I HAVE just been at a meeting for young men where I heard the words, “Do not follow any course of Bible study which will keep you long away from the Gospels.” This is certainly the direction in which the Holy Ghost leads the heart. Everything is focused in the Gospels, centered in a person, a man, the man Christ Jesus, who nevertheless is much more than a man. There we hear His own words, see Him living and moving on earth, at home in heaven and a stranger on earth, yet bringing heaven down to earth, doing the Father’s will, and living by doing it.
But to come to Christ in the Gospels, and to watch His path, to catch the secret of it, will surely not bring us to think that any part of what God in His remarkable ordering has brought together in one book is of little value. Christ lived on earth by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” and there is no other way for us to live here, if we do not wish to find at the end that all our life has been in vain. Still the Gospels will send us back to the Old Testament to learn the development of God’s ways, and forward to the Epistles to learn how the Holy Ghost, after Christ was glorified, carried on the purposes of God towards that consummation which we now await.
We shall not find anywhere in Scripture that doctrine is an end in itself, or that to be doctrinally right is the end which God is carrying out by the presence of the Holy Ghost. What we shall find is that God has always sought for obedience, subjection of will and intellect to His Word. There is no doubt that a man who is subject, who is obedient as simply as possible to God, will be found essentially right in doctrine as a matter of course, while it is quite possible for a man to be correct in the minutest points of doctrine, and yet have no part of his life, his habits of will, or his feelings which so largely sway the will, under the control of God in His Word. Yet this is the main thing. We are not told in Acts that Paul went about preaching the doctrine of the Church, although we know that was his special ministry. But he himself tells us that he went preaching the kingdom of God, not a dispensational term, but a fact to which every soul of man must bow. This is a thing to be laid to heart in our days.
Now it is this which underlies the sixteenth of Leviticus in a very real way. If the character of God, what He is in Himself, comes out in the details of the dwelling-place which He would have the children of Israel make for Him to dwell amongst them, so does the reality of the rule of God, the kingdom of God, come out in the details of what was done on this tenth day of the seventh month.
It is for this reason that the first verse of our chapter takes us back to a time when that side of God’s government which we often think to be its only side, came out in a solemn way. The point upon which stress is laid in Leviticus 10:11And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. (Leviticus 10:1) is, “which He commanded them not.” And the reality of God’s rule is seen at once, He will be obeyed; that is the instant comment of Moses to Aaron― “This is that which the Lord has said.” It was a crisis, such as had already been passed through in Exodus 32-34. The priesthood which God had set up to enable His people to approach Him, and to meet the needs of His people’s failures and sins, had broken down; the goat which they should have eaten to bear the sins of the people was burnt; the same fire had consumed two of the very priests who should have taken their part in bearing the people’s sins. Aaron associates himself with them, “such things have befallen me,” and the whole weight of the situation falls back upon God, as it did at Sinai before. There the question was raised whether God could go with them at all, and it was answered in Exodus 34. When Moses hears of a God who is merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, he makes haste to secure the presence of such a God. “Let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us, for it is a stiff-necked people.” Such a people needed such a God, and what was the revelation of such a God given for, save that faith should embrace it at once for such a people.
But now the further question is raised whether God can dwell among them; if such are the priests who are the means of approach to God, how can there be any approach, and how can the tabernacle remain in the midst of a defiled Ind disobedient people?
This is the question which God now answers in Leviticus 16. We find, first of all, that the position which Aaron took up before God in the end of Leviticus 10 is the position in which God now prepares to meet him. It was to Moses that the previous revelation was made, which served as the basis of all God’s ways up to the cross and since. But now to Aaron, not as high priest, representing the glory of God before the people, and the people in the excellency of God’s thoughts of them before God, but as a sinful representative of a sinful people, to whom, save for this wonderful manifestation of God on the mercy-seat, the way into the holiest was closed, there is given the answer of God’s mercy.
These two principal points are brought out in contrast first of all, and form the basis of the chapter: ―
1. “Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times inside the veil before the mercy-seat which is upon the ark, that he die not.
2. For I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat.”
On the one hand, it is made clear that Aaron has no title to come into the holiest when he liked, as though it were his home. There was that in him, and in the people whom he represented, which made it impossible for him to be at home in the place where God dwelt. God could not sacrifice His holiness. The way into the holiest was not made manifest. On the other hand, God was going to manifest Himself. That was both the reason why Aaron could not come in, and also the reason why a way must be found for him to come in. God was not going to give up His goodness. Hence we go on to find that the goodness declared to Moses in Exodus 34, which meets the terrible situation there, is now to be manifested in its workings to Aaron. “In this manner shall Aaron come,” Those are the words which tell of a God who will forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin, but will by no means clear the guilty. It was no light thing for Aaron to go in before that devouring fire whose effect he had seen brought home to him in such a terribly real way. But for that very reason he is to go in, not by a way of his devising, but by a way which is God’s answer to his silence and humiliation in chap. 10. God acts, and man is silent before Him.
So this tenth day of the seventh month was to remain throughout their history as a witness of the reality and meaning of the rule of God amongst them, a witness of the goodness and severity of God. Judgment executed, yet a way provided for man to come in, and for God’s dwelling-place to remain in the midst of defilement and uncleanness. We do not always remember that these two last are connected in this way. Before ever a priest had eaten the sin-offering, this lesson had to be learned first But as in this scene we find God acting according to His own thoughts, to meet a situation which man’s sin had brought about, we therefore find that all speaks of Christ, and looks on to Him. No fuller picture, perhaps, can be found in the Old Testament of the atoning work of Christ upon the cross. It sets forth in shadow how God purposed to justify Himself in justifying the sinner, how He could both forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin, and yet by no means clear the guilty. “I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat,” is thus the keynote of the chapter.
It is impossible to go into all the details, and unnecessary, for others have dealt fully with them; but, according to our practice, we may just trace the outlines in the light of these main principles already spoken of:
1.The things needed: verses 3-6. The bullock for a sin-offering, a ram for a burnt-offering, the holy linen garments, two goats from the children of Israel for a sin-offering, and a ram for a burnt-offering.
2. At the entrance to the tent of meeting, the two goats are presented, and that work which should have been the priest’s in chap. 10. is now assigned by no human hand, but by God’s decision, to one of the two goats (“Azazel” meaning, according to the best authorities, complete removal).
3. The sin-offering for the priest is presented and slaughtered by the priest himself, showing that he is seen as offerer, not as priest.
4. The censer is filled with the fire that had consumed his sons; he fills both his hands with fragrant incense beaten small, puts the incense on the fire, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy-seat which is upon the testimony, that he die not. The very act which had caused the death of his sons, is now so ordered by God as to be his salvation.
5. The blood of the bullock for himself is brought into the holiest by the priest, and sprinkled upon the front of the mercy-seat eastward, i.e., facing him, and before the mercy-seat seven times.
6. The same thing is done with the blood of the goat of the sin-offering for the people.
7. He comes out and puts the blood of the bullock and of the goat upon the horns of the altar “which is before Jehovah.”
8. He then passes out again to the place whence he started, where the goat for Azazel is waiting. There he lays his hands upon its head, and confesses all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins. The goat is sent away by the hand of a man standing ready, into the wilderness to bear their iniquities into a land not inhabited.
9. Aaron washes, resumes his garments, and offers the burnt-offering for himself and for the people, to make atonement for himself and for the people.
10. The whole is completed by the burning of the bullock and the goat of the sin-offering outside the camp, according to Lev. 4:11, 1211And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung, 12Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt. (Leviticus 4:11‑12).
The full result is the cleansing of the sanctuary, the tent, and the altar from defilement, so that God can continue to have His dwelling amongst His people in spite of what they are in themselves, and also the cleansing of the people from all their sins (verse 30).
It presents to us the movement of the purpose of God onwards towards the mercy-seat for the accomplishment of redemption, as we find throughout Romans 3, and outward again applying the results of redemption, as in Hebrews. This is simply the bare outline, and the great thing is, before inquiring into the typical meaning of all the details, to see the place which the whole scene has in the history of God’s ways.
Subject for December
The Law of Holiness. Leviticus 18-22 (chap. 17. forms the link). The following questions may be answered:
1. What is the refrain of Lev. 18-22? In what different forms, and how many times does it occur?
2. How is the principle here insisted on applied in the New Testament?
Answers to Questions:
1. and 2 are fully answered above.
3. Heb. 2:1717Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17) shows Christ, having God’s character as seen in His ways (mercy and faithfulness), as High Priest, applying the results of His work to meet the needs of the people of God in their journey through the wilderness; 4:14, the passage of the priest through the different parts of the dwelling-place of God; 5:3, the priest’s offering for himself and for the people; 9:8, the way not open; 9:12, entry by His own blood; 9:28, the reappearance of the High Priest to those awaiting the results of His work; 10:3, the yearly remembrance of sins; 10:12, 14, the work done once for all; 10:19, entrance into the holiest by the blood of Jesus; 10:23-25, answering to Lev. 16:26-31, 23:26-32; and lastly, 13:11, 12, the last act in Lev. 16., the burning of the sin-offering outside the camp. Hence the sixteenth of Leviticus runs through the Epistle to the Hebrews in a remarkable way.
B. S. ED.