«　WEEK 6　DAY 5　»

　　Num. 6:13 Now this is the law of the Nazarite when the days of his separation are fulfilled: He shall be brought to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.

　　17 And he shall offer the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings to Jehovah, with the basket of unleavened bread. The priest shall also offer its meal offering and its drink offering.

　　In the Old Testament God ordained that the descendants of Aaron would be the priests. Thus, some were born into the priesthood according to God's selection. However, the door was not closed for others who desired to serve God, for God also established the principle of the Nazarite. If those who were not born into the priesthood had a heart to serve God, they could volunteer as Nazarites. Samuel was a Nazarite. He was not born a priest, but by becoming a Nazarite, he eventually acted and served as a priest (1 Sam. 1—3). The Aaronic priests were chosen by God, but the Nazarites volunteered themselves. These two principles still exist in the church life today. On the one hand, we are chosen by God (Eph. 1:4); on the other hand, we need to volunteer as Nazarites in order to serve as priests. Although we know that we are chosen by God, in our actual service we do not have much consciousness of being chosen. Instead, when we serve in the church life, we are mainly conscious of the need to volunteer. The Lord Jesus was the real Nazarite. As His followers, we need to volunteer to serve God. Romans 12:1-2 speaks about voluntarily offering ourselves and being separated from the world unto God. (CWWL, 1983, vol. 3, "The Divine Trinity as Revealed in the Holy Word," pp. 267-268)

　　To be a Nazarite means to volunteer oneself, yet only recently did I see that the Trinity is altogether involved with the separation of the Nazarite. In the separation of the Nazarite there was the need of several offerings—the burnt offering, the sin offering, the peace offering, and the meal offering of different kinds of cakes anointed and mingled with oil. These four kinds of offerings were basic to the separation of the Nazarite.

　　[In Numbers 6:13] the Tent of Meeting refers to Christ as the dwelling place of God and the meeting place of His people. Every instance of enjoying the Trinity that we have seen throughout Exodus and Leviticus is at the Tent of Meeting. We must never leave Christ as the Tent of Meeting, because He is the ground and sphere for our enjoyment of the Divine Trinity.

　　The Old Testament almost always uses the expression offering to Jehovah [v. 14]; very rarely does it use the expression offering to God. The divine title Jehovah bears two primary characteristics in the Old Testament. It denotes God's relationship with man, and it denotes the Trinity. We have seen that in Exodus 3:6 Jehovah said, "I am...the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Jehovah identified Himself as the God of three generations, a threefold God, implying the Divine Trinity. Thus, in the separation of the Nazarite in Numbers 6, Jehovah is the Triune God.

　　With the consecration of the priests in Leviticus 1—7 there was the burnt offering, the sin offering, the peace offering, and the meal offering but no drink offering, but with the separation of the Nazarite the drink offering was included. This indicates that if we serve God based only on His selection, we may satisfy God, but we must volunteer to serve God to give Him pleasure.

　　The separation of the Nazarite was so that he might participate in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity in type. Even before a Nazarite began serving, he participated in the riches of the Trinity when he separated himself from the world unto God. According to the charge in Romans 12:1, we need to voluntarily consecrate ourselves to God, and the types in the separation of the Nazarite in Numbers 6 show that the Divine Trinity is fully involved in our consecration. (CWWL, 1983, vol. 3, "The Divine Trinity as Revealed in the Holy Word," pp. 268, 270)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Numbers, msgs. 49-50