Sacrifice and Sacredness

Wendy posted an opinion piece by Elizabeth Sandoval that was published by USAToday entitled A Neo-feminist's View of Abstinence. The piece is intentionally controversial and thought provoking.

The piece caused me to recall one of the verses in the closing chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. The verse is quite recognizable to most Christians who have been discipled for more than a couple of years. It, in its more traditional form, goes like this:

^{Hebrews 13:4 KJV} Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

There is something about the nouns "whoremongers" and "adulterers" that causes us to think of those that do that as "them" as opposed to "us". So I went looking for an expression of this verse that actually helps US apply it and I think the one that spoke the most clearly was Eugene Peterson's translation/paraphrase:

^{Hebrews 13:4 The Message} Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex.

If you compare the two versions, you can see the parallels. "Marriage is honourable" gets turned into the more active "Honor marriage." The phraseology that lets us off the hook in the KJV about "whoremongers" and "adulterers" is simplified and made more specific with "God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex."

The phrase "and the bed undefiled" has been a source of continued speculation among Christians. In my lifetime I've heard interpretations ranging from a pronouncement of limitations on appropriate sexual behavior to a license for any behavior that occurs between a man and a wife as long as it stays in the privacy of their own bedroom/bed. Both extremes leave me gasping for breath because of the reach they make towards matters that seem completely unrelated to this scripture.

Peterson does something that he usually avoids in The Message translation. He uses spiritual jargon: "and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband." Then he allows the preceding phrase "Honor marriage" and the trailing sentence "God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex" to give us context for "sacredness" just as God inspired the author of Hebrews to do with the whole thought (even before it was a verse.)

Now what do we do with that word "sacredness"? It clearly is theological jargon. Where is God taking us with it? If you studied the Tanak/Old Testament very much, you probably have encountered the Levitical/Aaronic rituals of the tabernacle and of the temple.

You might recall how the original instruments of worship were created by Moses. He requested donations from the tribes of Israel and they gave from the abundance of what their Egyptian masters gave them as they left Egypt. They gave so much gold that Moses and Aaron had to tell them to stop because they had enough!!

Later we hear about Solomon's efforts to build the temple in Jerusalem after God forbids David--due to David's reputation as a warrior--from building it. Again, we hear about how gold and silver arrives from other nations as a tribute to Israel and to the God of Israel.

From both of these situations you get a picture of a God who supplies the instruments of worship from his own riches. That when people set in their hearts to fully worship him, then he will provide riches for them to give in order to create worship.

The gold and silver given in each era (Tabernacle and Temple) are built into instruments of worship (think cups for wine and platters of bread rather than harps and drums and guitars...instruments of the spirit rather than of music.) And then they are dedicated to that purpose and ONLY to that purpose. They are consecrated. They are made sacred.

What happens when you use them for common, profane (not sacred) purposes? The instruments of worship are defiled. They are no longer holy. They are no longer suited for worship. God is holy. He desires holy worship. He is angered by unholy worship or by profaning that which is sacred. How do I know this?

Look what happens when someone misuses instruments of worship:

^{Daniel 5:1-31 The Message} King Belshazzar held a great feast for his one thousand nobles. The wine flowed freely. ²Belshazzar, heady with the wine, ordered that the gold and silver chalices his father Nebuchadnezzar had stolen from God's Temple of Jerusalem be brought in so that he and his nobles, his wives and concubines, could drink from them. ³When the gold and silver chalices were brought in, the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines, drank wine from them. ⁴They drank the wine and drunkenly praised their gods made of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.

⁵At that very moment, the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the lamp-illumined, whitewashed wall of the palace. When the king saw the disembodied hand writing away, ⁶he went white as a ghost, scared out of his wits. His legs went limp and his knees knocked. ⁷He yelled out for the enchanters, the fortunetellers, and the diviners to come. He told these Babylonian magi, "Anyone who can read this writing on the wall and tell me what it means will be famous and rich--purple robe, the great gold chain--and be third-in-command in the kingdom."

⁸One after the other they tried, but could make no sense of it. They could neither read what was written nor interpret it to the king. ⁹So now the king was really frightened. All the blood drained from his face. The nobles were in a panic.

¹⁰The queen heard of the hysteria among the king and his nobles and came to the banquet hall. She said, "Long live the king! Don't be upset. Don't sit around looking like ghosts. ¹¹There is a man in your kingdom who is full of the divine Holy Spirit. During your father's time he was well known for his intellectual brilliance and spiritual wisdom. He was so good that your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, made him the head of all the magicians, enchanters, fortunetellers, and diviners. ¹²There was no one quite like him. He could do anything--interpret dreams, solve mysteries, explain puzzles. His name is Daniel, but he was renamed Belteshazzar by the king. Have Daniel called in. He'll tell you what is going on here."

¹³So Daniel was called in. The king asked him, "Are you the Daniel who was one of the Jewish exiles my father brought here from Judah? ¹⁴I've heard about you--that you're full of the Holy Spirit, that you've got a brilliant mind, that you are incredibly wise. ¹⁵The wise men and enchanters were brought in here to read this writing on the wall and interpret it for me. They couldn't figure it out--not a word, not a syllable. ¹⁶But I've heard that you interpret dreams and solve mysteries. So--if you can read the writing and interpret it for me, you'll be rich and famous--a purple robe, the great gold chain around your neck--and third-in-command in the kingdom."

¹⁷Daniel answered the king, "You can keep your gifts, or give them to someone else. But I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means.

¹⁸"Listen, O king! The High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar a great kingdom and a glorious reputation. ¹⁹Because God made him so famous, people from everywhere, whatever their race, color, and creed, were totally intimidated by him. He killed or spared people on whim. He promoted or humiliated people capriciously. ²⁰He developed a big head and a hard spirit. Then God knocked him off his high horse and stripped him of his fame. ²¹He was thrown out of human company, lost his mind, and lived like a wild animal. He ate grass like an ox and was soaked by heaven's dew until he learned his lesson: that the High God rules human kingdoms and puts anyone he wants in charge.

²²"You are his son and have known all this, yet you're as arrogant as he ever was. ²³Look at you, setting yourself up in competition against the Master of heaven! You had the sacred chalices from his Temple brought into your drunken party so that you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines, could drink from them. You used the sacred chalices to toast your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone--blind, deaf, and imbecile gods. But you treat with contempt the living God who holds your entire life from birth to death in his hand.

²⁴"God sent the hand that wrote on the wall, ²⁵and this is what is written: MENE, TEQEL, and PERES. ²⁶This is what the words mean:

"Mene: God has numbered the days of your rule and they don't add up.

²⁷"Teqel: You have been weighed on the scales and you don't weigh much.

²⁸"Peres: Your kingdom has been divided up and handed over to the Medes and Persians." ²⁹Belshazzar did what he had promised. He robed Daniel in purple, draped the great gold chain around his neck, and promoted him to third-in-charge in the kingdom.

³⁰That same night the Babylonian king Belshazzar was murdered. ³¹He was sixty-two years old. Darius the Mede succeeded him as king.

I'm quoting the entire chapter because I believe we need a sense of who God is. And this chapter conveys it vividly. Sometimes God's judgement is immediate and swift. Think about what caused it in this case:

His people sacrificed their belongings--given to them by the Egyptians--to make some of these gold and silver chalices. Some of the rest came from the golden age of the united kingdom, when David (a man after God's own heart) determined that God deserved a permanent, glorious place of worship in Jerusalem and David collected the materials and Solomon built it. And this king Belshazzar profanes these sacred items representing sacrifices to God by using them to give thanks to other gods.

We don't live in Babylon (though we are at war with the people that live near ancient Babylon.) It's hard to relate to what upset God because as Christians (especially Protestants and Evangelicals) we emphasize spiritual worship without physical items of worship.

But there is a similarity between the Temple of Solomon and us that we cannot dismiss:

^{1 Corinthians 6:19-20} Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. ²⁰God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.