The Big Difference
. . . So the priest shall make atonement on his behalf for his sin. Leviticus 5:6b NASB
Atonement – Baruch Levine emphasizes one of the most important characteristics of the Hebrew view of law when he says:
. . . the laws of the Torah did not permit Israelites to expiate intentional or premeditated offenses by means of sacrifice. There was no vicarious, ritual remedy – substitution of one’s property or wealth – for such violations, whether they were perpetrated against other individuals or against God Himself. In those cases, the law dealt directly with the offender, imposing real punishments and acting to prevent recurrences. The entire expiatory system ordained in the Torah must be understood in this light. Ritual expiation was restricted to situations where a reasonable doubt existed as to the willfulness of the offence. Even then, restitution was always required where loss or injury to another person had occurred. The mistaken notion that ritual worship could atone for criminality or intentional religious desecration was persistently attacked by the prophets of Israel, who considered it a major threat to the entire covenantal relationship between Israel and God.[1]
The point is that sacrifice for intentional sin exists only after punishment has been enacted. A thief can find forgiveness but only after restitution has been made. Thus the situations outlined in chapter 5 of Leviticus assume that these intentional acts have first been dealt with in terms of the appropriate sanctions, after which the petitioner may find pardon.
Intentional sins fell under the governance of justice and justice demanded punishment. The sacrificial system existed in order to insure ritual purity for those offenses that occurred without willful intention. But deliberate sins precipitated legal sanctions. “Forgiveness” for premeditated sins was really a matter of restitution, not removal of guilt, and was only accomplished by means of punishment. Willful sins required payment, sometimes with your life.
The failure to recognize this crucial distinction has led Christians to claim that the Old Testament view of atonement was based on “works” righteousness. Thinking that sacrifices were a means for seeking forgiveness for deliberate sins, Christians espoused the position that the sacrificial system was eliminated with the death of the Messiah. His sacrifice for sin was viewed as the final substitute for the Old Testament sacrificial system. Christians believed that it was no longer necessary to offer sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins because final atonement has been accomplished by the blood of Yeshua on the cross. But Levine’s comment demonstrates that the Christian view is a comparison of apples and oranges. Since there was no provision for the forgiveness of deliberate sin in the Hebrew sacrificial system, it is simply illogical to suggest that the atoning death of the Messiah replaced the previous sacrifices. The previous sacrifices never had any effect on deliberate sins, so the Messiah’s death could not be a replacement. There was nothing in the Hebrew system to replace. What the death of the Messiah accomplished did not replace the Hebrew sacrifices. It fulfilled a need that the sacrificial system could not address. The atoning death of the Messiah was the answer to the question, “What do I do about my deliberate sin that requires death as a punishment?” That answer was just as important to the Jew as it was to the Gentile.
With the correction in mind, let’s reconsider the place of sacrifice. First, we must distinguish between ritual purity and moral purity. Much of the sacrificial system is involved with ritual purity, requirements that are not set aside by the death of Yeshua. The purpose of ritual purity sacrifice is to properly approach a holy God. God Himself specifies the protocol for worship. Worship requires purity. The Scriptures provide us with instructions concerning purity in order that we might come into the presence of the holy God. Those instructions include the necessity of ritual purity concerning unintentional violations of the holiness code. In other words, if I am devoutly serious about my condition before the Lord, I will want to make sure that I have done nothing accidentally that would diminish my purity in His presence. Therefore, I will need instructions to cover the eventuality that I may have inadvertently dishonored Him in some way. The sacrificial system provides a means to insure that I may enter into His presence purified of my unintentional mistakes.
Secondly, the sacrificial system specifies the proper steps required to approach holiness. God provides exact instructions for my behavior if I wish to be ritually pure before Him. He alone has the authority to determine the proper methods. The sacrifices are proscribed behaviors that allow me to be acceptable to Him. But since they do not affect deliberate sin, the acceptability achieved with the sacrifices does not in any way offer me the possibility of removing my guilt through human action. These are God’s divinely ordained rituals for proper worship. They are not negotiable and they are quite specific in their application and circumstances. Unless all of the conditions apply, the sacrifice does not accomplish its purpose. Today some of the critical conditions of the sacrifices are not possible. Until they are, the sacrifices cannot be effectively performed.
Finally, we must notice that removing the error concerning deliberate sins shifts the issue from grace to justice and the application of punishment. Guilt is “expiated” within the society by the proper application of required punishment. This becomes a matter of moral purity. If a man deliberately sins, the proper expiation of that sin within the society is the application of the required punishment. So, a man who steals must be brought to justice and he must repay with penalty what he has taken. A man who injures another is subject to the general provision of “measure for measure.” A man who murders another must die. This judicial requirement removes the guilt in the society, but, of course, it does not remove the guilt of the offense before God. Furthermore, the society that does not execute the required justice leaves the matter unresolved and the forensic debt remains unpaid. In such cases, the whole society bears the burden. This is why the proper execution of justice within a community that follows YHVH is critical for every member of the community.
Grace, mercy and spiritual forgiveness must be left to God Himself. So, the social impact of deliberate sin becomes the concern of the judicial system but the religious and spiritual impact of deliberate sin oversteps the sacrificial provision and rests entirely with God. Until God dealt with this critical issue, no man – from Adam to the present day – could be forgiven of his intentional violations of holiness. God did deal with this issue in the perfect sacrifice of His Son “before the foundation of the world.” It is on this basis alone that there is forgiveness of deliberate sin. The Old Testament and the New Testament do not present two opposing means for forgiveness. They present one uniform, eternal provision.
Topical Index: sacrifice, atonement, deliberate sin, Leviticus 5:6
[1] Baruch Levine, JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus, p.3
Most clear and concise explanation of the matter that I have ever read. Great insight Skip! Thanks a lot!
I second Alfredo, and am speechless (well, momentarily, unfortunately) but now the questions are whirling (Skip’s favorite response).
First, I would like to say that this has STARTED to answer all those questions we were left hanging with after reading Skip’s book Crossword Puzzles (really hope this means a sequel is forthcoming). So, first, thank you for that!
Second, it adds another layer of clarity to the mystery behind “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” because it shows us what forgiveness does and does NOT entail. Important! I ‘forgave’ my debtors according to the greasy grace I got taught for decades but it did not work! I went to Alanon and learned that that ‘forgiveness’ I was practicing – all in the name of love, mind you – was only setting me up for more abuse; further, was making me a part of the problem. Well, I repented for practicing fake forgiveness, but was left wondering what the real stuff was, as I needed to forgive myself, too. As I realized I did not know, and so had to pray for guidance, that petition left room for a new understanding. Forgiveness does NOT negate justice! It does NOT mean I have to set myself up for even more abuse, either. It does NOT let the perpetrator off the restitution hook. I have had people do terrible things to me but then challenge me to ‘forgive’ them and just eat the cost. That is NOT LOVE! It’s not even forgiveness. Halleluah!
Sin is fracture. Forgiveness is part of the process for the healing of that fracture. Restitution is the act of taking back responsibility that the sin ducked. Further, restitution is the action of repairing the break in the line. Greasy grace requires the VICTIM to take all the responsibility and do all the repair but that is not justice! When I have wronged others, I must take the actions of repair.
The act of forgiveness is where the victim eschews bitterness (unforgiveness) for vulnerability, thus making restitution POSSIBLE, but it does not mean the victim has to do that restoration. I cannot bring a gift to the altar and still be bitter about wrong done to me. I must first go and demonstrate my vulnerability for relationship to the one who hurt me, thus giving them an opportunity to fix the problem, before I am pure of their sin again, for sin against me taints me, too – if and until I forgive, anyway. BUT, forgiveness does not mean that I have to eat the cost of their sin against me. God forgives me, but that does not mean the cost goes away. Yeshua BECAME the cost; became the restitution – the perpetrator’s half of the equation. The cross was our restitution, paid by our Kinsman Redeemer, as required by Law. It did not negate the Law; it fulfilled its requirements. Forgiveness (and restitution) cost heaven everything. Repair of sin is not easy or free!
What are the costs of sin? Well, there are many repercussions of fracture, but I will only address one tiny aspect, which is shame (something I know about). Societal shame is useful to correct abuse, as Skip teaches, but society cannot help bitter victims, only vulnerable ones. It is shameful to be beaten up by somebody. Rape victims do not report rape out of shame (and other reasons). Victimization tempts pride as an alternate ‘protection’, but internal shame lurks under the rock of pride, as does that bitterness. I had to repent for pride (and its accompanying bitterness) before I could lose the toxic shame of victimization. This is a return to the vulnerability required before my ritual sacrifice was acceptable before the heavenly altar. Forgiveness does NOT ask us to bear shame! It asks us to trade the condition that toxic shame enters us under – which is that pride we turn to to ‘protect’ us when we have been violated – for the humility of vulnerability towards our attacker as our part. We give the sinner a ‘home free’ pass so that they can approach us with restitution without fear of being attacked by bitterness and defensiveness. Vulnerability returns us to the strength of relationship as it protects us from the weakness of toxic interior shame that all pride (one of those Garden fig leaves) attempts to cover.
Why am I approaching this topic from the standpoint of the victim? Because, for me, it is easier to understand. I can understand sin best from the standpoint of being hurt by it myself. This is also what the Lord’s Prayer teaches me, for it does the same thing: it teaches us to seek forgiveness under the same conditions that we extend forgiveness.
There are at least a dozen other points this TW brings up but this one goes on my wall to study. An entire gold mine of new information! Jackpot! Hurray! Thank you again, Skip.
Thank you, I am learning so much from reading your books and your website. God bless you!
Well since Skip is in the out back we can only send our blessings. What a message, he facing the lions, tigers and bares of the religious traditions of men while yet facing them in his travels. Fruitfulness I call it.
Highlighting the distinction between deliberate and non-premeditated sins, and the process of how they are forgiven, has made a good step forward for me in my understanding of these things but there is still much to resolve.
Firstly, every beautiful, perfect and innocent child ever born has been under a death sentence since the day of his or her birth. (And many of them suffer and die while they are still perfectly innocent.) As this community does not believe in the passing down of original sin, how do we explain that?
Secondly, regarding deliberate sin, Skip wrote that, “Until God dealt with this critical issue, no man . . . to the present day – could be forgiven . . .” But then in the very next sentence he says, “God did deal with this issue . . . before the foundation of the world.””
So, I am still a little confused even though I have read, and greatly benefited by reading, Cross Word Puzzles.
Thirdly, I have read propositions that suggest the Lake of Fire is symbolic, and not of a useless and endless pit of torture but of an age lasting place of correction. Along these lines (?) Skip wrote on October 21, 2010 . . .
“The renewed creation will come about as a result of God’s wrath. In the exercise of wrath, God will reorder existence and renew its perfection. Wrath is not the application of unrestrained force, exterminating all that stands in His way. It is the scalpel’s edge of the great surgeon, cutting away all that is ungodly from its entwined hold on all He wishes to restore. Wherever there is mercy, wrath preceded.”
Doesn’t Torah say that there will NOT be any human sacrifice for a human sacrifice is an abomination and that YOU are responsible for your own sin and another can NOT take your sin for you? Leviticus teaches pretty clear that only the unintentional sin is the ONLY sin that a sacrifice can atone for (COVER so as not to be seen NOT forgiven). I stand before HaShem guilty of my intentional and unintentional sin. HE will determine my punishment on judgement. Yeshua, is indeed the Mashiach, but unless I read the Torah wrong Yeshua couldn’t have been a sacrifice for my sins.
David (I am sorry I cannot reproduce your name on my keyboard), that’s a good question, and I don’t think I know the answer to it very well, but here is where I am at so far, for what it is worth (sure hope somebody can also set me straight!).
I have another question to go with it: what is a sacrifice? Weren’t they all substitutes, with no value in and of themselves, being symbolic of another reality? Substitutes for what? Symbols for what?
Here’s another question: HUMAN sacrifice was against the Law, but what about that bleeding Lamb before the Throne before any trouble even started? That was certainly no human, for Yeshua did not take human flesh until the virgin conception, any way you read the text or want to understand Who (or what) Yeshua actually is.
And Skip makes the point that if provision for intentional sin was instituted “before the foundation of the world” (there’s that Lamb) , then the cross was about something else; namely, death. Death is the price for intentional sin. Yeshua took that price on Himself, and paid it. His death was not a sacrifice (substitute) for SIN; it was a substitute for the PRICE of that sin, and the Levitical Law provides for a price substitute. Repentance is the only thing that activates forgiveness. Yeshua offers repentance as a gift, sure, but we still have to ask for it, and implement it ourselves. Repentance is half of the required restitution for deliberate sin; death being the other half. We are still responsible for repentance, and repentance is what we have to do to avoid eternal death, but repentance is not a SUBSTITUTE for that death sentence, which is the force behind the necessity of the cross. Death is still necessary to satisfy the Law, and the cross satisfied it fully.
I am still stumbling through this myself, and feel that I need several more missing pieces. I sure hope Skip can write that sequel soon! Help!
Laurita, let me offer my stumbling’s on this.
Traditional mainstream Christianity believes that Jesus died to pay the penalty of our sins. They also believe that the penalty is burning alive forever in hellfire. Therefore, (my Greek logic tells me), Jesus must burn in hellfire forever if He is going to “pay the price” of our sins. But obviously, no one believes that.
The penalty for Adam and Eve’s sin was death, meaning dead like a dead dog (not spiritually alive somewhere else). That means they could never have been immortal, because then they could not die (by definition of immortality). But their mortal life could have been maintained in perfection and indefinitely because they had constant access to the Tree of Life. But that opportunity was lost when access to the Tree was cut off. Hence they died, and all of us.
When Christ died, did He “pay for” our sin? Did He “take our place” at our execution?
As we are all going to die it seems obvious to me He did not, for else we would not die.
Yeshua did not take our place in the sense of “replacing” us but he did take our place in the sense of, taking the “same” place, not only in this but in all things. (Heb 2:17). Experiencing everything we experience, and more.
I don’t think Christ’s birth and death (by itself) saved anyone, but it was the required first steps toward bringing us back from the dead to real immortality in the future. Raising the dead back to a mortal life never was a problem for God in the Old Testament but raising anyone to immortality was never done. That was because Christ had to be the Firstfruit in the process because only He qualified.
In that process, first, through Adam were we born mortal, and then, through Yeshua shall we be begotten anew. Yeshua had to go through the whole process first, in order to be the first, and in order for it to be possible for us to follow Him in His resurrection. (Somehow this is similar to being “born in Adam”. Without Adam we literally could not have been born human, and without the literal risen Christ we could not be begotten anew, in and through Him. Just like we were born, in and through Adam.)
One would think God could short circuit the process and make us all perfect and immortal without putting His Son (and us) through such an agonising process. But, we concede, Father knows best.
Dan, thank you for your musings. It takes some of the heat off of my (incessant) ones.
We agree on the mortal assessment completely. No ‘natural’ immortality. That word is never used in the Bible except to describe God, EXCEPT after the promised Resurrection, of course.
But, if you read closely, “firstfruits” does not always describe ‘first in numerical order’, but can also mean ‘first in importance’, or, a cause of. Thus, there can be a resurrected Moses (seen by humans on the Transfiguration Mount), as well as a whole bunch of people thrown out of their graves at Yeshua’s resurrection earthquake, too, CAUSED by that Resurrection, even though not all of those resurrections occurred “first” on the calendar according to our view of time.
Side note: a whole bunch of people over the millennia have been raised from the dead to continue their mortal existence. “Raised to immortality” is about another thing entirely. Only a few (that we know of) have experienced that, so far, but they all went to heaven; Moses came back only briefly, and the ones Matthew referred to that walked Jerusalem and testified to Yeshua’s resurrection undoubtedly left when He did.
That “agonizing process” is largely a mystery to us, for there just isn’t enough info for us to understand WHY and HOW salvation works, but I can see that Someone had to close the gap that sin creates, and by the beating He took in the process we can begin to get the idea of how horrendous that gap must be. May the Lamb be praised forever!
P.S. natural death does NOT pay for sin, otherwise all evil people would be saved. Only the SECOND death (total annihilation) erases sin in evil people. The first death is just a sleep, and therefore pays for nothing. Yeshua died the second death for all saved people, but He was not annihilated because He was not guilty, and, further, He carried His own life to “lay it down” and to “take it again”, too (John 10:18) .
Clarification; even though I am sure you did not mean to infer it, of course.
Greeks think in black and white terms. One either has life or one is dead. But Yeshua spoke more abstractly. Do we have life? Not really. Ever since the Fall, it is more accurate to say we are dying. That is why He said in, John 5:24, “He who hears My Word and believes on Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but has PASSED FROM DEATH to life” and, John 10:10, “I have come so that they MIGHT have life, and that they MIGHT have it MORE abundantly.”
Even current followers of Yeshua only have an “earnest”, pledge, foretaste or down payment of that spirit. (2Cor 5:4-5). My point being, is that both “life” and “death” are not always used in the absolute but in a relative manner. Hence, one could say we are living the “First Death” as we are awaiting our “eternal” life.
I have never made much sense out of the Final Judgement process. Traditional thinking has it that an unbeliever dies and goes to hell. Then, maybe thousands of years later, he is resurrected out of hell to be judged and then thrown (back?) into the Lake of Fire which is the Second Death. (But in Hebrew thought, judgement is for the purpose of correction, when possible.)
Many people believe unbelievers are burning in hell, and others think they are just unconscious. Whether the Lake of Fire and the Second Death is hell-fire or annihilation, what is the point of this process? The dead unbelievers go back into the exact same state they were in before they were resurrected and judged. Why not leave well enough alone?
Let me suggest a whole new option. Let us remain open to the Bible’s relative and symbolic use of life and death. Just as Yeshua said, “Let the dead bury the dead”, the Second Death is not a state of being absolutely dead, just as our current life is not a state of being absolutely alive. We should be especially wary of this when we are dealing with a phrase found in the highly symbolic Book of Revelation.
We are speaking of billions of dead unbelievers who have never once heard the name of Yeshua let alone heard the Torah. Is God going to write them off or give them the same opportunity we have?
The Lake of Fire and the Second Death are metaphors. Lakes are places for washing and cleansing, and fire is also an agent for cleansing. In the law, utensils were purified with fire and those that could not withstand fire were cleansed with the water of purification. (Num 31: 20-23).
There is baptism by both water and fire, and burial by baptism into the death of Christ. These baptisms symbolise changes in life that are characterised by the death of the flesh.
Have billions of people lived and died in futility? Is that the best God’s plans and purposes can manage? Or, will the Second Death be a second opportunity? Only then does their resurrection and judgement (to correction) make any sense.
Dan I like the way you think about the final judgment, thank you. Rabbi Bob Gorelik has stressed so many times that Hebrew is n idiomatic language in itself.
“What to do with me after life, I think, is God’s business. ..I have no time to worry about what God’s is going to do with me once I’m in the grave. Who knows wht He expects of me in the grave?” – Abraham Heschel
Hi Dan and Laurita, I have to jump in here.There has always been natural law in the ethical sense, that is given to us universally by God’s wisdom to deal with this. Law of the human heart if you like. It is ordered by our free will and reason and the supreme universal principle of the moral action that follows from this is that “good” is to be done and “evil” is to be avoided aka Do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself. We all receive direction from Him, always have, independent of religious doctrines and creeds. In this context universalism of knowledge of God applies but so do the consequences of non-conformation.
George, its always great to hear from you, of course.
I have a question: are you a rationalist? Which is to say, would you agree with the dictionary definition of the word, quote: “the principle or habit of accepting reason as the supreme authority, in matters of opinion, belief or conduct. THEOLOGY: the doctrine that human reason, unaided by divine revelation, is an adequate or the sole guide to all attainable religious truth.”?
Or, to quote Martin Hedegger on Descartes in The Age Of The World Picture: “The superiority of a sub-iectum… arises out of a claim of man to a …self-supported unshakeable foundation of truth, in the sense of certainty. Why and how does this claim acquire its decisive authority? The claim originates in that emancipation of man in which he frees himself of obligation to Christian revelational truth and church doctrine to a legislating for himself that takes its stand upon itself.”
The question is, do we in fact have the innate ability to “know good and evil”? Is this based on reason alone? Do we really not need revelation to guide us in what determines good and evil?
I have wrestled with this in the dark for decades, outside of religious guidance, looking to see if I could determine good and evil, and what to do about it.
My conclusion is that we need the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth, but the Word is the ultimate arbiter of the stuff. Reason can never supercede either.
Where are you currently at with this?
Laurita, That is a good Greek either/or question. I believe that God transcends our Judeo-Christian cultural interpretation of an exclusive redemptive God but I am not a Universalist EXCEPT that I believe everyone has the potential for redemption within their hands and hearts without being exposed to Judeo-Christianity.
For example, Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, an American Indian (and hero in Canadian culture) was a very spiritual leader who ultimately was defeated by our collective colonialism. His people have an innate connection with their “Great Spirit” in a way unlike anything we have ever known yet we did our best to teach them our way of belief of “civilization” by virtually annihilating them and their culture in the name of our God. Was their spirituality and theology worthless? Does might make right? Who really won the American Indian wars? Amero-Christianity as we know it?
I think we suffer from spiritual myopia by limiting our Judeo-Christian concept as being exclusionary as well as wildly underestimating the power of God. A good hard long look at the western world of Christian democracy reveals what exactly? Individually a lot. Collectively? I think we have a long way to go.
As always, luv-ya.
I meant to say y’all.
So funny.
Touched a nerve with me, with native culture vs. civilization. Don’t think it is black and white, either. I am with you on that. Do think all sides have a long way to go. Agreed.
BUT, I was asking if we in the West have it right when we say that it is in the NATURE of the flesh (unrenewed man) to understand and apply righteousness (the basis for the Western understanding of what it calls “reason” (to quote the Founders of America, and others), or does it take something BEYOND us to clue us in to what love is?
This is a sore nerve with me, too, and I appreciate the opportunity to flesh this one out with you and anybody else with a reaction or insight , too.
Do we really have an interior ‘natural law’ in our flesh (I think we sometimes think that is what the conscience is), or do we need something beyond us (Torah and/or the Holy Spirit) to teach us love? Further, is conscience actually a construct of the flesh, and the next question is, is it enough? And, yes, what about those peeps who never were exposed to Torah? Do they have it in their FLESH to know and do love, or does it come from beyond them, too (just not through the Bible)?
I am not debating whether or not they have the opportunity to choose love, for it is obvious that they do; I am asking where you think that opportunity comes from? Does it come from within our human nature – the yetzer hara – this ability to define love (what is called ‘natural law’ by Wordsworth, Emerson, and others), or does it come from beyond us – revelation? Revelation does not just include the Bible and prophets (not all which are in the Bible, and yes, I have always been a big fan of Tecumseh, too). I am holding that it must include the “still small Voice”, too, and that Voice cannot be our own “reason”:.
I am contending (hopefully not with you) that both the revelation of what love is as well as the power to repent and obey all come from the work of the Holy Spirit, and NOT from the flesh, contrary to the humanists who insist we not only can define love in the flesh (natural law, or reason) but can do it ‘all by ourselves’, too. I guess I am also saying that all false religions are necessarily flesh-works-based, even if they claim revelation, but that is yet another topic. Whew!
Whew indeed Laurita! When I digest what you are saying my only response can be, what does it mean that we are created in the image of God? Maybe when we define, refine this, then maybe we can have some understanding of everything else. Is this universal natural law for example?
Do we or don’t we need revelation as humans? That is the question I am seeking the answer to.
Humanism says “no” all we need is what we already find inside us.
But what did our Example show us the ultimate Human looked like as that perfect image?
He “did nothing but what (He) saw His Father do”. Nothing. Nada Zip.
The entire planet is convulsing in its final death throes as all the humans on it are shredding into INDIVIDUAL fragments, seduced by the temptation to look no further than themselves.
All we need lies BEYOND us, but if we look to ourselves as the first source, we will have nothing with which to function.
E.T. reached out with a glowing finger, but the glow came from himself. We, too, need to touch and be touched, but that glow needs to come from beyond our own self. That would be revelation.
What about all those people who never read the Bible? I think they still got at least some revelation, and will be judged by how they responded to the light they did get. How else can we read the verse about “people who lived in great darkness” who “saw a great light” if that light came from no further than themselves?
Hi Laurita, I forgot to reply to you. No I am not a rationalist nor a humanist. I absolutely agree with your summary. My point is that many people like North American natives, Inuit etc. did have a concept of God, a creator (Great Spirit), an other-worldliness, (heaven, happy hunting grounds, afterlife), etc. before they had any exposure to Christianity so they experienced, developed, some form of God revelation, ethics, belief system, family (marriage, childhood education) and environmental relationships etc. that I would say came from within, but more so in the manner of Hebrew (eastern conceptual) than Greek (western particular). I think that is the real tragedy of it all. We had the unique opportunity of learning a whole new way of “seeing” things and we, the “civilized” savages, blew it. It was probably inevitable but did it have to be so destructive, especially in God’s name? Not surprising though given the history of the Church.
We sing in unison, George. I think the so-called ‘primitive’ cultures that REMEMBERED the best they could would have been the first to argue that they were trying to follow revelation; i.e. that they were not just coming up with stuff from their own heads.
This reminds me of the book Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan who wrote what she initially tried to pass off as a real encounter with the Aborigines of Australia (but which she portrayed with a whole bunch of what looked suspiciously like Native American beliefs put through some New Age wringer) and the outrage from natives on both continents was vociferous.
I look at the work of Dr. Obomsawin, who has been heavily involved to returning the First Peoples of Canada to their native roots that they got jerked out from, particularly their diet and health practices (and, yes, religion, too). He has received a lot of attack on his stance on vaccination (to which he was, in part, responding to below) , but this quote of his may be germane to this discussion:
“I don’t appreciate your considerable bias in alluding to the traditional medicine of indigenous peoples as “nonsense”. To say such is analogous to the ill informed and arrogant assumptions of some 19th century missionaries who considered European society as singularly representing humankind’s apogee of knowledge, while considering the rest of the world as enshrouded in heathen ignorance. My maternal grandmother (an Oneida midwife) gave my mother the Oneida name of Sunbeam and her twin sister Moonbeam. Such are not “new age” names.”
Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20. I would like to add that I think most people do not actually go and look at history. So we get to repeat it. Sigh.
The quote above (this is for you, bp) comes from the web site nocompulsoryvaccination slash Dr Obomsawin responds.
Thank you for this link, Laurita.
Laurita, here is an interesting addition to the discussion about a natural innate God we may have. I am reading Acts 17:22-31 says ……“men of Athens, I observe that you (pagans) are very religious in all respects….TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. What therefore you worship in IGNORANCE, this I proclaim to you……. (but) having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring…
But this follows in Romans 1:18-32 “For the wrath of God is poured out upon pagans because they willfully and conscientiously rejected the knowledge of God that was WITHIN them. “For what can be known about God is PLAIN to them” Rom. 1:19. They have not pursued their religious fantasies out of ignorance but in FULL KNOWLEDGE of the truth: “Though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him…. and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four footed animals or reptiles.”
So we have two contrasting portrayals of Paul’s view of the pagans and their worship of idols. Do they worship idols out of ignorance? The Paul of Acts says YES, Paul in his own writings says NO. Does God overlook what they have done? Acts says YES, Paul says NO. Are they responsible for their idolatrous activities? Acts says NO Paul says YES. Does God inflict his wrathful judgement on them in the present as a result? Acts says NO Paul says YES. —- (from Bart Ehrhard – Jesus Interrupted)
George, your “interesting addition” just tipped this conversation over into Skip’s profession. I sure wish he could jump in here and respond to this. This inquiring mind really wants to know! Thanks for the wad of cud to chew on!
(If I understand correctly) You believe God gives natural, ethical law to us universally through our free will and reason and that He gives us a moral compass to know and do good and avoid evil. And so, everyone has the potential for redemption without ever knowing Yeshua.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with that. Not that it isn’t good rational, logical and compassionate thinking but the problem is, it’s all Greek to me.
It seems to me we only have to get as far as Gen. 3 to unravel your belief. God specifically told Adam and Eve to strictly avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yet Eve decided that she didn’t need God’s direct commandments; she could figure it out on her own. Using her own logic, at the persuasion of our Adversary, she reasoned she could be just like God, but it lead her to a life of hardship and death instead.
Pro 14:12 & Pro 16:25, There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jer 31:31 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
And . . . 33 . . . AFTER those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; [we’re not there yet.]
Joh 14:6 Jesus is saying to him, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one is coming to the Father except through Me.”
I sympathize with your rational Christian thinking but that’s not what the Bible teaches. The path is so narrow liberal Christians reject it because the only supposed option is the Lake of Fire. And that’s true, but if you rationalize these verses away, you rationalize the whole Bible away as well.
Many concepts, good and bad, do not seem fair. Yet the Chosen and favored people, the predestined, the wheat and the tares, the Lake of Fire, and the Second Death must all be accepted and dealt with. And they can be, even rationally, if we think outside our little box of time. God has all the time in the world to right things. The ages to come are not filled with unprofitable horror but with learning and correction to His eternal glory.
so if I read you right, in spite of what you say, you believe in Universal redemption for all.
God is not trying to save the world RIGHT NOW. If He was, He is doing a very poor job of it, and/or leaving it in the hands of very incapable people, despite their best efforts.
God works, from time to time, with very exclusive called/elect groups of people and to the exclusion of most others. That should be obvious even if hard to accept. But that is the point of the resurrection of ALL to judgement and CORRECTION; NOT to eternal suffering or annihilation. Perhaps that is the job of Believers in the Kingdom, – to teach, and enforce, the Torah.
1Ti 2:4 God our Savior, who WILL have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
1Ti 4:10 for for this we both labour and are reproached, because we hope [expect] on the living God, who is Saviour of ALL men—especially of those believing.
Dan, Who are these very exclusive people who work with God to the exclusion of most others? When was the last time they worked? They certainly are not obvious to me. How do we recognize them, by their faith (what they say) or by their works (what they do?)
A repentant heart goes a long way in God’s eyes.
I agree Judi
Ezekiel 18:20-32 “….the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself. 21 “But if the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed and observes all My statutes and practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 22 “All his transgressions which he has committed will not be remembered against him; because of his righteousness which he has practiced, he will live. 23 “Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord GOD, “rather than that he should turn from his ways and live? 24 “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity and does according to all the abominations that a wicked man does, will he live? All his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered for his treachery which he has committed and his sin which he has committed; for them he will die. 25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Hear now, O house of Israel! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right? 26 “When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity and dies because of it, for his iniquity which he has committed he will die. 27 “Again, when a wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and practices justice and righteousness, he will save his life. 28 “Because he considered and turned away from all his transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 29 “But the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Are My ways not right, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are not right? 30 “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, each according to his conduct,” declares the Lord GOD. “Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, so that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you. 31 “Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord GOD. “Therefore, repent and live!”
When did this change?
“But the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Are My ways not right, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are not right? 30 “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, each according to his conduct,” declares the Lord GOD.
This response of Israel reminds me so much of the church (when I say church, I am not saying YOUR church or that church down the street. Rather, the man made institution that has evolved into what it is today.)
At least where I grew up and it went to seminary, and the way I preached, the ways of the Lord were in fact NOT right. When I say “ways of the Lord” I am referring to HIs commands, precepts, statutes, as he did above, including how He deals with the wicked, the righteous and repentance (also as in the above verses) These things were OLD, OUT-DATED, NO ONE COULD KEEP THEM (And God knew it. That’s why He gave them. To prove man couldn’t do it), WRATHFUL, HARD, BURDENSOME AND NO ONE COULD KEEP THEM….In fact that’s why Yeshua came. TO correct that old vengeful, wrathful thing called God’s law and set into place a new law called the law of love which is really translated, The law of tolerance.
Would God not say the same thing today that he did to the House of Israel?
Sorry if this seems like a bit of a rant…
Thanks David, that helped a LOT.
Still confused.
I know this is couched as a statement, but please accept this as a quiestion; this is what I currently onderstand.
Yeshua has overcome death which is the penalty for sin (deliberate). Therefore, we are no longer gonna die.
But unless (assuming we make restitution and repent), during God’s justice, we experience His mercy and grace, we are never going to experience his presence.
What is the bones of this one?
Hey there. I have internet for a minute. OK, so the cross is about DEATH which is the last vestige of opposition to YHVH. Yeshua, as Messiah, overcomes that defilement and re-establishes the relationship of the entire creation to YHVH. The resurrection proves this to be the case as it is YHVH’s endorsement of Yeshua’s accomplishment. But it isn’t just about us. Sin has affected everything and everything must be restored. Now we await the return of the King to bring about the restoration that has been guaranteed by the sign of the resurrection. Those who acknowledged the Messiah and follow him will share in this restoration. It is God’s mercy that provides this way of return. But the way of return is just as true for those who seek God but never knew (or still don’t know) anything about the Messiah. The fact is not altered by our lack of knowing it. So, for those who know the Messiah, this is a great benefit and blessing, but for those who do not know him and still seek God, the blessing applies anyway. Does this help? More later maybe.
Thank you.
More later, absolutely 🙂
I am talking about my understanding of Ps 51. David commited sins against God (Vr4) Adultry, murder, kidnapping, Rape. All intentional with no sacrifice to cover them. Hence repentence: “Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit………..” .Vr 16 is a verse that hs been used to tell me sacrifice was never needed but when true understanding came I cried. “For you delight not in sacrifice or else would I give it: You find no pleasure in burnt offering—My sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart will not be despised” After his contrite heart and broken spirit David writes ” Then will You delight in the sacrifices of rightiousness,with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then bullocks will be offered upon Your altar. Sacrifice cames after a clean heart. And David lived by recieving the grace of God – not by sacrifice.
Brenda, Thank you!