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LIVING WITH A HOLY GOD REQUIRES OFFERINGS AND SACRIFICESLeviticus 1-3INTRODUCTION In my reading through the Bible I recently read this line from a sermon that the apostle Paul delivered to a group of Jews in the town of Pisidian Antioch, which is in modern southeastern Turkey. He is describing how the Jews in Jerusalem treated Jesus whom he has just asserted is the Messiah, David’s son. Paul says, “…those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.” What Paul is saying is the same thing that Jesus repeatedly said as well. The Jewish people, because they had in their possession the OT ought to have recognized Jesus because the entire OT is about him. They, without knowing what they ought to have known, by killing Jesus did exactly what God in the OT said was going to happen to his Messiah. The assertion of Jesus and the apostles is that the good news of forgiveness of sins and a relationship with God through faith in the crucified and resurrected Jesus is not new news but old news. God has been speaking about his crucified and resurrected son from the beginning and he entrusted to the Jewish people the record of his speech in the OT. This is the reason we are beginning today a series entitled “Living with a Holy God” in which we will examine the books of Leviticus and Numbers in the OT. We are reading these books, not because we have an interest in ancient history but because we have an interest in seeing and knowing and rejoicing in the greatest person who ever lived, Jesus Christ. We believe that all of the Scriptures are useful for us in knowing Jesus and his salvation. We are going to see how God, in his infinite wisdom and kindness revealed the grace and glory of Jesus to the Jews and through them to the world throughout the centuries by means of their worship in the tabernacle and temple. Leviticus and Numbers are both a story about living with God and a manual on how to live with God. These two books both give instructions on how man lives with God and then a record of how it went as God lived with men. I trust that God will use this journey in all of our lives to increase our delight in being the people of God with whom God lives. If I do not answer a particular question you have about a particular detail in the text please do not hesitate to ask me or email me and I will do my best to answer. The idea that God can live in close contact with human beings is, contrary to modern sentiments, a very radical idea. Humans have an almost impossible time living with each other, how in the world can it be an easy thing to live with God? If my wife has a hard time accepting me because I don’t live up to her expectations how will God feel about someone like me who not only doesn’t live up to his expectations but who disagrees with his expectations? If I sometimes resent my wife’s expectations, which aren’t very high, how will I ever be happy with God’s expectations as embodied in the Ten Commandments? All the ingredients for all out war between God and me are present in our relationship. He demands perfect obedience to his commands and perfect love for him and his creation and I demand an easy life, full of freedom to do as I please, with no negative consequences. If God were to approve of or at least tolerate my ambitions and desires then we could get along quite happily. But if God demands that I embrace him and his commands then we are not going to get along very well. We will be unhappy with each other. In my natural condition I feel about God the way you or I feel when we are late for a meeting and speeding in our car and suddenly see a police officer turn on his lights and follow after us. We are not happy to the see the officer. We wish he would go away and leave us alone. This is the story of man and God. Right after God makes this amazing universe and creates man and woman perfect in every way and puts them in a perfect environment to work together to manage the world in a partnership of perfect people, what do we do? We decide that we don’t like the terms of God’s arrangement and we rebel against him by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. While this act of treachery has justly led to every misery that we have ever experienced including death and hell and has made us God’s enemies, yet God has continued to pursue us without reducing his demand for our perfect obedience. The shocking story of Genesis and Exodus is that God pursues and puts up with and loves rebellious people like us. The fact that this holy and perfectly just God seeks to have a relationship with rebellious people like us is the most astonishing fact in the universe. The story of the Bible is the story of how God, apart from us, has made a way for him to justly live with us. As a congregation we have followed that story through the books of Genesis and Exodus. Most recently in Exodus we have seen how God, faithful to his promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, rescued the nation Israel out of their slavery in Egypt by mighty signs and wonders. We watched as he brought them safely through the Red Sea while destroying the Egyptian army. We noted how he brought them to Mt. Sinai and appeared to them in cloud and fire and earthquake and spoke to them the words of the Ten Commandments. We watched as Moses made his numerous trips up and down that mountain to obtain God’s commands for them to obey. We listened as they declared to God on three occasions that they would obey everything that he had commanded them. Then in shock we watched as they built a golden calf in direct opposition to God’s word and worshipped it while Moses was on the mountain as it burned. We trembled as God told Moses to get out of the way so that he could destroy these rebellious people and make a new nation from his descendants. We marveled as Moses interceded for them and stayed God’s wrath and offered himself in their place. Then we watched as God, rather than wiping them out descends in the cloud of his glory to dwell in the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting that Israel built in the midst of their camp at God's command. What an astonishing thing that the God who made the whole universe and who commanded these people to obey his commands and told them that he would destroy them if they did not obey him has now come to live among them. Exodus ends, as we just heard read for us with one of the most outlandish endings of any story in the history of the universe. The infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, just and holy Judge of the universe has come to live in a tent in the midst of a community of hardened criminals. If you are reading the Bible as it is written you cannot help but ask, how can this be? How can this God live with these people without war breaking out immediately? The book of Leviticus answers that question. In answering that question this book points us ahead to the final solution. It is not an easy thing for a holy God to live with sinful people and the book of Leviticus helps us to appreciate just how difficult it is and therefore how amazing God is to have created a way to make it happen. MAIN POINT Against all expectation the holy God has made a way to live with sinful humans, therefore…I. Each human must draw near to God by faith The first thing to notice here is that every Israelite is commanded to draw near to God. Do you see that in the opening two verses? It is not just the priests and the Levites who are to draw near to God but every Israelite is to draw near to God, to come before him in the tabernacle to offer sacrifices and gifts. While the work of the priests is absolutely necessary for each individual to draw near to God, yet the priests cannot come to the Lord for you. You must come. That little phrase “to the Lord” occurs 101 times in this book and the synonymous phrase, “before the Lord” occurs another 59 times. God dwells in this tent and to enter into the courtyard that surrounds it is to come to the Lord, into his presence. Every Israelite is called upon to believe that God is indeed come to dwell among them in this tent and that each one is to come before him. No one will ever come to this tent unless they believe that God actually dwells there. So each person, by faith, must come to God in the tabernacle. Not only must a person believe that God is there but that drawing near to him and receiving his favor is valuable. Let's just look at what a person had to do in order to offer the first of the sacrifices, the whole burnt offering. First, the person had to go among his herd of cattle or flock of sheep or goats and select the most valuable animal, a male without any blemish or defect. A man’s wealth was measured in his herds and flocks. They were his savings account and his retirement fund; his hedge against hard times. Eating meat was not very common because you didn't want to eat up your assets. God is telling these people that in order to draw near to him they must destroy a very valuable possession. Most Israelites did not have lots of cattle and sheep. If a person was poor and did not own any cattle or sheep then he would have to purchase a dove or pigeon. Once he had selected the animal to offer then he had to go to the tent and do all the work of slaughtering, skinning, washing and cutting up the animal. The priest would toss the drained blood against the sides of the altar and put the cut up body on the fire on the altar and burn the whole thing up. The Israelite had to stand there and watch this valuable asset go up in smoke. Why would you do that? You must believe that God himself is a greater treasure than this valuable animal. And you would have to believe that burning up this animal would obtain for you God’s acceptance. You have to believe that the sacrifice actually obtained God’s favor and that obtaining God’s favor was superior to the value you obtained from possessing the animal. If you didn’t believe that God was uniquely in the tent or if you didn’t believe that being accepted by him was more important than keeping the animal or if you didn’t believe that burning up the animal would make you acceptable, then you wouldn’t do any of it. There is only one reason to come to Jesus Christ, to belong to his church, to pay any attention to the Bible, to spend any time praying, to give any money to the church, to fight to get your family to worship God together, to fight against your desires to sin and that is because you believe that knowing God, that being loved by God, that being near to God is better than everything else in the universe. You don’t need the gospel or the church if your goal in life is to have money or health or friends or obedient children or power or the respect of others. You can have all those things without Christ and his church. But if you, by God’s grace have come to know that the purpose of life is to be near to God forever, then you need the gospel, which is what we see in the next point. Against all expectation the holy God has made a way to live with sinful humans, therefore each human must draw near to God by faith… II. Through his chosen substitute in order to escape God’s wrath As we look in closer detail at the first offering commanded, which is the whole burnt offering, I want you to notice the structure of these opening chapters of Leviticus. If you have your Bible open you can see that the first chapter describes the burnt offering, the second chapter the grain offering, the third chapter the peace or fellowship offering, the fourth chapter through 5:13 describes the sin offering and 5:14 through 6:7 describes the guilt offering. All of these offerings are to be performed by individual, ordinary Israelites with the assistance of the priests. From 6:8 through the end of chapter seven God instructs the priests on how they are to handle these various offerings. This morning we are looking at the first three offerings, the burnt, the grain and the peace or fellowship offerings. The burnt offering is mentioned first because it is the most common of all the offerings. Individuals make the burnt offering in a variety of circumstances and it is made every morning and every evening by the priests on behalf of the entire community. The grain offering is also a very common offering and is associated with a number of the other offerings. Most importantly the grain offering is made in conjunction with the twice daily burnt offering. The fellowship or peace offering, as we will see is a voluntary offering. I want you to look carefully at what we are told about the burnt offering in chapter 1. I’ve already outlined the procedure the worshipper is to follow. What I want us to concentrate on is the purpose of this offering. In v. 3 we are told that the reason he is to present it at the door of the Tent of Meeting is so that he (NIV has "it") might be acceptable to the Lord. The word used here and in the following verse is the Hebrew word for grace. The offering of this animal obtains God's grace or favor. In other words, without this sacrifice the person would be unacceptable to the Lord. What does it mean to be unacceptable to the God who made you and who sustains your life? It doesn't mean that he is simply indifferent to you. If you are not the object of God's grace then you are the object of his wrath, his condemnation. The Bible unrelentingly describes humans in their natural condition as being the objects of God's wrath. Ephesians 2:1-3 graphically describes us in our natural state as being dead in our trespasses and sins, being under the control of the devil, being enslaved to our evil passions and thus being the objects of God's fierce disapproval. God views us in our natural condition the way that you would view the pedophile who molested your child or the terrorist who flew the plane into the building and killed your dad. Apart from this sacrifice God's displeasure rested upon each individual Israelite. It was only through this sacrifice that you obtained God's gracious acceptance. What is it about this offering that gains God's approval that obtains God's grace towards the individual? Look at v. 4. First, the person lays his hand upon the head of the animal. The word used here is not the simple word for set or place your hand but a word that means to lean upon and press down upon something. What is being symbolized here is that the animal now represents the person or has become his substitute. The animal has now taken upon itself the divine displeasure that is due to the sinner who lays his hand upon its head. This valuable, male, unblemished animal now represents the person. What happens to the animal? Its throat is slit, its blood drained out and thrown against the sides of the altar, it is skinned and its body is washed and then cut up and put on the fire to be completely burned to ash. The one offering the gift ought to have the same thing happen to him but he is not thrown on the altar and burned up, instead the animal is burned up in his place. Verse 4 tells us that this animal is now accepted in behalf of the sinner in order to make atonement for him. What does it mean to say that the animal makes atonement for the person? The basic idea behind this word is the paying of a ransom. Paying a ransom in the Bible is not identical to how we use the word. We understand the paying of a ransom to be a payment to a terrorist or criminal of some sort who has kidnapped a loved one and you pay the ransom to get back your loved one alive. The idea of preserving someone's life by making a payment is similar in both cases but the Bible's use of the word differs in a very significant way. In the Bible the ransom is paid to preserve the life, not of an innocent person, but of a guilty person. For example, in the Law of Moses God gave instructions as to what to do if a person was killed by another person's ox. Normally, the ox would be killed and the family of the deceased person would get the carcass to use. However, if the ox had been in the habit of goring people and the owner did not keep it confined but was negligent and so the ox was roaming free when it killed your son or daughter, then the negligent owner was to be killed in addition to the ox. However, God made a provision that if the victim's family wanted they could merely impose a fine on the owner and thus he could preserve his own life by paying a ransom. The idea of ransom is that a person deserves to die but that God, in his grace, provides a way for the condemned person to pay for his life. What we see in the case of the burnt offering is that God accepts the death of the animal in exchange for the death of the guilty sinner who has placed his hand upon the head of the animal. There are many examples in the OT where atonement is made not by the payment of money or by the death of an animal but by the death of another person. In the book of Numbers the Israelites are seduced by the women of Moab and engage in worshipping the god of the Moabites and participate in the sexual immorality that is involved in that pagan worship. God is furious with Israel and begins to wipe them out by a plague. We are told that Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, atones for the sin of the entire nation of Israel when he kills one of the Israelite tribal chiefs and a Moabite woman he has taken into his tent. God accepts the death of these two as a ransom for the lives of all of Israel and so the plague stops. In Exodus, Moses offers himself to God as a ransom following the golden calf incident. Most importantly, the Lord Jesus in Mark 10:45 says, "For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." When Jesus dies on that cross he is paying the ransom price for every guilty sinner who lays their hand upon his head, that is, for all who trust in him. There is one final thing I want you to see about this offering. Notice in v. 9 that the offering is called "an aroma pleasing to the Lord." The effectiveness of this offering is not in the blood but in the smoke. It is the consuming of the animal in the fire on the altar which "pleases" the Lord. This doesn't mean that God likes the smell of a good barbecue. Rather, by using the language of metaphor we are being helped to understand that God's justice is satisfied by the death of this animal. In a graphic way we are being told about God's pleasure in this expression of his justice and his mercy. It pleases God that the sins of his people are being punished by this substitute and it pleases God to show his favor to the one who draws near in this way because his justice is satisfied in the death of the substitute. Listen to how the NT uses this metaphor in Ephesians 5:1-2, "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a pleasing aroma and sacrifice to God." God is pleased with the death of Jesus and accepts all who draw near to him by faith in Christ, that is, by believing that being near to God himself is the most important thing in the universe and that it is only by Christ becoming my substitute that I can draw near to him. I must lay my hand on the head of Christ by faith and depend upon his being consumed in the fire of God's wrath against me in order to safely live with this holy God forever. Have you laid your hand upon the head of Jesus as he is led to the cross and consumed in the fire of God's wrath against you? Are you trusting in him in order to be accepted by God? Have you abandoned hope in every other salvation and are you hoping only in Christ and that eternal salvation that he promises? Against all expectation the holy God has made a way to live with sinful humans, therefore each human must draw near to God by faith through his chosen substitute in order to escape God’s wrath… III. And to have joyful fellowship with him. The next two most common offerings are the grain offering and the fellowship or peace offering. The grain offering is usually offered along with an animal sacrifice. It is always offered with the burnt offering. You can offer the grain either as ground flour, baked, unleavened cakes, or like pancakes cooked on a griddle. However you offer the grain it must have oil and salt in it and a dash of incense offered along with it. It can never have honey or yeast mixed in with it. While there have been lots of theories, we don't really know what all these various substances represent. It was offered in this way: The worshipper would bring the offering, in whatever form he desired and give it to one of the priests. The priest would then take a fistful of the flour or break off a piece of the cooked flour and along with the incense, put it on the altar where it would be burned up. This part of the grain offering is called "the memorial portion" and as it burns up it, like the burnt offering, is an aroma pleasing to the Lord. The rest of the flour or cakes were then taken by the priests and eaten by them. This portion is called "most holy". The function of the grain offering is threefold. First, flour as the main food of the people when offered is an acknowledgement that God is the sustainer of life. The offering of flour is an expression of faith, of dependence upon God for all things. It is the humble acknowledgement that we are dependent creatures. We are not in charge, God is. Second, it is an expression of gratitude to God for sustaining life. The memorial portion as it is burned up is a pleasing aroma as it is the expression of gratitude and praise and thanksgiving. So the worshipper honors God and gives thanks to him for giving and sustaining his life. This expression of faith pleases God. Finally, it serves the very practical function of providing the priests with food so that they do not have to work but can give their full attention to representing the people to God and God to the people. It is the food by which the mediators are enabled to perform their tasks of intercession for the people. Without the grain offering God cannot dwell in the midst of the people because there would be no priest present to represent the people. At various times in the history of Israel the people stopped bringing the grain offerings and so the priests had to go work their fields and could not work in the tabernacle and so God departed from his people because he cannot live in the midst of people without the presence of a priest. So ultimately, this offering is necessary to maintain the fellowship of God and people through the priest. It is an act of faith in the priest as necessary to your ability to know God and to be in a relationship, in fellowship with him. You can come to the tabernacle and be accepted because God's priest is there, that is why you offer the grain. The NT presents Christ as our high priest. It is because he is our priest who always lives to intercede for us that we can confidently draw near to God now and expect to draw near to God forever in heaven. While we do not provide his food in order to enable him to keep being our priest, we do draw near to God by faith in his being our priest. We never approach God on the basis of our own acceptability but always on the basis of the acceptability of Jesus as our priest. This is, ultimately, what the Israelites were doing by offering the grain offering. We need a priest and so the grain expresses their faith in the priest. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 9, uses this and other offerings which the priests used as food as the basis of exhorting the church to financially support elders and pastors who preach the gospel. The reason he does this is not because pastors and elders are priests but because they, by their teaching of the gospel are presenting the one who is the priest, Jesus Christ. In a sense, when a church pays its pastor it is like the grain offering in that you are enabling one of the sinners among us to give his full attention to presenting the one who alone is our priest and mediator by means of his word. Christ offers himself to us as our high priest through the preaching and teaching of his word by pastors and elders. Finally, notice that the third offering is called the peace or fellowship offering. It is a voluntary offering of an animal from the herd or from the flock, that is, from among the cattle, sheep or goats. This offering can be either a male or female without blemish or defect. As we will find out later it can be offered for a variety of reasons. The distinguishing feature of this offering is that while the worshipper puts his hand on the animal and the blood is drained and splashed against the altar as in the burnt offering, only the fat, the kidneys and the lobe of the liver are burned on the altar while the rest of the animal is eaten, some by the priests and the rest by the worshipper and his family. Basically the family has a barbecue picnic along with the priest. It is a party, a celebration in response to a variety of things which we will talk about later. The main point in this offering is this idea of the individual and the family and in some cases the entire community eating a meal with one another, with the priests and with God. Eating a meal with someone is an expression of intimacy and friendship and of joy in one another. Whether it's two friends getting together over lunch or a young man taking out that special young woman for a meal or a large and happy family meal at Thanksgiving, the sharing of a meal is an experience of friendship and love. Thus the peace offerings are an expression of our fellowship with God. Again, this fellowship cannot take place without the death of the substitute. In this meal the substitute is eaten. The amount of material in the NT that is connected to this offering is overwhelming. Just think with me about these three things. First, there is the communion service which is the sharing in the symbols of the body of our substitute Jesus Christ. It is called the Lord's Supper on purpose. We share a meal in fellowship with God based upon our sharing in the body and blood of our substitute. We are guests at his table and we enjoy the conviviality and friendship and warmth of that table because he willingly offered himself as our peace offering that we eat together in fellowship with the Father and with the son our priest. Then do you remember this verse, spoken by the resurrected and glorified Lord Christ? "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with him and he with me." Here is Jesus' definition of the Christian life: it is sharing in the intimacy of the fellowship of a meal. To trust in Jesus Christ is to invite him home for supper. Finally, the eternal kingdom of God is regularly described as a great feast, a wedding banquet between Christ, the groomsman and his bride, the church. The shared meal is the symbol of the goal of Christ's coming and dying, that we would live in unbroken friendship with our Savior. This is the end or goal of the gospel; that you and I can come and eat a meal with our Savior. So draw near to God who has come to dwell in our midst by faith in his substitute so that you might have eternal fellowship with him. Against all expectation the holy God has made a way to live with sinful humans, therefore each human must draw near to God through his chosen substitute in order to escape God’s wrath and have fellowship with Him. © Copyright 2008 John Swanson.
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