JJM said:
What is your point? So the NT fulfills the OT, and the OT prefigures the NT. That doesn't change the fact that all Grace comes from Christ's death Romans - 21, Romans 1:4-5 Rev 1:4) so if these sacrifices gave any Grace then they received it from Christ's sacrifice.
The sacrifices of the ancient Jews as practiced in the old testament were deliberately designed by God to teach humanity[through the ancient Jews}
"that without the shedding of blood, THERE COULD BE NO REMISSION OF SINS" Hebrews 9:22
God knew that each sacrifice as brought to the priest by the sinning Israelites; that
that sacrifice had no power in itself to forgive any sin; neither did the priest who offered the sacrifice had any power to authorize or guarantee that the sinner's sin had been forgiven.But while God knew this......the Israelites didn't! They were only told to do this practice when they sinned, and this they did.
Because the Israelites came to believe that they could only be forgiven of their sins via the medium of sacrifices; and hence only gain God's favor through this practice, they refused to believe that this practice was given them to prepare them for the real Sacrifice, the Son of God Himself. Fact is; they had completely lost the significance of the practice of sacrifices and disassociated the practice from God's original intent; so that when the Son of God came to earth to fulfill the original intent of the sacrifices, ie. to die once in the place of each and every animal sacrifice; and once in the place of each and every sinner who was so condemned to die for his own sins.... and so the ancient Israelites rejected God's original plan, by claiming that not only did God not have a son; but that God would not sanction the sacrifice of humans, seeing God himself condemned their ancient kings for practicing human sacrifices. They then orchestrated the killing of God's Son by arresting him and because they had no power to kill him; had the Romans do it through a mock trial.
The Romans condemned Jesus to death with the full participation of the Jewish leadership who could have put a stop to the trial if they had believed that indeed Jesus was the Son of God. So by proxy they were as guilty of His death as were the Romans
and as is every sinner, you and me.
The Grace of God existed in the past as well as in the present; in that He doesn't demand the death of each sinner that sins against Him as His law demanded. The wicked that die in his/her sins is already condemned to eternal death, which is the just reward of every sinner who refuses to repent of his/her sins against God. The righteous or the sinner who repents, whether in the past as in the ancient Israelites or as in the present as you and me, will be forgiven, and hence is saved from eternal death; but only then through the Grace of God is such a sinner saved; past! or present!
So the "blood of animals"[eg the blood of a sheep] while not having any power to forgive sins; yet represented THE ETERNAL POWER OF THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB that did have the POWER TO FORGIVE NOT ONLY THE SINS OF THE INDIVIDUAL; BUT THE SINS OF EVERY HUMAN WHO EVER LIVED as long as such a human believed that the Eternal Son of God would one day die for such a complete and forever forgiveness of all sins; and thus eliminate the practice of animal sacrifices, now that the practice of animal sacrifices had been
fulfilled as they were so intended in the first place.
Because the ancient Jews as well as present Judaism still refuse to believe that this was God's original intent; they still to this day believe that such sacrifices as designed by God should still be used by the sinner to ask forgiveness of God whenever any sinner sins [they do not believe that this concept is universally applicable-just to Jews it is, they believe].
It is this wrong belief that the apostle Paul addresses, when he says that "belief in the blood of animals to forgive sins" was never the intent; seeing that "no animal's blood as any such power". He by so saying; was not saying that the practice of offering animal sacrifices was wrong in any fashion; he though was saying that such a practice was
now wrong it's having been fulfilled as was its original design in the first place. The practice, in other words, was now unnecessary and redundant, now that the Eternal sacrifice Himself had been offered up for the sins of entire humanity.
The Israelites then and now still refuse to accept this fact of God's original design to eradicate sin and sinners from His universe; but His Grace exhibited by proxy through the sacrifice of animals in the past and exhibited in the sacrifice of His Son for all who will accept Him in the present; is one and the same Grace God has always displayed for all humanty in every age since His creation of humans.
precept
.
