Taking Christ as our Trespass Offering for our Lies, Unfaithfulness and Defilement

The source of every trespass is sin in our flesh, and the reason for every trespass is not living absolutely for God. But Hallelujah, Christ is our trespass offering, and whenever we are aware that we sinned, or when the Lord shines on us to expose our mistakes, wrongdoings, and trespasses, we can simply confess our sins and He will forgive us and cleanse us.

We need to be aware that we not only have the sinful nature of Satan in our flesh but we also sin, that is, we trespass, and therefore we need to take Christ both as our sin offering for the indwelling sin, and as the trespass offering for the sins in our conduct.

We need to spend time with the Lord every day to make a thorough confession of our sins, shortcomings, wrongdoings, weaknesses, and sinfulness so that we may have a conscience without offense toward God and man.

When the Lord enlightens us of a sin, we need to confess it. God already knows the record of our sinful doings, and so it’s best to come to Him and ask Him to rid us of that record by confessing.

How does God get rid of the record of our sinful doings? It is by the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, who died on the cross to bear our iniquities and take our sin away.

How we thank and praise the Lord for His sacrifice on the cross and for the blood He shed, for His blood is effective today in our experience whenever we confess our sins.

When we turn to the Lord, agree with what His light exposes in us as sin, and confess our sins under His divine light, we are cleansed from our sins and trespasses.

After we make a thorough confession to the Lord, we will be filled with the Spirit essentially for our living and economically for power, and we will be buoyant and bold in our God to speak the gospel of God to others.

A very simple way for us to be filled with the Spirit is to confess our sins and spend time with the Lord for Him to shine on us, so that our confession would be fine and thorough.

The trespass offering eventually becomes the sin offering, signifying that Christ’s redemption for our sin resolves the problem of sin in its two aspects: sin in our inward nature and sins in our outward conduct (Lev. 5:6-8, 11-12; John 1:29).

The source of every trespass is sin in our flesh, and the reason for every trespass is the flesh, the fact that we don’t live absolutely for God but in the flesh. We need to take Christ as the reality of the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the trespass offering every day.

The Source of Every Trespass is Sin in our Flesh, and the Reason is Not being Absolute for God

Lev. 5:7 says, And if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring as his trespass offering to Jehovah for that in which he has sinned two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.

The fact that two turtledoves or two young pigeons – one for the sin offering and the other for burnt offering – form the trespass offering shows that the source of every trespass is sin in our flesh, and the reason for every trespass is that we are not absolutely for God.

Why do we sin? What’s the source of every trespass that we commit? It is nothing else but the sinful flesh, the sin that indwells us and automatically and spontaneously sins.

Whenever we live in the flesh and allow the flesh to be manifested, we sin, and trespasses come out. This is why we need to take Christ as our sin offering, for He is the One who condemned sin in the flesh, and He terminated sin on the cross.

What is the reason that we sin? It is because we don’t live absolutely for God but for ourselves. When we live in the flesh, we live for ourselves and in ourselves, and we do not live for God.

Actually, we spend most of the day living for ourselves and not being absolutely for God, and because of this, we trespass, we commit sin, wrongdoings, and mistakes. When we live absolutely for God, we do not commit sin.

Therefore, we need to take Christ as our burnt offering, lay our hands on Him to be identified with Him in His living an absolute life for the Father and for His satisfaction.

We need to take Christ as our sin offering to deal with the source of every trespass, and we need to take Christ as our burnt offering to deal with the reason for every trespass – this is to take Christ as our trespass offering.

The inward sin needs the sin offering, and not living for God needs the burnt offering; these two are a complete type of Christ as the trespass offering resolving our sins.

Lord Jesus, we take You as our sin offering for the sin that indwell us. We lay our hands on You, Lord, and we take You as the One who became sin on our behalf. Only You can save us from the indwelling sin in our flesh. Lord, we take You as our burnt offering for what we’re not – we are not absolute for God, but You are. We admit that we live in the flesh and sin, and we don’t live absolutely for God. Oh Lord, we lay our hands on You through faith in prayer, so that You may be the reality of the trespass offering to us.

Since we are Dishonest and Unfaithful, we need to take Christ as our Trespass Offering

Leviticus chapter 5 speaks of four particular items that need the trespass offering, so that we as God’s people can live a holy, clean, and rejoicing life, so that we may be incorporated with the Triune God in His glory.

These four particular items are being dishonest and unfaithful (lying), touching the uncleanness of spiritual death, living in our natural man and natural life and thus having a discharge which is uncleanness, and speaking rashly before God.

In Lev. 5:1 we are told that, If anyone sins when he hears the voice of adjuration and he is a witness, either seeing or knowing about a matter, if he does not speak up, then he shall bear his iniquity.

This expression “voice of adjuration” means the voice of an oath, and to bear his iniquity is to bear the responsibility of guilt or sin. This refers to a person who hears a public charge to testify, and he doesn’t declare what he knows – thus he lies, is unfaithful and dishonest, and must bear his iniquity.

We may think that we have never done something like this, and this doesn’t relate to us today. But actually this relates to us quite a bit, for we are not absolutely for God, so we are dishonest and unfaithful.

It is easy for us to lie, and we may lie even unconsciously and unwillingly. any times we are not like God – faithful, honest, and sincere to testify of what we know, but we may not be honest or sincere. Someone may ask us a question and we may respond, and later we may realize that we actually didn’t say the truth but were dishonest and lied.

If we are really for God and live for Him, especially in the church life, we will be faithful, honest, and sincere to testify what we know – we will testify of the truth.

Many times we lie unintentionally – we simply do not say the truth, especially in our family life with our spouse. Just as the little children do, we sometimes lie unintentionally and are dishonest to one another.

Because the source of every trespass is the sin in our flesh, whenever we live in the flesh, we don’t speak the truth. To trespass is to do what Satan does, that is, to lie; he’s the father of lies, and he lies and cannot speak the truth (John 8:44).

We need to take Christ as our trespass offering because we lie, are dishonest, and unfaithful.

Lord Jesus, we take You as our trespass offering. We acknowledge that the source of every trespass is sin in our flesh, and that whenever we live in the flesh we are dishonest and unfaithful. Lord, we cannot change or improve ourselves – we simply want to lay our hands on You and take You as our trespass offering. We take You as the One who is absolute for God – You are honest, sincere, and faithful, and You always speak the truth. Lord, may we be one with You to speak the truth in love and be faithful in the church life today!

Touching the Uncleanness of Spiritual Death Defiles us, so we need to Take Christ as our Trespass Offering

The third trespass that Lev. 5 deals with is spiritual death, or coming in contact with unclean things such as the carcass of an unclean animal or the carcass of unclean cattle or the carcass of unclean swarming things (Lev. 5:2).

We may not have death in ourselves, but if we come into contact with dead things or deadness in people, we are defiled.

Touching the uncleanness of death defiles us. There’s a great deal of death among God’s people today, and there are different kinds of death that affects us.

We may not notice when we touch death, but whenever we touch the uncleanness of spiritual death and the Lord enlightens us, we realize we have been defiled, and we take Christ as our trespass offering.

When the Lord enlightens us, we will realize that we are unclean and defiled because we touched the uncleanness of spiritual death, and we take Christ as our trespass offering. May the Lord keep us in the light all the time, in fellowship with Him, so that any uncleanness and defilement would be exposed.

Lord Jesus, keep us in Your light, living in fellowship with You, and walking in the spirit, so that we may see when we become defiled with the uncleanness of death. Oh Lord, how much we need You to shine in us, search us, expose us, and make everything clear to us. Lord Jesus, may we be cleansed from any defilement as we walk with You in the light!

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, msg. 26 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (1), week 8, Taking Christ as Our Trespass Offering for God’s Purpose.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Lord, I take You as my sin offering for what I am, / But Lord, I take You as my burnt offering for what I’m not. / I’m not loving, submissive, patient, kind, or meek, / I’m not single in view, Lord, nor is it God I seek. (Song on, our burnt offering)
  # Lord, I confess my heart’s impure, / So weak in loving Thee. / Thy light upon my heart obscure / Unfaithfulness reveals. (Song on, Lord, I confess my heart’s impure)
  # Oh, may Thy living light, Lord, / Scatter all my night, Lord, / And everything make bright, Lord, / For this I pray to Thee. (Hymns #426)