Dealing with Sin and Sins, Being Strong in Life, and Serving God by Enjoying Christ

The law of the meal offering indicates that we need to deal with sin and with sins, partake of Christ without sin, be strong in life and serve God as priests, and we should continue enjoying Christ as our meal offering daily.

Why is there a need for a “law of the meal offering”? Isn’t the meal offering good enough, that is, isn’t offering God some food good enough? Our God is precise, exact, and detailed, and simply giving Him something to eat (as Cain did, for example) doesn’t satisfy Him.

In order for us to satisfy God, we need to follow certain procedures and abide by certain rules, which in the New Testament are the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit.

Hallelujah, the Spirit with our spirit has a law, the law of life, also called the law of the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), and even in our enjoyment of Christ we should not be lawless but we should be regulated by the law of life in a specific way, so that our offering would be received by God.

First of all, the meal offering is based on the cross of Christ, for without the redemption of Christ we cannot eat Christ, neither can we offer Christ to God for His food. Therefore, when we offer Christ to God as food, and when we come to eat Christ as our supply, we need to always remember the cross of Christ, His redemptive work.

The meal offering is mainly for God, and a part of it is also for the serving priest; God feeds on Christ’s excellent, perfect, Spirit-filled, and resurrection-saturated living offered to Him as food for His enjoyment, and such a portion is so satisfying that it becomes a memorial.

A portion of the meal offering was also to be eaten by the priests. This shows us that God is more hungry than us, and that only Christ satisfies God; however, this Christ with His wonderful, excellent, and perfect human living is also our food, and only He can supply us as we serve God.

And the place in which the priests could eat the meal offering was a holy place, the court of the Tent of Meeting, which signifies that the Christ we enjoy before God, with God, and in God’s presence is something for the building up of the church, and it should take place in the sphere of the church life.

Where should we eat Christ? Before the cross and in the church life; the Christ we enjoy as our serving supply should be enjoyed with the view of the church, in the sphere of the church life, and with the fellow serving saints.

Laboring on Christ to Partake of Him as our Life Supply without any Sin

Lev. 6:17 says that the meal offering should not be baked with leaven; God does not want any leaven in the meal offering, either in preparing it or in baking it.

Not baking the meal offering with leaven signifies that our laboring on Christ to partake of Him as our life supply must be without sin.

On one hand, Christ Himself is without sin; He came in the likeness of the flesh of sin, He died for sin, and He put all our sins on Him on the cross, but in Him there was no sin.

Christ is the unleavened bread, the meal offering without any sin or evil thing. On the other hand, as we labor on Christ to partake of Him as our life supply, we should be without sin, and we should eliminate sin.

To Enjoy Christ as our Life Supply, we need to Deal with Sin and with Sins

The law of the meal offering refers us to the sin offering and the trespass offering (see Lev. 6:17; 4:3); this signifies that, if we would enjoy Christ as our life supply, we need to deal with the sin in our fallen nature (the sin offering) and with the sins in our conduct (the trespass offering).

The meal offering is most holy, therefore we need to deal with the sin in our being and with any sins in our conduct. The sin offering deals with sin in our fallen nature; we don’t just commit sins – our fallen nature has sin, and sin dwells in us, so we need Christ as our sin offering.

For us to enjoy Christ as our life supply, we need to deal with the sin in us.

The trespass offering deals with the sins in our conducts; as we live our daily life, we may commit sins, and for these we need to take Christ as our trespass offering. For us to enjoy Christ as our life supply, we need to deal with our sins.

As we serve God as priests in the church life, and as we enjoy Christ as our sinless supply, the unleavened meal offering, we need to deal with the sin in our fallen nature and the sins in our conduct.

If we enjoy the meal offering without dealing with sin and with sins, we commit sin. As we enjoy Christ, eat Him, and partake of Him in His word, we need to take Him as our sin offering for our sinful nature, and as the trespass offering for the sins in our conduct.

Christ never committed any sin, and He Himself is our sinless supply for our service as priests; as we eat Him as the meal offering, we need to deal with the sin in our nature and the sins in our conducts, for our eating of Christ is most holy.

Lord Jesus, may we deal with the sin in our fallen nature and the sins in our conduct as we partake of You as the meal offering. Lord, You are our sinless supply for our priestly service to God. We take You in by faith as our meal offering, and we also take You as our sin offering and our trespass offering. Lord, You are our food, our supply, and You in us can deal with any sin and sins. Oh Lord, keep us enjoying You as our life supply, and keep us dealing with the sin in our fallen nature and the trespasses in our conduct!

Being Strong in the Divine Life as we Serve God as Priests by Partaking of Christ Daily

The ones who can partake of the meal offering are the priests, the males (Lev. 6:18); this signifies that for us to partake of Christ as the life supply we should be strong in the divine life, and we should also be God’s serving ones, His priests.

Who is qualified to partake of the meal offering? It was the stronger ones, the ones who are strong in life, who can serve God as priests. What about us: can we say that we are the stronger ones, the ones who are strong in the divine life?

If we come to the Lord and have His shining concerning this, we may feel disqualified. We need the Lord’s mercy in this respect, because according to this particular statute of the law of the meal offering, we are not qualified to partake of it.

We have to admit that we are not strong in the divine life – we are not the “males” among the children of Aaron, that is, we are not the stronger ones in life among the saints.

Our situation is suitable for the Lord’s mercy, and we need to humble ourselves before Him that He will grow in us and give us the growth in life that we may become strong in the divine life.

No matter how much we may enjoy Christ daily, there is actually much to grow to be strong in life; we have much more to enjoy of Christ, for we don’t enjoy Him that much.

Our enjoyment of Christ is short because we have a problem in life; we are still so young, so feeble, in the divine life. This is why we need to ask the Lord for His mercy and even be honest to Him and tell Him,

Lord Jesus, have mercy on us that we may grow in life and become the ones who are strong in the divine life to be qualified to eat You as our serving supply. Lord, we are so weak in ourselves, and we need to enjoy You so much more. Keep us enjoying You day by day, and keep growing in us more and more until we become the mature ones, the strong ones, the ones who are qualified to eat You as our serving supply, the meal offering! Oh Lord, we need Your mercy!

On one hand we need to be strong in life, and on the other, for us to partake of Christ as our supply, the meal offering, we need to be God’s serving ones – His priests. Only the priests can partake of Christ as the meal offering, Christ as the serving supply.

This means that in our daily work and living we need to serve God as priests, otherwise we can’t share in the real enjoyment of Christ.

We need to daily contact the Lord, spend time with Him, remain in His presence, and minister to Him; we also need to bring God to man, ministering the God we have enjoyed to those whom we meet, so that we may function as priests.

If we don’t function by serving God as priests in our daily living, we are not qualified to have the real enjoyment of Christ as the meal offering.

From the very beginning of our service to God and both in the morning and in the evening, we need to partake of Christ as our life supply, our serving supply.

The meal offering was to be offered half in the morning and half in the evening, to keep it a continual offering (Lev. 6:20); this signifies that we need to continually enjoy Christ in the priestly service.

We need to maintain our continual enjoyment of Christ as we serve God as priests. In the morning and in the evening, and all throughout the day, we need to partake of Christ as our serving supply.

The offering of a meal offering by Aaron and his sons on the day when Aaron was anointed signifies that the enjoyment of Christ as the life supply is related to the priestly service (v. 20).

The tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a continual meal offering, half in the morning and half in the evening, signifies that the top portion, the tenth part, of the enjoyment of Christ should be for God, and that this kind of enjoyment of Christ should continue in our priestly service.

We need to continually enjoy Christ as our serving supply, our life supply, the reality of the meal offering – this is not optional; this is a law in our priestly service.

Lord Jesus, we take You as our life supply, the sinless meal offering, to be our sinless supply for our service to God as priests. We want to maintain our enjoyment of You so that we would continually enjoy You, partake of You, feed on You, and we would enjoy Christ for God continually. Remind us to enjoy You in the morning and in the evening. Be our continual serving supply, Lord. By Your mercy, we want to maintain our enjoyment of Christ day by day until we meet You!

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. 24 (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:
  # Thy law of life in heart and mind / My conduct regulates; / The wealth of Thy reality / My being saturates. (Hymns #539)
  # Day by day His tender mercy, / Healing, helping, full and free, / Sweet and strong, and ah! so patient, / Brought me lower while I whispered, / Less of self, and more of Thee, / Less of self, and more of Thee. (Hymns #435)
  # The fullness of the mingling, / Where God and man are one, / Is worked out in our living / As we enjoy the Son! / The consummate enlargement— / God fully blent with man— / Is still a cake for feasting! / The New Jerusalem! (Song on, The meal offering church life)