Saviors and Sheep

Genesis 4:4. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

This is the first recorded sacrifice in scripture. You see, after Adam and Eve's transgression, they were cast out of Eden, not allowed to return within its gates. They had become tainted with sin, they were no longer in innocence, and into such a state were all their children born, from Abel to Moses to you and me.

God had told them, just as the fallen angels, that sin brings death. Sin rips us away from every good thing, from every gift of Yah, from every love and every upright and holy thing. It also rips us away from life. After they had sinned, God gave them instructions on how to perform something called a sin offering.

Most of us know what this was... it was a sacrifice that pointed forward to Christ. The people were to sacrifice a firstborn lamb without blemish and without broken bone, once a year, for their sins. They would take this unblemished animal, and would lay their hands upon it, "transferring" their sins and the sins of their family onto this creature, and then sacrificing it for them. Sin brings death, and in the sacrifice there was a transfer of guilt, from the transgresser to an innocent being.

However in the blood of these animals was no healing. In the blood of sheep, goats, and bullocks, there was no perfection, there was no healing of the sins, there was no atoning. All there was, was a temporary transfer of guilt, a delaying of the inevitable results of sin. There was forgiveness, but no cleansing. This, was being under the law. (Hebrews 10)

Paul gives a present tense account of a past experience; what it is like to be under the law; in Romans chapter 7. When a person is under the law, and depending on the sacrifices of goats and sheeps, on the blood of animals, they are not freed from their sins. They are forgiven but they have no divine power to call on in order to free them from their bondage to sin, they have no ability of themselves, or of that sheep, to overcome. (Hebrews 10:1)

Christ came to put an end to this. God, the almighty, sent his only begotton son into this treacherous world, to live a perfect life, for 33 years... and then to die for our sins, that he would be the final sacrifice.

All the things in the animal sacrifices pointed forward to Christ... the lamb, it being without blemish, the firstborn.. it was even put on a cross and the blood drained out of it. Christ was the sacrifice, the animal sacrifices were the shadows.

Popular christianity today says that Christ died to forgive us for our sins. True, I agree completely with this... but they stop there, whereas the bible does not. They teach that in Christ's blood there is no more healing than in that of a sheep... because they teach that we cannot be without sin through his sacrifice.

Christ died, scripture says, to free us from bondage to sin, to defeat sin, to destroy the works of the devil (sin, as it is stated in the same verse). If, we cannot be free from sin.. how did Christ defeat Satan on that cross at Calvary? Think on it... If we are doomed to sin, then Christ lost. Satan won in his claim that the law cannot be kept. Christ did not defeat sin. We are not bought with the price of his blood. (1 John 3:8; 2 Peter 2:19; 1 Cor. 6:20)

What does it mean to be in bondage to something? All would agree with Peters definition that being in bondage to something is to be held captive by it, to be unable to be free of it. Of whom we are overcome, we are in bondage to. Are we in bondage to sin? If we cannot stop sinning, then we are in bondage to sin. If sin can overcome us, even once, we are in bondage to it, and Christ did not free us from it. His blood, the blood of the saviour, cannot defeat sin. (2 Peter 2:19)

What does this have to do with sheep? Simple, really. As stated earlier, the blood of lambs and goats had no power to cleanse sin, all it could do was offer forgiveness, a transfer of guilt. How does this differ from what popular Christianity teaches regarding our Lord and Saviour?

Of course, no one will be the one to say they believe Christ's blood cannot heal.... however how many will tell you how it can? How many, will say that we can, now, presently, claim victory over sin by Christ's sacrifice?

If Christ died to only forgive our sins, then he did nothing more than what the sheep that pointed to his death did. His perfect life, his selfless death, had no outcome greater than that of a farm animal. Do we degrade the Son of God to the position of an animal? Does the blood of the Almighty have no greater power than those things that were a shadow of his sacrifice?

What do we say then? Do we say that Christ came to earth to do nothing more than make life more convenient? For, if he died for no reason other than to forgive sins, all he accomplished was ceasing the sacrifice yearly of sheep. Did Christ die for sheep? How is this not what we are implying, if we say that we cannot cease from sin through the power of Christ?

Christ, it is safe, and obvious to say, did not die for sheep. He did not die simply to forgive, but to cleanse us from our sins, to heal us of our infirmities, to restore in us an unfallen nature, to exchange our nature for his... Just as the shadows to his sacrifice pointed out, with sin must come death. Christ took our sinful nature and suffered our death, and in exchange he gave us the ability to claim his sinless nature, and receive eternal life. (2 Peter 1:4)

What has been Lucifers claim throughout the ages? God is a tyrant, he cannot be obeyed. His law is unreasonable, none can obey! How is this any different from the claim of the mass of Christianity today? They say that the law cannot be kept, we are sinners! We are were born sinful! And they leave out the most important part of Christianity: Being born again.

Can Christ not keep us from sin? Can he not do the thing he came to this earth to do, and destroy the works of the devil in our lives? How many have been the voice of Lucifer in saying that we have gone too far to repent, that God will not hear us, that we can never re-attain an unfallen nature? How many have said that God cannot, or will not, grant his children the simplest and humblest desire imaginable: to obey him out of love.

Christ did not die for sheep. His death DID have more power than the shadows that pointed to it. And, through Christ, we can do all things..... the most obvious of which being, claim victory over sin, through Christs blood.

I pray you have found this both enlightening and scripturally accurate, and if not, please reach me with any questions or concerns.

Hebrews 9: 13. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 14. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

May Yah bless and be with you.

- Luke