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Leviticus Chapter 1-10.4
May 26th 2024
Chapter one to nine collectively describe how the Nation was to bring animals up to the Tabernacle and how the priests of Aaron were to clean, prepare and offer up the animal according to the specific way YAHAVAH describes.
The words “altar, kill, sin, blood, fat, fire, burnt, blemished, washed (and wash,) priest (and priests), offering, sacrifice” and the phrase, “hand upon the head,” are referenced more in the book of Leviticus than in any other single book of scripture which clearly points to the central message of the narrative – God demanded sacrificial offerings from the people in direct response for their sins and they were to be managed by the Levitical priests with many of them being bloody, with some parts consumed by fire, some parts eaten by the priests and some part discarded outside the parameters of the City.
Depending on the sin and the type of sacrifice the instructions for the people and the priests are found explicitly and repeatedly.
So, what’s the deal? If you will have it, founded way back in and through the Nation of Israel, we have the “institutional sacrifice for sin” created here.
As you know, these sacrifices were temporary, meaning they had a limited shelf-life, meaning they lost their potency in what is described as their atoning power.
In chapter 4 we read at verse 35:
And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is taken away from the sacrifice of the peace offerings; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the LORD: and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him.
The word translated atonement there in Hebrew is kaw-far which means
“to cover, expiate, condone, placate or cancel: to appease, cleanse, disannul, forgive, express mercy, to pacify, pardon, purge, put off, and finally, to make reconcilitation.”
Did the blood remove sin from the individual offering it? No. It had “Limited lasting power,” remember. For this reason, systems of sacrifice had to be put in ritually which were constantly repeated.
Of course we know that this would foreshadow the ultimate complete and permanent propitiation of sin through Christ.
But why a sacrifice for sin? And why the life of an innocent animal (because these animals were innocent and beautiful as they could be) – meaning they were the best of animals – and were not the weaklings or runts of the flock with blemishs and deformities.
No, they had to offer up animals that were unblemished.
What the heck is this all about?
Perhaps we might think of it this way – God is just, fair and consummately good. He can be trusted in His person to do and be right because He is consummately fair and good.
He then gave us and others life – “or a period of time” to live in the human condition. Every human life is a gift and laying in the hands of each individual is the time in what I call the proving ground, for them to choose what they will be and believe, do and pursue, accomplish and worship.
Because everyone’s life is determined by a specific period of time we might see time as equal to life.
Martha lived from March 1 of 1947 to April 8th of 2022 – or 75 years). This was the time of her life. It ended when her oxygenated blood stopped circulating to the organs and structure of her body.
Leviticus 17:11 says,
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
To sin is to steal, ruin, take life-time from the hands of another causing them loss and forcing them to use the time of their lives to deal with and face a situation.
A few years ago Delaney filled a Uhaul truck with her belongings from Michigan and came to Utah, parking the truck on the public street below in preparation to drive it all to souther Califoria in the morning.
We got up early for the trip and I went to get the truck and it was stole overnight.
The whole thing!
This took the lives of three people to call the police, make a report, learn the truck was found, learn that it was impounded and that we would have to pay money, we uses our live to earn, to pay to get it out, and then only to discover that the contents from the interior were ravaged through and for the most part stolen or destroyed.
To steal is ultimately an act that takes the “time” that an individual has invested into obtaining and caring for an object along with the time and money it will take to replace it.
Since time is life, and life is in the blood, blood must be shed to pay for the sin. It is the price for sin in this material world.
Of course to kill another is an ultimate form of taking or stealing time hence under the law the punishment was death of the killer.
To lie forces the world around us to spend time to try and figure out the truth, to get untangled from the lies that bind.
To commit adultery steals a huge amount of time/life from all the interested parties involved leaving in most cases far-reaching, almost incalculable life/time losses for some spouses and children if they are involved.
All sin steals life.
And life of the flesh is in the blood:”
Hebrews 9:22 fittingly tell us, therefore, that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Most people, modernistically minded, fail to see the connection between shed blood, sin and forgiveness, and refuse to comprehend the need for the death of animals and Christ.
In terms of animal sacrifice, there were certain rules established.
First, and as stated, the animal had to be spotless, emblematic of the fact that cleansing life-blood was from something valued and costly.
Second, the person offering the sacrifice had to identify with the animal – meaning, it had to be theirs – they owned it and they had purchased it (with and through costs to their life/time) and perhaps even fed it and cared for it, requiring more life/time from them.
Third, the person offering the animal was the one that killed it. The priests didn’t do it in the case of personal sin offerings.
They had done the wrong and they were required to take the life of a thing valuable, costly to them in terms of life.
This is all specific to individual sin. Take note that it was the existence of sin that led to the existence of a tabernacle and a priesthood who lived off the offerings made. Take note that as long as sin is seen as existing, there is a need for material religion.
More on this this Tuesday night, May 28th 2024 8PN right here on Heart of the Matter Full Circle!!
When we get to Leviticus 16, however, God will introduce the Day of Atonement, where the forgiveness and the removal of sin was aimed at the Nation.
On that day, the high priest was to take two male goats for a sin offering. One of the goats was sacrificed as a sin offering for the people of Israel (Leviticus 16:15), while the other goat was released into the wilderness to illustrate that the sin was far from them. (Leviticus 16:20-22).
Some knee-jerk reactions to all of this might be, “This is all so barbaric. What did all these animals ever do to warrant death?
The answer is – they did nothing.
They “innocently” died to temporarily pay for the sin of the one performing the sacrifice!
I tend to see an animals innocence as possibly less effective in permanently removing sin because its innocence exists by virtue of its nature. Yes, it makes some decision but animals are programmed to act and react according to natural impulses where Humans are given, not matter what the circumstances, the ability to choose.
It would therefore take far more valuable powerful life blood to cleanse all sin once and for all.
In my estimation, it would take the blood of a like-for-like human being who fully choose beauty through loving obedience AND His choice to offer Himself up.
This is one of the reasons for the incarnation as Yeshua’s very blood was consummately pure and powerful by virtue of Him making the choice to be obedient and a sacrifice.
In other words, human beings of “flesh, blood and choice” could only justly, rightly and fairly be forgiven of all sin by an offering from one not only of the same make-up but of supreme perfection by choice.
Animals, therefore, would never do.
Stepping into life/time with life/blood and life/choices, Yeshua of Nazareth chose to retain the purity of His blood out of love for His father and the world and then chose to offer it up, as the Lamb of God, once and for all – meaning once, and for all people to ever live life/time in blood on this earth.
I also tend to see the tabernacle, where these animals were offered, as very small in scope and space which was given as a picture of Israel and the work God was doing in and through it, which, compared to the rest of this vast world, is the size of the State of Vermont – about 9000 square miles.
Hear me out.
Earth’s land surface area is over 57,000,000 square miles (not including water surface) and the land is about 29% of the planet’s total surface area of 197 million square miles.
Ancient Israel, therefore, was about .00019 percent of the earth’s whole land surface area.
When we think of the actual land mass where Our Lord literally and actually shed his blood and offered up His life, it was over an area the size of a pin-point compared to the world.
It was one man
Beaten and put to death on a space the size of a pin-point of land.
Living no more than a 33 year period.
But paying for the sins of the entire world past, present and future and forevermore.
Talk about the purity of His blood and the power thereof.
Talk about God choosing “the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;” and the “weak things” of the world to confound the mighty, and what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, the small things, to have victory
One man, not ten million animals.
One life that saved all lives from sins of the flesh, death, hell and Satan’s grasp.
One sacrifice to propitiate many.
One offering, in one small area, in a short period of time…
It blows my mind, and fills me with gratitude for the wisdom and knowledge of God.
This book, while somewhat tedious in nature, is God’s ways of illustrating ahead of time what He would do in and through giving us His only human Son.
So again, since the animals did no wrong, dying in place of the one performing the sacrifice, Paul concludes in 1st Timonty 2:5
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
But there was more purpose in Yeshua’s offering than mere payment for sin through the shedding of blood leading to death of His life.
2 Corinthians 5:21, plainly states,
“God made him (Yeshua) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
There was no becoming the righteousness of God through animal sacrifice as even the righteous of that age remained separate from God after death.
No, His death and shed blood accomplished far more than that of innocent animals as we also read in 2nd Corinthians 5:18-19
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
As mentioned last week, the notion of animal sacrifice has for the most part faded from the world-consciousness.
I suggest this is a result of the overwhelming victory of the Risen Lord, the One whom John said upon seeing Him,
“Look, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
I recently attended an event at my Grandsons primary school where many of the students and their families of vastly different countries and cultures had booths representing their various heritages and lands with foods, literature, art and costumes.
All throughout the courtyard of the school were families from these many nations, proudly dressed in the costumes of their nation – my daughter and grandson among them – greeting people with the customary Swedish, “Hey Hey,” and offering passersby with Boule, a cinnamon role-type treat popular in that land.
I was overwhelmed by the Spirit of the Living God with something I rarely personally experience – “compassion, love and understanding for all walks of life from all parts of this vast world.
Again, this was a moment of maturity in my love for people I do not naturally possess.
I was taken aback by the love of God, who, on that postage stamp piece of land in a blink of time reconciled all of the people standing there around me, and all of their families and forefathers that were spread across the world, to Himself, in and through this singular incomprehensible offering.
I was stunned by the love I had for all the differences around me, the skin colors, the eye shapes, the hair textures and make up and the clothing.
I was warmed by the smiling faces of greying grandparents so happy to watch their grandchildren display their family traditions, foods and dances and was taken aback by His love through His Son who accomplished reconciliation to His Father once and forever more in the world through His Love, His blood, His life lived, His sacrifice for the World.
My joy was abruptly interrupted by the distant memory of my former years of religiosity which allowed and even justified to me a mindset that actually believed most of those people who were made in His image were going to go to hell forevermore, for the simple reason they had never heard nor received “Jesus.”
And I was so ashamed by these former views of Him and His love and the failure to understand the absolute efficacy of His
Son and His sacrifice – for the world – which returned “us all” to the Garden, so to speak, to freely choose how to live, what to seek and how to love.
In summation of the first nine chapters of Leviticus, animal sacrifices were commanded by God so that the individuals of that day could experience temporary forgiveness of sin.
The animal served as their substitute—that is, the animal died in place of the sinner, but only temporarily.
In reference to this the writer of Hebrews wrote in chapter 10 beginning at verse 7
Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’ as it is written of me in the roll of the book.”
8 When he said above, “Thou hast neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law),
9 then he added, “Lo, I have come to do thy will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.
10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
13 then to wait until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet.
14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,”
17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their misdeeds no more.”
Returning to Leviticus, in chapter 2, there is one passage I’d like to point out that sort of dove-tails into everything that we have said and where we will go before wrapping up.
At verse 11 YAHAVAH says,
Leviticus 2:11 No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto YAHAVAH, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of YAHAVAH made by fire.
The use of leaven was strictly forbidden in all offerings that were made to the Lord by fire and is reiterated later in Leviticus 7:12; 8:2 and Numbers 6:15
Why?
By now we are pretty familiar with the picture of leaven or yeast in scripture but let’s quickly review.
Yeast is a microbe that feeds on the sugars in bread dough. As the yeast’s enzymes feed on the sugar it is broken down into gases, specifically carbon dioxide and ethanol.
When these gases are introduced to the body of the bread, they form hollow pockets which expand the bread and make it rise.
When the bread is kneaded the carbon dioxide bubbles are dispersed throughout the whole loaf which in scripture is sometimes seen as infecting, polluting and making the loaf rise by putrefaction or corruption.
Here is the interesting part – it is during the baking, (meaning it is during the time when heat or fire is added) that the yeast dies but the air pockets become “fixed” making the loaf permanently light and spongy – which is pleasing to the taste because the process also enhances the breads flavor and aroma.
We would think that the means by which yeast adds volume and flavor to the bread would be welcomed by God, right?
But God knows His meanings and purposes and when it comes to offering up meal and/or meat offerings and His ways say, “I don’t want anything added to the offering but you’re your hearts, from the fields, and certainly nothing that will puff up, invade or putrefy what you yourself are offerig.
You don’t need to dress it up or try to make it better because when you do you are making it worse.
We recall that YAHAVAH said to Moses back in Exodus 20 relative to altar building
And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
Improving offerings through our additions is just another iteration of religion – taking what is already God’s and adding our twists to the thing – whether stones, bread, or offerings, or dressing things up.
This speaks of Him wanting what is utterly and absolutely given in faith and trust in Him, His ways and according to His holiness, and not that of Man.
He wants nothing that reflects our pride or boasting as Paul wrote to the church at Corinth when they allowed a sinner to remain in their midst,
“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?”
This was used by the apostle to warn the church/bride in Corinth that exposure to vile practices by people in their midst could lead to corruption of the whole church/Bride in that day.
Because she had to be holy and pure, and because she was surrounded by cultural pollutions that everyone present were both aware of and perhaps even accustomed too, this advice was sound.
Yeshua was coming back to take His pure Bride.
The principle today can also be true today when young babes in the faith hang with others who seek to influence them in their previous ways of the Dark.
As a body of believers, however, who walk by the Laws of God written on their hearts, the meaning seems to have application to our subjective walk as the Spirit has control over every believer, moving and guarding us in our struggles and woes.
Religious control measures, seeking to protect their respective flocks from the influences of corrupting infiltrators, will use Paul’s example to 1st Corinthians as a means to protect “each congregation and flock,” when the reality is, God is in those who are His and He guides and protects.
Listen closely – if a group has chosen to play church, collecting a unified material body and live by their own respective laws, I suppose the application is sound and has merit.
But if and when believers start to see the faith as entirely subjective, and that gatherings of like-minded believers to merely study, and fellowship as they are lead, there is little need to worry.
I say this from experience as I have seen numerous corrupting influences wander into our group over the years, try to pollute others with their ways benign and malignant, and having zero influence.
We live in a very different age and until this is seen as the norm we will forever try to manage men.
At chapter 10 we come to a story from that day worthy of review that speaks to offering polluted or unholy things to God.
Let’s read beginning at verse 1-4
1 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered unholy fire before the LORD, such as he had not commanded them.
2 And fire came forth from the presence of the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD has said, ‘I will show myself holy among those who are near me, and before all the people I will be glorified.'” And Aaron held his peace.
Back to verse 1 of chapter 10
1 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered unholy fire before the LORD, such as he had not commanded them.
According to Maimonides, unsure of how much to trust his insights, but according to Him
Burning incense in the temple service occurred when someone went and gathered the ashes from off the altar into a golden vessel, then a second person brought the vessel full of incense to a third person with a censer of fire, and would put coals on the altar, and then the one whose job was to burn the incense strewed it on the fire at the command of someone called, the governor.
Each day they burned the weight of a hundred denaries of incense, fifty in the morning, and fifty in the evening.
As an FYI, a hundred denaries was the equivalent of fifty shekels in the sanctuary, with each shekel weighing three hundred and twenty barleycorns.
NOT GONNA EVEN TRY
Once the priest had burned the incense, he bowed himself down and went out.
When Joh the Baptists day, Zacharias burned incense in the temple, the whole multitude of the people were outside in prayer while the incense burned. (Luke 1)
This served to show the Nation that their prayers were pleasing to him and why we read in
Psalm 141:2 LORD, I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee. Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
It’s also why we read in Revelation 8:3-4
“And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.”
Again, this was all imagery for that material nation to do and for us to use to consult and study as a means to better understand Him.
In chapter 9 of Leviticus we read how YAHAVAH would send his own fire down (an emblem of Him and His presence) which consumed the sacrifice offered.
Here we find Aaron’s sons neglecting the Divine ordinance, and offering incense with strange fire, that is, common fire or fire that did not come from God and so when the fire of God descended, it consumed them instead of the offering which it consumed in the past.
From this we get might get some scriptural validation on the make-up of God where it describes Him three times as a “consuming fire.”
(Deuteronomy 4:24, 9:3 and Hebrews 12:29)
I get criticized for describing the afterlife in terms of all having been reconciled to God at the victory of Christ with all going to a heavenly realm in the hereafter.
There are complaints that I have made Christianity too easy, that I’ve watered it down, and that by and through the teaching of Christ having the victory over sin, death, Satan, and a fiery hell, God has become unjust, pathetic or too easy.
All this rhetoric exists because people do not hear our teachings in context, because they enjoy their religious prejudices over contextual scriptural truth and because religious traditions take centuries to overcome.
Understand clearly, in the face of all of the aforementioned references, the Living God remains a consuming fire – He does not change – and that fire continues to consume, and will forever consume, that which is not able by and through the shed blood, to abide in His presence.
Removing all the obstacles imposed upon us via the Fall of the First Adam – including sins of the flesh, death, hell, corruption and Satan, He now invites all, by and through the utterly victorious and finished work of His Son (the Last Adam) and through His Spirit, which all possess, to submit themselves to His ways and His sanctifying power, causing the writer of Hebrews to conclude:
Hebrews 9:12-14 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
In this we see that while the sins of the flesh have been purged, and all have been reconciled to His Unconditional Love, all souls are in the place to choose to allow the Spirit to “purge their conscience from dead works” and to choose to serve the Living God in spirit and truth.
And the consuming fire of God will either serve to sanctify us in this life, here and now, enabling all to become His “sons and daughters,” giving us access to His presence now and later, OR to accept that He, as a consuming fire, will keep us distant and therefore outside the Kingdom until the knee bows and the tongue confesses.
Fire sanctifies, warms, brightens the path, and illuminates or fire burns, destroys, and serves to consume the refuse people seek to keep alive.
For this reason, Paul shares with the believers in that day at Thessalonians a principle which remains alive and thriving today and simultaneously alludes to His fire, saying,
“And quench not the holy Spirit.”
Don’t put it out. Let it do its work. Let it purge us of all unrighteousness here and now so “Let it freaking burn – now and forever more.
So, having used strange fire to consume the offering, verse two says–
2 And fire came forth from the presence of the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what YAHAVAH has said, ‘I will show myself holy among those who are near me, and before all the people I will be glorified.'” And Aaron held his peace.
Boy has Aaron learned as the Hebrew best means that he reacted to the death of his two sons as if he was made mute or dumb.
Yes, he lost his two boys – horrible, painful – but he submitted any and all of his complaints to silence in the face of the One who took them.
In terms of a very sobering principle, we can see the seriousness of anyone, in that day, and what I would suggest speaks to even today, “adding, changing, corrupting or altering” the singular ways and means that God has given for forgiveness, justification and sanctification of Sin before Him – the work of His only begotten Son.
I understand good intentions, and I understand the draw of religiosity in human life.
Our God, however, searches the heart, and I guarantee you anyone who believes or practices “another way” to get into His presence other than what He has done will be minimally purged of such contrivances. He is just. And has given only one Way – one – to please Him, His Son through His Spirit.
All variations, additions, manipulations, modifications, adaptations, work-arounds, or substitutes will certainly experience His consuming fire – not to punish, but to purge, to get real, to open the heart and mind to His will – and not our own.
We will leave it off here today.
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