And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying,
Here God speaks again, and a new section opens. What follows is not about what the worshipper brings, but about what the priests must do with it — the law of the sin offering, spoken to Aaron and his sons.
Leviticus covers the same offerings twice, and the listeners change. The first chapters address Israel as a whole. From chapter 6 on, God addresses the priests.
The first chapter of this priest's guide book gives details of what was due to the LORD, but chapter 6 gives you the law of the burnt offering. In the first chapter, the words were for the common people, for every worshipper in the assembly. But the law of the offering in chapter 6 was for Aaron and his sons, the priests. The priests were let into closer secrets, if I may put it that way, about the nature of this worship.
That is what the word "law" signals here. It is not a repeat of the earlier instructions but an addition to them.
From verse 8 of chapter 6 to the end of Leviticus 7 we have the law of the various offerings. In each case the "law" gives further details. It tells how to present the offering to the Lord, and above all how the priests were to handle the parts not burned before Him.
God set one place for the killing of both the sin offering and the burnt offering.
The sin offering must be slaughtered before the LORD in the place where the burnt offering was slaughtered. And indeed Christ alone was the full answer to both in His death on the cross... He was the Holy One of God. Yet holiness was never so tested and shown as when God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. He was always completely set apart to God from every evil, doing nothing but the things that pleased His Father. On the cross He gave Himself up without reserve to God and His glory, to suffer the judgment of sin, whatever it cost; and it cost Him everything.
God repeats one description over the offering that bears sin: "it is most holy."
No offering shows Christ's personal holiness more strikingly than the sin offering... In the burnt offering, the Holy Spirit did not need to guard the personal holiness of Christ so jealously. But the soul might lose sight of that holiness while considering the place the Blessed One took in the sin offering. So we are reminded of it again and again by the words, "it is most holy."... Never was the Lord Jesus more fully seen to be "the Holy One of God" than when He was "made sin" on the cursed tree. The vileness and blackness of what He stood identified with on the cross only showed more clearly that He was "most holy." Though He bore sin, He was sinless.
This law also tells the priest who offers the sin offering to eat it.
The priest who offered it for sin had to eat it, and he is a picture of Christ. This means His identification with sinners, when in our place He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. But the priests could also eat of it. No fellow priest could share the work of atonement, the sin-bearing, with Him. He alone could do this great work. Still, we eat of the sin offering if we identify ourselves in humbling and confession with the sins and failures of God's people. The holiness of the sin offering is especially stressed. It is called "most holy." The earthen vessel it was boiled in had to be broken, and the bronze pot had to be scoured and rinsed. This pictures the unique, most precious and holy character of the great work the sin-bearer accomplished on the cross.
The eating was not left to that one priest.
"Every male among the priests shall eat of it." This was not limited to the offering priest. All the priestly males were to eat of it. Those who have access to God are called to identify themselves with a brother's sin; as Christ does above all, so they too are to follow, strong in the grace that is in Him, confessing another's sin as their own. For if He loves them, did He not both wash them from their sins in His blood and make them a kingdom, priests to His God and Father?
- Spoken — God speaks again, now to the priests. The law of the sin offering tells them how to handle it.
- Slaughtered — the sin offering dies where the burnt offering dies. One death answered to both.
- Holy — God calls the sin offering "most holy." The One who bore sin was sinless.
- Eaten — the priest eats what he offers, picturing Christ bearing our sins as His own. That work He shares with no one.
- Shared — all the priestly sons eat, and those with access to God are called to own a brother's sin as their own.
Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin-offering. At the place where the burnt-offering is slaughtered shall the sin-offering be slaughtered before Jehovah it is most holy.
Here Leviticus turns from the people to the priests. "The law of the sin offering" holds two striking details. The sin offering dies where the burnt offering dies. And God calls that same offering most holy.
Chapters 1 to 5 tell any Israelite what to bring. From chapter 6 the listeners change.
In the first chapter, the words spoken were for the common people, for every worshipper in the gathering. But the law of the offering in chapter 6 was for Aaron and his sons, the priests. The priests were let into closer secrets, if I may put it that way, about the nature of this worship.
These "laws" fill in what the earlier chapters left out.
From verse 8 of chapter 6 to the end of Leviticus 7 we have the law of the various offerings. In each case the "law" gives further details about presenting the offering to the Lord. It shows especially how the priests were to handle the parts that were not burned before Him.
The sin offering and the burnt offering look like opposites. God ties them together by giving them one killing-place.
Both types point to one and the same great fulfilment. Yet each shows a very different side of His work. In the burnt offering, we see Christ meeting the divine affections. In the sin offering, we see Him meeting the depths of human need. That presents Him to us as the One who accomplishes the will of God; this, as the One who bears the sin of man. In the first we are taught how precious the sacrifice is; in the second, how hateful sin is. … The word "voluntary" does not occur in the sin offering. This type brings Christ before our thoughts not as the One who voluntarily accomplishes the will of God, but as the One who bears that terrible thing called "sin" and endures all its dreadful consequences. The worst of these, to Him, was the hiding of God's face.
Once the sin is on the animal, death must follow. The question is where that death took place.
The moment the sin is on the sacrifice, he is to "slay the sin offering," because "the soul who sins shall die." Death must come in. Where was the sin offering slain? In the place of the burnt offering. You cannot separate the two. In the very place where the blessed Lord took all our sins on Him, there also the sweet aroma of His sacrifice rose up before God in all its perfection.
The phrase is not decoration. It belongs to the offering that deals with sin.
In none of the offerings is Christ's personal holiness more strikingly presented than in the sin offering… The Holy Spirit did not need to guard the personal holiness of Christ so closely in the burnt offering. But we are reminded again and again by the words, "it is most holy," so that the soul should never lose sight of that holiness while thinking about the place the Blessed One took in the sin offering. It is truly strengthening and refreshing to see the divine and essential holiness of the Person of Christ shining out while Calvary's deep and awful darkness was all around. … Though a sin-bearer, He was sinless.
Holiness means being set apart wholly for God. Sin-bearing looks like the opposite of that.
There was nothing in the whole work of Jesus that so marked His entire and perfect separation to God, His positive holiness, as His bearing sin. He who knew no sin alone could be made sin. The act itself was the most complete separation to God that can be imagined. No thought of ours can fathom it — to bear it all, and for His glory. It was a total giving of Himself, at any cost, to God's glory; as indeed God could accept nothing else.
Why join the two offerings at one place? The answer reaches the worshipper.
The burnt offering speaks of acceptance, the sin offering speaks judicially of the ending of sin in the sight of God for His own glory. God would have us see His thoughts on dealing with sin. He deals with it through His well beloved Son not only to relieve us, but to restore us once again into the wonderful sense of the burnt offering, "accepted in the Beloved."
- One audience. God speaks this law to Aaron and his sons. It tells the priests what the earlier chapters told the people.
- One place. The sin offering dies where the burnt offering dies. Both point to one work, seen from opposite sides.
- One Christ. The burnt offering shows Him meeting what God delights in. The sin offering shows Him meeting what man needs, and how hateful sin is.
- One holiness. Scripture calls the sin offering most holy. Christ's holiness never fades from view while He bears sin.
- One end. Dealing with sin is not the finish. It brings the worshipper back to the ground of the burnt offering — accepted in the Beloved.
The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it in a holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tent of meeting.
Leviticus 6:26 stands in the law of the sin offering. One line changes everything: the priest who offers the sacrifice must eat it, and must eat it in a holy place.
Verse 25 repeats ground already covered. This verse does not — and it carries a limit.
Verse 25 repeats what has been said before about the sin offering… But verse 26 adds what had not been said before: the priest who offered it was to eat its flesh in the holy place. This applied to the sin of a ruler or one of the people. Where the priest took the blood of the sin offering into the sanctuary, he was to eat nothing.
The verse singles out one man: the priest who presented the offering. Commentators read that single figure as Christ. They are careful about what the eating does and does not picture.
"The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it." Singled out in this way, the offering points to none other than Christ. His eating the sin offering does not mean His work of suffering for sin. It means His identification with the one for whom the offering was presented. If holiness stood out in the victim and righteousness in the judgment carried out, what grace was in Christ, making the offerer's sin His own? So we know it in His advocacy with the Father "if anyone does sin" (1 John 2:1). His atoning death was not all.
The priest who ate had not committed the sin. That is what makes the picture so comforting.
The priest thereby identified himself with the sin of the offerer. "The priest had not committed the sin; on the contrary, he had made atonement for it… So Christ — giving us the fullest consolation — Himself spotless, and having made atonement, yet identified Himself with all our faults and sins… The one who drew near came with confession and humbling of himself, but the priest took up his guilt and judgment. They did not reach the judgment seat of God, and so did not affect the relation between God and the offender."
Three verses later the circle widens: every male among the priests may eat.
But verse 29 opens up a truth far larger than verse 26, though it does not match it for depth. "Every male among the priests may eat of it." This was not limited to the offering priest… Those who have access to God are called to identify themselves with a brother's sin. As Christ does supremely, so they too are to follow, strong in the grace that is in Him, confessing another's sin as their own… Indeed "it is most holy," and to be eaten only in a holy place.
There is an opposite reaction to a brother's sin, and it comes far more easily.
But there is such a thing as making my brother's sin my own, and bearing it in spirit before God as though it were my own… It is a wonderfully blessed and holy exercise, and it can only be known in the immediate presence of God… When a brother has sinned, our tendency is to sit in judgment on him. We take the place of a severe critic. We look on his sin as something we have nothing whatever to do with. This is to fail sadly in our priestly functions. It is refusing to eat the sin offering… It is a most precious fruit of grace to be able to identify oneself with an erring brother so as to make his sin one's own.
Eating removes the victim from sight. Commentators draw a rule of conduct straight from that.
The offerer laid his hand on the victim's head, and his guilt passed to it. His sin no longer rested on him, but on the victim. But when the offering was either eaten or burnt, the sin could no longer be found, for the victim was no more to be seen. The sin, therefore, was put away, and could not be charged to the one who committed it… When the priests ate the sin offering together, the sin transferred to it was equally put out of sight. So Christians are to act toward those who have sinned and been restored. They are to treat the offence as put out of sight, never to be brought up against the offender again.
- Eaten — Verse 26 adds something new: the priest who offered the sin offering was to eat it, and to eat it in the holy place.
- Eaten by Christ — The one priest who offers pictures Christ. His eating is not His suffering for sin, but His joining Himself to the one He offered for.
- Eaten for you — The priest had not sinned; he had made atonement. Another took up the offerer's guilt, and it never reached the judgment seat of God.
- Eaten by us — The rule widens to every male among the priests. All who have access to God are to confess a brother's sin as their own, instead of judging him.
- Eaten away — Once eaten, the victim could not be found. So a restored offender's sin is out of sight, never to be raised against him again.