|
|
Throughout the ages attempts have been made to explain the dynamics involved in the sacrificial system of Israel. Without such an understanding of the Old Testament Sacrificial System the typical Christian is literally "crippled" in his understanding of Atonement. The proposed explanations can be divided into three categories: the symbolic, juridical, and rational.
Philo devoted a treatise to the subject (De Victimis; see Spec. 1:112–256). He pointed out that only domesticated animals and the most gentle birds were suitable for sacrifice and that they had to be free of blemish, which he took as a symbol that the offerers must also be wholesome in body and soul. The Jew had to approach the altar with his soul purged of its passions and viciousness if the sacrifice was to be acceptable (Spec. 1:166/167, 257).
Take notice of the spiritual condition necessary BEFORE the sacrifice was to be presented at the altar…his soul had to be purged of sin IF the sacrifice was to be acceptable to God.
The reader needs to understand NOW that there were prior conditions that needed to be met by the sacrificer of the animal BEFORE the sacrifice was to be brought to the altar. Now lets pick up with Philo.
The wicked would be rejected, even if they offered hundreds of sacrifices (Spec. 1:271). The rabbis stated that the sacrificial statutes indicated that God is with the persecuted. The ox is pursued by the lion, the goat by the leopard, and the lamb by the wolf. Therefore God commanded, "Do not offer those that persecute, but rather those that are persecuted" (Lev. R. 27:5). The requirement that fowl be offered with their feathers symbolized that a poor man was not to be despised. Therefore his offering was placed on the altar in its full adornment, despite the nauseating odor normally arising from the burning of feathers (Lev. R. 3:5). Salt, an indispensable ingredient of sacrifice, was symbolic of the moral effect of suffering, which purifies man and causes sins to be forgiven (Ber. 5a). Judah Halevi declared that the fire on the altar was kindled by the will of God as a sign that the people found favor in His sight and that He was accepting their hospitality and offerings (Kuzari 2:26). Samson Raphael Hirsch explained that the Pentateuch required the person to lay his hands upon the head of the sacrifice to indicate that the "hands" that have become morally weakened "support" themselves on the resolution of the future betterment that is expressed by the offering (his commentary to Lev. 1:4). David Hoffmann declared that sacrifices are symbols of man's gratitude to God and his dependence on Him, of the absolute devotion man owes to God, as well as of man's confidence in Him (Introd. to commentary on Lev. (Heb. ed.), 64–67).
The juridical approach is put forward by Ibn Ezra (commentary to Lev. 1:1) and to some extent by Nahmanides (commentary to Lev. 1:9). According to them, the sinner's life is forfeit to God, but by a gracious provision he is permitted to substitute a faultless victim. His guilt (not his sin) is transferred to the offering by the symbolic act of placing his hands on the victim.
The reader should understand RIGHT NOW that this is something new he has never heard in his Christian Church. It was the guilt and not the sin that was transferred to the innocent animal. Now back to Ibn Ezra.
When observing the pouring out of the blood and the burning of the sacrifice, the person should acknowledge that were it not for divine grace he should be the victim, expiating his sin with his own blood and limbs (Nahmanides to Lev. 1:9). Many Christian exegetes adopted this explanation and on it built the whole theological foundation of their Church.
Quite different is the rational view of sacrifice advocated by Maimonides. He rejected the symbolist position which discovered reasons for the details of the various sacrifices. Those who trouble themselves to discover why one offering should be a lamb, while another is a ram, are "void of sense; they do not remove any difficulties, but rather increase them" (Guide, 3:26). Maimonides held that the sacrificial service was not really of Jewish origin. It was the universal custom among all peoples at the time of Moses to worship by means of sacrifices. Since the Israelites had been brought up in this atmosphere, God realized that they could not immediately completely abandon sacrifice. He therefore limited its application by confining it to one place in the world, with the ultimate intention of weaning them from the debased religious rituals of their idolatrous neighbors.
Answer for yourself: Dear one, did you hear that? God was in time to wean His people from the pagan idolatrous forms of worship that contained animals sacrifice that His people had been influenced by the example of pagan nations? This means that Atonement was to be obtained in other than "blood" and the Old Testament is full of ways by which one can obtain Atonement without "blood"! Please keep reading!
The new service of "confined sacrifice" in one place in the world stressed the existence and unity of God, "without deterring or confusing the minds of the people by the abolition of the service to which they were accustomed and which alone was familiar to them." Maimonides cited the experience of Israel, led not by the shorter way, but by the circuitous route through the land of the Philistines (Ex. 13:17). Likewise, through a circuitous road, Israel was to be led gradually and slowly to a deeper perception of religion and divine worship (Guide, 3:32). He gives the added remarkable parallel that it would be equally incomprehensible for anyone in his generation to suggest that prayer could be offered in thought alone, without the recitation of words.
Abrabanel strengthened the arguments for Maimonides' viewpoint. He explained that only within this framework can it be understood why the Torah limited the sacrificial service to one locality while prayers may be recited in all places (Introd. to his commentary on Lev., 2d). Abrabanel cites a Midrash which stated that the Hebrews had become accustomed to idolatrous sacrifices while in Egypt. To wean them from these idolatrous practices, God commanded, while tolerating the sacrifices that had been practiced by His people as influenced by pagans, that they be offered in one central sanctuary. This was illustrated by the parable of a king who observed that his son loved to eat forbidden foods. The king then decided to serve him these foods daily so that he would ultimately lose his desire for them and forego his evil habits (Lev. R. 22:8). D. Hoffmann later proposed a different explanation for this Midrash, declaring that the king insisted that the son was to eat exclusively at his table so that he would only be served proper food and thus curb his appetite for forbidden foodstuffs (Introd. to commentary on Lev., p. 61).
The reader should understand that God was going to do a new thing. He was to allow the continuation of these “pagan sacrifices” but He will instill new meaning to them. This will be seen in the development of a unique relationship between the sacrificer and God Himself. You will see how this works when we look deeper into the concept in Leviticus that “the life is in the blood”. God is not concerned about blood, but the life…the soul contained within the blood!
With the destruction of the Temple and the automatic cessation of the sacrificial system, it was laid down that prayer took the place of the sacrifices because such ideas are also taught in the Old Testament. The Shaharit service was regarded as taking the place of the morning tamid and the Minhah service, the afternoon tamid. On all occasions when an additional offering was brought, the Musaf prayer was introduced (Ber. 4:1, 7; 26b). One of the rabbis later declared that prayer was even more efficacious than offerings (Ber. 32b) [remember God was progressively weaning them from animal sacrifices (the physical) with the intent of spiritual sacrifices such as prayer, repentance, almsgiving, etc.]. This is the message of the Prophets!
When the glory of the Lord had entered the tabernacle in a cloud, God revealed Himself to Moses from this place where He would put His Name, according to His promise in Ex. 25:22 to make known His will through him to the people. The first of these revelations related to the sacrifices, in which the Israelites were to draw near (korban) to God, that they might become partakers of His grace.
The patriarchs, when sojourning in Canaan, had already worshipped the God who revealed Himself to them, with both burnt offerings and slain offerings (we saw this above in the form of “burnt offerings”). Whether their descendants, the children of Israel, had offered sacrifices to the God of their Fathers during their stay in Egypt, we cannot tell as there is no Biblical allusion whatever to the subject in the short account of these 430 years. Yet we know from archeology that such was the case. What is certain is that they had not forgotten to regard the sacrifices as a leading part of the worship of God, and were ready to follow Moses into the desert, to serve the God of their Fathers there by a solemn act of sacrificial worship (Ex. 5:1-3; 4:31; 8:4); and also, that after the exodus from Egypt, not only did Jethro offer burnt offerings and slain offerings to God in the camp of the Israelites, and prepare a sacrificial meal in which the elders of Israel took part along with Moses and Aaron (Ex. 18:12), but young men offered burnt offerings and slain offerings by the command of Moses at the conclusion of the covenant (Ex. 24:5). Consequently sacrificial laws of these chapters presuppose the presentation of burnt offerings, meat-offerings, and slain offerings as a custom well known to the people and a necessity demanded by their religious feelings. They were not introduced among the Israelites for the first time by Moses by what he learned at Sinai, because animal sacrifices date from the earliest period of mankind.
Answer for yourself: Are you curious why we have not found “sin offering” yet and we are up to Moses in out time-line?
The subject of sacrificial laws in the book of Leviticus was not to enforce sacrificial worship upon the Israelites, nor to apply some sort of a theory concerning the Hebrew sacrifices, but simply to organize and expand the already existing sacrificial worship of the Israelites into an institution in harmony with the covenant between the Lord and His people, and adapt and promote the end for which it was established…communion and fellowship with God. You need to fully understand what was just said. Read it again please.
But although sacrifice in general reaches up to the earliest times of man's history, and is met with in every nation, it was NOT enjoined upon the human race by any positive commandment of God, but sprang out of a religious necessity for fellowship with God. These sacrifices assumed very different forms in different tribes and nations, in consequence of their estrangement from God, and their growing loss of all true knowledge of Him. Their ideas of the Divine Being were regulated by the nature, object, and significance of the sacrifices they offered, and they were quite as subservient to the worship of idols as to that of the one true God. To discover the fundamental idea, which was common to all the sacrifices, we must remember, that the first sacrifices were presented after the fall.
Also interesting by its absence is any mention of SIN OFFERINGS, PRIESTHOOD, EXPIATION or FORGIVENESS in the PRE-Mosaic sacrifices of the Old Testament....in other words NOT before the Golden Calf incident....more on that soon.
There are very important reasons for the omission of “sin offerings” as you will soon discover. Shalom.