The Levitical sacrificial system reveals the God Who Draws Near

Over the past two weeks, we’ve discussed how salvation began with the gift of life given at creation and how God heard the cries of his oppressed people and rescued them from slavery. Salvation is new life and redemption.

Today, we enter a more familiar angle with which to examine salvation, at least to Western evangelicals—blood and sacrifice.

It’s familiar because this is the primary metaphor by which we understand the redemption offered through Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus was our sacrificial lamb, offered in place of animal sacrifices, appeasing God’s wrath upon sin forever and making possible our reconciliation with him, thus doing away with animal sacrifices thereafter.

Except the first-century Jews didn’t understand it that way.

The Temple sacrificial system continued until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the book of Acts describes how the early followers of the Way, as they were popularly known, continued worshipping at the Temple, which most certainly still involved offering sacrifices.

But I digress. We must first examine how the sacrificial system was implemented. Why were sacrifices necessary at all? What was this method of worship meant to communicate to Israel and to the surrounding nations?

Sacrifices in the Ancient Near East

The offering of sacrifices was a primary means of worship in the Ancient Near Eastern world. It was, at its foundation, a gift exchange—if I offer something to the deity, then they will provide me with what I need. In response, I will offer a gift of gratitude to ensure the favour of the deity for future requests.1 It is an obligatory cyclical process mediated by a priest.

Other reasons for sacrifice centred around appeasing the deity—animal sacrifices appealed to the deity’s preferred cuisine, and the violence of the sacrifice worked toward maintaining the balance of life and death, as well as providing an outlet for humanity’s more aggressive tendencies.2

Of course, none of these are adequate reasons for which to offer sacrifices to YHWH, the Creator of the universe and Redeemer of Israel. This is not a God who is bound to human wishes, nor is he sated by an appetite for flesh, nor does he require a balancing of the good and evil in the world or sanction aggressive behaviours.

So, what can the act of sacrifice offer this God? Why was Israel commanded to daily offer food, drink, and animal life to God?

“There seems to have been no period in ancient Israel’s history when sacrifice was not an important part of religious practice.”3

God Transforms Cultural Practices

It may not be immediately obvious to present-day Christian readers, but the very act of providing Israel with a sacrificial system was a condescension by God. That is, God met Israel where they were at, providing the means to worship him in ways that were at least loosely familiar.

Every tribe and nation in the Ancient Near East practiced temple sacrifices. God didn’t scrap the practice altogether; instead, he transformed it to focus worship on one deity instead of many, offering animal life instead of the all-too-common practice of human sacrifices, and emphasized holiness above obligatory gift-giving.

The Lord spoke to Moses: “Speak to the Israelites and tell them: I am the Lord your God. Do not follow the practices of the land of Egypt, where you used to live, or follow the practices of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. You must not follow their customs. You are to practice my ordinances and you are to keep my statutes by following them; I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes and ordinances; a person will live if he does them. I am the Lord. (Lev. 18:1-5)

The purpose of Israelite sacrifices was to

Declare their allegiance to YHWH alone in keeping with the first commandment: “Do not have other gods besides me.” (Ex. 20:3)
Remove impurities that arose as a result of intentional or unintentional sin within the individual and community so that they might continue in the favour of God. This was carried out through myriad burnt offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings, and fellowship offerings.
Reorient themselves to the God of their redemption:
“You are to keep my commands and do them; I am the Lord. You must not profane my holy name; I must be treated as holy among the Israelites. I am the Lord who sets you apart, the one who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the Lord.” (Lev. 22:31-33)

Holiness through Sacrifice

The concept of holiness is intricately woven into the practice of sacrifices. Our millennia of Christian tradition have formed a pious, strict, and altogether un-fun image of holiness. I do not mean this lightly; only that our cultural idea of holiness looks far more like a dour-faced nun than a reconciliation with our Creator and Redeemer.

David Mounce, a renowned biblical scholar, defines holiness as “the essential nature of that which belongs to the sphere of the sacred and is distinct from the common or profane.”4 While I agree in principle, this definition persuades us to divide the material from the immaterial, as if this is what distinguishes what is sacred from the common. It assumes an essential separation between the Creator and the created.

I might ask us to consider holiness as the sphere that belongs to God. When we consider the beginning of our conversation of salvation, we recall that God is the Creator. This means that there is nothing created that is outside the realm of God. I hope the significance of this is becoming clearer to us as we work through the biblical narrative.

The earth belongs to God—it is holy.

The stars and ever-expanding universe belong to God—it is holy.

The birds, animals, mountains, and rivers belong to God—they are holy.

The vast multitudes of humanity belong to God—we are holy.

Yes, of course, we must also consider the effects of sin and the Fall on this natural state of holiness. But this is what I want to stress: The natural, original state of creation is holiness. It is oneness with God in perfect unity.

The Fall broke that. Separation from God became possible.

The sacrifices and laws of the tabernacle and temple are meant to draw creation back to the holy presence of our God. The pursuit of holiness is, then, a pursuit of God.

Sacrifice as a Return to the Garden

The tabernacle itself is filled with imagery of the garden where such unity is remembered—trees, fruit, light, and the most precious gemstones and metals. The cloud of God’s Spirit descended on the tabernacle (Ex. 40:34-35) and the temple (1 Kings 8:10-11), declaring the presence of this mighty, awesome God who lives among his people. The priest, chosen by God, mediates the presence of God to the people as the people offer their worship to God.

Sacrifices are the means by which the Israelite people draw near to God. The ritual laws and festivals are meant to lift their eyes to the God who created and redeemed them.

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.” (Ex. 20:2)

Notice how often these Scriptural references in the Torah declare the identity of God. This is the God who rescued them, the God Who Hears.

By means of the sacrificial system, this is also the God Who Draws Near, the God Who Lives Among His People.

It’s an imperfect system; we know that. We long to jump ahead to Christ and say, “Jesus fulfilled it all! Jesus is the one who tears the curtain and makes it possible for us to draw near to the holy presence of God!” (Heb. 4:14-16)

You are correct; this is a glorious fulfillment of the ancient system.

However, if we only read the Old Testament by looking for Christ within its pages, we will be disappointed. He’s not there. Backreading Christ into the Old Testament is not a faithful reading of the original text as understood by the original audiences.

What if we read the Levitical laws for what they are? What if we understood that these laws were given to a newly-redeemed nation and they formed the identity of this nation around the character of their God?

What if we saw how God stooped to meet his people exactly in the place where they were at—wandering in the wilderness, wondering if they made the right choice to leave Egypt?

Consider how the physical presence of God’s holiness filling the tabernacle would have struck awe and fear into the hearts of people who had, until now, been inundated with the fickleness of polytheism and indoctrinated by the power of Pharaoh as the most high god.

Consider how the offering of one’s prized possessions—the equivalent of present-day stocks and credit—declares allegiance to this God above any other gods, including one’s tendency toward self-preservation.

We begin to see how the God of Israel is on a mission to restore the broken relationship between himself and his humanity. God offers familiar but transformed methods of relating to him, slowly and subtly shifting their understanding of him as compared to the pagan gods of the nations.

We start to understand that holiness means drawing near to God so that we might become more like God, returning to our creation mandate of being his image-bearers in the world.

The Cross and the Quill is all about diving deep into various theological topics and considering how the biblical and historical context informs how we think about these things. If you liked this article, consider sharing it with your friends or subscribing to the newsletter below!

1 Scott R. A. Starbuck, “Sacrifice in the Old Testament,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 337.

Photo by Moaz Tobok on Unsplash

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