This is a continuation of my last post. In part 1, we looked at the ancient story of Cain and Abel and how the same lessons were taught by Jesus. To someone unfamiliar with the ancient symbols found in the Cain and Abel story, it might seem that Jesus was teaching radical new doctrine, when in actuality He was restoring the original understanding of the doctrines of the Israelite religion, which had been suppressed centuries earlier. Hundreds of years before Christ, Jacob preserved a wonderful summary of the original religion in Jacob 4:4-10. He wasn't the only one -- we'll get to some additional examples in the next few posts.
Grasping this idea can unfold new layers of meaning in very familiar verses, as we have already seen with Matthew.
As this concept clicked in my head, I understood the words of Paul on faith in a new light. Here is what Paul said about Abel as he spoke about what it means to have faith (I've included the KJV first followed by the same verses from the Expanded Bible, which offers some helpful notes and alternate translations):
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were by the of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
4 By faith offered unto God a more excellent than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh. (Hebrews 11, KJV)
3 It is by faith we understand that the ·whole world [universe; cosmos; ages] was made by God’s ·command [word; Gen. 1] so what we see was ·made by something that cannot be seen [L not made from/by visible things].
4 It was by faith that Abel offered God a ·better [more acceptable] sacrifice than Cain [Gen. 4:4–8]. God ·said he was pleased with [commended him for; bore testimony to] the gifts Abel offered and ·called Abel [commended him as; testified that he was] a ·good [righteous] man because of his faith. Abel died, but through his faith he is still speaking [12:24]. (Hebrews 11, Expanded Bible)
Faith led to Abel's more acceptable offering to God, an animal sacrifice in the manner taught to Adam by the angel (see Moses 5:5). Obedience to that ordinance (and an understanding of the doctrine of Christ underpinning that ordinance) allowed Abel to find life eternal (though he died, "through his faith he is still speaking"). From this we learn that true faith (as it was initially taught by angels) is centered on a belief that God is the Creator, that He knows best, and that we must constantly strive to hearken to His voice.
In the following chapter, Paul makes another reference to Abel's offering in direct comparison to Christ. All of this is given in the context of a description of God's church that is loaded with temple/covenant imagery:
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12, NRSV)
What happens to our faith when we begin to view the temple the place where we come to exercise our faith in God, the place where we can "come to Mount Zion ... and to innumerable angels in festal gathering"? What is being celebrated? That we have found new life in Christ, the "mediator of a new covenant" through His blood which was shed for us.
Faith begins with hope in a better world and that hope leads us to a new life in Christ. Everything we do as we follow Him is best thought of as a celebration of what He did for all mankind. To reiterate Jacob's words from the last post, "... we knew of Christ, and we had a hope of his glory many hundred years before his coming; and not only we ourselves had a hope of his glory, but also all the holy prophets which were before us." (Jacob 4:4)
How can we know if these are new ideas or ancient ones?
The Book of Mormon provides a key to answering this question, but as I mentioned above, it is not the only place where these ancient understandings were recorded. Margaret Barker (a Methodist scholar of the Bible) has spent her life uncovering the most ancient understanding of Israelite temple worship and symbols. She is an excellent resource on this topic. In the next post, I'll review some of the sources she cites to demonstrate that the concept of "new life" is an ancient doctrine of the first Israelite temple, not an early Christian invention.
