"Forgiveness of Sins": From Individual to Communal

Daily Lectionary Texts for Wednesday, October 30, 2024: Psalm 119:17-24; Jeremiah 33:1-11; Matthew 20:29-34

When we hear the phrase "forgiveness of sins" in church, what typically comes to mind? For many Western Christians, we immediately think of individual wrongdoing—the lies we've told, the harsh words we've spoken, the selfish choices we've made. We've inherited a highly individualistic way of reading Scripture that reduces sin to a personal problem requiring a personal solution.

But this isn't how the authors of Scripture thought about sin and forgiveness. The ancient Near Eastern mindset was fundamentally communal. While individual responsibility certainly existed, it was always understood within the context of the collective.

Take Jeremiah 33, for example. When the prophet speaks of God's forgiveness, he frames it in terms of national restoration:

"I will bring back the captives...I will rebuild them as they were at first...I will cleanse them of all wrongdoing they committed against me...I will forgive them for all their guilt and rebellion."

Notice how forgiveness is intimately connected to exile and restoration. This isn't about individuals making isolated mistakes—it's about an entire people being restored to right relationship with God and each other.

When Jesus and Paul later speak about "forgiveness of sins," they're drawing on this rich Hebrew understanding. They aren't inventing new terminology but building on established concepts of collective restoration.

This should reshape how we think about Jesus' work. While His death and resurrection certainly have profound implications for individual salvation, reducing it to "Jesus died to forgive little Timmy's bad words" misses the cosmic scope of what He accomplished. Jesus came to restore the entire community of God's people—to reset and reconstitute humanity itself.

Here's how N. T. Wright puts it:

They were hoping, longing, and praying for what the prophets had sketched, what the Psalms had sung, what the ancient promises to the patriarchs had held out in prospect: not rescue from the present world, but rescue and renewal within the present world. Israel's fortunes would plunge to a low ebb, and then lower, down to the very depths; but there would come a time when God would return in person to do a new thing. Through this new thing not only would Israel itself be rescued from the "death" of exile, the inevitable result of idolatry and sin, but the nations of the world would somehow be brought into the new creation the creator God was planning. And one of the central, vital ways of expressing this entire hope—rescue from exile, the rebuilding of the Temple, the return of YHWH himself—was to speak of the "forgiveness of sins." Exile was the result of sin. As many biblical writers insisted (one thinks, for a start, of Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and the Psalms), if exile was to be undone, sin would have to be forgiven. (The Day the Revolution Began)

Does this mean individual sin doesn't matter? Of course not. But we must understand our personal righteousness and wrongdoing within the larger story of God's work to restore all things. When we reduce "forgiveness of sins" to purely individual terms, we miss the revolutionary, community-reshaping power of what Jesus actually came to do.

The next time you hear "forgiveness of sins," try to think bigger than your personal failings. Think instead of God's ongoing work to restore whole communities, heal fractured relationships, and make all things new.