Today's Scripture Reading (December 20, 2024): Leviticus 9
One of the questions I often have to field is why God would create a sacrificial system that, in the end, didn't work? Is this part of a weakness in God that the system he made doesn't seem to have the intended effect, namely, taking care of our sin? I actually have a problem with the question in two ways. First, the sacrifice of an animal to deal with sin was never the end point of the sacrificial system. It was always a placeholder until the time when the Messiah would come and die as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. Today, Jews do not sacrifice animals because there is no Temple in which that sacrifice can be performed. But the sacrifices will resume when a new Temple can be built. Christians don't sacrifice animals because we believe that Jesus has become our ultimate sacrifice.
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (Hebrews 11-14).
By one sacrifice, Jesus has taken care of the sacrificial system forever. He is the only sacrifice we need.
The second way that I disagree with the query is that it often asserts that God is the author of the sacrificial system. But that isn't really true. Cain and Abel made sacrifices long before the time of Moses. Noah made sacrifices when he emerged from the Ark; Job made sacrifices on a regular basis during his lifetime, both before and after his suffering. Abraham made sacrifices. For Abraham, it was such a regular occurrence that no one was surprised when Abraham went off with Isaac to make his sacrifice. Not only is the pre-Moses history filled with sacrifices, but sacrifice is also common in other religions. I am unconvinced that God invented this idea of sacrifice. We invented sacrifice; God honored our invention and gave it a structure, knowing it would not work until Jesus became the perfect sacrifice for our sins.
God commands Aaron to take a bull calf to make atonement for his sin. A line of thought argues that this is not an arbitrary decision on the part of God but goes back to Aaron's sin in creating a Golden Calf at the base of Mount Sinai.
"Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me." So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, "These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt" (Exodus 32:2-4).
Up until this point, that sin had not been dealt with. And so, God decides here to deal with sin by choosing a bull calf for the sin offering; he was reminding Aaron, not of a bunch of generalized sins, but one particular time when he fell short of the expectations of God by creating a golden calf intended for the worship of the community of Israel.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Leviticus 10
No comments:
Post a Comment