[Leviticus 1] The Sacrifice of Christ in Our Behalf. In this chapter, we see that the Tabernacle is completed, and instructions regarding the different sacrifices are handed down by God to Moses. Each one of these sacrifices is minutely described, and no deviation or variation of offering up is acceptable – on pain of death. The shedding of blood and burning of the offering on the altar in each case, be it a bullock or goat or lamb or dove – all speak to us about the sacrifice of Christ for our behalf as born again believers.
[Lev 1:1-17 KJV] 1 And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the Tabernacle of the congregation, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, [even] of the herd, and of the flock. 3 If his offering [be] a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD. 4 And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. 5 And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that [is by] the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation. 6 And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces. 7 And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire: 8 And the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that [is] on the fire which [is] upon the altar: 9 But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, [to be] a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD. 10 And if his offering [be] of the flocks, [namely], of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring it a male without blemish. 11 And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar. 12 And he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat: and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that [is] on the fire which [is] upon the altar: 13 But he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring [it] all, and burn [it] upon the altar: it [is] a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD. 14 And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the LORD [be] of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons. 15 And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn [it] on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar: 16 And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes: 17 And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, [but] shall not divide [it] asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that [is] upon the fire: it [is] a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.
Introduction to Leviticus. The word Leviticus is a Greek word meaning “relating to the Levites.” It is the third book of the Bible. Typically, scholars reject Moses’ authorship and place the date of its writing about the time that we believe Malachi was written some 500 years before Christ. This points up the fact that unenlightened scholarship maintains that everything we read in the first five books of the Bible and the majority of all the other books of the canon are allegedly myths, legends, and creations of authors writing thousands of years after the dates proposed for the writings about people who never existed but were in their view literary concoctions made to manipulate gullible readers. Scholarship has its place, but in critical analysis of scripture, these professors unflinchingly cross the line into apostasy without so much as a by-your-leave.
In v. 1, we see that the Lord calls Moses, not from a burning bush or the top of a mountain. For the first time, God is speaking to Moses from the Tent of the Tabernacle – the elaborate ceremonial tent freshly six months in the making that now stands at the center of the people’s encampment wilderness. This opening passage in Leviticus, specifically vs. 1-5, is referred to as the “Vayikra” by Jewish schola. It is the 24th weekly reading of the Torah in the annual cycle of Torah reading in Jewish worship. The name “Vayikra” comes from its first word, which contains the phrase “And He called…”
What does this tell us? God continually calls us and desires to speak to us. God is always moving toward us and not away from us to ameliorate the consequences of the fall, even from the beginning as Gen. 3:8 exemplifies:
[Gen 3:8 KJV] 8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
From the day Adam and Eve fell, God continually moves toward man in love, speaking to us, providing a means to move back into fellowship and relationship. Gen. 3:8 can be loosely translated that God came to them “whirling upon the breezes…” Which is exactly what happened on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came like a rushing mighty wind.
In this case, the book of Leviticus opens up, and the setting is this elaborate ceremonial tent and its strange artifacts with the glory of God shimmering in its midst. All of this is to provide a platform under the Old Covenant for God to come near and out of the cloud of His glory to speak with His representative Moses and, by extension, to all of the people of Israel.
In the previous six months, the Lord gave Moses instructions on the design of the Tabernacle and its construction. Bezalel and Aholiab were appointed and supernaturally gifted to build artifacts that artisans today say are impossible to build. The materials were gathered that, by some estimates, valued the Tabernacle at over one hundred million dollars in today’s economy. The Tabernacle was set up, and Aaron and his sons were appointed through a ceremony of washing and anointing to serve before God and the people in the offering of the various sacrifices and oblations as a means under the Old Covenant to address the sin debt in the hearts of the people before God. The lamps of the lampstand were lit, and the laver was filled with water. The Spirit of the Lord came down in glory, filling the Tabernacle and hovered over it as a kind of Holy Ghost guidance and protection system above the encampment and the Tabernacle itself.
Up till now, everything God has spoken to the people in the wilderness had to do with bringing them into Covenant and instructing them in the building of the Tabernacle to accommodate His presence in their midst. Now the emphasis shifts and the Lord speaks throughout this book of Leviticus regarding the myriad and specific ways they are to approach and worship God with their offerings. These are very important because the people can’t just act according to their own thinking or ideas. To approach God outside the parameters of His prescribed instruction was to invite certain death. This is very different than the cultural climate of the Church today that not only defines worship as that which is done according to their whim but champions individualism and personal opinion above anything that God’s word might actually say to the contrary regarding their ideas, our ideas in contemporary Christianity as to how He must be worshipped. Let us be clear. Individualism and personal preference are not reflected in the Old Covenant or the New Covenant as a means of garnering God’s grace by which we live our lives for Him.
His word, His infallible and plainly expressed word, is the standard and the rule by which we must live our lives, and ignorance of the word is not an excuse that might facilitate our opting out of any consequences for disobedience in ignorance.
In vs. 3-5, we see that first offering God instructs Moses regarding was not the sin offering but the burnt offering otherwise known as the consecration offering. This was not an offering that dealt at all with sin. It was to be offered of the worshipper’s “own voluntary will” at the same door of the Tabernacle where God regularly met with Moses. It was intended to represent and express the devotion and fidelity of the worshipper, the Israelite coming out of the camp with the sacrificial animal not to do anything other than to demonstrate by this same offering their deep love for commitment. To God. This tells us that, first and foremost, that God is not interested in compulsory worship. He wants willing worshippers. It is a reflection of His own will in that He CHOOSES in His sovereignty to move toward us in love, not as though He didn’t have any other choice.
When a worshipper brought an offering, He would put his hand on the head of the animal before it was offered. This was an act of identification. The worshipper is identifying with the sacrifice about to be given. The animal represents the Savior, and its head is a symbol of the Lordship of Jesus. It is a recognition not just of Jesus the Savior but Jesus as Lord. This was an act of ATONEMENT … which is “at-one-ment” or becoming one with God. All of the sacrifices in Old Testament worship contained this element of becoming at one with God expressed in the death and the shedding of sacrificial blood.
In vs. 6-10, we see how prominently the shedding of blood was called for in the Tabernacle worship among the Israelites. Christianity has been called the “bloody religion.” It is true that in Old Testament worship, the shedding of blood was frequent, continual, and profuse. The meaning of the shedding of sacrificial blood in ancient cultures is quite lost to us in modern society. We have a hard time seeing past the violence to what is really taking place. When the worshipper laid hands on the animal, the priest also would lay hands on the animal in God’s place. It was a statement of identification both of God and the person saying “we are one” in this sacrifice. It was a form of blood covenant that was the very basis of most contractual agreements in ancient times.
Usually, blood covenant was commonly executed among tribes and individuals to maintain peace and establish agreements about commerce and mutual defense. Blood covenant established the mutual interest of the parties in the lives and concerns of the other person. In this case, these sacrifices were not bringing men together in covenant but bringing man and God together in a ceremony that reflected the ultimate sacrifice of Christ on our behalf. We don’t understand blood covenant today but suffice to say while it may not satisfy us or make sense to us, it satisfies God and is the basis of all His dealings with us through Christ.
In v. 11, we see that the sacrifice was to be killed at a very specific place and position before the altar in the sacrificial service – i.e., on the north side of the Brazen Altar. What is the significance of the northern side of the altar? In the encampment, each tribe had its specific location with respect to the Tabernacle, which was in the midst of the camp. Judah, the tribe that Jesus descended from, was the encampment just north of the Tabernacle. When the sacrifice was made just north of the altar, it was prefiguring the fact that the ultimate sacrifice and lamb of God would come from the tribe of Judah.
In v. 12, the manner in which the sacrifice was to be divided or cut up and how it was to be placed on the altar was specified. It couldn’t be done in any random way or by the personal preference of the priest officiating or the worshipper who brought the altar. All of this was about killing and shedding much blood and cutting up the animal. It was bloody, and it was violent. What does this tell us about the sacrifice of Christ for our sins? When you learn something about blood covenant, you learn that the violence of the act was not the point. The violence of the death of the sacrificial animal was simply a means of bringing about a full outpouring of the entire amount of blood that was available in the sacrifice. It speaks to us of the full price that Jesus paid for us.
In v. 13 we see that after the blood was poured out and the sacrifice laid out, it was to be washed with water (specifically the legs) to assure that no impurity remained before it was burned with fire. Remember the sacrifice represents Jesus. What do we do with our legs? We walk with them. Eph. 5:17 tells us that the washing of water is a type of the word washing our lives. The washing of the inward part of the animal and the legs speak to us of the necessary testimony of Jesus as the LIVING WORD of God. This is why Jesus didn’t come to earth and go immediately to the Cross. It was necessary that He come and walk out on the earth a sinless testimony for 33 years in order to demonstrate the human condition, and God intended it to be lived out before the fall.
In vs. 14-17, we see that provision was made for those without means to offer a bullock, goat, or lamb to bring a bird or a dove. We know the dove represents the Holy Spirit but also represents the believer as a member of the corporate bride of Christ. In the Song of Solomon, we see an allegory of Christ and His bride with reference to the dove. It is a love story demonstrating the heart of God toward His people. In the Song of Solomon, the bride and bridegroom are described as a pair of turtle-doves who are known to mate for life.
In this passage, we also see in the preparation of a dove sacrifice the humiliation of Christ on the Cross.
1. Wringing off the head – Jesus was separated from His Father because of sin, crying, “My God, My God why has thou forsaken Me”?
2. The crop of a bird is a type of pride or of the sense of self-confidence showing that Jesus was humiliated, stripped, and exposed upon the Cross on our behalf.
3. Feathers and wings are the means by which birds ascend into the air, symbolically into union with God. By burning the feathers in the place were ashes were cast and stripping the wings off, we see that Jesus was totally cut off from His Father for our sake.
We don’t understand how this is a “sweet savor unto the Lord,” but Isaiah makes it clear it was all by pre-arrangement between the Father and the son to bring you and me into a relationship with the family of heaven:
[Isa 53:10 KJV] 10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put [him] to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see [his] seed, he shall prolong [his] days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
The offerings and laws concerning them may seem very sterile in describing them, but imagine the bleating of dying animals and the smell of blood and burning flesh that continually hung in the air around the Tabernacle and in the encampment in the wilderness. The people were given a continual reminder of their covenantal obligation to God and for as a reminder of the price that was paid for our salvation because every one of these sacrifices speaks of the sacrifice of Christ Himself for us on the Cross.
