The Arithmetic of Atonement: The Fourth Day Text: Numbers 29:23-25
Introduction: God's Gracious Grind
We live in an age that despises repetition. We want the novel, the new, the disruptive. Our attention spans have been whittled down to nothing by a constant demand for fresh stimulation. The result is that we have become spiritually shallow. We want the mountain top experience without the daily climb. We want the lightning flash of revelation without the patient discipline of reading the fine print. But the God of the Bible is a God of order, a God of rhythm, and yes, a God of repetition. The sun rises and sets. The seasons turn. The heart beats. And in the heart of His covenant law, God institutes a liturgy that is profoundly, gloriously, and intentionally repetitive.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the instructions for the great Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, here in Numbers 29. For seven straight days, the priests are to offer a cascade of sacrifices. The list is long, the details are precise, and to our modern ears, it can sound like a tedious exercise in ritual bookkeeping. We read about the bulls, the rams, the lambs, the goats, the grain, and the drink offerings, day after day after day, and our eyes begin to glaze over. We are tempted to skip ahead to the more "exciting" parts of the story.
But this is a grave mistake. To do so is to miss the point entirely. This is not tedious bureaucracy; it is the drumbeat of grace. This is not mindless ritual; it is the arithmetic of atonement. Every single animal, every measure of flour, every flagon of wine is a sermon. Every repeated action is a nail driven into the great reality that sin is serious, atonement is costly, and God's provision is abundant and overflowing. The repetition is not for God's benefit, as though He might forget. It is for ours. It was meant to grind a deep groove of gratitude and sobriety into the consciousness of the Israelite worshiper. And it is meant to do the same for us, as we look back and see what all of this was pointing to.
This feast was a celebration of God's faithfulness in the wilderness. For forty years He housed them in temporary dwellings and provided for them. So for one week a year, they were to leave their permanent homes and live in flimsy booths, to remember their utter dependence upon Him. And while remembering His provision, they were to offer this staggering number of sacrifices, remembering that the cost of their fellowship with this holy God was blood. It was a week of festive, bloody, grateful, glorious worship. And right in the middle of it, we find our text for today.
The Text
‘Then on the fourth day: ten bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs one year old without blemish; their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams and for the lambs, by their number according to the legal judgment; and one male goat for a sin offering, besides the continual burnt offering, its grain offering and its drink offering.’
(Numbers 29:23-25 LSB)
The Unblemished Sacrifice (v. 23)
We begin with the central requirement for the fourth day of the feast.
"‘Then on the fourth day: ten bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs one year old without blemish...’" (Numbers 29:23)
The first thing to notice is the sheer scale of this. Ten bulls. Two rams. Fourteen lambs. And this is just one day. Over the course of the seven days of this feast, the Israelites would offer a total of seventy bulls, fourteen rams, and ninety-eight lambs, plus seven goats for a sin offering. This was not a token gesture. This was a statement. This was a national act of worship that would have filled the courts of the tabernacle with the sights, sounds, and smells of sacrifice. The air would be thick with smoke. The altar would be slick with blood. This was serious business because sin is serious business.
But the most important descriptor in this verse is the last one: "without blemish." This was not a command to bring their second-best. They were not to clear out the sick, the lame, or the blind from their herds. God demanded their best. The animal had to be perfect. Why? Because these animals were types. They were placeholders. They were living, breathing object lessons pointing forward to the one, final, perfect sacrifice. Every unblemished lamb was a prophecy of the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Christ, "through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God" (Hebrews 9:14). Peter says we were redeemed not with silver or gold, but "with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:19).
The Israelite who brought a blemished animal was therefore committing a profound theological error. He was saying, in effect, that a blemished savior was good enough. He was insulting the holiness of God and devaluing the coming work of Christ. This is why God takes it so seriously in the prophet Malachi, when He condemns the priests for allowing the people to offer blind and lame animals. He says, "Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you?" (Malachi 1:8). If your earthly ruler demands respect, how much more the King of the cosmos?
The Prescribed Accompaniments (v. 24)
Next, we see that the sacrifices were not offered alone. They were part of a complete package, a full meal, offered up to God.
"‘...their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams and for the lambs, by their number according to the legal judgment...’" (Numbers 29:24)
Every burnt offering was to be accompanied by a grain offering (minchah) and a drink offering (nesek). The grain offering was fine flour mixed with oil, and the drink offering was wine. This completed the picture. The burnt offering represented total consecration, the whole animal ascending to God in fire and smoke. But the grain and wine represented the fruit of man's labor, the ordinary stuff of life, bread and drink, offered up in thanksgiving and fellowship. This reminds us that atonement is not an abstract legal transaction. It is the necessary foundation for fellowship. First the blood, then the meal. First consecration, then communion.
Notice the precision: "by their number according to the legal judgment." God did not leave this to chance or human sentiment. The amounts were specified earlier in Numbers 15. For each bull, three-tenths of an ephah of flour. For each ram, two-tenths. For each lamb, one-tenth. The law was meticulous because God is meticulous. This is not the fussiness of an obsessive deity. It is the carefulness of a master architect building a perfect model. Every detail had to be right because the reality it pointed to, the all-sufficient work of Christ, is a perfect and complete work. There are no loose ends in our salvation. Nothing was left to chance. It was all "according to the legal judgment" of a holy God, and that judgment was fully satisfied at the cross.
The Ever-Present Need (v. 25)
Finally, after this mountain of offerings for consecration and fellowship, another offering is required. And this one is crucial.
"‘...and one male goat for a sin offering, besides the continual burnt offering, its grain offering and its drink offering.’" (Numbers 29:25)
Even in the midst of this great, joyous festival, with all its burnt offerings, there was still the need for a sin offering (chattath). Every single day, a goat was slain specifically for sin. Why? Because even our best worship is tainted with sin. The Israelite, in the very act of bringing his unblemished lamb, could do so with a proud heart. The priest, in the very act of sprinkling the blood, could have his mind wander. Sin is pervasive. It infects everything we do. Therefore, provision had to be made for the sins committed even in the context of worship.
This is a deeply humbling reality. We can never approach God on the basis of our own performance, not even our worship performance. We need a sin offering. This goat reminds the people, and it reminds us, that there is no access to God without a direct confrontation with the reality of our sin. This is why confession of sin is a central part of biblical worship. We don't just come in with our praise; we come in with our sin, lay it on the back of the goat, and confess our desperate need for a substitute.
And notice, this is all "besides the continual burnt offering." This refers to the daily sacrifice of a lamb in the morning and a lamb in the evening, every single day of the year. The great feasts were built upon the foundation of this constant, daily rhythm of atonement. Grace upon grace. The continual offering covered their baseline existence as a sinful people, and the special feast offerings covered the particular celebration. God's grace was not a one-time event, but a constant, steady stream. It was the air they breathed.
Conclusion: The Finished Arithmetic of the Cross
So what are we to do with this? We are not required to offer bulls and goats. To do so would be an insult to Christ, a declaration that His one sacrifice was insufficient. The writer to the Hebrews is emphatic: Christ "has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily... He did this once for all when He offered up Himself" (Hebrews 7:27).
All this meticulous, bloody, repetitive arithmetic of the old covenant finds its glorious sum in Jesus Christ. He is the unblemished Lamb, Ram, and Bull. He is the final Goat for sin. He is our grain offering, the Bread of Life, and our drink offering, His blood of the new covenant poured out for us. The entire system, with its overwhelming numbers and precise regulations, was designed to create a massive hunger, a deep longing for the final answer. It was meant to show Israel the sheer weight of their sin and the impossibility of ever truly covering it through their own efforts.
The fourth day of the feast points us to the finished work of Christ. All the consecration symbolized in those ten bulls, all the substitution symbolized in those two rams, all the innocence symbolized in those fourteen lambs, all of it is fulfilled and perfected in Him. The constant, daily, weekly, yearly grind of the sacrificial system has come to a screeching halt. The temple veil was torn from top to bottom. The way into the holiest place is now open.
Therefore, our response is not to ignore these texts as irrelevant, but to read them with gospel glasses. We should feel the weight of this sacrificial load and thank God that Christ has carried it all for us. Our worship is no longer characterized by the smoke of a thousand bulls, but by the "sacrifices of praise," the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name (Hebrews 13:15). We keep the feast not by living in booths for a week, but by living every day in glad and grateful dependence on the one who tabernacled among us, and who has now become our permanent dwelling place.