As I See It

This won't go without correction, and it not meant to be a theological thesis. It's just something The Spirit has shown me (and will continue to show me) to free me from the spirit of religion. God never meant to become a religion. Isaiah 1:11, Psalm 51:16, I Sam 15:22 are a few scriptures that show that God's desire is not for blood sacrifices. 

Remember, God's first covenant with a man and his family required the cutting of the foreskin of a man-not a sacrifice, not for blood but for sensitivity-as a picture of being open and sensitive to God's interaction. The law covenant was made when the Israelites came out of Egypt a great nation, a society that needed some kind of governance. God's first covenant with this nation was a blood covenant, probably because blood sacrifice was something that the people of that era were very familiar with, in a brutal, capricious, and cruel way, but something they recognized a momentous. The law covenant was a ministry of death and required blood, just as breaking the law now requires prison and sometimes death. 

Man was sin conscious, ruthlessly judging each other with violence and death. God gave the Jews this system for the people to have a way of knowing the God who can part a sea, and write supernaturally on stone (had to be a little frightening) would not turn against them for their wrong doings.It gave them a more just and God guided way to exist as a nation with a unique God in the earth. The above scriptures however (and others) show that God desired intimacy with man, a love exchange, even then but man was not capable. One of the reasons David was a man after God's own heart was because he grasped this. He developed a love relationship with God outside the temple setting among the sheep, and knew God wanted his heart and his love. When Jesus spoke to His disciples of the new covenant, he used wine and bread, a meal at a shared table-a picture of intimacy and family, yet for the Jews He had come to be the end of the law. The final sacrifice that would free them from the bondage of legality and create a distinct place in the history of man through the covenant with the Jews, where all humanity could grasp our reconciliation with our Father God-in love, mercy and faithfulness. 

No one but the Jews were ever under the law. Jesus was their last sacrifice-once for all! The cross allowed them,who already knew God from His 2000 interaction with His law covenant and knew His promises through the prophets, to become freed by His Spirit and recieve revelation that would inspire them to tell the world the good news, that we are loved, eternally forgiven and free.... God in Christ bringing the human soul access to His Spirit to encounter Him for themselves. Paul was given unique understanding of this unprecedented open door to our God! 

The Spirit takes away the legalistic veil and allows us to behold Him with our heart and soul, and be changed by His power and presence ! Jer 31:34 promised the Jews "No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."