Year 1, Day 90: Leviticus 1

Confession

Alright.  These next few weeks is going to be my challenge.  I have this internal dread of Leviticus.  I’ve read it before.  I know what is in it.  It isn’t that I don’t like it or even worse that I don’t see the point of it.  Rather it is that I personally find it about as exciting as reading a driver’s manual.

Please don’t be offended by this.  I’m not trying to insult the book of Leviticus, I’m just allowing my humanity to come out in confession.

My mom, my wife, and a good friend of mine think this is all irrational and that Leviticus is a great book.  I can see their point.  It is a good book.  But if any of you feel like praying for me, for the next few weeks feel free to pray that God grants me inspiration for this time and this book.  For those of you that like the book of Leviticus, I challenge you to start making comments about what you get out of the text!

Sacrifice From the Very Beginning

So, on with the text.  It is true what they say.  Leviticus is about sacrifice and blood.  Here we go in the very first chapter with the sacrifice for atonement.  At the very least, this shows just how important atonement is to the Lord.  The Lord gives this topic up front and first.  This topic is to be taken seriously above all else.  God is desperately interested in the atonement of our sins.  Of course, we as Christians know this because the whole of the New Testament is written about Jesus Christ and how His sacrifice changes who we are as God’s people.  But it is very clear from the very beginning.  God is concerned about sin and atonement from sin.

We should talk a little bit about the word “atonement.”  The word atonement literally means “to cover over” or “to appease.”  This raises an interesting debate.  From the perspective of the law, did these sacrifices forgive the sin that the people who brought these sacrifices had?

From a literally understanding of the word atonement, it is hard to say that they did.  Atonement doesn’t mean “to forgive” but rather “to cover over.”  These sacrifices are like dressing for a wound.  They are like a band-aid.  They cover over the wound and appease God.  But from a strict sense of the word atonement it is hard to make the case that these sacrifices provided the means to true forgiveness.

Of course, I speak from a Christian perspective believing that true forgiveness can only come through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.  The sacrifices spoken of in Leviticus 1 may have covered over the sinfulness of the people, but that covering was only until they could be truly purified through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

However, don’t think that this is just a New Testament idea.

• What does David say in Psalm 51:16-17?  “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
• Proverbs 15:8 and 21:27 speak about sacrifices from a wicked person as being detestable to God, but that the prayer of someone upright is pleasing to Him.
• Hosea 6:6 tells us that God desires steadfast love and knowledge of the Lord rather than sacrifice.
• Isaiah 1:11-12 clearly says that the Lord tires of vain sacrifices from a people who do not care about what they are doing. 

So we can see that even from the perspective of the Old Testament that the sacrifice of the animal is not the complete ritualistic guarantee of forgiveness that we would like to believe it to be.  Sacrifice done right is pleasing to the Lord, surely.  But sacrifice done poorly is an abomination – certainly not a guarantee of forgiveness.

Bringing Atonement into the New Testament

So it is with us living under the cross of Jesus Christ.  Why should we think it any different?  When we come and give our offerings of time, talent, and resources and do not mean it, why should God care?  When we come to worship God and confess our sins but don’t truly mean what we are doing, why should it be pleasing to God?  Why should we expect Christ’s blood to do anything more than just cover up our sins if we don’t truly repent and mean to be in a relationship with God?

God Wants All

To wrap this all up, notice that the whole animal is burned up in the sacrifice (except for the skin, which was given to the priests).  If nothing else, this is a sign to us that God wants the whole of us.  God completely desires our entirety.

For that matter, God completely desires our entire forgiveness as well.  He wants us to be fully contrite.  He wants us to be completely penitent.  He does not desire a half-serious follower, but rather a complete follower who is willing to give everything to Him.  Only when we have given God our whole person can we truly expect the blood of Jesus to actually change who we are rather than just cover over our sinfulness that we are unwilling to give up.

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