Leviticus 1-3

Whoa baby... the reading just got hard! From story to rules!

How many of you do your own taxes? Without "Turbo Tax?" I cheat with that computer software and I still don't like doing it. I just watch the refund number at the top left as it goes up and down while I enter all the information requested by the program. April 15th for many is a stressful deadline.

And as I read the opening chapters of Leviticus, they reminded me of tax season and all the tax code we have here in the States! Depending on which kind of offering and from which pasture you were taking the animal, different requirements needed to be followed. Take this fat portion, boil that part, dedicate this part, burn that part... No wonder God set up an entire tribe to handle all this. It was one serious undertaking!

Normally, when I think about animal sacrifices it always has this satanic feel to it. I always picture some really scary guys cutting up sheep late at night around a bonfire, smearing blood all around, all while dancing and sinisterly laughing. Sometimes I forget that for the most part this is exactly what God wanted from His people.... minus the sinister laughing and late night campfire setting!

It seems so primitive, like tribes in Africa. Today we are too civilized to do such things, right? Yet, God demanded this back then. Why? And why not still do it?

One answer... Jesus. The blood, the mess, and the death of that Levitical law all pointed to the greatest sacrifice ever. That sacrifice would not be neat and pretty. It would be difficult. It would be messy. It would be repulsive. But it would only be through that sacrifice that forgiveness would be granted. All the blood sacrificed in the OT pointed to one solitary death of the Messiah. All the blood failed to accomplish what only one cross could do. The book of Hebrews reminds us that the sacrifices of the OT could never take away sin, nor could they make the offerer clean... or else they would have ceased to offer them. It took a cross... moreover, it took a worthy sacrifice. Man for man, perfect man for sinful humanity, infinite value offered for the eternal punishments required... Jesus for us.

Animal sacrifices today might seem repulsive, but God did require them. And if Christ had not come by now, we would be expected to continue to do them. So today, post-cross, we should be how thankful we are to be for the final sacrifice, the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world. Praise Jesus for the release from such a system. Let us never take His death for granted.

I am thankful that we no longer have to sacrifice animals.