WE have now reached the end of the second year of this little work of studying the Scriptures together, and we can certainly thank our gracious Lord and Master for whatever He has given us by it, and ask Him to continue His mercy to us for this year that lies before us.
“Of Him and through Him, and to Him are all things.”
We are commencing the subject of the sacrifices. Shall we then take a verse from the Epistle to the Romans and pray that it may guide our path during this year —
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:1, 21I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:1‑2)).
A living sacrifice is a strange thing―it combines two opposite thoughts, for a sacrifice is by death. What does it mean? We are not left to guess, but the apostle goes on to show how God has purposed that we should discover by practical experience the change from a multitude of jarring, restless wills to that one perfect will of God. In full keeping with the object of the Epistle to the Romans, the body of Christ is shown here as the way in which we are each to learn what a living sacrifice means. As members of one body in Christ each individual, instead of being moved by a will of his own, is to be moved and controlled by the will of God. Just as our hands and feet do not move at their own will, but only as they are moved by the will that has its seat in the brain, so we who once by our own wills yielded our members as the instruments of sin, are now, by the reckoning of faith and the mercies of God, to be moved only by the will of the Head, but that is none other than the will of God. In this way we become living sacrifices, and actually prove by experience what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
It will not profit us much to know about the sacrifices as mere knowledge, if we do not learn actually what a living sacrifice means, nor may we forget that it is not by living and acting and feeling as members of a body, some body of our own choosing, but as members of the body, even the whole body of Christ, that we can prove this.
Leviticus. ―In beginning the study of Leviticus the following outline may be found of help in showing how the various subjects fall into their places in God’s plan of the book.
1. The Offerings (cc. 1.-6. 7). — This part of the book is wholly taken up with the offerings in relation to God.
(a) Burnt Offering.
(b) Meat Offering.
(c) Peace Offering.
(d) Sin Offering.
(e) Trespass Offering.
2. The Law of the Offerings (cc. 6:8-7.). ―This takes up the responsibilities and privileges of the priesthood in connection with the offerings.
3. The Priesthood (cc. 8.-15.).
(a) Consecration of the Priests.
(b) The Priesthood in exercise, and the blessing following.
(c) The Failure of the Priesthood.
(d) External cleanness. Clean and unclean animals.
(e) Internal cleanness. Cleansing of defilement of birth, leprosy, and issue.
In all this we find God’s holiness, man’s defilement, and the exercise of the priesthood to meet the need that arises from the dwelling of a holy God in the midst of an unclean people. But the failure of the priesthood raises deeper questions, for what remains if that breaks down?
This leads up to the central point of the book.
4. The Atonement and its consequences for the people (cc. 16-17).
5. The Law of Holiness (cc. 18-22). ―The principle of these chapters, both for people and priests, is summed up in 19:2, “Holy shall ye be, for I Jehovah, your God, am holy.”
6. The Feasts of Jehovah (c. 23). ―This fully unfolds the blessing in the heart of God, His purpose to rest in the blessing of His own with Himself.
7. The Government of Jehovah (cc. 24-27). —These chapters unfold the principles of God’s government among the people whom He has redeemed and blessed. In the end all is found to rest on redemption.
This is very brief and summary, and in no way a final division of the book, for other students may divide it from other points of view. But it will at least serve to give those who are beginning to study the book some idea of how perfectly God has arranged it. We can find a surer principle of order than the scissors and paste of generations of unknown editors! It may also be helpful to point out a remarkable thing, which we shall have occasion to speak of again when we come to the 16th of Leviticus. It is that each of the three books, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, presents a crisis, a point where everything hopelessly breaks down, and God’s mercy comes in to show how blessedly. He is over all the results of man’s sin. In Exodus this is found in cc. 32-34. In Leviticus in c. 10, answered by c. 16. In Numbers in cc. 13-14.
The Burnt Offering.―The moment God takes up His dwelling in the place prepared for Him (Exod. 40:34, 3534Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (Exodus 40:34‑35)), His first words from the tent of meeting are concerned with the manner of approach to Him. He takes it for granted that His redeemed people will want to draw near to Him, and will want to bring Him something. He does not command them to do so, He counts upon it, for worship is from the heart.
The only question raised is, “What is acceptable to Him?” And the 1st of Leviticus is wholly occupied with the way in which one who is vile and unacceptable may be accepted before God, and bring into His presence what is perfectly acceptable to Him. Hence the chapter, in every detail of its types, speaks of Christ and His infinite value to God in offering Himself to accomplish the work of Calvary.
The whole subject is God’s estimate of the Person of Christ, not man’s estimate. In worship we do not bring to God our thoughts of Christ, our estimate of the value of His Person and work, but we bring to God His own thoughts of Christ, His value of Christ, expressed by the Holy Ghost, who alone can utter the worship that delights the heart of God.
So the three divisions of this chapter do not bring out different measures of our estimate of Christ, but three different aspects of God’s estimate of Christ, all absolutely perfect in sweet savor to Him, and all of which may be brought before our hearts when we draw near to worship the Father. Space will not allow of our entering into the details of each aspect, but the student will find no sweeter or richer pasture for his soul than these unfoldings in type of the perfection and preciousness of Christ to God.
The main differences will be pointed out, and the rest left to each to study for himself.
1. The Offering from the Herd.―The main points peculiar to this offering are that the entrance of the tent of meeting is mentioned as the place where the offering is to be presented; the offerer lays his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it is accepted for him to make atonement for him. There are other details, all deeply interesting, but the main point is that this aspect of the offering and of the presenting of the blood is connected with the entrance into the holy place where God dwells, and with the acceptance of the offerer according to the value of his offering.
Thus it is the largest of the offerings, that which speaks of the full measure of the Father’s satisfaction in Christ and His work, that gives the offerer entrance and acceptance before God. This is the foundation of all worship. There can be none until the place of acceptance in the Beloved, and the title to enter into the holiest are known.
2. The Offering from the Flock. ―Here the place where the victim is slaughtered is emphasized, and we have the head and the fat mentioned in connection with the cutting up of the victim into its pieces; the words, “the priest shall present it all,” are also special to this part.
The question of entrance and acceptance is not raised here, but we have instead the side of the altar northward, the place of judgment. It is the aspect of Christ’s offering as meeting God’s judgment in order that nothing might ever arise to touch the believer’s acceptance and eternal security. Here, too, taking the place of man in his ruin and responsibility, and offering Himself wholly to God, the blessed Lord is presented as perfect, a sweet savor.
[The force of the north side as connected with judgment may be seen from such passages as Jer. 1:13, 14, 4:6, 46:10; Ezek. 1:44And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. (Ezekiel 1:4), &c.]
3. The Offering from the Fowls. ―Here we find the head is pinched off and burnt separately, the blood is pressed out, not sprinkled, the crop and feathers are cast beside the altar on the east, into the place of ashes, and finally the bird is to be split open at the wings, but not divided asunder. Here the details speak, not of acceptance and entrance, not of judgment met and satisfied, but of the personal sufferings and anguish of the blessed Lord’s heart at the cross where He gave Himself for us, and where His perfect obedience and love to the Father came out fully. We remember that the Holy Ghost descended upon Him in bodily form as a dove, at the commencement of His pathway, when first the Father’s voice was heard, “Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased.” We find in Heb. 9:1414How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:14), that it was by the Eternal Spirit that He offered Himself without spot to God. Hence this aspect of the offering is specially the Spirit’s estimate, as He presents the sufferings of Christ to the heart for worship.
But in the crop and feathers cast into the place of ashes, we may see what the blessed Lord’s heart found in this world. It was the place where God’s judgment lay on all, and His heart could find nothing here to rest in. This, too, the Spirit presents to us that the world may be to us what it was to Him―a place of ashes. But that leads on to the glory. The sufferings and the glory of Christ are always found together, and the Spirit leads our hearts by the way of Christ’s sufferings to the Father’s answer in the glory. The place of ashes is on the east side of the altar, the side of the glory. Nor is this all.
He will not be alone in the glory. While the cross had severed every link for Him with a world which crucified and cast Him out, still His love, stronger than death, held fast, “having loved His own which were in the world He loved them unto the end.” We shall be with Him in the glory, that is the supreme display of His love. Hence we have, “shall not divide it asunder.”
So this three-fold presentation gives us the full value of Christ as the object of worship, the delight of the Father’s heart, and the One whom the Holy Ghost presents to the affection of our hearts, that worship may flow out. Much more, infinitely more, might be gathered from this wonderful chapter, but these slight outlines must suffice.
Answers to Questions
1. This question has been answered above.
2. The actual cases in which burnt offerings are explicitly said to have been offered up to the time of Lev. 1, are: Noah, Gen. 8:2020And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. (Genesis 8:20); Abraham, Gen. 22:1313And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. (Genesis 22:13); Jethro, Exod. 18:1212And Jethro, Moses' father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses' father in law before God. (Exodus 18:12); the youths of the children of Israel, Exod. 24:55And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord. (Exodus 24:5); idolatrous offerings to the golden calf, Exod. 32:66And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. (Exodus 32:6); Moses, Exod. 40:2929And he put the altar of burnt offering by the door of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation, and offered upon it the burnt offering and the meat offering; as the Lord commanded Moses. (Exodus 40:29). It does not say that Abel’s offering was a burnt offering, but the description is that of a burnt offering.
3. Seven times, Ps. 20:3, 40:6, 1:8, 51:16, 19, 66:13, 15.
For next month (D.V.) the subject of study will be:
The Peace offering, Leviticus 3. The following questions may be answered or searched out: ―
1. What is the chief difference to be noted between the burnt offering, the meat offering, and the peace offering?
2. What was the priest’s work in the sacrifice of the peace offering, and what was his portion?
3. What had the offerer to do in connection with the peace offering?
4. What was done with the fat of the peace offering?
B.S. ED.