Leviticus 1:5-9 - Homiletics

Medication.

The sacrificial act cannot be completed, though it can be begun, by the offerer alone. The intervention of God's priest is requisite, and it is his hand which performs the most solemn portion of the rite. Thus there is taught the need of mediation and of a mediator when a work of atonement is to be accomplished. "The expiation was always made or completed by the priest, as the sanctified mediator between Jehovah and the people, or, previous to the institution of the Aaronic priesthood, by Moses, the chosen mediator of the covenant.… It is not Jehovah who makes the expiation, but this is invariably the office or work of a mediator, who intervenes between the holy God and sinful man, and by means of expiation averts the wrath of God from the sinner, and brings the grace of God to bear upon him" (Keil). Hence, the great work of atonement, of which all other atonements are but shadows, was performed by the One Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ.