The Burnt Offering

Studies in Leviticus

The Sacrificial System – How To Draw Near To God

The Burnt Offering -Lev. 1

I‟d like you to turn in your Bibles to Leviticus chapter 1, and this morning we are going to start our study of the Old Testament sacrificial system. As I explained to you last week, this is not only a legitimate use of our time since all of God‟s Word is “profitable” according to 1 Tim. 3:16, it is valuable because of how it will enhance our appreciation of not only Jesus (especially as we study the sacrificial system and the priesthood) and what He has done for us but also of the New Covenant and life under the stipulations of grace.

Quick review: The theme of Leviticus is “the holiness of God.” Holy means “separate, set apart, or sacred.” The opposite of holy is common. Paper plates and plastic utensils are common. They are mass produced, used once, and then thrown out. But fine china and silver are sacred. We set them apart in special cabinets with glass doors and soft lighting. Since God is holy, only holy people can be in fellowship with Him. It doesn‟t matter if you lived 4,000 years ago in Israel, 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, or if you are alive today – only holy people can be in fellowship with a holy God. But because holiness is somewhat abstract, in the book of Leviticus, God gives the nation of Israel a way to visualize holiness (remember the concept of object lessons). In the Old Testament system, holiness could actually be measured and viewed. The sacrifices, the offerings, the priesthood, and the laws concerning clean and unclean all served to quantify holiness. If you did all the “stuff,” you could be in communion and fellowship with a holy God.

Finally, let‟s say our memory project together. “Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, „Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, „I am the LORD your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the LORD your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.‟”

So if you aren‟t in Lev. 1, let‟s go there now and look at the first object lesson God lays out for His people - the sacrificial system. This consisted of five different types of offerings – a burnt offering, a grain offering, a peace offering, a sin offering, and a guilt (trespass) offering. As we go through these offerings, be aware that I will be using the terms “sacrifice” and “offering” interchangeably. The offerings, for the most part, were costly; so whether you view it from the perspective of an offering or a sacrifice, it is the same concept.

What is this first offering we see mentioned in verse 2 when God says, “ . . . when any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the animals from the herd or the flock?” Offerings and sacrifices weren‟t a new concept to God‟s people, they go back to the early days of God‟s interaction with man, as far back as Cain and Abel in Gen. 4. But in Leviticus we see for the first time a systematic, comprehensive set of guidelines for the offerings / sacrifices. The word that is translated as “offering” has the basic idea of “drawing near.” So if the people wanted to “draw near” to their God, the sacrifices / offerings enabled them to do it. But to really appreciate what it meant to the Children of Israel to have a means of drawing near to God, we have to contrast it with Ex. 19. Let‟s turn there and see what the relationship between God and Israel was like when God gave the 10 Commandments.

10 And the LORD said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes
11 and be ready by the third day, because on that day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.
12 Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, 'Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.
13 He shall surely be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on him. Whether man or animal, he shall not be permitted to live.' Only when the ram's horn sounds a long blast may they go up to the mountain."
16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.
17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.
18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently,
19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.
20 The LORD descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up
21 and the LORD said to him, "Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the LORD and many of them perish.
22 Even the priests, who approach the LORD, must consecrate themselves, or the LORD will break out against them."
23 Moses said to the LORD, "The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, 'Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy.' "

How accessible was God in this chapter? Not very! In fact, if they got too close, they paid for it with their lives! What we need to appreciate is that that dynamic changed drastically in Leviticus when God laid out a program for them to utilize so they could get near to God without dying – and it started with the sacrifices. So that is the idea behind the word “offering,” it was a means by which people could “draw near” to God.

Now the first of these five offerings is referred to as a “burnt” offering. Read verse three again with me. “If his offering is a burnt offering from the heard, he shall offer it, a male without defect; he shall offer it at the doorway of the tent of meeting; that he may be accepted before the Lord.” Then in verse 10 we read, “If his offering is of the flocks – of the sheep or of the goats – as a burnt sacrifice . . .” and in verse 13, “And if the burnt sacrifice of his offering to the Lord is of birds . . .” Let me give you six particulars about this offering, some of them are unique to the burnt offering, some of them are held in common by others.

First of all, the burnt offering was a voluntary offering. If you are using a King James version of the Bible this comes out a little more clearly because it uses the phrase in verse three, “he shall offer it of his own free will.” This presents a little bit of a problem when you compare it to the NAS and the NIV which say the offering is so that “he may be accepted before the Lord.” Is it a “freewill offering,” or is it an “acceptable” offering? This difference in translation illustrates the complexity of translating Hebrew. The literal translation of this verse is, “If burnt offering gift from the herd, male, perfect, bring near toward the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer _____________________ before the Lord.”

There is no question about the word itself, it is the word ratzone, and it‟s translated in a variety of ways - “goodwill, favor, acceptance, desire, pleasure” and “to do as you please” or “to do as you desire.” So, which idea do you go with? Is the author‟s emphasis on the person bringing the sacrifice (“freewill”), or is it on the nature of the sacrifice (“acceptable”)? Both translations are legitimate as well as defensible, but I lean toward the idea of “freewill” – “He shall offer it of his own free will.”

The reason I believe this is because as you study the burnt offerings, there was no external compulsion requiring a person to do this. It was a voluntary offering. There are no rules specifying how often a person had to do this (though there were regulations mandating how often the nation had to do it), or what circumstances would require a burnt offering. The burnt offering was not like the sin offering of chapter four and the trespass offering of chapter five which covered known sins or even potential sins. In those cases, when you knew you had broken the rules, you made the sacrifice. But the burnt offering was done at the discretion of the one doing it. It was simply an expression of his desire to draw near to the Lord and be pleasing to God.

Second, it was costly. Think about what sacrificing a bull did to your net worth! There is a reason why the burnt offering was a “sacrifice.” Kind David expressed this truth when he offered a burnt offering that was offered to him for free. He said, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God which cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.” The burnt offering was a costly, voluntary offering.

But you didn‟t have to be wealthy to bring this offering. If you weren’t wealthy, according to verse 10 you could bring a sheep or a goat, or if you were even poorer still, according to verse 14 you could bring a dove or a pigeon. The principle here is that your offering was according to your ability.

Third, it was narrow. What I mean by this is that not only were the guidelines very precise about the condition of the animal (male and without blemish), there was a limited number of animals you could choose from for the offering. The guidelines were very narrow. If you had a valuable horse you wanted to sacrifice, you couldn‟t give it! If you really wanted to make a sacrificial burnt offering to the Lord and wanted to sacrifice one of your valuable camels, you couldn‟t do it. You also couldn‟t sacrifice donkeys. Why were these valuable animals off the list of acceptable sacrifices, especially in light of how nicely they fit the bill of being costly to the giver? Because horses, donkeys, and camels were not only unclean, but also they were used by the pagans in their sacrificial systems! That is significant.

In this act, God is establishing a very clear division between His people and the pagan culture they were surrounded by. Let that phrase sink in. This is a timeless principle I want you to keep in the back of your mind because we are going to see it over and over in this book, and at some point we‟ll stop and look at how it plays out in our daily lives.

But for now, just remember the theme of Leviticus – God is holy, and He can be approached only in the way He prescribes. Just because you think you have something of value you can offer to God doesn‟t mean a thing. You can only give to God what He prescribes. And just to make sure we get the point, in Lev. 10, right after God lays out all the stipulations for fellowship with Him through the offerings and the priesthood, two priests got it in their mind to approach God in their own way and they paid for it with their lives! It is a very narrow path God had for His people.

Fourth, it was comprehensive. This particular offering is referred to as a “burnt” offering. The word “burnt” means “ascent,” and refers to the smoke that ascended toward heaven, but more than that, the entire animal was consumed by the fire. None of the animal being sacrificed was kept back for the priest, like some of the other offerings - the entire animal was consumed. This was different from the sin and guilt offerings because some of the animal in those offerings was carted out of the camp and burned outside the camp, but not in the case of this burnt offering. The one bringing it could stand there and watch the entire animal go up in smoke. There was nothing left.

In addition to this, you couldn‟t bring part of the animal and sacrifice it. Again, in contrast to the next two offerings, you could bring a portion and sacrifice it – but not with the burnt offering. You couldn‟t just throw a hindquarter up there and let that be your offering – it was the whole animal. And again, hold on to this thought because there is an important principle being illustrated here and we will be revisiting it.

Fifth, it was a substitutionary offering. Before we look at verse four where we see this matter of substitution, we need to go back to the Garden of Eden and recall God‟s actions when Adam and Eve sinned. What did God do in response to their sin? He killed an innocent animal and made clothing for them. In that act was established an eternal principle – sin is absolved only by the shedding of blood. The way the NT puts it is that “the wages of sin is death.” Any time you have sin, death follows. It doesn‟t matter if it was in the garden of Eden, or in the desert of Sinai, or in the days of Jesus, or this morning – there is an eternal principle that death always follows sin.

With that understanding, in verse 4 we read that the person bringing the sacrifice put his hand on the animal‟s head when he brought it to the door of the tabernacle. What was he doing? This was a symbolic gesture that transferred his sinfulness to the innocent animal. Why did he do this? Because blood had to be spilled! The offending, guilty party who could not draw near to God because of his sinfulness passed that guilt on to an innocent party, and then the innocent animal died instead of the one who deserved to die. And in that act, because of the blood being spilled, the person was brought into fellowship with his God. The bull or the goat was a substitutionary sacrifice.

Sixth, it was bloody. As we go through these sacrifices, you see blood everywhere. The blood was caught in a basin, and the, depending on the sacrifice, it was either sprinkled around the door, or poured out at the side of the altar, or poured on the four corners of the altar. We don‟t really appreciate how bloody this area was until we think about the size of the nation and realize that these offerings were taking place multiple times every day. God was making a very graphic point to His people, and that was that sin has serious consequences.

And seventh, it atoned for the sins of the one bringing the sacrifice as we see in verse 4. The word “atone” means “to cover.” In the Old Testament sense of the word, it doesn‟t mean to remove, only to cover. If I had a vase up here on the podium with me and threw a blanket over it, you would no longer be able to see it because it would be covered. Would the vase still be there? Sure. But it is only covered up. That is how we need to understand the idea of “atone” in these sacrifices. The sin was no longer visible to God because it was covered by the sacrifice, hence it no longer stood between the sinful person and the holy God. The holy God could be drawn near to.

I want us to close by looking at a short phrase in verse five. “And he shall slay the young bull before the Lord.” One of the dimensions of this sacrifice that we tend to overlook is that the person bringing the offering had to kill the animal himself. It didn‟t matter if you were squeamish about blood or not – you put the animal to death. Not only did you transfer your sinfulness to the animal through laying your hands on it, you were the means of its death. Let that sink in a moment - you were both the cause and the instrument of an innocent animal‟s death.

Several years ago Mel Gibson produced the very graphic movie The Passion of the Christ, and it is my understanding that when the part was being shot of the nails being pounded through Jesus‟ hands, it was a close-up and all you could see in the frame was Jesus‟ hand and the hands of a Roman soldier holding the hammer and spike. Guess which actor on the set was holding the hammer and spikes? Mel Gibson‟s!

That illustrates to me the reality of the burnt offering. That animal died at the hands of the sinner bringing it to the altar. He couldn‟t pass that off to the priest standing by. If it was a bird you were sacrificing, you ripped it in half with your own hands. There was nothing delicate about this offering – it was brutal and bloody! As we close in prayer, would you take a moment to reflect on the truth that Jesus was a burnt offering? Not that He burned, but when you think about the seven dimensions of the burnt offering, every one of them applies to Jesus.

It was voluntary

It was costly

It was narrow

It was comprehensive

It was substitutionary

It was bloody

It was atoning

And whose hands put Him to death?