Leviticus 6:24-7:10
WE TAKE these two together, because we are told one law is for both (Lev. 7:7). Perhaps the first great principle is — “the priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it” (Lev. 6:26).
The priest had to bear the iniquity of the one who had sinned and who brought the offering. The priest had to perform this solemn and weighty service in order that the full value of the atonement might take effect upon the one who needed it. If the priest failed in this duty, it did not affect the value or the perfection of the offering, but it did affect very seriously the way God in His mercy had provided for meeting the need of His poor failing people.
We, as believers, are at times called on to deal with a sin or trespass in another child of God. If I deal with it as a judge, instead of as a priest, if I do not make the sin my own, I hinder what God has ordered as necessary to fully restore the one who has done wrong. I prevent the full sense of the judgment of sin, and of the mercy and grace found in the cross of Christ, from coming home to the heart of him who has sinned.
How fully and pre-eminently, above all others, did the Lord Jesus answer to this, for though He had no sins of His own, yet did He identify Himself with our sins, confessed them all before God, and in His death He has put them all away. Blessed be His name forever!
The sin offering was “most holy"; yet it was apt to be forgotten. We read of how Eleazer and Ithamar burned the goat instead of eating it in “the holy place.” (Lev. 10:16-20), and so we may fail to make the sins of a brother our own. It is easy and natural to condemn one, but to identify ourselves with him in confessing and mourning the failure is the privilege of the priestly family, at least of “every male,” that is, of every one strong in faith, whether a brother or sister in Christ.
Then we learn here something very interesting in connection with the burnt offering, which was not told us before. “The priest that offereth any man’s burnt offering,... shall have to himself the skin of the burnt offering which he hath offered.” That skin would ever be a token and remembrance to the priest of the offering he had offered up. And so our blessed Lord has ever before Himself the memorial and display of Himself wholly given up to God for us, an offering and a sacrifice to Him for an sweet savor.
ML-09/19/1971