Long before Calvary, God’s Son “endured such hostility from sinners against Himself” (Heb 12:3).
What is the reason for FIVE offerings instead of one? One offering could never illustrate the meaning and blessings that come to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is especially true of the next offering, the mincha, the food or grain offering. While this was an offering, it was not a sacrifice (Heb., zebach, to slaughter), since no blood was shed. So here we are focused on Christ’s life rather than His death. As we read through Leviticus 2, we see three kinds of grain offering. There was the handful of fine flour (vv 1-3), various kinds of cakes or wafers (vv 4-11), and the firstfruits offering (vv 12-16) composed of “green heads of grain roasted on the fire” (v 14). May I suggest that these were to illustrate the sufferings of His life in three parts. First, the handful of fine flour pictures the costliness of His incarnation and hidden years, until the moment of His presentation to the nation of Israel at His baptism. Fine flour, the simplest and purest form of the offering, shows us there was nothing uneven in Him. “For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (Jn 6:33). The second category told of the fiery trials of His public life, from His Spirit anointing until His agony in Gethsemane. Some of these trials were fully exposed to the world, like the cakes baked on a plate; some partially hidden, like those made in a frying pan; then those sorrows known only to God, like the ones prepared in an oven. But Christ’s sufferings did not end with His death. Never forget that Christ the Firstfruits (1 Cor 15:23) suffers with His people today! Michael Bruce wrote, “In every pang that rends the heart the Man of Sorrows has a part; He sympathizes with our grief, and to the sufferer sends relief.”