04.02. THE MEAT OR GIFT OFFERING.
THE MEAT OR GIFT OFFERING. The Meat or Gift Offering.
Leviticus 2:1. “And when any will offer (bring] a meat offering [an approach offering of a gift offering] unto Jehovah, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon.” THE so-called MEAT offering is, properly speaking, a “GIFT offering,” the Hebrew word minkhah being derived from a root signifying to give. It is a beautiful type, similar to that of the manna, representing Christ as the GIFT of God in a threefold point of view.
First, as the gift of the FATHER. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16); again, “My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven” (John 6:32).
Secondly, as CHRIST’S gift for the Church, for “Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). Thirdly, the gift of the HOLY GHOST, for He takes of the things of Christ and reveals them unto us; He makes Christ ours, so that the individual believer can say, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift” (2 Corinthians 9:15). When we approach God in the name of Christ, presenting Him as the ground of acceptance, we may say with David, “Of Thine own have we given Thee” (1 Chronicles 29:14); the gift of God’s providing, faith presents before Him. The FINE FLOUR IS an emblem of the pure, perfect, sinless humanity of the Lord Jesus - the woman’s seed, the Virgin’s Son. The OIL poured upon it represents Him as the Messiah, the Anointed One, according to the word of Isaiah (61:1), quoted by Christ in the synagogue of Nazareth, “The Spirit of Jehovah is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me” (Luke 4:18). The Hebrew word for FRANKINCENSE signifies WHITE, conveying the idea of purity. The whole of Christ’s spotless life was a sweet savour to God. To this the Father heareth witness again and again, “Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Leviticus 2:2. “And he shall bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests: and he shall take there out his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn [burn as incense] the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour [savour of rest] unto Jehovah.” As an offerer the believer draws nigh to God on the ground of the perfectness and preciousness of Christ; and as a priest he presents his offering on God’s altar. The offerer takes a handful of fine flour, and of the oil, with all the frankincense. This represents the believer by faith apprehending to the utmost of his capacity the purity, spirituality, and perfect acceptability of Christ before God, the soul’s grasp of the truth concerning Christ. As a priest by virtue of the anointing, he apprehends that everything connected with Christ, as subjected to the searching holiness of God, is infinitely well pleasing to God, and that on which He can rest with Divine complacency and delight. It is faith’s memorial before God of all that Jesus was in the days of His flesh, as well as of what He now is in the presence of God for us, for He is “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”
Leviticus 2:3. “And the remnant [remainder] of the meat [gift] offering shall be Aaron’s and his sons’: it is a thing most holy [holy of holies] of the offerings of Jehovah made by fire.”
Fellowship in feeding together on Christ. The offerer, representing the believer, takes his handful of the gift offering: this is faith’s portion. The memorial burnt upon the altar is God’s portion. Aaron also and his sons, representing Christ as upon the altar is God’s portion. Aaron also and his sons, representing Christ as 9), have their portion also; for Christ “shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:11), and in this satisfaction His believing people join. The humanity of Christ, that holy thing that was born of the virgin (Luke 1:35), tested by the righteousness and holiness of God, was found to be “holy of holies,” of all holy things most holy; purity and excellency of the highest order in the estimate of God is found there.
Leviticus 2:4. “And if thou bring an oblation of a gift offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes [pierced cakes] of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.” This is faith’s memorial of Christ on Calvary, when drawing nigh to God in the value of His sacrifice and work. It is the realization of Christ’s sufferings on the cross in their most solemn aspect. The sufferings of Jesus in accomplishing His atoning work were from three different sources. First, FROM GOD. In the secret experience of His soul, shut in with God, an experience unrecognized by outward sight. This is symbolized by the gift offering BAKEN IN THE OVEN. This inward experience is expressed in Psalms 22:1-5, especially during those three solemn hours of awful darkness. Then the sun was darkened and became invisible, not only throughout the whole land, but it may be, as a telegraphic signal, flashed from star to star, and from world to world, throughout the universe, as the sign that then was being accomplished the most stupendous event in the annals of eternity. This was redemption through the blood of the Lamb, thus making provision at once for the putting away of sin, and laying the foundation for peace and security to the whole creation of God for time and for eternity (Colossians 1:20). As the appearance of the star in the East was the sign of the birth of Immanuel, so the disappearance of the sun at noonday was the signal of His death. This darkness continued from the sixth to the ninth hour, and about the ninth hour the pent-up feelings of Immanuel gave vent in those impassioned accents, “My God, My God, why didst Thou forsake Me?” The “fine flour” is emblematic of the pure, holy humanity of the Son of man, the woman’s seed, the virgin’s Son. “Unleavened,” for, though made in all points like unto His brethren, and “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” He was perfectly without sin - “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” The Hebrew word here rendered “cakes” is from a root which signifies to PIERCE, to WOUND, to AFFLICT. It points to Christ as the “Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”; “His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.”
“Mingled with oil.” This was expressed by the angel in those words concerning His virgin mother, “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 1:20); and again, in his words to Mary, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). As every particle of the fine flour was saturated with oil, so every thought, every feeling, of the Man Christ Jesus was pervaded by the Holy Ghost. He was in every respect TRULY human, but in no one respect was He MERELY human: it was, if we may so express it, a spiritualized humanity. He was full of the Holy Ghost even from His infancy, and as He increased in years we read, “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him” (Luke 2:40). The root of the Hebrew word for “wafer” signifies “empty”. This typifies Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet EMPTIED Himself when He took upon Him the form of a servant (Php 2:6-7); so that He could truly say, “I can of Mine own self do nothing”; “My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me”; “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” But while thus dependent on the Father’s will, and upon the Spirit’s power, He could say, and did say, “The Spirit of Jehovah is upon Me, because He anointed Me” (Luke 4:18-19). Thus He was truly the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, as His name both in Hebrew and Greek signifies. In His title “Jesus Christ,” the name “Jesus” - that is, Jehovah the Saviour - connects Him with the Triune God Jehovah, and especially with the Father. The title “Christ” identifies Him with the Holy Ghost. The manhood which the Son of God took when He became incarnate was a manhood which was subservient to the will of God, and dependent on the wisdom and power of the Spirit of God. But this very, Kenosis, or emptying of Himself as Son of Man, made way for the bringing in of the will of the Father who sent Him, so that it became His meat and drink to do it; and it also made way for the wisdom and power of the Holy Ghost, in whose energy He taught and acted.
Herein He was an example for us, according to His own words, “As the living Father sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me” (John 6:57). Jesus thus lived a life of dependence on His heavenly Father, so the believer is called to live a life of dependence on the Son of God. Our truest wisdom is to say with Paul, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in Me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20). So that, whilst we are empty and insufficient in ourselves, we are complete in Him, whose grace is sufficient for us, and whose strength is made perfect in weakness.
Leviticus 2:5. “And if thy oblation be a meat [gift] offering baken in a pan [the flat plate], it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.” In drawing nigh to God in the remembrance and apprehension of Christ as God’s gift, and the One through whom we have boldness of access to God, we may contemplate Him, especially in His atoning sacrifice and sufferings on Calvary’s cross. These sufferings were from various sources. GOD laid on Him the iniquity of us all, and hid His face from Him, as typified by the offering BAKEN IN THE OVEN (v 4); He also suffered FROM MAN, for His crucifixion was a public spectacle. He was exposed to the gaze, taunts, and reviling of the multitude. The superscription over His cross was in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; and priests, scribes, people, and Roman soldiers united in their cruel scoffing’s. This was typified by the gift offering BAKEN ON THE FLAT PLATE, exposed to open view. This also was the prophetic testimony of Psalms 22:6-18 : “They gaped upon me with their mouths.
I am poured out like water: . . . My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws. . . . I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.” It was by the wicked hands of man He was crucified and slain; they pierced His hands and His feet, and cast lots upon His vesture. But it was the sinless One that they crucified, for the gift offering was to be of “fine flour unleavened”; 1t was He who knew no sin that was made sin for us; it was the just One who there suffered for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. He was the Christ, the holy One of God; for the fine unleavened flour was “mingled with oil.”
Leviticus 2:6. “Thou shalt part IT in pieces, and pour oil thereon: it is a meat [gift] offering.” There is a beautiful significancy in this act of parting in pieces the unleavened cake, or unleavened wafer. The action of the Lord Jesus on the night of His betrayal throws a clear and instructive light on this, when He took the bread and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body” (Matthew 26:26). And the truth, which is foreshadowed by the oil poured upon the broken pieces, is explained by Heb. ix .14, concerning the Lord Jesus, “Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God.” We recognize the Eternal Spirit in the conception and birth of Immanuel, and also in His anointing for living testimony and service. But do we equally realize the presence, grace, and actings of the eternal Spirit in the solemn scenes of the crucifixion? It was by the Holy Spirit that Jesus lived, and served, and testified; it was no less through Him that He offered Himself a sacrifice on the altar of the cross, for a sweet-smelling savour (Ephesians 5:2), as the expression before the world and the universe of His love and obedience to His God and Father (John 14:31). The Lord Jesus in incarnation was God’s GIFT to man, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Leviticus 2:7. “And if thy oblation be a meat [gift] offering baken in the frying pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.” That which is baken in the OVEN is concealed from sight; that on the FLAT PLATE is entirely open to view; whereas on the FRYING-PAN it is partly concealed and partly open.
We have the THIRD aspect of Christ’s sufferings on the cross, in which the wrath of God, the malice of man, and the enmity of Satan are combined. This is expressed in Psalms 22:19-21 - “But be not Thou far from me, 0 Jehovah: 0 my strength, haste Thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling [only one] from the power [paw] of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth” wherein the Lord Jesus prays to be delivered from the overwhelming confluence of evil - from the sword of Jehovah (Zechariah 13:7), from the power of profane and wicked men, and from Satan, the roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). The gift offering, made of fine flour with oil, is typical of the sinless humanity of the Lord Jesus as begotten of the Holy Ghost.
Leviticus 2:8-10. “And thou shalt bring the meat [gift] offering that is made of these things unto Jehovah: and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar. And the priest shall take from the meat [gift] offering a memorial [memorial portion] thereof, and shall burn [burn as incense] it upon the altar: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour [savour of rest] unto Jehovah. And that which is left of the meat [gift] offering shall be Aaron’s and his sons’: it is a thing most holy [holy of holies] of the offerings of Jehovah made by fire.” The believer, in his priestly character, when drawing nigh before Jehovah in worship, presents before Him by faith the memorial of what Jesus experienced on the cross, as thus typified. All that Jesus was in person, character, experience, and atoning sufferings, being tested by the holiness and righteousness of God, is found to be most holy and acceptable, and such on which every divine perfection can feed with infinite satisfaction and delight. In this holy fellowship the believer also, in his priestly character, through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, has his share; he, too, can feed, and triumph, and repose. The priestly family, in fellowship with the High Priest of their profession, Christ Jesus, through the communion of the Holy Spirit, thus partake together with the eternal Father in this holy feast of love divine.
Leviticus 2:11. “No meat [gift] offering, which ye shall bring unto Jehovah, shall be made with leaven: for, ye shall burn [burn as incense] no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of [to] Jehovah made by fire.”
LEAVEN is the emblem of malice, wickedness, and falsehood (1 Corinthians 5:6-8), in perfect contrast to the nature and character of God, who is loving, holy, and true. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, in drawing nigh to God, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we should present Him our gift offering as perfectly without sin, holy, harmless, undefiled, even in His very humanity, that, though He was truly and properly man, yet He was sinless. That which was burnt as incense upon the altar was subject to the testing fire of the altar, emblematic of the holiness and righteousness of God. Nothing, therefore, which could not stand that test might be offered there.
HONEY appears to represent that sweetness and amiability of disposition which might be simply natural affection; but this sweetness - precious and excellent as it is in its place - will not bear the test of divine holiness in any individual born after the flesh. That human excellency which was manifested in Christ, and constituted Him the chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely, was not merely human, it was also spiritual and divine. In Him divine affections were manifested in human form. As every atom of the fine flour in the gift offering was permeated with oil - emblem of the eternal Spirit - so all that was natural in Christ was also spiritual.
Leviticus 2:12. “As for the oblation [approach-offering] of the first fruits, ye shall offer [bring] THEM unto Jehovah: but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour [savour of rest].” The oblation of first fruits here referred to is that mentioned in Leviticus 23:17, “Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the first fruits unto Jehovah.” This Pentecostal offering is typical of the Church of the present dispensation. It is composed of Jews and Gentiles, by nature sinful, though redeemed to God by sacrifice (Leviticus 23:18-19), and dwelt in by the Holy Ghost. It comprises all believers from the coming of the Comforter to the return of the Lord Jesus to receive His Church to Himself, who, being “a kind of first fruits of God’s creatures” (James 1:18), constitute “the church of the firstborn written in heaven” (Hebrews 12:23). These, in their own nature, cannot bear the test of divine holiness. In the estimate of God they can lay no claim to perfection in the flesh. The language of each one, as taught by the Spirit, will be, “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant: for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Psalms 143:2).
Leviticus 2:13. “And every oblation [approach offering] of thy meat [gift] offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat [gift] offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer [bring] salt.”
Salt is the emblem of incorruption and perpetuity. In our estimate of the humanity of Christ both these truths are to be borne in mind. Death and corruption are the results of sin, and although Christ was made a sin offering and suffered death for us, yet, being in nature sinless, God did not suffer His Holy One to see corruption (Psalms 16:10); and as the omer of manna in the golden pot was laid up in the holiest for a memorial, so also “the Lamb as it had been slain, in the midst of the throne” (Revelation 5:6) will ever occupy its centre position, as the lasting memorial of that sinless humanity in which Jesus lived, died, and rose again, and ever lives, whilst the ceaseless song from His ransomed ones goes up, “Salvation unto our God which sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb.” On the other hand, there is a solemn truth suggested in Mark 9:47-49 respecting those bodies that shall be cast into Gehenna, into the fire which shall never be quenched, “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,” that “everyone shall be salted with fire,” which seems to imply that those bodies shall be so attempered to the action of fire as to continue unconsumed and unconsumable, even as the resurrection bodies of the redeemed shall be fitted for an eternity of ceaseless service and unending joy (See Romans 9:22-24). “What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction; and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles ?”
Leviticus 2:14. “And if thou offer [bring near] a meat [gift] offering of thy first fruits unto Jehovah, thou shalt offer [bring near] for the meat [gift] offering of thy first-fruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears.”
“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God” (Romans 8:33-34). This is the attitude that faith takes in drawing nigh to God according to this type, presenting and pleading Christ in resurrection as the first- fruits of them that slept, and as the first-begotten from the dead. There is at the same time a full remembrance of what He suffered, even unto death: it is corn dried by the fire; the Lamb in the midst of the throne appears as it had been slain, the memorials of His past sufferings still there; and “green ears,” for though “His visage was more marred than any man, and His form than the sons of men,” yet He Himself was sinless, as Christ Himself intimates in these words: “If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”
“Even corn beaten out of full ears.” “For He was cut off out of the land of the living” whilst in the prime of life.
Leviticus 2:15. “And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: IT IS a meat [gift] offering.” Christ was not only anointed by the Holy Ghost for testimony and service here on earth, but in resurrection also, “being by the right hand of God exalted,” He has received the fullness of the Spirit, for His heavenly priesthood, and for His Melchisedec kingship.
“And lay frankincense thereon.” Not only was Jesus well pleasing to God the Father whilst here on earth—His beloved Son in whom His soul delighted - but in resurrection also Christ will be His everlasting joy.
“It is a gift offering.” As He was to us God’s gift in humiliation to meet our earthly need, even so He will be God’s gift to the redeemed in resurrection glory for their eternal blessing.
Leviticus 2:16. “And the priest shall burn [burn as incense] the memorial [memorial portion] of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto Jehovah.” The believer, in his priestly character by virtue of the anointing - that is, by the teaching - of the Holy Ghost, realizes and keeps in remembrance the perfectness and preciousness of Christ in life and death and resurrection, as tested by the infinite righteousness and holiness of God. He is taught to realize the fact that God so estimates the person and work of Christ, thus furnishing the ground for unbounded confidence in drawing nigh to God; and, as all the frankincense was burnt, he is instructed to give God all the glory.