LEVITICUS 8 

Waiyikra - And He called


The Consecration of Aaron and his sons


1 And Yahweh spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, and the anointing oil, and a bullock for the sin offering, and two rams, and a basket of unleavened bread;

Only Aaron and his descendents were permitted to minister see Num 18:7

'Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest's office for every thing of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest's office unto you as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death'.




John the Baptiser,‭ ‬a greater prophet than Moses‭ (Lke 7:28)‬,‭ ‬but not so great as Jesus,‭ ‬preached and administered‭ "‬the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.‭" ‬Jesus came to him to be baptized of this baptism‭; ‬for as Moses baptized Aaron and his sons,‭ ‬so the greatest of all the prophets was appointed to baptize Jesus and his brethren.‭ ‬But some may object that Jesus had no sins to be remitted,‭ ‬and had no need of repentance,‭ ‬and was,‭ ‬therefore,‭ ‬not a fit subject for such a baptism.

‭ ‬It is admitted without reserve that he had no sins of his own,‭ ‬having never transgressed the law:‭ ‬nevertheless,‭ ‬as the‭ ‬sin bearer of the Abrahamic covenant through whom it was confirmed (Rom 15:8). Yahweh made the iniquity of all‭ "‬the children of the covenant‭" ‬to meet upon him,‭ ‬that by his bruise they might be healed (Isa 53:5,6).‭

He was not the sinbearer of every son of Adam that ever lived‭; ‬but of the true believers from Abel to the day of Pentecost,‭ ‬and of the obedient believers of the truth constituting the household,‭ ‬separated by‭ "‬the obedience of faith,‭" ‬from Pentecost in the year of the crucifixion to his future appearing in Jerusalem‭; ‬and of the living twelve tribes when their transgressions shall be blotted out,‭ ‬as a thick cloud at their ingrafting into their own Olive Tree‭; ‬and of that family of nations of which Abraham is the constituted father,‭ ‬when they are made righteous‭; ‬so that the sins of the whole of that world which shall dwell upon the earth in the post-millenial eternal ages,‭ ‬and which will all of it have been separated from Adam's race by‭ "‬the obedience of faith‭" - ‬will have met upon Him,‭ ‬and been borne away into everlasting oblivion.‭

This is the world so beloved of God,‭ 

"‬that He gave His only begotten Son‭ ‬.‭ ‬.‭ ‬.‭ ‬that through him it might be saved.‭"

But to return.‭ ‬Jesus,‭ ‬with the sin of the world thus defined,‭ ‬rankling‭ ‬in his flesh,‭ ‬where it was to be condemned to death when suspended on the cross (Rom 8:3),‭ ‬came to John as the‭ "‬Ram of Consecration,‭" ‬that his‭ ‬inwards and his‭ ‬body might be washed according to the law.(Exo 29:17:22).‭

But these representations of the law and the prophets could not have found their antitype in Jesus,‭ ‬if in the days of his flesh he had possessed a holier or purer‭ ‬nature than those for whom he was‭ ‬bruised in the heel.‭

His‭ ‬character was spotless‭; ‬but as being the seed of the woman,‭ ‬of whom no clean flesh can be born‭ (Job 25:4)‬,‭ ‬and seed of Abraham,‭ ‬which is not immaculate,‭ ‬be it virgin or Nazarite,‭ ‬his‭ ‬nature was flesh and blood‭ (Heb 2:14)‬,‭ ‬which Paul styles‭ "‬sinful flesh,‭" ‬or flesh full of‭ ‬sin,‭ ‬a physical quality or principle which makes the flesh mortal‭; ‬and called‭ "‬sin‭" ‬because this property of flesh became its law,‭ ‬as the consequence of transgression.‭ "‬God made Jesus sin for us,‭ ‬who knew no sin‭; ‬that‭ ‬we might be made‭ ‬the righteousness of God‭ ‬in him.‭" (2 Cor 5:21).

In this view of the matter,‭ ‬the sinbearer of the world indicated was a fit and proper subject of John's baptism of repentance for remission of sins.‭ ‬The holy and undefiled disposition of Mary's son was‭ ‬granted to him for repentance,‭ ‬in fulfilling the symbolical righteousness of the law when he descended into the Jordan to enter into the antitypical robe of righteousness,‭ ‬with which he must of necessity be invested before he could enter into the most holy as High Priest,‭ ‬after the order of Melchisedec.‭

In being baptised,‭ ‬he proclaimed the development of‭ ‬a character distinguished by perfect faith and obedience.‭ ‬This character was his‭ ‬holy raiment,‭ ‬and was without spot,‭ ‬or wrinkle,‭ ‬or any such thing.‭ ‬This was the‭ "‬fine linen,‭ ‬clean and white,‭ " ‬with which he arrayed himself‭; ‬or‭ "‬the righteousness of the‭ (‬king of‭) ‬saints.‭" - (Rev 19:8).

It was the antitype,‭ ‬in part,‭ ‬of Aaron's holy garments‭; ‬and he had to put it on in the same way that Aaron did,‭ "‬by washing his flesh in water,‭ ‬and so putting it on.‭" ‬He was baptised of John into‭ ‬a holiness of his own,‭ ‬which publicly‭ ‬began with‭ ‬obedience in the Jordan and‭ ‬ended with‭ ‬obedience in‭ ‬death on the cross.‭

‭"‬He was obedient unto death,‭ ‬even the death of the cross‭; ‬wherefore God hath highly exalted him,‭ ‬and given him a name which is above every name‭; ‬that every tongue should confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.‭"

‭ ‬Had Jesus yielded to John‭ (‬supposing the thing to have been possible‭) ‬he would have stood before his nation as the High Priest of Israel,‭ ‬claiming to officiate in the most holy place without baptism,‭ ‬a spectacle it had never seen before,‭ ‬nor ever will while the world stands.

But the symbolic righteousness of the Mosaic law not only required the High Priest to put on the holy vestments by having his body baptized,‭ ‬but it also commanded his household to be baptised into theirs also.‭ ‬The law reads thus:‭


‭"‬This is the thing Yahweh commanded to be done‭; ‬and‭ ‬Moses brought Aaron and his sons,‭ ‬and‭ ‬washed them with water.‭ ‬And he put upon Aaron the coat,‭ &‬c.‭; ‬and he put coats upon his sons,‭ ‬and girded them with girdles,‭ ‬and put turbans upon them,‭ ‬as Yahweh commanded (Lev 8:5,6,13: 16:4).


Here,‭ ‬as I have said,‭ ‬Moses performed the part of John the Baptizer to Aaron and his sons,‭ ‬who were to be rulers and priests in Israel.‭ ‬Aaron and his family were their nation's priestly household‭; ‬and it was the office of the high or chief priest to make atonement or reconciliation,‭ ‬first for himself,‭ ‬then for his household,‭ ‬and lastly for all the congregation of Israel‭; ‬but admission into the holy and most holy places was only permitted to the baptised‭; ‬they must bathe their flesh in water,‭ ‬and so put on their holy garments.

‭ ‬Hence,‭ ‬all Israel's priests were immersed persons‭; ‬and so also all that shall be their priests and kings in the age to come,‭ ‬and have power over the Gentiles,‭ ‬must be immersed likewise.

The Christadelphian, Nov 1873




3 And gather thou all the congregation together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

IN about twelve months from the night that Israel broke up their settlement at Rameses in Egypt, and marched at the command of Moses to their first encampment at Succoth, the various parts and appurtenances of the Tabernacle had been made and finished, and were brought to Moses by those of the children of Israel who had made them.

"According to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel made all the work. And Moses did look upon all the work, and, behold, they had done it as the Lord commanded, even so had they done it; and Moses blessed them" (Exod. 39:42-43).

Moses then received orders to set up the Tabernacle "on the first day of the first month of the second year", Moses did so, fixing the sockets, rearing up the pillars, fastening the cords, and placing the various coverings and hangings in their several specified positions' putting the ark and the mercy-seat and the cherubim inside the veil, and the candlestick and the table, etc., in the holy place, in the various places appointed for them. Having set the bread in order, and lighted the lamps, and offered incense on the golden altar, there remained the consecration of Aaron and his sons for the exercise of the priest's office--as to which, elaborate directions had been given and were now carried out. *



4 And Moses did as Yahweh commanded him; and the assembly was gathered together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

5 And Moses said unto the congregation, This is the thing which Yahweh commanded to be done.

6 And Moses brought Aaron and his sons, and washed them with water.

Moses performed the part of John the baptizer to Aaron and his sons, who were to be rulers and priests in Israel.

Aaron and his family were their nation's priestly household; and it was the office of the High, or Chief, Priest to make atonement, or reconciliation, first for himself, then for his household, and lastly, for all the congregation of Israel; but admission into the Holy and Most Holy places, was only permitted to the baptized; they must bathe their flesh in water and so put on the holy garments.

Hence, all Israel's priests were immersed persons; and so also all that shall be their priests and kings in the Age to Come, and have power over the Gentiles, must be immersed likewise.


Herald of tHe Kingdom and Age to Come, March 1855

"This", said Moses to the assembled congregation, as he proceeded with the ceremony of consecration, "is the thing which the Lord commanded to be done", and the narrative describes in great detail what was done, including the investiture of Aaron with the holy garments--in the order of which, it may be possible to discover the shadowed history of the development of the antitype' for in his official relations, Aaron was undoubtedly a type of Christ.

First, Moses washed Aaron with water. This is the type of moral cleansing as we saw in connection with the laver, as also shown in,, David's expression, "Wash me throughly from mine iniquity (Psa. 51:2).

"Water", as a figure, is used by Jesus to represent the Holy Spirit (John 7:38-39). Aaron stood to represent the seed of Abraham. The washing of Aaron with water was, therefore, a prefiguration of the moral cleansing to be effected in a son of Abraham by the Spirit in preparation for the priestly office.

The application of this in the antitype may be discerned in the operation of the Spirit, which, though resulting in a son of David according to the laws of maternity, produced such a Son of David as the world had never seen before, viz., a sinless man: human nature morally cleansed. "He did always those things that pleased the Father." He could ask, without fear of successful answer, "Which of you convicteth me of sin? .... He did no sin." He was in this sense "without spot", which could not be affirmed of any other son of Abraham.

Some experience a difficulty here. They say that if the begettal of Jesus by the Spirit had such an effect as this, he was not of the same nature as ourselves. The simple answer may suggest itself in the question: Are there not different sorts of the same nature in everything? Contrast a crab-apple with a delicious Blenheim: a worn-out cart-horse with a high-blooded charger: a mumbling savage with a British peer--different sorts, but the same nature.

Jesus was a man, but not as other men in his powerful affinity for God, and his abhorrence for everything in opposition to His will. He was human nature mentally washed in this sense by the Spirit. If it were not so, to what can we attribute his spotless divinity of character?

It is there: was it an effect without a cause? Education cannot account for it--for other Jewish children had as good an education as he. Education had something to do with it, doubtless, but it was only as the culture of good seed in good soft. The parable of the sower touches the subject: the same seed produced different results, according to the nature of the soil. The "soil" differs in different men, and yet they are all men.

Christ was a man, yet his mental soil differed from all men's. He had the impulses common to all men, but conjoined with these, a power of control possessed by no man. And this was the result of the antitypical washing to which, in him, the seed of David was subjected in harmony with the Mosaic figure.

* Law of Moses Ch 18

Uncleanness

compare Lev 15:31 - 'Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness; that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle that is among them'.

Ceremonial washing. Yahweh's point of view - Man is physically defiled as inheriting Sin's flesh.
And in every case - except the Lord Yahoshua Anointed - morally unclean as a consequence of the carnal mind which is rebellious against divine law - the carnal mind operating upon the natural impulses unrestrained brings forth sin.


The 'uncleaness' as Brother Roberts states is a term expressive both of their physical and moral defilement -- the character of the entire human race -- the one growing out of the other. Man is an unclean and corruptible organization, physically considered, living or dead: and his thoughts and actions are of the same complexion. 


We see him in his true nature when we compare him as he is, with what he is promised to be --the pure, incorruptible, spiritual, ever-living, and glorious nature of Yahweh, Jesus, and the angels.



The Priestly Attire

7 And he put upon him the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and he girded him with the curious girdle of the ephod, and bound it unto him therewith.

cp Ex 28:2 'And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty'.

It cannot be that "glory and beauty" of dress were aimed at in the sense that would commend itself to a child, or a savage, or a fop. Yet, as a matter of fact, the attire of the high priest would be highly picturesque: it would be pleasing to the eye as regards symmetry of form and combination of colour: indeed, with the addition of the frontal-plate of pure gold, the shoulder-buckle of gold-set onyx stone, and the glitter of the twelve rich-set precious stones in the breast-plate, it would be nothing less than splendid. "Glory and beauty" describes it all.

What do we see in this but the fact that glory and beauty are the attributes of Divine wisdom, whether we regard it intrinsically or in its living expression in all experience.

The antitypical "glory and beauty" of the Aaronic garment is less the physical glory of the spirit-nature than the moral and intellectual glory of the spirit-mind.

Law of Moses



8 And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the 

Ref Jms 1:17 'Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning'.

The spiritual is "glory and beauty" --take it how we may: whether in character, as the man who brings forth the fruit of the spirit, in love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, and goodness (Gal. 5:22); or in nature, as the angels, pure, incorruptible, and glorious, who are the sample to us of the state to which men are by the gospel invited when offered "glory and honour and immortality".

Law of Moses



9 And he put the mitre upon his head; also upon the mitre, even upon his forefront, did he put the golden plate, the holy crown; as Yahweh commanded Moses.

The golden plate was inscribed 'Holiness to Yahweh' (Ex 28:36). Always worn on the forehead. Belief and obedience at the forefront of the mind.

'...as Yahweh commanded...'

'...complete subordination...which typically proclaimed the supremacy of God...as the conjoint and indispensable conditions of acceptable fellowship.



11 And he sprinkled thereof upon the altar 7 times, and anointed the altar and all his vessels, both the laver and his foot, to sanctify them.

Both the laver and its "foot" were anointed, for both performed a very valuable service. The laver held the water, and therefore is representative of the complete Word of Yahweh (cp. Eph. 5:26]

The foot, most likely, was where the priests would wash, and it was probably shaped like a bowl fed with taps from the laver itself. It therefore represents the personal application of the word.

"Eastern people do not wash in a bowl or basin as we do, but always in running water if at all possible. If a basin is used, the water is poured over the part of the body to be washed."

The evidence, to our mind, is very strong, that the laver was round in shape, and that it

stood in a shallow base (here styled "his foot") like a huge cup in a saucer, and that the water was received through spouts or taps. It certainly helps the type.

The circular form of the laver suggests immortality, for its rim is never ending;whilst running water speaks of living water, the water of life.'

The word for "foot" is ken from a root signifying to stand erect, to be upright. It is rendered "faithfulness" (Psalm 5:9), "establish" (2 Sam. 7:12; Psa. 89:2, 4), which the antitypical laver-washing is intended to accomplish.

Such a word is very appropriate to the use of the laver for

"faith cometh by hearing the Word" (Rom. 10:17].

The Christadelphian Expositor - Logos



The holy anointing oil


12 And he poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed him, to sanctify him.

Aaron was not fully qualified to enter on the priest's office until he was also anointed with the holy oil, and sanctified by the blood of the sin-offering commanded to be offered.

...The testimony is that Jesus was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows (Heb. 1:9). This was the Spirit, as Peter declares: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, and with power" (Acts 10:38). It was not enough that he should be the sinless seed of David according to the flesh: it was needful that "the Spirit of the Lord God should be upon him" (Isa. 61:1), by which he should be "anointed to preach good tidings to the meek", as Jesus declared was fulfilled in him (Luke 4:18-21).

This was a further extension of the Spirit's work beyond the work symbolized by the washing of Aaron with water. The Spirit not only begat Jesus, but when he was 30 years of age, it decended upon him in a visible shape, and abode upon him (John 1:32-33), and remained with him in measureless fulness (John 3:34), enabling him to say, "The Father dwelleth in me", Without this, he would not have been able to do the works which bore witness of him that the Father had sent him (John 5:36): for as he said "of mine own self, I can do nothing" (John 5:30).

The anointing of the Spirit was essential to the completion of his priesthood in other respects: how otherwise could he "through the eternal Spirit have offered himself without spot unto God"? (Heb. 9:14). How otherwise could he have known for whom to intercede? (Rom. 8:26). How otherwise could he have "searched the reins and hearts, to give every man according to his works"? (Rev. 2:23). *



The Sacrificial Blood.


14 And he brought the bullock for the sin offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the bullock for the sin offering.

15 And he slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar, and sanctified it, to make reconciliation upon it.

But the sacrificial blood was applied to everything as well--Aaron and his sons included (see Lev. 8:14-15; 23-24). An atonement had to be made by the shedding and the sprinkling of blood for and upon them all (Lev. 16:33). As Paul remarks, "almost all things by the law are purged with blood" (Heb. 9:22). Now all these things were declared to be "patterns of things in the heavens", which it is admitted on all hands converge upon and have their substance in Christ. There must, therefore, be a sense in which Christ (the antitypical Aaron, the antitypical altar, the antitypical mercy-seat, the antitypical everything), must not only have been sanctified by the action of the antitypical oil of the Holy Spirit, but purged by the antitypical blood of his own sacrifice.

This conclusion is supposed to be weakened by the statement of Lev. 16:16, that the atonement for the holy place, altar, etc., was to be made "because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel and because of their transgressions in all their sins", That is, it is argued from this, that the holy things would have had no uncleanness in themselves apart from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.

This must be granted, but it must also be recognized that because the children of Israel were sinful and polluted, the holy things were reckoned as having contracted defilement in having been fabricated by them and through remaining in their midst. This cannot be denied on a full survey of the testimony. They were ceremonially unclean, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and had to be cleansed by the holy oil and the sacrificial blood before they were acceptable in the Mosaic service.

Now, this is part of the Mosaic figure. There must be an antitype to it. What was it? The holy things, we know, in brief, are Christ. He must, therefore, have been the subject of a personal cleansing in the process by which he opened the way of sanctification for his people. If the typical holy things contracted defilement from connection with a sinful congregation, were not the antitypical (Christ) holy things in a similar state, through derivation on his mother's side from a sinful race? If not, how came they to need purging with his own "better sacrifice "? (Heb. 9:23).

Great difficulty is experienced by various classes of thinkers in receiving this view. Needlessly so, it should seem. There is first the express declaration that the matter stands so; "it was therefore necessary that the patterns of things 'in the heavens should be purified with these (Mosaic sacrifices); but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these" (Heb. 9:23). "It was of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer" (8:3). "By reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins" (5:3). "By his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption" (for us, is an addition inconsistent with the middle voice of the verb employed, which imports a thing done by one to one's own self) (9:12).

There was next the necessity that it should be so. The word "necessity", it will be perceived, occurs frequently in the course of Paul's argument. The necessity arises from the position in which men stood as regards the law of sin and death, and the position in which the Lord stood as their redeemer from this position. The position of men was that they were under condemnation to die because of sin, and that not their own sin, in the first instance, but ancestral sin at the beginning.

The forgiveness of personal offences is the prominent feature of the apostolic proclamation, because personal offences are the greater barrier. Nevertheless, men are mortal because of sin, quite independently of their own transgressions. Their redemption from this position is a work of mercy and forgiveness, yet a work to be effected in harmony with the righteousness of God, that He might be just while justifying those believing in the Redeemer.

It is so declared (Rom. 3:26). It was not to be done by setting aside the law of sin and death, but by righteously nullifying it in one who should obtain this redemption in his own right, and who should be authorized to offer to other men a partnership in his right, subject to required conditions (of their conformity to which, he should be appointed sole judge).

How to effect this blending and poising of apparently opposing principles and differing requirements--mercy and justice; forgiveness and righteousness; goodness and severity--would have been impossible for human wisdom. It has not been impossible with God, to whom all things are possible. We see the perfect adjustment of all the apparently incompatible elements of the problem in His work in Christ, "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30).

We have only to receive the simple facts testified in the case to reach the end of all difficulty.

With immortal soulism and eternal torments, the solution is impossible. With the doctrine of human mortality, it is otherwise.

We see Jesus born of a woman, and therefore a partaker of the identical nature condemned to death in Eden. We see him a member of imperfect human society, subject to toil and weakness, dishonour and sorrow, poverty and hatred, and all the other evils that have resulted from the advent of sin upon the earth.

We see him down in the evil which he was sent to cure: not outside of it, not untouched by it, but in it, to put it away. "He was made perfect through suffering" (Heb. 2:10), but he was not perfect till he was through it. He was saved from death (5:7), but not until he died. He obtained redemption (Heb. 9:12), but not until his own blood was shed.


* Law of Moses Ch 18



17 But the bullock, and his hide, his flesh, and his dung, he burnt with fire without the camp; as Yahweh commanded Moses.

Representing sin's flesh crucified bearing the curse of the law outside of Jerusalem.

The bullock (in hide, flesh, and interiors) had to be carried outside the camp and burnt

"The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach" (Heb. 13:11-13).

Paul thus identifies Jesus in crucifixion with the bullock burnt without the camp, whose blood was sprinkled on the furniture of the sanctuary, then on Aaron, and afterwards on his sons, and on all the people. Under apostolic guidance, we see Christ both in the bullock, in the furniture, in the veil, in the high priest, and, in brief, in all these Mosaic "patterns", which he says were "a shadow of things to come" (Heb. 8:5; 9:23; 10:1; 3:5). All were both atoning and atoned for (Lev. 16:33). [For himself also]

There is no counterpart to this if Christ is kept out of his own sacrifice... he was "purified with" a better sacrifice than bulls and goats--viz., his own sacrifice (Heb. 9:23, 12).

If he was "purified", there was a something to be purified from. What was it? Look at his hereditary death taint, as the son of Adam, through whom death entered the world by sin, and there is no difficulty. Look at the curse of God brought on him in hanging on a tree (Gal. 3:13; Deut. 21:22, 23).

...As the antitypical bullock without the camp, Jesus was a sin offering--an offering to be burnt, consumed--to be which, he had to be the very nature cursed by sin, that "the body of sin might be destroyed" (Rom. 6:6). As the antitypical victim of the accursed tree, he personally bore the very curse of the law, as Paul argues: that thus, God might lay on him the iniquity of us all, and make him to be sin for us who knew no sin: and that thus, in being baptized into his death, we might be washed from our sins in his own blood, God forgiving us for Christ's' sake (Eph. 4:32).

Law of Moses Ch 19



18 And he brought the ram for the burnt offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram.

Representing the entire consumption of sin's flesh followed by change to immortality...the sweet savour v21.

The ram for burnt offering, though killed, and the blood sprinkled on the altar (Lev. 8:19), was not carried out of the camp. This carrying out of the camp was the repudiation of sin, antitypically effected in the direful experience which led Jesus, outside Jerusalem, to exclaim,

"My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

The ram of burnt offering was not carried out of the camp, after being slain, but was burnt on the altar, which we may take to represent the second stage of the one great offering, viz., the consumption and absorption of the human nature of Christ in the change to the Father-nature after his emergence from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. It was

"a burnt sacrifice for a sweet savour, and an offering made be fire unto the Lord"

Such was the man Christ Jesus, after having been offered as the sin offering, when he stood restored to life on the morning of the third day, ready for the fire of the spirit to flash forth in transforming energy upon his revitalized human nature.

He had been offered as a sin offering' in which there was "putting to grief", "forsaking", "curse", He was now "a burnt sacrifice for a sweet savour"--acceptable to God and joyful to Christ. The Spirit, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye", changed the human substance of the Son of David into the divine nature that is glorious and lives for ever.

Law of Moses Ch 19



24 And he brought Aaron's sons, and Moses put of the blood upon the tip of their right ear, and upon the thumbs of their right hands, and upon the great toes of their right feet: and Moses sprinkled the blood upon the altar round about.

Here was a third stage whose significance is indicated by its characteristic term, "consecration". The blood of the ram of consecration was not offered upon the altar, but applied to the leading faculties of Aaron and his sons; ear, hand, and foot. Blood is life; blood poured out is death; but blood applied to ear, hand, and foot is life devoted to hearing, working, and walking in the ways of God.

There was to be a method in this hearing, working, and walking; something to hear, something to do, somewhere to go--a definite working life in appointed forms--as indicated by Moses placing the parts and inwards of the offered ram of consecration upon Aaron's hands to "wave", or sway backwards and forwards "before the Lord "' but not until he had placed on the parts of the offered animal, in Aaron's hand, an unleavened cake out of the basket of unleavened bread that was before the Lord, and a cake of oiled bread, and one wafer.

Law of Moses Ch 19



26 And out of the basket of unleavened bread, that was before Yahweh, he took one unleavened cake, and a cake of oiled bread, and one wafer, and put them on the fat, and upon the right shoulder:

Unleavened bread was the symbol of "sincerity and truth" (see 1 Cor. 5:8): an oiled cake, food of joy and gladness (Isa. 61:3); a wafer, the bread of God--manna in the wilderness (Exod. 16:31), as representing him who come down from heaven to give life to the world (John 6:51).

The combined meaning seems to be this, that the life which succeeds sin offering is a life of consecration not contemplative and supine, but of active, joyful work in righteousness: yet, there is the intimation that this ideal is not reached till the immortal state: for Moses took all "from off Aaron's hands, and burnt them on the altar upon the burnt offering: they were consecrations for a sweet savour: an offering made by fire unto the Lord" (verse 28).

Law of Moses Ch 19



28 And Moses took them from off their hands, and burnt them on the altar upon the burnt offering: they were consecrations for a sweet savour: it is an offering made by fire unto Yahweh.

In the application of these things to Christ, we see him (1) a sin offering" without the gate", like the bullock outside the camp; (2) the sacrifice "for a sweet savour" in his joyful change to spirit-nature when he awoke from the sin offering state on the morning of the third day (like the ram of the burnt offering consumed on the altar, as "an offering of sweet savour by fire unto the Lord "); (3) his entrance thereafter into a state of total consecration to the Father's service, in which, without the fatigues and intermissions of mortal life, he would be wholly occupied in the joyful exercises represented by the waving of parts of the ram of consecration, garnished with the piece of unleavened bread, the oiled cake, and the manna-like wafer--all "burnt on the altar as consecrations for a sweet savour" (verse 28).

We have to remember that the law, while declared" a shadow of good things to come", is also said to be "not the very image thereof", A miniature is "the very image" on a small scale, but a shadow is the rough and exaggerated outline of an object. The ordinances of the law are a rough outline of things concerning our relation to God--now and hereafter: but the details cannot have an exact resemblance. There are various sacrifices and various things to represent various aspects of the truth which in reality centre in one object--the man Christ Jesus, as the firstborn among many brethren.

Law of Moses Ch 19