by
Andrew Jukes
MEAT or GRAIN OFFERING
THE LAW OF THE OFFERINGS
[iii.] The third ingredient of the Meat-offering is frankincense:
- "he shall put frankincense thereon;" (verse 1) in connexion
with which, and yet in contrast, it is commanded, - "ye shall
burn no honey unto the Lord." (verse 11). These emblems, like all
the others, are at once simple yet most significant. Frankincense
is the most precious of perfumes, of enduing and delightful
fragrance: fit emblem of the sweetness and fragrance of the
offering of our blessed Lord. Honey, on the other hand,
though sweet, is corruptible; soon fermented, and easily turned
sour. In frankincense the full fragrance is not brought out until
the perfume is submitted to the action of fire. In honey it is
just the reverse; the heat ferments and spoils it.
The bearing of this on the offering of Jesus is too obvious to
require comment. The fire of God's holiness tried Him, but all
was precious fragrance. The holiness of God only brought out
graces which would have escaped our notice had He never suffered.
Yea, much of the of His offering was the very result of His
trial. How different is it in believers! There is in many a
sweetness of nature, very sweet for a while it may seem to our
taste, - which yet will not stand the test of fire: the first
trial is enough to sour it. Who is there that has been cast
into sifting circumstances, where God's holiness and our ease or
interests have come into collision, without feeling how much
there is in us which could not be a sweet savour on the altar?
And have we never found, in setting even before saints some plain
but neglected command of our Master, that much of the sweetness
in them, which we have taken to be frankincense, has at once
shewn itself to be fermenting honey. It was not so with the
blessed Jesus: - "Anointed with the oil of gladness above His
fellows; all His garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia"
(Ps.14:7,8). "Because of the savour of His good ointments, His
name is like ointment poured forth" (Canticles i.3). Sweetness
there is in abundance, but the sweetness of frankincense, not
honey. Well might the bride exclaim, "My beloved is a bundle of
myrrh; my beloved is to me as clusters of camphire" (Canticles
1.13,14). And not to her alone: for her He has been a sweet
savour unto Jehovah.
[iv.] The fourth and last ingredient of the Meat-offering is
salt: - "Every oblation of the meat-offering shalt thou season
with salt" (verse 13). And to bring out the typical import more
clearly, another emblem by way of contrast is added: - "No
meat-offering shall be made with leaven" (verse 11), there must
be salt; there must be NO leaven.
The import of these emblems is obvious: the one positively, the
other negatively, bringing but one and the same thought before
us. "Salt," the well-known preservative against corruption, is
the emblem of perpetuity and incorruptness; while "leaven," on
the other hand, composed of sour and corrupting dough, is the as
well-known emblem of corruption. Thus, when the Apostle would sum
up in a word "the incorruptness, gravity, and sincerity,"
befitting a Christian, he says, "Let your speech be always with
grace, seasoned with salt" (Col.4:6). Thus again, when a covenant
is described as perpetual, it is spoken of as "a covenant of
salt" (Num.18:19; 2 Chron. 13:5).
The use of the word "leaven" is even more familiar. We read of
"the leaven of the Pharisees" (Luke 12:1), "the leaven of the
Sadducees" (Mat.16:6), and "the leaven of Herod" (Mark 8:15).
So, too, in the Epistles, we are enjoined to "purge out the old
leaven" (1 Cor.5:7). Here we have a key to these emblems. Jesus
in His blessed offering brought that with it which not only
secured its own incorruption, but which supplied a preservative
against corruption to whatever He might come in contact with.
(The parable of the leaven, Matt. xiii. 33, may perhaps be quoted
as giving to leaven another meaning. I am satisfied, however,
that there, as in every other place, leaven is the emblem of evil
and corruption. Of course, the great thought in the parable is
the spread of nominal Christianity, while it is left for
spiritual apprehension to discern whether what is actually spread
is good or evil. But the Church is so blind to her own state,
that she can neither see it as foretold in Scripture or exiting
in fact. As with the disciples at the sepulchre, a fact is before
us which but few have eyes or heart to apprehend)
IT might not always be sweet to man's taste, but it was the
seasoning of the offering to the Lord.
How different is it with the most devoted Christians! Leaven is
mixed with their choicest offerings. But our God has foreseen and
provided for it. Thus at the offering at Pentecost, and the
oblation with the Peace-offering, (appointed emblems of the
Church's offering.) leavened cakes were offered to the Lord, but
though accepted, they could not be burnt as a sweet savour. These
offerings I shall notice as I proceed; I do not therefore here
enter into them, further than to observe that no measure of oil,
that is, the Spirit, could counteract the effect of leaven. A
cake might be anointed again and again, but if there had been
leaven in its composition, it could not be put upon the altar.
What a lesson for those who are looking to the Spirit in them
rather than to Christ for them as the ground of acceptance! The
Spirit's operations in the greatest power will never alter or
destroy the old nature. As soon may we expect the nettle to yield
us olives as for sinful flesh to be ought but sinful. Salt water
cannot be washed sweet: you may pour oil on it, but they will not
mingle; "that which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is
born of the Spirit is Spirit" (John 3:6). The flesh is still in
Paul, after he has been caught up to Paradise; he therefore needs
the thorn in it to humble him. The power of the flesh in us may
be controlled, and its active energy restrained or weakened, but
the leaven is still within us, only waiting its opportunity to
rise.
"The root of bitterness" is there, though it may be out of sight
and kept from budding.
It was not so with the blessed Jesus. Even by natural birth He
was born of God. His nature, as well as His walk, was sinless;
for "He was conceived by the Holy Ghost." Thus, when, after a
trial of centuries, both Burnt-offering and Meat-offering had
failed in man's hand, Jesus in "the body prepared for Him" came
to do His Father's will. These offerings in type shew us how He
did it. And He was accepted for us.
(3.) But it is time that we pass on to consider the third
particular in which the Meat-offering stood in contrast to the
other offerings.
The Meat-offering was not wholly burnt (verses 2,3). In this it
differed from the Burnt-offering. Christ as performing man's duty
to God; - that is, the BURNT-offering, - was WHOLLY the food of
God, WHOLLY put upon His altar, WHOLLY CONSUMED by Him. But
Christ as performing His duty to man, - that is, the MEAT-
offering - is also man's meat, the food of the priests: - "The
remnant of the meat-offering shall be Aaron's and his sons, it is
a thing most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire."
Yet even here He satisfies God. "A handful, the memorial of the
offering," is put upon the altar, to teach us, that even in
fulfilling man's duty to his neighbour, Christ fulfilled it as
"an offering unto the Lord."
But though God had thus a portion in the Meat-offering, it is
nevertheless specially the food of man; primarily to be viewed as
offered for us to God, but also as given to us, as priests, to
feed on. For us, as Meat-offering, Jesus fulfilled what was due
to man. He did this as our representative, as the substitute of
those who trust Him: - in this aspect of the offering our souls
find peace; here is our acceptance: - but this, though securing
peace, is but a part of our blessed portion. If Jesus did all
this for us, will He not do it to us?
As righteous in Him, we still have wants, we need daily food and
anointing; and for these as much as for righteousness, we are
debtors to His abounding grace. We need Him, and we have Him as
our brother to fulfil His part of the law to us, "for He came not
to destroy, but to fulfil" (Mat.5:17). The law is, that the
priests should be fed of the altar; they may not work for their
bread as others. The faithful Israelite is the appointed channel
of their subsistence: on his faithfulness, under God, do they
depend for their food. Jesus, as the faithful Israelite, will not
fail the priests who wait at the altar. Let His priests ("ye are
a royal priesthood" - 1 Peter 2:9 ) be but found where they
should be, and His offering will be there to feed them. He will
abundantly bless the provision, He will satisfy His poor with
bread (Ps.132:15).
We do not sufficiently think of Jesus in this aspect, as
presenting Himself to God as man's meat. The Gospels, however,
are full of it: it shines out in every page. Jesus, with all His
devotedness to God, was still ever the devoted servant of all
around Him. Whoever drew upon His love or power, and went away
without being satisfied? He opened His hand wide unto His
brother, to the poor and the needy in the land. What sorrow was
there, what need, what trial, to which Jesus refused to minister?
How precious, then, is Jesus, viewed as Meat-offering!
We often want one to fulfil toward us those acts of love and
sympathy which our lonely hearts yearn after. Around us there is
a heartless world, or brethren, it may be, who can neither
sympathize with, nor help us. We think, perhaps, if Jesus were
here on earth, we would go to Him and tell Him our sorrows. We
are sure, if He were still "the man of sorrows," that we should
have a claim on His loving heart. But is He not the same now as
in His humiliation, "the same yesterday, today, and for ever?"
(Heb.13:8).
Surely He is the same to those who come to Him. Oh, may we learn
thus to use Him, that He may satisfy us in every difficulty; when
poor to give us bread, when mourning to dry our tears! Weary
pilgrim, Jesus is the Meat-offering, to meet your claim as well
as God's. You have a claim on Him; it is your necessity. He must,
as a brother, answer it. Come to Him, then, as the One to feed
you: it is more blessed for Him to give than for you to receive.
Know Him as the One who, when all else fail, has a Meat-offering
already provided to satisfy you.
I said that the Meat-offering was not all burnt; but though not
all burnt, all was consumed. In this offering the offerer had
nothing for himself. God and His priests had the whole between
them. How simple, how instructive the lesson! If we could fulfil
every duty to God and man according to the standard God has
given, - if our bodies were really a living sacrifice, - if we
were offered on the sacrifice and service of faith, as Jesus set
us an example, what should we have left for self? Just what was
left of the Burnt and Meat-offering; - nothing. Between God and
man all would be consumed. A holy God and a needy world would
require everything.
I would that they, who think to earn heaven by their fulfilment
of the law, might learn here what fulfilling the law comes to,
and how far it is above and beyond them! The Burnt-offering and
the Meat-offering together are God's standard of full obedience
and what a picture do they give us! The first, the Burnt-
offering, requiring perfectness in every member, and then the
entire surrender of every member; the head, the inwards, the
legs, all yielded up upon the altar. The next, the Meat-offering.
though giving another aspect of devotedness, not a whit behind
the Burnt-offering in entire self-surrender; witness the bruised
corn, the oil, the frankincense, and the salt to savour it all.
This is God's measure of devotedness; that is what satisfies Him.
One, and but one, has thus satisfied Him; and in Him, and in Him
alone, we may rejoice.
(4.) The fourth point I notice in the Meat-offering is, that,
though intended for, and for the most part consumed by, man, it
was, nevertheless, "offered unto the Lord" ((verse 1). In this
particular, as in every other, the Meat-offering has something
well worth our notice. In the Meat-offering the offerer gives
himself as man's meat; yet this is yielded as "an offering unto
Jehovah." The offering indeed fed the priests; but it was
offered, not to them, but to the Lord. The first Adam took for
man not only what was given him, but what God had reserved for
Himself. The second Adam gave to God not only God's portion, but
even of man's part God had the first memorial. Jesus as man, in
satisfying man's claim on Him, did it as "an offering unto the
Lord."
With us how much even of our graces is offered to man rather than
to God. Even in our most devoted service, what a seeking there
is, perhaps unconsciously, to be something in the estimation of
others: some secret desire, some undetected wish, even by our
very service to be greater here. The very gifts of God and the
power of His Spirit are sought the better to give us a place in
this world. Thus are our very graces used to obtain for us glory,
not of God, but of those around us. Surely this is one of the
reasons why God can trust us with so little, for with His gifts
we build up our own name, instead of His name. But how unlike all
this to our Master; yea, how unlike even to His apostles!
"Neither of men," says Paul, "sought we glory, neither of you,
nor yet of others" (1 Thes.2:16). This is our calling, not only
to be nothing in the world, but to be willing to be nothing even
among our brethren; to take the nearest place to Him who has
indeed taken the lowest.
And in these last days, when through abounding iniquity the love
of many is waxing cold, - when the service which the time demands
is the only service the Church will not accept, - Christ's
example, as here seen in the Meat-offering, is one most precious
to us. His service to His neighbour was always "an offering unto
the Lord." Thus He gladly was spent for others, though the more
He loved them, the less He was loved. May we be thus like Him,
that so through grace we may be steadfast.
If, on the other band, our labour of love is offered for man's
acceptance, when man rejects us our labour will cease. And surely
this is the secret of much of our half-hearted service. But let
us when ministering to others, offer ourselves, like Jesus, "unto
the Lord," and not unto man; then, though our love is here
slighted, it will be accepted by Him to whom we offer it.
We have thus marked FOUR particulars in which the Meat-offering
DIFFERED from the OTHER offerings.
FIRST, it was of a sweet savour; here it differed from the Sin
and Trespass-offerings. Next it was fed upon by the priests;
here, as well as in its materials, it differed from the
Burnt-offering. Then again it left nothing for the offerer; here
it differed from the Peace-offering. It now remains for me to
point out:
(5.) In the last place, the contrast between the Meat-offering
and the offering of first fruits at Pentecost.
The distinction is stated in the twelfth verse: - "As for the
oblation of the first-fruits, ye shall offer them unto the Lord,
but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour."
The contrast is this: - the Meat-offering was a sweet savour: the
oblation of first-fruits, though very like the Meat-offering, was
NOT so. For the key to this we must turn to Leviticus 23, where
the law respecting "the oblation of first-fruits" is given to us.
In that chapter we have a list of the Feasts. First in order
comes the Passover, on the fourteenth day at even: (chap.23:5),
then the wave-sheaf of first-fruits, on the morrow after the
sabbath: (chap.23:11) and then, fifty days after; the oblation of
the first-fruits on the day of Pentecost (chap.23:15-17). The
"sheaf of first-fruits," on the morrow after the sabbath, might
be burnt to the Lord as a sweet savour; (chap.2:14-16) but "the
oblation of the firstfruits" at Pentecost might not be burnt on
the altar (chap.2:12). The reason for this distinction is found
in the fact, that "the sheaf of first-fruits" was unleavened,
while "the oblation of first-fruits" at Pentecost was mixed and
made with leaven (chap.23:17).
The typical application of all this is too obvious to need any
comment. Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us, and
sacrificed on the predetermined day (John 18:28; 1 Cor.5:7). Then
"on the morrow after the sabbath," the next ensuing sabbath, that
is, on the appointed "first day of the week" (Mark 16:1,2);
Christ "rose from the dead, and became the first fruits of them
that slept" (1 Cor.15:20).
(What most 7th day Sabbath observers do not understand correctly
is, Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, NOT at the end of the
weekly Sabbath, BUT within the first hours of the first day of
the week, or what we call Saturday evening, AFTER the Sabbath had
ended. This was the time when the Sadducees taught that the "wave
sheaf" was to be cut, the first fruits of the Spring harvest, and
then presented to God the next morning, being Sunday morning, or
the first day of the week, in the Temple, as the first-fruits of
the first harvest, offering to God. Jesus was the FIRST of the
first-fruits to God, the first to rise from death to immortal
life, hence typologically fitting that he should rise from the
dead on the first day of the week. Typologically fitting also is
that the Feast of Pentecost, the first harvest, of barley and
wheat, now gathered in, should be on the first day of the week,
for that feast represents the first harvest of God's elect and
called and chosen sons and daughters to inherit His Kingdom, at
the return of Jesus - 1 Cor.15 with 1 Thes.4:13-18. All of this I
fully expound in various studies on this Website - Keith Hunt).
In Him there was no sin, no leaven; He was in Himself a sweet
savour to Jehovah. With this offering, therefore, no Sin-offering
was coupled; it was offered only with a Burnt-offering and
Meat-offering (chap.23:12,13). But fifty days after this, "when
the day of Pentecost was fully come," the Church, typified by the
leavened oblation of first-fruits, is offered unto the Lord: for
we, as well as Jesus, are first-fruits; "we are," says James, "a
kind of first-fruits of His creatures" (James 1:18). But this
offering, having sin in it, being "mixed with leaven," could
neither stand the test of the fire of the altar, nor be an
offering made by fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord. Yet it was
to be both offered and accepted: - "Ye shall offer it, but it
shall not be burnt" (chap.2:12). And why, and how, was this
leavened cake accepted? Something was offered "with it," for the
sake of which the leavened first-fruits were accepted. They
offered with the leavened bread a Burnt-offering, a Meat-
offering, a Peace-offering, and a Sin-offering; (chap.23:18,19)
for leaven being found in the oblation of first-fruits, a
Sin-offering was needed with it. And the priest waved all
together "the priest shall wave them with the bread of the
firstfruits for a wave-offering before the Lord."
The Church comes with Christ before God; it is offered with all
the value of His work attached to it. In itself it cannot stand
the trial of God's holiness, for no measure of oil can naturalise
the leaven; but in Christ, and with Christ, and for Christ, it is
accepted even as He is. Thus when the Church is presented to God,
it comes not alone into His presence, but with the sweet savour
of all that Christ has been for it, and with the witness that He
has met its sin.
It may be asked, perhaps, why the offering of the Church is
represented by a Meat-offering, seeing this Offering has such
special reference to the second table of the Decalogue? I answer,
the Church is not always seen as a Meat-offering. It is on
Pentecost that it appears in this aspect. There are in the law
many types of the Church. She is seen as daughter in the father's
house, as wife in the husband's; (Num.30) and further, she shares
with Christ in many of His relations, as offering, as priest, as
prophet, or as candlestick. But on Pentecost she is specially
seen as a Meat-offering, that is, as man's portion, in active
service towards a lost and needy world; because on that day she
first stood forth in such service toward man, as taking her part
with Christ in loving service to the sons of Adam. Then,
"Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, strangers from Rome, Jews,
Proselytes, Cretes, and Arabians," were fed by the service of
those, who, though leavened, were yet an appointed and accepted
Meat-offering.
Such is the general character of the Meat-offering, as collected
from the points in which it differs from the other offerings. I
proceed now very briefly to examine it:
II. IN ITS DIFFERENT GRADES OR VARIETIES. These are THREE in
number...
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TO BE CONTINUED
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