Week 6 - Day 1
THE STORY
Rescue (Old Testament)
BLOODY SACRIFICES
In our last reading, we saw that God graciously gave Israel His law. As our Creator, He knows how life works best and His laws reveal that. And again, as our Creator, He has the right to demand our obedience to His law. The problem is as the Apostle Paul states:
Romans 3:23 (NLT)
Everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
The Apostle Paul continues with more bad news.
Romans 6:23 (NLT)
The wages of sin is death.
Is there any hope? If God is holy and we are not, if the payoff or penalty for sin is our deaths (that is, our very lives) how can we be made right with God? God’s law actually provides a way.
THE SACRIFICIAL SYSTEM
Through the sacrificial system, God allowed an animal to be sacrificed in the place of a sinner. This is called substitutionary atonement. It’s substitutionary because an animal is substituted for the sinner. And it’s atonement because, though sin has separated the sinner from God, the sacrifice removes that sin so the two can be one again. Hence, substitutionary at-one-ment.
Here’s how the sacrifice was made.
Leviticus 4:32-35 (NIV)
If someone brings a lamb as their sin offering, they are to bring a female without defect. They are to lay their hand on its head and slaughter it for a sin offering at the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered. Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. They shall remove all the fat, just as the fat is removed from the lamb of the fellowship offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar on top of the food offerings presented to the Lord. In this way the priest will make atonement for them for the sin they have committed, and they will be forgiven.
Why do you think the person offering the lamb would lay his or her hands on its head?
What does Leviticus 16:21 say about this act?
Leviticus 16:21 (NLT)
[Aaron] will lay both of his hands on the goat’s head and confess over it all the wickedness, rebellion, and sins of the people of Israel. In this way, he will transfer the people’s sins to the head of the goat.
Why so much blood? What does Leviticus 17:11 say about the importance of blood?
Leviticus 17:11 (NIV)
For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.
Once again, that’s substitutionary at-one-ment: the lamb’s life for your life—the lamb’s blood for your blood. The lamb takes your sin and dies in your place so your sin can be forgiven and you can be at one with God again.
THE SACRIFICIAL PERSON?!
In the Old Testament, the Prophet Isaiah gave this stunning prophecy.
Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 (NLT)
See, my servant will prosper;
he will be highly exalted.
But many were amazed when they saw him.
His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human,
and from his appearance, one would scarcely know he was a man.
And he will startle many nations.
Kings will stand speechless in his presence.
For they will see what they had not been told;
they will understand what they had not heard about.
Who has believed our message?
To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.
He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
for the rebellion of my people.
He had done no wrong
and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man’s grave.
But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for he will bear all their sins.
I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.
Instead of an animal being sacrificed for our sin, what or who would be sacrificed for our sin?
PREVIEW
Maybe you’re getting the hang of the Promise to Fulfillment movement of the Bible. Who do you think this Sacrificial Servant would be? Here are two passages from the New Testament.
John 1:29 (NLT)
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Acts 8:26-35 (NLT)
As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.
The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.”
Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.
The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter.
And as a lamb is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
He was humiliated and received no justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus.
The Ethiopian official was reading from Isaiah 53. Why could Philip start with that very passage and tell him the Good News about Jesus? What do you think Philip may have said to him?
Keep in mind, that the Old Testament Sacrificial System was only provisional in nature. God never intended for it to finish the job, just to get it started. That’s because animal sacrifices can never forgive all sin for all time. Every sin needed another sacrifice. That’s why the Old Testament priests had pretty good job security, so to speak. They kept on sacrificing because the people kept on sinning.
All of this will change, however, in the New Testament with The Once For All Sacrifice of Jesus Christ—one Sacrifice to end all sacrifices—one Sacrifice to forgive all sin. The Sacrificial System, then, was only a shadow of a better thing to come. This better thing is called God’s New Covenant with us through Jesus’ grace which has replaced this shadow called God’s Old Covenant with Israel through Moses’ law. But once again, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. So stay tuned. The Best is yet to come!
In light of what you have discovered through the Bible readings and your personal reflections, how will you respond? Finish this sentence: I will …