Adult Bible Study Online

Guilt removed

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Lesson text: Hebrews 9:11-18, 10:12-14, 17-18.
By: Omar Eby
Email: ebyo@emu.edu

Our guilt is removed by the unblemished sacrifice of Christ, so “we may serve the living God” (9:14). With the bold confidence of the writer of Hebrews or the relaxed demeanor of Dylan Thomas’ boy in “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”: Night falling and lying in bed, “I said some words to the holy darkness above my head.” Or is that being too familiar with God? Do we fail to understand that the cost for believers to approach God today is higher than those sacrificing a heifer or a pigeon? The price set by whom and under what circumstances? Yes, Christ’s blood, once for all, is the much greater sacrifice.

But of what value is this review of Old Testament blood sacrifices in our witness to secular non-Jewish Canadians and Americans? Most of them have never felt the need for blood sacrifice. How do we convince them of Christ’s supreme sacrifice when we feel just a little squeamish about the imagery of blood atonement? For example, how many of us still sing William Cowper’s hymn with these lines: “There is a fountain filled with blood/drawn from Emmanuel’s veins/ and sinners plunged beneath that flood/lose all their guilty stains”?

Or are the arguments about the ashes of a sacrificed heifer being inferior to Christ’s blood, which “cleanses our conscience” (9:14), the exclusive concerns of we who huddle together over such passages in the privacy of our Sunday school classrooms? Is this the strong “milk not solid food” (5:12) for old Christians still experiencing “that awful rowing toward God”? And are they the best images for evangelism?

How do we justify our careful scrutiny to such matters as: “It is essential for Christ to die in order for the promised inheritance to pass to the believers”?—while outside the classroom lie a cyclone-devastated Myanmar (Burma), the earth-quaked cities of China, a war in Iraq started and supported by alleged born-again Christian leaders, Colombian Mennonites threatened by warlords for practicing the way of peace? Is another discussion of the Blood Covenant basic to our faith now, or is it merely theologically gratifying?

This message relates to the Adult Bible Study. For additional information on Adult Bible Study or Adult Bible Study Teacher, send email to info@mpn.net. To order either publication call Mennonite Publishing Network at 1 800 245-7894.