Burnt Offering
Leviticus 1:1-9
On the Sundays in which we as a local church observe Communion, we want to study the offerings and feasts that the Lord gave to the nation of Israel and apply those truths to us today. The book of Leviticus teaches us of the holiness of and how sinful man can approach God and have fellowship with Him.
The burnt offering is the most prevalent of all the offerings and was made in conjunction with other offerings. The Hebrew word meant, “that which goes upâ€, referring to the smoke rising from the altar.
The worshipper would bring the appropriate animal, based upon his economic status, to the temple and there lean upon it and kill it. The priest would catch the blood in a bowl, and sprinkle it on the side of the altar. The worshipper would then skin the animal, butcher it, and the priest would then take the butchered animal, place it on the alter and all of it would be burned unto the Lord.
What did all this mean and signify? In Genesis, we have two accounts of burnt offering which lay the foundation for its meaning. With Noah, after the flood it signified his thankfulness of being spared from God’s wrath and also his dependency upon God to meet his needs. With Abraham, we see the symbolism of substitution, as a ram was substituted for Isaac. So this burnt offering came to symbolize the worshipper’s faith in God’s provision for their sin and also his need to dedicate his life unto God, which would result in doing good.
For us today, we no longer need to take an animal for sacrifice, since Christ who was the Lamb of God, became our substitute when he went to the cross to die in our place for our sins, and when we accepted him as our savior he became our burnt offering. But we are told to be “living sacrifices†(Rom 12:1) and to “offer up sacrifices of praise†(Heb 13:15-16). In Eph 2:10, we are told that we were saved unto good works. In other words our lives need to express our commitment to the Lord in every thing we do.