The frankincense was put upon the fine flour. This signifies that Christ’s humanity bears the aroma of His resurrection manifested out from His sufferings (cf. Matt. 11:20-30; Luke 10:21). During the course of His human life, Christ suffered a great deal, but the aroma of His resurrection was manifested out from His sufferings. Although He suffered very much, He exuded a sweet fragrance, the aroma of His resurrection.
In the meal offering there are three elements: the fine flour, the oil, and the frankincense. If we study the four Gospels, we will see that Christ’s life consisted mainly of these three elements. The Lord Jesus continually lived and walked in these three things-in His humanity mingled with His divinity and expressing His resurrection.
Even before Christ was actually crucified He continually expressed His resurrection. Concerning this, we need to realize that the Lord Jesus was crucified not only at the very end of His life but that He was crucified daily. His entire life was a life under the cross. He was always being slaughtered, skinned, and cut into pieces. His crucifixion, which lasted six hours, was the totality of His being slaughtered, skinned, and cut into pieces. Because the Lord Jesus lived daily under the cross, He always expressed resurrection from His humanity mingled with His divinity.
If we keep this in mind as we read the Gospels, we will see what kind of person Christ was while He lived on earth. He was a person with the highest and best humanity. This humanity was “oiled,” for it was mingled with His divinity. In His human living He expressed not His sufferings but resurrection. This resurrection is the frankincense, the fragrant aroma, the sweet savor, in the universe. Nothing is as sweet, as fragrant, as this aroma of resurrection. This was Christ’s human living on earth.
Even when the Lord Jesus was arrested and crucified, He lived a life of humanity mingled with divinity and expressing resurrection. A band of soldiers and deputies from the chief priests and Pharisees came to the garden seeking Jesus. Twice He asked them, “Whom are you seeking?” (John 18:4, 7), and each time they answered, “Jesus the Nazarene” (vv. 5, 7). The Lord Jesus then said to them, “If therefore you are seeking Me, let these go away” (v. 8). “These” refers to His disciples. Under the suffering of the betrayal of His false disciple and the arrest of the soldiers. He still took good care of His disciples. Here we can sense the fragrance of resurrection.
When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, He took care of His mother. “Jesus, seeing His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by, said to His mother, Woman, behold, your son. Then He said to the disciple, Behold, your mother” (John 19:26-27a). Here we again see resurrection expressed out from the Lord’s sufferings.
No matter what the circumstances were, the Lord Jesus lived a life of suffering but expressing the fragrance of His resurrection. In every place and at every time, Christ lived a life in His humanity mingled with His divinity and expressing His resurrection. This is the meal offering.
The burnt offering is for God’s satisfaction to fulfill His desire. The burnt offering is God’s food, and only He is allowed to eat it. The fact that the entire offering is burned on the altar indicates that it is received by God. We may say that the fire which consumes the burnt offering is God’s “mouth.” Whereas the burnt offering is God’s food, the meal offering is our food for our satisfaction, with a little portion shared with God.
Proper worship involves the burnt offering and the meal offering. To offer the burnt offering for God’s satisfaction and to offer the meal offering for our satisfaction and for sharing our satisfaction with God-this is real worship. Proper worship is a matter of satisfying God with Christ as the burnt offering, and of being satisfied with Christ as the meal offering and sharing this satisfaction with God. In real worship Christ as the burnt offering ascends to God, and Christ as the meal offering enters our being. In such worship we satisfy God with Christ, and we share with Him our enjoyment of Christ.
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