Why were the people guilty for a priest's sin?

Then comes from ver. 3 the particular case of the anointed or high priest. If he should sin to make the people guilty — this is the true force of the phrase, and the real effect of his sin in the ways of Jehovah. "According to the sin of the people" as it stands in the A.V. seems doubly defective, and scarcely in fact an intelligible proposition, unless one consider it to mean tantamount to the sin or rather guilt of the people as a whole; which, though true in itself, hardly appears to be intended here. The R. V. gives the meaning. If the anointed priest "sin so as to bring guilt on the people," i.e. without their sinning.

As the high priest represented the people, so his acts brought, not only blessing on them, but also the guilt of his sin. How blessedly in contrast is the High Priest of our confession, a great High Priest, passed through the heavens as He is, Jesus the Son of God! For though tempted in all respects in like manner, it was apart from sin, not merely from sinning. Sin was absolutely excepted. In Him was no sin; on the contrary He was holy (and graciously so), harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and become higher than the heavens.

All classes in Israel were liable to sin, from the anointed priest to the meanest of the people, and to sin from error or inadvertence, as the word sh'gagah translated "ignorance," really means. Of this class of offences, chapter 4 treats; those defined in chapter 5:1-13, are not thus termed. As to sins of error or inadvertence against any of the commandments of the Lord, which ought not to be done, it is clear that man's will in such cases was not in action, though the evil of the person's nature was manifested; the acts, therefore, could not be passed over by God, hence He provided a sacrifice. But how truly innate must evil be in man, when he can sin against God inadvertently; and how abhorrent to God must our sins be, since they require nothing less than the atoning death of the Lord Jesus to put them away from before him. All classes in Israel, we see, might, in this manner sin, but the responsibility of some was regarded as greater than that of others. If the anointed priest thus sinned, who represented the people before God, he sinned to (not "according to") the guilt of the people, i.e., the whole nation was involved in the consequences of his act, so for him, as for the whole congregation, when they had sinned through error, the appointed offering was a bullock, the largest offering that could be offered in sacrifice.

232 The first two cases are, "If the priest that is anointed do sin," and "the whole congregation sin": in either case the directions for the offering are the same. Some of the blood must be sprinkled "seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary"; - "and the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before Jehovah in the tabernacle of the congregation." This was done, that there might be no interruption to the general communion, for the whole congregation being identified with the high priest, his worship in the sanctuary at the altar of incense would be interrupted by their collective defilement: and again, the priest being the representative of the whole congregation before Jehovah, their exclusion was involved in his. Their sin is charged upon the bullock that is slain, which (the fat being burnt upon the altar) is burnt without the camp, and this is the ground of their renewed communion with God. Here is shewn to us, not the perfectness of Jesus as presented to God, but Jesus bearing the defilement of our sin; yet we see the fat is still burned on the altar (v. 8), and that has in it the character of the burnt-offering, shewing that, though made sin for us, yet His offering to God therein was intrinsically perfect; but the whole bullock is burnt without the camp, pointing out to us Jesus as cast out and bruised, on account of His having taken upon Him our sin, as in 2 Corinthians 5:21: "he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." Having presented Himself in perfectness to God, He is then made sin for us, and it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him. Marvellous word! Jesus, the Holy One, who knew no sin., is cast out, and numbered with the transgressors.

In Israel there was a priest, by whom those who sinned had to approach; but the priest could not come within the veil except on the day of atonement. Suppose the people sinned, they were cut off from God; and if the priest sinned, the people were cut off, because they could only come to God by the priest.

Now consider the differences in the four sections. If the anointed priest sinned, then we have the most serious case of all. He was the appointed link between the people and God, and the whole people were involved with himself. So a young bullock without blemish had to be offered, and its blood had to be sprinkled not only on the altar without, but carried into the sanctuary and sprinkled seven times before the veil and on the horns of the altar of incense. In type, the worship of the people was interrupted in the sin of the man, who presented it before God in the fragrance of the incense. Until the blood was sprinkled there could be no priestly action before the Lord on behalf of the people.

We find just the same features in the second case, that of the sin of the whole congregation. In this case possibly the priest himself was not implicated, but even so he would be left without any people fit to be represented before the Lord, so in effect the result was very much the same. In both these cases, where the sin was of a gravity affecting all, the body of the victim was to be carried without the camp and burnt there.

If all the people sinned, all were shut out, and so, if a priest sinned, in effect it was the same; but if one of the common people sinned, all the rest are not put out, and then the altar of incense needs not to be restored.

The first of these compulsory offerings attested the specially representative place of the anointed priest. His sin involved the whole congregation of Israel. Communion for all was at once interrupted. Now we learn in the second case of the Sin offering that the high priest was identified with the congregation in its collective defilement. It was not so ordinarily when an individual sinned, no matter how high his position, though this too had its effect as we shall see. But in the former cases there was a suspension of communion for all; and the requisite Sin offering must be to restore.

An examination of the differences in the way these sins are met, will show that the greater the privilege, the greater the responsibility, the greater the sin. In the case of "the priest that is anointed," or of "the whole congregation of Israel" that is guilty, a young bullock in either case had to be offered, and it had to be burned outside the camp. In either case the whole congregation was affected, for the anointed priest stood in relation to the whole camp.

Sin is aggravated by the position of the guilty, as is carefully shown in Lev. 4. The ruler is distinguished from one of the people, and the anointed priest involved far more serious consequences than both.

The reason for this seems to be that the priest was the spiritual representative of the people and he had access into the sanctuary: therefore the sanctuary was "purged by blood" on his account. The case of the sin of the whole congregation is evidently connected in such a way with the priest as their representative that a similar ritual was necessary.