May 18, 2025 • 27 mins
When an entire community stumbles into sin—unknowingly, unintentionally—what happens next? In ancient Israel, this wasn’t just an individual matter. Sin could affect the whole camp, corrupt the sacred space, and threaten the people’s standing before a holy God. The burden didn’t fall on a scapegoat, it fell on the community and its leaders to recognize the offense, respond rightly, and seek atonement.
In Leviticus 4:13–21, we encounter God’s instructions for handling corporate guilt. This passage pulls back the curtain on how seriously God takes sin, not only personal wrongdoing, but also the unseen and collective failures of His people. But we also see God’s mercy; a path is laid for cleansing, reconciliation, and renewed relationship. For the Church today, these ancient instructions still speak. What does it mean when the camp is guilty? Who stands in the gap? And how do we respond to hidden sin in our midst?
Join us as we consider what happens when there is sin in the camp—and discover that even then, God provides a way back.
Recorded May 18th, 2025 Message by Pastor Tim Ward Scripture: Leviticus 4:13-21
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So the story of Frankenstein has fascinated generations since its first appearance in 1818,
and how many of you ever thought you would come to the Free Methodist Church
and have reference to Frankenstein?
Well, sometimes we feel like him, don't we?
But anyway, it's a many-spluttered thing, speaking eloquently on such social
(00:23):
ills as child neglect, and scientific advancement in the absence of ethics.
Now, when you read Frankenstein and saw Frankenstein, did you ever think that
it was a story of the absence, scientific advancement in the absence of ethics?
(00:44):
It was just kind of this interesting story, but really it had a lot of that in the story.
It's just as relevant today in the light of parent absenteeism and cloning as
it was in the day of its writing.
But the story speaks to us in many other ways as well, subtle ways evident only
to the observant and wise.
The number of theories as to the message of Frankenstein abound and grow stranger
(01:09):
with each one, from Marxist theories to Freudian interpretations.
And what the story of Frankenstein vividly depicts is how the pride and arrogance
of one man is in creating something new driving the motor of discovery can also
have adverse consequences in the broader community.
(01:32):
When viewed theologically, you can boil Frankenstein down to the story about sin.
Pride, arrogantly assuming the mantle of God to create something is what got
us in the trouble in garden, and it is the root of the troubles that assail
Victor, Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
(01:54):
The monster becomes the embodiment of his pride and runs amok,
destroying all that the scientist holds dear, and eventually even destroys him.
What we find out about sin in Frankenstein is that it has a seeping quality
about it. It pollutes everything it touches, even beyond the sinful act itself.
(02:18):
Sin is a topic we don't like to talk about much, do we?
We speak at length and fondly about grace. We dwell often on love.
We thrill at the talk of mercy.
But when the conversation turns to sin, we clam up.
We don't have much to say. Many in the Christian church would like us to forget about sin.
(02:42):
Everybody's okay. We all go to heaven.
Why not accentuate the positive? Why talk about sin? All it does is bring us
down, destroys our self-esteem.
Everybody knows that we don't want to talk about sin because that makes us feel bad.
We cannot attract new believers in our church by talking about sin.
(03:06):
Such negativity would only drive the seeker away.
Well, no one wants to hear about how bad we are.
Besides, why talk about sin at all when we have so much good news to hear?
Well, let me offer you two answers.
First, the common sense answer, and then a theological answer.
(03:28):
The common sense answer is simply this.
In order for the good news to be good, it must have a comparison to something else.
You know the old good news, bad news type thing? It can't be good news if there's
not bad news to compare it to.
There can't be good if there's not bad. There can't be righteousness and holiness
(03:54):
if there's not sin as well, and sin is the bad news.
The theological answer is that sin is everywhere. It's the cosmic problem.
It's the absence of good, just as darkness is the absence of light.
It's the reason for the existence of good news, and biblically speaking,
(04:15):
without the emergence of sin from Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3,
the third chapter in the Bible,
without that reference to Adam and Eve's sins, Genesis 4 through Revelation
22 would be unnecessary.
(04:36):
The scriptures tell us the story of how God deals with the problem of sin and
reclaims his misdirected creation.
We need to speak of sin because it's essential to our story.
Only in the shadow of the fall does the light of the good news appear in the truest brilliance.
We need to know how bad our situation really is before we can appreciate how good it can be in Christ.
(05:00):
Christ we need to see where we are without
God to see where we can be
with God and we need to remember
how bad it really was in order to truly grasp how
blessed we are in Christ so we talk about
sin which brings me to our passage this morning Leviticus
chapter 4 verses 13 through 21
(05:23):
it's a passage filled with startling imagery aimed at exposing the seriousness
of sin It presents in compelling detail what the people of God must do when
they realize that the stain of sin has spread over the entire community.
Now, I said this a couple weeks ago when I started the series on Leviticus.
(05:47):
This is the book in the Bible that everybody loves to read, right?
We all look forward to reading Leviticus. But if it wasn't for Leviticus speaking
about sin and the holiness of God, we wouldn't have any desire to be like him, would we?
(06:08):
We wouldn't have any reason to be. If there was no sin.
We would be like God. So let's read this Leviticus chapter 4, verses 13 through 21.
If the whole Israelite community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden
in any of the Lord's commands,
even though the community is unaware of the matter, when they realize their
(06:32):
guilt and the sin they committed becomes known,
the assembly must bring a young bull as a sin offering and present it before the tent of meeting.
Now, yeah, right. Listen to Peter scream. The elders of the community are to
lay their hands on the bull's head before the Lord, and the bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord.
(06:52):
Then the anointed priest is to take some of the bull's blood into the tent of meeting.
He shall dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle it before the Lord seven
times in front of the curtain. If he does it six, it's not enough. Seven times.
He is to put some of the blood on the horns of the altar that is before the
(07:13):
Lord in the tent of meeting.
The rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering
at the entrance to the tent of meeting.
He shall remove all the fat from it and burn it on the altar and do with this
bull just as he did with a bull for the sin offering.
In this way, the priest will make atonement for the community and they will be forgiven.
(07:38):
Then he shall take the bull outside the camp and burn it as he burned the first bull.
This is the sin offering for the community.
So why did I read that?
It's really gory, isn't it? I mean,
I told you a couple weeks ago that I thought that it'd be kind of interesting
to have come into worship someday and have electric fireplace or something looking
(08:03):
like fire up here and have the smell of burning flesh and burning hair.
But you know, when every time the Israelites entered into that tabernacle and
into the tent of meeting and into the place where they sacrificed this,
they smelled the smell of their sin.
I want us to begin this morning by taking a look at the context for this passage,
(08:26):
moving from its broader context to its more immediate framework.
Then we'll explore some of the imagery coming to grips with how seriously sin
should be taken. And finally, we talk about this passage in our context.
Does it speak to us today?
The book of Leviticus doesn't get much airplay these days. You don't find too
many preachers talking about Leviticus, only some weird ones from a rural town
(08:51):
called Richland Center.
We just don't know what to do with this book full of its regulations.
In our grace-filled religion, law seems so legalistic, And all that animal sacrifice
stuff offends our new millennium Christian sensibilities.
(09:12):
And when you read Leviticus in the light of how the Exodus narrative ends,
the book becomes less about law and more about how to live before a gracious and holy God.
You may remember that Exodus ends with the account of the glory cloud representing
God's presence settling down on the tabernacle.
(09:33):
God now dwelt in the midst of his people. But there is an unarticulated problem.
God is holy. Israel is not. They are a sinful and stiff-necked generation of people.
It has not been that long since the golden calf episode in the wilderness when
they tried to make a God that was superior to the God, and holiness demands that sin be dealt with.
(10:02):
How can they hope to live in the presence of a holy God and not be consumed.
Sometimes we want to put away that sin and act as if it never happened and just
go on with life as we want it to be.
There's a broader framework you must bring into any reading of Leviticus,
and when you do, you find that Leviticus is not all about law, crime, and punishment.
(10:28):
It's God's gracious provision for his people.
When when Leviticus spelled out what the crimes were, what the laws was, what the sins were,
it also provided God's provision of a sacrifice to do away with that sin.
It really is about grace. It's not the grace from Christ. It's the grace that
(10:54):
God is extending as a sacrifice for that sin.
It's God's provision for his people to be able to present themselves before
him and come back into his presence.
It's an instruction on how Israel can live with God in their midst,
even though he's a holy God and they are not.
It is the precursor to the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world.
(11:19):
So let's narrow this context a little bit. In the first three chapters of Leviticus,
we are introduced to sacrifice as a means of atonement and reconciliation with God.
In chapter 1, the burnt offerings atones for sin.
In chapter 3, the fellowship offering or peace offering reconciles our relationship with the Creator.
Only one thing more is needed, and that is purification.
(11:41):
What we must remember when we are dealing with sin, it is that not so easily
contained in a single act. Sin is not just a single act.
Dealing with sin requires more than just forgiveness.
Like a pebble thrown into the still waters of a pond, sin spreads beyond the sinner.
(12:04):
As noted earlier, it has a seeping quality about it.
It defiles not only the sinner, but the place where the sinner sins,
and no sin is isolated to one individual.
It affects everyone around that individual in some way or another,
and in a very real sense, biblically speaking, the sinner cares the stink of
(12:25):
sin wherever he or she goes.
For ancient Israel, this included the tabernacle, the place where God dwelt among his people.
Much has been made over the centuries concerning each element of the sacrifice.
In the eyes of some commentators, the blood of the animal symbolized the soul.
(12:47):
The fat portions represent the best part of man, and the meat and hide that
is carried outside the camp represents the body of sin that is to be burned up in the fire.
I'm no theologian, nor am I an ancient—I'm getting close—nor am I Moses,
so I cannot speak to the validity of these symbolic interpretations,
(13:07):
but there are three things I'm sure of, certain of.
The first thing is this, is that there is a clear substitution taking place
in the sacrifice. The animal dies in place of the sinner.
Think about that. The animal dies in the place of the sinner.
Every sin has a consequence of death and separation.
(13:33):
Look with me at verses 13 through 15 of our text again.
If the whole Israelite community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden
in any of the Lord's commands, even though the community is unaware of the matter, they're guilty.
When they become aware of the sin they committed, the assembly must bring a
(13:53):
young bull as a sin offering and present it before the tent of meeting.
The elders of the community are to lay their hands on the bull's head before
the Lord, and the bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord.
So that every person must lay their hand on the animal of sacrifice's head,
symbolizing that you are taking my sin.
(14:17):
You are being substituted for me. What's striking in the passage is the oozing nature of sin.
The sacrifice is not for the sin of the individual. In fact,
if you read on in Leviticus chapters 4 and 5, you will find that there's specific
instructions given to the individuals for making a sin offering.
In this particular passage, however, God is addressing communal sin,
(14:41):
the failure to be a people defined by holiness.
It's not necessarily one communal act, but rather a communal attitude or laxity towards sin.
It's when the community just begins to let people be as people will be.
Let's say fair, let them do what they want.
And the whole community is affected by this sin.
(15:07):
In the Jewish and Eastern traditions, it's understood that.
There's personal guilt, and there's communal guilt.
We have a personal guilt. We in America and the Western world talk about everything
as just individualism. We're all responsible for our own guilt.
But in the Eastern communities, they understood that every sin one person commits
(15:33):
is a violation on the whole community.
And sooner or later, when we give in and allow those sins to be,
it affects the entire community.
This is a compilation of the people's allowance of individual sin to pile up
and infiltrate attitudes so much that there seems to be an attitude of callousness towards sin.
(15:55):
And so the elders, representing the whole community, would come before the tent
of meeting with a sacrifice, a bull, place their hands upon its head as it was being slaughtered.
The clear intention of placing the hand, as I said, on the head of the sacrifice
was to identify the sacrifice with the sinner.
In this case, to mark it as standing in the place of the sin-stained community.
(16:21):
The wages of sin is death.
So without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness. Now imagine the scene.
You're an Israelite in need of forgiveness of cleansing, so you bring the requisite
sacrifice before the tent of meeting.
The stench of blood and burning flesh hags heavy in the air.
(16:43):
The sacrifice that you bring smells that carnage and begins to struggle.
You wrestle with the animal into place.
You bring it before the priest, putting your hand on its head,
and while the act of identification is taking place, the priest takes the knife
and runs it across the neck of the sacrifice, draining the blood.
(17:06):
Sin is serious business.
Everything about the sacrifice points to how profoundly sin impacts our life and our world.
And that leads me to the next point, and that is purification.
Despite the disturbing picture it represents, the killing of the sacrificial
(17:26):
animal is not the central point.
The central focus of this passage is what is done with the blood of the sacrifice,
because it reveals the nature of the sacrifice purification.
When you have a wound, that blood coming out of that wound is actually purifying that wound.
(17:48):
It's pulling the infirmities out, pulling the dirt out.
Of course, we also want to use cleanser to be able to clean the wound,
but it's pulling that infection out.
When you read through chapter 4, you'll find that it follows a pattern.
It deals first with the sin offering of the priest.
(18:12):
When the priest admits and finds out that he's guilty of sin,
the priest has to bring a sacrifice before the Lord.
In fact, he bears the corporate presence of Israel before God, and how can a priest.
Present offerings for the rest of his people unless he is cleansed and purified himself.
(18:38):
It would be bringing my sin before God and condoning that sin while condemning yours.
That can't happen. That's not right. I have to be presented before the Lord
before I can present you before the Lord.
Then we have a passage from this morning about the sin offering of the people.
(19:00):
And then finally, we look at the sin offering for an individual leader and then
individual people within the community.
For sin to be fully dealt with, a pollution of sin needs to be purged from the
sinner, in particular whether it seeps into the presence of the Holy One of Israel.
The presence of the sinner, even in seeking atonement, defiled the tabernacle.
(19:25):
But there's grace in the instruction concerning the sin offering.
It is the means of purification, the way to clean up the pollution spread by sin.
Through this distribution of blood, the sinner was purified and is now able
to stand in the presence of God.
And that's what brings us up to our third point, and that is it.
(19:47):
The final thing I'm sure is concerning the symbolism of this passage is that
the removal of the rest of the animal that was burned upon the altar of burnt
offering represents the removal of the pollution of sin outside the camp where it was burned.
It's a declaration that the camp of God's people is clear and clean,
(20:12):
and the tabernacle is once again purified and a fitting place dwelling for the presence of God.
All this imagery, disturbing and brutal as it was, reveals to us just how serious sin is anyway.
It's not just a mild indiscretion, just a personal weakness that when time permits,
(20:35):
we can deal with at our leisure.
Sin requires immediate and drastic
action because it separates us from the covenantal relationship with God.
I'm sure we could all come up with endless lists of examples of how sin disrupts
the fellowship of the faith community.
Let me ask you a couple questions. How often do we run to a fellow believer
(21:00):
and joyously exclaim that we have just committed a sin?
We don't, do we? We build walls of deception to hide our sin.
We act even more as if we are holier than thou.
Yet sin creeps into all of our relationships, isolating us with walls of deception,
destroying the unity we were supposed to share.
(21:23):
Yet in the Israelite community, as in the case now, sin in the camp really needs
to be addressed individually and corporately.
It's seeping, polluting, defiling nature demands radical measures. So what are we to do?
If we sacrificed an animal now, as I said before, PETA would be jumping down our throats.
(21:46):
We would be charged with animal cruelty. So then, how then do we deal with this defilement of sin?
Well, let me direct you to Hebrews chapter 13, verses 11 and 12,
where it says the high priest carries the blood of animals into the most holy
place as they sin offerings, but the bodies are burned outside the camp.
(22:08):
And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.
The atoning death of Christ has purchased us much more than just pardon for our sin.
His death has even done more than purchasing our peace with God.
(22:29):
The blood of Christ is also the means by which we are purified,
cleansed completely from the stain of sin, and are enabled to come back into the presence of God.
Without that, we don't have a standing.
Think about that for a moment. the shameful stench and filth that clings to
(22:50):
us because of our past sinful life, whether it be from drug abuse,
dishonesty, promiscuity, perversion, drunkenness, violence,
adultery, or murder, or whatever, is wiped clean and erased completely.
We are not only justified, we are purified in the sight of God because of what Christ has done.
(23:10):
But he doesn't want to do that to us and then have us return into those same things?
What good would that do? What good would his sacrifice have done if we return
back to the filth that we were in?
Christ has become the substitutionary sacrifice that provides our purification
(23:32):
and makes us a fitting dwelling for the presence of an almighty and holy God who loves us.
We are the camp of God's people in the tabernacle of his presence.
The sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus, is our substitute that has purified
us to make us a temple for the presence of God.
(23:53):
Not only in the Old Testament did it provide the presence of God in the tabernacle,
but in the New Testament, we are the tabernacle of God.
And so Christ has purified us and allowed us to be in the presence.
People of God, you're clean. We are clean.
Our uncleanness has been washed away by the blood of the Lamb. Hallelujah.
(24:16):
But he didn't mean to leave us there. Maybe you're here today and you don't feel so clean.
Sometimes the stink of secret sin hangs over you like bad body odor. And yes, I'm sweating.
Or maybe you don't realize how clean you really are.
You've grown up in a church and believed in Christ from an early age,
(24:36):
and it never really dawned on you that you need to be cleansed in the first place.
Or maybe you still struggle with a lifetime being long or short of little white
lies and quiet private lusts.
Regardless of what your condition is this morning, I have good news for you.
You can be cleaned, and you can know that you are clean. How?
(24:56):
I want you to think back to the passage again.
When was the sacrifice offered?
When a person or community recognized and acknowledged their sin,
an unintentional sin, but they knew nothing about it or didn't know about it
until they came to the point where they acknowledged and recognized,
then they made their sacrifice.
(25:20):
Only then did they lay their hand on the head of the sacrifice,
admitting their need for atonement and cleansing.
1 John 1, verse 9 tells us that if we acknowledge our sin, if we confess our
sin, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Having sin in the camp is a dangerous thing. It must be dealt with.
(25:44):
Only one measure is radical enough to deal with it finally and fully.
The good news is that God has done something new and radical.
He has shed his own blood, not only so that we could have our sin forgiven,
but also to wash away that pollution, that stinky smell of our sin.
(26:05):
Christ's blood was shed to stop the cycle of sin. I tell people oftentimes,
if somebody has had an alcoholic in their past, in their family,
when they grow up and don't go into the age of alcoholism, if they refuse to
touch alcohol, their children and grandchildren will not even know that life.
(26:29):
So just as the sins of one generation are completed onto the sins of the third generation,
so the righteousness that we do in following Christ changes our lives and that
of our family as we go on. So let's keep our camp clean.
The grace is God is given to us in the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God, and that is Christ.
(26:53):
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for these lessons in the Old Testament.
Yeah, they're really tough to read.
I mean, sometimes we wonder why you have these books in the Bible,
why you spoke these words, why you had the Israelites taught these things.
But yet we know that without Genesis chapter 3, the rest of the Bible is not necessary for us.
(27:16):
It is only through this understanding of us walking away from you and your desire
to recreate us into your image that we have Genesis 4 through Revelation 22
pointing to not only to the coming of Christ,
but our redemption and purification in you so that we could be with you in all of eternity.
(27:38):
In Jesus' name, amen.
So the story of Frankenstein has fascinated generations since its first appearance in 1818,
and how many of you ever thought you would come to the Free Methodist Church
and have reference to Frankenstein?
Well, sometimes we feel like him, don't we?
But anyway, it's a many-spluttered thing, speaking eloquently on such social
(00:23):
ills as child neglect, and scientific advancement in the absence of ethics.
Now, when you read Frankenstein and saw Frankenstein, did you ever think that
it was a story of the absence, scientific advancement in the absence of ethics?
(00:44):
It was just kind of this interesting story, but really it had a lot of that in the story.
It's just as relevant today in the light of parent absenteeism and cloning as
it was in the day of its writing.
But the story speaks to us in many other ways as well, subtle ways evident only
to the observant and wise.
The number of theories as to the message of Frankenstein abound and grow stranger
(01:09):
with each one, from Marxist theories to Freudian interpretations.
And what the story of Frankenstein vividly depicts is how the pride and arrogance
of one man is in creating something new driving the motor of discovery can also
have adverse consequences in the broader community.
(01:32):
When viewed theologically, you can boil Frankenstein down to the story about sin.
Pride, arrogantly assuming the mantle of God to create something is what got
us in the trouble in garden, and it is the root of the troubles that assail
Victor, Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
(01:54):
The monster becomes the embodiment of his pride and runs amok,
destroying all that the scientist holds dear, and eventually even destroys him.
What we find out about sin in Frankenstein is that it has a seeping quality
about it. It pollutes everything it touches, even beyond the sinful act itself.
(02:18):
Sin is a topic we don't like to talk about much, do we?
We speak at length and fondly about grace. We dwell often on love.
We thrill at the talk of mercy.
But when the conversation turns to sin, we clam up.
We don't have much to say. Many in the Christian church would like us to forget about sin.
(02:42):
Everybody's okay. We all go to heaven.
Why not accentuate the positive? Why talk about sin? All it does is bring us
down, destroys our self-esteem.
Everybody knows that we don't want to talk about sin because that makes us feel bad.
We cannot attract new believers in our church by talking about sin.
(03:06):
Such negativity would only drive the seeker away.
Well, no one wants to hear about how bad we are.
Besides, why talk about sin at all when we have so much good news to hear?
Well, let me offer you two answers.
First, the common sense answer, and then a theological answer.
(03:28):
The common sense answer is simply this.
In order for the good news to be good, it must have a comparison to something else.
You know the old good news, bad news type thing? It can't be good news if there's
not bad news to compare it to.
There can't be good if there's not bad. There can't be righteousness and holiness
(03:54):
if there's not sin as well, and sin is the bad news.
The theological answer is that sin is everywhere. It's the cosmic problem.
It's the absence of good, just as darkness is the absence of light.
It's the reason for the existence of good news, and biblically speaking,
(04:15):
without the emergence of sin from Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3,
the third chapter in the Bible,
without that reference to Adam and Eve's sins, Genesis 4 through Revelation
22 would be unnecessary.
(04:36):
The scriptures tell us the story of how God deals with the problem of sin and
reclaims his misdirected creation.
We need to speak of sin because it's essential to our story.
Only in the shadow of the fall does the light of the good news appear in the truest brilliance.
We need to know how bad our situation really is before we can appreciate how good it can be in Christ.
(05:00):
Christ we need to see where we are without
God to see where we can be
with God and we need to remember
how bad it really was in order to truly grasp how
blessed we are in Christ so we talk about
sin which brings me to our passage this morning Leviticus
chapter 4 verses 13 through 21
(05:23):
it's a passage filled with startling imagery aimed at exposing the seriousness
of sin It presents in compelling detail what the people of God must do when
they realize that the stain of sin has spread over the entire community.
Now, I said this a couple weeks ago when I started the series on Leviticus.
(05:47):
This is the book in the Bible that everybody loves to read, right?
We all look forward to reading Leviticus. But if it wasn't for Leviticus speaking
about sin and the holiness of God, we wouldn't have any desire to be like him, would we?
(06:08):
We wouldn't have any reason to be. If there was no sin.
We would be like God. So let's read this Leviticus chapter 4, verses 13 through 21.
If the whole Israelite community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden
in any of the Lord's commands,
even though the community is unaware of the matter, when they realize their
(06:32):
guilt and the sin they committed becomes known,
the assembly must bring a young bull as a sin offering and present it before the tent of meeting.
Now, yeah, right. Listen to Peter scream. The elders of the community are to
lay their hands on the bull's head before the Lord, and the bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord.
(06:52):
Then the anointed priest is to take some of the bull's blood into the tent of meeting.
He shall dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle it before the Lord seven
times in front of the curtain. If he does it six, it's not enough. Seven times.
He is to put some of the blood on the horns of the altar that is before the
(07:13):
Lord in the tent of meeting.
The rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering
at the entrance to the tent of meeting.
He shall remove all the fat from it and burn it on the altar and do with this
bull just as he did with a bull for the sin offering.
In this way, the priest will make atonement for the community and they will be forgiven.
(07:38):
Then he shall take the bull outside the camp and burn it as he burned the first bull.
This is the sin offering for the community.
So why did I read that?
It's really gory, isn't it? I mean,
I told you a couple weeks ago that I thought that it'd be kind of interesting
to have come into worship someday and have electric fireplace or something looking
(08:03):
like fire up here and have the smell of burning flesh and burning hair.
But you know, when every time the Israelites entered into that tabernacle and
into the tent of meeting and into the place where they sacrificed this,
they smelled the smell of their sin.
I want us to begin this morning by taking a look at the context for this passage,
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moving from its broader context to its more immediate framework.
Then we'll explore some of the imagery coming to grips with how seriously sin
should be taken. And finally, we talk about this passage in our context.
Does it speak to us today?
The book of Leviticus doesn't get much airplay these days. You don't find too
many preachers talking about Leviticus, only some weird ones from a rural town
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called Richland Center.
We just don't know what to do with this book full of its regulations.
In our grace-filled religion, law seems so legalistic, And all that animal sacrifice
stuff offends our new millennium Christian sensibilities.
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And when you read Leviticus in the light of how the Exodus narrative ends,
the book becomes less about law and more about how to live before a gracious and holy God.
You may remember that Exodus ends with the account of the glory cloud representing
God's presence settling down on the tabernacle.
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God now dwelt in the midst of his people. But there is an unarticulated problem.
God is holy. Israel is not. They are a sinful and stiff-necked generation of people.
It has not been that long since the golden calf episode in the wilderness when
they tried to make a God that was superior to the God, and holiness demands that sin be dealt with.
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How can they hope to live in the presence of a holy God and not be consumed.
Sometimes we want to put away that sin and act as if it never happened and just
go on with life as we want it to be.
There's a broader framework you must bring into any reading of Leviticus,
and when you do, you find that Leviticus is not all about law, crime, and punishment.
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It's God's gracious provision for his people.
When when Leviticus spelled out what the crimes were, what the laws was, what the sins were,
it also provided God's provision of a sacrifice to do away with that sin.
It really is about grace. It's not the grace from Christ. It's the grace that
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God is extending as a sacrifice for that sin.
It's God's provision for his people to be able to present themselves before
him and come back into his presence.
It's an instruction on how Israel can live with God in their midst,
even though he's a holy God and they are not.
It is the precursor to the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world.
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So let's narrow this context a little bit. In the first three chapters of Leviticus,
we are introduced to sacrifice as a means of atonement and reconciliation with God.
In chapter 1, the burnt offerings atones for sin.
In chapter 3, the fellowship offering or peace offering reconciles our relationship with the Creator.
Only one thing more is needed, and that is purification.
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What we must remember when we are dealing with sin, it is that not so easily
contained in a single act. Sin is not just a single act.
Dealing with sin requires more than just forgiveness.
Like a pebble thrown into the still waters of a pond, sin spreads beyond the sinner.
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As noted earlier, it has a seeping quality about it.
It defiles not only the sinner, but the place where the sinner sins,
and no sin is isolated to one individual.
It affects everyone around that individual in some way or another,
and in a very real sense, biblically speaking, the sinner cares the stink of
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sin wherever he or she goes.
For ancient Israel, this included the tabernacle, the place where God dwelt among his people.
Much has been made over the centuries concerning each element of the sacrifice.
In the eyes of some commentators, the blood of the animal symbolized the soul.
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The fat portions represent the best part of man, and the meat and hide that
is carried outside the camp represents the body of sin that is to be burned up in the fire.
I'm no theologian, nor am I an ancient—I'm getting close—nor am I Moses,
so I cannot speak to the validity of these symbolic interpretations,
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but there are three things I'm sure of, certain of.
The first thing is this, is that there is a clear substitution taking place
in the sacrifice. The animal dies in place of the sinner.
Think about that. The animal dies in the place of the sinner.
Every sin has a consequence of death and separation.
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Look with me at verses 13 through 15 of our text again.
If the whole Israelite community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden
in any of the Lord's commands, even though the community is unaware of the matter, they're guilty.
When they become aware of the sin they committed, the assembly must bring a
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young bull as a sin offering and present it before the tent of meeting.
The elders of the community are to lay their hands on the bull's head before
the Lord, and the bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord.
So that every person must lay their hand on the animal of sacrifice's head,
symbolizing that you are taking my sin.
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You are being substituted for me. What's striking in the passage is the oozing nature of sin.
The sacrifice is not for the sin of the individual. In fact,
if you read on in Leviticus chapters 4 and 5, you will find that there's specific
instructions given to the individuals for making a sin offering.
In this particular passage, however, God is addressing communal sin,
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the failure to be a people defined by holiness.
It's not necessarily one communal act, but rather a communal attitude or laxity towards sin.
It's when the community just begins to let people be as people will be.
Let's say fair, let them do what they want.
And the whole community is affected by this sin.
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In the Jewish and Eastern traditions, it's understood that.
There's personal guilt, and there's communal guilt.
We have a personal guilt. We in America and the Western world talk about everything
as just individualism. We're all responsible for our own guilt.
But in the Eastern communities, they understood that every sin one person commits
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is a violation on the whole community.
And sooner or later, when we give in and allow those sins to be,
it affects the entire community.
This is a compilation of the people's allowance of individual sin to pile up
and infiltrate attitudes so much that there seems to be an attitude of callousness towards sin.
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And so the elders, representing the whole community, would come before the tent
of meeting with a sacrifice, a bull, place their hands upon its head as it was being slaughtered.
The clear intention of placing the hand, as I said, on the head of the sacrifice
was to identify the sacrifice with the sinner.
In this case, to mark it as standing in the place of the sin-stained community.
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The wages of sin is death.
So without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness. Now imagine the scene.
You're an Israelite in need of forgiveness of cleansing, so you bring the requisite
sacrifice before the tent of meeting.
The stench of blood and burning flesh hags heavy in the air.
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The sacrifice that you bring smells that carnage and begins to struggle.
You wrestle with the animal into place.
You bring it before the priest, putting your hand on its head,
and while the act of identification is taking place, the priest takes the knife
and runs it across the neck of the sacrifice, draining the blood.
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Sin is serious business.
Everything about the sacrifice points to how profoundly sin impacts our life and our world.
And that leads me to the next point, and that is purification.
Despite the disturbing picture it represents, the killing of the sacrificial
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animal is not the central point.
The central focus of this passage is what is done with the blood of the sacrifice,
because it reveals the nature of the sacrifice purification.
When you have a wound, that blood coming out of that wound is actually purifying that wound.
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It's pulling the infirmities out, pulling the dirt out.
Of course, we also want to use cleanser to be able to clean the wound,
but it's pulling that infection out.
When you read through chapter 4, you'll find that it follows a pattern.
It deals first with the sin offering of the priest.
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When the priest admits and finds out that he's guilty of sin,
the priest has to bring a sacrifice before the Lord.
In fact, he bears the corporate presence of Israel before God, and how can a priest.
Present offerings for the rest of his people unless he is cleansed and purified himself.
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It would be bringing my sin before God and condoning that sin while condemning yours.
That can't happen. That's not right. I have to be presented before the Lord
before I can present you before the Lord.
Then we have a passage from this morning about the sin offering of the people.
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And then finally, we look at the sin offering for an individual leader and then
individual people within the community.
For sin to be fully dealt with, a pollution of sin needs to be purged from the
sinner, in particular whether it seeps into the presence of the Holy One of Israel.
The presence of the sinner, even in seeking atonement, defiled the tabernacle.
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But there's grace in the instruction concerning the sin offering.
It is the means of purification, the way to clean up the pollution spread by sin.
Through this distribution of blood, the sinner was purified and is now able
to stand in the presence of God.
And that's what brings us up to our third point, and that is it.
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The final thing I'm sure is concerning the symbolism of this passage is that
the removal of the rest of the animal that was burned upon the altar of burnt
offering represents the removal of the pollution of sin outside the camp where it was burned.
It's a declaration that the camp of God's people is clear and clean,
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and the tabernacle is once again purified and a fitting place dwelling for the presence of God.
All this imagery, disturbing and brutal as it was, reveals to us just how serious sin is anyway.
It's not just a mild indiscretion, just a personal weakness that when time permits,
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we can deal with at our leisure.
Sin requires immediate and drastic
action because it separates us from the covenantal relationship with God.
I'm sure we could all come up with endless lists of examples of how sin disrupts
the fellowship of the faith community.
Let me ask you a couple questions. How often do we run to a fellow believer
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and joyously exclaim that we have just committed a sin?
We don't, do we? We build walls of deception to hide our sin.
We act even more as if we are holier than thou.
Yet sin creeps into all of our relationships, isolating us with walls of deception,
destroying the unity we were supposed to share.
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Yet in the Israelite community, as in the case now, sin in the camp really needs
to be addressed individually and corporately.
It's seeping, polluting, defiling nature demands radical measures. So what are we to do?
If we sacrificed an animal now, as I said before, PETA would be jumping down our throats.
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We would be charged with animal cruelty. So then, how then do we deal with this defilement of sin?
Well, let me direct you to Hebrews chapter 13, verses 11 and 12,
where it says the high priest carries the blood of animals into the most holy
place as they sin offerings, but the bodies are burned outside the camp.
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And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.
The atoning death of Christ has purchased us much more than just pardon for our sin.
His death has even done more than purchasing our peace with God.
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The blood of Christ is also the means by which we are purified,
cleansed completely from the stain of sin, and are enabled to come back into the presence of God.
Without that, we don't have a standing.
Think about that for a moment. the shameful stench and filth that clings to
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us because of our past sinful life, whether it be from drug abuse,
dishonesty, promiscuity, perversion, drunkenness, violence,
adultery, or murder, or whatever, is wiped clean and erased completely.
We are not only justified, we are purified in the sight of God because of what Christ has done.
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But he doesn't want to do that to us and then have us return into those same things?
What good would that do? What good would his sacrifice have done if we return
back to the filth that we were in?
Christ has become the substitutionary sacrifice that provides our purification
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and makes us a fitting dwelling for the presence of an almighty and holy God who loves us.
We are the camp of God's people in the tabernacle of his presence.
The sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus, is our substitute that has purified
us to make us a temple for the presence of God.
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Not only in the Old Testament did it provide the presence of God in the tabernacle,
but in the New Testament, we are the tabernacle of God.
And so Christ has purified us and allowed us to be in the presence.
People of God, you're clean. We are clean.
Our uncleanness has been washed away by the blood of the Lamb. Hallelujah.
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But he didn't mean to leave us there. Maybe you're here today and you don't feel so clean.
Sometimes the stink of secret sin hangs over you like bad body odor. And yes, I'm sweating.
Or maybe you don't realize how clean you really are.
You've grown up in a church and believed in Christ from an early age,
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and it never really dawned on you that you need to be cleansed in the first place.
Or maybe you still struggle with a lifetime being long or short of little white
lies and quiet private lusts.
Regardless of what your condition is this morning, I have good news for you.
You can be cleaned, and you can know that you are clean. How?
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I want you to think back to the passage again.
When was the sacrifice offered?
When a person or community recognized and acknowledged their sin,
an unintentional sin, but they knew nothing about it or didn't know about it
until they came to the point where they acknowledged and recognized,
then they made their sacrifice.
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Only then did they lay their hand on the head of the sacrifice,
admitting their need for atonement and cleansing.
1 John 1, verse 9 tells us that if we acknowledge our sin, if we confess our
sin, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Having sin in the camp is a dangerous thing. It must be dealt with.
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Only one measure is radical enough to deal with it finally and fully.
The good news is that God has done something new and radical.
He has shed his own blood, not only so that we could have our sin forgiven,
but also to wash away that pollution, that stinky smell of our sin.
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Christ's blood was shed to stop the cycle of sin. I tell people oftentimes,
if somebody has had an alcoholic in their past, in their family,
when they grow up and don't go into the age of alcoholism, if they refuse to
touch alcohol, their children and grandchildren will not even know that life.
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So just as the sins of one generation are completed onto the sins of the third generation,
so the righteousness that we do in following Christ changes our lives and that
of our family as we go on. So let's keep our camp clean.
The grace is God is given to us in the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God, and that is Christ.
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Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for these lessons in the Old Testament.
Yeah, they're really tough to read.
I mean, sometimes we wonder why you have these books in the Bible,
why you spoke these words, why you had the Israelites taught these things.
But yet we know that without Genesis chapter 3, the rest of the Bible is not necessary for us.
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It is only through this understanding of us walking away from you and your desire
to recreate us into your image that we have Genesis 4 through Revelation 22
pointing to not only to the coming of Christ,
but our redemption and purification in you so that we could be with you in all of eternity.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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