Part 50

NOTE.--It is interesting to observe that although the peace-offering itself stands third in order, yet "the law" thereof is given us last of all. This circumstance is not without its import. There is none of the offerings in which the communion of the worshiper is so fully unfolded as in the peace-offering. In the burnt-offering, it is Christ offering Himself to God. In the meat-offering, we have Christ's perfect humanity. Then, passing on to the sin-offering, we learn that _sin_, in its root, is fully met. In the trespass-offering, there is a full answer to the actual _sins_, in the life. But in none is the doctrine of the communion of the worshiper unfolded. This latter belongs to "the peace-offering;" and hence, I believe, the position which the law of that offering occupies. It comes in at the close of all, thereby teaching us that, when it becomes a question of the soul's feeding upon Christ, it must be a full Christ,--looked at in every possible phase of His life, His character, His Person, His work, His offices; and, furthermore, that, when we shall have done forever with sin and sins, we shall delight in Christ, and feed upon Him, throughout the everlasting ages. It would, I believe, be a serious defect in our study of the offerings were we to pass over a circumstance so worthy of notice as the above. If "the law of the peace-offering" were given in the order in which the offering itself occurs, it would come in immediately after the law of the meat-offering; but instead of that, "the law of the sin-offering" and "the law of the trespass-offering" are given, and then "the law of the peace-offering" closes the entire.