NOTES for Lev 4:1-35

The next major type of sacrifice is the sin offering. As we can see, the very ritual of offering this sacrifice contains many indications that its essence differs greatly from that of other offerings. No one eats the meat of the animal offered “for sin.” After it is slaughtered before the tabernacle, its blood is brought into the sanctuary before the veil, symbolically to show God that blood has been shed; its entrails are burned on the altar, while the meat is destroyed outside the camp (compare Heb 13:11). This is not a “sacred meal shared by God and human beings,” but the symbolic punishment of the animal for human sins—recall the rite of laying hands on the victim's head. This ritual binds together the spiritually inseparable concepts of sin—falling away from God, the source of life—and death or destruction as the consequence of that fall.