The Life History Of The Priest Of God (02)
We submitted that long before Moses, God had priests if only rudimentary
in nature as seen in Job 1:5. Here we continue with our meditations on the life
of the priest of God.
Leveticus 8:
12: And
he poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron’s head and anointed him
to sanctify him.
The priest of God is an anointed one, chosen and singled out for certain
assignments by God; he is a consecrated one. To be consecrated is to be set
apart or separated for holy use (life). The priest is consecrated to approach
God, to fellowship with Him. The goal of the life history of the priest is so
scripted so that he will inherit God.
The anointing oil is strictly special. No one was allowed to compound
anything similar to it. It should not or must not come upon any one other than
the priest of God. Exodus31: 32:
32: Upon no man’s flesh shall it not be poured, neither shall ye make
other like it,
After the
composition of it: it is holy and it shall be holy unto you.
33:Whosoever compounded
like it, or whosoever putteth any of it upon stranger shall
even be cut off
from his people.
This oil is compounded from five principal spices of myrrh, sweet cinnamon, sweet calamus, cassia and olive oil. the oil signifies the Holy Spirit. As the oil cannot and must not come on strangers
to the priestly life, so cannot the Holy Spirit come upon and fill any one that has not come to the washing of regeneration and, therefore, a stranger to the priestly calling. He does not sanctify any one outside the priestly caste.
He may use this or that person or that thing; He took hold of king Saul who had
a murderous intention; many were "slain in the spirit" at the garden in the night to arrest Jesus Christ. In its compounded wholeness, it signifies the Holy Spirit in His
multidimentional, multifaceted, multifarious and multitasking divine activities
in calling, enduing, energising, accomplishing and perfecting what He sets His
heart upon. He performs one thousand and one
activities, but He lays hold only on one who is on the way to the life history to the
priesthood of God. It does not matter that men are manufacturing
and simulating His acts and presence nowadays when they will like Him to move
in certain way. On Christ, He came “in bodily shape like a dove” (Luke 3: 22);
on the day of Pentecost, He came like cloven tongues of fire on the disciples (Acts
2: 3).
The Pathway of Taking Away of One’s Life
Leveticus 8:
14
And he brought the bullock for the sin offering: and Aaron and his sons laid
their
hands upon the
bullock for the sin offering.
Then, Moses did to the
bullock according to the law of sin offering:
slaughtered it, collected the blood to sprinkle on the altar with his
fingers and poured the rest at the base of the altar; after which he burned the
vital life organs as liver, kidneys and the fat covering them on the altar. The
carcass of the bullock he burned outside of the gate. This process says one
thing: the taking away and removing of one life out of God’s sight; the
answering of a life to the justice and judgment of God.
The priest in the journey
of his life towards God experiences the taking away of his own life. The altar
is the place of constant death; it is a complete annihilation of the old man
that must be removed to give God the chance to have His place in us.
Sin
offering frees from Serving or “doing” Sin
In this meditation, the first
death here is called sin offering which we shall call, for ease of reference,
the sin-death. This means being completely removed out of the presence of
God. It means that the old man had been judged because he is an abhorrent to
God. The life of the priest, typed out here, is of the bullock vicariously
judged and dying instead of the man. The bullock is Christ here as the victim
in this instance. A man who knew no sin
was made, note the word, made, sin
that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, Christ Jesus. This
offering was not done 2000+ years ago; it was actually shed, in eternity,
before the world began. The bullocks for sin offering here was just to represent
the eternal until the Lord came to the scene Himself about 2000+ years ago. With
the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, we can now continue our
interrupted life journey to the God of righteousness.
Romans 6:
5: for if we have been planted together in
the likeness of his death, we shall also
Be in the
likeness of his resurrection.
6: knowing
this that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might
be
destroyed, that henceforth, we should not serve sin.
Here it means we
have no business serving the life of sin.
Verse 14: For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under ….but
under grace.
In effect, we have died on the altar, nay on the cross with
Christ and have also resurrected with Him. We are dead to sin and resurrected,
alive, to righteousness.
Practical Apprroach to Sharing the Identity of Christ
One
form of this death is bearing the reproach of Christ. The Lord Jesus was the
bullock for sin-death and burned outside of the camp. Vers 13 of Hebrew 13
encourages us to go forth to him without the camp bearing his reproach. We were
“made” him; he “was made” us. Identifying with Him in the face of the
antagonism of the world against Him is bearing His reproaches and going on to
meet Him outside the gate. To look away from what we can gain from the world
system and esteem the shame of the cross of Christ greater riches than the
treasures in the world amount to bearing His reproaches. The Hebrew writer says
of Moses in the 11th chapter, verse25: Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to
enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season; verse 26: Esteeming the reproach of
Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had resect unto the
recompence of the reward.
We also identify with Him in His victory over death. In this faith-life,
in this faith-rest let us be confident that we are absolutely without sin, that
Satan or any one for that matter, can point to. It is easy to accept the
suggestion of Satan that we are sinners. If we are able to overcome this lie,
he returns more vehemently to point out to us the sins of our parents and
forebears. These are putrid carcasses that must be completely buried and be well-buried.
We do not need to exhume them nor do we need allow preachers to open up again
the buried dead. They do not exist no matter how Satan harps on them.
One can understand this theology and from
where it is coming from. Our flesh that refuses to die with the Lord has the
same values as the world. The treasures of Egypt which are glorious in their
own ways and world can be very alluring in splendour. Ask from Achan of the
Israelite-journey-in-the-wilderness fame and he will tell you that the garment of Shinar he stole was
irresistible. The premium the world puts upon certain things in its judgment is the same the
Christ-oriented one, in imitation of the world, is putting lifting up as things to
look on to and to desire. The Christian has discovered that Faith in Christ only makes it easier
to achieve these same values. When we pray and fail to apprehend what we
desire, these world-defined values of life, these glorious treasures off this
world, it is easy for Satan to tell us that our situation remains and persists
so long because of our sins; the sins or ancient evil deeds of our ancestors,
if we, by faith overcome his accusation of being sinners. Prophets will call
us and ask us to carry out a thorough research into our family history to exhume
the dead corpses of the sins of parents or forebears or other hidden sins,
unknown. But oh to know that, as surely
as the Lord lived, died and resurrected, these things, these allegations do
not exist either on the side of God or on the side of Satan. The sprinkling blood
mightily speaks and the devil cannot counter the speeches.
As we come to the place of
counting all things lost for Christ, being devoid of ambitions to be
“somebody,” or being reckoned in life as “nobody,” completely immune to the
threats of being less in influence and called “strange,” we are only just beginning
the life of faith. It takes God’s kind of faith to live above the values of
this life. The world has its own measure of glory and Paul acknowledges this. He
writes: “If only in this world we have hope, we are men most miserable.” But,
no, our hope goes beyond this life and is centred on another that is seen and
lived only with the eyes of faith. Yes, it takes the God’s kind of faith to lose
grip of the present values of man and not know it. It is the path of redemption
of the human soul. The people of the New Testament history were driven by this
faith in the face of perils,infirmity, reproaches, unmet needs,distresses,
persecutions, being regarded as scum of life and killing. When we arrive at
this point, it will be hard for a prophet to convince us that some ancestral
spirit is responsible for our not measuring up in the scale of this life.
The faith-life which means to esteem the
reproaches of Christ as greater riches than the treasures of the world is the
path of the history of the priest of God. He is called to this.
Father, thank you for the death of your Son Jesus as our sin offering. Our
hearts pant after you like the hart pant after the water brook. As the very
essence of life, we crave after you; we hunger and thirst after your presence. Most
times, though, we are bound by our other cravings of the beautiful things of
this world. We do not want to be seen as strangers, as “religion people." We love
to blend more with the visible things of this world than with the values that only faith
can see and put value upon. Lord, we receive the grace today to identify with
You in all points, including the cross, victory over flesh or the self. May our
values be Your values and may our love be utterly to You alone. Thank, you ourFather.
