The burnt offering
typifies Christ
not mainly in His redeeming man from sin
but in His living a life
that is perfect
and absolutely for God and for God’s satisfaction
and in His being the life
that enables God’s people
to have such a living :
The burnt offering
is God’s food
so that God may enjoy it
and so that it will satisfy Him
as “a satisfying fragrance to Jehovah”.
This offering
was to be offered daily,
in the morning and in the evening.
The ram of the burnt offering
signifies the strong Christ
as our burnt offering
for the assuming of our New Testament priesthood ;
this offering, the ram of consecration,
reminds us
that as serving ones
we must be absolute for God,
yet we are not;
thus, we need to take Christ daily
as our burnt offering
for our priestly service.
The laying on of hands
on the head of the burnt offering
signifies our identification, our union, with Christ;
by laying our hands on Christ as our offering,
we are joined to Him,
and He and we become one :
In such a union
all our weaknesses, defects, and faults
are taken on by Him,
and all His virtues
become ours;
this requires us
to exercise our spirit
through the proper prayer
so that we may be one with Him
in an experiential way.
When we lay our hands on Christ through prayer,
the life-giving Spirit,
who is the very Christ
on whom we lay our hands,
will immediately move and work within us
to live in us a life
that is a repetition of the life
that Christ lived on earth,
the life of the burnt offering.
We need to take Christ
as our burnt offering daily
so that we may experience Christ
in His experiences as the burnt offering,
not imitating Christ outwardly
but living Him in our daily life.
As we continually take Christ
as our burnt offering,
the more the outward expression of His beauty
is ascribed to us for His magnification,
and the more we enjoy Christ
as our enveloping power
to cover, protect, and preserve us.
The fire on the altar of burnt offering
should be kept burning continually;
“it must not go out” ;
day by day and on many occasions,
we need to offer ourselves in Christ to God
as a continual burnt offering
to be burned by Him
so that we may burn others.
This kind of consecration
is an “upper room” consecration, a consecration
in which we are “married to” and beside ourselves
with the heavenly vision of God’s eternal economy.
We need to be reduced to ashes
to become the New Jerusalem
for God’s expression.
The ashes of the burnt offering
signify Christ
reduced to nothing :
The Lord’s desire
is that all the believers in Christ
be reduced to ashes.
Since we are one with the Christ
who has been reduced to ashes,
we also are reduced to ashes,
that is, reduced to nothing, to zero.
The more we are identified with Christ in His death,
the more we will realize
that we have become a heap of ashes.
When we become ashes,
we are no longer a natural person;
instead, we are a person
who has been crucified, terminated, burned.
The ashes are a sign
of God’s acceptance of the burnt offering
as fat, something that is sweet and pleasing to Him.
Putting the ashes
on the east side of the altar, the side of the sunrise,
is an allusion to resurrection :
With Christ as the burnt offering,
the ashes are not the end
—they are the beginning.
The ashes
mean that Christ has been put to death,
but the east
signifies resurrection.
The more we are reduced to ashes in Christ,
the more we will be put to the east,
and on the east
we will have the assurance
that the sun will rise
and that we will experience
the sunrise of resurrection.
Eventually, the ashes will become
the New Jerusalem :
Christ’s death
brings us to an end,
reduces us to ashes,
and in resurrection
the ashes become precious materials
for God’s building.
When we are reduced to ashes,
we are brought into
the transformation of the Triune God
to become the precious materials
for the building of the New Jerusalem.
God desires
that all His people be Nazarites,
those who separate themselves unto God
to be absolutely, utterly, and ultimately for God,
that is, to be for nothing other than God
—loving God, seeking God, living God,
and being constituted with God
to bless others with God
for the expression of God :
According to typology,
among the human race
the unique Nazarite
is the Lord Jesus Christ;
a Nazarite is
a type of Christ
in His living absolutely for God
in His humanity.
The Nazarite’s separation
lasted for seven days,
signifying a full course,
even a lifetime.
Only the Nazarites
can bring back the Lord Jesus;
all those who are used by God
to turn the age
must be Nazarites
—voluntarily consecrated ones
who are sanctified
absolutely and ultimately to God.
All overcomers
live in the principle of the Nazarite
with a voluntary fourfold consecration to God :
A Nazarite must overcome
worldly enjoyment and pleasure,
signified by his abstaining from
wine and anything related to its source :
Worldly pleasure
leads to lustful intentions and lustful conduct;
we must abstain from the worldly wine
by enjoying Christ
as the new wine
to make us people
who cheer God and cheer man.
We need to maintain
our joy in the Lord day by day;
“I will go to the altar of God,
/ To God my exceeding joy” (Psa. 43:4).
A Nazarite must overcome rebellion,
signified by his not shaving his head;
not shaving the head
signifies not rejecting,
but being absolutely subject to,
the headship of the Lord:
A Nazarite is absolutely subject
to the headship of the Lord
as well as to all deputy authorities
appointed by God.
A Nazarite is a person
full of hair, full of submission;
with him
there is a submissive atmosphere and intention;
if you are such a person,
there will be a great blessing
for you and for your future.
“It is a blessing
to be under someone or some thing.
It is even a blessing
to be severely limited.
I thank the Lord
that from the day I came into the recovery,
the Lord put me
under someone, some thing, or some environment”
(Witness Lee, Life-study of Numbers, p. 70; cf. Eph. 4:1).
Samson was a Nazarite
from his mother’s womb
for the full course of his life,
and the source of Samson’s power
was his long hair;
from this
we see
that in submission
there is power.
A Nazarite must overcome death,
signified by his not being allowed to be defiled
by the death of the relative closest to him
or by the sudden death of one beside him :
Death is more defiling before God than sin;
different kinds of spiritual death
may spread among God’s people in the church life
—wild death (the carcasses of beasts),
mild death (the carcasses of cattle),
or subtle death (the carcasses of creeping things)
(Lev. 5:2; Rev. 3:4; Rom. 8:6).
We must be those
who are full of life,
which is “anti-death”;
this depends on
how much we exercise our spirit to pray,
not in a general way
but with a prayer
that fights against the enemy.
If we sense deadness in a meeting,
we need to pray very much
to counter that deadening situation:
“Lord, cover me with Your blood
against any deadening,
against any spiritual deadness.
Lord, cover this meeting
with Your prevailing blood.
Under this blood,
we participate in the divine life.”
The Nazarites
are numbered
for the formation of God’s army
and are very vigilant,
full of feeling
for the war against death;
because the germs of death
are even in the church life,
we need to pray daily, hourly,
fighting against death, the last enemy of God.
A Nazarite must overcome natural affection,
signified by his not making himself unclean
for his father, mother, brother, or sister
when they die :
The natural life
with its natural affection
is typified by honey
that ferments and brings in rottenness
(in the meal offering, honey is prohibited);
the problem between Paul and Barnabas
was caused by
the honey of the natural life.
God does not want us
to love with our natural love
but with Him
as our love.
Once our former separation
has been made void,
we must reseparate ourselves to God
by taking Christ
as the reality of all the offerings.
Our separation unto God
is for our being blessed by God
to bless others with God
in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity
for the carrying out of His eternal economy.
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Prophecy note, 28 September 2014
We need to be reduced to ashes
to become the New Jerusalem
for God’s expression.
The ashes of the burnt offering
signify Christ
reduced to nothing :
The Lord’s desire
is that all the believers in Christ
be reduced to ashes.
Since we are one with the Christ
who has been reduced to ashes,
we also are reduced to ashes,
that is, reduced to nothing, to zero.
When we become ashes,
we are no longer
a natural person;
instead, we are
a person
who has been crucified,
terminated,
burned.
The ashes
are a sign
of God’s acceptance
of the burnt offering
as fat,
something
that is sweet and pleasing to Him.
With Christ as the burnt offering,
the ashes
are not the end
—the ashes
are the beginning.
The ashes
mean that Christ
has been put to death,
but the east
signifies resurrection.
The more
we are reduced to ashes in Christ,
the more
we will be put to the east,
and on the east
we will have the assurance
that the sun will rise
and that we will experience
the sunrise of resurrection.
Christ’s death
brings us to an end,
reduces us to ashes,
and in resurrection
the ashes
become precious materials
for God’s building.
When we are reduced to ashes,
we are brought into
the transformation
of the Triune God
to become the precious materials
for the building
of the New Jerusalem.
Eventually,
the ashes
will become
the New Jerusalem.
Day 6
A Nazarite should not be defiled
by the death of
his blood relatives,
the relatives closest to him,
but should remain in his separation
to be holy to God.
This signifies
that we should not be defiled
from the deadness
that comes through natural affection
but should keep ourselves clean
in our sanctification.
A Nazarite
must remain fully sanctified,
separated to God from all things,
and should continually cleave to God.
A Nazarite had to abstain from earthly pleasure
and not be defiled by the deadness
that comes through natural affection.
Pleasure is a matter of enjoyment,
and natural affection is a matter of love.
We do not realize
how dirty and defiling death is.
We consider sin
to be very defiling,
yet God hates death
much more than sin.
Death is something hidden.
Often death is right beside us,
yet we have no
consciousness of it
or feeling concerning it
and become defiled by it.
We know
that we have been defiled by death
by having a sense, or feeling, of deadness.
Sin brings in condemnation,
which affects our conscience.
However, death
is not a matter of condemnation.
Rather, death is a matter
that deadens us
and makes us dead.
Often when you come to a meeting,
you receive a supply of life
and are enlivened.
Sometimes, however,
when you get home from a meeting,
you feel deadened,
but you do not know why.
If we are living in the Spirit in every way,
when we come to a meeting,
we may immediately have the sense
that deadness is there.
We may realize
not only that the meeting is low and slow
but that in the meeting
there is deadness hidden
beneath the surface.
At such a time
we need to pray very much
to counter that deadening situation:
“Lord, cover me with Your blood
against any deadening,
against any spiritual deadness.”
We must fight against deadness.
If death is present,
you should be the first to pray,
“Lord, cover this meeting with Your prevailing blood.
Under this blood
we participate in the divine life.”
Exercise your spirit strongly
against the deadness in the meeting.
Then as you sit in the meeting
you will be protected.
This is part of the spiritual warfare.
Hidden deadness
can cause the prayer meeting
to become dormant.
As Nazarites,
we must learn to avoid deadness.
We must be those
who are full of life,
which is “anti-death.”
This depends on
how much we exercise our spirit
to pray,
not in a general way
but with a prayer
that fights against the enemy.
As Nazarites we must abstain from earthly pleasure,
remain under the headship of the Lord,
and learn to fight against death.
Death is everywhere.
Society is filled with
the germs of death.
Because these germs are even in the church life,
we need to pray daily, hourly,
fighting against
death, the last enemy of God.
We should not think
that the Nazarites are not for fighting.
The Nazarites are numbered
for the formation of God’s army.
They are very vigilant,
full of feeling
for the war
against death.
In every church
there is
the need of the sense, the consciousness, of death
so that we may fight against it.
After the record of the Nazarite vow,
the Lord told Moses
to tell Aaron and his sons
—all the priests, who were so close to Him—
to bless His people
in the way of His Divine Trinity.
Without being triune,
God could not dispense Himself
into His chosen people
as their blessing.
The very blessing
is God Himself
dispensed into His chosen people.
Although God desires
to bless His chosen people in this way,
they need to come up to a standard
that matches His blessing.
The unique blessing in the whole universe
is God Himself.
Anything besides God
is vanity.
God Himself is our blessing,
and this blessing comes to us
through the dispensing of the Divine Being into us
in His Divine Trinity
—in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Day 5
In Numbers 6:3-4
a Nazarite had to abstain
from wine and anything related to its source.
This signifies
abstaining from the earthly enjoyment and pleasure.
We should be careful of anything earthly
that makes us happy.
Earthly pleasure
leads to lustful conduct
and to a lustful intention.
Earthly enjoyment and pleasure
would defile a Nazarite.
A Nazarite had to abstain
from vinegar made from wine,
from the juice of grapes,
and from grapes fresh or dried.
This signifies
abstaining from anything
that issues in earthly enjoyment or pleasure.
From this
we see
that the one who is absolute for God
is altogether separated from anything of earthly pleasures.
This shows
the absoluteness of the Nazarite.
In Numbers 6:5
not shaving the head
signifies not rejecting the headship of the Lord.
Spiritually speaking,
for us to shave our head
means that we cast off the Lord’s authority over us.
The Nazarite was to let his hair grow long (freely);
that is,
he was to remain in subjection to the Lord’s headship,
wherein is the power.
Today is a day of lawlessness.
If we were to do away with the police and close the courts,
society would be full of robbers and murderers.
We could not bear to live
in such an intolerable situation.
The fallen race
is a rebellious race.
The rebellious nature
is still within us.
Thus, it would be dangerous
to be in a situation
in which there is no deputy authority.
This was the reason
God established human government.
In the church life
we all have received God
and have been born of God.
We all have received the life of God.
In this sense
we all, including the apostle Paul, are equal.
John, in a general way, addressed all the saints
as “little children”.
Nevertheless, he respectively addressed
some as “young children,”
others as “young men,”
and still others as “fathers”.
To say that all the members
of a family of three generations
are the same
would make the family a mess.
In family life
we surely need to respect the differences
between the grandparents, the parents, and the children.
The principle is the same in the church life.
First Peter 5:5 says,
“Younger men,
be subject to elders.”
Although, in the spirit, the older ones
should also learn to obey the younger ones,
still the difference in age
remains.
It is a blessing
to be under someone or some thing.
It is even a blessing
to be severely limited.
I thank the Lord
that from the day
I came into the recovery,
the Lord put me
under someone, some thing, or some environment.
Today some are teaching
that it is not necessary
for believers to submit to a deputy authority,
that believers should not be under anyone.
This erroneous teaching
is very damaging.
Those who accept the teaching
that the believers should not submit to deputy authority
will be spoiled by this teaching.
A Nazarite is a person
full of hair, full of submission.
With him
there are
a submissive spirit, standing, atmosphere, and intention.
If you are such a person,
there will be a great blessing
for you and for your future.
Samson was a Nazarite
from his mother’s womb
for the full course of his life.
The source of Samson’s power
was his long hair.
When he was submissive to the Lord,
taking the Lord as his head,
he had power.
But when his head was shaved,
he lost his power.
From this
we see
that in submission
there is power.
Day 4
God desires
that all of His people
be Nazarites.
To be a Nazarite
is to be sanctified
absolutely and ultimately to God.
To be sanctified in this way
is to be for nothing other than God.
God wants His people
to be clean, righteous, and faithful.
God wants us
to love only Him,
to love Him with our heart,
with our mind, emotion, and will,
and with our physical strength.
He wants us
to have no one else
and nothing else
other than Him
as our first love and our unique love.
Even if we love Him in such a way,
we still may not be
absolutely and ultimately for Him.
We may use married life
as an illustration of loving the Lord
without being absolutely for Him.
God might have favored you
with a wife
who truly loves you.
However, although she loves you
and is altogether chaste toward you,
she may not be
utterly, absolutely, and ultimately for you.
Even the most loving wife
is still somewhat for herself
in certain things.
The matter of the Nazarite
is a test of our absoluteness.
If we would be a Nazarite,
we must be
absolutely, utterly, and ultimately for God.
According to typology,
among the human race
the unique Nazarite
is the Lord Jesus.
Hence, a Nazarite
is a type of Christ.
A Nazarite signifies the Lord Jesus
in His living for God
in His humanity.
Numbers 6:2
speaks of a man or a woman
making “a special vow,
the vow of a Nazarite,
to separate himself to Jehovah.”
At times
we might have made a vow to the Lord,
but it might not have been very strong or absolute,
and we might not have kept it.
Can you make a vow and be faithful to it
for your whole life?
There is a difference
between separation and sanctification.
Separation is on the negative side,
and sanctification is on the positive side.
On the negative side,
we separate ourselves from the worldly people.
On the positive side,
we sanctify ourselves;
that is, we give ourselves to God.
First we are separated,
and then we are sanctified.
Separating, sanctifying, oneself to God
should follow the dealing with all the defilements.
The priests,
who are such by birth,
are ordained by God
out of His initiation.
A priest must be a Nazarite,
a person absolutely for God.
This is according to God’s ordination.
One’s becoming a priest
is a matter of God’s initiation;
it does not depend on
what the person does
but on what God does
concerning him.
The Nazarite,
who becomes such by a vow,
is separated to God
by himself
out of his initiation.
This means
that a person is not a Nazarite by birth
but can make himself a Nazarite
by making a special vow.
Thus, the priests are ordained
by God
out of His initiation,
but the Nazarites become such
by a vow
out of their own initiation.
Today we are in the Lord’s recovery
out of God’s initiation
and also out of our initiation.
Both are needed.
The accomplishment of God’s purpose
requires man’s cooperation
to complement God’s ordination.
This is illustrated by the case of Samuel.
Samuel was a Nazarite
who complemented the deficient Eli,
a priest ordained by God.
In his old age
Eli had certain deficiencies.
However, Samuel,
out of his own initiation,
came in to fill up the gap
caused by Eli’s deficiencies
and thereby to complement
the deficient Eli.
In ancient times,
the Nazarite’s separation
lasted for seven days.
In the Bible
seven days
indicate a full course,
even a whole lifetime.
At the completion
of the Nazarite’s seven days of separation,
he was to be brought
to the entrance of the tent of meeting,
and he was to bring his offerings to God.
Each of these offerings
was a type of Christ.
The enjoyment of Christ
as these offerings
indicates the overcoming
of natural affection, earthly pleasure, rebellion, and death.
Day 3
The fire on the altar
should be kept burning continually.
The continual burning of the fire on the altar
first signifies that God as the holy fire in the universe
is ready to receive (burn)
what is offered to Him as food.
God’s receiving us
is His burning us.
When we are burned by God,
we should be happy
because this burning means
that God is receiving us.
To take the way of the Lord’s recovery
is not cheap.
This way is expensive;
it requires
a costly consecration.
To take this way
will be at the cost
of the religion of your fathers
and of your country,
at the cost
of your relationships with your neighbors
and of your relatives,
and at the cost
of your own life.
We are here
not for a movement
but for the Lord’s recovery.
The recovery can be realized, carried out,
only by the experience
of the consecration in the upper room.
This is not an ordinary consecration;
it is
a special consecration,
a specific consecration,
an extraordinary consecration.
This consecration
is a turning point.
What happened to those one hundred and twenty
who were in the upper room in Acts 1?
They all became a burnt offering.
They were burning,
and they burned others.
We also need to be burned,
and then we will burn others.
We must be here
for the Lord’s recovery,
which is the issue
of an upper-room consecration.
For God to accept the burnt offering
is for Him to turn it to ashes.
Concerning this,
Psalm 20:3 says,
“May He remember all your meal offerings
/ And accept your burnt offering.”
The Hebrew word translated “accept” here
actually means “turn to ashes.”
Ordinarily people
do not regard ashes
as something pleasant.
However, to us
who offer the burnt offering,
ashes are indeed pleasant, even precious,
because they are a sign
which gives us the assurance
that our burnt offering
has been accepted by God.
The Hebrew word rendered “accept”
can be translated
not only as “turn to ashes”
but also as “accept as fat,”
“make fat,”
and “be as fat.”
For God to accept our burnt offering
means not only that He turns it to ashes
but also that He accepts it as fat, something
that is sweet and pleasing to Him.
In our eyes
the offering has been turned to ashes,
but in God’s eyes
it is fat;
it pleases and satisfies Him
as fat.
The ashes were not thrown away.
Instead, they were put to
the east side of the altar, the place of the ashes.
The east side
is the side of the sunrise.
Putting the ashes to the east side of the altar
is actually an allusion to resurrection.
To become a full-timer
is to offer ourselves to God
as a burnt offering.
Concerning this,
there should be and must be
a result.
We should regard this result
and not despise it
or consider it insignificant.
The result of our being a burnt offering
will be something
that carries out God’s New Testament economy.
What we do as full-timers
must result in the building up of the Body of Christ,
which is a miniature of the coming New Jerusalem.
God has a high regard for these ashes.
Eventually these ashes
will become the New Jerusalem.
Ashes indicate the result of Christ’s death,
which brings us to an end,
that is, to ashes.
But Christ’s death
brings in resurrection.
In resurrection,
the ashes become precious materials
—gold, pearls, and precious stones—
for the building of the New Jerusalem.
All three precious materials
come from the transformation of the ashes.
When we are brought to ashes,
we are brought into
the transformation of the Triune God.
Day 2
Leviticus 1:4 says
that the offerer was not only to bring the offering
but also to lay his hand on the offering.
In the Scripture,
the laying on of hands
always signifies identification, union;
it does not signify substitution.
To lay our hand on the offering
means that we are one with the offering
and take the offering
as being one with us.
Hence, the laying on of hands
makes the two parties one.
By laying our hands on Christ as our burnt offering,
we are joined to Him.
We and He, He and we,
become one.
Such a union, such an identification,
indicates that all our weaknesses, defects,
shortcomings, and faults
become His
and that all His virtues
become ours.
This is not exchange
—it is union.
We may realize
that we are altogether unqualified and hopeless.
This is our actual situation.
But when we lay our hands on Christ,
our weak points
become His,
and His strong points, His virtues,
become ours.
Furthermore, spiritually speaking,
by such a union
He becomes one with us
and lives in us.
As He lives in us,
He will repeat in us the life
He lived on earth,
the life of the burnt offering.
In ourselves
we cannot live this kind of life,
but He can live it in us.
By laying our hands on Him
we make Him one with us,
and we make ourselves one with Him.
Then He will repeat His living in us.
This is to offer the burnt offering.
The skin of the burnt offering
is its outward expression of its beauty.
Hence, in Leviticus 1:6
to skin the offering
is to strip it of its outward expression.
This skinning of the burnt offering
signifies Christ’s being willing to let
the outward expression of His virtues
be stripped.
When Christ was crucified,
His clothing was removed.
This indicates
that He was “skinned.”
The cutting of the offering into pieces
signifies Christ’s being willing to let
His entire being
be broken without any reservation.
As our burnt offering,
Christ, with His entire life and history,
was cut into pieces.
If we did not have Christ as our burnt offering,
we would have to suffer
being slaughtered, skinned, and cut into pieces.
We need to realize this
whenever we offer Christ to God
as the burnt offering.
We also need to realize
that He was slaughtered,
stripped of His outward expression,
and cut into pieces.
All these sufferings
were for Christ to do God’s will.
Christ’s going to the cross
to be slaughtered, stripped, and cut into pieces
was His doing the will of God.
If we realize
that we need Christ as our burnt offering,
we then need to have a proper prayer.
Proper prayer
is simply to lay our hands on the Lord.
We should not pray,
“Lord, have mercy on me
and do something for me.”
This kind of prayer
is objective.
We need to lay our hands on the Lord
in order to have a subjective prayer.
In such a prayer
we may say,
“Lord, I lay my hands on You,
causing myself to be identified with You
and You to be identified with Me.”
When we lay our hands on Christ
through subjective prayer,
the life-giving Spirit,
who is the very Christ
on whom we lay our hands,
will immediately move and work within us
to live a life
that is qualified for the burnt offering.
Experiencing Christ in His experiences
is not a matter of imitating Christ outwardly
but is instead a matter of living Christ.
To experience Christ in His experiences
is not to take Him as a pattern outwardly
—it is to live Christ.
Regarding this,
Paul says,
“I am crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I who live,
but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).
Paul does not say,
“I take Christ as my pattern
and follow Him”;
he says,
“I am crucified with Christ”
and “Christ … lives in me.”
In Philippians 1:21
Paul goes on to say,
“To me,
to live is Christ.”
Paul did not merely take Christ as his pattern
and imitate Him outwardly.
Paul lived Christ.
Day 1
The burnt offering
typifies Christ
not mainly in His redeeming man from sin
but in His living a life
that is perfect
and absolutely for God and for God’s satisfaction
and in His being the life
that enables God’s people to have such a living.
It is God’s food
that God may enjoy it
and be satisfied.
This offering
was to be offered daily,
in the morning and in the evening.
The ram of the burnt offering
signifies the strong Christ
as our burnt offering
for the assuming of our New Testament priesthood.
This offering reminds us
that as serving ones
we must be absolute for God,
yet we are not.
Thus, we need to take Christ daily
as our burnt offering
for our priestly service.
The burnt offering
signifies Christ
not mainly for redeeming man’s sin
but for living
for God and for God’s satisfaction.
As the sin offering
Christ is for redeeming man’s sin,
but as the burnt offering
He is absolutely for living a life
which can satisfy God in full.
Throughout His life on earth,
the Lord Jesus
always lived a life
that satisfied God to the uttermost.
In the four Gospels
He is presented as the One
who is absolutely one with God.
His divine attributes
were expressed in His human virtues,
and sometimes
His human virtues
were expressed
in and with His divine attributes.
When He was confronted, examined, and questioned
by the evil, subtle opposers
—the scribes, the Pharisees,
the Sadducees, and the Herodians—
during His last days on earth,
at certain times
His human virtues
were expressed through His divine attributes,
and at other times
His divine attributes
were expressed in His human virtues.
In the life of the Lord Jesus
there was no blemish, defect, or imperfection.
He was perfect,
and He lived a life
which was perfect and absolutely for God.
He was fully qualified
to be the burnt offering.
Having, through His incarnation, a body
prepared for Him by God
to be the real burnt offering,
He did God’s will
and was obedient unto death.
On the cross,
He offered His body to God
once for all.
After the burnt offering was
slaughtered, skinned, cut into pieces, and washed,
it was burned on the altar.
“The priest shall cause
to rise in smoke the whole on the altar,
as a burnt offering,
an offering by fire,
a satisfying fragrance to Jehovah” (Lev. 1:9, lit.).
The Hebrew words translated “satisfying fragrance”
literally mean savor of rest or satisfaction,
that is, a savor
giving satisfaction to the Deity,
to whom it is offered,
and, therefore, received with favor by Him.
The phrase is a technical term
for the fragrant steam
arising from a burning sacrifice (S. R. Driver).
The word “smoke” in this verse
indicates that the offering
was not burned quickly but slowly.
As a result of this slow burning
there was a satisfying fragrance, a savor
that brought satisfaction, peace, and rest.
Such a satisfying fragrance
is an enjoyment to God.
When we offer a burnt offering in smoke to God,
a fragrance well-pleasing to God
will ascend to Him
for His satisfaction and rest.
Since God is satisfied,
He will render His sweet acceptance to us.
This is the significance
of the burnt offering.
The way to satisfy God
with sweetness, peace, and rest
is to live a life
that is absolutely for God.
Since we cannot live such a life,
we must take Christ
as our burnt offering.
We need to lay our hands on Him
to indicate that we desire
to be identified with Him, one with Him,
and to live the kind of life
He lived on earth.
Such a life
includes being slaughtered, skinned,
cut into pieces, and washed.
By passing through all these processes,
we shall have something
to offer to God
as our burnt offering
—the very Christ
whom we have experienced.