In the present paper our aim will be to present a sketch of the chief subjects of interest in the third book of Moses. Within our narrow limits, no more can be contemplated than a rapid survey of the leading and distinctive ideas, as far as they are understood by us. Hence, also, we shall make use of what is excellent and instructive in the “Synopsis,” rather than occupy space with a detail of errors and defects in this part of Dr. Fairbairn's “Typology.”
It is evident that the grand thought here is not, as in Exodus, the deliverance and redemption of God's people and their establishment, as such before Him, whether under the law, or under the mediatorial system of divine government, which gives room for figures which are the manifestation of God to man, and for such as set forth the presentation of man to God, both alike, and only, found in Christ. In Leviticus the characteristic theme is access to God—the means or forms of it (chap. 1-7); the persons charged with it (8, 9); the things suitable to those standing in such a relationship with God, and the discernment of what defiled (10-16); the provisions of the day of atonement for the purification of the sanctuary, the priesthood and the people (16); directions for guarding from impurity both people and priests, in their relations with God, with each other, or in any respect whatever (17-22); the entire circle of the feasts, viewed as God's assembling His people around Himself, and His ways towards them from first to last (22); then we have the intervention of the priesthood that there might be light before God, when darkness reigned without, and that the memorial of His people might be ever fragrant, side by side with the blasphemy of Jehovah's name that sprang from the union of an Israelite with an Egyptian, and its terrible doom. Next we have the sabbatical year, and the jubilee for the land, which God claimed as His own; and the blessed consequences for the heirs, as well as the inheritance. All pertained to Him, and He would surely, in due time, assert and make good His rights in their favor. No sale nor slavery should prevail when once the trumpet sounded on the part of God. If chap. 26 opens out the miserable consequences of setting at naught the principles which God had laid down for the intercourse of His people with Himself, it does not close without a promise that on their repentance, whatever their ruin, He will remember the covenant with the early and the later fathers, when he made known His name to them respectively, as Almighty and as Jehovah. The restoration of Israel will behold all the might and unchangeable purpose unfolded in both titles. The book concludes with the regulation of vows, according to the valuation of the priests.
Thus we may observe how justly Leviticus has been styled by some one, “the priest's instruction-book.” Accordingly, it is not the solemn utterance of God from Sinai, but “Jehovah called unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation.” (Lev. 1) He is in the midst of a people already recognized as His, and He is communicating His mind as to their due means of approaching Him Manifestly, the work of Christ furnishes the sole ground on which God could have such relations. The book, therefore, begins with the various figures whereby the Holy Ghost foreshadowed that work, in all its aspects to God and to His people. It is to be remarked, also, that God begins, not with that which most nearly touches the need of the sinner, but with the display of perfectness which satisfied His own heart, in Jesus devoting Himself, at all cost, to God's will, to death, even the death of the cross. In other words, whatever may be the result in blessing to the sinner, God begins with His Son giving Himself up without spot, that God might be glorified. Hence we see the key to the difference of the order here, and that which governs when the wants of man (priests, chap. 8 lepers, chap. 14 or any others) are in question. In these cases, the sin-offering has ever the first place; but in the original institution, where Christ is looked at rather than the sinner, it comes last.
The first great distinction, then, is between the offerings for sin and trespass, and those which precede them in the earlier chapters of Leviticus. The burnt-offerings, the meat-offerings, the peace-offerings, were alike offerings made by fire, of a sweet savor to the Lord; they represent, in various forms, the infinite perfectness of Christ's offering of Himself to God. On the other hand, the sin and trespass-offerings were charged and identified with sin, and were never viewed as offerings of a sweet savor. The very word which described their burning was distinct, as was the place; for, save in a very partial and exceptional instance, offerings for sin were burnt outside the camp.
Of the three voluntary offerings, which rose up variously indeed, but all as a sweet savor, and expressive of the perfectness of Christ and His sacrifice unto God, the Holocaust, or burnt-offering, is the first in order and importance. It was to be not only unblemished, but the best of its kind— “a male without blemish.” “Nothing can be more touching or more worthy of profound attention, than the manner in which Jesus thus voluntarily presents Himself, that God may be fully, completely, glorified in Him. Silent in His sufferings, we see that His silence was the result of a profound and perfect determination to give Himself up in obedience to this glory; a service, blessed be His name, perfectly accomplished, so that the Father rests in His love towards us.... So in the burnt offering, he who offered, offered of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Thus Christ presented Himself for the accomplishment of the purpose and glory of God. In the type, the victim and the offerer, were necessarily distinct: but Christ was both, and the hands of the offerer were laid on the head of the victim in sign of identity.” (Compare Psa. 40 with Heb. 10; John 10:18; 14:30, 3118No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. (John 10:18)
30Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. 31But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. (John 14:30‑31); Luke 9:5151And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, (Luke 9:51).) “How perfect and full of grace is this way of the Lord; as constant and devoted to draw near, when God should be thus glorified, and submit to the consequences of His devotedness, (consequences imposed by the circumstances in which we are placed,) as man was to depart from God for his pleasure. He humbles Himself to death, that the majesty and the love of God, His truth and righteousness may have their full accomplishment through the exercise of His self-devoting love.”
“The offering was to be made the subject of the fire of the altar of God; it was cut in pieces and washed, given up, according to the purification of the sanctuary, to the trial of the judgment of God; for fire as a symbol, signifies always the trial of the judgment of God. As to washing with water, it made the sacrifice typically what Christ was essentially—pure. But it has this importance that the sanctification of it and ours is on the same principle and on the same standard. We are sanctified unto obedience. He came to do the will of His Father, and so, perfect from the beginning, learns obedience by the things which He suffered; perfectly obedient always, but His obedience put ever more thoroughly to the test, so that His obedience was continually deeper and more complete: He learned obedience. It was new to Him as a divine person—to us as rebels to God—and He learned it in all its extent. Furthermore, this washing of water, in our case, is by the word, and Christ testifies of Himself that man should live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. This difference evidently and necessarily exists, that as Christ had life in Himself, and was the life (see John 1 and 5) we, on the other hand, receive this life from Him; and while ever obedient to the written word Himself, the words which flowed from His lips were the expression of His life—the direction of ours."...
“Here, then, Christ completely offered up to God for the full expression of His glory, undergoes the full trial of judgment. The fire tries what He is. He is salted with fire. The perfect holiness of God, in the power of his judgment, tries to the uttermost all that is in Him. The bloody sweat and affecting supplication in the garden, the deep sorrow of the cross, in the touching consciousness of righteousness, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?'—as to any lightening of the trial an unheeded cry—all mark the full trial of the Son of God. Deep answered unto deep—all Jehovah's waves and billows passed over Him. But as He had offered Himself perfectly to the thorough trial, this consuming fire and trying of His inmost thoughts did, could, produce naught but a sweet savor to God. It is remarkable that the word used for burning the burnt-offering is not the same as that of the sin-offering, but the same as that of burning incense. It is not in the sacrifice we are considering that He has the imposition of sin on Him, but the perfectness, purity and devotedness of the victim, and that ascending in sweet savor to God: in this acceptability—in the sweet savor of this sacrifice—we are presented to God. All the delight which God finds in the odor of this sacrifice—blessed thought!—we are accepted in. Is God perfectly glorified in this, in all that He is? He is glorified then in receiving us. Does He delight in what Christ is, in this His most perfect act? He so delights in us. Does this rise up before Him a memorial forever, in His presence, of delight? We also, in the efficacy of it, are presented to Him. It is not merely that the sins have been effaced by the expiatory act; but the perfect acceptability of Him who accomplished it, the sweet savor of His sinless sacrifice, is our good odor of delight before God, and is ours—its acceptance, even Christ, is ours. We are one with Him.”
The meat, or cake-offering, sets forth Christ as a living man here below, and this as offered up to God. “His offering shall be of fine flour; and He shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon.” “This meat-offering, taken from the fruit of the earth, was of the finest wheat. That which was pure, separate, and lovely in human nature was in Jesus under all its sorrows, but in all its excellence, and excellent in its sorrows. There was no unevenness in Jesus; no predominant quality to produce the effect of giving Him a distinctive character. He was, though despised and rejected of men, the perfection of human nature. The sensibilities, firmness, decision, (though that attached itself also to the principle of obedience), elevation, and calm meekness, which belong to human nature, all found their perfect place in Him. In a Paul I find energy and zeal; in a Peter ardent affection; in a John tender sensibilities and abstraction of thought, united to a desire to vindicate what he loved, which scarce knew limit. But this predominates in a Peter. In a Paul, blessed servant though he was, he does not repent, though he had repented. He had no rest in his spirit when he found not Titus, his brother. He goes off to Macedonia, though a door was opened in Troas. He wist not that it was the high priest. He is compelled to glory of himself. In him, in whom God was mighty towards the circumcision, we find the fear of man break through the faithfulness of his zeal. He who would have vindicated Jesus in his zeal, knew not what manner of spirit he was of, and would have forbidden the glory of God, if man walked not with them. Such were Paul, and Peter, and John. But in Jesus, even as man, there was none of this unevenness; there was nothing salient in His character, because all was in perfect subjection to God in His humanity, and had its place, and did exactly its service, and then disappeared. God was glorified in it, and all was in harmony. When meekness became Him, He was meek; when indignation, who could stand before His overwhelming and withering rebuke? Tender to the chief of sinners in the time of grace—unmoved by the heartless superiority of a cold Pharisee, curious to judge who He was—when the time of judgment is come, no tears of those who wept for Him moved Him to other words than 'weep for yourselves and your children,'—words of deep compassion, but of deep subjection to the due judgment of God. The dry tree prepared itself to be burned. On the cross, tender to his mother, and trusting her in human care to one who, so to speak, had been His friend, and leant on His bosom, when His service was finished—no ear to recognize her word or claim, when His service occupied Him for God—putting both blessedly in their place, when He would show that before His public mission He was still the Son of the Father, and though such, in human blessedness, subject to the mother that bare Him, and Joseph His father as under the law; a calmness which disconcerted His adversaries; and in the moral power which dismayed them by times, a meekness which drew out the hearts of all not steeled by willful opposition In a word, then, His humanity was perfect—all subject to God—all in immediate answer to His will, and so necessarily in harmony. The hand that struck the chord found all in tune—all answered to the mind of Him whose thoughts of grace and holiness, of goodness, yet of judgment of evil, whose fullness of blessing in goodness were sounds of sweetness to every weary ear, and found in Christ their only expression. Every element, every faculty, in His humanity, responded to the impulse which the divine will gave to it, and then ceased in a tranquility in which self had no place. Such was Christ in human nature. While firm, where need demanded, meekness was what essentially characterized Him, because he was in the presence of God, His God, and all that in the midst of evil... for joy can break forth in louder strains, when all shall echo, 'Praise his name, his glory.'“
The prohibition of the leaven is explained fully in the pages which follow, and the mingling with oil, as well as the subsequent anointing, and other particulars. “He knew no sin; His human nature itself was conceived of the Holy Ghost. That holy thing which was born of the virgin, was to be called the Son of God; He was truly and thoroughly man, born of Mary, but He was man born of God. So I see this title, Son of God, applied to the three several estates of Christ, Son of God, Creator, in Colossians, in Hebrews, and in other passages which allude to it: Son of God, as born in the world; and Son of God as risen again from the dead. The cake was made mingled with oil, just as the human nature of Christ had its character, its taste, from the Holy Ghost, of which oil is ever and the known symbol. But purity is not power, and it is in another form that the bestowment of spiritual power, acting by the human nature of Jesus, is expressed. The cakes were to be anointed with oil, and it is written how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. It was not that anything was wanting in Jesus. In the first place, as God, He could have done all things, but He had humbled Himself, and was come to obey; hence only when called and anointed, He presents Himself in public, although His interview with the doctors in the temple showed His relation with the Father from the beginning.”
The peace-offering may be briefly noticed. “It is the offering which typifies to us the communion of saints—according to the efficacy of the sacrifice—with God, with the priest who has offered it on our behalf, with one another, and with the whole body of the Church. It comes after those which presented to its the Lord Jesus Himself, in His devoting His life even to death, and His devotedness and grace in His life, that we may understand that all communion is based on the acceptability and sweet odor of this sacrifice, not only because the sacrifice was needed, but because therein God had all His delight Such, then, is all true worship of the saints; it is joying in God, through the means of the redemption and offering of Jesus; yea, one mind with God, joying with Him in the perfect excellency of this pure and self-devoted victim, who has redeemed and reconciled them, and given them this communion with the assurance that this their joy is the joy of Jesus Himself, who has wrought it and given it to them.
This joy of worship necessarily associates itself also with the whole body of the redeemed, viewed as in the heavenly places, whether actually gone before us, or yet in the body below. Aaron and his sons were to have their part also. Aaron and his sons were ever the type of the Church, viewed as the whole body of its members, having title to enter into the heavenly places and offer incense—made priests to God. For these were the patterns of things in the heavens, and those who compose the Church are the body of heavenly priests to God. Hence worship, true worship, cannot thus separate itself from the whole body of true believers. I cannot really come with my sacrifice unto the tabernacle of God, without finding necessarily there the priests of the tabernacle. Without the one priest all is vain; for what without Jesus? But I cannot find Him without His whole body of manifested people; God, withal, has His priests, and I cannot approach Him but in the way which He has ordained, and in association with and in recognition of those whom He has placed around His house, the whole body of those that are sanctified in Christ. That which walks not in this spirit is in conflict with the ordinance of God, and is no true peace-offering according to God's institution.” The remaining remarks on the required cleanness of the offerer, and on what constitutes real spiritual worship, are very valuable; but for these we must refer the reader to the work itself.
Last of all come the sin and trespass-offerings, the offerer here being regarded, not as a worshipper, but as a sinner; so that the question was not, at least in the first instance, his identification with the acceptability or the victim, but rather the victim's identification with his guilt. The entire distinctness of the subject from the preceding offerings is marked by a fresh statement of the Lord speaking unto Moses. Indeed a similar formula is used in introducing the subdivisions which relate to wrongs done to the Lord and wrongs against a neighbor. (See Lev. 4:1; 5:14; 6:11And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, (Leviticus 4:1)
14And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, (Leviticus 5:14)
1And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, (Leviticus 6:1).) The first thirteen verses of chapter 5 are transitional, a sort of appendage to the first great class treated in chapter 4 but withal sliding into the character of trespass, and accordingly called by both names.
It will be observed that, in the first two of the four cases in Lev. 4 (i.e. the sin of the high priest or the people as a body,) the blood was sprinkled seven times before the veil, and it was put on the horns of the golden altar; in the last two cases (i.e. of a ruler, or an ordinary Israelite,) the blood was merely upon Se horns of the brazen altar. The reason is plain. In the former all communion was broken, and needed to be re-established; in the latter it was not the body whose communion was gone, but an individual only. The grand lesson is that God can forgive, but can never be indifferent to sin, let it be where it may; and that He ever deals according to His own rights and dignity, dwelling in the midst of His people.
Another thing worthy of note is, that however strongly the identification of the victim with the sin confessed might be shown in burning the body without the camp, the burning of the fat on the burnt altar testified with equal clearness that He who was made sin for us was He who knew it not. Indeed, as has been justly remarked, “nothing was so stamped with the character of holiness, entire, real separation to God, as the sin-offering.” It was the same thing pre-eminently in the blessed reality. Christ's bearing sin was what most manifested holiness, where all was perfectly holy.
Lack of room compels us to omit further details; but we hope, if the Lord will, to notice other types in separate papers, and not as reviewing Dr. F., which we here close.