Leviticus 4 - Scofield Reference Notes

Bible Comments

  • Leviticus 4:3 open_in_new

    sin-offering

    The sin-offering, though still Christ, is Christ seen laden with the believer's sin, absolutely in the sinner's place and stead, and not, as in the sweet savour offerings, in His own perfections. It is Christ's death as viewed in (Isaiah 53:1-12); (Psalms 22:1-31); (Matthew 26:28); (1 Peter 2:24); (1 Peter 3:18).

    But note (Leviticus 6:24-30) how the essential holiness of Him who was "made sin for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21) is guarded. The sin-offerings are expiatory, substitutional, efficacious (Leviticus 4:12); (Leviticus 4:29); (Leviticus 4:35) and have in view the vindication of the law through substitutional sacrifice.

  • Leviticus 4:12 open_in_new

    without the camp

    Compare (Exodus 29:14); (Leviticus 16:27); (Numbers 19:3); (Hebrews 13:10-13).

    The last passage is the interpretative one. The "camp" was Judaism - a religion of forms and ceremonies. "Jesus, also, that He might sanctify separate, or set apart for God] the people with or 'through' His own blood, suffered without the gate" temple gate, city gate, that is, Judaism civil and religious]; (Hebrews 13:12) but how does this sanctify, or set apart, a people? "Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp Judaism then, Judaized Christianity now-anything religious which denies Him as our sin-offering] bearing His reproach" (Hebrews 13:13). The sin-offering, "burned without the camp," typifies this aspect of the death of Christ. The cross becomes a new altar, in a new place, where, without the smallest merit in themselves, the redeemed gather to offer, as believer-priests, spiritual sacrifices. (Hebrews 13:15); (1 Peter 2:5). The bodies of the sin-offering beasts were not burned without the camp, as some have fancied, because "saturated with sin," and unfit for a holy camp. Rather, an unholy camp was an unfit place for a holy sin-offering. The dead body of our Lord was not "saturated with sin," though in it our sins had been borne (1 Peter 2:24).