Hope for the Conscience

This week will highlight the Troubles that the people of God had on the way to "happily ever after"

Leviticus 1-2

Integral to the freedom for Israel would be the relationship of Yahweh with his people. Yet, if there is a genuine relationship, there needs to be a way to maintain that relationship. When we fail in our earthly relationships, we can simply go to the person, apologize and make amends for whatever we did wrong. But how will God’s people do that if, because of his Holiness, they cannot appear before him personally? That leads us to understand the tabernacle/temple and understand the book of Leviticus.

The tabernacle was designed to be the dominant fixture in the life of Israel, set up in the center of community, so that the community would be built with Yahweh as the central person in the life of the nation. The tabernacle was where God dwelled. It became a tangible place where an Israelite could come and interact with God through one of the priests.

Just like in our human relationships, we need to move past our offense and guilt before genuine relationship can occur, the same is true for God. That is why Leviticus offers specific instruction about sacrifices to cleanse the people of God of their guilt and to represent atonement for their sins. These two chapters offer insight into the purpose of sacrifice in the life of the Israelite worship.

1. Sacrifices required blood because atonement was costly. From the beginning, God told Adam and Eve that if they disobeyed them, they would surely die. Well, when they did, they died to God spiritually, but God in his mercy spared their physical lives and took the lives of other animals instead of the lives of Adam and Eve. Because sin is a life or death issue, only the shedding of blood can truly demonstrate the cost of sin—therefore blood sacrifice for sin.

2. Offerings provided for the Spiritual leadership of the nation. The Israelite worshippers were required to offer the best tenth of all of their earnings to bring for worship. This ten percent provided for the entire tribe of Levi (who had no allotted land in Israel) who were charged with caring for the temple and offering spiritual leadership to the people of Israel. To this day, God’s people give ten percent of their earnings to provide for the church to offer Spiritual leadership.

3. The offerings were to come with salt—this was a reminder that the covenant that God made with his people was lasting. This covenant is in a certain sense still in effect today, except Jesus has fulfilled it. He was the perfect sacrifice that could cleanse forever the conscience of all of God’s people. Because of his sacrifice, what more could any of us bring? How could we add to his perfect sacrifice? All we can do is gratefully receive it and live out of the new reality of freedom and forgiveness it offers us.

Posted by Marc