Scripture Reading: John 12
In chapter 12 we have a conclusion of the first part of the Gospel of John. We have pointed out in previous chapters that nine cases are presented in John 3 through 11. The first is a case of regeneration, and the last is a case of resurrection. This is very significant.
All the cases in John direct us to a new creation. Mankind fell, and we became the old creation. No matter whether we are good or evil, as long as we are the old creation, we need Christ for our regeneration and resurrection. We were sinful and dead, and we need a new life, a new birth. We need to become a new creation. In order to become something absolutely new, we need to be regenerated and thoroughly resurrected from the old life. Then we will become new, not in our natural life, in the Adamic life, but new in Christ and in the divine life, which is the eternal life of God. This is the significance of all these cases. Furthermore, as we will see, in these cases we have the fulfillment of the offerings in the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament there was a center, and that center was God’s dwelling place. First, God’s dwelling place was the tabernacle, and later His dwelling place was the temple. Actually, the Old Testament is a history of God’s dwelling place.
Apparently, the book of Genesis has nothing to do with God’s dwelling place. In fact, the book of Genesis has much to do with the dwelling place of God. God’s dwelling place was not merely the tabernacle and the temple; His dwelling place was a people. The tabernacle and the temple were symbols of the children of God as His dwelling place. God’s people were descendants of the forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose lives are recorded in the book of Genesis. Therefore, in Genesis we have the forefathers of those people who eventually became God’s dwelling place. The history of the Old Testament is a history of this dwelling place, which is symbolized first by the tabernacle and later by the temple.
In order for God’s people to enter into the tabernacle to meet with Him, there was the need of the offerings. In front of the tabernacle was an altar, where different offerings were offered to God. These offerings were of five main categories: the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering.
Recently, we gave a series of messages on the offerings printed as the book Experiencing Christ as the Offerings for the Church Meetings. In those messages we pointed out that the burnt offering and the meal offering are a pair, that the sin offering and the trespass offering are also a pair, and that between these two pairs we have the peace offering. Furthermore, the sin offering is supported by the burnt offering. This means that only the One who is absolute for God is qualified to be the sin offering. As this absolute One, Christ is the burnt offering offered to God for His satisfaction. Hence, He is the One qualified to be our sin offering. This is clearly revealed in the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews indicates that Christ was the One who was absolute for God. Therefore, He was the unique One qualified to be the sin offering to deal with our sinful nature.
Just as the sin offering is supported by the burnt offering, so the trespass offering is supported by the meal offering. Christ, the only perfect One, was qualified to die for us and for our sins. As the meal offering, He was qualified to bear our sins, trespasses, and transgressions. He alone was qualified to redeem us. As the burnt offering, Christ was qualified to be the sin offering, and as the meal offering, He was qualified to be the trespass offering. This means that the One who was absolute for God was qualified to be our sin offering, and the One who was perfect in His humanity was qualified to be our trespass offering.
When we have Christ, the absolute One, for our sin offering to deal with our sinful nature and when we have Christ as the perfect One for our trespass offering to deal with our sinful deeds, we have no more problems. Then this Christ becomes our peace offering for us to enjoy with God and with one another as a feast. This means that the peace offering is a feast. When we come to the Lord’s table, we come to a feast, and this feast is Christ as our peace offering.
As the peace offering, Christ satisfies God, and He also satisfies us. Furthermore, He is the peace between us and God and our peace with one another. Christ is also the peace between a brother and his wife. Without Christ as the peace offering, there can be no peace between a husband and his wife. Without Christ, there would not be any peace among the brothers and sisters in the church life. Christ is our peace, and this peace becomes our enjoyment at the Lord’s table. Every week on the Lord’s Day we come together to feast on Christ as the peace offering. We enjoy Him before God and with God, and we enjoy Him with one another. This peace offering is the issue of the other four offerings.
Let us now consider how these five offerings are fulfilled in the cases recorded in chapters 3 through 11 of the Gospel of John. With the case of Nicodemus in John 3, we have the sin offering. Nicodemus was a learned, aged, experienced, moral, religious, and God-fearing gentleman. According to his opinion of himself, he may not have been sinful. In a sense, Nicodemus was not sinful outwardly. However, he certainly was sinful inwardly. This was the reason the Lord Jesus spoke to him concerning the bronze serpent (v. 14). It was as if the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Nicodemus, you are very good in your outward behavior, but you still need Me to be the bronze serpent as your Substitute so that your serpentine nature may be dealt with. Nicodemus, you may say that you are good in your conduct and character, but you cannot say that you are good in your nature. In nature, Nicodemus, you are serpentine. You have been bitten by the old serpent, and his poison has been injected into your being. Therefore, in the sight of God, you are serpentine. As a teacher of the Jews, you must know chapter 21 of the book of Numbers. That chapter says that your forefathers offended God, and as a result, they were bitten by serpents. In the sight of God, they all became serpents who were dying. When Moses prayed on their behalf, God told Moses to lift up a bronze serpent on a pole. That bronze serpent had the form of a serpent, but it did not have the nature of a serpent. That serpent became a substitute for the people to bear their judgment. Whoever looked at that bronze serpent was made alive. Nicodemus, I am the reality of that bronze serpent. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must I, the Son of Man, be lifted up, that whoever believes into Me may have eternal life.”
After the Lord spoke to Nicodemus regarding this matter, Nicodemus had nothing further to say. He understood the Lord’s word. In John 3 the bronze serpent lifted up on a pole was the sin offering. This offering does not bear our sins; instead, it deals with the sin in our fallen nature.
In the next case, that of the Samaritan woman in chapter 4, we have the trespass offering. Whereas Nicodemus was moral, the Samaritan woman was immoral, even though she was religious. The Samaritan woman had had five husbands, and she was now living with one who was not her husband. Because she was such an immoral person, she needed a trespass offering.
In chapter 7 of the Gospel of John, Christ is the burnt offering, the One who was absolute for God. As the absolute One, Christ was for God’s satisfaction, and He sought God’s glory.
In chapter 6 we can see Christ as the meal offering. The meal offering in the Old Testament was made mainly of fine flour. In John 6 the Lord Jesus said that He is the bread of life, the bread of God, the true and living bread that came down out of heaven (vv. 32-33, 35, 41, 51). Hence, He is the genuine meal offering to feed us.
In all these cases we have the sin offering, the trespass offering, the burnt offering, and the meal offering. If the Lord Jesus were not the offerings, He could not do anything for us, because between us and God there is the great problem of sin. The offerings deal with sin. Sins are the result, the outcome, of sin, and sin is the source of sins. If sin is dealt with, then sins will also be dealt with.
Because of the problem of sin, there was an altar near the entrance of the tabernacle. There was the need for the problem of sin to be solved in order for fallen people to enter into the tabernacle to meet with God. The tabernacle pointed to the fact that God was among the people. God’s dwelling place was on earth so that His people could enter into Him to enjoy Him and participate in all His riches. However, because sin has been injected into mankind, mankind is fallen, and all people have the problem of sin. This problem can be solved only by the altar, that is, by the cross. At the cross Christ offered Himself as our sin offering, trespass offering, burnt offering, meal offering, and peace offering.
With the case of Nicodemus we have regeneration. With the case of the Samaritan woman we see a person satisfied with living water and also obtaining the reality, the truth, with which to worship God. Then in chapters 5 through 11 we have the case of the enlivening of the impotent man in chapter 5, the case of the satisfying of the hungry people in chapter 6, the case of the thirsty ones satisfied and overflowing with rivers of living water in chapter 7, the case of someone freed from the bondage of sin in chapter 8, the case of the healing of the blind man in order to pass out of darkness into light in chapter 9, and the case of the resurrection of Lazarus in chapter 11. When we put all these cases together, we can realize that apart from Christ as the offerings, it would not be possible for us to be regenerated, be satisfied with the living water, have reality for the worship of God, be enlivened, be nourished with living bread, have our thirst quenched and overflow living water, be freed from sin in order to be brought out of blindness, and be resurrected out of the tomb in order to become a living person. All this depends upon Christ as the offerings. This is the reason that in this Gospel we have the fulfillment of the offerings for us to enter into the tabernacle.
Perhaps you are wondering where you can find the tabernacle in the Gospel of John. In chapter 13 there is the laver for our washing, and in chapters 14 through 17 we have the tabernacle with the incense altar. In chapter 17 Christ our High Priest is interceding at the incense altar. In a later chapter we will come to the laver in chapter 13. In this chapter we are still at the altar. However, as we come to chapter 12, we are at the altar enjoying not the sin offering, the trespass offering, the burnt offering, or the meal offering, but we are enjoying the peace offering in a little house in Bethany.
The first sign in John 12 is the sign of the house in Bethany (vv. 1-3), a house that is a miniature of the church life. Bethany means “house of affliction.” Yet there was feasting with the Lord.
John 12:2 says, “They made Him a supper there; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of the ones reclining at table with Him.” Here we see that Lazarus was reclining at table with the Lord Jesus and that Martha was serving. In verse 3 Mary did something to express her love for the Lord. But the important point here is that everyone in the house was feasting.
When Jesus was in that house in Bethany, God was there, for Jesus is God incarnate. While that feasting was taking place in Bethany, the high priest and the other priests were serving God in the temple in Jerusalem. This means that two kinds of services were going on at the same time — one in Bethany and the other in Jerusalem. In the service in Bethany, Martha was serving, Lazarus was reclining at table with the Lord Jesus, and Mary was anointing the feet of Jesus and wiping them with her hair. But in the service in Jerusalem the priests, clothed in long robes, were offering sacrifices and burning incense. Where was God at that time — in the temple or in the house in Bethany? The priests no doubt had the full assurance that they were worshipping God. But actually God was not there, for He was in Bethany. He was enjoying a service that had altogether no form or ritual. Instead of kneeling down before the Lord, Lazarus was reclining at table with Him. According to 12:10-11, the chief priests took counsel to kill Lazarus as well as the Lord Jesus, because on account of Lazarus many were believing in the Lord.
The enjoyment in the house in Bethany was the outcome, the issue, of all the foregoing cases. The last case, that of Lazarus in chapter 11, was a case of resurrection. Through His resurrection life the Lord gained a house in Bethany where He could feast and have rest and satisfaction. In that house in Bethany the Lord, God incarnate, and His disciples could feast together on the peace offering. This feasting in Bethany was the outcome of the foregoing nine cases.
At this point I wish to emphasize the fact that in studying the Gospel of John we should not only read the stories in letters but get into the depths of all the chapters and see the extracts. Here in chapter 12 we see a particular extract. This extract is that as the result of the nine cases in which we see Christ as the offerings, there is a house of feasting in Bethany. This house is composed of those who have been regenerated, freed from sin, healed of their blindness, and resurrected from death. Therefore, the result of Christ being the offerings is a household where His disciples may feast with Him as the incarnated God.
To be sure, the church life pictured by the house in Bethany was on a very small scale. Probably not more than twenty people were feasting together in the house. But although the scale was small, the reality was profound.
In this house in Bethany we have a miniature of the church life. Here we have a picture of the church life and also of the church meeting. Yes, the scale in John 12 is small, but the picture is perfect, complete. What is the church life according to the portrait in John 12? The church life is a life where some are serving the Lord, some are expressing their love for the Lord, and some are doing nothing except testifying of resurrection life. According to this picture, everyone is feasting with the Lord. This is the church life.
We have pointed out that while the Lord and the disciples were feasting in Bethany, the priests were worshipping God in a formal, religious way in the temple. The service in Bethany was on a small scale, but the religious worship in Jerusalem was on a grand scale. If you had been there at the time, where would you have gone to worship God? Would you have gone to the house in Bethany or to the temple in Jerusalem? I believe that, if we are honest, we will admit that we would have gone to the temple in Jerusalem for the worship of God. In that house in Bethany there were no priests, and there was neither the altar with the offering of sacrifices nor the incense altar. Nevertheless, God was in that home in Bethany.
Because they had the Lord Jesus Himself with them, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary certainly would not have left Him to go to worship in the temple. They had been attracted by the Lord Jesus; He was a strong magnet drawing them to Himself. Who was this Jesus to whom they were attracted? He was the very God incarnate, that is, God in the flesh, God in humanity. This incarnated God was enjoying Himself with His disciples there in Bethany, and His disciples were enjoying Him with God and with one another. Together they were having a marvelous enjoyment. This is a picture of the church life.
In the miniature of the church life portrayed in John 12, we see three matters: serving, loving, and testifying. This miniature of the church life with these aspects is the issue of the Lord as the sin offering, the trespass offering, the burnt offering, and the meal offering. Because the Lord is the reality of all these offerings, in John 12 we have Him as the peace offering. Let us, therefore, enjoy Him as the qualified One and as the One who satisfies both God and us.
I believe that when the Lord Jesus was on earth, no time was more pleasant to Him than that time of feasting in the house with Lazarus, Martha, Mary, and the others in Bethany. When He saw Lazarus testifying, Mary loving, and Martha serving, He was satisfied, and He enjoyed a most pleasant time. This, then, is the first sign in John 12 — a sign that portrays the church life in miniature.
