Bible Questions & Answers Archive 

 
Mary Was to Offer a Sacrifice?
By Dr. Max D. Younce
0030

 Question 

In Luke 2:24 Mary was to offer a sacrifice. What was this sacrifice for?

 Answer 

The answer is found in Leviticus 12. Every Jewish woman, after giving birth, was required to offer a sin offering. In Leviticus 12:6,7 we are told "...she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering...Who shall offer it before the Lord, and make an atonement for her." In Verse 8 we are again told the offering was for "...a sin offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for her and she shall be clean." Mary, a wonderful woman, chosen of God to give birth to the Messiah, offered the sin sacrifice for herself.

Mary knew she was not sinless. If Mary had been sinless she could have gone to the cross and paid for the sins of the world. The purpose of the virgin birth was to provide Christ a sinless body with which to pay for the sins of the world. The teaching that Mary was sinless and ascended bodily to Heaven without dying is found nowhere in the Word of God.

In Colossians 2:8 is God’s warning: "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."