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Leviticus 1:9 – Holy Smoke
“The primary sense is that the burnt offering goes up as smoke. From a theological perspective, one may say that the act of burning is more concerned with transformation than incineration….What has been placed on the altar is literally an animal. The ritual has transformed the animal into something else – smoke – and this smoke now requires a new name. It now ascends as a ‘gift’…specifically and intentionally given to God.” (Leviticus, Balentine, p.25). And to think, those Old Testament rituals have nothing to teach us today, right?! Our bodies are the old animals, the new sacrifice, transformed “holy and pleasing to God” (Rom.12:1), as those old rituals were “a pleasing aroma to God” (Lev.1:9). The new holy smoke is our transformed lives.
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