Why Jesus Fails to Qualify as Neither a Sacrifice or Messiah
I’ve listed below some of the reasons why Jesus fails to qualify as a sacrificial offering or as the Messiah / Christ. To get Jesus to a point where he can be both a human sacrifice and a retuning Messiah Warrior-King (as in the book of Revelation); the Jewish concepts of both Messiah and sacrifice had to be totally degraded and forcibly hooked together.
It‘s little wonder St. Paul states:
“For the message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God's power to us who are being saved. … For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God, God was pleased to save those who believe through the nonsense of our preaching.” (1 Corinthians. 1: 18 & 21)
Reasons to reject Jesus as a sacrifice:
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, but Jesus’ beating and crucifixion generally was not any different from the thousands the Romans had made examples out of earlier (Josephus, Jewish Wars 2: Ch.308; Philo Flacc 72: 84 -85).
B. No animal in the Hebrew Bible was tortured and made to suffer as an atonement to God. The animal was ritualistically sacrificed with a knife, thus it bled to death very quickly. Afterwards, its whole body was brunt or only its fat and organs were 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 the under God’s law as found in Leviticus 1-18 (see Jacob Milgrom’s excellent article “Old Testament Sacrifices and Offering“, The Interpreter‘s Dictionary of the Bible: Supplementary Volume (Abingdon Press,1976)pp.763-771) and was neither quickly killed by proper bleeding nor was he burnt.
Even the innocent women, children and babies who were slain with the sword at Jericho and Ai died quickly and then were burnt so Yahweh could enjoy it. As such, Jesus’ death failed to qualify as a consecrated sacrifice under any of the Priestly laws of the Hebrew Bible. Again, since Jesus was not burnt as a human sacrifice as required in the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh (God ) not could feast upon the smell of the smoke. Instead, the God of the New Testament is pattern after patriarchal cycle of Abraham who must offer up his son Isaac.
C. No sacrificial animal, be it human or beast, could still be alive (resurrected) after the act of sacrifice and remain a true offering to God. Its life (as carried in the blood) wase sealed in death to God forever in the heavens by the rising smoke from the burning sacrifice.
F. No one single offering atoned once and for all the sins of the Jews much less those of the entire future world (contra Paul’s theology in Romans). That Jesus is said to be sinless is only a relevant truth: To the educated religious Jews; he was blasphemer. To the Christians; he was the sinless lamb of God.
The problem of Jesus bleeding to death as he was crucified between two criminals crucified the exactly same way caused medieval artists to paint these two men as only being tied to their crosses as contrast to Jesus who was nailed to his cross to leave no doubt that it was only Jesus who shed his blood for sin.
To Summarize:
First, the theology and concept of Jesus as a sacrifice to God to atone for all the world's sin is a totally a foreign and perverted concept to the Hebrew Torah.
Secondly, the concept that the Messiah would be a Warrior-King anointed by God to deliver Israel from foreign rule, plus return Israel to its eternal covenant with God was totally abused by Paul and the Gospel writers in order to force a false thesis or theology on to this famous Jewish apocalyptic ideal. This can be even more understood by the fact that it was in the Greek Hellenistic world where this new theology gained most of its following and where the people who accepted this deformed theology were first called Christians in Antioch: Greek Asia Minor.
In conclusion, the whole concept of Jesus as either a sacrifice or the Messiah is a total perversion of both historical Jewish concepts. It’s little wonder the disciples really never could figure out just who Jesus was or what he was up to.
By contrast, it was Paul, a man who most likely never saw or heard Jesus in the flesh, who systematized the theology of the early church in order to save it and make it function. Thus, no “Plain of Salvation” can be taught from the Synoptic Gospels, but certainly from Paul’s letters (especially his final account of Romans) that are load with a systematic theology of salvation.
It‘s little wonder St. Paul states:
“For the message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God's power to us who are being saved. … For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God, God was pleased to save those who believe through the nonsense of our preaching.” (1 Corinthians. 1: 18 & 21)
Reasons to reject Jesus as a sacrifice:
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, but Jesus’ beating and crucifixion generally was not any different from the thousands the Romans had made examples out of earlier (Josephus, Jewish Wars 2: Ch.308; Philo Flacc 72: 84 -85).
B. No animal in the Hebrew Bible was tortured and made to suffer as an atonement to God. The animal was ritualistically sacrificed with a knife, thus it bled to death very quickly. Afterwards, its whole body was brunt or only its fat and organs were 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 the under God’s law as found in Leviticus 1-18 (see Jacob Milgrom’s excellent article “Old Testament Sacrifices and Offering“, The Interpreter‘s Dictionary of the Bible: Supplementary Volume (Abingdon Press,1976)pp.763-771) and was neither quickly killed by proper bleeding nor was he burnt.
Even the innocent women, children and babies who were slain with the sword at Jericho and Ai died quickly and then were burnt so Yahweh could enjoy it. As such, Jesus’ death failed to qualify as a consecrated sacrifice under any of the Priestly laws of the Hebrew Bible. Again, since Jesus was not burnt as a human sacrifice as required in the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh (God ) not could feast upon the smell of the smoke. Instead, the God of the New Testament is pattern after patriarchal cycle of Abraham who must offer up his son Isaac.
C. No sacrificial animal, be it human or beast, could still be alive (resurrected) after the act of sacrifice and remain a true offering to God. Its life (as carried in the blood) wase sealed in death to God forever in the heavens by the rising smoke from the burning sacrifice.
F. No one single offering atoned once and for all the sins of the Jews much less those of the entire future world (contra Paul’s theology in Romans). That Jesus is said to be sinless is only a relevant truth: To the educated religious Jews; he was blasphemer. To the Christians; he was the sinless lamb of God.
The problem of Jesus bleeding to death as he was crucified between two criminals crucified the exactly same way caused medieval artists to paint these two men as only being tied to their crosses as contrast to Jesus who was nailed to his cross to leave no doubt that it was only Jesus who shed his blood for sin.
To Summarize:
First, the theology and concept of Jesus as a sacrifice to God to atone for all the world's sin is a totally a foreign and perverted concept to the Hebrew Torah.
Secondly, the concept that the Messiah would be a Warrior-King anointed by God to deliver Israel from foreign rule, plus return Israel to its eternal covenant with God was totally abused by Paul and the Gospel writers in order to force a false thesis or theology on to this famous Jewish apocalyptic ideal. This can be even more understood by the fact that it was in the Greek Hellenistic world where this new theology gained most of its following and where the people who accepted this deformed theology were first called Christians in Antioch: Greek Asia Minor.
In conclusion, the whole concept of Jesus as either a sacrifice or the Messiah is a total perversion of both historical Jewish concepts. It’s little wonder the disciples really never could figure out just who Jesus was or what he was up to.
By contrast, it was Paul, a man who most likely never saw or heard Jesus in the flesh, who systematized the theology of the early church in order to save it and make it function. Thus, no “Plain of Salvation” can be taught from the Synoptic Gospels, but certainly from Paul’s letters (especially his final account of Romans) that are load with a systematic theology of salvation.