SPEAK TO THE Israelites and say to them: ‘When any of you brings an offering to the LORD, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock. 3“‘If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he is to offer a male without defect. He must present it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting so that it will be acceptable to the LORD. 4He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. 5He is to slaughter the young bull before the LORD, and then Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and sprinkle it against the altar on all sides at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 6He is to skin the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. 7The sons of Aaron the priest are to put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. 8Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, including the head and the fat, on the burning wood that is on the altar. 9He is to wash the inner parts and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.
10“‘If the offering is a burnt offering from the flock, from either the sheep or the goats, he is to offer a male without defect. 11He is to slaughter it at the north side of the altar before the LORD, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall sprinkle its blood against the altar on all sides. 12He is to cut it into pieces, and the priest shall arrange them, including the head and the fat, on the burning wood that is on the altar. 13He is to wash the inner parts and the legs with water, and the priest is to bring all of it and burn it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.
14“‘If the offering to the LORD is a burnt offering of birds, he is to offer a dove or a young pigeon. 15The priest shall bring it to the altar, wring off the head and burn it on the altar; its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. 16He is to remove the crop with its contents and throw it to the east side of the altar, where the ashes are. 17He shall tear it open by the wings, not severing it completely, and then the priest shall burn it on the wood that is on the fire on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.’”
WHEN THE LORD calls to Moses from the “Tent of Meeting” (1:1), he wastes no time launching into a series of commands regarding the heart of worship: sacrifice. In 1:2–17 he covers voluntary burnt offerings offered by private individuals. Following the introduction of the overall burnt offering case by “When . . .” (ki; v. 2), there are three legal “paragraphs” prescribing the correct procedure for burnt offerings of herd animals (i.e., bovines; vv. 3–9) and flock animals (i.e., sheep and goats; vv. 10–13), as well as birds (vv. 14–17). Each of these paragraphs comprises a sub-case, beginning with the word “if” (ʾim; vv. 3, 10, 14).
Sacrifices and other rituals that utilized all kinds of materials and victims, including animals and even sometimes human beings, were an essential part of religious life from earliest times all over the ancient world, including Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Egypt, Syria/Palestine, and Greece.1 Like other peoples, the patriarchal ancestors of the Israelites practiced animal sacrifice (Gen. 22:13; 31:54; 46:1), as did the Israelites themselves even before they received the instructions in Leviticus (Ex. 12:1–13, 21–28; 24:5–6). Thus, for them this form of worship was not strange at all.
For us, however, it is a different matter. Given that animal sacrifices are foreign and even repulsive to us, how do we begin to understand the divine message and get something out of it? Where is the meaning in a ritual? The first step is to find out how rituals work. Most important, we must ascertain how ritual activity carries meaning.
Systems of activity. Rather than getting into a complicated, abstract discussion of ritual theories that scholars (including myself) have proposed,2 let’s begin with the obvious: A ritual is a system of activities. Thus, we can learn about some properties of rituals by comparing them with nonritual activity systems, with which everyone is familiar. We do many of these each day.
Do you get ready for work on Mondays? What activities are necessary for this? At the very least, you need to get dressed. Before you get dressed, you must get out of bed and locate the clothes you will put on. We could call these prerequisite activities. Then you start the actual process of dressing. Although some things must be done before others, your routine is capable of some flexibility. Because your goal is the reason for the activity system, it determines the activities you must include and shapes their order.
Dressing may belong to a larger activity system, such as getting your family ready for the day. This illustrates the fact that activity systems, like all other systems (e.g., physical, social, or conceptual systems), are hierarchical, with systems consisting of smaller systems and making up larger systems.
When you finish dressing, you may need to tidy your room by putting away the items you decided not to wear. This would be postrequisite activity.
Now we are ready to start reading the first ritual instructions in Leviticus 1:2–3:
When any of you brings an offering to the LORD, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock. If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he is to offer a male without defect. He must present it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting so that it will be acceptable to the LORD. (emphasis supplied)
The wording here indicates voluntary sacrifices. In this context an Israelite can choose when to bring an animal offering to the Lord, but having made this choice, the animal must be domestic, whether from the herd (bovines, e.g., bulls) or from the flock (sheep or goats). The menu of options continues. If it is a burnt offering from the herd, certain rules apply. (1) The choice of the animal must be male and without blemish. (2) The location is specified: “the entrance to the Tent of Meeting,” that is, the courtyard in front of the tabernacle, where the outer altar is located. Following these rules enables the offering to achieve its goal through acceptance by the Lord (1:3).
Since a valid burnt offering can only take place at the sanctuary, leading the animal victim to this location is prerequisite to the ritual activity system. Leviticus 2:13 commands another activity that is prerequisite to any sacrifice: adding salt.3
Leviticus 1:4–9 prescribes the burnt offering ritual proper, which includes a series of activities that are explicitly mentioned (regular type below) or implied by practical necessity (italics):
lean one hand on head of the animal
slay (slit the throat of) the animal4
collect blood5
present blood to the altar
dash blood against sides of altar
flay (remove the hide of) the animal
dismember/quarter the carcass
stoke the altar fire
arrange wood on the altar
present body pieces, head, and suet to the altar6
arrange the body pieces, head, and suet (hard fat) on the altar fire
wash entrails and shins
present entrails and shins to the altar7
burn (turn into smoke) the entrails and shins on the fire
Leviticus 1:10–13 prescribes the same kind of ritual, but with a sheep or goat. Since verses 4–9 have already established the procedural pattern/paradigm with reference to herd animals, verses 11–13 abbreviate the list of activities for flock animals, except that verse 13 explicitly mentions presentation of the entrails and shins (to the altar).
Leviticus 1:14–17 outlines the burnt offering of a bird, which must be from a domesticated species—dove or pigeon—just as other sacrificial victims must be domesticated animals that cost their owners something and thus represent value that is transferred from the offerers to the Lord (cf. 2 Sam. 24:24). While the bird ritual contains the essential components of blood application and burning on the altar, there are differences in procedure because of the small size and physiological makeup of the creature.8
Burnt offerings involve some of the same kinds of factors that can be found in connection with your dressing for work. (1) Practical constraints affect the order of activities. For example, the throat of a herd or flock animal must be slit before its blood can be collected and then applied to the altar. (2) There is a certain amount of leeway within the overall pattern/paradigm of activities. Flaying or quartering can begin from the front of the animal and work to the back, or vice versa. (3) External authority plays a role in governing activities. For the burnt offering the authority is the Lord. In the case of dressing for work the authority consists of cultural norms, which can be influenced by biblical principles of decency (e.g. Deut. 22:5).
While your dressing may have become fairly regularized as a routine, any relevant external authority (e.g., your company or society) is concerned only with the result and does not dictate the steps of your procedure. There are some routines, however, that are fixed/formulaic. For example, to withdraw money from an ATM or to go online, you must follow the protocol set by the bank or your Internet provider. If you fail to go through the series of specified steps in just the right order, your process will be invalidated. Similarly, rituals are fixed/formulaic activity systems. The Lord is concerned with the burnt offering procedure as well as its result.
Like nonritual activity systems, burnt offering activities produce change in the material world through time.9 Butchering an animal makes the burnt offering similar to the way in which people obtain meat for food (cf. Gen. 18:7). Reinforcing this connection is the fact that in Leviticus 1:9, the parts containing or likely soiled by dung—entrails and shins—must be washed before they are burned on the Lord’s altar.10
The meaning of a ritual is found in its unusual goal. By viewing the burnt offering as preparation of meat for food, we can account for a number of activities. However, we are at a loss to explain leaning one hand on the head of the animal, manipulation of blood, or burning the valuable meat to ashes that later need to be cleaned up and dumped outside the Israelite camp (Lev. 6:10–11). From a mundane point of view the burnt offering is wasteful and absurd and fails to achieve a practical goal through ordinary cause and effect, except that the priest keeps the hide of the animal for his utilization (7:8). This secondary benefit cannot be the overall goal of the burnt offering because providing the hide to the priest does not require all of the activities included in the activity system, such as leaning one hand on the head of the animal and applying its blood to the altar.
Now we have an apparent contradiction. A burnt offering is an activity system and an activity system is defined by its goal, which is to accomplish a particular kind of change. But there is no ordinary, practical goal that calls for all of the burnt offering activities. The real goal is not an ordinary one; that is, it is not achieved through physical activities by the kind of cause and effect that operates in the mundane material world. Here we reach the boundary between ritual and nonritual activity.
Leviticus 1:9 tells us that the overall goal of the burnt offering is to provide a gift of pleasing aroma to the Lord. The word for “gift” here is ʾiššeh, which is usually understood to mean something like “an offering made by fire” (NIV), derived from the similar word ʾeš (“fire”). However, the idea that ʾiššeh means “gift” is suggested by its close relation to a word in Ugaritic (iṯt), which is from the same Semitic family of languages as Hebrew, that means “gift.”11 More significantly, the meaning “gift” fits Hebrew usage in that the word applies to sacrificial gifts of food to the Lord, such as burnt offerings (Num. 28:2) and wellbeing offerings (Lev. 3:11, 16), but not purification offerings (so-called “sin offerings”), even though they were burned on the altar. Purification offerings were token payments of “debt” rather than gifts (see comments on Lev. 4).12
The Lord receives his food “gift” in the form of smoke by “smelling it.” So the smoke functions like incense. In fact, the verb in 1:9 for burning a burnt offering on the altar (Hiphil of qṭr, “make smoke”) is from the same root as the word for “incense” (qeṭoret; cf. 16:12–13).
We can compare and contrast the Old Babylonian epic Atraḫrasis, in which the gods smell a sacrifice offered by Atraḫasis after the flood (cf. Gen. 8:21) and gather like flies to consume it because they have been starving as a result of the annihilation of the human population.13 The parallel passage in the epic of Gilgamesh speaks of the sacrifice of Utnapishti as providing a sweet savor that the gods smelled.14 Unlike these gods, the Lord of Israel does not need human food (Ps. 50:9–13).
In Numbers 28:2 the Lord refers to regular burnt offerings as “food” (leḥem), but he receives his meat in an extraordinary way, through smoke. What appears to be impractical wastefulness is due to the fact that the receiving party in the transaction (transfer of something of value) is superhuman. He does not belong to our ordinarily accessible material world. While God can accept a gift of food (Lev. 1:4, 9), he does not visibly take it unless he chooses to appear in human form (Gen. 18:1–8) or sends fire to consume a sacrifice (Lev. 9:24; 1 Kings 18:38).15
On one occasion Abraham gave God a gift of food literally rather than through a ritual. When the Lord appeared to him as a traveler with two companions, Abraham asked Sarah to make bread cakes, and he gave a calf to his servant to prepare as meat (see above). Then he set the food before the three “men,” along with curds and milk, and they ate (Gen. 18:1–8). Just as Abraham showed his friendship by offering a meal, which turned out to be a sacrifice, the Israelites demonstrated their desire for a good relationship with the Lord by giving him sacrifices as food gifts. These were more than hospitality. They enacted various dynamics of the day-by-day maintenance and healing of the divine-human relationship.
Through rituals the Israelites could enjoy limited interaction with God. They could come to the sanctuary, the “Tent of Meeting” (1:1, 3, 5, etc.), and give something tangible to him to express their devotion, thanks, or desire to receive forgiveness. In the case of the burnt offering, they could give him a token food gift (v. 9) and receive his gracious response of expiation, that is, removal of evil (Piel of kpr, usually translated “make atonement”; v. 4).
Bridging Contexts
MAKING INTERACTION POSSIBLE. The sanctuary was a controlled environment that made interaction possible in spite of the divine-human separation that had resulted from sin. It was somewhat like the glass (or plexiglass) “bubbles” devised by modern medical science to protect people whose bodies lack functional immune systems. A few years ago there was a “bubble boy,” who would have died if he had ventured out of the environment that isolated him from germs. Through his bubble he could see people, talk to them, and come close to them. But he could not touch them or even sit on his mother’s lap.
At the Israelite sanctuary, God came as close to his people as possible. However, his glorious Presence was behind the inner veil in the Most Holy Place. Only the high priest could enter there and only once a year, on the Day of Atonement (ch. 16). Even then, he had to be shielded from God’s glory by an incense smoke screen or he would die (16:12–13). Just as the “bubble boy” had to be isolated from disease, God maintained a pure environment, separate from the world of sin outside. Unlike the condition of the “bubble boy,” God’s holy glory was lethal to people outside.16
Ritual is a bridging mechanism that spans a gap between persons or things that cannot ordinarily interact with each other.17 This bridge requires faith in the existence of unseen beings (such as God) and/or other entities (such as sin) and the ability of a particular activity system, correctly performed, to interact with it/him/her. Viewed within the context of a system of beliefs, ritual has power to do things that other kinds of activity cannot do.
How to read a ritual text. The ideal way to study rituals is by direct observation. However, our only access to ancient rituals is through texts, which only reflect rituals, without fully capturing the experience of the activity.18 Although Leviticus does not provide every detail of ritual performance, it standardizes the essential steps of legitimate procedure so that the Israelite rituals could accomplish their intended purposes.19
Leviticus provides two kinds of information regarding its rituals: (1) procedure of the physical activities performed, and (2) the interpreted goal/meaning of those activities. The activities served as a kind of vehicle to convey a load of meaning that was attached to them by the authority behind the ritual, namely, the Lord. Because belief in his authority was basic to the worldview that informed the biblical ritual system, it is impossible to adequately understand these rituals without taking this belief into account.
To illustrate the two levels of meaning, we can distinguish between them in Leviticus 1:3–9, indicating physical actions with italics and aspects of meaning with bold type:
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, for acceptance on his behalf before the Lord. He shall lean his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be acceptable in his behalf, to expiate for him. The bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord, and Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall present the blood and dash the blood against all sides of the altar which is at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. The burnt offering shall be flayed and quartered. The sons of Aaron the priest shall stoke the fire on the altar and lay out wood upon the fire. Then Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall lay out the quarters, with the head and suet, on the wood that is on the fire upon the altar. Its entrails and shins shall be washed with water, and the priest shall turn all of it into smoke on the altar as a burnt offering, a food gift of pleasing aroma to the Lord.20
Verse 9 states the overall meaning of the burnt offering in terms of what the offerer does for God. This idea of a food gift for him is carried out by cutting the animal into pieces, washing some of them, and burning them on the altar. Verses 3 and 4 show what the offerer desires from the Lord: acceptance for expiation. In the following paragraphs we will explore the nature of this acceptance and expiation, and within this framework we will account for the remaining components of physical activity: hand-leaning, blood manipulation, and allocation of the hide that is removed by flaying. Then we will see how aspects of the burnt offering apply to Christ. In the process we will uncover dynamics and principles that we can pursue into the Contemporary Significance section.
Acceptance and enjoyment. When a burnt offering was done properly in the right place, “God did not simply accept the worshiper and the offering—it gave him pleasure.”21 This does not mean that he literally enjoyed the smell of burning animals. My wife, who grew up in Nepal, tells me that Hindu animal sacrifices emit an obnoxious stench. What pleased God was the faith in him (Heb. 11:4–6) that the sacrifices expressed.
What matters is not so much whether the offerer can feel “ownership” of his or her form of worship but whether the Lord wants to own and enjoy it. Cain could relate to his offering because he grew it, but God did not accept it (Gen. 4:3–5) since he lacked faith (implied in Heb. 11:4). The Israelites connected with their golden calf, but God rejected the glittering bovine because they denied his real Presence among them when they worshiped this cold, hard, metal substitute that could not even moo, let alone serve as an adequate representation of deity (Ex. 32; cf. 1 Kings 12–13).
Expiation. The burnt offering was a two-way transaction between the offerer and the Lord. The benefit received by the offerer as a result of giving a food gift to the Lord was the infinitely greater gift of expiation (Lev. 1:4). “Expiation” renders kipper, the Piel form of the verb kpr, usually translated “make atonement” (so NIV). “Atonement” is an English word that was originally a combination of words: at-one-ment. The idea is that two parties become “at one” with each other through a process of reconciliation. Thus, “atonement” is reconciliation.
However, kipper does not describe a complete process of reconciliation as “make atonement” does, so kipper does not mean “make atonement.” In Leviticus 4 a priest accomplishes kipper on behalf of a sinner as the prerequisite to forgiveness directly granted by the Lord (4:20, 26, 31, 35). Obviously, it is forgiveness that brings reconciliation to completion. Because kipper is before this point, it cannot refer to full reconciliation.22 Rather, kipper is removal, that is, expiation, of evil that stands in the way of reconciliation.23
The fact that kipper is removal explains how the term can be used in 14:53 for purgation of a house from ritual impurity that is offensive to God. What sense would it make to say that kipper means “atonement” = reconciliation between the house and God?
Reconciliation with God necessarily includes removal of sin because it is foreign to him and therefore obstructs the divine-human relationship. God is love (1 John 4:8), but sin is selfishness, and the two are incompatible. In a sense we can say that God is allergic to sin. If we really care about him, we will want to give up what bothers him.
While animals cost their offerers something (2 Sam. 24:24), they could not buy expiation because God was already their ultimate Owner (Ps. 50:10–13). Sacrifices were only tokens that expressed faith in the Lord’s free gift of expiation (cf. Isa. 55:1). They were like the Christmas present that I gave my parents when I was seven years old. Our family was poor because we had just moved to the United States so that my father could pursue graduate study. When Christmas came, I had almost nothing of value to give my parents. So I wrapped a dime they had given me and gave it to them as a Christmas present. The gift cost me something. In fact, it was the only dime I possessed. The little coin expressed love in response to the love my parents had already given me; it did not buy their love.
Hand-leaning: identification of transferring owner. Leaning/laying one hand on the head of an animal identified the offerer as its owner, who was transferring the victim to God and who would in turn receive the benefit of that sacrifice. In the Israelite sacrificial system, the cases in which the biblical text specifies leaning one hand24 on the head of a victim correspond to those in which identity of the offerer, to whom ownership of the victim was attributed and to whom the benefits of the sacrifice were directed, had to be indicated.25 This gesture was required for offering an animal from one’s herd or flock, whether the offerer was an individual,26 a group within the community,27 or the community as a whole.28
The “identification of ownership” view of sacrificial hand-leaning is supported by the wording of Leviticus 1:4, the only place where the text interprets the gesture with one hand: “He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him” (emphasis supplied). The wording, which repeatedly refers to the offerer, indicates that acceptance on behalf of this individual, rather than someone else, depended on performance of hand-leaning. Even if another person led the animal into the sanctuary courtyard, the gesture eliminated any possible doubt regarding the identity of the owner/offerer.
When an offering is not a herd or flock animal but rather a bird or a grain item, no leaning of the hand is specified (e.g., 1:14–15; 2:2, 8), even in a purification offering to remedy sin (5:7–13). This correlates with the fact that carrying such a small offering in the hand and then handing it directly to the priest would allow for no ambiguity regarding the identity of the offerer.29
So far we have been talking about private offerings, which were performed when individuals chose to do them. There were also public offerings that God required at particular times according to the calendar (e.g., Num. 28–29). Since these sacrifices had “appointments” with God, there would be no question regarding the identity of their offerers. This seems to explain why there is no evidence, even in the detailed instructions of Leviticus 16 (see vv. 11, 15), that hand-leaning was required in calendric sacrifices.
The “identification of ownership” interpretation covers occurrences of hand-leaning in all kinds of sacrifices, including well-being offerings (3:2, 8, 13), which were not required to expiate (kipper) for sins.30 But there was more to hand-leaning than simple identification of ownership. Since the owner was the giving party in a transaction, hand-leaning signified the end of ownership.31 From this point on, the animal was dedicated to the Lord for his utilization. Thus, when hand-leaning was required, it identified the offerer/owner of the victim, to whom the benefits of the sacrifice belonged, within the context of transferring offering material from the offerer to the Lord.32 Whether or not hand-leaning was required in a particular sacrifice, it was the giving over of the offering as a whole through proper performance of the ritual in its entirety that accomplished the transaction by transferring something of value to the Lord (see, e.g., 1:9; 4:20, 26, 31, 35).33
A modern analogy to hand-leaning would be the signature that the owner of a car places on the title to a vehicle as part of the transaction by which he or she sells it. The signature alone does not accomplish transfer, but by legally identifying the one who has the right to sell it, the signature contributes to the transfer by focusing and legitimizing it.
For Christians it is not necessary to prove that hand-leaning by itself accomplishes transfer of sin to Christ so that he can bear its penalty as the substitute for the sinner. For one thing, hand-leaning as identification of departing ownership complements rather than contradicts the idea of transfer. For another, in the book of Hebrews Christ’s substitution is based on the fusion of two roles in him: As Priest he takes the sins of others upon himself and as Victim he dies for those sins (Heb. 7:23–28; 9:11–14, 23–28; 10:1–14; see Bridging Contexts section of Lev. 10:17).
Slaughter and application of blood. In an Israelite animal sacrifice the victim was slain so that its blood and body could be used, but slaughter itself was a relatively low point in terms of sanctity.34 It involved no contact with the most holy altar and therefore could be performed by the lay offerer (e.g., 1:5, 11; 3:2, 8, 13; 4:24, 29, 33). Manipulating the blood and placing the animal pieces on the altar fire, however, always had to be performed by a consecrated priest.
The presence or absence of slaughter is not a valid criterion for determining whether an Israelite ritual was a sacrifice. A sacrifice did not necessarily include slaughter at all. For example, in 5:11–13 an offering of grain was a purification offering that served as the functional equivalent of an animal sacrifice. Conversely, a nonsacrificial ritual could include killing a victim. In Deuteronomy 21:1–9 an unsolved murder calls for a ritual in which a heifer’s neck is broken. Because the ritual does not involve transfer of the animal to the Lord, even by a gesture in the direction of the sanctuary (cf. Num. 19:4), it cannot be a sacrifice. Rather, it is a nonsacrificial elimination rite to remove moral culpability.35
While slaughter was not a defining element in Israelite sacrifice, there is no question that it was important. At this moment the blood drained away, carrying with it the life by which expiation on the altar was accomplished (cf. 17:11).
Dashing blood against the sides of the altar (1:5, 11) separated the blood from the flesh of the gift that was delivered to the Lord in the form of smoke. So his food gift was a kosher one, with the blood drained out at the time of slaughter. In this way he showed respect for life, which is represented in the blood (17:11). He also set an example for human beings, whom he has never allowed to eat meat from which the blood has not been drained at the time of slaughter.36
Making a burnt offering kosher in the biblical sense required only drainage and disposal of the blood, which were accomplished by pouring it out at the base of the altar (4:7, 18, 25, 30, 34). However, it was applied to the sides of the altar, indicating that it served a higher goal. Indeed, the sacrifice expiated for the offerer (1:4) by virtue of the life carried by the blood (cf. 17:11).37
While other peoples in Syria/Palestine and Greece practiced blood sacrifices, which in some cases involved pouring out blood to deities (cf. Ps. 16:4), we do not have evidence that they performed theologically significant manipulation of blood by applying it to sacred objects for expiation as the Israelites did. In this and related respects, the Israelite sacrificial system appears to be unique.38
Leviticus 1 does not specify the nature of the sin remedied by a voluntary burnt offering, by contrast with 4:1–6:7, where certain kinds of sins require mandatory purification or reparation offerings. We will further examine the role of blood and the scope of expiation when we investigate other types of sacrifices.
Animal’s hide: agent’s commission. The hide of a burnt offering animal was removed by flaying. This facilitated cutting up the animal into pieces so that they could be placed on the altar. The hide was not burned but rather assigned by the Lord to his representative, the officiating priest (7:8), as what could be called an “agent’s commission.” As Jesus once said to his disciples as he sent them forth to minister: “The worker deserves his wages” (Luke 10:7; cf. 1 Tim. 5:18).
New Testament significance of the burnt offering. A token food gift at the Israelite altar was a powerful spiritual experience that expressed transformation of the offerer’s relationship with God at the time when it was performed. According to the New Testament, the life-and-death consequences graphically portrayed in such rituals reached fulfillment in the awesome sacrifice of Christ, God’s gift to all humanity (John 3:16), whom John the Baptist introduced as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29).
John could have referred to Christ as “the Bull of God,” the “Ram of God” or the “Goat of God.” But he chose “the Lamb of God.” Why? For one thing, Isaiah had prophesied that God’s Servant, who would suffer for the sins of his people (Isa. 53:5), would be “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (v.7). Also, the foundational sacrifice of the Israelite sacrificial system was the regular burnt offering, consisting of a lamb in the morning and another lamb in the evening (Num. 28:1–8). All other sacrifices were performed in addition to this. By calling Jesus “the Lamb,” John implied that Jesus is the basic sacrifice, as if to say: “Here is the One who fulfills the whole sacrificial system!”
Several factors in the burnt offering of Leviticus parallel aspects of Christ’s sacrifice as portrayed in the New Testament. (1) Just as animal sacrifices were to be physically unblemished (1:3; 22:17–25), Christ was morally unblemished, “a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:19), in that he did not sin (Heb. 4:15; 1 Peter 2:22). By allowing himself to be a sacrificial victim, he died in place of sinners (Isa. 53:5, 10, 12).
(2) Leaning one hand on an animal victim correlates with the role of Christ that Isaiah prophesied: “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases” (Isa. 53:4, emphasis supplied). Christ atones for us by taking our troubles on himself.
(3) Just as a burnt offering expiated for an offerer (Lev. 1:4), the New Testament affirms that Christ’s blood sacrifice frees believers from their sins. To express this dynamic process, the New Testament employs the legal metaphors of “ransom” (1 Peter 1:18–19; cf. Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6), “redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 1:7), and release from debt (Matt. 6:12). The ransom or redemption price that Christ paid was himself.
(4) Christ’s human life was totally consumed when he was sacrificed on the cross (see, e.g., Heb. 7:27—“when he offered himself,” i.e., all of himself), just as a burnt offering involved consumption of all edible portions (and nonedible parts except for the hide; Lev. 1).
(5) The Hebrew word translated “burnt offering” (ʿolah) literally means “ascending.” It was burnt up, going vertically to God in the form of smoke as if it were incense, to be accepted by him as a pleasing aroma (1:9). Although the Presence of God hovered at the earthly Most Holy Place, smoke from the altar outside went up to God’s heavenly residence, linking heaven and earth. Similarly, after his death on the cross, Christ ascended to heaven (cf. Judg. 13:20). When he appeared to Mary Magdalene just after his resurrection, he said to her: “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17, NRSV). This verse suggests that after appearing to Mary, Jesus ascended to heaven that day, after which he returned to earth and appeared to his other disciples for several weeks before permanently ascending (Luke 24; Acts 1).
Here is something astounding: Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene before he went up to heaven the first time! He interrupted the ascending offering of himself, the most important event in human history, to comfort one distraught, forgiven sinner. Unlike religious leaders, Jesus’ family, and even the closest of his other disciples, Mary understood that Christ’s mission to earth was to save sinners like her, the weakest of the weak. It was Mary who had uniquely anointed him ahead of time for his burial (John 12:1–8), whom he honored with a unique encounter while his sacrifice was in progress.
As the ultimate good Samaritan (cf. Luke 10:33–35), Christ did not let his rendezvous with destiny keep him from turning aside to help someone in need. Unlike the priest and Levite in the parable of the good Samaritan, Christ was not on the way to participate in a ritual “shadow.” He was actually in the process of the stupendous reality to which all the “shadows” pointed! But helping people was the reason for his sacrifice in the first place. So he did not let his task of providing expiation for the whole world, crucial as it was, prevent him from caring for Mary’s feelings.39
Contemporary Significance
RITUAL CONNECTS THE seen and unseen worlds. When my daughter was three years old, she watched me reaffirm my Australian roots by throwing a boomerang in our large backyard in Michigan. With practice, I was able to make it circle around and land at my feet. Intrigued, Sarah asked to try it. She made the boomerang wobble and land on the ground a few feet in front of her. She tried again with the same result. Frustrated, she threw the boomerang up in the air. When it came down, she exclaimed: “God didn’t catch it!”
The next morning at breakfast, I asked Sarah what she had meant. I was amazed to learn that she thought the boomerang came back to me because God was catching it and throwing it back. She thought I was interacting with the divine realm, playing catch with God! If Sarah were right, I would have been engaging in the kind of interaction that takes place in a burnt offering. To use boomerang language, we could say that God “caught” the offerings of the Israelites and “threw back” blessings.
Rituals, including Christian rituals of baptism and the Lord’s Supper/communion, transcend the boundary between the seen and unseen realms. So does prayer. The difference is that prayer is communication and ritual is interaction. Like ritual, prayer is foolish, irrational, and wasteful to those who do not believe.
Although we are sinful and mortal, we are not completely cut off from God. Through prayer and ritual, it is as though we can reach out and touch him. When Jesus came, people could touch him because he came without a “bubble” to isolate him from the moral and physical disease of the fallen human race. His death and resurrection make it possible for us to be restored to face-to-face communion with God, so that rituals will no longer be needed (cf. Rev. 21:22).
Ritual can do things beyond the capability of words. Like language, it communicates through symbols, but ritual packs a special punch because its meanings are acted out. It is a motion picture that paints ten thousand words.
If you doubt the power of ritual, remember the funeral of President John F. Kennedy after he was shot in Dallas in November 1963. His young widow planned the ceremonies. Jacqueline Kennedy may have had her faults, but her mastery of ritual was remarkable. Who can ever forget the riderless horse, the wail of a lone bagpiper, or the eternal flame? There was no need to explain these simple, elegant symbols. The world understood and sobbed.40
Although our spiritual transactions with God are carried out directly with him, symbolic rituals such as the Lord’s Supper/communion and baptism are important insofar as they express our attitudes and interactions with him. Reacting to John 3:5, a college student stated that she did not feel the need to be baptized because this ceremony is symbolic, and what is symbolic is not real, and what is not real is not important. That seems logical, but what about a parallel situation: college students in love and contemplating marriage. A young man says to his fiancé: “I love you and want to spend my life with you. But as for the wedding, that’s just a ceremony. It’s symbolic and therefore unreal and unimportant. Why don’t we just skip it?” How will that go over? If he doesn’t want to publicly affirm his commitment, how will she feel about his love for her? Ritual is symbolic, but it is important because it expresses a real change in relationship that has tremendous consequences even though it is intangible.
As rituals connect the seen and unseen worlds, they bring the human participants together. On the value of family traditions for celebrating events such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Sabbath, Woman’s Day magazine reports:
Indeed, experts tell us that these kinds of shared experiences have a profound effect on family life. Rituals help bind us together, give everyone a sense of belonging and create lasting memories. They also help define our relationships. “Rituals are a lens through which we can see our emotional connections to family members and dear friends,” says Evan Imber-Black, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and coauthor of Rituals for Our Times. “They show us who we are to each other.”41
Acceptable worship to God. A few years ago a mentally disconnected man somehow slipped through the security shield around Queen Elizabeth II and managed to trespass into her private quarters. Maintaining her composure, the queen chatted with him so that he would remain calm, but only until her guards came and hauled him away. That is not the way to get an audience with a monarch!
Because the Lord is the ultimate Monarch, the overwhelmingly superior party in any interaction, he controls protocols of interaction with him. Unlike Cain’s vegetables or the Israelites’ party calf, our worship should approach God according to his principles so that he will want it. If we insist on making our own rules of worship, regardless of divine principles, we deny the lordship of the One we claim to worship! By contrast, if we approach him humbly, as even the mightiest of his angelic creatures do (Isa. 6:1–4), we acknowledge that he is the Master of the Universe. If we come full of ourselves, he will send us away empty, but if we come hungry for acceptance, he will fill us with good things (cf. Isa. 57:15; Luke 1:53).
Divine principles of worship allow for tremendous variety, including cultural diversity. The psalmist’s “joyful noise” (e.g., Ps. 95:1–2; 98:4–6) is as legitimate as Habakkuk’s silence (Hab. 2:20). However, usurping divine prerogatives, failing to exalt God as the supreme center of our worship, or misrepresenting him by violating instructions for religious practice that he has specified constitute serious problems.
For example, after Gideon’s divinely empowered military victory, he made a golden ephod, which was a garment worn by priests (Judg. 8:27; cf. Ex. 28:6–14). It was not long before this unauthorized instrument of worship became the object of worship, an idol.42 The medium overpowered the message. Once people focused on the instrument more than on God, they lost sight of him, and it was easy to switch gods and turn to Baal worship (Judg. 8:33–34). This is the rest of the story that we don’t hear about in church school.
What happens when church buildings, liturgies, music and musicians, sermons, and ministers of the gospel themselves become the focus of attention? All of these may be wonderful and legitimate by themselves, testifying to the quality of that which they honor. Indeed, God himself is the founder of fine aesthetics. According to the book of Exodus it was he who directed the Israelites to make gorgeous high priestly vestments and a magnificent tabernacle for impressive ceremonies (cf. Sir. 50:5–21). Biblical books such as Psalms and Isaiah bring the highest calibre of musical and literary achievement to service of the Lord. But how do the infrastructure and procedures of our worship shape attitudes toward God? Has our worship become at least to some extent a party, performance, parade, or charade? Are we marketing primarily by emphasizing the externals, somewhat the way a soap manufacturer once advertised: “As we couldn’t improve our product, we improved the box.” Does a new believer have an opportunity to fall in love with God, or does she fall in love with the charismatic personality of the minister?
True worship is like the ministry of John the Baptist, who said of Christ: “He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:30). In practical terms, the challenges facing a worship leader today are daunting. The same worship style that projects one group to the pearly gates sinks another to the nether regions. Minor elements become major litmus tests and battlegrounds. Personal tastes are elevated to the status of eternal principles: Of course God only accepts what I accept! How could it be any other way?
Here is a call for cooperation, communication, unselfishness, and, above all, sensitivity to the needs of others. Even when mistakes are made, if people know that they are part of a corporate learning curve, the outcome can be amicable and productive.
Total sacrifice for others. In Philippians 2:3–8, Paul shows that there is more to receiving Christ’s total sacrifice than gratitude, moral cleansing, and joy. We are called to imitate Christ in the sense that we sacrifice our desires to God for the good of other people. It is not that we pay the price of their salvation in any way, but that our lives are totally dedicated to redemptive service. This is how Paul can refer to himself as poured out like a sacrificial drink offering (Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6).
Total commitment to service for others is the hallmark of the truest Christianity. There are many inspiring examples of people who have voluntarily given up all of their resources, energies, comforts, and even their lives to touch needy people with their Lord’s compassion. We immediately think of Albert Schweitzer, who renounced a brilliant scholarly and musical career for a medical clinic at Lambarene, and Mother Teresa, who relinquished what comfort she had to minister to the human dregs of Calcutta.
Lough Fook, a Chinese Christian, pitied those of his countrymen who had become slaves in African mines. He wanted them to enjoy the hope of the gospel, but how could he gain access to them? His solution was to sell himself as a slave for a term of five years. He was transported to Demerara, where he toiled in the mines. While he worked, he told his fellow laborers about the Lord. Before he died, two hundred of them were liberated from despair by accepting Jesus as their Savior. By doing the unthinkable, humbly taking the role of a slave as Jesus did (Phil. 2:7), he reached the unreachable.
Although voluntary “sacrifices” made by human beings contribute much to the world, they are nothing compared to what Christ did. David Livingstone reflected on his pioneering work in Africa: “I never made a sacrifice. We ought not to talk about ‘sacrifice’ when we remember the great sacrifice which he made who left his Father’s throne on high to give himself for us.”43