The sacrifices described in the book of Leviticus illustrate what God wanted eventually in the realm of spirit for His people. The children of Israel were rather primitive in the sense that they made animal sacrifices. They were doing what God told them to do, but they were accomplishing their worship on a low physical plane of obedience. The instructions for the keeping of the Feasts of Passover and of Pentecost in Leviticus 23 contrast greatly with what God has in mind for His people today.
“ ‘These are the appointed times of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the times appointed for them. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover. Then on the fifteenth day of the same month there is the Feast of Unleavened Bread’ ” (sometimes called the Passover, including the seven days of unleavened bread) “ ‘to the Lord; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work.’ ” Leviticus 23:4–7. The feast days were specially designated, just as Sabbath days; the Israelites were not to do any laborious work. This symbolized the fact that they were not to attain to a Passover deliverance by their own efforts and struggle; instead, they were to accept a Passover deliverance.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:8–9: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. Man is never allowed to approach God on the basis of his industry, his achievement, or his mentality. His abilities to work things out and to discipline himself are not acceptable to God. When an altar was built for the Lord, it had to be made of stones that were untouched by any tool of man (Deuteronomy 27:5). These stones, heaped together, exemplified the fact that man’s every approach to God is to be without confidence in his own effort. There is nothing he can do to obtain merit.
A believer works after he experiences the cross of the Passover, but he does not work to attain it. No one who comes before the Lord can say that he is more worthy than the next man; the ground is absolutely level at the foot of the cross. There are none on a higher elevation, and none on a lower elevation; all have sinned. The Lord provided salvation for us, and no labor or effort on our part to make ourselves worthy can be accepted by God.
“ ‘But for seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord.’ ” Other offerings were also given, such as meal offerings, but the offering by fire was especially significant in the Passover. “ ‘On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work.’ ” Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, ‘When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord for you to be accepted; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.’ ” (This was all part of the Passover.) Leviticus 23:8–11.
“ ‘Now on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb one year old without defect for a burnt offering to the Lord.’ ” Leviticus 23:12. Notice that only one lamb was to be offered. At the Feast of Pentecost, seven lambs were to be offered. Why only one lamb at Passover? That one lamb symbolized the Lord Jesus Christ. In His own individual person, He became the one and only burnt offering. This was what Isaiah prophesied. Christ was the Lamb without any blemish whatsoever; He was without any sin.
“ ‘Its grain offering shall then be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering by fire to the Lord for a soothing aroma’ ” (“an odor of sweet smell” is used in another translation), “ ‘with its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine. Until this same day, until you have brought in the offering of your God, you shall eat neither bread nor roasted grain nor new growth. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places.’ ” Leviticus 23:13–14.
The libation of wine and the fine flour mixed with oil portrayed the Communion that was to come, in which we now partake of that beautiful Lamb without blemish. With this offering, made by fire, an aroma of a sweet smell comes up before God. God is well-pleased with what His Son did in making a perfect sacrifice for your sin, to bring you into God, to provide a Passover whereby judgment can pass over you. But judgment did not pass over Christ; He was the offering made by fire, a burnt offering before the Lord. This is what happened at the cross of Jesus Christ. It was judgment.
Judgments are coming upon the earth. You are now going through a judgment that makes you identified with Christ and the judgment that He experienced. You will never experience the full fire and terror that the ungodly will experience. When God begins to burn away the chaff, He does not destroy the wheat. He made full provision to save you to the uttermost, to deliver you out of the hand of the satanic Pharaoh of your life and bring you into the glorious liberty that belongs to those children of God who are liberated from the very land of sin, the land of the flesh and of bondage, the Egypt of the soul. God delivers you from that by letting another stand in your place, that one single Lamb of the Passover who became the burnt sacrifice.
Leviticus 23:15–17 speaks of Pentecost. “ ‘You shall also count for yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day when you brought in the sheaf of the wave offering; there shall be seven complete sabbaths’ ” (forty-nine days). “ ‘You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath; then you shall present a new grain offering to the Lord. You shall bring in from your dwelling places two loaves of bread for a wave offering, made of two-tenths of a bushel; they shall be of a fine flour, baked with leaven as first fruits to the Lord.’ ” In the numerical structure of the Scriptures, two is always the symbol of Christ in His Church. Christ is in His Church, waving the loaves before the Father.
The Feast of Pentecost was observed at the close of the grain harvest. This time the priests did not wave a sheaf of grain as the firstfruits to the Lord; they brought two loaves of bread and waved them before the Lord. These loaves of the wave offering, made of finely ground flour, contained leaven and had been baked with fire. This was a symbol of what happened on the Day of Pentecost when the Church was presented to the Father as a wave offering. The New Testament Church had been ground fine, but it still contained leaven. Peter and the other disciples certainly were not perfect specimens when they came to receive the Holy Spirit. They had a history of failing, even of denying the Lord. Then the fire was applied.
“ ‘Along with the bread, you shall present seven one year old male lambs without defect, and a bull of the herd’ ” (the bull represents prolific creativity; the seven male lambs are a symbol of the seven spirits of Christ in the earth), “ ‘and two rams; they are to be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their libations, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord.’ ” Leviticus 23:18.
On Pentecost seven lambs were offered. The book of Revelation illuminates the meaning of this. When John turned to see the Lion of the tribe of Judah, he saw a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes (Revelation 5:5–6). He saw Christ, not individualized, but universalized. For just as the Body is not one member, but many members, so also is Christ (I Corinthians 12:12). We participate in the Christ. We are members of His Body. We are an integral part of the Christ. Christ as the Head is not complete in Himself. Now that He has universalized His presence into His many-membered Body, Christ is not one individual, but many members all baptized into one Body. He functions through each member. He has universalized Himself until He speaks, not through the mouth of the Nazarene, as when the people remarked, “Never a man spoke as this man speaks,” but through the mouths of hundreds of thousands of people. When the prophecies come forth, those who hear will exclaim, “God is in you of a truth” (I Corinthians 14:25). They will fall down and worship because they will sense Christ literally dwelling within men’s hearts and speaking through their mouths.
At Pentecost we see a picture of not just one Lamb—the Passover Lamb, Christ—but we see the continuation of God’s dealings through the fire which makes us living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to the Lord, so that we present to the Lord worship that has been through the fire and comes up as a sweet aroma.
The aromas of cooking can transform a home into an intriguing place. One of my favorite childhood memories is that of the delightful odors that greeted me at mealtime. Perhaps that is the way an offering made by fire comes up to the Lord. If it seems that the Lord is parboiling you, keep in mind that it all comes up as a sweet smell to Him. It is acceptable because the offering made by fire is burning away the chaff. You become delightful to God as He burns out the chaff. You find yourself being able to relate better to your brothers and sisters; your heart becomes drawn to them as the unacceptable things in you disappear. This is His way of removing from you anything that is repulsive in His sight.
Pentecost was the beginning of the Church, a firstfruit offering to God, and it had to come forth as a burnt offering, an odor of a soothing aroma to God. The evidence of it was the fantastic way they loved one another. They sold everything they had, kept all things in common, and went from house to house breaking bread. After Pentecost there were no more personality clashes among the apostles. There were no more arguments about who was going to be the greatest; nor was there contention among them. It was all burned away.
Just as the first Church was a great witness for the opening of a whole age, so the Church in this day will be a witness unto God for the Kingdom age. God is bringing forth the last fruits of the Church, but the first fruits of the Kingdom. They are called to preach the gospel of the Kingdom and glorify the Lord. All over the world, a remnant is becoming a sacrifice made by fire unto the Lord.
“ ‘You shall also offer one male goat for a sin offering and two male lambs one year old for a sacrifice of peace offerings.’ ” Leviticus 23:19. You need the peace offering, and you need the sin offering. The Lord must be the continual source of your sin offering. He has a way of continuing the work of salvation within your life. He ever lives to make intercession for you that He might save you to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25).
Passover will get you out of Egypt, but the Pentecost offering of the Lamb will get you into Canaan. It is one thing to come out of sin; it is another thing to get sin out of you. To get out of Egypt is great, but in order to get Egypt out of you so that you begin thinking like a man who is going to possess Canaan, your old ways of thinking have to change. Those in the wilderness were thinking like Israelite slaves, not like free men. It takes awhile for the Lord to bring you to the place where you are not conformed to this age, but transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you begin to think like a firstfruit unto God. Are you learning to think like a citizen of the Kingdom? It is quite different from the old ways of thinking, isn’t it?
“ ‘The priest shall then wave them with the bread of the first fruits for a wave offering with two lambs before the Lord; they are to be holy to the Lord for the priest.’ ” Leviticus 23:20. The Old Testament speaks about offerings that no one participated in. There were other offerings that the priests were to eat as their portion after they had been offered to the Lord. Those in the Old Testament had no right to partake of the altar, but we have the right to partake of our altar (Hebrews 13:10). In the Old Testament, the burnt offering for sin was not to be participated in. But we participate in ours; we partake of our Lamb who died for us. We go outside the camp; and there before the altar of the Lord, we are participators in two ways. First, we suffer with Him; we partake of His sufferings (I Peter 4:13). Second, we partake of Him as our portion; we partake of Christ so that we can enter into all that He has for us.
God always has a motivation for what He does. He has not done all of this for you so that your human will and the purpose of your ambitions can be worked out. He has done all of this in order that He might redeem you unto Himself and use you for His purpose. When you participate in God’s provision to accomplish His purpose and His will, then Christ’s unlimited provision flows to you.
Many believers partake of Christ only in a limited way, often because they try to use Him for their own ends. They want the Lord to bless them and the plans they are trying to work out. It never works that way. Your own plans and goals must be subordinated to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, even though you may want them desperately. Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4. If your heart’s desires take priority over the Lord’s will for your life, and you do not delight in the Lord for the Lord’s sake, you will find that the flow of His blessing seems to be minimized. Something seems to prevent the fullness of God flowing to your heart.
Do you want the very best that God has for you? Do you want His will, regardless of the cost? Try delighting in Him. Once you get into the perfect will of the Lord and are delighting in it, and you are partaking of Christ in order to accomplish His will, you will find that it is a joy and a delight to your heart. You will be miserable when you try to serve yourself and Christ at the same time. You serve your own interests best by serving His interests exclusively. Seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness, and the other things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). God wants you to have “these other things”; but strangely enough, when you want them too much and let them take priority, you do not get them. Believers should learn that the things they pray for so desperately and earnestly are frequently withheld because they desire them more than the perfect will of the Lord. When you want the perfect will of God so much that these other things take a secondary place, then He will give them to you.
We do not know whether or not Abraham and Job wanted to be rich; but they did want to please God. It was just incidental that God kept piling up their money and riches. It never meant anything to them; the Lord meant everything. Money can be a terrible master. God knows this, and He holds money back from people, including Christians who would make it their god and serve it. But when a man does not care about money, except to do God’s will with it, the Lord starts pouring it into his hands. The world wants you to be greedy and strive after money. The child of God says, “Lord, I need some of it to do Your will, but I want to do Your will only. I want to be Your servant above everything else.” As a result, God will bless that person, and he will have the desires of his heart.
First things first. God is first. Other things are second. …Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind… Luke 10:27.
Ask the Lord to help you where other affections and other interests have come to cloud your pure love for God. Do not let it be. Lay everything before Him. Desire in your heart His perfect will. Let nothing within you hold back. Do not straggle along on the outskirts of the camp because you never made a real dedication to the Lord being first. Get out of the mixed-multitude area. Are you tired of drifting along and missing God’s best? Determine that the Lord will be first, that you will be one of those loaves baked by fire, one who is going to please Him. Do not hang back where the grumblers, murmurers, and complainers are, where the blessing is so meager and shallow. Move up into the center of His will, where the glory is.