Through the Requiring God and Christ as the Offerings we can Enjoy Christ as Good Land

It is through the requiring God, the cross of Christ, and Christ Himself as the offerings meeting God’s requirements, that we can enter into Christ as our good land, and receive all the blessings that God would give us in Christ.

The scene at the entry of the good land – as described in Deut. 27:1-8, includes the stone monuments, the altars, and the offerings; all these typify Christ, who is both the testimony of God, the requirements of God, the way of God to fulfil His requirements, and the good land into which we can enter.

The book of Deuteronomy is a concluding word of the law, the respeaking of the law by Moses under God’s inspiration and with a burden for the second generation; it gives an all-inclusive conclusion to the Pentateuch.

Most of the second generation was not present to hear the giving of the Ten Commandments, so God burdened Moses to respeak the law to give the young generation a renewed training to be prepared to enter into the good land promised by God and inherit it as their possession.

The word that Moses spoke to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy is part of the Bible, and the entire Bible is the breathing out of God, the speaking of God.

The intrinsic significance of the book of Deuteronomy is that this book is concerning Christ.

Christ is the word of God, the breathing out of God, the living word that comes out through the mouth of God, and when we call on the name of the Lord, we receive Him and live because of Him.

Even more, as the living word of God, Christ is embodied in His word; when we pray over the word of God, muse over the word, and take in the word by means of all kinds of prayer and petition, we inhale God.

Wow, we human beings can breathe in God by praying over the word of God! And as we enjoy Christ as the living word of God, He becomes our hiding place as our shield, He helps us and deals well with us, and makes us wise and gives us understanding.

As we enjoy the Lord as the living word of God, we have proper discernment and knowledge, we are kept from sinning and from every evil way, and we are kept from stumbling.

The word of God, once it comes into us in a living way, establishes our footsteps and causes us to overcome iniquity.

May we love God and humble ourselves as we come to His word, regarding His word as His living word through which we can contact Him and abide in Him!

If we do this, we are infused with God’s living substance through the word, and we become one with God in life, nature, and expression, and we will spontaneously live a life that expresses God according to His word.

Seeing how the Stone Monuments, the Altar, and the Offerings in Deut. 27:1-8 Typify Christ

The scene at the entry of the good land portrayed in Deut. 27:1-8 includes the stone monuments, the altar, and the offerings; all these items typify Christ.

As the people of Israel were approaching the good land and were about to cross the river Jordan, God through Moses told them that, after they cross the river, they would do some particular things.

They were to raise some large stones and plaster them to be monuments, and write on them the words of the law in commandments; then, besides the monuments, they were to build an altar and offer burnt offerings and peace offerings on it.

What do all these signify, and how does this apply to our Christian life? The law written on the monuments was a portrait of God Himself; the law is a portrait, a picture of what God is. God is love, light, holiness, and righteousness, and the law is a portrait of what He is.

The Ten Commandments reveal that God is love and light and that He is holy and righteous; at the entry of the land was the very God Himself expressed through His law.

God was there standing and revealing Himself to the children of Israel, making His requirements known to them.

The way we can enter into the good land is by meeting God’s requirements; only when we meet the requirements of God can we enter into the possession of the good land.

In spiritual reality, Christ is the living portrait of God, the fulfillment of the law; He came to express God in every possible way, and He fulfilled the law.

Christ is the living portrait of God, and He is the standard of our Christian living; we don’t have to outwardly keep the law – rather, we have to keep Christ, enjoy Christ, and live Christ for God’s expression in man.

The monuments raised on the other side of Jordan signify that Christ as the living portrait of God and the embodiment of God was standing before the people to make requirements of them according to what He is.

The Lord said that even as He is, so we are; even as He lived, so we should live; even as He worked, so should we, and even greater works we will do.

So Christ as the living portrait of God stands before us to make requirements of us according to what He is.

Right beside the stones containing the inscriptions of the commandments of God, however, was the altar, signifying the cross of Christ; the cross signifies the cross of Christ, for on the altar everything was terminated, and on the cross Christ terminated all things.

The fact that the altar was there and burnt offerings and peace offerings were to be offered on it, shows that Christ is the only One who can fulfill God’s requirements, and through Him – through His redemption on the cross – we can enter into the good land.

The children of Israel were about to enter into the good land, but they could not take the land by themselves; God set out the requirements for them to enter into the possession of the good land, and He also gave them a way to enter in – the offerings.

This is very significant to us in our Christian experience.

Through the Requiring God, the Cross of Christ, and Christ as the Offerings we can Enter into Christ and Enjoy Him as the Good Land

How can we as believers in Christ enter into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the good land?

Christ as the living portrait of God is the requirement for us to enter into the good land; for us to enter into the possession of the all-inclusive Christ we need to become Christ, for only He is qualified.

When we look at Christ as the living portrait of God – He is love, light, holiness, and righteousness – we realize that, in ourselves, we are not what He is.

We may be tempted to read the Bible and take it as the word of God and try to fulfill it; in this way we may try to fulfill the law and meet the requirements of God.

But what God wants us is two things: He wants us to take Christ as our offerings and inhale God in His word.

The fact that right beside the stones containing the inscriptions of the commandments of God was the altar, shows that we as God’s people can take Christ as our burnt offering for God’s satisfaction and as our peace offering to God for our enjoyment with God in the divine fellowship (Psa. 43:4-5).

We need to take Christ as our absoluteness before God and as our peace with God and with man; this is by exercising our spirit and applying Him to our experience to be one with Him as the absolute One before God and as the One who is our peace.

Christ is the One who expresses God and is the living word of God; Christ is also the One who meets and satisfies all of God’s requirements.

The requiring God came in incarnation to be our Redeemer and our Substitute as the fulfilling One.

On one hand He requires us to be the same as He is, and on the other, He Himself came to fulfil His requirements and be breathed in by us so that He in us may fulfil these requirements. What a wonderful scene we see in Deut. 27!

It is through the requiring God, the cross of Christ, and Christ Himself as the offerings that we can enter into Christ as our good land!

The way we can enter into the enjoyment and experience of the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the good land is not by our endeavouring in ourselves but through the requiring God, the cross of Christ, and Christ as our offerings.

In this way we enjoy Christ and we receive all the blessings that God would give us in Christ.

The blessings that God wants to give us are not something material or outward; these blessings are nothing but the processed Triune God Himself embodied in Christ and realised as the Spirit (1 Pet. 3:18; Eph. 1:3; Gal. 3:14).

The reality of the good land is the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit as the realisation and consummation of the processed Triune God.

The physical aspect of the good land was the land of Canaan, which the children of Israel inherited and enjoyed; the spiritual application of the good land is the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving Spirit!

The blessing of the promised Spirit corresponds with the blessing of the land promised to Abraham; actually, the Spirit as the realisation of Christ in our experience is the good land as the source of God’s bountiful supply for us to enjoy.

We are not meant to try to keep God’s commandments, statutes, laws, and ordinances; we cannot do it and we fail and fall under the curse when we try to do it.

What we need to do is lay our hands on Christ so that the requiring God would be satisfied with Christ as the reality of all the offerings.

And we need to breathe Him in by pray-reading His word so that He in us would fulfil these requirements and would also bring us into the possession of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land!

Lord Jesus, we love You, and we come to You as the living word of God to breathe You in! We praise You Lord that the requiring God has become a man, died on the cross to fulfill all of God’s requirements, and became a life-giving Spirit to be breathed into us in His word! Hallelujah, in ourselves we cannot enter into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ, but through Christ as the offerings we are qualified to enter into the enjoyment of the good land and receive all the blessings that God would give us in Christ! Praise the Lord, the processed Triune God Himself is embodied in Christ and realized as the Spirit to be our portion through the redeeming Christ who became the life-giving Spirit to be breathed into us and live in us a life that meets God’s requirements!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Deuteronomy, pp. 182-184 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Deuteronomy, week 1, on the topic of, The Intrinsic Significance of Deuteronomy — a Book concerning Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Lord, Thou art all the offerings / Prepared by God for us; / They are so rich in meaning, / So sweet and glorious. / They have fulfilled God’s purpose / And met His heart’s desire; / They too have satisfied us, / And faced what we require. (Hymns #195)
  – Jesus, O living Word of God, / Wash me and cleanse me with Your blood / So You can speak to me. / Just let me hear Your words of grace, / Just let me see Your radiant face, / Beholding constantly. / Jesus, living Word, / My heart thirsts for Thee; / Of Thee I’d eat and drink, / Enjoy Thee thoroughly. (Song on, Jesus, O living Word of God)
  – I would inhale Thee, Lord, e’en as I breathe, / And eat and drink Thee as my life supply. / A deeper fellowship with Thee bequeath / That Thou express Thyself through me thereby. (Hymns #764)