NUMBERS 28
The love of God has provided in Christ a wonderful inheritance for His people, but this chapter and the next unfold what is due to God from those who enjoy the inheritance. God gives richly to His people, but whatever He gives has in view His receiving from them what will delight His own heart. “My offering, my bread for my offerings by fire of sweet odour to me, shall ye [p. 334] take heed to present to me at their set time” (verse 2). Possession of the land results in God’s people having great ability to minister to Him, and they are under obligation to do so, for there are no voluntary offerings in this chapter and the next; they are all matters of obligation “at their set time”. The service of God is not to be thought of as a matter which can be taken up or left alone at our pleasure. His people who love Him gladly render the service in liberty, but it is, nevertheless, a matter of command which is not to be disregarded or disobeyed. God looks for His offering, His bread, to be presented to Him, in addition to any vows, or voluntary-offerings, or peace offerings which His people may bring (see chapter 29:39). It may be noted that there are no peace-offerings in these two chapters; so that their subject is not the communion or fellowship, of the saints, but what is due to God as His portion.
There is spiritual instruction in the fact that the offerings spoken of here are supplementary to what we have in Leviticus. Nearly all of them are additional to what was enjoined when the tabernacle service was inaugurated. God did not bring out at, the beginning all that was in His mind; something in regard to offerings remained to be unfolded in these chapters nearly Forty years afterwards, as the end of the wilderness drew near. This is in keeping with God’s later ways as we have been permitted to observe them. The whole truth was not brought out at Pentecost, nor was it all in the ministry of the twelve apostles. A great deal was added later in the ministry of Paul, and after Paul’s departure a wonderful ministry was given through John, which was intended to have a special place in the revival of things in the last days of the assembly period, and to reach down to our own time. So that additional light continued to be given through Paul [p. 335] and John for many years after the inauguration of the assembly period. The consideration of this should prepare us to expect that something similar would take place when God in His great mercy moved to revive the truth in the hearts of His saints. Everything did not come out at once, but it came out, by the Spirit, as there was divinely-given preparedness to receive it, and as the exercises of the time gave occasion to God to unfold more fully His great thoughts as to Christ and the assembly. Everything was set out as truth from God in the holy Scriptures, but nothing was at any time known in practical power beyond the measure in which the Spirit of God had made it good in the souls of His people. And this was a progressive process at the beginning, and it has been a progressive process as recovered in the last days, and it is a progressive process with each one of us individually. But whatever is added in this way is intended to give enlarged capability for offering to God. Those who have come in any measure into the gain of the great spiritual revival which has been going on for the last hundred years have been able to offer much more to God in the way of spiritual sacrifices than was possible before. The great enrichments of the last days are intended to yield very much that shall be “bread” for God.
The set feasts of Jehovah, as seen in Leviticus 23, are great spiritual landmarks, the import of which we have considered in their place. The instruction there lies mainly in the feasts themselves, and therefore the offerings connected with them are only specified in detail with reference to the sheaf of first-fruits and the feast of weeks, both of which refer in a special way to the present time. But the whole subject of Numbers 28, Numbers 29 is what ministers to God’s satisfaction. Every exercise that God puts us through, all that He presents to us in ministry, and all that He does with [p. 336] us in His educational and formative ways, has in view a result for Himself, that we may have greater apprehensions of Christ which we can bring to God for His pleasure. True spiritual progress is measured by the result which is secured for God in the offerings of His people.
The basis and starting-point of all these offerings is found in the “two yearling lambs” of the daily burnt-offering. The morning and evening lamb was to be “day by day, as a continual burnt-offering” (verse 3). God does not contemplate that His people will begin or end a single day of their lives without presenting His offering. He would preserve in our hearts a blessed sense that we are before Him as identified with the sweet odour of Christ. This was “ordained on Mount Sinai for a sweet odour, an offering by fire to Jehovah” (verse 6); it goes back to the beginning as an essential feature in God’s dispensation, and it is never to drop out. God’s perpetual thought is that His people are before Him in the perfect acceptability of Christ, and if that is appreciated in our hearts we shall delight to come to Him continually in the sense of it, to minister to His satisfaction. This is a service not to be omitted either individually or household-wise. It is a poor Christian household where there is nothing that answers to the morning and evening lamb. And the oblation and the drink-offering are always to accompany the burnt-offering. For how could we think of Christ as being, through death, the ground of our acceptance without thinking of the holy perfectness of His humanity, and of the completeness of His self-dedication for the glory of God. The drink-offering being poured out in the sanctuary (verse 7) shows that it represents what can only he estimated in a priestly way, outside the region of natural thoughts, in holy nearness to God. So that the morning and evening offerings are in no [p. 337] wise to be a formal matter, but are to be presented in a holy and priestly way for the satisfaction of God, who speaks of them as “My offering, my bread”.
Then on the sabbath day there were to be two additional lambs “besides the continual burnt-offering”. When God gives rest it is to yield additional “bread” for Him. The sabbath is a figure of God’s rest in the world to come, but as it is already secured in Christ believers have the privilege of entering into it in a spiritual way now (Hebrews 4:3), and as they do so there is enlargement in offering to God. Then the sabbath being a weekly “set time” reminds us that, though we do not keep the sabbath, we have a special day in our week which is to us hallowed as the Lord’s day. It is surely due to God that there should be more for Him on that day than on any other day of the week. Most of us in this country are freed providentially on the Lord’s day from much that has place in the ordinary round of our everyday life, and this is a very great mercy. As owning the Lord’s rights in connection with His day we should be concerned that offerings suitable to that day are presented “at their set time”. There is clearly something additional which can be taken up on the first day of the week, for the believers of old assembled on that day to break bread (Acts 20:7), and this would surely be a special occasion for offering. If believers do not assemble to break bread on the first day of the week they are neglecting one of God’s set times, and they do not take up their part in the peculiar wealth of offering which goes up to Him from His saints as together in assembly character. One cannot but believe that the daily offerings being presented would lead to an ever increasing sense of the importance of what is weekly as connected with the assembling of the saints. And on each such recurrent occasion additional yield for God would be forthcoming.
Then “the beginnings of your months” (verse 11) are evidently of special importance, for the offerings increase greatly. “Two young bullocks, and one ram, seven yearling lambs without blemish ... And a buck of the goats shall be offered, for a sin-offering to Jehovah, besides the continual burnt-offering, and its drink-offering” (verses 11,15). I think Scripture supposes that we have months in our spiritual history as well as days and weeks, and perhaps we need to be more exercised about this. The months stand in relation to the spiritual year, which represents the whole cycle of God’s ways with us while in time conditions. Scripture speaks of an “acceptable year of Jehovah” (Isaiah 51:2; Luke 4:19); giving the thought of a complete round of seasons; and when this is seen in its fully developed form in the heavenly city we have “the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, and in each month yielding its fruit” (Revelation 22:2). The spiritual year seems to thus bring out the whole round of what Christ is as the source of perennial satisfaction for His people in time conditions. But it is a year divided into months, for months stand in relation to the year in the same way as hours stand in relation to the day. The blessing of Joseph speaks Of “the precious things put forth by the months” (Deuteronomy 33:14). The preciousness of Christ is so vast and varied that no creature could apprehend it as a whole. What God intends that men should know and enjoy of Christ in time conditions has to be spread out over His acceptable year, so as to be known in part as each succeeding month brings it out. The moon is lighted up afresh by the light of the sun every month.
It was a wonderful “beginning of months” when Christ shone out before us as our Passover, bearing the judgment due to us, and becoming the food of our faith in that character. But that being “the beginning of months” intimates that other months will follow.
[p. 339] The Lord speaks of manifesting Himself to an obedient lover (John 14:21), and I have no doubt that a manifestation of Christ would introduce something like a new month in the history of the soul. Some of us have surely known seasons when a new shining of Christ came to us, and we got a taste of His fruit we had not known before! But I venture to say that none of us have had the experience yet of the whole spiritual year. There are still manifestations of Christ to be had, and fresh fruits of the Tree of life to be enjoyed. Let us not miss them by being unaffected as these precious realities are brought before us!
We see in the chapter before us that each new month is to be accompanied by greatly enlarged offerings for God. It will be observed that the monthly offerings are the same as for the feast of unleavened bread (verse 17), and for the day of the first-fruits (verse 26). These occasions are particularly typical of the present period for “the acceptable year of the Lord” is now running its course, its mighty cycle bringing into view the all-varied grace of God in Christ. The saints of the assembly are directly called upon to “celebrate the feast” of unleavened bread (1 Corinthians 5:7,8) by purging out old leaven so that the assembly may be a new lump as unleavened. And the feast of weeks sets forth what the assembly is as the present vessel of the Spirit on earth. One can understand that it is fitting that such great spiritual realities should result in there being a large portion for God. Indeed, the present time is peculiarly rich in the yield which accrues for God from those who are enjoying the inheritance.
The “two young bullocks” suggest a large and energetic apprehension of Christ as known by divine testimony in the greatness of His sacrificial capability, so that He is brought to God in a way that, corresponds with how God has made Him known. How delightful it [p. 340] is to God when worthy thoughts of His beloved Son are brought to Him in the full hearts of His people! The “one ram” indicates that the people of God are able to bring to Him as an offering some true apprehension of Christ in the maturity and vigour of His consecration to God, His full devotion having been made known in death. The “seven yearling lambs” show that the saints have appreciated Christ in His perfection as the meek and patient Sufferer, who allowed Himself to be led to the slaughter, who has uncomplainingly submitted to all that had to be undergone before the pleasure of Jehovah could prosper in His hand, so that they can offer Him to God in this character. And, finally, “a buck of the goats shall be offered for a sin-offering to Jehovah”, making manifest that all this comes to God from a people who cannot say that they have no sin, but who know Christ as the One who has fully glorified God about it, and who can bring Him to God in the sense that He is “bread” for God even in this character.