JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture

[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
When Jesus Went Out to Dinner (Luke 7:36–50)

My friend, will you notice now where our Lord made the contrast. He stepped down into the life where you and I walk in shoe leather, when you and I show every minute of the day the kind of persons we are. On the level of common courtesies, He said, “Simon, when I came into your home after you invited Me, you deliberately omitted the common courtesy of putting out water for My feet, while this woman has wet My feet with her tears. Simon, you forgot to put oil on My head, and she has used precious ointment on My feet. Simon, you ignored Me when I entered — you didn’t even welcome Me with the kiss of greeting, and this woman has smothered My feet with kisses.”

“Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” (Luke 7:47)

Can you stand the exposure of this white light of heaven today? Christ put this moral Pharisee down by the side of a redeemed harlot, and under the scorching white light of heaven this Pharisee must have squirmed like a worm in hot ashes. He said to this Pharisee, “She is better than you are,” and that burns in this day of hypocrisy, in this day when religion is a front, in this day when people are putting on airs. This will burn your soul, my friend, and you don’t want to get too close to it.

Now He deals with her again personally, to give her assurance. She needs it.

Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” (Luke 7:48)

He could have added, “Your sins have already been forgiven. I’m on the way to the Cross now to die for the sins of the world.” He’s saying also, “Simon, she’s the sinner, and she knows it. She has been forgiven, and she’s grateful. You don’t recognize that you are a sinner, but you are. You think that somehow or other you are good enough, that you can get by.” Every person, including the harlot and the religious Pharisee, needs to be forgiven. And, my friend, you and I have to come to the same Cross.

I used to think that the grace of God was like pipes on an organ. If a fellow is a big sinner and he’s way low down, God will go way down and get him. But if he’s an upstanding person, the grace of God doesn’t have to go down so far to get that one. My friend, the grace of God has to go down just as far to get you as it does to get the lowest sinner in the United States. It required the death of the Son of God to save us! And the death of Christ will save the worst sinner.

In my first pastorate in Nashville, Tennessee, after I was ordained, I followed one of the most godly men I have ever met, Dr. A. S. Allen. He was my encouragement and a man of great blessing to my heart. He told me many things when I came to the church. I was green. It was a city church, and I was a country preacher. One day he said, “You’ll notice this couple, Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So. I’ll tell you about them,” and he did. Dr. Allen had enjoyed a ministry in Nashville that very few men have had anywhere. He was the preacher who included a ministry to the underworld. They had confidence in him. One day a girl in one of those houses of prostitution died, and he was asked to come in and have a service for her. That funeral was conducted inside the house, and gathered there were all the pimps and prostitutes. And Dr. Allen preached the gospel to them. The madam of that house received Christ. She witnessed to all those girls before they left, then closed up the place and moved out. She married a retired policeman, and that’s the couple Dr. Allen was telling me about.

They were in their sixties when I went there. You could tell she had been a beauty. She was one of the most cultured, refined persons I’ve ever met. The man she married was just about as crude as any I’ve known, but she had met him back in those early days.
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
When Jesus Went Out to Dinner (Luke 7:36–50)

Dr. Allen told me that when she joined the church, the women of the church would not accept her. So she quietly withdrew from the membership, but she and her husband would always come in and sit in the back.

When I called on them, she said to me, “Brother McGee, you may wonder why I’m not a member of the church.” I said, “Yes, Dr. Allen has already told me.” She said, “I don’t want to push myself on anyone. I just want to come and sit in the back and hear the gospel.” Then tears came down a face that one time was hardened, and she said, “Christ did so much for me when He saved me!” And she couldn’t say any more, for she was sobbing.

I preached in that church for several years. As I looked over that congregation, I’d see lovely Southern ladies sitting there, including my mother, also my aunt, but that couple sat in the back. I want to say to you, there was nobody sitting there who was superior to that woman. She had been forgiven much, and I’m afraid there were some others in that congregation who had never shed a tear about their sins.

My friend, do your sins disturb you today? Or are you continuing in them and keeping up a front? Put yourself down beside the harlot who came into the Pharisee’s house. It makes a scorching burn, does it not? Our Lord now turns to her and says, “Your faith has saved you” — she had no works — “go in peace.” My friend, if you’ve never yet turned to the Lord Jesus, He is the only Savior, and whether you are a Pharisee or whether you are a sinner today, a great sinner like this woman, He can and will and wants to save you. But you’ll have to trust Him. He said to her, “Your faith has saved you.” Oh, I can’t help believing that Simon the Pharisee got the point, saw himself in the white light of heaven, and turned to Christ.
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
An Old Portrait of Christ (Leviticus 1:1–10)

Three short blocks from Dallas Seminary in Dallas, Texas, is Baylor Hospital. It was in that hospital back in 1961 that Mr. Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, lay dying of cancer. The wife of one of these seminary boys was a nurse in that hospital. Both this seminary student and his wife became close friends of the chaplain there, a man who was a faithful witness for the Lord Jesus Christ in that place of sickness and death. He visited Speaker Sam Rayburn each day. When he first presented the claims of Jesus Christ to him, Mr. Rayburn responded, “I believe in God. But I don’t know anything about this man Jesus that you are talking about.”

I estimate that Mr. Rayburn had known at least eight presidents of the United States. In the course of his public life he met most of the great men of the world. President Kennedy made a long trip to spend a few moments with Sam Rayburn. But President Kennedy couldn’t have helped him then, even if he had spent millions. The outstanding cancer specialists from all over America were brought to Dallas. They prolonged his life, but they could not cure him. For this man there was no word of hope from the great ones of the earth. The only One who could have helped him is the One of whom he said, “I don’t know anything about this man Jesus that you’re talking about.”

In this brief series on the person and work of Christ, I trust that we might introduce Him to someone who does not know Him any more than Mr. Rayburn did. Paul the apostle wrote at the end of his life when he was in prison: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.” Paul was not saying here that he did not know Jesus as Savior — he did. In fact, he probably knew Him better than anyone else. But having known our Lord as well as he did, Paul still wanted to know Him better. If you know Christ as Savior, we trust this series will also help you to know Him better and appreciate Him more.

We are addressing here two extreme groups: one group knows nothing about this Man Jesus, and the other group knows Him but shares the longing expressed by Paul, “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.”
 
The Picture Album

Are you aware that God gave us pictures of Christ before He sent Him to earth? This was done so that folk would recognize Him and know who He was when He came. One of the ways of looking at the Old Testament is to think of it as an album, a picture album in which you have more pictures of Christ than of anyone else. In fact, while I may not always recognize Him, I do believe with all my heart that on every page of the Old Testament there is a picture of Christ, if only we had eyes to see Him. So let’s turn back now to that old album and look together at an old portrait of Christ.

The pictures of Him that we will look at are found in the Book of Leviticus, one of the most important books, and some expositors consider it the greatest book, in the Bible. God opens it by giving five offerings or sacrifices to the nation Israel. I don’t think that any of these were new. Probably they all had been in use before, but He gives them to the nation Israel now with the specific law for each of these offerings.

The five offerings all speak of Christ. Each one is a picture of Him. Each speaks of one facet of the Lord Jesus Christ’s manifold and many-sided person.

The first three offerings are called sweet savor offerings: the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the peace offering. These three offerings are called sweet savor offerings because they set before us the person of Christ — as our substitute, in His loveliness, and as our peace (Leviticus 1–3).
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
An Old Portrait of Christ (Leviticus 1:1–10)

The last two offerings, the sin offering and the trespass offering, are called non-sweet savor offerings. Actually, they are bitter because they speak of the work of Christ for us upon the Cross.

Now the offering that God put first and foremost is the burnt offering. God gave it first because to Him it comes first in importance. God is giving it from His viewpoint. Actually the burnt offering was the oldest offering known to man. It was the offering that Abel, the son of Adam, brought at the very beginning of the human family. And that’s been the way to God from that day down to the present, if you please. Also you will find that Noah brought a burnt offering, Abraham brought a burnt offering, Isaac brought a burnt offering, and Jacob brought a burnt offering to God. It’s the oldest offering, and it’s the reason today that, when we do a study of paganism and heathenism, we find tribes that have a sacrifice somewhere in their religious rites which they had taken with them when they left the Tower of Babel and moved out into the darkness of the jungle and away from God. They took a sacrifice with them because God had made it very important at the beginning.

This sacrifice was all-important to God, so much so that when He gave the observance of the burnt offering to the nation Israel and gave them an altar for sacrifice, He actually called that altar by the name of the sacrifice. It is the “burnt altar,” or we sometimes call it the brazen altar. But it’s a burnt altar because the burnt sacrifice was the most important sacrifice that was placed on that altar.
 
A Picture of Christ

Now, friend, I want to let the Holy Spirit, if He will, apply some of the brushstrokes to this picture. He promised to do it. The Lord Jesus said, “I’m going to send the Holy Spirit, and when He comes He will take the things of Mine and show them unto you” (see John 16:14). So we trust that the Holy Spirit will make meaningful these brushstrokes and that before we are through you will see a wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
Brushstroke 1 — All on the Altar

Let’s put down our first brushstroke here, the brushstroke that the Holy Spirit puts down.

“If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own free will at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord.” (Leviticus 1:3)

Now this is the burnt sacrifice. The word in the Hebrew is olah, and it means “that which ascends.” It’s a burnt sacrifice because it was consumed in its totality. All of it was put on the altar, all of it was consumed by fire, and the sweet savor ascended to God — nothing was left but ashes.

First of all let me say that the burnt sacrifice is what God the Father sees in Christ, not what you see. He sees a beauty in Him that you and I have never seen. He sees in Him a wonder and a glory that we cannot comprehend. When God speaks of Him it is always in superlative terms: “He is altogether lovely.” “He’s the chiefest of ten thousand.” “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” What God the Father sees in Christ is the first brushstroke. Oh, my friend, our perception is so limited. It’s not what you see in Him, but it’s what the Father sees in the Son that is important. It’s all-important.
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
An Old Portrait of Christ (Leviticus 1:1–10)

Maybe at this time you are not satisfied in Christ. I have news for you: God is — God is satisfied with Him. Maybe you think that you ought to do something to gain your salvation. God says in effect, “I’m satisfied with what Jesus did for you on the Cross, and I’m not satisfied with you. Come to Me, presenting His sacrifice.” It was a sweet-smelling savor to the Lord. Do you think God enjoyed smelling burnt meat? Then you don’t know God. God didn’t care for their offering when their hearts were not in it. He essentially says, “Away with your sacrifices. You missed the meaning of them. That burnt sacrifice should tell you what Christ means to Me. It should tell you how wonderful He is. It should tell you that Jesus is Mine, My Anointed One, My dearly beloved Son.” Friend, that is what the sacrifice of Christ should tell us.

He doesn’t want us to forget it. So He gives us a further symbolism. First the animal’s inwards and legs are to be washed with water.

“And the priest shall burn all on the altar as a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord.” (Leviticus 1:9)

Burn all on the altar; all was to be consumed. This is what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote:

And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. (Ephesians 5:2)

In other words, “Maybe you don’t like it that Christ died on the Cross, but God does. Maybe you aren’t concerned, but God is. Maybe you are not involved. God is! It is all-important to Him!”
 
Brushstroke 2 — That Which Is Dear

Now notice another brushstroke:

“Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the livestock — of the herd and of the flock.’” (Leviticus 1:2)

That further accentuates the value God places on the offering of Christ. Did you notice that carnivora are excluded? Wild animals were never accepted as a burnt offering. It was always domesticated animals that were used — animals that were tame, animals that were closer to man, those animals that had become pets, that would obey you and had become dear to you. And, of course, they were to be in the classification of clean animals. Those are the ones that represented Christ. How dear He was to God the Father!

I went hunting up in the Tehachapi Mountains many years ago. Friends of ours had a ranch up there. Oh, they had a wonderful spread for dinner —  we had been out hunting all morning and were hungry! After dinner they started doing something that I didn’t like. They began to kill some lambs they had on their ranch. They explained that because of the fact that ewes can’t take care of twins up there, every time twins were born, both would die. So in order to make sure that one lived, they killed the other one. They were killing those off, just butchering them. I said, “Do you mind giving me one?” Of course they were more than willing, so we found a box and I brought a little lamb back to Pasadena.

I kept it until the little fellow grew up and started annoying the neighbors. Early in the morning he was ready to eat, and he was letting us know he was ready to eat. We even fed him with a bottle, and it’s amazing how you can get attached to an animal like that.
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
An Old Portrait of Christ (Leviticus 1:1–10)

Then there came that day when we had to get rid of that lamb, and I decided to butcher it. I had worked one time in a slaughterhouse, so I was going to butcher it myself. My wife took our daughter and went off for the day. She said, “I can’t stand to see it. And I don’t see how you can be that brutal! ” Well, I got the little fellow — he would come right to me to be petted. So I strung him up on an apricot tree, head down. Then I sat down, and for about thirty minutes I just looked at him, afraid to touch him. Finally I had to screw up my courage, so I went on up to him, shut my eyes, and I slaughtered him. I felt bad for six months after that. I felt like I had done the meanest, the worst thing anyone can do —  killing that innocent little lamb.

And I’ll tell you what else I thought of. I thought of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Have you ever stopped to think what Jesus meant to His Father? Have you ever considered what it meant in heaven when He suffered and died down here? Do you think heaven was unconcerned? It seems that God directed His people, “You take for a burnt offering that domestic animal, one you’re close to, one that’s dear to you, and you’ll understand a little better how I feel, because Jesus is dear to Me.” God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. That, my friend, was a tremendous sacrifice!
 
Brushstroke 3 — Without Blemish

Let me put on another brushstroke.

“If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish.” (Leviticus 1:3)

A male without blemish. Male speaks of strength. It speaks of the ability of the Lord Jesus Christ to save. “Mighty to save” is the expression the Word of God uses. Another is “He is able to save to the uttermost.” And then we are told, “He was without blemish,” ideally perfect, “in Him was no sin.” No sin was found in Him. Judas, after he had betrayed Him, confessed, “I have betrayed innocent blood.” Our Lord Jesus was a male without blemish. That’s not all.
 
Brushstroke 4 — Of His Own Free Will

“He shall offer it of his own free will at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord.” (Leviticus 1:3)

His own free will. This is one sacrifice that God did not require. If any man offered this, it was his own voluntary will. And God emphasized this at the very beginning. “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When any one of you’” … anyone, any one. He means you, but, my friend, you’ll have to do it of your own free will. God this very day could force our nation to recognize His Son, but He won’t. Each of us must come voluntarily to Christ.

He also said to them that “the door of the tabernacle” was the place where the burnt offering was to be presented to God. Why at the door of the tabernacle? Because if any man comes, he has to come God’s way. The purpose was to keep Israel from idolatry since out yonder in the paganism and heathenism of that day, the burnt sacrifice was already being used in idolatry. God was emphatic: “My people are to bring it here to the door of the tabernacle. This is the only way.” It has a message for us. Oh, will you look at this brushstroke for just a moment. It’s to keep you and me from presuming we can come to God in our own way. We cannot. Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). You have to come by this brazen altar. You have to come bringing this sacrifice, which today is Christ. My friend, you and I cannot come to God any other way.
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
An Old Portrait of Christ (Leviticus 1:1–10)

I have been greatly impressed, as I have ridden the freeways in Oklahoma City, Dallas, and Fort Worth, Texas, and here in Los Angeles, by the signs they have put up with these three words: Do Not Enter. I’ve never seen so many Do Not Enter signs. I got on the wrong road the other day after I was back in Los Angeles, and I found myself going to Bakersfield instead of returning home. I tried to get on the freeway. Mile after mile — Do Not Enter. I don’t know who had been entering, but they certainly have adequate warning now. And I want you to know that I’ve learned enough about these freeways that when the sign says, Do Not Enter, I do not enter! You will be in trouble if you do.

Our Lord is also warning, “Do Not Enter,” “Do Not Enter,” on every one of the cults and isms in Southern California. In other words, He says to us, “You can’t get to Me through this cult. You come to the door of the tabernacle, and I am the Door. By Me is the only way to God.” That’s dogmatic, and so is that sign, “Do Not Enter” — but you’d better obey it. And if you ’re going to get to God today, you come God’s way. God says that Jesus Christ is the way that leads to Him. “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9).
 
Brushstroke 5 — A Substitute for Me

“Then he shall put his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.” (Leviticus 1:4)

It’s a substitutionary sacrifice. That’s what it taught. And laying the hand on the head of the little animal meant that it was designated and assigned for a particular purpose.

Remember when Paul and Barnabas went out as missionaries for the first time, the believers in Antioch laid their hands on them. Why? They were being set aside for a particular office. In the same way the laying on of hands in the levitical offering means first of all that the little animal is set aside for a definite purpose. It also has a spiritual message for us today, to convey and communicate invisible and intangible benefits. It meant to transfer sin. And every instructed and enlightened Israelite, when he put his hand on that little animal, understood that. He was confessing, “I deserve to die — the soul that sinneth, it shall die — but I have now put my hand on the little animal, and it takes my place, and what happens to this little animal should be happening to me.” God told them, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls” (Leviticus 17:11).

As Hebrews 9:22 points out, “without shedding of blood there is no remission” — no forgiveness. It was to be an atonement, we are told here. The word atonement means “to cover up,” and that’s all it means. You won’t find the word atonement in the New Testament. It’s not there because now that Christ has come, God no longer covers up; rather, He takes away sins. They are blotted out. And may I say, the message here is that you and I come by faith. By faith we put our hand on Christ, and He becomes our substitute, dying in our stead. His death is acceptable to God. Nothing you and I do is acceptable to God. You and I need a substitute — Christ is that substitute.
 
Brushstroke 6 — He Had to Die

Now will you notice:

“He shall kill the bull before the Lord; and the priests, Aaron’s sons, shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood all around on the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of meeting.” (Leviticus 1:5)

The animal had to die the minute it became a substitute. Our Lord died, the just for the unjust. He died, the innocent for the guilty. He died as the sinless One for those who are sinners. He died a substitutionary death for you and for me.

Sometimes the question is asked, “Who killed Christ?” And, as you know, around Eastertime that is batted back and forth. They blame Israel for it. But not only Israel; they blame the Roman government. May I say something that I trust will not offend you, but you killed Christ. I killed Him. If I had not been a sinner, He would not have died. His dying is a substitutionary death. God would not have let Him die unless He was bearing our sin, dying in our stead.
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
An Old Portrait of Christ (Leviticus 1:1–10)

Brushstroke 7 — What God Sees in Christ

But there is something else — first the priest was to wash the animal’s inwards and legs with water:

“And the priest shall burn all on the altar as a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord.” (Leviticus 1:9)

Actually, not only was all of it consumed, but if we read further we would find that the ashes of both the wood and the sacrifice were gathered up and taken outside the camp. Now what is the significance of this? May I say to you, this is what God sees in Christ.

As you well know, God has been dishonored down here in this world. Men, women, and even children are dishonoring Him today. Remember King Belshazzar when he did that blatant and blasphemous thing of bringing the holy vessels from the temple into his banquet and using them in his drunken orgy. Then Daniel was brought in, and Daniel said to Belshazzar, “The God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified” (Dan_5:23). Friend, that could be said of you, and that could be said of me. We do not glorify God. That’s our problem.

We’re great at glorifying ourselves, aren’t we? We like to talk about what we have done when we ought to be talking about what He has done. We like to talk about who we are, but we ought to talk about who He is. May I say to you, God is not being glorified in the country in which we live. And we won’t get by with it either. We are His creatures. He says that He must be glorified. The catechism asks the question, “What is the chief end of man?” and answers it, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

There had to be a man who glorified God fully and completely. And that man was Jesus Christ. In Psalm 40 we hear our Lord as He speaks from the Old Testament:

Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; And Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order; If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. Then I said, “Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart. (Psalms 40:5-8)

Here is the Man who came into this world, who delighted to do the will of God, and who did it. No other man has done that. Adam failed; Abraham failed; Moses failed; David failed; Paul failed. And you have failed, and I have failed. But Jesus alone glorified God.

It is important to realize that the fire of the burnt sacrifice on the burnt altar does not speak of judgment. It speaks of the restless and resistless energy of God. You see, the burnt sacrifice is God’s view of Christ. There is no mention of man’s sin in this sacrifice. It is the highest view we have of Him anywhere.

This is really an old portrait of Christ, and it actually corresponds to the Gospel of John. For all of these levitical offerings, you find a counterpart in one of the Gospels. For the burnt altar you’ll find a counterpart in the Gospel of John, and that’s the reason the words of our Lord from the cross as He bore our sins, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” are not recorded in John’s Gospel. Jesus Christ is God — how can you separate God from God? So John doesn’t record that cry, because perfection is what God sees in Christ.
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
An Old Portrait of Christ (Leviticus 1:1–10)

Now I want you to notice something that is quite wonderful. Over in the sixth chapter of Leviticus, verse 10, we have the law of this offering:

“And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen trousers he shall put on his body, and take up the ashes of the burnt offering which the fire has consumed on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar.”

They were to take up all the ashes, you see, and if you read on, you will find it was all taken outside the camp.

May I say to you, this does not speak therefore of self-sacrifice; it speaks of self-consecration, self-dedication. And when it’s all consumed, it reminds us of the words of our Lord on the cross: “It is finished!” No more fire to burn, it is all consumed. He gave it all that you and I might be saved.

Don’t you dare say that salvation is cheap. You can’t pay anything for it because you haven’t anything to pay. The richest man in America today can’t buy it. But he can have it for nothing, and you can have it for nothing because God paid everything for it.
 
Brushstroke 8 — Communion with God

Notice something else. This sacrifice is a communion. Oh, follow me carefully now. If you missed everything else, don’t miss this. This is what God sees in Christ. And for you and me it’s a communion.

What is communion with God? I’ll tell you what I thought for years. I’m afraid I was like folk who go to church and want to be separated Christians and say, “I want to come to the communion table with reverence, and I want to think some very high, noble, fine thoughts.”

What conceit! What arrogance to think that we can think something that’s pleasing to God! For God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways” (Isaiah 55:8). Have you ever tried to do some nice thinking? I tried this while traveling on the train one time. I had quite a few hours to think. I don’t know about you, but I can think of the dirtiest things when I’m trying to think nice thoughts! And that’s what you do too, because you have the same kind of nature I have, and so do all these pious folk today who say, “We’re going to think some nice thoughts.” Oh, my friend, that’s not having communion with Him. Do you know what communion is? This burnt offering tells us. It’s when you and I think what God the Father thinks about Christ. That’s communion. When you and I find in Christ our delight, when He becomes as wonderful to us as He is to God, then you are having communion, beloved, and not until then. You have to think God’s thoughts after Him. My friend, to have communion with God it must be centered about the One He loves supremely, His beloved Son. The minute you become occupied with Christ, you are having communion with God. For the Old Testament Israelite, this voluntary burnt offering that prefigured Christ was a communion with God.
 
Brushstroke 9 — Covered by His Righteousness

May I add one final touch? In Leviticus 7:8, we have more concerning the law of this offering. A while ago I said all of the animal was consumed, but I had not told the entire story. Notice this:

“And the priest who offers anyone’s burnt offering, that priest shall have for himself the skin of the burnt offering which he has offered.”
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
An Old Portrait of Christ (Leviticus 1:1–10)

The priest could take no part of the burnt offering as he did of the other offerings. With the other offerings he was given the choice cuts of the meat, but not out of this one. The one exception to the fact that all was to be consumed is that the skin or hide of the animal was to be given to the priest.

The portrait of Christ would not be complete without mentioning the robe of righteousness which Christ’s death has provided for us. So when that man brought his sacrifice and offered that little lamb, he took a knife and slit its throat. The priests were then to take this offering, skin it, and burn every part of it on the altar except that skin. The priest was to have it. It pictures the garment that covers us as believers — that is, the righteousness of Christ, the robe of His righteousness. Although this offering does not speak of sin, it does demonstrate that there has to be a death. And our Lord Jesus Christ was obedient to death. He came as the Lamb of God who not only takes away our sin but also imputes to us His righteousness!

We read in Matthew 22 a parable our Lord told about a great wedding feast provided by a king for his son. Everybody was invited. The host sent servants out on the highways to invite folk to come in. But, my friend, if you’re going to a wedding that is formal, you had better wear the right garment.

One man said, “It doesn’t make any difference; I’ll wear my sport shirt,” and he went in.

The host came by and said, “Where’s your wedding garment? I sent you one.”

“Well, I didn’t think it was important to wear it.”

“I’ll show you how important it is!” The rude guest was thrown out.

My friend, in other words God is saying today, “I’ve provided for you adequately. I gave My only begotten Son, in whom I delight. I didn’t spare Him from paying the awful price for your sins, from dying for you. And today by faith in Him, His righteousness can cover you, so that you can be accepted in the Beloved. That’s the only way you are acceptable to Me.”
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TO BE CONTINUED

[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
Why Jesus Was Angry (Mark 3:1–6)

It is assumed today that the gentle Jesus, the lowly carpenter of Nazareth, the humble peasant of Palestine, the man of Galilee, never exhibited any feelings of anger. Many are convinced that He evidenced no emotion of animosity, that He displayed no resistance to evil, and that He demonstrated no antagonism toward anything. The popular conception of Jesus is that He was the personification of pacifism, the ideal of nonresistance, the incarnation of the world’s definition of meekness. Men today think of Him as the first-century Gandhi. They say He was neutral on every question and broadminded on every subject. The image of Jesus that liberalism has presented is absolutely foreign to the Word of God; and many Americans, after feeding on this pious pablum for several decades, think of a Jesus who never did exist.

The popular picture of Him is a monstrosity. Liberalism’s Jesus was not actually a man. He had ice water for blood, a water pump for a heart, a gasoline motor for a nervous system, an IBM computer for a brain, and a tape recorder for a mouth. He was insensitive to evil, unmoved by sin. He was incapable of hating anything — anger was foreign to Him. This is not the Jesus recorded in Scripture.
 
Jesus Was Angry

A close and careful examination of the Gospels reveals our Lord as having an intense and passionate hatred of evil. He denounced sin and demonstrated against it courageously on every occasion. The fact of the matter is, if you read the Gospels from this viewpoint you might even go to the opposite extreme and present Him as the first “angry young man”!

At the beginning of His ministry He cleansed the temple. At the conclusion of His earthly ministry He cleansed the temple. Each time evildoers fled before Him. Why do you think they fled from Him?

During my first pastorate, in Nashville, Tennessee, I often played handball and tennis with a man who was a liberal preacher. He was a very fine man personally but a graduate of a liberal seminary in New York City. That was in the days of pacifism, and one day, after we had finished playing, he said, “I understand you preach that Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple and that He had a whip made of ropes that He would have used on those people. You don’t really think that the gentle Jesus would ever have used that whip of ropes, do you?”

I said to him, “I have only one question to ask you, and it is this: Was He bluffing?” You think that over for a while. Do you think Jesus was bluffing when He made that whip? May I say to you, when those money changers began to scatter to the four winds, they scattered because there was before them a Man big enough and angry enough to drive them out. He hated evil. This is the picture the Scripture presents of Him — not the willy-nilly, mollycoddled, shilly-shally Mr. Milquetoast type of Jesus that a great many would have us to believe He was.

Those money changers saw a man enraged and angry with sin. That hardened crowd — who knew they were breaking the Mosaic Law, who knew they were being irreverent, who knew they were defying God — do not think they would have fled had they not been afraid of the Man who was driving them out!
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
Why Jesus Was Angry (Mark 3:1–6)

Then one day He stood and pronounced a woe upon the cities around the Sea of Galilee. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!” (Luke 10:13). He was deeply moved.

He stood over Jerusalem to pronounce judgment upon that city and said concerning it, “See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Matthew 23:38-39). And as He said it, He wept over Jerusalem because He alone knew the judgment that was to fall upon the city in a.d. 70.

He pronounced woes against the scribes and Pharisees in the harshest denunciation that you will find in the Scripture (or out of the Scripture, for that matter), and it still scorches that page of the Word of God. Let us look at just one such statement as He was speaking to scribes and Pharisees: “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” (Matthew 23:33, italics added). You cannot have language any stronger than that! And I cannot imagine the Jesus who used that language being unmoved when He spoke to the crowd there that day.

I want to lift out one isolated instance in His ministry in which He exhibited anger. Of all things, it was on the Sabbath day — a day on which most people not only put on a change of clothing but also put on a change of attitude as they come to church. They may not be sweet on other days, but they are generally sweet at church. However, our Lord wasn’t sweet at church. He became angry. The record says that He was angry.

Will you listen to Mark as he records this incident?

And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand. So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. (Mark 3:1-2)

I cannot prove this, but I think these verses would indicate that the man was “planted” there by the Pharisees and the scribes. He was placed there, but not because they wanted him healed; they didn’t care what happened to that man. They were not even concerned about him. They placed him there because they wanted to trap the Lord Jesus. They were after Him.

Our Lord came and saw the situation.

And He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Step forward.” (Mark 3:3)

Although the man with the withered hand had been placed there as a trap, that did not make any difference to our Lord. He was going to do something for him. But before He did:

Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they kept silent. (Mark 3:4)

Candidly, they did not care. They didn’t care whether that man was healed or not. They were concerned about a religious ritual — that was all. They were as hard as anyone could possibly be; they had no concern whatever for that man. “They kept silent.” They didn’t dare open their mouths.

And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. (Mark 3:5)

Jesus was angry. He was angry with the hard hearts of the religious rulers. That was the thing that made Him angry on the Sabbath day when He went into the synagogue.
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
Why Jesus Was Angry (Mark 3:1–6)

May I say this: If Jesus had not been angry, He would not have been God.
 
God Was Angry

You may say, “Oh, you surely don’t believe His anger proved that He was God!” I certainly do — because the God who is presented in the Word of God, whether you like it or not, is a God who exhibits wrath and anger against sin. He has always done so.

Back in the Old Testament again and again He exhibited anger against sin. There are over one hundred statements in the Old Testament that say that God was angry. Oh, I know that it is not popular today to say that God ever becomes angry, but God is angry with sin.

We have looked at one incident of anger in the life of our Lord. Now let us turn back to the Old Testament and pick out one isolated instance there.

From 1 Kings 11:9, I lift out this statement, “So the Lord became angry with Solomon.” Why in the world was God angry with Solomon? Well, let’s read the whole passage.

So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.

Solomon had a unique privilege. This man dedicated the temple, and when he did so, the glory of the Lord filled that temple. Not many men ever had that privilege. But Solomon’s heart was turned away from the Lord because he married many foreign women who worshiped false gods. There are people today who say, “Why did God permit Solomon to have so many wives?” God didn’t permit it. God was angry with Solomon. Someone will say, “But God allowed it, didn’t He?” Yes, because God will not interfere with your free will as a believer. If you go into sin, He will let you. He let Solomon because He will not interfere with a man’s free will. But may I say again, God was angry with Solomon for allowing his idolatrous wives to turn him away from Him.

“Well, God didn’t do anything about it.”

Yes, He did. Just as the death of Christ rent in two the veil in the temple, so God reached to the top of the kingdom, and right down through that kingdom He made a rent — dividing the kingdom because of Solomon. God was angry with Solomon.

I challenge anyone to show me in the Word of God any instance in which God has ever compromised with evil or with sin. He hates it. He says He hates it. The record states that when Solomon, one of His own, went into sin, God was angry with him. God did not approve of what this man did. As far as I am concerned, I would not want to have been in Solomon’s shoes.

God, in the Old Testament, was angry with sin; and when the Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate, walked this earth in human flesh, He was angry with sin. On every occasion He revealed His antagonism toward it.
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
Why Jesus Was Angry (Mark 3:1–6)

Christians Are to Be Angry

If you think the things we have been saying are strange, this may really startle you. The Christian is commanded to be angry!

Somebody will say, “Wait a minute now, preacher. You’ve gone too far! I happen to know that anger is a sin. The Bible says anger is a sin. Paul, in Ephesians 4:31, says, ‘Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.’ And now you say that God commands us to be angry?”

Yes. God commands us to be angry.

Now, there is an anger that is a sin. When it is this old flesh of ours that flares up because of some little slight to our ego, that is sin. But, my friend, anger is not always a sin for a believer, for he is commanded to be angry. Christ commands the believer to be angry.

Paul, writing to the Ephesians in this same chapter, says, “Be angry, and do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). The believer is commanded to be angry. Will you notice this very carefully: Christian character is evidenced by that which makes one angry.

This tremendous thing was said of Gaston de Foix: “He loved what ought to be loved, and he hated what ought to be hated, and he was never destitute of conscience on anything.” How wonderful to be that kind of man — to love what should be loved and to hate what should be hated and to have a conscience on everything.

The trouble with believers today is that we have taken so many spiritual tranquilizers that we exhibit no resentment against evil at all. We want to be broad-minded; and believe me, we are!

Dr. Thomas Arnold, the man who made Rugby one of the greatest schools the world has ever seen, said this: “I was never sure of a boy who only loved the good. I was not sure of him until he began to hate the evil.”

There are a lot of folk today who are syrupy. They exhibit and exude saccharine sweetness. They just love the good, but it is another thing to hate the evil. What is your attitude, really?

“To be incapable of moral indignation against wrong is to lack real love for the right,” according to Dr. Augustus H. Strong. And Xenophon was intending to compliment his enemy, Cyrus the Younger, when he said concerning him that he did more good for his friends and more harm to his enemies than any man who had ever lived up to that time. Cyrus had feelings of right and wrong. He loved the good, but when he loved the good, he hated the evil.

Dr. William G. T. Shedd says, “Human character is worthless in proportion as abhorrence of sin is lacking in it.”

Charles II was called the “merry monarch,” and the record of his reign is a most sordid story. There came a day when the merriment ended and a terrified Charles faced death unprepared. But of his life it was said, “He felt no gratitude for benefits and no resentment for wrong. He did not love anyone and he did not hate anyone. He was indifferent to right and wrong, and the only feeling that he had for anyone and everyone was contempt.”

I would hate to be that kind of person, wouldn’t you? I would not care to be one who could move through life today and have no feeling about anything around me — not loving the good and not hating the evil. And yet there are many believers today who think it is Christian conduct to exhibit no feeling at all about anything.

Our Lord, when He moved through this earth, exhibited feeling that was intense — a passion against evil.
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[nChrist]

JESUS - Centerpiece of Scripture
by J. Vernon McGee
Why Jesus Was Angry (Mark 3:1–6)

Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthians in which he rebuked them severely. “You are over there arguing about whether Paul or Apollos or Simon Peter is the greatest preacher, and many of you like to say, ‘I follow this one,’ or, ‘I follow that one.’ Baby talk! You are babies, carnal Christians, arguing about that sort of thing. You have no feeling about evil. It is in your midst, and you won’t do a thing about it! ” And Paul called it by name. He marked it out, and then he said, “If you don’t do something about it, I will when I come!”

The church in Corinth was stung to the very quick. It went to its knees in prayer, and its conscience became sharpened again. The Corinthians said to the man who had done wrong, “You are wrong.” They were angry.

And then Paul wrote a second letter to them in which he said this:

For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. (2 Corinthians 7:11)

Paul says, “What indignation!” He loved it!

William Lecky, in his book Democracy and Liberty, said this: “There is one thing worse than corruption, and that is acquiescence in corruption.”

Herbert Spencer said that “good nature, with Americans, has become a crime and that because of our good nature, we feel as much goodwill for evil as for good.” How accurate he was!
 
What Angers You?

What makes you angry today? If it is some little personal resentment or some little personal slight, then it is sin. But can you shut your eyes to evil? Can you see that which is wrong, even in your church, and say nothing? Can you? Can you open your ears to gossip and listen to it and then walk away unmoved and do nothing about it? God have mercy on you if you can! That is not Christian.

“What indignation!” Paul said, “I want to congratulate you, that you didn’t shut your eyes to evil in the church.” Does the indifference, the coldness, and the apostasy of this hour leave you unmoved? Are you, in the midst of an apostate church, like a limp dishrag, flopping back and forth, agreeing with every crowd and going with every group? May I say to you, we need spiritual backbone that will stand up and say to a man, “You are wrong, and I am opposed to what is wrong.”

A certain monk took pleasure in antagonizing Martin Luther. The great reformer whipped him down intellectually, for Luther was a brilliant man. But the monk in a very stubborn way kept baiting him. Luther once said to him, “I will break in pieces your heart of brass and pulverize your iron brains.” Martin Luther said that! Do you know why? Because the man would not see the gospel of the grace of God, that men are justified by faith. It made Martin Luther angry.
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