Message 24
Scripture Reading: Lev. 6:14-23
The meal offering is not common food for common people. The meal offering is food only for the priests. All New Testament believers are priests. Thus, the meal offering is for those in the church life who are God’s actual and practical priests today.
Leviticus 6:14 says, “This is the law of the meal offering: the sons of Aaron shall offer it before Jehovah in front of the altar.” The meal offering being offered before Jehovah signifies that the meal offering is offered to God in His presence. The meal offering being offered in front of the altar signifies that the meal offering is offered in relation to the redemption of Christ on the cross. The altar is a type of the cross. In the Old Testament there is the altar, but in the New Testament there is the cross. “In front of the altar” therefore means in relation to the redemption of Christ on the cross. The meal offering is offered to God in His presence, but it must be offered in relation to the redemption of Christ on the cross.
Leviticus 6:16 says, “The remainder of it Aaron and his sons shall eat; it shall be eaten unleavened in a holy place; they shall eat it in the court of the tent of meeting.” This verse speaks of the portion of the meal offering which was for Aaron and his sons, that is, the portion which is for the priests in their priestly service.
Eating the priests’ portion of the meal offering in a holy place signifies that we enjoy Christ as our meal offering (life supply for our service) without sin. The word holy here indicates that the enjoyment of the meal offering must be without sin.
Eating the meal offering in a holy place also signifies that we enjoy Christ in a separated, sanctified realm. We can take Christ as our meal offering, as our daily life supply, only in a holy place. A holy place is a sanctified realm.
The priests’ portion of the meal offering was eaten in the court of the tent of meeting. The tent of meeting typifies the church. Therefore, eating the meal offering in the court of the tent of meeting signifies enjoying Christ in the sphere of the church. Outside the sphere of the church, there is no meal offering for us. The meal offering can be applied only in the sphere of the church life. We can enjoy Christ as our meal offering for our priestly service only within the circle of the church life. Our enjoyment of Christ as the meal offering must be holy, it must be in a sanctified realm, and it must be in the sphere of the church life.
Christ is our meal offering that we may serve God as priests. However, many real believers today are priests of God in name but not in actuality. In their daily life, they are not priests of God.
To be a priest one does not need to be a full-timer. We became priests by our regeneration. Having been regenerated, we should now live a life as God’s priests, serving God. You may serve God as a priest even though you have a full-time job. We may be engaged in different kinds of proper employment, but we can still do our work in the sense of being priests to God. For example, a brother who is a physician may carry out his medical practice as a priestly service, preaching the gospel to unbelievers to bring them to Christ and ministering life to believers. If we all behaved as priests in this way, serving God in His gospel, in His mercy, in His grace, and in His life, this would be the best way to preach the gospel.
However, the actual situation among believers is the opposite. More than half of the people in the United States may be Christians, but it is rare to hear of anyone preaching the gospel in their place of employment. Many believers live like worldlings, like common people, not like priests. What a shame! Since we are priests, we need to ask ourselves about our gospel preaching.
According to my study of the New Testament, the first thing we should do as God’s priests is to preach the gospel and bring the sinners to God as offerings. This is what Paul did; his preaching of the gospel was a priestly service (Rom. 15:16). In his priestly service he offered the Gentiles to God. Do we have some saved sinners whom we can offer to God?
The book of Leviticus is altogether concerned with the priests. Nearly every chapter concerns the life, living, need, and supply of the priests and all the other things related to them. If we are not priests in actuality, we are not qualified to enter into this book. Therefore, I am deeply burdened to beg you to come back to your heavenly calling as priests of God. The first duty of our priestly service must be to bring sinners to present to God as offerings.
Paul said that he was saved to be an example to all the believers (1 Tim. 1:16). He was the believers’ pattern, and his first duty was to gain sinners and offer them to God as offerings. His work of preaching was the real New Testament priestly service. Surely Paul knew what it meant to have Christ as his meal offering for his priestly service. But the meal offering may not be as real to us as it was to Paul, because only to a small degree is our life actually the life of a priest. How sad it would be if we only talked about the priestly service but were not actually in it!
In these days while I am considering the book of Leviticus, my heart is weeping. The more I read and study this book, the more my heart is weeping. Among us there is little that would cause us to be joyful. We are talking about the priestly food, but who are the priests, and where are they? In this message I am burdened to stress this one point — the book of Leviticus is for the priests.
Regarding the priestly service, we need to consider our situation and ask ourselves where we are. The prophet Haggai charged the people of Israel to consider their ways (Hag. 1:5-11). We all need to reconsider our way. What kind of believers are we? Are we priestly believers or common believers?
Speaking of the meal offering, Leviticus 6:17a says, “It shall not be baked with leaven.” Not baking the meal offering with leaven signifies that our working on Christ as our life supply must be without sin.
The meal offering “is most holy, like the sin offering and like the trespass offering” (v. 17b). Here the meal offering is mentioned in relation to the sin offering and the trespass offering. We should consider all these offerings most holy.
The sin offering deals with sin in our fallen nature. If we would enjoy Christ as our life supply, we need to deal with the sin in us.
The trespass offering deals with the sins in our conduct. If we would enjoy Christ as our life supply, we need to deal not only with sin but also with our sins.
When we enjoy Christ as our daily supply for our priestly service, we need to realize that this enjoyment involves dealing with the sin in our fallen nature and also dealing with the sins in our conduct. If we try to enjoy the meal offering without such a dealing, we commit sin. We cannot take Christ as the meal offering unless we deal with our inward sin and our outward sins. This is the reason the meal offering refers us to the sin offering and to the trespass offering.
“Every male among the sons of Aaron may eat of it; it is their perpetual due throughout your generations from the offerings of Jehovah by fire” (v. 18a). Here we see that every male among the sons of Aaron could eat of the meal offering. This signifies that the partakers of Christ as the life supply should be strong in life.
When we hear that we need to be strong in life to partake of the meal offering, we may be disappointed, feeling that we are disqualified. This is the reason that nearly every day I make a strong petition to the Lord: “Lord, have mercy on us all.” Our situation is probably suitable only for the Lord’s mercy. Actually, according to this particular statute in the law of the meal offering, we are not qualified to partake of the meal offering. We are not the males among the sons of Aaron; that is, we are not the stronger ones in life among the saints. It is the stronger ones in life who are qualified to enjoy Christ as the meal offering.
No matter how much we may think we have the daily enjoyment of Christ, we actually have not enjoyed Him that much. Our enjoyment is short because we have a problem in life. We are still so young and feeble in life. We are not the proper males. What we are, God knows, and we also know. We cannot say that we are adequately strong in the divine life. For this reason we need to ask the Lord to have mercy on us all. We need the Lord’s mercy.
The males among the sons of Aaron eating of the meal offering also signifies that the partakers of Christ should be God’s serving ones — priests. If we do our daily work without serving God as a priest, we cannot share in the real enjoyment of Christ. In such a case, we may think that we have this enjoyment, but our thought does not correspond to the actual situation.
“This is the offering of Aaron and his sons which they shall offer to Jehovah on the day when he is anointed” (v. 20a). This signifies that the enjoyment of Christ as the life supply is related to the priestly service. Again and again I would emphasize the fact that the enjoyment of Christ as the meal offering is related to our priestly service.
Verse 20b speaks of “the tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a continual meal offering.” This signifies that the top portion, the tenth part, of the enjoyment of Christ should be for God. This also signifies that this kind of enjoyment of Christ should continue in our priestly service.
Half of the meal offering was offered in the morning and half in the evening to keep it a continual offering (v. 20c). This signifies the continual enjoyment of Christ in the priestly service.
The meal offering is only for the priests, and it is prevailing only in the priestly service. We may be priests, but our priestly service may not be prevailing. If this is our situation, then the priestly food will likewise not be prevailing. This spiritual food can be prevailing only in a prevailing priestly service. We must be serving priests in actuality. Then the priestly food will actually be our portion.
“It is a perpetual statute; it shall be entirely offered up in smoke to Jehovah. Every meal offering of a priest shall be entirely burned; it must not be eaten” (vv. 22b-23). This signifies that the enjoyment of Christ for God’s satisfaction should be absolute.
Our enjoyment of Christ is measured by the extent to which we are actually priests serving God. Our feeling is not the measurement. We are priests, but if there is a problem with our priestly service, there will also be a problem with the enjoyment of Christ as the meal offering.
In doing anything, we need to be in the right position. If we are not in the right position, then we cannot have anything to do with that particular matter. Although we are priests, in a practical way we may be in the wrong position and therefore cannot have the real enjoyment of Christ as the meal offering.
My loving intention in speaking this word is to encourage you to reconsider your way. Do not think that you are all right. I can testify to you that daily I need to reconsider my way and my situation. This is a serious matter because none of us knows when the Lord might take him. We may be taken at any time. Once the Lord takes us away, it will be too late for us to do anything about our situation. We have been clearly told that at His coming the Lord will set up a judgment seat (Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10). We all will stand there and give an account to Him. In particular, we will have to confess all the words that came out of our mouth while we were on earth (Matt. 12:36-37). Therefore, we need to be careful in what we speak.
My desire is not to be an expositor of the Bible. My burden is to minister the Lord’s word in a living and enlightening way. I would like all the dear saints to be enlightened and to see some light concerning themselves, concerning the church, and concerning God’s New Testament economy. It is crucial that we be brought into the light and that the light shine upon us, around us, and within us.
We need to remember that the first three offerings — the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the peace offering — bring us into the light. In the light we are enlightened to see our sin and our sins. This is what we need.
Whether we are old or young, whether we have been saved for many years or for a few months, we need to be enlightened. We all need to be brought into the divine light. We thank the Lord that we are children of light (Eph. 5:8). Since we are children of light, we must be in the light to be clear first concerning ourselves and then concerning God’s economy. This is what I am expecting to see.
