Sword & Trowel 2018: Issue 2


order on the fire of the altar? Be- cause all had to be done as God had prescribed, in a formal manner in a certain place by certain people. You could not devise your own way of repentance or worship. Your repentance must follow a sincere and serious form and order. There would only be one place in Israel where sacrifices for sin could be made, just as there would be only one place where Christ would come and suffer for his own; one place where sins may be forgiven — Cal- vary’s cross. The prescribed offering contin-


ued (verse nine) — ‘but his inwards [intestines] and his legs shall he wash in water.’ That part of the body was to be regarded as unclean, and so were the legs, for they could be contaminated by discharge and were therefore not fit to be offered with- out first being washed. The offering must be clean, being an offering of perfect obedience on behalf of the sinner. Nothing of this evil world clung to Christ. Throughout his earthly walk he did not conform in any way to the sins and ways of this world, and even that is foreshad- owed in these offerings here. Then, with the burning of the offering we read an oft-repeated phrase — ‘of a sweet savour unto the Lord’. The offerer is made to think, ‘I have to be clean and pure, and I am not. I depend not only on a sub- stitutionary atonement, but I depend upon the purity and holiness of an- other to be offered up on my behalf.’ In the second chapter of Leviticus


we are introduced to the food of- fering: ‘And when any will offer


a meat offering’, or a food offering, a meal offering. Some translate it grain offering. It is actually of refined white flour, from which bread or un- leavened bread and cakes might be made. What is the meal offering? It is clearly an offering of obedience and righteousness, but particularly of a refined character. We are meant to bring forth such fruits of character and be- haviour, but we fail to do so. Flour is a refined product and also, in a sense, is the oil that was used in cooking. Frankincense was certainly refined, the ground tree resin that was used to add fragrance to the offering. The meal offering was not so much for atonement as for acceptance, hence the ‘sweet savour’. Much of this offering would go to the priests for their health and support, but some was offered on the altar. ‘It is a thing,’ says the Scripture, ‘most holy of the offerings of the Lord made by fire.’ The worshipper is to think – This is


my holiness offered up for me. I have none of my own to make me accept- able to the Lord. This food offering, meat offering, meal offering repre- sents the holiness and the refined character that I should have made — love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gen- tleness, goodness, faith, meekness and self-control (all the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.22-23). Acts of unself- ishness, pure, edifying words, good works and godly disposition, refined products of character and life, are all offered for us by Christ the Lord. In olden times, as the offering burned and the aroma spread, the sincere offerer would pledge himself afresh to be a better person, pro- ducing refined acts of love by the


True Repentance for Believers page 19


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