02.33. THE SIN OFFERING
THE SIN OFFERING (Leviticus 4:1-35) THE Sin Offering stands in direct contrast to the Burnt Offering. In the Burnt Offering, all is for God. In the Sin Offering, all is for man. In the Sin Offering our Lord Jesus Christ is pictured as giving Himself an offering and a sacrifice unto God for––men. The Sin Offering was for sins of ignorance.
Man is a sinner whether he knows it or not.
Sin is deeper than the deeds any man may do.
Sin is not only what a man does, but what a man is.
He has a nature of sin.
It is called, “sin in the flesh.” (Romans 8:3.) That is the root of all sin.
Man is not a sinner because he commits sin, he commits sin because he is a sinner, because the root of sin is in him. Our Lord Himself defines the source of sin.
He says:
“Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” (Matthew 15:19.) In saying this He simply emphasizes what He had said centuries before:
“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?” And then He says:
“I the LORD search the heart.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10.) He alone knows the heart.
He knows it as the fountain of sin.
Sin is sin, whether it be innate, dormant or full blown in violence and outbreaking transgression.
God’s standard is holiness. It is written:
“Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14.) The man who is an out––and––out sinner falls short of that standard. The man who is perfectly moral falls short of that standard, not only because he is lacking in absolute holiness, but because he has a nature of sin.
There is a difference in men in respect to the degrees of sin. The man who is moral and upright, is living a commendable life for his own sake and that of others.
It is better to be sober, honest, upright and ready to discharge all duties than to be an outbreaking sinner.
It is better for his bodily health and conscience. It is better for the community in which he lives and at every angle of his life in this world.
But––he is short of the standard of God’s righteousness––sinless perfection. (And God out of respect to His own holiness can demand no less.) Failing in this with all his good character, he has fallen short of that which God requires of him. The man who is completely gone in sin falls short of God’s standard in every direction, in every degree.
There is a difference between these two men in the degree of sin, but there is no difference between them in the fact of sin. Both are short in what God requires.
Both are short of holiness; both are short of sinless perfection.
It must be said fairly and squarely of each:
Each is short of the standard of God. No matter in what degree of shortage they stand before God, they are both short. So far as the fact of shortness then––there is absolutely no difference between them. The splendidly good man and the outrageously bad man are each of them short of what God requires; and since to be short of what God requires as set up in this standard is to be lost, then both are lost! the bad man and the good man, both are separated from God and in themselves undone.
Let it be repeated that in respect to God’s standard, both are short, both are lost and there is no difference in respect to that between them. And this is the declaration of the Word of God; as it is written:
“There is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:22-23.) The victim for the sacrifice must be without blemish.
If you would have a man pay for you the debt you cannot yourself pay, that man must himself be free from debt.
If you would have someone meet the penalty of death against you as a sinner” that one who would pay it for you must himself be free from the penalty of death, someone against whom the law of righteousness has no claim. On the basis of His sinless perfection and that the righteous government of God had no claims against Him, our Lord Jesus Christ comes forward and offers Himself as a substitute for the sinner, offers to pay the debt he owes. In the Sin Offering the victim was the ceremonial substitute for the sinner.
There are two texts which explain it all:
“He hath made him to be sin for us.” (2 Corinthians 5:21.) “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust.” (1 Peter 3:18.) The blood of the Sin Offering was all poured out at the bottom of the Altar.
“And the priest shall pour all the blood at the bottom of the altar.” (Leviticus 4:7.) As the Antitypical Sin Offering our Lord Jesus Christ poured out all His blood at the bottom of the cross. From head and hands and feet it poured a living stream to the thirsty ground below. That He poured it all out is revealed, demonstrated and proved by His own statement to the disciples in the upper room at Jerusalem the night after His resurrection when He said to them:
“A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.” The logic of the statement is simple enough:
He said in plain speech, “Ye see me have flesh and bones.”
“A spirit does not have flesh and bones.”
“Therefore I am not a spirit.” But He said more than that in saying that much. He said He had flesh and bones.
Let it be repeated a thousand times and in as many different connections.
He said He had flesh and bones.
He said flesh and bones because He was not flesh and blood.
He had no blood in His body. He had poured it all out.
He poured it all out because He was the actual Sin Offering of whom all the other sin offerings were but shadows.
All the shadows were fulfilled on the cross.
They took Him down from the cross, a white, limp body, as white as the linen in which they wrapped Him. But now He stands before them in that upper room. They are frozen into silence.
Fear with the sharp tooth of unbelief bites into their heart; and now He gives the low uttered but clear triumphant challenge:
“Handle me and see.”
How they have yearned to do it during these three most awful days in human history.
“A spirit hath not flesh and bones.” Well! they knew that.
“Flesh and bones as ye see me––have.” The Sin Offering standing before them––no blood in the body.
All poured out for guilty men––a sacrifice for sin. But it meant more than that to fulfill the type. The priest must take some of the blood in a bason and bear it within the vail, into the Most Holy Place. And He had been there––into Heaven itself.
He told Mary when He met her in the morning that He was on His way there then. Well! He had been there and returned.
Thus with bated breath, in the flickering light of the lamp, they beheld their Sin Offering and their Heavenly Priest, the Priest after the order of Melchisedec. The victim must be taken outside the camp and burned to ashes. Our Lord was taken outside the camp. He suffered outside the gate; as it is written:
“Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.” (Hebrews 13:12.)
Outside the gate of the court, outside of the camp, they took the body of the sin offering, set it on fire and burned it to ashes.
Outside the gate of Jerusalem they took our Lord to the place called Calvary.
There they put Him on the altar of a Roman cross. And the fire fell upon Him. The fire of the consuming wrath of God against the sin He represented.
He says, through the lips of the prophet:
“From above hath he sent fire into my bones.” (Lamentations 1:13.) “Thy wrath lieth hard upon me.
Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.” (Psalms 88:7; Psalms 88:16.) I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.” (Psalms 39:10.) The relation of the individual offerer to the Sin Offering.
He must come before God and own himself a sinner.
He must confess himself a sinner, not because he was conscious of sin, but because God had said he was a sinner and he must take God’s estimate of himself.
He must take the sacrifice God had provided for him and offer it as his personal sacrifice.
He must lay his hand upon the victim’s head, confess his sins and claim it as his individual substitute.
“And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.” (Leviticus 4:29.) Precisely so must the individual act who would be saved today.
He must take God’s estimate of himself as a sinner whether by nature or transgression.
God says he is a sinner by nature and transgression. He must accept that estimate.
He must lay his hand upon the head of the crucified. That is––he must accept Him there on that cross as the sacrifice provided of God for him. He must offer Him by faith for himself and not for another, claim Him as his substitute enduring the judgment and death due him.
It is in this way and in this way only that Christ can be made of avail. In this way and in this way only can the Christ of God become a Saviour unto the best as well as the worst of men.
You may believe in Him as a good man; you may exalt Him as a teacher and follow Him as a perfect example; if that be all––then He shall be of no more avail to you than the live bullock or lamb would have been to the Jew who brought it to the altar and led it away again alive and unslain; He, the Christ of God, shall be of no more value to you than if you should believe in Buddha or cast your soul for salvation upon the best, the most moral, the most perfect John Smith in the whole wide world.
Christ as your Sin Offering offered to God by faith, and Christ claimed as your personal Substitute, alone can save you. The twofold relation of the Sin Offering to the offerer. The blood was within the vail whither the priest had taken it for him. The ashes were outside the camp.
Blood within the vail, ashes outside the camp! The blood within the vail told him the sacrifice had been accepted on his behalf. The ashes outside the gate told him the priest was inside the vail, making reconciliation for him. When he looked at the ashes lie saw the judgment of God had ceremonially fallen on his sins. As he looked and saw the wind blow the ashes away out of his sight, he knew the matter between him and the God of Israel had been settled and that, ceremonially, his sins had been put away.
Look at the Cross.
It tells us the judgment of God against us as believers has been fully exhausted, it is finished. The issue between us and the God of righteousness is settled and settled to His perfect satisfaction; so settled that His conscience is at absolute rest about it.
God looks upon us as having paid to the uttermost the penalty against us in the death of His Son as our Substitute. As the winds carry away the ashes, so our sins and transgressions have been swept away out of God’s sight for ever––forgiven, forgotten; as it is written:
“Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” (Hebrews 10:17.) Christ outside the camp, our sins consumed to ashes on His Cross.
Christ within the vail, His blood therein testifying to our sins consumed.
Christ outside the camp, dead for us. Christ inside the vail, alive for us.
Christ outside the camp, our suffering substitute.
Christ inside the vail, our living priest.
Ashes outside the camp, blood within the vail.
Judgment at an end, salvation secured.
What more could we have?