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--which deal with the subject of sacrifice, and that's the subject of our theological consideration today. This is a very difficult subject for me, but when I feel obligated to tackle as an Old Testament theologian, I turn first to Isaiah 1, verses 10 through 20. Hear the word of Yahweh, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says Yahweh. I've had
enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he goats. When you come to appear before me in the temple, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moons, and Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed
feasts, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I'm weary of bearing them. When you spread forth your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the
widow. And then in one of the Psalms of the Psalter, a very beautiful Psalm, which begins with an appeal to the grace of God. Have mercy upon me, O Yahweh, according to thy chesed, according to thy faithfulness. Psalm 51 concludes in this wise. I begin now at verse 15. O Yahweh, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou hast no delight in sacrifice. Were I to give a burnt offering, thou
wouldst not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. But then notice how this Psalm ends. It seems to be a later supplement to the liturgy. Do good to Zion in thy good pleasure. Rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Then wilt thou delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on thy altar. We have been working
out from the priestly system of covenants in the Pentateuch, especially the covenant associated with Abraham and its sequel, the Sinai covenant, as viewed in priestly symbolization. We have found that the Abrahamic covenant contained an assurance that was fulfilled at Mount Sinai, namely that Yahweh would be God to this people. That is to say, God in an existential and a liturgical sense. God present in the midst of the people. This was a matter of communal worship. It
was realized in a worshiping community, and that means in a cult. For there is no worshiping community without a cult. And that's true even in the most informal aspects of the Protestant tradition, which seem to be non-cultic and yet which have developed in their own ways special cultic means of coming together and worshiping God in concert. The purpose of the cult is to celebrate and continue the relationship with God, which is the basis of life
and meaning. The unique aspect of priestly theology is the affirmation that the grace have been provided by God himself in order that the community, the worshiping community, may maintain communion with God by means of atonement. That is very important to priestly theology. It is the affirmation that God in divine grace has provided the means of access to God so that the community may live in constant relationship and communion with God. I need to emphasize again and
again that the theological presuppositions of this cultic concern are given in the Abrahamic covenant, which is one of sola gratia. God's relationship with the people is not based on human performance, so that it would be a complete misunderstanding of the whole priestly cult to suppose that here is a system by which human beings manipulate God or control God. On the contrary, as I say, the theological premise of all of this presentation, which balks so large in
the Torah, is that God through Abraham has made an unconditional covenant with the people, a covenant which is not predicated upon human performance, but which is an expression solely of divine grace. Now we have found, at least in a preliminary way, that sometimes theologians make a distinction between atonement and reconciliation. Atonement, it is sometimes said, is a means of appeasing God, whereas reconciliation is the overcoming of enmity and the creating of a friendly relationship. So attempts
have been made by some theologians to draw a distinction between atonement and reconciliation, but in the Old Testament that distinction does not hold up. Thus the emphasis is upon the initiative which God takes in making atonement. It is not human beings who atone. In fact, the verb for atone, which I gave you last time, the verb kippare, often means God's act of forgiveness, which affects reconciliation or restores right relationship. Let me draw your attention to a
passage in this regard which is found in the prophecy of Ezekiel, the priestly prophet. I now turn to Ezekiel chapter 16 beginning at verse 59. Yea, thus says Yahweh God, I will deal with you as you have done, who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant. Yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant. There's our term once again, a covenant in
perpetuity. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when I take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, this is a part of a larger parable of the sisters, that is the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom and their perverse betrayal of the covenant, both your elder and your younger and gave them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you. I will establish my covenant with you and you shall
know that I am Yahweh, that you may remember and be confounded and never open your mouth again because of your shame. When I forgive you, there's our verb in the Hebrew, kippur, when I make atonement for you, translated here, when I forgive you, all that you have done says Yahweh your God. So it is not human beings who make atonement, but on the contrary, it is God who takes the initiative and atonement thus, in the final
sense, is an expression of divine forgiveness. The practice of religion, therefore, has both an inward dimension as well as an external dimension. That is to say, the rights of the cult in one sense are external rights, they are rights which are to be performed in terms of overt action, and yet these rights also must have an inward dimension, that is to say, the dimension of communion with God, communion with God which is established on the basis
of divine initiative and forgiveness. When the external rights of the cultists became things in themselves, then a prophet like Isaiah would launch a fierce attack and could go so far as to say that Yahweh cares nothing about this whole show. But on the other hand, no prophet, I believe, would have advocated a purely spiritual religion, that is to say, a religion without a cult. And so it's not surprising that the priestly prophet, Ezekiel, above all, attempts
to combine the external right and the inward attitude in such a way that these rights become sacramental means of God's establishing relationship with the So much by way of introduction. Now, I really launch out into the deep in taking up the first chapters of the book of Leviticus which deal with sacrifice, chapters one through seven. This really is both a no man's land and a no woman's land as far as scripture is concerned. Very rarely do
people turn to the treatment of sacrifice which is set forth in these seven chapters, and I must admit that it's rather rare for me even to lecture on this subject. And yet, this is very important, provided one recognizes that these rights are to be regarded in a sacramental sense, that is to say, as the external means of expressing an inward and spiritual attitude. So the forms of the cult change. Sacrifices are no longer given in the
sense as described in the first seven chapters of Leviticus, either in the Jewish community or, of course, in the Christian community. So the forms of religion change. Our question, however, is to understand the meaning of those forms, the theological meaning of the forms of sacrifice as presented in the book of Leviticus. So we turn then to a consideration of these sacrifices, and the proper beginning place is to deal with the theological premise of all sacrifice according
to priestly tradition. That premise is found in a verse which has been very influential in the history of Jewish and Christian tradition. It's found in Leviticus chapter 17 verse 11. Would you turn to that context? Chapter 17 of the book of Leviticus, that's a series of laws dealing with various kinds of taboos, and especially the taboo against the eating of blood, the blood of animals, so that there must be meat properly slaughtered. That's still a very
important consideration in Jewish community today. Kosher regulations, as they say. So in the midst of that discussion of the proper slaughter of animals, we have a statement found in verse 11 of chapter 17, which gives us the key to the understanding of the whole sacrificial system. Verse 11, I'm going to turn to the Hebrew, and you follow with your own translation. Four, the Hebrew says here, the nephesh of the flesh is the blood. Nephesh, almost an
impossible word to translate into English. Nephesh means the life or the vitality, even the selfhood that is manifest in basar, in the flesh. So it could even be translated in some context, a person, though a person in the psychosomatic unity sense. All right, this statement says then, four, the vitality of the flesh is in the blood. I have given it to you, and the pronoun you is in the plural, upon the altar to, and here comes
our theological verb, kippur, to make atonement, to make atonement for your, and then it's got nephesh in the plural, speaking now to all of the people, to make atonement for your lives, for the blood makes atonement by virtue of the nephesh, by virtue of the nephesh, the vitality that is in nephesh. As I say, that's a very difficult sentence to render into English, but the idea is now that the blood is very sacred to God. Here's
the basis for reverence for life in the Old Testament. The blood is the life principle, and therefore it is, it symbolizes or manifests the life, the vitality that is in the flesh, and because this blood, because this vitality has its source in God, the Holy God, you see, life therefore is precious. In the period before the flood, this applies to humans and to animals, there's to be no killing at all, because the blood belongs to God,
it's sacred, and there must be reverence for all kinds of life. Remember that story in the fourth chapter of Genesis about the first fratricide, the first murder that occurred, and how the blood of that slain brother was crying out to Yahweh from the ground. The ground had been polluted by the lifeblood of a slain person. So in chapter nine of the book of Genesis, the regulation against sacrifice of any kind of life, whether animal or human,
is relaxed. There can be proper slaughter of animals for eating food under certain circumstances and conditions, but above all, you must remember the preciousness of life, and that therefore the blood is the symbol and the evidence of that vitality, that life, which is a gift from God. Well, our task then is to understand the meaning of the symbolism of blood as it appears in the context of sacrifice. Blood symbolizes life that is a gift from God,
and even today we know that blood donors can give life, even though it's ignored that this life is a gift of God, not just a liquid composed of various chemicals. Priestly sacrifices say that blood is efficacious in atonement for the lives of individuals or a people. Now let's hold that sentence in Leviticus 17 before us once again and review some of the elements in it. First of all, this sentence tells us that God chooses this means
of atonement. We read in the Hebrew, I, and the I, the divine I is in the emphatic position, I have given it for you upon the altar. So you see how the emphasis is upon divine initiative. This is not a magical rite, a work which is effective in itself, ex opera, operato, but depends upon the will of the covenant God. That is the first thing which is clear from that the emphasis is upon the divine initiative.
Secondly, this passage indicates that blood is effective as a means of atonement because it stands for the life which God has given, and therefore it becomes a sacrament of a relationship between the living God and living human beings. So the blood is sacramental in the sense that it signifies the relationship of life between the living God and living human beings. And finally, by the blood, that is by the life or the vitality, atonement is effected. That
is to say, broken relations are restored. As Friesen, the theologian Friesen, puts it in this connection, a life relation that threatened to be dissolved or had weakened or broken altogether is restored or strengthened through the sacramental efficacy of the blood. Now when I use language like this, I think of some of those gospel songs that we used to sing and sometimes sing when students come over to the house, you know about how there's power
in the blood, wonder working power in the blood, we in the Protestant community especially have picked up on this kind of blood symbolism, though perhaps that is not emphasized so much anymore in certain congregations. To summarize this aspect, that is to say the premise of sacrifice, the holy God who condescends to be involved with his people wills life, wholeness, holiness, and communion. This is the will of God that there should be relationship, there should be communion
between the people and the holy God. And again, we have to emphasize that the sacrifices belong in the context of Yahweh's unconditional covenant with the people through Abraham, a covenant which is based upon grace alone. So much now for the whole the premise of the whole sacrificial system. We turn now to the specific sacrifices and I've listed the major categories on the board in both Hebrew and in transliteration. You find these sacrifices dealt with in Leviticus
1 through 7. I do not intend to go into all of the, if I may put it this way, the gory details of these sacrifices, many of which are intended purely for the priesthood, that is to say their instructions to priests. They belong to a kind of an esoteric priestly knowledge which was shared among priests in the Jerusalem temple and were not really intended for lay use. In any case, these sacrifices found in Leviticus 1 through
7 fall into three general categories and it is important not to know the details but to understand the general character of each sacrifice. The first sacrifice is often called the burnt offering, the whole burnt offering. Sometimes it is called the holocaust. Well we know that of course from another context. We do not, another kind of whole burnt offering of a much more ominous sort. The word holocaust comes from Greek compounds, from a Greek compound, holos which
means whole, kaustos which means burning or burnt. We have the word caustic in English of course, caustic, a burning remark, a singeing remark. So a holocaust then is a burnt offering in which the animal is wholly consumed, w -h -o -l -l -y is wholly consumed. The characteristic feature of the ola sacrifice is that the whole sacrifice is burnt on the altar, the smoke of which ascends, and the verb for that in Hebrew is the verb
based upon this, ascend which means to go up or rise, the smoke rises or ascends from the altar to God as a as a tribute. Except for the blood, here we come again to the issue the blood which the priest pours around the altar in the court outside the temple. If you think of the temple as a rectangle with the holy of holies at the back, the cella at the rear, the altar of burnt sacrifices is
outside of the temple and it's in this situation that the people worship facing the temple in connection with the sacrifice of burnt offerings. The ola sacrifice is regarded as a gift to Yahweh presented by an individual who places the individual's hands on the victim thereby saying, this is mine and the benefits accrue to you see a kind of a personal claim is made. The person making the sacrifice identifies with the sacrifice and thus in that sense
brings a personal tribute to God. This person according to the legislation after killing the animal gives it to the priest who brings it to the altar. Atonement in this sacrifice is an act instituted by God but performed as a sacrament by the priests as mediators. All right, that's type one, the whole burnt offering with which the individual becomes identified in worship. The second type of sacrifice is called the communion sacrifice. Well, sometimes this is translated as
peace offering but that's undoubtedly an improper translation. The word shelem in Hebrew comes from a root which refers to making settlement or reparation, making amends you might say. We have a sacrifice then which is essentially a communion sacrifice in the sense that it's a meal shared between God the priest and the offerer. That's what really makes it a communion sacrifice. Unlike the ola offering you see which an individual can present to the priest and become individually
related to God in thanksgiving or praise, here is the kind of sacrifice which is much more communal and this is referred to by the way by Paul in 1st Corinthians 10 18 where he says he's talking here about the Lord's Supper, about the Eucharist, but he's comparing it with the sacrifices that Israel knows and says are we not partners at the altar? Well, you see the communion sacrifice is one in which people really do become partners
at the altar. So the priest officiates, the offerer presents the offering as a tribute to God, lays his hands upon it, slaughters it by himself and then the priest pours the blood around the altar and burns the fat on the altar because the fat is regarded as especially sacred too and the priest then takes certain portions of the meat as his perquisite, his honorarium I suppose, his stipend and the offerer gets the rest of the meat
and may invite the whole family and any other guests for the meal. So this is a sacrifice characterized by joy, by gratitude, by praise, but is essentially communal in character. And finally, we have a type of sacrifice which is designated either by the Hebrew word hatat or asham, hatat or asham, and these are usually translated as sin offerings, sin offerings, that's the word for sin actually in Hebrew, one word, sin offerings and asham, guilt offerings. These
offerings function to restore the bond of relationship between God and people when its existence has been endangered. You see it is guilt, it is sin which poses the barrier, the real barrier between the people and the holy God and in this kind of sacrifice then there is a sacramental overcoming of that barrier through the means of grace that are provided. In this sacrifice the blood plays the most important part. The priest gathers the blood, enters the
sanctuary and smears some of it on the veil which is just in front of the ark in the Holy of Holies. He puts some on the altar of incense which is just before the Holy of Holies on the inside of the temple and he pours the rest at the base of the altar of burnt offerings on the outside of the temple. Fat is burnt on the altar, none of the meat is eaten by the offerer, but
all goes to the priests. They get quite a cut in this case. This sacrifice as I've indicated is effective for restoring a broken relationship between individuals or the community and God, but notice it is effective only for inadvertent sins or faults. It is not effective in the case of sins that are made presumptuously, that are committed presumptuously. The Hebrew expression there is B'yad Ramah which means with high hand. You see, if somebody just goes out
and sins bravely, quote Luther there, sins with a high hand definitely and intentionally and with full intention to blaspheme and to repudiate the sovereignty of God, then even this kind of sacrifice is not effective, it is not efficacious according to the priest's theology. Such a guilty person must be excommunicated from the community and that was a regulation by the way which was also practiced in the Qumran monastery in the Dead Sea Valley just before the period
of the rise of Christianity. Well here then we have the three major types. Actually I could list some subtypes, but it's sufficient now I think to understand the major sacrifices and their character. We turn now to the great rite in the priestly system and that is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur and Kippur of course comes also from that verb kippair which means to atone. We are talking now about the Day of Atonement which has been
appropriately called the Good Friday of the Old Testament. The whole sacrificial system comes to a climax in this day of confession, contrition and especially the expiation which wards off the judgment of the holy God who tabernacles in the midst of the people. Now the ceremony for the Day of Atonement is given to us classically in the 16th chapter of Leviticus where we read of two rituals. The first is one in which the priests, the Levites, are
the only participants. The high priest offers an ox for his sin and his priestly house. He first of all makes an offering on behalf of himself and his own family. The priest then penetrates into the Holy of Holies the only time in the year according to priestly perspective when this may be done. On the most sacred day of the whole calendar, the Day of Atonement, once a year the priest may enter into the Holy of Holies
and sprinkle the mercy seat with blood. We talked about that last time, remember, the kapporeth, that sacred surface of the ark on this day is sprinkled with blood. The priest then sacrifices a he goat for the sins of the people, likewise carrying the blood into the Holy of Holies and sprinkling the mercy seat. Well that's one part of the ritual. The second you've heard about more, the ritual which deals with the so-called scapegoat. That's a
curious ceremony actually involving two he goats which are presented by the community. By lot, by dice, sacred dice, these goats are designated one for Yahweh and one for Azazel. Azazel is regarded as a demon. So the first goat then serves for the sacrifice to Yahweh on behalf of the people and the second is for the demon Azazel. The high priest puts both his hands on the head of the goat. This other goat that's to be driven
away confesses over it all the sins of Israel and then the goat is led to the desert and the goat escapes with all of the sins of the people and is finally pushed over a precipice. Way to get rid of sin. By the way the our English word scapegoat actually goes back to an older archaic word. It's actually an archaic word for escape. You see because the idea is that the priest and the people allow this
goat to escape to go away into the wilderness bearing upon it sacramentally all of the sins of the people. Well as I say that is the classical ceremony for the great day in the sacrificial system, the day of atonement. Now I want to bring this conclusion this to a conclusion more theologically rather than going further into the details which you can study on your own. By the way an excellent book to read in this connection is
a book by the French scholar Père Roland de Vaux called, "The Sacrifices of Israel". A Roman Catholic scholar Père, Father Roland de Vaux. I want to discuss with you what all of implies theologically in terms of expiation and once again to lift up the distinction between expiation and propitiation. The theological question raised by these sacrificial rights is just as important for New Testament theology as it is for Old Testament theology. The question is do these sacrifices
propitiate God or do they expiate the offense of the people? That's the issue theologically. It's that simple, it's that profound. Now once again let's define our terms. Propitiation refers to a means of placating or pacifying the displeasure of God, the wrath of God. Propitiation is an atoning action which is directed toward God. You see the view is that God is alienated by human offenses, that God requires something to appease or to placate his wrath before he
will show favor. That's what is meant by propitiation. It is a right which attempts to please, to placate, to gain the favor of God. Expiation, on the other hand, does not locate the hindrance in God but in the sin of human beings. It is this human hindrance that must be covered by means of atonement if there is to be proper relationship. So you see in one case that is to say propitiation, the hindrance is on the
side of God. In the other case, in the case of expiation or covering, the hindrance is on the human side. It is that sin, it is that offense which makes it impossible for people to live in the presence of the Holy God and to worship him properly. I think whenever I go over this distinction between propitiation and expiation, I think of the language of the communion service, at least language which we used to use in the
Methodist liturgy where at one point we said he is the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins only but also for the sins of the whole world. You will find that translators these days are moving away from that whole idea of propitiation to expiation. In any case, there is no basis in Old Testament theology for the view that Hebrew sacrifice like pagan sacrifice is propitiatory, that it's designed to placate or please God. Priestly theology
is very clear at this point and that is that God is the subject of the verb atone. God is never the object of that verb. Well, I suppose if you look through the concordance, you might come up with some curious passage here or there which might provide some sort of exception, but if so, it would be the exception that proves the rule. The rule is that God is always the subject of the verb. Human beings do
not make atonement. It is God who makes the atonement so that the idea is not that the wrath of God is propitiated by the sacrifices at the altar, but rather God who, through these means of grace, allows the people, permits the people to make atonement. That's a very important theological distinction and having made that distinction or having attempted to at any rate, I want to conclude this discussion by moving into the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, the
very well-known chapter to all of us. The thing that interests me about Isaiah 53 is that it has much in common with the portrayal that is given to us in priestly theology. Maybe you've never thought of that so much before. Sometimes Isaiah 53, you know, the portrayal of the suffering servant is regarded as belonging in prophetic tradition like Jeremiah or maybe Moses, the great prophet. Sometimes it's regarded as belonging primarily to royal tradition because this
servant seems to be one who is highly exalted. But have you ever thought that the one who wrote that has also drawn upon the liturgical practice of the temple and especially upon priestly theology? Let me indicate some of the aspects of atonement that are brought out in Isaiah 53. In this chapter there is no thought that God's anger must be appeased before God can be gracious. That would go against the whole theology which is set forth
in Isaiah 40 through 55. I want to read just one passage from that section for you. It's found in Isaiah 43 beginning at verse 22. 43 beginning at verse 22. Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob, but you have been weary of me, O Israel. You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings or wearied you with frankincense. You have not
brought me sweet cane with money or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities. And then comes the punch line. I, I only am the who blots out your transgressions for my sake, and I will not remember your sins any longer. So this is a prophet who above all wants to say that the initiative in forgiveness and reconciliation is on the side
of God. And Israel has not been able to do anything except to weary this God with her sinning, the result of which is that in sheer grace, God forgives and establishes a new beginning. So the first premise of Isaiah 53 then is that this is not the kind of sacrifice which is necessary in order to appease God's wrath. No, this is the expression of the forgiving, gracious, outgoing love of God to the people and through the
servant indeed to the whole world. Secondly, we are told in Isaiah 53, maybe you've never noticed this before, that the servant's sacrifice is an offering for sin. That's verse 10 of Isaiah 53. And this is the word that's used, one of our priestly terms. It is a guilt offering and a sham. The servant's sacrifice then is a guilt offering, but the blood is efficacious only because it is offered for others on behalf of others vicariously as
a release or a ransom. So this is a sacrifice. The blood of the servant is atoning, it is efficacious, but only because this is the kind of sacrifice which is made for others and therefore which has the power to bring others into the community. And finally, this chapter does indicate that the sacrifice of the servant is substitutionary. We've heard a lot about substitutionary sacrifice, have we not? Yes, this is substitutionary sacrifice in the sense that it
is an offering which at God's initiative is able to release people from bondage. According to ancient tradition, the law of the sacrifice of the firstborn could be commuted by providing a lamb. You remember that old legislation? Everything that first opens the womb belongs to Yahweh, ox, ass, lamb, and so forth. But in the case of human beings, that demand could be overcome by substituting a lamb. And it seems that that's what is being said in this
case, that the servant's sacrifice is vicarious. It is on behalf of others, it is for others, and therefore it has the power in the grace of God to release people from bondage and to bring them into a new community and into the new future of the kingdom of God which is being opened up. Well, so much for the general lineaments, for the general contours of the theology of sacrifice as is set forth in priestly tradition. I
don't want to suggest that the Old Testament is in complete agreement with the New Testament in every respect, but I do want to emphasize that the Old Testament, especially theology, has provided the context for understanding and appropriating the sacrifice of Jesus, which expresses the initiative of God. That's the meaning of the sacrifice of Jesus. It is an expression of the initiative which God has taken, and that initiative is a manifestation of the God who is pleased
to dwell in our midst as the Holy God, as is put in the prologue to the Gospel of John, who tabernacles in our midst so that through the sacrifice of the servant, there may be life, there may be peace, there may be wholeness, everything that God wills for the people and indeed for the whole world. We conclude at that point, and we will resume our discussion next time with the consideration of creation theology. you