Leviticus 6:8-13
“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-offerings. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; if shall never go out.”-Lev. 6:8-13
The law of the burnt-offering is introduced here because there are peculiar directions given to the priest respecting the removing of the ashes; and a peculiar dress worn by him on that occasion. The burnt-offering, or, " ascending-offering," is here defined to be such, " because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it." An unusual word is here used for burning, (Heb. yahkad,) and found only in this chapter, verses 9, 12, 13, with respect to sacrifice. It is elsewhere used in Scripture, but always in connection with the thought of burning in judgment. See Dent. 32: 22; Isa. 10:16; Jer. 15:11;17: 4. It may be, that the reason of its being introduced in connection with the altar of burnt-offering, is to include the thought of that altar being a place of judgment with respect to the victims consumed on it; although the great thought connected with this altar, is that it was an altar from which a sweet savor ascended to God. As to the other words used in the Hebrew for burning, see page 366 of this work. The Spirit of God would have us ever remember the solemn fact, that the death of our blessed Lord was a death under judgment, although at the same time it was the perfection of obedience, and most acceptable as a sweet savor to God.
Twice are the words repeated, " the fire of the altar shall be burning in it," ver. 9 and 'I 2. This apparently refers to the victim: the fire of the altar shall always be burning in the burnt-offering; all night unto the morning. The camp of Israel rested securely all night under the shelter of the evening lamb upon the altar. They could repose without fear, for there was a sweet savor on their behalf ever ascending to God. There was a beacon fire kept burning for the eye of God to rest upon, and no enemy could prevail-no power of darkness could harm them, because of the protection afforded them through that sacrifice.
Throughout the night of this world until the morning of the resurrection dawns, our shelter, our protection is the sweet savor of the sacrifice of Christ. Our watchful High Priest ever perpetuates the fragrance of His death in the glory for us. And thus we securely rest under the shadow of the Almighty.
The priest had a peculiar linen garment which he put on, and his linen breeches upon his flesh when he took up the ashes which the fire had consumed, the ashes of the burnt-offering. This garment was of linen, (bad) the same material as was used for the linen breeches-see page 304 of this work. What the difference was between the linen (shesh) used in the curtains, etc., of the tabernacle, and also in the high priest's dress for glory and beauty; and the linen (bad) of which this garment and the garments for atonement (Lev. 16) were made, cannot now be satisfactorily ascertained. It may be that the "shesh," was a fine cotton, like the muslin of modern days-whilst the "bad" was fine flax, the linen of our time.
But whatever may have been the material, it would seem that a special, fine white garment was required when the priest was brought into close contact with the death of the victim. The ashes removed from the altar were evidence of death having wrought its utmost. The fire from God had consumed to ashes the lamb, and nothing remained of the sacrifice but that which manifested that the whole of it had been fed upon by the fire, and all had ascended to God as a sweet savor. The priest in this especial white linen dress. carefully removed the ashes from the altar, and put them beside the altar. This expression, " beside the altar" occurs also in Lev. 1:16; and 10:12. In the 1 Chap. ver. 16, " the place of ashes," is said to be " beside the altar on the east part." The rising sun would cast its light upon " the place of ashes," where the priest was pouring out the fresh ashes just taken from the altar.
Does not this type allude to the death of Christ, evidenced by His lifeless body being taken down from the cross. If we read the Gospels on the subject, we shall find how carefully the Spirit of God marks the complete extinction of life in the blessed Lord. Joseph of Arimathea came to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. " Pilate marveled, if he were already dead: and calling unto him the Centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead." This Centurion was evidently the one in command at the crucifixion of the Lord, who had witnessed all the' circumstances of the Lord's death; and who had heard His expiring cry, and had been led thereby to exclaim, " truly this man was the Son of God." He had also seen the fact of the death of Jesus doubly confirmed by the act of one of the soldiers piercing the side of the Lord, so that he could give full evidence to Pilate as to the death of Christ.
" And when he knew it of the Centurion he gave the body to Joseph."
The early morning light of the rising sun shining on the ashes, made it manifest that the Lamb had been entirely consumed. The sun arose as usual upon the morning of the sabbath which succeeded the day of Christ's crucifixion, and shone upon a cross, from which the slain Lamb of God had been taken away; and upon a sepulcher, wherein lay the body of Jesus. The sun in the heavens is witness to the death of its Creator.
The priest having laid the ashes beside the altar, in the place of ashes on the east part, then put off his linen garments and put on other garments, and carried forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place.
This clean place outside the camp is the same as that in which the sin-offerings were burnt. " The whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt." Lev. 4:12.
The word poured with respect to the ashes, is the substantive of the verb used for the pouring all the blood of the sin-offerings at the bottom of the altar. Ex. 29:12; Lev. 4:7,18,25,30, 34. Thus the pouring out of the ashes outside the camp would be connected with the pouring out of the blood at the bottom of the altar, and the burning of the sin-offering outside the camp. It would be another mode of expressing the entire pouring out of the life of the blessed Lord; the shedding of His blood as the atoning sacrifice; the sin-offering outside the camp.
This command to carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place, may have some reference to the burial of the Lord. His burial was the fullest evidence of His death. The place where He was buried was a garden, in the place where He was crucified. In the garden there was a new sepulcher hewn out of a rock, " hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid." " Wherein was never man yet laid." Luke 23:53; John 19:41.
The sepulcher wherein the Lord lay answered the requirements of a clean place. No corrupt body of fallen man had ever lain there. And such being the case, the resurrection of the Lord could not be blasphemously attributed to the resurrection of another person.
The burial of the Lord Jesus is part of the Gospel. " Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. 1 Cor. 15:1-4.
It was foretold by Isaiah, "and he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death." liii. 9. His grave was in a garden which was close to, and seems to have formed part of Golgotha, the place where He was crucified, so described in John 19:41; it is also added, " the sepulcher was nigh at hand.' ver. 42, so that His body could be interred quickly.
This will account for the portion of the verse where it is said " he made his grave with the wicked;" the word wicked being in the plural number. The graves of the malefactors who suffered on Golgotha being probably dug close to the place of their execution, and therefore near the garden in which was Joseph's new tomb. It is added, " and with the rich." And here we may observe the accuracy of prophetic Scripture.
The word rich is in the singular-" the rich one "whereas the word wicked is in the plural-" wicked ones." It was in the sepulcher of a rich man-(" when the even was come there came a rich man of Arimathxa named Joseph," Matt. 27:57,)-that the Lord made His grave.
"In His death," or as the margin has it, "in His deaths," the only place in the Scripture where the word death occurs in the plural. Is it not so expressed because the Lord Jesus suffered death according to all the fearful variety of pain and judgment which can be inflicted by the King of Terrors?
The only direct allusions to the burial of the Lord uttered by Himself during His lifetime are, when speaking of Jonah as a sign. He said " As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Matt. 12:40. And when anointed in Bethany, recorded in three of the Gospels, Matt. 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-8; He speaks of it, as for His burial. On comparing the Gospels which relate the circumstances of the Lord being anointed, according to Matthew and Mark, the woman anointed His head. According to the account in John, Mary anointed His feet. In the two former Gospels the Lord speaks of the ointment as having been poured on His body. "For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial." " She hath done what she could, she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying." And in John, " Then said Jesus, let her alone, against the day of my burying hath she kept this." This was the only anointing for the tomb which the Lord had; for although we read in John 19 that Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, and that the body of Jesus was wound in linen clothes with the spices, yet this was not anointing the body. And we find that the women from Galilee prepared spices and ointments, and brought them to anoint Him on the first day of the week, but found the sepulcher empty, and were told that He was risen.
May there not have been in this act of anointing the Lord's head and feet, (and in so doing His body,) a foreshadowing of the costly value and sweet savor of His death which belongs to every member of the body of Christ in resurrection. The odor of that very precious sacrifice fills the house of God; and each member of Christ's body, of His flesh and of His bones, from the foot to the head, is accepted and loved by god according to the unspeakable value of Him who gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor."
How we see the old things of the law rapidly coming to their close as the death of the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, drew nigh; as the new eternal things were about to be established. Caiaphas breathes out a last utterance of wondrous import, in which all prophetic power of the Aaronic priesthood finally ceased. " Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." John 11:49,50.
Subsequently it would seem that the high priest committed a breach of the very law that constituted him priest; so that he not only made void his priesthood, but even exposed himself to the sentence of death. He rent his priestly clothes in the act of condemning Him, who through that very death to which he condemned Him, was to be raised up a High Priest forever, after a new and eternal order.
" And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.
" Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
" Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He bath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.
" What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death."-Matt. 26:63-66.
" Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
" And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
" Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses?
" Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death."-Mark 14:61-64.
This rending of the high priest's clothes was forbidden: first, in Lev. 10:6, " uncover not your heads neither rend your clothes, lest ye die," and subsequently a distinct precept was given to that effect-'• the high priest among his brethren, _upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head, nor rend his clothes."-Lev. 21:10.
Although in both these cases the prohibition is made in connection with mourning for the dead, yet the very fact of such being the case, would seem to imply that he must not do so on any other occasion. If in the first natural outburst of grief, because of a deep domestic sorrow, he was threatened with death if he rent his clothes, surely such an act could not be permitted under any other circumstances.
Whilst the Lord lay in the tomb, the last Sabbath day under the law was observed. We read no more of the keeping of that day in the Acts or in the Epistles. It is emphatically said in Luke 23:56, " that the women returned (from the sepulcher) and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment." The chief Priests and Pharisees on the other hand broke the Sabbath by sealing the stone and setting the watch over the sepulcher of Jesus. It is distinctly said that they came to Pilate the day that followed the day of preparation, the day of preparation being the day before the Sabbath. Matt. 27:62-66; Mark 15:42. What a strange rest was this last Sabbath! The last day of a creation week, when originally the morning stars had sung together, and the Sons of God had shouted for joy, at beholding the handy work of the Son of God. But how still, how silent all song and shout, whether in heaven or in earth. What a strange pause, an interval between the passing away of the old things and the beginning of the new: not a real Sabbath of rest and joy. Truly old things have now passed away: the Lord is risen indeed, and the law which made nothing perfect has been changed. A better hope has been brought in, established upon an entire change of priesthood. We have an everlasting High Priest, an everlasting righteousness, an everlasting salvation, an everlasting covenant, an everlasting redemption, everlasting life. We are dwelt in by an eternal Spirit, and we are entering into God's eternal rest.