Notes on the Book of Leviticus

by Charles Henry Mackintosh

God has been perfectly satisfied as to all the believer's sins in the cross of Christ. On that cross, a full atonement was presented for every jot and tittle of sin in the believer's nature and on his conscience. Hence, therefore, God does not need any further propitiation. He does not need aught to draw His heart toward the believer. We do not require to supplicate Him to be "faithful and just," when His faithfulness and justice have been so gloriously displayed, vindicated, and answered in the death of Christ. Our sins can never come into God's presence, inasmuch as Christ, who bore them all and put them away, is there instead. But if we sin, conscience will feel it—must feel it,—yea, the Holy Ghost will make us feel it. He cannot allow so much as a single light thought to pass unjudged. What then? Has our sin made its way into the presence of God? Has it found its place in the unsullied light of the inner sanctuary? God forbid! The "Advocate" is there—"Jesus Christ the righteous," to maintain, in unbroken integrity, the relationship in which we stand. But though sin cannot affect God's thoughts in reference to us, it can and does affect our thoughts in reference to Him;[8] though it cannot make its way into His presence, it can make its way into ours, in a most distressing and humiliating manner; though it cannot hide the Advocate from God's view, it can hide Him from ours. It gathers, like a thick, dark cloud, on our spiritual horizon, so that our souls cannot bask in the blessed beams of our Father's countenance. It cannot affect our relationship with God, but it can very seriously affect our enjoyment thereof. What, therefore, are we to do? The Word answers, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." By confession, we get our conscience cleared, the sweet sense of relationship restored, the dark cloud dispersed, the chilling, withering influence removed, our thoughts of God set straight. Such is the divine method; and we may truly say that the heart that knows what it is to have ever been in the place of confession, will feel the divine power of the apostle's words—"My little children, these things write I unto you, THAT YE SIN NOT." (1 John ii. 1.)

Then, again, there is a style of praying for forgiveness which involves a losing sight of the perfect ground of forgiveness which has been laid in the sacrifice of the cross. If God forgives sins, He must be "faithful and just" in so doing; but it is quite clear that our prayers, be they ever so sincere and earnest, could not form the basis of God's faithfulness and justice in forgiving us our sins. Naught save the work of the cross could do this. There, the faithfulness and justice of God have had their fullest establishment, and that, too, in immediate reference to our actual sins, as well as to the root thereof in our nature. God has already judged our sins in the Person of our Substitute "on the tree;" and, in the act of confession, we judge ourselves. This is essential to divine forgiveness and restoration. The very smallest unconfessed, unjudged sin on the conscience will entirely mar our communion with God. Sin in us need not do this; but if we suffer sin to remain on us, we cannot have fellowship with God. He has put away our sins in such a manner as that He can have us in His presence; and so long as we abide in His presence, sin does not trouble us; but if we get out of His presence, and commit sin, even in thought, our communion must, of necessity, be suspended, until, by confession, we have got rid of the sin. All this, I need hardly add, is founded exclusively upon the perfect sacrifice and righteous advocacy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Finally, as to the difference between prayer and confession, as respects the condition of the heart before God, and its moral sense of the hatefulness of sin, it cannot possibly be over-estimated. It is a much easier thing to ask, in a general way, for the forgiveness of our sins than to confess those sins. Confession involves self-judgment; asking for forgiveness may not, and, in itself, does not. This alone would be sufficient to point out the difference. Self-judgment is one of the most valuable and healthful exercises of the Christian life, and therefore any thing which produces it must be highly esteemed by every earnest Christian.

The difference between asking for pardon and confessing the sin is continually exemplified in dealing with children. If a child has done any thing wrong, he finds much less difficulty in asking his father to forgive him than in openly and unreservedly confessing the wrong. In asking for forgiveness, the child may have in his mind a number of things which tend to lessen the sense of the evil,—he may be secretly thinking that he was not so much to blame after all, though, to be sure, it is only proper to ask his father to forgive him; whereas, in confessing the wrong, there is just the one thing, and that is, self-judgment. Further, in asking for forgiveness, the child may be influenced mainly by a desire to escape the consequences of his wrong; whereas, a judicious parent will seek to produce a just sense of its moral evil, which can only exist in connection with the full confession of the fault—in connection with self-judgment.

Thus it is, in reference to God's dealings with His children when they do wrong. He must have the whole thing brought out and thoroughly judged. He will make us not only dread the consequences of sin (which are unutterable), but hate the thing itself, because of its hatefulness in His sight. Were it possible for us, when we commit sin, to be forgiven merely for the asking, our sense of sin and our shrinking from it would not be nearly so intense, and, as a consequence, our estimate of the fellowship with which we are blessed would not be nearly so high. The moral effect of all this upon the general tone of our spiritual constitution, and also upon our whole character and practical career, must be obvious to every experienced Christian.[9]

This entire train of thought is intimately connected with, and fully borne out by, two leading principles laid down in "the law of the peace-offering."

In verse 13 of the seventh of Leviticus we read, "He shall offer for his offering leavened bread;" and yet at verse 20 we read, "But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings, that pertain unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people." Here, we have the two things clearly set before us, namely, sin in us and sin on us. "Leaven" was permitted, because there was sin in the worshiper's nature: "uncleanness" was forbidden, because there should be no sin on the worshiper's conscience. If sin be in question, communion must be out of the question. God has met and provided for the sin, which He knows to be in us, by the blood of atonement; and hence, of the leavened bread in the peace-offering, we read, "Of it he shall offer one out of the whole oblation for a heave offering unto the Lord, and it shall be the priest's that sprinkleth the blood of the peace-offerings." (Ver. 14.) In other words, the "leaven" in the worshiper's nature was perfectly met by the "blood" of the sacrifice. The priest who gets the leavened bread must be the sprinkler of the blood. God has put our sin out of His sight forever. Though it be in us, it is not the object on which His eye rests. He sees only the blood, and therefore He can go on with us, and allow us the most unhindered fellowship with Him. But if we allow the "sin" which is in us to develop itself in the shape of "sins," there must be confession, forgiveness, and cleansing ere we can again eat of the flesh of the Peace-offering. The cutting off of the worshiper because of ceremonial uncleanness, answers to the suspension of the believer's communion now because of unconfessed sin. To attempt to have fellowship with God in our sins would involve the blasphemous insinuation that He could walk in companionship with sin. "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." (1 John i. 6.)

In the light of the foregoing line of truth, we may easily see how much we err when we imagine it to be a mark of spirituality to be occupied with our sins. Could sin or sins ever be the ground or material of our communion with God? Assuredly not. We have just seen that, so long as sin is the object before us, communion must be interrupted. Fellowship can only be "in the light;" and, undoubtedly, there is no sin in the light. There is naught to be seen there save the blood which has put our sins away and brought us nigh, and the Advocate which keeps us nigh. Sin has been forever obliterated from that platform on which God and the worshiper stand in hallowed fellowship. What was it which constituted the material of communion between the father and the prodigal? Was it the rags of the latter? Was it the husks of "the far country"? By no means. It was not any thing that the prodigal brought with him: it was the rich provision of the father's love—"the fatted calf." Thus it is with God and every true worshiper. They feed together, in holy and elevated communion, upon Him whose precious blood has brought them into everlasting association, in that light to which no sin can ever approach.

Nor need we, for an instant, suppose that true humility is either evidenced or promoted by looking at or dwelling upon our sins. An unhallowed and melancholy mopishness may thus be superinduced; but the deepest humility springs from a totally different source. Whether was the prodigal a humbler man "when he came to himself" in the far country, or when he came to the father's bosom and the father's house? Is it not evident that the grace which elevates us to the loftiest heights of fellowship with God is that alone which leads us into the most profound depths of a genuine humility? Unquestionably. The humility which springs from the removal of our sins must ever be deeper than that which springs from the discovery of them. The former connects us with God: the latter has to do with self. The way to be truly humble is to walk with God in the intelligence and power of the relationship in which He has set us. He has made us His children; and if only we walk as such, we shall be humble.

Ere leaving this part of our subject, I would offer a remark as to the Lord's Supper, which, as being a prominent act of the Church's communion, may, with strict propriety, be looked at in connection with the doctrine of the peace-offering. The intelligent celebration of the Lord's Supper must ever depend upon the recognition of its purely eucharistic or thanksgiving character. It is very especially a feast of thanksgiving—thanksgiving for an accomplished redemption. "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. x. 16.) Hence, a soul bowed down under the heavy burden of sin cannot, with spiritual intelligence, eat the Lord's Supper, inasmuch as that feast is expressive of the complete removal of sin by the death of Christ.—"Ye do show the Lord's death till He come." (1 Cor. xi.) In the death of Christ, faith sees the end of every thing that pertained to our old-creation standing; and seeing that the Lord's Supper "shows forth" that death, it is to be viewed as the memento of the glorious fact that the believer's burden of sin was borne by One who put it away forever. It declares that the chain of our sins, which once tied and bound us, has been eternally snapped by the death of Christ, and can never tie and bind us again. We gather round the Lord's table in all the joy of conquerors. We look back to the cross, where the battle was fought and won; and we look forward to the glory, where we shall enter into the full and eternal results of the victory.