Once-and-for-all Sacrifice
The Story of the Old Testament: Leviticus • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Prayer
The Life Is in the Blood
Wonderful to be back with all of you, I’m grateful to Patrick from Christ Presbyterian Church and to our Elders, for Chad and Eric and Sherry for leading in worship, managing everything while I was out - so, thanks.
Our last time together we started in the book of Leviticus, and I want to recap a bit, because this is a book filled with instructions, and honestly, hard to understand exactly what it’s all about and what it means for us as followers of Jesus today.
We looked at Leviticus chapters 1-7, doing an overview of the offerings that God commanded the Israelites to offer - those included offerings of consecration and devotion, such as the burnt and grain offerings, then there were the fellowship offerings, and finally, the offerings made because of sin, seeking atonement, which included the sin and guilt offerings (you’ll see these offerings referred to throughout the Old Testament).
This morning I want to dig deeper into the sin offerings - more particularly, the sin offerings that were to be made on one particular occasion, on what it known as Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, the instructions for which we find in Leviticus 16.
One of the things that’s crystal clear about these offerings is that as the various animals were sacrificed, the blood of those animals had to be drained before the meat of that animal could be eaten. In Leviticus 17, God is explicit about forbidding the Israelites to eat the meat with the blood still in it.
Leviticus 17:10-11, I will set my face against any Israelite or any foreigner residing among them who eats blood, and I will cut them off from the people. 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.
We see not just God’s command to not eat the blood, but why they are not to eat the blood: For the life of the creature is in the blood! God’s not just speaking symbolically here, but literally. Everything about our ability to live is through the blood.
I never cease to be amazed - when you get the results of your blood work, how much is revealed in the blood, how many levels are measured, because your blood is carrying all those things to all parts of your body that sustain and nurture all the cells of your body - it measure proteins, potassium, magnesium, blood oxygen level, sugar, chloride, sodium, calcium, cholesterol - and then a bunch of other stuff I have no idea about.
What do EMT’s do if they need to check if someone is still alive? Check the pulse - is the blood flowing? This is why it is blood that makes atonement for one’s life - because life itself is in the blood. Blood, or life, is offered on behalf of the one who has sinned.
This is made explicit in Hebrews 9:22, where, in describing the priests sprinkling the blood of the sacrificed animals on the altar and throughout the tabernacle, the writer offers this: In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Let’s think about that for a moment - forgiveness requires that blood be shed. That life be taken, because the life is in the blood. That’s a serious statement, it reveals a lot about the nature of sin, and what is required for sin to truly forgiven, blotted out. It’s a reminder of the death that sin brings, the harm and destruction it causes.
That in a very real sense, we “kill” when we sin, both ourselves and others. We diminish or lessen others, their personhood, when we judge or condemn them, when we treat them as if they are inferior, morally or financially or physically or intellectually or however. We wound them with harsh words or an angry tone, or when we treat them with disdain or contempt. Or if we are simply apathetic towards them, dismissive - they do not matter to us. When we lie or manipulate, using others as objects for our own benefit or pleasure.
But God is life. He - and he alone is the source of all life, the creator of all things in heaven and on earth. Nothing that exists exists without him. God desires the fullness of life for all - more and better life, not diminished! That’s what Jesus proclaimed - and it is the basis of our mission as a church, John 10:10, I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.
As we make our way through Leviticus, we’re going to encounter these strange purity laws (we’ll be looking at them next week). You’ll see how the common thread for these laws is that they have to do with things that reflect death - infectious skin diseases, mildew, among others.
This is why shedding of blood is required for the forgiveness of sins - because, to come into the presence of God, to be with God, our holy, pure, life-giving God, we cannot be stained with sin, with death, with impurity. Life, through the blood, must be offered. And this brings us to the Day of Atonement.
Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16:6-10 - Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. 7 Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 8 He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. 9 Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. 10 But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat.
So, on this one day of the year, after making an offering of a bull for his own sins, the high priest - in this case, Aaron, Moses’ brother, would take two goats that were being offered for the forgiveness of sins for the people of Israel.
The first goat would be the goat whose blood would be offered for the sins of the people - in Leviticus 16:15-17 we get a little more detail: “He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull’s blood: He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it. 16 In this way he will make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been. He is to do the same for the tent of meeting, which is among them in the midst of their uncleanness. 17 No one is to be in the tent of meeting from the time Aaron goes in to make atonement in the Most Holy Place until he comes out, having made atonement for himself, his household and the whole community of Israel.
So Aaron - alone in the Most Holy Place, the innermost part of the Tabernacle, the tent of meeting, where the ark of the covenant is, would take the blood of the goat and sprinkle it - on the atonement cover, the cover of the ark and in front of it. And then generally within the tent of meeting. So here is blood, life, being offered for the people’s sins, to make atonement for them.
The second goat, however, would not be put to death. This goat was symbolic in another way, this goat was the scapegoat, Leviticus 16:20-22, “When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. 21 He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. 22 The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.
The priest would place his hands on this goat’s head, as a way of placing the sins of the people on him. Then the goat would be released into the wilderness, to wander away. Represented the sins of the people being removed from them. They no longer carried their sins, that burden was now on the scapegoat, he took the blame.
This really was a beautiful and powerful image of what God does with our sins, removing them far from us, as it says in Psalm 103:11-12, For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
I love this verse, because it reveals greater knowledge than David would have known when he wrote this - note that the verse says the sins are removed from us as far as the east is from the west. It could have just as easily said, as far as the north is from the south. But it didn’t.
And David would never have known that the distance between the north and south is a measurable distance. Because of the magnetic lines on the earth, we have a northernmost part of the earth, the North Pole, (where Santa lives). And we have a South Pole - and you can measure the distance between the two (it’s 12,430 miles).
But there is no East Pole or West Pole. The distance between the east and the west is immeasurable. God has removed our sins from us an immeasurable distance - they are never coming back. That’s what the goat being sent off represented to the people, your sins are gone. You are made clean. The taint of death is no longer on you. You are forgiven.
Remember, as we talked about two weeks ago, all these offerings and sacrifices were so that the people could know where they stand with God. God’s explicit directions were a gift of grace - offer this in this way and I will be pleased with your offering, all will be well between us. Except that they weren’t. Not really. Not fully. At least not yet. What do I mean by that?
Well, if you noticed, this ritual had to be offered year after year after year. Because they weren’t fully forgiven. After all, how would that really work - how does taking the life of an animal, its blood, remove our sin? Heck, the animal wasn’t even a willing participant in the process. How would taking its life truly pay for our sin, the ways we’ve brought death to ourselves and others?
Here’s the reality - it was never meant to. These offerings, these sacrifices, this Day of Atonement, was pointing towards the great sacrifice that could - and would - suffice to cover over our sins. The blood that could truly cleanse, the blood of Jesus. Book of Hebrews makes all of this crystal clear - that it is the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus that alone atones for our sins.
The writer of Hebrews goes into great detail talking about this in chapters 9 & 10, so I want to give you a few verses so show you what I mean:
Hebrews 10:1-4...The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
The law, the Torah, God’s instructions are only a shadow, it’s a reflection, a suggestion - but it is not the real thing, the good thing, the thing that saves us - they only point to it.
He goes on to make clear that this was because the blood of animals could never take away our sins - otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped making the offerings? But they didn’t, they were repeated year after year. They could not make us perfect, they couldn’t cleanse us once and for all, we were not free, not truly free, to draw near to God.
But there was one sacrifice that could - and did, the sacrifice of Jesus: Hebrews 10:11-14 - Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
Again it reminds us, the priest performs his religious duties day after day, time after time, again and again the same sacrifices which can never take away sins - the goat did not really cart them away.
But when this priest, this Jesus made the one perfect sacrifice, when he offered himself in perfect obedience to the Father, his life for ours, his blood for our sake - that did it. Our sins have been taken away. We have been made perfect - not just for a brief moment, not just for a day or two - but forever. We have been made holy.
I think that, more than anything else this morning, my hope and prayer is that we would trust and embrace this reality - that through Jesus, through his once-and-for-all sacrifice, we have been made perfect, holy. Our consciences are clear before God. We no longer carry the burden of our sin. This isn’t a shadow, but the real thing!
And this is a hard thing to trust - after all, we feel far from perfect. We feel as if sin is very much still with us. And, of course, it is - we still sin, every day, we can be self-centered and impatient and hold grudges and withhold love from others. There’s no shortage of ways that sin, and the death it brings, is still with us.
But we don’t come to God by our actions - good or bad. We come covered by the blood - the life - of Jesus. His blood atones for our sin. He makes up for them - all of them. This is the gospel, the good news. I no longer have to carry the guilt and shame of my sin, I have been made perfect through the blood of Jesus, his once-and-for-all sacrifice.
And one of the clearest ways to know that we are learning to trust this is that we not only desire to, but we have no hesitation to draw near to God. We desire to because we’ve seen our Lord and the beauty and power of his grace, we’re so grateful for what he’s done for us - and we have no hesitation because we know we now share in God’s holiness. We have his life in us - the way is clear.
This is why the writer of Hebrews concludes with this encouragement, Hebrews 10:19-22, Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings...
The way has been made clear - the very thing we long for most, what we were made for, to be with God, in his presence, experiencing his love and life and goodness and grace - is now possible through Jesus.
The thought here is - what are you waiting for, let’s go!
Every week, I offer some Spiritual Disciplines, some soul training exercises, for us to shape our lives around, to make as part of our daily and weekly habits. Whole purpose of them is to do exactly this, to draw near to God, to know Jesus more fully, to center our lives in his love.
In closing this morning, I want us to be mindful of that, to be intentional about that as we come to Communion. This is one of those practices followers of Jesus have been doing throughout the centuries, since Jesus himself shared this meal with his disciples.
In this meal, we are drawing near to God, entering into the Most Holy Place, by the blood of Jesus. I’m going to give us a little extra time of quiet prayer and reflection after all have been served, and my hope is that you would take the time to pray your desire to be with God, to draw near to him - and to reflect on how these gifts, Jesus body broken, his blood shed, his once-and-for-all sacrifice, have made it possible.