In the burnt offering, with which our book opens, we have a type of Christ offering Himself without spot to God, hence the position which the Holy Spirit assigns to it. If the Lord Jesus Christ came forth to accomplish the glorious work of atonement, His highest and most fondly-cherished object in so doing was the glory of God. “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God,” was the grand motto in every scene and circumstance of His life, and in none more markedly than in the work of the cross. Let the will of God be what it might, He came to do it. Blessed be God, we know what our portion is in the accomplishment of this will, for by it “we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:1010By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)). Still, the primary aspect of Christ’s work was to God-ward. It was an ineffable delight to Him to accomplish the will of God on this earth. No one had ever done this before. Some had through grace done that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but no one had ever perfectly, invariably, from first to last, without hesitation, and without divergence, done the will of God. But this was exactly what the Lord Jesus did. He was “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:88And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:8)). “He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” And as He walked from the garden of Gethsemane to the cross of Calvary, the intense devotion of His heart told itself forth in these accents: “The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?”
Now in all this self-emptied devotedness to God there was truly a sweet savor. A perfect Man on the earth accomplishing the will of God, even in death, was an object of amazing interest to the mind of heaven. Who could fathom the profound depths of that devoted heart which displayed itself under the eye of God on the cross? Surely none but God; for in this as in everything else it holds good that “no man knoweth the Son, but the Father,” and no one can know aught about Him save as the Father reveals Him. The mind of man can in some measure grasp any subject of knowledge “under the sun.” Human science can be laid hold of by the human intellect, but no man knoweth the Son save as the Father reveals Him by the power of the Holy Spirit through the written word. The Holy Spirit delights to reveal the Son, to take of the things of Jesus and show them unto us. These things we have in all their fullness and beauty in the word. There can be no new revelation inasmuch as the Spirit brought all things to the apostle’s memory, and led them into all truth. There can be nothing beyond “all truth,” and hence all pretension to a new revelation and the development of new truth — meaning thereby truth not contained in the sacred canon of inspiration — is an effort on man’s part to add to what God calls “all truth.” No doubt the Spirit may unfold and apply with new and extraordinary power truth contained in the word, but this is obviously a very different thing from our traveling outside the range of divine revelation for the purpose of finding principles, ideas, or dogmas, which shall command the conscience. This latter can only be regarded in the light of impious presumption.
In the gospel narrative we have Christ presented to us in the varied phases of His character, His Person, and His work. To those precious documents the people of God in all ages have rejoiced to betake themselves, and drink in their heavenly revelations of the object of their love and confidence — the One to whom they owed everything for time and eternity. But very few comparatively have ever been led to regard the rites and ceremonies of the Levitical economy as fraught with the most minute instruction in reference to the same commanding theme. The offerings of Leviticus, for example, have been too much regarded as so many antiquated records of Jewish customs, conveying no intelligible voice to our ears, no spiritual light to our understandings. However, it must be admitted that the apparently abstruse records of Leviticus, as well as the sublime strains of Isaiah, take their place amongst the things which were written aforetime, and they are, therefore, for our learning (Rom. 15:44For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. (Romans 15:4)). True we shall need to study those records, as indeed all scripture, with a humble, self-emptied spirit, with reverent dependence upon the teaching of Him who graciously penned them for us, with sedulous attention to the general scope, bearing, and analogy of the entire body of divine revelation, with an effectual curb on the imagination, that it may not take unhallowed flights; but if thus through grace we enter upon the study of the types of Leviticus, we shall find in them a vein of the richest and finest ore.
We shall now proceed to examine the burnt offering, which, as we have remarked, presents Christ offering Himself without spot to God.
“If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male, without blemish.” The essential glory and dignity of Christ’s Person form the basis of Christianity. He imparts that dignity and glory to everything He does, and to every office He sustains. No office could possibly add glory to Him who is “God over all, blessed forever,” “God manifest in the flesh,” the glorious Immanuel, “God with us,” the eternal Word, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. What office could add to the dignity of such an One? In point of fact, we know that all His offices are connected with His humanity, and in assuming that humanity He stooped from the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. He thus stooped in order to glorify God perfectly in the very midst of a scene where all was hostile to Him. He came to be eaten up by a holy, unquenchable zeal for the glory of God and the effectual carrying out of His eternal counsels.
The unblemished male of the first year was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ offering Himself for the perfect accomplishment of the will of God. There should be nothing expressive either of weakness or imperfection. A male of the first year was required. We shall see when we come to examine the other offerings that a female was in some cases permitted, but that was only expressive of the imperfection which attached to the worshipper’s apprehension, and in nowise of any defect in the offering, inasmuch as it was unblemished in the one case as well as in the other. Here, however, it was an offering of the very highest order, because it was Christ offering Himself to God. Christ in the burnt offering was exclusively for the eye and heart of God. This point should be distinctly apprehended. God alone could duly estimate the Person and work of Christ. He alone could fully appreciate the cross as the expression of Christ’s perfect devotedness. The cross, as foreshadowed by the burnt offering, had an element in it which only the divine mind could apprehend. It had depths so profound that neither mortal nor angel could fathom them. There was a voice in it which was intended exclusively for, and went directly to, the ear of the Father. There were communications between the cross of Calvary and the throne of God which lay far beyond the highest range of created intelligence.
“He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord.” The use of the word “voluntary” here brings out with great clearness the grand idea in the burnt offering. It leads us to contemplate the cross in an aspect which is not sufficiently apprehended. We are too apt to look upon the cross merely as the place where the great question of sin was gone into and settled between eternal Justice and the spotless victim, as the place where our guilt was atoned for, and where Satan was gloriously vanquished. Eternal and universal praise to redeeming love! The cross was all this. But it was more than this. It was the place where Christ’s love to the Father was told out in language which only the Father could hear and understand. It is in the latter aspect that we have it typified in the burnt offering, and therefore it is that the word “voluntary” occurs. Were it merely a question of the imputation of sin and of enduring the wrath of God on account of sin, such an expression would not be in moral order. The blessed Lord Jesus could not with strict propriety be represented as willing to be made sin, willing to endure the wrath of God and the hiding of His countenance; and in this one fact we learn in the clearest manner that the burnt offering does not foreshadow Christ on the cross bearing sin, but Christ on the cross accomplishing the will of God.
That Christ Himself contemplated the cross in these two aspects of it is evident from His own words. When He looked at the cross as the place of sin-bearing, when He anticipated the horrors with which in this point of view it stood invested, He exclaimed, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from Me” (Luke 22:4242Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. (Luke 22:42)). He shrank from that which His work as a sin-bearer involved. His pure and holy mind shrank from the thought of contact with sin, and His loving heart shrank from the thought of losing for a moment the light of God’s countenance.
But then the cross had another aspect. It stood before the eye of Christ as a scene in which He could fully tell out all the deep secrets of His love to the Father; a place in which He could of His own voluntary will take the cup which the Father had given Him, and drain it to the very dregs. True it is that the whole life of Christ emitted a fragrant odor which ever ascended to the Father’s throne, for He did always those things which pleased the Father, He ever did the will of God; but the burnt offering does not typify Him in His life — precious beyond all thought as was every act of that life — but in His death, and in that not as one made a curse for us, but as one presenting to the heart of the Father an odor of incomparable fragrance.
This truth invests the cross with peculiar charms for the spiritual mind. It imparts to the sufferings of our blessed Lord an interest of the most intense character. The guilty sinner no doubt finds in the cross a divine answer to the deepest and most earnest cravings of heart and conscience. The true believer finds in the cross that which captivates every affection of his heart, and transfixes his whole moral being. The angels find in the cross a theme for ceaseless admiration. All this is true; but there is that in the cross which passes far beyond the loftiest conceptions of saints or angels; namely, the deep-toned devotion of the heart of the Son presented to, and appreciated by, the heart of the Father. This is the elevated aspect of the cross which is so strikingly shadowed forth in the burnt offering.
And here let me remark that the distinctive beauty of the burnt offering must be entirely sacrificed, if we admit the idea that Christ was a sin-bearer all His life. There would then be no force, no value, no meaning in the word “voluntary.” There could be no room for voluntary action in the case of one who was compelled by the very necessity of his position to yield up his life. If Christ were a sin-bearer in His life, then assuredly His death must have been a necessary, not a voluntary act. Indeed, it may be safely asserted that there is not one of the offerings the beauty of which would not be marred, and its strict integrity sacrificed, by the theory of a life of sin-bearing. In the burnt offering this is especially the case, inasmuch as it is not in it a question of sin-bearing or enduring the wrath of God, but entirely one of voluntary devotedness manifested in the death of the cross. In the burnt offering we recognize a type of God the Son, accomplishing by God the Spirit, the will of God the Father. This He did “of His own voluntary will.” “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again” (John 10:1717Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. (John 10:17)). Here we have the burnt offering aspect of the death of Christ. On the other hand, the prophet, contemplating Him as the sin offering, says, “His life is taken from the earth” (Acts 8:3333In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth. (Acts 8:33), which is the LXX version of Isa. 53:88He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. (Isaiah 53:8)). Again, Christ says, “No one [οὐδεις] taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.” Was He a sin-bearer when He said this? Observe, it is “no one,” man, angel, devil, or else. It was His own voluntary act to lay down His life that He might take it again. “I delight to do thy will, O My God.” Such was the language of the divine burnt offering, of Him who found His unutterable joy in offering Himself without spot to God.
Now it is of the last importance to apprehend with distinctness the primary object of the heart of Christ in the work of redemption. It tends to consolidate the believer’s peace. The accomplishment of God’s will, the establishment of God’s counsels, and the display of God’s glory, occupied the fullest, deepest, and largest place in that devoted heart which viewed and estimated everything in reference to God. The Lord Jesus never once stopped to inquire how any act or circumstances would affect Himself. “He humbled himself,” He “made himself of no reputation,” He surrendered all. And hence when He arrived at the close of His career, He could look back upon it all and say with His eyes lifted up to heaven, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest Me to do” (John 17:44I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. (John 17:4)).
It is impossible to contemplate the work of Christ in this aspect of it without having the heart filled with the sweetest affections toward His Person. It does not detract in the smallest degree from our sense of His love to us to know that He made God His primary object in the work of the cross. Quite the opposite. His love to us and our salvation in Him could only be founded upon God’s established glory. That glory must form the solid base of everything. “As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord” (Num. 14:2121But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. (Numbers 14:21)). But we know that God’s eternal glory and the creature’s eternal blessedness are in the divine counsels inseparably linked together, so that if the former be secured, the latter must needs be so likewise.
“And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.” The act of laying on of hands was expressive of full identification. By that significant act the offerer and the offering became one, and this oneness in the case of the burnt offering secured for the offerer all the acceptableness of his offering. The application of this to Christ and the believer sets forth a truth of the most precious nature, and one largely developed in the New Testament, namely, the believer’s everlasting identification with and acceptance in Christ. “As He is, so are we in this world.” “We are in Him that is true” (1 John 4:17; 5:2017Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. (1 John 4:17)
20And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. (1 John 5:20)). Nothing in any measure short of this could avail. The man who is not in Christ is in his sins. There is no middle ground. You must be either in Christ or out of Him. There is no such thing as being partly in Christ. If there is a single hair’s breadth between you and Christ, you are in an actual state of wrath and condemnation. But, on the other hand, if you are in Him, then are you as He is before God, and so accounted in the presence of infinite holiness. Such is the plain teaching of the word of God. “Ye are complete in Him” — “accepted in the beloved” — “members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” “He that is joined to the Lord, is one Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:1717But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:17); Eph. 1:6; 5:306To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. (Ephesians 1:6)
30For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. (Ephesians 5:30); Col. 2:1010And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: (Colossians 2:10)).
Now it is not possible that the Head can be in one degree of acceptance and the members in another. No; the Head and the members are one. God counts them one; and therefore they are one. This truth is at once the ground of the loftiest confidence and of the most profound humility. It imparts the fullest assurance of “boldness in the day of judgment,” inasmuch as it is not possible that aught can be laid to the charge of Him with whom we are united. It imparts the deep sense of our own nothingness, inasmuch as our union with Christ is founded upon the death of nature, and the utter abolition of all its claims and pretensions.
Since therefore the Head and the members are viewed in the same position of infinite favor and acceptance before God, it is perfectly evident that all the members stand in one acceptance, in one salvation, in one life, in one righteousness. There are no degrees in justification. The babe in Christ stands in the same justification as the saint of fifty years’ experience. The one is in Christ and so is the other; and this as it is the only ground of life, so it is the only ground of justification. There are not two kinds of life, neither are there two kinds of justification. No doubt there are various measures of enjoyment of this justification, various degrees in the knowledge of its fullness and extent, various degrees in the ability to exhibit its power upon the heart and life; and these things are frequently confounded with the justification itself, which as being divine is necessarily eternal, absolute, unvarying, entirely unaffected by the fluctuation of human feeling and experience.
But further, there is no such thing as progress in justification. The believer is not more justified today than he was yesterday, nor will he be more justified tomorrow than he is today; yea, a soul who is in Christ Jesus is as completely justified as if he were before the throne. He is complete in Christ; he is as Christ; he is, on Christ’s own authority, “clean every whit” (John 13:1010Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. (John 13:10)). What more could he be at this side of the glory? He may, and if he walks in the Spirit will, make progress in the sense and enjoyment of this glorious reality, but as to the thing itself, the moment he by the power of the Holy Spirit believed the gospel, he passed from a positive state of unrighteousness and condemnation into a positive state of righteousness and acceptance. All this is based upon the divine perfectness of Christ’s work, just as in the case of the burnt offering the worshipper’s acceptance was based upon the acceptableness of his offering. It was not a question of what he was, but simply of what the sacrifice was. “It shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.”
“And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron’s 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.” It is most needful in studying the doctrine of the burnt offering to bear in mind that the grand point set forth therein is not the meeting of the sinner’s need, but the presentation to God of that which was infinitely acceptable to Him. Christ, as foreshadowed by the burnt offering, is not for the sinner’s conscience but for the heart of God. Further, the cross in the burnt offering is not the exhibition of the exceeding hatefulness of sin, but of Christ’s unshaken and unshakable devotedness to the Father. Neither is it the scene of God’s out-poured wrath on Christ the sin-bearer, but of the Father’s unmingled complacency in Christ, the voluntary and most fragrant sacrifice. Finally, atonement as seen in the burnt offering is not merely commensurate with the claims of man’s conscience, but with the intense desire of the heart of Christ to carry out the will and establish the counsels of God, a desire which stopped not short of surrendering up His spotless precious life as a voluntary offering of sweet savor to God.
From the carrying out of this desire, no power of earth or hell, men or devils, could shake Him. When Peter ignorantly sought to dissuade Him by words of false tenderness from encountering the shame and degradation of the cross — “Pity thyself, Lord: this shall not be unto thee” — what was the reply? “Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art an offense unto Me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matt. 16:22-2322Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. 23But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. (Matthew 16:22‑23)). So also on another occasion He says to His disciples, “Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do” (John 14:3030Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. (John 14:30)). These and numerous other kindred scriptures bring out the burnt offering phase of Christ’s work, in which it is evident the primary thought is His offering Himself without spot to God.
In full keeping with all that has been stated, in reference to the special point in the burnt offering, is the place which Aaron’s sons get and the functions assigned them therein. They sprinkle the blood, they put the fire upon the altar, they lay the wood in order upon the fire, they lay the parts, the head and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar. These are very prominent actions, and they form a marked feature of the burnt offering as contrasted with the sin offering, in which Aaron’s sons are not mentioned at all. The sons of Aaron represent the church, not as “one body,” but as a priestly house. This is easily apprehended. If Aaron was a type of Christ, then Aaron’s house was a type of Christ’s house, as we read in Hebrews 3, “But Christ as a son over His own house; whose house are we.” And again, “Behold I and the children whom God hath given Me.” Now it is the privilege of the church as led and taught by the Holy Spirit to gaze upon and delight in that aspect of Christ which is presented in this opening type of Leviticus. “Our fellowship is with the Father,” who graciously calls us to participate with Him in His thoughts about Christ. True we can never rise to the height of those thoughts, but we can have fellowship therein by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. It is not here a question of having the conscience tranquillized by the blood of Christ as the sin-bearer, but of communion with God in the matter of Christ’s perfect surrender of Himself on the cross.
“The priests, Aaron’s 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.” Here we have a type of the church bringing the memorial of an accomplished sacrifice, and presenting it in the place of individual approach to God. But we must remember it is the blood of the burnt offering and not of the sin offering. It is the church in the power of the Holy Spirit entering into the stupendous thought of Christ’s accomplished devotedness to God, and not a convicted sinner entering into the value of the blood of the sin-bearer. I need hardly say that the church is composed of sinners, and convicted sinners too, but Aaron’s sons do not represent convicted sinners but worshipping saints. It is as priests they have to do with the burnt offering. Many err as to this. They imagine that because one takes the place of a worshipper, being invited by the grace of God and fitted by the blood of Christ so to do, he thereby refuses to acknowledge himself a poor worthless sinner. This is a great mistake. The believer is in himself nothing at all. But in Christ he is a purged worshipper. He does not stand in the sanctuary as a guilty sinner, but as a worshipping priest clothed in garments of glory and beauty. To be occupied with my guilt in the presence of God is not humility as regards myself, but unbelief as regards the sacrifice.
However, it must be very evident to my reader that the idea of sin-bearing, the imputation of sin, the wrath of God, does not appear in the burnt offering. True we read, “it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him,” but then it is atonement not according to the depths and enormity of human guilt, but according to the perfection of Christ’s surrender of Himself to God and the intensity of God’s delight in Christ. This gives us the very loftiest idea of atonement. If I contemplate Christ as the sin offering, I see atonement made according to the claims of divine justice with respect to sin. But when I see atonement in the burnt offering, it is according to the measure of Christ’s willingness and ability to accomplish the will of God, and according to the measure of God’s complacency in Christ and His work. What a perfect atonement must that be which is the fruit of Christ’s devotion to God! Could there be anything beyond this? Assuredly not. The burnt offering aspect of atonement is that about which the priestly household may well be occupied in the courts of the Lord’s house forever.
“And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.” The ceremonial act of flaying was peculiarly expressive. It was simply the removing of the outward covering in order that what was within might be fully revealed. It was not sufficient that the offering should be outwardly without blemish, the hidden parts should be all disclosed in order that every sinew and every joint might be seen. It was only in the case of the burnt offering that this action was specially named. This is quite in character, and tends to set forth the depth of Christ’s devotedness to the Father. It was no mere surface work with Him. The more the secrets of His inner life were disclosed, the more the depths of His being were explored, the more clearly was it made manifest that pure devotion to the will of His Father and earnest desire for His glory were the springs of action in the great Antitype of the burnt offering. He was most assuredly a whole burnt offering.
“And cut it into his pieces.” This action presents a somewhat similar truth to that taught in the sweet incense beaten small (Lev. 16). The Holy Spirit delights to dwell upon the sweetness and fragrance of the sacrifice of Christ, not only as a whole, but also in all its minute details. Look at the burnt offering as a whole, and you see it without blemish; look at it in all its parts, and you see it to be the same. Such was Christ; and as such He is shadowed forth in this important type.
“And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire: and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar.” This was a high position for the priestly family. The burnt offering was wholly offered to God — it was all burnt upon the altar. Man did not partake of it; but the sons of Aaron the priest, themselves being likewise priests, are here seen standing round the altar of God to behold the flame of an acceptable sacrifice ascending to Him — an odor of sweet smell. This was a high position, high communion, a high order of priestly service, a striking type of the church having fellowship with God in reference to the perfect accomplishment of His will in the death of Christ. As convicted sinners we gaze on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and behold therein that which meets all our need. The cross in this aspect of it gives perfect peace to the conscience. But then as priests, as purged worshippers, as members of the priestly family, we can look at the cross in another light, even as the grand consummation of Christ’s holy purpose to carry out even unto death the will of the Father. As convicted sinners we stand at the brazen altar and find peace through the blood of atonement, but as priests we stand there to behold and admire the completeness of that burnt offering, the perfect surrender and presentation of the spotless One to God.
The Hebrew word which is rendered “burn” in connection with the sin offering signifies to burn in general, and occurs in the following passages. “Let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly” (Gen. 11:33And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. (Genesis 11:3)). “And Moses diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and, behold, it was burnt” (Lev. 10:1616And Moses diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and, behold, it was burnt: and he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron which were left alive, saying, (Leviticus 10:16)). “And they made a very great burning for him” (2 Chron. 16:1414And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odors and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' art: and they made a very great burning for him. (2 Chronicles 16:14)).
Thus, not only was the sin offering burnt in a different place, but a different word is adopted by the Holy Spirit to express the burning of it. Now we cannot imagine for a moment that this distinction is a mere interchange of words, the use of which is indifferent. I believe the wisdom of the Holy Spirit is as manifest in the use of the two words as it is in any other point of difference in the two offerings. The spiritual reader will attach the proper value to the above most interesting distinction.)
We should have a very defective apprehension of the mystery of the cross were we only to see in it that which meets man’s need as a sinner. There were depths in that mystery which only the mind of God could fathom. It is therefore important to see that when the Holy Spirit would furnish us with foreshadowings of the cross, He gives us in the very first place one which sets it forth in its aspect to God-ward. This alone would be sufficient to teach us that there are heights and depths in the doctrine of the cross which man never could reach. He may approach to “that one well-spring of delight,” and drink forever, he may satisfy the utmost longings of his spirit, he may explore it with all the powers of the renewed nature, but after all there is that in the cross which only God could know and appreciate. Hence it is that the burnt offering gets the first place. It typifies Christ’s death as viewed and valued by God alone. And surely we may say we could not have done without such a type as this, for not only does it give us the highest possible aspect of the death of Christ, but it also gives us a most precious thought in reference to God’s peculiar interest in that death. The very fact of His instituting a type of Christ’s death, which was to be exclusively for Himself, contains a volume of instruction for the spiritual mind.
But though neither man nor angel can ever fully sound the amazing depths of the mystery of Christ’s death, we can at least see some features of it which would needs make it precious beyond all thought to the heart of God. From the cross He reaps His richest harvest of glory. In no other way could He have been so glorified as by the death of Christ. In Christ’s voluntary surrender of Himself to death, the divine glory shines out in its fullest brightness. In it, too, the solid foundation of all the divine counsels was laid. This is a most comforting truth. Creation never could have furnished such a basis. Moreover, the cross furnishes a righteous channel through which divine love can flow. And, finally, by the cross, Satan is eternally confounded, and principalities and powers made a show of openly. These are glorious fruits produced by the cross; and, when we think of them we can see just reason why there should have been a type of the cross exclusively for God Himself, and also a reason why that type should occupy the leading place — should stand at the very top of the list. Again, let me say, there would have been a grievous blank among the types had the burnt offering been lacking; and there would be a grievous blank in the page of inspiration had the record of that type been withheld.
“But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord.” This action rendered the sacrifice typically, what Christ was essentially — pure; both inwardly and outwardly pure. There was the most perfect correspondence between Christ’s inward motives and His outward conduct. The latter was the index of the former. All tended to the one point, namely, the glory of God. The members of His body perfectly-obeyed and carried out the counsels of His devoted heart — that heart which only beat for God, and for His glory, in the salvation of men. Well, therefore, might the priest “burn all on the altar.” It was all typically pure, and all designed only as food for the altar of God. Of some sacrifices the priest partook; of some, the offerer; but the burnt offering was “all” consumed on the altar. It was exclusively for God. The priests might arrange the wood and the fire, and see the flame ascend; and a high and holy privilege it was so to do. But they did not eat of the sacrifice. God alone was the object of Christ, in the burnt offering aspect of His death. We cannot be too simple in our apprehension of this. From the moment that the unblemished male was voluntarily presented at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, until it was reduced to ashes by the action of the fire, we discern in it Christ offering Himself by the eternal Spirit, without spot to God.
This makes the burnt offering unspeakably precious to the soul. It gives us the most exalted view of Christ’s work. In that work God had His own peculiar joy, a joy into which no created intelligence could enter. This must never be lost sight of. It is unfolded in the burnt offering, and confirmed by the law of the burnt offering, to which we shall just refer.
“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it. And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar. And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place. And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it, and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offering. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out” (Lev. 6:8-138And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 9Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it. 10And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar. 11And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place. 12And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings. 13The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out. (Leviticus 6:8‑13)). The fire on the altar consumed the burnt offering and the fat of the peace offering. It was the apt expression of divine holiness which found in Christ, and His perfect sacrifice, a proper material on which to feed. That fire was never to go out. There was to be the perpetual maintenance of that which set forth the action of divine holiness. Through the dark and silent watches of the night the fire blazed on the altar of God.
“And the priest shall put on his linen garment.” Here the priest takes in type the place of Christ, whose personal righteousness is set forth by the white linen garment. He, having given Himself up to the death of the cross in order to accomplish the will of God, has entered in His own eternal righteousness into heaven bearing with Him the memorials of His finished work. The ashes declared the completion of the sacrifice and God’s acceptance thereof. Those ashes placed beside the altar indicated that the fire had consumed the sacrifice, that it was not only a completed, but also an accepted sacrifice. The ashes of the burnt offering declared the acceptance of the sacrifice. The ashes of the sin offering declared the judgment of the sin.
Many of the points on which we have been dwelling will with the divine blessing come before us with increasing clearness, fullness, precision, and power as we proceed with the offerings. Each offering is, as it were, thrown into relief by being viewed in contrast with all the rest. All the offerings taken together give us a full view of Christ. They are like so many mirrors, arranged in such a manner as to reflect in various ways the figure of that true and only perfect sacrifice.
No one type could fully present Him. We needed to have Him reflected in life and in death, as a man and as a victim, to God-ward and to us-ward; and we have Him thus in the offerings of Leviticus. God has graciously met our need; and may He give us an enlarged capacity to enter into and enjoy His provision.