Scripture Reading: Lev. 2:1-16; John 6:57; 1 Cor. 7:24; 10:17; 15:10, 31, 36, 58; Rev. 22:17a
Ⅰ
As the mingling of the Triune God with the tripartite man, the New Jerusalem will be a great meal offering, the ultimate consummation of the mingling of the Triune God with the tripartite man—Lev. 2:4; 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Thes. 5:23:
A
The number twelve, which represents the New Jerusalem, indicates that the New Jerusalem is the mingling of the Triune God (three) with His creature man (four)—Rev. 21:12, 14, 21; 22:2.
B
The New Jerusalem is the mingling of the processed and consummated Triune God with the processed and consummated tripartite church—22:17a.
C
Eventually, the triune, eternal God becomes the New Jerusalem united, mingled, and incorporated with all of us—21:3, 22.
Ⅱ
We need to enjoy Christ, eat Christ, as our meal offering day by day for our priestly diet so that He can live again on the earth through us in His divinely enriched humanity—Lev. 2:3; John 6:57, 63; cf. Psa. 92:10:
A
By eating Christ as our meal offering, we become the reproduction, duplication, and enlargement of Christ as the meal offering—an offering composed of humanity oiled with divinity in resurrection through Christ's death and without leaven and honey—Lev. 2:1-16.
B
By eating Christ as our meal offering, we can live and magnify Him, the wonderful, excellent, and mysterious God-man who lived in the Gospels—Luke 1:35; 3:22; 4:1, 18a; 23:14:
１
Fulfilling all righteousness—Matt. 3:13-15.
２
No resting place—8:20.
３
Lowly in heart—11:29.
４
Love for the weak ones—12:19-20.
５
Flexible—17:27.
６
Having a serving humanity—Mark 1:35; see note 1 of verse 10.
７
Orderly—6:39-40.
８
Not sloppy—John 6:12.
９
Limited by time—7:6.
10
Unique—7:46.
11
Knowing when to weep—11:33, 35.
12
Humble—13:4-5.
Ⅲ
We need to be blended together into one Body by living the meal offering church life:
A
The flour meal offering signifies both the individual Christ and the individual Christian; the cake meal offering signifies the corporate Christ, Christ with His Body, the church—Lev. 2:4; 1 Cor. 12:12; 10:17.
B
The meal offering is a type of the blending for the fulfillment of God's economy—Lev. 2:4; 1 Cor. 10:17; 12:24; John 12:24:
１
In order to be blended in the Body life, the meal offering church life, we have to go through the cross and be by the Spirit, dispensing Christ to others for the sake of the Body of Christ.
２
Fellowship blends us; that is, it tempers, adjusts, harmonizes, and mingles us, causing us to lose our distinctions and saving us from leaving the impress of our personality upon the church's life and work so that Christ can be all and in all—cf. Col. 3:10-11.
C
The meal offering church life is seen in 1 Corinthians:
１
Paul's charge to the Corinthians—"Be a man" (1 Cor. 16:13—lit.)—means that we should have a high, uplifted humanity—9:26-27; 13:4-7.
２
Christ is the man given to us by God—1:2, 9, 30.
３
The church life is a life of humanity oiled by and with the Spirit and joined to the Spirit—2:4, 12; 3:16; 6:17.
４
The grace of God which we are enjoying today is the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit—15:10, 45b:
ａ
We need to die with Christ to self daily so that we may live with Christ to God daily—15:31, 36.
ｂ
We need to demonstrate the reality of resurrection by being one with God and having God with us in the state in which we were called— 7:24, 21-22a, 10-13.
ｃ
We need to labor not by our natural life and natural ability but by the Lord as our resurrection life and power—15:10, 58.
５
We need to enjoy the crucified Christ as the solution to all the problems in the church—1:9, 18, 22-23a; Mark 15:31-32a.
６
We need to enjoy Christ as our unleavened banquet—the life supply of sincerity and truth—who is absolutely pure, without mixture, and full of reality—1 Cor. 5:6b-8.
７
In the church life, the natural life must be killed by the salt, by the cross of Christ—15:10; 12:31; 13:8a.
８
God desires that every local church be a meal offering to satisfy Him and fully supply the saints day by day; this means that we will eat our church life, for the church life will be our daily supply.