The sin-offering, of that ritual, was, in a sense, the basis of the whole system of sacrifices. The chief feature of that offering, was the out-flowing of its blood Godward. The offering itself was a substitute-offering, for an individual or for the entire people. Its blood was sprinkled upon the horns of the altar of burnt-offering, or poured out at the base of that altar,[525]--the altar of personal consecration; or, it was sprinkled within the Holy Place toward the Most Holy Place,[526]--the symbolic dwelling-place of Jehovah: and again it was made to touch the horns of the altar of incense, which sent up its sweet savor to God: in every case, it was the outreaching of the sinner toward inter-union with God, in a covenant of blood. The whole burnt-offering, of the Mosaic ritual, symbolised the entire surrender to God, of the individual or of the congregation, in covenant faithfulness; the giving of one’s self in unreserved trust to Him with whom the offerer desired to be in loving oneness. It was an indication of a readiness to enter fully into that inter-union, which the blood-covenant brought about between two who had been separated, but who were henceforth to be as one. This offering also must be made with blood; for it is blood--which is the life--that gives the possibility of inter-union. All the outpoured blood of this offering, however, went directly to the altar upon which the offering itself was laid;[527] not toward the Most Holy Place, of the Lord’s symbolic presence. This offering was not, indeed, understood as in itself compassing inter-union; it indicated rather a desire and a readiness for inter-union--anew or renewed: so, both the substitute-body and the substitute-blood were offered at the altar of typical surrender and consecration. When other sacrifices were brought, the burnt-offering followed the sin-offering, but preceded the peace-offering;[528] again, it might be offered by itself. He who was of the blood-covenant stock of Abraham, thereby sought restoration to the full privileges of that covenant, to which he had not been wholly true; and even he who was not of that stock might in this way show his desire to share in its privileges; “for the burnt offering was the only sacrifice which non-Israelites were permitted to bring”[529] to the altar of Jehovah. Following the communion-seeking, or the union-seeking, sin-offering (with its connected, or related, trespass-offering, or guilt-offering), and the self-surrendering burnt-offering, there came the joyous communion-symbolizing peace-offering, with its type of completed union,[530] in the sharing, by the sinner and his God, of the flesh of the sacrificial victim at a common feast. And this banquet-sacrifice[531] corresponds with the feast of inter-communion which commonly follows the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, and which marks the completion of the inter-union thereby sought after.