Substitution in world religions

The concept of substitution is nearly universal in human religious thinking. This is strikingly true in the religions mentioned in the Bible.

But it shows up in other religions as well. Let's deal with them first.

In tribal religions some animal, plant, or celestial object is venerated as the source of a tribe's existence. For northwest Indian cultures this may be made visible in a totem pole that shows the tribe's source of life and well-being. The raven, the salmon, the bear are some of the objects thought to bring life to a tribe. In a special ceremony one Northwest Indian tribe eats the totem representing the life of the tribe: the salmon, whose offspring come to provide life for the tribe in the annual fish migration.

In the polytheistic religions of some advanced civilizations this concept is even more pronounced. In either case, the gods demand something from us. Why?

Because the higher powers, however conceived, are not happy with us.

We do not please them properly. Or perhaps, in the case of Greek and Roman mythology, they are just taking out their anger on us. In Greek lore Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter, Iphigenia, to the goddess Artemis, to procure favorable winds on his journey to do battle at Troy. The Aztecs sacrificed living humans, often by the thousands, to the gods in order to set things right. The Canaanites offered their first-born into the fiery mouth of Molech. The Carthaginians, and many other ancient peoples had something similar.

Even in eastern religions, such as Hinduism, the gods are demanding, putting humans through their paces in order to liberate souls from this illusory world of pain and suffering.

The monotheistic religions also assume that there is something out of joint. The relation of humans to the divine is seriously flawed. And this must be fixed if we are to reach fulfillment. But the monotheistic religions advanced the idea of substitution: that a person could be saved from a well-deserved damnation by obedience that required a substitutionary sacrifice. In Crete evidence has been found of ancient human sacrifice in a temple. A youth appears to have been bound up ready for the ritual knife that would spill his blood to appease the gods. An earthquake entombed the scene until recent excavations.

Even secular people, though a tiny minority among the world’s billions, have a sense that some acts are worthy of some sort of punishment, even death. Offenders must pay for their sins by being locked away from society and denied their liberty or even by being executed. No matter how one looks at it, every normal human knows there is a gap between what ought to be and what is. And this gap must be addressed in some fashion.

This shows up in the Bible, too. Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac. (The Quran claims it was Ishmael, Abraham’s other son and the ancestor of the Arabs.) But an angel stays Abraham’s hand and a ram is substituted instead. God was satisfied with Abraham’s willingness to give what he most treasured—his son—to atone for his sin and prove his fidelity to God.

In Christianity this all comes to an unusual culmination. Rather than demanding the life of sinful human beings, God comes into human life to sacrifice himself for humans who deserve death. Jesus is the incarnation of God. Having no sins that need remediation, his willing substitution for humans is enough to set things right with a holy God. All who put their trust in this remedy have no marks held against them and are granted entrance into the presence of God. Since God has done the work of atonement humans need not fear rejection should their efforts to appease the gods be found wanting. Salvation is a gift of God’s grace, not the result of our own efforts to please the gods or buy them off.

In conclusion, let us note that in any view of the world it is admitted that something is amiss or wrong. The world is not as it should be. And we are the ones who make the mess. How to fix it? Secularists say it cannot be fixed, only ameliorated to some degree by education and improving human nature. Most religions say it is up to us to impress the divine powers through something we do in the hopes that it is enough to secure our eternal happiness. Christian theism says it is completely accomplished by the action of the One offended, who takes upon himself our rebellion, our failure (sin), and who offers us assurance of eternal life in His presence as a gift. This gift, once truly received, changes the believer so much that his or her highest desire is to live in joyful obedience to God.