In those who bear the name of Jesus, we know, too well, alas! how leaven shows itself in all its properties and effects. There has been but one untainted sheaf of human fruit—but one perfectly unleavened meat-offering; and, blessed be God, that one is ours—ours to feed upon in the sanctuary of the divine presence, in fellowship with God. No exercise can be more truly edifying and refreshing for the renewed mind than to dwell upon the unleavened perfectness of Christ's humanity—to contemplate the life and ministry of One who was absolutely and essentially unleavened. In all His springs of thought, affection, desire, and imagination, there was not so much as a particle of leaven. He was the sinless, spotless, perfect Man. And the more we are enabled, by the power of the Spirit, to enter into all this, the deeper will be our experience of the grace which led this perfect One to place Himself under the full consequences of His people's sins, as He did when He hung upon the cross. This thought, however, belongs entirely to the sin-offering aspect of our blessed Lord. In the meat-offering, sin is not in question. It is not the type of a sin-bearer, but of a real, perfect, unblemished Man, conceived and anointed by the Holy Ghost, possessing an unleavened nature, and living an unleavened life down here, emitting ever Godward the fragrance of His own personal excellency, and maintaining amongst men a deportment characterized by "grace seasoned with salt."
But there was another ingredient, as positively excluded from the meat-offering as "leaven," and that was "honey."—"For ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the Lord made by fire." (Ver. 11.) Now, as "leaven" is the expression of that which is positively and palpably evil in nature, we may regard "honey" as the significant symbol of that which is apparently sweet and attractive. Both are disallowed of God, both were carefully excluded from the meat-offering, both were unfit for the altar. Men may undertake, like Saul, to distinguish between what is "vile and refuse" and what is not; but the judgment of God ranks the delicate Agag with the vilest of the sons of Amalek. No doubt, there are some good moral qualities in man, which must be taken for what they are worth. "Hast thou found honey, eat so much as is convenient;" but, be it remembered, it found no place in the meat-offering, nor in its Antitype. There was the fullness of the Holy Ghost, there was the fragrant odor of the frankincense, there was the preservative virtue of "the salt of the covenant,"—all these things accompanied the "fine flour" in the Person of the true "Meat-offering," but "no honey."
What a lesson for the heart is here! yea, what a volume of wholesome instruction! The blessed Lord Jesus knew how to give nature and its relationships their proper place: He knew how much "honey" was "convenient." He could say to His mother, "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" and yet He could say, again, to the beloved disciple, "Behold thy mother." In other words, nature's claims were never allowed to interfere with the presentation to God of all the energies of Christ's perfect manhood. Mary, and others too, might have thought that her human relation to the blessed One gave her some peculiar claim or influence, on merely natural grounds. "There came, then, His brethren ["after the flesh">[ and His mother, and standing without, sent unto Him, calling Him. And the multitude sat about Him; and they said unto Him, 'Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren without seek for Thee.'" What was the reply of the true Meat-offering? Did He at once abandon His work, in order to respond to nature's call? By no means. Had He done so, it would have been to mingle "honey" with the meat-offering, which could not be. The honey was faithfully excluded on this as on every occasion when God's claims were to be attended to, and instead thereof, the power of the Spirit, the odor of the "frankincense," and the virtues of the "salt" were blessedly exhibited. "And he answered them, saying, 'Who is My mother, or My brethren?' And He looked round about on them which sat about Him, and said, 'Behold My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and My sister, and mother.'"[5] (Mark iii. 31-35.)
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There are few things which the servant of Christ finds more difficult than to adjust, with spiritual accuracy, the claims of natural relationship, so as not to suffer them to interfere with the claims of the Master. In the case of our blessed Lord, as we know, the adjustment was divine. In our case, it often happens that divinely recognized duties are openly neglected for what we imagine to be the service of Christ,—the doctrine of God is constantly sacrificed to the apparent work of the gospel. Now, it is well to remember that true devotedness always starts from a point within which all godly claims are fully secured. If I hold a situation which demands my services from ten till four every day, I have no right to go out to visit or preach during those hours. If I am in business, I am bound to maintain the integrity of that business in a godly manner. I have no right to run hither and thither preaching while my business at home lies "in sixes and sevens," bringing great reproach on the holy doctrine of God. A man may say, I feel myself called to preach the gospel, and I find my situation, or my business, a clog. Well, if you are divinely called and fitted for the work of the gospel, and that you cannot combine the two things, then resign your situation, or wind up your business, in a godly manner, and go forth in the name of the Lord. But, clearly, so long as I hold a situation, or carry on a business, my work in the gospel must begin from a point within which the godly claims of such business or situation are fully responded to. This is devotedness: aught else is confusion, however well intended. Blessed be God, we have a perfect example before us in the life of the Lord Jesus, and ample guidance for the new man in the Word of God; so that we need not make any mistakes in the varied relationships which we may be called, in the providence of God, to fill, or as to the various claims which God's moral government has set up in connection with such relationships.
II. The second point in our theme is the mode in which the meat-offering was prepared. This was, as we read, by the action of fire,—it was "baken in an oven"—"baken in a pan," or "baken in a frying-pan." The process of baking suggests the idea of suffering. But inasmuch as the meat-offering is called "a sweet savor" (a term which is never applied to the sin-offering or trespass-offering), it is evident that there is no thought of suffering for sin—no thought of suffering the wrath of God on account of sin—no thought of suffering at the hand of Infinite Justice, as the sinner's substitute. The two ideas of "sweet savor" and suffering for sin are wholly incompatible according to the Levitical economy. It would completely destroy the type of the meat-offering were we to introduce into it the idea of suffering for sin.
In contemplating the life of the Lord Jesus, which, as we have already remarked, is the special subject foreshadowed in the meat-offering, we may notice three distinct kinds of suffering, namely, suffering for righteousness, suffering by the power of sympathy, and suffering in anticipation.
As the righteous Servant of God, He suffered in the midst of a scene in which all was contrary to Him; but this was the very opposite of suffering for sin. It is of the utmost importance to distinguish between these two kinds of suffering. The confounding of them must lead to serious error. Suffering as a righteous One standing amongst men on God's behalf is one thing, and suffering instead of man under the hand of God is quite another. The Lord Jesus suffered for righteousness during His life: He suffered for sin in His death. During His life, man and Satan did their utmost; and even at the cross they put forth all their powers; but when all that they could do was done—when they had traveled, in their deadly enmity, to the utmost limit of human and diabolical opposition, there lay, far beyond, a region of impenetrable gloom and horror into which the Sin-bearer had to travel, in the accomplishment of His work. During His life, He ever walked in the unclouded light of the divine countenance; but on the cursed tree, the dark shadow of sin intervened and shut out that light, and drew forth that mysterious cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" This was a moment which stands absolutely alone in the annals of eternity. From time to time during the life of Christ down here, heaven had opened to give forth the expression of divine complacency in Him; but on the cross, God forsook Him, because He was making His soul an offering for sin. If Christ had been a sin-bearer all His life, then what was the difference between the cross and any other period? Why was He not forsaken of God during His entire course? What was the difference between Christ on the cross, and Christ on the holy mount of transfiguration? Was He forsaken of God on the mount? was He a sin-bearer there? These are very simple questions, which should be answered by those who maintain the idea of a life of sin-bearing.
The plain fact is this: there was nothing either in Christ's humanity or in the nature of His associations which could possibly connect Him with sin, or wrath, or death. He was "made sin" on the cross; and there He endured the wrath of God, and there He gave up His life, as an all-sufficient atonement for sin; but nothing of this finds a place in the meat-offering. True, we have the process of baking—the action of fire; but this is not the wrath of God. The meat-offering was not a sin-offering, but a "sweet savor" offering. Thus, its import is definitely fixed; and, moreover, the intelligent interpretation of it must ever guard, with holy jealousy, the precious truth of Christ's spotless humanity, and the true nature of His associations. To make Him, by the necessity of His birth, a sin-bearer, or to place Him thereby under the curse of the law and the wrath of God, is to contradict the entire truth of God as to incarnation—truth announced by the angel, and repeated again and again by the inspired apostle. Moreover, it destroys the entire character and object of Christ's life, and robs the cross of its distinctive glory. It lowers the sense of what sin is, and of what atonement is. In one word, it removes the key-stone of the arch of revelation, and lays all in hopeless ruin and confusion around us.
But, again, the Lord Jesus suffered by the power of sympathy; and this character of suffering unfolds to us the deep secrets of His tender heart. Human sorrow and human misery ever touched a chord in that bosom of love. It was impossible that a perfect human heart could avoid feeling, according to its own divine sensibilities, the miseries which sin had entailed upon the human family. Though personally free both from the cause and the effect—though belonging to heaven, and living a perfect heavenly life on the earth, yet did He descend, by the power of an intense sympathy, into the deepest depths of human sorrow; yea, He felt the sorrow more keenly, by far, than those who were the direct subjects thereof, inasmuch as His humanity was perfect. And, further, He was able to contemplate both the sorrow and its cause according to their just measure and character in the presence of God. He felt as none else could feel. His feelings, His affections, His sensibilities, His whole moral and mental constitution, were perfect; and hence none can tell what such an One must have suffered in passing through such a world as this. He beheld the human family struggling beneath the ponderous weight of guilt and wretchedness; He beheld the whole creation groaning under the yoke; the cry of the prisoner fell upon His ear; the tear of the widow met His view; bereavement and poverty touched His sensitive heart; sickness and death made Him "groan in the spirit;" His sympathetic sufferings were beyond all human conception.