The Blast of Warning and Grace Text: Numbers 29:1-6
Introduction: The Grammar of Worship
We live in a time when worship is defined by little more than sentimental preference. Modern evangelicals, in their desperate quest to be relevant, have made the worship service into a focus-grouped, market-tested, consumer experience. The goal is to make the unbeliever feel comfortable, to make the seeker feel affirmed, and to make sure nobody feels the sharp edges of God's holiness. The liturgy is determined by what we think will be effective, what feels authentic to us, and what style of music we happen to like. In short, we have made worship about ourselves. It is a mirror, not a window.
Into this sloppy and man-centered confusion, a passage like Numbers 29 lands with the force of a meteor. Here we have worship that is commanded, not suggested. It is detailed, not vague. It is objective, not subjective. God tells His people when to gather, what to do when they gather, and what the gathering means. He is the one who defines the terms. This is because true worship is not about self-expression; it is about covenant renewal. It is a solemn and joyful transaction between the holy God and His redeemed people, and He gets to write the script.
The modern reader is tempted to skim over a text like this. All these bulls and rams and ephahs of flour seem archaic, bloody, and frankly, irrelevant. But this is the height of folly. Because Christ has come, we no longer offer these specific sacrifices, but that does not mean they have nothing to teach us. Far from it. These sacrifices were a gigantic audio-visual aid, a shadow of the good things to come. They were the gospel in picture form, teaching Israel for centuries about the nature of sin, the necessity of substitution, the meaning of consecration, and the joy of communion. If we do not understand the shadow, we will never fully appreciate the substance, who is Christ.
The Feast of Trumpets, described here, was a summons. It was a blast of alarm, a call to attention, a heralding of the great events of the seventh month, culminating in the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. It was a warning and a preparation. And as we will see, it is a feast that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the announcement of the gospel of the kingdom, the final trumpet call that will herald the return of the King, and the structure of our own covenant renewal with God every Lord's Day.
The Text
'Now in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall also have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets.
And you shall offer a burnt offering as a soothing aroma to Yahweh: one bull from the herd, one ram, and seven male lambs one year old without blemish;
also their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths of an ephah for the bull, two-tenths for the ram,
and one-tenth for each of the seven lambs.
And offer one male goat for a sin offering, to make atonement for you,
besides the burnt offering of the new moon and its grain offering, and the continual burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings, according to their legal judgment, for a soothing aroma, an offering by fire to Yahweh.
(Numbers 29:1-6 LSB)
A Divine Summons (v. 1)
We begin with the divine interruption of the ordinary.
"'Now in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall also have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets.'" (Numbers 29:1)
God is the Lord of our calendars. He claims certain times as His own. The seventh month was the sabbatical month, the culmination of the liturgical year. And on its very first day, God commands a "holy convocation." This is a sacred assembly. God calls His people out of their ordinary routines, their plowing and their selling, to gather as one people before Him. This strikes at the root of our modern, atomistic individualism. We think of faith as a private, personal affair between "me and Jesus." But biblical faith is corporate. It is covenantal. We are saved as individuals, but we are saved into a body, an assembly, a convocation.
To ensure this gathering happens, God commands them to do "no laborious work." This is a Sabbath rest. God is teaching His people that their ultimate provision and security do not come from their own frantic labor, but from Him. By stopping their work, they are acting out their faith. They are declaring that their trust is in Yahweh, not in their own strength or economic productivity. This is a foundational principle. A society that forgets the Sabbath is a society that has forgotten God and has begun to worship its own work, its own GDP, its own frantic efforts. It is a society that will eventually burn itself out.
And what characterizes this day? It is a "day for blowing trumpets." The shofar, the ram's horn, was a public, piercing sound. It was not background music. It was a summons to war, a coronation blast for a king, a warning of impending judgment, or a call to the assembly. Here, it is all of the above. It is a wake-up call. It announces that something of ultimate significance is happening. It prepares the people for the solemn Day of Atonement that is coming just nine days later. In the New Testament, the trumpet blast is associated with the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thess. 4:16). The gospel itself is a trumpet blast into the sleepy, deadened conscience of a fallen world, warning of the judgment to come and announcing the arrival of the true King. This feast, therefore, is a picture of the gospel summons that goes out to the world.
Total Consecration (v. 2-4)
Having been summoned, the people respond with a specific, prescribed offering.
"And you shall offer a burnt offering as a soothing aroma to Yahweh: one bull from the herd, one ram, and seven male lambs one year old without blemish; also their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths of an ephah for the bull, two-tenths for the ram, and one-tenth for each of the seven lambs." (Numbers 29:2-4 LSB)
The central offering of the day is the burnt offering. In the Old Testament sacrificial system, this was also called the ascension offering. This is because the entire animal, except for the hide, was consumed on the altar. It all went up in smoke to God. It was an offering of total dedication, of complete consecration. It symbolized the worshiper giving his all to God. This is the second step in covenant renewal: after being called and gathered, we consecrate ourselves to God.
Look at the animals. A bull, the most valuable and powerful domestic animal. A ram, the leader of the flock. And seven lambs, the number of perfection, all in their first year, without blemish. This is not the offering of leftovers. This is the offering of the best. The bull represents our strength and our work. The ram represents our leadership and authority. The seven perfect lambs represent our whole community in its perfection. All of it is to be laid on the altar. This is a picture of what Paul calls for in the new covenant: "present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1).
Of course, no Israelite could offer himself perfectly. These animals were substitutes, pointing forward to the one true substitute. Jesus Christ is our burnt offering. He is the powerful bull, the substitutionary ram, the perfect, spotless lamb who offered Himself completely to the Father on the cross. His entire life was an ascension offering, a "soothing aroma" to God, culminating in His cry, "It is finished." When we see this offering, we are seeing a dramatic portrayal of the all-consuming work of Christ on our behalf.
And with the animal sacrifice comes the grain offering. Fine flour, the staff of life, mixed with oil, a symbol of the Holy Spirit's anointing. This represents the dedication of our substance, our work, our daily bread, to God. It is not just our "spiritual" lives that are to be consecrated, but our labor, our business, our art, our baking. The grain offering was offered alongside the burnt offering, teaching us that our work is made acceptable to God only through the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. Our good works are filthy rags on their own, but when offered up in faith, mixed with the oil of the Spirit and presented on the basis of Christ's all-sufficient work, they too become a soothing aroma to God.
Atonement Comes First (v. 5)
Before any of this consecration can be acceptable, the problem of sin must be dealt with.
"And offer one male goat for a sin offering, to make atonement for you," (Numbers 29:5 LSB)
Here we see the logic of the gospel. You cannot dedicate yourself to God until your sin has been paid for. You cannot consecrate what is condemned. The sin offering always had to precede the burnt offering in its application, because guilt must be removed before we can be accepted. The goat, an animal associated with stubbornness and sin, bears the guilt of the people. Its death is a substitutionary atonement. It dies so the people do not have to.
This is the foundation of our entire relationship with God. We do not come to Him offering our dedication, our good intentions, or our hard work, hoping He will accept us. That is the religion of Cain. We come with nothing in our hands, pointing to the one true sin offering, Jesus Christ, who "became sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). The goat dies. It is a bloody, violent, costly business. This reminds us that sin is not a small matter to be brushed aside. It requires death. It requires the shedding of blood. And because Christ, our scapegoat, has been offered once for all, we can now approach God with confidence, not to be condemned, but to offer ourselves as living sacrifices.
The Rhythms of Grace (v. 6)
Finally, the verse concludes by placing this special feast day within the broader context of Israel's regular worship.
"besides the burnt offering of the new moon and its grain offering, and the continual burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings, according to their legal judgment, for a soothing aroma, an offering by fire to Yahweh." (Numbers 29:6 LSB)
This was not a one-off event. The special offerings for the Feast of Trumpets were laid on top of the regular offerings. There was a daily burnt offering, the "continual burnt offering," offered every morning and every evening. There were also special offerings for the first day of each month, the "new moon." God was building rhythms of worship into the very fabric of their lives. There were daily, monthly, and annual patterns of grace.
This teaches us that our walk with God is not a series of disconnected spiritual highs, but a steady, disciplined, rhythmic faithfulness. The Christian life is a long obedience in the same direction. The continual burnt offering is a picture of Christ's continual intercession for us. The monthly offerings remind us to begin each new season with God. And the great annual feasts, like this one, are high points of celebration and remembrance. It all works together. The special is built upon the foundation of the ordinary. If you are not faithful in the daily "continual offering" of prayer and devotion, you will not be ready when the trumpet sounds for the special "holy convocation."
All of it, done "according to their legal judgment", that is, according to God's prescription, is a "soothing aroma" to Him. God delights in the worship of His people when it is offered in faith, according to His Word, and through the mediation of the great High Priest who is the substance of all these shadows. The entire system was designed to make them long for the reality, and to rejoice when He finally came.
Conclusion: Living by the Trumpet
So what does this ancient feast mean for us? We are not required to blow a shofar or sacrifice a bull. To do so would be to deny that Christ has come. But the principles, the "general equity," remain.
First, the trumpet of the gospel has sounded in our hearts. It was a summons that woke us from our spiritual death, a warning of judgment, and an announcement that our King has been enthroned. We are now part of His "holy convocation," the Church.
Second, our worship must follow the divine pattern. We must always begin with the sin offering. We confess our sins, trusting not in our own remorse, but in the finished work of Christ, our goat who was slain. Only then can we move to consecration. We offer ourselves, our work, our families, our best, as a living burnt offering, acceptable to God through Him. And this leads to communion, to the peace offering, where we feast with God at His table.
And third, we live our lives in the daily rhythm of this grace, waiting for the final trumpet. The Apostle Paul tells us that "the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). That is the ultimate Feast of Trumpets. It is the great and final holy convocation. On that day, all the shadows will flee away, and we will see the substance, our King. Until then, let us live as a people who have heard the summons, who have embraced the sacrifice, and who are eagerly listening for that final, glorious blast.