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You Will Be for Me a Kingdom of Priests: Leviticus, Lesson 2
Opening — A Tough Slab, So We Slow Down
Good morning, brothers and sisters. You will want a Bible in hand, because Leviticus is not an easy read. Last week we covered some ideas I think really matter, and I hope they were of help. Let me begin with a confession: I had meant to fit Leviticus into eight sessions. It turns out I overestimated myself; we will probably need more time.
Besides, this book is unfamiliar to most of us — it has a reputation for being a tough slab to chew. So I would rather slow down and think a few key concepts through quietly: what Scripture means by them, and what our own heads mean by them. That is where the real gain lies.
Chapter 16 — The Day of Atonement
Turn first to chapter 16. I asked a few of us to read out the heading in their own Bibles: some editions print "Regulations for the sin offering", some have no heading at all, others print the rules for Aaron's entry into the sanctuary. The chapter is about Aaron, of course — but in substance it is about the Day of Atonement. Look at verses 29 and 30.
Leviticus 16:29 This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: on the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work – whether native-born or a foreigner residing among you –
Leviticus 16:30 because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the LORD, you will be clean from all your sins.
So the weight of chapter 16 falls on the Day of Atonement — and among the appointed festivals of the Jewish people, the Day of Atonement counts as the most important of all.
Up the Mountain, Down the Mountain — A Picture of the Whole Book
Different biblical scholars and different pastors divide Leviticus in different ways, some finely, some broadly. For our Saturday group I use a simple division that is easy to remember: the Day of Atonement in chapter 16 is the summit, the watershed. Chapters 1 to 15 are the climb, and their governing theme is cleanness. At the Day of Atonement the ritual of cleansing reaches its peak. Then chapters 17 to 27 are the slow walk down the mountain: what was received on the mountaintop is to be carried into life below, until it becomes the lived reality of sanctification.
The earlier chapters speak much about sin and the many kinds of uncleanness it brings. After the Day of Atonement, with its scapegoat, the chapters from 17 onwards speak mostly of how a person who belongs to God is to live in a state of sanctification. As I describe it this way, do you have the picture in your mind?
Chapter 16 is the summit. Chapters 1–15 climb: cleanness. Chapters 17–27 descend: sanctification.
The Cleanness Laws — A Few Examples
Keep these two concepts in mind: cleanness and sanctification. Chapter 11 is headed by the food laws: in what we eat, we are to distinguish the clean from the unclean. Chapter 13 gives the laws on skin diseases: anyone can fall ill — even Aaron the high priest could fall ill, and sickness has nothing to do with his holy office. Whoever has become unclean must be cleansed: wash, wait out the set time. None of that says anything about whether the person is consecrated to the LORD. Chapter 14 deals with the person with a defiling skin disease, and from verse 33 with houses contaminated by something like mould — even a place must be cleansed. So the cleanness laws and the sanctification laws can be laid side by side and compared.
The Life of Sanctification — A Few Examples
But what I most want you to notice comes after the Day of Atonement, in chapters 17 to 27 — the part that touches our lives most directly. For example, chapter 18 already stands after the Day of Atonement. What does it say? You shall not commit sexual immorality. Immorality is sin against God; it belongs to the life of sanctification. Or look at chapter 23, the appointed festivals: on that day no work may be done, because time belongs to the LORD. If you work on that day, it is no longer a question of clean or unclean — you have violated God's command, and that concerns holiness. That is why the Sabbath weighs so heavily among the festivals of the Jewish people.
One more example, which I looked up especially yesterday. Last time a sister spoke about loving your neighbour as yourself, in chapter 19 verse 18; let us start from verse 17. You will find this has nothing to do with clean or unclean any more. It is a question of holiness — a question of the thoughts of the heart.
Leviticus 19:17 Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbour frankly so that you will not share in their guilt.
Leviticus 19:18 Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD.
The sentence ends with "I am the LORD": loving your neighbour as yourself is tied to the very character of the LORD; it belongs to holiness. Love of neighbour is not a question of clean or unclean — it is the question of being consecrated to the LORD.
Love of neighbour is not a question of cleanness, it is a question of holiness — of belonging to the LORD.
The Tattoo, Part One — My Son's Question
And then there is chapter 19, verse 28. Why single out this verse? Because two or three years ago my younger son Andreas asked me a question: "Dad, can I get a tattoo like my classmates?" I did not answer him directly. If you simply forbid it — "don't copy your classmates" — you seem to cut him off from his peers; and I know very well that a hard prohibition achieves nothing good. Of course, inside I was thinking: "A boy in his early teens, skin fresh and unmarked — why would he want words carved into his body?"
So I set him an assignment: "Son, the answer is hidden somewhere in Leviticus. Take a month, find it, and answer the question for me yourself." That way I got him to read Leviticus, and at the same time the question of how faith and life fit together worked itself out. He went at it earnestly, leafing through the book, and later came to me and said, "Daddy, it looks like this isn't really allowed." I asked why, and he pointed me to chapter 19, verse 28.
Leviticus 19:28 Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.
Of course he did not yet understand what it meant, so I explained: this is connected with pagan worship.
The Tattoo, Part Two — The Pagan Context
There are brothers and sisters in our churches today who have tattoos. If they were done before coming to faith, and the person has been baptised and truly turned to the Lord, then it is all past — everything has become new — and I would never argue the point. And when young people in the church ask me this question, I don't dare hand them an answer either; I usually do what I just described and let them search for themselves. Only when God lets them find the passage and they start weighing the possibilities do I talk it through with them.
For if you read verse 28 in context, the whole passage is about pagan customs. Verse 26: "Do not practise divination or seek omens." Verse 27 says not to cut the hair at the sides of your head — have you ever seen what an Egyptian priest looked like? The priests of Egypt were, as a rule, shaven-headed. Verse 29: do not degrade your daughter by making her a prostitute. Verse 30: "Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary." Verse 31: "Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists." The tattoo verse sits wedged in the middle of this context of pagan worship.
Having said all that, let me ask: is a tattoo a matter of personal lifestyle — or a matter that touches the character of God? A question of clean or unclean — or a question of sanctification? The answer is the latter. Clean and unclean are like a skin disease: with washing and waiting, the state of cleanness returns of itself. But once it touches sanctification, touches whether a thing accords with God's will — and so exposes who it is that a person worships deep inside — the matter can no longer be settled so easily.
Cleanness returns of itself, sanctification does not — it asks whom you worship deep inside.
Blessing and Discipline — The Framework of the Covenant
With that outline in place, look at the last chapters, 26 and 27: there stand the provisions of blessing and punishment. Whoever walks according to God's will, blessing comes upon him; whoever does not, God's punishment comes. Someone will ask: isn't God love — why would he punish? Because of his justice; it is his character. Since we stand within the covenant, as God's people and God's children, we receive God's blessing — and just as surely we are bounded by God's word and disciplined by him. Christians must never fall into the notion: God's blessing, yes; God's discipline, no thank you. That is not how Scripture speaks.
It is like signing a contract: if I do business with a company and the contract carries no penalty clause, is it still a contract? Certainly not. Human nature is corrupt; people scramble tirelessly for their own advantage, and a contract without a penalty gets broken. So the end of Leviticus tells us plainly what pleases God: do what pleases God and you receive blessing from God; refuse, and you receive his discipline. That is the bird's-eye view of the whole book; from chapter 16 as the axis we will read forwards and backwards.
Blessing without discipline, that is not how Scripture speaks.
Review — Three Books, One Thread
Now a review of last week. Was it too hard? This book is not easy; my hope is to go deep and keep it plain. We said that Exodus and Leviticus are not two free-standing books, because Leviticus opens with a connective — the Hebrew waw, "and". Let me add: Numbers opens with the same word. Properly speaking, these three books can be read as one continuous whole. The setting: after Moses led the people through the Red Sea and out of Egypt, they camp at Sinai — by reckoning the dates (Scripture does not say outright), about a year or more. Moses goes up the mountain to receive the law; the people make the golden calf; God calls Moses up again and gives the law; the people follow Moses' lead and build the tabernacle, and the glory of the LORD appears in the tent of meeting. That was last week.
Pillar of Cloud, Pillar of Fire — A Miracle Around the Clock
While preparing, a thought came to me that I want to pass on. God's glory appears at the tabernacle, and the words Scripture uses are the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. Look just a little before Leviticus, at Exodus chapter 40.
Exodus 40:34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
Exodus 40:38 So the cloud of the LORD was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.
And it struck me: the Israelites could see the miracle of God twenty-four hours a day. Once the glory came down, the pillar of cloud never left — cloud by day, fire by night, unbroken, day and night, in the midst of the camp before the eyes of the people.
Have you been to Paris? Have you watched the Eiffel Tower cross from day into night and light up in dazzling colour? The visitors wait every evening for dusk, when the iron-grey tower suddenly puts on its golden light — the golden floodlighting has been on since 1985, and since 2000 it sparkles on the hour as well. I think the picture serves us well: a Parisian looks up, sees the tower, and knows it is the emblem of the city. So with Israel — one glance towards the centre of the camp and they knew: the presence of God is there. God's presence is not the flickering, now-you-see-it thing we imagine; God is with his people at all times.
Israel could see the miracle of God, twenty-four hours a day.
The Call, the Offering and the Tent of Meeting
That is why we spoke last week about the call — it matters greatly. "The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting" (Leviticus 1:1). The other name of Leviticus is its opening word: "He called." God calls his people to himself from the tent of meeting. We also talked about what sacrifice means: to sacrifice is to come near to God, to draw close — sacrifice and drawing near share the same Hebrew root (qrb). Likewise the offering: it is the gift with which one may draw near to the LORD. And Exodus speaks again and again of building the tabernacle — the tent of meeting is the place where God meets with man.
The diagram of the tabernacle on the screen will be familiar; we spent much effort on it before. The tabernacle is really not large. What matters are the furnishings God required within it: the altar of burnt offering, the basin, and the tent itself — the tabernacle proper, divided into the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. It is a cutaway drawing, showing the inside in perspective: God's glory dwelling with the people at all times, the people camped around the dwelling, and at the very centre something like an Eiffel Tower standing there — one that changes colour by itself at night, fire by night and cloud by day. They lifted their heads and saw the presence of God with them; and they knew the ark of the covenant stood in the Most Holy Place, screened behind curtain upon curtain.
One point we stressed back then: God's grace comes outwards from within, and man comes in from outside to meet God — and the first place where the two meet is the altar of burnt offering. From here you can see why sacrifice matters so much.
To sacrifice is to draw near. Grace comes out, man goes in — and the first meeting place is the altar.
Distinguishing — The Key Verb of Leviticus
Last week we reached chapter 10, verse 10 — ten and ten, easy to remember.
Leviticus 10:10 so that you can distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean.
The whole of Leviticus teaches us what is holy and what is common (that is, ordinary), what is clean and what is unclean — and the verb is "to distinguish". The greatest lesson of our life in this world is how to distinguish. Is a lifetime of learning to distinguish hard work? It certainly is. Yet distinguishing is what we do every day: discerning what this hour is for; what to eat today, what to use, what to wear. In matters great and small no decision is easy, and everyone is making them: take the bus or call an Uber? Chinese food or Western? Stay home or go out? Everything is an act of distinguishing. Last week we ended by saying that God governs a remarkable amount — because he wants to use everything in life to teach us to discern his mind.
Does the world also teach us to distinguish? Of course: our schoolteachers teach us to distinguish many things, and human history does too — from history, and from the character of its figures, we learn to discern. But in the setting of Scripture, the people have just come out of the house of slavery, out of an Egyptian culture saturated with pagan worship; their hearts are full of the old experience — the experience of idolatry. And they are about to enter Canaan, whose pagan worship is more garish still: children offered in sacrifice, infants placed in the fire, ritual immorality. Scripture records that the idolatry of Canaan was the worst of all, more evil even than the culture of Egypt. Under these conditions God sets out to teach them the lesson of distinguishing from every side.
The greatest lesson in life, learning how to distinguish.
The "Separating" of Genesis
Now it gets a little important: this word "distinguish" is at bottom the same word as in Genesis.
Genesis 1:1–4 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
Do you see the word? Separated. Let us look briefly at Genesis. It is a weighty book — a pity we so often skim it like a storybook and move on. So what does God separate here? The context makes it easy to find: heavens and earth, day and night — and above all, light and darkness.
There stands the phrase "formless and empty": everything mixed together, without order — and where there is no order, there is darkness. Brothers and sisters, isn't driving in Germany a pleasure? The moment I am back behind the wheel in Taiwan, it is misery: nobody keeps to the rules of order, scooters thread past on every side, and I spend the whole day with my heart in my mouth. There is a traffic code, but there is no order. So for me, Taiwanese traffic is "formless and empty, darkness over the face of the deep" — everything jumbled, nothing in its place.
Over the Waters — From Jonah to an Awakened Mind
The phrase "over the waters" is also worth pausing on. In the typology of Scripture, water is a symbol of evil; that is why Jesus walking on the sea carries special meaning: he triumphs over the power of evil. The book of Jonah tells how Jonah was swallowed by the sea and ended up in the belly of the great fish — that is the power of the grave. Some biblical scholars hold that Jonah had already died, and that God's grace and power brought him back to life; hence in the Gospels Jesus takes the sign of Jonah as the figure of his rising on the third day. So the Spirit of God hovering over the waters means more than victory over the powers of darkness — it announces that over the formless waste he will bring forth order and life.
Does this touch our lives? Don't we sometimes feel that life is one great muddle? Sometimes, yes — let us admit it. That is why we read God's law: the law wakens the mind and lets us know the ways God has ordered things.
Psalm 119:18 Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.
Christians would rather read about God's grace than about the law. A main reason, touched on last week: Paul has been read askew — as if the law existed only to kill, and grace alone gave life. But Paul himself said something weighty, Romans 7:12.
Romans 7:12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
Brothers and sisters, let us not misunderstand: what is sinful is our flesh, not the law. "For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh" (Romans 8:3) — the trouble lies in the weakness of the flesh; sin works evil through the flesh. It is not that God's law is bad. So back to Leviticus: the whole book teaches us the mind of God — as in Genesis, separating light from darkness, chaos from order, day from night; and 10:10 teaches us to distinguish the holy from the common, the clean from the unclean.
What is sinful is our flesh, not the law.
What Is Holiness? — The Group Answers
Let me hand you a few important keys, one at a time; with them your own Bible reading will go faster. I put a question to the group: what is holiness? When you hear the word "holy", what picture is in your head?
One brother said: it has to do with God — God's presence is holiness. A sister said: set apart as holy, separated out from the worldly and belonging to God. I pressed further: can a human being be holy? A brother: not one hundred per cent — our forefather Adam sinned in the garden and we inherit the sinful nature; yet we all need holiness, and God requires it: "Be holy, because I am holy." Another: by the world's measure, a person who is clean and without blemish counts as holy; by God's measure, "holy" carries the sense of set apart. But the Scripture's own idea is this: God himself is holiness — and therefore his mercy, his love, his gentleness are holy too.
Why raise this question? Because the church rarely talks about it. Yet until this concept is clear, we do not know what God's love is, or his justice, his goodness, his power — for all of it flows out of God's holiness.
Holiness Is God's Attribute
Holiness is God's attribute. Holiness is not merely some state that pleases God — his very being is holy. Write this sentence down: holiness is an attribute of God. Which also means: apart from God, no creature is holy, and nothing whatever is holy in itself.
The common picture of holiness runs differently: the utmost perfection of filial devotion — call that holiness; the highest expression of human virtue — call that holiness. Don't we Chinese love to say, "Do not do to others what you would not have done to you"? As if love, developed far enough, finally arrives at the state of holiness; as if character, pushed ever upward, at last wears a halo. Later, in the formal academic literature, I found exactly this account. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) took the holy to be the highest condition of the human will: virtue at its finest pitch, love for one's own at its fullest stretch — the entrance into holiness, the goal a person must endlessly pursue. In the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) Kant defines holiness as the complete conformity of the will to the moral law — adding that no being in the world of sense ever attains it at any moment. Brothers and sisters: that is the view from man's side, not the view of Scripture.
Holiness is God's attribute. Apart from God, no creature is holy.
Independent and Dependent Holiness
Scripture reveals something else. Its revelation is this: the being of the LORD is holy, and this holiness belongs to the LORD alone. Theology calls it independent holiness: holiness that leans on no one, self-existent, standing from everlasting. And if there is an independent holiness, a dependent one is implied: man's holiness must lean on God's holiness — dependent holiness — and can only reflect his. I am being a little academic, but this is exactly what Scripture says. The One who is eternally self-existent is wholly other than the created universe; and if man is to return into God's holiness, he needs a right and living relationship with God.
That is why Scripture says, "Consecrate yourselves and be holy." Consecration is an act — but how does one become holy? We who are set apart must return into God's holiness, so that God's holiness becomes our holiness. The holiness within a person cannot stand on its own; it must cling to the holiness of God. Scripture's word for this is reflect, mirror back — you will hear that word often.
Which is to say: if a person leaves God — or, in Paul's words, is not in Christ — then we do not have God's holiness. So the lifelong lesson is to live in Christ; the Old Testament's way of saying it is to live in the presence of God. If God is not with me, I produce nothing that flows from holiness. And what does flow from holiness? Righteousness, mercy, love, power, peace, goodness — everything. Cut off from God, the glorious, holy love that comes from him is gone; my love becomes selfish love, love out of human craving — love I may have, but without holiness. So too my justice: outside of God it turns to tyranny, and I become the merciless enforcer. For God's holiness carries all his attributes within it — and man, of himself, has none of them.
Man's holiness is dependent holiness, it can only reflect the holiness of God.
A Kingdom of Priests, a Holy Nation
Back to the opening of Leviticus: all the laws of sacrifice exist to bring us back into God. God calls Moses to come near, out of the tent of meeting, because no one carrying sin can stand before God and be joined to him. Everything this book says aims at this: that when we come face to face with God, we may "be acceptable to the LORD" (Leviticus 1:3). And here I cannot help turning to Exodus 19 — the most important passage of all. With Israel camped at Sinai, God declares the one thing he is doing throughout the whole Old Testament; here is the spirit of the entire Old Testament.
Exodus 19:3–6 Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, 'This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."'
Those who worked through Exodus with us will remember — we said this sentence over and over. If you have not yet written it down, write it down now: all of Scripture springs from here. Belonging to whom? To "me". And who is this "me"? We say "God" loosely, but here the name must be spoken: the LORD — for the world also has a god called Molech and a god called Baal. We belong to the LORD as a kingdom of priests, as a holy nation. The whole Old Testament runs in this direction, teaching us without pause how to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Only after this does God give the law — the Ten Commandments everyone knows: you shall have no other gods before me. But our Saturday group must know this: the Ten Commandments grow out of verse 2.
Exodus 20:2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
The law is given under grace, on the premise of love — so that the people may be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. We spent much time on this in Exodus, so I will leave it there. Back, then, to "acceptable" in Leviticus 1: to be accepted before the LORD is to learn how to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. God's holiness is the independent holiness; he needs no one to reflect it. Man has no such holiness of his own — but when we find acceptance before God, God's holiness becomes our holiness, and all his attributes become our attributes. This is exactly what Leviticus wants to teach us: to learn the image and likeness of God.
Brothers and sisters, our whole life seems to run on the plane of human morality. Moral standards are a very good thing: to care for the disabled along the road out of love, to help the needy — that is human morality at its finest, and it is unquestionably good. But we must know this: inside us live too many motives and desires, so many that we do not even know our own; and therefore we need the guidance of God's word, so that God's holiness can be reflected in us. It is a hard lesson — which is exactly why Leviticus keeps teaching us through ritual: through rite after rite, how to mirror God's standard. As we go on we will meet regulations I cannot explain; ask me, and I still cannot say — for those regulations were spoken to the Israelites of that day in the way they could grasp.
The law was given under grace, on the premise of love.
Thirty-Five Hundred Years Ago — Resetting the Mind
Now once more from a higher vantage point: the age in which this book was written. The five books of Moses lie some 3,500 years back; Moses' day falls around 1500 BC — which corresponds to the Shang dynasty in China. To read Leviticus you must set your mind back to that age; for those of us who know Chinese history, the Shang period is the best table of comparison. You cannot set the clock to 2026, or nothing will line up at all.
When we studied Exodus I often showed you a book: Li Shuo's Zhan Shang, on the fall of the Shang and the rise of the Zhou (Guangxi Normal University Press, 2022). From the archaeological digs the author shows that Shang China practised human sacrifice — infant sacrifice: human bones turn up again and again in the excavated urn burials and sacrificial pits, not once but repeatedly, as a standing fact. So you see that in that corresponding age, sacrifice was everywhere and weighed heavily. And of course we know more clearly still: we need lead no ox or sheep today, because Christ has completed every act of sacrifice on the cross. Read Leviticus, and you understand the better why God spoke to his people then as he did.
The Five Offerings — Five Ways of Communion with God
We come to this book with very different backgrounds, and I have puzzled over how best to teach it. I must not go too deep; I want to lead you in slowly by way of observation, and first put a few keys in your hands: how to look at holiness, at acceptance before God, at meeting God, at God's glory and our own nature. The questions we will take step by step. Please interrupt me at any time — your questions help me adjust the depth and the pace; otherwise, before I know it, I will drift into the academic and start lecturing you on independent and dependent holiness and which scholar holds which view — and that would not do.
Now open your Bibles — this section I am asking you to memorise. Chapter 16, we said, is the summit, and its heart is the Day of Atonement; before it stand the cleanness laws. Look at chapters 1 through the opening of chapter 6: five offerings — five offerings of communion with God. Through these five offerings I can take up my relationship with God afresh. Which five? Anyone studying Leviticus must have them by heart; otherwise the study is wasted. The headings show them: first the burnt offering — underline it; second the grain offering; third the fellowship offering; then the sin offering; and in chapter 5 the guilt offering. Chinese culture generally has only one idea of sacrifice: atoning for guilt — before the deity one only ever pays down a debt. It has no concept of a burnt offering, none of a grain offering, none of a fellowship offering, none of a guilt offering.
Each of the five carries other names — since you are here, take a moment and write them in the margin. The burnt offering can be called "the whole offering, the complete offering, the offering wholly given up". The fellowship offering is also "the communion offering", Peace or Fellowship in English; it grows out of that great Hebrew word shalom — peace. The sin offering may also be called the purification offering. Next to the guilt offering write: the reparation offering. So, five: burnt offering, grain offering, fellowship offering, sin offering, guilt offering. Had you ever considered that in communion with God we may bring five different offerings? I see one sister nodding away — her church has taught her well; most of us only ever say, "I want to bring God my sin offering."
Grain Offering and Fellowship Offering — Daily Salt and the Love Feast
The grain offering is the most everyday of the five: what is offered is the food of ordinary life. Very simple — "their offering is to be of the finest flour. They are to pour olive oil on it" (Leviticus 2:1). And the crucial points: no yeast — and there must be salt.
Leviticus 2:13 Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.
As though in the midst of daily life, by the salt, one kept covenant with God. The grain offering is the most ordinary of offerings: even at your meals this offering is to be there. Which means: in the plain routine of every day, the ordinary things themselves keep reminding us — God is in our midst.
The fellowship offering is also called Fellowship because this offering is shared with everyone. The love feast we keep in church comes straight out of the fellowship offering. Did you know that? Our familiar love feast comes from here — hence its other name, the communion offering.
Sin Offering and Guilt Offering — Peace with God, Repayment to People
The sin offering we know better. What atonement means, we will take up later; for now one thought: atonement is not only to cleanse us but to still the anger of God — its chief aim is to restore us to peace with God. This matters greatly. Hence it can also be called the purification offering: only when your sin has been washed away can we come before God.
But likewise within the realm of sin: what if we have wronged a brother or a sister? We only know that sin against God calls for a sacrifice. Yet where people have wronged one another — is there no liability to bear? Scripture says there is; that is why the guilt offering exists. You must make restitution. A man injures someone — stabs him, so to speak, and walks away — then confesses to God, and it all seems settled. Scripture does not speak that way. You must also pay your price to that brother, that sister, and be reconciled. That is the idea of the reparation offering.
So then: burnt offering, grain offering, fellowship offering, sin offering, guilt offering — five offerings we are to bring continually before God. Do you carry that thought? Take the grain offering: our everyday life needs that salt of covenant with God in it — otherwise we wear one face at church and another face in private. The grain offering is offered in the midst of ordinary life, rather like grace before meals; but grace before meals cannot stand in for it. What matters is that every corner of daily life carries the salt of the covenant — and not a crumb of yeast. See how finely wrought these laws are. And I put the question to myself: do I wear one face at church — and, where no one sees me, another?
One face at church, another in private? That is exactly what the grain offering asks.
The Altar of Burnt Offering — Root of All the Offerings
And the burnt offering? We must spend a moment on the word today. That the burnt offering stands first among the five is no accident. Look first at Exodus 30:28, where the altar is called "the altar of burnt offering"; then further on, 38:1: "They built the altar of burnt offering of acacia wood." So the bronze altar in the courtyard is called the altar of burnt offering, and it is the most important of all the altars. Doesn't it strike you as odd that the series opens not with the sin offering but with the burnt offering? Have you ever wondered? God calls Moses — and when anyone would bring an offering, the first thing named is the burnt offering.
Leviticus 6:13 The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out.
The burnt offering is the root of all the offerings, for Scripture says the fire on the altar burns day and night. While the other four offerings are being made, the burnt offering keeps burning on the bronze altar without pause. It can also be called the offering of total surrender; it stands for man's obedience to God: everything I have, I give to you.
Reading Chapter One from Beginning to End
As is our custom, let me read the first chapter of Leviticus straight through. Listen — and test your eye for the whole as you do.
Leviticus 1:1–9 The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting. He said, 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them: "When anyone among you brings an offering to the LORD, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock. If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, you are to offer a male without defect. You must present it at the entrance to the tent of meeting so that it will be acceptable to the LORD. You are to lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you. You are to slaughter the young bull before the LORD, and then Aaron's sons the priests shall bring the blood and splash it against the sides of the altar at the entrance to the tent of meeting. You are to skin the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. The sons of Aaron the priest are to put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. Then Aaron's sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, including the head and the fat, on the wood that is burning on the altar. You are to wash the internal organs and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD."'
Leviticus 1:10–13 If the offering is a burnt offering from the flock, from either the sheep or the goats, you are to offer a male without defect. You are to slaughter it at the north side of the altar before the LORD, and Aaron's sons the priests shall splash its blood against the sides of the altar. You are to cut it into pieces, and the priest shall arrange them, including the head and the fat, on the wood that is burning on the altar. You are to wash the internal organs and the legs with water, and the priest is to bring all of them and burn them on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.
Leviticus 1:14–17 If the offering to the LORD is a burnt offering of birds, you are to offer a dove or a young pigeon. The priest shall bring it to the altar, wring off the head and burn it on the altar; its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. He is to remove the crop and the feathers and throw them down east of the altar where the ashes are. He shall tear it open by the wings, not dividing it completely, and then the priest shall burn it on the wood that is burning on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.
Observation — Bull, Sheep, Bird
Now the observation: which animals may stand as the burnt offering? The bull; the sheep or goat — a male; and the bird — doves or young pigeons. From this we can tell that when Jesus' parents carried the child up to the temple to sacrifice, in Luke's Gospel, they offered birds — a sign that their means were slender.
Luke 2:24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: 'a pair of doves or two young pigeons'.※ Under Leviticus 12:8 this is the provision for those who cannot afford a lamb: one bird for a burnt offering, one for a sin offering.
People's means differ: one can bring a bull, another a sheep, another a bird. God does not demand of everyone an animal as costly as a bull. From Luke we can see that Jesus' family was not well off — and still they offered exactly as Scripture prescribed.
One more observation to keep in your heart: can money substitute for the sacrifice? Fundamentally, no. Only life can substitute; nothing lifeless can stand in. This is a basic rule of sacrifice. So do not imagine that dropping a few coins at church — or a great deal of money — can purchase peace for your life. Unless your own life is laid in with it, it cannot be done.
Money cannot substitute for the offering, only a life can.
Without Defect — Offering What Is Best
Let us walk up the text. "You are to offer a male without defect" (Leviticus 1:3). What does "without defect" mean? Healthy, unmaimed, whole — quality is required; the best is to be offered. Scripture supplies its own definition, Leviticus 22:22.
Leviticus 22:22 Do not offer to the LORD the blind, the injured or the maimed, or anything with warts or festering or running sores. Do not place any of these on the altar as a food offering presented to the LORD.
What is sick and damaged you would not eat yourself — how could it be brought to the altar? The point is: what is offered to the LORD is to be whole, complete, good — of the best quality.
Brothers and sisters, pause and think back: do the things we bring to church have "defects" — or are they of good quality? Or do we give the LORD only what we no longer want ourselves? In my younger years this came up often: people thought it a kindness to give things to the preacher — and gave him what was left over at home, the slightly broken: "Fix it up and you can still use it." Sometimes it grieved me to watch. A preacher is not a salvage depot — truly not. If you mean to do him good, and the brothers and sisters good, give what is good. Times have changed, of course; some preachers today live very comfortably, far from the days of Wang Mingdao (1900–1991) and Watchman Nee (1903–1972).
But consider: if we show such care between one person and another, what then are we bringing when we come before God? I will be honest: sometimes when the offering is counted, the notes are crumpled every one. On the one hand I thank the Lord — brothers and sisters give even out of such straits; life is hard for them, and this is no absolute yardstick. On the other hand it saddens me: might we not reset ourselves before God, so that it is not simply whatever note the hand happens to pull out? When we give to God, is there a more careful mind at work? It is worth thinking over. Either way, the reminder stands: what is offered to God is to be without defect.
What is offered to God: must be without defect.
Laying On of Hands — This Animal Stands for Me
Verse 4 carries great weight: "You are to lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you" (Leviticus 1:4). What is the laying on of hands? It expresses the deep bond between the worshipper and this animal: before God, the animal takes his place. And it shows something more: the man as it were throws his whole self into the animal — he leaps into it. It does not merely represent me as I am offered before God; from the heart I also own it: this animal is me. Do you follow? An animal has no power of itself to stand in for a man — unless the man is bound to it. Hebrews makes this fully plain.
Hebrews 10:3–4 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
The animal truly cannot take a man's place — and precisely there we see where the power of the gospel is headed: Jesus stepped into the place of every sacrificial animal; Jesus, the Word made flesh, stands for me. The Old Testament had not yet shown the salvation of the gospel of Christ so openly; it spoke first in the terms that the culture of that day could grasp: a hand laid on the head of the burnt offering — it stands for him, and the offering is accepted, making atonement for him.
Here the word "atonement" appears — circle it. And let me throw out a question that had me stuck for a very long time: if the burnt offering here already makes atonement, why do we still need a sin offering and a guilt offering? Would not one burnt offering do? For now I only set the question before you; I have gathered a great deal on it — allow me to return to it when we reach the sin offering.
The Worshipper Slaughters with His Own Hand — Blood Is Warm
Today we stop at about verse 5, and it is a weighty sentence: "You are to slaughter the young bull before the LORD" (Leviticus 1:5). Who is this "you"? The worshipper. Brothers and sisters, this is an important idea: the priest does not slaughter for you — the worshipper slaughters with his own hand. Aaron's sons the priests receive the flowing blood, bring it, and carry out the splashing of the blood. We always assumed the priest killed the bull on our behalf; the truth is: you must do it.
Have you ever killed a chicken with your own hands — a duck? I asked around the group; it seems that in our Saturday study only I have. In my youth I helped my grandmother do it. Our home was in Toufen, fairly deep in the hills; I was about middle-school age, watched my grandmother bustling in and out, and said, "Ahma, let me kill the chicken for you." She kept refusing: "No, no — children don't touch such things." It looked like fun to me — grown-ups made killing a chicken look easy — and I insisted. And I really did it: pinned the chicken's neck, cleared the feathers, one stroke of the knife. The moment the cut was made, I regretted it. Brothers and sisters — ending a life: I truly regretted it. Why do I remember it so sharply to this day? Because that scene shook me to the core. I watched the chicken struggling there, and the blood began to spurt — onto my hand, covering it. It was my first time; not knowing better, I lifted my hand and smelled it: why so warm, so salty? For the first time I knew that blood has warmth, blood has taste. And then I watched the life of that chicken fade before my eyes, little by little.
Why do I make a point of telling this? Sacrifice is not a game. It means a life given up entirely; and above all, when we speak of atonement, we must know what it costs before God — the cost of life draining away — to cover the consequences of sin. Do not suppose that dropping an offering at church and praying with the pastor makes you clean. From the side of God's grace, it is true: he accepts every sincere repentance. But let me press this on you: sin is the least playful thing there is. It means life draining away; it exacts the price of life. Ox and sheep cannot truly substitute — even where God lets you watch with your own eyes, the meaning is: this is what you would come to; life eaten by sin, running out drop by drop. The worshipper is to slaughter the bull before the LORD with his own hand — so that he himself feels the horror of sin. Not: we say a prayer at church and the heart has its peace. We saw it in Exodus: Aaron made the golden calf; he escaped God's punishment, but the consequences of the sin he still had to bear. So for the burnt offering to be accepted, the worshipper slaughters the bull before the LORD, and Aaron's sons bring the blood and splash it.
Here we must stop for today. From here we will go on: he is to slaughter the bull before the LORD — and that God let Jesus Christ pour out his precious blood on the cross carries exactly this meaning: Jesus Christ stepped into your place and mine. I was the one who should have died; instead Jesus took your sin and mine and gave up his own life. When we reach the sin offering we will explain once more how the atonement here differs from the atonement there.
The priest does not slaughter for you, you do — and blood is warm.
Sin is no game. It means life draining away, and it exacts the price of life.
Question and Answer, Part One — Your Body as a Living Sacrifice
At this point an older brother raised a question: "We often speak of offering a person as a living sacrifice — how should we understand that? If I think of it through the burnt offering: a man who slaughters, with his own hand, an old ox that has been with him fifteen years and that he loves, will ache for months; in that stretch he will hardly do anything very wicked — as though the debt were paid and the man turned kind — but the effect lasts perhaps a year. Now if Jesus shed his blood to redeem us, surely 'offering a person as a living sacrifice' cannot mean taking up the knife the way Abraham did with Isaac? How is this to be explained?"
First, Abraham and Isaac. Do you know the story in Genesis 22 well? It is the exception, not the rule. We must not turn Abraham's offering of his son into Scripture demanding human sacrifice. Scripture says it plainly: it happened solely to test Abraham; God knew his faith — and had long since provided the lamb. What matters most is the conclusion.
Genesis 22:14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, 'On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.'
The LORD saw Abraham's need — and on the mountain provision was made. What the brother was quoting is in fact from Romans.
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
This is figurative speech. First be quite clear: the LORD does not have people offered as sacrifices. That is pagan worship — the worship of Molech, which threw living infants into the fire; the LORD abhors it, abhors the offering of human beings. When Paul says to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, he is not reaching back to the old law to offer people; he takes the inner content of the rite of sacrifice to say: we are to hand the sovereignty of our lives over to God completely, so as to be pleasing to him. The "worship" here is exactly that — worship.
Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
The best response is to refuse to be shaped by this world. I turned the question back to the group: does the world have rites of sacrifice? It does — many. Not that anyone today still kills people for the gods; but how many lay the sovereignty of their lives on some altar: the altar of Wall Street, of business, of the underworld, of everything this world offers. That is where the lordship of their life resides. So Paul urges us to entrust the sovereignty of our lives to God: to offer our bodies to this God, to die for him and to live for him. Once we have offered up that sovereignty, it is no longer our own. Therefore: Lord, whatever you bid me do, I will do; help me be transformed by the renewing of my mind, that we may discern how you are leading us. This is the new life in Christ that Paul describes — and that is why the conduct of God's people follows at once: "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good" (Romans 12:9). While the sovereignty of my life stays in my own hands, I remain blurred and muddled, unable to tell the holy and good from the unclean; but once God's nature is given, God's nature becomes ours.
The world is full of altars, many lay down the lordship of their lives to Wall Street, to business, to everything under the sun.
Question and Answer, Part Two — The Test of Faith and the One Sacrifice
Lastly, allow me a little more, lest anyone misread Genesis 22. It was a one-time event, a test tailor-made for Abraham; Scripture records no second instance. And in the end Abraham did not offer his son as a sacrifice. The heart of the chapter is Abraham's faith. Hebrews 11 puts it this way.
Hebrews 11:17–19 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.' Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
"It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned" — the line was to come through Isaac, not through Ishmael. Abraham's faith had reached this point: he trusted that even if he offered him, God could raise Isaac from the dead — for he is the God who calls being out of nothing and raises the dead; and, in a manner of speaking, he received his son back from death. The text does not say he actually offered his son; it says his faith was proved to that measure.
Hold on to this without fail: Scripture rejects human sacrifice; God counts it a great evil, an utmost evil. Seen from here, the goodness of the LORD is more gracious and more merciful than the civilisation of Shang-dynasty China — the Shang really did offer human beings, as the historians have shown us; and human sacrifice is precisely what God forbids. In the whole of Scripture there is no message of the LORD wanting people offered up. In our faith, only One has ever offered himself as the sacrifice: Jesus Christ. For the sin of mankind he went willingly to the cross, bore our sin, became the offering — and his precious blood flowed down to wash our sins away.
Only One has ever offered himself as the sacrifice, Jesus Christ.
Right here is the gospel: Jesus Christ took your place and mine, offered himself on the cross, and his precious blood washes our sins away — so that we may find acceptance before the LORD, and God's holiness may become our holiness. Brothers and sisters, let us keep at Leviticus together. Next week we pause once — see you the week after. God bless you all.