Getting your head around the sacrificial system in the Old Testament can be difficult. Here’s my attempt to briefly summarise the various sacrifices.
I’ve been helped by Leithart’s summaries in In Earth as it is in Heaven in this, but I haven’t followed him entirely (mistakes mine etc!).
Tribute Offering
The first sacrifices we find are the minchah or tribute offering, offered by Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. This is homage from an inferior to a superior, which is an appropriate response from us to God. We assume that Cain and Abel hoped that their sacrifice would, in some fashion, pass beyond the fiery sword at Eden’s gate into the presence of God.
In the later Levitical system this seems to be offered mainly as the grain offering, the firstfruits of the harvest. You can find them described in Leviticus 2.
Ascension Offering
The next sacrifice we meet is when Noah offers an ‘olah or ‘going up offering.’ This is usually translated as ‘burnt offering’ in most English Bibles. I am persuaded that ‘ascension offering’ is a clearer name. This offering is killed, portioned, and turned into smoke on the altar by being burned in its entirety. It goes up as smoke to God’s nose as an aroma.
Its purpose is to symbolically take the worshipper into the heavens, to allow them to ascend. The smoke covers them, and as it arises as an aroma it turns aside God’s anger (idiomatically ‘the heat of his nose’ in Hebrew).
In the Levitical system this is the first sacrifice we meet; you can find it described in Leviticus 1.
Purification Offering
Now we reach the three sacrifices that are added in the Levitical system. In Leviticus 4-5 we discover the chatt‘at often translated as the ‘sin offering.’ Its purpose is to make you ‘clean’ so ‘purification’ might be clearer, though the word is ‘sin’ rather than ‘purify.’ It exists for the pollution caused by our sinful nature.
Leithart suggests this isn’t required until Leviticus, because this is the first time you can come this close to God’s presence. It exists to stop pollution and often seems to be used to cleanse the furniture of the tabernacle from uncleanness and defiling by the people.
Trespass Offering
If the purification offering was for the everyday cleansing of the places of worship because of the polluting effect of sinful people, the ’asham or ‘guilt offering,’ or trespass offering is ‘compensation’ (that’s how the ESV translates ’asham in Leviticus 5 as well as ‘guilt offering’) for specific deliberate sins. We can read about this Leviticus 5-7, but the concerns of the text seem to be primarily about trespassing into holy places and holy things.
This would also be used for moral failings where atonement was possible—obviously the law demanded death as the appropriate punishment for many crimes.
Peace Offering
Finally in the main part of the Levitical system we have the shelem or peace offering of Leviticus 3. This offering is not for the maintenance of the tabernacle like the others. The ascension offering is only for God to eat. Other offerings are eaten by the priests. This one is for a feast that every worshipper can eat.
This was the reason that Yahweh brought Israel out of Egypt to ‘sacrifice’ to him. He brought them out for a party.
Jesus is our greater sacrifice
Jesus is our tribute offering, on our behalf offering himself from the inferior (us) to the superior (Yahweh), passing through the cherubim’s guard and the fiery sword into the most holy place in the heavens. He is our firstfruits from the dead, offered to give thanks for the bounty of the harvest to come: our own resurrections.
He is our ascension offering, going up the heavens on our behalf, the one with clean hands and a clean heart (Psalm 24). Jesus’ life was spent wholly to allow us to meet with God. He covers over our sin and propitiates the wrath of God.
He is our purification offering, cleansing us from the stink of our sin and stopping the rot. Our original pollution is wiped clean. He cleans the ‘furniture’ of the church so that she is a worthy place for the worship of God—and we are that furniture, the living stones (1 Peter 2) that build the house.
He is our trespass offering, paying not just for our general sin but the specific guilt of our specific high-handed sin that we bear the penalty for. We are cleaned from our trespass into holy places and our touching of holy things. Shockingly we are made into holy people and given holy things to wield. Jesus’ death removes the specific guilt of our specific crimes. He substitutes for our own death.
He is our peace offering, offering us his own body and blood to eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper. He invites us the wedding feast of the lamb—every Sunday and in the far future, they’re the same—to come and party and celebrate with our God. No need to bring anything, he’s providing the booze and the food.
That was only 5?
Eagle-eyed readers will notice the title said ‘7’ kinds of sacrifice. The peace offering seems to break down into three different categories of peace offering. Jesus death on the cross fulfils each one of them.
Free Will Offering
The nedevah of Leviticus 23 and elsewhere is a freely given expression of praise to God. We would most often think of giving money to God, but this is a party that you throw in God’s honour and everyone eats at (think Elisha sacrificing his cattle).
Thanksgiving Offering
The todah of Leviticus 7, which is described there as a kind of peace offering, which is given in gratitude for a specific blessing. That specificity is how it differs from the free will offering.
Vow Offering
The neder of Deuteronomy 12 is a specific offering made to fulfil a vow that you’ve given to the Lord.
Isn’t there another?
I suppose there are the sacrifices of ordination, mentioned in the summary at the end of Leviticus 7 (which lists six sacrifices), but described in Exodus 29. It’s not part of the general run of the mill system but is used to consecrate priests (and, initially, the tabernacle).
Does this map to the cross too? Yes, in that the cross is Jesus’ ‘ordination’ sacrifice into the priesthood of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7). Baptism corresponds to this for us, a kingdom of priests, we are ordained in the waters of death as we die and rise with Christ.
Photo by Stormseeker on Unsplash
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