“Forgiveness and Retribution!”

# 43 2025 Dev. Lev.4-5 “Forgiveness and Retribution!” Read all of chapters four, five, six and seven first. We invite you into God’s space, to read His Word, to think on and interact with. This is God’s Story. Do you believe that this may also be part of our story, in our time? All passages are taken from the NIV.

Lev. 4-5 “The sin offering differs significantly, the person seeking forgiveness lays hands on the head of the sacrifice to transfer his sin to the animal, this also applies to the guilt offering. Ch. 6-7 reiterates all five sacrifices.

Leviticus; the focus of these devotionals is to connect these practices to life today, in as far we are able, but also to connect to Christian practice today. Leviticus is about worship. Worshiping God through sacrifices goes all the way back to Adam, Cain and Abel, to Noah after the flood and to the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Before Moses came on the scene, sacrifice was common in ancient near East.  It was used to seek God’s (god’s) favor, to atone for sin and to express faith. Certainly, an extension of very early practices of the human race.

Ch.4 The sin offering. If a priest and all who are anointed sins, it brings sin upon the whole nation. The sacrifice must be a young bull, the priest lays on hands, some of the blood is sprinkled in the sanctuary seven times and blood is put on the horns of the alter of incense. Sin is sin but if a religious leader is involved the consequences are greater. That certainly is a fact today. Leaders, religious, or political, who fall into sin, carry a heavier burden in terms of consequences. 

Ch.5:1-13 “If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.” So too, if a sin is committed unintentionally. If a leader, they must bring a male goat, if a common man, a female goat or lamb, or birds, if that is all they can afford. All sin is unacceptable to God, salvation is only by the shedding of blood.  I Pe.2:24 “He (Christ) himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sinsand live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’” Amen!

Ch.5:14-19 The guilt offering; “…when anyone is unfaithful…unintentionally… a ram…proper value in silver… in regard to the holy things, pay a fifth of its value and give it all to the priests…and they will be forgiven.” As regarding today, Christ is the perfect offering covering the burnt offering, the grain offering, the fellowship or peace offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering, He is the last and complete Sacrifice. Amen!

Ch.6-7 Again discusses the five sacrifices but begins with practical negative laws that ruins good relationships; unfaithfulness, deception, cheating, lying and false witness. The opposite of those laws, we all know it is part of our make-up, we are created in the image of God and the Holy Spirit working in us informing our conscience. Conscientious willful disobedience will dull your conscience to your detriment, a word to the wise! 

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