The Life History Of The Priest Of God (06)

Job 1: 5 gives us the thought of the priest of God. The man Jod had a measure of the fullness of the priest of God.

              We continue our meditations on this from Leveticus 8,

           verse 27: He put these on the hands of Aaron…. As wave offering…        

                                

                                      Wave Offering

                       

               "Moses removed the vital organs of the liver, fat tail, the kidneys. Out of the basket of bread before the Lord, he took cake of bread made with oil, and a wafer and put these on the fat portion and the right thigh of the ram in the hands of Aaron…. Who waved them before the Lord “as wave offering.”

            In the course of ministration of peace or fellowship offering before the Lord, the offerer by himself removed and brought the fat and breast to the priest. The offerer waved these before the Lord as wave offering. The priest would then burn the fat before the Lord, but the breast belonged to him as the officiating priest. It was the Lord offering this potion to the priest by Himself. “From the fellowship offerings of Israelites I have taken the breast that is waved and the thigh that is presented and have given them to Aaron the priest…” (Leveticus 7: 34).

             As the priest ministers to God on the behalf of the people, God’s nature begins to rob off on him in turn; parts of the glory of the offering returns to him. No one knows this better than our High Priest, Jesus Christ. He knew and was able to shift through all degrees and shades of glories. Satan offered him his best, but the Lord would not fall for it. He desired the ultimate. Certainly, the Lord did not dispute what the devil showed him as  not being glorious. but He knew it as the glory which the devil has control of. It has its own measure of glory (Mathew 4: 9). Of degrees of glory, let us tick off some: political power, super-intellectual prowess, material wealth, modern inventions, gift and grace of having children, spirit-gifts, military exploits and fame.

          The church is not left out of the glory-pursuit. The present glory is the definition of glory to the church. In many Pentecostal mega-churches, the pastors have ways of making the overhead human boss to send them to the branches where the elite worship, where you can impress the worshipers with erudity and where there is all the possibility that you will be financially blessed. This reminds one of Simon, the sorcerer of Samaria who, after conversion to Christ tried to bribe Peter into giving him the power to bless others with the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

             There is a vast practice, today, another form of simony in the church. A member is well-behaved so that he may be recommended to become a pastor or to become the minister of the gospel; pastor or minister of the gospel in the church is well-behaved so as to be sent to a money-spinning branch of the ministry. Being  called into the ministry is so rash and rampant; it is now a vocation that anybody can go into. We study for the ministry as we do for this or that profession in school. And my, are we not in the days when ministry “is a soft sell”! Many go into the ministry because it is a mean of self-glorification. Even when we pray that God will honour Himself by using us to perform wonders and signs, we know who we desire to be honoured; it is not truly God but us. The gospel preaching is a fast lane to fame.

                Both the first Adam and the last saw the glory prepared for them. Both saw immortality in the promise laid before them. But, the first would rather choose the one that was able to gratify his immediate desires, the glory that was even later denied him. Jesus deliberate chose the path of sufferings to get to the true glory; Adam sighted a quick path that offered no suffering of tutelage under God. Adam failed to link to the eternal thought of God in creation; Jesus saw the very heart of the Father in creation and went on to satisfy that longing.

          Christ is the wave offering to God; God is the wave offering to Christ. This looks awkward but true. The wave offering means dedication, a given of self; it comes of what is called fellowship or peace offering; it is fellowship-seeking offering. And the Lord Jesus was so conscious of this. He knew the eternal mind of God in creation and knew the glory God designed for man to walk into. He was aware of how th heart of the Father yearned for fellowship with like nature. Angels? Sorry, angels are not for immortality! But man!

              The successful offering of God to man is glory; the offering of man to God is the glory of fellowship. In John 17: 4, Jesus began to say, “I have glorified thee on the earth…. And, now, O Father , glorify thou me  with thine self with the glory which I have with thee before the world was.” What is the purpose of this system of sacrifices and tabernacles and the rules? I t is to achieve glory. Friends, God is the glory. Glorify thou me, said the Lord, with thineself… it is called the inheritance of God. The heaven is not as glorious as God Himself; He has made man this glory to inherit, to live in, with and by; He has offered to dwell among men in fellowship. This, friend is the glory of God.

           We write this in a moment of excruciating pains and, as it would seem to our natural self, crushing defeat. But we have by faith link up with those things that cannot be seen; they are said to be eternal. We desire to have the testimony of them who are dead, despising, the glory of this world. We will rather go through the strait life for the inheritance of God – the wave offering; the offering God waves back or gives back to man; the offering  man waves to God.

         This is the eternal historical path of the priest of God.

Lord, we thank you for the Lord Jesus who has made the eternal thought of the Father to come to fullness through the Body of Christ, the Church. The Church, as His body, is the testimony of the Lord on the earth today and forever. We are the offering unto God through our Lord Jesus, the wave offering. Of course Lord, you were offered for us and we acknowledge this. We pray that more of you will rub off on us, Lord; may this consciousness of the fullness of your thought realisable in your Son continue to be with us and in us.