Job: Episode 3.
Of Sacrifices And Burnt Offerings.
Reading: Job 1:5
5 And it was so, when the days of their
feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early
in the morning and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all,
for Job said, it may be that my sons have cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job
continually.
“…Job…and offer burnt
offerings…” This was a way of life revealed to man after the fall. The fall? We
shall get to that in a moment. Burnt offering revealed what would be in the
future, the strain of the hidden mystery of God. But here it was in a shadow
form; it was a revealed secret not fully understood yet by the people under its
administration. The full meaning would become clear as crystal later in a
faraway age. Job would continue what he had received by revelation from God as
well as what he had gained by fellowship with those men and women of his age
who knew God in part as Job also knew in part. The part they both knew made a
unit whole that meant salvation to them. In all age, man will forever be
learning – I almost said about – God. No single being, man or angels, outside
of the Lord Jesus has the full mastery of the knowledge of God. It is a little
here and a little there and the wise who fellowships with a little here and a
little there will also receive revelation from the Lord himself and then is his
joy complete. Knowing one single aspect of God is good but not good enough as
when we have full and rounded knowledge of him. We come to this by
fellowshiping with one another. In fact, we are counselled not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another… The man Job received,
as it were, some extant knowledge of the living God from a distant past as
taught by and confirmed to us by them
that heard Him. Before Paul were Peter, James, John and all the other
apostles. None knew much about the Eternal plan of God to save the whole world
until the coming of Paul. Therefore from the 13th Chapter of the
book of Acts, there was a revolutionised thought on the mind of God. Peter was
later to comment about the redemptive efficacy of Paul’s writings. Paul himself
spoke of his meeting with the elders in Jerusalem to reveal to them what he was
sent to preach. Both the new apostle and the old learned much from one another
about God’s present thinking, or present truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. There
is safety in fellowship; there is
the ever increase of and in the knowledge of God.
“Job… and offer
burnt offerings…” This man knew the life of God as revealed in the
righteousness of His son. He did not know it fully, but he at least knew just
like the ancients that a saviour would come and save man. He did not know as we
now do but he knew enough for his age to please the Lord and to walk worthy of
him unto all pleasing. The burnt offerings meant so much to him as a
livestock-rich man. For him, the shedding of the blood of his animal-wealth was
significant in so much as it represented his own life taken away. He knew that
the salvation and free fellowship of those children stood in the blood. He
regularly sacrificed for the children to keep them in God’s view for only in this
was hope and salvation, though the children might not know.
The
Treason of Man and the Reason for Altars.
“In the beginning
was the word, and the word was God and the word was with God.”
“In the beginning,
God, created the heaven and the earth….”
“Who is the image
of the invisible God, the first born of every creature: For by him were all
things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and
invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers:
all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and
in him all things consist.”
Love is the
Father’s heart; love seeks a hold upon which to fasten; love finds this in ‘the
son of His love’ in whom all fullness dwells. God creates the universe not for
angels but for man and has one singular desire, to dwell with and in man.
Everything in the universe, including the Milky-way galaxy of man’s earth God puts
in space with regards to the earth. He arranges the universe with awesome
delicateness that helps to keep the earth in balanced orbiting and spinning. Having
done this, God puts man on the planet earth, in a garden. All of creation gravitates to the earth and
all of the earth gravitates to man and man, in turn, makes a dwelling for God’s
Son of love.
Love’s plan for man
includes communion; it includes fellowship; it includes interaction with the
Eternal. He plans that man will come into his nature of incorruptibility and
immortality. He creates the man innocent but not perfect; he creates him
neither mortal nor immortal. Man is to come into Eternal nature heuristically; it
is a thing he must come into by experience; he must come into immortality by
making a journey that requires the absolute reliance and dependence on God.
Well, the Man, another Man called the second Adam or the Last Adam is to come
in the future to bring immortality to light, to show that it is attainable –
this thing called immortality. But, we will be distancing ourselves from our
present meditation if we veer off to that Man. We will not wait to explore Him
now.
Love plans
interaction with man having His own nature. You interact with the type of your
own life. Animals have their type of life called bio; so do trees, plants and
all microbes. God has his own type of life called Eternal life; man is to be
upgraded to this life for then will the Eternal be able to fellowship with him.
It is for man to develop and develop and develop… until he comes into Eternal
life, the very life of God. This is what the Eternal holds out for man.
In the garden of
man called Eden are two famous trees among many others planted there to guide
man towards the Eternal: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the
second, the tree of Life. These are representation of light-radiating personages
that feed life; they have fruits that give life. Now there is life and there is
life! Have you noticed how a child increases and grows in intelligence as well
as in stature when it is fed with food, fruit and vegetables; the same way will
the fruits of these trees cause man to come to appropriating the different lives
in them, in the trees of these fruits.
Christ demonstrated
the meaning of these trees for us. He had sound judgement that was as accurate
as that of His Father, yet he would not take this advantage to do things in His
own wisdom or judgement. He would rather seek to do it the exact way the Father
would do it. He was able to say, My
Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Further down, He said, the son can do nothing of Himself, but what
He seeth the Father do: for what thing s soever He doeth, these also doeth the
son likewise. The absolute submission and dependence of the Son to and on
the Father in all things is called the TREE OF LIFE. Paul was to write later to
the Philippians, Let this mind be in you
which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in form of God thought it not robbery
to be equal with God. In other words, Christ did not try to take up His
God-ship advantage to please self, but gave way to the Father’s mind in all
things. The tree of Life is man’s absolute submission to God in all things; it
is making deference to the Father’s judgement and wisdom in all things; it is
being taught of God, of the Spirit. This is called faith of the Son, an
absolute conviction that whatever God does is right; it is trust in and relying
on the wisdom of God in anything He does. Then what is the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil? It is of man taking up his own life to run it by
his own dimly perceived light-darkness; it speaks of man being wise in his own
conceit; it is of man’s soul dispensing with divine wisdom and, choosing to be
independent of God, goes his own way to become like God; it speaks of man
creating and charting his own path to divinity. He has hardly done eating the fruit
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil when conscience rises out of him and
condemns him. Since then conscience has always been bearing witness,…..accusing or excusing him.
Like God! Yes, like
God. Man has run several civilisations, done all sort of things to overcome or
attenuate the disastrous and hostile surroundings in which he has found himself.
Since he is not whole like God, he easily finds enemies for himself or create
one: the case of his several wars are in view here as well as the case of his
discriminating, hating, enslaving and killing, not for any reason other than the
suspicion he holds against the colour of the skin of fellow human beings. He is
the only creature of God that kills and destroys his own kind or species. Like God!
He has invented self-destructive weapons to eradicate himself from the surface
of the world. He tested one of them to a holocaustic effect in his war which he
called ‘a war to end all wars’ fought and ended a year shy of seventy this
year. Now, he is full of fear and is distraught in managing his affairs. All
these were offshoots of being like God – and independent of Him. Perhaps, it
will not be too much of a digression if we further expatiate upon this thought for
the sake of clarity.
Love expends so much
care in the making of man, his object of delight though He makes him not of
precious stones as bodily constituents or as coverings; nor does He make him as
one set on a mountain or as one who walks up and down in the midst of fire.
Love makes man of His own self, Spirit; Love makes him of an intangible fibre
called the soul and the tangible dust of the earth. That is the wisdom of God
at work; the making of this weak thing of soul and body as his house or
dwelling place. Man is the crown of Love’s creation in heaven, on earth;
visible and invisible; thrones or dominion and principalities… The purpose
being that in all things, the son of His love will have the preeminence. Man is
of the spirit, having a soul and living in a body. The spirit relates to God,
the soul to reason and the body to the physical world.
On a day the Lord
brings His other creatures to man and says, “Give names to these creatures for
me” and man in a jiffy, begins to give names. He does this by being in tune
with the spirit, by relating to God in his spirit, the dwelling of God. By the
wisdom of the spirit of God, the soul of the man receives help and insights.
Whatever names given are exactly what God has also arrived at. Talk of spontaneity
of thoughts. Along the line comes an ancient murderer that engages the reasoning
stance of the soul of man. The argument is about eating the fruit of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil. Reason chooses to obey without any input
from the spirit or from the Lord. Man takes the path of independence from Love.
By this singular
act, man kills love. Love is killed when distrusted, when his life-giving
guidance is discountenanced; love is deeply hurt when pushed, out of suspicion,
away from the place of communion and fellowship. Can walk together except they agree?
This is the death of man! Death is the severance of relationship from God;
death is distrust of God; death is man saying he can do without God; death is
the absence of faith, it is a doubting of divine intent and purpose. Death is
man defiantly telling himself that he can do well and be on the way to eternal
life by himself, independently of God. Quite right, he has done well, has he
not? We will not press this further.
At severance from
God Who is spirit, man died. What remained was just the shell energised by
death itself. Of course, death is not the physical falling down and cessation
of breath; it is a setting in of decay; it is a cutting off from the source of
life for only in “him all things hold together or cohere.” Death is believing (or
siding with) the lie of God’s enemy; it is calling God a liar. This is
disobedience and it carries a great penalty. This, for man, is treason for he
aligns himself with another against God to dethrone God from His place.
God must leave
since the earth has been hived out of orbit by the very man to whom it is
entrusted; he chooses to give it to another. This has been the story of man
ever since.
Love must keep off
the affairs of the earth. God’s rights stopped immediately.
God planned to
indwell man bodily, but man had called for his independence. God had to leave
and allow man to go his way for He is just. But the Lord has always worked from
the finished to the starting; from the end, working his way to the beginning.
This much Pa Austin T. Sparks has taught us.
Sequel to this
treason, nature was subjected to vanity, aimlessness and purposelessness – but
in hope. Many African proverbs capture this vicious circle of existence. “Ile aye,” says a Yoruba proverb, “aye asan.” Literally, “This house of
life – it is a vanity,” of no value. No doubt, it is so for us if our value is
that of this life, aye asan.
Man, whoever is he
or whatever he has achieved or whatever is his stature always find an emptiness,
a vacuity in himself, a yearning seeking to be filled. He may not acknowledge
it, though; it is always there. Clever man, he has successfully filled that
inward yearning with activities: economic advancement, scientific researches,
inventions and technological miracles, art, culture and all the rest which are
the hallmarks of his civilisation(s).
God is righteous.
God is just. His justice demands he stay away from man or that man be destroyed
or be taken out of his sight; justice demands that he smash up all of creation
and, perhaps, start again, but he has finished his work from the beginning and
this hitch is not going to stop him; he has decided to love man and man he must
love. He kills an animal and covers the nakedness that is man’s. This is
symbolic. This is the first sacrifice ever made and this is of God. In some
divine economy, the innocent becomes the guilty; the guilty becomes the
innocent. It means that the guilty has been made innocent, justified by the
shedding of the blood of the animal called the victim. Theologians are to call
this, in future, the principle of double exchange.
“…and offered burnt
offering…” God taught man by symbols and types about Jesus Christ’s shedding
His blood for the purpose of double exchange: the life of the one without sin
for the life of the sinner. The men that cherished the righteousness of God
learned early to offer sacrifices to Him. Why sacrifice? These sacrifices
re-established the righteous rights of God on earth wherever they were carried
out. God is no respecter of persons: But
in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, is accepted of
him. This righteousness here is according to God, not according to man; it
is the righteousness defined from the point of view of God. It is about
acknowledging that our personal righteousness in not enough to satisfy the
standards of God’s righteousness; it is about confession of our sins and
passing them on the victim who will die in our stead. Abraham reared altars
often to sacrifice on. Noah was the first to be mentioned in connection with an
altar and burnt offering. The
offering established the fact that God is the right and true Lord of the earth;
it also proclaims that man agrees to that, at least the man that does the
offering. The earth is the Lord’s and
the fullness thereof. The victim of the burnt offering was wholly burnt on
the fire of the altar. This speaks of thorough judgement of removing the sinner
me out of God’s sight through this exchange of two lives. Now, I, the guilty
and the unrighteous have been transformed to the innocent victim; I have
assumed another life, delightful to God. The innocent victim has been
transformed to me and become me who is to be destroyed; I have been destroyed
in the victim. By this the guilty me does not exist anymore, only a new
creature with a new beginning. I speak of my spirit.
“…Job… offered
burnt offerings...” This was a type of Christ.
In the Mosaic Law,
the sacrifices became more specialised. There was the burnt offering, the meat/
grain offering, the fellowship/ peace offering, the sin offering and guilt
offering. In sin and guilt offering, as I lay my hands on the victim, I
acknowledge my sins or trespasses against God or man; in burnt offering, there
is interchange of lives: the innocent victim and the guilty man that needed to
be taken out of the sight of God; in fellowship offering, I have come to God
for a voluntary act of worship. In fact, qorban,
the Hebrew word for offering actually means that which brings to God or to the altar (Vine Comp. Exp. Dic.). A
frequent statement in Leveticus is connected with these offerings and is first
noticed in Genesis 8: the Lord smelled a
sweet savour, talking about Noah’s sacrifice which he offered on the altar
he built after emerging from the ark and with all that were with him. In
Leveticus, the sweet phrasal refrain is,
of a sweet savour unto the Lord.
The Hidden Mystery
These offerings and
the altars were a type of Christ.
The perfect burnt
offering or victim is Jesus Christ; the perfect because He was without sin,
though tempted in all ways – tested and tried to the last degree yet without
sin. For if the blood of bulls and of goats,
and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying
of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered himself without spot to
God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Now by faith, he
that takes hold of the perfect sacrifice is said to be born from above or born
again. He is born into the Spirit of God.
I believe in the end of the sinful me in the
vicarious destruction of Christ Jesus; I believe my being raised back to life
in His resurrection from death. Therefore I am born from above.
I do not recognise
nor remember however faintly the old sinful me now thoroughly destroyed and
taken out of the sight of God; there is only brand new me never again to be
taunted by dead conscience. I am of another world where righteousness, peace
and joy reign supreme; I am out of the zone of death.
The sweet savour to God is not the gas
coming off the sacrifice.
Jesus Christ is the
sweet savour to God; his love-response to the Father is the savour of sweet
smell. I am by implication a sweet savour to God; I am one together with Christ
Jesus as God’s altar. And the smoke of the incense which
came with the prayers of the saints is Jesus Christ. Jesus is
everything in the temple of God: the victim, the furniture, the altars, the
incense and the High Priest.
“… Job…offered
burnt offerings…” There is also today a continuing offering called the living
sacrifice to which all the saints, for the purpose of be being saved, are
enjoined to offer. This is said to be the saints’ reasonable service. Be being
saved. That sounds awkward, but it speaks of a continuing process as our
salvation is not a once for all affair; we, we shall repeat the phrase once
more, be being saved. The sacrifice
of our High Priest is wholly and perfect, but there is the living sacrifice for
us to make. A living sacrifice can be cumbersome and frustrating; he can bolt
away, nay, run away when the heat proves too overwhelming. This contrasts
greatly with a dead sacrifice which is done and over with.
Here we come o,
Lord, in response to your vicarious offering on the Cross of Calvary to be
completely given over to you, without reserve; we present ourselves as living
sacrifice. We know it is not easy to be a living
sacrifice for it means being offered and living again and yet again be
killed. The killing is painfully not once and for all. It is a continuous,
endless process. Yet we receive the strength of your Spirit, your grace to
surrender ourselves. We pray, Lord that you should go ahead and deal with us
and obtain your own end through your own way, whatever that means. Let this
presenting of self as a living sacrifice be thorough and go far to achieve
divine target in our lives. Cause us to be drawn to your altar of sacrifice and
be the altar that we may access higher fellowship and communion with you. The
presentation of our bodies is our job to do; the grace to do comes from you. We
receive this grace and stay on the altar till you have obtained your perfect
interest in us. We acknowledge that it is only you that can assess the height,
the depth, the length and the breadth of our union with you, or how far we have
come in you. Now, all we say is that in
nothing shall we be ashamed (of you) but
that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in our
body, whether it be by life or by death. The one goal of this living
sacrifice is that as we receive divine dealings in our lives, in our bodies,
there will be a diminishing of us as there is the ever increasing magnification
of Christ in us. As part of this living sacrifice, we pray that we may know Him,
that is our Lord Jesus Christ; that we may know the power of His resurrection
(for it is this power, in dealing with us,
that will bring Christ in us ); we pray to know the fellowship of His
suffering and be made conformable unto his death. Thank you, our Lord.
( Heb.10: 25;
Heb.2: 3,4; 1 Jn1:7; Jn.1:1;
Gen.1:1; Ps.8:3-9; Col.1:15-16;
Gen.2:1-8, 17, 19-20; Gen.3:21,22; Rom.2:15;
Jn.5:17,19;
Phil.2:5-6; Prov.26:5,12; Rom.12:16;
Hez.28:14-15; Amos3:3; Col.1:17; Rom.8:19-21; Lev.1;2;3;4
;5;
Rom.12:1; Pil.3:10)
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