Just a Lily on the Prairie

The Holiness Factor

The first thing we need to note about what the Holy One tells us in today’s aliyah about the korban asham-Guilt Offering is that the Holy One considers the surrogate used in such approach k’dosh k’dosh’im – holy of holies. The Holy One declared it twice – in verse 1 and then again in verse 6.

Lev 7:1 This is the law of the guilt offering; it is a holy of holies.

Lev 7:6 Every male among the priests shall eat of it. In a holy place shall it be eaten; it is a holy of holies.

Did you catch that, Beloved?

The Holy One wants us to know that He considers the approach of a sinner who admits, and wishes to make reparation for his sin, and be restored in his relationship with His Creator and covenant partner, every bit as holy as the place atop the “mercy seat”, between the wings of the cherubim. The Holy One actually calls the korban asham by the same name as the cubicle behind the veil, which the high priest can only enter once a year.

You see, Beloved, the Holy One has always loved, and reached out to, and met with, those who come to Him in t’shuvah [heartfelt desire to return to covenant faithfulness]. This is not a “New Testament” doctrine.

If you realize what this means, you will be amazed. Think about it. No one would make korban asham unless he had broken the Holy One’s covenant – had failed to sh’ma-Hear and sh’mar-Do the Holy One’s instructions for living.

Consider also that the breach was well known to the Holy One, for nothing is hidden from Him.

What had the Holy One done when He saw the person break His covenant? Though He could have, He did not send a lightning bolt to “zap” the person. He did not write the person off. He gently and lovingly “woo’d” the man, drawing the man back to Him, and to His Torah lifestyle, by His Spirit [yes, the Ruach was already in the world – ask David!], calling Him to make t’shuvah. And He waited, patiently, until the man responded, and made korban asham. And when the man did make korban asham, the Holy One accepted him back into the fold as if he’d never left, and met with him, and communed with him – not only on the level of the earthly tabernacle, but in the eternal place in the Spiritual realm which the Holy One showed Moshe on the mountain, after the pattern of which the earthly tabernacle and altar were built.

Forgiveness of Sin and Clearing the Conscience of Guilt­ The ‘Good News’ from the Torah

I know this is not the image of the “Old Testament” God you may have heard or read about. But it is precisely the God Torah presents to us.

Perhaps because the world has seen fit to divorce itself from Torah, it simply cannot understand the God of Torah.

Y’shua of Natzret did not introduce the concept of forgiveness of sins to mankind in 29 C.E. He walked a path that the Holy One had established a long, long time before Pontius Pilate or Herod or the corrupt high priest Caiphas were ever born, much less placed in power.

Y’shua did not come to earth and walk out the korban asham principle embodied in Torah for all to see in order establish some new religion.

He came to bring the heavenly reality of forgiveness and reconciliation which a few had come to know through the torah of the korban asham, to the entire world.

He came because the priesthood of Aharon had become corrupted, was being sold by Rome to the highest bidder, was not being administered in a manner consistent with either the letter or the spirit of Torah, and was ready to be suspended.

As the prophet Yeshayahu had said of the priests who officiated at the altar in Jerusalem:

He who kills an ox is as he who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, as he who breaks a dog’s neck; he who offers an offering, [as he who offers] pig’s blood; he who burns frankincense, as he who blesses an idol. Yes, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations:
[Isaiah 66:3]

And, as Malachi had spoken on behalf of the Holy One – as the Holy One’s last prophetic message before Messiah’s birth:

Now, you Kohanim, this mitzvah is for you.
If you will not sh’ma, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name,” says the Holy One of Hosts, “then will I send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.* * *. . . the Kohen’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the torah at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Holy One of Hosts. But you have turned aside out of the way.You have caused many to stumble in the Torah.You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” says the Holy One of Hosts. “Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law. [Malachi 2:1-9]

A corrupt priesthood had to be cut-off, exiled, as a corrupt people had been cut-off and exiled in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. An incorruptible, faultless priesthood – the Heavenly priesthood of Messiah after which the earthly priesthood had been patterned in the first place — had to be established on earth, in order that the truth of Torah, and the pathways of intimacy the Holy One established in Torah, might be kept open for all who were broken and contrite of heart.

Thanks be to the Holy One, the pathways of intimacy of the Holy One are indeed open to us today. The priesthood of Y’shua after the order of Melchi-Tzedek, applying the same Hebraic concepts as we have been studying in Sefer Vayikra-Leviticus, is in place.

Blessed be the name of the Holy One!

Courtesy of Bill Bullock – the Rabbis Son Parsha Tzav