The Offering

[rainerann]

As Christians, we know that Jesus became an offering for sin on the cross, but where does the offering come from and why?

According to the law, there was an offering for sin. The priest would remove the fat and internal organs and burn these on the altar. Then, the rest of the offering would be burned outside of the camp, but the blood was to sprinkled seven times, put on the horns, and poured at the base of the altar (Leviticus 4).

We will often consider this connection because we know that Jesus came to fulfill the law. So in becoming the offering according to the law, he fulfills the law, and we no longer need to bring a sin offering.

However, this isn't the first place we see the offering presented. The offering was first introduced by Cain and Abel. We learn in the beginning of Genesis that Abel brought an offering from the flock, which could be compared with the sin offering. While Cain brought an offering from the field, which could be compared to the grain offerings from the law (Genesis 4; Leviticus 2;4).

If we know that Jesus fulfilled the law, what was the law accomplishing by making blood the atonement for sin if we consider what we know about Abel's offering?

How do you think the law was established according to the first offerings mentioned in scripture given by Cain and Abel?

If the offering wasn't created by the law, even if we are not bringing an offering for sin, should we bring an offering because people like Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham all demonstrate this practice in scripture without the law?

Finally, what does it mean when it says that the life of a creature is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11)?

The purpose of this thread is to gain a deeper understanding of the presence of the offering throughout scripture.

 

[Karlysymon]

Love the topic! Will be right back, with a proper response

 

[Thunderian]

If the offering wasn't created by the law, even if we are not bringing an offering for sin, should we bring an offering because people like Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham all demonstrate this practice in scripture without the law?

I think the offering for sin is a universal law. Hebrews 9 says that without shedding of blood there is no remission for sin, and in Genesis, the first sin is followed by the first offering. Obviously Cain and Abel were taught that offerings for sin must be made, and this continued to be the practice as humans multiplied and spread out. Things were codified somewhat in Leviticus, but the basic law was there from the beginning.

I aim to look into this more, and will respond accordingly.

Great thread idea!

 

[rainerann]

I think the offering for sin is a universal law. Hebrews 9 says that without shedding of blood there is no remission for sin, and in Genesis, the first sin is followed by the first offering. Obviously Cain and Abel were taught that offerings for sin must be made, and this continued to be the practice as humans multiplied and spread out. Things were codified somewhat in Leviticus, but the basic law was there from the beginning.

I aim to look into this more, and will respond accordingly.

Great thread idea!

I like how you describe the offering for sin as a universal law. Do you think that this is a universal law because the punishment for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was death?

 

[Thunderian]

I like how you describe the offering for sin as a universal law. Do you think that this is a universal law because the punishment for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was death?

The punishment for sin is death. Sin is any disobedience to God's law. Adam and Eve had one law, and they broke it. God could have slain them right then, and started over, but that wasn't his plan.

I find it profoundly awesome that the first atoning sacrifice was made by God himself for Adam and Eve. And if you believe, as I do, that when God walked and talked with Adam and Eve, it was in the form of Jesus Christ, then you have Jesus Christ performing the very first sacrifice on behalf of all mankind, as he would the very last sacrifice.

 

[Karlysymon]

Sin is a universal problem (keep in mind it began in heaven) and thus requires a universal solution. We can argue all day, with persons of other faiths, about the Person of Christ. As i have found, the key to understanding that Person is through sin and the law. The Law demanded the life of the transgressor. Because to break the Law is to stand before God as His sworn enemy. Christ stepped in with His own life and that shows two things:

a) The Moral Law cannot be abrogated/done- away with, as some people claim happened at the Cross. If it could, Christ need not have come. There would be no need for sin offerings. All God had to do was rub it away after the Fall.

b) the problem of sin is so serious that it took Christ to provide a solution. It left scars in heaven and on here. If keeping the Law was the only way to earn righteousness, again, Christ need not have come.
"I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! Galatians 2:21

The solution to sin had to be a lasting one, both in this world and the next. We won't be able to sin in heaven, not because God will magically transform us on His return but because we understand the cost of sin. We will remain beings with free-will. As long as there is free-will, so remains room for rebellion. The cross is the only thing with enough power to neutralise sin/rebellion. Its a safeguard, not just for man but heavenly intelligences aswell.

Faiths that claim they do not need a substitute/cross/the shedding of blood for the remission of sins, haven't taken into consideration the bigger picture.

And it was a good question; the Moral law is often noted as having been in existence long before Moses (e.g The Sabbath at the creation) but the same isn't often said about the ceremonial/Mosaic law, which, as is the case, was instituted right after the Fall, when God provided the animal skins for Adam and Eve.

 

[rainerann]

Do you guys think that the offering for sin had anything to do with the command to not eat of the tree of knowledge?

" but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

That it is possible that when Cain was offering from his flock, this was in remembrance of eating from the tree and the fall in the Garden since there was no way to record this to remember. The action of the offering served as the reminder of the fall in the same way we are reminded by reading the Bible of these things, which would make studying scripture a sort of offering if presenting an offering is a method of remembering.

The animal that would die when Abel presented the offering demonstrates the reality of the punishment in the garden as well.

I also wonder if when it says that the life is in the blood, if this isn't teaching something more about the way we were created.

 

[Karlysymon]

I believe that to be correct. The offering reminded one of the fall and the solution to that mess. But it seems that Eden remained on earth for sometime because after the expulsion, God put cherubim to guard its entrance (obviously so people wouldn't access the tree of life thus the world would have immortal sinners). It thus stood as a testimony against the doubters.

I have often found the lifeblood statement pretty profound. Its likely the reason Jehovah's Witnesses prohibit blood transfusions. Even closer, the theory-now-fact (think elites), that an old person infused with the blood of a younger person rejuvenates the former.

Numbers 35:33 (aswell as Gen 9:4-6)
Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

Come to think of it, in light of the above verse, the magnitude of Abel's death, as it was the first (human) murder.