Purity, Baptism, and the God Who Does Not Use a Cookie Cutter

The Whole Sacrificial System Is Relative to Who the Sinner Is

One of the most important principles in all of the book of Leviticus, including Parashat Tazria-Metzora is that the whole sacrificial system of the Torah is relative to who the sinner is — whether he is rich or poor, and what the sin committed is in relationship to the place and time in which that sin is committed. If you are rich and you sin, you bring a bull. Lower middle class — two turtle doves. Really poor — a handful of meal anointed with oil. And the atonement is the same. The forgiveness is the same. The same powerful deleting of your sin from the books of the Lord.

What I have seen in the years of my walking with Yeshua and observing churches and congregations around the whole world is that many leaders don't know this very important Torah principle and judge every brother and sister with the same cookie cutter. This cookie-cutter approach to every problem and situation in the congregation has created much injustice, pain, and destruction in the body of the Messiah. Leaders, put yourselves in the place of the brother or sister who has sinned and then take the principle of relative sin and relative atonement. Yeshua summarizes this principle:

For almost every law and rule in the Torah there is at least one exception. The Lord is not a legalist. He judges each of us as individuals and tailor-makes us a suite of love and grace, and yet we are not exempt from our responsibility before Him.

Causing Others to Sin

The sin of causing others to sin, for example, is more serious than most people realize. Yeshua, in Luke 17, makes a very bold statement: if you become a stumbling block to one of your brothers or sisters, it would be better for you to hang a millstone of granite on your neck and drown. How do we cause others to sin? By example — we do things that for us as adults might be misunderstood and become a stumbling block to strangers or family, who say, "If the Rabbi or the Pastor can do this, I can also do it." We may also teach people that it is okay to do something that is forbidden in the word of God, or twist the apostles' teachings to allow what is forbidden and forbid what is allowed.

The duty to forgive is equally serious:

If we don't forgive those who have sinned against us, we endanger the possibility that God will forgive us. Joseph's brothers sinned against him in just about every horrible way possible between humans. And yet Joseph said:

What Baptism Is — and What It Is Not

The purity laws and prescribed washings/ immersions of this Torah portion find their echo in the New Testament's treatment of baptism. Here is what Peter says:

The context of these verses is Noah's flood. Noah and his family were saved by the flood because the water lifted his boat above the water. There is no magic in the physics of water lifting a boat. Baptism is not a bath or shower that cleans the body and saves by cleanliness. Baptism is "not as a removal of dirt from the body" — it is "as an appeal to God for a good conscience." The formative word is "AS." It is an image, a picture, an example, that uses the resurrection of Yeshua our Messiah as an example of salvation.

Paul makes this clear:

Without faith and believing, the water will not save you. Paul himself, when he returned to Jerusalem, was purified in the Temple (Acts 21:26). The vestige of the purity laws of the Torah is now summed in the one act of faith that we all must take: participation symbolically in the death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah, and the privilege of following Him into the presence of God in Heaven.

Let's always remember and keep in mind that works without relationship are worthless:

And: