LEVITICUS 6
This chapter, and the next, gives us the law of the offerings, and this is chiefly for “Aaron and his sons”. That is, it views the offerings from the standpoint of priestly activities, and this exclusively until the peace-offering is brought in, when the range widens to “the children of Israel”, and the thought of fellowship is the final note. “The law” indicates the fixed principle on which the service of God must be carried on. If there is not priestly exercise with regard to Christ in burnt-offering, oblation, and sin-offering character, the fellowship of God’s people will be impaired. The general lack of priestly exercises at Corinth led to things which compromised the fellowship. But there was priestly activity on the part of some and on the part of Paul, and the result was that the Lord gave a prophetic ministry which brought about self-judgment, and restored divine conditions of fellowship. A priest is a spiritual person who considers first what is due to God.
The first thing in “the law of the burnt-offering” is that “the burnt-offering shall be on the hearth on the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning on it”. The “night” indicates the character of the period which has followed the offering of Christ. The “morning” is coming, prefigured by Solomon dedicating the house (2 Chronicles 5 - 2 Chronicles 7), when there will be universal gladness brought in on the ground of the burnt-offering, and the earth will be filled with divine glory. But in the meantime it is “night”. Christ is disallowed and rejected; it is still the time of His delivering up and sufferings.
It was by the eternal Spirit that Christ offered Himself without spot to God. His inward perfections were tested by all that God is as in holiness against sin. That testing brought out the sweet savour of infinite perfection. It will never be repeated. “The ashes” are the witness that that testing is past, and can never be gone through again. It was a “whole burnt-offering”; all that Christ was wholly devoted to God in the place of sacrifice, and found infinitely perfect and fragrant. All was accomplished in the offering of Christ once for all.
But the “continual fire” on the altar speaks of how the fragrance of Christ is perpetuated before God in the praises of the saints. It is the priests’ business to keep the fire burning. See verses 2, 5, 6. It is to burn “all night unto the morning”. This is to go on continually as priestly service. Fervent affections are to be maintained in which the preciousness and perfections of Christ are cherished by the Spirit in such wise that they ascend to God in continual praise. The Songs of degrees lead up to this point. “Behold, bless Jehovah, all ye servants of Jehovah, who by night stand in the house of Jehovah. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless Jehovah” (Psalm 134). This is an “all night” priestly activity which is to go on until the last verse of the Psalm brings in “the morning”.
[p. 72] The Spirit is fire to consume and set aside in judgment all that is of the flesh; He is the “spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning” (Isaiah 4: 4). But he loves to take another aspect, and to be the power by which the fragrance of Christ as the burnt-offering is caused to ascend in the praises of the holy priesthood — “a continual fire”. In the oil for the candlestick (Exodus 27: 20) we have seen a type of the Spirit as the One who maintains the light of Christ in ministry man-ward all through the night of His absence. But in the “continual fire” I think we see the Spirit as the power for the presentation of Christ God-ward in praise. We “worship by the Spirit of God” (Philippians 3: 3). The priests stand by the altar “all night” to perpetuate in their intelligent praises the fragrance of the burnt-offering.
The “wood” in this connection might perhaps represent a condition of soul which is readily available for the action of the Spirit — spiritual affections which are quickly moved to intense activity when they are ordered in a priestly way before God for His service. The two on the way to Emmaus quickly responded to the priestly handling of the Lord, and their affections burst into flame. “Was not our heart burning in us as he spoke to us on the way, and as he opened the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24). The Lord was really at that moment doing what was afterwards the Spirit’s work, and there was that in them which soon caught fire. The priestly service brought before us in “the law of the burnt-offering” is no cold formality or religious routine; it is marked by holy fervour such as the Spirit alone could create or maintain. The wood being “in order” would suggest intelligent and spiritually regulated affections [p. 73] such as Paul had in view when he said, “I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray also with the understanding; I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing also with the understanding” (1 Corinthians 14: 15). Fervency in spirit and intelligent order must ever be found together in the service of God. But the fervency and order are under priestly charge; all is spiritual in character; there is no natural or fleshly element in the fervency or in the order; they are such as could only be brought about by spiritual means and by spiritual persons.
In the priest dealing with “the ashes” we have an entirely different exercise before us, but one which perfectly corresponds with what we have been considering. The “ashes” speak of a sacrifice wholly consumed; they speak of a dead Christ. I would put it to my own heart as to whether I know what it means to put on linen garments and take up the ashes? If we are in His acceptance with God it is surely a righteous thing to be dead with Him here! We take this up first with God. I understand that to be intimated by putting the ashes “beside the altar”. From the altar the “continual fire” is causing the sweet odour to ascend, but “beside the altar” we confess that Christ is in “the place of the ashes” — He is a dead Christ here. We cannot in righteousness be identified with the one without being identified with the other. It is a matter of righteousness to identify ourselves with the place Christ has in this world. Paul makes this the basis of his appeal to the Colossians, “If ye have died with Christ” (Colossians 2: 20). And in what is probably the most ancient “spiritual song” of christian times — quoted in 2 Timothy 2: 11 - 13 — we read “For if we have died together with him, we shall also live together”. This is believed to be part of a hymn; at any rate it was current amongst the saints, and it is most likely an example of the kind of song in which the early Christians spoke to themselves and to one another!
Then, having taken our place in righteousness with God as identified with a dead Christ here, we “put on other garments”. I think that suggests that we deliberately prepare ourselves for the place of reproach here. If we wear garments of righteousness with God we must wear garments of reproach with men. The ashes are to be carried forth “without the camp unto a clean place”. We must leave everything that has a name, or a place, or religious sanction upon earth to bear the reproach of One who has no place here at all save in the hearts of those who love Him. See Hebrews 13: 13. The place of the reproach of Christ is the only “clean place” here.
I think the action of Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus may illustrate the teaching of this type. They were true disciples but secretly. They had never put on their linen garments! But the death of Christ brought things to an issue, and the claims of righteousness could no longer be evaded. In identifying themselves with the dead Christ, and claiming His precious body, they put on their linen garments. He was to them the Christ of God, but the place of death was His in this world. And they carried the ashes forth unto a clean place. Nothing marks the place of Christ in relation to this world more definitely than His burial. He has wholly disappeared from the view of the world, and will not appear again until His foes are made His footstool. Do you not think those two hearts went out with Him from everything [p. 75] here? The council — the great assemblage of religious leaders — had condemned Him to death, but they identified themselves with Him. No one could think that either of them ever took his seat in the council again! They came out in true priestly character. The only “clean place” here is the place of identification with the death and burial of Christ. To be identified with the acceptance of the burnt-offering, and to be sustaining the fragrance of it before God “all night”, necessitates also that we should be identified with the “ashes” and with the “clean place” without the camp. “This is the law of the burnt-offering”.
In “the law of the oblation” we have the priests’ part in relation to that offering. The offerer represents the saint in his exercises with regard to the acquisition of Christ, and movements of heart God-ward which are typified by his coming with a “gift”. It is a contrast with man in his emptiness saying, “Nothing in my hand I bring”; it is the saint coming with that in his heart which is delightful to God. In the apprehension and appreciation of Christ we realize that the time of God’s grief as to man is past, and the time of His good pleasure has come. A new kind of humanity has come in in the Person of Jesus, perfect in every detail, and suitable to be anointed by the Holy Spirit. Indeed He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and every part of His humanity was invigorated and strengthened by the Holy Spirit of God. No leaven was there.
The priest represents the saint as having holy and intelligent knowledge of how the offering is to be dealt with for the service and pleasure of God. We should covet to be true “sons of Aaron”, as well as offerers.
The priest presents the oblation “before Jehovah, before the altar”, and then burns upon the altar his handful of the fine flour and of the oil, and all the frankincense. God has His portion first. Then “the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: unleavened shall it be eaten in a holy place”. What we eat becomes part of ourselves; it is assimilated into our being; our constitution is formed and built up by it. The holy priesthood is nourished and strengthened, and formed in sensibilities and character, by feeding on Christ as the oblation. There is no feeding on Christ as the burnt-offering; that all goes up to God on the altar. We can apprehend and appreciate it, but we do not appropriate it as food. But as the oblation, God gives Christ to the priesthood as food; self-judged persons walking in the Spirit can feed on Him; and the Christian viewed as a priest is marked by the appropriation of Christ in this character; thus Christ becomes Substance in his affections. It is a great thing when Christ has become the hidden Man of the heart — when God can look into the hearts of His saints and see Christ there instead of self and the world.
God would have our inward thoughts and affections formed and nourished by feeding upon Christ, so that the way we think and feel about things might be according to Christ, and this would result in His being reproduced in us. Transformation according to Romans 12: 2 is not brought about by rules and regulations imposed from without as demand; it is brought about from within, “by the renewing of your mind”. The mind is renewed as we get it occupied and filled with [p. 77] the perfect way in which the will of God came into expression in the life of Jesus. What an insight we get into the “good and acceptable and perfect will of God” as we see it all, and feed on it all, as carried out in every detail in that holy life! We see it there not as demand but as supply — as food for us. As we appropriate it, and are nourished by it, the will of God becomes blessed to us, and we learn increasingly to hate the action of our own will. We have a new way of thinking about everything then. If Christ has become food to me the pride, vanity, and fashion of this world are as dust under my feet. There is then spiritual vigour through what we feed on to be in accord with Christ — and to prove what is “the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”.
In Ephesians saints are viewed as having learned the Christ, and heard Him, and as having been instructed in Him according as the truth is in Jesus. And there we get the thought of “being renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4: 20 - 24). This is an even deeper assimilation to Christ than Romans 12. It was a very good mind that wanted Christ to be received (Luke 9: 54), but James and John needed to be renewed in the spirit of their minds! We can only get that renewing by feeding on Christ “in a holy place”. “The court of the tent of meeting” indicates that one is withdrawn in spirit from the sphere of human thoughts and activities, and even from what might be legitimately connected with one’s own tent. It is where priestly exercises are taken up in relation to God’s holy things. I suppose all believers have more or less of the exercises of piety in their own tents, but God would encourage us to take up exercises connected with the “holy place”.
We can have “the court of the tent of meeting” at home, but it suggests something quite distinct from what would be connected with our own tents as in the wilderness. Saints have the privilege of taking up many exercises at home which do not stand in relation to their own personal things, but to “the tent of meeting”. With some a very considerable part of their exercises has this character, and I think this indicates that they have priestly features. The general lack of strength for the service of God may be largely traced, I think, to the lack of priestly food.
The difference between the “manna” and the “oblation” as food is that manna is the supply of grace to enable the Israelite to meet all the exigencies of the wilderness pathway. This would answer more what we have spoken of in Romans. But the oblation is food to nourish priests so that they may have spiritual vigour to carry on the service of God in prayer and praise, and in everything that pertains to the testimony. The two exercises go on side by side. We need manna for the wilderness path: we need to feed on the oblation for priestly strength in sanctuary service. Feeding on Christ as manna will give us renewal of mind, and strength to effect transformation of the responsible life. Feeding on Christ as the oblation will bring about renewal of the spirit of our mind, so that the very spirit of our minds will be formed in correspondence with Christ. There is great pleasure for God in that. The divine way of bringing it about is to give us Christ as food; it is a blessed and satisfying way.
The oblation is to be preserved unleavened. No fleshly or inflating element is to come in. “It is most holy”. And it requires, and I think we may say [p. 79] produces, an intense degree of holiness in all who come in contact with it. “Whatever toucheth these shall be holy”. There is nothing so sanctifying as having to do with Christ. We get apart from the world, and sin, and flesh when we are really engaged with Christ. “The Imitation of Christ” will never make any one like Him, but feeding on Him will, for it nourishes the affections and gives power. What are we nourishing our affections on? Is it Christ, or the worthless and passing trifles of the world?
The offering on the day of the priest’s anointing is a “continual oblation”. It is not like the voluntary gift of Leviticus 2, but is obligatory. The anointed priest must begin and end his day of holy service with an offering which presents the sweet odour of Christ’s perfections to God. Only one day is contemplated, but it is “an everlasting statute”; each day of priestly service must begin and end thus. In chapter 2 the oblation has oil poured on it, or is mingled or anointed with oil, but here it is “saturated with oil” — a more intensive thought. The priest begins his day’s service with a peculiarly strong apprehension of how fully the Spirit had His way in every detail of Christ’s blessed pathway — all was in the energy and grace of the Holy Spirit. And he returns at the end of the day to take up the same apprehension with God again. A “day” which begins and ends thus will be filled with the fragrance of it for God’s delight. The priest would serve with his spirit, and be acceptable in all that he did. And the offering is “wholly burned to Jehovah”: it is a priestly apprehension of Christ which is wholly for God’s delight.
The “baken pieces of the oblation” might indicate [p. 80] how God has been pleased that we should apprehend Christ. He has not put all in one Gospel, but has given us four. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each had priestly apprehensions of Christ as the oblation but each had his own distinctive presentation. Men have often tried to merge the four Gospels in one account, but this sets aside the divine wisdom in which the beauty and perfection of Christ have been set before us and substitutes for it a human compilation in which there is no priestly intelligence, and in which the true features of the oblation are obscured. There is nothing in which priestly discernment becomes more manifest than in the ability to perceive the differences in the Gospels, and to apprehend their significance. It is not the least part of God’s favour to the assembly in these last days that He has given more priestly discrimination as to the different “pieces of the oblation”. The divine presentation of Christ in the Gospels is wonderful. Everything that would have been natural in the Evangelists is held in abeyance. Can you think of men — merely men — writing an account of such matters in such few and simple words? Would not men have used abundance of adjectives, and expatiated on the wonders they had seen? But all that is absent. Each of the Evangelists has, in the sovereignty of God, his own spiritual apprehension of Christ, and presents it according to the wisdom of God, so that every incident, and the detail brought out in each incident, is contributory to, and forms an essential part of, the particular view of Christ which God would make prominent in each. There is spiritual and priestly intelligence in the presentation, and spiritual and priestly intelligence are needed for the apprehension of these precious features [p. 81] of Christ, and for their offering to God in the service of holy affections such as anointed priests can render.
The first thing in “the law of the sin-offering” is that “At the place where the burnt-offering is slaughtered shall the sin-offering be slaughtered before Jehovah”. A sin-offering exercise comes in when there has been some allowance of the man who had to be removed in death, but the priest in taking it up has behind it in his soul the sense of the excellence of another Man, who has brought in everything that God could delight in, and in whose death every perfection has gone up in sweet savour. It is as knowing the perfect and eternal establishment of God’s will in a Man wholly devoted to Him in death that the priest takes up exercise in regard to what has been displeasing to God.
In no other offering is holiness so emphasized as in this. Four times it is said about the sin-offering and the trespass-offering, “It is most holy”. We are now brought to the abode of God’s holiness, and we have to think of sin in the light of that. Even worldly people are shocked at certain things; the sense of propriety is offended; but this is not holiness. God requires holiness amongst His people; without it “no one shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12: 14).
The priest who offers the sin-offering has to eat it in a holy place — “in the court of the tent of meeting”. He has a deep sense that something has come in of the man whom Christ died to remove. He views the sin from that standpoint, and makes it his own, and gets a fresh apprehension of the death of Christ as that in which the root of the sin has been dealt with. In mind and spirit he is thus brought into accord with [p. 82] God; he feels about the sin as it ought to be felt about. Priestly strength and intelligence are needed for this. The priest who eats the sin-offering appropriates Christ in a way that puts him in real accord with Christ as to the sin or trespass, and as to the grace in which He took it up and made it His own. So that there is no lightness about sin, but a deep inward sense of what it cost Christ to deal with it; a sense, too, that it has been dealt with in divine holiness, but in pure and perfect grace towards the one who has sinned. The priest measures the sin by what it cost Christ to bear its judgment, but he is inwardly nourished upon the holy grace in which He did so. This brings about that there is found in the priest all that is morally suitable in regard to the sin, and this enables God to go on with His people in holiness and complacency.
Practically there is much amongst the people of God that needs the sin-offering, but God would not only give the sense of this, but He would have His priests formed inwardly in spiritual feelings and sensibilities as to it. There is a sense in which priests who eat the sin-offering make atonement. See Leviticus 10: 17. Atonement means a covering. In the full sense of atonement — the all-important sense — Christ is absolutely alone. In bearing the judgment of sin so as to put it away sacrificially from before God none can share with our precious Saviour, or have any part in His holy work of sin-bearing. Hence there is no eating of any sin-offering whose blood was brought into the sanctuary (verse 23). We could not possibly take up that side of things at all.
But if there has been sin amongst the people of God it is due to Him that it should be rightly felt about.
[p. 83] Christ not only bore the judgment of sin and put it away, but He had every right and divine sensibility about the sin which He removed sacrificially. He loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. In this the holy priesthood can have part, and it comes in as one eats the sin-offering. We have also to remember that the sin which may have come to light in another is an exposure of what is in ourselves according to flesh. It holds up a mirror to me to let me see what I am. But the priest judges all in spiritual sensibilities which are the result of feeding on Christ as the sin-offering. The sin has been there, but it has been rightly felt about by a priest who has measured it inwardly by the death of Christ, and this covers it morally. So that God goes on with His people in holiness, not passing over any sin as a light matter, but securing, not only that it should have been judged once for all in the death of Christ, but also that it should be measured morally in the light of that death, and rightly felt about in priestly exercise before Him. One would earnestly desire that more priestly ability to take up things in this way were found amongst the people of God. It is often easier for us to burn the sin-offering than to eat it. See chapter 10: 16 - 18. That is, to act in a judicial spirit rather than to make the sin our own before God, as did Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel. (See Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9, Daniel 9) Eating brings about deep inward exercise, and it develops the sensibilities that we have spoken of, so that we do not think about sin merely as the world does, but according to God.
If there had been priestly sensibilities in the whole assembly at Corinth they would have been all down on their faces before God about the sin that was amongst [p. 84] them. But the exercises of Paul, and perhaps some few priests amongst themselves, saved the situation. One priest who eats the sin-offering might save many. One cannot but feel the deep importance of this in view of many things which come in amongst the people of God. If there were more priestly exercises there would be more power to deal with things, but this involves a breaking process, and much scouring and rinsing (verse 21). Paul went through this in a priestly way first, and ate the sin-offering for the Corinthians. Then they had their exercises; priestly sensibilities were revived; and things were dealt with so as to secure holy conditions.
Having to do with the sin-offering necessitates holiness. “Everything that toucheth the flesh thereof shall be holy”. Contact with the sin-offering commits us to the refusal of man after the flesh, for in it that man, and all that pertains to him, was judged. One cannot be in contact with God’s utter refusal of that man in the death of Christ, and go on with the allowance of him practically. The garment being washed on which the blood of the sin-offering is splashed would suggest an effect on the whole outward life — the deportment and ways — a moral cleansing and purification so that one appears as marked by purity and the beauty of holiness.
The “earthen vessel” would have reference to what man is naturally — to those things which might give him character, or place, or distinction as a man upon the earth. A man might be naturally eloquent, or have great mental powers, or some other natural gift which would give him a place as a man here. But if the sin-offering comes into contact with it, it results in the breaking of all that in the estimation of the man [p. 85] himself, so that he does not trust these things, but is cast upon God to be sustained by spiritual resources and power. “But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have our trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1: 9). “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4: 7). Paul had been in contact with the sin-offering, and the “earthen vessel” was “broken” for him.
The “copper pot” might perhaps be suggestive of what saints are as begotten of God, or after the inward man. Viewed thus there is ability to endure testing, and to abide. “He that does the will of God abides for eternity” (1 John 2: 17). When the sin-offering comes into contact with what the saint is as the subject of divine working there is no breaking, but an exercise is raised as to moral suitability. So the scouring and rinsing with water have their place.