Sunday, April 21, 2013

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Leviticus 6 and Justin Martyr's First Apology 38-40

Leviticus 6 – If you sin against an associate or cheat or commit fraud or hold lost property instead of returning it to its owner. If you lie under oath or commit any act of dishonesty, you must give back what you owe or withheld and add to it a penalty of 20% of its value (6:6:1-5).

Then you must also give a “guilt offering” of a ram.

With respect to the daily holocaust or “burnt offering,” it “must be left on top of the altar” all night and the “fire on the altar must be kept burning all night” (6:9).  In the morning, the priest is to remove the ashes to the side, change garments, carry the ashes outside the camp.  The fire on the altar is to be kept burning.  “at all times. It must never go out” (6:13).
        
As for cereal offerings, they should be offered in front of the altar, then a handful of it burned as a token offering.  The rest may be eaten as unleavened cakes by the priest in a sacred place—it as well as the sin offering and guilt offering may be viewed as Aaron’s rightful share in the oblations offered to God.

The Ordination Offering made on the day “Aaron and his sons are anointed” [two quarts of flour] must be offered half in the morning and half in the evening. It must be mixes with olive oil and cooked on a griddle” (6:21), then sliced and “burned up completely” (6:22).

Greater detail is given regarding the sin offering is given.

Early Christian Writers
Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) – First Apology
Utterances of the Son
38 – Jesus said these prophetic things to His people when He was among them: “I have spread out My hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people, to those who walk in a way that is not good” (Is.65:2); “I gave My back to the scourges, and My cheeks to the buffetings; I turned not away My face from the shame of spittings; and the Lord was My helper: therefore was I not confounded, but I set My face as a firm rock; and I knew that I should not be ashamed, for He is near that justifieth Me” (Is.50:6). It is true that His people showed Him little respect.

Direct Predictions by the Spirit
39 – The prophesy of Isaiah 2:3, “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more,” this prophesy has come true. This is the what the gospel is doing.

“For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God; and we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making was upon our enemies, but that saying, ‘The tongue has sworn but the mind is unsworn,’ [From Euripides’ play Hippolytus] might be imitated by oath, prefer their allegiance to their own life, and parents, and country, and all kindred, though you can offer them nothing incorruptible, it were verily ridiculous if we, who earnestly long for incorruption, should not endure all things, in order to obtain what we desire from Him who is able to grant it.”

I’m not sure I get this. I wish there was an updated translation of this.

Christ’s Advent Foretold
40 – “[W]e have thought it right and relevant to mention some other prophetic utterances of David” where his “voice has gone out into all the earth” (Ps.19:2). He “foretold the conspiracy which was formed against Christ by Herod the king of the Jews, and the Jews themselves, and Pilate, who was your governor among them, with his soldiers; and how He should be believed on by men of every race; and how God calls Him His Son, and has declared that He will subdue all His enemies under Him; and how the devils, as much as they can, strive to escape the power of God the Father and Lord of all, and the power of Christ Himself; and how God calls all to repentance before the day of judgment comes.”

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