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Freedom to be both Native American AND Christian

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Dec 312012

A woman was advocating for rights of tribal members and freedom from tribal government tyranny, while at the same time telling me that my husband and I were wrong to share our Christianity because the only way tribal members can be free from alcohol is through traditional religion.

So… while on the one hand she decried being dictated to and controlled by tribal government, she was attempting to dictate to and control other tribal members when it came to spirituality.

This is a very important point about freedom for tribal members. Some tribal governments do try to dictate that tribal members follow traditional religion, not any other

When my husband, Roland, was testifying in Seattle against tribal jurisdiction, a representative of the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA) told us that reservations have a right to keep Christians off their property – and Christians have no right to speak to tribal members about their religion.

We asked “What if an elder has lived there all his life and becomes a Christian – and wants to talk to his grandchildren about it?” The NICWA representative answered that the grandfather had no right to speak to his grandchildren about it and would have to move.

This is not an unusual point of view within some tribal circles, nor was it unusual in many historical dictatorships where one religion was chosen for the entire country and all had to abide by it. This was why many settlers came to America and why the very first phrase of our constitutional amendments addresses freedom of religion.

Then comes the Indian Child Welfare Act, which is used by some tribal governments to dictate the religion Indian children must be raised in. Some times exposure to powwows and traditional Indian religion is mandated by courts and tribal governments as a condition of foster care or adoption. Other times, children are simply removed from Christian homes. This can happen even if the parents and grandparents placed the children in that home and want the children to be raised Christian.

Because ICWA is a federal law, the U.S. Congress is just as much to blame for this robbing of individual freedom and 1st amendment rights as tribal governments.

My husband and I knew who we wanted to be guardians of our kids if we were to die. We chose a man from our church. His race didn’t matter to us – his spirituality and heart were all that mattered. This was – and is – our constitutional and God-given right as parents to choose. Neither Congress nor any tribal government should be allowed to steal that from us.

NO ONE else in America is put underneath a law that dictates how you are supposed to spiritually raise your kids. The 1st amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”… but the ICWA Congress enacted comes dangerously close to doing just that.

Dying in Indian Country is available at: http://dyinginindiancountry.com

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God Will Not Be Mocked

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Nov 132012

By Matt Barber

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. ~ Abraham Lincoln

America has forsaken her first love. She has finally, and fully, given herself over to a licentious Lothario with whom she has increasingly flirted since her youth. He is sin – and, notwithstanding full knowledge of who he is and what he intends, with him she has lain.

America has tasted the poisonous fruits of lust, pride, passion, and envy – sloth, frivolity, iniquity and entitlement. She has tasted of their sweet deception and found it irresistible. She has danced in the streets, intoxicated by the very poison that will be her undoing.

America has rebelled against God. She has shaken her fist at Him and arrogantly cried, “We don’t need you. We don’t want you. We know better than you. Now go away.”

And so He’s going away.

Hosea talks of judgment against the nation that “plays the harlot” before God: “Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them to the last man. Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!” (Hosea 9:12)

I grieve for my children. I grieve for America’s children. Evil won on Tuesday. An arrogant and rebellious nation has chosen, for her leader, an arrogant and rebellious man, whose arrogant and rebellious party has, as Pastor John MacArthur put it, “adopted the sins of Romans 1 as their platform.”

“This is a new day in our country,” he lamented. “Parties that used to differ on economics, now differ dramatically on issues that invade the realm of God’s law and morality.”

We have mocked God.

God will not be mocked.

“Millions of Americans looked evil in the eye and adopted it,” wrote Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver the day after the election. “Abortion, same-sex marriage and immorality carried the day.”

Indeed, evil carried the day. America has willfully chosen a Democratic platform – a Romans 1 platform – upon which to stand. We have chosen a party that thrice denied God, and then returned his name in vain – amid deafening boos – to its platform.

God will not be mocked.

America has chosen a party that demands every taxpayer be complicit in the federally funded slaughter of the pre-born. We have exalted a party that seeks to – and in many was ways has already done so – enshrine into law the celebration of sexual deviancy and mock marriage.

The haughty peoples of four states have said to God, “Marriage is as we say it is, not as you have ordered it.” And so, though removed from truth, as east is from west, they have, at the ballot box, affirmed moral disorder.

Indeed, they have invited God’s wrath. Our president has invited God’s wrath. We all, through act or omission, have invited God’s wrath.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20)

Yet excuses we give.

We excuse sin. We call that which God calls an abomination, “equality.”

We call that which God calls murder, “reproductive choice.”

We call that which God calls theft, “fundamental fairness.”

We “call evil good and good evil.”

America is divided and her president the divider. The scales have tipped. The 51 percent – the takers, the God-deniers and the subversive, now outnumber the makers, the seekers of righteousness and the patriotic.

Yet, soon after the election results were announced – after several hours of deep mourning for our nation, I found myself smiling. I found myself singing praises to the Creator of the universe: Christ, the way, the truth and the life. Jesus, Y’shua, the very image of God.

Indeed, I found myself experiencing joy.

Through it all, you see, He remains sovereign. His will is being done, even when it is not our own. He is faithful, though we are not. Victory is His. We are His. And so victory is ours.

Those of us who believe needn’t win every battle – any battle – to which we are consigned. We need only remain obedient. We need only remain faithful to his Word and to his commands. We need only remember that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Truly, though God has given over a rebellious nation to the party of Romans 1, we remain the people of Romans 8: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1)

Still, there will be condemnation for America. Things will get far worse before they get better – if they ever get better. As individuals, we will each stand before God and give an accounting – we will all face judgment. As a nation, we can only be judged in the temporal – in the here and now.

Have we reached the point of no return? Perhaps – perhaps not.

God is faithful. He has promised: “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Christ is faithful. He has promised: “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24-25)

The rain is descending. The floods have come and the winds beat down on our great nation. I am thankful that our forefathers, wise men indeed, built America’s house upon Christ, the Rock.

Matt Barber (@jmattbarber on Twitter) is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action. (This information is provided for identification purposes only.)

The Dominionist Manifesto

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Sep 072011

By Matt Barber

There has been great gnashing of teeth in “progressive” circles of late over “Christian Dominionist Theology.”

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has warned that much of the Republican presidential field embraces this startling, seditious sect of extreme fundamentalism. She’s breathlessly warned that Christian Dominionists “believe they have a direct line to God” and intend to “clear the way for the [end of the world]…by infiltrating and taking over government.”

The Daily Beast/Newsweek chimes the tocsin with a hard-hitting, brilliantly penned – though deeply disturbing to all who love freedom – investigative piece headlined: “A Christian Plot for Domination?”

Author Michelle Goldberg warns that Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Perry are deeply entrenched in a “little-known movement of radical Christians” who are preparing “an army of God” to “commandeer civilian government.”

But it gets worse. It’s much bigger than all that.

Kyle Mantyla with the atheist group “People for the American Way” has been warning for months now that this organized craze of underground Christians plan “to take dominion over, literally, seven specific facets of modern life in order to wrest control away from Satan and his demonic spirits so that Christians can put them to use in bringing about God’s kingdom on Earth.”

Now, you may laugh. You may think these anti-Christian “Dominioners” like Maddow, Goldberg and Mantyla – these fearless progressives risking all to sound the alarm on the rising threat of Christian Dominionism – are just a bunch of liberal, tinfoil hat-wearing kooks.

You might believe they’re merely a left-wing gaggle of tattooed, body-pierced pot-brownie pies in pajamas, no different than 9/11-truthers, global-warmers or Holocaust-deniers.

Oh, you may suppose these liberal Dominioners – daring beyond measure – are simply a batty band of anti-Christian bigots and Daily-Kos-, MSNBC-types looking to smear Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and other GOP presidential hopefuls as a bunch of clandestine theocrats bent on Christian world domination.

Think again.

They’re right.

It’s true–all of it.

Stop snickering.

Stop it, this is serious!

I can no longer toe the line. I can no longer remain silent while my Christian Dominionist brethren, numbering in the tens-of-millions, deny our very existence.

What exactly is Dominionism?

Heard of the Illuminati? Skull and Bones Society?

Pansies.

Well, Dominionism is kind of like that except, whereas those pseudo-“subversive” societies are merely “super-secret” – Christian Dominionism is level-nine “super-duper-secret,” sealed in blood with the whole “hope to die,” “thousand needles” thing to emphasize we mean business!

Dominionism’s ultimate goal? Christian New World Order or bust, baby!

I’ll get to the manifesto part, but first, some housekeeping: Liberal Dominioners – though remarkably accurate in spite of so very little “actual information” – are way off on one thing. They think Dominionism was launched decades ago by the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson.

Wrong.

Dominionism Theology was, in point of fact, the supernaturally-breathed, prophetically-inspired vision of Big Chimney West Virginia’s very own Floyd “Snorty” Flubinowitz. (Snorty’s Taxidermy, LLC, corner of 9th and Vine behind the Piggly Wiggly.)

All hail Snorty!

Central to Dominionist Theology are the “7 Mountains of Influence” wherein Dominionist Theologians encourage Christians – Christians! – to positively influence our culture by getting involved in (1) Arts and Entertainment; (2) Business; (3) Education; (4) Family; (5) Government; (6) Media; and (7) Religion.

I know, right?

But it doesn’t end there. Liberal Dominioners – vigilant as they are – don’t know the half of it. They’ll be horrified to learn that there are actually “8 Mountains of influence” (Snorty kept one to himself in case the other 7 were discovered); “6 Pyramids of Supremacy”; and, “32 Molehills of Utter Despotism.”

Moreover… crud, my word count’s going over. Um – the manifesto, right. Well, here it is basically: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you…” or be summarily waterboarded.

Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action. (This information is provided for identification purposes only.)

Hijacked and Murdered Sailor was on Christian Mission

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Feb 222011

Four Americans on Yacht Murdered by Pirates –

Friend: Hijacked California Sailor Sought to Mix Faith, Adventure

Published February 21, 2011 Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — A friend and former professor of a California man whose yacht was hijacked by Somali pirates said Sunday that Scott Adam wanted to combine his love of adventure with his faith by spreading bibles around the world.

Professor Robert K. Johnston of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena told The Associated Press that Adam — who last year earned a master of theology degree from the school — had sent friends emails detailing his international sailing trip. But Adam went silent Feb. 12 to avoid revealing the location of his yacht, the Quest, to pirates.

“He was sailing around the world and serving God, two of his passions,” Johnston said.

Organizers of the Blue Water Rally yacht race said passengers of the sailboat owned by Adam and his wife, Jean, carried them and two other Americans, Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle, both of Seattle. It was hijacked Friday off the coast of Oman. It is now in the waters between Yemen and northern Somalia, two pirates and a Somali government official told The Associated Press.

Johnston said that despite an adventurous spirit, the Adams were meticulous planners who knew the dangers they faced. The couple had sailed with a large flotilla to stay safe from pirates near Thailand earlier in the trip.

“They knew and we knew they still had to go by the Somalia coast,” he said. “We’re asking people to pray for them.”

Adam, now in his mid-60s, had been an associate producer in Hollywood when he turned in a spiritual direction and enrolled in the seminary a decade ago, Johnston said.

“He decided he could take his pension, and he wanted to serve God and humankind,” he said.

Johnston and Adam worked together to start a film and theology institute. Adam also taught a class on church and media at the school.

Since 2004, the Adams lived on their yacht in Marina Del Rey for about half the year and the rest of the year they sailed around the world, often distributing Bibles in remote parts of the Fiji Islands, Alaska, New Zealand, Central America and French Polynesia, Johnston said.

Is God in Control?

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Jan 092011

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On facebook, a friend wrote:

“Fear believes the worst is going to happen… faith believes the best is already on its way”

Someone responded:

When your perspective is telling you it’s the worst, that’s when you need your faith to rise. Faith is always needed if we’re going to achieve what we’re called to. Faith allows us to do good despite our less than ideal circumstances because we see what is available to us through Christ.

I still don’t believe that God is in control. I’ll believe otherwise if you can show me in scripture that he is. In the mean time I choose whether or not I get out of bed in the morning. I choose whether to use my words to encourage others or tear them down. I’m pretty sure God has given me a great deal of control over what happens in and around me.

If he were in control there would be no point in us doing anything because God would be taking care of it, there would be no point in relationship with God because we wouldn’t be expected to do anything (there’s the issue: saying God is in control releases us from any responsibility to bring his kingdom to earth).

If God were in control, would there be all the problems there are in the world? Saying God is in control is saying he is not good and that is a fallacy.

Yes, God is all powerful and could take control, but if he did then what would be the point in existing? You have a greater purpose. Start walking in it!

FYI: I can’t take credit for a lot of this. Much of it is just reiterating what Bill Johnson says in Face to Face with God

Then there was this response:

———————————-

Very good points – but here’s a question. If God ISN’T in control, then does that mean His plan might fail – and what is fore-told in Revelations might not happen? Aren’t we assured that in the end, God will defeat the enemy?

Romans 8:28 tells us, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose.”
Other ways that is read include, “that all things work together for good to those who love God, who;” or
“that in all things God works together with those who love him to bring about what is good—with those who.”

Note: this assurance is predicated to those that Love God, and this last version of the verse makes it clearer that we are working with Him to bring about good. Our relationship with Him comes with the expectation of participating in His work. (and striving to not hurt others)

God, as you said, is capable of controlling everything, but allows man free will. Maybe this is all about the big picture – not the small,( re: daily free will choices – getting up from bed, or deciding to commit a crime, etc.) The big picture is our unbreakable relationship and life with God – if we choose it.

If Hell is separation from God – we are assured we will never be separated, and He is working with us through all things for good in that direction. Rom 8:39 “neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Some of “those that Love Him” and have purposed to work for Him abbreviate that thought – rightly I think – into our assurance that “God is in control.”

And you are right – Faith is needed if we’re going to achieve what we are called to.

_______________________________________________________________

I need to address the thought that if God is in Control, there is no point for relationship -

Relationship with God, as pointed out in Romans 8:28, involves Him working with us, through us, etc. – to bring about His will and good -
that’s what the Holy Spirit is all about.

We choose relationship with Jesus Christ. There is our free will. But God IS the Master when we do that – he is our LORD – and we are His servants. Therefore, He IS in control.

There is No relationship without accepting His Lordship!

Further, we can NOT do good on our own – we need the Holy Spirit. According to Romans 6, we die – our flesh dies with Jesus Christ – and then we are raised up again new with Jesus Christ – (just as He was raised up again) – to live a New Life, with Him.

Rom 6:22 “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”

This is the Relationship: we can do nothing without Christ (God/Holy Spirit) in Us:
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. [For when we abide in Him -- and He in us -- He shows us His will and that's all we long for!]
“By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” John 15:3-10

Abiding in Him, and He in us – involves letting go of ourselves, and allowing Him – in control – to work through us.

So I think Mr. Johnson, in his book ‘Face to Face with God,” was very wrong about there being no point to relationship if God is in Control. It’s reversed – there would be no point to relationship if he WASN’T in control -

Why did Liberal ‘Christians’ attack Tea Party Christians?

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Sep 262010

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I have heard that the Obama Administration has recently back-tracked on the plan to label Conservative Christians as “non” Christians….but that doesn’t make what’s already been said go away. Misconceptions and, well, slander should still be addressed.

So…in the statements below, Mr. Jim Wallis appears to be judgemental, angry, intolerant, and impatient with fellow Christians …and doesn’t appear to even like Americans of light skin tone. But this is who our President asks to speak into the Spiritual lives of Americans… so he must have a warm heart and ability to love his brothers and sisters in the Lord, even if they disagree with him.

As Christians, would Jim Wallis and David Gushee be willing to sit down and just listen to a few of their conservative Brothers & Sisters in Christ – just sit down, with love, patience, respect and tolerance, and listen, with a heart open to understanding and without trying to correct or instruct? Just as they would with Wallis’ friend, the Imam in charge of the planned Mosque near Ground Zero?

World News Daily: ‘Christians’ set to attack tea partiers
Author warns of next assault after failed attempt to define group as racist

“With recent attempts to portray tea-party members as racist backfiring, a renewed attack is being launched, warns the author of “The Tea Party Manifesto,” and this one is from progressive Christians who claim the movement lacks Christlike charity.

“Just as the racism accusation from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People proved groundless before it deteriorated into an embarrassing public-relations disaster that encompassed the White House, says Joseph Farah, author of the “Manifesto,” no one should accept the latest salvo as gospel either. Federal welfare programs are “coercively taking money from people and redistributing to other people, which, at the end of the day, is legalized stealing,” Religion News Service recently quoted Farah as saying. “And the Bible is pretty firm on stealing. … When Jesus talks about clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, he’s talking to us as individuals. [The Bible doesn't] suggest that government is the institution that he designed to help the poor.”

Progressive Christians with ties to the Obama administration – whose policies of government expansion over private-sector industries gave rise, in part, to the tea-party groups – characterized the movement as unbiblical.

“I think that the general ideology of the tea party is not a Christian one,” said David Gushee, co-founder of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good. “This kind of small-government libertarianism, small-taxes, leave-me-alone-to-live-my-life ideology has more in common with Ayn Rand than it does with the Bible.”

In one of his regular columns on the Huffington Post, Gushee wrote,

“I believe that extending health-care access to every American was always the right goal and reflects the moral commitments of the Christian faith.”

Gushee’s biography boasts of being “contacted by candidate Barack Obama and remain(ing) in conversation with the religious-affairs office of the Obama administration.”

The Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of the Washington-based social-justice group Sojourners and a key member of Obama’s faith council, is “even blunter in his assessment of the tea party’s approach to giving,” reports Religion News Service.

“The libertarian enshrinement of individual choice is not the pre-eminent Christian virtue,” he wrote on his blog, God’s Politics. “Emphasizing individual rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition.”

How “Christian virtue” and “the common good” jibe with Wallis’ own documented radical associations and stances, including support of violent extremists, oppressive regimes and anti-American sentiment, warrants examination, critics say.

While the Associated Press described him as a “politically progressive evangelical,” Wallis reportedly served as Michigan leader of the Students for a Democratic Society – out of which Bill Ayers’ domestic-terrorist group the Weather Underground sprouted.

Wallis’ magazine Sojourners, reports WND, “actively lobbied for communist regimes that seized power in Latin America in the late 1970s.” His 1976 book “Agenda of Biblical People” called America “the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs.”

Wallis got involved early in the racism offensive against the tea party.

“There is something wrong with a political movement like the Tea Party which is almost all white,” he blogged May 27. “Does that mean every member of the tea party is racist? Likely not. But is an undercurrent of white resentment part of the tea party ethos, and would there even be a tea party if the president of the United States weren’t the first black man to occupy that office?”

Farah, who wrote a book as far back as 2003 predicting the circumstances that would foster the tea-party movement, advises resisting attempts to narrow its scope to tax reform and fiscal issues. Subtitled “A Vision for an American Rebirth,” Farah’s “The Tea Party Manifesto” argues for following the Framers’ example in defining the movement’s spiritual core.

With “phase two in the coordinate strike against the tea-party movement attempting to co-opt the language of faith,” Farah warns, “realizing its spiritual moorings is essential not only to the success, but the actual survival, of the movement – and the future of America’s liberty.”

Theology of Atonement – Part IV, the New Testament

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May 032010

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Continued from Part III - The Ritual

There needed to be a way to remove the stain of moral and spiritual guilt. This method had to be a way that would cleanse us of totally from every sin. Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9:14-27 prophesied that the Coming Messiah would be the Great Atonement for all of our sins. Our Lord Jesus himself taught that He was that Messiah. (Matt. 26:28).

Isa. 53:10 (Sept.) states, “He (the Messiah) came in the likeness of sinful flesh because He was a sin offering.” Isaiah is called the Old Testament Evangelist because of his vivid descriptions of Christ’s suffering, atonement and reward. (Isa. 42:1-7, 53:1-12) Christ’s soul was to be given as an offering for sin. This passage, with recurring reference to the Messiah as the “Servant of the Lord”, proves that Isaiah, and probably other Israelites, believed that the Messiah would come as a suffering substitute with the goal of redeeming man. In ancient Israel, it was known that this passage was referring to the Messiah. More modern interpretations, which claim that the passage refers to the state of Israel rather than a man, fail to explain why the writer would refer to the state in the third person, and to the citizens in the first person. If modern interpreters were to be correct, it would only makes sense if the writer would have referred to all as the state.

Jesus’s is our sacrificial lamb, and His sacrificial death on the cross and blood spilled is the final and complete atonement for our sins. He was a sacrifice, not because his killers thought of him as such and were in a worshipful, repentant mode when they nailed him to the cross, but because He, without sin or blemish, went willingly to the cross. Jesus, in His heart, took all man’s sin upon Himself and bore the punishment others deserved. He sacrificed Himself for man’s sake. In Romans 8:3, (Sept.) “Amartia” is used to mean, “made sin,” not a “sinner.” The term “sinner” can never be used in reference to Christ, who is sinless and a “sin bearer”. The term “sin” in reference to Jesus is abstract, without an article – an abstract noun for the concrete. Jesus is “made sin” for men in the same way men are “made righteous” for God: by a judicial act of God. And God, in His righteousness, accepted Jesus’s bloody sacrifice of Himself.

This is hard for people of the 20th Century to understand. Man tries to comprehend the importance of the blood, but doesn’t understand why it is important. But the blood isn’t for man in the first place; it is God that values the Blood. This is where man needs to have faith that the Blood is important simply because God says so.

According to Evangelist Watchman Nee, the Blood is meant to forgive and wash away sins in the lives of men. The cross is to do away with the power of sin in the lives of men. The Blood is an atonement, and sinners are forgiven not because God overlooks the sin, but because he sees the Blood. Therefore, the Blood is primarily for God, not for man.

It’s important to have faith AND clear conscience toward God, which can only come by the blood, and not anything else. Being extra kind or patient one day does not bring one closer to God. Man can never be good enough. The Blood is unchanging and is man’s only hope for safe ground to stand on. The only important matter is that God values sacrificial, righteous blood shed.

The last aspect of the purpose for the Blood is the part “the accuser” plays. When Satan entered after the fall, man became separated from God. As long as sin was present in the life of man, God couldn’t be approached and Satan had a field day. Without atonement, God couldn’t do anything to help. He couldn’t come near. But the blood changed that. God can stand next to man now.

But the Blood doesn’t “cleanse” hearts. The flesh is too bad for cleansing, and it must be thrown out, crucified, and replaced with a whole new heart. This is why the animal sacrifices alone were never adequate. Death and rebirth is still necessary. The old hearts were “sprinkled with an evil conscience”, and that caused a barrier between God and man. When man tried to approach God, he felt guilt and unworthiness. This is why man needs both the Blood and a death – a tossing out of that old heart so a new one could be put in its place. Man must die on the cross, with the Messiah, Jesus, in order to gain new life. When a sinner believes this from the Word and accepts Christ’s gift of death into his heart, his conscience can be cleared and the guilt removed.

The Book of Romans shows us that
1. The Grace of God, our Divine Judge, is the giver and justifier of our full atonement.
2. The blood of Christ is the basis of our full atonement
3. Faith is the receptive organ for our full atonement
4. Justice and Grace will be the end result of our full atonement

Old Testament sacrifices were a foreshadowing of the redemption Jesus Christ was going to bring about on the cross. For reasons only God can fully understand, Christ’s shed blood on the cross is a vitally important event, and the only event, which brings about reconciliation and atonement for all sinners who believe and receive it.

END
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Theology of Atonement – Part III, the Ritual

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Apr 302010

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Continued from Part II – History

Three hundred sixty four days a year, the priest was present during the first three acts of a sacrifice, but began his function only after the blood was received for sprinkling. However, on the Day of Atonement, the priest performed all parts of the sacrifice. Lev. 23:27-32

In the first part of the sacrifice, the sinful worshipper brought his live, unblemished sacrifice to the elevated altar, just as our sinless Christ was raised up on the cross.

During the second part, the offensive worshipper laid his hands on the scapegoat or victim’s head. This action has always been understood to be a communication between one party and another, and in this case, it was a symbolic transfer of guilt to the substitute. On the Day of Atonement, it was accompanied with the confession of sin. Lev. 16: 20-22, 2 Chr. 29:24

The third part was the killing of the animal. Only through the death of one can another live. This was also done on most days by the hand of the worshipper. Just he, who had laid his hand on the victim, could perform the slaughter. In the same way, the Lord Jesus met his violent death by the hand of the Sinners he was dying for.

The fourth part of the sacrifice involved the sprinkling of blood. This was where the priest, who had usually been standing aside as a witness, took his role. Without the priest, the sacrifice could not be offered correctly. Receiving the blood, he made it his own, and poured it on the horns, the altar’s highest point, the foot of the altar and the mercy seat. The priest, in his proper vestments and sanctification, shadowed the holy righteousness of God. In stepping in at this time and accepting the blood as his own, he is portraying that what was done to the victim was supposed to have been done to him. Ex. 30:10

The fifth and final act was the burning of the victim. The first fire for Aaron’s first sacrifice was a holy fire from heaven, never to be extinguished (Lev. v. 6-7). Rising to heaven with a sweet smelling savor, the burnt offering was recognized as an acceptable sacrifice. Some also surmise that the smoke is a shadow of the Holy Spirit.

But the frequency and repetition of the sacrifices reflected their inadequacy. David (Ps. 40:6 and 51:16) Asaph (Ps 50:8), Micah (6:6) and Isaiah (1:11) give clear testimony that the sacrifices were inadequate. The blood of lambs and goats could never take away the stain of moral sin or spiritual guilt.

PART IV – The New Testamaent…
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Theology of Atonement – Part I, the History

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Apr 242010

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For reasons only God fully understands, shed blood was a vitally important event throughout the Old Testament. The Blood of Atonement, and its importance are mentioned about one hundred times within the books of Law and the prophets.

What is Atonement? The Hebrew word for atonement, “Kaphar,” means to cover, expiate, condone, placate, or cancel. It has been translated as “appease,” “pardon,” “purge,” “make reconciliation,” “put off,” and of course, “atonement.” Another word for atonement, “Kippur”, means expiation and is translated, simply, “Atonement.”

The primary Old Testament passages that deal with the theology of Atonement include the account of Abel in Genesis 4, the account of Noah in Genesis chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9, Abraham and Isaac in Gen. 22, Israel leaving Egypt, Exodus 12, and Mount Sinai in Exodus chapters 19-30. Leviticus 1-4:1-35 describes the rituals of atonement, and Leviticus 16: 1-33 describes the Great Day of Atonement. Other important passages include Gen. 3:15 and 30:10; Lev. 5:1-19, 6:1-37, 16: 1-34, 17:11, and 23:27-32; 2Ch. 29:24, Isa. 53, and Dan. 9:24-27.

The History:

From the first, animal sacrifices were a shadow of the Great Atonement to come. The connection between the two was very real. The Mosaic books, History, Prophets and Psalms, when discussing blood sacrifice, provide prophetic foreshadowing of the atonement the Messiah would make for us all. Beginning with Genesis 3:15, a passage describing enmity between the woman and the snake, we see the first point where we see prophecy and violence occur together.
Blood sacrifice is a clear and well-understood fact of life in the early chapters of Genesis. There is nothing in ordinary way of thinking that would lead men, back then or now, to believe that sacrifice would somehow please God more than anything else. Yet, the first act of worship recorded in the Bible, the animal sacrifice Abel offered to the Lord in Gen. 4, was said to be acceptable to God, and Able is known as the first “Believer.” This first mention of sacrifice does not give the impression it was a new invention of Abel’s. Shed blood was described in a way that showed it was offered by divine appointment, not just Abel’s will.

Next, the Flood in Genesis chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 was both a clear example of God’s deadly judgement on sin as well as another example of the clear understanding early man had concerning sacrificial rites. At the time of Noah, the difference between clean animals and unclean animals was obviously well understood, as Noah classified them as such. In addition, Noah’s first act after leaving the Ark was to offer a burnt offering to the Lord.

Bloody sacrifices maintained a conviction of man’s guilt and a dependence on God’s forgiving grace. They taught that reconciliation could be obtained in no other way but through God’s divine justice. But they also symbolized God’s mercifulness, in that an animal victim could serve as a substitute. The offending worshipper must die, without possibility of living in fellowship with God, unless a sin offering were offered which removed it. On that ground, the sinner could be restored. From the beginning, as hard as it is for modern man to understand, blood sacrifice was a gracious, God appointed ritual given as a way to reconcile with God.

In Gen. 22, Abraham and Isaac had a divine appointment on Mount Moriah. As much as Abraham grieved the task set before him, he understood that only by killing his son could he be obedient to God. This was not arbitrary. There was a deeper meaning to what was going on than just the task that sat before him. Abraham and Isaac both understood the purpose of sacrifice, as sacrifice had long been a part of their lives, as well as the truth that most men understood at that time: that the only way to be fully consecrated to God was through a death. Blessedly, Isaac’s life was spared and a ram was substituted. By the ram’s blood, Isaac was figuratively raised from the dead.

In chapter 12 of the book of Exodus, Israel prepares to leave Egypt. What was done for one person on Mount Moriah will now be done for a nation. So the nation of Israel, God’s first born, spreads blood from a paschal lamb on its doorposts. Many people die that night, but not God’s redeemed people. God had told them, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” That night, the people of Israel learned that life is possible only with the killing of a substitute lamb and the sprinkling of that substitute’s blood. The Passover night illustrates the importance of the blood to God.

Part II Continues with the History -
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