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Leviticus 1:4, 9  You are to lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you. … … You are to wash the internal organs and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar.  It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.

The significance of the burnt offering in the Mosaic Law can be best understood in the context of Noah’s burnt offering after the Flood (Genesis 8) and Abraham’s burnt offering of the ram provided by the LORD as a substitute for Isaac his son (Genesis 22).

In Genesis 8, when the floodwaters had subsided, “then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.  The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.  And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.  As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.’” (verses 20-22)  The sacrifice which Noah offered was the basis for the covenantal promise of God that he would never again destroy every living thing by a flood.  This promise was not due to all sin being destroyed from the face of the earth.  The fact of man’s depravity (as will soon be manifested in Noah and his family) is still present, for God can still say, ‘the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth”, a statement very similar to that of Exodus 32:9, where God told Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.”  The basis for God’s promise to Noah is not the goodness of man, for man’s depravity is specifically stated.  The basis for God’s covenant promise is the result of the burnt offering offered up by Noah.  Thus, the Israelites saw that the burnt offering was a means of avoiding God’s wrath and of obtaining God’s favour. God’s blessing was the result of a burnt offering, not of man’s good deeds.

In Genesis 22, God said to Abraham, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you”. (Genesis 22:2).  In God’s grace, he stopped Abraham from slaying his son, and provided a ram in his place (Genesis 22:13).  So, in this case the burnt offering represented two things: firstly, Abraham’s total, unreserved commitment to obedience to God’s will in placing Isaac on the. altar and raising his knife to kill him; and, secondly, God’s gracious provision of a substitute.  So, in the Mosaic covenant, when the Israelite placed his hand on the head of the sacrificial animal, he should have known that this animal was dying in his place, just as the ram died in the place of Isaac.

From our perspective, this side of the cross, we see how all this points to God’s provision of “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”  God accepts this alone as the basis of our fellowship with him, but he is pleased when we take hold of this provision with a total, no holding back, commitment of ourselves to him, the ‘aroma pleasing to him.’  As the Apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship.” (Romans 12:1), an example of “lov[ing] the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart and with all [our] soul and with all [our] mind and with all [our] strength” (Mark 12:30) – an ‘aroma pleasing to him’.

– Bruce Christian