We aren't Wiped Clean by the Wrath of God (Worship, Part 8) - Episode 050

Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and we are continuing the worship series today, and I am doing it with Spencer Owen as a new guest to the podcast, and I am super excited to have Spencer here.

I've been actually looking forward to this kind of a conversation with Spencer for quite some time. So, I'm super excited that the worship series is going in this direction and we can talk about sacrifice. And well, we'll get into a little bit more about the specifics of what we'll be talking about in this conversation and in others, but first I want to give Spencer a moment to introduce himself and say whatever it is he'd like to say about himself to introduce himself to the podcast.

Spencer Owen: Well, hello, Carey. Thank you.[00:01:00] So I am just a total lay person pretty much. But I'm somebody who really, really loves studying scripture and has been involved with Bible study for such a very long, like pretty much my whole life.

And I think kind of where it started as far as sacrifices go is back when my wife told me that she was pregnant it started to kind of hit me that I realized that I had gone some 30 years and I hadn't really fully wrapped my head around if I could be able to explain to somebody, this is what happened on the cross. This is what Jesus did for us. And so I decided I really wanted to kind of dig back into it and really understand it and study it more and learn about what that was supposed to be. And so that brought me to first of all, to a lot of the New Testament, specifically the Hebrews. And I got there and I realized, I have no idea what they're talking about, [00:02:00] because like, I'm sure many, many, many Christians, I had gotten through those you know, read the Bible through in a year plans, and I got to Leviticus, and it came to a screeching halt and initially I was just Like, I have no idea what's happening here.

So then I went back to Leviticus and I started to really pick that apart and start to really kind of go line by line through all the different sacrifices and all the different laws for purity and for holiness and just trying to understand what it is that the text itself is saying. And that just started like a long journey of something close to, I think it's close to seven years now of really diving deep into the ancient Near East concept of sacrifices, trying to understand them both in terms of the text, in terms of the ancient authors, the ancient audience, and also looking at it , in light of Jesus sacrifice and trying to understand it. what that means. And that's taken me , through [00:03:00] scholars I mean, tons of different Levitical scholars like Jacob Milgram and J. Sklar and Jerry Shepherd and Roy Gane and all kinds of other, Baruch Levine and all kinds of other different Levitical scholars, but also a lot of Hebrew scholars like David Moffat and also understanding how like, For instance, Matthew Thesen and what he talks about with purity and holiness and how that relates to what Jesus is doing in the gospels.

And there's just a wide variety of all kinds of different sources that I've been diving super, super nerdy and deep into. So this is one of those topics that is basically like this and mountain biking. If you sit down and say, Hey, tell me about this. You're going to regret it.

Carey Griffel: That's awesome. Well, every time I hear you talking online about it, I'm just like, you obviously have thought so deeply about all of this, and you're clearly very well read on the topic as [00:04:00] well. So maybe you could also give me later, like a book list that people could reference themselves, cause... I bet that a lot of people are going to come away from these conversations and go, we want to know more and how do we do that? And there is a range of scholars and different opinions, which that's really important to get into all of the different opinions, because some of them are right about some things and they're wrong about other things.

And if, you're reading the whole span , of literature on it, you're going to end up having a better picture and trying to pull those things out for yourself.

Spencer Owen: Yeah. Well, I, in listening to the worship series that you guys have done so far the book Welcoming Gifts by Father Jeremy Davis has been a really valuable tool. And one of the things that when I read that book that I noticed is that he quotes extensively from. A lot of different church fathers, but particularly from Cyril of Alexandria. And Cyril of Alexandria has [00:05:00] a really good set of kind of really packaged and easy to digest understandings of sacrifice and what was going on with the Old Testament sacrifices. That really gives a really good perspective on that, which Of course, like, you know, as a lifelong Protestant, like to me, that's one of the things that I just haven't really run into a whole lot because a lot of Protestants really don't spend a lot of time in the church fathers, but it's something that has been vastly really, really helpful for me as the next phase, after doing a lot of the Levitical scholarship and looking at commentaries and those kinds of things for more modern scholars, the next phase has kind of been going backwards and going back to the beginning and saying, what were the people closest to the actual text? How did they read the text and what the people who actually observed, Jewish people offering sacrifices in the temple and for many and to a certain degree, actually, perhaps even participated in the sacrifices themselves. What did they think was happening? And [00:06:00] that's a really good place to start for me.

Carey Griffel: Yeah. Well, and that's an interesting kind of context for the early church fathers, because at that point, the system was, you know, kind of dismantled in a sense, but the importance of it had to have been in the air so very strongly.

Spencer Owen: Oh yes. Very much.

Carey Griffel: Yeah. So that's awesome and really appreciate you bringing all of those kinds of resources to people because it's like the instant that you realize just how important certain texts are, like Leviticus, for understanding the work of Jesus. And then you don't realize how those things are actually going to speak into it. And for so many of us, we're just like, That's the old covenant. It doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, you can't understand the new covenant unless you first understand the old covenant because they're very much connected and related.

Spencer Owen: Well, [00:07:00] and, frankly, too, many people's understanding of the new covenant kind of floats out of, in many ways, a misunderstanding of the old covenant and , the thing that I forgot to kind of put up in my introduction is that my day job is as a mental health therapist I own my own private practice for counseling and I work with people out of, it's not really out of a church, but it is kind of out of a building affiliated with a church. And one of the things that I specialize in is in helping people recover and heal from spiritual trauma and religious abuse.

A large, there's a lot of different people that I work with who have come out of church settings that have been saturated in a particular understanding of sacrifices and God and what the sacrifices were intending to do for on our behalf to God, or with God, and then by extension what Jesus was doing.

And [00:08:00] all of that kind of creates a domino effect of what we believe about this affects what we believe about this, which affects what we believe about this, which then affects the practice of our lives. And if we think, for example, that like, The ultimate establishment of justice and the ultimate expression of justice is some kind of, you know, punitive exhaustion of wrath and punishment, then that creates a certain kind of way of living and way of seeing other people and way of seeing God , and a lot of things flow out of that, some of them good and a lot of them bad.

Much of that can cause a lot of damage. And so that is one of the things that I work very closely with the people that I work with on a on a professional level, is to help, help them see the Bible a little differently, see God a little differently and see themselves a little differently.

Carey Griffel: So very practical application in the end.

Spencer Owen: Yes, very. I mean, it's not just like nerdy geeking out, although it definitely is [00:09:00] that.

Carey Griffel: Okay. Well, I want to give a little bit of a teaser for not necessarily just today's conversation, but hopefully eventual conversations as well. In my last episode talking about sacrifice, I said that I wanted to get more into ,the purity offerings in particular, and I said, I couldn't get into it then because I think that they are very complicated in a way that is hard for modern people to understand. And I think that there is a whole lot of backstory and a whole lot of information that ought to be established in order to understand what that is.

Spencer Owen: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's one of those things that I run across all the time when I'm reading through New Testament passages and I see a word like, in Romans 3, 25, where it says, you know, he himself is the, and a lot of English translations say propitiation verses some of them say sacrifice of atonement. Some of them say atoning sacrifice. Some of them say a place of mercy, [00:10:00] like, and just that vagary of Interpretive translation demonstrates just how complex the topic is, how much of a package deal all of that, you know, all those ideas are, and how for an ancient reader, like Paul was writing to, for example, they would have had a whole worldview and a whole history in their brain about what sacrifices were, about what they were trying to do. And, and just simply to upload that in a second, as you say, a word is very difficult for us moderns, but it's a really important exercise to, to go through.

Carey Griffel: Well, and especially when it might be layered meaning as well.

And when you have most of your Bible being taught to you by a pastor or from a prepackaged curriculum, it's super hard to get into that depth. that you can get into in Bible study or, you know, things like that. and you can't blame a pastor, [00:11:00] especially when , they don't know who's going to be in front of them every week.

So, to some degree, a pastor can build on teaching in a sermon or in a series, but only to a certain extent. People are going to miss weeks and, you know, things like that. So it's hard to deal with these kinds of complex topics sometimes.

Spencer Owen: It really is. And that's why I appreciate you going into such depth and trying to like, be very careful and, you know, sequential with the way that you're approaching it. So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to being able to talk some more about Like the sin offering, the trespass offering, those kinds of things.

Because they're complex, but they're also very important.

Carey Griffel: . Yeah. , and it can be really difficult because once we get into some of the nuance of it, we get really excited and we're like, sacrifice means this. And then we don't realize that we're still missing some of the pieces. We're still missing a broader picture.

And if we zone in on particular types of sacrifices as the [00:12:00] be all, end all, and the meaning. Then we're still missing out on like kind of the big picture. So it's really hard to kind of distinguish those things and see where they fit within the system as well.

Spencer Owen: Yeah, and of course the best place to start is just the text and let the text kind of take us where it leads.

Now, of course, we don't come to the text like as a blank slate by any stretch of the imagination. But it can be very helpful to try to kind of step into the ancient mindset and see things through that worldview.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, the number of people that if I bring up Leviticus and say how much I love it, and they go, Uh, which indicates probably they haven't sat down to study it in depth, just with them and the text, writing down notes, writing down questions trying to distinguish , the different types of sacrifice from one another, because at first you're reading Leviticus, it's like, okay, this makes sense. [00:13:00] This makes sense. This makes sense. Then suddenly it's like this snowball and you're like, I don't know what it's talking about anymore

Spencer Owen: Right. Yes Well, and I mean just to make it again practical in real life Because like I said, you know, I I work with people who have a very ambivalent in many cases and other cases, antagonistic relationship to the Bible, to church, to God.

And that can be a barrier in many ways. For them being able to sit down and encounter the text in a way that is open and receptive. I don't necessarily look at that and like blame them for it because they've been through what they've been through and their story has been very painful in many ways. But it also is absolutely essential if we're going to really understand what the text is actually saying instead of kind of hearing it through the lens of everything that everyone has, not everything that everyone, [00:14:00] but because like I said, you know, going back to the church fathers, like they, they saw it differently, but everything that a lot of our modern interpretations have seen.

Carey Griffel: All right. So do you want to just kind of start with that definition of how you would describe sacrifice and , the difference between sacrifice and offerings.

Spencer Owen: So it, it is one of those things where it gets to be a little tricky because I know, especially us modern Westerners, we like to kind of come at it with our spreadsheet and say, okay, like this word, for example, you know, means this really highly technical thing. And it always means this thing every time we encounter it, and that's not quite the way words work in English, let alone in a highly I would say probably, probably the best way to say is like pictorial language , like Hebrew, where we really have to kind of let context and usage determine the meaning more than anything else. [00:15:00] But, having said that, it doesn't mean that we can't give broad definitions. So, I think the biggest thing to say about Sacrifice is just that they're, at their core, they are gifts of hospitality and welcome. anD more than anything else, what they are is like this expression of relational reciprocity and like I forget which scholar, Oh, actually it was from Jeremy Davis's book where he called it like a kind of generous rivalry. And I thought that was a really good description for it because the whole idea there is that when humans are offering a sacrifice at least to Yahweh, the God of Israel. Start there because there are definite discontinuities with pagan sacrifices. But when humans are offering a sacrifice to Yahweh, the God of Israel it's intended as a relational kind of friend making interaction.

It's not intended as a transaction that says, okay, something has happened. I must give you this in order to [00:16:00] appease you, to make you like me again, to make you not be angry at me, you know, in those kind of things. They're all in the context of a covenant, which is a relational thing. And so it's really important to keep front and center with sacrifices, that they are these expressions of relational reciprocity rather than like some kind of transactional balancing equation.

Carey Griffel: And so that's how you would distinguish between like a gift and a bribe for instance.

Spencer Owen: Yes. Yes. So like a really good example, like from modern culture, at least is like what we would call kind of Southern hospitality where like people.

And I mean, I, I grew up in the Midwest. And so I don't quite have fully in the southern mindset, but they're very much is that kind of potluck and people come over to church or whatever, and, or someone is sick and , they come over the casserole, and they give it to you and you're like, Oh, thank you.

[00:17:00] And so of course the expectation there is that, you know, when you're done. You clean out the dish, and ideally, what you would do is you would make your own and give it right back to them. And so that's kind of this sort of like... unspoken rule , that exists in certain kind of sections of American culture that is a really good analog for what that looks like.

Where, I mean, in that kind of quote unquote transaction there, it's not a transaction. They're not giving you a casserole to say, here, I expect that you will do X for me in return. And you're not giving it back saying, I expect you, you just, it's just an expression of the mutual regard, affection, community that you are sharing together.

And that kind of plays itself out rather than it being like a strict equation that's supposed to balance of there's X on one side and Y on one side. And only when they balance out are things good.

Carey Griffel: Right. Because one of the objections that I have [00:18:00] seen about ,oh, sacrifice isn't a gift is that it's so unbalanced, like you have God and you have man and God can give you so much and man can't really give God very much. And it's like, well, that's not reciprocity. It's like, well, yeah, still is.

Spencer Owen: Well, yeah, it is. It's reciprocity. It's just not equal reciprocity. And I think that's actually kind of, you know, Paul's point in Ephesians too.

You know, we, we all know that verse of for us by grace, you've been saved through faith and this not of yourself. It is the gift of God, you know, not by work so that no one can boast. So the whole idea there is that, you know, all these sort of, you know, works of the law that certain groups of the Jewish people were trying to use as their kind of measuring stick before God, those things are not what, you know, again, it's not a transactional equation. It's not, I do this, God is forced to do X. It's [00:19:00] more like they're gifts that God gives his people as a way to create communion with him. And then once they give that to him. He receives that, finds it acceptable, and gives right back in seven fold, a hundred fold, like super abundantly.

And so that's really the major distinction that , I would really lean heavily into about how gifts are different than a bribe is that this is not a Tip for tat quid pro quo kind of situation this is a kind of like friendly competition of who can out give the other and of course we will always quote unquote lose in that.

And I say quote unquote lose because really our loss is our gain there. And so that's what Paul was saying in Ephesians two is it's the gift of God. And that's what salvation is. As we give him the life of an animal or our ourselves and living sacrifices, and that is super tiny compared to what he gives us back, which is [00:20:00] his own life.

Carey Griffel: Well, and I think if we look at the typology that we can see this in history, where we have the Ancient Near Eastern idea, and really, just the human idea of hospitality in general, but it was very strong in the Ancient Near East, and then you have , the suzerain and vassal covenants of the Ancient Near East.

And in the New Testament, you have the client patron relationship. Well, none of those are equal. None of those are one to one things.

Spencer Owen: No. Yeah. And I know, like, a lot of times, like, if I say sacrifices are expressions of relational reciprocity. People kind of take a modern mindset of relationship as this kind of, like, egalitarian, we're all on the same page, let's all just hug it out kind of thing.

That's definitely not the way that it's framed in the text. It's framed very much as, like, God's the sovereign of the universe and everything. I mean, I [00:21:00] think he says at one point, like, you know, I own the cattle on a thousand Hills if I were hungry, would I tell you no. And so I don't need your food.

I don't need your sacrifices, but I want them because I want to be in this relationship with you. And again, it's not an equitable relationship, but it is explicitly inequitable. And that's kind of the whole point, because the whole point is that this generous rivalry, this kind of friendly competition of who can outgive the other is never going to be resolved.

And what that does is it sustains the relationship. It sustains the covenant because it's out of balance.

Carey Griffel: Yes. , and our ability to give is also dependent on God's giving to us as well. Oh, yes. Mm hmm. And I think that goes into the whole glory conversation of what we do feeds into God's glory.

Spencer Owen: Yep. Absolutely.

Carey Griffel: I think that this is a good place to discuss the difference [00:22:00] between sacrifice In the New Testament and Pagan sacrifice. Because if you look in Pagan literature, it's so very different.

Spencer Owen: Yeah. I mean, the major theme for Pagan sacrifices and the thing we always have to kind of keep in mind is like, there's always what scholars would call continuities and discontinuities.

So the whole idea there is that. It's not that , like there's pagan sacrifices that are a separate thing on their own and God is stepping in and telling the Israelites, okay, there's this thing out there in the world. Here's how I want you to do that thing. anD just tweaking it, so to speak, really what's happening is that the pagan sacrifices are, you know these kind of distortions of the real thing that is happening in heaven and that is happening between God and his people.

And of course, as we know from that divine council worldview, it's the spiritual beings that are in charge of the nations are deceiving [00:23:00] them about here's how the way the sacrifices are supposed to go. And so what we see is a very kind of demonic expression of that in that in pagan sacrifices, A, it was frequently humans and not animals.

And B, there was also like a lot of cannibalism, , blood drinking, those kinds of things. On top of that, , the whole focus of the sacrifices that was supposed to, like, feed the God, like, this is how the God gets his food. and the other problem too, is that humans were essentially kind of like slaves to the God in that model.

And so, yes, it's still an. You know, inequitable relationship, but it's not a friendly competition and a friendly rivalry. It's very much like, okay, I have to give the God this thing or else he's going to kill me. He's going to, you know, I'm not going to have a good crop this year, all those kinds of things.

And so it was the sense of manipulation of like, how can [00:24:00] I offer a sacrifice that I can then use as a lever to pull to be able to get the God to either do what I want or ignore me or avoid, you know, causing damage to me and my livelihood or my city or whatever. And so that's kind of the way that pagan sacrifice is offered.

But what we see in the sacrifice in the Bible is almost a complete inversion of every single one of those tropes. Where instead of the priests feeding the god in a tangible sense, it is God feeding his priests and his people through things like the showbread, through things like the flesh of the Chata sacrifice, which is what we normally would call sin offering.

And so what God is doing is saying, I will feed you. And of course, yes, there's a sense in which the smoke that rises up as a pleasing aroma is a food offering, but God is pretty clear. He's like. Look, you, you know, that's a symbol, right? Like, and symbol doesn't mean not real, want to [00:25:00] be really clear. But what it does mean is I am not actually eating this.

Like you're not actually feeding me. What I actually consider to be acceptable is a heart of repentance, a heart of contrition, a heart of humility, those kinds of things. And this is just an expression a, a symbolic expression in the material world of that spiritual reality. And so God feeds his priests and his people.

He also explicitly prohibits, you know, the drinking of blood and those kinds of things because he says, I've given you that to make atonement for your souls. And so blood, instead of being this thing that you have to extract in order to like appease the God, it's more like God saying, I'm giving it to you so that you can keep the tabernacle, the temple clean and purified and cleansed so that I can then give back to you the gift of my presence, the gift of my life.

And so, again, this is. [00:26:00] Friend making gift. A relational reciprocity thing. And beyond that, there's , just so many ways in which all of those pagan sacrifices get, , turned upside down on their head. And that's really, a really good framework to keep in mind when we're approaching sacrifices is not to say, like, how does this quote unquote fit in to the pagan sacrifices, it's more like how does this correct the record with pagan sacrifices?

Carey Griffel: Yeah. , so you have the pagan versions of the flood and after the flood, there's the sacrifice and the pleasing aroma and the gods descend on it like flies, it says. Well, when we look in the Bible, it sounds like this kind of is similar because you still have the pleasing aroma of the sacrifice after , the flood.

And so people can read that and go, it's doing the same thing. It's trying to appease God because of the flood. I think there's a very different way to see that.

Spencer Owen: Yes. Yeah. But it's really important to actually, [00:27:00] again, like we said earlier, kind of go back to the text and see what it actually says.

So where that sacrifice occurs in Genesis eight is actually after the waters had receded in the flood and also after God had remembered Noah and his family. So, I mean, just from a narrative standpoint, the way that it's all set up is The whole world and all the people in it all their thoughts were only evil continually all the time.

, but there was one person who is declared righteous and his family. And so that righteous person is taken out of the world, put into a vehicle of salvation in the Ark. And then the whole world is cleansed from the stain, from the corruption that was caused by all of that evil. And of course, we know from that divine council worldview, there's a lot of this has to do with the Nephilim and the things that they had perpetrated on the earth.

And so God comes in and says, all right, I'm going to go ahead and cleanse the earth from all of that. So it's [00:28:00] actually God saving the world from the stain humans had put on it, saving his creation. And Noah was intended to be the vehicle of that salvation because he is the righteous one. So if you look at the sacrifice that Noah offers in Genesis 8, and you look at that as like propitiating God, like appeasing his wrath and getting his wrath off of Noah, it doesn't make textual sense because A, Noah is explicitly declared to be righteous, B, Noah has already been saved from the judgment was passed, C the judgment had already passed away. The waters had already receded for Noah had already been remembered by God. So God didn't need the sacrifice to be able to bring him to mind and make him and bring him before his face. Like all of those things had already happened by the time noah offered the sacrifice. And so explicitly what's happening there in that narrative sequence is that the sacrifice and the pleasing aroma is not getting rid [00:29:00] of God's wrath because that's already been taken care of. It's already been done. What it's doing is it's establishing a friend making relationship and that kind of covenantal framework, which is the first time we see the word covenant in the Bible is in that sacrificial ritual. And so God is establishing he's saying, okay, I took care of the things that I needed to take care of on the earth. And now I am committing myself to being in relationship with you and with your descendants after you. And in this case, in the narrative, all of humanity and this is the way that I'm going to bless you and these are the expectations that I have for you, which is where he lays out the initial statement of don't eat meat with the blood in it. And anyone who kills man by man, shall he be killed because he is the image of God. And so all of those things are the protections that the more powerful individual in this case, [00:30:00] God is providing for his covenant partner in this case, Noah and the rest of humanity. It's not a way of getting rid of wrath and appeasing an angry God.

Carey Griffel: Well, and it seems to me when you look at sacrifice as a type of a loss and appeasement, then that's kind of the opposite of looking at how covenant is a blessing.

It's like sacrifice and covenant are intimately connected. Deeply. And these are two opposite ideas, I think.

Spencer Owen: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Well, and I mean, quite frankly, that's exactly what we see in Hebrews, Hebrews 9, 22, for example, because I know a lot of people look at that and they say, Oh, well, without shedding the blood, there's no forgiveness of sins.

I mean, come on. That's, that means God has to have blood or else he's going to, you know, he's going to be angry at people. Right? Well, the problem is when you actually look at the context of Hebrews 9. It's actually let [00:31:00] me pull it up here, just to make sure I have it on hand. So the context is covenant. You know, starting in verse 15. For this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant. And going on to 16th, where a covenant is, verse 17th, where a covenant is valid verse 18, Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. So the immediate context of verse 22 is that inauguration of the covenant with blood.

And then it says, for when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people, according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying, this is the blood of the covenant, which God commanded you.

And that is straight out of Exodus 24. So the whole context in which that statement of you know, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness is specifically in the context of inaugurating the covenant. of Moses sprinkling the people to say, you are the [00:32:00] people with whom God has decided to enter this friend making relationship.

And one of the benefits of that covenant, of that friendship, is the forgiveness of sins. And that's what we see in Leviticus is, you know, the priest will do this, priest will do this, priest will do this, and this way he will make atonement for your sins. And you will be forgiven. And so what's happening there is essentially the author of Hebrews is saying, look, outside of the covenant, there is no forgiveness of sins, or at least , in the context in which he's speaking, that's at the covenant benefit is forgiveness of sins.

And that's really important when you consider what forgiveness of sins actually meant in the old Testament, Levitical sacrificial context, The Hebrew language there is Nesah Avon. So the idea there is bearing sin, carrying iniquity lifting up a burden that is threatening to crush people. So really [00:33:00] what's happening there is that God is saying, Look, your sins will crush you. If you bear your iniquity, your sins will crush you. I have a different plan because you are my covenant partners, because you were in a friendship relationship with me. Here's how I'm going to help carry that burden for you so that you don't have to get crushed by it. So, for example, we see in Exodus 28, 38, Aaron is designated as the sin bearer, or as the one who Nesah Avon, for the holy things, quote, that the people of Israel consecrate as their holy gifts.

So again, there's sacrifice as gifts, right there in the context of the priest being the one , who bears sins on behalf of the people. And what's really significant there is that. Okay. Because that same language of carrying or bearing sin is given specifically in the context of Aaron wearing that plate on [00:34:00] his head that says, you know, holy to Yahweh.

And that's because he is the representative of God to the people. So saying the priest is the sin bearer is essentially the same as saying God is the sin bearer. God is saying to his people as part of the benefit of being in my covenant with me. You give me gifts, and here's the gift I will give you.

I will take care of your sins for you. I will carry them myself and absorb all the impurity and contamination that they cause in myself as part of this process of through my representatives, the priests. And that's how I will take care of your sins and offer forgiveness.

Carey Griffel: That's a very different way of looking at mediation than some people have, I think. Yeah. Right. Yeah. To a lot of people, the mediator is the one who is preventing God from being exposed to all that dirtiness and the sin. Yeah. It's like, let me just [00:35:00] do this and then you won't have to deal with it anymore, God.

You're saying the exact opposite of that. Is that the priest is the representative that people can see right in front of them. Yes. He said with Yahweh's name right in on his forehead, showing that this is what God is doing. And the idea of mediation and representation. I think we don't give enough thought of that today.

Spencer Owen: Mm hmm. No, this becomes really clear in two places in particular, Numbers 18 and Leviticus 10. So in Numbers 18 it says that like the Levites are a gift from God to the people and it doesn't say the word that they are. Their substitute, but that's really where substitution comes in to the Levitical sacrificial system, not in the animal that's killed, but in the priests as the sin bear, as the substitute on behalf of the people before God and on behalf of God to the people, [00:36:00] and so, God gives gifts to the people, the sin bearer, and then they give gifts to God out of the gifts that are brought to the people, and then God feeds them out of the gifts that the people bring to God. Like, it's just... Reciprocal circle of giving, and so , that God feeding his priest is, becomes really important in Leviticus 10, 17, where right after the Nadab and Abihu incident, where they die Aaron is giving a sin offering to kind of cleanse because of that incident, And he doesn't eat the flesh of the sin offering, which is what he's supposed to do.

And Moses says, why are you doing, like, you just saw your son get killed because he didn't follow the rules. What are you doing? And it specifically says it was given to you to Nasa'avon. To bear iniquity on behalf of the people. And so there's something about the sense of communing with God, that is the [00:37:00] way in which he carries their sins on their behalf.

So it's not God saying, Ooh, that's icky stuff. And I can't, cannot come near it. It's more like he's saying, no, you yourselves and the whole place in which you live is full of death stuff, basically. And I'm going to give you life stuff to help take care of it. To help clean it. So that I can live in your midst and be among you, which is one of the gifts that I want to give you.

Carey Griffel: And it seems super important that this is a participatory thing. Oh gosh. Yes. Like God, isn't just here you go. Now you don't have to do anything. The people have to be participating. Yeah. And I think that's part of why the prophets were so against supposedly the sacrificial system is because the people were like, okay, we did it.

We're good, but we don't really care about God at all. So here you go.

Spencer Owen: Right. [00:38:00] Yeah. And when you say participatory, it has to be like a participating body and soul or just like it says in the Shema, you know, love the Lord your God with all your heart. With all your soul, with all your strength. And I'm not adding mind in there, because I'm quoting from Deuteronomy, not not from the New Testament, but but yeah, that's That's really what it is.

It's like whenever the prophets , and the Psalms as well are talking about things like, you know, I don't desire the blood of your offerings. And actually in Leviticus 26, when God is saying, if you don't follow these commandments, I will refuse to. smell your offerings, essentially. He says, I will not find it a pleasant aroma.

And it's because it's not the material stuff that God finds pleasing. And for that matter, it's not even the death of the animal that God finds pleasing. and that's really where things get twisted sometimes in sacrifices and seeing it as this kind of like. Again, transactional balancing equation.[00:39:00]

You know, so and so sinned. We have to kill an animal or else God's going to kill him. Now an animal is killed and now it's all good. And he just smells , the smell to make sure that the animal is killed. Now we're good. Really honestly, when you get back to the text, none of that is present , and that's evident in Leviticus 26, 31, where God says, if you Don't have a heart that follows after me. If you continually rebel against me and continually pollute my, land and my presence with all of your iniquity, none of this will work, so it's not a transactional, if God gets blood, things are good. it's a relational reality where repentance and a heart of contrition and humility is the fundamental thing that pleases God.

Not the death of an animal.

Carey Griffel: Well, and to us, we read Leviticus, and everything in there sounds so random. It's like, hmm, why [00:40:00] do these things connect together at all? Like, we don't see it today. We're just like, sacrifice is supposed to be all about sin, and sin management, and... Dealing with the bad things we do. So why is it talking about menstruation? Why is it talking about childbirth? Why is it talking about disease?

Spencer Owen: Well, because it's all, it's all about holiness and purity. And actually Mary Douglas is a Levitical scholar that has been really helpful in understanding that as well as like, you know, the ones I mentioned, like Jacob Milgram and really at its core, the whole goal is, like, God desires to dwell with his people. He wants to live in their midst. And the problem of holiness there is God is completely pure in every, every way. And so if he is, like, the source of life, and he steps into a place That is polluted by death, you know, both [00:41:00] within the people themselves, as well as like scattered throughout with like ritual impurity and other kinds of contact with death, then that's going to create a combustion, basically.

And so God says, here's my way of dealing with all that death stuff so that I can be in your midst. Now. I know sometimes we think of like death stuff as being like quote unquote sins, like moral, failures, and it is that, but really actually the better framework to keep in mind is impurity broadly, and to see sins as a kind of impurity, as like a moral impurity.

So like, for example, there are things that are not at all sinful or just ordinary everyday stuff, or even just kind of, you know, weird stuff that doesn't seem anywhere remotely simple that atonement is made for. So, for example, like childbirth. , after a woman gives birth she is to offer a Khata, which is a sin offering.

After [00:42:00] they discover that your house has mold, you're supposed to offer a Chata make atonement for the house. And after someone has leprosy they are supposed to go through a method of cleansing and purification. And then at the end of it, offer a Chata to be able to confirm that they are purified.

And actually that's what Jesus references in Matthew eight, when he says to the leper that he healed, go offer the gift. There's that word again, that Moses commanded as a way to demonstrate to the priest that you really are purified and clean. So all of this is trying to get to the core theme of God wants to live in the middle of his people, but people who are in a fallen world under the dominion of death, because of the sin of Adam, they Are constantly in contact with and permeated by death, left, right, and center. And that's in skin diseases, that's in [00:43:00] loss of bodily fluids, that's in a lot of different things. And what God does, he provides them the blood to be able to make atonement, to cleanse, to purify so that he can continue to remain in their midst. And yes. Moral failure is definitely a part of that. I don't want to sideline that in any way, but if that's the primary framework we walk into it with, then we get really uncomfortable. And we see things like, wait a minute, you have to make a sin offering for having a kid.

What is up with that? And it's because there's a moment of kind of liminal space of contact between life and death there, and a loss of life giving fluids. And that contact with death is something that is not sinful, is not wrong, is not bad. It's just simply something that needs to be cleansed and purged and purified so that a wholly pure God can live in the midst of his people.

Carey Griffel: But we [00:44:00] don't see any of that kind of offering in Genesis.

Spencer Owen: The only kind of sacrifice that we have in Genesis is what is called the Olah or the burnt offering. And although there is a little bit of a in like the Cain and Abel story, there's a minakah. whIch is kind of like a generic term for sacrifice or offering.

But in Leviticus it gets used for the grain offering, actually. So, yeah, there isn't really any of that kind of quote unquote sin offering that is prescribed in Genesis. Which, frankly, Should tell us something about how much priority we place on the sin offering as being "the" offering. Really, it's more like it's the olah, it's that, burnt offering, the whole burnt offering.

And the goal of that is more than anything else, like an expression of thanksgiving, which is honestly a lot of what, function it performs for Noah after the flood is thank you God for providing salvation. [00:45:00] And God smells that and says, I love your thanks. Great. I've got more. Here's a covenant , that will give you all these blessings and protection.

and then we also see that With the story of Abraham and Isaac. Isaac was intended to be an olah not a hadah, which is a, a sin offering. So he was intended to be a burn offering. And now, granted, the burnt offerings in Leviticus 1 are listed as being something that makes atonement.

But again, we want to be really clear about what making atonement actually means. It's purification, purgation, cleansing from quote unquote death stuff. anD not by killing an animal, but by offering up to God a welcoming gift of Thanksgiving that is going to establish and create a friendship communal relationship between God and humans.

Carey Griffel: [00:46:00] Or would a better term be to describe that as a, deepening or making it official or. Something like that. Because you're not initially creating it by doing that offering. It's already there.

Spencer Owen: Yeah, which is absolutely explicit in the case of Noah as well. I mean, God has already selected Noah, given him the vehicle of salvation, and then sustained him being saved on the waters and then remembered him like this is not at all like God's sitting there with his finger over the button saying, if you don't give me a sacrifice, I'm going to get you. It's very much like God saying, no, I have already decided to be entwined with you as a partner with you. And then when I smell that offering, of course, because I mean the whole idea of God needing anything from us is pretty absurd on its face.

So it's not at all like the sacrifices are something where God's going, Ooh, I'm angry. And now [00:47:00] I've smelled something and now I'm okay. It's much more like it is something that demonstrates our own heart of repentance, our own willingness to give, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, strength.

And through that repentance and that demonstration, that's what pleases God. And that's what initiates a response from him of just giving more gifts.

Carey Griffel: So it's part of the sequence of God giving more and continuing to bless because we are being that participant in the relationship.

And so God's like, cool, let's, do this more, you know?

Spencer Owen: Yes, absolutely. So I think probably a good analogy here is like. My relationship with my wife, for example. I mean, like I've been married for 17 years now. And so there's a lot of things that I have gotten wrong over the time and a handful of things that I've gotten right.

But I mean, [00:48:00] like, when I come to her with any kind of like quote unquote welcoming gift, I'm not going back to reestablish our relationship all over again. And frankly, I didn't really even like our wedding ceremony and something wasn't a gift that established anything. I mean, the ring that I gave her is not anything that established anything.

It is just an expression of what's already there in a solidifying and in completing and a formalizing of what is already already there.

Carey Griffel: Yeah, formalizing. I like that term.

Spencer Owen: Mm And so, I mean, like, I, I may, you know, give something to her, yes, perhaps, because I've committed some kind of sin. Some kind of relational rift that needs to be mended.

But the thing about that is, like, I mean, unless... It is, you know, quote unquote, sinning with a high hand against her. And I kind of feel bad about making this analogy because I don't want to compare my wife to God. But but [00:49:00] I think the relational component of the covenantal aspect is very valid here.

Like if I have, quote unquote, sinned with a high hand against her, which is like, utter rebellion, just disregard, complete and total you know, throwing, trampling on everything, or as the author of Hebrews would say, trampled on the blood of the covenant, you know, doing all those kinds of things, then I have totally broken the covenant relationship.

And at that point, it doesn't matter how many welcoming gifts I give. I could bring flowers, I could give her a car, you know, all those kinds of things. Like, no, it doesn't matter. Our relationship is not good at all. It's basically non existent. And now what's required is no longer sacrifices, but we need to fix the relationship.

We need to go back to the beginning and renew that covenantal relationship. And that's exactly what happened with the prophetic critique of sacrifices. God had given them opportunity after opportunity and prophet after prophet. Decade [00:50:00] after decade of chance to say, look, Mend your ways, , fix this, and you know turn to me, and I will, as it says in Isaiah 55, If the wicked man forsake his way, return to God, he will abundantly pardon.

And that's one of the ways in which... His ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. That's what he loves to do That was the revelation of himself that he gave in Exodus 34 is six through seven is and the God who delights in forgiving iniquity and sin that's what God wants to do and stands ready to do... not To smite to punish, to judge, to do all those things.

And what he's doing is providing opportunity after opportunity for them to... Repair the covenant and all those sacrifices being effective, presume that the relationship is already intact, which is exactly like what happens with my wife. You know, I can give her some flowers. If I commit a, I don't want to [00:51:00] say small, but a smaller than with a high hand relational sin, and I can bring flowers.

And yeah, that will probably dispose her differently toward me, or I can, you know, bring, you know, something else that is a little less trite than flowers that will dispose her differently to me, but all of that presumes that the relationship is in good standing already. The gift does not, quote unquote, fix the relationship.

Carey Griffel: Well, and the deeper you get into a relationship, the relationship and the way you interact changes. And I think that's what we're seeing in the Torah. In Genesis, it's completely different than what we see in Leviticus. But there's a deepening of relationship.

Spencer Owen: Yes. Yes, there is. Well, and that's really one of the coolest things that I've discovered is just watching the sequence of Abraham.

So he shows up on the scene in Genesis 12, [00:52:00] and he's given this promise that Your descendants will be like the stars in the sky, both in terms of quantity, which is a numerical quantity, but also there's a quality, like they will be like the Elohim. And so he's given that amazing promise and he says, awesome.

And what is the first thing he does? Goes over to Egypt and lies about his wife to Pharaoh. And causes all these plagues to fall down on Egypt. And it's almost like the narrator is saying, Look, like this guy who God just promised to work with and be in covenant with... look how he acts. And God's response to that is not, Oh, I see a sin. I gotta getcha. God's response to that is, Okay. I'm going to dive in deeper. So then he starts blessing him with the Melchizedek event, and he starts blessing him with better land than Lot. And what does Abraham do to that? He goes to Hagar and tries to make things happen his way there. And God says, okay, [00:53:00] here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you the gift of circumcision as a sign that your sin is not too much for me, that I am not going to run away from you. Now, there will definitely be consequences for your sin. And, you know, I'm sure Abraham and all of his male people in this household would agree with that at that point in Genesis 15.

But There will be consequences for your sin, but I am not giving up on you. I'm going deeper because of your sin. And then we run into the problem with Ishmael once Isaac is born and Ishmael and Hagar kicked out. And then there's an. Even more of a response that God says, look, I'm going to give you the fullest revelation of myself that I can right now, you know, without it being actually Christ, where I'm going to show you that I am not a God who demands death as a result of sin. And so I think there's a high degree of likelihood that as Abraham was [00:54:00] told to give up his son Isaac as an olah, he probably is thinking okay, God promised. I failed. He gave me more. I failed. He gave me more and I failed again. And now he's done. And now he's taking back the gift.

And God instead steps in and says, That is not who I am. That is not how I operate. Stay your hand. what I do is I give you another way. Of providing a substitute that is going to be able to take care of any kind of relational rift that we have. And again, relational rift here doesn't mean the wrath of God is hovering, ready to fall at a second's notice.

Honestly, like if someone walks into the Bible and just reads the text straight through, there are so many times where people sin, left, right, and center, and there's not a hint of God standing there saying, Oh, you're lucky, bud. You're lucky you [00:55:00] gave me a sacrifice because otherwise you were a goner. And so everything about that is all about God saying, when you sin, I've got a plan.

And that's atonement.

Carey Griffel: And his response is always connected to what they just did.

Spencer Owen: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yep. it's directly given that, almost kind of like in a way to be able to show them that no matter how bad it gets, I can work with that. I can work through that and bring good out of it. And that goes all the way up to like, for example, you know the exodus and well, and for that matter, even like the golden calf incident.

That was a miserable failure on their part. And then Moses says. Okay, I need to go talk to God. Maybe I can make atonement on your behalf. And the way he does that is through that mediatory intercession. And what he does is , offers to God, here, take my life instead. And God, again, [00:56:00] as he always has, says, nope, that's not how I operate.

I don't, I don't need your life. Here's what I will give you. I will give you more blessing. I will show you, I can't show you my face because no one can see that and live, but I will pass by with my glory , and hide you while I do that. So that way you will be able to get more of me. And that's where the, core self revelation of God that places his mercy, compassion, loyal love, faithfulness at a 1000 to three proportion to his needing to visit iniquity. He gives that revelation right after the golden calf incident. And I don't, I definitely don't think that is unconnected or a coincidence. The whole goal is to say, you have really messed up Israel.

I'll tell you what I'll do. I will show you who I am. And that is the God who forgives sin.

Carey Griffel: And it's so. So [00:57:00] fascinating and it gets, my blood boiling in excitement just because I'm like when you look at the scripture in such a different way than this narrative that you have to make God happy and you have to be a perfect person in order to make God happy, like this narrative that our culture has of Christianity, like your average non Christian and their idea of what Christianity is and what God is asking for and what God wants, It's, I think it stems from these misconstruals of what sacrifice is, what atonement is.

That's the whole Bible. If you miss that what are you really even doing there?

Spencer Owen: You're absolutely right. And, and I mean, just to kind of loop it back to real life and real people, that's exactly what I wind up working with a lot of times is people who feel like Their sense of themself, their anthropology, is that I am a miserable worm, and God can't even stand the [00:58:00] sight of me.

But, the best he can do to kind of square the circle between his love and his justice, or his mercy and his justice, is to punish somebody else instead. And then thankfully that person always stands between me and God. And like, I've, I've literally heard this both in my personal life and in my professional life, when people say like, when God looks at you, he doesn't see you, he sees Jesus I mean, I, I want to be compassionate here and say, I don't think anyone's saying that is intending to hurt people, is intending to be malicious is trying to, I mean, they're just ,literally reading the Bible as they read it and trying to preach the truth as. I mean, frankly, the West has been taught since arguably Augustine maybe Anselm, maybe the Reformers. It's kind of hard to say exactly where that started, but either way, it wasn't in the beginning. It wasn't for the first four centuries in the church. And Augustine's reading of Romans 5. 12 was [00:59:00] highly idiosyncratic in his context and in his day, but that's just the intellectual heritage we have and it is what it is. And so I don't, you know, I think that's a malicious thing on the part of any person. But the problem is that good hearted people doing their best can still cause harm. And that's genuinely the problem that I see is that people think that like, Oh my gosh, God can't even stand to see me.

And so thankfully, I guess Jesus stood in the way and took the punch for me. But. God still can't stand to see me. And so, because I guess I'm simultaneously both justified and the sinner as Luther would say so I don't know what to do with that. And that causes a lot of internal consternation for a lot of people, not for everybody, but for a lot of people.

And I think, I'm with you. I do kind of vacillate between getting really angry and upset and trying to have compassion for the people who are doing their best with what the [01:00:00] tools that they have. Also, just being invigorated and vitalized by the real truth of what is happening in the sacrifices and what is happening with Jesus on the cross that is very, very different than that other picture.

Carey Griffel: Yeah. Well, and, and I love that you bring it back to that practical aspect, because we tend to think of the atonement as. This thing that we can't understand, and that ends up being either something that doesn't apply to my life, like I don't have to think about it, my pastor has got that covered, and he told me it means this, this, and this, so, there we go, I guess, you know, and this, real longing to understand, and really, what does the gospel mean, and how does Christ relate to me, and if it's just he's the screen between me and God. First of all, how does that happen? Because Christ is God. And then second of all...

Spencer Owen: He is God. [01:01:00] There's a strong element of Nestorianism in that particular framing. But okay.

Carey Griffel: And then second of all, how do you even get to be able to relate to God at all at that point?

Spencer Owen: Yeah. And many people find they can't.

Because they say, look, I, how in the world can I possibly love somebody who sees the core of my being as being disgusting, worthless, and the only just response is to squash me like a bug. And I think what's, what has always really stuck out for me is in 1st John 1st John 1. 9, which bleeds into a discussion of atonement in 1st John 2. 2. Where. He says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [01:02:00] And so it's like, that's what atonement is, is. A quote, unquote, justification-- and justice, in the ancient sense was not about balancing some kind of arbitrary or intellectual kind of scales of you did X and so I have to do Y to kind of transactionally balance justice in the ancient world was putting things back in order, putting them back to right, taking things that are bent and out of whack and straightening them back up. And so that's one of the reasons why. John says he is faithful to his covenant promises and just to forgive us our sins because what sin does is it's a, it's a disease.

It's a contamination. It's a corruption. It's a pollution , that gets under our skin and burrows deep inside us. And then we send it out into the world and we leave the trail of death and destruction behind us everywhere we [01:03:00] go. And so God looks at that and says, here's what the just response is.

Not to hit the smite button, but to heal, to restore, to forgive. And that is the way in which he takes what is bent and puts it back into alignment through cleansing. Faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And that's really atonement. And that's exactly where he goes a few verses later in 2. 2 and he says And then Jesus, well, in 2. 1, he says, Jesus is our advocate standing before the Father, not to stand between him and us so that he sees Jesus and not us, but to intercede on our behalf, to continually bring cleansing to everything that happens because of our sins, which is exactly what , the author of Hebrews says is his high priestly function is to cleanse the heavenly temple and to stand on our behalf. And, and he always lives to make intercession for us, which is something Paul says in [01:04:00] Romans eight as well. And so like, I mean, it's, absolutely all over where Jesus is the priest standing before us as our representative before God, not because God thinks we're disgusting, but because Jesus is cleansing us through his incarnational life, death, and resurrection, and is standing and saying, look, , this is who this person really is.

Or like Paul says in Colossians three, you know, you, you have died and your life is hidden with God in Christ. And when that life is revealed, then all the blessings will flow, which is exactly what it says again in Romans 8 as well. So, all of this is creating a picture of Jesus standing as our representative to offer gifts. In sacrifices, gifts of welcome and joy before God says, look, these people are clean because I am cleansing them by uniting their human nature to my divine nature and by bringing [01:05:00] that in before your presence and God says, I love it. That's amazing. Let's have more of it. And so that's where it goes into where it says in 1st John 2, 2 he is the Hellasmos or the atoning sacrifice or in some translations, the propitiation, although I think that's a terrible translation of that word, but we'll skip right past it, but he is the Hellasmos, for our sins and also for the whole world. So, what Jesus atoning sacrifice is doing there is cleansing the whole world, putting it all back to right, , it's re justifying all of the ways in which our sin has polluted and contaminated the whole world. He is cleansing the whole cosmos. And Of course, we, as people who participate in that life, have the benefit of salvation, and the benefit of full... Participation in the divine nature, [01:06:00] and that is what saves us. Not simply that things are cleansed. That's a universal benefit. What really saves us is when we say, I'm cleansed, and now I want to participate.

in that life by faith.

Carey Griffel: And that's the story. It's so awesome. Like how the New Testament has that context of the relationship in hospitality and gifts. And it stems directly from that ancient context. I believe it's just expressed a little bit differently in the Roman culture of the time, but it's the same thing.

It's just so cool to see.

Spencer Owen: It really is, because Jesus in Matthew 5, like I said before he in giving the Sermon on the Mount, he's saying, you know, when you bring your gift to the altar, well, there's a sacrifice. When you bring your gift to the altar, if you have a problem with your brother, go back and reconcile to him.

Because it's not a gift if this relational thing [01:07:00] off. And he talks about, in Matthew 23, about swearing by the gift on the altar. And I already mentioned how in Matthew 8, he tells the leper to offer the gift that Moses commanded. But there's also the apostles. So like Paul in Philippians 4, he's talking about all the gifts that the Philippian church has given him. And he compares them to sacrifices. He says that they are a fragrant aroma. So again, we have that kind of pleasing aroma language. There's no sense that by giving Paul gifts, the Philippian church has somehow appeased his wrath. What the Philippian church has done is... Established and solidified and formalized and validated the relationship that they have with him by giving him a gift that Paul calls a sacrifice.

And that happens again, when he says in Romans 12, that, you know, we're going to offer our bodies as living sacrifices And I know that, like, Hebrews will sometimes use the language of, like, gifts and sacrifices [01:08:00] as if they're, like, kind of different in some ways, but really, when you go back to, like, Hebrews 11, for example, the, you know, big faith chapter, it talks about Abel's gift. Which we know was a sacrifice as well, and that was considered acceptable. So really, probably like a really good way to frame it in the New Testament language is that every sacrifice is a gift, but not every gift , is a sacrifice. beCause there can be lots of different ways to bring gifts to God.

Sacrifice is just one of those ways.

Carey Griffel: Mm, Yeah, that's a great point to bring up that connects back to what you were saying at first about , How we have to be very careful to not conflate words overly much.

Spencer Owen: Yes, mm hmm. Well, and I mean Hebrews is actually a really good example of why we have to be careful to not get super didactic and say oh it's it has to be used in this really highly technical sense every single time because , the author of Hebrews, seems to [01:09:00] distinguish by saying gifts and sacrifices multiple times and also seems to conflate by saying Abel's sacrifice was a gift.

Yeah, that framing of like, you know, every sacrifice is a gift, but not every gift is a sacrifice is probably the best way to kind of summarize all the data in my head.

Carey Griffel: Well, and I think that will speak a lot into the context of our modern worship contexts as well. As to what worship is, and what gifts are, and what sacrifice is, and how all of that plays together.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yep. Well, I think this is probably a pretty good place to end for now, but I have loved this conversation. Thank you so much, Spencer.

Spencer Owen: Absolutely. I'm happy to continue to talk about, because I know we would love to kind of start to unpack a little bit more about the details of the Sin Offering and the Trespass Offering and all those kind of things, which definitely requires its own, you know, more heavy focus, but [01:10:00] it's really important to kind of have the correct background in our heads. So that we don't walk into what's actually there in the details and lose the forest for the trees.

Carey Griffel: Exactly. Exactly. Right. Well, we will hopefully have you on again very soon to dive more into that.

Spencer Owen: Absolutely.

Carey Griffel: Awesome. Thanks, Spencer.

Wrapping up this episode, I want to make sure to ask you all to feel free to ask any questions you have or to suggest points that you'd like to see brought out more from this episode, because I know for many of you, some of this might be really new stuff and you might have questions or just want us to talk more about particular aspects here, and we are so very happy to do so. As I think you can tell, Spencer is very passionate about this subject, very well-read, and so yeah there's a lot to this!

Some of you might already be familiar with if you've listened to other podcasts and read some of these books, but even so I think there's a lot of ground to cover and so please please please we'd love to hear your feedback here.

We will be getting into talking about the details of the sacrificial system, talking more about atonement, and ritual in general, as well. You can find the discussion on my Facebook group, or you can email me through my website at genesismarksthespot.com.

Thank you guys for listening, and if you found this of value I'd appreciate it if you'd share the episode. Thanks to my Patreon and PayPal supporters, you guys are a great blessing to me. I'm excited that this is my fiftieth episode--two more and that'll make a year for the podcast!

We are now into the holiday season and I hope you all find blessing and joy. Have a great week and we will see you later!