Its Unique, Doctrinal Emphasis

It is now time to consider the meaning and significance of the different kinds of Levitical sacrifices.

We have been considering these sacrifices as they were means by which God taught the gospel to his old testament church. That these sacrifices taught Israel the

truth of the gospel is the explicit teaching of the Reformed creeds. Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 6 teaches that the holy gospel of the mediator was “represented by the sacrifices and other ceremonies of the law.” Belgic Confession article 25 teaches that the testimonies of the ceremonies and figures of the law “confirm us in the doctrine of the gospel” because “the truth and substance of them remain with us in Jesus Christ, in whom they have their completion” (Confessions and Church Order, 89, 55).

More specifically, we have been considering these sacrifices in light of their overarching doctrine. As I have already stated in a foregoing article, there is a specific, heavenly doctrine that ties all the bloody sacrifices together: vicarious satisfaction.¹ Satisfaction means that God’s justice against the sinner receives all that it is due. Negatively, satisfaction of God’s justice involves full payment for the debt of sin by sustaining the punishment of God’s wrath against sin. Positively, satisfaction of God’s justice fulfills the demand of God’s law by so loving God that God receives all the love that he requires. Simply stated, satisfaction means that God says to the sinner, “It is enough. You have suffered the eternity of my infinite wrath against your sin, and you are perfectly righteous before me.” Vicarious satisfaction means that another has stood in the sinner’s place by God’s sovereign appointment to act in the sinner’s behalf and to make such satisfaction for him. That substitute is Jesus Christ the Lord. Altogether, the bloody sacrifices gave to Israel a shadowy picture of the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world because he was ordained of God to make vicarious satisfaction of God’s infinite and immutable justice for elect sinners whom God eternally loves.

If vicarious satisfaction is the specific, heavenly doctrine that encompasses all the bloody shadow-sacrifices, why did the wisdom of God ordain four kinds of bloody sacrifices? Why did not God give to Israel only one kind of bloody sacrifice to bring to his altar?

In answer to this question, first, we may say that when God gave to Israel four kinds of bloody sacrifices, he was reminding Israel of the utter inability of these sacrifices to perfect anyone or anything. God never gave to the Israelites one sacrifice that answered to all their miseries and needs, for God was teaching the Israelites to look beyond the blood of bulls and goats to the single sacrifice of his Son that would perfect them forever.

Second, we may say that when God gave to Israel four kinds of bloody sacrifices, he was showing forth the manifold blessings that belong to vicarious satisfaction. To each kind of sacrifice, God assigned a peculiar emphasis in order that the Israelites might understand all that was necessary to bring them out of their misery into his holy fellowship. Just as the Spirit deemed it necessary to have four separate gospel accounts in the New Testament scriptures to show forth the profound depth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, so God deemed it necessary to have four separate kinds of bloody sacrifices to show forth all the saving richness of vicarious satisfaction.

How are we to elicit the peculiar emphasis of each kind of bloody sacrifice? We do so by examining the unique name, requirements, occasion, and rituals that belonged to each sacrifice. Men did not name the sacrifices; God did. And when God names someone or something, his word reveals its essence. In addition to the unique name that God ascribed to each kind of Levitical sacrifice, each sacrifice was further distinguished from the others according to what God required, when God required it, and what he required to be done to it. If we examine these four things, then we can discover the peculiar emphasis of each sacrifice.

Let us consider then each of the Levitical sacrifices, following the order that God recorded them in the first seven chapters of Leviticus.

We begin with the burnt offering.

Under the overarching doctrine of vicarious satisfaction, the burnt offering emphasized the pure, vigorous, and perpetual zeal of consecration to God that God’s justice requires. The burnt offering brought the positive demand of God’s moral law to the foreground. The law of God—which law is by no means a dead letter or an external code but the living will of God that surrounds the moral creature every moment of every day—positively requires this: “Continue in me without wavering. Continue in me without departing in any aspect of your life. Continue in me every second with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Continue in perfect love for God out of a perfect heart and through a perfect nature.” And that burnt offering, while on the one hand testifying that man could never meet that demand, also testified to what it took for the fulfillment of that demand by the seed of the woman who crushed the head of the serpent.

Its Law

The burnt offering is the oldest sacrifice recorded in scripture. It is entirely possible that Abel’s offering in Genesis 4:4 was a burnt offering, although the first recorded instance is in Genesis 8, when Noah offered burnt offerings after the flood. God ordered Abraham in Genesis 22 to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering, and then God provided a ram as a substitute. And in Exodus 10 Pharaoh forbad the Israelites to bring all their cattle with them into the wilderness to offer burnt offerings, bringing upon himself the final plague.

The burnt offering was also the most common sacrifice. When God gave his ceremonial law to Israel, he required that there always be a burnt offering upon his altar in a state of immolation.

In Leviticus there are two separate passages that detail the law for the burnt offering. The first passage gives the basic procedure that the people of Israel had to follow when they brought burnt offerings to the altar and is outlined in Leviticus 1:3–9:

3. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord.

4. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.

5. And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

6. And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.

7. And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire:

8. And the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:

9. But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.

Since the peculiarities of this first passage have been well summarized by Dr. Cornelis Van Dam, I quote him at length:

If a bull was not used, but a sheep or a goat, the same basic procedure was followed (Lev. 1:10–13). It was only with the offering of a bird that modifications of this basic procedure occurred (Lev. 1:14–17). Except for the skin (which God in his mercy granted to the priest, Lev. 7:8), the entire animal went up in smoke to God. This was the only offering to do so. Indeed, the Hebrew for the burnt offering is literally “that which goes up” (עֹלָה, cf. Judg. 6:21; 13:20; 20:40; Amos 4:10).

With respect to the frequency of this sacrifice, one must distinguish between those brought voluntarily and those legislated. Leviticus 1 has in view a voluntary burnt offering. People were free to go to the Tabernacle and bring a sacrifice to God, for example, in thanks for his mercies or for the paying of vows. Think of Psalm 66:13–15. “I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay thee my vows, Which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble. I will offer unto thee burnt sacrifices of fatlings, with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with goats.”…

Besides the voluntary burnt offerings, there were also those requested by God in his law. From the Mosaic law it is obvious that this sacrifice was the one most frequently offered. The legislated burnt offerings are as follows.

1. Every day a male lamb had to be offered as a burnt offering in the morning and another male lamb in the evening (Ex. 29:38–42; Num. 28:1–8).

2. Each sabbath day two additional lambs were to be sacrificed (Num. 28:9, 10).

3. At the beginning of each month (the New Moon), two young bulls, one ram, and seven male lambs were to be sacrificed (Num. 28:11–14).

4. Each day of the Feast of Passover—Unleavened Bread, the same sacrifices as with the New Moon (Num. 28:16–25).

5. At the Feast of Weeks (Feast of First Fruits) again the same as with the New Moon.

6. At the Feast of Trumpets, one bull, one ram, and seven male lambs (Num. 29:2–4).

7. On the Day of Atonement, one bull, one ram, and seven male lambs (as at the Feast of Trumpets) as well as the special burnt offerings for the atonement which was one ram for the high priest and one for the people (Num. 29:8; Lev. 16:3, 5, 27).

8. On the Feast of Booths a variety of burnt offerings were to be sacrificed. On the first day, thirteen young bulls, two rams, and fourteen male lambs (Num. 29:12–16). With each successive day of the feast, the number of bulls decreased each day by one until on the seventh day there were seven bulls; the number of rams and lambs remained the same (Num. 29:17–35). On the eighth day, there was to be one bull, one ram, seven male lambs (Num. 29:35–38) just as at the Feast of Trumpets and Day of Atonement.

9. Burnt offerings were also required at various purification rituals; after childbirth, a lamb had to be sacrificed (Lev. 12:6–8); after cleansing of male bodily discharges or of abnormal female discharge of blood, a turtledove or a young pigeon (Lev. 15:14–15, 29–30); after defilement during a Nazarite vow, a turtle dove or a young pigeon (Num. 6:10–11); after being cleansed from leprosy, a male lamb or a turtle dove (or young pigeon) (Lev. 14:10, 13, 19–22).

It is quite clear that the burnt offering permeated the life of Israel. Life could not be imagined without it. To miss the burnt offerings was a catastrophe. (Cf. Dan. 8:11–13 where the tribulation coming under Antiochus IV is pictured in terms of the removal of the burnt offering.) For those interested in numbers, the total number of burnt offerings alone for one normal year was one hundred thirteen young bulls, thirty two rams, and one thousand eighty six lambs. That was the minimum number of burnt offerings that had to be offered to the Lord at the Tabernacle or Temple.²

The second passage for the law of the burnt offering is directed toward the priests and outlined in Leviticus 6:8–13:

8. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

9. Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.

10. And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar.

11. And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place.

12. And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings.

13. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.

Here is what Dr. Van Dam wrote regarding this second passage on the law for the burnt offering:

This legislation does not deal with the voluntary burnt offerings, but concerns the daily burnt offerings that were the responsibility of the priests. One can think in this context also of Exodus 29:38–39, 42. “Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually. The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even: This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee.”

The continual burnt offering meant that fire had to be kept burning constantly on the altar. This point is mentioned five times in Leviticus 6:8–13. The voluntary burnt offerings would have helped keep that fire going, but if not, wood was to be used.³

Thus ends the law of the burnt offering.

Its Ascension as a Sweet Savor

Just as the heavens declare the glory of God, day unto day uttering speech and night unto night showing knowledge, so too the burnt offering was a powerful testimony of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Day unto day and night unto night, the burnt offering lay upon the altar in a state of immolation, ascending up into heaven as a perpetual declaration of the richness and perfection and absolute sufficiency of the Lamb who was slain from before the foundation of the world.

It did not matter what day it was or what time of day it was, the burnt offering was always ascending toward God in heaven. What we call the burnt offering, the Jew called olah, which simply means to go up. Having named this sacrifice thus, God directed the focus of his people to that very visible and uninterrupted stream of smoke that went up into heaven and filled his throne room.

That smoke had a distinct smell.

“The priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice [olah], an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord” (Lev. 1:9).

Smell is a powerful sense.

Smells can trigger a rush of long-forgotten memories. With a quick whiff of a hearty stew baking in the oven, one can be whisked back decades to fond memories of Sunday coffee at the grandparent’s house.

Smells can influence a person’s behavior toward another. A well-showered and perfumed person is much more pleasant to be around than someone who walks about in miasma of body odor because he uses a deodorant stick much less often than he should. Words spoken from a washed mouth are much easier to be heard than words carried on the scent of morning breath.

Smells can have a mighty impact upon one’s mood. Having to sit in a vehicle where a dirty diaper has diffused throughout the cabin is much less relaxing than lying on the couch next to a lavender-scented candle.

And smells can determine whether one decides to put something into his mouth. It is incredibly difficult to ingest durian without first pinching one’s nose shut. But one welcomes the scent of bacon frying on a griddle.

The burnt offering, in its ascent unto the presence of God, was a sweet savor that filled his nostrils. The burnt offering was an ongoing memorial of something that filled his heart with gladness. It was a fragrance of something that inclined him to his people. It was an aroma of something that perpetually set him at rest. It was a savory odor of something that he desired with each inhale. As blind Isaac immediately recognized the scent of his eldest son and as the Shulamite’s lover detected the fragrance of Lebanon upon her garments, so also God recognized the distinct scent that arose from the altar, and it delighted him.

And day unto day and night unto night, Israel had God’s testimony that he smelled a sweet savor by that visible and uninterrupted stream of smoke from the burnt offering.

What a mighty testimony that was to the elect sinner in Israel!

For man by nature does not emit a sweet savor or aroma of rest. The natural man is corrupt. The natural man is a corpse, a bag of maggots, and rotten to the core. Man is as putrid-smelling as an outhouse baking in the summer heat.

If Jacob feared that the Canaanites and Perizzites would gather themselves to destroy his household because of how his sons’ actions against Shechem made them to stink among the inhabitants of the land, how much more should not the sons of Adam fear what God will do when their stench billows up into heaven? Will he not quickly arise to cast them out of his presence into the burning trash heap of Hinnom?

But this is what God said to his people: “That burnt offering is a sweet savor within my nostrils. That smell brings to mind a very warm memory. That smell stirs up mighty affection within me. When I smell that uninterrupted stream of smoke that ascends into my presence, I am at rest.”

What was the substance of that aroma that continually pleased the most high majesty of God? What was the essence of that fragrance that, like a bathroom spray, it not only nullified the terrible odor of his people but also filled the camp of Israel and heaven with its pleasing scent?

It was not an apothecary blend of myrrh and frankincense. Neither was it the odorous compounds leaving the flesh and fat of the animal upon the altar, for that smoke was but a shadow. The substance of that aroma was the entire life of the Lord Jesus Christ, from the moment of his incarnation until the willing giving of himself unto the death of the cross. What warm memory does that smell bring to God’s mind? It is the decree of God’s covenant for the perfect revelation of his glory! What stirring affection does that smell continually arouse in God’s heart? It is the eternal love that he has for his people in Jesus Christ, who belong to him as his adopted sons and daughters!

Such is the powerful scent imparted by the life of Jesus Christ, a life that was wholly given in perfect consecration to his heavenly Father. For, as the apostle said, he “hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” (Eph. 5:2).

Its Perpetual Consumption

What set apart the olah of the Lord Jesus Christ as a sweet-smelling savor unto God was his burning zeal for the will and glory of God. It was that burning zeal to which the disciples bore witness in the temple and remembered that it was written, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up” (Ps. 69:9; John 2:17). In holiness Christ was consumed with the honor and glory that God was due.

That is obedience. Obedience is that God is your all in all. Obedience means that you are consumed by the thought of God. Obedience means that you are consumed with the desire for God’s honor and glory by doing the will of God. Obedience means that the covenant of God is everything to you because that covenant of God is everything to God. Obedience means that your whole life ascends toward God and that all your affections are set on things above and not on things on earth. Obedience is with heart and mind, soul and body, to be undivided in the fear and service of the glory of God.

And that consuming desire of the Lord’s entire life to be holiness unto his Father in heaven was what the burnt offering uniquely emphasized in its ritual and its occasion.

It is certainly true that in the burnt offering there was atonement for sin and expiation of guilt. The blood of the animal that was sacrificed for a burnt offering was spilled during slaughter, and that blood was presented to God at the altar. Yet the presentation of that blood to blot out sin was uniquely emphasized by a different kind of sacrifice, the sin offering. For whereas the blood of the burnt offering was sprinkled at the base of the altar, the blood of the sin offering was smeared upon the horns of the altar. Instead of the presentation of the blood, what stood out in the burnt offering was its entire consumption upon the altar in a state of immolation.

The entirety of the animal was burned upon the altar. God called the burnt offering not only olah but also kalil, which in the King James Version means whole, entire, complete. Unlike other kinds of sacrifices where a portion of the flesh was distributed to the priest or portions were given to both the priest and the offerer, every portion of the animal for the burnt offering was laid upon the altar. Every part of the animal—the head and the fat, the entrails and the legs, and all the other sectioned parts of the animal—was laid upon the altar.⁴

God required that because the unique emphasis of the burnt offering was this: whole consecration in holiness unto God! If the life-long holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ was to be adequately represented as a shadow, then every part of the animal had to be laid upon that altar in its own order, just as Christ would order and arrange his entire life in burning zeal for God.

And lo! How Christ was continually and utterly consumed in that holiness!

Upon that altar in the earthly sanctuary, there was always an animal in the state of consumption. When the burnt offering of the morning was reduced to nothing by burning, then another took its place in the evening. And when the latter was also reduced to nothing, there was another to take its place the next morning. Always there was a burnt offering being reduced to ashes and going up in smoke. In that constant state of consumption, there was continual loss.

And such was but a dim—a very dim—picture of the ongoing loss of the Lord’s entire life as he was consumed by his burning zeal for God’s will and God’s glory.

That loss is succinctly stated by the apostle in Philippians 2 in those sterling words: “[Jesus] made himself of no reputation” (v. 7).

Who made himself of no reputation? He who is “in the form of God” (v. 6). The form of God is God’s divine being. The form of God is the totality of qualities and powers that make God to be God and distinguish God from the creature. The form of God is his perfections that he possesses in himself to the infinite degree. That Jesus Christ is in the form of God means that he is the only good and ever-blessed God. He is eternal. He is omnipotent. To him belongs all glory. To him belong all divine prerogatives. But “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (vv. 6–7).

What that means is that the Lord—before whom the whole world must fall down and worship—said within himself, “Though I am God, that is not going to hinder me from incurring the loss of becoming a man. Though I am eternal God, that is not going to hinder me from becoming a finite creature of the dust. Though as God, I am perfect and in need of nothing, that is not going to hinder me from becoming utterly dependent upon God.”

What loss!

That is not all the loss that the Lord incurred in his life that was consumed in holiness to God. As utterly astounding as it is that he who is God became a weak and beggarly creature, he did not become a king or a rich man or a popular man. But he said, “Though I am God, that is not going to hinder me from becoming a servant.” He to whom all service is due became a servant. He to whom belongs all glory and honor and dignity took upon himself the lowest position that a man has ever held in the earth.

What loss!

But not even that exhausts the holy loss of the Lord, for “being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). He said, “Though I am the eternally begotten Son of God, who dwells eternally in the warm and loving embrace of my Father, that is not going to prevent me from enduring his infinite wrath at the cross.” The chief part of all that loss that Christ assumed by becoming a servant was the loss of the right to be blessed by God. Christ’s loss was to assume a lonely place under God’s curse. Under that wrath Jesus Christ was obedient, obedient to the bitter and shameful death of the cross because that was the only way God’s will could be done, his justice could be satisfied, and his everlasting covenant could be consummated. God had determined to make a covenant with a sinful and disobedient people. God’s justice demanded that the sin and sinfulness of that people be punished. Thus Jesus Christ, in burning zeal for the glory of God, said, “Lo, here am I, Lord. Punish me.” The Lord willed that with his own will. He desired it with his own heart. He thought it with his own mind. And he pressed everything that he was into that service of God.

All his life, he was utterly and perpetually consumed!

Its Matchless Strength

We must say more, for if the burnt offering was to be an adequate shadow of the Lord’s ability to give himself as such a sacrifice of holiness, then the offering must have a reflection of the Lord’s matchless strength.

And indeed, the burnt offering did. The requirement for the burnt offering was that it be of the male sex. The regular burnt offering that was sacrificed in the morning and evening was always a male lamb or kid. Though the type of animal for a voluntary burnt offering could vary depending on the wealth of the offerer, if the animal came from the flock or the herd, then it was always a male. The male sex stressed strength, as scripture itself bears witness: “The glory of young men is their strength” (Prov. 20:29). “Quit you like men, be strong” (1 Cor. 16:13). The requirement for a male animal emphasized the matchless strength that was necessary for the Lord to give himself entirely unto God.

Here we confess how miserably weak we are. Oh, yes, scripture exhorts us, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1). And if Christ dwells in you, then his mind becomes your mind and his will your will. But is it not also the case that to will is present with us, but how to perform that which is good we find not? The good that we would, we do not. And the evil that we would not, that we do. The believer’s confession in Lord’s Day 12 is that “I am a member of Christ by faith, and thus am partaker of His anointing; that so I may confess His name, and present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to Him” (Confessions and Church Order, 96). But when we receive but a little drop of Christ’s Spirit, that Spirit of sweet consecration unto God, then we find how exhausted we become in the most menial of spiritual tasks. Against that Spirit rages our entire totally depraved flesh, and every member of our bodies fights tenaciously against that principle of holiness in our hearts. We are so wretchedly weak.

But the Lord was equipped with the Spirit without measure.

Matchless strength!

Out of Christ’s spotless nature, there was pure strength to say no to God’s no and yes to God’s yes. In that strength of nature, there were two words that adorned Christ’s entire noble life: resist and persist. All the assaults of the devil Christ resisted. And in spite of every antagonism, snare, temptation, and voice that assaulted him from among men and devils, Christ persisted. He persisted in matchless strength to overcome the devil and evil. In that matchless strength Christ battled and seized the very gates of hell—bar and all—and put them upon his shoulders and carried them upward toward the hill of Calvary in order to make an open show of all principalities and powers. It was strength to wrestle that serpent, to seize him by the neck, and to crush his head while enduring that terrible, venomous bite.

Christ persisted at Golgotha, dripping in bloody sweat as he toiled in holiness unto God. Christ persisted along the via dolorosa, as he staggered under the infinite weight of his people’s debt that was heaped upon him. He persisted as his body was nailed to the accursed tree, resisting that stupefying draught in order that he might devote all the senses of his soul to the experience of that curse. He persisted when the wrath of God met him that Friday afternoon and drowned him in the very torments of hell. And that matchless strength became exhausted, so that when the blackness dissipated, he could only pant out one word: Dipso—“I thirst.”

And having ascended into heaven, Christ continues in matchless strength for our sakes and in holiness unto God, blowing the gospel trumpet throughout the earth, drawing all his people unto himself, making ceaseless intercession with the Father in our behalf, so that the fullness of the Godhead may dwell in him and be imparted to us through his Spirit. With his everlasting strength Christ binds the strong man of the house and then spoils his goods in the hearts of every one of his elect people, so that they through him are more than conquerors in every aspect of their lives.

Matchless strength!

As a Voluntary Offering

What a shadow that uninterrupted stream of smoke from the burnt offering was! Whether the elect Israelite was mindful of the fact that the burnt offering lay upon the altar in a perpetual state of immolation and went up to God on high, the truth was that God always smelled a sweet savor, was ever mindful of his covenant, and was graciously inclined toward his people in eternal love.

When an Israelite brought a burnt offering into God’s courts of his voluntary will, that was a mighty confession of faith. On the one hand, that Israelite acknowledged the truth that without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. On the other hand, that Israelite acknowledged before God his own utter inability to be holy as God is holy. By that offering the Israelite gave testimony to the certain knowledge and assured confidence that in the promised seed God always had a sweet savor fill his nostrils and that God was well pleased with him for the sake of Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son.