Bible Commentaries
Leviticus 8

Verses 1-20

IV

CONSECRATION OF AARON AND HIS SONS

Leviticus 8-10

The present chapter is on Leviticus 8-10 of the book of Leviticus. You will remember that in the latter part of the book of Exodus we have an account of the setting up of the tabernacle, its altar and much of its furniture, as the place where the sinner was to meet God. In the preceding chapters of Leviticus, that is, 1-7 inclusive, we have considered with what the sinner appears before God, that is, the offerings of the various kinds, the sacrifices. Now in Leviticus 8-9 of Leviticus we have the intermediaries, or those through whom the sinner appears before God, Aaron and his sons as priests, and these two chapters tell us about the consecration of Aaron and his two sons to this important office and all the ritual in connection with the ceremonies of the day, and Leviticus 10, which is the last of the lesson, tells us about the violation of the law by two of Aaron’s sons and their consequent death by the hand of God, and thence follows a law, very important, relating to wine in connection with the priesthood. Now, I wish to call your attention to some preliminary observations.

Neither Aaron nor his sons in the priesthood, nor Moses in the leadership, nor Joshua in the captainship, nor any one of them took the honor of the position upon himself, but God appointed these men to this particular service, and they all apply to the New Testament as well as to the Old Testament. A man cannot decide for himself alone that he is to be a minister of Jesus Christ. He has to be, first, spiritually impressed that he is called to preach, but there is a judge that must pass upon that call and ordain men. Some of the saddest things in the history of religion have been the mistakes on the part of a particular people about taking the honor of the office of Christ’s ministry unto themselves. They have said, "I have been called to preach. If I preach I will baptize people," and they go out as free lances and they bring great confusion in the camps of God.

I know one noted case where a man decided he had all the right to decide these things for himself and ignored all church authority in the matter. He is now the worst "played out" man I ever saw. Just three years ago I received an exceedingly sad letter from an old man, sixty-seven years old. He said, "In my early days I felt called of God to preach. I didn’t believe that churches or anybody else had any ’say-so’ about it. I went out and preached and they heard me, but after awhile they became tired of me and dropped me. I am too old now to preach, but I need to be taken care of." I wrote back to him that the plea had come too late; that we were not justified in taking care of a man now that had never before called upon the church or God’s people to help him. There was no remedy for his condition.

My next general observation is that the method of this service was also appointed of God. In chapter 10 we are to consider the awful tragedy that came upon Aaron’s two sons because they disregarded God’s law relating to the way of coming before him for the people. The next thing to determine is, what was the place of the consecration of Aaron and his sons? It was at the door of the tent of meeting. It was a very solemn occasion and a matter that did not concern Aaron and his sons alone, because they were in their offices to act as representatives, and so the entire congregation of Israel was brought together not only to witness but to participate in the setting apart of these men for their office. That was the place and the method.

Now, what was brought to be used in this consecration? There were brought the offerings, or sacrifices, that were to be employed in the consecration service, and all the holy vestments that these men were to wear as representing God.

The next question is, What were the steps or preparation in the consecration of Aaron and his sons? First, they were bathed; second, they were arrayed in the vestments which symbolized the spiritual nature of the service. They were clothed in the uniform peculiar to their work. The next step in the consecration was the anointing. I request every reader to get a copy of the first volume of my published sermons and read my sermon on "The Anointed One," and that sermon will tell you about the anointing oil and how prepared. It was a particular recipe and there is none like it in the world, and it was a capital offense to use that holy anointing oil for anything except what God had prescribed, or to even compound it, and the purposes for which that holy anointing oil was to be used were as follows: The tabernacle itself, the altar and all its furniture were to be anointed; then the high priest was to be anointed with it; the prophet was to be anointed with it; the sacrifice and the king were to be anointed with it.

So when Jesus came to be a prophet, high priest, king, and sacrifice, he received his anointing, not in the symbolical oil but in what the symbolical oil represented, to wit, the Holy Spirit. When he was baptized, he prayed that God would qualify him for the great work into which he was about to step, and in answer to that prayer the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and the gospel tells us that he was anointed in the Holy Spirit. John said: "I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize in water, he said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending," etc., "he baptizeth in the "Holy Spirit." Then he says, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." And in Luke 4 we have an account in our Lord’s own words where he says that he was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Now, what were the steps? Bathed, clothed, anointed. These were the preliminaries.

Now, what follows? The sacrifices appointed for the occasion. These, a bullock as a sin offering, for Aaron’s sins must be atoned for before he can exercise his functions in the kingdom of God; and second, the ram for the burnt offering, that is, the offering to God, if God accepts it by sending down fire to burn it up; and third, another ram as a consecration offering. If Aaron says, "I want to be consecrated to the divine service," and the Lord accepts it, then fire comes down and burns up the offering. He accepts it. Then comes the consecration offering, and the second ram. The important thing here to notice is the distinction in making these three offerings. A sin offering is to be burned outside the camp. Jesus, as the sin offering, was taken without the camp and nailed to the cross.

An offering to God, that is, the burnt offering, was placed on the brazen altar of sacrifice and the fire of God came down and burnt it up to show that God accepted it. Now, the other offering of consecration went up as a sweet savour unto God, that is, God seeing Aaron and his sons duly bathed, clothed and anointed, duly clad in the vestments of holiness, accepted by the first ram the burnt offering; now the sweet smelling savour goes up to God to indicate that the ceremony was finished, that is, the consecration part of it, the second ram. It is very important that you notice what is done with the blood of that ram. Moses took the blood of the consecration offering, put it upon the tip of Aaron’s right ear, upon the thumb of his right hand and upon the great toe of his right foot, and he did that for the sons of Aaron. Now, what does this symbolism teach? That if I do consecrate my life to the service of God, my ear must hear for him, my hand must work for him, my foot must walk for him in his appointed way. I think you can very easily see the full force of that.

What next follows this? Aaron and his sons, having been consecrated, must pass a week in isolation. When that week is done and the eighth day comes, a formal, representative service is held, the first in the tabernacle. Now, what have you here? A place to meet God, then offerings with which to approach God and mediators through whom one may approach God. All this complete, now the services of the sanctuary are ready to be opened. So let there be a representative service held, everything being now ready. As this ninth chapter tells about the services held in that tabernacle, everything being ready for that service, I shall not go into the details.

They are easy to understand as you read them, but there is one feature of it that I want to call your attention to, viz.: When Aaron and his sons thus instructed, thus qualified, had completed the service, all the people participated in it, then Aaron came out of the tabernacle and lifted up his hands and blessed the people, pronounced the benediction. You know "benediction" means "speaking well for you." Now, what was that benediction? You find it in the sixth chapter of the next book. (You can use that form if you want to. I have known a great many preachers who used it.) Numbers 6:24-27: "Jehovah bless thee, and keep thee; Jehovah make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; Jehovah lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." Now, when we come to dismiss the congregation, we want to put God’s name on the congregation and we sometimes use the doxology in this form: "In the name of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." That puts the name of God on the people. "The blessings of the Father, the blessings of the Son, and the blessings of the Holy Spirit be upon you." What is the basis of the benediction? What does it root in? Aaron could not say, "The Lord bless thee, and the Lord keep thee, and be gracious unto thee and give thee peace," if something hadn’t preceded. What was it? The atonement that bad been made for the sins of the people. The benediction is based upon atonement, not a mere flutter of hands and "the Lord be with you, the Lord keep you, the Lord bless you, and be gracious unto you." Remember that we can’t invoke the blessings of the Lord upon the people except in the name of Jesus Christ, who died for all men.

Leviticus 9, gives an account of how God’s answer came. It came visibly; it came in a startling manner that impressed the people. God ratified the service in two particulars. The Lord had said to Moses, "If you will establish my worship just as I have prescribed, the people shall see the glory of the Lord." So at the end of that public service they saw the visible representation of God. The cloud of fire came down and rested upon the tabernacle and all the people knew that God was approving everything that had been done, and in the second place, fire came down and burnt the offering that had been put upon the altar in the sight of the people. The sacrifice that was left upon that fire was consumed to ashes and the people felt that it was God. This house was now dedicated to God for worship. So it is when we say to the Lord, "The money which thou didst give to us we used to build this house, and we wish this building to be set apart for thy glory," and thus invoke divine blessings upon its service.

I have only two other things to discuss in this chapter. First, Nadab and Abihu were sons of Aaron. God had called them to this office; they had been consecrated to this office and now they presumed on it. God says, "When you go to kindle incense which represents the prayers of the people, don’t kindle it with common fire. Take a live coal from the brazen pan that holds the fire that never goes out, the altar-fire, and you kindle the incense with that." The thought is this, that you can’t pray if the prayer is based upon a selfish motive. The prayer amounts to nothing. "If you ask anything in my name and not disregarding my plan then I will hear you."

Now, Nadab and Abihu thought it not at all necessary to obey God’s plan; without any regard to the pattern which is shown in the Old Testament these two men presumed, when they were appointed, to wave the incense kindled with the common fire which they picked up from the camp, and as soon as they waved it before God they were struck dead as by lightning and the fire burned them to ashes in the flames. It was an awful lesson, that we cannot change what God prescribes. We have no right to deviate to the left hand or to the right hand. But the man in the Arctic regions will say, "It is cold here; we will sprinkle a little water; we hope this baby is going to be a Christian, so we will baptize it," utterly disregarding the Saviour of men. That lesson of Nadab and Abihu should lay upon your hearts very solemnly.

Now we come to the last thought, and this is quite important. It is the law about the officers approaching God. The law is this: "Thou shalt not take wine nor any strong drink as thou goest up to the service before God and the people." How often a preacher is tempted; his work has been hard and his nerves are all unstrung; he wants to preach a good sermon and feels that if he had a stimulant of some kind he could preach a good sermon. He asks, "Why not take a goblet of wine or a toddy?" Woe to the preacher that ever does it I It is literally a slap in the face of God.

I never felt such horror as when I was visiting in a certain city and the pastor asked me to preach for him, and when he went to introduce me to the audience, his breath nearly knocked me down. People tell me that he never preached except he keyed up that way, and I know an evangelist who did the same thing. He, just before preaching, because of a physical breakdown, got in the habit of stimulating with opiates, and before I was a preacher there was a man in Texas, said to be the most eloquent preacher in those days of Texas, who could sway men at his will. He also got to doing that very thing.

Now I will tell you a scene as witnessed by Dr. Burleson, the man who told it to me. He says he received a message to visit a great revivalist. (Shall I call his name? Let it rest in peace.) When he got into the house, he found him a physical and mental wreck. He looked like one who had delirium tremens. He was calling out, "Lost, lost, lost!" and kicking the footboard clear off the bed, he said, "Dr. Burleson, I have ruined my life by stimulating myself just before I went to preach, and now I am a drunkard covered with shame and I loathe myself and am tempted every hour of my life to commit suicide."

When you get further on in this law, you will find that the law says that the king and the judges shall take no strong drink lest their minds be swayed and they pervert judgment. Now, you young preachers, just remember never to commence taking stimulants, no matter how tired and "frazzled out" you are. If you have to have medicine, let the doctor prescribe for you and be treated as a sick man, but do not "be drunken with wine wherein is riot, but be intoxicated with the Holy Spirit." There is the stimulant for you, the Spirit of God.

Now, the next chapter is on a matter of such delicacy that I shall have to trust to your reading more than to my discussion. This chapter embraces Section 4 of the outline (see Leviticus 18:1-30) and includes Leviticus 11-15, on the various clean and unclean animals. Part of it can easily be discussed, and part of it your own delicacy will tell you how to study. The unclean are the lepers and the unclean animals. Certain are clean and certain are unclean. There are unclean birds, beasts and fishes, and some creeping things which are clean. Things which may be eaten; as, certain offerings. Now, very carefully study Leviticus 16. It is the heart of everything in the book, both Old Testament and New Testament. The subject is "The Day of Atonement."

QUESTIONS

1. Of what do the first seven chapters of Leviticus treat?

2. Of what do Leviticus 8-9 treat?

3. Of what does Leviticus 10 treat?

4. What three general observations relative to Aaron and his sons and their office?

5. What New Testament parallels to these observations?

6. What was the place of the consecration of Aaron and his sons?

7. What was the method of this consecration?

8. What was brought to be used in this consecration service?

9. What were the preliminary steps in the consecration?

10. What were the vestments of the priests? Of the high priests?

11. Discuss fully the anointing oil and its antitype.

12. What were the sacrifices appointed for the occasion?

13. What was the signification of each?

14. What distinction in making these three offerings?

15. What was done with the blood of the ram of consecration?

16. What of the signification of this?

17. What next follows this?

18. What was then done on the eighth day?

19. Where do we find a description of it? Give it.

20. What was the closing part of this service?

21. What does the word "benediction" mean etymologically?

22. What was the form of this benediction and where do you find it?

23. What is the basis of a benediction and the New Testament application?

24. How did God’s answer come?

25. In what two ways did God ratify what was done?

26. What awful tragedy in this connection?

27. What had they done?

28. What does this incense symbolize and what is the lesson to us?

29. What law is given in this connection? Give examples.

30. What should be the preacher’s stimulant? Give Scripture.