Message 134
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Scripture Reading: Exo. 29:1-14; 40:12-15; Lev. 8:1-9, 12-17
We have seen that the priests needed to be clothed with the priestly garments outwardly and to be filled inwardly with nourishing food. Both the priestly garments and the priestly food signify different aspects of Christ.
Exodus 29:1 and 10 through 14 speak of the bull offered as the priests’ sin offering. The sin offering here is Christ making the way for our emptiness to be filled. This emptiness is a matter of inward hunger. If we are hungry, we are empty inwardly. The priestly garments typify Christ covering our nakedness. When we have Christ as our priestly garments, we are no longer naked. Instead, outwardly we have an expression of glory and beauty. This means that outwardly our nakedness has been covered, and now we have Christ to cover our nakedness. But we still need Christ to fill us inwardly. In order for our inward emptiness to be filled, Christ must be our sin offering.
The sin offering was not food for the priests. This offering was burned completely. Exodus 29:13 and 14 say, “And you shall take all the fat that covers the inwards, and the appendage on the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat which is upon them, and burn them on the altar. And the flesh of the bull, and its skin, and its dung, you shall burn with fire outside the camp; it is a sin offering.” These verses speak of two different kinds of burning. The first burning, described in verse 13, is the burning on the altar of the fat, the appendage on the liver, and the kidneys. This burning produced a sweet savor that ascended to God for His satisfaction. It was like the burning of incense, a burning that was not for judgment or purification, but for God’s enjoyment. The Hebrew word rendered “burn” in verse 13 is a term used for burning incense (see verses 18 and 25). When the priests burned the incense as a sweet savor, that was for God’s satisfaction. God enjoyed the aroma of the incense. Regarding the sin offering, the inward fat and certain inward parts were burned for God’s enjoyment.
This burning satisfied God’s requirements, which are mainly of three categories: the requirements of His righteousness, holiness, and glory. God is righteous, God is holy, and God is full of glory. Thus, His righteousness, holiness, and glory all make demands of us. If we are short of God’s glory and do not match His righteousness and holiness, we fail to fulfill His requirements and therefore come under His condemnation.
It is the fat of the sin offering that satisfies God’s requirements. The fat of cattle comes out of the richness of the cattle. This typifies the sweetness and the richness of Christ’s perfection and satisfies the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory. The burning of the fat and the inward parts produces a sweet savor for God’s satisfaction; He is fully satisfied with it. Therefore, the first kind of burning related to the sin offering was for God’s satisfaction.
The second kind of burning, described in verse 14, was the burning of the flesh, the skin, and the dung outside the camp. These parts of the sin offering were burned with the fire of judgment. Hence, the second burning was a burning of judgment. It did not take place on the altar, but took place outside the camp, signifying abandonment and judgment. On the one hand, Christ was accepted as a sweet savor to God to satisfy all of God’s requirements; on the other hand, Christ was abandoned, condemned, judged, and burned outside the camp, outside God’s dwelling place and away from God’s people.
The trespass offering deals with our sins but the sin offering deals with our sin, that is, with our sinful nature. If we would be priests serving God, we need to realize that even though we have been saved, we still have a sinful nature.
We shall continue to have this sinful nature until our body is transfigured. I can testify that no matter how long we have been saved, our sinful nature does not change. I have been saved for more than fifty-five years. Nevertheless, I must testify that my sinful nature is still with me. We should never believe the doctrine of eradication, the teaching that the sinful nature is eradicated when a person becomes a believer in Christ. No, our sinful nature still exists. Therefore, whenever we come to serve God as priests, we must remember that we have a sinful nature and that we need Christ as our sin offering to deal with this nature.
Christ has fulfilled God’s requirements to satisfy Him, and He has borne God’s judgment on our behalf. In Him our sinful nature has been judged. Whenever we take Christ as our sin offering, we judge ourselves as sinners, even as sin. Again and again, we need Christ as our sin offering and we need to be judged. Paul refers to Christ as the sin offering in Romans 8:3, when he says that God sent His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin, and condemned sin in the flesh.
Exodus 29:10 says concerning the sin offering, “And you shall bring the bull near before the tent of meeting and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands upon the head of the bull. And you shall slaughter the bull before Jehovah at the door of the tent of meeting.” We today must lay our hands upon Christ and be fully identified with Him.
If we would serve God as priests, we must first have the realization that we still have a sinful nature and that we need Christ experientially to be our sin offering. In ourselves we are sinful. We are sinners, even sin itself. How we need Christ as our sin offering! This is the reason Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “Him who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf, that we might become God’s righteousness in Him.”
The sweetness and richness of Christ’s perfection satisfies God, ascending through burning for His satisfaction. As the sin offering, Christ was also abandoned by God and judged by Him for us. The washing of the word mainly deals with outward defilement. The sin offering deals with the sinful nature within. To be a priest, it is not adequate simply to confess that we have been defiled by the earthly touch and need to be washed. We must also realize and admit that even we who would be priests serving God still have a sinful nature. We are still sinners. Therefore, we need Christ to be our sin offering. We need Him with all His perfections to be burned for God’s satisfaction. We also need Christ to be burned to bear God’s judgment on our behalf.
If we realize that we have a sinful nature and if we lay our hands on Christ to be fully identified with Him, we shall be protected and, according to typology, prepared to enjoy the priestly food. If we would be priests serving God, we need the outward washing of the word, and we also need to put on Christ as our garment. However, we also need the inward nourishing and filling. This nourishing requires a deeper cleansing, a cleansing by Christ as our sin offering. This cleansing deals with our sinful nature. Whenever you come to serve God as a priest, you must realize and confess that your nature is still sinful. If you do not have this realization, you will not be able to enjoy the Christ typified by the rams, the unleavened bread, the unleavened, perforated cakes, and the unleavened wafers. We cannot enjoy Christ adequately without realizing that we have a sinful nature and need Christ to be our sin offering.
Fifty-five years ago I began to realize that my nature is sinful. Today, however, I have a much deeper realization regarding this. After many years of experience, I know fully that I was born sinful, that I was born a sinner with a sinful nature. In fact, I was born sin. This sinful nature has not changed during the years I have been with the Lord. The more I realize this, the more I take Christ as my sin offering. On the one hand, realizing that I have a sinful nature and taking Christ as my sin offering causes me to be judged and subdued. On the other hand, it preserves me, for it causes me not to have any confidence in myself. I am reminded again and again that in my flesh I am nothing but sin.
Sometimes believers wonder how any brother who is spiritual and experienced could fall into serious sin. We should realize that we are capable of such sin. Consider David as an example. David, of course, was an Old Testament saint. He truly was saintly and wrote many spiritual songs. But was David’s sinful nature eradicated? Certainly not. For the sake of his lust he had a certain man murdered, and then he took that man’s wife. Even someone as saintly as David was capable of such sin. David did not become saintly after committing that sin; he was saintly beforehand. Nevertheless, he still fell into sin.
Suppose when David was tempted to commit that sin, he remembered that he was sinful and offered a sin offering to God. If that had been the case, I do believe that he would not have committed that sin. It might have been that David committed sin because he temporarily ceased to remember how sinful he was. He lost the realization that his nature was sinful. We should learn from his experience not to have the slightest confidence in ourselves.
Elsewhere I have pointed out that a brother and sister should not have a long talk alone in a private room. To do that indicates that we do not realize our need of Christ as our sin offering. If we remind ourselves of our need for Christ as our sin offering, we shall not engage in long conversations with members of the opposite sex in private. Furthermore, with respect to many other things, we shall not have any trust in ourselves, for we shall know that we are still sinful.
Every day we need Christ as our sin offering. After rising up in the morning, we need to recall and realize once again that we are sinful in nature, that we were born sinners, and that we need Christ as our sin offering. Yes, we have been regenerated, but our sinful nature remains with us. We have the Holy Spirit in our spirit, but our nature is still sinful. Therefore, if we would enjoy Christ as the ram, wafers, cakes, and bread, we must first apply Christ as the sin offering. Applying Christ as the sin offering will prepare us for further enjoyment of Christ.
This word concerning the sin offering should not be a mere doctrine to us. We all need to have more experience of Christ as our sin offering. Let us all be encouraged to experience Christ in this way more and more.
According to 29:1, the sin offering used in sanctifying Aaron and his sons to be priests was a young bull. This young bull typifies Christ being strong and rich in life. We have seen that Aaron and his sons laying their hands upon the head of the bull signifies the believers being identified with Christ. According to verse 11, Moses was required to slaughter the bull before the Lord at the door of the tent of meeting. This signifies that Christ was slain by God, represented by Moses, before God Himself in front of His people (Isa. 53:10).
Verse 12 goes on to say, “And you shall take of the blood of the bull, and put it upon the horns of the altar with your finger; and pour out all the blood at the base of the altar.” This signifies making the redemption of Christ powerful with a strong foundation.
As we have pointed out, the burning of the fat covering the inwards, the net on the liver and the two kidneys and their fat signifies the riches and sweetness of the inward being of Christ offered to God for His satisfaction. The burning of the flesh of the bull with its skin and dung outside the camp signifies the outward being of Christ sacrificed for the believers on this earth for their redemption.
One crucial point we have covered thus far is that to be a priest we need to be filled up with Christ. We all must realize that, apart from Christ, we are utterly empty, void of anything to satisfy God and ourselves. Before we were saved, we were absolutely empty. We had nothing to fill us and qualify us so that we might serve God. But God intends to sanctify us, to set us apart, to be His priests. In order to do this, He needs to fill our emptiness so that we may be able to satisfy Him. Outwardly and inwardly, this is to fill our hands with Christ. Outwardly, we are clothed with Christ as the tunic, the robe of the ephod, the ephod, and the breastplate. All these garments typify different aspects of Christ covering our nakedness. Now that we are covered by Him, we are no longer naked. Rather, Christ as our clothing qualifies us to serve as priests.
The clothing worn by the priests qualified them to serve God. Their priestly garments can be compared to a uniform. In many types of employment, a person must wear the proper uniform to be qualified for work. For example, both a policeman and a nurse must wear the appropriate uniform. In the same principle, a judge and a medical doctor also wear appropriate clothing. When we wear Christ, He becomes the clothing that qualifies us to serve God as priests. He is the covering for our nakedness.
Inwardly Christ is our nourishment and strength. He fills the emptiness within our being.
In order to fill our inward emptiness, Christ had to solve our basic problem with God, the problem of our sinful nature. In our flesh we are sinful. Actually we are sin. According to Romans 7, nothing good dwells in us, that is, in our flesh, for we are nothing but sin. Therefore, Christ has become the sin offering to solve our basic problem with God so that our inward emptiness may be filled.
A second crucial point related to serving God as priests is that whenever we would serve Him in this way, we need to realize and confess that we have a sinful nature. Every morning we need to offer the sin offering. This is to be reminded that in our flesh we are nothing but sin.
If we realize and admit that we have a sinful nature, will it be possible for us to argue with others or fight with them? Certainly not. Since we ourselves are sinful in nature, what right have we to argue with others? What reason have we to be proud or to consider ourselves superior? The reason we argue and fight is that we consider ourselves better than others. This attitude is an indication that we have forgotten what we are, that we have forgotten that we are sinful. If we remember that we are sinful in nature, even sin itself, we shall not be proud.
Offering Christ as the sin offering prepares the way for us to enjoy Christ. If in the morning you offer Christ as the sin offering, surely during the day you will enjoy Him, perhaps as a ram, bread, cakes, or wafers. If you do not remember the sin offering, you will not have the basis to enjoy Christ. Very probably, you will be short of the enjoyment of Christ during the day. As a result of not having the enjoyment of Christ, you will be empty. How, then, will you be satisfied inwardly to serve God as a priest? You will be a priest in name and in position, but not in reality. All believers in Christ are priests, but in actuality most of them do not have the basis to serve as priests.
My burden concerning Exodus 29 is not to cover doctrinal points such as the putting of the blood upon the horns of the altar, or pouring out the blood at the base of the altar. My burden is to show how we need to be filled up with Christ and to feed on Christ. Chapter twenty-nine of Exodus shows us the way to feed on Christ. However, the way revealed in this chapter is quite unusual. It is marvelous even to realize that this chapter gives us the way to feed on Christ. Many have read this chapter a number of times without realizing that it gives us the way to feed on Christ. We may see the offerings, the cleansing, and the application of the blood but not the feeding on Christ.
I doubt if there are any books which say that Exodus 29 reveals the way to feed on Christ. Most Christians do not see this matter because they are not on the line of life. But by the Lord’s mercy we are on this line. This is the reason we call our study of the Bible a life-study. When we read a portion of the Word, what we care for is life. This is also true of our study of Exodus 29. From this chapter we see that we need to be filled with Christ. What we need is the experience of life. Thus, whenever I touch the matter of life in a chapter of the Bible, I am fully occupied and give less emphasis to doctrinal points.
Certain Bible teachers have much to say concerning the sin offering. Their approach may be very interesting in a doctrinal way. You may find this approach attractive, but eventually it will distract you from life to the mere mental understanding of doctrinal teachings of typology. The result is that you do not receive any life supply. We approach Exodus 29 from another perspective. This is why I point out that we need to offer the sin offering in order to be prepared to enjoy Christ.
May we all see that we need to be filled with Christ. May we also realize that we still have a sinful nature and that daily, early in the morning, we need to offer Christ as our sin offering. This sinful nature deserves to be condemned, burned, as was the sin offering outside the camp. If we offer Christ as the sin offering with this realization, we shall be preserved, and we shall have the way to enjoy more of Christ.
