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Kipper in 1 John First John applies the language of sacrificial atonement to Jesus straightforwardly. Twice John declares that Jesus is “the decontamination (hilasmos) for our sins” (1 John 2:2; cf. 4:10). Knowing all the sacrificial information established so far helps us figure out what John is not saying. John isn’t saying that Jesus was a substitutionary death. We know this because that is not how any sacrifices function. The question we ought to be asking is, “What holy objects or spaces are contaminated by our sins and therefore are the things being purged by Jesus?” But 1 John does not say. It seems the answer to this was taken for granted. But answering what sancta are being decontaminated by Jesus is the very question that Hebrews spends so much of its time developing.
Before delving into Hebrews, five observations from 1 John are worth highlighting. (1) The first time John tells us that Jesus is “the decontamination for our sins” he adds a surprising qualifier: “and not simply for our sins, but also the sins of all the cosmos” (2:2). John goes out of his way to make it clear that Jesus’s work of kipper extends well beyond the Jesus-community. Just like the Day of Decontamination purged the sins and impurities on the sanctuary regardless of how many people “believed” in the ritual, John is saying the purgative power of Jesus is not contingent on anything else, let alone anyone’s “belief” in that effectiveness. Jesus simply decontaminates everyone’s sins. Period. Attempts to wriggle out of the universal implications of this comment not only grate against the “plain sense” of the words on the page, but they go against John’s attempt to not be misunderstood on this specific point. Had John not offered this expansive qualifier, it would be possible to think he meant that Jesus is “the decontaminating sacrifice for our sins [only].”
Without falling down a rabbit hole, it needs to be said that the fact that John goes out of his way to make it clear that Jesus’s work of kipper is “not simply for our sins, but also the sins of all the cosmos” means anyone wishing to delimit the scope of beneficiaries is ignoring John’s intentional effort to not let his audience think about Jesus in terms of a “limited atonement” (let the reader understand). (2) Although interpreters can fixate about whether hilasmos should be translated “expiate” or “propitiate,” as Shauf argues, “since God is the one making the ἱλασμός available, it makes little sense to translate with a sense of propitiation.”571 Levitical sacrifice was not about appeasing the wrath of God, but about keeping God’s sanctuary regularly decontaminated. True, God’s absence from the sanctuary would result in exile, but that is an indirect consequence of God no longer being there to “meet with” Israel and bless them (Exod 29:42–46; 20:24). The atoning sacrifices are ritual detergents, not substitutionary death penalties. The sacrificial animals are neither suffering nor dying in place of the offerer.
Therefore, to the extent that Jesus-as-hilasmos is based on the sacrificial system in the Torah this cannot be framed as either a substitutionary death or substitutionary suffering. The only claim is that Jesus can effect the same purgation that the purgation sacrifices did, but on a greater scale. Moreover, 1 John itself repeatedly relates both Jesus’s death and Jesus-as-hilasmos to revealing God’s “love” (3:16–18; 4:7–12), but wrath is never mentioned. “Wrath” has to be smuggled into the word hilasmos, a move that lacks warrant both with respect to Leviticus and to 1 John. This notion simply must be rejected for anyone wishing to stick to the way the words run on the pages of these texts. Moreover, it is not even clear that 1 John 2:2 is claiming anything about Jesus’s death specifically. This is only assumed because of the mistaken view (debunked in chapter 1) that OT sacrifice finds any meaning in the death of the sacrificial animal. The claim in 2:2 is based on the personal presence of Jesus before the Father (2:1). I will touch on this point again below, but the point here is that since sacrificial decontamination is accomplished by conveying “life” (i.e., blood, cf. Lev 17:11, 14) in the presence of God in the holy of holies, then Jesus-as-hilasmos may be owing to the fact of the kind of life Jesus is and that this life is present before God. The kipper-function of Jesus would be due to his personal resurrected and ascended presence before God, not to his death itself. (3) As Shauf further observes,
John’s use of “cleanse”/“purify” (katharizō) in 1:7 (cf. 1:9) is a clear parallel to the claim about the Day of Decontamination in Lev 16:30 LXX:572 1 John 1:7 katharizei hēmas apo pasēs hamartias Lev 16:30 katharisai hymas apo pasōn tōn hamartiōn hymōn Just because there is a link to the Day of Decontamination does not mean that Jesus is being conceptualized in terms of an atoning sacrifice here, however. Jesus’s work is accomplishing all of what happens on the Day of Decontamination, which includes more than the mere purgation sacrifices. As discussed, Lev 16:30 is the only time in Leviticus that ritual impurity is used as an analogy for moral impurity. I suggested using “minor” and “major” moral impurity to distinguish between sins that do not contaminate the land (minor) and those grave sins that do pollute the land (major). Moreover, 16:29 implies that it is not the purgation sacrifices offered that purify the people, but rather the passing of time (each year), their own fasting, and cessation from labor. Also, the prophets (especially Ezekiel and Jeremiah) expand on this notion of the possibility of moral purification and envision God purifying people from the major moral impurities. As we saw, this is what Rabbi Aqiva picked up on in his interpretation of Lev 16:30 in m. Yoma 8:9. Recall that he appeals to both Ezek 36:25 and Jer 17:13 to say that the cleansing will come from the promised water-washing done by God. In other words, the moral purification from minor moral impurities on the Day of Decontamination (Lev 16:30)
We have established that although 1 John and Hebrews both apply the language of sacrificial atonement to Jesus, this does not mean that they view Jesus as a substitutionary death or that atonement is a central aspect of the gospel message. Instead, the authors of these texts are making innovative theologies based on the preexisting “ingredients” of Jesus’s resurrection, ascension, and mission to effect moral purification. Hebrews acknowledges that its teaching on Jesus as a high priest who provides atonement for the heavenly sanctuary and who consecrates his followers as both co-high priests and co-purgation sacrifices is intended for the theologically “mature.” Further, both 1 John and Hebrews analogize Jesus’s blood to various cultic “liquids,”
Kipper in 1 John First John applies the language of sacrificial atonement to Jesus straightforwardly. Twice John declares that Jesus is “the decontamination (hilasmos) for our sins” (1 John 2:2; cf. 4:10). Knowing all the sacrificial information established so far helps us figure out what John is not saying. John isn’t saying that Jesus was a substitutionary death. We know this because that is not how any sacrifices function. The question we ought to be asking is, “What holy objects or spaces are contaminated by our sins and therefore are the things being purged by Jesus?” But 1 John does not say. It seems the answer to this was taken for granted. But answering what sancta are being decontaminated by Jesus is the very question that Hebrews spends so much of its time developing.
Before delving into Hebrews, five observations from 1 John are worth highlighting. (1) The first time John tells us that Jesus is “the decontamination for our sins” he adds a surprising qualifier: “and not simply for our sins, but also the sins of all the cosmos” (2:2). John goes out of his way to make it clear that Jesus’s work of kipper extends well beyond the Jesus-community. Just like the Day of Decontamination purged the sins and impurities on the sanctuary regardless of how many people “believed” in the ritual, John is saying the purgative power of Jesus is not contingent on anything else, let alone anyone’s “belief” in that effectiveness. Jesus simply decontaminates everyone’s sins. Period. Attempts to wriggle out of the universal implications of this comment not only grate against the “plain sense” of the words on the page, but they go against John’s attempt to not be misunderstood on this specific point. Had John not offered this expansive qualifier, it would be possible to think he meant that Jesus is “the decontaminating sacrifice for our sins [only].”
Without falling down a rabbit hole, it needs to be said that the fact that John goes out of his way to make it clear that Jesus’s work of kipper is “not simply for our sins, but also the sins of all the cosmos” means anyone wishing to delimit the scope of beneficiaries is ignoring John’s intentional effort to not let his audience think about Jesus in terms of a “limited atonement” (let the reader understand). (2) Although interpreters can fixate about whether hilasmos should be translated “expiate” or “propitiate,” as Shauf argues, “since God is the one making the ἱλασμός available, it makes little sense to translate with a sense of propitiation.”571 Levitical sacrifice was not about appeasing the wrath of God, but about keeping God’s sanctuary regularly decontaminated. True, God’s absence from the sanctuary would result in exile, but that is an indirect consequence of God no longer being there to “meet with” Israel and bless them (Exod 29:42–46; 20:24). The atoning sacrifices are ritual detergents, not substitutionary death penalties. The sacrificial animals are neither suffering nor dying in place of the offerer.
Therefore, to the extent that Jesus-as-hilasmos is based on the sacrificial system in the Torah this cannot be framed as either a substitutionary death or substitutionary suffering. The only claim is that Jesus can effect the same purgation that the purgation sacrifices did, but on a greater scale. Moreover, 1 John itself repeatedly relates both Jesus’s death and Jesus-as-hilasmos to revealing God’s “love” (3:16–18; 4:7–12), but wrath is never mentioned. “Wrath” has to be smuggled into the word hilasmos, a move that lacks warrant both with respect to Leviticus and to 1 John. This notion simply must be rejected for anyone wishing to stick to the way the words run on the pages of these texts. Moreover, it is not even clear that 1 John 2:2 is claiming anything about Jesus’s death specifically. This is only assumed because of the mistaken view (debunked in chapter 1) that OT sacrifice finds any meaning in the death of the sacrificial animal. The claim in 2:2 is based on the personal presence of Jesus before the Father (2:1). I will touch on this point again below, but the point here is that since sacrificial decontamination is accomplished by conveying “life” (i.e., blood, cf. Lev 17:11, 14) in the presence of God in the holy of holies, then Jesus-as-hilasmos may be owing to the fact of the kind of life Jesus is and that this life is present before God. The kipper-function of Jesus would be due to his personal resurrected and ascended presence before God, not to his death itself. (3) As Shauf further observes,
John’s use of “cleanse”/“purify” (katharizō) in 1:7 (cf. 1:9) is a clear parallel to the claim about the Day of Decontamination in Lev 16:30 LXX:572 1 John 1:7 katharizei hēmas apo pasēs hamartias Lev 16:30 katharisai hymas apo pasōn tōn hamartiōn hymōn Just because there is a link to the Day of Decontamination does not mean that Jesus is being conceptualized in terms of an atoning sacrifice here, however. Jesus’s work is accomplishing all of what happens on the Day of Decontamination, which includes more than the mere purgation sacrifices. As discussed, Lev 16:30 is the only time in Leviticus that ritual impurity is used as an analogy for moral impurity. I suggested using “minor” and “major” moral impurity to distinguish between sins that do not contaminate the land (minor) and those grave sins that do pollute the land (major). Moreover, 16:29 implies that it is not the purgation sacrifices offered that purify the people, but rather the passing of time (each year), their own fasting, and cessation from labor. Also, the prophets (especially Ezekiel and Jeremiah) expand on this notion of the possibility of moral purification and envision God purifying people from the major moral impurities. As we saw, this is what Rabbi Aqiva picked up on in his interpretation of Lev 16:30 in m. Yoma 8:9. Recall that he appeals to both Ezek 36:25 and Jer 17:13 to say that the cleansing will come from the promised water-washing done by God. In other words, the moral purification from minor moral impurities on the Day of Decontamination (Lev 16:30)
We have established that although 1 John and Hebrews both apply the language of sacrificial atonement to Jesus, this does not mean that they view Jesus as a substitutionary death or that atonement is a central aspect of the gospel message. Instead, the authors of these texts are making innovative theologies based on the preexisting “ingredients” of Jesus’s resurrection, ascension, and mission to effect moral purification. Hebrews acknowledges that its teaching on Jesus as a high priest who provides atonement for the heavenly sanctuary and who consecrates his followers as both co-high priests and co-purgation sacrifices is intended for the theologically “mature.” Further, both 1 John and Hebrews analogize Jesus’s blood to various cultic “liquids,”
