Commentary - Leviticus 8:18-21

Bird's-eye view

This section of Leviticus 8 details the second of three major sacrifices in the ordination of Aaron and his sons. Having already been washed, clothed, and anointed, and having offered a bull for a sin offering, the priests-in-training now participate in the burnt offering. This is not just any burnt offering; it is their burnt offering, the sacrifice of consecration. The entire animal ascends to God in smoke, symbolizing a total dedication and surrender to the Lord's service. Every action here is freighted with meaning. The laying on of hands signifies identification and substitution. The slaughter and application of blood signify that the way into God's presence is through death. The dismemberment and washing signify the need for a thorough, inward and outward holiness. And the final ascension of the smoke as a soothing aroma signifies God's good pleasure and acceptance of the offering, and by extension, the men being offered up for His service. This entire ritual is a graphic, bloody, and beautiful picture of what it means to be set apart for God, and it points directly to the one true Priest, Jesus Christ, who offered Himself up completely as a fragrant aroma to God on our behalf.

We must not read this as a dry, procedural manual. This is high drama. This is the constitution of a priesthood, the establishment of mediators between a holy God and a sinful people. And the central lesson is that no man can approach God on his own terms. Consecration is costly, bloody, and must be total. It is a picture of what Paul would later command in Romans 12: to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship. Aaron and his sons are being made into a living sacrifice, a whole burnt offering, so that they might minister before the Lord.

Outline

Context In Leviticus

Leviticus 8 is the narrative fulfillment of the commands given by God to Moses in Exodus 29. After the detailed instructions for the tabernacle, God laid out the blueprint for the priesthood that would serve in it. Now, in Leviticus, after the laws of the various offerings have been given (Lev 1-7), we see those offerings put into practice for the most foundational purpose: the consecration of the priests themselves. This chapter is a hinge. It connects the place of worship (the Tabernacle) and the rules of worship (the offerings) to the people of worship (the priests). Before the priests can offer sacrifices for the people, they must be consecrated through sacrifice themselves. They cannot lead others where they have not gone. This ordination ceremony, lasting seven days, establishes the absolute necessity of mediated worship. The burnt offering in our text follows the sin offering, which is the proper order. Atonement for sin must precede total consecration. You cannot dedicate a defiled thing to a holy God. First the sin problem is dealt with by the blood of the bull, and then the priest, now cleansed, can be offered up wholly to God in the form of this ram.

Key Issues

The Ascension Offering

In our worship services, we often follow a pattern that is derived from the Old Testament sacrificial system. We have a time of confession, which corresponds to the sin or guilt offering. We have a time of consecration, where we hear the Word and sing God's praises, which corresponds to the burnt offering. And we have a time of communion at the Lord's Table, which corresponds to the peace offering. The burnt offering, which we see here, is often called the ascension offering. This is because the entire animal, apart from the hide, "ascends" to God in the column of smoke. It is a picture of total dedication, of giving everything over to God. Nothing is held back for the priests or the worshiper to eat. It all goes up.

When Aaron and his sons are consecrated with a burnt offering, it is a picture of their entire lives being given over to the service of the sanctuary. They are, in effect, being laid on the altar. Their time, their energy, their bodies, their families, their futures, all of it is now God's in a unique way. This is a high calling, and it is a total calling. This is what lies behind Paul's exhortation for all Christians to present their bodies as a living sacrifice. The old covenant priests did this through the body of a ram; we do it in our own bodies, because the final Ram has already been offered for us. But the principle is the same: the worship of God requires our all.

Verse by Verse Commentary

18 Then he brought near the ram of the burnt offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram.

Moses, acting as the officiating priest, brings the second animal, the ram for the burnt offering. The first action is crucial: Aaron and his sons lay their hands on its head. This is not a casual pat. The laying on of hands in sacrifice is a formal act of identification. In the sin offering, it meant the transfer of guilt from the sinner to the substitute. Here, in the burnt offering, it is an act of positive identification. They are saying, "This ram is us. Its death will be our death. Its total consumption on the altar represents our total dedication to God." They are identifying with the victim that is about to represent them before Yahweh. This is substitution in the sense of representation. Before they can represent the people before God, an animal must represent them before God.

19 Then Moses slaughtered it and splashed the blood around on the altar.

The consequence of their identification with the ram is immediate and violent. The ram is slaughtered. Consecration to a holy God is a bloody business because it involves sinful men. The way to the holy place is always through death. Moses then takes the blood, the symbol of the life poured out, and splashes it against the sides of the altar. The altar is the place where God and man meet, the place of transaction. By applying the blood to the altar, Moses is presenting the life of the substitute to God on behalf of Aaron and his sons. Their dedication, their very lives, are now bound to the altar of God. This is not a game; the wages of sin is death, and even in an act of consecration, the reality of death as the only way of approach cannot be bypassed.

20 And he cut the ram into its pieces. Then Moses offered up the head and the pieces and the suet in smoke.

The ram is not thrown on the fire whole. It is systematically and carefully dismembered. This is not a chaotic frenzy but an orderly preparation. The head, representing the mind and thoughts; the pieces, representing the body and actions; and the suet, or fat, representing the best, the energy, the health of the animal, are all separated out. This signifies the totality and the particularity of their consecration. God is not just getting "the priest" in some abstract sense. He is getting Aaron's mind, his hands, his strength. Every part of him is being consecrated for holy use. Moses then arranges these pieces on the wood and offers them up. They are turned to smoke, ascending to God. This is the central action of the burnt offering: the complete surrender of the whole person, piece by piece, to God.

21 And he washed the entrails and the legs with water. Then Moses offered up the whole ram in smoke on the altar. It was a burnt offering for a soothing aroma; it was an offering by fire to Yahweh, just as Yahweh had commanded Moses.

Two parts are singled out for special treatment: the entrails and the legs. The entrails, the inner organs, would be unclean from their contents. The legs would be dirty from walking in the world. Both are washed with water. This points to the need for both internal and external purity. The priests' inmost being, their desires and affections, must be cleansed. And their walk, their outward conduct, must also be cleansed. You cannot offer a holy God a dedication that is filthy on the inside or dirty on the outside. After this cleansing, these parts are added to the rest, and the whole ram is offered up. The result is a soothing aroma to Yahweh. This is anthropomorphic language, of course, but it communicates a profound truth: God is pleased. He accepts this act of total dedication. The fire of the altar consumes the sacrifice, and the smoke rises as a sign of divine satisfaction. This is not because God delights in the smell of burning meat, but because He delights in the obedient faith that offers it. This entire, bloody, detailed process was done exactly as God commanded, and therefore it was received with pleasure. This points us to Christ, whose perfect, obedient sacrifice of Himself was the ultimate soothing aroma to the Father (Eph 5:2).

Application

It is easy for us, as New Covenant believers, to read a passage like this and thank God that we do not have to deal with all this blood and smoke. And we should be thankful. But we must not miss the principles, because they are permanent. The consecration of Aaron and his sons is a picture of the consecration of every believer.

First, we must identify with our substitute. We lay our hands on the head of Jesus Christ by faith. He represents us. His death is our death. His life is our life. Second, our consecration is predicated on the shedding of His blood. We have no access to God, no right to serve Him, apart from the violent death of our Savior. Third, our dedication must be total. We are to offer up every piece of our lives to Him: our minds (the head), our actions (the pieces), and our best energies (the suet). We cannot compartmentalize our lives, giving God our Sundays and keeping the weekdays for ourselves. He bought the whole ram. Fourth, we need both internal and external cleansing. Our inward thoughts and desires (the entrails) and our outward walk (the legs) must be continually washed with the water of the Word. We cannot present ourselves as a living sacrifice while cultivating filth in our hearts or our habits.

And the result of this gospel-shaped consecration is that our lives can be a soothing aroma to God. Not because of our own intrinsic worth, but because we are offered up "in Christ." When God the Father looks at a believer who has, by faith, laid his hands on the true Ram and presented himself as a living sacrifice, He is pleased. He smells the smoke of Christ's sacrifice, and He accepts us for His sake. This is the heart of our worship. It is not just something we do for an hour on Sunday. It is the offering of our whole selves, every day, on the altar of God's service, a fragrant aroma in His nostrils because of the Son He loves.