Leviticus 1 // Dr. Michael S. Heiser

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:02]Uh my my goal, you know, in in doing Leviticus, I'm not going to go through every verse and talk about where they sliced and diced this or that. Uh my my goal in doing Leviticus is, hey, who does Leviticus for one thing? So, it it deserves some attention. And and secondly is that there are things in here that I want to touch on that will just sort of help us kind of, you know, have the Israelite in our head. How did they think about what they were doing?

[00:00:26]How did they think about what was happening? how they were engaging God.

[00:00:30]Again, some of the bigger picture concepts we talked about in the introduction, you know, ideas of sacred space, the presence of God, and when we get into the sacrificial system, what what did the sacrifices mean or not mean, uh why are they talked about the way they're talked about, that sort of thing. So, we're not going to do nitty-gritty verse by verse kind of thing. Just like with Acts, I'm going to go through and pick out things that are worth mentioning that again will will help give us some insight and make make the book more readable, frankly. So in terms of getting started here, I want to go through some preliminaries again uh before we jump into the first verse and this will sort of be again preparatory.

[00:01:08]Now there are as you can imagine a number of theories about sacrifice that scholars have come up with and a lot of these things I'm just going to go through them real real briefly. They're going to sound familiar because they're they're kind of self-evident if you've ever read through Leviticus or any other sacrificial material in in the the Old Testament. Chances are these things will have occurred to you. And all of these different approaches, I say theories of offering and sacrifice, but really they're just approaches. All these approaches capture some aspect of what's going on in the sacrificial system, but they're not comprehensive. In other words, they all have something good to say, something good to contribute uh in in the way we think about sacrifice. So the first one, for example, is something that scholars call gift theory. That is Old Testament offerings seem to be gifts to the Lord. And that might sound self-evident, but you know it there since there are other views, other ways to look at sacrifice. This is just one of several. This revolves around the notion that hey, it sounds like when I read the sacrificial material that people are bringing sacrificial gifts uh to the Lord and they're and they're made up of food items and it looks like they're sort of presented as food for God. So like what's up with that? Well, scholars like Dick Averbeck, who I will uh quote and allude to several times today and in other episodes, I'm sure since his focus is uh ritual, um have pointed out that in the ancient near east, food offerings again are at least sometimes conceived of as actually providing sustenance for the gods. Now, the question is, well, is that how the the biblical writer is thinking about things? in Mesopotamian texts and rituals, you know, there's this sort of care and feeding of the gods that goes on uh and that a lot of that language, you know, does get drawn over into the Old Testament. But again, is that the way we should, you know, be looking at some of these things? It's sort of a yes and no. It it's true. Again, there's Israelites didn't have statues of of God that they would lay offerings at or pour, you know, some libation at the feet or something like that. But you still have this language about the Lord's table and the Lord's food, that sort of thing. So there there's a little bit of of this idea going on, but not quite and certainly not in in in several specifics, not what's going on in in uh you know, quote unquote pagan religion.

[00:03:32]Uh the God of Israel, according to the to the Old Testament, didn't need to eat. If you go to Psalm 50, for example, uh you would read, you know, where God says, "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine." Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Again, the rhetorical question is, well, that's kind of silly. And God says, 'A to God a more or a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

[00:03:55]Perform your vows to the most high. You know, again, the psalmist chimes in there. So, that's an example where the psalmist specifically says, look, there's no actual consumption going on here like, you know, some of our neighbors might think. But nevertheless, offerings are referred to as the Lord's food in certain passages. Leviticus 3:11, 3:16. Uh throughout the book of Leviticus, you're going to get this language here and there. You're going to get the idea that burning the offering quote produces an aroma pleasing to the Lord. So, you're going to get, you know, some sort of anthrop anthropomorphic language, but elsewhere in the Old Testament, you're going to get the denial that there's actually anything sort of literal, you know, going on here as far as consumption. So, yeah. No, gift theory sort of kind of sort of uh a little bit of this but not so much of that is sort of the feel that you get.

[00:04:41]Uh another example would be the bread of the presence. This this people might find interesting and we'll hit this later on in Leviticus a little bit, but for the most part, this is something we'd get if we were going through Exodus talking about the tabernacle, the whole bread of the presence idea where the bread is continually placed on the gold table inside the holy place every Sabbath and there's always a light on, you know, there's this continually burning uh light in the holy place according to Exodus 27. This is really Exodus 25- 27. And the incense is always, you know, being burned. Well, that all of that was to create the impression that God was home, okay? That that the divine presence was was always present inside the the the holy place as though, you know, God were physically living there. Again, people knew that that wasn't the case. I mean, yes, God does get embodied in the angel who's leading them and and so on and so forth, but it's not like you could peek into the window of the tabernacle, so to speak, you know, from a distance, a safe distance, and see God walking around in there like he's home. you know, he's not kicking up and doing something or having a snack. I mean, but but nevertheless, you have these trappings that are associated with the tabernacle to again convey the idea that the presence of God is here in our camp. It's really here.

[00:05:54]He's really here. And you don't need embodiment for that, but you do need some sort of visual way to communicate the idea. And this is what's going on.

[00:06:03]And so when they present offerings, yeah, they're they're gifts and you know, they they are spoken of as as food offerings and whatnot, but the Israelites know very well that we don't have an embodied deity in their munching on something after a sacrifice. So it's we we can't overly literalize this.

[00:06:21]Another approach, another theory is communion theory. This is the idea where the the point of the sacrificial system is communion with the Lord. Now in some sacrifices that very explicitly is the point of the sacrifice but other sacrifices it's not really the point. So communion theory again you know presence theory whatever you wanted to want to call that it's true you know there to some degree it's true and and but it's not something that can really comprehensively explain or illuminate it you know what the sacrificial system is all about. It it's part of a whole and we could just leave it at that. Another approach is consecration theory. Uh in some Old Testament passages, it seems the primary reason for bringing an offering was to consecrate someone or something to the Lord, you know, to sanctify it, uh to give it sacred status, to make it holy, to take it out of sort of the common realm and put it into the sacred realm. Uh Leviticus 10:10 says you must distinguish between the holy and the common. Uh that idea again sometimes in ritual texts, sacrificial procedures, that will be sort of evident. For instance, in Exodus 24, the blood is splashed on the altar and on the people and specifically with the splashing of the blood on the people is to consecrate them to dedicate them to a relationship with Yahweh. Again, we get that Leviticus 8 happens to the priests where they put blood on the right ear, the thumb and the big toe of Aaron and his sons and so on and so forth. So, yeah, sometimes sacrifice is about consecrating a person or an object. Very true, but it doesn't comprehensively explain everything. Now, those are the three major approaches and I bring them up because you should know that the sacrificial system means all of these things or includes all of these ideas and at any given point any one of them could be in play. And it just helps to sort of know that to to kind of think about what's happening and and again try to think about what they are thinking about when they're doing a particular act. And we'll we'll hit on all these things as we proceed. So, let's jump into to Leviticus 1. Not going to read the whole chapter even though it's short, but let's just take a few verses here. The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, "Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock." I'll just stop there. That's the first two verses. I ought to say something about the the offering language that we get in our English translations. Now, in Hebrew, the it would be more accurate to translate this to to present an offering, bring an offering, present an offering. It it's as opposed to a sacrifice. Let's put it that way.

[00:09:02]Sacrifices and offerings are not necessarily the same thing. Even though in modern parlance, the way scholars talk about this and frankly the way I talk about it, the terms are often mixed. Technically, an offering uh was sort of a gift and sacrificial language is going to be reserved in the Hebrew text to when an animal is slaughtered and then at least part of it is eaten in a communal meal. So, sacrifices and offerings aren't necessarily the same thing, even though an offering might involve a sacrifice, but but the biblical text when it uses the language of sacrifice has a meal in mind. And that's going to become evident as we proceed in in some of these chapters. So you might in your English translations, some of you might see offering there, some of you might see the word sacrifice. And you might know that there might be a difference here. Why is there a difference? You might ask the question, well technically there is.

[00:10:02]Again, strictly speaking from an Old Testament point of view. The Old Testament limits sacrifice language to animal offerings. Animal you animals that are part of the ritual. and even more specific than that to instances where the animals slaughtered and becomes part of a meal. But you'll the offerings are much wider than animals.

[00:10:20]For instance, there's a grain offering.

[00:10:22]There are bloodless offerings and whatnot. So, you might be wondering, well, what do the terms mean something?

[00:10:26]Can they be distinguished? Yeah, technically, yeah. But typically, the way it gets talked about, people don't care, you know, really that much about being terribly precise. We'll be precise when we need to be uh as we go through.

[00:10:37]So, back to chapter 1. Let's go to verse three. 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 that he may be accepted before the Lord.

[00:10:52]This in a nutshell tells you what the whole burnt offering is about. So if his offering, let's just go through the verse. The word there is corban. It comes, it's the noun form of karav, which is the verb form that is to present an offering. So again, this is some sort of gift idea. Turns out to be an animal. It's a burnt offering from the herd. He shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance to the tent of meeting. You say, "Well, why is that important?" The offerer is allowed or at least is hoping to be accepted onto sacred space. So here here I am. I'm Joe Israelite. I'm I want to offer a burnt offering. We haven't talked about the the specific purpose yet. And I'm bringing my male without blemish from the herd to the entrance of the tent of meeting. And so I'm standing on sacred territory. I mean, this this isn't, you know, I can't go any further. I'm I'm right on the cusp here of of where, you know, the presence of God, you know, delineates is is his living space. And so I bring that and my hope is what is my hope that I'll be forgiven of a sin? No. is do I want to apologize for something I've done?

[00:12:07]No. My hope is that I will be accepted quote before the Lord. So what is the what does the burnt offering mean? The offer is seeking fellowship with God. I I want to have a little time with God.

[00:12:22]So I'm I'm coming to his house. I'm bringing a gift. Corban, a burnt offering, which is the Hebrew word ola.

[00:12:29]Again, corban is sort of a generic term for gift. Ola is the specific term for burnt offering. And I'm bringing it because I want God to not kill me.

[00:12:40]I want God to accept me as a visitor. I want to be safe in his presence. So, I'm bringing this gift. Now, you could say, "Well, that sounds a little bit like a bribe." Well, if that helps you, okay. I mean it's you know I I personally wouldn't use that that language but you're trying to again visit God just for a little while and you have to approach him where he lives and you don't want anything bad to happen. So you want him to accept you. It's a way of initiating a visit. It's a way of initiating a little time of fellowship and communion with God. It's like if you go you get invited over to somebody's house to eat. You know, my wife is very good at always bringing a little gift.

[00:13:23]Okay? Uh, you know, the icebreaker, the little, you know, little thing to present to the host, that sort of thing.

[00:13:28]I mean, we we do this in in our, you know, the course of our lives in different ways. But we bring it, we bring a a token of friendship, little offering, a little gift. And so, the offerer brings his gift before God, the whole burnt offering because he would like a little bit of little bit of God's time. If we read through the rest of the passage, we find out that there's no specific sin that needs to be forgiven.

[00:13:50]That's not even in the in the picture.

[00:13:52]What is in the picture is I'm mortal and I'm imperfect. And I don't think so, but I might be impure in some way. I hope not. But I want to spend a little time with God because I'm I'm grateful for what he's done. And to do that, I need to go to his house. And I hope nothing bad happens. I want him to accept me so that we can have this little time while I watch my offering get burned up and hopefully God enjoys that. That's the burnt offering. It's a, you know, it's a type of the sacrifice itself. You you'll often see it translated whole burnt offering. Everything was consumed on the altar except for the hide. Uh so no one including the priests and of course the offerer, no one is going to eat any of this. So that's why it's called an offering as opposed to a sacrifice in Levitical language. Again, sacrifice technically in biblical language is is when the offer and the priest and you know in theory God have a meal together.

[00:14:50]Uh there there's something going on like that. The the offerer might be included or not, but the priesthood typically is.

[00:14:56]But in this case, everything goes to God except for the hide. Everything's burned up. So that's why it's the whole burnt offering. It's a signal to God that his worshipper wants to spend a little time with him. Maybe he wants to offer a prayer. Maybe he wants the priest to pray for him. We don't really know. But there's some reason to be there that isn't, oh, I did this this horrible thing over here and I need forgiveness.

[00:15:24]That is not the purpose of the burnt offering. Now, frequently the burnt offering was the first sacrifice in a ritual that included other sacrifices.

[00:15:33]And you can see the logic. This is the kickstarter. This is the signal to God that somebody's at the door and wants to spend a little time with God. Now, other sacrifices might be needed because maybe maybe the the offerer does have something that needs to be taken care of. This is the one again that initiates the communing event. That's what it's for. So, Leviticus 1:4, go back to the text. It says, "He, the offerer, shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to quote, make atonement for him."

[00:16:07]You said, "Well, Mike, I thought you I thought you just said that he didn't really have any sin that needed to be be forgiven." Okay, right away, we're four verses into Leviticus, and we have to talk about atonement language. Again, you're used to me saying things that again, I you don't hear in church. So, here's another one. Atonement language in your English translations, especially in Leviticus, but in lots of other places, doesn't mean what you think it means. Okay? It's not necessarily about forgiveness. It has a it has a a broad range of semantic possibilities. The Hebrew term that's underneath this one or that's rendered atonement. Uh so don't don't think that the offer has a specific sin to be forgiven because we're going to keep reading and find out. That isn't the point. So he shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering. It shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he will kill the bull before the Lord. And Aaron's sons, the priest, shall bring the blood, throw the blood against the sides of the altar, that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Well, wait a minute. Why the guess what? The blood isn't applied to the offer. In the sacrificial system of Leviticus, the blood is never applied to the offerer.

[00:17:12]Sometimes it gets applied to the priest.

[00:17:14]But again, this whole notion that we have of sacrifice because we filter it through Jesus, how the blood of Jesus is applied to us to take away our sins.

[00:17:22]That isn't what's going on in Leviticus, okay? There there's a disconnect there.

[00:17:26]And so we need to talk about some of the language here. Verse 6, then he shall flay the burnt offering cut into pieces, the sons of Aaron will put in the fire and it rains the wood and you know, it goes up in smoke. Around verse 9, it's a pleasant aroma to the Lord. And then from verse 10 on, I'm not going to really worry about that because it's well, if he doesn't have a bull, then if it's a sheep or goat or a bird or whatever, different kinds of things you could bring for the burnt offering.

[00:17:49]Okay, I want to stick here to the meaning of the burnt offering. So, let's go back to verse four. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering.

[00:17:56]Now, that symbolic act we think typically sort of transfers something to the animal and that is not what they're thinking. This symbolic act served to designate the animal as a sacrificial victim for the specific ritual. In other words, this animal before being brought to the the tent of meaning was was common. It was one of a bunch of animals, but now it's being designated.

[00:18:24]It's being consecrated for sacred use.

[00:18:27]Okay? Designating this specific animal is now belonging to the Lord. It doesn't mean I'm transferring now through some mystical way my sins onto this this animal. Again, that isn't the point.

[00:18:39]We're going to see something closer to that in other places in Leviticus, but it's not the point right here. So, the act should not be interpreted as again indicating some sort of transferral of guilt or transferral of impurity to the animal. There's no guilt in view here.

[00:18:55]The offer is just bringing a gift to seek access. He's not asking for forgiveness. Now the next line says it shall be accepted for him to make atonement to for him. And here's where we have to get into atonement language.

[00:19:07]Now the context is the again if you read through the whole chapter and it's chapter one is is about this one sacrifice. You will not read anywhere in the chapter that there's any need for expeation of sin. Okay, that's one thing. If we look at Exodus 30 verse 12, we get an interesting parallel to this.

[00:19:27]I'm going to read you that verse. It says, "When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them." You say, "Well, how in the world is that a sacrifice, Mike?" And let me read it one more time. The Lord says to Moses, "When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life." The word there is kofair.

[00:19:57]It's the same word back in Leviticus 1:4 for atonement. Okay, there it's the verb kapair. Kofair kapair. It's the same consonants. So back to Exodus 3:12. When you take the census of the people, each shall give a ransom, a kofair for his life to the Lord when you number them.

[00:20:14]That there be no plague among you when you number them. Well, again, in the context there, it's a census. It's not about cleaning up a lot of sin on a lot of people. So this idea of paying a ransom, okay, when they're counted, when they're enrolled back in Exodus, that's something that I want to focus on. The point of the parallel is that back in Exodus 30:12, there's no experation for sin going on. Instead, it's protection from God's wrath to be considered acceptable. Back in Exodus 3:12 really refers to we have a gift being given. In that case, back in Exodus 30, it was money. It was a half shekele instead of a blood offering. But the payment was given in that passage for an Israelite to be acceptable to occupy sacred space.

[00:21:04]And the reason is given four verses later in Exodus 30. Quote that they're giving it for the service of the tent of meeting. So there was need of precious metals. Okay, they're giving shekels here to make you know parts of the tabernacle and accutrants and that sort of thing. So this is it's a one-time situation. It's not an annual gift. But the idea is that look, if you're going to participate in this in building this tabernacle, if you're going to obey God and meet the need for the the the building implements for this, then for you to be acceptable to work here to occupy sacred space both now and in the future after this thing is built, you need to bring a half shekele. You need to contribute. If you don't, Exodus 3:12 says there's going to be a plague among you. In other words, God's going to punish people who are not willingly participating in the construction and the use thereafter of the tabernacle. So the whole idea of the kofair here is protection from the wrath of God. And that is really more of what's going on back in Leviticus 1. Again, Leviticus 1, the worshipper says, "I want to spend some time with God, so I have to go to his house." And he goes to the to the to the door of the tent of meeting, brings the offering. Why? He wants to be accepted. Again, he doesn't want anything bad to happen. He wants to again initiate that relationship. And you do that. You signal to God that you're there and that you want some of his time. And if you bring the acceptable sacrifice, you'll get that time. You'll get your need, whatever it is, taken care of. Now, what what does it what does it teach people? The burnt offering, the whole burnt offering doesn't teach didn't teach any Israelites about you committed a sin and here's what to do. What it taught Israelites was that proximity to God was dangerous.

[00:22:48]I mean it it it was it was a fearful thing. Proximity to God was inherently dangerous for both the worshipper and the priests. Frankly, even if there had been, you know, there's no particular offense committed to that point. If you do something the way you're not supposed to do it and you knock on God's door, you know, the quote unquote there's going to be hell to pay. I mean, there's going to be a plague. Like back in Exodus 30, there's something bad is going to happen. So God does it this way, insists on this to teach a very simple lesson. You're not me. You don't you don't you're not fit to occupy the space that I live on unless I accept you, unless I embrace you. Otherwise, what you're doing is really dangerous.

[00:23:31]Again, it it's a way to protect the worshipper from divine wrath. Now, again, back to the whole atonement thing. I want to say a a little bit more about this. And if you don't remember it, fine. If you're not taking notes, fine, because we're going to hit this in other passages. But again, when we see atonement in our English translation, we think that there's a sin issue. Again, what I'm saying is in this particular instance, that is not the case. And in many particular instances, that is not the case. Part of the problem is that there are there are half a dozen different Hebrew words with the same consonants, KPR, as the one that occurs in this passage.

[00:24:12]This is what's known as a homonym problem. Hebrew is like English. Hebrew has words that are spelled exactly the same way, but that mean different things. So sometimes kofair means just a gift, again, a ransom, something, you know, that I exchange to protect me or or work out against some sort of arrangement so that I'm safe and something gets done. That's that's one of four nouns that are spelled the same way in Hebrew. Kofair. If you actually look this up in a lexicon, the one that occurs in Leviticus 1:4 is labeled Kofair 4. It's the fourth one. So, what I'm saying is for for those of you who are who attempt some original language research in your Bible study, you can't assume and hopefully you have better tools than a Strong's concordance. I mean, if if that's all you've got, you you need to move on. uh you need to move on to something better because you need a resource, a lexicon that's going to list out the homonyms for you because you can't assume that the Hebrew word you're looking at in a primitive tool like Strongs always is the same word where those three consonants occur. In many cases, it's not right. It just isn't. Hebrew is like English. Again, English has homonyms. So does Hebrew.

[00:25:26]And this word is one of them. So in in in some cases it's just not going to mean what you think it means and you can be easily misled in your translation.

[00:25:35]Now in a basic sense the verb kapair means to purge. Okay we're going to hit other passages where the atonement language of your English translation is going to point to one of the verbs.

[00:25:49]Again there again there are six different kpr words in Hebrew. Four of them are nouns. Two of them are verbs.

[00:25:55]Occasionally, we're going to hit a verb that does have something to do with taking care of an offense or a sin. And again, when we hit those, I'll return to this discussion. I'll tell you which one it is, and we'll talk about what the meaning of of the passage is. But in many cases, when the verb is used, it means to purge. It comes from an Aadian word kapuru, which means to wipe clean.

[00:26:20]So that's significant because of things that that we'll run into in Leviticus and other places in the Old Testament.

[00:26:28]For instance, the uh the word the verb is used a lot with respect to the tabernacle and the altar. Again, to purge the tabernacle, to purge the the altar. Okay. What I hope you're seeing is that when this atonement language that you are familiar with, if you've ever read through Leviticus or, you know, God forbid, heard a sermon on Leviticus and you've been told that this refers to cleansing the offer of sin, be very careful. Look at what the direct object is. And in many cases in the English translations, it will completely obscure it for you. So try to use an interlinear, reverse interlinear like in Logos is a great idea here. But in many cases, the blood of the offering will be used to purge the tabernacle, purge the sacred space, to purge the altar, to purge this or that vessel. It it's never applied to the human to the human offer.

[00:27:18]It's to make sure that sacred space is not rendered impure by a common human being who is not sanctified as a priest to occupy. A lot of the sacrificial system is about preparing sacred space for your visit or preparing sacred space so that God deems it fit to spend time there. It's really not about what goes on with the offerers sin.

[00:27:47]A lot of bad sins that you could commit in the Old Testament, there were no offerings for. You got the death penalty, or at least you were supposed to.

[00:27:55]There's no real direct evidence in scripture that a lot of the death penalty offenses were ever carried out.

[00:27:59]But that was the solution, removal.

[00:28:02]Okay? Other solutions to other sins was remuneration. You stole that guy's cow, you take it back, and you add one. It has nothing to do with with a sacrifice.

[00:28:13]Again, the sacrificial system somehow we have oriented it to us. And I guess probably because of the way we think about Jesus, but the sacrificial system for an Israelite wasn't about us. wasn't about the offer uh so much as protecting the offerer from God from the divine presence because that's just you we can't handle that or purging sacred space of any impurity so that God could meet the priest there or God could meet the offerer there. Again, it we've inverted the system in a lot of ways in our thinking. And as we go through the sacrifices again, we'll you'll see differences that are going to be quite contrary to what you're used to hearing about this, but that are important. So even if you didn't sin, the whole burnt offering at Leviticus 1, even if you don't have a sin on you, as far as you know, you're you've had a good day, you've had a good week, whatever it is, even if you didn't sin, God has to be approached with caution because you are not him. If you are not doing procedurally what he has asked you to do, what he has commanded you to do, you're going to be in trouble. Okay? It is a fearful thing to be in the presence of God for an Old Testament Israelite.

[00:29:22]It is not trivialized. It is not something to take lightly. It's dangerous. So, you initiate the relationship with a gift. Now, just think about this in terms of application and we'll we'll wrap up with this. In what I just described, would you want to live under that?

[00:29:40]I mean, I wouldn't. I mean it it it if I have to be so conscious of what I'm doing just to go meet with God even through a priest that I could get hurt or it could launch a plague or you know I could wind up dead or or somebody else it would cost them their life. I mean that's just crazy. That's frightening.

[00:30:04]Now think about that and you think about what the New Testament says about how God can now be approached. How are we supposed to approach God now? Boldly.

[00:30:13]Okay. Hebrews 4. Hebrews 4:16. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. In other words, I don't have to go up to the door and and meekly knock and say, "Boy, I hope this gift is good enough or else I could die." You know, again, we don't have to think of things that way. And you think about again what the New Testament says. If you're a Jew, think about what a what a New Testament Jew in the first century who knows what the sacrificial system was about even though they don't have a they didn't have a temple for a while. Now they have, you know, Herod's temple and so they they have some cognizance of what's going on here about how people talked about Jesus when they're used to this fearful kind of system and they can read examples in the Torah of people dying when they do things wrong. I mean you look at another verse Ephesians 3:12 Paul says in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him you know to approach God that is not how your typical Jew looked at this and so Jesus comes along and and here a Jew hears the message of the cross the message that this was your Messiah died for you know forgive your sins and so on and so forth and now you can approach God individually and boldly that was news that was just dramatically different than the way they were thinking about their faith, you know, their religion. Another thought is we don't have to bring a gift for access to God. Think about that. Again, if you're a Jew, you're thinking, okay, you know, I'm going to this this weird new, you know, gathering of these Christ followers like like what happens, you know, when I get there, you know, do do I need to bring a gift? Do I need to bring an offering? What do I need to do, you know, so that God doesn't strike me down? Hey, that is just gone. There was no need to bring a gift for access to God. That gift was already given for you. It was a voluntary offering of of Jesus, of the Messiah himself.

[00:32:09]Completely inverts and does away with this whole need to essentially bribe God for access to make sure God won't do anything bad to me. And it's really unfortunate that a lot of people still think about God this way. A lot of Christians think about God this way.

[00:32:26]It's just it's just utterly anacronistic to think about God this way. One last thought. If we're in Christ, we don't occupy sacred space, so to speak. We are sacred space. And that actually is the fundamental theological rationale for subduing the flesh and living in a godly way. You are sacred space. It it for instance it's Paul's rationale for why you shouldn't you know commit fornication you know why you shouldn't eat meat you know that was you know again taken directly from a ritual okay if it was in the marketplace but you don't associate yourself with the ritual of of the the meat at Corinth why because then you enter into fellowship with devils and you can't have fellowship with God and fellowship with with beings who are less than God and hostile to God you can't do it because you are sacred space know ye not Paul says that you are are the temple of the living God. Okay? You have the spirit, the very presence of God that was in the Old Testament indwelling in you. Now, again, it would be easy for me to launch into a a bit of a mini tirade here uh about how we do church. again, how we do church is so focused on us that honestly for somebody like me who, you know, I try to I try to shut it off, you know, periodically, but there are places I've gone, you know, churches I've gone into that is so focused on the person, on the felt needs or whatever it is that it it's just kind of sickening because we have we've lost any sense. I'm not saying we need to go back and and treat our churches like the tabernacle and we got to be careful where we walk and all that kind of stuff, okay? Because we are sacred space. What I'm saying is we have lost any sense of our gathering as being a sacred gathering. It's noisy. It's lots of running around. It's frankly some crazy stuff. I mean, I can tell you stories. You know, it's hard to believe sometimes what happens in church. And we have lost just about all sensibility to anything like this. Uh and again, I'm not suggesting that, hey, the solution to this is let's go build a tabernacle and act like we're in the Old Testament.

[00:34:34]That isn't the point. The point is it would be nice to remember that, you know, the way I behave matters because I am sacred space. And when Christians gather together, yeah, Paul said individually, we are the temple of of of the living God. But he also said in in Corinthians that you plural, you collectively are the temple of the living God. what we're doing here should should in some way convey some seriousness, some thoughtfulness to the presence of God. How how do we behave differently here than any other place?

[00:35:03]Because if we behave differently here, that helps us at least remember the presence of God. I mean, very simple things like this, I would, you know, I'm grateful when I see it. This is why, again, this is sort of freebie. In my experience, people who have left what we might call evangelicalism and have gone into like Eastern Orthodox uh Eastern Orthodoxy or even back to Catholicism or something like that uh is that they they get drawn in by liturgy because what happens in the service means something.

[00:35:31]It requires thoughtfulness.

[00:35:33]There's symbology there that make that takes the mind of the person in the room in the church takes their mind and directs it to specific theological imagery or thoughts or ideas as opposed to a sporting event. Okay, that's just what the appeal is. And and trust me, I understand that. But I have had a number of people say that's what did it for them. And even though they might have a disagreement theologically here or there, I wanted a visit to church to be different from any other place and different in a specific way. So you take this back to Leviticus 1 again, their problem was a little bit different. It was a little bit, you know, to to the way extreme, but you know, as we read through Old Testament ritual, don't wrinkle your nose up at it. Don't be repulsed by it. Yeah, I'm glad we don't have lots of blood in the altar and all that kind of stuff, too. But don't be repulsed by it. look at it the way they're looking at it and think about it the way they're thinking about it and it the lessons that it was designed to reinforce. Even if you're not a even if you don't have a sin on you, God should still be approached with caution. This is not a normal place. This is not a normal event. It's something that should be considered sacred as opposed to common as opposed to profane which is is what that's what profane means common ordinary.

[00:36:56]This shouldn't be ordinary. It shouldn't be like everything else is during the week. It should be different. Even if we accomplish that much in our worship, I think it would be a good thing. And again, I think Leviticus 1 here, the idea of bringing an offering just so you can even start to enjoy or experience the presence of God in some way without getting hurt is really a good lesson.