The Burnt Offering - PH89-02
Advanced Bible Doctrine - Philippians 4:14-19

The Sacrifice of Substance

When money is given on the basis of church age grace principles, which God has outlined for giving, the offering is a fragrant aroma to God. Paul has so described this gift of money which the Christian priests in Philippi have sent to him in Rome. That's what he's talking about here in Philippians 4:18. He's referring to this particular sacrifice of substance sent by the Philippian believers. A sacrifice of substance which is properly given is an offering which God the Father regards favorably, and which He delights in receiving. In other words, this is one way of pleasing your heavenly Father – by giving Him an acceptable sacrifice of your money.

The sacrifice of substance, when properly given and properly executed, is under the guidance, empowerment, and direction of the Spirit of God – not under legalistic gimmickry. When such an offering is made, it is revealed at the Judgment Seat of Christ as an act of Christian service. Therefore, obviously, if it is to be an act of Christian service that God rewards, it must be as the result of the guidance of the Spirit of God. That's what we mean by grace giving. It cannot be the result of something stimulated in the old sin nature.

Most of the time, Christians are encouraged to give on the basis of various manipulations and stimulations to the old sin nature. That's wrong; that's tragic; and, that's a great personal loss to them for eternity. So therefore, it is very important that you understand the principles of grace giving, and that you respect the fact that God rewards you for the sacrifice of your substance.

If indeed, history is moving very rapidly to the time of the rapture and the day of the rapture, there are a lot of us sitting here, as well as believers elsewhere, who are not going to go very far in making a career or in setting aside a fortune in preparing for our old age, because we're never going to get there. The thing that is going to mean something for all eternity is not how much we leave behind in a bank account, but how much we send ahead in the form of treasures in heaven via investments in the Lord's work relative to making Bible doctrine understood and available to people in one way or another.

The background of Paul's reference to the sacrifice of giving as a fragrant aroma is the offering of the Old Testament Levitical animal sacrifices. It's important that you have an understanding of this Old Testament system. He has said something that is very tremendous. When he says that your giving of your money can be a fragrant aroma to God, this is something that you will not really fully appreciate until you understand the significance of those Old Testament sacrifices – where that idea comes from. Then you will see why those sacrifices were so precious to God. You're going to find that those sacrifices were more important to God than they were to sinners, and what they represented to sinners.

Usually we think of the Old Testament sacrifices and say, "Oh, wonderful, those sacrifices represented what Christ was going to do for the sins of the world. They were very important to sinners." Do you realize that those sacrifices were far more important to God than they were to sinners? Do you realize that God is more interested in what that sacrifice meant to Him than it meant to sinners. I hope to show you why before we're through today. But if you understand those Old Testament sacrifices, and what made them a fragrant aroma to God, you will enter much more deeply into the significance of what Paul is saying, and of what you can do with your money as a sacrifice.

Well, we pointed out that the Mosaic Law system had these five sacrifices. The first one was the burnt offering. The second one was the meal offering. The third one was the peace offering. These three had a common bond in that they were called the fragrant odor offerings. They were a fragrant aroma. Furthermore, these three were voluntary offerings. You didn't have to bring these. You could bring them. The other offerings, the sin offering and the trespass offering were non-fragrant odor offerings. They were the ones that were compulsory. You had to bring these. The sin offering was for sins that you had committed that you were not aware of – unknown sins. The trespass offering was for sins that you committed that you knew you had committed.

So you had two classes of offerings. One was voluntary, and the other was compulsory. The three voluntary offerings were called fragrant odor offerings because they represented something about the Son of God, the person of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ in his perfections that pleased God the Father. The sin offering and the trespass offering were non-fragrant because they pictured Jesus Christ under the burden of our sins and under the condemnation of the wrath of God, so that the Son was in the position that was not a fragrant aroma to God. It was not pleasing to God. In other words, it was our sins that make us a stench in the nostrils of God. It is the person and the work of Jesus Christ that made Him, and ultimately us, a fragrant odor in the nostrils of God.

The Burnt Offering

All this ritual visually portrayed the work of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God bearing the wrath of God by dying for the sins of the world. All of this was a program of visual aids in a pre-literate age where people did not read (did not have access to reading), and they were taught doctrine via these visual means.

So this offering was called by God a fragment aroma type of offering. Leviticus 1:9 has that expression at the very end when it says, "That this is an offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. When the apostle Paul, in Philippians, talks about giving your money in such a way that it's a fragrant aroma to God, this is what he's thinking about. He's thinking about the classification of offerings that God just delights to receive, because this offering has deep, significant meaning to the Lord. And we're going to see why.

We found that the offering from the herd was if you were rich. If you were in the middle-class income, you were permitted to bring a less expensive burnt offering. This came from the flock. There was a similar procedure for the sacrifice of this animal as for bullock (Leviticus 1:10-13). This animal pictured the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who was to take away the sins of the world; that is, the world of unbelievers. This is the doctrine of unlimited atonement. While all three categories were permitted to be brought for the burnt offering, each of these animals had a little different significance. The significance of the lamb was specifically Jesus Christ dying for all the sins of all the world, of all human beings – unlimited atonement.

The North Side

If you'll turn to Isaiah 14, you can read the passage that describes to us the fall of Satan – the rebellion of Satan against Jehovah God. Isaiah 14:13 uses an interesting expression relative to the north. We won't go into all the things that Satan said he would do here, but beginning at verse 13, it says, "For you have said in your heart (mental attitude sins), 'I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God (the angelic hosts). I will sit also on the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.'" A better translation there would be, "I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north."

The ancient world, interestingly enough, viewed the northern areas of the planet as the place where the gods assembled. In the oriental imagery, you had what we would compare, in Western thinking, with the Greek people to Mount Olympus. When the Greeks thought about where the gods assembled, they thought about Mount Olympus. In the ancient oriental world, when they thought about where the gods assembled, they thought of them in the northern recess area. Perhaps this is because some of them lived in areas where the north was the place where the mountains were. Thus, they rose up above the clouds very often. They were in the mist, and they were in an area that just seemed to suggest that here is where the gods would assemble. But the point is that this was a mount of assembly. It was a gathering referred to as a mount of gathering, whether of the gods (whether that's the imagery here or not) is irrelevant.

The term "mountain" is used in Isaiah 2:2, and we have to find how the Bible uses the word "mountain:" "And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow into it." Notice that we have here the terms "mountains" and "hills." As you search through Scriptures, you will discover, as in this passage, that the term "mountains" and "hills" refer to government authority. This refers to rulership. This refers to the majesty of rulers. Kingdoms are referred to as mountains. Their authority (their ruling power) is referred to as mountains, and the lesser ones as hills.

So what Isaiah is doing here is that he's leaping across the centuries, and he's looking ahead to the time of the millennium, when the nation of Israel will have governmental authority over all the nations of the world, via the ruling of its king, Jesus Christ, from the throne at Jerusalem. So what he's describing here in Isaiah is the millennial condition when Israel shall be the ruling nation of the world, and it shall have governmental authority over all nations.

Now, when we come back to Isaiah 14, with that frame of reference for the interpretation of the word "mount," we have the clue as to what he means by the "mount of assembly." It is not only the gathering of somebody or some gods (as the ancients thought), but it is the gathering of governmental authority. In other words, the mount of the assembly referred to the center of the authority of governing the universe. In other words, it referred to God's own governing authority – His sovereignty over the universe. And it is identified with the direction of North. Satan decided, in effect, to bring the universe under his sole sphere of authority in place of God's control. So what Satan is saying here is that, "The assembly of deity (that was the idea), the assembly of the governing authority of a deity, which is in the north, I want to be part of that. I am going to, as a matter of fact, be supreme in it." He wanted to rule the universe.

So I think we have thereby a clue as to why, when the lamb was slain, the blood was poured out on the north side of the altar, because the north side represented the area of Satan's rebellion. It was in the area of Satan's seeking to take governmental sovereign authority over the universe from God (that was represented here by the north side of the altar) that needed to be covered by the blood of Christ. That was represented by this lamb. This was the restoring of that authority. So the slaughter of this animal on the north side of the altar, and the blood itself, was the meeting (symbolically) of the challenge of sin to God's sovereign control of the universe. In other words, the north side of the altar was the place of judgment, so that's where the lamb was slain.

Now, of course, the slaughter of this animal was not a very pleasant sight. I don't know if you've ever seen animals slaughtered, but it is kind of an unnerving thing: to hold a warm living creature in your hands; to pull its head back; to slash its throat; to see the blood spurt out; and, to see the thing convulsing, gasping, and struggling as its life is being pulled out, and finally going into its final convention (its death throes) and to die. That isn't something that you'd want to do all day long for kicks. It's kind of an unnerving experience, especially if you get all splattered with the blood. But in a way, that represents exactly how God feels about our sins. It's nauseating, and an unpleasant sight. In this way, God was conveying to these people, "Man, your sin is a mess." It's a revolting, nauseating, and disgusting sight in the sight of God. It's the horror of sin.

When that animal was slain, it was offensive even to look at, let alone to participate in. You didn't just bring the animal to the priest and say, "Here, kill it." The priest stood by. You brought the animal; you put your hands on it; and, you went through the ritual. You symbolically put your sin upon this animal to bear it, and then you picked up a knife and you did the slaughtering. Then the priest came into the picture. He didn't come in until that point. Yet, God says that this site, which is offensive to us on a human level, was a sweet fragrance quality to God.

Acceptance

If you happened to be walking down with your brand new Charlie Chan white suit on the road to a church that morning, and the sewage was in the streets, and the garbage was thrown out there, you could get filthy. That's why the animals congregated there. The stench was unbelievable, especially in the hotter climates. Consequently, if you were traveling and walking, or even if you rode in a vehicle, when you arrived, you often needed a little help to be acceptable in human company again. So they would actually use perfume. That's why they washed the feet, because of having to make that kind of a journey in part.

Well, this is idiomatic in the language. For what? That you're accepted. It's the idea of acceptance. When you come in out of that which has made you offensive in human company, we do something now to make you acceptable. So the significance here is that Jesus Christ was totally acceptable to God the Father. In John 8:29, we read, "And He that sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone. For I do always those things that please Him." Only Jesus Christ could say, "I do always those things that please Him," and that's what made Him a fragrant aroma in the nostrils of God the Father.

As the animal sacrifice smoke rose to God, it too was a fragrant aroma because of what it represented of His Son Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:2, therefore, says, "And walk in love as Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." Jesus Christ was a fragrant odor in sacrifice upon that cross.

If you were really a poor person, and you wanted to bring this volunteer offering of the burnt offering, then you were permitted to either bring a dove or a pigeon. That was the offering of the poor. None was to be denied access to this expression of worship. This offering represented Jesus Christ in resurrection – the God-man in His resurrection. The richness of his deity was exchanged for the sinner's poverty. We have that expressed to us in 2 Corinthians 8:9. This particular sacrifice indicated that here was One who was rich taking on our poverty spiritually: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor, that you, through his poverty might be rich."

So the sacrifice of the bird was for those in the poor category. In this case, the priest killed the bird. It was a little different. The offerer (the worshiper) did not do it. He did this by simply taking the bird in one hand; putting two fingers around the neck; twisting it; and, just pulling off the head and decapitating the bird. This was, again, for the purpose of the immediate outpouring of the blood. This was poured at the side of the altar, and probably again, on the north side, because therein was the place of judgment – that assembly of the authority of God, in the northern recesses, which were the areas in which Satan made his rebellion.

At this point, the priest plucked away the feathers – that which represents, again, contamination. He threw these away on the east side of the altar. The east side of the altar was the ash pile. This was the place which represented the removal of sin. All of the trash and refuse was put there. Then he took the knife; he laid the bird out; and, he cut the bird right down the middle, but he did not cut it in two. He divided it, but he did not split the parts. He was very careful to keep the parts hinged to one another so that the bird was laid out open.

The Hypostatic Union

So the bird was separated to indicate that Christ was God and that he was also man, but that the two were one person, and that the two worked together. The deity never went one way and the humanity another way, or vice versa. They were areas absolutely together. Consequently, we say that Jesus Christ was impeccable. That is, He was not only able not to sin, but He was not able to sin. That's the hypostatic union. This division also indicated the singleness of purpose of Jesus Christ. He had a singleness of purpose in His humanity and in His deity. In other words, His humanity was not moving in one direction, and His deity moving in another direction. Again, John 8:29 expresses that for us: "He that sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left me alone, for I do always those things that please Him." He had singleness of purpose, doing the things that pleased the Father.

The Significance of the Burnt Offering

That's a tremendous verse. It tells you the whole thing there. Here you have a puny human being, made to bring glory to God, to be in fellowship with the living God, and instead, what have you done? You have listed yourself against the Lord of heaven. You have become an arrogant character of the most despicable type, and you have taken the sacred things of God, describing here the vessels of the temple, and you have prostitute them to an unholy use. You have taken all of the people that you have influence over, your family and the people of your court, and you have made yourself a bunch of drunken fools, and you have turned to the gods of the idols that you yourself made out of various metals and products and minerals in the earth. In all his ways, everything that ever came across the life of this man, was because of God – every blessing and everything that was taking place. And what did he do? He didn't glorify God.

This is what God is faced with. He made Adam a perfect man; He made Eve a perfect woman; He put them in a perfect environment; and, He said, "We're going to have a ball for all eternity. You're going to honor me and I'm going to bless you." What did he do? He turned around and disgraced God. For whom? For his majesty the devil. Satan was just sitting there with his arms folded; watching this; and, saying, "That's very interesting, God. Just take a look at your Adam. Look at Eve. I was glad when you made Eve. I knew you were in trouble there." He's taunting and making fun. God was disgraced. God was humiliated in the sight of all the created universe. The elect angels were a little unnerved about this. Was there something wrong with God? Was there something defective in the character, the essence, or the power of God?

God's character could only be vindicated in one way, and that is by a man who would live on this earth wholly-yielded and subject to God's glory. Adam could have done that, and Eve could have done that. So Jesus Christ, as the God-man, was born into the stream of the human race minus an old sin nature. He came for the specific purpose, first of all, to vindicate God the Father. Then His death on the cross provided us with our salvation, as was portrayed by the burnt offerings. But before it did that, in importance to God, it demonstrated to all the creative angelic hosts that here was a Man who could come into the world who could be positive toward God; who could be positive toward divine viewpoint; who could live all of His life without ever committing a single sin; and, who could actually go in complete subjection, because it was the Father's will that He do this, to the cross to die.

When Jesus Christ finished His work on the cross, whatever Satan had to say, his mouth was shut. Whatever the demons angels were doing in making fun of what God had created was put to an end. For in the Lord Jesus Christ, there was demonstrated that God had placed within man the capacity to have been obedient and to have been victorious over sin. The burnt offspring aspect of the cross portrays that first of all. It brought more glory to God, in fact, than had been denied him by Adam and all of his descendants. It removed all questions of the Father's abhorrence of sin, and of His delight in holiness. The character of God was left unstained, and the holiness of God was left intact. Now God could take a multitude of people into heaven who were sinners without God Himself ignoring sin. God had demonstrated His glory, and the regenerated sinners, you and I, have gained more than Adam lost.

When we are born again, we can't ever be lost again. Adam, when he started out, was able to be lost. So we have gained infinitely more than what Adam even lost. So it was through the burnt offerings that God the Father took us into His thinking about God the son. That's fellowship. Through this burnt offering; through the significance of these symbols; and, through the means of these details, God the Father takes you into His confidence and says, "This is what I feel about My Son." So all of this is a tremendous visual aid picture of the preciousness, the sweet fragrance aroma of what the Son was going to do in behalf of our sins.

The Meal Offering

So Leviticus 2 tells us about this offering, which is different than the others because it's non-blood. It was an offering of grain. This sacrifice portrayed the person of Jesus Christ, not stressing His work on the cross and not stressing His sacrifice for sinners, but stressing who He was. After all, the value of Christ's death on the cross lay in His sinlessness. That's what made the death of Christ significant – because of who He was, and what He was. So this offering really presents the other side of the picture to the burnt offering. Remember that salvation was not provided by the absolutely sinless life of Jesus Christ which he lived for 32 years on the earth. You and I were not being saved because He lived a perfectly sinless life. The point at which our salvation was provided was when this perfectly sinless life had the sins of the world poured out upon Him on the cross, and He died. So actually, all of the sins of the world were paid for in a three-hour stretch from high noon to 3:00 in the afternoon.

Satan leads the cults astray at this point. Very often, the cults (as well as other groups) make a great deal over the holy life of Jesus Christ. They make a great deal over the holy life of Jesus Christ, but they dismisses His death. We are not saved by the holy life of Jesus Christ, though that is what this offering stresses, but we are saved by the death upon the cross. That's why these two offerings, the burnt offering and the meal offering, often went together. You had to have both of them to have the full significance of what was to take place in the future.

Fine Flour

All of you ladies know the value of fine flour in order to get maximum results in baking. There are ways to sift flour in order to fluff it up, and in order to take out any lumps, so that you have an absolutely fine mixture to work with. The humanity of Jesus Christ is what is portrayed by the fine flour that the offerer brought. This humanity had none of the coarseness of the old sin nature. What could we use to illustrate our nature? You could think of many things, but whatever it was, it would have coarseness involved. It would have some fine qualities, but there would be elements that were coarse. The fine flour represented the humanity of Jesus Christ in its perfection.

Oil

For example, in Acts 10:38, we read, "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him." God the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus of Nazareth. The sinless humanity of Jesus Christ, represented by the fine flour, has added to it God the Holy Spirit – the power of the Spirit of God within Him.

You may remember that the Old Testament predicted very clearly that God the Holy Spirit would be with the Messiah to give him power. Jesus Christ, because He was God and man, operated in His humanity under the power of the Holy Spirit. That's important, because if He could do it, we can do it. We cannot say that Jesus Christ did something because He was God, and that we could do it. No. But His performance, even in that wilderness temptation, was entirely a human being under the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, what He could do, by being positive, we can also with the same power.

For example, in Isaiah 11:2, the Old Testament said, "The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel," and so on. Verse 3 says, "And shall make Him quick of understanding in the fear of the Lord, and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears." In other words, the Holy Spirit will give him great insight. He will not be a fool in His judgments. He will not be tricked by human viewpoint reasonings, arguments, and approaches. He would have the power of the Spirit of God.

Isaiah 42:1 adds to that, where the prophet says, "Behold My servant whom I uphold, My elect in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him. He shall bring forth justice to the nations, describing Jesus Christ in His millennial reign. Here again, it is God the Holy Spirit that is making the difference in the life of the Messiah.

Isaiah 61:1: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek," and so on. So here again, the Old Testament made very clear that Jesus Christ, in His humanity, would find the power of the Spirit of God His resource.

Also the humanity of Christ had the constant unhindered filling of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus Christ was here, there was never a moment when He was not filled with the Spirit. John 3:34 is actually referring to that when it says, "For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God doesn't give the Spirit by measure unto Him." "God doesn't give the Spirit by measure" means that He always was filled with the Spirit. There was never anything less than complete filling.

Also, the Holy Spirit marked Jesus Christ as the Messiah at the water baptism of Jesus. Matthew 3:16 says, "And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him. He saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting (or abiding) upon Him." So the Spirit of God was there to identify Him. The Holy Spirit sustained Jesus Christ in His humanity during his earthly ministry. Again and again throughout Scripture we have that indicated – that the reason he operated as a human being so perfectly was because the Spirit of God was enabling him to do that.

Matthew 12:18 says, "Behold My servant, whom I have chosen, My beloved in whom My soul is well-pleased. I will put my Spirit upon Him. He shall show justice to the gentiles."

Matthew 12:28 says, "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come near unto you." This is indicating that the human Jesus was casting out demons by the power of the Spirit. You may add to that Luke 4:14 and Luke 4:18.

Another point to remember is that the Holy Spirit separated from Jesus Christ while He was bearing the sins of the world on the cross. Psalm 22:1 gives us the expression (800 years ahead of time) that He did use on the cross: "My God. My God. Why have you forsaken Me?" He was addressing God the Holy Spirit and addressing God the Father.

Then we're told that the Holy Spirit took part in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For example, this is very clearly stated in 1 Peter 3:18: "For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive by the Spirit." You may add to that Romans 8:11.

Finally, John 16:14 tells us that the present ministry of the Holy Spirit is to bring glory to Jesus Christ, who is now seated in heaven at the right hand of God the Father: "You shall glorify Me, for You shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you."

So all of that that we now know from the New Testament was signified by this oil which was being poured out of this container upon the fine flour.

Frankincense

All three elements of this meal offering are very interestingly found combined in Matthew 3:16-17. This was at the water baptism of Jesus: "And Jesus, when He was baptized (there is the fine flour – the sinless humanity present) went up straightway out of the water. And, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him and He saw the spirit of God (there is the oil) descending like a dove, and lying (or abiding upon Him, or resting on Him), and, lo, a voice from heaven saying, 'This is My Beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased'" (and there is the frankincense). So here you have the Son; here you have the Holy Spirit; and, here you have the Father represented in that meal offering. This is described to us as being a sweet savor offering in the nostrils of God.

Now, this is just the introduction to the meal offering. But again, when you understand this one, and come to appreciate what the Jew was doing when he brought this ritual, you will appreciate again why God found this such a delight to Him. Then when you compare that to your giving, you really will appreciate what God means when He says, "When you bring your money to me on grace principles, I do it with the same fragrance, and I welcome it in the same way that I did when I watched them perform that burnt offering that spoke about the work of My Son, and I watched them perform that meal offering that so portrayed the nature of the person of My Son. As pleasing as that was to Me, so pleasing is your gift of money to Me." That's fantastic.

So God opened heaven at the baptism of Jesus Christ, and said, "I'm thrilled with this. I'm delighted with what you're doing. I'm well-pleased."

So if you want to hear God's commendable "Well done, you good and faithful servant" (you terminal generation people), learn how to exercise the substance of giving and that sacrifice. That's one way to do it.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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