Are you rejoicing in Christ as the Burnt Offering? Do you view with wonder, love and praise, the work of Christ as the delight of the heart of God? The Lord Jesus Christ was at the cross in perfect love and obedience to His Father for the vindication of God’s glory in every respect. O! what delight God has found in having His glory sustained and established in imperishable splendor, in connection with the very thing – sin that, so to speak, threatened to overturn it! The first man was disobedient unto death; here was one who was obedient unto death; whose very death was a motive to call forth His Father’s love; who could say: “Therefore doth My Father love Me because I lay down My life.” God never was, and never will be so glorified as He was at the cross. Christ has given Himself for you an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. He has delighted the heart of God in an infinite way. God has accepted Him and His work for us, and you are now “accepted in the Beloved.” In the Sin Offering God’s claims are satisfied; in the Burnt Offering His heart is gratified. What is the result? Why, there is not a splendor in glory, or a blessing in grace that is not free to flow out now from His gratified heart upon you as His beloved child. Are you enjoying this favor?
Are you rejoicing in the personal perfections of Christ.? Think of that precious incense (Ex. 30:34), of unlimited quantity, but in which every fragrant spice was of “like weight. Those precious spices blended together in equal proportions represented the manifold perfections of Christ all equally balanced. The best saints have been unequal: perhaps full of love and lacking in righteousness; advanced in truth and lacking in grace; great energy and little spiritual discernment; or much intelligence and very little zeal. There was no inequality like that in Christ. All those graces and perfections were found in Him in unmeasured fullness, and each of them was perfectly balanced with all the others. So that as it has been beautifully said, the Lord Jesus had no character. Character is some particular thing in a man which is more prominent in him than anything else. In the Lord Jesus Christ everything was evenly balanced; no one grace shone out more than another. He was infinitely and divinely perfect.
How precious to know that God’s thoughts of us are not according to our poor thoughts of Christ, but according to His own appreciation of that peerless person and His infinite work; and the knowledge of this in the power of the Holy Spirit sets our hearts aglow with desire to know Him better, and to enjoy Him more fully. And as He becomes precious to us, as thoughts of Himself yield “unchanging, fresh delight” to our hearts, we shall find increasing joy in the presentation of Him to the Father’s heart in true spiritual worship.
If the question is asked, “How can we grow in the knowledge and appreciation of Christ?” answer, The Comforter has come to testify of Him, to glorify Him, and to receive of His and show it unto us. We have the full revelation of Christ in the Word, and the Holy Spirit is the power by which we enjoy Him. “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,” lest you hinder Him in His precious ministry of Christ, but rather “be filled with the Spirit.” The proof of a man being filled with the Spirit is that he is taken up with Christ.
Christ Himself occupies his heart, and Christ’s interests on earth are what he lives for. Conscious of weakness, and humble through knowledge of self, he can yet say, “To me to live is Christ.”
You may think that all this is more about communion than worship; but communion is the very basis of worship, for we can only really bring Christ to God in the measure of our own enjoyment of Him. Thank God, however small our appreciation of Christ may be, He is acceptable to God. If you have a turtle dove or pigeon (Lev. 1:14), do not hold back because it is not a sheep or a bullock; bring it; it is a “sweet savor unto the Lord.” But, dear brother, may we go on to have enlarged thoughts of Christ, and increasingly to “rejoice in Him.” I am sure that if we are individually in this state, the tone of worship in our assemblies will be raised exceedingly, and we shall not have to mourn over “flat” meeting conclusion, remember and meditate upon “the special interest of the Father in this hour.” “The hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.”
(Continued from page 305).