Message 12
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Scripture Reading: Lev. 2:2-13
Before we consider further aspects of the meal offering, I would like to compare the burnt offering and the meal offering.
In the burnt offering, the main item is the blood (Lev. 1:3, 11). In the meal offering, the main items are the oil and the frankincense (Lev. 2:1). The oil is for mingling and anointing, and the frankincense is to be put on the meal offering.
The burnt offering is for propitiation. We need propitiation because we are short in being absolute for God. Even if we have not made any mistakes or sinned and are perfect and complete, we still are not utterly, ultimately, fully, and wholly absolute for God. If we are not wholly absolute for God, we are short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23). This means that we are sinful; we are sinful in not being absolute for God.
God is our source. We were made by God for the purpose of expressing Him and representing Him. But to express and represent God requires our absoluteness. However, among the fallen human race no one is absolute for God. Perhaps some of us are absolute for God to a great degree, but we are not fully and utterly absolute for Him. We are not absolute for God like the man Jesus was when He was on earth. In the four Gospels He is portrayed as the One who is altogether absolute for God. None of us can compare with Him. Thus, we are short of God’s glory and need propitiation.
Propitiation is not only for redemption. Propitiation is also for propitiating the situation between us and God, a situation that is not peaceful. Propitiation appeases the situation between us and God and settles certain problems.
For propitiation we need to offer Christ as the burnt offering. However, we can offer Christ as the burnt offering only to the extent to which we have experienced Him. In order to offer Christ as the burnt offering to God, we need to experience Christ in His experiences.
Blood is needed for propitiation. Only animals are qualified to be the burnt offering because only they have blood to shed for propitiation. Therefore, in Leviticus 1 the burnt offering must be a bull from the herd, a goat or a sheep from the flock, or turtledoves or pigeons.
In the meal offering nothing of the animal life is seen. What is seen is of the vegetable life: wheat, grain, and ears of grain. As a type of Christ, the vegetable life indicates the produce, the propagation, and the increase to supply life for people to live by. In the meal offering we do not see blood, but we see oil and frankincense. The oil anoints the meal offering and is mingled with it; the frankincense is sprinkled upon the meal offering. Concerning the blood, the oil, and the frankincense, we have a very significant difference between the burnt offering and the meal offering.
The offerings are food for both God and us that we and God may have mutual enjoyment. The burnt offering was entirely consumed by God; it was eaten by Him alone. God’s “mouth” is the fire that consumed the burnt offering, the fire, that burned continually day and night. The divine eating of the burnt offering was very orderly. This is indicated by the orderly way in which the pieces were arranged for burning (Lev. 1:7-8). God does everything, including the eating of the burnt offering, in an orderly way.
Because the burnt offering is for propitiation, it can be eaten only by God. Only God is qualified to enjoy something that is for our propitiation. Therefore, we cannot eat the burnt offering.
Although we may not eat the burnt offering, we may eat a part of the meal offering. When a person offered the meal offering, “a full handful of its fine flour and of its oil, with all its frankincense,” were to be offered “in smoke as its memorial portion on the altar, an offering by fire of a satisfying fragrance to Jehovah” (2:2). Here we see that part of the flour and oil and all of the frankincense are God’s food. God must be the first to taste and to enjoy the meal offering. The remainder of the meal offering, consisting of fine flour and oil but no frankincense, was to be food for the priests.
The priests serve God. Their service is holy, and their food also is holy. If we would serve God as priests, we need to eat the priestly food, the holy food that befits our holy service. This food nourishes us that we may have the strength to serve God.
The meal offering is a matter of Christ as the satisfaction of God’s people enjoyed together with God. First, God enjoys His portion of the meal offering, and then we have our enjoyment. Our enjoyment is thus a co-enjoyment, an enjoyment that is with God’s enjoyment.
All the frankincense with part of the fine flour and part of the oil was burned on the altar (2:2). This signifies that a considerable portion of Christ’s excellent, perfect, Spirit-filled, and resurrection-saturated living is offered to God as food for His enjoyment.
Christ’s human living on earth was excellent, but it is difficult for us to say what this excellence refers to. We may say that it refers to the high standard of His attributes and virtues. How high is this standard? We cannot say. There has never before been such a standard among the human race.
Christ is both God and man. He is a God-man anointed, mingled, and filled with the Spirit of God. Moreover, even before He was crucified, He expressed resurrection. He expressed resurrection in everything, even in rebuking the Pharisees (Matt. 23:1-36) and in cleansing the temple (John 2:12-17). The excellency of Christ’s human living on earth was in His manhood and in His Godhood; it was in His humanity and divinity in the Spirit and with resurrection. This is how the four Gospels reveal Him in His excellence.
Christ’s humanity is perfect. He is fine, even, and fully balanced, lacking nothing and not having anything in excess. Furthermore, He is filled with the Spirit and saturated with resurrection. When He walked on earth, He was always filled with the Spirit and saturated with resurrection.
The frankincense with part of the fine flour and the oil was burned as a memorial because of its satisfying effect. A memorial is greater than satisfaction. We may be satisfied with many things but not make those things a memorial. But when we have the highest satisfaction, we will make that satisfaction a memorial. God enjoys Christ to such an extent that this enjoyment becomes a memorial.
A satisfying fragrance is a sweet savor; it is a fragrance that gives rest, peace, joy, enjoyment, and full satisfaction. The rich elements of the meal offering — Christ’s humanity, divinity, and His excellent, perfect, Spirit-filled, and resurrection-saturated living — are a fragrance that gives God rest, peace, joy, enjoyment, and full satisfaction.
“The remainder of the meal offering is for Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy portion of the offerings of Jehovah by fire” (Lev. 2:3). This signifies that we also can enjoy Christ’s human living as our food after God’s enjoyment. First, God must be given His portion that He may be satisfied. The remainder is our portion for our satisfaction.
It is easy to say that we can enjoy Christ’s human living as our food, but how can we actually do this? Considering the type in Leviticus 2 will help in answering this question. The type here is a picture signifying Christ’s human living. The fine flour signifies Christ’s humanity, and the oil signifies the Spirit of God. The oil and the flour are mingled to produce an oiled fine flour, a fine flour mingled with oil. Therefore, to eat the fine flour is to eat the oil; it is also to eat the mingling, for the oil and the flour cannot be separated.
The picture in Leviticus 2 indicates strongly that the way for us to enjoy Christ’s human living is by the Spirit. John 6 proves this. In this chapter the Lord Jesus reveals that He is edible. “I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (v. 51). Unable to understand this, the Jews “contended with one another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (v. 52). In verse 63 the Lord Jesus says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life.” This indicates that the way to eat Jesus is by the Spirit.
If we would eat Jesus by the Spirit, we need to realize that the Spirit today is consolidated in the word. When we touch the word, we touch what is consolidated, or embodied, in the word. To eat Jesus, to take Jesus, to enjoy Jesus, we must touch His word, and when we touch His word, the Spirit is there.
According to the New Testament, the divine Spirit is related to our human spirit. We need to touch the word of the Lord by our spirit. The way to touch the Lord’s word by our spirit is to pray-read the word. When we come to the word, we should not merely exercise our eyes and our mind, reading the word as if it were a newspaper. We need to pray and exercise our spirit as well as our eyes and our mind. If we do this, we are apparently touching the word; actually we are touching the Spirit. The Spirit is mingled with the humanity of Christ. Hence, by exercising our spirit to touch the Spirit consolidated in the word, we eat the human life and living of Christ.
How can we enjoy Christ? We can enjoy Christ by exercising our spirit to pray-read the word. When we pray-read the Lord’s word, we touch His Spirit, and this Spirit is mingled with His humanity. Then we are nourished with the highest humanity — the humanity of Christ.
In ourselves we cannot live a human life like that of the Lord Jesus. Only He can live such a life. But we can take Jesus at any time by coming to His word and exercising our spirit to pray-read the word. When we do this, we touch the Spirit, and the Spirit supplies us with Jesus as our nourishment. Since we are what we eat, the more we eat Jesus, the more we are constituted with Jesus. By our eating of Jesus’ human living, His living becomes ours. Spontaneously, without any self-effort, we will be as humble and holy as Jesus is. This is to enjoy Jesus as our food for us to live a life which is qualified to serve God.
Over a period of fifteen hundred years, God has prepared a book for us, the Bible, and has put it in our hands. He has also given His Spirit to us. The Spirit is within and the book is without. These two things added together are just Christ in His human life. When we exercise our spirit and pray-read the word, we touch the Spirit and enjoy Christ’s human living. This is the meal offering.
All meal offerings, whether baked in an oven, roasted on a griddle, or fried in a pan, are through fire on the altar (Lev. 2:4-9). This signifies that Christ in His humanity offered to God as food has gone through fire. When we touch the meal offering, we touch the testing fire.
The burning fire in Leviticus 2 signifies the consuming God, not for judgment but for acceptance. The portion of the meal offering that was offered to God as God’s food for His satisfaction was burned, that is, consumed by fire. This was God’s acceptance, not His judgment. This signifies that God has accepted Christ as His satisfying food. God accepts the meal offering by consuming it through fire.
“When you bring a meal offering baked in an oven as an offering, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil. And if your offering is a meal offering on the griddle, it shall be of fine flour mingled with oil, unleavened” (Lev. 2:4 and 5). This mingling with oil signifies that Christ’s humanity is mingled with the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18b). This mingling also signifies that Christ’s human nature is mingled with God’s divine nature; hence, He is a God-man. Christ is a person who is absolutely mingled with God. His humanity is mingled with God, mingled with the Spirit, for the Spirit is in His very being. Therefore, when we touch Christ, we touch the Spirit.
In relation to the mingling in Leviticus 2, let us consider Psalm 92:10b. “I shall be anointed with fresh oil.” In Darby’s New Translation a note on the word anointed says “strictly, ‘mingled.’” Furthermore, Darby’s note on the word mingled in Leviticus 2:4 says: “‘Mixed,’ ‘mingled,’ is the sense of the word. In Ps. 92:10 it is not merely anointed as consecration, but his whole system is invigorated and strengthened by it: it formed his strength; hence it is ‘fresh oil’ there.” This mingling, therefore, causes one’s inward parts and elements to be vigorous and strong.
In the early part of the Christian era, there was much debate about the matter of the mingling of divinity with humanity. Some theologians thought that to speak of being mingled with God implied the belief that a person could become God, the belief that a human being could be uplifted to such an extent that he was deified. Those who had this kind of understanding of the teaching concerning mingling condemned this teaching. Eventually, theologians did not dare to use the word mingle or to teach concerning the mingling of humanity and divinity.
Why, then, are we so bold as to use this term today? We speak of mingling because there is such a revelation in the Bible. Our teaching concerning the divine mingling with humanity is based on the New Testament revelation and is also confirmed by the Old Testament types.
According to the type, the picture, in Leviticus 2, the meal offering is made basically of fine flour and oil. Verse 4 speaks of “fine flour mingled with oil.” Oil denotes divinity, and fine flour denotes Christ’s humanity. The mingling of the fine flour with the oil indicates that through the divine mingling Christ’s humanity has been uplifted to the highest standard.
In Galatians 2:20 Paul says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” In Philippians 1:21 he says, “For to me to live is Christ.” Paul was not only mingled with Christ — Paul was Christ. When some hear this, they may argue and accuse me of twisting Paul’s word. They may say, “Paul did not tell us that he was Christ. He merely said that Christ lived in him and that for him to live was Christ. To live Christ is one thing, and to be Christ is another.” To this I would reply, “How can one live another person without being that person? How could Paul live Christ if he were not Christ?”
While Paul was on the road to Damascus, the Lord Jesus asked him, “Why are you persecuting Me?” and He went on to say, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:4-5). Paul thought that he was persecuting only Stephen and other disciples; he had no realization that he was actually persecuting Christ. The Lord, however, regards His disciples as part of Him. The “Me” in Acts 9:4 is thus a corporate person including the Lord Jesus and all the believers. All the believers are one with Christ, not one merely in combination or in union but one in mingling.
Because the Lord Jesus is God incarnated to be a man, He is a God-man. Do you think that His divinity can be separated from His humanity, or that, apart from any mingling, His divinity and humanity are merely united to make Him a God-man? If there were no mingling, how could He live as a God-man? Christ’s divinity is mingled with His humanity. However, this mingling of divinity and humanity surely has not produced a third element, something that is neither divine nor human. To say that with respect to the Lord Jesus the mingling of the divine nature with the human nature produced a third nature, a nature that is neither fully divine nor fully human, is heretical. This certainly is not our understanding of the word mingle. We agree with the definition in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary: mingle — “to bring or combine together or with something else so that the components remain distinguishable in the combination.” In such a mingling of two elements, the elements remain distinct, and there is not the producing of a third element.
Christ is both the complete God and the perfect man, possessing the divine nature and the human nature distinctly, without a third nature being produced. This is revealed in the New Testament, and it is portrayed by the type in Leviticus 2. In this type, mingling is clearly depicted: the oil is mingled with the fine flour, and the fine flour is mingled with the oil. Although these two elements are mingled, the essence of each element remains distinct, and a third element is not produced. This is the correct understanding of mingling.
The excellency of Christ, who is our meal offering, is in both His divinity and His humanity. With respect to His divinity, Christ has the divine attributes, and these divine attributes are expressed through, with, and in His human virtues. For this reason He is ethical and moral in a higher standard than all human beings. What He is as God with the divine attributes is added to what He is as man with the human virtues. This is the excellence of Jesus Christ, an excellence which is the produce of the mingling of divinity and humanity.
