Message 8
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In the previous message we considered the different aspects of Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering to God. In this message and in the next, we shall consider our experiences of Christ in His experiences.
The burnt offering is not a light matter but a very weighty matter. The Hebrew word translated “burnt offering” literally means “that which goes up” and thus denotes something that ascends to God. What is there on this earth that can ascend to God? The only thing that can ascend to God from earth is the life lived by Christ, for He is the unique person to live a life absolutely for God.
In ourselves we cannot live a life that is absolutely for God. Recently, I have had the deep sensation that even our holiness and our confession of sins are not pure but are dirty. We human beings are nothing but dirt. Whatever comes out of our being is dirty, and anything we touch becomes dirty. For this reason, according to the typology in the Bible, even when we come to God to do the most holy thing we still need the sin offering and the trespass offering. Whenever I speak the holy word, I am deeply conscious of my need of the sin offering and the trespass offering, and I trust in the Lord’s washing and cleansing.
The burnt offering indicates a life absolutely for God. Such a life is absolutely out of a pure source, with no element of the fall, no defect, and no sin. This kind of life is pure and holy. In ourselves we cannot live this kind of life. We have fallen to such an extent that we have become the world, which is altogether dirty. Actually, the world is we ourselves, and we are the world. Every part of our substance, our essence, our fiber, our element, is dirty. We could never be a burnt offering to God. Therefore, we must take Christ as our burnt offering.
As far as our situation is concerned, the burnt offering is for propitiation (Lev. 1:4). We need propitiation through the blood of Christ as the burnt offering.
To take Christ as our sin offering and trespass offering, there is no need for us to experience what Christ experienced. However, to take Christ as our burnt offering, we need to experience what Christ experienced. Offering Christ as our burnt offering is not effective unless we have had some experience of His experience as the burnt offering. We can offer Christ as the burnt offering only to the extent to which we have experienced Him as this offering.
A person does not need any experience of Christ in order to offer Him to God as the sin offering and as the trespass offering. A sinner may hear the gospel, repent, and say, “O God, have mercy on me! I take the Lord Jesus as my Savior.” A sinner who prays like this will be forgiven immediately, for he is not required to experience Christ. The repentant sinner simply takes Christ as his sin offering and trespass offering. The situation is absolutely different with the burnt offering. We can take Christ as the burnt offering only to the extent to which we have experienced Him in His experience.
It took me many years to realize that our offering of Christ as the burnt offering cannot exceed our experience of Him as this offering. Concerning this matter, the book of Leviticus had not yet been opened to me, although it had been opened in the sense that I had learned the Brethren teachings about the offerings. Eventually I was enlightened to see that the chapters in Leviticus dealing with the offerings do not reveal to us what Christ is in totality as the burnt offering but instead reveal how to offer Christ as the burnt offering. Our offering of Him is according to our experience of Him. If we have not experienced anything of Christ in His experience as the burnt offering, we cannot offer Him to God as the burnt offering.
Christ’s being the burnt offering altogether refers to His being absolute toward God. In all His experiences as the burnt offering to God, Christ was a real man who was absolutely for God. This was the reason He could be the replacement of all the offerings. His being the burnt offering qualified Him to be the sin offering. If Christ had not been the burnt offering, He would not have had the qualification to be the sin offering.
As the burnt offering, Christ was slaughtered, stripped, and cut into pieces. Why was He willing to be slaughtered? Because He was absolute toward God. Why was He willing to be stripped and cut into pieces? Because He was absolute toward God. The reason we are not willing to be slaughtered, stripped, and cut into pieces is that we are not absolute toward God.
Why do Christians still have problems in their family life? Why are there problems among the brothers and sisters in the church and among the elders and the co-workers? Since we all have been saved and love the Lord Jesus, there should not be any problems. It is natural for there to be problems among the unsaved people in society, but why are there problems among the saints in the church? The reason we have problems in our married life and in the church life is that we are not absolutely for God.
Even in doing things for God, a married couple may argue and fight. A brother and his wife both love the Lord, but they may still quarrel, even about loving the Lord. They may also argue about offering money to God. One party may want to give an amount of money for a certain purpose, but the other party may want that money to be given for another purpose. Sometimes a brother and his wife may disagree over what hymn to use in praising the Lord in a home meeting. Because of this disagreement, the meeting is damaged. This quarreling is caused by the lack of being absolutely for God.
In Acts 15 we see that there was a problem between Barnabas and Paul (vv. 35-39). It was Barnabas who had brought Saul of Tarsus into the fellowship of the Body (Acts 9:26-28). It was also Barnabas who sought for Saul in Tarsus and brought him into the New Testament ministry (Acts 11:25-26). However, in Acts 15, after gaining the victory over the problem of circumcision, they separated from each other. We may give different reasons for this separation, but in the eyes of God the problem was due to one thing — not being absolute toward God.
Because Christ is altogether absolute for God and we are absolute for God only to a limited extent, we cannot experience Christ as our burnt offering to the uttermost. We may be absolute for God, but we are not utterly absolute for Him. Therefore, we can offer Christ to God as the burnt offering only in a limited way.
If we would offer Christ to God as the burnt offering, we need to experience Christ in His experiences, and then, according to our experiences of Christ, offer to God the Christ whom we have experienced. Suppose in our married life and in our church life we experience Christ in His being brought to the slaughter. If this is the situation, there will not be quarrels in our married life or problems in the church life. As long as we still quarrel with our spouse, we cannot offer Christ to God as the burnt offering in the church meetings because we have not experienced Christ in His experience of being slaughtered. If we do not experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering to God, all our talk about Christ as the burnt offering will be in vain. We will have no burnt offering to offer to God unless we experience Christ in His experience.
Let us now consider in detail our experience of Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering for God’s satisfaction.
If we experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering to God, we shall realize that we, like Christ, should be brought to the slaughter. We may apply this to the matter of married life. In a quarrel between husband and wife, if both, or even one of the two, would experience Christ in His experience of being brought to the slaughter, the quarrel would be swallowed up. The result will be the same concerning problems in the church if in the church life we experience Christ in His experience of being brought to the slaughter.
If we do not resist but allow others to bring us to the slaughter, we shall experience Christ in His death. In Philippians 3:10 Paul says, “To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” To be brought to the slaughter is to take a step to be conformed to Christ’s death. This is to have a life shaped in the pattern given to us by Christ when He did not resist but quietly went along as others brought Him to the slaughter. Christ was brought to the slaughter at Golgotha, but that was not the only time He was brought to the slaughter. Christ’s entire life, especially the years of His ministry, was a life of being brought to the slaughter.
The Christian life should be a life of the burnt offering. This burnt offering, of course, refers not to ourselves but to Christ. The Christian life, therefore, is actually a life of Christ as the burnt offering. Paul lived such a life. This is why he could say, “Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Paul lived a life that was a repetition of the life of the burnt offering which Christ lived when He was on earth. This is a matter of experiencing Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering.
In Acts 21 we see that Paul experienced Christ in His experience of being brought to the slaughter. Paul had gone to Jerusalem to visit the church there. He met with James and all the elders, relating to them the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. Then they said to Paul, “You observe, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews who have believed, and all are zealous for the law; and they have been instructed concerning you that you are teaching all the Jews throughout the nations apostasy from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children, nor to walk according to the customs” (vv. 20-21). The elders went on to propose that Paul go to the temple with four men who had made a vow, be purified with them, and pay their expenses so that all would know that Paul walked orderly, keeping the law (vv. 23-24). Paul took their word and went with the four men to the temple. However, the Lord would not tolerate the situation but, in His sovereignty, allowed a disturbance to take place which led to Paul’s being arrested by the Romans. The Jews from Asia saw Paul in the temple and “threw all the crowd into confusion; and they laid their hands on him” (v. 27). The whole city was stirred up, and the people laid hold of Paul and “dragged him outside the temple” (v. 30). Those who seized Paul in this way “were seeking to kill him” (v. 31). Eventually, the commander drew near and “laid hold of him and ordered him to be bound with two chains” (v. 33) and, because of the uproar, “ordered that he be brought into the barracks” (v. 34). A multitude of people followed and cried out, “Away with him!” (v. 36). Here we see that Paul surely had the experience of being brought to the slaughter; he experienced what the Lord Jesus experienced.
Perhaps you are wondering how you can experience being brought to the slaughter. If you are willing to live a burnt-offering life, you may sometimes experience being brought to the slaughter by the brothers in the church. Also, a brother may be brought to the slaughter by his wife, and a sister, by her husband. Such things often happen in the Christian life. If you have never been brought to the slaughter, then you are not an imitator of Christ. If you live the kind of life that Christ lived, you cannot avoid being brought to the slaughter. You will be brought to the slaughter again and again.
If you do not experience Christ’s experience of being brought to the slaughter, your burnt offering will only be two pigeons. However, the more you live Christ, the more you will live a life of being brought to the slaughter. Christ lived such a life, and now He lives in you to repeat His life. The repetition of His life in you becomes your experience of Christ in His experience.
Eventually, Christ was slaughtered; He was put to death. Today we may experience Christ in His experience of being slaughtered. Paul refers to this experience in 2 Corinthians 4:11, where he says, “We... are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake.” To be delivered unto death is to be slaughtered. If we experience Christ in His being slaughtered, we shall have something of Christ to offer to God as a burnt offering.
In Philippians 3:10 Paul speaks of being conformed to Christ’s death. Christ was crucified, and we today are being crucified. Our being crucified is a matter of being conformed, of conformity, to Christ’s death. Day by day we are being killed. Thus, in a sense, a Christian is not living but dying. I once read a book entitled Dying to Live. Every day we are dying to live; we are being put to death so that we may live.
We need to apply to our daily situations Christ’s experiences of being brought to the slaughter and of being slaughtered. If we receive mercy from God to experience Christ in His being brought to the slaughter and in His being slaughtered, we will not have problems in our family life or in our church life. The reason we still have problems with others is that we are not willing to experience Christ in His experiences.
We may also experience Christ in His being skinned, that is, in His being stripped of the outward appearance of His human virtues. To skin an offering is to take away its covering. In the spiritual interpretation of the type, being skinned equals being defamed.
Examples of this skinning, this defaming, are found in John 8:48 and Mark 3:22. In John 8:48 the Jews said of the Lord Jesus, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” According to Mark 3:22, the scribes said of Him, “He has Beelzebub, and by the ruler of the demons He casts out the demons.” On both occasions the Lord Jesus was defamed, stripped of the outward appearance of His human virtues.
A number of verses indicate that we may experience Christ in His being stripped. Acts 24:5 and 6 say, “We have found this man a pest and an agitator of insurrections...who also tried to profane the temple.” Here we see that Paul was accused of being a pest, of being full of contagious germs. In fact, Paul was a good man who would not harm anyone. Paul was also accused of being an agitator of insurrections, of causing divisions wherever he went. Furthermore, he was accused of trying to profane the temple. What defamation he experienced!
In 2 Corinthians Paul indicates that evil reports were spread about him. Evil reports are a matter of defaming, of stripping one of the outward expression of his virtues.
In 2 Corinthians 12, the Corinthians, Paul’s spiritual children begotten by him through the gospel, accused Paul of being crafty in money matters. They claimed that, with guile, he took advantage of them, using Titus as an agent to get money from them (vv. 16-18). Here we see that Paul was defamed even by his spiritual children.
“They reproach and persecute you, and say every evil thing against you, lying, for My sake” (Matt. 5:11). With these words the Lord Jesus predicted that His followers would be defamed and slandered and have lies told about them. This surely is a real skinning, a stripping away of our good reputation which causes us to be naked, to have nothing to cover us. If we live a burnt-offering life, we will not be able to avoid this. According to the New Testament, our destiny as followers of Christ is to suffer such a skinning, experiencing Christ in His being skinned.
Whenever others talk about you in a negative way, you are skinned. What will you say when you are skinned, when you are defamed? You should not say anything. If you say something on your own behalf, this is a sign that you are not willing to experience Christ in His experience of being skinned.
Today we may even experience Christ in His being cut into pieces. First Corinthians 4:13 reveals that Paul experienced this. “Being defamed…we have become as the offscouring of the world, as the scum of all things until now.” “Offscouring” and “scum” are synonyms. Offscouring denotes what is thrown away in cleansing; hence, refuse, filth. Scum denotes that which is wiped off; hence, rubbish, refuse. To become the offscouring of the world and the scum of all things is to be cut into pieces.
Do you think that the more you follow the Lord Jesus, the more you will be respected and highly regarded by others? In a sense you may be respected, but in another sense you will be treated as offscouring and scum. This was Christ’s experience. His disciples respected Him and held Him in high regard, but to the opposers, who cut Him into pieces, He was offscouring and scum. To experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering to God is to experience Him in His experience of being cut into pieces.
