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Exodus 29:15–18
“Then you shall cut the ram into pieces, and wash its entrails and its legs, and put them with its pieces and its head, and burn the whole ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the LORD. It is a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the LORD” (Ex. 29:17–18).
Continuing our look at the ceremony to consecrate or ordain the priests of Israel, let us begin our study today by noting that the process of ordaining the priests is really a picture of the entire sacrificial system of Israel. As we move through Exodus 29, we will see that many of the sacrifices instituted for the common people in Leviticus 1–7 appear in the ordination of Aaron and his sons. This makes sense when we consider that the priests represented Israel before God. Because the priests served as Israel’s representatives, they had to do what was required of the Israelites. The Lord’s appointing them to the priesthood through sacrifice anticipated His setting apart the entire nation through sacrifice.
The first sacrifice made in ordaining the priests was the sacrifice of a bull, and this corresponded to the sin offering, the sacrifice made to cleanse people of the pollution of sin (Ex. 29:10–14; see Lev. 4). In today’s passage, we read about the sacrifice of one of the rams that were presented when the Israelite priests were consecrated. As in the sacrifice of the bull, Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the ram, thereby associating it with them and their sin (Ex. 29:15). But while in the sacrifice of the bull, only part of the animal was burned on the altar, in the sacrifice of the ram, the entire animal was burned on the altar (Ex. 29:16–18). This makes it an analogue of the burnt offering that is described more comprehensively in Leviticus 1.
The burnt offering conveyed two main truths. First, burning up the whole animal depicted the consecration of the whole person to the Lord. The ram represented the priests, and just as all of the ram was given over to God, the priests were to give themselves wholly to the Lord. Second, the burnt offering of the ram effected propitiation, or the satisfaction of the wrath of God. Because of sin, we deserve eternal destruction at the hands of our holy Lord (Rom. 1:18–3:20). This wrath must be satisfied if we are to be restored to fellowship with God. When the priests laid their hands on the animal, their sin was imputed to the ram, and it suffered God’s judgment in their place. God’s wrath was satisfied in the destruction of the animal, repairing the priests’ relationship with their Creator. Of course, the sacrifice of the ram in itself did not accomplish propitiation. Instead, it was a type of the Messiah, who is the perfect sacrifice to satisfy the wrath of God (Rom. 3:21–26). Through faith, the old covenant priests benefited from the death of Christ before He actually came and died.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Just as the priests of old covenant Israel were to offer themselves in their entirety to the Lord, so we are to offer all that we are and all that we have to God. This means that we must bring our hearts, minds, wills, possessions, relationships, and everything else under the lordship of Christ. In other words, we are to seek to use all these things for His glory alone.
for further study
- Leviticus 8:18–21
- Ezra 8:35
- Isaiah 56:6–8
- Romans 12:1–2