Jesus and Animal Sacrifice in the Old Testament

Jesus and Animal Sacrifice in the Old Testament

Nov 12, 2022 | The Gospel, Uncategorized

I recently read of Solomon’s dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem in 2 Chronicles 7, and the celebration was massive. Part of the process was a mass slaughter of animals for sacrifice:

4 Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord. 5 And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the people dedicated the temple of God.

Have you ever wondered what happened to all those animals? I figured a long time ago they would never waste the meat, and we’re told in the Pentateuch the Levites were given meat from the sacrifices to eat. But they could never eat the meat of all the sacrificed animals, especially during the high holy days. Archaeological exploration has found that animal sacrifice at temple powered ancient Jerusalem’s economy, and it “confirms visions of the temple depicted in historical Jewish texts and suggests the economic heart of the city was its slaughtering operation.”

Something struck me, though, as I thought about this sacrificial operation.

My son away at college recently called me about a strange story in Numbers that didn’t make any sense to him. I asked what the Old Testament is about? And he knows the right answer: Jesus! As we discussed the passage in light of the ultimate Old Testament biblical hermeneutic, it’s surprising how the strangeness of the passage no longer appears so strange. In the context of the redemptive history in the Lord Jesus and the gospel, many Old Testament passages don’t appear so strange. 

With this fresh in my mind, I asked myself the same question about the animal sacrifices in 2 Chronicles. Knowing the answer is Jesus is Christianity 101, and our primer is the book of Hebrews. All Christians of every theological stripe know Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of his people, or the propitiation, which means a sin offering by which the wrath of the deity shall be appeased. We see in the Old Testament sacrificial system a type of Christ’s atoning work turning away the wrath of God against our sin, only in him God’s wrath was fully and completely satisfied. As Jesus said on the cross moments before his death, it is finished.

Again, this is basics, as the writer to the Hebrews might say, baby’s milk. But as I was reading about the sacrifices I thought, that’s a lot of meat for the people to eat! Then a phrase of Jesus very strange to first century Jews, but one we rarely think about today, came to mind: “eat my flesh.” In John 6 as Jesus is declaring he is the bread of life, he declares that his “flesh is real food.” Because of the last supper Jesus shared with his disciples we know this as communion where Jesus says of the bread, “this is my body.” There is also something mystical in partaking of his death as we eat and experience a real spiritual union with the Word of God that we might also partake in his resurrection.

What I had never done before in my 44(!) years as a Christian was connect the Israelites of the Old Testament eating the flesh of sacrificed animals to our eating the flesh of Christ. If the Old Testament is all about Jesus, it makes total sense, yet it never occurred to me until now.

As the meat of the sacrifice to atone for their sins sustained the Israelites as they ate, so the flesh of Christ we spiritually eat sustains us spiritually but in a very real way physically. Spiritual health, i.e., peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, has psychological and emotional effects which have real implications for our physical health. All those things we should not do because we fully trust in God, like worry, doubt, fear, anxiety, anger, etc., cause stress which dishonors our Almighty Savior God, and is not healthy.

This became even more clear to me later in 2 Chronicles 35 when under King Josiah the people celebrated the Passover in Jerusalem. It’s amazing how it echoes communion in the Lord’s Supper.

11 The Passover lambs were slaughtered, and the priests splashed against the altar the blood handed to them, while the Levites skinned the animals. 12 They set aside the burnt offerings to give them to the subdivisions of the families of the people to offer to the Lord, as it is written in the Book of Moses. They did the same with the cattle. 13 They roasted the Passover animals over the fire as prescribed, and boiled the holy offerings in pots, caldrons and pans and served them quickly to all the people. 14 After this, they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, because the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were sacrificing the burnt offerings and the fat portions until nightfall. So the Levites made preparations for themselves and for the Aaronic priests.

This is all a bloody business (thousands upon thousands of animals), which is what I always focused on as it is obviously connected to the blood of our slain Savior. But the Passover wasn’t just about killing animals to cover sin, but was about eating and being sustained by God’s mercy and grace in the eating. Remember the wages of sin? The only reason we are not a smoldering pile of ashes on the ground is because of his mercy and grace. As I often say, if our sin is akin to jaywalking, God’s forgiveness is not that big of a deal. If, on the other hand, it’s akin to genocide, that’s a whole other thing. 

That it is the latter, is the reason untold millions of animals had to die in order for us to understand the suffering and death of the Son of God. The only reason we don’t have to go through the bloody business of sacrificing animals today is because God himself in the person of Jesus of Nazareth died to set us free from sin and death. As I wrote recently, he is the double cure for sin!

How Donald Trump Turned Me into a Postmillennialist!

How Donald Trump Turned Me into a Postmillennialist!

Nov 6, 2022 | Theology

The very last thing I expected when Donald Trump came down the escalator to announce his run for the presidency on June 16, 2015, was the red pill I unknowingly swallowed that would eventually lead me to embracing postmillennialism. In case you don’t know what postmillennialism (PM) is, don’t feel bad. Until a few months ago I didn’t either, but the massive paradigm shifts I’ve undergone in the last seven years have brought much that was unexpected, not least to my eschatology.

Up to late summer I had no clue my understanding of “the end times” would be another unexpected revelation. I’m writing a book about these last seven years and the many revelations I’ve experience, which is thrilling because I’m not really sure where it will end up. I didn’t realize how our theology of “end times” determines how we interpret everything about the times in which we live, whether negatively or positively.

I’ve posted two videos below about PM, and I encourage you to watch/listen as an introduction to the topic. If you don’t agree with this eschatological position, at least you’ll have some knowledge of what you don’t agree with. That’s more than I can say when I was on that side of things. Before I get there, I’ll explain, briefly, why I rejected PM out of hand while knowing absolutely nothing about it, and how my mind became open. Once opened, I discovered it makes perfect biblical sense.

I rejected PM because I thought it was embraced by 19th and early 20th century Christians because of cultural conditioning of the Western concept of “progress.” The hubris that came out of Enlightenment rationalism and the explosion of scientific knowledge led people to assume progress as linear, like an arrow shot to ever more wonderful human accomplishment. I thought Christians uncritically bought into this as their eschatology. This included my theological heroes, the great Princeton theologians Charles Hodge and B.B. Warfield. Apparently they were great in all things theological, except when it came to eschatology.

For most of my Christian life I was a “pan-millennialist”; it will all pan out in the end. It seemed like trying to understand “end times” was endless speculation and trying to figure it all out was a fool’s errand. Then in 2014 I discovered amillennialism through a teaching series by Dr. Kim Riddlebarger.  It blew my mind, and I decided it was an eschatological position I could embrace. Until a few months ago. I’ll share very briefly why, and suggest you watch/listen to these to videos so you can see why I’ve embraced PM, and see if you want to as well.

This is where Donald Trump comes in. In addition to being an uncouth billionaire New Yorker who rubs a lot of people the wrong way, his policies were a threat to both political parties, or the Uniparty. Everyone, including me, thought his candidacy was a joke, until it wasn’t. Then TDS really kicked in. I had it initially, but his critics were so over the top I thought, nobody can be that bad. Then there was three years of Trump-Russia “collusion,” and then covid, stolen election, and the cherry on the top was the J6 “insurrection.”

You would think all this would all depress me given I’d become full on MAGA, even “Ultra Maga,” and I was, but then I found Steve Bannon’s War Room, and became one of the Posse. I can’t explain it all here, but he turned me into an optimist with his affirmation of human agency (we can change things), especially in the context of the United States of America. That leads to his now famous rallying cry, action, action, action!

Earlier this year I decided to write a book of hope based on all these revelations I’d been going through since Trump, and realized I needed theological justification for my optimism. Initially, I thought it lay in the revelation of God in creation a la Paul in Romans 1:20, that “God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made . . . .” In other words, God’s revelation in creation, and human knowledge is part of his creation. We now know things we wouldn’t have known before Trump, or before Einstein, or before America’s Founding, or before Newton, Luther, Aquinas, you get the picture. All this knowledge is in some way a revelation of God’s “eternal power and divine nature.”

I still believe this, but when PM came along, I sensed it might be the answer I was looking for. Then in a conversation about PM in a YouTube video, Doug Wilson said, “Now you have a theological justification for optimism.” That’s it! The feeling at that moment reminded me of A Charlie Brown Christmas When Charlie goes to Lucy for “Psychiatric Help” so he can find out why he’s so depressed. She thinks it might be fear, so goes through various phobias. Finally, she asks about a phobia that means fear of everything, and Charlie yells out, “That’s it!” And Lucy flips backward cartoon like several times. I felt like Charlie. It was thrilling.

You’ll have to learn more about PM yourself to understand why I felt and still feel this way. Here are the promised videos:

James White went through a similar journey to me, from Pan-Mill, to A-Mill, to PM.

This is a documentary of various interviews. The host when through the same journey.

Wealth and Honor Come from You!

Wealth and Honor Come from You!

Nov 4, 2022 | Gratitude, Theology

If you’re a sinner, you probably think this post is about you. I won’t say you’re so vain, but you probably get the point. If you read my last post, though, you already know the answer is . . . . God! I wrote about David’s words of praise for God in I Chronicles 29:10-13, but I didn’t get into details about what made this passage so powerful in the last five plus years of my life. I’ll share that below, but before I get there, a great cross reference to David’s declaration is in Deuteronomy 8:

17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

It looks like “you” is always the temptation, which goes back to the initial bold-faced lie the serpent told Eve in the garden, “you will be like God knowing good and evil” In some ways we are very much like God being made in his image, but the temptation had nothing to do with the imago dei. Rather it had to do with epistemology, which is fascinating to think through. Why did all the misery of sin and death come into God’s good creation with knowing? Man was obviously never meant to know evil, and he already knew good. The problem was we couldn’t handle it because, well, we are not God! Seems pretty simple doesn’t it.

Related to creating wealth, thinking we are in some way God is really the core of the problem. You may say without us there is no wealth, and you would be correct. But without a theology of wealth, and sin, and God, we area easily confused. This is important to my story because I found out I suck at being God (can I do LOL in a blog post?).

First, Paul tells us (Acts 17:25) God “gives to all life and breath and everything else.” So, there’s that. We may think we’re pretty hot stuff, but every single breath is granted to us by God, not to mention “everything else.” He also asks these rhetorical questions: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” All of our abilities and skills and talents and knowledge, all of it comes from him. Even our drive to acquire these things, our ambitions and desires come from him.

When we understand and accept this, that we are not autonomous self-sufficient, self-created beings, it all somehow becomes so much easier. As much as it is up to us, in a way none of it us up to us. This tension is what we call life lived in God’s created salvific reality. It is a thrilling dynamic in which to live in light of ultimate things, in the biggest of big pictures. As Paul yet again puts it perfectly in Romans 8:

28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

I would joke with my kids as they were growing up, and still do when they are, surely Paul didn’t mean all. Maybe 98%. Nope, all!

Which brings me to the I Chronicles 29:10-13 context. A month after we moved down to Florida, I lost my job of 14 years, and that at age 57. Uh oh. Now what. After two months of finding nothing, in desperation I decided to take a job in IT sales on 100% commission, something I’d never done. It was terrifying, and the first year, even two, was miserable. God and me, we did some serious wrestling. It’s hard to explain the intensity of emotions I went through. Many times, often daily, I went back to David’s praise about the greatness of our God.

Right after David says wealth and honor come from God, he declares God is “the ruler of all things.” Not some things, but all things. That is the ultimate existential question: Do we really buy this, believe it when push comes to shove, when we are confronted with, do we trust him or not.

I remember praying something prior to taking the job that reveals what a moron I am. I would pray, “Lord it would be ideal if . . .” One day it struck me like a thunderclap: How the hell would I know what ideal is!!! I’m ashamed to say I had been a Christian by that time for almost 40 years, and was still so clueless about the true Greatness of our God that I would pray something like that. I’m a slow learner, but eventually I get it.

This new job confronted me with the trust question literally every day, and it was often painful. For those old enough, you may remember ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and the video opening every show: It was daily, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. Exhilarating and disappointing. Was I going to embrace the God who is “the ruler of all things”? Could I experience equanimity in the face of defeat? Could I obey Jesus and not worry? Obey Paul and not be anxious about anything? Anything?

I even got to the point of telling the Lord, “If you want me to fail, that’s fine. Thy will be done.” But I was going to work my ever-living guts out and pray every day he would bless my efforts, and whatever happens from there is up to him. And he has!

The greatest lesson, I think, was learning my knee jerk reaction is always initially wrong, and I have to fight it. Trusting God takes mental and emotional effort. Takes turning back the fear, worry, anxiety, doubt because it just isn’t necessary. It is our sinful, distrustful imagination that causes those, and we just have to stop it! Rebuke ourselves, repent (I John 1:9, and leave the inner transformation to him), and convince ourselves anew that he’s got our back. It is a wonderfully fulfilling way to live in his promise to us (Is. 26)

You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you.

Perfect peace. 

I Chronicles 29:10-13: David’s Life Transforming Praise for God

I Chronicles 29:10-13: David’s Life Transforming Praise for God

Nov 1, 2022 | Theology

In my current jaunt through Scripture, much quicker than last time, I recently read this passage in I Chronicles and reflected on how significant it has been in the last five years or so of my life. When we moved from the Chicago area to Florida in early June of 2017, these verses were in the bulletin in the second church service we attended. I remember thinking how heavy it was, and decided I needed to memorize it. I couldn’t have realized how significant the truths David proclaims would be for me in the coming years.

The context is near the end of David’s life. He had developed plans and provided the resources for the Temple. Since the Lord would not let him build it because of all the blood he had spilled, he passed those on to his successor, his son Solomon, and he would be the one to build it. Then we read his effusive words of praise for the Lord his God:

10 David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying,

“Praise be to you, Lord,
the God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
11 Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
12 Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
13 Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.

As we know, David had quite the tumultuous life, and while he sinned greatly, the Lord declared that he was a man after his own heart. The two are not mutually exclusive, which I why think his life is such a powerful object lesson, in addition to being a prophetic type of King Jesus.

We all sin greatly to one degree or another because the standard is the perfectly holy Creator God of the universe. Sure, compared to Hitler, Stalin, and Mao I’m a pretty good guy, but compared to God the only thing I deserve is the wages of the sins I commit, death. As I often say to anyone who will listen, I deserve to be a pile of smoldering ashes on the ground, so anything other than that is gravy.

What separated David from the average king was his laser like focus on God. Even when he sinned against Bathsheba and her husband, he said to God, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” Most of us, dare I say none of us, would have said such a thing, but David realized the essence of sin isn’t my sin against others or others against me, but ours against God. All the personal and interpersonal misery and dysfunction flows out of that. If we get that backward we don’t get the gospel.

For me, David’s praise, especially at that time in my life, helped sharpen my focus on the God he is so effusively praising. The temptation all sinful humanity has is to focus on our circumstances or other people. It’s terribly easy to do because, well, it’s all we can see! So, instead of living by faith, i.e., trust, we live by site, the opposite of what Paul says we should do.

Speaking of trust, that is the I Chronicles 29:10-13 lesson of these last five years, and the focus of the rest of my life; trusting God who worthy of my trust. The lack thereof is my greatest sin, and something for which I repent daily. I know I don’t trust him if I allow fear, worry, anxiety, doubt, frustration, and anything else that cannot be defined as “perfect peace” into my life. I didn’t say it would be easy!

I realized how important this was for me as I began to understand the word faith or belief in the New Testament. When we come across those, or any variations thereof, they do not mean intellectual assent. The Greek word used for both English words is pistis-πίστις, so it is far more than merely intellectually accepting that something is true. We can “believe” something is true, and it make absolutely no difference in our lives. Will that airplane get me to Tuscaloosa, Alabama safe and alive? Trust gets me on it. Or ice fishing. I don’t quite get the appeal (probably because I was born and raised in L.A.), and I believe the ice will hold up, but you would never get me out on the ice. I believe, but don’t trust.

What David’s declaration of praise did for me was convince me the ice will hold up no matter how thin it looks, no matter how many cracks appear. I learned how addicted I am to circumstances, how easily I treat them as more sovereign and powerful than Almighty God. It’s kind of pathetic when you think about it, but the problem is we don’t often think about it; we react. Our peace of mind isn’t determined by who God is, a la David’s accurate declaration, but by how we interpret our circumstances. When the trust challenge comes, as it did for me so often in the early years of our time in Florida, I didn’t pass the test. But in due course because I was determined to focus on this God and his power and glory and majesty and splendor, I slowly developed my trust muscle. You can too!