15 Thou shalt also take one ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram.

16 And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about upon the altar.

17 And thou shalt cut the ram in pieces, and wash the inwards of him, and his legs, and put them unto his pieces, and unto his head.

18 And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the Lord: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the Lord.

After sacrificing the bullock as a sin offering, the first ram would then be offered for a burnt offering. Here the blood was not to be smeared upon the horns of mercy, but to be sprinkled all around the altar. And instead of separating the body into key parts and handling each of them differently, instead the entire ram was burned directly on the altar, though only after it had been divided and washed.

While the sin offering seemed to do with getting rid of that which was dirty and undesirable, all of this offering is desirable, and its stated effect is to bring a sweet savor brought up to the Lord. There is something much more positive about this sort of sacrifice.

In the life of the disciple, after the sacrificing of his gross sins, what follows is the giving of his life in service to God. The proper life is defined both by the wrong things that we won’t do, and also the right things that we will do. Abstaining on the one hand, proactive on the other. The latter is what today’s offering represents. If the sin offering was the giving up of one’s life doing bad things, the burnt offering was the giving of one’s life to do good.