If we experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering to God, we shall realize that we, like Christ, should be brought to the slaughter. We may apply this to the matter of married life. In a quarrel between husband and wife, if both, or even one of the two, would experience Christ in His experience of being brought to the slaughter, the quarrel would be swallowed up. The result will be the same concerning problems in the church if in the church life we experience Christ in His experience of being brought to the slaughter.
If we do not resist but allow others to bring us to the slaughter, we shall experience Christ in His death. In Philippians 3:10 Paul says, “To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” To be brought to the slaughter is to take a step to be conformed to Christ’s death. This is to have a life shaped in the pattern given to us by Christ when He did not resist but quietly went along as others brought Him to the slaughter. Christ was brought to the slaughter at Golgotha, but that was not the only time He was brought to the slaughter. Christ’s entire life, especially the years of His ministry, was a life of being brought to the slaughter.
The Christian life should be a life of the burnt offering. This burnt offering, of course, refers not to ourselves but to Christ. The Christian life, therefore, is actually a life of Christ as the burnt offering. Paul lived such a life. This is why he could say, “Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Paul lived a life that was a repetition of the life of the burnt offering which Christ lived when He was on earth. This is a matter of experiencing Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering.
In Acts 21 we see that Paul experienced Christ in His experience of being brought to the slaughter. Paul had gone to Jerusalem to visit the church there. He met with James and all the elders, relating to them the things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. Then they said to Paul, “You observe, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews who have believed, and all are zealous for the law; and they have been instructed concerning you that you are teaching all the Jews throughout the nations apostasy from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children, nor to walk according to the customs” (vv. 20-21). The elders went on to propose that Paul go to the temple with four men who had made a vow, be purified with them, and pay their expenses so that all would know that Paul walked orderly, keeping the law (vv. 23-24). Paul took their word and went with the four men to the temple. However, the Lord would not tolerate the situation but, in His sovereignty, allowed a disturbance to take place which led to Paul’s being arrested by the Romans. The Jews from Asia saw Paul in the temple and “threw all the crowd into confusion; and they laid their hands on him” (v. 27). The whole city was stirred up, and the people laid hold of Paul and “dragged him outside the temple” (v. 30). Those who seized Paul in this way “were seeking to kill him” (v. 31). Eventually, the commander drew near and “laid hold of him and ordered him to be bound with two chains” (v. 33) and, because of the uproar, “ordered that he be brought into the barracks” (v. 34). A multitude of people followed and cried out, “Away with him!” (v. 36). Here we see that Paul surely had the experience of being brought to the slaughter; he experienced what the Lord Jesus experienced.
Perhaps you are wondering how you can experience being brought to the slaughter. If you are willing to live a burnt-offering life, you may sometimes experience being brought to the slaughter by the brothers in the church. Also, a brother may be brought to the slaughter by his wife, and a sister, by her husband. Such things often happen in the Christian life. If you have never been brought to the slaughter, then you are not an imitator of Christ. If you live the kind of life that Christ lived, you cannot avoid being brought to the slaughter. You will be brought to the slaughter again and again.
If you do not experience Christ’s experience of being brought to the slaughter, your burnt offering will only be two pigeons. However, the more you live Christ, the more you will live a life of being brought to the slaughter. Christ lived such a life, and now He lives in you to repeat His life. The repetition of His life in you becomes your experience of Christ in His experience.
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