Leviticus 4-5:13

What’s Happening?

Like the Garden of Eden, God is once again dwelling with his people in the tabernacle. The sacrifices and offerings of Leviticus are showing Israel how to be with God by becoming like God. After the burnt offering, grain offering, and fellowship offering—all acts of devotion and communion—we now come to what is often called the “sin offering.”

But in Leviticus, sin is not first about deliberate wickedness or moral failure. The purification offering addresses unintentional mistakes and ritual failures in the operation of the sacrificial system that pollute God’s holy dwelling. If a priest accidentally presents an offering in the wrong way, or if a worshiper makes a vow alongside their sacrifice but fails to keep it, the people and places associated with God’s presence become compromised. The functions of the tabernacle, which brought Israel into communion with God were polluted. Unholy and unclean means cannot create holy and clean ends.

That is why this offering is better understood as a purification offering or even a “de-sin” offering. It removes the effects of sin’s pollution so that God’s people and God’s place can remain holy like him.

As in the Garden of Eden, life is found near God and death is found in exile away from him. So the worshiper places their hands on the animal, identifying with it, and then its blood—the symbol of life—is applied in specific ways. The blood’s purpose is to show life overcoming death. As Leviticus 17:11 later explains, “the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you… to make atonement.” Atonement here means “covering.” Through the blood of the purification offering, life covers over death. Then the tabernacle and the people are released from, or forgiven of, the polluting effect of sin (Leviticus 4:26). Now, like Eden, life can be found in this place.

Depending on who sinned, the blood went to different depths of God’s dwelling. If an individual brought impurity, the blood was applied to the altar outside the tent, cleansing the place where sacrifices met God. If a priest or the whole assembly brought impurity, the blood had to go deeper, toward the Holy Place itself, because the pollution of sin threatened to stain the holy place of life with death.

The higher the responsibility of the sinner, the deeper the pollution reached—and the deeper the lifeblood had to cleanse. This offering shows that sin is not only personal but also a corrosive force that spreads outward, threatening the new Eden of life God was forming in the tabernacle. And it shows that God provides a way for his presence to remain—by covering sin’s death with life.

Where is the Gospel?

Jesus is the true purification offering who cleanses both the sinner and the sanctuary. His life poured out cleanses us and makes us God’s dwelling place. His blood overcomes sin’s corruption and its death-creating force. As 1 John 1:7 says, “The blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin.” Amazingly, the sins Jesus covers are not just ritual failures, but wicked moral failures too. He purifies us from the deep, corrupting, death-creating power and stain of sin. His life covers our death. In Jesus' life, our sin is covered, and we are released from its pollution.

But his cleansing work does not stop with us individually. Just as the blood in Leviticus reached deeper when the whole nation or its leaders sinned, so Jesus’ life reaches to the deepest place—the heavenly temple itself. Hebrews 9:24 tells us, “Christ has entered… into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.” His blood, his life, secures not just our cleanses all of heaven and earth. Through his sacrifice, he can cover our entire universe of death and decay with life and freedom.

See for Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit would give you eyes to see the God who provides life to cover death and purification to cover pollution. And may you see Jesus as the one whose life-blood de-sins us and the true temple, making the way for us to live in God’s presence.