Michael Heiser — Sacrificial System (OT Sacrifices): Week 3: Thinking Like an Israelite

okay okay here we are for week three and as you can tell we're talking about sacrificial system tonight we're not going I'm going to I'm going to spare you the exhilaration of going through it's and all the rituals and all that stuff so we're not going to be tracking through everything we are going to hit some sort of conceptual aspects of this again just to help us if possible kind of get get our heads wrapped around the whole logic in this case more broadly what what are they thinking when it comes to what priests actually do procedurally if you were here the first week we talked about two kinds of impurity so clean this there's a ritual impurity and there's moral and ritual impurity you know that these were this was temporary you basically couldn't avoid it you know there were procedures that would take care of your ritual uncleanness your ritual impurity and it really referred to either you doing something or something happening to you that made you unfit for sacred space and again most of the these are very natural unavoidable normal things moral impurity was a little bit different because it doesn't exclusively but it largely revolved around committing certain abominable acts and this was more enduring there weren't necessarily any sacrifices that to take care of the way a committing a moral abomination infected you infected the land infected sacred space the the remedy for what I called that for moral impurity was either the death penalty exiled from the community or again you know corporately exiled from the land if moral impurity was broad enough and significant enough there are certain moral violations that involved restitution so in that respect again if you weren't exiled if it wasn't a death-penalty offense there was a sacrifice that was made but it was made to again be part of a restitution process so there are some of those we talked about both types of impurity sacred space again was last week again the ritual or the ritual uncleanness again contact with any number of natural processes and substances we talked about examples where these again just to give you a few specifics here and childbirth genital discharges touching something dead skin disease whatnot and again it the reason we covered this was that there's a disconnect and it's intentional between being rendered unfit for sacred space in a ritual sense you know in a sense where you're we have to sort of quarantine you to teach the principle of this is God space this is not God space all these different rituals would reinforce that difference some of the things that would make it put you in that state reinforce that difference it had nothing to do with morality whereas moral violation of course did moral transgressions of this nature this is an exclusive list it's just a field the word abomination typically gets associated with these things various sexual transgressions idolatry was a big one bloodshed taking of innocent life was another one but they were different so we put this little chart up in to sort of quickly encapsulate the differences between the twos between the two there was the type of the source again how you get it what the effect is temporary versus against something more serious in a resolution so this is mostly what we talked about the first week last week we talked about sacred space and again that has to do with this godlike place it's sacred space was about this is where God lives this is why God owes it's a sad word God occupies again all of these concepts and that was where God comes to meet humans we went through a whole sort of litany last time about how these places were marked to the tree could be a tabernacle ten the temple there were places that were again conceptually associated with God's dwelling place gardens and mountains we talked about last time again to Telegraph God's other nests his remoteness is transcendence all these different ideas and when God comes to earth there are places on earth that by virtue of God's presence become sanctified they become sacred spots and so this is why you would have Old Testament people bill and all through there maybe build a tabernacle there put up a tent plant a tree all these different acts that we talked about last time we you know we also talked about the rationale not only for sacred space in this case against some of these impurities let me flip close there were three of them one was again going back here in this life and death kind of situation that's the first one here but why the why the different rationale why why these procedures both to make you fit for sacred space and why do certain things that affect you another thing is not and again we just summarized it by saying there's basically kind of three approaches that the do's and dont's the impurity versus purity clean versus unclean the list that you get whether it's behaviors or things you eat or things you touch all that was either do to teach you sort of a binary opposition of things that are associated with life those things stuff that gods associated with things that are associated with death that God is not associated with death because he's the life Giver yeah the sexual stuff was again you you have to be like God God is eternal he doesn't need produce and so there's this underlying logic again to be fit for sacred space you have to sort of be like God in this particular way so your sexual behaviors are circumscribes circumscribe you know particular ways and then there was the controllable versus uncontrollable idea now having said all that you've got this sort of weird system that again there's no sort of one explanation for why things are in this category and why things are in that category there's actually two or three and ways to approach it but if you got these two categories and the two categories effect your fitness or you're not and fitness for sacred space where you're allowed to go versus not go what you're allowed to touch in terms of sacred objects or not then if you wind up in a situation where something happens to you how do you fix that again and that takes you into the sacrificial system so if you think about it even if we could wrap our heads around why we're in a pure or impure condition okay I understand I got it well in Hani's ritual acts how does it actually deal with it what does it matter I mean how does killing an animal take care of this problem you know just questions like that whether words what's the logic to that so we have kind of a worldview logic gap to how we wind up in this situation and then we've got another questionable how does this fix this is it just what we do this because God told us to do that and we you know we sort of let God noodle that would figure that out I mean there's some of that but along with it again the sacrifices were kind of aimed at teaching certain things again procedurally and there's also going to be sort of an effect of the sacrifice in the way they're talked about and that's the part the the ritual part is sort of you know there's kind of a living object lesson sort of situation going on where again the priest is going to be doing certain things and because the priest is sort of like a god proxy he's allowed on sacred space was allowed to hold this to that object he's allowed to penetrate into the tabernacle so far and all that kind of stuff since the priest is kind of a god proxy what he does is we're going to see tonight would have mind or mimicked certain things that God wants people to know about him so there's part of it's a kind of a visual object lesson conceptual object lesson the other part what the actual ritual does is kind of where we have to say well if God says it does that in other words if you do that and God so do that to take care of this problem and we're good well that that's a little bit of a faith state it doesn't have to make you know biological sense okay or you know human sense if God told you to do this yes there's there's going to be something you're supposed to think and something you're supposed to learn but if you do this you're obedient and then you and God are okay God will allow you to visit him in other words you're not under threat you don't have to worry you're fit for sacred space it's also for so there's there's two sides so the sacrifices these are other questions you know why why why don't the sacrifices take care of all kinds of impurity why not you know why it why are the moral ones sort of left out while having an exception why is that treated so severely if ritual impurity requires keeping death out of the sanctuary remember certain things associated with death like touching it dead carcass made you ritually impure well good grief there's a lot of death going on this macro visual system like what's the logic to that why am i impure for like touching his cow that killed over but then I take you know a lamb or something to give it to the priest the priest kills it that and then sacred space is okay with that because I'm supposed to take the animal to a sacred area and then the priest you know will do the ritual there's death on the unholy ground there so how does that make any sense so that that's a question that is kind of obvious and then how does the whole process sort of live or imitate God let's talk about the steps we know we don't often think about kind of navigating through a book Leviticus or something ritual procedure but it's kind of instructive you know in certain ways again just broad conceptual ways so the priest had to ritually purify themselves before any of this starts maybe they wash and so on so forth you know they make sure again in terms of their sexual behavior and you know have I abstained X number of days am i okay you know we gotta sort of go through the whole check down list make sure they fit themselves and they've got a wash according to the ritual procedure and once they get done with all that then they're allowed to go on to the turf that God occupies so there's a sort of a preparatory set of procedures and things that they have to think about to get ready and then there's a selection of a ritually clean animal the animal has to be pure clean unclean animals and the reason for that is you are going to take that animal into sacred space so it's a camp you can't have any blemishes you can't have any diseases you can't be in one of these forbidden animals or anything like that so they have to make make sure that then the animal is going to be killed or sacrificed and on this I came across up yeah I like clowns it's work about this and I quoted it before I think this is kind of an interesting observation so sacrifice is frequently described or derided as violent it certainly is deadly and bloody but the violence of sacrifice is not random or indiscriminate animal sacrifice nation Israel proceeds only in a very orderly and controlled way in ancient Israel sacrifice is very little like hunting you know we don't have this sort of you know I'm not a hunter but it has me wondering you know when I see discussions of hunting versus sacrifice well the animals end up dead so what's the difference well there could be a lot of difference you know there could be a lot of savagery involved I mean beyond my competition the thrill of the hunt there could be a lot of savagery involved in a hunting situation that you would not find in a sacrifice the animal is bound it's going to be sort of under submission already so there are things like like that and what clouds is saying is this is very methodical it's a very procedure derivative in ancient Israel sacrifice involved the controlled exercise of complete power over an animal's life and death along that point this is precisely one of the powers that Israel's God exercised over human beings so the fact that you have a an animal for sacrifice and you as the priest are in complete control of the animals lasered and conceptually that was one little point of this that was supposed to make you realize because the priest is the god proxy that God has complete control over life and death you know it's not it's not a situation it's not chaotic it's the Lord who kills and brings to life the life giver gave life he can take away life exercising control over the death of a subordinate being is not the only aspect of sacrificial ritual that can be understood in light of imitatio Dei the imitation of God so again the god proxy is supposed to make you think the God has complete control over life and death in a sacrificial situation why would that matter why would it matter why would it be sort of either interesting or important for you to think that way about what you're seeing the priests do to this animal that you brought does it could be you he got his complete control over life and death you are on his turf you could very well be the one at risk here but you're not and these are simple straightforward concepts and God has empowered this person to essentially be him in the situation this person is not only chosen by God but he is fit to do what he's going to do here he's playing by God's rules he is fit for sacred space and this animal that you have brought because the priest is who he is and because the priest is playing by God's rules and because you're playing by God's rules you are not under threat it could very well be you and sometimes you know as you read through your Old Testament it is people I mean some sometimes people do violate sacred space and they pay a price for that they become living object lessons well this time it was you that shouldn't be the way it is and it's not going to be the way it is if you the animal is after it sacrificed its deep dismembered this is scholars like to refer to it this way the priest de creates it as the maker put it together the priest disassembles it again the priest is the God proxy it's a D creation of life the blood is applied to the altar or the sanctuary and I want to camp here a little bit do you realize that in the Old Testament sacrificial system and we as Christians are taught not wrongly but I think in precisely we're taught that the sacrificial system was a typology or typify the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross you know on some conceptual level that that makes sense but it doesn't take very long if you're actually reading through the sacrificial passages that are supposed to typify the cross that you notice the blood never gets applied to people and you get all this New Testament language where the blood is applied to the center in some way just the concept of being having your sins taken away by the water covered by the blogger's you these these phrases that were used to thinking about with the cross that the blood has some sort of washing you know impact on you you would think well if it does that shouldn't it be like applied to me in some way like shouldn't the priest dab the blot on the person if the person is the one being made clean you would think that but that never actually happens the only time that you have blood applied to a human is when the priests are initially sanctified when the whole priesthood system gets set up in the Torah the first time they you know they get ready to use it the priests are set apart they put the blood on the material of the toes and all that stuff and a similar ritual that's sort of like an annual re-sync realization of priesthood it's really unusual okay you also had one other occasion when the first time that they when they received the law and the community Israel enters into the Sinai covenant with God at Sinai they offer a sacrifice and part of that procedure is sprinkling the blood of the congregation now it's not like they ran around everybody it's just it was it was a symbolic gesture you know signifying that you know it's a serious thing to enter into this covenant because again here you are at the foot of God's Mountain where he just told everybody don't bother to touch it don't touch the mountain lest you die and then we have this ceremony only Moses and the elders are allowed to go up there but the effect is that this disagreement we're making here you've come to my Mountain I have come to earth you're my people you've come to my land I've brought you out of Egypt you know I've done some pretty spectacular things on the way you know to getting you here that this covenant is is sealed with blood it's made and sealed with blood because again it could be I could have left you in Egypt I could have destroyed you you know any number of places here you know you should realize that if you break this covenant you know sort of may it be you know done unto you that kind of situation there's a cost but this animal are these again are in your place see only a time you see that the congregation get blood sprinkled on them or anything like that so you look at the sacrificial system and you think and that one element that kind of it would make sense to have that do that have that happened in the Old Testament if the analysis but it doesn't we'll talk about kind of some of the language that you use there but the blood is actually applied to objects it's applied to the altar some frames of the sanctuary of course the Day of Atonement it's sprinkled where see the propitiation of blood is actually applied to objects on sacred space the reason is because let's just take day of atonement it's the only time when blood is when blood penetrates that far into the holy place why does blood need to penetrate that far into the Holy air because you got a guy going in there you have to disinfect sacred space so this guy can walk in there and not end up dead it's it's again it's attracted the blood is supposed to have this purgative effect to like insulate god's space and his objects from you it doesn't like clean you up it protects this stuff from you from infection from defilement by human occupation it's really to illustrate that one idea that God is only going to be okay with you visiting his living room if he you know he tells you how to prepare yourself and the reason is not so that you know it's not really about you it's really about God it's really about his space and the whole idea is that well we must be kind of like we can just really mess this up and again it's not that God doesn't love his people he does but the whole point is that this space is different than any other place you go that's common this is not there's something different here and so you do these kind of bizarre things but have these bizarre kind of maybe even offensive ideas attached to them but the whole idea is designed to teach you that you don't just come here when you want under your own terms that's not the way this works we have to do something here to make it a little strange so that you understand that God's presence is not like your presence or any other presence it's different it's other so you have to get these these tropics you get parts of the animal consumed in flames other parts are eaten again the fire brings you know it's Harkins you know back to the God is a consuming fire and at Sinai and the whole Sinai event and so when this is repeated it again the tabernacle is mobile the temples going to be somewhere in Jerusalem later on when parts of the sacrifice are consumed in fire again in theological theory that was supposed to jar the mind of the person into thinking yeah God really could have incinerated us back there at Sinai but he didn't he entered into a covenant with us instead this I could have been toast we could have been toast but instead again the sacrifice takes our place parts of it over bottom meal and this is again this I don't want to use the you know the just the C word a New Testament sense but this is convenient okay this is about fellowship with God God invites the elders up they see the God of Israel in Exodus 24 they have a meal and this is about your of the family and one of the things that's getting this culture and lots of cultures that people do to promote family in family times together it's a symbolic God's God's house of his property he's inviting you overthrow me it's a communal act so Klaus says again that is backed up God also God to select skills and appears on earth as a consuming fire sacrifice that ought to be understood that affordably the offeror and priests play the part of God the domesticated animals from the herd in the flock play the part of the people particularly Israel as God is to people so - during the process of sacrifice for the people of Israel to the sacrificed animals God has power over life and death even the act of selecting and yeah you have clean and unclean rules here but even the act of selection tells you something it harkens back again to Deuteronomy for you know over 30 - Deuteronomy 7 okay why did the Lord choose Israel because they were just awesome no it's like you just you're just the lost of the lot here you've got your the smallest there's really nothing spectacular Deuteronomy 7 70 God loved you because he loved you doesn't have to sound logical that's just the way it is even the act of selection this animal and not data is designed again to bring some of these concepts back but to member God could have chosen somebody else you really couldn't have what's to prevent didn't have to be us the imitation idea again recognizes God's lordship over creation and his life and death his lordship over Israel this people not that people this and of course his presence of the sacred space rituals reinforce the principle of sacred space common versus uncommon common versus sacred the blood is not applied with people who bring it the sacrifices here either exception as we just mentioned those again none of the above in these situations was about sin it was about creation now again we could talk about the day of atonement here a little bit of time over but even the day of atonement which I like to refer to as the reset button that's basically what it is the reboot even the day of atonement to give the blood is not applied to people but the sanctuary so if you think about the day of atonement this is Leviticus 16 there are two goes taken okay the goat that is about the sins of the people is that one killed or left alive which one is it Leviticus jeopardy which one right the goat that isn't killed is the one where the sins of the nation are laid upon again you would think well that's the one we're supposed to kill now because Jesus died for our sins it's actually the opposite of what actually goes on the one that's killed blood is taken and put again on the ark there the mercy scene parts of the the inner sanctum there again to insulate it to decontaminate sacred space all that stuff and it goes all the way again into the most holy place the one that's left alive is the moment the priest priests will lay his hands and then it gets sent out into the desert so if you have ESP it's not gonna say scapegoat there tomorrow in your devotions as you read through Leviticus 60 on your way to reading through the entire book we're gonna guess of course great devotional work that it is it'll say that they're the the goat that gets sacrificed as we go that is a lot on I for the Lord for Yahweh and the goat that isn't killed the hands are put upon it and they get sent into the desert is to go for Aziza now that can be translated scapegoat the goat that goes away but the parallelism there one is a property goat for the Lord goat for property and goat for Azazel in Jewish Jewish literature later on and it has a history even even in the Israelite period this was aiming him used of a demon so the idea is that our camp in Israel is sacred space is the place where where we as God's children occupy everywhere else is nasty this is cosmic geography thinking the wilderness is the place of chaos and disorder and darkness and death it's the place what God isn't it's the bad place and so we naturally send this code out there because that's where sin evolves doesn't belong in the camp belongs outside the camp now in you can read actually some I guess to them but they're actually episodes where they would assign a person to follow the goat to make sure it didn't turn and they would even get to the point where they they would drive it over a cliff to make sure it died so that it doesn't come back because it was like this is it's unholy it's spooky it's creepy you know sin belongs out there we don't want it to find its way back this is the logic by the way for first Corinthians 5 the troops discipline passage that the unrepentant center you deliver him unto Satan the church is one holy ground this is where God dwells now in the presence of believers corporately and individually so when you have an unrepentant person you put them outside the camp now they may stay out there and then they'll be destroyed the destruction of the flesh kind of thing that's where Satan is Satan as an in charge he's out there Satan isn't where believers are he's out there at least he's supposed to be so it was the same kind of thing you know just applied to the to the church situation instead of the camp of Israel saying the same sort of thinking but again it's kind of an odd passage but there's a certain logic to it where the place were were evil is the place with God is opposite God is with us in our camp where he isn't something else's his enemies are out there our enemies are out there in a spiritual sense so that is where that God needs to go as always just you know there's a Semitic Satan what's achieved by the sacrifice that they have atonement was the time where basically you sort of hit the reset button any sins that were not aware of that are in the camp are going to be symbolically transferred to the goat not the one we kill that wouldn't that be bad well we tell the wrong one by actually you got to get rid of the sin so you symbolically transfer through the laying on of hands you send it away you do what you need to do to make sure it never comes back you think why don't we just like shoot an arrow I don't think it's about a hundred yards it who's a good shot then then the next time they can't moves we don't walk over that spot but you send it out there and so now in theory again this is this is the theological theory behind it in theory all of the sins of the nation are now out there we sort of have a time to kind of where we're all clean at the same time now that's why I call it the reset button the conditions are just like they were at the beginning when God started the whole priesthood system when he told us to build this tabernacle thing when he gave us all these procedures this is like this is like it was that it was all new nobody messed it up that's what the day of atonement supposed to do we hit the reset button you reboot and then you started it was associated with so it was an important day because it covered you know so much house let's see again the goal is to protect sacred space we talked about that one's hit Leviticus for this is called in our translations it's kind of both okay and an unfortunate the sin-offering Hebrew at Scott OTT comes from Qatar which is one of the words for Cinna means to this the mark some deficiency this is the sin off offering it's really better understood as taking care of things that are deficient things that have been rendered unclean see what misses the mark isn't your moral behavior if your moral behavior again it's bad enough this isn't going to take care of it if your moral behavior is bad enough you're either going to be exiled or you got a death sentence how you know and there is no sacrifice for that stuff this is where we blemish ourselves other people object sacred space that's what misses the mark that's what needs to be decontaminated and if you do that Leviticus 4 and it says that more in other places if you do these things to decontaminate yourselves and sacred space then that blemish that sin is forgiven you okay things are okay between you and God you're allowed back into God's presence the sin offering again doesn't take care of moral violation it takes care of the fact that there's something about you that is between you and your state of interior we take care of it so it's decontamination to protect the sacred space guilt over the term used here ashab also refers to restitution if you actually read through the passage this is going to be involved with restoring something lost to someone could be through theft could be through accident something like that you have again a sacrificial ritual plus again there is some reparation that needs to be made and once restitution is made the guilty party is two pair of pervs two pairs this is another term you know we we typically say two pair means to cover to atone means to cover their passages where that doesn't work the a better English term would be purging probation kind of like you're not covering up a blemish you're you're getting rid of it really encouraging and so in the context restitution is part of making things whole again kind of a gallery setting and moral the file what about that committing abominations again for a lot of these there was no sacrifice again you have a short list of punishments and this is why again when this is why you know when when the writer of Hebrews says hey by the by the shedding of the blood of bulls and goats forgiveness of sin so he knows his Old Testament he knows there's this forgiveness language there but if you read through Hebrews there's actually a number of places where sins that are not taken care of in the sacrificial system I just actually show up in the book of Hebrews and they are covered by the superior off which is Christ so when he gets that point and he's telling you the people who know the system the Jewish believers you know that the blood of bulls and goats you know that how limited that was it didn't it's not going to it's not going to take care of you in terms of of your conscience for instance you know how you know that you did this and God knows that you did this and we don't have a temple anymore so like what good of these offerings even if we were doing it what you know we not only can't do most of this but even if we did most of this stuff's about purifying some building or some ejected whatever it doesn't take away my guilt my guilt before a holy God in the Old Testament God was just eliminated getting out of my mind now you said you're just you just removed from the picture where your exile from the community you are for gotten you are divorced from the people the only people on earth who have the Oracles of God they are the only people on earth who have the truth about who the true God is and how to be rightly related by covenant if you're kicked out if your eggs out of that it was a serious thing even if you know but so what is this what does that system solve well the answer is well it didn't solve a whole lot and that's the whole point of the book of Hebrews that now we have a great high priest who offered himself as a sacrifice he's eternal you know once he was finished with that he rose from the dead he sits down at the right hand of God but God the God who sent him to do that they have this conversation in Hebrews 10 okay I'm gonna be prepared you know for a body for me and I'm willing to go now to do this everybody knows what it means okay this is why the writer of Hebrews says what he says because there's there's none of this going on with Jesus which ones does it cover there's none of that talk none of them the clouds get back to the old system the problem with these these sins men these these categories the ones that aren't covered idolatry sexual transgression of murder the reason that they thing about exile is that God so pours them that God cannot and will not abide in a land saturated with the residue left by their performance what would things be like if God looked at us the same way honestly God's gonna be pretty lonely okay you know idolatries I mean you go through the New Testament and some pause letters to Gentiles every one of those they've done yeah lots more I mean he has these whole lists these price lists okay and you can have you know Paul talking about these things just adds another dimension to why Jews would have been a little ticked off how these guys get in now you know well the reason is is because of Christ because we're not under that system so we can start there with our discussion but you know back in the Old Testaments like God's late I'm just not gonna live with you people just not going to do it when the Lions defiled you ritual defilement concerns those things which threaten the status of defiled individuals these would be the sacred those who are originally defiled those who they originally defiled those animals which one dead are considered ritually defiling are banned from the sanctuary but again you can take care of these problems you just can't take care of the other stuff the moral ones work very differently they threatened not only the status of the individuals in question but the very fabric of the society the whole fabric of the community unlike the ritual impurities the war'll impurities bring within the holy a danger that sacred precincts might be violently step in the wrong place but they bring with them the threat that God will lead or remove you the typical understanding of the relationship between daily sacrifice and graves backwards it's not that the daily sacrifice undoes the damage done by a grave transgression quite the contrary a grave transgression undoes with the daily sacrifice accomplishes now this is I threw this in here because this is kind of interesting you know every day they have to do a couple sacrifices what are they for they're kind of like to kick started today they all start off on the right foot sacred spaces which is okay you know starting on our day now nothing's blemished you know we don't have any of these problems with people being in fact I mean if you had a problem five days ago you might be in day five gets two days left with me we got that but we all kind of start off on the right foot here every day and what he's saying is look the really great transgression is the daily sacrifices can't fix them the land is infected it is by definition in short so God has a decision to make I even leave what you do and of course in the Exile this choice was developed with actually a little bit about it you know God locked the glory left the temple and they were you know they were just annihilated driven out of the light so that's what I wanted to cover tonight again it's just a little bit of the conceptual logic to it and I think for us again that the tie-in is his Hebrews when you know when the writer of Hebrews is talking about the superiority of Christ does he's not only talking about things like oh we don't need to keep repeating this well I mean that's great that's great especially like over time that's good this endless repetition but he's also talking about coverage and not only not only even even beyond coverage he's also talking about the fact that you as a sinner can look at that sacrifice and know that it does more than just protect God's turf it actually results in God looking at you as though you had not said looking at you like you are Christ because you are in Christ the result of that sacrifice is much wider in its ramifications than any of these even on their best day so it's not just you know repetition over save them lots of time here by doing the Jesus thing not you know it's a whole lot wider than that there's an internal depth dimension to it knowing that God knows you thoroughly and God it's not just about protecting God from a key sinners it's about cleaning - good questions but one has to check Sophie first ones so this concept of a sanctification or holiness that was the building there grabbed those people that were the building for the lesson where does I know that we grow as Christians but where does the idea of growing in holiness come from is earth is there space for that and they even mindset or getting more whole yeah I think all these conversations whether they're Old Testament because they you know Old Testament people were not you know I'm gonna go back to the world I always use that to merit oh yeah the Old Testament person knows that I can do all this stuff I can jump through every hoop and like I can be like you know to use baseball think Cal Ripken you know like I got a streak going you know I've been pure hundred-something you know they know that even if they do that they do not merit God's favor because God could have chosen someone else God can do what he wants he could have done what he wants then he could you know look at you and bring up you know something out of real life because he knows you perfectly the Old Testament person knows that that God is never in their debt so the idea of you know progressing and sanctification I think is consistent and that is you progressively get a grasp of that idea God is never in your debt you do not merit God's favor you know again why do we feel it we've got to do all these things to make God like us he Chuck each others you know how many thousand years ago you know I mean God made the decision back then to love you why would you think that well I kind of do this thing now today so that God has a nice disposition toward it doesn't make any sense and again an Old Testament person is going to know that so if it's really about you know progressing in holiness and sanctification is I understand who I don't understand God I really have that fixed in my mind and I'm going to humble myself as much as I possibly can not just to do these things but to you know tell God or show God that I understand who I am and who he is and I understand my dependence on him and my hope is my hope grows stronger throughout my life that if there's going to be you know happy outcome to this happy afterlife it is only through the grace of this God right here and I'm not going to earn it it's not I'm building up brownie points so that God owes me something a lot of these things are just thought patterns they're just they're they're recognitions of our status versus God stands now there's a performance you know element to this because you can't just turn you can't fake it you can't say that you understand who you are in God is to say along I can have circumcision you can't just pick and choose all this stuff you have to realize when you do it you're not doing it so that God owes you something you're doing it because you're glad that he's given you the opportunity to be called his own he made that decision and now your response to that is to be loyal to him I don't really understand how as visually I don't understand like when I die how I'm gonna be with what I'll know how it works but I believe that is the God of gods and that he chose our ancestors and I'm part of that and if he says because I've chosen you I want you I want to teach you some things do this don't do that go here don't go here so that you learn just who I am and who you are and I'm going to do those things because I'm just glad to even have the opportunity [Music] to survive death and be with the Lord as just somewhere else alternative and and I'm never going to get to the point where God owes this to me what I do I'm gonna do because of grace and I'm gonna show what I believe so my other answer tear question is I hated of the system and the sacrifices and one of them was that God doesn't procreative sexual so why do you think like like for example Genesis 6 where there's kind of these Elohim who were recreating their own great but they're using sexuality to do it is that cuz that's only way they can or depends how you can take the passage there either they're either assuming flesh or the it's being able to have it Sarah they're doing something to their own we want ours to that kind of thing so I think when they do that that they are trapped their transgressing things like then they're trying to be what they're not and they're trying to be the God of the universe they're acting autonomy and they're using the means of their disposal to do so because they can't sort of step out of the relationship and make their own rules and be unaffected but they are still some servant they're still subordinate by virtue of the fact that they're creating things there's only one uncreated they're never going to get out of that relationship but again to sort of I want to call it sad because it's awful but it's one of pathetic pathetic more than they are they're doing stuff like this they're transgressing these brownies different context from thanks to this when they have to the the Passover is not it's not a ritual to it's not part of the sacrificial system it is a festival you know to commemorate the deliverance from angel so I do think it's different even though it's part of the sacred calendar I think it's different than the sacrificial system and by the way the rules for Passover are also changeable as they change prior to change prior to whether in the land again it's part of the it's part of the sacred cow but it's not part of the sacrificial system it was about sacred space and decontamination so is there some particular aspect of you know life end up because sees the blood passes over you and you know the substitute so that much is true it's just we don't have again I I'm real cautious when it comes to typology but I'm going to say it was I tend to only call things types when the New Testament calls the

Channel: Houseform Apologetics

Views: 13,212

Rating: 4.9238095 out of 5

Keywords: Michael Heiser, Dr. Michael Heiser, Mike Heiser, Dr. Michael S. Heiser, Thinking Like an Israelite, OT Sacrifices, Old Testament Sacrifices, Grace Church Bellingham, Mike at Grace Church Bellingham, dr mike s heiser, heisler, bible scholar, hebrew bible, hebrew, Israelite, Israel, OT, naked bible, nakedbible, naked bible podcast, YHWH, Jesus Christ, God of Israel, msheiser, Sacrificial System, theology, sacrificial, micheal heiser, heiser michael

Id: aMN5HeEHIT4

Length: 58min 8sec (3488 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2018