Child Birth Sin Offering

Q. Why is a sin offering needed after child-birth? Atonement for what? Isn’t a birth supposed to be joyful?

A. This requirement is also from Lev 12:

• Lev 12:6-7 ‘When the days of her purification are completed, for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the doorway of the tent of meeting a one year old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. Then he shall offer it before the LORD and make atonement for her, and she shall be cleansed from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, whether a male or a female.

God commanded His creation to “be fruitful and multiply” 11 times:
• Adam and Eve (Gen 1:22, 28);
• Noah (Gen 8:17; 9:1, 7);
• Ishmael (Gen 17:20);
• Jacob (Gen 28:3; 35:11);
• Israelites (Lev 26:9);
• Jewish remnant (Jer 23:3);
• Mountains of Israel (Ezk 36:11).

So how come bearing children requires a sin offering? The answer has to do with the Fall of Man. When Adam and Eve sinned, Eve’s punishment was:
• Gen 3:16 To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.”
Not only that, sin and death was passed to all their descendants:
• Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—
• Ps 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.

As a result, all are born with a sin nature. Every time a child is born, a sinner is brought into the world, needing redemption. Hence the requirement for atonement and sin offering, pointing to their need of the Savior.