In this chapter we begin with a trespass against the Lord in one lying to his neighbor in connection with that which had been delivered to him to keep, or anything taken away in violence, or in deceiving his neighbor; or lying about what he had found.
What a terrible thing it is to lie about anything; to tell what is not true,
We can see that people have not changed one bit, for ‘this was written about 3500 years ago and people are just the same today as then, and the terrible thing is that some do not think anything, of it, but we see how God hates sin of any kind and cannot allow it in His presence. yet He loves His creatures, and He has done everything necessary for them, so that they may come into His ‘presence and be accepted there. He has now given His Son to die for us, and thus bear the punishment for our sins, so that our sins may be blotted out. God has said, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Isa. 33:25.
What a God to love us like that! He is too righteous to pass over our sins, and He is too holy to allow them in His presence. In order to maintain these characters, and to show His love for us, He gave the dearest object of His heart in our stead, rather than have us bear what we deserved.
Another lesson in this portion we must mention, and that is, we must make amends for the harm we have done. We always reap in this life what we sow.
If therefore we know that the Lord Jesus has borne the result of our sins for eternity, we must remember we reap the result in this life of what we do that is wrong.
This section is occupied with the law of the various offerings mentioned previously. Christ’s personal holiness is particularly brought out in the sin offering. thus bringing before us a perfect picture of Christ as the competent One to be the sacrifice for sin. It is good to see the essential holiness of Christ as displayed at the cross of Calvary.
All the detail is full of meaning, but we cannot enter into it in this little paper, though we trust the hints we are giving may be used to cause the earnest reader to search into its depths, and there find Christ as the subject.
We would now draw attention to chapter 7:26-27.
In these days many do not think anything about eating blood, but, remember, dear children, God has strictly forbidden everybody to do so, and that not as a ceremonial law for His people Israel only, but back in Noah’s time, when he came out of the ark, God forbade the eating of blood, because it is the life. (Look at Gen. 9:44But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. (Genesis 9:4)).
We shall now go back over the portion we said so little about last week. We come to the “laws”, or rules about the offerings; they are mostly about the priests eating what was offered. But as we have seen before, the “burnt offering”, which told of the Lord Jesus devoting Himself to die, was wholly burned; no part was left for the priest’s food. Only God can really appreciate what it meant for Him. The fire on the altar was, however, to be kept burning all through the long dark night until the morning; it was to be always burning, and must never be put out. The priest who took the ashes off the altar, had to put on linen clothes when he did so, and even when the ashes were carried away, they were to be put in a “clean place,” outside the camp.
These rules remind us, who are God’s children, that this time in which we are living, is called in God’s Word, the night. (John 9:4-54I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. (John 9:4‑5); 1 Thess. 5:4-84But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. 5Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. 6Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. 7For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. 8But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. (1 Thessalonians 5:4‑8); Rom. 13:12,12The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. (Romans 13:12) besides other scriptures). All through this long night, from the cross of Christ until His coming again, while the unsaved world is “asleep”, God has before Him the one sacrifice of His Son.
The “meat offering” again comes second; we have noticed that it tells of the holy human nature of the Lord Jesus. Except the memorial of it, which was burned on the altar, this formed part of the priests’ food.
All true Christians are priests, and so if you and I belong to Jesus, we ought to be enjoying God’s Word. Do you, my reader, love to read the four Gospels— Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,—with their deeply interesting chapters about the Lord?
If you are not a Christian,. I am quite sure that you cannot enjoy reading the Bible, but if you are one, I hope you are learning more and more about the Lord Jesus, through reading it constantly. It is in that way the Christian’s food; the Lord is its theme.
The priests could not eat the meat offering . with “leaven”, but with unleavened bread. You will remember that leaven in the Bible is always a type of sin. Christians should be careful what they allow in their lives. Besides, the priests could eat this food only in the holy place of the tabernacle.. We cannot go on with the Lord, and the world together.
Verses 19-23 again present the Lord Jesus, offering Himself wholly to God.
I must tell you one thing more about this beloved Son. He is coming again to punish all those who refuse His offers of mercy and forgiveness. ‘Do not you then be one of them. Come now—come as you are, receive His message, and follow Him home when He calls you.
The Lord Jesus, when dying on the cross, was both the burnt offering, and the sin offering; and so in the place where the burnt offering was killed, the sin and trespass offerings had to be killed also, to show to faith that there was but one true offering to God for atonement for sin.
Twice the sin offering, and twice the trespass offering here are called “most holy”. In the third verse of the 22nd Psalm, we read,
“But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” This Psalm was written to tell us the thoughts of the Lord when afterwards He was the real sin offering. It is because’ God is holy that sin must be punished, but in our chapters in Leviticus, the offering is called “most holy”. It is the Lord Jesus, when looked upon as the sin, or trespass offering. He ever was holy, and never more so than when charged with the sins of His people on the cross.
The Lord Jesus, being both the sin offering, and the person to whom the priest of verse 26 answers, made our sin His own; this is shown in the priest’s eating the sin offering. The Lord was “wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Isa. 53:55But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5).
The peace offering here follows the sin offering. In the third chapter it was before it, but now the order is different, because we could not give thanks to God, (the peace offering might be called the thanksgiving offering), until we knew that our sins had been taken away by the dying of Jesus. This giving of thanks here includes unleavened cakes, and wafers mingled and anointed with oil, to picture the holy human nature of the Lord. Yet the 13th verse adds, “Leavened bread,” because the believer’s thanksgiving falls short of the perfection of Jesus,
The food of the peace offering had to be eaten the same day, though in some cases it might be eaten on the second day. Having to do with God at first hand, in prayer and in reading and meditating on His Word, is necessary every day. Every day, the young Christian, and the old one as well, should begin the day with getting into the presence of God; communion depends on this.
A Christian cannot go on in ways displeasing to the Lord, and present the peace, or thanksgiving offering. (verses 20-21).
The “wave breast”, and the “heave shoulder,” emblems of the love and mighty power of God, belonged to the priests.