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The Logic of Penal Substitution in Leviticus
The doctrine of penal substitution is central to the book of Leviticus. It’s clear that, in the Bible’s third book, atonement is accomplished by a substitute whose death and blood secure forgiveness because they’re given for the sinner’s life. It’s not an imported theme from later theologies.
Three major themes weave together to create a beautiful picture of redemption in Leviticus. First, the identification of the sinner with a substitute through the laying on of hands. Second, the punitive death of the substitute who takes the sinner’s place. Third, the substitute’s blood applied to God’s altar, which results in atonement of the sinner. These themes teach us to look to Jesus, the One who “loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2).
Let’s look at three passages from Leviticus where these themes occur.
Substitution Through Laying on of Hands
The theme of substitution arises within the first few verses. As God speaks to Moses, he instructs the worshiper to “lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering.” The act of the worshiper identifying with the animal is intentional, and the effect is that the animal “shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him” (1:4).
The words “for him” are critical here, explicitly pointing to the idea of a substitute—one in the place of another. Substitution is asserted in the very grammar of the sacrifice. The life on the altar stands before God in the worshiper’s place.
No specific wording connects the laying on of hands with the transfer of sin in this verse. But two details are suggestive.
First, after the laying on of hands, what immediately follows is that the animal is killed (v. 5). This pattern repeats throughout Leviticus (e.g., 3:2, 8, 13; 4:4, 15, 24, 29, 33; 8:14–15, 18–19, 22–23; 16:21). Admittedly, the text doesn’t explicitly state why killing logically follows the laying on of hands. But it seems likely that it’s meant to remind worshipers of God’s warning in Genesis that death is the penalty for disobeying him (Gen. 2:16–17).
Second, the result of the sacrifice is that the worshiper himself will “be accepted before the LORD” (Lev. 1:3). Thus, the text depicts the sacrificed animal as a substitute that atones for the sin of the worshiper by receiving the due punishment of death. Substitution is symbolized by the laying on of hands; that becomes even clearer when we look at God’s instructions for worship on the Day of Atonement.
Confessing and Bearing Iniquities
On Yom Kippur, the Israelites observed a ritual involving two goats (16:15–22). That rite displays the logic of penal substitution in two ways.
When the first goat is slain as a sin offering, its blood is carried inside the veil and sprinkled “because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins” (v. 16). Penal death is offered to God in answer to the guilt of his people’s sin to restore the holiness of their place of worship.
In a different way, the second goat also shows sin being transferred to a substitutionary sacrifice, this time through confession. This passage is explicit that the sin is transferred to the animal: “Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness” (v. 21).
It’s clear in this text that confessing the people’s iniquities is inextricably linked to the laying on of hands and transference of sin. The result is that the animal bears the people’s sin into the wilderness.
Confessing the people’s iniquities is inextricably linked to the laying on of hands and transference of sin.
As we look at the logic of this two-goat sacrifice, it’s hard to avoid seeing the picture of a penalty for sin, the substitution for sinners, and the resultant atonement that rises from the text. This becomes even clearer when we consider the theological connection between blood and life in Leviticus.
Life Is in the Blood
Along with the instructions for sacrifices, God also gives instructions for holy living in Leviticus. For example, he prohibits his people from eating “the blood of any creature,” noting that “whoever eats it shall be cut off” (17:14).
The explanation for this prohibition is right in the text, and it illuminates the logic of sacrifice in Leviticus: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life” (v. 11). Thus, God makes explicit the symbolic connection between blood, death, and atonement.
God makes explicit the symbolic connection between blood, death, and atonement.
Some might object that the atonement is atonement “by the life,” not just the death, of the animal. However, the preposition translated “by” has a range of meaning, including identifying one object with another (e.g., Ex. 6:3). A better way to translate the text might be “the blood . . . makes atonement as the life.” That is, the blood is the life, and it’s poured out to death, and thus atonement is made.
This identification of blood with death—or life catastrophically spilled out—is consistent with the rest of Leviticus. To state the obvious, the blood comes from killing. For example, the worshiper “shall . . . kill the sin offering” (Lev. 4:29), and then the priest applies “some of its blood” at God’s altar (v. 30). On the Day of Atonement, Aaron was to “kill the goat of the sin offering . . . and bring its blood inside the veil” (16:15).
The blood signifies not just life but life taken, life destroyed, and life poured out. To speak of sacrificial blood in Leviticus is never to speak of life beautifully lived, or life as a miracle, or life as opposed to death, or any such thing. It’s to speak particularly of life violently killed under penalty of sin and set before God on the altar as a substitute to make atonement for sin.
It’s true that Christians can understand the Levitical sacrifices more clearly in light of New Testament accounts. But as we read the third book of the Bible on its own terms and in its own context, the logic of penal substitutionary atonement is evident to careful readers.
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