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Scripture Reading: Lev. 2:4-7; Luke 2:40, 49, 51-52; 3:21-22; 4:1, 13-14, 18a, 22a, 28-30; 5:15-16; 6:11-12; 9:55; 10:21; 11:53-54; 19:41, 47; 22:28, 44, 51, 61; 24:19
Before we consider the humanity of Jesus in Luke, I feel that we still need to consider the appreciation of the meal offering in different degrees. We mentioned in the last chapter the different appreciations of the Lord Jesus as the burnt offering and the meal offering. In each of these two offerings, there are three degrees. With the burnt offering there is the bull, the sheep or goat, and the turtledove or pigeon. This does not mean that there are only three kinds of appreciations of Jesus as the burnt offering. It simply means that there are many different degrees. Some are higher, some are lower, and some are in between.
When we come to the meal offering, there are also three degrees of appreciation of the Lord Jesus. There is something out of the oven, something out of the pan, and something out of the frying pan (Lev. 2:4-7, KJV). We all know what an oven is. It is an enclosed container for cooking or baking. It is entirely enclosed, unlike the pan, which is open at the top. Yet the pan is deeper than the frying pan, which is the most open and shallow. All these different cooking utensils signify differing degrees of suffering. The suffering in the oven is the greatest. It is the deepest and most hidden. It seems that nothing is going on, but something is suffered in a hidden way.
In the pan, the suffering is not so hidden or deep. It is rather open to everybody. And the frying pan is even more shallow. Thus, we can see the suffering in these three kinds of cooking utensils. But we must realize that there is no difference with the Lord Jesus Himself; the difference is only in our appreciation, in our apprehension and understanding. How much we appreciate the Lord’s suffering depends on how much we apprehend it. The appreciation comes out of our apprehension.
The cakes and the wafers in the oven are the most definite in form. Paul mentions in Galatians 4:19 that Christ must be formed in us. The cakes and wafers have a definite form. In the pan the fine flour is soaked and mingled with oil and divided into four portions. It is inferior in form to the cakes and wafers in the oven, but it is not inferior in substance. The substance is the same as the cakes and wafers, but the form is not as definite or full. In the frying pan, the third category, there is just some fine flour and a little bit of oil. It has almost no form. Nor does it say that the flour is mingled with the oil, but just that the fine flour is with the oil.
These three degrees should not be a mere doctrine to us. We must put these things into practice. I do believe that we have brought something of Christ as the meal offering to the Tent of Meeting. But there is the matter of degree. Is what we bring to the meeting definite in form and with the greatest suffering? Or is it just a little of Christ, not having such a definite form, and with only fine flour and a little oil from the frying pan? When I was young in the Lord, I appreciated Him so much. But now when I look back, I realize that my appreciation of the Lord at that time was just the meal offering baked in the frying pan. There was no form and not much suffering. By the Lord’s mercy, I do believe that today I have some appreciation of the Lord as the cakes and wafers in the oven. It is definite in form and with a greater suffering.
Whenever we come to the church meetings, we must come with something of Christ as the meal offering, and some of the more mature ones must come with a meal offering baked in the oven. Some of the younger ones will bring something of Christ as the meal offering from the frying pan. It is still good. We all must bring something of Christ to the meetings as the meal offering. We will present this as a kind of present to God to constitute the proper worship to Him in the meetings.
Strictly speaking, among today’s Christians, there is the service, the work, the preaching, and the teaching, but there is almost no worship. The worship that God desires is that the people of God would bring the very Christ whom they have experienced in their daily life to the meetings. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were all written about the worship to God, but there is hardly a word telling us to bow down and prostrate ourselves before the Lord.
These books tell us to worship God by first coming to the unique place of oneness (Deut. 12:5-8, 13-14). There is no choice. All the people of Israel were destined to worship God by going to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the unique place chosen by God. God’s choice must be our destiny; we have no choice. As long as we are in Los Angeles, we have to worship God in the church in Los Angeles. Wherever we go, we must worship God in the church at that place. The local church and the proper ground of oneness are our destiny. If we could have a choice in the place of worship, that would not be real worship. Real worship is on the ground of unique, genuine oneness. All the people of Israel had to go to that one unique place chosen by God.
The second point concerning worship in these four books is that everyone had to come to Jerusalem with their hands full of the produce of the good land (Deut. 16:16-17). No one was to come with his hands empty. Each had to have something to offer to God, and that offering was the real worship to God. Today, in principle, it is exactly the same. Whenever we come together in the church meetings, the important matter is how much of Christ we bring. In the proper worship meeting, all the saints must bring something of Christ — not Christ in teaching or in doctrine but Christ in their experiences.
The people of Israel first of all had to labor on the good land. They had to till the land, sow the seed, and reap the harvest. Afterward they had to grind the grains to obtain the flour for the meal offering. Then when they came together to worship God, they had something to bring and present to God as real worship. Today the Lord is going to recover this worship not only in spirit but also in reality. Reality is just Christ as so many kinds of offerings.
If we come to the Lord with our hands empty and bow down and say, “O Lord, we have come to worship You,” the Lord will say that He does not desire this kind of worship. He prefers that we stay home and work on Christ and then come with something of Christ in our hand. Only Christ constitutes real worship to God. Anything else is just a kind of religion, not worship. God is mainly concerned with how much Christ we bring to the meetings.
When the Samaritan woman spoke with the Lord, she told Him how the Jews insisted to worship in Jerusalem, but her fathers worshipped God in another place. The Lord Jesus then told her that the dispensation had been changed. Real worship to God is not in a place but in spirit and in reality (John 4:20-24). The reality is Christ as all the offerings typified in the Old Testament. We must have something of Christ experienced by us to bring to the Tent of Meeting, which is the meetings of the local church.
Now we come to the humanity of Christ as seen in the Gospel of Luke. If we would experience Christ’s humanity, we need to pray-read all these verses in Luke that we have listed. None of them are in any of the other Gospels. These verses are unique to the Gospel of Luke because this Gospel more than any other reveals the humanity of Christ.
All these verses in Luke cover four main points. First of all, they show Jesus as the fine flour. He is so fine and balanced. Luke 2:40 says, “The child grew and became strong, being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him.” He was growing, but He was also strong in spirit (cf. 1:80). Sometimes the young ones grow physically, but they are not strong in spirit. With Jesus there was not only the growth in His physical life but also the strengthening in His spirit. He was so balanced, even with the four things in this one verse. He grew and became strong in spirit. He was full of wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him. He had growth, a strong spirit, wisdom, and the grace of God. He was really balanced, not only in two or three ways but in four ways.
The same chapter in Luke tells us that when He was twelve years of age, He knew how to care for His Father’s will and yet at the same time be subject to His natural parents. He both rebuked His parents and was subject unto them. He asked, “Did you not know that I must be in the things of My Father?” (2:49). Yet verse 51 says that He went down with them and was subject to them. Do you see the balance? Some young people may say, “I am for God; I do not care for my parents.” Yes, they are for God, but they are not balanced. When they are still underage, as Jesus was when He was twelve, they must be for God yet at the same time be subject to their parents. So many young people are for Jesus but in a rough way. They are not fine and balanced.
Luke 2:52 says that Jesus as a child found favor with both God and man (KJV). To find favor with God is one thing, but to find favor with man is another. Jesus was so balanced, so fine, and so even, but we are so unbalanced. We may be good but in an unbalanced way; thus, we are not the fine flour but the coarse flour. When the Lord Jesus was young, He was wholly for His heavenly Father, yet He was willing to be balanced.
We really see Jesus as the fine flour in the Gospel of Luke. He exulted, but He also wept. I am afraid that many of us have never wept, and some in the past years have never exulted. We are not so balanced. Some are too quiet and need to make a little noise, and some noisy ones need to be quieter. We all must be balanced. Luke 10:21 says that Jesus exulted in the Holy Spirit, but it was not for Himself; He exulted in the will of God. “In that hour He exulted in the Holy Spirit and said, I extol You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to babes. Yes, Father, for thus it has been well pleasing in Your sight.” He exulted because the Father had revealed all these things to the babes. Luke 19:41 says that He wept over Jerusalem: “As He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it.” He was not weeping for Himself but for the situation of the city of Jerusalem.
We all must be balanced. When we need to exult, we must exult. When we need to weep, we must weep. Jesus, the balanced man, lives today in us. The very Jesus who is our life is the exulting One as well as the weeping One. If we have never exulted and if we have never wept, it simply proves that we are not experiencing the man Jesus as our life. If we take Him as our life, when He weeps, we will weep; when He exults, we will exult.
How we need to pray-read all these verses in Luke that we may really see Jesus as the fine flour! When He sent His disciples to a place in Samaria, the people rejected them. So the disciples said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But He turned and rebuked them and said, “You do not know of what kind of spirit you are” (9:54-55). He was so fine. Whether the people rejected Him or welcomed Him, He was continually the same. No rejection could irritate or offend Him. When people welcomed Him, He went away. “The word concerning Him spread abroad all the more, and great crowds came together to hear Him and to be healed from their infirmities. But He Himself often withdrew in the wilderness and prayed” (5:15-16). We would think that when His fame grew, it would be a great opportunity for Him to do something. But He withdrew in the wilderness and prayed. When people welcomed Him, He went away, and when people rejected Him, He was patient with them. All these verses reveal to us a man who is really the fine flour. He is so tender, so kind, so even, so balanced, so gentle, and so pure.
Second, we can see in these verses something of the oil. He was born of the Spirit, and the Spirit even descended upon Him in the bodily form of a dove. “Now when all the people were baptized and as Jesus was baptized and was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form as a dove upon Him. And a voice came out of heaven: You are My Son, the Beloved; in You I have found My delight” (3:21-22). The Spirit did not descend upon Him in an abstract way, but in a definite form. He was full of the Spirit, led by the Spirit, and in the power of the Spirit: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness...And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (4:1, 14). He was even anointed with the Spirit: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me” (v. 18). With the humanity of Jesus as the fine flour, there is the oil as the Spirit anointing, mingling, and saturating Him.
We can also see something of the fragrant frankincense in these verses. He was so fragrant and so sweet. It is very difficult to translate this word frankincense. Some versions say that this is something restful and satisfying. It is not only sweet and fragrant but restful and peaceful. In all these verses we see that Jesus is really the fragrant frankincense. He has the fragrance of resurrection. When Jesus was being arrested, Peter was strong with his sword to cut off the ear of one of the servants. But the Lord Jesus told Peter, “Let them go this far. And touching his ear, He healed him” (22:51). Jesus stopped the sword and recovered the ear. This is not anything natural; this is the fragrance of His resurrection. In His most tested hour, Jesus would not accept any protection; He cared instead for the suffering one.
In these verses we can see the fine flour, the oil, the frankincense, and also the salt. When people wanted to make Him great, He ran away. When they rejected Him, He did not reprove them. When they arrested Him, He could have destroyed them by calling twelve legions of angels, but He did nothing (Matt. 26:53). He even healed the ear of the one who came to arrest Him. What is this? This is the killing of the self. There was no corruption or fermentation with Him. He was under the salt all the time. Regardless of what kind of situation or circumstance He was in, He was always under the killing in His actions and words. In His human living, there was the real salt. In Jesus we see the fine flour, the oil, the frankincense, and the salt.
The Gospel of Luke is strategic in showing us the Lord’s humanity. This is why we cannot find these verses in the other three Gospels. These are the unique verses concerning the humanity of Jesus. We all need to pray-read these verses at least three or four times and put them into practice in our daily walk. It is only by feeding upon His humanity in these verses that we will experience His humanity in our daily life.
What the Lord is seeking today is the local churches where the saints worship God with their experiences of Christ. This is the real offering to God. We need to experience Christ in our daily walk, and we must learn how to cook and prepare Christ so that we may bring Him to the meetings for a present to God. All the cakes, wafers, and portions of the meal offering were made and cooked at home and then brought to the Tent of Meeting. It is the same with us. Day by day we need to work on Christ: experience Him, enjoy Him, apprehend Him, and “cook” Him a little. We will then have something to bring to the meeting and present to God. This is the real worship, and this is the real recovery of the church life in all the localities. It is not just a matter of meeting together but of meeting with Christ as all kinds of offerings. It is by this that we are one, and it is also by this that we render our worship to God. It is absolutely different from today’s so-called Christian service. May the Lord be merciful to us so that we may be faithful to Him in this matter.
