THE CONSECRATION SERVICES.
Exodus 29
The priest being now selected, and his raiment so provided as
that it shall speak of his office and its glory, there remains his
consecration.
In our day there is a disposition to make light of the formal
setting apart of men and things for sacred uses. If God, we are
asked, has called one to special service, is not that enough? What
more can earth do to commission the chosen of the sky? But the plain
answer which we ought to have the courage to return is that this is
not at all enough. For God Himself had already called Paul and
Barnabas when He said to such folk as Simeon Niger and Lucius of
Cyrene and Manaen, "Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work
whereunto I have called them" (Act 13:1-4). And these obscure people
not only laid their hands upon the great apostle, but actually sent
him forth. Now, if he was not exempted from the need of an orderly
commission by the marvellous circumstances of his call, by his
apostleship not of man, by the explicit announcement that he was a
chosen vessel to bear the sacred name before kings and peoples, it
is startling to be told of some shallow modern evangelist, who works
for no Church and submits to no discipline, that he can dispense
with the sanction of human ordination because he is so clearly sent
of heaven.
The example of the Old Testament will no doubt be brushed aside
as if the religion which Jesus learned and honoured were a mere
human superstition. Or else it would be natural to ask, Is it
because the offices and functions of Judaism were more formal, more
perfunctory than ours, that a greater spiritual grace went with
their appointments than with the laying on of hands in the Christian
Church, a rite so clearly sanctioned in the New Testament?
It is written of Joshua that Moses was to lay his hands upon him,
because already the Spirit was in him; and of Timothy that he had
unfeigned faith, and that prophecies went before concerning him (Num
27:18; 1Ti 1:18; 2Ti 1:5). But in neither dispensation did special
grace fail to accompany the official separation to sacred office:
Joshua was full of the Spirit of Wisdom, for Moses had laid his
hands upon him; and Timothy was bidden to stir into flame that gift
of God which was in him through the laying on of the Apostle's hands
(Deu 34:9; 2Ti 1:6).
Accordingly there is great stress laid upon the orderly
institution of the priest. And yet, to make it plain that his
authority is only "for his brethren," Moses, the chief of the
nation, is to officiate throughout the ceremony of consecration. He
it is who shall offer the sacrifices upon the altar, and sprinkle
the blood, not upon the first day only, but throughout the
ceremonies of the week.
In the first place certain victims must be held in readiness--a
bullock and two rams; and with these must be brought in one basket
unleavened bread, and unleavened cakes made with oil, and unleavened
wafers on which oil is poured. Then, at the door of the tent of the
meeting of man with God, a ceremonial washing must follow, in a
laver yet to be provided. Here the assertion that purity is needed,
and that it is not inherent, is too plain to be dwelt upon.
But such details as the assuming of the existence of a laver, for
which no directions have yet been given (and presently also of the
anointing oil, the composition of which is still untold), deserve
notice. They are much more in the manner of one who is working out a
plan, seen already by his mental vision, but of which only the
salient and essential parts have been as yet stated, than of any
priest of the latter days, who would first have completed his
catalogue of the furniture, and only then have described the
ceremonies in which he was accustomed to see all this apparatus take
its appointed place.
What we actually find is quite natural to a creative imagination,
striking out the broad design of the work and its uses first, and
then filling in the outlines. It is not natural at a time when
freshness and inspiration have departed, and squared timber, as we
are told, has taken the place of the living tree.
The priest, when cleansed, was next to be clad in his robes of
office, with the mitre on his head, and upon the mitre the golden
plate, with its inscription, which is here called, as the
culminating object in all his rich array, "the holy crown" (Exo
29:6).
And then he was to be anointed. Now, the use of oil, in the
ceremony of investiture to office, is peculiar to revealed religion.
And whether we suppose it to refer to the oil in a lamp, invisible,
yet the secret source of all its illuminating power, or to that
refreshment and renovated strength bestowed upon a weary traveller
when his head is anointed with oil, in either case it expresses the
grand doctrine of revealed religion--that no office may be filled in
one's own strength, but that the inspiring help of God is offered,
as surely as responsibilities are imposed. "The Spirit of the Lord
God is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me."
With these three ceremonies--ablution, robing and anointing--the
first and most personal section of the ritual ended. And now began a
course of sacrifices to God, advancing from the humblest expression
of sin, and appeal to heaven to overlook the unworthiness of its
servant, to that which best exhibited conscious acceptance,
enjoyment of privilege, admission to a feast with God. The bullock
was a sin-offering: the word is literally sin, and occurs
more than once in the double sense: "let him offer for his sin
which he hath sinned a young bullock ... for a
sin(-offering)" (Lev 4:3, Lev 5:6, etc.). And this is the
explanation of the verse which has perplexed so many: "He made Him
to be sin for us, Who knew no sin" (2Co 5:21). The doctrine that
pardon comes not by a cheap and painless overlooking of
transgression, as a thing indifferent, but by the transfer of its
consequences to a victim divinely chosen, could not easily find
clearer expression than in this word. And it was surely a sobering
experience, and a wholesome one, when Aaron, in his glorious robes,
sparkling with gems, and bearing on his forehead the legend of his
holy calling, laid his hand, beside those of his children and
successors, upon the doomed creature which was made sin for him. The
gesture meant confession, acceptance of the appointed expiation,
submission to be freed from guilt by a method so humiliating and
admonitory. There was no undue exaltation in the mind of any priest
whose heart went with this "remembrance of sins."
The bullock was immediately slain at the door of "the tent of
meeting"; and to show that the shedding of his blood was an
essential part of the rite, part of it was put with the finger on
the horns of the altar, and the remainder was poured out at the
base. Only then might the fat and the kidney be burned upon the
altar; but it is never said of any sin-offering, as presently of the
burnt-offering and the peace-offerings, that it is "a sweet savour
before Jehovah" (Exo 29:18, Exo 29:25)--a phrase which is only once
extended to a trespass-offering for a purely unconscious lapse (Lev
4:31). The sin-offering is, at the best, a deplorable necessity. And
therefore the notion of a gift, welcome to Jehovah, is carefully
shut out: no portion of such an offering may go to maintain the
priests: all must be burned "with fire without the camp; it is a
sin-offering" (Exo 29:14). Rightly does the Epistle to the Hebrews
emphasize this fact: "The bodies of those beasts whose blood is
brought into the Holy Place ... as an offering for sin" are burned
without the camp. The bodies of other sacrifices were not reckoned
unfit for food.[40] And so
there is a striking example of humility, as well as an instructive
coincidence, in the fact that Jesus suffered without the gate, being
the true Sin-offering, "that He might sanctify the people through
His own blood" (Heb 13:11-12).
Thus, by sacrifice for sin, the priest is rendered fit to offer
up to God the symbol of a devoted life. Again, therefore, the hands
of Aaron and his sons are laid upon the head of the ram, because
they come to offer what represents themselves in another sense than
that of expiation--a sweet savour now, an offering made by fire unto
Jehovah (Exo 29:18). And to show that it is perfectly acceptable to
Him, the whole ram shall be burnt upon the altar, and not now
without the camp: "it is a burnt-offering unto the Lord." Such is
the appointed way of God with man--first expiation, then devotion.
The third animal was a "peace-offering" (Exo 29:28). This is
wrongly explained to mean an offering by which peace is made, for
then there could be no meaning in what went before. It is the
offering of one who is now in a state of peace with God, and who is
therefore himself, in many cases, allowed to partake of what he
brings. But on this occasion some quite peculiar ceremonies were
introduced, and the ram is called by a strange name--"the ram of
consecration." When Aaron and his sons have again declared their
connection with the animal by laying their hands upon it, it is
slain. And then the blood is applied to the tip of their right ear,
the thumb of their right hand, and the great toe of their right
foot, that the ear may hearken, and the best energies obey, and
their life become as that of the consecrated animal, their bodies
being presented, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Then
the same blood, with the oil which spoke of heavenly anointing, was
sprinkled upon them and upon their official robes, and all were
hallowed. Then the fattest and richest parts of the animal were
taken, with a loaf, a cake, and a wafer from the basket, and placed
in the hands of Aaron and his sons. This was their formal
investiture with official rights; although not yet performing
service, it was as priests that they received these; and their
hands, swayed by those of Moses, solemnly waved them before the Lord
in formal presentation, after which the pieces were consumed by
fire. The breast was likewise waved, and became the perpetual
property of Aaron and his sons--although on this occasion it passed
from their hands to be the portion of Moses, who officiated. The
remainder of the flesh, seethed in a holy place, belonged to Aaron
and his sons. No stranger (of another family) might eat it, and what
was left until morning should be consumed by fire, that is to say,
destroyed in a manner absolutely clean, seeing no corruption.
For seven days this rite of consecration was repeated; and every
day the altar also was cleansed, rendering it most holy, so that
whatever touched it was holy.
Thus the people saw their representative and chief purified,
accepted and devoted. Thenceforward, when they too brought their
offerings, and beheld them presented (in person or through his
subordinates) by the high priest with holiness emblazoned upon his
brow, they gained hope, and even assurance, since one so consecrated
was bidden to present their intercession; and sometimes they saw him
pass into secret places of mysterious sanctity, bearing their tribal
name on his shoulder and his bosom, while the chime of golden bells
announced his movements, ministering there for them.
But the nation as a whole, with which this historical book is
chiefly interested, saw in the high priest the means of continually
rendering to God the service of its loyalty. Every day began and
closed with the burnt-offering of a lamb of the first year, along
with a meal-offering of fine flour and oil, and a drink-offering of
wine. This would be a sweet savour unto God, not after the carnal
fashion in which sceptics have interpreted the words, but in the
same sense in which the wicked are a smoke in His nostrils from a
continually burning fire.
And where this offering was made, the Omnipresent would meet with
them. There He would convey His mind to His priest. There also He
would meet with all the people--not occasionally, as amid the more
impressive but less tolerable splendours of Sinai, but to dwell
among them and be their God. And they should know that all this was
true, and also that for this He led them out of Egypt: "I am Jehovah
their God."
FOOTNOTES:
[40] Neither, it must be added, were the bodies
of certain sin-offerings of the lower grade, and in which the priest
was not personally concerned (Lev 10:17, etc.).