The Meal Offering and the Firstfruits

Colossians 1:25-29

COL-435

Our topic is "The Error of Legalism," number 47, in Colossians 2:16-17.

We've been showing that the apostle Paul has pointed out that the Mosaic Law was a good system (a way of life) for the people of Israel. But it was to show people how sinful man was, and how holy God was. The problem was solving that dilemma: a man who could not save himself, and a God who must become human, as well as deity, as man, the burden of all mankind. All of that was prefigured in the Mosaic Law in one way or another.

The Five Sacrifices

We have seen at the burnt offering was a voluntary sacrifice. You brought it when your heart was moved to do so. It portrayed, in the death of the animal, the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. This, of course, had to do with propitiation – satisfying the justice of God. It was relative to how it had to be done: be death.

The Meal Offering

The meal offering, that we're currently looking at, was also a voluntary offering that you decided periodically to bring. It portrayed the sinlessness of that lamb. It also dealt with propitiation, but now, with what kind of a sacrifice was acceptable to a holy God. The meal offering was a mixture of fine flour, representing the uniformity (sinlessness) of Jesus Christ; the oil, representing the Holy Spirit; and, frankincense, a perfume which symbolized the Lord Jesus Christ as a delightful fragrance to his Heavenly Father. All of this was portraying Christ in sinless perfection, and therefore, qualified to be the Savior of the world.

A handful of this mixture, which the worshiper would put together, was brought to the altar, and the priest would burn it. And then, the remainder of the meal offering that had been brought, was given to the priest to eat, thus portraying that God and man were in fellowship in spiritual matters, sharing in effect, Jesus Christ. God was sharing His Son with the worshiper.

The church age has a meal offering in comparison. It is the Word of God, taught by the pastor-teacher, to the believers. This is our spiritual food. Here again, you have what? You have man worshiping with the mind of God.

Please open your Bibles to Leviticus 2. This is at the front of the Bible. And this evening, we direct your attention to, first of all, Leviticus 2:4-7. There was an option in how you brought the form in which you brought the meal offering to the priest. It could be brought in the form of cakes, which were prepared in different ways. And each of these, as we view them, from our frame of reference of what Christ has done, we see, again, tremendous symbolism, and why these procedures, preparing these meal offering cakes, were followed.

Oven-Prepared

Darkness

Calvary

Verse 47: "And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying: 'This man is calling for Elijah.' And immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. But the rest of them said, 'Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.' Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit."

Now, we can't imagine what this cry sounded like. It must have been very dramatic. It was a cry of an intense agony. It was a cry that perhaps you may have had occasion to hear – some people who were in intense pain, screaming out. Jesus Christ was in the intense pain of bearing the sins of the world. He was screaming. In His humanity, He was crying out, with horrible intensity, in the final moments when He then dismissed His human spirit. And His head dropped forward, and He died. And when He did die, notice what happened.

Behold, the veil in the temple; that is, the veil which separated the holy of holies from the holy place. The holy of holies, was where the Ark of the Covenant was, with the two angels on top, and onto which was looking down the symbols of Israel's rebellion – Aaron's rod; the pot of manna; and, these other things that symbolized sin. They we're looking down, and once a year, on the great day of atonement, the High Priest, by a very carefully ordained ritual, again, signifying the holiness of God, would take, again, the blood of an animal, and would sprinkle it on the mercy seat. The mercy seat was the top lid of the ark, which, in the New Testament, is called the propitiation seat. It was the seat where God's justice was satisfied toward sin.

Nobody could go into there. And if the high priest went behind that veil in the wrong way, or without the blood, or without the proper procedures, that insulted the holiness of God, and the sacredness of what was represented there in that ark, he would drop dead. For that reason, they put bells on the bottom of the robe of the high priest. So, as he moved about, as long as they heard these little bells ringing, they knew that all was well. And then, when he finished, he came out from this curtain, which was very thick. And he came back out into the holy place.

This is keeping man from a holy God: "Don't approach Me. If you do, you will die. The high priest alone could come under the Mosaic system. He came under the symbol of this blood, representing Christ. That is a temporary covering for him. And he may come in to perform this annual ritual.

Now, suddenly, Jesus Christ died, and this veil, separating the holy place, and covering these holy objects, split in in two, from top to bottom. The finger of God the Father came down, and ripped that curtain in two, and just threw it open. The Jewish leaders were horrified. They were in panic. There was the Ark of the Covenant, this sacred site, the most sacred issue of Israel, its most sacred feature of the whole temple worship, and all of mankind could come right up to the throne of grace. Why? Because the salvation (atonement covering) had been made permanent. Now the sin of the world had been paid for. And Jesus, Who had died spiritually now, completed the death penalty by dying physically.

Now, all of nature shook (reverberated) with the horror of that moment, and with what had been done. But God had declared that He had won, and the devil had lost. Adam had messed it up, and his descendants all inherited his guilt and his sin nature. But now, God had solved the problem – for everyone. And He demonstrated it by opening the way into the very presence of God – that holy of holies, representing the throne room of God in heaven.

The Dead Were Raised

Well, the earth shook; rocks were split; the tombs were opened; and, many bodies of the saints, who had fallen asleep, were raised. These were believers who came back to life. Later on, they died again. They had a double indemnity policy, so they died a second time. But it's kind of scary to see your mother-in-law alive again, that had gone off into the great beyond.

Matthew 27:53: "And coming out of the tombs, after His resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many." That was turmoil. These people were known, and their friends knew them: "I can't believe it. We just buried you a year ago, and here you are walking through the streets?"

Well, that was a clue that something was going on: "Now the centurion, and those who were with him, keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake, and the things that were happening, became very frightened, and said, 'Truly, this was the Son of God.'" When you see Him in heaven, you can ask the centurion a little more what it was like to be there that day and see this. This gentleman, with that statement, demonstrated his faith in the Savior who had just died.

So, here's this meal cake being baked, in an oven completely covered from sight, as was Jesus Christ into the darkness at Calvary. And the fire was applied to the oven, which pictured God's divine judgment burning upon Jesus Christ as He bore the sins of the world. The meal offering that was prepared in this oven was in the form of little cakes, or small wafers of fine flour and oil. The cakes of fine flower were mingled with oil. And they, of course, pictured the fine flower (the virgin birth), so that he was conceived without the sin nature of Adam, imputed from the father. He was sinless. There was no imputation of Adam's guilt, nor of the sin nature. And the wafers were anointed with oil, which pictured the anointing of the Holy Spirit to the mission of Jesus Christ in that oven to be the Savior of the world.

Unleavened Bread

You will notice, in the directions given in Leviticus 2, that you could not have any leaven. When you bring an offering of a grain offering baked in an oven, it shall be unleavened. There could be no leaven prepared in the preparation of these cakes in this oven. Leaven is a substance like yeast. It produces fermentation. It makes bread dough rise, and it turns grain into alcohol. Leaven in the Bible is a symbol of evil. Evil, as you know, consists of two things: sins; and, human good. So, Jesus, who was sinless, both by nature and in his conduct – you could not have anyone in the offering. We have this same principle of the Lord's Supper. The bread at the Passover was unleavened. And the bread that is used in the Lord's Supper, commemorating Christ, should also be unleavened.

It always makes me really creepy – from time to time, I've been in Christian groups, and they have the Lord's Supper, and they pass around white bread that has been cut up in a bunch of little squares. Talk about a misuse of corruption of the symbol of the Person of Jesus Christ! Not only is that stuff filled with leaven, but with all kinds of other preservatives that were completely out of keeping with the character of the innocence of Christ. So, there was no sin nature in the Lord Jesus, nor was He guilty of any acts of evil. So, this meal (these cakes) in the oven could not have any leaven in it.

Leaven

In the Bible, leaven represents different kinds of evil. I'm going to walk you through a few of those. Some time ago, about the time, I think, that everybody understands this, somebody challenged me. And he said, "Leaven is not always evil in the Bible." Well, it is. There is no other meaning for leaven, except that it's evil. Interestingly enough, this is often resisted. I don't know why.

When I was in the Bible department at Baylor University, Professor says, "Leaven does not always represent evil." Well, let me show you. Matthew 13:33: "He (Jesus) spoke another parable to them: 'The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three packs of meal, until it was all leavened.'" Levin has a permeating effect. It spreads. And the assumption is made by those who challenge that leaven is evil – that here it is referring to the gospel. And I remember hearing that professor at Baylor University, carry on about how now the war was over, and the United States was in a great position of influence, and the gospel was going to permeate all nations through the Christian nation of the United States. And he was using this passage to prove that the leaven represented the gospel. No.

What this represents, in this context here is unbelief (apostasy). This particular passage of Scripture is speaking about the tribulation. It is not the gospel going out to the whole world. Matthew 16:6: "Jesus said to them, 'Watch out, and beware of the legend of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.'" The Pharisees and the Sadducees consistently we're teaching things that were not true. The Sadducees were intellectuals. They did not believe in the literal interpretation of Scriptures, and they were the liberals within the community of Israel.

Compare this with Luke 12:1. Under these circumstances, after so many thousands of the multitude had gathered together, and were stepping on one another, Jesus began saying to His disciples, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." The evil of the Pharisees were that there were hypocrites – the evil of the Sadducees was their rationalism.

So, here again, in these two passages, Levin is not good. It is bad.

Mark 8:15 also deals with this business of the leaven: "And He (Jesus) was giving orders to them saying, 'Watch out. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.'" Now, the leaven of Herod, the ruler was the evil of worldliness, or political corruption. And the Pharisees were up to their elbows in social political corruption of the time.

In 1 Corinthians 5:6, the apostle Paul says, "Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?" So, here, the apostle is using, again, the permeating effects of evil."

In Verse 7, Paul says, "Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump." Don't have an evil lifestyle. In fact, He says, "You are unleavened, for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. You've been cleansed. Do not live an evil life."

At the beginning of this chapter, in 1 Corinthians 5:1-2, Paul says, "It is actually reported that there is immorality among you. And immorality of such a kind that it does not exist even among the gentiles, as someone has his father's wife."

Paul says, "I've gotten the word. Things have gotten out of hand there in Corinth. And here you are, a congregation of believers, and you tolerate someone who has entered into sexual relationships with his father's wife. You don't do anything about it?" Verse 2 says, "You have become arrogant. You have not mourned instead, in order that the one who has done this deed might be removed from your midst." Take him out of the fellowship. You don't act like a dog, publicly and arrogantly, in your sin. That's different than stumbling in.

So, here you have the Corinthians' evil in their licentiousness. And it's bad. It's called leaven. It's affecting the body of Christ at the local level.

Then we have Galatians 5:9: "A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough." The Galatians were playing around with little legalisms, and Paul says, "If you play with these little things, it'll permeate your whole life as a local congregation. Pretty soon you'll be living by the Mosaic Law."

The Bible never uses leaven as a symbol of anything good. It's not the gospel. Only the sinlessly perfect Jesus Christ went into the oven of the cross for our salvation. No one else could qualify. Acts 4:12 makes it very clear that no one else could have gone into that oven: "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men whereby we must be saved." So, a sinner can I have a part in salvation in anyway?

Furthermore, there is no frankincense, in this oven preparation of this offering, in order to teach that the Father and the Holy Spirit were offended by the Son, as from high noon to 3 o'clock, the intensity of the sins of the world were poured out upon Him. Jesus did not provide satisfaction to the justice of God by His sinless life, and His good character. He provided it as He hung on that cross, bearing the sins of the world.

Matthew 27:46: "And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried, 'Eli Eli, Lama Sabachthani (that is, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?'" He was in the oven.

Or, in Leviticus 2:5-6, you could choose to bring to the priest a different kind of preparation of your meal offering as a baked offering. This was not hidden inside of an oven, but now it was open – in view on a griddle. Verse 5: "If you're offering is a grain offering; that is, a meal offering made on the griddle, it shall be of fine flower, unleavened, mixed with oil, and you shall break it into bits, and pour oil on it. It is a grain offering." So, now here you have a flat metal plate, heated again by fire underneath, representing the judgment of God. It is still of fine flower, representing the sinlessness of Christ. There is the oil of the Holy Spirit. But there is no frankincense, and there is no leaven.

What this portrays is the openness of what people did see, as they stood near that cross when Jesus Christ hung on it. They saw the mental; the physical; and, the emotional stability of Jesus Christ as He bore His suffering for those three hours at the hands of the Jews and the Romans. Here was a man, and He bore the suffering, with all the dignity of the God-Man. People saw the unjust punishment of an absolutely, totally innocent man. And yet He did not shout insults at them. He did not rail at His tormentors. And Isaiah 53:7 predicted that he would not do that. Isaiah said, "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted. Yet He did not open His mouth: like a lamb that is led to slaughter like a sheep that is silent before its years." So, He did not open His mouth. Isn't that amazing? 800 years before, Isaiah writes this book, and says, "When that Messiah Savior gets to the cross, He will be abused." And Isaiah described that He would be suffered in such a way; He would be so mutilated; and, He was so beaten up that you'd look at Him, and His face was a pulp. He didn't even look like a man. And He did not abuse anybody with curses or condemnations. He took it with the patience of His mission.

In fact, notice Luke 23:34. As they were doing this to Him, we read, "But Jesus, on the other end, was saying, Father, forgive them. For they do not know what they're doing. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. And what Jesus Christ was saying, in effect, was: "Father, I am now in the process of satisfying your justice for these dogs (for these terrible people). Father, bring them to enlightenment. Show them their mistake. Open their wisdom to accepting the salvation I'm in the very process now of providing for them." And some were saved by what they saw of Christ on that open griddle of suffering. The thief on the cross was saved. The centurion in charge of the detail of soldiers who saved.

Now, the flat cakes, that were on this griddle, were broken into small pieces, and oil was poured on them. Breaking the cakes, obviously, had a symbol in what was done to the physical body of Christ on the cross, bearing our sins. 1 Peter 2:24: "And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin, and lived to righteousness. For by His wounds, we were healed." By the bruising and breaking up, as it were, of His body, though no bones were broken, the physical wounds that He was given, symbolized the breaking up of these little wafers, these cakes which had been cooked as people watched openly the sufferings of Christ.

Notice Matthew 26:26: "And while they were eating, Jesus took some bread. After a blessing, He broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, 'Take, eat. This is My body.'" There He is, taking the meal offering (the technique of griddled cakes), and He's breaking that bread, which was used at the Passover meal, which was unleavened. He's fulfilling this very symbol here, in telling them: "This is a symbol of My body." And it is going to be bruised and beaten: "None of My bones will be broken, but I'll be a bleeding pulp before 3 o'clock tomorrow."

The oil used in the cakes had a very special meaning. Here it was poured on, as the anointing was done, in anointing people to a mission. And this, of course, symbolized the anointment of Jesus Christ to His mission of being the Savior of mankind, and being the substitute Who died vicariously for us all: for Israel; and, for the world.

Then there was a third way that you could bring the meal offering as a cake, and that's in Leviticus 2:7: "Now, if your offering is a grain offering made in a pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil." Here you have an instrument that's flat, but with sides, open on top. It's a pan. It is partly open, and partly in a closed container with sides. The offering, again, was fine flour and oil, all representing sinlessness, and the power of the Holy Spirit upon Christ. This pictured the person of Christ on the cross. Now He was being viewed from the openness of God above. And you could look at it (man too) below. Both of them were viewing him. God saw the propitiation. God saw the satisfaction provided for His divine wrath. Man saw the visible sufferings of This Innocent Man Who was paying the price of death. And it was almost as if it was a glass container that you could look through the sides – man viewing the suffering of This Innocent Man, and God viewing from the top the satisfaction of propitiation.

There was no frankincense (no perfume) since sin that was laid on Jesus Christ put Him into a place where He was not a pleasure to His Father. He was not a sweet aroma. It was Christ bearing the offense of all mankind. And, of course, there was no leaven, since there was no evil in Christ, either inwardly or outwardly.

So, here you have, again, these cakes, in a different form for the meal offering, brought either as in the form of the oven, where He is hidden from you; brought in the form of the griddle, where He is exposed to God and man; or, brought in the form of a frying pan, where He is viewed one way from the top, and a different way from the side.

The procedure for this offering, in Leviticus 2:8-11, is similar to the procedure when they just brought the handful of grain, instead of in the form of the cakes: When you bring in the grain offering, which is made of these things to the Lord, it shall be presented to the priest, and he shall bring it to the altar. It is done in the same way. Part of the cake offerings, whatever form you use to make them, were then brought to the priest again: "The priest shall take up from the grain offering its memorial portion. He would take a part of the cakes, and offered in up in the smoke on the altar as an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord. These cakes would then be burned, and the smoke rising, as a perfume to God," symbolizing the acceptability of Jesus Christ and His payment.

The remainder of the grain offering, whatever cakes were left over then, in verse 10: "Belong to Aaron and his Sons – a most holy thing of offering to the Lord by fire. The portion burned is a memorial to the sinless humanity of Jesus Christ." The burning fire in Scripture represents the divine wrath of God against the sin of the world. The memorial means a remembrance through the Word of God, of the kind of person He was – sinless. This memorial of the cakes means remembering the suffering of Jesus Christ in the sinner's place that people viewed. This memorial means a remembrance of the divine good that Jesus Christ alone could offer to satisfy the holiness of God. And these three ways of preparing these cakes prepared these three memorials.

The oven memorial was the remembrance of the sinless person. The griddle was the remembrance of the suffering of the sinless Christ in the sinner's place – openly seen. And the frying pan was in remembrance that only Jesus Christ, both to God and to man, could satisfy the demands of the holy God.

So, this meal offering was a fragrant aroma. It was precious to the Father, and the cakes that remain were taken by the priests as part of their provision.

No Leaven or Honey

Now, not only leaven is forbidden in this. But you'll notice no grain offering, which you bring to the Lord, shall be made with leaven. You shall not offer it up in smoke – any living, or any honey: "As an offering fire to the Lord." Now, that's interesting. Here comes honey – sweetness. And there could be no sweetness in this.

Have you ever met somebody, such that you called that person: "just nothing but sweetness and light?" You're talking about a sweet old sin nature expression when we use that term. And that's exactly what the honey stood for here. It stood for man's hypocritical front: his sweetness; his pretense; and, what the old sin nature does.

Christians who walk under the guidance of the Spirit of God are very open and honest with one another. They act with the integrity of brothers and sisters in Christ. But here, the old sin nature is the carnal Christian, or the unsaved believer. The old sin nature is full of sweetness (human good). You know what the word is in our society? "Compassion." The liberals are always talking about compassion. That is plain, old, human good.

Human Good vs. Divine Good

Now, in this picture of Christ, and what He did to bring salvation, there was no human good sweetness. Honey represents emotions – the emotions of the human good rather, than the spiritual mentality of the Holy Spirit directing us into divine good. The sinlessness of Christ's person ensures an unchanging divine good as the basis of our salvation. Sweetness goes up and down. But there's nothing about the human good involved here. With Jesus, it was all divine good. Human good sweetness is not acceptable to God.

What do the unbelievers do? They want to bring to God all of their sweet human good. Isaiah 64:6 says, "Their righteousnesses." – "Please look at me." The unsaved says, "See my righteousness. Aren't I sweet?" Isaiah 64:6 says, "For all of us have become like one who is unclean. All of our righteous deeds are these are like filthy garments, and all of us wither like a leaf. And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away:" "All our sweetness," Isaiah says, "is with God, like a filthy garment." You think that you are really good. You really look good, like the old song title, "Ain't She Sweet?" No, that's human good, and it's not sweet.

In Romans 8:8, Paul describes this as those who are in the flesh. They are very sweet, but they cannot please God. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So, human sweetness cannot propitiate the wrath of God against sin, and secure salvation. It comes by Ephesians 2:8-9 – saved by grace: a gift from God. It comes by Titus 3:5 – it is entirely the work and the gift of God.

The Social Gospel

What is really being described here in our time is the social gospel. In an earlier generation, in my younger days, I used to hear about the social gospel all the time. Liberals in those days (of my youth) were not called "liberals." They were called "modernists." They were always talking about "social gospel," by which they meant "doing nice things for poor people: giving them food; giving them houses; helping the needy ones; and, giving them hospitals, and all this was the gospel. And the liberal churches were saying, "Do you want to go to heaven? Then do good to your fellow man. And God will take you in. Bingo! Just like that." But that's not true. That is the honey of the sin nature. And the sin nature has a honey.

In fact, you might get yourself "a honey," and you might not realize how much of a sin nature she is. And it's going to really go bad. Many a guy has gotten somebody he thought was honey, who is just turning a sin nature front until the reality hit. That's the error of the social gospel. A lot of people are in Hades tonight, because they went for the sweetness, and the emotionalism of being nice. The Lord Jesus Christ had no old sin nature. Therefore, he was incapable of producing the evil of human good.

Oil and fine flower could only produce divine good, and that's what it represented. There was no human good sweetness in our Lord Jesus Christ. There was no emotionalism at all. The fact is, when you read the descriptions of Him in the gospels, and the gospels are very unemotional presentations. They just goes in an orderly fashion, and tells you what happened. They just give you the facts: He did this. He said this. This was the result. Here's the Scripture He based it upon, and it's an orderly presentation.

So, what do you think when you turn your TV on, and some hot pulpit-pounding preacher who's yelling, and walking back and forth, and making jokes, and getting people to laugh, and he's an entertainment. He's not a teacher of the Word of God. That's honey mixed with leaven, and that is a deadly combination – the evil of the sin nature, mixed with the honey of the sin nature, will destroy you exactly. That is the thing that the Lord Jesus Christ was not.

So, in all these offerings – it was very significant (such as in the meal offering), in the very wonderful way that they were prepared and they were presented. The meal offering bloodless. But it stood for everything that made it possible for us to go to heaven. The Sinless One paying the price of death for us.

The Firstfruits

This meal offering also had a special place in one of the great feasts of Israel: the Feast of the Firstfruits. This was a magnificent feast. I always refer to this when I conduct a funeral. When I stand a moment at the casket, I can tell you right now that I'm going to refer to this – the firstfruits. And how was the meal offering involved in the first fruits. The firstfruits was a farmer cutting the first part of his green out, and bringing it as an offering to the temple, for the priest to take and wave before God. It was another bloodless offering – a grain offering. And what he was doing was declaring that he understood certain things. He understood that what he brought to God was a sample of the grain – a whole field of it. And he also understood that this was the first part. It was the first of the fruit. But the rest of it was going to follow, and it's going to be just like this one.

And who is our first fruits, associated with the meal offering? The Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says, "He is the Firstfruits." What does that mean? It means that He's the First One – a human being, raised to eternal life. He is a human being, Who had been dead, Who is now given a body which can never die again. It is immortal, and it can never sin again. It is a body like unto the perfection of Jesus Christ Himself. He was the first fruits. But it was also tied to this festival, and to the meal offering, in order to demonstrate that what's going to happen with the rest of us is, that we will rise. We'll follow from that field of grain to the field of the living, and we will be just like Jesus Christ in His humanity – perfect in every way, and at the prime of life. And we will have all eternity to live at your physical best. And you are going to live it up. Believe me: they only need a few harpists up there in heaven, and that's it. The rest of us are going to boogie all over God's great universe. And the physical body is the agency that God says "is the firstfruits."

Now, there's a marvelous connection between that Festival of the Firstfruits and the meal offering – this wonderful connection of what the sinless one has done for us. And we will look at that in detail next time.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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