Joshua and Judges: Mt. Gerizim and Ebal, part 6 - typology and the burnt and peace offerings; Jos 8:30-35.

Title: Joshua and Judges: Mt. Gerizim and Ebal, part 6 - typology and the burnt and peace offerings; JOS 8:30-35.  

 

Announcements / opening prayer:

 

JOS 8:30 Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal,

 

JOS 8:31 just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones, on which no man had wielded an iron tool; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, and sacrificed peace offerings.

 

JOS 8:32 And he wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written, in the presence of the sons of Israel.

 

JOS 8:33 And all Israel with their elders and officers and their judges were standing on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, the stranger as well as the native. Half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had given command at first to bless the people of Israel.

 

JOS 8:34 Then afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law.

 

JOS 8:35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel with the women and the little ones and the strangers who were living among them.

 

There they offered burnt and peace offerings and then rejoiced.

 

DEU 27:7

and you shall sacrifice peace offerings and eat there, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God.

 

About four hundred year later, David would pen a psalm that may have mimicked the rejoicing in this valley by a million plus people who would awaken the dawn around them for many miles.

 

PSA 108:1 My heart is steadfast, O God;

I will sing, I will sing praises, even with my soul.

 

PSA 108:2 Awake, harp and lyre;

I will awaken the dawn!

 

I will play and sing to the Lord such a praise that I will awaken the very day!

 

PSA 108:3 I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord, among the peoples;

And I will sing praises to Thee among the nations.

 

PSA 108:4 For Thy lovingkindness is great above the heavens;

And Thy truth reaches to the skies.

 

PSA 108:5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,

And Thy glory above all the earth.

 

PSA 108:6 That Thy beloved may be delivered,

Save with Thy right hand, and answer me!

 

PSA 108:7 God has spoken in His holiness:

"I will exult, I will portion out Shechem [where they are now],

And measure out the valley of Succoth.

 

PSA 108:8 "Gilead is Mine, Manasseh is Mine;

Ephraim also is the helmet of My head;

Judah is My scepter.

 

PSA 108:9 "Moab is My washbowl;

Over Edom I shall throw My shoe [likely: tread upon];

Over Philistia I will shout aloud."

 

So we turn to the burnt offering and the peace offering.

 

Typology: a "type" is an OT illustration which, while having a place and purpose in biblical history, also is intended to foreshadow a NT doctrine, which is termed the "anti-type".

 

Most types point to Christ, but since Christ is the center of all NT doctrines, many of the types point to a specific aspect of truth concerning Him. The Levitical offerings are all types of Him and His salvation work.

 

As the Old Testament and Jewish tradition taught that the object of a sacrifice was its substitution for the offender, so Scripture and the Jewish fathers also teach that the substitute to whom all these types pointed was none other than the Messiah.

 

The difficulties of modern interpreters of the Messianic prophecies, of which many are modern Jewish scholars, rabbis, and synagogues, arise chiefly from their not perceiving the unity of the Old Testament in its progressive unfolding of the plan of salvation. Moses must not be read independently of the Psalms, nor yet the Psalms independently of the Prophets. Theirs are not so many unconnected writings of different authorship and age, only held together by a book binding. They form integral parts of one whole, the object of which is to point to the goal of all revelation in the appearing of the Christ.

 

Accordingly, we recognize in the prophetic word, not a change nor a difference, but three well-marked progressive stages, leading up to the sufferings and the glory of Messiah.

 

Stage 1: Proto-Evangel:

GEN 3:15

And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise him on the heel."

 

In what follows it, we have as yet only the grand general outlines of the figure. Thus we see a Person in the Seed of the woman; suffering, in the prediction that His heel would be bruised; and victory, in that He would bruise the serpent’s head. These merely general outlines are wonderfully filled up in the Book of Psalms.

 

Stage 2: The Psalms - The ‘Person’ is now ‘the Son of David;’ while alike the sufferings and the victory are sketched in vivid detail: Psa 2, 16, 22, 35, 69, 72, 89, 102, 110, and 118.

 

Over the centuries, more and more pieces of the whole picture are added in and the Messiah and His work come more into focus. We are blessed in the church age to have the full revelation and the perfectly focused picture.

 

One element only was still wanting—that this Son of David, this Sufferer and Conqueror, should be shown to be our Substitute, to whom also the sacrificial types had pointed.

 

Stage 3: The prophets, especially Isaiah, culminating in Isa 53, around which all the prophetic details group themselves. The Son of David would be our Substitute.

 

The Levitical offerings certainly revealed the coming Messiah to be the substitute for the judgment of man, but in the prophets the details of His actual substitution that was to come finds birth.

 

The final element, added in the writings of the prophets, culminating, as it were, in Isa 53, fills in the rest of the picture as the revelation of the Messiah adds its parts to the whole.

 

The picture is now completed, and so true to the original that, when compared with the reality in the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can have no difficulty in recognizing it.

 

And this, not so much from one or other outline in prophecy or type, as from their combination and progressive development throughout the Scriptures of the Old Testament, considered as a connected whole.

 

We turn to the typology of the burnt and peace offerings.

 

Burnt offering: represents propitiation (God-ward side of the cross; justice completely satisfied) and reconciliation (man-ward side of the cross).

 

It symbolized the entire surrender unto God, whether of the individual or of the congregation, and His acceptance thereof.

 

Thus day by day it formed the regular morning and evening service in the Temple, while on Sabbaths, new moons, and festivals additional burnt-offerings followed the ordinary worship. There the covenant-people brought the covenant-sacrifice, and the multitude of offerings indicated, as it were, the fullness, richness, and joyousness of their self-surrender, for no one could keep the Law and the burnt offering (substitutionary spiritual death of Jesus) was needed for the atonement of man.

 

LEV 1:1 Then the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying,

 

Although most of the Mosaic Law was given at Sinai, the procedures for the Levitical offerings were given at the door of the Tabernacle. Sinai dealt with works while the offerings dealt with grace.

 

My intent is to just given an overview of the burnt offering and the peace offering and not at this time to get into all that the details represent.

 

LEV 1:2 "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of animals from the herd or the flock.

 

LEV 1:3 'If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer it, a male without defect; he shall offer it at the doorway of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.

 

LEV 1:4 'And he shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.

 

It is stated that it is accepted by the Lord (propitiation) as well accepted for him to make atonement for him (reconciliation).

 

It was to be a male without defect and the entire animal was offered on the brazen altar. The perfect Savior fully satisfied the justice of the Father.

 

The offerer laid his hand on the head of the innocent animal symbolically transferring his sins to the animal. But not only this; he also transferred his desire to walk before God in holiness. To sacrifice the animal was not to be a declaration that the offerer was going to continue to live in sin, but that he desired to walk in God's law and serve and love the Lord with all his heart.  

 

This makes the offering something more than an impersonal means of getting God off your back for sinning. He brought the animal from his own flock, he laid his hand on the animal serving as a reminder of his own sin, and he cut the animals throat. This grotesque, nauseating, and vivid display was to give him understanding about what God would do for Him in the person of the Messiah.

 

In the case of the very poor, a turtledove was offered, which were abundant in the area and he was not required to lay his hand on its head nor to kill it. The priest wrung its head off. This is a display of the grace of God in that atonement and salvation is for everyone. He who was rich became poor so that we could become rich.

 

The offerer was to bring the animal to the door of the Tabernacle. It is done by his own free will in acceptance of the Messiah.

 

The Tabernacle as a whole is a type of heaven and the Messiah that would come from heaven to die for the sins of man. By bringing his animal here and not just anywhere was to depict his positive faith towards the Messiah.

 

The expiation or atonement is always made by the priest. The priest alone catches the blood and slings it against the side of the altar and he alone puts the parts of the animal on the brazen altar in order to burn so as to make a gaseous smoke and aroma that is well pleasing to the Lord.

 

The point here is that God doesn't expiate. All expiation has its foundation in the grace of God, but it is inevitably the work of a mediator. God cannot dies for sins or be judged. God must become a man and that man will be the highest priest and the Mediator of atonement.

 

It is the work of a mediator that intervenes between a holy God and sinful man. Christ was the mediating priest as well as the offering.

 

This is another aspect of His uniqueness.

 

The blood was slung by the priest against all four walls of the brazen altar, the bullock or lamb or goat was skinned, cut into pieces, having its entrails and legs washed, and everything except the hide was burned on the altar.

 

 

The slaughter took place on the north side of the altar and the ashes were piled up on the east side, directly in front of the one door. The person standing at the door is confronted with ashes and then the burning of judgment, which is upon another, and then after that, the way is clear to the laver of water which was the place of cleansing.

 

Ashes - cannot be burned again = One offering once and for all; eternal life cannot be lost; there is nothing to add to salvation.

 

Once accomplished the way is clear to the laver. The believer is forever clean before the satisfied Father, he is justified, and because of this he may walk clean or holy before the Father. When he fails, he can recover in grace and be clean in thinking, clean of spirit.

 

2CO 7:1

Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

 

This grace is only available to the believer who has been cleansed in Christ.

 

As we have seen many times in Heb 10, the church age believer resides in the holy of holies at the right hand of God being seated in heavenly places with our Lord.

 

Peace offering = reconciliation and its natural result, fellowship. It might be rendered the offering of completion since it always followed the other sacrifices.

 

The most joyous of all sacrifices was the peace-offering, or, as from its derivation it might also be rendered, the offering of completion.