Jewish Ceremonials Today

A reader writes:

There were means provided by God in the Old Testament for forgiveness of sins, I believe. I imagine these were in-effect promissory notes, to be fulfilled when Christ retroactively ratified them. So do those same means — I don’t have the books right here to look them up, but I think I mean Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement — still work? — for Jews who don’t realize they’ve been subsumed by the sacrament of Confession?

This is an interesting and somewhat tricky question, and Catholic theology does not have a definitive answer on it, but there are some parameters to the options that are open in answering it, and I can tell you what answer I personally am inclined toward.

So here goes. . . .

If you read the passages in the Old Testament that discuss the sacrifices that were offered (e.g., Leviticus 1-7) or the Jewish festal calendar (chiefly Leviticus 23) then it is quite clear that some kind of atonement/forgiveness is promised through the celebration of these rites. That’s parameter #1: We have to say that people were somehow doing some kind of reconciliation with God through these things.

We can’t just say that these were symbols of reconciliations that had already been effected. The text isn’t written in a way that allows that. It’s "IF you want to get reconciled with God THEN you do this ceremony," not "IF you’ve been reconciled with God THEN do this ceremony as a symbol."

Parameter #2 is given to us by the book of Hebrews:

It is impossible  that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins (10:4).

So despite the straight-forward IF/THEN algorithms of the sacrificial economy in the Old Testament, there has to be more to it.

Here’s where things get messy.

It’s initially tempting to think of matters in terms of a simple promisory note situation: The blood of bulls and goats don’t intrinsically take away sins, but by virtue of their foreshadowing of Christ, they did–at least before the sacrifice of the Cross was made. The Old Testament ceremonies discharged our debt of sin on the model of a credit card (i.e., funds to be deposited in the future), while New Testament ceremonies discharge the same debt on the model of a debit card (i.e., funds already deposited).

But there’s reason to think that this analysis isn’t all there is to it, either, for Hebrews goes on to describe Jewish priests of the day offering sacrifices that don’t take away sins:

Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God (10:11-12).

This makes it sound like the Jewish offerings never took away sins.

I could see someone saying, "Well, maybe the author of Hebrews is saying that in his day–AFTER the sacrifice of the Cross but BEFORE the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70–their sacrifices were ineffective, but prior to that, prior to the time Christ died on the Cross, they were effective," but this doesn’t seem to fit with the flow of his argument. He seems to envision the Old Testament sacrifices as always inadequate in some sense, which is why Christ had to come and make his fully adequate sacrifice for us. That seems to be the major thrust of his argument.

So we’ve got one parameter telling us that there was some kind of reconciliation effected through the Old Testament sacrifices and we’ve got another parameter telling us that it wasn’t the full, definitive reconciliation that was made through Christ.

The truth therefore is to be found within the space marked off by these two parameters, and here is where theological speculation and opinion comes in.

It seems to me that part of the answer is to be found in the fact that the concept of reconciliation with God is focused very differently in the Old Testament than in the New. One of the things I have a chance to explore in my book The Salvation Controversy

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is that in the Old Testament atonement is much more this-worldly. People are wanting to get reconciled with God so that temporal disasters like sickness and poverty and war and physical death won’t happen to them. In the book, I call this "temporal atonement."

It’s in marked contrast to what the New Testament is focused on, which is getting right with God in this life so that you don’t spend the next one in hell. In the book, I call that "eternal atonement."

It seems to me that part of the answer to the efficacy of the Old Testament ceremonies is that they were focused on making temporal atonement–on getting right with God so that we don’t suffer temporal calamities–and they didn’t really have in focus what happens to us in the next life.

At least early on.

By the later period of the Old Testament–as witnessed by Judah Macabee’s sacrifice for those who had died–there was a desire becoming manifest to secure blessings in the next life through the use of the ceremonies. These blessings may not have been conceived of as eternal ones. Judah Macabee’s sacrifice presumably dealt with the temporal effects of sin that linger into the next life (i.e., purgatory) rather than securing eternal salvation for the fallen warriors, but the desire to use the ceremonies to receive some kind of blessing in the next life was there.

This desire grew to the point that in the first century A.D.–when securing eternal salvation had become a pressing concern in the consciousness of the Jewish people–people were conceiving of the Temple ceremonies as securing eternal salvation.

And that’s when Christ came and offered his sacrifice and the authors of the New Testament (chiefly Paul and the author of Hebrews) made a BIG point that the Temple sacrifices did not do what people were thinking of them as doing. That’s why Christ had to come.

I’m thus inclined to say that the Old Testament ceremonies were focused on providing temporal atonement and that eternal atonement was something that was secondary.

But let’s explore that secondary side for a minute.

Suppose that you’re God and that your people have sinned and you’ve set up a sacrificial economy for them to get right with you when they’ve done so.

At the moment, the things that they’re focused on are avoiding temporal calamities in their own, tiny little lives. As God, you have a clearer awareness than they do of the fact that they also have an eternal destiny, and they have some awareness of this, too. But what’s really importent to them at the moment is that they don’t get sick or invaded or have a famine. They’re like kids–thinking more about today than tomorrow.

And so they bring bulls and goats into your Temple and offer them to you to say that they’re sorry for their sins and please don’t squash us, and so you don’t squash them, because they really are sorry and want to make it up to you in the way that you deem appropriate.

So where does that leave their eternal destiny?

Are you, as God, going to say to them upon death, "I’m sorry, but all those sacrifices you made had nothing to do with your eternal salvation, so although I was merciful to you in life, I’m not going to be merciful to you in death, so to hell with you"?

I don’t think so. That’s not the vision of the God that we’re given in the Bible.

It seems much more likely to me that you’re going to say something like, "You know, those sacrifices that you did to get right with me so I wouldn’t squash you were focused on temporal salvation, and they really didn’t do anything toward your eternal salvation–for the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins, at least in the eternal sense–but by offering those sacrifices and otherwise trying to follow my will, you were showing that you had a heart for me. You were turning your will away from your sins and toward me, and so you were reconciling yourselves with me inwardly and the sacrifices you offered were an outward sign of that inward desire for union with me. They weren’t enough to bring about that union, but they showed that you were doing what you could. You were trying to do your part. Therefore, I’ve done my part, too, by making a sacrifice through my Son that is capable of taking care of the eternal effects of your sins, so well done my good and faithful servant. Come on into heaven. Your union with me is achieved."

So underneath the desire to get right with God in this life to avoid being squashed was a deeper desire for union with him in general, and that desire would apply to the next life as well as this.

And God would honor that.

So what would we say about Jewish ceremonials today?

It seems to me that we’d say the same thing: The ceremonials themselves cannot be said to provide an objective means of securing eternal salvation, just like the blood of bulls and goats in the Temple era didn’t. But for a Jew who is performing them out of a desire to be reconciled with God, if he’s doing what he thinks God wants him to do, then God will honor that inward desire for and will towards reconciliation.

The reconciliation will be provided exclusively through the sacrifice of his Son and not through the ceremonials that are being performed, but the will toward union with God is what God will honor.

So Yom Kippur and other ceremonials today don’t objectively provide a means of eternal salvation for Jewish people–only Christ and the sacraments he has established do that–but the will toward God shown by Jews in pursuing these in good conscience is something that God will receive.