BAM! Gone...


Did I mention that the Levitical offerings can be divided into two groups?  the ones that involve blood shed and the one that does not.  The continual burnt offering, the peace offering, and the sin and trespass offerings all involve the slaughter of animals.  The meat offering was the only meat-less offering.  This used to really humor me...The only meatless offering was called the meat offering.  Those of you not using a King James probably have no idea what I am taking about.  In the days of King James, when people shared a meal, they didn’t come for dinner, they came to meat. John Nelson D. simply calls the meat offering an oblation, which is an offering to be used as food.

Did I mention that the Levitical offerings can be divided into two groups? the ones that atoned sins, and the one that was primarily for food.  Each of the blood-shedding offerings made atonement for sins.  The meat offering did not include bloodshed and was for food, not atonement.  Atonement is one of those words that I would like to define.  Here again, my definition, may or may not hold true 100% of the time.

Atonement is simply a covering.  With respect to sacrifices, it is a covering of/for sin.  Offering a sacrifice was like picking up the edge of the carpet and sweeping the sin under it.  The sin is still there, just covered.  Sin again, offer another sacrifice, pick up the edge of the carpet to sweep new sin in.  The old sin is still there, and both are covered.  The process was repeated innumerable times. Atonement was an Old Testament thing.

In the beginning of the Gospel of John, John the Baptist ...sees Jesus coming to him, and says, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).  The people that heard this were accustomed to the tabernacle/temple system of worship.  They knew that a lamb (an innocent animal) could be offered as a sacrifice.  The ritual included the laying on of hands (signifying the transfer of sins from the guilty to the innocent); death by bloodshed; sprinkling of blood; and burning of the carcass.  They knew that there was atonement of sin with the sacrifice.  

But John is introducing two new principals, paradigm shifts (TQM, anyone? anyone?) of the ancient world: a person (not an animal) for a sacrifice and the actual removal of sin.  Peek  under the carpet and BAM!  Those sins are gone!

The author of Hebrews explains this further.  For blood of bulls and goats [is] incapable of taking away sins. Heb. 10:4.  For this reason, offerings were made continually, day by day, year after year (Heb. 10:1-2).  The priests job was never done. But when Jesus offered one himself a sacrifice, once, completed the work, and our sins and iniquities are remembered no more (Heb 10:17).  There is no more need for additional offerings (10:18). There is no need for a covering since BAM! sins are gone!

All my sins are gone,
All because of Calvary;
Life is filled with song,
All because of Calvary;
Christ my Savior lives,
Lives from sin to set me free;
Some day He’s coming,
O wondrous, blessèd day,
All, yes, all because of Calvary. -- Wen­dell P. Love­less