THE
ATONEMENT
CHAPTER XI.
The Trespass Offering.
THE trespass offering is for sin looked at as injury, and
in view of the government of God, as the sin offering contemplates it in its
intrinsic character as abhorrent to His nature. Thus restitution - "amends for
the harm that he hath done" - is so prominent a feature in the trespass
offering, the ram of which is itself valued, and becomes part of the repayment.
The governmental view of the atonement, which so many in the present day
contend for, while it is thus justified as a partial view, falls entirely short
in its estimate of it when taken as the whole. It is not in government merely
that God hides His face from sin. The darkness and the cry of desertion of the
cross express more than governmental atonement. Indeed, to the mass of writers
upon the subject these are features whose significance is of little import. In
the punishment of the wicked finally, few or many stripes express the
governmental award of the "great white throne;" but the "utter darkness," the
necessary separation of God from what is abhorrent to His nature, is not merely
governmental, but the necessary portion alike of all.
Hence that
offering burnt in the outer place alone had power to penetrate into the
sanctuary, the abode of divine light, and when really offered, to rend the vail
and bring us into the light of the divine presence. Hence, as we have seen, the
sin offering for the high priest and congregation is the only one which we can
regard as the true sin offering. All others were but partial and defective
forms.
The trespass offering, as far as its ritual is concerned, has
little to distinguish it from these lower grades of the sin offering. There is
no laying on of hands, so far as we read, and the blood is not put upon the
horns of the altar, but simply sprinkled on it round about. The fat alone is
burnt upon the altar; the rest eaten by the priests.
The ram is the
victim here alone appointed, although elsewhere for the leper (ch. 14) and the
Nazarite (Num. vi.) a lamb was to be offered. The ram was evidently the fuller
type, the female sheep and lamb giving the character of meek submission, the
male sheep more of energy in devotedness; in the coverings of the tabernacle
the ram skins were dyed red, to show that devotedness even to death which
characterized the Lord.
The great thought impressed upon us in the
trespass offering is that of restitution - amends for the harm done. This has
to be estimated by the priest in shekels of silver after the shekel of the
sanctuary. The estimation was to be a divine one, the priest giving the divine
judgment; while the restitution money was to be also the sanctuary shekel. But
even this was not enough; the fifth part more was still to be added; for God
would have an overplus of good result from evil, not mere making up to where
things were before. That would not be worthy of Him. How could He have suffered
sin at all, merely to show His power in vanquishing it and no more? Such
victory would be little better than defeat. And yet this is what the mass of
Christians perhaps suppose. Christ is to bring us back, they think, to the
point from which Adam wandered, or which he ought to have reached but failed.
But this is a deep degradation of Christs blessed work. On the contrary,
it is a second Man and a new creation which the word proclaims, of which the
old is but the mere figure, and to which it gives place. The "fifth part more,"
heartily believed, would do away with much error and replace it with much
precious and needed truth.
Christ has restored that which He took not
away; but it is after the divine and not the human fashion. As the trespass
offering is here looked at in connection with trespasses against God or against
man, so the cross has brought to God an infinite glory overpassing all the
dishonour done to Him by the fall of the creature, and to man a wealth of
blessing such as Eden never knew.
For the detail of this we must go to
the New Testament. The trespass offering itself says nothing even in type, only
indicates an over-recompense, the nature of which it does not further declare.
But we, thank God, can declare it. "Now," says the Lord, speaking of what He
was soon to suffer - "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in
Him; if God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and
shall straightway glorify Him." (Jno. xiii. 31, 32.) This surely is the key of
all that the offering implies. The glory of God accomplished by One who has
become Son of Man for this purpose; this answered in glory by God, an answer in
which the objects of His grace are made to share: how far beyond the mere
putting away of sin and its results is thus indicated! Goodness, holiness,
righteousness in God maintained and manifested as no where else; mercy and
grace declared how wondrously! For men, in result, not an earthly paradise
again restored, but heaven opened; not innocence, but the image of God in
righteousness and holiness of truth; not Adam-life, but Christ as Life eternal;
not part with merely sinless men, but part with Christ in glory. For "not as
the offence even so is the free gift; . . . . for if through one mans
offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace
and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by One, Jesus
Christ."
Thus in both ways through our Trespass Offering is the fifth
part more made good. And now, having completed, briefly enough, our survey of
these Levitical sacrifices, let us look back at them for a moment in what was
in fact, as we see in the law of the leper, the order of application. This was
not a simple reversal of the order in which these chapters give them however,
for while the trespass offering preceded in this way all the rest, and the sin
offering always, for an obvious reason, the sweet savour offerings, on the
contrary the burnt offering invariably preceded the rest of these; the meat
offering following next, and connected with it often as if its proper appendage
- "the burnt offering and its meat offering" (Lev. xxiii. 13, 18; Num. viii. 8;
xv. 24; xxix. 3, 9, etc.) the peace offering closing the whole. When, however,
the peace offering alone was offered, the meat offering became its adjunct, and
was prescribed in a scale proportionate to the value of this, as it was in the
case of the burnt offering itself (Num. xv. 1-14).
First, then, we have
the offerings which settled the whole question of sin as against the offerer,
and then those for acceptance, or a sweet savour. Not only the burnt offering
was for the "acceptance" of him who brought it, but the peace offering also
(Lev. xix. 5; xxii. 25). This is not said directly of the meat offering, but it
is of the sheaf of first fruits (Lev. xxiii. 11), with which, however, a burnt
offering was offered. The difference of course results from the meat offering
being no real sacrifice, although it might be offered, as we have seen, even
for a sin offering, where the extreme poverty of the offerer permitted nothing
more. The meat offering spoke of Christ, but in the perfection of His holy
life, not as a vicarious Substitute for sinners. The perfection of His life
could not, it is plain, atone for sin, nor be in itself the acceptance of a
sinner; yet it could not be omitted either from Gods estimate of the work
of His beloved Son. Hence, as it makes necessary part of that accomplished
righteousness in the value of which He has entered into His presence and as man
sat down there, so in its value also we stand before God. The place of the meat
offering in connection with the burnt-offering speaks clearly here.
Finally, the peace offering closing all is witness to us that God would
have our communion with Himself find its measure and character from the
apprehension of this place of acceptance and what has procured it for us: in
Christ; as Christ; justified and sanctified in His precious name. When we
compare this place with the feebleness of our apprehension of it, we have cause
indeed for the deepest humiliation before God; but what reason for
encouragement also in this grace that continually beckons us forward to enjoy
our portion according to the fullness of it as the word of Gods grace so
constantly presents it before our eyes, and in the power of the Spirit of
Christ given to us, without limit, save as, alas! unbelief on our part may
impose a limit!
Go To Chapter Twelve
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