Josephus and a ram

I'd heard of Josephus, a historian--Jewish history. I downloaded a writing of his a few months ago, 'cause I've heard about him 'forever' and had no clue just what he wrote, and wanted to see. Every few weeks, I'll read a few more pages.

A few days ago, I resumed reading and ended up in his description of various animal sacrifices conducted by the Hebrews. I'd gotten through his descriptions of "whole burnt offering" vs "thank offering" (with a list of "approved" animals for each of those) and was now reading about variations of sin offerings. There was a distinction between what I'll call "oops sin" (akin to "I'm not sure, but I might have sinned") sacrifices versus sacrifices for when a person knew clearly that they had done wrong. Josephus noted that a ram was the offering for the known sin.

Ram... I backed up, skimmed through Josephus' lists of animals for the other sacrifices. Sure enough, the first mention of ram was for the "I know I did wrong" sacrifice and, unlike the other cases with "options" on which animal, only a ram was accepted here. (Heh, imagine the line of folks showing up with animals to be sacrificed, and they see the dude with a ram--"Wonder what HE did...") So, there was this very clear connection between a person bringing a ram for sacrifice and their doing so with a clarity about their having done wrong. And such sacrifice was God's arrangement for their "paying in full" for their sin (okay, at least till their next offering).

Hundreds of years before, Abraham had gone up the mountain, anticipating he'd sacrifice Isaac and, at the last moment, God stopped Abraham. Abraham saw a ram stuck nearby. Abraham offered as his sacrifice the ram that God provided.

(Gears turning in my head...) Abraham couldn't have known the possible symbolism of his sacrificing a ram, in effect his saying "I do this because I know that I have done wrong." And God had provided that ram.

Easter week. Here we are. Easter is about God having provided the sacrifice that paid in full for my sin. And just like the uniqueness of the ram and the person owning up to their wrong, so the "paid in full" nature of God's offering of Jesus only applies to those who show up with a clarity about their sin. Deny my sin? Payment not applied. Own up to my sin and accept "God's ram"? Full payment--and life eternal with Jesus who rose from the dead. I have no doubt I have done and do wrong. I choose to believe in God's substitute payment.