Dawn in the Desert - Part 2
- Bible Prophet
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship [Romans 12:1].
The person presenting an animal offering to the Lord at the bronze altar was the one who killed the animal. The daily whole burnt offerings were presented on behalf of the entire congregation of Israel. So who killed those animals? That’s a toughie.
Not! As in the case of the individual Israelite presenting his offering, so too with the offerings on behalf of the entire congregation. The Lord determined every single detail. The Lord micromanaged the entire process. This is because man’s approach to the Lord is always on the Lord’s terms. Man gets to contribute nary a thing to the method of approach.
So, then, what were the Lord’s instructions for presenting the continual burnt offering on the bronze altar every morning and every evening? Just this, that His designated agents, the priests, were to present the offering on behalf of the entire congregation of Israel. After all, that is why the Lord set them apart from the other tribes of Israel in the first place.
The priests stood between the Lord and the Israelites. They represented the Lord to the Israelites, and they represented the Israelites to the Lord. A fine arrangement for a covenant based on law. The Law demanded that man be perfect. An Israelite demonstrated his perfection or lack thereof by perfectly obeying every last detail of the Law of Moses.
Failure to perfectly obey the Law in all its minute details 24/7/365 exposed the Israelite as a lawbreaker, a sinner. The wages of sin is death, so the Israelite had to die. He couldn’t approach the holy Lord.
Which was where the animal sacrifices came in. The Lord employed this temporary expedient to permit the Israelite to kill himself in effigy, so to speak. After he died for his sins by means of a substitute offering, the penalty for his sins was paid and he no longer needed to die for them. Hence he was enabled to approach the holy Lord, there no longer being any sin on his accounts payable ledger.
Much of what I’ve explained applied specifically to the sin offering, not to the burnt offering. However, every blood sacrifice (i.e., animal sacrifice) was killed before being offered on the bronze altar. This implied that sin first was judged before any other aspect of man’s relationship with the Lord was implemented.
So the priest killed the lamb—the continual burnt offering was always a lamb. Next the priest cut the lamb into its constituent parts and placed the parts on the bronze altar. The parts remained there all day, burning until they were entirely consumed. The entire animal, minus the skin, was consumed by the fire of the bronze altar. The skin was no more than a façade on the outside, mere appearance, which can never be presented to the holy Lord.
Whew! Offering blood sacrifices on the bronze altar is hard work. Let’s take a breather and return tomorrow to continue our labors. In the interim let’s be refreshed in the prayer closet with our Lord.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Numbers: Volume 4 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please click on the "Shop" tab at the top of this page, where you will find a complete list of my books. Each book is available in both paperback (Createspace) and eBook (Kindle).
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