The Burnt Offering — Roy Hession

This is Tapes to Live By, tape number 113, side 2. Roy Hessian, speaking on the subject, The Burnt Offering.

Abraham's Test and the Meaning of Faith

Now I'm going to assume your familiarity with certain scriptures, and I'm not going to read this whole chapter. But this morning, for a short while, I want to just pick out three phrases and put them side by side and let them throw light on one another.

Two are from this chapter and another from another chapter. Now, turn, look down to verse 7. This is the story of Abraham taking Isaac up to the mount to sacrifice him. You remember that terrible test that was proposed to Abraham.

I wonder if we really do let ourselves be sort of gripped by the incident, by the extraordinary thing. I mean, what an extraordinary thing. Don't look upon it as a fairy story. It rarely happens that God, who had been dealing and leading his servant along, ultimately asked him if he would sacrifice his own son to God.

And here too, we very often fail to see the real point. I think we get an impression of a certain scripture, but we know it. The real meaning is very different. As in the case I've just mentioned about David, so here.

What was God testing? He was testing Abraham's faith. Hebrews 11 says that, by faith, Abraham. He wasn't testing his love. Everybody thinks the test of love. Did he love God? God normally loved Isaac.

That wasn't the test. Here was a son, in whom the promises of God had been vested. That in his seed, and in Isaac's seed, there would spring this nation, which was going to accomplish such great things in the world, and from whom Messiah was going to come.

And now God says, offer him. He says, what's going to happen to that promise? God can't break the promise, and yet he told me to offer him. And do you know, did you know, what really went on in his heart?

He said, I know what's going to happen. I'm going to trust God to raise him from the dead. It's the only way in which God could yet fulfill his promises. Did you know that's what the Bible teaches? It's all the need for a patient study of the word.

Here's Hebrews 11 commentary. By faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.

From whence also, in a figure, he did actually receive him. Well, we weren't, that's not the subject, that's just incidental. Now, turn down to verse 7. And Isaac spake unto Abraham, My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the land for the burnt offering?

The Burnt Offering as a Sweet Savour to God

There's our first phrase. Where is the land for a burnt offering? Now, the burnt offering was the basic offering that Israel offered. Actually, in the book of Leviticus, we're given five offerings that they were to offer.

But the first, and the greatest, was always the burnt offering. Abel offered a burnt offering, even before the rules and regulations about offerings were instituted. It was a burnt offering, not a sin offering, not a peace offering.

It was a burnt offering. And Noah, when the flood had subsided, he offered a burnt offering. Maybe you're ready to offer your burnt offering when the flood subsides here. The whole point of the burnt offering was, it was called, especially when they were all instituted, a sweet savour offering.

Certainly that was what was said when Noah offered it. God smelled the sweet savour. The picture of the burnt offering was something that gave pleasure to God. And I believe that that burnt offering was a picture of the fact that human life was meant to give pleasure to God.

That there should come from you and from me a sweet savour. That God should be pleased with man. That God should be pleased with me. And find pleasure in me. And that can only be to be Lamb. If I'm at the disposition of the Lamb, but perhaps, as we were saying on Sunday night, Sunday morning, and I resist the things that God brings into my life and the people, I know what he's going to get from me, a stench of resentment, of jealousy, of anger, of self-pity.

And I know that that's what he sometimes gets from me. And from you. No sweet savour offering. No burnt offering. Because we aren't willing to be as the Lamb. As we said on Sunday morning, the Lamb is the meekest of all God's creatures.

You can do what you like to a Lamb and it doesn't turn around and snap at you. And the disposition of the Lamb is that which receives things as coming from God. And they do come from God. You can regard yourself as being in the centre of a circle.

The circle being the will of God. And no matter how that incident originates, somebody's malice against you. By the time it's reached you, God's allowed it. It's come through that circle called the will of God.

How do I receive that? Not like the Lamb. I don't bow my head, I don't give up my right, I don't meekly accept it as I don't say what Jesus said, put up your sword, the cup that the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?

We rather say let me draw my sword. I'm not going to stand for this. And do you know what happens? An evil stench. And that's sometimes what he smells from our home. From even the sacred relationship of marriage.

As we blame one another. As we resist and resent one another. As we cross one another. Not a sweet savour, but a stench. And so, the sensitive heart, sometimes is in despair. And it has to cry out where is the Lamb for the burnt offering.

For we certainly know we're not Lambs. We're not willing to be burnt offerings on the daily altar of the affairs of life. We don't bow our heads, we stiffen our necks. The one thing we know we're not is Lambs.

If the thing was where is the Lion, we would qualify. Let me go in and... Oh my! We'd decide if the question was where is the tiger, or where is the lion. We're addicts to being snakes in the grass, with the poison of ants under our lips.

But oh dear friends, where is the Lamb for the burnt offering? And that's the one thing we know we're not. You know the very heart of holiness is humility. Brokenness is humility. The willingness to accept and bow to the will of God as it comes to me by other people's behaviour.

Now that person's behaviour is not God's will for that person. You've got to see it's God's will for me at the moment. Isn't that hard? But what's the alternative? An evil stench. It's really got to be this or nothing.

We know it's not this. And maybe we sought to be Christians and sought to live, walk before God in holiness but we haven't succeeded. And therefore our cry is where is the Lamb for the burnt offering?

Because I can't see it. After all my attempts, where is the Lamb for the burnt offering? This is the cry of those who've had any exercise of heart at all. Where is the Lamb? And when there's been that bust up or that little crossing of wills and you go to prayer you may well say Oh God, where is the Lamb for the burnt offering?

I can't see one in our home and I'm not one. Well there's the first phrase. Where is the Lamb for the burnt offering? The second is in the very next verse. Abraham said God will provide himself. Will provide himself.

God Provides the Lamb in Christ

Abraham thought he knew who was going to be the Lamb for the burnt offering. He thought he knew it was going to be Isaac. He hated to think it. And when that proposition was first made to Abraham and God saw poor Abraham start back at the very thought of it I like to think that God said Abraham I know it's hard but I'm not asking you to do anything which I'm not willing one day to do myself.

And one day God did the same. Himself. Same thing that he was asking Isaac. And a man went up a hill dragging his cross upon his shoulder and he was nailed upon that cross and lifted up. You say what's God doing?

He's doing the very thing that he asked Isaac to do. He wasn't asking Abraham to do. He wasn't asking Abraham to do something that he wasn't willing one day to do himself. And you can imagine yourself joining the crowd and watching.

And when we see the whole implication this is his sweet eternal son and God's offering him up on the sacrifice. Perhaps we would feel like saying oh God oh God substitute the son for Isaac. Find thou a son.

That's what I meant to say. And I believe had we said something like that God would have said a substitute. Well how? But there's none for Jesus. Why Lord? Because he is the substitute. The substitute who?

Yours. And God has provided himself a lamb for a birth offering. And that lamb is his own. He has determined he is going to have a sweet favor offering from man. If the first man fails to give it him he's going to get it from the second man.

The Lord. God's purpose is that he shall get pleasure from man. And he's going to find it. God's going to provide himself with a lamb for a birth offering in man. The God man. The birth offering of course speaks of Jesus being offered on the cross.

Sin Offering and Burnt Offering at the Cross

Now there are two aspects. One is the sin offering aspect. And I cannot go into it now but the book of Leviticus in the early chapters enumerates that Israel were required One was the birth offering but the other was the sin offering.

And the sin offering only dealt with sin. It didn't have in mind at the moment giving pleasure to God. Indeed the body wasn't birthed on the altar but birthed outside the camp on the refuge heap. So Jesus that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without the camp.

And this aspect of the cross speaks of the judgment bearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sin deserves the refuge heap. And if Jesus bears our sins in his body on the tree then he must die virtually on the refuge heap.

And the sin offering was not a sweet savor offering. It only spoke of judgment. The judgment of our sins in the Lord Jesus. Put away as far as the east is from the west in the most awesome and dreadful way possible the wrath of a sin-hating God.

Hear that again? The wrath of a sin-hating God with me can have nothing to do now. My savior's obedience to blood hides all my transgressions from you. Now that's that one aspect of the cross. The sin offering.

But there is another aspect of the same cross. All these five offerings speak of Jesus and his cross. And that is as I've said the birth offering. And it is linked of course with the sin offering. And I'm going to quote you a sentence from an old writer which has helped me to see this lovely aspect.

Jesus Christ took up the whole matter of sin as the sin offering in such a way that all his personal perfection and sweet odor has come out to the supreme satisfaction of God and forms the basis of our acceptance.

There was something more to God's eye than the judgment bearing. The manner in which he bore our sins. The humility. The lamb-likeness that didn't resent or resist. That even prayed for his enemies. Something unspeakably beautiful to God.

As C .S. Lewis says Jesus Christ was treading Adam's guard backward. Adam's early submission was easy. But the same submission to the son of God was the hardest thing in the world. And the manner in which he bore my sins when he was reviled he didn't revile again.

He went on loving. The self-surrender of the lamb to the father even when that father's will meant all that was something that gave infinite satisfaction to God. That's what Jesus said when he said therefore does my father love me because I lay down my life that I may take it again.

And from this point of view Jesus' sacrifice was an offering to God. It was offered for sin. Offering out of it that came out that gave the father infinite satisfaction. It was not only a sin offering for man but it was a burnt offering for God.

Christ's Sacrifice as a Sweet-Smelling Offering

Now this is told this isn't just some nice little point that one makes up but in Ephesians 5 you have reference to this aspect of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here it is. Walk in love as Christ also has loved us listen and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling favor.

Have I ever thought of what the father finds in Calvary of delight and pleasure. This is the burnt offering. And God says for man I only get an evil stench but I'm going to have that burnt offering if not from the first man from the second.

And God has provided himself a lamb for a burnt offering for a sweet I guess it was pretty sweet you don't know much about in America roast lamb roast beef here but in Britain it's roast lamb and that speaks of the infinite perfection came from Calvary to the supreme satisfaction of God and which after formed the basis of our acceptance.

Right now how far have we got? Where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Says the saint say you and me conscious that we've been anything but lamb God will provide himself but you say well that's alright Jesus was the burnt offering he doesn't need to make what's connection with me.

Identification with the Sacrifice

For that we turn to the third and this is in the book of Leviticus. Now don't get scared of that complicated name Leviticus. You see it's to do with the sons of Levi which was the tribe that had to do with the sacrifices.

We have a similar word we talk about Americana. Well this is you couldn't cut a Levyana but it's the same thing Leviticus it's just the thing to do with the work of this particular tribe. And the book of Leviticus and that's the third book of Moses isn't it?

Yes. In the first chapter and the first chapter gives the instructions to how they were to offer a burnt offering. Verse 3. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of a herd let it offer a male without blemish.

Verse 4. And he shall put his head upon the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him. Just that. He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering and he shall be exalted. You see what connection has the excellences that came out from Calvary to the Father's heart with me from whom there only seems to come an evil stench.

Those excellences by way of the judgment bearing of Jesus for us well there's one connection they only were came out because of what he had to do for me and then secondly those excellences that sweetness that the Father found in Jesus are the form of basis so that the Father the sweetness I lay my hand upon the head of my burnt offering.

Now this is one of the things I don't know whether this is new ground for you but we've got to break it you're going to live with this till you get to glory and there's a lot about these things in the Old Testament don't shy off them.

At first they may seem a bit puzzling but keep on and you'll begin to see oh well this is the puzzling it's all about the Jesus I already know and in Old Testament sacrifices the sinner would bring his offering he would lay his hand upon his head and he would slay it and the priest would offer the blood upon the altar.

In the case of the burnt offering the whole beast was then offered on the altar not worth the sweet savor. But he had to lay his hand upon his head now what does that mean? Laying hand. Now you know in New Testament times when they ordained anybody they laid their hands on them.

Laying hand means in each case either on the head of the offering or on Paul and Barnabas identification. In the case of Paul and Barnabas these men said the church go as us we're identified with them.

The laying on of hand brought to me today it means identification to that Hebrew he lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering this is to be regarded as me this death it dies is my death. This is exactly the death that a man like me deserves.

He takes his place as one justly deserving the death of being afflicted upon that burnt offering. That's what it means. I identify myself and that death I recognize as mine compromise this. Oh this is a lovely thing there's a lovely hymn I don't know if you know it not all the blood of peace on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or take away its stain but Christ the heavenly Lamb takes all our sins away a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood that would lay her hand on that dear head of thine while in the penitent I stand and there my soul looks back to see the burdens thou didst bear when hanging on the accursed tree and knows her guilt believing we rejoice to see the curse removed.

We praise the Lamb with every lot. I remember that hymn coming alive when I visited East Africa in one of the great revival conventions it was sung every day. I thought it was an old stodgy Church of England hymn with a rather stodgy tune.

I'd occasionally sung it in England and hadn't seen much in it but in those days I thought this was the heart and in that great time many many a man laid his head and said that death is mine. That death he died is what I deserve.

That's me rightly and properly deserving that it was a lovely picture of repentance. My face would lay her hand on that dear head of thine while in the penitent I stand and there confess. And the sweet favor that went from that offering is to fall.

Acceptance in the Beloved

That's what is meant when we are accepted in the beloved, that beloved one who is willing to go so low at the Father's command who re-enacted that self-surrender so wonderfully. What the Father knows are the basis of my acceptance of the Father.

And I am accepted as if they were mine. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him. Christ is accepted to me. They should finish with a hangover. He is the Lord.

As another hymn writer I'm sorry I see the hymns as much as I quote the scripture but after all they're just expositions of it. Now we see in Christ's acceptance. But the measure. Do you believe that?

That's it. Maybe that's new. I thought I was just let off. No my dear friend. I thought perhaps I could conceive myself being made as white as snow. Oh no whiter than snow. I see in Christ's acceptance.

You're free free from the hangover. You are when you've been to the cross as a penitent and identified yourself by confession of sin with that death and said that's what I deserve. That's my death over this thing this latest rumpus this latest nasty disposition.

I've manifested those last nasty words that proud sin if I've gone there and now as acceptable to God. Can you believe it? Thou hast fulfilled the law says another lovely hymn. Thou hast fulfilled the law.

How did Jesus fulfill the law? There are two ways in which you can fulfill the law. You can fulfill the law by keeping it. Or if you've broken it by paying its penalty. And when you have a ticket and you go and pay you've fulfilled the law.

Thou hast fulfilled the law. Oh he kept it but we hadn't. So he had to fulfill it for us which meant he had to die. He paid his penalty. Thou hast fulfilled the law and we are justified. Is the blessing.

Ask the blessing dine the curse that thou hast dined. And this is the connection between me and those three saver-off. It's all very well. Jesus please the Father. But I don't. What's the connection?

Here it is. It was for me. And those excellences are to form the basis of my acceptance. When I come it's helped me often. I've sometimes got wrong on something as a law that's been clear. I lay my hand on that dear head of thine my burnt offering God deep suffering for what I deserved for this latest thing.

And do you recognize that? That disposition that attitude we adopted that caused unhappiness and disharmony in the home. It deserved what Jesus took for it. Do I admit that? That's identifying. That's putting my hand upon the head.

I say that again. Isn't it beautifully put my face would lay her hand on that dear head of thine. While as a penitent I stand then I'd see in his acceptance but the measure of my own. And it doesn't please God to see us dragging our steps.

And it doesn't help when the person who's been so wrong is seeming to be set free has got peace and tells the folks that they've hurt and asks their forgiveness. But does it as an emancipated person it sort of does from it to everybody.

It isn't merely a hanged dog confession. It's someone who's seen that in Jesus there is right with God as his blood can make them. And this perhaps is often to be reiterated and repeated. It has to be in mind.

Lovely transaction of repentance and takes peace. A dear friend of mine who has recently been called to glory one of our dearest team members we like to call him in England used to sign his letters. Yours repenting and rejoicing.

Lay your hand upon his head believing we rejoice. And so there it is. There's our picture. We thought about the lamb in the midst of the throne. A lamb. Do I see this blessed connection with me. I who've anything.

But but I tell you I can repent of being a tiger. I can repent of being the lion. I can repent of being the snake in the grass as it happens. If I'm open to be convicted. And I can go to Calgary and get peace progressively.

The mind that was in Christ the disposition that was in Christ becomes mine. Maybe you will never think it done. But if you go on repenting and rejoicing well the very the very act of repenting and asking someone to forgive you.

If that isn't the lamb what is. Tigers don't do that. Lions don't do that. Everybody's wrong. But then but here's someone going down and you know you just feel bad about it except you've just got peace.

You're praising. But they're seeing Jesus whatever power on earth could have bent that neck. And as you bend it they see the figure of the lamb. And he's helping you to go that way too. But even the difference in your life that others may see you might even spot some of it yourself.

I hope you don't too much make you proud. Just as well not to see. But even if you do that is never the basis of your acceptance. It's all I'm changing. I'm not reacting as I used to never have more peace.

Never. The next moment something's going to happen. You will react. Where's your peace. Words of love. I gaze upon the blood. I see the mighty. That's where my peace is. That's where I'm accepted. Someone has said an old writer said there is one work over which God can never say it is finished.

It's the work of the spirit in your heart conforming you to Christ. He can never say it is finished. It's never complete. There's always much to be done. Therefore it can never be the ground of my peace.

But there's another work of which Jesus said it is finished. Not the work of the spirit in me but the work of Christ for me. It's enough for the biggest failure if he goes and lays his hand upon the head of the burnt off.

Repentance, Rejoicing, and the Finished Work

Well there's our little picture. Three words. Where is the lamb. For the burnt offering. God will provide himself. It has indeed a lamb for a burnt offering. You and I are called upon to lay our hand upon the head of our burnt offering and it he shall be accepted for us until the next time.

And you know what to do. And the devil can't get us done. I thought I was going to put that man out of action. For a week they've gone to Jesus again and they're free again. So praise the Lord for this wonderful redemption.

God's remedy to sin which is to be of continual application.