Jesus came to proclaim liberation from sin, not forgiveness of sins.

The theme that runs like a red thread through the Old Testament is liberation. I will mention a number of examples. In the mother promise it is promised that we will be liberated from the influence of the serpent. Noah and his people were liberated from a world in which evil had gained the upper hand. Joseph was released after a long period of captivity. The people of Israel were liberated from slavery in Egypt. Before the people could enter the promised land, the land had to be liberated from the peoples who lived there. During the period of the judges, the people were liberated again and again from the hands of oppressors. During the time of the kings, the people had to be liberated again and again from peoples who attacked them. Later still, the people were liberated from exile. Ultimately, people looked forward to the Messiah who would finally free them from all rulers.

And then follows the first ‘sermon’ of Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth, in which he quotes from the scroll of Isaiah (61:1). Jesus was anointed by the Spirit of the Lord to bring the good news (the gospel).
Jesus’ sermon consisted of three points:
1) to proclaim freedom (Greek: aphesis*) to prisoners;
2) to give sight to the blind and
3) to send the defeated away in freedom (Greek: aphesis*).
(Luke 4:18,19) * I will come back to the Greek word ‘aphesis’ later.

We also find the same threefold division in Psalms 146:7,8
1) The Lord sets the prisoners free,
2) The Lord gives sight to the blind,
3) The Lord raises up those who are bowed down, …

Jesus was concerned with liberation and freedom, which will come about when our eyes are opened. Jesus does not say a word about the necessity of forgiveness of sins. Jesus came as the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world; to free us (to redeem) from sin, the aimlessness of life in darkness (under the curse of sin and death). The good news of the gospel is therefore focused on the kingdom of God, the situation in which we will be completely liberated / delivered from the curse of sin and death. Liberation from the kingdom of darkness to walk in the kingdom of Light. Jesus wants to open our eyes to that.

Based on all this, we would expect the Christian church to proclaim the gospel of deliverance from sin. However, this is not the case. The Christian church has been proclaiming the message of forgiveness of sins for centuries on the basis of the sin offering that Jesus is said to have brought with his death on the cross, and the actual deliverance from sin is relegated to the future by the Christian church.

Where does it go wrong? We must look for the cause in the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. The old covenant was about the forgiveness of sins. The sin offerings forgiven the transgressions of the law, but the cause of sinning (living in darkness) remained. That is why sin was committed again and again and sacrifices had to be made again and again. Forgiveness of sins comes down to treating the symptoms. The old covenant (the system of law and sin offering) is not sufficient to truly free us from sin (power). The good news of the new covenant is that man can be freed here and now from the sin (power) that causes us to sin. By being freed from sin, the cause is removed.

How then can it be that the core message of the Christian church for centuries has been forgiveness of sins, on the basis of which we would be saved and receive eternal life?

The answer is simple. Early in the Christian church, people lost sight of the mystery of ‘Christ in us’, to which Jesus and Paul wanted to open our eyes. ‘Christ in us’ is our hope for glory (Colossians 1:27), which refers to the situation in which we are completely freed from sin (power). The mind of Christ made way for the mind of flesh early in church history. Paul warned the church in Galatians against returning to a gospel that is no gospel. That they should not allow themselves to be subjected to a yoke of slavery again. They had the tendency to return to the principles of the old covenant, in which the forgiveness of sins was central. They began to walk according to the flesh again and to use the law, which declared the old man guilty and condemned and on the basis of which a sin offering was necessary.

The theology of forgiveness of sins (penal substitution) has also been decisive in the translation of the Bible from the original languages. Throughout the New Testament, the Greek word ‘aphesis’, which primarily means ‘release’ or ‘liberation’, is translated as ‘forgiveness’. There is only one text in the entire New Testament where ‘aphesis’ is translated as ‘release’ and that is Luke 4:19, in which we read about the first sermon of Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth, in which he announced his mission. This verse is a quote from Isaiah. So it could not have been translated in any other way than the way it was described in Isaiah.

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted (3), to proclaim liberty to the captives (1), and the opening of the prison to those who are bound (2).” (Isaiah 61:1)

These three points have been placed in a different order in the Greek of the New Testament:
1) proclaiming the freedom of prisoners;
2) opening blind eyes, so that we can come out of the dark prison (see Luke 11:34);
3) setting the defeated free; raising up those who are bowed down.

The third point is about being freed from the oppression that we are under as a result of the curse of sin and death. This will happen when our (spiritual) eyes are opened (2) and we walk out of darkness (prison) into the Light (1).

But what surprises us when we read further in the New Testament? When Paul stands before king Agrippa to testify of his conversion and calling and refers to the threefold division that Jesus had quoted in the synagogue of Nazareth from Isaiah 61, this looks like this in our translations:

  • to open (blind) eyes (2);
  • conversion from darkness to light; from the power of satan to God; release from prison! (1)
  • that they might receive forgiveness (aphesis) of sins (3).
    (Acts 26:18)

Where ‘aphesis’ in Luke 4:19 (in accordance with the quote from Isaiah) is translated as ‘liberation’, here it is suddenly translated as ‘forgiveness’. Jesus would have proclaimed forgiveness of sins on the basis of his death and resurrection instead of the kingdom of God, where the bowed down and oppressed are lifted up and sent away in freedom (letting go/liberation from sin).

This is also the case in all other places in the New Testament. Wherever there is talk of release/liberation from sin, our translations speak of forgiveness of sins, which would be necessary on the basis of the law (the knowledge of good and evil) and for which Jesus would have done penance on the cross in our place.

Paul was sent by God to proclaim to people the deliverance from the curse of sin and death. This deliverance from the curse takes place when our spiritual eyes are opened, whereby we pass from the prison of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Light. We are then rightly sent forth in freedom, so that we no longer miss our goal, but will come to our destination, the glorification of our body! According to Jesus and Paul, the forgiveness of sins plays no role here at all.

We also read in other letters of Paul that this was the core of his message:

He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness liberation (aphesis) of sin.” (Colossians 1:13,14)

And here too it is about liberation/letting go of the curse and not about forgiveness. To be delivered from something means that you are completely free of it. Forgiveness of sins is only treating the symptoms.

Finally, a text from the letter to the Hebrews: “Where therefore for these things (for sin) there is he forgiveness liberation (aphesis) of sin there is no longer any need for a sin offering.” (Hebrews 10:18)

Here too, it is about liberation rather than forgiveness. With the forgiveness of sins, the need for a sin offering remains. As soon as we are liberated from sin, which Jesus wanted to open our eyes to, there is no longer a need for a sacrifice for sins. Jesus put an end to the sin offerings that had to be made on the basis of the law of Moses, by opening our eyes to the spiritual reality. Not by serving as the ultimate sin offering himself, whereby the principle of the old covenant would continue to play a role in our thinking.

This structural translation error of the Greek word ‘aphesis’ is one example of how the prevailing Western theology has determined our translation of the Bible.

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