THE PRIEST’S HANDFUL
G. A. Brown
Leviticus 5: 11–13; Psalm 51: 1–3, 19
I just venture to say a brief word, beloved brethren, in support of what has been said. Chapter 5 of Leviticus is not the oblation; it is the sin-offering. This passage has been a comfort to me many times. In some ways it is one of the most precious and comforting passages in Scripture because it concerns someone who is very poor, very low down in his soul, who has sinned, and is convicted of his sin but is unable to bring a sheep or a goat. It says, “But if his hand cannot attain to two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons ...” What a sad state to be in! It is when you are really down, when you are at your lowest, that a passage like this comes as an encouragement to you, to think that God in His grace makes provision for you at this extremity. No matter how bad a situation becomes, there is always a divine remedy for it, and if you have ever felt like this you will know what I mean. God is prepared to accept just this, “the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin-offering”. Surely we all have this by us. If you are a believer at all you are bound to have some appreciation of Christ. That is all it is; there is no blood involved here. You might wonder how a sin-offering could be without blood, but here it is. No matter how poverty-stricken you may have become you can hang on to this; Jesus is your only plea and God will accept that. It is not the smallness of the offering that counts; it is the worth of Jesus that counts. That is what God will look upon and He will accept it.
So it says, “the priest shall take his handful of it”. Is that not beautiful?—“his handful”. Even in such a humbling situation as this, whatever it may be that has happened, out of it the priest has his handful. I need not speak any more of that because it has already been spoken of, the priest’s handful; the memorial thereof is burnt on the altar, “with Jehovah’s offerings by fire—it is a sin-offering”. Then the rest “shall be the priest’s, as the oblation”. Jesus was just as perfect in taking away sin as He was in His lowly pathway here.
I thought of David in Psalm 51 as being an example of this. In one way we might say he brings a fine offering, but in another sense David was very low here. What happens in this psalm is that out of the sorrowful things that had taken place there is something secured for God. The whole psalm, of course, is very precious to read and reflects experience, but he finishes with this great matter of “sacrifices of righteousness, burnt-offering, and whole burnt-offering; then shall they offer up bullocks upon thine altar”. The sinner has become a priest! In this psalm David emerges from the depths of his sin as a priest. God is being served. Something has come out of this for God’s own pleasure. Dear brethren, there is no virtue in falling into sin, but if we do sin, we have a Patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2: 1). Our Patron and our Priest has been our sin-offering too. If we do come this way; may there be something resulting from it for the pleasure of God.
Words in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
15 February 1983