Leviticus 1.
In the offerings we get the purposes and provisions of God for His redeemed people—Christ revealing the heart of God, our Father, in meeting all our need. The very order of these offerings is blessed. The burnt-offering comes first; then the meat-offering; then the peace-offering; and, hast, the sin and trespass offerings. Yes, the order suggests the purpose of God to have us unblameable before Him at whatever cost. We may compare these four offerings to a picture gallery. There is God’s end of that, gallery, and there is man’s end afar off from God. God is revealed in what Christ is in the perfection of His Person and work, but in order that man, the sinner, may be brought to God, the? Holy One must be offered a sacrifice for sin. Hence, in the application of the offerings to the? sinner, or to man, the sin-offering comes first. In the Gospels we have, as it were, four distinct photographs of the Lord Jesus, and in these offerings distinct photographs or pictures of His work.
It will help us to understand the burnt-offering if we notice a few of the offerings, and the place they had from the beginning.
No sooner had our first parents sinned, than we read, “Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” (Gen. 3:21.) What a picture in a few words of the purpose of God, namely, through death to find a clothing, even divine righteousness, for lost and naked man. Does it not point to Him whom God raised from the dead, “Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification?”
In the offerings of the first sons of the human race we get what is, and what is not, acceptable to God. “Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his offering: but unto Cain, and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.” Now what was the difference between the two? The principle of Cain was to approach God by his own works, as though nothing was amiss. The principle of Abel was to approach God by faith in the death of a substitute. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts,” &c. Yes, God saw in that offering of Abel a type of the atoning death of His only-begotten Son, and therefore reckoned Abel righteous. We shall see throughout scripture how God responds to faith in the offering. It was not what Cain and Abel were in their own persons, but it was their offerings. You may be as sincere and as religious as Cain; you may bring that for which you have labored, to the true God, and yet be rejected, as he was. There is no way by which you can be accepted but through the death of Jesus.
We will take another case. “God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me.” God said this because He “saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Is not this assuredly the true character of man? Man in the flesh is so bad, God can have no hope in him. Death and the flood must pass upon the whole race. Noah and his family alone were saved through the judgment on the world. Believing the warning of God he became the heir of the righteousness which is by faith. On what principle then did God accept him, and bless him? Was it a new trial of man, or did God deal with him through the virtue of the sacrifice? When. Noah and his family went forth from the ark, “ Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savor.” Now the great question is this: Will God act according to the savor of the offerings, or will He act towards man according to what man is? If improved, will God bless him? and if not, will He curse him? What does the Lord say on this point? “And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease. And God blessed Noah and his sons.” How precious the ways of God in grace shine out here! As to man, there is evil in his heart from his youth. But the action of God flows from what the offering is to Him. Thus all blessing flows to us through the value, and sweet savor of the offering of Christ; yes, even all the earthly blessings man constantly enjoys, seed time, harvest, all; but how little man knows this! It is surely most important to understand this principle of the action of God toward us.
“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”
We shall see the force of this if we turn to the trial of Abraham’s faith. (Gen. 22) We must expect every bit of faith God gives to be tried. Abraham was commanded to offer up his son.
God says, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” Very wonderful was the obedience of faith: he rose up early in the morning. Very touching is the narrative. Then he took Isaac, and the wood, and the fire, and the knife; and all in faith that Isaac, though he die and be consumed on the altar, yet they shall return. And his faith looked forward. “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering: so they went both of them together.” “And Abraham built an altar there” (probably the very place where the beloved Son of God was nailed to the cross), “and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.” The son of Abraham was spared. God did not spare His Son! God did provide a lamb instead of Abraham’s son. “And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son.” And, as in the case of Abel and Noah, God now blesses Abraham according to the value He sees in the offering as pointing to Christ. Man is a sinner. The death of the offering opens up the way for the sinner to God, and removes the barrier betwixt God and the sinner. Only let us remember, this could never be done perfectly by the blood of bulls and goats; these were only types and shadows, all pointing forward to the precious blood of Christ. The propitiatory death of Christ is the basis, and explanation of God’s righteousness in all His past, as well as present, dealings with man.
Let us now, in this light, look at the burnt-offering in Lev. 1. In all these types it is the Lord that speaks; it is the Lord that reveals Himself—first in these types, and then in Jesus, the fulfillment of them. He spake from out of the tabernacle: the veil was not yet rent. The offering brought to the Lord, must (as it is written) be without spot. “If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord... if his offering be a burnt-sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord.” What a picture of Him, who became a man—one of us—who came of His own voluntary will to offer Himself. Who, of all that ever trod this sin-defiled earth, was the One, the only One, without blemish? Need we say His name was Jesus! Infinite, yet voluntary love. As one has said, “Who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Oh, the unknown depths of love, when He presented Himself at the door of the tabernacle to God, in all the spotless purity and perfectness of divine love, and said,” Father, glorify thy name.” That is the man, who presented Himself of His own voluntary will, to do the will of Him that sent Him, cost what it might. And was He not accepted for us? “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.”
We shall understand this better when we come to the sin-offering. There we shall see how Jesus became identified with us on the cross as the sin-offering, that we might be identified with Him in all the sweet savor of the burnt-offering. Only the absolute need of atonement must be seen even here, in order that we might be thus reconciled to God, and stand identified with Christ, faith, like the hand laid on the head of the victim, linking us with Christ, in ail the sweet savor of His Person and work. Yet in order for this He must die, or we could never be thus one with Him. The grain of wheat must die or remain alone. (John 12:24.) Thus God acts toward us, according to the value He sees in the perfect offering of Christ. “And it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him,” or he shall be accepted. Have you laid your hand on this, the firm and blessed ground of faith? He, who made atonement for me, has been accepted for me.
And now, can you say, “I am identified with Him, am one with Him?” Let us contemplate, meditate, on this type of the voluntary offering of Christ for us in all the infinite perfections of His blessed Person. This will bring out, more and more, the heart of God. His purpose is to have us in the likeness of His Son, the first-born among many brethren. His purpose is to bring us into favor in the Beloved. Oh, wondrous, infinite grace!