THE
ATONEMENT
CHAPTER IX.
The Peace-Offering.
AS the burnt offering gives especially the divine side of
the work of Christ, so the peace offering dwells rather upon its effects with
regard to men. This must not be taken in too absolute a way as respects either.
The burnt offering is for man, of course, and in atonement; and the skin
removed undoubtedly carries us back to the coats of skins which clothed our
first parents, as we have already seen. On the other hand, in the peace
offering, who could forget the Fathers joy in that which brings the
prodigal to the Fathers table? And this is what the peace offering
presents to us. Still this "peace" is what the offering effects for man with
God. It is rather an effect of the work which is contemplated than a new aspect
of the work itself.
For this reason we have necessarily, in connection
with our present subject, less to do with it. The main peculiarities connect
with the necessary distinction of destination of the offering, of which only
the fat is burnt upon the altar, while the rest of the animal belongs either to
the priest or to the offerer himself - the only sacrifice in which the offerer
does partake. In the lower grades of the sin-offering the priest has his part;
the Offerer no where but in this. Here, then, the peace offering fulfills its
name, and finds most evidently its distinctive character.
The peace
offering may be of the herd or flock, male or female, bullock or sheep or goat.
Birds are omitted, with a manifest propriety, which confirms fully the meaning
ascribed to them. "The bread from heaven," as the Lord says in the gospel, is
what "the Son of Man shall give you." If we speak of communion, which we have
seen to be the point here, it must be the Son of Man, sealed of the Father,
that must be the basis of it. True, if He were not God over all blessed
forever, all the preciousness would be lost for us. Nevertheless it is in His
manhood that we apprehend Him doing that work which alone brings us to God.
Even in the burnt offering we see that the bird, though a higher thought, comes
in necessarily as a lower grade. Here it disappears. It is in the joy brought
out of sorrow that I find what establishes my soul in peace with God. It is the
value of His manhoods work in which I draw near, although none but such
as He was could have had power to lay down His life and again to take it.
In the peace offering and sin offering alone is the female permitted -
in the latter indeed enjoined, although only in the lower grades. It seems
clear that it gives thus the character of comparative feebleness or passiveness
to the offering, but it is not clear that that is all we are to gather from it.
We have seen that the lower grades of sacrifice represent in general thoughts
true in their place, but here misplaced. Yet in Numbers xix the female is
commanded where there is no other grade at all. Here, it is surely impossible
that mere feebleness can be intended. Passiveness may indeed have its suited
place with reference to the sin offering, but here, and in the peace offering
also, the type of the sheep seems by itself to represent this; and in the sin
offering, the sheep is expressly to be a female too. Taking all these together,
I have little doubt that those are right who believe the female to be the type
of fruitfulness, which in connection with the thought of passiveness or quiet
subjection to suffering seems here not out of place, but eminently in place. Is
it not true, as there are in man and woman characters which complete each
other, and give, as thus seen together, perfection to the divine idea of man,
so in our Lord, as the perfection of all human excellency, the male and female
characters find both their place?
Jehovahs Servant, in the
accomplishment of those counsels of love and wisdom which were laid upon Him,
giving up His life in meek surrender, even to that cross in which the full due
of sin was His to meet and put away for us forever: - these things seem fitly
to unite here to give the complete character to the peace offering. They may
seem to connect with other offerings, as the goat especially with the sin
offering, but they seem all rightly to meet and give character to this central
sacrifice, where in a common joy Blesser and blessed, Saviour and saved, God
and man, stand. Thus we find here no grades really, as in the burnt offering we
have found, and in the sin offering shall much more find them. Here, the
details of the sacrifice, whether for cattle, or sheep, or goat, seem almost
absolutely the same.
The details are such as we have already sought to
trace the significance of the animal is presented to Jehovah, designated as the
substitute of him who offers it, killed, and the blood sprinkled on the altar
round about. Then all the fat is put upon the altar, upon the burnt offering,
which is on the wood that is on the fire; and it is emphatically pronounced a
sweet-savour offering.
That which I have emphasized is very precious.
Our communion is founded upon nothing less than the full acceptance of the
beloved Son of God - acceptance in all the perfection which we have already
seen the burntoffering expresses. This gives the measure of communion as God
intends it; the measure of our apprehension is quite another thing.
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To Chapter Ten
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