require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Gen 9:5–6). The only way to remedy sin is the substitution of life through the pouring of blood. This necessarily occurs through animal sacrifice, since as YHWH states, “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev 17:11). For this reason, sacrifice for sin means a separation of blood from the flesh and not simply the death of the animal.
The choices of blood atonement and animal sacrifice are important for a number of other reasons. First, since blood contains life, it cries out and thereby gives a testimony. When Cain kills Abel, God tells Cain, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground” (4:10). Later the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that Christ’s blood also cries out and thereby “Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb 12:24, emphasis added). Living blood therefore gives testimony of forgiveness that has been paid for. In the case of covenants, it also stands as a witness to the truthfulness of the divine promise.
Secondly, the choice of animals as sacrifices for sins (as opposed to, for example, grain offerings) is not arbitrary, but represents the restoration of human vocation in creation. As we noted earlier, the first real animal sacrifices by Noah coincide with the reiteration of the promises of dominion over creation given to Adam and Eve. In killing the animal, not only are the sins paid for by substitution, but humans are restored to their position of dominion in creation by being given the right and ability to kill the animals (Gen. 9:2). Where there is the forgiveness of sins, as Luther notes, there is also life and salvation.134
There has been some controversy whether or not these passages state that the blood actually atones for sin. John Kleinig comments on the grammatical construction in the passage above and states that the verse “presupposes that the life of the animal substitutes for the life of those who present the animal for sacrifice.”135 The meaning of the Hebrew word for “atone” (kap·pêr) here has frequently been disputed, since it is used differently in a number of other contexts in the Old Testament.136 Nevertheless, it appears to have the very definite meaning of an atoning payment of sacrificial blood in the context of Leviticus.137 Working from the varieties of meaning that the term has in other Old Testament books, liberal scholar Jacob Milgrom considers the best translations to be to “cover,” “wipe away,” or “smear” all of which have connotations of the removal of sin through cleansing blood.138 Therefore, even if one were to accept this wider variety of meaning as applicable to the Leviticus usage (which as Kleinig points out, is very difficult to do), these usages still bear the connotation of propiatory sacrifice when read within the context of Leviticus and the larger Pentateuch’s notion of lex talionis. In other words, for Leviticus it is through blood and propiatory sacrifice that God “covers” and “wipes away” human sin. This is in fact really the only appropriate interpretation in that the text of Leviticus explicitly states that this is the function of the sacrifices and hence there can be little ambiguity that the term is meant to be understood this way. Therefore Kleinig concludes: “The legislation for the sin offering quite explicitly states its theological function. The Lord instituted this sacrifice for the performance of atonement and the reception of forgiveness from it.”139 Beyond this, there is also extra-biblical evidence that the sacrifices were understood this way. Josephus, who served as a priest in the Second Temple at the time of Jesus, quite explicitly understands the sacrifices as working atonement in this manner.140 His remarks shed light not only on how sacrifice was understood in the priestly tradition passed down to him, but also how Jews in general and the New Testament authors in particular understood atoning sacrifice.
The propiatory and substitionary nature of blood sacrifice is made even clearer by the consequences of sins that went unatoned. Sacrifice was a way of atoning for only some sins, but not others. Unintentional sins, though still worthy of death, could be atoned through substitutionary sacrifice. Intentional sins could not be atoned. Since all sin was worthy of death, intentional sins (no matter how trivial by the standards of human judgment) could only be met with capital punishment.141 From this fact it is clear that in the sin offerings of Leviticus, forgiveness is not merely conveyed, retributive justice is also satisfied.
Other features of Israelite atonement theology should be recognized. Within Israelite cultic life, a wide variety of sacrifices (particularly sacrifices atoning for sin) also symbolically united in themselves both righteousness and sin. The Passover sacrifice (a substitutionary sacrifice for the life of the firstborn) was enacted by the sacrifice of a lamb without blemish, suggesting cultic and moral holiness. At the same time, the lamb was killed as a substitute of the firstborn male livestock and children of Israel, whom God insists must be ransomed: “you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the Lord’s. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem” (Exod 13:12–13). Therefore, the lamb who united both purity and condemnation in itself served as the sacrifice to redeem the firstborn of Israel.
A similar pattern may be seen in the ritual of the Day of Atonement.142 First, the high priest had to be pure before he was capable of administering the rite. In order to gain this purity, he was instructed to sacrifice a bull for himself and his household (Lev 16:6). Nevertheless he must also be a sin bearer by placing his hands on the scapegoat and confessing the sins of Israel over the animal (vv. 20–22).143 In this, the high priest unites both holiness and sin in his person. The two goats within the ritual also continue this pattern. One goat was sacrificed for the sins of Israel without having those sins pronounced over him. The blood of this animal made atonement for Israel by being placed upon the mercy seat, that is, the cover of the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies where the divine kavod is hidden within a cloud of incense (vv.15–17). The other goat, (the scapegoat who has the sins of Israel confessed over him) then escaped condemnation for sin, but at the same time was consigned to the oblivion of the wilderness thereby carrying the sins of the people with him (vv. 20–22). The two goats therefore represent both sin and purity united with one another.
That the high priest moves into the holy of holies through the blood of this goat on the Day of Atonement appears to lend further evidence to Fletcher-Louis’s thesis that the high priest represents a new Adam. Though Fletcher-Louis does not make this direct connection, it could be suggested that just as Adam withdrew and “hid from the Lord God” (Gen 3:8) as a result of breaking the law, the high priest moves back into the representation of Eden (the holy of holies) and into the divine presence, through the fulfillment of the law. Interpreted in this manner, the ritual itself appears to be a representation of the end of universal exile. In enacting this ritual then, the high priest represents both Israel’s sin and the actualization of its righteousness.
The high priest also represents the righteousness of God before God in having graciously enacted the cult to save his people from judgment. Fletcher-Louis states that “the high priest brings the one creator God to Israel and to the created world. He is the embodiment of God’s Glory.”144 We may observe this first by looking at the high priest’s consecration and clothing. The anointing oil consecrates the priest (Lev 8:10–13). It could very well be argued that this makes him glow in a similar fashion to the divine kavod. Also, much of the high priest’s clothing is made out of gold which is again suggestive of divine glory. As Fletcher-Louis
