Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Exodus chapter 29. Exodus 29. Our subject is Christ our burnt
offering. Christ our burnt offering. Now let's begin reading here
in verse 1. so we can get the context of
what's taking place in this chapter. It says in verse 1, God is speaking
and he says to Moses, and this is the thing that thou shalt
do unto them to hallow them to minister unto me in the priest's
office. He's speaking of Aaron and his
sons. God says this is the thing that
thou shalt do to hallow them to minister unto me in the priest's
office. Take one young bullock. That
bullock was the sin offering. That sin offering pictured Christ
who gave himself to bear the sin of his people, to bear the
curse of his people, to put away the sins of his people. And then
he says, and take two rams without blemish. Now, today we're going
to see how one of those rams was used. It was the burnt offering,
and that burnt offering pictures Christ as well. Now let's drop
down to verse 15 and we'll see this burnt offering and how it
pictures Christ. He says there in verse 15, Thou
shalt also take one ram, and Aaron and his son shall put their
hands upon the head of the ram, and thou shalt slay the ram.
And thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about upon
the altar. And thou shalt cut the ram in
pieces, and wash the inwards of him, and his legs, and put
them unto his pieces, and unto his head. And thou shalt burn
the whole ram upon the altar. Thou shalt burn the whole realm
upon the altar. It is a burnt offering unto the
Lord. It is a sweet savor, an offering
made by fire unto the Lord. Now, this burnt offering typifies
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It's a picture. It's a type. It typifies Christ
offering Himself unto God the Father. It typifies Christ offering
His whole life, His whole self unto God in perfect holiness,
in perfect consecration to God, in perfect devotion to God, in
perfect love to God, and in perfect love to His people. And so, this
offering that Christ made was perfect. Absolutely perfect. And therefore, God accepted it. He accepted it. And it's in Christ,
because He perfected, or was the perfect offering, because
He was the one who gave Himself to God throughout His entire
life, even the death of the cross. He did this perfectly and His
people did this in Him. So that in Him, we are accepted
of God. Now, for our divisions this morning,
I want to just go a little at a time here and see each thing
that's said in this passage. Each thing here is so very, very
important. Now first of all, this burnt
offering pictures a different transference than the sin offering. Now, we looked last time at the
sin offering, and we'll review a little bit here, but let me
show you what I mean. There's a difference here in
what the laying on of the hands meant. Look here in verse 15.
Now, shall also take one ram, and Aaron and his son shall put
their hands upon the head of the ram. Now, this is a picture
of a transference of some kind. We know that's what the hands
on the head of this ram pictures. But here, it's a transference
of persons rather than sins. Now, with the sin offering, back
up there in verse 10, They brought this bullet and
it says, Aaron and his son shall put their hands upon the head
of the bullet. Now that was a sin offering.
That was a sin offering. And when they put their hands
on the head of that spotless bullet, that picturing Christ,
the spotless Lamb of God, when they put their hands on there,
it pictured the sins of God's elect being transferred to Christ. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of all his elect people. The Lord laid on him the iniquity.
When he did, Christ became the sole sin-bearer. The sole sin-bearer. When he made him sin for us who
knew no sin, he became the sole sin-bearer. Christ became the
only one that the law said must die. Instead of his people, instead
of the law saying of God's elect, they must die, the law said of
Christ, he must die. He became the sole one bearing
all the sins of all the elect of God. So the law said of him
alone, he must die. But now with this burnt offering,
the hands on the head of that ram pictures a transference of
God's elect themselves. A transference of God's elect
themselves. Now let me try to explain what
I mean by that. Christ became His people. When
He was made of a woman, made under the law, it behooved Him
in all things to be made like unto His brethren. He became
His people. The Lord Jesus Christ took our
place. And what He did, His elect did
in Him. That's what we have here in this
burnt offering. It's not just the sin being transferred,
it's the whole life of Christ in the room instead of His people.
The sin offering was Christ bearing our sin. The burnt offering is
Christ bearing His people. The sin offering was to make
His people justified. This burnt offering is to make
His people accepted. To make us holy and sanctified
and accepted of God. God requires a perfect, holy,
consecrated obedience to God in perfect love, perfect faithfulness,
a perfect life devoted to God. That's what God requires in order
for God to accept us. Now there's not one of God's
elect that can give God that. We cannot give God a perfect
life of perfect consecration of perfect dedication to God
that's well-pleasing to God. We can't give that in and of
ourselves. Before conversion, we're nothing but spiritually
dead sinners. And after regeneration, after
conversion, Still, our very best deeds are filthy rags before
God. If it came down to us trying to stand on our own, on our perfection,
on our dedication, on our consecration to God, not one of us could stand.
Not one of us could stand. We need to think about that now. Sometimes we get to thinking
of ourselves as being more strong than we are. We get to thinking
of ourselves as being more righteous than we are. We get to looking
at how other peoples are handling situations and think we wouldn't
handle it that way. Well, now wait until you get
in that situation. How then can God accept any of
His chosen people? How are we going to give to God
this perfect life that God requires? How are we going to give that
to God? Look at Ephesians 1. I know you're familiar with this,
but I want you to see something here. Ephesians 1, and look at
verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. In Christ. There it is. In Christ. According
as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.
Here's the reason that we should be holy. A holy life. A separated life. Separated under
God. Devoted under God. Dedicated
under God. For God's holy use. That we should
be holy and without blame. That means this dedication to
God is perfect. No wavering. Perfect. And it's
before God. And where is it at? It's in love. The more I look at that, the
more I think there should be a capital L right there. This
perfection we're talking about, this holiness we're talking about,
this perfect consecration of God is in Christ who is love,
the personification of love. Now drop down to verse 6 and
look at the last phrase here, wherein He hath made us accepted
in the Beloved. That's what we're seeing in this
burnt offering is how God's people are accepted of God as a well-pleasing
savor unto God. How? In Christ. In Christ. So this sin offering typified,
or the sin offering just as it typified our sins put away by
Christ. The burnt offering typifies our
rejection put away by Christ. It typifies our unacceptability
put away by Christ. We were cast out. We weren't
accepted of God. The burnt offering shows that
being put away. Shows us now being accepted by
His life, by His obedience, by His love, by His consecration.
He makes His people a sweet savor unto God and we're accepted in
the Beloved. Now, secondly, go back now to
Exodus 29 and look here in verse 16. Now we're going to see here
that Christ's dedication to God, His consecration to God, His
perfect life to God was even unto the death of the cross.
He says in verse 16, And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou
shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about upon the altar. Now, in order to give God's elect
acceptance with God, Christ had to make atonement for our sin.
He had to make atonement for our sin. His blood must be shed,
because without the shedding of blood, there's no remission
of sins. Christ had to die in the room instead of His people.
Our sins had to be put away. The law of God had to be upheld,
justice had to be satisfied, and all His people had to die.
In order for God to accept sinners like us, that had to happen.
But brethren, Christ putting away our sin was pictured back
up there in the sin offering. Christ putting away the sin of
his people was shown in the sin offering. So why must the burnt
offering be slain? Why did he command that the burnt
offering be slain and his blood be poured out around the altar? It was because ceremonially and
type sin was laid on the burnt offering as well. Just like when
we looked at the sin offering we saw some of the burnt offering
when we looked at the sin offering. And so when we look at the burnt
offering we see some of the sin offering in what it pictured.
But what we're seeing here I think even better in this burnt offering
or what is meant to picture here in the burnt offering is if we'd
be accepted of God as perfectly hallowed, consecrated to God,
then Christ's consecration must be even unto the death of the
cross. Even when He was suffering the
death of the cross in the place of His people to put away our
sin, it had to be a perfect, active consecration to God, giving
God a perfect obedience. That's what it had to be. And
so what we see here is Christ is so consecrated to God, so
devoted to God, it was even to the point of Him willingly laying
down His life for God and for His brethren. That's how dedicated
to God Christ is. Are you that dedicated to God?
Am I that dedicated to God? That I'm willing to die for somebody
that hates me? For somebody that spits in my
face? For somebody that wants nothing in the world to do with
me? Am I willing to lay down my life for them? I don't think
we want to base our eternal salvation on that, do you? But Christ was
so consecrated to God, Christ was so dedicated to God, that
He was obedient to God even to the death of the cross. He gave
His life even by laying it down on the cross. Even to the shedding
of His own life's blood. Christ told us what God requires
in this thing of dedication, this thing of to be accepted
of God, to be well pleasing to God. He told us what the ultimate
thing is that God requires. And only Christ has done this.
He's the only one that ever did this. Christ said, greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. That's what we see here in this
burnt offering being slain and its blood being poured out on
the altar. Everything Christ did in shedding His blood as
a sin offering for His people was accepted of God and effectual
for the salvation of His people because Christ was obediently
giving Himself out of love for God and love for His people.
That's how perfectly consecrated our Savior is to His Father and
to you and me who are His people. He willingly gave His own blood,
pictured by the blood of this burnt offering, poured out. He
gave His own blood. He poured out His life to God
to accomplish God's will and to glorify God. What was God's
will? It was the salvation of His people.
No. What was God's will? It was to
bring glory to His name in the salvation of His people. And
so in order for that to happen, it was not only that Christ was
to come and justify His people. He was to come and do it in a
way that would manifest the righteousness of God. How God can be just and
the justifier of His people. That's what Christ was doing.
That's the will of God. that He might be glorified, that
we might be made to see how God can be just and that all His
people die and how that He's the one who justified them because
that's God in human flesh that died. And that's what Christ
was manifesting. And so He came to where we are
and He poured out His life the blood to accomplish God's will
to save His elect in a way that gives God all the glory declaring
God just and justifier. That's what Christ was doing.
That's why He was obedient even to the death of the cross. Now
thirdly, I want you to see this. I want you to see how this consecration
and this dedication and this devotion to God is magnified
to us when we see how greatly Christ suffered on the cross. Look here in verse 17, And thou
shalt cut the realm in pieces, and wash the inwards of him,
and his legs, and put them onto his pieces. You cut him, you
wash the inward parts of him and his legs and then you put
them all, you assemble them all back together on the altar with
his head being at the top. Now, how does that picture Christ? Well, Christ took the form of
a servant. When he took the form of a servant as a man representing
his people in order to be accepted of God as perfect In order to
be a sweet smelling savor to God, Christ had to be perfect
in obedience and in commitment to God entirely. In body, soul, and spirit. Through and through. Entirely. In every way. Now by cutting
this realm in pieces, by cutting this realm in pieces, You see
something of the excruciating torment that Christ endured inwardly
as well as outwardly when He suffered on the cross. He suffered
inwardly and outwardly. He suffered in spirit as well
as in body. And He suffered this when the
sword of His Father was awakened upon Him. I don't know what they used to
cut this ram into pieces, but I'll tell you what it pictured.
It pictured God the Father awakening His sword of justice upon Christ
Jesus, His Son, as our substitute. And our Lord's body, we know
His body was wracked with pain. We can read about it in Isaiah
53. At the end of Isaiah 52, it tells
us his visage was marred more than any other man. He was bruised, he was wounded,
he was beaten. Men treated him so wickedly,
so mean in the way and what he endured in his body on the cross. But brethren, that was nothing. Well, I won't say it was nothing.
that was less than the agony he suffered in his soul. The
soul agony that he suffered. He saw heaven closed to him. He cried out to his father and
received no answer. He saw heaven closed to him while
he saw hell open ready to swallow him up in an instant. No one in heaven, no one in earth
was was there to help him. No one. And he's treading the
fury of God's wrath. He's treading that winepress
of the fury of God's wrath all alone. And his father gives him no response. There's no angels coming to his
aid. There's no one to help him. He's alone. He's alone. He was the burnt offering cut
in pieces. Here's what He said. Go to Psalm
22. I want you to see this. Psalm 22. Listen to what He said. You see this burnt offering now?
It's been cut in pieces and it's laid upon the altar? Look here
in Psalm 22 and look at verse 14. He said, I'm poured out like
water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted
in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like
a potsherd. And my tongue cleaveth to my
jaws. And here's the worst of all of
it. Here's the worst of the whole thing. This was that soul agony
right here. And thou, my God, my Father,
thou has brought me into the dust of death. It wasn't only
the fact that he was brought into the dust of death. It was
who brought him there. His Father. but he never complained. It was just for him to do this
because he's bearing the sin of his people and God is holy
and he's fulfilling that perfect will of God to glorify God in
the salvation of his people. Now when we see in our text back
there how they washed those inward parts and then they washed the
legs of that ram, We see a picture here, a type here of the perfection
of Christ's obedience to God while He was suffering that.
He was unwavering in His faithfulness to God inwardly. He never wavered,
never wavered. He was unwavering in His consecration
to God while He's suffering that on the cross. while he's suffering incomparable
travail and crying out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? If you've ever been in a place
where you felt like you were forsaken of God, you've ever
been in a place where your heart melted within you like wax and
you had no strength whatsoever. I had a dear brother tell me
this week talking about how Christ knows
the suffering we endure and how He suffered it so much more than
we can imagine. When you're in a position like
that, when you're suffering like that, just try to remember. Try
to focus on this right here. Use it. Use it to think and try
to enter into how Christ must have suffered for us. Because
as bad as we might suffer, and as hurtful as it is, as painful
as it is, when you can't even lift up your head, Christ suffered more. And He did it perfectly. In perfect
consecration to God. Perfect consecration of God.
Now, lastly I want you to see what he accomplished by that.
Now back in our text in Exodus 29 and verse 18. Exodus 29 verse
18 it says, And thou shalt burn the whole realm upon the altar. Now, in the sin offering, it
came just before this, in the sin offering, the flesh of the
bullock and his skin and his dung, you can read it there in
verse 14, the flesh of the bullock and his skin and his dung shalt
thou burn with fire without the camp. It's a sin offering. You burn it without the camp.
The word burn right there means consume. And what that pictured was Christ
bearing our sin, suffering the death of the cross without the
gate whereby Christ consumed the sin and curse of His people. He consumed that sin and curse
of His people by dying the death His people owe to divine justice. But here now in verse 18, God
says, and thou shalt burn the whole realm upon the altar. Here it's a different word. Here,
burn, it doesn't mean to consume. It's a different word. This is
why you always need to look these words up. In your Strong's Concordance,
you look these words up. It's a different word right here
from that word in verse 17. I mean in verse 14. This word
right here in verse 18 means to burn as incense. To burn like
you would burn incense and the fragrance goes up, you know,
ascends up. Now why is that? Why the difference?
Why in the sin offering they had to take the outward dirty
parts and take it outside of the camp and burn it, because
it was a sin offering. It pictured Christ bearing the
sin of His people. But here, you have this offering,
the whole ram is burnt on the altar. They washed those inward
parts that were dirty to show us Christ perfect through and
through. And they burnt the whole thing
on the altar. And it's a different word for burn. It's a fragrance
going up. Here's the difference. Verse
18. It is a burnt offering unto the
Lord. It is a sweet savor. That means
restful, pleasing, delightsome savor. an offering made by fire
unto the Lord. Christ's perfect obedience to
God, His perfect love to God, His perfect love to His brethren,
which was manifest by Christ laying down His life on the cruel
cross, that perfect consecration came up to God a sweet savor
of rest. A sweet savor pleasing to God. A sweet savor in which God takes
infinite delight. Now, I want to end by applying
this the way that God the Holy Spirit applied this over in Ephesians
chapter 4. Go to Ephesians chapter 4. I
preached through Ephesians not long ago and I'm going to just
give you the gist of what Paul is saying here through the Holy
Spirit. You know, there comes times in our life as believers
when we lose our patience with our brethren. Maybe they offend
us, don't treat us like we think they ought to treat us. Maybe
we begin to think ourselves a little bit more holy than they think
they are or that they appear to be. And slowly we begin to
find fault. They're not being as obedient
to God as they ought to be. They're not as obedient as I've
been. And that's usually what we're saying. They're not as
obedient as I've been. And we find ourselves becoming
bitter. We find ourselves becoming unkind, unforgiving, not as loving,
And when that happens, if we're a child of God, this is what's
going to happen. By grace, by grace, because we don't deserve
it. But by grace, God's going to
come and He's going to make me ask myself some questions. He'll
come to you and make you ask yourself some questions. He called
it in one place, making you come to yourself. And he'll make you ask yourself,
is this unforgiving spirit, is this bitter spirit, is this me
being obedient to God as I ought to be? Here I am worried about
this brother and I've become bitter and unforgiving and angry. Am I being obedient to God as
I ought to be? Have I, in and of myself, ever,
ever been consecrated to God in perfection? Have I ever, in
every part, through and through, inwardly and outwardly, entirely,
have I ever been so devoted to God that He will accept me just
in and of myself? Outside of Christ, that's the
only obedience God will accept. It's got to be perfect to be
accepted. Have I ever been perfect myself? And then the Spirit of
God will grant His child repentance. He'll grant us repentance. A
radical change of mind. And I find myself becoming sorrowful
over the way I've treated my brother. And I began to say, let me remember
what God says about me and about all my brethren. God teaches
it. He says, now you remember what
I say about you and all your brethren. God says that by Christ
our sin offering, we're perfectly righteous before
the all-knowing judge. By Christ our sin offering, we're
perfectly righteous before the all-knowing judge in the court
of God where it matters. We're righteous. That's what
God says. in Christ. And by Christ our burnt offering,
our lives, now get this believer, our lives past, present, and
future have been so entirely consecrated to God, so perfectly
devoted to God, in love to God, in love to our brethren, that
we're a sweet smelling savor to God. In Christ, in our... God's people are a sweet smell.
We have had a perfect life of consecration to God all the way
in our past, right now, and all the way in our future. God says,
your life's been perfect. You've been perfectly devoted
to me. You've been perfectly consecrated to me. And when God brings you to that
place to see what Christ has done for us, in that He sacrificed
Himself, put away our sin, and He offered Himself, a burnt offering,
to make us perfectly accepted to God. When He brings you there,
then God says, now let me, or God says to you, and you say
to yourself, let me hear God speak. Now let me hear God speak. And God speaks these words right
here. When He brings you this plate,
you're not saying, now I hope my brother hears this. I hope
that sister hears this. No, when God brings you to this
plate, you say, let me hear this. I want to hear this for myself.
I don't want to hear it for you. I don't want to... I'm not even...
I need to hear this myself. And that's where God brings us.
He brings us to say, I need to hear this myself. And here's
what he says, Ephesians 4.31. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you
with all malice. You know what, we think of that
right there as just purity, meanness and sinfulness and what have
you. Usually all of that comes under
the appearance or under the cloak. of us claiming to be defending
righteousness, and defending the glory of God, and concerned
over God. And it ends up just being bitterness,
and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking. God said,
let it all be put away from you with all malice. And He says
here now, He said, put off that old man and put on this new man.
Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, Now watch this. Here's
the sin offering. Forgiving one another even as
God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. If I've been forgiven such an
infinite amount of sin and transgression by God my Father for Christ's
sake, how can I get sideways over something a lot less significant
than my brothers doing and not forgive them? And then he says
this, Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. Not
as these big malicious, angry, strong worldly men. But follow
God as a little child. And now here comes the burnt
offering. And walk in love as Christ also hath loved us. and given Himself for us a burnt offering and a sacrifice
for sin. And in both, because He's so
perfectly consecrated to God, He gave it to God for a sweet
smelling savor. Now what does that mean for me?
What does that mean for you, believer? Try to enter into this. We're not trying to offer anything
to God to gain God's acceptance. We're not trying to do that.
In Christ, by His perfection, by Him being the burnt offering,
we've already given to God a perfect life of perfect obedience and
perfect love and we are accepted in the beloved. accepted in the
beloved. If we could just remember that
about our brother and our sister, the next time we see something
that doesn't just set right with us. They've already given to
God a perfect life in Christ our burnt offering. So let me
walk in love. Let me walk in love. Let me love
my brethren and give myself for my brethren and just try to imitate
a little bit of what Christ did for me. I pray God will bless
that. Amen. We're going to go to the Lord
in prayer now.