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A Sacrifice Indeed
"Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee: But at the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 16:5-6).
Where would we like to offer the sacrifice? That question is never asked in the entirety of Scripture. We do not get to choose the place of our own martyrdom, nor do we have the luxury of determining what it is that we will give ourselves to in service to God. Too often we have approached the high and lofty Throne of God Almighty with hands full of something we deem worthy to be presented to Him, as if He needed anything from us; never realizing that the very thing we hold in our hands is the thing that stands as the greatest barrier between ourselves and God.
The commandment came to Moses and unto the children of Israel, "You cannot, you must not choose the place of your sacrifice. That prerogative belongs solely to Me." No man can choose for himself the place whereunto he would resort in the offering of a sacrifice to the Holy One, nor what is required as a sacrifice in that place. No woman has the right to state unto God the sacred locale of her offering of worship, nor the articles of life which are to be offered.
We have become smugly presumptuous in our approach to the Living Lord. But God knows us all too well. In teaching the disciples how to pray, Jesus made this weighty statement, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done..." This prayer will cause every fiber of our flesh to squirm and recoil at the suggestion that we are to be willingly and unequivocably yielded to a dominion that rules our entire way of thinking, our entire way of doing, our entire way of being. Much to the contrary of this abandonment of self-will to the will of our Father in heaven, we have stood afar off from the mount consumed with the fire of His Glory and said, "Here is what I offer. I assure You, God, it is most precious. See how much time and energy went into the preparation of this offering for You? How could You be anything but pleased with this tremendous sacrifice?" And the God of heaven and earth looks on with a fiery, holy gaze that reveals the sacrifice for what it really is--scraps, the leftovers, the carcase of the animal that is to burned outside the camp with the dung.
"But the fat, and the kidneys, and the caul above the liver of the sin offering, he burnt upon the altar; as the LORD commanded Moses" (Leviticus 9:10). Isn't it interesting to consider the parts of the animal that God desired to be burned upon the altar of sacrifice? The parts that we would want no part of, the parts that we would cut off and throw away, what we would most likely consider undesirable--these are the very parts that Yahweh commands Moses and Aaron to be offered unto Him. But what of the part of the animal that we would say must be saved for its innumerable uses, the very hide, the skin, the "leather"? Burn it.
How could God command for one of the most valuable parts of the animal sacrifice to be burned, and not only burned, but set aflame with the most useless part of the animal--the dung? What the Lord of Glory values is not what man values, nor what the church values. We so readily look on the outward appearance of a church, a ministry, a man's life, and think that it all appears so worthy of praise in the sight of God. The church has a prayer ministry, the pastor maintains a regular devotional time every day, the congregation is committed to a whole host of outreach ministries. Even the youth appear "on fire" for God. But where does it all lead if not to the footstool of the Almighty, where He stretches out His holy rod and reveals the works for what they truly are?
Why is it that we think we can work hard enough on our own terms in a manner that is acceptable unto God, even to the point of taking the very duties which are given us of Him and manipulate them in such a way that they become utterly unrecognizable? We exchange obedience to the words of God for adherence to precepts of men. The Pharisees did the same. They read and knew the Law better than any group of people on the face of the earth. They created rule upon rule for men to follow if they were going to walk in accordance with the commandments given by God to Moses. Precept was upon precept, line was upon line. This religious elite would stop at nothing to obey the words of God in outward show. Then came God Incarnate. A mere helpless Babe, robed in flesh and bone, very Man born of very woman of seemingly insignificant stock. But somewhere down the line, in the distant past of this woman's heritage the blood of kings issued through the veins of her forebears; and not the blood of just any king of this unique nation of Israel, the exemplar of kingship under Yahweh's rule--David, the man after God's own heart. "The LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him [to be] captain over his people..." (1Samuel 13:14).
David, the one unto whom the promise was given, "I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2Samuel 7:12-14). David, the man whose sin with Bathsheba resulted in one of the most heart-wrenching, honest, and self-effacing cries for mercy in the whole of Scripture found in Psalm 51. It is in this Psalm that David pleads with the Lord of heaven and earth on such a level as to reveal himself as a mere man, stripped of all pretence, unrobed of all kingly garb, confessing the most heinous of acts against a Holy God. "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned..." All others have been removed from the sight of David, there is no more any other competing for attention, and all culpability has been laid at the feet of the chosen king of Israel, and by his own admission no less.
Now this earthly king lies prostrate before the Heavenly King Who chose him and utters these unforgettable words, "For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give [it]: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God [are] a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51:16-17). How can this man so learned in the Scriptures and laws of God speak such a thing? Does he not know the laws concerning burnt sacrifices and sin offerings? Could he not open the scrolls that adjured the proper offering to atone for his sin? Indeed, he did. But that was not what God was seeking in David, and it was not what He was seeking in Israel even in the giving of the commandments. "Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you" (Jeremiah 7:21-23). He was after something of an inner kind, originating from heaven itself, that eventuated in the offering of one's life down to the scruple, a life that would walk in perfect obedience to the Voice of God Who speaks. And this kind of life can only be described in terms of a sacrifice, because it will cost everything natural and carnal in the man who lives under the sentence of death. It is a sacrifice predicated upon the quintessence of sacrifice--that of a Lamb without spot or blemish.
This true sacrifice of God is revealed in a most striking passage in the book of Hebrews: "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, [and] not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect...For [it is] not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins...Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me..."(Hebrews 10:1-5).
"A body hast Thou prepared Me." This is the statement of none other than that now fully grown Babe, bearded and rugged, dirt clinging to His sandals, sweat running down His dusty brow, unimpressive in appearance, a Root out of dry ground. But this Root bore a Majesty and Glory that was witnessed unto by every word and every deed. Grace mingled with fire issued from His lips in every syllable on His holy tongue. What is the body prepared of which He speaks? The flesh and bone body of a now thirty-something Jewish Carpenter, foreordained of God the Almighty in eternity past to be the offering by which atonement would be made for the sins of the world. Hidden beneath the surface of this Son of Man lie a Lamb without spot or blemish, slaughtered before earth's foundations were laid or ever Adam breathed one breath in God's good creation.
There was an offering that was foreshadowed in every law given, in every sacrifice set in order by the God of Israel. Jesus Christ the Righteous "is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world" (1John 2:2). By Him we have access through one Spirit to God the Father by that new and living way prepared for us through the veil of His flesh (see Hebrews 10:20). For what then did God the Everlasting LORD clothe Himself with human flesh in order to bear the sins of all mankind upon Himself? For what did the Son of Glory take upon Himself the unmitigated wrath of God and become sin for us? What was it that He was seeking? What was His reward?
A sacrifice indeed. "And Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements: once in the year shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations: it [is] most holy unto the LORD" (Exodus 30:10). Aaron, the high priest, entered into the holy of holies once a year to present before God the blood of atonement, placed upon the mercy seat, whereby the sins of the nation would be purged (see Leviticus 16). Prior to the sacrifice given for the people, Aaron had to present an offering for himself. Before the sins of the people could be dealt with by way of the hands of the high priest, the hands of the high priest had to be cleansed. "And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which [is] for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house..." (Leviticus 16:11). No man can be a means of reconciliation between men and God until that man has himself been reconciled through the blood of the Final Sin Offering, "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). There must be an at-one-ment of relationship between that man or woman and God in order for them to operate as an authentic ambassador for Christ. In this oneness with Jesus Christ we partake of the eternal fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a fellowship characterized by the holy love and light of Christ displayed amongst even the most drastically dull of duties on earth.
Our holy High Priest entered the holiest of all, presenting Himself to God and His Father, the only unblemished Man to ever walk the face of the earth. The blood of Jesus Christ was the only means by which any man would ever enter into the Presence of Almighty God. His blood is the blood of the sin offering offered once for all, as says the Holy Spirit, "But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands...Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [for us]. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:11-14). So we draw near to God, having been redeemed by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ upon a cross fashioned by men made in His image, with wood created by God's own hands. It is by this offering that we are sanctified, set apart unto God's foreordained use and the outworking of His will in us--body, soul, and spirit. And yet the question is begged: does mere mental comprehension of the doctrine of redemption make us the sacrifice God is seeking? Not by any means.
We must not stop here, we must not stand afar off beholding the cross on which the Living Christ died, and walk away happy and blessed for the salvation that He has purchased. The only reason salvation is free for us is because it cost God everything. Not until we approach that Cross whereupon God hung and offer our hands to be pierced through with His, present our feet to be nailed with His, and so enter into that death once and for all with Him, will we ever know what it is to be the sacrifice that God has been seeking from the ancient days of eternity. Paul says of himself, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). This is not a declaration applied by default to all his readers simply by virtue of themselves espousing proper credal statements. Paul speaks these words as a deep and definite experience he himself has passed through--Paul has died, and he no longer lives. "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14). Paul the apostle has breathed his last breath on earth as his own possession, he is now a man wholey possessed by God. He is dead; and yet he lives. Unto what end does Paul now live? As a living sacrifice perpetually offered unto God every moment of every day; waking or sleeping his life is not his own. "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1Corinthians 6:19-20).
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us...Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." (2Corinthians 4:7-11). Day by day the apostle Paul and those who trod the earth with him bore in themselves the perpetual experience of Jesus Christ's death, a death that was wholly surrendered unto in every act of apostolic obedience on the part of these men. They knew nothing by themselves, and were content to be held to the highest standard of God's righteous judgments, knowing full well that their very thoughts and motives were seen under the Righteous Judge's watchful eye. Distress, persecution, nakedness, peril, rejection, hatred, cursing--none of these opposing forces could sway this blood-bought slave of Heaven's Holy Lamb. Consequently, the eternal decrees of God were brought to bear upon every man and woman with whom Paul came in contact, as the immortal life and Presence of the Son of God were manifest in His apostle's mortal flesh.
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). So the Holy Spirit commands through this dead man walking, in whom the Living Christ has taken His residence, that all who are called saints present themselves as living sacrifices to God. Oswald Chambers summarizes this supreme exhortation, "Give up your right to yourself to God." The Almighty will not take your right to yourself from you, it must be given freely without condition. As a Christian, the only right a blood-bought man or woman has is the right to give up their rights completely over to God. Where does this surrender of one's rights lead? What is the end of this relinquishing of what we so treasure and count so dear, not only as human beings, but also as Americans who place such value on personal rights? It appears that love for oneself must yield to One greater than itself in a sovereign preference for that Greater One that unites mortal man to his Immortal Maker.
In response to a scribe's question about the first and greatest commandment, Jesus answers with an interesting Scripture as a prelude: "The first of all the commandments [is], Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord" (Mark 12:29). Having enunciated the pronouncement of Yahweh found in Deuteronomy 6, only then does the Son of God proceed with what immediately follows, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment" (Mark 12:30). You see, if we miss the knowledge of God as He in fact is, we cannot by any means fulfill the commandment to love Him. God is one and beside Him there is no other god. The scribe responds with his concurrence of Christ's decisive declaration of the great commandment by saying this, "Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love [his] neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices" (Mark 12:32-33). More than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices? This man learned in the Scriptures breathed by God's own mouth has the audacity to make such a claim? How does Jesus respond to this boldness? "And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God" (Mark 12:34). God's whole purpose in giving the law and speaking through the prophets was to one end, namely, that men and women made in His image would love Him above all else, which would inevitably evince itself in love for neighbor and even enemy. Not only is this love for God and neighbor the aim of the law, it is also the motivation and outworking of any true sacrifice acceptable to God. However, the animal sacrifices prescribed by the Holy Spirit through Moses also prophesy in type One Who would come as the Ultimate Sacrifice by Whom mankind would be reconciled to God, initiating us into an at-one-ment with Him whereby and wherein we might truly love Him. But to end here will leave us perilously ignorant of what Jesus Christ is after in this man--there is a revelation that beckons, without whose deep and unimpeded apprehension we will stray from any true knowledge of God as God.
Upon commending the scribe for his grasp of the word of God, the Lord asks a probing question, one which tests how well His hearers really understand what He is saying. "How say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David? For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The LORD said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he [then] his son?" (Mark 12:35-37). Hidden within this ostensibly simple question regarding the prophetic Psalm 110, and its declaration of the Christ as David's Lord, is a revelation of a mystery that has been hidden for generations concerning the nature of God as one Lord. If the scribes in Jesus' hearing can receive it, they will realize that it is very God Who now stands before His own creation and searches their hearts with a piercing insight that proves how well they truly understand what He is saying. This is why the man unto whom Jesus responds regarding the issue of God's great commandment is not yet permitted conclusive entry into His kingdom. What this scribe must comprehend is that the very God Whom he is commanded to love is revealed in the Person under Whose tutelage he now finds himself. The prophesied Priest and Lord from this psalm of David now calls all who hear to find in Himself the One they are to love and worship, for within this Son of David dwells all the fulness of the Godhead in bodily form (Colossians 1:19, 2:9). No wonder John is so adamant, "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that [spirit] of antichrist..." (1John 4:2-3). Without this revelatory knowledge of God as God Incarnate in Jesus Christ love for Him is impossible, annulling any offering presented to God and rendering any such sacrifice abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 15:8). Abandoning ourselves in love to Jesus Christ as Lord and God is the only way it can be said of us, "Thy people [shall be] willing ( literally a "freewill offering" ) in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth" (Psalm 110:3). For "in this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him...We love him, because he first loved us" (1John 4:9). So the Holy Spirit decrees, "whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: [(but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also]" (1John 2:23).
How abundant are the ways we may receive or reject the Son, thereby revealing ourselves for what we are in essence, a holy offering of sacrifice unto God, or the stenchful flesh that is to be burnt outside the camp along with the dung! Within the church in this very hour men and women are giving themselves over to demonic uncleanness, even under the auspices of revival. Unholy laughter, demonic jerkings, scandalous and carnal cravings for a false glory--all exposing the wandering whorish heart of a harlot church who has turned her back on her Heavenly Bridegroom. We are a church given wholly over to sensuality of the basest and most immoral kind. We are a people ruled by our senses, content to follow after any visible sign regardless of its source as long as it is spiritual in nature. Tragically, however, spiritual experience is the last and greatest stronghold of deception (see 2Thessalonians 2:3-12). If we are given over to sundry encounters of a spiritual sort no matter the dubious nature of its fruit or the bitter spring from which it flows, we will never know God in truth. For to love God is to love the truth, and a man's love for God is in direct proportion to his love for the truth. "I am the Truth," says Jesus. Art Katz has rightly stated, "if the enemy can succeed in bringing the church to viewing benefit as the determinant by which something is judged to be of God, we may well have been brought to the very ground of deception itself." Is it any wonder such spiritual manifestations that have their origins in hell oft-times work themselves out in the very bodies of men, even with an ostensibly beneficial outcome?
Satan has always appealed to men after the manner of man, exalting man's view of himself. Calling men to behold themselves as the end of all being and final authority, the devil invites the human soul to partake of that which is forbidden. His temptations almost invariably call men's attention to that which he can see, taste, hear, touch, or smell; even feel in a spiritual way; all the while that wilely serpent casts doubt on the very commandments of God. "And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?...And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat" (Genesis 3:1-6, emphasis added). The church's embrace of such connivings and seductions has proven her to be the sinfully sensual body that she has become. We have failed to be a priestly people who separate between the holy and the profane. Consequently, God will sovereignly and justly hand over to a lie those who refuse to heed the voice of the Spirit of truth when He speaks. A prayer offered in Jesus' name, a word preached for the salvation of the lost, a prophetic utterance over an apostate people, even a verifiable healing performed in the broken body of a child--none of these wonderful demonstrations authenticate a man or woman by whom such works are performed as a genuine sacrifice unto God. This fact testifies to the verity of our Lord's words that many are called, but few are chosen. Until mercy and truth have met together, until righteousnes and peace have kissed within the soul of a man or woman, no matter the works wrought, he or she will never be a living sacrifice acceptable in the sight of God (Psalm 85:10).
What we do with our bodies matters tremendously to God, and that includes the very outworkings of every spiritual influence we yield ourselves unto, whether holy or profane. Why is it such an abomination for a man to claim that he was born in the wrong body and ought to be a woman? How could a woman say that she should possess male genitalia, ingest male hormones, and live her life on the outward as a man? Why are we within the church beginning to see the gradual surrender of ourselves to homosexual desires, trading the natural for the unnatural, identifying ourselves along the lines of our sexuality rather than our identity in God? A homosexual bishop is an oxymoron just as much as an idolatrous priest and a pedophilic pastor. Even the church of the living God has exchanged the truth for a lie. Yet we have not considered our ways and so have not known that our perversion and estrangement from God begins in one place, within the heart, and ineluctibly works itself out in the most elementary place--the human body. Is it any wonder the church is counted as the body of Christ? For the Lord Jesus is our holy Head moving and directing us by His sovereign decrees. However, estranged from the Head, we have lost our way and fallen in the darkened streets along with the truth we were commanded to carry to a world lying in falsehood and deceit. The flesh and blood human body is a marvellous work of God's creation, made to be a holy habitation of God's Eternal Spirit, but we have presently given our bodies in condescension as temples abused and offered for the inhospitable horrors of sin. Yet God says, "Surely I will require your lifeblood" (Genesis 9:5). Jesus Christ has set out to do what no one else could ever do, "He shall build me an house, and I will stablish his throne for ever" (1Chronicles 17:12). We the church are that temple that the Son is building unto the Father, down to the flesh and bone body of each individual member. This is why the very blood that flows through our veins will witness either for us or against us on that final day, testifying of its fruitfulness as a pleasing sacrifice unto Almighty God or as a soiled and impugnable stain on an unregenerate soul.
Thus it is said, "the life of the flesh [is] in the blood..." (Leviticus 17:11). We have come back full circle to the consideration of the parts offered in the offering unto God. The life is in the blood. The blood of the sacrifice belongs to God. We are to present ourselves as "a living sacrifice," and not only ourselves as spiritual men and women. God requires the most rudimentary thing, the flesh and blood body wherein we walk amidst the everyday experiences of life. Without the corporeal expression of our irrevocable abandonment to God, we speak mere pleasantries that are altogether void of real sacrifice. For it is that body that is sanctified by God's Glory as a temple for the Holy Spirit. It is that body that the Everlasting Triune God has chosen as His holy habitation (see 1Corinthians 6:19, John 14:23). The simple fact that we go on living each day for our own desires, doing our own things, speaking our own words is evidence enough that we know nothing of the cost of being an authentic sacrifice unto God. "A son honoureth [his] father, and a servant his master: if then I [be] a father, where [is] mine honour? and if I [be] a master, where [is] my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?...if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, [is it] not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, [is it] not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts" (Malachi 1:6-8). We have been blind and lame and sick and blemished, and we somehow think that in offering ourselves to God in our current state we shall be accepted. Our spots, our wrinkles, and our fleshly excuses for such expose us as men and women unwilling to pay the price to offer ourselves as an acceptable offering to God. We know very little what it costs to be the offering that satisfies the heart of God because we are patently ignorant of the inestimable cost for Jesus Christ to offer Himself to God (see Mark 15:34). It is a strangely unremarkable thing to be willing to go to the death for your faith in God; it is much more costly and much rather the requirement of God that we be a living sacrifice, offered moment by moment upon the altar of His sacrifice without any consideration for the price paid, simply because He is worthy. Will you relinquish everything dear to yourself, even your own notions of what it means to serve God that you might offer yourself a sacrifice that is pleasing to Him?
The life is in the blood. Carried through the veins of the perpetual offering of the saints of God runs the continual reminder of the price that God Himself paid in redeeming unto Himself a pure and spotless bride. It was not merely the blood of a self-appointed messianic man born as any other man. It was the priceless blood of the virgin-born Man Who is the selfsame God Who requires the sacrifice, it was the sinless blood of the unsullied and unspotted Son Who was declared by the Father to be both Lord and Messiah (see Acts 2:36). God shall possess the reward of His Son's suffering, an eternal sacrifice offered endlessly by love-slaves devoted to His Glory alone. Jesus Christ, the Eternal I Am, offered Himself as the ultimate sacrifice for sin without spot to the Father. In loving and abandoned response each member of His church is to offer itself body, soul, and spirit to God a living sacrifice, being transformed by the renewing of our minds, in order that we might rightly discern the will of God. The question stands: we are most certainly a sacrifice, but unto whose will and by whose way? For even the people of Israel in the heat and fervor of rebellion offered a sacrifice, but it was a sacrifice presented to a god of their own making (see Exodus 32). Yet Moses, with the groaning cry of a heart jealously beating for God's Glory and God's Presence above all else, pleaded with Yahweh, "shew me now thy way, that I may know thee..." (Exodus 33:13). For this is what shall matter in the final estimation: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21, emphasis added). It is the way and will of the Holy One unto Whom we must give account that command obedience and mercifully enable it. It is this same dominating will of which the Son spoke in His days on earth, "Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God;" "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me" (Hebrews 10:7, John 6:38). In like manner, the Father's will becomes our very delight, the unspeakable joy of His disciples, as we live and move and breathe under the banner of His Lordship, offering ourselves a sacrifice indeed to the delight of the God of Israel.
Where would we like to offer the sacrifice? That question is never asked in the entirety of Scripture. We do not get to choose the place of our own martyrdom, nor do we have the luxury of determining what it is that we will give ourselves to in service to God. Too often we have approached the high and lofty Throne of God Almighty with hands full of something we deem worthy to be presented to Him, as if He needed anything from us; never realizing that the very thing we hold in our hands is the thing that stands as the greatest barrier between ourselves and God.
The commandment came to Moses and unto the children of Israel, "You cannot, you must not choose the place of your sacrifice. That prerogative belongs solely to Me." No man can choose for himself the place whereunto he would resort in the offering of a sacrifice to the Holy One, nor what is required as a sacrifice in that place. No woman has the right to state unto God the sacred locale of her offering of worship, nor the articles of life which are to be offered.
We have become smugly presumptuous in our approach to the Living Lord. But God knows us all too well. In teaching the disciples how to pray, Jesus made this weighty statement, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done..." This prayer will cause every fiber of our flesh to squirm and recoil at the suggestion that we are to be willingly and unequivocably yielded to a dominion that rules our entire way of thinking, our entire way of doing, our entire way of being. Much to the contrary of this abandonment of self-will to the will of our Father in heaven, we have stood afar off from the mount consumed with the fire of His Glory and said, "Here is what I offer. I assure You, God, it is most precious. See how much time and energy went into the preparation of this offering for You? How could You be anything but pleased with this tremendous sacrifice?" And the God of heaven and earth looks on with a fiery, holy gaze that reveals the sacrifice for what it really is--scraps, the leftovers, the carcase of the animal that is to burned outside the camp with the dung.
"But the fat, and the kidneys, and the caul above the liver of the sin offering, he burnt upon the altar; as the LORD commanded Moses" (Leviticus 9:10). Isn't it interesting to consider the parts of the animal that God desired to be burned upon the altar of sacrifice? The parts that we would want no part of, the parts that we would cut off and throw away, what we would most likely consider undesirable--these are the very parts that Yahweh commands Moses and Aaron to be offered unto Him. But what of the part of the animal that we would say must be saved for its innumerable uses, the very hide, the skin, the "leather"? Burn it.
How could God command for one of the most valuable parts of the animal sacrifice to be burned, and not only burned, but set aflame with the most useless part of the animal--the dung? What the Lord of Glory values is not what man values, nor what the church values. We so readily look on the outward appearance of a church, a ministry, a man's life, and think that it all appears so worthy of praise in the sight of God. The church has a prayer ministry, the pastor maintains a regular devotional time every day, the congregation is committed to a whole host of outreach ministries. Even the youth appear "on fire" for God. But where does it all lead if not to the footstool of the Almighty, where He stretches out His holy rod and reveals the works for what they truly are?
Why is it that we think we can work hard enough on our own terms in a manner that is acceptable unto God, even to the point of taking the very duties which are given us of Him and manipulate them in such a way that they become utterly unrecognizable? We exchange obedience to the words of God for adherence to precepts of men. The Pharisees did the same. They read and knew the Law better than any group of people on the face of the earth. They created rule upon rule for men to follow if they were going to walk in accordance with the commandments given by God to Moses. Precept was upon precept, line was upon line. This religious elite would stop at nothing to obey the words of God in outward show. Then came God Incarnate. A mere helpless Babe, robed in flesh and bone, very Man born of very woman of seemingly insignificant stock. But somewhere down the line, in the distant past of this woman's heritage the blood of kings issued through the veins of her forebears; and not the blood of just any king of this unique nation of Israel, the exemplar of kingship under Yahweh's rule--David, the man after God's own heart. "The LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him [to be] captain over his people..." (1Samuel 13:14).
David, the one unto whom the promise was given, "I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2Samuel 7:12-14). David, the man whose sin with Bathsheba resulted in one of the most heart-wrenching, honest, and self-effacing cries for mercy in the whole of Scripture found in Psalm 51. It is in this Psalm that David pleads with the Lord of heaven and earth on such a level as to reveal himself as a mere man, stripped of all pretence, unrobed of all kingly garb, confessing the most heinous of acts against a Holy God. "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned..." All others have been removed from the sight of David, there is no more any other competing for attention, and all culpability has been laid at the feet of the chosen king of Israel, and by his own admission no less.
Now this earthly king lies prostrate before the Heavenly King Who chose him and utters these unforgettable words, "For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give [it]: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God [are] a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51:16-17). How can this man so learned in the Scriptures and laws of God speak such a thing? Does he not know the laws concerning burnt sacrifices and sin offerings? Could he not open the scrolls that adjured the proper offering to atone for his sin? Indeed, he did. But that was not what God was seeking in David, and it was not what He was seeking in Israel even in the giving of the commandments. "Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you" (Jeremiah 7:21-23). He was after something of an inner kind, originating from heaven itself, that eventuated in the offering of one's life down to the scruple, a life that would walk in perfect obedience to the Voice of God Who speaks. And this kind of life can only be described in terms of a sacrifice, because it will cost everything natural and carnal in the man who lives under the sentence of death. It is a sacrifice predicated upon the quintessence of sacrifice--that of a Lamb without spot or blemish.
This true sacrifice of God is revealed in a most striking passage in the book of Hebrews: "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, [and] not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect...For [it is] not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins...Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me..."(Hebrews 10:1-5).
"A body hast Thou prepared Me." This is the statement of none other than that now fully grown Babe, bearded and rugged, dirt clinging to His sandals, sweat running down His dusty brow, unimpressive in appearance, a Root out of dry ground. But this Root bore a Majesty and Glory that was witnessed unto by every word and every deed. Grace mingled with fire issued from His lips in every syllable on His holy tongue. What is the body prepared of which He speaks? The flesh and bone body of a now thirty-something Jewish Carpenter, foreordained of God the Almighty in eternity past to be the offering by which atonement would be made for the sins of the world. Hidden beneath the surface of this Son of Man lie a Lamb without spot or blemish, slaughtered before earth's foundations were laid or ever Adam breathed one breath in God's good creation.
There was an offering that was foreshadowed in every law given, in every sacrifice set in order by the God of Israel. Jesus Christ the Righteous "is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world" (1John 2:2). By Him we have access through one Spirit to God the Father by that new and living way prepared for us through the veil of His flesh (see Hebrews 10:20). For what then did God the Everlasting LORD clothe Himself with human flesh in order to bear the sins of all mankind upon Himself? For what did the Son of Glory take upon Himself the unmitigated wrath of God and become sin for us? What was it that He was seeking? What was His reward?
A sacrifice indeed. "And Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements: once in the year shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations: it [is] most holy unto the LORD" (Exodus 30:10). Aaron, the high priest, entered into the holy of holies once a year to present before God the blood of atonement, placed upon the mercy seat, whereby the sins of the nation would be purged (see Leviticus 16). Prior to the sacrifice given for the people, Aaron had to present an offering for himself. Before the sins of the people could be dealt with by way of the hands of the high priest, the hands of the high priest had to be cleansed. "And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which [is] for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house..." (Leviticus 16:11). No man can be a means of reconciliation between men and God until that man has himself been reconciled through the blood of the Final Sin Offering, "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). There must be an at-one-ment of relationship between that man or woman and God in order for them to operate as an authentic ambassador for Christ. In this oneness with Jesus Christ we partake of the eternal fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a fellowship characterized by the holy love and light of Christ displayed amongst even the most drastically dull of duties on earth.
Our holy High Priest entered the holiest of all, presenting Himself to God and His Father, the only unblemished Man to ever walk the face of the earth. The blood of Jesus Christ was the only means by which any man would ever enter into the Presence of Almighty God. His blood is the blood of the sin offering offered once for all, as says the Holy Spirit, "But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands...Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption [for us]. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:11-14). So we draw near to God, having been redeemed by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ upon a cross fashioned by men made in His image, with wood created by God's own hands. It is by this offering that we are sanctified, set apart unto God's foreordained use and the outworking of His will in us--body, soul, and spirit. And yet the question is begged: does mere mental comprehension of the doctrine of redemption make us the sacrifice God is seeking? Not by any means.
We must not stop here, we must not stand afar off beholding the cross on which the Living Christ died, and walk away happy and blessed for the salvation that He has purchased. The only reason salvation is free for us is because it cost God everything. Not until we approach that Cross whereupon God hung and offer our hands to be pierced through with His, present our feet to be nailed with His, and so enter into that death once and for all with Him, will we ever know what it is to be the sacrifice that God has been seeking from the ancient days of eternity. Paul says of himself, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). This is not a declaration applied by default to all his readers simply by virtue of themselves espousing proper credal statements. Paul speaks these words as a deep and definite experience he himself has passed through--Paul has died, and he no longer lives. "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14). Paul the apostle has breathed his last breath on earth as his own possession, he is now a man wholey possessed by God. He is dead; and yet he lives. Unto what end does Paul now live? As a living sacrifice perpetually offered unto God every moment of every day; waking or sleeping his life is not his own. "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1Corinthians 6:19-20).
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us...Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." (2Corinthians 4:7-11). Day by day the apostle Paul and those who trod the earth with him bore in themselves the perpetual experience of Jesus Christ's death, a death that was wholly surrendered unto in every act of apostolic obedience on the part of these men. They knew nothing by themselves, and were content to be held to the highest standard of God's righteous judgments, knowing full well that their very thoughts and motives were seen under the Righteous Judge's watchful eye. Distress, persecution, nakedness, peril, rejection, hatred, cursing--none of these opposing forces could sway this blood-bought slave of Heaven's Holy Lamb. Consequently, the eternal decrees of God were brought to bear upon every man and woman with whom Paul came in contact, as the immortal life and Presence of the Son of God were manifest in His apostle's mortal flesh.
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). So the Holy Spirit commands through this dead man walking, in whom the Living Christ has taken His residence, that all who are called saints present themselves as living sacrifices to God. Oswald Chambers summarizes this supreme exhortation, "Give up your right to yourself to God." The Almighty will not take your right to yourself from you, it must be given freely without condition. As a Christian, the only right a blood-bought man or woman has is the right to give up their rights completely over to God. Where does this surrender of one's rights lead? What is the end of this relinquishing of what we so treasure and count so dear, not only as human beings, but also as Americans who place such value on personal rights? It appears that love for oneself must yield to One greater than itself in a sovereign preference for that Greater One that unites mortal man to his Immortal Maker.
In response to a scribe's question about the first and greatest commandment, Jesus answers with an interesting Scripture as a prelude: "The first of all the commandments [is], Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord" (Mark 12:29). Having enunciated the pronouncement of Yahweh found in Deuteronomy 6, only then does the Son of God proceed with what immediately follows, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment" (Mark 12:30). You see, if we miss the knowledge of God as He in fact is, we cannot by any means fulfill the commandment to love Him. God is one and beside Him there is no other god. The scribe responds with his concurrence of Christ's decisive declaration of the great commandment by saying this, "Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love [his] neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices" (Mark 12:32-33). More than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices? This man learned in the Scriptures breathed by God's own mouth has the audacity to make such a claim? How does Jesus respond to this boldness? "And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God" (Mark 12:34). God's whole purpose in giving the law and speaking through the prophets was to one end, namely, that men and women made in His image would love Him above all else, which would inevitably evince itself in love for neighbor and even enemy. Not only is this love for God and neighbor the aim of the law, it is also the motivation and outworking of any true sacrifice acceptable to God. However, the animal sacrifices prescribed by the Holy Spirit through Moses also prophesy in type One Who would come as the Ultimate Sacrifice by Whom mankind would be reconciled to God, initiating us into an at-one-ment with Him whereby and wherein we might truly love Him. But to end here will leave us perilously ignorant of what Jesus Christ is after in this man--there is a revelation that beckons, without whose deep and unimpeded apprehension we will stray from any true knowledge of God as God.
Upon commending the scribe for his grasp of the word of God, the Lord asks a probing question, one which tests how well His hearers really understand what He is saying. "How say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David? For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The LORD said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he [then] his son?" (Mark 12:35-37). Hidden within this ostensibly simple question regarding the prophetic Psalm 110, and its declaration of the Christ as David's Lord, is a revelation of a mystery that has been hidden for generations concerning the nature of God as one Lord. If the scribes in Jesus' hearing can receive it, they will realize that it is very God Who now stands before His own creation and searches their hearts with a piercing insight that proves how well they truly understand what He is saying. This is why the man unto whom Jesus responds regarding the issue of God's great commandment is not yet permitted conclusive entry into His kingdom. What this scribe must comprehend is that the very God Whom he is commanded to love is revealed in the Person under Whose tutelage he now finds himself. The prophesied Priest and Lord from this psalm of David now calls all who hear to find in Himself the One they are to love and worship, for within this Son of David dwells all the fulness of the Godhead in bodily form (Colossians 1:19, 2:9). No wonder John is so adamant, "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that [spirit] of antichrist..." (1John 4:2-3). Without this revelatory knowledge of God as God Incarnate in Jesus Christ love for Him is impossible, annulling any offering presented to God and rendering any such sacrifice abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 15:8). Abandoning ourselves in love to Jesus Christ as Lord and God is the only way it can be said of us, "Thy people [shall be] willing ( literally a "freewill offering" ) in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth" (Psalm 110:3). For "in this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him...We love him, because he first loved us" (1John 4:9). So the Holy Spirit decrees, "whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: [(but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also]" (1John 2:23).
How abundant are the ways we may receive or reject the Son, thereby revealing ourselves for what we are in essence, a holy offering of sacrifice unto God, or the stenchful flesh that is to be burnt outside the camp along with the dung! Within the church in this very hour men and women are giving themselves over to demonic uncleanness, even under the auspices of revival. Unholy laughter, demonic jerkings, scandalous and carnal cravings for a false glory--all exposing the wandering whorish heart of a harlot church who has turned her back on her Heavenly Bridegroom. We are a church given wholly over to sensuality of the basest and most immoral kind. We are a people ruled by our senses, content to follow after any visible sign regardless of its source as long as it is spiritual in nature. Tragically, however, spiritual experience is the last and greatest stronghold of deception (see 2Thessalonians 2:3-12). If we are given over to sundry encounters of a spiritual sort no matter the dubious nature of its fruit or the bitter spring from which it flows, we will never know God in truth. For to love God is to love the truth, and a man's love for God is in direct proportion to his love for the truth. "I am the Truth," says Jesus. Art Katz has rightly stated, "if the enemy can succeed in bringing the church to viewing benefit as the determinant by which something is judged to be of God, we may well have been brought to the very ground of deception itself." Is it any wonder such spiritual manifestations that have their origins in hell oft-times work themselves out in the very bodies of men, even with an ostensibly beneficial outcome?
Satan has always appealed to men after the manner of man, exalting man's view of himself. Calling men to behold themselves as the end of all being and final authority, the devil invites the human soul to partake of that which is forbidden. His temptations almost invariably call men's attention to that which he can see, taste, hear, touch, or smell; even feel in a spiritual way; all the while that wilely serpent casts doubt on the very commandments of God. "And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?...And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat" (Genesis 3:1-6, emphasis added). The church's embrace of such connivings and seductions has proven her to be the sinfully sensual body that she has become. We have failed to be a priestly people who separate between the holy and the profane. Consequently, God will sovereignly and justly hand over to a lie those who refuse to heed the voice of the Spirit of truth when He speaks. A prayer offered in Jesus' name, a word preached for the salvation of the lost, a prophetic utterance over an apostate people, even a verifiable healing performed in the broken body of a child--none of these wonderful demonstrations authenticate a man or woman by whom such works are performed as a genuine sacrifice unto God. This fact testifies to the verity of our Lord's words that many are called, but few are chosen. Until mercy and truth have met together, until righteousnes and peace have kissed within the soul of a man or woman, no matter the works wrought, he or she will never be a living sacrifice acceptable in the sight of God (Psalm 85:10).
What we do with our bodies matters tremendously to God, and that includes the very outworkings of every spiritual influence we yield ourselves unto, whether holy or profane. Why is it such an abomination for a man to claim that he was born in the wrong body and ought to be a woman? How could a woman say that she should possess male genitalia, ingest male hormones, and live her life on the outward as a man? Why are we within the church beginning to see the gradual surrender of ourselves to homosexual desires, trading the natural for the unnatural, identifying ourselves along the lines of our sexuality rather than our identity in God? A homosexual bishop is an oxymoron just as much as an idolatrous priest and a pedophilic pastor. Even the church of the living God has exchanged the truth for a lie. Yet we have not considered our ways and so have not known that our perversion and estrangement from God begins in one place, within the heart, and ineluctibly works itself out in the most elementary place--the human body. Is it any wonder the church is counted as the body of Christ? For the Lord Jesus is our holy Head moving and directing us by His sovereign decrees. However, estranged from the Head, we have lost our way and fallen in the darkened streets along with the truth we were commanded to carry to a world lying in falsehood and deceit. The flesh and blood human body is a marvellous work of God's creation, made to be a holy habitation of God's Eternal Spirit, but we have presently given our bodies in condescension as temples abused and offered for the inhospitable horrors of sin. Yet God says, "Surely I will require your lifeblood" (Genesis 9:5). Jesus Christ has set out to do what no one else could ever do, "He shall build me an house, and I will stablish his throne for ever" (1Chronicles 17:12). We the church are that temple that the Son is building unto the Father, down to the flesh and bone body of each individual member. This is why the very blood that flows through our veins will witness either for us or against us on that final day, testifying of its fruitfulness as a pleasing sacrifice unto Almighty God or as a soiled and impugnable stain on an unregenerate soul.
Thus it is said, "the life of the flesh [is] in the blood..." (Leviticus 17:11). We have come back full circle to the consideration of the parts offered in the offering unto God. The life is in the blood. The blood of the sacrifice belongs to God. We are to present ourselves as "a living sacrifice," and not only ourselves as spiritual men and women. God requires the most rudimentary thing, the flesh and blood body wherein we walk amidst the everyday experiences of life. Without the corporeal expression of our irrevocable abandonment to God, we speak mere pleasantries that are altogether void of real sacrifice. For it is that body that is sanctified by God's Glory as a temple for the Holy Spirit. It is that body that the Everlasting Triune God has chosen as His holy habitation (see 1Corinthians 6:19, John 14:23). The simple fact that we go on living each day for our own desires, doing our own things, speaking our own words is evidence enough that we know nothing of the cost of being an authentic sacrifice unto God. "A son honoureth [his] father, and a servant his master: if then I [be] a father, where [is] mine honour? and if I [be] a master, where [is] my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?...if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, [is it] not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, [is it] not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts" (Malachi 1:6-8). We have been blind and lame and sick and blemished, and we somehow think that in offering ourselves to God in our current state we shall be accepted. Our spots, our wrinkles, and our fleshly excuses for such expose us as men and women unwilling to pay the price to offer ourselves as an acceptable offering to God. We know very little what it costs to be the offering that satisfies the heart of God because we are patently ignorant of the inestimable cost for Jesus Christ to offer Himself to God (see Mark 15:34). It is a strangely unremarkable thing to be willing to go to the death for your faith in God; it is much more costly and much rather the requirement of God that we be a living sacrifice, offered moment by moment upon the altar of His sacrifice without any consideration for the price paid, simply because He is worthy. Will you relinquish everything dear to yourself, even your own notions of what it means to serve God that you might offer yourself a sacrifice that is pleasing to Him?
The life is in the blood. Carried through the veins of the perpetual offering of the saints of God runs the continual reminder of the price that God Himself paid in redeeming unto Himself a pure and spotless bride. It was not merely the blood of a self-appointed messianic man born as any other man. It was the priceless blood of the virgin-born Man Who is the selfsame God Who requires the sacrifice, it was the sinless blood of the unsullied and unspotted Son Who was declared by the Father to be both Lord and Messiah (see Acts 2:36). God shall possess the reward of His Son's suffering, an eternal sacrifice offered endlessly by love-slaves devoted to His Glory alone. Jesus Christ, the Eternal I Am, offered Himself as the ultimate sacrifice for sin without spot to the Father. In loving and abandoned response each member of His church is to offer itself body, soul, and spirit to God a living sacrifice, being transformed by the renewing of our minds, in order that we might rightly discern the will of God. The question stands: we are most certainly a sacrifice, but unto whose will and by whose way? For even the people of Israel in the heat and fervor of rebellion offered a sacrifice, but it was a sacrifice presented to a god of their own making (see Exodus 32). Yet Moses, with the groaning cry of a heart jealously beating for God's Glory and God's Presence above all else, pleaded with Yahweh, "shew me now thy way, that I may know thee..." (Exodus 33:13). For this is what shall matter in the final estimation: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21, emphasis added). It is the way and will of the Holy One unto Whom we must give account that command obedience and mercifully enable it. It is this same dominating will of which the Son spoke in His days on earth, "Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God;" "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me" (Hebrews 10:7, John 6:38). In like manner, the Father's will becomes our very delight, the unspeakable joy of His disciples, as we live and move and breathe under the banner of His Lordship, offering ourselves a sacrifice indeed to the delight of the God of Israel.
posted by Bryan | 12:12 AM
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