The meal-offering, described in Leviticus 2, was a sweet-savor offering, and so could be put on the altar as the food of God. It did not represent Christ primarily in His death because there was no life taken, nor any blood shed. It was made up of various materials, but they were all the fruits of the earth. I take it to represent our blessed Lord Jesus in His life on earth, a perfect Man, a model of what all men should be in their lives.
By His holy life, Christ showed what sort of character and conduct was acceptable to God on earth. All men had failed, even those good men who had been remarkable for some particular virtue. And failed too in the very thing in which they had excelled. Moses was remarkable for his meekness, but he so far failed in that as to shut himself out of Canaan. Abraham was remarkable for his strong faith in God, yet he was so far overcome by unbelief as to tell a lie. Job was remarkable for his patience, but he became at length so impatient as to curse the day of his birth.
Every man had failed, and there was not a life recorded in the Bible that men might look upon as a perfect model which they might follow. So God sent His Son that, when men saw Him, they might see what God would have men to be, and how He would have men to live.
The Old Testament was full of shadows–shadows of Christ–and in the meal offering I see the shadow of the perfect Man pass by. The meal offering contains the shadow, but the Gospels contain the substance, the reality, which is Jesus Christ Himself.
The meal offering was composed of fine flour, salt, oil, and frankincense. Bread is made of flour, and bread is the staff of life. It sustains and nourishes the life. Christ gives spiritual life to dead souls, and then He gives Himself to His people to nourish and sustain their new life.
The body requires material food, but the soul requires spiritual food. It lives on ideas–on thoughts. The vain mind feeds on vain thoughts, and becomes more vain still. The selfish mind lives on selfish thoughts and it grows more selfish. The soul that is born of God has an appetite for Christ. He loves to think of Him. Every new thought he gets of Christ is sweet and good food, on which his mind feeds with relish.
A handful of the meal offering was put on the altar and consumed in the fire, and the rest was eaten by the priests. The priests represent the people of God with access to Him. God and the priests found food in the same meal offering, and God and His people feed on the same–on Christ. The mind of God and the mind of the Christian find pleasure in the blessed character of Christ.
This is communion with God, fellowship with the Father. May we know more of what this living communion with the living God means. May we find our rest and our joy in Jesus Christ, not only because of His atoning death, but also because of the glory of His Person, in unutterable sweetness manifesting and glorifying the Father in His life down here.
We shall understand the meal offering better if we consider the other ingredients for a moment. Oil was poured upon the flour. This represents the Holy Spirit of God who was poured out upon Christ without measure.
Then there is salt. Salt preserves from corruption. There was salt in the conversation of Christ, and His words never corrupted any person. The Christian should be like Christ. His words should be with grace, seasoned with salt.
Last of all, there was frankincense in the meal offering. This is a spice which sends forth a sweet odor when it is burnt. All the frankincense was to be burnt on the altar; it was all for God. There was very much in the spirit and in the life of Jesus that men could not understand or appreciate, but God understood it and valued it. Every thought of His heart, every word and act of His life, and the inward motives from which all the acts of His life sprang, were all seen and understood and appreciated by the Father. Everything in His inner life, as well as His outer life, was a sweet odor to God.
The materials excluded from the meal offering were honey and leaven. Leaven is a corrupting influence, therefore it was excluded from the offering which was the shadow of the perfect Man, who never had a corrupt thought in His mind.
Honey was also excluded from the meal offering. Honey is sweet, but it will not stand the fire. Fire spoils honey by causing it to ferment, and then to turn sour. Fire improves frankincense, but it spoils honey.
Our good nature is like honey. We are very good and pleasant so long as we are pleased, but when we are tried by the fire our honey turns very sour. It was not so with Jesus Christ. The fire tried Him, but the trials only proved that there was nothing in Him which could not ascend to God as the odor of a sweet smell.
Thus, in the meal offering we see Jesus in His life on earth, so pure and holy that both God and man may find their satisfaction in Him.