From Abel to Zechariah

He will be a staff for the righteous, with which for them to stand and not to fall. And he will be the light of the nations and the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on the earth will fall down and worship him, and they will praise and bless, and celebrate with song the Lord of Spirits, 1st denoc, chapter 48, verses 4-5. The modern world doesn't acknowledge, but is nevertheless haunted by spirits, angels, demons, and saints. In our time, many year into break free of the prison of a flat, secular materialism, to see and to know reality as it truly is. What is this spiritual reality like? How do we engage with it well? How do we permeate everyday life with spiritual presence? Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew Stephen Damick, and Father Stephen De Young, host this live Colin show, focused on enchantment in creation. The union of the scene and unseen as made by God, and experienced by mankind throughout history. Welcome to the Lord of Spirits. Hey, good evening, dragon slayers and giant killers. Christ is residing right off the bat here. Indeed, he is risen, and I don't care how you want to hear it. That's how I say it. But once again, I have to come in on our opener. Okay. Or voice of Steve. No, not him. Oh, the prior, the prior, the previous ancient faith, the prior prognality. Yes. Or lack thereof. Because no matter how many complaints I've sent to that email address, the John Maddox read off, no response. No response whatsoever from that email. And, you know, it's the giggling. It's the annoying laughter. Right. All the time. The only person who I can think of with a weird laugh like that that's parallel would be like Tucker Carlson. Like, can you imagine how unlistenable a conversation between those two people would be with the giggling and the cackling? I'm trying not to. I was having a good, you know, second week of Posca here. But they insist on using that as our lead in all the time. So what can we do? I know. I know. Well, on that disappointing note, you're listening to the 138th episode of Lord of Spirits podcast. I'm Father Interest even, Damick, in the Tower of Podcasting, perched precariously atop a disused gateway to the underworld. And with me is Father Stephen DeYoung himself from Lafayette, Louisiana, homeland of exiled French Canadians. And we are live. And that means that Mike, for Quee Sun, again, will be taking your calls starting in the second half. And on a very personal note, because this is a very special episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast. This will be by final meeting you use drugs. That's true. That's all the special episodes when I was a kid. That's right. That are Alex B. Keaton's Uncle Tom Hanks slapping him in the face. Oh, wow, man. Man. Did you know, well, now I'm not going to go into Michael J. Fox lore. Did you know that Tom Hanks is orthodox? I heard that. And it's not really Holy Week until we have a Tom Hanks carrying the Kavookly unsighting. Which fortunately, that's provided to us every year on social media. So this will be my final broadcast. This episode of this podcast, my final broadcast from the tower of podcasting. So as we as we close out tonight, I'll be putting on the final seals on the underworld gateway that lies beneath me. So that it may lay dormant until the end of days. Or you know, it could just pop open as soon as I leave. Is it even a tower anymore? No, it is. I mean, it's hemmed in by other times. So much deconstructed like as we prepared for band. Well, it is. So it is true that, you know, my particular chamber of wizardry that I'm in right now has been gutted and is full of just boxes and it's. Yeah, it's it's very depressing in this room right now. But, um, yes, so this is it. I mean, I feel like it's fitting here on the feast day of state George, you know, we always talk about dragon slayers. I mean, this is the feast of state George, the dragon slayer himself and amongst the lives of the saints. That this will be the last show that I ever do from this room. So I'm feeling a little bleary. I know you don't have feelings, Father Steven. So I don't expect you to feel anything. You're a little, a little over clamped. I am a bit, a bit. But our episode tonight is about martyrdom. So I mean, you know, martyrdom is it is it just getting killed for what you believe in or is or is there something deeper going on here? I mean, we all know that when you hear a rhetorical question like that, that the answer is always yes. Of course, there's something deeper going on. But I think most people do treat it like it's just. martyrdom is getting killed for what you believe in. So sometimes people think, oh, well, that's, you know, Christianity regards that as sort of the quick and easy way to st.hood. Because yeah, obviously you made the ultimate sacrifice good for you. You know, but no, no, it's actually really. It's really deeply embedded in the scriptures and it's quite a profound image that they give us. So that's what we're talking about tonight. So one of these, one of these days we need to do an episode where you ask a rhetorical question like that. And I just say, no, there is no deeper meaning. And we play the. I mean, maybe that should be the last episode. Yeah. Or one of those, one of those FOMO episodes when something else is going on. There we go. Or, you know, we'll finally do an episode because apparently every episode is entirely about the book of Enoch. When we finally decided to do an episode about the book of Enoch, there won't be one. We'll just say, is there anything worth reading anything really deep in the book of Enoch that we have to know? No. You're not everybody. Yeah. Well, the truth is I think I still get a royalty from that book of Enoch class I taught while back. Really? If people take it. So I kind of don't want to cut my own legs off. I hear you. I hear you. That's me. Not even tens of dollars a year. That's dozens of us. I know not even dozens, but tens. No, not tens. No, really like it's not much. But yeah, just everyone's expecting it. You know, I know what's his to say. I'm going to Zach. That's just how the game has played. You know, Ziggs, I come like a Ziggs Ziggler. So most of the most adult Ziggler who is how much I thought this appears Ziggler. I'm not really up on Zigglers to be honest. I mean, I could lead to who is really there. Yeah. But yeah, and and in one of those in one of those Jungian synchronicities. That's certain folks like to talk about. I was almost late to this live show. Because they just released a new game mode in Marvel rivals called Blood Hunt. Whoa. Where you're you're fighting Dracula and vampires. And here's how I bring father Andrew to the picture. Raditasker, the squirrel who lives in Iqdrasil, the world tray. What? What? No. No. Yes. That's a deep cut. Wow. And the reason it's a synchronicity is that we had already played to do this episode. And this is an episode about martyrdom. But most of what we're going to be talking about this evening is blood. Indeed. And not raining from elacerated sky. Mostly human and animal. Blood. So this is going to be one of those episodes. Number one, where we're starting at the beginning of the book of Genesis. I know everyone listening is shocked. That we're going back and starting in Genesis. But also we've got some ideas to develop. We're going to we're going to grow some roses this evening in the Higalians. We begin, as I just said, in the book of Genesis, specifically in Genesis 4. Right. So see we're starting late in the Bible for us. That's true. That's after the first age. Yes. So in Genesis 4, a story that presumably we're at least relatively familiar with. The story of Cain and Abel. And Cain of course kills his brother. Abel. We're not going to go deep. I think we've, I mean, we've, I don't think I know we've talked about Cain before. So tonight we're not going deep on the wise. But I will say in terms of summarizing what first John has to say about. about why King killed Abel to quote Roman Reigns after WrestleMania this past weekend. Everybody wants you to do good, but not better than them. And so moving on from the Y, to what happened and the aftermath, of course, before King Kill's Abel, God had approached King knowing what he was thinking, knowing about the darkness and the resentment and the hatred that was in his heart toward his brother, warning him not to give into it, that sin was trying to master him and he must master it. And of course, we know that King committed murder anyway. And so then God returns to him and says to King, what have you done? This is Genesis 4, chapter 10. It just is chapter 4, verse 10 and 11. Yeah. What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground and now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. And before you do your ex-Jesus on that, Father, I just want to point out for everybody who's actually watching this on YouTube or has seen the thumbnail that went along with this. You see an icon there and you see Christ and then he's coming to King who is the larger figure on the right. And then in between them is this little bit of guy who's naked. And that is able's blood. It's able's blood crying out from the ground to God. So pretty cool. It's kind of a weird icon. But it does exist in several forms in Orthodox tradition and so that's what it is. That's the blood of Abel, that little bit of naked guy. Often he's depicted as quite red in color which kind of clues you in that it's blood. But sometimes it's not quite as ready as it were. There we go, yes. Yeah, so note the language here. The language here is important because this isn't just, it's very easy to take this as just sort of poetic language. Yeah. And especially since in the dialogue between God and K, he asked, where is your brother? And King finally said, famously said, "Am I his keeper?" And so you could read this as just this poetic kind of imagery of God knows exactly where he is because of the shedding of blood. But this language of Abel's blood crying out to God from the ground is going to become a thread that we've through the entirety of the scriptures. So this isn't just like a piece of imagery. This isn't just like a piece of poetry. Right, there is a very real idea that is being expressed here, that innocent blood that has been shed cries out to God, right? Presents itself before God, comes to God's attention, asking Him for justice, for justice to be restored. And part of that justice here is the consequence that King faces because it was the ground that had to receive his brother's blood, his innocent blood, the ground now, the earth itself, right, the soil now stands opposed to him. King has now completely not just broken the harmony of the order of creation, that is justice. He has broken it so badly that he has effectively broken himself out of it. He has exiled himself from it. He has sort of detached himself from the rest of creation. And therefore, what God is saying here is that he literally cannot grow crops because the creation itself, the soil, the rain, the right of these things of creation will not cooperate with him to provide him with food. - Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I think unless you connect this thing that God says to King here about Abel's blood crying out to him from the ground, that it seems like, I don't know, it could be seen as a kind of non-sequitur of like, hey, King, you're gonna be completely unsuccessful in agriculture. Well, that's a weird punishment. - Yeah, you're gonna have a black thumb. - Right, right, I mean, yeah. And so, and we've also talked before I show about the comparison with Adam, King's father has told Kerset is the ground because of you. Right, which is what caused his difficulties, the thorns, the thistles, his difficulty in bringing food out of the soil. Whereas, King has cursed, like separated from it. Right, which is much stricter. Now, in order to sort of understand a little more of what's going on here, we have to go forward a little bit in Genesis to immediately after the flood. So in Genesis chapter nine, issues four through, or issues versus four through six, this is after Noah, his sons, Noah's wife, their wives, animals, at all, the ark has come to rest. There is this new recreation that they are entering into to replenish it and God gives this important direction about blood. - Okay, so this is chapter nine versus four through six. But you shall not eat flesh with its life. That is, it's blood. And for your life blood, I will require a reckoning. From every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man, I will require a reckoning from for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, my man shall his blood be shed for God made man in his own image. - So notice in verse four, right? You shall not eat flesh with its life. That is, it's blood. So blood here is connected with life. If you're a long time listener of this program. - Yeah, as I say, which suggests that means there's something to do with the soul. - Right, that the soul is the life of a living being. So in terms of how scripture here is seeing the relationship between the immaterial soul, life, we talk about life as a noun. So you have a living person, a living animal, a living plant. It dies materially. The thing that is sitting in front of you is identical. There is not this sort of immediate material transformation. There is not a material thing that leaves contra various attempts in the 19th century to weigh dying people to figure out how much is soul ways. Materially, it's all the same cells. They've just all stopped functioning. All right, the life has just gone out of this being. And so this is what we say, we say the soul, the life is immaterial in and of itself. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have something to which it corresponds in the material world. And different cultures have seen these things in different ways. They've seen we tend to modern folks tend to posit sort of the the locus of our self, of our consciousness in our brain. Right, because we're looking out at the world through our eyes. And so we feel, okay, I, the I, the ego, in Kajato, here goes zoom. The ego, the I is like behind my eyeballs in my brain somewhere, right? Looking out at the world through my eyes like their windows. That's where we think the center is. Other cultures, it's the heart, which is closer for what we're getting here in the Hebrew scriptures. But the Hebrew scriptures connect this specifically to the soul, the life of the being is connected to the blood. Now that connects it to the heart because people understood that a heartbeat indicated that someone was alive, right? And they had seen people be injured, not to get too graphic, but they have seen that blood pumps the rhythm of a heartbeat because they'd see people bleed to death. And so they had seen some, and they had seen animals of people, right? The blood pours out on the ground and they are no longer alive. So that's the connections it was, as the blood is alive, it's actually talking about an idea more like the soul. Hmm. And so, this is part of why humans have never been allowed by God, ever, the history of the world, to eat or drink animal blood. Yeah. Because that is doing that is not just, you know, using the animal for food, it's consuming its life, consuming its soul, consuming its very being. And there are shades of that understanding still with us today. Just get anybody who lives or grew up on a farm, they will tell you you're not allowed to name animals, right? Because if you name animals, you will not want to eat them. I thought the key was you just named them after famous heretics or something like that. Well, and people are not inclined to eat their pets. Right. Right. Right. Once you understand that a particular animal has a particular identity, that makes it very hard for us to eat. And that is based on the same kind of understanding. The, you know, unnamed chickens who die by the thousands every day in factory farms of the U.S., have no names, have no identity, we don't have an issue. If you had named it fluffy and raised it from a chick and got out and fed it every day and eating the eggs and stuff, then, you know, at least at younger people, you know, like your kids will get mad if you feed them fluffy. So this idea is still kind of present with us in this, in this cultural way that, that God gives permission for human-steed animals in Genesis 9 after the flood, but puts this stopgap on humans becoming sort of truly predatory. But notice also that God says he's going to require for every human life, for the blood of every human, he is going to require a reckoning. There will be a reckoning. Now just you'll require an answer, but a reckoning. And not only from fellow humans, but even from animals. And this is a thing that you find, a sort of argumentum at bestium in the Old Testament a lot. If you want to kind of take something to an extreme, you say, and even the animals effectively. So, if you want to think about another example of this, a well-known example, the very end of the book of Jonah, when God is chiding Jonah for not having any compassion on the people of Nineveh. Right. He says, you know, there are so many thousand people there who don't know they're right from their left and many cattle. Think of the cows, Jonah. Even if you have no compassion on the humans, what did the cows do? So that's that kind of taking the argument to extremists. And so the point God's making here is a lion or a bear eats somebody. God is going to have a reckoning with that lion or that bear. And that's kind of absurd, but that's the point. Right. It is the extreme value of human life and therefore human blood. And the nature of this innocent blood being should calling out to God and requiring a reckoning. And the word reckoning here, the idea is there has to be some kind of resolution. So, this is sort of the exemplary, greatest possible injustice. And it requires a correction. It requires that justice be restored. That's what it's calling out for. And God is saying he is going to require that reckoning, which implies, by the way, that he's not a slave to it. Justice doesn't make demands of God. Yeah. Right. And we already saw that really a Genesis 4 because Abel's blood was not crying out to God from the ground asking that Cain have a mark, be put on him to be kept safe and get to go found a city and continue to be evil and wicked for the rest of his life. That wasn't what Abel's blood was calling out for. God is not a slave to justice or to anything else, but God is here saying he will require this reckoning. And then in verse 6, we get the reason for that because God made man in his own image. And so as we've talked about before, this is a theme throughout scripture. The honor or dishonor given to an image passes to its prototype. So whatever you do to a human, you are effectively doing to God because man is his image, his icon on earth. And so that dishonor, then in murder, you are effectively by murdering your fellow human attempting to murder God, which of course you can't do. Kind of. Right. Right. But we'll come back to that. But so that's the idea here. And so we get a couple more pieces here. This idea of a reckoning, this idea of, and this is related to the iconography that that Father Andrew mentioned, that's not just Abel's blood. It's his soul effectively calling out for for justice. That's why it's a little naked person. Right. Souls are frequently little naked people. Yeah. Yeah. And iconography. So clip that out, just that one line, just clip that out, send it to Bad Joe, he'll do a whole episode. So this idea, right, of not eating blood, as we mentioned, runs through all the scriptures, it gets developed some more in Leviticus, specifically Leviticus 17 at the very beginning of what's called the holiness code. Yeah. So Leviticus 17, starting with verse 10, "If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I have given it for you on the altar to make a tonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes a tonement by the life. Therefore, I have said to the people of Israel, no person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood. Anyone also of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them who takes in hunting any beast or bird that maybe eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. For the life of every creature is its blood, its blood is its life. Therefore, I have said to the people of Israel, you shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off." And so, as we've talked about before, in terms of Acts 15, right, notice, right at the beginning there in verse 10, "If anyone in the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them, this applies not just to the Israelites, but also to foreigners, to everyone, not eating blood." And that's why it is repeated as being one of the things required of the Gentiles from the Torah in Acts 15. So we see a lot of the things we already saw in terms of the life of a creature is its blood, et cetera. But here in verse 11, the added piece here is, "We're told that the blood of an animal that is killed and sacrificed has a purpose." Right? It's not just, "Oh, you're not allowed to eat it," so dispose of it. But it has a purpose. The purpose of that sacrificial blood is to make a tonement for their souls, for their lives. So a tonement for their life is made by the life of this sacrificial animal that's being eaten. And so if you eat the blood, then that blood is not being used for its intended purpose. In addition to the other problems we already discussed. And we'll talk more about that purpose in our second half. Yes, yes. But so the next place where we get some important information about this idea of bloodshed, where we pick up sort of how the principles talked about in Genesis. nine, well really four and nine, sort of carry forward is in Genesis 37 and then coming back to it in Genesis chapter 42. And this is in the story of Joseph when his brothers really kind of want to kill him. And so they're kind of debating what to do with him. Yeah. So the first born, Rubin has some opinions about this. So Genesis 37 starting with verse 22, Rubin said to them, "Shed no blood, throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him, that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father." So in Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore, and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty, there was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat. And looking up, they saw caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels bearing gum, bomb, and mure on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, "What prophet is if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?" And then Genesis 42, 22, "And Rubin answered them, 'Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy, but you did not listen?' So now there comes a reckoning for his blood." Right. So some of them at least understood this message. Rubin understands that there's this line you don't cross in terms of shedding innocent blood, throwing someone down a well. It's not exactly taking care of them. Right. I mean, to me the weird part is they throw them down the well, and then they sit there and have lunch. Yeah. How do I know? It's discuss what to do next. Right. That shows you the sort of callousness. So there's not an overwhelming care and concern for Joseph here, but there's this line. The Rubin doesn't want to cross. Right. It's a big taboo because if they shed his blood, even if they conceal it, he knows something's going to happen. Why? Because that blood will call out to God. God will know. Even if they can seal it from from all their fellow humans. And that's why. So in Genesis 42, that last bit, the father Andrew read, this is after they're in Egypt and Rubin is saying, "See, I told you so, there's going to be a reckoning now." I understand. Is that principle for Genesis 9? Because at this point, he thinks Joseph is dead. They didn't kill him directly, but their actions resulted in his death. That's what they think. Right. And so now, there's going to be a reckoning. God is going to bring about justice and they are in a bad spot. And so he tells all his brothers, "I told you so." Which always helps. Saying, "I told you so always helps with any situation." Now, of course, they will find out that Joseph is still alive, etc. But you see that they've internalized this idea that the shedding of human blood is aligned. You do not cross. These ideas come up again when we get into Exodus. The first place is the famous or infamous bridegroom of blood passage. Exodus 4 verses 25 and 26. So this is where Moses is supposed to have circumcised his sons, but fails to do that. And himself. Yeah, yeah. And fails to do that. So his wife then takes it into her own hands. So Exodus 4, 25 and 26, "Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses's feet with it and said, 'Surely, you are a bridegroom of blood to me.' So he let him alone. It was then that she said, 'A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.' Right. And so this is infamous for being weird, right? Yeah. Part of it, we've talked about this passage at least once before on the show, but part of it is the sort of Bodhlerized translation in that it's not Moses' feet she touched. I think there's at least one of the translation that talks about her touching his thigh. So the implication here is that she circumcised the boy and then all she's putting the knife to Moses. Yeah. To Moses. Yeah. To indicate that he needs to do it too. Right. Because she is aware that right before this it said that God was going to kill Moses and her son because of Moses disobedience with the circumcision. Okay. And that's the bridegroom of blood. The blood here has to do with no one's been murdered. Right. Obviously there's blood involved in the act of circumcision. But the blood here is more talking about, and we're going to trace this out, is more talking about the sort of guilt, the sort of liability to a reckoning. Because there is about to be a reckoning and that reckoning would have cost the lives of Moses and her son. And so this you've been a bridegroom of blood to me. You married me and you've brought death into my life. Right. It's what she's saying. But she intervenes to stop that by performing this somewhat bloody act. Yeah. Right. So there's some more threads there that we're going to keep. They're going to keep following. Of course, if we're thinking about blood and exodus, we're probably thinking about you probably immediately comes to mind the first plague on Egypt. Right. We're the Nile River and then all the water in Egypt gets turned to blood. And there's there's this whole interplay that's going on. So first of all, we have to remember this plague happens in Exodus 7, by the way. But all the way back in Exodus chapter 1, remember that Pharaoh had ordered the male children of the Israelites to be murdered. Yeah. Yeah. When the midwives wouldn't abort them, the word went out to any Egyptian who saw one to drown him in the Nile River. So a lot of innocent blood, innocent Israelite blood was shed in that river. So on one level, the river turning to blood is sort of the revelation of the act. The guilty is the horror of what they had done. But you also have this inversion where the Nile was the source of life in Egypt quite literally. The Nile River flooding and then receding is what brought silt down that allowed Egypt to grow crops. The Nile is where they got their water. So it's literally the source of their biological life. And it gets turned into blood, blood being the life of a creature. But the result is that everything in the Nile dies in Exodus chapter 7. And potentially if this isn't corrected, the Egyptians would have died with no drinkable water. And so again, we see those ideas here in symbolic form in the selection of that first plague. But then this connection between blood, blood that has been shed and guilt gets made explicit later on in the book of Exodus in the commandments of the Torah. Yeah. So in Exodus 22, it says, if a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there should be no blood guilt for him. Right. So this is just one example. So and this is one of several commands were determining what counts as murder. So there's a commandment that shall not murder. Not all manslaying is considered murder. Yeah. For example, Moses and the Israelites have to go to war fairly frequently. That's not considered murder. Even though they are killing, ending the lives of people, they're killing people. And this is another situation. This is someone breaks into someone's home after dark at night in the dark. There's a struggle. The thief ends up dead. Yeah. And I should have read the second, the next verse, by the way, which says, but if the sun has risen on him, There shall be blood guilt for him. In other words, if the householder sees that it's just some guy trying to take some of his stuff versus someone who's coming in maybe to do violence to the family. Who knows? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then, yes. And then, yes. You might not intend to kill someone, right? Right. But that's the result. Yeah. So this is another example where it is not considered murder, right? Whereas if it's a broad daylight and you can see the person and you have other recourse, you can call for help. You can, right? I tell it about it. There are other things you can do. And you just go kill the person. Then that's murder. But the language there of blood guilt, which in the Hebrew is just blood in the plural. Bloods. It's just domine. Right. But the idea is we now have this idea of guilt as being this thing that attaches itself to people. As we talked about in starting an early medieval Latin theology, you start getting this idea of guilt in that sense. And so this is a similar concept. But it's talked about in terms of blood. But we still, it's sort of similar to our modern expression that a person has blood on their hands. Yeah. There's blood on your hands, right? That even though they may have washed very thoroughly, since they shed someone's blood, that blood still sort of clings to them. And as we've already seen from earlier in the Torah, from Genesis, that blood that still clings to them is calling out for a reckoning, is calling out for justice. So when it's trying to say that something isn't murder like this thief who ends up getting killed in the middle of the night in the dark, what it says is there is no blood on him, on the homeowner who potentially accidentally killed the thief. There is no need for some kind of reckoning. There is no need for a restoration of justice because he has not committed the act of murder. Interestingly, this gets extended beyond humans. So in Leviticus 17, this actually gets extended to animals that if someone in the camp, and this gets changed in Deuteronomy, and there are new rules in Deuteronomy for once they go and settle in the land, because this is less possible. But while they're in the wilderness, Leviticus 17, if anyone kills an animal to eat it and doesn't offer it as a sacrifice, Leviticus 17 says that the blood of that animal is on them. Huh. So what's the penalty for that? Are they going to die for that? Yes. So the idea is basically that they're the super valuable resource, you know, because animals are hard to care for if you're on the move, much harder to care for, that they're holding it back from God, essentially. Yes. Yes, for themselves, depriving God of his portion. Yeah. And the purpose, I mean, going back to Genesis 9 and permission to eat meat, it was not just, oh, I realized you guys have kind of low protein. So right after Noah gets told that he sacrifices some animals. Yeah. Right. So the purpose of that is to allow for sacrifice. And the blood is then used for atonement, as we saw. And so killing an animal, even in just an animal, killing an animal purely to satisfy your gluttony, your desires, right, is seen as sinful in Leviticus 17. In Leviticus 20, it lays out a bunch of offenses that call for the death penalty, other than murder. Right. Murder has already been pretty clearly laid out. A lot of it is various forms of sexual immorality in Leviticus 20. But the reason we bring it up here is the language that's used is that when someone has committed one of these offenses, when someone has committed these acts, the language that's used is their blood is upon them. Now, we read that as just their blood is upon them. And it's like, well, what does that mean? But their blood is upon them, meaning not on the person who, if they don't repent, carries out the execution. The person who carries out the execution, if that ends up being what's required, is not the one who has the blood on them that's calling out. For a reckoning, the blood is upon the person who is executed because they committed the offense. Therefore, the blood is on them. And we've got to follow this through because there's a next step here that most people don't understand, right? And he's in the Old Testament. And this is still around, like it's like a temple Judaism. And even some forms of later Judaism, their blood is on them. It doesn't require a reckoning. Meaning it was understood that them suffering the death penalty meant that that sin was now sort of taken care of. Their death was the reckoning. Right. And this is one of the reasons why I've pointed out at various times in various places, that there is nothing about being condemned to eternal hell in the Torah. There is in the Bible. Don't get me wrong. That's in the Bible. But not in the Torah in terms of the commandments of the Torah. In fact, kind of the opposite. If a person dies for their sins, then their death is seen as expiating their sins, clean slate. There's not like some further eternal punishment that's necessary for having violated the commandments of the Torah beyond death. Not alone someone feels something and they have to pay back five times. Oh, but also they're going to go to hell for it. That is nowhere in the Torah. Right. So the Torah is not dealing with that. But this language of the blood is upon them. Meaning no further reckoning required. This is the reckoning. This is the restoration of justice. And probably the most famous place where this language of the plural of blood, the dummy being used for this idea of blood, guiltiness is in Psalm 51 or 50 in the Greek numbering where David uses it to describe his situation after having murdered Eriah the Hittite. And there's not, and David wouldn't want you to try to find a way to exonerate him. Right. Because David, we see in the text, "Except full responsibility for what he did." That's part of his repentance. Right. But the whole story of him in Bashi, but is he gets a woman pregnant while her husband is away at war, tries to cover it up three different ways. And when they don't work, has the husband killed? That's what happens. And David understands, he's asking God to deliver him from bloods, right, from blood, guilt, from this blood, that that blood is on him and that Eriah like Abel is calling out for justice, for a reckoning. And David is trying to work out that reckoning through repentance in his own life before God. That's the core of what's going on in the salt. So we also, now in terms of this reckoning, so we talked about, "All the back of Genesis 9, he who spills man's blood, his blood shall be spilled by man." And we've talked about, there are the sources of the death penalty. So who is it who carries this out? It is the person who's referred to in the Torah as the Avenger of Blood, which I mean, I feel like that's a superhero kind of title, super villain of Captain America. That's right. Avenger of Blood and Captain America. So this is talked about, the place where it's talked about the most detail where you kind of understand it is, well, the first place at least, because it gets talked about again in Deuteronomy. But number 35, where it's talking about the cities of refuge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That they're going to have cities of refuge because the Avenger of Blood, the real quick easy version is this is the nearest male relic of the person who got killed. - Yeah. - They're the one who comes and has the reckoning. But God knows how people are. And so he knows that there are times when we saw an example with the burglar at night, but there are other examples. Moses actually gives an example, the enduterotomy, what are you talking about, the cities of refuge. Moses talks about, he says, "Say if a man goes out "to the forest to cut wood," and he swings his axe, and the axe head detaches from the handle and kills the passerby. Which is just amazing to me, 'cause it shows you the rhetorical quality of deuteronomy that like, Moses is just like, "Here's an example, let's say you're outcut wood." But so that's a situation. So what has died? Their death is the result of the actions of another person, but that's not murder. But the person who died's nearest male relative might not be thinking about the finer points, right? - You killed my brother. - Right. You killed my brother prepared to die. And so for this reason, the cities of refuge are created, so that someone who is a manslayer, these are great passages, both the numbers of deuteronomy, because you have the manslayer and the Avenger of Blood. So the manslayer, the person who has committed manslaughter rather than murder, can flee to one of these cities. And these cities are sort of a safe zone, a sanctuary zone, where he can get his fair hearing before the Avenger of Blood before this male relative gets to kill him. And there's all kinds of details in deuteronomy, and then they get reinterrated in Joshua too, about how they have to be sort of evenly spaced, 'cause if the guy has to travel too long at distance, the Avenger of Blood might catch up to him and kill him before he gets a chance to have his hearing and all of this, right? But so the purpose is to have this hearing. And if you're just a murderer and you run there, you get your hearing and, oh, it turns out you're a murderer, so you get sent back and the reckoning happens. But if you're not a murderer, there are other circumstances that you get your hearing and your life is preserved. So this may cause you to wonder, well, what if somebody doesn't have a male relative who's able to go and take vengeance? Maybe the male relative is elderly, or maybe the guy who did the killing is just particularly tough, right? Like it's not gonna be easy to, well, God repeatedly describes himself in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament as the Avenger of the Orphan and the Widow and the Stranger. - Yeah, those are people who have no one to take up their cause. - Right. And so if you're gonna go kill somebody, then actually Israel, you better hope they have a living male relative. 'Cause otherwise the reckoning isn't gonna be with a fellow human, the reckoning's gonna be with God. - Which is worse, it should be underlined. That that is worse. - Yes, yes. God is saying that as a threat, that literally as a threat to those who would do evil, one example of this is in Psalm 9 verse 12. - Yeah, where it says, "For he who advenges blood is mindful of them, "he does not forget the cry of the afflicted, "so he who avenges blood is God." - Yes. - And he does not forget the cry of the afflicted. It may seem like it because he's merciful. God is merciful. He does not desire the death of a wicked man but that he turned, he repent and he live. But that doesn't mean he's forgetful. And it doesn't mean there won't ever be a reckoning if there isn't repentance. And we see this idea for those of you who are crypto-Marsianites out there, look at you, D.B.H. He's not even crypto anymore, what am I saying? This isn't just something about that mean old Testament God 'cause this goes all the way to Revelation 6 verse 10. - Yeah, where it says, "They cried out with a loud voice, "O sovereign Lord, holy and true, "how long before you will judge and avenge our blood "on those who dwell on the earth." Yes. - So there are a lot of other examples we could give. I was going to give one very long and detailed example. But I don't think I will. (laughing) So there are a lot of examples through what we call the historical books or the Deuteronomistic history or the former prophets or whatever you call it in the Old Testament, the narrative portions of the Old Testament where we see these things play out following the Torah. Think especially about David and Saul and the whole back and forth. Saul wants to kill David, which he is repeatedly warned by more sensible people around him, would be shedding innocent blood. He has no cause to kill David. But then think also about David's refusal to respond in kind even when he gets, he has this person chasing him across the countryside trying to murder him. - Yeah. - And even as a chance to kill him. - Yes, too. - Yeah. - Two perfect chances to kill the guy who's trying to kill him and refuses because he's the king of Israel. He's God's anointed, he's the king. It's not David's place to kill him. And then remember, when Saul finally does die at his own hand, a very foolish amulacate decides that he will go to David and try curry favor by taking credit for it. He's like that he killed Saul. And so he tells David, that David believes him and immediately has him put to death. - Yeah. - Right, for having killed Saul and kind of for being an amulacate. But you know, I was gonna say, yeah. (laughing) But so this idea that we see here specifically with the literal shedding of it is a blood with Grimes of Murder, right? This comes though and the connection of that of the cry for justice from the souls, the life, the blood of the afflicted. This comes to be representative of sin and injustice in Israel among God's people in the world as a whole. So this isn't just an isolated thing about murder anymore by the time we get to the end of the Old Testament tradition. And you see this for example in Proverbs 1 versus 11 through 18. - Yeah. Let's see here. If they say, come with us, let us lie and wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without reason. Like she or let us swallow them alive and whole, like those who go down to the pit, we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder, throw in your lot among us, we will all have one purse. My son, do not walk in the way with them. Hold back your foot from their paths, for their feet run to evil and they may cace to shed blood. For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie and wait for their own blood. They set an ambush for their own lives. Now, so first of all, this isn't just, hey son, don't join a murder gang. - Right. - Although, you know, don't. - I mean, don't, yes, don't join a murder gang. But this is, be used to refer to, you know, in general, bad company corrupts good character, right? This is the sort of people who are about evil and sin. Whether they're literally going around murdering people or just rob, it's like, oh, you're just robbing people. Okay, well, you can join that gang son as long as that, you know, right? Right, so this is it being used sort of archetyply, like we said, but notice, notice the imagery and at the end there in verses 17 and 18, then in fact, they lie and wait for their own blood. Why? Because the innocent blood they shed is going to call out to God for this reckoning. Their victims are going to call out to God against them for this reckoning and it's ultimately going to be their lives that that is going to cost. Yeah. Right. And you see this again, this is a very pithy one and I say a one verse 15, just describing the sinfulness of Israel as a whole. Yeah, it says, "When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you, even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood." Yes. And so this there was an ex-Israel prayer posture as there is in the Orthodox Church where people held out their hands, cupped to their hands. And so the imagery here is that those cupped hands are full of blood. That's calling out to God for justice. And so that cry from the blood is so loud that he can't hear their prayers. That's the idea. Yeah. Over the cries of the people they've harmed, over the cries of the people they've abused and victimized. So that's hearing out. All right. We're going to go ahead. Yes, we've finished the first half of this episode and we're going to go ahead and take a little break and we'll be right back. Father Andrew Stephen Daymak and Father Stephen DeYoung will be back in a moment to take your calls on the next part of the Lord of Spirits. Give them a call at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF Radio. Ancient Near Eastern texts such as the Bale Cycle portray the pagan god Bale as a rebel. The hero of a revolution worshipped and glorified for his long string of victories. In the Bale Book, a biography of the devil, Father Stephen DeYoung shows that the Hebrew scriptures consciously turn the Bale story on its head. Depicting him as a failed and defeated rebel who nonetheless tries to steal the glory that belongs to Almighty God. From these scriptures, the figure of the devil emerged within Jewish and Christian tradition. Father Stephen works through the old and new testament passages that refer to various Bale stories and he surveys Bale worship through followers beliefs, religious practices, and liturgical life to show that the figures of Bale and the devil, the Prince of Demons, are one in the same. You can find the Bale Book at store.agentfaith.com. That's store.agentfaith.com. We're back now with the Lord of Spirits, the Father Andrew Stephen DeYoung and Father Stephen DeYoung. If you have a question, call now at 855-237-2346. That's 855-AF radio. Hey, welcome back everybody. It's the second half of this episode of the Lord of Spirits podcast, which we're talking about, martyrdom. Although probably up to this point, we're just talking about blood. There's that one squeal sound in the background of that commercial. It kind of sounds like they took the video commercial for the Bale Book and then did a dance remix in the background. Yes, when will we finally get the AI disco video dedicated to this podcast? I mean, I still think that the prime directive is to dance is still one of the better the better versions of this that's out there. We need one about the Lord of Spirits podcast. I don't know. Rick D's creator of disco duck is dead. So, we actually have some calls coming in, believe it or not. What? I know. I know. It's kind of a shock actually. So don't say. Our first one is John from Missouri. John, welcome to Lord of Spirits podcast. Hey, longtime listener. First time being a second time caller. How y'all doing? Okay, I'm trying to work out the math there. Okay, okay, I've got it. So what's on your mind? Christ is risen. Welcome to the podcast. The DDS is there. Okay, so what's on my mind is circumcision, a lot of blood. I mean, I'm assuming I haven't attended one of those. But, you know, with certain baptism, it is the circumcision. They're type and anti type. So where would the blood be on like the cross? For us? How do we kind of understand that? What do you think, Father? Is the blood of circumcision? Is that carried over into the imagery for baptism as well? Sort of. So if you read in, see if I give a chapter, I'm going to have people with the Orthodox study Bible being like, but, Jeremiah 31 in most Bibles. And it is ecul if you read the passage, just talking about the new covenant, it God talks about sprinkling them with clean water. Right. And this is not an apology for a piscopalian sprinkly baptisms. This is, this is, remember at the beginning of the covenant, well, we're about to talk about this again too. But at the beginning of the covenant at Sinai, sacrificial blood was taken and sprinkled on the people to inaugurate that covenant. Yeah, which we're going to talk about that here in the second half. And, but, and so when it talks about the new covenant and then being sprinkled with pure water, right, that's a deliberate sort of juxtaposition there. Right. And so, I think that's related to the circumcision baptism type, anti type, and that there is blood involved in the type. There is water for purification in the anti type. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, if that clears that up, thanks very much for calling. I do got one more. Okay. The later more that one was quick. So two for yeah, that's true. That's true. Two for one deal. It's okay. All right. So, and you know, when the in the if all the Jews right now, they do the conversion and Jerusalem becomes Jewish again and Christian again. Would they continue to do circumcision? Like I understand the dietary laws. That's going to be done with fasting. That makes sense. Would they continue to do that? Or would it be through baptism that there are circumcised? That would be up to the bishops in question. That's right. That's right. So I know people get all hinky about this. And here's why I don't understand people getting all hinky about this. Okay. Greeks don't have to stop being Greek in order to be Christian. Right. Yeah. When you when you're an American and you join the Orthodox Church, we don't tell you, oh, you have to stop being an American. You have to give up your American culture. I don't know. There are people who who see people who think they should do that. Yeah. I read it. I read it. Yeah. 19th century Russian peasants. But the church doesn't tell them to do that. They just do that. Yeah. Right. So I don't understand why if there was a mass conversion of Jewish people, we would tell them you have to stop being Jewish. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Again, it's the exact shape. Yeah. The exact shape that would take. Right. Because just like with Greeks, right. We said, hey, you got to get rid of the, you know, demon worship and petrasty and stuff. Right. Like that's but you don't have to completely get rid of your Greek identity. Greek identity was reshaped. And so in the same way, right. If there was a mass conversion of Jewish people to Orthodox Christianity, their Jewish identity would be reshaped. Right. But it wouldn't go away. We wouldn't say, oh, you're not ethnically Jewish anymore. You have to all become Greeks. Right. Like or Arabs or some other group. Right. They would still be Jewish. But that Jewish identity would be reshaped in various ways. And all I've posited is that I think a lot of the basis for that would be Jewish Christianity in the first century. Yeah. And so that might include circumcision because St. Paul had St. Timothy circumcised or it might not. But that's above my pay grade. It would be up to the bishops receiving this mass conversion to sort of make those decisions. And go. Yep. All right. Well, thank you very much for calling. And okay, we've got a couple more. This one's not as far as I could tell, super on topic. But because this person is calling literally from the city in which I was born, I'm going to let it through just because I think that's great. So we've got Thomas from Newport News, Virginia. Thomas, welcome to our Spheres podcast. Good evening, fathers. Thank you for taking my thank you for taking my call. Indeed he is. Do you have any news for us? No, but Father Andrew can explain to you the origins of the name. No one knows. No one really knows what the origin of Newport News is. I love that about it. Like there's all these theories, but no one's absolutely certain. Well, I was wrong. He can't get. But fathers, I did have a question for it. It's a little off topic. But maybe it can be connected. So it's always bugged me that there are as far as I'm aware, no places in the Old Testament where when we're given a direction in the law about sacrifice or about ritual washing or whatnot, there are no attached prayers. Or as my wife says, we have all the rubrics, but none of the prayers. >> Just to read, not black. >> What are you -- right, we have all the red, but not the black. So what's the deal with that? And maybe connecting it to the discussion tonight is in terms of sacrifice in the Old Testament and in the new, it seems like having some prayers, you know, lay your hand on the animal and say this or put the scapegoat out of the city saying this would sort of maybe clear things up, but then again, maybe people would just debate that. So your thought, I've heard some explanations for this. None of them I have found satisfying. So I would -- I'd love to hear your thoughts. >> Yeah, I mean, the one thing I'll say, because obviously Father Steven knows way more about this idea. But the one thing I'll say is actually just to make reference to something you've said Father before, which is that the Bible is written for us, but not to us. So like we might think, okay, well, if I were writing the Bible so as to clear up the debates of here the 21st century, I would have done this, but it wasn't written to clear up the debates the 21st century. You know, that's not what it was written for. Certainly we can make reference to it, but like we're not the original context, you know. So that's at least why I would -- one thing that I would suggest about why we can't have those expectations of the text. So what do you think, Father, why is it that we don't really have a full liturgical book there in Leviticus? Yeah, yeah. So verbatim prayers, right, meaning written out word for word, is a very late development in both Jewish and Christian circles. That sounds odd to us now. It may especially sound odd to us as Orthodox Christians because we have lots of written prayers, right, that may not bother Protestants at all really because they're into the whole spontaneity thing, which always turns into an uroboros because their spontaneous prayers tend to have the same phrases repeated over and over every time. But I don't want to go too far afield, but it's sort of like when people freestyle rap, you notice they keep coming anyway. So what you find is even if you look at like Saint Justin Martyr or St. Aaron A.S., when they talk about the administration of the Eucharist, right, like they have the words of institution from Christ, they have the setting forth of the bread and wine, they give you all these rubricle details and the bishop prays as he is able. Yeah. And you're like, what? But so what you have at the time of the New Testament, at the time of the New Testament is, well, let me back up a little first. So part of it is that we tend to think of prayer as part of public worship, which it is, right? But you have to remember the sacrifices of the tabernacle and the temple were not public worship. The priests were in there by themselves, right, performing these acts. And the acts had meaning in the performance of them, right? And so that was more the key. Certainly, I'm sure they were praying, right? And the Psalms are essentially written prayers that were sung rather than read monotonously, right? But that was in a second there. By the time you get to the New Testament period, what you have in Jewish circles, second temple Jewish, coming out of second temple Jewish circles is prayer structures where, and often there's like, a cross-dix and this kind of thing in Hebrew that are used to remember them, where it's not that you have the whole prayer written out, but you have a structure like, and this isn't an actual one, but, you know, Thanksgiving, praise, petitions, repentance, right? You know what I mean? Like subheadings, like topical headings, like a structure, like think if you did one of those word documents, not from scratch, right? Here's the structure for a prayer. And then the person doing the praying would pray as they were able within that structure. That's where what St. Justin Martyr and St. Arda's are coming from when they're talking about the bishops of the early church. They had a structure for celebrating the Eucharist, and then within that structure, they prayed as they were able. It is very likely, and somebody's going to get mad about this, so send your emails to FatherAndroidAnxiety.com. Thank you. It's very likely that the Lord's Prayer is actually a prayer structure, because if you look at some of the prayer structures from fair and say, "Circles at that time," like in the Mishnah, they're very close to the Lord's Prayer. I've noticed a lot of our liturgical prayers seem to have a shape that's similar to the Lord's Prayer in church. That's exactly it. Right. Remember, Christ gives the Lord's Prayer in response to the request, "Teach us how to pray." Yeah. Right. And no one has ever said that like, "Oh, the Lord's Prayer for Bait him is the only prayer that Christians pray." Right. No one has ever said that. No one has ever understood it that way. Right. But that it is, Christ is giving the model, He's giving the structure. Right. That doesn't mean it's incorrect for us to all pray the Lord's Prayer together repeatedly, because every time we pray the Lord's Prayer together, we're learning it, and thereby learning the structure for all of our prayers, right, by repeating it. Right. That's actually a prayer structure within which we pray. Now what happens, right, as you go forward in church history, and there's a parallel thing that actually happens in Jewish history, in synagogues, is that you go from having a structure and the person leading worship, then filling out that structure for themselves, sort of in the act of doing it. And obviously, you know, the bishop isn't sort of freestyling every time. An individual bishop was not freestyling every time he celebrated the Eucharist. Right. He had his set of prayers. He was saying basically the same things every time he celebrated the Eucharist. It just might be, it'll be the same structure, but different words than the bishop, you know, in a city a hundred miles away. Right. What happens is you get particularly eloquent bishops, and in the Jewish case rabbis. And so you find other sort of less skilled orators adopting those prayers as being sort of a good form. Like, so that's why we now do the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the Liturgy of St. Basil, the Great. That's their anaphora prayers. Yeah. Whereas St. Joseph Archer talks about the writing, the original, that each bishop had their own anaphora of prayers. Now we've sort of settled on, you know, I can't do better than St. John Chrysostom. So I'm just going to use his, right. And so that, that settling into these particular written prayers that are particularly well written and express things that we might otherwise struggle to express so clearly is this sort of the sort of later development. And so those kind of full-fledged adopted written prayers didn't exist at the time of the composition of the Torah. And I did the longest possible job of explaining. Okay. All right. There you go. All right. Well, I hope that at least you can't say it wasn't a thorough answer. You can't. You can't accuse me of that. Well, thanks for calling Thomas and please take care of my, my birthplace. I'll do my best. Thank you very much. The entire city has been interested to you. That's right. I mean, I mean, who better than a Lord of Spirits, Lucitor, to become the principality of Newport News, Virginia? And us and the folks that shout out St. Basil, the great Orthodox Church. So that's right. What a lovely community that is. All righty. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Okay. We've got a caller from the great white North. We have John calling from Ontario and Canada. So John, welcome, Lord of Spirits podcast. Christ has risen. No, we think of us, Christ. He indeed he has risen. So what are we doing? Good. What can we do for you? I have a question about the interpretation of Hebrews 4.12. It's a blood adjacent question, so forgive me. It's not directly blood, but it's kind of touching slightly on blood. Okay. A little bloody. So it's a little bloody. Yeah. So in Hebrews 4.12, it says, for the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double edged sword. And penetrates even to the division of soul and spirit of joins in Merrill and critical of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. So I have a couple questions about it. So in the Greek for the words of soul and spirit, it says, "Afi, Merees, Mu, St. Case, Pnef, Matos." So first of all, what is the distinction they're drawing between soul and spirit? I don't know if those are the right words to translate it, because I know C case is pretty broad, like it can be translated many ways. And then after you have harmon, take a miele on, it looks like they're putting those words in that position to harmon to C case. And miele on, and that's not that close. And both of those seem to have something to do with sacrifice. What's the distinction and what is the connection back to sacrifice? You got waiting on that one, Father Edwin? Sorry, I had my mute button clicked because I've been talking a lot. I was talking, and I was like, and then you're like, "Are you not going to weigh in, Father?" I'm like, "Yeah, wait a minute." See the mute button is clicked. This is the problem. It's this frontier podcasting equipment that I'm dealing with now. He was dancing with himself. That's right. There's some very sad songs like that. So, okay. So the connection between soul and spirit, I mean, soul, as we've mentioned, is the life of the body. Right. Spirit is a function of, it can be a function of soul, it can be a function of any kind of spiritual entity. Okay, which I know is a little redundant because I just said spiritual entity, but you get the idea, an immaterial entity. The soul is the spirit of the body in so far as it animates the body. But also, you know, spirits like angels or even demons or whatever, or patron saints can animate people or groups of people as well. And so that's the relationship between those terms. They're not exclusive of each other. Right. So what I would say, correct me if I'm wrong about this, Father Stephen, but what I would say, a division of soul and spirit is basically making it so that the soul is no longer functioning as a spirit, you know, that the soul is cut off from the body, you know, so that it's no longer acting in that way. Is that, am I tracking correctly on that? I think you're pushing the analogy too hard in a little bit of the wrong direction. Okay. All right. Help me out here. Because the, so we're talking about the word of God, which is here Christ. Yes. Yes. By the way, not the Bible. And he's the one who judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart, right? And so these things being separated and being split, this is being used as an analogy for how sharp, how keen. Right. Remember the sword, right, when we see one of the images of Christ in Revelation, he has a sword coming out of his mouth. And so this is talking about his judgment. Right. And remember what judgment is. Judgment is putting everything back into its proper place. Right. Restoring the correct created order. And so the idea of this keenness of being able to separate things, right? So the idea of separating your soul from your spirit, right? This is supposed to be an example of being able to divide between two things that have a nebulous at best border. Right. It's like saying, you know, that sort of so sharp, it could, you know, cut the blonde off of your hair, right? It could, right? It could, you know, split one of your whiskers. It could split an atom, right? It could, right? Because dividing, dividing is separating, is part of putting things in order, right? Separating the sheep from the goats is our image of judgment. And so this is able to make the finest of distinctions, right? And separations. Now, in terms of joints and marrow, there is, there is a little extra something there, but it's not in the Greek words. You've got to understand that the word, the word that's used for bone, and it's especially used for bone marrow in Hebrew is also the word that means essence in Hebrew. So sort of the marrow, the in the bones of a thing is where you find its essence. Right? And we have some idioms that are kind of that way, right? Like he feels it in his bones, right? Or, you know, he's whatever down to the bone, right? That sort of central part. And so the idea there with the, what's translated as joints and marrow, the idea is that he cuts right to the essence of a thing, right? To the core, to the essence of a thing in his judgment. Yeah. So I think that's more what it's going for. And I don't know that it's, I mean, I see where you're going with the sacrificial and the idea of the sort of butchering of the animal to divide it for the offering, right? So I see what you're doing there, but I don't think that's necessarily in view there in that part of Hebrews. That said, later on in this episode, we're going to talk about some other parts of Hebrews. Yeah. And obviously all of Hebrews is one thing, right? So there's not no relation, right? But I don't think that's what's specifically in view in that, in that passage necessarily. Yeah. All right. Well, I hope that helps, John. Thank you very much for calling. Thank you. All righty. Okay. We're going to go ahead and roll on with the second half of Lord of Spirits podcast. And we talked a lot about blood and life and blood guiltiness and all that kind of stuff in the first half. And now we're going to talk about using blood. So, yes. Yes. Yeah. So there is this other thread regarding blood. And we already saw a little bit of that thread when we saw in Leviticus, how God said that the blood of the sacrificial animal was given for atonement. And so that's the thread we're going to be pulling here in the second half as it were. And hopefully we won't destroy someone sweater as they walk away. Thank you very much for that. So one place where you see this is in the Passover, right? We're going to go back into the Torah and follow this other thread. And in the Passover, you of course have the blood of the lamb, the Passover lamb, right? And there are plenty of references to the blood of the lamb, right? In the New Testament, this is a phrase. I'm not going to belabor Passover again, but obviously the blood of the lamb, the lamb is cooked and eaten. Right. Right. The lamb is not ceremonially killed in some way. The lamb is not a substitute for a child because the reckoning that's happening in the death of the firstborn is a reckoning for the innocent blood of the Israelites of the Israelites children who were killed. Why would God want to kill more Israel like children? That doesn't make any sense. So it's being eaten. The blood is drained because we don't eat blood. But that blood is used for a particular purpose on Passover. And that's what we're holding in on. The blood is put on the doorpost of the home. And we're told in the text explicitly, sort of the main thrust of what this is about because when God is giving these instructions to Moses, He says tonight, I will make a distinction between Israel and Egypt. So this is this blood is being used to sort of draw the boundary marker who is an Israelite and who was an Egyptian because that boundary line was not based on ethnicity. As we've talked about before on this show a bunch, our modern concept of ethnicity. It was not based on who your daddy and granddaddy were or mom and grandma. It was based on your obedience to this commandment. to eating the Passover and market your doorpost with the blood. If you did that, you're now in Israelite. If you didn't do that, you're now in Egyptian. Nothing else mattered. This makes this distinction. It marks out who the people of God are. But functionally on that night, right? So it continues to serve that purpose going forward. To continue to be in Israelite, you had to eat the Passover every year. If you did not eat the Passover, you are no longer in Israelite. You are no longer one of God's people. Right? If you didn't eat the Passover for a year. But that specific night, the first one, the first Passover, when the 10th plague comes upon Egypt, right? There is this other element, which is that the destroyer who comes through Egypt to take the lives of the firstborn of the Egyptians, right? As the reckoning for the deaths of the sons of Israel in the Nile, at Pharaoh's command, right? When the destroyer, the avenger of that innocent Israelite blood, shall we say, sees the blood on the doorpost, it turns aside and does not enter that home. So that blood, the blood of the Passover lamb on that first Passover, wards off the avenger of blood. So this blood does the exact opposite of what the innocent blood did. The innocent blood, they were talking about the first half, calls out for this reckoning. This blood of the Paschal lamb wards off that reckoning. So what's going on there? Well, we're going to, we're going to keep following this thread. Because, and first we're going to look at sacrificial blood in general, right? So in Exodus chapter 24, we just referred to this to one of the collars. We have the covenant being made at Mount Sinai. So at the foot of Mount Sinai, Moses constructs an altar. He then they have the sacrificial animals. They're killed. The blood is drained. He takes the altar and splashes the blood on the side of this altar to consecrate that altar. And then in verse eight, yeah, he takes that blood and does something else. This is such a crazy moment that I think, I don't know for whatever reason, it just seems to be off people's radar. Okay. So verse eight of chapter 24 of Exodus and Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Right. And so this blood consecrates the altar, those sacrifice, meaning, consecrate, meaning makes it sacred, makes it holy, sanctifies it, right? Purifies it to be used as an altar to offer sacrifices to God. And then it's thrown on the people, which has the same purpose. And also connects the people to the altar. Yeah, because the other sacrifices are going to be offered. Brinkled on it. Yeah. Okay. And we see a similar thing then happen in Exodus chapter 29. Now this is with the altar that's going to be used in the tabernacle. And is related to the consecration of the priests, the blood is drained from sacrificial animals. That sacrificial blood is splattered on the side and at the base of the altar. And then some of that blood is taken in verses 20 and 21. Yeah. And it's also is described again in Leviticus by the way, chapter 8. Yeah. Okay. So it says, and you shall kill the ram and take part of its blood and put it on the tip of the right ear of Aaron and on the tips of the right ears of his sons. And on the thumbs of their right hands and on the great toes of their right feet and throw the rest of the blood against the sides of the altar. Then you shall take part of the blood that is on the altar and of the anointing oil and sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and his sons garments with him. He and his garments shall be holy and his sons and his sons garments with him. So it's an ordination. Right. It's part of the ordination that blood is put on the right ear thumb. And I like Alex translation great toe. The great toes. Behold the great toe. My right foot. Right. And then the leftovers also get thrown on the side of the altar. Right. So once again, consecrating, they're supposed to hear from God, right? Their hands that they're going to use to serve their feet that they're going to use to move about. Right. These are all sanctified and connected to the altar and the sacrifices that are going to take place there. And also their garments are made sacred and holy. Right. This seems completely backwards to us. Right. If we had blood splattered all over something, we would not say, Ah, now it is clean. I'd sacred it holy. We would say now it is ruined. Right. The stain will never come out. Right. So, but that's an example. Right. All right. Again, of this blood sacrificial blood is running exactly counter to how we generally think of blood and how we were talking about blood in the first half. Right. And we see that this happens. The blood is used in this way pretty much every time a sacrifice is offered. So you can look at Leviticus chapter one, chapter three, chapter four, chapter seven, where these different sacrifices are being described. And in every one of them, some of the blood is taken and used. It's put on the horns of the altar. Right. To purify, God's great, the altar, the rest is poured out at the at the base of the altar. That brings us to the day of atonement. To talk about the blood of the Paschalam. We've got the blood of so the one the one goat isn't killed. The goat for his a'sl sent out into the wilderness. It's blood is still in the goat. Right. But the goat for Yahweh, the goat that is sacrificed, that doesn't have sense put on it. That blood is drained and that blood is used for a particular purpose that blood is brought into the sanctuary and used to make atonement for the physical objects to make atonement for the altar. That's the language it's used to make atonement for the arc of the covenant. Right. Atonement for these things. And remember, as we've talked about the show before, when we've talked about atonement, the word that we're translating as atonement comes from a series of cipher verbs in Hebrew and other Seminic languages that mean to cover or to wipe or to smear. So this blood is covering these things. It is being wiped across these things to remove something. Right. The blood is purifying. It is purging and purifying these physical objects and spaces. The sacrificial blood. Okay. It is covering something up. Right. Now we talked about, may not be obvious how this is related immediately, but stick with us. We talked about how in, he was probably Old Testament, there's this thread right of the Avenger and that God in particular is the Avenger of those who do not have any human help to represent them, the orphan, the widow, the stranger, the poor, the fatherless, right, etc. Right. That various language. There's also another thread though about the Avenger and we have another Psalm verse about that. That's Psalm 8 verse 2, which says, "Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the Avenger." So God is also the one who silences, who stills, who brings peace to the Avenger. Reconciliation. So he's both the one who brings the reckoning and the one who brings forgiveness and reconciliation so there doesn't need to be a reckoning. Right. And both of these threads are running in parallel to each other. Right. We've seen the both in the Psalms. We've seen the both in the Torah. We've seen the both, right, through the scriptures. And so the idea we have here with a tonement in particular, blood being used to a tone. to cover, blood being used to cover, is that you have blood covering other blood. You have innocent blood as this image that cries out for justice, that cries out for a reckoning for judgment, for things to be restored to their proper order. And you have other blood that covers that blood, that silences those cries in that blood. Right. And this is where the language of ransom connected to blood in the Hebrew Bible comes from, that that blood that covers the other blood is sort of the ransom. It is the reckoning, it is the resolution that avoids the reckoning having to happen, that removes the liability by covering it, by silencing it. Right. But a couple of things that are important to remember here, is that blood here is referring to actual blood. Yeah, right. Right, the blood of victims or sacrificial blood. Right, blood here is not code for suffering or pain. Mm. In the sense that, right, we don't have people being tortured in order to correct things. Right. We don't have, oh, you inflicted suffering on this person, therefore we're going to now torture you some kind of commensurate amount. And that will fix things. That will atone. No. The sacrificial blood covers, right. And wipes away the other blood with its demands for a reckoning. Also remember, blood here is not a symbol of death. The exact opposite. Blood is a symbol of life. Either a life that was cut short unjustly, right? Or life that comes into cover to take care of, to remediate that death, that cutting short, that unjust cutting short of life. Right. So we can see this pattern here. Now you have blood that cries out for justice. You have other blood that covers it, that silences it, that removes the need for the reckoning, that purifies and pushes that away. Right. We can see the pattern, but it kind of causes to ask the question. There's a counterintuitive nature to it, right? In that we're saying the answer to blood is more blood. Yeah. The answer to bloodshed is the shedding of more blood. And that's counterintuitive, right? How does blood solve the problem of blood? And that's what we're going to talk about in our third half. All right. Well, we're going to go ahead and take our second break and we'll be right back. That's 855-AF Radio. Poised between east and west, between Orthodox and Catholic, Lithuania, the last of Europe's pagan nations, did not forget its ancient tales, such as that of the giant Hess Noringa, Eglay Queen of Serpents, and the Iron Wolf. Rather, they fulfilled and enriched them with legends like the Hill of Crosses and the miracle-working icon of our Lady of the Gate of the Dawn. In the Wolf and the Cross, Father Andrew Stephen Daymak and Deacon Sarifim Richard Rowland take a very personal pilgrimage into a land where history and legend have met and fused. Where Orthodox Christians have lived as a minority for nearly seven centuries, their faith founded upon the blood of martyrs and the witness of dozens of saints. To find this book and others like it, you can go to store.ancientfaith.com. Again, that is store.ancientfaith.com. We're back now with the Lord of Spirits, the Father Andrew Stephen Daymak and Father Stephen DeYoung. That's 855-AF Radio. It's the third half because this is a show and a half. And we're talking about blood. And what does blood have to do with blood? And how does blood fix the blood problem? Before we roll on to the third half though, we do have another caller. So we have someone calling from your ancient haunts, Father Stephen. We have Chris all the way from Riverside, California. Chris, welcome to the Lord of Spirits podcast. Hello, can you hear me? We hear you. Do you hear us? I do. I hear a voice. Great. Did you move there from Compton? I heard you were talking about the Lord of Spirits. I was listening to the question about circumstances and circumstances and baptism and the type anti-type on blood and water. And that got me the thinking of which I might be talked about later in this part in this part. When Christ was pierced with a spear and both blood and water come out of the site. And I come from a Catholic background but has five years of orthodoxy under my belt now. But I've always seen that passage as, oh, it is a symbolism of Christ. And it is a symbolism of Christ. And scholars are now coming around to appreciate this. His, his, his deeply Jewish and does very Jewish things. And one of those things, even though he's doing it in Greek, is he does something that's very common in the Hebrew Bible, which is deliberately using words with multiple meanings to imply those multiple meanings. He's not trying to make it ambiguous, which one he means. He means all of them. Right. Probably the most famous one of those is when Christ is talking to to St. Nicodemus and says, well, it's interesting. What does he say? He says, you must be born anothen, which can mean again or from above. Right. And St. John means both. Right. You have to be born again and you have to be born from above. This time. Right. Water and blood. You can get to, and I'm sure some of the fathers do, get to divinity and humanity from that. Because that language of being born of water and flesh and blood, that language is used not just in the early parts of St. John's Gospel, but in first John to talk about the New birth and to talk about Christ being not only from right, like he doesn't come from blood from the will of man, right, but from heaven. In first John, you have the Spirit in the water and the blood that testify, right? So that's there. I think the primary element though, and we touched on this just briefly in the last episode actually, but within St. John's account of Christ's death, he pulls all of this stuff from Genesis. We mentioned last time that throughout St. John's gospel, he frequently refers to the Theotokos as woman and then at the cross says to her woman and then says to St. John, "Behold your mother." So sort of changes her name from woman to mother, which is what happens to Eve in Genesis. But also, and I don't think we mentioned this in particular last time, there's this other thread of one of the countless times that the Pharisees come and bother Christ and His disciples about the Sabbath. Christ says an interesting response in St. John's gospel where they come and the disciples are picking heads of grain as they walk through a field and they're like, "Oh, that's work. That's harvesting. How dare you, of this habit." Right. But Christ's response says that He is working and His Father is working even to that very day, which implies in terms of Genesis that the Sabbath proper hasn't come yet. And then in St. John's gospel and only in St. John's gospel, Christ's last word is the word in Greek that is translated, "It is finished," which is the exact same Greek word that's used in the Greek of Genesis at the beginning of chapter 2 when it says that on the seventh day, God completed finished all of His work and then rested on the Sabbath. And in St. John's account of Christ's death, Christ says to tell us, "Sy," right? And His finished is completed and then what He rests in the tomb on the Sabbath day. So that is the place where the work of creation is completed is on the cross in St. John's gospel. So there's a ton of this. And so because of that, because of that framing that we have all of this Genesis language, the way I primarily understand, and again, not exclusively, just primarily, understand the blood and water is that Christ at that point has died, right? And now His side is opened. Think back to Genesis 2, Adam is put into this sleep like death and then His split, right? The side is opened and His bride, right? The woman comes from Him. And so I take this to be the Genesis pardoned upon of the church and that the church, that the water and the blood here represent baptism in the Eucharist and those constitute the church, which is the bride of Christ. What do you think? Does that help answer your question? It does, in fact, it provides a lot more layers to that moment. Nothing to do with purification, both in a blood and water sort of way of purifying creation in the-- Well, in baptism in the Eucharist, yes. Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. There you go. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much for calling, Chris. Okay. We're going to take a couple more-- Yeah, yeah. We're going to take a couple more callers. We have Rachel calling from another Californian from Walnut Creek, California. Rachel, welcome to Luris' Puyer's podcast. Hey, Father Christos and S.D., good to be here from now. Ali Thos and S.D. So what's on your mind, Rachel? That's my-- That's good. Yeah. So let's see. So, gosh, well, sorry if you've answered this before, I'm slowly working my way through the library of your-- That's a lot of episodes. And they're really long. For sure, for sure. But so, basically, it's like--and it's kind of--I mean, it's appropriate for tonight, but I think also last episode, too. So what's the purpose of Christ's suffering? So I understand that he bowed his head and gives up his spirit. He dies voluntarily. So I don't know. I'm probably just being too logical about it. But if he could die, why did he have to go through all that? Like, Gnium just bowed his head and not been crucified, you know? Yeah. Gnium just said, hey, I'm going to enter Hades. See you later. Yeah. Yeah. So there's got to be a purpose to the suffering, right? I don't know if you're-- Yeah. Yeah. One thing that occurs to me--and I say this usually not within the context of answering this question that you've asked. But often the question that I answer this with is the question about, why does God permit human suffering, especially though people will ask about terrible things happening to people, to innocent people. And ultimately, God's answer to human suffering is not to say, okay, I'm going to stop that or you're on your own. But rather, it's that he enters into human suffering, that his response to human suffering is to suffer himself, right? And in so far as he does--in that he does that, and in so far as we join our suffering to his, then the salvific nature of his suffering then comes to us because we participate in what it is that he did, right? And so my understanding of it--I don't think this is the only way of understanding this--but my understanding of it is that Christ's suffering is a participation in our human suffering in order that we can be saved because we suffer, right? And that our suffering becomes for us purifying and deifying in Christ because he suffered. He didn't just simply give a precept about death or just snap his fingers or just say a word, it actually went through it himself in the worst possible way. So that's my understanding of it. Father, what is the answer to the question of why did Christ suffer? Why didn't it just simply die? Yeah, Father Andrews actually on the right track this time. Hey, it's always nice. Listen to a compliment you'll ever get from me. Thank you. I will take that. I will make a cross stitch of it and put it under my wall. So at the back of the list, so part of the problem with "atonement theories," right? Then are the late product of Latin theology, is that one thing that almost all of them have in common. Of course, there's infinite diversity and infinite combinations of atonement theories because everyone's a beautiful and unique stovelike who creates their own. But one thing that most of them have in common is that when they talk about atonement, they sort of limit it to the cross. And that's not how the church, that's not how the fathers look at it. So when they're talking about Christ suffering, they're talking about his whole life, like right, earthly life, the incarnation, right? The time from his conception to his resurrection, right? There is he voluntarily suffers in the full sense of the word suffering is not just having pain inflicted on you. It's being passive. It's being acted upon. So Christ, the incarnation, when he takes upon himself our humanity, he is voluntarily accepting what get called by like St. Max, was the blameless passions, meaning passivities, right? That you become physically weak, you get tired, you need to eat, you get hungry, you get thirsty, right? The asleep. These things, right? They're not sinful passions. There's nothing sinful about getting tired, right? or needing to sleep or getting hungry and eating to eat, needing to drink water. But Christ voluntarily takes these on, right, throughout his life. And then beyond that, by entering into our world, right, our world, which is full of sin and wickedness, right? And so he voluntarily submits himself to things like rejection, the jealousies and bitterness and hatred of others. Right, their misunderstandings, their slander. Right. And it is indeed voluntary, because at any point, Christ could have done what he did on Mount Tabor in front of the whole village of Nazareth, if he wanted to. And that would have been an end to that, right? They would have seen his divine glory. Wouldn't have been anymore, you know, remarks. Right. Well, his rejection betrayal by friends, right? All of these things through his whole life. And then, you know, the ultimate example of that is, is not just his death, right? But that in his death, he suffered sort of the worst evils that humanity had thus far concocted to inflict upon each other. Right. Crucifixion was the most horrible way to kill a person that humanity had come up with quite literally. Right. And, and, you know, Cain goes and founds the first city and the throughline and day new mall of that, according to the book of Revelation, is the Roman Empire, the pagan Roman Empire, which is who killed Jesus? Yeah. But not the only people, the people who he came to, to save, right? A lot cheaper the tribe of Israel. They turned out him to and joined in with them. Right. And so Christ voluntarily suffers all of that, sort of all of our human evil, all of the oppression that humans face, all of the wickedness and hatreds and jealous, all of the things that we face. This is what Hebrews is talking about, saying that Christ was tempted in all the ways that were tempted is a horrible translation. Okay. It's he was tested in all the ways that were tested. Hmm. As we tried to live a life faithful to God, all of these things test us. Right. And Christ was tested by all these things had all of these things thrown at him. Right. And did not sin in response. Whereas we do sin in response. Right. And that's how we get to what Father Andrew said. Right. That's how we get to therefore by by suffering all of these things. Christ purifies them. He sanctifies them. He makes them a means of salvation. Right. So think about what we sing at theophony. Christ is baptized. Christ doesn't need to be purified by the water. Christ by being baptized purifies the water. And in purifying the water, he makes the water salvific for us in baptism. Right. So in the same way, by suffering all these things, by facing all of this testing, right. Christ makes that suffering that we share. He makes it salvific for us. He gives it a purpose. If not for Christ, this is this is why atheism is the stupidest possible response to the problem of evil. Hmm. The problem of evil is supposedly there's this good God. There's all this evil and horror and suffering in the world. I know how to solve this. We'll get rid of God. So all we have is evil and suffering. That is that is the worst possible answer. Right. Without Christ, that's what we have. We have what Elbrichemus says in Caligula, men die and they are not happy while they're alive. That's what you got. That's Christ. But because of Christ and Christ coming to share our humanity in all of its facets, including our suffering, including the consequences of our sinfulness, not his. Right. I'm coming to share in all that all of the sufferings, all of the trials we go through in this life, rather than just being a long horror show of meaningless suffering and pain, right, and our veil of tears, see a lot of other religions. Right. It becomes the means by which we are purified, we are sanctified, we are made ready for eternal life, right, sharing in the life of God forever. So that's that's a he transforms suffering, right, by voluntarily taking it upon himself. And in and through his whole life, not just at the cross. How about that Rachel? That's good. So just to make sure I'm clear. So could you say that in the sense that it's not that Christ is human because we're human, we're human because Christ is human, like the incarnation is the reason for humanity. And the similar way that it's not because we suffer that Christ suffered, but rather because Christ suffered that we suffer, like that's that's the point, maybe or the first part. Yes. Right. The second part, not so much only because our suffering is the result of our sin. Right. Right. If not for sin, there would not be suffering. If not for sin, there would still be an incarnation. Christ incarnation is not a response to sin. It is as you said, the purpose for which humanity was created on it. All right. Well, thank you very much for calling Rachel. We're going to take one more call and this caller apparently called in because I dared him to on YouTube. So Adrian from Arizona, I know. I know. Well, you know, I want to hold on to my old studio for a, no, I don't want to say that because then you'll keep me here for hours and hours. Did you already pack the bed? Is that the it was never a bed in the studio. Yeah. So Adrian, welcome to Laura's Spirit's podcast. Hi. So yeah, my question was just about with everything you guys have talked about with blood and stuff. How does that relate to vampires through blood? So how about a father? What about vampires and blood drinking? What is that all about? We did an episode on vampires. It's true, but it's been years, years father. It's been years. We dealt with the cannons about vampire hunting even. I know. I know. Was that in our, that was not our first Halloween episode. I think we just are spectacular Halloween episode. 2021. So yeah, I mean, it's, it goes on at some length in that episode, Adrian. But if you think that vampires do have something to do with a lot of this stuff, you are correct. You know, this, this notion of, yeah, go ahead, father. Yeah. Yeah. But to answer the question here and now and not just faw him off after you. Yeah, yeah. And he controlled him into calling in when he was minding his own business in a chat box somewhere. The, the, the, the, the blood drinking element is an extension of the idea, right? That so unsurprisingly, right? We've talked about this a lot on the show. You have stories, you have things in the Hebrew scriptures, especially the Torah, that you also find versions of in pagan cultures from the ancient Near East, including ancient Greece. Right? We've talked about that before, like with the, the, the Nephilim and the, and the Titans and the, right? And, uh, Zopkalu and, and that guy said, right? And the different flood stories. Um, but so we have this, what we're talking about, especially in the, in the first half tonight, with the idea of the connection between blood and life, right? Blood being the life force, right? The soul of the thing. And that's why you don't eat it, right? And what you find in pagan practice, for example, in Greek pagan practice is, uh, the shades of the dead drink blood, specifically the blood of sacrificial animals, right? The, the blood was poured out in the graves of, of heroes in order to give their shades this sort of undead spirit to allow it to continue to exist. Right? Where this, this dead spirit is now sort of this parasitic, nave vampiric, right? Entity. Right? And so the idea there with a vampire is that a vampire is dead. It is a dead thing that is sort of living parasitically off of the life of others, which life If it's good to see you. contained in their blood. Yeah. What do you think, Adrienne? Does that help? Yeah, it's very helpful. I'm currently running a Kerrson-Strad campaign in D&D. So tie some of that stuff in there, just to make it better for the players. Yeah. Are you using the PIB book? Yeah. Yep. OK. Yeah. I do recommend going and listening to that second Halloween episode where we talk about fanpires and werewolves. Yeah. I've probably heard that a long time ago, but yeah, I'll go back and listen to it again. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Yep. Thank you. I thought you could recommend the second edition Ravenloft box set. But oh, man, that takes me back. Woo. Wow. I can still see it in my mind. Anyway, I had a friend who had that when I was in high school. Oh, and we were in high school. He was super thematic. Oh, big time. Yeah, big time. Big time. All right. OK. So what is the-- what's going on with all the blood now? Like, let's bring it all together here in X3. The blood, the blood. How does the blood resolve the blood? It seems like it's on blood. Yes. Right. Well, so we'll begin with a statement of the problem. And this statement comes from Christ himself. And actually, you may have heard it recently in Holy Week as part of one of the readings. But this is from St. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 23. Yeah. All right. Starting with verse 29, "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites. For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous saying, if we had lived the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets. Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers. How are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in their Jacenegogs and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of the righteous able to the blood of Zechariah, the Son of Barakaya, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation." So that's Christ being very mean and uncrystallic to the Pharisees. We all need to remember our discourse needs to always be pleasant and nice and happy with people. So yeah, so this is sort of the ultimate statement of the problem, right? This is where we're at in the first century AD with God's people. It's not just, hey, there's been an occasional murder, right? This has built up the cries of the victims, of the sins and the wickedness of God's own people, has built up to this point, this fever pitch, right? We read in Isaiah, right? God couldn't hear their prayers over because of the blood, right? Over the sound of the blood. And you know, Christ says it, starting with Abel, right, where we started tonight, all the way up to Zechariah, the son of Barakaya. We talked about this in our episode of St John the Forerunner, the fact that that seems to be and the tradition of the church has always held, but it also seems to just be the case objectively even setting that aside. That the Zechariah, the son of Barakaya, is referring to St John the Forerunner's father, Saccharite. - Yeah. - So this is not from A to Z, because the first letter in Abel's name in Hebrew and the first letter in Saccharite's name in Hebrew are not the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. - Nor even of the Greek alphabet. - Or the Greek alphabet, although it's closer, at least you got an alpha at the beginning of Abel. - That's right. But famously, the Greek alphabet ends with Omega. - Yes. - So that's not what's going on here. There is a prophet Zechariah in the Old Testament and some of our Protestant friends, especially like to go there because for some reason they don't want to acknowledge any church tradition, even one as innocuous as this one. But the problem with that is that Zechariah in the Old Testament, the prophet Zechariah is not the son of Barakaya. Which would mean that either this or the book of Zechariah are wrong about who his father is. Or you know, hey, you could make a bunch of work for yourself, the journal article on why it's not contradictory and it's the same guy. We talked about in that episode too that one of the problems with determining exactly who this is, if you set church tradition aside, is there are literally three other Zechariahs who were murdered in the temple complex in between. - Yeah. - Because the Sadducees ran the temple and the high priesthood a lot like a Klingon ship. You became captain by assassinating the previous captain. Wow. So yeah, so that's sad, scary, in and of itself. But pretty clear that's what it is. But regardless, right? This is all built up to this point now where we are at this wicked generation where the reckoning is about to happen. That's what Christ is saying. The reckoning is about to happen. This can't go on. And what that means, right, is, and you find this all through the prophets, right? Is that the blood of bulls and goats didn't suffice to cover this other blood. - Yeah, and only could you so much. - Yeah, it maintained the situation for a while, right? But because there was not repentance, right? Conjoined with it, right? That reckoning was still out there building up to this sort of fever pitch, okay? So if the sacrificial system as such, the day of atonement as such, because of the lack of human repentance, wasn't able to do that, wasn't even able to stave off this reckoning anymore, right? And it staved it off for a while, but not removed it. It's not able to save it off. What kind of blood, what kind of sacrificial blood is it going to take to cover this, to purify this, to purge this, this other blood, this blood that cries out for a reckoning? What's it going to take? And here we have our third thread. And our third thread is a culmination of a lot of the things we're already talking about. There's a very clear expression of it though. It's in the book of second macabees. I know there's a lot of folks out there in our audience who have not read second macabees, be honest. - Gotta read it, guys. - Okay. - Have it read it. Aren't sure exactly who the macabee and martyrs are when they get referred to. Now the macabee and martyrs, if you don't know, you're about to learn, if you know kinda, you're about to learn more, 'cause we're gonna read all about the macabee and martyrs. The shrine of the macabee and martyrs in Antioch was a Jewish shrine. Yes, they had shrines to martyrs, to say Jewish people did, in the first century. That was eventually taken over and became a Christian shrine at pilgrimage site in Antioch. And that is why you will find icons of the macabee and martyrs, fairly commonly in the Orthodox church, although interestingly, usually quite anachronistically, they're holding crosses. - Yeah, well. - But we'll get back into why that is in a little bit. But for now, for those of you who don't know about it, we're gonna read basically the second half of second macabee chapter six and then all of chapter seven. So this is a longer passage, but this is important. This is gonna give us the state of the thinking on this topic related to, obviously I've already called them the macabee and martyrs, martyrdom, the blood of the martyrs. Give us the sort of understanding of that as we enter into the time of Christ's earthly ministry. - Okay, here we go. Second macabees, chapter six, starting with verse 18. Eleazar, one of the scribes in high position, a man now advanced in age and of noble presence was being forced to open his mouth to eat. swines flesh, but he, welcoming death with honor rather than life with pollution, went up to the rack of his own accord, spitting out the flesh as men ought to go who have the courage to refuse things that it is not right to taste, even for the natural love of life. Those who were in charge of that unlawful sacrifice took the man aside because of their long acquaintance with him and privately urged him to eat meat of his own providing, proper for him to use and pretend that he was eating the flesh of the sacrificial meal which had been commanded by the king. So thereby doing this, he might be saved from death and be treated kindly and account of his old friendship with them. But making a high resolve worthy of his years and the dignity of his old age and the gray hairs which he had reached with distinction and his excellent life, even from childhood, and moreover according to the Holy God-given law, he declared himself quickly telling them to send him to Hades. Such pretence is not worthy of our time of life, he said, lest many of the young should suppose that Eleazar in his 90th year has gone over to an alien religion. And through my pretence for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they should be led astray because of me while I defile and disgrace my old age. For even if for the present I should avoid the punishment of men, yet whether I live or die, I shall not escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore by manfully giving up my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws. When he had said this, he went at once to the rack. And those who a little before had acted toward him with good will now change it to ill will because the words he had uttered were in their opinion sheer madness. When he was about to die under the blows, he groaned aloud and said, it is clear to the Lord in his holy knowledge that though I might have been saved from death, I am enduring terrible sufferings in my body under this beating, but in my soul I am glad to suffer these things because I fear him. So in this way he died, leaving in his death an example of nobility and a memorial of courage, not only to the young, but to the great body of his nation. And now we're moving on to chapter 7. It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king under torture with whips and cords to partake of unlawful swines flesh. One of them acting as their spokesmen said, what do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers. The king fell into a rage and gave orders that pans and cauldrons be heated. These were heated immediately and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesmen be cut out and that they scowlp him and cut off his hands and feet while the rest of the brothers and their mother looked on. When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pan spread widely, but their brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly saying, the Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us as Moses declared in his song, which bore witness against the people to their faces when he said, and he will have compassion on his servants. After the first brother had died in this way, they brought forward the second for their support. They tore off the skin of his head with the hair and asked him, will you eat rather than have your body punished limb by limb? Replied in the language of his fathers and said to them, no. Therefore, he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. And when he was at his last breath, he said, you accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the king of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life because we have died for his laws. After him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched his foretells hands and said, nobly, I got these from heaven and because of his laws, I disdain them. And from him, I hope to get them back again. As a result, the king himself and those with him were astonished at the young man's spirit for he regarded his suffering. It's nothing. When he too had died, they maltreated and tortured the fourth in the same way. And when he was near death, he said, one cannot but choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by him. But for you, there will be no resurrection to life. Next they brought forward the fifth and maltreated him. But he looked at the king and said, because you have authority among men, mortal though you are, you do what you please, but do not think that God has forsaken our people. Keep on and see how his mighty power will torture you and your descendants. After they brought him forward the sixth. And when he was about to die, he said, do not deceive yourself in vain for we are suffering these things on our own account because of our sins against our own God. Therefore astounding things have happened. But do not think that you will go unpunished or having tried to fight against God. The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them in the language of their fathers filled with a noble spirit. She fired her woman's reasoning with a man's courage and said to them, I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath nor I who set an order of the elements within each of you. Therefore, the creator of the world who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws. Antiochus felt that he was being treated with contempt and he was suspicious of her reproachful tone. The youngest brothers being still alive, Antiochus not only appealed to him in words, but promised with oaths that he would make him rich and enviable if he would turn from the ways of his fathers and that he would take him for his friend and entrust him with public affairs. Since the young man would not listen to him at all, the king called the mother to him and urged her to advise the youth to save himself. After much urging on his part, she undertook to persuade her son, but leaning close to him, she spoke in their native tongue as follows to riding the cruel tyrant. My son, have pity on me. I carried you nine months in my womb and nursed you for three years and have reared you and brought you up to this point in your life and have taken care of you. I beseech you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus also mankind comes into being. Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers except death so that in God's mercy I may get you back again with your brothers. Whilst he was still speaking, the young man said, "What are you waiting for? I will not obey the king's command, but I obey the command of the law that was given to our fathers through Moses. But you who have contrived all sorts of evil against the Hebrews will certainly not escape the hands of God, for we are suffering because of our own sins. And if our living Lord is angry for a little while, tribute can discipline us, he will again be reconciled with his own servants. But you, unholy wretch. You most defiled of all men, do not be elated in vain and popped up by uncertain hopes. When you raise your hand against the children of heaven, you have not yet escaped the judgment of the Almighty, all seeing God. For our brothers, after enduring a brief suffering, have drunk of ever-flowing life under God's covenant. But you, by the judgment of God, will receive just punishment for your arrogance. I like my brothers give up body and life for the laws of our fathers, appealing to God to show mercy soon to our nation and by afflictions and plagues to make you confess that He alone is God, and through me and my brothers to bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty, which has justly fallen on our whole nation. The king fell into a rage and handled him worse than the others, being exasperated at his scorn. So he died in his integrity, putting his whole trust in the Lord. Most of all the mother died after her sons. But this be enough then, about the eating of sacrifices and the extreme tortures. So, there we go. Yes. So, those of you who, especially if you tend weak taste services sometimes, and things, and you hear from the cynics already in the lives of the martyrs and things, you may have heard a lot of the tropes, a lot of the ideas that are present in sort of later stories of the lives of martyrs. But notice, I keep talking about threads, but notice a thread that runs through here in the things that are said by the people being martyred. And that is that they understand that yes, technically, they came back, some of the Jewish people came back from exile. But now they're under, obviously, oppression by the Greeks so you can, they're being tortured, they're trying, the Greeks are trying to de-judify the region. They aren't going to be successful, we know, because of the Meccanian revolts. But the Romans will be pretty successful at it, at the same thing later. And so they understand their situation, not as. This is all happening to us. We're under this oppression. The temple has been desecrated. All of this has happened not because these Greeks and their gods are more powerful than our God. No, it's because we as a people have been sinful and this is the consequence of that sin. That's what they're describing as the wrath of God against their people is that God has allowed all of this to happen. It's allowed all of this to happen. But notice what they say. This thread runs and the Dei Ngu Ma is actually in verse 37 to chapter 7. The truth is that God through He and His brothers would bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty. So what is it according to the prophets at the time of the exile? What was it that brought about the exile? What was it that brought about that judgment? Sin. Sin. And specifically the cries of the victims of that sin. The poor, the orphan, the widow, the stranger crying out to God. The shed blood of innocent people crying out to God. Eventually that got to a point where there's a reckoning. And now they're facing the reckoning. Now they're facing the reckoning. And the ultimate, ultimately because of the lack of repentance of the people, the blood of bulls and goats didn't help. Right? In fact, God rejected it because it wasn't coupled with repentance. But there is this understanding that these people who are being murdered, they're being tortured to death and murdered. That's what's objectively happening here. Yeah. As part of the ethnic cleansing of an area by an imperial power. Okay. That's what's happening. But that's not how they see what's happening. They say that they are voluntarily suffering these things rather than violate God's laws. And they're asking God that their murders, right? Their death, tortured at the hands of people, their murders be received by him as a sacrifice on behalf of the people. But their blood cover up that blood that's crying out for vengeance and for a reckoning. That's what they're asking for. Now we know from that passage in Saint Matthew's Gospel that even this didn't do it. Right? Didn't do it in the sense that, in the sense that not that, you know, these aren't martyrs because they are because we saw all through there. They were dying in the hope of the resurrection. Right? Right? Dying in the hope of the resurrection as people, right? But didn't work for the people. Didn't work for the nation. Didn't work for the people of God as a whole. Didn't work for the world as a whole. Right? As much as they offer. Let's so now we come back to Christ. Right? And we start with, not with his actual death, but before his death as he's instituting the Eucharist. He says that what is in the cup is his blood. And what does he say about his blood? He says two things. He says it is the blood of the new covenant. Remember Moses when he was throwing that blood, that sacrificial blood on the people to consecrate them, to purify them, to connect them to the sacrifice of the altar. He said, this is the blood of the covenant. Christ says, this is my blood of the new covenant. Secondly, he tells them to drink it for the remission of sins. Purification from sin. So there's two functions there. One, the people who receive the cup, right, are purified by it, sanctified by it, and two, they're connected to Christ and to Christ sacrifice by the blood. Should be lost on you though that we're talking about drinking blood, which they expressly were not allowed to do. Right? Why were they not allowed to do it? They're not allowed to do it so that humanity would not become predatory. Right? Drinking the life of the things. There's no predation here. Christ is offering his blood. And he's offering his life, which is the life of God, which is eternal life. Right? That's the cup he's offering to drink. Take back a few minutes, to verse 36 of 2nd Maccabee 7, in which the seventh son said, "For our brothers, after enduring a brief suffering, have drunk of ever-flowing life under God's covenant." That's the cup that Christ offers to his disciples. And he had already prepared them for this with what he told them in John chapter 6. And we've talked about this before. I'm not going to go down this rabbit trail now, but come on, Protestant friends. This is about the Eucharist, special cleaning in the same levels. Right? But what he already said in John chapter 6 about his blood. Father Andrew may be muted again. Sorry. Excuse me. It's trying not to cough on Mike. So yeah, in John chapter 6, verses 53 and through 55. So Jesus said to them, "This should be very familiar to everybody. Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. Where my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink." So he'd already prepared them for that moment. So they would understand what he was doing in offering them his blood. But then we see this understanding of what Christ's blood is doing, play out in how it is reflected upon in the rest of the New Testament. So starting already in the book of Acts, in Acts chapter 20, St. Paul is talking to the Ephesian elders. He's giving them sort of his farewell address because he knows he's going to be arrested and put on trial and will probably not see them again. Right? And he says this. All right. Pay attention. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the Church of God which he obtained with his own blood. Right? So notice, right? The Church of God which he obtained with his own blood, whose own blood, God's own blood. So yeah, there's a lot of special pleading here from certain folks, but Christ's blood is God's blood. But notices obtained or purchased, right, language, talking about the Church of God, the people of God, this is connected to the Passover blood, the making of distinction, right? But not only the making of distinction, right? Because remember what the Passover blood also did, it warded off the Avenger, right? It warded off the Avenger. So Christ's blood covers that blood that cries out for Jesus. St. Paul, we're going to read some more, St. Paul. So St. Paul in Romans 3 verse 25. All right. It says, so this is continuing on the previous sentence, whom God put forward, so the whom there is Christ. So whom God put forward as a propriciation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over a former sentence. And so, let's say Paul is saying here, right? So in the past, it is. forbearance and God's patience. He had passed over former sins, meaning those sins that blood was calling out to him for justice, for reckoning, right? But God didn't do it. Okay, God didn't do it. And it's not because God was unjust. It's not because he didn't care about justice. It's not because he was now turning a deaf ear to the cries of those who suffer, control what we read in Psalms. No, it was because, right? Christ was coming to offer himself as a sacrifice. Right? Christ's death is this kind of self offering of himself as a sacrifice, which makes his blood sacrificial blood, right? Blood which covered over that other blood, right? Which silenced that other blood so that that reckoning was no longer necessary. And so Christ's death here, St. Paul is presenting it as the fulfillment of that idea of martyrdom that we saw expressed in second macabees, fulfillment in filling full to overflowing. Because Christ's death does accomplish what they wanted their deaths to accomplish as a sacrifice, not only for himself, not even for himself, because he didn't need it, right? But for all of his people and for the whole world. Yeah. Right. We see this again in Ephesians 1, 7, and 2, 13. Okay. So, 1, 7 reads, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace." And then 2, 13 reads, "But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." Right. So in 1, 7, right? Christ's blood brings about the forgiveness of sins and trespasses. That's what redeems us. We're purified from them, right? By his blood. Blood here's purification. In 2, 13, that's talking about the, you who are far off is the Gentiles. They were far off, far away from God. Why? Because they were unclean, because if there's sins and uncleanness, they could not approach God. But now they've been brought near by the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ has purified them from sin and uncleanness, and now they can draw near to God. Because of the purification that comes from Christ's blood. Notice, it's not his blood. It's his blood, not his suffering. It's his blood, not some kind of punishment. Blood here is purifying people. It is cleansing. It is covering. Probably the most famous, we've already referenced it earlier with the collar. The most famous place of the New Testament that talks about sacrificial blood is the Book of Hebrews. So a place that talks about it more directly is in chapter 9, starting with verse 11. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent that is tabernacle, not made with hands, that is not of this creation. He entered once, for all, into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ who, through the eternal spirit, offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promise of internal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not enforced as long as the one who made it its alive. Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hissep and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying, "This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you." And in the same way, he sprinkled with the blood, both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood and without the shutting of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. People, I feel like people like to quote that last phrase, that last, you know, clause and then kind of skip everything before it. Right. And ignore the context and then try to make that mean something weird. Right? Yeah. So we have to take the context. That's why we read all the context leading up to it. Right? So backing up, right? For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctified for the purification of the flesh, so what is that blood doing? The blood of goats and bulls. Purifying and sanctifying. Yeah. I mean, that's how it's actually used in the Old Testament. Right? That's what it's saying it did. Verse 14, "How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, offered himself as a sacrifice? How will his sacrifice, how much more will his sacrificial blood purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" In both parts of that sentence, what is the blood doing? What is the sacrificial blood doing? It is cleansing and purifying. In the case of the blood and bulls and goats, it's the body. It's the flesh. Right? It's limited. In the case of Christ, it's our whole being. Yeah. It's doing the same thing, but as it says, how much more, in other words, it's doing it in the fullness. It's it's perfecting this and he's the same purify, same verb. Okay? Yeah. Right? And so then when he comes back to, right, he just develops that idea more fully because he just referenced what? Sprinkling a defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer and the blood of goats and bulls, right? And then he goes back at narrate Moses, right? He takes the blood, right? He takes sprinkles it on the people, right? And then says, in verse 22, just taking all of verse 22, indeed, under the law, under the Torah, almost everything is what? Purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. So what is the forgiveness of sins? According to that verse, it is purification. Yeah. Purification and restoration, being sanctified and made holy, there's nothing there about punishment, there's nothing there about suffering. Purification. And now let's let's be really on the nose. First, John 1 verse 7. Okay. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus' son cleanses us from all sin. That's about as straightforward as you can get. Yeah. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. Blood cleanses purifies. Okay? And now let's put a bow on it. Let's go back to the beginning. Hebrews 12 verse 24. All right. This is another begins with a dot, dot, dot. And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. And what comes before that is St. Paul saying, you know, you have come to this church of the first born to the assembly of the righteous, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then it ends with this. And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Right. So Christ's blood, this is St. Paul and Hebrews just straight out saying, our thesis for the whole night that we've been laying out, that the blood of Christ covers over that blood of Abel, that blood that cries out for justice. Right. That need for a reckoning for sin. Christ's blood covers it. And now he doesn't cover it and silence it. But actually positively speaks a better word in our in our defense. Right. Toward our glorification. Right. That's, that's what St. Paul says. Right. And so where does all this pan out? So here's the biblical theology exercise we just did. Right. Well, here's where the rubber meets the road of this. Right. What we see here in Christ and the blood of Christ purifying us from sin. Of course, the most obvious place where this plays out are the martyrs who come after Christ. Right. The Maccabeean martyrs were before the birth of Christ. Right. But the martyrs were St. Stephen on. Right. Including St. George, whose memory we were celebrating until sundown. At the beginning of this episode, it was still St. George's day. All of those martyrs who would like this surprise, what laid down their lives offered their lives as they were being murdered offered their lives as sacrifices to God. And the likeness of Christ, right? Another place where the Spare is out is actually the act of tonturing. And a lot of folks don't know this, okay? But in a Roman sacrificial ritual, the last thing you did before you slit the bull's throat or the other animal, the other sacrificial animal, before you slit its throat, the last thing you did was grab a big tuft of its hair and cut it off and then throw it into an incense ball. Huh? And what you did that because that was supposed to signify the animal offering itself. But the animal was not being forced, but the animal itself was sort of honoring the, the, the deity or the spirit that was being worshiped in Roman religion. So this practice gets symbolically adopted in the early church. When do we do tontures? We do tontures with baptisms. Yep. And with making monks and nuns and also making entering men into the first order of the clergy as a reader. Right. And in every case, what are, what is the person who's having the tuft of hair cut and potentially thrown into a censor? Right. They are offering themselves and their lives to God. Yeah. Through that action, not literally in the sense that they're being killed, but in the sense that their worldly life to whatever extent is being sacrificed, right, to consecrate them to God. And then, of course, the most common part, you know, most of us will not be martyred, slightly more of us, but not that many will be tontured, right, other than at baptism. But all of us, right, participate at every liturgy in the offering of the Eucharist. And if you pay close attention to the prayers of the Eucharist, the end of every litany, for example, but threaded all through the other prayers as well, is the idea that we are offering ourselves and each other and our whole life, everything we have, everything we are to God as a sacrifice. When we eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood, we're participating in his sacrifice and his self offering. And we're also offering ourselves to God along with it, right, along with him. That's what we're called to do in every liturgy. And so this plays out very much on the ground, in our actual Christian lives in the church. This is the cornerstone, this cornerstone understanding to everything that goes on. And of course, what's happening when we receive the Eucharist, right, when we receive the body and blood of Christ, what is the blood of Christ doing? What do we ask it to do in the post-communian prayers to pass through and purify every part of our body? So this wasn't just a biblical theology exercise. This is a biblical theology that undergirds a lot of who we are and what we do in the church. And thinking about some of my big takeaways from this conversation, one of the things that strikes me is something that I think is really important for us to proclaim here in 2026, which is the uniqueness of the Christian message, the uniqueness of the gospel, which includes, of course, what Christ has done. And one of the things that we like to talk about a lot on this show is the historical context, the stories that are current through the ritual participation in the surrounding pagan nations, around Israel and around the first Christians. And one story you do not find in any of them is this one, and especially this part of it, was that the very core of this faith community is in a real sense, it is the martyrdom of God himself, that God sheds his own blood. And that's just not a thing in any pagan religions. It's just not. There are certainly some later religious traditions and some pagan traditions that were clearly influenced by Christianity, such as Norse religion, that have some echoes of this. But the idea that God would become man and which shed his own blood would sacrifice himself voluntarily in order to purify the whole cosmos in order to forgive us all of our sins in order to make us participants in his altar so that we might be deified. That's just not in pagan religion. And even in the stuff that is kind of drawn on that and imitated Christianity that came later, just doesn't do it very well, honestly. You know, it's like bad fanfic in some ways. And this is part of why, by the way, I know that this might be a little esoteric for some people, punfully intended here, but this is part of why perennialism is just garbage because perennialism assumes that there's this kind of esoteric core that all religions share. And that's the important part in all the rest is kind of details. But Christianity says, no, no, no, the core of what it is that we believe and do are these specific story elements about God sacrificing himself, becoming man, truly suffering, truly dying, truly conquering death, truly rising on the third day. That's core. If you do not have that, you don't have Christianity. If you try to try to extract some kind of esoteric core and you leave that stuff behind, you're not Christian, you're something else. You're something else. That's the problem with perennialism. It always does violence to the things that these religions say they actually hold the most dear, you know. And Christianity is unique in a lot of different ways. And this is absolutely one of the most important of them, that God sacrificed himself, that God became man and he sacrificed himself. He shed his own blood to purify the world, to forgive us of our sins. That's not a story you find in any pagan tradition. And it's not even a story that you find in the later religions that historically follow the rise of Christianity. And so, especially as we're continuing to celebrate POSCA and continuing to try to absorb as much as we can, the different aspects of what Christ's suffering and death and resurrection mean for us, particularly in this beautiful time of celebration that we're in now. I think this is such a powerful, powerful thing to focus on and to remind us that this is worth embracing. This is worth giving our lives for it. This is worth becoming martyrs for, whether in the most literal sense or in the daily martyrdom of saying no to our own desires and yes to who God is and to what he expects of us and to serving those around us. And if not literally shedding our own lifeblood for these things, to give our life, to give our life, to bring others closer to Christ and to make right what has been made wrong, especially the wrongs that we have made ourselves. So, I think this is such a wonderful and powerful and excellent thing for us to discuss at this time. So, I want to talk a little bit about one of the discontinuities between the old covenant and the new covenant because as you're talking about at the end there, the reason that the blood of bulls and goats couldn't accomplish what it was trying to accomplish was not that God had done some kind of bait and switch. He had given them the means to manage sin that didn't work or whatever. We talked about how it was because it wasn't joined with repentance. I know there's a certain group of people and that's who I'm really talking to now who When they hear me say that and think about it, we'll get really scared, right? Because they'll think about, oh, is that the same now? Because, you know, I try to go to church and I go to literature and I go to confession and I go and I receive the Eucharist, but like, am I really repenting? Like, I know I'm not repenting as much as I should, even as much as I could. My attempts are always half-hearted. I kind of mean it in confession when I say I'm going to struggle not to do it anymore, but a lot of times I don't really struggle that hard and I go and do the same things again, if I'm honest. And I've resolved a hundred times that I was going to change and I was going to be different and this was going to be the moment and I was going to do better. I was going to stop doing those things and I was going to start doing these good things. I know I should be doing and that resolution ends up like a New Year's resolution on January 4th and it's gone pretty quick. And when you're thinking that and you hear what I said about the old covenant, you might think, oh, does that mean? No, no, this is going to do me any good. If I'm liturgy isn't going to do me any good, confession isn't going to do me any good, because I'm not sincere. No, that's not what I'm saying. Get that out of your head. This is a point of discontinuity. This is part of the promise of the New Covenant. When you read those New Covenant passages we talked about earlier in Jeremiah, the disequio of these things, it's not just like, okay, we're going to start again, try and do better this time. Christ is superior to Moses. The New Covenant, the renewed covenant, what Christ does fulfills what Moses did and what was received through Moses. Most importantly, Christ offered Himself as the perfect, blameless sacrifice. God doesn't require any more perfect, blameless sacrifices, which is good, because I'm not perfect and I'm not blameless. What we're called to do in every liturgy by the prayers I mentioned, it's at the end of every litany, like I said. And other places too, is to offer ourselves at each other and our whole life to God. Not to offer some kind of idealized, perfect version of ourselves and each other and our whole life to God. Not to wait until we've got everything sorted out and then offer that to God, but to offer ourselves the way we are right now. Messing all, brokenness and all, struggles and all, doubts and all, offer that to God, along with Christ sacrifice. Not an idealized version of each other, not a version of each other where we've actually gotten past and don't remember all our differences, because we still kind of remember them, even though we're trying not to think about it right now, because we're in liturgy, but each other. And to offer our whole life not the life we think we should be living, not the life we actually should be living. That's an idealized life, not some monastic life when we're not a monastic, but our actual life with all its problems, all its deficiencies, all its trials, all its struggles, offer that to God. That's the kind of repentance that God requires of us in the new covenant. And the incredible blessing is that that's a kind of repentance we're capable of. Not perfect repentance, not pure repentance, not unhearing repentance, but an offering of who we are and what we are and what we have all of it to God, so that God can use it, can transform it, can heal it, can purify it, can cleanse it. And as we try to do what Christ did and offer ourselves to him as a sacrifice, we can become more like Christ in the process. So those are my closing thoughts. Amen. Well, that's our show for tonight. Thank you, everyone, for listening. If you didn't happen to get through to us live, we'd still like to hear from you. You can email us at LordofSpirits.nhtr.com. You can message us at our Facebook page. You can leave us a voice, mail us, speakpipe.com/LordofSpirits. And if you have basic questions about Orthodox Christianity or you need help to find a parish, go to Orthodoxintro.org. Join us for a live broadcast on the second and fourth Thursday of the month at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific. So it's taking a walk the other day and I see a woman, a blind woman, pacing up and down the sidewalk. She seemed to be a bit frustrated, as if she had dropped something and having a hard time finding them. If you're on Facebook, you can follow our page during a discussion group and leave reviews and ratings in all the appropriate places and definitely share this show with a friend. Finally, be sure to go to www.inxrefave.com/support and help make sure we and lots of other AFR podcasters stay on the air. So if you're watching her struggle for a while, I decided to go over and lend a helping hand. Hello, ma'am, can I be of any assistance? It seems to me that you have lost something. I would like to help you find it. She replied, "Oh yes, you have lost something. You've lost your life." And citing off for the last time from the power of tower podcasting, thank you good night and make up, bless you always. Christ is my name. I've been listening to the Lord of Spirits with Orthodox Christian priests, Father Andrew Stephen Damick and Father Stephen De Young, a listener-supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio. And I be held and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders. And the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 than thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the land that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. Revelation chapter 5 verses 11 through 12.