Scripture Reading: Psa. 40:6-8; Heb. 10:5-10
Ⅰ
The will of God is to have Christ as the replacement for all the offerings in the Old Testament so that we may enjoy Him as everything in living and practicing the Body life for the building up of the Body of Christ—Psa. 40:6-8; Heb. 10:5-10; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 1:5, 9-11:
A
Christ came to do the great will of God, and He delighted in doing God's will—Psa. 40:7-8; Heb. 10:7; John 4:34.
B
Christ's replacing of all the Old Testament offerings, taking away all the Old Testament types and establishing Himself as everything to us, is God's great will:
１
The Old Testament predicted in Isaiah 53 that Christ would come to be the sacrifice for sin, that is, to replace and terminate the Levitical sacrifices—vv. 6, 10-12.
２
God prepared a body for Christ so that He could offer Himself to God to replace all the offerings—Heb. 10:5; cf. Psa 40:6; Exo. 21:6; Phil. 2:8.
３
Christ took away "the first," the sacrifices of the old covenant, that He might establish Himself as the "second," the sacrifice of the new covenant—Heb. 10:9-10.
４
The will of God today is simply for us to enjoy Christ so that we may become the corporate reproduction of Christ—1 Cor. 1:9; 1 Thes. 5:16-19.
Ⅱ
We need to enjoy Christ as the tabernacle, the enterable God, and as the reality of all the offerings of the Old Testament so that He may become our genuineness and sincerity for us to worship God with the worship that He seeks—John 1:14; 4:23-24; 14:17a; 16:13:
A
Christ, the incarnate God, came as the embodiment of God, as illustrated by the tabernacle, to make God contactable, touchable, receivable, experienceable, enterable, and enjoyable.
B
Christ who was incarnated to be the living tabernacle is also the Lamb of God, the aggregate, the totality, of all the offerings—1:14, 29.
C
As the tabernacle Christ is the enterable God, the mutual abode of God and man, and as the offerings He is the way for us to enter into God—14:6a.
D
Christ as the tabernacle brings God to man, and Christ as the offerings brings man to God so that man may be united, mingled, and incorporated with God.
Ⅲ
In order to live according to God's will, we daily need to practice taking and applying Christ as the reality of all the offerings; this is the "scientific way" to enjoy Christ:
A
The sin offering signifies Christ as the One who was made sin for us that through His death on the cross, sin might be condemned—Lev. 4:3; 2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 8:3; John 1:29; 3:14:
１
The more we love the Lord and enjoy Him, the more we will know how evil we are—Isa. 6:5; Luke 5:8; Rom. 7:18.
２
God uses the painful method of allowing us to fail so that we will see how horrible, ugly, and abominable we are and so that we will forsake all that is from the self and completely depend on God—Psa. 51; Luke 22:31-32.
B
The trespass offering signifies Christ as the One who was judged by God on the cross to deal with our sinful deeds that we might be forgiven in our sinful conduct—Lev. 5:6; 1 Pet. 2:24; Isa. 53:5-6, 10-11:
１
Taking Christ as our trespass offering with the confession of our sins in the divine light is the way to drink Christ as the living water for us to become the New Jerusalem—John 4:14-18; 1 John 1:5-9.
２
Taking Christ as our trespass offering to receive the forgiveness of sins issues in our fearing God and loving God—Psa. 130:4; Luke 7:47-50.
C
The burnt offering, which was wholly for God's satisfaction, as food for God, signifies Christ as God's pleasure and satisfaction, as the One whose living on earth was absolutely for God—Lev. 1:3-4; Num. 28:2-3; John 7:16-18.
D
The meal offering signifies Christ in His humanity and in His human living, which was proper, even, tender, fine, balanced, pure, and sinless—Lev. 2:1, 4; John 7:46; 18:38b; 19:4, 6.
E
The peace offering signifies Christ as the Peacemaker, the One who became the peace and the fellowship between God and us—Lev. 3:1; Eph. 2:14-15; John 12:1-3; 20:21; Rev. 21:2:
１
We should not try to have peace by our own effort; the only way to have peace is to enjoy Christ every day—Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 12:3b; Phil. 4:6-7.
２
We should enjoy Christ today and forget about yesterday and about tomorrow—Matt. 6:25, 34; Phil. 3:13-14; Heb. 3:7-8, 13; cf. Isa. 32:2.
F
The wave offering signifies the resurrected Christ in love—Lev. 7:30; 10:15:
１
The resurrected Christ is "waving"; that is, He is living—Rev. 1:18; 2:8.
２
When we experience Christ as the resurrected One, we become "Naphtalites"—Gen. 49:21; Acts 5:20; Hab. 3:17-19; Psa. 22:22.
G
The heave offering, an offering heaved up before the Lord, typifies Christ in ascension and exaltation, the One who is "far above all"—Exo. 29:27; Lev. 7:14, 32; Eph. 1:21.
H
The drink offering signifies Christ as the enjoyment of the offerer, enabling the offerer to be filled with Christ as the heavenly wine and even to become the wine offered to God for His enjoyment and satisfaction—Exo. 29:40; Num. 28:7-10; Isa. 53:12; Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6; Judg. 9:13.