Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

Free Grace Media

Of Princeton, New Jersey

 

AuthorClay Curtis
TitleChrist Our Burnt Offering
Bible TextExodus 29:15-18
Synopsis The burnt offering typifies Christ offering himself unto God his Father in perfect holiness, in the totality of his life being consecrated to God, which was an offering acceptable to God in whom his people are accepted of God. Listen
Date29-Mar-2020
Series Exodus 2016
Article Type Sermon Notes
PDF Format pdf
Word Format doc
Audio HI-FI Listen: Christ Our Burnt Offering (32 kbps)
Audio CD Quality Listen: Christ Our Burnt Offering (128 kbps)
Length 39 min.
 
Title: Christ our Burnt Offering 
Text: Ex 29: 15-18 
Date: March 22, 2020 
Place: SGBC, NJ 
  
Our subject: Christ our Burnt Offering 
  
Exodus 29: 1: And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in the priest’s office: Take one young bullock, and two rams without blemish,…15: Thou shalt also take one ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. 16: And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about upon the altar. 17: And thou shalt cut the ram in pieces, and wash the inwards of him, and his legs, and put them unto his pieces, and unto his head. 18: And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the LORD: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD. 
 
Last time we saw how the bullock was used for the sin-offering.  It pictured Christ giving himself as a sin-bearing sacrifice to put away the sins of people.  This time we will see how one ram without blemish was used for a burnt offering.  This, too, pictures Christ. 
 
Proposition: The burnt offering typifies Christ offering himself unto God his Father in perfect holiness, in the totality of his life being consecrated to God, which was an offering acceptable to God in whom his people are accepted of God. 
  
A DIFFERENT TRANSFERENCE
 
Exodus 29: 15: Thou shalt also take one ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram.
 
The burnt-offering pictures something different than the sin-offering.  Here we have pictured a transference of our persons rather than our sins.
  
With the sin-offering, putting their hands on the head of the spotless bullock pictured the sins of God’s elect transferred to Christ.  It typified the Lord laying on him the iniquity of all his elect.  Christ became the sole sin-bearer when he made him sin for us, who knew no sin.  Christ became the only one the law said must die out of all God’s elect. 
  
With the burnt offering, the hands put on the head of the ram, pictures a transference of God’s elect themselves.  Christ became his people when he was made of a woman like unto his brethren.  He took our place.  What Christ did, his elect did in him.  The sin-offering was Christ bearing our sin; the burnt-offering is Christ bearing his people.  The sin offering was to make his people justified; the burnt offering was to make his people accepted 
  
God requires perfect, holy, consecration, obedience and love—in order for God to accept us.  But not one of God’s elect can meet that requirement—not before, not after we are regenerated.  How then can God accept any of his chosen people?  God only accepts his people in the Beloved. 
  
Ephesians 1: 3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places IN CHRIST 4  According as he hath chosen us IN HIM before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him IN LOVE:…6…wherein he hath made us accepted IN THE BELOVED. 
 
The sin-offering typifies our sins put away by Christ; the burnt offering typifies our rejection put away by Christ. The burnt-offering pictures Christ offering himself completely to God—his life, his obedience, his love, his consecration, all that he is.  And because Christ was perfect in his consecration and commitment to God, his offering came up a sweet savor unto God wherein all God’s elect are accepted in Christ the Beloved. 
 
EVEN UNTO DEATH
 
Exodus 29: 16: And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about upon the altar. 
 
The dedication and perfect commitment Christ gave to God his Father is manifest in that it was even unto death. 
  
In order to give God’s elect acceptance with God, Christ had to make atonement.  His blood must be shed.  Christ had to die in our room and stead.  Our sins must be put away.  We must be justified before the law.  In order for God to accept sinners like us Christ had to shed his own blood for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. 
  
But, brethren, Christ putting away our sins was pictured in the sin-offering.  Why must the burnt offering be slain and his blood be poured out around the altar?  It is because if we would be accepted of God as perfectly hallowed and consecrated to God—as having given God perfect, unwavering dedication—then Christ’s consecration must be perfect.  What could better manifest this than that Christ willingly laid down his life, that Christ gave up his own blood, for God and his brethren.  Christ was so obedient and consecrated to God that it was even to the shedding of his own life’s blood unto death.  Christ told us nothing manifests love and dedication than this. 
  
John 15: 13: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 
  
That is how perfectly consecrated our Savior is to his Father and to us, his brethren.  He willingly gave his own life’s blood pictured by the blood of the burnt offering poured out.  Christ poured out his life to God to accomplish God’s will to save his elect in a way that gives God all the glory.  That way is by declaring God just and Justifier.  Christ committed himself to not only to justify us from our sins but to do it in way that declared God a Just God and a Savior.  By such dedication to God to carry that will of his Father out, Christ was a sweetsmelling savor unto God—and we in him.   So two things were accomplished on the cross—we were justified of all our sins and our commitment to God came up a sweetsavor and we were accepted in Christ. 
 
EVEN UNTO THE DEATH OF THE CROSS
 
Exodus 29: 17: And thou shalt cut the ram in pieces, and wash the inwards of him, and his legs, and put them unto his pieces, and unto his head. 
 
We see typified here the perfection of Christ’s commitment to God the Father.  As if it were not enough to manifest how perfectly Christ was committed to his Father by showing that he poured out his own life’s blood, here we are shown that the cruel suffering of the cross manifests even more how perfect Christ’s commitment was to God.  It is one thing to be do devoted that you are willing to die; it is another thing to be willing to die in such a painful, shameful way as our Savior on the cursed cross. 
 
When Christ took the form of a servant, as a Man representing his people, in order to be accepted of God as perfect—in order to be a sweet smelling savor to God—Christ had to be perfect in obedience and commitment to God entirely, in body, soul and spirit.  
  
By cutting the ram in pieces it pictures the excruciating torments Christ endured inwardly as well as outwardly, in spirit as well as in flesh, when the sword of his own Father was awakened upon him.  Indeed, his body was racked with pain but his soul agony was far worse!  He saw heaven closed to him and hell opened to swallow him up.  No one in heaven or earth was there to help as our Substitute trod the winepress of the fury of God’s wrath alone.  He was the burnt offering cut in pieces when he said, 
Psalm 22: 14: I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. 15: My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. 
  
Read that last phrase again.  As painful as his bodily pain was, it paled in comparison to knowing that it was his Father that had brought him into the dust of the death.  While hanging upon the tree with the sin of his people in his own body, God the Father turned his back on Christ.  Christ cried out but got no response from the Father he loved only justice. 
  
By washing the inward parts and the legs of the ram it pictures the perfection of Christ’s obedience to God, even as he bore the intense burning of the cross.  He was full of unwavering faithfulness and consecration, even when suffering that incomparable travail, crying, ‘My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?” 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF DELIGHT
  
Exodus 29: 18: And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the LORD: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
  
In verse 13 the clean, inward parts of the sin-offering were burned on the altar.  But in verse 14, God said, “But the flesh of the bullock, and his skin, and his dung, shalt thou burn with fire without the camp: it is a sin-offering.”  God required the dirtier parts of the bullock to be burned without the camp.  The word “burn” means “consume.” It typified that by bearing our sin and suffering the death of the cross without the gate, Christ consumed the sin and curse of his people. 
  
But in v18, God says “thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar.” Here it’s a different word. Here “burn” is not to consume but to “burn as incense.”  Why the difference? “It is a burnt offering unto the LORD: it is a sweet savour, [restful, pleasing, delightsome]; an offering made by fire unto the LORD.” 
 
Christ’s perfect obedience to God, his perfect love to God and his brethren, all of which was manifest by Christ laying down his life on the cruel cross was a burnt offering.  It was meant to come up to God for acceptance.  And it did!  It came up to God a sweet savor of rest, a savor pleasing to God, a savor in which God takes infinite delight!  And because God accepts Christ and delights in Christ as the perfectly consecrated, dedicated servant of God, also God accepts his people in the Beloved as the same sweet savor!
  
GOD’S APPLICATION
 
At times we become critical of our brethren and lose patience with them.  They offend us or they do not treat us as we think they ought.  Slowly, we begin to find fault.  Perhaps, they are not being as obedient to God as they ought.  It can be very true that they are not.  But if we are not careful, what we really mean in our hearts (though we would never say it) is that they are not being as obedient as we have been.  The next thing you know we find ourselves becoming bitter, unkind, unforgiving, unloving. 
  
For the child of God, when that happens, without fail God the Spirit comes in grace to his child and makes us ask ourselves some questions.  He makes me ask myself, “Is my unforgiving spirit being obedient to God?  Is my bitter spirit the obedience God works in the hearts of his child?  Here I am criticizing my brother for outward sins but am I being obedient to God from the heart as I ought?  Have I, in and of myself, ever been consecrated to God in perfection, in every part, inwardly and outwardly entirely?”  The Spirit of God reminds us that perfect obedience and consecration is what God requires and none of us, of ourselves, has ever given it. 
  
Then the Spirit of God grants his child repentance.  Then I find myself sorrowful over the way I’ve treated my brother, my sister.  But in the midst of my sorrow, the Spirit brings to remembrance what God says about me and about all my brethren.  God says that by Christ our Sin-offering we are perfectly righteous before the all-knowing Judge.  By Christ our Burnt Offering, our lives—past, present and future—have been so entirely consecrated, devoted, and obedient in love to God and our brethren that we are a sweet-smelling savor unto God.  I am a sweet-smelling savor.  But even more needful, the Spirit of God reminds me that that brother I have been so critical of is also a sweet-smelling savor unto God.  
  
Then the Spirit of God makes me hear God speak these words to me.  He makes me cease having that defiled spirit where I say that I hope my brother hears this word.  He purges our conscience and makes me hear this word for myself.   After beholding Christ give himself a sacrifice for our sins as our sin-offering and after beholding Christ give himself an offering to God as our burnt-offering, this is what God says to me personally and this is what God says to you personally:  
  
Ephesians 4: 31: Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, FORGIVING ONE ANOTHER, EVEN AS GOD FOR CHRIST’S SAKE HATH FORGIVEN YOU.  5: 1: Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2: And WALK IN LOVE, AS CHRIST ALSO HATH LOVED US, AND HATH GIVEN HIMSELF FOR US AN OFFERING AND A SACRIFICE TO GOD FOR A SWEETSMELLING SAVOUR. 
  
Believer try to enter into this!  We are not trying to make any sacrifice to justify ourselves—Christ has put away our sins; God has forgiven us for his sake.  We are not trying to offer anything to God to gain God’s acceptance.  In Christ, by his perfection we have already given to God a perfect life of perfect obedience and perfect love and are accepted in the Beloved!  Let us remember that about ourselves.  But most of all, when we would be critical of a brother or sister in Christ, let us remember that about our brethren! 
 
Amen!