The Atonement Part 1: The Sacrificial System (Leviticus 1-5)

Doc Ryan and Matt continue their series on Biblical Atonement.

Sacrifice:

• Burnt offering is about a gift and just wanting to spend time with God.
• Grain offering is about remembering the covenant
• The well-being (Peace) offering is simply a thank you to God
• The Purification (sin) offering is about cleansing sacred space
• The guilt or reparation offering is about restitution for an unintentional “sins” (many of there were ritual sins and not moral sins). Primarily about repentance and not repayment.

KFR-Kaphar (atonement): They're six different KPR words in Hebrew, four of them are nouns, two of them are verbs. The basic sense of the verb kaphar means to purge. It comes from Acadian word kuppuru, which means to wipe clean. The blood the offering will be used to purge the tabernacle, purge the sacred space, to purge the altar, to purge this or that vessel. It's never applying to the human, to the human offerer. It's to make sure that sacred space is not rendered impure by a common human being who is not sanctified as a priest to occupy. A lot of sacrificial system is about preparing sacred space for your visit or preparing sacred space that God deems it fit to spend time there. It's really not about what goes on with the offerer’s sin.

The sacrificial system for an Israelite wasn’t about us, wasn't about the offerer so much as protecting the offerer from God, from the divine presence or purging sacred space of any impurities so that God could meet the priests there, or God can meet the offerer there.So the blood was a decontaminant or ritual detergent to purify sacred space. Atonement is purging of the stain of sin from sacred space.

Blood: the blood manipulation was about cleansing sacred space. In combination with atonement language, it meant to purge or cover to decontaminate the sanctuary. The blood was never applied to people except in the ordination of the priests or when the covenant was enacted at Sinai. Sin was seen as a stain and part of the forces of death. Blood was seen was part of one’s life force so the blood would overpower, dissolve, cover over the forces of death in sacred space and purge it from God’s presence.

Did God require blood to forgive? blood was about purifying sacred space and not about purchasing personal forgiveness. God can just forgive when we come in faith to him.

Our view in the west is often of the virgin needing to be thrown into the volcano to appease God but as we’ve seen here in Leviticus this is not the way Yahweh works. That was the way the pagan deities worked. Israel’s sacrificial system looked like the pagans’ systems on the outside but when we look closely Yahweh is moving his people away from that way of thinking while using a framework that was in their ancient culture.

In the Torah sacrifice and forgiveness were not necessarily connected. Here are some examples:

• Forgiveness by application of oil (Lev 14:19)
• Burning flour (Lev 5:11-13)
• Burning incense (Num 16:41-50)
• Payment of money (Ex 30:11-16)
• Gifts of jewelry (Num 31:48-54)
• The release of an animal into the wilderness (Lev 16:10)
• Appeals to God in prayer (Ex 32:30)

God allowed the sacrificial system as a way of meeting His people in their culture and allowing them to worship him through it. It was allowed not demanded.

The sacrificial system was a signpost that pointed to Jesus as the greater sacrifice, but God allowed it as a way for Israel to show their allegiance and worship to Yahweh.