Devotion

Well now do take your Bibles in hand once again and turn with me please to Leviticus chapter 1; page 81 if you’re using one of our church Bibles. When I first told some of you that I was planning to preach through Leviticus you sort of all went, “Leviticus? Oh! That will be interesting!” Apparently it wasn’t your first choice for our next major sermon series! I understand the trepidation. If you’ve ever tried to read right through the Bible, you get through Genesis pretty well, don’t you, and most of Exodus is straightforward, even exciting at times, engaging. But Leviticus, Leviticus is where Bible reading plans go to die! Isn’t it? Full of bloody, sacrificial rituals, strange priestly ceremonies; there’s a lot of repetition. Detailed prescriptions for the way ancient Israelites were supposed to live every day under the rule of God. And it all just seems a bit weird, let’s be honest. We stumble through a few chapters, scratch our heads in bewilderment, and then skip forward to the psalms for some relief. The truth is, we rarely read Leviticus and when we do read it, we don’t really understand it all that terribly well.

And so maybe right now you’re not especially excited about a year in Leviticus. I get it. But I do hope that your perspective will begin to change because Leviticus is actually chock full of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I want you to learn this year to love Leviticus because of all the books of the Old Testament scriptures, I think a good case can be made that this one is actually most full of Christ. If you love the Lord Jesus, you ought to love Leviticus because it preaches Him to you on almost every page. But I also want you to learn to love Leviticus this year because it is the book of the Bible that focuses most directly on our teaching theme for this year. Our theme, you will remember, is “Devoted: Learning to Live for the Glory of God.” And honestly, that’s a pretty good summary of the major emphasis of the book of Leviticus. It is all about being devoted to God. It calls us in light of the atoning blood of the sacrificial victim shed in the place of sinners, it calls us to live wholeheartedly in every sphere of life for the honor and praise and glory of our God. If we could really get into Leviticus, or better, if we could really get Leviticus into us, it’s going to help us live devoted lives.

Now Leviticus, as you might know, was delivered to God’s people at the foot of Mount Sinai during the exodus of the people of Israel through the wilderness as they made their way from Egyptian bondage toward the Promised Land. And the book follows a fairly simple structure. Maybe the simplest way to organize the book of Leviticus – chapters 1 through 15 focus on sacrifice and priesthood. They’re all about how sinful Israelites can hope to get close to a holy God. They are about the way of approach for sinners into God’s presence. So chapters 1 through 15 are about drawing near to God. Then chapters 17 through 27 on the other hand, they are full of detailed instructions on how God’s people are supposed to live in light of the provision that God has made for their forgiveness in the sacrificial system. So the second half of the book of Leviticus is about being devoted to God. So drawing near to God, 1 through 15, devoted to God, 17 through 27, and the hinge in the middle of the book, the molten center of Leviticus is chapter 16, which deals with the Day of Atonement.

Scholars sometimes diagram the book of Leviticus like an inverted “V” shape, like a mountain. The first fifteen chapters are about ascending up into the presence of God – the way to God by sacrifice and blood atonement. The last ten chapters, the other side, the downward slope are about descending from God’s presence to live our lives out there in the world, consecrated entirely to God’s service. But the pinnacle, the summit of the holy mountain is chapter 16, the Day of Atonement, where God makes provision for the removal of His people’s sin. Or scholars also sometimes diagram the book as a kind of literary mirror image of the tabernacle itself where all the action in Leviticus actually takes place. You remember that the tabernacle is a series, as it were, of concentric courts. Chapters 1 through 15 and 17 through 27, they’re like the outer courts moving from outside into the holy place. But chapter 16, the Day of Atonement, where the high priest may go only once a year into the most holy place is right in the center of the book.

This whole book is about moving us, do you see, step by step into the intimate presence of God, and then about sending us out into the world, having met with Him to live for His glory. And that is precisely the movement we all need to go through. Isn’t it? We need to come to God, get right with God, meet with God, be reconciled to God and begin a life of fellowship with God and so go from His presence into the world to live for God and for His glory every day and in every sphere of our lives. That’s what I need, that’s what you need, and it’s what Leviticus is all about.

Now today we begin the first section of the book looking at chapter 1, dealing with burnt offerings. If you cast your eye over Leviticus chapter 1, you’ll notice there are – excuse me – there are three options available for a worshiper who wanted to bring a burnt offering to the Lord. In verses 1 through 9, he could bring a bull from his herd. Ten through 13, he could alternatively bring a sheep or a goat from the flock. Or if he could afford neither of those, he could bring, verses 14 through 17, he could bring a turtledove or a pigeon. The options are almost certainly listed in order of descending value in order to make the point that everyone can participate – everyone from the richest to the poorest can come to God by means of a burnt offering. And most scholars agree that the first of those three options, verses 1 through 9, the offering of the bull from the herd, sort of sets the basic template for how burnt offerings are to go. The rest are variations on the theme, and so we’ll be focusing our attention on these opening nine verses.

And what’s important to see about the burnt offerings is that while they like all the sacrifices include the crucial idea of atonement, of getting right with God by means of the shedding of blood, the burnt offerings in particular also have this idea of being devoted to God, the devotion of the whole person of the worshiper, entirely consecrated to their God. Now do you remember the two halves of the book of Leviticus? One through 15 are about drawing near to God by means of blood atonement. Seventeen through 27 are about living for God, a life consecrated to His service. Well those two themes come together right here in the opening chapter in the burnt offering – about getting right with God through the atoning sacrifice and about being holy, consecrated and given up to living for God. So that if you really grasp the meaning of Leviticus chapter 1, you’ve already got, in capsule form as it were, the heart of the message of the whole book. And so that may be why we start here with burnt offerings at the beginning of the book of Leviticus. They are a microcosm of Leviticus as a whole.

As we look at chapter 1, I want you to see three vital Gospel truths in this strange to us, strange ritual of the burnt offering. We are going to see these three themes again and again as we walk through the sacrificial system in Leviticus. First, Israel was being taught, we are being taught the principle of substitution. Substitution in verses 3 and 4. God accepts a substitute who dies in place of the worshiper. Secondly, we are being taught the principle of satisfaction in verses 4 and 5. The substitute makes satisfaction for our sin before a holy God. And finally, we are being taught the principle of sanctification in verses 6 through 9. Having made atonement, being reconciled to God, God now claims every part of our lives as His own. Substitution, satisfaction and sanctification. Before we look at each of those in turn, let’s bow our heads and we can pray together. Let us pray.

Father, Your Word is before us and our hearts are exposed to Your sight. We know that we are prone to hide from You or to subvert and twist the truth, avoid its teaching. And so we ask You now by the work of the Holy Spirit to get ahold of us and make it impossible for us to hide and drive the truth home. Arrest us by Your Word and Spirit and bring us, maybe for some of us here for the very first time, back to Jesus Christ the Lamb of God who alone can take away the sin of the world. For we ask it in His name, amen.

Leviticus chapter 1 at the first verse. This is the Word of God:

“The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, ‘Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock.

If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Then he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. And Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head, and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar; but its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn all of it on the altar, as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

If his gift for a burnt offering is from the flock, from the sheep or goats, he shall bring a male without blemish, and he shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the Lord, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall throw its blood against the sides of the altar. And he shall cut it into pieces, with its head and its fat, and the priest shall arrange them on the wood that is on the fire on the altar, but the entrails and the legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer all of it and burn it on the altar; it is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

If his offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves or pigeons. And the priest shall bring it to the altar and wring off its head and burn it on the altar. Its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. He shall remove its crop with its contents and cast it beside the altar on the east side, in the place for ashes. He shall tear it open by its wings, but shall not sever it completely. And the priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire. It is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.”

Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken in His holy, inerrant Word.

Now in Hebrew, the very first word of Leviticus is a conjunction. Literally verse 1 reads, “Then the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting.” So Leviticus is meant to be read, in some sense at least, as the continuation of Exodus chapter 40. If you’ll look over the page at Exodus 40 with me just for a moment, notice in verse 34, the glory of God fills the tabernacle, in partial fulfillment of God’s promise to dwell in the midst of His people. The tabernacle, you will remember, was the precursor to the temple that would later be built by Solomon in Jerusalem. It was a kind of portable temple, erected right in the geographical center of the encampment of the Israelites. And here at the end of Exodus, God’s glory fills the tabernacle. His presence comes, as He promised it would, to dwell in their midst. It must have been a thrilling moment.

But there is a discordant note that sounds. Can you see it in verse 35? Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Now that’s stunning. You remember that all through the book of Exodus, Moses has been the only one who can climb to the top of Mount Sinai and meet with the Lord in His mighty presence. And now suddenly, even Moses is excluded. God is making a vital point crystal clear for Israel, for all of us – no one has automatic access to God, not even Moses. There is no automatic access to a holy God for anyone – not for me and not for you. Did you know that? We are naturally excluded from His presence because of our sin. God’s purpose in coming down to dwell in the midst of Israel was so that they might have fellowship with Him. But in the event His presence actually shuts the people of Israel out. Do you remember the cherubim and the blazing sword that blocked the way back into Eden when Adam and Eve sinned and they were expelled? They couldn’t get back. And like Israel, like Adam, all human beings are made for fellowship with God but we are excluded by our sin from enjoying that fellowship. God is holy and we are not. Is that news to you? God is holy; you’re not, I’m not. And our sin excludes us from His presence. We are shut out.

And that’s the problem, the situation that Leviticus sets out to remedy. Leviticus 1:1, God speaks from the tent of meeting to show Israel and to show us the only safe passage into His presence. And the safe way into God’s presence, He tells us, is by means of sacrifice. The name for this first sacrifice in Leviticus is “burnt offering.” That’s how the ESV translates it. It comes from a Hebrew word that really means “to ascend, to go up.” Some take that to be a reference to the smoke that would ascend from the offering as it’s consumed on the altar. And hence, therefore the traditional rendering of a “burnt offering.” But I think it’s really better to translate it more simply and directly as “an offering for going up, an ascension offering.” The presence of God in Scripture is always symbolically up. Up on the holy mountain. And so this is an offering for going up to God. Here’s how you get to God; here is how you can ascend into His presence. The only way to get to God, then and now, is by way of sacrifice. Not of course the sacrifice of a bull or a sheep or a bird. These are just the types and the shadows of the real thing that was still to come – the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is the only safe path into the tabernacle, into the presence of a holy God for you or me. We must forsake all other imagined avenues to get to God.

“No one comes to the Father” – do you remember? Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” This is the only path, the only way into the presence of a holy God. Give up your attempts to get to God by every other means. They will all fail you. Your religion, your morality, your spirituality – none of them can secure access to God. None of them fit the bill. God has ordained His Son for the sacrifice by which alone we can come near to Him. Jesus is the only way. Jesus is the only way. He is God’s ascension offering, His offering for going up, His burnt offering.

And the details of the burnt offering here are designed to teach three central Gospel principles on the basis of which access for sinners like us into God’s presence can be secured. The first of them is the principle of substitution. Notice what the worshiper was to do in verses 3 and 4. Would you look at verses 3 and 4 please? First he is to select the best specimen from his herd, a male without blemish, his most costly animal. That phrase “without blemish” by the way translates the same word that was used of Noah back in Genesis chapter 6 verse 9. Noah was “blameless.” That’s what it means; same word. It was a blameless, spotless bull from the herd. This isn’t the beast we would likely, instinctively choose for the slaughter. We would pick the one with all the blemishes, the one that isn’t worth so much, the one we can afford to lose. But the worshiper who wishes to go into God’s presence must pick the best – the blameless from the herd.

And he is to bring it, notice, to the entrance to the tent of meeting and his objective in doing so, verse 3, is that he may be accepted before the Lord. This is the only way to be accepted. And the text says he is to lay his hands on the head of the burnt offering. Now that phrase “lay his hands” sounds very nice, doesn’t it? A gentle caress of the fingertips maybe, a gentle pat of farewell on the head of a beloved family pet. The word actually means “to lean hard,” to press down, to put all your weight like you are leaning everything on the head of the sacrifice. God required the worshiper to push down with all his strength in a really physical act. So stealing your heart for the loss of your prize bull, you might be inclined to be clinical and detached and perfunctory and casual about it so as not to get too upset by what is about to take place. But the Levitical law is designed to exclude that option. You have to be completely engaged, completely involved physically, leaning all your weight on the head of this animal.

And the point of the action seems to be to represent and press home the notion of substitution and identification. You see that in verse 4. Look at verse 4. “He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.” It shall be accepted for him instead of him. When you pushed with all your weight and all your strength on the head of the burnt offering, you were saying, “As of this moment I am this bull; he is me. What happens next is what I deserve and what I actually get is what this blameless victim deserves.”

Now here’s a central principle of the Christian Gospel. You really can’t understand the good news without this. This is what Jesus did – 1 Peter 3:18. He came as our substitute, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. To get you to God, you don’t need a teacher; it’s not more information that’s your problem. You don’t need a guru; you don’t need a life coach. You don’t need advice. You don’t need book learning. You don’t need experience. You don’t need religious ritual. You don’t need formal, ethical morality. You don’t need therapy. You need a substitute. You need to come to the spotless Lamb of God, the blameless Lord Jesus Christ, and lean the full weight of your soul need on His head.  You need to claim Him, God’s ascension offering, as your substitute. God to God today, now, would you, and say to Him, “Not me. Not me – Him. Not me – Him. I lay my hand on the head of Jesus Christ and I take Him for my own.” There is no other way. Substitution.

Secondly, the burnt offering is meant to teach us the Gospel principle of satisfaction. Satisfaction. You’ve raised this animal from a calf; you’ve cared for it. Maybe, as most farmers will have to do from time to time, when the calf was born his mother rejected him and you had to take him into your own home, into the bosom of your family. You stayed up through the night and you fed the calf with milk by hand until he got strong. You had a soft spot for this animal ever since. I was reading in my quiet time on Friday John 10 – the Good Shepherd calls His sheep by name. Don’t let the gruff farmer that you know tell you they never name their livestock. They get attached. How could you not when you’ve labored to feed them and care for them and tend them, you’ve defended them, you’ve raised them, sometimes raised them by hand, sheltered them, warmed them in your own home for years? Of course you get attached. And now here you are standing with your beloved animal, a prize bull from your herd at the entrance to the tent of meeting. The priest is standing there in front of you. Behind him, just beside the entrance, is the altar, and you turn and you put your hand on the bull’s head as he looks up at you with those big, brown, trusting cow eyes.

And then verse 5, you have to kill your prize bull before the Lord, not the priest. The priest doesn’t come with a sympathetic word and a comforting hand on your shoulder to quietly lead the prize bull away behind a screen someplace to take care of it for you. This isn’t sanitized and clinical. You have to do the deed. This isn’t a nice, clean church service, is it, where you wear your Sunday best. You’re going to cut the throat of a bull and you’re going to get arterial blood on your hands and on your sleeves and on your shoes. It’s gory. It’s ugly, upsetting, stomach turning even. And it’s meant to be. This, the whole ritual is saying, this is what sin does. This is what sin costs. This is what sin is like. It is gory and ugly and stomach turning. It kills. It kills. And yet as appalled as we are by it, make no mistake, nothing but death will satisfy the wrath and curse of God. This is what we deserve. This is what we deserve.

That’s the message – you deserve it and me too. Deuteronomy 12:23 and Leviticus 17:11 says that “the life is in the blood.” The blood, in other words, is the symbol and emblem of life. And here at the entrance to the tent of meeting, the life blood of a blameless victim is shed so that the life of the guilty worshiper might be spared. Sometimes if we’re honest, we are tempted to think that our sin is a trivial matter. Aren’t we? Trivial. We excuse, we blameshift, we minimize our sin. We shrug off the pangs of a guilty conscience all too readily. Well come and watch the worshipers at the entrance to the tent of meeting. Or better still, come and join the crowds of onlookers surrounding the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ on Golgotha and see what sin demands. See what your sin requires. The emulation of a substitute, the lifeblood of the Son of God – “Behold, the man upon the cross; my sin upon His shoulders.” Nothing less will do. See what it costs in all its ugliness and learn to hate your sin and turn from it.

And now as the prize bull lies dying at your feet outside the door of the tabernacle, you watch as the priest catches the blood in a vessel of some kind and turns to the altar behind him, just inside the entrance, and he dashes the blood, he throws it against each side of the altar. The bull’s blood on your hands, coating your clothing, is meant to speak about the cleansing that the blood secures for you from the guilt of your sin, the blood applied to you to take your sin away. Theologians sometimes call that “expiation.” But when the priest turns and dashes the blood against the altar, he is symbolically applying the blood not now to you but God. The wrath of God is satisfied. This isn’t expiation now; this is propitiation. Do you remember the wonderful words, we sometimes quote them in our assurance of pardon after we have confessed our sin in our worship service? Stephen quoted the first part of this earlier in our service. First John 2:1-2 – “If anyone sins we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the” – what? “He is the propitiation for our sins.” That’s what this is talking about right here. Jesus’ sacrifice, His shed blood doesn’t simply make us clean, deal with our guilt, wash our sin away, expiation. It does that, wonderfully, but more than that the blood of the cross satisfies the righteous judgment and wrath of God that is kindled to burn far brighter and hotter than the fire that blazed on top of the altar of burnt offerings. That’s propitiation.

What is it we sometimes sing? “In Christ alone, who took on flesh, fullness of God in helpless babe. This gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones He came to save. Till on the cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied, for every sin on Him was laid, here in the death of Christ, I live.” That’s the message here, isn’t it? I hope you all understand that all sin, all of your sin must be paid for. Do you know that? All sin must be paid for. Either you will pay for it personally, eternally in hell forever, or you will have a substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will make payment in full in your place and satisfy for you the wrath of God. Those are your only options. The substitution of a goat or a bull at the entrance of the tabernacle is just the symbolic action, isn’t it? Hebrews 10:4, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.” Hebrews 10:11, “Every priest stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sin.” But Hebrews 10:12, “When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice” – meaning the sacrifice of Himself – “He sat down at the right hand of God.” Job done. Mission accomplished. Salvation secured for anyone who needs it.

The substitute you need, the only one who can satisfy the wrath of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what’s happening at the cross. He is taking your place, the place of sinners, making Himself a burnt offering on the altar of God’s judgment. I wonder if you will have Him to stand in your place? Will you come and put your hand on His head? Claim Him as your substitute? Come and trust in Him? Only He, only He can make you clean and only He can satisfy the judgment of God.

So substitution, satisfaction, and now finally sanctification. Notice what the priest does next in verses 6 through 9. The skin is removed, the carcass is cut into pieces, wood is arranged on the altar. In verse 9, “The priest shall burn all of it on the altar as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” The word translated for “burn” there is used especially in conjunction with temple sacrifices and it means to turn the whole sacrifice entirely into smoke. Every part is to be utterly consumed by the fire. Nothing left. In other sacrifices sometimes the priests receive a portion for their own food or sometimes even the worshipers receive a portion to have a ritual meal with some of it. But in the burnt offering, the whole sacrifice is consumed. Nothing held back; nothing kept for self; nothing reserved for human use. God gets it all.

Now remember we said the meaning of the laying on of hands ritual is about symbolic identification. “I am this bull. He is me. What he gets I deserve. What I get he deserves.” You remember that? Well that idea continues on now as the whole sacrifice is turned into smoke, a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Here, now that atonement has been made, the substitute has died, blood has been shed, sin is forgiven, here now the worshiper in the figure of the bull his substitute is completely consecrated to God. Nothing is left over. Nothing held in reserve. Nothing kept for himself. He is holy to the Lord. The whole sacrifice is turned into smoke, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

That is what the Gospel does, you know. It’s not a trick, a lever to pull to get God off your case so you can continue to live however you please. No, rather once Christ secures your pardon, He calls you and consecrates you to a life of purity. You cannot have redemption by the blood of the sacrifice if you’re not willing to bend your knee to the Christ who died for you, to be Lord as well as Savior. In 2 Corinthians 2:15, the apostle Paul uses the language of the burnt offering to describe his own life given up in costly service of the Gospel with nothing held in reserve. He says, “We are the aroma of Christ to God.” And in Romans 12:1, we, all of us, are to offer our bodies, “living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship.” As a result of being put right with God, you can now no longer live however you please. You are His now. The Lord Jesus who died for you – He bought you; you belong to Him. You can’t live however you please, go wherever you wish, say whatever you wish. You are not your own. You were bought at a price. And He claims every part of you – your mind and your heart, your relationships and your work ethic, your reading habits, your secret thoughts, your marriage, your money, all of you. All going up as an offering of worship on the altar of praise, dedicated to the pleasure of God.

You can’t have forgiveness, you can’t have it without sanctification. You can’t have the substitute to satisfy the wrath of God if you’re not willing as you come to Christ to surrender your life to His lordship in gratitude and praise from here on out. The Gospel, the worshiper at the door of the tent of meeting was being taught, the Gospel changes everything. It changes everything. Are you ready for that? Or do you prefer a Jesus who deals with your problem before a holy God and just leaves you well alone? That’s not the Gospel. That’s a lie of the evil one. The Gospel changes everything. Are you ready for that? Maybe you are ready for that. Maybe you know that’s actually what you desperately need. You finally come to the place where you feel like your life, actually life your way repels you. You’re sick of life your way, weary of life your way. Well friend, Jesus has died to make the way open for sinners into the presence of God. He can make you clean. He can satisfy the wrath of God in your place. And He will make your life a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, not a stench of failure and sin anymore; a pleasing aroma to the Lord. All you need to do is put your hand on His head, lean your whole weight as it were on the head of the sacrifice. Have you done that? All you have to do right now this morning is take Christ as Savior and substitute and sacrifice. Will you come and cry out to Him and ask Him to do what you can’t ever do for yourself? Come and say, “Lord Jesus, Lamb of God, may Your blood now make me clean. I’m dirty. I’m guilty. Make me clean. May Your death pay my penalty. That’s what I deserve. Give me life. I’m Yours. I’m Yours. Without reservation and without qualification, save me.” Would you do that with me now? Let’s pray together.

Our God and Father, we praise You that Jesus is Your provision for every sinner and any sinner, for everyone in this room, for everyone within the sound of my voice, for all the world. Grant now that we might stop with our excuses, stop with our self-justification, and come guilty and needy to the entrance to the tent of meeting, as it were, to put our hands on His head. “Not me, O Lord, Him. Give to Him what I deserve and grant to me what He secures, what the blameless one provides. Give me life. Forgive me and save me and wash me clean. I’m Yours. I’m Yours now, without reservation and qualification. Save me.” Would You do that, O God, even here in our midst today, for Jesus’ sake? Amen.