05. Sin Offering for Leaders and Common person (Lev 4:22-35)

Sing offerings for them differ from those for the priest or the whole congregation.

👉 Read Leviticus 4:22-35

When do they need to bring sin offerings? (22-23, 27-28)

 

The sin offering animal for a leader is (                  ), and (             ) or female sheep for common people.

 

For the sin offerings for them, the priest put the blood on the horns of (              ) of the burnt offering instead of the altar of (            ) as in the sin offering for the priests.

So the priest will make (                ) on his behalf for this sin, and he will be (             ).

Answers and Meditation

When they realized their sins

This doesn’t mean that we are righteous when we are not guilty in our conscience. We cannot be righteous by our deeds because there are countless unknown sins. “For all sinned and fell short of the glory of God.” Only God’s grace allows us to stand before God, which is called righteousness for us.

What if someone abuses God’s grace and takes it for granted? Such an attitude relies not on God’s grace but on self-deception and self-righteousness. When sin is found in ourselves, it is our responsibility to confess and ask for forgiveness. The heart of repentance is our hands to receive God’s grace.

Don’t worry too much about your unknown sins. No matter how much you clean up yourself, you cannot find all your sins. Confess your sin when you get guilty of any. Rely on His grace for unknown sins. Focus on the Lord and His mission.

Male goat, female goat

 

The altar, incense

Putting the blood on the horns of the incense altar is an action of pleading (praying) for forgiveness.

 

Atonement, forgiven.

This statement is not given in the sin offering for the priests or the whole congregation. Also, the sin offering procedure is different from the ones for the priests.

According to Lev 6:26, the presiding priest is supposed to eat the sin offering for common people. This means that the priest takes the burden of the sin in his body and asks for forgiveness on behalf of the presenter. And forgiveness is stated in verses 26, 31, and 35. The priest is responsible for the atonement of sin in those cases. 

Because the priest bears the people's sins this way, he will be contaminated by countless  חָטָ֜א (sin offering or sin: remember this Hebrew word means sin and sin offering same time). That’s why once a year, on the Day of Atonement, they were required to cleanse the priests and the Tabernacle.

But the priest should burn the whole body outside the camp for the sin offering of which the blood was brought into the Holy Place. It was because any priest from Aaron’s descendants could not atone for it. The greater and perfect High Priest Jesus Christ will atone for it in the future. 

This was God's plan in such a complicated procedure of sin offering.

In the Hebrew language, sin and sin offering use the same words. The sin offering is not a tool to get forgiveness for sin. It is to admit that you are a sinner and accept that "the penalty of my sin is death." The sin of common people is forgiven under the guarantee of the priest. But since the priest is not complete, the guarantee is not secure. Our High Priest Jesus Christ declares complete forgiveness on the cross and at the Last Supper meal.