The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 368

lll. THE SACRIFIOES WEB.B TO BB AB tn!DLEMIBHBD AB THE OFFIOIATmG PRIEBTB i !.NY PHYSICAL DEFECT DISQUALIFIED THEM FROM ACCEPTANCE. The unblemished cha- racter of the sacrifices teaches the same truth which we have already considered. As the sacrifices were practically substitutions, their perfection was to teach man not only that his Substitute must be perfect if God would accept him, but that he himself must be perfected, if he is to serve God in the great hereafter in a priestly spirit. At the same time, man is encouraged in the present state to offer what he can, even though it be not perfect. God does not insist on the absolute perfection of the work of his people. If it is willing (ver. 23)-if it is really a" freewill offering"-then God will accept it in the spirit in which it is given. The perfection is to be kept steadily in view as the ideal to which we must always be struggling; meanwhile, we are to be doing all we can with willing minds, even though our work is oft.en poor at best. IV. hnrUMAN ACTS DISQUALIFY SACRIFICES OTHERWISE ACCEPTilLE. Thus a bullock, sheep, or goat, would not be acceptable till after the eighth day. It would have been inhuman to have denied it its week with its dam. Moreover, may not the seven days with the dam, like the seven days before the man-child's circumcision, represent a perfect period spent U.Ilder parental care, and thus become an emblem of the providen- tial use of the family institution? Again, the dam and the young were not to be put to death on the same day. It has an inhuman appearance about it, like the seething of a kid in its mother's milk; and God arranged that the terms of the :fifth commandment should be illustrated by, and not transgressed, even among the lower animals. While, therefore, sacrificial worship entailed much suffering on the part of the innocent victims, there was a humane element to run through the service of the priests, and inhumanity would disqualify them from sacrificially serving God.-R. M. E. Ver. 3.-77ie servir.e of abstention. There were certain bodily conditions which, under the Levitical institutions, were suggestive of spiritual impurity, and those who suffered from them were accounted ceremonially U.Ilclean. Priests thus affected were disqualified for the ministry of the tabernacle, and were deprived, for a time, of sacerdotal privileges : they might not "go unto the holy things." Any priest who was disobedient to this precept would be "cut off from the presence of the Lord." To those who were thus U.Ilfortunate there was one service left,-the service of obedient abstention. They would be disappointed; they might feel somewhaL humiliated; but there was left to them the opportunity of fulfilling; the acceptable service of offering not or eating not "unto the Lord" (see Rom. xiv. 6). It often happens to us that by some misfortune-perhaps, as here, some bodily afflic- tion-we are disabled and detained from active service: it may be from (1) Christian work, or (2) public worship, or (3) daily duty (business or household activities). That which is U.Ilavoidable and for which we are not responsible may shut us out from many vJ.lued privileges. In this case we must render the service of abstention. We can- L SUBMJT IN PATIENCE. IL BELIEVE WITH CHEERFUL oomrmENOE : have faith to accept the truth that "they also serve wbo only stand and wait;" that God is as well pleased with the passive service of those whom he desires to "be still," as with those who- " . • . at hie bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest." m. WAIT IN HOPE. The hour will come, here or hereafter, sooner or Inter, when all bodily <liRabilities will have disappeared, and fullest access be given to the presence of the Lord.-C. Vere. 10-15.-77,e gui?e of profanation. That which had been offered in sacrifice was "holy unto the Lord;" these were "holy things" (ver.10); "I the Lord do sanctify them" (ver. 16). They might only be partaken of by the priests and their families. Hence we have here a precise limitation of membership of the family; it included the returned daughter and the permanent servant, but did not include the hireling or the vi»itor. etc. We may note, in passing, (1) the regard which God paid (and still pays) OH. XXII. 1--38,] THE BOOK OF :LEVITICUS. 833