The high priest's burnt offering.
The difference between the high priest's offering and that for the whole congregation on the one hand, and the offering for an offending ruler or any of the common people on the other, lay in the sprinkling of the blood of the victim seven times before the Lord, before the vail of the sanctuary. This betokened the purifying by this sacrifice of the public worship of the people as distinguished from their private and individual life. The different modes of sprinkling the blood marked successive degrees of consecration, from the altar of burnt offering without to the vail in the sanctuary, which especially represented Jehovah's presence. The high priest was an embodiment of the people's sanctity as a worshipping people. The great truth taught is the necessity of connecting together worship with the revelation of Divine righteousness and grace. The only true religion is that which rests on the twofold basis—God's provided atonement for sin; man's faith and obedience towards God.
SHOW THAT THERE IS "INIQUITY IN OUR HOLY THINGS." This was recognized by the Apostle Paul at Athens. "Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." The want of true knowledge renders the worship unacceptable. But not ignorance only; indifference, heedlessness, the superstition which proceeds from a corrupt heart, the falsehood which has grown up from the root of sin in human nature and which the individual man may adopt from tradition without perceiving its falsity. The religious leaders of a people may be especially guilty of defiling the popular worship. The priest, by his false theology, or his corrupt ritual, or his lack of spirituality, may involve the congregation in sin. In the house of God itself there may be sinful defect of reverence, sinful disorder, sinful coldness and dullness, sinful pride and worldliness, sinful wanderings of thought and self-assertion. Our worship needs to be sprinkled with the blood of our Great Sacrifice before it can be accepted. It is especially incumbent on the religious teachers and ministers of the sanctuary that they be prominent in confessing sin, in urging the necessity of more sanctification, in exalting the merit of Christ that worship be presented through him.—R.