Israel as “my firstborn Son” (Exod 4:22). Slavery is a contradiction to their true creaturely status as God’s viceroys in creation (Gen 1:26–28) and it is therefore a living death. The exodus means new life of God’s firstborn son Israel.
Surveying this history of covenant sacrifice, the content of the divine promise that they represent becomes clear. These sacrifices point ahead to the promise of the covering of humanity’s shame through sacrifice (Gen 3:21), the renewal of creation and universal peace through an act of sacrifice (8:20, 9:12–17), the restoration of human dominion and blessing (9:1–2), the promise of the death of God himself (15), the coming of the holy seed (17), a father offering his only son in the form of sacrifice (22), the offering of a substitute (Gen 22, Exod 13), and the death and resurrection of a beloved son (Gen 22, 35, 45, and the whole exodus narrative). Seen from the proper perspective of the New Testament, all these signs find their fulfillment and perfectly prefigure the person and work of Christ.
The Sinaitic covenant differs from the Abrahamic covenant in that it is a bilateral covenant, whereas the latter is a unilateral covenant (more appropriately, a testament, Gal 3:15–18). The covenantal ceremony clearly symbolizes this as well. We are told in Exodus 24:6–7 that Moses confirmed the Sinaitic covenant through the sacrifice of bulls. Half of the blood of the bulls was sprinkled on the altar (a sign of God’s presence), while the other half was sprinkled on the people. If the life of the animal was in the blood, the sprinkling of the blood signifies the offering of one’s life to live by the covenant.123 Hahn also convincingly argues that the sacrifice of the bull is also significant because it represents what will happen to those who violate the covenant.124
As was previously noted in the introduction, the Abrahamic covenant stands in a kind of existential conflict with the Sinaitic covenant. The Sinaitic covenant is bilateral and therefore demands obedience on the part of Israel for its fulfillment. This means it demands the self-dedication and the self-giving of Israel to YHWH. The history of the Fall and the exodus narratives clearly demonstrate that Israel cannot do this. Furthermore, Deuteronomy 27–32 (after the Sinaitic covenant’s restatement and renewal in the second generation) emphasizes the impossibility of the fulfillment of the covenant (without the circumcision of the heart, see 30:6) and plans for the covenant’s obsolescence. The Abrahamic covenant, on the other hand, involves the self-donation of God and giving of the divine being to his people in the form of a promise. To engage in an act of unilateral promise is an act of self-donation. By making such a promise, God pledges his entire being to the task of fulfilling the terms of the promise. The biblical texts recognize this and therefore in making covenants (Gen 22:16) and sending forth his redemptive Word of grace (Isa 45:23), God repeatedly states: “I swear by myself.” Particularly within the cultural context of the Ancient Near East, to swear by one’s self is therefore to give the whole self over to curse and death, as we observed in the covenantal ceremony of Genesis 15.125
In Exodus 40, the self-donation of God in the confirmation of the promise also takes the form of the descent of the divine presence into the tabernacle. This descent of the divine kavod prefigures the incarnation. Therefore the New Testament and the church fathers rightly see the ceremonies of Leviticus (that center around this pre-Incarnation-incarnation) as being shadows of the work of Christ. In fact, as we will see, the New Testament identifies Jesus with the kavod, and therefore the preincarnate Christ is the agent who gives his righteousness to humanity before and after the incarnation. In this, God becomes present to Israel as a sign of his unilateral commitment to them by the giving of the divine being to them. By this action, God enables the cult, which as we will show below, is meant to channel his holiness to Israel. Giving his own holiness to Israel, YHWH acknowledges that his people do not possess holiness of their own.126
YHWH himself is holy and therefore gives his holiness to Israel, thereby making them holy: “I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel” (Ezek 37:28). As John Kleinig has shown, holiness is not a demand per se, in that it is not something humans produce or generate.127 Rather, it is something God alone possesses: “The Lord alone is inherently and permanently holy. His holiness is his godliness, his nature, and his power as God. It is inseparable from him and his presence.” For this reason, “Holiness is derived only from him. People and things borrow their holiness from their association with him at Mount Sinai and at the sanctuary.”128 Therefore, holiness is properly defined as God’s otherness and godliness, including his righteousness and moral perfection.
Such a share in God’s uncreated righteousness and glory is not generated by human activity, but rather is received passively. Humans of course can lose such a share in God’s own holiness if they do not remain with the boundaries that God has established and consecrated: “Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you” (Lev 20:7–8, emphasis added). Violating God’s commandments and opposing the proper boundaries of creation moves Israel out of the realm of God’s holiness and into the realm of uncleanness. Becoming unclean causes Israel to be destroyed by God’s holiness and unable to participate in his holiness (Lev 10; 1 Sam 6; 2 Sam 6). God enacts the cult to maintain his promise of self-donating holiness to Israel. By participating in God’s own holiness and not placing blocks in front of the flow of divine holiness, Israel maintains itself within the realm of the clean (holy and clean, and common and clean, as opposed to common and unclean).129 This means primarily (as Kleinig has convincingly argued) avoiding idolatry and being weaned off of animistic modes of thought.130 This way of understanding the divine-human relationship forms the first set of rationales for the ritual laws of the Pentateuch.
Expanding on Hahn’s earlier suggestion regarding covenantal sacrifice, we can shed much light on the need for atoning sacrifice.131 Atoning sacrifice prefigures the final new testament of forgiveness. Such a new testament represents the resolution in the tension between the Abrahamic and Siniatic covenants (Rom 3:25, 8:3–4). In effect, atoning sacrifice would be impossible if it were not for a prior commitment of God to Israel. It too represents the content of the two great covenants. It enacts the judgment of the Sinaitic code on a substitute in order to maintain the life of Israel promised in the Abrahamic covenant. It also represents God’s own giving of an atoning sacrifice to Israel: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life” (Lev 17:11, emphasis added). Moreover, atoning sacrifice represents and mediates the self-donation of God’s own holiness to his people.132
Regarding the specifics of blood atonement, we should observe that this category of sacrifice comprised a number of different kinds of offerings: sin offerings (Lev 4:1—5:13, 6:24–30, 8:14–17, 16:3–22) and guilt offerings (5:14—6:7, 7:1–6).133 Offerings for guilt involve the death of an animal, and just as in Genesis 3, humanity’s disobedience resulted in their condemnation to death (Gen 3:19). All sin for Israel is tied up with the rejection of the creator who is the source of life. That all sin is ultimately sin against God is expressed most clearly in the fact that the first commandment recorded in Exodus is the prohibition of idolatry and apostasy (Exod 20:3). Hence, just as with regard to civil matters where Israel is to take an “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (21:24), so too the rejection of God (the source of life) must result in death. In the book of Genesis it is not insignificant that animal sacrifice is first instituted in connection with God’s authorization of lex talionis: “And for your lifeblood I will require
