A principle of Moses' Law was that without the shedding of blood there was no remission of sins.
The Psalms tells us that there is none righteous. In order therefore for our sins to be remitted, we need to be trusting in God's acceptance of blood sacrificed in our stead, or else we're ignoring a divine law.
Back when it was still possible and legitimate to keep Moses' Law, a person could offer a sin offering after the manner prescribed by Moses.
Even in Gentile nations which didn't have the Law, and before the Law was ever given, men still knew instinctively that righteousness demanded an atoning sacrifice. And they offered them.
But nowadays with Moses' Law being impossible to keep legitimately, we either trust in God's acceptance of the sacrifice of His Son, or what do we trust in? Nothing sure. Something vague. Something merely wishful.
There was never anything so vague about the Law, or the Prophets, or about God. He worked within a covenant. He swore by Himself - and He is immutable. God cannot lie.
God wouldn't have left the Jews in a void - without a sacrifice, yet knowing one was needed - being vague about whether or how the Lord God remits their sin.
There was no mention in the Torah, or the Psalms, or in the Prophets - in the entire Tenakh - that there would ever come a time when sin would be remitted without the shedding of blood. God wouldn't be silent, or vague about something of such paramount importance. He always made it a matter of covenant - and swore by an oath.
God did put away David's sin without David offering a specific sacrifice. As David wrote:
"An offering for sin thou desirest not";
"else would I give it"; and
"the sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart";
which "thou wilt not despise".
But that didn't mean God forgave David's sin without reference to any sacrifice at all.
The annual atonement offering was still offered annually.
And God would ultimately send His Son as an atonement for all our sins including David's.
It didn't set a precedent for a future time when sin would be remitted without reference to the shedding of any blood at all.
If it did, that fact ought to have been taught in a new covenant. It ought to have been foreseen by the Law and the Prophets. But they foresaw no such thing, and taught an opposite law. Such a thing would even be opposite to the instinct of the Gentiles who didn't have the Law.
David's statements didn't annul the law that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. It meant that a repentant heart was more important, and it showed that the blood of bulls and goats wasn't entirely adequate. Every year the atonement offering had to be repeated again for the sins of the whole nation.
David's Psalm wasn't intended as a legal amendment to the first covenant. Because in later years God said of Israel, "There will I require your offerings".
The law was still the Law - unchanged. It's just that David, being a prophet, spoke about the inadequacy of the Law; saw a greater need; and saw the future when with respect to a more effective, once-for-all sacrifice, further sacrifices would no longer be needed - and he sometimes also spoke about his personal case rather than making a legal statement about the nation.
David may not have personally offered a sin offering on that occasion, although he offered many on another occasion - but his sin was not forgiven without reference to an offering of blood.
There was still the annual atonement offering offered yearly by the high priest for the nation - and there came the sacrifice of God's Son which took away the sins of the whole world.
Everything in the Tenakh therefore should have prepared the Jews to know a sacrifice, somewhere, at some stage is ultimately needed, even if God overlooked the need for a personal sacrifice by an individual on occasion, if his heart was broken and contrite. Otherwise a divine law is being ignored.
God provided for Himself a sacrifice - the sacrifice of His Son.
He made a new covenant with Israel, to remit sin - not randomly, but assuredly.
As Moses lifted up the serpent and those who looked lived, so the Son of God was lifted up on the cross, so that all who deliberately draw on the value of His blood, in full assurance that what God promised He will do - will be saved.
As much as I admire many Jews and many of their lifestyle-values, still there can be no remission of sin by God without God having respect to and reference to a sacrifice of blood.
Therefore in the absence of the Law, Jews ought to concede the necessity for another sacrifice; they ought to acknowledge Jesus' credentials - the cross.
It's typified, taught, intimated and prophesied all the way through the entire Tenakh.
We can be assured of justification from sins by deliberately placing trust in Christ's atoning sacrifice.
By calling on the Name of Jesus.
By believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, authenticating His sacrifice.
By confessing with your mouth: Jesus is Lord.
With all the confidence and clarity and more than you would have had in an animal sacrifice at the Temple.
In the moment of identifying with Christ, God does something for a man that he could never do for Himself. He becomes a new creature: old things are passed away; all things become new.
He is made a new heart - just as the Prophets said. Only then can a man see the Kingdom of heaven.
Israelites were meant to know these things.
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