Topic: PRIESTLY SERVICES AND PRIVILEGES (Vv. 14-16). "The sons of Aaron shall offer it before the Lord the remainder shall Aaron and his sons eat." I. FULFILMENT OF SACRED FUNCTIONS. Christ was typified in "Aaron," Christians in "his sons." 1. Consider the priestly ministrations of Jesus Christ within the sanctuary. (a) Within His Church on earth, in maintaining the love, and devotion, and piety which there are offered to God. (b) Within the heavenly sanctuary, in gathering up the prayers of His saints, adding His own virtues to human offerings, and interceding in the presence of God for us. "Aaron and his sons shall eat." 2. The subsidiary ministries of the Christian priesthood. (a) In consecrated lives. (b) In loving gifts. (c) In prayerful fellowship. (d) In useful agencies. II. ENJOYMENT OF SPECIAL PRIVILEGES. 1. Christ feasts with His followers. For our Lord appeals to us, "Eat, My friends; yea, eat and drink, O My beloved." We have "fellowship with Jesus Christ" (1 John i. 4). Thus our Lord ate "the passover with His disciples." Thus He " sups with us" (Rev. iii. 20). Thus He will eat with His Church at the heavenly feast. 2. A repast reserved for the priesthood. None but "Aaron and his sons" might eat. There is a joy the world knows not of, a hidden life in Christ to which all but Christians are strangers, there are lofty fellowships with God which none but priestly souls can approach. Note, this feast was to be in the holy place"-not the innermost court, type of "heaven itself," but in "the court of the tabernacle of the congregation"-symbolic of the Church on earth. It thus points to the sacred favours enjoyed now in the spiritual life and in Christian communion. Topic: DIVINE FRIENDSHIP (Vv. 14-18). The leading idea of this offering is communion with Jehovah. In the sacrifice. presented the Divine and the human meet in hallowed fellowship and banquet together with great rejoicing. We learn: I. THAT THE ALMIGHTY DEIGNS TO COMMUNE FAMILIARLY WITH MAN. At Sinai the people were commanded to keep distant; in the burnt offering, the whole of the sacrifice was consumed, indicating that the offerer deserved to be consumed for his iniquity; here a small portion only was consumed, the greater part was taken by the priests, and the meal was peculiarly sacred. "I have given it them for their portion of My offerings made by fire." Thus Jehovah partook with the priests, and entered into intimate fellowship. Under the new dispensation we are all made priests unto God, through faith in His dear Son-we become partakers of the Divine nature; we enter His banqueting house, and His banner over us is love. He calls us not servants, but friends; sups with us in our hearts, at His table in the Church, and will, with us, hereafter at the marriage feast in heaven. II. THAT MAN Must not take UNDUE ADVANTAGE OF SUCH DIVINE FAMILIARITY, The meat offering was to be solemnly and carefully presented: strict attention to be paid to dress and deportment: no ceremonial or personal impurity to be allowed no leaven of any kind used. A sacred circle was drawn around the altar, the service invested with great importance, even the priests placed under restrictions. We may come with holy boldness and childlike confidence to God; but we must do so with becoming reverence. "God is a spirit," etc. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, but not levity and irreverence. Sincerity, thankfulness, and a sense of deep responsibility will give the right tone to our religious exercises. III. THAT SUCH HALLOWED FELLOWSHIP IS. ACCEPTABLE TO GOD AND PROFITABLE ΤΟ ΜΑΝ. The people offered their flour, oil, and frankincense; the priests took their portion and ate it in the court of the tabernacle; the fragrant incense perfumed the air; Jehovah accepted all as a sweet savour, having respect to the obedience and reverence represented in the offering. The worshipper was taught his relation to the Lord, acceptance of Him, friendship with Him. Christ has not only become our Sin Offering, but our Meat Offering, in that He invites us to partake of His love: "My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed." Only by personal, spiritual participation of Christ, can we have fellowship with Him here, and companionship with Him in eternity. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.”—F. W. B. Topic: MINISTERIAL DEDICATION: THE PRIEST'S CONSECRATION OFFERING (Vv. 19-23). Here can be found suggestions concerning dedication and devotion to the ministerial office. I. Consecration to the ministry: an event to be MARKED BY IMPRESSIVE SOLEMNITIFS. "The day when he is anointed." What a day that is to a young minister! His entrance upon so solemn and responsible a work as that of becoming "a minister of the sanctuary" should be specially signalised. "This is the offering unto the Lord in the day when he is anointed." God asks that the consecration solemnities should be "unto" Him. For it signifies the setting apart of a life "unto the Lord," and the placing upon His altar of every energy, faculty, affection, and aspiration. "O Lord. Thy heavenly grace impart, To Thee my God, to Thee." II. Consecration to the ministry: an act to be CHARACTERISED BY COMPLETE SELF DEVOTION. 1. Perpetuity is to mark the offering. "For a meat offering perpetual." It is to be no temporary dedication, but a whole life-long devotion. 2. Continuity is to mark the offering. "Half of it in the morning, and half thereof at night"; i.e., it was to be a day-by-day dedication; the offering was to go on every morning and night. God asks not one demonstrative act of consecration at the outset of our official life, or our Christian life, but a ceaseless repetition, a daily reproduction of that act of devotion; "the love of our espousals" is to be daily enacted. 3. Entirety is to mark the offering. "It is a statute for ever; it shall be wholly burnt" (v. 22). "Every meat offering for the priest shall be wholly burnt " (v. 23). In the offering for the people God required only a "handful of flour as a "memorial of it unto the Lord" (v. 15); but He required the complete offering from a priest. No part of the price might be withheld: time, talents, all the man is and has-" wholly." "How can I, Lord, withhold Life's brightest hour From Thee; or gathered gold, Or any power? Why should I keep one precious thing from Thee When Thou hast given Thine own dear Self for me?" III. Consecration to the ministry: a service to be ASSOCIATED WITH GRATITUDE AND JOY. 1. Emblems of thankfulness were to be laid on the altar. "Fine flour, and oil.” For it should be that the young minister, laying himself out for his high calling, should realise how much he owes his Lord, and ask: "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me?" To His grace we must ascribe all we have received of endowments, gifts, holy affections, enjoyment of His redemption, enlightenment by His Spirit, the call to ministerial work. 2. Such joyous self-devotion is peculiarly fragrant to the Lord. "For a sweet savour unto the Lord" (v. 21). There is so much that charms even the glorious Jehovah in a young life fully consecrated: the ardour and bloom of opening manhood laid wholly on His altar; the aspirations and affections of the heart withdrawn entirely from secular attractions and pursuits, and fixed on Christ and His service; the fervour of being dedicated to the sublime mission of winning souls for the Saviour and ministering in His courts. "Accept these hands to labour, These hearts to trust and love, Topic: THE SIN OFFERING A SHADOW OF GOOD THINGS TO COME The sin offering was presented on the north side of the altar in the fulness of time the world's Great Sacrifice was offered on the north side of Jerusalem. How, as well as what to be presented clearly indicated in this, as in previous offerings. In directions given we learn: I. HOW COMPLETE THE SIN OFFERING WAS. Though parts of the sacrifice were to be eaten by the priests when the oblation was made for the people, the whole was to be consumed by fire when presented for the priests. The sin offering atoned for every kind of sin, thus showing great completeness, and adaptation for priests and people, who in the sight of God need forgiveness and restoration to His favour. When a part of the offering was eaten by the priests it was shown how God and man were reconciled; when the offering was wholly burned it was shown how complete the atonement was, how fully pardon was secured. II. HOW TRANSITORY THE SIN OFFERING WAS. Frequently repeated, it was only of temporary virtue. It borrowed all its efficacy from the great Sin Offering which it typified. "It was not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin"; without the sacrifice of Christ they would have been of no avail. Altars and offerings have passed away, but Jesus hath procured "eternal redemption for us." III. HOW SACRED THE SIN OFFERING WAS. It was called "most holy," great precaution was taken that it should not be desecrated, even the implements and vessels used in its observance were scrupulously guarded from ceremonial impurity. Priests were not allowed to partake if ceremonially defiled: showing that sin and holiness are alike contagious-may be communicated, intentionally or unintentionally, to persons, places, offices, things. How complete and sacred the sin offering of the Redeemer! If contempt for, and neglect of, Levitical rites was heinous in the sight of God, how much more so similar conduct when shown to what they foreshadowed ! Conclusion. The sin offering showed (a) the exceeding sinfulness of sin; (b) the absolute necessity of atonement being made for it; (c) the transcendant importance of deliverance from every taint of it. These truths fully taught and actually embodied in the glorious gospel of the blessed God.-F. W. B. INJURY. ILLUSTRATIVE ADDENDA TO CHAPTER VI. "Of all the things that have bad record in the world, of the many sources of violence, injustice and cruelty, I do not know of anything else that is so cruel as man. It is only man that studies cruelty, and makes it exquisite, and prolongs it, and carries it out From the despot with appliances and art. on the throne to the despot of the household, all men alike carry vengeance, bitterness, wrath, hurtfulness, as characteristics of the race."-H. W. Beecher. "How should you feel if you were to enter the room where your child is sleeping, and find upon it a stealthy cat, stationed at the portal of life, and stopping its very breath? How should you feel were you to find upon your child a vampire that had fastened into its flesh its blood-sucking bill, and was fast consuming its vitality? How do you feel when one of your children tramples upon another? or when your neighbour's children crush yours? or when ruffian violence strikes against those whose hearts for ever carry the core of your heart? Judge from your own feelings how God, with His infinite sensibility, must feel when He sees men rising up against their fellow-men: performing gross deeds of cruelty on every hand devastating society by every infernal mischief that their ingenuity can invent.-H. W. Beecher. "Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency, in giving them no offence."Cicero. Recompense injury with justice, and kindness with kindness."-Confucius. "He threatens many that hath injured one." -Ben. Jonson. "Brutus bath riv'd my heart: A friend should bear his friend's infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are."-Shakespeare. "Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practises it will have neighbours.- "Be as just and gracious unto me ENDURING FIRE. The perpetual fire of the Persian Magi and modern Parsees; the eternal fire, as it was called at Rome, kept perpetually burning by the Vestal virgins; and the Pur unextinguishable fire," of the Greeks at Delphi, were evident imitations of this sacred fire. Asbeston 66 "It was one of the distinguishing marks of the chieftainship of one of the Samoan nobility that his fire never went out. His attendants had a peculiar name for their special business of keeping his fire blazing all night long while he was asleep."-Turner's Polynesia. "During the second temple this perpetual fire consisted of three parts or separate piles of wood on the same altar; on the largest one the daily sacrifice was burrt; the second, called the pile of incense, supplied the fire for the censers to burn the morning and evening incense; and the third was the perpetual fire from which the other two portions were fed. It never was quenched till th destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar. Indeed we are positively assured that the pious priests who were carried captives into Persia, concealed it in a pit, where it remained till the time of Nehemiah, when it was restored to the altar (2 Macc. i 19-22). The authorities in the time of Christ, however, assure us that the perpetual fire was one of the five things wanting in the sacred temple.' -Elliott's Commentary. "Wake in our breasts the living fires, "A slender acquaintance with the world "A foe to God was ne'er true friend to man, The highest compact we can make with CHAPTER VII. Ritual of the Sacrifices: the Peace Offering. SUGGESTIVE READINGS. V. 1.-Likewise this is the law of the trespass offering. More precise instructions are now added to those given in chap. v. 1-13, expressly for the guidance of the priest. Every minute detail is of Divine regulation; God rules within the sanctuary, directs every particular of worship aud service therein; for altar sacrifice is "most holy," and man must scrupulously refrain from ad-1ing, omitting, or altering aught when he approaches Jehovah with expiation. Neither, in the Christian dispensation, is license, or caprice, or self assertion allowed to sinful man who would propitiate God; he must implicitly follow instructions. "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good.” V. 7.-As the sin offering, so is the trespass offering. If any item of regulation was given for one offering which was not given in the other, then it was to be applied as equally binding in both cases. The priest was entrusted with the duty of searching out each particular and fulfilling it sedulously. It should be our study to "know the Holy Scriptures," and therefore we should compare spiritual things with spiritual," "searching the Scriptures daily," as did the Bereans, in order that nothing be left undiscovered, nothing unfulfilled. How careful should be our endeavour to make the written will of God our law in every particular of worship and of habit, of life and conduct. V. 10. One as much as another [literally, a man as his brother]. In the meat offering" ""all the sons of Aaron" were to share, and the dividing was to be equal. And this law assures us, who in Christ are of the "priesthood," that there is an equal participation in the merits of the sacrifice and the privileges of tue Christian life for all who are sacredly related. The gracious rule of brotherhood is to be illustrated in our enjoyment of the sacramental feast at the Lord's table, "All ye are brethren." No assumption of superiority is permissible, no exclusive appropriation of the sacred provisions; in the Gospel feast, and at the |