sacrificial lamb

Who, having descended into the underworld, was able to get away with impunity?

Inanna's descent into the nether world

Approximately two thousand years ago, at the beginning of the Christian era, the city of Jerusalem was preparing for the biggest and most ancient Jewish holiday - the Easter holiday. Hundreds of kilometers away, pilgrims came to Jerusalem to spend Easter in the holy city. In all the homes of Jerusalem and throughout the country, people bought a one-year-old lamb or goat, which was to be an important part of the Passover rituals.

Throughout Jerusalem, excited children pestered their parents with questions about the meaning of the Passover holiday, and their parents answered with the words of God himself, which are recorded in the Book of Exodus.

“And when your children say to you, What is this service? Say: this is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed by the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed down and bowed."

When the sun set on the 13th day of the month of Nisan, marking the beginning of the 14th day of the month of Nisan according to the Jewish calendar, lambs and kids were slaughtered and the doorposts were smeared with animal blood. So people revived the ritual that protected the ancient Jews thousands of years ago when God and Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt.

Lambs and kids were immediately skinned, the meat was washed and roasted. At that moment, the excitement of all Jerusalem was at its peak, because thousands of lunatics were eager for the long-awaited supper - the climax of the Passover - at which meat was eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

But on that day, two thousand years ago, the feast of Passover was not an ordinary one. If we believe the authors of the Gospels and the fathers of the first centuries of Christianity, then in Jerusalem there was a meeting of special people under the leadership of a man who decided to sacrifice himself on the day of Easter. Before the day of the 14th month of Nisan had passed, this man, Jesus Christ, was captured and condemned, and a day later he was crucified on the cross. In those hours when Christ died on the cross, he became the man who replaced the sacrificial paschal lamb.

As the apostle Paul, one of the first missionaries of Christianity, later wrote:

"For our Passover, Christ, was slain for us."

Who was this man, Jesus Christ? In the years since his death, countless speculations have been advanced as to his true nature, based on the vague evidence found in the New Testament Gospels. The Church Fathers, however, stood their ground; Jesus Christ was a unique person, a living incarnation of the Holy Spirit and the Son of God. And this dogma was inspired by the Church from the moment of its foundation.

But let us leave aside the question whether Christ was the Son of God or no. Let's see if we know the whole truth about the meaning of the Easter holiday.

According to the official line of the Church, the Jewish Passover was the social event that God and Jesus Christ took advantage of to enhance the significance of Christ's sacrifice made on this very day. This means that in Palestine in the 1st century there was no greater holiday than Easter (although Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, should be considered the most important holiday). At Passover, the eyes of all Israel were riveted on Jerusalem, which made it the best stage for divine drama.

So, according to the official policy of the Church, the day of Easter as a whole was of secondary importance compared to the drama itself, which, of course, was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is for these reasons that the Jewish Passover never became a Christian holiday, remaining a unique Jewish holiday that recalled the salvation of Ancient Israel from the fetters of slavery in "Egypt".

Note that I put the word "Egypt" in quotation marks. The uninitiated believed that the Easter holiday is held in honor of the historical event - the Exodus - which took place in sacred time several thousand years ago, when real person Moses brought the real people, the Jews, out of the real land of Egypt. And in this sense the Exodus is indeed secondary to the death and resurrection of the Son of God.

However, as we saw in the previous chapter, the true meaning of the Exodus was hidden by the Jewish clergy so that their flock would not learn about the promised land in Heaven. For the initiate (as well as part of the kochanim), Easter was actually reminiscent of the Exodus from the underworld, when God saved his people in the mythical beginning of time. The privileged class was fully aware that the Exodus and Pascha recalled the events that took place in the sacred time.

This sheds a completely different light on Christian myths. How will the story of Jesus Christ appear before us, if we consider it in the context of the true meaning of events, if Easter had not a secondary, but rather the most important and fundamental meaning?

Consider again the words of the Apostle Paul, quoted earlier: "For our Passover, Christ, was slain for us." Officially, the "Passover lamb" is considered to be a common metaphor that contains the idea of ​​​​an innocent sacred sacrifice. But what if Paul, who certainly was an initiate in the secret doctrines (see chapter 1), alludes to the lamb of the original Exodus? Not real lambs sacrificed during the historical Exodus from Egypt, but mythical lambs slaughtered in the underworld for the very first deliverance of the Jews. What if Paul meant that Jesus was the lamb that was sacrificed at the beginning of time?

How might this mystery affect our understanding of Christianity, especially in light of other biblical evidence that Christ was the Lamb of God?

In this chapter, we will look at what the lamb motif really meant to the ancient Jews, long before the start of the Christian era. We will also study the references to the lambs of the Exodus and the sacrificed lamb (ram) in the legend of Abraham and Isaac. In addition, we explore the Old Testament traditions, in which the innocent sacrificial lamb is mentioned in a very intriguing context.

However, in order to fully understand the original esoteric meaning of the sacrificial lamb, we must make some effort and restore the ways of thinking of the ancient Jews. We'll start with overview Jewish legends on a theme that is the heart of all the ancient mysteries - on the theme of the underworld.

Legends of the underworld

Thousands of years ago, when the Jewish priests had not yet begun to distort history in the Bible, the Jews followed a pagan belief system. According to ancient tradition, they were literally the sons of God, since they descended from one person - Adam, who was created in the image and likeness of the Lord himself. Most importantly, they believed that this man, Adam, was cast out of Heaven and that this was the true "fall of man." It is for this reason that they called themselves Jews, because the name of their tribe was reminiscent of the passage along the heavenly Jordan River from Heaven to Earth.

According to this pagan tradition, Heaven was Eden, the abode of the gods, but this paradise was thrown into the bowels of the Earth, where it became the Eden of the underworld. It is quite natural that Adam fell into it after being expelled from the heavenly Eden.

A cosmic tree stretched between these two Edens. The connection of Heaven and Earth, in most ancient pagan traditions. The Jews, however, represented it in the form of two trees: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life, which grew in the center of the lower and upper Eden. When man first fell from Heaven, he was naked, sinless and uncivilized (according to the Sumerian tradition), and quite possibly immortal. But his only desire was to return to Heaven.

Adam took the first step towards this return when he ate an apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which made him like God, who knew good and evil, therefore, everything in the world. The second step was to eat the apple from the Tree of Life in order to restore its true, i.e. metaphysical "life" in the Heaven to which it belonged.

All this is fine, but how did the ancient Jews represent the obvious fact that now a person is not in Heaven and not in the underworld, but here, on the surface of the earth, in the flesh? In other words, how did they imagine something that apparently did not happen at all? Apparently, some terrible tragedy happened in the underworld. The man ate the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, but did not take the apple from the Tree of Life. As a result of the acquired knowledge of the gods, a person could no longer remain an obedient slave in the underworld, and therefore was expelled (for the second time) to the world above.

From the Sumerian legend "Inanna's descent into the nether world", however, it follows that no one could leave the underworld without paying. According to a Sumerian poet:

“Who, having descended into the underworld, could get away with impunity?”

So Adam the man paid his price. He gave up his personal immortality and, moreover, had to return to the path of sin - the sin originally committed in Heaven (see chapter 12).

As for the Tree of Life, the Gentile Jews believed that after death their souls would overcome all the obstacles and punishments of the underworld and find this Tree, which would return them to Heaven, from where they, as Jews, once came. Later, the priests proclaimed to ban this belief that God placed "in the east by the garden of Eden the Cherubim and a flaming sword turning to guard the way to the Tree of Life."

This was also the original tradition of the Adamic man. Adam was a "black-headed" (to use a Sumerian metaphor) who descended from Heaven into the underworld. As for Eve, she was his wife in the sense that she was Mother Earth.

In general, it can be said that the original legends of the Gentile Jews - about Adam and Eden - were legends about the Exodus from the underworld.

Otherwise, these legends are meaningless.

Now let us turn to the second great tradition of the Gentile Jews (at least according to biblical chronology), namely, the legend of Abraham and Isaac, where the sacrificial lamb appears and acquires vital importance.

As already explained in the previous chapter, Abraham was the father of the Jews, "those who made the transition", and according to legend, he was born in a cave, i.e. in the underworld. His original name was Ab-rat, which literally meant "The ascended father" or "Father who ascended high," and his second name, Abraham, meant "Father of many." It has been suggested that Abraham, like Adam, was the seed of humanity that fell from Heaven to Earth.

“Abram was ninety-nine years old, and the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him: I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless; and I will establish my covenant between me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face. God continued to speak to him and said; I am my covenant with you: you will be the father of many nations, and you will no longer be called Abram, but your name will be: Abraham, for I will make you the father of many nations; And I will multiply you exceedingly, and I will make nations from you, and kings will come from you.”

Then, in Genesis 17, the details of the covenant established between Abraham and God are described, which required the circumcision of every believing Jew. This ritual, still the most important Jewish tradition, was truly of heavenly significance, as we shall soon see.

First, however, we must consider the famous legend of Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Let's start from the moment when God ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah, which, like Jerusalem, was in the sacred Connection of Heaven and Earth:

"God said, 'Take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac; and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains about which I will tell you.'"

When the father and son approached the place of sacrifice, Isaac asked his father, where is the lamb that they will sacrifice, Abraham, his father, answered vaguely: "God will provide for himself a lamb for a burnt offering." Then Abraham built an altar and lit a fire for the burnt offering of his son. And when he had already raised his hand with a knife to stab his son, an angel of the Lord appeared and ordered him to stop:

“And Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw: and, behold, behind a ram, entangled in the thicket with its horns. Abraham went and took a ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.”

Note that at this point the Bible changes from "lamb" (lamb) to "ram" (ram). Apparently, the adult animal reflects the fact that Isaac was still a boy at that moment. Anyway main feature This legend is that God offered to sacrifice a lamb (ram) instead of Isaac.

Where did the lamb (ram) come from? The Book of Genesis only says that the ram was sent by God or his angel, but we still don't know if this ram fed on Mount Moriah or was sent by God from Heaven.

In the Ethiopian sacred book "Kebra Nagast" a completely categorical statement is made on this subject:

“Isaac obediently said to his father: “Bind me,” and was laid on the altar for a burnt offering. However, he did not die, because he was delivered from death by the appearance of a ram sent from Heaven.

This is a very interesting piece of information. If we step back and consider the legend of Abraham and Isaac as a whole, then from the general course of events it seems that Abraham was a kind of god who was thrown out of Heaven (like Adam), and then in the underworld gave birth to a son, Isaac. Therefore, the race of Isaac represents the first race of people who came out of the darkness of the underworld into the light. real world on the surface of the earth.

Could then the lamb (ram) be a ransom for the exit of Isaac from the underworld?

So, we have considered the two most important legends of the Old Testament about the underworld in their pagan version: the legend of Adam and the legend of Abraham and Isaac. It must be admitted that these are very different legends, which should not be surprising, because Mesopotamian legends about the underworld also have many versions.

But something more is hidden here. In addition to these two legends, pagan Israel believed that Noah was an interplanetary wanderer who brought the seeds of life from Heaven to Earth and planted them, i.e. a vineyard, in the underworld. Then he got drunk and fell asleep in his tent. But on this subject we have nothing special to say, since there is not enough knowledge about the emergence of Noah's seed from the underworld.

Instead, as a third example of legends about the underworld, let us return to the legend of the Exodus or its occult form. According to the faith of the Gentile Jews, their ancestors were a heavenly race of "blackheads" who fell from Heaven to Earth and were imprisoned in the underworld. In one of the legends of the Exodus, the primitive Jews greatly multiplied, but then were enslaved by the Anunnaki race (the equivalent of the Egyptians), who oppressed them mercilessly. However, God heard their complaints and sent his emissary Moses from Heaven to the underworld to save them. It is interesting to note that God also sent a second emissary, Aaron, to meet Moses in the middle of the wilderness of the underworld. Thus, we read in Exodus 4:27 that Aaron met Moses in the mountain of God.

In short, it can be said that Moses and Aaron helped the primitive Jews escape from the underworld and climb the heavenly Mount Sinai, for this they parted the waters of the heavenly sea, or crossed the desert of space, or entered the bowels of the cosmic Mount Sinai of the underworld.

So the most diverse legends were mixed and confused in the biblical Book of Exodus, which we read today.

Most important, however, is the way in which the primitive Jews escaped from slavery.

In the Psalms and the books of the various prophets widely cited in the previous chapter, it is said that God himself saved the Jews: he parted the waters, he came down from Heaven and simply raised up the chosen people from the underworld.

However, the book of Exodus tells a slightly different story. It says that the Jews were able to get out of the underworld in an amazing way - by eating the flesh of the sacrificial lambs.

All this can be read in Exodus, chapter 12, which describes the tenth and last plague of Egypt, which struck all the first-born descendants of animals and people throughout the underworld. However, the angry Yahweh or the angel sent by him prepared everything for leaving the underworld. All Jews were given instructions through Moses how to protect their firstborn. God gave Moses this advice:

“On the tenth day of this [first] month, let each one take one lamb. You must have a lamb without blemish, male, one year old ... and let it be kept with you until the fourteenth day of this month, then let the whole congregation of the Israelite society slaughter it in the evening, and let them take from its blood and anoint it on both the jambs and on the crossbar of the doors in houses…”

According to the plan, Yahweh, seeing the blood of the lambs, must pass by the houses of the Jews and not touch their firstborn. But there was something else:

“Let them take from his blood [the lamb] and anoint on both the doorposts and on the crossbar of the doors in the houses where they eat him, let them eat his meat this very night, baked on fire; with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs ... do not leave him until the morning; but what remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire. Eat it, let your loins be girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staffs in your hands, and eat it with haste: this is the Passover of the Lord.

Why were such detailed instructions necessary and why was it necessary to eat a lamb when the doorposts anointed with its blood seemed to be protection?

Ogwet, in my opinion, is that the primitive Jews should exactly swallow the flesh of the lamb, because the lamb was the key to their resurrection. And this assumption finds confirmation in the later Christian tradition, according to which believers in Jesus Christ can achieve eternal life if they eat his body. Christ, of course, was the Lamb of God.

However, due to inattention, we can miss the most important thing. What was the reason for the Jews to eat lambs? The answer is this: to avoid the death of their firstborn.

One more fact must be added to this. When the Jews crossed the heavenly sea, part of the Egyptians followed them, but were thrown back to Earth. This suggests that the Egyptians also wanted to escape the underworld, despite not participating in the ritual of eating the lamb.

The conclusion is this: the lamb was not of paramount importance in deliverance from the underworld. The lamb acted as a substitutionary sacrifice for the firstborn sons of the Jews. In fact, it was the sacrifice of the firstborn that was of paramount importance. This is the only way to interpret the fact that the Egyptians, albeit for a while, were able to escape from the underworld.

In any case, the Jews could emerge from the underworld only by sacrificing their firstborn. The Lamb takes on special significance because it takes upon itself the death prepared for the firstborn son, but this replacement does not prevent the Jews from ascending to Heaven.

At the end of this part of our research, one important question should be asked: “Where did the sacrificial lambs of the Exodus come from?” Were they frolicking in the expanses of the underworld (which is absolutely impossible, according to ancient ideas)? Or were the lambs specially sent by God from Heaven to replace the Jewish firstborn?

In this case, the Kebra Nagast does not give us any explanation, but in light of the existing parallel between the story of the Exodus and the legend of Abraham and Isaac, which, as we know, was a legend about the underworld, it seems quite reasonable to assume that the firstborn sons of the Jews were replaced by lambs truly sent from Heaven.

The mystery of human sacrifice

Sir James Frazer, in his epic treatise The Golden Bough, asked the question: "Why did the Jews always have to sacrifice the first offspring of their livestock, in remembrance that God had killed the firstborn of the Egyptians?" This question has baffled not only Frazer but also many scientists for centuries. However, few of them suggested that the legend of the Exodus was based on a mythological model - the Exodus that occurred at the beginning of time.

But Frazer repeatedly notes in his book that it was not simply a question of cattle sacrifice, because the Jews often switched to the pagan practice of sacrificing their firstborn. This fact is fully confirmed by biblical traditions. For example, in the Book of Judges of Israel, we read that Jephthah, one of the first judges of Israel, defeated the Ammonites in battle only by sacrificing his only daughter, whom he burned for the glory of Yahweh. Similarly, 2 Kings says that Ahaz, king of Judah, sacrificed his son, as did Manasseh, one of the last kings of Judah. This practice was severely condemned by the prophet Ezekiel, who angrily opposed the sacrifice of firstborn sons and daughters to pagan gods.

However, among the pagans, the practice of sacrificing the firstborn was widespread, therefore, it was not an exception, but the rule. Thus, the Old Testament contains many legends about the burnt offering by pagan peoples of their children as a sacrifice to the gods. The origin of these sacrifices is expressed in the words of Yahweh in the Book of the prophet Isaiah, where he addresses the villains with the words: “Fired with lust for idols under every branchy tree, slaughtering children by streams, between clefts of rocks?” Modern biblical authorities assert without a shadow of a doubt that both Gentiles and Jews actually performed human sacrifices. Moreover, it seems that this practice was spread all over the world, and not just in the Middle East.

But what is the reason for human sacrifice? There are lines in the Old Testament that I am sure will answer this question. First, with respect to the Gentiles, we read in 2 Kings that the king of Moab sacrificed his son to the gods on the ramparts in order to win. Secondly, with regard to the Jews, in the Book of Joshua there is a prophecy that in order for the revival of Jericho, it will be necessary to lay the foundation of it on your firstborn. The 1st Book of Kings describes what happened to Achiel the All-Shila, who sacrificed his eldest and youngest sons for the sake of rebuilding Jericho.

In the early chapters of this book, we have already seen that the ancient peoples of Egypt and Mesopotamia believed that the foundation of the Earth rested on the bodies of the gods (in fact, it was believed that it was laid by Yahweh, the Jewish God), and we noted a certain idiomatic connection between the "city wall and the surface of the earth. This led me to suggest that the previously cited Bible passages reflect the same idea of ​​the sacrifice of a god who fell from Heaven to Earth at the beginning of time and became the foundation of the Earth.

Could it be that the Jews and other pagan peoples repeated in the sacrificial murder of a man the myth of the blown up planet, which we discuss in this book?

This idea is not so crazy. In fact, back in 1949, Mircea Eliade expressed the following concept:

“Sacrifice, for example, does not simply reproduce exactly the original offering of sacrifice by the deity ab origine, at the beginning of time, it is performed at the same mythological first time; in other words, every sacrifice repeats the original sacrifice and coincides with it in time.

If there are still any doubts about Jewish sacrifices, then let's look at the traditions of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). Once a year on this day, the high priest of Israel slaughtered a bull to atone for the sin of all the priests and a goat to atone for the sins of the common people. The sacrifice took place on the altar at the entrance to the tabernacle, and later - at the entrance to the temple.

Only on this day can the high priest enter the holy of holies of the tabernacle or temple. With great care, he had to approach the cover of the Ark of the Covenant (kaporet), wrapping himself in clouds of smoke from incense burning on coals in order to hide the Ark itself from his eyes (violation of these precautions threatened death). The high priest had to sprinkle the capporet with the blood of sacrificial animals with his finger: seven times with the blood of a bull and seven times with the blood of a goat.

Thus, once a year there was a cleansing of the most holy place for all Jews and, consequently, the expiation of all their sins.

Consider the symbolism of this ritual, especially in light of its later celebration in Jerusalem. First of all, we note that the ritual took place in the place of the sacred Connection of Heaven and Earth. Note next that the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy of Holies, represented a microcosm of Mount Sinai, the cosmic mountain, which was its purpose as a mobile substitute for Mount Sinai, which allowed the Jews to communicate with God continuously face to face.

When we view the Ark of the Covenant in this way, the rituals of the Day of Atonement simply overflow with meaning. For example, doesn't the sprinkling of the capporet with the blood of sacrificial animals repeat the sacrifices of creation on top of a fallen cosmic mountain? Doesn't the capportet symbolize the cover for the Word of God (the tablets with the commandments inside the Ark)? Don't the two cherubs on the capporet symbolize the cherub placed in the east of the underworld to guard the forbidden Tree of Life? Isn't the whole ceremony aimed at expiating the original sin of the Jews - the sin that they brought with them from the darkness of the underworld to the upper world?

The answer to all these questions will be one word: “Yes!” Moreover, the Day of Atonement was also called the Day of the Veil. Doesn't the Day of the Veil remind of the hiding in the bowels of the Earth, the fallen cosmic mountain, the fallen people? Does not the Day of Atonement recall the redemption of the firstborn of the Jews from the underworld at the price of a lamb or a ram?

Again, I think the answer to these questions is yes.

It seems to me that Mircea Eliade spoke quite accurately about the significance of this day for the Jews. These ceremonies and sacrifices really repeated the mythical circumstances of the beginning of time.

There is another element that we will analyze in detail in the last chapter - the ancient idea of ​​the "original sin" of man, which the "blackheads" brought from Heaven, which confirms the fall of man to Earth.

With this notion of heavenly sin in mind, let us try to present the Jewish system of belief. Consider, for example, the words of the prophet Micah, who asks:

“Shall I give him my firstborn for my transgression, and the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul?”

The point here is, in my opinion, that a person inherited this sin from a heavenly “man”, who came out of the womb of the heavenly goddess as the firstborn, and then was sacrificed - fell like a seed into the womb of Mother Earth, so that the second generation of people would appear already in the underworld.

It is in this sense that we must interpret the legend of the fallen god Adam, who gave birth to Seth in his own image and likeness, and the legend of Abraham, who gave birth to Isaac, and, perhaps, of the fallen god Noah, who gave birth to three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

This is the same story about the fallen god Osiris and his son Horus, about the fallen god Dumuzi and his son Gilgamesh and many other legends ancient world not mentioned here.

At the very heart of the faith of ancient people lay the belief that life on Earth began with death in Heaven. Thus, the king had to put his firstborn son in the foundation. Moreover, the sacrificed body of the firstborn was supposed to increase the fertility of the Earth and, therefore, give rise to new life(or resurrection) in the womb of Mother Earth.

It seems that the ancient people killed their first-born, imitating the mythical sacrifice of the first "man", because they believed in a taboo forbidding the life of the first-born. Moreover, the sacrifice of the first-born meant an increase in the fertility of women, who were a symbol of Mother Earth, who gave birth to the second generation of "people" .

Despite the faith of the Jews, God still saved them from having to kill their firstborn. This has been confirmed twice. The first time in the legend of Abraham and Isaac, when Isaac escaped death (or resurrected after death, according to some traditions). And the second time in the legend of the Exodus, when all the firstborn of the Jews were saved from death. It should be noted here that these events (in their true form) took place in the underworld and the lamb became a substitute in both cases.

It was for these reasons that the Jews believed that by killing the lamb, they each time saved their firstborn sons from death. This situation is explained in the Book of Exodus as follows:

“And when afterward your son asks you, saying, What is this? then tell him with a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery; for when Pharaoh persisted in letting us go, the Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of man to the firstborn of cattle, - therefore I sacrifice to the Lord everything that opens the bed, male, and I redeem every firstborn of my sons.

But this is only one aspect of the Jewish covenant with God. In addition, there was another law concerning all the men of the land of Israel, and that was circumcision.

What is the origin of ritual circumcision? From the legend of Abraham, we learn that this was the requirement of God himself:

“This is my covenant, which you must keep between me and between you and between your descendants after you: let all the male sex be circumcised among you; circumcise your foreskin: and this will be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Eight days from birth, let every male child born in a house and bought with money from some foreigner who is not of your seed be circumcised among you in your generations. He who is born in your house, and who is bought with your money, shall certainly be circumcised, and My covenant in your body shall be an everlasting covenant.”

But why circumcision? What was the point of this operation? The answer can be found in the description of a very strange case of circumcision in the Book of Exodus. Here it is worth avenging that this circumcision took place when Moses was returning to the underworld ("Egypt"), having received instructions from God in Heaven near the burning bush. And this is what happened:

“On the way to the lodging for the night, it happened that the Lord met him [Moses] and wanted to kill him. Then Zipporah [the wife of Moses], taking a stone knife, cut off the foreskin of her son and, throwing it at his feet, said: You are the bridegroom of blood to me. And the Lord departed from him [Moses]. Then she said: the bridegroom of the blood - by circumcision.

This intriguing passage has never been explained by biblical scholars because they could not agree that Zipporah spoke to the Lord in this way and that she dared to throw her circumcised foreskin at his feet. But most importantly, no one could offer a satisfactory explanation for why the Lord suddenly reacted so hostilely to Moses.

But the answers are found very quickly and simply, assuming that Moses descended from Heaven. And then it becomes clear that the "overnight stay", which was arranged in a place where all visitors were received, is a metaphor for the threshold of the underworld. Consequently, the Lord in this tradition was not Yahweh at all, but the god of the underworld, most likely the fiery god Nergal.

At the next stage of deciphering this legend, we should remember that the gods of the underworld were very fond of taking duties and gifts from aliens. Therefore, Nergal demanded the foreskin as a toll for entering the underworld, hence such a hostile meeting.

Why didn't Moses obey? A possible answer is that he had already descended into the underworld before when he first arrived on Earth in his Ark basket. Consequently, he had already given up his foreskin, and he had nothing to "repay" Nergal with.

This, I am sure, is the meaning of this legend. When Sepphora cut off the foreskin of her son, she gave it to Nergal in exchange for the missing foreskin of her husband, Moses, saying: “Look, this is my bridegroom (husband) by blood, therefore he is worthy to enter the underworld.”

Of course, this is a very strange legend, but we have to agree that all the ancient legends about the underworld seem strange. modern man. However, it is not all that fancy by Mesopotamian standards.

So why did Moses have to sacrifice his foreskin to enter the underworld? The explanation, in my opinion, is that the foreskin was a substitute for the phallus, and the phallus was precisely that part of the body of the fallen god, with which he impregnated the Earth. Readers may recall, for example, the legend of the missing phallus of Osiris, which was allegedly swallowed by a "fish". This "fish" was a metaphor for the Earth, since the phallus of Osiris was, according to all legends, in the underworld. The reason for his being in the underworld was simple, because it was the most powerful symbol of fertility for the male god who fertilized the Earth.

In conclusion, I want to say that in Hebrew circumcision is called the word mui, which means "celestial body" in Sumerian and Akkadian. This leads me to think that there can be no coincidence here and that all - Moses, Abraham, Noah and Adam - were fallen heavenly bodies. Then the custom of circumcision (mui) acquires perfect meaning - it becomes a substitute for complete castration, but at the same time symbolizes the sacrifice of the phallus, which had to be done by the first "man" who fell from Heaven into the bowels of the Earth.

In general, it can be assumed with some certainty that the primitive Jews identified themselves to a large extent with the race of people who descended from Heaven. So, they were created in the image and likeness of God (through Adam), so they were Ibri (Jews) who passed from Heaven to Earth. Circumcision was a sure sign of their heavenly origin, and for most, it was a sign that they were worthy of the afterlife in Heaven, where they came from. Later, however, the priests threw out all allusions to this symbolism from the Bible.

The Jews shared their faith in the heavenly origin with many peoples of the Ancient World, but the Jews were distinguished by a special attitude towards their emergence from the underworld. It is here that we find the origins of their belief in belonging to the chosen people.

It is clear from the legend of Abraham and Isaac that the Jews were allowed, under the divine guidance of Yahweh, to emerge from the underworld without paying the usual price. Instead of killing the firstborn, they were allowed to sacrifice lambs.

This special attitude is also confirmed in the Book of Exodus, both in its original and occult versions. God saved the Jews from the iron furnace and saved them again by allowing them to be sacrificed to the lamb along with the children.

It seems to me that the lamb is the key to understanding Judaism. But more than that, it is also the key to understanding Christianity.

Jesus Christ - Lamb of God

There is a famous passage in the Gospel of John in which John the Baptist addresses Jesus Christ thus: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” In addition, Revelation repeatedly says that the Son of God was the Lamb. We also noted at the beginning of this chapter that the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, has an eloquent statement that Jesus was the lamb that is slaughtered at Passover.

How: to understand the role of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God in the context of, first, the traditions of the lambs that were sacrificed to save the firstborn; secondly, the legend of a ram sent from Heaven to be sacrificed in place of Abraham's firstborn son Isaac?

Until now, the Exodus was seen as a historical event, the sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah was also seen as a historical event, like the sacrifice of Jesus Christ two thousand years ago.

But now we have seen that in two of those three cases, the events were not really historical. On the contrary, the sacrifice of these lambs took place not in mundane (physical) time, but in sacred time. These sacrifices were made at the beginning of time.

What then does the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, mean? In the following pages, we are going to look at some intriguing Old Testament legends that I think are relevant to our subject because they describe the sacrifice and crucifixion of Christ, many years before the actual crucifixion that took place in Jerusalem. These amazing parallels between the Old and New Testaments have not gone unnoticed, but the Church has always maintained that these descriptions of the suffering Messiah are prophecies of the future coming of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament.

The time has come, I think, to take a fresh look at this evidence.

The Secret of Psalm 21

We'll start with Jesus' dying words as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark:

“My God, My God! why did you leave me?"

There is no doubt that Jesus repeated the first line of Psalm 21 from the Old Testament. But why did Jesus quote this particular psalm at such a moment?

When we turn to this psalm, we will find these words spoken by the one who calls himself a "worm" and not a "man":

“I am a worm, not a man, a reproach among people and contempt among the people. All who see me swear at me, speak with their lips, nodding their heads: “He trusted in the Lord; let him deliver him, let him save him, if he pleases him.”

The theme of the “worm” is very interesting and can be found throughout the Bible in the context of the underworld (in my opinion), perhaps in this case we have the same context, because the psalm paints a vivid picture of the crowd of people condemning and vilifying the “worm” and calling on Yahweh to come down to earth and save him. Could this "worm" be locked up in the darkness and filth of the underworld?

Lines 12-15 explain how the "worm" would be thrown into the dust of death, i.e. the underworld:

“Do not depart from me, for sorrow is near, but there is no helper. Many calves surrounded me; fat Bashans surrounded me, opened their mouths to me, like a lion, hungry for prey and roaring. I spilled like water; all my bones crumbled; my heart has become like wax; it has melted in the midst of my inward parts. My strength dried up like a shard; my tongue clung to my throat, and you brought me down to the dust of death [underworld].”

But then in lines 16-18 we find some truly outstanding information. “Man” as a “worm” turns out to be “pierced” - apparently, crucified before the evil crowd of the underworld:

“For the dogs surrounded me, the crowd of the wicked surrounded me, they pierced my hands and my feet. All my bones could be counted; and they look and make a spectacle out of me; they divide my garments among themselves, and they cast lots for my clothes.”

This is an amazing passage. As noted above, based on the similarity of events, the Church claims that this is a prophecy about the future of Jesus Christ. Note that the clothes of the “worm” are also played by casting lots, and we can compare with the description of the execution of Christ from the Gospel of Matthew:

“They [the Roman soldiers] crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots.”

But was this a fulfilled prophecy? After all, two thousand years ago, Jesus was not crucified in the underworld, as it should have happened if the prophecy of Psalm 21 had come true.

But further - more. Consider the large passage cited above: “Do not depart from me…” It is very reminiscent of the Mesopotamian descriptions of the celestial battle, in which the innocent celestial god was surrounded and attacked on all sides by enemies in the form of divine bulls. A classic example is the legend of the Mesopotamian god Dumuzi, who was originally a sky god but was then turned into a wild animal by his enemies:

The buffalo was thrown by your husband on the mountains!
Buffalo in the mountains with burning eyes!
Buffalo in the mountains grinding their teeth!

Could this heavenly buffalo be the equivalent of the bulls in Psalm 21?

Note also that the body of the innocent victim of Psalm 21 was shed like water. This is very reminiscent of the ancient legends about the heroes of the Flood who descended from heaven, sometimes in the form of a heavenly river.

And finally, we note that the bones of the victim crumbled. And again we have a clear parallel with the dismemberment of the Egyptian god Osiris. It is not hard to believe that this is a prophecy about Jesus, who, according to the New Testament, was not dismembered.

In general, Psalm 21 could not describe the death of Jesus Christ, or at least we do not find a complete match with the gospel traditions. On the contrary, it seems that the psalm describes the death of a heavenly god, who was attacked in Heaven, thrown into the underworld, and then an evil mob tore him to pieces.

However, the words from this psalm are put into the mouth of the dying Jesus! One has to wonder if the words of Jesus deliberately directed us to Psalm 22, either by the Gospel writers or by a popular tradition in the first century?

Moreover, one cannot help but think: was it not the phrase “My God, My God! why did you leave me?" a well-known esoteric saying among the initiates of the mystery schools two thousand years ago - those who knew of the celestial origin of mankind?

The suffering of the Servant of God

Now consider a parallel tradition also found in Psalm 21: the legend of the Servant of God from Isaiah chapters 52-53. This passage in the Bible is one of the most mysterious, but is often cited by the Church as strong evidence of the prophetic nature of the Old Testament. Let us now consider whether this is actually the case.

Let's start at the end of chapter 52 of Isaiah, and then look at brief passages from the Book of Isaiah, ch. 53, providing them with appropriate comments. Our efforts will pay off handsomely.

The legend of the Servant of God begins in Isaiah 52:12 where God says the following:

“Behold, My servant will be prosperous, exalted and exalted, and exalted. How many were amazed, looking at You - so much more disfigured was His face than any man, and His appearance - more than the sons of men! So many nations [He will sprinkle (with sacrificial blood)]; kings will shut their mouths before Him, for they will see what was not spoken to them, and they will know what they have not heard.”

According to the Church, this slave is the future destiny of Jesus Christ. But how could this slave be disfigured “more than the sons of men,” that is, become unlike them? Perhaps this is an esoteric allusion to the original "man" who was thrown from Heaven to Earth?

“For He [the servant of God] has ascended before Him [the Lord] as a seedling and as a sprout out of dry ground; there is neither form nor majesty in Him; and we saw Him, and there was no form in Him that would draw us to Him. He was despised and humbled before men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with sickness, and we turned our faces away from him; He was despised, and we valued Him nothing."

In this passage we find the same theme as in Psalm 22: the innocent "man" was despised. We also note the description of the Servant of God as a sprout, as if he was planted on the earth by the Lord (like Israel or Joseph). In Kebra Nagast, this theme is more developed: “He was a humble and rejected person. Like a sprout, he hid in the dry soil. He incarnated as a child of the Earth, although he was the support and savior of the universe. Note that here it is said that the Servant of God hid like a sprout. It is hard not to notice the parallel with the archetypal seed of humanity - Adam, Noah, Abraham - which was cast down from Heaven into the underworld of the Earth.

The text says:

“But He [the servant of God] took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our sicknesses; but we thought that He was smitten, punished, and humiliated by God. But He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities; the punishment of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we were healed. We all wandered like sheep, each one turned to his own way: and the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all.

Note here that the Servant of God was wounded and ulcerated. And again these words remind of celestial body. We also note the mention of the sins of mankind and the assertion that healing occurs only after the sacrifice of the Servant of God. In the next chapter we will see how original sin was committed by a heavenly "man."

“He [the servant of God] was tortured, but he suffered voluntarily and did not open his mouth; He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearers, silent, so He did not open His mouth. From bondage and judgment He was taken; but who will explain his generation? for he is cut off from the land of the living; for the crimes of the people, Moeha was put to death. He was assigned a tomb with villains, but He was buried with a rich man, because He did not sin and there was no lie in His mouth.

Notice how the innocence of the Servant of God is contrasted with sinful humanity, a central theme in the traditions of Jesus Christ. Note also the mention of the dumb lamb, a theme also found in the account of the arrest of Christ by the Roman soldiers. However, it should be recognized that the Servant of God of the Old Testament is cut off from the land of the living, which in this context represents Heaven, from where the Servant of God is thrown into the underworld - the land of the dead - where he is surrounded by an evil crowd, as Psalm 21 says.

“But the Lord was pleased to strike him, and he gave him over to torment; when His soul will offer a sacrifice of propitiation, He will see a long-lived offspring, and the will of the Lord will be successfully carried out by His hand. He will look with contentment at the feat of His soul; through the knowledge of Him, He, the Righteous, My Servant, will justify many and bear their sins on Himself.

The meaning of this passage is rather vague. The servant of God suffers and at the same time looks at the offspring. This idea fits well with the theme of the seed of humanity, which entered the underworld and then was reborn in the world above (compare with the legend of Abraham).

The text about the Servant of God ends with the words of God himself, who addresses his servant:

“Therefore, I [the Lord] will give Him [the Servant of God] a share among the great, and with the strong He will share the booty, because He gave His soul to death [the world of death], and was numbered among the wicked, while He bore the sin many and for criminals became an intercessor.

And again we find mention of the land of the dead, that is, the underworld. As for intercession for criminals, this is reminiscent of how Abraham asked God for the sinful inhabitants of the damned cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. The most important line refers to God's promise of future greatness, which echoes the earlier words of Isaiah 52:13-15 about the Servant of God who "will be exalted, and exalted, and exalted." It seems that the Lord is going to raise up his Servant at the end of time.

What do all these cryptic lines mean? It is clear that there is a clear similarity between the torments of the Servant of God and Jesus Christ. For example, it is said about the Servant of God that he was “taken from judgment and bonds” to take him to the slaughter, he will bear the sins of many and will be tormented for our sins. The same is said about Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who was also arrested and tried, who took upon himself the sins of the world through his suffering and gave his life for all.

This similarity can go on and on. Consider, for example, the statement that the Servant of God "did not open his mouth", but was mute, like "a lamb before his shearers." According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus Christ behaved like this before the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate:

“And when the chief priests and the elders accused him. He didn't answer. Then Pilate said to him: Do you not hear how much they testify against you? And he did not answer him a single word, so that the ruler was very surprised.

We should also marvel at this, the Church says, because these facts represent the supernatural accuracy of Isaiah's prophecies. These are the statements of the Church: the prophecies of the Old Testament were inspired by God, since it was God who directed the great plan that culminated in the death of His Son, Jesus Christ, two thousand years ago.

But was it so? It should be said that in the fulfillment of some of the prophecies of the Old Testament, to a greater extent, what was desired was presented as real, especially in the interpretation of the authors of the Gospels. Matthew was particularly free with these prophecies. The most striking example comes from Matthew 2:15, which says that Jesus returned to Israel from Egypt, where he was hiding from Herod. Matthew then declares the fulfillment of the prophecy "Out of Egypt I called my Son." This is clearly a reference to the Old Testament prophet Hosea, who quoted precisely these words of the Lord. However, reading this passage from the Book of Hosea, it becomes quite clear that these words refer to the Lord's call of his son to Israel from Egypt at the time of the Exodus. In other words, this passage describes the past, not the future.

This seems to present a general problem which is especially closely connected with the prophecies about the future of Christ. It seems to me that such texts as Psalm 21 (on the crucifixion in the underworld) and Isaiah, ch. 52-53 (on the suffering of the Servant of God in the underworld) were not prophetic, but mythological-historical. They describe the torment of a "man" thrown from Heaven into the underworld at the very beginning of time.

But what if that “man” was Jesus Christ? What if we can prove that Jesus Christ was cast from Heaven and then crucified in the underworld at the beginning of time? How will this relate to the story of Jesus Christ that we know?

First Christ

In the Gospel of John, Jesus made a very strange statement that outraged the crowds of his listeners. These words, which were considered blasphemous, were:

"Before Abraham was, I am."

What did Jesus mean to say? His statement is explained in the passage in the Gospel of John where Jesus prays to God with the words:

“And now, Father, glorify me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with You before the world was.”

The same idea is proclaimed at the very beginning of the Gospel of John, where Jesus Christ is called the Word, which was with the Father, but became flesh - a man who lived among people. The Gospel of John says that Jesus Christ, the Word, has been with God since the beginning of time:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the beginning with God."

The concept of an original personalized Word is not at all new, but reflects the Old Testament figure known as Wisdom. Wisdom also existed from the beginning of time, as it becomes clear from the Proverbs of Solomon, where Wisdom personified speaks of her origin in the following way:

“The Lord had me [Wisdom] as the beginning of His way, before His creatures, from the beginning; I have been anointed from time immemorial, from the beginning, before the existence of the earth. I was born when the abyss did not yet exist. I was born when He had not yet created either the earth, or the fields, or the initial dust particles of the Universe. When He prepared heaven, I was there. When He drew a circle across the face of the abyss, when He laid the foundations of the earth.

So strong was the idea of ​​the eternal existence of Christ, Wisdom, together with God from the beginning of time, that the ancient authors often assumed that God had Christ in mind when he said his famous words: "Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness."

But what if the first Christ, whom we can call the Son of the Beginning, was not an outside observer of creation? Rather, he was the hand of God, by which creation was carried out. This idea is expressed by the apostle Paul in Hebrews: last days these spoke to us of the Son, whom he appointed heir of all, through whom [the worlds (i.e., Heaven and Earth)] he created.

And in Colossians we read:

“[Christ], who is the image of the invisible God, born before every creature; for by Him [Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible: whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him; and He exists first of all, and everything costs by Him.

This statement about Christ, the Word, is made in the Gospel of John:

“All things came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that came into being.”

Who was the first alter ego of Jesus Christ? Christians believe that he was a purely spiritual being who assisted the supernatural God during creation, but remained aloof until the 1st century, when the Spirit incarnated in the body of the human Jesus.

However, in the context of the pagan tradition, the physical creation of the Earth was carried out by the planetary God on the physical plane, so the idea of ​​a purely spiritual essence of Christ is very controversial. If we follow the pagan tradition, then the first Christ could take on a spiritual form only after the resurrection following physical death. This is a pagan pattern, as explained in the Egyptian Book of the Dead:

"The body of Osiris entered the mountain [Earth], but his soul came out shining ... he rose after death, his gleaming body and his face became white with heat."

Let's consider this possibility: the first Christ was a god on the physical plane who came down from Heaven in catastrophic circumstances and helped God, also on the physical plane, to lay the foundation of the earth.

What happened next? According to the rules of ankyography, the god who descended must go to the underworld.

Now, finally, the light has illuminated the realm of darkness! First, we should remember that Jesus Christ was the Lamb of God. Secondly, we should remember that God sent a lamb to the underworld to replace Isaac on the sacrificial stone. Third, we need to remember that it was this God who sent the lambs into the underworld during the Exodus to replace the firstborn of the Jews. I am sure that these replacements happened at the beginning of time.

This brings us to a very interesting and really startling hypothesis. Could the first Christ be the lamb (or ram) who replaced Isaac and then replaced the firstborn sons of Israel?

The assumption is not so strange. Consider, for example, the strange statement attributed to Christ in the Gospel of John:

“Abraham your father was glad to see my day; and saw and rejoiced."

What? How could Abraham see Jesus?

On this I build my hypothesis. What if Abraham saw the first Christ? What if none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of the Beginning, appeared before Abraham in grief in the role of a lamb to replace Isaac?

Note that I wrote "in grief". According to my interpretation of the legend of Abraham and Isaac, the attempted sacrifice of Isaac took place in the underworld and was a prelude to the exit of people from there. Consequently, the lamb (or ram) as a substitutionary sacrifice was sent by God to the underworld or Yura Earth.

It should be noted here that Abraham commemorated this event by naming the place YHWH-jireb, meaning "Yahweh is watching." This name is explained by the biblical authors as follows:

“And Abraham called the name of that place: Jehovah-jereh. For this reason even now it is said: Jehovah will be seen on the mountain.”

However, this name has a double meaning. On the one hand, it is clear that Yahweh saw that Abraham was about to sacrifice his own son and intervened. On the other hand, apparently, the biblical authors wrote down an archaic saying with a completely different, additional meaning, which sounded like this: “In the grief of the Lord he was provided.” Who is he? I think ram because the mountain of the Lord is the earth. In other words, the ram was placed in the earth as a replacement for Isaac, who was allowed to come out of the bowels of the earth. Could this "ram in the woe" be the equivalent of the first Christ?

All of this seems a little farfetched, if one does not take into account the fact that the same arguments can be made when considering the Exodus. However, Jesus Christ made a cryptic statement about both Abraham and Moses. In the Gospel of John you can read such words of his addressed to the Jews.

“For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed Me also, because he [Moses] wrote about Me.”

Did Moses write a prophecy about Jesus Christ? We don't know any.

How then to explain these strange words of Jesus? I think the reference to Moses in Scripture alludes to a mythical time at the beginning of creation. That is why Isaiah refers to the days of Moses as the days of eternity. Therefore, Jesus must have identified himself with one of the characters in the legends about Moses - perhaps an angel of the Lord, or a pillar of smoke and fire, even Moses himself, or a lamb that replaced the firstborn of the Jews on the sacrificial altar.

If all this seems too strange, consider an excerpt from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which describes the role of Jesus Christ during the Exodus:

“I do not want to leave you, brethren, in ignorance that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink: for they drank from the spiritual subsequent stone; the stone was Christ.

No matter how we interpret the meaning of “stone”, Paul refers to Jesus Christ as a contemporary of Moses at the time of the Exodus, but not of the historical Exodus that occurred in mundane time, but of the original Exodus that happened in sacred time.

Was this just another one of Paul's little secrets?

And again we return to the topic of the lamb Could Moses write about Jesus as the lamb who replaced the firstborn sons and saved the Jews from the torment of the underworld?

There is definitely a connection here, as the first Jews ascended to Heaven with bellies full of the flesh of the sacrificial lamb, so in the 1st century Jesus encouraged his apostles to eat their own flesh in order to achieve eternal life.

So, a pattern begins to emerge. Among other things, didn’t Jesus say the following to the apostles:

“For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

It is the redemption that we assume in our hypothesis about the entry of Jesus the Lamb into the underworld in order to redeem the first Jews from there (we recall that the bones of the lamb remained there). And in a similar way, our hypothesis about Jesus the Lamb or Jesus the Ram, who also entered the underworld to redeem the first "man", Isaac - the firstborn of mankind, is confirmed.

Further support for this hypothesis can be found in the Gospel of John, where Jesus tells his disciples:

“If the world hates you, know that it hated me before you. But let the word that is written in their law be fulfilled: They hated me in vain.”

Here Jesus claims to be the first to be hated, not in the mundane sense that he was the first Christian and therefore hated, but rather in the general sense of the fundamental archetype of the hated person. It is a reminder of the first Jesus who existed millions of years before the first century Jesus the man.

But who hated the first Jesus, and why? He was hated by the evil crowd of the underworld for the sole reason that these creatures were evil in nature, while he was kind.

The theme of underworld hatred can be found in various places in the Old Testament. For example, when Jesus says that he was hated for no reason, he is referring to Psalm 69, in which King David imagines himself suffering in the underworld (hell) at the hands of powerful enemies:

“Save me, O God, for the waters have come to my soul. I am mired in a deep swamp, and there is nothing to stand on; I entered the depths of the waters, and their rapid current carries me away. I was exhausted from the cry, my larynx dried up, my eyes were weary from the expectation of my God. Those who hate me without guilt are more than the hairs on my head; my brothers, who persecute me unjustly, have become stronger; what I have not taken away, I must give back.”

The same theme resounds in David's song of praise, in which he again laments his hard lot in hell:

“The waves of death have seized me, and the floods of iniquity have terrified me; the chains of hell were around me, and the nets of death [in the English version of the Bible - "the nets of the underworld" (in A Alford - the underworld - Note transl.)] entangled me. But in my distress I called on the Lord. He stretched out His hand from on high and took me, and drew me out of many waters; delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, who were stronger than me. They rose up against me in the day of my distress; but the Lord was my strength.”

Isn't this the same theme of hatred of the underworld from the legends about the first Jews who languished in the slavery of the underworld? In Ezekiel, God says about Israel:

“You were thrown out on the field, in contempt for your life, on your birthday. And I [God] passed by you, and I saw you, thrown to the floor in your blood, and said to you: “live in your blood!” So, I told you: "live in your blood!" He multiplied you like the plants of the field; you grew up and became big, and reached excellent beauty: your breasts rose, and your hair grew; but you were naked and uncovered.”

As emphasized earlier, Israel was born long ago, at the beginning of time, and was indeed despised from birth by the mythical "Egyptians" of the underworld who enslaved and tortured the Jews. So the point of the original Exodus story was that God rescued the first Jews from their imprisonment in the underworld. As the prophet Habakkuk writes, the underworld is "the land of the wicked":

“In anger you [God] walk through the earth [underworld], and in indignation you trample down the nations. You come forward for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed one. You crush the head of the wicked house, stripping it from base to top. You pierce with spears his head of his rains ... "

This was exactly the kind of hatred that Jesus spoke of to his disciples: “If the world hates you, know that it hated me first.” He refers to the hatred of the evil beings of the underworld, which Jesus the man knew when, as the first Christ, he descended into the underworld and suffered there.

Let us return briefly to the very important texts of the Old Testament - the Book of Isaiah, chapters 52-53 and Psalm 21 - which describe the fate of a man thrown from Heaven and caught by the underworld. The name "Jesus", of course, is not mentioned, and we do not expect this, but the suffering of the being seems to us exactly the same as that of the first Christ.

Consider again the fate of the Servant of God from the Book of Isaiah, ch. 52-53. Here we see a “man” “cut off from the land of the living” (Heaven), he was “assigned a coffin with villains”, and “he will be ulcerated for the sins” of mankind. Most importantly, the Servant of God "was so disfigured more than any man's face, and His appearance - more than the sons of men!" Presumably because he fell from Heaven. And because of his appearance, he was rejected and despised by people.

Now let's read again the description of the Servant of God from the Kebra Nagast: “Like a sprout, he hid in dry soil. He incarnated as a child of the Earth, although he was the support and savior of the universe.

These words bring to mind something familiar.

Now consider again the text of Psalm 21, which describes "a worm, and not a man - a reproach among people and contempt among the nations." He, apparently, was also thrown from Heaven and attacked by "fat calves." He spilled like water, and his bones crumbled. Then this worm-man was thrown into "the dust of death", surrounded by an evil crowd, and was, apparently, crucified:

“You have reduced me to the dust of death. For the dogs surrounded me, the crowd of the wicked surrounded me, they pierced my hands and my feet. All my bones could be counted; and they look and make a spectacle out of me; they divide my garments among themselves, and they cast lots for my clothes.”

As paradoxical as it sounds, we have a legend about Christ - not about the Christ of Palestine in the 1st century, but about his mythical "alter ego" millions of millions of years ago.

Weird? Marvelous? Not at all. We conclude this chapter with a brief excerpt from the Sumerian legend already discussed in chapter 5. This is the legend "Inanna's Descent into the Lower World," which describes how Inanna, the great goddess, left Heaven, left the Earth, and descended into the lower world. In the depths of the Mountain of no return, she had to go through seven gates, at each of them she was forced to leave a piece of clothing or jewelry. Finally, Inanna found herself naked in the throne room of Ereshkigal and Nergal, the great gods of the underworld. Then the following happened:

The seven Anunnaki judges judge before her.
She looked at Inanna - the look of her death!
She uttered the words - in the words of her anger!
A cry came out - a damn cry!
She turned the one that entered into a corpse.
The body was hung on a hook.

Such was the essence of the ancient underworld. It was a very bad place.

Therefore, we should not doubt our conclusions about the true meaning of the biblical texts. Jesus Christ had an original "alter ego" who was tortured and impaled in the underworld. He offered himself as a sacrifice in exchange for the firstborn sons of a mythical people who fell from Heaven right into the center of the Earth.

Photo 22. According to the biblical tradition about Adam and Eve, God created Adam from clay, and Eve from Adam's rib. However, after comparison with early Mesopotamian texts, it becomes clear that this is an outright lie.

Photo 23. This Sumerian tablet describes how Enki and Ninhursag created "man" from "the clay that is above Apsu." The legend also confirms that the new creature was created in the image and likeness of the gods. Could this legend be the source of the Bible?

Photo 24. The legend about Ulyaigarr and Zalgarr describes the creation of a "man" from the "blood" of the gods. In the column on the left, there are undeciphered characters that are believed to be some kind of secret script. The deciphered part of the text ends with the mysterious words: "Let the wise teach the mysteries of the wise."

Photo 23. This tablet (2nd millennium BC) records Enlil's decision to destroy humanity with the help of the Flood. But the hero of this legend, Atrahasis, managed to build a ship and save the seed of humanity and all living beings, like the biblical Noah.

Photo 26 similar story about the hero of the Flood named Utnapishti, but it also contains the "mystery of the gods", which allows you to decipher the secret meaning of the legends of the Great Flood.

Photo 27. This life-size ship, buried near the Great Pyramid of Giza, was ready to take the deceased Egyptian king to the land of the gods across the heavenly ocean. Such barges primarily had a heavenly purpose. Swimming on them down the Nile at repeated the first time when the gods sailed from Heaven to Earth through the so-called Winding Canal.

Photo 28. This figurine, known as the "Aries in the thicket" was buried in a large burial ground of Ur. This image is reminiscent of the ram that God sent to Abraham to sacrifice in exchange for the firstborn Isaac. Note the feathers that confirm the fact that oh yong was very unusual.

Photo 29. The Sumerian King List lists the names of eight god-like kings who ruled for thousands of years before the Great Flood. The Bible has a similar list of ten antediluvian patriarchs who lived incredibly long lives.

Photo 30 (upper left), “My virgin mother conceived me… she put me in a basket, sealed the lid with bitumen and put me in the waters of the river.” The legend about the birth of Sargon (ca. 7th century BC) recorded on this tablet is surprisingly similar to the biblical tradition of Moses.

Photo 31 (top right). The Babylonian Creation Myth (Plate IV) describes how Marduk created the metaphysical Heaven (Esharra) in the image and likeness of the physical Heaven (Apsu), which had previously been cast into the underworld.

Photo 32. In this fragment of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, it is described how the hero goes in search of Heaven, which he calls "the land of life."

Photo 33. Ziggurat In Babylon, like all ancient ziggurats, it was a "space mountain" - a constant connection between Heaven, Earth and the underworld.

Photo 34. The temple complex in Karnak (Egypt) also includes the “Palace of millions of years”, symbolizing the connection that existed between Heaven and Earth at the beginning of time. Note also the gigantic obelisk that carries the seed of the creator god to the Heavens whence it came..

Photo 35. The pyramids of Giza were "cosmic mountains" like Heaven and Earth. They sent the Egyptian kings back to the beginning of time, where they could rebuild the destroyed Mount of Heaven.

Photo 36. Farming in the afterlife - a scene from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The existence of these Reed Fields in the sky is clear evidence of the ancient belief in the existence of a Heaven similar to Earth.

Photo 37. The Great Sphinx of Giza looks at a distant mountain located in the Boston part of the sky, where in the land of the ancestors, it is believed that the double of the deceased king lives.

Photo 38. Parthenon of Athens 6 Acropolis (5th century BC). The Greeks also immortalized the first time in their temples. As in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the roof symbolized Heaven, the foundation - the Earth, and the columns - those connecting threads along which life passes from one place to another.

Photo 39. The Roman temple of Bacchus in Baalbek (II B.C.) is considered the largest pagan temple built before Christianity became the official religion of Rome.

Photo 40. Crucifixion of Christ, Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. An ancient tradition speaks of the simple and human way of Christ, but hides an esoteric meaning accessible only to a few initiated into the ancient mysteries.

Photo 41. The largest meteorite in the world, weighing 60 tons and exhibited in the courtyard in Hoba, Namibia. Could meteorites like this be the key to understanding ancient and modern religions?

Bible encyclopedia archim. Nicephorus on the Old Testament sacrifices

Jewish sacrifices .

From time immemorial, we find the custom of offering sacrifices to the rulers of almost all the then known peoples. Even in the primitive times of the human race, we see from the Holy. The scriptures that the sons of our first parents offer sacrifices (minhag) to God: Cain from the fruits of the land that he cultivated, and Abel from the fat of the firstborn of the flocks that he bred (Genesis 4:3). Patr. After the flood, in gratitude to God for his salvation, Noah offered a burnt offering of every clean livestock and every clean bird (Genesis 8:20).

In the same way, the patriarchs built altars at the places of Theophany to offer sacrifices and call on the name of God (Gen. 12:7, 13:4, 26:25, etc.). Until the time of Moses, the motive and main thought of the victim was not so much a feeling of guilt or sin, which removes a person from God, but an attraction of love and gratitude to God for the benefits received from Him. The first time we encounter the sinful meaning of the sacrifice is when Job offers burnt offerings for his children (Job 1:5) and for his three friends (42:8). We find the same meaning of sacrifice in the words of Moses to Pharaoh about the sacrifices in the wilderness (Ex. 10:25). In general, the Old Testament sacrifices served as a great prototype of the highest sacrifice that the Son of God once had to offer on earth for the sins of people. The law determined not only the material for the victims and their treatment, but also various genera and the kinds of sacrifices for the different attitudes of the Israelites. The material for the sacrifices was partly animals, partly the product of the vegetable kingdom. The sacrificial animals of both sexes were: cattle (ox, ox, calf) and small livestock (goats and sheep), and among the sheep the lamb or ram is especially clearly indicated (Numbers 15:5, 6, 28:11). Then - birds, namely turtledoves and young pigeons (Lev. 1:14). Regarding the qualities of sacrificial animals, the following was required: a certain age (Lev. 22:27-29) - from small cattle it should be one year old (Ex. 12:5), and from large cattle three years old; and in particular, bodily purity was required: they had to be without any flaws and could not be sacrificial animals, blind, mutilated, with broken limbs, castrated, etc. (Lev. 22:20-24). Sacrifices to God from vegetable products consisted of bread, meat, incense, salt and wine. The first was sacrificed with ears of corn (Lev. 2:14), dried on fire and crushed, and wheat flour (Lev. 2:1), with oil poured on it and incense laid, and unleavened bread (Lev. 2:2, etc. .) and wheat flour prepared in a pot of oil (Lev. 2:7). Each bread offering had to be sprinkled with salt (Lev. 2:13, Mark 9:49) and could not be sour: sour dough and honey were not to ignite in the fire of Jehovah (Lev. 2:11). Finally, wine was used for libation offerings, in all likelihood a dark red color. With a sacrificial animal intended for slaughter, they usually acted in this way: they brought it before the door of the sanctuary, i.e. to the altar in front of the Tabernacle, or temple (Lev. 1:3, 4:4), and the sacrificer put his hand on the head of the animal and slaughtered it on the north side of the altar (Lev. 1:4-11, 3:2-8 and others); then the priest collected the blood in a vessel and sprinkled it sometimes on the sides of the altar, sometimes on its horns, sometimes on the horns of the incense altar, etc., while the rest of the blood was poured out at the foot of the altar during all the burning (Ex. 29:12, Lev. 4:7, 18). Then the sacrificer flayed the skin from the animal and cut the sacrifice into pieces (Lev. 1:6, 8:20); the cut parts the priest laid on the altar and burned either all or only the fat (fat parts). In the latter case, the rest of the meat was sometimes burned outside the camp, sometimes eaten by the priests, and partly by the bearer. When sacrificing doves, the priest himself rolled their heads and strained the blood onto the wall of the altar, then separated the goiter with uncleanness and threw it into an ashen heap near the altar, broke the bird in its wings, without separating them, and finally burned it on the altar (Lev. 1:15ff.). With plants, if they were offered as a burnt offering, they did this: the priest took part of the brought flour with oil, part of the ears and cakes and burned it on the altar with incense. The rest went to the priests, but had to be eaten not sour, in the courtyard of the Tabernacle (Lev. 2:2, 3:16, 6:6,11). All the flour was burned with oil only if: the one offering the sacrifice was himself a priest. If the vegetable gift belonged to peace or thanksgiving sacrifices and consisted of unleavened bread, etc., then only one cake from the whole offering was offered as an offering to Jehovah and passed to the priest who sprinkled the blood (Lev. 7:11), while the rest was destroyed in holiday time bearers.

Of the sacrifices brought to God by the Jews, we note the following:

burnt offering (Gen. 7:20, 22:2, Ex. 29:42, etc.). It was the most common and universal sacrifice among the Jews. It is mentioned for the first time in St. Scripture at the sacrifice of Noah, after leaving the ark (Gen. 8:20). It consisted in burning the entire sacrificial animal with all its parts, with the exception of the skin. The details of the sacrifice, as well as concerning the animals and their qualities, are indicated above. It meant by itself that the one offering this sacrifice sacrifices everything, all of himself, both his soul and his body, and was the primary type of the sacrifice of Christ. So the Messiah had once to offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of people for their salvation (Heb. 2:9-14, etc.).

Victim of sin . Belonging to the category of propitiatory sacrifices, both of these sacrifices were closely connected with each other, although they constituted two separate types of sacrifices. The sin offering was different according to the difference of the person for which it was offered, and according to the degree of sinfulness that had to be cleansed. For example, it was prescribed for the victim Taurus- at the consecration of priests and Levites (Ex. 29:10, Numbers 8:7-12), for the high priest on the great day of Atonement (Lev. 16:36, 14:18-19), when the high priest sinned to tempt the people (Lev. 4:3-12), or when the whole community sinned (Lev. 4:13,21); goat- on new moons and annual holidays for the sins of the people (Num. 28:22, 30), at the consecration of the Tabernacle and the temple (Num. 7:16-22, 1 Ezra 6:17); goat or lamb- for the sins of any of the people, for sinning by mistake (Lev. 4:27-32); one-year-old lamb and one-year-old sheep - at the resolution of the vow of the Nazirites (Num. 6:14, 16, 19) and at the cleansing of a leper (Lev. 14:10-19); dove or young pigeon - when cleansing a woman in childbirth (Lev. 12:6), a wife who suffered from bleeding for a long time (Lev. 15:29, etc.), and in exchange for a lamb for the poor with ordinary sins (Lev. 5:7); Wheat flour- a tenth of an ephah without oil and frankincense, with ordinary sin, for a completely poor person who could not even sacrifice a dove.

As for the offering of the sacrifice itself, after killing the animal and laying hands on it at the sacrifice of the calf for the high priest or for the whole society, the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled seven times in the sanctuary before Jehovah against the inner veil, then the horns of the incense altar were anointed, and the remaining blood was poured out at the foot altar of burnt offering (Lev. 4:25-30ff.). After the sprinkling of blood in all sin offerings (excluding doves), the fat or fat and other fat parts were separated from the meat and burned on the altar (Lev. 4:8,10,19,29, etc.). Other parts of the sacrificial meat, in those cases when the blood was brought into the Sanctuary and the Holy of Saints, together with the skin, head, legs, entrails and uncleanness, were burned outside the camp or city on clean place where sacrificial ashes were thrown (Lev. 4:20,21). With other sin offerings, where the blood remained in the courtyard of the temple, the meat was to be eaten by the priests in the holy place, in the courtyard of the Tabernacle. The vessels in which it was boiled had to be broken, if they were earthenware, and if they were copper, then at least clean with sand and wash, clothes that accidentally got the blood of the victim had to be washed in a holy place (Lev. 6:26 -29). Sacrificial doves were dealt with in the manner indicated by us on the previous page. Finally, from the flour offered as a sacrifice for sin, instead of a bird, the priest took a full handful and burned it on the altar (Lev. 5:12), the rest belonged to him as a grain offering ( Leviticus 5:11-19).

Victim of guilt was appointed only for private persons and, moreover, for such crimes, which, although they were not worthy of death, nevertheless required a satisfactory punishment. She was made up of a sheep for the most part according to the value of the priest (Lev. 5:15, etc.), or a sheep, or a goat, or a lamb (Lev. 5:1-19, Num. 6:12). After the animal was slaughtered on the north side of the altar, its blood was sprinkled on the altar from all sides, the fat was burned on the altar, as with the sin offering, and the meat was eaten by the priests in the holy place (Lev. 7:1-7, etc.).

Victim of salvation or peace (Lev. 3:1) - triple: offering of praise or thanksgiving (Lev. 7:12) vow offering and finally the victim is free(Lev. 7:16). For this sacrifice, it was possible to use any horned cattle, spotless, large and small, and of both sexes (Lev. 3:16, 9:4). Pigeons are not mentioned anywhere in the peace offerings. Ritual actions on this sacrifice before the sprinkling of blood are similar to the actions of the burnt offering (Lev. 3:2, 8:13). Then the fatty entrails, the same as in the sin offering, were separated from the sacrificial animal, and burned on the altar, placed on top of the burnt offering (Lev. 3:3-5,9-11, 14-16, 9:18). Next, the chest and right shoulder were separated; the latter was left to the serving priest, while the former was offered to Jehovah through rite of shock* [* Exaltation and shock before the Lord(Ex. 29:24-28, etc.) Ritual actions of offering and dedicating a sacrifice to God; moreover, with the last ritual action, the shock of the sacrificial parts before the Lord was combined, especially with peace offerings, or salvation and the consecration of priests (Ex. 29:24, Lev. 8:27). The same shock occurred at the offering of the first sheaf on the second day of Passover (Lev. 23:11) of the two lambs and the first fruit offered at Pentecost (Lev. 23:20). The rite itself consisted, according to the explanation of the Talmudists, in the cruciform movement of the gift dedicated to God back and forth, to the left and to the right, in the direction of the Holy of Holies. However, in St. Scripture doesn't say this directly. Sometimes the priest took the offering in his hands and offered it right before the Lord (Num. 5:25); sometimes he laid it on the hands of the bearer of the sacrificial offering and, placing his hand, made a shock. This was done by Moses at the consecration of the priests (Ex. 29:24); so it was at the consecration of the Nazirites (Num. 6:19, 20)]. The remaining parts of the animal were given to the one who offered the sacrifice, and a sacrificial feast was arranged from them, in which all members of their families could take part, after a preliminary Levitical purification (Lev. 7:15-18, 22-30). The flesh of the praise or thanksgiving offering was to be eaten on the very day of the sacrifice (Lev. 7:15-18, 22:30). With the sacrifice of the vow and the free offering, what was left from the first day was to be eaten in the morning of the next day, and what was not eaten within the designated time was to be burned, but not on the altar (Lev. 7:16-18). Under the threat of extermination, it was forbidden to eat the meat of a peace offering to persons who were unclean or defiled by any uncleanness (Lev. 7:20-21). In peace offerings, along with unleavened bread and cakes with oil, leavened bread could also be sacrificed (Lev. 7:12-13).

Bloodless sacrifice, bloodless gift . The substance for these was grains or ears of corn, flour with oil and incense, bread biscuits with oil in different types, incense and wine. Sometimes these substances were added to other offerings and sacrifices, and sometimes they were offered separately. They partly belonged to the altar, and partly to the priests and Levites. Salt was always added to all such offerings, but sour bread and nothing leavened were never burned on the altar, and honey was completely excluded from the number of offerings (Lev. 2:2, 6:14-16, Numbers 28:5).

Victim of purification cm. Cleansing Day*[* day of cleansing(Lev. 16:2-34, 23:26-32) - the 10th day of the seventh month (according to our reckoning, September 10, united among the Jews with fasting and contrition for sins. On this day, the high priest offered a sacrifice for himself, setting before the Tabernacle of two goats, and according to the lot of one of them he slaughtered and offered as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole people, entered the Holy of Holies several times, censed and sprinkled blood over the purgatory, and then poured the blood on the horns of the altar and also sprinkled on it. with another he-goat he confessed the sins of the whole people and commanded them to be cast out into the wilderness. All the same, the sacred service ended with a burnt offering. This rite undoubtedly served as a type of the expiatory, purifying and propitiatory sacrifice of Christ (Heb. 11:11-14)].

Victim of jealousy cm. Jealousy* [* Water of jealousy(Num. 5, 11-31) - bitter water, used when testing guilt or innocence, which she had to drink, when performing certain rites and when pronouncing an oath, suspected of adultery and which brought a curse on her if she turned out to be guilty].

libation offering cm. libation sacrificial* [* libation sacrificial(Num. 15:5, 28:7, 8, 10, etc., 2 Kings 16:13) - an Old Testament rite, which consisted in the fact that grape wine was poured around the altar at the foot of it. He(i.e. high priest) stretched out his hand to the sacrificial bowl, poured blood from the grapes into it, and poured it out at the foot of the altar into the stench of fragrance to the Most High King,- this is how Jesus the son of Sirach speaks about this rite, of course, which had a deep mysterious meaning, like all the Old Testament sacrifices (Sir. 50:17)].

(Bible Encyclopedia. Work and publication of Archimandrite Nikifor. M., 1891, reprint “Terra” M., 1991, pp. 258-260, 190, 129)

I.I. Dmitrievsky on the representative significance of the Old Testament sacrifices

(We found it useful to add to the text of I.I. Dmitrievsky a few notes with patristic quotations - iskuplenie.wordpress.com)

“The law given from God through Moses… ordained many kinds of sacrifices*, namely: 1) burnt offerings(Lev. Ch. 1), which consisted in the burning of all brought things in honor of the Supreme Being and the recognition of His Highest dominion over all creatures. 2) Offerings for sins(Lev. 4, 10-12), which were also burned, partly on the altar of offerings, partly outside the camp. These sacrifices meant that the people who offered them deserved for their sins, according to the justice of God, also death and extermination, just as animals were exterminated for the sins of those who offered them; therefore the Word of God proclaims thatthere is no abandonment without bloodshed(sins) (Heb. 3:22) **. 3) Salvation Victims or Peace Victims(Lev. Ch. 3; 1 Sam. 13: 9), which were offered up to the Lord as a token of thanksgiving for the benefits received from Him or to ask for His new favors.

[* Cf. at St. Gregory the Theologian: “... the Law is given to help us, like a wall put up between God and idols, to lead us away from idols and lead us to God. And in the beginning he allows other unimportant things in order to acquire the most important. For the time being, he allows sacrifices in order to restore in us the knowledge of God. Then, when the time has come, he also cancels the sacrifices, wisely changing us by gradual deprivations, and leading us to the gospel who have already become accustomed to obedience. So the written Law ascended to this end, gathering us to Christ; and this, according to my reasoning, is the reason for the sacrifices” (Word 45, at Passover). Wed also at St. John Chrysostom: “God, wishing to correct the Jews in the direction of piety through such festive gatherings, allowed them to make sacrifices, gives them a sacrificial altar, commands them to sacrifice sheep, and a goat, and an ox, and do everything that gave them joy. It did not please God” (Word on the Day of Remembrance of the Martyrs), — approx. is our.

** Wed. at St. John Chrysostom: “We offended (God) and should have died, but He (Christ) died for us and made us worthy of the covenant. (...) And there is blood, as well as blood here. Do not be surprised that there is not the blood of Christ; there was a prototype; therefore (the apostle) says: Why the first [covenant] was established not without blood(Heb. 9:18). ... a type was needed both of the covenant and of death ”(Conversation 16th on the Epistle to the Hebrews), - approx. is our].

(...) Although all these sacrifices were established by the command of God, however, they were not sufficient in themselves to achieve those great goals for which they were offered (Ps. 39: 7-9; 50: 18; Is. 1: 11; 66 : 4; Amos 5: 21, 22; Mic 6: 6-8). And is it possible to think that only burnt offerings were pleasing to God, the purest, incorporeal Spirit: fire that devours the body and bones of animals, and smoke ascending from the altar? Is it possible to think that the infinite Truth of God would forgive a person for his crimes against the Holy Will only for this? Impossible,- exclaims St. ap. Pavel, - the blood of youths and goats forgive sins(Heb. 10:4). But since God Himself, in establishing the Lawful Sacrifices, was pleased to promise those who offered remission of their sins: leave them sin (Lev. 4:20, 27-31, 35), then it must necessarily be assumed that the Levitical Sacred Acts contained a special mysterious power , acting in a spiritual way on the souls of those who bring to cleansing the conscience from dead deeds.

Animal slaughter as a sacrifice, according to God's eternal provision, foreshadowed slaughter Divine Lamb (John 1:36; Apoc. 13:8; Heb. 10:1; Col. 2:17), who had to wash away the sins of the whole world on the cross with His blood. This greatest Sacrifice mysteriously fragrant on all the altars of the Old Law, with all the burnt offerings offered to God, and with its infinite power made pleasing to Him other gifts and sacrifices offered with faith in the coming Redeemer (Gal. 3:24; Rom. 10:4) ***.

[*** Wed. at St. Athanasius the Great: “For the sake of this, sacrifices were introduced in order to have a symbolic sign for them and be types; for it was closely connected with the Law shadow of the future(Heb. 10:1), and only until the time of correction(Heb. 9:10) these types were established” (19th Paschal epistle). Wed also at St. Gregory the Theologian: “But in order for you to know the depth of wisdom and the richness of God’s unsearchable judgments, God did not leave the sacrifices themselves completely unsanctified, imperfect and limited to one shedding of blood, but a great one joins the under-law sacrifices and, relatively to the first (i.e. Divine) To nature, so to speak, an unscarred Sacrifice (Christ's)- cleansing not a small part of the universe, and not for a short time, but the whole world and eternal ”(Word 45th, on Easter), - approx. is our].

(…) He (God's Son), entering the world to fulfill His great embassy, ​​rivers to the eternal Father: Thou didst not desire sacrifices and offerings, but Thou didst make the body; then rech: Behold, I go to do Thy will, O God(Ps. 39:7-9; Heb. 10:5). “You did not want to be propitiated to be neither an offering of animals, nor an offering of bread and incense, but a sacrifice of an infinite price: for this reason, for the sake of accepting a mortal body, you favored me ****. For this sake he said: I'm coming, I'm coming! May I myself be a Priest and a Sacrifice” (Tolk. Psalm., M., 1791, part 1, fol. 177 v.), which he exalted, ending the feat of His most holy life on the Altar of the Cross.

[**** Wed. at St. Basil the Great: “Note, I didn’t say that I don’t want any blood, but the blood of famous animals. For he did not say that he did not want the blood shed in the last ages for the remission of sins, which it is better says, than Avelev(cf .: Heb. 12, 24) ... There are no more victims everlasting(cf .: Exod. 29, 42), there are no sacrifices on the day of atonement, there is no ashes of the youth, cleansing desecrated(cf. Heb. 9:13). For there is one sacrifice, Christ, and the death of the saints in Christ; one sprinkling - bath of life(cf.: Tit. 3, 5); one propitiation for sin is the Blood shed for the salvation of the world. In order to cancel the first, in order to establish the second ”(Interpretation on the 1st chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah). Wed also at Blzh. Theodoret of Cyrus: “The ancient purgatory was also bloodless, like inanimate, but it took on drops of the blood of sacrificial animals; and the Lord Christ is both God and purifier, and the Bishop and the lamb, and with His own blood, purchased our salvation, demanding from us one faith ”(Explanation on the 3rd chapter of the Epistle to the Romans). Wed also at Blzh. Theophylact: " Sacrifices and offerings You did not want (Ps.39:6). Obviously legal. Offering here means something different from victims, and I think that's what bloodless sacrifices mean. But he prepared a body for Me (Ps. 39:6). That is, You determined that My Body should become the most perfect sacrifice. …then said “I am the Christ: Behold, I come to do Thy will." . The will of God the Father is that the Son be slain for the world, that people be justified, but not through the sacrifices, but through the death of His Son ”(Explanation on the 10th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews), - our note].

This, of infinite price, the highest, Divine Sacrifice once brought on the cross, fulfilled all the foreshadowings of the bloody sacrifices of Aaron, washed away the sins of the human race (1 John 1: 7; 2: 2), quenched the wrath of the Truth of God (Rom. 5: 9-11), satisfied for the guilt that lay on people, infinitely insulting the majesty of the Almighty, and being lifted up into the very sky(Heb. 9:24), opened the way there for all believers, to the inheritance of eternal blessedness (Heb. 10:19-20).

(“Historical, dogmatic and mysterious explanation of the Divine Liturgy”, reprint. ed. 1897, M., Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1993, SS. 11-12; 15-16)

Archbishop Averky (Taushev). Saving life at the altar as a foreshadowing of salvation in Christ. High Priesthood of Christ. The symbolic meaning of the victims

“... the mouth of Zechariah was loosed [Luke 1:64 et seq.], and he, in prophetic inspiration, as if foreseeing the coming of the kingdom of the Messiah, began to glorify God, who visited His people and created deliverance for them, Who “raised the horn of salvation in the house of David ". Just as criminals pursued by avengers fled in the Old Testament to the altar of burnt offering and, grasping its horn, were considered inviolable (1 Kings 2:28), so the entire human race, oppressed by sins and persecuted for this by Divine justice, finds itself salvation in Christ Jesus. This salvation is not only the deliverance of Israel from its political enemies, as the majority of Jews thought at that time, especially the scribes and Pharisees, but the fulfillment of the covenant of God given to the Old Testament forefathers, which will enable all faithful Israelis to serve God with "reverence and truth." By "truth" is meant here justification by Divine means, through the imputation to man of the redemptive merits of Christ; under “reverence” is the internal correction of a person, achieved with the assistance of grace by the effort of the person himself.

[In the 8th ch. Hebrews] "The apostle speaks of the benefits high priestly ministry of Christ in heaven: Christ also brings sacrifices there. This is an unceasing intercession for us before His Heavenly Father, as a result of that great Sacrifice that He once and for all offered for us on the cross (v. 3). On earth He would not have been recognized as a priest for formal reasons; in addition, there is a big difference in the very essence of the Levitical priesthood and the priesthood of Christ, for the Old Testament priests performed a ministry that had only a symbolic and representative value - yet these symbols and types were just realized in Christ, Who established the New Testament, predicted in the prophecy of Jeremiah (31:31-34). The words of the prophet Jeremiah about the establishment of the New Testament are quoted by the Apostle Paul in full in Art. 8-12, after which he makes his conclusion: “Saying “new” (the prophet) showed the oldness of the first; but that which decays and grows old is close to destruction” (v. 13).

The ninth chapter is all devoted to comparing the two testaments, the Old and the New, and pointing out the incomparable superiority of the New. Considering the structure of the tabernacle in the first 7 verses, the Apostle shows that its very structure and the liturgical rites performed in it with the sacrifice of animals already inspire the idea of ​​unsatisfactoriness and their temporary significance. When describing the tabernacle, the Apostle draws main attention to the inaccessibility of the Holy of Holies not only for the people, but also for the clergy themselves, of whom only one high priest could enter there, and even then once a year “not without blood, which he brings for himself and for sins the ignorance of the people” (v. 7). This passage from Heb. 9:1-7 is read at the Divine Liturgy on some of the Mother of God feasts, such as the Entry into the Temple of the Most Holy Theotokos on November 21 and on the Intercession on October 1, because. the tabernacle represented the Mother of God.

The structure of the tabernacle showed that in the Old Testament the sky was closed to people and people were separated from God; all Old Testament rites had only a temporary value (vv. 8-10). The advantage of the New Testament is that in it Christ, the high priest of future blessings, ministers in the tabernacle not made with hands, no longer with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, with which He once and for all purchased eternal redemption for us (vv. 11-14). The great significance of the Sacrifice of the Cross of Jesus Christ is that He, having sacrificed His God to God, own blood became an Intercessor for the New Testament (v. 15). In 16 st. The Apostle clarifies the need for the death of the Advocate of the New Testament in the following words: “for where there is a will, there it is necessary that the death of the testator follows,” and in verse 17: “because a testament is valid after the dead: it has no effect when the testator is alive” - The Apostle deduces the necessity of Christ's death from two circumstances denoted by one Greek word: "diaphics". This word means both a covenant in the sense of an alliance or mutual agreement, and a testament in the sense of a posthumous order or command. Christ had to die, because just as in ancient times the Old Testament was based on the blood of sacrificial animals, so the New Testament could only be based on the blood of a Mediator or Reconciler between God and people, because it was necessary to destroy the sin that introduced this division with this blood. At the same time, Christ had to die in order to leave a testament to people - to make them heirs of the eternal salvation prepared for them.

In 18-23 the Apostle explains that the blood of bulls and goats in the Old Testament had only a representative value and had power only as a type of the atoning blood of the Lamb of God Christ, who had to shed it for the sins of people. The enormous privilege of Christ as High Priest of the New Testament, St. Ap. Paul points out that He entered once and once for all, having accomplished our salvation by His own blood, not into the Holy of Holies, like the high priests of the Old Testament, but “into heaven itself, to now appear before the face of God for us” (v. 24).

Note:

1. “Every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; wherefore, it was necessary that this also should have something to bring.”

2. “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; that My covenant they broke, though I remained in union with them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their inwardness, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they will be My people. And they will no longer teach one another, brother to brother, and say, "Know the Lord," for all themselves will know Me, from the least to the greatest, says the Lord, because I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more.

3. “By this the Holy Spirit shows that the way to the sanctuary has not yet been opened, as long as the former tabernacle stands. It is an image of the present time, in which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot make the conscience perfect of the one offering, and which, with dishes and drinks, and various ablutions and rituals related to the flesh, were established only until the time of correction.

4. “But Christ, the High Priest of the good things to come, having come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of such a dispensation, and not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, once entered the sanctuary and obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of the heifer, through sprinkling, sanctifies the defiled, so that the body may be pure, then how much more the Blood of Christ, Who by the Holy Spirit offered Himself blameless to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living and true God!

5. “Why the first covenant was not established without bloodshed. For Moses, having pronounced all the commandments according to the law before all the people, took the blood of bulls and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you. He also sprinkled the tabernacle and all the liturgical vessels with blood. Yes, and almost everything, according to the law, is cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.So the images of the heavenly were to be cleansed by these, the most heavenly by the best of these sacrifices.

Archbishop Averky (Taushev). Guide to the Study of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament.

Gifts and anathemas. What Christianity brought to the world Kuraev Andrey Vyacheslavovich

HOW SACRIFICES WERE MADE IN THE JERUSALEM TEMPLE

The priests walked on the streams of blood and their hands were in the most literal sense "up to the elbow in blood." Moreover, they themselves shed this blood. Here turtle doves are sacrificed: “How is hattat made from birds? He places both of her wings between his two fingers and both of her legs between his two fingers and stretches her neck on his fingers and pinches against the back of the head with his fingernail, but does not separate the head and sprinkles it with blood on the walls of the altar, and squeezes the rest of the blood onto Yesod... a burnt offering of birds? He pinches her head against the back of the head, peels off and squeezes out her blood from the shadow of the altar, then takes the head, presses the place of pinching to the altar, wipes it with salt and throws it on the fire of the altar, ... then he tears the body and throws it into the fire of the altar ... tears it with his hand, but does not knife ”(Talmud. Treatise Zevachim. ch.6,4-6).

The Old Testament law prescribed a daily sacrifice: “This is what you will offer on the altar: two lambs of the same year every day constantly; offer one lamb in the morning, and bring another lamb in the evening” (Ex. 29:38-39). The daily morning lamb sacrifice begins with the fact that, after waiting for the first rays of the sun, the priest says to those for whom the sacrifice is made: "go out and bring a lamb from the lamb chamber." The front leg was tied to the back leg of the lamb (“The commentators understand it this way: the lamb is not knitted, but the priests hold it by the legs”). “The head turned to the south, and the face turned to the west. The slayer stands in the east, facing west. The skinner did not break his hind leg, but pierced his knee and hung it up; removed the skin to the chest; having reached the chest, he cut off the head and handed it over to the one to whom the head fell out; then he cut off the shins and handed them over to the one to whom they fell out; he completed the skinning, tore the heart, bled it out, cut off the hands (front legs) and handed them over to the one to whom they fell to the lot; he came to the right leg (back), cut it off and handed it over to the one to whom it fell out, and with it both testicles, then he tore it up and turned out to be all open in front of him; he took the fat and put it on top of the place where the head had been cut off; then he took the insides and handed them over to the one to whom they fell out so that he would wash them. He took a knife and separated the lung from the liver and the finger of the liver from the liver, but did not move them; he pierced the chest, turned to the right wall and cut, descending to the spine, but did not reach the spine, but reached two soft ribs; he cut it off and gave it to the one who got it, and the liver hung on it. He turned to the neck and left two ribs on one side and two ribs on the other, cut it off and handed it to the one to whom it fell to the lot, and the windpipe, heart and lungs hung on it. He turned to the left wall and left with it two soft ribs from above and two soft ribs from below, and left the same number at the other wall; he cut it off and handed it over to the one to whom it fell to the lot, and the spine with it and the spleen hangs on it. He turned to the tail, cut it off and handed it over to the one to whom it fell to the lot, and the fat tail, the finger of the liver and both kidneys with it. Then he took the left hind leg and gave it to the one to whom it fell to the lot. It turns out that all of them (participants in the sacrifice) are standing next to the sacrificial members in their hands; the first with head and hind leg: head in his right hand, nose turned to the upper part of the hand, horns between the fingers, the place of the cut above and the fat above it, and the right hind leg in his left hand with a place of skin on the outside; the second with two front legs: the right one in his right hand, and the left one in his left, and their place of skin is outside; the third with a tail and a leg: the tail is in the right hand, the fat tail hangs between his fingers, and the liver finger and two kidneys are with him, and the left hind leg is in the left hand ... ”In total, 9 participants in the morning sacrifice stand like this. They went and laid their shares on the lower half of the kevesh to the west, salted them, went down, came to the chamber of the gazit to read Shema "(morning prayer). (Talmud. Treatise Tamid ch. 3,3-4,3).

Is it clear now why Christ was not a Jewish priest, why He Who offered Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of all people, Who Himself was the High Priest, was only a layman?

Finally, in addition to daily, small sacrifices, the rituals of the Old Testament also prescribed burnt offerings, that is, sacrifices in which parts of the sacrificial animal were not distributed to people who participated in the service, but the entire body of the animal was burned. The altar of burnt offering intended for this was 30 cubits wide and 15 cubits high. “An eternal flame burned on it. It was not a hearth, but a whole fire. Imagine the crackling, hissing, hissing of fire on such an altar. Imagine almost a cyclone forming over the temple. According to legend, it never goes out even from the rain. Whole bulls were burned here, not to mention the multitude of goats and rams. Imagine the smell of burning and bacon - if from one barbecue in the East fumes rush to several streets! According to Josephus, 265,000 lambs were slaughtered on Easter... Sometimes the priests walked up to their ankles in blood - the whole huge courtyard was covered in blood. With weak nerves there was nothing to go here. On the Feast of Tabernacles, 13 bulls were offered on the 1st day. The Old Testament cult forcibly frightened with its immensity," St. Pavel Florensky gives a picture of the Old Testament cult.

This is the general law of the Mosaic ritual: anointing with blood and sprinkling with blood. Approximately as we have anointing with oil and sprinkling with holy water. And just as the “practical guide for Orthodox shepherds” tells how to hold a baby during baptism so as not to harm him, so in Judaism there are instructions for killing animals. Our priest sprinkles water, the Jewish sprinkled blood. That is why "Judaism in the Diaspora spread all the more easily because cult practice was concentrated in only one temple - Jerusalem, and therefore outside of Jerusalem Judaism actually became a religion that does not sacrifice animals" .

And now all this external power and spontaneity of the ancient cult is replaced by the offering of a piece of bread and a cup of wine... The quantitative majesty of the Old Testament cult seems to be compressed into the qualitative tension of the New Testament cult. “Christianity is infinitely denser than Judaism and finally answers the legitimate (for “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness,” according to the Apostle) requests of Judaism; but Judaism is constantly trying to satisfy its needs with temporary, and therefore insufficient, means.

And therefore, already at the zenith of the Old Testament, God begins to wean people from these sacrifices. “Sacrifice to God - the spirit is broken,” opens the Psalmist. Amos is told: “I hate, I reject your feasts, and I do not smell the sacrifices during your solemn meetings. If you offer me burnt offerings and meat offerings, I will not accept them” (Amos 5:21-22). Jeremiah hears the same thing: “Your burnt offerings are not pleasing, and your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me” (Jeremiah 6:20). And Isaiah conveys to his people: “Why do I need your multitude of sacrifices? says the Lord. I am full of burnt offerings of rams; and the blood of bulls and lambs I do not want. your new moons and your feasts my soul hates; they are a burden to me; it is hard for me to bear them. And when you stretch out your hands, I close my eyes from you: your hands are full of blood. mine; stop doing evil; learn to do good; seek righteousness; save the oppressed; defend the orphan; intercede for the widow" (Isaiah 1:11-17).

Finally, it's time for the New Testament. If earlier herds of bulls and sheep were brought to God as a sacrifice, now God Himself came to people with His Sacrifice, with His gift.

“The high priest enters the sanctuary with the blood of a stranger” (Heb. 9:25), but Christ came “with His own blood” (Heb. 9:14).

Human efforts to climb up to God, human readiness to squeeze out blood from themselves and from animals drop by drop so that its stream would cry from earth to heaven, turned out to be in vain: “The law did not bring anyone to perfection” (Heb. 7:19). The sacrifices of the Old Testament "cannot make the offerer perfect in conscience" (Heb. 9:9). In fact, the offering of sacrifices is a movement of a disturbed conscience, there is a vague tossing and turning of a repentant feeling, a feeling of the abnormality of one's life. But after the sacrifice, nothing changed. And therefore there was a need for new and new victims, and therefore the victims were daily. The corpses of animals could not fill the abyss that opened up between God and man.

But Christ came, the Lamb of God, who took away the sins of the world. Not legal or moral responsibility for the sins of people before the face of the Father was taken by Christ. He took upon Himself the consequences of our sins. The very aura of death with which people surrounded themselves, isolating themselves from God, Christ filled with Himself. Without ceasing to be God, He became a man. People have gone far from God, involuntarily moved closer to non-existence - and there, to the same border of non-existence, Christ freely approached. Not accepting sin, but accepting the consequences of sin. Like a fireman throwing himself into a fire, he does not share in the guilt of the arsonist, but shares in the pain of those who are left in the engulfed building.

Not all people Christ found on earth. Many have already gone to Sheol, to death. And then the Shepherd goes after the lost sheep after them - to Sheol, so that there, in being after death, a person could find God: "Dying, I follow you." Christ does not shed blood in order to propitiate the Father, to change His attitude towards people from angry to merciful and to give Him the “legal right to amnesty” people. Through the shedding of blood, He, His love, seeking people, gets the opportunity to enter the world of death. Not like Deus ex machina Christ breaks into hell, but He enters there, into the capital of his enemy, in a natural way - through His own death. Christ dies painfully on the Cross, not because He sacrifices to the devil - "He spread His arms on the Cross to embrace the whole universe" (St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Announcements. 13.28).

The sacrifice of Christ is a gift of His love to us humans. He gives Himself, His Life, the fullness of His Eternity to us. We failed to bring the proper gift to God. God comes forward and gives us Himself.

The God-Man sacrificed Himself to people, gave His life to us - not so that He could die, but so that we could live in Him. And therefore, the Christian sacrifice, the Liturgy, is performed with the words: “Yours from Yours we offer to You for everyone and for everything.” Now we bring to God not our own, but God's. It is not with our own blood that we come to the altar. We take the fruit of the vine grown by the Creator. A cup of wine is what is from us in the Liturgy (plus our hearts, which we ask to be sanctified). And we ask that this, the first gift of the Creator, the gift of the vine, become the second Gift - become the Blood of Christ, become saturated with the Life of Christ. From Your people, from Your land, we bring Your own Life to You, Lord, because You gave it to us for everyone and for deliverance from all evil. And we ask that Your Life, Your Blood, Your Spirit live and work in us. “Lord, send down Your Holy Spirit on us and on these Gifts that are set before us,” asks the apex prayer of the Liturgy.

We bring to God, to the altar, the symbol of the Covenant - wine and bread. And in return we get Reality. "With the fear of God, love and faith - proceed."

A proper gift to God is one that allows one to be with God through the depth of one's conscience. We are fickle. Therefore, we leave the upsurges of a religious, repentant or joyfully glorifying feeling and return to the path of serving the flesh. But "Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb. 13:8). And so "He has no need to offer sacrifices daily, like those high priests, for he did it once, sacrificing himself" (Heb. 7:27).

The sacrifice of Christ cannot and does not make sense to be repeated: “Christ did not enter in order to repeatedly offer Himself, otherwise it would be necessary for Him to suffer many times from the beginning of the world; But he once, at the end of the ages, appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:24-26).

Avatars-"Saviors" of India are forced to come regularly. Every time the memory of the karmic law is eclipsed in the world, they should come and remind of it. They speak of a cosmic cycle, and in this cycle they themselves must take part. But the Bible is a linear story; each moment of time is single, unique and responsible. In biblical time, unique events are possible. The most important of these was the coming of Christ. Christ does not act on the mind, not on the memory of people - and therefore the fruit of His coming is incomparably deeper. By Himself He changed the whole cosmic structure in general. Because He did not come with books and “not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, once he entered the sanctuary and obtained eternal redemption ... The blood of Christ will cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living and true God” (Heb. 9 ,fourteen). Now - "we have boldness to enter into the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus Christ, the new and living way" (Heb. 10:19).

If at that sanctuary where a person finds God, one could enter through the sacrifices made by the person himself, then one could assume the positive significance of other, non-Christian religious paths. If a person entered this sanctuary by expanding his knowledge of Reality, that is, by accumulating gnosis, then one would expect the emergence of a new religion, taking into account the "evolution of the achievements of human culture." But God determined the entrance to this sanctuary to something else: His love and His sacrifice. It has already been brought. Once and for all.

Do not be afraid of the unusualness of God's decision. There is no need to run away from Christ and His Church to Shambhala, to India, or to the “Third Testament”. God has been waiting for us for a long time near our house in an ordinary parish church on the next street, where every Sunday morning the Sacrament of Love is performed. That Love that once ignited and moved the Suns and luminaries sparkles in the small Eucharistic chalice: “And the Eucharist lasts like an eternal noon. Everyone takes communion, plays and sings. And in front of everyone, the Divine vessel flows with inexhaustible joy” (O. Mandelstam)…

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I first began my journey through the sanctuary in the winter of 1987, when I listened to tape recordings of prayer service in the sanctuary,

Step by step, Carol led me through the sanctuary on an imaginary journey, revealing the meaning of ancient rituals performed long ago by white-robed priests. I began to see that the ancient ministry was not merely symbolic and spoke of the coming of the Savior, not merely describing the ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary. I began to realize that there was a pattern that I should follow in my personal service to God.

Our first steps in worship, when we enter the courtyard of a sanctuary or temple, are steps of glorification and thanksgiving to God. “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, into His courts with praise. Praise Him, bless His name!" (Ps.:99:4).

One morning I wrote the following words: “Lord, I praise You for Your faithfulness. You are the One I can rely on!”

“Thank you for the opportunity to visit my children. Thank you for the beauty of the sunset; for making Ron happy; for the fact that we have a beautiful dog guarding our house in the forest.

My personal expressions of gratitude may seem too simple against the backdrop of classic patterns of thanksgiving, but I will continue to praise God in the same way, based on the words of Ellen White: “Every person's life experience is unique. God wants us to praise Him based on our personal experiences.” (Christ—hope of the world with. orig. 347).

Altar of burnt offering

Directly opposite us as we enter the courtyard is a large altar. On it, morning and evening, priests sacrifice lambs, symbolizing Jesus, the Lamb of God. In my imagination, I see Jesus, the One who sacrificed Himself, dying on the cross of Calvary for my sins.

Just as in ancient times people came and confessed their sins by laying their hands on the heads of sacrificial lambs, so I come to Christ in the sanctuary in my imagination and confess my sins to Him. I try to be honest with myself and with God as I acknowledge specific sins and shortcomings, removing all my pride and opening my soul to Him.

One morning I wrote this prayer of confession:

I lied to an official at the Canadian border. I said that I live in Jackson, Ohio, so that my residency papers would be consistent with a US license. I lied so that I could drive freely from Canada to America, because according to American law, rental cars from the USA should not cross the border.

Lord, I know that You hate false lips. This week the lesson of Saturday Skoda just talks about honesty and trust, Now I understand; that she had to tell the truth, despite the difficult consequences. Please forgive me. Make me a person you can trust.

Wash basin

Between the altar of burnt offering and the Holy One is a laver where the priests washed off the blood of the sacrifice. This is where I receive the cleansing that Jesus gives me. By faith I know that the sins I have confessed are removed from me and I am clean.

At the washstand, I stop for a moment and listen to Jesus speak to me; “Dorothy, you have confessed your sins, and I forgive you your sin of lying and cleanse you from all unrighteousness” (see 1 John 1:9)

“Thank You, Lord, for Your cleansing power, Your forgiveness! I answered. How wonderful to feel cleansed!

Lamp

Then we enter the second compartment of the sanctuary, the Holy. On the left we see a lamp, consisting of seven candles. The oil in the menorah is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

Here we stop and ask the Holy Spirit to sanctify our minds, to guide us in our prayer life. We do not know how we should pray, but the Holy Spirit will come in response to our invitation. As we train our minds to listen to His voice, He will remind us of promises we can plead, sins we must confess, and people we must pray for.

Bread table

On the north side of the Saint, just opposite from the lampstand, we see a table for loaves. Here the priests put two mounds of flat bread every Saturday. The bread represents Christ, the Bread of Life and His Word, which nourishes us spiritually.

Here I stop again and ask the Holy Spirit to guide me during my personal prayer. I read the Bible text from where I left off the day before, continuing to read another chapter or two until I reach the verse that is God's message to me at this moment. Sometimes I underline a verse. Often I rewrite it in my prayer diary.

Sometimes a message to me consists of a promise. At other times it is a denunciation, and then I need to stop again and confess again. Some days I feel like God wants me to do something. Then I write down the names of the people I should call; letters that I have to send; articles to write, or to make some changes in your planned daily routine.

Altar of incense

On the western side of the Holy is a golden altar of incense. Here the priest makes intercessory prayers for the people, and it is here that I pray for my requests. This is where I present my list of prayers to God.

At the altar of incense, the priest came very close to the throne of grace, to the very presence of God, which was symbolized by the cherubim surrounding the golden ark of the covenant. Ellen White writes the following about this place:

Since the inner veil of the sanctuary did not extend all the way to the top, the first compartment partly showed the glory of God dwelling over the throne of grace. When the priest burned incense before the Lord, he turned his gaze to the ark, and when the cloud of incense rose, Divine glory descended on the throne of grace and filled the Holy of Holies. And it often happened that she filled both compartments with herself so that the priest had to go to the door of the tabernacle. (Patriarchs and prophets, with. orig. 353).

When praying in the sanctuary, I try to imagine myself standing right in front of the throne of God. I try to represent His light and glory, His love and compassion, and boldly approach His throne through incense, representing the merits of Christ that accompany my prayers. Because of His righteousness, I know that my prayers are heard and accepted.

Experiences of figurative thinking

One morning while I was praying in the Saint of my personal sanctuary, the Holy Spirit prompted me to pray for my dear friend who was in trouble. As I thought about her difficult journey, I remembered the verse: “I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the wilderness” (Isaiah 43:19).

Although I was scheduled to read Matthew 20 this morning, the Holy Spirit prompted me to start reading Isaiah 43. I found it full of promises that matched my needs on this moment and the needs of my friend. It was the same bread from the offer table that I needed now. In my diary I wrote down these promises and recited each of them in my intercessory prayer for my friend at the incense altar.

Then she felt that I needed to write her a letter and help her with money. I rewrote the promise with my friend's name and included it in a letter to her.

A few weeks later, I received a note from her that said, in part: “Thank you for the money and for your special letter. I read it several times. It helped me so much! I thank God for you!”

holy of holies

Once a year, on the Day of Forgiveness, the high priest entered the Holy of Holies. There, in the presence of God, everything was righteous.

My High Priest, Jesus Christ, who until then guided me, now intercedes for me in the Holy of Holies, correcting everything in my life, both in the past and in the present. He examines my mind and my motives, removing all sin. He tells me about Himself, filling every corner of my heart with His joy, peace and victory.

Practical lesson

1. Gate. Praise and thank God from the very beginning of your prayer. Say your own prayer or read a psalm or verses from a psalm book.

2 The altar of burnt offering. Imagine Christ, the Lamb of God, hanging on the cross of Calvary for your sins. Say a sincere prayer of repentance.

3 Washbasin. Stop here to receive the forgiveness and cleansing that Christ provides. Thank God that He is faithful to His promises in 1 Jn. 1:9; Is. 1:16-18 and Ps. 102:10-12.

4. Lamp. Ask the Holy Spirit standing by the lamp. Ask Him to lead you to the truth of the Word of God and intercede for your requests with the Heavenly Father.

5. Table for bread. Meditate on the biblical text. Ask the Holy Spirit to point you to the promise that you most need at this moment. Underline these promises in the Bible or write them in your prayer journal.

6. Smoking altar. Imagine that you are standing in front of the throne of grace, bringing your requests to His mercy. Feel free to present your requests, as your prayers, thanks to the merits of Christ, have direct access to God. Stand for a while, listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit, who may have something to say to you.

7. Holy of Holies. Standing in the presence of God, ask God to examine your heart and motives. Ask Him to reveal to you what He wants to teach you.

8. Study the chapter from Patriarchs and Prophets—The Tabernacle and the Ministry Therein, p. orig. 343-358, and also Ex. 25-40 and Lev. 4 and 16. Try to imagine what the tabernacle was like in the wilderness. Imagine the prayer you pray as you enter the tabernacle with Jesus, your High Priest.

9. Color in different verses from Psalm 27. You will need blue, green, red and yellow pencils. These colors will correspond to the following concepts:

blue- character of God

red— His promises

green what God wants you to do

yellow- words about the tabernacle.

You can do the same work with other texts of Holy Scripture when you are symbolically in the Holy at the table for bread.

10. Read the Psalter and Revelation, underline in yellow all the verses that talk about the tabernacle or about the ministry in it. Then you will imagine your sanctuary in a new way, where you offer your prayers every day.

Article from the magazine "Brotherly Herald" 1949, No. 2

I. Sin Offering

Leviticus 4, 1 - 12; 13 - 35; 5, 1 - 13

The death of Christ is the central point of the whole work of His redemption, the height of His obedience and His love for the Father, as well as His love for us. Only in His death does our soul rest in complete, serene peace, because it sees in it the perfect satisfaction for its sin and corruption. Should not this so excellent subject be represented by God in type in more depth, vastness, and detail? And so, of course, it happened. God saw to it that Israel, in their worship, constantly proclaimed the death of the Lord, until He came. It was written off in great detail in the series of sacrifices outlined by Moses in the first eight chapters of Leviticus, which we are now going to consider more closely. By the mercy of the Lord, our soul will find new food and rich pleasure here.

At the first glance, we immediately see that in the worship of the Levites there were a large number of different sacrifices. Each of them, as it could not be otherwise, had its own special significance, and every believing soul will do well to dwell on them longer than we can, in quiet reverence and meditation, guided by the Spirit of God, since we can here give no more like just some hints.

There were six main sacrifices, named in the order they are described in Leviticus 1-8: the burnt offering, the grain offering, the thanksgiving or peace offering, then the sin offering, the guilt offering, and the consecration offering; as the seventh, smoking or the victim of smoking can be counted here.

The Lord Himself divided them into two categories, namely those about which it is constantly said that they serve as "a pleasant fragrance to the Lord", "those about which this is not said. The last category includes the sin offering and the guilt offering, the first - all the rest. The "sweet savor" offerings correspond to the requirements and inclinations of the Lord, while others meet the crying needs of our sinful state. And here also the Lord began by describing the "sweet savor" offerings to Him, beginning with Himself, as He did at tabernacle; but let us begin where we must begin in order to come to God. According to this, our subject must first be the sin offering. Let us dwell, first of all, on the name of this victim. It already reflects its meaning, because God always calls a spade a spade. It is called "sin-offering" or simply "sin", and this name already expresses to us its special quality. The Israelite who brought it, completely regardless of what position he occupied - whether he was a slave, or a leader, or a priest, whether he stood on a high or on a lower moral level - was simply a sinner in it. His sin offering testified more to his condition than to his actions, more to what he really was than to what he did, although often only from his actions did he know exactly what state he was in, like how Adam's eyes were opened to his nakedness only after committing sin. That is why here everything is repeated again and again: "When sin is known to them" (Leviticus 4:14:23:28). When - this means: after any fault or mistake.

This sacrifice, which fully corresponded to our position before God, was the first that a person could offer for himself; no other could precede it, because in it he appeared in the place where he actually was: it was he who appeared in it before the Lord as a sinner. Any other sacrifice that he would have made earlier would have been proof that he was trying to take a place before God that did not at all befit him; he would appear in a false light and could not be accepted by God. All other sacrifices could only follow when the sinful condition was removed by the sin offering. Thus we see, for example, on the great day of atonement, that the sin offering preceded all others; it was offered for the high priest as well as for the people, and even for the sanctuary (Leviticus 16, 3. 5. 15. 16); also at the consecration of the high priest and priests, she stood in the first place, although there was absolutely no sin (Exodus 29, 10 - 14).

This clearly indicates that here it was not about the deeds or actions of these persons, but about what they were in themselves, about their state before God. And this state, as soon as they appeared before Him, demanded their death, their death. The sacrifice which God commanded them to offer for themselves replaced them in this state and, as it could not be otherwise, also in its consequences.

This, beloved, shows us our Lord in type, as the One who, though he knew no sin, yet "became sin for us." In this position, He stood on our soil, at the level of our condition before God and, thus, at the lowest level, below which He could not sink either before God, or before any creature. Descending from heaven, He became a man. This was an immeasurably lower step against His former position; but He was a blameless, holy man all His life. When He became a sacrifice for sin, or, in the words of the Apostle Paul, "sin", then at the same time He took the place of a fallen man, standing on the lowest moral level existing in the world. But, having fully assimilated to Himself the state of fallen man, He had to bear the consequences of this state. And how terrible they were, we will soon see from our type of sin offering.

If our Lord entered our sinful, fallen state, then who can say what deep rest, what infinite peace gives our soul the consciousness that our death by the death of Christ has been suffered and destroyed at its very root and foundation, even in its original and deepest cause. ! And if it were not so, there would never have been a secure world for us; now "He is our peace."

Let's move on, however, to the properties of the sin offering. It is very important to note that the sacrifice that was dealt with as sin (this abomination in the eyes of God), in itself, like all other sacrifices, should have been without any lack and vice. Would we not allow that, at least with this sacrifice, it would be possible to treat her qualities more indulgently? And yet we constantly read that, whether a calf, a goat or a goat was sacrificed here, each of them had to be without the slightest blemish. One of the smallest flaws in a sacrificial animal made it unfit for a sin offering, it would not have been allowed in any way. He had to suffer and endure death for evil that was not inherent in him, but in another, but it itself should not have had any deficiency in order to be suitable for sacrifice.

What can more clearly bear witness to the glorious truth of the substitution of Christ, the one "Righteous for the unrighteous" than this circumstance in this type? He, who did not commit any sin and in whose mouth there was no deceit (1 Peter 2:22), yes, He, who did not know sin, became precisely sin, indeed became an oath. But - let us never forget this, never - He became this for us. Oh, repeat with special emphasis "for us" until it becomes a power in the heart, unceasingly urging you to endlessly praise His name.

But could it be otherwise than for the Righteous to suffer for the unrighteous? How “could a man, himself burdened with debts, pay the debts of another? And how could a sinner take upon himself the wages of sin, that is, death, for others, if he himself is guilty of death for his sin? He himself would have to hear his own death sentence and endure So only He alone, our Lord, "participant in evil, blameless, separated from sinners, and exalted now above heaven," could become our sacrifice for sin, which would correspond to our need and satisfy God.

But, let us return to the prototype itself and look carefully at how the sacrifice was performed. Here four circumstances draw attention to themselves, namely: the presentation of the sacrifice before the Lord, the laying on of hands, the slaughter, the removal of it outside the camp for burning, all the features of a deep sacred significance.

First of all, we read that the sacrifice was presented before the Lord by the one who offered it. Both, the sinner and the bearer of his sin, appeared before the face of God, according to the command: "And he will bring the calf to the door of the tabernacle of assembly before the Lord" (v. 4). The living animal, as it was, was led into the courtyard of the tabernacle in the presence of Jehovah. In perfect integrity, in the fullness of its life, it had to appear before the eyes of God, so that they could immediately, in a holy place, test it. Here, before His eyes, the great work of transferring sin to the victim was to be done, and the sentence was pronounced and executed right there, all this could have been done outside the camp, where immediately after that the body of the sacrificial animal was taken out: but then the moment of infinite importance in this type of Christ crucified.

Think, dear soul, that all this happened in the presence of Jehovah and with Christ, your Sacrifice for sin. For you He appeared before God blameless and full of life, which He had in Himself. God tested him and found nothing in him more meek than holiness and purity, and behold, before the face of God, the sin of the whole world was transferred to him. The Lord Himself did this, as the Holy Spirit teaches us through the prophet Isaiah: "The Lord laid on Him the sins of us all" (Isaiah 53:6). But you were also at the same time, that is, in the eyes of God, when all this was done with Christ, like an Israelite who appeared with his sacrifice. What a sweet consolation it must be for every grace-hungry soul that once, on the cross, this transfer of sins took place, which forever saved it from the curse and power of sin. So, this transmission should not take place yet in the future, but should simply be assimilated by each sinner individually. Now come, you sinners, come forward now with this Sacrifice of yours for sin before Him; and though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and if they are red as purple, they shall become white as a wave (Isaiah 1:18). After the presentation of the sacrifice before the Lord, there followed the laying on of hands on the part of the sinner. The Israelite came and laid his hand on the head of the sacrificial animal. This was the act by which he portrayed the transfer of his sin or his sinful state to the victim. On the great day of Atonement, this was done alone for all: it was Aaron, who performed this action for all the people, loudly confessing the atrocities, crimes and sins of the people and placing them on the head of the sacrificial goat. Let us read the passage related here: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the living goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, and all their sins, and he shall lay them on the head of the goat, and send them away with a sent man into the wilderness. "(Lev. 16:21). All this is very clear and understandable.

We have already seen how God laid our sins on Christ, transferred them onto Him. But here, in the type, another feature is presented: this is the action of the sinner himself, transferring his sin on Christ by faith and leaving it on Him, as we are shown. This action of the heart must be performed today just as truly as it was once performed by a sinful Israelite (at the sin offering, if we want to be freed from our own sinful burden. It consists in a childish faith, which everyone must have personally for himself, that and his sins, namely, all sins known and confessed, as well as secret ones, were borne by Jesus and will no longer be borne by him.If the Israelite, laying his hands on the head of the sacrificial animal, looked at Christ - forward - and received forgiveness, then today the sinner has to look to Christ - back - now to taste reconciliation.

In type, the laying on of hands was followed by mortification. As soon as the sinner's condition was transferred to his sacrifice, a fatal blow was dealt, but not to the head of the sacrificer, but to that head, which: until recently did not know any sin, at that very moment took upon itself the sin of another. Sin demanded death, and since here, in the type, there was presented not an apparent, but an actual transfer of sin to another, then it was also followed by not an apparent, but a real one. the death penalty. And how amazing it is that in all that happened, except the laying on of hands, the sinner who offered the sacrifice remained completely indifferent; another settled scores with his victim; the other carried out the death sentence on her.

God, Jehovah, Himself settles the score on the cross with our Sacrifice for sin, Jesus Christ. He gives Him, the only begotten, the full recompense that sin pays to his servant, and Jesus accepts it completely, earning Himself not the slightest concession. As a lamb led to the slaughter does not open its mouth, so He accepts the iniquity of all people laid upon Him, together with the sentence and its consequences, without a single word of justification, without uttering a single sound in his defense. If we were under the curse of God, then He became a curse for us, because it is written: "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" (Gal. 3, 13); and that He hung on a tree is known to all the world. If we have reached the point of being rejected from the presence of God, then He became a participant in this when He exclaimed: "My God, My God! why did You leave Me?" If we deserved death, then He tasted it for all of us, beloved, these are true and worthy words of all acceptance. But does each of us participate in them? Do each of you know that the account for his sins has already been covered, and do you have complete peace in this consciousness? Ah, it is no longer a matter of the fact that this thing has yet to happen, or that you have to do it. Somebody else has done all this long ago; you just have to stand with the hand of faith on the head of the Lamb: that's all.

But one should not forget one more circumstance: the removal of the slain victim from the camp, from the face of God. This was, as it might seem, a very strange ruling, because when all the other sacrifices were burned on the brazen altar, this one sacrifice could not be burned here. Everything was done, as we have just seen, before the face of God: the presentation of the victim before the Lord, the laying on of hands and her death; but as soon as the latter was accomplished, it was immediately taken out of the sanctuary. On the altar only offerings of sweet fragrance to the Lord were burned; there was no place for sin on him, he was not to be in the camp: he was to be thrown out of the camp. And we must not forget that sin was embodied in this sacrifice.

Oh, know, dear soul, how terrible sin is in the sight of God! Your Lord not only could once stand before His eyes, but was the favor of the Father. "This is my beloved Son," we hear his repeated voice, "in whom I am well pleased." But when your iniquity and mine fell on Him, He had to come out not only from the sanctuary, but also howling from the city, to the place of the skull; there God hid His face from Him, so that, in the sorrow of His soul, Oi loudly exclaimed: "My God, My God! why did You leave Me?" But a wonderful and marvelous lot fell to our lot; because, just as an Israelite, a real sinner, before the face of God, in my sanctuary, fearlessly and joyfully take the place of his sacrifice and, as a clean one, remain there, while his sacrifice was burned outside the camp - so we also have the right stand now "in a holy place" (Ps. 23, 3). The place of Jesus before the face of God has become our place. Isn't it true, we now understand what the Holy Spirit wanted to say, reminding us of the words of the Epistle to Heb. 13:12: "And Jesus, that he might sanctify the people with his blood, suffered without the gate." He removed from us and from the presence of God our shame and reproach, so that in His holiness we can stand before God. Since this is so, my brethren, let us "go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach" (Heb. 13:13).

Let us take a closer look at the application of the sin offering in our type. See first what happened to her blood. Still warm, having just flowed out of the sacrificial animal, before its body was taken out, it was brought into the sanctuary. This clearly indicated that the news of the execution of the sentence should have been brought to the sanctuary as soon as possible. There it was sprinkled seven times before the Lord, immediately before the veil, part of which was placed on the horns of the altar of incense, and the rest was poured out at the foot of the brazen altar. places, even to the very Holy of Holies, so that the way was opened to him directly into the presence of God, as we have just seen.On the brazen altar, where the justice of God reigned in all its severity, the blood testified that perfect satisfaction had been given to justice, because it demanded life, and life was given.On the golden altar, the blood testified to the sanctification of the sinner, since it is blameless I sacrificed every stain from him and now he could calmly worship here. And before the veil, she testified to the newly restored communion with God, because the sinner separated from God, having lost all right to communion with Him, died, in fact, in the person of his victim; the same one who lived, now lived the life of the victim and took her place before the Bot.

These are all wondrous truths, and do they need any further explanation? - I don't think. We all understand them and understand them exactly as they are. I only want one thing - to invite every brother who has sinned, every sister who has sinned to take part in them; If only I could do it! So, oh come, dear ones, come! Come on the basis of the innocent sacrificial blood of our Lord, and come straight into the very presence of God; you will find this blood everywhere, all the way to Him, and it laid it for you because Christ not only reached the veil, but also entered behind it, into heaven itself, to appear before God for you.

This was the use of the blood of the victim. Let us dwell, however, on the rest of its parts.

We just saw how her body was treated: it was burned outside the camp, burned to ashes. Since sin was laid on it and it represented it, then it could not remain in the eyes of God - it had to be taken out and destroyed. Thanks be to God that in Christ there really is an end to our sin; he is no more. In destroying Christ, death destroyed sin; he is gone forever, removed from the presence of the Lord. Now we can understand the essential difference between the New and Old Testaments: in the Old Testament, sins were remembered by the sacrifices every year (Heb. 10, 3) - in contrast to which in the New Testament sins and iniquities are no longer remembered by the Lord (Heb. 8, 12), and we, once cleansed, no longer have any consciousness of sins (Heb. 10:2).

"We have no consciousness of sins." This expression does not mean that the redeemed are unable to recognize the sins that they can commit if they lose their spiritual vigilance. The consciousness of sins, which is spoken of here, is a heavy depressed state of the soul, languishing under the burden of sin. The Lord, forgiving sinners, gives them, instead of this consciousness, complete peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

But what did the fat, the kidneys, and the omentum on the liver signify, given over to the fire on the altar of burnt offering? These were obviously the most tender and noble parts of the sacrificial animal, which God commanded to be set aside for the offering offering, so that His holy fire would burn them. By this He expressed His favor to us. He placed them along with the offering offering, which was separated to Him from the peace offering, which He accepted as a pleasant fragrance (Lev. 4:9-10; 3:5). Here is a wonderful feature: it shows us how God treated the sacrifice itself: it was, according to its inner content, dear and valuable in His eyes, it was His joy, pleasure. At the same time that He showed His hatred of sin by not allowing the body of the sacrifice to be burned on His altar and commanding that it be removed from the sanctuary, He also expressed His favor for the purity of the sacrifice itself, commanding that the noble parts of it be lifted up in the fire to Him in the sanctuary. He did both in Christ.

What was the fruit of all this for the sacrificer? In Lev. 8:15 are three precious truths about the consequences of the sin offering.

It says: Moses "took the blood, and put his finger on the horns of the altar on all sides, and cleansed the altar, and poured out the rest of the blood at the foot of the altar, and sanctified it to make it clean." (In other translations, the words "make him clean" are replaced by the expression: "so that reconciliation can be made"). So cleansing of sins, sanctification, and reconciliation thus followed the offering of the sin offering. Are not these all wonderful blessings, precious gifts for the sinner?

So it is in Christ. Just as by faith He becomes for us what God has made Him, so these blessings become our own. Let's think about them a little. The cleansing of sins means complete liberation from them. To be cleansed means to be made without sin, as if it never burdened us. Consecration is separation for God. Reconciliation is the exclusion of any misunderstanding, any enmity, and leads to indispensable adoption. So it really is: the Son of the Father took our place and became what we were, namely sinners, and in His place we became sons and daughters of God.

Are these the unsearchable riches of Christ? If only all of us, who have now seen the fulfillment of this wonderful prototype in Christ, would be partakers of all these blessings!

II. trespass victim

Leviticus 5:14-19; 6, 1 - 7

The trespass offering seems at first glance and superficially to be very little different from the previous "and the sin offering." The names "sin offering" and "guilt offering", at least for a large number of people, represent one and the same concept. Even some eminent theologians considered the guilt offering to be only an addition to the sin offering, which, however, is completely wrong.In general, we attach too little importance to the difference in the definitions by which God designates our sins, such as: sin, iniquity, crime, crime, guilt etc., and yet the Holy Spirit, not without intention, used these various definitions. Tal here too, as we hope to see later. That the guilt offering is indeed an entirely new subject follows from the fact that, like other various sacrifices, it was instituted by a new command of God to Moses. After the various kinds of sin offerings have been described in every respect, Moses proceeds to describe the guilt offering with the usual words, "And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying." It was like a solemn seal, which was applied at the head or at the beginning of each of the documents transmitted through Moses, and not as we do, applying a seal at the end. I would suggest reading carefully, in this respect, the third chapter of the book of Leviticus.

So here we are again facing a completely new subject. This is not an explanation of the old previous sin offering, not a continuation of the teaching about it, but a new means of grace, which was to meet the needs of the people of Israel, just like all other sacrifices, only in a new direction inherent in it. And this brings unspeakable good to the soul, because it shows us how God, in His boundless love, has long weighed and considered all our needs, has already provided for them all in advance and has established His means corresponding to them. Let us immerse ourselves in this love and taste it, which we will achieve mainly by the fact that we will more weigh and study the holy decrees of God that flow from it and are written by Him for us in this Book, because in this way we will see everything more vividly and more clearly. what we have in Christ. He, who unites everything in His person, He, our inexhaustible treasury, may He show us in His light a new precious gift for us in the sacrifice of guilt.

Let us dwell here, first of all, on the name of this victim. God called her a victim of "conscription", or a victim for a crime. "Guilt or a crime indicates personal participation in the consequences that occurred through an action or omission. One cannot, for example, accuse a tubercular person of a misconduct or attribute to him the guilt of his premature death if he sucked his illness already with his mother's milk. The situation is quite different, however, with a person dying from the same disease, if he brought it on himself by a personal violation of the laws of nature, or developed it by neglecting the necessary care for himself. He is the culprit, the violator of the law, reaping the fruit of his own deeds in his illness. The same difference exists between the sinner and the criminal, between the sin offering and the guilt offering. I was, unfortunately, a sinner before I could have an idea of ​​the existence of any commandment of God, which I could break or transgress. I already was him when I sighed for the first time in my life; I was them by my origin and birth; but I was not yet a criminal, I became one only later, when I personally took part in untruth before God and people. Thus I was a sinner by birth and a sinner by works; for the first state, I need a sin offering; for the second, a guilt offering. I, you, all of us need to have redemption, even if we are not aware of a single sinful act, even if we were babies left this world. All the more incomparably more do we need it now, having become the culprits.

But the guilt offering concerns not so much our state as our actions; it is not satisfaction but what we ourselves are, but for what we do or miss. While the sin offering refers to our corruption, which sometimes does not have to be revealed (at least in front of people's eyes); while it refers, so to speak, to the very essence, the very root of sin, the guilt offering refers to the fruits that have risen and ripened from this root. These differences between the two victims were constantly brought to the attention of the Israelite, so that, the further, the more the consciousness of the need for his redemption was affirmed in him.

But how grateful we should be to God for such a clear revelation to us that in Christ there is salvation for every single aspect of our deep misfortune! Many times we have heard various serious, but not fully aware of the glorious redemption in Christ, people how they limited the work done on Calvary. Some thought that in Him, the second Adam, only the fall of the first Adam was restored and, as they said, our natural, hereditary sin was redeemed, but we ourselves are responsible for our personal sins. Others, on the contrary, based on the consciousness of their internal depravity, considered it necessary to accept that Christ really bore the sins we personally committed, but, as far as our original spiritual state is concerned, it must remain the same, and this cannot be helped in any way.

Meanwhile, these two victims solve these issues. They show us in Christ an ample salvation for every direction of our corruption. No matter how deep the fall in Adam, no matter how terrible the abyss of his own crimes, Jesus, both for one and for the other, is a sufficient sacrifice for sin and a guilt offering. This is precisely what the Apostle Paul shows with convincing clarity in Romans 5:12-21. We quote here only one 16th verse: from many crimes. A precious, glorious redemption that removes the judgment of the first fall and accomplishes something far greater than that. It also destroyed forever our own personal falling away, repeated innumerable times. Yes, it is an indescribable gift.

But let no one think that placing the guilt offering on the same level as the sin offering has no practical significance for the life of faith. This can be with a person who has never yet attached serious importance to his sin in the face of God. But everyone who has once been opened by the Holy Spirit to his own depravity knows how much more suffering and grief is caused to him by his own guilt, his crimes and mistakes, than by his fallen hereditary state. And this is understandable, because in our own affairs we are faced with a damning and condemning law that cannot be circumvented, and whose inexorable demands "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not" we personally despise or lose sight of. Through this broken law, our sin is made extremely sinful to us. It multiplies, that is, inevitably brings upon us the judgment it deserves, and if there were no salvation from this, despair would be the end of every awakened sinner. But how blessed it makes him realize that Christ gave His life as a sacrifice of guilt, and thus bore upon Himself every action, every word, every unclean thought of ours against God and people. How blessed it is to know that His death removed both the consequences of our sinful condition and the consequences of our sinful deeds!

There were two kinds of guilt offerings, and we must not lose sight of both. One kind of this sacrifice satisfied for the crimes of man committed against the requirements of Jehovah, while the other - for the sins of man against man. The command said: "If anyone commits a crime and by mistake sins against someone consecrated to the Lord, let him offer a guilt offering to the Lord for his guilt" (Lev. 5:15). And further: "If anyone sins and commits a crime against the Lord, and is forbidden before his neighbor", etc. (Lev. 6, 2). These were the two assumptions of God about it, denoting two directions: one - in which a person stands in relation to God, and the other - in relation to his neighbor. In both of these directions, man has sinned and is constantly sinning again, and God must remind him of this.

Fallen man broke off his relationship with God, departed from God. His state, his inner mood are manifested both in his actions and in his deeds: in them he is a stranger to God, he excluded Him from his life. But God, in whom there has never been and never can be a change regarding this creation of His, despite the fact that it has changed, nevertheless invariably requires from him the same pure, God-befitting behavior towards Him, its Creator. Any non-recognition of this position before God, any inattention, any forgetfulness in relation to God is a new real blow directed by those who have sinned against their Lord. Many so-called believers never think about it and consider themselves already out of danger and innocent if they did not steal, did not rob, did not commit adultery and rendered to everyone their due.

If they have, in some way, satisfied the requirements of human morality, they think that the Lord must also be pleased with them. But look: only the giving of one's own life or the life of a substitute, that is, his sacrifice, could atone for a mistake or omission of this kind.

We must also not forget to emphasize what is especially put forward by the Lord Himself here: this is that the relation to Him is placed in the first place, a place that precedes the relation to the neighbor.

What will you say about this rule of God, my brothers and sisters, you who until now have only cared about how to be right before people? Do you not feel in your own heart how countless times on this one occasion you have put God in the background, honoring Him below His creation? May the Holy Spirit show it clearly to you!"

But, on the other hand, notice with our guilt offering how the Lord intervenes also in the rights of our neighbors. The Holy Spirit desires holiness and justice in word, deed, thought and actions in all respects towards the neighbor from me, from you, from each of us, regardless of personality, position in life, or degree of education. He calls it a crime against Him if one person does any injustice to another; it is guilt committed against Him. Thus, the trespass offering puts a person before both tables of the law of God, offering him forgiveness for crimes in two directions. How our soul must praise the Lord, seeing in the death of Christ complete salvation from all kinds of our sinful deeds!

Let us also note how God defines here each kind of these two kinds of transgressions. About the crime against the Lord in our text it is suggested that it was committed by mistake or ignorance, "If anyone commits a crime and sins by mistake," it says in one place; and in another: "If anyone sins and does something against the commandments of the Lord ... and through ignorance becomes guilty," then - what then? Should it have been ignored? No, on the contrary, it is said that a person will become guilty and bear the sin. Yes, how holy is the Lord! This was missed by a person, he could even be ignorant of what happened, but not so with the Lord: it was immediately entered "in the handwriting that was about us and against us", with an indelible designation: "crime". Yes, beloved, injustice is injustice, iniquity is iniquity before Him, and sin is three, a black spot that He will not call white, and which disfigures and condemns us, even if our conscience is not aware of it. This is one of the hidden sins that needs to be cleansed and blotted out through the blood. How deeply the apostle Paul realized this truth when he said: "Although I know nothing behind myself, yet I am not justified by this" (1 Cor. 4, 4). So our walking before Him is unsatisfactory, even if we walk with a clear conscience. But, glory to Him, that His precious sacrifice of guilt reaches to the most hidden sins, blotting them out according to the requirements of the All-Seeing and All-Knowing God, and not according to our understanding and not according to our conscience. What peace of heart can there be when we see how deep God's measures go in the death of Christ for us!

Now we come to transgressions against our neighbors. It does not say here that they could have been done by mistake or ignorance, because they are so close to our own feelings that any restriction of the rights given to our neighbor by God should be immediately noticed by us. After all, a person, with his own desires and requirements for his neighbor, is himself a law, he constantly carries in himself and with himself the scale according to which he must treat his neighbor, according to the word of the Lord: "In everything, as you wish, so that with men have done to you, so do you also to them, for this is the law and the prophets" (Matt. 7:12). There can no longer be any question of error or sin out of ignorance. And yet, we must openly admit that some people even go as far as this. Without a doubt, one must sink deeply, below the ordinary position of a fallen person, in order to unconsciously and out of ignorance commit against one's neighbor the sins listed here, and others like them. Nevertheless, unfortunately, a person can sink to this level and drink iniquity like water. At first, he sins, perhaps reproaching himself inwardly, then consciously, even deliberately, and continues until, finally, the consciousness of committing a sin completely disappears from him. Perhaps if such a soul had not found the sacrifice of guilt in Christ Jesus, when the Holy Spirit once opened her eyes to her personal fall, she would have fallen into hopeless despair. But the word of God illuminates us with a ray of hope. Christ, our guilt offering, as God shows us in this precious type of His, took upon Himself every guilt, voluntarily or involuntarily, consciously or unconsciously, and paid for what He did not steal, for everyone who trusts in Him.

Let us come nearer to the sacrifice or satisfaction here prescribed by the Lord.

First of all, let us see what was the satisfaction for the sin directed against the Lord Himself. If anything "consecrated to the Lord" was defiled or unjustly withheld, or a commandment concerning the Lord was broken, the Israelite was to appear with full satisfaction before the face of the Lord. It consisted of a ram without blemish. It was an amazing ordinance of God, full of divine wisdom.

In the sacrificed ram we see God's immutable rule: "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (Heb. 9:22). Sin in itself, however insignificant in the eyes of men, could only be redeemed by death; only in this way could satisfaction be given to the justice of God. And this had to be done first of all, so that what stood between the Israelite and God might be removed, and that the former might draw near to the Lord. Let us also note this for ourselves, brothers and sisters, in case we unconsciously touch what is dedicated to Him, or appropriate it, or take it at our disposal; let us hasten with such a sinful deed, first of all, under the power of the guilt offering, which we have in the person of Jesus Christ. Let us immediately stand before the face of God, but in no case without this sacrifice: only it can restore to us our blessed position, which we had before sinning.

But when the offering was made and the flames consumed the ram, was that not enough? No way. God demanded the complete restitution of the initiate. How is it? It is very simple: the Lord would suffer damage if only the punishment atoned for sin, but what was taken away was not completely and completely returned to Him.

Oh, the wonderful mercy of God, expressed in the redemption of Jesus Christ! He not only bears our guilt and atones for all our sins, but returns us to God, so that He gets His property back, and so completely and completely that a self-willed and selfish person voluntarily lays himself again on the altar of God and consecrates himself to it. He, having stolen His rights from God and offended Him, now, redeemed by Christ, takes away his hands from himself, his body, life and everything that he has, recognizing henceforth only Him as the only one who has power and right over him. Thus, through redemption in Christ, His property is restored to the Lord. But - oh, precious thought! - He gets more than He once lost. Not only the lost creature returns to the Father's house cleansed and freed from sins, but a new creation united with Him, His child, the heir of His nature and glory.

On the other hand, this trespass offering, with its compensation, gives the child of God who is consecrated to God another very precious hint. "I am Yours, You redeemed me to Yourself!" - Here is his joy and reality since salvation became clear to him. He gave himself and his body "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God", and from that time on this is his "reasonable service" (Rom. 12:1).

But who among the beloved of God does not know how many mistakes they make out of ignorance and omission, which become clear to consciousness even when they are made. And how much impurity is in this our reasonable service to God, how many encroachments on the shrine and how often we take back what was laid to Him on the altar - God's inexpressible mercy lies in the fact that the power of the blood of Jesus, our guilt offering, can be applied here too .

But is it enough for you, my brother, my sister, when you know that this or that sin of yours has been redeemed and covered by the blood of Jesus? Have you always meant that the Lord should not suffer any loss in this, but that your consecration to Him should remain at the same height and in the same strength and volume after the crime as before it? This is an extremely important point. Because it is precisely this deplorable reality that one should pay attention to, that often the unintentional mistakes of the children of God become the beginning of their apostasy from God. What they stole was not returned to the Lord in the same measure as it was before, and this was already a new mistake; others followed, and a slow alienation from the Lord began.

Let us now turn to the satisfaction prescribed for sinning against our neighbor. And here we find the same ram, the same reward for the loss suffered by one's neighbor, with the addition of a fifth. The reward and a fifth of it were given to the victim, while the ram, as a guilt offering, was placed on the altar of the Lord. The satisfaction of the neighbor had to be as perfect as that which was given to the Lord. This again reminds us that after we commit any sin against our neighbor, our attitude towards him should become even better and more sincere than before.

But there is another circumstance of particular importance here. Satisfaction begins not with a bloody sacrifice, as we have seen before, not with the offering of a ram, but with recompense for what has been taken away and adding to it a fifth.

Here we must begin not at the brazen altar and not in the sanctuary, but with the injured and offended person. How foolish and sinful, therefore, is the heart that imagines that a sin committed against another person against a neighbor can be completely blotted out on the knees before the Lord. No, first give complete satisfaction to your brother, restore the completely former attitude, do this, even if you yourself had to endure, so to speak, a loss; make your attitude a fifth better, sincere, more cordial, and then place the burden of this sin on the sacrifice of guilt offered for you by your Lord, and your world will become perfect.

Let us also never forget that in sinning against one's neighbor, both conditions are necessary: ​​a reward and a guilt offering. The first, the reward, would not have been enough if Jesus had not covered. with His blood, your guilt; the latter, the guilt offering, would not have blotted out your sin if you had not given a reward, because God could not admit either you or your sacrifice to His altar until your affairs to your brother were put in order. They must be corrected first. See how Jesus refers to the offended brother of the man who brings his gift to the altar:

"If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go, first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift (Matt. 5, 23 - 24).

In this type of Christ's sacrifice we see how gloriously united justification and sanctification. The first is not left without the second, and it cannot be otherwise. Redemption and abiding in sin are separated in Christ from each other, as heaven is from earth, and must therefore remain where there is true redemption and cleansing, and walking in the light must follow.

Otherwise, the confession that you have a part in Christ is not true, because He is not a minister of sin. Let's never forget this. And may we be in everything an adornment to the teaching of the Savior, our God, a holy walk corresponding to him before the Lord (Titus 2:10). May He do this in us to His glory!