According to Exodus 29, God’s food consists of two lambs, a meal offering containing flour and oil, and a drink offering of wine. In the morning one lamb was offered to God with the meal offering and the drink offering, and in the evening, the other lamb was offered to Him, also with the meal offering and the drink offering. Let us now go on to consider the lambs, the flour, the oil, and the wine offered to God as food.
The lamb typifies Christ as the One who is obedient to God. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He was absolutely obedient to God. Philippians 2 says that He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Christ’s death on the cross was the highest expression of His obedience. In the words of Romans 5:18 and 19, in the sight of God that obedience is regarded as a righteous act. The “one righteous act” is in particular ascribed to that single act of Christ in which He was obedient to God unto the death of the cross.
As a lamb, Christ was not only obedient to God, but was also meek before man. Isaiah 53:7 says, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” According to the Bible, to be meek means not to resist or fight against what happens to you. Rather, it is to suffer attack and oppression. Meekness is a characteristic of lambs. Unlike dogs and cats that fight back, lambs do not resist. The four Gospels reveal that Christ was obedient and also meek.
The picture in Exodus 29 indicates that throughout the course of our Christian life, we should daily offer Christ as the sin offering. Then we need to have the lambs, the flour, the olive oil, and the wine. In order to be God’s priests, every day we must offer Christ to God as our sin offering. If we do this, then in our Christian life we shall raise Christ as a bull. The more we practice offering Christ as the sin offering, the more in our experience He will grow to be a large bull. After a period of time, in our experience Christ will increase more and more as the bull for the sin offering. To have Christ increase as the sin offering in this way is to raise Christ on our “ranch” in our daily life.
In the church meetings we need to offer Christ to God as the sin offering. This should be a demonstration, a testimony, of what we experience in our daily life. If we try to offer Christ in the meetings without experiencing Him day by day, we shall be performing like actors in a theater. What we do in the meetings should be a testimony of our daily life. Every morning we should offer Christ as our sin offering. This is a kind of spiritual washing. After washing in this way, we then may go on to live Christ during the day. Therefore, if we would offer Christ as the sin offering, we need to raise Him as the animal life.
We also need to raise Christ as a lamb and grow Him as wheat, olive trees, and vines. How can we raise Christ as a lamb in our daily life? We do this by living Him as a lamb. After we offer Christ as the sin offering to be cleansed, our spirit will be living. Then we should live Christ by taking Him as a lamb.
At least some of us can testify that whenever we take Christ as the sin offering in the morning, we immediately sense that we have been cleansed, that our spirit is living, and that Christ as the Spirit is real to us. As a result, in a practical way we live by Him as the lamb. This means that in so many things we take Him as the One in us who is obedient to God. We have this obedient One as our obedient life, even as our obedience to God, and He lives in us a life of obedience. In times past, we were not obedient or submissive to God. But through the practice of offering Christ as the sin offering, we spontaneously become obedient. Actually, it is not we who are obedient; it is Christ who is the obedient One living in us. On the one hand, Christ is the bull for our sin offering; on the other hand, He is also the lamb by whom we live.
I believe that many of us can testify that by taking Christ as our sin offering, we are becoming more obedient to God. In the past, when we were not obedient in certain matters, we trespassed. This made it necessary for us to offer Christ as our trespass offering. For example, a sister may be disobedient in shopping. In going to a department store, she may be rebellious and disobedient. As a result, there is a fight between her and God. Instead of taking the trespass offering in a proper way, she later may simply try to apply the Lord’s blood to her situation and claim His cleansing. But if this sister will daily offer Christ to God as her sin offering, her experience will be quite different. Spontaneously, she will be much more obedient to God. Much more of the time she will willingly obey and submit. This is to raise Christ as a lamb.
If a brother and his wife are obedient to God, they will not want to exchange words. The arguing between husband and wife can be compared to the barking of dogs. To be sure, this kind of arguing, this exchange of words, is not pleasant. If a brother daily takes Christ as his sin offering, he will automatically become obedient to God and also meek. Instead of arguing with his wife, he will be much more willing to give in. He will be meek, neither fighting nor resisting. This is the living of Christ as a lamb.