CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
The meat-offering was of fine flour mingled with oil, anointed with oil, and frankincense thereon, to be brought to Aaron’s sons the priests, who had their portion of it. But the priest was to burn the memorial of it on the altar, to be an offering made by fire for a sweet savour unto the Lord. It is a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire (see verse 1-3). Here then is another offering made by fire. As in the burnt-offering, it stands the full proving of God, and all that comes out of it is a sweet savour unto Him. Now the fruits of righteousness are acceptable unto God, but we are not represented here; where we are spoken of, leaven was put in the offering. If we enter into judgment with God, no man living can stand. Our services are indeed accepted as the fruit of His Spirit in us through Christ.
[p. 222] We have in this, not an offering of the nature of Abel’s (not atonement, that is) but of Cain’s. Though surely very different in character from that, yet it is man in the life of nature offered to God, every natural faculty of man in Christ, and that fully tried by the fire of God. The church never could be thus offered as in itself a sweet savour, because in human nature it is not holy.
We shall see by-and-by that when the church is represented, leaven is commanded to be put into the offering. In this there is none; it is perfect human nature without sin, mingled with oil, that is, born in its origin of the Spirit. Oil was poured upon it; that is, Christ as man was anointed with the Holy Ghost and frankincense put thereon. The fragrance of grace ascends up to God. The remnant was for Aaron’s sons. First, Jesus, as a man, is offered to God in His perfectness, and then we feed upon Him. The fragrance of His perfectness ascends while we feed. But this is only for priests, the true saints of God.
The ostensible anointing of Jesus was when the Holy Ghost descended upon Him in the shape of a dove; but we find in the first ten verses of this chapter various other characteristics of the meat-offering to shew the complete perfectness of Christ. “Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon.” In Jesus every part of His walk and acts, however minute, was of the Holy Ghost, and in its power.
There was perfect human nature without sin, born of the Holy Ghost, and anointed with the Holy Ghost; and every detail of Christ’s path was in the power of the Spirit. It was offered to God; and as to all the frankincense, the sweet savour of grace in Christ, and all His motives were for God alone; but saints as priests feed on all He was. The sweet savour of the frankincense might be enjoyed by the priests, but it was offered to God.
The wafers and the cakes were to be unleavened. In this, as in the sheaf of first-fruits waved before Jehovah (Leviticus 23: 10, 11), we have the definite character of Christ without sin, for in the ears of corn there could be no leaven. But when the church is offered, leaven is to be used (Leviticus 23: 17). But the oblation of the first-fruits (see verse 12 of this chapter) burnt shewn the difference in character from the previous offerings, which were all burned, and were to have neither honey nor leaven in them.
[p. 223] No effect of the oil could counteract the leaven; it was commanded to be absolutely without leaven. No power of the Holy Ghost in us counteracts the presence of evil so as to set it aside and remove it, so as to make the subject fit to be an offering made by fire of a sweet savour. If there was leaven in its nature, it could not be an offering to Jehovah. Honey is also excluded from what is offered by fire to Jehovah. The feelings of nature may be sweet and rightly enjoyable, as honey on the top of Jonathan’s rod, but it cannot be offered in sacrifice to God.
There are many things sweet and pleasant in themselves that can never be presented to God as an offering in a world of sin. Nothing can be offered to Him that is the mere satisfaction of nature; simple natural affection, though right in itself (nay, it is a sin to be without it), is no offering to God. Our Lord’s love to His mother was perfect: we see this in His remembrance of her on the cross; but when first He begins, and all through His ministry, He says, “Woman, what have I to do with thee? “
In Leviticus 23: 17 we have that which was typical of the day of Pentecost, on which day the Holy Ghost formed the church. When Christ ascended and presented perfect righteousness to the Father, as man in heaven, then He by the Spirit could work to bring out the result in the church as the firstfruits. Accordingly we find in this chapter 23 that which, as constituted and consecrated by the Holy Ghost, could be offered to God, but not burnt, because the old nature is still there. In Jesus however there is nothing of this; and in the meat-offering, therefore, there is to be no leaven, but oil mingled with fine flour, and oil poured on it; as none also was in the sheaf waved before Jehovah. So it was that Jesus arose, and was waved before Jehovah; and then, fifty days afterwards, parallel with Pentecost, the two wave-loaves, baken with leaven, were brought as the first-fruits to God. Remark, that there is a burnt-offering and a meat-offering offered with the wave-sheaf, but no sin-offering; but in verse 19 you will find a sin-offering accompanying the wave-loaves to meet the leaven in them; for the sin-offering is that which countervails the evil of the church, or it could not be accepted.
We have thus most satisfactory evidence that Jesus was offered without spot to God; and the knowledge of the blessed truth, that there was the absolute absence of sin in Him, both in nature and practice. On this account alone He could be an offering made by fire. There could be no offering presented to God for a sweet savour in which the holiness of God, searching by fire, could discover, by any possibility, anything that was not positively good — it would have hindered its being such an offering to God, All the fulness of the Holy Ghost could not effect this, for we see this on the day of Pentecost there was the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, but nevertheless sin was there.
[p. 224] The Holy Ghost, to give us peace, must come with a message of peace, even that there has been that presented in the offering of Christ by which God’s grace can act towards us in righteousness. It is not that the act of Jesus turned God’s mind towards us, but by virtue of it God can act according to His own mind, righteously and consistently. If God had done an act of grace without the act of Jesus, it would have been grace without righteousness.
It is, then, first proved that there is no righteousness in man, who has both sinned, and broken the law, and rejected Jesus; but in presenting Jesus to God, in the world, the intrinsically righteous One, and fully tried and tested, and at the same time a sacrifice for man’s acceptance by the cross, we find Him through whom God can act in grace towards man. In Him we find the ground of our acceptance, and the sure foundation of God’s dealings with us. There is amazing blessing in looking at Jesus as the occasion of grace! The soul of the poor sinner can rest in the knowledge that grace reigns through righteousness; and I find myself a continual debtor to grace, because when I am daily offered to God, the value of the sin-offering is always available, without which I could not be presented; and God is thereby glorified and not man, inasmuch as it is only through Jesus that I approach.
In leaven we see the character of sin, not only in the act but in the abstract. It is well to distinguish between sins as the fruit of our evil nature, and sin. The Holy Ghost detects not only sins in the act, but sin in the nature. Thus we are led to the knowledge that we are all alike, all in one condition. The Holy Ghost lays bare that in nature which the law could only notice in its earliest actings. The moment I have a new nature, not only do I detect the acts of the old nature, but “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good doth not dwell but I have this comfort, that hating and judging the evil, I know that it is put away. Not that this should make us careless; no, our privilege is to judge it before it has brought forth the bitter fruits. Have you judged it thus in the nature? If it is there, it is condemned. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” As Jesus was presented in all circumstances like me, except sin, whatever I find in myself, not in Jesus, I know is this condemned thing, sin: but as Jesus was also a sacrifice for sin, it is condemned in grace to me, Jesus having suffered for it, though He had it not. If you cannot say you are without sin in your nature, living in all the spotlessness and purity of Jesus, you are in yourself lost; but recognizing Jesus as the offering for you (though in yourself a poor failing wretched creature), you can be presented to God even as He is, because you are presented in Him who has glorified God in this very place as made sin for us. But, beside this, as a living man on earth all was perfect, and all was tested by the fullest trial of God, passed through the fire, and all was a sweet savour.
[p. 225] If you have thus seen Jesus, if you have found Him such, feed upon Him as upon the one object on which your soul can rest as perfect, the pattern in which you can delight to all eternity. This is the way of learning, in a sinful world, what is perfect in God’s sight. Take Jesus, and as a thing most holy, offer it to God, delight in it. Study Jesus in the Gospels, in all that He was and did, as presented to us by the Spirit, and then you will learn to have your soul fashioned in its desires according to the riches of His unsearchable grace who offered Himself without spot to God, knowing also that you shall see Him and be made like Him, seeing Him as He is.
Remark carefully the character of Jesus’ perfection — no leaven, no honey, the salt of holy separation to God; all the frankincense going up to God. This is His practical example. The presence of the Holy Ghost as to origin and power is an additional element; in the new man, this has its part of truth in us.
The first-fruits were to be offered but not burnt, because leaven was in them; and they could not be in themselves a sweet savour: hence a sin-offering was offered with them (Leviticus 23: 17-19). They represent the church. being (as may be seen in Leviticus 23) the offering of the day of Pentecost; not the church in the unity of the body, but as formed among Jews on earth on that day. The first of the first-fruits, the corn out of full ears, is Christ risen, offered on the morrow of the sabbath after the Passover; it represents Christ Himself, and hence (Leviticus 23) there was no sin-offering. If we look at it in Leviticus 2 it is still Christ. Oil and frankincense are put on it. It is an offering made by fire without leaven. It is Christ looked at as man, tried by divine trial of judgment, but perfect to be offered to God. The expressions are somewhat remarkable — geresh carmel, “corn mature out of full ears”; it may be, produce of the fruitful field, the latter being the known sense of carmel; the meaning of geresh was certain. But the general meaning of the offering was pretty plain: Christ in His manhood, sinless and fully proved, presented to God with oil and frankincense of acceptable odour, the firstfruits — fruits of man to God.