Now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household.
‘Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb. Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
‘And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. And they shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.’ ” Exodus 12:1–8.
The sacrifice of the Passover was unique in the fact that the lamb had to be without any blemish. They were to examine the lamb very carefully. It could not be crippled or lame or have any defect.
Leviticus 22:17–25 gives definite instructions concerning this. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel, and say to them, ‘When any man of the house of Israel or of the aliens in Israel, who presents his offering, whether it is any of their votive or any of the freewill offerings, which they present to their Lord for a burnt offering, for you to be accepted (that is, in your giving), it must be a male without defect from the cattle, the sheep, or the goats. Whatever has a defect, you shall not offer, for it will not be accepted for you.
‘And when a man offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a special vow, or for a freewill offering, of the herd or of the flock, it must be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no defect in it. Those that are blind or fractured or maimed or having a running sore or eczema or scabs, you shall not offer to the Lord, nor make of them an offering by fire on the altar to the Lord. In respect to an ox or a lamb which has an overgrown or stunted member, you may present it for a freewill offering, but for a vow it shall not be accepted.
‘Also anything with its testicles bruised or crushed or torn or cut, you shall not offer to the Lord, or sacrifice in your land, nor shall you accept any such from the hand of a foreigner for offering as the food of your God; for their corruption is in them, they have a defect, they shall not be accepted for you.’ ”
This passage is a little involved, but the symbolism is very carefully established. Generation after generation, as the centuries went by, the lambs that were sacrificed were perfect, with no defect, no sore, no blemish of any kind. They could not be blind or crippled or maimed. They were carefully examined before being offered, to make sure they were perfect specimens. Peter gave the application when he wrote: knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with the precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. I Peter 1:18–19.
Leviticus 1:2–4 helps us to understand why these rules were laid down in the Old Testament. When any man…brings…a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer it a male without defect; he shall offer it at the doorway of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. And he shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.
When a man came before the Lord with his sacrifice, he laid his hand upon it. Today we lay hands upon one another, but for an entirely different purpose. In the Old Testament, without anointing, all they could impart were their own sins and their own guilt. Unconsecrated hands should never be laid on anyone. Until God has anointed you to convey a blessing, the laying on of hands will only convey the guilt of one person to another. I have seen this done. I remember one incident that happened to a small child who was extremely sensitive. While she was shopping with her mother, a stranger put his hands on her head and placed his head against hers. Perhaps he did not know what he was doing, but he imparted to that child some of his own confusion and demonic harassment. The result was that she screamed for hours until she was ministered to and the oppression was broken. Barbers can impart their own frustrations and oppressions to someone who is very sensitive.
The laying on of hands is very significant. That is why there must be an anointing to impart to others, and it should not be done carelessly or lightly. Even in ministering, we do not allow anyone who is not ordained or anointed to be an elder or a ministry to lay hands on the young people. They can join hands, but when they put their hands on a person’s head, they impart something that is very difficult to shake off, if it is the wrong thing.
It goes back to the Scriptural truth that when a man laid his hands on a little lamb, and believed to do it, he imparted his guilt to that lamb. Likewise, God laid upon Jesus, the Lamb of God, the iniquity of us all. The teaching of the Passover lamb is one of transference, a transference of the guilt of a person to the blameless lamb. The blamelessness of the lamb was to be imparted back to the one who had imparted guilt to it.
In its very simplest form, this kind of transference is practiced in witchcraft. In her biography, a modern-day witch relates that her mother and her grandmother were witches before her. When she was a child, she became ill with diphtheria. Through witchcraft and by using this principle of transference, her grandmother transferred the disease to the child’s pet owl. The owl died, of course, and the child immediately recovered. In witchcraft, Satan uses transference as a feasible, practical law that God has created.
We apply this law in another way—not by transference of our guilt to another person or to an animal, for all of these were types of things to come, but we obey the Scripture, “casting all your cares upon Him, because He careth for you” (I Peter 5:7). We learn to transfer our burden, our guilt, and our need to the One who loves us more than He loved His own life.
The whole key of the Passover is this principle of transference. The Passover lamb was roasted with fire—which was a symbol of judgment—so that in the hour of judgment, immunity could be given to the whole nation of Israel. The death angel passed over them, but among the Egyptians there was not a house where there was not one dead. There was no way that they could transfer the judgment to another or gain immunity.
The Israelites had taken a lamb without blemish, a symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ who was without sin. In His perfection, He came forth to live in perfect righteousness, to always do those things which pleased the Father; and yet it pleased the Father to make Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (II Corinthians 5:21). Now this opens up the way by which we become righteous. There is no other way in which you can attain righteousness. In the sight of God, your righteousness is as filthy rags, according to the language of the Scripture. There is not one person who can say, “I have not sinned.” The Scripture says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:23). Everyone is guilty before God. This is why the Savior had to die; everyone needed His death. He was the One upon whom all of our guilt was laid. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6b.
This means that if we give Him our guilt by transference, He gives us His blamelessness. We stand before God without any blame. We do not look upon ourselves and say, “Oh, I am full of blemishes.” Instead, we come before the Lord and find just the opposite: we are without blemish.
We find the Scriptural basis for this in Ephesians 5:25–27: …Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.
There is only one way in which we can be so presented to the Lord: He transfers His righteousness to us as we transfer all of our sin upon Him. We will learn one day that it is not done by will power, but simply by coming before the Lord and casting our sin upon Him. There is no other way to live perfectly except in His perfection. There is no other way to be blameless except to be clothed with His righteousness, so that God can look upon you and say, “That man is perfect,” because God has made him perfect.
Would you like to know how to live for God with your whole heart and not walk in all the defects of the old nature? The Word says, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh” (Romans 13:14). Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on perfection.
For many years I have taught that the only way you can go on to perfection is by exposing yourself to a revelation of the Lord. When you, with an unveiled face, behold the Lord, you are changed into the same image from glory to glory (II Corinthians 3:18). Perfection does not come about by your own efforts, but by exposing yourself to the Lord until His perfection is transferred to you. What He is, you become.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Romans 12:1–2.
Present yourself a sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. The acceptable sacrifice was the sacrifice without blemish. It would not be accepted if it were not a blameless lamb. You say, “Here I am, Lord, with all my faults. I am giving myself to You.” Big deal. Who needs that? Instead, take another attitude: cast all your sin upon Him, but appropriate His righteousness; then present yourself, in perfection unto the Lord, “Here I am, Lord, without blame, to be accepted by You, to do anything You want me to do, to serve You with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, all my strength.” You cannot do that in the human flesh, by will power, by sitting up nights trying to develop a way to accomplish all of these things. It does not work that way.
I do not believe in the negative approach of using will power. We have heard people say, “I find no difficulty at all in quitting smoking, I have quit many times with no trouble at all.” Will power does not work in breaking a habit because a person generally concentrates on how to stop the thing he is doing. He focuses on the problem, and the more he focuses on it, the more the desire increases. Instead of using will power, change your focus. Turn away from the habit and turn to the Lord. Begin to delight in the Lord. Keep your mind on the Lord. And soon you will wonder where all the problems disappeared to. They lost their power when you ceased to focus on them. When you no longer concentrate upon the problem, it no longer has power over you. You may say, “I’m going to be good, I’m going to be good, I’m going to be good. I am not going to do all of those bad things. I will make a list of all the bad things I am not going to do and every day I will concentrate on them.” At the end of the month, while checking off all the bad things you did, you find that you must add a few more. You end up doing the things you were determined not to do because they gained the focus of your entire attention.
What is the answer then? Begin to think on the Lord. One of the greatest ways to change is to buy a set of cassettes with anointed messages and keep listening to them. Soon you will have no time for T.V. and you will be amazed to realize that you have broken the T.V. habit, which had probably also resulted in other habits, such as a midnight snack and a can of beer. Consequently you broke those habits, too. When you become focused on the Lord while listening to His Word, you find all the distractions dropping off. You become so excited about this that you start looking up the Scriptures, and as a result your neglect of the Word starts to disappear.
The Lord says we are to be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Ephesians 5:27). That is the way the Bride is going to be presented to the Lord. Let me illustrate how you can be without spot or wrinkle. Have you ever seen an old empty gunny sack or a burlap bag all full of wrinkles? You could not possibly press out all the wrinkles and creases. But suppose you fill that gunny sack with grain. When it is completely full of grain and bulging at the seams, there is not a wrinkle in it. How can you be without spot or wrinkle? Be so full of the Lord, so full of the Spirit, that the wrinkles disappear. If you concentrate on the wrinkles, you will always have wrinkles. But if you start concentrating on the fullness of the Lord, everything else will disappear. This is the positive approach. It is not a discipline.
With all the pressures that the Word is bringing to our hearts, it is easy for us to go into some regimentation or self-discipline that will be absolutely pointless. It will not take us anywhere. Concerning the religions of self-discipline, Colossians 2:23 says, “They are of no effect in checking the indulgence of the flesh.” Visualize the old flesh as a balloon, partially filled with air. You push it down and suppress it on one side and immediately it pops up on the other side. Just when you think you have it under control, you have to push down in another place. It always keeps coming back up.
That is the system used in legalistic churches. They preach, “To be a Christian means thou shalt not go to shows, thou shalt not drink, thou shalt not smoke, thou shalt not park in cars,” and so on down the line. They suppress the dancing, and then everyone goes to the skating rink. They suppress that and another forbidden activity pops up.
We had better find another way to get rid of things of the flesh—not by legalism or by regimentation, but by filling ourselves full of the Spirit of the Lord. If we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). The flesh warreth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. The two are contrary one to another so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you learn to walk in the Spirit, then the other things are not fulfilled. Fill the gunny sack full of golden grain. Now where did the wrinkles go? They disappeared. Fill the life to overflowing with the Spirit, and you will say, “Oh, to be filled with the Spirit is so wonderful. Where did all the faults go?” They seemed to disappear.
Have you ever known someone who was just naturally mean, and after he was filled with the Holy Spirit, he became sweet and kind? But notice what happens on a dark Saturday night when he is out of victory. All that meanness returns.
Notice the instruction in Philippians 2:14–16. Do all things without grumbling or disputing (there are some areas in which everyone has sinned, and this is one of them); that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may have cause to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. “Lord, above everything else we want to be blameless before You.”
How can we put away the faults out of our life? We will transfer them to the Lord. How shall we be righteous? We will appropriate it from Him. The key of spiritual maturity is the change that takes place deep within the whole fabric of your being as you relinquish more and more of your old nature to the Lord and take more and more of His nature to yourself. Have you noticed how people change as they walk with God? How different they become in their mental and emotional make-up, in every attitude! What makes them different? Day by day they transfer to the Lord that which is an unacceptable abomination, and day by day they appropriate of His own nature until they are becoming like Him. Even more than that, they are participating in His very being. Our personality is God’s personality expressed through us. You cannot say where one ends and the other begins.
Many times people find it hard in relating to other people, but when we come into a walk with God, and get rid of the religious, judgmental spirit, and the love of God begins to be perfected in us we find that people like us—maybe not the old me, but what the Lord is doing within me.
They like the Christ, the man of God who is coming forth. I do not like the old me either, and I cannot blame anyone else for not liking him. I must allow the Lord to take over, as I appropriate more and more of Him.
This is the key of being without blame before the Lord. We transfer to Him, and He transfers to us, until one day we can say, “For me to live is Christ. I am determined that Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or whether it be by death” (Romans 14:8). And we say with Paul: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I (not the old me), 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 who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God.… Galatians 2:20–21.
This becomes the key of righteousness. It becomes the key of change. When you see a man who is walking holy before the Lord and you love him, do not give him any credit. God did it. It is the Lord and His love that is coming forth, and He should have all the praise and all the glory, for He is coming to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe.
We must learn to walk before the Lord without sin, to learn to hate the deceitfulness of the flesh, to hate the wickedness that we have seen within ourselves, to hate those defiling things that have kept us from the perfect will of the Lord.
Once we have seen these things and repented of them, then we turn our gaze to the positive to see how we can appropriate the righteousness of God and be real overcomers, overcoming by the word of our testimony and the blood of the Lamb, to inherit all things as God said the overcomer would do.
You must envision this positive picture, for if you do not, you may find yourself in an endless chain of self-discipline, self-abhorrence, always beating yourself down.
It is like plowing a field on a farm. When you have finished plowing, you say, “It wasn’t good enough; I will do it again.” You plow again and again. Finally summer comes and you are still plowing. When asked what you are doing, you say, “I am trying to reach a high state of cultivation.” So you continue on, endlessly plowing.
It is true, we are told to break up our fallow ground. But the rest of the Scripture tells us, “For it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes and rains righteousness upon you” (Hosea 10:12). It is one thing to plow; it is another thing to plant. The purpose of plowing down deep in the furrows of your heart is only for one end: to get you to appropriate the grace of God, the mercies of the Lord, to become that living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.