First of all then we are in presence of the holocaust or burnt-offering (Lev. 1). We have to learn that special aspect of the Lord in which He, “by the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself up without spot unto God.” This is the burnt-offering. There, if anywhere, it could be said that God was glorified in Him. Apart from this, Scripture nowhere says that God, as such, was glorified in the Son of Man until Christ gave Himself up to death. The Father had been glorified in Him in every step of His life; but our Lord Jesus refrains from saying that God was glorified in Him, until the fatal night when Judas goes out to betray Him to His murderers, and the whole scene is before His eyes (John 13), “He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
And this principle we find in a very lovely way brought before us in John 10. Undoubtedly He laid His life down for the sheep; but the believer who sees nothing more than this in the death of Christ has a great deal to learn. It is very evident he does not think much about God or His Anointed. He feels for himself and for others in similar wants. It is well that he should begin there unquestionably; but why should he stop with it? Our Lord Jesus Himself gives us the full truth of the matter, saying, “I am the good Shepherd, and know My [sheep], and am known of Mine; even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one flock, one shepherd.”
After these words, we come to what gives the more particular import of the burnt-offering in the total and willing surrender of Himself in death. “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again.” The only One who, as a man, had a right to life – to all blessedness and glory as a living man on the earth – is the only One entitled to lay down His life of Himself. And this He did – not merely for the sheep, but He laid it down of Himself; and yet He could say, “This commandment have I received of My Father.” It was in His own heart, and it was obedience too, absolutely, with trust in God. It was glorifying God in the very matter of death, and as we know, on account of sin – our sin.
Thus Christ glorified His God and Father in a world where His enemy reigned. It was the fullest proof of One who could confide for everything in Him who sent Him; and this He did. God was glorified in Him; and if the Son of man glorified Him, no wonder God glorified Him in Himself, and also that He straightway glorified Him. This He did by taking Christ up and setting Him at His own right hand in heaven. This of course is not the burnt-offering, but its consequence to Him who was so.
The burnt-offering exhibits the absolute devotedness of the Lord Jesus atoningly to death for the glory of God the Father. It is allowed fully that there is nothing here which seems to make blessing to man prominent. Were there no sin, there could be no burnt-offering, nothing to represent the complete surrender up of self unto God, even to death. But the expression of sin in its hatefulness and necessary banishment from God’s presence was reserved for another offering and even a contrasted class of offerings.
The prime thought here is, that all goes up as a savor of rest to God, who is therefore glorified in it. Hence it is that in the burnt-offering of this chapter, in what is called the meat-offering, and in the peace-offering, no question of compulsion enters. The offering was in nowise wrung out from Israel. So, as we see, in the words of our blessed Lord, no one took His life from Him; He laid it down of Himself. “If any man of you bring an offering unto Jehovah, ye shall bring your offering of the beasts, even of the herd and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt-sacrifice of the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it for his acceptance at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before Jehovah”; but there was no demand.
This is so much the more pointed, because from chapter 4 we find wholly different language. We enter on another character of offering there, as we anticipate for a moment. “If a soul shall sin,” it is written, “against any of the commandments of Jehovah, then let him bring for his sin,” so and so. This was an absolute requirement. There was no discretion left to the Israelite. It was not an open matter. He must do it; and accordingly it was defined in all respects. A person had no option in bringing what he liked. If he were a ruler, he must bring a certain kind of offering; if he were one of the common people, another kind was prescribed. There was both the command in the first place, and next the signifying of what must be brought to God in case of sin.
But all the earlier offerings in Leviticus 1-3, the burnt-offering, the oblation, and the peace-offering, were left to the heart of the offerer – were left open, and with the fullest consideration of the means. God would make no burden of that which should be a joy. It was the heart giving to Him what it might otherwise value, but what expressed at any rate its value for the Lord. How perfectly Jesus met this – how He surpassed all that it was possible for a type to represent – our souls know well. He gave Himself.
The offerer then brought for his olah, or burnt-sacrifice which ascended up to God the best animal of its kind according to his heart and means, of the herd or of the flock, of turtle-doves or of young pigeons. In the nobler forms (that is, when from the herd or flock) an unblemished male was taken, on the head of which the offerer laid his hand.
It is a mistake to suppose that this act in itself involves confession of sin, or was always accompanied by it. It was quite as often the sign of the conveyance of a blessing or official honor. And even if we look at it only as connected with sacrifices, it had an import in the burnt-offering quite different from its bearing in the sin-offering. Transfer there was in both; but in the former the offerer was identified with the acceptance of the victim; in the other the victim was identified with the confessed sin of the offerer. The sweet savor of the burnt-sacrifice represented him who offered it. The animal was killed before Jehovah. The priests sprinkled its blood round about upon the altar. The victim itself, if a bull, was flayed; if a bull, sheep, or goat, it was severed. The pieces, head, and fat, were set in order upon the wood on the fire of the altar; the inwards and legs were washed in water; and then the priest caused all to ascend in fumes on the altar, a fire-offering of sweet odor to Jehovah. All was laid open; and when in the victim any question of defilement could be, the washing of water made clean the parts, inward or outward, to be a fit type of the Holy One of God.
On another fact let me say a word in passing. Not only is there a tendency to confound things that differ, and to make Christ’s sacrifice to be solely one for our sin, for our wants before God, but there is in these various forms of the burnt-offering a little intimation, it seems to me, of that very tendency; for as we gradually go down it will be noticed that the offering approaches in some slight degree that which might be more appropriate for a sin-offering. “And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to Jehovah be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtle-doves, or of young pigeons. And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar. And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar.” There is not the whole animal going up to God in the same marked way as in the first case. That is, the lower the faith (which I suppose is what is meant by the sinking of the value of the offering) the more the offering approaches to the notion of one for our sins: we see what is unworthy and cast away as well as what goes up to God.