Dirty High Places

Let's pray. We'll get started. Blessed Lord, You have caused all holy

Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, inwardly digest them, so that by patience and comfort from Your holy

Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our

Lord, Amen. Alright, were there any questions that came up, percolated up in your mind as a result of the sermon?

Yes, sir. I have to criticize you on something you said. Uh oh. You said in the

New World there'd be fishing in the Dead Sea. Yeah. But there's no death in the New World.

Well, so I have to rename the Dead Sea. Catch and release. Well, yeah. I'm just telling you what

Ezekiel said. Okay. You know, take it up with him. These are pictures of what's coming, but the picture then of the river that flows from the

Temple of God and the Dead Sea no longer is the Dead Sea. It's fishing as described in it.

And the Dead Sea comes to life, teeming with new life. So yeah.

Right now it's the Dead Sea. Let me see. The Sea of Galilee, I think elevation -wise it's the lowest freshwater lake on planet

Earth. And so the Dead Sea runs lower than that, and there's just no out for that thing. So, all right.

Any other questions, comments? Please email all criticisms to barb at...

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I was telling

Don earlier today that this week has promise, and the reason why this week has so much promise is because looking at my schedule, it looks like a normal week.

It looks normal. So we are going to dive back into our study of Leviticus.

Last time we were in Leviticus, we took a look at the Day of Atonement, and that's in Leviticus 16.

And so let's continue working our way through the book of Leviticus. We are up to chapter 17.

And you'll note again, we're dealing with the ceremonial laws pertaining to the

Mosaic Covenant. And it's always good to remind you that the book of Hebrews makes it very clear that these sacrifices and the things that are described in here are the types and shadows which find their fulfillment in the death of Christ, his vicarious death for our sins, and his resurrection from the grave.

So one of the problems, and you'll see this in the Old Testament as you're reading the historical narratives, that the children of Israel would have is that they wouldn't obey

God's command regarding where the sacrifices were to be sacrificed. So when you read in the

Old Testament, the people of Israel, they would go to the tabernacle and offer their sacrifices there.

And then the next generation, they would set up what were called high places. So what ended up happening is that people would set up places of sacrifice that were away from the tabernacle, their own high places.

And you'll notice that God was a little bit lax in enforcing some of the laws regarding that.

But that being the case, the point was sacrifices were supposed to be made at the tabernacle, and then eventually the temple.

And then what would oftentimes happen is that as Israel slipped into idolatry, places that they had set up as high places where they would sacrifice rather than making the trek to wherever the tabernacle was, oftentimes those would be co -opted and then become high places of sacrifice to false gods.

And so the general idea, kind of go back to the Tower of Babel, which we'll hear about next week, funny enough,

Tower of Babel, is that there's this idea that God meets with us up on the mountaintop.

The high places, you're closer to God. Or in paganism, you'd say closer to the gods.

And so with the Tower of Babel, they wanted to build this large tower to reach to the heaven and in a sense kind of climb their way up to God.

Now high towers have a different meaning in our society. The countries that have those really, really tall skyscrapers, they are a symbol of the power and the magnitude or the wealth of a particular nation.

And so back in the day, United States always held the record for the tallest skyscrapers, but now you have competing countries.

And the current reigning champion of the skyscraper competition is

Dubai. And that's quite the skyscraper. I mean, it's an amazing architectural feat.

But the idea then, back in the ancient days, you'd climb a mountain and you'd be closer to God.

And you'll note that this is somewhat reinforced then in scripture. When God meets with the children of Israel, they're at Mount Sinai.

And Moses ascends up to the top of Mount Sinai and God meets with him there. And then you think about the fact that Christ himself, he's transfigured on the

Mount of Transfiguration. They go up to the top of the mountain. And so there's this idea then that spatially, the scripture reinforces the idea that our father who art in heaven and where to look up.

That's the idea, that God's abode is, well, he's up there. And so we've noted then that two proper ways of prayer for Christians is either on your knees or with your hands and raised toward heaven.

This is also a legitimate way of praying that is taught in scripture. So keep that in mind.

Face towards God. So Yahweh spoke to Moses, Leviticus 17, saying, speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the people of Israel.

Say to them, this is the thing that Yahweh has commanded. If anyone of the house of Israel kills an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp or kills it outside the camp and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it as a gift to Yahweh in front of the tabernacle of Yahweh, blood guilt shall be imputed to that man.

He has shed blood and that man shall be cut off from among the people. In this particular case, this has to do with offerings, not for the slaughtering of animals for the purpose of consuming them, but in sacrifice.

This is to the end that the people of Israel may bring their sacrifices that they sacrifice in the open field, that they may bring them to Yahweh, to the priests at the entrance of the tent of meeting and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to Yahweh.

Now, there's some aspect to this when you consider just how large the magnitude and the multitude is of the people of Israel that when you have families offering sacrifices and they're all bringing them at the same time, there's a pretty long queue.

And so I don't know if you've noticed, but it's just maybe me, but every time I go to the grocery store, which is a very rare occasion, by the way, there are sightings of me at Walmart and people photographed me, but they're blurry, just like the

Sasquatch. So if you ever see me at Walmart and you take a photo to prove it, I guarantee the photo will come out blurry.

It's the weirdest phenomenon. But on those rare occasions that I go to Walmart and I look,

I'm looking for the shortest line. I am not looking for a long line. And if it just so happens that there are 20 people trying to check out and there are two checkers, which seems to be my fate in life,

I roll my eyes and I behave like an infant. I behave like a child. It's like, ah, this is just a terrible thing.

But the point is is that when you're having a lot of people queue up for their sacrifices, human nature being what human nature is, you're just saying,

I know what the solution is. I'm not gonna wait for the priest to do it. I'll go do it out in the open field. I'll sacrifice itself and I'll bring the dead animal myself to save some time.

And that's what's happening. So the Lord is saying, so if you're gonna do that, actually finish the task.

Don't just sacrifice and say, I'm done. Sacrifice, now bring the animal and get back in the queue.

That's kind of the idea behind this. Is that their version of a self -checkout line? Yes, their version of self -checkout, right.

And notice no computers were involved too. You know, anyway, so the priest shall throw the blood on the altar of Yahweh at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

So they still have to queue up, bring the animal, and have everything brought to the tabernacle. So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons.

Now this is the other part of it then. Is that there were some who under the pretense of I don't wanna queue up.

I'm gonna go and offer my sacrifice to Yahweh out here. What they were in fact doing then, this is the other piece of this.

What they were in fact doing was not worshiping Yahweh, not offering a sacrifice to Yahweh. They were believing in goat demons and sacrificing their animals to them.

And so you'll note then by God requiring, if you wanna go and sacrifice out there, that's fine.

Bring your animal, queue up, and we'll take the blood and put it on the altar. But if you don't, you're gonna be guilty of blood guiltiness.

But actually what they're really guilty of then is not being impatient, but they're really being guilty of is idolatry.

And so God is putting an end to this practice. And by allowing them to sacrifice out there, but still have to queue up and bring your animal to the priest.

So this shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations. And you shall say to them, any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them who offers a burnt offering or a sacrifice and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it to Yahweh, that man shall be cut off from his people.

Now a little bit of a note here. Let me back up into seven. I wanna show something. And this is another theme of the

Old Testament and one that is not flattering and one that is quite stark in its verbiage.

And that is that, a good way to put it is is that when somebody breaks the first commandment, they're an idolater.

And there is a sense then, even with the children of Israel, that God has talked about being a husband to Israel.

And this is the type and shadow that gives way when we recognize in the New Testament that those who are believers in God and trusting in him for the forgiveness of their sins because of what

Christ has done, that the church collectively is the bride of Christ. And so what ends up happening then is that to commit the sin of idolatry, if you are married to God, God uses language that invokes sexual immorality.

So that the person who has sacrificed an animal to a goat demon, it uses the word, so they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons after whom they whore.

Whore. So, and you'll see this theme throughout the Old Testament. Idolaters are likened to adulterers.

People who worship false gods are described as whoring after them.

And there's some very, very graphic depictions throughout the prophets,

I would even think of the prophet Ezekiel, where the language is so over the top, it's almost like not safe for work.

You know, talking about, you know, you're like a whore who spreads her legs for everybody.

I mean, this is how the Bible talks about idolaters. So, I mean, and you sit there and go, wow, that is strong, that is harsh, and that's kind of the point.

And so, idolatry and adultery are just smashed together as themes within the scriptures.

And so, you know, when we see language like this, this is to get your attention, to pay attention to just how serious idolatry really is.

All right, verse 10. Now, if anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood,

I'll set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among the people.

For the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

Now, this is an interesting prohibition, and this prohibition doesn't exist today.

I mean, I'm thankful for this because otherwise our steaks would be really dry. You know, so when you go to Texas Roadhouse and you order yourself a steak, you'll notice that it's nice and moist and juicy and hot.

Ah, right. You'll get a little of the shrimp to go with it and the garlic bread, ah.

Yeah, anyway, sorry, my apologies. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, oh, and the honey buns, oh, oh, yeah.

All right, anyway. So we're thankful because we're not required to drain the blood out of the beast, and so we still, you know, whenever you're having a steak today, unless it is kosher, you know, it's been slaughtered according to Jewish tradition, which would require them to bleed out the dead animal after it had been killed, then you have nice, juicy steak.

So, you know, we eat blood all the time. But the prohibition here is actually quite fascinating because you're gonna see this recurring theme in Scripture.

The life is in the blood. The life is in the blood.

Do not eat the blood of these animals. Why, God? Because the life is in the blood.

The life is in the blood, right? Over and over and over again. And then note here what it says.

The life of the flesh is in the blood. I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

Now, that's the type and shatter. Whose blood is the one that makes atonement by his life?

Christ's. And so you'll note then that coming into the New Testament, something stark happens.

And that is on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to the disciples and he said, take, eat, this is my body, which is given for you.

And you'll note this is perfectly consistent with the Old Testament sacrifices because they were to consume them.

And then the thing that really stands out. Take, drink, this cup is the

New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

And so now you can see a Jew just sitting there going, what, what, what?

In fact, we even have a biblical text where they go, what? When it comes to Christ proclaiming eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

We'll take a look at that in a second. But now you'll notice here, you don't eat animal blood, you don't eat animal blood, you don't eat animal blood and they're the only nation forbidden from eating animal blood.

And why? Because the life is in the blood, the life is in the blood. Now Jesus says, take, drink, this is my blood. Okay, this seems like a complete reversal,

Jesus. Yeah, the life is in the blood. And so you'll note then, that Christ doesn't want you eating, you know, drinking the blood of animals.

Instead, he wants you to drink something quite different. Which takes us to the New Testament. John chapter six, and after the feeding of the 5 ,000,

John records for us this fascinating dialogue. And the dialogue has to do with the people who were there for the miracle.

They want to make Jesus king by force, because they perceived that he was the one prophesied in the

Old Testament. So it says this in John chapter six, verse 25, and watch how the typology gives way to the substance, which is

Christ. So when they found Jesus on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here?

Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.

Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the

Son of Man will give you. For on him, God the Father has set his seal. Now, you're gonna note here, so they want to make him force,

Jesus heads over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, they find him, how did you get here? He actually walked on the water that night.

That's how he got to the other side. And so notice, Jesus is saying here, listen, you're here not because you saw the signs.

The signs would have pointed to me and told me who I am, and that you are to believe in me.

But instead, the issue was they missed the point. The sign was to point you to the fact that they were being fed miraculously in the wilderness, like the children of Israel, like their fathers before them had been miraculously fed in the wilderness by manna, and that would point you to the fact of who

Jesus is. So the issue is they missed the whole point of the sign, and rather than seeing Jesus for who he is, it's like, whoa, this is a guy who can solve our poverty issue and make it so that we never have to be hungry again.

If he can multiply loaves and fishes, imagine the grocery store chain that we could set up with Jesus at the central distribution point.

That's kind of the point of what's going on here. So Jesus rebukes them, and then he says this, do not work for food that perishes.

Work for the food that endures to eternal life. And what food is that? This is the food which the

Son of Man will give to you. For on him, God the Father has set his seal.

So then, best question in all the scripture, they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God?

It's a really good question. It just needs to be tweaked a little bit. Jesus' answer to them, this is the work, singular, of God, not works, work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

So they said to him, well, what sign do you do that we may see and believe you?

What work do you perform? Now, Jesus performed the quintessential miracle that would have pointed them to who he was already.

He did it the day before. So they want another sign. What work do you perform? And now they recognize that what he did yesterday in this text had something to do with what happened to their fathers.

Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.

All right? So the bread from heaven that they were given to eat, that's the type and the shadow.

That's the symbol. The substance is found in Christ. So watch now,

Christ takes the Old Testament account of how the children of Israel in the wilderness were fed bread from heaven.

And he points now to what the fulfillment of that is. And he says, truly, truly,

I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven.

For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

So they said to him, sir, give us this bread. And Jesus is all, okay,

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger.

Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe.

All that the father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

This is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

They said, is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? So Jesus answered, do not grumble among yourselves.

No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me.

Not that anyone has seen the father, except he who is from God, he has seen the father. So truly, truly,

I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.

So now, again, Jesus making it very clear. That manna in the wilderness was always pointing to me.

I am the bread of life. Now, you can just sit there, you can see their

Jewish wheels spinning, because he's not really saying what I think he's saying.

Is he saying that? No, he can't be saying that, all right? And you watch how Jesus doubles down.

He says, your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. They died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die.

So notice, Jesus here says, you can see they're going, ah, and he says, I'm the bread that came down from heaven that anyone who eats of it,

Jesus pointing to himself, may live and not die. And they're going, no, no, what, what?

He can't mean that. It doesn't mean that, it can't mean that. So if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.

Now they're incensed, okay? So note, Jesus here's making this really clear, okay?

And so the Jews disputed among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Now note what Jesus doesn't say next. Oh, that's grass.

No, I didn't mean that. That's not what he does. He doesn't sit there and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, you misunderstood me.

I wasn't really talking about you eating my flesh and stuff. That's really weird.

That's not what he does. Watch what he does. How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and, what?

Drink his blood, you have no life in you. What? Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.

I will raise him up on the last day. And here's the reason why. For my flesh is true food.

My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in them.

As the living father sent me and I live because of the father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died.

Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.

Does that seem pretty clear to you? That's about as clear as it gets, right?

And they have. That's why we need to take the. Yeah, that's, yeah, you'll notice it's gift.

It's all gift, it's all gospel. Total gospel. And so you'll note then that this, you ever have abide with me, fast comes the even tide.

We've heard those sermons over and again about the importance of abiding in Christ. Well, notice here that when we have the

Lord's Supper, we are abiding in Christ and he is abiding in us. Yes, sir.

I can't remember who was who, but didn't like. Was it the Pharisees that believed in life ever after and the

Sadducees didn't? Yeah, that's correct. That's the reason why they were sad, you see. So then how much of the

Jewish population believed in life after death? The majority, the majority, yeah, yeah, right.

The Sadducees were really kind of a minority in their thinking. They were kind of more like the liberal skeptics of their day, denying the resurrection, things like this.

They were a lot more cynical when it came to the scriptures, although they were quite adamant in their belief in them.

They found funny ways around them. Pharisees were, they were heretics because they were adding to the texts, but they were very fervent in their conservatism as far as believing that the

Bible was the word of God, that the Torah was the word of God. However, as part of their theology was this belief that God had given them the authority to interpret the scriptures and that not even

God himself had the authority to interpret scriptures. So it was purely up to them to do so, and that was their prerogative, and so they came up with some pretty fancy interpretations.

So then did the Jewish people, it was obedience and works that they felt, and then how did they know they were saved, or was it like they weren't sure?

Okay, good question. So a little bit of extra -biblical history in this sense.

So at the time of the rise of the Pharisees, there was a counter -movement against them. That counter -movement exists to this day, and it's in the group of Jews called the

Karaites, and the Karaites are the Sola Scriptura Jews who were fighting against the

Pharisees. We don't read about them here, but history tells us about this group. The Karaites always saw the

Pharisees as usurpers, as people who had no calling to be teachers in the synagogue and saw that they were adding to the scriptures and had this pious mythology that they put around it.

So here's the thing, is that scripture is clear, and here when we go into, for instance, the book of Romans and in the book of Galatians, both of them make it painfully clear that the law was never given for the purpose of saving anybody, and that every patriarch in the

Old Testament who was saved, from Adam all the way to Malachi, that everybody was saved by faith in the promises regarding the

Messiah that would be fulfilled in Christ. So they trusted in God and the promises and they believed his word, and they weren't saving themselves by their works, they were saved by grace through faith.

Abraham saved by grace through faith, David saved by grace through faith. The Pharisees came along and said it was salvation by works by keeping the law, and then they added a whole bunch of other stuff to it.

And so within Judaism, there was a reaction against this, and there's always been historically a group of people within Judaism who believed that salvation was by faith, not by works, and that works were then the visible evidence of a living faith.

But it wasn't developed, here's the thing, those words, that's a very developed view that you only get in the

New Testament. But they have a proto view of that and an understanding that you're saved by believing in the promises of God.

David himself makes that very clear in like Psalm 51, after he receives the absolution from Nathan the prophet.

And so there's many, many passages that bear that out. But in the New Testament, the ones that clearly explicitly teach it, you go into Romans three, four, five, those are gonna be your core texts on this.

Galatians itself, the entire book, but specifically kind of keying in at the tail end of chapter two and on into three.

I mean, it's so explicit. Well, the Apostle Paul says that if a law had been given by which people could be saved, then

Christ died for nothing. So the idea then is that the New Testament makes it very clear that everybody who was saved in the old was saved by faith, the same way

Abraham was. Abraham believed God and it was reckoned, it was counted to him as righteousness. So the

Pharisees come and they screw everything up in their complete works, salvation by works schema that they concocted.

And that's one of the other reasons why they're flat out heretics and why those who were Pharisees who converted to Christianity, their temptation to, as far as apostasy was, to apostatize in the way of works righteousness and the

Judaizing heresy. It was the Pharisees who were the ones who kind of led the charge on that and received the rebuke from God through the apostles and the anathema of God from the

Apostle Paul. Yeah, question? Christians who really believe the words of Jesus here in the

Bible should not be surprised when the world calls them a cult because the world does not see drinking someone's blood.

I mean, they just don't get it. Right, in fact, early

Christians were accused by the Romans of being cannibals because they heard that they eat the body of Christ and they drink his blood.

They were accused of cannibalism by the Romans very early on who didn't really understand what was going on and didn't make careful distinctions along these ways.

So, and you'll note then, this still becomes a stumbling block for everybody and I love the fact that the type and shadow, and I've said it before here, but it's been a few years since I've said it, but the type and shadow, the bread from heaven in the

Old Testament, what was the name of it? Manna. What does manna mean?

What is it? It's hilarious to me, okay? So, there's the manna on the ground.

They're all, manna, manna, manna, manna. Yeah, what is it?

Okay, so, you know, we have the elements today and I would hold this up after speaking the words of institution and I were to ask you, manna, what is it?

Right? Isn't that fascinating? Well, the scriptures say it is bread, wine, body, blood and this is where we make a distinction and we get shot at from two different directions as Lutherans because Rome has this doctrine of transubstantiation which basically says that using the philosophy of Aristotle regarding accidents and substance, which is a weird philosophical view, but the idea then is that after the words of institution are spoken that bread and wine cease to exist.

It's been transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ and funny enough, it was the priest who had the power to do that because of the indelible change that occurred on him when he was ordained.

Oh, okay. Forget that for a second. So on the one hand, Rome says it's only the body and blood of Christ.

Then you go to the opposite end, okay? From the age of reason and the age of enlightenment, a group within visible

Christianity are gonna be your Calvinists and the Reformed and they'll sit there and go, it can't be what

Rome says it is. Reason just says that's crazy and so you think of guys like Zwingli and his contemporaries,

Oculumpadius and even Calvin then as a student of Zwingli and his thoughts, but he deviates from him in many ways.

They basically say, well, here's the deal, all right? So Jesus Christ, the son of God, is

God in human flesh and here's their argument. We know that a body can only be at one place at one time and Christ is at the right hand of the

Father so it's impossible for Christ's body and blood to be present in, with, under the bread and wine.

And this was the argument that was put forward at the Marburg Colloquy. Luther's answer was to carve into the table, hoc corpus meum, this is my body, right?

And this is not a biblical argument. This is an argument from reason. So then you ask the person who is a true, kind of Zwingli disciple, all right, we know that bodies don't just float through walls so there's

Jesus on the day of the resurrection and Jesus on the day of the resurrection appears in the upper room even though the doors and the windows were locked because they were afraid of the

Jews. How did he get in? Answer, and I'm not making this up, he climbed in a window when no one was looking.

Really? And so here's, and this is where the rub then is, is that their arguments are based upon human reason, what we think is reasonable.

But it's not based on what Christ said. Christ says this is my body, this is my blood. And in John six, he punctuates the point, doubles and triples down on the fact that his body and his blood are true food, true drink, and he makes it clear that the man in the wilderness was the type in shadow, he's the bread that came down from heaven and anybody who eats his flesh, drinks his blood, abides in him and has life, period.

And you sit there and scratch your head and go, my brain hurts, all right? So now on the other side of it, you have evangelicals in the

Reform saying it's only bread and wine, it's just a symbol of Christ's body and blood.

And then the Lutherans come along and we say, nope, it's not two things, and nope, it's more than two things, it's, and here's our text.

I'll show you our text. First Corinthians 11. First Corinthians 11. So we get shot at by both sides, by the way, which is really funny.

First Corinthians 11, and again,

I teach on this passage regularly, but it behooves us to actually work through it in its context.

So if this is review for you, that's great, but let's work through the text in context so we can see what's going on.

Every church has challenges. I don't know if you've noticed that. That being the case, because we have challenges, oftentimes you have to find correctives.

Now, if you think that the church that you attend has had challenges, I would argue that we haven't quite seen anything like this, and that is in the church in Corinth, and remember, there was no middle class the way we understand the middle class.

You were either rich or you were poor. You were either rich or you were like a slave or a servant. You really had nothing, and you didn't even own yourself.

That's kind of how the society was set up there in Corinth, and so the rich were taught by Roman culture to despise and look down on those who were poor, and to think of themselves as better than them.

You know, you think of the star -bellied sneetches. They were better than the rest of the sneetches on the beaches because they had stars on thars, right?

Yeah, Dr. Seuss is very, very helpful here, all right? But, so now when this false culture comes into the church, the temptation now is for them to despise those

Christian brothers and sisters who have nothing, and they despise them. Despise them to the point where they barred them from having the

Lord's Supper, and somebody came up with this great solution, we're gonna consume all the bread and we're gonna drink all the wine, and some of them were even getting drunk.

Could you imagine? We need to see your tax returns. Those of you in this bracket here, you're not welcome at the

Lord's table. In fact, make sure you don't have it. Quick, Dave, chug this, would ya? All right, that's what's going on here.

And the problem is, and Paul's gonna show this to us, the problem is they're not recognizing what the

Lord's Supper is. They're treating something very holy as common, and as a result of it, they're sinning against something very specific.

But let's read the text, 1 Corinthians 11, 17. So in the following instructions,

I do not commend you, because when you come together, it's not for the better, it's for the worse. From the first place, when you come together as a church,

I hear that there are divisions among you, and I believe it in part, but there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

So when you come together, it's not the Lord's Supper that you eat, for in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, one goes hungry, and another gets drunk.

By the way, that proves this wasn't grape juice. I'm just saying, you can have all the welches you want, you can chug that thing till the cows come home, you will not get drunk on welches, all right?

And then Paul's exclamation, what? Do you not have houses to eat and to drink in?

Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? That's exactly what they were doing.

So what shall I say to you, shall I commend you in this? No, I will not, and you can almost hear him, like, just in shock.

So that's the problem. Now here's the solution. The solution is going back to basics.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the

Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, this is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. Now we know the remembrance is an invoking of covenantal language.

It is the sign of the new covenant that Christ is establishing here, just like the rainbow was the sign of the

Noahic covenant, just like circumcision was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant.

So Jesus says, this is my body, which is for you. Now, you are left having to sit there and go, all right, did he mean what he said?

Well, we just took a look at John 6, and Jesus didn't double down, he tripled down on the fact that his flesh is true food, his blood is a true drink, and that this is a means by which he abides.

So in the same way, then, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat this bread and you drink this cup, you do what?

You proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. And so you'll note, then, that by eating, we are proclaiming.

It's kind of an interesting thing. And now comes the question, all right, because we've all heard the teachings on this.

What does it mean to take the Lord's supper in an unworthy manner?

And there are some really weird teachings on this. When I was an evangelical, I was taught that you've got to examine yourself, and if there's any unconfessed sin in your heart or anything like that, you probably better not come to the

Lord's supper. Probably better not. Because then you might risk having the

Lord's supper in an unworthy manner, which is kind of weird, right? But that's not what this text says when you read it out.

It's like they stop. So let's read this out. So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the

Lord in an unworthy manner, so this is what this is talking about, will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the

Lord. So note, then, this is a serious offense. Those who take the

Lord's supper in an unworthy manner do so at the expense of sinning against what?

The body and the blood of Christ. So note, then, to take the

Lord's supper in an unworthy manner, and this is what Paul is arguing. That's exactly what they were doing. They were then guilty of sinning against the very body and blood of Christ.

Which begs the question, this seems to be heading in the direction of, are you saying that Christ's body and blood are truly present in the

Lord's supper? Yes, you're sinning against something that's present, and the reason why they were sinning is because they weren't recognizing that that is what was present.

So let a person examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats without discerning, diacrino, or diacrino could even be translated as recognizing.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning or recognizing what? The body.

Which body, whose body? Christ's. For anyone who eats without discerning or recognizing the body of Christ eats and drinks judgment on himself.

Then this is the reason why many of you are weak and ill, and some of you have even died.

So what does it mean to take the Lord's supper in an unworthy manner? It is to take the Lord's supper without recognizing then the presence of Christ's body and his blood, and you're guilty of sinning against them.

But watch then how we are stuck in the middle now between the Reformed and the Catholics, who say, you're only getting two things, and you're only getting two things, and they're the opposite two things.

So here's what the text says. Whoever therefore eats the what? Verse 27. Eats the what?

What's the word? Bread. All right, all right.

So is there bread present when you have the Lord's supper? Yes, there's one.

All right, or drinks the cup, that's referring to the wine. Is there wine present?

All right. So there's wine present. All right, we'll be guilty concerning the what?

Body, and the what? Blood of the Lord. So here the Lutherans come along, and we basically say, listen, the transubstantiation is

Thomas Aquinas' philosophical speculations. The Reformed, you guys,

I understand what you're reacting against, but you're using human reason to undermine what the clear passage of Scripture says.

So we say, we receive bread, wine, the body, and the blood of Christ, and by the way, the most important words then in the words of institution are given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins, because the life is in the blood.

Make our tie back to Leviticus right here, right? Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

And so we don't know how it works, and so we're not gonna come up with some scientific or philosophical theory, so what we do is we do something that's really kind of funny.

We throw a whole lot of prepositions onto it, and so we say that Christ's body and blood are present in, with, under the bread and the wine.

Well, which is it, in, with, or under? We're not sure. We're just throwing some prepositions on there so at the end of the day, what we're saying is is that what you're receiving in your mouth is the body and blood of Christ, and you're also receiving bread and wine.

And this is what Christ says. His flesh is true food. His blood is to drink.

Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

And you hear then that your sins are forgiven because when I come by, you hear those words.

Take heed, this is the body of Christ, given for you for the forgiveness of your sins. And I always like to think of it this way, is that because we are constantly being buffeted and made to suffer and tempted by the world, the devil, our own sinful flesh, week after week after week, you come here and you are needing to be cleansed, needing to be comforted, needing to have your wounds bound up and healed, and so there are times in your life when you really mess up royally.

To the point where you recognize, oh man, I am just not as good at this

Christian thing as I thought I was. And it's really easy because when you give in to the temptations of the devil or the world, your own sinful flesh like that, the devil will come along and say to you, while the pastor's speaking the absolution, you know, the pastor will say, you know, that I announce the grace of God to all of you, and by the command of my

Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all of your sins in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the devil whispers in your ear and says, that wasn't for you.

You sit there and go, yeah, maybe I'll let that one fly over my head, because if pastor knew what

I had done, he wouldn't have absolved me, right? Right, wrong, okay?

My ordination vows, forgive the sins of the penitent. That doesn't say, except for the ones that do this, that, or the other thing, right?

So the idea then is that the Lord's Supper provides a way for you to receive, in a very real way, a private absolution directly from Christ that is undeniably for you.

Because when you come to the altar then, and I come by and I say, take, eat, this is the body of Christ, and whoever's assisting me comes by and says, take, drink, this is the true blood of Christ, shed for you, what happens is, is that you receive that in your mouth.

And so, I always like to say, the forgiveness of sins tastes like, you know, a weird little wafer and some cheap wine, because it is really cheap wine, it really,

I just, it just is. Okay, I don't know anybody who drinks that with a meal, okay, but you get the point.

And so the idea then is that there's no denying it, because now that was in your mouth.

And the words are, for the forgiveness of your sins. Now your faith has something as a weapon to kind of hang on to,

Christ is strengthening your faith, assuring you of the forgiveness, and now you can say to the devil, when the devil says, yeah, that absolution didn't apply to you, you say, yeah, but I went up to the rail, and I received the body and blood of Christ, given and shed for me, for the forgiveness of my sins, and that my was me, not somebody else, it was unmistakably me.

And you can tell the devil to go take a hike, take a swan dive into the lake of fire, you know. And that's the idea.

It gives us something that our faith can hang on to. And you know,

I'll be blunt, you know, I cannot go a week without the Lord's Supper, I dare not.

You sit there and go, well, you're a pastor, you know, why do you say that? Well, because I have a weak faith.

I'm not strong enough in and of myself to be a Christian.

Christ sustains my faith through these gifts. So, you know,

I'm all for more Jesus and having it more often, for the strengthening of our faith, you know.

I can't go a week without it, there's just no way. If I go without the Lord's Supper for four, five, six weeks at a time,

I'll probably be a pagan at the end of that time, you know. Serious, you know.

It's, I never despise or loathe this gift from Christ, you know, and it's all gospel, it's not law.

And here's the funny thing. Rome, by denying that, you know, they got bread and wine and magically it turns into this other thing, although it looks like bread and wine, it isn't, in their theology about it, the

Lord's Supper becomes a work that you do. I went to Mass, I got my grace tank filled up at the

Mass. You know, I, I, I, me, me, me, me, me. And Christ says, this is my body, he's giving.

Whereas the, you know, and then the other side of it is, and this is where it gets dangerous. You notice, Rome has it all the time, every week.

I mean, there's no such thing as a Mass without the Lord's Supper. But on the other end of it, where you're denying that you're receiving the body and blood of Christ, it's just symbol.

Well, now the question is, well, how often do I need to do that symbol? You know, I mean, yeah, we could do this, what?

Two times a year, Christmas, Easter. I mean, that seems excessive, maybe just at Christmas, you know, because you'll note then that this runs it through the law as well.

This is something I've got to do. And then the emphasis is on do this in remembrance of me. And that's always interpreted like, think hard about what

Jesus did. You know, oh, Jesus, that really had to hurt. You know, and it just becomes a chore. You know, it's, so, yeah.

Yeah, it's been a while since we have the Lord's Supper. Maybe we should think about having it sometime next month or something, you know? And that's the other end of this, right?

And both of those things are running it through the law. But the Lord's Supper is a gift.

It's gospel, because it's announcing what it's delivering. The body and blood of Christ, which are given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

Take, drink his blood, because the life is in the blood. You see how it all works together?

So, yeah. Was transubstantiation part of the early church fathers? No, no.

They, when you read the early church fathers, the early church fathers, with complete, you know, they are unanimous that they are receiving the body and blood of Christ.

Transubstantiation was something that was developed in the medieval period through kind of like religious philosophers, like Aquinas, you know, who were taking

Aristotle's philosophy and kind of meshing it, mushing it with Christian doctrine.

And that's how it came up with. And then Rome later dogmatized that view. So, but it, you know, you don't see transubstantiation in the writings of the church fathers.

But you do see them acknowledging that Christ is truly present, you know, so. Well confused.

All those denominations that take it symbolically, they're sinning.

They're, here, there's a kind of a. That's what it says, guilty. Yeah. Answering with blood and blood. Yeah, so here's the issue.

And I'll tell you how some Lutherans have worked this. They have worked it in a way where they question whether or not they're actually even receiving a valid sacrament.

And that is a extremely complex and nuanced argument. For instance, when you read the

LCMS theologian, Francis Pieper, on this, his argument is that because they've changed the definitions of words, that it's questionable as to whether or not they even have a valid verba.

That, and that, and so they may actually only be receiving what it is they say they're getting.

Well, that would make no sense, because hypothetically, if I went up there and took it from the chalice, that's like saying my sip is just wine, but all the rest of it is blood.

Well, we're talking in the context of a church service, okay? So some,

I'm just telling you, some Lutherans will challenge whether or not their verba is efficacious because the definitions behind the words that they're speaking are different.

That's one way around it. And another way that people have said, well, yes, they're taking it in an unworthy manner because they don't recognize that they're receiving the body and blood, which always the follow -up question is, well, why isn't

God killing them, you know? Well, it would be a sin, then. Yeah. And it's universally believed that it's just a secondary belief, and how can a secondary belief be a sin?

Well, the thing is is that we say it's a secondary belief because it's not a cardinal doctrine.

It doesn't fall under the biblical definition of a cardinal doctrine, and you'll note, then, and here's the other argument for this, is that the church at Corinth was not properly recognizing it.

Paul doesn't say they weren't Christians. Paul addresses them as Christians, but says that God was punishing them or disciplining them, and some of them were getting sick and dying because they were sinning against the very body and blood of Christ.

That is not an unforgivable sin, but it is a sin nonetheless, and so the corrective is for him to remind them what it is that they're receiving and for them to treat it like the holy things that they are.

That's the point of his correction, and so. But then you go back to John that you read earlier, 654, said, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.

That seems to say that it's flesh and blood no matter what their personal belief is about it.

Yeah, it is. It doesn't matter what you believe you're receiving. You receive what

Christ says it is, and so I'm of the camp that basically says that whether you recognize what it is or not.

But it also says whoever feeds has eternal life. Correct. So that seems to say even if you don't believe it's the true body and blood, you still have the eternal life.

You probably do, and you'll note, then, this comports, then, with what Paul was saying to the church at Corinth.

Some of you are sick and have died because of this, but he still addresses them as brothers. He doesn't say that you're pagans, you've fallen from the faith.

He doesn't accuse them of the way he does the church in Galatia. You who would be justified by the law, you've been alienated from Christ, you've fallen from grace.

Instead, what he says to them is brothers, you're not recognizing what this is. Because of that, some of you have gotten sick and died.

God has punished you for basically sinning against the body and blood of Christ, but he never says to them you're anathema, you're out of the faith or anything like that.

I'll be blunt. Christians sin in the most stupid ways, myself included, all right?

And that, thankfully, there's forgiveness for these things. And so there's even forgiveness for those who sin against the body and blood of Christ.

That's not the unpardonable sin. So you'll note, then, that consistently speaking, what we're doing is we're basically taking the scriptures at face value, that we believe that we are receiving the body and blood of Christ with the bread and the wine.

We don't know how it's connected, but we know that we're receiving it in our mouth. That's the idea. But the Roman version of communion is a lot more serious than the

Reformed because you're re -crucified. Yeah, now they'll deny that.

So in the medieval period, that was a popular way of talking about it.

Rome has since kind of cleaned up its act a little bit, but the thing is is that they cleaned up their act in such a way that they're kind of talking out of both sides of their mouth so that they can effectively deny that they're saying

Christ is being re -sacrificed, but at the same time, they say it's a sacrifice, which is weird, okay?

So my conversations with present -day Roman Catholics have been, let's just say, unsatisfying on this question because what you see in the

Book of Concord in addressing this idea of the mass being a bloodless re -sacrifice of Christ, Rome has changed their language over the past few centuries to where they don't talk in those ways because they were pummeled very well, and rightfully so by the

Lutherans and the Reformed on that issue because there's one sacrifice. Christ has been suffered and died once for the forgiveness of our sins, but they still have this, it's kind of hard to pin down concept of the mass being a sacrifice, and so I remember after my grandfather died, my grandmother would pay to have masses said for my grandfather, who she believed was in purgatory, and she would send me the cassette tapes of the masses, so every now and then,

I'd get a cassette tape. This is the mass for Julian, and you sit there going, what is going on here, and when

I would talk to her, it's like, what is this cassette you sent me? Well, I had a mass said so that your grandfather can have a sacrifice, it's a sacrifice of the mass done for him so he can have less time in purgatory.

What does that mean? What does that mean? I don't get it. It almost sounds like praying to change their situation, but it almost sounds like the

Mormons praying for the dead to change their situation. Yeah, it really does, and both of those doctrines have their origin not in scripture, but in the idolatrous imaginations of humanity.

It was a way to bring in money. Yeah, there's a lot of money to be made. They didn't have TV back then, so they didn't have those guys.

All right, we're gonna wrap it up here. We'll pick up more of Leviticus 17 next week.