The peace offering (Lev. 3:1) typifies Christ as the Peacemaker (Eph. 2:15). Apart from Christ, we cannot have peace with God or with others. Because there can be no peace in the universe without Christ, we need Him to be our peace offering. Christ has “made peace through the blood of His cross” (Col. 1:20). Now as the fulfillment of the type of the peace offering, Christ is our peace (Eph. 2:14) with God and with one another. Through Him and in Him we have peace with God and man. As the peace offering, Christ is sweet and satisfying. In typology, the peace offering was food for God and the serving ones. Today, in reality, we with God may enjoy Christ as the sweet, satisfying peace offering.
The sin offering (Lev. 4:3) is a type of Christ as the One who died on the cross to deal with the sinful nature of our fallen being. As the sin offering, Christ has dealt with the sin that dwells in us (Rom. 7:20), the personified sin extensively described in chapters five through seven of Romans (5:12, 21; 6:12, 14; 7:8, 9, 11, 13, 17, 23). This sin is actually the evil nature of Satan. Because we are sinful, even sin itself, we need Christ to be our sin offering. As the reality of the type of the sin offering, Christ, who did not know sin, was “made sin on our behalf” by God (2 Cor. 5:21). According to Romans 8:3, God sent “His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin” so that He might condemn sin in the flesh. Through Christ as the sin offering, sin has been dealt with. In Him our sinful nature has been judged.
Christ is also typified by the trespass offering (Lev. 5:6). We are sinful and have many sins and transgressions. God can forgive our sins only through Christ as the trespass offering. On the cross Christ bore all our trespasses before God. He “Himself carried up our sins in His body onto the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24). First Corinthians 15:3 says, “Christ died for our sins,” being “once offered to bear the sins of many” (Heb. 9:28). Therefore, as the sin offering Christ was made sin for us, but as the trespass offering He bore our sins.
The wave offering typifies Christ as the resurrected One. Leviticus 7:30 speaks of a portion of the peace offering being “waved for a wave offering before the Lord.” The words “waved” and “wave” indicate movement. This typifies Christ moving in His resurrection. The resurrected Christ is “waving”; that is, He is living. The wave offering, then, is a type of Christ as the resurrected, living One.
Leviticus 7:32 says, “The right shoulder shall ye give unto the priest for a heave offering.” To heave an offering is to lift it up. The heave offering, an offering heaved up before the Lord, typifies Christ in ascension and exaltation. As the fulfillment of the type of the heave offering, Christ is the ascended, exalted, transcendent One, the One who is “far above all” (Eph. 1:21).
Exodus 29:40 speaks of the drink offering. The wine of the drink offering was for God’s satisfaction; it was poured out to God for Him to drink. In the Old Testament a drink offering was poured out on one of the basic offerings described in chapters one through seven of Leviticus. The basic offerings are types of various aspects of what Christ is to God on our behalf. The drink offering typifies Christ as the One poured out as real wine before God for His satisfaction. Christ poured out His very being unto God. Isaiah 53:12 says, He “poured out his soul unto death.” Thus, Christ is the heavenly, spiritual wine poured out to God for His pleasure. Furthermore, the drink offering typifies not only Christ Himself, but also the Christ who saturates us with Himself as heavenly wine until He and we become one to be poured out for God’s enjoyment and satisfaction.
Hebrews 10:1-12 indicates that Christ is the fulfillment of all the offerings. He came to do the will of God (vv. 7, 9), that is, to replace the sacrifices and offerings, which were types, with Himself in His humanity as the unique sacrifice and offering for the sanctification of God’s chosen people. As this unique offering, Christ is the reality of the burnt offering, meal offering, peace offering, sin offering, trespass offering, wave offering, heave offering, and drink offering. In His death Christ offered Himself to God as the offering that fulfills all the types of the offerings.
Leviticus 23:3 speaks of “the sabbath of rest,” and verse 4, of “the feasts of the Lord.” In the Old Testament the children of Israel observed seven annual feasts: the Passover, the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of firstfruit, the feast of weeks (Pentecost), the feast of trumpets, the day of atonement, and the feast of tabernacles (also called the feast of ingathering or harvest). Among these seven feasts, the three major ones were the Passover, the feast of Pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles. In Colossians 2:16 and 17 Paul says that the Sabbath and the feasts are “a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.” Shadows are like types or figures. The “body,” the substance, the reality, of these shadows is Christ. The Sabbath signifies completion and rest, and the feasts, the annual Jewish festivals, signify joy and enjoyment. As the fulfillment and the reality of the Sabbath and the feasts, Christ is our completion and rest and our joy and enjoyment.
Christ is also typified by the brass serpent (Num. 21:8-9; John 3:14). Because the children of Israel in the wilderness complained and were rebellious, speaking against God and against Moses, “the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died” (Num. 21:6). Then the people came to Moses, confessed that they had sinned, and asked him to pray that the Lord would take away the serpents. When Moses prayed for the people, the Lord said to him, “Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live” (v. 8). Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole. Then “it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived” (v. 9). In John 3:14 the Lord Jesus refers to that incident in Numbers 21: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
The incident in Numbers 21 was sovereignly prepared by God to reveal a particular type of Christ. The brass serpent lifted up on a pole is a type of Christ lifted up on the cross for us as the Son of Man. As descendants of Adam, we all have been “bitten” by the old serpent, the Devil. Therefore, we all are serpentine beings with the poison of the old serpent in our nature. In the sight of God, the entire fallen human race consists of poisonous “serpents.” As such serpents, we need a substitute, someone with the form of a serpent but without the poisonous element of the serpent. This substitute is Christ, who died on the cross in the form of a serpent to deal with our serpentine nature.
In Romans 8:3 Paul says that God sent His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin and condemned sin in the flesh. This corresponds to the revelation in John 3:14 concerning the brass serpent. For God to send His Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin means that Christ became a serpent in form, that is, a brass serpent without the serpentine poison. According to the type of the brass serpent and its fulfillment in Christ, when Christ was lifted up on the cross, He was in the likeness of the flesh of sin typified by the form of the brass serpent, but He did not have the nature of sin typified by the poisonous nature of the serpent. Paul’s word in Romans 8:3 about God condemning sin in the flesh indicates that the old serpent has been condemned so that the problem of sin may be solved. Now whoever believes in Christ as the One who was lifted up to be condemned in our place has eternal life (John 3:15). This is the significance of the type of the brass serpent in Numbers 21:8 and 9 and its fulfillment in John 3:14.