THE INAUGURATION OF THE
TABERNACLE SERVICE
Lev 9:1-24
AARON and his sons having now been solemnly consecrated to the
priestly office by the ceremonies of seven days, their formal
assumption of their daily duties in the tabernacle was marked by a
special service suited to the august occasion, signalised at its
close by the appearance of the glory of Jehovah to assembled Israel,
in token of His sanction and approval of all that had been done. It
would appear that the daily burnt offering and meal offering had
been indeed offered before this, from the time that the tabernacle
had been set up: in which service, however, Moses had thus far
officiated. But now that Aaron and his sons were consecrated, it was
most fitting that a service should thus be ordered which should be a
complete exhibition of the order of sacrifice as it had now been
given by the Lord, and serve, for Aaron and his sons in all after
time, as a practical model of the manner in which the divinely-given
law of sacrifice should be carried out.
The order of the day began with a very impressive lesson of the
inadequacy of the blood of beasts to take away sin. For seven
consecutive days a bullock had been offered for Aaron and his sons,
and so far as served the typical purpose, their consecration was
complete. But still Aaron and his sons needed expiating blood; for
before they could offer the sacrifices of the day for the people,
they are ordered yet again first of all to offer a sin offering for
themselves. We read (Lev 9:1-2): "And it came to pass on the eighth
day, that Moses called Aaron and his sons, and the elders of Israel;
and he said unto Aaron, Take thee a bull calf for a sin offering,
and a ram for a burnt offering, without blemish, and offer them
before the Lord."
And then Aaron was commanded (Lev 9:3-5): "Unto the children of
Israel thou shalt speak, saying, Take yea he-goat for a sin
offering; and a calf and a lamb, both of the first year, without
blemish, for a burnt offering; and an ox and a ram for peace
offerings, to sacrifice before the Lord; and a meal offering mingled
with oil: for today the Lord appeareth unto you. And they brought
that which Moses commanded before the tent of meeting: and all the
congregation drew near and stood before the Lord."
There is little in these directions requiring explanation. Because
of the exceptional importance of the occasion, therefore, as in the
feasts of the Lord, a special sin offering was ordered, and a burnt
offering, besides the regular daily burnt offering, meal offering,
and drink offering; and, in addition, peculiar to this occasion, a
peace offering for the nation; which last was evidently intended to
signify that now on the basis of the sacrificial worship and the
mediation of a consecrated priesthood, Israel was privileged to
enter into fellowship with Jehovah, the Lord of the tabernacle. No
peace offering was ordered for Aaron and his sons, as, according to
the law of the peace offering, they would themselves take part in
that of the people. The sin offering prescribed for the people was,
not a kid, as in King James’s version, but a he-goat, which, with
the exception of the case of a sin of commission as described in Lev
4:13-14, appears to have been the usual victim. For the selection of
such a victim, no reason appears more probable than that assigned by
rabbinical tradition, namely, that it was intended to counteract the
tendency of the people to the worship of shaggy he-goats, referred
to in Lev 17:7, "They shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto
the he-goats (R.V), after whom they go a whoring.
THE ORDER OF THE
OFFERINGS
Lev 9:7-21
"And Moses said onto Aaron. Draw near unto the altar, and offer
thy sin offering, and thy burnt offering, and make atonement for
thyself, and for the people: and offer the oblation of the people,
and make atonement for them; as the Lord commanded. So Aaron drew
near unto the altar, and slew the calf of the sin offering, which
was for himself. And the sons of Aaron presented the blood unto him:
and he dipped his finger in the blood, and put it upon the horns of
the altar, and poured out the blood at the base of the altar: but
the fat and the kidneys and the caul from the liver of the sin
offering, he burnt upon the altar; as the Lord commanded Moses. And
the flesh and the skin he burnt with fire without the camp. And he
slew the burnt offering; and Aaron’s sons delivered unto him the
blood, and he sprinkled it upon the altar round about. And they
delivered the burnt offering unto him, piece by piece, and the head;
and he burnt them upon the altar. And he washed the inwards and the
legs, and burnt them upon the burnt offering on the altar. And he
presented the people’s oblation, and took the goat of the sin
offering which was for the people, and slew it, and offered it for
sin, as the first. And he presented the burnt offering, and offered
it according to the ordinance. And he presented the meal offering,
and filled his hand therefrom, and burnt it upon the altar, besides
the burnt offering of the morning. He slew also the ox and the ram,
the sacrifice of peace offerings, which was for the people: and
Aaron’s sons delivered unto him the blood, and he sprinkled it upon
the altar round about, and the fat of the ox; and of the ram, the
fat tail and that which covered the inwards, and the kidneys, and
the caul of the liver: and they put the fat upon the breasts and he
burnt the fat upon the altar; and the breast and the right thigh
Aaron waved for a wave offering before the Lord; as Moses
commanded."
Lev 9:7-21 detail the way in which this commandment of Moses was
carried out in the offerings, first, for Aaron and his sons, and
then for all the people; but, as the peculiarities of these several
offerings have been already explained, they need not here detain us.
That which is new, and of profound spiritual and typical meaning, is
the order of the sacrifices as here enjoined; an order which, as we
learn from many Scriptures, represented what was intended to be the
permanent and invariable law. The appointed order of the offerings
was as follows: first, whenever presented, came the sin offering, as
here; then, the burnt offering, with its meal offering; and last,
always, the peace offering, with its characteristic sacrificial
feast.
The significance of this order will readily appear if we consider
the distinctive meaning of each of these offerings. The sin offering
had for its central thought, expiation of sin by the shedding of
blood; the burnt offering, the full surrender of the person
symbolised by the victim, to God; the meal offering, in like manner,
the consecration of the fruit of his labours; the peace offering,
sustenance of life from God’s table, and fellowship in peace and joy
with God and with one another. And the great lesson for us now from
this model tabernacle service is this: that this order is determined
by a law of the spiritual life.
So much as this, even without clear prevision of the Antitype of all
these sacrifices, the thoughtful Israelite might have discerned; and
even though the truth thus symbolised is placed before us no more in
rite and symbol, yet it abides, and ever will abide, a truth. Man
everywhere needs fellowship with God, and cannot rest without it; to
attain such fellowship is the object of all religions which
recognise the being of a God at all. Even among the heathen, we are
truly told, there are many who are feeling after God "if haply they
may find Him"; and, among ourselves in Christian lands, and even in
the external fellowship of Christian churches, there are many who
with aching hearts are seeking after an unrealised experience of
peace and fellowship with God. And yet God is "not far from any one
of us"; and the whole Scripture represent Him as longing on His part
with an incomprehensible condescension and love after fellowship
with us, desiring to communicate to us His fulness; and still so
many seek and find not!
We need not go further than this order of the offerings, and the
spiritual truth it signifies regarding the order of grace, to
discover the secret of these spiritual failures.
The peace offering, the sacrificial feast of fellowship with God,
the joyful banqueting on the food of His table, was always, as on
this day, in order. Before this must ever come the burnt offering.
The ritual prescribed that the peace offering should be burnt "upon
the burnt offering"; the presence of the burnt offering is thus
presupposed in every acceptable peace offering. But what if one had
ventured to ignore this divinely-appointed order, and had offered
his peace offering to be burnt alone; can we imagine that it would
have been accepted?
These things are a parable, and not a hard one. For the burnt
offering with its meal offering symbolised full consecration of the
person and the works to the Lord. Remembering this, we see that the
order is not arbitrary. For, in the nature of the case, full
consecration to God must precede fellowship with God; he who would
know what it is to have God give Himself to him, must first be ready
to give himself to God. And that God should enter into loving
fellowship with anyone who is holding back from loving
self-surrender is not to be expected. This is not merely an Old
Testament law, still less merely a fanciful deduction from the
Mosaic symbolism; everywhere in the New Testament is the thought
pressed upon us, no longer indeed in symbol, but in plainest
language. It is taught by precept in some of the most familiar words
of the great Teacher. There is promise, for example, of constant
supply of sufficient food and raiment, fellowship with God in
temporal things; but only on condition that "we seek first the
kingdom of God, and His righteousness," shall "all these things be
added unto us". {Mat 6:33} There is a promise of "a hundred fold in
this life, and in the world to come, eternal life"; but it is
prefaced by the condition of surrender of father, mother, brethren
sisters of houses and lands, for the Lord’s sake. {Mat 19:29} Not,
indeed, that the actual parting with these is enjoined in every
case; but, certainly, it is intended that we shall hold all at the
Lord’s disposal, possessing, but "as though we possessed not";-this
is the least that we can take out of these words.
Full consecration of the person and the works, this then is the
condition of fellowship with God; and if so many lament the lack of
the latter, it is no doubt because of the lack of the former. We
often act strangely in this matter; half unconsciously, searching,
perhaps, every corner of our life but the right one, from looking
into which by the clear light of God’s Word we instinctively shrink,
conscience softly whispering that just there is something about
which we have a lurking doubt, and which therefore, if we will be
fully consecrated, we must at once give up, till we are sure that it
is right, and right for us; and for that self-denial, that
renunciation unto God, we are not ready. Is it a wonder that, if
such be our experience, we lack that blessed, joyful fellowship with
the Lord, of which some tell us? Is it not rather the chief wonder
that we should wonder at the lack, when yet we are not ready to
consecrate all, body, soul, and spirit, with all our works, unto the
Lord? Let us then remember the law of the offerings upon this point.
No Israelite could have the blessed feast of the peace offering,
except, first the burnt offering and the meal offering, symbolising
full consecration, were smoking on the altar.
But this full consecration seems to many so exceeding hard, -nay, we
may say more, to many it is utterly impossible. A consecration of
some things, especially those for which they care little, this they
can hear of; but a consecration of all, that the whole may be
consumed upon the altar before and unto God, this they cannot think
of. Which means-can we escape the conclusion?-that the love of God
does not yet rule supreme. How sad! and how strange! But the law of
the offerings will again declare the secret of the strange holding
back from full consecration. For it was ordained, that wherever
there was sin in the offerer, unconfessed and unforgiven, before
even the burnt offering must go the sin offering, expiating sin by
blood presented on the altar before God. And here we come upon
another law of the spiritual life in all ages. If fellowship with
God in peace and joy is conditioned by the full consecration of
person and service to Him., this consecration, even as a possibility
for us, is in turn conditioned by the expiation of sin through the
great Sin offering. So long as conscience is not satisfied that the
question of sin has been settled in grace and righteousness with
God, so long it is a spiritual impossibility that the soul should
come into that experience of the love of God, manifested through
atonement, which alone can lead to full consecration.
This truth is always of vital importance; but it is, if possible,
more important than ever to insist upon it in our day, when, more
and more, the doctrine of the expiation of sin through the blood of
the Lamb of God is denied, and that, forsooth, under the claim of
superior enlightenment. Men are well pleased to hear of a burnt
offering, so long especially as it is made to signify no more than
the self-devotement of the offerer; but for a sin offering, much
modern theology has no place. So soon as we begin to speak of the
sacrifice of our Lord for sin in the dialect of the ancient
altar-which, it must never be forgotten, is that of Christ and His
apostles-we are told that "it would be better for the world if the
Christian doctrine of sacrifice could be presented to men apart from
the old Jewish ideas and terms, which only serve to obscure the
simplicity that is in Christ(!)" And so men, under the pretext of
magnifying the love of God, and laying a truer basis for spiritual
life, in effect deny the supreme and incomparable manifestation of
that love, that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our
behalf. {2Co 5:21}
Very different is the teaching, not merely of the law of Moses, but
of the whole New Testament; which, in all it has to say of the
Christian life as proceeding from full self-surrender, ever
represents this full consecration as inspired by the believing
recognition and penitent acceptance of Christ, not merely as the
great Example of perfect consecration, but as a sin offering,
reconciling us first of all by His death, before He saves us by His
life. {Rom 5:10} The expiation of sin by the sin offering, before
the consecration which burnt offering and meal offering typify, this
is the invariable order in both Testaments. The Apostle Paul, in his
account of his own full consecration, is in full accord with the
spiritual teaching of the Mosaic ritual when he gives this as the
order. He describes himself, and that in terms of no undue
exaggeration, as so under the constraint of the love of Christ as to
seem to some beside himself; and theft he goes on to explain the
secret of this consecration, in which he had placed himself and all
he had upon God’s altar, as a whole burnt sacrifice, as consisting
just in this, that he had first apprehended the mystery of Christ’s
death, as a substitution so true and real of the sinless Victim in
the place of sinful men, that it might be said that "one died for
all, therefore all died"; whence he thus judged, "that they which
live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for
their sakes died and rose again". {2Co 5:13-15} To the same effect
is the teaching of the Apostle John. For all true consecration
springs from the thankful recognition of the love of God; and,
according to this Apostle also, the Divine love which inspires the
consecration is manifest in this, that "He sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins". {1Jn 4:10} The apprehension, then, of
the reality of the expiation made by the great Sin Offering, and the
believing appropriation of its virtue to the cancelling of our
guilt, this is the inseparable previous condition of full
consecration of person and work unto the Lord. It is so, because
only the apprehension of the need of expiation by the blood of the
Son of God, as the necessary condition of forgiveness, can give us
any adequate measure of the depth of our guilt and ruin, as God sees
it; and, on the other hand, only when we remember that God spared
not His only-begotten Son, but sent Him to become, through death
upon the cross, a propitiation for our sins, can we begin to have
such an estimate of the love of God and of Christ His Son as shall
make full consecration easy, or even possible.
Let us then, on no account, miss this lesson from the order of this
ritual; before the peace offering, the burnt offering; before the
burnt offering, the sin offering. Or, translating the symbolism,
perfect fellowship with God in peace and joy and life, only after
consecration; and the consecration only possible in fulness, and
only accepted of God, in any case, when the great Sin offering has
been first believingly appropriated, according to God’s ordination,
as the propitiation for our sins, for the cancelling of our guilt.
But there is yet more in this order of the offerings. For, as the
New Testament in every way teaches us, the Antitype of every
offering was Christ. As we have already seen, in the Sin Offering we
have the type of Christ as our propitiation, or expiation; in the
burnt offering, of Christ as consecrating Himself unto God in our
behalf; in the meal offering, as, in like manner, consecrating all
His works in our behalf; in the peace offering, as imparting Himself
to us as our life, and thus bringing us into fellowship of peace and
love and joy with the Father.
Now this last is, in fact. the ultimate aim of salvation: rather,
indeed, we may say, it is salvation. For life in its fulness means
the cancelling of death; death spiritual, and bodily death also, in
resurrection from the dead: it means also perfect fellowship with
the living God, and this, attained, is heaven. Hence it must needs
be that the peace offering which represents Christ as giving Himself
to us as our life, and introducing us into this blessed state, comes
last.
But before this, in order, not of time, but of grace, as also of
logic, must be Christ as Sin Offering, and Christ as Burnt Offering.
And, first of all, Christ as Sin Offering. For God’s way of peace
puts the cancelling of guilt, the satisfaction of His holy law and
justice, and therewith the restoration of our right relation to Him,
first, and in order to a holy life and fellowship; while man will
ever put these last, and regard the latter as the means to obtaining
a right standing with God. Hence, inasmuch as Christ, coming to save
us, finds us under a curse, the first thing in order is, and must
be, the removal of that curse of the holy wrath of God, against
everyone that "continueth not in all things that are written in the
book of the law, to do them." And so, first in order in the typical
ritual is the sin offering which represents Christ as made "a curse
for us," that He might thus redeem us from the curse of the law.
{Gal 3:13}
But this is not a complete account of the work of our Lord for us in
the days of His flesh. His work indeed was one, but the Scriptures
set it forth in a twofold aspect. On the one hand, He is the Sinless
One, bearing the curse for us; but also, in all His suffering for
our sins, He is also manifested as the Righteous One, making many
righteous by His obedience, even an obedience unto the death of the
cross. {Rom 5:19; Php 2:8} And if we ask what was the essence of
this obedience of our Lord for us, what was it, indeed, but that
which is the essence of all obedience to God, namely, full,
unreserved, uninterrupted consecration and self-surrender to the
will of the Father? And as, by His suffering, Christ endured the
curse for us, so by all His obedience and suffering in full
submission to the will of God, He became also "the Lord our
righteousness." And this, as repeatedly remarked, is the central
thought of the burnt offering and the meal offering, -full
consecration of the person and the work to God.
In the sin offering, then, we see Christ as our propitiation; in the
burnt offering, we see Him rather as our righteousness; but the
former is presupposed in the latter; and apart from this, that in
His death He became the expiation of our sins, His obedience could
have availed us nothing. But given now Christ as our propitiation
and also our righteousness, the whole question of the relation of
Christ’s people to God in law and righteousness is settled, and the
way is now clear for the communication of life which the peace
offering symbolised. Thus, as by faith in Christ as the Sin
offering, our propitiation and righteousness, we are "justified
freely by grace," "apart from the works of the law," so now the way
is open, by the appropriation of Christ as our life in the peace
offering, for our sanctification and complete redemption. In a word,
the law of the order of the offerings teaches, symbolically and
typically, exactly what, in Romans 6 and 7, the Apostle Paul teaches
dogmatically, namely, that the order of grace is first
justification, then sanctification; but both by the same crucified
Christ, our propitiation, our righteousness, and our life: in whom
we come to have fellowship in all good and blessing with the Father.
It is interesting to observe that after the analogy of this order of
the offerings, is the most usual order of the development of
Christian experience. For the awakened soul is usually first of all
concerned about the question of forgiveness of sin and acceptance;
and hence, most commonly, faith first apprehends Christ in this
aspect, as the One who "bare our sins in His Body," by whose stripes
we are healed; and then, at a later period of experience, as the One
who also, in lowly consecration to the Father’s will, obeyed for us,
that we might be made righteous through His obedience. But no one
who is truly justified by faith in Christ as our propitiation and
righteousness, can long rest with this. He very quickly finds what
he had little thought of before, that the evil nature abides even in
the justified and accepted believer; nay, more, that it has still a
terrible strength to overcome him and lead him into sin, even often
when he would not. And this prepares the believer, still in accord
with the law of the order of grace here set forth, to lay hold also
on Christ by faith as His Peace offering, by feeding on whom we
receive spiritual strength, so that He thus, in a word, becomes our
sanctification and, at last, full redemption.
THE DOUBLE BENEDICTION
Lev 9:22-24
"And Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people, and blessed
them; and he came down from offering the sin offering, and the burnt
offering, and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the
tent of meeting, and came out and blessed the people and the glory
of the Lord appeared unto all the people. And there came forth fire
from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering
and the fat; and when all the people saw it, they shouted, and fell
on their faces."
The sacrifices having now been made, and the offerings presented in
this divinely-appointed order, by the ordained and consecrated
priesthood, two things followed: a double benediction was pronounced
upon the people, and Jehovah manifested to them His glory. We read
(Lev 9:22), "And Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people, and
blessed them; and he came down from offering the sin offering, and
the burnt offering, and the peace offerings."
Presumably, the form of benediction which Aaron used was that which,
according to Num 6:24-27, the priests were commanded by the Lord to
use: "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make His face to
shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up His
countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." It was not an empty
form; for the Lord at that time also promised Himself to make this
blessing efficient, saying thereafter, "So shall they put My
Name"-Jehovah, the name of God in covenant, -"upon the children of
Israel; and I will bless them."
So also the Lord Jesus, just before withdrawing from the bodily
sight of His disciples after the completion of His great sacrifice,
"lifted up His hands, and blessed them"; and thereupon disappeared
from their sight, ascending into heaven. Even so was it in the
typical service of this day; for when Aaron had thus lifted up his
hands and blessed the people (Lev 9:23), "Moses and Aaron went into
the tent of meeting."
The work of Aaron in the outer court had been finished, and now he
disappears from Israel’s sight; for he must, in like manner, be
inducted into the priestly work within the Holy Place. He must there
be shown all those things to which, in his priestly ministrations,
the blood must be applied; and, especially, must also offer the
sweet incense at the golden altar which was before the veil which
enshrined the immediate presence of Jehovah. But this offering of
incense, as all have agreed, typifies the precious and most
effective intercession of the great Antitype; so that thus it was
shown in a figure, how the Christ of God, having finished His
sacrificial work in the sight of men, and having ascended into
heaven, should there for a season abide, hidden from human sight,
making intercession for His waiting people.
After an interval-we are not told how long-Moses and Aaron again
(Lev 9:23-24), "came out, and blessed the people: and the glory of
the Lord appeared unto all the people. And there came forth fire
from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering
and the fat: and when all the people saw it, they shouted, and fell
on their faces."
This second blessing, by Moses and Aaron conjointly, followed
Aaron’s reappearance to Israel, and marked the completion of these
inauguration services, the intercession within the veil, as well as
the sacrifices. And the revelation in a visible way of the glory of
the Lord added what now was alone required, the manifest attestation
by the Lord of the tabernacle of His approval of all that had been
done in these memorable eight days. This appearance of the Shekinah
glory was followed by a flash of fire which, in token of the Divine
appropriation of the sacrifices, consumed in an instant the burnt
offering on the altar with the fat of the sin offering and the peace
offering, which had been laid upon it. We cannot follow here the
Jewish tradition, which has it that with this act the sacrificial
fire which was never to go out upon the altar, was originated. On
the contrary, as we have seen, the offerings had before this been
made by Moses, and even on this day the fire had been kindled before
(Lev 9:10, et seq.). Nor is there any necessary inconsistency here;
for we have but to suppose that the burning of the sacrifices which
had been kindled by Aaron was not yet complete, when the flash from
the cloud of glory in an instant consummated the burning, teaching
in a most august and impressive manner the symbolic meaning of the
burning of the sacrifices on the altar, as signifying the acceptance
and appropriation of that which was offered, by the Lord who had
commanded all, and thereby endorsing all that had been done, as
according to His mind and will.
And even so, according to the sure Word of prophecy, our heavenly
High Priest has yet in reserve for His people a second benediction.
His first blessing upon leaving the world was followed by Pentecost;
the second, on His reappearing, shall bring in resurrection and full
salvation. And in that day, when He "shall appear a second time,
apart from sin, to them that wait for Him unto salvation," {Heb
9:28} therewith shall appear the glory which on that day, long ago,
appeared to Israel; for He "shall come in the glory of His Father,"
and thus shall God, the Most High and the Most Holy, testify before
the universe His gracious acceptance of the service of the true
Aaron and His "many sons," the priestly people of God, through all
the Christian ages. Thus, the services and events of that day of
induction, in their order from beginning to end, were not only a
parable of the order of grace, but also, as it were, a typical
epitome of the whole work of redemption. They are thus a prophecy
that the work which began when Christ made His soul an offering for
sin, and to perfect which He is now withdrawn from our sight for a
season, shall be consummated at last by His reappearing in glory for
the final blessing of His waiting people.
And if we look at other and subordinate aspects of this inauguration
service, we shall still find this sequel of all, no less richly
suggestive. Expiation, righteousness, fellowship in peace with God,
shall bring with it the blessing of the Lord, and finally issue in
the revelation of His glory in the sight of all who accept this
great redemption through sacrifice. And so also in the personal
life. As the trustful acceptance and use of the appointed Sin
offering leads to the consecration of the person and the life, and
as by this consecration we come into conscious fellowship with God
in joy and peace, as we feed on the flesh of the slain Lamb, so, as
the blessed result, unto every true believer, according to the
measure of his faith, this is followed by the double benediction of
the Lord; one for this life, and a larger, for the life which is to
come. The Lord blesses him, and keeps him: the Lord makes His face
to shine upon" him, and is gracious unto him: the Lord lifts up His
countenance upon him, and gives him peace, according to that word of
the great High Priest: "Peace I leave with you: My peace I give unto
you". {Joh 14:27} And then, after the present peace, is yet to
follow, as the final issue of the expiated sin, and the consecrated
life, and fellowship in peace with the God of life and love, the
beholding of the glory of the Lord; according to, that high priestly
prayer of our Redeemer, That which Thou hast given Me, I will that,
where I am, they also may be with Me: that they may behold My
glory". {Joh 17:24} Even here some know a little of this, and find
that expiated sin and full consecration are followed here and now by
bright glimpses of the Glory of the Lord. But what is now seen thus
in part shall then be seen fully and face to face. Who would not
make sure of that beatific vision of the glory of the Lord?
|