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Jesus is God. You have God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Three persons, same essence.
The sacrificial system is a type or shadow in the old testament to point to what Jesus would do as the sacrificial lamb in the new. No longer would they sacrifice bulls and goats which could not forgive sins, but only covered them. Jesus is that lamb that would take the sin of the world and the wrath of God.
The whole sacrificial system was implemented by God so the Jews would understand that blood needed to be spilt as a result of of the sins that were commited.
If you want to get technical, it was God the Father. But even still, it was still God. And it was ordained to happen long before Jesus ever came to the world, or the first sacrifice was ever made by the Jews of old.
Hope that answers your question, if not, just let me know.
DoubleA
I would rather approach it with the Biblical perspective:
".. you shall not eat flesh ..." (Genesis 9: 2-4)
DoubleA
Dear DoubleA ,
Thank you for your response that made things clearer : for awhile i thought that " Jesus condone and promoted ritual animal slaughter " was being implied.
Yes , one more question : what is your interpretation of the above quote shared earlier by yourself .
If you continued the verse that you were quoting from the Bible it says, "you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood.
This means, you are not to either eat the animal while it is alive, or while it still has blood in it (raw).
In order to understand this you have to understand the sacrificial system that was set up for them. The blood of animals was used for the covering of sin and represented the life of the animal. When that animal was killed, its blood was supposed to used as a sacrifice for the covering of sin on the alter of God. It was symbolic. It represented the life of an animal taken as a sacrifice to be used for the remission of sin. This is further explained in Leviticus:
(Leviticus 17:10-11 )
"And any man from the house of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement."
Religion wasn't just part of their life, it was their way of life and consumed all that they did (unlike many of us today). But this does not mean that they could not eat meat. Leviticus 11 describes all of the meat that they are allowed to eat. Here's a small sample (small because there are a ton of rules...which do not apply today any more because Christ fulfills the law. These rules were only written for the nation of Israel for a specific time and point in history. Once the temple was done away with, so were these laws and regulations),
(Leviticus 11:1-7) The Lord spoke again to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘These are the creatures which you may eat from all the animals that are on the earth. Whatever divides a hoof, thus making split hoofs, and chews the cud, among the animals, that you may eat. Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these, among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof: the camel, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you. Likewise, the shaphan, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you; the rabbit also, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof, it is unclean to you; and the pig, for though it divides the hoof, thus making a split hoof, it does not chew cud, it is unclean to you. "
It goes on and on...
Don't hesitate to ask any more questions, hope that clears up a little more,
DoubleA
Thanks for the links. I've only read a couple of the post.. one of them yours. One thing that stuck out to me was the geneologies. One is of Christ's mother, the other of his father...both descendants of David. I hope you don't mind me asking you a question also. Why does the fact that Jesus had brothers and sisters listed in Mark make it contradict Matthew and Luke if Jesus is the eldest child? Mary didn't stay a virgin.
Thanks for your responses and questions.
Sorry for digressing... feel free to move this post if you like
The implied contradiction is between the Doctrine of Perpetual Virgin Mary ( i.e virgin before , during and after Jesus’ birth ; mentioned earlier by a poster in the thread ) and the fact that Jesus had siblings .
The other implied contradiction : Mark make no mention of a virgin birth whereas Matthew and Luke does .
The genealogy of Joseph ( Jesus’ step father ) in Mark and Matthew was referred to : the presented family tree is entirely different . Even the name of Joseph’s father differs ( Jacob in Matthew and Heli in Luke ).
Not all Christian denominations agree on whether Jesus was eldest or younger or alone and whether Mother Mary didn’t stay a virgin .
Amateur research in the above subject ( Bible and Jesus’ Gospel) is part of my personal interest in the topic of spiritual cultivation and not to prosyletize for any one party.
An opinion of mine regarding the possible avenues in looking for answers to questions about Jesus are :
1) Modern scientific research ( the intellect approach )
2) Consult someone with transcendent knowledge ( the faith approach )
3) First hand Knowledge ( the wisdom approach )
Coming back to the topic of this thread : based on 1) & 2) , i opined that Jesus Christ was most probably a vegetarian , a teetotaler , a celibate , born the normal way , believes in karma & reincarnation , did not come to start a christian religion , learned from his teacher , teaches your potential to also be son of God and himself a highest level teacher ( Master of Mind ) …..sort of a teaching master who has taken the monastic vow ( does not imply that lay masters cannot be of the highest level ).
By all means disagree , for you have to do your own research and carry your own cross and hopefully acquire 1 st hand Knowledge ( the highest enlightenment ).
Quoting the Bible again “ Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies “ 1 Timothy 1:4
And “ The kingdom of God cometh not with observation : Neither shall they say , “Lo here ! or , lo there !” For , behold , the Kingdom of God is within you . “ Luke 17:20-21
God Bless and best wishes to All
Last edited by Damian Kissey; 17 November 2008, 03:51 PM.
Would it be to far to say that since Jesus had two parents, that the two genealogies are different because Matthew represented Joseph's genealogy, and Luke's represented Mary's? Matthew's moving forward: from Abraham to Joseph because it was written to a Jewish audience, and they wanted to show how Jesus is indeed a descendant of Abraham, their first patriarch. And Luke's was written backward from Jesus to Adam because it was written to the Gentiles, and was meant to appeal to all humanity instead of just the Jews. The royal line being passed through Jesus' legal father, and His physical descent from David portrayed through Mary's lineage. No women were included in Luke's genealogy; yet Eli had no male children. So in order for that generation to be represented in verse 23, Eli’s son in law (Joseph) had to be recorded. This was commonly done in the Jewish culture, as seen in Numbers 27:1-11 & Numbers 36:1-12.
I myself do not believe that Jesus believed in reincarnation because of what the Bible says in Hebrews 9:27 “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment…”
As for Luke 17:20-21, I believe we have to take in the context in which it was written. The Pharisees were known to mock Jesus, and deny that He was their promised Messiah. They were also looking for a Messiah that would all at once overthrow the physical, and political rulers of the Jews (the Romans). Their view of what the Messiah would be and what He would do was incorrect. He did not come this first time to overthrow any rulers (Rome included), but came as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 who lays down his life. The kingdom of God ruling on Earth was to come later after Christ comes back again to crush Satan and death with every knee bowing, and every tongue confessing that Jesus is Lord (Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11, and Philippians 2:10). No, this kingdom that Jesus was talking about while He walked the earth was not the physical kingdom to come, but the spiritual kingdom by which the Holy Spirit invades the hearts of believers, gives them new desires that He be glorified…with this not being bound by geographical location, nor visible by human eye.
Building on the previous point.. I also do not believe that Jesus came to start a new religion. I believe that He came to fulfill, and complete the religion of old, being Judaism. Jesus represents everything that the prophesies wrote about, and that their rituals represented. For example: Passover. Spread the blood of a lamb without blemish over the doorpost, and the angel of death will pass them by. Well, Jesus is that unblemished lamb. His blood cleanses us of our sin and thereby removes us from the curse of the law which states that any man is under a curse “who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them. (Deuteronomy 27:26, Galatians 3:10)” AKA “The wages for Sin is death.” Without Jesus, Judaism is incomplete. Another way of saying it is, without the Messiah, Judaism is incomplete. The scriptures predicted that there would be a New Covenant in Jeremiah 31:31, “Behold, days are coming’, declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers…I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother saying, ‘know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.”
Once again, even in that language, you can hear what I was talking about earlier with Luke 17:20-21. The kingdom of God now is in the heart of believers. And it was prophesied that this is the way that it would be roughly 600 years before Christ’s ministry. There are four gospels because all four are written to different audiences and stress different points to get across that same truth to different people. We are just blessed enough to have 4 accounts of the same history.
The Bible is a Supernatural book. It only takes a plain reading of it in its entirety to come to that conclusion. We can either pick it apart, read and like the things that we want, and disregard the things that we don’t like…thereby making us as knowledgeable or maybe even more so than God; because we know of all of the mistakes that God made in writing His book.. OR, we can accept it as Truth. Learn from it, and live by it. Maybe I’m blinded, and diluted, and ignorant to the things of the world. But, that’s okay with me because I believe the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Thus says the Lord…’But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word’.” (Isaiah 66:1-2) Even if what the Bible says contradicts science, I’m going to believe the Bible because I have faith in the character of the One Who wrote it.
If you continued the verse that you were quoting from the Bible it says, "you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood.
This means, you are not to either eat the animal while it is alive, or while it still has blood in it (raw).
In order to understand this you have to understand the sacrificial system that was set up for them. The blood of animals was used for the covering of sin and represented the life of the animal. When that animal was killed, its blood was supposed to used as a sacrifice for the covering of sin on the alter of God. It was symbolic. It represented the life of an animal taken as a sacrifice to be used for the remission of sin. This is further explained in Leviticus:
(Leviticus 17:10-11 )
"And any man from the house of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement."
Religion wasn't just part of their life, it was their way of life and consumed all that they did (unlike many of us today). But this does not mean that they could not eat meat. Leviticus 11 describes all of the meat that they are allowed to eat. Here's a small sample (small because there are a ton of rules...which do not apply today any more because Christ fulfills the law. These rules were only written for the nation of Israel for a specific time and point in history. Once the temple was done away with, so were these laws and regulations),
(Leviticus 11:1-7)
DoubleA
I am joining this discussion a little late, but I thought I would just add some input for the vegan / vegetarian side (for classification purposes, a vegan is one who also avoids eggs and milk, including derivatives thereof). As a Catholic, I have always been interested in the Genesis 9 argument.
I don't intend to "convert" anyone to a vegan lifestyle, but after several discussion with self-professed carnivores, the impression I get is that they justify meat-eating on the following grounds:
a) Animals are dumb and are meant to be eaten
b) This is the way of nature / God's plan
c) Meat is cheaper
d) Vegetables taste horrible
If the arguments are based on sound reasons such as a lack of alternatives, or at least health reasons, they would be palatable. But the arguments above are Neatherdal and primitive, to say the least. I was amazed that they came from graduates who in theory have been trained to think about issues and who have read about how animals are farmed for their meat. My conclusion is that either they were being ignorant, cruel or insecure (that is, they were inwardly aware of the cruelty being inflicted on the animals but did not have the courage to admit that). Whether you eat plants or eat meat, or anything else in between, I think it is important to be true to yourself. If you really don't care about the plight of animals, then at least be brave enough to say so.
Here is another take on a Biblical view on eating meat.
****************
Doesn't God gives humans permission to eat meat in Genesis 9?
This entire article is taken from Jesus Veg.
St. Jerome wrote: "As to the argument that in God's second blessing (Gen. 9:3), permission was given to eat flesh--a permission not given in the first blessing (Gen. 1:29)--let him know that just as permission to put away a wife was, according to the words of the Savior, not given from the beginning, but was granted to the human race by Moses because of the hardness of our hearts (Mt. 19), so also in like manner the eating of flesh was unknown until the Flood ..."
It is a sign of our poorly developed theological understanding that anyone uses Genesis 9 to justify the violence and cruelty inherent in today's factory farms and slaughterhouses. In Genesis 9, God makes a covenant "between [God] and [humans], and every kind of living creature." It is important to recall that by the time of the flood, God had come to realize that human hearts are "set on evil from childhood" (Genesis 8), and it is in the context of evil that God allows both eating animals and slavery in Genesis 9 (it is interesting to read the congressional debate between 1820-1865, in which one finds U.S. senators and representatives utilizing Genesis 9 to justify slavery as a part of God's plan). There are a host of stipulations about how to treat slaves and how to treat animals, but both are allowed, perhaps because by allowing them, God can then make them less vile by creating laws to temper human cruelty.
In the instance of eating animals, God recognizes that people will eat animals (violence has already taken over the Earth) but admonishes that "you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood." This means little to us now, as most meat-eaters simply pick up a cellophane-wrapped hunk of meat from their grocer's freezer. But in context, this is a revolutionary passage in defense of animal welfare. At the time when Genesis was written, people would routinely hack bits off of animals (e.g., a donkey's leg or a camel's hump) and then pack the wound in salt, keeping the animals alive in complete and utter misery. God recognizes that humans are going to kill and eat animals, just as God realizes that humans are going to hold slaves, neither of which are actions consistent with God's ideal plan as presented in the Garden of Eden and the vision of Isaiah 11. Although God recognizes that people will eat meat, God requires that meat-eaters kill animals before eating them and sets up a variety of laws regarding the consumption of animals. "
A complete reading of Genesis 9, with God's covenant with all flesh, both humans and animals, as well as the begrudging line, "Fear and dread of you will be in all the animals …" paints a very clear picture of a God who is horrified by human violence and exploitation. It is hardly humanity's finest hour when we find animals living in fear and dread of us. Who of us has not seen a dog or a cat who has been abused and cowers in fear of any human contact? Is this what we aspire to with cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals? Of course not.
On today's farms, animals are treated like machines, never granted the Sabbath rest required by God or any of the consideration that is their due as God's creatures. Within days of birth, for example, cows have their horns torn from their heads and chickens have their beaks seared off with a hot blade. Male cows and pigs are castrated without painkillers. All of these animals spend their brief lives in crowded and ammonia-filled conditions, many of them so cramped that they can't even turn around or spread a wing. Many do not get a breath of fresh air until they are prodded and crammed onto trucks for a nightmarish ride to the slaughterhouse, often through weather extremes and always without food or water. The animals are then hung upside down and their throats are sliced open, often while they're fully conscious.
The only legitimate Christian response to such mockery of God's beautiful creatures is to adopt a vegetarian diet.
Zhang Wuji makes some good points. While it is possible for me to live as a vegetarian and be healthy (healthier than when I ate meat in actual fact) I will continue to do so. There is also the environmental argument, it has been proven that turning vegetarian is one of the best thing you can do for the environment, I´ll go look up more info from where I read that if there is interest to know more.
I've heard compelling arguments that nutrients found in animal products are important, even necessary, for optimal human function. Two sources of information about this were Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, and Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.
I sympathize for the desire to cause no harm to animals, having been a vegan for a year in the past, and a vegetarian for an additional year. I can say with no doubt that being vegan/vegetarian was a bad move for my health. Right now I am eating a bowl of quinoa (whole grains). I enjoy a lot of vegetarian foods, but eventually, probably later today, my instincts/intuition/part-of-me-that-knows-WAYYYY-more-than-me will have me eat something from an animal.
It is good that we have a space to discuss this subject, I have read some great posts here and I am very thankful for that.
I am not 100% vegetarian, I eat some meat every now and then when I am not home, and when I do it I enjoy it very much, but I always have the feeling that I prefer to share my time with the animals rather than eating them, and I think that in a near future I will be completely vegetarian.
I respect everybody’s decision on what to eat or what not to, my only recommendation would be to eat what your body asks you to eat, we are lucky to have the shaolin arts which train us in sensing and listening our body in a very efficient way, and I believe we should use that when we eat.
I sympathize for the desire to cause no harm to animals, having been a vegan for a year in the past, and a vegetarian for an additional year. I can say with no doubt that being vegan/vegetarian was a bad move for my health.
Dear Alex from my own experience and from what I have seen in a lot of close people that are 100% vegetarians, the health problems occurring when somebody doesn’t eat meat are not caused by the absence of the meat but for a lack of nutrients on your diet that normally are given by the meat, but we only need to find something to replace it. Every body is different and probably you needed to eat meat again in this time of your life, or probably you lacked some nutrients that could be replaced with something else. In my case for the periods that I have been without any meat in my diet for a long time, I have felt very good, my body is good, I feel light and the chi flows nicely, but more important, my spirit feels great.
There is a special time for everything and we should have the right timing if we want to make the decision of becoming vegetarians, it should be fluid and guided from the heart, if anybody feels it is the right time he/she should follow his heart, just find a knowledgeable person you trust to help you define a good diet.
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