Verses 38 through 41 speak of offering two lambs every day as food directly for God. Verse 38 says, “And this is what you shall offer upon the altar: two lambs a year old, every day continually.” According to verse 39, one lamb was to be offered in the morning, and the other lamb, in the evening. With each lamb there was an offering of a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mingled with a fourth of a hin of beaten oil, and a fourth of a hin of wine for a drink offering (v. 40). The lambs with the flour, the oil, and the wine were offered to God by priests who had been washed, clothed, and satisfied.
At this point, let us consider the “groceries” used in preparing the food offered to God. These groceries include two lambs, an amount of flour, and a quantity of oil and wine. The lambs, of course, are of the animal kingdom; the flour, the oil, and the wine are of the vegetable kingdom. All these groceries typify aspects of Christ. Christ is our lamb, our wheat, our grapevine producing wine, and the olive tree producing oil.
How can Christ in these four aspects become groceries to us? If we would answer this question, we need to realize that these matters were not merely objective to the Israelites. Rather, they were quite subjective to them, because they were things grown, raised, and reaped by the children of Israel. A tenth of the harvest was set aside and, during the feasts, was offered to God. Because these items were produced in such a way, they were subjective to the children of Israel. In other words, these items were the produce of their labor, a produce that belonged to the children of Israel.
God’s people in the Old Testament offered what they had produced. This indicates that the Christ we offer to God as His food should be very subjective to us. He should be our produce, what we have produced by our labor and daily experience.
Recently we have been speaking much about living Christ. To live Christ is actually to grow Christ. This means that as we live Christ, He grows in us. In Matthew 13 the Lord Jesus likens Himself to seed and us to soil. He came to sow Himself as the seed into us as the soil so that we may grow Him. This thought is richly developed in the New Testament. For example, in 1 Corinthians 3:9 Paul says, “You are God’s farm.” Literally, the Greek word rendered farm in this verse means cultivated soil, cultivated land. We are God’s cultivated land for growing Christ. Therefore, it is crucial that we produce Christ.
We may speak of living Christ, but we may not realize that to live Christ is to grow Him and raise Him. On the one hand, as believers we are a farm; on the other hand, we are a ranch. A farm produces cereal and vegetables, but a ranch is for the raising of cattle. Therefore, we are growing Christ as the vegetable life, and we are raising Him as the animal life. But now we need to ask how to grow Christ and how to raise Him.
If we would raise Christ as a bull for our sin offering, every morning we need to practice offering Christ as our sin offering. The more we offer Christ as the sin offering, the more He will grow in us in this aspect. Perhaps when we first begin to offer Him as the sin offering, He will be a very small bull. But gradually, as we continue to offer Him, He will grow. Eventually, after a period of time, He will be a large bull.
From experience I have come to realize that every time we contact God, we need to offer Christ as the sin offering. However, in praying with others, I have observed that hardly anyone in prayer offers Christ as the sin offering. I have wondered why the brothers and sisters do not offer Christ in this way. Are they not sinful? Of course, we all are sinful, but many do not have the realization of their sinfulness. Just as we need to wash our hands before eating, we need to wash ourselves by offering Christ as our sin offering. Every day we need to offer Christ to God as our sin offering. We should not do this merely as a habit or routine. On the contrary, we should do it with a strong impression and consciousness that, in our fallen nature, we are sin. When we realize that we are sinful, that we are actually sin itself, and then offer Christ as our sin offering, Christ will little by little grow in us until He is a large bull.
You may have the feeling that the meetings of the church in your locality are quite good or that they are improving. However, are there any groceries in the meetings? In particular, is Christ offered to God as a bull for a sin offering? In the church meetings we should hear prayers such as this: “Lord, we confess that we are sinful. Lord, we are even sin. Even if we do not feel that we have done anything wrong, we are still sinful in nature. Lord, whenever we come into Your presence to contact You, we have the deep realization that we are sin. We need Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to be our sin offering.” At the Lord’s table some should pray, “Lord, here at Your table we behold You as our sin offering. We thank You, Lord, for becoming our sin offering.” However, among today’s Christians there is spiritual poverty. Dead religion has deprived so many of the Lord’s people of the riches of Christ.