Sacrificial Offering: finding life in the blood in Leviticus

There are certain books of the Bible that people tend to avoid. Somewhere near the top of that list for many is the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Perhaps part of the reason for this is that Leviticus seems so archaic and strange, so disconnected with the world in which we live today.

Sacrifice and Offering in Leviticus

The first seven chapters of Leviticus deal largely with different forms of sacrifice and offerings for the people of Israel. Here we encounter the five major sacrifices and offerings to be made at the tabernacle:

1. The Burnt Offering
2. The Gift Offering (or cereal offering)
3. The Peace Offering (or well-being offering)
4. The Purification Offering (or sin offering)
5. The Reparation Offering (or guilt offering)

Many readers are turned off by Leviticus precisely because it rolls right into the specific outline of how these different offerings should be made. The key idea behind all of these offerings is that sacrifice and offering are the means by which the Israelites could draw near to God and maintain right relationship with God. There are many facets to these different offerings and sacrifices that we should pay attention to, but the big picture on them is that they connect people to God relationally. Without the offerings and sacrifices, relationship with God cannot be maintained. In fact, at the very heart of the book of Leviticus is just how it could be that a holy God could dwell with a not quite holy people.

A central motif to the sacrificial system, though not present in all of the individual offerings, is the idea of blood. Blood is all over the place in these early chapters of Leviticus: splashed on the altar (1:11; 5:9), sprinkled before the altar (4:6), rubbed on the horns of the altar (4:7), and put on the priest’s ears, hands, and feet (8:24). Leviticus is a blood-drenched book. We read why blood is so central later on in Leviticus:

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 make atonement for one’s life. (Leviticus 17:11)

Blood is the source of life. Blood is how atonement is made because sin is costly and life must be given for atonement.

Christ as Our One Sacrificial Offering

It is not hard to jump from Leviticus to the New Testament. We simply have to follow the trail of blood from the offerings and sacrifices in Leviticus to the cross of Christ. The writer of Hebrews talks of it in this way:

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming….It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins….But when this priest [Jesus] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God…For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Hebrews 10:1, 4, 12, 14)

You see, Jesus is the sacrificial offering who fulfills all the needs outlined in the Leviticus guidelines. His is the life given that restores us. His is the blood shed that atones for us. He is the One Sacrifice that replaces the many offerings made through time. He is the One who restores us to relationship with the Living God.

The life that we find in Leviticus is in the blood. It is a picture of the life to come through the blood of Christ. And it is because of Jesus Christ’s blood that we, a not quite holy people, can live in the presence of a fully holy God.