The Religious Landscape of the Ancient World = The Jewish Ceremonial System PART ONE
The Religious Landscape of the Ancient World = The Jewish Ceremonial System PART ONE
In this Blog and the next two, will layout the religious landscape of the ancient world, which was actually very simple. There were the Jews, and everything else was pagan, demon, Lucifer inspired religion (1Jn 5:18). Understanding this will help us better understand the New Testament and God's Plan of Redemption in general.
This Blog = The Religious Landscape of the Ancient World = Judaism PART ONE
The next Blog = Judaism PART TWO
The following one Blog = The Religious Landscape of the Ancient World = Animism
To understand what a document is saying, you need to know to whom it was written.
The Ancient world can be divided into 2 time periods: the Old Testament period and the New Testament period. This is the historic view of History: BC and AD; it all revolves around Christ. The new terminology, "Common Era," CE, is of the devil, as it removes Christ from the equation. AD is Latin, "In the year of our Lord," that is Jesus; Christians should not use CE.
I am not talking about a Dispensation view of God's plan, in that there were different stand alone covenants. God's plan has always only ever been one: salvation through Christ.
The Old Testament time period was very simple, world wide there were only 2 religions:
- Pagan demon-worshiping animism.
- Biblical Judaism.
I say "Biblical Judaism," because that was the ONLY system God set up for people to worship him, and it is recorded ONLY in the bible. Jesus told the Samarian woman: "Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." Joh 4:22
God sovereignly established the Jewish nation, calling Abraham out of pagan Ur of the Chaldees, where he had been a pagan idol worshiper (Jos 24:2), and then with Moses God set up the Jewish system of laws and worship. This was all to keep the human lineage of Christ pure, and to point to Christ by way of the sacrificial system; it was all shadow, as the book of Hebrews points out. When Jesus comes, and brings in the reality, the shadow is no longer needed, and is discarded, and to "seal the deal," in 70 AD the Temple was destroyed; God caused the Temple to be destroyed! God made it impossible for the Jewish system to continue.
Since then on there has been no Temple, no Priesthood, no correct sacrifice. And since the Temple and the Priesthood are gone, in fact have been gone for 1900 plus years, according to the Jewish system and thought, not one Jew has had their sins covered; there has been no Altar and no Holy of Holys, into which the High Priest could enter on the Day of Atonement, hence no atonement has been made for sin for over 1900 years. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is still practiced, but it is not practiced as God commanded, it is meaningless, there is no Temple!
That is a problem, a big problem; if you are Jewish, you need to consider that.
Current Jewish practice, from the strictest Hasidic to the most liberal, with all of the Synagogue meetings, is not Biblical Judaism; it is people trying to do something to get to God, but it is not the God ordained Old Testament Sacrificial System; biblical Judaism is gone.
That was a tangent, but a necessary one.
So in the Old Testament era, there was biblical Judaism, but all the other cultures were pagan, demon worshiping animists; that is the subject of the next Blog.
Regarding biblical Judaism, it was one big inter-connected system, regulated by many laws.
The word "law," refers to three (3) different things. It refers to "The Moral Law," to "The Jewish Civil Law," and to "The Jewish Ceremonial Law."
The Moral Law, the Ten (10) Commandments, which express God's moral character, and therefore have existed eternally; it existed prior to being codified when given to Moses. See my Blogs on the Ten (10) Commandments.
The Civil Law, is hardly an issue, and seldom / never enters the discussion. These were the government laws of the nation of Israel, specific to them, but from which we can obviously get much wisdom. In fact English Common Law, and therefore US Law, are based on the Ten Commandments and the Jewish Civil Law. The Ten Commandment are displayed behind the US Supreme Court Justices, or at lest they used to be, and in many court houses in America.
But a big issue for the New Testament church, because the first Christians were almost all Jews, was whether the gentiles who were beginning to enter the church should be required to follow the Jewish Ceremonial Laws. The Jews who promoted that position are called "Judaizers." The Jerusalem Counsel of Act 15, and the book of Galatians deal with that issue.
Judaism had degenerated to "legalism." Legalism is not just keeping the law, but it is the teaching that we can become righteous by keeping the law. The vast majority of Jews in the time of Jesus had forgotten about that true religion is heart religion. They thought that they could become righteous in God's eyes by keeping the Law of Moses, the Ceremonial Law. It was all external, which is why Jesus told them they were like cups that were clean outside, but dirty within; that they were like decorated graves, but had dead bones within; they lived fine, but their hearts were dead to God.
The Judaizers, Jews who had become Christians, said the gentiles who had believed in Jesus, had to follow the Jewish ceremonial law, the Law of Moses.
"But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses." Act 15:5
But the early church, rejected that, saying, those laws could not justify people, because we are justified by faith in Jesus, and so there was no need for the gentiles to follow useless laws.
"And by him (Jesus) all who believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." Act 13:39
"Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." Act 15:10-11
"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Gal 2:16
It was not a question of continuing to perform animal sacrifices; that was never mentioned; nor was it ever a question that all the 600 something Jewish church rules/laws, like what cloths to wear, what crops could be planted, monthly purification for women, and purification after child birth, etc. had to be followed, it boiled down to three (3) big ones:
1) The Sabbath and special/holy days
2) Food prohibitions
3) Circumcision
Before we look at those 3 big ones, in the Blog, PART ONE, we will first show that the term "The Law of Moses," when used in the New Testament, usually refers to the Jewish Ceremonial Law, it does not refer to the Ten Commandments.
Then in the next Blog, PART TWO, we will then we look at each of those 3 big ones, and show to which New Testament truth they refer. For remember, the Ceremonial Law, in total, was a temporary system, one big shadow to pointed to real thing which Jesus would usher in, which is the New Testament. Christ himself abolished the Old Testament system of shadows, and brought in the New Testament reality.
The below verses use the term "law of Moses," but obviously refer to ceremonial laws. We are showing this, so that no one thinks the Ten Commandments were done away with.
1) Purification after child birth:
"And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;" Luk 2:22
There were also other purifications to become ceremonial clean: after inter-course, for a woman after she had her period, touching a dead body, and leprosy.
After healing a leper, Jesus said to him, "See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them." Mat 8:4
These all regard ceremonial cleansing, based on external contamination; ceremonial cleansing. External is key. All of these are external; the reality Christ brought in is internal, of the heart, not external of the body.
2) Circumcision.
Even though circumcision did over lapped with the civil law, for an un-circumsized man was to be cast out from among the people, it was mainly part of the ceremonial law of Moses, and it was not one of the Ten Commandments.
"If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken;" Joh 7:23
3) Muzzling an ox:
"For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn." 1Co 9:9
All of the animal husbandry laws, like don't plow with an ox and a donkey together, where part of the ceremonial law of Moses.
What we showed above is that the term "Law of Moses," does not refer to the Ten Commandments, but to the Ceremonial system.
These ceremonial laws were like a fence, inside of which the Israelites lived, and outside of which were the gentiles. Each individual law was like a fence picket driven into the ground encircling the Israelites, the main purpose being to keep them separate from gentiles.
"Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;" Eph 2:11-14
In the above verses Paul uses the picture of a wall, but the meaning is the same: The ceremonial law, here subsumed under circumcision, divided the Jew from the gentile, so that the gentile was an alien, a stranger, to be kept far away from, and with whom the Jew was at enmity; the Jews were to be totally separated from the gentiles.
"Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." Joh 4:9
But Christ broke down that wall/fence, ie he abolished the ceremonial law! Read Jhn 4, and see that as he spoke with the woman, he was removing the barrier between Jew and Samarian, and telling of its future, final removal: "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him." Joh 4:23
Peter confirms that the separation has been removed, when he explained to Cornelius, the gentile Roman soldier, the meaning of the vision God had showed him (Act 10) of un-clean animals. The animals represented gentiles, with whom Jews were not allowed to mix, but God's command Peter to eat the un-clean animals, meaning that he, Peter could go and mix with gentiles.
So as Peter is entering Cornelius' house he says: "Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing (according to the Jewish ceremonial law) for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean." Act 10:28
The law of Moses was the ceremonial law which regulated sacrifice, ceremonial cleanness, etc; not to be confused with the Ten (10) Commandments, the Moral Law.
The death of Christ put an end to the sacrificial system, and the wall between Jews and gentiles had been removed.
Effectively, Judaism was over, and the nail in the coffin was the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.
In the next Blog, we will look at the three (3) ceremonial laws which had most prominence in the New Testament era.
13 May 2025