THE ONE
OFFERING.
BY CARRIE F. JUDD
A lady once said
to me, “I am tired of the words of consecration and sanctification; they sound
so old-fashioned.” Her remark came to my mind this morning, but it was with a
sense of comfort that those dear , “old-fashioned” words, so ancient that we
find them in the oldest books of the Bible, are still on the lips of believers,
and that they are words of such blessed meaning to some of God’s children who
are “hungering and thirsting after righteousness.”
In referring to
the Old Testament we find many passages in which the words consecrate
and sanctify are used to express the same meaning, viz.: to set apart,
or devote as holy, unto the Lord, and this very use of these words indicates a
blessed truth-that when anything is wholly consecrated to God it must also be
sanctified, since He will immediately set His seal upon what is wholly rendered
up to Him; and “the altar sanctified the gift.”
Let us look over
some of the many texts in which we find lessons concerning consecration. The
grand purpose of consecration is that we may thereby be sanctified to serve the
Lord, hence we read that the lord said of Aaron: “Consecrate him, that he may minister
unto Me” (Ex. xxviii: 3); and again, of Aaron and his sons: “Thou shalt
anoint them, and consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may minister
unto Me in the priest’s office.” –(Ex. xxciii: 41.)
The anointing,
the setting apart, and the being made holy, were to prepare them for an
acceptable service unto the lord, and we must not forget to look at this as the
blessed result of consecration now, instead of seeking for it as a means of
spiritual idleness and indulgence.
In the twenty-ninth
chapter of Exodus we read of the ceremonies attending the consecration of the
priests, and see that they were accepted as holy because of the sacrifice of
the required burnt offerings; not by any good word or deed of their own were
Aaron and his sons to be hallowed, but because of this atonement prefiguring
Christ and His finished work. And thus we are to take home to our hearts the
blessed truth here conveyed, that we are consecrated by the offering of
Him “Who is consecrated forevermore,” and that “by one offering He hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified.”-(Heb. x: 14.)
If we have
hitherto doubted our acceptance when we have with tears and anguish tried to
consecrate ourselves to God, it is because we have failed to realize that the
offering is already presented to the Father by our faithful High Priest, that
He hath “given Himself for us, and offering and a sacrifice to God for a
sweet-smelling savior” (Eph. v: 2), that we are therefore consecrated by
Him, and (blessed assurance!) God “hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”
And as in the
olden days, “every devoted thing” was “most holy unto the lord,” and was no
longer at the disposal of him who had offered it (Lev. xxvii: 28), so, now, we
are not our own, but are “bought with a price,” having been made ‘the servants
of righteousness,” with our “fruit unto holiness, and the end of everlasting
life.”
Shall we not
joyfully acknowledge that in the person of Jesus Christ we are offered
irrevocably unto God, that by His “one offering” we are sanctified, and that we
are thereby made “a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices,
acceptable to God by Christ Jesus.”?
