Leviticus 6:25–26

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 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 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."

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.

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.

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.