The Boring Parts - Pt 3

The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock. “If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. (Leviticus 1:1-4 ESV).

As we begin to read Leviticus we are introduced to the complex system of sacrifice for Jewish worship. Our reading today is but the beginning of that instruction. While Leviticus 1–7 gives us detailed instructions for offering sacrifices, we should see the real message. It is like a flashing neon sign saying: “sin brings death.” Further, the sacrifices also revealed that God accepts the blood of an innocent substitute to pay for sin. This is the heart of the gospel. What we could never do for ourselves, Jesus accomplished on our behalf. The requirements of Old Testament sacrifices help us to see what sin costs as well as the fullness of our forgiveness made possible through the once-for-all perfect sacrifice of Christ. Let’s face it, the laws about what things make a person ceremonially clean or unclean found in Leviticus 11–15 are strange. Yet when we study them, we see that everything that makes a person unclean is something that reflects the effects of the curse of sin on this world. Animals fed on other animals only after the curse. Bodies bled and developed disease only after the curse. Mold and mildew, the visible evidence of decay, came into being only after the curse. Everything designated unclean in Leviticus demonstrated that things are not the way they once were in the garden. They were no longer the way God originally intended them to be. The laws regarding what is clean and unclean in Leviticus give us hope that we who are unclean can be made clean through an acceptable sacrifice, and will one day be made holy to enter into the presence of God. No one at that time could have ever fully grasped that God would one day not only demand sacrifice, dictate the sacrifice, substitute the sacrifice, and be satisfied with sacrifice, but would also actually become the sacrifice. Jesus understood it. And when it came for Him to not just understand but experience it, He willingly stretched out His life on the altar as a sacrifice to cover human sin completely and satisfy divine justice totally. Even as boring as the details of the laws and system of sacrifice are, we see the incredible plan of God as it unfolds in the work of grace through Christ. No wonder some have taken to calling it Amazing Grace!