Leviticus and Sacrifices

It’s not just Heiser, though I believe he leads the way in clarifying the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, but a lot of obscure scholarship attempts to dig into something that most Christians just do not understand.

Naturally, a major problem is that the history of church theology has really drawn the boundaries in a lot of wrong places. The western concept of justice really does defile our understanding of God’s Word. In broad simple terms, western justice is entirely depersonalized and dehumanizing, punitive and vindictive. Divine justice is restorative and personal. In moral matters, God is the offended party.

As noted in a previous lesson, God distinguishes between normal human mistakes and willful blasphemous defiance. There is no atonement in Moses for the latter, and the whole sacrificial system was all about the normal human mistakes. You can find any number of outlines online and in books for a list of the sacrifices required in Leviticus 1-7 (the context of this lesson). Most of them rely on English translations that are flawed in large part due to flawed theology based on western assumptions.

1. The Burnt Offering (Leviticus 1) — Heiser summarizes the crux of the matter with the image of bringing a host gift when visiting a VIP. You are coming to spend time with God in sacred space. You want to put Him in a good mood about your presence. The whole thing goes up in smoke on the altar. Further, it is often accompanied with the next item.

2. Grain Offering (Leviticus 2) often goes with a burnt offering. It’s primarily a nod to the priests, since they get to consume the bulk of it. The symbolism of adding salt is critical as a preservative of the Covenant, as it is sometimes referred to as a “covenant of salt”.

3. Peace Offering (Leviticus 3) is a shared meal that includes the priests and everyone else. Naturally, God needs no food, but it’s the image of you coming to His table. You give it to Him initially, and He graciously shares it with you and everyone else He includes in His household. It is a feast, a celebration of shalom — stability, prosperity, safety and health. You are giving Him credit for these things as a natural result of His reign.

4. The Sin Offering (starting in Leviticus 5) is no such thing. It’s a misleading label we instinctively assume is to atone for individual sins. The blood is not applied to the worshiper. Heiser suggests it should be called a “decontamination offering”, something that we must bring in order to protect sacred space for the contamination we all carry from the Fall. The blood is splattered on the structures of sacred space as a means of building a barrier against our fallen nature, which can be seen as a communicable defilement. Again, the priests get a piece of this offering.

5. The Guilt Offering (starting in Leviticus 6) should be called a “restitution offering”. It’s to make up for an actual loss suffered. In Hebrew law, you always add 20% to any loss you have caused another. The priestly share is the same as the previous.

Notice how we are reminded that these offerings could not take away sin (noted quite boldly in Hebrews 9-10). They were only for ritual purity, with a primary purpose of making the covenant people aware of their sinful mortal nature, while much of the rest of the Law pointed to the costs of sinful actions. There was a big emphasis on building a sense of holiness in the appointment of sacred spaces. People died for taking just the symbolism lightly.

In Christ, all sins were atoned. Not only can we enter sacred space, but we become the sacred space. This would be earthshattering for Jews who were paying attention. We owe it to ourselves to absorb the Hebrew understanding of these things.