H. Nunnerley
The Peace Offering and the Sin Offering
We have already considered in the burnt offering and the meat offering two aspects of Christ’s death prefigured in the sacrifices offered on the foursquare brazen altar. In the peace offering (Lev. 3) another side is presented.
A better name for this offering is the “prosperity offering,” for here we have not exactly that which has to do with the sinner finding peace with God (which is more the sin offering aspect), but rather the communion which flows from that peace known and enjoyed, communion which finds its center in that wondrous death on Calvary in which not only was God glorified about the whole question of sin, but in which also infinite love to us is fully displayed. Hence the peace offering is spoken of primarily as one “for a thanksgiving” (Lev. 7:12).
This offering differs from each of the others in that the priests, the offerer, and Jehovah all found in it a common joy. A part of the inwards and all the fat was burnt on the altar and ascended as a sweet savor to God (Lev. 3:3-5); the breast and heave shoulder became the portion of Aaron and his family (Lev. 7:29-34 and Num. 18:19); whilst the remainder of the flesh became the food of the offerer and others with him (Lev. 7:15-21). It is thus the offering which presents to us communion with God and each other.
This is the special aspect of the death of Christ which we celebrate in the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper. In the burnt offering all ascended to God, and what was for God was the prominent thought: in the Supper “this is My body which is given for you” is a constant reminder that the matchless love which took Him to death was for us.
But though the peace offering is distinct, it is yet closely connected with the burnt offering, for we read that “Aaron’s sons shall burn it (the peace offering) on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice” (Lev. 3:5), it ascended there as a sweet savor; so that we can regard Christ as the burnt offering under the eye of God, and yet all the time be conscious of our deep eternal interest in His death.
It was for us He suffered; it was our sin brought Him there; the blood that was shed was shed for us. In that death we have been reconciled to God, by virtue of the work there finished we shall find ourselves in the glory of God, and it will be the unceasing theme of our praises in eternity.
The Sin Offering
The last of these four great types is the sin offering presented to us in Leviticus 4 and further detailed for us in a slightly different aspect as the trespass offering in Leviticus 5.
In the sin offering, as we have before pointed out, the sacrifice (Christ) is viewed as identified with the sins and sin of the offerer, hence the flesh was not burnt for a sweet savor as in the burnt offering, and might not be placed on the altar, but the whole bullock was to be carried forth and burnt without the camp (Lev. 4:1-12).
The offerer, having placed his hand on the bullock’s head, shed its blood. Some of its blood was sprinkled before the veil, showing that all sin is against God. Some was placed on the horns of the altar of incense, and the remainder poured out at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering. Then the carcass was removed from the camp where God dwelt, and carried to a clean place: there full and unsparing judgment fell on it: the dung — its worthless part — the flesh and skin — its valuable part — consumed by fire, all gone under the judgment of God.
The skin is the outward covering which distinguishes one from another.
“Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!” “There is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:22, 23), and this reminds us that whatever distinction exists among men, socially or intellectually, these avail not before God, all men are equally lost.
The flesh, too, was burned — that excellent part according to man’s estimate; all has come under the judgment of God, our goodness as well as our badness. Sin, sins, self, all that we are, all we have done, or thought, condemned, judged, burnt outside the camp where God dwelt, as unfit for His presence.
The Galatians had a religion after the flesh, it made something of them. The Corinthians tried to combine worldly greatness with the lowly Jesus. Both had to learn the cross as that by which they were crucified unto the world, and the world to them.
If we decipher the teaching aright of this side of the altar it will have the effect of delivering us from self-glorification, and self-occupation, and from this present evil world.
Paul was gazing on this side when he wrote God “condemned sin in the flesh,” and God “hath made Him (Christ) to be sin for us,” and again when he said “I am crucified with Christ.”
But if the sin offering presents Christ, as it does, as identified with all our sins and guilt, and so as having to go into the place of distance “outside the camp,” yet the Spirit guards most jealously the truth that the load of guilt laid upon Him never for an instant touched His own intrinsic holiness in that hour of deepest woe; and so it is said again and again of this offering, as of the meat offering, that it was “most holy”; everything brought into contact with it must be holy (Lev. 6:25-29). The fat of the sin offering and a part of the inwards was burnt on the altar (ch. 4:8, 9), and though the sin offering was not one of the sweet savor offerings, this burning of the fat and inwards is once said to be for a sweet savor (ch. 4:31). We are thus reminded that even in the sin offering aspect of the death of Christ, the energy of purpose the unfailing devotedness of Christ, His personal excellency (which the fat and inwards typify), even when “made sin” was ever before God, even in the hour when He had to hide His face from Him. He was still a sweet savor to God. Sin has been dealt with in death, but a death which proved the excellencies of Jesus.
There are gradations in the offerings; in the case of the burnt offering the grades range from a bullock down to a turtle dove. These grades varied with the comparative prosperity or poverty of the offerer, and typically teach us how acceptable to God is even the weakest and feeblest appreciation of Christ. The turtle dove ascended with the same sweet savor as the bullock.
Now in the sin offering we have a wider range of grades than in any of the other offerings. These vary from a bullock downwards, and descended even in case of need to a tenth of an ephah of fine flour (ch. 5: 11); and this is the more remarkable as blood-shedding, which is the dominant thought in the sin offering, could not be present in this exceptional offering which might be brought by the very poorest. But how the grace of God shines in this, for it shows us that that uninstructed turning of the heart to Christ which does not even rise to the knowledge of the divine necessity for His death, but which nevertheless realizes its need of a sin-bearer, and appreciates the fact that this need can be met in Christ alone — even this is sufficient to secure acceptance with Him who delights in the feeblest appreciation of His Beloved Son.
Looking back, then, over the types we have been considering, we can bless God that whether we are learning Christ in the sweet savor of the burnt offering, the desolation of the sin offering, the lowly grace of the meat offering, or the communion of the peace offering, they are all parts of that death by which He glorified God and has eternally saved us.