Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2528
“And they shall eat those things wherewith the atonement was made, to consecrate and to sanctiiy them: but a stranger shall not eat thereof, because they are holy.” Exodus 29:33.
On the last two Sabbath mornings I have spoken concerning the sacrifices under the Law. Our first sermon was, “Putting the Hand upon the Head of the Sacrifice,,” and the next was, “Slaying the Sacrifice” (Nos. 1771 and 1772—Volume 30). Now we are to make an advance and to speak about the eating of the sacrifice, for in certain cases the offerer ate a portion of that which had been presented to God.
It has been said by some people who are very particular in drawing nice distinctions, that there was no eating of a sacrifice in which there was any connection with sin. I beg to differ from that opinion and I have showed you that every sacrifice had something to do with sin, since no sacrifice would have been needed if the man bringing it had not been a sinner. And here, in this case, I might have selected many texts to teach the Truth of God I want to bring out just now, but I have especially chosen this one because it says, “They shall eat those things wherewith the atonement was made.” You all know that a covering is only needed for those who are naked, or who have something that requires to be hidden. So, the atonement, or the covering, is evidently intended for the guilty—and has something to do with sin—yet of the things wherewith the atonement was made, Aaron’s sons were to eat, so that there is to be an eating, a joyous reception into ourselves even of those things which have a connection with the putting away of sin!
The first thing that an offerer did with his victim when he brought it was to appropriate it to himself by laying his hands upon it. So, when a sinner comes to Christ, his first act is to lay his hands upon Christ, that Christ may be shown to belong to the sinner and that the sinner’s guilt may be transferred to Christ and borne by Him as the sinner’s Substitute. In later life we are continually to look to Christ and, by faith, to lay our hands upon Him. But we are to advance to a yet more lively and more intensely spiritual way of appropriating Him to ourselves. This is indicated in the text by eating—
“There is life for a look at the Crucified One,”
but, after you have begun to live, the substance of that life comes through feedingupon the Sacrifice! The first appropriation—the laying on of the hands—is an outward act. But the later appropriation—feeding upon the Sacrifice, taking it into yourself—is altogether an inward matter. You who are not yet saved have not, at present, anything to do with this eating of the Sacrifice. Your first business is to look to Jesus—not so much spiritually to enjoy Him as, by faith, to look to Him as outside of you, to be regarded by the eye of faith while you, a poor guilty sinner, simply look to Him and find salvation in Him. It is afterwards, when you shall have made some advance in the Divine Life, when you shall have clearly seen the Victim sacrificed and His blood making an Atonement for your sins, that you shall come and feed upon Jesus Christ.
“Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat, indeed, and My blood is drink, indeed”—spiritualmeat and spiritual’drink to support the spiritual life which God has given. Hence it was ordained, even under the Law, that after the atonement was made, to consecrate and to sanctify the priests, they were to come and sit down and “eat those things wherewith the atonement was made.”
I. The first thing about which I have to speak to you at this time is, THE PARTICIPATION—the eating of the sacrifice.
So, first, I will describe it. We are to “eat those things wherewith the Atonement was made,” to participate in Christ, to take Him into ourselves. The act of eating is a very common but a very expressive method of setting forth participation, for it is entirely personal. Nobody can eat for you, or drink for you. It is personally for yourself that you partake of bread, and the bread goes into yourself, to build up yourself, to be assimilated by yourself into yourself so as to become part of yourself. And, dear Friend, the Lord Jesus Christ must thus be received into your heart and soul by yourself, for yourself and must remain within yourself, you exercising upon Him continually a blessed act of faith by which you have communion and fellowship with Him. This can’t be done by any sponsor, or proxy, or through any means—it must be done personal[y, directly and distinctly by yourself. God help you to receive Christ into yourself! That point, surely, is plain enough. As a man himself receives food into himself, to become part of himself, so must you and I receive the Lord Jesus into ourselves, for ourselves, to be interwoven with ourselves, so that we two shall be one!