Violence in the Hebrew Bible (part 3) – Violence as a Pollutant – Brad Jersak with Matt Lynch

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In the previous posts on Violence in the Hebrew Bible, I recounted my conversations with Dr. Matthew Lynch (Regent College, Vancouver) based in his books, Flood and Fury and Portraying Violence in the Hebrew Bible. He helpfully identified two lenses for violence in the Old Testament: (1) the violent speech of deceit and boasting, and (2) the connection between human violence and ecocide (violence to the land). In this post, I’ll report on a third theme that Matt discovered in the Old Testament: violence as a pollutant.

Violence as a Pollutant

The point here is that violence defiles. Violence defiles the land, it defiles the perpetrator, and it defiles the victim. Dr. Lynch pointed out that this notion is not just a historical curiosity; it has implications today. We covered the first of these (defilement of the land/ecocide) in the previous post. Let’s now look at the defilement of victims and perpetrators of violence.

Over the last 35 years, I’ve heard hundreds of stories and situations of victims of childhood abuse. In virtually every case, they reported a sense of shame, a spiritual stain that endless showers could not scrub away. The violence (defined as harm) is ‘the cause of stumbling’ that perpetrators deposit in ‘these little ones,’ and the lasting effects explain the severity of judgment (the millstone necklace) that the offender must one day face. The victim of violence needs the soul-cleansing life of Christ to remove the trauma that is lodged in the soul and body… a process for sure, but healing is available in trauma-informed inner healing ministries.

Conversely, I also realize that perpetrators of violence defile themselves. Been there. The shame, the self-loathing, the repetitive cycle of regretful memories is a pollutant that we call ‘moral injury.’ Violent people experience the inner condemnation of an accusing conscience. That condition requires healing and rehabilitation but many opt to numb the pain through addictive behaviors or self-harm. Violent people truly need a Savior, not only to forgive the harms they’ve done, but to cleanse them of the defilement of their violence.

Violence and Atonement

Matt continued: Violence cannot be entirely resolved through courts, judges, verdicts, sentencing, and punishment. Even after lengthy prison sentences, criminal offenders know they have not “paid their debt to society.” Some residue remains in place and requires ‘spiritual atonement.’ Our culture lacks ways of dealing with the ‘blood on our hands,’ whether one is a patriot or a pacifist. Even so-called ‘justified’ blood on our hands and on the victims needs to be cleansed. The Scriptures show us that we must bring these bloodstains before God to be resolved.

In fact, one way the Old Testament acknowledges this is that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible, known to Jews as the Torah) had a spiritual procedure for dealing with the defilement of unsolved murders… a purification ritual for the land, the place, and the people involved.

In the Old Testament, blood was not only a sign of the guilt of violence. The people also saw it as a cleanser… that ‘atonement’ is a purificant (cleansing agent). The rituals around this had nothing to do with retribution, exacting vengeance, or bribing God. For example, the sprinkling of a lamb’s blood was thought to cleanse the temple of whatever ‘dust of death’ the priests might track in (spiritually speaking).

In retrospect, the book of Hebrews knew that sacrifices of atonement could never effectively solve the defilement of violence. But what they did accomplish was anticipate the One whose blood would finally wash away the guilt of every sin, purify the defilement of every violence, and ultimately, cleanse the whole cosmos.
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