The Sin Offering part 2

I shall not ask you to dwell on any further details of the type, as they refer to the substitution, but I cannot leave the topic till I have asked each one this all-important question: Is the Lord Jesus made a sin offering for you? It is written, “He hath made him to be sin for us;” and from this it appears that sin was laid upon Jesus by God himself; but still it is true that each believer by faith lays his own sins there, and the hymn, “I lay my sins on Jesus,” is quite scriptural. Have you, dear friend, seen your sins laid on Jesus? Has your faith laid its hand upon his head? My dear hearers, we shall soon, each one of us, have to pass through the vale of death; it may be but a very short time before some of us will know what are the solemnities of our last, departing hour. Are you ready? – quite ready? You have been a professor for years – are you ready now to die? Can you hope that if at this moment the summons were given, sitting where you are, you are so really and truly resting in the precious blood, that sins would not disturb your dying peace, because it is forgiven and put away? Search the ground of your hope, I pray you, and be not satisfied unless your faith be surely built upon the Rock of Ages. Get as much assurance as you can, my brethren, but beware of presumption. I have seen some of those fine Christians who will not say -

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee!”

And I think very little of them. It is their boast that no hymns will suit them but those which are full of assurance and conscious enjoyment. I admire their confidence, if it be the fruit of the Spirit; but I fear, in many cases, it is the offspring of proud, unhumbled self-conceit. I know that when shaking times, when I am sore vexed with bodily pain and mental distractions, I am glad enough to say -

“Let me hide myself in the!
Let the water and the blood,
From thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power!”

Without boasting, I can declare as much about strong faith in God as most men; and I can usually rejoice in the fullest confidence of my acceptance in the Beloved; but there are times with me of deeply awful depression of spirit, and horror of great darkness; and at such periods my joyous confidence takes the form of humbly pleading the blood once shed for sinners, and saying, with a broken heart -

“Nothing in my hand I bring:
Simply to thy cross I cling.”

It seems to me, that humbly resting upon Jesus is the best position for us; and I ask each of you, very affectionately, whether that is your position at this present moment? Does your heart rejoice in the Substitute? Do you rejoice in the language of these two precious verses? -

“When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see him there
Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Saviour died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him, and pardon me.”

II. Let us turn to the second part of the subject. The chapter sets forth before us THE EFFICACY OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF JESUS.

As soon as the bullock was slain, the priest carefully collected the blood. The bullock was slain in the court of the Israelites; see, there it lies at the foot of the brazen altar, with the blood in a basin. The priest passes into the court of the priests, passes by the golden altar of incense, which stood in the holy place, and proceeds to dip his finger in the basin, and to sprinkle the blood seven times towards the veil which conceals the holy of holies. Whether the blood fell on the veil or not we are not certain; but we have good reason to believe that it was cast upon the veil itself. The veil, of costliest tapestry, would thus become by degrees more and more like a vesture dipped in blood. Seven times towards the veil the blood of the sin offering was sprinkled by the priest. Why did he begin there? It was to show that our communion with God is by blood. The veil was not the, of course, rent. It showed that the way of access to God was the blood; that the blood, when it should be perfectly offered, seven times sprinkled, would rend the veil. The blood of Jesus has to the letter fulfilled the type. When our Lord had sprinkled, if I may say so, seven times his own heart’s blood upon the veil, he said, “It is finished,” and “the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.” Beloved, through the perfect offering of the precious blood, we have access with boldness into this grace wherein we stand; and we who have faith in that blood have intimate communion with the living God, and come near to his mercy-seat to talk with him, who dwelleth between the cherubim, as a man talketh with his friend. The priest began at the innermost point, because the first thing which a Christian loses through sin is communion with God, and free access to him, and consequently the first thing to be restored to him must be this communion with his God. Suppose, my brother, you backslide, there are some th ings which you will not lose at once. You will still be able to pray in a feeble style; you will still have some sense of acceptance, but certainly your enjoyment and fellowship with God will be suspended so soon as you have fallen from your first estate. Therefore the blood is sprinkled upon the veil to show you that through the blood, and through the blood only, you can renew your access. You advanced Christians, you who have lived in the very heart of God, and have stood like Milton’s angel in the sun; you who have been made to sit at the banqueting table, and to drink of the wines on the lees well refined; you who have been the King’s favorites, and, like Mephibosheth, have always been made to sit at the King’s own table, and to eat of the choice portions of his dainties, if you have lost your heavenly fellowship, it is through the blood, and through the blood alone, that you can again have access unto the heart of God.

The next act of the priest was to retire a little from the veil to the place where stood the golden altar of incense, adorned with four horns of gold, probably of a pyramidal shape, or fashioned like rams’ horns, and the priest, dipping his finger in the basin, smeared this horn and the other, until the four horns glowed with crimson in the light of the golden candlestick. The horn is always, in the oriental usage, indicative of strength. What was the blood put upon the altar for, then? That incense altar was typical of prayer, and especially of the intercession of Christ; and the blood on the horn showed that the force and power of all-prevailing intercession lies in the blood. Why was this the second thing done? It seems to me that the second thing which a Christian loses is his prevalence in prayer. Whereas, first he loses communion with God when he backslides; the next thing he loses is his power in supplication. He begins to be feeble upon his knees; he cannot win of the Lord that which he desireth. How is he to get back his strength? Here the great Anointed Priest teaches us to look to the blood for renewed power, for see, he applies the blood to the horns of the altar, and the sweet perfume of frankincense ascends to heaven, and God accepts it. O beloved, think of this, Christ’s intercessory power with God lies in his precious blood, and your power and mine with God in prayer must lie in that blood too. Oh! to see the horns of that altar smeared with blood! How can you ever prevail with God unless you plead the blood of Jesus? Believer, if thou wouldst overcome in prayer, tell the Lord of all the groans of his dear Son; never dream of arguing except with arguments fetched from Jesus’ wounds: these are potent pleas with God – the bloody sweat, the flagellation, the nails, the spear, the vinegar, the cross – these must be the mighty reasons with which to overcome the Infinite One. Let the altar of your incense be smeared with blood.

This being finished, the priest goes backwards still further and enters the court of the Israelites. There stood the great altar of brass, whereon was consumed the burnt offerings; and now the priest, having his basin full of the blood of which only a small quantity had been used in sprinkling the veil and touching the horns of teh golden altar, pours the whole of the remaining blood in a great stream at the foot of the altar of burnt offering. What does that typify? Did he not thus teach us that the only ground and basis (for mark, it is put at the foot of the altar), of the acceptance of our persons and of our thank offerings is found in the blood of Jesus? Did it never strike you how the whole tabernacle must have been smeared with blood everywhere? Blood was on every side. The priest himself, when at his work, with garments on which showed every stain, must have looked as though all besmeared with gore. you could not look at his hands or at his vestments without seeing everywhere blood; indeed, when consecrated, he had blood on his ear, blood on his foot, blood on his hand – he could not be made a priest without it. The apostle says, “Almost everything under the law was sprinkled with blood.” It was blood, blood everywhere. Now, this could have been very far from a pleasant sight, except to the spiritual man who, as he looked at it, said, “What a holy God is the God of Israel! How he hates sin! See, he will only permit sinners to approach him by the way of blood!” and then the enquiring mind would ask, “What blood is this which is here intended?” We know that the blood of bulls and goats was but the visible symbol of the sufferings of Jesus, the great Sacrifice, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation for our sins. All the blood marks pointed to the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Let us rejoice in the precious blood of Christ the Lamb without blemish and without spot, who was foreordained from the foundations of the world, but was manifest in these last days for us.

Will you now make a summary of what has been spoken? Come with me outside the Tabernacle. Let us begin at the opening in its curtains leading to the outer court. We have sinned, and desire acceptance with God; that must be the first blessing. The brazen altar of burnt offerings is standing before us, and we wish to offer our thank offering, may we do so? How can we be accepted? Look at the bottom of the altar! What see you there? A pool of blood all around it, as though the altar stood in blood! What means this? Surely the blood of Jesus is the basis of our acceptance before God, and here we stand as citizens of heaven, not accursed, but beloved; not rejected and abhorred, but elect and blessed through the blood which is the ground of our acceptance as believers and citizen of Zion. Now we have come so far, we remember that we are not only citizens of the new Jerusalem, but priests unto God, and as priests we desire to enter the court of the priests, and offer the incense of praise and prayer. ere we stand as priests, and there is the golden altar, but where is our power to minister before the Lord? How shall we approach with the love of our hearts, our joyful thanks, and our fervent intercessions? Behold the answer to our enquiries! Observe with joy the blood marks on the four horns! It is not our prayers that will be in themselves prevalent, nor our praises, nor our love; but the blood gives prevalence, acceptance, and power to all. Come hither, then, and let us lay our heart itself, all bleeding upon that altar, and let our prayers and praises rise to heaven, like pillars of smoke, accepted through the blood. But, beloved, this is not all, we are something more than priests, we are children of God, dear to his heart; let us, then, seek fellowship with our Father who is in heaven. How can we enter into the most holy place and commune with the God who hideth himself? What is the mode of entrance into that which is within the veil? We look, and lo, the veil is rent, but on the floor, right across where the veil was wont to hang, we see a line of blood, where, times without number, the blood had been sprinkled; and on the two pieces of the veil through which we pass, we can see many distinct traces of blood; yes, and when we come right up to the mercy-seat we can see the blood there too. What means this but that blood is the means of access to God, and by no other means is he to be approached? When we shall be nearest to God, and see him face to face, and dwell with him in heaven for ever, it will be because Jesus Christ loved us and died for us, and sprinkled his blood for us, that we are permitted to have this close and wonderful communion with God, which even angels never had, for even they can only veil their faces with wings, but must not dare to look upon God as we shall do, when our eyes shall see him as our Father and our Friend.

Thus I have tried to set forth the threefold prevalence of the precious blood, but let it not be forgotten that the blood also put away sin; for you find at the end of the chapter, “His sin shall be forgiven.” First forgiven, then accepted, then prevalent in prayer, and then admitted into access with boldness to God; what a chain of blessings! All, all through the blood of Jesus!

III. Thirdly, the most painful part of our sermon remains, while I beg you to VIEW THE SHAME WHICH OUR LORD ENDURED.

While it is all so well for us, so sweet for us, I want you now to reflect how bitter, how shameful it was for our Lord! The offerer who brought the sin offering has been forgiven; he has been accepted at the brazen altar; his prayers have been heard at the golden altar; and the veil has been sprinkled on his behalf: but hat of the Victim itself? Draw nigh and learn with holy wonder. In the first place, albeit that our Lord Jesus Christ was made sin for us, it is noteworthy that, though nearly all the bullock was burned without the camp, there was one portion left and reserved to be burnt upon the altar of burnt offering, that was the fat. Certain descriptions are given as to the fat which was to be consumed upon the altar, by which we believe it was intended to ensure that the richest part of the fat should be there consumed. As much as if God would say, “Though my dear Son must be made sin for this people, and consequently I must forsake him, and he must die without the camp, yet still he is most dear and precious in my sight, and even while he is a sin offering, yet he is my beloved Son, in whom in himself I am still well pleased. Brethren, whenever we speak about our Lord as bearing our sins, we must carefully speak concerning him – not as though God ever did despise or abhor the prayer of his afflicted Son, but only seemed to do so while he stood for us, repesentatively made made sin for us, though he knew no sin. Oh! I delight to think that the Lord smelled a sweet savor even in the cross, and that Jesus Christ is this day a sweet savor unto God, even as a sin offering; the fat, the excellence of his heart, the consecration of his soul, were acceptable to God, and sweet in his esteem, even when he laid upon him the iniquity of his people. Still, here is the shameful part of it: the priest then took the bullock, and gathering up all the inwards, every part of it, the skin, the dung – all mentioned to teach us what a horrible thing sin is, and what the Surety was looked upon as being when he took our sin – he took it all up, and either himself personally, or assisted by others, took it away out of the camp. We are told that in the wilderness, so large was the camp, that it may have been the distance of four miles that this bullock had to be carried. I think I see the sad procession: the priest all smeared with blood, carrying the carcase of the bullock, taking it right away down the long line of tents, first through the abodes of one tribe and then of another, through the long streets of tents, while the people stood at their doors and saw the ghastly sight. It was killed at the altar of burnt offering. Why was it not burnt there? That altar was holy, and as soon as ever sin was laid upon the bullock, it ceased to be any longer looked upon as a holy thing; it could not, therefore be burnt in the holy place, it must be taken right away. So the priest carried it away – a terrible load – till he reached the usual place where the ashes were kindled, and he put the bullock there, and heaped the hot ashes upon it till the whole smoked up to heaven, and was utterly consumed as a sin offering. My beloved, try if you can to grasp the idea of Jesus being put away from God. I cannot give you the thoughts, but if you could hear the air pierced with the dreadful cry, “Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” you would see Christ put away because he was made sin. It was not possible for God to look upon sin, even when it was in Christ, with anything like complacency. “It pleased the Father to bruise him; he hath put him to grief.” If you have read the order of the burnt offering, you will have noticed that when the bullock of the burnt offering was offered, it was washed, to show the perfection of Christ as he is a sweet savor, all pure and clean; but in this case there is added that humiliating word, “with the dung.” What a humiliating type of Christ! Ah! but what are your sins and mine that were laid upon Jesus? How could our iniquities and transgressions be better set forth than by that bleeding, mangled mass, which the high priest had to carry out away from the camp, as though it were a thing abhorred, which could not be endured in the camp any longer. It is your Savior made sin for you and put away on your behalf.

After the removal, they gathered the hot ashes, they kindled the fire, and burnt it all. See here a faint image of the fire which consumed the Savior upon Calvary! His bodily pains ought never to be forgotten, because there is so intimate an intercourse between physical suffering and mental grief, that it were hard to draw the line; but still the sufferings of his soul must have been the very soul of his sufferings; and can you tell what they were? Have you ever suffered from a raging fever? Have you felt at the same time the pangs of some painful disease? Has your mind refused to rest? Has your brain been tossed like the waves of a sea of fire within your head? Have you questioned whether you should lose your reason or not? Have you ever been near unto distraction? have you ever been near unto the breaking of the cords of life? If so, you may guess feebly what he suffered when he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;” and when he “began to be sorrowful and to be very heavy.” Those were the coals of juniper which were being heaped over the sin offering. As you see Jesus scourged by Herod and by Pilate, and afterwards bleeding on the accursed tree, you see the fire of divine wrath consuming the sin offering because our sin had been laid upon him. I will not dwell longer on this, only as the Holy Spirit to make you feel the shame that Christ suffered for you. Sometimes I cannot grasp the thought, when I have tried to think that he who made the heavens, to whom the whole blue arch is but as a span, and the depths of the seas as the hollow of his hand, should be made flesh! and suffer for such an insignificant worm as I am. That he should suffer, however, never amazes me so much as that he should bear my sin. Oh! marvelous! The angels say, “Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God of Sabaoth!” What could they have said when he, whom they hymned as “glorious in holiness,” bowed his head and gave up the ghost, because “made sin for us”? Blessed Son of God! where we cannot understand we will adore.

The apostle Paul suggests to us the most practical conclusion of our sermon. He tells us that as our Savior, having given his blood to be sprinkled within the Tabernacle for us, was then taken without the camp, so it is our duty, ay, and our privilege, to go forth unto him without the camp also, bearing his reproach. You have heard how he was reproached for you: are you unwilling to be reproached for him? You have heard how he went without the camp in that shameful manner: are you unwilling to go without the camp for him? Too many Christians try to be Christians in the camp, and it cannot be done. “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds.” There is so much of worldly conformity among us; but the promise is not to worldly-minded Christians, but “Come ye out from among them; be ye separate; touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you.” How much we lose by affinities with the world! How much of distance there is between us and God, because of the nearness there is between us and the world! Come out, ye lovers of the Savior and tread the separated way which your Savior trod before you!

And now, should there be any here who are unsaved, I should not wonder but what some of them will make the remark, the almost, nay, the quite profane remark, “Why, he spoke so much of blood!” Ah! sinner, and we had need to speak much of it to you, for it is your only hope. God will either have your blood or Christ’s blood, one of the two. If you reject Christ, you shall perish in your sin. “The blood is the life thereof,” says the Word of God; and your life must be taken unless Christ’s life shall avail for you. The very heart of Christ was broken to find out the way to save a sinner; and, sinner, there is no other; if you refuse the purple road, you shall never reach the pearly gate. Trust in the blood of Jesus. Dost thou doubt? How canst thou? Is there not efficacy enough in the blood of the Son of God to take away sin? Dost thou contradict God’s declared truth? “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” Oh! believe it, and cast thy soul upon it, and we will meet within the veil, one of these days, to sing, “To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood… to him be glory for ever and ever.” Amen. (The Sin Offering by Charles Spurgeon, delivered on Sunday morning, March 10th, 1967)

Related article: The Sin Offering part 1