Draw Near - Leviticus 7-9

Draw Near

Leviticus 9:7-8
Then Moses said to Aaron, “Draw near to the altar and offer your sin offering and your burnt offering and make atonement for yourself and for the people, and bring the offering of the people and make atonement for them, as the LORD has commanded.”
So Aaron drew near to the altar and killed the calf of the sin offering, which was for himself.

The Levitical offerings were intended to show the nation of Israel that there was a need for a blood sacrifice in order to “draw near” to God.   The entire book of Leviticus is to teach this thought.   The Israelites missed the point and began to offer “form” worship ... following the “form” on the outside, but not the necessary “faith” on the inside.  Note:

2 Kings 17:7-9
Exile Because of Idolatry
And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city.

In the book of Hebrews we read that God did not allow them to enter rest because of their unbelief:

Hebrews 3:16-19
For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

But, because of Christ’s blood, shed for us, we can draw near in full assurance of faith:

Hebrews 10:19-22
The Full Assurance of Faith
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

We can draw near, through faith in Christ’s shed blood. That is where the nation of Israel was supposed to place their faith.   In the blood sacrifice.  They were to look forward in faith to when Christ would be the final sacrifice.   We look back on Christ’s death and final sacrifice.  By that shedding of blood we draw near to God.