Tag Archives: Gentiles

Leviticus 26-27:

Leave a reply

The Abrahamic Covenant of the Land:
The Abrahamic Covenant is tied to the land.  The Israelites can choose a blessing or a curse dependent upon if they are obedient and loyal or disobedient and not loyal.  It is a conditional Covenant.  This is a traditional Near Eastern Suzerainty Lord-Vassal Covenant, full of blessings and curses.  If they remain loyal to Yahweh and reject other gods, then they will obey the rules of the Covenant.  It is their freewill choice to obey or not to obey.  Yet, even if they disobey, various “reset buttons” are built into the system, such as the various offerings, the Day of Atonement, the Sabbatical Year, the Year of Jubilee.  Disloyalty will (and did) result in exile from the land.  Humility, penance and confession of their iniquities could (and did) lead to Restoration.  Then, Yahweh “will remember the Covenant” and the land.

St. Paul and the Restoration:
St. Paul interprets the Restoration with the coming of the New Covenant and the embrace of the Gospel to Israel and all the nations.  Rom. 2:28 says a Jew is one inwardly by heart and spirit. Similarly, Gal. 3 speaks of the new Israel as the Church, “Abraham’s seed.”  The Church fulfills the promise to Israel.  St. Paul actually quotes Lev. 26:12 saying “I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (2 Cor. 6:16)  St. Paul says this is fulfilled in the fact that Christians are a “temple of the living God.”  The Gentile Christians have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of them.  After the Exile, only two tribes of Israel returned. Not all 12 tribes returned to Israel. The Restoration is fulfilled in the coming of the Gospel to all Jews and Gentile nations.  The Exile ends with the Cross and Crucifixion.  The Church fulfills the Abrahamic Covenant of faith. Yet, there will be another fulfillment and Restoration too to Israel at the Second Coming.  Multifaceted levels of fulfillment are going on in prophecy and the Restoration.

Communion of the People with God:
Leviticus is all about the communion of God with His people through the lifestyle necessary to maintain that communion.  It was a type of liturgical worship.  In the living tradition of the Church, the liturgical holiness and cleanliness and worship of God developed in Leviticus was absorbed into the Church.  However, the great bulk of the law was added after the transgression of the Golden Calf Incident.  As St. Paul alludes, the law was added because of sin.  But, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught (ST, I-II, 98-105), there were delineations in various laws that the Israelites adopted: (1) Civil laws; (2) Ceremonial laws; and (3) Moral laws.  The civil law was applicable only to Israel’s culture and time; the ceremonial laws were foreshadows and types of Christ, and so, fulfilled in Christ. And, the moral laws alone were authoritative and so, continued into the New Testament and in perpetuity.  Morality does not change.

New Testament Dependence upon Leviticus:
Jesus quoted Leviticus and called one of its scriptures the second greatest commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Lev. 19:18) The New Covenant is replete with Levitical quotes and is completely dependent upon the Old Testament and the inheritance of Leviticus.  Much of our vocabulary is directly from Leviticus.  For example: Jesus Christ is our “High Priest” who makes “atonement” for “sins” by the paschal “sacrifice” of Himself, by the result of the “blood of His sacrifice” we are “cleansed.”  Christ’s “blood” “consecrates” us, and the “priests” in His Church to convey His “holiness” onto us.  As the Book of Hebrews states as a matter of fact: “ He entered once for all into the Holy Place, takingnot the blood of goats and calves but His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” (Heb. 11:12)

The Baptism of the Gentiles:
As St. Peter in his vision in the Book of Acts realized that the Food Laws were no longer binding and that the Gospel should be preached to the Gentiles too.  St. Peter’s vision is directed at the Food Laws of Leviticus:  “In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “No, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has cleansed, you must not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.” (Acts 10:12-16) St. Peter then realized that the Gentiles were not to be excluded from the Gospel.  Originally the Church was only preached and spread among the Jews, but after this vision it incorporated all of humanity.  St. Peter said: “In truth, I see that God show no partiality.  Rather, in every nation whoever fears Him and acts uprightly is acceptable to Him.” (Acts 10:34-35)  Then, later: “The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit should have been poured out on the Gentiles also, for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God.  Then Peter responded, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit even as we have?’  He ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” (Acts 10:45-48) The New Testament undoes the Levitical prohibitions against the Gentiles, and begins to draw back in the exiled nations of the Tower of Babel. God expands “His portion” from just Israel to the whole portion of the whole world. It will be a universal redemption.

Genesis 1-11:

Leave a reply

The Bible Overview:
The Hebrew Bible (the Torah, the prophets and the other books) is unique in the history of the world. It was the first book and religion to establish monotheism and a code of ethics around the world. It was divinely unique in a number of ways, with concepts unheard-of in the ancient world, and which transformed us into the modern world we know now and accept: (1) It proclaimed a universal God. (2) It posited an invisible, incorporeal God. (3) It declared a moral God, not capricious like the pagan gods and the deities of myth. (4) It presupposed a God outside of nature and beyond nature, unlike the pagan who worshipped nature and natural beings. (5) It suggested a God Who loves and wants to be loved, again unique from the selfish and capricious pagan gods. (6) It declared a universal human worth that all humans are “made in the image of God,” and therefore, of immense value and dignity. This was a world-changing concept never seen before in the history of the world. (7) Due to each individual human’s dignity, there are universal human rights that cannot be lawfully taken away by man.

All of the horrible atrocities and evil ideologies, such as human sacrifice, wanton disregard for human life, savage warfare, slavery, incest, idolatry, nature worship and superstition, all begin to fade away as the light of divine revelation is manifested to the world in successive revelations. God reached down from Heaven to guide us through the childhood and adolescence of human formation of conscience and morality. From the Garden to Eden, to Noah, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Moses and the Ten Commandments, to the Israelites becoming God’s Jewish nation, to the Temple, and the prophets, and then, at long last, to the revelation of the Son of God, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. God came into the world to undo the destructive power of Original Sin and free mankind to become Children of God. The Bible stands alone in revelation, in law, in prophecy, in internal coherence, and truth. It is the most widely read book and the most important book in the history of the world. It forever altered the arc of human history. It introduced earth-shattering ideas into the course of human civilization, and singularly prepared the world for that most important moment ever to happen, the Incarnation of the Son of God. The world has never been the same since.

Genesis 1-11:
The Creation of Man:
The Hebrew Bible is a conversation that lasted more than a millennium.   The Bible begins with two creation accounts or myths. This time period is “prehistory.” After creating all living things, which is “good,” then Yahweh creates man, which is termed “very good.” Adam is created from the ground (“adamah”). The only living thing not created from the ground is “woman.” Only in seeing woman, is man completed and in their complementarity does he fully understands himself. The man and the woman together bear the image of God. This is manifested in the pro-creative nature of the husband and wife, creating new life in likeness of their creator. The first man and woman were naked and not ashamed. They bore a primordial innocence, and preternatural life in the Garden of Eden (the original harmony of Creation).

Jesus Declares Two Genders – Male and Female; and Heterosexual Marriage:
Jesus, when he was challenged by the Pharisees on the teaching of marriage and divorce, referenced that it “was not so from the beginning.” Jesus taught a radical indissolubility of marriage between one man and one woman: “Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, made them male and female? And he said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.” (Matt. 19:4-5)

The Fall:
That all changes with the Fall from innocence. The devil, mythologized as a serpent, tempts them to disobey Yahweh. Eve listens to the devil, and persuades her husband Adam to disobey as well. With that, humanity is brought into “the human condition” we know today: birthing pain, patriarchal societies, hard work toiling the land, disease and death.

Protoevangelium:
Yahweh then offers the first prophecy of a future Savior and “the woman” who will crush the head of the serpent. Eve fell to the serpent, but the second Eve will crush the serpent’s head. “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” (Gen. 3:15) It is through the Virgin Mary that Jesus Christ is born, God becomes man. With the Virgin Mary and her Immaculate Conception, the stain of sin and the line of inherited corruption is broken. She alone is the Ark worthy of bearing God. In the woman, God the Son becomes flesh to take away the sins of the world.

Enoch:
In the generations from Adam to Noah, was Enoch. Genesis 5:12 reads: “Then Enoch walked with God, and he was no longer here, for God took him.” The implication, much like what happens later with the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 2:11), Enoch does not die, but is taken alive to heaven. Enoch and Elijah are perhaps the two great prophets sent back at the End of the World to confront the Antichrist. (Revelation 11)

Noah and The Flood:
Chapter 6 of Genesis also deals with the origin of the Nephilim (ie, the Giants). It says: “the sons of heaven saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. . . At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of heaven had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown.” This episode directly precedes the flood. The wickedness of man also leads Yahweh to limit man’s lifespan to 120 years (as opposed the hundreds of years lifespans previously, such as Adam who lived to 930 years old). Yahweh warns Noah that He is about to destroy the world because of its “corruption” and “lawlessness.” The Biblical account of the flood is similar to other flood stories from Mesopotamia, such as The Epic of Gilgamesh. Yet, the Biblical account is strikingly different in the way in which God preserves Noah, as opposed to the opposition of the deities in the Mesopotamian traditions.

Rainbow:
After God destroys most of the known world in the flood, he gives a sign of his promise never to do so again, the rainbow. The rainbow is the “sign of the everlasting covenant” God establishes between himself and all mortal creatures. Those who misuse the sign of the rainbow today again mock God with brazen disregard for his laws.

Sacramental View:
The waters of the Flood are analogous to the waters of Baptism. Just as the waters of Baptism wash away Original sin, so too did the waters of the Flood wash away the sinful world. Universal humanity (i.e., the world) seems to follow the path of Christian initiation. Just as the infant world is baptized in water, the later adolescent world is baptized in fire. At the End, the world is consumed and transformed by fire (2 Pt. 3:7), just as the fire of the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and all believers at Pentecost and Confirmation (Acts 2:3) making them a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). This final conflagration ushers in a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1).

Carnivores:
Another interesting note is that after the flood Yahweh tells Noah, “Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants.” (Gen. 9:3) The Antediluvian world is depicted as strict vegetarians. It is only after the flood, that animals, including man, become carnivorous. God grants a concession to humanity in its propensity towards violence, so that they are now allowed to eat meat (but must observe certain restrictions regarding the handling of animal blood. Gen.9: 2-4; Lev. 17:11)

The Tower of Babel:
The last story in this section is the Tower of Babel. “The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words.” (Gen. 11:1) This story highlights human arrogance attempting to trespass into the realm of God. They do this by trying to build a tower that reaches up to God. In Babylonian times, this probably refers to the Babylonian ziggurats, a sort-of original skyscraper. It was then that the Lord came down to see what they built and decided to “go down and there confuse their language” and then he, “scattered them from there all over the earth.” (Gen 11:8-9)

The Deuteronomy 32 Worldview:
The main passage reads: ” When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.” (Dt. 32: 8-9) This Tower of Babel incident has led to what some scholars call the “The Deuteronomy 32 worldview.” The idea is that the Tower of Babel incident provoked God to renounce the Nations, in effect, if the “70” Nations of the world did not want to follow and worship Yahweh, then God renounced them, and let them follow their sinful hearts. It is at this point that God decides to “start again” with Abrahamic Covenant and forming a people of His own, Jacob (“Israel”). It is through this tiny nation that God will instill His Covenant and Laws, and eventually His Messiah. Israel will become God’s “firstborn son” to eventually lead all the Nations of the world back to God, especially with the arrival of Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, and the “Good News” or Gospel of the New Testament.

But, immediately following the Tower of Babel, God renounces the Nations of the world, except the future Israel, and fixes them to boundaries, changes their languages, and assigns them under the authority of “Sons of God.” This is the making of the Gentile nations of the world and their pagan religions. The “Sons of God” are the various “Elohim” or godly, heavenly figures to rule over the nations. These would be the equivalent of the “principalities and powers, thrones and dominions” of St. Paul, who rule over the nations, trying to thwart the will of the one true God, Yahweh. These are angelic-like beings who have fallen from heaven. The “serpent” in the Garden of Eden is one such being, a supernatural Elohim, god-like figure, who has fallen and tempts mankind to fall too. Now, as the Nations reject God at Babel, God gives them what they want, and assigns these fallen Elohim to oversee each individual nation and people. As one passage in Daniel describes explicitly a battle between the heavenly protector of Israel, Michael the Archangel, and the “prince of Persia”: “The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, so I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia.” (Dan. 10:13) This also reminds me of the Angel of Peace who appeared in 1916 to three peasant children at Fatima in Portugal declaring: “Make of everything you can a sacrifice. . You will thus draw down peace upon your country. I am its Angel Guardian, the Angel of Portugal.” On the other hand, the false-heavenly, demonic powers now rule over the nations and lead them into all sorts of false religions of the world, paganism, witchcraft, astrology, human sacrifice (ie, Molech), warfare, idolatry; basically the worship of demons.

Yahweh, however, declares “Jacob is My portion.” The one true God is Yahweh, and He will rule over Israel. From Israel will come the one true religion of God, and eventually, the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who will liberate the world, including all the Gentile Nations again, from sin and death and the evil fallen angels that rule the world. This is the Great Reclamation or Restoration Project. Thus, begins the long, slow, arduous journey of Yahweh to teach His people, the Jews, how to correctly live and follow Yahweh and His Commandments, and to worship rightly. The Patriarchs of Genesis establish this Covenant with God, in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Eventually, God uses Moses to set up the Sinai Covenant of the Old Testament, in the Exodus, and the Tabernacle, and later, the Temple in Jerusalem. This lays the groundwork for what will prepare the Jews and Israel for the arrival of the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who will establish a “New Covenant” in His own blood, to free us from the bondage of sin and lead us to the new Promised Land of Heaven. Pentecost and the Holy Spirit have begun the restoration of Israel and the Gentiles to the one family of God to the ends of the Earth. After one final, all-out assault by Satan, the Antichrist and his demonic legions, Jesus, at His Second Coming, will finally put an end to the tyrannical reign of the fallen “sons of God.” The demonic legions all around us will be destroyed once and for all, forever. Yahweh will fellowship with His human family again in the Edenic Earthly paradise, where there will be no death, suffering, and: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:4)