LEVITICUS 16
It will be observed that this chapter reverts to chapter 10 in referring to the two sons of Aaron who “came near before Jehovah and died”. It comes in after the failure of the priesthood, in which we may see an intimation of the breakdown of the whole system as having been set up in connection with man after the flesh. Even Aaron himself was not to come “at all times into the sanctuary inside the veil ... that he die not”. If coming into the immediate presence of God meant death for the greatest personage in the system it was clear proof that man after that order — man in the flesh — could not draw near. Typically the whole system of the tabernacle and its sacrifices spoke of Christ and of His death, but it was actually set up in connection with failing and mortal men. Hence there was a complete breakdown on man’s side on the first day of their service. Instead of being capable of serving God and approaching God, man in the flesh is a complete failure, and is under the judgment of death.
The tabernacle and its ordinances indicated that it was God’s pleasure to dwell in the midst of a redeemed people, and to be approached by men, but it also indicated just as plainly that what God desired could only be brought about in a spiritual order of things. “The Holy Spirit showing this, that the way of the holy of holies has not yet been made manifest while as yet the first tabernacle has its standing” (Hebrews 9: 8).
Then in this chapter it is not only that Aaron’s sons have died, and that Aaron himself is forbidden to come inside the veil at all times on pain of death, but the children of Israel generally as set in relation to the [p. 178] sanctuary and the tent of meeting are seen to be marked by uncleanness, iniquities, transgressions and sins, from which the sanctuary and the tent of meeting need to be cleansed. Atonement needs to be made for Aaron and for his house, and for the whole congregation. It is not now, as in former chapters of this book, what relates to the sin, trespass, or defilement of an individual Israelite, or even one specific sin of the whole assembly. The question raised is a far deeper and wider one. It is a question of the footing on which the priestly house and the whole congregation can be with God as having His dwelling amongst them in holiness. This question was typically raised and settled “once a year” for Israel, but the continual repetition of it year by year served to show that the question was not really settled. “For blood of bulls and goats is incapable of taking away sins” (Hebrews 10: 4). It was a yearly reminder that this question needed to be settled, and a prophetic intimation that it would be settled fully and eternally by the offering of Christ. Read Hebrews 9 and 10, and see how the Spirit of God contrasts the repeated offerings of the yearly day of atonement with the manifestation of Christ “once in the consummation of the ages ... for the putting away of sin by his sacrifice”. He emphasizes that Christ has “been once offered to bear the sins of many”, and that by God’s will “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”. “But he, having offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down in perpetuity at the right hand of God ... . For by one offering he has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified”. He “by his own blood has entered in once for all into the holy of holies, having found an eternal redemption”.
[p. 179] It may be well to note the difference between the death of Christ as set forth in the Passover and in the sin-offering of the day of atonement. The Passover is necessary on our side, if we are to escape judgment and to have a place in the kingdom of God; it will be “fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (Luke 22: 16), when men will be relieved of judgment, and be brought into unity as under the sway of God known in righteous grace and blessing. But the sin-offering of the day of atonement deals with the question of sin from the standpoint of how it affects God in the abode of His holiness. It stands in reference to “the holy sanctuary”, and “the tent of meeting”, and “the altar”. It has in view God dwelling in holiness, and the thought of man’s approach to Him. Every moral stain must be removed so that there may be suitability to God in the place where He dwells in unsullied light and holiness. The sin-offering of the day of atonement goes to the very root of the question of sin as it affects the glory of God, and shows how God has glorified Himself in holiness with reference to sin so that He can have His once-sinful creatures near Him without a single spot or stain of unsuitability to the place where He displays all His brightness.
The Passover will be fulfilled in the kingdom of God, but the sin-offering of the day of atonement — while its value is known today, and will be known in the world to come — stands in relation to what is eternal. It is one of the greatest and most far-reaching types that Scripture presents to us.
“I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat” (verse 2). The two sons of Aaron had died, Aaron was forbidden to come at all times inside the veil “that he die not”, and the people as a whole were [p. 180] marked, as we have said, by uncleanness and iniquities. But God would retain His dwelling among them, and appear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat. On what ground could this be? Only on the ground of the sin offering, and the blood as sprinkled on the mercy-seat.
The state common to all the children of Adam was found in Israel also. Their peculiar privileges in having the law, and having God’s sanctuary in their midst, only added the guilt of positive transgression, and brought out their uncleanness in a way of which the Gentile was unconscious. So that when the people of Israel truly and spiritually observe the day of atonement they will discover that, instead of being better than the Gentiles, their guilt was only intensified by the place of nearness to God into which they were brought. In principle this is true of those who are outwardly brought near to God in the christian profession today.
Then on what ground can blessing be? It can only be on the ground of mercy and atonement on God’s side, and on man’s side affliction of soul — repentance — and the recognition of the fact that he can do nothing. “Ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all” (verse 29). But this is a ground of blessing which, if God pleases to have it so, is available for all men. So that “the stranger” is expressly included (verse 29), and we know now that “the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ” is “towards all, and upon all those who believe: for there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood” (Romans 3: 21 - 26).
[p. 181] This gives the mercy-seat, and the blood put upon it on the day of atonement, a very wide bearing, and justifies us in regarding Leviticus 16 in the light of the gospel. A very wide scope of blessing has come in, consequent upon the complete breakdown of everything connected with man in the flesh, which has been specially set forth in Israel. The atonement for Aaron and his house has special typical reference to those who have the Spirit today, and constitute the priestly house. The atonement as made for the whole congregation would have a bearing towards the whole christian profession. But Romans 3 gives the mercy-seat and the blood upon it a universal aspect which shows that in the mind of God the scope of what was typified on the day of atonement is not less than all men, or as Paul says in Colossians 1: 23, “the whole creation which is under heaven”. God’s righteousness being made known in grace through atonement, in view of the blessing of the assembly today and of Israel in a coming day, really makes known what He is in His nature, and in the disposition of His heart towards men. It is the shining out of what God is in His nature and in His holy glory. Eventually the moral universe — of which the tabernacle is a figure — will be reconciled in the value of what is typified here, and evil will be eternally confined to its own place in the lake of fire.
Aaron does not go into the sanctuary to make atonement in his garments “for glory and for ornament” described in Exodus 28. They set forth what Christ is as the living Priest who ever appears before the face of God for those who believe on Him. But here it is not glory and ornament, but righteousness and holiness. “A holy linen vest ...
[p. 182] linen trousers ... a linen girdle ... the linen mitre ... these are holy garments”. They speak of the personal holiness of Christ as the One who knew no sin. “The holy one of God”, as Peter confessed Him (John 6: 69). The One of whom it is written, “Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol, neither wilt thou allow thy Holy One to see corruption” (Psalm 16: 10). “Jesus Christ the righteous ... is the propitiation for our sins; but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world” (1 John 2: 1, 2). No other could take up the question of sin, and meet the glory of God about it so as to make atonement.
There is a marked distinction throughout this chapter between what is for Aaron and his house, and what is “for the people”. The one gives the ground of blessing for the priestly family — typically the assembly as associated with Christ; the other the ground of Israel’s blessing in the world to come, but the value of which is also known by believers today, though it is not the distinctive portion of saints of the assembly. The distinction is thus clearly made between the heavenly company, represented by Aaron and his house, and Israel as called to inherit blessing on earth. There is also a distinction between Aaron and his sons (Exodus 28) and Aaron and his house. His “house” is a wider thought; it is more the family idea, and would take in daughters also. Atonement in this chapter is for his “house”. It is the priestly family and its privileges that is in view rather than the exercise of priestly functions.
For Aaron and his house there is “a young bullock for a sin-offering, and a ram for a burnt-offering”. For the assembly of the children of Israel there are “two bucks of the goats for a sin-offering, and one ram for a burnt-offering”. Aaron is first to present the bullock of the sin-offering which is for himself, and then he is to take the two goats for the people. Verses 6 - 10 seem to be a general statement; the detail follows.
The offering of the bullock for the priestly family comes before the offering of the goats for Israel. The blessing of Israel will come in after the blessing of the assembly, and indeed their blessing will be dependent upon ours. I suppose Abraham had some sense of this when “he waited for the city which has foundations, of which God is the artificer and constructor” (Hebrews 11: 10). He understood that the time of blessing on earth would be dependent on the appearance of God’s heavenly city. “God having foreseen some better thing for us, that they should not be made perfect without us” (Hebrews 11: 40). Whether it be the heavenly place and portion of the assembly, or blessing on earth as known by millennial Israel, all is secured according to divine righteousness and holiness by the complete glorifying of God as to the whole question of sin and sins.
The assembly takes precedence of Israel, and with a larger offering. No redeemed family will know the greatness of Christ sacrificially in the same measure as the assembly knows it. “For himself, and for his house” shows how Christ identifies Himself with the assembly, and the assembly with Him. Believers do not need to be told that no atonement for Him was needed in the sense of dealing with anything personal. But He identified Himself with the sin of His own on the cross, and He has gone in to God on the ground of His own blood. That is, He is not there simply on the ground of His personal title, but on the ground of [p. 184] having died. He is with God on the same ground that we can be with God. Our Aaron loves to be with God on ground where He can be identified with His saints and His saints with Him. See Hebrews 9: 11, 12. The bullock of the sin-offering for Aaron and his house is first presented and slaughtered. This precedes the going of Aaron inside the veil with the censer, and both his hands full of fragrant incense. God presents to us in type the death of Christ before He directs our attention to the fragrant incense. It is necessary that we should have a large apprehension of Christ as having gone into death as the sin-offering to set us free to contemplate the cloud of incense that covers the mercy-seat.
The first thing that has place “inside the veil” is the censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before Jehovah, and Aaron with “both his hands full of fragrant incense beaten small ... And he shall put the incense upon the fire before Jehovah, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy-seat”. Outside is the slaughtered bullock, speaking of Christ in death for the glory of God as the sin-offering; but “inside the veil” are the censer, the burning coals, and the cloud of incense covering the mercy-seat. It gives us a wondrous thought of what has the first place with God in relation to the sin offering.
Scripture leads us to connect the thought of prayer with incense. “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense” (Psalm 141: 2). “All the multitude of the people were praying without at the hour of incense” (Luke 1: 10). See also Revelation 8: 3, 4. This leads me to conclude that the cloud of incense which covers the mercy-seat represents the perfect answer in [p. 185] confidence of heart which was given by Christ to God when tested to the utmost possible degree by the holy fire. Perhaps we do not give this the place that is due. We think of His death as maintaining divine glory in the highest as to sin. We can never think too much of this; it will be the theme of eternal wonder and praise. We think of the precious blood in its infinite efficacy and atoning power. We can never think too much of it. But let us not forget that the mercy-seat has been covered by the cloud of incense! One has been found in the place of supreme testing who has expressed in that place what was most fragrant to God.
How little can we enter into, or speak of, the sorrows and sufferings of our Saviour and Lord! They will be for ever a fathomless depth. How could the creature ever know what it was to the Holy One to be made sin? or what it was to the One who had ever delighted to do the will of God to be forsaken by Him? Or what it was to the Prince of Life to taste death? Or what it meant to the Lord Jesus to feel the unutterable and manifold grief and anguish which were inseparable from passing through man’s hour and the power of darkness? His was the loneliness of a sorrow which none could share, and with which none could sympathize for none could understand.
But what did it bring out God-ward? The cloud of fragrant incense! And if we enter at all into what that hour involved, and what it meant to Him, we have learned it from that cloud of incense. Under the action of the holy fire the fragrance came out. The sorrow Psalms of the suffering Messiah bring it before us. The affections and sensibilities of the Lord were supremely tested, but the testing brought out [p. 186] infinite fragrance. We need to be in the holy of holies to know what that incense means; it can only be contemplated in a spirit of adoration.
In Psalm 22 He is the forsaken One, but in that darkest of all hours He confides in God, and He says, “Thou art holy”. Four times He says, “My God”; once He appeals to Jehovah as “My strength”. “Thou art he that took me out of the womb; thou didst make me trust, upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother’s belly”. Such was the unspeakable perfection of the holy Sufferer! His trust had been always absolutely in God, and it was still there though tested as never before. He looked to God alone amid the anguish, darkness and forsaking of the cross. He had no other help, no other confidence; He stayed Himself upon His God — upon the One who in holiness had forsaken Him, and laid Him in the dust of death. The intense heat of the altar fire brought out this incense. We are not thinking, for the moment, of atonement, but of what the atoning sufferings and sorrows brought out — the holy perfection of His affections and sensibilities, and the confidence of His heart in God. This, if I apprehend it aright, was the cloud of incense that covered the mercy-seat.
Let us pass for a moment to Psalm 40, where He puts Himself in the place of all those sacrifices and oblations, burnt-offerings and sin-offerings which had failed to meet the desire or the demand of God. Coming into the world to do God’s good pleasure, and to make known God’s righteousness, faithfulness, salvation, loving-kindness and truth, it involves that innumerable evils compass Him about. He has to say, “Mine iniquities (or punishments) have taken [p. 187] hold upon me ... they are more than the hairs of my head”. The iniquities, or punishments, which He made His own were ours, for we well know He had none personally.
“Our sins, our guilt, in love divine,
Confessed and borne by Thee”.
In taking all this up He must needs experience “the pit of destruction” and “the miry clay”. But what was the attitude of His Spirit God-ward in it all? “I waited patiently for Jehovah”. He “made Jehovah his confidence”. The spirit of obedience was there, for His God had prepared ears for Him; His body was entirely for God’s will, even in being devoted to death. The will of God was His delight, and in His affections. Amidst all that the sin-offering involved the consideration of His heart was for God; and that God’s innumerable thoughts toward men might be brought into effect. The fragrance of all that has covered the mercy-seat.
Psalm 69 presents that Blessed One to us as sinking in “deep mire, where there is no standing”, and as having to say, “They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head”. Reproach has broken His heart; He is overwhelmed. “I looked for sympathy, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. Yea, they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink”. But what is the attitude of His spirit? He waits for His God (verse 3); He restores that which He took not away (verse 4); it is for God’s sake that He bears reproach (verse 7); the zeal of God’s house devours Him (verse 9). And in the midst of all the reproach and the grief and the weeping, He says, “But [p. 188] as for me, my prayer is unto thee, Jehovah, in an acceptable time” (verse 13). He counts upon Jehovah to answer Him (verse 10). All this has its place in the cloud of incense. It covers the mercy-seat. Man has failed to answer rightly to God in innocence, without law, or under law. But this glorious and holy One, the Son of God, the Christ of God, has answered perfectly to Him in the place of sin and death.
Not only is atonement made, but God has been glorified in the highest by all that was found in the spirit of the holy One who made atonement. In the sufferings and sorrows of atonement, and in all that was connected with that dread hour in which atonement was made — man’s wickedness and Satan’s power in full strength as well as the forsaking of God — what came out in Him was fragrant to God. The mercy-seat is covered by the cloud of incense. All that God is, in what divine glory claims with regard to sin, has found its perfect answer in a Man. It is not only that everything that needed to be removed has been removed in the efficacy of the blood which has satisfied every claim of God’s holy glory in respect of sin. But one would desire to think with ever-growing appreciation of what came out in the spirit and sensibilities and affections of that Blessed One when in the place of making atonement. The infinite fragrance of that, I think we may say with absolute truth, gave God more delight than all the sin of man had given Him grief. It was the complete disclosure of the perfection of His beloved Son in Manhood.
One can understand, I trust, in measure how that cloud of incense preserved Aaron from death. The man after the flesh, even as represented in Israel’s high priest, is under death. He cannot live in the presence [p. 189] of divine glory. But Aaron disappears — may we not say? — from the view of the mercy-seat as the cloud of incense covers it. The man after the flesh is not taken account of in the holiest. He is displaced by Another whose positive perfection renders infinite satisfaction and delight to God’s attributes and nature. He answered perfectly to God even when His soul was being made an offering for sin. He answered perfectly to all that God is in mercy, and in holy glory that cannot tolerate sin. I am sure that it would deeply affect us if we meditated more on that incense. In this great type it comes before the blood. The blood is essential for us, and for God’s glory too, but God loves that we should cherish in our hearts what was so fragrant to Him.
Then Aaron was to “take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle with his finger upon the front of the mercy-seat eastward; and before the mercy-seat shall he sprinkle of the blood seven times with his finger” (verse 14). It is a striking fact in these types that the blood of the sin-offering alone was brought into the sanctuary. The blood of the burnt-offering or the peace-offering did not go beyond the brazen altar, which I think would suggest that the burnt-offering has reference to the acceptance in favour in which we stand in the very place where we were under God’s judgment, and the peace-offering is the basis of the fellowship to which we are called as here on earth. But the blood of the sin-offering goes into the sanctuary “inside the veil”. It does not go out to the brazen altar. The altar in verse 18 is the golden altar — the place of priestly approach and intercession. See — Exodus 30: 10. The altar in verse 25 is the brazen altar where the burnt-offering is offered, and the fat [p. 190] of the sin-offering burned. This would represent the place of Israel’s approach and acceptance in a coming day, which they will not come to until they have seen the Scapegoat go away, and really kept their day of atonement. Aaron has to “go forth” to the brazen altar when he has ended all that is done within, and after the scapegoat has been sent away. But the true and distinctive blessing of the present time is what is taken up within by the assembly as typified by the sons and house of Aaron. It is our privilege to go in with the true Aaron, not only to serve in the holy place, but to be with Him in the sanctuary — the holiest of all.
The blood of the bullock for the priestly house, and the blood of “the goat of the sin-offering which is for the people”, are both put on and before the mercy-seat. There could be neither heavenly nor earthly blessing if the poured-out life of Christ as sin-offering had not glorified God in the highest. The blood is on the gold. Indeed, there could be no mercy-seat at all without the blood being on it, so that this chapter is needed to complete the type. Christ is both the Ark and the Mercy-seat. He came to bring in and establish the will of God; that is the Ark. But in a universe defiled by sin the will of God could only come in for blessing in the way of sovereign mercy. So that for the throne of God to take the character of a mercy-seat indicates that He wills to be known, and to bless, in spite of the moral stain that has come in. It tells what God is, who acts from Himself and for Himself in a universe that has become defiled by sin. The form of the phrase in Romans 3: 25, “Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth a mercy-seat”, indicates that He has done it on His own behalf. He has provided [p. 191] for His own glory, but in the way of mercy to the fallen creature.
But then this could not be apart from the vindication and manifestation of His righteousness in dealing judicially with that which was an offence to Him. This necessitates the death of Christ — the most stupendous fact in the moral universe. And now the blood is on the mercy-seat. God can be favourable to all men. He can justify and forgive sinners; He can place those who were sinful before Him in perfect suitability to Himself. He can have a people before Him in favour and blessing on the earth, or He can have a company of heavenly sons in association with a glorified and heavenly Christ. Christ Jesus is the Mercy-seat, and He is a risen and glorified Man in heaven. All the value of His death and blood-shedding subsists eternally in Himself. He is “set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood”.
God can come out to men as having freed Himself by the death of Christ from man’s sin and uncleanness. He comes out as a Saviour God in all the value of Christ, and of His death for sin. It is the character of this “day of salvation” that all that God is as revealed in Christ is available for sinful men on the ground of what was accomplished when Christ suffered and died. In the holiest spot in the universe the sin of man is not to be seen. The mercy-seat and the blood are there.
The blood being sprinkled seven times before the mercy-seat witnesses that all that is in the view of the mercy-seat — the things on the earth [p. 192] and the things in the heavens — will eventually be reconciled to the Godhead on the ground of peace being made by the blood of the cross (Colossians 1: 20). The things on the earth and the things in the heavens will be brought into correspondence with the holy nature of God. And at the present time the world is provisionally in reconciliation (Romans 11: 15). That is, God regards the world from the standpoint of Christ and of His death; He is favourable to all men, for the death of Christ has come in on behalf of all; and Christ is “the propitiation for our sins, but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world” (1 John 2: 2). Scripture does not say that He bore the sins of all, but He has done a work which has glorified God in relation to sins, and He is available, as having done that work “for the whole world”.
God has secured His own glory through the death of Christ so that all that is of Himself might remain in presence of the uncleanness of man. “He shall make atonement for the sanctuary, to cleanse it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and from their transgressions in all their sins; and so shall he do for the tent of meeting which dwelleth among them in the midst of their uncleanness” (verse 16). It is on the ground of the atonement made by the Sin-offering that God’s holy things remain among men. The camp of Israel represents those who are, in profession at any rate, the people of God. That there is much in the sphere of christian profession that is displeasing to God, few would deny. But on God’s part His holy things remain, and are available for men. God can be near to men with a free hand and a free heart to bless. The sins of men do not hinder God from being near to them in blessing, for He views all according to His appreciation of the blood on the mercy-seat. All may come, if they will, into the value of the death of Christ with God.
[p. 193] Then the Spirit of God is here dwelling in the saints; the “true tabernacle” remains with all its holy furnishings; “the testimony of the Christ” is still here. And the fact that these things are known as spiritual realities by many, and that they are remarkable features in the present ways of God, and that such things subsist notwithstanding all the evil that is in man and the iniquity that is in the christian profession, is a great and powerful witness to the value of the death of Christ as before God.
Making atonement for the altar (verses 18, 19) refers to the place of priestly approach and service within, for it is the golden altar. See Exodus 30: 10. The blood of the bullock and of the goat are put upon it as well as on and before the mercy-seat. The blessing of the assembly (represented by Aaron’s house), and the blessing of Israel (represented by “the people”), are both bound up with the fact that Christ has entered “into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us”. He appears there in all the value of the blood of the Sin-offering. He is there for the priestly house who are “partakers of the heavenly calling”, and when the assembly is removed at the rapture to its own heavenly place He will be there for the remnant of Israel. Indeed Israel has a memorial “before Jehovah” in that blessed Priest all through the time of His being in heaven. “God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew”, for “the gifts and calling of God are not subject to repentance”. Christ in heaven is the sure Pledge that “all Israel shall be saved”, and will come into “their fulness” for the wealth of the world and the nations. (See Romans 11) Israel does not know it, alas! for “blindness in part has happened” to them, but saints of the assembly know well that Israel’s blessing, as well as their own, is bound up with the place that Christ has taken “before the face of God”.
What we have here typically is what the New Testament speaks of as the purification of the heavenly things (Hebrews 9: 23, 24). It is most important for us to understand this, for the whole character of our blessing and approach to God hangs upon it, and it also determines the place which we take up in relation to religious things on earth. I suppose all christians have the conviction that if they went to heaven they would find themselves in a place where there was no sin, and where all the conditions were suitable to God, and therefore where there was no cloud or sense of distance! But how many christians have taken into consideration that there is a system of heavenly things into which we can come now, and in the blessedness of which we can approach God — a system so divinely purified by the blood of the Sin-offering that there is not a trace of sin in it? But this is what the epistle to the Hebrews opens up to us. We learn there that God has spoken to us in the Person of the Son, and He would have us to approach Him in the light of all that He has spoken. He has provided in the Sin-offering for the removal of everything that would have hindered this. The Son has “made by himself the purification of sins” (Hebrews 1: 3). That means not merely that they are removed from the sinner, but they are removed from before God. They are no longer in His presence; to defile His tabernacle.
“Propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2: 17) would refer to the Sin-offering as meeting the glory of God about those sins in such a way that Christ has a righteous ground on which He can “be a merciful and faithful high priest”, and can “help those that are being tempted”. The question of sins has been so dealt with that it does not remain to hinder the service of the Priest on behalf of His people, who are viewed in Hebrews 2: 18 as being still in the place of temptation.
Christ having “been manifested for the putting away of sin by his sacrifice” (Hebrews 9: 26), the heavenly things are purified. We can come into the region of heavenly things, and find that there is not a trace of sin there. This is simply a question of the value and efficacy of the blood of the Sin-offering. But then that blood has also furnished what purifies the conscience of believers “from dead works to worship the living God” (Hebrews 9: 14). We have to do now with a sacrifice which not only purifies the heavenly things, but perfects those who approach. Such is the value of the Sin-offering that it perfects as to conscience. “The worshippers once purged having no longer any conscience of sins”. We know that we have sinned, but Christ has “offered one sacrifice for sins”, and “by one offering he has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified” (Hebrews 10: 12, 14). It is entirely what has been effected by the Sin-offering. We must not mix it up with the thought of anything wrought in us; it is the wondrous work of Christ alone; “and the Holy Spirit also bears us witness of it”. The Holy Spirit witnesses of what has been effected by the Sin-offering. As to conscience we are purged and perfected; we can approach God on the ground and in the value of the Sin-offering.
On this ground we have “boldness for entering into the holy of holies by the blood of Jesus”. Have we weighed what this means? It does not say that all [p. 196] believers go in, but it tells us our privilege, and says, “Let us approach with a true heart, in full assurance of faith”. A true heart is a heart responsive to God, knowing His love. In Hebrews 8: 10 God puts the mind before the heart, because it is a question there of knowing God — of intelligence as to what God is as made known by the Mediator. That is the side of God’s approach to us; we must be enlightened before we can love. But in chapter 10 the subject before the mind of the Spirit is our approach to God, so in verse 16 He puts the heart first. God secures the affections of His people so that they may love Him, and love the great Priest, and desire to approach because they love. Then understanding follows, and the more understanding they get the more free they are to approach.
We approach as having “a great priest over the house of God”. It is the attraction of the Priest, and the consciousness of having His support, that draws us in in the power of affection. The One who has sympathized with me and succoured me in His tender love and grace in the pathway here, the One I have “long proved in secret help”, attracts me to the place where He is with God “within the veil”. How “great” is that heavenly Priest! Great in the glory of His Person; great in His love! What attraction there is to approach! We have a Priest who has gone within the veil, and we approach by Him to God. If we approach by Him His nearness is the measure of ours. A better hope has been introduced by which we draw nigh to God. It is this which gives Christian approach such a peculiar character; we approach in the blessedness of what is within the veil, the present light and gain of an unseen and heavenly order of things.
[p. 197] The blessing of the heavenly company within transcends the blessing of Israel. The Bullock for the priestly house is greater than the Goat for Israel. I believe the Spirit magnifies Christ in Hebrews 1, Hebrews 2 to give us an apprehension of Him in that greatness that is typified in the bullock. It was without any design or desire on our part that we are in the time of the heavenly; we have had no choice in the matter. In the sovereign disposition of God He has brought us into being, and into blessing, in the time of the heavenly. What infinite favour! We can draw nigh now in the light, and consciousness by the Spirit, of all that will be made good actually when we are translated in the condition of purpose.
“O love supreme and bright!
Good to the feeblest heart,
That gives us now as heavenly light,
What soon shall be our part”.
The true Aaron has gone in in the power of the blood of the Sin-offering.
“He’s gone within the veil,
For us that place has won;
In Him we stand, a heavenly band,
Where He Himself is gone”.
We can draw near, we can take our place with Him and with the blessed God according to what Christ is as having “by his own blood ... entered in once for all into the holy of holies, having found an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9: 12). The priestly house is privileged to draw near, and to joy in God in the blessedness of all that subsists “within the veil”.
Our calling is to those things which are “within” — a spiritual and heavenly order of privilege and blessing. Indeed to get the full character of Christian [p. 198] privilege and blessing we have to bring in the truth of other epistles as well as that to the Hebrews. The types give us a “shadow” but not “the image itself” of the good things that have come in christianity. 2 Corinthians 5 clearly refers to the sin-offering and its results. “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in him”. It is on the ground of the sin-offering that the saints are “in Christ”, and “there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new: and all things are of the God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ”. This is something altogether outside and apart from what we are according to flesh. The Christ in whom we are is a risen and glorified Man. We are introduced to an entirely new order of things in which all is complacent to God. If we look round in the old creation we see sin and death’s stamp everywhere. But in Christ risen and glorified in heaven there is what God can indeed pronounce “Very good”. “New creation” is outside the reach of sin and death; it is the whole order of things which centres in a risen and glorified Man in heaven. Such is the wondrous result of the Sin-offering — the saints become God’s righteousness in Him. It has been remarked that this involves the glorified state.
If we turn to Colossians we learn the pleasure of the Fulness of the Godhead “by him to reconcile all things to itself, having made peace by the blood of his cross — by him, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works, yet now has it reconciled in the body of his flesh through death; to present you holy and unblamable and irreproachable before it” (Colossians 1: 19 - 22). This, again, gives us the Sin-offering and its results.
Then in the epistle to the Ephesians we have the full light of the heavenly. We read there that “Now in Christ Jesus ye who once were afar off are become nigh by the blood of the Christ ... . For through him we have both (Jew and Gentile) access by one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2: 13, 18). “The blood of the Christ” is the blood of the sin-offering which has been put on the mercy-seat and the golden altar so that we might be made nigh “in Christ Jesus”. This gives us an entirely new state and place with God outside everything that was connected with us as living in the world. That we should be before God in Christ Jesus, holy and blameless, and “sons with Him who is above”, is marvellous grace indeed. On the ground of the sin-offering God has given to those who believe a heavenly place and relationship according to His eternal purpose in Christ Jesus. Yea, we are “taken into favour in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1: 6). That is in the glorified Man, the Object of the Father’s love in heaven, the One who said, “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14: 2). Have we really taken this in? That His going to the Father has made that heavenly place ours? He is coming to receive us actually into the place where He is, but it is our place now as much as it will be when we are actually in it.
In Ephesians 2 the saints are viewed as “quickened with the Christ (ye are saved by grace), and has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, that he might display in the coming ages the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
[p. 200] For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God’s gift: not on the principle of works, that no one might boast” (Ephesians 2: 5 - 9). Have we considered what it means to be “saved by grace” according to Ephesians 2? It means that we have an entirely new place with God, and that the place of Christ as a glorified Man in heaven. How many of us understand that heaven is our present place? Not merely that we shall be there when we die, or when the Lord comes. But that God’s salvation by grace has made it our place now, has secured for us at this present time the place of the risen and glorified Man — the anointed Head. Is not that infinitely better and greater than the best place — the best religious place even — that we could have on earth?
God would have us to know the character of approach to Himself which is secured by the Bullock of the Sin-offering. It is a larger apprehension of Christ than the Scape-goat, or the Goat for Jehovah. These will be known by Israel, but the Bullock is for the assembly. We ought to covet to have the largest possible thought of Christ, and of what He has secured for us. Every one who has the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit is of the assembly, and God would encourage each one to say in his heart, I belong to the heavenly company. There is sometimes a feeling with believers that it would be presumption to take such high ground. But has the great love of God given us that place? If so, His pleasure must be that we should know and enjoy it. It has nothing to do with any worthiness or merit of ours. It is a question of the love of God, the value of the Sin-offering, and the preciousness of Christ to God. One might add, also, the riches of His mercy to us.
[p. 201] The blessing of Israel — the earthly company — is on the ground of Christ as typified by the two goats for a sin-offering, and the ram for a burnt-offering. One goat is for Jehovah, to glorify Him in the highest, for its blood is carried in and sprinkled upon and before the mercy-seat. The other bears away “to a land apart from men” the iniquities, transgressions and sins of the people. In the one we have what meets the glory of God and makes propitiation; in the other we see substitution — the actual bearing of sins. The sins are taken clean away, never to return. “I will pardon their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more” (Jeremiah 31: 34).
We have to go through the exercises of the day of atonement, and to learn its lessons, and Israel will have to take up those exercises in a coming day. It is not only that they have broken the law, and turned to idolatry, but they have persecuted and slain the prophets, and have become the deliverers up and murderers of their promised Messiah. Blood-guiltiness attaches to them in the most awful way. Zechariah describes what they will go through when they realize this. “They shall look on me whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for an only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem ... and the land shall mourn, every family apart: the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart; and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart” (Zechariah 12: 10 - 14).
[p. 202] What a day will that be for them when they look at their whole history in the light of the fact that they have slain their Messiah! Whatever glory has been found amongst them in the ways of God — kingly, prophetic, priestly or levitical — has to come down into the dust of self-abasement and mourning. “Ye shall afflict your souls: it is an everlasting statute” (Leviticus 16: 31). There is no exemption from the obligation of this, but, thank God! “a sabbath of rest shall it be unto you”. They will learn then to confess their iniquities “and all their transgressions in all their sins” over the head of the Blessed One whom they refused and killed, but who became in grace their Sin-offering.
“Dark deed! it was thine to afflict Him,
Yet longs His soul for the day
When thou in the blood of thy Victim
Shalt wash thy deep stains away!”
They will learn that all their guilt has been borne by Him. They will exclaim with wonder, in words which have been prepared for them beforehand by the prophetic Spirit, “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; and we, we did regard him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But 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. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all ... . For the transgression of my people was he stricken ... he had done no violence, neither was there guile in his mouth. Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath subjected him to suffering. When thou shalt make his soul an offering [p. 203] for sin, he shall see a seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand ... . He shall bear their iniquities ... He hath poured out his soul unto death, and was reckoned with the transgressors; and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53). All this expresses most touchingly what was true of Christ as typified on the day of atonement by the goat that was sent away. And as the people enter into it, and rest in the value of Christ as the sin-offering they will find “a sabbath of rest”. And this is all true today for any guilt-oppressed soul that believes in Jesus.
Then in Leviticus 16: 24, Aaron, having put off the linen garments and resumed the normal priestly garments, goes back to the brazen altar and offers his burnt-offering, and the burnt-offering of the people. The burnt-offering would seem, from its use in Scripture generally, to have in view an acceptance and divine favour in which God’s people stand as having a place before Him on earth. The first burnt-offering was Noah’s (Genesis 8: 20); it secured God’s favour for the earth. The second was Isaac (Genesis 22), and on the ground of it Abraham would be richly blessed, and his seed multiplied. He would have seed for heavenly blessing as well as earthly; “the stars of heaven” setting forth the former, and “the sand that is on the seashore” the latter. And in his Seed should “all the nations of the earth bless themselves”. Then in Exodus 18 “Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt-offering and sacrifices for God”. This was typically the Gentile taking his place with God in the sweet savour of the burnt-offering — apprehending Christ in his personal and sacrificial acceptability to God as the ground of blessing.
[p. 204] God has had a Man — His own beloved Son — on earth to do His will, and to be perfect in devotedness to Him under every conceivable test, even as bearing sin. The sweet odour of that has gone up from the earth, and is a ground of acceptance for men viewed as on earth. We come into it as persons justified by faith, who now have access through Christ into God’s favour in which we stand (Romans 5: 2). Believers today stand in divine favour according to the acceptableness of Christ. We are the children of God down here, the subjects of His Fatherly care and love, His household; and we are sons in freedom in the very place where we were once slaves in bondage. See Galatians 4: 6, 7; Romans 8: 15. Hence we are to be “imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, even as the Christ loved us, and delivered himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour” (Ephesians 5: 1, 2). This is not what we are “inside the veil”, but what we are as occupying, for the time, a place on earth as in divine favour. We are provisionally in the place where Israel was, and will be, but we are there in divine favour, and as knowing the love of God and of Christ. We do not learn that favour by circumstances or providences, but by knowing that we are with God on the footing of Christ, and His death in burnt-offering character. We perceive love that way, and as we know it we “walk in love”.
Millennial Israel will be on earth in the favour of God on the ground of the Burnt-offering. Their circumstances will be happy, for there will be “neither adversary nor evil event”; they will have “rest on every side”; but even then they will measure the favour of God, not by the happy surroundings, but by [p. 205] Christ. They will say when they come to Zion, “Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed” (Psalm 84: 9). “Men shall bless themselves in him; all nations shall call him blessed” (Psalm 72: 17). We, today, have not millennial circumstances. Sin and sorrow are all around us. Sufferings mark “this present time”. But we stand in favour on account of Christ, and because of the sweet odour of the Burnt-offering.
The bullock of the sin-offering and the goat of the sin-offering were to be burned with fire outside the camp (Leviticus 16: 27). This is what is referred to in Hebrews 13: 11, 12. “Of those beasts whose blood is carried as sacrifices for sin into the holy of holies by the high priest, of these the bodies are burned outside the camp. Wherefore also Jesus, that he might sanctify the people by his own blood, suffered without the gate”. The burning of the bodies of those beasts speaks of the all-consuming judgment with which sin has been visited. The One who knew no sin has been made sin for us, and He has borne the judgment that was due to sin. God would teach us by this holy type that there was something more involved in atonement than suffering at the hands of men — something additional even to the penalty of death. There is the action of the fire. All that God is as against sin, expressed in a holy judgment that would utterly consume it when presented before Him sacrificially, is seen in this solemn type. Christ as the sin-offering has endured it fully. The judgment of God — so far as believers are concerned — has been entirely and eternally exhausted.
Romans 8: 3 is peculiarly touching. “God having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and [p. 206] for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh”. It was “His own Son” who was sent into the place of sin’s condemnation. The utter destruction of the world and all its inhabitants would not have been such a solemn and impressive testimony as that. For it was the righteous and holy One who was forsaken, and who bore the judgment. God has condemned sin in the flesh in the most solemn and public way. Now the order of man which dishonoured Him — the man characterized by sin — is no longer before Him. Another Man is before God, who has glorified Him in bearing sin’s condemnation, and every creature under heaven can be blessed through that Man.
But the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews connects momentous present consequences with the blood being carried within the holiest and the bodies burned outside the camp. He introduces the subject by saying, “We have an altar of which they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle”. It seems to me that what is in the mind of the Spirit here is the whole system of heavenly grace which is our part on the ground of the Sin-offering. He would have our hearts confirmed with it. I have connected it in my mind with the “altar of wood” in Ezekiel 41: 22, which is said to be “the table which is before Jehovah”. The fact that it is of wood precludes the idea of it being a fire-altar, either for sacrifice or for incense. It is a food-altar — a table to feed from. It is the only thing mentioned which seems to be within the house, and there is no intimation of any service being rendered at that altar, or of the priests eating from it. They “minister in the gates of the inner court, and towards the house”, but it is not said that they enter. It is true that there are doors with turning leaves, which suggest abundant [p. 207] entrance, but there is nothing to show that Israel, or the earthly priesthood — “the sons of Zadok” — will enter therein. The fact that “the glory of Jehovah filled the house” would rather preclude the thought of this. The doors with turning leaves, and the “altar of wood” within, might be a witness to Israel that there was another family with the privilege of abundant entrance to a nearer place than theirs, and that that family would have a food-altar connected with what was within.
But whether this is so or not, we have clearly a food-altar in Hebrews 13: 10 of which it is said, “they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle”. It is a source of food supply for the hearts of God’s people which is connected with the blood of the sin-offering being carried into the holy of holies, and the bodies being burned outside the camp. God would have our hearts nourished upon what stands connected with that. And that for us brings in the confirming power of all that is now to be known through Christ having been the sin-offering, and having now passed through the heavens and entered within the veil as Forerunner for us. The truth of the heavenly calling, and all that is bound up with it, would be the food of that altar.
There are no sins where Jesus is — “within the veil”; He has “made by himself the purification of sins”. Man in the flesh is not there; he has been sacrificially ended in the death of Christ.
“Glory supreme is there,
Glory that shines through all”.
But there is a company sanctified by the blood of the Sin-offering, and having the witness of the Spirit to the value of that offering, for whom there is abundant entrance through infinite grace.
“’[p. 208] Tis Jesus fills that holy place
Where glory dwells, and thy deep love
In its own fulness (known through grace)
Rests where He lives, in heaven above”.
The altar of which we have a right to eat is the christian altar, as contrasted with what is earthly and Jewish. It is an altar which stands in relation to “the better and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand (that is, not of this creation)”. It is connected with “the heavenly things themselves”. It is “the table which is before Jehovah”; or rather, as we must say now in the light of full revelation, which is before the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The epistle to the Hebrews does not develop all that goes to make up the system of “heavenly things”, but it would prepare those who read it for the epistle to the Ephesians which gives the full light and blessedness of the heavenly.
We have a Food-altar: are we eating of it? Are we being nourished on the grace which has given us a place and portion within the veil with a heavenly Christ? Our approach to God will be practically according to the measure in which our hearts are confirmed with that grace. We should consider much what is before the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Is it not that He “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ; according as he has chosen us in him before the world’s foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand for sonship through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved: in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences, according to the riches of his grace”? All the grace of that is ministered to us for the confirmation of our hearts. We have access to the Father in the light and strength of it.
Now can you find anything to correspond with that in the organized systems of christendom which give man in the flesh a place? Can you, in the light of your place within, remain in “the camp”? If the blood of the Sin-offering has gone within it has secured for those whom it has sanctified a place and privilege that are wholly apart from the man after the flesh, and from everything that could have a religious place on earth — even Judaism, so long divinely sanctioned. Is it that Judaism was not of God? By no means. But the man who had religious privileges on earth in Judaism was under death. Ah! the “Place of a skull” tells its own solemn tale! What of a city, be it ever so holy as a divinely-appointed religious centre on earth, if all in it are under death? What of ordinances, services, ceremonies, sacraments, if the “Place of a skull” is man’s place, and the end of his religion as well as of his sins? If Jesus has suffered without the gate of the holy city, where does it put His “companions” as to everything that has religious status in connection with man after the flesh?
God acted with patience and forbearance. He gave space for repentance to the house of Israel in the early chapters of the Acts, and there was a transitional period which continued some years. But when the epistle to the Hebrews was written there was a definite call to “go forth to him without the camp, bearing his reproach”. Judaism, and all that was connected with it, was to be left, for Jesus was outside it. He had suffered without the gate, and His blood had [p. 210] gone within the veil. The system of things which recognized man in the flesh was no longer to hold the people of God, for Jesus had died and borne the judgment of that man in order to remove him sacrificially, and to set up everything for the pleasure of God in Himself as risen and in heaven, and to set apart a people to be in the light and blessing of it; but, as a necessary consequence, to be “without the camp, bearing his reproach”.
We can see the application of this to “the camp” of Judaism, but it is impossible to forget that the religious world today largely takes character from Judaism. It recognizes the man after the flesh; it has set up and maintains an order of things in which he can participate. It will not own in any practical sense that all that is due to that man is the “Place of a skull” and the consuming judgment of God. So that those who do own this in their souls, and who recognize that they have a place within in association with a heavenly Christ, must needs be found in a path of separation. We cannot go outside the Christian profession, as the believing Jew was called to leave Judaism altogether, so that the analogy between their circumstances and ours is not complete. But the path to which they were divinely called affords instruction as to the separation in which God would have His people to walk in the midst of the corruption and departure of Christendom. We are to “withdraw from iniquity”, to purify ourselves from vessels to dishonour in separating from them, and we are to “pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2: 19 - 22). We are called to a separate path within the christian profession, as those who have the light of the [p. 211] heavenly calling, and who see that the man after the flesh has no place with God. Such a path involves bearing the reproach of Christ.