Forgiveness, Deliverance, Acceptance
Table of Contents
Forgiveness, Deliverance, Acceptance: Part 1
READ LEVITICUS. 1. AND 4.
How the New Testament helps us in understanding the Old, throwing light upon the types there; and, in so doing, ofttimes bringing out the truth more vividly than a mere doctrinal statement of the same!
In these two chapters, we have the work of Christ on the cross brought before us in two aspects. In the 1St (the burnt offering), what Christ was in His death for God; in the 4th (the sin offering), what He was in His death for the sinner. God of course begins with that aspect of it which is for Himself, and afterward comes to that which is for the sinner. We, on the contrary, have to begin with what Christ was in His death for us, and so will look first at chap. 4.
" If a soul shall sin through ignorance, etc." (ver. 2). How strikingly this brings out the holiness of God! How ready we are to make excuses, and, if a thing is done in ignorance, to think but little of it. But, dear reader, in having to do with God, we must remember that His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither His ways our ways... and that as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts (Isa. 55:8,9). God, in His grace, has made provision for the guiltiest, if they will but hearken to Him, but He will pass by nothing, not even if " a soul shall sin through ignorance,"-for, " GOD IS LIGHT" (I John, 1:5). What then is to be done? On our part we can do absolutely nothing to cancel the guilt, for " without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 9:22). Then the victim for the sacrifice, whether bullock, or kid of the goats (male or female, vs. 23, 28) or a lamb, must be one " without blemish." Where was such an one to be found? Could man produce such? God waited for hundreds of years, but such an one could not be found among the sons of Adam. God then must do one of two things-either visit judgment upon all, or provide the one necessary Himself. Which did He do? " He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but Five everlasting life" (John 3:16), thereby proving that " GOD IS LOVE" (t John 4:8). Jesus, His beloved Son, becomes a man, and John the Baptist gazing on Him once exclaims, " Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Then we have the life on earth of/the blessed Lord looked at in four different aspects, in the four gospels. But though He humbled Himself and became man, His people remember that He was never less than The One who did humble Himself-even " Christ who is over all, God blessed forever," Amen. (Rom. 9:5). As He walked this earth God saw, for the first time, a man that answered in everything to the desires of His heart-ever and only doing His will, thereby proving Himself the Lamb without spot. But there was the question of sin to be settled before God, and so " Christ through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God" to purge our consciences from dead works to serve the living God (Heb. 9:14).
The 4th verse of our chapter tells us that the animal (which was really a type of Christ) was brought to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, and the sinning Jew was to " lay his hand upon the bullock's head." Laying the hand on the victim's head expresses identification, as much as saying, " That's me-that animal takes my place." And so when I look at Jesus on Calvary's cross bearing sin's heavy load, faith enables me to say, " That's me-He took my place"-surely in grace-but still He took it. Well, if He took it, He must bear all the consequences of taking it, and so He did. Judgment and death were hanging over my head, for " the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23); and " It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Heb. 9:27). All that God was against sin Jesus bore on Calvary's cross. Hearken to that cry, " My God, my God, why halt Thou forsaken Me?" (Psa. 22:1; Matt. 27:46); and " He yielded up the Ghost" (Matt. 27:50), having said, " It is finished" (John 19:30). How those words of the Lord Jesus bring before us the contrast with every sacrifice in Old Testament times! If it was the great day of atonement as presented in Lev. 16, it must be repeated every year, for the redemption then accomplished only held good for that length of time; if it was an individual who had sinned, a fresh sacrifice must be brought. Consequently there never could be at that time " perfection as pertaining to the conscience" as mentioned in Heb. 9 Perfection, or otherwise, of the conscience depends upon the character of the sacrifice presented. When the offending one coming to God brought a bullock or a goat-the sacrifice not being perfect, the conscience could not be perfect. But now if a sinner comes to God-just as a sinner and nothing else or he would not be "doing truth" (John 3:21)—on the ground of the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary's cross, and rests upon that, and that only, the sacrifice being a perfect one, the, conscience of him who believes the record " God has given of Its Son," is perfect. The redemption that resulted from the atonement made on the cross was an eternal one (see Heb. 9:12). The blood that was there shed did not merely cancel an individual act of sin, for " the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all (more accurately ' every') sin " (1 John 1:7). We get that truth brought out, in type, in our chapter in ver. 6, in the blood being sprinkled "seven times before the Lord"—"seven" standing for perfection in spiritual things.
Dear reader, have you come to God, just as a poor sinner and nothing else, and are you resting, and resting only, on the precious blood of Christ? If so, that blood cleanseth from every sin; God-the God you have sinned against-says so, and so forgiveness flows from it. But the resurrection of Christ is another proof of the question of sin being settled before God-because if Jesus was bearing my sins on Calvary's cross (see Isa. 53:6) how could God righteously raise Him from the dead, if every sin was not fully atoned for? But, blessed be God! if He " was delivered for our offenses," He " was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ " (Rom. 4:25;5. f). Remember then that it is a work done outside of us, even the work on Calvary's cross, that is the ground of our peace, and not the work of the Holy Spirit in us. There is never such a thing as a soul resting on the work of Christ, outside of him, that there is not a work of the Holy Spirit inside him-still it is the former and not the latter which is the ground of peace, and it is important not to confound them. They go together, still they are distinct from each other.
It' is important also to remember that He who bore our sins on Calvary's Cross is not there now; for, " If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins" (1 Cor. 15:17). In Acts 13, Paul, having given a short outline of God's dealings with Israel, refers to the Lord Jesus as the One in whom the promises found their fulfillment. He speaks of His death and resurrection.
Then, pointing to Him as the risen, glorified Man at God's right hand, he says, " Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all that believe are (not `will be') justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses."
The Holy Ghost, in Rom. 4:7, says: " Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered."
DEAR READER, IS THAT BLESSEDNESS YOURS?
( To be continued, D. V.)
Forgiveness, Deliverance, Acceptance: Part 2
DELIVERANCE.
There is, however, another point and a most important one, and that is deliverance, or, as it is generally called, salvation. I prefer the former word, as bringing out more clearly what is meant. How often, dear souls, in whom there has been a work of God, have doubts and fears; sometimes going so far as to question if they have ever been converted. It is because they have not really got deliverance; for God's way of deliverance being once known is never lost; though there may not be the joy flowing therefrom if the individual is not going on with God. Scripture makes a distinction between " sins!'
(the naughty things done, the bad fruit produced) and " sin " (the nature, the tree that produces the bad fruit). Now, forgiveness has to do with the former, deliverance with the latter. Where there is a condition of spiritual slothfulness and a lack of exercise in the soul, God may withhold the knowledge of deliverance. Again, where there is not a bowing to God's verdict of what we are (not what we've done), deliverance cannot be known.
The poet may write (and men applaud),
"O, wad some power the gittie gie us,
To see oursels as ithers see us."
There' is something however immeasurably beyond. that, viz.: To see ourselves as God sees us.
Dear reader, has the word of God ever come home with such power to your conscience as to bring you really into the presence of God? There eau be but one result, if such has been the case. Now, Job was not a bad man by any means, and he could talk quite eloquently about God, and knew a great many things about Him, and yet had not seen himself as God saw him. In Job 42:5 he says: " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee." What was the result? " Wherefore abhor myself;" not abhor what I hive done, out " myself." Dear reader, has there ever been a moment in your history when you have thus stood face to face with God? Nothing betokens moral distance from God like good opinion of self. When we stand at the judgment of Christ, will any of us have a good opinion of self? Surely not I Then why so now? How many earnest souls go on trying to improve themselves! How many societies and associations (and religious ones, and with the name of " Christian " attached to them, too) there are for the improvement of man, as such l It may be ignorantly so, but all this is a denial of the t rocs of the Lord Jesus Christ. The rejection of Jesus-God manifest in the flesh-proved that there was nothing in the heart of man that answered to anything in the heart of God; for the deepest and fullest expression of love on God's part only brought out the terrible state of the heart of man. The cross of Jesus, on man's side, proved not only was man a sinner, and a law breaker, but a God-hater, and as Rom. 8:7 says " The mind of the flesh is enmity against God ". (margin).
Now let us turn to our chapter and see how the: truth comes out in it, and let us remember that the animal there was a type of Christ on the cross,. when He who knew no sin was made sin (not only " bear our sins") for us, that we might he made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). And, as Rom. 8:3 tells us, " What the law could not do.... God sending His own on in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." If you read verses 11 and 12 you will see how the truth comes out in type,-most vividly. Ver. 11 takes up the different parts of the animal, and remember this is the body of the animal itself-not the blood, as previously. " And the sin of the bullock." The skin stands for the external beauty of the animal. In 1 Sam. 16:6, 7, when the eldest son of Jesse came in, Samuel seeing a fine, tall, handsome young man said,
“Surely the Lord's anointed is before Him.' What was the Lord's answer? " Look not on his countenance nor on the height of his stature,..... for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, hut the Lord looketh on the heart." Read Mark 10:17-22 in the same connection. There, a young ruler comes to Jesus with everything outwardly lovely-lint when God's one test was put: What think' ye of Christ?"-he turned his back on the Lord and went away. There was nothing there for God.' And so in the type, the skin was carried forth without the camp and burnt on the wood with fire. In other words it was fit only for the judgment of God. "Our God is a consuming fire " (Heb. 12:29. Jesus on Calvary's cross bore the judgment' for every one who believes the record that God Was given of His Son (1 John 5:10-12; John 3:36), but for all others " the second death, the lake Of fire " (Rev. 20:15) is their portion, however nice they may appear in the eyes of men.
Next comes " his flesh." There we get below the surface, but the same result-nothing for God; and so taken outside the camp and burnt.
Now let us go to the end of the verse and work backwards. " His dung" (the offal).- Of course-everyone would agree as to that- there was nothing there for God.
" His inwards," the seat of the affections. Well,' the rejection of Jesus, the deepest expression of God's love to man, proved there was nothing, as we have seen (p. 70).
" His legs" represent his walk, his general life. Look what Paul says of himself, Acts 20 iii. i: " I have lived before God in all good conscience to this day." And yet before he was converted he was murdering the Lord's people, thinking he was doing God service (see John 16:2). No, there is nothing really for God in the natural man, such is the awful havoc that sin has made.
" But now we come to " his head." Oh! how different is man's verdict from God's on this point. The great panacea now-a-days is education. If we turn to the word of God, what does He say? Corinth was one of the chief cities of Greece, the leading country at the time for literature and the arts and sciences, and of course learning, etc., was much thought of there. In the, first epistle to the church at that place, the Holy Ghost says " I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the, understanding of the prudent; Where is the wise? where is the scribe (the, educated man of the day)? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" And again: " The world by wisdom knew not God," and " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." In the Epistle to the Romans, chap. 1., when the Holy Ghost is referring to man's having got away from God after the flood, He says: " Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (ver. 21"). And is not history repeating itself in this very end of this self-lauding nineteenth century Who are the leaders in giving up the Bible-turning their backs on the word of God-with fine sounding- words of " higher criticism," etc.?
Professing themselves to ne wise," they are really " blind leaders of the blind." No., there is nothing more for God in man's head than the other parts, and, with the offal, is only fit for the judgment of God.
But some one may say, " It will not do to be so very particular in details-take man as a whole there is some good in him." Ver. 12, answers that. Ver. 11 looks at man in detail, but ver. 12 looks at him as a whole, " Even the whole bullock," but with just the same verdict-to be carried forth without the camp and burnt; it was only fit for judgment-God's judgment against sin.
Turn now to Rom. 7, where we get one who has learned his lesson and bowed to God's verdict; tor the expression, " when we were in the. flesh" (ver. 5), shews that he was not there when he wrote. The law is the measure of man's responsibility as a child of Adam, and so we find the one in that chapter, doing his very best to meet its claims. What was the result?
In ver. 14, he has found out that he is a slave, "sold under sin."
In ver. 18, he has learned two lessons: 1St, "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing." He has now learned experimentally in his own soul what came out at the cross, and which we have just seen, in type, in Lev. 4:11, 12.
But there is a second lesson in Rom. 7:18, viz, that he has no strength, " To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." He is lost. Now one is lost when the strength is all gone and the person is utterly unable to extricate himself from the position he is in.
But that is not saying another person may not pull him out. Now in vs. 7-24 (Rom. 7) "
" My," " Me " occur between forty and fifty times, i. e., he is looking at himself striving to extricate himself. In the last named verse he gives up the struggle, just ready to despair, " 0 wretched man that I am! (not " who shall forgive me " but) " who shall deliver me from the body of this death." He is just where God's Deliverer meets, him.
In ver. 25 he looks outside of himself, for the-first time, and sees it (with the eve of faith) all done by another, " I thank God through Jesus. Christ our Lord."
DEAR READER, HAVE YOU GOT THAT FAR?
(Continued from page 47.)
( To be continued, D. V.
Forgiveness, Deliverance, Acceptance: Part 3
DELIVERANCE ( Concluded).
If, we turn to Ex. 14, we shall see a type of 'God's way of salvation (or deliverance). It is not as in Ex. 12, God passing by as a Judge and kept out (in that character) by the blood.. " When I see the blood, I will pass over you," which was perfect security. It is not a question of Safety, but of Salvation, which are quite different, though often confounded. In Rom. 1:16, we are told that " The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." That is what Ex. 14 shows; bringing out, in type, what the death and resurrection of Christ has done for every believer. The people there are in a dilemma; Pharoah and his host are pursuing them, and the Red Sea before them. In this terrible plight they feel how powerless they are. Moses says to them, " Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will (not show to,' as in the authorized version, but) work for you ". (ver. 13). What a word to a person bordering on despair, " Stand still! The very last thing that any of us will do till brought to feel how powerless we are. How-suited then comes the word, " When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly " (Rom. 5:6). And. whilst this last named. Scripture refers primarily to that period of time in the varied dealings of God with man, when the truth came out (manifested by his inability to keep the law) that he was " without strength "; still we have each one to learn it experimentally in our-own souls (and that was the second lesson learned, as we have seen, in Rom. 7:18), before there is..the giving up of every effort on our part, and we ‘ stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord which He ( not " will work for you " because we look back at a finished work, but) has wrought for us. We have to learn not only that God is the Deliverer, but how He does it, " see that great work which the Lord did " (ver. 31).
Then comes the word from the Lord to the people, " Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward " (ver. 15). " Go forward"! Why, the Red Sea is right before them and that (to sight) is, certain death! Yes, quite so, to sight; but " the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation (not to sight but) to every one that believeth": and so we read, " By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians (where there was no faith) assaying to do were drowned " (Heb. 11:29). What weapon was it that man's unfaithfulness had put into Satan's hands? Death. What did the Lord Jesus do? He went down into the stronghold of the enemy, as it is written, " That through death He might destroy (or annul ') him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage " (Heb. 2:14, 15); and, " Our Savior Jesus Christ, who hash abolished (or annulled ' -same word as destroy ' in Heb. 2:14) death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel (2 Tim. 1 lo). It is written of believers (1 Cor. 3), that, amongst other things, " death is ours." Instead of being a weapon in the enemy's hands, it is the means of deliverance.
We have seen (p 44, referring to Lev. 4:4) that laying the hand upon the head of the victim was expressive of identification; as it were faith looking at the cross and saying, " That's me-He took my place." Just bring that thought in here. Did Jesus bear the judgment of God and die to sin? Yes, and as my substitute. Then what is true of Christ is true of the believer before God and for faith. So in Rom. 7:24, 25, where we get the cry of one who has learned that there is no good in him and that he has no strength, " 0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death (margin)," we find the moment he looks away from himself and his own efforts to Christ and His work, he immediately adds, " I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." What a relief to find out that, on the cross, not only were my sins atoned for, but that the question of my nature (sin) has also been fully gone into; and that " what the law could not do (as the one in Rom. 7 found out), God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh (Rom. 8:3), which exactly agrees with what we saw, in type, in Lev. 4:11, 12. In John 3:16 we are told, " That which is born of the flesh is flesh." It may be nice flesh or nasty flesh, educated flesh or uneducated flesh, religious flesh or irreligious flesh—but it is still flesh. Now God's word tells us also that " The flesh profiteth nothing " (John 6:63); and " They that are in the flesh cannot please God " (Rom. 8:8). Reformation may do for man, but no for God; so the Holy Ghost says in 2 Cor. 5, " If any man be in Christ (not only " there is no condemnation," as Rom. 8 I says, but), he is a new creature ( or 'creation'); old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God."
If we turn to Rom. 6, we find there, speaking of believers, it is said, " Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed (or annulled,' the same word that we have already had in connection with the devil, Heb. 2:14; and with death, 2 Tim. 1:10). Then further down in same chapter, " For in that He died, He died unto sin once (not sins ' here, but sin '); but in that he liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God (not ' through,' but) in Christ Jesus." Thus we learn that believers are looked upon by God as having died with Christ. That is God's way of deliverance from " sin " (the nature).
It is the same as to the law. The law is not abrogated, as some have unwisely said, but " The law 'bath dominion over a man as long as he liveth " (Rom. 7:1); and, " Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God (which man, under the law, never did).... But now we are delivered front the law, being dead (margin) to that wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter."
The law has been carried out to the full, and has killed me, as it were, in the person of Him who, in matchless grace, took my place and bore all the consequences of the place that he took. How sweetly Paul puts it (and it is true of every real believer), " I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ, liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me " (Gal. 2:19, 20). How the " newness of spirit " comes out in the above, viz., " The love of Christ constraineth." His love working in the heart is the motive, and HIMSELF the Object before the soul.
What a real deliverance God's is; but it excludes all boasting, and so man does not like it, but prefers one that lets him have some credit, if ever so little.
It is helpful to contrast Ex. 12:13 with Ex. 14:31. In the former it says " When I see the blood, I will pass over you." In the latter, " Israel saw that great work which the Lord did." They were then, as it were, on resurrection ground; and it is in resurrection that the power of God has been displayed. " He was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God " (2 Cor. 13:4). It is important for each soul to see that the believer is on resurrection ground before God. One of the desires of Paul's heart for the Lord's people was " that ye may know... what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when He raised him from the dead " (Eph. 1).
But not only is the believer delivered by death and resurrection with Christ, from " sin " and " the law;" but we read, " Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father" (Gal. 1:3). And we find Paul saying, " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14).
DEAR READER, HAVE YOU SO Learned CHRIST? HAVE YOU SEEN THAT (IF YOU ARE THE LORD'S) THE CROSS OF CHRIST HAS COME AS MUCH BETWEEN YOU AND THE WORLD AS BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR SINS?
(Continued from page 75.)
( To be continued, D. V.)
" O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," "
Forgiveness, Deliverance, Acceptance: Part 4
ACCEPTANCE.
We now come to Acceptance. What we have had hitherto has been, in a certain sense, negative -though, of course, very real as far as it goes. To be forgiven is very real, but is of a negative character. Let me give an illustration. Suppose a young man has behaved badly, left his home, squandered what he had and got over head and ears in debt. If he returned to his father and confessed what he had done, and his father forgave him and paid all his debts, it would be very kind indeed on the father's part, and would be very real as far as it went; but, if nothing more was done, how would the young man get on? What would he live upon? Suppose, however, that the father was a very wealthy person and head of a very large and very prosperous firm, and took the young man into partnership. He is now a member of the firm and might be heard talking of our firm, our business, etc. That would be a great deal more than being forgiven and his debts paid. So it is with the believer. It is not only that his sins are forgiven and that he is delivered from all that was against him, and that there is no condemnation for him, as we have seen, but he is a child of God, yea even more than that, " if children then heirs; heirs of God, and joint (or co) heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:17).
In Lev. 4, we had what Christ was in His death for the sinner, but in chap. 1. we have what He was in His death for God. And whilst the word " burn " in connection with the sin offering means to consume (as expressive of the judgment of God against sin), " burn " in connection with the burnt offering means " to rise up a sweet savor," being quite a different word. Apart from the question of our salvation, fellow-believer, infinite was the glory brought to God by the cross. In the very scene where His glory had been, as it were, trampled under foot, this world-as to the very thing so dishonoring to God, sin-in the very nature that had been the enemy's willing agent in all this, man's-Jesus glorified God: " I have glorified Thee on the earth I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4). Was not all that precious beyond measure to the heart of God:? Let the judgment of God search Him in the most minute way (the skin removed and " cut into his pieces" ver. 6) there was nothing' but perfection to be found, and all was for God, and rose up a sweet savor (" burn" in ver. 9) to Him. The words, " of His own voluntary will" in ver. 3, should be " for His acceptance." In the next verse we have: " And He shall put His hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for Him, etc." We have seen (pp. 44 and 97), that putting the hand on the head of the animal was expressive of identification. But how different the identification now; as to the sin offering, faith can look at the cross and say, " That's me-He measured my distance from God and bore all the consequences-but God has raised from the dead the One who hung on Calvary's cross and given Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God (1 Peter 1), so faith can look right up to where Christ is now and say, `` He who once measured my distance from God is now the measure of my acceptance and of my nearness, for: " as He is so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17); and we are " accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6). The reader will notice that it does not say, " accepted in Christ." No question but it means Christ. But, dear fellow-believer, God would show you and me not only how near we are, but how dear we are, to Him. So further on the same epistle, it says: " Be ye followers (or rather imitators') of God as dear children. How the Lord Jesus pressed home on the hearts of His disciples (slow to believe—as alas! ours also are), " The Father Himself loveth you" (John 16:27); and, " That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:26), which the world will know by and bye (John 17:23).
But what became of the skin which we are told in Lev. 1:6 was removed from the burnt offering? If we turn to Lev. 7, where we get the regulations in connection with the offerings, we find in ver. 6, that
" the priest who offereth any man's burnt offering, even the priest, shall have to himself the skin of the burnt offering which he hath offered." Now, whilst not wishing to dogmatize as to the interpretation, it seems to me that the lesson taught is this. The priest is the type of the child of God as a worshipper. Of old, the priest had access only into the holy place. Now, the veil is rent and it is into
The holiest we enter
In perfect peace with God;
Through whom we found our center,
In Jesus and His blood,
Though great may be our dullness
In thought, and word, and deed,
We glory in the fullness
Of Him that meets our need.
But when I do enter, I do so, not only as a forgiven sinner (though, through grace, I am that), but as a child of God and with all the value of the work of Christ resting upon me. And it is well to remember that it is God's estimate of the value of His work, not mine. Who is it who alone estimates sin aright? God. You and 1, fellow believer, may hate sin, and the nearer we are to God, as to the state of our souls, the more we will do so. Still I could not say (nor could any believer) that I have as correct an estimate of sin as God. So also of the work of Christ. It is written, " Christ also hath loved us, and bath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor" (Eph. 5:2). The " sweet ' smelling savor rose up to God." So in the burnt offering in Lev. 1 The 9th verse tells us that (the skin having been removed) all of it was butt on the altar. Dr. Young's literal translation brings out the force of that verse with much beauty: " The priest hath made perfume with the whole on the altar, a burnt offering, a fire-offering of sweet fragrance to Jehovah." Who smelt the sweet fragrance that arose and put a true value on it? God, for that was all for Him. So I (once a poor, guilty, lost, hell-deserving sinner) now, through grace, stand before God (as does every one resting only on the work of the Lord Jesus for acceptance) according to the value that God puts on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ! What matchless grace!! Well may the Holy Spirit speak of " the EXCEEDING RICHES of His grace," which, " in the ages to come," God is going to show!!! (Eph. 2)
Again T ask, dear reader: "HAVE YOU SO Learned CHRIST!"
(Concluded from page 100.)