Christ Lived a Restricted Life for God’s Satisfaction – He is our Burnt Offering

The Lord Jesus is fully qualified to be the burnt offering, for, as John 7 and the entire Gospel of John reveals, He lived a restricted life, seeking the glory of God for God’s satisfaction.

The burnt offering is the first offering mentioned in Leviticus because our main problem is not our sins but the fact that we are not for God but for ourselves.

God created us in His image and according to His likeness, so that we may live for God, fulfill God’s purpose, and express and represent God. But due to man’s fall, man became mankind, a fallen race, and now everyone lives for himself.

From the time we were born we are taught to develop ourselves, live for ourselves, do things by ourselves, and take care of our ourselves. By default we live for ourselves and to ourselves. We were meant to live for God and be absolutely for God, but we live for ourselves.

Therefore, Christ came as the reality of the burnt offering, fulfilling the type of this offering through His living on earth. He lived a perfect human life, and He did everything from God, to God, and for God’s glory. His words were God’s words, His actions were God’s actions, and He took the Father as the source and goal of everything He said and did.

Here was a man who was absolutely for God, living a life not for Himself but for God and God’s satisfaction. This means that He lived a restricted life, a life under the restriction of the Father with His life within, so that He would not please Himself but the Father.

Christ as our burnt offering is completely for God, absolutely for God. This is why His living and actions were so mysterious yet wonderful, because in everything He did and say, He lived a restricted life humanly, yet the divine life was manifested, the Father was expressed, and what others saw was God living in a man on earth, and this man was absolutely for God.

We need to realise that we are not absolutely for God, and no matter how much we try, in ourselves we cannot be absolutely for God, and then we need to take Christ as our burnt offering.

We simply need to lay our hands on Him and be identified with Him in spirit through prayer, and He will be the reality of the burnt offering to us; furthermore, He will enable us from within to live such a life today for God’s satisfaction.

Christ was Fully Qualified to be the Burnt Offering for He Lived a Restricted Life for God’s Satisfaction

John chapter 7 reveals that Christ was fully qualified to be the burnt offering. As One who lived a restricted life – a life restricted from doing things for the self – Christ sought the glory of God for God’s satisfaction.

This chapter is not so easy to understand, for right in the beginning His brothers encouraged Him to go to the feast in Judea, so that others may see Him and believe into Him – yet they themselves didn’t believe into Him. The Lord however told them, Your time is always ready, but My time has not yet come.

Humanly speaking, His brothers could go to the feast as they liked, but the Lord Himself was limited and restricted by the Father’s life within Him.

As One who lived absolutely for the Father, Christ lived a restricted life, but His brothers and the others could always go wherever they wanted and do whatever they wanted to do. The Lord couldn’t just go to the feast unless the Father sent Him.

One of the main characteristics of a life of not living for oneself is the willingness to be restricted. No one likes to be restricted.

Are we willing to be restricted by the Lord’s life within us, and live a restricted life?

Jesus is God Himself, and as the infinite God He is eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent. He could do anything He wanted, yet as the first God-man, He subjected Himself to God the Father and His will, willing to be restricted to the uttermost.

Christ lived a restricted life for the satisfaction of the Father, and this qualified Him to be the burnt offering that is absolutely for God and God’s satisfaction.

We may want to go somewhere to move for the Lord, but in fellowship with the saints the feeling may that we should wait.

The question is, Are we willing to be restricted by the will of the Father – as expressed through the fellowship of the Body, or are we so free and eager to move that we ignore the fellowship?

In doing good things, in going to some places for God and His testimony, we need to learn to live a restricted life, a life not for our own preferences or choice, but a life for God’s satisfaction.

The burnt offering typifies Christ not mainly in His redeeming man but in His living a life that is absolutely for God and in His being the life that enables us as God’s people to have such a living.

Christ lived a restricted life, and His living was for God’s satisfaction; in His living, work, and speaking, Christ sought to satisfy the Father, and therefore He lived a restricted life, but His living was absolutely for God.

As such a One, Christ is in us to be enjoyed and experienced by us, so that He may enable us to live the same kind of life on earth, a restricted life for the satisfaction of God. We cannot live such a life, but as we enjoy, eat, and experience Christ, He in us can live a life for the satisfaction of the Father.

Thank You Lord for living a perfect yet restricted life on earth for the satisfaction of the Father, a life absolutely for God. You are the One fully qualified to be the burnt offering, and we take You right now as our burnt offering. Lord, we lay our hands on You to be identified with You as the reality of the burnt offering. In ourselves we cannot live a restricted life and we don’t even want to, but Your life in us can enable us to live the life of a burnt offering for the satisfaction of God the Father!

Christ didn’t Seek His Glory, didn’t Speak His Words, and didn’t do His Work

In John 7:16-18 we see that the Lord didn’t seek His own glory in that He didn’t speak from Himself; He came from the Father, He was sent by the Father, and He spoke the Father’s words for the Father to get all the glory.

Christ sought the glory of the One who sent Him. It is very easy for us to seek our own glory; simply by speaking something and having a certain following, it is natural for us to seek to get some glory from others.

But the Lord Jesus, the One who could have gotten all the glory for He was God incarnated to be a man, chose to live a restricted life, a life that was for the satisfaction of the Father. In carrying out His New Testament ministry, the Lord Jesus lived a life of a fivefold standard:

1. He never did anything out of Himself (John 5:19);
2. He didn’t do His own work (John 4:34);
3. He didn’t speak His own words (John 14:10);
4. He didn’t do His own will (John 6:38);
5. He didn’t seek His own glory (John 7:18).

Who can live such a life? Christ didn’t do anything of Himself, but what He saw the Father doing, that’s what He did. Christ didn’t do His own work, but did the Father’s work and spoke the Father’s words. Christ didn’t speak His own words, but He spoke the words which He heard from the Father.

Christ didn’t do His own will but the will of the Father, and even at the end of His life, He chose the Father’s will to die on the cross. Christ didn’t seek His own glory but the glory of the Father, and the Father was glorified in His living and in His speaking.

This is the standard of the New Testament ministry, the standard of the first God-man as our burnt offering.

John 7 reveals that the Lord Jesus was a person restricted by God; He was of God, He was sent by God, He came from God, and He didn’t speak His own words but He spoke God.

When the Lord spoke God’s word, God was expressed through His speaking; when He spoke the words He heard from the Father, God came forth from Him through His speaking (John 7:17-18).

In John 7 we see that the Lord Jesus is the reality of the burnt offering, for He lived a life that was restricted by God – He lived a restricted life – and His life was wholly for God.

Who on earth can live such a life? Who among Christians doesn’t speak his words but the words heard from God? Who seeks the glory of God, speaks the word of God, does the work of God, and is for the will of God?

Only Christ is such a One, and He in us can live the same kind of life for the satisfaction of God the Father. We need to be those who are willing to be restricted and seek God’s glory, so that we may live a life of the burnt offering for God’s satisfaction.

Lord Jesus, thank You for living a life of not doing anything out of Yourself, not doing Your own work, not speaking Your own words, not doing Your own will, and not seeking Your glory. You are the only One qualified to be the burnt offering, for You lived a life restricted by God and wholly for God. We lay our hands on You by faith, and we want to be identified with You. We want to experience You in Your experiences as the burnt offering, so that You in us may enable us to live a restricted life that is wholly for God and His satisfaction!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1982, vol. 2, “The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writings of John,” ch. 21, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (1), week 3, The Continual Burnt Offering – a Living Sacrifice.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Lord, in me is all self-love, envy, anxiety / Lord, in me is only pride and no humility. / I’m not pure, Lord, or trusting, neither absolute / For Your purpose, I waver — I’m not resolute! / But dearest Lord, You’re all these things, all virtue’s in You, / So Lord I lay my hands on You in all I do. (Song on, Our burnt offering)
  # Every moment, every member, / Girded, waiting Thy command; / Underneath the yoke to labor / Or be laid aside as planned. / When restricted in pursuing, / No disquiet will beset; / Underneath Thy faithful dealing / Not a murmur or regret. (Hymns #403)
  # Lord, You are the only One who offered / Yourself without reluctance unto God; / Full obedience to the Father given, / Absolute, You sacrificed Your all. / As this One, You’re dwelling in my spirit; / Moving, spreading outward day by day. / There’s a whisper of Amen within me / In response to all that You would say. (song on, My heart longs for absolute surrender)