Passover problems part two
Hi all
I probably haven't thought this one through as clearly as I would have liked, so please don't hold me to any of the comments below: just trying to air some thoughts and resolve some issues.
In most sermons that I sit through, the teaching on the temple goes something like this:
In the Old Testament, people couldn't approach God directly because they were cut off from him by their sin. Therefore God created the sacrificial system, where Jews just had to sacrifice a spotless lamb to satisfy God's wrath. Even then, they couldn't do this themselves: the high priest had to go into the holy of holies for them, with a bell and a rope tied around his ankle in case God didn't like the sacrifice and struck the high priest dead. If the bell stopped ringing, the less high priests would have to pull him out by the rope around his ankle, lest they enter the holy of holies and be struck dead themselves. Thankfully, Jesus became our spotless passover lamb when he died on the cross to satisfy God's wrath, so we no longer need to sacrifice lambs.
As usual for me at the moment, I have a few questions on this.
Firstly: did people in the Old Testament really need the sacrificial system to come into a relationship with God that was mediated by a high priest? After all, the Bible is littered with stories of people who encountered God far away from the holy of holies and often without the aid of dead lambs....
Secondly: is God really someone who needs innocent blood to be appeased and what does this say about him/her? Doesn't this undermine so much of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus' teaches us to love our enemies rather than pay them back an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?
Thirdly: we are often taught that Jesus came so that we could have a relationship with God. Without Jesus, we are supposed to be like the Jews without the lamb - under the wrath of God, cut off from God, and unable to be in a relationship with God. But again, the Bible is full of stories of people who had a relationship with God long before Jesus came...
Is the concept of the sacrificial lamb a helpful one and why? If we discard it, how then do we understand why Jesus died?
All comments welcome.
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re-reading the old testament
I remember a time when I was reading Leviticus, and every evening would end the same. I would close my Bible, sometimes quite madly, and start my prayer by saying that this doesn't make sense.
That was one of the things that triggered my interest in the Old Testament, trying to understand. I won't say that I've even scratched the surface of my struggle with the Old Testament, but I am still struggling, I haven't given it up.
I tend to see the Old Testament, and the whole Bible actually, as theology. Not as final formulated creeds, but as theology in process. So when I read the Old Testament, I try to see where these people were coming from, and where they were going. I try to see how they understood God, and not what God has written through them. Yes, I know that this opens up a lot of emotions around scripture.
Take this from someone that is still reading the Bible. And I will keep on reading. I don't consider the Bible to be on equal footing with theology written today (or in the 16th century for that matter), but I'm stuggling to put my "why" into words.
Wrote some of my thoughts on interpretation of the Old Testament a few days ago.
blogging at mycontemplations.wordpress.com
Some things to note
1) John the baptizer saw some sort of correlation between the sacrifical lamb of the Day of Atonement and Jesus Christ (John 1:29). So whatever you do with the correlation I think its correct to saw that the authors of the NT want us in some way to make a connection between the two - the connection needs exploration, not the existence of a connection.
2) "In the Old Testament, people couldn't approach God directly because they were cut off from him by their sin. Therefore God created the sacrificial system, where Jews just had to sacrifice a spotless lamb to satisfy God's wrath." - Only dispensationalists believe this - Covenant and New Covenant theology both see Israel as entering into a correct relationship with God prior to the giving of the law simply through grace(initially Abraham and then more evidentially at the Exodus, they are rescued before they are given the law - the law mediated the relationship, it did not avert God's wrath or 'save' the Israelites.
3) Please note that the same Jesus in Matthew's gospel who teaches the sermon on the mount also instructs his disciples about unrepentant towns in Matt. 10:15 - notice the reference to the destruction of Sodom and Gomoorrah - this intensifies in 11:20-24. It seems to me that there's more to Jesus than merely 'turning the other cheek'.
4) For question 3 "we are often taught that Jesus came so that we could have a relationship with God." - I think we're often taught that because Jesus teaches it (John 14:6), the book of Hebrews makes strong suggestions that whatever happened in the past, this is the way that people enter relationship with God now (see esp. 1:1-2).
My suggestion is to ask the 'why' question - why does the OT present these things to us in such a way? Why did God institute the law (I think Deuteronomy has a lot to say on that), why a lamb? why a Day of Atonement? Why priests? Why and how did people encounter God away from the holy of holies or the temple? Why does God want an unblemished lamb? Why does God seem determined to crush all his enemies in the OT (at the same time as commanding Israel to look after the alien and foreigners amongst them)? Why and how do people encounter God without Jesus in the OT?
stupid, stupid Israelites...
I haven't posted the texts and am rather doing a liberal NT author type reference to them.
Hi Kevin,
In the OT YHWH liberates Israel through several acts and tells the salvation story in miniature. When those liberate individuals are gathered before God/-ess they panic seeing the fire, smoke, hearing the thunder and feeling the earth shudder at Godself's terrifying presence. They say, "Hell no. We won't go. Moses, you've drawn the short straw and so you get to go." and so we find the High Priest saga emerging from there. Later, when the Spirit falls on others beside Moses and the people loyal to him try and stop this phenomena, Moses says: "Don't stop them! I wish that all people received the Spirit". Moses understands Godself's heart here... but stupid, stupid Israelites...
And later the promise of the New Covenant, one in Christ's blood once for all, is that all receive this Spirit, who is the deposit of what is to come. Just like the Jews in that day we find some Christians today equally rejecting the Spirit in favour of the Bible only.
Now, beyond Gods'/Goddess' heart, which is not captured by the OT rituals around separation and priests and high priests, there is some stuff that is taught about how significant sin and its effects are - separating us from ourselves, nature, each other and ultimately God/Goddess - to varying degrees.
Remember that the Scapegoat is exaclty that and that people's sin was not removed but they were granted forgiveness. Similarly, our sin is not removed but we are granted forgiveness. Sin wages a war in us just as the Spirit wages a war within us; Satan is at war with and around us just as YHWH is at war with and around us. We definately cannot discard the saga of the lamb as it sets the scene for the sage of The Lamb. Perhaps we should not focus on what it doesn't tell us, based on what we read into it, but on what it does tell us, based on what it is trying to tell us.
Remember that even as Sin seperates us from YHWH so too does Jesus & Spirit's presence restore us. It was not in participating in the sacrificial system and living righteously or in having theological integrity (evangelicals take note here!!!!) that the sinners of Jesus' day were restored but by the very touch of Christ. The fact is that God/Goddess drew close to them, in Christ and Spirit, and touched them and restored them and they responded to Him. So too in the OT and so too today.
Envoy
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