Thread by @JamesBejon

A NOTE (1/7):

OT sacrifices are often said not to involve the notion of penal substitution.

Animal aren’t punished in place of people, one has said in a certain place,

and many have concurred.

Such claims, however, don’t seem to withstand much scrutiny.

The institution of Israel’s sacrificial system is grounded both historically and textually in the Passover--an event in which YHWH judges a land full of false gods, worshipped by Egyptians and Israelites alike (cp. Exod. 12.12, Ezek. 20.7–10),

and, as a penalty for Israel’s unfaithfulness, a death takes place in each and every house,

which has to be borne either by a firstborn lamb or a firstborn son.

The same principle underlies the sacrificial system as a whole.

Atonement comes ‘at the expense of life’ (בנפש) (Lev. 17.11).

Such notions are often dismissed as a retrojection of Reformed theology.

Nachmanides, however, wasn’t much of a Reformer, and comments on Leviticus 1.9’s ascension sacrifice (עֹלָה) as follows.

‘[The offerer] sprinkles blood on the altar in answer to the blood of his own soul,

so he may see in [his presentation of an animal for sacrifice] how he has sinned against his God with his body and his soul,

and how it would be appropriate for *his* blood to be spilled and *his* body burnt were it not for the kindness (חסד) of the Creator,

who accepts the sacrifice from him as a substitute (תמורה) and ransom (כפר),

so its blood might be instead of his blood and its soul instead of his soul.’