SCRIPTURE: Leviticus 1
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’ [Matthew 9:13]
Jesus is faulted for eating with sinners.
And yet, an underlying theme in Leviticus is on how God invites sinners to have fellowship with Him.
The Tent of Meeting was the place where God, in mercy, fellowshipped with sinners.
All the blood and death depicted in these sacrifices is not what God intended for His good creation.
These are the results of sin.
Our world has become a place of blood, violence and death.
And the penalty for sin is death.
This book shows us how serious the problem of sin is.
We do not feel this seriousness enough.
We do not take seriously the holiness of God, and our own unholiness.
These sacrifices represent God’s mercy.
The penalty for sin is death.
God provides a symbolic substitute through the burnt offerings.
Morning and evening – and double that on the Sabbath – the collective sins of the people were completely burned symbolically.
That this was very serious is seen by the fact that the Greek word for complete burning is “holocaust”.
But the penalty was placed upon the head of the substitute, the male without defect.
And of course, here we meet the promised messiah.
God desires mercy for us, but also from us.
God is not just interested in making people feel bad, He desires restored fellowship.
The most common sacrifice in Leviticus is the fellowship offering, which the people were allowed to eat as well.
God desires fellowship.
Jesus lives this out in eating and drinking with sinners.
It’s the whole point of God’s plan of salvation.
As we shall see, the book of Leviticus deals strictly and seriously with issues of morality, purity, holiness – to a very extreme extent.
The book is hard to read because of it.
Many who start “reading through the Bible” quit when they get to Leviticus.
But don’t quit.
Hidden within the tedious details of this manual for holiness are important and meaningful symbols of God’s love and mercy and provision for sinners, that we may once again fellowship with God as our Father.
This is God’s desire!
PRAYER:
Lord, I find this gruesome. But maybe that’s the point. Help me to see my sin in this gruesome light, so I will look to You for mercy.