going to be really hard for you.” Instead of pointing to Christ as the coming Savior, Silk said getting out of the state Adam and Eve had put themselves in was . . . “complicated.” He then pointed to Genesis 4 and the story of Cain and Abel, which he said answered his question of whether or not Adam and Eve could have experienced reconciliation and restoration with God, and prevented the human race’s bondage to sin. Inexplicitly, he said in this story, we see the birth of religion—“humanity’s attempts to engage God in their fallen state.”

This was a reference to the offerings of Cain from the ground and Abel from the firstborn of his flock, but Silk did not elaborate on this aside. Instead, he focused on Genesis 4:13, which he said was the first mention of punishment in the Bible. This may have been the first time the word translated as punishment appeared in the Bible, however it seems Silk forgot what he had referred to as the pronouncement against the serpent. God’s curse (ʾārûr) of Cain in Genesis 4:11 connects this judgment of God to that of the serpent. According to Kenneth Matthews,

Like the serpent, Cain is placed under a curse; this is the first occasion in Scripture where a human is cursed. This curse indicates the gravity of his crime against God and creation. Cain’s culpability is emphasized by the direct accusation “from your [own] hand.” The language “you are under a curse” is the same as the oracle delivered against the serpent: “Cursed are you above [min] all the livestock” (3:14) is parallel to “cursed are you from [min] the ground” (4:11). This linkage shows that like father like “seed,” both the serpent and Cain are murderers who receive the same retribution.

There was another opportunity in his discussion of Genesis 4 for Silk to bring the future redemptive work of Christ into his interpretation of Genesis, but again he missed his chance. He pointed out that the Hebrew word avon was translated as punishment. He cited and quoted from a video discussion from the Bible Project (Avon/Iniquity), where Tim Mackie said the meaning of avon included both the act of sin and its consequences. Silk ended an extended quote of Mackie without any reference to redemption or Christ in his quotation. His last sentences in the quote were: “This is the meaning of the common biblical phrase ‘to bear your iniquity,’ or in Hebrew, to ‘carry’ your avon. God gives people the dignity of carrying the consequences of their bad decisions.” Yet the video continued:

But that’s not the only way God responds to avon in the Bible. He also offers to carry the avon for us people as an act of sheer generosity. In fact, carrying avon is the most common Hebrew phrase for God’s forgiveness. Like in Psalm 32, where the poet says, “I didn’t hide my avon but confessed it. And you carried the avon of my sin.” This is actually shocking if you stop and think about it. God forgives people by taking responsibility for their avon. This idea reaches its high point in the book of Isaiah, where God appoints a figure called the Servant. He will embody God’s forgiving love by carrying the avon of many and allowing it to crush him.

The devotional Connect the Testaments for February 5th related a conversation between two homeless men that contained astute insight into why a good God found it necessary to punish His people. Without punishment, we would not recognize our need for salvation:

You wouldn’t want to live in a world where God didn’t punish injustices and just freely forgave sin—without any request for someone to choose the salvation He offers back. Imagine a place where injustice was never punished and people never recognized their sin and need for salvation. That would be terrible and painful.

It seems to me that the consequence of death for disobeying God’s command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was both a blessing and a curse. Without death from sin, humanity would have become devils—eternally existing as beings not able to not sin. But God’s plan was to send a Savior; someone who could save us from this body of sin and death: Jesus Christ (Romans 7:23-24). Through the finished work of Christ, we have the guarantee of the promised renewal of human nature when Christ comes again (Ephesians 1:13-14). This was missing from Silk’s exposition of Genesis 3 and 4.

Read other sections of this article, “Unpunishable is Unpalatable” here: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4.

02/2/21

“Unpunishable” is Unpalatable, Part 1

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Unpunishable, by Danny Silk, was biblically unpalatable to me. He sought to present Unpunishable as a biblical way to lead people in repentance, reconciliation and restoration. He opened with an example of a pastor who had committed adultery for the second time and was ultimately restored to his position of leadership within Bethel Church in Redding California. I would agree from Silk’s description of the first time the man committed adultery, that neither he nor the senior pastors of his first church seemed to handle the aftermath of his adultery in a way to lead him in repentance; and that his experience of it discouraged him from true reconciliation. But I don’t think this example of restoration was enough to accept the conclusion that what was wrong was the senior pastors were operating from a belief system called the punishment paradigm.

The core belief of the punishment paradigm was said to be shame-based: “My flaws and failure make me unworthy of love, belonging, and connection.” We believe we deserve disconnection and punishment, as does everyone else who has flaws and failures. This leads to individuals being motivated by the fear of punishment/disconnection, where their strategy becomes avoiding punishment by hiding or fitting in (false fruit); or by rebelling and refusing to comply with the “punishment.” The goal of the punishment paradigm was said to be self-preservation.

Silk said what was true about punishment was that it positioned you as opponents rather than partners in the discipline process. People were not empowered to clean up their mess. It produced shame and disconnection. Punishment distracted people from learning about the real consequences of their choices. “Instead, they only learn the fear of punishment.” As a consequence of his experiences with punishment, he was led to the belief that anyone who chose “the path of repentance, reconciliation, and restoration do not need to be punished.” This path would set them free from “the toxic punishment paradigm” and empower them to pursue a new belief system, identity, narrative, motivation, strategy and goal.

I don’t think that the consequence of “punishment” inescapably leads to opposition rather than partnership in the discipline process. The failure to repent of sin does. A person who was truly repentant of their sin would comply with what Silk described as punishment or discipline. It also seems that Silk’s view of punishment has the potential, in some instances, to shift responsibility from an unrepentant individual to the punishment paradigm. The “toxic punishment paradigm” is then responsible for the individual’s failure to repent, not the hardness of their heart.

As Silk moved into chapter three, he said: “The Bible shows us that the punishment paradigm isn’t some socially constructed, cultural phenomenon. It is a universal human experience with deep spiritual roots. In fact, this paradigm came to be at the very beginning, when humankind fell from God through sin.” Stop and notice what was said here. Silk is recasting the story of the Fall and original sin as the beginning of the punishment paradigm. This is the first of several examples of faulty theology and exegesis by Silk that distorts Scripture to fit his punishment paradigm.

The first error in his interpretation of Genesis 2 and 3 was when he conflated the meaning of “naked” ʿ(ārôm,) in Genesis 2:25 with “crafty” (ʿā∙rûm) in the next verse, 3:1. The Hebrew term for naked has a symbolic sense of exposure and vulnerability and is a different word than ʿā∙rûm, crafty. Frequently in Scripture ārôm has a symbolic sense of exposure and vulnerability, as when Isaiah walked “naked” to signify Egyptian prisoners being led away by the Assyrians (Isaiah 20:2-4) or when Saul lay naked and prophesied after the Spirit of God came upon him (1 Samuel 19:24). Nakedness is also associated with shame in Hebrew thought, as with the discovery of a drunken Noah by Ham (Genesis 9:22-23), but Genesis 2:25 clearly negates such an interpretation. Genesis 2:25 is making the point that Adam and Eve may have been naked (vulnerable), but they were not ashamed of it.

A similar term, êrōm, is used ten times in the OT to designate spiritual and physical nakedness. In Genesis 3, it refers to Adam and Eve after their sin (Genesis 3:7, 10, 11). More than just an awareness of their physical nakedness, Adam and Eve are also aware of their guilt before God—they had lost their innocence. “Their relationship with God was impaired, upsetting their relationship to each other.” In Ezekiel 16:7, 22, 29; 23:29 and Deuteronomy 12:29, ʿêrōm is used of the personified Jerusalem, suggesting both her material and spiritual poverty. Used in Ezekiel 18:7, 16 it indicates the proper social concern of righteousness in providing clothes for needy.

So, there is a subtle wordplay going on here in Genesis with the probable intent of reinforcing the meaning of what is being described. In Genesis 2:25 Adam and Eve were naked (ʿārôm) and not ashamed. The following verse, Genesis 3:1, reads: “Now the serpent was more crafty (ʿā∙rûm) than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.” Genesis 2:25 contrasts the naked innocence and vulnerability of Adam and Eve to the craftiness of the serpent in Genesis 3:1. As a result of the serpent’s craftiness, Adam and Eve sinned. Ironically, their first bit of newfound wisdom was to realize that they were naked (ʿêrōm) before God (3:7, 10, 11). The primary consequence to the Fall was the realization their relationship with God was impaired and their shame was for this consequence of their sin, not that they were physically naked. See “Nakedness in Genesis.”

Silk did get to a similar understanding of the consequences of the Fall, but then he inserted his sense of what happens with the punishment paradigm. He rightly said Adam and Eve’s sin led to their disconnection from God, one another and creation. But then he said this trauma led to the fear of disconnection: “This psychological and spiritual trauma left them feeling unprotected, powerless, and threatened, which in turn produced shame—the fear of disconnection.” The fear of punishment/disconnection is the “Motive” in Silk’s description of the Punishment Paradigm described above and illustrated in the chart on page 38 of Unpunishable.

Failing to see the intensification described by the wordplay of Adam and Eve naked (ʿārôm) and not ashamed, the serpent’s craftiness (ʿā∙rûm), which led to Adam and Eve’s sin and their realization they were naked (ʿêrōm) physically and spiritually before God led to another interpretive mistake. As Silk discussed how Adam and Eve responded to God after their sin, he said rightly that Adam and Eve’s fear of God was because of sin. But he wrongly said they fell into spiritual darkness (and couldn’t find their way back to God) as soon as their eyes were opened. They fell into spiritual darkness when they ate the fruit. As a consequence of their sin, they didn’t know how to repent and were not able reconcile or restore their relationship with God. It was to this reality that their eyes were opened.

Silk said Adam and Eve became locked in a false view of the universe and its Creator, “and it was this view that produced the fear of punishment in their hearts.” Trapped in this distorted reality, repentance and reconciliation—resubmitting to God’s authority and repairing the connection—seemed scary, impossible. According to Silk:

This was the catch-22 into which the enemy had drawn them—to step out from the covering of God’s authority, attempt to make their own rules, see this backfire spectacularly, and then find that their hearts were bound through shame and fear, to the addiction of continuing to try to make the rules apart from God, even though doing so would only produce more disconnection, shame and fear.

Silk said Adam and Eve reacted to this fear by hiding. “Instead of running to God to cover and protect them—and ultimately restore their shattered trust and connection—they made covering for themselves. They both agreed that self-protection was the way to go.”

This understanding of the consequences of the Fall fits with Silk’s punishment paradigm, but is not consistent with how the Fall has been viewed by the church since the time of Augustine. Silk appears to wrongly assume that before Christ, Adam and Eve could have, in principle, repented and reconciled with God, but their bondage “prevented them from finding their way back to God.” Without Christ, how could they find their way back to God? It is important to get a clear sense of the Fall and its impact on humanity. I think Silk’s imposition of his punishment paradigm on the text distorts it.

In his book The Enchiridion, Augustine described the four states of a Christian life. The first state is when he or she is sunk in the dark depths of ignorance, living according to the flesh, and undisturbed by conscience or reason. This was the human condition after the Fall: where we were not able not to sin (non posse non peccare). The second state comes when knowledge of sin comes through the law. Since the Spirit of God has not yet begun its aid, humanity was thwarted in its efforts to live according to the law. And being overcome by sin, became its slave (2 Peter 2:19). The effect produced by the knowledge of the law is that now they have the additional guilt of willful transgression of God’s law.

The third state comes when the Spirit of God begins to work within a person at salvation. Although there is still the old nature of flesh that fights against them (for their disease is not completely cured), they live “the life of the just by faith” in righteousness. That is, as long as they do not yield to their lusts and desires, and conquer them by the love of holiness. The one who by steadfast piety advances in this course shall attain the peace that shall be perfected after this life is over—the repose of the spirit. And they will achieve the resurrection of the body. This is the fourth state.  “Of these four different stages the first is before the law, the second is under the law, the third is under grace, and the fourth is in full and perfect peace.”

According to Augustine, this grace was not absent previously, but was veiled and hidden in harmony with the arrangements of the time. “For none, even of the just men of old, could find salvation apart from the faith of Christ; nor unless He had been known to them could their ministry have been used to convey prophecies concerning him to us, some more plain, and some more obscure.” With the help of a graphic representation adapted from a lecture by Richard Gaffin, we can illustrate Augustine’s fourfold state of humanity as follows:

Humanity before the Fall had the ability to sin or not sin. They were created in the image of God as self-conscious, free, responsible religious agents even with regard to sin. They were able to sin or not sin. This was before the Fall and before Augustine’s description of the four states.

After of the Fall, humanity could not help but sin. Original sin was now part of our nature and we were not able not to sin, the first state. With the knowledge of sin through the law, things got worse and we discovered just how sinful we could be. This is represented by the solid descending line. We experienced the truth of Romans 7:19, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” This was the second state, where humanity had knowledge of the law of God, as well as their inability to achieve it under the law.

But Romans 7 does not end with a realization of hopelessness and powerlessness. Who will save us from this body of death? “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ out Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

As a result of the grace of Christ, we receive the gift of His Spirit and can begin to resist the pull of our old nature and strive to walk in righteousness, not yielding to the lusts and desires of the flesh. This is represented by the ascending dotted line and represents the third state. Progress up the line is progressive sanctification. Without the redemptive work of Christ, humans can in principle “be all they can be,” but they cannot transcend their fallen nature. This is represented by the solid ascending line.

The fourth state is reached after our redemption by Christ. The person who is steadfast in their piety advances up the dotted line, becoming more Christ-like. In the end we stand with the other sheep on Judgment Day and hear the Son of Man say: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).

It is in this fourth state, when we are in full and perfect peace with Christ, that we will be truly unpunishable, as we will be unable to sin, non posse peccare.

Look soon for other sections of this article, “Unpunishable is Unpalatable” here: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.