Where then is the meal offering in the Gospel of John? The meal offering has a character of fineness, evenness, and perfectness. The meal offering was mainly made of fine flour which had been ground so fine, so even, and so perfectly. The Gospel of John shows us that the dear One portrayed is not only altogether absolute to God, but in the eyes of God He is altogether fine, even, and perfect. There is nothing coarse with Him. There is no defect, no imperfection. He is perfect; He is even; He is fine.
Among your friends you may seem to be very perfect because all your friends are for you. Your friends, your parents, your wife, or your husband would try their best to cover your shortcomings. But your opposers, your adversaries, would try their best to find your faults. In John 7 the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders were around the Lord Jesus seeking to find out His faults. But they couldn’t find any faults. They sent deputies to arrest Him, but they came back empty-handed. When the Pharisee asked why they had not brought Him, the deputies answered, “No man ever spoke as this man speaks” (7:46). This shows how fine, how perfect, how balanced the Lord Jesus was.
By your speaking people may know how fine or how rough you are. A fine man always speaks in a fine way, and a rough man always speaks roughly. The speaking of the Lord Jesus was so fine, so even, so perfect, so convincing. This is the meal offering.
Later in chapters eighteen and nineteen Pilate judged the Lord Jesus. Three times he declared that he found no fault in this Man (18:38; 19:4, 6). Of course, these three verses could be applied to Christ as the Lamb of God. As the Lamb of God He had no blemish and no fault. But these verses also can be applied to the fine flour. He is fine, perfect, even, and fully balanced. With Him there is no fault. Pilate did not say that he could not find any sin; he said he could not find any fault. This means he could not find even the smallest wrongdoing. With Him there was absolutely nothing wrong. There was absolutely no fault. Before God He was absolute, and before man He was perfect, without fault.
The Gospel of John is the fulfillment of the picture in the Old Testament. The tabernacle is here, and all the offerings are here. The sin offering is here, the trespass offering is here, the burnt offering is here, and the meal offering is here. Christ as the sin offering for us is based on His absoluteness toward God. His being our trespass offering is based upon His perfection, His fineness, in the eyes of God and all men. He is absolute, so He can be the sin offering. He is perfect, so He can be the trespass offering. Hallelujah! Oh, we do partake of such a Christ who is all the offerings—the sin offering, the trespass offering, the burnt offering, and meal offering.
Then you may ask, Where is the peace offering in the Gospel of John? In this Gospel as well as in other portions of the Bible, the fulfillment of such a thing as the peace offering needs two steps, the initial step and the consummate step. Let me illustrate with the matter of salvation. With salvation there is the initial step, and there is the consummate step. On the one hand we all have been saved. But on the other hand we still need to be saved. First Peter 1:5 and 9 indicate that when the Lord Jesus comes He will bring the consummate salvation to us.
In like manner the fulfillment of the peace offering has the initial fulfillment and also has the consummate fulfillment. The initial fulfillment is in chapter twelve, where there was a feast prepared in the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. The Lord Jesus was there. Look at the picture. When they were feasting that was a miniature of the fulfillment of the peace offering. God was there, in the form of man, with His chosen people, and they were eating with Him. There was peace, there was enjoyment, there was satisfaction. Surely that was the peace offering. But that was only the initial fulfillment of the peace offering.
The consummate fulfillment of the peace offering was after His resurrection, after He was offered to God as every kind of offering. After His resurrection He came back and said to them, “Peace be to you” (John 20:21).
At the beginning of the Gospel of John you have grace. When the Lord Jesus came, grace came. At the end of the Gospel, peace comes to you. How could this be? This could be only because Christ was offered on the cross as all the offerings. Firstly, He became grace to us, and then in resurrection, He became the peace offering to us. When He met with His disciples after His resurrection, that meeting was a feast, and that feast was a peace offering. From that time on, even up until today, whenever we believers meet together with the resurrected Christ as our peace, we have a feast. Our Christian meeting must be a feast. This feast is the feast of the peace offering.
When we meet together we offer Christ as our sin offering, as our trespass offering, as our burnt offering, and as our meal offering. Eventually when all the offerings are added together, we also enjoy the peace offering for our satisfaction and also for His satisfaction.
You have to realize that John’s Gospel does not stand alone. There are also John’s Epistles and John’s book of Revelation. In these books you could see that this peace offering was continuing. Eventually in Revelation there is the ultimate tabernacle. Today we are enjoying the initial tabernacle, but in Revelation 21 and 22 there is the ultimate tabernacle of God among men. This is all the offerings added together resulting in the ultimate peace offering. The entire new heavens and new earth with the New Jerusalem will enjoy the ultimate universal peace offering. The entire universe will be attending a feast of the peace offering.
Don’t forget that we are talking about the meetings. This is how we must meet: enjoying Christ and offering Christ as all the offerings and eventually feasting with God and with one another.
In John chapter one through chapter twelve there are all the offerings. They are good to usher you into the tabernacle. The tabernacle begins in chapter fourteen. The Lord Jesus said that in His Father’s house, which is the tabernacle, there are many abodes. The tabernacle is in chapters fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Between chapter twelve and chapter fourteen there is chapter thirteen with the laver for the washing of your feet. This is to get rid of all the earthly dirt and all the defilement from the earthly touch so that you may enter into the tabernacle. So you can see that the Gospel of John fits into the entire picture of the tabernacle and all the offerings.
We must look to the Lord for His grace to put all these points into our daily practice. Every day, again and again, we have to lay our hands upon Christ, taking Him as our sin offering and as our trespass offering. By taking Him as these two offerings we will be reminded of how lovely He is, how dear He is, how precious He is, how absolute He is toward God. We will be reminded of how even, how perfect, how fine He is in the eyes of man. Spontaneously His absolute life will be ours, and His fine living will be ours. Then we will enjoy Him as our burnt offering and our meal offering. We will have a lot of experiences seven days a week. We will accumulate a lot of the experiences of such a rich Christ. Then when we come together in the church meetings our hands will be full of Christ. We will come with the experiences of Christ. Then whatever we present will be a peace offering. In whatever we present there will be something of the sin offering, something of the trespass offering, something of the burnt offering, and something of the meal offering. These are the components of the peace offering. We will enjoy all these in the presence of God, and we will enjoy these with one another. So we will have the peace and the enjoyment and the satisfaction. This is the way to meet!