Leviticus 4:13 - Meaning and Application

This is the law for dealing with the guilt of a national sin through a sin offering. If the leaders of the people, through a mistake about the law, led the people into error, then when the mistake was found out, an offering had to be brought so that wrath would not fall on the whole assembly.

Notice first that the church can go wrong, and its leaders can lead people astray. The text assumes that the whole congregation may sin, even in ignorance. God will always have a church on earth, but he never said it would be unable to err or free from corruption before heaven.

When a sacrifice was offered for the whole congregation, the elders, at least three of them, were to lay their hands on the animal’s head. They acted as the people’s representatives and spoke for them. The sin may have been some common practice that most people had taken up, assuming it was lawful, but later proved to be wrong. Even if the custom had long use behind it, or came down from the fathers, that would not excuse the sin. There are many bad customs and common sayings that seem harmless, yet can bring guilt and judgment on a land. Because of that, the elders must both reform them and ask God to forgive them (Joel 2:16).

The blood of this sin offering, like the blood of the former one, was to be sprinkled seven times before the Lord (Leviticus 4:17). It was not to be poured out there, only sprinkled. This pointed ahead to the cleansing power of the blood of Christ, which is shown by sprinkling (Isaiah 52:15). It was sprinkled seven times because seven is a number of fullness and completion. God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, so this pointed to the full satisfaction Christ made and the complete cleansing of believers through it (Hebrews 10:14).

The blood was also to be put on the horns of the incense altar. That seems to be in view in Jeremiah 17:1, where Judah’s sin is said to be written on the horns of their altars. If people did not leave their sins, then the blood on the altar would not remove their guilt, but would instead fasten it on them more clearly and stand as a witness against them. This is also reflected in Revelation 9:13, where a voice comes from the four horns of the golden altar. That speaks of the answer of peace given to the prayers of the saints, prayers that are accepted and powerful only because of the blood of the sin offering placed on that altar’s horns (compare Revelation 8:3).

When the offering was finished, the text says that atonement had been made, and the sin would be forgiven (Leviticus 4:20). The promise of pardon rests on the atonement. Here the forgiveness is about the sin of the whole congregation, meaning the turning away of the national judgments that this sin deserved. The safety of churches and kingdoms from ruin depends on the satisfaction and mediation of Christ, that is, his work as the one who stands between God and his people and brings them together.