FILLING
THE HAND
"And he put all upon Aarons hands, and upon his
sons hands, and waved them for a wave-offering before the Lord. And Moses
took them from off their hands, and burnt them on the altar upon the
burnt-offering; they were consecrations for a sweet savour; it is an offering
made by fire unto the Lord" (Lev. 8: 27, 28).
It has been often remarked that "consecration" in this
passage is filling the hand. Aaron and his sons are practically consecrated to
God by the putting into their hands the fat and shoulder of the ram, with cakes
and wafer of the meat- (or meal-) offering, and waving them for a wave-offering
before the Lord. Then they are taken and burnt upon the altar as a sweet
savour.
Before this, and in order to it, we must remember that these
priests have been washed in water, and sprinkled with the blood of the
sacrifice; which has also been put upon the tip of the right ear, the thumb of
the right hand, and the great toe of the right foot. Even so must we, if we are
to be priests to God, be washed with the "washing of regeneration," and have
our "hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience" (Heb. 10: 22), being set apart
to Him as His by the power of the same cleansing blood which has bought us,
that we should be no more our own. Thus cleansed from sin, and become the
servants of God, we have our fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life.
As priests, our occupation is with the holy things; and this practical
consecration is just occupation. All Christians are priests to God, and it is
our business to attend to these things. The ear is that by which we receive
instruction; the foot speaks of our individual walk before God; but the hand is
that by which we lay hold of things around, and mold and transform them. By the
hand, man shows himself the natural vicegerent {representative}of God upon
earth; and thus, while the ear and foot have been equally set apart to Him by
the blood of atonement, the hand it is now that is to be filled for
consecration: we are to be taught our business. Blessed be God, it is indeed
true that:
"With Him is all our business now."
Someone may object,
indeed, that in saying this we go much too far. Our circumstances in the world
will not allow of anything like this; indeed, it is our mere secular employment
that we habitually call our "business." And it is true that as Christians,
alas! we not only pick up the language of the world, but sanction its thoughts.
Nevertheless, it is also plainly true, and easily to be proved from Scripture,
that the Christians business is with Christ. Our motto, no less than
Pauls, is to be, "To me to live is Christ" (Phil 1: 21); and what does
that mean, except that all that makes up our life -- the whole business of our
life -- is Christ?
By this it is not denied at all, as it would be
absurd and impossible to deny, that each one of us has his earthly calling,
duties to fulfill which carry us into the world, and require a large part of
our time to be spent in their discharge. We have families to provide for, and
that is often a work of much toil--"he that provideth not for his own,
specially for those of his own house, has denied the faith, and is worse than
an infidel" (1 Tim. 5: 8). Christianity loses sight of none of these claims,
but enforces them all upon us: they are as many as our links of con-nection
with other men; every link is a responsibility; every responsibility toward man
is a responsibility to God also.
This is sufficiently solemn; and it is
nothing but a misuse of grace to make it lessen for us its solemnity. Life is
full of seriousness; the more serious our sense of it the better.
Yet
while "all things are full of labour," as the preacher says (Eccl. 1: 8), and
the Christian does not escape from this; yet "labor not for the meat that
perisheth" (John 6: 27) is the Lords own Word to us; a word of simpler
meaning than we may have apprehended in it. For, in truth, we are never to
labour for the perishing food, but are privileged rather to labor for Him who
has appointed our path, and to whom our duty is. Our duty thus becomes to us
that yoke of Christ which is easy, and in which we find rest. Our business is
with Him: its recompense from Himself; and if we had to toil ten or more hours
a day for Him, would it be a spiritual weight to drag us down from communion
with Him, or rather a service in which for all our need and in all our weakness
His power and fullness should be more than sufficiency?
Alas! for these
Christless businesses in which self-will is rampant, and the "gain to me" is
not "loss for Christ!" When shall we learn that there is no spot on earth in
which there is not a battle between two forces? no course that we can take
which is merely neu-tral between Christ and the world, between God and mammon?
Here is a spiritual leprosy which pollutes the whole life and secularizes it:
for if the business be secular, no part of the life can be kept sacred.
How significant a thing, then, is this priestly conse-cration, in which our
hands are filled with Christ. Our hands are to wave before God the fat and the
shoulder and the cakes of the meal-offering. We are to keep Christ thus before
God, presenting Him in the energy of His devotedness (the fat), in the
burden-sustaining, "shoulder," in the perfection of His life of holy balance
and consistency in the power of the Holy Spirit. God is to see in us this
memorial of His beloved Son, whatever we put our hand to; not merely an
imitation of Him, but a devotedness derived from the apprehension of His
de-votedness, a power which is His strength made perfect in weakness - a life,
in short, which is but the life of Christ, developed by the power of the Spirit
in us. "For of His fullness we all have received, and grace upon grace" (John
1: 16).
Is it not of our priestly consecration we are reminded, when,
from week to week, on the first day of the week, before its toil begins, we, as
His disciples, come together to break bread? Is He not for faith put afresh
into our hands, that we may receive Him in the place He has taken for us, and
in occupation with Him begin again and again the "henceforth" of our lives? He
thus claims pos-session of us every way, fills our eyes, our hands, makes
Himself ours that we may be His, that henceforth whatever we look at, it may be
Christ we see; whatever we handle, we may touch Christ in it. How sweet to be
reminded! How solemn the need of being thus reminded!
Christian reader,
have you so learnt Christ? To see Him in everything, find Him everywhere, have
your whole business with Him, take no other yoke than His yoke? This is rest,
liberty, power. To come short of it is distraction and confusion. "A
double-minded man is unstable in all his ways" (James 1: 8).
F. W. G.
("Help and Food," 1888)
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