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The T aberru,clt He has forgiven us all our trespasses (Col. 2:13). Th consequences of our guilty acts, which condemn our ov.n hearts as we think upon them-these He has put under the blood of His cross, if we truly love Him and trust in Him as our Trespass-Offering. And we hear Him speak to us in reassuring words, saying, "Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged" (Isaiah 6 :7). "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile" (Psalm 3 2: 1, 2). Such forgiveness makes us bow before our holy God with repentance for the transgressions which sent Him to the cross; with thanksgiving for the love that "removed our transgressions from us ... as far as the east is from the west" (Psalm 103:12). Such forgiveness and such love make us ashamed of our iniquities against God and man; make us want to be ever-increasingly well-pleasing in His sight and before a godless world, for His name's sake. Conscious of our weakness, of our failures, we sing, in the words of the prayer-hymn, "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love- Here's my heart; 0, take and seal it; Seal it for Thy courts above." The Burnt Offering The first of the three sweet savour offerings was the burnt offering, described in the first chapter of Leviticus. "The law of the burnt offering" is set forth in Lev. 6: 8- 13. There can be no doubt that it foreshadowed the offer-
147 The Tabernacle ing of our Lord, in His sinless Person, well-pleasing unto the Father; for in Eph. 5: 2 we read, "Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet- smelling savour." After sin had been confessed and put away, through the sin offering and the trespass offering, then the offerer brought his burnt offering, which was a picture of Christ's perfect surrender to His Father in entire devotion and perfection, and of the Father's delight in His sinless and well beloved Son. The burnt offering was to be brought to the door of the tabernacle, in public worship on the sin- ner's part, that he might be "accepted before Jehovah" (Lev. 1:3, R. V.). The offerer put his hand upon the head of the victim, thus identifying himself with the sub- stitute. Then the offerer himself slew the sacrifice, where- as it was the priest who sprinkled the blood "round about upon the altar." All of this is highly significant. Only because we have been "accepted in the beloved" Son of God, can we stand before Him unashamed and unafraid. Christ is our Burnt- Offering; and because we have put our faith in His aton- ing work for us, the Father sees us washed from all sin, cleansed "whiter than snow," all our imperfections and guilt hidden forever from His sight, covered by His shel- tering blood. Having identified ourselves with the sinless Son of God by faith in Him, having acknowledged that our iniquities sent Him to Calvary, slew Him on the "ac- cursed tree," we must leave to Hirn the priestly work of sprinkling His precious blood, as it were, "round about upon the altar," presenting His Burnt-Offering unto the Father on our behalf. And His death upon the altar, which was His cross, was as a "sweet savour unto the Lord." His
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