“Jehovah spake to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, This [is] the law of the sin offering” (Lev. 6:24). “In the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered, the sin offering shall be slaughtered before Jehovah: it [is] most holy. The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it; it shall be eaten in a holy place, in the court of the tent of meeting. Whatsoever toucheth the flesh thereof shall be holy; and if there be sprinkled of the blood thereof on a garment, that whereon it was sprinkled thou shalt wash in a holy place. But the earthen vessel wherein it was sodden shall be broken; and if it was sodden in a copper vessel it shall be both scoured and rinsed in water. Every male among the priests shall eat thereof: it [is] most holy. And no sin offering whereof blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement in the holy [place] shall be eaten: it shall be burnt with fire” (Lev. 6:25-30, trans. by WK).
No slight even in appearance could be tolerated in the sin offering. Undoubtedly it had a character as remote as possible from the burnt offering, as the burnt offering was to impart acceptance, while the sin offering dealt with positive sin. But the sin offering must be slaughtered before Jehovah in the place where the burnt offering was slaughtered. So indeed Christ alone was the adequate fulfillment of both in His death on the cross.
He Was Made Sin for Us
God’s grace alone gave Him — one with the Father and His dearest object throughout eternity. On earth too He became flesh, yet He was the Holy One of God. But never was holiness so proven as when God made Him sin for us, who knew no sin. Always absolutely separate to God from all evils and doing nothing but the things which pleased His Father, on the cross He gave Himself up without reserve to God and His glory, to suffer the judgment of sin, cost what it might. It cost Him everything, even what was the most extreme horror to Him who, being His beloved Son, became His righteous Servant, the true and faithful Witness. What was it for Him, abandoned by disciples, rejected by Israel, crucified by Gentiles, to cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” The only answer is, “He was made sin for us.”
The Priest Ate It
“The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it.” The offering points to none other than Christ, and in His eating the sin offering is meant His identification with him for whom the offering was presented. If holiness was conspicuous in the victim and righteousness in the judgment executed, what grace was in Christ, thus making the offerer’s sin His own! The offering priest’s eating the sin offering is realized in Christ, but it is as alive again — in resurrection, as here it was directed to be eaten in a holy place, in the court of the tent of meeting.
But verse 29 lets us into a truth far larger than verse 26, though not to be compared for its depth. “Every male among the priests shall eat thereof”; it was not confined to the offering priest. All the priestly males were to eat of it. Those who have access to God are called to identify themselves with a brother’s sin; as Christ does preeminently, so they are to follow—strong in the grace that is in Him, confessing another’s sin as their own. Here also it will be observed that we have the repetition of “it is most holy.” How important this is! Many a male among the priests might on the one hand forget to eat, as did Eleazar and Ithamar (Lev. 10:16-18); others more profane still might grievously transgress in their eating, like Eli’s sons (1 Sam. 2:12-17), so that men abhorred the offering of Jehovah. Indeed “it is most holy” and to be eaten only in a holy place.
The Whole Congregation
Verse 30 draws the line between these ordinary sin offerings, where the priests thus partook of them, and the more solemn cases wherein the victim was burned in a clean place without the camp, the blood being carried into the sanctuary for propitiation. So it was, if either the anointed priest sinned or the whole congregation, as in the earlier cases of Leviticus 4. In neither did the priests eat, for in both of these, communion for all was interrupted and must be restored. And the contrast is yet more marked in the day of atonement, when the foundation was laid for all, priests and people, during the year. All fasted, none ate, on that day. There was another exception, characteristic of the wilderness and therefore only given in Numbers 19, that of the red heifer. It was wholly burned without the camp, and the ashes were kept as a purification for sin. It has its own distinctive traits, full of instruction spiritually for us of heavenly calling as exposed to the defilement of the desert world through which we pass to the rest of God.
When therefore it was a question of propitiating blood brought into the sanctuary, there was no eating on the part of the priests. The victim was burned without the camp. How brightly and on both its sides was this fulfilled in Christ, glorified within, crucified without! Our place is with Him in both respects. Where it was the restoration of an individual, the priests were called to eat of the sin offering, as we now sympathize in loving intercession.
W. Kelly (adapted)