Eventually, Christ was slaughtered; He was put to death. Today we may experience Christ in His experience of being slaughtered. Paul refers to this experience in 2 Corinthians 4:11, where he says, “We... are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake.” To be delivered unto death is to be slaughtered. If we experience Christ in His being slaughtered, we shall have something of Christ to offer to God as a burnt offering.
In Philippians 3:10 Paul speaks of being conformed to Christ’s death. Christ was crucified, and we today are being crucified. Our being crucified is a matter of being conformed, of conformity, to Christ’s death. Day by day we are being killed. Thus, in a sense, a Christian is not living but dying. I once read a book entitled Dying to Live. Every day we are dying to live; we are being put to death so that we may live.
We need to apply to our daily situations Christ’s experiences of being brought to the slaughter and of being slaughtered. If we receive mercy from God to experience Christ in His being brought to the slaughter and in His being slaughtered, we will not have problems in our family life or in our church life. The reason we still have problems with others is that we are not willing to experience Christ in His experiences.
We may also experience Christ in His being skinned, that is, in His being stripped of the outward appearance of His human virtues. To skin an offering is to take away its covering. In the spiritual interpretation of the type, being skinned equals being defamed.
Examples of this skinning, this defaming, are found in John 8:48 and Mark 3:22. In John 8:48 the Jews said of the Lord Jesus, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” According to Mark 3:22, the scribes said of Him, “He has Beelzebub, and by the ruler of the demons He casts out the demons.” On both occasions the Lord Jesus was defamed, stripped of the outward appearance of His human virtues.
A number of verses indicate that we may experience Christ in His being stripped. Acts 24:5 and 6 say, “We have found this man a pest and an agitator of insurrections...who also tried to profane the temple.” Here we see that Paul was accused of being a pest, of being full of contagious germs. In fact, Paul was a good man who would not harm anyone. Paul was also accused of being an agitator of insurrections, of causing divisions wherever he went. Furthermore, he was accused of trying to profane the temple. What defamation he experienced!
In 2 Corinthians Paul indicates that evil reports were spread about him. Evil reports are a matter of defaming, of stripping one of the outward expression of his virtues.
In 2 Corinthians 12, the Corinthians, Paul’s spiritual children begotten by him through the gospel, accused Paul of being crafty in money matters. They claimed that, with guile, he took advantage of them, using Titus as an agent to get money from them (vv. 16-18). Here we see that Paul was defamed even by his spiritual children.
“They reproach and persecute you, and say every evil thing against you, lying, for My sake” (Matt. 5:11). With these words the Lord Jesus predicted that His followers would be defamed and slandered and have lies told about them. This surely is a real skinning, a stripping away of our good reputation which causes us to be naked, to have nothing to cover us. If we live a burnt-offering life, we will not be able to avoid this. According to the New Testament, our destiny as followers of Christ is to suffer such a skinning, experiencing Christ in His being skinned.
Whenever others talk about you in a negative way, you are skinned. What will you say when you are skinned, when you are defamed? You should not say anything. If you say something on your own behalf, this is a sign that you are not willing to experience Christ in His experience of being skinned.
Today we may even experience Christ in His being cut into pieces. First Corinthians 4:13 reveals that Paul experienced this. “Being defamed...we have become as the offscouring of the world, as the scum of all things until now.” “Offscouring” and “scum” are synonyms. Offscouring denotes what is thrown away in cleansing; hence, refuse, filth. Scum denotes that which is wiped off; hence, rubbish, refuse. To become the offscouring of the world and the scum of all things is to be cut into pieces.
Do you think that the more you follow the Lord Jesus, the more you will be respected and highly regarded by others? In a sense you may be respected, but in another sense you will be treated as offscouring and scum. This was Christ’s experience. His disciples respected Him and held Him in high regard, but to the opposers, who cut Him into pieces, He was offscouring and scum. To experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering to God is to experience Him in His experience of being cut into pieces.
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