Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the Meeting Tent (Leviticus 1:1-4 NET):

“Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When someone among you presents an offering to the Lord, you must present your offering from the domesticated animals, either from the herd or from the flock.

“‘If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he must present it as a flawless male; he must present it at the entrance of the Meeting Tent for its acceptance before the Lord.  He must lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.

The Hebrew word translated flawless above was תָּמִ֖ים (tāmîm).   But since לִרְצֹנ֖וֹ (rāṣôn) was translated of his own voluntary will in the KJV rather than for its acceptance, I want to consider verses 3 and 4 in a bit more detail.

The rabbis who translated the Septuagint chose δεκτὸν (a form of δεκτός) for both לִרְצֹנ֖וֹ (rāṣôn) and וְנִרְצָ֥ה (rāṣâ).  It encourages me to believe that לִרְצֹנ֖וֹ (rāṣôn) in verse 3 had more to do with adjudicating the flawless quality of the offering before it was offered to the Lord than the free will of the one presenting that offering.  The translation of the Tanakh on chabad.org, however, is more agreeable to the KJV: He shall bring it willingly to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, before the Lord.^[1]

This concept of a flawless (NET) sacrifice without blemish (Tanakh), translated ἄμωμον (a form of ἄμωμος) in the Septuagint, carried over into the New Testament (Hebrews 9:13, 14 NET):

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow sprinkled on those who are defiled consecrated them and provided ritual purity, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish (ἄμωμον, a form of ἄμωμος) to God, purify our^[2] consciences from dead works to worship the living God.

The power here was never some magical property of blood.  Atonement from the offenses listed in Leviticus 5:1-4, for instance, required first that one must confess how he has sinned.^[3]  Then he must bring…a female sheep or a female goat, for a sin offering.  So the priest will make atonement on his behalf for his sin.^[4]  If that was beyond the sinner’s means, however, two turtledoves or two young pigeons, would suffice, one for a sin offering and one for a burnt offering.^[5]  When the sinner was too poor to buy two birds or too infirm to capture them alive, the Lord was willing to accept a tenth of an ephah of choice wheat flour for a sin offering.^[6]

So the priest will make atonement on his behalf for his sin which he has committed by doing one of these things, and he will be forgiven.^[7]

The power has always been God’s willingness to impute righteousness to those who believe Him (Romans 4:1-5, 23-25 NET).

What then shall we say that Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh, has discovered regarding this matter?  For if Abraham was declared righteous by works, he has something to boast about—but not before God [Table].  For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” [See table below].  Now to the one who works, his pay is not credited due to grace but due to obligation [Table].  But to the one who does not work, but believes in the one who declares the ungodly righteous, his faith is credited as righteousness.

But the statement it was credited to him was not written only for Abraham’s sake, but also for our sake, to whom it will be credited, those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  He was given over because of our transgressions and was raised for the sake of our justification.

[H]ow much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.^[8]  Once my attention is diverted here from the “magical properties of blood” to the willingness of God to impute righteousness to those who believe Him, my focus shifts to the second clause.  Jesus offered himself without blemish to God through the eternal Spirit.  He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross!^[9]

I always need to pause here to consider the word translated obedient (ὑπήκοος).  One of its meanings is “attentive listening.”  [Y]our word is truth,^[10] Jesus prayed to his Father.  The boy Jesus listened attentively to what I call the Old Testament and became the man I know in the New Testament.  The man Jesus acknowledged that the Father who dwells in me does his works.^[11]  So I have the written word of God and the indwelling Spirit of God effecting Jesus’ becoming obedient to the point of death.  It should be sufficient to overcome my tendency to hear obedient (ὑπήκοος) and obedience as works of my flesh, obeying rules in my own strength.

The writer of Hebrews continued to describe Jesus who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God (Hebrews 9:15-17 NET):

And so he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the eternal inheritance he has promised, since he died to set them free from the violations committed under the first covenant.  For where there is a will, the death of the one who made it must be proven.  For a will takes effect only at death, since it carries no force while the one who made it is alive.

So the death of Jesus, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God attentively listening to the word of God written in the Old Testament, inaugurated a new covenant of which He is mediator (μεσίτης).  Here I can begin to wrap my mind around how the blood of Christ can purify our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.  But the book of Hebrews was written primarily to Jews who had turned to faith in Jesus.  What were those dead works (νεκρῶν ἔργων)?

Surely the writer of Hebrews didn’t mean Leviticus, this wonderful book I am more and more recognizing as the gospel of the Old Testament.  One word, ἄμωμον (a form of ἄμωμος), from the first four verses led me directly to Jesus.  A few words from the fifth chapter helped illuminate the phrase the blood of Christ (τὸ αἷμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ) and guided my mind away from magical thinking toward the power of God.  The Greek word ἀμώμου (another form of ἄμωμος) led me to Peter and some more insight into dead works (1 Peter 1:17-21 NET).

And if you address as Father the one who impartially^[12] judges according to each one’s work, live out the time of your temporary residence here in reverence.  You know that from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors you were ransomed—not by perishable things like silver or gold, but by precious blood like that of an unblemished (ἀμώμου, another form of ἄμωμος) and spotless lamb, namely Christ.  He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was manifested in these last^[13] times for your sake.  Through him you now trust^[14] in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Here the dead works Jesus’ purifies from our consciences was desribed as an empty way of life inherited from [our] ancestors (τῆς ματαίας ὑμῶν ἀναστροφῆς πατροπαραδότου) that we were ransomed from by his death on a cross.  Peter wrote primarily to Jewish believers in Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:1, 2 NET):

From Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those temporarily residing (παρεπιδήμοις, a form of παρεπίδημος) abroad (διασπορᾶς, a form of διασπορά)^[15] (in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, the province of Asia, and Bithynia) who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by being set apart by the Spirit for obedience (ὑπακοὴν, a form of ὑπακοή) and for sprinkling with Jesus Christ’s blood.  May grace and peace be yours in full measure!

Peter made it fairly clear that dead works did not reference the law, but the religious minds’ reactions to God’s law handed down from their ancestors’ religious practice.  That is something I can grasp.

Pain and humiliation are a boy’s constant companions on a ball field, any ball field.  Is there anything more humiliating than chasing into the outfield after a ball that got by you in the infield?  At the crack of a bat, the sight of a hardball careening anywhere near would cause a sane person to hurry off in any direction out of its path.

A boy trained by the humiliation of chasing it into the outfield races to intercept that ball.  He positions his body in front of it in such a way that an unanticipated bounce will strike his ankle, his shin, his knee, his belly, his chest, his arms, even his face if it misses his glove.  A fleshy bruise heals in days; a bone bruise heals in weeks.  The humiliation of chasing a ball that got passed him on an important play in a big game could last a lifetime.  The glory—“good catch,” “nice stop,” “way to hustle”—is as fleeting as the next crack of the bat.  And the boy calls it all fun!

How do you punish such a creature?  Pain and humiliation are his faithful companions.  Punishments that rely on them are likely to be perceived simply as a cost of doing business.  As I wrote in another essay, “Punishment is the currency of childhood.  It’s how one pays for what he wants.”

I think something similar to this had happened in Israel, that the worship described in Leviticus had become little more than a series of commercial transactions.  Jesus found in the temple courts those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at tables (John 2:14-16 NET).

So he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple courts, with the sheep and the oxen.  He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.  To those who sold the doves he said, “Take these things away from here!  Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace!”

But Paul, writing primarily to Gentiles, explained how Jesus’ death imparts his own blamelessness to those who believe Him (Colossians 1:21-23a NET):

And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your minds as expressed through your evil deeds, but now [Jesus] has reconciled you by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish (ἀμώμους, another form of ἄμωμος), and blameless before him—if indeed^[16] you remain in the faith (τῇ πίστει), established and firm, without shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard (ἠκούσατε, a form of ἀκούω).

Indeed according to the law almost everything was purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, the writer of Hebrews continued (Hebrews 9:22-28 NET).

So it was necessary for the sketches of the things in heaven to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves required better sacrifices than these.  For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands—the representation of the true sanctuary—but into heaven itself, and he appears now in God’s presence for us.  And he did not enter to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the sanctuary year after year with blood that is not his own, for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world.  But now he has appeared once for all at the consummation of the ages to put away (ἀθέτησιν, a form of ἀθέτησις) sin by his sacrifice.  And just as people are appointed to die once, and then to face judgment, so also,^[17] after Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, to those who eagerly await him he will appear a second time, not to bear sin but to bring salvation [Table].

According to a note (5) in the NET Romans 4:3b was a quotation from Genesis 15:6.  A table comparing the Greek of Paul’s quotation to the Septuagint follows.

Tables comparing Leviticus 1:1; 1:2; 1:3 and 1:4 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and tables comparing the Greek of Leviticus 1:1; 1:2 (1:1b, 2); 1:3 and 1:4 in the Septuagint (BLB and Elpenor), and tables comparing Hebrews 9:14; 1 Peter 1:17; 1:20, 21 and Colossians 1:21-23 in the NET and KJV follow.