Once I happened to read the story about a
young man who went to monastery in order to become a novice. During the
purification something extraordinary happened to him and he share his
experience with a local monk. He said when he was drinking wine that symbolized
the blood of Christ he clearly felt the taste of real blood in his mouth. The
monk answered that his “faith was weak” and “thus God strengthened it”. Well, I
was disgusted.
It has to be said that consuming blood was
prohibited a long time ago: [Genesis 9:3]
Every living and moving thing will be food for you; I give them all to you as
before I gave you all green things.[Genesis 9:4] But flesh with the life-blood in it you may not take for food. [Genesis
9:5] And for your blood, which is your
life, will I take payment; from every beast I will take it, and from every man
will I take payment for the blood of his brother-man. [Genesis 9:6] Whoever takes a man's life, by man will his
life be taken; because God made man in his image.
I intentionally included quotation
reminding of a human blood, where it’s not only prohibited to consume it, but
also shedding
it, because God made man in his
image.
However, a Christian can always say that it’s
not a real blood and flesh, but virtual. Apostle does not agree with that: [I
Corinthians 10:16]: The cup of blessing
which we take, does it not give us a part in the blood of Christ? And is not
the broken bread a taking part in the body of Christ?
All these legends of Grail, the cup with
blood. No, really, what Christian would refuse to drink a real blood of Jesus
Christ, if only he could get a chance?
To close this nasty subject quicker, I
will provide with another statement that is assigned to the creator of
Christianity: [Hebrews 9:11] But now Christ
has come as the high priest of the good things of the future, through this
greater and better Tent, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this
world, [Hebrews 9:12] And has gone
once and for ever into the holy place, having got eternal salvation, not
through the blood of goats and young oxen, but through his blood. [Hebrews
9:13] For if the blood of goats and
oxen, and the dust from the burning of a young cow, being put on the unclean,
make the flesh clean: [Hebrews 9:14]
How much more will the blood of Christ, who, being without sin, made an
offering of himself to God through the Holy Spirit, make your hearts clean from
dead works to be servants of the living God?
Is it true? I mean – is sacrifice really that significant for God, that He sent His
son to sacrifice for Himself? Horrifying, isn’t it? This is how apostle
describes it: [Romans 3:24] And they may
have righteousness put to their credit, freely, by his grace, through the salvation
which is in Christ Jesus:[Romans 3:25] Whom
God has put forward as the sign of his mercy, through faith, by his blood, to
make clear his righteousness when, in his pity, God let the sins of earlier
times go without punishment.
I was a little intrigued with the words “God let the sins of earlier times go without
punishment”. Alright, well, let’s go back to the redemptional power of
sacrifice, or rather the meaning of this sacrifice. How complimentary was a
sacrifice at the time of Jesus?
It must be said that after destroying the
church, sacrificing sunk into oblivion. It is not accidently, God deprecated sacrifices
long before Jesus:
[Isaiah 1:11] What use to me is the number of the
offerings which you give me? says the Lord; your burned offerings of sheep, and
the best parts of fat cattle, are a weariness to me; I take no pleasure in the
blood of oxen, or of lambs, or of he-goats.
[Jeremiah 6:20] To what purpose does sweet perfume come to
me from Sheba, and spices from a far country? your burned offerings give me no
pleasure, your offerings of beasts are not pleasing to me.
[Hosea 6:6] Because my desire is for mercy and not
offerings; for the knowledge of God more than for burned offerings.
[Hosea 8:13] He gives the offerings of his lovers, and
takes the flesh for food; but the Lord has no pleasure in them;
[Amos 5:21] Your feasts are disgusting to me, I will
have nothing to do with them; I will take no delight in your holy meetings. [Amos
5:22] Even if you give me your burned
offerings and your meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: I will
have nothing to do with the peace-offerings of your fat beasts.
Sacrifice
is not the main thing to do now. The most important is to change your behavior,
your mindset and do the right things.
[Isaiah 66:2] For all these things my hand has made, and
they are mine, says the Lord; but to this man only will I give attention, to
him who is poor and broken in spirit, fearing my word. [Isaiah 66:3] He who puts an ox to death puts a man to
death; he who makes an offering of a lamb puts a dog to death;
Seeing “a Lamb” I can’t help remembering
couple of peculiar quotations from the “New Testament”:
[John 1:29] The day after, John sees Jesus coming to
him and says, See, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
[Acts 8:32] Now the place in the book where he was
reading was this: He was taken, like a sheep, to be put to death; and as a lamb
is quiet when its wool is being cut, so he made no sound;
[I Peter 1:19] But through holy blood, like that of a
clean and unmarked lamb, even the blood of Christ:
“A lamb” is common in “Revelation”, almost everything from there could
be quoted. In synoptic gospel this idea
hasn’t been described, perhaps the concept of “Lamb” was developed later.
The truth is, sacrifices have nothing to do with reconciliation of us
with God, it’s only our actions that play role. Concerning sins, God Himself
will blur them out in due time, and besides no sacrifices will be done:
[Isaiah 43:25] I, even I, am he
who takes away your sins; and I will no longer keep your evil doings in mind.
And only after this sacrifices
will be desired:
[Isaiah 56:7] I will make them come to my holy mountain, and will give them joy in my
house of prayer; I will take pleasure in the burned offerings which they make
on my altar: for my house will be named a house of prayer for all peoples.
“My
house” as you imagine is a church.
[Malachi
3:1] See, I am sending my servant, and
he will make ready the way before me; and the Lord, whom you are looking for,
will suddenly come to his Temple; and the angel of the agreement, in whom you
have delight, see, he is coming, says the Lord of armies.
[Malachi 3:2] But by whom may the day of his coming be
faced? and who may keep his place when he is seen? for he is like the
metal-tester's fire and the cleaner's soap.
[Malachi 3:3]He will take his seat, testing and cleaning
the sons of Levi, burning away the evil from them as from gold and silver; so
that they may make offerings to the Lord in righteousness.
[Malachi 3:4] Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem
will be pleasing to the Lord, as in days gone by, and as in past years.
As always, pay
attention to the sequencing:
- · first “I am sending my servant and he will make ready the way before me”,
- · then “Whom may the day of his coming be faced? And who may keep his place when he is seen?”,
- · after “burning away the evil from them as from gold and silver so that they may make offerings to the Lord in righteousness.”
- · and only then “the offering will be pleasing to the Lord”.
In Gospel “servant” is John the Baptist,
who “makes the way ready” to Jesus. Compare the words of the prophet to those
written by evangelists.
Thus,
we discovered that the sacrifice itself is now, as well as in Jesus’ time is
deprecated by God. Even if we close our eyes on eating the flesh with blood
(and this one is forbidden), without taking into account man’s sacrifice (and
this is disgusting and absolutely prohibited), all the same sacrifices in any
way are inappropriate and not needed. We are not ready, not “remelted” for this.
By the way, Jesus in his “presacrificing” period repeatedly mentioned the words
of the prophet: [Matthew 9:13] But go
and take to heart the sense of these words, My desire is for mercy, not
offerings: for I have come not to get the upright, but sinners. [Matthew
12:7] But if these words had been in
your minds, My desire is for mercy and not for offerings, you would not have
been judging those who have done no wrong.
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