Leviticus (19) Not to Appease God

A common belief among Christians is that the tabernacle sacrifices were necessary to allow God to be in relationship with his people. They assume that God is so holy that he cannot interact with sinful people in any way, so sacrifices were essential to appease his anger so he could come near the people he had chosen. Reading the Old Testament, it is clear that God has never had a problem interacting with sinful people. The initiative was always with God.

• God spoke to Adam and Eve in the garden after they fell and blessed them with garments.

• God called Abraham even though he continued to make serious mistakes.

• He called Jacob and watched over him, even though he was a liar and a cheater.

• He protected Joseph and spoke through him, even though he was proud.

• Even when he sent his people into exile from the promised land, it was because he cared about them and wanted to restore them, and in exile, he continued to speak to them and keep them safe.

• He prepared Moses and sent him to rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt before they offered sacrifices to him.

• God revealed himself to Paul while he was intent on killing followers of Jesus.

• He was active in my life while I was still hostile to him.

All these events took place without any human acknowledgment of sin or blood offerings for transgressions.

We are sometimes taught that God hates sin and can't have anything to do with sinful people, but that is only half true. He does hate sin, but it is because of the harm it allows the spiritual powers of evil to do to people. But it is not true that he cannot have any contact with sinful people. He did it all the time throughout the scriptures.

God rescued the children of Israel from Egypt and brought them to the promised land before any offerings had been made. He did not need sacrifices to allow him to intervene, even though the people continued to be obstructive and rebellious the entire way.

The tabernacle offerings were not needed to start or sustain a relationship with God. Rather, they were needed to keep the people and the tabernacle safe from the spiritual powers of evil who had dominated them as slaves in Egypt and wanted to get them back under control again. The offerings specified in Leviticus did that effectively.

The writer to the Hebrews refers to the offerings described in Leviticus throughout the letter. He describes how Jesus defeated the devil, but he never says that a blood offering was needed to appease God or to allow him to interact with his people. The idea that this is their purpose has to be read into the letter from elsewhere.

Leviticus (18) God Does Not Need Blood

God does not need blood. Why would he want it? He wants to rescue us so we can live our lives for him, as Jesus lived for him.

If God was unable to rescue us from the spiritual powers of evil because we refuse to be rescued, he could just disappear us (unless he wanted to torture us for our unwillingness to be rescued, but that would make him an ugly God). God created the universe and sustains all existence and life by his power, so if he became frustrated with me, he could remove me at any time, simply by stopping sustaining my life and letting me disappear from existence. If I have become so bad that God does not think that I am worthy of existence, he does not need to kill me. He can simply discontinue my existence. He does not need my blood.

On the other hand, the spiritual powers of evil are vicious haters who love destroying life. They like blood because it means death. That is why they demand blood as the ransom price for setting us free from our bondage to them. They are the ones who demanded blood because they assumed that no one would be willing to give it, especially for others. They were surprised because Jesus willingly died on the cross and shed his blood to meet their demand, so we could be set free to become the people of God. When he had risen again and ascended into the presence of God and offered his life to him. Paul explains the nature of Jesus' offering to God in Eph 5:2.

Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

Jesus offered his life of obedient love to God. This was a sweet-smelling aroma, equivalent to the effect of the incense offered on the golden altar in the tabernacle.

Leviticus (17) Jesus’ Blood

Many Christians believe that Hebrews teaches that Jesus took his blood into the spiritual Holy of Holies when he ascended, but I can’t find that in the scriptures, which suggests that something is wrong with the idea. Heb 13:12 is clear that he shed his blood outside the gate of the city.

And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.

He did not keep any of the blood that flowed in a vessel, as the priests would have done in the tabernacle, so he had no blood to take into the spiritual Holy of Holies. Jesus was dead, so he was not able to gather any of his blood in a jar, even if he had wanted it preserved.

At the point of his death, Jesus could not capture blood to offer to God as he was not a priest (due to being born of Judah). And he did not tell any of his followers to do it, although some were of the priestly line. Jesus' blood was poured out on the ground at Golgotha, just like the blood was poured on the ground by the bronze altar outside the entrance of the tabernacle. The spilt blood was the payment of the ransom demanded by the spiritual powers of evil. They wanted life, not blood, but demanded blood as a way of taking life.

The Old Testament priests offered blood as it contained life. They could not offer their own lives, as they were not willing to die. Hebrews says that Jesus offered his own life to God when he went into the Holy of Holies. God does not want blood; he wants life. He wants our lives and redeemed us so we can live the full lives he created us to live. God is all about life, not blood.

Jesus' ministry was a process just like the offerings described in Leviticus. Dying was just the first step in the process that ended with him offering himself to God in the spiritual Holy of Holies. Once raised, he became a priest after the order of Melchizedek and could enter the Holy of Holies.

Hebrews teaches us that Jesus offered himself when he entered the presence of God. The phrase offered himself is used numerous times in the book (Heb 7:27; 8:3; 9;14; 9:25; 9:28;10:10): It never says that he offered his blood. Heb 9:12 says that he” entered by his blood” and gained redemption for us (we needed to be redeemed/ransomed from the spiritual powers of evil).

He entered the Most Holy Place once for all through his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.

His blood was shed on the cross and dropped onto the ground. Jesus was made perfect by this suffering, which allowed him to become a priest and go into the Holy of Holies.

Heb 9:14 says that his “blood cleanses our consciences (from the accusations of the spiritual powers of evil) but that “he offers himself unblemished to God” by the power of the Holy Spirit (ie the resurrection).

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

When Jesus rose again, he had a spiritual body. I presume that it had the spiritual equivalent of blood (whatever that means), but it was not offered apart from his entire being and life. He went into the heavenly holy of holies and offered his entire human life to his Father, a life that culminated in his suffering and death. His life was a worthy offering, so his Father was pleased with him and offered mercy to the people who belong to him (Heb 8:12).

Ironically, the Old Testament priests never presented blood to God in the holy of holies. In Leviticus, the word “present/bring” is applied to the person bringing the animal or grain and giving it to the priest. The priest enters behind the curtain and splatters blood on the covering of the covenant box and on the horns of the golden altar, but he does not put it on top of the altar as an offering. In contrast, the fat of the animal is placed on the fire on the bronze altar and the smoke rises to Yahweh as a pleasant odour, ie the fat is offered to him for a pleasant odour, but the blood is not. Burning blood has an unpleasant smell. Blood cleansed the tabernacle and paid a down payment on the ransom demanded by the spiritual powers of evil.

Hebrews focuses on what the blood of Jesus achieves, not where it goes. The main thing it does is deliver us from the spiritual powers of evil (Heb 4:14-16) and thereby cleanse our consciences because they can no longer accuse us before God or in our hearts (Heb 9:14).

Leviticus (16) Why Blood?

When I spill blood from a cut on my hand or face, it stains the garment it drips on. The stain is very hard to get out. Therefore, I have always been puzzled by the way blood is used to cleanse things in the Old Testament, particularly in Leviticus, which I have studied in detail in an attempt to get an understanding of how cleansing with blood works. For impurities that pollute the tabernacle, the remedy is cleansing with blood. We need to understand how people and things become impure, and why blood has this effect.

The key to understanding why blood cleanses is recognising the human situation. When Adam and Eve sinned and trusted the deceiver, they placed themselves under his authority. Because God had given them authority over everything on earth, this was a huge disaster, because it gave the spiritual powers of evil authority over the earth. This meant that God could not rescue humans from their situation without getting their permission.

The spiritual powers of evil demanded the lives of all humans in their power. This was clever, because if they could wipe humans out, they would have free rein on earth. They demanded the shedding of blood as a ransom payment for setting humans free. As the ones with ownership authority over humans, they had the right to decide what the ransom payment should be. It seems that they accepted the animal blood offered in the Tabernacle as a down payment for the blood of his Son that God had agreed to eventually give them.

The blood poured beside the bronze altar was a partial ransom payment to the spiritual powers of evil, so the tabernacle offering set the people free from the immediate consequences of their sins. However, the people could not be completely transformed until the Holy Spirit was poured out, so during Old Testament times, they kept falling back into sin. This is why the tabernacle offering had to be repeated again and again.

The people urgently needed the full and final ransom that Jesus would pay when he died on the cross. His death and the blood that he shed satisfied the demands of the spiritual powers of evil, so they had to give up their authority over humans and over the earth. His death was a terrible defeat for them.

Whereas waiting and washing were enough to deal with minor impurities, spiritual contamination of the tabernacle is much more serious because the spiritual powers of evil could do terrible harm if they were not controlled. Prior to the cross, when they were defeated by Jesus, the best way to restrain them was by offerings in the tabernacle. The tabernacle could be cleansed by the sprinkling of blood. The spiritual powers of evil could be appeased by the blood that was poured out beside the bronze altar at the entrance to the tabernacle courtyard when they brought their offerings to the priests. The Leviticus offerings are based on the reality that “life is in the blood” (Lev 17:11).

• Blood is physical. It operates in the physical realm.
• Life is spiritual. We cannot see it.

Blood combines the physical and the spiritual. This means that it operates in both the physical and the spiritual realms. It is physical, but contains life, which is spiritual. It functions in both realms.

When God created Adam, he breathed life into his nostrils. God is spirit, so his breath was spiritual. This spiritual life went into Adam's lungs and was absorbed into his blood. The life of God, which is spiritual, was absorbed into his blood through his lungs. His blood then carried life that came from God. Animal life is different, because God did not breathe in them when he created them.

Blood that has been offered in obedience to God carries good life, which pushes into the spiritual realms and squeezes out the unclean spiritual residue that has been deposited on an object or place by the spiritual powers of evil. When blood was sprinkled on the covenant box and the horns of the golden altar, the life in the blood seeped into the spiritual world in the place where the tabernacle linked to it. This removed the unclean residue that the spiritual powers of evil have put in place and closes any authority they think they have gained.

A Decontamination Offering was often made after the birth of a child (Lev 12:6-8), persistent menstrual bleeding (Lev 15:25,30), sometimes for a house that was contaminated (Lev 14:48-53) or a person with malignant skin disease (Lev 14:21-22,30-31). This blood removed the unclean residue the spiritual powers of evil had left behind in the tabernacle by getting access through the impurity on the person’s body.

In these situations, the person may not always have been attacked by an evil spirit, but the people in Old Testament times did not have the gift of discernment to know. So it was best to make the offering for cleansing with blood in case they had. The Torah rules were based on a conservative strategy of playing on the safe side.

We don’t need to sprinkle blood on objects and places these days, because we sit with Jesus at God’s right hand, far above all spiritual authority, so we can command them to leave a place or thing, and we can speak life into it to push out the unclean spiritual residue they have left. Hebrews 9:22 says that all things were cleansed by blood.

Leviticus (15) Azazel and the Wilderness

The second goat selected on the Day of Cleansing is for Azazel. Many English translations call this goat the scapegoat, but the correct translation of the Hebrew word “azazel” is debated. The most common view is that Azazel was the name of a ruler-demon who controlled the wilderness areas. The wording of Leviticus 16:8 suggests two contrasting spiritual beings: Yahweh and Azazel.

Deuteronomy 8:15 describes it as “the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions, and its thirsty ground”. For the Israelites trekking through it towards the Promised Land, it was a dangerous place where they came under intense spiritual attack. The tabernacle offerings provided protection for them. Azazel was probably the controlling spirit organising these attacks.

The High Priest confessed the depravities and transgressions of the Israelites over the head of the goat for Azazel. These are really strong words. The Hebrew word translated depravity is “avon”, which comes from a root meaning twisted or bent. It means depravity, perversity or iniquity. The Hebrew word translated transgression is “pasha”, which comes from a root meaning breaking away. It means transgression or rebellion. These words indicate serious perversity and rebellion, which is quite different from the sins dealt with by the Decontamination Offering and the Reparation Offering. They were for sins committed by mistake or without realising something was being done wrong. Hebrews calls them sins committed in ignorance (Heb 9:7).

The sins confessed over the goat for Azazel were really of a different order, because they were done deliberately by people choosing to disobey God. Examples could be hatred, anger, cheating, pride, etc. These serious sins were not dealt with by tabernacle offerings because they were more serious than the Decontamination Offering or Reparation could deal with. Instead, they are placed on the head of this goat, which is sent out into the wilderness to die. A domestic goat would not survive being sent into a wilderness where predators abound.

The goat was assigned to Azazel, who is a demonic ruler of the spiritual powers of evil that operated in the wilderness. The depravities and transgression were sent back to him, because he was responsible for them. The spiritual forces he controlled were constantly harassing the children of Israel and persuading them to rebel against God. The reason that they rebelled was that their spiritual protection was incomplete, and the powers of evil were able to manipulate them.

God sent these serious depravities and transgressions back where they came from. Because he understood why they had fallen, he was willing to forgive them. All he required from them was a Decontamination Offering to remove any residual influence of the spiritual powers of evil from the tabernacle.

The Day of Cleansing could not deal with serious sins that polluted the land (sexual immorality, bloodshed, and idolatry). The only solution for these most serious sins was community exclusion. If that was not carried out, the entire people would eventually be exiled from the land. Allowing the land a set of Sabbaths would purify it from the influence of the spiritual powers of evil.

US Election

The US Democratic Convention has chosen vice president Kamala Harris as their presidential candidate.

In the US Constitution, the vice-president is a bit of a nothing role. The vice president spends four years waiting for the president to die, which usually does not happen. Their only other role is to act as speaker of the senate, but there is very little to do there, except give an odd casting vote. Sometimes, a president will delegate to the vice president an additional responsibility, but it will usually be something unpopular that the president wants to distance themselves from. (Dick Chaney was the exception because he had considerable, unconstitutional control over George W Bush). The 25th Amendment gives a role to the vice president, but so far it has never been used.

So vice presidents are not usually chosen for their skills. They are chosen for their ability to draw in a broader range of voters to the presidential candidate. Obama was a young black man, so he chose an older white man, Joe Biden, to balance the ticket. Joe Biden and an older white man chose Kamala Harris, a younger black woman, to balance his ticket when he was standing for president.

The other important qualification of a vice president is that they must not outshine the presidential candidate (Sarah Palin did this for a while when selected by John McCain). The result is that presidential candidates usually choose someone slightly mediocre to be their running mate. This puts Kamala Harris at a double disadvantage. Obama chose mediocre Joe Biden, who would not outshine him. Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as she would draw in a different voting segment, but would not outperform his mediocrity.

Kamala Harris is a fairly mediocre candidate for the presidency, but that does not mean she cannot be elected. We must remember that possibly a majority of voters were going to vote for Joe Biden. They were not keen on the idea, but believed that it was a better option than voting for Donald Trump. They realised that Joe Biden was getting senile, but trusted that the White House team could manage him sufficiently well to keep his presidency on track and the nation strong. It was not an ideal option, but many voters believed it was preferable to another four years of Donald Trump.

Joe Biden’s decision to end his candidacy was a huge relief for people who believed that they had to vote form. Kamala Harris is not an ideal candidate, but no one else was available, and she is miles better than a senile Joe Biden. She might be mediocre, but if a good team could keep a fading Joe Biden going, they can do the same for her. Provided a strong team is put around Kamala Harris, people who would have voted for Joe Biden while holding their nose are very pleased to be able to vote for his vice president.

The Republicans are trying to expose Kamala Harris’s weaknesses, but the people who will vote for her do not care, because even if she has weaknesses, she is a far stronger candidate than Joe Biden, and that is all they care about. And the polls are suggesting that she has the potential to keep Donald Trump out, which is a bonus for them.

Harris’s supporters are comparing her with Joe Biden, not with Donald Trump, so she appears like a winner to them.

I sense that Donald Trump has peaked. He failed to win a majority in the 2020 election. Since then, many moral people have been put off by his philandering. And although he has not been convicted of any crimes yet, some of the mud has stuck. So, although he has a strong support base, his popularity is not growing.

Now that he is older, Trump seems to find it hard to focus on presenting policy alternatives. Instead, he rambles on about what would not have happened if he had been president, which cannot be proved either way, because he has not been president. His exaggerated claims about what he achieved when he was president put many people off; because they want capability, not bluster.

I suspect that Trump does not really know how to deal with Harris. He found it easy to be rude to “Wicked Hillary” because she was already unpopular, but because he likes attractive women, he looks a bit uncomfortable attacking Kamala Harris. And if he is too ruthless, he is scared that it will backfire on him.

So the election could be close, close enough to be challenged by the side that loses. And because the management of the election process is so politicised, it will not be possible to prove that the election was fair. I am not sure how that will end.

Leviticus (14) Day of Cleansing

One of the important annual celebrations that God commanded Israel to fulfil is usually called the Day of Atonement. The Hebrew expression is “yom kippur”. Translating the Hebrew word “kippur” as “atonement” smuggles too much religious baggage into the word. Words like “propitiation” and “expiation” have the same problem. The word means “covering/cleansing”, so we will understand what is happening on this day better, if we think of it as the Day of Cleansing.

Leviticus 23:26-32 gives the date on which this occasion is to be celebrated. It was to be a holy day, a day of total rest from work (Sabbath), when the people were to humble themselves. The celebration is to be held once a year (Ex 30:10; Lev 16:34).

When the High Priest went into the holy of holies once a year on the Day of Cleansing, he offered a cloud of incense to God. That kept him safe in the presence of God. The incense was all God needed from him to be acceptable. He did not need to appease God with blood or some other sacrifice to be acceptable.

The High Priest put blood on the cover of the covenant box and the golden altar. This was not done to appease God, but to cleanse them from the effects of the people's impurities. Many English translations use the word “atonement”, but the Hebrew word is “kipper”. As noted, it means to cleanse or cover. The covenant box and the golden altar are physical things, so they could not commit sins, so they didn’t need their sins to be atoned for.

Leviticus 16:16 refers to the “impurities” of the people needing to be cleansed because the tabernacle dwelt in the midst of the people’s impurities. The Hebrew word is “toomah”, which means impurity or uncleanness. Because the people were often impure, it seems that the tabernacle also picked up some spiritual impurities during the year, despite frequent Decontamination and Reparation Offerings. (I presume this uncleanness gave the spiritual powers of evil a right to come closer).

The tabernacle did not need to be atoned for, because it does not sin, but it did need to be cleansed of the impurity that had affected it. The blood of the bull and the goat offered as a Decontamination Offering spiritually cleansed the tabernacle. Like the blood of the Passover, the blood on the covenant box and the golden altar was a warning to the spiritual powers of evil to stay away from the tabernacle and its furniture.

Blood cleanses and purifies when sprinkled on physical objects that may have been subject to spiritual contamination (Lev 16:19). The Hebrew word translated “cleanse” is “taher”, which literally means to be made bright, and by implication, to make pure or make clean. Hebrews 9:22 confirms that “almost all things are cleansed/purified with blood”.

Leviticus (13) Praying for Houses

Over the years, I have been involved with praying for houses that seemed to be strange in some way. My first experience was when my wife and I went to live in a vacant manse while I was working as a trainee pastor over the summer. For the first couple of weeks, my wife seemed really unhappy. When we returned to our regular home for the weekend, the heaviness seemed to lift, but when we returned to the manse, she was in tears within a couple of hours. Some Christian friends advised us to pray for the rooms of the house. We did, and amazingly, the heaviness that my wife had felt just disappeared.

Since then, we have prayed in various houses and seen a difference for the people living there, but I have always been a bit uneasy about the practice, because I could not find scriptures to justify it.

When I was writing about the Decontamination Offering in Leviticus, the penny dropped. The Tabernacle was the site of intense spiritual welfare. If the people of God sinned, the Tabernacle, which was the place God lived, could be contaminated in some way by their presence. They could leave a trace that defiled it. If the defilement was sufficiently severe, God would leave because it had become an unpleasant place for him to be.

In the New Testament age, followers of Jesus are each the temple of the Holy Spirit. This means that the house where a follower of Jesus lives is like the courtyard of the Tabernacle. So if the person falls into sin, the place where they live can be contaminated, just like the house where God lived could be contaminated in the Old Testament season. This means that a spiritually sensitive person entering the house where a person has regularly sinned will often pick up the contamination that has defiled it.

In the New Testament age, a decontamination offering is unnecessary because the presence of the Holy Spirit can cleanse a contaminated room of a building. So, praying for a room in a house to be cleansed by the power of the Holy Spirit makes real sense.

The practice of praying for the cleansing of houses and other buildings is justified by Leviticus.

Leviticus (12) Jesus and Impurity

Jesus changed the situation with regard to things that are contaminated and become impure.

• He sent the Holy Spirit, who gives the gift of discernment. With spiritual discernment, followers of Jesus can recognise the presence of evil spirits. The rules-based approach to avoiding spiritual evil provided by the Torah becomes redundant. Its cautious approach was constraining of behaviour. Jesus sets his children free to live without fear, but gives them discernment to identify the activity of evil spirits and deal with them.

• Jesus defeated the spiritual powers of evil on the cross. He demonstrated his power over the powers of evil and his ability to deal with impurity during his ministry. He touched men with scale disease and healed them. He touched a woman with a continuous flow of blood and healed her. He touched the body of a young man who had died and restored him to life. He forgave Zacheus for his theft. Jesus demonstrated the new paradigm, where complex rules were no longer needed to keep safe from the spiritual powers of evil. He demonstrated his ability to defeat them.

Jesus totally changed the situation for dealing with the impurity of people and things. However, he could not cleanse the land if people continued sinning, so Israel was exiled from their land by the Romans.

Leviticus (11) Land Contamination

According to Leviticus, three types of sin have more serious consequences. They actually contaminate the land, so an offering that purifies the temple is not sufficient to deal with the problem that they create. Three types of sin fall into this category.

• Sexual sins (Lev 18:6-30)
  Immoral sexual activity allows evil spirits to transfer from a bad person to a good person.

• Idolatry (Lev (19:31; 20:1-3)
  It opens people up to the spiritual powers behind the idol they are worshipping. It also defiled the land (Ezk 36:18).

• Bloodshed (Num 35:33-324; Psalm 106:38-39)
  Murder invites evil spirits into a conflict. The murderer can end up carrying them.
  A murdered body makes the land unclean (Deut 21:1-9).

The Torah does not provide an offering to deal with these sins. They make the land impure, and there is no sacrifice that can purify the land.

Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it (Num 35:33).

The only solution is community exclusion of the person (spiritual death) (Lev 20:1-18; Num 18:30-31). This seems harsh, but it keeps the evil spirits that controlled the sinner away from the rest of the people.

If the people who commit these sins are not excluded from the tribes, the land will eventually spew all the people out (Lev 18:24-29; Ex22:3.4,6,12; 36:17:18)). When the people are sent into exile, the land will be cleansed because the evil spirits will travel out of the land with them (Lev 26:34-335.43). An empty land becomes an evil-spirit-free land.

Leviticus (10) Reparation Offering (asam)

The fourth offering described in Leviticus 5:14-6:7 is the Reparation Offering. The Hebrew word used is “asam”, which means guilt, but can also mean reparation or compensation. Leviticus specifies the situations in which it applies.

The first set of sins that need reparation are sins done with mistaken understanding. They intended to take the action, but the consequences were unintended. This is why the sinner is liable to God. These sins are less serious than many, but slightly more serious than the ones dealt with by the Decontamination Offering. The latter were done without intention, so there is no guilt. These sins bring liablility, because they were deliberate actions, although the consequences were not foreseen.

• A person fails to testify in support of someone about a vow that he has heard, assuming his/her witness is not important(Lev 5:1). He carries waywardness.

• A person touches an unclean taboo animal or corpse and gets contaminated without being aware of it. When he comes to know it, he is liable to God (Lev 5:2).

• A person touches something human that is unclean and becomes contaminated without being aware of it. When he comes to know it, he is liable to God (Lev 5:3).

• A person swears an oath thoughtlessly without understanding the seriousness of their commitment. If they are unable to honour it, they are liable to God (Lev 5:4).

The person who commits these is “liable” to God. The word liable is a financial term. There is a debt to God that must be repaid (Lev 5:19). The debt is incurred because the person has contaminated the tabernacle, where God dwells.

The person who is guilty of these sins must confess their fault (Lev 5:5). Repentance and confession are sufficient to cleanse the person. Leviticus promises that they will be forgiven (Lev 5:10,11).

With are related set of sins, the sinner has the option of making payment by way of reparation.

• A breach of the regulations for the holy things of Yahweh (Lev 5:14). He has to make a Reparation Offering because his sin has contaminated the tabernacle.

• When a commandment is violated without knowing it, but this is discovered afterwards (Lev 5:17).

• When a person deceives a fellow citizen regarding something held in trust, a pledge, something stolen or extorted, or something found and swears falsely that he has not found it(Lev 6:2-3). In these cases, the sinner is liable to another person. They thief must make repayment to the person to who the person to whom it belongs. He must pay the total value of the object and add one-fifth to it (Lev 6:5). The person also had to make a Reparation Offering because his sin has contaminated God’s home (Lev 6:7).

• When a person sleeps with another man’s maid servant who has not been redeemed or set free, in addition to setting her free, he must make a Reparation Offering because he has contaminated the tabernacle (Lev 19:20-22). The woman is not punished because she was not free.

The person who has liability to God can make a financial donation to the tabernacle that is of equivalent value to the animal for the Reparation Offering as repentance. He also had to make a reparation offering because his sin had contaminated God’s home (Lev 6:7).

The process is similar to the Decontamination Offering. The purpose of both offerings is to cleanse the tabernacle.

The Reparation Offering has four purposes.

• A person gets to confess their sins. This offering only deals with sins with unintended consequences.

• The offering is an expression of worship to God by burning fat for a sweet smell; ie as an Ascending Offering.

• The offering provides food for the priests.

• The blood poured out on the ground by the altar provides spiritual protection against the spiritual powers of evil.

Leviticus (9) Pure and Impure

The Old Testament describes a range of things that are unclean. To understand the role of the Decontamination Offering, we must understand the process by which things become unclean and how they can be purified. We also need to understand how human actions can contaminate the tabernacle where God lives.

The Hebrew word for unclean/impure is “tame”, and the word for clean is “taher.” In some ways, the English word “unclean” as it is a negative, ie “not clean”. We think of the opposite of clean as “dirty, which is not quite correct. The best way to think about the verb “tame” is as “be polluted”.

Most modern commentators don’t understand this problem because they operate in a two-agent world (God and people). Once we understand that we live in a three-agent world (God, people, evil spiritual powers), we will realise that the spiritual powers of evil influence people and things in the physical world that we live in.

I believe that things that have become impure (tame) have been polluted in some way by the spiritual powers of evil. The Israelites did not have the fullness of the Spirit, so they did not have the gifts of discernment. They could not discern the presence of spiritual evil on people or things. God had to give them rules so they would no which things were impure, because they might have been polluted by the spiritual powers of evil.

They might not all be polluted all the time, but the rules operated conservatively by identifying things that could possibly be polluted with spiritual evil. That way, the people would no how to avoid them and what to do if there was a risk they had been polluted by contact with impure things.

The laws dealing with clean and unclean describe things that Israel the children of Israel must avoid because they are polluted by demonic powers. Their problem was that they did not have the gift of spiritual discernment because the Holy Spirit had still not been given. Therefore, God had to give them blanket rules listing things to avoid because they were affected by evil.

Cause of Impurity
The spiritual realms and the physical realm are intimately twined together. There is constant interaction between the two. However, they don’t just operate in parallel. Every person and object in the physical realm is in contact with something in the spiritual realm. And the spiritual realm is curved, so that physical objects/people in two different places can be touched by the same spiritual entity in the spiritual realm at the same time.

The evil spiritual powers that operate in the spiritual realm are always trying to push into the physical realm to do harm. Whenever a physical person, object, building or place experiences an intervention from the evil powers in the spiritual realm, they are left with a residual that contaminates them, even after the evil attack has finished and the evil spirits have departed. For example, If evil spirits spend time in a house where people are doing evil, an unclean residue remains, even when the people and the spirits they carried have moved on. This is why some houses need prayer to be decontaminated.

When evil spirits are allowed to penetrate the physical realm, it unlocks authority for them. They don’t always take advantage of this vulnerability, because they often lack the resources to take up every opportunity that is open, but they leave their contamination as a marker so other spirits can see the opportunity and take it up at a later date, when a serious intervention fits better with their plans.

The residue remains even when the spirits have withdrawn from their intervention into the physical realm to go and infiltrate in another place. Explains why a site where a person has been murdered often feels dark, and why flowers don’t grow and birds don’t sing in a place where evil has been perpetrated.

I think it is better, like the scriptures, to refer to the residue as unclean rather than evil, because the evil spirits have often gone, and what they have left has no evil power. Rather, it is a marker indicating that they might return and attack if they get an opportunity. The residue they have left is unclean/impure, rather than evil, because it has no power in itself. It just opens the way to evil power. Spirits can be evil, but their residue is simply unclean. It only becomes evil when a spirit intervenes directly.

Activity by angels and the Holy Spirit has the opposite effect. The Holy Spirit often leaves a sweet fragrance behind. This is why a cathedral or old church feels different, even to someone who does not believe in God. Note: faeces and urine are not considered to be polluted in the Torah, even though we would think that they are dirty. They are not spiritually polluted.

Spiritual Contamination A range of activities or things are unclean or impure because they have been contaminated by the spiritual powers of evil. This pollution leaves people vulnerable to spiritual attack, if they are not cleansed. The Torah delineates the following categories of spiritual contamination.

• 1. Warfare – Risky Situation

• 2. Risky Situations Due to Possible Pollution

  • Dead body
  • Seminal Emissions and Sexual Relations
  • Menstruation
  • Impure Animals
  These situations are all low risk because there are not enough evil spirits to take advantage every time they occur. Therefore, time and water are sufficient to remove any decontamination they might have left behind. These impurities can be washed off with water. Some commentators refer to them as “minor impurities”.

• 3. Pollution that Affects the Tabernacle
  The tabernacle was in the middle of the Israelite camp and was surrounded by various tribes. It belonged to the people, so there was a spiritual link between each family and the tabernacle. The people and the tabernacle touched the same place in the spiritual realms, so that when a family did something wrong that gave access to the powers of evil, both they and the tabernacle were contaminated. It was like they were connected by a spiritual wormhole. The consequence of this connection was that the actions of the people contaminated the tabernacle with the same unclean residue as the person taking the action. When people engaged in particular activities, they allowed the spiritual powers of evil to penetrate further into the camp towards the tabernacle. It seems that if these powers got too close, they could contaminate the tabernacle with their unclean residue (Lev 16:16).

  The tabernacle belongs to God and the people. If the spiritual powers of evil get access to a person, they get access to the tabernacle, because part of it belongs to the person.

  The powers of evil would not usually choose to enter the tabernacle if they penetrated it, because they would be overwhelmed by God’s strong presence, but if they were able to unlock sufficient access points, they might feel they could attack with enough force and ugliness that God would choose to leave (Lev 18:26-30). If the contamination of the tabernacle became too strong, God might become uncomfortable in the tabernacle and move away.

  Losing God’s presence would be a huge disaster for the children of Israel. To prevent this from happening, God arranged for the tabernacle to be cleansed once a year. This annual cleansing ensured that the tabernacle remained a pleasant place for God to dwell. He also provided solutions for people who took these actions.

  Some of them were sinful, but many were not. The solutions were more complicated. The person had to be purified. A Decontamination Offering or Reparation Offering had to be made to purify the tabernacle and its furniture.

  Leviticus lists several ways that the tabernacle could be contaminated. Some commentators call these “major impurities”. These impurities reside on both the person and the tabernacle, or its furniture.

  • Child Birth
  • Abnormal Genital Discharge
  • Scale Disease
  • Priest and Corpse
  • Unintended Sins
  Where the problem has no associated sin (most of them), a Decontamination Offering cleansed the tabernacle. If the problem is the result of sin (such as the unintended ones listed above), a Reparation Offering will cleanse the tabernacle. In this situation, the person has a liability to God because their actions have contaminated his house.

More at Pure and Impure.

Leviticus (8) Decontamination Offering (hattat)

Leviticus 4 describes a third type of offering. The Decontamination Offering was to be used when someone strays from God’s way unintentionally, inadvertently, or by mistake, and their sin becomes known to them.

Different animals are specified depending on who has sinned and the seriousness of their sinning, the sins of anointed priest, the entire community of Israel, a leader, or an ordinary person have different consequences. The sins of a high priest or a leader do more harm than those of ordinary people, so a more costly sacrifice is required when they sin.

The Decontamination Offering is for unintentional sins only. These are sins that are done by mistake. The person does something without realising what they are doing is wrong. They have gone astray and made a mistake. Perhaps they did not know their action was prohibited by the Torah. Perhaps they did not understand the consequences of their actions. The offering is made when the sin is made known to them.

These sins are deliberate actions, but the person did not realise they are sinning. Leviticus 5 and 6 gives a list of unintentional sins. The Decontamination Offering applies to a very limited range of sins, as there are few that would be genuinely unintentional.

When the Decontamination Offering is brought by an Anointed Priest who has sinned, or on behalf of the entire community of Israel for a common sin, the form of offering is different as some blood is taken into the Holy of Holies.

This practice suggests that the sin of the anointed priest and a common sin committed by the entire community are far more serious than those of the ordinary people, and even leaders.

• The anointed priest has authority over the Tabernacle. If the spiritual powers of evil can persuade the priest to sin, they gain some authority over him and over the Tabernacle. Authority for evil spirits to intervene within the Tabernacle would be a serious setback in the spiritual battle taking place where the Tabernacle stands.

• The Tabernacle belonged to the entire community of the Israelites. They camped around the Tabernacle on all sides. If the entire community sinned and came under the influence of the spiritual powers of evil, they would have authority to interfere in the Tabernacle. If they gained a stronghold there, the spiritual protection that the Israelites gained through the Tabernacle system would be severely weakened.

• The people have an obligation to keep the tabernacle pure.

• God dwells in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle, but he does not stay where he is not welcome. If the priests or the Israelites allow the powers of evil into the Tabernacle, he will withdraw. This would be really dangerous for the Israelites.

• The blood sprinkled on the gold altar and on the ground in front of the tabernacle curtain is a sign to the spiritual powers of evil that they should keep out of the Tabernacle because it belongs to God.

• The blood on the altar parallels the blood on the doorpost during the first Passover, which warned the angel of death to stay away from the homes of the Israelites and allow their firstborn sons to live.

• The blood was taken into the Holy Place and sprinkled on the horns of the altar to restore the spiritual protection back to the level that prevailed before the priest or the people fell into sin. Horns are a symbol of power. The sprinkling of the blood on the horns reminds the spiritual powers of evil that Yahweh’s power is greater than theirs.

• The blood on the ground in front of the curtain is a warning to the spiritual powers of evil that they should not attempt to enter the Holy of Holies.

• The remaining blood from the bull is sprinkled on the ground beside the bronze altar at the entry to the tabernacle entrance.

• The “hattat” blood is always applied in the tabernacle. It is never applied to a person to cleanse them. A situation where these offerings are necessary should be rare.

• The offering does not decontaminate the offerer’s body. It cleanses the tabernacle and its furniture and implements.

• The blood poured out on the ground by the altar provides spiritual protection against the spiritual powers of evil.

• The Decontamination Offering cleanses the tabernacle, removing the impurity that contaminates if when a person has been attacked by evil powers.

• The decontamination offering does not deal with all sins, but only those that contaminate the tabernacle. The reasons behind this are explained in my next post called “Pure and Impure”.

Leviticus (7) Wellbeing Offering (selamim)

The second type of offering in Leviticus is the Wellbeing Offering. The Hebrew word is “selemin” is closely connected to the word “shalom”, which means peace, but it takes a broader meaning that includes “wellbeing, safety, and completeness”. The offering is an expression of thanks to Yahweh for his blessing on a person’s or a people's life.

The fat from the Wellbeing Offering is turned into an Ascending Offering that accompanies it (Lev 3:5; 7:30-31).

There are three categories of Wellbeing Offering:

• Thanksgiving - for something good that God has done (Lev 7:12),
• Freewill - spontaneous thanks for God’s goodness (Lev 7:16),
• Vowed/pledged - when the object of a vow is received from God (Lev 7:16).
  

The Wellbeing Offering has three purposes.

• It is an expression of worship to God. It is a retrospective offering giving thanks to God for things that he has done. It is not asking God to do things, but thanksgiving for what he has already done.

• It provides food for the priests and the people.

  The flesh of the Wellbeing Offering can be eaten by the family offering it. Any flesh that is not eaten by the third day must be burned on the altar (Lev 7:11-18).

  The meat from the Wellbeing Offering can be eaten by the laity; it is split three ways, between God, the priests and the people.

• The blood poured out on the ground by the altar provides spiritual protection against the spiritual powers of evil. The ascending offering represents food for God. The Wellbeing Offering provides food for the people. Together, these offerings represent a shared meal, and feasting between God and the people.

Passover is a form of communal Wellbeing Offering. It is not a substitutionary death. The blood was not put on an altar by a priest. A lamb was not offered at the tabernacle during subsequent Passover celebrations. They were a unique type of wellbeing celebration. The motivation was thanksgiving for deliverance. It was a joyous celebration, not mourning for sin.

The word kipper is not used when describing the Wellbeing Offering.

The Ascending Offering sends blessing to God and the Wellbeing Offering sends blessing down to the people. Taken together, the two offerings represent a shared meal between God and his people. (What does that point to).

Leviticus (6) What is Achieved by Ascending Offering

The Ascending Offering achieves three things for the people of God.

1. Worship/Attraction
The Ascending Offering is primarily an expression of worship of Yahweh. The offering produces a pleasing smell for God to enjoy. However, it is not just a smell. The smell represents the worship of the person bringing the offering at a considerable cost to themselves, and the priests whose lives are devoted to serving God by making regular offerings. Bringing an offering to Yahweh would be a sacrifice of worship for the giver.

The purpose of the Ascending Offering was to attract God’s attention and presence. It was an invitation to him to come to bless his people (Ex 20:24). God is drawn down to his people. It ensures his presence in the tabernacle. The core role of the offering is attraction.

The Ascending Offering is a non-atoning offering.

2. Food for Priests
The priests and their families receive meat and bread to eat. They do not have any land of their own, so they cannot grow their own food. They do not have any other source of income. The priests and their families live on the meat and bread that are brought in the various offerings brought by the people of God.

The meat must be eaten within three days of being offered. Any meat not used up within three days must be burned (Lev 7:16-17).

The pots used for cooking must be kept separate from normal use (Lev 6:26-29).

3. Spiritual Protection
Through the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the spiritual powers of evil gained authority over humans on earth. When the children put Passover blood on their doorposts, they were protected from the destroyer who killed the firstborn of Egypt. This defeat of the powers of evil enabled them to escape from Egypt. The victory continued when the Egyptian army was destroyed in the Red Sea, but the spiritual powers of evil did not give up. They continued to harass God’s people as they travelled through the wilderness.

The Tabernacle offerings provided an effective method of spiritual protection for the children of Israel. This protection was not possible, but it was the best protection possible prior to the death of Jesus and the total defeat of the spiritual powers of evil on the cross.

The fall placed humans under the power of the spiritual powers of evil. They demanded blood as the ransom price for setting them free. To live in peace, the children of Israel need to pay a ransom in blood to the spiritual powers of evil who had enslaved them. Prior to the cross, the blood of animals was the ransom they would accept. Unfortunately, this price was not one-off and complete. The ransom price had to be paid again and again. That was painful, but it was worth it to escape the control of the powers of evil. The benefit was that the ransom price was “acceptable” to the spiritual powers of evil (Lev 1:4).

This spiritual protection had a significant economic cost for the children of Israel because some of the best livestock (without flaws), which were essential for their agrarian economy, had to be killed in their prime. Killing their best animals just as they reached maturity was a big setback for a small-time farmer. Giving up such a valuable animal would be rarely painful for them.

Because the offering brings spiritual protection, “covering” is a good translation of “kipper”. The offering is a ransom price that provides spiritual covering against the spiritual powers of evil. This is why Leviticus 1:4 says that the Ascending Offering makes kipper (covering) because it provides general spiritual protection.

The blood belongs to God, because it is life. He loves life, so he does not seek bloodshed. The spiritual powers of evil love death, so they demand bloodshed at every opportunity. The Ascending Offering was one way the children of Israel could escape their harassment by offering them the blood that they demanded.

The priest did not burn the blood and offer it to God. Rather, he splashed a little on the side of the altar and poured out the rest of the blood on the ground all around the altar at the entrance to the tabernacle courtyard (Lev 1:5). This is the place where the spiritual powers of evil gathered, so this is where blood was offered to them.

When Abel killed Cain, the ground cried out for blood (actually, it was the spiritual powers of evil who demanded it (Gen 4:10). So when they are given a ransom price of blood, it is not treated in a special way, but just poured on the ground. They don’t get any special treatment. Something for God goes up, while something for them goes down.