Thoughts On The Burnt Offering

by J. Miller | Category: General | Nov 1960

" If his oblation be a burnt offering ... he shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the LORD. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him" (Leviticus 1.3, 4).

What God will accept, and whom God will accept, and on what grounds, are matters of the highest importance for man to consider. Even an earthly monarch has it well defined whom and what he will accept, and it is of infinitely more importance that we learn what "the King eternal, incorruptible, invisible" will accept.

The matter of acceptance is a chief feature of the burnt offering. The offering was offered that the offerer might be accepted before the LORD, and was accepted for him to make atonement for him. Here in the above verses we have the Hebrew words, the noun Ratson (delight) in verse 3, and in verse 4 the verb Ratsah (to be delighted with any thing or person). There is an important difference between the rendering given to the Hebrew in the A.V. and R.V.

"He shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation" (A.V.).

"He shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the LORD" (H.V.) (Leviticus 1.3).

The word in the Hebrew for "voluntary will "is Ratson, and for "may be accepted" is also Ratson. There can be no doubt that the R.V. is correct. In the word Ratson is the thought of favour.

0 Naphtali, satisfied with favour (Ratson),

And full with the blessing of the LORD" (Deuteronomy 33.23).

For Thou wilt bless the righteous

0 LORD, Thou wilt compass him (crown him) with favour as with a shield" (Psalm 5.12).

"For His anger is but for a moment;

In His favour is life (or, His favour is for a life time)

Weeping may tarry for the night (or, may come in to lodge at even),

But joy (or singing) cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30.5).

"In My favour have I had mercy on thee" (Isaiah 60.10).

Thus it was that in the favour of God towards the offerer He was pleased to accept Him through the death of another. Since the Fall, God has never accepted anyone in his own person. The reason was that through sin all had fallen short of the glory of God. None could fulfil the law's demand, which was, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind" (Luke 10.27). Man, being a sinner in his nature, and by reason of this having fallen short of God's requirements, could not be accepted by God. Man did not love God to delight himself wholly in Him, therefore God had no delight in him. But God was delighted to accept him through the death of Another. Here we stand and look upon the Antitype in the type. Here we see the meaning of Ephesians 1.6, "to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." The A.V. rendering fits beautifully with the typical language of Leviticus 1; "His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved." "Accepted" as in the A.V. is the verb Charitoo; which means "to grace, make accepted, be highly favoured." It is in the aorist tense (Echantosen), which shows that it is a past, single act of God in regard to all believers ; all are accepted in the Beloved who took their place and died making atonement for them, and that because that by one man's sin the many were made sinners, and as such must, to be accepted, stand upon the merits and acceptance of Another.

"No longer far from Him, but now

By precious blood made nigh;

Accepted in the Well-beloved,

Near to God's heart we lie."

"And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into its pieces and Aaron's sons, the priests, shall lay the pieces, the head, and the fat ... its inwards and its legs ... and the priest shall burn the whole on the altar, for a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD" (Leviticus 1.6-9).

Whilst the service of the altar in the offering of the sacrifices was the work of the priests, it was the offerer himself who slew his burnt offering, flayed it and cut it into its pieces ready for the priest to take the pieces and lay them on the wood on the fire upon the altar. What emotions would fill the heart of the offerer if this offering had been brought up at his homestead from its birth! As day by day he saw that it was fed and watered, what affection he bore to it and what confidence it reposed in him! In the struggle that would fill the offerer's breast, between his acceptance with God, for apart from a burnt offering he could not be accepted, and his holding on to the lovely creature on which he had bestowed such care, he had at last to decide. His decision for his God found him by the side of the altar, his offering dead at his feet, and with his flaying knife he begins to cut into the creature of his care. What emotions must have filled his heart as he flayed it and cut it into its pieces ! This is as it should have been, for beside a material sacrifice there should ever have been a sacrifice of another sort within the offerer, even that of a broken and a contrite heart which God never despises. (Psalm 51.17.)

The pieces specially mentioned, in Leviticus 1.8, 9, are the head and the fat, and its inwards and its legs. The head is the centre of every sense in the body, of seeing and hearing, of smelling and tasting, and also of feeling (in the sense of touching which is conveyed to the brain through the nervous system). The fat with the kidneys imbedded in it speaks of the rich quality of the sacrifice. The kidneys are the reins which speak of the deep fine inward emotions and thoughts. The legs speak of walk, of movement and behaviour, and this thought of the legs and walk is coupled with the inwards, showing that outward behaviour should be in alignment with the secret movements of the inwards. All this was seen by the offerer as he flayed and cut the sacrifice in pieces. But it was for God to see and to accept, as the priest laid all the pieces on the altar fire. Oh, to look upon that noble head of the Lord as He daily pursued the work which God gave Him to do, and to think of the richness that was within, which we can discern in all that He said and did! But, what a sight to see

The head once full of bruises,

So full of pain and scorn,

Midst other sore abuses

Mocked with a crown of thorn,"

and to see, set forth typically in the fat taken from the inwards of the sacrifice, the richness of the deep thoughts of Christ's love to both God and man in His death, which could never have been discovered apart from His death! Also to see how completely His walk accorded with His inmost thoughts, as set forth in the legs and the inwards. These were seen by the offerer, the priest, and finally and for ever they arose to God as an offering of a sweet smell. Let us with holy awe draw near to see the head and the fat, the legs and the inwards of our great and blessed Sacrifice.

"And the priest that offereth any man's burnt offering, even the priest shall have to himself the skin of the burnt offering which he hath offered " (Leviticus 7. 8).

The burnt offering in Leviticus 1, whether of the herd or of the flock, had to be without blemish. The burnt offering was a holocaust, that is, it was all consumed by fire on the altar, save the skin, which as we see above was given by God to the offering priest. As the future burnt offering roamed the pastures of Canaan, man saw the skin on the outside. "The LORD said unto Samuel" (on the day when he came to anoint one of Jesse's sons to be king of Israel) "man looketh on the outward appearance" (1 Samuel 16.7). And so it was when the burnt offering was in the pastures, men looked on the outside of the skin. The animal was no doubt goodly to look upon; perchance the very best of the herd or flock. As it moved about it was a pleasant sight. The day came when that beautiful animal was brought to the altar, still alive and beautiful, but before long it lay dead and flayed by the altar on the north side. Then, and not till then, was seen the inside of the skin. What is the voice of this to us ?

All reasonable men will acclaim the beauty of the life of the Lord. How lovely He was as a Child, as a Boy, and as a Man! What sweetness flowed out from Him in His every word and action! "Never man so spake," said the officers (John 7. 46); and the multitudes said, "He hath done all things well" (Mark 7.37). As

man saw Him in life, in all His ways and works, He was and will ever remain beautiful in life. This was the outside of the skin of the Sacrifice. The time came when the inside of the skin could be seen. This was in the day of His death. The offerer and the priest saw the inside, the offerer on the day of death, but the priest had the skin as his possession. As tanned and dried and preserved, he could, as he put it to various forms of service, look back to the sacrifice as it came perfect, and in life, to the altar, and he could

remember the first sight that he got of the inside of the skin. Let us see that as priests, as we use the life and death of Christ in various employments in our daily life, we view the Lord on the outside and the inside, in life and in death. It will be for our continual profit as the Gift of God to us.

To look on the outside of my Saviour on earth,

His beauty is seen from the day of His birth;

But to gaze on the inside, and see my Lord die,

My heart is like breaking, my tears will not dry.

J. Miller | Nov 1960
General