I agree with you. But what of Leviticus 21 where God forbids those with visible deformities to enter the temple? How are we to make of that? Obviously all people are inherently valuable and all are children of God. Is this just cultural views (not Godly) of purity?
-Fred
Hi, Fred!
…as I attempted to explain on my previous posts… the Old Covenant’s currency was temporal values… everything was geared to that which man could touch and feel; at one point in Israel’s trek Yahweh God Commanded his prophet to marry a prostitute so that He could point out Israel’s disobedience, adultery, and depravity as it embraced the practices of the nations around her… it was Yahweh means to bring home Israel’s disgrace.
…Worship Service required purity, since the Old Covenant currency was that of temporal values Yahweh God used the visual of impurity (deformities, imperfections, maladies) as a means to demonstrate what could not be afforded/allowed…
…the New Covenant’s currency is Spiritual… the same perquisites apply; the difference is that it is now required that man must be pure/holy… can man make himself holy?
It is through Jesus Christ, and only through Jesus Christ, that man can become holy… so the impurities, deformities, imperfections, maladies… still remain as not allowed:
27 Nothing unclean may come into it: no one who does what is loathsome or false, but only those who are listed in the Lamb’s book of life.
(Apocalypse [Revelation] 21:27)
Your problem is that you think as man; you judge God according to man’s judgments… you want God to be “politically correct.”
It is not about man’s sensibilities!
It is about God’s sensibilities!
The same God that requires “perfection” in His Worship, is the same God that gives all of humanity its validation:
23 These were my orders: Listen to my voice, then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Follow right to the end the way that I mark out for you, and you will prosper.
(Jeremiah 7:23)
4 See now: all life belongs to me; the father’s life and the son’s life, both alike belong to me. The man who has sinned, he is the one who shall die. (Ezekiel 18:4)
34 Then Peter addressed them: ‘The truth I have now come to realise’ he said ‘is that God does not have favourites, 35 but that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him. (Acts 10:34-35)
…the problem some have is that they want to fit God into their own created morals, which are as fluid as water and as malleable as man’s machinations, and lie under their control and whims.
…this, of course, is nothing new:
20 But what right have you, a human being, to cross-examine God? The pot has no right to say to the potter: Why did you make me this shape? 21 Surely a potter can do what he likes with the clay? It is surely for him to decide whether he will use a particular lump of clay to make a special pot or an ordinary one?
(Romans 9:20-21)
…so if it is Yahweh God’s Will that only “perfection” comes into His Presence, why do we (mankind) object to His Will?
Maran atha!
Angel