Special Rules for Priests Who Minister at the Altar of God
WHO MINISTER AT THE ALTAR OF GOD.
“OOD... HATH CS TO HIMSELF BY JESUS CHRIST, AND BATH OTTKN TO DS THE MINISTRY OF EECONCIUATION. FOR HE HATH MADE HIM TO BE Snr FOR US, WHO KNEW NO BIN; THAT WE MIGHT BE MADE THE &I0HTEOC8- NE88 OF OOD IN HIM.” 2 CoT. T. 18, 21.
REGARDING THE AVHOLE BURNT-OFFERING.
Vers. 8, 9. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying. Command Aaron and bis sons, saying. This is the law of the burnt-offering: It is the burnt-offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.”
The ground traversed over in chapters i., ii., iii., iv., v., is now retraversed, but for a quite different object. Supplemental directions to the priests, in regard to their part in the offering of the sacrifices, is the object in view. But this gives opportunity for the typifying of some most important truths.
“The law of the burnt-offering,’’’’ or of things to be observed in offering it, is first stated. Perhaps, in ver. 9, wo should read the parenthesis thus —” As for the burnt-offering, it is to be burning* on the altar all night until
* Horsley renders nipin bs. “upon the baming fuel •” and others to the some effect. See Ainsworth. ’ the morning; and the fire of the altar must be kept burning on it.” However, retaining our rendering, we have the fact, that the fire must be kept burning the whole night long.
The Holy One speaks again from the holy place. He now tells some of the more awful thoughts of his soul. His words reveal views of sin and righteousness that appear overwhelmingly awful to men. His eternal justice, flaming forth against all iniquity, is declared to Israel in the fire of the altar. This fire is never to be extinguished; “for every one of his righteous judgments endureth forever.” (Ps. cxix. 160.) It burns all night long — an emblem of the sleeplessness of hell, where “they have no rest, day nor night” — and of the everwatchful eye of righteousness that looks down on this earth.
Perhaps it was intended to exhibit two things:
1.” The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever
and ever tormented with fire and brimstone in
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.” (Rev. xiv. 10, compared with ver. 18.) The whole camp saw this fire, burning in the open court all night long. “So shall you perish,” might an Israelitish father say to his children, taking them to his tent door, and pointing them, in the gloom and silence of night, to the altar, “So shall you perish, and be forever in the flames, unless you repent!”
2. It exhibited, also, the way of escape. See, there is a victim on the altar, on which these flames feed! Here is Christ in our room. His suffering, seen and accepted by the Father, was held forth continually to the faith of Israel, night and day. And upon that type, the pledge and token of the real sacrifice, did the eye of the Father delight to rest night and day. It pleased him well to see his justice and his love thus met together there. And the man of Israel, who understood the type, slept in peace, sustained by this truth which the struggling rays from the altr gleamed into his tent.
Ver. 10. “And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall be put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes -n-hich the fire hath consumed vtilh the burut-offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar.”
The linen* garment is the type of purity, as we see in the book of Revelation xix. 8. The priest is the emblem of the Redeemer in his perfect purity coming to the work of atonement. The word for garment! means a suit of clothes. It takes in the linen breeches, as well as all the other parts of the priest’s dress. His whole suit is to be the garb of purity. It is not glorp; these are not the “golden garments.” It is holy humanity; it is Jesus in humiliation, but without one stain of sin. There is a special reason for the direction as to the linen breeches. It is meant to denote the completeness of the purity that clothes him; it clothes him to his very skin, and “covers the flesh of his nakedness.” (Exod. xxviii. 42.) It was not only our unrighteousness, and our corrupt nature, that Jesus was free from; but also from that other part of our original sin which consists in the imputed ffidlt of Adam. The linen breeches that “covered the nakedness” of the priest, lead us back at once to our first parents’ sin, when they were naked and ashamed in the garden, after the Fall. Here we see this sm also covered.
The word is “la. not tjt. The latter is a finer sort, supposed to be ilk.
f ^Q, the i in which, in the opinion of Ewald, ia merely the sign of the Status Constr., as in ipin.
He who comes to atone for all our sins has himself freedom from all — completely pure.
“He shall take up the ashes which the fire has consumed,’’^ i. e., the ashes of that which the fire has consumed, viz., the wood. By the figure which grammarians call ellipsis, or breviloquence, “ashes’’ is used for the material out of which ashes came, as Isa. xlvii. 2, speaks of grinding” meal.” (Ainsworth.) The wood was underneath the burnt-offering.* This being done, the ashes were to be placed by themselves, for a little time,” beside the altar. ‘’^ All eyes would thus see them and take notice of them, before they were carried out Into a clean place.
Probably there were two reasons for this action.
1. The fire was thus kept clear and bright, the ashes being removed. God thereby taught them that he was not careless as to this matter, but required that the type of his justice should be kept full and unobscured.
2. The ashes were shown for the purpose of making it manifest that the flame had not spared the victim, but had turned it into ashes. It was not a mere threatening when the angels foretold that Sodom and Gromorrah were to be destroyed for their sins; their doom (2 Pet. ii. 6) is declared to have come on them, “turning them to ashes.” So here, all that was threatened is fulfilled. There the ashes lie; any eye may see them. The vengeance has been accomplished I The sacrifice is turned into ashes! Justice has found its object! The lightning has struck the lightning-rod, and is now passed! View Ps. xx. 4, in this light — “Remember all thy offerings and accept” —
* Another rendering is, “The ashes of the fire that has consumed the bumt-ofFering on the altar.” (Horsley.) But this requires a transposition of the words.
turn to ashes — “thy burnt-sacrifice.” The Lord’s arrows are not pointless; he performs all his threatenings, for he is holy. “0 Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee?” (Ps. lxxxix. 8.)
Ver. 11. “And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place.”
The priest, coming out of the sanctuary, lays aside these linen garments, and goes forth out of the camp in another dress. These linen garnionts are now reckoned polluted; the sin he carried in with him cleaves to them. In another linen dress, therefore — another priestly suit* — he goes on to the spot where the ashes were to be left, as memorials of the curse having come on the victim. May this be intended to show that Christ, specially at his death, was to be “numbered with the transgressors?” He seemed to die as one who had no holiness, no righteousness, no innocence. “He made his g-rave with the wicked.” But, casting off this appearance of being a transgressor, as he cries, “It is finished,” he is carried to a clean spot. His surety-character appeared — he is buried in Joseph’s tomb.t
* Some think this must have been a dress of meaner materials than the linen, to represent sin cleaving to him. But where do we ever read of such!
f Some propose to change the rendering of Isa. liii. 9, in order to bring out explicitly the fact that Christ died among trantgreuora, but was burietl with the rich. But is there any ground for this proposed change I Whether the original admits of it, is doubtful; for few Jews will be satisfied with the rendering of I’^niiaa, “his tomb.” Would it not be better, lar, to keep the present much more obvious rendering —
“He made hit grave with the wicked (plural).
And with tJie rich (singular), in hit death,” L e., when he died.
“Unto a clean place;” as in chap iv. 12. In after days this clean place may have been some spot beyond the walls of Jerusalem. In Jer. xxxi. 40,” the valley of the ashes’’’ is mentioned; a place which was used for this purpose, and may have been at the very Calvary where the Great Sacrifice was offered and its ashes laid.
Ver. 12. “And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it (i. e., on the bosom of the altar;) it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt-offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace-offerings.”
At the hour of his death, behold the providence of God! A rich man, one of the most honorable and esteemed in Jerusalem, a member of Sanhedrim, and a disciple, unexpectedly appears at Calvary. This was Joseph of Arimathea, without exception the most singularly noble character introduced to us in the Gospels. This rich man had been driven into concealment by the plots formed against him by the Jews, on account of hia defending Jesus in the Sanhedrim openly. (Luke xxiii. 51.) This is what John says, chap. xix. 38. “Being a disciple,” “KCKpvufitvoi le iia tov <p60ov T(ov loviaimv” — not “SECRETLY,” for it is not “KtKpfiitfvbii,” though even the adverb might mean, as in the Septuagint of Jer. xiii. 17, “in secret places,” but “secreted,” or forced to hide by reason of their plots. He was the very contrast to timid Nicodenius, bold and unreserved. Behold 1 then, this man suddenly returns to the city; and finding that all is over, he boldly seeks the body of Jesus, his beloved master. And next, he and Nicodemus — two rich men, but the one all boldness, the other nervously timid — lay the body in its silent tomb. And where is the tomb? “In the place where he was crucified” (John xix. 41); that is, at the very spot where criminals were put to death, and where they used to be buried. Extraordinary as it may appear, this very spot was the spot where Joseph’s new tomb was hewn out of a rock 1 The stony sides of the tomb — the new tomb — “the clean place” where Jesus was laid — were part of the malefactors’ hill? His dead body is” with the rich man and with the wicked in the hour of his death! His grave is the property of a rich man; and yet the rocks which form the partition between his tomb and that of the other Calvary malefactors, are themselves part of Golgotha. Is there not here a fulfilment of Isaiah’s words to the letter, and that in a way so unlikely, that no eye could have foreseen it but his who foreordained the whole?
Formerly the fact was mentioned of the fire never being allowed to go out. Here there is mention made of the manner in which it was kept burning. The wood was to be supplied constantly in sufRcient measure, and the sacrifice laid thereon. There is an object for the Divine justice to seize upon; and this victim must be shown every morning, exposed to that intolerable flame. Christ bears the vehement heat of Jehovah’s altar — the reality of wrath.
There is no ‘’^putting out” of this fire.* “There is not quenched” is Christ’s own expression; perhaps in reference to this type. (Mark ix. 44.) There will bo no putting out of these flames in eternity — no waters to quench them — no interference of God’s mercy to end them. The company of their ungodly friends will not “put out” any of the torments of the damned; nor shall any intellectual efforts “put them out” by keeping men busy in their thoughts. Christ’s agony is the proof of this. If ever God would have “put out” one flame, it would have been in his case. Yet he withheld no suffering — “all his waves” were against him; he laid him in “the lowest pit.”
Perhaps” burn the fat of the peace-offerings^ is introduced here to show how the flame was to be fed. The fat must feed it till it blazes bright and strong, casting its light through the darkness, in view of all the camp. It
In Song viii. 6, “vehement flame” is most generally understood to be, “the flame of Jehovah” (jrp rsnb). The love of Jesus ia seen in proportion as we see the heat of the wrath which he bore for os. “Love ia strong as death — like the flame of Jehovah,” i. e., on the altar. How great was the sin of Ahaz, 2 Chron. xxviii. 24, when he shut up the temple! for in so doing he was attempting to extinguish the perpetual Are on the altar, M if thereby to bide from his view the type of God’s justice and a coming bell — a tdn-aveoging Ood.
was an awful view of Divine justice; it figured out the tremendous fierceness of Almighty wrath. Yet inasmuch as it is “the fat of peace-offerings,’’^ a discerning, believing worshipper may find the elements of peace even here. The peace-offering on which that flame has fed declared his reconciliation; so that he can read the assurance of his acceptance even in these flames! Justice fully satisfied, and yet the worshipper standing in peace, is the truth taught us by the blazing flame of this altar. “Our Grod is a consuming fire.”
Ver. 13. “The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.”
Throughout we are emphatically shown that this fire has no end. We are reminded of John’s words, “The wrath of Grod abideth on him” (Johniii. 36), and Christ’s thrice repeated declaration, “Where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched.” (Mark ix.) The word for “go out” is the same that elsewhere is rendered “quenched” (naan). The eternal justice of Jehovah shall never cease to find fuel in hell; and never shall it cease to find satisfaction in the Altar of the Grreat High Priest. Hence we see that an everlasting righteousness was what we needed. (Dan. ix. 24.) “Eternal redemption” is what has been obtained for us. (Heb. ix. 12.)
REGARDING THE MEAT-OFFERING.
Ver. 14. “And this is the law of the meat-offering: the sons of Aaron shall ofifer it before the Lord, before the altar.”
The duties of the priest are dwelt upon here. The officiating priest shall take the meat-offering from the worshipper, and shall present it. He shall do this solemnly, coming up before the altar’’ i. e. in front of it, in sight of all the people who stand by. For thus the dedication of all that the man has — body and property, as well as soul — is publicly declared. All are witnesses that now he is not his own.
Yer. 15. “And he shall take of it his handful, of the flour of the meatofifering, and of the oil thereof, and all the frankincense which is upon the meat-offering, and shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savor, even the memorial of it, unto the Lord.”
When the memorial (see chap. ii. 2) was taken and burned, the offerer saw a sight that refreshed his soul. He saw the altar smoking, and felt the air breathing with his accepted gift, — “a savor of rest.” It was on such occasions as these that the priests exhibited salvation and its results so fully to the comfort of the worshippers, that “the saints .shouted for joy.” (Psalm cxxxii. 16.)
Yer. 16. “And the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat; with unleavened bread shall it be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation they ehall eat it.”
It ought to be rendered, “unleavened shall it be eaten;”* that is, the remainder which Aaron and his sons received as their part, shall be eaten in the form of unleavened bread. There must not be anything in it that would intimate sin and corruption; for since the memorial has been offered, the remainder is reckoned pure, so pure that it may be put into the hands of the priests as food, and eaten on holy ground. It may present to us the fact, that when Jesus was once offered as a “sweet savor of rest,” then what remairtcd viz., his body the
* ivjia PpiiiBriviTat, Sept, eaten as unleavened, “comedet absque fermento” Yulgate.
Church, was pure, and might be freely admitted to holy ground, to heaven and to all heavenly employments.
The ‘^ hoir, place” here is the court of the tabernacle, ver. 26, where the altar and laver stood. It is “holy” on the same principle that Peter calls the hill of transfiguration “the holy mount” (2 Pet. i. 18); and because the same God was present there who made the place “holy ground” to Moses at the bush. (Exod. iii.5.) There is a passage in Numbers xviii. 10, where the court seems to be called “most holy:” “In the most holy place shalt thou eat it” — unless we render the words (as Horsley proposes) “Among the most holy things thou shalt eat it.” Patrick’s explanation of it, by a reference to the holy chambers in Ezekiel xlii., is altogether out of the question. It seems to be simply the Lord’s presence hallowing the courts where such offerings were made that is meant.
Leviticus xxiv. 9, and elsewhere, again, calls it “the holy place.” And no wonder; for it was “at the door of the tabernacle” (viii: 31), which seems to mean opposite the altar, which was the prominent object in the view of all in the courts, but specially of any at the entrance. To this allusion is made in Isa. lxii. 9, when thank-offerings of corn and wine are spoken of as feasted “in the courts of my holiness.”
Ver. 11. “It shall not be baked with leaven. I have given it unto them for their Jiortion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as is the sin-ofiering, and as the trespass-offering.”
They are directed not to use it as they might do bread at their own dwellings: “There must be no leaven in it, for it is a gift to them from me. Let it, then, derive its sweetness and relish to their taste from the consideration that it is my gift to them.” This is truly like Hannah, Samuel’s mother; when rejoicing after her son’s birth she sings, not of her joy in her first-born, but of her joy in Him who gave her the rich gift, “My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, mine horn is exalted in the Lord.” (1 Sam. ii. 1.) There is here, also, a cheering notice of the full communion that subsists between God and his people. “/ have given it for their portion, out of my offerings.” As if there was an intercommunity of goods — of blessings — between God and his people. He and they alike feast upon the same holiness and purity found in the Righteous One.
Ministers, and indeed all God’s people, are here taught not to consider the smallest service or offering as unimportant. Lest these “cakes,” and “flour,” and “baken things” should be treated slightly, the Lord as solemnly declared, “It is most holy, as is the sin-offering, and as the trespass-offering.”
Yer. 18. “All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute forever in your generations concerning the offerings of the Lord made by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy.”
While all the males of Aaron’s line might eat thereof, every one must remember in all generations to do so with deep reverence; for “every one (or everything) that toucheth them shall be holy.” Any person or thing touching them was to be reckoned as i§t apart to holy purposes, to be treated accordingly. Garments, vessels, or the like, must be then considered as on holy ground; and accordingly, must be washed in clean water, as an emblem of setting apart from common use. Persons, too, that came in contact, must wash themselves, being, like Moses at the bush, suddenly drawn into God’s presence, where they must put off the shoe.
What a circle of deep awe was thus drawn round the altar and its offerings! “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of his saints, and to be had in reverence of all that are about him.” (Psalm lxxxix. 7.) Nothing is more blissful than God’s presence, yet nothing more solemnizing. Bethel was “the gate of heaven,” and yet “how dreadful!” This is holy bliss; it is not as the world’s joy.
Vers. 19, 20. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying. This is the offering of Aaron and of his sons, which they shall offer unto the Lord in the day when he is anointed; the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a meat-offering perpetual, half of it in the morning, and half thereof at night.”
“A meat-offering perpetuaV means that this shall be in all ages the manner of the priests meat-offering. The common priests and Aaron offered it at their first entering on office, and that is” the day when he is anointed.’’’’ They had been already told what to bring, in Exod. xxix. 2, but they are told how to bring it, — what ceremonies to use in the bringing of it.
The priest’s meat-offering was of “fine flour,” in “cakes and wafers” (Exod. xxix. 2), and “baken in the pan.” (ver. 21.) It thus contained a reference to the two most common sorts of meat-offering mentioned in chap. ii. 1-6. It was neither the richest nor the poorest.
The omer, or tenth part of the ephah, is fixed on as the measure. It might remind them of the omer of manna which they used daily to gather; and the omer of it kept in the golden pot. “When they remembered that manna, would not their hearts naturally feel their obligations to devote all their substance to him who gave them bread from heaven, and was still commanding the blessing on their fields and dwellings?
Ver. 21. “In a pan it shall be made with oil; and when it is baken, thou Bhnlt bring it in: and the baken pieces of the meat o/Tering Bhalt thou offer for a sweet savor unto the Lord.”
They were to bring it ready-baken, that is, prepared in the form of cakes and wafers, as Exod. xxix. 2 directed, and as chap. ii. 5 appoints in regard to things baken in the pan.
The oil, and other particulars, have been noticed above. The bringing it to the altar, all ready, may have been meant to teach the need of a fully prepared offering — nothing imperfect — if presented to the Lord for acceptance.
Vers. 22, 23. “And the priest of his sons that is anointed in his steau shall offer it: it is a statute forever unto the Lord: it shall be wholly burnt For every meat-offering for the priest shall be wholly burnt: it shall not be eaten.”
The ministering high-priest already in office presented this offering of the sons of Aaron on the day of their consecration.
It is particularly declared that it must be “wholly burnt” — “not eaten” — because it was a priest’s offering. (See ver. 30, also.) This prefigured, no doubt, the truth that Christ gave himself, entirely and completely, as the offering. This type refers to the Saviour alone, not to his people. It is speaking only of the Head, not of the members. He who was his people’s priest, in giving himself, gave himself wholly, soul and body, to the consuming flame. “Our God is a consuming fire;” and that fire withered his spirit as he bore the curse. This meat-offering was wholly burntj because it is the meat-offering of the priest, who is the type of Jesus.
REGARDING THE SIN-OFFERING.
Vers. 24, 25. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying. This is the law of the sin-ofFering: In the place where the burnt-offering is killed shall the sin-oflfering be killed before the Lord; it is most holy.”
It must be brought solemnly before the Lord, like the great burnt-offering, and killed on the same spot, on the north side of the altar (i. 11). It is to one and the same atonement that all these sacrifices refer.
It is “most holy.” All sacrifices were to be regarded
with the deepest awe. For it was as if the worshippers
were standing at the cross, where the Marys stood, and
saw the Saviour die. Or, like the heavenly host, when
they saw the disembodied soul (” the blood was the
lifeP^) of the Redeemer come in before the Father, at
the moment the last mite was paid, and he had cried,
“It is finished.” “Was there ever such an hour in
heaven? or shall there ever be such an hour in earth or
heaven? Even in the act of accepting the atonement
made, how solemnly does the soul feel that receives it!
See Isaiah, when the live coal touched his lips. What,
then, must have been the hour when atonement itself
was spread out complete? The hour when a lost sheep
returns is solemn; but what is this to the hour when
the shepherd himself returned?
Ver. 26. “The priest that oflfereth* it for sin shall eat it; in the holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation.”
* nnx xanrin ■jnin. May it be,” Who maketh it sin;’’ L e., by thus offering it, he nmkcs it a mass of sin? See this use of the word in chap. is. 16.
The Lord who “by hirtaself purged away sin,” holds communion with the once sinful man. He accepts the offerer who presents this sacrifice. la Hosea iv. 8, this rite is referred to — “They eat up the sin-offering of my people” (nxan); and then “lift up their hearts to their iniquity.” The degenerate priests one moment engaged in duty, and the next ran back to sin.
Vers. 27, 28. “Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy: and when there ia sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shall wash that whereon it was sprinkled in the holy place. But the earthen vessel wherein it is sodden shall be broken: and if it be sodden in a brazen pot, it shall be both scoured and rinsed in water.”
How awful is atoning blood! Even things without life, such as garments, are held in dreadful sacredness if this blood touch them. No wonder, then, that this earth, on which fell the blood of the Son of God, has a sacredness in the eye of God. It must be set apart for holy ends, since the blood of Jesus has wet its soil. And as the earthen vessel, within which the sacrifice was offered, must be broken, and not used for any meaner end again; so must this earth be decomposed and new-moulded, for it must be kept for the use of him whose sacrifice was offered there. And as the brazen vessel must be rinsed and scoured, so must this earth be freed from all that dims its beauty, and be set apart for holy ends. It must be purified and reserved for holy purposes; for the blood of Jesus has dropt upon it, and made it more sacred than any spot, except where he himself dwells. “My holy mountain” (Isa. xi. 9), is the name it gets from himself, when he is telling how he means to cleanse it for his own use.
Yen. 29, 80. “All the males among the priests shall eat thereof: it is most holy. And no sin-offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation to reconcile withal in the holy place, shall be eaten: it shall be burnt in the fire.”
Again the awful sacredness of it is declared. It seems as if nothing was so fitted to teach us holiness as complete atonement. “He sitteth between the cherubim,” says Ps. xcix. 1, looking down on the sprinkled blood; therefore, “Let the earth be moved.”
The sin-offerings are the class of sacrifices mentioned as “those whereof any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle to reconcile withal in the holy place. ‘’^ Now, these will be found to be the same sin-offerings that were” burnt without the campy (Heb. xiii. 11.) All of which specially and peculiarly prefigured the entireness of the Saviour’s work. (See chap. iv. 12.) On this account they are never to be eaten, but all consumed; as observed in a similar case, ver. 23. On some occasions the Lord is pleased to exhibit parts of the truth separately, withdrawing our view, for the sake of deeper impressiveness, from a.11 but one point at a time. This seems, to be done here. We are here led to notice the entireness and completeness of the offering, apart from the results of restoring fellowship between the sinner and his God, which “eating” would have intimated. The transfer of the offerer’s guilt to the victim was so complete that the victim is altogether polluted — all “made sin.” Hence nothing of it whatsoever must be used; the fire must thoroughly consume it all. Thus we behold the debt, and the gold that pays it all told down on the floor of the holy place! What a debt! What a payment! The last might is there! Behold the demands of a holy God! And these all met and satisfied! Behold the sacrifice and the fire !^ — and then the sacrifice “toholly consumed /” How fierce the heat of the flamo! How complete the consumption! Thus terribly pure is the justice of the Lord in vindicating his holy law; and thus, to the fullest measure, did the atonement meet the requirements of that eternal law — that jealous God — who is “Holy, holy, holy.”