Lesson 6 - Leviticus 4

[Music] [Music] [Music] well as we get back into laviticus let's review a little bit so far we've looked at three different sacrifices also called offerings the Ola the burnt offering the mija the green offering and the zaiba the peace offering each had a different purpose each had different occasions for their use now all had in common that the offering whether Graner animal had to be burned up on the brazen altar but it's also key to understand that none of these offerings had to do follow me with the commission of sins none dealt with atonement for trespasses against God per se rather they dealt with several aspects of mankind's corrupt nature before God that is if a man were never able uh to break even one of God's laws we were able and equipped that we never did that man could never escape the fact that the absence of poor behavior doesn't change our his or our nature and it's his nature our nature that is the determining factor for our acceptability before God our acceptability to Yahoo was not and is still not based as much on our behavior as on our nature and men's nature as always was predetermined since Adam and Eve all men's majors were evil in God's eyes period and God cannot accept a sinful nature as is anymore then he can accept sinful actions without there being consequences within his justice system however God did provide a legal means for man to make atonement for his naturally evil ritual and when I say a nature rather naturally evil nature and when I say legal I don't mean it in a sense of legalism a mechanical obedience to rituals and rules that that seeks a kind of self justification based on our works on our needs or is it done in a manner that is set apart from trust in and love of God I mean legal in the context that the pursuit of atonement was done in accordance with his laws and with his regulations that God issued as part of his legal system his mishpat his justice system that necessarily includes a contrite heart and his followers and the Ola was the first among these remedies the Ola first got God's attention and then provided a means for God to view the worshiper favorably that is the worshiper became acceptable to God by means of the Ola the Hebrews sense of the word is if the worshiper is allowed to come near to the Lord to approach the Lord notice that we're still not dealing with trespasses and sinful behavior the Miha is built upon what was accomplished by the Ola after the Ola was made and after it made the worshiper approachable and acceptable to God no one can approach God until he's first acceptable to God then the worshiper can offer a gift to God and this gift is more in the nature of tribute it's a required gift the Bible uses the term a ransom and by doing what is required the worshipper by paying a prescribed price thereby expresses his dedication to yo ho vey as king a desire to be obedient still we're not dealing with trespasses and sinful behavior the peace offering next built upon the work of the hola and the mija and the peace offering established a fellowship Shalom between the worshipper and Almighty God but that could not occur until first God found the worshiper acceptable to him second tribute could also be reviewed as ransom was paid and then together these three offerings the hola the mecca and the zaiba established and maintained peace and fellowship with Yehovah despite man's inherent sinful nature yet again we're still not dealing with atonement for trespasses and for sinful behavior now let's take a look at the pattern and the principles that are emerging here because much into the future he transformation was going to occur in the sacrificial system and Yeshua was going to become the fulfilled type that is being represented in Leviticus and we find that there is a prescribed way we are to deal with a holy God there is a prescribed sequence we must approach Jehovah and that sin is present in a number of ways within individuals within it within groups and that sin is present not only in our behavior but in the very fiber of our being nobody but nobody gets a mulligan nobody but nobody can approach God using a different method or in a different sequence and nobody is exempt from their natural-born condition of wickedness nor from responsibility for the requirement to obey God's laws and regulations nobody what we find when reading the New Testament and the passages about the life and work of Christ on our behalf is that the first thing that his death and resurrection did for those who put their faith in Him is that he made us his believers acceptable to God we're told that it all starts there God has no interest in our gifts to him if were first not acceptable to him if we are not acceptable then our gifts are better our ransom that's not acceptable to him and if we're not acceptable to him on our gifts and our ransom are not acceptable to him then there's no peace between us and him observe that the issue about the acceptability of humans - you have a by means of Christ is not about our sinful actions and behaviors it's about our sinful natures st. Paul often used the expression the power of sin he did that when he was referring to the problem an intractable problem of our corrupted natures I sometimes think we get what Paul said a bit confused because we think that the expression the power of sin is referring to power like in the term electrical power or horse power or maybe what a powerful man rather I see this more in the sense of the spiritual as in principalities and powers authorities or the authorities the powers of the underworld or of evil that as Paul is referring to the unseen controlling entity an evil domain that spiritually dark nature that lives within all of us until it's replaced with a holy spirit so when Paul says the power of sin it is in reference to man's naturally sinful condition that influences every aspect of our lives you see just as with the sacrifices ordained in Leviticus there is much that has to happen before God is even interested in dealing with our sinful behaviors first our nature has to be dealt with first then our behavior can be addressed thus one must first be redeemed by becoming acceptable to God then next he'll show us what is and what is not acceptable behavior this is the God ordained sequence of things now as believers we do not become acceptable to God because we stop trespassing against God that's not how you become redeemed God doesn't first clean us up a little bit and then when we reach some level of behavior that's good enough God says bingo now you're acceptable to me congratulations no rather Christ is as our Ola burnt offering the offering that allows you and me to come near to God Yeshua's death and his having been our sacrifice makes you and me acceptable to the Father if we'll appropriate what Jesus did simply by believing it trusting him only after we become acceptable to him back just call it being saved evangelicals call it being born-again the Bible more often uses the term redeemed only then does he begin to deal with our trespasses against him do you see that first we have to have our nature our very being acceptable to the Father and this is accomplished by the sacrifice of Christ and the simultaneous exchange of nature's within us the instant we accept our Messiah our old perverse nature is accepted as a rather as exchange for a new clean holy nature and this is in the form of God's own spirit which is called the Holy Spirit that comes to indwell us now I'm sure many of you are now thinking so what about Christ paying for our sins sins plural our trespasses our bad behaviors yeah he does that too but in a very real way the required first step is that he pays the price to give us the ability to approach the father to be acceptable to the Father now don't want to leave this impression as though I'm just describing Tom Bradford's three-step program to peace with God that's not how it works in the physical we're in the physical like it or not we do things in a serial fashion one step after the other the Levitical sacrificial system which was a physical system or that way there were physical altars physical sacrifices physical priests so on so there was a sequential order of ritual and each ritual dealt with a particular aspect of the process God was breaking his plan down for us he was showing it to us in bits and pieces bite-sized chunks in a simplistic way that we could grasp he's showing us the principles he's showing us the patterns he's showing us the many facets of sin of atonement of forgiveness and in this he was showing us his holiness and his justice so after dealing with our sinful natures in the first three chapters of Leviticus now in chapter 4 Jehovah is going to begin to deal with our sinful behaviors so open your Bibles to Leviticus chapter 4 I don't I said to Moses tell the people of Israel if anyone sins inadvertently against any of the mitzvot the commands and Adonai concerning things which should not be done and if he does any one of them then if it is the anointed Cohen the priest who sinned and this brought guilt on the people he is to offer I deny a young bull without defect as a sin offering for the city committed he must bring the bolt to the entrance of the tent of meeting before ad and I lay his hand on the Bulls head and slaughter the bowl in the presence of I deny the anointed Cohen the high priest is to take some of the Bulls blood and bring it to the tent of meeting the colon is to dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of the blood seven times in the presence of Adonai in front of the curtain of the sanctuary the colon is to put some of the blood on the horns of the altar for a fragrant incense before Adonai there in the tent of meeting all the remaining blood of the bull he's to pour out at the base of the altar for burnt offerings which is at the entrance to the tent of meeting he is to remove from the bull for the sin offering all of its fat the fat covering the inner organs all the fat above the above the inner organs the two kidneys the fat on them near the flanks and the covering of the liver which he will remove from the kidneys as it is removed from an ox sacrificed as a peace offering and the priest is to make these parts go up in smoke on the altar for burnt offering but the Bulls hide all of its flesh with its head the lower parts of its legs its inner organs and dung in other words the entire bull he's to bring outside the camp to a clean place where the ashes are emptied out there he is to burn it on wood with fire there where the ashes are emptied out it's to be burned up now if the entire community of Israel inadvertently makes a mistake with the assembly being unaware of the matter and they do something against any of the commandments of God concerning things which should not be done they are guilty and when they when the sin that they have committed becomes known then the assembly is to offer a young bull as a sin offering and bring it before the tent of meeting the leaders of the community are to lay their hands on the Bulls head and slaughter the bowl in the presence about and I the anointed priest the high priest is to bring some of the Bulls blood to the tent of meeting the coin is to dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle at seven times in the presence of Adonai in front of the curtain he is to put some of the blood on the horns of the altar before Adonai there in the tent of meeting and all the remaining blood he is to pour out at the base of the altar for burnt offerings which is at the entrance to the tent of meeting he's to remove all of its fat make it go up in smoke on the altar this is what he is to do with the bull he must do the same with this bowl as he does with the one for the sin offering this the Cohen will make atonement for them and they will be forgiven he is to bring the bull outside the camp and burn it as he burned the first bowl it is the sin offering for the Assembly and one a leader sins and it advertently does something against any of the commandments of God concerning things which he which should not be done he is guilty if the sin which he committed becomes known to him he is to bring his his offering a male goat without defect lay his hand on the goat's head and slaughter it in the place where they slaughter the burnt offering in the presence of adonai it is a sin offering the colon is to take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger put it on the horns of the altar for burnt offerings its remaining blood he is to pour out at the base of the altar for burnt offerings and all its fat he is to make go up in smoke on the altar like the fat of the sacrifice for peace offerings thus the Cohen will make atonement for him in regard to his sin and he will be forgiven if an individual among the people commits a sin inadvertently doing something against you neither commandments of VAT and i concerning things which he should not be done he is guilty if the sin he committed becomes known to him he is to bring as his offering a female goat without defect for the sin he committed lay his hand on the head of the sin offering slaughter the sin offering in the place of the burnt offerings the colon is to take some of its blood with his finger put it on the horns of the altar for burnt offerings all his remaining blood is to be poured out at the base of the altar all its fat he is to remove as the fat is removed from the sacrifice for peace offerings and the colon is to make it go up in smoke on the altar as a fragrant aroma for ad and I thus the priest will make atonement for him and he will be forgiving if he brings a lamb as his sin offering he is to bring a female without defect lay his head on that lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and slaughter it as a sin offering in the place where they slaughter burnt offerings the priestess takes some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar for burnt offering and all of its remaining blood he's to pour out at the base of the altar all its fat he is to remove as the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice for peace offerings and the colon is to make it go up in smoke on the top on the altar on top of the offerings for the brat and I mean by fire thus the colon will make atonement for him in regard to the sin he is committed and he will be forgiven now although we're not going to get in Chapter five today over we even finished chapter four we need to know the chapters four and five are are tied together they define together a new type of sacrifice now scholars you just love big words call the two sacrifices of Leviticus four and five when taken together as a as a as a a kind a type of class they call it expiatory that is they are designed to atone for acts of sin in fact the usual title for the sacrificial offering of chapter four and then also of chapter five is the sin offering but we're not going to use that title sin offering because it really does a disservice to what's intended in Hebrew the sacrifice of a Leviticus chapter four is called the hot hot hot to utt and it carries with it the sense of being a sacrifice for the purpose of purifying the sinner in order to relieve him of his guilt before your holy because this human has committed a transgression against Jehovah in other words it's not the wrong action that's being addressed it's now it's the polluted condition now of the worshiper that has resulted because of this act of transgression that's what's being dealt with it's assumed that the worshiper had been in a ritually clean pure state that he was unpolluted by the guilt of sins but now he had done something committed an action that was against God's holiness so something had to be done about it now that he could had committed this offense he was no longer pure before God and therefore he needed to be purified so when Torah class we're gonna call this sacrifice Leviticus chapter for the purification offering now just so you don't think that I'm redefining words and role in my own new theology understand that the typical English translation of sin offering when translating the Hebrew word haddad is not a direct translation of the word rather it's what's called a functional translation there is no such thing as a translation for the word hot-hot has no equivalent word in any other language rather all that can be done is to kind of restate the purpose for the HOD its function in English or whatever language and since the hot tot is not technically an offering to atone for the unacceptable behavior that's been committed calling it a sin offering kind of gives us the wrong impression of its purpose from a functional perspective the hot tot repairs the condition of the worshiper who's committed a sin it purifies the worshiper therefore a better translation of the function of the hut to odd is that it's a purification offering now verse one starts out by making it clear that what was a brought bout to proceed was still your home base Commandments to Moses this was not some Proclamation by people in authority this was still God speaking and verse 2 tells us that the hot taught is concerned with purifying the worshiper from his unintentional sin and we're gonna discuss this unintentional aspect which in Chapter four leans towards the idea of the sin being inadvertent accidental a little more when we get into chapter five now I talked a few minutes ago about the principles in the pattern that we're being established in the first three sacrifices of Leviticus and how these were going to carry over to the rest of scripture even into Christ's ministry and purpose the hot taught the four sacrifice brings another aspect to the nature of sin its effects and the assault on God's holiness that it causes now what we're doing when we study Leviticus is what I call walking around the rock for those of you that haven't been graced before with this little bit of folk wisdom let me explain if you encounter a very large rock a giant boulder and you want to examine it and you want to describe it you have to start at one point and then walk all around the perimeter of it and if you wish to examine it you have to do the same thing and as you walk around that rock if you just stop and you take notes on just what it looks like its coloration its surface its feel whether it has sharp edges or whether it's soft and curved what you wrote down would depend on exactly where you're standing at any given moment and as you moved and you looked at that rock from a little bit different position its appearance is going to change to get a proper and full understanding of all the physical aspects of that rock you would have to view it from the many positions and angles until you've seen it all and that's because of this rock is a random shape it looks somewhat different depending upon where you stop and look at it and if you decide to just stand at one spot like this fella here and describe the rock from just that one angle and assume that anywhere you stand that rocks gonna look exactly the same or you're gonna get a pretty distorted and incomplete impression of the overall picture in nature of that rock even though from the precise points you're standing you're certainly accurately reporting what it is you're observing discussing sin and atonement is like that in our sound by age we tend to think we can reduce almost every scriptural principle to a handful of Christian cliches and some very clever sayings wouldn't for those we wouldn't even have bumper stickers and these things may not be exactly wrong but they're often so simplistic is to be almost useless so Leviticus takes us the long way around that rock of sin and atonement and we're gonna stop to examine it all its facets that a number of places until we've made it all the way around and we're gonna find out that sin is a really complex issue and that perhaps it is even more serious and present in more forms in our lives than we've ever imagined now you see the main problem with sin is that it can destroy the relationship between you and God the sin presents the greatest danger to the covenant relationship that God created in order that man might live in peace Shalom with him and seen sin brings with it consequences that were often under intended and unforeseen and sometimes has no resolution one of the most catastrophic consequences for man is that sin can precipitate God's wrath I will tell you bluntly that I've encountered many Christians who have said something like I don't believe in God's wrath or more often I don't want to hear about God's wrath if you don't believe God pours out his wrath and judgment or that he is not a God of love and judgment and I fear for you because you don't understand the serious nature of sin and all of its consequences and by the time we're through with Leviticus you're gonna see just how seriously God takes sin and it is not a pretty picture the fourth class of sacrifice and Leviticus the hot - hot then deals with the precarious state of the person who has sinned it says though the person who has sinned has been poisoned was such a powerful toxin that he's very liable not to survive the hot dot the purification offering is the antidote to neutralize the poison how the person got poisoned the precise nature of the toxin all that secondary provided it occurred unintentionally what's important you see is bringing the person back to good health removing the debilitating effects of that poison on that person bringing that person back into a condition of good spiritual health so that his relationship with God is not destroyed see if this does that kind of make sense to you the hot dot sacrifice is the Lord God on a rescue mission to rescue the person from this dangerous condition that can be spiritually fatal if it's not properly treated right away and we find that the matter of sin is serious enough that depending on who comes into the sinful state due to his trespasses and what that trespassers position is within the community of Israel there are different ritual procedures prescribed the high priest has one procedure if he sins a tribal leader another a common member of the population another and even when the nation as a whole transgresses against Jehovah there's yet another indifferent antidote let's briefly look at each of these levels of Israeli society named off in chapter 4 we're going to discuss the various purification seat procedures that were deemed appropriate for each of these the order of importance of position and status within the Hebrew society in God's eyes is established in this chapter it is High Priest then all israel the whole congregation then tribal leader and finally the common person the high priest is the most important among all of these was therefore addressed first now some Bible versions will in verse 3 use the term anointed priests this is referring to the high priest as the high priest is the only priest anointed with the oil of unction and since the high priest is the mediator between God and man his sinning is a terrible thing and it not only puts himself in danger but the entire nation of Israel is put in danger as well and when the high priest trespasses against God the principle established here is that has the effect of polluting all of Israel everybody everything now let's be clear that in the context of Leviticus for the sins of the high priests weren't necessarily personal sins of bad behavior generally they were errors made in carrying out his duties as the high priest there were other sacrifices that dealt with his personal sins and since the duties of the high priest were primarily the carrying out of all these various rituals ordained by God that were on behalf of the people when the high priest goofed up oh he goofed up on behalf of the people so they wound up bearing as much guilt as he did and as a result the high priests had to use the sacrificial that it was at the top of the sacrificial hierarchy a mature bull now while in the Ola the burnt offering the selection of the animal that would be used for the sacrificial offering varied from a mature bull all the way down to a bird it had nothing to do with the extent of a person's sinful nature nothing it had to do with what a person could reasonably afford a bull being the most expensive and extravagant a bird being the least here and hot to odd it's a little different in the purification offering the person who held the higher position in Israeli society that sinning person had to provide the more expensive and larger animal the high-priest therefore was responsible to use the largest most expensive animal offering there was that was a three year old bull now just as in the bird offering the animal must be brought into the Tabernacle courtyard and there the worshiper in this case the high priest performs semuc ah the laying on of hands and remember this laying on of hands usually carried with it the idea of transferring guilt from the worshiper to the animal but it also carried with it the notion of officially designating that particular animal as this worshipers sick sacrificial offering then the high priest would kill the animal and collect its bud into a ritual vessel the blood was then taken into the sanctuary attend a meeting and the high priest would dip his finger into the bloods bull and he'd sprinkle it seven times on to the peril kept the curtain this veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the holy place now let's be clear a high priest was standing inside the holy place he was not standing inside the holy of Holy's when he did this this particular blood ritual was unusual the only time it actually occurred when he went inside the Holy of Holies all right was on Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement but on Yom Kippur not only did the high priests and inside the holy place and sprinkled blood towards the Holy of Holies he went inside the Holy of Holies then after this the high priest would dab a little blood onto the horns of the altar of incense that stood next to the parapet in the holy place then the remaining blood was poured out at the foot of the brazen altar rather than what up to now had been prescribed which is the animo blood had to be splashed on the four sides of the altar then the bull was cut up the fat was removed from certain of its inner organs it was burned up on the brazen altar and is here in verse 12 we get a fairly radical departure from sacra from typical sacrificial ritual all the remains of the bull is not eaten nor is it given to the priests to be used as food nor is it even burned up on the brazen altar rather it's taken to a place designated as outside the camp and there it's burned up on a common wood fire and the ashes are placed on the special ash heap that's also located outside the camp now we're not careful some important details can escape us and that's due to the problems of translating the original Hebrew to Greek then we translate the Greek to Latin then we can translate the Latin to English and now we got a mess in verse 10 we're told that certain parts of the bowl mainly the fat are burned up on the brazen altar the hebrew word used for burned up is guitar and guitar is a word that indicates the act of burning that targets a sacrificial offering into smoke a smoke that pleases God guitar it's also a word used when referring to the burning of incense on the altar of incense so this kind of burning up is a very positive thing it's a it's a holy procedure guitar but in verse 12 where the remains of the bowl are carried to a place outside of the camp and then burned up on a common wood fire the Hebrew word used for burned up is different the term carries with it the nearly opposite meaning of the word used in verse 10 for burning up the word is serif and serif means to destroy by fire to destroy by burning the idea is you're getting rid of something it's not desirable it's unclean Saurav could be used to describe the burning of trash for instance so guitar deals with holy burning sarov with destruction by burning it up guitar is constructive Seraph is destructive what is burnt up on the brazen altar is holy and of course constructive what is burnt up outside the camp on a common wood fire is corrupt and it's destructive and if the word suratha sounds maybe a little bit familiar to your ears it ought to because it's the root word of that creature that was hoisted up on a pole by Moses out in the wilderness a seraph and it's usually called a fiery dragon or a fiery serpent fiery like an burning and we're also gonna find that a seraph is described in the Bible as being in service to God but notice that the root words for sorrow and Seraph all revolves around destruction and that is probably the key to understanding one of the purposes of the Spirit being that the Bible calls a Sarah we hear the term war in Seraphim which guards God's throne room and the Seraphim job is to visit absolute destruction upon all who are not clean and pure but they dare to try to enter the presence of the Lord now let me also state that we're gonna run across an offshoot of this burning up with a bowl outside the camp in the sacrifice of the red heifer now most people have heard that turn redheffer and some might even know the Jews are right now on the out on the lookout for a perfect one because it's gonna be needed upon the building of the new temple in Jerusalem and I'm not gonna go into it right now but notice the primary difference between a hot tot and the red heifer sacrifice is that the male priests must use a male a bowl for the purification offering while the offering of the red heifer as you can tell by the name involves the sacrifice of a female a cow a heifer and in both cases however the burning up of this animals remains must be outside the camp it's a sell raw type of burning it's a destructive burning so exactly what does it mean to be outside the camp actually it's quite literal God instructed Moses that the Israelites were to in camp all around the wilderness Tabernacle here you see it in the centre and Israel's encamped all around it and this area of encampment is called inside the camp this area is considered clean that is clean as in pure not clean as in hygienic although hygienic was kind of a part of purity now exactly where the outermost boundary of the camp of Israel existed in the era of Moses and the tabernacle we're not told but it would have been somewhere beyond the outermost tents of where the twelve tribes were hundreds of years later when the portable tent that was called the wilderness half tabernacle gave way to a permanent structure called the temple an actual measurement was established to determine what lay inside and what lay outside the measurement was always circular and the center of the circle was the Holy of Holies so in the time of Jesus the area of the camp of Israel was set at a radius of 2,000 cubits around the holy of Holy's around 3,000 feet that's an imaginary circle if you would that's drawn around the Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount with a radius of 3,000 feet and everything inside that circle is considered inside the camp so everything beyond it is outside the camp now what I just told you is well documented in the Mishnah and the only disputable part what I just told you is the exact definition of a cubit which varied from culture to culture but generally for our purposes here it's around 18 inches now what's very interesting to me is a comment is made by the writer of the book Hebrews which some presume to be st. Paul but that's not at all certain I don't think it is I don't think it's Paul that concerns the precise location where Christ was crucified okay turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter Hebrews chapter 13 Hebrews chapter 13 I'm just going to read a couple verses here we're going to read verses 10 through 13 Paige 1508 if you have a complete Jewish Bible Hebrews chapter 13 we're going to read verses 10 through 13 we have an altar from which those who serve in the tent are not permitted to eat because the colon hog and all the high priest brings the blood of animals into the holiest place as a sin offering but their bodies are burned outside the camp so to Yeshua suffered death outside the gate in order to make the people holy through his own blood therefore let us go to him who was outside the camp and share his disgrace notice that Paul of whoever the right of Hebrews is and again I don't think it's Paul makes an analogy he says that just as the high priest brings an offering of blood to the sanctuary as a sin offering a hot - ought the offering we're going to call the purification offering the body of the bull has actually burned up outside the camp okay he's kind of repeating what we're learning in Leviticus and he says so - was Jesus destroyed outside the camp and therefore it's out there we have to join him we have to go the same place he did now some Bibles including the complete Jewish Bible and verse 12 say outside the gate the gate probably meaning the eastern gate and Jesus day there was a double-decker bridge just outside of the eastern gate that spanned the valley below it and it connected the Temple Mount over to the Mount of Olives it was over this bridge this bridge right here that the red heifer and the scapegoat were taken for the associated rituals and over which the remains of the bull for the purification offering the hot tot were transported C while thus far in our study of Torah we've identified two altars used as part of the overall sacrificial system the gold and incense altar that was inside the holy place and the brazen altar that was just outside the door into the temple there was in fact a third altar it was called the myth Cod altar and this Mikado altar was located near the summit of the Mount of Olives just outside the boundary of the camp of Israel and it was there that the red heifer was burned up the Bulls remains were burned up to ashes and therefore according to the writer of Hebrews it was probably very near by the myth Cod altar where Christ was crucified now Hebrews 13 13 says the Christ met his end outside the camp now if one draws a 3,000 foot circle around the holy of holies there's a there's the temple mountain a guess as to where the temple was was and where the holy police was it means Christ could not have died anywhere with inside of this circle or he would have been inside the camp and the traditional site where Christ was crucified falls inside the camp now here's a couple of points first Christ was probably crucified on the Mount of Olives because the camp of Israel ended part way up the slope of the Mount of Olives and therefore from that point on the slope and higher that was outside the camp and we're told in the Gospels remember the scene that's painted for us that those who viewed Christ's death upon experiencing an earthquake at the moment that he gave up his spirit they turned and they looked and they saw the veil of the temple rent torn they said from top to bottom well since that outer veil faced eastward towards the Mount of Olives the only place those people who were there with Christ could have possibly been in order to see that the veil tear was on the Mount of Olives because that's the direction it faced virtually anywhere else anywhere else it would have been outside of their view the second point is that there is great significance in the issue of dying outside the camp because it tells us that Christ's death was most akin to the purification offering for the high priest and we're told several times that Christ is what our high priest this procedure of the sacrifice being destroyed outside the camp was only used when the high priest became corrupted by sin this didn't apply to a tribal leader it didn't apply to a to the common people and this particular sacrifice wasn't burned up on the holy and wonderful brazen altar it had to be destroyed on a common piece of wood what did Jesus say my god my god why have you forsaken me why have you left me the father for a moment moved away from Yeshua and God's wrath which is absolute anihilation complete destruction fell upon Christ for him to bear instead of us now I'm not at all dogmatic about the location of messiahs death the writer of Hebrews provides clues he doesn't give us absolute evidence but this demonstrates just how important the reason I want to tell you about all this is because it shows you just how important it is to study and understand the Torah and the Levitical sacrificial system to simply say all Christ was a sacrifice for us well that's true but it's a bumper sticker what kind of sacrifice which of the many kinds are we talking about here when Hebrews says that the book of Hebrews says that the Christ was offered up as a sin offering that's a particular kind of sacrifice it's a hot dog it's not all the kinds and a hot dog has a very specific purpose it's not a general or some universal kind of sacrifice remember that those who originally wrote the New Testament and the account of Christ's death were Jews they understood the intricacies of the sacrificial system because it was common knowledge for them so did Paul just throw in a piece of information about Jesus dying outside the camp because it made it oh so dramatic or he just didn't give much thought to what it meant to communicate of course not this piece of information was very important to any Jew of that day reading it I don't want to give the impression that the hot to odd the sacrificial but rather the purification offering was the only element of the sacrificial system the issue of fulfilled but certainly the purification offering was front and center in the book of Hebrews and we need to take notes of that okay have a great week [Music] [Music] issue mission

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Length: 55min 53sec (3353 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 15 2018