Leviticus. 4
I would not now make many remarks on this instructive type of our Lord Jesus as the substitute for our sins, but would content myself on such an occasion as this with drawing attention to a few points of great interest which might be overlooked. In the sin-offering the grand matter was this:—the removal of the sin from the offerer to a sacrifice that was able to bear it and suffer in his stead. It was the contrast of the burnt-offering. Hands were laid upon the head of the offering in both cases. But when a Jew brought his burnt-offering, the point was that the acceptance of the victim should be transferred to him. Thus as that unblemished offering ascended up to God, the sweet savor in which it arose before Jehovah was to be accepted for the man who had none of his own—who was nothing but a poor sinner. Hence we see the value of the offering in that case was transferred to the offerer; while in the sin-offering the converse appears—the offerer's evil was charged on the victim. His hands too were laid on the offering; but the guilt of the offerer was transferred to the victim—not the value of the victim transferred to the offerer. The consequence of this was that the victim when offered for sin did not as such rise up before God; because if the sin was transferred to the victim, the victim must be dealt with in judgment to the uttermost. Both are true to faith in Christ. But the result was very striking in this latter case, for God would show that the evil which was taken away from the sinner who offered (and yet more what was laid on Christ) involved the gravest consequences. Grace, righteousness, obedience—nothing in Christ, could hinder the effect of this substitution in the judgment of God. His was a real suffering for sin. If sin was a real thing, the judgment of it was no less real; and God has marked this.
Now there was just the difficulty—to maintain the proof of Christ's perfectness, even where God shows the consequences of our evil laid to His account.
These two conditions had to be met, and equally met in the sin-offering. Man never could have done it; indeed he is uncommonly slow to learn it even where it has been written by God before his eyes. We have all read and have all passed by these most striking lessons; but let us now notice that in the sin-offering where the victim was identified with the guilt of the offerer, this was provided; “the skin of the bullock and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung, even the whole bullock (the animal as such with a very slight exception), 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.” There was this sign in taking it without the camp, that the victim identified with the evil of the offerer had to be put away far from God. The camp was the place where the people of God were, as the sanctuary was where He Himself dwelt. To express thus the holy abhorrence of evil, not only could the sin-offering not be burnt near the sanctuary in the court but not even in the camp. It must be taken without the camp and there burnt solemnly in a clean place. This surely shows the transfer of the evil of the offerer to the victim in a most striking way.
But how is the sense of the perfectness of Christ kept up here? It would be an awful thing if, through any thought of deliverance from guilt by its transfer to Him, Christ got lowered in our souls. All the wickedness that man is capable of doing to his fellow is nothing like so bad as allowing the smallest injury to Christ. Beware of lowering the name and glory of the Son of God! God could easily replace all the men that ever were; but God Himself could not replace Christ. He is nearer to God than all the creatures of His hand and will; and He ought to be so to us. Anything that sullies Christ is in itself fatal. Now scripture in this most remarkably guards the honor of His name; for not only was there the greatest care that the sin-offering should be without blemish, but the blood of the bullock for sin was brought in, and put on the horns of the altar of sweet incense before Jehovah. Some was carried thus into the sanctuary, as well as the rest of it poured out “at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.” The object was to give the assurance to the offerer that his sin, being atoned for righteously, was forgiven.
In the first and second of the cases mentioned in this chapter (i.e., for the anointed priest, and for the whole congregation), some of the blood was put upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense. Thus it was manifest that not a priest could enter there without being able to see the witness that communion was restored.
Its blood was put upon the horns, the most conspicuous part of the altar. But there was another provision also, “He shall take off from it all the fat of the bullock for the sin-offering; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away, as it was taken off from the bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall burn them” —where? outside the camp? Nay, “the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering” —the altar, where whatever was for acceptance with Jehovah, whatever was a savor of rest to Him, was burnt. Thus we see God intimates how far from the truth it is that the offering was not intrinsically acceptable, for part of it was burnt upon the altar that speaks of acceptance, as certainly as the rest was taken without the camp and burnt there.
But let us remark another point. The part that was burnt was exceedingly significant, “the fat that covereth the inwards and all the fat that is upon the inwards.” If there is anything wrong with the creature, it is sure to be found in the inwards. There may even be a fair outside, but wherever there is thorough corruption, the more you go within, the more you find the evil core. On the other hand, where it was meant to show the good condition and the acceptability of a victim, it could not be done more expressively than by the burning of the fat of the inwards on the brazen altar. So with Christ. Outside He might be treated as the object of God's judgment, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree; but His blood was ever fit for God's acceptance and that which expressed the energy of His most inward feeling could not but rise as a savor of rest before Him. Never was Christ more the object of God's delight than at the moment when God abandoned Him for our sins upon the cross.
But another feature of the chapter may be noted before I close. There is no case except one where the sin is not said to be forgiven and an atonement made for it. When the whole congregation sinned and brought a bullock for the sin-offering, the sin was forgiven; when the ruler brought his sin-offering, the sin was forgiven; when one of the common people sinned and brought his offering, his sin was forgiven. Observe too, it is only in the case of a private man that God made an alternative. Only such an one might bring a kid or a lamb. When the high priest or the congregation sinned, it must be a bullock: nothing less sufficed. When the ruler sinned, it must be a he-kid and nothing else. But when one of the common people sinned, God's tender mercy provides for their need. They might happen to have only a kid or only a lamb: and God would take either. Such was His way of dealing with the poor, even under the law: what is it now in grace through Jesus Christ?
Now in one case it is remarkable that forgiveness is not stated, and in what circumstances is this? The priest that is anointed. Can there be anything more striking? The great point was both to provide adequately for one like Aaron, and to set forth Christ without dishonor to the spiritual mind. Now inasmuch as Christ had nothing to be forgiven, we can understand that this should be left out. Yet as Christ made Himself responsible for our sins in this sense He could not be forgiven, but must go through the judgment of God for the sins He undertook to bear. Thus in a twofold way the absence of the mention of forgiveness in this instance only seems most notable. In His own person He had of course no sin to be atoned for or forgiven; whereas, becoming responsible for us, He must bear all and could not be forgiven. He must suffer for sins, the just for the unjust. Thus the Spirit of God has united the fullest guard of the glory of Christ and the fullest comfort for the soul that believes, so that we may know our sins put away by a true atonement for them and ourselves forgiven. Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.