SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES
SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES
1 Peter 2: 1 - 5; Numbers 7:1-10; Numbers 7:89
I might remark that the passage in Numbers was suggested because it indicates the spiritual wealth that is necessarily behind the idea of offering to God, so that what we are able to offer depends upon what we have acquired. The word in Numbers is Corban — a gift offering, which would vary according to our acquired wealth. Of course, there is given wealth; indeed, what have we that we have not received? Here in Numbers 7 there was unity according to the twelve tribes in the offerings of the princes. But generally a man is accepted according to what he has. So that the more I have spiritually from God, the more I shall be able to give to God. In Numbers the offerings of the princes are of men of spiritual means typically. Those who officiate are priests, but the princely thought must be behind the priests if there is to be anything to offer. But however wealthy I may be, I have the sense in my soul that it is all God’s gift. It is not what I have earned. Spiritual diligence is necessary to make it my own. The more I make it my own, the more I shall have to give to God.
The first offerings of the princes had reference to certain classes of Levites. It is treated in 2 Corinthians, where it is stated that a man is accepted according to what he has. Then it goes on to say, “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift”. Nevertheless what one has is accredited to him as his. In Proverbs it says, “The destruction of the poor is their poverty”, and one sees it worked out again and again among God’s people, that many are destroyed spiritually because they have no resources. In the offerings of the princes we have what is wholly spiritual, but then we come down to the material side. The first offering has reference to [p. 467] what is material in providing for the Levites. Then they offered for the dedication of the altar, which I think is on a higher plane. It is to be observed that they offered alike, as we said. Twelve princes offered each like the others, and then the Holy Spirit goes on to show the aggregate of that offering; then God speaks. Moses goes in and God speaks to Moses, as if to indicate that He speaks in that connection. The Lord would speak to His people with regard to the provision that is necessary for the Levite’s service. These wagons are necessary for those who deal with the heavy things, that have to travel and carry the testimony; they require the wagons. If these are not supplied the service must be lacking.
Then there is a higher thing, that is, the dedication of the altar, and God speaks in that relation. I have thought that this verse in Numbers lies necessarily underneath all sacrifice and offering according to God. Peter’s point is to put us on spiritual lines in these things. His ministry is of great importance today, as it was when he wrote, as applicable to those who take the place of “the circumcision” — those who have a certain religious status and who carry on things in a literal or material way. They need to be led on to spiritual lines. So that Peter in his epistle touches on the things they had done in a literal and material way and showed their spiritual bearing. They were “begotten again to a living hope”. There had been sanctification and a hope in the old economy, but now it was sanctification of the Spirit and a living hope; an inheritance undefiled, unfading and salvation of souls, not merely outward deliverance. Then the people were born again “by the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever”. And so “living stones”, and “a spiritual house” and “spiritual sacrifices”. Thus I think Peter’s ministry has a peculiar force today, as meeting the state of the people of God who are allied with the religions [p. 468] accredited in this world. They need to be led on to spiritual lines.
Peter’s education, as presented in Matthew particularly, is a sort of type for all believers, as indicating how we are led from the natural into the spiritual. It is remarkable that he is taken out of his business. He was occupied in his temporal calling when the Lord took him up, and the Lord as having taken him up, enters into his house. He calls him out of his business, and then enters into his house and touches his mother-in-law and relieves her of the fever. The Lord sets forth in his house the power by which believers are delivered from natural feelings and excitement which always militate against what is spiritual. And then He appoints him as an apostle. He has the first place: “first, Peter”, Matthew 10: 2. Later the Lord compels the disciples to enter into the boat. Peter with the others had to learn what it is to be under divine compulsion. One is not to have his own way in anything. But the Lord walking on the water attracts Peter. And Peter walks on the water to the Lord. He says, “If it be thou, bid me come unto thee”. The Lord had become an object to his heart, but he was still a learner, so the Lord bids him come, and he went out on the water, and the winds and waves arose, and he began to sink. The Holy Spirit sets before us in all this a pupil learning. He is learning the power by which we rise above the opposition of the devil, and overcome it. He is learning it, but he has not learnt it. So he cried out, and the Lord takes him by the hand, and says, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” We learn by his failures which the Holy Spirit records for us.
Then the Lord questions him as to what he thought of Him. Peter is now prepared for what is spiritual and he says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. The Lord says, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed [p. 469] it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven”. No one can understand his epistles unless one understands that. He had come to what is intensely spiritual — not what any man said to him, not even what he saw in the Lord’s service, it was what the Father revealed to him. All the Lord’s dealings are to lead up to that point. This is particularly seen in Matthew; Peter is set up as a learner in the school of God. We learn from him positively and negatively. I believe that the school is the place to learn in; not only do we learn there from the teacher, but also from the excellencies and failures of our fellow-pupils. The revelation made to Peter and his confession of the truth of the Lord’s person shows what was of God in him. The next thing is that Peter would divert the Lord from the path of the will of God, involving His sufferings, saying, “This shall in no wise be unto thee”. There you see the work of the flesh in the same person. Thus you learn negatively from him. Though spiritual I may allow some personal consideration so as to nullify for the moment what is spiritual in me. What a solemn rebuke to him as the Lord said, “Get away behind me, Satan”!
Then the Lord after that says, “There are some standing here that shall not see death until they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom”, and Peter, James and John are taken up to the mountain. Is Peter equal to this new spiritual advantage? After all he has had, is he equal to it? He says to the Lord, “Let us make three tabernacles”. He was not equal to the position even after the wonderful teaching he had had, and so heaven rebukes him. The bright cloud overshadowed him and the voice out of the cloud which said, “This is my beloved Son: hear him”. There was to be only one tabernacle. Then Peter comes down from the mount, and someone says to him, “Does your Master pay tribute?” and he says, “Yes”. He has missed it again. He is not [p. 470] in the consciousness of the great things that have come to him — what he had seen and heard on the mount added to previous light that Jesus was the Son of God. The Lord knew what had occurred, and when Peter comes into the house He asks him, “Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute, of their own children or of strangers?” Peter knew that it was of strangers, and the Lord says, “Then are the sons free”. He is leading him up to the spiritual level of the assembly and the dignity that belongs to it, and so he says, “Go ... take up the fish that first cometh up ... thou shalt find a piece of money ... that take and give unto them for me and thee”. This involves our association with Christ in sonship, and is intended to qualify us for the assembly as seen in the next chapter in Matthew. In chapter 18 the question of forgiveness comes up and Peter misses it again by adding, “until seven times”. The Lord says in effect, I never set that limit: “I say not to thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven”. There are other lessons for Peter, as we see in later chapters of Matthew.
We see thus the man who was to be the first of the apostles. He is formally called the first in Matthew. The Lord would put forward His best. He had taken great pains with Peter, to make him equal to his position, and I think it is by understanding the extent of his education that we are able to understand his letters. His letters are the fruit of the education he had received. So that in the Acts he comes forward fully furnished. He stands forth a model for us, as he stands up among his brethren. He teaches you how to comport yourself when it is a question of “giving a word”, as we speak. He stands up among the brethren and cites the scriptures that govern the position and then he reverts back to the Lord’s ministry from His baptism by John until He was received up. The one to fill the place left by Judas must be “one who had companied with them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among them ... until the day he was taken up”. That is to say, he saw the need of the education that flows from that experience. So it is all the time. No part of the education should be wanting. You have the full course in all the time. Peter knows what to do in Acts. He stands up in the midst of the brethren first, and then with the eleven. And he spoke “as the oracles of God”.
So in this epistle we have, not passing material things, but things that abide: sanctification of the Spirit, a living hope, an inheritance undefiled reserved in heaven, and a birth that is from the word of God. We are dealing with things that abide. God prepared a vessel through whom He could bring out these things; Peter’s ministry was to deliver believers from the material and formal and bring them into what is spiritual and abiding. Peter was a man without any qualifications such as a natural religious man would expect. He is taken up a rough stone out of the quarry and turned into this wonderful vessel. No one need be discouraged as seeking to be fit for service if a rough man like Peter can be turned into such a wonderful vessel. The world’s estimate of him was that he was ignorant and unlearned, but he turned their terms upon them. It was they who were ignorant and unlearned. He speaks of putting “to silence the ignorance of senseless men”, 1 Peter 2: 15. He has left Judaism behind; he meets Paul in that he connects the house of God with the Jews of the dispersion.
The epistles to the Corinthians and the Ephesians teach us that believers are the temple of God and are the house of God. Peter reaches the same thought in his ministry among the circumcision, that they were living stones and were built up a spiritual house. They still had the Old Testament system, only in a spiritual way. Therefore Peter’s ministry is of great advantage today, because there are those who correspond with “the circumcision” and they have to be brought into what is spiritual. It is true that Peter only touches the elementary truth of the house of God, but he makes it a living thing. It is not simply composed of believers, it is living. The Old Testament writers were “searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify”, so that they are all linked up. The things of the Old Testament are linked up with what is given us now by the Spirit “sent from heaven”.
The offerings of the princes would be spiritual to God as those of Peter’s day, because it would be Christ that was in view. God would look at them in that way. The chargers were all full of fine flour and other things that speak of Christ. You have not only got the vessels, but they are full of what speaks of Christ. So if you draw near to God to offer, what is in the vessel? God wants full vessels. We are to offer up spiritual sacrifices. You cannot offer them up if you have not got them. A believer as a believer is precious to God, and Romans teaches that you present your body a living sacrifice, but there is to be more than that. The vessel is to be full. The vessel would speak of the work of God forming us as suitable to contain Christ, to be offered to God. There is the work of God forming the vessel, and also the filling of it by the Spirit. In chapter 2 the apostle exhorts the saints to lay aside certain things. The vessels have to be pure. Although born again by the word of God yet one might be entertaining the five vices spoken of: “malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings”. So these things have to be laid aside. Laying aside these things you make room for the pure mental milk of the word so that you become intelligent and able to take in the great things of God.
[p. 473] The vessels full of fine flour in Numbers 7, refer to what Christ was here. Then the vessels full of incense and then the animals for the offerings, denoting His sufferings. The aggregate of these offerings (Numbers 7: 84 - 88) show what wealth there was in the sanctuary at this time. The weight of the vessels was to be according to the shekel of the sanctuary. This would preclude any over-estimation. It is a question of God’s estimate of us. Everything in connection with God is correctly weighed and measured. There must be no over-estimation by us. Peter speaks of Silvanus as “A faithful brother, as I suppose”. God had a perfect estimate of Silvanus. These spiritual sacrifices are the expression of what the saints are, the measure in which we are formed according to Christ. It is a question of what one is in his day. “Each prince” offered “on his day”. There was no haste or confusion; each offered on his day; he had his opportunity. God will give each of us his day, and it is for us to show that we are subjects of the work of God. Paul said to Timothy, “Stir up the gift that is in thee”. The work of God in us tends to unity. If you take Peter and Paul as examples, it is remarkable how they compared with each other in their estimate of Christ. They met in perfect unity and harmony. “Our beloved brother Paul”, Peter says. You see the princely features coming out in those two men in the way in which they represented Christ.
The wagons convey a large thought; they refer to material support. I am inclined to think that the brethren are neglectful about them. On Monday or Tuesday evening we offer up our incense in our prayers for those working in the field, but what about the wagons? If I am praying for those brethren who are moving about, what about the material means which they need in order to go about? It is intensely practical. The princes’ first offering was of these large things. It says, “They brought their offering before Jehovah”. It was before Jehovah; they brought a wagon for two of the princes and an ox for each prince, etc. Moses was told to “Take it of them ... and give them unto the Levites ... according to his service”. The Levites were thus provided with what was needed according to their service. It is very fine to see the perfect unity in which these princes come forward and offer to God.
The sons of Kohath received no wagons. “They bore upon the shoulder”. It is a question of spiritual power: the same persons as need the wagons, only viewed in another way. What relates to the Person of Christ, the ark, and His things is not maintained by wagons, but by spiritual power in the persons who minister. David had to learn that the ark should not be carried on a cart. The altar here refers to Christ. It was anointed seven times in Leviticus 8, showing that it is Christ as bearing all the weight of judgment.
After the offerings have been made, then we have God speaking; Numbers 7: 89. If these conditions are current we shall have divine communications. There are several thoughts — first Moses intended to speak to God, then he heard the voice speaking to him from off the mercy seat. You have the mercy seat, and the ark, and the cherubim. Thus, I think, the speaking has reference to the Person of Christ, the work of Christ and the authority of God. The cherubim allude, I think, to divine authority, so that the speaking would carry these thoughts with it. The priestly side is not so much in evidence as the wealth of the princes and Moses — the Lord in His authority as Lord, Moses alone went in here. The mind of God is made known in this connection, in relation to the Lord and the wealth that there is in the house. We have the Mediator coming in to speak to God for us and then receiving the communications from God for us.