SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/26/2019
9:22 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “The Pattern”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
5:2a
Message of the verse: “just as Christ
also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a
fragrant aroma.”
I
suppose that if one looks at the OT sacrifices they would find that all of them
were actually offered to God, and so as we look at the last part of this verse
we see that Christ’s offering was also to God.
It was because that sacrifice demonstrated in the fullest and most
ultimate was God’s kind of love. As we
look the words “for us” they indicate the personal expression of love directed
at all who believe. MacArthur adds that “this
does not limit the provision of the atonement only to believers, as other Scriptures
make clear. See John 1:29; 3:15-16; Rom. 10:13; 2 Cor. 5:14; 1 Tim. 2:4, 6;
4:10; 2 Pet. 2:1; 1 John 2:2; 4:14.”
I
mentioned about the OT offerings and as I continue to look at MacArthur’s
commentary he also mentions some of the offerings that are described in the
book of Leviticus. He writes “The burn offering (Lev. 1:1-17) depicted Christ’s
total devotion to God in giving His very life to obey and please His Father;
the meal (grail) offering (Lev. 2:1-16) depicted Christ’s perfection, and the
peace offering (Lev. 3:1-17; 4:27-31) depicted His making peace between God and
man. All of those offerings obviously
spoke of what was pleasing to God. Of
each, the Scripture says it provided a ‘soothing aroma to the Lord’ (Lev. 1:9,
13, 17; 2:2, 9, 12; 3:5, 16).
Philippians 4:18 explains that the fragrant aroma meant the sacrifice
was ‘acceptable,…well-pleasing to God.’
But the other two offerings—the sin (Lev. 4:1-26, 32-35) and the
trespass (Lev. 5:1-19) offerings—were repulsive to God, because, though they
depicted Christ, they depicted Him as bearing the sin of mankind. The depicted the Father’s turning His back on
the Son when ‘He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf’ (2 Cor.
5:21), at which time Jesus exclaimed from the cross, ‘My God, My God, why has
Thou forsaken Me?’ (Matt. 27:46).” I
have always desired to understand how these OT sacrifices were pictures of
Christ, and this small paragraph helps me to better understand that. One thing that I do want to mention, and I
believe that it is extremely important, and that is that Christ did not and
never could sin, but He was actually the sin bearer, and while Christ was doing
that His Father could not look on Him or even rejoice in Him, or be pleased in
Him. However after the Father raised
Christ from the dead, the sacrifice that caused Him to become sin became the sacrifice
that conquered sin. So Christ became sin,
but was never a sinner otherwise He would not have been qualified to die for
us. MacArthur writes “the sacrifice that
caused Him to become sin became the sacrifice that conquered sin. The sin that put Him to death was itself put
to death, and that great act of love was to ‘God as a fragrant aroma.’ That ‘fragrant aroma’ spreads its fragrance
to everyone on earth who will place himself under the grace of that sacrifice,
and it will spread its fragrance throughout heaven for all eternity. In all aspects, our lives should please God.”
Lord
willing we will begin looking at “The Perversion” in our next SD which will
cover verses 3-4 of Ephesians chapter five.
Today’s quotation is from Benjamin
Franklin who says “Do you love life? The
do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.”
5/26/2019 9:46 PM
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