Our Strong Right Arm

Have you ever noticed how naturally we take pride in our own achievement and rejoice in what our own strong right arm has been able to perform? In matters religious, just as in all others, the tendency is for us to put the emphasis on what we ourselves do.

The primitive savage for example comes to the conclusion that his god is angry with him. His fowls have died or his wife has, or he has a pain in the tummy or has been defeated by his foes. The situation is intolerable. Therefore he must do something. He chooses out a choice victim and offers it in sacrifice to his god, and he believes that if he has chosen the right victim and performed the ceremonies correctly he will succeed in his object. His strong right arm has triumphed.

Or consider a religion of a very different type in Judaism. In our Lord’s day the Pharisees had made a very close study of the Old Testament, and especially the first five books which to them were sacred Scripture par excellence. In the Law (as these five books are called) they found that there are 613 separate commandments. Salvation for them then became a simple matter. Simply keep these 613 commandments and you are right! Here is a religion of a very different type from the foregoing, but again we discern the same principle–man’s salvation rests on what he himself does.

So with the mystery religions. Not a great deal is known about these (is it a coincidence that women were not admitted?), but it is known that the essence of the various cults consisted in submitting the initiates to various horrifying experiences and then bringing them out into a sense of calm and the vision of the god or goddess. Again if one would be saved one must do something; in this case submit to the rites of initiation. Read More

Also See:
The Day of Atonement was a Copy of Christ’s Atonement