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Part 1:
The Gospel of Adam, Abel, Abraham and JesusIn Genesis, we find this beautiful marriage between Adam and Eve. And in Revelation, we find the marriage supper of the Lamb, celebrating the mystical union between Christ and the Church.
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Part 2:
The Forbidden Fruit, and the Gift of SorrowAs a loving Father, God permitted them to face the challenge of death, because He knew it would aid them on the quest for humility, repentance, and spiritual healing.
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Part 3:
Two Brothers, Two Sacrifices, and The Strategic LieThis is the world into which Abraham was born, of a nation steeped in pagan worship and human sacrifice, surrounded by nations which were equally deceived.
VI. Abraham’s World
Abraham’s family was from Ur, an ancient Sumerian city with many pagan gods. Bloodthirsty and cruel, they demanded not only animal sacrifice, but also the sacrifice of innocent men and women. At the death of some royalty, dozens of servants and handmaidens would be slaughtered, their skulls violently pierced with a sharp tool, their corpses then undergoing a crude form of mummification, so they could join their masters in death, thus participating in an elaborate ceremony of passage to the underworld.[1]
One of the mightiest gods of Ur was Ea, also known as Enki.[2] According to ancient Sumerian religion, Enki is source of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, and is the god who first created men out of clay. Enki was often represented with the head of a ram.[3]
After leaving Ur, Abraham lived for a while in Canaan, but when a famine hit, he and his wife Sarah fled to Egypt.[4]
The Egyptians worshiped a number of ram-headed gods, including Heryshaf[5] and Amun.[6] One of their most ancient[7] and most dominant gods was Khnum, a ram-headed[8] god who was thought to be the source of the Nile river, and the source of the soil’s fertility. He was also considered the source of human fertility. It was believed that he put clay on his potter’s wheel and created the bodies and souls of children, also providing health to the children after they were born.
Enki and Khnum were similar to one another:
- Both gods were thought to be the sources of great rivers, bringing life to the crops.
- Both gods supposedly created men from clay.
- Both gods were often represented with the head of a ram.
Shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians[9], and the sacrifice of a lamb or ram was exceedingly offensive to them.[10] It was considered sacrilegous—a great insult to their gods, and thus an insult to the Egyptian people themselves.[11] Anyone making such a sacrifice was decisively cutting ties with the religion of Egypt.
The ancient serpent had succeded in crafting a human society in utter defiance to the worship of the one true God. The Egyptians were:
- Worshiping demons instead of God[12]
- Offering blood sacrifices to these “gods”, not out of love, but out of fear.
- Imagining that a ram-headed demon is the source of water and fertility.
- Giving this ram-headed demon credit for creating man from the clay, and for granting health to children
Abraham, like Abel, was a shepherd.[13] The Egyptians, like Cain, were farmers.[14] By despising shepherds, they were despising the memory of Abel.
By elevating the ram to a god-like status and condemning those who sacrificed rams and lambs, it was insinuated that Abel’s sacrifice, rather than Cain’s, was tainted.
God had specifically called Abraham out of Ur and Egypt to dwell in Canaan and become the father of those who would worship Him in truth. In order for this to occur, Abraham and his descendants needed to be completely weaned off the false gods of the Sumerians and Egyptians, including the ram-headed deities. The time was approaching when these false gods would be exposed, rejected, and judged.
Abraham’s family had been accustomed to a culture that demanded bloody sacrifices, including human sacrifices. God desired Abraham’s love and devotion but did not desire human sacrifices. God devised a plan to teach Abraham these lessons in a powerful way by instructing him to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering. Despite the cultural norms of human sacrifice, Abraham’s faith in God’s promises led him to believe that either God would prevent the sacrifice or raise Isaac from the dead. God intervened before the sacrifice could be completed, showcasing Abraham’s love, trust, and good intentions, while also affirming that human sacrifice was not His desire.
Rather than demanding a sacrifice from Abraham, God provided a ram as a gift, demonstrating His role as the ultimate Provider. This act not only affirmed Abel’s ancient sacrifice as pure and good but also emphasized the righteousness of Abraham’s offering, reflecting a heart filled with reverence and love.
- By sacrificing the ram, Abraham was openly rejecting the pagan religions surrounding him, cutting ties with Enki, the ram-headed god of Ur, and Khnum, the ram-headed god of Egypt. This act was considered an abomination by the Egyptians, demonstrating Abraham’s complete separation from any pagan religion.
This act was also significant for Abraham’s descendants who would later be enslaved in Egypt. As descendants of Abraham and spiritual children of Abel, who were shepherds and worshipped God through sacrificing a ram, it was crucial for them to distance themselves from the ram-headed gods of Egypt.
VIII. The Passover Lamb
Despite multiplying in number, the children of Israel in Egypt strayed from the Lord and adopted Egyptian paganism, worshipping bull-headed and ram-headed gods.
When the time came for God to rescue His people from slavery and the corruption of Egypt, the question remained whether He could remove the Egyptian corruption from His people.
God sent ten plagues to judge the gods of Egypt, with the final plague targeting Khnum, the ram-headed god, who was unable to save the firstborn children of the Egyptians, revealing his powerlessness.
Following the examples of Abel and Abraham, God instructed His people to sacrifice lambs during the first Passover to signify their rejection of Egyptian false religion.
The sacrifice of lambs was not for God’s need for blood but to cleanse His people from centuries of idolatry and false religion.
By sacrificing lambs, the Israelites turned their backs on the ram-headed gods of Egypt and departed from the land, crossing the Red Sea miraculously.
To formalize a covenant, God instructed His people to sacrifice bulls, signifying their rejection of the bull-gods Apis, Mnevis, and Bucas worshipped in Egypt.
Having renounced Egypt’s gods and sacrificial practices, God’s people committed to loving God and their neighbors, offering free-will gifts as expressions of gratitude for God’s forgiveness.
To be continued…