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e Levitical
Oerings
By Henry Allan Ironside
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e Levitical Oerings
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Contents
Lecture 1: e Burnt Oering ......................................... 5
Read carefully: Lev. 1; Lev. 6:8-13; Lev. 7; Lev. 8;
Deut. 33:8-10; Psa. 40; Eph. 5:1-2. .......................................5
Lecture 2: e Meal Oering ........................................21
Read Lev. 2; Lev. 6:14-23; Psa. 16; John 6:33 .............................21
Lecture 3: e Peace Oering .......................................33
Read Lev. 3; Lev. 7:11-34; Psa. 85. ..............................................33
Lecture 4: e Sin Oering ...........................................47
Read Lev. 4; Lev. 5:1-13; Lev. 6:24-30; Psa. 22; 2Cor. 5:21. ......47
Lecture 5: e Trespass Oering ................................... 61
Read Lev. 5: 14-6:7; Lev. 7:1-7; Psa. 69. .....................................61
Lecture 1: e Burnt Oering
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Lecture 1: e Burnt Oering
Read carefully: Lev. 1;
Lev. 6:8-13; Lev. 7; Lev. 8;
Deut. 33:8-10; Psa. 40; Eph. 5:1-2.
To many believers the theme of the burnt-oering is
very familiar, but there are large numbers of God’s beloved
people who have never carefully studied the marvelous
types of the Person and work of Christ given to us in the
early chapters of Leviticus, where we have ve distinct
oerings, all setting forth various aspects of the work of
the Cross and unfolding the glories of the Person who did
that work — a Person transcending all the sons of men, for
He was both Son of God and Son of Man, divinely human
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and humanly divine. We shall get great help for our souls if
we meditate upon the marvelous pictures here given us of
the great and wondrous truths which are unfolded in the
New Testament. In coming to the study of the types, we
should never found doctrines upon them, but discovering
the doctrines in the New Testament, we will nd them
illustrated in the types of the Old.
e ve oerings may be divided in various ways.
First, we notice that four of them are oerings involving
the shedding of blood — the Burnt oering, the Peace
oering, the Sin oering, and the Trespass oering. e
Meat oering, or, as it should read, the Meal oering or
Food oering, was an unbloody oering, and stands in a
place by itself. en again, there are sweet savor oerings as
distinguished from oerings for sin. e burnt oering, the
meal oering and the peace oering are all said to be “for a
sweet savor unto the Lord.” is was never true of the sin
oering or the trespass oering. e divine reason for this
distinction will come out clearly, I trust, as we go on.
e ve oerings which are here grouped together
present to us a marvelous many-sided picture of the Person
and work of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. ey show what
He is to God, as well as what He has become in grace to
sinners for whom He died, and to those who have trusted
Him and now stand before God accepted in the Beloved. If
there be details, as many there are, which are dicult for us
to understand, these should but give occasion for exercise
of heart before God and for meditation and prayer. We
may be sure of this that, the better acquainted we become
with our Savior and the more we enter into what the Word
of God elsewhere reveals as to the details of His work upon
the cross, the more readily we shall understand the types.
Lecture 1: e Burnt Oering
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As we get them here in the rst seven chapters of
Leviticus, we see things from the divine standpoint, that
is, God gives us that which means most to Him rst; so
that we begin with the burnt oering, which is the highest
type of the work of the Cross that we have in the Mosaic
economy, and we go on down through the meal oering,
the peace oering, and the sin oering, to the trespass
oering — which is the rst aspect of the work of Christ
generally apprehended by our souls.
As a rule, when a guilty sinner comes to God for
salvation, he thinks of his own wrong-doing, and the
question that arises in his soul is, “How can God forgive
my sins and receive me to Himself in peace when I am so
conscious of my own trespasses?”
Most of us remember when the grace of God rst
reached our hearts. We were troubled about our sins which
had put us at such a distance from God, and the great
questions that exercised us were these: How can our sins
be put away? How can we be freed from this sense of guilt?
How can we ever feel at home with God when we know we
have so grievously trespassed against Him and so wantonly
violated His holy law? We shall never forget, many of us,
how we were brought to see that what we could never do
ourselves, God had done for us through the work of our
Lord Jesus on the cross. We remember when we sang with
exultation:
“All my iniquities on Him were laid,
All my indebtedness by Him was paid,
All who believe on Him, the Lord hath said,
Have everlasting life.”
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is is the truth of the trespass oering, in which sin
assumes the aspect of a debt needing to be discharged.
But, as we went on, we began to get a little higher view
of the work of the cross. We saw that sin was not only a
debt requiring settlement, but that it was something which
in itself was deling and unclean, something that rendered
us utterly unt for companionship with God, the innitely
Holy One. And little by little the Spirit of God opened
up another aspect of the atonement and we saw that our
blessed Lord not only made expiation for all our guiltiness
but for all our delement too. “For [God] hath made Him
to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might made
the righteousness of God in Him” (2Cor. 5:21). It was
a wondrous moment in the history of our souls when we
saw that we were saved eternally, and made t for God’s
presence because the Holy One had become the great sin
oering, was made sin for us on Calvary’s cross.
But there were other lessons we had to learn. We soon
saw that, because of their sins, men are at enmity with
God — that there could be no communion with God until
a righteous basis for fellowship was procured. Something
had to take place before God and man could meet together
in perfect enjoyment and happy complacency. And thus
we began to enter into the peace oering aspect of the
work of Christ. We saw that it was God’s desire to bring
us into fellowship with Himself, and this could only be as
redeemed sinners who had been reconciled to God through
the death of our Lord Jesus.
As we learned to value more the work the Savior did,
we found ourselves increasingly occupied with the Person
who did that work. In the beginning it was the value of
the blood that gave us peace in regard to our sin, but after
Lecture 1: e Burnt Oering
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we went on we learned to enjoy Him for what He is in
Himself. And this is the meal oering; for it is here that
we see Christ in all His perfection, God and Man in one
glorious Person, and our hearts become ravished with His
beauty and we feed with delight upon Himself.
We can understand now what the poetess meant when
she sang:
“ey speak to me of music rare,
Of anthems soft and low,
Of harps, and viols, and angel-choirs,
All these I can forego;
But the music of the Shepherd’s voice
at won my wayward heart
Is the only strain I ever heard
With which I cannot part.”
“For, ah, the Master is so fair,
His smile’s so sweet to banished men,
at they who meet Him unaware
Can never rest on earth again.
And they who see Him risen afar
At God’s right hand, to welcome them,
Forgetful are of home and land,
Desiring fair Jerusalem.”
To the cold formalist all this seems mystical and
extravagant, but to the true lover of Christ it is the soberest
reality.
And now there remains one other aspect of the Person
and work of our Lord to be considered, and it is this which
is set forth in the burnt oering. As the years went on,
some of us began to apprehend, feebly at rst, and then
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perhaps in more glorious fulness, something that in the
beginning had never even dawned upon our souls; and that
is that, even if we had never been saved through the work
of Christ upon the cross, there was something in that work
of tremendous importance which meant even more to God
than the salvation of sinners.
He created man for His own glory. e catechism is
right when it tells us that “the chief end of man is to glorify
God and enjoy Him forever.” But, alas, nowhere had any
man been found who had not dishonored God in some
way. e charge that Daniel brought against Belshazzar,
the Babylonian king, was true of us all: “e God in whose
hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou
not gloried.” God must nd a man in this world who
would fully glorify Him in all things. He had been so
terribly dishonored down here; He had been so continually
misrepresented by the rst man to whom He had committed
lordship over the earth, and by all his descendants, that it
was necessary that some man should be found who would
live in this scene wholly to His glory. God’s character must
be vindicated; and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Man,
the Lord from heaven, was the only one who could do
that. And in His perfect obedience unto death, we see that
which fully meets all the requirements of the divine nature
and glories God completely in the scene where He had
been so sadly misrepresented. is is the burnt oering
aspect of the Cross. By means of that cross, more glory
accrued to God than He had ever lost by the fall. So that
we may say that even if not one sinner had ever been saved
through the sacrice of our Lord upon the tree, yet God
had been fully gloried in respect of sin, and no stain could
be imputed to His character, nor could any question ever
Lecture 1: e Burnt Oering
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be raised through all eternity as to His abhorrence of sin
and His delight in holiness.
So in the book of Leviticus the burnt oering comes
rst, for it is that which is most precious to God and should
therefore be most precious to us.
Others have pointed out how the four Gospels connect
in a very wonderful way with the four bloody oerings.
Matthew sets forth the trespass oering aspect of the
work of Christ, meeting the sinner at the moment of His
need when he rst realizes his indebtedness to God. It is
noticeable throughout what a large place the thought of sin
as debt and as an oence to the orderliness of the divine
government occupies in that book.
In Mark’s Gospel, the aspect of sin as uncleanness and
delement is more emphasized, and so we have the sin
oering view of the Cross. en in Luke, we have the peace
oering as the basis of communion between God and man.
In chapters 14, 15, and 16, we are shown the way that God
in innite grace has come out to guilty man to bring him
into fellowship with Himself; and, yet, how many there are
who refuse that mercy and so can never know peace with
God. In John’s Gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ is seen as the
burnt oering, oering Himself without spot unto God,
a sacrice of a sweet-smelling savor; and that is why in
John there is no mention made of the awful cry of anguish,
“My God, My God, why hast ou forsaken Me!” is
really belongs to the trespass and sin oering aspects of
His work; but it does not come in where His death is seen
as that which fully glories God in the world where He
has been so dishonored. e meal oering is seen in all the
four Gospels where we have the Person of Christ presented
in various ways: the Messiah of Israel in Matthew; the
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suering Servant of Jehovah in Mark; the perfect Man in
Luke; and the Son of God become esh in John.
It is as we meditate upon all these precious things that
we really enjoy communion with the Father. At one time
in my early Christian life, I had an idea that communion
consisted in very pious feelings and frames of mind, and in
order to have these emotions I would read every devotional
book I could nd, and would often jot down in a diary my
thoughts when I had, what seemed to me, a distinct sense
of piety that was very delightful and solemn. In after years,
I came across this book and could hardly believe that I had
ever had such strange, conceited thoughts and supposed
them to be the result of communion with God. I realize
now that I thought communion consisted in having God
nd delight in my pious feelings. But that is not it at all.
Communion with God is when my soul enters into His
thoughts concerning His Son.
Did you ever go into a home where a dear mother had
been entrusted with a new baby? How did you get into
heart communion with that mother? You talked perhaps
about various things, but you could not strike a responsive
chord in her heart until you said something about the little
one. All at once, she brightened up and began to tell you
what a wonderful baby it really was, and soon you and she
were completely en rapport, for you were both occupied
with the same little personality. e illustration is a very
feeble one. at child of hers is entrusted to her for but a
brief period, but the God of the universe has been nding
His delight in His blessed Son throughout all the ages of
eternity, and now He says, as it were, “I want to take you
into fellowship with Me in My thoughts about My Son.
I want to tell you about Him. I want you to understand
Lecture 1: e Burnt Oering
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better the delight that I nd in Him and to see more fully
what His work and devotion mean to Me.”
And so this book of Leviticus opens with the voice of
the Lord calling to Moses out of the sanctuary. It was from
the excellent glory that the voice came saying, “is is My
beloved Son in whom I have found all My delight.” And
so from the inner tabernacle where the glory of God abode
above the mercy-seat, the voice of Jehovah called unto
Moses saying, “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say
unto them, If any man of you bring an oering unto the
Lord, ye shall bring your oering of the cattle, even of the
herd, and of the ock” (Lev. 1:2). Notice there is not a word
about man’s sinfulness.
is is addressed to those who are already in covenant
relation with God, and whose hearts are overowing with
gratitude for what He has done for them, and who now
voluntarily desire to bring to God something which He
can approve of; and everything that they bring speaks of
Christ. For there is nothing that any of us can bring to
God that will give Him joy unless it speaks in some way of
His blessed Son. It is the very voluntariness of the burnt
oering that gives it such value. ere is here no question
of legality, no “must,” nor any demand, but it is the heart
lled with gratitude desiring to express itself in some way
before God that leads to the presentation of the oering.
And notice the universality of it. It says, “any man.” It was
something of which any one could avail himself. All may
come to God bringing the work of His Son.
ree distinct kinds of oerings are mentioned. e
burnt oering might be a sacrice of the herd, that is, a
bullock or young ox, as in verses 3-9; or it might be out of
the ocks, a sheep or a goat, as in verses 10-13; or again it
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might be fowls, as turtle-doves or young pigeons, as in verses
14-17. ese grades of oerings had to do with the ability
of the oerer. He who could aord a bullock brought it; if
unable to bring a bullock, a sheep, or a goat; and the poorer
people brought the fowls. But all alike spoke of Christ. It
is a question, I take it, of spiritual apprehension. Some of
us have a very feeble apprehension of Christ, but we do
value Him, we love Him, we trust Him, and so we come to
God bringing our oering of fowls. We know Him as the
Heavenly One, and the bird speaks of that which belongs
to the heavens. It ies above the earth. Others have a little
fuller understanding, and so we bring our oering of the
ocks. We see in Him the devoted One who “was led as
a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb.” Or He is represented by the goat, the picture of
the sinner whose place He in grace has taken. Others again
have a still higher and fuller apprehension of His Person
and His work. We see in Him the strong, patient ox whose
delight was to do the will of God in all things.
ere is very little dierence in the treatment of the
sacrice of the herd and that of the ock. But of necessity
there is considerable dierence when we come to that of
the fowls. Let us consider a little Leviticus 1:3-9: “If his
oering be a burnt sacrice of the herd, let him oer a
male without blemish: he shall oer it of his own voluntary
will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation
before the Lord,” or, as it reads in the 1911 Version, “that
it may be graciously received from him before the Lord.”
e bullock, or, more literally, the young ox, speaks, as we
have said, of the patient servant. It is written in the law of
Moses, “ou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that
treadeth out the corn.” e Apostle Paul applies this to
Lecture 1: e Burnt Oering
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the ministering servants of God — they who prepare the
food for the people of God, and are not to be deprived
of that which they need for their own sustenance. Our
blessed Lord was like the patient ox treading out the
corn. e One who came not to be ministered unto but to
minister, He was the perfect Servant come to give His life
a ransom for many. And observe, the ox must be a male
without blemish. Among the types, the female speaks of
subjection, whereas the male suggests rather the thought of
rightful independence. Our Lord Jesus was the only Man
that ever walked this earth who was entitled to a place of
independence, and yet He chose to be the subject One,
even unto death. And He was the unblemished One. No
fault was to be found in Him, no short-coming of any
kind, no sin or failure. e oerer when he presented his
unblemished burnt sacrice was practically saying, “I have
no worthiness in myself. I am full of sin and failure, but I
bring to God that which is without blemish, that which
speaks of the worthiness of His own blessed Son.” And the
unworthy oerer was accepted in the worthy sacrice, as
we are told in Ephesians 1:6, “He hath made us accepted
in the Beloved” or, as it has been translated, “He has taken
us into favor in the Beloved.” Observe, not according to
our faithfulness, nor according to the measure of our zeal,
nor yet according to the measure of our devotedness, but
according to His own thoughts of His beloved Son. We
who have been brought through grace divine to see that
we have no worthiness in ourselves, have all our worthiness
in Christ.
is is emphasized in the fourth verse. Man as the
oerer stood before the priest with his hand upon the head
of the burnt oering. He was really identifying himself
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with the victim that was about to be slain. It is the hand of
faith which rests upon the head of Christ and sees in Him
the One who takes my place. All that He is, He is for me!
Henceforth God sees me in Him.
But it is not in His life that He does this, but by His
death. And so we read, “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”
(Lev. 1:5). We have all had our part in the killing of the
bullock. at is, we have all had to do with the death of
Christ. Men generally recognize this, but fail to lay hold of
it individually. It is when I see that Jesus died for me, that
even if there were no other sinner in all the world, still He
would have given Himself as the victim in my place, that
the value of His precious blood is applied to me, and I am
accepted before God in all that He has done, and in all that
He is.
In Leviticus 1:6-9, we read of the aying, that is, the
skinning of the burnt oering, and the cutting of the victim
into its parts. Of the skin we shall speak in a moment, and
there are precious truths connected with it. e pieces
were all to be washed with water and then placed upon
the wood of the altar and burnt with re, to go up to God
“an oering made by re of a sweet savor unto the Lord.”
e washing by water typies the application of the Word
of God to every part of Christ’s being; all that He did was
in perfect holiness, as under the controlling power of the
Word of God in the energy of the Holy Spirit. He could
say in the fullest sense, “y Word have I hid in My heart
that I might not sin against ee.” He did not need the
Word for cleansing, for He was ever the Holy One, and yet
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He was in everything submissive to the Word, for He was
here to glorify God as the dependent Man.
We read, “e priest shall burn all on the altar.” e
burnt oering was the only one of the sacrices of which
this was true. In all the rest there was something reserved
for the oering priest or for the oerer, but in this one
particular case everything went up to God; for there is
something in this aspect of the work of the Cross which
only God can fully understand and appreciate.
But in Leviticus 7:8, we have one apparent exception.
While every part of the victim was burnt on the altar, the
skin was given to the priest. is is indeed precious. It is as
though God said to the priest, “I have found My portion
in Christ. He is everything to Me, the beloved of My heart,
in whom I have found all My delight. Now I want you to
take the eece and wrap yourself in it! Clothe yourself in
the skin of the burnt oering.” It is a wonderful picture of
acceptance before God in Christ. We are covered with the
skin of the burnt oering!
It is scarcely necessary to go into any detail in regard to
the oering of the ocks, for, as we have already seen, it was
handled in practically the same way as that of the bullock.
But there is an added thought or two in connection with
the fowls. We read in Leviticus 1:15-16: “And the priest
shall bring it unto the altar, and wring o his head, and
burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung
out at the side of the altar: and he shall pluck away his crop
with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east
part, by the place of the ashes.” e birds, as we have seen,
speak of Christ as the One who belongs to the heavens but
who has come down in grace into this scene. ere is by
no means the same fulness in picturing His work here that
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there was in connection with the other creatures. But His
death is again fully emphasized, and before the oering was
placed upon the altar the crop and the feathers are plucked
away and cast in the place of the ashes. e taking away of
the feathers from the bird suggests, I believe, the parting
with all His glory and beauty when He stooped in lowly
grace to the death of the Cross, while the plucking away
of the crop speaks undoubtedly of His voluntarily giving
up all that would minister to natural enjoyment. We sing
sometimes, and perhaps but feebly enter into the meaning:
“I surrender all,
I surrender all,
All to ee, my precious Savior,
I surrender all.”
But if we turn this around, what an appeal it makes to
our hearts, and how truly it tells of the place He took in
grace:
He surrendered all,
He surrendered all,
All for me, my precious Savior,
He surrendered all.
In Leviticus 6:8-13, we have the law of the burnt
oering, that is, instruction to the priest as to how he was
to conduct himself when carrying out this part of the ritual.
In the rst chapter, we get what is more objective — God’s
picture of the Person and work of His Son. But in the law
of the oering we have what is more subjective — the eect
all this should have upon us, and how our souls should
enter into it. And so here in Leviticus 6 we see the priest
clothed in white raiment — his garments speaking of that
righteousness which is now ours in Christ and which
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should ever characterize us practically — reverently taking
up the ashes of the burnt oering and laying them beside
the altar; the ashes saying as plainly as anything inanimate
could, “It is nished.” For ashes tell of re burnt out, and
so suggest that the work of Christ is nished. He has
suered, never to die again, and God was fully gloried in
His work which has gone up as a sweet savor to Him. In
Old Testament times, the re was ever to be burning on
the altar. It was never to be put out, for one burnt sacrice
followed another continually, and the peace oering and
the sin and trespass oerings were also placed upon the
same re. e work was never nished because no victim
had yet appeared of sucient worth to fully meet the
claims of God. But now, thank God, the ame of the altar
re has gone out, the work is done, and the eect of that
work abides for all eternity. May our souls revel in it. In
Psalm 40, which is really the psalm of the burnt oering,
we hear the voice of praise which results from the soul’s
appreciation of this aspect of the work of Christ. May it be
ours to enter into it in all its fulness. In Deuteronomy 33,
we see that the chief business of God’s anointed priests was
to oer burnt oerings upon His altar. So may we as holy
priests of the new dispensation always nd our rst delight
in occupation with Christ and this aspect of His work!
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Lecture 2: e Meal Oering
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Lecture 2: e Meal Oering
Read Lev. 2; Lev. 6:14-23; Psa. 16; John
6:33
We have already noticed that the meal oering stands
apart from the other four in that it was a bloodless oering.
ere was no life given up, and yet part of it was burned upon
the altar for a sweet savor. e name given to this particular
oblation in the Authorized Version is meat oering, but we
must remember that our forefathers used the word “meat”
for food, and not necessarily as synonymous with esh.
ere was no esh of any kind in this oering. It was an
oblation of food composed of meal and oil, or of green ears
of corn dried and oil. It does not speak to us of our Savior
as sacriced for sinners on the cross, but is God’s wondrous
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picture of the perfection of His glorious Person. Remember,
He had to be who He was in order to do what He did.
None but God’s eternal Son become esh could ever have
accomplished the great work that He came to do. It is of
inestimable value to the soul to dwell upon God’s estimate
of His Son. As intimated in the previous lecture, it is in
this way that we enter into communion with the Father.
e psalmist says, “My meditation of Him shall be sweet.”
May we indeed prove this as we dwell together upon these
marvelous types of His glorious Person.
We should always bear in mind that it was the perfection
of the Lord that gave all the ecacy to the work upon the
cross. Of all other men it is written: “None of them can
redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, for
it costs too much to redeem them, therefore it must be
let alone forever.” is is a very literal rendering of that
remarkable passage in Psalm 49:7-8. e 8th verse is very
inadequately rendered in our Authorized Version, “e
redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever.”
What ceaseth forever? But the translation I have just given
makes it all clear: “Let it alone forever.” at is, there is
no use of any one attempting to do anything toward the
work of redemption; it is too great to be eected by human
power. “It costs too much to redeem the soul, so let it alone
forever.” But Christ the Son of God became a little lower
than the angels with a view to the suering of death that
He might taste death for every man. He the innitely
Holy One became Man, but Man in perfection, sinless and
undeled. He alone is competent to redeem His brother
and give to God a ransom for him. is is the one for whom
Job yearned when he cried, “ere is no daysman who can
lay his hand upon us both,” and it was of Him Elihu spake
Lecture 2: e Meal Oering
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when he said, “Deliver him from going down to the pit, for
I have found a ransom.” And so we are now to be occupied
with Christ Himself, and I trust as we study this wondrous
picture of Him who was in very truth the Bread of God,
the food upon which God the Father delighted to feed,
that we shall have a fuller, clearer conception than ever
before of Him who has saved us.
e meal oering is always linked up with the burnt
oering. God would not allow the Person and the work of
His blessed Son to be divorced; the two must go together.
But remember this, the holy walk, the devoted life of our
Lord Jesus Christ, could not avail to put away sin. His holy
behavior was not the means of our salvation; that perfect
walk had no atoning ecacy. It was life poured out in death
that saved. He said as He held the communion cup in His
hand, “is cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is
shed for you for the remission of sins.” His life apart from
His death could only bring out in bold relief our exceeding
sinfulness, making the contrast between what He is and
what we are all the more vivid. But His blood shed for us
was life given up, poured out in death that we might live
eternally. His holy life tted Him to be the sacrice, and so
the two oerings are linked together.
Many of God’s beloved people, I am persuaded, are being
led away (for a time at least) into various systems of error,
who if they only knew the true character of these systems
would turn from them in horror, recognizing that in every
one of them there are evil teachings concerning the Person
of our Lord Jesus Christ. I remember a number of years
ago meeting with a young married couple out in California.
ey were introduced to me as earnest Bible students. ey
seemed very bright and hearty in their Christian experience,
e Levitical Oerings
24
but they soon told me that they were getting a great deal
of help and information out of a set of books that had been
sold them by a colporteur. Upon inquiring, I found it was
the set known as “Millennial Dawn.” When I asked if they
had read the books they said, “Oh, yes, and we have found
some wonderful teachings in them.” I replied that they had
in them some teaching that was blessed and true, but it was
in reality but the sugar coating to a poisonous pill, for they
were thoroughly unsound as to the Person and work of our
Lord Jesus Christ. I pointed out that these books taught
that our blessed Lord before He came into the world
was not God, but was the highest created spirit-being
in the universe; that in incarnation He became man and
relinquished entirely His spirit nature; that, when He died
upon the cross, His manhood was devoted to destruction.
e author of the books goes so far as to say: “It was not
only necessary that the man Christ Jesus should die, it was
just as necessary that He should never live again, but should
remain dead through all eternity.” But these books taught
that a new Being came out of the tomb who was made a
partaker of the divine nature, and is now a god but not the
God, and that some day a select group of overcomers will
be partakers of the same nature as Himself and will assist
Him in completing the work of redemption. ey could not
believe that I had rightly represented the teaching of this
system, but they were honest people and they went home
to look up the references I gave them and to compare them
with their Bibles. ey came to me a few days later, and
handing the set to me said, “If you can use these to help
deliver others we shall be thankful. We have been down
on our knees asking God to forgive us for ever having had
anything to do with a system that so blasphemes our Lord
Lecture 2: e Meal Oering
25
Jesus Christ. We had no idea of the real teaching of these
books.” us they were completely delivered, and they
turned with horror from the whole evil system.
“What think ye of Christ?” is the rst question that
should be asked of every one who comes claiming to have
something dierent to orthodox Christianity. If people are
wrong here, depend upon it they are wrong throughout. It
is not necessary that we should know all the evil that is in
these systems in order to judge them; we need but to know
they are false as to our Lord Jesus in order to refuse them
entirely if we would be true to Him.
Let us then see how His blessed Person is pictured for
us in the meal oering. We will read together Leviticus
2:1-3: “And when any will oer a [meal] oering unto the
Lord, his oering shall be of ne our; and he shall pour oil
upon it, and put frankincense thereon: and he shall bring
it to Aaron’s sons the priests: and he shall take thereout
his handful of the our thereof, and of the oil thereof,
with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn
the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an oering made
by re, of a sweet savor unto the Lord: and the remnant
of the meal oering shall be Aaron’s and his sons’: it is
a thing most holy of the oerings of the Lord made by
re.” Notice then that the meal oering which was really
God’s food, and therefore speaks of Christ Himself, was
made of ne our. You housewives know what that is,
ne our without one coarse grain in it. is was God’s
picture of the humanity of Jesus. Everything was in perfect
proportion and there was none of the coarseness that sin
has brought into our poor, fallen humanity. I have often
thought if God wanted to make a picture of my human
nature He would ask for a handful of old-fashioned steel-
e Levitical Oerings
26
cut oatmeal! at would adequately typify our nature, for
there is so much that is coarse and uncouth and cross-
grained in every one of us; but oh, the perfection that was
manifested in Him. en observe, oil was to be poured
upon the ne our and frankincense put over it. e oil
is always the type of the Holy Spirit. He is the anointing.
And we read that “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; for
God was with Him” (Acts 10:38). at anointing took
place immediately after the baptism in the Jordan, and the
Father declared His satisfaction in Him saying, “is is My
beloved Son, in whom I have found all my delight.” is
was the odor of the frankincense. ere was the ne our
in all its perfection, and “the Holy Spirit descended like a
dove abiding on Him;” that was the oil poured upon the
ne our. en there was the frankincense with its sweet
aroma telling of the ineable beauty and fragrance which
ever characterized all His ways. No wonder the bride in
the Song says, “y name is as ointment poured forth.”
Mary really fullled this type when she “took a pound of
ointment very precious, and poured it upon His head and
upon His feet, and the house was lled with the odor of
the ointment.”
In the second verse we read that this oering was
brought to Aaron’s sons, the priests, and the ociating
priest was to take out a handful of the our, with its oil and
frankincense, and burn it as a memorial upon the altar; it
was an oering made by re of a sweet savor unto the Lord.
is was God’s food. en the priests themselves were to
feed upon the rest of it, and so God and His redeemed
Lecture 2: e Meal Oering
27
priests enjoy together the perfection of Christ. is is really
communion.
Now we have some very interesting details in Leviticus
2:4-13. I will not quote the passages in full, but will notice
the outstanding features as we run down through the
chapter. ere were various ways in which the oering
might be prepared. In verse 4 it is “baken in the oven,”
in verse 5 it is “baken in a pan;” in verse 7 it is “baken
in a frying-pan,” evidently on the top of the replace. In
every instance it was exposed to the action of heat, and this
may speak of the intense trials to which our blessed Lord
was subject, all of which only served to bring out in fuller
measure His perfection. Again in verse 4 the meal oering
might be composed of unleavened cakes of ne our
mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.
In the rst instance, we have His incarnation as begotten
of the virgin; we have humanity in perfection, humanity
united with Deity. He was conceived of the Holy Ghost;
the ne our was mingled with oil. In the other cases we
have, as in the verse above, His anointing. And so God
emphasized both sides of the truth for us. He was born
of the Spirit without a human father; He was anointed
of the Spirit when about to enter on His great mission.
en, observe, there were some things that could not be
allowed in the meal oering. In two of these verses we
are told it must be unleavened, and in verse 11 we read
distinctly, “No [meal] oering, which ye shall bring unto
the Lord, shall be made with leaven.” is speaks of the
sinlessness of the human nature of our Savior. Leaven in
Scripture is always a type of something evil. is comes out
very clearly in the New Testament application of the Old
Testament type. We read in 1Corinthians 5:7-8: “Christ
e Levitical Oerings
28
our passover is sacriced for us: therefore let us keep the
feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice
and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth.” Just as the pious Israelite of old was to search
his house diligently and put away all leaven in preparation
for the passover feast, so we as believers are called upon
to judge every evil thing in our hearts and lives, and put
it all away in the light of the work of the cross. Both in
1Corinthians and in Galatians we read: “A little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump;” that is, a little sin or a little evil
doctrine undetected and unjudged will soon corrupt one’s
entire testimony. en again you will remember how our
Lord Himself used this term. He warned His disciples to
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees
and of Herod. e leaven of the Pharisees was hypocrisy
and self-righteousness; the leaven of the Sadducees was
evil doctrine or false teaching; the leaven of Herod was
worldliness and political corruption. In no place in Scripture
is leaven used as a symbol or type of anything good. e
woman in the parable of Matthew 13:33 is said to hide the
leaven in three measures of meal until the whole is leavened.
I know that this has been taken by many as representing
the spread of the gospel, but who was ever told to hide the
gospel anywhere? ere is nothing clandestine about its
proclamation; it is to be openly preached everywhere. Jesus
said, “In secret have I said nothing,” and the same should
be true of His followers. e woman in the parable is the
false Church, not the true, and she is not hiding the leaven
in the world but in three measures of meal, which seems to
be nothing more nor less than the “minchah,” or the meal
oering, which we are now considering, and in which there
was to be no leaven. In other words, the parable teaches us
Lecture 2: e Meal Oering
29
that every truth concerning Christ would be corrupted by
the false Church. As in the type there was no leaven, so in
Christ there is no sin; He is the unleavened meal oering;
His was humanity in perfection without any tendency
toward evil whatever. He could say, “e prince of this
world cometh and hath nothing in Me.” You and I cannot
say that; we are only too conscious of the fact that when
Satan comes to tempt us from the outside there is a traitor
within who would open the gate to the citadel of our hearts
if we were not constantly on our guard. But with Him it
was otherwise; all His temptation came from without. “He
was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” And
this does not mean “yet without sinning,” merely, but it is
“sin apart,” that is, He was never tempted by inbred sin; He
was the unleavened meal oering.
We also learn from verse 11 that there was to be no
honey in the meal oering. Honey is the sweetness of
nature, but when exposed to heat it soon sours. ere was
something far more than natural sweetness in the character
of Christ. His was a love that was divine and holy; all His
aections and emotions were the aections of the Son of
God become esh. ere was nothing that was merely of
nature; hence His love is unchanging. All the treachery of
Judas could not alter it nor the cowardly denial of Peter.
“Having loved His own that were in the world He loved
them unto the end.” How often are natural friendships
sundered and love turned to hatred. It was otherwise with
Him.
In Leviticus 2:13 we are told, “And every oblation of thy
[meal] oering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt
thou suer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking
from thy meal oering: with all thine oerings thou shalt
e Levitical Oerings
30
oer salt.” Is it not striking that three times over we should
have this insistence upon the use of salt in the oering?
You will remember our Savior said, “Let your speech be
always with grace seasoned with salt,” and He referred on
another occasion to this very passage, emphasizing it in a
very solemn way (Mark 9:49-50). Salt is the preservative
power of active righteousness; and this was ever manifested
in Him, and should be seen in us who have been born from
above.
ere are many other details in this precious portion
that we might protably dwell upon, but all that I have
omitted will I think become luminous in the light of what
we have already noticed if carefully considered in the
presence of the Lord. And the more we remember what
the New Testament reveals concerning Christ, the more
we shall enter into the enjoyment of what we have here. If
we become familiar with the truth concerning the Person
of the Lord it will preserve us from the danger of falling
into error.
e outstanding feature of the meal oering is its
composition of ne our. ere was no barley meal. ere
are lots of little sharp corners in the crushed barley. But
it was the nest of wheat meal that composed the meal
oering. at is how God pictured the humanity of the
Lord Jesus Christ, for in His character as a Man there was
nothing that ever grated on anybody. What a marvelous
picture the four gospels set before us! If they were not
inspired, how unexplainable it would be that four men
could ever have imagined such a marvelous character. If the
Lord Jesus Christ had never lived, the gospels themselves
would be miraculous. In all the literature of the world there
is no other character that can be compared with Him.
Lecture 2: e Meal Oering
31
ink of Him growing up in Nazareth, one of the meanest
villages of Galilee, with little opportunity for culture or
renement; and then contemplate Him as He appeared
among the men of His time, the most rened and cultured
of them all! He was the rst gentleman this world has ever
seen. Tender, gracious, always considerate of others, and yet
ever faithful and true to all. Politeness, the proverb says, is
doing the kindest thing in the kindest way, and who ever
saw that exemplied anywhere as it was in the Lord Jesus
Christ? His was a life the aroma of which lls the world
after nineteen hundred years.
And although now ascended to glory He is this same
Jesus as He sits upon His Father’s throne, our great
High Priest, ever living to make intercession for us. So
in Leviticus 2:14-16 we have another aspect of the meal
oering; this time it is made of the rstfruits of the green
ears of corn dried by the re, as corn beaten out of full
ears. And this is anointed with the oil in company with
the frankincense. It speaks of Him as the One who passed
through death, but has been raised again in the power of an
endless life. And He is gone up to God in all the perfection
of His humanity, to be for all eternity the Man in the glory.
But of this, too, a memorial was burned upon the altar, for
His resurrection must not be separated from His death.
e Christ who died is the Christ who lives again.
May we learn to feed upon Him as priests in the
sanctuary, rejoicing here on earth as God rejoices in heaven.
is is what is specially emphasized in Leviticus 6:14-23,
where we have the law of the meal oering. ere we see
the priests appropriating their portion and enjoying it in
the presence of God. It was to be eaten in the sanctuary.
We are all God’s priests today, if numbered among the
e Levitical Oerings
32
redeemed, and it is our hallowed privilege to feed upon
Christ in God’s courts — delighting in Him, our souls
nourished, as we meditate adoringly upon His perfections.
We are not called upon to dissect the Person of the Lord,
but to reverently worship and enjoy Him, that thus we may
become more like Him.
Lecture 3: e Peace Oering
33
161654
Lecture 3: e Peace Oering
Read Lev. 3; Lev. 7:11-34; Psa. 85.
e peace oering has a peculiar preciousness because
of its unique character as an expression of fellowship
with God based upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ
upon the cross. As already intimated, there can be no true
communion with God if we ignore that nished work.
e Unitarian may talk of enjoying fellowship with God,
but he is simply mistaking religious emotions for spiritual
communion, for the latter cannot exist apart from faith in
the Lord Jesus as the eternal Son of the Father, and the
soul’s rest upon the work He accomplished upon the Tree.
e very fact that a peace oering is needed implies that
something is wrong in regard to the relations between God
e Levitical Oerings
34
and man. Man by nature since the fall is unt for fellowship
with God. He comes into this world a sinner, a sinner by
nature; from the beginning his bent is toward that which
is unholy rather than to that which is holy. It is very much
easier for him to sin than it is to do that which is just and
righteous; very much easier for him to go down than to rise
up. I know it is fashionable nowadays to deny all this, and
to teach that man has been on the upgrade throughout the
centuries; but this is not so. Apart from the Word of God
even, our actual experience teaches us that it is easier for
man to do evil than to do good, and this is because of the
corruption of his nature. David exclaimed in Psalm 51:5,
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother
conceive me.” By nature man understands not the things
of God; he cannot commune with Him; he loves what
God hates, and hates what God loves. God is innitely
holy; loving good and doing only good. Between man and
God there is really nothing in common. Men are not only
sinners by nature, but they have become transgressors by
practice; deliberately, willfully, violating the law, breaking
the commandments, and acting in self-will. As the Word
tells us, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned
every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him
the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). For God desires us to be
at peace with Him, He longs to bring us into fellowship
with Him. But this at once raises the questions, “How it is
possible for sinful, polluted man ever to be at peace with
God? Can we ourselves make our peace with Him?” We
often hear very well-meaning people urge Christless souls
to make their peace with God. Now I don’t want to be
factious, I don’t want to be hypercritical, I don’t want to
make a man an oender for a word, but I am convinced
Lecture 3: e Peace Oering
35
that this expression is thoroughly misleading. What they
mean is quite right. ey mean that men should repent of
their sins, acknowledge their lost condition, and own their
need of a Savior. But no man can ever make his own peace
with God. It is Christ who has made peace for us.
“Could my tears forever ow,
Could my zeal no languor know,
ese for sin could not atone,
ou must save, and ou alone.
In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to y cross I cling.”
It is the glory of the gospel that it reveals the heart of
God going out after men in their sins, and it tells what He
has done in order that man may obtain peace with God. It
tells of Christ come from the bosom of the Father, from
the glory that He had with the Father before the worlds
were made, become in grace a little lower than the angels
for the suering of death, and going to the cross, that
dreadful cross, where He was made a curse for us in order
that God and man might be brought together in perfect
harmony, and we might be reconciled to God by His death.
“God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them.” And yet that
wondrous life could not in itself settle the sin question or
recover man to God. In order to do this He must die, and
having died He has manifested the fact that there is no
enmity on God’s part toward man; all the enmity is on our
side; and now He is beseeching us to be reconciled to God.
We stand toward Him as debtors, debtors who owe
an enormous sum, debtors whose credit is utterly gone,
and who are therefore absolutely unable to meet their
obligations. But we read of two men who were in just such
e Levitical Oerings
36
circumstances, and we are told: “When they had nothing
to pay He frankly forgave them both.” And He does this
on the basis of the peace oering: Christ has given Himself
to meet our obligations. Colossians 1:19-20 states: “For it
pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell;
and, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by
Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say,
whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” is is
the peace oering. He has made peace by the blood of His
cross. In Ephesians 2:13-14 we read: “But now in Christ
Jesus ye who sometimes were far o are made nigh by the
blood of Christ. For He is our peace who hath made both
one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition
between us.” is is what is so beautifully illustrated in
the peace oering of old. Christ Himself is our peace. As
another has put it:
“Peace with God is Christ in glory,
God is Light and God is Love;
Jesus died to tell the story,
Foes to bring to God above.”
Peace with God is not simply a happy, restful feeling
in the soul, though he who enjoys peace with God cannot
but be happy, for it is written that “being justied by
faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Peace
with God was made on the cross, and we enter into the
good of it when we trust that blessed Savior who died for
us. God has found His satisfaction in that work, we nd
ours there, and so we enjoy Christ together. His delight
is Christ and our delight is Christ; He enjoys Christ
and we enjoy Christ; He feeds upon Christ and we feed
Lecture 3: e Peace Oering
37
upon Christ, and so we have communion, blessed happy
fellowship, on the basis of that sweet savor oering.
In Leviticus 3 there are three dierent victims mentioned,
any one of which might be brought to the altar as a peace
oering. First we read, “If his oblation be a sacrice of
peace oering, if he oer it of the herd, whether it be male
or female, he shall oer it without blemish before the
Lord” (Lev. 3:1). en in Leviticus 3:6 we are told, “And if
his oering for a sacrice of peace oering unto the Lord
be of the ock; male or female, he shall oer it without
blemish. If he oer a lamb for his oering, then shall he
oer it before the Lord.” en again in Leviticus 3:12,
“If his oering be a goat, then he shall oer it before the
Lord.” When looking at the burnt oering, we have already
seen something of what these various creatures suggest in
a typical way. e sacrice of the herd speaks of Christ
as the devoted Servant of God and man, and whether
we think of Him as the rightfully independent One, as
suggested by the male, or the subject One, as suggested by
the female, we can have communion with God from either
standpoint. en the lamb speaks of Him as the One who
was consecrated even unto death; and the goat, of the One
who took the sinner’s place.
We may not all have exactly the same apprehension of
the value and the preciousness of Christ and His work, but
if we really trust in Him, and come to God confessing Him,
we are on the ground of peace, and may have fellowship with
God to the full extent of our apprehension, and as we go on
learning more and more of who Christ really is, and what He
is to God, our communion will be deepened and intensied.
e oerer was to lay his hand upon the head of his
oering, and kill it himself at the door of the tabernacle
e Levitical Oerings
38
of the congregation. is again speaks of the identication
of the oerer with his oering. It brings out most vividly
the truth of substitution, and should impress upon every
one of us the fact that we ourselves need a Substitute, a
sinless Savior who could suer in our stead. Christ is that
Substitute, and we are directly responsible for His death.
Unlike the burnt oering, the entire peace oering
was not placed upon the altar; only a very small part of it,
namely, “the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat
that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat
that is on them, which is by the anks, and the caul which
is above the liver with the kidneys” — these were the parts
that were to be burned upon the altar as a sweet savor unto
the Lord. And observe, these parts could only be reached
by death. is speaks surely of the deepest inward emotions
and sensibilities of the Lord leading Him out of love to the
Father to devote Himself to death in order that men might
be reconciled to God. Who can fathom the meaning of
those words, “He poured out His soul unto death?”
When we turn to the law of the oering in Leviticus
7, beginning with verse 8, we see more clearly why this
particular sacrice is called the peace oering. We nd God
and His people enjoying it together. When the appointed
portions were placed upon the altar for thanksgiving (Lev.
7:12), there were oered with it various meal oerings,
all speaking as we have seen of Christ’s Person. Of these
a small portion was burned upon the altar, and the rest
was eaten by the priests. en the breast of the oering,
speaking of the aections of Christ, was given to Aaron
and his sons, the priestly house; all of the priests fed upon
that which speaks of the love of Christ, for this is what the
breast typies. e right shoulder speaking of the strength
Lecture 3: e Peace Oering
39
of the Lord, His omnipotent power, was the special portion
of the oering priest himself. e rest of the sacrice was
taken away by the oerer, and he and his family and friends
ate it together before the Lord, rejoicing in the fact that,
typically, mercy and truth had met together, righteousness
and peace had kissed each other. is is indeed a vivid and
graphic picture of communion; God Himself, His anointed
priests, the oerer and his friends, all feasting together
upon the same victim, the sacrice of peace oering.
But now, if I am really going to enjoy fellowship with
God, I must be in a right state of soul. ere can be no
communion with unforgiven sin upon the conscience. In
Leviticus 7:20 we read: “But the soul that eateth of the
esh of the sacrice of peace oerings, that pertain unto
the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, even that
soul shall be cut o from his people.” Before God no
true believer has uncleanness upon him — “e blood of
Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.” When
on that cross our iniquities were laid on Christ, He had
no sin in Him, but He took our sins upon Him. We now
have no sins upon us, but we do have sin within — but
this sin should ever be judged in the light of the cross of
Christ. is is illustrated for us in Leviticus 7:13: “Besides
the cakes, he shall oer for his oering leavened bread
with the sacrice of thanksgiving of his peace oerings.”
Here is a direct instance where leavened bread was used
with the sacrice of thanksgiving of the peace oering.
We have already seen that no leaven was permitted in
the meal oering, but this particular sacrice evidently
typies not Christ Himself but the worshiper who came
to God bringing his peace oering. It was as though the
man was confessing: “In myself I am a poor sinner, sin is in
e Levitical Oerings
40
my very nature; because of that I dare not approach God
without an oering.” And on the basis of that oering he
was accepted and could enter into fellowship with God.
us we see that we have here set forth an all-important
New Testament truth. Every believer has sin in him, but no
believer has sin on him. Attention has often been directed
to the three crosses on Calvary. On the center cross hung
that divine Man who had no sin in Him, but He did
have sin on Him, for in that hour of His soul’s anguish
Jehovah laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He had no sins
of His own, but He made Himself responsible for ours.
ey were all charged against His account, as Paul directed
Philemon to charge the account of Onesimus against him.
Paul became surety for Onesimus, and agreed to settle for
him. is is but a faint picture of what Jesus did for sinners
when “He bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” e
impenitent thief had sin in him and sin on him; he was
both sinful by nature and by practice, and he spurned the
only Savior who could have delivered him from his load of
guilt. So he went into the presence of God with all his sins
upon his soul to answer for them in the day of judgment
when God will judge every man according to his works.
But how dierent was the case of the penitent thief! He,
too, had been as vile and guilty as the other one, but when
he turned in repentance to the Lord Jesus and put his
trust in Him, while he still had sin in him, God no longer
imputed sin to him. It was not upon him because God saw
it all as transferred to Jesus.
I know that many Christians imagine they reach a state
of grace where their sins are not only forgiven, but where
inbred sin is by direct operation of the Holy Spirit removed
from them, so that they claim to be sanctied wholly and
Lecture 3: e Peace Oering
41
are free from all inward tendency to sin. But this is a serious
mistake and leads to serious consequences. Never in the
Word of God are we so taught. As believers we carry about
with us to the end of life our sinful nature, that carnal mind
which is “not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can
be;” but then God says sin need not have dominion over us,
yea, shall not, if we but apprehend the blessedness of the
truth, “Ye are not under the law but under grace.”
1
ere is a great deal more in Leviticus 7 that we might
protably consider, but time forbids going into much of
it in detail. One thing, however, I desire to press most
earnestly ere I close, and that is the divine insistence that
the eating of the sacrice must not be separated from the
oering on the altar. It was to be eaten the same day, under
ordinary circumstances, or if a voluntary oering it might
be eaten the day after, but later than that it was sternly
commanded that whatever was left must be burned with
re. e meaning of this is plain: God will not permit us
to separate communion with Him from the work of the
Cross. Our fellowship with Him is based upon the one
supreme sacrice of our Lord Jesus Christ who there
made peace for us. Communion, as we have already seen,
does not consist simply in pious feeling — this may be the
greatest delusion, and may be simply satisfaction with a
fancied good self instead of heart-occupation with Christ.
It is just as dangerous to be occupied with my good self
as with my bad self. In the latter case I am likely to be
completely discouraged and cast down, but in the former
I become lifted up with pride and in grave danger of
fancying my spiritual egotism to be communion with God.
It is right here that the Lord’s Supper so speaks to the
hearts of God’s people. For at His table we are occupied
e Levitical Oerings
42
with Christ Himself and with what He did for us when
He stooped in grace to take our place in judgment and
to make peace by the blood of His cross. As we meditate
upon these sublime mysteries, our souls are led into the
sanctuary, into the immediate presence of God, in hallowed
fellowship and sweetest communion. We realize that the
veil no longer hides God from us, nor hinders our access
to Him. When Jesus cried, “It is nished,” the veil of the
temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. It
was God’s hand that rent that veil, and now we are bidden
to press boldly in to His immediate presence where we fall
as worshipers before His face to bless and adore Him who
gave Himself for us.
“e veil is rent, our souls draw near
Unto a throne of grace;
e merits of the Lord appear,
ey ll the holy place.
His precious blood has spoken there,
Before and on the throne,
And His own wounds in Heaven declare
e atoning work is done.
“‘Tis nished!’ — here our souls nd rest,
His work can never fail,
By Him, our sacrice and priest.
We pass within the veil.”
And there, with all the blood-bought throng, we feast
upon the sacrice of peace oering as we dwell upon the
innite love and grace of Him who has so fully expressed
the heart of God toward guilty man by giving up His holy
life in death for us. To attempt to worship apart from this is
Lecture 3: e Peace Oering
43
but a mockery. All religious exercises and frames of feeling
that are not linked with the work of the cross are simply
delusive and deceive the soul, for there can be no true
communion with God excepting in connection with the
cross-work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I add a few additional remarks as to Psalm 85, which
may well be called the Psalm of the peace oering. Notice
verses 1 and 2, “Lord, ou hast been favorable unto y
land: ou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. ou
hast forgiven the iniquity of y people, ou hast covered
all their sin.” en observe verses 7 to 11, “Shew us y
mercy, O Lord, and grant us y salvation. I will hear what
God the Lord will speak: for He will speak peace unto
His people, and to His saints: but let them not turn again
to folly. Surely His salvation is nigh them that fear Him;
that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met
together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness
shall look down from heaven.” It is God Himself who
speaks peace to His people, for He alone could devise
a plan whereby mercy and truth could meet together
and righteousness and peace kiss each other. Truth and
righteousness demanded the payment of our fearful debt
ere mercy could be shown to the sinner. at man could
not settle the dierences between himself and God is
evident; atone for his own sins he could not. It is written
in Zechariah 6:12-13, “And speak unto him, saying, us
speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the Man whose
name is e BRANCH; and He shall grow up out of His
place, and He shall build the temple of the Lord: even He
shall build the temple of the Lord; and He shall bear the
glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne; and He shall
e Levitical Oerings
44
be a priest upon His throne: and the counsel of peace shall
be between em both.” e counsel of peace is between
the Lord of hosts and the Man whose name is e Branch,
or, to put it in New Testament language, it is between the
Father and the Son. Peace was made when our Lord Jesus
took our place upon the cross and met every claim of the
outraged majesty of the throne of God. Now righteousness
and peace are linked eternally together, and being justied
by faith we have peace with God. is is not merely a sense
of righteousness in our hearts; it is far more than that; it is
a question settled between God and the sinner in perfect
righteousness, so that grace can now go out to guilty man.
When we believe this we enter into peace. We enjoy what
Christ has eected.
ere is an incident that has often been related, but well
illustrates what I am trying to say. At the close of the War
Between the States, a party of Federal cavalrymen were
riding along a road toward Richmond one day, when a poor
scarecrow of a fellow, weak and emaciated, and clad only
in the ragged remnants of a Confederate uniform, came
out of the bushes on one side and attracted their attention
by begging hoarsely for bread. He declared that he had
been starving in the woods for a number of weeks, and
subsisting only upon the few berries and roots he could
nd. ey suggested that he go into Richmond with them
and get what he needed. He demurred, saying that he was
a deserter from the Confederate army, and he did not dare
to show himself lest he be arrested and conned in prison,
or possibly shot for desertion in time of war. ey looked
at him in amazement and asked, “Have you not heard the
news?” “What news?” he anxiously enquired. “Why, the
Confederacy no longer exists. General Lee surrendered to
Lecture 3: e Peace Oering
45
General Grant over a week ago, and peace is made.” “Oh!”
he exclaimed, “peace is made, and I have been starving in the
woods because I did not know it.” Believing the message,
he went with them into the city to nd comfort and food.
Oh, unsaved one, let me press upon you the blessed truth
that peace was made when our venerable Savior died for
our sins upon the cross of shame. Believe the message, then
you enter into the good of it; and, remember, peace rests
not on your frames or feelings but on His nished work.
“at which can shake the Cross,
Can shake the peace it gave,
Which tells me Christ has never died,
Nor ever left the grave.”
As long as these blessed facts remain — the death and
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ — our peace stands
secure.
1 I have tried to go into this with considerable fulness
in my book entitled, Holiness: e False and the True, and I
venture to commend this to any who have trouble in regard
to this subject.
e Levitical Oerings
46
Lecture 4: e Sin Oering
47
161655
Lecture 4: e Sin Oering
Read Lev. 4; Lev. 5:1-13; Lev. 6:24-30; Psa.
22; 2Cor. 5:21.
We have already noticed that the bloody oerings are
divided into two classes: sweet savor oerings and oerings
for sin. e burnt oering and the peace oering are in
the rst class, the sin oering and the trespass oering in
the second. e burnt oering was not brought because
things had been going wrong; it was the expression of the
oerer’s worship. He brought it to God as an evidence
of the gratitude of his heart because of what God was to
him and had done for him, and all went up to Jehovah as
a sweet savor. As we have seen, it represented the Lord
Jesus Christ oering Himself without spot unto God as
e Levitical Oerings
48
a sacrice of a sweet smelling savor on our behalf. When
we come into the presence of God as worshipers with our
hearts occupied with Christ, we come bringing the burnt
oering. Our souls are taken up with Him, the worthy
One, who gave Himself for us who were so unworthy. We
think of Him not merely as the One who died for our sins,
but as having gloried God in this scene where we had so
dishonored Him, and we adore Him because of what He
is, as well as for what He has done. A child loves its mother
not merely because of what she does for it but because of
what she is. It is her tender loving heart that draws the
child to her. And so the Israelite expressed the worship
of his soul in the burnt oering. It was the recognition of
God’s goodness, and because He saw in it that which spoke
of His Son all went up as a sweet savor to Him. As He
beheld the smoke of the burnt oering ascend to heaven,
He was looking on to Calvary — He could see beforehand
all that blessed work of the Lord Jesus, and who can tell
how much it meant to Him? In Genesis 8:20-21 we read
how Noah oered a burnt oering upon the renewed earth,
and we are told the Lord smelled a sweet savor, or, as the
margin puts it, “a savor of rest.” It was something in which
His heart found delight, not because of any intrinsic value
of its own but because it was a type of Christ and His work.
en in the peace oering we have another suggestion.
In it the pious Israelite expressed his communion with God
and with others who shared with him in partaking of it. A
portion was burned upon the altar. It was called the food
of the oering, and it spoke of God’s delight in the inward
perfections of His Son. en the wave-shoulder was given
to Aaron and his house that they might feed upon it. e
shoulder is the place of strength. e priestly house had
Lecture 4: e Sin Oering
49
its portion in that which spoke of the mighty power and
unfailing strength of the Lord Jesus Christ. e ociating
priest had the wave-breast.
e breast speaks, of course, of aection, of love, and so
the priest was to feed upon that which set forth the tender
love of the coming Savior. en the oerer himself invited
his family and friends, and they all sat down together and
consumed the rest of the peace oering. Every part of it
spoke of Christ. us we see God, Aaron and his house,
the ociating priest, the oerer and his friends, all in
happy communion, feasting together upon that which
spoke of Christ! And so today all who have been saved
by His death upon the cross are called to enjoy Christ
together in hallowed fellowship with Himself, the One
who made peace by the blood of His cross. But now we
come to another view of things. Until the soul has seen
in Him the One who took the sinner’s place and bore his
judgment, Christ can never be enjoyed as the One who has
made peace; so we have the sin oering. It is somewhat
dicult to distinguish between the two aspects of the sin
oering and the trespass oering; but the rst one seems
rather to have in view sin as the expression of the unclean,
deling condition of the very nature of the sinner, whereas
the trespass oering rather emphasizes the fact that sin
is to be regarded as a debt which man can never pay — a
debt that must be paid by another if ever paid at all. I am
not saying that the sin oering only has in view our evil
nature, for that would be a mistake. It is plain, I should
think, that actual transgressions are in view in chapters 4
and 5 — but what I do say is that these transgressions are
the manifestation of the corrupt nature of the one who
commits them. I am not a sinner because I sin; I sin because
e Levitical Oerings
50
I am a sinner. I, myself, am an unclean thing in the sight of
God; I am utterly unt for His presence; my evil deeds only
make this manifest, therefore the need of a sin oering.
at this oering like the others speaks of Christ, we may
be assured, for we are told very denitely, in 2Corinthians
5:21, that God “hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him.” e words for “sin” and “sin oering” are the same
in the original in both Testaments, so we might render it,
“God hath made Him to be a sin oering for us.” And in
the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapters 9-10, the Holy Ghost
clearly shows how the oering for sin of old typies His one
oering on Calvary’s cross. In fact, in the quotation from
Psalm 40 as found in Hebrews 10:5-6, all of the oerings
are indicated, and all are shown to have their fullment in
Christ’s work. “Sacrice” is the peace oering; “oering” is
the meal oering; “burnt oering” speaks for itself, and the
term “sin oering” takes in both sin and trespass oerings.
“e oering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” in
verse 10, and the “one sacrice for sin” in verse 12, show
that Christ fullled all these types.
Turn then to Leviticus 4:2. We read, “If a soul shall sin
through ignorance against any of the commandments of
the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done,
and shall do against any of them” — then follow instructions
as to how the sin is to be dealt with. Observe, there was
no sin oering for wilful, deliberate sin under the law. It
was only for sins of ignorance. But since the cross, God in
innite grace counts only one sin as wilful, and that is the
nal rejection of His beloved Son. All other sins are looked
upon as sins of ignorance; they are the outcome of that evil
heart of unbelief which is in all of us. Men sin because of
Lecture 4: e Sin Oering
51
the ignorance that is in them. You remember Peter’s words
to guilty Israel as bringing home to them their dreadful sin
in crucifying the Lord of Glory. He says, “I wot, brethren,
that it was through ignorance ye did it.” And the Apostle
Paul, in speaking of Christ’s crucixion and death, says,
“Which none of the princes of this world knew; for had
they known it, they would not have crucied the Lord of
glory.” What wondrous grace is here displayed! e very
worst sin that has ever been committed in the history of
the world is classed by God as a sin of ignorance! And
so the sin oering is available for any man who desires
to be saved. Whatever your record may have been, God
looks down upon you in innite pity and compassion, and
opens a door of mercy to you as one who has ignorantly
sinned. But if you still refuse the mercy He has provided
in grace, then you can no longer plead ignorance, for you
crucify to yourself the Son of God afresh and put Him to
an open shame. is is the wilful sin so solemnly portrayed
in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the sin for which there is no
forgiveness. It is not a question there of a Christian who has
failed; but it is the enlightened man, the one who knows
the gospel, who is intellectually assured of its truth, and
yet turns his back deliberately upon that truth, and nally
refuses to acknowledge the Son of God as his Savior. ere
is nothing for that man “but a certain fearful looking for
of judgment and ery indignation which shall devour the
adversaries.” But every poor sinner who wishes to be saved
may avail himself of the Great Sin Oering, and may know
that all his guilt is forever put away.
In Leviticus 4:3 we read, “If the priest that is anointed
do sin;” then in verse 13 it is, “If the whole congregation of
Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the
e Levitical Oerings
52
eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against
any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things
which should not be done, and are guilty;” then in verse 22
we read, “When a ruler hath sinned, and done somewhat
through ignorance against any of the commandments of
the Lord his God concerning things which should not be
done, and is guilty;” whereas in ver. 27 it is, “And if any
one of the common people sin through ignorance, while
he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of
the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done,
and be guilty.” When you read the instructions that follow
you will observe that there are dierent grades of sin
oerings. If the anointed priest sinned he had to bring a
young bullock, and this was also the oering for the whole
congregation; but if a ruler sinned he was to bring a kid of
the goats, a lamb without blemish. On the other hand if
it was one of the common people, he could bring a kid of
the goats or a lamb of the ock, females. But in Leviticus
5:11-13 we nd that even lesser oerings were acceptable
if the sinner was exceedingly poor. All this suggests the
thought that responsibility increases with privilege. e
anointed priest was as guilty as the entire congregation;
he should have known better because he was so much
nearer to God in outward privilege. en a ruler, while not
so responsible as the priest, was more so than one of the
common people. ere is a principle here that is well for
us all to remember: e more light we have on the truth
of God and the greater the privileges which we enjoy in
this scene, the more responsible God holds us; we shall be
called to account in accordance with the truth He has made
known to us. Alas, my brethren, is it not a lamentable fact
that should bow us in shame before God that many of us
Lecture 4: e Sin Oering
53
who pride ourselves upon a wonderful unfolding of truth
are ofttimes most careless in our behavior, and become
stumbling-blocks to those who have less light than we?
How we need to have recourse to the great Sin Oering,
to remember as we bow in confession of our failures before
God that all our sins were dealt with on the Cross of
Christ! It is hardly necessary to go into all the details of
each of the oerings, but we may look particularly at that
for the priest as it embraces practically everything that is
mentioned in the lesser ones. First observe, the priest was
to bring a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord
for a sin oering. He who knew no sin made sin for us! — it
is of this that the unblemished bullock speaks. It was to be
brought to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation,
before the Lord. e sinner was to identify himself with
his oering by laying his hand upon its head and killing it
himself. en the ociating priest was to take of the blood
of the bullock, and entering the sanctuary sprinkle it seven
times before the Lord before the veil. He was to put some
of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense
before the Lord; the rest of it was to be poured out at the
bottom of the altar of burnt oering. What solemn lessons
are these! It was here on this earth our blessed Savior died
as the great Sin Oering; here His blood was poured out
at the foot of His cross. is earth has drunk the blood
of Him who was its Creator. at shed blood tells of life
given up. In Leviticus 17:11 God says, “e life of the esh
is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to
make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that
maketh an atonement for the soul.” His life, holy, spotless,
pure and undeled, has been given up in death for us who
e Levitical Oerings
54
are sinners by nature and by practice, and now as trusting
Him we may well sing,
“Upon a life I did not live,
Upon a death I did not die,
Another’s life, Another’s death,
I hang my whole eternity.”
But, that blood shed here on earth has really pierced
the heavens. It has, so to speak, been carried into the
sanctuary, the sevenfold sprinkling has been done within
the veil which in the old economy was still un-rent. It was
the testimony to God of the work completed here on earth.
en the blood upon the horns of the golden altar linked
the altar in the sanctuary with the great altar out in the
court, for the bronze altar spoke of Christ’s work in this
world; the golden altar spoke of His work in heaven; the
blood linked the two together. His intercession in heaven
is based upon the work of the cross.
In verse 8, we learn that the priest was to take o from
the bullock all the fat and certain inward parts that could
only be reached by death, and he was to burn them upon
the altar of the burnt oering. ey were not said to be a
sweet savor, for they spoke of Christ being made sin for us.
is is further emphasized when we read that the skin of
the bullock and all the rest of the carcass, even the whole
bullock, was to be carried outside the camp where the ashes
were poured out and there burned upon the wood with re.
is expresses the awful truth that Christ was made a curse
for us. We read in Hebrews 13:11: “For the bodies of those
beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the
high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore
Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own
Lecture 4: e Sin Oering
55
blood, suered outside the gate.” He went into the place of
darkness and distance in order that we might be brought
into the place of light and nearness to God for all eternity.
In Leviticus 13, the leper was put outside the camp. It was
the place of the unclean, and so our blessed Lord, when He
became the great Sin Oering, was dealt with as taking the
place of the unclean ones — though Himself the innitely
Holy One. e place itself, however, is called “a clean place.”
No actual delement attached to it.
It is important to learn that it was not merely the
physical suering of Jesus that made atonement for sin;
it was not the scourging in Pilate’s judgment hall, the
suering from the ribald soldiery in Herod’s court, the
crowning with thorns and the agellation — these were
not in themselves what expiated our guilt. But we read in
Isaiah 53, “When ou shalt make His soul an oering
for sin.” It was what our Lord suered in the depths of
His inward being that met the claims of divine justice and
settled the sin question. You have doubtless noticed that
our blessed Savior hung upon that cruel cross for six long
hours, and these six hours are divided into two parts. From
the third to the sixth hour — that is, from nine o’clock in
the morning to high noon — the sun was shining down on
the scene, and in spite of all His intense physical suering
our Lord enjoyed unbroken communion with the Father.
But from the sixth to the ninth hour — that is, to three
o’clock in the afternoon — darkness was over all the land.
What took place in those awful hours only God and His
beloved Son will ever know. It was then the soul of Jesus
was made an oering for sin. It was as the darkness was
passing away that He cried in anguish, “My God, My God,
why hast ou forsaken Me?” You and I may well see in
e Levitical Oerings
56
our sins and our innate sinfulness the answer to that cry.
He was forsaken that we might have access as redeemed
sinners to the Father’s face. And it is of this that the
burning of the sacrice outside the camp speaks. Observe,
it was to be carried into a clean place. We have said that
the outside place was the place of the unclean in the case
of the leper; and this is true, but un-cleanness was never in
any sense attached to Jesus — even as the sin oering He
was most holy. He had no sin in Him though our sins were
laid on Him.
A careful study of the directions for the people’s oering
will bring to light some little details that have not perhaps
been touched upon, but I need not dwell on them here for
all will be clear in the light of what we have already looked
at.
We have in chapter 5 some things that may well claim
our attention. In the rst four verses, we get various degrees
of uncleanness because of sin. “And if a soul sin, and hear
the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he hath
seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, then he shall bear
his iniquity. Or if a soul touch any unclean thing, whether
it be of a carcase of an unclean beast, or a carcase of unclean
cattle, or the carcase of unclean creeping things, and if it be
hidden from him; he also shall be unclean, and guilty. Or if
he touch the uncleanness of man, whatsoever uncleanness
it be that a man shall be deled withal, and it be hid from
him; when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty. Or if
a soul swear, pronouncing with his lips to do evil, or to do
good, whatsoever it be that a man shall pronounce with an
oath, and it be hid from him; when he knoweth of it, then
he shall be guilty in one of these.” ese suggest what I have
already dwelt upon, that the sin oering has particularly in
Lecture 4: e Sin Oering
57
view sin as evidencing the corruption of our nature. Any of
these things would be manifesting the hidden uncleanness.
en in verse 5 we read, “And it shall be, when he shall
be guilty in one of these things, that he shall confess that
he hath sinned in that thing.” Notice the deniteness of
the confession. A mere general acknowledgment of failure
would not do. e culprit must face his actual transgression
and confess it in the presence of God, and so we read, “If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1John
1:9). It is not merely if he asks for forgiveness, or in a
general way acknowledges that we all fail — that “we have
left undone those things that we ought to have done, and
we have done those things we ought not to have done,”
but there must be a denite confession in order to have a
denite forgiveness.
en in verses 6-13 notice the grace of God in the
provision made for even the poorest of His people. No
matter how feeble our apprehension of Christ may be, if
we come to God in His name He will forgive. e oerer
under ordinary circumstances was to bring a female from
the ock, a lamb or a kid of the goats for a sin oering.
But God took poverty into account, and in verse 7 we read,
“If he be not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for
his trespass, which he hath committed, two turtle-doves or
two young pigeons, unto the Lord; one for a sin oering,
and the other for a burnt oering.” But there might be
some in Israel who could not even procure an oering
like this, and so in ver. 11 we are told, “If he be not able
to bring two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, then he
that sinned shall bring for his oering the tenth part of
an ephah of ne our for a sin oering; he shall put no oil
e Levitical Oerings
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upon it, neither shall he put any frankincense thereon: for
it is a sin oering.” en the priest was to take a memorial
of it and burn it upon the altar, and even of this we read in
verse 13, “e priest shall make an atonement for him as
touching his sin that he hath sinned in one of these, and it
shall be forgiven him: and the remnant shall be the priest’s,
as a meal oering.” ere was nothing in this oering that
spoke of the shedding of the blood, but it did picture Christ
Himself, and it was Christ taking the sinner’s place. Hence
the omission of the oil and frankincense. And God would
accept this when the oerer could bring no more. It tells
us that the feeblest apprehension of Christ as the Savior
of sinners brings forgiveness. One might not understand
the atonement, nor what was involved in the redemptive
work of our Savior, but if he trusts in Christ, however
feebly, God thinks so much of the Person and work of His
Son that He will have everyone in heaven who will give
Him the least possible excuse for getting him there. What
matchless grace!
In Leviticus 6:24-30 we have the law of the sin oering,
and the priest is instructed as to his own behavior, and
how to treat the vessels that were used in connection with
it. Twice we read concerning the sin oering, “It is most
holy.” God would not have our thoughts lowered in regard
to the holiness of His Son because He stooped in grace
to be made sin on our behalf. He was ever undeled and
undelable.
ere was a portion of the sin oering which the
priests were to eat. We may think of this as suggesting
our meditation upon what it meant for Christ to take the
sinner’s place.
Lecture 4: e Sin Oering
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“Help me to understand it,
at I may take it in,
What it meant to ee, the Holy One,
To put away my sin.”
Observe carefully, the priests were not to eat the
sin — they were to eat the sin oering. It does not do for us
to dwell upon the sin, either our own or that of others. To
do so would be most deling. But we are all called upon to
eat the sin oering in the holy place. In verse 30, we learn,
however, that no sin oering, “whereof any of the blood is
brought into the tabernacle of the congregation to reconcile
withal in the holy place, shall be eaten; it shall be burned
in the re.” e priests could only partake of certain parts
of such sacrices as were not burned outside the camp, nor
the blood sprinkled before the veil. We cannot enter into
all the fulness of the death of Christ. Our apprehension
of what He suered for sin must always be feeble, and
perhaps the full realization of it would be too much for our
poor hearts and minds. It broke His heart (Psalm 69:20);
it would crush us completely; but, thank God, there is a
sense in which we can indeed eat the sin oering in the
holy place as we meditate upon what Scripture has clearly
revealed in regard to the expiatory work upon that cross
of shame. If we read carefully Psalm 22, which might be
called the psalm of the sin oering, we may enter in, in
some measure, to what His holy soul went through when
He took our place in judgment. To do this with reverence
and awe is to eat the sin oering in a manner acceptable
to God.
In closing, let me say that God in thus giving His
Son to take the sinner’s place, has told out to the full His
innite love to lost man. What then can be the guilt of that
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man who refuses such grace and tramples upon such love?
What can there be for him but a “certain fearful looking-
for of judgment and ery indignation which shall devour
the adversaries?”
“Grace like this despised, brings judgment,
Measured by the wrath He bore.”
God grant that no one to whom this message comes
may trample on such loving-kindness and so merit such
dire judgment.
We are told in John 3:18: “He that believeth on Him is
not condemned: but He that believeth not is condemned
already, because He hath not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God.” And in John 16:9 the sin of
which the Holy Spirit has come to convince men is thus
described, “Of sin, because they believe not on Me.” is
is wilful sin, and for this sin, if unrepented of, there is no
forgiveness. Even the redemptive work of Christ will not
avail to save the sinner who spurns the One who there
died to put away sin by the sacrice of Himself. To turn
from the message of the gospel — to deliberately and
nally reject the One who upon the accursed tree became
the Great Sin Oering — is to do despite to the Spirit of
God, to trample under foot the love of Christ, to count His
precious atoning blood an unholy, a common, thing, and to
crucify to oneself the Son of God afresh, thus putting Him
to an open shame. Yea, more, it is to throw back into the
outraged face of the Father the slain body of His beloved
Son, thus calling down the righteous wrath of God upon
the guilty rejecter of His grace!
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Lecture 5: e Trespass
Oering
Read Lev. 5: 14-6:7; Lev. 7:1-7; Psa. 69.
e oering which we are now to consider presents what
we might call the primary aspect of the work of the cross.
It meets the awakened sinner as the answer to his fears,
when, troubled about his trespasses, anxiously inquiring,
“How can I be saved from the legitimate consequences of
my sins?” Every sin is an oence to the majesty of heaven.
It is a trespass against the holy government of God, and
righteousness demands that amends be made for it, or
else that the trespasser be shut away from God’s presence
forever. A trespass may also be against our fellow-men, but
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even in that case the sin is primarily against God. David
trespassed most heinously against his soldier-friend, Uriah
the Hittite, and against Bathsheba herself, and in a wider
sense against all Israel. But in his prayer of confession, Psalm
51, he cried out from the depths of his anguished heart,
“Against ee, ee only, have I sinned, and done this evil
in y sight.” And so keen is his sense of the wickedness
of it all that he realizes the blood of bulls and of goats can
never wash out the stain, and so he cries, looking on in
faith to the cross of Christ, “Purge me with hyssop, and I
shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”
It is this aspect of the cross that is brought before us in the
trespass oering.
In the thirteen verses of Lev. 5:14 — 6:7 we have the
reason for, and the character of, the trespass oering. First
we read, “If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through
ignorance, in the holy things of the Lord; then he shall
bring for his trespass unto the Lord a ram without blemish
out of the ocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver,
after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass oering: and
he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in
the holy thing, and shall add the fth part thereto, and give
it unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement
for him with the ram of the trespass oering, and it shall
be forgiven him.” is is the rst aspect of the trespass.
It is something done against the Lord Himself; but, as in
the case of the sin oering, it is done through ignorance.
So again we are reminded that God looks upon all sin as
springing from the ignorance that is in man; unless in
the nal refusing of the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Sin
Oering. To do this is to be guilty of wilful and eternal
sin. An Israelite might sin in the holy things of the Lord
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in various ways. For instance he might underestimate the
size of his annual crop, and so ignorantly bring to the priest
a lesser tithe than the law demanded. But, when the truth
of the condition of things was brought to his attention, he
was not to pass over the oence as a matter of no moment,
but he was to bring a trespass oering, and with it the
estimated amount, to which he added by direction of the
priest the fth part. e trespass oering was oered in
accordance with the law, and the silver was given to the
priest to be brought into the sanctuary of Jehovah. us,
where sin abounded grace did much more abound. And if
we may so say, God actually received more because of the
man’s blunder than He would have received apart from it.
How clearly this comes out in the work of the Cross! By it
God has received far more glory than He ever lost by man’s
sin. In Psalm 69 we hear the Holy Suerer on Calvary
saying, “en I restored that which I took not away.” We
had robbed God; He became our trespass oering, and
He, thereby, made amends to God for all the wrong we
had done, and added the fth part thereto. For we are not
to think for a moment of the suerings of our Savior as
though they barely suced to atone for our transgressions.
ere was in that work of Calvary such innite value that
it not only met all the actual sins of all who would ever
believe in Him, but there was over and above that such
value as will never be drawn upon by all the repentant
sinners in the universe of God.
e unblemished ram for a trespass oering tells of the
Holy One who was “led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a
sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His
mouth.” Here was the Prince of the ock, the tall stately
ram, submitting to death in order to atone for our guilt.
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“He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised
for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon
Him; and with His stripes we are healed.”
In verses 17-19 we read, “And if a soul sin, and commit
any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the
commandments of the Lord; though he wist it not, yet is he
guilty, and shall bear his iniquity. And he shall bring a ram
without blemish out of the ock, with thy estimation for a
trespass oering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make
an atonement for him concerning his ignorance wherein
he erred and wist it not, and it shall be forgiven him. It
is a trespass oering: he hath certainly trespassed against
the Lord.” Here the important truth that is emphasized
is that God’s Word is the standard of judgment, not my
knowledge of it. e soul that committed any oence
ignorantly, anything forbidden in the law of God, was
guilty, even though he knew it not, and apart from the
trespass oering he must bear his iniquity. It is not that
God is going to hold men responsible for light they never
had, but He does hold them responsible to avail themselves
of the light He has given. He gave the law to Israel; they
were guilty, therefore, if they ignored it and did not become
acquainted with its commandments. Having Moses and the
prophets, they were responsible to hear them, as Abraham
declares to the rich man in Hades. And then today, what
shall we say of those who have the whole Word of God,
and yet allow the Bible to lie neglected in their homes, and
never even take the trouble to seek to know the mind of
the Lord? How guilty will they be judged in the coming
day who have deliberately ignored this divine revelation
and so fail to learn the will of God!
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In Bunyan’s immortal allegory, it was as the man
Graceless read in the Book that he realized the weight of
the burden upon his back. And it is as the truth of the
Word of God is brought to bear upon the consciences of
sinners that they feel their sins and cry out for deliverance;
and, thank God, when the load of our sins is thus brought
home to us, the trespass oering is nigh at hand. We have
but to come to God pleading the merits of the atoning
work of His beloved Son to nd there full atonement for
all our iniquities.
In Leviticus 6:1-7 we have the other side of things, sin
against one’s neighbor. But even that is a trespass against
the Lord, and so we are told; “If a soul sin, and commit
a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbor in
that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship,
or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his
neighbor; or have found that which was lost, and lieth
concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that
a man doeth, sinning therein : then it shall be, because he
hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he
took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully
gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the
lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath
sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and
shall add the fth part more thereto, and give it unto him
to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass oering.”
Here, too, the principle noted above is found. Man himself
benets by the provision of the trespass oering. e one
who had been wronged was really better o than before,
after the sin had been confessed and the fth part had been
added to that which was returned when the oerer brought
his trespass oering to the Lord. For as in the previous
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case, if he had deceitfully robbed his neighbor, or had
found something that was lost and had hidden it intending
to keep it himself, or had in any other way wronged or
defrauded another, his trespass oering was not acceptable
to God unless he made full restitution by returning the
thing that he had deceitfully gotten and then adding to
it the fth part. How wondrously does this bring out the
matchless grace of God. roughout the eternal ages it will
be seen that, as Tennyson puts it, in “e Dreamer,”
“Less shall be lost than won.”
For God maketh even the wrath of man to praise Him,
and the remainder of wrath He doth restrain. e skeptic
may ask sneeringly, “Why did a righteous and omnipotent
God ever permit sin to raise up its hideous head in the
universe, thus deling the heavens and the earth?” But the
work of the cross is the answer to it all. Man’s relationship
to God as a redeemed sinner is far greater and more blessed
than the mere relationship of creature to Creator. And the
grace of God has been magnied in the great trespass
oering of the cross in a way it never could have been
known if sin had never come in at all.
How precious the words of verse 7, “And the priest shall
make an atonement for him before the Lord: and it shall
be forgiven him for any thing of all that he hath done in
trespassing therein.” Do these words come to any poor,
anxious, troubled soul? Do you wonder sometimes if you
have sinned beyond all hope of mercy? Oh, be persuaded,
if you will but come to God bringing the trespass oering,
that is, putting your heart’s trust in the Lord Jesus, looking
to Him alone for salvation, every sin will be forgiven; all
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that you have done will be blotted out forever, and be in
God’s sight as if it had never been.
Years ago at the close of a great meeting in Chicago
where Gipsy Rodney Smith was the preacher, a strong man
came weeping up the aisle at the close of the evangelist’s
address, sobbing out the story of his sin and shame. To the
gipsy who sought to help him he exclaimed, “Oh, sir, my
sin is too great ever to be forgiven.” Quick as a ash, the
preacher said, “But His grace is greater than all your sin.”
Dr. Towner, the beloved hymn-writer and musician, who
was standing by, caught the words, and as he walked home
that night they took form in his heart and mind, and he
composed the chorus:
“Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin.”
e melody of the verses was also given to him, and he
jotted them down when he reached his home. e next day
he gave them to Julia Johnston, who has written so many
precious songs of praise, and she composed the verses of
the well-known hymn bearing the title of the chorus. e
rst stanza of it reads:
“Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds all our sin and our guilt,
Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured,
ere where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.”
rough the years since, the song has borne its story
of grace greater than all our sins, to tens of thousands of
anxious souls. is indeed is the message of the trespass
oering.
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In Leviticus 7:1-7 we have the law of the trespass
oering. As in the case of the sin oering, we are twice
told that “it is most holy.” God would never have left
the least room for the thought that the humanity of our
blessed Savior was ever deled by sin. We are told of Him,
“He knew no sin,” and, “He did no sin,” and, “In Him is
no sin.” How carefully God guarded this! Even on the
very morning of His trial and throughout the day of His
execution it was manifest. Pilate’s wife sent the message,
“Have thou nothing to do with that just Man.” Pilate
himself declared, “I nd no fault in Him;” the thief upon
the cross exclaimed, “is Man hath done nothing amiss;”
and the Roman centurion, awed by the marvelous events of
that dreadful hour, declared, “Certainly this was a righteous
Man.” And yet we see the Just One suering for us the
unjust, that He might bring us to God!
e trespass oering was to be killed at the altar and
the blood sprinkled round about the altar. Certain parts
of the victim were burned upon the altar, thus going up
to God as an expression of divine judgment against our
sins, while other parts were eaten by the priests in the holy
place, as in the case of the sin oering, for we are told, “As
the sin oering is, so is the trespass oering: there is one
law for them: the priest that maketh atonement therewith
shall have it.” Every believer is a priest today, and it is the
hallowed privilege of every one of us to feed upon the
trespass oering. We do this as we read the Word of God
and meditate upon what it reveals as to the atoning work of
our Lord Jesus Christ in order to put away all our sins and
trespasses and t us for the presence of a holy God.
Psalm 69 most ttingly links with these Levitical
instructions. It is the psalm of the trespass oering; it gives
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us our blessed Lord going to the cross, rejected of men,
bearing the judgment due to our sins. It is there, as already
mentioned, we hear Him saying, “I restored that which I
took not away.” He confessed our sins as His own, and He
can say, “e zeal of ine house hath eaten Me up; and
the reproaches of them that reproached ee are fallen
upon Me.” It is in Psalm 69:20-21 of this psalm that we
read, “Reproach hath broken My heart; and I am full of
heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there
was none; and for comforters, but I found none. ey gave
Me also gall for My meat; and in My thirst they gave Me
vinegar to drink.” How plainly this shows that it was on
the cross that His soul passed through the anguish here
depicted, and as we contemplate Him as the great Trespass
Oering we exclaim with the psalmist, “is also shall
please Jehovah better than an ox or bullock that hath horns
and hoofs” (Psa. 69:31). What the sacrices of old could
not accomplish, namely, the actual putting away of sin,
has been accomplished through the nished work of our
Lord Jesus, that one oering, never to be repeated, which
He made on our behalf upon the accursed tree. We cannot
add to this nished work, and, thank God, we cannot take
from it. It stands alone in its marvelous completeness. In it
God has found innite satisfaction, and in it the believing
sinner nds satisfaction too. e answer of the old monk to
the young man who came to the monastery gate inquiring
what he should do to put away his sins, is in full accord
with the truth of the trespass oering. e aged man
replied, “ere is nothing left that you can do.” And he
then endeavored to show his inquirer how fully Christ had
met every claim of God against the sinner there upon the
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Cross. To attempt to put away our own sins is but folly and
ignorance combined.
“Not what these hands have done
Can cleanse this guilty soul;
Not what this toiling esh has borne
Can make my spirit whole.
“Not what I think or do
Can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers, or toil, or tears,
Can ease this awful load.
“y blood alone, Lord Jesus,
Can cleanse my soul from sin;
y Word alone, O Lamb of God,
Can give me peace within.”
And so we come to the end for the present of our
meditation upon these ve oerings and their typical
import. I have not attempted to go into them exhaustively;
others have done that, and their writings are easily available
and well worth careful and thoughtful consideration. I have
simply sought to emphasize the great outstanding truths in
regard to the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ
suggested by the sacrices of old, and I trust not without
prot to every one of us. Oh, to know more of Him and
to appreciate in a fuller way His wondrous work which
has meant so much to God and which is the basis of our
eternal blessing!
“Here we see the dawn of heaven,
While upon the cross we gaze;
See our trespasses forgiven,
And our songs of triumph raise.”
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So sang Sir Edward Denny, and so may each penitent
believer sing, as he stands by faith by the sacrice of the
trespass oering.
— H. A. Ironside
