· Jeremiah 31:7-14
· Psalm 147:12-20 (12)
· Ephesians 1:3-14
· John 1:[1-9] 10-18
The "sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people" that Hebrews refers to is described in Leviticus 4:13-21. "If the whole congregation of Israel errs unintentionally and the matter escapes the notice of the assembly, and they do any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done and incur guilt; when the sin that they have committed becomes known, the assembly shall offer a bull of the herd for a sin offering and bring it before the tent of meeting." The bull is then slaughtered, his blood drained, and his carcass burnt entirely; none of it is eaten, and none of it remains.
The bull is the most valuable animal in the ancient world, even though a horse or a camel might be more expensive and more of a status item. Horses and camels were not eaten except in dire straits; they are difficult to herd, and pound for pound they do less work than oxen. And of course the bull is more valuable than the cow because he produces exponentially more offspring.
Leviticus gives the impression that the Hebrews sacrificed massive quantities of livestock, and perhaps they did, but Jehovah was actually a rather frugal god compared to many others. The Aztecs, for example, are said to have sacrificed 20,000 men in four days, trying to pay off a blood debt to their gods. So one bull to pay for the sins of a whole people is a very modest price, even if Jehovah does expect a beautiful animal, without blemish, and not some broken down old thing that would have to be put down anyway.
It's also interesting, by the way, that sins are generally assumed in Leviticus to be unintentional or unavoidable, rather than a deliberate affront against God and man. The whole thing is actually quite reasonable, especially compared to other peoples of the time.
Why am I on about this? To put Jesus in perspective. A bull is sufficient for the sins of the whole people. How much more valuable than a bull is a man? And how much more valuable than a man is the Son of God? Infinitely. There is no measure of the value of a man compared to a bull, or of the Son of God compared to an ordinary man. So Jehovah orders a sacrifice of atonement for an infinity of sins. He chooses his sacrifice from the people: a male in his prime without blemish, and a firstborn at that. And yes, he chooses a male, not a female sacrifice. Nowadays we like to deprecate the value and the contributions of men to society, especially young men, under the pretext of "equality"; but the reality is that, now as before, young men are the workhorses of mankind. And at thirty years old, a man is at his best physically, and mentally he is more responsible than in his twenties, but not yet conservative as in his later years. So Jehovah chooses for his sacrifice the very best of the herd: a young man in his prime, without blemish, trained in skilled work and learned in the word of God. Notwithstanding modern sensibilities, that is the most productive head in the human herd.
That being said, Jehovah does not accept human sacrifices. Once upon a time, he chose Isaac to be sacrificed, and then replaced him with a ram (Genesis 22:11-13) Now he chooses Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement. But is he asking for a human sacrifice? No. Once again he substitutes something. Again when we look at Jesus's immersion in the Jordan, we see that his old, human self dies, and at the moment that he is reborn as something new, Jehovah takes him and transforms him into something else: the Son of God. And this is what Jehovah provides for us to sacrifice for the atonement of an infinity of sins: not a ram this time, and not a man, but his very own firstborn son. Emerging from the waters of the Jordan after being purified of his sins, the man Jesus is reborn as the Lamb of God, the chosen sacrifice that will pay for all our sins, past and future, known and unknown, to infinity.
Praise be to God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
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