Leviticus 9

Leviticus chapter 9 describes the first service at the Tabernacle, where they give offerings to God for forgiveness. They give the Lord a sin offering, a burnt offering, and a peace offering. These different offerings are processes of atonement, of forgiving the people for their sins, removing their sins, and coming closer to God by coming into peace with Him. The service at the Tabernacle was laid out by Moses in the previous chapters, where he lays out everything that the Lord has spoken in the first seven chapters of Leviticus. Chapter 8 covers the consecration of Aaron and his sons for the priesthood, and then chapter 9 moves into making the offerings to the Lord.

Leviticus 9:6 says, "And Moses said, 'This is the thing that the Lord commanded you to do, that the glory of the Lord may appear to you.'"

If Moses and Aaron do what the Lord has commanded, the glory of the Lord will appear to them. And we see in Leviticus 9:23 that the Lord is pleased, because He does appear, "And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people." From the offerings that Aaron gave to the Lord, the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering, we can tell that they were effective because the people were blessed and the glory of God appeared to them all.

What stands out to me is how visual this whole experience is. The people can see the consequences of their sin. They see the offerings presented to the Lord. They plead for forgiveness through this and come into right standing with God through the peace offering. And then the glory of God appears and causes the people to fall on their faces and worship. There is power in being able to see the consequences and then experience what comes after them.

In the new covenant that we live in today, Jesus is the offering for our sins and He has already paid for it, so we don't have to make the same sacrifices. But we do still have to repent and plead for forgiveness to be in right standing with the Lord. I think something that we can do to bring this visualization to life is to really apply the word to today. This is why I love the preaching of Philip Anthony Mitchell so much, because he brings the word to life and makes the experience very visual, so that we can imagine what the consequences are and feel the weight of what Christ has done. Repentance does this too. When we are able to admit our sins, ask for forgiveness, and offer our work to the Lord, the gospel stops being a story we read and starts being a reality we live.