Exodus 29 · a question people ask
If the blood of bulls can't take away sins, why did God command these offerings?
Both things are in the Bible. Exodus says atonement was made with these offerings (29:33, 29:36), and Leviticus says of a sin offering, "the priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven" (Leviticus 4:20). Hebrews says, "it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). Hebrews also says what those sacrifices did do. It calls the law "a shadow of the good to come" (Hebrews 10:1), and says the blood of goats and bulls could "sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh" (Hebrews 9:13), while "the blood of Christ" will "cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Hebrews 9:14). And it says Christ's death was "for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant" (Hebrews 9:15).
The verses
“They shall eat those things with which atonement was made, to consecrate and sanctify them; but a stranger shall not eat of it, because they are holy.”
“Every day you shall offer the bull of sin offering for atonement. You shall cleanse the altar when you make atonement for it. You shall anoint it, to sanctify it.”
“He shall do this with the bull; as he did with the bull of the sin offering, so he shall do with this; and the priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven.”
“For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near. Or else wouldn’t they have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins? But in those sacrifices there is a yearly reminder of sins. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.”