Leviticus 2

Chapter 2. The PriesthoodLeviticus 8-10The functions and garments of the high priest have been already described in the book of Exodus. The Scripture referred to above gives us an account of the consecration of the high priest, and also of his sons.

Section I: Aaron and His Sons

Section I—Aaron and His SonsAaron represents the Lord Jesus Christ as our Great High Priest. In this office He has no successor, and in the specific functions of His high-priesthood none of His people, of course, can participate. The sons of Aaron, however, represented the priesthood of all believers, who are called by the apostle in Hebrews a house—that is, the priestly house of Christ (Hebrews 3:6; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6). There is no special priesthood now in the New Testament Church. We are called to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and to minister in the most intimate fellowship and the most exalted service at His altar. In all except the special functions of the high priest, Aaron’s sons shared his separation and consecration, as we also are made partakers of Christ in the fullness of His grace and glory.

Section II: The Consecration of Aaron and His Sons

Section II—The Consecration of Aaron and His SonsThe Sacrifice (Leviticus 8:1-4)

1. This act is accompanied by the offering of all the sacrifices of the Levitical service. The sin offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering and the fellowship offering are all included in the holocaust of this impressive ritual, implying that the priesthood of Christ in our behalf is connected with His perfect sacrifice and the completion of His redeeming work. The Enrobing (Leviticus 8:7-12)
2. Aaron himself is first robed with his special garments. This was the type of Christ’s being set apart to His messianic work. Like Aaron He was anointed with holy oil, alone in the first instance, as the figure of His baptism by the Holy Spirit when He began His public ministry and officially assumed His priestly work. Aaron’s Sons (Leviticus 8:13)
3. The sons of Aaron are next separated and robed. They were robed, not with the same garments as the high priest, but with their simpler vestments of pure white linen; but they were not anointed at this stage. This represents the calling of Christ’s disciples prior to His death and resurrection, and to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. They, too, were separated to be priests unto God, and clothed with the garments of their divine calling and their special character, but their full baptism from on high did not come until after His sacrifice was complete. So likewise, in Christian life there is often an interval between our conversion and our entire consecration. The garments of Aaron’s sons were threefold, namely, their coats represented our Christian character, their sashes were expressive of service, and their bonnets or head coverings suggested the consecration of our intellects to Christ and the laying of our thoughts in captivity at His feet. The Great Sacrifice (Leviticus 8:14-21)
4. Next follow the sin offering and the burnt offering. These represent the two great aspects of Christ’s sacrifice, as the expiation of our guilt and the ground of our acceptance and justification through the atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ. All this followed in beautiful order in the development of Christ’s actual work in the three stages so clearly indicated up to this point, namely: Christ’s baptism and consecration to His work, the calling of His disciples and the offering of His great sacrifice. The Consecrating Blood (Leviticus 8:22-25)
5. Next comes the ram of consecration, and the application of its blood to Aaron and his sons. It was sprinkled upon the right ear, the right thumb and the right toe, both of Aaron and his sons, to intimate and prefigure the blood of Jesus Christ becoming the price of our redemption, and purchasing us and setting us apart as God’s peculiar property in an entire consecration. The application of the blood to Aaron first implies the dedication of Christ’s resurrection life to the Father and to the work of redemption. This blood represented not only His death, but also His life; not only the life given for man, but the life taken again and given anew to God and His people. It was of this consecration that He Himself said just before His death and resurrection, “For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified” (John 17:19). And it is this of which the apostle speaks, “Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family” (Hebrews 2:11). Christ’s life in heaven is as fully consecrated as ours is required to be on the earth. Therefore His right ear is sprinkled with the blood; and so He hears with consecrated ears our every cry of need and the Father’s slightest wish. His right hand is ever held at the service of His people, and His feet are dedicated as fully as when He walked through the fields and villages of Galilee to the finishing of His mighty work. The blood of redemption was next applied to the ear and the hand and the foot of each of the sons of Aaron, implying our participation in the consecration of Christ and the redemption of all our powers for His service and glory. The blood not only expresses the idea of redemption, but also of resurrection life. In the book of Leviticus the blood is always the life, and the application of the blood to the members of the body suggests at once their purchase and also their quickening life. The Wave Offering (Leviticus 8:26-29)
6. This was followed by the wave offering. It was a beautiful ceremony, in which the priest took in his hands the offering of bread and oil with the fat of the sacrifice, and waved them before the Lord for a sweet savor, in token of the yielding up unto God in acceptable service of all that was involved in these gifts. It was fulfilled in Christ’s presenting His complete offering to the Father in the heavenly places, and our yielding our members and all the fullness of Jesus Christ in us in consecrated service unto God. It stands as an object lesson of offered service. The Anointing Oil (Leviticus 8:30)
7. This was next followed by the anointing of Aaron and his sons with oil mingled with blood from the altar. Now for the first time the sons of Aaron partake of the anointing. In the previous ceremony Aaron only was included, but now he shares it with his house. This is a beautiful picture of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit which followed the complete sacrifice of Christ. The baptism came first upon Jesus Himself, our ascended High Priest, and then from Him upon His Church and people. The apostle expresses it in these beautiful words in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:33): “He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.” The anointing which came upon Aaron’s sons was mingled with the blood. And so the Holy Spirit comes upon us, the priests of God, as the spirit of Christ and of Christ’s resurrection life; and in exact correspondence with this idea He is called in Romans 8:2 the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This is the exact meaning of the oil and the blood—the Holy Spirit bringing to us the life of Jesus Himself. This anointing came not only upon the persons of Aaron’s sons, but upon their garments. These represent our Christian graces, and teach us that they must ever spring from the life of our Lord and the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. The Fellowship of Love (Leviticus 8:32)
8. All this is followed by what seems a combination of the grain offering and the fellowship offering. It was the priestly feast upon the flesh of the offerings and the bread of the meat offering, and vividly sets forth our participation in the life and strength of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the divine provision for our spiritual nourishment when we are engaged in His priestly service. Not only does God call His people to minister at His altar, but He also feeds them upon the very richest girts of that altar, and makes them to be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of His house and to drink of the rivers of His pleasures. The Abiding Life (Leviticus 8:31-36)
9. The chapter closes with the most significant of all the symbols of His service. This was the dwelling of the priests for seven days with Aaron within the tabernacle until their consecration was complete. These seven days represent, of course, the idea of completeness, and typify the entire period of our Christian life, during which we, too, are to abide in the secret place of the Most High, and dwell in the tabernacle with our Great High Priest in unceasing fellowship and unbroken consecration. The Eighth Day—The Coming Glory (Leviticus 9:1-24)
10. The crowning act of the whole service of consecration. It came upon the eighth day, when Aaron and his sons, after renewing the sacrifices in all their fullness came forth from the tabernacle, and with uplifted hands the high priest blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord suddenly appeared to all the congregation amid the shouts and prostrations of the assembly. This has been correctly applied, we have no doubt, to the coming day when our priestly ministry shall end and our Great High Priest shall come forth from the right hand of the Father and be revealed amid the glories of the advent to the wondering gaze of His people; and all that was meant in that ancient benediction which closed this scene shall be realized in the ages of blessing which are to crown the millennial world. Then shall these words be literally fulfilled in the happiness of a sinless and tearless earth. The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26) This is implied symbolically in the eighth day, which represents the beginning of a new week. This means a new dispensation. It is also suggested by the reference to Aaron’s coming down from offering the sin offering, the burnt offering and the fellowship offering, and the appearing of the glory of the Lord, and the fiery tokens of His majestic presence. This word “appear” is constantly used to denote His second coming. It is beautifully linked in the ninth chapter of Hebrews (Hebrews 9:20-26) with the three aspects of His redeeming work to which this entire section refers: “But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). That was His first appearing. “He [Christ] entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence” (Hebrews 9:24). That is His present ministry, represented by the abiding of the priests for seven days in the tabernacle. “And he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation” (Hebrews 9:28). That is the third appearing, toward which the ceremonies of the eighth day in the Levitical anointing service so significantly looked forward.

Section III: Warnings and Judgments Against False Priesthood and Strange Fire

Section III—Warnings and Judgments Against False Priesthood and Strange FireNadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10:1-12) The consecration of the true priesthood is followed immediately by the awful example of Nadab and Abihu, significantly intended, no doubt, to show the contrast between the raise and the true priesthood, and to foreshadow the counterfeits which the enemy would try to substitute, and their inevitable rejection and punishment. The sin of the two sons of Aaron seems to have arisen partly from a sudden temptation to indulgence in strong drink, because it is immediately followed in the eighth verse by the most rigid warnings with regard to the use of wines on the part of those who come near in the service of the tabernacle. Strange Fire It is further represented as an act of disobedience in that they offered incense and strange fire, which had been forbidden. It represents the methods of approach to God by any other way than that which He has prescribed and appointed. The application of the warning is as various as the different forms of false religion and worship which Satan has palmed off upon his deluded followers. These include all the forms of mere natural religion: the offerings of idolatry and self-righteousness, and their vain attempts to satisfy the claims of a holy God by man’s works; worship without the Holy Spirit, the only true fire; worship without the recognition of Christ and His death and intercession as the ground of our acceptance; the fire of mere intellectual sacrifice, or aesthetic culture; worship which consists in religious sentiment, fine art, musical ecstasies, emotional feeling, unhallowed, unsanctified motives and all except that which springs from the spirit of Christ, and is identified with His name, life and glory. The judgment which fell upon the false worshipers in this case foreshadows the consuming fire which must destroy every unholy thing that presumes to intrude into the presence of God. It may not always break out in judgment here, but “‘Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘Not a root or a branch will be left to them’” (Malachi 4:1). The Spirit of Fear (Leviticus 10:16-20) In the closing verses of the chapter there seems to be a hint that this fearful warning might lead the priests to the extreme of undue fear, and it may have been from this cause that they omitted to eat the sacrifice of the sin offering in the holy place, according to the divine provision. Perhaps the terrors of that awful manifestation had made them afraid to venture even upon their rights and privileges. Moses sharply reproves them for it, and commands them to guard against repeating the neglect. So while we serve with reverence and godly fear, and while He still is a consuming fire, we must not hesitate, also, to come boldly to the throne of grace, and enter into all the fullness of our redemption rights and privileges.