The Bloody Grammar of Grace Text: Leviticus 8:14-17
Introduction: Getting Your Hands Dirty
We live in a sanitized age. Our sensibilities are delicate. We prefer our religion to be abstract, our morality to be tidy, and our worship to be respectable. We like the idea of forgiveness, but we are squeamish about the mechanics of it. We want the clean ledger without ever having to see the bloody ink. But the book of Leviticus will not let us get away with that. It grabs us by the collar and shoves our faces into the raw, visceral reality of sin and atonement. It is a book full of blood, fat, fire, and smoke. And if we do not understand the grammar of this bloody book, we will never understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This passage, detailing the sin offering for the ordination of Aaron and his sons, is not some dusty, irrelevant ritual for bronze-age goat herders. It is a theological lesson, acted out in flesh and blood. It is a picture book for a truth that our hearts are desperate to know but our minds are too proud to accept: that sin is a filthy, damnable thing, and that the only way to deal with it is through a bloody, substitutionary death. Every detail here is freighted with meaning. Every action is a word in a sentence that culminates on a hill outside Jerusalem. Our modern world wants to talk about spirituality without sin, redemption without a price, and a crown without a cross. Leviticus stands as a stark, bloody sentinel, guarding the truth against all such sentimental nonsense.
Here in the consecration of the priests, we see the problem of sinful men ministering on behalf of sinful men. Before Aaron can offer sacrifices for the people, a sacrifice must be offered for him. He is a sinner. His sons are sinners. The instruments they use are polluted by their touch. The entire system is stained and must be purified, consecrated, and set apart by blood. This is not just about getting the priests ready for their job; it is about showing all of us that there is no approach to a holy God except through the death of a substitute.
The Text
Then he brought the bull of the sin offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the bull of the sin offering. Next Moses slaughtered it and took the blood and with his finger put some of it around on the horns of the altar and purified the altar. Then he poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar and set it apart as holy, to make atonement for it. He also took all the fat that was on the entrails, and the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys and their fat; and Moses offered it up in smoke on the altar. But the bull and its hide and its flesh and its refuse he burned in the fire outside the camp, just as Yahweh had commanded Moses.
(Leviticus 8:14-17 LSB)
Identification and Transference (v. 14)
The ritual begins with a profound act of identification.
"Then he brought the bull of the sin offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the bull of the sin offering." (Leviticus 8:14)
This is not a gentle pat. The Hebrew implies a heavy leaning, a pressing down with force. This is the central act of substitution. By laying their hands on the bull's head, Aaron and his sons are formally identifying with this animal. They are saying, in effect, "This bull is now me. Its fate is my fate. The death it is about to die is the death that I deserve." This is a public, physical confession of sin. It is an acknowledgement that their sinfulness requires death. There is no path to the priesthood, no way to stand before God as a minister of His covenant, without first acknowledging your own capital guilt.
This act is the foundation of the entire sacrificial system. It is the doctrine of imputation made visible. Their sin is being reckoned to the bull, and the bull's death will be reckoned to them. This is not a mere symbol in the fluffy, modern sense. It is a divinely appointed transaction. God has established this as the way He will deal with sin. And it is a direct pointer to the great transaction of the gospel. On the cross, God laid the iniquity of us all on Jesus Christ (Isaiah 53:6). He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). When we, by faith, lay our hands on Christ, we are doing what Aaron did. We are confessing that His death is our death, and we are trusting that God accepts His substitution on our behalf.
The Power and Purity of the Blood (v. 15)
Once the sin is transferred, the penalty must be paid. Moses acts as the mediator and carries out the sentence.
"Next Moses slaughtered it and took the blood and with his finger put some of it around on the horns of the altar and purified the altar. Then he poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar and set it apart as holy, to make atonement for it." (Leviticus 8:15)
The life of the flesh is in the blood, and God has given it on the altar to make atonement for souls (Leviticus 17:11). Blood represents a life violently taken. The penalty for sin is death, and this is what that looks like. But notice what is done with the blood. It is not simply spilled and discarded. It is carefully, deliberately applied. First, it is put on the horns of the altar. In Scripture, horns represent power and authority. The altar is the place where Heaven and earth meet, where the power of God deals with the sin of man. To put the blood on the horns is to declare that the power of the altar, its very authority to function, is established by this substitutionary death. Without the blood, the altar is just a pile of stones or bronze. With the blood, it becomes the place of atonement.
The blood purifies the altar. This seems strange to us. Why does a bronze altar need to be purified? Because it has been made by and will be used by sinful men. The contagion of our sin corrupts everything we touch. The blood of the substitute is the divine decontaminant. It cleanses the place of worship so that worship can happen. Then, the rest of the blood is poured out at the base, soaking the ground where the altar stands. This consecrates it, setting it apart as holy ground. Atonement has been made for the altar itself, preparing it for its sacred work. This is a picture of the cross. The blood of Jesus not only cleanses us, the worshippers, but it also consecrates the entire system of worship. Through His blood, we now have a new and living way to approach God (Hebrews 10:19-20).
God's Portion and Man's Portion (v. 16-17)
What follows is a crucial separation, teaching us what belongs to God and what must be done with the sin that has been judged.
"He also took all the fat that was on the entrails, and the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys and their fat; and Moses offered it up in smoke on the altar." (Leviticus 8:16)
Throughout Leviticus, the fat is designated as God's portion. The fat was considered the richest, the best part of the animal. To offer the fat to God was an acknowledgment that He deserves our very best. It was offered up in smoke, described as a pleasing aroma to the Lord. This is the language of satisfaction. The justice of God, having been satisfied by the death of the substitute, receives this offering as a sweet savor. This is the part of the sacrifice that ascends, that represents fellowship and acceptance.
But the rest of the bull meets a very different fate.
"But the bull and its hide and its flesh and its refuse he burned in the fire outside the camp, just as Yahweh had commanded Moses." (Leviticus 8:17)
The bull, now identified with the sin of Aaron and his sons, is a cursed thing. It cannot be eaten. It cannot be used. It cannot even be disposed of inside the camp where God's holy presence dwells. The sin-bearing carcass, along with its skin and even its dung, must be taken to a place of refuse and utterly destroyed by fire. This is a powerful picture of judgment and removal. The sin, having been paid for, is now banished. It is taken outside the community, away from the presence of God. Fire here is a symbol of utter consumption, of final judgment.
The Gospel Outside the Camp
This entire ritual is a magnificent, bloody, and necessary kindergarten lesson for the gospel. Every Christian should have the book of Hebrews open right next to Leviticus, because the inspired apostle gives us the divine commentary.
Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the bull; by faith, we lay our hands on Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The bull's blood was shed; Christ's precious blood was shed for the remission of sins. The blood was applied to the altar, purifying it and making a way for worship; Christ's blood cleanses our consciences and gives us bold access to the throne of grace.
But the parallel continues right to the end. The writer to the Hebrews makes the connection explicit. "For 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. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate" (Hebrews 13:11-12).
Jesus became our sin offering. He was laden with our filth, our refuse, our spiritual dung. And because of this, He was taken "outside the camp." He was crucified outside the city gate of Jerusalem, in a place of uncleanness, a place of the skull. He was cast out, rejected, and forsaken by men, and far more terribly, forsaken by His Father. He bore the curse, the banishment, the fiery judgment that our sin deserved. He was utterly consumed by the wrath of God so that we would not have to be.
And this is why the apostle follows this stunning theological connection with a command. "Therefore let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach" (Hebrews 13:13). To be a Christian is to identify with the rejected one. It is to leave the comfort and respectability of the world's camp, which is slated for judgment, and to join Jesus in the place of reproach. It means being willing to be associated with His bloody cross, His offensive claims, and His absolute authority. The world wants a tidy, manageable religion that stays inside the camp. But true, saving faith goes outside the camp to a crucified Lord, bearing His shame, and finding in that very place our only hope, our only purification, and our only standing before a holy God.