Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 4:5-12

5 And the priest that is anointed shall take of the bullock’s blood, and bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation:

6 And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary.

7 And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation; and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

8 And he shall take off from it all the fat of the bullock for the sin offering; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,

9 And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away,

10 As it was taken off from the bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering.

11 And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung,

12 Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.

As mentioned yesterday, the description for this ritual matches what we heard of it back in Exodus. I won’t retread all the steps and symbolism here, only refer you back to the previous commentary. There is one point that is elaborated more fully on these verses, though, that I’d like to discuss for today.

In the account in Exodus we knew that the priest was to place the blood upon the horns of the altar with his finger, today’s verses further emphasize the element of touch by describing that the priest dips his finger into the blood, and directly with his hands do the sprinkling and smearing. This requirement to get blood on the finger definitely captures attention.

If I were in the position of the priest, I would far prefer to have some ladle or brush as an instrument between me and the gore of the animal, but there were no instruments created for this. It would seem that God was very intentional about having his priests getting very personally involved in this work.

Compare this to how we deal with other people’s problems. Some of us might be open to lending a listening ear but still want to keep a safe distance from the sins and tragedy of others. We might rather not let them touch us with their mess. But that is not the approach that the Savior took, and that is not what his representatives are supposed to do either. Jesus showed us an example of getting right down into the darkness and heartbreak of the world, of touching the unclean, of getting hands messy. We are meant to be fully engaged with the worst, bringing the light of Christ to clean and heal that which hurts most.

This detail of the priest dipping his fingers into the blood is a very good bit of symbolism. It reminds us that we are called to touch the worst that others are dealing with, and by so doing help purify the world.

SacrificeEligible oblationStepsExplanation
Sin offeringBullockSacrifice for sin
Hands placed on head, slaughteredAnimal takes the place of us
Blood placed on horns of the altarA heartfelt plea to the Lord for mercy
Fat and kidneys burned on altarCleansing our behavior and desire
Skin, dung, and flesh burned beyond the campThe sinful behavior purged out of us

Full table.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 4:1-4

1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them:

3 If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering.

4 And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord; and shall lay his hand upon the bullock’s head, and kill the bullock before the Lord.

This chapter is dedicated to the ritual of the sin offering, something that we already heard of in Exodus, from which we have populated the table down below. The account here in Leviticus 4 confirms what we already heard in Exodus, though here it is given in longer detail.

The sin offering is arguably the most foundational of all the offerings. Sin is the greatest and most universal obstacle of all humanity. It is sin that divides us from peace, more than any affliction, misfortune, or disaster. In fact, the universality of sin is pointed out in verse 3, which reminds us that even the priest who had been set apart to be the holy servant of the Lord, would be besmirched by it and would require restitution, the same as any other Israelite.

Even our priests and vessels of purification require purification themselves. Our cleaning agents need cleaning. This shows a pattern of regress and suggests to us that there must be an endpoint somewhere. Sooner or later, for any of this purification to have any effect, it must be founded upon a purifier who is himself never soiled. The offering of Jesus, who was the perfect High Priest, would sanctify the entire temple enterprise, which would sanctify the priests and vessels, which would sanctify the common Israelite.

SacrificeEligible oblationStepsExplanation
Sin offeringBullockSacrifice for sin
Hands placed on head, slaughteredAnimal takes the place of us
Blood placed on horns of the altarA heartfelt plea to the Lord for mercy
Fat and kidneys burned on altarCleansing our behavior and desire
Skin, dung, and flesh burned beyond the campThe sinful behavior purged out of us

Full table.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Faith vs Works- The Argument for Works

In the last post I made the case for salvation by grace through faith, and I provided what I consider to be the strongest verses to support that view. I absolutely believe in salvation by grace. That being said, I also believe in salvation through works, and again the scriptures give clear evidence for this. Let us look at the verses that demonstrate this most effectively.

Good Works)

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven (Matthew 7:21).

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me, (Matthew 25:34-36).

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned, (Mark 16:15-16)

If ye love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15).

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (James 2:14, 17).

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).

My Own Growth)

The message of these verses is clear: It is not enough to only believe the right things or say the right words. We may never be able to earn our way into heaven, but we do become suited to it by the acts of devotion and good that we do. Jesus, himself, called on his followers to do certain works (follow the commandments) and to enter certain ordinances (be baptized), and he went so far as to say that being saved was contingent upon it.

To all this scriptural evidence, allow me to add my personal testimony that entering into God’s ordinances, and taking part in His work, has been essential to my path of salvation. The fact is, I was not naturally well-suited to heaven. It is my nature to be selfish, to be slothful, to be lustful, and to be mean. It has been through the effort of surrendering my will to the Father and doing His work, instead of my work, that I have cultivated some improvements to my heart. It isn’t about carrying myself to heaven, it is about reshaping myself to fit when I get there. Given my personal experience, I can only accept a theology that teaches the necessity of good works in our salvation.

Now that we’ve made a strong case for both salvation through faith/grace and also through works/ordinances, let us dispel some of the false teachings and myths related to both. We will begin that work with our next post.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Faith vs Works- The Argument for Faith

I shared in the last post how Christians have argued for ages as to whether man is saved by grace through faith, or whether he is saved by works. I suggested that this may be a false dichotomy, that there may be a way to put both faith and works into a position of primacy, even if that initially sounds like a contradiction. Thus, I am not here to diminish the importance of either, but rather to fully embrace both. So let us begin by reflecting on scriptures that express the preeminent quality of each. Today we focus on the ones that emphasize grace and faith.

Grace and Faith)

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast, (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law, (Romans 3:28).

And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work, (Romans 11:6).

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified, (Galatians 2:16).

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5).

My Own Reclamation)

The message of these verses is clear: salvation comes by grace, through faith. And to these ancient words let me also add my own testimony. I have shared before how I walked a dark path of addiction, how I eventually turned my life over to Christ, and how he reclaimed my soul immediately, long before I had done anything to deserve it, and since that time I have known that I am truly saved by grace. The only action that I really did was to put my faith in him. I didn’t earn redemption, I didn’t fill a quota before he accepted me, I just trusted him, and he saved me because he wanted to.

Having had this personal experience, I would not accept any theology that denied this reality. Salvation comes by grace to those that exercise faith. This is a fact. And now, still keeping that in mind, we will dedicate tomorrow to seeing how it is also true that salvation comes through our works.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Do You Love Jesus?

Yes, Jesus truly loves you, no matter how you live your life
But that is only half of a relationship
Do you truly love him back?

Posted on by Abe Austin

A Loving Relationship with Christ- Conclusion

Summary)

In this study I have considered those that excuse sinful behavior with their testimony that Jesus loves us all, which is used to imply that he will accept even those who live in a manner that is condemned by the scriptures. I have strongly disagreed with this statement, though I have also emphasized that the claims of Jesus’s universal and radical love for us is true. Those assertions I have no dispute with at all.

But as I have pointed out, being loved by Jesus is not one-and-the-same as being saved. Jesus’s own words make clear that not everyone who calls on his name and invokes his love will be able to join him in the kingdom of heaven. Some of those that he loves will not be found acceptable in the day of judgment. This is a sober statement, and not popular, but the scriptures are abundantly clear on the matter.

I made clear in this study that what actually does save us is a real and living relationship with Christ. And while half of that relationship is defined by him knowing and loving us, which is a gift that is given to us freely, the other half requires us to know and love him back, which requires deliberate action on our part. Specifically, the scriptures say that they require us to follow the commandments.

Only those who are willing to stop living in sin as a way of life, and who earnestly seek to obey Christ, and sincerely repent when they fall short, are going to genuinely develop a loving and knowing relationship with him. And only those that genuinely develop a loving and knowing relationship with him will be saved.

In my last post, I also made the point that living in a state of sin generally comes from a dearth of feeling the love of Christ, not an abundance. People habitually sin as a coping mechanism, and usually what we are coping for is how unworthy and fundamentally unlovable we feel. Even if we believe Christ loves us in our head, deeply feeling the reality of that in our hearts is necessary for us to stop coping and sinning as a way of life.

Words of Hope)

Thus, the call to surrender our sin and become holy is not a call of forced perfectionism. It is not a call to white-knuckle our way through life. It is a call to break down the walls we’ve built inside, let the love of Christ flow in, genuinely feel it in our hearts, and then love him back by following his way.

The call to repentance is not one of shame and burden, it is one of love, freedom, and hope. Does it involve surrender? Does it involve change? Does it involve following rules? Yes, but it isn’t really about the surrender, it’s about not needing to harm oneself anymore. Not really about the change, but about being restored. Not really about the rules, but about reciprocating our Savior’s love. It is a glad message, even the most joyful one the world has ever known.

Posted on by Abe Austin

A Loving Relationship with Christ- Missing Love

Discovering Jesus’s Love)

I have already discussed how Christians that defend sinful habits by an appeal to the love of Jesus Christ are incorrectly conflating being loved with being saved. But actually, I think there is an even more fundamental confusion than that. When they say, “well Jesus loves me anyway,” I suspect that most of them don’t actually believe that.

My reason for this is personal experience. For much of my life I was a slave to a sinful addiction, and through it all I would have adamantly insisted that Jesus loved me. But it was not an excess of Jesus’s love that gave me license to do evil, it was a dearth of it. For while I truly believed in Jesus’s love in my head, I did not feel it whatsoever in my heart.

Indeed, it was as I managed to break down my walls and actually start feeling his love that my behavior became more holy also. I could never feel the beautiful reality of his love and continue living in sin. That’s not say that I’m perfect, to say that I don’t still do wrong things from time to time, but I can say that I don’t live in sin like how I used to. What was once a way of life are now only slips were, and it was his love was what made that change possible.

A Recurring Pattern)

And I’ve been to enough 12-step meetings to know that this isn’t only true for me. One of the most common refrains I’ve heard in these stories is a severing of the connection to the love of Christ, and the resultant increase in sin. I’ve heard many of these men say something like, “I knew that Jesus loved everybody in the world…just maybe not me.”

For many people, sin is used as a drug to try and dull the sense of being fundamentally unlovable. They do what they do from a starvation of love, not an excess of it. Those that are truly secure in Christ’s love are freed from the spiritual pain that leads to wrongdoing. Those that are truly secure in Christ’s love, and know that he died for their sins, feel less compulsion to hurt him, not more.

I understand why people who are not ready to let go of their sins would look for a divine excuse to not change their ways. I think invoking the love of Christ is not only inaccurate, though, I think it is tragic, because admitting that they don’t feel any love is one and the same as hard as admitting that they’re not doing okay. They have my sympathy, not by disdain, but sometimes the kindest thing is to speak the hard truths that sting…and then heal.

Posted on by Abe Austin

A Loving Relationship with Christ- Love Without Obedience

Love via Obedience)

In yesterday’s post we gave both an acknowledgement and a question. Yes, Jesus does love you, but how do you love him back? Can someone say that they genuinely care for their Savior while shamelessly performing the very sins that make him suffer to death? Surely, genuine love for the Lord must look different.

The scriptures detail exactly what genuine love would look like. Jesus, himself, said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments,” (John 14:15).

We also learned yesterday the importance of knowing Jesus. There, too, the scriptures tell us how to do so.

“And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments,” (1 John 2:3).

“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him,” (1 John 3:6).

The message of the scriptures is clear. If we want to do our part to gain salvation, we must love and know the savior, and the means and the fruit by which we come to love and know the savior is by keeping his commandments.

The Proper Framing)

There is an important distinction that we must make here, though. We are not saying, “keep the commandments to make it into heaven,” or “do enough good works that you deserve to be saved.” Those sorts of messages make people overwhelmed and uncomfortable, and well they should, because they stray from the true theology.

When we focus primarily on the works, we stop being motivated by love, which is supposed to be the core of our behavior. It is entirely possible to do good works without love, and those offerings are not acceptable to the Lord, as Cain famously learned.

We should always frame our obedience to the commandments as a natural extension of our love of him. We should say, “he loved me first, and he died for me, and me following his word is just the way that I love him back.” Any time we feel that our works are being driven by a different motivation, such as fear, we need to recenter ourselves on love.

Posted on by Abe Austin

A Loving Relationship with Christ- Reciprocated Love

The Need to Know)

In the last post we made clear that all of us are loved by Jesus, all of us are offered salvation in his name, but not all of us who call upon that name will actually be saved. What, then, still remains? What must be paired with the love of Jesus for us to be redeemed?

Well, continuing with the scripture from yesterday, what explanation did Jesus give to those that would be rejected from his kingdom. He said, “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23).

Contrast that with Jesus’s description of eternal life was: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3).

Both of these passages use the very “know.” Clearly, “knowing” has something to do with those that are saved and those that are not. But let’s look at two more verses to expand this further.

“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment,” (Matthew 22:37-38).

“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love,” (1 John 4:8).

Here, the verb “know” is joined by “love.” Thus, we need to know Christ, and be known by him, and also part of that knowing is loving the Almighty, which is the greatest commandment that we are called to do.

Divine Relationship)

So yes, being loved by Jesus is an essential part of our salvation but so is loving him back. We need to be known by him, but also, we need to know him. In a word, we need “relationship.” This is the part that we were missing in yesterday’s post, this is why salvation is a two-way street. Being loved without reciprocation is not a relationship, and it isn’t enough for a man to be redeemed by.

We started this study by considering those who openly defy the commandments of God, but justify it by saying, “Jesus loves me just the way I am,” suggesting that their salvation was made sure by the fact that Jesus cared for them. They are correct that Jesus loves them, but that was only ever half the requirement for salvation.

To these people the correct response is, “Yes, Jesus does love you, but how do you love him back?”

Posted on by Abe Austin

A Loving Relationship with Christ- Unconditional Love

Awe-inspiring Love)

I mentioned in my last post that those who excuse sinful behavior by saying Jesus loves us, and always will, do have some truth to their claims, but also some falsehood. Let us first consider what is true.

It is, in fact, true, that Jesus loves us virtually unconditionally. There is the special case of the Sons of Perdition and denying the Holy Ghost, but I believe the vast majority of us do not even qualify for these categories. Pretty much all of us have never done anything that puts outside the reach of Jesus. Though we may have been unquestionably selfish, may have hurt other people and ourselves, may have given ourselves to all manner of lusts, yet the love of Jesus remains firm, and he offers grace to us all.

This is an incredible promise. Indeed, it is so incredible, that I think it is hard to really take it seriously. Such unconditional, patient, persistent love is so strange and unfamiliar when compared to our usual earthly relationships. I know that for myself, I truly had no real grasp on this sort of love for most of my life. I had to see echoes of it in some very special people to really comprehend it at all.

This truth of the gospel cannot be understated, and insofar as a disciple of Jesus truly has a conviction of this, they are in the right. But now let us consider where one can take this truth and go astray.

Half of a Bridge)

Yes, Jesus’s love for us is unconditional, and he offers salvation to us all, but that doesn’t mean we are guaranteed to end up on the right hand of God. Jesus’s love and mercy is an essential component of salvation, but it is not the only essential component. It is only half of the bridge between us and God, useless without the other half.

Jesus, himself, made this very clear with his own words: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven,” (Matthew 7:21).

Those who say “Lord, Lord,” but are denied the kingdom of heaven will surely be people who were loved by Jesus, who had their sins paid for by Jesus, who had the offer of salvation extended to them by Jesus…but none of that is the same as actually being saved.

In the following posts, we will explore more of what is required of us to connect our half of the bridge to Christ’s, but I hope it is already clear that while Christ’s love for us is unconditional, our place by his side is not. Jesus has freely given all of us a path, but we still have to walk it!