01.7. Summary of the Offerings
Summary of the Offerings
What then is our portion? Here it is summed up in Lev 7:37, "This is the law of the burnt offering, of the meal offering, of the sin offering, and of the trespass offering, and of the consecrations, and of the sacrifice of the peace offerings". This is why God invites us into the spiritual enjoyment, into every feature that has delighted His heart in His well beloved Son, which we can only enjoy because we are anointed by the Holy Spirit. Can we reach out in our affections to observe what Christ is for the delight of God’s heart, not only what He has done for us, but can I reach up to the thought of what He has done for God? (this is the burnt offering); and can we learn with deep appreciation, the perfection of that pathway along which He moved, where every step ever ascended as a sweet savour for the heart of God? (this is the meal offering); can we appreciate His death upon the cross, so wonderful, so sufficient, that in all that Christ has done, in suffering death under the judgment of God, he has cleared us completely of all our sins and reconciled us in these happy conditions back to His God and Father? (this is the sin offering); and can we, as working out in relation to advocacy amongst the saint of God, see that He is still there, quite capable of restoring us if failure should come in on our pathway, He being the Advocate with the Father and of the consecrations (the idea behind consecration being that Christ would fill our hands, as it were, with the perfections that came to light in Himself, that we might enjoy them in their entirety)? (this is the trespass offering); and can we feed upon the very things that God Himself is feeding upon? as oft times we sing together "brought to rest within the circle, where love’s treasures are displayed", and again "in Thy grace Thou now hast called us, sharers of Thy joy to be, and to know that blessed secret, of His preciousness to Thee". This, beloved, is our portion, it is the portion of our anointing (for it is the normal work of the Spirit to take up the things which are Christ’s and to show them to us - John 14:1-31; John 15:1-27; John 16:1-33). This is the peace offering.
Thank God it is all available, and we have the power to take it in, enjoy it all, and now as a result of enjoying it all, we can make a spiritual production, a voluntary offering in a peace offering, adding something to the company to which we belong for those who are exercised, and for the enjoyment of Christ, and thus enrich the circle in divine fellowship into which God has brought us when we bring there what is of the Lord, consciously before the Lord, and offer it unto the Lord. He will be glorified and the saints will be enriched by this food offering, and in the anointing of the Spirit of God we have been purposed together in this divine circle and we can help one another to come out more for the pleasure of God and to be like Christ, both for His glory and for the blessing of the saints of God to which company we belong.
Thank God it is our portion, in the power of the Spirit of God, to take in, enjoy and respond to all that has come to light in Christ Himself, the answer to this typical system of the offerings.