Title: Keeping a Veil Over God’s Face and Yours.

Class Outline:

Thursday May 15, 2025

 

Intro: What is Korban (Corban)?

 

Korban - gift or offering for the Temple (LEV 2:1). An Israelite could voluntarily vow money or property to the Temple (to God; Lev 27). It was to be paid immediately (DEU 23:21-23).

 

NUM 30:2

"If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”

 

Tradition (oral law) was instituted in which wealth that was designated Corban (gift to God) could be kept in your possession but not given to another, even parents in need.

 

MAT 15:1-20.

 

It is hard to exaggerate the significance of ritual purity for the Pharisees.

 

A holy people must avoid defilement with anything unclean. Defilement was met with the prescribed ritual. These purity practices separated them from other peoples (barrier to the Gentiles). 

 

The early church struggled with their removal for years as seen in Act 10-11; 15; Gal 2.

 

No law in OT on washing hands before eating. This was extrapolated and the codified in the oral law, and later, in Mishnah.

 

Tradition v. Word of God. 

 

Nothing wrong with traditions; only when they supersede the Word of God. 

 

The Pharisees essentially believed that God was not thorough enough. 

 

Jesus draws a contrast between the Word and tradition. 

 

The theology of Israel at the time had evolved to the point that participation in life and worship of God was regulated by ritual purity. 

 

The entire sacrificial system was very soon becoming obsolete. 

 

Shirking duty while appearing pious is putting a veil over God and yourself.

 

Is it better to avoid the pain of loss by being gracious (say) than it is to become like God? 

 

See Him and know Him and love Him (Joh 14). 

 

The laws of God lead to Him - to see and know Him, even when we fail them. 

 

PSA 51:1, 2, 10, 17. 

 

You have failed to see God and self - and so you cannot love. 

 

ISA 29:13 and context. What does it mean to have a heart near to God? Fellowship, likeness, obedience. It will show you yourself in a mirror - do you want to see it?

 

 

Application:

See and know Christ is a journey that results in our seeing and knowing ourselves. We are all born with pride, and, like cancer, it remains in us at salvation and it is not benign but active - the flesh. The flesh wars against the Spirit, fighting for the right to do what it likes. It seems odd that sinful, weak, selfish flesh should take the battlefield against God, but it is not so strange when we consider that the battle is not decided by force or arms or strategy, but by you. You decide who wins. 

 

PSA 139:23-24

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my anxious thoughts; 

2CO 3:18

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.