Turn with me again tonight to
Exodus chapter 29, if you would. My original intentions were to
finish this chapter tonight, but for over a week now, I've
been thinking about the three sacrifices that we find in this
29th chapter. These three sacrifices that were
made in order for the priest to be made hallowed or made holy. and what each of them represented.
Before each of these sacrifices, Aaron, the high priest, and his
sons, the priests, they laid their hands on the sacrifice's
head. First, there was the sacrifice
concerning the sin offering. In verse 10, we read, and thou
shalt cause a bullock to be brought before the tabernacle of the
congregation, and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon
the head of the bullock. And thou shalt kill the bullet
before the Lord by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Secondly, in verse 15, we see
the burnt offering. 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 then thirdly,
we see the sacrifice and the offering of what we call the
ram of consecration, the second of the two rams in verse 19. And thou shalt take the other
ram, and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head
of the ram. Then shalt thou kill the ram,
and take of his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right
ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons,
and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe
of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round
about. And thou shalt take of the blood that is upon the altar,
and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon Aaron, and upon
his garments, and upon his sons, and upon the garments of his
sons with him, and he shall be hallowed, he shall be holy, consecrated,
and his garments, and his sons, and his sons' garments with him."
So we see in each of these three sacrifices that they give us
a different aspect of Christ atoning work in making his priest,
his people, holy unto God. It requires something outside
of ourselves in order to be made priest unto God. And this is
a picture of what Christ does for his people. He makes us priest
unto God. We're made unto him wisdom and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption. And it's only
in Christ. I thought we would just take some time tonight to
talk some more about the heart of the gospel. You know what
the heart of the gospel is, it's substitution, it's Christ and
Him crucified. That's why the Apostle Paul said,
I've determined not to know anything among you. This is the issue,
this is the urgency, is Christ and Him crucified. What you think
of Jesus Christ, who He is, what He's done. That's the issue,
that's the heart of the gospel. And I love talking about God
the Son substituting himself in the room and in the stead
of his people. Don't you? A child of God, that's
pretty much all he wants to hear, all she wants to hear. Tell me
again about how Christ died for my sin according to the scriptures.
And that's what we see in these Old Testament studies. There's
no other way for our sins to be forgiven. There's no other
way for us to be accepted. There's no other way for us to
find peace with God. It's through the atoning work
of the Lord Jesus Christ that we're forgiven, that we're accepted,
and that we have peace with God. Mr. Spurgeon once mentioned a
young lad that was in his congregation that prayed, Lord, grant our
preacher to say something I can understand, and Lord, make it
worth understanding. Well, I pray that for myself
tonight and pretty much every time I preach. I want you to
understand what I'm saying, and I want it to be something worth
understanding. After Aaron and his sons put
their hands on the sacrifice's head, we saw in each of those
cases, immediately, the sacrifice was slain and put to death. That's obvious in each of those
three accounts that we read. And it's not just important,
but it's absolutely crucial and it's essential for us to understand
those things. Two matters were absolutely necessary
for atonement. The priest's hand was laid upon
the head of the sacrifice, first and foremost, and then secondly,
the sacrifice was to be killed. And this gives us a very good
picture of our faith in the blood of the Lord Jesus as our offering. And it shows us exactly what
his blood accomplishes for the one who offers nothing but the
blood of Christ. It accomplishes their redemption.
We're bought with a price and that price is the precious blood
of God. The first thing we see concerning
the priest laying his hand on the head of the sacrifice is
that God has already revealed to the sinner who and what the
sacrifice must be. You see, God has to give us life
for us to see anything. And for us to see that Christ
is our offering, our substitute, our sacrifice, God has to give
us life. Before the priest ever laid his
hand upon the head of that sacrifice, much had already taken place.
The needy sinner had already selected the animal that God
required for the sacrifice. God said, take a bullock. God
said, take a ram, take another ram. God chose the sacrifice. The needy sinner selected the
animal that God required and it must be of a certain age and
it had to be without blemish. What a picture that is of our
Lord and Savior. The Lord would not accept a sacrifice
that was lame, that was broken or bruised in any way. It must
be without spot and without blemish. In other words, it has to be
perfect. It has to be perfect to be accepted. God is going
to reveal to the saved sinner that his or her sacrifice has
got to be perfect. Perfect. Now I encourage you
again this evening to search your heart and your minds and
tell me whether you find Christ to be such an atoning sacrifice.
Do you find him to be perfect? Do you find him to be without
spot and without blemish? Will you accept your need of
a substitute? Will you accept your need of
a sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice? The sacrifice must be one that
God will accept. Christ is who we need, and He's
the only one that God will accept. And if you feel that there's
any other atonement for sin other than Christ, then I encourage
you to look at it, examine it, whatever it may be, examine it,
and I'm persuaded that you'll find many faults and flaws in
it, especially if it's something that you do, but not with Christ. not with the Lamb of God, He's
perfect. He's God's ordained sacrificial
Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world for His
people. And if you look at His life,
if you look at His death, if you look at His actions, if you
look at His sufferings, see if there be any sin in Him. Oh,
you don't find any sin, you do no sin. Having no acquaintance
with sin, he was holy, he was harmless, he was undefiled in
any way. What did the laying of the hand
of the priest on the head of the sacrifice mean? Well, it
meant several things actually. First, it meant a confession
of sin. It doesn't matter which of the three offerings it was,
it was a confession of sin. It confessed the need of a sacrifice,
first and foremost. It was the confession of our
personal shortcomings. It proved a desire of personal
acceptance. Oh, I want God to accept me.
That's why the priest laid his hand on the head of sacrifice.
If we would desire, friends, to have Christ as our atonement,
we come confessing our sin. In faith, we touch the Lord Jesus
Christ, who our sin becomes. We stand before God, self-condemned. God has revealed to us who and
what we are. Self-condemned, we beg for mercy. We cry like David, oh God, according
to thy loving kindness and according to the multitude of thy tender
mercies, blot out my transgressions. Does any believing sinner refuse
to make confession of their sin and guilt? No, absolutely not. You won't have to convince a
professing child of God they're a sinner, they'll be the first
to tell you. Matter of fact, that's about the only thing a
believer will debate on, who's the chief of sinners. Each one
thinking that they themselves are. Does any believing sinner
refuse to make confession of their sin and guilt? Well, if
you refuse, the Lord will provide no savior for you. Christ came
to seek and to save that which was lost. The great physician
came to heal those that are sick. Those that are well have no need
of a physician. Are the righteous invited to
partake of pardon? No, pardon is for the guilty. Why should a perfect righteousness
be provided for one that is innocent? Those that are well have no need
of a physician, but those that are sick do. Are you sick? I
lay hold of Christ simply because God has convinced me of my need
of him. Oh, I need him. I need him every
hour, every single hour of every day. I need God's appointed sacrifice. Why? Because I dare not stand
before him and his holiness, the wretched sinner that I am.
No, sir. You won't stand in your sin and
live. I need God's substitute because
I'm a guilty man. God has shown me that I'm guilty.
God's shown me what I'm capable of. I'm unworthy, I'm undeserving,
but thank God that's what His grace and mercy is. Mercy is
God not giving me what I do deserve. And grace is God graciously giving
me what I do not deserve. I see my guilt before God's holy
law. I look in the law of God, I look
at the 10 commandments, and I realize that in and of myself, I can't
keep any of them. Oh, we take a good stab at them,
don't we? Sometimes we convince ourselves
that we've got a few of them down, but we can't keep any of
them perfectly. And if we offend the law in one
point, we're guilty of the whole law, and we're condemned. Oh,
I need a savior. I need a substitute, don't you?
The true child of God is glad to lay their hand on the head
of their substitute and their sacrifice. You wanna know why?
Secondly, because it's a confession of self-impotence. The believer
that lays their hand upon the head of the sacrifice is confessing
that they have no ability whatsoever to keep the law of God or to
make atonement for their past crimes or disobedience to God
in the future. We will not in and of ourselves
be accepted. We must be accepted in Christ
the beloved. I'll be one who is lost forever
if I'm not accepted in Christ, and so will you. I will be one
who is lost forever if Christ himself cannot save me because
I'm putting all my trust in him, all of it. In us is no righteousness. no merit, no strength, but in
Christ we find all we need to be accepted. Pride will exclude
you from pity. Self-righteousness will bar the
gate of hope against you. Would God have sent his beloved
son to shed his precious blood if we had no need of his cleansing
power? If we had no need of Christ's
cleansing power, why would God have sent his beloved son to
shed his blood? But by the grace of God, I've
been made to see that I have sin to confess. Sin that's got
to be removed if I'm ever to be reconciled to God. I have
a desperate need of a savior. I have a real, real bonafide
need for a substitute. I have a desperate need of a
sacrifice. And by me in faith, putting my
hand upon Christ's head, I'm admitting that I have great need. and that I need his help. I have
sin to confess, not just sins, but sin. Sin's what I am, and
it causes the sins that I commit. My sin needs to be forever put
away and all my sins will go with it. I'm impotent to help
myself like that man that lay at the pool of Bethesda for 38
years. He laid there. I've told you
this before. I can just picture his little
old legs that big around. And the Lord Jesus said, rise
up, take thy bed and walk. And he leaped up. He was impotent,
but not after Christ in power told him to stand. No, sir. With
the command comes the power, always. Oh, we're impotent in
and of ourselves. We can't keep the law of God.
We cannot satisfy God's justice. We cannot make atonement for
our sin. We cannot, through any personal
obedience of our own, be made acceptable to God. To lay the
hand upon the head of the sacrifice is a confession also of deserving
punishment. When the sinner brought the bullock,
the lamb, ram, or goat, when they put their hand upon the
head of it, they knew that that poor creature was going to die.
And this was a way to concede that they too deserved death.
That's what putting the hand upon the head of that sacrifice
also tells us, that we ourselves deserve the death, that it was
dying for us. You know, I'm kind of a softy,
you know, I love animals. My dad used to get so frustrated
with me because I couldn't even shoot a rabbit when we went rabbit
hunting. I just seen that little rabbit
with those big brown eyes and I couldn't shoot it. But can
you imagine the effect that this would have on you after you had
placed your hand on the head of that sacrifice? Its throat
was cut. and it began to suffer, and it
began to struggle, and it began to bleed and to die. And the
one who offered the sacrifice was confessing that this was
what he deserved. You know it had to have a profound
effect on the offer of the sacrifice. The offender owned that God was
justified to kill him. That's what this represents.
His profession was that the death from the hand of the Almighty,
the death from the hand of the God who created him, the Holy
God, was what he himself should have experienced. God is justified
when he speaks against me. That's what David said. He's
justified when he speaks against me. God is clear when he judges
and pronounces his sentence of justice, wrath and condemnation
against me. Why? For it was against the Lord
and the Lord only that I sinned and done this evil in his sight. That's what makes God clear and
justified when he condemns us. And secondly, as we've already
seen, the laying on of hands also meant acceptance. By the
priest of God laying his hand upon the victim's head, it signified
that he acknowledged the offering to be for himself. Remember,
this is a picture of how all God's people, priests, are made
holy and righteous before God. They accepted God's ordained
principle and purpose of being saved by substitution. If God
would be pleased to graciously save any of us in any way, short
of killing us himself, why would we raise any objection to that? It's a great grace that God has
enabled the child of God to take sides with God against themselves. And that's exactly what we do
when we trust in Christ. We're saying, God, you're right.
I am what you say I am. I see that. I see that. I feel that. I know that. We
accept the means and the purpose that God uses to save, but we
also accept, and more importantly accept, the person whom God provides
to save us. Salvation has never been about
our acceptance of Christ, but the elect of God will gladly
accept him. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is in a person, and that person is Jesus Christ. And friends,
it's not the purpose of God as seen in election and predestination
that we must accept to be saved. It's the person. It's Christ
himself that we must submit and bow to in order to be saved.
Election is unto salvation. If you don't ever see that your
election is God saving you for Christ's sake. Christ is the
elect of God and we're electing him. So if we miss Christ, then
we've missed the whole understanding and revelation of election and
predestination. It's kind of like, what's the
purpose of clothing if you don't have a rag to cover you? What
is the purpose of election if not for seeing and understanding
that Christ died for you? We are elected in Him, in Christ. He's God's elect, and we are
the elect of God in, by, and through Him. And it's understanding
that you can only be cured and made whole by partaking and identifying
with Him that we're saved. Thirdly, the laying on of the
hand upon the sacrifice's head not only meant that the offerer
had confessed his sin, but that the transference of sin had taken
place. To the sinner, it's divinely
revealed that God will pass over the sinner to the sacrifice. That's our only hope. That my
sacrifice will take full force of what my sin has earned and
what God's law requires to happen to me. That my substitute and
my sacrifice takes it all in my place. That's our only hope.
Only hope. The transfers of sin to my sacrifice. But in the believer's case, the
Lord Jesus actually did bear the sins of his people in his
own body on the tree. Christ actually did offer to
bear the sins of many. And as Christ stood as the great
sin bearer, and that's what he was, he redeemed God's elect
from the curse of the law. How? By being made a curse for
them. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. It was then that all the transgressions of his people
were laid on him when he poured out his soul unto dead. Let's
always remember, we touched on this briefly, but let's always
remember that his death was a voluntary one. No man took his life, he
laid it down. And he laid it down because of
his love for his people and his love for his father. Oh, he was
numbered with the transgressors, bearing the sin of all God's
elect people. All the elect throughout all
time, God put away all their sin. And it was then and there
that our Lord expiated all this sin. Put it away. Put away the
guilt of this people. We've discussed many times how
that general religion of mankind is due and that the true religion
of a believer is done. And that is so true, isn't it? The certainty of our redemption
is found in the Lord's last words on this earth, before he died
and rose again. And that is, it is finished.
It's done. It's finished. I hear some say,
I'm a great sinner, therefore I cannot be saved. Oh, I wish
we could hear what we're saying. You're saying that God's not
able to save such a great sinner as you are? Did Christ die for
those who are not sinners? What was the need of a savior
except that he came to seek and to save sinners? Paul said, even
me, the chief of sinners, none are too far gone for Christ to
show mercy to. Did Christ actually put away
sin or not? Is he able to take away your
sin? You better believe he is. And then fourthly, the laying
of the hand upon the head of the sacrifice means identification. The sinner's identifying with
the sacrifice and the sacrifice is identifying with the sinner. The offender was saying, Lord,
be pleased to identify me with this bullock, with this ram,
and be sure, Lord, please, I beg you, to identify it with me.
This pictured the transference of our sin to the sacrifice and
it's a way of saying let me be judged as being the victim. The
sacrifice died in me and I died in the sacrifice. The knife was
unsheathed and the victim was killed, slain. He wasn't merely
bound, but he was killed. The poor creature no doubt struggled,
no doubt the sacrifice whose throat was cut, died in agony. And I believe that any right-minded
worshiper would have stood with tears in their eyes and felt
in their heart that this death of the sacrifice was made for
me. When Christ, our substitute, rendered to the law of God the
penalty which it demanded, death. The wages of sin is death. The
soul that sins, it shall die. When the law of God demanded
that, Christ also rendered it for His people. He paid the debt. We died with Him. We died in
Him. the soul that's in it that shall
die. And thank God that the elect of God have died in the Lord
Jesus Christ who paid the debt of sin in the person of his son."
The Lord Jesus paid that debt. I don't owe it anymore. God can't
demand the price from me when he's already received it from
him. And that's substitution. And that's what this laying of
the hand on the sacrifice's head shows us. It's by the laying
on of your hands that you are accepted in Christ as your substitute. I'm crucified with Christ, Paul
said. Now, were the nails driven in
my hand and in my feet? No, but nonetheless was I crucified
with him. And Paul said, and nevertheless,
I live. And the life that I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. Now, if you don't leave with
anything else here tonight, but the fact that God himself, God
the Son, loved you and gave himself for you, then you have enough
knowledge in that alone to enter into the gates of heaven, substitution
in Christ. He did for me what I could not
do for myself. I'm dead and my life is hid with
Christ in God. And as we saw in past studies,
the sin offering was burnt without the camp as an unclean thing,
like the lepers of old, our sin has caused us to be put outside
of the camp as unclean. But the burn offering was consumed
upon the altar and it was all burned up as a sweet savor unto
God. The people of God are identified
with Christ and accepted in Him, who is God's beloved. It's all
about our substitute and our sacrifice. You know, I was thinking,
suppose an Israelite comes to the tabernacle to talk about
the sacrifice. It's not gonna profit him a thing
to just talk about the sacrifice. There are many today who are
content to just talk and discuss and even debate and argue about
the doctrines of Christ, but it's taking hold of Christ's
person. It's the laying hold of Him as
your substitute and sacrifice. And it's through His sacrificial
death that you have life, child of God. Many today seem pleased
to hear the gospel. They seem to take great interest
in the pleasure of the doctrines of election and substitution. But they're not saved because
they have not yet taken hold of Christ by faith and trust
and believe in Him. We must lay hold of him, the
one that is set before you in the gospel. May God be pleased
to enable us by faith to lay hold of the Lord Jesus or our
fear will punish in the midst of plenty. Suppose another Israelite
came to simply consult with one of the priests. He's got his
sacrifice and he's, He said, can I talk to you a minute? And
the priest says, sure. And God had already shown Israel
his ordained means of salvation. It was through a substitute.
It was through a sacrifice. It was through an acceptable
sacrifice. But this Jewish man, he wants
to consult this matter more fully. I suppose that's what preaching
does. It's telling sinners that God
only accepts a perfect sacrifice. But the conclusion in preaching
is always the same. It always ends up the same. That
being, bring before the Lord a sacrifice and over its head,
confess your sin. and atonement will be made. God
will always accept, always accept the perfect sacrifice that He's
provided. But if you continue to talk and
you continue to debate and you continue to reason without doing
what God has commanded, you'll perish in your sin. For God has
not appointed salvation by taking counsel with ministers. God has
ordained salvation by the laying on of your hand upon the sacrifice
that's been appointed and provided. Believe on Christ. May God enable
us to stretch forth our withered hand. God helping us and lay
hold of Christ through faith, believe me. Well, that's my prayer. It's the merit of his precious
blood that saves sinners. And then lastly, I see another
Israelite as he stands by his offering, waiting for it to be
sacrificed. He begins to weep. He begins
to groan. This man certainly seems to be
sincere in confessing his sin. He certainly seems to be sincere
in the guilt that God has convinced him of, but he does not lay his
hand upon the offering. He cries and he sighs for being
a great sinner, but he does not identify with the offering, nor
does he touch the sacrifice. The victim is presented, but
in order for it to profit him, he must claim that he has no
hope apart from God's acceptance of his sacrifice. The sacrifice
is slain, but he doesn't seem to have any part in it because
he's not laid his hand upon it by faith. He goes away with all
the burden of his guilt still upon him. The blood was shed,
it reddened the sand where he stood, but it was not applied
to him personally. That's what is pictured in the
blood being applied to Aaron and his son's ear, hands, and
feet. It's got to be applied to me
for it to be effectual. The sacrifice of bulls and goats
in the Old Testament could never ever put away sin. They had to be offered again
and again, year after year. These sacrifices could never
make the comers there unto perfect, and that's what they've got to
be. They were just a shadow of the good things to come. Christ
has come, friends. He's that good thing that was
to come. He's lived, he's died, he's finished the work of salvation.
He's gone up to glory. He sits at the right hand of
God and he lives to ever make intercession for his people.
The question is this, will you trust him? Will you lay your
hand on him by faith? Knowing that if you have him,
you have life. And if you don't have him, you
don't have life. That's what John said so plainly
and simply, either that the son has life. A two year old can
understand that. And if you don't have him, you
don't have life. I certainly understand that. And seeing the
perfection of Christ, we see our sin and we confess it. And
seeing him as our sacrifice, we see that we can only be accepted
in him. When you trust in Christ alone,
you won't get puffed up with pride. You won't glory in yourself. But in Christ alone, you won't
seek rewards in heaven. Christ will be your only reward.
He's the sacrifice that removes our sin. He's the sweet savor
that calls God to accept wretches like you and I. He's a sacrifice
that sets me apart and concentrates me to God and makes me pleasing
in His sight. He's the one that does that.
He's my personal acceptance with God. He's my only acceptance
with God. And I'm accepted in Him, the
beloved. If God accepts me, then I'm saved.
He that believeth on Him, the Lord Jesus hath Hath, everlasting
life. I was reading an article today
and someone asked a young man how to spell that word hath,
H-A-T-H, and he said, I spell it G-O-T space I-T, got it. Hath means I got it, I got it. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, then you got it. You have eternal life because
you got him. I got him. Why? Because God gave him to me. That's
the only reason. And he enabled, God enabled me
to trust in him. That's the only reason I did
it. So let's don't be ignorant of God's righteousness and go
about to establish our own, no. Let's submit ourselves unto the
righteousness of God that's found only in the Lord Jesus Christ,
our sacrifice and our substitute. May God be pleased to make it
so.