Bringing a Bull to the Altar

Adapted from A Place for Me in God’s Tent

Going back through my book A Place for Me in God’s Tent recently got me excited all over again about some aspects of the sacrificial process in the Old Testament. It is, after all, from these types and shadows God sent previews of the salvation Jesus would eventually perform. In particular I couldn’t help but reimagine the challenge of bringing a bull to the altar for a sin offering.

What follows is adapted from the chapters concerning the consecration of Aaron and his sons for the work of the priesthood. The sin offering is addressed in Exodus 29:10–14.

After explaining how to clothe his ministers, God told Moses to have them haul a bull to the altar as a sacrifice. This was not a cow, mind you. It wasn’t even a good-sized steer. It was a hulking mound of snorting, pawing-the-ground muscle. If you’ve ever gazed across a field of grazing bovines, you’ll have had no trouble distinguishing which is the bull among them.

What were Aaron and his boys to do with the beast? Not much. Just bring it before the Lord and slap their hands on its head. Can you imagine the trickiness involved, not just in leading it into the tabernacle but pressing in to lay hands on its head? All this without losing control of the beast.

Yeah. Right.

Grabbing a Wild Bull

Bulls aren’t known for their gentle nature. It takes courage to grab one by the nose ring or horns. But to box him in and grope for his head? No thanks.

This makes me think the casting for this scenario couldn’t have been better. What could be more like addressing sin in our lives than disturbing a bull in a field? It’s quite tempting to leave it be. Both bulls and sin have weapons like horns and hooves that could lash out at us on their way to the altar of repentance. But leave them alone and they’re equally prone to spend their days sniffing for an opportunity to be fruitful and multiply.

Each of us has issues we’d rather not address—things we’d rather not recognize as wild bulls. We just know something is unsettling our hearts. Best to take a chance that God really knows how to calm what disquiets us.

As with the bull, the first step in dealing with sin is recognizing its power and admitting it won’t be tamed. So let us call it by name and drag it before the Lord. And when we manage to wrangle it forward, then what?

In Aaron’s case, he was to reach for its head.

Laying Hands on the Bull

The bull was arguably skittish by this point, but a quick brush of its fur wasn’t going to count as “laying hands” on it. Henry W. Soltau, in his book The Tabernacle, the Priesthood, and the Offerings, suggests God’s words to Moses implied leaning heavily against it.¹

The priests had to get close enough to catch a whiff of the sacrifice, to feel the rippling strength of its muscles below the skin. For us it implies looking sin straight in the eye, calling it by name, and acknowledging its power over us.

The good news is, something happened to the priests when they leaned on the sacrifice. In some mysterious way, God caused their sins to transfer entirely to the bull. The name of the sacrifice then came into play. Though translated in English as a “sin offering,” the bull was called chattaah in Hebrew (meaning “sinful thing” or simply “sin”). It somehow not only took on the priests’ sins, but it also became the sinful thing itself.

Sound a bit familiar? It should. Paul commented in 2 Corinthians 5:20–21 that “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (emphasis mine). Once Messiah came in the person of Jesus, he took the bull’s place. As we lean heavily on Jesus and confess our sins, they transfer to him as he becomes chattah (sin) for us.

Getting Rid of the Bull

Now it’s time to slay the bull in the presence of the Lord. But it won’t be done by the priests who brought it, but by a stand-in for the Lord named Moses. This intermediary then takes the blood—the substance that gave the bull life and power—and paints it onto the horns of the altar with one little finger.

The bull’s strength then drips impotently from the symbol of the altar’s power—almost as though the altar had gored the sacrifice. The rest of the blood is poured around the base of the altar, as though bringing the bull to its knees in defeat. In a final act of humiliation, the symbol of the sin offering’s strength and authority—its oily fat—is burned on the altar and its empty carcass incinerated outside the camp.

What a picture of God doing for us what we can’t do ourselves. We bring the offering of our confession. He slays the bull of our sin and destroys it entirely. He is not satisfied to cope with or manage sin. He puts a knife to sin’s throat and kills it.

Let’s stop trying to tame the bull. Let’s take it to the tabernacle door and lean into Christ’s sacrifice for us. He’ll help us resist the next little calf of temptation before it grows horns.

Prayer: Father God, help me. My will snorts like a bull. Give my heart the courage to seize the truth by the nose and bring it to You. Lord Jesus, let sin move from me to You as I come to grips with sin. Let its power be broken as I lean heavily against You and name it for what it is.

Want more on the tabernacle? Check out A Place for Me in God’s Tent.

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1. Soltau, Henry W. 1972. The Tabernacle, the Priesthood, and the Offerings. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 363.