🥳 🎶 Happy birthday to me…
This post is dropping on my birthday.
Consider it a party favor. 🎉
(Note to self: when you use the word “party” to describe a blog post on a chapter of Leviticus… your social life might need work.)
This chapter is like a set of appendixes to the instructions on offerings.
Appendix 1: The Guilt Offering
The sin offerings in the previous chapter were for “unintentional” sins or “sins of ignorance.” This one starts off with sin (chata) that is a “trespass,” (ma’al). This seems to be a kind of I-know-I’m-sinning type of sin.
Verse 2 says that if a person sins “against Yahweh”… then goes on to describe mistreating the neighbors through deceit, theft, and exploitation.
This is like Jesus saying, “Truly I say to you, in as much as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.”
Matthew 25:40 LEB
We don’t get the phrase “When he realizes his guilt” in this instance. It actually says, “when he sins and is guilty then he shall bring…” It seems to me that in this case, the person knows from the start he is guilty. He just needs to be caught and confronted. And when he is, he brings a male sheep or goat or its value in silver coins just as in 5:15, 18. But the guilty person must also repay or return to his neighbor whatever he took, plus 20% (1/5) extra.
This is what is happening to Zacchaeus in the NT, only he goes way beyond 20%.
“And Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I am giving to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone, I am paying it back four times as much!” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save those who are lost.” Luke 19:8-10 LEB
Zacchaeus had been guilty of the things in Leviticus 6:1-3. He had deceived and stolen from and exploited his neighbors. He goes way beyond the requirement of the Law. Instead of giving back what he took plus 20%, he gives it back plus 4x more!
I’m a little dull at math so be patient as I work this out for my own edification.
Zacchaeus: steals $100 from me in fake overcharges.
Elders: Zack, you owe Lacy $120 bucks.
Jesus: Zacchaeus, I’m coming to your house for lunch!
Zacchaeus: sends me a check for $400! (the original $100 x 4).
Back to Leviticus…
So, the restitution is paid and the ram (or its equivalent in money) is brought and then this beautiful statement right here:
“And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven for any of the things that one may do and thereby become guilty.”
Leviticus 6:7 ESV
See? I told ya there was beauty in Leviticus.
The Prophet Isaiah wrote that the mysterious “Servant of the Lord” would offer Himself as a Guilt Offering:
“But the Lord desired To crush Him, causing Him grief; If He renders Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, For He will bear their wrongdoings.”
Isaiah 53:10-11 NASB2020
Jesus was both the ram who would be sacrificed AND his value in silver coins 🤯 (30 pieces) that was brought to the priests (see Matt. 27:3-6).
This is why we can be blameless before God. Jesus Christ, the Servant of YHWH, is our Guilt Offering. In Him, sinners are “forgiven for any of the things that one may do and thereby become guilty.”
Appendix 2: Burnt Offering
There is an offering burning on the altar 24/7. (Unless they’re packed up and moving I suppose)
Step 1: In the morning, add wood and do the morning sacrifice. It burns all day. The fire doesn’t go out. The whole carcass is reduced to ashes.
Step 2: Put on your holy linen ash-shoveling clothes to move the ashes from the fire to a pile beside the altar. Change into your civilian clothes and tote the ashes outside the camp.
Step 3: Come back and change back into your priest outfit. Offer the evening sacrifice. It will burn all night. Get up throughout the night to check the fire and add more wood if necessary.
In the morning- repeat steps 1-3. Every day.
Application: Being a living sacrifice isn’t a one-time thing (at youth camp or an exciting retreat) where you got all fired up 🔥 – pun intended – for Jesus. It’s a 24/7, something-is-always-burning process of daily sacrifice.
Also… those burnt up ashes of your will, your desires, your time, your life, your very body (Romans 12:1)- the act of hauling the ashes completely out of your life will not look like priestly work, but I assure you, it is. You will do it incognito. Alone. In your everyday work clothes. Those ashes are not garbage though. They are holy. And you must treat them as such. Those were precious things that were offered up. You must carry them to a clean place; away from prying eyes. This is between you and the Lord. (Facebook is not an appropriate place to dump these ashes.) You will lay them to rest in a clean place and return to camp. Then you will put your priestly clothing back on and return to your ministry work. And you will do this many, many times. No one will applaud you for this. No one will probably even notice. Or care. But you will do it every day because this is what it is to be a living sacrifice. It’s what Jesus did. It’s what those who follow Him must do. The Lord will notice. He cares. And He will “keep you from stumbling and present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy…” Jude 1:24 ESV
One day, the King will applaud and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Appendix 3: Grain Offering
When someone brings flour as a grain offering with olive oil & frankincense on it- scoop a handful off the top and be sure to get the frankincense and oil in that scoop. Burn that on the fire. The rest of the incense-free flour can be made into unleavened bread for the priests to snack on.
Cuz, trust me, you do NOT want to bite into a piece of frankincense while eating a pita. 😝
Appendix 4: Consecration Offering
Grain Offerings: Eat the pancakes.
Consecration Offerings: Don’t eat the pancakes. Turn the pancakes into smoke.
🥞🔥💨
Grain Offerings: for the priests
Consecration Offerings: for Yahweh
Conclusion:
Some things are for you.
Some things are NOT for you.
Don’t try to take and eat something that is for Yahweh. (Ahem….cough like worship. Ahem. Cough. Cough.) Not for you. Not your pancakes. You don’t like burnt pancakes? Fine. Yahweh does. Quit complaining. They’re His pancakes. You don’t have to like them. Quit trying to make it what you want. It’s not for you.
Appendix 5: Sin Offering
The sin offering is “most holy.” In Hebrew it literally says “a holiness of holinesses.” Holiness is transferable. But some things can’t handle being holy.
“And a clay vessel in which it was boiled must be broken, but if it was boiled in a bronze vessel, then it shall be thoroughly scoured and rinsed with water.”
Leviticus 6:28 LEB
Interesting, huh?
Why break it? Why not just say, “Well, it’s a holy pot now so we’ll wash it up and keep it only for cooking sin-offering-meat in.”?
I think clay is one of those materials that can’t handle being holy. It’s earthly. It is literally earth. Gold can handle holiness. That’s why everything in the Holy Place and Most Holy Place is covered in gold. Silver and even bronze can handle holiness. The brazen altar and the laver and the little silver curtain clasps are all holy. But not clay.
“Yahweh God formed the man of dust from the ground, and he blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Genesis 2:7 LEB
“How the gold has grown dim, the pure gold has changed. The stones of holiness are scattered at the head of every street. The precious sons of Zion weighed against fine gold, how they are thought of as earthen vessels of clay, the work of the potter’s hands.” Lamentations 4:1-2 LEB
“Yet now Yahweh, You are our father; we are the clay and You are our potter, and we all are the work of your hand.”
Isaiah 64:8 LEB
“But we have this treasure in earthenware jars, in order that the extraordinary degree of the power may be from God and not from us.” 2 Corinthians 4:7 LEB
“Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the cornerstone. This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls—it will crush him!” Matthew 21:42, 44 LEB
“For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For it is necessary for this perishable body to put on incorruptibility, and this mortal body to put on immortality.” 1 Corinthians 15:52-53 LEB
The clay vessels can’t handle holiness. The vessel that receives the sin offering will fall on the stone and be broken. Then the broken vessel will be changed into something more like gold. Something incorruptible. Something that can handle holiness.
I hope maybe this is helping Leviticus to be less scary, less boring, and more wonderful.
If you’re super-hardcore-nerding-out on Leviticus and just can’t get enough, Dr. Michael Heiser did about a year of podcasts on it. Look up: The Naked Bible Podcast – Leviticus. It’s fantastic content.
Next up in chapters 7-8, it’s the OT Edition of the popular series, “Eat This, Not That.”
And we finally get to meet the mysterious urim and thummim. 🎲🎲👀🤔
To The Reader 