EXODUS 29
We have not here, types of how a sinner can be cleansed from sin so as to be found amongst the people of God as forgiven and justified. We are reading of how priests are hallowed and consecrated.
The first thing is moral cleansing. “And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring near the entrance of the tent of meeting, and shalt bathe them with water”. But this is done, we may say, in the light of all that Christ is as seen typically in verses 1 and 2. What a wonderful cluster of types of Christ is introduced there!
“One young bullock” — a large type of Christ as the One capable of being made sin and glorifying God in bearing its judgment. This is a most important apprehension of Christ in the soul. “Two rams without blemish” to set Him forth in His maturity and energy as the burnt-offering, and as the One wholly devoted to God and to His saints. “Unleavened bread” to speak of what He was as without sin in holy humanity. “Unleavened cakes mingled with oil”, typifying what He was as conceived by the Holy Spirit. His humanity was such as could only have been produced in the power of the Holy Spirit. Then “unleavened wafers anointed with oil” speak of Him as the blessed Man anointed by the Holy Spirit. The bread and the cakes were all to be put “into one basket”; every feature of the holy humanity of Christ is to be held together. It was holy and sinless, produced in the power of the Holy Spirit, and found suitable to be anointed by the Holy Spirit after being tested in the circumstances of human life for thirty years.
As Christ in these varied aspects is before the heart, we are prepared to see the necessity for the complete setting aside of all that man is according to the flesh. The bathing, so far as Aaron is concerned, signifies that it is Christ as having gone through death that we know and are identified with. He went [p. 235] through death that the moral cleansing of His death might become effective in us; that is, that we might be cleansed in mind and affection from that for which He died. He came into death for all that in us which is contrary to Himself — and that means everything that we were according to the flesh — that the Spirit might give our souls to know the import of the water from His side. He “came by water and blood” (1 John 5: 6). The blood is put first in the Gospel (John 19: 34) because it meets the glory of God as to sin, but the water comes first in the Epistle because what John has in view there is moral cleansing. The order in 1 John 5: 8 is “the Spirit, and the water, and the blood”. It is as having the Spirit that “the truth” of the water and the blood can be in our souls.
The death of Christ effected sacrificially the complete removal of the man after the flesh from before God, but this may be known by the Spirit for moral purification. Christ has died as in the place of that man and is eternally free from him, but He died that His death might free us. We are entitled to be with God for His holy service completely apart from man after the flesh.
The new birth is, in one sense, the setting aside of all that we were according to the flesh, for it is the evidence that there must be an entirely new beginning for man if there is to be anything in him for God. The effect of the new birth is that there is a new “I” (Romans 7), and the soul begins to judge of things in a new way. Then when Christ comes into the view of a heart that can, through grace, appreciate Him, it becomes possessed of an entirely new standard by which to measure everything. What is not according to Christ will not do for God, nor for the heart that [p. 236] loves Him. Then the Spirit makes good to the soul the meaning of the water which, as well as the blood, flowed from the side of the dead Christ. All that we were according to the flesh must go; it has gone in the death of the Son of God; it cannot have any place in His service.
There must be some consciousness of this in order to be free to contemplate Christ as He is introduced to us here. We see Him invested with all the priestly characteristics and glory of which the holy garments speak; and we see Him as the One anointed. It is the glory of Christ as the anointed Priest in heaven that is here presented to us. God would enrich us in a blessed way with the unsearchable riches of Christ. One covets to be so enriched, and that saints should be so enriched, that when we come together Christ comes out because our hearts are full of Him. This is greatly to God’s delight.
Then we see how “Aaron and his sons” are linked together; it is a very characteristic phrase of this chapter. It is God’s pleasure that there should be a priestly family identified in affection with Christ; and it is due to Christ and to the blessed God that we should be available thus for priestly service in the beauty of holiness. God has brought into being a generation capable of appreciating Christ, and this could not be without a nature that was kindred with Him.
There can be no doubt that God is working in a special way to bring about priestly state and conditions in His saints. Priestly conditions and sensibilities were lacking at Corinth; hence the Apostle wrote the first Epistle to bring about self-judgment, that they might come into the good of the washing — [p. 237] that there might be moral purification. Then the second Epistle is more like bringing out the priestly garments, and clothing the saints with them.
Then as clothed the priests “lean with their hands upon the head of the bullock” — a large type of Christ as sin-offering. This indicates the great sense God would give to the priestly company of the ability of Christ to deal with sin, and entirely to remove from before God what is offensive to Him. The dealing with sin must be according to divine holiness. And the priests have to identify themselves with it before God.
Then the bullock is slaughtered, and its blood put on the horns of the altar, and poured out at the bottom of the altar. The witness of death is there. Then the fat being burnt upon the altar speaks of the sweet odour of the personal excellence of Christ even as the One made sin. And the flesh, skin, and dung of the bullock being burned with fire outside the camp is the type of the solemn and consuming judgment which came upon sin when Christ was made sin. It answers to the three hours of darkness and the forsaking of God. A large apprehension of Christ in sin-offering character lies at the basis of all priestly service. There is no priestly service — no true note of praise to God — if that is not great in the soul.
Then the ram of burnt-offering comes next, speaking of the maturity and energy of Christ, and of all His inward perfections, the sweet odour of which was brought out when He gave Himself for us. It is not only that everything offensive has been removed, but everything that God could delight in has come in. His will has been established on an imperishable foundation. (See Psalm 40; Hebrews 10). Christ has [p. 238] been found in obedience and love in the place of sin and death, so as to become the ground of acceptance for us.
This leads on to the ram of consecration, which is typical of Christ in His devoted love as that which is to give character to the consecrated company, for its blood is put on the ear, thumb, and great toe of each one of them, and they have also to eat its flesh. Entire devotedness marked Him. What a pleasure to God to open that ear, and speak into it, when He knew that the One to whom He spoke was fully set at all cost to do His will! Every act of service and every step of His pathway spoke of the same character of devotedness as carried Him into death. There was the same unlimited self-dedication in it all. Now we are to come under the influence of that, so that the impression of Christ’s devotedness may be upon ear and hand and foot. We should be prepared to ask at all times, Is this what Christ would be listening to, or doing? Is this how He would move? What a character this would give to the priesthood!
The blood is here the witness of absolute devotedness to God to secure the saints for divine pleasure. It comes on the ear, the thumb, the toe. Everything that passes into the heart and mind, and all service and walk, is to come under the influence of the devotedness of Christ. “The love of the Christ constrains us”. I apprehend that the ram of consecration comes as near to “This is my body, which is for you”, as any of the types in Exodus and Leviticus. Christ has loved the assembly and given Himself for it. He has gone into death that all the precious thoughts of God’s love, and of His own love, might take effect, and that He might have His saints [p. 239] wholly for Himself and for the service of God. He would have them to take character from that love, and be nourished upon it, so as to be spiritually competent in intelligent affections for priestly service.
The blood and the anointing oil being sprinkled upon Aaron and his sons and their garments, would show how the Spirit is connected with all the value of the sacrifice of Christ. Indeed, the fact that there is a company under the priestly anointing is the most wonderful evidence of the value of that sacrifice. If God has anointed us it is because He delights to give this testimony to the value of what Christ has done. But here it is the Spirit as power to take up priestly relations with God. The death of Christ in its true import as known in the power of the Spirit is to mark the persons and associations of the holy priesthood. They are to be known as having died with Christ from the elements of the world, and as judging that if “one died for all, then all have died; and he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised”.
Then the fat, the right shoulder, the loaf of unleavened bread, the cake of oiled bread, etc., are put in the hands of Aaron and his sons, and waved as a wave-offering before Jehovah. The fat was brought with the breast by the offerer of the peace-offering, but in the consecration-offering it was brought with the right shoulder. Does this suggest that when communion is in question the love of Christ is prominent, but that in view of consecration one is much occupied before God with the thought of His strength — His ability to carry out all that is in God’s pleasure? The hands are filled with this: the holy nature of His humanity, His anointing with the Spirit, His perfection [p. 240] under testing; all sustained by His Person and His strength. All this is put in movement before God in the hands of the priests.
A company having such features as we have considered can give affectionate movement before God to the preciousness of Christ. How delightful it is to God to see Christ engaging the affections of a company that has true and divine thoughts of Him and His love! It is greatly to God’s pleasure that we should have true thoughts of Christ, and that they should be held in priestly affections, and put in movement before Him. Satan is ever seeking to obscure the thoughts of saints as to the Person of Christ — the true character of His humanity, and of His love, and of what that love has effected. Thus the service of God is enfeebled. But if Christ and His love are before us there is no limit to the spiritual expansion that is possible. It is love which surpasses knowledge.
Then that which has filled the hands of the priests, and been put in movement by them before God, is received from their hand and burnt upon the altar “over the burnt-offering, for a sweet odour before Jehovah”. If the burnt-offering speaks, as it surely does, of the sweet odour before God of that offering in which Christ devoted Himself to accomplish the will of God, this must be the basis of all that is for His pleasure. But the burning of the consecration-offering over the burnt-offering seems to suggest that there is added pleasure for God in having before Him the sweet odour of Christ as having passed through the hands of His priests, and having been waved by them in affection before Him. God loves to see Christ in our hands, to use the language of the type, and to receive Him from our hands.
[p. 241] Moses was to take the breast of the ram of consecration and wave it before Jehovah; “and it shall be thy part”. The ram of consecration had a peace-offering character, and what marks the peace-offering is the participation of all concerned. Jehovah had a portion, the priest had a portion, and the offerer had a portion; it spoke of communion. And I think we have a type here of the portion which Christ as Mediator has in relation to the consecration of the priesthood. As Mediator He has brought the love and mind of God to us; that is the divine side. But the breast of the ram of consecration is, if I understand it aright, the love disclosed in death which will ere long be the main-spring to set the whole reconciled universe in movement responsively to the love of God. That love is known today by the assembly, and it has become there the living spring of all that is pleasurable to God. And I think the Lord finds, and ever will find, His peculiar and personal satisfaction in having brought in the powerful impulse of His own love to quicken in the priestly company, and eventually in the vast universe of bliss, affections appreciative of, and responsive to, the love of God. The love of Christ which surpasses knowledge gives impulse God-ward to all that comes under its power, and I believe it is His peculiar satisfaction that it should do so. It is very blessed to think of the love of God being perfectly revealed, but it is also most blessed to think of full response to that love being secured. There is something for God in that. The love of Christ will yet fill the universe of bliss with affections responsive to God. At the present time His love is the spring of all priestly affections and service; it sets all in movement God-ward. And He has His own [p. 242] portion in having secured it by His love for the pleasure of God.
We find here that the breast and the shoulder of the ram of consecration give character, as it were, to all that follows, so that Jehovah passes without drawing any definite line of demarcation from the ram of consecration to the wave-breast and heave-shoulder of the peace-offerings which were to be the priests’ food “as an everlasting statute”. This suggests the thought that this chapter covers in principle the whole period of priestly service, and I think this is confirmed by the fact that there were “seven days” of consecration — typically a complete period. There were seven days of the feast of unleavened bread in connection with coming out of Egypt, and now there are seven days of consecration in connection with going in to the tabernacle for priestly service.
And bringing in here the food of the priestly family is very important as connecting the strength of the priesthood with the communion of the people of God. Priestly vigour is dependent on right conditions of christian fellowship. It is an instructive connection. The more energetic and faithful we are in promoting fellowship, the more nourishment will there be for the priests.
The first character of the peace-offering was that it was “for a thanksgiving” (Leviticus 7: 12). This would correspond with “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of the Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10: 16). As brought into the common joy of the love of God made known in the blood of Christ, believers can have fellowship in thanksgiving. So we bless the cup together. Then, further, the peace-offering might be “a vow, or voluntary” (Leviticus 7: 16).
[p. 243] This implies more energy in the affections, and it involves the devoted recognition of what is due to the Lord. It is not only that He has been for us, but it is due to Him that we should be for Him. It is essential to christian fellowship that we should maintain together what is due to the Lord. Whatever is inconsistent with the rights of the Lord is an offence against christian fellowship, and if it is allowed there is not the true character of christian fellowship, though there may be a believers’ meeting. A vow is an evidence of devotedness in the affections. We read of some that “they gave themselves first to the Lord, and to us by God’s will” (2 Corinthians 8: 5). If you have really come under the influence of the grace and love of God it becomes a joy to dedicate yourself. J. N. D. used to say that in Romans 6 God sets a man free, and then the question is, What is that free man going to do? He yields himself to God. We are to present our bodies a living sacrifice. What has once been dedicated cannot be withdrawn. If a man who has yielded himself to God is afterwards found doing his own will, Scripture would regard him as a fool. For it says, “When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed” (Ecclesiastes 5: 4). Fellowship is greatly promoted by devotedness. We are to be for the Lord individually and together.
That involves a third thing. “If anyone touch anything unclean ... and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offering, which is for Jehovah, that soul shall be cut off from his peoples” (Leviticus 7: 21). There can only be true fellowship on the principle of exclusiveness; the “touch” of what is unclean cuts a soul off from his peoples. This is very searching,
[p. 244] but it is really a question of what is due to God who loves to dwell among His people, and to have all their joys connected with Himself. To be “cut off from his peoples” means that he is severed morally from all that constitutes the true fellowship and joy of saints. People might think that a “touch” could not matter very much, but it imperilled everything that a true Israelite would value.
These are the conditions of christian fellowship, and as they are maintained there will be food for the priests. The question for each one of us is, Am I really in the fellowship, and true to it? We might be breaking bread with certain Christians, but it does not follow that we are truly in the christian fellowship. And if not, we are not contributing to what is priestly.
In the first five chapters of Leviticus we get a series of offerings which end in the sin-offering. The different presentations of Christ in those chapters lead to true self-judgment. Then in chapters 6 and 7 we have the law of the offerings, and the order is changed so that the peace-offering comes last. The course of instruction in the law of the offerings leads to the truth of fellowship. Then the consecration of the priesthood follows in chapter 8. The first course of instruction brings us to self-judgment in the light of the death of Christ; the second course brings us to the truth of fellowship; and then we have the priesthood. There is a moral order in these things.
It is important to see that the supply of food for the priesthood is dependent upon peace-offerings being brought. That is, the strength and energy of what is priestly depends on saints being true to the fellowship. 1 Corinthians is largely to adjust the fellowship, but [p. 245] 2 Corinthians brings us to what is priestly. The ministry of the new covenant and reconciliation bring in priestly conditions. Paul did not open up these things in the first Epistle because many things had come in to compromise the fellowship. A great many believers now walk professedly according to the principles of christian fellowship, but if they are not really true to those principles the priestly element will be either feeble or lacking altogether. Things will be taken up from man’s side, and not in relation to God’s pleasure. There will be no wave-breast or heave-shoulder for the priests, and the service of God will be enfeebled. But if the fellowship is maintained it will greatly support the service of God. The love and strength of Christ will be so known and appropriated as to give priestly vigour, and the service of God will go on in spiritual energy.
Priestly service covers a variety of things; it should be in exercise whenever saints come together, and in their households too. It is a pity if incense does not ascend from the households of the saints — the interests of Christ presented before God in prayer. If a man is not a priest at home, how can he be a priest in the meetings? Saints take a priestly place even in giving thanks for their food, “for it is sanctified by God’s word and freely addressing him” (1 Timothy 4: 5). No one but a priest could freely address God. It is because God has spoken to me in infinite grace that I can speak to Him in priestly liberty. It is the true and holy dignity of man to do so. It is God’s way to connect His testimony with households, and it is important to remember this in days when the tendency is to confine religious things to what is congregational. People increasingly connect what is pious and religious [p. 246] with church, chapel, or meeting-room, and let it drop out of the household. But this undermines everything.
If the gospel is preached as Paul preached it there is a priestly character about it because it ministers to the pleasure of God. Paul spoke of “carrying on as a sacrificial service the message of glad tidings of God, in order that the offering up of the nations might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15: 16). He preached for the good of men, but it was to secure a holy result for God. He was a sweet savour of Christ to God in all his gospel service. He could say, “God ... whom I serve in my spirit in the glad tidings of his Son”. It was priestly service taken up in his spirit for God’s pleasure.
Of course “the tent of meeting” is pre-eminently the place of the service of God. It answers to the coming together of saints as sanctified persons for the service of God. Many come to the meetings to get comfort and food, and I am sure they find both, but we should think more of the service of God.
The love of Christ is seen in the wave-breast, and the strength of Christ in the heave-shoulder. If these are appropriated they give strength for priestly service whether in the household or in the assembly. There is often weakness for such service, and one would desire to be exercised as to maintaining the conditions of Christian fellowship, so that there might be more food to nourish and energize what is priestly among the people of God.
Verses 29 and 30 suggest the thought of the continuance of the service. Generations may pass, but the priestly character and service is to go on. In the religious world things are kept up formally and [p. 247] mechanically by a fixed round of services, but there is no priestly element in this. We have to see to it that the service is maintained spiritually.
Then Aaron and his sons have to eat the flesh of the ram and the bread “at the entrance of the tent of meeting”. It is feeding on Christ in relation to approach. It is suggestive of the fact that if saints are to come together for the service of God they must come as sustained by priestly food. Manna sustains one in the path of God’s will in the wilderness, but feeding on the ram of consecration is in view of the service of God in “the tent of meeting”. It is feeding on Christ in relation to approach. I take it that “the tent of meeting” answers to God’s assembly as the place where He is served in a priestly way. The very entrance is marked by feeding on Christ as the One who came in devoted love and has gone into death that He might secure a sanctified company, all of one with Himself, for the pleasure and service of God. That is, we are engaged with what Christ is, and what His love has effected, and His love becomes the spring of response in our hearts God-ward. It is a question of what the love of Christ has secured for God. We are often taken up with what Christ has secured for us, but the ram of consecration presents Him in relation to what He has secured for God. It is the death of Christ as the ground on which He has taken up His place as Head — a place on our side, so that He can say, “In the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises” (Hebrews 2: 12).
As we appropriate the love of Christ as it is set forth in the ram of consecration, the same character of response to God is produced in our hearts as was in the heart of Christ. He loves to take His place “in the midst of the assembly” — in the midst of those who can respond to God in tune with His singing. That is the highest character of the service of God.
Then you will notice that nothing of “the flesh of the consecration, and of the bread” is to remain until the morning. On each of the seven days there was to be an entirely new beginning, a new sacrifice — a product of renewed spiritual exercises and affections. As to the Person and the facts they are ever the same; it is the same blessed Christ each day, and all the precious facts connected with His Person and work are unchanged; but as to taking them up in view of service God-ward they have to be new each day. The soul’s apprehensions and appreciations and appropriations are to be renewed and living so that all is as fresh in our affections as the first time we touched it. You cannot keep over what you enjoyed with God last Lord’s day for next; no mere remembrance of what you enjoyed then will do. Things cannot be kept over; they have to be spiritually renewed. When we have had a good time there is a tendency to hold it in remembrance, and perhaps try to have another like it without the renewal of spiritual affections. But God is the living God, and He can only be served by what is living and in freshness. We need never be afraid of things getting stale if we “worship by the Spirit of God”. Living springs flow there!
Approach now must be at a cleansed, anointed, and hallowed altar. It is the first time in Scripture that we read of a cleansed and anointed altar. Previously the altars were according to the measure of the one who approached, but now approach must be cleansed from every feature of human imperfection — cleansed [p. 249] in all the efficacy of the sin-offering. So that there is “every day a bullock as a sin-offering”. The bullock is a large apprehension of Christ; there must be a large sense in the soul that “the man of sin and shame” has been removed sacrificially so that we might worship by the Spirit of God. There is no other true approach to God. If we worship at all now it is in spirit and in truth. And for souls who love God no other way is desired. The altar is “most holy” (literally, holiness of holinesses, a strong Hebrew expression to intensify to the utmost the idea of holiness); nor would we have it otherwise. We give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness, for though it shuts out all that is of the flesh it makes room for all that is of the Spirit and of Christ.
The character of priesthood which we have been considering is capable of having to do with a cleansed and anointed altar. God is not served now by what man in the flesh can contribute. You might have a hymn sung most beautifully as to the musical part of it, and yet nothing for God in it because it was the man after the flesh who did it — the man that was removed in the sin-offering! We sing our hymns to known tunes simply that we may sing together; it is to secure fellowship; but the true melody is spiritual; it is in the hearts of the saints, not in the tune.
What is offered upon the altar is in keeping with the character of the altar, so we get now the morning and evening lamb of the continual burnt-offering. God would encourage us to renew in our affections continually the terms on which He is with us. He would have every day to begin and end with a fresh sense of being with God, and having God with us, in the sweet odour and acceptance of Christ. He never [p. 250] places His saints on any other ground before Him than that of Christ — the One who has perfectly glorified Him, and done all His will, and in whom He has infinite delight. He never departs from that; He never meets His saints on other or lower ground than that. And He would have the consciousness of it continually renewed on our side.
The meat-offering goes along with the burnt-offering — a true sense of the holy and perfect humanity of the One who offered Himself. Then it is taken up not as mere doctrine, or as truth to which we assent, but in joy with God, of which the drink-offering speaks. While this must be taken up individually, the fact that it is at “the entrance of the tent of meeting” would indicate that it has in view the coming together of saints. We should always come together in the holy consciousness of the ground on which God meets us; it would promote priestly conditions. What we take up in our thoughts and affections morning and evening has in view our coming together for the service of God. A meeting to read the Scriptures is not exactly the service of God; we come together as learners for instruction, to gather up His mind from Scripture. But if we come together for prayer it is to take up the interests of Christ in intercession, and this is priestly service.
Do we understand what it is to have to do with God’s assembly, where everything is hallowed by His glory, where He meets us according to His own appreciation of Christ, and makes us conscious of His presence? The tent of meeting, and the altar, and the priesthood are all hallowed. What could be greater joy than to come together in priestly conditions, and to find ourselves where all is hallowed [p. 251] by divine glory, and where God is served according to His pleasure in Christ?
There is a kind of climax reached at the end of this chapter. God has secured a consecrated priesthood, a cleansed altar, a continual burnt-offering, a hallowed tent; an order of things where all is suitable to Himself — the abode of His holiness, as Israel sang in Exodus 15: 13. Now He says, “And I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am Jehovah their God, who have brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, to dwell in their midst; I am Jehovah their God”. God’s presence is the blessing, joy, and glory of His people; and He finds His rest and pleasure in dwelling among them.