22.2 The Sacrifice
© 2017 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The Altar of Burnt Offering is the first piece of furniture confronting anyone coming through the Gate into Christ. It is also the largest piece of furniture. You can see a representation of that Altar on pages 28 and 31 of the Rose Guide to the Tabernacle.
Upon this altar was burned every animal sacrifice brought by any Israelite to offer to God. That is, a portion of that sacrifice was burned, the skin, the blood, the fat, and the offal. The meat of every sacrifice went into cooking pots elsewhere in the outer court as food for the priests. Fire from burning flesh is not white as the picture suggests, but black. And it takes a lot of wood to burn flesh.
The Atonement. It is not our purpose in this session to apply every aspect of the sacrifices to the Atonement of Christ. Rather, we are seeking for the exact terms of our Covenant with God. This lesson places the Altar as the beginning of our Covenant, and the next lesson, “And We Also,” seeks out the completion of the same Covenant. Let’s place a number of specific understandings before our eyes before we state the precise terms of the Covenant.
First, when we speak of the Atonement or the Sacrifice, we define that reality as beginning the moment Jesus dropped to His knees in Gethsemane to the moment Jesus sprinkled His blood upon the throne of God right after His resurrection. The Sacrifice includes everything between those two moments.
Inside of Jesus. Second, although the Old Testament metaphor pictures for us a “substitute” sacrifice, the real Sacrifice of God is no substitute. Paul, by his gospel, places you and me, literally and substantially, inside of Jesus in every step of that Path.
Yet in looking at the Old Testament picture, we see that the person offering the animal sacrifice placed his or her hands upon the sacrifice signifying all they were going into that animal in representation before God. For us, our inclusion inside the Sacrifice is not symbolic but literal. If One died for all, then all died (2 Corinthians 5).
For Us. Third, we must understand the Sacrifice of Jesus, not in terms of Catholic reasoning, but in terms of God penetrating our lostness with His love. The Sacrifice of Jesus is FOR US and no one else.
And finally, we must make every part of this Sacrifice personal to ourselves, believing that God placed us into Jesus right from the start, believing that every element is fully effective and fully sufficient for ME right now. You see, all the argument, all the reasoning and explanation, typically serves one purpose, to keep the one who “knows what its all about” from ever believing it to be Jesus personal and true for and inside of them.
By One Offering. Let’s get the precise wording of the One Sacrifice. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all… But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God… For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified… This is the covenant that I will make with them (Hebrews 10:10-16 reduced).
The body of Jesus Christ once for all – one sacrifice for sins forever – by one offering He has perfected forever. And again: we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died (2 Corinthians 5:14).
The Truth of the Sacrifice. I studied Watchman Nee’s book, The Normal Christian Life very carefully when I was nineteen. The truths regarding this sacrifice I learned from Nee have stayed
with me ever since. The truth is the truth, and it remains the same, no matter how far we go with it inside of God. Our understanding may increase enormously, but the truth of this Sacrifice holds.What I want to do now, however, is to apply this Sacrifice against the picture of the raging inferno of self. Again, the only thing that will enable us to look out from ourselves is a Man laying down His life for us.
The Contention. Now, let’s position God’s contention against us. The problem is not “sin” in and of itself; the problem is our hardness of heart against God. God could have taken care of Eve’s sin; He could have taken care of Adam’s sin. Every time you see God dealing with any one in the Bible, you see that He quickly forgives their sins without thought.
The problem is human refusal, the unwillingness to let go of “I am right.” Here is God’s contention. Let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: “That You may be justified in Your words, and may overcome when You are judged” (Romans 3:4).
How Wrong We Are. You see how that contention is explained by our picture of the raging self. Self is always claiming, “I am the one who is right; and if God differs from me on any point – He is a liar.” And so God gives the law, not to prove us right, “By God, I can be godly without God,” but to prove to us how wrong we are.
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God (Romans 3:19). Shut up – and be wrong.
The problem is, of course, that no one will actually shut up. I have heard union-with-Christ people, grace people, die-to-self people – in the press of life, argue from self, “I am right.”
Crucified with Christ. I know of only one way to “go silent” before God, and that is to open your mouth and speak out loud these words: I AM crucified with Christ. Shout these words out loud with all your heart until you believe, until you KNOW that they are true. Then and only then will the possibility exist of that horrific voice of self-exaltation—self-accusation ceasing forever.
You see, if it isn’t personal, it ain’t.
The cross eliminates the sinner. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin (Romans 6:6-7).
Forgiveness. Now, we are getting ahead of ourselves. You see, God draws us into the Lord Jesus Christ and plants Jesus into our hearts before we have any idea what’s actually going on. In essence, God does play this one trick on us – He succeeds in His finished work even while paying no attention whatsoever to the continued existence of “I am right.” He does that through the Holy Spirit bringing conviction of sins, the awareness of our need for a Savior, and the forgiveness of God.
But that is our experience. Here, we want to know, personally, the Covenant undergirding that experience. And that Covenant requires a lot more involvement from us.
Reckon Yourselves Dead. “I am crucified with Christ,” though it can be spoken right from the start, yet it represents far more our passage through the Veil into living in full union with Christ. Thus here is the word God gives us at the beginning of the Covenant. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin (Romans 6:11a). As Watchman Nee taught us, “Place it into your account as already yours.”
Now, Watchman Nee placed the Blood next as that which deals with ongoing sins, but I don’t think that’s right. I think that Life must come before Blood in our knowledge of the Covenant.
Saved by His Life. Here is how Paul put it. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Romans 5:10).
Again, we are looking here at Covenant, not experience. In our experience, although the Cross of Christ got our attention, it was the Blood shed for us that won our hearts to forgiveness. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him (Romans 5:8-9). “Justified” in the Greek does not mean “as if we did not sin,” it means that we DID NOT sin.
Reckon Yourself Alive. In our personal embracing of the Covenant, however, the Life of Christ in us must enter our knowledge before we can place the work of the Blood. Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).
And we know that life by speaking: Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be… alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:11). – Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ. – For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God… Christ who is our life… (Colossians 3:3).
Penetrating the Bubble. The question of the Covenant, however, is how does this truth penetrate our bubble? It is impossible for the human soul to go silent.
You see, we are created like God, and God never shuts up. Actually, He went silent once, and all creation perished upon the cross of Christ. But God speaking is Jesus, and God loves Jesus too much ever to be silent. Thus we, also, cannot shut up about ourselves – ever, for to cease speaking is to no longer be human.
We must have a different story to speak.
Another Story to Speak. Thus, these words of Jesus must come into our picture. He who loves his soul, his self-story will lose it, and he who hates his soul, his self-story, in this world will keep it for age-abiding life (John 12:25).
Yeah, right. Good luck with that. You will never, of yourself, fulfill these words.
You see, there is only one possible way by which we humans could lose our own story – and that is by being given another story, another self life, to speak. Christ who is our life; Christ who is our only story. When we can say, inside our bubble of self, “Jesus is ALL that I am as I find myself to be right now,” only then are we saved from the horror.
The One Who IS Right. The final issue for us, inside this new story of speaking Christ our only life, is the difficulty of ongoing sins of the flesh. What do we do with ourselves even while we speak Christ? As we walk (knowing we CANNOT be right) the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we are not WRONG, we deceive ourselves… (1 John 1:7-8). – And if anyone sins, we have a full Connection with the Father, Jesus Christ the One who IS RIGHT. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole cosmos (1 John 2:1-2 - paraphrased).
And then the clincher, our full trade of life for Life. For He made Him who knew no WRONG to be WRONG for us, that we might be made the RIGHT-ness of God inside of Him (2 Corinthians 5:21 – paraphrased).
The Life I Live Now. A Man laying down His life for me convinces me, at least momentarily, that I might be WRONG. And so I say, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ.” But it doesn’t end there. I continue on – “and the life I live now inside this flesh, flesh of His flesh, I live by the faith of Jesus, this One who loves me, this One who trades His wondrous soul for my useless one.”
And beyond all wonder, I, Daniel Yordy, formerly a sinner screaming in accusation and shame, am seated now upon the Mercy Seat of God, and going forth with my Father who is, through my every circumstance, reconciling the world to Himself!
A Wondrous Salvation. Having our hearts sprinkled (with Blood) from an evil consciousness and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:22). – For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are coming to know Christ as the only life they are, the only story they speak.
And now, the only reality I know is best expressed by these words: I am IN my Father and my Father is in ME.
Simple, really, and plain. But such a wondrous Salvation cannot be known by human reasoning, but only by our personal acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ as our own true Self.