Post by cgpb on Mar 3, 2016 6:00:04 GMT -8
Jews don’t believe in human sacrifices
The last Jewish objection we shall look at regarding blood and atonement is that Jews claim that they don’t believe in human sacrifices.
The main scriptures that are used to justify their position include:
Leviticus 18:21, 20:2-5
Deut 12:31, 18:10
2 Kings 3:27, 16:3, 21:6, 23:10
Psalm 106:37-38
Jeremiah 19:4-6, 32:35
Ezekiel 16:20
The Jewish argument is that based on the above scriptures, human sacrifice is an abomination to God.
However, when Jews make this claim, they are trying to sound humanistic ally sympathetic, but really they overlook right context and what their history teaches.
In the Old Testament, human sacrifice occurs in 3 contexts and one needs to understand the differences in these in order to make a right evaluation. The 3 contexts are as follows:
1. Human sacrifice to idols for the purposes of pagan rituals
2. Punishment to satisfy God’s justice and/or appease His wrath.
3. God accepts human sacrifice
Let’s examine each one.
1. Human sacrifice to idols for the purposes of pagan rituals
If one reads all the scriptures above, one will see that they all occur in the context of offering human life on the altar for pagan rituals which God clearly condemns.
“There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer” (Deuteronomy 18:10)
However, this is different to human sacrifice for the sake of atonement. The New Testament is clear that Jesus’ sacrifice did not occur in the context of offering Him up to pagan gods or idols, therefore, any attempt to use the above scriptures in attempt to refute Jesus’ death is overly weak and out of context.
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross doesn’t violate the prohibition against human sacrifices for several reasons.
a. Jesus wasn’t merely human. In saying “I and the Father are one.”(John 10:30), and “I tell you the truth … before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58), Jesus was saying that He and the Father are of one nature and essence. Clearly Jesus claimed to be God otherwise the Jews would not have picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy (John 10:31, 8:59), as the Mosaic Law commanded (Leviticus 24:16). The point is that a created being, which Jesus would be if He were not God, could not pay the infinite penalty required for sin against an infinite God. Only God could pay such an infinite penalty.
b. Jesus voluntarily gave His life on the cross; the Father did not force him to be sacrificed. This makes the action of Jesus on the cross a willing, loving gift rather than a cruel punishment by parent. Jesus said, "No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (John 10:18).
c. Jesus’ death was only temporary. Jesus knew beforehand He would return victoriously from the dead. He appeared to many people after His resurrection proving Himself as the risen Savior.
2. Punishment to satisfy God’s justice and/or appease His wrath.
Though it is true that we do not see human sacrifice on the altar of atonement in the Temple/Tabernacle, we do however see in scripture the PRINCIPLE of human death for the purpose of atonement– i.e human death satisfying God’s justice and/or appeasing God’s wrath in the place of another. This is not a foreign concept in the Old Testament and therefore not foreign to Judaism.
Here are some examples:
1 Chronicles 21:7-14
Here David was given 3 choices to remove his iniquity. They were, 3 years of famine, 3 months of running away from the armies of his enemies, or 3 days during which the Lord attacks with the sword and sends an epidemic on the land using His angel to bring death throughout Israel. Though these are not human sacrifices, each of these punishments would inevitably result in the LOSS of innocent human life.
2 Samuel 21:1-14
This example is cited by the Jewish Encyclopedia. Under the article, "Atonement," the JE writes:
“That the death of the righteous atones is learned from 2 Sam. 21:14, which says that after the burial of Saul and Jonathan “God was entreated for the land” (Pesiḳ. xxvii. 174b). “Where there are no righteous men in a generation to atone for the people, innocent school-children are taken away” (Shab. 33b). So also does the suffering of the righteous atone; as in the case of Ezekiel (Sanh. 39a) and Job (Ex. R. xxi.). R. Judah ha-Nasi’s suffering saved his contemporaries from calamities (Gen. R. 96). God is the King whose wrath is, in Prov. 16:14, referred to “as messengers of death,” and the wise man who makes Atonement for it is Moses, who pacifies Him by prayer (Ex. R. xliii.). The death of Israel at the hands of his persecutors is an atoning sacrifice (Sifre, Deut. 333).
- Isidore Singer, ed., The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York; London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901–1906), 280.
2 Samuel 12:13-18
After David sinned with Bathsheba, the prophet Nathan gives David the following prophetic message. “The Lord forgives you; you will not die. But because you have shown such contempt for the Lord in doing this, your child will die.” This example also shows that God does not forgive sin simply through repentance. Repentance is certainly a primary requirement but it is not efficacious in and of itself. David sincerely and urgently repents, though this is not a human sacrifice , punishment is still demanded, resulting in the death of the innocent child.
Isaiah 43:3-4
“I will give up whole nations to save your life, because you are precious to me”
Isaiah 53
Talks about the atoning sacrifice of a righteous human being. “Because of our sins he was wounded, beaten because of the evil we did.” (Isaiah 53:5)
So we see in this 2nd principle that human life is sacrificed to obtain ATONEMENT or REMOVE INIQUITY. In some cases corporate atonement is achieved, in other cases individual atonement (or both) is achieved. However in all of these examples innocent, unrelated, or loosely related human life is eliminated on behalf of the guilty TO MAKE ATONEMENT.
The following 2 quotes from Jewish intertestamental literature also clearly indicate that the concept of human atonement was not at all foreign to 1st Century Jewish understanding.
From 4 Maccabees:
4 Maccabees 6:26-28:
"When he was now burned to his very bones and about to expire, he lifted up his eyes to God and said, 27 "You know, O God, that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the law. 28 Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment suffice for them. 29 Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs."
4 Maccabees 17.20-22:
"These, then, who have been consecrated for the sake of God, are honored, not only with this honor, but also by the fact that because of them our enemies did not rule over our nation, 21 the tyrant was punished, and the homeland purified-they having become, as it were, a ransom for the sin of our nation. 22 And through the blood of those devout ones and their death as an atoning sacrifice, divine Providence preserved Israel that previously had been mistreated."
3. God accepts human sacrifice
We see that in at least one book, the Lord God accepts human sacrifice. In the book of Judges, the Israelite warrior Jephthah is about to set off to make war on the Ammonites. In payment for victory, Jephthah promises the Lord God that he will sacrifice the first “whatsoever” that comes from his house to greet him upon his return.
30. And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
31. Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. (Judges 11:30-31)
However, the first to pass through the doors of Jephthah’s house upon his return is his only child, his beloved daughter.
34 And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
35 And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back. (Judges 11:34-35)
Notice his daughter’s reaction:
36. And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. (Judges 11:36)
We see that she expresses no surprise that the Lord God would accept a human sacrifice, nor does she protest or use reasoning to try and deter him. In fact she urges her father to keep his promise.
She says:
37. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows.
Jephthah agrees:
38. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.
39. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,
40. That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.
Interesting to note that the LORD God does not stop this human sacrifice as he stopped the sacrifice of Abraham's son.
What does this mean?
We see that there is a major difference between human death for the purposes of idolatry and situations where human death by punishment as a means of atonement was accepted and/or demanded by God.
Yeshua’s sacrifice is not in any way contrary to Scripture regarding the principle of innocent life being sacrificed in place of the guilty to bring atonement.
If human atonement (though not necessarily given willingly) appeased God's wrath towards David and the Israelites in a physical/temporal sense, how much more would Yeshua's VOLUNTARY sacrifice atone for us in a SPIRITUAL and ETERNAL sense.
A Further argument regarding human sacrifice has to do with Crucifixion not being mentioned in the book of
as a valid means of an atoning sacrifice.
Crucifixion would not be mentioned because
i. God never prescribed a method for atonement when it involved humans. We see in some situations it is through famine, epidemic, war etc...
ii. Crucifixion was invented much later than when the was written meaning it wouldn’t have been listed .
The last Jewish objection we shall look at regarding blood and atonement is that Jews claim that they don’t believe in human sacrifices.
The main scriptures that are used to justify their position include:
Leviticus 18:21, 20:2-5
Deut 12:31, 18:10
2 Kings 3:27, 16:3, 21:6, 23:10
Psalm 106:37-38
Jeremiah 19:4-6, 32:35
Ezekiel 16:20
The Jewish argument is that based on the above scriptures, human sacrifice is an abomination to God.
However, when Jews make this claim, they are trying to sound humanistic ally sympathetic, but really they overlook right context and what their history teaches.
In the Old Testament, human sacrifice occurs in 3 contexts and one needs to understand the differences in these in order to make a right evaluation. The 3 contexts are as follows:
1. Human sacrifice to idols for the purposes of pagan rituals
2. Punishment to satisfy God’s justice and/or appease His wrath.
3. God accepts human sacrifice
Let’s examine each one.
1. Human sacrifice to idols for the purposes of pagan rituals
If one reads all the scriptures above, one will see that they all occur in the context of offering human life on the altar for pagan rituals which God clearly condemns.
“There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer” (Deuteronomy 18:10)
However, this is different to human sacrifice for the sake of atonement. The New Testament is clear that Jesus’ sacrifice did not occur in the context of offering Him up to pagan gods or idols, therefore, any attempt to use the above scriptures in attempt to refute Jesus’ death is overly weak and out of context.
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross doesn’t violate the prohibition against human sacrifices for several reasons.
a. Jesus wasn’t merely human. In saying “I and the Father are one.”(John 10:30), and “I tell you the truth … before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58), Jesus was saying that He and the Father are of one nature and essence. Clearly Jesus claimed to be God otherwise the Jews would not have picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy (John 10:31, 8:59), as the Mosaic Law commanded (Leviticus 24:16). The point is that a created being, which Jesus would be if He were not God, could not pay the infinite penalty required for sin against an infinite God. Only God could pay such an infinite penalty.
b. Jesus voluntarily gave His life on the cross; the Father did not force him to be sacrificed. This makes the action of Jesus on the cross a willing, loving gift rather than a cruel punishment by parent. Jesus said, "No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (John 10:18).
c. Jesus’ death was only temporary. Jesus knew beforehand He would return victoriously from the dead. He appeared to many people after His resurrection proving Himself as the risen Savior.
2. Punishment to satisfy God’s justice and/or appease His wrath.
Though it is true that we do not see human sacrifice on the altar of atonement in the Temple/Tabernacle, we do however see in scripture the PRINCIPLE of human death for the purpose of atonement– i.e human death satisfying God’s justice and/or appeasing God’s wrath in the place of another. This is not a foreign concept in the Old Testament and therefore not foreign to Judaism.
Here are some examples:
1 Chronicles 21:7-14
Here David was given 3 choices to remove his iniquity. They were, 3 years of famine, 3 months of running away from the armies of his enemies, or 3 days during which the Lord attacks with the sword and sends an epidemic on the land using His angel to bring death throughout Israel. Though these are not human sacrifices, each of these punishments would inevitably result in the LOSS of innocent human life.
2 Samuel 21:1-14
This example is cited by the Jewish Encyclopedia. Under the article, "Atonement," the JE writes:
“That the death of the righteous atones is learned from 2 Sam. 21:14, which says that after the burial of Saul and Jonathan “God was entreated for the land” (Pesiḳ. xxvii. 174b). “Where there are no righteous men in a generation to atone for the people, innocent school-children are taken away” (Shab. 33b). So also does the suffering of the righteous atone; as in the case of Ezekiel (Sanh. 39a) and Job (Ex. R. xxi.). R. Judah ha-Nasi’s suffering saved his contemporaries from calamities (Gen. R. 96). God is the King whose wrath is, in Prov. 16:14, referred to “as messengers of death,” and the wise man who makes Atonement for it is Moses, who pacifies Him by prayer (Ex. R. xliii.). The death of Israel at the hands of his persecutors is an atoning sacrifice (Sifre, Deut. 333).
- Isidore Singer, ed., The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York; London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901–1906), 280.
2 Samuel 12:13-18
After David sinned with Bathsheba, the prophet Nathan gives David the following prophetic message. “The Lord forgives you; you will not die. But because you have shown such contempt for the Lord in doing this, your child will die.” This example also shows that God does not forgive sin simply through repentance. Repentance is certainly a primary requirement but it is not efficacious in and of itself. David sincerely and urgently repents, though this is not a human sacrifice , punishment is still demanded, resulting in the death of the innocent child.
Isaiah 43:3-4
“I will give up whole nations to save your life, because you are precious to me”
Isaiah 53
Talks about the atoning sacrifice of a righteous human being. “Because of our sins he was wounded, beaten because of the evil we did.” (Isaiah 53:5)
So we see in this 2nd principle that human life is sacrificed to obtain ATONEMENT or REMOVE INIQUITY. In some cases corporate atonement is achieved, in other cases individual atonement (or both) is achieved. However in all of these examples innocent, unrelated, or loosely related human life is eliminated on behalf of the guilty TO MAKE ATONEMENT.
The following 2 quotes from Jewish intertestamental literature also clearly indicate that the concept of human atonement was not at all foreign to 1st Century Jewish understanding.
From 4 Maccabees:
4 Maccabees 6:26-28:
"When he was now burned to his very bones and about to expire, he lifted up his eyes to God and said, 27 "You know, O God, that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the law. 28 Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment suffice for them. 29 Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs."
4 Maccabees 17.20-22:
"These, then, who have been consecrated for the sake of God, are honored, not only with this honor, but also by the fact that because of them our enemies did not rule over our nation, 21 the tyrant was punished, and the homeland purified-they having become, as it were, a ransom for the sin of our nation. 22 And through the blood of those devout ones and their death as an atoning sacrifice, divine Providence preserved Israel that previously had been mistreated."
3. God accepts human sacrifice
We see that in at least one book, the Lord God accepts human sacrifice. In the book of Judges, the Israelite warrior Jephthah is about to set off to make war on the Ammonites. In payment for victory, Jephthah promises the Lord God that he will sacrifice the first “whatsoever” that comes from his house to greet him upon his return.
30. And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
31. Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. (Judges 11:30-31)
However, the first to pass through the doors of Jephthah’s house upon his return is his only child, his beloved daughter.
34 And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
35 And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back. (Judges 11:34-35)
Notice his daughter’s reaction:
36. And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. (Judges 11:36)
We see that she expresses no surprise that the Lord God would accept a human sacrifice, nor does she protest or use reasoning to try and deter him. In fact she urges her father to keep his promise.
She says:
37. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows.
Jephthah agrees:
38. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.
39. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,
40. That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.
Interesting to note that the LORD God does not stop this human sacrifice as he stopped the sacrifice of Abraham's son.
What does this mean?
We see that there is a major difference between human death for the purposes of idolatry and situations where human death by punishment as a means of atonement was accepted and/or demanded by God.
Yeshua’s sacrifice is not in any way contrary to Scripture regarding the principle of innocent life being sacrificed in place of the guilty to bring atonement.
If human atonement (though not necessarily given willingly) appeased God's wrath towards David and the Israelites in a physical/temporal sense, how much more would Yeshua's VOLUNTARY sacrifice atone for us in a SPIRITUAL and ETERNAL sense.
A Further argument regarding human sacrifice has to do with Crucifixion not being mentioned in the book of
as a valid means of an atoning sacrifice.Crucifixion would not be mentioned because
i. God never prescribed a method for atonement when it involved humans. We see in some situations it is through famine, epidemic, war etc...
ii. Crucifixion was invented much later than when the
was written meaning it wouldn’t have been listed .
