Removal of Sin/Impurity
What were the roles of the priest and the individual in the sacrifices depicted in the following verses? Lev. 4:5-7; 28-31.
Several rituals are important when seeking to understand the sacrificial offerings. When the repentant sinner brought the sacrificial victim to the sanctuary, the sinner placed a hand on the head of the animal and leaned on it. In the daily sacrifices the laying on of hands was associated with the phrase “be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him” (Lev. 1:4, NIV), indicating that the sinner fully identified with the sacrificial victim. The sacrificial victim was at that moment standing for him or her before God, bearing the sin of the individual.
The sacrificial victim was commonly killed by the individual, although there were exceptions (Lev. 1:14, 15; 5:8). This sacrificial act is especially meaningful when placed in the context of the state of guilt and alienation in which repentant sinners found themselves. Because of the violation of the covenant, sinners were heading toward death, but that death was actualized in the sacrificial victim, not in the repentant sinner, whose life was then spared by God. Sin and penalty cannot be separated from each other. The transfer of the one implies the transfer of the other. This found its fulfillment in Christ’s death on the cross, where our sin was transferred to Him and where He died the death that should have been ours.
Besides the laying on of hands and the death of the animal, another ritual was the bringing of the blood into the sanctuary, the means by which sin was brought there. In some cases it was sprinkled inside the tabernacle (Lev. 4:6), and at other times it was applied to the horns of the altar of sacrifices (vs. 30). When sin was not taken inside the sanctuary in this manner, sin was transferred to it through the priest. In those occasions he had to eat the flesh of the sin offering, thus bearing the sin of the people in his own person (Lev. 10:17). God was assuming responsibility for the sin of repentant sinners. This pointed to Christ's high-priestly ministry on our behalf.
| Think through the meaning of these sacrifices and what they were pointing to: Christ dying in our stead for our sins. How should the reality of His death impact our daily life? More important, how does that death impact it in your own case? |
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