Leviticus is difficult for most people (raising my own hand, here). It’s confusing, violent, and, at least in terms of practical application to us, somewhat outdated. We don’t need to know the specific procedures for the sacrifices for worship today, so it’s easy to overlook in our reading.
It’s also somewhat out of order. Just when you think God is done talking about a sacrifice, He brings it up again, almost as if to include a P.S. on the end of the thought.
Case in point: Leviticus 6:24-30 brings up a few addendums onto the topic of the sin offering that was already discussed in Leviticus 4 and Leviticus 5. Nearly 50 verses total have been spent on this topic; what else is there to say?
As a prime example of just how much the Old Testament got into the weeds with the boots-on-the-ground application of the Law, Leviticus 6 answers an important question: What do we do with the leftover blood from the sin offering?
This is one of those questions that I’m not sure I would’ve ever thought about before. After all, most of the blood is sprinkled on the altar, or the horns of the altar, or on the ground in front of the altar (Leviticus 4:25).
Most of the blood is gone…but not all. Some of it is still surely stuck in the crevices of the bowl, or has splashed out onto the priestly garments. And since that blood is holy—it was used in a ceremony to forgive sins—you can’t just wash it down the drain.
Instead, what God tells the priests to do in this section is clean the affected items as thoroughly as you can. And if you can’t get all the blood out, you destroy the items. Robes are washed, the bronze vessels are “scoured” (heated so as to burn away what’s left inside), and the earthenware vessels that are most likely porous and have absorbed some of the blood are to be broken.
God gives the reason for these laborious measures in Leviticus 6:25: The sin offering is “most holy.”
We’ve seen this before in other passages. The mixture used for the holy anointing oil can only be used in religious ceremonies; it can not be used for everyday purposes or it will “profane” the recipe (Exodus 30:31-33). The same goes for the incense (Exodus 30:37-38).
Behind the ritualistic sacrifices and tithes and Old Law regulations, God is creating an understanding in His people of the holy and the unholy. There is a line that separates things that are His and things that belong to everyone else. As Leviticus 10:10 states, there is a distinction between the “holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean.”
Today, that line may not be as defined as it was three thousand years ago, but it’s still there. 1 Corinthians 6:20 says that we have been bought at a price, “therefore glorify God in your body.”
We are the Temple of God; as such, we should treat our lives with the same understanding that the priests treated the blood of the offering. It’s holy, set apart for His purpose, and dedicated wholly to our Lord.
