As the Meal Offering Christ Lived a Crucified Life in Resurrection without any Sin

The meal offering typifies Christ in His God-man living; as the meal offering, Christ’s humanity was fine and perfect, He was mingled with the Holy Spirit, His humanity bore the aroma of resurrection, He lived a crucified life, and He had no sin or any negative thing, neither did He have any natural affection or goodness.

The fine flour in the meal offering is a type of Christ’s humanity, which is fine, perfect, tender, balanced, and right in every way, with no excess or deficiency. In His human living Christ had a beauty and excellence, and His humanity had no problem or defects – He was fully qualified to be the meal offering in His humanity.

The oil of the meal offering signifies the Spirit of God as the divine element of Christ. The fact that the oil was both poured on the fine flour and mixed with it indicates that Christ was both anointed with the Spirit and He was mingled with the Spirit.

From the time of His conception, Christ was mingled with the Holy Spirit, which was the essence of His conception. Then, He was anointed with the Spirit for His work, and He lived a life in Spirit, by the Spirit, and filled with the Spirit.

Christ was the first God-man, a man who is mingled with God, a man in whom the divine nature and the human nature were mingled, yet without a third nature being produced. Such a God-man was fully qualified to be the meal offering for God’s food and man’s food.

The frankincense in the meal offering signifies the fragrance of Christ in His resurrection, a fragrance that He exuded all throughout His human life, for He denied Himself and lived in resurrection even before He physically died and was resurrected.

When people rejected Him, He didn’t react in the way we would react but He bore the aroma of resurrection.

His entire being and living was pleasing to the Father, and His humanity was uplifted, He was mingled with the Spirit, He emanated the fragrance of resurrection, and even more, He lived a salted life – a crucified life, and a life without any sin, natural affection, and natural goodness.

This One – such a One – is in our spirit today, and we can eat Him, partake of Him, and become His reproduction to be the corporate meal offering as the proper church life.

We are not here to try to imitate His living and take Him as an outward pattern for us to try to reproduce by our own ability and strength. We are believers in Christ who need to eat Christ as the meal offering, and He in us will enable us to live the same kind of life, even making us a meal offering corporately for the satisfaction of God and the feeding of man.

May we eat Him in His word, and may we allow Him to work Himself into us more and more, giving Him the ground in our being and letting Him make His home in all our heart until He saturates us and permeates us with Himself, thus making us the same as He is to be a meal offering for God and man to eat and be satisfied.

Christ’s Spirit-Filled and Resurrection-Saturated Living was a Satisfying Fragrance to God

The frankincense in the meal offering signifies the sweet aroma of resurrection emanating from Christ in His human living, especially in His sufferings.

If we read the four Gospels we see that Christ lived a life in His humanity mingled with His divinity, and He expressed resurrection out of His sufferings (see John 18:4-8; 19:26-27).

When the Lord was betrayed and captured in the garden, He asked those who came to arrest Him to let His disciples go; we may have wanted to keep our disciples close to us, to comfort us…but the Lord lived His resurrection life and cared for His disciples.

When He was being crucified, He took care of His mother by asking John to take her in. Even while He was dying, He had the fragrance of resurrection.

The centurion standing by and carrying out the execution was so struck by the Lord’s being and person that he declared, Surely this was the Son of God.

In the midst of His sufferings we can see the fragrance of His resurrection. Christ’s Spirit-filled and resurrection-saturated living was a satisfying fragrance to God, giving God rest, peace, joy, enjoyment, and full satisfaction (see Lev. 2:2; Luke 4:1; John 11:25; Matt. 3:17; 17:5).

When the Lord Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, the Father opened the heavens, the Spirit descended upon Him, and God declared, This is My Beloved Son, in whom I have found all My delight (see Matt. 3:17).

Later, on the mount of transfiguration, the Lord again had the Father’s declaration, This is My Beloved Son – Hear Him (Matt. 17:5); when the cloud dissipated, they saw no one but Jesus only (Mark 9:8).

No matter what His circumstances were, the Lord Jesus lived a Spirit-filled life and had a resurrection-saturated living, and He lived a life of suffering yet expressing the fragrance of His resurrection. In every place, at every time, and with every one, Christ lived a life in His humanity mingled with His divinity and expressing His resurrection.

Hallelujah, such a One now lives in us!

Thank You Lord for living a life in Your humanity mingled with Your divinity and expressing Your resurrection, no matter what the circumstances were. Oh Lord Jesus, we love You, we appreciate You, and we want to live the same kind of life today. Mingle Yourself with us, and bring us into the experience of Christ in His resurrection, so that no matter what sufferings we go through, we would bear the fragrance of resurrection.

Christ Lived a Life of being Salted, a Life under the Cross, a Crucified Life

Salt was to be added to the meal offering to season it; salt signifies death, or the cross, of Christ, and salt functions to season, kill germs, and preserve (Lev. 2:13). In His human living the Lord Jesus always lived a life of “being salted”, a life under the cross (Mark 10:38; John 12:24; Luke 12:49-50).

Even before He went to the cross physically, Christ lived a crucified life, a life of being salted; He died to Himself, He denied Himself, and He lived by the Father’s life.

Even before He was actually crucified, Christ daily lived a crucified life, denying Himself and His natural life (which were not sinful or evil) and living the Father’s life in resurrection (see John 6:38; 7:6, 16-18).

He came to cast fire on earth, and He was pressed and constrained until He was baptized to release the fire of His divine life. His death was a fire-releasing death, a life-releasing death, for when He died and resurrected the fire of His divine life was cast on earth; this fire is the impulse of our spiritual life.

Christ lived a crucified life daily, denying Himself and living by the life of the Father; through His death and resurrection He released His life and imparted it into us, and now this life is the impelling force of our Christian life and church life. He didn’t do His own will but the will of the Father; He was restricted by the Father’s timing and will.

And now such a One lives in us to reproduce the same kind of living in our daily life. The basic factor of God’s covenant is the cross, the crucifixion of Christ, signified by salt; it is by the cross that God’s covenant is preserved to be an everlasting covenant (see Heb. 13:20).

Hallelujah for such a Christ who lived a crucified life, a salted life, a life under the cross, and who now lives in us to be the impelling force of our Christian life, so that we may also live a crucified life, a salted life, to be the meal offering for God’s satisfaction!

Thank You Lord for living a crucified life, a life of being salted. Thank You for denying Yourself and Your natural life and living the Father’s life in resurrection. Thank You for releasing the fire of Your divine life, the impelling force of our Christian life. Hallelujah, now we have Christ living in us, and He in us can live a life under the cross, a salted life, for us to corporately become a meal offering for the Father’s satisfaction!

In Christ there is No Sin, No Negative thing, No Natural Affection, and No Natural Goodness

The meal offering was without leaven, and no honey was to be mixed with it. The fact that the meal offering was without leaven signifies that in Christ there’s no sin or any negative thing (Lev. 2:4-5; 11).

If we read the New Testament we realize that, even though Christ died for our sins and was made sin for us on the cross, there was no sin in Him, and there was no negative thing found in His being or His living (see 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 Pet. 2:22; Luke 23:14).

The Pharisees tried to find fault with Him but couldn’t find any; Pilate the governor tested Him and interrogated Him, but couldn’t find any fault in Him. The Lord Himself testified that the ruler of the world is coming, and in Him he has nothing (John 14:30).

Hallelujah, Satan has no ground, no chance, no hope, and no possibility in anything in Christ! And this One is in our spirit, and when we’re in our mingled spirit, in us Satan has no hope, no ground, no chance, and no possibility in anything!

The meal offering was to be without honey; this signifies that in Christ there is no natural affection or natural goodness (Lev. 2:11; Matt. 10:34-39; 12:46-50; Mark 10:18).

What causes a lot of trouble and even turmoil among the saints is unfulfilled ambition (which is like leaven), unforgiven offenses (which will burst out eventually), and natural affection (which spreads the fermentation to those whom we naturally love).

The Lord Jesus didn’t come to bring “love and peace to all the world” in a “honey”-sweet way; rather, He came to bring a sword, and people in the same house will be enemies because of Him.

No, Christ didn’t come to bring war, but He came to be the center of all things and the One whom we love the most; if we remain faithful to the Lord to love Him above everyone else, we will be saved from natural affection.

If we love our father or mother or sisters or brothers or children more than the Lord, we are not worthy of Him. But if we love the Lord more than anything else, we will both be saved from having natural affection and we will seek to bring the ones we love to know the Lord and be saved.

Christ didn’t love His mother or brothers more than He loved those who listened to God’s word and did His will; rather, He considered those who do the will of the Father as being like a brother (who helps Him), a sister (who sympathizes with Him), and a mother (who tenderly cares for Him). May we eat this One who is without any honey or leaven, so that we may become just like Him!

Lord Jesus, we want to eat You as the unleavened One, the one in whom Satan has no ground, no hope, and no chance, so that we may also be those in whom the enemy has nothing! Amen! We want to eat You as the One who has no natural affection or natural goodness so that we may remain faithful to You and love You above everything and everyone else. May nothing and no one take Your place in all our heart. Oh Lord, keep us eating You as the meal offering in all its details so that we may become the same as You for the Father’s satisfaction!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 102, 135-136 (Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (1), week 4, The Vision and Enjoyment of the Meal Offering.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # The cake of this meal offering, / Christ’s human life supplied, / Bears resurrection’s fragrance / As frankincense ascribed. / The cross with resurrection / In Christ’s humanity, / Within the compound Spirit, / Is our reality. (Song on, Meal Offering Church Life)
  # Oh, what a life! Oh, what a peace! / The Christ who’s all within me lives. / With Him I have been crucified; / This glorious fact to me He gives. / Now it’s no longer I that live, / But Christ the Lord within me lives. (Hymns #499)
  # Lord, separate us from the devil’s “tares,” / Each one deliver from the monstrous “tree,” / From all the “leaven” may Thou purify, / That we may be as food to man and Thee. (Hymns #829)