Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Why We Need Sacrifice | Torah | Leviticus 16-17

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

What's the point of sacrifice? Do Christians still need a sacrifice? How does Leviticus tie into the Bible story as a whole? In today's episode, Keith explains the purpose of the sacrificial system in Leviticus 16-17 and how it points to Jesus. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Leviticus 16-17

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. We're going to be in Leviticus Chapter 16 today, and there is so much going on in this chapter. It is such an important part of the Bible that I think you're really going to enjoy it and get something out of it. But let me just set it up with this. Leviticus 16 is at the center of the book of Leviticus, and Leviticus is at the center of the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. Numbers and Deuteronomy. Now, that's really important to know because in Hebrew, the way you emphasized something or highlighted something or said, hey, this is really important, is by putting it at the center of your writing. So the structure of the opening books is telling us that this chapter,

Leviticus 16, is central to everything the Bible teaches. So here's how it starts in verse one. The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, who died when they approached the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the most holy place, behind the curtain and front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die, for I will appear in the cloud over the atonement cover. Now, this is the same day that Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abahou, are killed for offering what Leviticus 10 says is unauthorized fire and worshiping God, and again, this is found in Leviticus 10, contrary to his command. So these two priests, Nat Abin Abu, Abba, they are Aaron's sons.

They treat God very casually. They treat them flippantly. They treat them lightly. And that's why it says that fire came down from the presence of the Lord and consumed them. Moses explained all this to Aaron back in Leviticus 10. This is what the Lord spoke of when he said. among those who approached me, I will be proved holy. In the side of all the people, I will be honored. So God is saying, hey, look, guys, I will be honored by my people. I am a holy God.

You don't just waltz into my presence. You're sinful, and you need to approach me in the way that I tell you to, or it'll have grave consequences for you. Everything that happened between chapter 10, which is where that story is told of Nadab and Abahoo, and chapter 16, which is where we are today to look at the Day of Atonement. Everything in between those chapters is kind of like in a big parentheses. Because now in chapter 16, we're going to pick up the story that started back in Chapter 10, the story of Nadab and Abu Erin's sons. Remember that God had told Aaron that he can't come into the most holy place or he too will die like his sons did. So why is everybody dying? Can somebody help me there? Remember back in the Garden of Eden, Adam

and Eve lived in the presence of God. And God used to come in the cool of the day and walk and talk with them in the garden. But when Adam and Eve sinned, they began to hide from God. They instinctively knew that they couldn't have the same relationship with God that they did before they'd sinned. And they're right about that. So because of their sin, God banishes them from the garden, and he assigns cherubs, which are kind of like angels, to guard the garden. The cherubs have these swords, and they won't let anyone into the garden, anyone into the place that God dwells. And that's because God is holy and human beings now, because of Adam and Eve's rebellion, are sinful. Then in Exodus, God called the Israelites to build the tabernacle. The tabernacle was going to be the new place God dwelt. And now,

in Leviticus, he's giving them further instructions about how sinful people are to maintain their relationship with the Holy God. So when we keep reading in Leviticus, is 16, we read that on the day of atonement, which happened only once a year, Aaron was supposed to take a bath and put on a linen garment. Then he was to offer a sacrifice for himself. Here's verse 6. Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. So Aaron's the high priest, and he's charged to be kind of like you might say the middleman between God and the people. But Aaron has his own sins. So before he could offer, he's the high priest. He's charged to be kind of like you might say the middleman between God and the people. But Aaron has his own sins. So before he could offer sacrifices on behalf

of the people, he had to offer a sacrifice on behalf of himself. So we pick it back up in verse 7. Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. He is to cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other for Azazazel. We'll come back to Azizel in a second. But what's happening here is that Aaron is bringing two goats and he's casting dice or at least something that looks like dice to us. They're called the umum and thumum. And Israel used these, kind of like dice, to help them discern God's will.

Here, they are determining the fate of each goat. One goat is going to be sacrificed to the Lord, and one is going to be sent off into the wilderness. There's a lot of debate about what Azazazel means. I don't think anyone knows for sure, But the best two options are either the wilderness, which is where God's enemy dwelt, or maybe it just is referring to Satan himself, the one who opposes God. Now the first goat, that's the one that's offered to the Lord. That goat is killed, the blood is drained and collected, and then Aaron as the high priest sprinkled that around the holy of holies as a sacrifice for the sins of the people and for the defilement of the world.

So what he's doing is he's making the holy of holies habitable by God. He's making room so that God can dwell with his people. If people's sins pollute God's sacred space, then God will leave, both metaphorically leave, but also an actuality leave and abandon Israel. The Bible says that's exactly what happened when Israel was taken off into exile. It's pictured as God leaving the temple. So the first goat is killed. That blood is sprinkled inside the Holy of Holies as a way of saying that this space can be inhabited by God. Now, for the second goat, the goat that wasn't killed, we pick up that in verse 20.

When Aaron had finished making atonement for the most holy place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness. and rebellion of the Israelites, all their sins, and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place, and the man shall release it in the wilderness. Now the first goat was blameless, and it was given to cleanse the Holy of Holies so that God could dwell there.

The second goat takes the sin of the people out into the wilderness. This is called the scapegoat because the goat bore the sins of the people. Now the New Testament book of Hebrews looks back on the day of atonement and makes all kinds of connections between what happened there and Jesus. In the book of Hebrews, we're told that the blood of animals, the blood of bulls and goats can't take away sins. And of course, we already knew that from the Old Testament because those sacrifices had to be offered over and over, day after day and year after year.

But the good news of the gospel is that that sacrificial system pointed to a better way. His name is Jesus. Jesus is a better priest. Remember that there are all kinds of priests in the Old Testament, in Israel, and all of them offered sacrifices. There were thousands of them. But you know what all those priests had in common? They all lived. They all had some sort of ministry, and then they all died.

They died because they two were sinners. The priests needed a priest. Remember, that's why Aaron had to offer a sacrifice for his own sin before he could offer sacrifices on behalf of others. But Jesus is our high priest. He is the one that Aaron pointed to. But Jesus is a better priest because Jesus was sinless. He was the perfect priest.

But not only is he the perfect priest, he is all. also the perfect sacrifice. The animal sacrifices had to be offered over and over. There was this endless stream of sacrifices and an endless stream of blood. And they could never take away sin because they were never intended to. What they were intended to do is to point us to Jesus, to show us that God is holy, we are sinful, and we need a sacrifice to pay for our sins. Think about this. There are two different kinds of illnesses that you might have. One kind of illness, you can take medicine and then you're healed. You don't have to keep taking that medicine. You took it, it did its job, and now you're done with it. But there's another kind of illness in which you have

to take medicine probably for the rest of your life. And that medicine is a reminder that this illness you have cannot be cured. The continual sacrifices were reminders that the blood of bulls and goats couldn't take away their sins and that they needed a better sacrifice. So here comes Jesus, who is called the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. All those other lambs were pointing to the perfect lamb. Jesus is the perfect priest, and he's the perfect sacrifice. Hebrews 1010 tells us, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. That means there's nothing you can do to make yourself more holy.

Once you surrender and give your allegiance, put your faith in Jesus. You are made holy by God. That means it's not Jesus plus religion or Jesus plus good works. All your guilt, all your condemnation were put on Jesus. And he died as your substitute. Let's close with this because I think it's pretty profound. When the Buddha died, his last words were to work hard to gain your own salvation. In other words, at the end of his life, he encouraged his followers to continue

to work so that they would have the salvation that he talked about. Jesus's last words were, it is finished. It is finished. He has done the work that God sent him to do. It is finished. He has paid for our sin. It is finished. He is the perfect priest who made the perfect sacrifice. There's a big difference between work hard to gain your own salvation and it is finished. Jesus is the one that is worthy of our trust. He has done the work. Now, we should put our faith in him. Hey, thanks for listening.

If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week. It'll challenge you to grow in your faith, give you interesting background on today's passage, and a lot, lot more. Just click the link in the show notes to sign up. It'll help you deepen your journey with Jesus.