THE MEAT-OFFERING by G. E. Fifield

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 26, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 39.

THE MEAT-OFFERING.

By G. E. Fifield

"I am that bread of life. . . . This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." John 6:48-50.

"He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him." John 6:56.

THE meat-offering, also, was always offered with the burnt-offering and the peace-offering, and so could not be offered until the others which preceded it had been brought. It was the last of the offerings, always accompanying the peace-offering. The soul that participated spiritually in its meaning, must already have spiritual knowledge of the crucifixion of the sin-offering and the trespass-offering, the consecration of the burnt-offering, and the joy of the peace-offering. The meat-offering, therefore, represents the highest and sweetest and final experience of the soul in the knowledge of sacrifice.

The meat-offering consisted of fine flour, "bruised small." Oil was poured upon it, salt was always mingled with it, and frankincense was put upon it. Leaven and honey were by positive command always excluded. A "handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof" were burned upon the altar, with the burnt sacrifice, for "a sweet savor unto the Lord." The remainder of the meat-offering the priests ate in the "court of the tabernacle of the congregation. . . . It is most holy unto the Lord."

What does all this mean?—Like all the other offerings, it means Christ first, and also the Christian. Christ, who reached the uttermost possible heights of spiritual experience, fully experienced its meaning; the Christian does so more or less imperfectly. Of the meaning of this, as of all other spiritual truth, the life of Jesus is, to us, the highest interpretation. If we would understand the meaning of the meat-offering, we must look to Him.

One of the highest missions of Jesus was to reveal God. Man had lost the true knowledge of God, and, losing this, had lost eternal life; for "this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God." It was the oft-repeated words of Jesus, "I am come that ye might have life." "He that hath the Son, hath everlasting life," etc. He gave this life by restoring that knowledge of God which is "life eternal."

He revealed God, however, not so much by teaching, as by being. He was, and is, Emmanuel,—God with us. He taught the truth of God, but, better than that, He lived the life of God here on earth, where men could see it. He lived this life in sinful flesh, and He did it so perfectly that He could say, "He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father." Thus His life was given in the similitude of the highest of all sacrifices,—as a meat-offering,—that men might feed on Him and thus know God.

How plainly He states all this: "I am that bread of life." "Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. . . . Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him." The Jews would not have found this so hard a saying if they had not lost the spiritual meaning of the meat-offering.

Jesus said, "As the Father hath sent Me into the world, even so send I you." We too are to be revelations of God, not only in our teaching, but also in our being; not only in our words, but also in our lives. The world is hungry after God, even tho it knows it not. He is the desire of all nations. There are today, however, as of old, many who will not look up to find God. They never look that way except with nebular hypotheses and astronomical glasses. They will not, first, even look back nineteen hundred years to find God. There is one place, tho, where they do always look, even without asking,—look, too, it must be confessed, often with the bitterest disappointment; that is, to the lives of Christ's professed followers.

Nor are they forbidden to look here. It is the right and privilege of the unbeliever to look to the Christian. Christians are put here to be "living epistles, known and read of all men." Unbelievers are expected to receive the human witness of God first, but they are cautioned not to remain satisfied with that only. We read, "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater." The reason given is that the witness of God is within. "He that believeth on the Son of God, hath the witness in himself." Most people who come to know God, do so first through seeing Christ in others,—through feeding upon their lives. The only wrong, sad thing about it is that so many stop there without ever having the witness within,—without ever knowing God for themselves by a personal experience. The Christian should look higher than this to find God. For men to compare themselves among themselves, and satisfy themselves by being as good as others, is sin. They should look only at the ideal as seen in Jesus.

Now all this is the meaning of the meat-offering and its relation to the other offerings, standing as it does the last of the offerings, a revelation of the final and highest experience of the soul in the knowledge of sacrifice. When the flesh is crucified, burned without the camp as unholy; when the life is offered in the merit of Jesus, to be renewed by His power; when the whole regenerate being is freely given to God, to be consumed by His own sacred love-fire on the altar of sacrifice,—the peace-offering burning, too, on the burnt-offering,—then that life comes up as a sweet savor unto God. Then, too, men can feed on that life and find Christ, and, finding Him, find the Father also.

All this will be still more plain when we consider the materials that enter into the meat-offering, and those that are excluded from it. This sacrifice was composed largely of "fine flour bruised small." From such flour all the chaff had been excluded, and the wheat had been made fine and smooth by much beating. So, too, that life that is to be a revelation of God must be freed from chaff, or purified; and then, as was the life of Jesus, it must be "bruised," and so made tender and "perfect

through suffering." Upon this fine flour were poured the oil and the wine. Oil is ever a symbol of the Spirit, and of those divine graces which the Spirit only can bestow. So, too, the wine, the unfermented juice of the grape, is the symbol of the pure truth, just as the poisoned or fermented wine,—the wine of Babylon,—is a symbol of that mixture of truth with error which spiritually intoxicates. So Christ's caution to His church under the third seal, in the age of apostasy, was, "See thou hurt not the oil and the wine." The life, then, upon which men are to feed to find God, must possess the graces of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, and faith; and it must also be "sanctified through the truth."

Leaven was excluded from the meat-offering. "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." "Purge out therefore the old leaven." "Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." It is plain, therefore, what leaven means. There must be none of this corrupting power, none of this hypocrisy, malice, or wickedness, in a life which men are to feed on, to find God; in a life which is to come up as a sweet savor before the Father. There must be salt there, the preserving power, the opposite of leaven, the corrupting power. Yes, there must be salt there, for salt is the symbol of eternity, and the Christ-life is the eternal life, and "salt is good," and "ye are the salt of the earth."

Honey was rigidly excluded from the meat-offering. Honey is indeed beautiful to the eye, and sweet to the taste, until it touches the fire; then it is spoiled and creates a stench. The life that can reveal God must stand the fiery trial as did Christ's. Instead of the honey, put there the frankincense,—frankincense, a compound of sweet gums and spices,—which, tho sweet all the time, was so blended as to give up the sweetest fragrance in the flame. Such must be the life which comes up as a sweet savor unto God, because it reveals His love and His goodness unto others.

In this sacrifice of the meat-offering, only a little of the fine flour and oil and wine was burned upon the altar for a sweet savor unto God, while the priests ate the remainder. So that life is most pleasing to God that is the greatest blessing to others. "He loves God best who serveth most his fellow-man, and mine."

But while most of the other portions of this sacrifice were consumed by the priests, all of the frankincense, the sweetest part of all, and the part that exhaled its fragrance in the flame, was offered up to God alone. Consider for a moment what this means. On that last evening before the trial and the crucifixion, Jesus said to His chosen and most intimate disciples, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye can not bear them now." The sweetest, ho-liest thoughts of all, therefore, Jesus never expressed to any earthly friend. So far as human fellowship was concerned, He had to live that innermost life entirely alone. These thoughts were the very fruit of suffering. Like the frankincense, they yielded up their sweetest fragrance in the fiery trial. Yet, tho no human ear heard, tho no human heart understood, in these experiences Jesus was not alone, for the Father was with Him. These thoughts ascended to the Father only. They were the sweetest of all the sacrifice that went up to God alone. After days of contact with the blindness, bigotry, and prejudice of the scribes and Pharisees, and with the doubt and unbelief even of His disciples, Jesus found rest, peace, and

strength in those nights of prayer and communion with the Father.

It will be so with us. There will be thoughts and feelings born of trial and of suffering, of which we can not speak to another. If we should speak of them to any human friend, he would perhaps not understand. Perhaps he would entirely misunderstand. He has not been in the furnace that gave them birth. The Father knows, however, and these are to Him the sweetest thoughts of all,—the very frankincense of the sacrifice that gives forth its fragrance in the flame. No one else can understand, but there will be no secrets or misunderstandings between us and Him. He will give unto each of us "a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." "Name" means experience. When Abram, Jacob, and Saul each got a new experience, they each got, also, a new name. So we shall receive a new name; and, tho no other man will know, we shall know, and so also will He know that gave it to us. In this we must be content. It is ours to rejoice that He knows, to dwell here, and to revel in His love, and to wait, if need be, the eternal future for that close fellowship with our brethren for which all noble souls long. Then we shall see not only eye to eye, but also heart to heart.