The Sacrifices

I've been putting some miles in Leviticus, and I have come up for air to discuss just some brief thoughts from the book. And to mention that for the first couple weeks of August I'll be gone, so what irregular posting I write here will be interrupted further.  Also, as a quick aside, Tim Enloe put up an interesting post about science fiction and religion; as a fan of the genre, I found it pretty neat.

There a great many hints of the sacrifice of Christ in the laws concerning the offerings. The obvious ones:

• the death of the innocent lamb, goat, ram, bull in place of the guilty priest, person, nation
  
• grain offerings without leaven (often a symbol of human works)

I think there are some other interesting notes here, though.  The priesthood lived off of the sacrifices.  And we see in the New Testament that we are also a priesthood, and we live off of the sacrifice of Christ.  It is not a mistake that Christ is the bread of life, and we do not celebrate an empty symbol in the eucharist.

Another example is the burnt offering, which was to burn continually.  The fire burned day and night, never to be extinguished.  In a similar way, the sacrifice of Christ is a continual one, and continuously effective.

There are several kinds of offerings, also:  sin, trespass, peace, and burnt.  In each we see, I think, a shadow of the cross.  We see him also as the high priest, making intercession for the people.

There really is a lot there, and it's well worth the time to read through it and try to digest a few things it has to say.