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134 Tbe Tabernacle Now that Christ has come to fulfill all the types and shadows set forth in the offerings and sacrifices for sin; even as we, too, are journeying on a pilgrimage from Egypt to Canaan, so to speak, from this godless world to our heav- enly home; we see our own frailties and weaknesses. Then we look from ourselves to Him who was our all-sufficient Offering on the altar of Calvary; and we thank Him for His grace! May His Holy Spirit teach us in this study today some of the deep and precious truths that add mean- ing to the message of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Five Offerings There were :five offerings connected with Israel's wor- ship of Jehovah. They show what the Son of God is to the Father, and "what He has become in grace to sinners." When viewed as a whole, they portray in shadow and in type the one perfect offering of Christ. When considered separately, they set forth the different aspects of the Per- son and work of the Lord Jesus, as the Sacrifice sufficient for every need of the human soul. The first three of these offerings are called by the Holy Spirit the "sweet savour offerings"; the last two, the "non-sweet savour offerings." This classification by the Spirit of God can be readily understood from the names of the offerings themselves: (1) the burnt offering; (2) the meal offering (R. V.); (3) the peace offering; (4) the sin offering; and ( 5) the trespass offering. The :first three set forth the perfections which God the Father :finds in the Lord Jesus; the last two portray Christ as the Sin- Bearer for a guilty world. In the sinless life of the Son the Father found delight; but when the Son became a Sin- Offering, a curse for us, then the Father had to turn His face away from His well beloved Son, while the Son uttered
The Tabernacle that heart-searching cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He was, in that hour of darkness, the "non-sweet savour offering" for a guilty world. Of all the prophetic pictures in the Mosaic Law con- cerning Christ's finished work on Calvary, the burnt offer- ing presents the highest type. It speaks to us of the beloved Son of God in whom the Father was always well pleased. ' . The peace offering presents God's righteousness in Chnst as the only ground of fellowship between a holy God and His redeemed children. The meal offering, which was the only one of the five presented without blood, portrays the glory and beauty of the One "altogether lovely," up~n whose Person the born-again soul delights to feed. The SID and trespass offerings set forth the sinner's Substitute, not only for deliberate trespass against God and man, but also for the old, sinful nature with all its guilt inherited from Adam. Christ, our Sin-Offering and our Trespass-Offering, bore "the wages of sin" for us in His death, and gave unt~ us the free gift of "eternal life" (Rom. 6:23). It is significant that, when the Holy Spirit described these five offerings in the opening chapters of Leviticus, He began with the sweet savour offerings, which were a delight to God; yet when the sinner brought his sacrifice to the brazen altar, he reversed the order, presenting first the sin offering and the trespass offering. He had to meet God on the basis of the blood shed for the redemption of sin before he could go on with Him in consecration and communion and fellowship. He had to know that his sins were washed away by faith in the promised Saviour before he could learn more and more of the beauties and perfec- tions of His wonderful Person. But by faith in Him who was to come to put away sin and to pay the penalty "once
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