The Ministration of the Earthly Priests
By Uriah Smith
MAN'S SIN AND SAVIOUR. NO. 4.
The Ministration of the Earthly Priests.
From this view of the sanctuary and its furniture we now turn to the greater one, of the uses for which it was designed, or the ministration connected therewith. This is so fully described in the book of Leviticus, and its New Testament commentary, the book of Hebrews, that very few words will suffice for our present purpose. Bearing in mind that the law of God, by which was the knowledge of sin, reposed in the ark in the most holy place, let us look at the service continually going on in the court and the tabernacle. When anyone conscious of guilt as a violator of the law, wished to obtain pardon, he brought a prescribed victim, according to the nature of the offering he wished to make, to the priests at the door of the tabernacle. He then placed his hand upon the head of the offering (Lev. 4:4, 15, 29) and confessed over the offering his sin (Lev. 5:5; 16:21), by which act the sin was regarded as being transferred from the sinner to his offering, which was then treated as the guilty party. The sinner then slew the victim, and the priests took the blood, in which was the life, and performed a ministry with it before the Lord. He took the blood, bore it into the sanctuary, and sprinkled it before the vail, the nearest approach that could be made (until the day of atonement) to the law, for the transgression of which that blood had been shed. The principal offering of expiation was the sin offering, and generally the blood of such offerings was sprinkled in the sanctuary, and when so used the flesh of the victim was entirely burned with fire. Heb. 13:11. But there was another class of sin offerings the blood of which was poured out at the foot of the altar, and a portion of which was to be eaten by the priests. Lev. 4:34; 6:25, 30. Provision was made for a sin offering the blood of which should be borne into the tabernacle, for any soul that sinned (Lev. 4:2), for the priest (verse 3), and for the whole congregation collectively (verses 13-21). But whatever offering of a propitiatory nature was made, the priest either bore the blood into the sanctuary or partook of the offering as being his portion. And when the sinner had brought his victim and slain it, and the priest had taken the matter in charge, the sinner was then free from his sin. He was pardoned, and the sin was then in the hands of the ministers of that sacred court. But let it be noticed that this was not the final disposition of that sin; it was transferred from the sinner, but was treated as a separate entity, to be disposed of afterwards, as we shall presently see. This service of offering at the door of the sanctuary went on continuously through the year, the penitents receiving pardon according as they sought it by repentance, confession, and their offerings for sin, by which they showed their faith in a greater sacrifice which was to come, the sins of these pardoned suppliants meanwhile accumulating, so to speak, in the sanctuary, where the priests ministered. Besides this individual work there were daily sacrifices of a more general nature, such as the regular morning and evening sacrifice, the morning and evening incense, the special offerings for the weekly Sabbath, the annual sabbaths, new moons, and feasts. See Numbers, chapters 28, 29. In this manner the services of the sanctuary went forward through the year. Day after day, week after week, month after month, we behold this round of service performed, the victims coming in solemn procession to the sanctuary, the work of confession going on, the crimson tide of expiation flowing, and the solemn-visaged priests in ceaseless service sprinkling this token of forfeited life before the broken law. There was thus a continual transfer of sins from the people to the sanctuary throughout the year. What became of those sins? We reach at length a particular day, when another service was performed; it was the great day of the year; it was the culmination of the whole year's round of service; it was called the day of atonement, and it came on the tenth day of the seventh month of every year. A particular description of the exercises of this day is found in the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus. "Speak unto Aaron thy brother," said the Lord to Moses, "that he come not at all times into the holy place within the veil before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not; for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat." Paul, in Heb. 9:6, 7, also states the fact that the high priests could go only once a year into the most holy place: "Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle [that is, into the first apartment of the sanctuary], accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people." The work to be wrought on this day was the atonement, and hence the day was called "the day of atonement." For its accomplishment, an apartment of the sanctuary, into which no man through all the year had been permitted to enter on pain of death, was solemnly laid open, and the ministration of the high priests transferred thereto. After a suitable offering for himself and house (Lev. 16:3, 4, 6) the high priest was to take of the congregation two kids of the goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle (Lev. 16:7). He then casts lots upon them, one for the Lord, the other for a scapegoat, or (margin) Azazel. Verse 8. Then, after making an atonement for himself and house in the most holy place, he was to come out and kill the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord, to be a sin offering for the people, and with that blood go again into the most holy place and sprinkle the blood upon the mercy seat and before the mercy seat seven times. He did this "because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins." Verse 16. It is called, also, the "reconciling" of the holy place, and to reconcile in this case is the same as to cleanse; for making the atonement was the cleansing of the people, and the atonement was made for the sanctuary as well as for the people. See verse 30: "For on that day shall the priests make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord." The atonement, then, was a cleansing from sin; but verse 33 reads: "And he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation." Thus this work of the atonement was the cleansing of the sanctuary. This is further shown by Eze. 45:18-20, where "reconciling the house" is called "cleansing the sanctuary." And the word "reconcile," in verse 20, is the same word as "reconciling" in Lev. 16:20. While the work of atonement was in progress, the people were to be around the sanctuary afflicting their souls, thus maintaining an interest in the sacrifice that was there being offered in their behalf. Lev. 23:27-32. And when the priest had finished the sprinkling of the blood upon and before the mercy seat, beneath which lay the law, thus showing that its demands had been satisfied, and securing a release of its claims upon the people for their sins, he came forth to the door of the tabernacle and the live goat was brought before him. Upon that goat he then laid both his hands and confessed over him "all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them," says the record, "upon the head of the goat." Think a moment what this implies in regard to those sins. The sins mentioned were not simply the sins committed on that day, but were all the sins, all the transgressions, and all the iniquities54of the children of Israel since the preceding yearly atonement was made. These sins had been accumulating, as we have seen, in the sanctuary; they were now, by the services of the atonement, considered as released from the law and the sanctuary, and placed in the hand of the high priest, by whom they were brought out and placed upon the head of the scapegoat. This shows that something more is done with sins after the sinner has been pardoned of them. The priests on the day of atonement put them all on the head of the scapegoat. This is the plain record of the Scriptures, and if any are disposed to cavil at this transaction, they simply cavil with the Scripture record itself. The scapegoat, having received the sins of the people, was sent away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness, called a land not inhabited, or, as the margin says, “of separation.” Lev. 16:21, 22. Tradition has it that the goat was there caused to perish; and with him perished all the load of sins which he bore. This was the “remembrance” that was “made of sins every year” under that system (Heb. 10:3); but after each yearly service of this kind, there was no more remembrance of the sins of that year. Here, so far as that typical system was concerned, was the remission of sin, for remission means “a sending away,” and here the sins were sent away on the head of the goat into a land not inhabited, a land of separation and forgetfulness, and came no more into the camp of Israel, to be remembered against the people. A round of service was now completed. The day of atonement being past, the regular daily service for another year began, and went forward till another day of atonement completed another year’s work. And thus the services of the sanctuary went forward year by year, with occasional interruptions on account of the sins and chastisements of the people, until by unseen hands the veil of the temple was rent in twain on the day when the Son of God, the world’s great Sacrifice, expired upon the cross. In less than forty years after that epochal day Jerusalem itself fell a prey to the arms of Rome, the temple was destroyed, the Jews were scattered over the face of the earth, and the sanctuary and its sacrifices, as they had existed in Jerusalem, disappeared from the view of men. As we now come to a new dispensation, and the old passes away, it remains to inquire what change took place in reference to the work we have been considering. The propositions we have to present and maintain here are these: That there is a sanctuary in this dispensation, the antitype of that of the old; that there is a priestly work to be performed in this dispensation, the antitype of that of the sons of Levi in the former; that the ministration in the New Testament sanctuary has one round of service to be performed, represented by the complete yearly round of service of the type; that this, like that in the type, will close with an atonement, when sins will be put away in reality and once for all, and the work of salvation for the world will be forever ended.