My REQUEST to all Lurkers:
I realize that this is an open forum. However, I ask that this discussion will only be between me and Tall73. My reason for this is that I want to avoid creating confusion (where there are too many people posting in the same thread there is the potential to get off topic). Thus I would like to keep this thread in a frame of thought that is easy to follow.
From past experiences in making such requests, I realize that there are some who have difficulty respecting such requests. If you just so happen to be one of these people, please respect my position on this, and just simply send me a PM, or start your own thread on your point of contention, if there be anything that you might disagree with that either one of us might say. Also, feel free to send me a PM if there is anything at all that I say in this thread that may not be clear to you.
Furthermore, since Tall73 is highly intelligent, and I feel that he doesn't need to address these issues with the help of someone else.
So my request here is not debatable. Please honor it.
As to the purpose of this thread, it isn't to refute Tall73. Instead, it is to invoke a deeper sense of thought on the issues that have come to the surface of this forum, as well as to bring such points of contention under scrutiny to see if they really make sense in light of what logic demands and what The Holy Scriptures testify of.
Tall,
My request to you, is to keep this as simple as possible, so as to make it easy for lurkers to follow without getting confused by too much rhetoric. In other words, I think we can avoid using long posts to make our points apparent.
Moreover, I don't know Greek, so I ask that we not apply it here.
I am a firm believer that one does not need to know Greek to understand what the Bible is really saying, because through diligent study of the Scriptures, one can make connections that give meaning to what people often use the Greek for to explain. Thus I have learned that common sense is a key factor in understanding what many think can't be explained without using Greek.
In other words, I have learned through experience and diligent study that it is a misconception of many that the translations that we have access to today are so off base that they can't possibly enlighten us on what the Bible is really saying about any given subject. In fact, a combination of a comparative analysis of scripture used within its proper frame of thought and common sense, proves this point to be irrefutable (let's not get off topic by debating this issue
). Now then, to answer your point of contention here, one needs to first determine what the blood represented.
Furthermore, it ought to be understood that what was written about these things is not to be taken literally. In other words, if the 'sins' of the people were transferred to the sanctuary, that doesn't mean the 'sin' itself was literally transferred to the sanctuary, as if to imply that sin is a tangible thing that can pass from one hand to another; rather, it should be noted that these things merely served to 'illustrate' a point of truth that would come to fruition in Jesus Christ.
After all, that is why such things are identified as types.
Incidentally, I don't know of any SDA doctrine that suggests that such things were to be taken literally in the sense that the 'sins' of the people were 'literally' transferred to the sanctuary.
Having said this, the Bible makes it clear that 'the life is in the blood'.
"For the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I have given it to you on the altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul." (Lev 17:11)
So would we be out of place to conclude that the blood of the sacrifice represented the life of the One whose death would cleanse the sinner of his sin?
If this is true, can we not conclude that when Jesus became 'sin' on our behalf, He was thereby defiled by the sins of sinners, or thus made to be unclean?
"For He has made Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2Co 5:21)
After all, what else could the idea of Jesus becoming 'sin' mean?
If it means He was thereby defiled, would it not then make sense to say that that act which typified this event also implied this idea? In other words, would it be out of place to suggest that the blood that came from the sacrifice of the lamb was also symbolically defiled?
So the question that I think we ought to address here is did the blood of the sacrifice which points to Jesus Christ 'symbolically' become defiled by the sins of the people?
If it was defiled in this way, how then could it not become a defiling substance?
Does the Bible not make it clear that that which was defiled became a defiling agent in its 'current state' (defiled/unclean condition)?
"Or if a soul touches any unclean thing, whether a dead body of an unclean beast, or a dead body of unclean cattle, or the dead body of unclean swarming things, and if it is hidden from him that he is unclean and guilty-- or if he touches the uncleanness of man, whatever uncleanness by which he is unclean, and it is hidden from him, and he knows, then he shall be guilty." (Lev 5:2-3)
NOTE: My time is limited. So please feel free to take as much time as you need to address my posts. There is no need to feel pressured to answer them in haste.
To those who will be following this thread, please be patient with me if I do not respond to Tall73 as quickly as you would like me to.
It is better to meditate on these things, and allow for time to digest them to make better sense of the issues.
