VAYIKRA

And [He] called

1 And it came to pass on the eighth day, that Moses called Aaron and his sons, and the elders of Israel; [v23,24]

We know little practically of the state of things that will prevail on the earth in the eighth millennium from Adam's expulsion from Eden and onwards. But we know this, that "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying" (Rev. 21:4). We know that" the throne of God and the Lamb" will be established; and" His servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever" (Rev. 22:3-5).

What more fit illustration of such a state than the spectacle of Israel on their faces in the presence of the manifested glory of the Lord on the eighth day after the commencement of the consecration work?

The nature of the preparations made on the eighth day for this manifestation may appear to interfere with such an application. It was a re-offering of the dedicatory sacrifices; for Aaron, a calf and ram, for sin offering and burnt offering respectively: for the people, a kid of the goats for sin offering, and a calf and a lamb for burnt offering, and a bullock and a lamb for peace offerings, with their appropriate meal offerings. It may be asked what parallel could there be in the deathless state reached after the thousand years, to the offering of "Lambs and bullocks slain"?

The answer does not seem difficult. There will always be the antitype to these things. It will never drop out of truth or memory that the salvation attained through Christ is a salvation achieved by sacrifice. It will always be a theme of joyful celebration among the glorified righteous that they owe their position "to him that loved them and washed them from their sins in his own blood".

Would it not, then, be in perfect keeping with the attainment and the nature of the perfect ages that will succeed the kingdom of the thousand years that they should be inaugurated by some special recognition of the sacrificial foundation upon which the glory stands?

Every form of God's work hitherto and what has been revealed concerning the constitution of the age to come, supplies an affirmative answer to this question. First, the individual privileges of faith in this present state have always been associated with sacrifice, from the very gate of Eden to the divine condemnation of sin in the flesh on Calvary.

Second, wherever the gospel savingly comes, it brings the broken body and shed blood of the Lord in the memorial supper to be partaken of by the most enlightened believers.

Third, in the midst of all the glories of the restored kingdom of David under Christ in the age to come, the Lord's death is memorialized in the restoration of sacrifice on the most elaborate scale, in the offering of which the Lord himself takes prominent part, "for himself", too, as expressly declared (Ezek. 45:22).

What the form of the inaugural ceremony of the perfect age in this respect will be, we may not know exactly: but in view of the type before us, and the considerations just referred to, we shall not wander far from very strong probability if we suppose--(when the post-millennial Gog and Magog have been destroyed, and the mighty congregation of the responsible dead have been dealt with before the Great White Throne)--that there will be some great ceremonial reassertion of the righteousness of God as sacrificially accomplished in Christ and ratified by every living soul present, preliminary to that wondrous transfer of the visible headship from the Son to the Father, that "God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:24-28).

Law of Moses Ch 19

7 And Moses said unto Aaron, Go unto the altar, and offer thy sin offering, and thy burnt offering, and make an atonement for thyself, and for the people: and offer the offering of the people, and make an atonement for them; as Yahweh commanded.

...it is a delightful exercise to be also able to trace analogies and foreshadowings of the ultimate purpose of God with man on the earth, in the midst of ordinances and appointments for which no higher reason was given to Israel by Moses, than "so hath the Lord commanded".

This ultimate purpose is neither more nor less than the gradual metamorphosis of the race by a complete assimilation of the will of man to the will of God, and the complete extinction of human antagonisms to God in the abolition of human nature by voluntary sacrifice, required by God, and Divinely accepted, and ratified in a transformation which will change it from a mortal thing to a state of equality with the angels.

The whole process is exemplified in Christ the firstborn, and foreshadowed in these diversified ordinances of the law. It is only partially experienced by his brethren in the present state but they became related to the whole process by association with him in whom it has been wholly accomplished, and in the end they will become the subjects of its entire operation.

They become identified with the sin-offering stage in being baptized into the death of Christ. Christ "suffered without the gate", as the bullock was burnt outside the camp' and they "go forth to him without the camp bearing his reproach".

Any man in a hearty manner identifying himself with the death of Christ in the way provided in the gospel, and rejoicing in it as acceptable to God, and certain to lead to unutterable good in the end, will certainly find himself "without the camp", even in Gentile society --both as regards his acceptability with Gentile friends, and as regards their suitability for his society.

But he can bear it, if he remembers it is of Divine appointment. It helps him to remember this when he thinks of the body of the sin offering carried outside the camp under Moses, and when he thinks of the antitype in Christ, who was "rejected of men", and conveyed out of Jerusalem to be crucified, that sin might be condemned in the flesh.

He becomes identified with the burnt offering "sweet savour" stage when he arises from baptism to "present his body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God", through Christ, who has become" the Lord, the Spirit", by transformation; and he becomes identified with the ram of consecration, with all its adjuncts in the wave offering, when he goes forth in the diversified activity of a life consecrated to God.

This is the measure of his experience of the Mosaic significance for the time being. It is no small measure when realized in the full intelligent joy of the truth--in faith and hope. Still, it is nothing by comparison with Christ's actual experience in the Spirit-state--which every true worshipper in the sanctuary will be permitted to share, in the change from this burdened mortal state to the glory of the incorruptible at the coming of Christ.

Law of Moses Ch 19

The Condemnation of Sin

Strange extremes meet in Christ. "Flesh of sin" and "Spirit of holiness," God and man, earth and heaven, strength and weakness, poverty and riches, life and death, sorrow and gladness.

As chief among ten thousand, and as the subject of probably more than a thousand titles, types, prophecies, symbols, and descriptions, setting-forth the sublime and God-magnifying phenomena presented to our attention in Jesus of Nazareth, he may well be briefly but most gloriously styled in the Spirit's language, "The Wonderful," the mighty God, the everlasting Father.

The phrase "the man Christ Jesus" describes one side of Christ, the name "Immanuel—God with us"—describes another side of Christ; while the more complete version of Paul, "God manifest in the flesh," uniting both sides in one view, presents us with the Spirit's key to the sublime mystery of Godliness disclosed in the doctrinal history of Jesus.

Christ's miracles, wonders and signs were things "God did by him;" so also the condemnation of sin was something for which God sent him into the world, and which God effected in him. The same is also true of reconciliation—it was God's work by him; indeed God is our Redeemer; and besides Him there is no Saviour. The facts concerning Christ's sacrifice, are only the visible operations of His outstretched arm to this end. As the apostle says, "All things are of God," even the Son and the Spirit.—(Acts 2:22; 2 Cor. 5:18, 19.)

The flesh in which God was manifested was weak "sinful flesh," or more exactly "flesh of sin;" besides which there is no other sort extant, nor ever has been in Adamic likeness.—(Rom. 8:3).

Since Paul affirms there is to be but "one kind of flesh of men" and "one blood" (which is the life of all flesh), and since, moreover, he testifies that Christ "likewise took part of the same, " there remains no alternative but that both in the flesh, and the life of the flesh, the nature of Jesus was identical with that common to the race of which he was a member.—(1 Cor. 15:39; Acts 17:26.)

Since again there is but one kind of flesh in the premisses, it follows that the phrases, "his flesh," "my flesh," "days of his flesh," "according to the flesh," "made flesh," "sinful flesh." "after the flesh," "manifest in the flesh," "put to death in the flesh," "suffered in the flesh," come in the flesh," "body of his flesh," "through the vail . . his flesh," "abolished in his flesh," "members of his body and flesh," as apostolically applied to Christ (in view of the premisses) are so many demonstrative evidences that, as to nature, he was made in all points like his brethren, and subject to all the disabilities common to the nature he came to redeem.

The nature Christ possessed was the nature that sinned, and the nature he came to save; and the life he possessed was the life common to Adam's children, and the life he came to redeem from destruction.

The flesh of Adam, and the flesh of-Christ, before he died and when he emerged from the grave; and the flesh of his brethren now, and when they are re-formed from the dust of sheol, is all one and identically the same flesh, which, in all cases, before it can inherit the kingdom of God, must be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye."

The figure used by the apostle when he enjoins to "crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts," is drawn from the fact that it was none other than the flesh containing these affections and lusts that was literally crucified when Jesus was put to death.

The death of Christ, apart from the resurrection of Christ, would have been unequal even to the remission of sins.—(1 Cor. 15:17; Rom. 5:10.)

Paul teaches that it is necessary for a priest to be "compassed with infirmity," to the end that he may have "compassion on the ignorant, and on them who are out of the way;" for which reason also he says "he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins."

—(Heb. 5:2, 3.) Now, on Paul's authority, these three figures in the Mosaic pattern find their spiritual counterpart in Christ, who was first compassed with infirmity (Heb. 4:15, 5:7; Psalm 77:10), and, therefore, 2nd, can be touched with a fellow-feeling of our infirmities (Heb. 4:15), and, 3rd, offered also for himself, on the ground of said infirmity."—(Heb. 7:27.)

The physically unblemished nature of the sacrifice required under the law, did not represent an immaculate physical nature, but one personally innocent of transgression: this peculiarity was met in Christ in a way which reflected the wisdom, goodness, and justice of God, and, at the same time, fulfilled the diverse and otherwise inexplicable types and predictions in Moses and the Psalms. Other theories ignore but cannot, by any possibility, explain them.—(Lev. 9:7; 16:17.)

Everyone who confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God; but everyone who confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God, but of anti-Christ.—(1 John 4:2, 3.)

The Christadelphian, Nov 1873

24 And there came a fire out from before Yahweh, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces.

We know little practically of the state of things that will prevail on the earth in the eighth millennium from Adam's expulsion from Eden and onwards. But we know this, that "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying" (Rev. 21:4). We know that" the throne of God and the Lamb" will be established; and" His servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever" (Rev. 22:3-5).

What more fit illustration of such a state than the spectacle of Israel on their faces in the presence of the manifested glory of the Lord on the eighth day after the commencement of the consecration work?

The nature of the preparations made on the eighth day for this manifestation may appear to interfere with such an application. It was a re-offering of the dedicatory sacrifices; for Aaron, a calf and ram, for sin offering and burnt offering respectively: for the people, a kid of the goats for sin offering, and a calf and a lamb for burnt offering, and a bullock and a lamb for peace offerings, with their appropriate meal offerings. It may be asked what parallel could there be in the deathless state reached after the thousand years, to the offering of "Lambs and bullocks slain"?

The answer does not seem difficult. There will always be the antitype to these things. It will never drop out of truth or memory that the salvation attained through Christ is a salvation achieved by sacrifice. It will always be a theme of joyful celebration among the glorified righteous that they owe their position "to him that loved them and washed them from their sins in his own blood". Would it not, then, be in perfect keeping with the attainment and the nature of the perfect ages that will succeed the kingdom of the thousand years that they should be inaugurated by some special recognition of the sacrificial foundation upon which the glory stands?

Every form of God's work hitherto and what has been revealed concerning the constitution of the age to come, supplies an affirmative answer to this question. First, the individual privileges of faith in this present state have always been associated with sacrifice, from the very gate of Eden to the divine condemnation of sin in the flesh on Calvary.

Second, wherever the gospel savingly comes, it brings the broken body and shed blood of the Lord in the memorial supper to be partaken of by the most enlightened believers.

Third, in the midst of all the glories of the restored kingdom of David under Christ in the age to come, the Lord's death is memorialized in the restoration of sacrifice on the most elaborate scale, in the offering of which the Lord himself takes prominent part, "for himself", too, as expressly declared (Ezek. 45:22).

What the form of the inaugural ceremony of the perfect age in this respect will be, we may not know exactly: but in view of the type before us, and the considerations just referred to, we shall not wander far from very strong probability if we suppose--(when the post-millennial Gog and Magog have been destroyed, and the mighty congregation of the responsible dead have been dealt with before the Great White Throne)--that there will be some great ceremonial reassertion of the righteousness of God as sacrificially accomplished in Christ and ratified by every living soul present, preliminary to that wondrous transfer of the visible headship from the Son to the Father, that "God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:24-28).

Law of Moses Ch 19

It was customary with the Lord to answer men by fire when any great principle, or new institution was to be established. Thus, the covenant with Abraham was confirmed by fire (Gen. 15:17); there also came out a fire from before the Lord and consumed the offering on Aaron's induction as high priest

Elpis Israel 1.5.