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May 16, 2021 - Know More News - Adam Green
48:32
Judeo-Christian Blood Magic
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Now let's give that hand clap to Jesus this morning.
Thank you, God.
Thank you, Jesus.
How many of you are grateful for the blood of Jesus that washes all sin away?
There is power, power, wonderworking power in the blood of the late.
There is power, power, blood working power in the precious blood of the land.
Now sing it out.
There is power, power, wondering power in the blood of the land of the land.
There is power, power, wonderworking power in the precious blood of the land.
Sing it again.
So they created a Jewish personal Savior.
And to do that, they build off of the most fundamental structure of ancient Judaism at the time as a religion, which is all based on atonement sacrifice, basically blood magic, uh blood magic that would assuage the anger of God and uh secure the blessings in this life and in the next.
And it begins with the story of Isaac, right?
Abraham is commanded to sacrifice Isaac, his firstborn son, uh, to assuage the anger of God, and God stops him at the last minute, he's gonna do it, he's totally obedient, and God stops him, says, Oh, okay, I'll let you substitute an animal.
Uh and that actually is in Jewish lore and legend the beginning of the Yom Kippur principle, the Yom Kippur ceremony, where you would take a goat as a substitute for people and kill it, and that its atonement would uh effect, assuage the anger of God and atone for the sins of Israel, the sins being the things that offend God.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the veil before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark, that he die not, for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.
Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place with a young bullock for his sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering.
He shall put on the holy linen coat, and he shall have the linen britches upon his flesh, and shall be girded with a linen girdle, and with the linen miter shall he be attired.
These are holy garments.
Therefore shall he wash his flesh in water and so put them on.
And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel, two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering, and he shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the scapegoat, and the other lot for the Lord.
And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself and for his house, and shall kill the bullock of the sin offering which is for himself.
And he shall take a censor full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense, beaten small, and bring it within the veil, and he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not.
And he shall take the blood of the bullock and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward, and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.
Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat, and he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord and make an atonement for it, and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about.
And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat.
And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions and all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness.
And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited.
And he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
And he shall wash his flesh with water and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people.
And make an atonement for himself and for the people.
And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year.
Now that was the basic model, but the problem is, of course, that animal blood is less powerful, less magical than human blood, and therefore you have to repeat this every year.
So every year at the Jewish temple or equivalent, there was a ceremony where you would have the goats, and I'm gonna talk about the ceremony a little more.
There's a few more details that are relevant to Christianity.
But the basic idea is this you sacrifice this animal and all the sins of Israel are cancelled, but that wears out.
The magic only lasts a year, the spell duration is only one year.
So you have to keep doing it.
And this especially became a problem when the temple cult was destroyed by the Romans.
Oh no, now how do we get atonement?
There's no temple to do the ritual in.
And that was a crisis for the rabbinical Judaism, they had to solve it in other ways.
Christianity was already on board with solving the problem because they wanted to eliminate the temple even before it was destroyed, because they were an anti-temple sect, like the Qumran sect was that they thought that the temple cult had become so corrupt that it was actually preventing the end of the world.
They wanted the end of the world.
They wanted to bring the doomsday on.
And the reason God wouldn't do it is because the Jews keep sinning.
It's like, well, you keep sinning, I'm not going to come and save you.
And so these countercultural sects saw that the temple is getting in the way.
Well, if the temple cult is corrupt, we'll never end sin.
So what if we just get rid of the temple cults theologically, so it's no longer even a component.
skip the middleman, then we can appease God and then maybe we'll bring on the end of the world like we want to have happen.
And so Jesus, when you look at the epistles of Paul, it's very clear that really the sole and most important function of Jesus in their theology is that he replaces the temple, right?
He replaces both the Passover sacrifice and both the Yom Kippur sacrifice.
If you uh attach yourself to Jesus, you no longer need the temple ritual, you no longer need the Yom Kippur, because Jesus being, you know, the archangel, the firstborn son of God, that's the most powerful magic blood that you can get.
So if you sacrifice uh that, uh, so if you sacrifice this guy, the spell duration is infinity.
Uh so you no longer need uh to repeat the ritual year after year, therefore you no longer need the temple.
And you can see this, you can read this throughout the letters of Paul, that really is the role that Jesus performs.
Everything else about terms, teachings, moral teachings and stuff, was just add-ons to that, uh, to kind of create the local community that they were trying to construct.
But the function, the actual function of Jesus theologically is to replace the temple as the ultimate sacrifice.
And so that was the version that they imported into this model of the Savior deity.
So they've sort of created a Jewish version of this savior deity that has a patheon, has a uh a passion and a death and resurrection, and through which he gains victory over death and shares with his followers with through baptism and communion and all of that stuff.
There is power, power, power in the blood of the land of the land, also grateful his power, powerful in the present blood of the land.
Listen.
Would you be free from your burden of sin?
There's power in the blood, power in the blood, would you or evil your victory win?
There's wonderful power in the blood, shake there is power, power, one working power in the blood.
Somebody testify, somebody take in his power, in the precious blood of the land.
Do it against David's power, power wonderful, There is power power wonder working power in the blood of the land such
It is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of a lamb.
And what can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And what can make me whole again?
Sing it out.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Sing it out.
Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
No other sound I know.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
I want to sing it again.
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And what can make me whole again?
Say!
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Sing it out.
Oh, precious is the blood of Jesus.
That makes me white as snow.
No other sound.
No other sound I know.
Sing nothing.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Nothing but the blood.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
One more time.
Say!
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Yes, God.
We thank you, Jesus.
For that wonder-working power.
That blood that covers us.
That you died on the cross.
And made a way where there was no way.
We give you praise and glory.
And God, we're thankful that you have called us chosen.
We're thankful that we are the children of God.
Welcome back to the world's most popular game show.
Why does everyone hate the Jews?
Okay, folks.
You know how this goes.
Let's put two minutes on the clock.
Top 15 answers on the board.
Why does everyone hate the Jews?
How about because they killed Jesus?
I'd say killing a messiah is a pretty Jew-y thing to do.
Universal salvation is a lie.
Is it not?
It's a lie.
I wish everyone could be saved, but they won't.
No, they won't.
No.
You will never be saved if you reject the blood.
Good.
The blood of Jesus Christ will protect you.
Do not fear.
If you're living right for God, if the blood of Jesus Christ is on you, you have no reason to fear this death angel.
Get under the blood of Jesus Christ.
Do not be in opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ and his church.
Amen.
Louder, Daniel!
I am a sinner!
I am a sinner!
I am sorry, Lord!
I am sorry, Lord!
I want the blood!
Give me the blood, Eli.
Let me get out of here.
Give me the blood, Lord!
And let me get away!
Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Yes, I do.
Get out of here, devil!
Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior?
Yes, I do.
Get out of here, devil!
Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior?
Yes, I do.
Would you be free from the burden of sin?
There's power in the blood, power in the blood.
There's fury, there's victory, when there's wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb.
Praise the Lord!
There is power, power, wonderful power in the blood of the Lamb.
Oh, gosh, you need it, too.
You need it, too.
You need it.
You need it.
You're wonderful.
You know the story that Pilate, you know, according to custom offered them a released prisoner.
Every time there was a holiday or this particular holiday, he would release a prisoner to the Jews, and the Jews chose the murderer and rebel leader Barabbas.
Now, Barabbas, I don't know if you know, means son of the Father in Aramaic.
So in some manuscripts, in fact, he's named Jesus Barabbas.
So we have two Jesus sons of the Father in this story.
That's kind of suspicious.
Also, no such custom existed.
We know for a fact that Pilate would never did that and never would have done that.
But also what we notice here is now we're looking at this, it's matching the Yom Kippur ritual I was talking about.
Because the Yom Kippur ritual didn't just involve sacrificing a goat.
You would get two identical goats.
One of them you would cast all the sins of Israel onto, run it out into the wild, and then actually would chase it and push it off a cliff.
And the other is the one, the pure one would be the one that you would sacrifice, and its blood falling on the altar would atone for the sins of Israel.
This is an allegory for exactly the Yom Kippur ritual, saying that Jesus is the true Yom Kippur, Barabbas and his ways of murder and rebellion, those are the sins of Israel.
And if you choose him, you are actually choosing the sins.
You've got to choose Jesus, he's the true sacrificial goat.
So the whole story doesn't make sense as history, but it makes sense as an allegory for Jesus being the Yom Kippur.
Barabbas is the scapegoat, Jesus is the blood atonement.
And this is what's so remarkable about the story of the Bible.
This God is so good that not only is he going to rid the world of evil, he's going to do it without destroying humanity.
So how is he gonna do that?
Well, early in the story of the Bible, we're introduced to this practice of animal sacrifice, which I know it seems weird to us, but for the Israelites, it was a very powerful symbol of God's justice and of his grace.
So remember, I'm a contributor to the evil that's in the world, I should be removed.
But God is allowing this animal's life to be a substitute.
It's symbolically dying in my place.
And the biblical word for this is atonement, which means to cover over someone's death.
But there's a second part to this ritual.
Remember, evil also causes this relational vandalism, and in the Bible, this idea is described as polluting or defiling the land and making it unclean.
So the priests would symbolically wash away the vandalism by sprinkling the animal's blood in different parts of the temple.
So the animal's blood is cleaning things?
Well, remember, this is a symbol, and it's a symbol that we're not used to.
The blood represents life, and the sprinkling of the blood is this representation of how God is cleaning away these indirect consequences of evil in their community.
In the Bible, this process is called purification.
And so the temple and the land now become a clean space where God and his people can live together in peace.
So this ritual makes things right between Israel and God.
And more than that, the Israelites experience God's love and his grace through these symbols.
And by being forgiven, ideally, this would compel them to become people of love and grace too.
Right, that's the ideal, but it wasn't always happening.
Right.
So the prophet Isaiah, for example, he talks a lot about this.
He opens his book by saying that the continual sacrifices of the Israelites had become meaningless because they were also allowing great evil in their midst, ignoring the poor and the oppressed.
Even the Israelite kings were distorting justice.
But Isaiah looked forward to a day when a new king from the line of David would come and deal with evil, but in a surprising way.
The king would become a servant.
And not just serve, but also suffer and die for the evil committed by his own people.
And his life would be offered as a sacrifice.
This is the promise Jesus believed he was fulfilling.
He's the king of Israel suffering and dying on the cross.
In fact, Jesus himself used Isaiah's words when he said that he came to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.
And that word ransom refers to a sacrifice of atonement.
And so all over the New Testament we hear about...
about how Jesus' death was an atoning sacrifice for us.
It covered the debt that humans owe God for contributing to all of the evil and death in his world.
But the New Testament authors also talk about Jesus' death as providing purification.
And so we hear about Jesus' blood as a symbol of his life, having this ability to wash away the vandalism that evil has caused in us and around us, so we can now live at peace with God.
So that's the meaning behind Jesus' death.
But there's more to the story.
Yeah, the New Testament makes this powerful claim that Jesus'death was not final.
He rose from the dead.
And so he's the sacrifice who broke the power of death and evil, which means that he lives on to offer his life to anyone who will accept it.
He is the perfect sacrifice to which all the previous sacrifices were pointing all along.
So because of Jesus, the early Christians stopped participating in the ritual of animal sacrifice.
But they were given new rituals.
There are two that Jesus taught his followers to perform.
The first is called baptism.
Just as Jesus died, so going into the water becomes this personal connection you now have to his death.
And in coming out of the water, you, so to speak, come back to life with Jesus.
So baptism is the sacred ritual that joins your story to Jesus' death and his resurrection.
The second ritual is called the Lord's Supper, which is a reenactment of Jesus' last meal with his disciples, and he used bread and wine to portray his coming death as a sacrifice.
And so now, followers of Jesus, they take the bread in the cup regularly to remember and to participate in the power of Jesus' death and in his life.
So these rituals they remind us of God's love and encourage us to live a life of love and grace.
But they do more than that.
They connect us to a new life source.
The very power that brought Jesus back from the dead, it's the same power that can deal with the evil in our own lives and transform us into people who lead lives of love and peace.
Thank you.
The events of the last week of the life of the Savior Jesus Christ are the most significant in all of history.
These eight days, from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday, change everything.
They give us hope.
They show us that sin and death will never prevail.
These eight days begin with Jesus coming to the beautiful city of Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover festivals.
As we better understand Passover and the spring Jewish feasts, we can gain powerful insights into holy week, the atonement and the ultimate triumph over all things by Christ, our Passover Lamb.
Passover was first celebrated by the ancient Israelites as they were freed from Egypt after living in bondage for over four hundred years.
As part of this deliverance, the Lord commanded that on the tenth day of the first month, the people were to select a lamb without blemish and to bring it into their homes for the next four days.
During this period, the family would examine the lamb for impurities and would likely become very attached to this young innocent lamb.
The family also cleanse their home of all leaven products.
Leaven often symbolizing impurity because it can quickly spoil and mold.
On the 14th day of the month, towards the evening, the people then killed the lamb without breaking any of the bones.
Using a branch of Hyssop, they covered their doorposts with the blood of the lamb.
This was to be a sign for the destroying angel to pass by and spare the firstborn of that home.
The Lord then commanded the family to gather that evening and share a meal of the slain lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs.
The unleavened bread represented the haste in leaving Egypt, the Israelites not having enough time to allow their bread to rise.
The bitter herbs represented the bitterness of bondage and slavery.
According to later Jewish tradition, wine was also part of the feast as a symbol of joy and redemption.
Once freed from slavery, Israel was commanded to celebrate the Passover every year thereafter, To commemorate and help them remember the powerful hand of God in delivering them from bondage.
In addition to Passover, each spring the children of Israel were also to celebrate the feast of unleavened bread and the observance of the first fruits.
The feast of unleavened bread started the day after Passover and ran for seven days from the fifteenth through the twenty first of the month.
During this period no leaven was to be consumed, again commemorating the haste with which the children of Israel fled Egypt.
The offering of the first fruits was celebrated the day following the first Sabbath of the feast of unleavened bread.
On the evening of the Sabbath, the priests were to cut the best sheaf of barley and bring it to the temple to be threshed and ground.
In the morning the flower would then be combined with oil and frankincense, and a handful would be burned on the altar.
The offering of the first fruit symbolized the gratitude of the people by first giving to God an offering, before enjoying for themselves the harvest of that season.
With this understanding of the Passover celebrations, let us now examine the powerful significance of the timing of the events of Holy Week.
According to the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus entered Jerusalem on the tenth day of the month, the same day when all the people would be selecting their Passover lambs preparatory for the coming feast.
At this same time, on the day we now call Palm Sunday, Jesus was welcomed with shouts of praise and acclamation.
Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, then entered his father's home, the temple of Jerusalem, just as the lambs were being brought into the homes of all Jews to live for the next four days.
Upon entering the temple courts, Jesus cleansed his father's house of impurity, driving the money changers from this sacred space.
At the same time all Jews would also be cleansing their own homes of all leavened products.
The next few days of holy week, Monday through Wednesday, were days in which Jesus taught the people, spending much of his time again at the temple, in his father's house.
During this same period of when the priests and people would be examining the lambs for impurities, Jesus was interrogated by the Sadducees and Pharisees, asking him of his authority and power.
According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, on the eve of the fourteenth day of the month, the Savior celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples.
As Jesus sat with his disciples during his last supper, he took the symbols of the Passover feast, and converted them into symbols of his own deliverance that he would soon bring.
He took the unleavened bread and broke it, and taught his disciples that this represented his broken body, which the following day would be torn and bruised for their sakes.
He then took the wine, a symbol of joy and redemption, and taught that it signified his blood, which would be shed for them that evening in Gethsemane.
These two symbols became what is now known as communion or the sacraments of the Lord's supper.
It is interesting to note that Jesus did not incorporate the bitter herbs into the symbols of the sacrament, perhaps symbolizing that Christ, in our stead, would consume the bitter cup, so that we can instead partake of the sweet cup of joy and redemption.
That evening, Jesus entered a beautiful garden just outside the city of Jerusalem, and atoned and suffered for our sins.
As hundreds of thousands of Jewish families celebrated the ancient redemption of Israel, Jesus was suffering in Gethsemane, providing true deliverance.
Just as the blood on the doorpost protected ancient Israel from the destroying angel, so too the blood of Christ, shed in Gethsemane and on the cross, can protect us from the effects of sin and death.
In the dead of night, Jesus was arrested and taken and tried before Caiaphas the high priest.
The remarkable fact is that as the leading priest for the temple, Caiaphas had the ultimate responsibility for all temple offerings.
Here Jesus Christ, the true Lamb of God was condemned to death by the very man who oversaw all temple sacrifices.
Jesus was then taken to the palace of Pilate in the upper city, then Herod, and then Pilate again, where he was condemned to death.
According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was crucified at noon and hung on the cross in pain for several hours.
As he hung a branch of Hysop, the same kind of branch used to cover the doorposts with blood, was raised up to Jesus.
On the end of the branch was a sponge soaked in vinegar or cheap wine to help with the excruciating pain.
Then at 3 p.m., Matthew tells us that Jesus died, breathing his last breath of mortal life.
Concerning the events of Holy Week, there are some discrepancies in the timing among the four Gospels.
And one of the most significant differences is that John places the Passover on the following day, not the night of the Last Supper.
This means that according to John, at the exact same time that the Passover lambs would be slain in the temple, which was from about 3 to 5 p.m.
Jesus died on the cross for all of God's children.
The symbolism is extraordinary.
Is killed the same hour as the Passover lamps.
John also notes that while the other two condemned men had their legs broken, Jesus instead only had a spear driven into his side, fulfilling the requirement that the Passover lamb was to be killed without breaking any bones.
The body of Jesus was then laid in a borrowed tomb, where on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, Jesus' mortal body rested from all labors.
The following day on Sunday, the first day of the week, Jesus rose from the dead, overcoming all things.
According to the Gospel of John, Jesus rose from the dead at the same time when the first fruits were being offered at the temple, thus fulfilling this aspect of the law, and as Paul stated, becoming the first fruits of them that slept.
The powerful symbolism is undeniable.
Jesus seems to use every aspect of the spring feast to help the Jews understand his ultimate redemptive power.
He is chosen by the people on the same day as the Passover lambs.
Jesus cleanses his father's home when the people are cleansing their own homes of all leaven.
He teaches in the temple and is examined and tried by the very priests who are responsible for all temple sacrifices.
He suffers and dies as the Passover lambs are slaughtered at the temple.
He then rises from the dead when the first fruits of the harvest are offered before the Lord.
Jesus Christ is our true Passover lamb.
Because of him, we are redeemed from bondage and slavery.
Because of his blood, we are protected from the destroying angel and allowed once again to enter the presence of the Father.
Truly, as John the Baptist stated, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing cloud?
Are you born in the blood of the land?
Are you fully trusting in his gracious hour?
Are you in the blood of the land?
In the thinness, oh, cleansing blood of land.
Are you warm on spotless or are they white as snow?
Why you washed in the blood of the land.
Are you walking daily by the Savior's side?
Are you washed in the blood of the land?
Do you rest each moment in the crucifix?
Are you washed in the blood of the land?
Are you wishing in the soul bending good of the land?
Are you corn's father?
I washed in the blood of land.
Lay aside the garments that are stained with sin, and be washed in the blood of the Lamb.
There's a fountain flowing for the soul to flee, oh be washed in the blood of the Lamb.
Are you washed in the blood in the land in the soul cleansing blue of land?
Are you carmal spawned or they find ashes?
Are you washed in the blood of land?
So most Christians are aware that the Bible talks quite extensively, actually, on animal sacrifices.
But other than just knowing it's in the Bible and kind of grazing by it, have you ever really thought much more about it?
I want to read a couple verses out of the Bible, and I'm I'm reading this as is.
I'm not modifying these.
This is from the NLT version, and it's Leviticus chapter 1, verses 14 through 17.
And it says, if you present a bird as a burnt offering to the Lord, choose either a turtle dove or a young pigeon.
The priest will take the bird to the altar, wring off its head, and burn it on the altar.
But first, he must drain its blood against the side of the altar.
The priest must also remove the crop and the feathers and throw them in the ashes on the east side of the altar.
Bear with me, we're not even done yet.
Then grasping the bird by its wings, the priest will tear the bird open, but without tearing it apart.
Then he will burn it as a burnt offering on the wood burning on the altar.
It is a special gift, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
How do you tear a bird open without tearing it apart?
Like just tear it halfway down?
Like that, that's intense, right?
So there's two big reasons as to why animal sacrifices were done that I want to discuss in this video.
But first, I think it's really important to remember the cultural differences between where we are now in biblical times.
Alright, so in the old testament times, it was normal for animal sacrifices to be used for religious purposes.
Alright, I know in a world where we just like go to the grocery store and we pick something up that's already been sliced and diced and neatly wrapped, and the blood's drained, and you know it's all just cleaned up and it looks pretty, and we take it home and throw it on the girl.
So I think that's important to keep in mind because the cultural times are way different.
I mean, can you imagine if we still did that?
Alright, here's the deal.
I may have made a couple tiny sins this week.
Maybe maybe bigger than tiny, but bottom line is I kind of need your help.
So thank you.
Okay, so why did they do it in the old testament?
Well, the issue is God's holiness can't ignore sin, and you've probably heard the term, you know, the the wages of sin is death, so it's really not about the animals.
The animals were used as a gateway for the price of the sinner.
Okay, so if you look at the old testament, there's actually a lot of areas where they talk about placing the sinner would place their hand on the animal's head, and that's basically them signifying the passing of sins to the animal.
Okay, so the animals are really they're suffering the consequences of sin, so that the sinner doesn't have to die.
He's a loving God, but he's also a just God.
Alright, and the analogy I like to use for this is your kids.
I like to use it a lot because it's you know it kind of helps us correlate.
If you have kids and your kids do something wrong, you still love them, right?
But you still make them pay the consequences.
I tell my kids all the time, you can do whatever you want.
I mean, you really can.
You're a human, you have free will, you can make any choice you want.
However, there's consequences, both good and bad for everything you choose to do.
So if we were gonna oversimplify very, very like way oversimplify this, we could say that that really sacrifices are are like punishing your children, right?
You're you're having to, you you've sinned, and now you have to repent of that sin or or create atonement, right?
So you are now using an animal as a symbol and really as a payment for your sin to God, because again, the wages of sin is death.
So if we get deeper into the bloody details, and I quite literally mean bloody details.
Why then does the Old Testament go so gruesomely in depth?
I'm not only like cutting this animal apart, but sprinkling its blood in places and in throwing its blood in places like what is what is all that about?
So the blood symbolizes life in insect the blood symbolizes life, that the spreading of blood is actually symbolic of God cleaning away the sins and the evil.
That's why they actually talk about blood being put on the altar and around different areas.
In fact, let's look at Hebrew 92.
It says, in fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood.
For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.
And I get it, it's super hard for us to understand why this was still necessary.
It just all sounds really gruesome.
Because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral.
The central one is the most immoral of all.
That is the one of vicarious redemption.
You can throw your sins onto somebody else.
Vulgarly known as scapegoating, in fact, or originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert.
Um I can pay your debt if I love you.
Um I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much.
I can volunteer to do that.
I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so.
Your responsibility has to stay with you.
There's no vicarious redemption.
There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all.
Um it's just a part of uh of wish thinking, and I don't think wish thinking is good for people either.
Vicarious redemption by human sacrifice is a very primitive and horrible scapegoating idea that belongs to the barbaric period of human history.
So all pardons are immediately.
And no, not all pardons.
No, I didn't say that.
I said vicarious redemption is an immoral doctrine.
Okay, and I can only do Christianity this evening.
Is it moral to believe that your sins, yours and mine, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, can be forgiven by the punishment of another person.
Is it ethical to believe that?
I would submit that the doctrine of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice is utterly immoral.
I might, if I wished, if I knew any of you, you were my friends, or even if I didn't know you, but I just loved the idea of you.
I could say, look, you're in debt.
I've just made a lot of money out of a god-bashing book.
I'll pay your debts for you.
Maybe you'll pay me back someday, but for now I can get you out of trouble.
I could say, if I really loved someone who'd been sentenced to prison, if I could find a way of saying I'd serve your sentence, I'd try and do it.
I could do what Sidney Cotton does in a tale of two cities, if you like.
I'm very unlikely to do this unless you've been incredibly sweet to me.
I'll take your place on the scaffold.
But I can't take away your responsibilities.
I can't forgive what you did.
I can't say you didn't do it.
I can't make you washed clean.
The name for that in primitive Middle Eastern society was was scapegoating.
You pile the sins of the tribe on a goat, you drive that goat into the desert to die of thirst and hunger, and you think you've taken away the sins of the tribe.
A positively immoral doctrine.
That abolishes the concept of personal responsibility, on which all ethics and all morality must depend.
I don't just support try and help out the those who dissent from the ridiculous uh belief of uh Christianity and the horrible idea of vicarious redemption.
In other words, uh the idea that by watching another person suffer, an innocent person suffer, that you could be freed not just from your debts or your sins, but your responsibilities.
You could cast your sins on a scapegoat.
I don't just oppose that disgusting belief.
I oppose the Judaism from which it's plagiarized, and the Islam that plagiarizes from it.
And I give uh Publicity and exposure whenever I can to those who were brave enough in old times to oppose this this nightmarish belief.
I then have to be told that the torture and human sacrifice of somebody, which if I'd been present, it would have been my duty to try and prevent, which I did not ask for.
Which I over which I have no control that took place thousands of years, according to some, before I was born, commits me.
And I have no choice in the matter.
And that my sins are forgiven by this human sacrifice.
Now what's wrong with that?
If I like you enough or love you enough, I can pay your debt.
I say there was folly on your part, but I'll pay it for you.
In extreme cases, people have been known to volunteer to take other people's place in prison.
Or even one of your very famous cases, on the scaffold.
They'll say, I'll do that for you.
I'll do it for love, or I'll do it for suffering humanity.
But that's the most they can do.
And it's not bad.
What they can't do is take away your sins.
Because that would be to take away your responsibility.
I can't say you didn't steal or lose that money that I'm having to pay now.
I can't say that this course of folly didn't get you into prison.
It did.
And now look what you're doing doing to me.
I can't relieve you of that.
I can't wash you white as snow and make you new again.
It's more than can be promised and more than should be promised.
Vicarious redemption is scapegoating.
It's throwing your sins onto an animal.
It's an old primitive practice from the Middle East.
It doesn't deserve the attention of civilized or thoughtful people.
So anyway, it's power.
Let's admit, it's kindly offered to me.
I give all these objections.
I think it's highly implausible.
I don't really believe the story.
Um I didn't ask for it, and having considered it, I would rather carry on living, try to lead a decent life without it.
Okay, thanks.
But thanks for asking.
Oh no, sorry, you didn't hear us right the first time.
It wasn't an offer.
You refuse it on pain of death.
Excuse me.
I won't be talked to in that tone of voice.
Something about me.
I hope something about some of you too.
What was that?
I'm not free to refuse this offer.
You're making me an offer I can't decline.
Was that a threat?
Are you saying that if I turn away from this lamb's blood from which I was supposed to be washed and say, I don't think it will clean me?
Say, well, that means an eternity of torture, you know.
I hope you you better take that into account before you uh consider our offer of eternal love.
No, no, no.
This is North Korea.
This is celestial dictatorship.
This is a the worship that only a slave could take part in.
Come for your cleansing in Calvary's time There's one world more power in the world There's one world more power Wonder work in the world
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah There's one world more power Wonder work in the world In the precious love of the land I've known Dinesh for a long time.
I know him to be a very humane and courteous and considerate and decent man, and I don't think he understands how wicked he sounds to so many people in this hall tonight.
When he says, look, you've made a perfectly fair offer.
We can torture you to death if we want, for the crime only of being born, but all you have to do is throw yourself on our mercy, and it'll be okay.
Why don't you just do it?
My dear, my dear Jeanette, my dearness, do you not know what you sound like when you say that?
I I can hardly bear I can hardly bear to look at you.
You're implying and say something so evil, so evil, so stupid, so nasty and so intolerant.
It is the it is what Phil Greville says in this wonderful verse, it says, here is the order.
You are created sick, and you are ordered to recover, and you're ordered on pain of death and torture forever.
This is totalitarianism to the nth degree.
No, it's not.
It is the it is the most refinement of cruelty and stupidity that's possible to picture.
It's really When people ask, does it seem okay to you?
Say, you always have the chance to sprawl and grovel and beg and plead, and you might get off.
Let's hear the response.
Let's hear the response.
Gentiles were unclean.
Jews were not supposed to have anything to do with Gentiles.
We were nobody until Jesus died for us at the cross.
And at the cross, we were adopted.
We became heirs and joint heirs.
He took our sin and gave us forgiveness.
He took our death and gave us everlasting life.
But until the cross, we were nothing.
Every good thing we know, all the things we love about the Bible, they were given to us of the Jewish nation.
Israel.
Their people, the Jews, are better than all of us.
They're better than all of us.
And you need to accept that.
Created sick, commanded to be well.
Why would, why would people be told, okay, I can create you, but I'm gonna create you with original sin, misery, shame, death of children, disease, and so on.
Just to see if you can pass a test mean I might not send you to hell.
I don't say that that didn't happen.
I say that I'm very glad that the evidence for it is very scanty.
And I accuse those of who believe who do believe it, and I can't have been surely misunderstood on this point, of having harboring a very sinister desire to live in a totalitarian system.
How do you define sinister?
Let's get let's Mr. Hitchen.
The desire to be a slave.
I regard massism.
I'll say that I think masochism is a sinister and creepy impulse.
Yes.
Mr. Hitchens.
I'm approached by Christian proselytizers and told, you may not realize this, but somebody died for your sins about roughly two thousand years ago.
Happens to have been the Son of God.
He took them away, he took all this away for you.
All you have to do is invoke it, throw your sins on him, and you're cleansed.
And you can be you can hope for redemption.
You have the means of grace, you have the hope of glory, you can hope to live eternally.
Pretty amazing offer for a human sacrifice two thousand years ago that you had no part in, that you would have stopped if you could, if you were a witness to it, that you didn't ask for, that was not conducted by you, or for which you're in any sense responsible.
But do they leave it at that?
No.
You're free to it's a bit like Pascal's wager again.
You're free to say no to this.
You can refuse this offer if you like, but God help you if you do.
You are going to be terribly punished for turning this kind offer down.
Now, that's the totalitarian principle again.
Think about it.
Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day.
And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do.
And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever till the end of time.
But he loves you.
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