Video Transcript: Sacrifice and Atonement

The loving kindness of God, great as it is, does not contradict the biblical  message that God is very angry at sin and that he requires some sort of  atonement to propitiate or satisfy His righteous anger. This is not because God  is hard to get along with or because he has less than perfect love for His  creatures. To the contrary, God bends over backwards as it were to  accommodate himself to sinful humanity, for he does love us perfectly. Yet he is  also perfectly just and holy, and his attitude towards sin is a reflection of his  unchanging standards. And so God is both just and merciful, both angry at sin  and loving towards sinners. The big question then is, how can sinners whom  God loves? And yet who says he cannot abide? How can sinners stand in God's presence without being destroyed by his righteous anger? We see the first hints  of scripture's answer to this question right after the original sin. When God did  not let Adam and Eve suffer the immediate and full consequences of their action, that would have been death, how can you live if you turn your back on the giver  of life? Even so, Adam and Eve were spared immediate death. And yet there  was this continuing problem of a broken relationship, and the problem of burying the guilt and shame for their condition, a major problem for Adam and Eve and  their descendants, but also one for God. Because that wasn't how he had  designed things to be. Nor could God just say, forget it, because his perfect  justice demands punishment for sin. Instead of letting Adam and Eve die,  however, God clothed them in the skins of a sacrificial animal, revealing this  truth, only by the sacrifice of a substitute, can one appear before God. But  already, then God had in mind something more satisfactory and permanent than  sacrificial animals. He had in mind the sacrifice of His own beloved son who  would shift the blame for human sinfulness to himself, and pay sin's penalty.  Only that would make possible repaired relationship between God and  humankind. If the guilt and shame were removed, people would no longer have  to hide in fear, but could again love and serve God as intended from the start.  But that would not be for many years. So along the way, God kept reinforcing  the need for sacrifice, and the close tie between that and proper worship. We  see this for example, in the story of Cain and Abel. Both brought offerings to the  Lord, those of Cain were portions of crops he had grown, while those of Abel  were the choicest portions of his best animals. But God reacted differently to  their respective offerings. The Bible tells us that the Lord looked with favor on  Abel and his offering but on Cain and his offering, he did not look with favor.  Now it could be that the Lord preferred animal sacrifices to grain offerings, if so,  Cain would have known this as well as Abel scripture implies, however, the  difference in how the Lord looked on their offerings was due less to the type of  offering he brought than to the attitude of each man. But even if we don't know  exactly what Cain did wrong, he himself knew. And God gave him the chance to  put it right in telling him, if you do what is right, will you not be accepted? Later  on God would give more detailed instructions about the offerings his people 

should bring. And, and he would be very clear about this, and be clear about the need for animal sacrifice. Noah evidently knew something of this. And so one of  his first acts after he left the ark was to sacrifice certain animals and birds as a  burnt offering to the Lord. And centuries later, Abraham, who is not only  physically descended from Noah, but very like him in devotion to the Lord.  Abraham was still offering animal sacrifices to God as part of his worship. But  one day, God raised the stakes considerably. A Genesis 22:2, tells us what God  said to Abraham, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love and go to  the region. Moriah Sacrifice him there is a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about. It had to have been a terribly difficult test for Abraham as it  would be for any father called the sacrifice his son. But what made it harder still  was that Isaac was the key to the fulfillment of the Lord's promise of an  everlasting covenant and many descendants. You see, without Isaac Abraham  had no future. Even so, Abraham was obedient, and was stopped from obeying  God and sacrificing his son only by God's intervention. Then by divine  coincidence, Abraham looked and saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush,  which he sacrificed instead of his son, as a burnt offering to the Lord. A similar  substitute sacrifice was provided for Abraham's descendants. In the first ever  Passover celebration on the eve of the Israelites deliverance from slavery in  Egypt. God was about to take the lives of Egypt's firstborn in answer to  Pharaohs hardhearted insistence that Egypt control the destiny of those whom  the Lord had called his firstborn, to preserve his own people. From the coming  devastation, God commanded that perfectly healthy and sound year old lambs  to be sacrificed as substitutes for the lives of his people. The life is in the blood,  as the Lord later told Moses, Leviticus 17:11, and I have given it to you to make  atonement for yourself on the altar. In accordance with God's instructions, the  people smeared the blood on the doorposts and lintils of their houses, literally  and figuratively. They were covered by the blood, atonement, or at one ment if  you separate the syllables, is the means by which two parties who are  separated are brought together and made one. The Atoning Blood of the Lambs  meant that Israel didn't have to pay the price required of all who were not  covered by it. The blood of the Lambs, atoned for Israel, and allowed the people  to be at one with God. It's important for us to understand why God went to such  lengths to emphasize the vulnerability of his people to destruction, and the need  for bloody sacrifice to prevent it. It has to do with something we discussed  before in the lecture on sin and its consequences, the truth about how far our  sins separate us from the God who designed for communion with Him. The  separation is as great as that between life and death. God made that clear to  Adam and Eve from the beginning, Genesis 2:17, in telling them that the day  they denied their complete and utter dependence on him, by eating of the Tree  of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a day they would die. God is life. To be  apart from him is death. And that poses a great dilemma for people of course, 

but also for God, who still wishes to be merciful and restore the broken  communion with himself that people so desperately need. Sacrifice and  atonement are part of the answer. But these are better understood. The more  we get the message of Leviticus, which addresses the issue of how a holy God  and an unholy people can get along together. It's no simple matter, for God  cannot stand sin, while people are infected with sin through and through. David  was not thinking only of himself when he confessed in Psalm 51:5, that he had  been sinful from birth and even from conception. And there's something  universal in Isaiah's claim also in 59:2, your that your iniquities have separated  you from your God. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul makes this explicit  and states the consequences of the separation in Romans 5:12, saying, death  came to all people because all sin. God outlined to Moses the conditions by  which people could have a continuing relationship with him. He told him in  Leviticus 19:2, speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them, be holy,  because I the Lord, your God, am holy. But knowing that the Israelites would  inevitably violate this command, God's set down many regulations having to do  with the sacrifices or offerings that people could make to God to get right with  him again. There was a proper offering for Every offense against God. But the  most important of the offerings was the burnt offering. In the burnt offering, the  worshiper would acknowledge his guilt and take responsibility for for his sin by  pressing his hand on the animal's head while he confessed his sin. And then the animal would be killed and burned whole on the altar as a ransom price for the  guilty person. Also implied in this very act of sacrificing was a public statement  of faith and thanks for all God's blessings, as well as a promise to live according  to God's will for the future. For the most part, but people needed some  assistance in making their sacrifices. It wasn't because they couldn't kill the  animals themselves. But God wanted the sacrifices to be made at certain times,  in certain ways, a certain place, the tabernacle, and later the temple, and by  certain people, the class of priests. All these requirements help to highlight the  seriousness of God's rules for correct worship, and sacrifice. According to the  assumptions in Leviticus, only God is perfectly holy, which means that he alone  is whole and complete, orderly, unconfused, perfect and so on. But by God's  grace and instructions, certain common things could be made holy. That is, they  could be set apart for special service to the holy God. Examples of common  things that can be made holy are animal hides, cloths, furniture, wooden poles,  and so on that made up the tabernacle. And people also were especially  consecrated for service to God, the men of the tribe of Levi were commissioned  by God to build and care for the tabernacle, and to facilitate the offering of Israel  sacrifices to God. And from that tribe of Levi, Aaron and his family were  especially set apart to be the actual priests for Israel. They as well as all the  Levites were supported by the rest of the community of Israel so they could  concentrate on leading the people in the proper worship of God, everything and 

everyone that was made holy, was to be treated with special respect, because  they represented God. But it was possible for holy things to be profaned that is  to be made common or unholy, which means pretty well the same thing. Except  for God Himself, any holy thing could be made common. It was possible for the  

holy people of God to become common just like all the other people in their  world that happened by their sin and neglect of God. It was even possible horror of horrors for the priests to become common or unholy, as Nadab and Abihu  became and paid the price for it. And it was possible for the tabernacle to be  profane. If for example, the wrong people handled his or dropped a piece of it.  And so some of the rules of Leviticus or to prevent what God wanted to be holy,  from becoming merely common in some of the rules were to cleanse and  sanctify what had become common, so that it become it could become holy  again. In fact, this was the purpose of the whole sacrificial system, the people  who were regularly profaned by sin, were sanctified, made holy, by proper  sacrifices. The Book of Leviticus contains many other details about preserving  the relationship with God, that Israel had received through His grace, details  about clean and unclean food, utensils and people and how to purify those  things that were not designated as permanently unclean. And some, what God  had in mind for his people was a life rich with beauty and order and perfection,  the very life for which he had created the world in the first place. This life was in  marked contrast to the life lived by the idol worshipers of Israel's world, many of  whom had lives of superstition and disorder, and violence. The life God had in  mind was highlighted by the very arrangement of Israel's camp during their  wilderness years, in the center of Israel's encampment, with three tribes on the  north, three on the south, and three, three each on the east and west. In the  middle was the tabernacle at the physical and spiritual center of Israel's life. You  If there were any Gentiles or things, or Israelites, who had become temporarily  unclean, they were to be relegated to the periphery, outside of the camp of  Israel. The arrangement of the tabernacle itself also reflected the prescribed  concern with holiness. The outer court of the temple marked the perimeter of the tabernacle in the center of Israel's camp, and a spot where the priests offered  the sacrifices on behalf of the people. But there was an even more holy place  inside of that called the inner court, with access restricted to special  representatives of the priesthood. And at the back of this holy place, behind the  curtain, and containing the Ark of the Covenant representing the very presence  of the Lord was the most holy place. Only the high priest could enter here and  only once a year, baring the blood of the atonement for his sins and those of the  people he represented. To sum up what I've been saying, sin resulted in Adam  and Eve becoming unholy and excluded from communion with God, placed  under a sentence of death, and all of their descendants all people are likewise  unholy, and excluded from communion with God. We all remain under a  sentence of death, except for God's provision of sacrifice and Atonement by 

which he lays the punishment for our sins upon another, and decrees that the  life taken is a proper atonement for sin, and a new start for those covered by the blood. It's important to see, however, that animal sacrifices, such as those  commanded for ancient Israel are not enough to satisfy God's requirements as  Hebrews 10:4 says, It's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away  sins. Rather, God as it were, accepted those sacrifices as an interim  arrangement, until something better could be arranged. Paul tells us in Romans  3:25, that in His Grace, God left the sins committed beforehand that is before  Christ unpunished doesn't mean those previous sacrifices were unimportant. On the contrary, they serve to highlight the gravity of sin, and the huge sacrifice  necessary to restore the broken communion between God and humankind. That was driven home to our spiritual ancestors every time they picked out the best of their livestock to bring to the temple as a sacrifice. But perhaps the best  indication they had of the difficulties of finding atonement for those who had  eyes to see it was a story previously mentioned of God's command that  Abraham sacrifice is only son. Abraham is very important to the Jewish people  in this story is particularly important. Scripture says that all this happened in the  region of Moriah. There is some uncertainty about where Moriah was, but some  scholars believe that the spot is in Jerusalem at the Temple Mount, which is both the former site of Solomon's temple, and the area where Jesus ended up being  crucified. In fact, Jewish tradition had it that the precise location of that sacrifice  was enclosed in that part of the temple, known as the Holy of Holies. And so you can see why the Jews hold that place to be sacred, even after the last temple  was destroyed in 70 AD. How impossible a dilemma Abraham face. This is how  John Calvin put it. It was difficult and painful for Abraham to forget that he was a  father and a husband, to cast off all human affections, and to endure before the  world the disgrace of shameful cruelty by becoming the executioner of his son.  But the other was a far more difficult and a horrible thing, namely, that he  conceives God to contradict himself and his own word. And then that he  supposes the hope of the promised blessing to be cut off from him. For what  more could he have to do with God, when the only pledge of grace is taken  away? But as before when Abraham expected a child from his and Sara's good  as dead bodies, he hoped for more than it seemed possible to hope for are  facing the prospect of the death of his son, Abraham nevertheless follow God's  command and put everything on the line. For the sake of absolute necessity,  that command of God. Abraham was willing to give Isaac up. He did not  understand how the Lord would fulfill his promise. But neither did he hold the  Lord responsible for making that clear, before Abraham would obey, rather than  looking to himself, his own judgment and his own seed, even if it had been given by God to ensure his future, Abraham looked to the God who sealed who  partnered and blessed him, and he obeyed. Afterward, after God stayed  Abraham's knife and provided a substitute, Abraham again received God's 

blessing which ended with these words, through your offspring, all nations on  earth will be blessed. Because you have obeyed me. The most perceptive of  Abraham's descendants understood that God was speaking of a special person, and not just the nation of Israel. But this became much clearer after Jesus's  resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. In Acts 3, for  example, the apostle Peter specifically calls Jesus, the one who fulfilled the  Abrahamic promise. Genesis 22:13-14 tells us that Abraham called the place of  his test the Lord will provide. And God did twice a ram as substitute for Isaac,  and two millennia later, his one and only Son as the perfect and final, atoning  sacrifice for sin. Jesus was a father's voluntary contribution for the sake of the  world he loved, For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son  that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.