Reading… and Thinking

Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, “This is the law of the sin offering: in the place where the burnt offering is slain the sin offering shall be slain before the LORD; it is most holy. The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it. It shall be eaten in a holy place, in the court of the tent of meeting. Anyone who touches its flesh will become consecrated.”

— Leviticus 6:25-27 (NASB)

No one would claim that Leviticus is light reading. It gets down to the technical details of the religious law that God established for Israel. A lot of it seems repetitive, and some of it seems downright confusing. Which is no excuse for not reading it! It’s all part of God’s Word, and therefore “profitable for instruction”, as Paul told Timothy (2 Timothy 3:16).

We know that Christ is the fulfillment of the Law, and in particular he is the fulfillment of the sacrifices. They were pointing forward to him. So when we read Leviticus, we should be looking for Christ there.

One fact becomes immediately obvious in the early chapters of the book. There were different kinds of sacrifices, for different purposes. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ offered himself “once, for all” (Heb 7:27). In one sense that means “for all of us”, but in another sense it means “for all occasions”. In other words, the Law’s distinction among many different sacrifices teaches us that there are different aspects to the single sacrifice of Christ.

For example, the guilt offering and the sin offering are not the same thing. If you did something in ignorance, not knowing it was a violation of the law, then the appropriate response was a guilt offering. But if you did something plainly wrong, like stealing, then you needed to repent, make restoration (including adding a fifth to the value), and then offer a sin offering.

So what’s the point? Well, we all do things in ignorance. We hurt people without meaning to. We are so influenced by our culture that we participate in things that are really wrong, without thinking. When we become aware of it, we feel guilty. And we should – we are guilty. But Jesus Christ is our guilt offering. We can have our guilt wiped away.

And on the other hand, we do things we know are wrong. We sin. And we accurately recognize that this is worse, because we knew better. But does that mean we’re unsavable? No! Jesus Christ is also our sin offering. But the sacrifice can’t be effective unless we repent. If we do repent, then we can have our sin wiped away in Christ.

It’s interesting that the New Testament doesn’t make much of the restitution part of the law. Of course, probably some Israelites felt that by making restitution, they were making everything right, basically providing their own atonement. False! It’s certainly the right thing to do, to make restitution in whatever way you can, if you have sinned against another. By doing so, there is some hope of restoring the relationship with that person. But the sin against God can only be dealt with through the sacrifice of Christ.

The verses quoted above are from the law of the sin offering. The last phrase in the quote is what I wanted to draw attention to. You know how something unclean would make anything that touches it unclean. Therefore, if an unclean insect died in a pot, the contents of the pot were unclean. And the pot was unclean. And anyone who touched the pot was unclean. But generally speaking, it didn’t work the other way. Uncleanness spreads by contact, but not holiness.

Except here. The lesson is very powerful. We become unclean through our contact with what is unclean within us, and in the world around us. (I hope it’s obvious that I’m speaking morally here, not ritually or legally.) The typical Israelite would have been unclean all the time, for one reason or another. And so are we! This was the point of the Law, to make this plain.

There is only one thing that can consecrate us, set us apart, make us holy. And that is contact with the sin offering. When we are touched by the sacrifice of our Lord, we become his. We are set apart, consecrated to be his alone. It is through no virtue of our own. The virtue is all his. We, who are unclean, do not defile him. Rather, he makes us holy. And that is grace.