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I Peter 1:18-19

knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

Galatians 3:13

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us–for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE”–

I struggle with this one.  I don’t think it means that the Old Testament is irrelevant, although many use these verses as part of their replacement theology.  I think the curse of the law is death.  My failure to be able to truly and perfectly fulfill the law of God is sin, and the Bible states that the curse of that sin is death.  Christ took that on Himself, died, and rose again, overcoming the curse.

Therefore, since I am alive in Christ, since He redeemed me through His blood, I am no longer subject to that curse.  Sure, I’ll die eventually, but it won’t be a total and complete spiritual death.  Either way, and whatever it means, He has given me freedom and loosed my chains!  That’s awesome!

My Comments:

I think it’s difficult, given the amount of Greek-ness we get soaked in, to be on the receiving end of others’ giving, too.  At least, it is for me… and lately, that seems to be where I am more often than not.  I find it frustrating to have so little (or no) excess from which to give.  But, I suppose that it’s a cycle, and there will come a day when there is more left over and we have more to give back.
I’m not saying that in a “look at me” way or “poor me” or for any reason other than this strikes a chord in me.  All my life I would never have characterized myself as someone who enjoyed or truly wanted to give…  Maybe because I always felt it was mandated by the “church,” and I didn’t usually feel that was where it was needed most.  And now that God has set me on this path of discovery, I find myself wanting to give back to Him and those around us, yet having less with which to do it.  It’s kind of funny, in a way… kind of something at any rate.
That being said, I think, maybe, that this applies in more ways than monetarily, although I tend to end up focusing on that a lot.  I just realized that maybe, even if I don’t have excess of money, I might have excess in other areas from which I can give.  Skip said that our gifts from God are like an orange tree – we don’t eat our own oranges, we give them away.  Maybe that applies here, too?

When we read Scripture, we enter the world of Hebrew culture.  The more we are able to grasp that view of reality, the better we are able to worship the God revealed in Hebrew thought.

That is the answer to my “Why?” question.  Why learn about Hebrew culture and try to understand the writers as they were when they wrote it, including the actual Hebrew of the text and the idioms and other metaphors that play such a huge role in Hebrew?  To know God better.

I believe that Yeshua died to cover what ritual sacrifice couldn’t cover – purposeful sins.  In covering these sins He also removed the guilt of the unintented/unintentional sin that had previously been dealt with through animal sacrifice.  I believe it’s by grace that we receive this forgiveness, through believing that He is who He says He is and choosing to make Him lord of my life.  I believe that studying His word, and possibly even following the commands in the Torah (there are only about 20 that are even relevant today), are acts of worship and obedience that come out of my choice to serve God as my liege Lord.  My obedience makes me useful to His kingdom purposes, which is to restore what was perfect and was lost in the Garden – the relationship between God and man.

Does that mean I am not useful if I don’t follow the commands of Torah (which we only partially do today – yes, we are partially Torah observant in that we believe in one God, we don’t worship idols – unless you count money I guess)?  No.  I can still be used.  Look at the many, many people in history that God has used in HUGE ways even if they didn’t understand or agree with the link between the Old Testament and the New – Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Martin Luther, etc.  But, if they had understood, how much greater an impact could they have had?

One of the books that I want to read is called, Constantine’s Bible.  It’s about the changes that were solidified in the Messianic Jewish (aka Christian) church in order to separate it from the Jewish synagogues and make it the “official” religion.  Most of what we consider Christian today actually came out of the changes made by Constantine.  And, according to most scholars (Christian and secular), most of what we consider Christian is actually based on pagan rites and rituals.

Ultimately, God is God and will do as He chooses.  He knows the heart of man and searches and examines it to see its true motivation.  For those of us who have lived out lives in the Christian church, never exposed to the idea that maybe some of the stuff in the Old Testament actually applies still, I can’t believe God would penalize us for that.  And I don’t think He’s shaking His head.  He is sovereign and as such He can use whatever He wants and do whatever He wants.  He is my God despite my imperfections.  I want to know Him more and understand Him better.  And I do that in the only way I know how… I learn, I read, I listen, I pray.  And somewhere along the way, my thoughts get sorted out, and I develop a larger and clearer picture of who I am, and more importantly, who He is.

For the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. (KJV) John 1:17

But – You won’t find the Greek word for this translation in Today’s Word index because there is no Greek word in the original text.  The translation adds the word “but” to the sentence.  That little addition changes everything.  It’s not a slip.  It’s deliberate.  And it’s deliberate propaganda!

About a month ago I got a letter from Boaz Michael.  He mentioned this verse in his letter, pointing out that the addition of “but” created a terrible tragedy for believers.  It is the tragedy of thinking that law and grace are opposed to each other; that Moses and Jesus don’t say the same thing.  When the translators added “but” to the sentence, they implied that Christians and Jews have different gospels.  They separated believers into two camps; those who lived under the Mosaic code and those who lived under the free grace of the Gospels.  What a disaster for all of us!  It’s hard to imagine that men took such steps to break the Word of God in two, but they did.  They wanted an unbridgeable gap between the Older Testament and the Newer Testament, and for hundreds of years they have succeeded, convincing millions of God-fearing, humble followers that Jesus did not teach what Moses was given.  All those followers struggled to find a clear path of obedience.  Some succeeded.  Many did not.  God always uses what we are able to give, but we certainly made it much harder by believing what the “professionals” told us rather than looking for ourselves.  They got away with theological murder – and we let them.

The first principle of biblical interpretation is this:  God does not contradict Himself.  If He tells Moses that there are certain steps to be taken in obedience to Him that will insure our greatest usefulness in His purposes, you can be assured that Jesus did not say something different.  This is even more that case when we realize and profess that Jesus is God.  When it comes to salvation, God has not changed His mind.  Salvation is by grace and grace alone.  That was true for Moses and it’s true for us.  That is exactly what Jesus taught.  But usefulness comes through obedience and obedience is determined by a code of conduct revealed to Moses and endorsed by Jesus.  That has also always been the case.  Don’t let any translator slip that one past you.  You do not serve two gods.  You serve only One God and He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

I know that many of us struggle with this truth.  We have been hearing the gospel of grace and the evils of the Law so long that we are convinced that Jesus was a radical revisionary.  Please look again.  You have nothing to lose by asking yourself exactly what Jesus taught about the Mosaic code of conduct, but you have a great deal to lose if you just go on thinking that none of the “Law” applies to you.  Don’t become a “yes-man” just because your favorite translation adds a word here or there.  Insist on truth.  Demand that those who know tell you what words are really in the text and what words aren’t.  Pray that God will lead to you someone who will help you know what He said.  God listens to those kinds of prayers.  I know because I was blind myself before He heard my cry.  This is a journey and we are traveling together.  Just hold on to the one who is a step in front of you and ask a lot of questions. [1]

This clears up a lot of questions for me, making a bit of the confusion clearer.  And even if no one ever reads this post, at least some of my issues were sorted out and I have an easy reference next time I get confused again!

[1] Moen, Skip. “Theological Propaganda.” Hebrew Word Study | Skip Moen . N.p., 7 Sept. 2008. Web. 7 May 2010. <http://skipmoen.com/2008/09/07/theological-propaganda/>.

Leviticus 17:21

For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it [is] the blood [that] makes atonement for the soul.

I’ll bet that if you read that without the address you’d think it was something Jesus said or that Paul quoted while making an argument for salvation.  And maybe they did, but that’s not where the verse originated.  Anyway, it’s here that the significance of blood is explained.  Only blood can atone for a soul. Well, technically it says that blood atones for the whole self.  The word used for soul is “nephesh” and it doesn’t mean just the soul.  It is the living self (with life in the blood) and includes the body, the mind, the will, the character, the appetites and the emotions.  It’s pretty all-inclusive of what makes a human a human.  The Hebrews didn’t split a person into parts like we do (based on the Greek model).  There wasn’t a body that was separate from the mind which was also separate from the soul.  Nephesh was holistic.  So this atonement was also holistic.  It covers and atones (to make amends for, to compensate) for our sins.

And it’s all about the blood.  Nephesh is a being with life in the blood.  Without blood we die.  Maybe that’s why we call it the “life blood” of a thing.  That life is the oxygen, the breath, it carries to our body.  That breath originally came from YHWH himself!  How precious is that!  Symbolically, the blood circulates the breath of God through our veins to bring life to our body.  No wonder God didn’t want people drinking the blood of animals. Eventually, Jesus would shed His blood as the final and perfect sacrifice, putting an end to animal sacrifices.  But even here, long before Jesus, blood is important enough to be reserved only for sacrifices, only for atonement.  To break this law meant that you were cast out of Israel… a pretty steep punishment.  And, it comes after the sacrifices which means it’s pretty darn important.  The sacrifices were of primary importance because they restored the relationship between men and God by removing the guilt of sin.  And the prohibitions on blood come closely on their heels.

So, this would pretty much rule out vampirism as a Christian fetish or practice.  Does it rule out steak cooked medium rare?

Leviticus 16:21

Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send [it] away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man.

This is an interesting verse.  When Aaron lays his hands on the live goat (aka. the scapegoat) the Hebrew text says he cast the punishment for the sins of the children of Israel on it.  It wasn’t just the sin that was transferred, it was the guilt and punishment for those sins.  The goat was then sent into the wilderness (where it was probably eaten by lions or other animals in short order).  The symbolism is that their sins were removed, and they never saw them again.  This is what Jesus did for us on the cross, too.  Our guilt and our punishment for our sins were placed on Him (our scapegoat).  He was killed in the wilderness of our world and our sins were completely removed from the eyes of God.

I once read somewhere that the Israelites would place a scarlet thread outside or inside the temple and that after the scapegoat was removed it would miraculously turn from red to white.  However, once Jesus died, the miracle no longer occurred.  Jesus removed the need to offer continual sacrifices.

I think God has a remarkable imagination and an amazing way of using symbols to help us understand what He does in our lives.  Sometimes this makes it a little tricky, but maybe that makes the search more satisfying.

2 Corinthians 6:17

Therefore, come out from them and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you.

This seems to me to go against what Jesus said about loving others, and doesn’t make sense in light of the fact that Jesus walked in the world and touched the dirtiest people society had to offer.  So, what does it mean?

Here’s Chuck Smith’s (a pastor) take on it:

So, God’s call for His people to separation. You are to be different from the world. You cannot have real communion with the world. You have no common ground of meeting. You’re trying to bring two diverse situations together. You’re trying to join together the life of the flesh with the life of the Spirit. They cannot co-mingle. It’s an unequal yoke. So, God’s call for you is to come apart. “Be separate, saith the Lord. Don’t touch the unclean thing. And God said, I will be a Father, and ye will be my sons and daughters.”

As a child of God, you do live different than a person who is not a child of God. You’re expected to live differently.

This makes a lot of sense.  As children of God, it’s not that we’re physically going to separate ourselves and live in little communes.  Jesus didn’t do that.  He lived among us and walked among us and talked to people, ate with sinners, played with children, and healed the sick and dying.  He didn’t get away from people and live all by himself in the wilderness.  Instead, he lived differently than the people.  He didn’t sin the way people sin (even the righteous sin).  He didn’t lie or cheat or steal.  He wasn’t violent (remember how he healed the man’s ear after Peter cut it off with a sword?).  He lived differently and that set Him apart from the world.  So we are to follow Jesus’ example and live differently.  We should try to live like Jesus did – loving others and doing what is right.

My husband has to struggle with that a lot.  Yesterday he felt like he was being asked by a client to do something that he didn’t feel was right or moral, and while he was discussing the situation with the people he is working for he offered to give up the contract even though we really do need the money.  When they saw how serious he was about doing things right, they decided to back him up against the client that was asking him to be dishonest.  I was so proud of him!!!  That’s not an easy choice to make!

Anyhow, God doesn’t want us to never associate with lost people.  If we never talked to them or walked among them then how will they ever know who Jesus is?  How will they hear if we don’t go (it says that somewhere in the Bible)?  So, it’s not about staying away from people who don’t know Jesus, it’s about doing life differently and being set apart in our morals and actions.   Chuck Smith does make a good point, though, about not making an unbeliever our best friend.  Our best friends tend to have a lot of influence in our lives because we tell them our deepest thoughts and listen to their counsel.  So, that’s a good point.  But it doesn’t mean that you don’t ever associate or hang out with non-believers.  You just have to be wise and thoughtful in your actions.

2 Corinthians 5:16

So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, as though he were merely a human being. How differently I think about him now!

The first part of this verse caught my attention.  It’s a good reminder that we are called, by Christ, to stop judging people by the way others see them.  Jesus loved people.  He loved them whether they were good or bad, whether they were tax collectors (who were horribly hated) or adulterous women (a crime that carried a death penalty) or everyday citizens.  The world judges people by what they look like or what they do or how they live.  Even if we totally disagree with that part of their lives, Jesus still loves them.   And we should to.  We don’t have to love their actions or their lifestyle, but we should love them and accept them and try to be Jesus with skin on (showing them His love).  Jesus never condemned people (except for the religious leaders – isn’t that ironic?).  We shouldn’t either.

I can hear you now – but Jesus was God!  He was super-human.  It was easy for Him to do that.

Maybe.  He was in a human body with human emotions.  And even if he did have an easy time doing that, it’s His strength that He gives us that help us to be like Him.  We’re not in this alone.

God loves us.  We should love others.

The end.