Weekly passages: Leviticus 1:1-6:7; Isaiah 43:21-44:23; 1 Samuel 15: 2-34; Hebrews 10:1-18.
This week's Torah portion is called Vayikra (also the Hebrew name for the book of Leviticus), which is Hebrew for 'and he called' (also the first word in Leviticus). This portion deals with the offerings the Israelites were commanded to bring to the Lord. These are the burnt offering (olah), gift or grain offering (minha), fellowship or peace offering (selem), sin offering (hatat) and guilt offering (asham). These regulations are linked back to the call Moses received from the Lord at the Tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting (Lev 1:1).1
Physical Spirituality
Modern readers struggle with the concept of animal sacrifice. It seems primitive - barbaric even. Very few of us deal with butchery of any kind. We are often only dimly aware of the true vulnerability of our own bodies and their raw physicality. We often imagine that spirituality must transcend the physical.
However, biblical spirituality is intensely physical. "Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name" (Ps 103:1). We praise God with our bodies as well as our minds. The Hebrew word for 'inmost being' can also refer to 'entrails'! It is from the same root verb as the word for sacrifice, korban, which means 'to draw near' to God.
As Rachel Timoner points out: "The Levitical sacrifices, as substitutes for our own bodies, represent a yearning to give ourselves over, body and soul, to serve God."2 So the sacrificial system was Israel's means of drawing near to a holy God.
We often imagine that spirituality must transcend the physical – but biblical spirituality involves our whole bodies in praising God.
In order to draw near, provision had to be made for the holiness of the people and the sanctuary to be maintained. In its requirement for cleansing with lifeblood, the sacrificial system involved continual physical reminders of the precious life that God bestows. However, Hebrews 10, commenting on this system, asserts that "[the Law] can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship" (Heb 10:1) and "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Heb 10:4).
So what was the purpose of the sacrificial system if sin could not be removed?
Sacrifice: Atonement and Covering
Sacrifice provided atonement for sins: "For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life" (Lev 17:11). However, it could not remove sin. Instead, the Lord chooses to remove sin, as this week's Haftarah passage3 from Isaiah says: "I have swept away your offences like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you'" (Isa 44:22).
Atonement means that sins were covered by sacrifice. The Hebrew for 'Day of Atonement' is Yom Kippur - Kippur comes from a root verb meaning 'to cover'. So it is literally 'Day of Covering'. Atonement therefore consisted of covering sin whilst, in his grace, God chose to send sins away "as far as the east is from the west" (Ps 103:12).
The word for 'inmost being', which can also refer to 'entrails', is from the same root as the word for 'sacrifice', which means 'to draw near' to God.
A further proof that the Levitical sacrifices were not of the same order as Messiah's sacrifice is that the apostle Paul continued to offer temple sacrifices after he had become a believer in Jesus as Messiah. He even paid for other Jewish believers to offer sacrifices (Acts 21:23-26). He refers to a time when "I came to Jerusalem to bring my people gifts for the poor and to present offerings. I was ceremonially clean when they found me in the temple courts doing this" (Acts 24:17-18). He also followed the Old Testament practice of a Nazirite vow (Acts 18:18; 21:23). This means that in his eyes, the Levitical sacrifices functioned differently to Messiah's sacrifice.
Sacrifice: Purification, Consecration and Honour
Sacrifice also purged the sanctuary from defilement. The purification offering (Lev 4:1-5:13) was not required in order to purify the person bringing the offering. Only bathing is required to purify the body in Leviticus and remorse clears the conscience from moral impurity.4
Instead, it is the sanctuary that is purified from defilement by the purification offering. Blood is smeared on the horns of the altar to purge it (the word kippur is used again which can be translated as purgation). Blood is the cleansing agent.5 It also consecrated the sanctuary because blood by nature was holy to the Lord.6 If the sanctuary were not purified, the end result would be that the Lord would depart because he cannot remain where there is defilement.
Sacrifice was also about honouring the Lord. In the Isaiah reading, the Lord rebukes Israel (Isa 43:23): "You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings, nor honoured me with your sacrifices." Sacrifice was about acknowledging who the Lord is and the redemptive work he has done. Only the best was worthy to be presented before the Lord: the grain offering was to consist of the finest flour (Lev 2:1) and animals were to be without defect (Lev 1:3).
Sacrifice also honoured God and purified the sanctuary to keep it suitable for the Lord's presence.
Once for All: Jesus Perfect Sacrifice
We can be thankful that in Messiah Jesus all our sins are atoned for and removed. Hebrews 10 quotes Jeremiah 31's new covenant where the Lord promises once and for all to remove sin: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more" (Jer 31:34). The Lord chooses to forget our sins.
Only Jesus' unique sacrifice could make "perfect forever those who are being made holy" (Heb 10:14). This verses perfectly encapsulates the 'now and not yet' of redemption: we have been made perfect in God's sight through Messiah's sacrifice, but we are still being made holy in this life.
By the "blood of Jesus" we can enter "the most holy place" (v19), which references the high priest's annual journey into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). We can draw near in "full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water" (v22). Just as the altar was sprinkled with blood, so our hearts have been cleansed by faith in what the blood of Jesus has done. Our bodies are washed by the water of baptism, just as God commanded ritual cleansing in water (mikveh is the Hebrew word for a ritual bath) before people approached him in the Temple.
In light of such a great salvation, the author of Hebrews exhorts believers to persevere: "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching" (Heb 10:23-25).
Author: Helen Belton
References
1 VanGemeren, WA, 1997. New International Dictionary of OT Theology and Exegesis, Vol 4. Paternoster, Carlisle, p910.
2 Timoner, R. Giving Ourselves to God: Blood and Guts, Body and Soul. ReformJudaism.org.
3 "In the synagogue service, the weekly parshah [Torah portion] is followed by a passage from the prophets, which is referred to as a haftarah. Contrary to common misconception, "haftarah" does not mean "half-Torah." The word comes from the Hebrew root Fei-Tet-Reish and means "Concluding Portion". Usually, haftarah portion is no longer than one chapter, and has some relation to the Torah portion of the week." Rich, T. Torah Readings. Judaism 101.
4 Milgrom, J, 2004. Leviticus: A Book of Ritual and Ethics. Augsberg Fortress, Minneapolis.
5 Ibid.
6 See note 1, p1005.