The Sin Offering

Outline

Introduction

The instructions of the sin offering

The implications of the sin offering

The intercession of the sin offering

Conclusion

Scripture reading

Leviticus 4:1–3 NASB95

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘If a person sins unintentionally in any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and commits any of them, if the anointed priest sins so as to bring guilt on the people, then let him offer to the Lord a bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed.

Introduction

This morning, we are looking at the sin offering. So far in this series, Pastor Sam has covered the burnt offering in Lev. 1, the grain offering in Lev. 2, and the peace offering in Lev. 3. And that brings us to the sin offering in Lev. 4.

The burnt offering is the primary atoning sacrifice to repair and reconnect with God. The grain offering is a sacrifice whereby we give thanks to God for His blessings and provision. The peace offering, however, gives thanks not for the physical provision, but for the spiritual relationship that God has given us through the covenant.

Now what about the sin offering?

Before we get into it, I’d like to share a story about two brothers.

Once upon a time, there were two brothers. Their father was a leader of the church. And these two brothers had this extra zeal for God, more than the ordinary believer. They would sit in the front row, they would stay back to vacuum. Everyone looked up to them as role models.

One day, the two of them decide to give a special offering to God. And so they prepare this incredible incense to offer to God. “God going to be so pleased!” they say. And the next day, they approach the presence of God in the tabernacle. And they offer their incense to God.

And lo and behold, fire came forth from the presence of the Lord. They were in awe. They had learned about how the tabernacle represents the garden of Eden. “This must be the flaming sword that guards the way to the tree of life! We’re almost in the Lord’s presence!”

But the fire raged past their offering and consumed them instead. Something had gone terribly wrong.

They had overlooked one important thing. One must not approach the presence of the Lord in their sin.

The story is based on Lev. 10:1-2, where Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron the high priest, break God’s law, and approach the presence of God. They are consumed by fire for their sin. And it is this kind of sin that the sin offering deals with.

Leviticus 4:2 NASB95

“Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘If a person sins unintentionally in any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and commits any of them,

They may have approached God’s presence with the best of intentions, but they bore an unintentional sin.

And so today as we look at the sin offering in Leviticus 4, let us consider its instructions, its implications, and its intercession for us today.

The instructions of the sin offering

Overview

Let us begin by looking at the instructions of the sin offering in Leviticus 4. Something that immediately stands out is that God gives different instructions for different kinds of people.

We see four kinds of people.

The high priest (Lev. 4:3-12)

The entire congregation (Lev. 4:13-21)

The leaders of the people (Lev. 4:22-26)

The common person (Lev. 4:27-35)

And their sin offerings differ in three ways.

First, the value of the animal.

Second, where the blood is sprinkled.

Third, what happens to the body of the animal.

The value of the animal

So first, why are the animals different? It’s because the sin is different. Not in terms of quality, but quantity. We can think in terms of representation. A commoner offers a female goat, and puts his hand on its head. When you put your hand on the head of the animal, you’re saying, “This animal represents me.” And so whatever happens to that animal is what should happen to us.

A leader, however, represents the commoners under him. The Hebrew word for leader is nasi, which means lifted up. The leader is lifted up as the head of those under him. And as their head, the leader bears more responsibility to God. So his sin is heavier than a commoner’s sin. So he has to offer something heavier. A male goat. So the heavier the sin, the heavier the sin offering.

So is the sin offering is for the high priest, is the animal going to be heavier or lighter? It’s going to be heavier. The high priest has to offer a huge bull. And likewise for the sin offering of the entire congregation. Both have to offer bulls, and the instructions are exactly the same, step by step.

Why? Because the high priest represents all the people before God. So in God’s eyes, his sin and the sins of all the people of Israel weigh the same.

Where the blood is sprinkled

For the sin offerings of the high priest and the entire congregation, the blood of the sacrificial animal has to be sprinkled on the veil leading to the holy of holies. And then the priest has to put some blood on the horns of the altar of incense. Where is it? In the holy place. Just outside the holy of holies (Lev. 4:6-7, 17-18).

The sin of the high priest is so serious, you have to walk right up to the holiest place and stain it with blood.

But for the leader and the commoner, their sin isn’t as heavy. So the blood only goes up to the altar of burnt offering in the outer court. (Lev. 4:25, 30).

The body of the animal

What about what happens to the body of the animal?

For the a leader or commoner, only the fat of the animal is burned on the altar of burnt offering.

For the high priest or the entire congregation, the fat, kidneys, and liver are burned on the altar of burnt offering. So there’s the additional kidneys and liver. But the rest of the animal must be burned outside the camp (Lev. 4:12, 21)

Leviticus 4:21 NASB95

‘Then he is to bring out the bull to a place outside the camp and burn it as he burned the first bull; it is the sin offering for the assembly.

Again, this shows us how heavy is the sin of the high priest.

So in summary, from the instructions of the sin offering, we learn that the heavier the sin, the heavier the sin offering. The heavier the sin offering, the deeper it’s blood must go into God’s presence, and the further away it’s body has to go from the tabernacle.

The implications of the sin offering

Next, the implications of the sin offering. What does the sin offering imply? As we’ve seen, the sin offering teaches us about the weight and severity of sin. But what kind of sin? Because the Bible distinguishes between two kinds of sin. Intentional, and unintentional sin.

Numbers 15:30 NASB95

‘But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from among his people.

The NASB translation here has the word ‘defiantly.’ The Hebrew literally says, “The person who does anything with a high hand,” signalling a defiant or rebellious attitude toward God’s law.

The second kind of sin, which is addressed by the sin offering, is unintentional sin.

Leviticus 4:2 NASB95

“Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘If a person sins unintentionally in any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and commits any of them,

What’s unintentional sin? It’s breaking God’s law without intent, without meaning to, probably due to ignorance or forgetfulness.

“But I didn’t do it on purpose. Does it still count?”

Yes. Even unintentional sins are still sins, and they need to be atoned for. If you start eating durian in the train, you still have to pay the $500 fine, regardless of whether you knew the law or not.

“But I thought God cares more about people than the rules? Why is He so uptight about the law, that He even cares about unintentional sins?”

This is the real question. Why does God care so much about His law?

If we asked Jesus what’s the essence of the law, what would He say?

Matthew 22:37–40 (NASB95)

And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

God cares so much about His law because His law is all about our relationship with Him. The law is about love.

Look at the Ten Commandments. The first four are about loving God. The last six are about loving neighbor.

So what’s the purpose of the law? Love. Why don’t we eat durians on the train? Love. Why does God care about the law? Love. Even the unintentional sins? Yes. For whose sake? For love’s sake. For our sake. For it is a grave danger to approach God in our sin.

So the tabernacle isn’t about keeping us out, but keeping God in. Like a lion in a cage.

Exodus 19:24 NASB95

Then the Lord said to him, “Go down and come up again, you and Aaron with you; but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, or He will break forth upon them.”

And so God’s law is more than just a set of rules to follow. It’s about living in God’s presence. Doing life with God. That’s why the phrase “Before the Lord” appears sixty times in Leviticus. You shall do this before the Lord. You shall do that before the Lord.

If an important guest is coming to stay, we need to accommodate them by knowing what they like or dislike. But the truth about Leviticus is that it is not us who accommodate God, but God who is accommodating us into His presence. He’s bringing us back to the Garden, back into His presence.

But unless we’ve offered our sin offering, we cannot get past the flaming sword that guards the way to the tree of life (Gen. 3:24). We cannot enter God’s kingdom unless we have been completely separated from our sin.

Leviticus 15:31 NASB95

“Thus you shall keep the sons of Israel separated from their uncleanness, so that they will not die in their uncleanness by their defiling My tabernacle that is among them.”

On the 8th of July, 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached America’s most famous sermon called “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” And this is what he said.

“The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.”

Our sins make us so disgusting to the Lord, like a rat or a cockroach. If you see a cockroach in your house, what do you do? God has that same visceral disgust.

We can be the most passionate and faithful believers, but can we be one hundred percent certain that we don’t have any unintentional sins? Even if we do our best to keep the law, we may still have broken some unintentionally.

James 2:10 NASB95

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.

And so the sin offering implies that it is a fearful thing to approach the presence of a holy God. Why? Because even our unintentional sin must be forgiven. So we must offer our sin offering to be cleansed from our sins. When we do, we’re like a dirty cockroach that suddenly transforms into a cute puppy.

The intercession of the sin offering

So how can we give our sin offering? In the Old Testament, you needed a priest and a sacrifice. So we need a priest and and a sacrifice.

Who is our priest?

Lev. 4:3 says that if the high priest sins, he brings guilt on the people. That means that when God looks upon the congregation, He sees the sin of the high priest upon all of them.

Leviticus 4:3 NASB95

if the anointed priest sins so as to bring guilt on the people, then let him offer to the Lord a bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed.

Doesn’t this remind you of Adam in Genesis? He was the first one to know God. He was the first priest, and the garden of Eden his temple. But Adam also represented mankind. His name means mankind. And when he sinned, all of mankind sinned.

Romans 5:12 NASB95

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

Now, what if the high priest is completely righteous before God, completely without sin? When God looks upon those whom he represents, what’s He going to see? He going to see the righteousness of the high priest.

So who do you want representing you in the end? Because the Bible says that we’re either in Adam, or in Christ.

Romans 5:19 NASB95

For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

1 Corinthians 15:22 NASB95

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

I pray that Christ will be our priest, the one to intercede between us and God, to represent us before God, that we will live before Him and not die.

What is our sacrifice?

The high priest had to offer a bull. The leader of the people had to offer a male goat. The commoner had to offer a female goat or a female lamb. What is our sacrifice? It depends on how heavy is our sin.

But remember, the heavier the sin, the heavier the sacrificial animal. So how heavy is our sin?

Anselm of Canterbury was an archbishop in the 11th century, and this is what he said. The weight of your sin doesn’t have to do with you, but with the value of who you’ve sinned against.

If you spit in my food, you’ve sinned against me, and you have to buy me another plate of food. That’s your sacrificial animal. If you spit in the president’s food, you’re in much deeper trouble. You’d have to offer a heavier sacrificial animal, possibly a large sum of money and a public apology. What if you sin against God? How valuable is God? Infinite value. And so what kind of sacrificial animal must you offer to God for your sins? A sacrifice of infinite value.

What can possibly atone for sins as heavy as infinity? We’ve got two options. The first is for us to burn for all eternity. The second is to lay our hands on the head of an infinitely valuable sacrifice, and to say “My sins, I lay upon you.”

You know what’s interesting? There were four kinds of people described in Lev. 4. The high priest, the entire congregation, the leader of the people, and the commoner. But atonement and forgiveness seem to only apply to three of them.

The word for atonement is koper, which means to cover. The word for forgiven is nislah, which means to wash away. Koper literally means to cover. And these two words only apply to three of the four kinds of people.

The entire congregation (Lev. 4:20)

The leaders of the people (Lev. 4:26)

The common person (Lev. 4:31, 35)

So what’s interesting is that there is no mention of the high priest receiving atonement. It’s as if high priest doesn’t get covered or washed from their sin. It’s almost as if Lev. 4 is pointing us to a certain high priest who covers the sins of His people, with no one to cover for Him. One who takes on the sins of the people, but there’s no one to shield Him from the wrath of God. He bears it alone.

Leviticus 4 points us to the heaviest sin offering of them all, one of infinite value, the sinless Son of God, who was crucified outside the camp, and whose precious blood shed on the cross outweighs the sins of His people a million times over, that whosoever believes in Him will be cleansed of their sins for all eternity.

Hebrews 13:11–12 (NASB95)

For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.

Conclusion

Leaders in the church have a greater accountability toward God

First, the sin offering teaches us that the leaders in the church have a greater accountability toward God.

The sin offering of a leader is heavier than the sin offering of a lay member. In the same way, leaders in the church should strive for holiness and consecration from sin all the harder.

James 3:1 NASB95

Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.

Luke 12:48 (NASB95)

From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.

John Calvin said regarding leaders in the church, “The more illustrious was his dignity, the more diligently and zealously ought his life to be confirmed to the model of holiness.”

We must confess our sins to God and trust His faithfulness to forgive

1 John 1:9 NASB95

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The sin offering shows us what should be done when we realize we’ve sinned before God. Whether we forgot to pay your tithes, or accidentally spread gossip. When we realize our sin, we must confess our sins to God. Jesus’ death has given us access to God. The veil has been torn. But we must come before Him and confess our sins. And when we do, the blood of Jesus washes us clean from all our sins.

And for those of us here this morning who remain undecided about Jesus, it is a good time make a decision. Will you accept Jesus as your high priest and sin offering? The lamb of God is lowering His head to you. Will you place your sins upon Him, and bear the burden of sin no more? He is a kind and gentle Savior. Trust Him.

We can confidently approach the holy presence of God

Finally, we can confidently approach the holy presence of God. The presence of God is a severe thing, not to be taken lightly.

God has given us the law of the sin offering and all the other laws in order to accommodate us into His presence. Without the sin offering, the holiness of God would destroy us. So we need to reflect on our attitude toward God’s sanctuary. If we walk in here carelessly, we must repent and change our attitude. This is the holy place of God.

But if we walk in here, worried that God is going to strike us down for our sin, then we need to reflect on our faith.

Sometimes I have this anxiety when I’m about to step into Zion sanctuary, especially after I’ve committed a sin. Will I have a sudden heart attack?

But the Bible teaches us that we have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear. We are no longer slaves to our performance. We are no longer burdened by our sin. For it has been nailed to the cross, and we have a sinless high priest who stands before us unto God.

Hebrews 4:15–16 NASB95

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

And when God looks at us, He sees Jesus. And so we can come before Him, even if you’ve just sinned. Come to the throne of grace and confess your sins, for Jesus is your high priest and your sin offering.

So who here dares to pass through the flaming sword? This is the question that every Christian, new and old, can answer with full assurance, and full confidence. I dare. Why? Because it is no longer I who live, but Christ Jesus who lives in me (Gal. 2:20). And when I walk past that flaming sword, it will not strike me, for it has struck the One who bore my sins. And I will pass through the gates of heaven, and the holy God will welcome me home. I will fear no judgement, for there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).

Revelation 22:14 NASB95

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.

I pray that we will receive the blessing of this verse in the final day. And may all of us, members of Zion church, walk past the flaming sword and enter into the garden of Eden.