 Imagine having an incredible relationship with either your spouse or your parent. This relationship is something that is blissful. It is something that is just perfect. You are living such a life that's the envy of the world. And then one day, due to your attitude and your behavior, you do something to negatively impact that relationship. And now, your parent or your spouse is no longer responding to your calls. They've blocked your number. Don't want to hear from you. What's happening to you right now is you're feeling empty. You're feeling this pining. How do I get back? How do I find my way back into that relationship that was so important? Perhaps I didn't appreciate that relationship. Perhaps I neglected to invest in that relationship. But whatever it may be, I want to go back. I want to have that relationship with my father or with my mother. I want to have that relationship with my spouse. I would do anything to get back what I had. And so the question is, how do I navigate my way back? And so what many people will do is they will engage the help of a counselor, a marriage counselor, a relationship counselor, trying to get somebody to talk to the other party to find out what can I do? How can I get back? And this is really what lies at the heart of the Christian message to the world. When God created the world, it was divine. It was paradise. Adam and Eve were in this close relationship with God, but they sinned and they were kicked out of the garden. And ever since, we're looking for a way back. And so how do we navigate our way back into a right relationship with God? That's the question that we want to explore tonight. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to first explore the Christian approach, the Christian way of navigating our way back to God. And then I'm going to have a look at the Jewish approach to navigating our way back to God. Now, before we start exploring the Christian way to navigating our way back, there's a few things that are important to understand. When Christians speak of the Messiah, it's important for Jewish people to understand that we don't share a common dictionary. What that means is we say Messiah and understand one thing. We have a particular image in our mind, but Christians use the very same word and have a different understanding of what this means. And so without going into too much detail, it's important for tonight's lecture to understand that when Christians refer to the Messiah, they are focusing on the Messiah's role as Savior. The Messiah as a Savior. Now, what does that mean? What does it mean Savior? Okay, that's the question. In Jewish understanding, when we look at the Scriptures, when the Scriptures uses the word save or salvation or to be saved, it's most often referring to being saved from physical oppression or annihilation. So you have in your sources Exodus chapter 14 verse 30, on that day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians and Israel saw Egyptians dying on the seashore. So the concept of salvation from our perspective is being saved from physical oppression or annihilation. And this comes up dozens of times throughout the Jewish Scriptures. Every time there were a nation that came up, rose up to annihilate us or to exile us, it's God who sent someone to save us from this physical oppression. However, in Christianity that's not what salvation is really all about. Salvation in Christianity is to be saved from your sins. Okay, so if you look in your sources Matthew chapter 1 verse 21, this is speaking about the birth narrative of Jesus. It says she will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. Jesus in Hebrew would be something like Yeshua, which comes from the root of to save. And so the Christian Scriptures teach us that Jesus was called that name because his mission was to come and save Jewish people or from the Christian perspective to save the world from their sins. Again, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 3, this is Paul speaking for what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Again, this shows us that the Christian concept of the Messiah as it relates to our lives today is this notion that the Messiah comes to die for the sins of the world to save us from our sins. This is again we see in Romans chapter 11 verse 26. It says, and so all Israel will be saved as is written, and the deliverer will come from Zion. He will turn transgression away from Jacob. And what Paul is saying here is that the role of the Messiah is here to remove sin from Jacob to save us from our sin. Now, it's interesting to note that Paul over here is actually trying to quote from Isaiah 59 verse 20. And you have over here Isaiah 59 verse 20 in its correct version where it doesn't say anything like that. It's actually the Redeemer coming to Zion and to those who repent of transgression in Jacob. In other words, the Messiah is coming to those who actually turn away from sin not to remove sin from them. So, what we understand from this is that when we speak about the Messiah from a Christian perspective, his role is to come and save the world from their sins. And now, this leads us to the heart of the Christian message in how we navigate our way back to God. In John chapter 3 verse 16 it says as follows, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And what that means is that from a Christian perspective, every single person that is born is headed with a one-way ticket to eternal damnation, to eternal fires of hell. Unless, unless you are saved from your sin by putting your belief and faith in Jesus. What does that mean? So, I'll give you another verse. John chapter 14 verse 6, Jesus is saying, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So here it's very explicit that there's only one way to navigate your way back to God and that's through Jesus. But again, what does that mean? What does it mean? So without getting too caught up in Christian theology, simply put, according to Paul, we are all under the power of sin and therefore we can only find peace with God through the sacrifice of Jesus. There's absolutely nothing that we can do to navigate our way back. All that there is for us is to accept and believe in what God has done for us. So in a sense, there's nothing active you could do. You need to passively accept and believe in the provision that God has provided in order to help you to get back into a right relationship with God. Now Christians who might be listening to this will say, Amen! But Jewish people listening to this are scratching their heads. Where did you get that from? I mean, it's very fine to make an assertion, but where are you getting that from? Remember, who do we want to have a relationship with? We want to have a relationship with God. So we want to know that the counselor who's telling us how to get back to God is giving us accurate information. Imagine a counselor comes in to make peace between you and somebody who's fallen out with you and instead of giving them the correct information, the correct instructions that you've given, the counselor gives something else. Well, it's useless then, because really, if God didn't say that the way back is by putting your faith in Jesus, then doing so is not going to help you, right? And so we want to know where do the Christians get this idea from? And so the presentation often goes as follows. In the Torah, we know that God established a sacrificial system. You open up the Book of Leviticus and you'll see at the beginning of the Book of Leviticus God established a sacrificial system with specific details on how to bring up sacrifices. Now, according to Christian theology, this sacrificial system was created to be able to deal with the problem of sin. What does that mean? Since God is just and therefore, when a crime is done, a penalty needs to be paid, so therefore God provided us with sacrifices, so that the penalty can be paid and through the shedding of blood, the blood of an innocent animal, we could have forgiveness from our sins. Thus, without the shedding of that blood, without the shedding of the blood of an animal, there can be no forgiveness. That's the Christian position, okay? How they get from there to Jesus being the sacrifice is a whole separate discussion. It's still not clear to me how they jump, but be that as it may, be that as it may, the position of the Christian missionary is that God provided a provision for us to be able to deal with sin, to be able to navigate our way back to God, and that is by giving us the sacrifices which are able to put us back into a right relationship because through the shedding of the blood, we have a covering over our sins, and thus we can enter or re-enter into a relationship with God. But where is this from? We ask the missionary, where do you get this from? And the only source that they can point to is Leviticus chapter 17, 11. Before we read the actual source, I want to point out that there's a inherent weakness in being able to point to only one source for your entire theology. Number one, Leviticus 17, 11 does not lay out a comprehensive theological presentation on how one is to navigate their way back to God. Leviticus 17, 11 is one verse, and when we read it, we'll see. It says very little about the whole question of navigating our way back to God, but this is the only source that they have, and so we're going to have to deal with what they present. Leviticus 17, 11 says as follows, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. Right? Everybody understand that? And so what we're saying is that within the sacrificial system, God has provided an agent for atonement, and that is the blood of the animal. And so the missionary claim is that without the shedding of this blood there is no forgiveness, because they read Leviticus 17, 11 as the exclusive means for atonement. Now what we need to look at is whether or not Leviticus 17, 11 says that this is the only means for atonement. Is this the only way to navigate our way back to God? And I think the answer is clear. I think the answer is that there is nothing in the verse that would lead us to believe that this is the only way. If you look for a word that would indicate that this is exclusive, you'll come up with nothing. If we look at the entire context of this verse, what we'll find is something very interesting. The truth is this particular proof text is a great example of how to examine all proof texts that are presented to you. You see, what happens is very often verses are wrenched out of context and presented to you as if the context is what the missionary is presenting to you. Here the missionary is presenting Leviticus 17, 11 as if the context is how to navigate your way back to God. So you would imagine if you hear Leviticus 17, 11 for the soul of the flesh is in the blood and I have therefore given it to you upon the altar to atone for your soul, for it is the blood that atones for the soul, you would imagine if you only hear that verse that the chapter starts out, what should I do to navigate my way back to God after having sinned? You would imagine that's what the context is because again, that's the way it's being presented. This is God's provision. But if you go to Leviticus 17 verse 10, the verse before and read it all the way through verse 12, you'll find a very different picture. Leviticus 17 verse 10 reads as follows and any man of the house of Israel or the stranger that's adjourned among them who eats any blood, I will set my attention upon the soul who eats the blood and I will cut him off from among his people. For the soul of the flesh is in the blood and I have therefore given it to you upon the altar to atone for your souls, for it is the blood that atones for the soul. Therefore I said to the children of Israel, none of you shall eat blood and the stranger that's adjourned among you shall not eat blood. Well that puts a different spin on what the verse is actually speaking about. It's not speaking about how to have your sins forgiven. It's actually speaking about the prohibition of eating blood, consuming blood. And it's telling us the reason why you shouldn't consume blood is because blood has a very specific purpose upon the altar. You see when we offer up a sacrifice upon the altar it is the blood which is the life force of the animal that really affects atonement when we use that means of atonement. And so therefore the passage is very clear that one should never eat or consume blood for this very reason. But what the passage is not saying is the way to navigate your way back to God is through the blood. In fact, if you go back to Leviticus chapter 5 where it actually talks about how to deal with an incident where a person has transgressed inadvertently what happens is we find that it's true there are animal sacrifices that can be brought as a sin sacrifices but there are other means. For example, in Leviticus chapter 5 verse 11 it speaks about somebody who cannot even afford two turtledoves what are they to bring in order to be able to have an atonement through the sacrificial system and what it says is but if he cannot afford two turtledoves or two young doves then he shall bring as a sacrifice for a sin one tenth of an eighth mile of fine flour for a sin offering he shall not put oil over it nor shall he place frankincise upon it for it is a sin offering. So what we see over here is that flour, not blood is sufficient to be able to have our sins forgiven and so we have a serious problem with what the Christians are presenting to us as the only way back and that problem is God doesn't say that and if God doesn't say that it's very nice that you're saying that but we want to get back with God not with you, right? And so, just to summarize, right we want to navigate our way back to God especially after having departed from his way after having been disobedient and the Christian approach is to tell us that God sent us the Messiah to save us from sin by dying as a sacrifice to provide us with an atonement so that we can have everlasting life with God but we are stuck because as far as we can tell there's nothing in the Scriptures to actually support that and so we're back to square one and square one is basically how do we get back to a right relationship with God because that's what we want ultimately let me read to you what the Torah advises without putting any of my own twist onto what the Torah says let's just read what the Torah says now I apologize in advance for the long text but I want to point out by reading this long text that this is not one verse wrenched out of context this is, or these are passages which directly address the question that we are asking the question we are asking tonight is how do we navigate our way back to God again, remember for many people, myself included this is a very important question I want that relationship with God and if I have done anything to negatively affect that relationship I want to know how to make amends I want to know how to fix it because this relationship is important to me I really care about God I really love God and so therefore if there's anything that I am doing that He doesn't want I've got to know how to fix that and how to get back into that right relationship with God Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 25 the context here is Moses speaking to the Jewish people and he's telling them what's going to happen in the future and here's what he tells them and what he advises them again, Moses is speaking on behalf of God when you get children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything and do evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke Him to anger I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess you will not prolong your days in it but will be utterly destroyed and the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you and there you will serve God's and work of men's hands wood and stone which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell so what are you going to do how are you going to get back to God when you're so far but from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul when you are in distress and all these things come upon you in the latter days when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice what's clear over here is that Moses is telling them that even when you've been scattered to the ends of the world and over there you've transgressed God's will nevertheless if you seek Him from there you'll find Him you'll find Him if you hark into His voice Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 1 this is right after Moses tells the Jewish people of all the terrible, terrible curses that will come upon the Jewish people if they fail to obey God now it shall come to pass when all these things come upon you the blessings and the curse which I have set upon you and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice according to all that I command you today you and your children with all your heart and with all your soul that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has gathered you if any of you are driven out to the Father's part of the under heavens from there the Lord your God will gather you and from there He will bring you then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your Father's possessed and you shall possess it He will prosper you and multiply you more than your Father's and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live also the Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you who persecuted you and you will again obey the voice of the Lord and do all His commandments which I command you today the Lord your God will make you abound in all the work of your hand in the fruit of your body in the increase of your livestock and in the produce of your land for good for the Lord will again rejoice over you for good as He rejoiced over your Father's if you obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statues which are written in this book of the Lord and if you return to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul what's He saying? what is Moses telling the Jewish people here? what he's saying essentially is that when these curses come upon you even if you are at the furthest place of the world if you hearken to God's voice and you do that which I commanded you stop doing the things that God has told you not to do start doing the things that God has told you to do then God will bring you back and gather you back into the land and God will be happy with you again in other words you will get back into that relationship with God that you once had now here is speaking on a national level but it's also true on a personal level 2 Kings chapter 20 verse 1 through 6 in those days Hezekiah was sick and near death and Isaiah the prophet the son of Amos went to him and said to him thus says the Lord set your house in order for you shall die and not live then he referring to Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall and prayed to the Lord saying remember now oh Lord I pray how I have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart and have done what was good in your sight and Hezekiah wept bitterly and it happened before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court that the word of the Lord came to him saying return and tell Hezekiah the leader of my people thus says the Lord the God of David your father I have heard your prayer I have seen your tears surely I will heal you on the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord and I will add to your days 15 years I will deliver you in this city from the hand of the king of Assyria and I will defend the city for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David what does that tell us it's very clear that Hezekiah was in possession of some knowledge that obviously many missionaries are not in possession of and that is if you turn to God with contrition if you turn to God and you humble yourself God will listen to your prayer that's the way back that's the way back to God Jeremiah chapter 4 verse 1 through 4 if you will return oh Israel says the Lord return to me and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight then you shall not be moved and you shall swear the Lord lives in truth, in judgment and in righteousness the nations shall bless themselves in Him and in Him they shall glory for thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem break up your fellow ground and do not sow among the thorns circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the four skins of your heart you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem thus my fury come forth like fire and burns so that no one can quench it because of the evil things you're doing God's telling them clearly what to do He's telling them clearly you want to get back into a right relationship with me you want me not to raise my wrath against you stop doing what's wrong and start doing what's right Jeremiah 7 22 23 I want you to understand over here that this is not one isolated reference this is something that is repeated over and over and over ad nauseam you hear it again and again and again like a broken record God tells us through every single prophet how to get back to God not once does He tell us that the way back to God is through putting our faith in the Messiah not once that's a very embarrassing omission if the only way back to God is through putting your faith in the Messiah couldn't God spare a few verses in His Tanakh to tell us that but He doesn't Jeremiah 7 22 23 to 23 for I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices but this is what I commanded them saying obey my voice and I will be your God and you shall be my people and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you that it may be well with you it's very simple very straightforward Jeremiah 26 verse 3 perhaps everyone will listen and turn from His evil way that I may relent concerning the calamity which I propose to bring on them because of the evil of their doings and it goes on and on I could go on and on quote after quote after quote but what I'd like you to do now is I'd like you to jump to Ezekiel 33 and the reason why I chose Ezekiel 33 is because Ezekiel 33 actually gives expression to the question that is the focus of tonight's discussion Ezekiel 33 verse 10 says as follows therefore you, oh son of man say to the house of Israel thus you say in other words God's addressing what people are feeling and saying if our transgressions and our sins lie upon us and we pine away in them how can we then live in other words if sin is such a problem and we know that in Isaiah 59 we're told that our sins is what separates us and our Father in heaven so what do we do? we want this relationship but we're stuck, we've sinned and you know what? every single one of us knows that God really knows what we've done in our lives yes it's true my Father might not know my mother might not know my friends may not know but God knows God knows what I've done God knows whether I'm sincere or not it's an excuse for some of my behaviors and so I feel this hopelessness what do I do? I pine away say to them this is God's answer say to them as I live says the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn from your evil ways verse 14 and 16 sorry in chapter 33 verses 14 and 16 again when I say to the wicked you shall surely die this is God answering us if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right if the wicked restores the pledge give back what he has stolen and walks in the statues of life without committing iniquity he shall surely live he shall not die listen to this the death of his sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him he has done what is lawful and right he shall surely live this is God's message to us over and over again I want to put this into plain English in plain English what this means is while we have great faith in God we often have very little faith in humanity we have very little faith in ourselves and we feel that we're hopeless we fall into the trap of despair and despondency and we say there's nothing I can do I can't really change I can't really do anything one has to understand and appreciate that the whole Bible is predicated on the notion that God can do something that God believes in us that God has given us everything that we need to be able to do that which is right and good in his eyes for if God did not give us that what sense does it make to send all the prophets to rebuke us and tell us to get back on the right path if he doesn't believe that we can of course he believes that we can and God understands human frailty that we often feel that we can't do it and therefore he sends the prophet to encourage us and to tell us there is a way back you can I say 55 verse 7 let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon God's not like our spouse or our parent the difference between them is well many differences but one of the differences is your spouse or your parent doesn't really know what's going on in your heart and sometimes if you make the same mistake or not mistake but you do the same negative thing twice three times how many times can I forgive you already if you keep doing the same thing but God knows your heart God knows whether you really mean it this time God understands our human frailty he understands that often we will be swayed by powerful forces out there but nevertheless in the moment that we want to return to that relationship in the moment that we want to really come back to God God knows that we're sincere and he says come back to me you know why because I'm going to abundantly pardon verse 10 here it's an interesting thing you see while the Bible talks extensively about the different sacrifices for the Jewish people who have either sin or want to bring a peace offering or want to bring all these different type of offerings to God the Bible doesn't really speak about sacrifices for Gentiles the Bible never mentions it the Bible doesn't say and for the Gentile who has sinned bring this sacrifice or that sacrifice doesn't mention it however there is one book which deals with a Gentile nation who had done that which was evil and wrong in the eyes of God and God sends them a Jewish prophet to tell them how they can get back with God what does he say doesn't he say put your faith in the Messiah and his blood it's not what he says Jonah chapter 3 verse 10 we find that Jonah had rebuked the nation of Nineveh and told them that if you don't change your ways God is going to bring a disaster to your city it's going to turn over the city within 40 days and the king decreed three days of fasting causing everybody to come back to God in repentance and in Jonah chapter 3 verse 10 it says when God saw what they did and how they turned from the evil ways he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened so again this is something that is not just communicated to the Jewish people about how they can navigate their way back to God this is even to the non-Jewish people the Gentiles and how they can find their way back to God Daniel chapter 4 verse 27 Daniel is giving advice to Nebuchadnezzar he says therefore O King please please be pleased to accept my advice renounce your sin by doing what is right and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed it may be that your prosperity will continue and so what we see over here time and time and time again is that God's advice through his marriage counselor so to speak through the Bible through the Tanakh through the ones who he has sent to us to give us good advice about how to navigate our way back to him consistently and clearly and comprehensively tell us that the way to navigate our way back to God is by obedience by turning back to observance of God's commandment out of love out of fear you don't have to worry about God striking you down with lightning it's because you love him that's why you do what God wants you have all of him God's your creator God holds the breath in your nostril you owe him everything and he has been so kind to you if we just think a moment about all the blessings that we have in our life we owe him everything at the moment doing everything that God wants he still owes us nothing it says in the Psalms which means that to you God is graciousness and kindness for you pay every person for their deeds what does it mean it's kindness what kind of kindness does God do for us if we did what's right we deserve it oh the Psalms is telling us he doesn't owe you anything everything he gives you is a gift the fact that God ever rewards you for anything you do is graciousness and kindness for him because he owes us nothing God loves us God wants to have a relationship with us and he tells us how to have that relationship and God's answer is not by putting your faith in the death of a sacrifice that's not the way to get back to God but then we're left with what the sacrifice is all about why does God even have sacrifices so that's a difficult question to answer and the reason why it's difficult is because if I would understand God I would be God God doesn't always tell us why he does things God doesn't always tell us why things are the way they are sometimes he does share with us but sometimes he doesn't and God didn't tell us why the sacrifices work he didn't tell us why sacrifices can provide atonement the Rambam states that the sacrificial system is actually a haik something that is super rational we can't understand it what we do understand is that as far as we're concerned the reason why we bring sacrifices is because God told us to it's out of obedience God tells us to keep sharpness we keep sharpness God tells us not to wear sharpness wool and linen clothes together we don't do that we don't learn your mother we try to do that when God tells us that when there's a temple standing there are cases in which I require you to bring a sacrifice it is an expression of our obedience to God to bring up that sacrifice however it is clear from the totality of scripture that the key to navigating our way back to God is not the sacrifice and the blood but rather it's turning back to obedience to God and doing so out of love out of humility with contrition with real remorse and regret for the things that we've done and with joy with joy it says in the Psalms where does the joy come from the joy comes from the fact that we are able to have a relationship with God and God tells us how to do it us human beings us frail human beings that are prone to mistakes God tells us we can have a relationship with Him and by doing a mitzvah by doing a mitzvah we're connecting with Hashem we're doing something for Hashem what could be more joyous than that and so of navigating our way back to God it's very clear that the approach of Christianity to leave it all up to God to provide some kind of blood sacrifice and that somehow magically um puts us back into a right relationship with God is to be found nowhere in the Jewish scriptures however following it's the God sent us and their advice on how to navigate our way back to God that is going to lead us right back into that right relationship with God thank you very much