Leviticus 4:1-12

e. THE SIN OFFERING 4:15:13

(1)

ITS APPLICATION Leviticus 4:1

(2)

ITS GRADES

(a) FOR THE HIGH PRIEST 4:2-12
TEXT 4:1-12

1

And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying,

2

Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If any one shall sin unwittingly, in any of the things which Jehovah hath commanded not to be done, and shall do any one of them:

3

if the anointed priest shall sin so as to bring guilt on the people, then let him offer for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto Jehovah for a sin-offering;

4

And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tent of meeting before Jehovah; and he shall lay his hand upon the head of the bullock, and kill the bullock before Jehovah.

5

And the anointed priest shall take of the blood of the bullock, and bring it to the tent of meeting:

6

and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before Jehovah, before the veil of the sanctuary.

7

And the priest shall put of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before Jehovah, which is in the tent of meeting; and all the blood of the bullock shall he pour out at the base of the altar of burnt-offering, which is at the door of the tent of meeting.

8

And all the fat of the bullock of the sin-offering he shall take off from it; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,

9

and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the loins, and the caul upon the liver, with the kidneys, shall he take away,

10

as it is taken off from the ox of the sacrifice of peace-offerings: and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of burnt-offering.

11

And the skin of the bullock, and all its flesh, with its head, and with its legs, and its inwards, and its dung,

12

even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall it be burnt.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 4:1-12

49.

Just what is involved in an unwitting sin or a sin through error?

50.

Are these sins omissions or overt acts? Cf. Joshua 20:3 and Deuteronomy 19:4 and show how these texts relate here.

51.

Why wouldn-'t we be aware of sin if it was a decision and action for which we are responsible? Cf. Hebrews 5:2.

52.

Who is the anointed priest? Cf. Hebrews 7:27-28.

53.

What significance is there in limiting the sacrifice for the priest to a bullock?

54.

The offering of the priest was to not only help him but the worshippershow?

55.

Why bring the blood to the veil?

56.

What possible meaning is there in placing his finger in the blood?

57.

Why sprinkle the blood seven times? Cf. Hebrews 10:10; 1 Peter 3:18.

58.

What is represented by the horns of the altar?

59.

The priests must leave the holy place to pour out the rest of the blood. Where does he go?

60.

What of the bullock is burned upon the altar? This part of the sacrifice is very much like the peace offeringwhy?

THE SIN OFFERING 4:1-5:13
Grades Of Sin Offerings For Different Persons

The Ritual Of The Sin Offering

The Work Of The Priest

Purpose: Unintentional Specific SinsAtonement

THE GARMENTS OF THE SONS OF AARON Exodus 8:13

Aaron's Sons or the Priests

1.

Bonnets

2.

Coat

3.

Band

4.

Robe

5.

Drawers (under-garment) (All white fine linen)

61.

What is to happen to: (1) the skin, (2) all the flesh, (3) the head, (4) its legs, (5) intestines, (6) dung?

62.

How would it be decided that a clean place had been found?

PARAPHRASE 4:1-12

Then the Lord gave these further instructions to Moses: Tell the people of Israel that these are the laws concerning anyone who unintentionally breaks any of My commandments. If a priest sins unintentionally, and so brings guilt upon the people, he must offer a young bull without defect as a sin offering to the Lord. He shall bring it to the door of the Tabernacle, and shall lay his hand upon its head and kill it there before Jehovah. Then the priest shall take the animal's blood into the Tabernacle, and shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord in front of the veil that bars the way to the Holy of Holies. Then the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the incense altar before the Lord in the Tabernacle; the remainder of the blood shall be poured out at the base of the altar for burnt offerings, at the entrance to the Tabernacle. Then he shall take all the fat on the entrails, the two kidneys and the loin-fat on them, and the gall bladder, and shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering, just as in the case of a bull or cow sacrificed as a thank-offering. But the remainder of the young bullthe skin, meat, head, legs, internal organs, and intestinesshall be carried to a ceremonially clean place outside the campa place where the ashes are brought from the altarand burned there on a wood fire.

COMMENT 4:1-12

Leviticus 4:1-2 This is the sin offering for sin through ignorance or sin through error. These are not sins of omission, but acts committed by a person when, at the time, he did not suppose that what he did was sin. Although he did the thing deliberately, yet he did not perceive the sin of it. So deceitful is sin, we may be committing that abominable thing which casts angels into an immediate and an eternal hell, and yet at the moment be totally unaware! Want of knowledge of the truth, and too little tenderness of conscience, hide it from us. (Bonar)

The provisions for this offering teach us at least two wonderful lessons: (1) the heinousness of sin. Sin is marked by God whether man marks it or not. Even when a man sins unwittingly God sees it and it must be accounted for. This is wholly in keeping with the character of God. No laws of God are broken in the physical world without the consequent results. How many trees in the primeval forest have broken and crashed to the earth without the ear or eye of any man? God does not and cannot treat sin lightly. Were a scorpion on our brow, prepared to thrust in its deadly sting, when we were unconscious of any danger, surely the friend would deserve thanks who saw the black creature upon us and cried aloud to us to sweep it away. Such is the sin of ignorance; and God, who is -a God of knowledge,-' is the gracious friend. (Bonar) This leads us to the second lesson: (2) The infinite love and care of our heavenly Father. The same compassionate heart of our great High Priest who tenderly looks upon the ignorant (Hebrews 5:2) is found in the provision under the economy of Moses for poor ignorant sinners.

Leviticus 4:3-4 We need to mention here that the sweet savor offerings are now past and we now approach those wholly identified with sin. They are two in number: (1) the sin offerings, and (2) the trespass offerings. The sin offering has four grades or applications: (1) For the individual (Leviticus 5:6-9); (2) for the ruler (Leviticus 4:22-26); (3) for the congregation (Leviticus 4:13-21); (4) for the priest (Leviticus 4:3-12). Verses one through twelve discuss the sin offering for the priest (including the high priest). All three grades involve three areas: (1) God's dwelling among the people in the tabernacle; (2) the worship or approach of the people to God; (3) the conscience of each individual before God. Blood is the answer to the need in each area: (1) the blood was sprinkled seven times by the priest before the Lord upon or in front of the veil of the sanctuary. This obtained or secured the presence of God in the midst of His people, i.e. God could and did because of the blood dwell among them; (2) the blood upon the horns of the golden altar. The foundation of all worship is bloodthe flame and the incense could because of the blood ascend before God; (3) the remaining portion is poured out at the base of the brazen altar. Here the claims of the individual conscience were met at the altar of burnt offering. The burnt offering is the death of our Lord in our place. Each individual is represented and satisfied in the One who died for all. In the pursuit of his priestly functions the high priest has been deficient in wisdom and has made a mistake in the order of service, or he has in some manner defiled some of the holy vessels. In this he has left the sanctuary door open to Satan. Since he represents all the congregation he also involves them in his unwitting sin. He needs for these reasons to offer a sin offering for himself. At the same time people soon learn to sympathize with him and pray for him since he is one with them in his need of forgiveness. The young bull to be brought for a sacrifice is the same as the sin offering to be made for the whole congregation (except that the priest offers a male without blemish and the congregation has a female without blemish.) The most expensive of all offerings are here made. It costs much to obtain our standing before God.

Leviticus 4:5-6 Why sprinkle the blood seven times? Seven throughout the scripture is a sign or symbol of completeness or perfection. It was only on the great day of atonement that the blood was taken within the veil to be sprinkled upon and before the ark of the covenant. As sin is first of all against God it is appropriate that the first use of the blood is concerned with His satisfaction. It might intimate that atonement was yet to rend the veil, and that the beautiful veil represented the Saviour's holy humanity (Hebrews 10:20). How expressive was the continual repetition of this blood-sprinkling. As often as the priest offered a sin-offering the veil was wet again with blood which dropped on the floor of the holy place. It was through the veil, that is to say His flesh, the way was opened for usbut it was a body already drenched in The sweat of bloodshed in Gethsemane before it was broken or opened on Calvary.

Leviticus 4:7 Let's attempt to enter with the priest into the holy place and stand in the flickering light of the golden candlestick and gaze solemnly seven times intermittently at the blood and at the scarlet and blue woven design of the cherubim on the veilthe blood has been placed either before or on the veil. When the anointed priest was thus engaged, was he not a type of Jesus in the act of expiating His people's guilt? A true high priest probably knelt and then prostrating himself on the ground, as he sprinkled the blood before the veil; and it would be with many tears, and strong crying from the depth of his soul, that he touched the altar's horns. What a picture of our Saviour in the garden, when He fell on His face, and being in agony, prayed more earnestly, and offered up supplications, with strong crying and tears, to Him that was able to save Him from death (Hebrews 5:7). Although, in this case, the priest's sense of guilt was personal, and therefore was deep and piercing, yet when Jesus took our sins, He too felt them deeply, and felt them as if they had been His own.

At length the priest comes from the Holy Placeleaving it, however, filled with the cry of blooda cry for pardon!and proceeds to the altar of burnt-offering, directly opposite the door. There he pours out the rest of the blood, at the foot of the altar, his eye looking straight at the Holy Place. Within and without the Holy Place, the voice of atonement was now heard ascending from blood. What a sermon was thus preached to the people! Atonement is the essence of itatonement needed for even unwitting sins of ignorance. There is no trifling with God. What a ransom for the soul is given! Lifelifethe life of the Seed of the woman. What care to present itwhat earnestness! The Holy Place is filled with its cry, and the courts without also; and the priest's soul is intently engaged in this one awful matter.

Leviticus 4:8-10 The regulations in these verses concerning the fat and its offering upon the altar to Jehovah are identical to those for the fat of the peace offering. It would seem to say that once the blood has been shed and applied there is peace.

The leading object in the sin offering is to shadow forth what Christ became for us, and not what He was in Himself. This quality however is not entirely omitted, as we have observed earlier. In the fat burnt upon the altar is the apt expression of the divine appreciation of the preciousness of Christ's Person, no matter what place He might, in perfect grace, take, on our behalf, or in our stead. He was made sin for us, and the sin offering is a divinely-appointed shadow of Him in this respect. But, inasmuch as it was the Lord Jesus Christ, God's elect, His Holy One, His pure, His spotless, His eternal Son that was made sin, therefore the fat of the sin offering was burnt upon the altar, as a proper material for that fire which was an impressive exhibition of divine holiness. (C. H. MacKintosh)

Leviticus 4:11-12 We come now to, in one way, the most impressive portion of the ritual for the sin offering. We are using a rather large bibliography in our research for this study. We have what we consider some original observationsbut we make no apology for composite expressions or direct quotations. For these verses the words of Andrew Bonar are beautiful: But that the priest, and all present, might go home with an awful conviction of the heinousness even of forgiven sin, other things remained to be done. We are not to forget sin, because it has been atoned for; and we are not to think lightly of sin, because it is washed away. Our God wishes His people to retain a deep and lively sense of their guilt, even when forgiven. Hence the concluding ceremonies in the case of the priest's sin.

The very skin of the bullock is to be burnt (here the word is -burn up-')thus expressing more complete destruction than even in the case of the whole burnt-offering. Here is the holy law exacting the last mite; for the skin is taken, and the whole flesh, the head and legs (Leviticus 1:8), the intestines, and the very dung-'even the whole bullock!-' Unsparing justice, that is, unspotted justice! And yet more. As if the altar were too near God's presence to express fully that part of the sinner's desert which consists in suffering torment far off from God, all this is to be done -without the camp-'a distance, it is calculated, of four miles from the Holy Place. In all sacrifices, indeed, this separation from God is represented in some degree by the ashes being carried away out of the camp; but, to call attention still more to this special truth, we are here shewn the bullock burnt on the wood, -without the camp, where the ashes were wont to be poured out.-' It was over the very ashes that lay poured out there; for, in the last clause of the verse, the preposition on is used. -The clean place-' is defined to be this place of ashes. It was clean, because, when reduced to ashes by consuming fire, all guilt was away from the victim, as intimated in Psalms 20:3, -Let Him turn thy burnt-sacrifice to ashes-' (on), the word used here also.

At this part of the ceremonies, there was meant to be exhibited a type of hell. This burning afar off, away from the Holy Place, yet seen by the whole congregation, was a terrible glance at that truth-'They shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever-' (Revelation 14:10).

It is plain, also, that God took the opportunity which this offering afforded, or rather shaped this part of the rites belonging to the offering, in order to show somewhat more of Christ's death. In every sacrifice which was of a public nature, or for a public person, the animal was carried without the camp, as we may see in chapter Leviticus 16:27, on the day of atonement. The reason of this was that, in these cases, Christ's public sacrifice, as offered to the whole world, and to every creature, and as fulfilling the law's demands to the last mite, was to be especially prefigured. It is carried -without the camp,-' as Jesus was crucified outside of the gates of Jerusalem (Hebrews 13:12), that it might be in sight of all the camp, as Christ's one offering is held up to all the world, to be used by whosoever will. Next, suffering far off from the Holy Place, with His Father's face hidden, and all the fire of wrath in His soul and on His body, Jesus further fulfilled this type in regard to the entire satisfaction demanded by the law. And, inasmuch as He suffered at Jerusalem, where the ashes of the sacrifices were poured out, He may be said to have fulfilled the type of the -clean place.-' For we see Him over these remnants of typical sacrifice, offering up the one true and perfect offering. But it was Calvary that was specially a -place of ashes,-' inasmuch as there the demands of justice were wont to be satisfied, and the bones of victims to human law cast out. Joseph's new tomb, hewn out of the very rock of Calvary, is the exact counterpart to the -clean place,-' at the very spot where the ashes of so many dead men were to be found all around.

What view of hell does the suffering Saviour give! The face-covering between Him and His Fatherthe criminal's veil hung over Him for three hours, the three hours of darknessaway from the Holy Placedriven from the mercy seat, beyond the bounds of the holy cityan outcast, a forsaken soul, a spectacle to all that passed bywrath to the uttermost within, and His person, even to the eye of man, more marred than any man, while His cry, -My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?-' ascended up as the smoke of the sacrifice, to heaven, shewing the heat of the unutterable agony, and testifying the unswerving exactness of the holy law. What a contrast to His coming again without sin, and entering Jerusalem again with the voice of the archangel, in all His glory, bringing with Him those whom He redeemed by that death on Calvary!

In one respect His people are to imitate the view of Him shewn in this type. As He went forth to witness for God's holy lawwent forth without the gate, a spectacle to all the earth; so they, redeemed by Him, are to go forth to witness of that death and redemption which He has accomplished (Hebrews 13:12). We are to -go forth unto Him;-' we are to be constantly, as it were, viewing that spectacle of united love and justice, looking to His cross; though in so doing we make ourselves objects of amazement and contempt to the world, who condemn those whom they see going forth to stand by the side of the Crucified One.

FACT QUESTIONS 4:1-12

69.

Is the sin offering for sins of omission? Explain.

70.

The provisions for this offering teaches us two wonderful lessons. What are they?

71.

What are the sweet savor offerings? How does this offering compare?

72.

List the four grades or applications for the sin offering.

73.

All these grades involve three areas. Name them.

74.

Show how the blood answers the needs of each area.

75.

Describe the similarity between a true high priest and our High Priest as they each intercede before God.

76.

What is the cry from both within and without the Holy Place?

77.

What indicates that there is no trifling with the law of God?

78.

How does the offering of the fat upon the altar link this offering with the peace offering?

79.

How is the deep and lively sense of guilt kept alive?

80.

What lesson is found in burning the skin and flesh of the bullock?

81.

Why take the remains of the animal at such a distance from the altar?

82.

Show how Hebrews 13:12 applies to Leviticus 4:12-13 of Leviticus 4:1-35.

83.

How does Joseph's new tomb fit the type?

84.

How precious is the death of our Lord in our place. How wonderful that he should taste of death (the second death) for every man (Hebrews 2:9). Show how this truth is pictured here.