Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Hebrews 8-9: Re-lig-ion

Within the context of my spiritual upbringing, "religion" has been a dirty word for as long as I can remember. After all, "...it's not about religion! It's about relationship!"
But "religion" is just a word; a word that describes making a practice of something to increase our understanding.
"re"-again
"lig"- grasp
"ion"- action
...and when we do something over and over again to try to understand or grasp hold of it, we might say we do it "religiously".
Religious motivation comes from a catalytic belief.
Hebrews 8-9 refers to the religious practices of the Hebrew priests.
Practices of apparel, washings, structures, sanctified objects, sacrifices...
practices ordered by God for the Hebrews to do
over
and over again.
...Practices set up by God to help them understand that they would never sufficiently grasp hold of Him
by what they wore or what they did or what they said.
The Hebrews understood that they needed to live in relationship with their God; so they tried
but
"...gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshipper perfect in conscience," (9:9)
Nothing they practiced "religiously" was enough to wipe out their awareness that they would fail
again.
And they would have to seek atonement
again.
When Jesus was sent to die on the cross, the shedding of His blood signified that God offered them the gift of himself
again.
What was lost of relationship at the intrusion of sin, was being restored.
His perfect life, lived-lost-resurrected, became the all-sufficient, once and final offering for a secured relationship with God.
"but now ONCE at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." (9:26b)
It's true. I am a religious person.
I have practices of reading my Bible, praying, going to church...
I want to understand Him better!
But I do so because He already "grasped hold" of me
through Christ.

2 comments:

  1. But what is atonement? How does Jesus' shedding of blood symbolize God offering himself as a gift again? What does that mean?

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  2. Thank you for asking these questions Terri. I've been away from my blog for quite some time and just saw your comments today. It's not a short answer...if you can bear with me...I will do my best to explain what I believe the Bible teaches.
    Atonement by definition means essentially to repair what has been broken...making it whole again. Some people say it this way: "at-one-ment". When passages of the Bible speak of Christ's "atoning" sacrifice, it is referring to Jesus giving His life to repair the broken relationship between God and His creation...specifically, man.
    How did He do it? Through His blood i.e. death and then resurrection.
    I'm still wrestling with why blood/death was necessary. This thought has kind of helped me:
    When we are injured deeply, we bleed. Bleeding either can lead to healing or death. In a sense, Man's choice to turn away from God produced an injury that leads to death both physical (eventually) and spiritual (our connection to God immediately and eternally). But Jesus choice to offer Himself, shedding His blood...produced the healing that we need.
    How? Because He was God in human flesh, sacrificing His own body to save ours.
    In Genesis, we read of humanity's beginning. God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is a God that exists in relationship...creating human beings was an expression of love that already existed in God as the Trinity. God made man, placed him in an ideal world and then offered Himself to them in relationship. The first man and woman were created with individual dignity...if they were not, they could not have had the capacity to love. One must first be a "self" if he/she is to offer that self to another in love. So God offered Himself to them, granting them the freedom to choose love (relationship with Him and each other). Eve and then Adam chose to distrust God's offer of love and began to hide themselves from Him and each other. This was His initial offer or "gift"; Jesus life is the second offer and that's why I use the word "again". Another word for this is "grace". We did nothing to earn His love or deserve His forgiveness and "atoning" sacrifice; He gave, because He loves.
    I hope that helps!


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