Art Katz, alongside Paul Gordon, reflects on the significance of blood atonement during the Easter and Passover season, emphasizing the importance of understanding these sacred occasions beyond modern commercialism. They discuss the biblical origins of Passover in Exodus, highlighting the necessity of the sacrificial lamb and the blood's role in atonement, which foreshadows Jesus as the ultimate Paschal Lamb. Katz stresses that true obedience to God's word is essential, regardless of human understanding, and connects the ancient practices to the modern Christian faith, asserting that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. The sermon calls for a deeper recognition of our need for atonement and the importance of applying faith in Jesus' sacrifice to our lives. Katz concludes with a prayer for those seeking reconciliation with God through the Messiah.

Ben Israel with Art Katz and Paul Gordon. Shalom, welcome to Ben Israel. My name is Art Katz. And I'm Paul Gordon. We rejoice to be back with you again today and we've enjoyed some of our recent times together reviewing the letters that have been sent to us and discussing them and responding to them and we just invite you to continue to write to us and share with us your impressions of the program, the kinds of questions that it may raise in your mind. There's a little card, Paul, that I failed acknowledging last time that really warmed our hearts where a lady writes, Dear Art Katz, please come to Raleigh. Thanks. A very interested Yiddish Mamala. So Yiddish Mamala, thank you for that lovely card. It blessed us and we pray that you've been watching regularly and that the program has been rich and helpful for you. You know that, Paul, we're in that time of the Easter and Passover season and for a certain strange reason I get a poignant response in my heart when we come to the so-called holidays because I know that there's a God who intended sacred holy days but which men have made holidays in modern times. And I think like the Christmas season, which is an orgy for spending and that kind of celebration and office parties, mindless activities, and we lose sight of the fact that it really is a remembrance of a deep Jewish occasion, the actual advent of the Messiah, so too do we lose understanding of the meaning of the Passover and Easter season. People are going to go about now buying new spring outfits and looking for breaks from school. The kids will be going down to the beach and having a blast. Young children will be rolling eggs on Easter lawns and our own kinsmen will be eating matzos. But I feel that for both Jews and Gentiles in the modern world, there's not the true recognition of the solemnity and the sacredness and the things which these occasions touch. We ought to spend some time today discussing a little bit about Passover, the origin and what it means, and perhaps continue on in another program to come. Where's a reasonable place to begin such a question? Well, I'd like to read in Exodus 12 chapter, but before we start, I'd like to ask God if he'll just quicken these words to our hearts and bring out his meaning. Because we've got to be saved from shallowness and from the want of true understanding. That's right. So, Father, we ask you now as we are about to break bread together in your Word, Lord, that your meaning, your will, would come forth by the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh, that it would be quickened to our hearts and to our spirits, that your words would be hidden in our hearts, Lord. Like David said, that when your words are hidden in our hearts, we shall not sin against thee. So, Lord, quicken these words. We thank you in the name of Jesus the Christ. Amen. Okay, we're going to read in the 12th chapter of Exodus, starting with verse 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house. And then in verse 5, Your lamb shall be without blemish a male of the first year. Ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats. And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month. And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper doorposts of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. Oh, the last, there's an 11th verse that says, And thus shall you eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. Now, the first verse began, And the Lord spoke. And the last verse of the section says, It's the Lord's Passover. We want to emphasize again for our viewers that the Judaism to which we subscribe is that the Lord spoke. It is written. This is something not devised of men. This is not the result of the vain imaginings of men, something conjured up by a wise Moses to bring a people to a place of obedience that they might be handled for a wilderness trek. These are ordinances which are given of God. And truly as we survey them as modern men now, Paul, what is there in these that would commend itself to our intellect or to our understanding? The taking of a lamb, one perfect and without blemish in the height of its life, keeping it on investigation for four days and then killing it and taking the blood. How men would shudder at this and marking the doorposts and the lintels of their homes that when God saw the blood, He would pass over them. Now, let's read verses 12 and 13. The purpose that God called us to do this, for I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. Before we read the next verse, I'd just like to point out that the Jews at the time were residing in the land of Goshen, which was in the land of Egypt. Now, this is important because God said that He would smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. Now, and the blood shall be to you a token upon the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. Now, what do you think would have happened to a Jewish home where the blood had not been striped on the side posts on the upper doorposts of the home? Well, let me try and imagine. First, I can see the kinds of perplexity that this word, this sharp and fearful word, must have occasioned in many hearts. We haven't done this before. This is not part of our tradition. This seems to us alien. This is related to the practices of Gentiles around us, blood sacrifice. We don't like this, whatever the reasons. It doesn't commend itself to our understanding. But I tell you that those families that were not obedient to do the word of God must have suffered the loss of their firstborn that night, because this is something that the Lord spoke. It was a requirement made of Him. And our obedience does not hinge upon our understanding the wisdom of such a practice as this. We must do the word of God. And God does not choose the things which commend themselves to us. He chooses, rather, the things which are foolish and which really offend our sensibility and our understanding, that we might be a people of faith and a people of obedience. You know, it strikes me that we hear the same thing today, when we talk about the sacrifices in the temple and the fact that since 70 A.D., when the temple was destroyed by Titus and the Roman hordes, that there are no more sacrifices. Now, what is a very common thing that we hear today? Well, that was a barbaric practice. We're sophisticated now. We've become civilized. And it was just a practice that was for that day, but is no longer required. Well, let me ask you, Paul, how do we go from this foundational thing given in the book of Exodus, which established the nation Israel, to the modern-day Easter, which is practiced by Christians? Is there any relationship between these two things? Well, of course, to us there is. Why don't we explain that? Well, we know that a pattern of God, a law of God was that without the shedding of blood, there was no remission for sin. Now, we don't profess to understand why God set up this practice. It was because He willed it. It was just something that God would do. And I think it's presumptuous of us to even try to second-guess Him and say that was barbaric and why would He do such a thing? But we do know that that was His pattern. Well, Jesus was, 2,000 years ago, the Paschal Lamb, the final atonement, the final blood sacrifice for all time, that those who would adhere to the atoning work of Jesus as He shed His blood for the remission of our sins, it would be the same as striking the doorposts of our homes with the blood of the Paschal Lamb. You know, in a sense, this sounds very Christian and very un-Jewish. But however much it sounds alien to ears that are hearing this from us now, we want to say again and again that this is very Jewish and is given from the very beginning. This practice of the shedding of blood for the remission of sins was something enjoined of God from the beginning. It was for the first of months in the beginning of the nation Israel, and when God established in the wilderness experience a priesthood through Aaron, the setting up of a tabernacle, the essential practice of that Jewish religion was the sacrifice of animals, their shed blood being brought into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled there by a high priest for the atonement of the sins of the people. Maybe we ought to just hesitate for a moment and ask our viewers to consider what the word atonement really connotes. Atonement means atonement with God, to become at one with God. And there are a lot of people who think that we're always in a state of being at one with God, but that is not what the Scriptures imply. In Isaiah, the 59th chapter, we read, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save. Neither is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. There's a God who changes not, a holy God who says that our iniquities have separated us from him, and there must be something to atone for these iniquities. And in the 17th chapter of the book of Leviticus, when God was laying the foundations of his biblical Judaism, we read the reason for the shedding of blood. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. You know, and there may be some opposition to such clear statements as these. Well, that was an ancient practice. We've since evolved and progressed from the time when that was necessary. Maybe that's necessary for blatant sinners, but I do good deeds, and I contribute to this cause and that, and I buy Israel bonds. How would you answer a person who would speak in that way? Well, I think the only way to really answer that is that there are two ways. There's God's way, and there's man's way. And God says that without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin, that we are all separated from God by our sins. Well, what if we don't feel like we're sinners? Well, according to the Word of God, it doesn't matter much how we feel. It's a matter of believing the Word of God or not believing the Word of God. That's a whole thing in a nutshell. If God said we're sinners, and we're separated from him by our sins, we've got a choice. Well, where does he say that? Oh, he says it all through the Old Testament. A good example would be in Ezekiel. In fact, I was just reading it here while you were speaking. In the 18th chapter of Ezekiel, God says, Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit. For why will ye die, O house of Israel? You know, Paul, I think that this is so fundamental a question that we don't dare glibly pass over this. There are a great many modern people who feel themselves righteous. They've never committed adultery. They've never murdered. They've never committed a heinous or blatant act or transgression or sin, and therefore they have, by their own human reckoning, an exalted understanding of themselves, which is in contradiction to what the Word of God says. This is an important point, people, and we just want to impress this upon you. You don't dare make a fatal reckoning that because you don't feel yourself to be a sinner, and because you've not committed blatant sin, that somehow you've escaped the Word of God that pertains to all men. God does not see as we see, nor are His thoughts our thoughts, and He says that if we fail in one point of the law, that we're guilty in all. And many such Scriptures are there, that if God should mark iniquity, who can stand? There's not a righteous man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. And here, for example, the soul of sin shall die. That's the consequence, and in the 64th chapter of Isaiah, but we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf in our iniquities, like the wind hath taken us away. There is none that called upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee, for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities. People, we are all as an unclean thing. I know it's not flattering to be told that, but I believe that we have an obligation to express to you something of the substance of God's statement about our human condition, irrespective of the subjective feeling that you have for yourself. And I know, surveying my own past life, Paul, that I did a kind of unconscious spiritual bookkeeping, where I felt that, although I may have transgressed here or there, and they were not too serious an offense, that somehow, because I was involved in progressive causes, because I was involved for mankind, and I distributed leaflets, and did, did, did, did, that in God's bookkeeping office, that the one offset the other. You could mark up spiritual brownie points. But what does God say to us by His Spirit in Isaiah? All our deeds are as filthy rags in His sight. There's nothing that we can do to establish a right relationship with God. He tells us also in the Psalms that if God would mark iniquity, who could stand? Not one person. All right, so God concludes that all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that the wages of sin is death or separation. We are separated from Him both here in this life and eternally, and yet that God has provided an atonement through the shedding of blood. Now, what has this to do with the messianic and biblical faith, which we have been suggesting to the people is the essential and only real faith of the living God? Well, one thing is that we believe that the requirement of God for the shedding of blood has never been requited, that it's never, He has not abolished this pattern. Well, let me ask you this. If the pattern has not been abolished, the requirement has not been done away. We all know that in 70 A.D., the temple was destroyed. As Jesus prophesied, not one stone was left standing upon the other. The priesthood was dispersed along with all the Jewish people to all of the corners of the earth. We have no way of even identifying today those who are of the priestly tribe. We have no temple. We have no sacrifice. How then can atonement and reconciliation yet be effected? Well, as far as any traditional orthodox position, it can't be, because in the traditional biblical requirement of God, the shedding of blood is the only thing that can requite sin. So, I would say that we have to start looking for another provision by God. If the temple was destroyed, and it's interesting, you know, that the temple was damaged when the Jews went into captivity the first time, right? But the temple was rebuilt again. But when Titus came through in 70 A.D., it was demolished, just as Jesus prophesied that not one stone would be left standing. The Ark of the Covenant, gone. The altar, gone. Everything that was meaningful concerning temple life, gone and utterly destroyed. It seems to me that God, once and for all, put away the practice of animal sacrifice after He provided the one-time sacrifice of Jesus, the Paschal Lamb. You know that on a previous telecast, we mentioned Simeon, who is called a devout and just man, waiting for the consolation of Israel, to whom God had promised by His Spirit that he should not die until he would see God's Christ. As a matter of fact, people, except that we do see God's Christ on this side of the grave, we shall die. There shall be an eternal separation. But God will reveal that Messiah and that provision for those who are devoutly seeking it. And I think such a man like Simeon must also have been John the Baptist, a Jewish prophet, intensely crying out and making straight the way of God for that one who should come after him. And in the Gospel of John, we read this enormous statement in that very first chapter, the first time that John beholds this Yeshua, this Jesus, the next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. What an enormous statement to make at the first appearing of this Jesus, who indeed was killed as a Lamb of God, and who made His blood available that we might mark the doorposts and lintels of His house. And you know that the corroboration doesn't stop there. We read that this first Lamb which had to be without spot and without blemish. Now consider this. A spot and a disfigurement might be obtained in this lifetime, but blemish is something with which a person or a Lamb is born. There is only one who could provide the eternal atonement, one who would be without spot impeccable, never having sinned, but also born without blemish. Jesus acknowledged that He was this Lamb, and He said, For this purpose have I come. No man takes my life. I lay it down. And His final words from the cross, It is finished. And here we see a perfect correspondence between that first Lamb and the second Lamb. It's interesting also, Paul, I think to note this, that there was a four-day period of time when this first Lamb was kept for public observation, that if there be any defect that might have been detected before its use, it was selected on the tenth day of Nisan and killed on the fourteenth. Exactly the same day, thousands of years later, when Jesus of Nazareth rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on the back of an ass, being hailed by Jewish people as Hosanna, the coming of the King, where they strew leaves and boughs of the tree in His path, and He was proclaimed as the King of Israel. For four days He was publicly available, and finally when He was apprehended, He said to these men, Which of you can convict me of sin? Not only was there a four-day period in which He made Himself available, but in a certain sense, His whole public ministry, His three and a half year public ministry, was an opportunity for the world to examine Him and see where He could not fulfill the requirements of this being the eternal Lamb of God. He fulfilled every messianic prophecy, including Isaiah's prophecy in the fifty-third chapter, where He went like a lamb to the slaughter without opening His mouth. That's enormous. I don't think that we would be doing our viewers justice if we didn't make some reference to this enormous fifty-third chapter, and I would say that this is almost the heart of the biblical messianic faith, and of course those who disagree with us claim that what's being referred to in this fifty-third chapter is not a single individual, a Messiah, a Lamb of fulfillment, but rather a description of the people of Israel and the nation, which of course there is a certain suggestion of that because as a nation we've suffered, but yet as we carefully examine this text, we find that God is indeed speaking of a certain individual. In fact, if we back up to the fifty-second chapter of Isaiah, beginning with the thirteenth verse, God speaks of a servant. My servant shall be prudently, he shall be exalted, and be extolled, and be very high. These are words which are reserved only for the divinity of God, to be extolled and to be very high. But many were astonished at thee, his visage, his face, were so marred more than any man in his form, more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. In that condition, in that battered, beaten condition, shall he sprinkle many nations. And kings shall shut their mouths at him, for that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they consider. Why don't you read on for us now this very famous chapter, which by the way is never read in synagogues, and very few contemporary Jews have any knowledge of this. Okay, who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form, nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Scriptures tell us that when Jesus came to his own, his own rejected him and received him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and cured our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. I think that's a fantastic verse. For us, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off, he was killed, out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. And Jesus, when he was crucified, was laid to rest in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, one of the richest people in Jerusalem at that time. Because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. He was entirely innocent. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. I just want to read that once more. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, and prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, and he shall bear their iniquities. He's speaking about you and me. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong. Because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Now the Scriptures tell us that he who had not sinned was made sin for us. I can't think of a more definitive statement of God's messianic biblical Judaism than this enormous chapter of one that was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. And he went as a lamb to the slaughter, for the transgression of my people was he stricken. You know, people, it's one thing for God to make this provision. It's another thing for us to avail ourselves of it. Many centuries ago, Jewish men and women had to take a shrub plant and dip it into the blood of that lamb and apply it to the doorpost and lintels of their house. It wasn't enough to contemplate it. It wasn't enough to consider it. They had to do it. And something also is required from you, even today, if you'll have it. By an act of faith, even now, you can receive that blood which was shed by the Lamb of God for the sins of the world and your sins, by faith taking it and applying it to the lintel and doorposts of your heart and your life. Even now, why don't you do it and enter into this Passover season with a new joy, a new deliverance from an Egypt of slavery and bondage to sin, for which you will eternally rejoice in God? Let's seal that with a prayer, Lord. Precious Holy God, we thank you for the Lamb of God, for the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, who took upon Himself our sins and our transgressions, who offered His back to the smiters and His beard to the pluckers. Lord, that His blood might flow, that we might have an eternal atonement, a reconciliation with God the Father from whom we have been separated by our iniquities. May there be those now, even as we pray, who are crying out of their hearts and say, O Lord, I receive the Messiah of Israel and His precious work. Save me, have me, this day, in Jesus' name. Amen.