The First Atonement Day Sacrifice, the “Bullock”

“Thus shall Aaron (The High Priest) come into the holy place: with a young bullock for a sin offering…” (Lev 16:3)

“Be it noted that our Lord Jesus was typified both by the bullock and the priest; that the bullock represented him as the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all; that the priest represented the new mind, the Holy Spirit, by which our Lord was begotten again at the moment of his consecration. During the three and a half years of our Lord’s ministry he was the priest, and his body was the sacrifice, reckoned dead. In the type the priest went immediately into the Holy of the Tabernacle, which represented his standing before God as now no longer a man but a new creature. The first vail represented his consecration to death, and his rising on the other side of it to newness of life as a spirit being begotten of the Holy Spirit.” (R3708:3)

“The bullock represented Jesus at the age of thirty years, the perfect MAN who gave himself and died on our behalf. The High Priest, as we have already seen, represented the `new’ nature of Jesus, the anointed Head and all the members of his body foreknown of God. The distinction which is here made between the human and the new creature should be clearly understood and remembered. The man Christ Jesus who gave himself at thirty years of age, was he who previously was rich (of a higher nature), but who for our sakes became poor; that is, became a man, that he might give the only possible ransom for men — a perfect man’s life. 1 Cor 15:21” (T 51)

“Aaron did not represent the body of Christ when he sacrificed the bullock because the bullock represented Jesus only, and you and I were not represented in the body at all until after Jesus had first finished His sacrifice (at Calvary having passed beyond the Second Vail) and had appeared in the presence of God for us, covering our blemishes, that we might be acceptable to God as members of His body. There was not a single member of the body at the time He offered Himself, even as the prophet Isaiah declared, `I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the peoples there was no man with me.’ (Isa 63:3)” Q703

Having already covered verses 3 and 4 in our last post let us now continue with the narrative.

“And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.” (Lev 16:5)

“Since there were two animals on the Day of Atonement which served as sin offerings, we perceive that Jesus was represented in the first, the bullock, and the Church in the second, the Lord’s goat. The bullock was burned outside the camp first, and we, the goat class, follow. We “go unto him bearing his reproach.”

Another part of the type which helps to interpret the bullock and the goat is the origin of the animals provided for sacrifice. Of the bullock we read merely, “Thus shall Aaron [Jesus] come into the holy place: with a young bullock for a sin offering.” (Lev 16:3) “A body hast Thou prepared Me.” (Heb 10:5)

But the goat for the sin offering comes from “the congregation of the children of Israel.” (Verse 5) So the goat class comes out from the world, to follow our Lord in sacrifice. (“Beauties of the Truth”, Page 7)

“And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself to make atonement for himself, and for his house.” (Lev 16: 6)

This “offering” of the bullock typifies the offering of our Lord in consecration when at the age of thirty years he presented himself a living sacrifice before God, surrendering his will completely to that of his Father’s, “Lo I come to do thy will, O God, as in the volume of the book it is written of me” (Heb 10:7) this consecration was followed shortly thereafter by symbolizing his death in water baptism.

“Our Lord’s (True) baptism to the new life was at the time he made his consecration unto death at this baptism. The new creature there begun was growing during the three and a half years thereafter. This period . . . was represented in the high priest in the type. At his baptism he was begotten as a Son of God on the highest plane, the divine. John the Baptist here bore witness of him, saying, `I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.’ ” (R5580:1, 2)

“For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins AND THEN for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” (Heb 7:26, 27 NAS)

“The Apostle declares our High Priest `holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.’ We should not, therefore, understand his statement that Jesus offered up sacrifice `first for his own sins’ to mean the contrary of what he had just stated, for our Lord had no sins. We should understand him here, in harmony with his statement elsewhere, to refer to the church as the body of Christ. The `Head’ was perfect, but the `body’ was imperfect. The Head needed no covering during the day of sacrifice, but the body needed the white linen garments symbolical of justification. It is the Church, therefore, that is referred to as `himself,’ his `members,’ for whom he offered the first sacrifice, his personal sacrifice finished at Calvary.

“The Leviticus account shows that this first offering (the bullock) was NOT ONLY for himself (his body, the Church) only, BUT ALSO for his house (see Verse 6 above), in the type the house or tribe of Levi; in the antitype the `household of faith,’ the `great company.’ ” (R4546:1)

In our next post we will take a look at the Second Atonement Day Sacrifice, the “Lord’s Goat”