Monday | 09 December 2019
The death that is associated with offering involves the laying down of one’s life, by the capacity of Eternal Spirit, to an endpoint. Heb 9:13-14. Paul drew attention to this death, when he exhorted us to have the same mind as Jesus Christ, ‘Who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.’ Php 2:5‑8.
When the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in offering, lay down Their lives by Eternal Spirit to reveal One Another, Their life is multiplied. This life is not only revealed in the Others, but also reveals the Others. Within the Godhead, the end of each Person’s offering is not in Themselves. If it were, the endpoint of Their offering would be the revelation and promotion of Themselves. Rather, at the point where the One who is offering ends, the other Two are revealed. As each Person offers in this way, Their life is multiplied to the Others, and overflows from Their fellowship to become the life of the sons of God.
This expression of life through death, by offering, where One lays down Their life to reveal Another, is symbolised in Scripture by the life of a seed. Mar 4:26-29. Jesus used the picture of a seed to describe His offering on the cross. He said, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.’ Joh 12:24. According to God’s covenant plan, a great multitude would be born of God and brought to glory as His sons through Christ’s offering of Himself as the Seed of the Father. Heb 1:5. Joh 5:21,26. Isa 53:10.
Further Study:
John 12
Daily Proverb:
References:
Heb 9:13-14
For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Mar 4:26-29
And He said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.’
Heb 1:5
For to which of the angels did He ever say: ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You’? and again: ‘I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son’?
Joh 5:21
For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.
Joh 5:26
For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.
Isa 53:10
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.