The flour or kindred offering accompanied the burnt-offering closely. They were of a common character in this that they were never offered to clear a soul from sin; yet the burnt-offering was to make atonement, which the flour-offering was not, but consequent on it. The burnt-offering therefore was of a living thing put to death; whereas the flour-offering was always of a vegetable nature and therefore there was no question of blood. There was equally the searching fire of divine judgment to bring out the odor of rest, no less than in the burnt-offering.
“And when any one [a soul] presents an oblation (or, gift) to Jehovah, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon. And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests; and he shall take there-out his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial thereof on the altar, a fire-offering of sweet odor to Jehovah. And the remainder of the oblation shall be Aaron's and his sons': [it is] most holy of Jehovah's fire-offerings” (Lev. 2:1-31And when any will offer a meat offering unto the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon: 2And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord: 3And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire. (Leviticus 2:1‑3)).
What could more distinctively and emphatically set forth the Lord, not in His sacrificial death, but in the entire devotedness of His life? The one was as pure and holy as the other. Indeed, while the ox or the sheep must be a male without blemish for the burnt-offering, the oblation is expressly “most holy” of the fire-offerings of Jehovah. And so we read of our Lord Jesus only that He was “the holy thing that should be born” (Luke 1:3535And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:35)). Of none others are, or could be, said such words, not even of John the Baptist, who was filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. In Jesus was no sin. Even in “taking part of the same” with the children (Heb. 2:1414Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; (Hebrews 2:14)), He was to be called Son of God, which He was in His own eternal title. Of Him only it could not be said without blasphemy, as of every other child of Adam, “I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.” He and He alone as born here below was absolutely untainted, the Holy One of God; and this He preserved in the power of the Holy Spirit all through and presented as an oblation to God.
Man's mind, we may be assured, would have put the Minchah or oblation before the Olah or burnt-offering, as the order of what we may call history would render natural. But scripture in an unlooked for way gives us divine wisdom, to which faith implicitly bows and thus appropriates the truth: we grow, as the apostle says in Colossians 1, by the true knowledge of God. It was when man was fallen that these figures of Christ and His work came in, and therefore the need of the burnt-offering in the first place when Jehovah was making known to His people the resources of His grace in Christ, as well as the primary truth of Himself glorified as to His nature to the uttermost. This given, the oblation beautifully follows. The Son of Man in Whom God was glorified by His death, glorified the Father on the earth and finished the work which He had given Him to do.
All was in the same perfection, His activities as a living man, and His suffering in self-surrender without limit, both in obedience unswerving. But, as we see in Leviticus 1, death was as essential and manifest in the burnt-offering, as here it is no less conspicuously absent. He was the obedient One, tried and proved every day, in the midst of the little passing circumstances of each moment, as well as in the great temptations of the wilderness. Jesus, and Jesus alone, was always “the same: yesterday, and to-day, and forever,” as it made no difference as to His personal glory, so none more as to His flawless obedience in every detail. Was there an approach to this in any saint that ever breathed? We need not speak of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, blessed men as they were. Take John and Peter and Paul, walking as none other ever did in the power of the Spirit. Yet the scriptures which make their holy and devoted service plain, do not hide from us the profitable lesson of their failure, and on critical occasions too. Christ never had a word or deed to recall, never even a look or feeling to judge. He could say to His enemies, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” without a reply, but not without the vilest of reproaches and vituperations. He walked without a waver in the Spirit, never on the ground of rights, but in obedience. His food was to do the will of Him that sent Him and to finish His work. And this He did perfectly, an offering to God for a sweet-smelling savor; and this in entire rejection by man, most of all by the ancient people—His own people.
This was what the oblation typified: the fine flour, oil poured on it, and frankincense added (v. 1). The fine flour was an apt symbol of His humanity sinless and in harmony with God. Oil is the known figure of the power of the Spirit, not His cleansing agency which man's impurity demands, but His energy in contrast with the willfulness of sinful and selfish man. And frankincense represents that fragrance which God the Father alone, and perfectly, appreciated in His Son a Man on earth, the object ineffable of His delight. The sweet odor might “fill the house”; but it was burnt to God as His. All the frankincense therefore went with the handful which the offering priest burnt on the altar to God (v. 2). The fire, which tried as nothing else can, only brought out of the fire-offering a savor of rest to Jehovah.
The remnant of the oblation was Aaron's and his sons' (v. 3). In this was marked difference from the burnt-offering. There as the rule all was consumed and went up to God acceptably and for the offeror’s acceptance. Here a handful only was burnt, but all the frankincense. The rest was for the great High Priest and the priestly family; the Christian body. For no truth in the N. T. is plainer than this. And is not Christ the food of all that are His? Does not John 6 prove this, and much more than this type imports? “Most holy” was it, but not therefore kept from but given to Christ and His own to enjoy. And so it is that those who have the entrance into the holies find in Christ Himself, and Christ here below as shown in the Gospels, their living priestly food. But it is in this as with other things that what all have in title, only those in fact enjoy who have faith in it and by the Spirit walk in that faith.