Post by Lee on Mar 5, 2014 2:19:28 GMT
LEVITICUS 9., 10.—In the first of these chapters, we have Christ in type at every step. We have first an account of the offerings appointed for the high priests’ own sins, and then a description of “the peoples’ offering,” just as it is said in the epistle to the Hebrews (7:27), where we are told that Christ “needed not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people: for this,” says the apostle, “he did once, when he offered up himself.” Then, looking again at the flesh and hide of the calf, which Aaron offered as a sin offering for himself, we observe that it was “burnt with fire without the camp.” The apostle gives us the Messianic parallel to this Mosaic type in saying that “Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Heb. 13:11, 12). Then, looking again at the “altar,” we call to mind the words that “we have an altar whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle” (Heb. 13:10). Then, again, the various offerings described just exhibit so many aspects of the one great sacrifice for sin, who answers equally to the sin offering, the burnt offering, the peace offering, and the wave offering, and the meat offering of this chapter. Then Peter identifies for us the “lamb without blemish” in speaking of Christ as “a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:19). Then anent the blood which was sprinkled round about the altar, we have “the blood of sprinkling which speaketh better things than Abel’s” (Heb. 12:24). And so with the atonement (or covering for sin), the oil, the fire, the fat, and the subsequently manifested glory of Yahweh, all of which find their respective counterparts in Christ and the New Testament institution, now and to come. The case of the “strange fire” in the latter chapter is a forcible illustration of the principle that God will only be served in the way He has himself prescribed. It was a law in Israel that the fire required for incense should be taken from off the altar (lev. 16:12); and, similarly, that no “strange incense” should be offered (Ex. 30:9). Nadab and Abihu disregarded these instructions in one or both particulars, offering, presumptuously, what Yahweh had commanded them not. For this they were devoured by the very element in which they had offended.
1889 Christadelphian p 256
1889 Christadelphian p 256