Your comments are often so terse, that I must admit I cannot always follow them. However, you appear to be in a contradiction. You write that HaShem requires blood, and by this, I assume you to mean that He requires it in order to forgive one of his wrongdoing. And then you say that sacrifices ceased due to rebellion. This puts you in something of a conundrum.
If the only way for the people to gain forgiveness for their rebellion is through their sacrifices, then by what means will the rebel be forgiven? The only means, according to you, for him to become right with God had been taken from him. Moreover, now even those that did not rebel were left entirely cut off from God, according to your reading. Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel were all left without means of forgiveness according to you, at least for large portions of their lives.
Indeed, you make Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 9 a rather ridiculous prayer. There he admits the faults of Israel. He begins by acknowledging the guilt of Israel: “…we have sinned and done wrong, acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and ordinances…” (v.5). And he concludes: “O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act and do not delay! For your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people bear your name!” (v. 19). But surely Daniel knew that God would not forgive, not when there was no temple, not when there was no sacrifice. Why then does he ask for forgiveness when he knows there can be none?
It is because Daniel knows that sacrifices are not necessary for forgiveness. His prayer is not ridiculous, and it is not offered in vain. He knows that his trust is in the Merciful One. He knows that blood is not a prerequisite to forgiveness. He knows the love of HaShem for His creatures, that He wants only their good and not their destruction.
Do not imagine that the Merciful One destroyed the means of forgiveness for either a short or long period of time. Do not imagine that He is weak, unable to forgive without blood. Know that HaShem does not desire that the wicked should die, and He calls them to repentance.
Jim
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Thank You
Yisroel C. Blumenthal
Well done, Jim!
Jim,
Not that I disagree with you, but rather wondering what kind of Christian you used to be to not know the Christian doctrine concerning what you deem “Bloodless Intercession”. I’m curious, do you willfully not share this or do you not know?
CP, would you be referring to baptism of blood as a path of salvation? The Church only grants the premise of intercession without recognizing the blood of Jesus in a couple of cases.
1. If You are wholly ignorant of the gospel message, and have never heard it. G-d will still judge you, but only according to the law written on your heart. (he will judge righteously by your conscious sense of right and wrong.)
2. If you are a “sheep not of this sheep pen,” who dies unjustly via baptism of blood, IE Martyrdom. In other words, If you are like the thief on the cross who believed Jesus was innocent, you may be “saved.”
Those are the only two instances I know of where Christian scripture and tradition grants leniency on the question of “who is saved/atoned for.”
The Eastern Orthodox don’t believe that anyone is inherently guilty of Adam’s sin, (in the way Augustine Believed actual guilt was inherited from Adam,) but the orthodox taught merely that we have a diminished spiritual state and are endowed with free will. That being the case, the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that since “Christ died once for all,” christus Victor, many people may be “saved” even though they are not strictly Church members. The official position of the Orthodox Church is that “many may be saved without technically being Christians, but Christ’s death covered all sins of all people a la Christus Victor.
Even accounting for those leniences in the Church CP, the orthodox still hold that “outside the Church there is no salvation.” IE they will say
“we can’t guarantee that those who are not orthodox are actually saved, (Protestants and people of other religions,) but we do not judge them.”
So, yes, while technically Christianity can offer some form of hope of salvation to those outside the Christian fold, there is nothing akin to what Torah offers when it speaks about Jews and the Ger living together in peace under G-d.
Concerned Reader,
Yes, you’ve covered some Christian doctrine for salvation outside Christ. We can add doctrines concerning the unborn, mentally disabled, not of age and 4000 years of people who lived before Christ. Depending on what denomination, one can find all kinds of doctrines from only a 144,000 saved to heaven to Universal Salvation.
I’m beginning to realize this whole thing here is a fundy war. The majority of individuals here (not you) absolutely refuse to accept more than one possible meaning to a verse, passage, concept, rather stubbornly insisting on only one correct interpretation. If you’ve ever discussed with a 5 point Calvinist or a KJV Onlyist then you know what I’m talking about. The reality is Scripture is not that shallow.
The problem is “Religion”. In this case both Judaism and Christianity have repeatedly time and time again screwed up, each claiming to be God’s chosen to the exclusion of everyone else, each claiming only they have the truth.
My opinion; God has chosen Abraham’s descendants and any Gentile wishing to join, the problem is we don’t know who they all are, but there are plenty of people willing to tell everyone else who they are.