In Leviticus 4:13-14, we read of the young bull as a sin-offering for the unintended sins of the assembly / congregation. The bull was the sin-offering for the unintended sins of the priest (Lev 4:3-12, covered earlier in Forgiveness is not ‘cheap’, what is its cost?, and All, all of it). Is there significance in using the bull as offering for unintended sins of the congregation? We might say the sins of both are of equal proportion: whether we are the congregation, and it is the priest, the magnitude of sins is of the same degree. However, I don’t think that way of explanation is helpful.
What should be more helpful is the idea that the sin is very serious indeed. Whether such an unintentional sin is from the priest (worship leader, minister etc.) or the congregation, the point is that the sin is very serious. The use of the bull for sin-offering might have additional meaning that the sin of the congregation as “as serious as” the sin of the priest – but when such situation arises / arose, our priority is to seek forgiveness from God, mush less about whether the sin as “as serious as” the other one. But we should continue on this –
Sin is an offense to our God. Whether a sin is lesser to another is a difficult subject to address. The spirit of the text of Leviticus is that (a) knowledge that sin has occurred, and then (b) ask for forgiveness. We (individually or collectively, in private or closed-room discussion) tend to complicate things in (a) – trying to argue for and against whether something is sin. When we decide it is sin, we might do various things before going to (b). One of these could be why is my sin considered as “bad” as the other one, or what is somebody sin’s considered far less serious than the other one. And maybe we enter a phase of “negotiation”.
The bull is a real thing, an animal! It has meaning in food chains. It is probably the most accessible animal, is large enough to handle by people, and highly valuable. One bull probably feeds a small village for a few weeks, so long they don’t only eat the meat every day! Although it is probably obvious, you won’t miss a bull. You’ll see it from a distance, you probably hear it and smell it too. It is an animal with some strength. It is a productive animal.
To use a bull for sin-offering has various layers of meaning: it was a public occurrence in those days. The sight of offering was not too far from who people were generally at. What we ought to remind ourselves is that saying sorry to God requires cost on our part. In those days, this is part of the forgiveness formula. With what Jesus has done for us in the new covenant, the “conditions” for forgiveness is satisfied by Jesus. We should not say asking forgiveness does not cost anything, it costs Jesus.
