HeBrews: A Better Blend
As we turn the page of the book of Hebrews we find ourselves today in chapter 10. Chapter 10 opens with the topic of sacrifices and closes by talking about faith. Today, let’s begin with sacrifices and the first 4 verses of the chapter. Consider them below:
1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
In the Old Testament sacrificial system there were five types of sacrifices and offerings. According to my MacArthur study Bible (page 156), the first three sacrifices or offerings were voluntary: the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the peace offering. The final two sacrifices were required of the Israelite people: the sin offering and the trespass offering.
Now, let’s look a bit more in depth at a few of these. In Exodus 29: 38 we find the specifications for the daily offerings. In the Hebrew, daily means daily, every day. So every morning a spotless lamb was offered on the bronze altar and every evening a spotless lamb was offered in the very same place. Two lambs each day, 365 days each year. By my calculation that is 730 lambs every year that were slaughtered as a sacrifice to God by the priests. That’s a lot of lambs! Think of the blood from 730 lambs. Whoever had janitorial duty had quite a job, didn’t they?
The sin offering or sacrifice was applicable when anyone sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands.
Ok, let’s have a show of hands. How many of you have sinned unintentionally….today? Yes, you see my hand waving in the air. I’m thinking you better have yours waving in the air right along with mine unless of course you just opened your eyes and have not yet gotten out of bed. Even then, not raising your hand is questionable.
The person who committed the unintentional sin had to bring a bull, lay their hands on the bull’s head and kill the thing right on the spot. That person’s sin had caused the bull to be sacrificed and God said that person had to be the one to kill the sacrifice. Oh my!
Now, let’s try to get a handle on the number of animals that were sacrificed in one year in the nation of Israel in the day of the Old Testament tabernacle. I’m not great with math, so you help me with my numbers.
Number of lambs sacrificed for the daily offering in a year (see above): 730
Number of Israelite men who came out of Egypt with Moses according to Exodus 12: 37: 600,000
Let’s be extraordinarily generous and assume each man only sinned unintentionally once a month. That would mean each man would sacrifice 12 animals per year at the altar so 600,000 x 12 = 7,200,000
If we double the number to include the women of Israel, we have how many animals sacrificed each year for unintentional sin? 14,400,000
Add the daily sacrifices to that number and you get 14,400,730 animals sacrificed each year for the sin of the people of Israel. Fourteen and a half million animals sacrificed each year. Year after year to atone for the sin of the people. I’m not sure my mind can even wrap around that number. It would have been a continual parade of animals and people headed to the tabernacle. And the blood…. Oh my word, the blood flowed freely out the front gate of the tabernacle. The blood of spotless animals that were sacrificed to cover the sin of the people. Over and over the people had to bring animals because the blood of a spotless animal only atoned for sin up to that moment. By the time they returned home from the tabernacle many of them had sinned again, necessitating yet another animal be sacrificed. I might as well have just set up my camper at the tabernacle because I would be needing to offer daily sacrifices for sin.
Fast forward to Paul’s day when the temple sacrifices were soon to end. In 70 AD the Romans destroyed the temple and it has never been rebuilt. Observant Jews of today long for the time when the Temple will be rebuilt and the sacrifices will resume. Can you even imagine?
What the Jewish people do not understand is that there is no longer a need for those sacrifices to be made because the perfect and permanent sacrifice has been offered.
Ok, enough for today.
MEDITATION MOMENT: Please stop right now and say a prayer of thanks to God for the blood of that perfect spotless lamb, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who died to pay the fine, the penalty, the debt that you owed for your sin.
