The Grace of the Levitical Sacrificial System

Luther strongly believed in a law/grace dichotomy between the OT and NT. For Luther, this was critical in developing his doctrine of justification. For him, the NT was all about grace, in contrast to the OT, which was primarily about law. Such a view is quite common in both Christian and non-Christian circles, and in some measure, sets the table for dispensational understandings of the discontinuities between the various dispensations we allegedly find in Scripture. In contrast, the Reformed view has always been that there is a great deal of continuity between the two testaments. In Reformed thinking, there is an abundance of both law in the NT, and grace in the OT. The Reformed position is quite correct, in my view (what a shock!)

Ironically, one area where we can see an abundance of grace in the OT is in the setting down of the legal sacrificial system in Leviticus 1-7. Of all places, it is in the giving of the sacrifical law that we find one of the most poignant examples of divine grace anywhere in the Bible. Consider this:

In the giving of the sacrificial system:
1) God provided an abundance of sacrifices,
2) To cover an abundance of sins both intentional and unintentional,
3) That were committed by an abundance of people from every social and economic strata.

The abundance of sacrifices are indicative of divine grace because they cover an abundance of sins committed by everyone in the community. Since the wages of sin are death, the most merciful thing God could do for his people Israel was to offer a multitude of ways for everybody to atone for every sin through sacrifice. In short, in the setting down of the Levitical sacrificial system, God is offering forgiveness for all, no matter if they be priests, lay leaders, the laity, or the community at large. In Leviticus, we find radical grace as the basis for detailed law. The substitionary nature of the sacrificial system clearly prefigures the work of Christ and is thoroughly harmonious with it (the book of Hebrews provides the most extensive NT analysis of this).

This means that if we consider the work of Christ to be an act of grace, then the Levitical sacrificial system that Christ clearly consummates is also a system of grace. There is no law/grace dichotomy between the testaments. The sacrificial system is God's mechanism of extending forgiveness to the sinner who has been (graciously) given the opportunity to atone for his sins through substitionary sacrifice. In short, law is all about grace, and has grace as its basic operating principle. There is great continuity between the OT and NT.