Levítico 1

Levítico 1

Spurgeon - Putting the hand upon the head of the sacrifice - Two matters were essential in the sacrifices of the ceremonial law; and you have them both in our text: “He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering,” and “He shall kill the bullock before the Lord.” The appropriation by the offerer and the death of the offering are most fitly joined together, and must neither of them be overlooked. Let us on the present occasion look at THE LEADING ACT OF THE OFFERER: “He shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering.” All that goes before is important, but this is the real sacrificial act so far as the offerer is concerned. Before he reached this point, the person who presented the offering had to make a selection of the animal to be brought before the Lord. It must be of a certain age, and it must be without blemish; and for this latter reason a careful examination had to be made; for the Lord would not accept a sacrifice that was lame, or broken, or bruised, or deficient in any of its parts, or in any way blemished. He required an offering “without spot.” Now I invite all those who seek reconciliation with God to look about them, and consider whether the Lord Jesus Christ be such an atoning sacrifice as they need and as God will accept. After you have well examined His blessed person and His spotless character if you arrive at the conclusion that He is a fit and acceptable sacrifice for you to present before the Lord, then I long that you may take the much more practical step, and accept the Lord Jesus to be your representative, your sin-offering, your burnt-offering, your substitute, and your sacrifice. Happily you have not to find a sacrifice as the Jew had to supply a bullock; God has provided Himself with a perfect sacrifice; that which you have to bring to God, God first brings to you. Happily, there is no need for you to repeat the examination through which the Lord Jesus passed both at the hands of men, and of devils, and of God, when He was tested and tried and examined, and even the prince of this world found nothing of his own in Him. You have to attend to this one thing, namely, the laying of your hands upon the sacrifice provided for you. To the Jew it was a sacrifice to be slain, to you it is a sacrifice already offered; and this you are to accept and recognize as your own. I pray from my inmost soul that you may immediately do that which was meant by laying the hand upon the victim’s head. What did that mean? I. It meant four things, and the first was CONFESSION. 1. He that laid his hand upon the head of the offering made confession of sin. Your touch of Jesus must be the touch of one who is consciously guilty. He belongs not to you unless you are a sinner. Confession of sin is no hard duty to some of us, for we can do no other than acknowledge and bemoan our guilt. Here we stand before Thee self-condemned, and with aching hearts we each one cry, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness.” Do any of you refuse to make confession of guilt? Then do not think it hard if, since according to your own proud notions you are not sinners, the Lord should provide for you no Saviour. Should medicine be prepared for those who are not sick? Wherefore should the righteous be invited to partake of pardon? Why should a righteousness be provided for the innocent? Our true place is that of sinners: we plead guilty to the dread indictment of God’s holy law, and therefore we are glad to lay our hand upon the head of the sinner’s Saviour and sacrifice. 2. In this act there was also a confession of self-impotence. Oh, what can we do without Christ? I like what was said by a child in the Sunday School, when the teacher said, “You have been reading that Christ is precious: what does that mean?” The children stayed a little while, till at last one boy replied, “Father said the other day that mother was precious, for ‘ whatever should we do without her?‘ “This is a capital explanation of the word “precious.” You and I can truly say of the Lord Jesus Christ that He is precious to us, for what should we do, what could we do without Him? Because we are so deeply conscious of our own self-impotence we lean hard upon His all-sufficiency. If you could read the text in the Hebrew, you would find it reads thus: “He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make a cover for him”--to make atonement for him. The word is koper in the Hebrew--a cover. Why, then, do we hide behind the Lord Jesus? Because we feel our need of something to cover us, and to act as an interposition between us and the righteous Judge of all the earth. If the Holy One of Israel shall look upon us as we are He must be displeased; but when He sees us in Christ Jesus He is well pleased for His righteousness’ sake. 3. There was a further confession of the deserved punishment. When a man brought his bullock or his goat or his lamb, he put his hand on it and, as he knew that the poor creature must die, he thus acknowledged that he himself deserved death. II. Secondly, the laying on of hands meant ACCEPTANCE. The offerer by laying his hand upon the victim’s head signified that he acknowledged the offering to be for himself. 1. He accepted, first of all, the principle and the plan. Far too many kick against the idea of our being saved by substitution or representation. Why do they rebel against it? Why should I complain of that which is to deliver me from destruction? If the Lord does not object to the way, why should I? God grant that no one may hold out against a method of grace so simple, so sure, so available! But, then, mind. 2. After you have accepted the plan and the way, you must not stop there, but you must go on to accept the sacred person whom God provides. It would have been a very foolish thing if the offerer had stood at the altar and said, “Good Lord, I accept the plan of sacrifice; be it burnt-offering or sin-offering, I agree thereto.” He did much more than that; he accepted that very bullock as his offering, and in token thereof placed his hand upon it. I pray you beware of resting satisfied with understanding and approving the plan of salvation. I heard of one who anxiously desired to be the means of the conversion of a young man, and one said to him, “You may go to him, and talk to him, but you will get him no further, for he is exceedingly well acquainted with the plan of salvation.” When the friend began to speak with the young man, he received for an answer, “I am much obliged to you, but I do not know that you can tell me much, for I have long known and admired the plan of salvation by the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ.” Alas! he was resting in the plan, but he bad not believed in the Person. The plan of salvation is most blessed, but it can avail us nothing unless we believe. What is the comfort of a plan of a house if you do not enter the house itself? What is the good of a plan of clothing if you have not a rag to cover you? The offerer laid his hands literally upon the bullock: he found something substantial there, something which he could handle and touch; even so do we lean upon the real and true work of Jesus, the most substantial thing under heaven. We come to the Lord Jesus by faith, and say, “God has provided an atonement here, and I accept it; I believe it to be a fact accomplished on the Cross that sin was put away by Christ, and I rest on Him.” Yes; you must get beyond the acceptance of plans and doctrines to a resting in the Divine person and finished work of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, and a casting of yourself entirely upon Him. III. But thirdly, this laying of the hand upon the sacrifice meant not only acceptance, but also TRANSFERENCE. 1. The offerer had confessed his sin, and had accepted the victim then presented to be his sacrifice, and now he mentally realises that his guilt is by Divine appointment to pass over from himself to the sacrifice. Of course this was only done in type and figure at the door of the Tabernacle; but in our case the Lord Jesus Christ as a matter of literal fact has borne the sin of His people. “The Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all.” “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” But do we by faith pass our sins-from ourselves to Christ? I answer, No: in some senses, no. But by faith he that accepts Christ as his Saviour agrees with what the Lord did ages ago, for we read in the book of Isaiah the prophet, “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” 2. The laying of the hand upon the head of the sacrifice meant a transference of guilt to the victim, and, furthermore, a confidence in the efficacy of the sacrifice there and then presented. The believing Jew said, “This bullock represents to me the sacrifice which God has provided, and I rejoice in it because it is the symbol of a sacrifice which does in very deed take away sin.” There are a great number of people who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ after a fashion, but it is not in deed and in truth, for they do not believe in the actual pardon of their own sin: they hope that it may one day be forgiven, but they have no confidence that the Lord Jesus has already put away their sin by His death. “I am a great sinner,” says one, “therefore I cannot be saved.” Man alive, did Christ die for those who are not sinners? What was the need of a Saviour except for sinners? Has Jesus actually borne sin, or has He not? If He has borne our sin, it is gone; if He has not borne it, our sin will never depart. What does the Scripture say? “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” If, then, Christ did take the sinner’s sin, it remains not upon the sinner that believeth. IV. Once more, this laying of the hand upon the head of the victim meant IDENTIFICATION. The worshipper who laid his hand on the bullock said, “Be pleased, O great Lord, to identify me with this bullock, and this bullock with me. There has been a transferring of my sin, now I beseech Thee let me be judged as being in the victim, and represented thereby.” Now consider that which happened to the sacrifice. The knife was unsheathed, and the victim was slain. He was not merely bound, bat killed; and the man stood there and said, “That is me; that is the fate which I deserve.” The poor creature struggled, it wallowed in the sand in its dying agonies, and if the worshipper was a right-minded person, and not a mere formalist, he stood with tears in his eyes, and felt in his heart, “That death is mine.” I beseech you when you think of our blessed Lord to identify yourselves with Him. (See Spurgeon's full sermon - Leviticus 1:4-5 Putting the Hand Upon the Head of the Sacrifice) (See also Leviticus 4:29 Commentary for more detailed notes including discussion by C H Spurgeon) Leviticus 1:4a (Spurgeon's Morning and Evening) - Our Lord's being made "sin for us" is set forth here by the very significant transfer of sin to the bullock, which was made by the elders of the people. The laying of the hand was not a mere touch of contact, for in some other places of Scripture the original word has the meaning of leaning heavily, as in the expression, "thy wrath lieth hard upon me" (Psalm 88:7). Surely this is the very essence and nature of faith, which doth not only bring us into contact with the great Substitute, but teaches us to lean upon him with all the burden of our guilt. Jehovah made to meet upon the head of the Substitute all the offences of his covenant people, but each one of the chosen is brought personally to ratify this solemn covenant act, when by grace he is enabled by faith to lay his hand upon the head of the "Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world." (Jn 1:29) Believer, do you remember that rapturous day when you first realized pardon through Jesus the sin-bearer? Can you not make glad confession, and join with the writer in saying, "My soul recalls her day of deliverance with delight. Laden with guilt and full of fears, I saw my Saviour as my Substitute, and I laid my hand upon him; oh! how timidly at first, but courage grew and confidence was confirmed until I leaned my soul entirely upon him; and now it is my unceasing joy to know that my sins are no longer imputed to me, but laid on him, and like the debts of the wounded traveler, Jesus, like the good Samaritan, has said of all my future sinfulness, 'Set that to my account. '" Blessed discovery! Eternal solace of a grateful heart! My numerous sins transferr'd to him, Shall never more be found, Lost in his blood's atoning stream, Where every crime is drown'd! Spurgeon's Faith's Checkbook - A Completed Sacrifice—Leviticus 1:4 IF by that laying on of his hand, the bullock became the offerer’s sacrifice, how much more shall Jesus become ours by the laying on of the hand of faith? My faith doth lay her hand On that dear head of Thine, While like a penitent I stand, And there confess my sin. If a bullock could be accepted for him to make atonement for him, how much more shall the Lord Jesus be our full and all-sufficient propitiation? Some quarrel with the great truth of substitution; but as for us, it is our hope, our joy, our boast, our all. Jesus is accepted for us to make atonement for us, and we are “accepted in the Beloved.” Let the reader take care at once to lay his hand on the Lord’s completed sacrifice, that by accepting it he may obtain the benefit of it. If he has done so once, let him do it again. If he has never done so, let him put out his hand without a moment’s delay. Jesus is yours now if you will have Him. Lean on Him; lean hard on Him; and He is yours beyond all question; you are reconciled to God, your sins are blotted out, and you are the Lord’s. Burnt offering (05930)(See discussion of 'olah from 'alah = to ascend and thus the picture of going up in smoke) refers to a whole burnt offering (one which goes up in smoke), which was voluntary, was understood as a sacrificial gift to God, resulting in a pleasing aroma acceptable to Jehovah (Lev 1:9). Henry