The perfection of Christ as the Sin offering – fully meeting the sinner's need and entirely satisfying God's requirements – being laid hold of by the soul, room is made for faith to receive the thought of God's delight in the sacrifice of Jesus. As sinners, guilty and conscious of our guilt, we approach God in the efficacy of the blood of the cross, and our sins being taken away, and we being brought near to God by that blood, we learn that the offering of Jesus, which has entirely met our case, is the most precious act ever rendered to God. Looking at ourselves and our sins, we see Jesus being consumed without the Camp, and forever satisfying divine justice for us; looking to God we see His infinite delight in the voluntary sacrifice of His Son in being made sin for us, the “sweet savor unto the Lord.” Thus the sacrifice, which brings the sinner near to God, calls out the worship of the saint. Has our reader been by the cross of his Savior so delivered from fear of sin's punishment, and from expectation of finding good in himself, that he can occupy his heart with God's joy in the sacrifice of Jesus? When believers have not solid peace of conscience before God, it is that, instead of rejoicing in Christ, they are living as if they were not believers in all God's Word and in all Christ's work, but believers crediting only a small portion of what Christ has done for those who put their trust in Him. And sad it is, that so little leisure from self and its things, the world and its circumstances, is found amongst those who do truly and fully believe the work of Christ, wherein their hearts may be occupied with what Christ was to God.
We begin by learning how Jesus meets our need, but God begins the record of the sacrifices by placing the first Burnt offering, which expresses His delight in the sacrifice of His Son. In the Burnt offering the offerer came to God, because his heart delighted to render glory to God. This sacrifice was Jehovah's portion; the whole of it rose up from the altar within the holy enclosure to the heavens in a sweet savor unto Him. It was an expression of Christ's offering Himself in atonement, glorifying God in the place where sin was judged, and becoming a sweet savor, in which the worshipper is eternally accepted. The worshipper laid his hand upon the head of the sacrifice, and he became accepted according to the acceptability of the offering to God. The believer is not only forgiven by the blood of Christ, he is accepted in Christ. His sins are taken away, but he himself is received. Well it is for the heart to worship God, because the perfect sacrifice of Jesus has not only met our every need, but the whole measure of God's heart. And in Him we are accepted. God's joy in His Son is as great as His own heart, and the love of Christ in freely giving up Himself for sinners was an occasion for a new motive for the Father's pleasure in Him, as we read” Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again” (John 10:1717Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. (John 10:17)).
As the believer enters into God's thoughts about Christ, so does he magnify the Son, and so do the difficulties of his soul disappear, overwhelmed in the infinite pleasure of God in Christ. His heart made free from self, delights in God's delight in Christ. Henceforth his spirituality is not simply that of a sinner rejoicing in being saved, but that of a saved sinner, a saint, delivered from self and placed within the circle of God's joy in Jesus. Let us inquire, have we thus realized who the Christ of God is? Are we amongst these true worshippers? Do we indeed know the value of the Burnt offering, and God's great grace in accepting us in the Beloved One?
The second of the four orders of offerings – the Meat or Meal offering – expresses the perfection of Christ's humanity. The fine flour: the perfect evenness of Christ's life, a life which ever sought the Father's will and pleasure, and never had nor could have in it, one single particle of selfishness or self-pleasing. The frankincense the perpetual sweetness of that life to God, a sweetness so great that it called forth from opened heavens the approving words, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The oil: the Holy Spirit given without measure to Him. This most holy offering was burnt upon the same Altar as that whereon the Burnt offering was consumed.
In the whole life of Jesus upon earth there was naught save perfection; each act, word, and thought was pleasing to God. The believer established in Christ's work for him upon the cross, turns with ever fresh delight to the four gospels, to meditate on Christ's path upon earth. It is all frankincense! No honey of mere kindness, no leaven of malice. Love, not the amiability of human nature, so lauded by men, but divine love flowing out of a Man. A holiness which is absolute; ever according to God.
We are privileged to occupy our souls with Christ's ways, and to worship God as we meditate upon Him in His life below. And the better a believer is built up in what Christ is for the sinner as the Sin offering, and in what He is to God as the Burnt offering, the more capable will he be of rejoicing before God and worshipping the Father, for what Jesus was as a Man upon earth.
The third of the four classes of offerings is the Peace offering. It has this peculiar feature in it – the offerer ate his portion of the sacrifice; thus it expresses communion, as we read, “Behold Israel after the flesh, are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”
Our readers will have observed that the offerer did not partake of the Burnt offering. It was God's special sweet savor, and all was burnt. Neither did the offerer partake of the Sin offering; it was all required to make satisfaction for the sin he had committed; and it was burnt outside the camp. God has a joy in His Son's giving up of Himself as the Voluntary and Spotless Sacrifice, which is beyond all the joy of all the redeemed in the Redeemer, it is infinite – it is measureless. Our joy in Christ is finite, for we are finite. The believer also well knows that he cannot partake of the sufferings which Christ endured for him upon the cross – that the agonies of the cross are solitary – that none could bear what Jesus bore, none could effect what He effected by His blood! This we know, and in this we rejoice. The Sin offering was all for us.; the blood was shed, the debt was paid, the wrath was borne by Jesus alone, but for us, and by that sin-bearing we are brought into the blessings of the gospel.
The great work was effected between Him and God; and as sinners we rest (as said one in her dying hour) “upon the solitary dignity of the blood of Christ.”
But in the Peace offering the offerer did partake of the altar. A portion of the sacrifice was burnt before God, a portion eaten by the offerer. The saint and his God together have joy in Christ! And true it is, Christian reader, that God rejoices over your joy in Christ, small as your joy may be. True, also, that your heart feeds upon the Christ, in whom God's heart forever joys.
There are features in Christ's life and death wherein communion is held between God and His people, wherein the heart of God and the hearts of men rejoice together. There is praise to God rising up from the secret of the heart of His people, who feed in spirit upon Christ, and who have thoughts about Jesus, acceptable to Him.
In the days of the type some offerers had a larger offering to bring than others, and now the spiritual capacity of believers differs: though Christ is for all alike, yet some have vastly greater and nobler thoughts of Christ than others; though all are loved by God alike, yet some are far nearer to God's heart than others. Some, alas! have not yet learned Christ as their peace, but others have gone on to find in Him their only delight and satisfaction. He is the center of the circle of their thoughts – their very beings. These are the giants amongst the people of God, for what makes a believer great is having God's thoughts concerning His Son, and communion with God about Him. But while the measure of the apprehension of what Christ is may differ, it is the same Christ that each believer has for his own. And God in His grace comes down to the level of the feeblest soul who delights in His Son, and allows that soul communion with Him about Jesus. Whether it was the large bullock or the little lamb, whether a great or a small offering, yet it was the same Christ of which each spoke.
We have very briefly glanced at these sacred things. May the reader search the Word concerning them, and may it not be only the mental understanding of the Word of God which satisfies us, but may the eyes of our hearts behold Christ in it so vividly –
“ That with His beauty occupied
We elsewhere none may see.”
We append a few texts of Scripture from the New Testament as bearing upon the different aspects of the sacrifice of Christ foreshadowed in the four orders of offerings under the ritual of old.
THE BURNT OFFERING
“ Lo! I come to do Thy will, O God.” “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life.” “Christ, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God.”
THE MEAT OFFERING
“ This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.” “The Father hath not left Me alone, for I do always those things that please Him.”
THE PEACE OFFERING
“ We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.”
THE SIN OFFERING
“ He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” “His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.”