What’s Missing in Modern Judaism

Moses’ Law taught Israel that without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin.

God didn’t forgive our sin by merely ignoring our sin – He paid for our sin.

To ignore it without paying for it would be like withholding wages. Unjust.

The wages of sin is death. God said so in the beginning in the Garden. Therefore to remit sin without the shedding of blood would have been like withholding wages. It would be unjust. An inequity. And that would be a very non-Jewish concept.

Therefore the concept of an atoning, substitutionary sacrifice as the propitiation for our sins was well taught to Jews in their Law.

But since the destruction of the Temple and the loss of Levitical records in AD70, it has literally been impossible for Jews to offer sacrifices any longer in the way prescribed by Moses’ Law.

That leaves the adherents of modern Judaism to hope that God will be willing to forgive their sins without recourse to any substitutionary sacrifice. Such a concept is foreign to Moses’ Law.

It’s true that God didn’t require a sacrifice from David for his sin. But it was still prescribed in the Law that there should have been a yearly atonement for the sins of the nation. David knew this.

It’s also true that God accepted people in any nation who feared Him. But this didn’t deny the principle which was illustrated for Israel in their Law. A sacrifice would ultimately be needed.

The blood of bulls and goats could never really atone for sin. And it wasn’t yet the moment in history where God focused intently on all nations. Therefore God gave them the written Law to explain the principles, and accepted people on the basis of their heart. But it all pointed forward to a time when Christ would come. The Law was merely a temporary illustration of what was to come. It was like a school teacher to bring us to Christ.

In the fulness of time God sent His own Son to become the substitutionary sacrifice to atone and make propitiation for the sins of the whole world, thus fulfilling every principle in the Law.

In the mean time God gave the written Law to illustrate the principle of atonement – and He also sometimes accepted people without a blood sacrifice, seeing any blood sacrifice they could have offered could at the time have only been illustrative anyway.

What was more important was a person’s heart. Sacrifice without the heart wouldn’t have cut it. But just because God accepted a person without a sacrifice on the basis of their heart didn’t deny the unending principle that a sacrifice would in principle ultimately be required to deal thoroughly with sin.

It didn’t mean God had two options of dealing with sin: either by sacrifice or by simply ignoring our sin. The ultimate sacrifice was needed and was yet to come.

God Himself offered that sacrifice for us, as was illustrated by the provision of a sacrifice for Himself on the mountain in Isaac’s place. In the cross, justice and mercy kissed each other. The cross perfectly fulfilled the justice and mercy of God.

But in modern Judaism there is no provision for a person’s confidence to be anchored in an atoning sacrifice.

If they rely on an extra-Biblical source to explain this, what authority does their source have to fall short of a principle written for them by Moses?!

Their own Scriptures – Moses and the Prophets – ought to have pointed them to Christ.

Now many Gentiles are enjoying what was promised, and many Jews are blinded.

We have an anchor in heaven and can sing:

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand

Christ’s resurrection from the dead assures our faith that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice as payment in full for our sins.

God didn’t forgive us by merely ignoring our sins – but by paying for our sins.

There is no injustice with God, even in showing mercy.

Only the cross fulfils the principles of the Law.

A new covenant has been ratified in the blood of His Son.

Our confidence is sure.

This good news is for Jew and Gentile.