Much of what we have covered in the foregoing messages on the burnt offering has been doctrinal. Therefore, I have the burden that we would see this offering in an experiential way. In this message we shall consider Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering to God. In the following message we shall consider our experiences of Christ in His experiences.
The second part of the title of this message is unusual, even peculiar: “Experiencing Christ in His Experiences and Offering the Christ We Have Experienced, and Offering Him to God as Our Burnt Offering according to Our Experiences of Him.” This part of the title has three points. The first point is experiencing Christ in His experiences; the second is offering the Christ we have experienced; and the third is offering Christ to God as our burnt offering according to our experiences of Him. Here we would emphasize the fact that we cannot offer to God a Christ whom we have not experienced. If you try to offer as a burnt offering to God a Christ whom you have not experienced, you will discover that this is impossible. What we offer of Christ as the burnt offering must be according to our experience. If we have experienced Christ as a bull, then we can offer Him as a bull. But if we have experienced Christ only as two pigeons, we cannot offer Him as a bull, for we have not experienced Him as a bull. We cannot offer as a burnt offering to God a Christ who is greater than the Christ we have experienced. We have to offer Christ to God, but we must offer Christ according to our experiences of Him.
Let us now consider Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering to God, covering a number of verses that reveal different aspects of Christ’s experiences. Christ experienced many things in order to be a burnt offering for God.
Isaiah 53:7 prophesied that Christ would be brought to the slaughter. “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.” The fulfillment of this prophecy can be seen in Matthew 27:31, where we are told that the soldiers “led Him away to crucify Him.”
Another New Testament verse which refers to Christ’s being brought to the slaughter is Philippians 2:8, a verse which tells us that Christ became obedient “even unto death, and that the death of a cross.” Christ was obedient as He was brought outside the city to the place of the slaughter- Golgotha.
After Pilate had judged the Lord Jesus and had found Him innocent, he wanted to release Him. But the people were shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” (Luke 23:21), and their voices prevailed. Pilate, being fearful and wanting to please the crowd, sentenced the Lord Jesus to death. The Lord was then brought to the place of slaughter and was slaughtered on the cross. In Acts 2:23 Peter refers to this. “This man...you, through the hand of lawless men, nailed to the cross and killed.” For them to kill the Lord Jesus means that they slaughtered Him.
Many years ago I read an article about how the Jews slew the lamb on the day of Passover. According to this article, a lamb was put on two wooden stakes that were arranged in the shape of a cross, with two feet attached to one stake and two feet attached to the cross bar. The lamb was then killed. This indicates that the Lord’s crucifixion may have been a fulfillment of the way, in type, the Passover lamb was slaughtered.
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