Why the Ceremonial Law Didn’t Work

The Jews were convinced that ceremonial laws would lead them to God’s salvation. This devotional reading looks at why they couldn’t, and why spiritual worship can.

Nuggets

  • Neither do the ceremonial laws don’t change our hearts nor do they purify our consciences like spiritual worship does.
  • Ceremonial law does not cleanse as spiritual worship does.
  • Because ceremonial law doesn’t work, we need to focus on spiritual worship rather than today’s equivalent.

We’ve been comparing the ceremonial law to spiritual worship. The Jews thought the ceremonial law would bring them salvation.

God, however, never planned that to be the case. He always knew that He would send His Son to be the Sacrifice for us.

Charnock told us why the ceremonial laws wouldn’t work. He wrote, “The legal ceremonies were not a fit means to bring the heart into a spiritual frame. They had a spiritual intent, but did not work spiritual affections in the soul.”

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We started talking in the last devotion that the reason the ceremonial laws didn’t work was because they didn’t get our relationship to God down to the heart level. This devotion looks at why the ceremonial law did not work.

Let's Put It into Context

To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.

Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.

Devotions in the Finding Jesus through Spiritual Worship study

Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.

The foundation of this series is Menander and Charnock’s Spiritual Worship.

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We are going to be looking at the verses in a different order than Charnock presented them.

Doesn’t Touch the Consciences

“This is an illustration pointing to the present time. For the gifts and sacrifices that the priests offer are not able to cleanse the consciences of the people who bring them” (Heb. 9: 9 NLT)

Neither do the ceremonial laws don’t change our hearts nor do they purify our consciences like spiritual worship does.

The writer of Hebrews focused on the ceremonial laws of sacrifice. A sacrifice constituted the Jews’ worship that presented an outward expression of their inner devotion or thanksgiving or or a request for forgiveness.

The Jews were required to kill their own animal in four of the five types of sacrifice.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Jews many times were just going through the motions. They didn’t use them to increase their faith and draw closer to God. They did not confess their sins to God.

Our conscience is the part of our nature that impacts our moral decisions as it points us to what is right and gives us pain or pleasure depending on the choice.

The conscience is not where our character is developed. Our conscience only influences the decisions that are made. Decisions are made and, therefore, our character developed, in the heart.

Alford said something that really resonated with me. The original sin was committed because of selfishness. Sacrifice, therefore, is a renunciation of the selfishness. Instead, it is giving our best and first to God.

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A sacrifice is a gift. They were to bring something of themselves to give it to God.

David gave us a good example of this in First Chronicles 21. When he had taken a census not required by God, God sent a pestilence that killed thousands of people. It would be ended when David made a sacrifice.

In order to give the sacrifice, David had to buy a threshing floor from Ornan. Ornan wanted to give it to David along with oxen, wood, and grain, but David refused to make a sacrifice that did not cost him personally.

This also ties in with denying ourselves. “Then he [Jesus] said to the crowd, ‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me’” (Lk. 9: 23 NLT).

God has to have top priority. Our submission to him must be complete. (Only half a bull was never sacrificed — it was the whole animal.)

Alford also stated a second purpose for the law, even though it didn’t bring us salvation. It prepared us for the One Who could. It developed the understanding that there would be a substitute for us, specifically the Passover lamb.

The ceremonial laws served the purpose to show us that we need a Savior.

A Shadow of the Real

“The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship” (Heb. 10: 1 NLT)

Ceremonial law does not cleanse as spiritual worship does.

We may read this verse to mean that the law is/was useless. That isn’t the case.

Edwards gave us a great caution. He wrote, “He [the writer of Hebrews] is careful not to say that the Law was itself but a shadow. On the contrary, the very promise includes that God will put His laws in the heart and write them upon the mind.”

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Jesus said the law was still important. “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.  I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved” (Mt. 5: 17-18).

In one aspect, I don’t think the first century was much different from today. People didn’t like change.

They didn’t want to be made to feel they had been doing something wrong. Plus, they didn’t want to get out of their comfort zones.

God saw it as an exchange. People saw it as a change.

It had to be an exchange if Jesus was completing it, not abolishing it. The hope of the coming Messiah was exchanged for the faith in the risen Savior.

Instead of abolishing the law, we are to write it on our hearts. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Heb. 8: 10 ESV).

We were just talking about the need to commit with our hearts and minds. We begin doing that by getting the laws there to solidify that to which we are committing.

Then those laws need to impact our actions.

To read a devotion in the Committing to Grow Our Habits series, click on the button below.

So, what does it mean about being a shadow? Edwards told us that, too. He wrote, “The Law was holy, righteous, and good; but the manifestation of its nature in sacrifices was unreal, like the dark outline of an object that breaks the stream of light.”

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Sacrifices didn’t demonstrate the law. How can killing animals demonstrate righteousness? Righteousness is the indwelling goodness that is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments and from which all virtues flow.

Maybe that is why some people have so much trouble with the killing of animals.

The laws show us God’s character. We are to imitate that character. I can see how that can be described as a shadow.

We don’t become God. We become like God, just as a shadow is like the person but really isn’t the person.

Take that a step further. The shadow does everything the person does, just as we are to do what God does.

It breaks down on the flip side, though. The shadow doesn’t do anything the person doesn’t do. We, however, do things that God doesn’t — we sin.

But what does all that have to do with conscience? Edward said – and Elaine speak — that these were recurring sacrifices. They were required because they did not truly cleanse the Jews from their sins.

It was their choice if they did not perform the sacrifice. The conscience is would have been activated if they made the moral decision not to do the sacrifice, as it would have gone against God’s requirement, bringing pain.

Now, remember these sacrifices were the Jew’s worship. The worship wasn’t the killing part. The worship was the giving part.

Don’t Go Back

“So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?” (Gal. 4: 9 NLT)

Because ceremonial law doesn’t work, we need to focus on spiritual worship rather than today’s equivalent.

In Paul’s day, there were people who were trying to tell new Christians that they had to continue to follow some aspects of the Jewish law. These false teachers are called Judaizers.

God didn’t want the early Church to go backwards.

The sacrifices did nothing to show us Who God really is. For that matter, we really can’t know God by studying His Word. He has to reveal Himself to us through the Holy Spirit.

God will only reveal Himself to His children. We only become His children by believing in Jesus. “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God” (Jn. 1: 12 NLT).

Let me process this. Smyth said — in Elaine-speak — God and immortality are not the results of argument. The definition of argument used here is the set of reasons to persuade others of the validity of an action or idea.

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So, we can’t “reason out” Who God is.

But then Smyth said that we cannot reason ourselves out of these beliefs. Ooo, baby! Don’t worldview people try to today?

Isn’t that our way of going back today? We leave what God tells us to do and go back to the worldview way. If we don’t go back all the way, we try to compromise to have the best of both worlds.

It doesn’t work that way.

Going back to the worldview means we give up the knowledge that we do have of God. We take the gift of salvation and the grace through which He gives it and throw it back in His face.

We go back to spiritual bondage. That doesn’t work any more than the ceremonial laws did.

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Making the Connections

We could never make atonement for ourselves. Instead of focusing on making up for past sins, we should now focus on doctrines to change us to be more righteous.

How Do We Apply This?

The ABCDs of Salvation

If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.

A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord

D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us

The Disciple’s Job Description

  • Worship God in spirit and truth.

Father God. Thank You for the ceremonial law. It showed us we could not save ourselves. We need Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer. Amen.

What do you think?

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