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Scripture Reading: Lev. 2:4-16; 6:14-18
It is important to see the significance of the spices of the meal offering. There are always spices in a proper recipe. In the meal offering, there are three positive spices and two negative spices. The fine flour is not a spice but is the main substance and ingredient for preparing the meal offering. Added to the fine flour are a number of spices mentioned in Leviticus 2.
The first spice is the oil. We have mentioned this in the previous chapter. We all know that in typology oil signifies the divine Spirit. I use the word divine instead of holy because Christians today have many peculiar concepts related to the words Holy Spirit. In this chapter I prefer to use divine Spirit, for the divine Spirit is just the divinity of God. The fine flour signifies the humanity of Jesus, and the oil signifies the divinity of Jesus. So the oil is the divine spice added to the meal offering.
Jesus is a man, yet He is mingled and anointed with the divine Spirit. The divine Spirit is not only mingled with the humanity of Jesus but also anoints His humanity. The mingling is deeper than the anointing, but the anointing is more apparent. For instance, in Leviticus 2 the fine flour from the flat plate must be mingled with the oil. Then it becomes a certain form to be divided into portions. Then, after being divided into portions, oil is poured upon it. “If your offering is a meal offering baked on a flat plate, it shall be of fine flour mingled with oil, unleavened. You shall break it in pieces and pour oil on it; it is a meal offering” (vv. 5-6). After the mingling, there is still the need of the anointing. The mingling takes place within, inwardly, whereas the anointing is accomplished without, outwardly.
From His birth Jesus was mingled with the Holy Spirit. He was born of the Holy Spirit; this means that His humanity was mingled with the divine Spirit. But at the time He was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove (Matt. 3:16). He was not only mingled within with the divine Spirit but also anointed without with the divine Spirit in the form of a dove. He was not just anointed in an abstract way but anointed with the Spirit in a definite form, like a dove. So we see that the oil, as a spice of the meal offering, was mingled with the fine flour and was also used to anoint the fine flour. Jesus, as our meal offering, was both mingled and anointed with the divine Spirit.
The second spice in the meal offering is frankincense. In typology, frankincense signifies the fragrance of the resurrection life and nature of Christ. Even before He was crucified and resurrected, there was something so sweet and fragrant in all His behavior and activities. That was the resurrection life. In the humanity of Jesus, the meal offering, there is the spice of the divine Spirit and the spice of the resurrection life.
Another positive spice is salt. It is easy to understand the meaning of salt. Salt, first of all, kills the germs of corruption, and as it kills the corrupting elements, it also preserves, thus imparting lasting power. Salt has killing power, preserving power, and lasting power.
When we read the biography of Jesus in the four Gospels, we see that all His activities on the earth are forever. The ages have changed, and the centuries have passed away, but the life of Jesus is still here. It really has lasting power. There is continually a kind of preserving in the life, activities, and behavior of the Lord Jesus. His activities are not like the activities of a natural man. Some of man’s activities were good in the second century but not today. Some were good just thirty years ago, but today no one would be interested. They are over. Read the four Gospels again. Every page is so fresh and new. Everything that the Lord Jesus did is still so refreshing. Nothing could damage His activity, for there was no element of corruption within it. All the corrupting elements cannot exist with the heavenly salt in the life of Jesus. Hence, the life of the Lord Jesus will last for eternity. I do believe that in the New Jerusalem we will often recall the pages of the four Gospels.
In the life of the Lord Jesus, especially in His humanity, there is the salt. This is the killing power, the preserving power, and the lasting power. His love to us is so pure. Many times the love that we have toward others has almost no salt. It was sweet yesterday, but it has become bitter today. This is because there is no salt. Without salt our love becomes fermented. We must put salt into all our relationships with the brothers. To like a certain brother is good, but this kind of relationship needs to be killed. I do not mean that the liking of that brother needs to be killed, but the corrupting elements in the liking must be killed. There is the need of the killing power in the salt.
Hallelujah! The humanity of Jesus has oil, frankincense, and salt. When Lazarus, the most intimate friend of Jesus, became sick, his sisters, Martha and Mary, sent the news to Jesus, telling Him that the one whom He loved was sick. If we had been Jesus, we probably would have shed a few tears and gone to see him immediately. But after Jesus received the report, it seems that He was not moved. He stayed where He was for several days. Do not think that He did not love Lazarus. He loved him, but within His love there was the killing power, the killing of anything corrupting. His love was a pure love; therefore, it was a lasting love.
If you tell me that a certain brother whom I know very well is sick, it will be a real test to me. If I become sorrowful and say that I must go immediately and see this brother, it proves that there is no salt, no killing power, in my love. Surely this kind of love is easily stirred up. It is emotional and natural. If, however, I have been experiencing the humanity of Jesus with the salt, when the report comes concerning this brother, I will immediately turn to the Lord: “Lord, what is Your feeling? I do not want to go by my natural feeling — that must be crossed out. If You do not have any feeling about this brother’s sickness, then I will forget about it.” We really need the salt to kill the natural friendships, the natural love, and the natural affection. The salt is not only for killing but also for preserving power and for lasting power.
The oil, the frankincense, and the salt are the positive spices in the meal offering, but there are also some negative spices. By negative spices I mean that these spices are never to be added to the meal offering. “No meal offering that you present to Jehovah shall be made with leaven, for you shall not burn any leaven or any honey as an offering by fire to Jehovah” (Lev. 2:11). Why should we never add leaven or honey to the meal offering? It is because these two things can be easily fermented. When fermentation begins in any food, that food is corrupted and damaged.
The first negative spice mentioned is leaven. Leaven in the Bible always signifies evil things. Worldliness, sinfulness, anything related to corruption, and all evil things are likened in the Bible to leaven.
What then is honey? In the Bible honey signifies something good. Our hatred is leaven, and our love is honey. Our pride is leaven, and our humility is honey. All our good behavior is honey. Our love may be good, but it can be fermented. In many cases, hatred does not ferment as much as love. Suppose five brothers are living together and hate one another. It would be rather difficult for them to be fermented, for they are so cold in their hatred. However, when they love one another too much, they are disarmed by their natural love. Within just a short time they may all become fermented.
In the church we do not need pride, nor do we need humility. We do not like to have a brother who thinks that he knows everything, nor do we like to have a brother who always says that he knows nothing. This is honey. Honey is so sweet and is so deceitful. We know that hatred is bad, but no one would say that love is bad. But Leviticus 2 says that we should not put any leaven or honey in the meal offering. No leaven or honey will be accepted by God. They will not ascend from the altar as a kind of sweet savor to the Lord.
We must neither be proud nor humble. We must simply take the oil and the frankincense with a certain amount of salt. This is the Spirit, the resurrection, and the cross. The salt is just the cross to cross out our natural love, our natural affection, and our natural patience. All these “good” things must be crossed out, for they will cause fermentation. I am always afraid of a patient person. If you are patient with me all the time, one day you will be the most critical person in the world to me. Do not appreciate any kind of natural patience. All the natural goodness must be crossed out by the salt.
The salt is the cross, and the frankincense is the resurrection. In the meal offering, which is the humanity of Jesus, there is the killing of the cross, and there is also the resurrection. The salt kills, preserves, and imparts lasting power, and the frankincense is the fragrant resurrection life. The salt in this chapter is called the salt of the covenant of God. “Every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt, and you shall not omit the salt of the covenant of your God from your meal offering; with all your offerings you shall present salt” (v. 13). In the covenant that God has made with us, the basic factor is the cross, the crucifixion of the Lord. This causes His covenant to last forever. It is by the cross that it is made an everlasting covenant. Thus, in the meal offering there is the humanity of Christ, the divinity of Christ, the cross to kill and preserve, and the resurrection fragrance to flavor His whole humanity.
This should not be a mere doctrine to us. If we are feeding upon the meal offering, we will eventually become what we eat. We live by what we eat, and gradually what we eat becomes what we are. The meal offering includes the humanity of Jesus, the divinity of Jesus, the cross of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus. There is the fine flour, the oil, the frankincense, and the salt. There is no ground for any leaven or honey in this meal offering. In the life of Jesus as a man there is no place for any kind of impurity or corruption. If we are feeding on such a Jesus, we will have the fine flour, the oil, the salt, and the frankincense, without any leaven or honey.
Leviticus 2 also reveals the different appreciations of Christ as the meal offering. We have already seen this with the burnt offering. There was the bull, the sheep or goat, and the turtledove or young pigeon. The meal offering also has three kinds, or degrees, of appreciation. “When you present an offering of a meal offering baked in the oven, it shall be of fine flour, unleavened cakes mingled with oil or unleavened wafers anointed with oil. And if your offering is a meal offering baked on a flat plate, it shall be of fine flour mingled with oil, unleavened...And if your offering is a meal offering made in a pot, it shall be made of fine flour with oil” (vv. 4-5, 7).
In the burnt offering, the degree of appreciation differs in size, but in the appreciation of Jesus as the meal offering, there are the different degrees of sufferings. The oven signifies one kind of suffering; the flat plate signifies another kind of suffering; and the pot signifies still another kind of suffering.
When we put something into the oven, the suffering is within. It is a hidden suffering, a deeper kind of suffering. In the four Gospels some of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus are just like the sufferings in the oven. They are so hidden that only He knows; others do not. For instance, when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was praying, but even His disciples who were with Him did not know the extent of His suffering. He was really in a kind of oven. This is the deepest appreciation of the suffering Jesus. His suffering was inward, without any sympathy from others. He was put into an oven. Whether we present Christ as suffering in the oven or on the flat plate depends upon our apprehension and experience. Our appreciation comes out of our apprehension and experience of Jesus.
The cakes and wafers that were baked in the oven were more definite in form. Every cake and every wafer is in a certain form. Our experience and appreciation of Jesus in this deeper way have something more of a definite form. The Hebrew word cakes, which is used here, means perforated cakes or pierced cakes. This is a cake that is perforated and full of holes. As we read the four Gospels, we see that Jesus was perfect, but He was not whole. He was perfect, but He was perforated and pierced through. I am afraid that with many of us there is not even one hole. We are not perfect, yet we are so whole. To be perfect is right, but we should not keep ourselves so whole. In the church life the more holes we have the better. We should not keep ourselves so whole that we are not broken, perforated, and pierced through. The life of Jesus in the Gospels was one of piercing after piercing. This is why it is easy for us to feed upon Him. It is so easy to eat the perforated and pierced cakes.
The Hebrew word wafers means cakes that are very, very thin. Probably they were hollow, because the root of this word means “empty.” It is so thin and so hollow; therefore, it is easy for people to eat. Yet His inward suffering in this way has a definite form. This is the deepest appreciation of Jesus as the meal offering. Some who bring Christ to the Tent of Meeting as the meal offering must have this deepest appreciation of His suffering.
The second appreciation of the meal offering is the fine flour mingled with oil and baked on a flat plate. A plate is more open than the oven. This signifies the open sufferings that are easier for others to realize. There is some form, for it is divided into portions, yet it is not so much in form as the cakes and wafers in the oven.
The third appreciation is the fine flour mingled with oil and baked in a pot. This suffering is more shallow, and there is almost no definite form. This is the lowest appreciation of Jesus as the meal offering. When we were first saved, most of us had this kind of appreciation of Jesus. But as we feed upon the Lord’s humanity and grow, we should have at least a little appreciation of Jesus as the cakes and wafers baked in the oven. Our appreciation and experience of the Lord’s humanity must become deeper and deeper, higher and higher, and much more definite in form.
Besides these three appreciations, there is the appreciation of the meal offering of the firstfruits. “If you present a meal offering of firstfruits to Jehovah, you shall present for the meal offering of your firstfruits new grain roasted with fire, crushed grain of the fresh ear” (Lev. 2:14). The new grain is crushed of the fresh ear. This is an extraordinary appreciation of Christ. The regular appreciations of Christ are those in three degrees, but besides these, there are the extraordinary appreciations of the humanity of Jesus. Sometimes we have some new experiences of Christ as our meal offering. Sometimes in the meetings, the testimony of a certain brother gives the sense of something really green, something new and fresh. Yet it is the meal offering. Therefore, we need to have more and more experiences of Christ. If we do not have a harvest, how can we have the new grain of the fresh ear? We must labor on the good land with the expectation that some day we will have a new harvest with many fresh ears. Then we can bring this to the Tent of Meeting as a kind of extraordinary meal offering.
Now it is important for us to see the way to eat the meal offering. First of all, the meal offering is not for the common people. It is the special diet of the priests. “What is left of it Aaron and his sons may eat; it shall be eaten without leaven in a holy place; in the court of the Tent of Meeting they shall eat it...Every male among the children of Aaron shall eat of it; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations from Jehovah’s offerings by fire; whoever touches them shall be holy” (6:16, 18).
The meal offering is the food of the priests. If we have no intention to function in the church life as a priest, we do not have the standing to eat this diet. A priest is one who serves and is active in the Tent of Meeting. It makes a big difference whether or not we function in the meetings. If we will function, we will enjoy much more. But if we will not function, we will lose the standing to enjoy the meal offering as a priest. To be a priest we must function in a full way to enjoy the special diet of the meal offering.
Another point is that the meal offering is only for the males. “Every male among the children of Aaron shall eat of it.” This does not mean that the sisters do not have a portion. All the sisters who are functioning in the Tent of Meeting are males, and all the brothers who do not function are females. To be a male in the Scriptures means to be a strong one. Christ is the male without blemish. To be a female means to be a weaker one (1 Pet. 3:7). Males are the strong ones, and females are the weaker ones. Whether or not you are a male in the eyes of God depends on whether you are strong or weak. If we are weak in the Tent of Meeting, we are females. If we are strong in functioning, we are males and are in the right position to feed on this diet.
The meal offering must be eaten in the court of the Tent of Meeting. This is not food that you eat at home. Strictly speaking, we cannot enjoy Christ properly as the meal offering at home; we must be in the church meetings. This is not a diet for home but a diet for the house of God. We must be ones serving and actively working in the presence of God in His dwelling place; then we have the right position to eat this diet. Many of us can testify that while we enjoy something of Christ at home, we never enjoy Him as much there as we do in the church meeting. The enjoyment of Christ in the meeting is higher, richer, and without comparison. The meal offering may be prepared at home, but it cannot be enjoyed at home. We must bring what we have prepared to the church meeting for our enjoyment. This is a diet for the court of the Tent of Meeting.
When we come to eat the meal offering, we should not eat it with any leaven or honey. The meal offering itself has no leaven or honey in it, and we should not eat any of these negative spices with this offering. To enjoy Christ as the meal offering, we should have nothing to do with leaven or honey. We must reject anything that is naturally bad or good in order to enjoy Christ in such a high way. We have to be salted. The only spices that we must use are the oil and the frankincense and the salt — the divine Spirit, the resurrection life, and the crossing out of the cross.
The last point in the eating of the meal offering is that whoever touches it is sanctified, separated. I can testify that this is really true. Many times after we have enjoyed Christ as the meal offering in the meetings, we are more separated from the world. We are more separated, more sanctified, because we have been feasting upon the meal offering. When we really enjoy the Lord Jesus as the meal offering, we will be fully separated from anything worldly. Because the meal offering is so holy, whoever touches it is separated from the world to be holy for the Lord. Once we taste the Lord Jesus in this way, there will be a big change in our daily walk. He is so holy that He sanctifies, separates, and causes us to be holy. If we claim to be eating Him as the meal offering, yet we remain the same, I really doubt that we are eating Him as the meal offering. The real meal offering, which is Christ’s humanity, is holy. Whoever touches it is separated, sanctified, and made holy.
