God’s Economy 2

4 min read

19 “From among all the Israelites, I have given the Levites as gifts to Aaron and his sons to do the work at the tent of meeting on behalf of the Israelites and to make atonement for them so that no plague will strike the Israelites when they go near the sanctuary.”

Numbers 8:19

The Levites were set apart to become priests and to make atonement for themselves and for the entire Israelite community through the sacrifice of clean animals. Basically, they did the work of giving life to the people. The Levites were “purchased” as a substitute for the firstborn of all the Israelites. And the firstborn of all the Israelites were “purchased” as a substitute for the firstborn of all the Egyptians that God had struck down because of Pharaoh’s disobedience.

In other words, God took the lives of the firstborn sons of Egypt to redeem the lives of all the Israelites (and again, if Pharaoh had released the Israelites, the firstborn would have lived). And so the redemption price for their freedom was the firstborn sons of all the Israelites. And the redemption price for releasing all the firstborn sons of Israel was every son of the tribe of Levi.

God’s justice demands life for life. That is why, according to the Law of Moses, if someone commits murder, the Law demands the murderer’s life. If people commit adultery, the Law demands the lives of the adulterer’s, because “life” and a future family has been taken from someone else. Every sin takes away “life” in some way.

And so, the Levites were set apart to not only redeem the lives of the firstborn sons of Israel, who were to redeem the lives of the firstborn sons of Egypt, but also to give life back through the atonement of sins.

God’s economy of redemption and substitution and atonement was completed and fulfilled in Christ Jesus, His one and only Son. The life of the Son of God was the redemption price for life of every single person who has ever sinned and ever will—that is to say, every human being. In the offering of His life there is atonement available for all sins so that life may be given back.

Father, Your ways are perfect, even though I don’t fully understand Your ways. But You have revealed Your plan to us through Your word. Let me find life in the atonement You offer through the sacrifice of Your Son, through whom my life has been redeemed. In Jesus’s name. Amen.