Guide to Leviticus 1-5
Leviticus—The Big Idea
God’s desire is to make his eternal life and presence accessible to his human creatures. So, he comes right in the middle of the Israelite camp in the desert. The problem is that sinful humanity cannot exist in God’s presence—humans are polluted by death, and death cannot live in God’s life. Hence, Leviticus:
The point of the Book of Leviticus is to teach people what it takes to receive God’s eternal life.
Leviticus Is a Life Manual
Leviticus is like a manual on how to participate in God’s eternal life.
It’s meant to cover all of life, and so it’s very detailed:
“Have Problem X? Here’s Solution Y.”
The opening chapters of Leviticus describe five different types of offerings, each with a different purpose:
The Burnt Offering
The Grain Offering
The Peace Offering
The Sin Offering
The Guilt Offering
The Burnt Offering (Chapter 1)
The Burnt Offering is about making atonement for sin. A blameless animal (see yesterday’s post) is sacrificed on the altar and the entire thing is burnt up, becoming smoke. It’s could be translated as “The Going-Up Offering”, because the life of the sacrifice is transformed into smoke, which rises to the Lord.
The Logic of the Burnt Offering: the only way to truly show contrition before God for your wrongdoing is to completely surrender your life, even to the point of death. “Lord, I am without excuse.” But, in the burnt offering, the blameless animal is your representative and dies in your place, and the smoke rises up to the Lord, thereby bringing you near to The Lord. The animal stands in for you.
The Point of the Burnt Offering: it makes it possible for you to come close to the Lord and live in his life.
The Grain Offering (Chapter 2)
The Grain Offering is like a Thanksgiving offering. You bring some of your produce and offer it to the Lord, and the priestly families get to use what isn’t burned on the altar.
The Logic of the Grain Offering: everything we have comes from the Lord, so we offer back a portion of what he has given us.
The Point of the Grain Offering: it’s meant to remind you to be thankful and to enjoy God’s good gifts.
The Peace Offering (Chapter 3)
The Peace Offering is a sacrifice of part of the animal, but not all of it. The part that remains is then available to eat.
The Logic of the Peace Offering: God gives good gifts, and they are meant to be shared with others. So, you offer a portion of God’s gift back to the Lord, but then you get to keep the rest.
The Point of the Grain Offering: it encourages people to give thanks and then celebrate together!
The Sin Offering (chapters 4-5)
Can also be translated as “The Purification Offering”.
The Sin Offering purifies the very places in which people live. It is for the kind of things people do that lead to death, even if they are unintentional.
The Logic of the Sin Offering: the blood of the sacrifice is like a spiritual detergent, and it cleans the spiritual atmosphere so it’s not polluted by death.
The Point of the Sin Offering: my moral failing has polluted the world. My sin affects everything else. The Sin Offering is a way to clean up after what I’ve done, and restore things back to God’s intention.
The Guilt Offering (Chapter 5)
The Guilt Offering is about the sinner acknowledging his sin before God and the person he has wronged.
The Logic of the Guilt Offering: if I sin against another human being, I have both sinned against God as the author of life and against that human being image-bearer of God.
The Point of the Guilt Offering: it offers a way for me to restore my relationship with other people as well as the Lord, because it involves a sacrifice to the Lord and a restitution payment to the person I’ve wronged.
The Logic of Leviticus
I hope you are beginning to see the logic of Leviticus:
Human sin is serious, but God offers a way back for people who trust him.
The key to understanding Leviticus is to understand it on its own terms, not on ours. When we approach the book like that, we see that the entire thing is there to teach us what is required if we want to live in God’s eternal life.
SPOILER: Jesus is what is required for humans to have life.
NOTE: Yesterday, in my first post on Leviticus, I included the text of that day’s reading from the One Year Bible. I’m not going to do that any more. So, read your One Year Bible and then come here to check out what I have to offer.
Today’s Old Testament reading: Leviticus 4:1-5:19.
