The Climax of Joy: The Grammar of True Worship Text: Numbers 29:32-34
Introduction: The World's Desperate Party
We live in an age that is desperate for festivity. Our culture is a frantic pursuit of celebration, a constant search for a party that will finally mean something. From the bacchanal of a rock concert to the solemn self-congratulation of an awards ceremony, modern man is trying to feast. But his feasts are empty because they are built on nothing. They are a celebration of self, which is to say, a celebration of a vapor. The laughter is hollow, the wine wears off, and the morning after is always a return to the bleak reality of a world without a center. They want the joy of the feast without the blood of the sacrifice. They want the party without the host. They want the communion without the God who communes.
Into this desperate and empty revelry, the book of Numbers speaks with a startling and glorious precision. To the modern reader, and even to many modern Christians, passages like this one seem tedious. They are a blizzard of numbers, a list of animals, a description of archaic rituals. We are tempted to skim through it, looking for the "story" parts of the Bible. But in doing so, we miss the entire point. This is not a dry, legalistic ledger. This is the divine choreography of worship. This is the grammar of communion. God is teaching His people how to party. He is teaching them how to have a feast that is not a fleeting distraction but a deep, covenantal reality. He is showing them that true joy, lasting joy, is not found in spontaneous self-expression but in grateful, obedient, structured response to the God who has saved them.
This passage describes the climactic final day of the Feast of Tabernacles, the last and greatest of the annual feasts of Israel. It was a week-long celebration of God's provision in the wilderness and the final ingathering of the harvest. It was a national camping trip, a time of immense joy and remembrance. And on this final, seventh day, the worship reaches its zenith. The sheer number and cost of the sacrifices are staggering. This is not a timid, half-hearted affair. This is an explosion of grateful worship. And in its details, we find not a dead religion, but a living portrait of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The Text
‘Then on the seventh day: seven bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs one year old without blemish; and 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 29:32-34 LSB)
The Perfection of Worship (v. 32)
We begin with the prescribed offerings for this great and final day.
"‘Then on the seventh day: seven bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs one year old without blemish...’" (Numbers 29:32)
The first thing that should strike us is the number seven. This is the seventh day of the feast, and on it they are to offer seven bulls. Throughout Scripture, the number seven is the number of perfection, of completion, of divine fullness and rest. God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. This feast, culminating on the seventh day with this offering of seven bulls, is a picture of ultimate Sabbath. It is a declaration that our worship finds its completion and its perfection not in our own efforts, but in God's perfect provision.
The seven bulls represent the perfect sacrifice. A bull is an animal of great strength and value. To offer seven of them was an act of immense, almost reckless, generosity. This was costly worship. This demolishes our modern, sentimental ideas of worship as something that should cost us nothing. True worship is always sacrificial. It costs us our pride, our time, our resources, and ultimately, our lives. But this costliness points us to the ultimate sacrifice. Who is the perfect, strong, and priceless offering? It is Jesus Christ, who offered Himself once for all. These seven bulls are a shadow, a type, of the perfect and complete satisfaction for sin that Christ would accomplish.
Then we have two rams. A ram in Scripture is often a picture of leadership and substitution. It was a ram that God provided to Abraham to be sacrificed in the place of Isaac. The two rams could point to a number of things: the two natures of Christ, human and divine; or the witness of the Law and the Prophets, both pointing to Him. Whatever the specific reference, they are part of this picture of a complete, substitutionary work.
And then, fourteen male lambs, one year old and without blemish. Fourteen is two times seven, a double measure of perfection. And the lamb, of course, is the most consistent picture of the sacrifice for sin in the Bible. John the Baptist identified Jesus this way: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). They are to be male lambs, the head of the flock, and without blemish, a clear type of the sinless perfection of Christ. On this day of ultimate feasting, the people of God were to be surrounded by a super-abundance of reminders of the basis of their joy: a perfect, substitutionary, atoning sacrifice.
The Grammar of Worship (v. 33)
Next, we see that this worship is not a chaotic free-for-all. It has a divinely appointed structure.
"‘...and 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 29:33 LSB)
With the primary burnt offerings, which represented atonement and total consecration, there were to be accompanying grain and drink offerings. The grain offering, made from fine flour, represented the dedication of man's life and labor to God. The drink offering, of wine, represented the pouring out of joy and gladness before God. This is a beautiful picture of the Christian life. Our lives are built upon the foundation of Christ's atoning work (the burnt offering). And in response, we offer up our work (grain) and our joy (drink) to Him. Our whole lives, our vocation and our celebration, become an act of worship, but only because they are joined to the perfect sacrifice of Christ.
But notice the crucial phrase: "according to the legal judgment." The Hebrew word is mishpat, which means ordinance, rule, or judgment. This was not left up to their own invention. God did not say, "Bring Me some animals and some grain, whatever you think is best." He gave them the exact blueprint. This is the foundation of what we call the regulative principle of worship. God, and God alone, determines how He is to be worshiped. Man is not permitted to add to or subtract from God's commands for worship. To do so is an act of high-handed arrogance. It is to assume that we know better than God how to approach God. This is the sin of Cain, who brought an offering of his own devising. It is the sin of Nadab and Abihu, who offered strange fire before the Lord.
Our secular age despises this. It calls it restrictive and legalistic. It champions "authenticity," which is really just a codeword for doing whatever feels right in the moment. But this is not freedom; it is slavery to our own fickle emotions and foolish ideas. True freedom is found within the glorious structure that God provides. His "legal judgment" is not a cage; it is a gift of grace. He is showing us the safe and true path into His presence. For us in the new covenant, this mishpat is the Word of God. We worship Him with preaching, with prayer, with the singing of Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and with the administration of the sacraments, because this is what He has commanded.
The Foundation of Worship (v. 34)
Finally, lest anyone think that the joyful feast has somehow moved beyond the problem of sin, the verse concludes with a stark reminder.
"‘...and one male goat for a sin offering, besides the continual burnt offering, its grain offering and its drink offering.’" (Numbers 29:34 LSB)
Even on this climactic day of celebration, after all the bulls and rams and lambs, a specific sin offering was still required. A male goat was brought to bear the sins of the people. This teaches us a vital theological lesson: our worship, our feasting, and our joy are always, and at every moment, predicated upon the forgiveness of sins. We never graduate from our need for the cross. We never get to a place where we can approach God on the basis of our own good cheer or our extravagant offerings. Every prayer we offer, every song we sing, every crumb of bread we eat at the Lord's Table is made acceptable only through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, our great sin offering.
And this sin offering was offered "besides the continual burnt offering." Every morning and every evening, a lamb was offered at the tabernacle. This was the foundation, the constant, daily reminder of Israel's sin and God's provision. The special feasts and celebrations were built on top of this foundation; they did not replace it. In the same way, our weekly corporate worship is the high point of our week, but it is built upon the foundation of Christ's continual, once-for-all sacrifice. As the writer to the Hebrews says, "He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25). His work is continual. Therefore, our access is continual, and our joy, even in the face of our sin, can be continual as well.
Conclusion: The Never-Ending Feast
So what does this ancient liturgy have to do with us? Everything. It is a portrait of the gospel. The Feast of Tabernacles was the final feast of the year, celebrating the final harvest. It points to the end of all things, when God will gather His people in from all the nations for the great, final harvest.
On that day, we will see the reality that these sacrifices only shadowed. We will see the one perfect offering, Jesus Christ, the Lamb on the throne. We will understand that His one sacrifice was of infinitely more value than all the bulls and goats ever offered. Our joy will not be for a week, but for eternity. We will feast at the marriage supper of the Lamb, the ultimate party, the celebration that never ends.
John saw a vision of this final worship service. "After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands" (Revelation 7:9). Palm branches were the symbol of the Feast of Tabernacles. The saints in glory are keeping the eternal Feast of Tabernacles.
Until that day, we are called to live as those who know the basis of true joy. Our lives are to be a continual feast, offered up in response to the great sacrifice of Christ. We offer our work as a grain offering. We pour out our joy as a drink offering. And we do it all "according to the legal judgment" of His Word, not because we are slaves to a rulebook, but because we are grateful children who have been given the grammar of communion with our Father. We know that even our best worship is stained with sin, and so we constantly plead the blood of our great sin offering, Jesus Christ. And we do this, knowing that this weekly feast is just an appetizer for the great feast to come, when we will see Him face to face, and our joy will be made perfect and complete.