The King offers cleansing when we become stained with sin.
Leviticus 5:13 Through this process, the priest will purify those who are
guilty of any of these sins, making them right with the LORD, and they will
be forgiven. The rest of the flour will belong to the priest, just as with
the grain offering."
The most important thing we need to know about God is that he is holy. His holiness is at the core of who he is and it is the driving force behind his righteousness, justice, mercy, wrath, compassion and all the other attributes of God.
Because of God's holiness we cannot approach him in an impure state or we will be consumed similar to the way that the sun would destroy us. We know that the sun is powerful and good but you would need something to cover you to allow you to have access without burning up.
So far in this series from the Book of Leviticus we have seen the rules for
worshipping God:
- The Burnt Offering shows us that God is merciful in providing a way for us to approach him through the blood sacrifice.
- The Grain Offering shows us that we need to be grateful for his mercy in providing us everything that we have.
- The Peace Offering was a celebration of our renewed fellowship that we have because of God's mercy.
Our next lesson in how to worship God tells us how to continue to receive
God's mercy when we fail him.
The sin offering was actually a purification of God's people and God's
places that he has designated as holy. The purification rituals were
done so that God could inhabit those holy spaces and come close to his
people without jeopardizing their safety.
The purification offering had different sacrifices required for different
people and the amount of purification that would be needed:
- the high priest (vv. 3–12)
- the congregation (vv. 13–21)
- a tribal leader (vv. 22–26)
- an individual member (vv. 27–35)
The application of blood to the holy areas of the tabernacle restores
the sacred space that was defiled by the sins of the priest. The blood
was applied to the veil, the incense altar, and the altar of burnt
offering so that the sacred space would be cleansed.
As you move on from the priest to the congregation, to the tribal
leaders and then to an individual's sin you see a decreasing level of
threat to holiness. The lack of holiness in Israel's leaders required
more blood to be applied to more places, including the holiest places,
whereas the sins of one ordinary person required less.
The popular notion theses days is that sin is sin, no matter which one
you commit, is terrible theology. God's law shows us that sin has
various levels of consequences, in this chapter we can see that
unintentional sin and defiant sins are not treated the same. There are
premeditated sins that the Bible says puts us in great harm and there
are smaller sins that you are not even aware of such as accidently
taking a pen home from work.
Another popular idea is that my sin is my sin and you should stay out
of my business. We think it doesn't concern anybody else but God's
word shows us that the individual sinner has a negative affect on the
whole community. When God sent the Jews into exile, many good people suffered and died as a result of national sins. It's not just a personal thing, individual sins
affect the tribes and the entire nation, that's why we have the
responsibility to look out for each other. (2 Samuel 12:1-10,
Galatians 6:1-3)
This offering shows us our sin nature, our natural ability to do wrong
by God's standards, we don't need to learn how to sin, we can do it
without any effort. The old definition of sin that I learned in Sunday
school is not good theology. I was taught that sin is when you know
what is right and you don't do it. This definition is completely
discredited by the demand for a sacrifice that covers unintentional sins. (Also
in Psalm 19:12-14)
The Old Testament shows us that the purity of God's places and his
people could only be restored through the blood sacrifice. In Leviticus
four we see that the result of these sacrifices was forgiveness of the
sins of God's people. (Leviticus 4:20, 26, 31, 35; Leviticus 5:10,13;
6:7)
Pardon for sin was accomplished to some degree through the animal
sacrifices, otherwise the High Priest wouldn't be able to come into the
most holy places in the Tabernacle and the Temple, but the New Testament
tells us that these sacrifices didn't forgive our sins. (Romans 3:20, Hebrews 10:1-23)
It seems to be a contradiction but maybe what looks like a contradiction
is actually a difference in perspective. The Matthew Henry
Commentary shows us the difference in the types of forgiveness that we
are talking about.
Under the old, sacrifices must be often repeated, and after all, only pardon as to this world was to be obtained by them. Under the new, one Sacrifice is enough to procure for all nations and ages, spiritual pardon, or being freed from punishment in the world to come.-Matthew Henry Commentary
The sacrifices of the Old Testament when done with the right
motivation clearly brought them forgiveness from punishment in this world
(1 John 1:9) but the sacrifice wasn't enough to obtain pardon that would
free them from punishment in the after life (John 3:16).
Offering the Old Testament sacrifices flowed from the life of one rightly related to God by faith, but was not the means of the right relationship, just as Abraham was counted as righteous by his faith. Doing good, even following the rituals of the law, didn't get anybody into Heaven.
1 Timothy 2:5 For, There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus.
The perfect sacrifice is the only one that will get you to a forever home
with God, it had to be
the sacrifice of the perfect God/Man
that could forgive us and give us the right to be God's children living
with him for eternity.
RELATED ARTICLES
The Purification Offering
(meetinggodinthemargin.com)
The Provision of Sacrifice in the Old Testament
(crossway.org)
Was There Forgiveness Under the Law of Moses?
(christiancourier.com)
