We can Experience Christ as our Trespass Offering to Build up the Body of Christ

We commit sins because we are short of the humanity of Jesus; when we sin and repent, God forgives us and cleanses us, and the issue is that we become a person full of Christ as peace and love to build up the Body of Christ.

This is to take Christ as our trespass offering for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. We all sin, and especially as believers, we want to sin less; but because we have the sinful nature in us and because we don’t live absolutely for God, we trespass, and we need to take Christ as our trespass offering.

In Lev. 5 there are four particular items that need the trespass offering so that we as God’s people may live a holy, clean, and rejoicing life, so that we may be incorporated with the Triune God for His glory.

First, we need to take Christ as our trespass offering because we are many times dishonest and unfaithful, unlike our God who is faithful and honest; many times we lie and not speak the truth, and so we need to take Christ as our trespass offering.

Second, we need to take Christ as our trespass offering because many times we touch things of death and we associate ourselves with people who bring us into death.

We need to exercise care concerning our contact with people, and be with those who have discernment in their activities and who receive the word of God with much reconsideration. We shouldn’t touch anything of death, for regardless of its kind, death is unclean, filthy, and defiling, being the most hateful thing in the eyes of God.

Third, we need to take Christ as our trespass offering because everything that comes out of our natural man and the natural life – whether it is good or not so good – is unclean. Anything discharged from us when we’re not one spirit with the Lord is unclean, making us unclean and making others also unclean.

Fourth, we need to take Christ as our trespass offering because we speak rashly before God, expressing our opinion in a hasty, careless, and reckless way. Because we many times do not live for God and we don’t have a healthy fear of God, we trespass, so we need to take Christ as our sin offering.

Realizing that we Commit Sins because we are Short of the Humanity of Jesus

The first reason we commit sins is because the source of sin is in us – we have the sinful flesh, where Satan dwells; for this, we need to take Christ as our sin offering. The second reason we sin is that we do not live absolutely for God, but we live for ourselves; for this, we need to take Christ as our burnt offering.

A third reason for which we commit sins is that we are short of the humanity of Jesus. This is indicated by Lev. 5:11 where it says that the trespass offering can also be a tenth of an ephah of fine flour, which signifies the humanity of Jesus.

We commit sins not only because we have sin in our nature and not only because we are not absolute for God, but also because we do not have the humanity of Jesus. In His humanity, Jesus has no sin, and He is absolute for God.

The fact that the tenth of an ephah of fine flour offered for a sin offering signifies that only a small portion of the humanity of Jesus is needed to kill the negative things within us and to supply our needs.

We need to eat the humanity of Jesus every day, for His humanity will kill the negative things within us, and His humanity will supply our need. Why do we sin? It is because we lack the humanity of Jesus.

How can we stop from sinning, and how can we help others to stop sinning? It is simply by eating the humanity of Jesus.

This is why we need to read the Bible with much reconsideration, prayer, and musing; we need to read the word of God to ourselves, out loud, and we need to pray much over the words in the Bible, so that we may be supplied with the humanity of Jesus.

Even a small portion of the humanity of Jesus can kill the negative things within us and supply our need.

Furthermore, if we sin against the holy things of God or against our fellow people, we need to make restitution, and we need to add to it one-fifth more (see Lev. 5:15-16).

The Lord doesn’t want us only to repent, confess our sins, and be cleansed; He also is very practical, and some trespasses we commit may require us to also make restitution after we repent and confess.

But the way we make restitution is according to the divine scale, standard, and measurement, that is, we need to give back more than what we have taken. When we take Christ as our trespass offering we should be righteous in material things according to the divine scale, that is, in the humanity of Jesus.

We are so short of the humanity of Jesus! We need to eat Jesus more and more every day, so that His humanity would be lived out in us.

Lord Jesus, we admit that we are short of the humanity of Jesus, and this is why we commit sins. Oh Lord, in Your humanity there’s no sin and Your humanity is absolute for God. We want to eat You, Lord Jesus, and eat Your humanity every day, so that any negative things in us would be killed, and we would be supplied to live a life for the fulfillment of Your purpose. Amen, Lord, keep us in Your word, musing over Your word and reading Your word with much prayer, so that we may have the humanity of Jesus wrought into our being!

Our Transgression and Repentance Marries God’s Forgiveness to Build up the Body of Christ

A very practical application of taking Christ as our trespass offering for the fulfillment of God’s purpose is the case of David and Bathsheba, her who had been the wife of Uriah (Matt. 1:6).

David was a man after God’s heart (1 Sam. 13:14), and God replaced Saul – the first king in Israel – with David, for He had found a man who was after His heart. But David committed one sin that was really great: he murdered Uriah and took his wife; the Bible said that David did right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of his life, except for this one thing (1 Kings 15:5).

After he committed murder and adultery, God sent His prophet Nathan to rebuke him and condemn him (2 Sam. 12:1-12), and David repented to the uttermost before the Lord; Psalm 51 is his psalm of repentance.

David transgressed, repented and confessed, and God forgave him (2 Sam. 12:13). The result of all these is Solomon, who was the one who built the temple of God (2 Sam. 12:24).

Of course, God didn’t overlook David’s failure; He punished him by causing his and Bathsheba’s first child to die, and by promising that the sword will never depart from his house, but God also forgave David, and the union of David with Bathsheba produced Solomon, the builder of God’s house.

David repented to the uttermost before God, acknowledging that it was against God and God alone that he sinned, and he has done evil in God’s sight (Psa. 51:4); he requested that God would blot out his iniquities (v. 9), and had a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart before God (v. 17).

The conclusion of his psalm of repentance before God was his prayer for Zion and Jerusalem – the overcomers and the church as the kingdom of God. After we take Christ as our trespass offering, we are forgiven of our sins, and we are being produced to be the overcomers and the church as the kingdom of God.

This is to experience the trespass offering for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose. The issue of the “marriage” of David’s transgression and repentance with God’s forgiveness was Solomon (“peaceful”), the one who built the temple of God (2 Sam. 7:12-14a; 2 Chron. 3:1).

We can say that there were two marriages here: the physical marriage and union of David with Bathsheba, and the spiritual “marriage” between David’s transgression and repentance, with God’s forgiveness.

David’s transgression and repentance married God’s forgiveness, and the result was Solomon – something peaceful (as called by men) / Jedidiah (as called by God, which means, beloved of God).

When we transgress and repent, then take Christ as our trespass offering, we receive God’s forgiveness, we become a person who is full of Christ as peace and love, and we become a building member of the Body of Christ.

This is what builds up the church – a man who is the issue of man’s transgression and repentance plus God’s forgiveness. When we experience the marriage of our transgression and repentance with God’s forgiveness, we become very useful in the building up of the church.

We may want to be right in the eyes of God and man all the time, but even though this is good, it may not be good to build up the Body of Christ.

One day the Lord may allow us to transgress and do something awful; then we will read Psa. 51 and make it our psalm, and we will repent before the Lord.

After this repentance, we will have God’s forgiveness, and this will produce us to be someone who is peaceful to man and beloved to God, something to build up the Body of Christ.

Lord Jesus, we want to take Christ as our trespass offering for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. Have mercy on us, Lord, and grant us the experiences we need to be persons who build up the church as the house of God and temple of God. May in our experience our transgression and repentance be joined to God’s forgiveness for the producing of a peaceful and beloved person who builds up the church. Oh Lord, it is our aspiration to be useful to You and build up the Body of Christ!

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 Matthew, msg. 3 (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:
  # Eat, eat more of Jesus! / Why should we undernourished be / When we have His humanity? … / Drink, drink more of Jesus! / Why should we ever thirsty be / When we have His humanity? (Hymns #1146)
  # From my iniquity / Wash me thoroughly, / And from my sin cleanse me. / For I do know my transgressions, / And my sin’s before me continually. / Behold, You delight in truth / In the inward parts; / And in the hidden part / You would make known wisdom to me. / Purge my sin with hyssop, and I’ll be clean. (Song on, From My Iniquity Wash Me Thoroughly)
  # Father, through the blood of Jesus / We possess Thy righteousness; / By Thy righteousness protected, / None can shake our steadfastness. / Righteousness of Thine Thou mad’st us, / None can ever us condemn; / We’ll forever testify this / In the new Jerusalem. (Hymns #20)