Message 6
(4)
Scripture Reading: Lev. 1:5-17; 6:10-11; 7:8
The most crucial point for us to interpret and understand concerning the burnt offering is the difference in the way the burnt offering is offered. For years, Bible teachers have stressed the difference in the size of the offering:
the bull — the largest size; the lamb or goat — the second largest size; and a pair of birds — the smallest size. It is easy for us to see the difference in size, but it is not easy for us to see the difference in the way to offer, although this matter is clearly recorded in Leviticus 1. Even if we see the difference in the way to offer the burnt offering, it may still be difficult for us to realize the significance of this difference.
In order to understand the burnt offering, we need to realize that whenever we present a burnt offering we review our experience in our daily life. Because the burnt offering, subjectively speaking, is altogether related to our daily life, to our daily walk, the presentation of the burnt offering is a demonstration, a display, of our daily experience. If we daily and hourly live a life of experiencing Christ, we shall have Christ as a burnt offering to offer to God. However, if we do not experience Christ in our daily walk, we shall not have Him as a burnt offering. Then we shall be able to offer Christ mainly as the trespass offering. The point here is that we cannot offer Christ as a burnt offering if we do not live Christ and experience Christ in our daily walk.
Let us consider the experience of three brothers. The first experiences Christ as a bull, the second experiences Christ as a lamb or a goat, and the third experiences Christ as a pair of birds.
The brother who experiences Christ as a bull lives Christ at every time, in everything, and with everyone. In his living of Christ, he first experiences Christ’s crucifixion; he experiences Christ’s being slaughtered on the cross. This is the real experience of Christ’s death, the real experience of being conformed to Christ’s death (Phil. 3:10). This brother experiences Christ’s death in his relationship to his parents, wife, and children. In his daily life there truly is the conformity to the death of Christ.
As this brother experiences Christ’s death in such a way, he will also experience Christ’s being stripped of His outward beauty. In the four Gospels we see that while our Lord was living on earth, He had the experience of being stripped of His outward beauty. This means that He was stripped of the outward expression of His human virtues, a matter that is closely related to His death. Therefore, as the brother experiences being conformed to Christ’s death, he spontaneously experiences Christ’s being stripped of His outward beauty. This experience is actually equal to being the object of an evil report (2 Cor. 6:8). The Lord Jesus had many evil reports spread about Him, and these evil reports stripped Him of the outward appearance of His human virtues.
Moreover, as the brother is conformed to the death of Christ, he will also be cut into pieces. This means that he will have the experiences of Christ’s being cut into pieces. Such an experience may be contrary to our expectations. We may think that the more we love the Lord and fear God, the more blessings we will have. Consider the situation with John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Lord Jesus. Instead of receiving blessings, John was imprisoned and beheaded. Consider further the situation with the Lord Jesus Himself. How much blessing did He receive? Was He not cut into pieces? The Gospels reveal that, as far as His humanity was concerned, the Lord Jesus was cut into pieces in every way. Not one aspect of His human life was left whole; on the contrary, every part of His human life was cut into pieces. Therefore, the Lord Jesus is the unique example of one who was cut into pieces in every way.
Being cut into pieces will also be the experience of those who follow the Lord Jesus today. This is why Paul says, “To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil. 3:10). Living a life of being conformed to the death of Christ requires the power of His resurrection, because as we experience being conformed to His death, we shall be cut into pieces. Our whole being and our entire life will be cut into pieces. The brother who experiences Christ as a bull experiences this cutting.
While the brother is living a life of being conformed to the death of Christ and of being cut into pieces, he will realize that he surely needs wisdom. A foolish person cannot live a life which is the experience of the life of Christ. Living such a life requires the highest wisdom. Human wisdom is not adequate; it does not avail. This kind of living requires the very wisdom with which Christ lived when He was on earth. The four Gospels reveal that the Lord Jesus is the wisest person who ever lived. Everything He did was right and was done at exactly the right time. He never spoke a wasted word, and He never did anything in a vain, unwise, or meaningless way. He was One who lived a life altogether in wisdom.
This wisdom is typified by the head of the bull used for the burnt offering. The brother whose living is an experience of Christ’s life will experience Christ’s head; that is, he will experience Christ’s wisdom. Under God’s sovereignty, this brother’s family, including his parents, wife, and children, may be difficult to deal with. Since he lives in such an environment, he realizes that he needs Christ’s wisdom. In his relationship with the members of his family, he spontaneously experiences the head, the wisdom, of Christ. The wisdom by which Christ lived in relation to His family thus becomes this brother’s experience in his daily life.
The brother who offers Christ as a bull will also experience the washing of the legs and the inward parts of the burnt offering. This means that the continual washing of the Holy Spirit as the water will keep him from defilement both outwardly and inwardly. As he is living a life of being conformed to the death of Christ, he will experience the Holy Spirit’s keeping, preserving, and protecting him from defilement. The washing of the Holy Spirit will keep him from defilement outwardly, and this washing will also annul the defiling factor of anything that may get into him from the outside.
When this brother comes to the church meeting to offer Christ, he will offer Christ not merely as the trespass offering but also as the burnt offering. As the brother presents his burnt offering, he will slaughter it, skin it, cut it into pieces, and wash its legs and its inwards. His slaughtering of the burnt offering will be a review of his experience of Christ’s death. His skinning of the offering and cutting it into pieces will be a demonstration, a display, of his experience in his own daily life of Christ’s sufferings. His washing of the offering will likewise be a review of his experience of the washing of the Holy Spirit outwardly and inwardly, that is, his experience of the washing that Christ experienced when He was on earth. Therefore, the way the brother presents the burnt offering will be a display of his experience; it will be a review of his daily experience. Without the daily experience there could not be such a review, for there would be nothing to display or demonstrate. Everything that this brother does in offering the burnt offering is a review, a display, and a demonstration of his daily experiences of Christ. However, he does not offer his experiences to God; he offers the Christ whom he has experienced.
Leviticus 1:4 says that the offering from the herd would be accepted for the offerer “to make propitiation for him.” Verse 5 goes on to say that after the offerer had slaughtered the offering, the priests were to “bring the blood and dash the blood all around on the altar which is at the entrance of the tent of meeting.” This sprinkling of the blood was for propitiation, which is needed by every offerer. Because we are still lacking in the sight of God, we all need propitiation. Hence, the first thing the burnt offering does for the offerer is to make propitiation for him so that God may be pleased and happy with the offerer.
A brother who offers Christ as a lamb or a goat is not as experienced as the brother who offers Christ as a bull, but his offering is still very good. His slaughtering of the offering indicates that he also has experienced Christ’s crucifixion. However, with his offering there is no skinning. Since skinning signifies stripping off the outward expression of the human virtues, the lack of the skinning of the offering indicates that this brother has not experienced Christ’s being stripped of His outward beauty, stripped of the outward expression of His human virtues. Regarding this matter, the brother does not have anything to review or to demonstrate when he offers his burnt offering. Nevertheless, this brother’s offering is cut into pieces, signifying that to some extent he has had the experience of being cut into pieces. Furthermore, he has had some experience of Christ’s head, of Christ’s wisdom. His offering of Christ, therefore, is a review, a display, and a demonstration of his daily experiences of Christ.
Let us now consider the situation with a brother whose offering of Christ as the burnt offering is typified by turtledoves or young pigeons. Such a brother may have been saved only recently. He is very zealous, and he comes to all the church meetings. However, in his daily life there is no appreciation of the fact that on his behalf Christ lived a life which was absolutely for God. Eventually he learns something of Christ as the One who lived such a life, and he begins to appreciate Christ in this respect. Since he now has some appreciation of Christ as the One who lived a life which was absolutely for God, he brings an offering to the meetings, but his offering is a pair of birds. The serving priests then wring off the head, remove the crop and the feathers, and tear the offering by its wings. This indicates that when this brother comes to offer Christ as his burnt offering, he has nothing to review or to demonstrate.
At the Lord’s table meeting, we rarely hear one pray in such a way as to offer Christ as the burnt offering with a rich review, display, and demonstration of his daily experiences of Christ. The reason for this shortage is that not many among us have a rich experience of Christ in His crucifixion, in His being stripped, and in His being cut into pieces. Since our experience of Christ is not adequate, we do not have much to review, display, and demonstrate. Rather, often much of the praise at the Lord’s table consists of the prayers of zealous young ones offering Christ as a pair of birds without any review of the slaughtering, skinning, and being cut into pieces.
Those who offer the burnt offering in the church meetings do not offer themselves or their experience. Paul, for example, offered neither himself nor his experiences of the burnt offering; he offered the Christ whom he had experienced. When we offer the burnt offering, we should not offer to God ourselves or our experiences. Instead, we should offer Christ to God as our burnt offering, yet this offering should not merely be Christ but should be the Christ whom we have experienced. We cannot offer to God for a burnt offering a Christ whom we have not experienced. On the one hand, we should not offer ourselves and our experiences; on the other hand, we should not merely offer Christ. We need to offer to God as a burnt offering the Christ whom we have experienced in our daily life.
We have pointed out that the slaughtering, the skinning, the cutting into pieces, and the washing all denote the offerer’s experience of what Christ suffered and passed through in His life on earth and in His death on the cross. When the offerer presents Christ as his burnt offering, he reviews his experience. What he reviews will match what he has experienced of Christ. He has experienced Christ to a certain degree, and his review will equal that degree. The review, however, is not itself the offering. Rather, the offerer’s review of his experience will determine the size of his offering, and it will also determine the way he offers it.
The offering of the burnt offering requires that a certain step be taken by each of two parties. The first step is taken by the offerer, and the second step is taken by the priest. The offerer always takes the first step to bring the offering to the tent of meeting and, in the case of the offerings from the herd and from the flock, to do what is required to prepare the offering to be offered. However, just as the offerer does not have the right to sprinkle the blood, so he does not have the right to actually offer the offering. This is the service of the offering priest, who places the offering on the fire to be burned.
Now that we have covered the crucial matter of the different ways of offering the burnt offering, we may proceed to consider some other aspects of the burnt offering.
The water (Lev. 1:9, 13) signifies the Spirit of life (John 7:38-39). While the Lord Jesus was living His human life on earth, this Spirit of life, the Holy Spirit, continually kept away from Him all defiling factors. This is the reason the Lord Jesus was never defiled or contaminated by anything He contacted. The Holy Spirit as the living water within Him kept Him clean.
According to Leviticus 1:9 and 13, the offerer was to wash the inwards and the legs of his offering with water. This certainly does not signify that Christ needs to be washed by those who offer Him as the burnt offering. The slaughtering of the offering by the offerer is a review of the offerer’s experience in his daily life of Christ’s crucifixion. The principle is the same with the washing of the burnt offering. The washing is a review of the offerer’s experience of Christ’s life, a life in which He was continually washed by the indwelling Holy Spirit from any contaminating factor. The Holy Spirit, here signified by the water, preserved Christ from being contaminated by outward matters He contacted while He was on earth. The offerer has experienced this in his daily life, and he therefore reviews and demonstrates this as he offers Christ as his burnt offering.
A number of verses in Leviticus 1 speak of the fire (vv. 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 17). The fire here signifies the holy God. This is proved by Hebrews 12:29, which says, “Our God is also a consuming fire.”
With the burnt offering the fire is the accepting fire for God’s satisfaction (vv. 9, 13, 17). The fire in Leviticus 1 may be considered God’s mouth with which He receives and accepts what we offer to Him.
With the sin offering the fire is the judging fire for man’s redemption. The burning of the sin offering is a sign of God’s judgment. This is mentioned in 4:12.
Apparently the burnt offering fire and the sin offering fire are two different fires. Actually there is just one fire with two different functions — the function of accepting and the function of judging.
According to 6:12 and 13, the burnt offering fire was never to go out. This is in contrast to the sin offering fire, which did not burn continually.
In Leviticus 1, verses 9, 13, 15, and 17 speak of the burning, that is, of the offering up of the burnt offering in smoke.
The burning of the burnt offering is as the burning of sweet incense (Exo. 30:7-8; Lev. 16:12-13). The Hebrew for “offer up in smoke,” a special term used for the burning on the altar of burnt offering, implies the matter of incense. Thus, the burning on the altar of burnt offering is as the burning of sweet incense. This burning produced a sweet savor ascending to God for His pleasure and satisfaction.
The burning of the burnt offering is different from the burning of the sin offering and the trespass offering (4:12).
Leviticus 6:9 says, “Command Aaron and his sons and say, This is the law of the burnt offering: the burnt offering itself shall be upon the hearth on the altar all night until the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning on it.” Here we see that the burning of the burnt offering was never to cease. To insure that this fire burned continually, the priests were required to keep adding wood to the fire.
The ashes are a sign of God’s acceptance of the burnt offering. For God to accept the burnt offering is for Him to turn it to ashes. Concerning this, Psalm 20:3 says, “Remember all thy offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifice.” The Hebrew word translated “accept” here actually means “turn to ashes.” When our offering has been turned to ashes, this is a strong sign that it has been accepted by God.
Ordinarily people do not regard ashes as something pleasant. However, to us who offer the burnt offering, ashes are indeed pleasant, even precious, because they are a sign which gives us the assurance that our burnt offering has been accepted by God.
The Hebrew word rendered “accept” can be translated not only as “turn to ashes” but also as “accept as fat,” “make fat,” and “be as fat.” For God to accept our burnt offering means not only that He turns it to ashes but also that He accepts it as fat, something that is sweet and pleasing to Him. In our eyes the offering has been turned to ashes, but in God’s eyes it is fat; it pleases and satisfies Him as fat.
For the burnt offering to be turned to ashes means that God is satisfied and that we therefore may be at peace. If we understand this, we shall realize that in our Christian life there should be a lot of ashes.
The ashes were not thrown away. Instead, they were put to the east side of the altar (1:16; 6:10), the place of the ashes. The east side is the side of the sunrise. Putting the ashes to the east side of the altar is actually an allusion to resurrection.
Leviticus 6:11, speaking of the priest says, “Then he shall take off his garments and put on other garments, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place.” Once again we see that the ashes were not thrown away. This indicates that we should treasure the result of our offering of the burnt offering to God. We should never throw it away.
The entire burnt offering was burned with the exception of the skin.
The skin of the burnt offering was kept as a portion to the offering priest. “The priest who offers any man’s burnt offering, that priest shall have for himself the hide of the burnt offering which he has offered” (7:8).
The skin of the burnt offering signifies Christ’s outward expression of beauty ascribed to the serving one. The more we offer Christ as a bull, the more will Christ’s outward expression of beauty be ours. Then we shall be clothed with the outward expression of Christ’s human virtues.
