Great church father Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.” The reason our hearts are restless is that each of us has great soul needs. We need to be loved, to have peace, joy, freedom, and to belong. The most basic and deep need you and I have is to be loved. This is a fundamental urge in our lives. We yearn to live every minute knowing I am being loved, someone loves me, and someone is pleased with me. We were created to live with that pleasure of love. We try to fulfill that need in several ways. That is why we want to have a family; it gives some level of satisfaction. We will be very restless if we don’t have a family. But that never fully satisfies us.
One guy said, “My wife said before marrying, ‘I love you so much, I want to spend the rest of my life just making you happy!'” “Wow,” he thought, “this is a beautiful woman dedicating herself for the rest of her life to making me happy!” So he married her. The first week of their marriage, he said to his wife, “You know, on Thursday nights I’ve been accustomed to going out with the fellows. So tonight I’m going to go out with them. I’ll probably be very late so don’t wait up for me.” His wife reacted very strangely. She said, “But, you can’t leave me all alone! How can you do that? Did you marry me for this?” And he remembered saying to himself, “What happened to her promise? Here is her first chance to make me happy and she has blown it completely!” Slowly as weeks went by, he realized how foolish it was for him to think his yearning to be loved would be fulfilled by marriage. His heart was still crying. Then He thought he would find his need met in parenthood. And as he held that first little child in his arms, he anticipated with joy that now he would find his sense of being loved by the new life he had given. As years went by, he realized sinners born to us only take from us and don’t respond in gratitude and love until God changes their hearts. Though family meets that need to a level, the cry of your heart is, “I want more.” This deep cry to be loved is the reason why many young people take wrong paths and some even destroy their lives. Some try to satisfy this need in 101 wrong ways: fame, money, wealth, and sex.
This deep need was created by the Creator, and it cannot be fulfilled by any creature. We are like a child separated from his mother as soon as he is born. I heard a child was so restless, kept crying, crying, crying, and finally died. If the bond between a mother and child is so much, and so many children actually survive, our bond between God, who created us in his image, is 100 times stronger. Until we find acceptance with God, and love with God, our hearts will be restless. We will keep crying all our lives, and one day, we will die. Our deep need to be loved can only be fully met by God, but the problem is we are guilty, depraved sinners. How can we ever be reconciled and accepted to live in loving fellowship with a holy God in such a way that he regularly satisfies our need to be loved? I believe that is what Leviticus teaches us.
It teaches us in the earliest primitive way; remember it is the third book in the Bible. Like a bird that is hurt, scared, and bleeding, it is so scared to come near us. But we want to help stop the bleeding, put medicine, and heal it. So we use all kinds of sign languages to tell it, “You are hurt, losing blood. Come, come. I will heal you. Come, come to me.” God, through this book, is doing that with various divine types. He says, “See, your heart is crying for my love, for my acceptance. Come to me.” It is a book rich with divinely ordained typology. God uses persons, events, rituals, and things here to point to the true spiritual reality revealed in the New Testament. For example, leprosy is a type of our depravity and defilement by sin. The atonement sacrifice and the priest are all types of Christ. Incense is a type of prayer. It’s like the ABC visual aids of nursery children.
A simple overview of the book: Chapters 1-16, he shows us our spiritual disease and how to deal with it and come to him and be reconciled. Chapters 17-27, the end of the book, show how to maintain a state of fellowship and wholeness where we continually enjoy the fellowship and love of God. That is a wonderful overview of the whole of Leviticus. It may seem like the same sacrifices are repeated, but we should understand they are shown from different perspectives. One set will describe from the guilty sinner’s offering, another set will show the perspective of the mediator priest. As we study these types, we will realize the grandeur of the gospel and the New Testament as never before. It will deeply impact our relationship with God and help in bringing us closer to God.
As we open this mysterious Leviticus, the first verse is verse 1. The very first word of the book of Leviticus is “and.” Now, it’s appropriately added as this connects it directly to the book of Exodus. The God of heaven was now not only talking to people from Mount Sinai, but he had come in their midst, in their camp, into the tabernacle. In Exodus 40, he was filling the tabernacle with the Shekinah glory, the manifest glory of the presence of God dwelling in the midst of Israel—right smack-dab in the middle of his people. Leviticus is a continuing instruction of how sinful people can come to the living God dwelling in the tabernacle. It is a ritual for access to God to enjoy the presence of God. The first five chapters and five major offerings show us how our defilement of sin can be dealt with in a way to enjoy God’s presence. The first of those offerings is the burnt offering. If we grasp this offering, this chapter will become so precious. I was enjoying and calling it, “Oh, my burnt offering.” If we understand the burnt offering and how it is fulfilled in Christ, we will realize the unchanging, constant love of God in our hearts. So let us start our first chapter.
See, I need your help to help you understand these wonderful chapters. If you can take about 10 minutes before Sunday or sometime in the week to read the chapter and come, it will be very easy for me to go to the explanation, and you will grasp it very easily. So I will test you with a quiz to see whether you read it or not.
This chapter is about the burnt offering. What do we know about it? The only burnt offering we know is when our wives forget to switch off the stove. The burnt offering did not start in Leviticus or even in Exodus, but we see it in the first book of Genesis itself. God would have told Adam to offer a burnt offering, that is why we see Abel also offered a sacrifice. But the first time the Bible directly mentions a burnt offering is in Genesis 8:20, after the flood, Noah offered a burnt offering. Abraham went to offer his son as a burnt offering. So it was a practice before Leviticus, but here God regulated the burnt offering as worship with certain rules.
Method of Burnt Offering and Purpose of Burnt Offering
Method of Burnt Offering
So let us understand five rules of the burnt offering.
- It was a personal, voluntary sacrifice. The burnt offering regulated in Leviticus chapter 1 was viewed primarily as a personal offering, done voluntarily by the individual Israelite. Elsewhere, the burnt offering is often a corporate offering, but as it is regulated in Leviticus 1, it is viewed as a personal, private offering. Thus, verse 2 reads, “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When any man of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of animals from the herd or the flock.'” From here on, the personal pronoun “he” is employed, referring to this individual Israelite. During general festivals and national worship, God allowed them to come as a whole congregation into contact with him. But here, this is given in a way where a man, in the ordinary course of life, recognizes his defilement and wants cleansing and wants to experience the presence of God. The burnt offering was the way given to the individual believer in Israel to have an opportunity to draw near and come into contact with the living God, and God’s presence was experienced.
- The burnt offering was suited to every man’s economic status. Just reading on the face of the chapter, a financial theme can be seen. You can see an outline in verses 3 through 9. It speaks of the offering of a bull from the herd. Then all verses until 9 describe how to sacrifice a bull. This is all for rich guys. Okay, I am middle class, I don’t have a herd or maybe two or three bulls. As a burnt offering, then in verse 10, we see the offering up of a sheep or a goat. Okay, I am not even middle class, very, very poor, on the poverty line border. You can also offer a burnt offering, and then in verses 14 through 17, we see the offering up of a dove or a pigeon as a burnt offering, while these differences.
- Though it was according to each man’s economical status, it was a painful and expensive sacrifice. Nevertheless, for everyone, it was a heavy financial sacrifice. To offer up a burnt offering means an expensive sacrifice. It was expensive in four ways. Firstly, it is a valuable resource. A man cannot bring a sacrifice of an animal that he somehow hunted in the forest, a wild ox, or a deer, but from his own herd. We may not realize this today, but in those days, how was the wealth of people measured? Not by land, house, or gold, but by how many bulls or sheep a man had. Verses 3 and 10 say a man has to reduce his wealth by taking from his herd, something that was part of your property. It was very difficult and painful. We ourselves don’t feel like cutting the hens we raise and eating them. Typically, they don’t eat meat as we do, and even the rich were very reluctant to give from their herds. Remember the story of Nathan to David: a rich man who had a visitor went to his poor neighbor and took his young suckling lamb to give for the meal of the visitor, because the rich man wasn’t willing to take it from his own flock. People considered their own flock a great resource, with a lot of affection.
But a man has to feel the pain and bring from his own herd. Next, you have to take a male, the strongest. Thirdly, “without defect,” meaning the choicest, the best. Even a poor person cannot bring any old pigeon. Verse 14: You would bring the young pigeon. Because the young pigeons were the best pigeons. Fourthly, bring and do what? From your herd, young, without defect, and burn it. Most of the sacrifices benefited the offerer and the priests. The offerer would eat some of the meat of the sacrificial animal, and most often, the priest received a portion of it. Thus, when one offered a sacrifice to God, one’s mouth would water, knowing that he would be able to partake of the sacrifice. Not so in the case of the burnt offering, however. Neither the offerer nor the priest partook of any of the meat, for it was all burned in the fire. You see in all of these things that the essential ingredient for a burnt offering was that it was painful and expensive.
- There was whole and complete participation in the burnt offering. Consider here with me two elements. First of all, it’s personal engagement. If you offered up a burnt offering, you were personally engaged. You could never remain detached or distracted when you were offering up a burnt offering. Imagine you are a Jew, wearing a Jewish robe and sandals, coming to the ancient tabernacle. You have to select and bring the bull or goat from wherever you are coming. Then you bring the animal to the outer court of the Tabernacle. Verse 4: “Notice what it says. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering.” It is a poor translation; he would press the full weight of his body on the head as much as possible, like fully laid on it. Probably there was an explanation that was given, and the person explained to the priest why he was giving this sacrifice. We find them in verse 5 having laid their hands on, “he shall slay the young bull,” or verse 11, “It says he shall slay the lamb.” See the engagement is so intimate. You put your hand on the beast and you take a knife and you cut the throat of the beast and the blood itself pours out. Then the priest will come and collects the blood as it pours out of the dying animal now. Then verse 6, “And he shall skin the burnt offering and cut it into its pieces.” Wow. We find that in verses 9 and 13, the entrails and the legs are to be washed. Intestines of the animal. I know this is not pleasant stuff. But the intestines and the legs are to be washed, and the reason why is because excrements may be present during this process of sacrifice, so you would then wash things off, so the sacrifice is clean. Do you see a distracted detachment act? No, you are very engaged there. There was great personal engagement and complete participation.
You know, it is said that Gandhi was reading happily through Genesis and Exodus. And he got to Leviticus, and when he read these verses, he closed his Bible. Now maybe it’s because we were talking about slaughtering bulls, and maybe his Hindu sensibilities were offended by slaughtering sacred animals, at least in the eyes of his own homeland.
- Fifthly, it’s not only personal engagement, but also notice it’s priestly assistance. It’s priestly assistance. Both the worshiper and priest are fully engaged in this process, but all this is happening outside. Only killing an animal will not bring God’s presence. The worshiper’s personal effort is totally inadequate. Someone has to go to God’s holy place and present the blood and sprinkle it and offer the animal as a burnt offering. A defiled sinner cannot do that, walk into the Tabernacle, and offer the sacrifice. You needed the God-appointed priest. You needed one of the sons of Aaron so that he could catch the blood and sprinkle it on the altar and offer a burnt offering. Verse 7: “The sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar, and lay the wood in order on the fire.” He will take the meat that had been cut up by you and will be placed in pieces on top of the fire, for no one ever dared to approach the House of God without a sanctioned mediator, one of the sons of Aaron. So you need the help of the priest.
So we see five methods of offering a burnt offering: 1) it was personal, voluntary; 2) suited to every man’s economic status; 3) it was a painful and expensive sacrifice; 4) complete personal involvement; 5) priestly assistance. The next time you read Leviticus 1 with this outline, the whole chapter will be clear.
Now if you understand why all this is done, the chapter will become very precious. The regulations for the burnt offering are very important, and violations are taken very seriously. Follow God’s regulations precisely. One need only read of the death of Nadab and Abihu in chapter 10 to have this point vividly underscored (cf. also Lev. 17:8-9).
Now, what is the purpose of the burnt offering?
The burnt offering is one of the most common offerings. It was offered regularly every day, in the morning and the evening (Exod. 29:38-42; Num. 28:3, 6, cf. 2 Chron. 2:4, etc.). An additional burnt offering was to be offered up each Sabbath day (Num. 28:9-10). Also, at the beginning of each month (Num. 28:11), at the celebration of Passover on the 14th day of the 1st month (Num. 28:16), and all other festivals. Personally, for many defilements, like a leper’s cleansing, a woman who gave birth to a child, touching a dead body, or a discharge from the body. Then obviously when a man commits any sins. Job early on would offer a burnt offering thinking his children may have sinned in any way in their heart.
What is the purpose of the burnt offering? It is clearly stated in verse 3 and 4. “Then he shall put his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.” The purpose is that the worshiper may be accepted. Wow. This is a marvelous means God divinely ordained for sinful man to be accepted.
The animal that was sacrificed not only identified with the sins of the man, but with the depravity of the man. When the offerer laid his hands upon the animal, he was fully identifying with it. The animal was killed and burned not only for the specific sins of the man, but rather for the offerer’s general state of sinfulness. The burnt offering was required by, and served to remind the offerer of his total depravity. For his defilement, he had to be not only killed but completely turned to ashes. As a depraved, defiled, unclean sinner, there is no way he can come before God. If he approaches before God, he will anger and provoke the holy wrath of God. You and I as sinners are always in danger of angering God. How many times we see Israelites did that and they were destroyed by plagues in God’s wrath. Fierce judgments and sudden deaths. Israelites understood their depravity and danger in the presence of God.
It was not just certain sins which separated man from God, but the whole depravity and sinful state of man. The burnt offering was thus not so much to gain forgiveness for a particular sin, but to make atonement for the offerer’s sinfulness. The burnt offering seems to provide a divine solution for man’s fallen condition. It is a holocaust, a complete sacrifice, turning to ashes.
How do we know this? The first mention of the burnt offering itself teaches the purpose of the burnt offering is not just for specific sins, but our condition. Genesis chapter 6:5, before the flood: “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” The verse talks about not any outside sin, but the depravity of man inside his heart. Verse 6: “And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.” Verse 7: “So the Lord said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from…'” Man was a stench in God’s nostril. And then after he destroyed the whole world, chapter 8:21, Noah gives a burnt offering. Verse 1: “And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma.” It was a soothing aroma in God’s nostril. The same phrase as in Leviticus 1. And then he makes a covenant with Noah, that pleasure of the burnt offering makes him do a covenant.
He tells us what the burnt offering has done to him. It brought about the covenantal promise of God that he would never again destroy every living thing by a flood again (Gen. 8:21). Why? Amazing, he mentions the depravity of man, “for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.” This promise was not due to the fact that all sin had been destroyed from the face of the earth. The fact of man’s depravity (as will soon be manifested in Noah and his family) is still present, for God can still say, “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21), man’s depravity is specifically stated. The basis for God’s covenant promise is the result of the burnt offering offered up by Noah. This is glorious truth. The burnt offering atoned not only for man’s sin but man’s depravity and turned away his wrath.
Thus, the Israelites saw that the burnt offering was a means of avoiding God’s wrath and of obtaining God’s favor. God’s blessing was the result of a burnt offering, not of man’s good deeds. The only way a defiled sinner like you and me can live and experience the presence of a thrice-holy God is through the burnt offering, the love of a holy God even in a depraved state.
Now what happens when a burnt offering is given in Leviticus also? In verses 9, 13, and 17, what does it say? In verse 9, “and the priest shall offer up in smoke all of it on the altar for a burnt offering and all offering by fire. Listen now of a soothing aroma to the Lord.” And that phrase is repeated in verse 13 for the lamb, “of a soothing aroma to the Lord.” Look at the end of verse 17, for the pigeon. What does it bring, that soothing aroma to the Lord? This offering brings a pleasant scent into the nostrils of God, as it will sedate his fury.
It is this burnt offering that is the appointed means whereby peaceful coexistence between a holy God and sinful man becomes possible. See, something strange is happening in that Tabernacle. God of heaven, an infinitely Holy God, has come and dwells among sinful man into close proximity and their intimate fellowship in the midst, and the fierce anger of God against sin. How can he? What happened to his justice, holiness, and wrath? All that is appeased by a burnt offering. Yes, there is a constant friction between sinful man and his holy maker. We don’t know when the bomb will burst and destroy the sinner, but it is the burnt offering that prevents God’s displeasure from rushing out on that sinful man.
Now the question is what is there in the burnt offering that can make God dwell and fellowship with the sinner? What does the burnt offering do to the justice of God?
Verse 4 tells the answer. “When the sinner who has been burnt in hell, lays his hand on the head of the offering, putting all his weight on the offering, he is symbolically transferring his identity of guilt and sins to that beast.” The innocent animal takes the place of the sinner and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. It provides glorious atonement. The sacrifice turns God’s wrath on me by carrying my defilement and sins and thereby making God pleased with me.
This is the atonement provision by God’s infinite grace given to sinners. “Atonement on his behalf.” To make atonement, or to make ransom. Paying a ransom meant to satisfy justice. Exodus 21: if a man’s ox gores someone and kills, the man must die, or he may ransom, a substitute, an equal atonement. In the burnt offering, an innocent animal is cut and burned in the fire, a merciful depiction of the dreadful punishment deserved on the part of the worshiper. And that ransom he pays through that animal is temporarily sufficient to turn away the wrath of the living God against his sin. As the smoke goes to God, it will be a soothing aroma to the Lord and God’s fury against him will be at peace.
So this is the explanation portion of Leviticus 1. Oh my burnt offering, the burnt offering became very precious to me.
Application
Yes, we don’t have to offer physical animal sacrifices now as Christ offered his once for all, but there are principles taught in this offering. We have to offer a New Testament spiritual burnt offering. In three ways.
First, we have to offer a burnt offering if you have to be saved and reconciled with God. How can man find atonement for sin? First, when a man has a true sense of sin, when a man recognizes his depravity, not only what I do is sinful, I myself am a totally depraved sinner. “Oh what a sinful, defiled heart I have. Like a leper, I am unclean, unclean,” with a true sense of sin. His conscience is burning with guilt and accusations, “You should be burnt by God’s hell for all eternity for your depravity.”
Second, with a true sense of sin, the man sees God’s great provision through the burnt offering on your behalf. The Israelite at that time may have had a vague idea. Though the blood of bulls and goats cannot cleanse his conscience, when his conscience looked in faith, “I am laying my hand on this innocent victim, and I have sinned, but I am cutting this animal, the whole animal is burnt and reduced to ashes.” Would he not see that here was a manifest substitution of an innocent creature in the place of the guilty, and that that very substitution was the means of reconciling the sinner to his God?
But now this side of the cross, what a striking monument to the grace of God. God didn’t just provide the animals to atone for our sins, to reconcile such a depraved man as we are to be reconciled and be loved before a three-times holy God. He had to give his own son. Christ was the ultimate fulfillment, the antitype of the burnt offering. John the Baptist indicated this at the very outset of our Lord’s ministry, when he greeted Him with the words, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Christ has come as the Lamb of God and died “once for all.” There is no longer any need for the burnt offering, the type of which our Lord is the ultimate and final antitype.
How do you offer a burnt offering to be saved? So you realize your depravity, realize God’s mercy in Christ, God’s provision. Follow the five steps taught to old Israelites. Firstly, it has to be voluntary and personal. Nobody can force you to come to God through Christ. A man has to realize his conscience is burning, his life is all wrong, and he can no longer live without God’s presence and love. You have to come on your own.
Secondly, God makes it available to everyone. So everyone needs this. Whether you are rich, middle class, or poor, everyone can offer a burnt offering. Whatever state you may be in life, age, situation, if you desire, you can go to the tabernacle of God’s presence to offer this burnt offering.
Thirdly, realize it was a very painful and expensive sacrifice. See the marvelous grace of God revealed in the New Testament. You don’t have to bring anything from your own herd or wealth. But to atone for your sins, God gave his greatest wealth, his only son, to be offered as a burnt offering. Peter says not by gold or silver, but by the blameless blood of the lamb of God, you are redeemed.
Fourthly, complete, complete participation. You have to identify yourself with the sacrifice. The one who was to benefit from the death of the sacrificial victim had to identify with that animal. The offerer placed his hand upon the victim, put his full weight symbolically identifying himself with the victim, which he killed in his place. Apart from identifying with the sacrificial animal in this way, the sacrifice had no benefit for the individual Israelite.
How do we offer a burnt offering now? By resting the full weight of our souls on Christ for our peace with God. Hebrews tells us that the blood of bulls and goats cannot forgive sins. “Could not give the guilty conscience peace, or wash away the stain.” No, these sacrifices clearly pointed to the lamb of God. When we hear the Sinai thunders in our conscience of the accusations of the law, the only hiding place is Christ. When you and I recognize our conscience is burning with the guilt of sin, the guilt of how depraved we are, and because of that, we don’t feel like coming to God, feel so unclean, undeserving, the only way to quench that burning conscience is to offer the burnt offering of Christ by putting the full weight of our souls on Christ for our peace with God.
This is the way to be saved and find acceptance with God. This is what your deep heart is seeking: to be loved by God. Like a child that lost its mother, madly doing 101 things. All of you sitting here, have you offered your burnt offering to God by putting the full weight on Christ? Have you seen yourself as a defiled, depraved sinner with a sense of guilt? “Oh, I am unclean. A rebel lawbreaker.” You’ve broken the laws of the living God. Maybe not outwardly killed someone, but I have a murderous, hateful heart. I have committed adultery in my heart so many times. A great crime of stealing all those attitudes of covetousness? You see, you must see yourself as a rebel against the living God. Oh my depravity. When you see that…
Fifthly, see when you come to God, identify yourself with Christ. Remember the priest takes the blood and goes to the temple. Just like that, Christ, our great high priest, takes his blood and, showing his one offering, brings us to God and makes us acceptable before God.
Behold, in this burnt offering, behold a lamb that God has provided for a burnt offering. He has provided an unblemished, male, painful, very, very expensive male, in fact, an only son. Oh my guilty, burning consciences, show them one who hangs between heaven and earth on Mount Golgotha. God’s wrath for sins is poured on him. He alone can absorb that eternal wrath. Oh, he was roasted by the fire of God’s wrath. Totally consumed, offered as a burnt offering on the altar of Golgotha for sins. It was this offering that brought a soothing aroma to God, and he shook the earth and raised him from the dead, announcing to all that anyone who offers him as his burnt offering, my wrath against all his sins will be turned away. I will forgive all his sins. I will be reconciled with him. In spite of his depravity, I will accept him. His burning conscience will be quenched. I will pour my peace and love into his heart.
Maybe this is the first time you’ve heard this, or the 10,000th time that you’ve heard this, but I plead with you. Run and grab, put the full weight of your soul upon him, grabbing him with the hands of faith. My question is not whether you have heard this before, but have you offered your burnt offering by putting your weight on Jesus? That is the only way. The only way to find peace with God.
I cannot do this for you. The priest cannot do it. The offerer must be deeply engaged in this burnt offering, or he cannot be saved. Identify yourself with the cross of Christ. “Lord, I trust in Christ, and I offer him as my burnt offering for my sins.” Make sure you are deeply interested in this burnt offering. Press your hands with full weight on the lamb, on his work on the cross, and there you will find peace. There your conscience will rest. You will go home praising God, experiencing peace and love of God as never before.
Amazing third book in the Bible. So in olden times, this whole chapter was an invitation from God: “Come to Me, and come to Me by these sacrifices.” You will find the echo of Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:29-30: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
If you don’t, all that stored wrath of God will come on you one day, you will cry to rocks and mountains to hide you from that wrath, and it will burn you for all eternity. Ask your burning conscience, it will give witness to this truth.
Think of how much wrath will fall on you now that you are hearing this and rejecting it. If God, in those primitive years, thousands of years ago, taught the Jews to be reconciled through those symbols, he found peace through that ritual. Now we are living under the meridian light of the Gospel, still you reject God’s sacrifice. Those Jews will rise up in judgment against you, “Oh, stupid fellow, what an eternal fool. If you would have asked us, we just had a little revelation, we would have taught you how to find peace with God.”
So firstly, we offer a burnt offering by resting the full weight of our souls on Christ for our peace with God.
We offer a burnt offering for regular communion and fellowship with God. The principle applies equally to Christians today. While it is true that Christ died for our sins, once for all, it is also still true that we will not be freed from sin’s presence until we are in the presence of God, with transformed bodies. There is still remaining sin and depravity. It is still our depravity that takes us away from God’s fellowship. We lose our standing with God’s presence. We lose God’s fellowship by sin, and our consciences start burning. How do we deal with that?
Though we are justified Christians, this does not nullify the necessity of a continual burnt offering. We have to offer a burnt offering not for justification, but for sanctification. This is a continual and ongoing process. When we miss God’s presence and peace, we offer a burnt offering by confession of sins to quench our burning consciences and keep our conscience clean before the living God.
Last week I was very troubled. I was praying, saying this and that, but still wasn’t happy. I read the Bible, but nothing happened. But when I grasped this, my standing with God isn’t about who I am or how godly I have become, but it’s about my sweet burnt offering. I fully pressed my mind on Christ on the cross. I asked the Lord for your presence, love, and peace because of Christ. What can I say? Peace like a river flowed into my heart. The burnt offering became so precious.
Remember, he is the offering and he is also the priest. We can regularly come to this priest who is so sympathetic to us. We need the present intercession and mediation of Christ every hour, every moment.
Yes, he has accomplished the burnt offering. The burnt offering also symbolized the Old Testament saint’s continual acceptance before God. That is why there was a morning and evening burnt offering; it was always burning. As long as the burnt offering of Christ is burning in our hearts, we will continue to enjoy God’s peace and love. Even as believers, we have to lay full weight on Christ’s offering for our peace with God. It is the burnt offering of Christ on the cross, roasted by the wrath of God. Our identity with him gives us access to God. For constant communion and a walk with God, we need to maintain the morning and evening burnt offering in the temple every day of our lives.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. How often is that to be prayed? The previous verse says, “give us this day our daily bread.” But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is a continual and ongoing confession of sins.
We have to offer a burnt offering for our families. We must ask for forgiveness for our children, offering Christ’s sacrifice as Job did.
A third way we offer a burnt offering is also an expression of worship and service to God.
Do you remember Paul’s words in Romans 12:1-2: “Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice, acceptable to God…” Paul is drawing on this very language, out of the book of Leviticus and the Old Covenant sacrificial system. Remember again: voluntary, personal, economical (so all can give), painful and expensive, with complete participation and priestly assistance.
Do we voluntarily worship God who has given such gracious access to us dirty sinners to come to him through a burnt offering? Not on Sunday, as compulsory worship, but is there voluntary worship in your life? We all can do this, not using the means to satisfy self-righteous pride, but as a means to worship God and have fellowship with God.
“Through him let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God…” (Heb. 13:15-16; cf. Phil. 4:18; 1 Pet. 2:5). What about complete participation? If the shadow of worship involved so much engagement, how much more do we have to be engaged every minute? We have to go beyond attending church. We have to join prayer in spirit and loudly say amen, sing songs from the deepest heart, hear scriptures and sermons as the very word of God by not just listening to the words, but considering the principles of prayer when the word is read, so you carefully ponder it. Don’t expect the pastor to say everything in small, easy pieces with jokes, making it simple and easy to digest. If he gives you a big piece of food, you close your mouth. No, you should be willing to work and to labor along with the preacher. This is mental isometrics, the mind of the congregation pushing up against the mind of the preacher. There should be responsiveness in your eyes. The bright eye, maybe a smile when a point is made. Maybe a nod, maybe an Amen. It indicates that you are participating in this. It’s not just me spraying you with truth, while you are yawning, sleeping, and looking here and there. Is that your offering?
I have repeatedly said, you cannot complain that preaching is boring. A preacher becomes very energetic based on the audience. When people listen with vigor, God sees that and the sacrifice is accepted. God’s spirit comes on the preacher, and he blesses the ministry.
Be very carefully involved. Don’t go back to what we did on Saturday and what we will do on Monday. What basic lesson do we learn here? Be totally engaged in the sacrifice when worship takes place at this Tabernacle and ask God to forgive any distractions. Avoid every distraction. In 1 Peter 2:5, you, as living stones, are a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
How about service to God? Our service is described by the New Testament writers by the use of the same sacrificial terminology. We saw in Philippians how Paul used his service as sacrificial service. He was offering himself as a drink offering. The services we do for God are offerings that are pleasing to God.
And those are the new Covenant ways in which we can offer up a burnt offering. First, we have to offer a burnt offering if you have to be saved and reconciled with God, by resting the full weight of our souls on Christ for our peace with God. For regular fellowship with God, by offering frequent and timely confession for specific sins and by engaging our souls wholeheartedly in worship and service to God.
Again, the regulative principle of worship. If the Israelite learned anything from the meticulous rules and regulations which God laid down for the burnt offering and all of the rest, it was that He is very particular about the way men approach Him. This speaks of a personal voluntary religion, of heart religion, of a heart motivation to worship the living God. He went into minute detail. Why? Because He cares how we worship Him. The rebellious nature of fallen man inclines him to want to approach God his own way. The song, “I did it my way,” illustrates this tendency. God did not allow men to approach Him their own way, but rather only in accordance with the means He Himself established. Men could only approach God by means of the tabernacle, the priesthood, and the sacrifices. Today, men can only come to God God’s way, through the person and work of Jesus Christ, who, as the sacrificial lamb, died for our sins, making a way of approach to God. Our Lord conveyed the exclusiveness of His death as the way to God when He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6).
If you wish to approach God, to be assured of the forgiveness of your sins, and to dwell in His presence forever, my friend, you can do so only through faith in the person of Jesus Christ, who came to earth and died in your place. No other way is acceptable with God. In no other way can you be found acceptable in Him.
The principle of acceptance with God. There is a great deal of emphasis these days on self-acceptance, or self-satisfaction in worship. If I feel good, it must be right. Today we are told, even from the pulpit, that we must first feel good about ourselves, we must first love ourselves, and then we will be able to love God. The Bible tells us that the ultimate acceptance we must seek in all religious acts is God’s. People today want to “feel good about themselves” in worship. We must look for God’s favor and presence and acceptance in worship by worshiping him according to his word. The Bible portrays God’s acceptance as the highest good of all.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 