In the opening of
Leviticus 10 we see an example of man’s great transgression and dishonor of God
in the presence of God’s glory and grace. The elder sons of Aaron fell because
they despised the burnt offering, and God’s fire which had come down in
acceptance of it. As a result, Aaron and his two remaining sons were instructed
to guard against the expression of grief or the allowance of excitement. In
these things others might indulge, but not those who had the privilege of
drawing near to His sanctuary. They were also instructed as to the eating of
the meal offering and the sacrifice of peace offerings. There remained the
solemn injunction that the priests should eat the sin offering. Their failure
in this respect closes the chapter, deeply appealing to us who, though of a
heavenly calling, are no less apt to forget what it speaks to our souls and
means before God.

    “And Moses diligently
sought the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it was burnt:and he was angry
with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron who were left alive, saying, Why
have you not eaten the sin offering in the holy place, seeing it is most holy,
and God has given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make
atonement for them before the Lord? Behold, the blood of it was not brought in
within the holy place:you should indeed have eaten it in the holy place, as I
commanded” (Lev. 10:16-18).

    Thus we see that the rest
of the priestly house, though not guilty of the error fatal to Nadab and Abihu,
broke down in a weighty part of their obligations; and all this was, sad to
say, at the very beginning of their history. How humiliating is God’s history
of man everywhere and at all times!

    Perhaps it would not be
possible to find a more wholesome warning for our souls in relation to our brethren.
God requires us to identify ourselves in grace with the failures of our
brethren, as they with ours. It is a fact that we all and often offend; and we
are exhorted to confess our sins or offenses to one another. Is this all? Far
from it! We have to fulfill the type before us, to eat the sin offering in the
sanctuary, to make the offence of a saint our own, seriously, in grace before
God, to behave as if we ourselves had been the offenders.

    In this same way the
Lord, when indicating by His symbolic action in John 13 the gracious but
indispensable work He was about to carry on for us upon departing to the
Father, let the disciples know that they too were to wash one another’s feet.
But here we are as apt to fail through ignorance or carelessness as Peter did
doubly on that occasion.

    The apostle Paul had to
censure the insensibility of the Corinthian saints in 1 Corinthians 5, but
later on had the joy of learning that they were made sorry according to God, as
he expressed it in 2 Cor. 7:9. Again, to the Galatian saints he wrote, “Bear
one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2), instead of
meddling with the law of Moses to the hurt of themselves and of each other.
Individual responsibility remains true:each shall bear his own burden; but
grace would bear one another’s burdens.

    Intercession with our God
and Father is a precious privilege which it is our shame to neglect. It keeps
God’s rights undiminished, and exercises the heart in love to our brethren. Let
us never forget that grace condemns evil far more profoundly than law ever did
or could.

    (From The Bible
Treasury, Vol. N3.)

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    When Daniel confessed his
sin and the sin of his people (Dan. 9:1-20), he was surely eating the sin
offering. And such an identification of ourselves with the sins of God’s saints
is greatly needed for all of us. This will be realized more among us as we grow
in our knowledge of the cross. Alas! the slight knowledge of God’s grace may allow
a light treatment of sin, or else, perhaps, a bitter judgment of it. But a real
eating of the sin offering makes one equally serious and tender. Who can
harshly judge when Christ has borne the judgment? At the same time, who can
treat lightly what brought Him to the cross?

     F.W. Grant