Offering by Grace

6 min read

12 “Then the Levites are to lay their hands on the heads of the bulls, using one for a sin offering to the LORD and the other for a burnt offering, to make atonement for the Levites.”

Numbers 8:12

The religion of the Old Testament in the law of Moses was like the religion of the New Testament in Christ Jesus in that both are grounded in the grace of God through the faith of God’s people.

There was nothing particularly special about the Levites, and there was nothing particularly special about the Israelites. The Israelites were chosen to be the people of God by His grace through faith. The Levites were chosen to be the tribe to ministry before the LORD by grace through faith.

The rituals that God gave to the Israelites and to the Levites were to be obeyed—not because of any particular supernatural quality of the rituals—but because those rituals came from God. He gave them the rituals, in part, to engage the whole person and also to engage the whole community, so that they might have a way to be in the presence of God as a consecrated (holy) people. And the entry point of being in the presence of God is always atonement for sins.

But the Israelites as a whole, including the Levites, trusted in the rituals as the source of atonement, and not God Himself. And so, we could think of the coming of Christ as God doing away with the rituals so that we might see and understand that God, through His Son, is the only Source of atonement for sins.

So why would God provide the law and those rituals, instead of just sending Jesus to us in the first place?

Who can answer such questions, except God Himself. But we know that the human heart is inclined toward exploring all the possibilities of our existence, even if those possibilities draw us toward the world and lead us away from God. We saw that in the Garden of Eden.

God is not One to limit our human experience in order to make us mindless sycophants. Instead, He put His image inside of us. And His image in us includes the freedom to make choices.

And so, perhaps, by His grace, the LORD gave the Israelites the laws and rituals so that all humanity might come to see where the human heart leads us when given such provisions for atonement in order to come into His presence. Given the freedom that we have to experience the world and to make choices, those laws and rituals become, sooner or later, the objects of our idolatry.

And that is because the human heart is always inclined to dictate the terms of our holiness, instead of simply receiving that holiness from another Source, that is the LORD.

And even though we have Jesus Christ today, the people of God are still inclined to dictate the terms of our holiness. Even now, we must make the good choice to receive our atonement and our holiness from Christ and Christ alone, not in any of the traditions that God as allowed us to have to symbolize our coming into His presence.

His presence is in us through a personal relationship with Jesus, and that is all.

Father, Your wisdom is beyond our comprehension. You have a plan to draw us into Your glorious presence, but we so often try to come up with our own plans. Forgive us, and forgive me. But thank Your for Your grace. Thank You for never giving up on us. Open our eyes and ears and hearts to obey Your word—not as a letter of a law that kills—but as the fruit of our relationship with You. In Jesus’s name. Amen.