When I wear perfume, I choose an essential oil made by DoTerra, called Purify. It is a clean and (to me) intoxicating blend of lemon peel, Siberian fir, citronella, tea tree and cilantro oils. I love it! I also love to diffuse the oil throughout our home. It makes everything smell clean and fresh.
We are progressing through our learning about the five types of sacrifices (korbanot) in a certain order, and that is the order they are revealed in Leviticus 1-7. Thus far, we have studied three of the five, the first three revealed by God as He instructed Moses - - the burnt offering, the grain offering and the peace offering. Next, as we will discover in today's post, comes the purification (also called the sin) offering and then, finally, the guilt offering.
Now, here's a curious thing. God revealed to (taught) Moses the five offerings in the order mentioned above (starting in Leviticus 1). But, let me ask you something. When it came to the establishment of the Aaronic priesthood and their first practice of making these sacrificial offerings, which offering did they offer first? Both when they were ordained (a lengthy process), in Leviticus 8, and then when they made their first official offerings as priests of the Most High God, they offered the same sacrifice first. Go look in Leviticus 9 and see what you find. (Hint: look at verse 8.)
Here is the verse, because I know you won't go look it up, lol.
8So Aaron approached the altar and slaughtered the calf as a sin offering for himself.
He offered this offering on behalf of himself, and then which of the five categories of offering did he offer first on behalf of the Israelites? Seven verses later - - -
15Aaron then presented the people’s offering. He took the male goat for the people’s sin offering, slaughtered it, and offered it for sin like the first one.
Leviticus 9:15
So, by instruction from God, the sin offering was given as the fourth offering; but, in practice, we see it offered first. Why do you suppose that is?
It is helpful to remember that the entire sacrificial system points toward Jesus Christ, Yeshua haMashiach (in Hebrew). In short, the first three offerings represent the sinless life Jesus lived, because they are offerings of devotion, offerings made out of a sincere love for God and for one's fellow man. And, Jesus lived a life of sinless devotion. He is the only man who has or who ever will. At the end of His earthly life, He became our atonement, taking away our sin and our guilt. Hallelujah!
However, in human practice of these offerings in the Old Testament, sin separated the people from God. As with each Christian's acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior, sin had to be dealt with. This is why the Aaronic priests of the Tanakh (Old Testamen) offered the sin and the guilt offerings first. There is no meaning in, or God's acceptance of, "devotion" offerings, if sin separates us from God.
It would be helpful at this point to define "sin".
If you are part of an evangelical church, you may have heard that "sin" means "to miss the mark", such as when an archer shoots an arrow and fails to hit a bulls-eye or to hit the target at all. From where did that description come? The Hebrew word for "sin" is "chattaah", which means (you guessed it) "to miss the mark". But, WHAT mark? The word "torah" (is very closely related to the words pictured below. Look at the Hebrew. They all have the same root.
Evangelicals often call the Torah, the Law, a "schoolmaster" or an "instructor". In short, God's Law, the Torah, show us what it means to live a perfect life, which Jesus Christ lived. Sin is what it means to fall short of doing that, because no man except for Jesus has kept the whole Law. (The "falling short" aspect reminds me of a dean of women in college who once prayed for the Lord to "forgive us our falling shorts", which was a catalyst for many silent chortles and spasms of laughter among the collegiate faithful. She was thinking of Romans 3:23, I guess. But, I digress....)
Actually, sin is no laughing matter. God makes clear in the Bible how He hates it. And, why? Because it separates Him from those He loves. In living the Christian life, our individual process of sanctification, we become more and more discerning of sin, especially our own sin. We become increasingly aware that we may sin at any time. Sin is the hallmark of our old nature, ever with us, constantly warring with the new nature we received when we accepted Christ Jesus as Savior, and had all of our sins forgiven, washed away, remembered by God no more. Sin ever seeks to diminish us, to take the glory from God. The apostle Paul describes the "O Wretched Man That I Am Battle" inside the believer, in Romans 7:14-25.
Wouldn't it have been wonderful if, after becoming one with Christ, our old nature was forever banished from us? However, that is not "real life here below Heaven". Sin is like a cancer, a silent enemy, always looking for opportunities to derail, up-end, marginalize and, if we let it, destroy us in this life. Thank God our eternity in Heaven with our Savior is assured!
Ok, now to examine the Korban Chatat. This offering worked in concert with the fifth category of offerings, the guilt offering. Together, these two picture the confession of both the sins of the heart AND the sinful actions which follow inward sins. The major focus of the Chatat offering is purification, cleansing while a key element of the Asham offering is restitution/reconciliation. But, lest we get confused, let's focus only on the Korban Chatat for now.
This offering was, yes, offered for unintentional sins committed. However, it was broader than that. (That is the reason I titled this post "Purification".) A sin offering was also offered on occasions such as when a person defiled himself by touching a corpse (Numbers 6:14), or for after a woman gave birth (Leviticus 12:16), or for ritual impurities such as coming into contact with a leprous person (Leviticus 14:19.) Purification cleanses away defilement. The Purification Offering removed the defilement which occurred when the people broke God's Torah.
This type of sacrifice was also offered in the fulfillment of Nazarite vows. I'm not going to launch into an exposition of what a Nazarite vow was, although I will point out that the apostle Paul, after the ascension of Christ back to Heaven, made a Nazarite vow and kept it, ending the vow period by going to the Temple and making a sin offering, a Korban Chatat. This is recorded in Acts 18 and also in Acts 21. To many Christians this story is quite troublesome, because it seems to not jive with the all-sufficiency of Jesus' sacrifice. In other words, WHY would Paul, who seemed to understand the gospel quite well, go offer a Temple sacrifice, after his conversion? I will attempt to deal with that question in a future post. But, let's not digress.
What types of items were featured in the sin offering? The requirement varied, based on who committed the sin. The more authority the person carried, the greater the offering. So, for example, when a member of the priesthood sinned, the offering was of a bull, a very expensive offering. Or, when a king sinned, the offering requirement was a male goat. When an "everyday Israelite" sinned, the requirement varied according to that person's wealth (or lack thereof): a lamb, one or two doves, grain/flour.
Sin offerings were also offered on the most holy day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement. This occurred from Leviticus 9 and on through until the last Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. It is the Korban Chatat and the Passover Lamb sacrifice (a peace offering) which are most closely associated with the work of Jesus Christ, during Passion Week, the week of His death, burial and resurrection.
We read in Leviticus 4 that the animal offered for a sin offering had to be the most perfect specimen available, one "without blemish". The animal would be brought to the altar and the sinner would put his hands on its head, which symbolized transferring his sins onto the animal. Then, the animal would be killed, which would take place on the north side of the altar. The blood would be handled in a specific way, as well as the fat of the animal. Then, usually, the carcass of the animal would be burned up away from the Temple, "outside the camp". (Compare Hebrews 13:12.)
Have you thought about how the sinner must have felt, to see a beautiful, innocent animal pay the ultimate price, for his sins? How much more should our hearts be stricken, when we contemplate how Jesus Christ died, bearing the wrath of a holy God, for us? "...and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)
As I am about to wind up this post, you may have noticed I underlined the word "unintentional" several paragraphs back. Did you wonder about this? I'll have more to say about that in the next post.
Sources:
"Making Sense of Sacrifices, Part 4", by Dr. Jennifer Scrivner, Beth HaShomer Ministries
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13764-sin-offering
https://www.gotquestions.org/sin-offering.html
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/sin-offering/
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