The Detail!

            Oh, the detail that Leviticus goes into about the prescribed sacrifices!  Do we need to know where blood goes and which parts are burned on the altar and what happens to the other parts!  (I’m seminary trained, and I had to consult a secondary chart to keep it all straight!)

            Look, there is purpose here.  So, for example, my dad wasn’t a big fat of really lean meat:  he believed that marbled, that is, fatty beef tasted better.  And you know what?  A lot of ancient people agreed with him!  The fatty portions are the good portions!  Notice that the fatty portions—the best parts—are given to God.

            Or consider the “long lobe of the liver” (ESV, 4:9).  The Lutheran Study Bible points out that the liver and the other entrails were used in pagan practices for divination.  But not in Israel, where those parts were dealt with in specific ways to prevent that sort of superstition.

            The overarching point is that these were sacrifices not slaughter.  These animals were killed for specific purposes—restoration, forgiveness, thanksgiving, restitution—and that meant that Israel was not to engage in them willy-nilly.

            At the very least, the Christian can learn a lesson about intentionality.  We ought not stumble into good works and generosity.  Paul puts it this way in regard to generosity:  “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (NIV; 2 Corinthians 9:7).

            But there’s a much more important lesson to learn here, namely, if Israel’s sacrificial system was ‘on purpose,’ then the atoning sacrifice of Jesus is ‘on purpose.’  Commentators of many stripes have suggested that Jesus bumbled into the cross and that Gospel writers were trying to cover up and explain the basic mistake of the cross.  But, the Gospel writers do everything they can to convince us that the cross is exactly the destination at which the Father intended Jesus to arrive.  Consider the brief evidence of Luke’s Gospel:  the Messiah is going to bring a great reversal of fortunes (1:46-55); the infant Jesus is destined to be a source of contention in Israel (2:23); in His Baptism Jesus is counted with the transgressor (3:3, 21; 22:370; three times He announces His imminent crucifixion and resurrection; He sets Himself resolutely for Jerusalem; and although He names it the hour of darkness (22:53), everything unfolds as He has said—even down to Peter’s denial and Judas’ betrayal.

            Here’s your Jesus connection!  Jesus’ death is no accident, as Israel’s sacrificial system was no accident.  As detailed as the Lord was with bulls and goats, even more so He knows what His plan is for the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.  It’s a good thing to have a God who won’t leave the details of our salvation to chance.

Updated from 1/31/2011