Leviticus 4:2-35 Speak to the children of Israel, saying… I. VIEW OUR BLESSED LORD AS MADE SIN FOR US. 1. His personal character is set forth in the victim chosen. It was a bullock, the most valuable of the sacrifices, an animal laborious in life and costly in death; it was a young bullock in the fulness of its strength and vigour; it was without blemish; and the slightest fault disqualified it from being laid upon the altar of God. Behold, O believer, your Lord Jesus, more precious far than ten thousands of the fat of fed beasts: a sacrifice not to be purchased with gold, or estimated in silver. Full of vigour, in the very prime of manhood, He offered up Himself for us. Even when He died, He died not through weakness; for that cry of His at His death, "with a loud voice," proved that His life was still firm within Him, and that when He gave up the ghost, His death was not one of compulsion, but a voluntary expiring of the soul. His glory is as the firstling of the bullock, full of vigour and of strength. How distinctly was our Lord proved to be without blemish! Naturally born without sin, practically He lived without fault. 2. The act of the transference of sin to the victim next calls for our attention. This laying of the hand does not appear to have been a mere touch of contact, but in some other places of Scripture has the meaning of leaning heavily, as in the expression, "Thy wrath lieth hard upon me" (Psalm 88:7). Surely this is the very essence of faith, which doth not only bring us into contact with the great Substitute, but teaches us to lean upon Him with all the burden of our guilt; so that if our sins be very weighty, yet we see Him as able to bear them all; and mark, the whole weight of our iniquity taken off from us, and laid on Him who took the weight and bore it all, and then buried it in His sepulchre for ever. 3. We must now beg your notice of the sins transferred. In the case of the type, they were sins of ignorance. Alas! the Jew knew nothing about a sin-offering for sins of presumption, but there is such a sin-offering for us. Our presumptuous sins were laid on Christ; our wilful sins, our sins of light and knowledge, are pardoned by His blood. The mention of sins of ignorance, suggests a very comfortable reflection, that if there are any sins which I know not, they were, notwithstanding my ignorance, laid on my Substitute and put away by His atonement. It is not sin as we see it which was laid on Christ, but sin as God sees it; not sin as our conscience feebly reveals it to us, but sin as God beholds it, in all its unmitigated malignity, and unconcealed loathsomeness. Sin in its exceeding sinfulness Jesus has put away. 4. Passing on, still keeping to the same point, we would remark that the sin was laid upon the bullock most conspicuously "before the Lord." Did you notice the frequent expressions: "shall bring him to the door of the congregation before the Lord"; "kill the bullock before the Lord"; "shall sprinkle the blood seven times before the Lord, and shall put some of it upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord"? Apart from the blood, we are guilty, condemned: washed in blood, we are accepted and beloved. Without the atonement we are aliens and strangers, heirs of wrath even as others; but, as seen in the eternal covenant purpose, through the precious blood of Jesus, we are accepted in the beloved. The great stress of the transaction lies in its being done "before the Lord." 5. Still, further, carefully observe that as soon as ever the sin was thus "before the Lord," laid upon the bullock, the bullock was slain. "He shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and kill the bullock before the Lord." So, in the fifteenth verse, "The elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the Lord, and the bullock shall be killed before the Lord." Ah! yes; as soon as the sin is transferred, the penalty is transferred too. Down fell the pole-axe the minute that the priestly hand had been laid on the bullock. Unsheathed was the knife of sacrifice the moment that the elders had begun to lean upon the sacrificial head. So was it with our Saviour; He must smart, He must die, for only as dying could He become our Sin-offering. II. THE EFFICACY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF JESUS. 1. As soon as the bullock was slain, blood of the sin-offering was sprinkled. This was to show that our communion with God is by blood. 2. The next act of the priest was to retire a little from the veil to the place where stood the golden altar of incense, adorned with four horns of gold probably of a pyramidal shape, or fashioned like rams' horns, and the priest, dipping his finger in the basin, smeared this horn and the other, until the four horns glowed with crimson in the light of the golden candlestick. The horn is always, in the Oriental usage, indicative of strength. What was the blood put upon the altar for, then? That incense altar was typical of prayer, and especially .of the intercession of Christ; and the blood on the horn showed that the force and power of all-prevailing intercession lies in the blood. Why was this the second thing done? It seems to me that the second thing which a Christian loses is his prevalence in prayer. Whereas first he loses communion with God when he backslides, the next thing he loses is his power in supplication. He begins to be feeble upon his knees; he cannot win of the Lord that which he desireth. How is he to get back his strength? Here the great Anointed Priest teaches us to look to the blood for renewed power, for see, he applies the blood to the horns of the altar, and the sweet perfume of frankincense ascends to heaven, and God accepts it. 3. This being finished, the priest goes backwards still farther and enters the court of the Israelites. There stood the great altar of brass, whereon was consumed the burnt-offerings; and now the priest, having the basin full of the blood of which only a small quantity had been used in sprinkling the veil and touching the horns of the golden altar, pours the whole of the remaining blood in a great stream at the foot of the altar of burnt-offering. What does that typify? Did he not thus teach us that the only ground and basis (for mark, it is put at the foot of the altar), of the acceptance of our persons and of our thank-offerings is found in the blood of Jesus? Thus I have tried to set forth the threefold prevalence of the precious blood, but let it not be forgotten that the blood also put away sin; for you find at the end of the chapter, "His sin shall be forgiven." First forgiven, then accepted, then prevalent in prayer, and then admitted into access with boldness to God; what a change of blessings! All, all through the blood of Jesus! III. Thirdly, the most painful part of our sermon remains, while I beg you to view THE SHAME WHICH OUR LORD ENDURED. While it is all so well for us I want you now to reflect how bitter, how shameful it was for our Lord! The offerer who brought the sin-offering has been forgiven: he has been accepted at the brazen altar; his prayers have been heard at the golden altar; and the veil has been sprinkled on his behalf: but what of the victim itself? Draw nigh and learn with holy wonder. 1. In the first place, albeit that our Lord Jesus Christ was made sin for us, it is noteworthy that, though nearly all the bullock was burned without the camp, there was one portion left and reserved to be burnt upon the altar of burnt-offering — that was the fat. Certain descriptions are given as to the fat which was to be consumed upon the altar, by which we believe it was intended to ensure that the richest part of the fat should be there consumed. As much as if God would say, "Though My dear Son must be made sin for this people, and consequently I must forsake Him, and He must die without the camp, yet still He is most dear and precious in My sight, and even while He is a sin-offering, yet He is My beloved Son, with whom in Himself I am still well pleased." Whenever we speak about our Lord as bearing our sins, we must carefully speak concerning Him — not as though God ever did despise or abhor the prayer of His afflicted Son, but only seemed to do so while He stood for us, representatively made sin for us, though He knew no sin. Oh! I delight to think that the Lord smelled a sweet savour even in the Cross, and that Jesus Christ is this day a sweet savour unto God, even as a sin-offering; the fat, the excellence of His heart, the consecration of His soul, were acceptable to God, and sweet in His esteem, even when He laid upon Him the iniquity of His people. Still, here is the shameful part of it: the priest then took the bullock, and gathering up all the inwards, every part of it, the skin, the dung — all mentioned to teach us what a horrible thing sin is, and what the Surety was looked upon as being when He took our sin — He took it all up, and either Himself personally, or assisted by others, took it away out of the camp. 2. After the removal, they gathered the hot ashes, they kindled the fire, and burnt it all. See here a faint image of the fire which consumed the Saviour on Calvary! His bodily pains ought never to be forgotten, but still the sufferings of His soul must have been the very soul of His sufferings; and can you tell what they were? ( C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them: |
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