Rabbit Trail Week #1: The Burnt Offering (Leviticus 1:1-9) Series

Today, I want to start a two week rabbit trail on the topic of OT sacrifice. I should warn you, up front, that this is the most complicated thing I've ever tried to work through in biblical studies. I'll do my best to explain it as simply as possible, and hide as much of the hard stuff as I can. But I'm not sure I'll be successful. The other thing I should say, is that this is going to be far more than you can remember. As always, anyone wanting a copy of my manuscript is welcome to it.

Let's start by reading Exodus 20:24, a verse from last week's sermon:

(24) An earthen altar you shall make for me,

that you will sacrifice upon it your burnt offerings and your fellowship offerings-- your small livestock and

your cattle.

In every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you and I will bless you,

In this verse, God makes an incredible offer to his people. Everywhere that Yahweh causes you to remember him, you can build him an altar, and offer him sacrifices. And when you do that, God himself will come to you, and bless you.

That's the kind of promise that should give you goose bumps. If you're an Israelite, it should make you want to get some dirt, a sheep, and a knife.

But when we read this promise, it confuses us. Why would God connect the promise of his presence to sacrifice? What is about burnt offerings, and fellowship offerings, that God desires? What do these sacrifices do? And how do these sacrifices even work?

We read this, and we have lots of questions. What I'd like to do today, is answer these questions, with regard to the burnt offering. Next week, I'll try to tackle the (much) tougher question, of how this relates to the fellowship offering.

The other thing I should say, up front, is that how Israelites offered these sacrifices changed, over the course of its history. At first, any Israelite could offer the burnt offering, pretty much anywhere. But eventually, the burnt sacrifice could only be done in approved sanctuaries, and always in partnership with priests (Deuteronomy 12:6).

And I'm going to do my best to simplify it, and avoid talking about that part of it.

So. The burnt offering. You'll see in your outline that we will focus on four things.

(1) What is a burnt offering?

(2) How do you offer a burnt offering?

(3) Why do you offer a burnt offering?

(4) What do we learn as Christians, from the burnt offering?

So, #1. What is a burnt offering?

If you're reading about this sacrifice in Hebrew, you won't find yourself saying, "burnt offering." What you'll find yourself saying, is "the going up," or "the ascending." The basic idea of the Hebrew word, is something going up. And what goes up, with a burnt offering? The smell. That's the key to the word itself (Genesis 8:21). You offer a burnt offering, and the smell goes up to God, and the smell pleases him.

We (maybe) get our translation "burnt offering" from the Greek OT, which focuses on what you do to the sacrifice. You burn the whole animal as a sacrifice to God, minus the hide/skin, which goes to the priests (if it's offered at the tabernacle/temple). Maybe, you hear this, and think that this is how sacrifices usually worked-- that you burn the whole thing. But the burnt offering is actually the exception to the rule. Most sacrifices don't work this way.

This idea, of the smoke rising up to God, is the key to the name of the sacrifice. The burnt offering, is really the "ascending offering." But I'm just going to keep calling it a burnt offering, because that's what your Bibles call it.

#2. How do you offer a burnt offering?

The clearest picture we have in the Bible of how you offer a burnt offering is found in Leviticus 1. Here, the focus is on making sure that the sacrifice is done the right way. But Leviticus 1 isn't designed to give us the whole picture. There are gaps that have to be filled in.

The other thing I should say, up front, is that as we start reading, we're going to find ourselves getting sucked into the disagreements, and uncertainties, about OT sacrifice. Based on Exodus 20, anyone can offer a burnt offering to Yahweh, anywhere. Right?

But Leviticus gives guidelines for how the burnt offering should be sacrificed, when it's done at the Tent of Meeting (the Tabernacle). How you put these two together is debated, but I'm not going to tackle that at all.

Instead, as we read, listen for the different roles that people play in the sacrifice. The one offering the sacrifice has a role. And the priest has a role. We'll just read through verse 9. Verses 1-2: