Notes on the Book of LeviticusMackintosh, Charles Henry
Religion
Notes on the Book of Leviticus
Mackintosh, Charles Henry
Bible. Leviticus -- Commentaries
Let us now consider what was done with the "flesh," or "body," of the
sacrifice, in which, as has been stated, we have the true ground of
discipleship. "The whole bullock shall he carry forth, _without the
camp_, unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn
him on the wood with fire." (Chap. iv. 12.) This act is to be viewed
in a double way; first, as expressing the place which the Lord Jesus
took for us as bearing sin; secondly, as expressing the place into
which He was cast by a world which had rejected Him. It is to this
latter point that I would here call my reader's attention.
The use which the apostle, in Heb. xiii, makes of Christ's having
"suffered without the gate," is deeply practical.--"Let us go forth
therefore _unto Him_ without the camp, _bearing His reproach_." If the
sufferings of Christ have secured us an entrance into heaven, the
place where He suffered expresses our rejection from earth. His death
has procured us a city on high; the place where He died divests us of
a city below.[16] "He suffered without the gate," and, in so doing,
He set aside Jerusalem as the present centre of divine operation.
There is no such thing now as a consecrated spot on the earth. Christ
has taken His place, as a suffering One, outside the range of this
world's religion, its politics, and all that pertains to it. The world
hated Him and cast Him out. Wherefore, the word is, "_Go forth_." This
is the motto as regards every thing that men would set up here in the
form of a "camp," no matter what that camp may be. If men set up "a
holy city," you must look for a rejected Christ "without the gate." If
men set up a religious camp, call it by what name you please, you must
"go forth" out of it, in order to find a rejected Christ. It is not
that blind superstition will not grope amid the ruins of Jerusalem in
search of relics of Christ. It assuredly will do so, and has done so.
It will affect to find out and do honor to the site of His cross and
to His sepulchre. Nature's covetousness, too, taking advantage of
nature's superstition, has carried on for ages a lucrative traffic,
under the crafty plea of doing honor to the so-called sacred
localities of antiquity. But a single ray of light from Revelation's
heavenly lamp is sufficient to enable us to say that you must "go
forth" of all these things, in order to find and enjoy communion with
a rejected Christ.
[16] The epistle to the Ephesians furnishes the most elevated view of
the Church's place above, and gives it to us, not merely as to the
title, but also as to the mode. The title is assuredly the blood; but
the mode is thus stated: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great
love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath
quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath
raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus." (Eph. ii. 4-6.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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