Leviticus 1
RileyLeviticus 1:1-17
THE MEANING OF THE WHOLE BURNT Leviticus, chapter 1.THE typology of the Old Testament is a scientific demonstration of the truth of the New. No man can study the symbols of the former without seeing the Saviour of the latter; and only the God of infinite wisdom and a perfect plan can possibly have so interlinked and related them.In the Book of Exodus, God speaks to Moses “out of the mount”; His presence is a flame; His voice a thunder, and the people are made afraid. In the Book of Leviticus, He has come within the narrow confines of the Holy of Holies, and now speaks out of the tabernacle of the congregation, and from the very spot known as the Mercy Seat.God, then, was a God of grace two thousand years before Christ was born. The revelation of His mercy did not wait manifestation in Jesus, but was revealed instead in types and symbols.Few of these interesting adumbrations are a more wonderful revelation of that grace than was the whole burnt offering. On careful study it falls naturally under four suggestions: The Spotless Sacrifice; The Shedding of Blood; The Sinner’s Substitute, and The Complete Surrender.THE “Speak unto the Children of Israel, and say unto them,If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.“If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord.“And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the attar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation” (Leviticus 1:2-3; Leviticus 1:5).These symbols are full of suggestion. To three of them let me call special attention.There is a symbol in the sex. “Let him offer a male”.
From that symbolism the law of the offering never departed. It applies whether he take his offering from the herd, from the flock, or from the fowls.
The masculine pronoun, “his”, is everywhere employed to express that sex. In other words, God, from the beginning, proposed that His final and sufficient sacrifice should be His Son. He never meant that Mary should express in her person any saving power; and He never intended that Mary Baker Eddy, or any other woman, should be His special ambassador or the world’s Saviour. When the great Prophet Isaiah received his wonderful revelation concerning the world’s Redeemer, he wrote: “Unto us a Child is born”, but immediately hastened to explain,“Unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His Name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).Not a few of the false religions of the world have been originated by women. The true faith found its exponent in a man. God therein honors His own ordination, for Adam was first in the creation and our salvation rests with the Second Adam—the Lord from Heaven.There is a reason for this!
The virility of the mighty God is best expressed by “a man Child”. “Behold the Man” was not merely the flippant sentence of a petty potentate, but rather the exclamation of human wonder at the sign of God’s representative in a wicked world.The spotlessness is also suggestive. The further phrase is, “Let him offer a male without blemish”.
The point at which Jesus Christ was differentiated from mankind was not that of sex, but rather that of sanctity. He was holy. Harmless as the sheep; undefiled as the dove, yet more holy than either. That is why Paul could write to the Hebrews (Hebrews 9:13-14),“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:“How much more shall the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the Living God”?Jean Paul Richter had long contemplated the character of Jesus when at last he broke out with the words: “Jesus Christ, the holiest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the holy, who lifted with His pierced hand empires from their hinges, turned the stream of centuries out of the channel and still governs the ages.”Carnegie Simpson, writing regarding Jesus, argues sanely enough, “More wonderful than His greatest miracle was His spotless character.” To this opinion even rationalists like Daub, Rosencranza, Watke; and liberal theologians like Hause, Schenkel; and destructive critics like Lipsis, have been compelled to consent; while believers never cease from marvel as they come closer to the heart of this matchless life. Many of them would join with Richard Wagner, the great musician, who wrote of Jesus: “We hear it said there have been saints and martyrs in the world; why should we hold that Jesus Christ alone among men is Divine? But all the saints and all the martyrs became such in the process of time, by Divine grace, by a special illumination, and experienced an inward conversion which transformed sinners into superhuman and sometimes anti-human beings.
Buddha himself was a voluptuous prince living in his harem, when he was enlightened by the truth; in his renunciation of the pleasures of the world he appears to us heroic and sublime, but not Divine. In Jesus, on the contrary, we find from the very beginning a complete holiness with no admixture of evil passions, an absolute purity of nature which appears to us Divine.
And, nevertheless, there is in Him nothing grotesque, anti-human; His perfect Divinity is allied with a perfect humanity, which takes hold of men and inspires them with sympathy and compassion. His figure is unique. All other saints have had need of a Saviour, but He is Himself the Saviour.”The spontaneity of this offering is symbolic. “He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord” (Leviticus 1:3). From the beginning God intended that men should not be coerced in coming to Him; that sinners should not be dragged to salvation. The willing spirit He made fundamental in the whole process of redemption. “Whosoever will” was the law of the Old Testament as well as the opportunity of the New. David said:“Let all those that seek Thee, rejoice in and he glad in Thee: and let such as love Thy salvation say continually, Let God be magnified” (Psalms 70:4).And Solomon put into a proverb, “They that seek the Lord understandeth all things” Again it is written, “Blessed are they that keep His testimonies, and that seek Him with the whole heart” (Psalms 119:2).
Isaiah joins in enjoining us, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near”. There is not a Prophet of the Old Testament who fails to lay emphasis upon voluntary religion.
Malachi, the last of that prophetic college, gives promise of the Coming Lord, to them that “delight in Him”. A man, then, who wants salvation can find it. It is not only true, as the Lord said: “My people shall be willing in the day of My power”, but the converse is equally true—the day of His power is the one of our willingness, and our text is the illustration of it.THE OF BLOODThe further study of our text brings us to a phrase from which certain critical spirits have started back, namely, “the shedding of blood”, and yet, for their sakes, we cannot afford to change the Scriptures,“He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.“And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation” (Leviticus 1:4-5).Here again, three remarks will illuminate for us the wonderful lesson:The work was done by sinful hands. “He shall kill the bullock before the Lord”. Mark you, this was the sinner’s hand, not that of the priest. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ, while in perfect accord with the Divine prophecy, was not actuated by the Holy Spirit. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter exploited the animus of that murder, when, facing the men who fifty days before had nailed Him to the Cross, he said:“Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know;“Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain” (Acts 2:22-23).At a later point in his ministry, when the high priests and certain Sadducees laid hands on the Apostles and put them in the common prison, but were later compelled by the fear of the people to bring them forth again, Peter was no sooner released than he said to his opponents, “We ought to obey God rather them men.
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree”.However plainly crucifixion was a part of the Divine plan, the criminality of the act in accomplishing it, has never been called into question; and God dealt in judgment with the masters of that infamy. Have you ever inquired into the fate of our Saviour’s murderers?
Judas, who betrayed Him, hanged himself. The rope broke, and as he fell his very body was torn asunder and his bowels gushed out. Herod, who participated in it, is reported to have been dethroned by Caesar and to have died in infamy and exile. Pilate, who weakly allowed it, was stripped of the very power he was seeking to retain, and even banished from his land, and the tradition is that he put an end to his own life rather than endure the infamy following him. The house of Annas was set upon by a mob and his son was first walked through the streets and then scourged. In 1870 Jerusalem was taken by the Romans and thousands of the Jews were taken and many of them as cruelly crucified as the Saviour Himself, and thousands upon thousands of them were sold into slavery, the price for some of them being a more miserable pittance than that which they had paid to Judas for betraying their Lord.
From that moment until this, Palestine has endured oppression, famine and war, and every Jew who cried, “Crucify Him”, has been the outcast of nations—ostracized, scorned and hated. Little did they know the meaning of their own words, or imagine the mighty God’s wrath against this crime when they said: “His blood be upon us and on our children”.But let no man imagine that these were the only hands that were stained with the Blood of the Son of God.
I bring against you an indictment of particips criminis, and I hang my head with shame and confess that I too had part in the driving of those cruel nails and in the thrust of that rending spear, for after all, it was sin that shed His Blood.The way of it was a ruthless slaughter. How marvelously this burnt offering typifies that fact. The bullock was not alone to be killed, but was to be flayed and cut into pieces. That is the way they treated the Son of God. They drove the nails into the tender hands; they thrust the spike through the bleeding feet; they wreathed the brow with a crown of thorns; they stripped from His person the robe with which He would fain cover Himself; they gashed His side as though it were no greater sacrifice than rending the bullock. One day He told them why; “Ye seek to kill Me, because My Word hath no place in you” (John 8:37).You remember Tintoretto, the great Italian painter, completed three crucifixes of Christ.
One of these, now at Venice, represents the executioner as having completed his work, and as just reaching down from the ladder to take the title of the inscription from the hands below. The three crosses are in a diagonal line.
The thieves are painfully alive. They turn their faces to the spectators in mortal agony. It represents our Lord’s face in profile—noble, fine, calm, not a hint of suffering in any feature of it. The Virgin is seated on the ground, and at her side, St. John. They are looking and listening while He is evidently making known to the latter that he is to make Mary his mother. There is a partial truth in this work of art. There was a calmness of soul, of spirit that remained undisturbed; but as for mortal agony, He suffered more than a thousand thieves could have done.
And as for slaughter, His was more ruthless than was others—a thousand fold. That is why Isaiah wrote: “His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men”.Did you ever stop to think how graphically, and yet how truly the same great Old Testament Evangel depicted this scene? The scorn with which they looked upon Him, seeing no beauty in Him which they should desire? The ruthlessness with which they rejected Him, despising the face of that Man of sorrows, and the spirit of that One acquainted with grief? “He was despised”; “He was stricken”; “He was smitten”; “He was wounded”; “He was oppressed” and “He was afflicted”. Strange words, these! They painted the mortal agony of the Man from Nazareth, the unspeakable suffering of the Son of God.
His was a ruthless slaughter.And yet, the third suggestion is never to be forgotten.This wickedness of man was Divinely overruled.God breaks in upon the animosity of man for the Divine purpose, saying “Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin. * * And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:10-11).The marvel of God’s grace is that He can make everything “work together for good to them that love Him”.
For where sin abounds, He can make grace much more to abound; yes, even the wrath of man He can change to His praise. I knew a man to go on a beastly drunk. For two weeks he never drew a sober breath. Yet out of that sin, God wrought his salvation, as Samson extracted honey from the festering corpse of a lion. Caiaphas perhaps did not know all the meaning of his own words when, in the time of his high priesthood, he said to the people:“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.“And this spake he not of himself; but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;“And not for that nation only, but that also He should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad” (John 11:49-52).THE SINNER’S The heart of the Gospel is in the whole burnt offering. The method of procedure here is not one whit different from that found in the New Testament plan of salvation.
The sacrifice once provided, three steps are fundamental.The sinner must accept that sacrifice and confess it. He shall put his hands upon the head of the burnt offering; that is an acknowledgment that it stands in his stead.
That is a public profession of his faith and that he has found a substitute. “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness”. Jesus, then, had a reason for demanding not only an acceptance but a public confession of Himself. Concerning this necessity His Word is plain (Luke 12:8-9):“Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God: “But he that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God”.There are quite a few people who are professing to have repented their sins, who are claiming a certain degree of sanctity, and who are yet striving to be secret disciples. Let it not be forgotten that there was a way in which this lamb was to be accepted—that the atonement thereof was in public and could not be made in private; and the man who does not openly confess Christ has neither repented his sins, nor secured the substitute.The second suggestion of the text follows, namely:For he shall be accepted. The reason is assigned. “To make atonement for him”. Now, in this connection, the word “atonement” is of special interest. It means, “to be made one with Him”. Can any man who is trying to hide away the fact that he is a follower of Jesus imagine that he is “at one” with God?Paul is an Apostle of grace to the Gentiles as well as of Gospel to the Jews, and Paul took pains after having discussed this whole burnt offering, to admonish his Hebrews,“Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace”? (Hebrews 10:29).No wonder he follows that with the statement, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God” (Hebrews 10:31).No, the man who has experienced Christ, will publicly confess Christ.
In other words, only the man who accepts the Lamb of God as his substitute and takes Him as both Saviour and Lord, will have that Son “accepted” for him “to make an atonement”. The priest alone could present the blood; for that service the sinner had no fitness.
The blood must precede him into the Holy of Holies. He could never enter there until it had cleared the way. Let no one of us forget that the unregenerate man can shed innocent blood, but he cannot approach the holy God. The high priesthood of Jesus alone can open the path into the Divine Presence. After He has gone there with His own Blood, we can follow without danger of judgment. Esther clothed herself with beauty and presented herself before the king, but she went not to plead her own cause, but rather that of her people instead.
Our righteousness is as filthy rags; we have no garments with which to clothe ourselves that we might appear before God; but if the Great High Priest precedes us, He will bring back from the Lord of the House to every guest of Divine grace a wedding garment.Finally,THE The offering itself must be complete. The terms of the text are, “The priest shall bring it all, and burn it upon the altar” (Leviticus 1:13).
Not one whit could be held back. This contains a double suggestion. Christ kept nothing from the Cross. On it His body was broken; and there He made an offering of His soul for sin. He has a right, then, to demand a full surrender from those who have received the salvation there wrought out. Paul quite correctly called upon the Romans, saying, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).Only the men who have thus utterly devoted themselves have received the fullness of the Divine approval.
Florence Nightingale said, “I have consciously kept nothing back from my God.” Dwight L. Moody said, “If it remains to see what God could do through a perfectly surrendered man, I offer myself.” Morrison, the great missionary to China, said, “My desire, oh, Lord, is to engage where laborers are most wanted.” George McCorkindale of Scotland, who met his death in a blizzard on the Alps, in 1870, has inscribed upon the stone that marks his resting place the words, “Where the Cross is there is the homeland.”The eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews is a chapter of devoted lives—the history of men who put their all on the altar.
It is a tale of Christian heroism that has thrilled all the centuries. Consecration is indeed the call of God to every Christian in every century.The offering must be clean. Mark the care in this connection. “His inwards and his legs shall he wash in water” (Leviticus 1:9). Without blemish with which to begin; without uncleanness with which to end. There never was a devil’s delusion exceeding that of the man who supposes that he can live an unclean life and yet combine it with true consecration. “Consecration” is a word that contains more than the suggestion of strenuous endeavor. It has in its very heart the idea of sanctity.
The complete Christian life, then, is not one that commences the day at an early hour and continues in effort long after the down-going of the sun, but takes little or no account of motive, thought or conduct.The offering must be consumed. “The priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord” (Leviticus 1:17). It was once written of Jesus. “The zeal of Mine house hath eaten Me up”.
Of every follower of the Nazarene, men and angels should be able to say the same. What a poor notion of Christianity we have anyhow! Some of us look upon it as a mere watchword with which to get to Heaven. Let it be remembered that Christ said, “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but him that doeth My will”. Some look upon it as a state to be paraded, like the Pharisee who stood and prayed with himself, and pronounced his virtues in the presence of the people.Let it not be forgotten that he went down to his house condemned.Some of us look upon it as a profession, as did the Levite and priest who passed by on the other side. Let us never forget that their conduct was excoriated by the Son of God.
What is the meaning of this teaching that the offering must be consumed? What else is it than that we are to give ourselves, body and soul and spirit to the service of Our King?There is but one supreme use for a splendid physique, and that is to do the work of God with effectiveness.
There is but one true occasion of a keen intellect, and that is to accomplish the Divine purpose. There is but one occasion for a saint in the world, and that is sacrificial service.How poorly we interpret this plan of God! How abominably we employ our own powers! Some men regard their bodies as little better than instruments of sensuous excitement to be fed and fattened and excited and satisfied. Some men regard their intellects as commercial conveniences with which to amass fortunes and move like kings of finance in the midst of their fellows. Some men regard their souls as merely immortal instruments with which to defeat time and enjoy eternity.I call myself and you to a better conception.
I believe every healthy body should be wholly the Lord’s, a splendid engine of service, wearing itself out with the Divine will, saying with Jesus, and saying with truthfulness, “Lord, I come to do Thy will”. Every mind should be a medium for the Master’s use to be dominated by the Spirit of God, and consecrated to a work that shall seek His glory; and every soul as an agent capable of giving eternal praise.
Shall we eat then? Yes, not to gratify appetite only but to give further strength for a bigger task. Shall we educate them? Yes, for the cause of Christ and the Church. Shall we cultivate the soul? Yes, that men may see in us the image of our God and be filled not with fear, but with holy affection.