All right, in the final chapters
of the Book of Exodus, you can read about the building and the
dedication of the tabernacle. It goes into great detail, too.
and all those details, it's all, every bit of that, the tabernacle,
the building of it, the materials, the dimensions of it, and the
dedication of it when the Lord descended in his glory, all of
that is a picture and type of the glorious person and finished
work of Christ along with the salvation that God freely and
fully gives to his chosen people. spiritual Israel, all based upon
the blood of Christ, which is his righteousness imputed. So
you understand it when we talk about the blood of Christ. They're
the same thing. Now we come to the book of Leviticus.
Leviticus gets its name from the tribe of Levi. Jacob's son,
Levi. And that tribe, that's the tribe
that Moses came from. That's the tribe that Aaron came
from. That was the appointed priestly
tribe. And from that, you had the descendants
of Aaron. They were to be the high priest,
and then the rest of the priests of Levi were the attending priest. In the high priest, you have
a picture of Christ, our great high priest. our intercessor,
who is seated at the right hand of the Father ever living to
make intercession for us based upon the blood that he shed as
our substitute. I can't remember which old preacher
said this, but you know the word propitiation, which is so, is
brought out in technica, even though the word itself is not
used, the concept and truth of propitiation is coming out here
in this tabernacle service, in the priesthood, the high priest.
And he said that in order to have a propitiation, which is
a justice-satisfying sacrifice, that's what a propitiation is,
is that you've heard the terms propitiation and expiation. Propitiation is the turning away
of God's wrath, and expiation is God giving us more than we
deserve. In other words, some look at
it this way, that God's wrath turned away by the blood of Christ,
his righteousness imputed to us, It's all included in that. Christ our surety, our substitute,
our redeemer, as I say so much. In order to have a complete propitiation,
you needed a God-appointed, qualified high priest. That's the first
thing. And so anybody who was not appointed
of God, which it had to be Aaron and his descendants, that's what
God appointed, And anybody who wasn't qualified in whatever
way, and the qualifications, if you'll read back in the book
of Exodus, the qualifications really came from the garments
that he wore. And those garments that the high
priest wore were even a picture of Christ. And you remember on
his breastplate he had the 12 names of the tribes of Israel,
and on his amulets on his shoulder had the same, you know, that's
a picture of Christ representing his chosen people, his sheep,
spiritual Israel. That's who the high priest went
into the holiest of all on the Day of Atonement to represent.
So he had to be appointed of God and qualified. There had
to be an altar The altar represents justice of God pouring down upon
the sacrifice. That was the brazen altar. And
then you had to have a proper sacrifice. Now in the book of
Leviticus, we see all the laws of the sacrifices and the offerings
that were offered unto the Lord. And also we see laws of the priesthood,
laws of dedication, laws of purification. We see teachings about the Day
of Atonement. That was the most important day
on the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement, that one day a
year when all the high priests went into the holiest of all,
representing the people and sprinkling the blood over the mercy seat.
We also, in Leviticus, see laws governing relationships, marriage,
and all of that. penalties for particular sins,
and we see the law of the feast days, the Jewish feast days come
from Leviticus. And the reason, over in the book
of Leviticus chapter 20, the reason that God was so specific
and so strict in these areas is stated in Leviticus 20 and
verse 26. And he says there in Leviticus,
If I can find it, I think it's 20 in verse 26. He says, yeah,
he says, and you shall be holy unto me for I the Lord am holy
and have severed you from other people that you should be mine.
In other words, these things were given to these people to
separate them from others, other nations. This was special. These were God's chosen people.
And they were to be separate. And you know, one of the complaints
of most of the prophets against the people was whenever
they operated as a nation, they didn't sanctify the Lord God
before the nations. In other words, they didn't keep
to the law. And they profaned God's name. And so that's what's happening
in their history. Now, as I said, once a year,
the high priest entered the Holy of Holies with the blood of sacrifice. And remember, he sprinkled that
blood over the mercy seat. You can read about that in Leviticus
16. That chapter speaks of that day
of atonement. And that was a ceremonial atonement
covering. It was for the sins of the nation
for one year, and it had to be repeated every year. And of course,
that was a testimony that Christ had not yet come and that the
blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin. But now,
here in the first part of Leviticus, there are five offerings that
God required of them. Now, I say God required these
offerings, but actually three of them were voluntary, but they
were still required. I mean, they weren't mandatory
for every occasion. but the people were to engage
themselves in these offerings, but they're voluntary offerings.
And sometimes people call them free will offerings. And if you
read anybody talking about that and calling them free will, it's
not talking about the doctrine of free willism that is so rampant
today. That's not what that means at
all. It's talking about a people whom God delivered out of Egypt
and brought together under the law and said that these were
offerings that you were to offer unto the Lord. And of course,
that's a picture of how God has given us a new heart, a new spirit. He's made his people willing
in the day of his power in that sense. Four of these offerings
were blood offerings for atonement, teaching this, that no sinner
could ever be accepted with God except on the basis of God's
justice satisfied. And that through the death of
a substitute. Now four of these offerings typified that. And
the offering of animals, and it was usually like a lamb or
a bullock or a goat, something like that, they could only offer
unblemished animals that God prescribed. You can read about
that in Leviticus chapter 22. In other words, they couldn't
bring lame animals, spotted animals, it had to be without blemish.
And of course, you know what that pictures? It pictures not
only the sinlessness of Christ, but the impeccability of Christ.
You know what impeccability means? You know, people argue today,
could Christ have committed sin? And the answer is no, he is the
impeccable Christ. And I'll tell you exactly why
he could not have committed sin, because he is God manifest in
the flesh. And I hear people say, well,
he could have sinned, but he just didn't. Well, he did not
sin, but he could not have sinned. He's God. For him to sin, he
would have to deny his deity. But he is man, but he's sinless
man, united with deity. God manifest in the flesh. And
how many times in the scripture you read about Christ suffering
on the cross for sin that became his, but only in one way, and
that is by the legal accounting of sins to his person, imputation. That's the only way. And all
these sacrifices of unblemished animals prove that. That's what
they picture. There was no sin infused into
the bullock or the goat or the lamb. There was no sin imparted
into them. They didn't become sinners or
there was no corruption of man put into them. They were spotless,
unblemished sacrifices. And then there's the one offering
that is not a blood offering is called a
meal offering. Now sometimes when you read that
in the King James, it'll say meat, M-E-A-T, but what it means
is a meal offering. Sometimes when the Bible talks
about people setting down to meat, it means a meal, whatever
the meal consists of. There may not be any meat in
it, animal flesh in it. But the meat offering is a meal
offering, but you know what he says in Leviticus chapter two
and verse 11? Look at, since we're there, chapter
one, look at verse 11. It says in verse 11 of chapter
two, and no meat offering or meal offering, that's grain,
like flour, which you shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with
leaven. It had to be unleavened. Now
why is that? Well, leaven, usually, in the
Bible, is a picture of sin. A little leaven, leaveneth the
whole lump. What was Christ talking about?
He was talking about the false doctrine of the scribes and the
Pharisees. And you remember in the Passover, we read about that.
He said, you shall eat no leaven, so many days before the Passover.
So you had the sacrifice of unblemished animals, And then you had the
offering, a meal offering, without leaven. And that Christ was made
sin, there's no doubt about that, but not by any leaven, not by
any blemish. It was all by imputation of our
sins to him. So these, the sacrifice of animals,
shows that God, whatever relationship a sinner has with God, it must
be based upon a just ground. And they picture Christ. Meal
offerings pictured the sacrifices of praise and worship and service,
what we're doing right now. We pray to God, we're worshiping
God, we're singing his praises, and that's an offering to God,
not in order to be saved, You're not coming here in order for
God to keep a tally of your church attendance so that he can reward
you later on. I hope you're not. We're coming here not because
our coming to church makes us righteous. Christ is our righteousness.
But we're coming here to worship God and give him glory and say
thank you, Lord. That's what the meal offering
represents. And it's on the basis of a blood offering. Because
apart from Christ, no sacrifice of praise or prayer is acceptable
to God. We're accepted with God in the
beloved. Over in Leviticus 1, he starts
off with the burnt offering. Let's just read these first four
verses. I'm not gonna read all these
chapters. but I'll just show you where they are. We'll read
these first four verses. Leviticus 1.1. The Lord called
unto Moses and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the
congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say
unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord,
you shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd
and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice
of the herd, Led him off for a male without blemish. See how
that's stressed in the Old Testament? You know, they couldn't go to
their herds and say, now let's pick out the weakest one, the
sickest one, the worst one, the maimed one, and let's offer that
and we'll keep the best for ourselves. No, God wouldn't accept that,
see? He says, he shall offer it of
his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the
congregation before the Lord. Verse four says, he shall put
his hand upon the head of the burnt offering. And he says,
and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.
This burnt offering, one writer said, It pictured the highest
aspect of the work of Christ for God's chosen people, where
he's seen offering himself up entirely to God to do his will,
even unto death, to do what? To establish the only righteousness
upon which God can be just to justify a sinner. And again,
I mean, I keep saying this, but you know, this doctrine's under
attack. You know, the doctrine of imputation is under attack
today. Actually, it's always been under
attack for the most part. But I'm seeing it under attack
even in what we call sovereign grace circles. And I don't understand that other
than I know that if God doesn't give you eyes to see and ears
to hear, you're not gonna see it and hear it. But what does
that doctrine of imputation teach? Well, it teaches that Christ
was made sin and justly punished for the sins of his people only
in a way that is legal and a way that God could look upon him
and account, charge sin to him as our surety. That's what a
surety does. He takes responsibility for a
debt that he didn't run up, but the debt of another. And that's
what Christ was made for us before the foundation of the world.
And it teaches that we're made righteous before God, not by
what we do, and not by anything that is done in us, but totally
by what Christ has done for us. That's what the burnt offering
signifies. That's what all these offerings, as far as the blood
offerings, signify. So the whole offering was burnt
upon the altar, and all went up to God as a sweet savor. Remember how in the book of Ephesians,
Paul talks about that sweet savor unto God. And you know what that
means? That's metaphorical language
that says God is pleased. God accepts this sacrifice. You remember when Cain brought
an offering to the Lord? And God didn't accept it. It
wasn't a sweet savor unto God. A sweet savor is that which metaphorically
smells good in his nostrils. Now, you know, God doesn't have
physical nostrils, but it glorifies God. It honors God. It represents God aright. It
tells the truth about who God is. It tells the truth about
who we are. We're sinners, and we're in need
of salvation by grace and mercy, and that's the only way a sinner's
gonna be saved. And it's gotta be based on a
just ground. It can't be just God's whimsical
choice. It's not just God say, well,
I'm gonna close my eyes and pick names out of a hat. No, there's
gotta be a just ground upon which he will do this. And that's what
propitiation is about. And for Israel under the law,
this was to be a continual testimony throughout their generations
of the fact that we cannot be saved by our works of the law,
that we're sinners who deserve nothing but condemnation and
eternal death, that we can do nothing to make ourselves righteous
or to save ourselves from sin. We need God's grace. We need
his mercy. God, be merciful, be propitious
to me, the sinner. pictured the promised Messiah,
the coming of Christ. Well, the next one, in Leviticus
2, he talks about the meal offering. The meal offering. And oblation,
you'll see the word oblation. Look at verse 4. Leviticus chapter 2. Verse 3 says, in the remnant
of the meal offering, okay? That was a remnant that was left
over was to be given to Aaron and his son. Well, let's go back
and read verse one of chapter two. And when any will offer
a meat or meal offering, offering unto the Lord, his offering shall
be a fine flower, and he shall pour upon it and put frankincense
thereon. Frankincense is an emblem of
righteousness. See? And he'll bring it to the
priest. But look down at verse four.
He says, and if thou bring an oblation of a meat or a meal
offering, Bacon in the oven it shall be unleavened cakes of
fine flour mingled with oil or unleavened wafers Anointed with
oil the oil being the oil of gladness the oil of healing a
lot of times oil in the scripture is indicative of the Holy Spirit
and His work is there any oil in your lamp you remember the
parable of the ten virgins and In other words, five of those
virgins were foolish, and they only had a profession of faith,
but no real heart faith. They didn't have that anointing
that John spoke of in 1 John 2, the Holy Spirit who has convicted
them of the truth. It's part of them now. They've
been born again, they've been given a new heart, a new mind,
a new spirit. And what I always say this about,
if the Holy Spirit dwells within a person, and they've been born
again and they've been convicted of these things, the truth, convicted
of their sin, convicted of righteousness, convicted of judgment in Christ,
and they see that there's no hope for them outside of Christ,
If the Holy Spirit's done that work in you, there's three things
I can say about you. You cannot deny it, you cannot
ignore it, and you cannot leave it. That's the case. And so that's that anointing
oil. Well, these offerings, these meal offerings, were not for
atonement. How do you know that? Well, the
Bible tells us without the shedding of blood, there's no remission
of sins. There's no bloodshed here. The blood offerings pictured
the ground of salvation, the ground of justification of a
sinner before God based upon the righteousness of Christ imputed,
his accomplished death. The meal offerings pictured Christ
the bread of life. If God has justified us and out
of that given us new life, regenerated, converted, born again, What do
we do? We feed upon Christ the rest
of our lives, the bread of life. That's the fruit of salvation,
and that spiritual life given to spiritually dead sinners in
the new birth by Christ. Christ's righteousness imputed
is the ground of a sinner's justification before God, but it's also the
source and power of spiritual life given in each one, in each
generation. So these meal offerings typified
the praise, the worship, the service of God's people, sinners
already saved by grace, forgiven of all their sins, made righteous
already in and through Christ by God's grace, all which evidence
spiritual life within, God's people continually feeding upon
Christ and his work, giving him all the praise, giving him all
the glory, worshiping him, serving him acceptably because accepted
in Christ. That's what they meant. And as
I said, the frankincense that he mentioned, when you read that
chapter, you'll hear him mention frankincense. You know, that
was one of the gifts that the wise men brought to Christ. That's
an emblem of righteousness. And the oil or a drink offering,
a libation that was poured on top of that grain is a symbol
of joy. the Holy Spirit. Well now over
in Leviticus 3 we have the peace offering and each one of these
offerings emphasize one specific aspect of the blessings that
we who are saved by grace have in Christ. You know Ephesians
1 3 says that we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. And these various offerings,
you might say, well, why didn't God just have one offering and
let it go? Well, these emphasize specific issues of blessing,
and the peace offering emphasizes just that, reconciliation. God
reconciled to his people, and his people reconciled to him.
We're at peace with God. That's amazing. Because by nature,
what are we? We're enemies of God. Now God
has been reconciled to his people through Christ all along. But
as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5, now we beseech you, be ye
reconciled to God. We were enemies in our minds.
Even when we were enemies, Christ died for the ungodly. And this
offering picture reconciliation accomplished and it leads to
sweet communion and fellowship between God and sinners in Christ.
And again, it required an unblemished animal. All of these offerings
did. It had to be one that was unblemished. And this was a sacrifice of thanksgiving
and fellowship followed by a shared meal. There was a meal that followed
it. Now, why is that important? Well, any time that you sat down
and had a meal with anybody in this culture, it represented
that you were friends, you were family. That's what it meant. Do you remember that the Jews
were forbidden under the law to sit down and eat with Gentiles?
And Christ, when he came into the world to show them the impending
abolishment of the law, he ate with Gentiles. He ate with publicans
and harlots, didn't he? Well, actually, they were Jews,
weren't they? Publicans and harlots. But that's what it meant, that's
what this reconciliation meant. And this was a sacrifice of thanksgiving. The high priest was, the different
parts of the animal were given out, some to the high priest,
some to the other priest. And these pieces of the offering,
they were called the wave offering. You'll see this in Leviticus.
A wave offering was one that was waved, or a heave offering,
because it was lifted up, and they were waved and lifted over
the altar, like that, offering them to God. But that's what
this symbolized. Peace with God, peace established. What does the Bible tell us about
how peace is established between God and sinners? By the blood
of the cross. We have peace with God. Now over
in Leviticus four and it carries over into Leviticus five is the
sin offering. Now these last two offerings
were offerings that were required for specific reasons. The sin
offering, this offering could be called a purification offering. And it dealt with two issues.
Number one, the necessity of forgiveness from unintentional
sins. Unintentional sins. Now there's
some other laws that revolve around things like unintentional
murder. You know about the cities of
refuge and all of that. We'll probably get into that
some. But there were unintentional sins. Now, we won't get into
the Pharisaical modern heresy of, well, if you commit a sin
and you don't really mean it, that means it's not bad. No. All sin is sin. All sin deserves
death. The sin offering, if it was an
unintentional sin, and we can commit unintentional sins now.
I mean sins that we don't think out in our minds and plan out.
but it's still sin. And if God, if that sin is not
atoned for, what does it bring? It brings damnation. That's all
we deserve. And so God is emphasizing that
here. Look at Leviticus four, verse two. He said, speak unto
the children of Israel saying, if a soul shall sin through ignorance,
against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things
which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them.
If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of
the people, then let him bring for his sin which he hath sinned,
a young bullock, and again, without blemish, unto the Lord for a
sin offering. That's what this offering was
for. And so it was the necessity of
forgiveness from intentional sin, and the cleansing from ceremonial
uncleanness in the temple, in the tabernacle. And one purpose
of the sin offering was to cleanse the tabernacle from human defilement
and making the continuing fellowship and presence of God among them. And the special feature of this
offering is the whole bullock was burnt upon the altar. And this offering pictures Christ
who was made sin for us, again, based upon sin imputed to him.
and how he endured judgment and wrath, and the wrath of God against
our sin in our stead as our surety, our substitute, and our redeemer. And then lastly, and this begins
in Leviticus 5 and verse 14, is the trespass offering. And
the trespass, this offering was exclusively a ram sacrifice,
again as an atonement for unintentional sins. But this offering required
something else. If that unintentional sin caused
the person sinned against to lose something, lose house, family,
money, whatever, the person had to be reimbursed. And that's
what the trespass offering was. So it was a ram's sacrifice for
the atonement of unintentional sins, but it required reimbursement
to an offended party and also a cleansing from the defiling
sins of physical maladies and things like that. There had to
be restitution made, that's what he's saying. And it's seen in
what is called through here, if you read from Leviticus 5.14
over into chapter six, he mentions the fifth part, which is 20%
of the value of an item that was to be added. In other words,
if I unintentionally caused you, sinned against you and caused
you to lose money, I had to bring the ram for the offering, but
I also had to make restitution, and then I had to add 20% to
it. That's what this law said. So
it was a little different from just the regular sin offering.
Reimbursement had to be made and 20% had to be added. I don't
know how they did all that in every instance. You have to read
on through, I guess. But atonement was made by the
blood of the offering and the trespasser was forgiven. And
this offering presents Christ who not only died for our sins
and our trespasses on the cross, restoring that which he took
not away, as Psalm 69 says, But he's not only answered to God
for our sins and paid our debt by his shed blood, but he's added
the fifth part. He's given us more than we lost.
You see what I'm saying? Think about what we lost in Adam.
We fell in Adam, brought into a state of sin and death, and
by his blood we're forgiven. But not only are we forgiven,
We're blessed above measure. Not only are my sins wiped away
off the law books of God, I have a righteousness that answers
the demands of God's law and justice. I have a treasure. I
have an inheritance incorruptible. I've gained more than I lost
in Adam because of what Christ has done for me. And we can't even, I'll tell
you, we've gained so much more, we can't even describe it, can
we? But that's what that offering
typifies, okay.