Message 11
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Scripture Reading: Lev. 2:1
In this message we shall begin to consider chapter two of Leviticus, which is concerned with the meal offering.
It is important for us to understand the relationship of the meal offering to the burnt offering.
The emphasis of the burnt offering is on Christ’s living for God, even unto death, implying His living but emphasizing His death. The emphasis of the meal offering is on Christ’s human living and daily walk, implying His death but emphasizing His living.
The burnt offering emphasizes that Christ is the righteousness — the righteousness of God. The meal offering emphasizes that Christ is righteous — righteous before God. In the burnt offering we can see Christ as righteousness, for the burnt offering indicates that Christ is God’s righteousness. The meal offering indicates that Christ is righteous.
We need to differentiate righteousness (a noun) from righteous (an adjective). We may say that Christ is righteousness itself, and we may also say that He is righteous. The principle is the same with the words sin (a noun) and sinful (an adjective). On the one hand, we may say that we are sin, that we are the totality of sin itself. On the other hand, we may say that we are sinful.
When Christ died on the cross, He was made sin (2 Cor. 5:21). The One who died on the cross was not just a person, Jesus Christ, but a person made sin in its totality. Because Christ was made sin, He took away sin from mankind (John 1:29), and sin as a personification was condemned (Rom. 8:3). This refers to Christ as the sin offering.
Christ is also the trespass offering. The trespass offering is a matter not of Christ being made sin for us but of Christ bearing our sins (1 Pet. 2:24; Heb. 9:28). On the one hand, as the sin offering Christ was made sin; on the other hand, as the trespass offering Christ bore our sins.
We need to realize that as fallen persons we are not merely sinful; we are sin. Often as I have knelt before the Lord and prayed, I have said to Him, “Lord, I am not just sinful — I am sin itself. I am nothing but sin.”
In the burnt offering we can see Christ as the righteousness of God, and in the meal offering we can see the righteous Christ, the One who is right in every way. Because Christ is God’s righteousness, He can be God’s satisfaction and give Him a satisfying fragrance. Only Christ can satisfy God to the uttermost.
We also should be God’s righteousness, satisfying God to such an extent that we become to God a satisfying fragrance. But how can we be this kind of person? In the sight of God we are not righteousness — we are sin. How can we be a burnt offering to God? How can we who are sin be righteousness? In ourselves it is impossible, but it is possible by experiencing Christ in His experiences.
In the early years of my ministry, young married brothers and sisters who had a problem with their temper often asked me how they could be a good husband or wife. They did not want to lose their temper, but no matter how hard they tried, they were defeated. They wanted me to tell them how they could overcome their temper. Being young in the ministry, I had not yet seen the vision of living Christ. Because of my lack of vision and because I was still under the influence of certain books I had read on living the Christian life, I would tell them that they needed to love the Lord, pray a great deal, and memorize Bible verses. They took my advice and tried to follow it, but it did not work, and the result invariably was failure. They made up their mind not to lose their temper, but eventually they failed and lost their temper. Their experience, and mine as well, was like that of Paul in Romans 7: “To will is present with me, but to do the good is not. For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil I do not will, this I practice” (vv. 18b-19). If today I were asked to help the saints in dealing with their temper, I would say, “You need to realize that you are temper itself. How, then, can you avoid losing your temper? The only way to overcome your temper is to live another person, the One who is not temper but the righteousness of God.”
Apart from Christ there is no righteousness. He is the righteousness in this universe. If we do not have Him, we cannot have righteousness. Paul, speaking of the Jews, says, “They, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, did not submit to the righteousness of God” (Rom. 10:3). Those who seek righteousness apart from Christ will never find it. As the burnt offering He is the very righteousness of God, and as the meal offering He is the most righteous One. He is fine, perfect, complete, and righteous in every way.
The meal offering is made of fine flour. Fine flour, therefore, is the main element of the meal offering. This fine flour signifies Christ’s humanity.
Christ’s humanity is fine, but our humanity is rough and coarse. We may appear outwardly to be gentle and nice, but actually we are rough. Among the human race Christ is the only one who is gentle; only He is the fine flour. With Him there is no roughness. His humanity is fine, perfect, balanced, and right in every way. From every angle — front and back, top and bottom, right and left — He is right.
The fine flour of the meal offering is produced out of wheat which has passed through many processes, including being sown, buried to die, growing up, being beaten by the wind, frost, rain, and sun, and then being reaped, threshed, sifted, and ground. These processes signify the varied sufferings of Christ which made Him “a man of sorrows” (Isa. 53:3). In His human living the Lord Jesus had sorrow upon sorrow.
The fine flour is perfect in fineness, evenness, tenderness, and gentleness and is fully balanced, with no excess and no deficiency. This signifies the beauty and excellence of Christ’s human living and daily walk. Christ’s humanity is perfect. There is no comparison between His humanity and our natural, fallen humanity.
The oil of the meal offering signifies the Spirit of God (Luke 4:18; Heb. 1:9). Christ is a man, and as a man He has an excellent humanity. He also has the divine element, which is the Spirit of God. The divine element is in the Spirit of God and is the Spirit of God.
As the meal offering, Christ is full of oil. We may even say that He has been “oiled.” He has been mingled with oil. This means that His humanity has been mingled with His divinity.
In the meal offering the oil is poured upon the fine flour. This signifies that the Spirit of God was poured upon Christ (Matt. 3:16; John 1:32).
Frankincense is sweet smelling and causes people to have a very pleasant feeling. In typology, the frankincense in the meal offering signifies the fragrance of Christ in His resurrection.
The frankincense was put upon the fine flour. This signifies that Christ’s humanity bears the aroma of His resurrection manifested out from His sufferings (cf. Matt. 11:20-30; Luke 10:21). During the course of His human life, Christ suffered a great deal, but the aroma of His resurrection was manifested out from His sufferings. Although He suffered very much, He exuded a sweet fragrance, the aroma of His resurrection.
In the meal offering there are three elements: the fine flour, the oil, and the frankincense. If we study the four Gospels, we will see that Christ’s life consisted mainly of these three elements. The Lord Jesus continually lived and walked in these three things — in His humanity mingled with His divinity and expressing His resurrection.
Even before Christ was actually crucified He continually expressed His resurrection. Concerning this, we need to realize that the Lord Jesus was crucified not only at the very end of His life but that He was crucified daily. His entire life was a life under the cross. He was always being slaughtered, skinned, and cut into pieces. His crucifixion, which lasted six hours, was the totality of His being slaughtered, skinned, and cut into pieces. Because the Lord Jesus lived daily under the cross, He always expressed resurrection from His humanity mingled with His divinity.
If we keep this in mind as we read the Gospels, we will see what kind of person Christ was while He lived on earth. He was a person with the highest and best humanity. This humanity was “oiled,” for it was mingled with His divinity. In His human living He expressed not His sufferings but resurrection. This resurrection is the frankincense, the fragrant aroma, the sweet savor, in the universe. Nothing is as sweet, as fragrant, as this aroma of resurrection. This was Christ’s human living on earth.
Even when the Lord Jesus was arrested and crucified, He lived a life of humanity mingled with divinity and expressing resurrection. A band of soldiers and deputies from the chief priests and Pharisees came to the garden seeking Jesus. Twice He asked them, “Whom are you seeking?” (John 18:4, 7), and each time they answered, “Jesus the Nazarene” (vv. 5, 7). The Lord Jesus then said to them, “If therefore you are seeking Me, let these go away” (v. 8). “These” refers to His disciples. Under the suffering of the betrayal of His false disciple and the arrest of the soldiers. He still took good care of His disciples. Here we can sense the fragrance of resurrection.
When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, He took care of His mother. “Jesus, seeing His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by, said to His mother, Woman, behold, your son. Then He said to the disciple, Behold, your mother” (John 19:26-27a). Here we again see resurrection expressed out from the Lord’s sufferings.
No matter what the circumstances were, the Lord Jesus lived a life of suffering but expressing the fragrance of His resurrection. In every place and at every time, Christ lived a life in His humanity mingled with His divinity and expressing His resurrection. This is the meal offering.
The burnt offering is for God’s satisfaction to fulfill His desire. The burnt offering is God’s food, and only He is allowed to eat it. The fact that the entire offering is burned on the altar indicates that it is received by God. We may say that the fire which consumes the burnt offering is God’s “mouth.” Whereas the burnt offering is God’s food, the meal offering is our food for our satisfaction, with a little portion shared with God.
Proper worship involves the burnt offering and the meal offering. To offer the burnt offering for God’s satisfaction and to offer the meal offering for our satisfaction and for sharing our satisfaction with God — this is real worship. Proper worship is a matter of satisfying God with Christ as the burnt offering, and of being satisfied with Christ as the meal offering and sharing this satisfaction with God. In real worship Christ as the burnt offering ascends to God, and Christ as the meal offering enters our being. In such worship we satisfy God with Christ, and we share with Him our enjoyment of Christ.
