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Scripture Reading: Lev. 2:1-3; 6:14-18, 6:26, 29-30; 7:5-7, 7:9-10, 15-21, 28-36; 23:4-21, 23-43; 1 Cor. 5:7-8; 15:12-20; Acts 2:1-4, 32-33; Matt. 24:31; Zech. 12:10—13:1; 14:16-21; John 20:16-17; Rom. 4:25b; Phil. 3:10a, 11b
Prayer: O Lord Jesus, we worship You for what You are and for Your moving. Lord, we look to You for Your speaking. Thank You, Lord, that You are so eatable. You are dispensing Yourself through all the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. Lord, open Yourself to us, and open our eyes to see what is on Your heart. We want to see Your good pleasure, Your desire, concerning us. Lord, do cover us once again, and anoint us with Yourself with the living utterance. Amen.
In this series of messages we are emphasizing the all-inclusive Christ whom we are eating, rather than the way to eat Him. Some expositors have emphasized the details of the way to eat the passover lamb in Exodus 12:1-10, but they have missed the central issue of eating. The way in which we eat is not as important as what we eat. The Lord Jesus whom we are eating is rich in many items. We need to see the riches of Christ whom we have eaten and will be eating for eternity in the New Jerusalem. However, when we come to the Scriptures, we are often distracted by our preoccupations and prior knowledge. Today there are few who stress the enjoyment of Christ. We ourselves did not speak of the enjoyment of Christ and eating Christ before 1958. John 6:57 says, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” We all need to see that God is good for food; He is eatable.
In the preceding chapters we have seen the promises and types concerning God’s anticipated redemption and salvation in the Old Testament, especially related to the eating of Christ as the threefold seed in humanity. We should stress this, rather than the way to eat Him. In John 14 one of the Lord’s disciples asked Him to show him the way, and in verse 6 the Lord said, “I am the way and the reality and the life.” Thus, the way to eat the Lord is the Lord Himself. The way is a person, the very One whom we eat.
The types in the Old Testament show us how to enjoy God as our life supply that He may dispense Himself into us. The best way to educate someone is to use types or pictures. A type or a picture is better than a thousand words. For this reason teachers in elementary schools often use pictures to illustrate their subjects. The things in the Scriptures concerning Christ are all mysterious, divine, spiritual, and invisible. They are too difficult for people to apprehend. As the best Educator, God used types to illustrate these matters in order that His people would know His intention to dispense Himself as the nourishing, constituting element into them. God is waiting to dispense Himself into us. If we simply read the New Testament without the Old Testament, these matters will not be clear to us. However, without the New Testament we cannot understand the types in the Old Testament. We need both the Old Testament and the New Testament. When we put both together in our understanding, we enjoy God, and He has more opportunities to dispense Himself into us.
In the previous chapter we considered God’s dispensing in the children of Israel’s enjoyment of the items of the passover, mainly by the eating of the flesh of the lamb and the unleavened bread and in their enjoyment of the heavenly and spiritual supply in the wilderness by eating the manna and drinking the living water from the cleft rock. In this chapter we come to the second part concerning the matter of eating for the Lord to dispense Himself into us — the enjoyment of all the offerings. Before the decree of the law at Mount Sinai, Abel, Noah, and Abraham made offerings to God. Abraham’s living was to set up a tent and an altar to offer something to God (Gen. 12:7-8; 13:18). The descendants of Abraham, the children of Israel, also practiced something similar but in an untrained way. At Mount Sinai, however, God trained the children of Israel concerning how to eat Him through the offerings in a regulated way. The regulation concerning the offerings was in two sections. The first section concerned the continual offerings, that is, the daily, weekly, and monthly offerings. The second section concerned the annual offerings at the annual feasts. This shows us that in our daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly living, and even eternally, we need to receive God’s dispensing of Himself into us, not merely by God’s giving but even the more by our eating. God’s part is to dispense; our part is to eat. We must eat what God dispenses.
The divine economy and the divine dispensing are shown in the types in the enjoyment of the continual offerings (Lev. 1—7). The enjoyment of the continual offerings typifies our enjoyment of God as our life supply to dispense Himself into us in a continual way. The continual offerings typify the very Christ whom we enjoy daily in a regular way. The times of the offerings were regulated because they were like our meals. Almost everyone on earth eats three meals each day — breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our eating of meals is regulated by the experience of humankind for the past six thousand years. This regulated eating results in the best dispensing. Every day whatever we have eaten is dispensed into us and is assimilated to become us through the dispensing. In God’s economy the most important matter is His dispensing.
The meal offering to be eaten by the priests signifies Christ in His humanity to be dispensed into us for us to live a priestly life (2:1-3; 6:14-18; 7:9-10). The meal offering was a piece of bread, or a cake (2:4-5). These cakes entered into the priests by the priests’ eating, and the element of these cakes was dispensed into the priests. Since the meal offering was a type of Jesus, the eating of the meal offering by the priests indicates that we must eat Jesus. However, the Jesus whom we eat is not a cake. According to the New Testament, today this Jesus in His resurrection is a Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). The cake that we eat is a spiritual cake, which is just the Spirit Himself. Christ is the cake and the bread of the meal offering, and this Christ is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). We eat physical bread with our hands and mouth and receive it into our stomach. But today the spiritual bread, the spiritual cake, is Christ Himself as the Spirit. We eat this spiritual bread not with our physical organs but with our spiritual organ, our spirit. This shows us clearly that the way to eat Jesus is to exercise our spirit to contact Him and to dwell on Him. Hence, through our spirit we can take Christ the Spirit as our spiritual cake.
The sin offering and trespass offering to be eaten by the offering priests signify Christ in His redemption from sin and sins to be dispensed into us that we may enjoy Him with others as the Redeemer from sin and sins (Lev. 6:26, 29-30; 7:5-7). The sin offering and the trespass offering were two offerings, and they were also one offering. In Leviticus 5 these offerings are referred to interchangeably (vv. 7-12). All the priests were qualified to eat the meal offering (2:3, 10; 6:16, 18; 7:10); however, only the serving priests, the offering priests, had the right to enjoy the sin offering (6:26; 7:7).
Christ as the Spirit is the meal offering, and He is also the offering for sin and trespasses. When we exercise our spirit to enjoy, dwell upon, and receive Christ as the sin offering and the trespass offering, we are filled with Christ as the Spirit, and we sense that all our sins are gone. We no longer have sins or sin; we have only Christ as the Spirit. Then, as the serving priests, we offer to God the Christ whom we have enjoyed as the sin and trespass offering. However, we do not offer Him for ourselves but for others. After enjoying Christ for ourselves, we need to come to God to offer Him for others. This is to contact sinners to minister to them the Christ whom we have received and enjoyed. In this way we enjoy Christ even more as our sin and trespass offering. In our ministering of Him to others as the sin and trespass offering, we enjoy Him as these offerings for ourselves. This is the meaning of the type of the sin and trespass offering.
The sin offering from which any blood was brought into the Tent of Meeting to make propitiation in the Holy Place was not to be eaten by anyone; it was to be burned with fire (6:30). However, the offering whose blood was sprinkled at the altar could be enjoyed not by the sinner but by the offering priests. The sinner brought an offering for sin, and a priest offered this sin offering for the sinner. The offering priests then had the right to enjoy what the sinner had offered to God. The enjoyment of Christ as the sin and trespass offering is very subjective and particular. We must first enjoy Christ as the sin and trespass offering in our spirit and be filled with Him as the Spirit. Then we can help others by ministering Christ as such an offering to them, that is, by offering Christ as the sin and trespass offering for them. Then both we and they will receive the benefit of Christ as our sin offering. On our side, we will enjoy Him, and on His side, He will have more opportunity to dispense Himself into us as the sinless element, the element for overcoming sin. Then this sinless, sin-overcoming element will be dispensed into us to constitute our being, and we will overcome sin.
It is easy for us to lose our temper. This is one of many of our sins, and we cannot overcome it in ourselves. However, every morning we can spend time to exercise our spirit to look on Him, to dwell on Him, as the Spirit. This is to eat Him, enjoy Him, and absorb Him as the very element that is sinless and overcomes sin. His element is dispensed into us and constitutes our being. In this way our constitution will change. When the occasions for sin come, we will have a constitution within that is more than able to overcome sin. This is what it means to live by the Spirit. To live by the Spirit is not merely to reckon that we have died with Christ; it is to live by a positive element that constitutes us continually. This element is the offering that we eat.
The peace offering to be eaten by the clean persons signifies Christ, who is our peace, to be dispensed into us, who are clean, for our spiritual enjoyment in the fellowship with God (7:15-21). All the people of God, as long as they were clean, were allowed to eat the peace offering. To offer the peace offering to God is higher than to offer the sin and trespass offering. To help others to overcome sin and sins is not as high as bringing others into fellowship with God and with His saints.
The wave offering of the breast of the peace offering and the heave offering of the right thigh of the peace offering were to be eaten by the offering priests, signifying that the Christ of love and the Christ of strength are to be dispensed into us as the offering priests for our enjoyment of Christ in His love and in His strength (vv. 28-36). The peace offering could be eaten by all of God’s people who were clean. However, the breast and the right thigh were particular parts of the peace offering that only the offering priests could eat. If we are God’s children and are cleansed by His blood, we have the right to eat Christ as the peace offering for our enjoyment in the fellowship with God and the fellowship with all His dear saints. However, we do not have the right to eat the breast, signifying the Christ of love, and the right thigh, signifying the Christ of strength. These particular parts are only for the serving priests. For the Triune God, who is embodied in Christ, to dispense Himself into us, we need to be the right persons. First, we need to be God’s people; second, we need to be God’s cleansed people; third, we need to be God’s priests; and fourth, we need to be God’s serving priests, ministering to others what we have enjoyed of Christ. If we are merely cleansed, redeemed persons, we have the right to enjoy only the peace offering. We do not have the right to enjoy Christ as the meal offering, the sin offering for others, or the breast and right thigh of the peace offering.
Many believers today are going on in a general way. They are saved, and whenever they sin, they confess their sin, and the Lord’s blood cleanses them. However, most are not priests, but even if they are priests, they are not offering priests. They do not offer the sin and trespass offering for others, or even if they do, they may not offer the peace offering for others. When we offer Christ to God for others, we have a particular right to enjoy Him. If we are such ones, we can enjoy Christ as the meal offering, the sin and trespass offering, the peace offering, and the two particular parts of the peace offering — the loving breast and the strengthening thigh. In this way we have more and more enjoyment of God, and God has more and more opportunities to dispense Himself into us. We have four levels of the enjoyment of God, and God dispenses Himself into us in four levels. He dispenses Himself into us as His cleansed and redeemed people in a general way, as priests in a higher way, as priests who offer Christ as the sin and trespass offering in an even higher way, and as priests who offer Christ as the peace offering for others to have fellowship with God and His people in the highest way.
When we preach the gospel to a sinner, we offer Christ as the sin and trespass offering. The one whom we contact may be an unsaved sinner or a fallen believer. We contact such a one with a burden and with Christ in our spirit to bring him Christ as his sin offering and trespass offering. This is to offer Christ to others. To contact others in this way will make us stronger and stronger in the preaching of the gospel. Many times we may come to a sinner not knowing what to say or having nothing to minister. If we enjoy Christ as the sin offering, we will have a strong word to speak about Christ being the offering for our sin. When we speak in such a way, we enjoy Christ. In the same way, if we do not have much fellowship with God in the enjoyment of Christ as the peace offering, we will not have much to minister to the saints to help them to enter into the fellowship with God by enjoying Christ as the peace offering. If we have the experience of the riches of Christ, we will be able to help others. We will be able to minister Christ to others as their peace offering, and we will also enjoy what we minister. This will afford God the opportunities to dispense Himself into us.
God’s dispensing is typified by the enjoyment of the offerings at the annual feasts (Lev. 23).
Seven annual feasts were appointed by God to the children of Israel. God ordered His peoples’ lives in such a way that they were to have festivals, and every festival was a time for God’s people to enjoy Him as a feast. The feasts afforded Him the opportunity to dispense Himself into His people.
The Feast of the Passover signifies the salvation of the New Testament believers (vv. 4-5; 1 Cor. 5:7b). When children are learning something new, they prefer to hear a story rather than an instruction or a charge. We should learn to preach the gospel to people by using the pictures of the Old Testament. We should present the New Testament salvation using the picture of the passover to teach people that God’s salvation is based first on redemption by His blood and then on the life supply. If we present salvation in this way, we will stir up peoples’ interest, and they will pay attention to us.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread signifies the sinless living of the New Testament believers for the whole course of their Christian life (Lev. 23:6-8; 1 Cor. 5:7a, 8). The passover took place on a single evening, but the Feast of Unleavened Bread lasted seven days. In the Bible seven days always denotes a full course of time. Thus, the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread denotes the full course of our Christian life, from the first day we were saved to the day when we will be raptured to meet the Lord or will rest by sleeping. The whole course of our Christian life should be unleavened, without sin.
The Feast of Firstfruits signifies the New Testament believers’ enjoyment of the resurrected Christ (Lev. 23:9-14; 1 Cor. 15:12-20). The firstfruits signify Christ as the produce of the land.
The Feast of Pentecost signifies the New Testament believers’ enjoyment of the outpoured Spirit as the aggregate of the rich produce of the resurrected Christ (Lev. 23:15-21; Acts 2:1-4, 32-33). The Feast of Pentecost came fifty days after the Feast of Firstfruits, indicating that the outpoured Spirit is the aggregate of the rich produce of the resurrected Christ. The rich produce of Christ’s resurrection includes the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 1:6), the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), the many sons of God (Rom. 8:29), and the new creation of God (2 Cor. 5:17). Christ was not the firstborn Son of God until He was resurrected. In resurrection He became the firstborn Son of God. Likewise, before the resurrection the life-giving Spirit was not yet (John 7:39); Christ produced the life-giving Spirit through His resurrection. Before the resurrection God did not have any sons besides His only begotten Son, but through Christ’s resurrection we were all begotten of God to be His many sons (1 Pet. 1:3). These many sons became the many grains (John 12:24), who are the members of Christ, the brothers of Christ to constitute His Body (1 Cor. 10:17). All these items are in the aggregate of the rich produce of the resurrected Christ. The Feast of Pentecost is the totality of the produce of the Spirit through Christ’s resurrection.
On the day of resurrection Christ was produced as the firstborn Son of God, the life-giving Spirit was produced, the many sons of God were produced, and the new creation was produced. However, the church was not yet produced. The church came into being on the day of Pentecost. This was the last item of all the produce of the resurrected Christ as the firstfruits offered to God. The totality, the aggregate, of these firstfruits is the outpoured Spirit.
The first four feasts are for the New Testament believers. The Feast of the Blowing of Trumpets, however, signifies God’s calling together of Israel, His scattered, dispersed elect (Lev. 23:23-25; Matt. 24:31). This feast is for the coming Jews. The day of this feast has not yet come. It will come in the future. When Christ comes back, the angels will trumpet a call to gather His scattered people.
The Feast of Expiation signifies God’s expiation for the repentant Israel (Lev. 23:26-32; Zech. 12:10—13:1). At the time Zechariah 12:10—13:1 is fulfilled, all the remnant of Israel will repent with weeping. A fountain of cleansing will be opened for them, and they will all be forgiven. That will be their Feast of Expiation.
The Feast of Tabernacles signifies Israel’s full enjoyment of the restored old creation in the millennium (Lev. 23:33-43; Zech. 14:16-21). This feast will usher in the new heavens and the new earth.
The firstfruits of the Feast of Firstfruits, after being offered to God for His enjoyment, were to be eaten by the people of Israel. This signifies that the resurrected Christ, after being presented to God in His freshness (John 20:16-17), is to be dispensed, with all the riches of His resurrection, into us for our enjoyment (Lev. 23:14; 1 Cor. 15:14, 17; Rom. 4:25b; Phil. 3:10a, 11b). According to the record of Leviticus 23, the offering of only one of the seven feasts, the Feast of Firstfruits, was to be eaten. As we have seen, the firstfruits refer to Christ in His resurrection. The firstfruits were not to be eaten immediately after being reaped. This signifies that after the reaping we must first offer Christ to God in His freshness. This is unveiled in John 20. On the morning of the resurrection Mary saw the Lord Jesus. When she tried to touch Him, the Lord said, “Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brothers and say to them, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (v. 17). Christ became our portion only after His freshness in resurrection had first been offered to the Father.
Whatever Christ is as our portion to be eaten is related to His resurrection. The blood of the passover lamb signifies the crucified Christ, but the meat of the lamb signifies the resurrected Christ. The blood was from the crucified Christ, but the meat refers to the Christ who is in resurrection. If Christ were not the Spirit in resurrection, we could not take Him in. The crucified Christ alone is not our life supply; only Christ in resurrection can be our life supply. The unleavened bread of the passover was made of grain that had been ground and blended to be one loaf, signifying death and resurrection. Therefore, both the meat of the lamb and the unleavened bread signify Christ as the Spirit in His resurrection. It is Christ in His resurrection who dispenses Himself into us as many items. This is why the offering of only one of the seven feasts, the Feast of Firstfruits, was to be eaten.
According to the type of the feasts, what we enjoy and what is being dispensed into us is the resurrected Christ. The resurrected Christ is the consummated Triune God. In eternity past God was not yet consummated, but after He passed through the processes of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, the Triune God was consummated. Now He possesses the divine nature and a human nature with incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Now He is the processed, consummated, and compound God. It is such a One who is good for us to eat and who, in His resurrection and consummation, dispenses Himself into us.
