The Life History of The Priest of God

   The Life History Of The Priest Of God (03)

                        Job 1:5 has been the root of our meditation on the priest of God.

               We come to burnt offering. Leveticus 8:

                                    18: He then presented the ram of burnt offering, and Aaron and his sons…laid

                                       their hands on its head.

                                    19Then Moses slaughter the ram and sprinkled the

                                    blood against the altar on all sides.

                                   20 He cut the ram into pieces and burned the

                                    head, the pieces and the fat. He washed the  inner parts and the legs with

                                water and burned the whole ram on the altar as burnt offering, a pleasing         

                              offering made by fire.

                                                                                         

                                                    Burnt Offering and Its Meaning

                  This sacrifice takes place in the outer-court of the tabernacle. We are here considering the burnt offering.  It signifies the putting away of man from God for his sin nature as completely opposite that of the Lord. This offering portrays a complete annihilation of the the man or the man in the ram. We are seeing the extermination of Aaron and his sons [represented in man] in this ram of burnt offering. This is the same way the Lord Jesus was completely removed from the presence of His Father, not because of His own sin, but for the sin of the world, for the sins of each of us; past, present and future sins – all have been answered in the  death (Christ as burnt offering) of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Psalmist prayed, May He remember all your sacrifices and accept all your burnt offerings (Psalm20: 3). It was, to the bible people,  an awesome experience to have one’s burnt offering accepted of the Lord; it means we are of a life dedicated and given completely over to God. But just as then, even so now, we do not put much by this because it is not a physical and emotional thing. The people of old did not know the significance of the burnt offering in the eternal thought of God. They thought it was just to bring the ram and so that would be all and that would qualify them to be intimate with God. We too do think that all we need to do is to accept the Lord Jesus as our burnt offering and that will offer us the right to the heart of the Father. Yes, this action does ensure the turning of the heart of God towards us; yet, it is just part of a whole; the journey still lies ahead.

                                                    The Blood that Speaks and Moves God

                   The blood is sprinkled against the altar. This blood has a clear message. It is said to speak. Whether of man who is a friend of God or enemy, his blood speaks. It is written of the blood of the Lord Jesus in Hebrew 12: 22 -24, But ye are come to …Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better thing than that of Abel. This, we should note in passing, is because the perfect offering – as in other offerings represented in Leveticus and the law – Jesus Christ, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God (Hebrew 9:14).

               This is the clearly delineated path of the priest. In his identification with Christ, he comes to the altar of burnt offering. The altar knows two things: blood and fire. This is where the life of the priest begins and goes on in a cycle whose end and completion can only be pronounced by God. It is Him that knows when a cycle of death has been accomplished and the purpose fulfilled; it is only Him who knows when to invite His servant to come up hither. It is only Him who knows when the fire has done its work of trying and proving thoroughly. God is He who does the upgrading to the higher grounds inherent in Him for each of His saints, the priests.

             Romans 12 begins to say in verse 1, I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye  that ye present yourself a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. This does not mean that we take the first available flight to ISIS to go for martyrdom. But it does mean that our lives as defined by flesh should be taken from us, completely tore from us or we from it.

                                        Annihilation to the Self

                The priest treads this path of lively self-sacrifice; he has lost his life, his self-hood. He has no will of his own left. The life of the priest is in a covenant relationship with God. In covenant relationship, each party has to commit his own life, his very existence and resources to the relationship. This can be clearly seen in the relationship between Abraham and God. God always stand back to keep this covenant to the descendants of His friend. But we are talking of priestly covenant with God. God gave Abraham a son on request based on the strength of the covenant between them; then, based on the same principle, God required that Abraham give himself to Him without reserve. This meant death to himself and being alive to Christ. The first thing was to take away Isaac his son, given to him by God, who he loved so much – his very life, his very existence and the ultimate enduring limit of his resources. In eventually agreeing to offer the son as sacrifice to God, he certainly died many times over. He came to a place that he lost his own life and offered to follow the Lord and accept him for what He said He was to him – your exceedingly great reward. Just as with the holocaust, there will always be struggles at the point of being slain, of being offered to death. That is why we find ourselves crying and weeping.

            Yes, in the process of being the living sacrifice, the priest may shed tears. At the end when heaven must have achieved its purpose, the tears are wiped away and joy of the Lord supervenes. …You are a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. In the days of His flesh [Jesus] offered definite, special petitions, …and supplications with strong crying and tears…(Hebrew 5: 6 - 7).

           Complete annihilation of the flesh that resides in the soul requires drastic measures as being killed, slaughtered or destroying the self-principle. There is nothing wrong for Abraham to love Isaac with all his heart, soul, power, mind and might; but that was infringing into the sacred domain of the place of God in the Temple, the heart.

    

              Lord, come and take your place within us and constantly have your way. Let struggles with your will die; let it be completely annihilated in us. Let your love grow in us so much so that we have no room for any other entity, even if as precious to us as Isaac to Abraham. Father, we pray that your love will be the driving force in our lives. As the knife of separation and tearing away from the self rips through us, we receive the grace to bear up under such drastic measures of the Holy Spirit who must do His work to secure us as sons and priests. Thank you, our Father.