The Ordination Burnt Offering

The first ram is offered wholly to the LORD as a burnt offering, signifying consecrated priestly service before him.

Exodus 29:15-18 shows that priestly consecration involves a whole offering ascending to the LORD as a pleasing aroma. Yet even this burnt offering cannot finally perfect the worshiper. Christ fulfills the sacrificial trajectory by offering himself fully and acceptably to God, so that his people are cleansed, consecrated, and enabled to offer their lives as worship through him.

This is not a direct Gospel scene, but the sacrificial grammar helps later readers understand why the New Testament speaks of Christ's offering in terms of obedience, sacrifice, and pleasing surrender to God. Any correlation must respect the immediate Exodus setting first: Aaron's priesthood is being consecrated through divinely commanded rites at Sinai.

To command the offering of the first ram in the priestly ordination ceremony as a burnt offering, including hand-laying, slaughter, blood application, washing, and total burning on the altar as a pleasing aroma to the LORD.

1. Why does the burnt offering follow the sin offering in the ordination sequence?
2. What does the whole burning of the ram communicate about consecration?
3. Why are the inner parts and legs washed before the offering is burned?
4. How does the phrase 'pleasing aroma' help us understand the Godward direction of the offering?
5. How does Christ fulfill the whole-offering trajectory in a final way?
6. How should Romans 12:1 be grounded in Christ’s sacrifice rather than moralism?
7. Where might we want cleansing from guilt without whole-life surrender to God?

Exodus 29:15-18 stands inside the priestly consecration sequence that begins in Exodus 29:1-9. The previous unit dealt with the bull as a sin offering for priestly purification. This unit turns to the first ram, a burnt offering, before the second ram is used for ordination in Exodus 29:19-28. The flow is deliberate: purification precedes whole offering, and whole offering prepares for installation into active priestly service.

The first ram follows the bull of the sin offering in the ordination ceremony. Aaron and his sons have already been washed, clothed, and identified with the sin offering; now the burnt offering marks consecration through a whole offering to the LORD.