Leviticus 4:1-12 - Homilies By J.a. Macdonald

The sin offering viewed as typical of the Sacrifice of Calvary.

This subject wilt be best considered by citing sonic of the more notable references to it contained in the Scriptures of the New Testament.

I. IT IS ENVINCED FROM , Romans 8:3 : "For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin," i.e; by a sin offering (the Greek term here used is that by which the LXX . commonly translate the Hebrew for "sin offering")," condemned sin in the flesh," etc. The "flesh" that was "weak" here, we take to be:

1 . Not our fallen nature.

2 . But the flesh of the sin offerings.

3 . The Sin Offering of Calvary.

II. IT IS EVINCED IN , 2 Corinthians 5:21 : "He was made sin," i.e; a sin offering, "for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

1 . His righteousness is the righteousness of God.

2 . This we receive, by imputation, in exchange for our sin.

III. IT IS EVINCED IS , Hebrews 9:28 : "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin," i.e; without a sin offering, "unto salvation." The allusions here are to the sin offering of the Law. The teaching is that, whereas at his first advent he appeared in the similitude of sinful flesh for the purposes foreshadowed in the sin offering, when he comes the second time it will be in the glorious similitude of humanity, in innocence and holiness, to effect in us all the glories destined to follow upon his former meritorious sufferings ( 1 Peter 1:11 ).

IV. IT IS EVINCED IN , Hebrews 13:10-13 : "We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. 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."

1 . This passage, like those already cited, asserts generally the fact that the sin offering was a type of the sacrifice of Christ.

2 . But it also points out the typical import of the burning of the body in the place of ashes without the camp. What is this place of ashes but Calvary, Golgotha, the place of a skull, which was outside the gate of Jerusalem?

3 . It furthermore proves that the consumption of the body of the beasts in the fire, viz. after they had been bled at the side of the altar, foreshadowed the" suffering" of Christ. "He suffered without the camp." This suffering then being distinguished from that represented by the bleeding, it must refer to that agony of soul which Jesus suffered from the fire of God's wrath against sin.

4 . Since the altar which supplies our Eucharistic feast is that of Calvary; and since the priests under the Law did not eat of the bodies of those beasts which were burnt without the camp, which were types of Christ, those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat of our altar. Therefore those who embrace Christ and rejoice in his fellowship must, in the first place, renounce the ceremonial law of Moses ( Galatians 2:19-21 ; Galatians 3:1-3 ).—J.A.M.