What does Tribe teach about animal sacrifice meaning?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on animal sacrifice starts with a deliberate correction to the frame most people bring to it. Brian Hunter points out that the ancient pagan world sacrificed out of fear, trying to appease gods who might otherwise destroy crops or bury cities, and that frame is easy to carry straight into reading the Bible. The result is a picture of an angry God who barely tolerates people as long as the killing continues, with Jesus jumping in at the last second. Brian says that picture is wrong. God did not design sacrifice to satisfy his anger. He designed it so that people could draw close to him. As Brian puts it, "God has provided an incredible, beautiful way for us to have intimate relationship with God."
The weight of the teaching falls on what the laying on of hands actually means in Leviticus 3. Brian argues it is not primarily about transferring sin onto the animal. It is about appointing a representative. The person's essence is transmitted to the animal, and because the animal is without defect, it is the one who qualifies to approach a holy God. The worshiper's life becomes bound up in that animal, and when its blood is sprinkled on the altar, what is being carried there is the person's own life. Leviticus 17:11 anchors this reading. The blood is not what an angry deity demands. It is what God himself provided as the bridge.
That is why Brian keeps returning to the same hard truth underneath the beauty: "For a life giving relationship with God, something has to die." The sacrifice is not a transaction that keeps God at bay. It is the shape of intimacy with a God who will not compromise his holiness, and who at the same time made a way for ordinary people to enter his presence. Everything in the series points toward the same crossroads Brian calls the Thunderdome, where he says, "Two men enter, one man leaves. Either you win and Jesus dies, or Jesus wins and you die."
Taught from Leviticus 3:1-17 · Leviticus 17:11 · 1 John 4:9-10 · Psalm 15 · Numbers 27:18-20
“God has provided an incredible, beautiful way for us to have intimate relationship with God.”
From The Sin Offering
The passage taught · 1 John 4:9-10
9 By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- March 3, 2025 The Sin Offering Leviticus 3 shows that God designed blood sacrifice not to satisfy his anger but to draw us into intimate relationship with him.
- March 2, 2025 The Blood Bridges the Gap Brian Hunter walks through Leviticus 3 to show that God designed blood sacrifice not to manage his anger, but to draw people into genuine closeness with him.