Why the Crucifixion of Jesus was a Waste and Rejected as Atonement by Yahweh (God)

A. The Roman method of crucifixion, which included the beating Jesus received before he was nailed to the cross, was done by non-consecrated pagan gentile men who were not set apart as holy in God’s sight. Plus the fact that Jesus’ beating and crucifixion generally was not any different from the thousands of other rebels and criminals the Romans made examples out of. (1)

B. There is no recorded sacrificial animal in the Hebrew Bible that was ever tortured or made to suffer as atonement to God. The animal was ritualistically sacrificed with a knife, and bled to death quickly. Afterwards, its whole body was brunt (or only its fat and organs burnt) with the sweet smell in the form of smoke of the burning flesh rising up to God.
By contrast, Jesus was purposely made to suffer under pagan gentile Roman law (not under God’s law as found in Leviticus 1-18). Jesus was neither quickly killed by proper bleeding, nor was his body burnt as recorded in the Gospels. Also even the innocent women, children and babies who were slain with the sword at Jericho and Ai died quickly and then their bodies were burnt so Yahweh could enjoy the sweet aroma of cooking flesh (Joshua 6: 21 & 24).
Counter to this fact, Jesus’ death failed to qualify as a consecrated sacrifice under any of the Priestly laws of the Hebrew Bible. Again, Jesus’ body was not burnt as a human sacrifice as set by the examples in the in the Hebrew Bible (the Book of Leviticus), and thus Yahweh (God) could not feast upon the smell of its smoke.

C. No sacrificial animal, be it human or beast, could still be alive (that is resurrected) after the act of sacrifice was completed and still be a true offering to God. Its life (as carried in its blood) was drained and the victim was sealed in death to God forever in the heavens by the rising smoke from the burning sacrificial flesh.

D. No one single one time offering ever atoned once for every sin of the Jewish people, much less all those of the entire future gentile world (contra Paul’s theology in Romans). Plus the fact that Jesus is said to be sinless is only a subjective truth: To the educated religious Jews, he was a Godless blasphemer. To the Christians, he was the perfect sinless lamb of God.

E. There are also two other major factors that would reject the death of Jesus as a sacrifice:
1. Jesus’ blood was shed away from the Temple’s altar on non-consecrated ground.
2. The theology of the late Priestly School that compiled the Levitical Law which controlled the Torah, would have never allowed nor accepted any human sacrifice.
Plus another problem for the early Christians who were seeking to validate the life of Jesus with proof texts from the LXX (and Hebrew Bible) was the fact that the Jewish scriptures (Deut. 21:22 - 23) condemns a person who is hung on a tree as a sinner rejected by God. This problem gives us an insight into just how Paul’s hermeneutics (Gal. 3: 13) reworked the plain meaning of this text when dealing with Jesus.
Finally, the problem of Jesus bleeding to death as he was crucified between two criminals (who were also executed in the same exact same manner) caused a major theological problem. To counter this, medieval artists painted the two other criminals as being simply tied to their crosses (in contrast to Jesus who was the only one the artist depicted as nailed to his cross). This church art work was often commissioned to leave no doubt that it was and could only have been Jesus who shed his blood as a sacrificial atonement for the sin of the world.
End Notes
1. See Josephus, The Jewish War Book 2, Chapter 308 and Philo In Flaccum 72; 84-85.
2. J. Milgrom, Sacrifices and Offering in the Old Testament in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible: Supplementary Volume, edited by K. Crim ( Nashville, Abingdon Press 1976) pp. 763 - 771).
Harry McCall

1 comments:

Unknown said...

I also feel it is important to point out that the significance of Jesus being referred to as the Lamb (in Revalation) was because a lamb was innocent and man's sin required it to die tragically because of the person's sin. But it would not be tragic if the lamb came back to life 3 days later. So the comparison of Jesus to a lamb is not in any way accurate.