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To: 1000 silverlings; Buggman; Dr. Eckleburg; HarleyD; topcat54
Buggman's article: The sacrifice was not accepted because it was being offered by the wrong High Priest:

silverlings: An astounding statement, considering that this is just the opposite of what the book of Hebrews teaches!

Please re-read the article. Buggman's reference to the unaccepted sarifice is referring to the one at the temple on earth, not in heaven. The ribbon did not turn white because God was trying to tell the first century Jews to quit sacrificing animals. Buggman is in no way saying that Christ's sacrifice was insufficient.

51 posted on 10/02/2006 7:41:56 PM PDT by kerryusama04 (Isa 8:20, Eze 22:26)
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To: kerryusama04; Buggman; Dr. Eckleburg; topcat54; HarleyD

Then Mr. Buggman needs to rewrite his article. Let him be clear in what he is stating, for it is difficult to make heads or tails of his confusing personal theology. Maybe if he loses all the affectations it would make some sense.


53 posted on 10/03/2006 10:57:38 AM PDT by 1000 silverlings (why is it so difficult to understand?)
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To: kerryusama04; 1000 silverlings; Buggman; Dr. Eckleburg; HarleyD; topcat54
Well, it looks like I'll be tackling this thread in reverse-order (since that's the order of things in my post file), so if I miss a previous argument as I'm working my way back, my apologies in advance:

Please re-read the article. Buggman's reference to the unaccepted sarifice is referring to the one at the temple on earth, not in heaven.

That is correct. Silverlings doesn't take the time to read what I write before he/she posts.

The ribbon did not turn white because God was trying to tell the first century Jews to quit sacrificing animals.

Not necessarily, actually. Acts indicates that the first-century Messianic Jews, including the Apostles, saw nothing wrong with continuing to worship in the Temple, which meant participating in the daily sacrifices by assent. Moreover, Acts shows that many Jewish believers took voluntary Nazrite oaths, which meant offering specified sacrifices at the end of their terms (which Sha'ul participated in to prove that he was still following Torah).

Rather, the rejection of Yeshua as the Messiah-King by the Jewish leadership, including the majority of the priests, resulted in a corresponding rejection of their sacrifices by God. By visibly not accepting the Yom Kippur sacrifice, God was calling attention to the insufficiency of the Temple system apart from the ministry of the King-Priest Yeshua. Likewise, constantly opening the Temple doors was a call for all Israel to enter into the special closeness that is afforded to us in our Savior. Had there been national repentence and turning to the Messiah for true forgiveness of sins, I'll wager that the ribbon would have once again turned white as a symbol of Israel's acceptance--that, or the Messiah Himself would have returned to Israel post haste, wearing His white garments, as that sign.

I normally separate the issues of Torah-observance from the issues of sacrifice. Even if the specific nature of sacrifice has been forever altered so that animal sacrifices are now an abomination before God, that by no means overturns all of the "ceremonial" Torah commands. As has been pointed out many times in this thread, one can observe the specific commands for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover, etc. which were for all the people, not just the Levites.

I went to a Messianic Kol Nidre ("All Vows") service Sunday night. There was a lot of traditional Jewish liturgy; there was also significant modification of the liturgy to reflect New Covenant truth, such as responsive readings from the book of Hebrews. The truth that Yeshua is our High Priest, as well as the sacrifice who was slain and yet lives (like the two goats) was very much at the forefront of the service and sermon, which ended with a very Evangelical altar call for any who had not yet repented and put their trust in the Messiah of Israel. The fact that the sacrifice has been transferred in no way took away from the importance of keeping the Day of Atonement--on the contrary, it made it full.

Now, having affirmed that the only sacrifice which is necessary--indeed, the only sacrifice that can truly take away our sins--is that of Yeshua, I'll go ahead and say that I believe that there will indeed be a return of sacrifice and offering, for several reasons.

First, because sacrifice and offering was part-and-parcel of Apostolic worship, as already noted.

Second, because even after Yeshua's ultimate sacrifice, sacrifices still serve the purpose of "sanctifi[ng] to the purifying of the flesh" (Heb. 9:13) and serving as "a remembrance again made of sins every year" (10:3). There is no doubt that the Messiah's sacrifce is a superior sacrifice, which alone can "purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (9:14). There is also no doubt that a backhoe is a superior tool to a shovel--that doesn't make the shovel without value for certain tasks. Just as all of the sacrifices before Yeshua pointed forward to the true Sacrifice, though "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" (10:4), all of the sacrifices after Yeshua's great work on the Cross serve as a memorial of it.

Third, because God has affirmed that "this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year" (Lev. 16:34, speaking of the Yom Kippur sacrifice). Likewise, the priesthood of Phineas' line is given forever: "Behold, I give unto him My covenant of peace: And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel" (Num. 25:12-13). God could well have said, "Until the Messiah/Prophet like unto Moses comes," if He had intended the Levitical priesthood to be a temporary office, but He didn't. He gave the office of priest unto the sons of Aaron forever (Heb. 'olam).

This eternal Levitial priesthood is confirmed in Jeremiah 33:

For thus saith YHVH; "David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually." And the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, saying, "Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me." (vv. 17-22)
Notice what the Lord is saying here: The eternality of the Levite office is directly linked to the eternality of the office of the Messiah.

Several objections might be raised to this verse: For example, why couldn't the priesthood mentioned be that of Yeshua? Because "it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood" (Heb. 7:14). Yeshua is of the order of Melchiezedek, not the order of Levi. Furthermore, while "a son to reign upon his throne" (Jer. 33:21) is constructed to indicate a singular person, all references to the Levites in this passage are in the plural.

The second objection that might be raised is that the "Levites" here refer to believers, for we are after all referred to as a kingdom of priests (cf. 1 Pt. 2:9, Rev. 5:10). However, this too falls short. Referring to the Church as a "royal priesthood" and a "kingdom of priests" refers us back to Ex. 19:6 and affirms the ingrafting of the believing remnant of Gentiles into Israel's root (again, which is to say that we are adopted, not that we replace the natural-born children). However, just as Israel was a kingdom of priests and yet only the tribe of Levi was called to the specific priestly office of the Tabernacle and later the Temple, neither does the Church's ingrafting into the Kingdom of Priests make us Levites (barring those believers who may, in fact, be descended from Phineas, of course).

Fourth, the continuance of the Levitical priesthood and service is prophesied in Scripture. In addition to the above passage, Ezekiel 40-47 describe a Temple which has never been built, in which the Levitical priesthood will minister: "'But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near to me to minister unto Me, and they shall stand before Me to offer unto Me the fat and the blood,' saith the Lord YHVH (Ezk. 44:15).

Moreover, premillennial eschatology recognizes that there will be the beginnings of a restored priesthood and a restored Temple even before the Second Coming (cf. Dan. 9:27, 11:31, 12:11). Attempts to explain away this clear reference to sacrifice in the End Times all fail for four reasons:

First, because every other time Daniel refers to the removal of the sacrifice (ibid., also 8:11-13), it is by Antiochus and/or the Antichrist, and is presented as a great evil; it is therefore inconsistant and a matter of special pleading to claim that 9:27 refers to the "ending" of animal sacrifice which alledgedly took place at the Cross.

Second, every other instance in Daniel refers to the literal ending of sacrifice and offering in the Temple of God due to the military might of a hostile force. The sacrifices continued in the Temple for nearly another forty years after the Messiah's Sacrifice.

Third, because as already noted, the early Jewish believers continued worship and offering in the Temple for at least thirty years (up to Acts 21) after Yeshua's Ascension--they apparently didn't see the sacrifices as having ended as a legitimate expression of worship, provided that they were understood in their proper context.

And fourth, because there is no indication that Yeshua's ministry lasted for the requisite 3 1/2 years; Yochanan (John) mentions only three Passovers in his Gospel account, which gives us a period of less than three years (see here for a detailed chronology).

Some may ask why God would allow a rebuilt Temple before Israel as a whole accepted Yeshua the Messiah as their Lord. The answer is easy to understand: For nearly two millennia, the Jewish people have been forced to downplay the necessity of blood sacrifice in atonement for sin. With a functioning Temple in place, they will find themselves revisiting oft-ignored passages in the Tanakh (like Lev. 17:11, for example). I believe that God will use a restored Temple service to clear a path in the Israelite consciousness for the Cross.

As for why there will be restored sacrifice in the Millennium and (perhaps) beyond, I would suggest that in what will otherwise be Eden restored, the sacrificies will serve to keep the heavy price of sin in everyone's mind.

There are many even in the Messianic movement who disagree with me on this matter. That's fine; it's not a major point of my theology, though I believe it is a necessary one to reconcile all of Scripture together. However, the issue of the future place, if any, of Temple sacrifice is again not one of primary importance to the issue of keeping the Torah and (for example) God's Appointed Times. The sacrifices served as a "second best" solution: "Don't sin, but if you do, do this." With Yeshua as our ultimate Sacrifice, our sole and sufficient atonement, the only means by which our sins may be truly taken away, we are free to keep the whole Torah out of love and adoration for our Lord, not out of fear of punishment.

Shalom.

56 posted on 10/03/2006 1:15:37 PM PDT by Buggman (http://brit-chadasha.blogspot.com)
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