Oops!
Chapter 1

Draft
February 20, 2004

Where Do You Think You Are?

The Right Cheek

I’m going to warm us up with an example I use in my classes. I get stunned looks every time I do this because people just don’t take the time to see what is really being said. When they actually see it, it’s like a slap in the face.

But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matt 5:39 NIV

I’ve heard this text used in sermons a lot. Every preacher seems to say roughly the same thing, “Jesus is teaching that we should never fight.” Now, it’s possible that Jesus may have taught non-violence, but this isn’t what he was talking about here.

Let’s go back to Jesus’ day in our minds. The Jews were oppressed by the Romans. A Roman soldier was allowed to freely mistreat a Jew. He could be as mean as he wanted to be, and the Jew couldn’t do anything to stop him.

Now let’s go a step further. Stand in front of someone else and try to hit them (lightly, please!) on their right cheek. Unless you are left-handed, you used the back of your right hand. And if you strike with the back of your hand, what kind of blow is it?

If you said it was an insult, you’re right. When you try to hurt someone, you may slap hard with the palm of your hand, or you may make a fist and hit hard. The weakest way you can hit is with the back of your hand. That’s how you insult someone. Now we can see the picture. Jesus is saying that if someone (in particular, a Roman soldier) hits you with the back of your hand to insult you, don’t return the insult.

Let’s recap what we did to understand this text. We walked into the picture. We took the time to put ourselves into the situation that Jesus was describing. Once we had done that, the imagery came to life. We were able to see exactly what he wanted us to see, and his message became clear.

I call this the “depth” dimension of context. It is an indispensable part of the background. And in this situation it answered our questions almost before we even asked them. Before you complain that I have ignored other elements of context, let me say you are right. I wasn’t trying to completely explain the Sermon on the Mount. I showed one bit of it to get you to see what “walking into the picture” is all about.

The Lamb of God

All of us are familiar with John the Baptist’s statement at Jesus’ baptism. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Very few of us bother to step into the picture to see what he was really saying. Certainly, few preachers ever speak of the imagery. Instead, they use “The Lamb of God” as a title for Jesus without any context at all. This may not be wrong by itself, but it deprives us of understanding that would enrich our walk with God. So where does it come from, and what does it mean? Let’s step into the picture.

The Jews had a rich heritage that completely ruled the way they looked at the world. The very center of this was the Temple. This is where sins were dealt with. And lambs were a key part of the process. But which lambs? Lambs were sacrificed at Passover (Exod 12:3-5, 21), but that didn’t take away sin. In Egypt, it was a sign of obedience that led to deliverance, and became a perpetual memorial (Exod 12:14). Lambs were offered at the morning and evening sacrifices (Exod 29:38-42), but these are not identified as removing sin. We find the real answer in Leviticus 4:32-35, where a lamb could be used as a sin offering. In this sacrifice, sins were confessed over the animal. It was killed, and some of its blood was placed on the horns of the altar. The rest was poured out at the base of the altar. In this way, the sin was atoned for, taking it away from the sinner and placing it on the altar.

The idea of transferring sin around like it is a virus sounds weird. We think of sin as something that we do. Sin makes us guilty, but can’t be transferred to somebody else. After all, the other guy didn’t do it! But this is exactly what happened in the Temple. And to understand John’s statement, we have to step into the picture. If we allow ourselves to think like a Jew of Jesus’ day, then the scene clears up. Jesus is to literally become our sin. That’s what the Hebrew of Leviticus says the lamb is. Let me use a Hebrew word instead of the English to make the picture clear.

The word is chattath. It literally means “sin,” but gets translated as “sin offering” in a lot of places. Let’s see if you think that makes sense.

32 'But if he brings a lamb as his offering for a sin (chattath), he shall bring it, a female without defect.
33 'And he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering (chattath), and slay it for a sin offering (chattath) in the place where they slay the burnt offering.
34 'And the priest is to take some of the blood of the sin offering (chattath) with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering; and all the rest of its blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar.
35 'Then he shall remove all its fat, just as the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice of the peace offerings, and the priest shall offer them up in smoke on the altar, on the offerings by fire to the LORD. Thus the priest shall make atonement for him in regard to his sin (chattath) which he has committed, and he shall be forgiven.
Lev 4:32-35 NAS

Three times, the NAS translates chattath as “sin offering.” The first and last time it is translated “sin.” Read it both ways, and see which you think makes more sense. I think it is perfectly reasonable to translate all five as “sin.” And the Apostle Paul seems to think so, too.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. 2 Cor 5:21 NAS

Now that we have stepped into the picture, John’s statement makes good sense. The Jews sacrificed a lamb for their sin. The sin was transferred to the lamb when they laid their hands on it. The lamb was now the sin. They killed the sin, and its blood (the life of the sin, Gen 9:4) was moved to the altar of the Temple. The lamb took away their sin.

When Jesus was taken to the cross, all the sins of the world were laid on him (1 John 2:1-2). He “became sin” (2 Cor 5:21). Then he was killed. His blood transferred all our sins to the heavenly sanctuary (Heb 9:26-28). Do you see the parallel?

John the Baptist was using a common, everyday scene from his world to explain what Jesus came to do. We can understand that Jesus takes away our sins without stepping into the picture. But most of us will only know that Jesus will forgive our sins. The rest will be lost on us.

If we understand what went on in John’s day, then we can step into the picture. We can see the transfer of sin to the lamb. We can see that a death is required for sin to be removed from us. But more than that, we can see that it is our own hand that causes the death, because the person that brings the sacrifice kills it. It is our own sin that made Jesus die on the cross. When we see this vivid scene, with our own hand on the knife that kills the lamb, the immensity of our guilt and the incredible love of Jesus becomes more real.

This example is called “typology.” It’s too early to go into it here, but we will cover it later. For now, I will say that there is no single area of study that will add richness to your understanding than the study of the Temple. When you understand the sanctuary service, a whole range of things take on a life you never would have suspected. It was not only the center of Jewish life, it is the center of Christian life. It explains who forgives sin. It explains how sin is forgiven. It explains why God does what he does as time moves toward Jesus’ return for us. It is the center of everything.

The Law

Our next example comes from a sermon by a Seventh-day Adventist minister we’ll call Art. I mention his denomination so that we can see the background of his statement. By the way, this particular example could come from almost any SDA preacher. They have all heard it and taught it so much that they rarely look at it in detail.

SDA’s observe the seventh-day Sabbath. They teach that there are two laws in the Old Testament, the Ten Commandment law and the ceremonial law of the sanctuary services and festivals. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was the final “one for all time” (cf. Heb 9:25-26) sacrifice that ended the ceremonial system. Therefore, the Ten Commandment law survives after the cross. Let’s listen in.

“Some people come along and say, ‘yes, but didn’t the cross of Christ change all that?’ Did the cross of Christ change the Sabbath? What took place at the cross? Let’s go and find out from Jesus’ own words. Matthew 5:17 ‘Think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets, I have not come to destroy but to fulfill.’ To fill full – to show how it should be kept. But notice the very next verse. Verse 18 ‘For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass on jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.’

“Jesus didn’t come to this earth to do away with the law, rather He came to substantiate the law. He came to show that the law could be kept by a man. What happened on the cross of Christ? Jesus died on the cross because God’s law could not be changed! Jesus did not come here to change God’s law, He died to uphold God’s law. Remember, the penalty of breaking God’s law is death. Jesus paid our penalty. He didn’t take the law away, He took our penalty of death away! Aren’t you glad for that?

“Was it sin to murder before the cross? Yes. Is it sin to murder tonight? Yes. Was it sin to commit adultery before the cross? Yes. Is it sin to commit adultery tonight? According to God’s law, it is. Is it sin to have another God before God in heaven? Yes, it was sin before the cross; it’s sin after the cross. So the Ten Commandments are in effect both before and after. Christ’s death simply took away the penalty of the law.”

Let me say right up front that I agree with Art’s belief that the Ten Commandments are still in force after the cross. But his reasoning here is a mile off-base. If you read the quote carefully, you would have noticed that Art didn’t capitalize “Law.” And this shows us where to look for his problem.

This one should be easy. All we have to do is look for “the Law” in the Gospels. And we’ll find it 25 times! Three verses use that form. When we look at “law” and “prophets” together, like in Matthew 5:17, there are seven. Three of those verses use the form “the Law and the Prophets.” Check out a couple.

This is a no-brainer. Jesus isn’t talking about God’s law at all. At least He’s not talking about a set of rules. Instead, He is using a term that everybody in His day knew. “The Law” means “the Law of Moses” or the first five books of the Bible. Since the Ten Commandments and the Temple regulations are both found in these books, it is incorrect to say that the Temple regulations were gone but not the Ten Commandments from this passage. But it gets worse. In verse 17, Jesus said that he came to fulfill “the Law and the Prophets.” This term includes the entire Old Testament. By Art’s logic, in order to do away with the Temple rules, we would have to wipe out the entire Old Testament at the cross. That just won’t wash. Another answer has to be found, and we will look for it in chapter 3.

This is a classic case of, “Sometimes we know a text so well that we don’t know what it means” (Andrew Womack, Pentecostal Pastor). Art forgot to walk into the picture. If he had, he would have realized that Jesus wasn’t even talking about his sermon topic.

Context! The First Dimension

Let’s put this all together. In each example we looked at, someone thought he had a great text to prove a point. Every time, the proof text fell apart when we checked it out.

When we study, we need to look out for this kind of mistake. On one hand, it can make us look stupid when someone points out our Oops! On the other hand, it can lead us to misunderstand God’s word. And more than anything else, we want to understand what God is trying to tell us.

Every story or teaching in the Bible was written by men who lived in ancient times. They used terms, imagery, and figures of speech that were familiar to them. Unfortunately, those guys aren’t alive now to tell us what they meant when they described things the way they did. We have to figure out what they meant. And it’s really easy to make mistakes.

This doesn’t have to mean that understanding the Bible is too hard. But it does mean that we have to take the time to learn enough about Bible times to learn its language. We are really lucky here. There are a lot of books available that talk about the society and culture of the bible. When we have questions, most of them can be answered. And if they can’t, the answer probably isn’t that important.

All this can be summarized by one sentence. “Step into the picture.” If we put ourselves in the time and place of the Bible writers, we will be prepared to properly understand what they are saying. We will not try to force modern western ideas on ancient eastern people.