Listening to the sermons and reading the works of Johnathan Cahn and Rabbi Jason Sobel, it opened my eyes and my heart to see deeper connections in the Word that I hadn’t seen before. It has prompted me to seek out those connections for myself. Knowing that Yeshua offered Himself up as the perfect sacrifice or offering for the remission of sins, and hearing and reading some of the teachings of these Messianic Rabbis concerning some of the specifics, I decided to crack open Leviticus and walk through it that book chapter by chapter to find Yeshua within those pages.
Leviticus begins with Adonai speaking to Moses concerning offering. The root of the Hebrew word offering, korban, means to “draw near” or to come close”, showing that an offering was an opportunity to draw near to God. The three letters of this root, Qop, Resh, and Bet have meanings of: Qop (ק) – Holiness of God, Resh (ר) – Repentance, and Bet (ב) – Home or dwelling place. Through repentance and the redemptive power of Yeshua we are able enter that dwelling place. You in Your loving-kindness led the people You have redeemed. You guided them in Your strength to Your holy habitation. Exodus 15:13. In the New Testament, the book of Hebrews speaks of drawing near multiple times:
· Therefore, let us draw near to the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16
· For Torah made nothing perfect. But on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. Hebrews 7:19
· Therefore, He is also able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, always living to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:25
· The Torah has a shadow of the good things to come – not the form itself of the realities. For this reason, it can never, by means of the same sacrifices they offer constantly year after year, make perfect those who draw near. Hebrews 10:1
· So let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and body washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:22
We know that Yeshua became that ultimate and final sacrifice or offering that enables us to draw near, but when we look deeper at how the sacrifices in Leviticus took place and the details of how they were to be officiated, we can compare them to the crucifixion and see that Yeshua didn’t just die on the cross for our sins, He went through some of the same process that was carried out in Leviticus. Commentary in The Complete Jewish Study Bible states concerning the offerings, “The ‘olah deals with one’s specific violation of the Torah. This offering is also a voluntary act of devotion, commitment, and surrender to God. The sin offering (hattat) and the guilt offering (asham) are the other two offerings in Leviticus, which are meant for atonement. The Hebrew for atonement (kaphar, kippur) means ‘to ransom by means of a substitute.’” Yeshua became both the voluntary act of devotion as He laid down His life for us and the sin/guilt offering by becoming our substitute. Chapters 1-4 of Leviticus lays out the details for each of these offerings and as we look at them, we will clearly be able to see Yeshua’s sacrifice in them.
I encourage you to read chapter 1 of Leviticus for the full body of text as I am going to be focusing on the specific scriptures that are for the purpose of this post.
When Adonai spoke to Moses concerning the offerings, they were to be made from the herd, the flock, birds, or grain. If the sacrifice was a bull, sheep, or goat the first requirement was that it had to be a male without defect (Leviticus 1:3, 10), and one of the very first things that we learn about the crucifixion is that Yeshua was the spotless lamb. 2 Corinthians 5:21 reads, “God made this sinless man be a sin offering on our behalf, so that in union with him we might full share in God’s righteousness.” Only Yeshua was without sin. Only Yeshua was without defect. Only Yeshua could become the sin offering on our behalf so that we can draw near to the Father.
The second step of the offering was for the bull, sheep, or goat to be taken to the entrance to the tent of meeting and the high priest was to lay his hand upon the head of the offering, and it would be accepted oh his behalf to make atonement for him. (Leviticus 1:3-4, 3:2,8,13, 4:4,15,24,29,33) This is an act that we also find in Leviticus 16 with the scapegoat. The priest would lay his hands upon the head of the goat that was to be sacrificed and confess upon it the sins of the children of Israel. It was The Mystery of the Semikhah from The Book of Mysteries by Johnathan Cahn that opened my eyes to the relevance of this act and how it tied to Yeshua’s sacrifice for us. When Yeshua was arrested, He was taken before the high priest, Kayafa (Caiaphas) to the courtyard, which could be looked at as the “entrance to the tent of meeting”. Each of the four gospels include in their account of the crucifixion this act taking place.
· Those who had seized Yeshua led him off to Kayafa the cohen hagadol, where the Torah teachers and elders were assembled. Kefa (Peter) followed him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the cohen hagadol; then he went inside and sat down with the guards to see what the outcome would be.
Then they spit in his face and pounded on him with their fists; and those who were beating him said, “now you ‘Messiah’, ‘prophesy’ to us: who hit you that time? Matthew 26:58,67-68
· Kefa followed him at a distance right into the courtyard of the cohen hagadol, where he sat down with the guards and warmed himself by the fire.
Then some began spitting at him; and after blindfolding him, they started pounding him with their fists and saying to him, “let’s see you prophesy!” And as the guards took him, they beat him too. Mark 14:54, 65
· Having seized him, they led him away and brought him into the house of the cohen hagadol. Kefa followed at a distance; but when they had lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Kefa joined them.
Meanwhile, the men who were holding Yeshua made fun of him. They beat him, blindfolded him, and kept asking him, “Now, ‘prophesy’! Who hit you that time? Luke 22:54-55, 63-64
· Shim’on Kefa and another talmid (disciple) followed Yeshua. The second talmid was known to the cohen hagadol, and he went with Yeshua into the courtyard of the cohen hagadol.
At these words, one of the guards standing by slapped Yeshua in the face and said, “This is how you talk to the cohen hagadol? John 18:15, 22
In The Book of Mysteries, Johnathan Cahn writes concerning the Semikhah, the sacred act that had to take place before a sacrifice could be offered for up for sins. “Therefore, according to the mystery, the priest had to make physical contact with the sacrifice…with their hands. So, it is recorded that after condemning Messiah to death, the priests began to strike Him repeatedly with their hands. For the Semikhah to be accomplished, they had to touch the head of the sacrifice with their hands. So it is recorded that the priests specifically struck His face….His head. In the Semikhah, the one offering the sacrifice had to touch it with his palms. So, the account records that they struck His head with their palms. There is even a rabbinical writing that states that when more than one person offers a sacrifice, they must all perform the Semikhah, taking turns touching the head of the sacrifice. So, in accordance with the ancient mystery, it was only after hands were laid on its head, that the sacrifice, Messiah was led away to be slain.”
The third step taken according to Leviticus, was the animal was slaughtered and the blood was to be splashed against all sides of the altar. (Leviticus 1:5,11) In the case of the dove or young pigeon, the blood was to be drained out on the side of the altar. (Leviticus 1:15) On the altar of the cross, Yeshua’s blood was on all sides. The top from the blood from His head on which the crown of thorns was impaled, the blood from His outstretched arms, left and right from the nails driven into his hands now joined to the crossbeam of the execution stake. The bottom from His feet, likewise, joined to wood by a nail. Blood from His side poured forth and drained out on the side of that altar as it is described in the case of the dove offering.
The next thing we see concerning the Levitical sacrifice is that it was to be skinned and cut in pieces. (Leviticus 1:6) In the case of the sheep or goat, it simply states “cut into pieces”. (Leviticus 1:12) When I sat down and started reading these verses and thinking about them in the context of Messiah, my mind went to the movie The Passion of the Christ, and while I have not seen that movie again since its release back in 2004, my mind clearly conjured up the scene when Yeshua stands before Pilate and is flogged. When I read the words “skinned and cut in pieces” I could see nothing but the back of the Savior of the world being skinned and cut into pieces for me, for my healing and my salvation. To make it possible for me to draw near to the Father.
The final aspect of the Levitical offering that we will look at in this post is exclusively about the dove or pigeon sacrifice. Leviticus 1:17 reads “He is to pull it open with a wing on each side, but without tearing it in half.” Again, we can see this imagery with the cross. His arms were wide open, but there was something else that happened when Yeshua was crucified that jumped out at me. In John’s gospel, it is written, “When the soldiers had nailed Yeshua to the stake, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier, with the under-robe left over. Now the under-robe was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom; so they said to one another, ‘We shouldn’t tear it in pieces; let’s draw for it.’ This happened in order to fulfill the words from the Tanakh, ‘They divided my clothes among themselves and gambled for my robe.’” John 19:23-24 This act not only fulfilled the prophetic words from Psalm 22:19(18) “They divide my clothes among them, and cast lots for my garment”, but we can also see a striking similarity to the sacrifice in Leviticus.
It is truly amazing that we can look through just the first chapter of Leviticus and see the imprint of Yeshua from beginning to end with the animal offering. As this post closes, the next will open with a different kind of offering, the grain offering, and we will see how those offerings foreshadowed Messiah, just as the bull, lamb, and dove did. We will continue to see Him walking through the pages of Leviticus.
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