It Shall Be Accepted For Him

It Shall Be Accepted For Him

Leviticus 1:4

And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.

The “offerings of the LORD” as commanded in the book of Leviticus, were pregnant  with symbolism and filled with types and shadows of Christ who was promised, but at that time had not yet come. The symbols and types or shadows were given to the church in its infancy, to instill in them the ideas of the principals of government under which God would deal with fallen man. So that when the fullness of time should come that the Christ of God should actually appear; the people of God might understand the vicarious (substitutionary) institutions of the everlasting covenant of grace (Galatians 4:1-7). These institutions, solidly implanted in the minds of the people by repetitious offerings, fixed the thoughts of the hearts and minds of men on our acceptance in a substitute; and that substitute is our Lord Jesus Christ. The administration of the covenant under the Old Testament was legal, the under lying principal was, do and live, “Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do he shall live in them, I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 18:5). The administration of the everlasting covenant under the New Testament is gracious: the underlying principal is, live and believe: by the grace of God in Christ Jesus sinners are given eternal life, wherein it is given them to know God, in the Person of Jesus Christ. “Verily, Verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” (John 6:47). True faith, that is, believing the doctrine of Christ as given in the New Testament (II John 1:9-11), is the evidence of eternal life (Hebrews 11:1), which is the free gift of God through Christ Jesus: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (II Corinthians 4:6). “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:4). “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” (I John 5:20). “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17).

One of the elementary or very basic principles of the government of God, as taught in the Old Testament and practiced in the New: is that of vicarious or substitutionary death. One dying in the room and stead of another, as in the case of the sin offering: wherein the death of the victim is substituted for the person who offers according to the law. In the government of God over His church, guilt is transferable, the guilt of sin may be transferred from the guilty party who committed the offense, to a perfectly innocent party who will endure the curse of the broken law which was the curse of death. Transference of guilt from the guilty to the innocent, and counting the innocent victim, guilty and punishable, for offences of the guilty party is allowed and practiced in both the Old and New Testaments (Romans 5:19). Likewise it is a fact in the government of God that righteousness must be imputed to those for whom Christ Jesus died. This righteousness is received by faith, which is the gift of God, it is the death of Christ that renders the sinner righteous in the sight of God. Faith is the instrument whereby the justified sinner is made to understand his righteousness in the sight of God: by the imputation of the righteousness established by Jesus Christ in His death, to the account of the justified sinner.

Under the Old Testament, the victim, whether a bullock, sheep, or goat, was brought to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD. It had to be a male without blemish, to shadow the sinless perfections of Jesus Christ. If the person who was making the offering was poor, he was permitted to bring turtledoves or young pigeons as his offering (Leviticus 12:8), as Joseph and Mary did after the birth of Christ (Luke 2:24). If the offering was a bullock the process was: first, to present the bullock at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD, the door was the opening in the curtain at the eastern end of the court. Once there the worshipper would press his hand on the head of the bullock, in the burnt offering the leaning forcibly on the head of the offering was to intimate that the offerer desired that Jehovah would accept the offering as himself, the desire of the offerer was to consecrate his whole person to the LORD. In the sin offering the leaning heavily on the head of the offering was to indicate the desire that his sin might be transferred to (imputed to) the innocent animal who would be put to death for the sin of the offerer.

The antitype in each of these two ceremonies is the Christ of God, who according to the type set forth in the burnt offering fully gave Himself up to the will of God. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:7-8). And our Lord Jesus said to His disciples: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” (John 4:34). Our Lord Jesus gave His whole Person to the service of God, when He offered Himself a sacrifice for a sweet savor to God to propitiate the wrath of God in the room of His people (Ephesians 5:2). The children of God have the desire for perfect consecration to God, but because of indwelling sin they find themselves saying with the Apostle Paul: “what I would, that I do not” (Romans 7:15). And with the Prophet Isaiah: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6). But the good news is that, in the reckoning of God, we are not in ourselves, but we are and have forever been in Christ Jesus “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jeremiah 23:6). Christ Jesus is the fulfilling “end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Romans 10:4) and therefore to the law of the sin offering  (Leviticus 4:1-12) for: “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” (I Peter 2:24) Jesus Christ by Himself purged our sins (Hebrews 1:3). He finished the transgression, made an end of sins, made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness, (Daniel 9:24) Christ Jesus put sin away by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:26).

It shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. In Old Testament times the type, was accepted to stay sin for a season. But now that the darkness of the shadows is past and the true light now shineth from the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus Christ (Malachi 4:2; I John2:8), believers know they are accepted in the beloved, in whom they have dwelt to all generations. (Psalm 90:1-2). 

AJ Ison

See the writers blog at www.hebrews915.blogspot.com hear the true gospel of the

free and sovereign grace of God in Christ Jesus preached at www.13thstbaptist.org webcasting live at listed service times.