Vinnie

Leviticus 5:11-13:

11"If any of the people cannot afford to bring young turtledoves or pigeons, they must bring two quarts of choice flour for their sin offering. Since it is a sin offering, they must not mix it with olive oil or put any incense on it.

12They must take the flour to the priest, who will scoop out a handful as a token portion. He will burn this flour on the altar just like any other offering given to the LORD by fire. This will be their sin offering.

13In this way, the priest will make atonement for those who are guilty, and they will be forgiven. The rest of the flour will belong to the priest, just as with the grain offering."

Shedding of blood what???

Christians usually isolate and abuse a single passage from Hebrews (v. 9:22) and use that tiny scrap of information to build an atonement theology and reject all the other NT and OT references. Don't get me wrong, I don't object to viewing Jesus' death as a levitical sacrifice but when we make all this language literal and absolute descriptions of the universe I find it to be ridiculous.

Vinnie

Vinnie

If God established a system of sacrificing I wouldn't have issues with it. Obviously a sacrifice is no good unless it comes from a genuinely repentent person. In this sense, a sacrifice would be like "asking God for forgiveness". I ask for forgiveness when I pray and I also ask through an external action (in this case a sacrifice). I am not sure this is how the ancients understood the issue though. They lived in a completely different time and cultural and I do not "think" for one second that they saw "sacrifice" in the same way that I do today.

I can also understand God insituting a practice like this so that people would be reminded of their sin. By repeatedly having to perform sacrifices and sin offerings it shows the people their recurring sin and need of reconciliation.

In this sense I could understand God accepting the sacrifice of a repentent sinner.

But I have problems when we read 9:22 as a universal rule which means that there is no forgiveness outside of bloodshed. I'd read it in the context of Leviticus 16 and not attempt to apply it over-literally to anything else. The author of Hebrews is basically saying that Jesus' sacrifice was better than the sacrifice of the high priest here. The shedding of blood was a necessary part of both sacrifices as 1) Jesus died and 2) the high priest was required to do stuff with the blood and sprinkle it on the alter. Obviously this yearly atonement sacrifice could not occur without the shedding of blood as the practice required blood. But Christians want to take this over literally and say that if this once a year offering was not performed there would have been no personal forgiveness for anybody. I find that view to be anything but tenable.

Vinnie

Old Man

OK, this is a subject which is not dealt with flippantly.

The shedding of blood was an institutional, legal requirement, at a national level, to be performed by the nation of Israel, to preserve the covenant between God and the nation of Israel, whereby he would forgive their sins, and they would retain his blessing.

But as the history of the Old Testament makes clear, the sacrifice of atonement, and other legal sacrifices, were not regarded by God in the absence of a reciprocal commitment to personal righteousness on the part of men, involving both the display of mercy and a pure heart. This keeping of the moral laws was clearly part of the same covenant in which the sacrifices were instituted.

That is why it is written "I desire mercy but not sacrifice etc".

Jesus was the institutor of a new covenant. But while he was alive, the Old Covenant remained in force. And the Old Covenant was precisely why Christ could assert God's forgiveness on whomever he wanted, because the legal requirement for the annual blood sacrifice was fulfilled.

Jesus' death replaced the animal sacrifice system, and enabled all men legal access into the "holy of holies" through the forgiveness that came by the shedding of his blood.

Of course, just as under the OT, the legal access will not suffice of itself without reciprocal personal righteousness.

(Whilst men may forgive each other without the shedding of blood, with God, it has always been a different matter. There is no prima facie reason why God should forgive men their sins against God, because all such sins are by nature extremely serious involving wilful rebellion, and without excuse.)

Kosh

MOre likely, is that when Paul hijacked the early Xian movement, he realized that he could never sell traditional Judaism to the gentiles. So out went the sacrifices and in came the "died for your sins" eschatology.

Vorkosigan

There would have been no forgiveness at all if people did not slaughter some animals once a year in a temple? No offense is intended by this, but do you realize truly how absurd that sounds?

<whizzz> <bang!> And once again, across Infidels, the noise of exploding irony meters resounds!

Old Man

Paul acted in concert with the other apostles. There is no recorded disagreement between James & Peter & Paul on this issue. The OT is a type of the NT. The book of Hebrews explains the connection very well.

Old Man

Is that an argument? And what did it take for the USA to forgive the German nation after WWII? The death of its leaders.

The concept of substitionary atonement is hardly absurd in the criminal/legal world.

Kosh

You've been in a rather sarcastic mood of late!

Clutch

The passage you quote shows nothing but Lewis's apparently inexhaustible stock of red herring.

The challenge was, Why should one agree with the description of Jesus' alleged sacrifice as morally remarkable?

Lewis replies that if Jesus really did give you the chance to live in heaven, you'd be silly not to accept it.

Relevance, anyone? Once again, Lewis seems incapable of grasping a point.

If Ted donates 100,000 dollars to the poor, you'd be crazy not to accept some of it if you're starving, and be grateful to Ted, moreover. But if someone told you that Ted's donation was a remarkable sacrifice, you'd not know whether to believe this unless you knew whether Ted was a trillionaire or someone who'd mortgaged his house and gave away every cent that he raised.

Of course, if you found out that Ted is not only a trillionaire, but is also the person who arranged for you to be poor from birth, you might even be inclined to drop the grateful part...

Kosh

Great analogy Clutch. :notworthy

Of course, Ted owns the mint that prints the money!