Sanctification and anointing
For their consecration they were all washed. Aaron and his sons together always represent the church, not as gathered in a body (a thing hidden in the Old Testament), but in varied positions sustained individually before God. There is only one sanctification for all-divine life. Christ is the spring and the expression of it. We are made partakers of it, but it is one.1 Both He that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one. But Aaron is first anointed separately without sacrifice, without blood. But his sons are then brought and with him are sprinkled with blood upon the ear, the thumb of the right hand, the great toe of the right foot;2 obedience, action and walk being measured and guarded, both through the price and according to the perfection of the blood of Christ. And then they were sprinkled with blood and with the oil of consecration, that is to say, set apart by the blood and by the unction of the Holy Spirit. The washing is the Spirit’s work in the sanctifying power of the Word; the anointing, His personal presence and energy in intelligence and power-God working in us.
(1. Aaron is always united to his sons in such types, for Christ cannot be separated from His own or they would become naught. But he had been anointed personally without blood, a thing that has been verified in Christ’s history. He was anointed while on earth; His disciples after His death. He received the Spirit for the church in a new way (Acts 2:33), when He was risen from among the dead in the power of the blood of the eternal covenant: for it is according to the efficacy of that blood in behalf of His people, that He has been raised as their Head. In Christ’s anointing on earth the Holy Spirit was witness to Christ’s own personal righteousness and sonship; in ours He is the witness of our being clean through His blood, the righteousness of God in Him, and sons by adoption.)
(2. Aaron is first simply anointed with the anointing oil poured upon his head (ch. 29:7). Then the sons are brought, and the ram of consecration brought, and some of its blood put upon Aaron’s ear, and then on the tip of the ear of his sons, the right thumb and the great toe of the right foot. It might be supposed that it was only on Aaron’s ear, but comparing with Leviticus 8:23 it would seem that “their,” in verse 20 here, includes Aaron. The great principle is our association with the blessed Lord; but He was obedient unto death, and no act or walk needed to be purified. The great principle for us is that nothing should pass into the thought, no act be done, nothing occur in our walk which is not according to the perfection of consecration in Christ’s sacrifice: we have its value upon us as to imputation, but here it is consecration, for both are in His blood.)
Cleansed by blood and sealed by the Spirit
And it is important to remark here that the seal of the Holy Spirit follows on the sprinkling with the blood, not on the washing with the water. That was needed. We must be born again, but it is not that cleansing which, by itself, puts us in a state God can seal: the blood of Christ does. We are thereby perfectly cleansed as white as snow, and the Spirit comes as the witness of God’s estimate of the value of that blood-shedding. Hence, too, all were sprinkled with Aaron. The blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit have set us in association with Christ, where He is according to the acceptableness of that perfect sacrifice (it was the ram of consecration), and the presence, liberty and power of the Holy Spirit.
All the sacrifices offered for the priests
All the sacrifices were offered. That for sin, the burnt offering of a sweet-smelling savor, the ram of consecration (which had the character of a peace offering), accompanied by the meat offering. These sacrifices have been explained elsewhere, and I only recall their import: Christ made sin for us, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree; first need of the soul, the sin offering; Christ obedient unto death, devoting Himself to the glory of His Father-but according to God’s nature, and the existence of sin, and that in us-and to us as belonging to the Father, the burnt offering; the communion of God, of the Saviour, of the worshipper, and of the whole church, the peace offering; and Christ devoted in holiness of life upon the earth, but proved even to death, the meat offering.
Aaron’s sons associated with their head
It is to be observed that, when Aaron and his sons were sprinkled and anointed, the sons were anointed with him, and their garments also, and not he with them. Everything is connected with the head. Aaron and his sons ate the things with which the atonement had been made. Such is our portion in Christ, the food of God whereby we dwell in Christ and Christ in us.
The dwelling of God sanctified by His glory
Then, connected with this priesthood, comes the perpetual sweet-smelling savor of the burnt offering, in which the people present themselves before God-sweet-smelling savor which is found there, as it were in the midst of the people, according to the efficacy of which they stand in His presence round about. There God met the people. With the mediator He met above the ark without veil, and gave him commandment for the people according to His own perfection. Here He puts Himself on a level with the people, though speaking with the mediator. The dwelling of God in the midst of the people is sanctified by His glory. The tabernacle, the altar, the priests, are sanctified, and He dwells in the midst of the people surrounding Him. For this purpose had He brought them out of Egypt (vs. 46): a blessed picture of how, in a far higher and better way, God dwells in the midst of us.1 He never dwelt with man, we may moreover remark, till redemption was accomplished: not with Adam innocent, nor with Abraham, or others; but, so soon as redemption is accomplished, He says, “They shall know that I am Jehovah their God, who brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them” (ch. 29:46).
(1. He dwells in us both individually and collectively by the Holy Spirit, Christ being gone up on high as man; so that the body of the sealed saint is a temple, and we are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. The last runs out now to all Christendom.)