Notes on the Book of Leviticus

by Charles Henry Mackintosh

The unblemished male of the first year was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ offering Himself for the perfect accomplishment of the will of God. There should be nothing expressive either of weakness or imperfection. "A male of the first year" was required. We shall see, when we come to examine the other offerings, that "a female" was in some cases permitted; but that was only expressive of the imperfection which attached to the worshiper's apprehension, and in no wise of any defect in the offering, inasmuch as it was "unblemished" in the one case as well as in the other. Here, however, it was an offering of the very highest order, because it was Christ offering Himself to God. Christ, in the burnt-offering, was exclusively for the eye and heart of God. This point should be distinctly apprehended. God alone could duly estimate the Person and work of Christ; He alone could fully appreciate the cross as the expression of Christ's perfect devotedness. The cross, as foreshadowed by the burnt-offering, had an element in it which only the divine mind could apprehend; it had depths so profound, that neither mortal nor angel could fathom them. There was a voice in it which was intended exclusively for, and went directly to, the ear of the Father. There were communications between the cross of Calvary and the throne of God which lay far beyond the highest range of created intelligence.

"He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord." The use of the word "voluntary" here brings out with great clearness the grand idea in the burnt-offering. It leads us to contemplate the cross in an aspect which is not sufficiently apprehended. We are too apt to look upon the cross merely as the place where the great question of sin was gone into and settled between eternal Justice and the spotless Victim—as the place where our guilt was atoned for, and where Satan was gloriously vanquished. Eternal and universal praise to redeeming love! the cross was all this; but it was more than this,—it was the place where Christ's love to the Father was told out in language which only the Father could hear and understand. It is in the latter aspect that we have it typified in the burnt-offering, and therefore it is that the word "voluntary" occurs. Were it merely a question of the imputation of sin, and of enduring the wrath of God on account of sin, such an expression would not be in moral order. The blessed Lord Jesus could not, with strict propriety, be represented as willing to be "made sin"—willing to endure the wrath of God and the hiding of His countenance; and in this one fact we learn, in the clearest manner, that the burnt-offering does not foreshadow Christ on the cross bearing sin, but Christ on the cross accomplishing the will of God. That Christ Himself contemplated the cross in these two aspects of it is evident from His own words. When He looked at the cross as the place of sin-bearing—when He anticipated the horrors with which, in this point of view, it stood invested, He exclaimed, "Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me." (Luke xxiii. 42.) He shrank from that which His work, as a sin-bearer, involved. His pure and holy mind shrank from the thought of contact with sin, and His loving heart shrank from the thought of losing, for a moment, the light of God's countenance.

But then, the cross had another aspect. It stood before the eye of Christ as a scene in which He could fully tell out all the deep secrets of His love to the Father—a place in which He could, "of His own voluntary will," take the cup which the Father had given Him, and drain it to the very dregs. True it is that the whole life of Christ emitted a fragrant odor, which ever ascended to the Father's throne—He did always those things which pleased the Father—He ever did the will of God; but the burnt-offering does not typify Him in His life—precious, beyond all thought, as was every act of that life,—but in His death, and in that, not as one "made a curse for us," but as one presenting to the heart of the Father an odor of incomparable fragrance.

This truth invests the cross with peculiar charms for the spiritual mind. It imparts to the sufferings of our blessed Lord an interest of the most intense character. The guilty sinner, no doubt, finds in the cross a divine answer to the deepest and most earnest cravings of heart and conscience: the true believer finds in the cross that which captivates every affection of his heart, and transfixes his whole moral being: the angels find in the cross a theme for ceaseless admiration. All this is true; but there is that in the cross which passes far beyond the loftiest conceptions of saints or angels, namely, the deep-toned devotion of the heart of the Son presented to and appreciated by the heart of the Father. This is the elevated aspect of the cross which is so strikingly shadowed forth in the burnt-offering.

And here let me remark that the distinctive beauty of the burnt-offering must be entirely sacrificed if we admit the idea that Christ was a sin-bearer all His life. There would then be no force, no value, no meaning in the word "voluntary." There could be no room for voluntary action in the case of one who was compelled, by the very necessity of his position, to yield up his life. If Christ were a sin-bearer in His life, then, assuredly, His death must have been a necessary, not a voluntary, act. Indeed, it may be safely asserted that there is not one of the offerings the beauty of which would not be marred, and its strict integrity sacrificed, by the theory of a life of sin-bearing. In the burnt-offering, this is especially the case, inasmuch as it is not, in it, a question of sin-bearing, or enduring the wrath of God, but entirely one of voluntary devotedness, manifested in the death of the cross. In the burnt-offering, we recognize a type of God the Son accomplishing, by God the Spirit, the will of God the Father. This He did "of His own voluntary will." "Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again." (John x. 17.) Here we have the burnt-offering aspect of the death of Christ. On the other hand, the prophet, contemplating Him as the sin-offering, says, "His life is taken from the earth" (Acts. viii. 33.) (which is the LXX. version of Isaiah liii. 8.). Again, Christ says, "No one [ου δεις] taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." Was He a sin-bearer when He said this? Observe, it is "No one,"—man, angel, devil, or else. It was His own voluntary act, to lay down His life that He might take it again. "I delight to do Thy will, O My God." Such was the language of the divine burnt-offering—of Him who found His unutterable joy in offering Himself without spot to God.

Now, it is of the last importance to apprehend with distinctness the primary object of the heart of Christ in the work of redemption. It tends to consolidate the believer's peace. The accomplishment of God's will, the establishment of God's counsels, and the display of God's glory, occupied the fullest, deepest, and largest place in that devoted heart which viewed and estimated every thing in reference to God. The Lord Jesus never once stopped to inquire how any act or circumstance would affect Himself. "He humbled Himself"—"He made Himself of no reputation"—He surrendered all. And hence, when He arrived at the close of His career, He could look back upon it all, and say, with His eyes lifted up to heaven, "I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." (John xvii. 4.) It is impossible to contemplate the work of Christ, in this aspect of it, without having the heart filled with the sweetest affections toward His Person. It does not detract, in the smallest degree, from our sense of His love to us, to know that He made God His primary object in the work of the cross. Quite the opposite. His love to us, and our salvation in Him, could only be founded upon God's established glory. That glory must form the solid basis of every thing. "As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." (Numb. xiv. 21.) But we know that God's eternal glory and the creature's eternal blessedness are, in the divine counsels, inseparably linked together, so that if the former be secured, the latter must needs be so likewise.

"And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering; and it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him." The act of laying on of hands was expressive of full identification. By that significant act, the offerer and the offering became one; and this oneness, in the ease of the burnt-offering, secured for the offerer all the acceptableness of his offering. The application of this to Christ and the believer sets forth a truth of the most precious nature, and one largely developed in the New Testament, namely, the believer's everlasting identification with, and acceptance in, Christ. "As He is, so are we in this world." "We are in Him that is true." (1 John iv. 17; v. 20.) Nothing, in any measure, short of this could avail. The man who is not in Christ is in his sins. There is no middle ground: you must be either in Christ or out of Him. There is no such thing as being partly in Christ. If there is a single hair's breadth between you and Christ, you are in an actual state of wrath and condemnation; but, on the other hand, if you are in Him, then are you "as He is" before God, and so accounted in the presence of infinite holiness. Such is the plain teaching of the Word of God. "Ye are complete in Him"—"accepted in the Beloved"—"members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." (1 Cor. vi. 17; Eph. i. 6; v. 30; Col. ii. 10.) Now, it is not possible that the Head can be in one degree of acceptance and the members in another. No; the head and the members are one. God counts them one, and therefore they are one. This truth is at once the ground of the loftiest confidence, and of the most profound humility. It imparts the fullest assurance of "boldness in the day of judgment," inasmuch as it is not possible that aught can be laid to the charge of Him with whom we are united: it imparts the deep sense of our own nothingness, inasmuch as our union with Christ is founded upon the death of nature and the utter abolition of all its claims and pretensions.

Since, therefore, the Head and the members are viewed in the same position of infinite favor and acceptance before God, it is perfectly evident that all the members stand in one acceptance, in one salvation, in one life, in one righteousness. There are no degrees in justification. The babe in Christ stands in the same justification as the saint of fifty years' experience. The one is in Christ, and so is the other; and this, as it is the only ground of life, so it is the only ground of justification. There are not two kinds of life, neither are there two kinds of justification. No doubt there are various measures of enjoyment of this justification—various degrees in the knowledge of its fullness and extent—various degrees in the ability to exhibit its power upon the heart and life; and these things are frequently confounded with the justification itself, which, as being divine, is necessarily eternal, absolute, unvarying, entirely unaffected by the fluctuations of human feeling and experience.

But, further, there is no such thing as progress in justification. The believer is not more justified today than he was yesterday; nor will he be more justified to-morrow than he is to-day; yea, a soul who is "in Christ Jesus" is as completely justified as if he were before the throne. He is "complete in Christ;" he is "as" Christ. He is, on Christ's own authority, "clean every whit." (John xiii. 10.) What more could he be at this side of the glory? He may [and if he walks in the Spirit, will] make progress in the sense and enjoyment of this glorious reality; but, as to the thing itself, the moment he, by the power of the Holy Ghost, believed the gospel, he passed from a positive state of unrighteousness and condemnation into a positive state of righteousness and acceptance. All this is based upon the divine perfectness of Christ's work; just as, in the case of the burnt-offering, the worshiper's acceptance was based upon the acceptableness of his offering. It was not a question of what he was, but simply of what the sacrifice was.—"It shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him."

"And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord; and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." It is most needful, in studying the doctrine of the burnt-offering, to bear in mind that the grand point set forth therein is not the meeting of the sinner's need, but the presentation to God of that which was infinitely acceptable to Him. Christ as foreshadowed by the burnt-offering is not for the sinner's conscience, but for the heart of God. Further, the cross in the burnt-offering is not the exhibition of the exceeding hatefulness of sin, but of Christ's unshaken and unshakable devotedness to the Father; neither is it the scene of God's outpoured wrath on Christ the sin-bearer, but of the Father's unmingled complacency in Christ the voluntary and most fragrant Sacrifice. Finally, "atonement" as seen in the burnt-offering is not merely commensurate with the claims of man's conscience, but with the intense desire of the heart of Christ to carry out the will and establish the counsels of God—a desire which stopped not short of surrendering up His spotless, precious life, as "a voluntary offering" of "sweet savor" to God.