In the peace offering there are many different kinds of cakes. The cakes must be either mingled with the oil or anointed with the oil. A few even had to be soaked or saturated with the oil (Lev. 7:12, ASV). To anoint the cakes is to pour the oil upon the cakes. To mingle the oil with the cakes is something deeper. To soak or saturate the cakes is the deepest. As the fine flour you should not only be anointed with the oil, but you should also be mingled with the oil and even soaked with the oil. You should let the oil enter into every fiber of your being. You must be anointed, you must be mingled, you must be saturated. Some today would oppose the teaching of mingling. They consider this to be a kind of heresy. But I would like to declare that there is something even deeper than mingling, that is, saturating. This can be seen with the cakes of the meal offering in Leviticus 7:12. In this one all-inclusive offering, the peace offering, there is the element of the sin offering, the element of the trespass offering, the element of the burnt offering, and the element of the meal offering. This means the peace offering includes all the other offerings.
The peace offering means that all the problems have been solved. All the requirements have been fulfilled. All the needs have been met. All the parties are satisfied. Furthermore, all the parties are now fellowshipping in the full enjoyment. This is the peace. If there are problems not yet solved, you don’t have peace. If any requirement is not yet fulfilled, you don’t have peace. If any need is not yet met, you don’t have peace. If any party is not yet satisfied, you don’t have peace. Even if these four things are taken care of, but you don’t have a fellowshipping enjoyment with one another, you are still short of peace. Peace means so much! I don’t think even this definition has exhausted the real meaning of the peace offering. The peace offering is the top offering. The peace offering indicates there is no problem, no shortage, no want. There is a full enjoyment of fellowship with God and man and with man and God. Every meeting should be a peace offering. Christians today do not have the proper meetings because they have not enjoyed Christ adequately as the peace offering.
Christ came as the tabernacle, and Christ as the tabernacle is all the offerings for us to enjoy Him. But how can you enjoy Him? The opening word of the preaching in the New Testament is “repent” (Matt. 3:2)! This is the opening word for you to enjoy Christ as all the offerings so that you may enter into God as the tabernacle. It all depends upon repenting. After a sinner confesses his sins, right away he receives Christ as his Savior, as his Redeemer. More technically accurate is to say that he receives Christ as his trespass offering. Our Savior and our Redeemer is the trespass offering. We lay our hands upon Him as our trespass offering. He was crucified on the cross bearing all our trespasses.
As we take Him as our trespass offering, at the same time we realize how perfect He is, how fine He is, how balanced He is, how complete He is. This is Christ as the meal offering reflected in our application of Him as our trespass offering. The way to enter into the enjoyment of the Lord Jesus as the offerings is to repent and make confession.
Shortly after you were saved you probably began to realize that you were not just sinful outwardly in your conduct and in your doings, but that you were, even the more, sinful in your nature. You are just sin itself. Then you confessed to the Lord and took Him as your sin offering. You treasured Him more, you appreciated Him more, and you realized that you were not for God at all, even though you may have been doing things for God. You realized that you were not so much for God, but that Christ is.
This is why in the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offering, all the inwards of the sacrifices were burned to God. Inwards typify what Christ is within Himself before God. He is genuine, He is real, He is absolutely for God. So He is the burnt offering. When you apply Him as your sin offering, you realize and appreciate Him as your burnt offering. At the same time you have all the elements as the constituents and the components for you to have a complete offering, that is, a peace offering. And the way to enter into the enjoyment of the peace offering is to repent.
Every day we have to practice applying the Lord Jesus as our trespass offering and as our sin offering. Early in the morning you need to pray: “Lord, thank You that You have given me another day. Lord, I offer You anew as my sin offering and as my trespass offering for this day. Lord, I realize I am sinful. I anticipate that from morning to evening I will trespass a lot today. Although by Your mercy and grace I would do my best not to trespass, still I will trespass. So, Lord, I take You as my trespass offering for my daily walk today.” This practice is to apply the Lord Jesus as your sin offering and as your trespass offering for today. By this you will have Him as the burnt offering reflected in your sin offering, and you will have Him as your meal offering reflected in your trespass offering. Believe me, the whole day you will enjoy Him as the burnt offering and as the meal offering. Then you will have the all-inclusive offering, the peace offering.
Some might oppose this kind of practice, saying that it brings people back to the Old Testament. They might argue that in the Old Testament they offered offerings every year and even every day, but that the New Testament tells us Christ’s offering is once for all. So we don’t need to offer. That kind of teaching is absolutely scriptural but it only shows one side, one aspect. It only shows the side of the accomplishment of the sin offering. The accomplishment of the sin offering was once for all, but to apply what the Lord Jesus is and has accomplished is a daily matter. This kind of practice is not a matter of the accomplishment of the sin offering or of the trespass offering. This is a matter of the daily application of these two offerings. Every day we have to offer Christ as our sin offering and our trespass offering. This will usher us into the enjoyment of the burnt offering and the meal offering, and this will consummate in the peace offering.