“From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.” Of course God was not lying to Adam. The price for sin is blood. When Paul said, “According to the law almost everything is purified by blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness,” he was not presenting new information to the Jews, he was simply emphasizing what they already knew to be true. Getting there was a long road though. The first time God purified the world was in Noah’s Flood. Shortly after Noah’s flood God brought Abram into the world and promised him to make a great nation of him because of his faith. Three generations later He saved Abraham’s family from starvation by placing one of the children in a position of authority in Egypt, where he had knowledge of the coming famine and the prudence and position to prepare for it. Four hundred years later the Israelites needed salvation from their gracious hosts of old. With the night of the Passover, the political nation of Israel was born and the people who had found God’s favor found themselves being brought to the foot of Mount Sinai, where they were to receive the Law of Moses and a formal system of restitution and forgiveness.
For the first time in history man and God had an opportunity to share in a bond never experienced on Earth outside the Garden of Eden – that of mans’ sins covered over in the blood of restitution. This was very specific and many requirements had to have been met in order for the sacrifice to be a valid offering to God. The sacrifices had to be in the right place, performed by the right people with the right animals. The priests had to be ordained ministers and wear the right clothes. God’s decision on who were to fulfill all these “rights” rested on Abraham’s faithfulness. The unique relationship the Israelites shared with the Lord through the Law bore many fruits. It put them in a place of moral, spiritual, physical and mental superiority to the rest of the world. This was God’s family. They were His people and it was the Law that was the vehicle that brought them to this exalted position. Without the opportunity to stand before God without the burden of sin on their persons, they would not have been able to achieve anything more than mediocrity.
This was the stage the Christ stepped out onto. In the fullness of time, God come down from Heaven and made His dwelling among us. If Jesus is truly the manifestation of God then Mary is the personification of the perfect Jewish society, but that is also a different discussion. Because the blood of goats and lambs did not remove the stain of sin and completely restore man to God, a better sacrifice was called for. God wanted a better relationship, one made perfect. While the Law was perfect, the sacrifice did nothing more than cover the sins of the people and they had to make the same sacrifice over and over again. “For this I was born and for this I came into the world,” is what Jesus told His disciples. With the backdrop of salvation history, the world was ready to move on to the perfection of the person and work of Christ Jesus the Lord through the framework given to the Israelites in the Law. This would be a valid sacrifice made in the right place, by the right people who wore the right clothes in a perfect framework for the forgiveness of sins once and for all.
If the Torah is not an historical set of documents that was not written by Moses but was written by several authors and redactors over the course of four hundred years (or so) finally finding completion a thousand years after the death of Moses, as the skeptical, liberal critics suggest, the religion of the Hebrews is nothing more than any pagan religion coming out of the Ancient Orient and it holds no more weight with God than any of the contemporary religions of its day.
The Documentary Theory asserts that four major documents make up the Torah as we know it today, namely the Elohist and the Yahwist Documents which were written to explain the history of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms respectively which were married by the Deuteronomic Code and later completed by the Priestly Code which was devised by the priesthood to consolidate power and finally completing the first five books of the Bible. Many even deny the actual existence of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as historical figures but flippantly explain them away as national myth. This all has very serious consequences for the faithful believer of Judaism and Christianity because it presupposes a piecemeal compilation of the Law of Moses under which the restitution of sins is obtained. If this was not given to Moses on Mount Sinai in its entirety then the claim that it is from God is false! That would mean it does not truly cover mans’ sin in any way shape or form. How then is it different than the cult worship of Inanna in Ancient Sumer? How is it different than the worship of Osiris in Egypt, Dionysius in Greece or Apollo in Rome?
The difference between the ancient religion given to Moses and the surrounding pagan cults is exactly that is was supposed to have been given by the true and living God. How is this religion different if the practice of Temple worship was never instituted in Jerusalem until 621 BC?! if monotheism was never part of Judaism until the Babylonian Exile?! The pillar that holds up the structure of the practice of the religion given to Moses is its ability to restore man’s relationship to God. It allows man to stand before God with his sins covered in the blood of restitution. No other religion has that capability. There is no washing away of sins without a complete law coming down from Mount Sinai in the hands of Moses. Suppose there were no Tabernacle, no Ark of the Covenant and no Lavitical Priesthood upon Israel’s exit from bondage in Egypt. Suppose there were no Commandments and no prescribed liturgical practice by which the Hebrews were to live. That would mean God had no direct intervention in the course of human events, that He had no desire to restore man to Himself and that the world Jesus was born into was completely devoid of religious validity in the eyes of God.
For the first time in history man and God had an opportunity to share in a bond never experienced on Earth outside the Garden of Eden – that of mans’ sins covered over in the blood of restitution. This was very specific and many requirements had to have been met in order for the sacrifice to be a valid offering to God. The sacrifices had to be in the right place, performed by the right people with the right animals. The priests had to be ordained ministers and wear the right clothes. God’s decision on who were to fulfill all these “rights” rested on Abraham’s faithfulness. The unique relationship the Israelites shared with the Lord through the Law bore many fruits. It put them in a place of moral, spiritual, physical and mental superiority to the rest of the world. This was God’s family. They were His people and it was the Law that was the vehicle that brought them to this exalted position. Without the opportunity to stand before God without the burden of sin on their persons, they would not have been able to achieve anything more than mediocrity.
This was the stage the Christ stepped out onto. In the fullness of time, God come down from Heaven and made His dwelling among us. If Jesus is truly the manifestation of God then Mary is the personification of the perfect Jewish society, but that is also a different discussion. Because the blood of goats and lambs did not remove the stain of sin and completely restore man to God, a better sacrifice was called for. God wanted a better relationship, one made perfect. While the Law was perfect, the sacrifice did nothing more than cover the sins of the people and they had to make the same sacrifice over and over again. “For this I was born and for this I came into the world,” is what Jesus told His disciples. With the backdrop of salvation history, the world was ready to move on to the perfection of the person and work of Christ Jesus the Lord through the framework given to the Israelites in the Law. This would be a valid sacrifice made in the right place, by the right people who wore the right clothes in a perfect framework for the forgiveness of sins once and for all.
If the Torah is not an historical set of documents that was not written by Moses but was written by several authors and redactors over the course of four hundred years (or so) finally finding completion a thousand years after the death of Moses, as the skeptical, liberal critics suggest, the religion of the Hebrews is nothing more than any pagan religion coming out of the Ancient Orient and it holds no more weight with God than any of the contemporary religions of its day.
The Documentary Theory asserts that four major documents make up the Torah as we know it today, namely the Elohist and the Yahwist Documents which were written to explain the history of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms respectively which were married by the Deuteronomic Code and later completed by the Priestly Code which was devised by the priesthood to consolidate power and finally completing the first five books of the Bible. Many even deny the actual existence of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as historical figures but flippantly explain them away as national myth. This all has very serious consequences for the faithful believer of Judaism and Christianity because it presupposes a piecemeal compilation of the Law of Moses under which the restitution of sins is obtained. If this was not given to Moses on Mount Sinai in its entirety then the claim that it is from God is false! That would mean it does not truly cover mans’ sin in any way shape or form. How then is it different than the cult worship of Inanna in Ancient Sumer? How is it different than the worship of Osiris in Egypt, Dionysius in Greece or Apollo in Rome?
The difference between the ancient religion given to Moses and the surrounding pagan cults is exactly that is was supposed to have been given by the true and living God. How is this religion different if the practice of Temple worship was never instituted in Jerusalem until 621 BC?! if monotheism was never part of Judaism until the Babylonian Exile?! The pillar that holds up the structure of the practice of the religion given to Moses is its ability to restore man’s relationship to God. It allows man to stand before God with his sins covered in the blood of restitution. No other religion has that capability. There is no washing away of sins without a complete law coming down from Mount Sinai in the hands of Moses. Suppose there were no Tabernacle, no Ark of the Covenant and no Lavitical Priesthood upon Israel’s exit from bondage in Egypt. Suppose there were no Commandments and no prescribed liturgical practice by which the Hebrews were to live. That would mean God had no direct intervention in the course of human events, that He had no desire to restore man to Himself and that the world Jesus was born into was completely devoid of religious validity in the eyes of God.
