LECTURES<\/p>\n
ON THE<\/p>\n
LEVITICAL OFFERINGS<\/p>\n
(Leviticus 1 to 7)<\/p>\n
Lecture I<\/p>\n
THE BURNT OFFERING<\/p>\n
Read carefully Leviticus, chapters 1; 6:8\u201313; 7 and 8; Deut. 33:8\u201310; Psalm 40; Ephesians 5:1, 2.<\/p>\n
To many believers the theme of the burnt-offering is very familiar, but there are large numbers of God\u2019s beloved people who have never carefully studied the marvelous types of the Person and work of Christ given us in the early chapters of Leviticus, where we have five distinct offerings, all setting forth various aspects of the work of the Cross and unfolding the glories of the Person who did that work\u2014a Person transcending all the sons of men, for He was both Son of God and Son of Man, divinely human and humanly divine. We shall get great help for our souls if we meditate upon the marvelous pictures here given us of the great and wondrous truths which are unfolded in the New Testament. In coming to the study of the types, we should never found doctrines upon them, but discovering the doctrines in the New Testament, we will find them illustrated in the types of the Old.
\nThe five offerings may be divided in various ways. First we notice that four of them are offerings involving the shedding of blood\u2014the Burnt offering, the Peace offering, the Sin offering, and the Trespass offering. The Meat offering, or, as it should read, the Meal offering or Food offering, was an unbloody offering, and stands in a place by itself. Then again there are sweet savor offerings as distinguished from offerings for sin. The burnt offering, the meal offering and the peace offering are all said to be \u201cfor a sweet savor unto the Lord.\u201d This was never true of the sin offering or the trespass offering. The divine reason for this distinction will come out clearly, I trust, as we go on.
\nThe five offerings which are here grouped together present to us a marvelous many-sided picture of the Person and work of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. They show what He is to God, as well as what He has become in grace to sinners for whom He died, and to those who have trusted Him and now stand before God accepted in the Beloved. If there be details, as many there are, which are difficult for us to understand, these should but give occasion for exercise of heart before God and for meditation and prayer. We may be sure of this, that the better acquainted we become with our Saviour and the more we enter into what the Word of God elsewhere reveals as to the details of His work upon the cross, the more readily we shall understand the types.
\nAs we get them here in the first seven chapters of Leviticus we see things from the divine standpoint, that is, God gives us that which means most to Him first; so that we begin with the burnt offering, which is the highest type of the work of the Cross that we have in the Mosaic economy, and we go on down through the meal offering, the peace offering, and the sin offering, to the trespass offering, which is the first aspect of the work of Christ generally apprehended by our souls.
\nAs a rule when a guilty sinner comes to God for salvation he thinks of his own wrongdoing, and the question that arises in his soul is, \u201cHow can God forgive my sins and receive me to Himself in peace when I am so conscious of my own trespasses?\u201d
\nMost of us remember when the grace of God first reached our hearts. We were troubled about our sins which had put us at such a distance from God, and the great questions that exercised us were these: How can our sins be put away? How can we be freed from this sense of guilt? How can we ever feel at home with God when we know we have so grievously trespassed against Him and so wantonly violated His holy law? We shall never forget, many of us, how we were brought to see that what we could never do ourselves, God had done for us through the work of our Lord Jesus on the cross. We remember when we sang with exultation:<\/p>\n
\u201cAll my iniquities on Him were laid,
\nAll my indebtedness by Him was paid,
\nAll who believe on Him, the Lord hath said,
\nHave everlasting life.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the truth of the trespass offering, in which sin assumes the aspect of a debt needing to be discharged.
\nBut as we went on we began to get a little higher view of the work of the cross. We saw that sin was not only a debt requiring settlement, but that it was something which in itself was defiling and unclean, something that rendered us utterly unfit for companionship with God, the infinitely Holy One. And little by little the Spirit of God opened up another aspect of the atonement and we saw that our blessed Lord not only made expiation for all our guiltiness but for all our defilement too. \u201cFor God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.\u201d It was a wondrous moment in the history of our souls when we saw that we were saved eternally, and made fit for God\u2019s presence because the Holy One had become the great sin offering, was made sin for us on Calvary\u2019s cross.
\nBut there were other lessons we had to learn. We soon saw that because of their sins men are at enmity with God, that there could be no communion with God until a righteous basis for fellowship was procured. Something had to take place before God and man could meet together in perfect enjoyment and happy complacency. And thus we began to enter into the peace offering aspect of the work of Christ. We saw that it was God\u2019s desire to bring us into fellowship with Himself, and this could only be as redeemed sinners who had been reconciled to God through the death of our Lord Jesus.
\nAs we learned to value more the work the Saviour did, we found ourselves increasingly occupied with the Person who did that work. In the beginning it was the value of the blood that gave us peace in regard to our sin, but after we went on we learned to enjoy Him for what He is in Himself. And this is the meal offering; for it is here that we see Christ in all His perfection, God and Man in one glorious Person, and our hearts become ravished with His beauty and we feed with delight upon Himself.
\nWe can understand now what the poetess meant when she sang:<\/p>\n
\u201cThey speak to me of music rare,
\nOf anthems soft and low,
\nOf harps, and viols, and angel-choirs,
\nAll these I can forego;<\/p>\n
But the music of the Shepherd\u2019s voice
\nThat won my wayward heart
\nIs the only strain I ever heard
\nWith which I cannot part.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor, ah, the Master is so fair,
\nHis smile\u2019s so sweet to banished men,
\nThat they who meet Him unaware
\nCan never rest on earth again.<\/p>\n
And they who see Him risen afar
\nAt God\u2019s right hand, to welcome them,
\nForgetful are of home and land,
\nDesiring fair Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n
To the cold formalist all this seems mystical and extravagant, but to the true lover of Christ it is the soberest reality.
\nAnd now there remains one other aspect of the Person and work of our Lord to be considered, and it is this which is set forth in the burnt offering. As the years went on some of us began to apprehend, feebly at first, and then perhaps in more glorious fulness, something that in the beginning had never even dawned upon our souls, and that is, that even if we had never been saved through the work of Christ upon the cross there was something in that work of tremendous importance which meant even more to God than the salvation of sinners.
\nHe created man for His own glory. The catechism is right when it tells us that \u201cthe chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.\u201d But, alas, nowhere had any man been found who had not dishonored God in some way. The charge that Daniel brought against Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, was true of us all: \u201cThe God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified.\u201d God must find a man in this world who would fully glorify Him in all things. He had been so terribly dishonored down here; He had been so continually misrepresented by the first man to whom He had committed lordship over the earth, and by all his descendants, that it was necessary that some man should be found who would live in this scene wholly to His glory. God\u2019s character must be vindicated; and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Man, the Lord from heaven, was the only one who could do that. And in His perfect obedience unto death we see that which fully meets all the requirements of the divine nature and glorifies God completely in the scene where He had been so sadly misrepresented. This is the burnt offering aspect of the Cross. By means of that cross more glory accrued to God than He had ever lost by the fall. So that we may say that even if not one sinner had ever been saved through the sacrifice of our Lord upon the tree, yet God had been fully glorified in respect of sin, and no stain could be imputed to His character, nor could any question ever be raised through all eternity as to His abhorrence of sin and His delight in holiness.
\nSo in the book of Leviticus the burnt offering comes first, for it is that which is most precious to God and should therefore be most precious to us.
\nOthers have pointed out how the four Gospels connect in a very wonderful way with the four bloody offerings. Matthew sets forth the trespass offering aspect of the work of Christ, meeting the sinner at the moment of His need when he first realizes his indebtedness to God. It is noticeable throughout what a large place the thought of sin as debt and as an offence to the orderliness of the divine government occupies in that book.
\nIn Mark\u2019s Gospel the aspect of sin as uncleanness and defilement is more emphasized, and so we have the sin offering view of the Cross. Then in Luke we have the peace offering as the basis of communion between God and man. In chapters 14, 15, and 16 we are shown the way that God in infinite grace has come out to guilty man to bring him into fellowship with Himself, and yet how many there are who refuse that mercy and so can never know peace with God. In John\u2019s Gospel our Lord Jesus Christ is seen as the burnt offering, offering Himself without spot unto God, a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savor, and that is why in John there is no mention made of the awful cry of anguish, \u201cMy God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!\u201d This really belongs to the trespass and sin offering aspects of His work; but it does not come in where His death is seen as that which fully glorifies God in the world where He has been so dishonored. The meal offering is seen in all the four Gospels where we have the Person of Christ presented in various ways; as the Messiah of Israel in Matthew; the suffering Servant of Jehovah in Mark; the perfect Man in Luke; and the Son of God become flesh in John.
\nIt is as we meditate upon all these precious things that we really enjoy communion with the Father. At one time in my early Christian life, I had an idea that communion consisted in very pious feelings and frames of mind, and in order to have these emotions I would read every devotional book I could find, and would often jot down in a diary my thoughts when I had, what seemed to me, a distinct sense of piety that was very delightful and solemn. In after years I came across this book and could hardly believe that I had ever had such strange, conceited thoughts and supposed them to be the result of communion with God. I realize now that I thought communion consisted in having God find delight in my pious feelings. But that is not it at all. Communion with God is when my soul enters into His thoughts concerning His Son.
\nDid you ever go into a home where a dear mother had been entrusted with a new baby? How did you get into heart communion with that mother? You talked perhaps about various things, but you could not strike a responsive chord in her heart until you said something about the little one. All at once she brightened up and began to tell you what a wonderful baby it really was, and soon you and she were completely en rapport, for you were both occupied with the same little personality. The illustration is a very feeble one. That child of hers is entrusted to her for but a brief period, but the God of the universe has been finding His delight in His blessed Son throughout all the ages of eternity, and now He says, as it were, \u201cI want to take you into fellowship with Me in My thoughts about My Son. I want to tell you about Him. I want you to understand better the delight that I find in Him and to see more fully what His work and devotion mean to Me.\u201d
\nAnd so this book of Leviticus opens with the voice of the Lord calling to Moses out of the sanctuary. It was from the excellent glory that the voice came saying, \u201cThis is My beloved Son in whom I have found all My delight.\u201d And so from the inner tabernacle where the glory of God abode above the mercy-seat, the voice of Jehovah called unto Moses saying, \u201cSpeak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.\u201d Notice there is not a word about man\u2019s sinfulness. This is addressed to those who are already in covenant relation with God, and whose hearts are overflowing with gratitude for what He has done for them, and who now voluntarily desire to bring to God something which He can approve of; and everything that they bring speaks of Christ. For there is nothing that any of us can bring to God that will give Him joy unless it speaks in some way of His blessed Son. It is the very voluntariness of the burnt offering that gives it such value. There is here no question of legality, no \u201cmust,\u201d nor any demand, but it is the heart filled with gratitude desiring to express itself in some way before God that leads to the presentation of the offering. And notice the universality of it. It says, \u201cany man.\u201d It was something of which any one could avail himself. All may come to God bringing the work of His Son.
\nThree distinct kinds of offerings are mentioned. The burnt offering might be a sacrifice of the herd, that is, a bullock or young ox, as in verses 3\u20139; or it might be out of the flocks, a sheep or a goat, as in verses 10\u201313; or again it might be fowls, as turtle-doves or young pigeons, as in verses 14\u201317. These grades of offerings had to do with the ability of the offerer. He who could afford a bullock brought it; if unable to bring a bullock, a sheep or a goat; and the poorer people brought the fowls. But all alike spoke of Christ. It is a question, I take it, of spiritual apprehension. Some of us have a very feeble apprehension of Christ, but we do value Him, we love Him, we trust Him, and so we come to God bringing our offering of fowls. We know Him as the Heavenly One, and the bird speaks of that which belongs to the heavens. It flies above the earth. Others have a little fuller understanding, and so we bring our offering of the flocks. We see in Him the devoted One who \u201cwas led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb.\u201d Or He is represented by the goat, the picture of the sinner whose place He in grace has taken. Others again have a still higher and fuller apprehension of His Person and His work. We see in Him the strong, patient ox whose delight was to do the will of God in all things.
\nThere is very little difference in the treatment of the sacrifice of the herd and that of the flock. But of necessity there is considerable difference when we come to that of the fowls. Let us consider a little verses 3 to 9: \u201cIf his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord,\u201d or, as it reads in the 1911 Version, \u201cthat it may be graciously received from him before the Lord.\u201d The bullock, or, more literally, the young ox, speaks, as we have said, of the patient servant. It is written in the law of Moses, \u201cThou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn.\u201d The apostle Paul applies this to the ministering servants of God, they who prepare the food for the people of God, and are not to be deprived of that which they need for their own sustenance. Our blessed Lord was like the patient ox treading out the corn. The One who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, He was the perfect Servant come to give His life a ransom for many. And observe, the ox must be a male without blemish. Among the types the female speaks of subjection, whereas the male suggests rather the thought of rightful independence. Our Lord Jesus was the only Man that ever walked this earth who was entitled to a place of independence, and yet He chose to be the subject One, even unto death. And He was the unblemished One. No fault was to be found in Him, no shortcoming of any kind, no sin or failure. The offerer when he presented his unblemished burnt sacrifice was practically saying, \u201cI have no worthiness in myself. I am full of sin and failure, but I bring to God that which is without blemish, that which speaks of the worthiness of His own blessed Son.\u201d And the unworthy offerer was accepted in the worthy sacrifice, as we are told in Ephesians 1:6, \u201cHe hath made us accepted in the Beloved,\u201d or, as it has been translated, \u201cHe has taken us into favor in the Beloved.\u201d Observe, not according to our faithfulness, nor according to the measure of our zeal, nor yet according to the measure of our devotedness, but according to His own thoughts of His beloved Son. We who have been brought through grace divine to see that we have no worthiness in ourselves, have all our worthiness in Christ.
\nThis is emphasized in the fourth verse. Man as the offerer stood before the priest with his hand upon the head of the burnt offering. He was really identifying himself with the victim that was about to be slain. It is the hand of faith which rests upon the head of Christ and sees in Him the One who takes my place. All that He is, He is for me! Henceforth God sees me in Him.
\nBut it is not in His life that He does this, but by His death. And so we read, \u201cAnd he shall kill the bullock before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron\u2019s sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.\u201d We have all had our part in the killing of the bullock. That is, we have all had to do with the death of Christ. Men generally recognize this, but fail to lay hold of it individually. It is when I see that Jesus died for me, that even if there were no other sinner in all the world, still He would have given Himself as the victim in my place, that the value of His precious blood is applied to me, and I am accepted before God in all that He has done, and in all that He is.
\nIn verses 6\u20139 we read of the flaying, that is, the skinning of the burnt offering, and the cutting of the victim into its parts. Of the skin we shall speak in a moment, and there are precious truths connected with it. The pieces were all to be washed with water and then placed upon the wood of the altar and burnt with fire, to go up to God \u201can offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord.\u201d The washing by water typifies the application of the Word of God to every part of Christ\u2019s being; all that He did was in perfect holiness, as under the controlling power of the Word of God in the energy of the Holy Spirit. He could say in the fullest sense, \u201cThy Word have I hid in My heart that I might not sin against Thee.\u201d He did not need the Word for cleansing, for He was ever the Holy One, and yet He was in everything submissive to the Word, for He was here to glorify God as the dependent Man.
\nWe read, \u201cThe priest shall burn all on the altar.\u201d The burnt offering was the only one of the sacrifices of which this was true. In all the rest there was something reserved for the offering priest or for the offerer, but in this one particular case everything went up to God; for there is something in this aspect of the work of the Cross which only God can fully understand and appreciate.
\nBut in chap. 7:8 we have one apparent exception. While every part of the victim was burnt on the altar the skin was given to the priest. This is indeed precious. It is as though God said to the priest, \u201cI have found My portion in Christ. He is everything to Me, the beloved of My heart, in whom I have found all My delight. Now I want you to take the fleece and wrap yourself in it! Clothe yourself in the skin of the burnt offering.\u201d It is a wonderful picture of acceptance before God in Christ. We are covered with the skin of the burnt offering!
\nIt is scarcely necessary to go into any detail in regard to the offering of the flocks, for, as we have already seen, it was handled in practically the same way as that of the bullock. But there is an added thought or two in connection with the fowls. We read in verses 15, 16: \u201cAnd the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar: and he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes.\u201d The birds, as we have seen, speak of Christ as the One who belongs to the heavens but who has come down in grace into this scene. There is by no means the same fulness in picturing His work here that there was in connection with the other creatures. But His death is again fully emphasized, and before the offering was placed upon the altar the crop and the feathers are plucked away and cast in the place of the ashes. The taking away of the feathers from the bird suggests, I believe, the parting with all His glory and beauty when He stooped in lowly grace to the death of the Cross, while the plucking away of the crop speaks undoubtedly of His voluntarily giving up all that would minister to natural enjoyment. We sing sometimes, and perhaps but feebly enter into the meaning:<\/p>\n
\u201cI surrender all,
\nI surrender all,
\nAll to Thee, my precious Saviour,
\nI surrender all.\u201d<\/p>\n
But if we turn this around, what an appeal it makes to our hearts, and how truly it tells of the place He took in grace:<\/p>\n
He surrendered all,
\nHe surrendered all,
\nAll for me, my precious Saviour,
\nHe surrendered all.<\/p>\n
In chapter 6:8\u201313 we have the law of the burnt offering, that is, instruction to the priest as to how he was to conduct himself when carrying out this part of the ritual. In the first chapter we get what is more objective\u2014God\u2019s picture of the Person and work of His Son. But in the law of the offering we have what is more subjective\u2014the effect all this should have upon us, and how our souls should enter into it. And so here in chapter 6 we see the priest clothed in white raiment) his garments speaking of that righteousness which is now ours in Christ and which should ever characterize us practically), reverently taking up the ashes of the burnt offering and laying them beside the altar; the ashes saying as plainly as anything inanimate could, \u201cIt is finished.\u201d For ashes tell of fire burnt out, and so suggest that the work of Christ is finished. He has suffered, never to die again, and God was fully glorified in His work which has gone up as a sweet savor to Him. In Old Testament times the fire was ever to be burning on the altar. It was never to be put out, for one burnt sacrifice followed another continually, and the peace offering and the sin and trespass offerings were also placed upon the same fire. The work was never finished because no victim had yet appeared of sufficient worth to fully meet the claims of God. But now, thank God, the flame of the altar fire has gone out, the work is done, and the effect of that work abides for all eternity. May our souls revel in it. In Psalm 40, which is really the psalm of the burnt offering, we hear the voice of praise which results from the soul\u2019s appreciation of this aspect of the work of Christ. May it be ours to enter into it in all its fulness. In Deuteronomy 33 we see that the chief business of God\u2019s anointed priests was to offer burnt offerings upon His altar. So may we as holy priests of the new dispensation ever find our first delight in occupation with Christ and this aspect of His work!<\/p>\n
Lecture II<\/p>\n
THE MEAL OFFERING<\/p>\n
Read Leviticus, chaps. 2; 6:14\u201323; Psalm 16; John 6:33.<\/p>\n
We have already noticed that the meal offering stands apart from the other four in that it was a bloodless offering. There was no life given up and yet part of it was burned upon the altar for a sweet savor. The name given to this particular oblation in the Authorized Version is meat offering, but we must remember that our forefathers used the word \u201cmeat\u201d for food, and not necessarily as synonymous with flesh. There was no flesh of any kind in this offering. It was an oblation of food composed of meal and oil, or of green ears of corn dried and oil. It does not speak to us of our Saviour as sacrificed for sinners on the cross, but is God\u2019s wondrous picture of the perfection of His glorious Person. Remember, He had to be who He was in order to do what He did. None but God\u2019s eternal Son become flesh could ever have accomplished the great work that He came to do. It is of inestimable value to the soul to dwell upon God\u2019s estimate of His Son. As intimated in the previous lecture, it is in this way that we enter into communion with the Father.
\nThe psalmist says, \u201cMy meditation of Him shall be sweet.\u201d May we indeed prove this as we dwell together upon these marvelous types of His glorious Person.
\nWe should always bear in mind that it was the perfection of the Lord that gave all the efficacy to the work upon the cross. Of all other men it is written: \u201cNone of them can redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, for it costs too much to redeem them, therefore it must be let alone forever.\u201d This is a very literal rendering of that remarkable passage in Ps. 49:7, 8. The 8th verse is very inadequately rendered in our Authorized Version, \u201cThe redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever.\u201d What ceaseth forever? But the translation I have just given makes it all clear: \u201cLet it alone forever.\u201d That is, there is no use of any one attempting to do anything toward the work of redemption; it is too great to be effected by human power. \u201cIt costs too much to redeem the soul, so let it alone forever.\u201d But Christ the Son of God became a little lower than the angels with a view to the suffering of death that He might taste death for every man. He the infinitely Holy One became Man, but Man in perfection, sinless and undefiled. He alone is competent to redeem His brother and give to God a ransom for him. This is the one for whom Job yearned when he cried, \u201cThere is no daysman who can lay his hand upon us both,\u201d and it was of Him Elihu spake when he said, \u201cDeliver him from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom.\u201d And so we are now to be occupied with Christ Himself, and I trust as we study this wondrous picture of Him who was in very truth the Bread of God, the food upon which God the Father delighted to feed, that we shall have a fuller, clearer conception than ever before of Him who has saved us.
\nThe meal offering is always linked up with the burnt offering. God would not allow the Person and the work of His blessed Son to be divorced; the two must go together. But remember this, the holy walk, the devoted life of our Lord Jesus Christ, could not avail to put away sin. His holy behavior was not the means of our salvation; that perfect walk had no atoning efficacy. It was life poured out in death that saved. He said as He held the communion cup in His hand, \u201cThis cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you for the remission of sins.\u201d His life apart from His death could only bring out in bold relief our exceeding sinfulness, making the contrast between what He is and what we are all the more vivid. But His blood shed for us was life given up, poured out in death that we might live eternally. His holy life fitted Him to be the sacrifice, and so the two offerings are linked together.
\nMany of God\u2019s beloved people, I am persuaded, are being led away (for a time at least) into various systems of error, who if they only knew the true character of these systems would turn from them in horror, recognizing that in every one of them there are evil teachings concerning the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. I remember a number of years ago meeting with a young married couple out in California. They were introduced to me as earnest Bible students. They seemed very bright and hearty in their Christian experience, but they soon told me that they were getting a great deal of help and information out of a set of books that had been sold them by a colporteur. Upon inquiring I found it was the set known as \u201cMillennial Dawn.\u201d When I asked if they had read the books they said, \u201cOh, yes, and we have found some wonderful teachings in them.\u201d I replied that they had in them some teaching that was blessed and true, but it was in reality but the sugar coating to a poisonous pill, for they were thoroughly unsound as to the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. I pointed out that these books taught that our blessed Lord before He came into the world was not God, but was the highest created spirit-being in the universe; that in incarnation He became man and relinquished entirely His spirit nature; that when He died upon the cross His manhood was devoted to destruction. The author of the books goes so far as to say: \u201cIt was not only necessary that the man Christ Jesus should die, it was just as necessary that He should never live again, but should remain dead through all eternity.\u201d But these books taught that a new Being came out of the tomb who was made a partaker of the divine nature, and is now a god but not the God, and that some day a select group of overcomers will be partakers of the same nature as Himself and will assist Him in completing the work of redemption. They could not believe that I had rightly represented the teaching of this system, but they were honest people and they went home to look up the references I gave them and to compare them with their Bibles. They came to me a few days later, and handing the set to me said, \u201cIf you can use these to help deliver others we shall be thankful. We have been down on our knees asking God to forgive us for ever having had anything to do with a system that so blasphemes our Lord Jesus Christ. We had no idea of the real teaching of these books.\u201d Thus they were completely delivered, and they turned with horror from the whole evil system.
\n\u201cWhat think ye of Christ?\u201d is the first question that should be asked of every one who comes claiming to have something different to orthodox Christianity. If people are wrong here, depend upon it they are wrong throughout. It is not necessary that we should know all the evil that is in these systems in order to judge them; we need but to know they are false as to our Lord Jesus in order to refuse them entirely if we would be true to Him.
\nLet us then see how His blessed Person is pictured for us in the meal offering. We will read together verses 1\u20133: \u201cAnd when any will offer a meal offering unto the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon: and he shall bring it to Aaron\u2019s sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord: and the remnant of the meal offering shall be Aaron\u2019s and his sons\u2019: it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire.\u201d Notice then that the meal offering which was really God\u2019s food, and therefore speaks of Christ Himself, was made of fine flour. You housewives know what that is, fine flour without one coarse grain in it. This was God\u2019s picture of the humanity of Jesus. Everything was in perfect proportion and there was none of the coarseness that sin has brought into our poor, fallen humanity. I have often thought if God wanted to make a picture of my human nature He would ask for a handful of old-fashioned steel-cut oatmeal! That would adequately typify our nature, for there is so much that is coarse and uncouth and cross-grained in everyone of us; but oh, the perfection that was manifested in Him. Then observe, oil was to be poured upon the fine flour and frankincense put over it. The oil is always the type of the Holy Spirit. He is the anointing. And we read that \u201cGod anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him\u201d (Acts 10:38). That anointing took place immediately after the baptism in the Jordan, and the Father declared His satisfaction in Him saying, \u201cThis is My beloved Son, in whom I have found all my delight.\u201d This was the odor of the frankincense. There was the fine flour in all its perfection, and \u201cthe Holy Spirit descended like a dove abiding on Him;\u201d that was the oil poured upon the fine flour. Then there was the frankincense with its sweet aroma telling of the ineffable beauty and fragrance which ever characterized all His ways. No wonder the bride in the Song says, \u201cThy name is as ointment poured forth.\u201d Mary really fulfilled this type when she \u201ctook a pound of ointment very precious, and poured it upon His head and upon His feet, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.\u201d
\nIn the second verse we read that this offering was brought to Aaron\u2019s sons, the priests, and the officiating priest was to take out a handful of the flour, with its oil and frankincense, and burn it as a memorial upon the altar; it was an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. This was God\u2019s food. Then the priests themselves were to feed upon the rest of it, and so God and His redeemed priests enjoy together the perfection of Christ. This is really communion.
\nNow we have some very interesting details in verses 4\u201313. I will not quote the passages in full, but will notice the outstanding features as we run down through the chapter. There were various ways in which the offering might be prepared. In verse 4 it is \u201cbaken in the oven,\u201d in verse 5 it is \u201cbaked in a pan;\u201d in verse 7 it is \u201cbaked in a frying-pan,\u201d evidently on the top of the fireplace. In every instance it was exposed to the action of heat, and this may speak of the intense trials to which our blessed Lord was subject, all of which only served to bring out in fuller measure His perfection. Again in verse 4 the meal offering might be composed of unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil. In the first instance we have His incarnation as begotten of the virgin; we have humanity in perfection, humanity united with Deity. He was conceived of the Holy Ghost; the fine flour was mingled with oil. In the other cases we have, as in the verse above, His anointing. And so God emphasized both sides of the truth for us. He was born of the Spirit without a human father; He was anointed of the Spirit when about to enter on His great mission. Then, observe, there were some things that could not be allowed in the meal offering. In two of these verses we are told it must be unleavened, and in verse 11 we read distinctly, \u201cNo meal offering, which ye shall bring unto the Lord, shall be made with leaven.\u201d This speaks of the sinlessness of the human nature of our Saviour. Leaven in Scripture is always a type of something evil. This comes out very clearly in the New Testament application of the Old Testament type. We read in 1 Cor. 5:7, 8: \u201cChrist our passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.\u201d Just as the pious Israelite of old was to search his house diligently and put away all leaven in preparation for the passover feast, so we as believers are called upon to judge every evil thing in our hearts and lives, and put it all away in the light of the work of the cross. Both in 1 Corinthians and in Galatians we read: \u201cA little leaven leaveneth the whole lump;\u201d that is, a little sin or a little evil doctrine undetected and unjudged will soon corrupt one\u2019s entire testimony. Then again you will remember how our Lord Himself used this term. He warned His disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and of Herod. The leaven of the Pharisees was hypocrisy and self-righteousness; the leaven of the Sadducees was evil doctrine or false teaching; the leaven of Herod was worldliness and political corruption. In no place in Scripture is leaven used as a symbol or type of anything good. The woman in the parable of Matthew 13:33 is said to hide the leaven in three measures of meal until the whole is leavened. I know that this has been taken by many as representing the spread of the gospel, but who was ever told to hide the gospel anywhere? There is nothing clandestine about its proclamation; it is to be openly preached everywhere. Jesus said, \u201cIn secret have I said nothing,\u201d and the same should be true of His followers. The woman in the parable is the false Church, not the true, and she is not hiding the leaven in the world but in three measures of meal, which seems to be nothing more nor less than the \u201cminchah,\u201d or the meal offering, which we are now considering, and in which there was to be no leaven. In other words, the parable teaches us that every truth concerning Christ would be corrupted by the false Church. As in the type there was no leaven, so in Christ there is no sin; He is the unleavened meal offering; His was humanity in perfection without any tendency toward evil whatever. He could say, \u201cThe prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in Me.\u201d You and I cannot say that; we are only too conscious of the fact that when Satan comes to tempt us from the outside there is a traitor within who would open the gate to the citadel of our hearts if we were not constantly on our guard. But with Him it was otherwise; all His temptation came from without. \u201cHe was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.\u201d And this does not mean \u201cyet without sinning,\u201d merely, but it is \u201csin apart,\u201d that is, He was never tempted by inbred sin; He was the unleavened meal offering.
\nWe also learn from verse 11 that there was to be no honey in the meal offering. Honey is the sweetness of nature, but when exposed to heat it soon sours. There was something far more than natural sweetness in the character of Christ. His was a love that was divine and holy; all His affections and emotions were the affections of the Son of God become flesh. There was nothing that was merely of nature; hence His love is unchanging. All the treachery of Judas could not alter it nor the cowardly denial of Peter. \u201cHaving loved His own that were in the world He loved them unto the end.\u201d How often are natural friendships sundered and love turned to hatred. It was otherwise with Him.
\nIn verse 13 we are told, \u201cAnd every oblation of thy meal offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meal offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.\u201d Is it not striking that three times over we should have this insistence upon the use of salt in the offering? You will remember our Saviour said, \u201cLet your speech be always with grace seasoned with salt,\u201d and He referred on another occasion to this very passage, emphasizing it in a very solemn way (Mark 9:49, 50). Salt is the preservative power of active righteousness; and this was ever manifested in Him, and should be seen in us who have been born from above.
\nThere are many other details in this precious portion that we might profitably dwell upon, but all that I have omitted will I think become luminous in the light of what we have already noticed if carefully considered in the presence of the Lord. And the more we remember what the New Testament reveals concerning Christ, the more we shall enter into the enjoyment of what we have here. If we become familiar with the truth concerning the Person of the Lord it will preserve us from the danger of falling into error.
\nThe outstanding feature of the meal offering is its composition of fine flour. There was no barley meal. There are lots of little sharp corners in the crushed barley. But it was the finest of wheat meal that composed the meal offering. That is how God pictured the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, for in His character as a Man there was nothing that ever grated on anybody. What a marvelous picture the four Gospels set before us! If they were not inspired, how inexplainable it would be that four men could ever have imagined such a marvelous character. If the Lord Jesus Christ had never lived, the Gospels themselves would be miraculous. In all the literature of the world there is no other character that can be compared with Him. Think of Him growing up in Nazareth, one of the meanest villages of Galilee, with little opportunity for culture or refinement; and then contemplate Him as He appeared among the men of His time, the most refined and cultured of them all! He was the first gentleman this world has ever seen. Tender, gracious, always considerate of others, and yet ever faithful and true to all. Politeness, the proverb says, is doing the kindest thing in the kindest way, and who ever saw that exemplified anywhere as it was in the Lord Jesus Christ? His was a life the aroma of which fills the world after nineteen hundred years.
\nAnd although now ascended to glory He is this same Jesus as He sits upon His Father\u2019s throne, our great High Priest, ever living to make intercession for us. So in verses 14\u201316 we have an other aspect of the meal offering; this time it is made of the firstfruits of the green ears of corn dried by the fire, as corn beaten out of full ears. And this is anointed with the oil in company with the frankincense. It speaks of Him as the One who passed through death, but has been raised again in the power of an endless life. And He is gone up to God in all the perfection of His humanity, to be for all eternity the Man in the glory. But of this, too, a memorial was burned upon the altar, for His resurrection must not be separated from His death. The Christ who died is the Christ who lives again.
\nMay we learn to feed upon Him as priests in the sanctuary, rejoicing here on earth as God rejoices in heaven. This is what is specially emphasized in chapter 6:14\u201323, where we have the law of the meal offering. There we see the priests appropriating their portion and enjoying it in the presence of God. It was to be eaten in the sanctuary. We are all God\u2019s priests to-day, if numbered among the redeemed, and it is our hallowed privilege to feed upon Christ in God\u2019s courts\u2014delighting in Him, our souls nourished, as we meditate adoringly upon His perfections. We are not called upon to dissect the Person of the Lord, but to reverently worship and enjoy Him, that thus we may become more like Him.<\/p>\n
Lecture III<\/p>\n
THE PEACE OFFERING<\/p>\n
Read Leviticus, chaps. 3; 7:11\u201334; Ps. 85.<\/p>\n
The peace offering has a peculiar preciousness because of its unique character as an expression of fellowship with God based upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. As already intimated, there can be no true communion with God if we ignore that finished work. The Unitarian may talk of enjoying fellowship with God, but he is simply mistaking religious emotions for spiritual communion, for the latter cannot exist apart from faith in the Lord Jesus as the eternal Son of the Father, and the soul\u2019s rest upon the work He accomplished upon the Tree.
\nThe very fact that a peace offering is needed implies that something is wrong in regard to the relations between God and man. Man by nature since the fall is unfit for fellowship with God. He comes into this world a sinner, a sinner by nature; from the beginning his bent is toward that which is unholy rather than to that which is holy. It is very much easier for him to sin than it is to do that which is just and righteous; very much easier for him to go down than to rise up. I know it is fashionable nowadays to deny all this, and to teach that man has been on the up grade throughout the centuries; but this is not so. Apart from the Word of God even, our actual experience teaches us that it is easier for man to do evil than to do good, and this is because of the corruption of his nature. David exclaimed in Psalm 51:5, \u201cBehold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.\u201d By nature man understands not the things of God; he cannot commune with Him; he loves what God hates, and hates what God loves. God is infinitely holy; loving good and doing only good. Between man and God there is really nothing in common. Men are not only sinners by nature, but they have become transgressors by practice, deliberately, wilfully, violating the law, breaking the commandments, and acting in self-will. As the Word tells us, \u201cAll we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all\u201d (Isa. 53:6). For God desires us to be at peace with Him, He longs to bring us into fellowship with Him. But this at once raises the questions, \u201cHow it is possible for sinful, polluted man ever to be at peace with God? Can we ourselves make our peace with Him?\u201d We often hear very well-meaning people urge Christless souls to make their peace with God. Now I don\u2019t want to be factious, I don\u2019t want to be hypercritical, I don\u2019t want to make a man an offender for a word, but I am convinced that this expression is thoroughly misleading. What they mean is quite right. They mean that men should repent of their sins, acknowledge their lost condition, and own their need of a Saviour. But no man can ever make his own peace with God. It is Christ who has made peace for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cCould my tears forever flow,
\nCould my zeal no languor know,
\nThese for sin could not atone,
\nThou must save, and Thou alone.
\nIn my hand no price I bring,
\nSimply to Thy cross I cling.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is the glory of the gospel that it reveals the heart of God going out after men in their sins, and it tells what He has done in order that man may obtain peace with God. It tells of Christ come from the bosom of the Father, from the glory that He had with the Father before the worlds were made, become in grace a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, and going to the cross, that dreadful cross, where He was made a curse for us in order that God and man might be brought together in perfect harmony, and we might be reconciled to God by His death. \u201cGod was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.\u201d And yet that wondrous life could not in itself settle the sin question or recover man to God. In order to do this He must die, and having died He has manifested the fact that there is no enmity on God\u2019s part toward man; all the enmity is on our side; and now He is beseeching us to be reconciled to God.
\nWe stand toward Him as debtors, debtors who owe an enormous sum, debtors whose credit is utterly gone, and who are therefore absolutely unable to meet their obligations. But we read of two men who were in just such circumstances, and we are told: \u201cWhen they had nothing to pay He frankly forgave them both.\u201d And He does this on the basis of the peace offering: Christ has given Himself to meet our obligations. Col. 1:19, 20 states: \u201cFor it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; and having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.\u201d This is the peace offering. He has made peace by the blood of His cross. In Eph. 2:13, 14 we read: \u201cBut now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.\u201d This is what is so beautifully illustrated in the peace offering of old. Christ Himself is our peace. As another has put it:<\/p>\n
\u201cPeace with God is Christ in glory,
\nGod is Light and God is Love;
\nJesus died to tell the story,
\nFoes to bring to God above.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peace with God is not simply a happy, restful feeling in the soul, though he who enjoys peace with God cannot but be happy, for it is written that \u201cbeing justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.\u201d Peace with God was made on the cross, and we enter into the good of it when we trust that blessed Saviour who died for us. God has found His satisfaction in that work, we find ours there, and so we enjoy Christ together. His delight is Christ and our delight is Christ; He enjoys Christ and we enjoy Christ; He feeds upon Christ and we feed upon Christ, and so we have communion, blessed happy fellowship, on the basis of that sweet savor offering.
\nIn Leviticus 3 there are three different victims mentioned, any one of which might be brought to the altar as a peace offering. First we read, \u201cIf his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd, whether it be male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord\u201d (ver. 1). Then in verse 6 we are told, \u201cAnd if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord, be of the flock, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish. If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the Lord.\u201d Then again in verse 12, \u201cIf his offering be a goat, then he shall offer it before the Lord.\u201d When looking at the burnt offering, we have already seen something of what these various creatures suggest in a typical way. The sacrifice of the herd speaks of Christ as the devoted Servant of God and man, and whether we think of Him as the rightfully independent One, as suggested by the male, or the subject One, as suggested by the female, we can have communion with God from either standpoint. Then the lamb speaks of Him as the One who was consecrated even unto death; and the goat, of the One who took the sinner\u2019s place.
\nWe may not all have exactly the same apprehension of the value and the preciousness of Christ and His work, but if we really trust in Him, and come to God confessing Him, we are on the ground of peace, and may have fellowship with God to the full extent of our apprehension, and as we go on learning more and more of who Christ really is, and what He is to God, our communion will be deepened and intensified.
\nThe offerer was to lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it himself at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. This again speaks of the identification of the offerer with his offering. It brings out most vividly the truth of substitution, and should impress upon every one of us the fact that we ourselves need a Substitute, a sinless Saviour who could suffer in our stead. Christ is that Substitute, and we are directly responsible for His death.
\nUnlike the burnt offering, the entire peace offering was not placed upon the altar; only a very small part of it, namely, \u201cthe fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul Which is above the liver with the kidneys\u201d\u2014these were the parts that were to be burned upon the altar as a sweet savor unto the Lord. And observe, these parts could only be reached by death. This speaks surely of the deepest inward emotions and sensibilities of the Lord leading Him out of love to the Father to devote Himself to death in order that men might be reconciled to God. Who can fathom the meaning of those words, \u201cHe poured out His soul unto death?\u201d
\nWhen we turn to the law of the offering in chap. 7, beginning with verse 8, we see more clearly why this particular sacrifice is called the peace offering. We find God and His people enjoying it together. When the appointed portions were placed upon the altar for thanksgiving (ver. 12), there were offered with it various meal offerings, all speaking as we have seen of Christ\u2019s Person. Of these a small portion was burned upon the altar, and the rest was eaten by the priests. Then the breast of the offering, speaking of the affections of Christ, was given to Aaron and his sons, the priestly house; all of the priests feed upon that which speaks of the love of Christ, for this is what the breast typifies. The right shoulder speaking of the strength of the Lord, His omnipotent power, was the special portion of the offering priest himself. The rest of the sacrifice was taken away by the offerer, and he and his family and friends ate it together before the Lord, rejoicing in the fact that, typically, mercy and truth had met together, righteousness and peace had kissed each other. This is indeed a vivid and graphic picture of communion; God Himself, His anointed priests, the offerer and his friends, all feasting together upon the same victim, the sacrifice of peace offering.
\nBut now, if I am really going to enjoy fellowship with God, I must be in a right state of soul. There can be no communion with unforgiven sin upon the conscience. In verse 20 we read: \u201cBut the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, that pertain unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.\u201d Before God no true believer has uncleanness upon him\u2014\u201cThe blood of Jesus Christ, God\u2019s Son, cleanses us from all sin.\u201d When on that cross our iniquities were laid on Christ, He had no sin in Him, but He took our sins upon Him. We now have no sins upon us, but we do have sin within, but this sin should ever be judged in the light of the cross of Christ. This is illustrated for us in ver. 13: \u201cBesides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings.\u201d Here is a direct instance where leavened bread was used with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of the peace offering. We have already seen that no leaven was permitted in the meal offering, but this particular sacrifice evidently typifies not Christ Himself but the worshiper who came to God bringing his peace offering. It was as though the man was confessing: \u201cIn myself I am a poor sinner, sin is in my very nature; because of that I dare not approach God without an offering.\u201d And on the basis of that offering he was accepted and could enter into fellowship with God.
\nThus we see that we have here set forth an all-important New Testament truth. Every believer has sin in him, but no believer has sin on him. Attention has often been directed to the three crosses on Calvary. On the centre cross hung that divine Man who had no sin in Him, but He did have sin on Him, for in that hour of His soul\u2019s anguish Jehovah laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He had no sins of His own, but He made Himself responsible for ours. They were all charged against His account, as Paul directed Philemon to charge the account of Onesimus against him. Paul became surety for Onesimus, and agreed to settle for him. This is but a faint picture of what Jesus did for sinners when \u201cHe bare our sins in His own body on the tree.\u201d The impenitent thief had sin in him and sin on him; he was both sinful by nature and by practice, and he spurned the only Saviour who could have delivered him from his load of guilt. So he went into the presence of God with all his sins upon his soul to answer for them in the day of judgment when God will judge every man according to his works. But how different was the case of the penitent thief! He, too, had been as vile and guilty as the other one, but when he turned in repentance to the Lord Jesus and put his trust in Him, while he still had sin in him, God no longer imputed sin to him. It was not upon him because God saw it all as transferred to Jesus.
\nI know that many Christians imagine they reach a state of grace where their sins are not only forgiven, but where inbred sin is by direct operation of the Holy Spirit removed from them, so that they claim to be sanctified wholly and are free from all inward tendency to sin. But this is a serious mistake and leads to serious consequences. Never in the Word of God are we so taught. As believers we carry about with us to the end of life our sinful nature, that carnal mind which is \u201cnot subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be;\u201d but then God says sin need not have dominion over us, yea, shall not, if we but apprehend the blessedness of the truth, \u201cYe are not under the law but under grace.\u201d*
\nThere is a great deal more in Leviticus 7 that we might profitably consider, but time forbids going into much of it in detail. One thing, however, I desire to press most earnestly ere I close, and that is the divine insistence that the eating of the sacrifice must not be separated from the offering on the altar. It was to be eaten the same day, under ordinary circumstances, or if a voluntary offering it might be eaten the day after, but later than that it was sternly commanded that whatever was left must be burned with fire. The meaning of this is plain; God will not permit us to separate communion with Him from the work of the Cross. Our fellowship with Him is based upon the one supreme sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ who there made peace for us. Communion, as we have already seen, does not consist simply in pious feeling; this may be the greatest delusion, and may be simply satisfaction with a fancied good self instead of heart-occupation with Christ. It is just as dangerous to be occupied with my good self as with my bad self. In the latter case I am likely to be completely discouraged and cast down, but in the former I become lifted up with pride and in grave danger of fancying my spiritual egotism to be communion with God.
\nIt is right here that the Lord\u2019s Supper so speaks to the hearts of God\u2019s people. For at His table we are occupied with Christ Himself and with what He did for us when He stooped in grace to take our place in judgment and to make peace by the blood of His cross. As we meditate upon these sublime mysteries, our souls are led into the sanctuary, into the immediate presence of God, in hallowed fellowship and sweetest communion. We realize that the veil no longer hides God from us, nor hinders our access to Him. When Jesus cried, \u201cIt is finished,\u201d the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. It was God\u2019s hand that rent that veil, and now we are bidden to press boldly in to His immediate presence where we fall as worshipers before His face to bless and adore Him who gave Himself for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe veil is rent, our souls draw near
\nUnto a throne of grace;
\nThe merits of the Lord appear,
\nThey fill the holy place.<\/p>\n
His precious blood has spoken there,
\nBefore and on the throne,
\nAnd His own wounds in Heaven declare
\nThe atoning work is done.<\/p>\n
\u2018Tis finished!\u2019\u2014here our souls find rest,
\nHis work can never fail,
\nBy Him, our sacrifice and priest.
\nWe pass within the veil.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there, with all the blood-bought throng, we feast upon the sacrifice of peace offering as we dwell upon the infinite love and grace of Him who has so fully expressed the heart of God toward guilty man by giving up His holy life in death for us. To attempt to worship apart from this is but a mockery. All religious exercises and frames of feeling that are not linked with the work of the cross are simply delusive and deceive the soul, for there can be no true communion with God excepting in connection with the cross-work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
\nI add a few additional remarks as to Psalm 85, which may well be called the Psalm of the peace offering. Notice verses 1 and 2, \u201cLord, Thou hast been favorable unto Thy land: Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of Thy people, Thou hast covered all their sin.\u201d Then observe verses 7 to 11, \u201cShow us Thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us Thy salvation. I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for He will speak peace unto His people, and to His saints: but let them not turn again to folly. Surely His salvation is nigh them that fear Him; that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other; truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.\u201d It is God Himself who speaks peace to His people, for He alone could devise a plan whereby mercy and truth could meet together and righteousness and peace kiss each other. Truth and righteousness demanded the payment of our fearful debt ere mercy could be shown to the sinner. That man could not settle the differences between himself and God is evident; atone for his own sins he could not. It is written in Zechariah 6:12, 13, \u201cAnd speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the Man whose name is The BRANCH; and He shall grow up out of His place, and He shall build the temple of the Lord: even He shall build the temple of the Lord; and He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne; and He shall be a priest upon His throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between Them both.\u201d The counsel of peace is between the Lord of hosts and the Man whose name is The Branch, or, to put it in New Testament language, it is between the Father and the Son. Peace was made when our Lord Jesus took our place upon the cross and met every claim of the outraged majesty of the throne of God. Now righteousness and peace are linked eternally together, and being justified by faith we have peace with God. This is not merely a sense of righteousness in our hearts; it is far more than that; it is a question settled between God and the sinner in perfect righteousness, so that grace can now go out to guilty man. When we believe this we enter into peace. We enjoy what Christ has effected.
\nThere is an incident that has often been related, but well illustrates what I am trying to say. At the close of the war between the States, a party of Federal cavalrymen were riding along a road toward Richmond one day, when a poor scarecrow of a fellow, weak and emaciated, and clad only in the ragged remnants of a Confederate uniform, came out of the bushes on one side and attracted their attention by begging hoarsely for bread. He declared that he had been starving in the woods for a number of weeks, and subsisting only upon the few berries and roots he could find. They suggested that he go into Richmond with them and get what he needed. He demurred, saying that he was a deserter from the Confederate army, and he did not dare to show himself lest he be arrested and confined in prison, or possibly shot for desertion in time of war. They looked at him in amazement and asked, \u201cHave you not heard the news?\u201d \u201cWhat news?\u201d he anxiously enquired. \u201cWhy, the Confederacy no longer exists. General Lee surrendered to General Grant over a week ago, and peace is made.\u201d \u201cOh!\u201d he exclaimed, \u201cpeace is made, and I have been starving in the woods because I did not know it.\u201d Believing the message, he went with them into the city to find comfort and food.
\nOh, unsaved one, let me press upon you the blessed truth that peace was made when our adorable Saviour died for our sins upon the cross of shame. Believe the message, then you enter into the good of it; and, remember, peace rests not on your frames or feelings but on His finished work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat which can shake the Cross,
\nCan shake the peace it gave,
\nWhich tells me Christ has never died,
\nNor ever left the grave.\u201d<\/p>\n
As long as these blessed facts remain\u2014the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ\u2014our peace stands secure.<\/p>\n
Lecture IV<\/p>\n
THE SIN OFFERING<\/p>\n
Read Leviticus, chaps. 4; 5:1\u201313; 6:24\u201330; Psalm 22; 2 Cor. 5:21.<\/p>\n
We have already noticed that the bloody offerings are divided into two classes, sweet savor offerings and offerings for sin. The burnt offering and the peace offering are in the first class, the sin offering and the trespass offering in the second. The burnt offering was not brought because things had been going wrong; it was the expression of the offerer\u2019s worship. He brought it to God as an evidence of the gratitude of his heart because of what God was to him and had done for him, and all went up to Jehovah as a sweet savor. As we have seen, it represented the Lord Jesus Christ offering Himself without spot unto God as a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savor on our behalf. When we come into the presence of God as worshipers with our hearts occupied with Christ, we come bringing the burnt offering. Our souls are taken up with Him, the worthy One, who gave Himself for us who were so unworthy. We think of Him not merely as the One who died for our sins, but as having glorified God in this scene where we had so dishonored Him, and we adore Him because of what He is, as well as for what He has done. A child loves its mother not merely because of what she does for it but because of what she is. It is her tender loving heart that draws the child to her. And so the Israelite expressed the worship of his soul in the burnt offering. It was the recognition of God\u2019s goodness, and because He saw in it that which spoke of His Son all went up as a sweet savor to Him. As He beheld the smoke of the burnt offering ascend to heaven, He was looking on to Calvary; He could see beforehand all that blessed work of the Lord Jesus, and who can tell how much it meant to Him? In Genesis 8:20, 21 we read how Noah offered a burnt offering upon the renewed earth, and we are told the Lord smelled a sweet savor, or, as the margin puts it, \u201ca savor of rest.\u201d It was something in which His heart found delight, not because of any intrinsic value of its own but because it was a type of Christ and His work.
\nThen in the peace offering we have another suggestion. In it the pious Israelite expressed his communion with God and with others who shared with him in partaking of it. A portion was burned upon the altar. It was called the food of the offering, and it spoke of God\u2019s delight in the inward perfections of His Son. Then the wave-shoulder was given to Aaron and his house that they might feed upon it. The shoulder is the place of strength. The priestly house had its portion in that which spoke of the mighty power and unfailing strength of the Lord Jesus Christ. The officiating priest had the wave-breast. The breast speaks, of course, of affection, of love, and so the priest was to feed upon that which set forth the tender love of the coming Saviour. Then the offerer himself invited his family and friends, and they all sat down together and consumed the rest of the peace offering. Every part of it spoke of Christ. Thus we see God, Aaron, and his house, the officiating priest, the offerer and his friends, all in happy communion, feasting together upon that which spoke of Christ! And so to-day all who have been saved by His death upon the cross are called to enjoy Christ together in hallowed fellowship with Himself, the One who made peace by the blood of His cross.
\nBut now we come to another view of things. Until the soul has seen in Him the One who took the sinner\u2019s place and bore his judgment, Christ can never be enjoyed as the One who has made peace; so we have the sin offering. It is somewhat difficult to distinguish between the two aspects of the sin offering and the trespass offering; but the first one seems rather to have in view sin as the expression of the unclean, defiling condition of the very nature of the sinner; whereas the trespass offering rather emphasizes the fact that sin is to be regarded as a debt which man can never pay, a debt that must be paid by another if ever paid at all. I am not saying that the sin offering only has in view our evil nature, for that would be a mistake. It is plain, I should think, that actual transgressions are in view in chaps. 4 and 5\u2014but what I do say is that these transgressions are the manifestation of the corrupt nature of the one who commits them. I am not a sinner because I sin; I sin because I am a sinner. I, myself, am an unclean thing in the sight of God; I am utterly unfit for His presence; my evil deeds only make this manifest; therefore the need of a sin offering. That this offering like the others speaks of Christ, we may be assured, for we are told very definitely in 2 Corinthians 5:21: \u201cThat God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.\u201d The words for \u201csin\u201d and \u201csin offering\u201d are the same in the original in both Testaments, so we might render it, \u201cGod hath made Him to be a sin offering for us.\u201d And in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chaps. 9, 10, the Holy Ghost clearly shows how the offering for sin of old typifies His one offering on Calvary\u2019s cross. In fact, in the quotation from Psalm 40 as found in Hebrews 10:5, 6, all of the offerings are indicated, and all are shown to have their fulfilment in Christ\u2019s work. \u201cSacrifice\u201d is the peace offering; \u201coffering\u201d is the meal offering; \u201cburnt offering\u201d speaks for itself, and the term \u201csin offering\u201d takes in both sin and trespass offerings. \u201cThe offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all\u201d in verse 10, and the \u201cone sacrifice for sin\u201d in verse 12, show that Christ fulfilled all these types.
\nTurn then to Lev. 4:2. We read, \u201cIf a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them\u201d\u2014then follow instructions as to how the sin is to be dealt with. Observe, there was no sin offering for wilful, deliberate sin under the law. It was only for sins of ignorance. But since the cross, God in infinite grace counts only one sin as wilful, and that is the final rejection of His beloved Son. All other sins are looked upon as sins of ignorance; they are the outcome of that evil heart of unbelief which is in all of us. Men sin because of the ignorance that is in them. You remember Peter\u2019s words to guilty Israel as bringing home to them their dreadful sin in crucifying the Lord of Glory. He says, \u201cI wot, brethren, that it was through ignorance ye did it.\u201d And the apostle Paul, in speaking of Christ\u2019s crucifixion and death, says, \u201cWhich none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.\u201d What wondrous grace is here displayed! The very worst sin that has ever been committed in the history of the world is classed by God as a sin of ignorance! And so the sin offering is available for any man who desires to be saved. Whatever your record may have been God looks down upon you in infinite pity and compassion, and opens a door of mercy to you as one who has ignorantly sinned. But if you still refuse the mercy He has provided in grace, then you can no longer plead ignorance, for you crucify to yourself the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame. This is the wilful sin so solemly portrayed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the sin for which there is no forgiveness. It is not a question there of a Christian who has failed; but it is the enlightened man, the one who knows the gospel, who is intellectually assured of its truth, and yet turns his back deliberately upon that truth, and finally refuses to acknowledge the Son of God as his Saviour. There is nothing for that man \u201cbut a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.\u201d But every poor sinner who wishes to be saved may avail himself of the Great Sin Offering, and may know that all his guilt is forever put away.
\nIn Lev. 4:3 we read, \u201cIf the priest that is anointed do sin;\u201d then in ver. 13 it is, \u201cIf the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which should not be done, and are guilty;\u201d then in ver. 22 we read, \u201cWhen a ruler hath sinned, and done somewhat through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord his God concerning things which should not be done, and is guilty;\u201d whereas in ver. 27 it is, \u201cAnd if any one of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, and be guilty.\u201d When you read the instructions that follow you will observe that there are different grades of sin offerings. If the anointed priest sinned he had to bring a young bullock, and this was also the offering for the whole congregation; but if a ruler sinned he was to bring a kid of the goats, a lamb without blemish. On the other hand if it was one of the common people, he could bring a kid of the goats or a lamb of the flock, females. But in chap. 5:11\u201313 we find that even lesser offerings were acceptable if the sinner was exceedingly poor. All this suggests the thought that responsibility increases with privilege. The anointed priest was as guilty as the entire congregation; he should have known better because he was so much nearer to God in outward privilege. Then a ruler, while not so responsible as the priest, was more so than one of the common people. There is a principle here that is well for us all to remember: The more light we have on the truth of God and the greater the privileges which we enjoy in this scene, the more responsible God holds us; we shall be called to account in accordance with the truth He has made known to us. Alas, my brethren, is it not a lamentable fact that should bow us in shame before God that many of us who pride ourselves upon a wonderful unfolding of truth are ofttimes most careless in our behaviour, and become stumbling blocks to those who have less light than we? How we need to have recourse to the great Sin Offering, to remember as we bow in confession of our failures before God that all our sins were dealt with on the Cross of Christ!
\nIt is hardly necessary to go into all the details of each of the offerings, but we may look particularly at that for the priest as it embraces practically everything that is mentioned in the lesser ones. First observe, the priest was to bring a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering. He who knew no sin made sin for us!\u2014it is of this that the unblemished bullock speaks. It was to be brought to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, before the Lord. The sinner was to identify himself with his offering by laying his hand upon its head and killing it himself. Then the officiating priest was to take of the blood of the bullock, and entering the sanctuary sprinkle it seven times before the Lord before the veil. He was to put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord; the rest of it was to be poured out at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering. What solemn lessons are these! It was here on this earth our blessed Saviour died as the great Sin Offering; here His blood was poured out at the foot of His cross. This earth has drunk the blood of Him who was its Creator. That shed blood tells of life given up. In Lev. 17:11 God says, \u201cThe life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.\u201d His life, holy, spotless, pure and undefiled, has been given up in death for us who are sinners by nature and by practice, and now as trusting Him we may well sing,<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon a life I did not live,
\nUpon a death I did not die,
\nAnother\u2019s life, Another\u2019s death,
\nI hang my whole eternity.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that blood shed here on earth, has really pierced the heavens. It has, so to speak, been carried into the sanctuary, the sevenfold sprinkling has been done within the veil which in the old economy was still unrent. It was the testimony to God of the work completed here on earth. Then the blood upon the horns of the golden altar linked the altar in the sanctuary with the great altar out in the court, for the bronze altar spoke of Christ\u2019s work in this world; the golden altar spoke of His work in heaven; the blood linked the two together. His intercession in heaven is based upon the work of the cross.
\nIn verse 8 we learn that the priest was to take off from the bullock all the fat and certain inward parts that could only be reached by death, and he was to burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering. They were not said to be a sweet savor, for they spoke of Christ being made sin for us. This is further emphasized when we read that the skin of the bullock and all the rest of the carcase, even the whole bullock, was to be carried outside the camp where the ashes were poured out and there burned upon the wood with fire. This expresses the awful truth that Christ was made a curse for us. We read in Hebrews 13:11: \u201cFor the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as a sin offering, are burned outside the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people by His own blood, suffered outside the gate.\u201d He went into the place of darkness and distance in order that we might be brought into the place of light and nearness to God for all eternity. In Lev. 13 the leper was put outside the camp. It was the place of the unclean, and so our blessed Lord, when He became the great Sin Offering, was dealt with as taking the place of the unclean ones, though Himself the infinitely Holy One. The place itself, however, is called \u201ca clean place.\u201d No actual defilement attached to it.
\nIt is important to learn that it was not merely the physical suffering of Jesus that made atonement for sin; it was not the scourging in Pilate\u2019s judgment hall, the suffering from the ribald soldiery in Herod\u2019s court, the crowning with thorns and the flagellation\u2014these were not in themselves what expiated our guilt. But we read in Isa. 53, \u201cWhen Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin.\u201d It was what our Lord suffered in the depths of His inward being that met the claims of divine justice and settled the sin question. You have doubtless noticed that our blessed Saviour hung upon that cruel cross for six long hours, and these six hours are divided into two parts. From the third to the sixth hour, that is, from nine o\u2019clock in the morning to high noon, the sun was shining down on the scene, and in spite of all His intense physical suffering our Lord enjoyed unbroken communion with the Father. But from the sixth to the ninth hour, that is, to three o\u2019clock in the afternoon, darkness was over all the land. What took place in those awful hours only God and His beloved Son will ever know. It was then the soul of Jesus was made an offering for sin. It was as the darkness was passing away that He cried in anguish, \u201cMy God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?\u201d You and I may well see in our sins and our innate sinfulness the answer to that cry. He was forsaken that we might have access as redeemed sinners to the Father\u2019s face. And it is of this that the burning of the sacrifice outside the camp speaks. Observe, it was to be carried into a clean place. We have said that the outside place was the place of the unclean in the case of the leper, and this is true, but uncleanness was never in any sense attached to Jesus; even as the sin offering He was most holy. He had no sin in Him though our sins were laid on Him.
\nA careful study of the directions for the people\u2019s offering will bring to light some little details that have not perhaps been touched upon, but I need not dwell on them here for all will be clear in the light of what we have already looked at.
\nWe have in chapter 5 some things that may well claim our attention. In the first four verses we get various degrees of uncleanness because of sin. \u201cAnd if a soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he hath seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity. Or if a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be of a carcase of an unclean beast, or a carcase of unclean cattle, or the carcase of unclean creeping things, and if it be hidden from him; he also shall be unclean, and guilty. Or if he touch the uncleanness of man, whatsoever uncleanness it be that a man shall be defiled withal, and it be hid from him; when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty. Of if a soul swear, pronouncing with his lips to do evil, or to do good, whatsoever it be that a man shall pronounce with an oath, and it be hid from him; when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty in one of these.\u201d These suggest what I have already dwelt upon, that the sin offering has particularly in view sin as evidencing the corruption of our nature. Any of these things would be manifesting the hidden uncleanness. Then in verse 5 we read, \u201cAnd it shall be, when he shall be guilty in one of these things, that he shall confess that he hath sinned in that thing.\u201d Notice the definiteness of the confession. A mere general acknowledgment of failure would not do. The culprit must face his actual transgression and confess it in the presence of God, and so we read, \u201cIf we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness\u201d (1 John 1:9). It is not merely if he asks for forgiveness, or in a general way acknowledges that we all fail\u2014that \u201cwe have left undone those things that we ought to have done, and we have done those things we ought not to have done,\u201d but there must be a definite confession in order to have a definite forgiveness.
\nThen in vers. 6\u201313 notice the grace of God in the provision made for even the poorest of His people. No matter how feeble our apprehension of Christ may be, if we come to God in His name He will forgive. The offerer under ordinary circumstances was to bring a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats for a sin offering. But God took poverty into account, and in ver. 7 we read, \u201cIf he be not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for his guilt according to all he hath committed, two turtle-doves or two young pigeons unto the Lord, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.\u201d But there might be some in Israel who could not even procure an offering like this, and so in ver. 11 we are told, \u201cIf he be not able to bring two turtle-doves or two young pigeons, then he that hath sinned shall bring for his offering a tenth part of a ephah of fine flour for a sin offering; he shall put no oil upon it, neither shall he put any frankincense thereon; for it is a sin offering.\u201d Then the priest was to take a memorial of it and burn it upon the altar, and even of this we read in ver. 13, \u201cThe priest shall make an atonement for him as touching his sin that he hath sinned in one of these, and it shall be forgiven him; and the remnant shall be the priest\u2019s, as a meal offering.\u201d There was nothing in this offering that spoke of the shedding of the blood, but it did picture Christ Himself, and it was Christ taking the sinner\u2019s place. Hence the omission of the oil and frankincense. And God would accept this when the offerer could bring no more. It tells us that the feeblest apprehension of Christ as the Saviour of sinners brings forgiveness. One might not understand the atonement, nor what was involved in the redemptive work of our Saviour, but if he trusts in Christ, however feebly, God thinks so much of the Person and work of His Son that He will have everyone in heaven who will give Him the least possible excuse for getting him there. What matchless grace!
\nIn chap. 6:24\u201330 we have the law of the sin offering, and the priest is instructed as to his own behaviour, and how to treat the vessels that were used in connection with it. Twice we read concerning the sin offering, \u201cIt is most holy.\u201d God would not have our thoughts lowered in regard to the holiness of His Son because He stooped in grace to be made sin on our behalf. He was ever undefiled and undefilable.
\nThere was a portion of the sin offering which the priests were to eat. We may think of this as suggesting our meditation upon what it meant for Christ to take the sinner\u2019s place.<\/p>\n
\u201cHelp me to understand it,
\nThat I may take it in,
\nWhat it meant to Thee, the Holy One,
\nTo put away my sin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Observe carefully, the priests were not to eat the sin\u2014they were to eat the sin offering. It does not do for us to dwell upon the sin, either our own or that of others. To do so would be most defiling. But we are all called upon to eat the sin offering in the holy place. In ver. 30 we learn, however, that no sin offering, \u201cwhereof any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation to reconcile withal in the holy place, shall be eaten; it shall be burned in the fire.\u201d The priests could only partake of certain parts of such sacrifices as were not burned outside the camp, nor the blood sprinkled before the veil. We cannot enter into all the fulness of the death of Christ. Our apprehension of what He suffered for sin must always be feeble, and perhaps the full realization of it would be too much for our poor hearts and minds. It broke His heart (Ps. 69:20); it would crush us completely; but, thank God, there is a sense in which we can indeed eat the sin offering in the holy place as we meditate upon what Scripture has clearly revealed in regard to the expiatory work upon that cross of shame. If we read carefully Ps. 22, which might be called the psalm of the sin offering, we may enter in, in some measure, to what His holy soul went through when He took our place in judgment. To do this with reverence and awe is to eat the sin offering in a manner acceptable to God.
\nIn closing, let me say that God in thus giving His Son to take the sinner\u2019s place, has told out to the full His infinite love to lost man. What then can be the guilt of that man who refuses such grace and tramples upon such love? What can there be for him but a \u201ccertain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGrace like this despised, brings judgment,
\nMeasured by the wrath He bore.\u201d<\/p>\n
God grant that no one to whom this message comes may trample on such loving-kindness and so merit such dire judgment.
\nWe are told in John 3:18: \u201cHe that believeth on Him is not condemned. He that believeth not is condemned already, because He hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.\u201d And in John 16:9 the sin of which the Holy Spirit has come to convince men is thus described, \u201cOf sin, because they believe not on Me.\u201d This is wilful sin, and for this sin, if unrepented of, there is no forgiveness. Even the redemptive work of Christ will not avail to save the sinner who spurns the One who there died to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. To turn from the message of the gospel\u2014to deliberately and finally reject the One who upon the accursed tree became the Great Sin Offering\u2014is to do despite to the Spirit of God, to trample under foot the love of Christ, to count His precious atoning blood an unholy, a common, thing, and to crucify to oneself the Son of God afresh, thus putting Him to an open shame. Yea, more, it is to throw back into the outraged face of the Father the slain body of His beloved Son, thus calling down the righteous wrath of God upon the guilty rejecter of His grace!<\/p>\n
Lecture V<\/p>\n
THE TRESPASS OFFERING<\/p>\n
Read Leviticus 5:14\u20136:7; 7:1\u20137; Ps. 69.<\/p>\n
The offering which we are now to consider presents what we might call the primary aspect of the work of the cross. It meets the awakened sinner as the answer to his fears, when troubled about his trespasses, anxiously inquiring, \u201cHow can I be saved from the legitimate consequences of my sins?\u201d Every sin is an offence to the majesty of heaven. It is a trespass against the holy government of God, and righteousness demands that amends be made for it, or else that the trespasser be shut away from God\u2019s presence forever. A trespass may also be against our fellowmen, but even in that case the sin is primarily against God. David trespassed most heinously against his soldier-friend, Uriah the Hittite, and against Bathsheba herself, and in a wider sense against all Israel. But in his prayer of confession, Ps. 51, he cried out from the depths of his anguished heart, \u201cAgainst Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight.\u201d And so keen is his sense of the wickedness of it all that he realizes the blood of bulls and of goats can never wash out the stain, and so he cries, looking on in faith to the cross of Christ, \u201cPurge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.\u201d It is this aspect of the cross that is brought before us in the trespass offering.
\nIn the thirteen verses of Lev. 5:14\u20136:7 we have the reason for, and the character of, the trespass offering. First we read, \u201cIf a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the Lord; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering: and he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part thereto, and give it unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him.\u201d This is the first aspect of the trespass. It is something done against the Lord Himself; but, as in the case of the sin offering, it is done through ignorance. So again we are reminded that God looks upon all sin as springing from the ignorance that is in man; unless in the final refusing of the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Sin Offering. To do this is to be guilty of wilful and eternal sin. An Israelite might sin in the holy things of the Lord in various ways. For instance he might underestimate the size of his annual crop, and so ignorantly bring to the priest a lesser tithe than the law demanded. But when the truth of the condition of things was brought to his attention he was not to pass over the offence as a matter of no moment, but he was to bring a trespass offering, and with it the estimated amount, to which he added by direction of the priest the fifth part. The trespass offering was offered in accordance with the law, and the silver was given to the priest to be brought into the sanctuary of Jehovah. Thus where sin abounded grace did much more abound. And if we may so say, God actually received more because of the man\u2019s blunder than He would have received apart from it. How clearly this comes out in the work of the Cross! By it God has received far more glory than He ever lost by man\u2019s sin. In Psalm 69 we hear the Holy Sufferer on Calvary saying, \u201cThen I restored that which I took not away.\u201d We had robbed God; He became our trespass offering, and He, thereby, made amends to God for all the wrong we had done, and added the fifth part thereto. For we are not to think for a moment of the sufferings of our Saviour as though they barely sufficed to atone for our transgressions. There was in that work of Calvary such infinite value that it not only met all the actual sins of all who would ever believe in Him, but there was over and above that such value as will never be drawn upon by all the repentant sinners in the universe of God.
\nThe unblemished ram for a trespass offering tells of the Holy One who was \u201cled as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.\u201d Here was the Prince of the flock, the tall stately ram, submitting to death in order to atone for our guilt. \u201cHe was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.\u201d
\nIn verses 17\u201319 we read, \u201cAnd if a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord; though he wist it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity. And he shall bring a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation for a trespass offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance wherein he erred and wist it not, and it shall be forgiven him. It is a trespass offering: he hath certainly trespassed against the Lord.\u201d Here the important truth that is emphasized is that God\u2019s Word is the standard of judgment, not my knowledge of it. The soul that committed any offence ignorantly, anything forbidden in the law of God, was guilty, even though he knew it not, and apart from the trespass offering he must bear his iniquity. It is not that God is going to hold men responsible for light they never had, but He does hold them responsible to avail themselves of the light He has given. He gave the law to Israel; they were guilty, therefore, if they ignored it and did not become acquainted with its commandments. Having Moses and the prophets they were responsible to hear them, as Abraham declares to the rich man in Hades. And then to-day, what shall we say of those who have the whole Word of God, and yet allow the Bible to lie neglected in their homes, and never even take the trouble to seek to know the mind of the Lord? How guilty will they be judged in the coming day who have deliberately ignored this divine revelation and so fail to learn the will of God!
\nIn Bunyan\u2019s immortal allegory it was as the man Graceless read in the Book that he realized the weight of the burden upon his back. And it is as the truth of the Word of God is brought to bear upon the consciences of sinners that they feel their sins and cry out for deliverance, and, thank God, when the load of our sins is thus brought home to us, the trespass offering is nigh at hand. We have but to come to God pleading the merits of the atoning work of His beloved Son to find there full atonement for all our iniquities.
\nIn chap. 6:1\u20137 we have the other side of things, sin against one\u2019s neighbor. But even that is a trespass against the Lord, and so we are told; \u201cIf a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbor in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbor; or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein: then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.\u201d Here, too, the principle noted above is found. Man himself benefits by the provision of the trespass offering. The one who had been wronged was really better off than before, after the sin had been confessed and the fifth part had been added to that which was returned when the offerer brought his trespass offering to the Lord. For as in the previous case, if he had deceitfully robbed his neighbor, or had found something that was lost and had hidden it intending to keep it himself, or had in any other way wronged or defrauded another, his trespass offering was not acceptable to God unless he made full restitution by returning the thing that he had deceitfully gotten and then adding to it the fifth part. How wondrously does this bring out the matchless grace of God. Throughout the eternal ages it will be seen that, as Tennyson puts it, in \u201cThe Dreamer,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLess shall be lost than won.\u201d<\/p>\n
For God maketh even the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He doth restrain. The skeptic may ask sneeringly, \u201cWhy did a righteous and omnipotent God ever permit sin to raise up its hideous head in the universe, thus defiling the heavens and the earth?\u201d But the work of the cross is the answer to it all. Man\u2019s relationship to God as a redeemed sinner is far greater and more blessed than the mere relationship of creature to Creator. And the grace of God has been magnified in the great trespass offering of the cross in a way it never could have been known if sin had never come in at all.
\nHow precious the words of verse 7, \u201cAnd the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord: and it shall be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein.\u201d Do these words come to any poor, anxious, troubled soul? Do you wonder sometimes if you have sinned beyond all hope of mercy? Oh, be persuaded, if you will but come to God bringing the trespass offering, that is, putting your heart\u2019s trust in the Lord Jesus, looking to Him alone for salvation, every sin will be forgiven; all that you have done will be blotted out forever, and be in God\u2019s sight as if it had never been.
\nYears ago at the close of a great meeting in Chicago where Gipsy Rodney Smith was the preacher, a strong man came weeping up the aisle at the close of the evangelist\u2019s address, sobbing out the story of his sin and shame. To the gipsy who sought to help him he exclaimed, \u201cOh, sir, my sin is too great ever to be forgiven.\u201d Quick as a flash the preacher said, \u201cBut His grace is greater than all your sin.\u201d Dr. Towner, the beloved hymn-writer and musician, who was standing by, caught the words, and as he walked home that night they took form in his heart and mind, and he composed the chorus:<\/p>\n
\u201cGrace, grace, God\u2019s grace,
\nGrace that is greater than all our sin.\u201d<\/p>\n
The melody of the verses was also given to him, and he jotted them down when he reached his home. The next day he gave them to Julia Johnston, who has written so many precious songs of praise, and she composed the verses of the well-known hymn bearing the title of the chorus. The first stanza of it reads:<\/p>\n
\u201cMarvelous grace of our loving Lord,
\nGrace that exceeds all our sin and our guilt,
\nYonder on Calvary\u2019s mount outpoured,
\nThere where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through the years since, the song has borne its story of grace greater than all our sins, to tens of thousands of anxious souls. This indeed is the message of the trespass offering.
\nIn chap. 7:1\u20137 we have the law of the trespass offering. As in the case of the sin offering, we are twice told that \u201cit is most holy.\u201d God would never have left the least room for the thought that the humanity of our blessed Saviour was ever defiled by sin. We are told of Him, \u201cHe knew no sin,\u201d and, \u201cHe did no sin,\u201d and, \u201cIn Him is no sin.\u201d How carefully God guarded this! Even on the very morning of His trial and throughout the day of His execution it was manifest. Pilate\u2019s wife sent the message, \u201cHave thou nothing to do with that just Man.\u201d Pilate himself declared, \u201cI find no fault in Him;\u201d the thief upon the cross exclaimed, \u201cThis Man hath done nothing amiss;\u201d and the Roman centurion, awed by the marvelous events of that dreadful hour, declared, \u201cCertainly this was a righteous Man.\u201d And yet we see the Just One suffering for us the unjust, that He might bring us to God!
\nThe trespass offering was to be killed at the altar and the blood sprinkled round about the altar. Certain parts of the victim were burned upon the altar, thus going up to God as an expression of divine judgment against our sins, while other parts were eaten by the priests in the holy place, as in the case of the sin offering, for we are told, \u201cAs the sin offering is, so is the trespass offering: there is one law for them: the priest that maketh atonement therewith shall have it.\u201d Every believer is a priest to-day, and it is the hallowed privilege of every one of us to feed upon the trespass offering. We do this as we read the Word of God and meditate upon what it reveals as to the atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ in order to put away all our sins and trespasses and fit us for the presence of a holy God.
\nPsalm 69 most fittingly links with these Levitical instructions. It is the psalm of the trespass offering; it gives us our blessed Lord going to the cross, rejected of men, bearing the judgment due to our sins. It is there, as already mentioned, we hear Him saying, \u201cI restored that which I took not away.\u201d He confessed our sins as His own, and He can say, \u201cThe zeal of Thine house hath eaten Me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon Me.\u201d It is in verses 20 and 21 of this psalm that we read, \u201cReproach hath broken My heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave Me also gall for My meat; and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.\u201d How plainly this shows that it was on the cross that His soul passed through the anguish here depicted, and as we contemplate Him as the great Trespass Offering we exclaim with the psalmist, \u201cThis also shall please Jehovah better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs\u201d (ver. 31). What the sacrifices of old could not accomplish, namely, the actual putting away of sin, has been accomplished through the finished work of our Lord Jesus, that one offering, never to be repeated, which He made on our behalf upon the accursed tree. We cannot add to this finished work, and, thank God, we cannot take from it. It stands alone in its marvelous completeness. In it God has found infinite satisfaction, and in it the believing sinner finds satisfaction too. The answer of the old monk to the young man who came to the monastery gate inquiring what he should do to put away his sins, is in full accord with the truth of the trespass offering. The aged man replied, \u201cThere is nothing left that you can do.\u201d And he then endeavored to show his inquirer how fully Christ had met every claim of God against the sinner there upon the Cross. To attempt to put away our own sins is but folly and ignorance combined.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot what these hands have done
\nCan cleanse this guilty soul;
\nNot what this toiling flesh has borne
\nCan make my spirit whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot what I think or do
\nCan give me peace with God;
\nNot all my prayers, or toil, or tears,
\nCan ease this awful load.<\/p>\n
\u201cThy blood alone, Lord Jesus,
\nCan cleanse my soul from sin;
\nThy Word alone, O Lamb of God,
\nCan give me peace within.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so we come to the end for the present of our meditation upon these five offerings and their typical import. I have not attempted to go into them exhaustively; others have done that, and their writings are easily available and well worth careful and thoughtful consideration. I have simply sought to emphasize the great outstanding truths in regard to the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ suggested by the sacrifices of old, and I trust not without profit to every one of us. Oh, to know more of Him and to appreciate in a fuller way His wondrous work which has meant so much to God and which is the basis of our eternal blessing!<\/p>\n
\u2019Here we see the dawn of heaven,
\nWhile upon the cross we gaze;
\nSee our trespasses forgiven,
\nAnd our songs of triumph raise.\u201d<\/p>\n
So sang Sir Edward Denny, and so may each penitent believer sing, as he stands by faith by the sacrifice of the trespass offering.<\/p>\n
\u2014H. A. IRONSIDE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LECTURES ON THE LEVITICAL OFFERINGS (Leviticus 1 to 7) Lecture I THE BURNT OFFERING Read carefully Leviticus, chapters 1; 6:8\u201313; 7 and 8; Deut. 33:8\u201310; Psalm 40; Ephesians 5:1, 2. To many believers the theme of the burnt-offering is very familiar, but there are large numbers of God\u2019s beloved people who have never carefully studied … <\/p>\n