Added in the Old Covenant (2)

This Part 2 is the continuation of “Added in the Old Covenant (1)”.  Most of the background material in Part 1 won’t be repeated here.  In this topic, we’ve been addressing two main passages of scripture:

#1) The apostle Paul wrote in Ga.3:18-19, “For if the inheritance is based on law [Strongs g3551 nómos, Greek], it is no longer based on a promise, but God granted it to Abraham based on a promise. Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions [g3847 parábasis, seven New Testament (NT) occurrences: Ro.2:23, 4:15, 5:14, 1Ti.2:14, He.2:2, 9:15]…until the Seed should come.”

The majority of Bible students think the apostle Paul meant the Lord’s Old Covenant for ancient Israel was added.  Others think Paul mostly had in mind the detailed sacrificial system which was added.

#2) The prophet Jeremiah wrote in Je.7:22-23, “I didn’t speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey [hearken to, h8085 shemá, Hebrew] My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people.”

The Lord had said of Abraham in Ge.26:5, “Abraham obeyed [h8085] My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws”.  Due to transgressions of God’s pre-existing moral laws/principles (seen in Genesis), the Old Covenant Law of Moses was subsequently added for ancient Israel.  (ref Part 1)

God’s Old Covenant included His pre-existing moral laws that date from Adam (which Abraham obeyed)…plus pilgrim feasts, Levitical ceremonial tabernacle/temple rituals and the sacrificial system.  Gentiles in Genesis didn’t have pilgrim feasts or recurring animal sacrifices, sin/guilt offerings, etc.

Part 1 ended with two related questions: What prompted the Lord to command the detailed sacrificial system for ancient Israel?  Why did God add recurring burnt-sin-guilt sacrifices to the (pre-existing) moral precepts which He brought into the Old Covenant (OC) from Genesis?

God did so because…upon leaving Egypt, Israel proceeded to transgress and disobey God, and evidenced unbelief (prior to Ex.21 judgments at Sinai).  Let’s briefly trace their history leaving Egypt:

Ex.14:11-12 Israel rebelled at the Reed Sea (ref Ps.106:7).  The Lord parted the sea for them, and the pursuing Egyptian army drowned.  Ex.15:22-25 Israel then grumbled about water at Maráh.  So the Lord showed Moses a tree and Moses threw it into the waters; the waters miraculously became sweet.

Ex.16:27-28 Israel then broke God’s 7^th day sabbath.  (see the series, “Sabbath 7^th Day”.)  The Lord gave them manna to eat.  Ex.17:1-7 Israel tested the Lord at Massáh/Meribáh; they even wanted to stone Moses!  Moses obediently struck a rock and water gushed forth for them (ref Ps.106:14).  Ex.18:5, 16 in the wilderness, Moses made known to them pre-existing statutes and laws of God.

The Lord kept intervening for His people Israel…yet they kept sinning in unbelief.  Prior to Sinai.

Ex.20:1-18 at Sinai, Christ spoke the Decalogue.  (De.4:13 the Ten Commandments or ten “words”, h1697 debarim, was the heart of the OC.)  The people heard His voice!  Ex.20:19-20 but they’re afraid of God and only want to hear Moses, not God.  v.21 so Moses alone approached the Lord in the cloud.

The Lord won’t speak directly to His people after that; He speaks through Moses the mediator.

Then the Lord instructed Moses in Ex.21:1-ff, “These are the judgments which you are to set before them….”  Civil judgments and the sacrificial system are seen in remaining chapters of the Péntateuch.

In the beginning, Adam & Eve heard (h8085) the Lord’s voice…but they hid themselves, Ge.3:8.  Israel later didn’t hearken to (h8085) God’s voice.  Nu.14:22 the Lord said of Israel, “Ten times you haven’t listened to [h8085] My voice”.  De.4:12, 5:25, 18:16 the people didn’t want to hear (h8085) God’s voice at Sinai.  Later, Joshua wrote that those coming out of Egypt didn’t obey (h8085) God’s voice, Jsh.5:6.

Again, Je.7:22-23 “I didn’t speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey [h8085] My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people.”

Ge.26:5 father Abraham had obeyed (h8085) God’s voice.  After God miraculously provided water at Marah for Israel, Moses told the people in Ex.15:26, “If you will earnestly heed [h8085] the voice of the Lord, and do what is right in His sight and give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon you which I have put on the Egyptians”.  Obedience to God’s pre-existing moral principles was expected of them…in Ex.15:26 there is no sacrificial system for sin.

Before He gave the Ten Commandments, the Lord said to Moses/Israel in Ex.19:5, “If you will obey [h8085] My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all peoples”.  Later, De.5:2-3 “The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horéb [Sinai]. The Lord didn’t make this covenant with our fathers.”  The fathers Abraham, Isaac, Jacob didn’t have the OC (although they knew God’s moral principles/commandments, which later became part of the OC).  For example, A-I-J didn’t have individual sin or guilt/trespass offerings; none of those sacrifices appear in scripture before Le.4–6, given to Moses later at Sinai (ref Le.27:34).  see “Abraham Obeyed Which Commandments?”.

In Ex.24:7-8, Israel affirmed they would obey the Lord’s OC. “The people said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do and be obedient [h8085]!’ So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you.”  The OC was a blood covenant between the Lord and ancient Israel.  It was ratified.

But in Ex.32:1-10, Israel then held an idolatrous golden calf feast with burnt/peace offerings!  Ps.78:10-20 they disobeyed, didn’t keep God’s covenant.  Ps.78:17 “They continued to sin against Him.”

The Lord recapped in Je.11:7-8, “I solemnly warned your fathers in the day I brought them up from the land of Egypt, even to this day, saying, ‘Obey [h8085] My voice’. Yet they didn’t obey, but each walked in the stubbornness of his evil heart.”  Most of them repeatedly refused to hearken to God.

The Lord is holy.  God won’t dwell with sin.  Sin must be atoned.  God told Moses in Ex.25:8, “Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them”.  The tabernacle was the place of God’s Name, where Christ (the good Shepherd, Ps.80:1 & Jn.10:14) dwelt among His ancient people.  (also see “Jesus Was The Old Testament God”.)

A purpose of animal blood sacrifices at God’s tabernacle was to expiate sins.  see “Day of Atonement (1)”.  Thus the sacrificial system was instituted for a holy God to dwell with them.  However, 1Sm.15:22-23 “To obey [h8085] is better than sacrifice, to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.”  Obeying the Lord is much preferable to disobeying and then having to sacrifice to expiate the sin.  Where there’s no transgression or sin, there’s no need to offer an atoning sacrifice!

From Are Christians Freed from the Old Covenant?: “When Paul states, in Galatians 3:19, ‘It (the body of law governing sacrifices) was added because of transgressions,’ he is referring to a contractual provision, one that would not have been put into effect had Israel obeyed God. How do we know this? Notice Hosea 6:6: ‘For I (the Eternal) desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.’ (Also notice Psalm 40:6, 8.) But animal sacrifices were not instituted by God as an afterthought, any more than was Christ’s sacrifice.”  see “Sacrifices and Burnt Offerings”.

David wrote of God in Ps.40:6-8, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire. To do Your will, my God, I desired. Your Law is within my heart.”  The Lord didn’t take pleasure in the flesh of sin offerings.  He desires obedience to His righteous moral principles (which predate the OC) more than animal sacrifices.

Again, the Lord said in Ho.6:6, “I desired mercy rather than sacrifice, and an acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings”.  By comparison, animal sacrifices were secondary in importance.  JFB Commentary Ho.6:6 “God valued moral obedience as the only end for which positive ordinances, such as sacrifices, were instituted.”  In Mk.12:32-34 of the NT, Jesus confirmed that to love God and to love one’s neighbor is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices!

Je.6:20 “Your burnt offerings are not acceptable. Your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me.”  At that time (ca 600 BC), Judah was offering them from an evil and insincere heart.  Barnes Notes “God rejects not the ceremonial service, but the substitution of it for personal holiness and morality.”

So after centuries of disobedience, God eventually sent His people into captivity…Israel to Assyria, and Judah to Babylon in 597 BC.  The Lord ceased to honor their feigned sacrifices, offered insincerely.

The fault was with the people…not with God’s Old Covenant!  He.8:8 “Finding fault with them….”  Not, “with it.”  A purpose of the OC was to reflect: the Lord’s standard of law, so crime wouldn’t run rampant in the streets…a standard of order, to prevent chaos in society.  The Law given to Moses/Israel also contained judgments and case law to govern an orderly society.

Again, Ga.3:19 “Why the Law [of Moses]? It was added because of transgressions.”

Paul said transgression, sin, law-breaking…doesn’t exist without law.  Ro.4:15 “Where there is no law, there is no transgression [g3847].”  And Ro.5:13, “For until the Law [of Moses], sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law.”  Ro.3:20 “Through law comes the knowledge of sin.”  So there must be some form of law in existence for there to be sin/transgression (of that law), as per Paul.

Earl Henn What Was the Law ‘Added Because of Transgressions’? “For years, people have wondered how anyone could have transgressed the laws before they were given. Simply put, Paul is talking about the laws of God which have been in full force since Creation! When he writes that the Old Covenant was added ‘till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made’, he means that the Old Covenant was temporary; Christ would replace it with the New Covenant. Rather than saying that God’s [moral] laws had become obsolete, he is explaining how important it was to preserve the knowledge of God’s laws in Israel….Paul is showing that the Old Covenant was an interim, temporary addition to the [prior] covenant made with Abraham. It was necessitated by Israel’s transgressions of God’s holy laws that had been—AND STILL ARE!—in full force and effect since Creation.”

James Bruckner Implied Law in the Abraham Narrative, p.207 “In the pre-Sinai narrative, Biblical law is set in the context of creation.”  p.67 “Genesis is embedded with law.”

John Sailhamer The Law Was Added Because of Transgressions “As Israel continued to transgress the laws given to them, God continued to give them more. God did not give up on His people. When they sinned, he added laws to keep them from sinning further….The laws were added to keep them from disappearing into the world of sin around them. It thus was the transgressions of the people that provided the motivation for God’s giving the Mosaic law.”

After 39 years of wilderness experience, Moses repeated to the next generation in De.13:4. “You shall follow the Lord your God and fear Him, and you shall keep His commandments and obey [h8085] His voice, and remain loyal to Him.”  Although they didn’t obey then either…they eventually will obey God!

De.4:30 “When you are in distress, in later time, you will return to the Lord your God and obey [h8085] His voice.”  Eventually Israel will obey the Lord with a steadfast heart.  Benson Commentary De.4:30 “Particularly in the days of the Messiah.”  And Paul wrote in Ro.11:26, “All Israel will be saved”.

Animal sacrifices and the detailed sacrificial system for Israel are no more!  Yet there are righteous moral principles of God brought into the OC Mosaic Law which predated and transcend that OC.

As Paul wrote in Ro.8:4, “That the righteousness [g1345] of the Law may be accomplished in us, who live not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit”.  Gill Exposition Ro.8:4 “By the righteousness of the law, is not meant the righteousness of the ceremonial law, though that was fulfilled by Christ; but of the moral law, which requires holiness of nature.”

Yes, Christians are able to obey God’s moral principles (also contained in the Old Covenant), via the Holy Spirit (HS).  Whereas carnal-minded ancient Israel, most of whom didn’t have the HS, was unable to obey.  Ro.8:7 “The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God; it doesn’t subject itself to God’s law, because it is powerless to do so.”  But the HS will figuratively write God’s righteous principles, seen in Genesis also for gentiles, on the minds & hearts of New Covenant Christians (He.8:10).

Also Ro.2:26-27, “If the uncircumcised man keeps the righteousness [g1345] of the Law…if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you [Jews] who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor [g3848] of the Law?”  The HS enables uncircumcised gentile Christians to obey God’s moral laws.  Barnes Notes Ro.2:26 “It could not be supposed that a pagan would understand the requirements of the ceremonial law; but reference is had here to the moral law.”

That’s the moral laws, commandments and statutes which the gentile Abraham obeyed (Ge.26:5), and which Moses made known (Ex.18:16)…prior to Sinai and the OC.  Meyer’s NT Commentary Ro.2:26-27 “The uncircumcised person, who observes what the law has ordained, i.e. the moral precepts of the law, shall one day be awarded the same salvation….The standard of judgment remains the [moral] law of God.”  God’s moral principles/laws…seen even in Genesis for gentiles prior to Moses.  see “Genesis Principles Predate Moses” and “Ten Commandments in Genesis & Job”.

bible.org The Mosaic Law “The moral principles embodied in the law of Moses Paul calls ‘the righteousness of the law’ (Rom 8:4), and shows that such principles are the goal of the Spirit-directed life in the same context in which he teaches the believer is not under the Mosaic law (Ro 6–8).”

Jesus said in Jn.10:27, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me”.  Unlike most of faithless ancient Israel, real believers do desire to follow and obey Christ the Lord.

The Christian isn’t under the Mosaic law as such…since it included sacrifices and Levitical rituals.  Those are impossible to perform without a tabernacle/temple.  Those are inapplicable today.

The Old Covenant was added for ancient Israel…added because of sins/transgressions of God’s prior eternal laws, Ga.3:19 (ref Part 1).  The OC also contains judgments which governed civil society.

The Lord isn’t an anarchist!  God’s moral principles/laws existed for gentiles prior to the OC.  And those just principles were then put into the OC for ancient Israel.  Those principles/laws of God are still valid for humanity/Christians today!  The HS enables the willing heart to obey them.  (see “Two Covenants – Heart of the Matter”.)  The character and principles of Jesus Christ, the God of ancient Israel, are the same…yesterday, today, and forever (He.13:8).  He is Lord and Master!

Added in the Old Covenant (1)

Paul wrote in Ga.3:19, “Why the Law [of Moses]? It was added because of transgressions”.  What prior law(s) was transgressed that led to God adding the law of Moses?  And what all did the Lord then add (for Moses/Israel) to His more ancient prior laws after those were transgressed?

The majority of Bible students think the New Testament (NT) apostle Paul meant the Lord’s Old Covenant for ancient Israel was added.  Others think Paul mostly had in mind the detailed sacrificial system which was added.  In this topic, we’ll explore the issue.

Paul said transgression, sin, law-breaking…doesn’t exist without law.  Ro.4:15 “Where there is no law, there is no transgression [Strongs g3847, Greek].”  And Ro.5:13 “For until the Law [of Moses], sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law.”  Ro.3:20 “Through law comes the knowledge of sin.”  So there must have been some form of law already in existence for there to be sin or transgression (of that law), according to Paul.

Since the Bible mentions sin several times in Genesis (Ge.4:7, 13:13, 18:20, 20:9, 31:36, 39:9, 42:22, 50:17), prior to the Law of Moses…Divine Law must have existed and been revealed to humanity prior to Moses, for sin to have been present!  1Jn.3:4 “Sin is the transgression of the law [lawlessness].”

Sin occurred in the Garden of Eden (Ge.3)…long before sin was described in God’s theocratic laws for Moses & ancient Israel and identified elsewhere.  1Jn.3:8 “The devil sins from the beginning.”  Divine Law, which the serpent violated (Ge.3:3-4) and Cain violated (Ge.4:7-11)…existed from the beginning!

Ge.26:5 the Lord said, “Abraham obeyed [h8085 shemá, Hebrew] Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws”.  Abraham did all that…prior to the Law of Moses!  He was very obedient to God.  Also Wisdom of Sírach 44:20 “Abraham kept the law of the Most High.”  God Most High had laws in Abraham’s day (centuries before Moses).  Abraham had much faith/belief, to obey God!

There were (eternal) laws of God in existence during the period from Adam to Moses.  Those laws were kept by early righteous gentiles such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Job, etc.  1Enoch 99:2 “Woe unto them who pervert the words of uprightness, and transgress the eternal law.”  1Eno.106:13-14 “Some of the angels of heaven commit sin and transgress the law.” (cf. 1Jn.3:4)  An eternal law existed before the Law of Moses, according to 1Enoch.  Abraham was aware of God’s earlier moral laws, and he obeyed.

The topic “Abraham Obeyed Which Commandments?” references some of those more ancient (eternal) laws.  They won’t be listed here.  James Bruckner Implied Law in the Abraham Narrative, p.208 “Law is presented, in the first canonical book of scripture [Genesis], as part of the created order.”  There are scriptures that show principles of all the Ten Commandments reflected in Genesis, long before Moses.

Paul also indicated that a moral sense of God and of sin has always existed in man’s consciousness.  Ro.1:19-21 “That which is known of God is evident within them. For since the creation of the world, even though they knew God, they [most] did not honor Him as God.”  Early humans knew of God.

God’s moral principles/laws seen in Genesis, and given to ancient Israel…weren’t new in Moses’ day!

Evangelical Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser wrote in God’s Promise Plan and His Gracious Law: “So endemic is the moral law to the whole of the Mosaic law that evidences for its abiding nature can be found in the fact that even before it was given on Sinai it was held to be normative and binding on all who aspired to living by faith. In fact every one of the Ten Commandments is already implicitly found in the Genesis record even before their publication on Sinai. Moses did not invent the moral law; God did, and He had already been holding men and women responsible for heeding it millennia before he finally wrote it on tablets of stone.”  Yes, real ‘living by faith’ includes living by God’s moral law.

Then in the Old Covenant, God included His preexisting moral commandments, statutes, laws (which Abraham obeyed)…and added to them.  Added new in the Old Covenant Law of Moses were: pilgrim feasts (Ex.12:1-13:7, Ex.23:14-18); the daily morning & evening sacrifice (Ex.29:38-43); sin & guilt offerings (Le.4–6); the tabernacle/temple sequence of offerings, rituals, ceremonies (Nu.28–29); etc.

Conspicuously absent in Genesis are the (later) three pilgrim feasts and the Levitical ritualistic aspects with the detailed sacrificial system.  In Genesis, there’s no tabernacle/temple, and no Passover before the Lord later ‘passed over’ Israelite homes (Ex.12:13).  see “Feasts of the Lord  and the Jews”.

Ga.3:18-19 “If the inheritance is based on law [g3551 nómos], it is no longer based on a promise, but God granted it to Abraham based on a promise. Why the Law [of Moses] then? It was added because of transgressions [g3847 parábasis].”  (7 NT occurrences: Ro.2:23, 4:15, 5:14, 1Ti.2:14, He.2:2, 9:15.)

Meyer’s NT Commentary Ga.3:19 “It [Law of Moses] was, after the covenant of promise was already in existence, superadded to the latter.”  Cambridge Bible Ga.3:19 “It was added’, yet so as not to interfere with the promise.”

Expositor’s Greek Testament Ga.3:19 “But there could obviously be no transgressions until the law existed. The prohibitions of the Ten Commandments….these sins prevailed before the law.”  Yes, laws of the Ten Commandments, and several other laws, existed for Abraham and gentiles in Genesis.  There could be no transgressions, if there’s no existing laws to transgress (according to Paul, Ro.4:15).

God’s moral principles/laws existed, for gentiles, prior to the Old Covenant.  The Lord carried-over those principles/laws into the Old Covenant as codified for Israel and for aliens among them. The prior laws remained applicable to gentiles.  (see “Genesis Principles Predate Moses”.)

Moses wrote in De.11:1, “You shall love the Lord your God and keep His charge, His statutes, ordinances, and His commandments”.  Notice the similarity of that verse to what all Abraham had obeyed earlier in Ge.26:5 (without an Old Covenant Law of Moses).

Barnes Notes Ga.3:19 “The Law [of Moses] was given [by the Lord] to show the true nature of transgressions, or to show what sin was.”  Benson Commentary Ga.3:19 “To restrain the Israelites from transgressions.”  Restrain them from transgressions of God’s prior enduring moral laws.

Also, the Old Covenant law contained judgments and case law to govern an orderly society.

Paul wrote in Ro.4:13, “The promise [g1860 epangeleéah] to Abraham or to his seed that he would be heir of the world [g2889 kósmos] wasn’t through law, but through the righteousness [g1343 dikaiosúnay] of faith”.  Vincent Word Studies Ro.4:13 “Paul here takes the Jewish conception of the universal dominion of the Messianic theocracy prefigured by the inheritance of Canáan, divests it of its Judaistic element, and raises it to a christological truth.”  Gill Exposition Ro.4:13 “Not through the law of circumcision, or on their obedience to that, for this promise was made before that was enjoined; see Genesis 12:2; nor through the law of Moses, which was not yet given.”  God made the promise to Abrám back when there were no pilgrim feasts (no Passover), Levitical rituals, sin offerings, etc.

God’s promise to Abraham wasn’t made through the Law of Moses or the Old Covenant.  The gentile Abraham didn’t have that.  But Abraham knew God’s moral principles/laws which predated “the promise”.  However, the focus of this topic isn’t “the promise” to Abraham…but what was added later, according to Paul in Ga.3:19.  Yet the promise was made to the Abraham who…“obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws”, Ge.26:5!  He knew God’s righteous precepts…and they were later incorporated into the Old Covenant, which God codified for Moses/Israel.

{Sidelight: Moses too had known God’s preexistent righteous precepts.  After Israel exited Egypt, Moses’s father-in-law Jethró came to Moses/Israel in the wilderness in Ex.18:5.  Moses said to Jethro, Ex.18:16, “I judge between a man and his neighbor, and make known the statutes of God and His laws”.  Moses made known God’s preexistent laws/principles and justice…prior to the Old Covenant (Ex.24), and even prior to God speaking the Ten Commandments (Ex.20)!}

Early gentiles like Abraham didn’t have the detailed sacrificial system.  It was added for Israel…added after Israel rebelled against the Lord in unbelief as they left Egypt.

Je.7:22 “I didn’t speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.  Gill Exposition Je.7:22 “These are not in the decalogue or ten commands…but are an appendage or addition to it; and though they are of early institution and use, yet they never were appointed for the sake of themselves.”  JFB Commentary Je.7:22 “The ten commandments having been delivered first.”  (see “Ten Commandments in Genesis & Job”.)  Cambridge Bible Je.7:22 “In general it may be said that obedience to the moral law always ranked first.”  Ellicott Commentary Je.7:22 “The ritual in connection with sacrifice was prescribed partly as a concession to the feeling which showed itself, in its evil form, in the worship of the golden calf.”

Again, the (eternal) laws which Abraham and other righteous gentiles in Genesis obeyed, and the Decalogue spoken by the Lord (Ex.20)…were absorbed into the Old Covenant Law for Israel.  It was ratified in Ex.24:1-8, and repeated/amplified in Deuteronomy as Israel was finally entering the Land.

Je.7:23 “But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey [hearken to, h8085] My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people.”  Barnes Notes Je.7:23 “Sacrifice is never the final cause of the [old] covenant, but always obedience.”  God wants obedience first, not recurring sacrifices.

But Matthew Poole Commentary Je.7:22 “They [sacrifices] have been of Divine institution ever since Adam, Ge.4:3-4. God doth not condemn them, or deny them, save only comparatively in respect of obedience, not so much these as obeying His [moral] commands.”

The Lord didn’t institute the detailed sacrificial system for Israel until after they faithlessly rebelled against Him.  Yet there was animal sacrifice before Moses/ancient Israel, and before Abraham.

Claude Mariottini Why Did God Ask For Animal Sacrifice? “As early as the 4^th millennium BC, animal sacrifices were offered in Egypt at the temples at Abýdos, Thebes, and On….Babylon had centers of worship at Éridu, Níppur, Érech, Ur, and other places that can be dated from the 4^th and the 3^rd millenniums BC. Babylonian records give evidence of an elaborate system of worship and sacrifices at these temples. One document says that the animals offered in sacrifice by King Gúdea included oxen, sheep, goats, lambs, and birds. As for animal sacrifice in the Bible, the biblical record is very clear that animal sacrifice goes back to the earliest days of biblical history. For instance, the garments of skins for Adam and Eve (Ge.3:21) were made from animals slain in sacrifice.”

Sacrifice was ordained by God, and it’s probable He told Adam how to do it.  After Adam & Eve sinned, God required the first sacrifice, providing them with clothing (Ge.3:21).  It’s unlikely Cain & Abel invented sacrifice on their own (Ge.4:3-5).  The practice was passed down to others.

Animal sacrifice to (pagan) deities was customary in much of the ancient world.  Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, (Job) offered sacrifices to the Lord long before ancient Israel left Egypt.  see “Sacrifices and Burnt Offerings”.  Yet no verse in Genesis commanded anyone to do recurring animal sacrifices.

Later, in Ex.3:18, 5:3, 8:27, 10:24-26, Moses was to ask permission from Pharaoh for Israel to have a sacrificial 3-day feast in the wilderness (his request was denied).  Animal sacrifice wasn’t new to those Egyptians.

Ex.12:1–13:7 God ordained the Passover for Israel and the accompanying days of unleavened bread as they were leaving Egypt.  Ex.12:51 the Lord brought them out of Egypt.

What prompted the Lord to command the detailed sacrificial system to ancient Israel?  Why did God add recurring animal sacrifices to His prior moral precepts which He brought into the Old Covenant?

Those questions are addressed as this topic is concluded in “Added in the Old Covenant (2)”.

Sacrifices and Burnt Offerings

We read of various sacrifices/offerings throughout the Old Testament (OT) history.  There were five main types of offerings.  They are described in Leviticus: #1 Burnt (ref Le.1, 6:8-13), #2 Grain (Le.2, 6:14-23), #3 Peace (Le.3, 7:11-34), #4 Sin (Le.4, 5:1-13, 6:24-30, 16:3-22), #5 Guilt/Trespass (Le.5:14-19, 6:1-7, 7:1-7).

This topic mostly discusses burnt offerings.  Peace offerings are discussed in the topic “Passover and Peace Offerings”.  Sin and guilt offerings, and blood sacrifice (and Christ’s sacrificial death) are discussed in “Day of Atonement (1)”.

New Age advocates have sought self-enlightenment through their own efforts, and ignore the necessary sacrifice of Jesus.  Most Islamics, Deists and other non-Christians also disregard His shed blood.

After mankind (Adam & Eve) sinned in the Garden of Eden, the only Way to God’s forgiveness and reconciliation was through shed lifeblood.  He.9:22 “Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”  Sin is atoned for by life/blood.

The first sin of Adam & Eve and the ramifications are discussed in the topic “Tree Symbolism in Scripture”.  Ge.3:7 “Then their [Adam & Eve] eyes were opened and they knew they were naked; they sewed fig leaves together and made loin coverings.”  Nakedness can be both physical and spiritual, being unclothed or symbolic of sin and shame.  Sin brought guilt and shame to their psyche.

Adam & Eve tried to cover their physical nakedness and their sin themselves with fig leaves.  Sewn fig leaves, or human devices/ways, are inadequate to cover sin.  Ge.3:21 “The Lord God made garments of skin [Strongs h5785, Hebrew] for Adam and his wife, and clothed [h3847] them.”  God Himself covered them with animal skins, perhaps leather garments of calfskin or kidskin.  In so doing, the Lord showed that to cover the nakedness symbolic of sin and their diminished condition, humans must be “clothed” by means of the death of another!  (also see “Skins Made For Adam Were Passed Down?”.)

After they sinned, Adam & Eve were expelled from the Garden, from God’s Presence (Ge.3:22-24).  The Way (cf. Ge.3:24, Ac.24:14, 22) back to the Presence would mainly be God’s doing and according to God’s plan, not man’s.  It continually required blood.

Most Bible teachers think those first skins were taken from an animal sacrifice.  It foreshadowed the (temporary) animal sacrificial system, and ultimately Jesus the Lamb of God’s perfect final sacrifice to cover or atone for humanity’s sins.  Cambridge Bible Ge.3:21 “The first mention of death among animals is implied in this provision for man’s clothing.”  Ellicott Commentary Ge.3:21 “Animals were killed even in Paradise….Adam must in some way, immediately after the fall, have been taught that without shedding of blood is no remission of sin, but that God will accept a vicarious sacrifice.”  JFB Commentary “This implies the institution of animal sacrifice, which was undoubtedly of divine appointment.”  It appears that animal sacrifice was an institution authored by God.

Throughout his life, Adam probably followed God’s example/lead or mimicked His action.  And Adam & Eve would’ve told their Garden experience to their sons Cain and Abel.

Consequently, Ge.4:3-5 “In the course of time, Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the ground. Abel brought the firstlings of his flock.”  This is the first offering (h4503 mincháh) recorded in the Bible.  Abel brought a burnt offering, less likely a peace offering.  Bible Bay Why Did People Sacrifice Animals? “Ge.4:3-5 Scholars tell us the Hebrew of the first phrase, ‘In the course of time’, suggests this offering of sacrifices was a recurring event.”  Perhaps, though we don’t read of God commanding offerings that early.  However, it’s very unlikely that Abel and Cain invented sacrifice on their own.

Abel must have known of and believed his parents’ Garden experience/covering, and he offered a lamb.  Gill Exposition Ge.4:5 “Firstlings of these, lambs were first brought forth.”  Barnes Notes Ge.4:5 “Blood was therefore shed, life was taken away.”  Cain brought a form of grain offering (no blood) from common produce he’d grown.  (After Adam’s sin, God had cursed his ground, Ge.3:17.)  He.11:4 “By faith, Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain. He [Abel] was approved as righteous.”  But Cain tried to atone via his own cultivation works.  (Adam/Eve had attempted fig leaves as covering.)  Cain murdered Abel, and wandered lost from God (Ge.4:6-16).

Knowledge of animal sacrifice was passed down from Adam and his other offspring to the generations of the antediluvian age.  After the Flood, history shows that ancient peoples practiced animal sacrifice.

Claude Mariottini Why Did God Ask For Animal Sacrifice? “The origins of animal sacrifice are lost in antiquity. As early as the 4^th millennium BC, animal sacrifices were offered in Egypt at the temples at Abýdos, Thebes, and On. Among the animals sacrificed were oxen, wild goats, geese, and even pigs. Babylon had centers of worship at Éridu, Níppur, Érech, Ur, and other places that can be dated from the 4^th and the 3^rd millenniums BC. Babylonian records give evidence of an elaborate system of worship and sacrifices at these temples. One document says that the animals offered in sacrifice by King Gudea included oxen, sheep, goats, lambs, and birds. As for animal sacrifice in the Bible, the biblical record is very clear that animal sacrifice goes back to the earliest days of biblical history. For instance, the garments of skins for Adam and Eve (Ge.3:21) were made from animals slain in sacrifice.”

The second animal sacrifice recorded in the Bible is in Ge.8:20-21.  After the Flood, Noah built an altar and offered burnt offerings…oláh h5930, Greek LXX holocaust g3646.  (The ground curse ended.)  Bible Encyclopedia: Burnt Offering “It was the most frequent form of sacrifice, and apparently the only one mentioned in the book of Genesis.”  (Again, it seems Abel’s sacrifice was a form of burnt offering.)

Animal sacrifice was continued by the post-Flood patriarchs.  Abram was from Mesopotámia (Ge.11:31).  Ge.12:7 & 13:4 Abram built an altar and called on the Lord.  Ge.13:18 Abram built another altar at a different location.  Ge.15:9-11, 17-18, here the Lord commanded a covenantal sacrifice from Abram.  This was the first single offering commanded by God in the Bible.  Ge.22:1-13 later the Lord told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering.  But God then substituted a ram in place of Isaac…the burning of human offspring/children as sacrifice wasn’t God’s will.

Ungodly peoples vainly sacrificed children at heathen temples, while drinking blood mixed with wine.  God strictly forbad sacrifices to idols and the human consumption of blood.  ref Ge.9:4, Le.7:26-27, 17:12, Ac.15:29.  see “Sacrifices To Idols and Romans 14”.  (After departing Egypt, even Israel would offer burnt & peace offerings to the golden calf idol they made, Ex.32:1-6.)

After Abraham died, Isaac built an altar and called upon the name of the Lord (Ge.26:25).  Ge.31:54-55 Jacob and his father-in-law Laban offered a sacrifice and shared a meal at Mizpáh in Gileád.  This is the first occurrence of the actual term sacrifice (h2077 zébach) in the Bible.  Later, Jacob sacrificed at Beersheba (Ge.46:1), enroute to Egypt to be with his son Joseph the Prime Minister.  Joseph’s father-in-law was an Egyptian priest at On/Heliópolis (Ge.41:44-45).

Jb.1:5 the patriarch Job offered burnt offerings at Uz in the East.  Family heads often served as priests.  Jb.42:8 the Lord commanded Job’s three friends to sacrifice a one-time burnt offering of bulls and rams (clean domestic animals).

Balaám was from Pethór on the Euphrates River in N. Mesopotamia.  Balák was the king of Moab.  Nu.23:1-4 Balaam & Balak sacrificed bulls and rams as burnt offerings.  Then God met with Balaam.

When the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, the Lord had commanded Moses to tell Pharaoh that Israel must go offer sacrifices.  Ex.3:18 “The Lord God of the Hebrews has met with us; and now let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.”  Ex.10:25-27 Moses/Israel asked permission to go sacrifice burnt offerings (denied).  Ex.18:12 after the exodus, Moses’ father-in-law Jethró, the priest of Midián (Ex.18:1), made a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God.

Burnt offerings represented a tribute to God, submission to His will, and a desire to fellowship with Him.  An individual, recognizing that he is weak & commits sin, and wanting to renew his relationship with God, could generally give a burnt offering at any time.  In a basic sense, it made atonement for his sin nature (Le.1:4), but not for specific sins.  The Jewish Encyclopedia article Burnt Offering indicates that burnt offerings weren’t distinctively expiatory (unlike sin/guilt offerings).

Ex.20:24-26 Israelites would be allowed to erect individual altars for burnt & peace offerings.  Ex.24:4-8 “He [Moses] sent young men of Israel to offer burnt offerings and peace offerings.”  Moses sprinkled the blood of that offering on an altar at Mt. Sinai.  This was to ratify God’s Old Covenant with Israel.

Ex.29:38-43 the Lord instituted the daily morning & evening burnt offering, offered every day of the year at the tabernacle/temple.  A grain offering was required to accompany this twice-daily sacrifice.

Voluntary salted unleavened grain offerings (KJV “meat” offering is from the Middle English for grain/cereal/meal/food) accompanied other burnt & peace offerings.  Or grain offerings were brought alone by the poor.  But they didn’t accompany sin/guilt/trespass offerings.  (However, the Lord did allow the very poor to offer grain as a sin offering, Le.5:11.)  The priest ate a portion of the grain offerings (Le.2:3, 6:16.)  Perhaps grain symbolized God’s harvest blessings.

Nu.28–29 shows the extensive sequence of sacrifices that were to be repeated at the tabernacle/temple throughout the year and over the centuries.  Why Did God Require Animal Sacrifices in the Old Testament? “The animal served as a substitute—that is, the animal died in place of the sinner, but only temporarily, which is why the sacrifices needed to be offered over and over.”

Burnt offerings were from clean domestic animals…cattle, sheep, goats.  The poor could offer birds.  Le.1:1-17 the offerer slaughtered the animal.  The priest splashed/sprinkled the blood on the altar.  The animal was skinned and cut in pieces.  The priest arranged the pieces on the altar.  The entire animal was burned, except for the hide.  The priest kept the hide for himself.  Le.7:8 “The priest who presents any man’s burnt offering shall have the skin [h5285].” (cf. Adam)  None of the burnt offering was eaten.

De.27:4-7 entering the Holy Land after 40 years in the wilderness, Israel was to offer burnt & peace offerings on an altar at Mt. Ebál.  This was a renewal of the Old Covenant with burnt/peace offerings (Ex.24:5-7).

Simple common altars were allowed for the private worship of YHVH, if they weren’t made from stones cut by the hand of man (ref De.16:21 & Ex.20:25).  God honored the offering.  We read of them elsewhere in the OT.  Jg.6:19-21 supernatural fire consumed Gideón’s offering in the presence of the Messenger of the Lord.  Jg.13:18-21 the Messenger of YHVH ascended in the flame of Manóah’s (Samson’s father) offering.  God’s Messenger or Name was there for those two offerings.  (Ge.4:4-5 possibly fire had fallen on Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s.)

1Ch.21:26 fire from heaven fell upon the altar of David’s burnt & peace offerings on Mt. Moriáh at the site of Ornán’s/Araunáh’s threshing floor.  In 1Ki.18:30-39, fire fell from heaven and consumed Elijah’s burnt offering on an altar at Mt. Carmél.  God showed up!  (see “Fire From Heaven!”)

However, no Bible verse commands anyone to do recurring animal sacrifices away from the Lord’s tabernacle/temple…the place of God’s Name.  All sin and guilt offerings…and most burnt, grain and peace offerings…must be sacrificed at the altar of the tabernacle/temple.  That one altar with holy fire!  Those offerings there, and the altar, were most holy (ref Ex.40:10, Le.2:10, 6:17, 14:13).

Centuries later, the Lord sent the kingdoms of Israel and Judah into captivity for their disobedience; to Assyria and Babylon respectively.  Ezr.6:3-9 afterwards, the Jewish returnees to the Land from Babylon were to offer burnt offerings (h5928 Aramaic, v.9) at the altar of Zerubbabél’s temple in Jerusalem.

Burnt offerings were the most common type of sacrifice.  They may be voluntary korbán (h7133, ref Le.1:2-3), which was an offering in general for worship/fellowship with God.  But in Mk.7:9-13, Jesus criticized those Jews’ oral tradition…they dedicated/claimed that one’s wealth would pass to the temple, while using it selfishly until death.  Those Jews were claiming “It is korban” (Mk.7:11).  They tried to excuse themselves from using their means to rightly care for the needs of their elderly parents.

Again, only clean domestic animals (and clean birds) were allowed by God for sacrifices.  Clean wild animals/game, unclean creatures, and fish weren’t allowed.  Those cost the offerer comparatively nothing!  It is meaningful that sin and sacrifices exact a cost.  2Sm.24:24-25 David understood there should be a price to pay.  e.g. a more expensive animal, a ram, was required as a guilt offering to atone for a person or family’s intentional non-capital sin (Le.6:1-7).

The Jews continued to offer burnt offerings and other sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem, until it was destroyed in 70 AD.  Blood was sprinkled on the altar there.  The Old Covenant was a blood covenant (Ex.24:4-8).  Throughout OT times, blood was offered.

Then the promised Seed of the first woman (Ge.3:15) came to earth 2,000 years ago…and shed His perfect blood on the cross!  (see “Jesus’ Virgin Birth”.)  Jesus the Son of God died once for all mankind.  1Pe.1:18-19 Jesus’ precious blood!  Mt.27:50-51 the temple veil of separation tore at Jesus’ death.  Jesus entered into the Presence of God, into the greater and more perfect heavenly tabernacle, on our behalf.  ref He.9:8-16.

No more Old Covenant sacrifices are necessary!  The temple has been gone for 2,000 years.  After Father God watched His Son die on the cross, there’s no need to revert to inferior animal sacrifices!  They are finished.  Jesus fulfilled the burnt offerings…and all the OT sacrificial types.

{Sidelight: Le.14 is about cleansing the leper.  v.1-8 two (clean) birds and cedar wood were involved.  One bird was slain.  The live bird and the cedar wood were dipped in the blood of the slain bird.  The live bird was set free.  Then the priest sprinkled the leper with the blood.  The blood “cleansed” (g2511 LXX) the leper.  Even the typology of this ceremony to cleanse the leper is fulfilled.  The slain bird symbolized the blood of Jesus crucified.  The cedar wood symbolized His cross, and the live bird the resurrected Jesus.  (also ref the slain goat and the live goat in Le.16, discussed in “Day of Atonement (1)”.)  1Jn.1:7 we too are figuratively “cleansed” (g2511) from sin by His blood.}

1Co.11:23-25 the New Covenant is in Jesus’ blood.  He.13:20 we’re in this eternal Covenant.  Re.1:5 mankind is released from our sins by His blood.  Ep.1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.”  Col.1:20 the blood of the cross reconciles us to the Father and brings peace.  1Co.6:20 “You have been bought with a price.”  God paid the highest price to redeem us…His lifeblood (Ac.20:28)!  Jesus said in Jn.19:30, “It is finished”!

Adam & Eve were cast out of the Garden.  God provided them with clothing from an animal sacrifice.  Re.19:13 the garment of Jesus, our ultimate sacrifice, was stained with His own blood.  (Mt.27:35 the Roman soldiers even cast lots for His garment at His crucifixion.)  Animal sacrifices, including burnt offerings, are now unnecessary.

The separation from God is ended!  Jesus’ blood makes it possible for us to come before God and be in His Presence again (He.10:19)!  The blood of Christ is a must for our salvation!  There’s no other Way to God (contrary to New Age theories and false religions).  As the song goes…Don’t Forget The Blood!

Day of Atonement (1) – Sacrificial Blood

Atonement has to do with expiation for sin and reconciliation with a holy God.  In this topic we’ll preview the gospel of salvation through the Old Testament (OT) Day of Atonement and sin offerings.

In ancient Israel, only the weekly 7^th day sabbath and the annual Day of Atonement (approximately Oct 1) were full sabbath days.  The Day of Atonement was the holiest day.  The Septúagint/LXX identifies the Day of Atonement as a double sabbath.  Le.23:26-32 LXX “On the 10^th day of the 7^th month is the day of atonement, holy to you. It is a perpetual precept throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be to you a sabbath [Strongs g4521, Greek] of sabbaths [g4521].”  Le.16:29-31 LXX “On this day he [high priest] shall make atonement for you to cleanse you from all your sins before the Lord, and you shall be clean. It is a sabbath [g4521] of sabbaths [g4521] to you; you shall afflict your souls [fast].”

The Lord Christ authorized His OT pilgrim feasts to be kept only in the environs of the tabernacle or temple; ref De.16:5-6, 15-16.  (see “Feasts of the Lord and the Jews”.)  Unlike the temple feasts, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kíppur, in Hebrew) was to be kept in all their dwellings.  Luke wrote in Ac.27:9, “Sailing was now dangerous, since the fast was already past”.  The Day of Atonement was then being observed within the Roman Empire.  Benson Commentary “The fast here spoken of was the day of atonement.”  Cambridge Bible “The fast here meant is that of the great Day of Atonement.”  Ellicott Commentary “The date may have been fixed on St Luke’s memory by St Paul’s observance of the Fast.”  The fact that Luke refers to it indicates the Day was being kept by Jews, and probably by many Christians too, outside the Holy Land.  Adam Becker The Ways That Never Parted, p.268 “Gentile Christians from Syria-Palestine continued to celebrate Yom Kippur together with their Jewish neighbors until at least the 4^th century, as sermons by Origen and Chrýsostom prove.”

Some Christians today still honor the day.  Pastor Don Finto said on Sunday 9/15/2007, “The [upcoming] Day of Atonement is the holiest day of the year”.  Benny Hinn “Join Pastor Benny Hinn in fasting on the Day of Atonement on Monday 9/28/2009.”  Those pastors aren’t Jewish.

The Day of Atonement (h3725 kippur) is also known as Yom Kippur by Jews.  Yom Kippur means ‘day of covering’.  Sins were covered by blood on Yom Kippur.  Let’s look at forgiveness in the OT:

At the annual temple service, Yom Kippur was the national sin offering day for ancient Israel.  Blood was brought into the Most Holy Place by the high priest (Le.16:14-16) only on this holiest day of the year.  The Lord commanded a fast on this day (Le.23:27).  The offerer wasn’t authorized to eat his own sin offering (Le.6:30)!  The slain goat wasn’t eaten (Le.16:27).  It is appropriately a day of fasting.  (This was unlike the Passover animals, which were peace offerings, not sin offerings.  The spring Passover sacrifice from the flock and herd, De.16:2-3, was eaten.  see “Passover and Peace Offerings”.)

The Lord said in Le.17:11, “The life [or soul, h5315 néphesh] of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. The blood by reason of the life makes atonement.”  Blood is the principal carrier of life in the body.  De.12:23 “The blood is the life [soul].”  Ge.9:4 “Its life [soul h5315], that is, the blood.”  The lifeblood.

Sin is so serious…God required the death of His creatures, clean domestic animals, to expiate lesser (menial) human sin.  Sin kills.  Sin offerings were accepted at the tabernacle/temple during the year.

Blood was necessary for forgiveness, to atone.  Le.4:1, 2-35 shows sin offerings for unintentional sins.  Le.4:11-12, He.13:11 the animal was afterwards burned, not eaten.  Le.5:1-19 shows sin/guilt/trespass offerings.  These were for sins of ignorance, omission, and against holy things.  (Le.5:11-13 the poor may offer birds…or grain.  He.9:22 “Almost all things are cleansed by blood.”  But not quite all…God allowed the very poor, who didn’t have an animal/bird or couldn’t pay for one, to offer grain.)

Le.6:1-7, 19:20-22 shows intentional sins (and the guilt/trespass offering).  They’re more serious than unintentional, accidental or inadvertent sins.  But these sins in Le.6 also aren’t capital sins.

Individuals made sin/guilt offerings during the year…but they weren’t made for unknown (secret) sins.

Le.16 reflects the annual Day of Atonement service for the nation of ancient Israel as a whole.  It was a day of national repentance.  Only on this most solemn day was the high priest allowed into the Holiest Place behind the veil.  To atone for Israel’s sins, known and unknown, the Lord required that blood be sprinkled at the mercy seat on the Ark of the testimony.  To avert God’s wrath.  So that Israel could be forgiven, remain the people among whom God dwelt, and not be sent into captivity or cease as a nation.

The Lord instructed Moses/Israel in Ex.30:10, “Aaron shall make atonement…on it [altar of incense in Holy Place] with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once a year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.”  This was the holiest ceremony of the year.  God is very holy; He won’t dwell with sin!  He.9:7 refers to the Day of Atonement. “Only the high priest enters, once a year, not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance.”

In the annual service, the high priest first atoned for his own sins with the blood of a bull, Le.16:11-14.  Two goats were involved in the ceremony, for the people.  The high priest offered the blood of one goat (v.15-19).  Then he laid his hands on the head of the second goat and transferred the sins, iniquities and transgressions of the people onto this goat.  The goat, bearing all their wrongs, was released alive into the wilderness (v.20-22).  One goat was slain to atone, the second lived to carry away their sins.  David wrote in Ps.103:12, “As far as east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us”.

But there was no animal blood sacrifice/substitute to expiate major capital sins!  The penalty for capital offenses was death, upon the testimony of two witnesses (De.17:6-7, 2Co.13:1).  From personal, and circumstantial, evidence.  Capital sins are, e.g….murder, adultery, kidnapping, blasphemy, false witness in capital cases.  Also Nu.15:28-31, the person who rebelliously defied God and despised His word was utterly cut off.  No sacrifice for these sins.  The prescribed penalty was death without mercy (He.10:28).  Though usually a commensurate fine was instead paid, except in cases of 1^st degree murder, Nu.35:31.

For capital wrongs, the sinner’s own blood is required by a just God.  Harvard University’s Jacob Neusner Judaism When Christianity Began, p.153, 158 “Offerings then expiate those sins which are not committed as an act of rebellion against God. The ones that embody an attitude of rebellion, by contrast, cannot be expiated through the surrogate, the blood of the beast, but through the sinner, who is put to death by the court or is flogged by the court’s agents or is cut off in the prime of life. So God sees into man’s heart….Above all, death marks the final atonement for sin.”

The end of a person’s biological life, death, is the consequences of sin for everyone (eventually).  De.24:16 “Everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.”  (cf. Ro.6:23 “The wages of sin is death.”)

The Day of Atonement service reflected the highest mediatorial work of the high priest (Encyclopedia of the Bible).  This OT service did remove sins and “sent them away”…but it didn’t remove the sin nature from people’s hearts (He.10:1-4).

Along with animal sacrifices for sins, a sequence of repentance, confession, restitution was required for forgiveness (cf. Le.6:1-7).  This mindset/action was concurrent with the ‘work’ of doing sacrifices.  Philo The Special Laws 1:43:236 “Pardon shall be given to such a man…by works.”

It wasn’t choosing one or the other!  But today there’s no temple at which to expiate (lesser) sins.  Many (non-Christian) Jews have said the non-sacrificial elements alone are sufficient to cover sin.  But that’s not what the word of God reveals and requires!  Without a physical temple, what did the Lord provide as a just blood substitute to expiate sins?  (To pay the penalty for, or to make amends.)

Is.53:1-12 reflected a prophesied future sinless human sacrifice.  v.12 “He poured out His life [soul h5315] unto death…He bore the sins of many.”  This will be Jesus.  Benson Commentary “He willingly laid down His life.”  JFB Commentary “His life, which was considered as residing in the blood.”

Paul wrote in 1Co.15:3-4, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried and was raised.”  He.4:14-15 Jesus, our great high priest in the order of Melchisedek, was sinless.  1Pe.1:18-19 Christ’s precious lifeblood redeemed mankind.  He.9:28 “Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many.”

Jesus bore our sins on the cross.  He died…and yet He lives at Father God’s right hand in heaven (Ac.2:32-33).  The OT type was in the Day of Atonement temple service…the one goat was slain, and the second scapegoat or escape-goat bore Israel’s sins and lived (Le.16:21-22).  They pictured Christ who died, was resurrected, and now lives!

The New Testament writers and early Jewish Christians had faith that Yeshúa’s (Jesus’) sacrifice was sufficient to cover their sins.  We don’t read of them bringing any offerings for sin or guilt to the temple, which existed until 70 AD.  (Nu.6:13-21 the sacrifices for voluntary vows did include a sin offering, cf. Ac.21:23-26.)  Jesus’ sinless Divine life (via the virgin birth) is worth more than the sum of all human lives…and much more than animals’ lives!  His blood is enough.  see “Jesus’ Virgin Birth”.

But “Jesus” isn’t a name magically invoked, and then we merely return to willingly commit more sins or carelessly ignore God’s laws that identify sin…the violation of which animal sacrifice was required by Christ for forgiveness in the OT.  That kind of cheap grace, so-called, is a sham.  We’re to obey the Lord.  God gives the indwelling Holy Spirit, enabling us to overcome the sin nature (Ro.8:4-14).

What about the more serious capital sins for which death was prescribed, upon the testimony of two witnesses?  e.g. 2Sm.12:7-14 no animal blood could atone for David’s adultery, murder and despising of God’s word (Nu.15:30-31)!  Whether or not witnesses came forward…the Lord knew what David had done.  Neither the Day of Atonement sacrifice, nor an individual sin offering, could expiate David’s major sin!  Only David’s own life, or the life of a sinless human victim, could atone/substitute.

2Sm.12:15-18, 24 David’s capital sins were covered by the death of his innocent newborn son.  The baby was sinless, knowing no sin which later would be atoned by his own death.  The Lord chose to take his life in place of David’s life.  This little one was a type of Christ, if you will.  David was forgiven.

2Co.5:19-21 “He [God] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.”  Christ became that which He did not know.  Jesus was completely sinless.  He’d committed no sins for which His own death on the cross must atone.  His life as Creator God (Jn.1:1-3, He.1:2) is worth more than the sum of all our lives…so Jesus’ sacrificial death was sufficient to atone for our sins in the eyes of God.  (Though we all still die physically, we’ll live forever in eternal life!  see “Life After Death – for Saints”.)

Ac.13:38-39 “Through Him [Jesus] forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him all who believe are justified in all things from which you couldn’t be justified by the Law of Moses.”  Capital sins couldn’t be justified by the Yom Kippur goats or sin offerings, according to the Law of Moses.

Matthew Poole Commentary Ac.13:39 “There were some sins which by the ceremonial law there was no sacrifice appointed for.”  Major sins/crimes.  Matthew Henry Commentary “By Jesus Christ we obtain a complete justification; for by him a complete atonement was made for sin.”

After our belief, confession of sin, and repentance…through Christ’s sacrifice we stand justified from all kinds/categories of sin.  We’re not condemned by God.  Pulpit Commentary “Upon the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, a free and full forgiveness of sins to all that repent and believe the gospel.”

Reading through the chapters of Hebrews 9–10 will provide a more complete understanding.  They go into more detail about Jesus’ sacrifice as related to the Day of Atonement.

We’ve all sinned.  Christ is our atonement or propitiation through His blood.  Ro.3:23-26 “He [God] passed over our sins previously committed.”  We receive the gift of total expiation for all sins we’d done.  Ro.5:8-9 “Much more then, having now been justified by His [Christ’s] blood, we shall be saved from God’s wrath [condemnation] through Him.”

Human courts may (justly) condemn a criminal to physical death.  But upon repentance and belief in Christ’s sacrifice, the condemned man stands un-condemned by God.  Thank You, Lord!

Lk.23:39-43 shows that a criminal, condemned by the courts, can be forgiven and be with the Lord.  Unrepentant thieves, kidnappers, murderers, adulterers, haters of God, etc. won’t inherit the Kingdom of God, 1Co.6:9-10.  v.11 “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”  All the repentant who believe in His sacrifice!

Ro.8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  No eternal condemnation.  Jesus/Yeshua has atoned for all our sins.

Ti.2:11-14 “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.”  Gentiles too can be redeemed from all wrongs and be saved!  People who didn’t know of Yom Kippur.

1Jn.1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us.”  Our confession is still required, including sins and transgressions in the future.

The song title has it…Nothing But The Blood of Jesus.  Christ’s precious blood/life/soul is our atonement…even for capital offenses repented of (such as David’s)!

Jesus fulfills both atonement goats of Yom Kippur.  (For that matter, He fulfills the Passover, the burnt offerings, etc….Christ fulfills all the OT sacrificial types.  also see “Sacrifices and Burnt Offerings”.)

Father God saw Christ’s atoning blood poured out.  God’s justice has been upheld.  We stand reconciled to the Father.  The ancient Day of Atonement service and sin offerings foreshadowed the real living gospel…the gospel of eternal salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord!  He is the propitiation, the appeasing, the atonement, for the sins of the whole world (1Jn.2:2).

This topic is continued in “Day of Atonement (2) – in Revelation”.

Paul the Apostle (2) – The Chameleon?

This Part 2 is the continuation of the series topic “Paul the Apostle (1) – Law and Works”.  This won’t contain a full recap of what was covered in (1).  I urge you to first reference the verses in Part 1!

In Part 1, 15 Bible characters or writers of Bible books were identified as ‘witnesses’ to the Lord’s commandments.  God required 2 or 3 witnesses to evidence a serious matter.  No mere man or single witness is authorized by God to alter His written principles!  As inspired by the Holy Spirit (HS), all 15 ‘witnessed’ in the Bible books that God’s moral principles/laws/commandments are valid for mankind.

Principles not just for ancient Israel, but also for gentiles in Genesis (Abraham, Ge.26:5), as well as peoples in all nations.  Re.7:4-8 notes the 144,000 of the tribes of Israel.  Plus, v.9 “Behold a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and tongue standing before the throne of the Lamb.”  Gentiles too.  And Re.22:14 KJV “Blessed are they that do His commandments.”

If a so-called prophet or Bible teacher arises who contradicts the (15) Bible witnesses, his testimony or agenda is suspect.  One such was Joseph Smith, the prophet of Mormonism.  And Charles Taze Russell, who taught false dates of Jesus’ return to the society which became Jehovah’s Witnesses.

What about Paul?  Some Bible readers view Paul as a false apostle!  Or, he vacillates between teaching obedience to God’s commandments…and leniency or indifference.  Which is the real Paul?

Some years ago my wife remarked, “Paul is like a chameleon; he seems to change color”.  Yes, there’s controversy regarding Paul’s writings.  As I considered her remark, the concept and verses took shape in my mind.  So I’m calling this sequel, “Paul the Apostle (2) – The Chameleon?”.

In Ro.11:13, Paul called himself “an apostle to the gentiles”, to “the uncircumcised” in Ga.2:7-8.  Paul knew about God’s principles seen in the book of Genesis, and the early gentiles.  The Lord said of the gentile Abraham in Ge.26:5, “Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws”.  And Paul referred to Christians as the spiritual children of Abraham (Ga.3:29).

Paul knew the Old Testament (OT), and God’s laws & commandments therein.  Paul said several times, “It is written”, as he quoted the obedient writers of OT books.  Several times Paul (and Jesus) appealed to the authority of the written word of God, prefacing the citation with, “It is written”.

Examples: Ac.23:5 Paul said “It is written, ‘Don’t speak evil of the ruler of your people”.  Paul was referring to Ex.22:28 of the Law.  Paul wrote of the Lord in Ro.14:11, “It is written, ‘Every knee shall bow to Me”.  Paul was quoting Is.45:23 of the Prophets.  And Paul wrote in 1Co.3:19, “It is written, ‘He [God] traps the wise in their own craftiness”.  Paul was quoting Jb.5:13 of the Writings/Psalms.  These three examples reflect Paul referencing all three sections of the OT…the Law, the Prophets, the Writings/Psalms.  Paul recognized the authority of God’s OT tripartite written word.

Let’s pause, and consider this question.  Was there any new practices seen exclusively in Paul’s epistles that we don’t see glimpses of in the OT or in the New Testament (NT) writings of others?

What about the bread & wine holy meal of which Paul wrote in 1Cor.11?  Previously we saw that in Ge.14:18, Jn.6:48-58, and in the Last Supper accounts of the three synoptic gospels.  What about Paul addressing speaking in tongues in 1Cor.14?  Previously we saw that phenomenon in Ac.2:1-13, 10:44-47, 19:6, and Is.28:11 (according to Paul in 1Co.14:21).  What about the church order and (leader) functioning of which Paul wrote in 1Ti.3?  Previously we saw that in Mt.18:15-20, Ac.6:1-7, 14:23.

Paul’s purpose for writing was often to explain the ‘how to’ of church practices (seen in the Bible), and to address problems in specific church areas.  We could still know salvation if the NT consisted of the four gospels, Acts, James, Peter’s letters, John’s letters, Jude, Revelation…no Pauline epistles.

Paul is 1 Bible ‘witness’.  Yet 2 or 3 witnesses were required to establish a matter.  Neither Paul nor anyone else as only 1 sole witness was authorized by God to teach a new doctrine which contradicted or disagreed with moral principles which the HS inspired the previous saints to write as scripture.

Many Bible readers see two different Pauls!  (cf. the positions in Wikipedia: New Perspective on Paul.)  But did Paul (or any NT writer) try to alter principles the HS had instructed the OT writers?

Paul the chameleon?!  In his letters, it does seem that Paul changes colors, so to speak, depending on who or what issue he was addressing.  (Chameleons change more for socializing than for camouflage.)

I’ll call the Paul who upheld the veracity of God’s written word and moral laws/principles (for gentiles too) a blue chameleon.  I’ll call the Paul who appears to contradict or not uphold God’s moral precepts a yellow chameleon.  And I’ll call Paul a red chameleon when he confronted Jews who tried to push (Esséne) ritualism, oral Law, and proto-Ebionism onto gentile Christians (and Jewish).

Jacob Neusner of Harvard University said that in the 1^st century, the term “the Law” (or “Law of Moses”) meant God’s written OT laws/toráh…plus the Jews’ accumulated oral traditions.  Paul referred to that two-part torah in Ga.5:3. “Every man who receives circumcision is under obligation to keep the whole Law.”  That “whole Law” included both written and oral law/torah.  And Paul addressed the bondage of physical circumcision in Galatians: 2:3, 2:12, 5:2-3, 5:6, 5:11, 6:12-15.

Lawrence Schiffman, in At the Crossroads, said there were 4 initial requirements for male proselytes of Judaism: physical circumcision, míkveh (immersion), bring an animal sacrifice to the temple, consent to both God’s written law and the Jews’ oral law.  (3 of these 4 are unnecessary for Christians.)

From the Jewish Alfred Edersheim’s 1,000-page book The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 1:8. “According to the Jewish view, God had given Moses on Mt. Sinai alike the oral and the written Law. That is, the Law with all its interpretations and applications.”  The whole Law, in the eyes of Judaism.  This Jewish oral law/oral torah was later written down in the Talmud and Míshnah.  It was man-made religious interpretations.  Most peoples have some good cultural traditions, including the Jewish people.  But such customs aren’t equal to the words of God.

Those Jews even valued their oral torah above the written torah of Almighty God!  They falsely claim that the Lord gave Moses the oral torah too.  But contrary to the proponents of a supposed God-given oral law, is Ex.24:1-4. “Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord.”  v.7 “Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people.”  All…not just some…of the words God spoke to Moses were written down.  Then Moses read the written Old Covenant to the Israelites.  There was no oral law from God given to Moses, etc. there!

De.4:2 “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God.”  Don’t put man-ordained oral traditions, etc., into Moses’ mouth.  Christ the Word of God & Rock of Israel (De.32:18 with 1Co.10:4) and the HS, not mere man, conveyed the Lord’s laws to Moses.  They’re Jesus’ laws too!  And Moses wrote them down.

Proof that a Mosaic oral law is a later fabrication of men is found in 2Ch.34:14-21, when the lost “book of the law” was found.  When the book was read to the Jewish king Josiáh, he tore his clothes.  v.19-21 “For great is the wrath of the Lord which is poured out on us because our fathers have not observed the word of the Lord, to do all that is written in this book.”  Since the written book had been lost and forgotten over the centuries since Moses, any so-called oral laws for maintaining that written law would be forgotten too.  It is inconceivable that an oral law was remembered, when the written law (it supposedly described) was forgotten!  A Late Bronze Age God-given oral law is a more recent hoax of Judaism…a creation of men after the time of Josiah (600 BC).  It’s the religious traditions of men.

Paul knew written Torah.  Php.3:5-6 he’d been a Jewish Pharisee, and his ancestry was the tribe of Benjamin.  Paul said in Ac.22:3, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsús of Cilicía, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliél, strictly according to the law of our fathers”.  Paul was taught both the written law of God and the Jews’ Pharisáical law at Gamaliel’s famous school in Jerusalem.  Gamaliel was ruling the Jewish Sanhédrin in the 30’s AD.  Paul wrote in Ga.1:13-14, “You have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries, being extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions”.  Yes, Paul also knew their oral law traditions, as they’d accumulated into the 1^st century AD.  He was a savvy student (and then a Sanhedrin member?).

Two popular Jewish schools of that time were the school of Hillél (Gamaliel’s grandfather) and the school of Shammai.  Hillel’s was more liberal, Shammai’s more strict.

In Mk.7:6-9, Jesus rebuked Jewish oral law legalists who placed their religious traditions above God’s written law.  Mk.7:13 “You thus invalidate the [written] word of God by your tradition which you have handed down.”  Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 13:1:6 “Pharisees have made many ordinances, whereof there is nothing written in the law of Moses, according to traditions of their fathers.”  Oral law was developed and promoted by Pharisees.

Peter and other Jews traditionally avoided most all gentiles.  Peter stated to gentiles at Caesárea in Ac.10:28, “You know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him”.  It violated the oral law (and may also jeopardize health).  Then Ac.11:1-3 “When Peter came to Jerusalem, circumcised Jews took issue with him, saying, ‘You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.”  But this restriction was just the Jews’ traditional law.  It wasn’t the Lord’s OT law in regards to most peoples.  Robertson’s Commentary “There is no Old Testament regulation forbidding social contact with gentiles.”  (In general, that is; the corrupt peoples of De.7:1-5 were excluded.)

Paul later exhorted Titus in Ti.1:13-14 to “Not pay attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth”.  Oral law is the commandments of men…not God.  Jacob Neusner wrote of the “explicit myth of the dual torah, written and oral. A heretic is someone who rejects the duality.”  The Talmudic Qiddushin 3:16, “A heretic is someone who rejects the duality of torah”.  Acceptance of both the written and oral torah was a requirement for 1^st century adherents of Judaism.

Because of Paul’s teachings, disbelieving Jews viewed him as a traitor, and hated him.  2Co.11:24 “Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes.”  Ac.23:23-27 Jews wanted to kill Paul, a Roman citizen.  Yet Paul testified in Ac.25:8, “I’ve committed no offense [?] against the Law of the Jews or the temple or against Caesar”.  Paul said he was blameless in regards to Jewish law and legal authorities.  He observed harmless cultural traditions (1Co.9:20) which don’t contradict God’s written laws.  We may too.

Paul the blue chameleon loved and obeyed God’s written law…this Paul of Ro.3:31, 7:12-14, 7:22-25, 8:7, Ep.6:2 was quoted in “Paul the Apostle (1) – Law and Works”.  In 2Ti.3:15-16, Paul said all scripture (known by young Timothy) was inspired by God.  The scripture Timothy had at that time was the OT.  Paul instructed Timothy in 1Ti.4:13, “Give attention to the public reading of scripture”.  Timothy was even to read aloud the written OT, with its commandments/laws, to the NT church!  Paul himself quoted the OT over 50 times in the book of Romans!

I like to think of this lawful Paul, the Paul who’d affirm the OT by declaring, “It is written”…as the blue chameleon.  (However, “it” always applying to Jews and gentiles both…that’s debatable.)

There’s no need for the church at large to read the oral law, do animal sacrifice, or become religiously circumcised.  For salvation, there’s no need for gentile converts to Jesus as Savior to become Jewish proselytes.  Ac.15:1 “Some men from Judea began teaching the brethren, unless you are circumcised [physically], you cannot be saved.”  But in Acts 15, the Jewish Christian leaders at the Jerusalem council determined that was false teaching.  Paul the red chameleon attended, and opposed that false teaching!  Paul was angry in Ga.5:11-13. “If I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Would that those who trouble you even mutilate themselves!”  (see “Circumcision in the Bible”.)  Jesus too opposed proselyting Judaism in Mt.23:15. “Woe to you scribes & Pharisees, because you travel land and sea to make one proselyte, and then you make him twice as much a son of gehenna as yourselves!”

The Lord had said physical circumcision was for Israelites, and also for strangers & gentiles not of the line of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob who came to live in the Land among Israel (Ex.12:48-49).  But He said nothing about Jews as strangers in foreign lands circumcising gentiles there!  That racist practice was oral law.  Physical circumcision was scripturally meaningful only for descendants of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob, primarily in the Land.

Paul the red chameleon opposed Jews who tried to push Judaistic rituals/sacrifices and oral law onto gentiles elsewhere.  He addressed Essene 4QMMT “works of the law” (and physical circumcision) in Galatians and Romans.  Here’s some verses to that effect from Ferrar Fenton’s 1903 translation:

Galatians: 2:16 “We know that a man isn’t made righteous by ritualism…not from legal rituals [NASB “works of the law”].”  2:21 “If righteousness were through a ritual, then Christ died to no purpose.”  3:2 “Did you receive the Spirit from a law of rituals?”  3:5 “Did He who brought the Spirit to you do so by a law of rituals?”  3:10 “For whoever are dependent on a law of rituals are under a curse.”  3:12 “But the ritual did not come from faith.”  3:17 “The rituals, beginning 430 years after.”  4:3 “We were trained under the former rules of a Hebrew ritual.”  4:5 “God sent His own Son, born under a ritual, so that He might buy out those under a ritual.”  5:4 “Whoever of you are made righteous by a ritual, you are detached from Christ.”  5:18 “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under a ritual.”

Romans: 3:20 “By the practice of a ritual, none can be made righteous in His presence.”  3:27 “By what law? By the rituals? No! But by a law of faith.”  3:28 “A man may be righteous by a faith distinct from a law of rituals [“works of the law”].”  (Though purifications can avert incidences of disease.)

The selective “works of the law” (“érgon nómou”) in Galatians & Romans was addressed in “Paul the Apostle (1)”.  It was sectarian ritualism.  ref Dead Sea Scrolls 4QMMT (“Miqsat Ma’ase ha-Torah”).

Concluding: Christians are justified by faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins…not by animal sacrifice, physical circumcision, sectarian rituals, or oral law.  Paul the red chameleon boldly stood against his countrymen whose teaching was contrary.  Paul the blue chameleon upheld the truth of God’s written word & commandments as a holy way of life for believers via the HS.  Though Paul too made mistakes, Peter loved our brother Paul (2Pe.3:15-17).  Although some of Paul’s writings are corrective and hard to understand, he’d learned the validity of God’s moral principles.

However, many Bible readers and critics see two different Pauls, otherwise.  He’s controversial.  Some of you may think I’ve been looking at Paul through rose-colored glasses.  In the epistles attributed to him, they see mistakes and contradictions which I haven’t addressed.  Paul the ‘yellow chameleon’.

This series is continued in “Paul the Apostle (3) – Missteps”.

Abraham Obeyed Which Commandments?

The Lord told Abraham’s son Isaac in Ge.26:5, “Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws”.  Doing all that, Abraham was very obedient to God!  Also Wisdom of Sirach 44:20, “Abraham kept the laws of the Most High.”  To be so consecrated in obedience, for sure Abraham had much faith and belief in the God he obeyed!

The apostle Paul referred to the gentile Abraham as the “father” of Christians.  Ro.4:16 “Abraham, who is the father of us all.”  Christians speculate as to which of God’s numerous commandments and principles given in the Bible were obeyed by our spiritual forefather Abraham, as per Ge.26:5.

God Most High had laws in Abraham’s day.  We don’t know the full extent of the laws kept by early righteous gentiles such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Job, etc.  James Bruckner Implied Law in the Abraham Narrative, p. 18 “In the Genesis narrative….conditional and unconditional commands are usually represented rhetorically by implication as oughts and ought nots.”

Abraham would’ve also been subject to the human laws of the powers that be of his day.  For example, the discovered Babylonian law code of Hammurabi dates from near the time of Abraham’s grandson Jacob or great-grandson Joseph.

However, there’s no scriptural record of any antediluvian civil government or law courts with capital punishment prior to Ge.9:5-6.

Previously, it seems that personal vengeance had been the rule.  Cain murdered his brother Abel.  Then Cain said in Ge.4:14-15, “Whoever finds me shall kill me”.  He feared some individual or a kin of Abel would take vengeance upon him.

Yet Paul indicated that a moral sense of God and of sin has always existed in man’s consciousness.  Ro.1:19-21 “That which is known of God is evident within them. For since the creation of the world, even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God.”  Early humans knew of God.

Sin occurred in the Garden of Eden (Ge.3)…long before sin was described in the Lord’s theocratic laws for Moses & ancient Israel and identified elsewhere.

But Paul said sin and law-breaking doesn’t exist without Law.  Ro.4:15 “Where there is no law, there is no violation.”  And Ro.5:13 “For until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.”  Ro.3:20 “Through law comes the knowledge of sin.”

Since the Bible mentions sin several times in Genesis (Ge.4:7, 13:13, 18:20, 20:9, 31:36, 39:9, 42:22, 50:17) prior to Moses…Divine Law must have existed and been revealed to humanity prior to Moses, for sin to have been present!  1Jn.3:4 “Sin is the transgression of the law.”

The Bible indicates some of the ancients were good men.  He.11:4-5 Abel was righteous, and Enoch pleased God.  Enoch means ‘dedicated’ or ‘teacher’.  According to the (supposed) Book of Jasher 3:4-8, Enoch taught the ways of God. “He went to the sons of men and taught them the ways of the Lord; in all places where the sons of men dwelt.”

1Eno.99:2 “Woe unto them who pervert the words of uprightness, and transgress the eternal law.”  1Eno.106:13-14 “Some of the angels of heaven commit sin and transgress the law.” (cf. 1Jn.3:4)  An eternal law existed before Moses, according to 1Enoch.

Also Noah was “blameless and walked with God” (Ge.6:9), and was a “preacher of righteousness” (2Pe.2:5).  What is righteousness?  Ps.119:172 “All Thy commandments are righteousness.”

Righteous Noah may well have taught the commandments of God that righteous Abraham obeyed in Ge.26:5!  Abraham knew priest/king Melchisedek (Ge.14:18-20), who is called “greater” than Abraham (He.7:3-ff)!  These individuals taught others about God and the principles of God’s (eternal) law.

The Lord spoke to Abraham several times, and even appeared to him!  e.g. Ge.12:1-7, 15:1-21, 18:1-33, 22:1-18, Ac.7:2.  God called Abraham His “friend” (Is.41:8, Ja.2:23).  God didn’t hide from Abraham what He was about to do to Sodom (Ge.18:17).  God also didn’t hide His commandments from him.

In his Genesis narrative, Moses didn’t describe all of God’s principles obeyed by early gentiles.  There was no need…the Lord gave Moses/Israel the Law with moral principles which he went on to describe in detail in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

Most of the same (Hebrew) terms are present in Ge.26:5 to note Abraham’s obedience (quoted at the top), as appear in the later De.11:1 terms for directives which the Lord gave to ancient Israel.

De.11:1 “You shall love the Lord your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments.”  (Judgments/legal decisions [mishpát Strongs h4941, Hebrew] refer to God’s justice system for the theocracy, which Abraham predated.)  We see that the categories of directives the Holy Spirit inspired to be recorded in Genesis in describing Abraham’s obedience, and those used to describe directives for ancient Israel, overlap!  This similarity and consistency is significant.

In the books of Genesis and Job we see glimpses of most of the moral directives later contained in the Mosaic Law for Israel and the Jewish people!  (also see “Ten Commandments in Genesis & Job”.)

Let’s see from scripture a sampling of God’s commandments which were known by ancient gentiles such as Abraham, prior to the codification of God’s Law for Israel in Moses’ time.

The book of Job shows that Job practiced the Golden Rule.  Jb.1:1 Job was an upright man who treated his neighbor well.  Later, Jesus said in Mt.7:12, “However you want people to treat you, so treat them”.  This principle is from Le.19:18 in the Law. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (prior to Mt.)

A close reading of activity in Genesis reveals both knowledge of and violations of commandments which later became part of the Decalogue the Lord spoke to ancient Israel at Mt. Sinai in Ex.20.

Murder occurred in Ge.4:8. “Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.”  Blasphemy or slander of God’s character & Name is in Ge.3:1-4. “God said, ‘You shall not eat from it lest you die.’ The serpent said, ‘You shall not surely die!”  Adultery is known in Ge.12:15-19, and is called a great evil in Ge.39:9. “How could I do this great evil and sin against God?”  Coveting by Laban is evident in Ge.31:7. “Your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times.”  Stealing is in 31:19. “Rachel stole the idols that were her father’s.”  Idolatry is a sin. 31:35-36 “Laban searched, but did not find his idols. Jacob said to him, ‘What is my sin?”  And Ge.35:2 “Put away the foreign gods among you.”

The above was sin for gentiles/non-Jews in Genesis before God spoke them as commandments in the Decalogue of the Law for Moses & Israel (Ex.20, and repeated in De.5).

And the great type for the 7^th day sabbath is in Ge.2:1-3, when Christ Himself ceased on the 7^th day from His first six days of Creation.  God made that weekly time holy before there was any nation of Israel or Jews!  Later, Israel probably was forced to labor on the sabbath as slaves in Egypt.  After being freed (Ex.12), some of them chose to gather manna on the sabbath day.  God said in Ex.16:28, “How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws?”  The Sabbath had existed as a law of God before the Ex.20:8 codification!  (see the series, “Sabbath 7^th Day”.)

Besides the Decalogue/Ten Commandments, there are other principles of God seen in His “book of the law” (De.31:26) and elsewhere in scripture.  Following are several such principles we glimpse from the lives of gentiles earlier in Genesis.  (for further detail, see “Genesis Principles Predate Moses”.):

Ge.4:4 Abel didn’t eat the (saturated) fat portions.  It’s unhealthy.  God later prohibited eating fat in Le.3:17.

Ge.7:2 Noah knew which creatures were clean & unclean, later described in Le.11 & De.14:2-21.

Ge.9:3 “moving” things are food too, but nothing dying of itself/“strangled”.  See Le.17:15, Ac.15:29.

Ge.9:4 consuming blood is forbidden from Noah’s day.  This later is codified in Le.3:17.  ref Ac.15:29.

Ge.9:20-24 indecency and drunkenness have bad consequences.  Later this is in De.24:1, Ep.5:18.

Ge.14:20 the tithing principle to church & state (priest/king Melchisedek is both).  See Nu.18:25-28.

Ge.19:5-ff homosexuality and sex with another kind/beastiality…divine punishment!  See Le.20:13-16.

Ge.31:35 avoid close contact with those discharging blood or menstruating.  Le.15, 18:19; Ac.15:29.

Ge.34:1-ff marriage or compensation due after seducing or raping a virgin.  Ex.22:16-17, De.22:28-29.

Ge.35:22 marriage or sex with your father’s wife (Ge.30:4) is prohibited.  See later in Le.18:8, 1Co.5:1.

The above principles are a sampling.  Bruckner op.cit., p.67 “Genesis is embedded with law.”

But conspicuously absent in Genesis are later Levitical ritualistic/ceremonial aspects, such as the three pilgrim feasts with the detailed sacrificial system.  These were authorized for Israel to keep only at God’s central sanctuary (ref De.16:5-6, 10-11, 15-16).  In Genesis there’s no tabernacle/temple, and there’s no Passover recorded before the Lord “passed over” Israelite homes (Ex.12:13).  see “Feasts of the Lord and the Jews” and “Days Israel Observed – God-Ordained”.

Sacrifice was ordained by God, and it’s probable He told Adam how to do it.  After Adam & Eve sinned, God involved the first sacrifice, providing them with clothing (Ge.3:21).  It’s unlikely Cain & Abel invented sacrifice on their own (Ge.4:3-5).  The practice was passed down to others.  Yet no verse commanded anyone to do recurring animal sacrifice away from the place of God’s Name/temple.

All the above shouldn’t give the impression that Christians today could devise a comprehensive church dogma/doctrine for Christian conduct gleaned from righteous practices (and wrongs) done by gentiles prior to Sinai.  Although much of it is still applicable, there are other practices/customs besides animal sacrifice apparent in Genesis which Christians today shouldn’t do.  Such as….

Ge.20:11-18 shows that some of what is later called incest was allowed in Genesis, back when the earth must be populated.  (But not all forms of what is today called incest were allowed then!)  In Ge.24:4, Abraham told his servant to “Go to my country and to my relatives, and take a wife for Isaac [son of Abraham]”.  Isaac told his son Jacob in Ge.28:2, “Take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother”.  Endogamy, including marriage between kin, was the cultural norm.

God commanded the first humans in Ge.1:28. “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.”  Humankind is to manage the earth and its vast resources.  According to Genesis, God began with only one man (and one woman).  Thereby, God determined that the earth be populated through a form of incest…since the only humans for Adam & Eve’s children to fill the earth with would come from their own brothers & sisters (and then nieces)!  Ge.5:3 the first man Adam had “other sons and daughters”.  Those siblings could’ve married each other…since no other humans (the same “kind”) were there, besides their parents!  According to the Book of Jubilees 4:9, “Cain took Awan his sister to be his wife”.

Abraham married his half-sister (or possibly niece) Sarah.  Way back then there wasn’t the risk of birth defects, it is said.  Hugh Ross Navigating Genesis, p.120 “Genetic defects as a result of intrafamily marriage develop slowly. They would present no risk until after the first several dozen generations.”  However, DNA damage began accumulating over generations of sinning humanity, and caused gene mutation.  So in the time of Moses, God prohibited marriage between close kin.  ref Le.18 & 20 for prohibited partners.  And today there’s the risk of birth defects when near kin marry.  (This has occurred in some historical royal families.)

Modern nations have varying definitions of incest.  The New Testament itself is silent about single close relatives marrying each other.  But in Le.18 & 20, the Lord had much to say to Moses forbidding that, and other incest!

Ge.29:23-28 Jacob became married to two biological sisters simultaneously.  Later this is prohibited in Le.18:18 of the Law…when there is more female population (although plural wives are still allowed).

Also Ge.38:8-10, where a man’s refusal to conceive a child with his deceased brother’s widow could possibly constitute life-threatening neglect of her in God’s eyes.  This provision later appears in the law, De.25:5-ff (and is seen in the book of Ruth 4:5-7).  In those days, a son was often a necessity to provide for his mother in her old age!

(But much later when Paul wrote to Corinth, 1Co.7:39, a Christian widow may marry any “brother” who is “in the Lord”.  She isn’t restricted to a biological relative of her husband.  Endogamous tribal inheritance rights in the Land of Canáan aren’t a concern where Paul wrote.)

Also, added to Abraham (not to his gentile ancestors) at age 99 was the covenant of physical circumcision, to be passed down through descendants of Isaac & Jacob primarily in the Land (Ge.17, Ac.7:8).  This practice was unnecessary for Christians worldwide (Ac.15).  see the topic “Circumcision in the Bible”.

Conclusion: It seems quite feasible that the commandments, statutes, and laws glimpsed in Genesis that we’ve referenced and compared to the Mosaic Law…are among those which father Abraham obeyed (Gen.26:5).  Even though he didn’t have the later codified Law of Moses (cf. Ro.4:13).

Jesus said to the Jews who opposed Him in Jn.8:39, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham”.

Abraham was given such faith to believe and obey existing commandments/statutes/laws of the Lord who revealed Himself to him!  e.g. Ge.18:1 “The Lord appeared to him [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamré.”

It may well strengthen our faith to believe the eternal God has some form of eternal Law as an enduring righteous standard, which men and angels aren’t to violate in the heavenly realm or on earth.

Re.22:14 “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life and enter in through the gates into the city.”

Jesus is “Lord”.  The Lord Jesus isn’t an anarchist!  He’s never been lawless.  Praise our Lord!!

Jesus Obeyed God’s Written Laws

In the Old Testament (OT), the Hebrew term which is usually translated “law” in our Bibles is toráh (Strongs h8451).  It occurs 220 times.  Torah is instructive teaching with a wide range of meaning.  The BC Jewish translators of the OT into Greek (now become the Septúagint/LXX) translated torah as nómos (g3551), which means ‘law’.  Nomos occurs 240 times in the LXX, and 200 times in the New Testament (NT) where it usually refers to a body of law or the first five books (Péntateuch) of the OT.

God’s OT written word includes: laws, the Lord’s Testimony (edúth h5715) Decalogue on Mt Sinai, commandments (mitzváh h4687), judgments/legal decisions (mishpát h4941), ceremonial statutes or ordinances & civil decrees (choq h2706 & chuqqáh h2708).  Ne.9:13 the Lord God “Came down on Mt Sinai and spoke to them from heaven; and gave them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments”.  In De.4:8, “this whole law” includes all the above. However, by NT times most of God’s precepts were generally called commandments (entoláy g1785, Greek).

According to Jewish rabbinic tradition, there are 613 laws or commandments in the Pentateuch.  Of these, 248 are positive ‘do’s’ and 365 are negative ‘don’ts’.  Rámbam (1138-1204 AD) listed 613.  That number is disputed.  Wikipedia: 613 Commandments “Some rabbis declared…that it was not logically possible to come up with a systematic count. A number of authorities denied that it was normative.”

Theologians have divided God’s laws into three broad categories: moral, civil or judicial, ceremonial.  There’s some overlap.  Did Jesus disobey any of the Lord’s written injunctions, His requirements?

God’s foundational moral code was the Testimony of Ex.20 & De.5, the ‘10 Commandments’ so-called.  Actually, the expression ‘10 Commandments/10 Mitzvót’ (h4687) never occurs in the Hebrew Masoretic text!  The Decalogue was the ‘10 Words’ (dabár h1697) or ’10 Sayings’.  ref De.4:13.

From the Decalogue the Lord gave to Israel…Jesus affirmed in Mt.19:18-19 that you shouldn’t commit murder or adultery, you shouldn’t steal or bear false witness; and honor your father & mother.

Jesus honored His heavenly Father.  Jn.8:29 “I do always those things which please Him.”  Lk.2:49-51 Jesus said He must be about His heavenly Father’s house/affairs/business.  Yet Jesus continued to be in subjection to Mary & Joseph, His earthly parents.  Jn.19:26-27 while hanging on the cross, Jesus entrusted the care of Mary to His cousin the apostle John.

Jesus didn’t commit murder or adultery.  Jesus didn’t steal.  Lk.19:30-35 Jesus needed a colt.  Without objecting, the colt’s owners let two of Jesus’ disciples take the colt.  It wasn’t a criminal act.

Jesus didn’t lie.  Jn.7:8-10 although Jesus delayed leaving for the Feast right then with them, He did go to it.  Gill Exposition Jn.7:10 “The Ethiopic version reads, ‘He went up that day’; which is very likely, Jn.7:14 though He didn’t go to the temple to teach till the middle of the feast.”  He is the truth, Jn.14:6.

Neither did Jesus wrongly covet/desire.  Ex.20:17 “You shall not covet.”  Jn.6:15 Jesus even withdrew from the multitude who wanted to make Him a temporal King Messiah then.

It doesn’t appear that Jesus disobeyed any of God’s Testimony, the 10 Words, the 10 Commandments!

Some may think that Jesus neglected to perform all the applicable ceremonial or sacrificial aspects of God’s written word given to Moses/Israel.  Most Christians aren’t knowledgeable about details of ancient Israel’s ritualistic practices, though we do see references & glimpses of them in the NT.

Jesus Christ wasn’t remiss in ceremonial aspects of the Mosaic Law.  Christ Himself, as the Word of God (Jn.1:1, 14) and Rock of Israel (De.32:18 & 1Co.10:4), had sanctioned it for Israel!  (see the topic “Jesus Was the Old Testament God”.)  There’s no scriptural evidence which indicates that Jesus sinned or violated this aspect of His written Law or torah.

What is sin?  Scriptural ‘definitions’ of sin:  Ro.14:23 “Whatever is not of faith is sin [hamartía g266].”  Ja.4:17 “The person who knows the right thing to do, and does it not, to him it is sin.”  1Jn.5:17 “All unrighteousness is sin.”  And 1Jn.3:4, “Sin is the transgression of the Law [or lawlessness].”  That’s four NT descriptions of sin.  Also Pr.24:9 “The thought of foolishness is sin [chattáh h2403].”

Did Jesus the Christ commit any sins?  The Jewish NT writers said Jesus didn’t sin in any manner!  The apostle Peter wrote in 1Pe.2:22, “Christ did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth”.  John wrote in 1Jn.3:5, “In Him is no sin”.  He.4:15 “Jesus was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”  That’s the assertion coming down to us from three Jewish Christian writers!  Jesus didn’t transgress the Lord’s written Law/torah.

And well Jesus should have obeyed written torah.  Mary/Miriám, the young woman who bore Him, was a Jewess from the Israelite tribe of Judah.  He.7:14 “It is evident that our Lord [Jesus] sprang from Judah.”  In Jn.4:22, Jesus Himself indicated He was a Jew. “We worship that which we know, for salvation is of the Jews.”  God’s written laws were for Israelites, including the Jewish Mary and Jesus.

Jesus/Yeshúa must obey the laws for male non-Levites, that is.  Laws which applied only to females, or to the service of Levites and priests, didn’t apply to Jesus.  Jesus wasn’t a priest from the tribe of Levi.

Let’s examine the gospel narratives in some detail, and in so doing compare Jesus’ words & actions with other laws of God which were given to Moses/Israel.  The following is from the scriptural record:

Beginning with the family of the infant Jesus before His human birth, His Uncle Zacharias and Aunt Elizabeth were blameless (Lk.1:5-6).  Mary was favored by God, and she believed the amazing words of the angel Gabriel spoken to her about her Son (Lk.1:30-38)!  Her husband Joseph, Jesus’ Jewish legal father, was a just man (Mt.1:18-19).  These relatives weren’t habitual breakers of written torah.

After Jesus was born, Joseph & Mary had Him physically circumcised on the 8^th day (Lk.2:21).  This was in obedience to the command given to Moses in Le.12:3 for Israelite male newborns. “On the 8^th day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.”

Lk.2:22 after the male birth, Mary was away from the temple during her required days of purification, in obedience to Le.12:4.  Then appearing at the temple, in Lk.2:23-24 they offered a required sacrifice to obey Le.12:8. “She shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons.”  Jesus the firstborn son was presented to the Lord (Lk.2:22) in accordance with Ex.13:2. “Sanctify to Me every firstborn among the sons of Israel.”  Written torah was closely adhered to by them.

Then during Jesus’ childhood, Lk.2:41-42 “His parents used to go to Jerusalem every year for the Passover”.  This in obedience to De.16:5-6. “You are not allowed to sacrifice the Passover in any of your towns; but at the place where the Lord chooses to establish His name.”  Later as an adult, Jesus’ disciples made preparation in Mk.14:12 to eat the sacrificial Passover with Him as commanded. “When the Passover was being sacrificed.”  In Jerusalem, not in Galilee.  Another ceremonial observance was reflected in Jn.7:2, 10-14 where Jesus was attending the Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkót at Jerusalem.  In obedience to De.16:16, “All your males shall appear” at the one singular place of the Lord’s choice.

Some Bible readers regard God’s dietary laws as a mixture of moral and ceremonial directives.  It’s not loving one’s neighbor to feed them unclean parasitic or carcinogenic creatures.  (see the topic “Unclean versus Clean Food”.)  Jesus said in His parable of Mt.13:47-48 that they gathered-in the good fish but cast away the bad fish.  Pulpit Commentary Mt.13:48 “This included the legally unclean.”  Obeying the Lord’s guidelines of Le.11:9-10 which defined clean & unclean, “All [sea creatures] that have fins and scales you may eat”.

In Mt.17:24-27, Jesus paid the poll/temple tax for Peter (and Himself).  Ex.30:13-14 had required this tax.  And in Mt.23:23, Jesus told Jewish Pharisees they should pay tithes stipulated by written torah, even on their garden crops…tithes holy to God (Le.27:30).

What about sacrifices?  Some OT sacrifices were voluntary options, others were commanded.  In Mk.7:11-13, Jesus reprimanded scribes & Pharisees for their having chosen to do voluntary sacrifice (korbán, Hebrew, e.g. Le.1:2) to God, instead of responsibly honoring their aging parents (Ex.20:12).  Individual burnt offerings were voluntary (Le.1).  Many grain offerings were voluntary (Le.2).  Many peace offerings were voluntary (Le.3).  Three types of peace offerings are identified in Le.7:11-ff; thank, votive, freewill.  (also see “Passover and Peace Offerings”.)

As to whether or not Jesus brought such individual offerings…is a non-issue.  Because…those offerings were voluntary, not commanded.  (That is, unless some incidental matter such as a Nazarite vow was involved, of which there’s no NT account of Jesus ever taking such a vow.)

The individual sacrifices of Le.4-6 for sin & guilt weren’t voluntary or optional in the sense other types were.  These were offered by the offending Israelite for atonement and forgiveness, e.g. Le.6:1-7!  (see “Day of Atonement”.)  Although sin & guilt offerings were expiatory for forgiveness, they too were a personal non-issue for the person who hadn’t sinned.  And the NT writers said Jesus never sinned.

In Nu.15:37-39, the Lord commanded Israelite men to wear fringe or tassels (g2899 LXX) on their garment hem.  (ref De.22:12, Zec.8:23.)  This was to help them remember His commandments/mitzvot.  Mt.23:5 scribes & Pharisees pridefully lengthened their tassels (g2899), perhaps to show their supposed ‘rank’.  In Mt.9:20-22, a woman diseased with an issue of blood touched the tassels (g2899) on Jesus’ garment.  Jesus didn’t disobey this ceremonial tassels requirement.  And He healed the woman.  (cf. Lk.8:44, Mt.14:36, Mk.6:56.)

If Jesus had close physical contact with someone He healed from an issue of blood, then perhaps He became ritually unclean…until He washed at evening (Le.15:25-27).  But such ritual uncleanness wasn’t sin.  Becoming ritually unclean could even be mandatory!  A man must properly attend to his father’s dead body, for example.  Even priests did so (Le.21:1-3).  A corpse is unclean (Nu.19:11).  Attending to a close relative’s corpse reflects compassion and honor for the deceased…which isn’t sin.

In Mk.1:40-44, Jesus healed a leper and told the healed leper to “Go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded”.  This was to obey that which God had instructed Moses in Le.13:1-2, 17. “If the infection has turned white, then the priest shall pronounce him clean”.

Leprosy was infectious and lepers were to be quarantined (ref Le.13:44-46, 5:3).  The priest was a type of ‘health inspector’.  However, I know of no written torah which clearly forbad touching a leper.  Again, it wasn’t always a violation to touch an unclean person.  Doing so could just make you unclean until you went through the proper ceremonial procedure and the required time elapsed.

In the OT, only two individuals are named who were healed of leprosy…Miriam the Israelitess (Nu.12:10-15) and the gentile Naamán, general of the opposing Syrian army (2Ki.5:1-14).  But not one Israelite man!  (Moses’ brief ordeal was a sign, Ex.4:5-7.)  Bible historians say 1^st century Jews therefore came to believe that only the Messiah could heal an Israelite man from leprosy.  Jesus did so!

Also 1^st century Jews believed only the Messiah could heal a man blind from birth.  In Jn.9:1-7 there was a man blind from birth.  Jesus’ disciples thought the man was born blind because he’d sinned in a prior life, or else his parents had sinned.  But Jesus said this blindness was so the works of God would be displayed in him.  Perhaps the man had blind faith…the Son of God healed him!  Praise God!

But it is understood that Jesus didn’t observe all the Jews’ oral law traditions.  And in Mk.7:7-9, Jesus castigated scribes & Pharisees for favoring the traditions of men above the written commands of God!

Returning to the account of the man born blind…out of love and compassion, Jesus gave him sight, applying clay & spittle.  But after questioning the man who now could see, Pharisees said in Jn.9:13-16, “This man [Jesus] is not from God, because He doesn’t keep the Sabbath”.  Because Jesus had “made” clay on the sabbath (v.6, 14), those Pharisees viewed His act as a breach of rabbinic sabbath laws.  T. Hieros Sabbat 14.4 “It is forbidden to put fasting spittle even on the eyelid on a sabbath day.”

Historians say the Jews had 39 categories of burdensome man-made sabbath laws (with even further detail)!  But those were merely the commandments of men.  Jesus’ action didn’t violate the written law of God.  And even the famous 1^st century rabbinic schools of Hillél and Shammái differed over points of traditional observance.  (Ti.1:14 Paul too warned about Jewish “commandments of men”.)

Jesus healed a man with a withered hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath.  Jesus asked those who would accuse Him in Mk.3:1-5, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?’ But they kept silent.”  They failed to give Jesus a good answer.  Matthew Henry Commentary Jn.9:16 “On the sabbath…works of necessity and mercy are allowed.”

Jesus customarily went to synagogue on the sabbath day.  Le.23:3 “On the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation.”  Jesus obeyed God’s Decalogue sabbath command.  And of Jesus’ commitment in Lk.4:16, “As was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read”.  Jesus regularly attended synagogue on the 7^th day sabbath.

It’s not that all traditional observances are wrong.  Most every culture has some good traditions.  In Jn.10:22-23 e.g., Jesus is seen in Jerusalem at the temple during the man-made festival of Hánukkah.  This “Feast of Dedication” or ‘Festival of Lights’ was ordained by the Jews in the 160s BC to commemorate the re-dedication of the temple.  Hanukkah is a tradition which doesn’t contradict God’s written word.  So Jesus the “Light of the World” (Jn.8:12) was at the ‘Festival of Lights’.

To conclude…I find nothing in the Bible that clearly indicates Jesus ever sinned by violating God’s written word or torah/Law.  And Jesus Himself said in Jn.15:10, “I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love”.

Previously I quoted Jewish NT writers who said Jesus never sinned.  Also Paul wrote in 2Co.5:21 that God…“Made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us”.  Jesus knew no sin.  So Christ became that which He did not know…sin!  He became a sin offering.  Jesus became sin and the offering for sin…both.  For our sake.  In the OT type, the substitute animal sacrifice was regarded as sin-bearing.

OT sacrifices have ended (He.10:5).  They, and ceremonial rituals of the Mosaic law, are unnecessary for Christians!  Without a physical temple, it’s no longer possible to perform most rituals correctly.

The Bible indicates Jesus didn’t break any of God’s written laws!  Jesus affirmed them.  Jesus didn’t disobey God’s written torah or Father God.  The fact that Jesus never sinned is crucial to our salvation!  If Jesus had transgressed God’s law and sinned, we’d have no Savior.  But we have a legitimate Savior!  The sinless Christ died for the sins of the Israelites, and for the sins of all mankind.  Thanks be to God for His Son!

Feasts of the Lord and the Jews

Ceremonial observances such as tithing aren’t the weightier matters of God’s law, according to Jesus (Mt.23:23).  But there are Christians who unnecessarily do treat some rituals and ceremonial things as weighty matters.  This tendency has resulted in a measure of division in the Body of Christ.

The Lord’s Old Testament (OT) feasts were ceremonial things.  When did the feasts originate, and who were they for?  What did God require for their observance?  How were they kept  When and where were they to be observed?

There are several chapters of the Bible devoted to describing the occasions ancient Israel observed throughout the year…the appointed times (moedím), pilgrim feasts (chagím), new moons, sabbaths, shabbathóns (like sabbatoids).  ref Ex.12, Le.16, Le.23, Nu.9:1-14, Nu.28 & 29, De.16:1-17, 2Ch.30, 2Ch.35:1-19, Ne.8.  Also, within other chapters are shorter related passages.  All verses taken as a whole provide a description of the purposes for those occasions, their order during the year, and the do’s & don’ts of their observance.  Those several occasions had some similarities, but also significant differences.

Since Adam, there’s no example of God ‘dwelling’ with any group or nation in Genesis.  But in Exodus, the Lord brought the people of Israel out of Egypt and they became His sole nation above all other peoples.  Ex.25:21-22 YHVH Himself ‘dwelled’ among Israel, so to speak, on the mercy seat above the cherubs atop the ark of the testimony in the tabernacle!  Ex.28:36-38 the Name of YHVH was inscribed on the gold plate across the Levitical high priest’s forehead as he served in the tabernacle sanctuary.  2Sm.6:2 “the ark of God which is called by the Name (HaShém), the very name of the Lord of hosts enthroned above the cherubim.”

That was the specific place where the Lord dwelt among humanity and put His Name.  Le.9:23-34 & 6:13 holy fire from the Lord was to be kept burning continually on the altar at that sanctuary!  (see the topic “Fire From Heaven!”.)  There was no other place like it on the face of the earth!

The Lord YHVH took special measures and enacted regulations to help safeguard ancient Israel from going into idolatrous pagan worship.  Pilgrim feasts were enacted to worship the Lord God and offer sacrifices.  De.12:11 “The place in which the Lord your God shall choose for His name to dwell, there you shall bring all that I command you.”  De.16:16 “Three times in a year all your males shall appear before YHVH your God in the place He chooses…and they shall not appear empty-handed.”

The three pilgrim feasts were to be kept only at the location where God placed His Name, the location of the sanctuary/tabernacle/temple.  De.16:5-6 “You are not allowed to sacrifice the Passover in any of the towns which the Lord your God is giving you, but at the place where the Lord chooses to establish His name.”  See also De.12:5, 14, 17-18, 26, 14:23-25, 16:1-2, 10-11, 15-16 concerning keeping pilgrim feasts at that one place only.  That one place was in the Holy Land, not elsewhere in other nations!

A detailed sequence of many animal sacrifices was also required at that place during those feasts (Nu.28:16–29:40…that’s 55 verses about sacrifices!).  They were burnt by God’s holy fire.  Israelites were to bring their sacrifices, tithes, and other kinds of offerings to that place (1Sm.1:3, De.12:5-6).

The three pilgrim feasts were: 1) Passover (which began the days of Unleavened Bread), 2) Feast of Weeks/Péntecost/Shavúot, 3) Feast of Booths/Sukkót/Tabernacles/Ingathering.  The timing of the feasts was based upon the agricultural cycle in Israel.  God’s people were to keep them solely at the city where the sanctuary was, never at two or more locations simultaneously!  Keeping God’s three feasts elsewhere was not allowed in His Word!  (And man was not to add to nor take away from His commands, De.4:2.)

Since the ancient tabernacle was portable, at what locations or cities did YHVH place His Name as time passed, during ancient Israel’s history?  Prior to the building of the tabernacle, the very first Passover feast (Ex.12) was kept in the first month Abíb of the sacred year, only in Góshen Egypt.  This particular Passover was a one-time event, having some instructions which wouldn’t apply to any succeeding Passover (according to Dr. J.H. Hertz, late Chief Rabbi of the British Empire).

For example: they were to eat that one Passover in haste with their loins girded and staff in their hand (Ex.12:11); the animal blood was put on the doorposts of houses rather than sprinkled at the altar (Ex.12:7 versus Le.3:8, 2Ch.30:15-16 & 2Ch.35:11); that Passover was taken only from the flock and not also from the herd (Ex.12:5 & De.16:2); in Egypt there was no conditional allowance to keep the Passover in the second month of the year (compare Nu.9:1-14).

After leaving Egypt, the tabernacle was constructed.  The next year Israel kept the Passover encamped around the tabernacle in the wilderness (Nu.9:1-5).  For 39 years the ark/tabernacle accompanied Israel during their wilderness wanderings.  Jsh.5:10 the first feast in the (Holy) Land of Canáan was Passover kept at Gilgál, where the ark/Name abode temporarily after they crossed the Jordan River.  Jsh.18:1 the initial established site for the sanctuary was Shilóh.  Je.7:12 wrote of this history, “My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first”.  Later the ark was moved to Bethél temporarily…Jg.20:26-27 “The ark of the covenant of God was there in those days.”  (ref “Ark of the Testimony – Journeys”.)

Centuries after Moses & Joshua, Jerusalem became the ‘permanent’ place for the ark/Name and God’s Levitical priesthood.  Solomon’s temple was built there for Christ to ‘dwell’.  2Ch.6:38 “The house which I have built for Thy Name.”  1Ki.8:1 “In Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant.”  8:29 “My name shall be there.”  2Ch.7:1-3 the holy fire from the Lord fell there in Jerusalem on the altar!

The kingdom was divided after the days of Solomon.  Big Passover celebrations were later held at Jerusalem (nowhere else) in the southern kingdom of Judah during the reforms of Hezekiah (2Ch.30) and Josiah (2Ch.35:1-19).

But Judah disobeyed, so God sent them into captivity to Babylon.  At that time, Christ departed His temple sanctuary in Jerusalem (Ezk.10:4, 18-19, 11:22-23).  The armies of Babylon destroyed the temple.  The holy fire on the altar was extinguished.  There was no longer any sanctuary or animal sacrifices…no earthly place where God’s Name dwelt!

How then could the Israelites/Jews lawfully keep the three pilgrim feasts without a sanctuary (and no holy fire for their sacrifices), no place where God chose to put his Name?  The Bible reveals the answer…they couldn’t!  Two instances illustrate:

Daniel was a wise and righteous man (Ezk.14:20).  Da.10:1-5, 12-13 taken to Babylon, Daniel decided to fast for three weeks at the time of Passover (the 14th day of the first month Abib).  It would have been disobedience for him or anyone to keep a pilgrim feast in a town where God wasn’t placing His Name (De.16:5-6)!  So instead, Daniel fasted at that time…he didn’t keep Passover.

Later God ‘returned’ to Jerusalem.  Subsequently, Ezra recorded the Feast of Booths/Tabernacles again being kept at Jerusalem (Ezr.3:1-4).  Ezr.6:15-21 says the Passover was resumed in Jerusalem.  Several decades after this, Ezra himself came with many others to Jerusalem.  However, God didn’t authorize Ezra or anyone to keep the Passover anywhere else, and not while en route to Jerusalem.  See Ezr.7:8-10, 15, 8:15, 21, 30-33…just two days before Passover, Ezra departed the Ahavá River (near the Euphrates) on his four-month journey to the Holy Land.  No need for Ezra to delay his journey for three or four days until after Passover.  As with Daniel, it would have been disobedience for Ezra and his companions (some were even priests) to keep a pilgrim feast at a site near the Euphrates River away from Jerusalem!  So Ezra didn’t keep it.  (Then Ne.8:14-18 shows the Feast of Booths also was lawfully celebrated again in Jerusalem.)

For the man who was on a journey in another town at Passover time, God had even allowed him to keep the Passover at the tabernacle/temple the next month (Nu.9:9-11)…since there was no Passover being kept in that other town the man journeyed to in the first month.  This allowance is further proof that God had authorized the feast to be kept only at the city of the central sanctuary, and nowhere else!  (see “Passover and Peace Offerings“.)

What about Jesus in the New Testament (NT)?  Lk.2:41 “His parents used to go to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.”  The Name was there on the high priest’s mitre plate.  And John 7 shows Jesus going up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths too.  Why didn’t Jesus and His family just keep those pilgrim feasts in Galilee at a lesser cost, rather than traveling three days each way to Jerusalem?  Because, it would have been sin for them to keep pilgrim feasts in a town of Galilee (cf. De.16:5-6)…only in Jerusalem then!  And if the sinless Jesus had ever sinned, we’d have no Savior!

Ac.2:1, 9-11 devout Jews living elsewhere in the Roman Empire came to Jerusalem to observe the pilgrim Feast of Pentecost.  In Ac.20:16 the apostle Paul was “hurrying to be in Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost”.  Ac.18:21 KJV Paul said, “I must by all means keep this feast at Jerusalem”.  All NT passages about pilgrim feasts show them being kept only at Jerusalem.  There’s no scriptural example of a NT church convoking for any pilgrim feast in their local town/city…God hadn’t authorized it.  (Most Jews today call their spring celebration a séder.  It’s not a real Passover…that’s impossible now.)

Neither in the OT nor in the NT do we read of people, with or without the Holy Spirit, keeping pilgrim feasts in a town away from the environs of the central sanctuary where God had put His Name!  Not Elijah, not Daniel, not Ezra, not Jesus, not Peter, not Paul, not the Ephesians or Thessalonians…no one.  In the 900s BC, the man Jeroboám had disobediently tried to institute a feast site away from the altar of holy fire, the physical place of God’s Name in Jerusalem…but his hand withered (1Ki.12:32-13:5)!

Another of God’s requirements for keeping pilgrim feasts was physical circumcision.  Ex.12:48 “When a stranger/ger sojourns with you and does the Passover, let all his males be circumcised. No uncircumcised person may eat of it.”  Ezk.44:9 “Thus says the Lord God, ‘No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh shall enter My sanctuary.”  (also Lam.1:10, Ac.21:28-29.)  Uncircumcised gentiles were not allowed in the temple where the Passover and other pilgrim feasts were kept by circumcised Israelites/Jews & Jewish proselytes!  Outsiders could come no closer than the Court of the Gentiles.

John even went so far as to refer to God’s Passover and Feast of Booths as a “feast of the Jews” (Jn.6:4 & 7:2).  John so refers because the people keeping them were physically circumcised Jews, whereas God didn’t authorize the uncircumcised (who would also hear John’s gospel) to keep them.  Also Jn.11:55 “the Jews‘ Passover.”  When ancient Israel had entered the Holy Land, Joshua made sure all the males were physically circumcised, so they could lawfully keep the upcoming Passover at Gilgal (Jsh.5:6-10).

There’s no scriptures indicating the existence of any pilgrim feasts for saints who lived prior to the nation of Israel!  Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Joseph, Job…none had pilgrim feasts.  There were no pilgrim feasts for gentiles in Genesis.  There was no Passover prior to the time when God the Word “passed-over” Egypt in Ex.12:23 and saved the Israelite firstborn sons.  (“Christ our Passover”, 1Co.5:7 according to the circumcised Jews, Paul & Sosthénes, 1Co.1:1 & Ac.18:17.)  Pilgrim feasts weren’t authorized for observance by anyone except the physically circumcised peoples from Israel & Judah and circumcised proselytes/aliens!  These feasts were only in the (Holy) Land.  see “Circumcision in the Bible”.

After the temple was destroyed again in 70 AD, there have been a small minority of Christians through the centuries who’ve claimed they’re keeping the above pilgrim feasts.  But what they’re actually doing is celebrating a church event or attending a church retreat or camp meeting…and just calling that occasion of theirs the Passover or Feast of Tabernacles/Booths.  They aren’t really keeping God’s feast…because they aren’t doing the necessary characteristic activities or requirements which defined God’s pilgrim feasts!  They’re ‘keeping’ a pilgrim feast in name only!  A pseudo-feast.  It’s been said, ‘You can call something whatever you want, but it doesn’t make it so’.

For example, you can call a possum a lion…but it’s still a possum.  Although both animals have four legs and fur, they aren’t the same creature.  I played some baseball in high school, and tennis.  A baseball game shouldn’t be called a tennis game, and vice versa.  Although both activities are sports with a ball and were played in the same season at school, they also have big defining differences.

It’s scripturally impossible to really keep a pilgrim feast today!  For nearly 2,000 years, the required singular earthly sanctuary where God was placing His Name hasn’t existed!  And I might add, in scripture pilgrim feasts weren’t authorized to be kept just anywhere by people whose bodies are the temple of God via the Holy Spirit (1Co.3:16).  Without that one place available, there was no lawful pilgrim feast!  Furthermore, many if not most Christian men aren’t physically circumcised (and don’t need to be, religiously).

Many churches occasionally have special church events, retreats, or camp meetings.  But there are a relatively few church organizations who set up their own simultaneous so-called pilgrim feast sites (plural) in various cities during the seasons of the ancient pilgrim feasts…and to these they invite physically uncircumcised members and others.  They call it God’s Feast of Booths/Sukkot/Tabernacles.  (And calling it that makes their event sound scriptural and may increase the monetary offerings they receive.)  Yet what they’re doing doesn’t have the defining characteristics and requirements of God’s pilgrim feasts.  What those groups are naming their event is a significant misnomer, or a counterfeit.  It can be inculcated.

Yes, these church groups and ancient Israel both worshiped the same God, and the modern so-called feasts are held at the same seasonal times as were the OT feasts…but there are big differences, as the above examination of scripture reflects.  The Lord’s commands regarding His pilgrim feasts weren’t just about what and when, but also about who, how and where!

Groups traditionally promoting pilgrim feast-keeping also can pharisaically cause other Christians, who don’t claim to be observing pilgrim feasts, to feel less righteous or perhaps lacking in Bible understanding.  This harms the “body of Christ” and causes division.  And division is further caused by calendar differences even among the groups trying to promote and pinpoint the exact when for their supposed feast observances.

The months in ancient Israel were reckoned by the moon.  But the Bible doesn’t define exactly what constituted the new moon.  Although Jewish historians have cited the method in use in the 1^st century Holy Land to reckon the new moon, scripture doesn’t clearly reveal a method.  Consequently, moderns who think they’re keeping the ancient feasts even disagree among themselves regarding whether the new moon is reckoned by: the first visible crescent as seen locally or seen from Jerusalem or calculated, Hillel II’s Hebrew calendar of around 350 AD, or the astronomical conjunction (‘dark’ moon).  It is confusion.

In narrowing this topic to the feasts, the other OT appointed times or the sabbaths or shabbathons haven’t been addressed.  Although some days falling within the pilgrim feast periods were shabbathons (Strongs Hebrew h7677), none were full sabbaths (h7676), other than the regular 7^th day weekly sabbath.  (To confirm this, reference Strongs numbers in interlinear Bibles or see the Septúagint/LXX or the Jewish JPS Tanákh.)  The annual Day of Atonement was a double sabbath, according to the LXX Le.16:31 & 23:32.

Following is a listing of Israel’s God-ordained annual days and the time of year they occurred:  Passover, with the seven days of Unleavened Bread & Wave Sheaf, occurred in early April.  Pentecost was fifty days later, near June 1.  The Day of Trumpets/Shouting, Rosh Hashánah (“Beginning of the Year”, Ezk.40:1a), occurs near the beginning of autumn.  The Day of Atonement or Yom Kíppur fast is ten days later, near October 1.  Lastly, the 7-day Feast of Booths/Tabernacles/Ingathering and the Last Great Day 8 (Shémini Atzerét) began five days after Yom Kíppur in October.  see “Days Israel Observed – God-Ordained”.

The weekly sabbath, the remaining days of Unleavened Bread (subsequent to the Passover & Wave Sheaf), Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are unlike the pilgrim feasts in that those special days weren’t to be kept solely at the environs of God’s earthly sanctuary.  As G.J. Goldberg noted, “On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur there was no command to gather in the Temple“.  Those days were observed in all their houses and towns (ref Le.23:3, 23-24, 31-32, Ex.12:19-20).  Israelite laymen weren’t enjoined to bring animal sacrifices to the temple on those special days.  Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur aren’t pilgrim feasts.  Those two, and the recurring 7^th day sabbath, may be kept in any homes (without physical circumcision).

After going up to Jerusalem for the Passover (and Wave Sheaf) as commanded, in Lk.24:13 we read of two people returning home to Emmaús for the remaining days of Unleavened Bread.  Abroad, Luke refers to the days of Unleavened Bread (Ac.20:6).  And “the fast” Luke mentions in Ac.27:9 is thought by most to be Yom Kippur.  God had allowed these occasions to be observed anywhere.  The fact that Luke references them outside the Holy Land indicates they were being kept by Jews, and probably by some Christians too.

Many Jews (and some Christians) still observe them.  Jews traditionally refer to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (in the early autumn) as the High Holydays.  The sabbath of Yom Kippur is the most sacred day of the year for the Jewish people.  They renew their search for God, doing teshúvah/repentance during their ten traditional Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  Many Jews who never go to synagogue at other times will attend the services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur!  Then some Jewish families traditionally erect a hut in their own backyard, in which they eat a few meals over seven days…but this isn’t viewed as really ‘keeping’ the pilgrim Feast of Booths as God had commanded it, e.g. De.16:16.  They go to work or school during the 7 days, since they can no longer lawfully keep the Feast anyway.

Goldberg wrote, “With the destruction of the Temple, the pilgrimage festivals could no longer be observed in their prescribed forms”.  Actually, God had commanded native-born Israelites to build temporary booths in the environs of the central sanctuary on the first day of the Feast of Booths, in which they’d dwell for seven days (Le.23:40).  Messianic Rabbi Jack Zimmerman wrote, “All Jewish men from near and far were required to journey to Jerusalem….crowds made their way to the Temple….since this was a pilgrimage feast, every Jewish man would have to be there.”  And again, God never authorized Israelites or Jews (or gentiles) to keep His pilgrim feasts outside the Holy Land.

Also seen in scripture are the two annual Jewish feasts of Hanukkah/Feast of Dedication/Festival of Lights (Jn.10:22, 2Mac.10:5-8) and Purím (Est.9:27-28).  They aren’t God’s pilgrim feasts.  So these later man-ordained commemorations of God’s visitations weren’t restricted by YHVH to the city of the central sanctuary, and are celebrated happily in other countries today (though limited in Arab nations).  During Hanukkah some Jewish families opt to exchange gifts, such as books and games, for seven nights.

Again, the scriptural exhortation is to not add to nor take away from God’s commands.  Some Christians mistake their church traditions for God’s written word.  Some knowingly prefer their traditions.  Jesus said of the Pharisees, “You reject the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition” (Mk.7:9)!

Paul wrote of those who “have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Ro.10:2).  Although there are well-meaning Hebrew roots groups and Christians who think they’re observing pilgrim feasts in various cities simultaneously…there isn’t a way by which God’s pilgrim feasts can be lawfully kept today.  It’s one thing to attend a Sunday church service at the approximate time of the year when the ancient Feast of Pentecost was held…but it’s quite another thing to think one is actually ‘keeping the feast’, considering all that God required to really keep it!  It’s not that God is against supposed feast-keepers worshiping Him.  God seeks worshipers (Jn.4:23).  Christians in this nation are free to (prudently) set apart a day or days to worship God with church or family.  The issue is…masquerading they’re really keeping His pilgrim feasts!

Elder John Kiesz wrote of the minister in the Church of God 7^th Day who, decades ago, started teaching the OT pilgrim feasts should be kept in the USA. “It was in the fall of 1937 when elder’s [name withheld] credentials were revoked by the Church of God organization. The reason given by the Board of Twelve for this action was because he taught and kept the annual Feast days.”  For this error, COG7 didn’t allow him to continue in their official ministry.

Pilgrim feasts don’t exist in scripture apart from the required: 1) sole earthly sanctuary with God’s Name (and holy fire), 2) animal sacrifices, 3) physical circumcision!  Those definitive characteristics of pilgrim feasts aren’t part of the New Covenant.  The feasts are part of the Levitical order, not the order of Melchisedek (He.5:6).  And again, the timing of pilgrim feasts was linked to the agricultural cycle in Israel.  It’s not relevant to non-Jews in other nations where there are other cycles and climates, e.g. those in remote areas or in the southern hemisphere which has opposite seasons.  Yet the feasts and their typologies do remain good Biblical teaching tools of the Lord’s salvific acts, and show how YHVH worked with His people ancient Israel.

Lastly, there are several differing eschatological interpretations extant in Christendom today.  But if a person’s view or expectancy of reinstituted ceremonial things of God were to impute disobedience to God’s commandments, then their eschatology would be inconsistent with scriptural commands!  For example, some people eschatologically interpret Zec.14:16-21 in a literal manner which wouldn’t match God’s requirements for His feasts and sanctuary.  However, we read that even Zechariah’s Feast of Booths with uncharacteristic holiness concepts is kept only in Jerusalem!  Not in Egypt, not in two or more locations simultaneously, not anywhere else…only in Jerusalem (v.16-19) in the Holy Land!

{Sidelight: Zec.14:16-21.  Much of the book of Zechariah is symbolic.  To interpret him as saying Egyptian non-Jews wouldn’t get rain for their failure to go up to Jerusalem in the future, is an understood irony.  Because Egypt is arid desert which only averages 3 inches of rainfall a year anyway!  (Egypt’s crops were dependent on the Nile River’s annual flooding, not on rainfall.)  Israel’s ancient oppressor didn’t get rain to speak of (cf. the traditional water pouring ceremony).  Gill Exposition v.16-ff says they’re not literally keeping a Feast of Tabernacles.  Furthermore in v.20, the “Holy to YHVH” on the horses’ bridles is also symbolic, as it alludes to the “Holy to YHVH” on the high priest’s golden plate (Ex.28:36).  It’s not literal.  The horses won’t really be holy as the high priest was!  The cooking pots won’t really be as the sanctified bowls in which the priest caught the blood and splashed it on God’s altar.  Zec.14:21 neither will people throughout Judea really be cooking holy animal sacrifices unto the Lord in their homes.  This is symbolic too.  There’s no need for animal sacrifices of boiled offerings anyway!  Jesus’ final sacrifice finished it!  He ended the need for inferior animal sacrifices.  The book of Hebrews is clear on this (e.g. He.10:1-18).

The overall meaning of Zechariah’s passage relates to YHVH’s holy Name becoming known to all nations as the gospel spreads (e.g. Ezk.38:23, Ps.145:21b).  Matthew Henry said of the passage, “The life of a good Christian is a constant Feast of Tabernacles”.  Zec.14:8 “And it will come about that living water will flow out of Jerusalem”, to the east and to the west, in summer and in winter.  The Holy Spirit is that living water of which Jesus spoke at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jn.7:37-39 (also ref Jn.4:10-14), as Christians year-round are spreading the Name of the Lord to Egypt and to all nations!  Glory to God!

Pulpit Commentary Zec.14:16 “It is evident the announcement could never be literally fulfilled.”  Yes, Zechariah would have known that rainfall in Egypt is always scarce.  And he wasn’t really saying common horses’ bridles would have inscribed on them the Tetragrámmaton Name as was on the high priest’s holy mitre plate!  Zechariah didn’t mistake profane cookware for the holiness of God’s sanctuary vessels.  As a priest, he surely knew that God hadn’t authorized or sanctified kettles in common Judean kitchens for holy use.  Zechariah didn’t err about temple holiness or literally contradict God’s commandments or mean that physically uncircumcised gentiles will really go up and offer animal sacrifices in God’s earthy sanctuary!  We can trust the veracity of God’s precepts and requirements.  It’s faulty exegesis to interpret (prophetic) passages in a manner that has God literally contradicting His own requirements in scripture!  e.g. Jn.6:54 Jesus saying to eat His flesh & blood isn’t literal, since human cannibalism is sin (unclean)!  Much of the book of Zechariah is symbolic anyway…1:18-21, and almost the entirety of chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 11!  The imagery of Zec.14:16-21 is also symbolic, not to be interpreted literally as an actual Feast of Booths.  (Yet even Zechariah’s symbolic “feast” occurs only in Jerusalem, not in the USA or anywhere else!)}

To conclude…God doesn’t contradict His prescriptions.  The Lord wants a people who are right examples of His truth to family, neighbors, co-workers, schoolmates…not advocating modern pseudo-feasts as God’s truth.  Let’s have a right fear of God and not disobey His commandments (Ec.12:13).  And worship Him in truth!  Ec.8:12b “It will be well for those who fear God.”

Fire From Heaven!

God’s Holy Spirit power is symbolized and manifested by natural phenomena such as: wind, water or rain, oil, the dove…fire.  As I was doing devotionals on the morning of 05/23/2006, I began to receive revelation about God’s holy fire!  While at work that day I began writing it down, as able.  Then on the evening of the day of Pentecost 06/03/2006, my son Timothy mentioned Holy Spirit (HS) fire.  And on 06/24/06, my 3-year-old grandson Gabriel even said, “Holy Spirit is fire”!

Fire and light are interrelated.  1Ti.6:16 God dwells in unapproachable light which physical eyes cannot see!  Ex.33:20-23 the Lord told Moses no man can see the glorious brightness of God’s face and live.

Fire was sometimes present while God interacted with the ancients.  In Ge.15:7-10, 17-18, the Lord had a flaming torch pass among the sacrificial pieces as He ‘cut a covenant’ with Abrám.  Ex.3:1-6 the Messenger of YHVH appeared to Moses in a burning bush which didn’t burn up.  Ex.13:21-22 the HS led ancient Israel in pillars of cloud and fire.  De.4:10-15, 24 Christ had spoken the Decalogue from the midst of fire atop the mountain or volcano.  He is awesome…the genuine fire-God of Light!

Remarkably, the Lord commanded Moses/Israel that the fire on the altar (for burnt offerings, etc.) in His central sanctuary complex was to never quit burning!  Le.6:8-13 “Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar; it is not to go out.”

What made this fire so significant, that it should never be extinguished?  That very fire supernaturally came forth from God!  Le.9:23-24 “The glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. Then fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offerings. The people saw it and fell on their faces.”  Fire from the Lord fell upon His altar…amazing!

The priest was to put wood to burn on the altar every morning, so that fire wouldn’t go out (Le.6:12).  That continual fire, originating from God, was to be used for their communal sacrifices.  No substitute fire was authorized!

Le.10:1-2 Nadáb & Abihú (sons of Aaron the priest, and nephews of Moses) were even supernaturally put to death for not using God’s holy fire (the flames on the altar) with their offering!

Tradition says a glowing, burning coal from God’s holy fire (Le.9:24) was carried in a special vessel all during their wilderness wanderings.  So that fire wouldn’t completely go out.  It was then rekindled on the altar, when the tabernacle was set up at the next encampment.

On the annual Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the year, the high priest must take incense with coals of that fire into the Most Holy Place of the sanctuary, lest he die!  Le.16:12-13 “He shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar, and bring it inside the veil.”  (see “Day of Atonement”.)

God authorized His pilgrim feasts be kept only at the central sanctuary, where God’s fire burned on the altar.  This was where Christ the Lord ‘dwelt’ above the cherubim atop the ark! (ref De.12:11-12, 14:23, 16:11; 2Sm.6:2; 2Ch.6:38; Ps.80:1.)  Those feasts were to be kept at no other location or altar; only at the sole place where God’s Name and holy fire was.  (Eventually that place was Jerusalem.)

Jsh.22:10-34 although the Israelite tribes east of the Jordan River built a large monument of witness which resembled an altar, no national or festal sacrifices were done there.  It wasn’t rebellion or an alternative site.

Fire from God fell elsewhere in the Holy Land on occasion (but not for Day of Atonement or pilgrim feast purposes).  Individual common altars were allowed for the private worship of YHVH, if they weren’t made from cut stones (ref De.16:21 & Ex.20:25).  Jg.6:19-21 supernatural fire consumed Gideon’s offering in the presence of the Messenger of the Lord.  Jg.13:18-21 the messenger of YHVH ascended in the flame of Manóah’s offering.  God’s Messenger or Name was there for the above two offerings.  (Ge.4:4-5 possibly fire had fallen on Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s.)

1Ch.21:26 fire from heaven fell upon David’s burnt & peace offerings on Mt Moriáh (2Ch.3:1)!  In 1Ki.18:36-39, fire fell from heaven and consumed Elijah’s burnt offering at Mt Carmél!  (see the topic “Mountaintop Experiences With God”.)  In 2Ki.2:11-12, Elijah himself went up to heaven by fire.

But neither Gideon, nor Samson’s father Manoah, not even Elijah, nor anyone in the Old Testament or New Testament was authorized to keep pilgrim feasts away from the city of the national sanctuary altar!  see the topic “Feasts of the Lord and the Jews”.  Israelites brought their sin & guilt offerings to the sanctuary at pilgrim feast times.  All sin & guilt offerings…and most burnt, grain and peace offerings…must be sacrificed at that one altar of holy fire!  They were most holy (ref Ex.40:10; Le.2:10, 6:17, 14:13).  see “Sacrifices and Burnt Offerings”.

However, at some point prior to King Solomon, the sacred fire from heaven on the central sanctuary altar was no longer kept burning by the priests.

So…heavenly fire fell again on the altar at Solomon’s dedication of God’s Temple (circa 990 BC)!  2Ch.7:1-3 “When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house.”  Fresh fire from God!  The glory of the Lord was so great on this occasion, the priests couldn’t stand to minister (2Ch.5:13-14)!

After Solomon’s reign, King Jeroboám of the northern kingdom of Israel disobeyed God by wrongly setting up a false feast in Bethél…apart from the altar of holy fire in Jerusalem.  As Jeroboam attempted to offer other fire, his hand withered and his Bethel altar was supernaturally split apart!  (ref 1Ki.12:32-33, 13:1-5.)  1Ki.13:4-5 “His hand dried up so he could not draw it back to himself. The altar was split apart and the ashes poured out.”  The Lord didn’t authorize His feasts at any location separate from His sanctuary holy fire!

But when the temple was destroyed in 586 BC by Nebuchadnézzar, the holy fire on the altar was again extinguished.  The Jews were sent into captivity to Babylon.

Many decades after the captivity, Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem from Persia.  Miracle fire (from naphtha) once again burned sacrifices on the altar.  ref 2Mac.1:18-35.  A wood offering was mandated for Jews returning to Jerusalem, to keep that altar fire burning (cf. Ne.10:34 & Le.6:12).

The Orthodox Study Bible comments on 2Mac.1. “This is a letter from Jews in Jerusalem to Jews in Egypt concerning Hánukkah…which celebrates fire and light.”  Hanukkah is the annual 8-day feast in December which commemorates Judas Maccabéus’ rededication of the temple ca 165 BC.  Since it isn’t one of God’s pilgrim feasts, the man-ordained Hanukkah (also called the Feast of Lights) may be celebrated away from the city of the sanctuary altar (Jerusalem).  This December festival became a simulation of sorts or a substitute for the 8-day October pilgrim Feast of Booths/Feast of Tabernacles (FOT) for Jews living too far from Jerusalem…since keeping a FOT away from the central sanctuary/altar would violate God’s written word.  see “Feast of Booths”.

Le.23:39-42 native born Israelites in the Holy Land were required to dwell in booths at the FOT.  Some Jews in Egypt went up to Jerusalem for pilgrim feasts, e.g. Ac.2:10.  But many Jews in the diáspora never could afford the long journey.

Even Philo of Alexandria (in Egypt) went to Jerusalem only once in his entire life (ref On Providence 2.64, p.755)!  Jews aren’t allowed to keep a FOT in Alexandria or Cairo!  Zec.14:16-18 keeping an (October) FOT in Egypt would violate God’s written law…it must be kept in Jerusalem only.  The 2Mac.1 letter comforted & exhorted those Jews in Egypt to just rejoice in keeping Hanukkah, instead of bemoaning there’s no (authorized) FOT in Egypt!

{Sidelight: Interestingly, from 500–400 BC a Jewish temple for offerings stood at Elephántine in Egypt.  And from 170 BC a Jewish temple for offerings stood at Leontópolis/Heliópolis in Egypt, until the Romans destroyed it in 73 AD.  It is uncertain whether Is.19:19-20 pertains to one of these temples.  Perhaps both were the substitutionary works of religious men?}

Fire also purifies, and it symbolizes the HS.  Is.6:1-8 Isaiah’s lips were purified by a burning coal from the Lord’s heavenly altar.  Mal.3:1-3 prophesied the Lord (Jesus) would purify as the refiner’s fire.  In Jn.5:33-35, Jesus referred to John the Baptizer, a type of Elijah, as a “burning lamp”.  Mt.3:11-12 John the Baptizer said that Jesus would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  The fire relates to purifying, anointing, and destroying.

Ac.2:1-4 the Holy Spirit anointing was given in Jerusalem on Pentecost as tongues of fire.  v.14-18 Spirit-filled believers would have dreams & visions and will prophesy!

Fire from heaven was also sent upon the ungodly.  e.g. Ge.19:24 fire was sent on wicked Sodom & Gomorrah.  2Ki.1:9-15 fire was sent upon the soldiers who were deployed to capture Elijah.

Ezk.22:20-31 prophesied the fire of God’s wrath upon greedy prophets & priests who are unfaithful to the Lord’s commands and who speak falsely.  He.12:29 “Our God is a consuming fire.”

I’ve seen Christian author Tommy Tenney speak a few times.  In The Godchasers, 1998, p.1-16, he related his 10/20/1996 experience of witnessing the acrylic pulpit in a Houston church be split in half by a lightning bolt from God!  (www.evanwiggs.com/revival/history/penpulp.html)   After reading Tenney’s description of the amazing incident, it brought to mind Jeroboam’s altar that split apart in ancient Bethel/Israel (1Ki.13:5)!  The split altar of Jeroboam was a powerful sign of God’s disapproval.

Was the split pulpit in that Houston church a sign of God’s disapproval of some people present?  Was God’s presence there a sign of His approval of others present?  Both?  Tommy Tenney indicated that he himself wasn’t as affected physically as some others were.  It seems the Houston manifestation caused awe & reverence in the hearts of Tenney and ones close to God…but terrified those who desperately needed to repent.  The Lord wants His people to repent of all sin, and to seek His face!

My father told the story of a big tornado which hit eastern Illinois in 1917, shortly before he was born.  Some of the cattle were even picked up by the winds and set down in Indiana across the nearby Wabash River!  The local rural church was completely demolished by the tornado, all walls blown away.  Except…only the pulpit remained intact.  It was standing there with the Bible still open to the same page where the preacher had left it the previous Sunday!  The word of the Lord endures forever.

Returning to my initial remarks…After I’d arrived to work that morning of 05/23/2006, the annual fire drill was unexpectedly sounded throughout the building a few hours later!  It seemed fitting.

May the Lord purify our hearts, and empower us with burning zeal from the Holy Spirit!  And the day will come…when we will be able to see His face and His glory in eternity!