“Jesus the Sin Offering”

Sunday, October 27, 2024

John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

(John 1.29-31)

Over the past two weeks’ articles, we’ve put considerable thought into sacrifices. We first considered the five major offerings of the Mosaic covenant, and then shifted to a New Testament perspective, to populate a similar list of offerings in the Christian covenant. But we left one out. It’s the greatest and most important sacrifice ever made—the “once for all” sacrifice of Jesus Christ (He 10.10).

This sacrifice is well known; for believers, it’s one of the few central tenets of our faith. But how well do we understand it? We don’t engage in ritual, substitutionary sacrifice on a daily basis, so we have no experience to guide us. There are no physical laws that bind God to a particular response to any sacrifice, let alone the unjust crucifixion of his own Son! The event itself is unrepeatable, so we have no way to replicate the results or further examine the mechanism by which it purifies. The only way to comprehend this sacrifice is to read it in the terms of the covenant under which it took place.

So what type of offering was Jesus’ sacrifice? Now we know there were several different kinds, and the Israelites were not supposed to make up their own rules and rituals willy-nilly. It must correspond to one of those Old Testament offerings. Due to John’s label for Christ, “the Lamb of God,” Christians often take note of his relationship to the Passover feast. In both cases the victim’s blood is prominent, God’s righteous wrath is averted, his chosen people are saved from slavery and death, and a new life begins. To top it all off, Jesus was crucified during this very feast (Jn 19.14-16), and the Apostle Paul describes Jesus as “our Passover lamb,” who “has been sacrificed” (1Co 5.7). Case closed, right?

Well, not quite. This is all valid, of course; but remember John’s description of the Lamb—that he “takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1.29). Was that the purpose of the Passover lamb? No. Jesus is “the propitiation for our sins” (1Jn 2.2), but the Passover lamb is never described in such terms. There, the focus is remembrance of God’s favor to his chosen people. In fairness, propitiation occurs in very few English Old Testaments at all, but that doesn’t mean the concept was unknown. The author of Hebrews says the duty of a Mosaic high priest was “to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (2.17), using the word ἱλάσκομαι-hilaskŏmai-“make propitiation.” The Old Testament equivalent is atonement, which translates several Hebrew words that were later rendered in the Greek Septuagint version using several Greek words, all sharing that ἱλασ- (hilas-) root. In the first few books, these words generally refer to the mercy seat—the elaborately decorated lid for the ark of the covenant, which served as an earthly analog for God’s throne. In fact, the Greek word translated propitiation in the New Testament also appears in Hebrews 9.5, “Above [the ark] were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat.” But in the Old Testament, over time it was associated with the mercy more than the seat, and thence gained the sense, “forgiveness,” “reconciliation,” or “atonement.” This is propitiation—the means of reconciling.

One of Israel’s most important holidays was the Day of Atonement. The high priest’s chief responsibility that day was to perform two s n offerings—one for his own sins, the other for the sins of the people. The sin offering, as we learned recently, was the only one of the five major offerings partly conducted within the tabernacle rather than its courtyard; and those offered on the Day of Atonement were the only ones performed in the most holy place, where the blood was sprinkled before—appropriately—the mercy seat.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

(Hebrews 9.11-12)

Jesus functioned—in terms of the Mosaic covenant—as the perfect sin offering, as if on the annual Day of Atonement, but needing no repetition. That covers the blood; but

the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

(Hebrews 13.11-12)

This is about the sin offering specifically, and highlights Jesus’ perfect fulfillment of the Mosaic covenant. But it doesn’t end there!

Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

(Hebrews 13.13)

The final exhortation is to join Jesus—not in literally becoming the same type of offering, which is unnecessary and imposdsible. Rather because of his sin offering, “we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” (10.19), and can set about the priestly work for which he ordained us.

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

(Hebrews 13.15-16)

Jeremy Nettles

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