Leviticus 9:1-24 (NLT)
1 After the ordination ceremony, on the eighth day, Moses called together Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel.
2 He said to Aaron, “Take a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, both without defects, and present them to the LORD.
3 Then tell the Israelites, ‘Take a male goat for a sin offering, and take a calf and a lamb, both a year old and without defects, for a burnt offering.
4 Also take a bull and a ram for a peace offering and flour moistened with olive oil for a grain offering. Present all these offerings to the LORD because the LORD will appear to you today.’”
5 So the people presented all these things at the entrance of the Tabernacle, just as Moses had commanded. Then the whole community came forward and stood before the LORD.
6 And Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded you to do so that the glory of the LORD may appear to you.”
7 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Come to the altar and sacrifice your sin offering and your burnt offering to purify yourself and the people. Then present the offerings of the people to purify them, making them right with the LORD, just as he has commanded.”
8 So Aaron went to the altar and slaughtered the calf as a sin offering for himself.
9 His sons brought him the blood, and he dipped his finger in it and put it on the horns of the altar. He poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar.
10 Then he burned on the altar the fat, the kidneys, and the long lobe of the liver from the sin offering, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
11 The meat and the hide, however, he burned outside the camp.
12 Next Aaron slaughtered the animal for the burnt offering. His sons brought him the blood, and he splattered it against all sides of the altar.
13 Then they handed him each piece of the burnt offering, including the head, and he burned them on the altar.
14 Then he washed the internal organs and the legs and burned them on the altar along with the rest of the burnt offering.
15 Next Aaron presented the offerings of the people. He slaughtered the people’s goat and presented it as an offering for their sin, just as he had first done with the offering for his own sin.
16 Then he presented the burnt offering and sacrificed it in the prescribed way.
17 He also presented the grain offering, burning a handful of the flour mixture on the altar, in addition to the regular burnt offering for the morning.
18 Then Aaron slaughtered the bull and the ram for the people’s peace offering. His sons brought him the blood, and he splattered it against all sides of the altar.
19 Then he took the fat of the bull and the ram—the fat of the broad tail and from around the internal organs—along with the kidneys and the long lobes of the livers.
20 He placed these fat portions on top of the breasts of these animals and burned them on the altar.
21 Aaron then lifted up the breasts and right thighs as a special offering to the LORD, just as Moses had commanded.
22 After that, Aaron raised his hands toward the people and blessed them. Then, after presenting the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering, he stepped down from the altar.
23 Then Moses and Aaron went into the Tabernacle, and when they came back out, they blessed the people again, and the glory of the LORD appeared to the whole community.
24 Fire blazed forth from the LORD’s presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When the people saw this, they shouted with joy and fell face down on the ground.
There was a promise of God’s glory appearing before the people to follow the offerings, first for the sins of Aaron, the high priest, and then for the sins of the people. They had gathered around the tabernacle with expectancy and watched the long procedures as the blood of the animals was extensively applied to all sides of the altar, the fat and organs were burned, and their leaders disappeared into the tabernacle, where the Glory was known to dwell. At their reappearance, the promise was fulfilled as fire from the presence of God consumed the offerings on the altar. The display they longed for from the God who had led them out of bondage was a great reward in exchange for the offerings that were slain and laid on the altar. Their response to this dramatic manifestation was, interestingly, joy! They bowed down before this Great Presence, but there was a sense of release and gratification in this verification of His acceptance and favor in His presence. Sadly, this amazing experience, which surely could have made a lasting, life-transforming impact, just like the previous displays of the plagues and the sea, lost its effect and impact over time. What they truly longed for and required was the complete removal of the sin’s concealing power so that the Glory would not just be an event, but a residing presence to be seen and in operation continually.
What a great sacrifice of time, precious animals, and ritual went into a moment, an event of God’s displayed presence. His appearance was not just because they showed up. There was a significant issue that stood in the way of God’s acceptance and favor. Until their sin was dealt with in detail, there could be no encounter with His powerful appearance. Not only was the weight of their sin removed, but their hearts were also blessed with the wonder of God’s power on display, as He accepted and consumed their offerings.
There is yet a passion in the heart of each creation in His image, to know the release of sin’s weight and the displayed favor and acceptance of a power far greater than themselves. For this, lives are given to various other means of spiritual release, even embracing the darkness that feigns to provide some kind of provision for this craving. To know the wonder of His glory, however, there is only one way, by the presentation of precious offerings and the application of the blood of Christ for those things that would veil and restrict the Glory’s appearance. The promised encounter is yet on the other side of a required procedure. He is always here with us, but to behold and experience His power requires a heart that has offered Him its treasures and has applied His cleansing blood to all sides of its altar. There may be those who get to see the results of those who have made the necessary approach, just like those in the congregation that day who weren’t nearly as invested as Moses and Aaron. But the ones who come away with more than a feeble memory are those who have brought the sacrifice and applied the blood.
What we’ve been promised in Christ is way more than just an event, an encounter of God’s displayed Glory in momentary gratification and validation of our faith. We have access to a sin-deliverance cleansing in His blood and a power demonstration in His Spirit’s presence that can be an eternal residence. Rather than drifting from the impact of one experience that becomes a distant and even forgotten encounter of the past, we can be living in the promise, ever rewarded and affirmed by the One who has found our heart perfect toward Him as its highest treasure, and is ever cleansed from an uninterrupted flow of liquid Love.