Exodus 29:10-14

OFFERINGS OF THE CONSECRATION (Exodus 29:10-34)

Concerning the Sin-offering (Exodus 29:10-14):

"And thou shalt bring the bullock before the tent of meeting: and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock. And thou shalt kill the bullock before Jehovah, at the door of the tent of meeting And thou shalt take the blood of the bullock, and put it upon the horns of the altar with thy finger; and thou shalt pour out all the blood at the base of the altar. And thou shalt take all the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul upon the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and burn them upon the altar. But the flesh of the bullock, and its skin, and its dung, shalt thou burn with fire without the camp: it is a sin-offering."

"Lay their hands upon the head of the bullock ..." There was nothing casual or perfunctory about this action. By so doing, Aaron and his sons identified themselves with the animal about to be slain. It was a symbolical acknowledgement upon their part of their sinfulness and their confession before God that they deserved death because of sin. "Killing the bull was an admission that `We deserve to die, but God in His grace accepts the death of this creature instead of my death.'"[11]

Significantly, the sin-offering had to be carried "without the camp" to be disposed of finally in fire. Christ is our sin-offering, indeed the sin-offering for all mankind, and true to the type, our Saviour also suffered "without (outside) the camp."

Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us therefore go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing his reproach (Hebrews 13:12-13).

"Caul of the liver ..." refers to the appendages of the liver. The burning of this upon the altar symbolized the consumption of the whole animal in the fire symbolizing the wrath of God. The difficulty of burning an entire bull in such a manner probably resulted in the directions to dispose of the greater part of it "without the camp." Also, there was the God-given design of prophesying the crucifixion of Jesus Christ outside the walls of Jerusalem. It is such facts as this that devastate the foolish notion of critics that a self-seeking priesthood in the 6th century B.C. invented these instructions and imposed them upon the writings of Moses half a millennium afterward! There has never been anything any more ridiculous than such "alleged explanations" of the Pentateuch. Fields outlined a hundred specific prophecies of Jesus Christ in Exodus,[12] but, actually, there are many more than that. These, in the aggregate, constitute the imprimature of the Holy Spirit upon these sacred pages, and all the infidels on earth shall never be able to erase half a line of it!

Note that it is the sin-offering which is first offered. "Until guilt is removed, no acceptable service can be rendered."[13]