The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. – Hebrews 10:1 NIV
During the pandemic lockdown, Ruth was busy uploading fresh content each week for the YouTube channel of the church where she was working. They aimed to have four new elements each week; she did a short devotional video and a song video; and the pastor did a short sermon and one of his pre-lockdown messages which had never been uploaded before was added to their channel.
She asked me if I would consider doing a devotional. Despite producing content in written form here on a daily basis, video teaching wasn’t something I had ever considered.
When asked to do something like this, I think it’s important not to try to take on the mantle of deep theological exposition, but rather, to begin with (a) what you know or (b) what you’ve experienced.
One passage which has always stood out to me is Hebrews 10: 11-12.
11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God NIV
The main point is these actions had to be performed on a repeated basis, as seen in contrast to Christ’s ‘once for all’ sacrifice. He said, “It is finished.”
It’s hard to read this, with its vivid description of priests performing the same sacrifices on a recurring basis and not think of the time Jesus intersected directly with those facilitating worship in the scene we normally call, “Jesus cleanses the temple;” or perhaps a progressive translation might use the header, “Jesus throws a fit.” It’s not pretty. He was truly going up against “the sacrifice industry.”
The story is told in all four gospel accounts. (each of those 4 words provides 4 links for those who wish to compare.) The synoptic gospels place this toward the end of the story, while John places it in chapter two. Does this mean this happened more than once? Some Bible scholars say yes, others say that John wanted to introduce the story earlier to demonstrate the “clout” or “authority” with which Jesus ministered.
I mentioned in the video I recorded that among the other things we do, my wife and I own a Christian bookstore. Many of these sprang out of what were called ‘Christian supply stores’ with a variety of materials for sale to facilitate worship. Today, the focus is more on books and music, but a few vestiges of those days remain, and one staple for the last 50 years, has been disposable communion cups.
They come in a box of 1,000 which at the time sold for $19.99 U.S. That means that every time a church of 100 people had a communion service, the store made a $2.00 sale. For a church of 50 people, that would be $1.00. Not exactly high finance. [Not that I’m letting the Christian publishing industry off the hook; there are other stories to be told, like VBS which is a multi-million dollar industry just in itself.]
Perhaps I fret too much over this minuscule profit.
However, what was going on in the temple was closer to robbery. Most people who grew up in the story know this it as “Jesus vs. The Money-changers.” If you’ve ever traveled, you know all about currency exchange. In this case, visitors who came a great distance, and weren’t able to bring a lamb with them would buy one, only after converting their money to temple currency. They would see the money-changers to buy local currency and then buy the lamb.
But what about the people who lived more locally and were able to bring a lamb with them? Were they equally ripped off?
The lambs were supposed to be without spot, wrinkle or blemish. I heard someone teach on this passage asserting that those in charge would look at those lambs and find them to be somewhat lacking. They would find some reason why it doesn’t pass the “spotless” test. They’d smile and say, “But we have one which is perfect we’ll sell you instead.” I don’t know how much give-and-take happened at this stage, since the families would have chosen their lamb with great care, but eventually, weary from travel and up against a system they couldn’t fight, they would cave in.
But later, the lamb that they bought — which wasn’t deficient — would be sold to someone else.
The spotless lamb of course is a type of Jesus, who was without sin.
[Pardon me for one brief tangent: If you grew up in church you’ve probably heard the phrase ‘without spot, blemish or wrinkle’ used in reference to the church. How does the description switch to us when it’s supposed to be about Him? The answer is that this is what it means when God imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. The phrase occurs in Ephesians 5:27 and is referring to sanctification. We now return to our devotional, already in progress.]
So Jesus does what Jesus does, and he clears the temple in what is called a prophetic act. The whole system, or to use the language I’m using today, the whole sacrifice industry is about to come to an end, and (in the synoptic accounts, speaking just later) Jesus says as much when he says, “It is finished.”
[But even there, if the timing in John’s gospel is right, it starts up all over again; a sort of microcosm of what the passage in Hebrews intends.]
And then in the economy of the language used in the Book of Hebrews, we’re reminded that this ended in him sitting “in the place of honor” (NLT) at God’s right hand.
Unlike those other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices every day. They did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus did this once for all when he offered himself as the sacrifice for the people’s sins. – Hebrews 7:27
So I ended up making the video she requested. As I was wrapping up what you just finished reading, I said that would normally be the end of the story, but it occurred to me that YouTube being what it is there were possibly people who have never come under the covering of what Jesus did, and I encouraged them to contact the church hosting the video.
Of course, the internet being what it is, there may be people reading this here who have never asked God to include them under the covering of his sacrifice. If that’s the case, use the contact form (lower part of the page) here so we can help you discern the next steps you need to take.
Christianity 201 