A Grouping of Types

Leviticus

A Grouping of Types

September 22nd, 1957 @ 8:15 AM

Leviticus 2:14-16

And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the LORD, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears. And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: it is a meat offering. And the priest shall burn the memorial of it, part of the beaten corn thereof, and part of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
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A GROUPING OF TYPES

DR. W.A. CRISWELL

Exodus

9-22-57    8:15 a.m.

 

           

You are listening to the early morning service of the First Baptist Church in Dallas.  And you who listen on the radio would be very surprised at the number of people who are in the congregation, and all the people in the congregation who look up here are very surprised at the number of teenagers in this choir.  You would think, on a morning like this, they would all be drowned out and the most they could do, like little wet chickens, just peep and peep, but not this choir.  They always are at their best and faithful to come.  Thank you parents who make it possible for the teenagers to be here on time, and thank you teenagers for getting up in the morning and coming.  It portends great things for our church, you and these youngsters.

            Now out of all of the studies that I have ever made in the Word of the Lord, I have never had one as rewarding to my own soul as this one for today.  In these seasons of refreshing at these early morning hours on Sunday, we have been looking at what God has done in His Scriptures.  Instead of finding these pages and chapters and books in the Old Testament dry and uninteresting and without pertinency, we have found they contain in them great treasures, mines of gold and silver and precious stones, all that God hath wrought in the new revelation, in the New Covenant, in the New Testament, all of it did God bury in these mines, in these beautiful types and symbols. 

            All that, God made known in the New, He concealed in the Old.  The substance that we find in the New, the shadow thereof, the harbinger thereof, the adumbration, and portents thereof, we find back here in the Old.  We don’t have two ways of salvation, just one.  We don’t have two Gods, just one.  Don’t have two Saviors, just one.  God never saved His people in two different ways, just one.  And the Old Testament is like the New Testament, except that in one it is revealed, in the other it is concealed. 

            So in reading through these chapters, they are coming to life; the Holy Spirit is opening them before our eyes.  And we see here, in these Old Testament pages, the gospel of the Son of God beautifully and gloriously writ. 

            Now last Sunday morning we looked at a double type, that is, when the Lord could not or did not reveal a great truth with just one type, He might use two in order to make the revelation full orbed and complete.  Last Sunday morning we looked at several of them.  On the great and solemn Day of Atonement there were two goats.  One slain and its blood sprinkled on the mercy seat beyond the veil in the Holy of Holies; the other goat, on whose head all the sins of the people were confessed, was taken out into the wilderness and driven away [Leviticus 16:1-31] – a picture that in the blood of Christ our sins are atoned and out in the wilderness God hath taken them away [Romans 5:11]. 

            Then we looked at another one, the two birds in the cleansing of the leper [Leviticus 14:4]: the cleansing of the leper, a type of the cleansing of our souls from sin.  One of the birds was slain above and its blood caught in an earthen vessel over running water [Leviticus 14:5].  And the second bird, the living bird, is dipped in the blood of the bird that is slain, and it flies up toward heaven with blood on its wings [Leviticus 14:6-7].  That is another double type: the blood of expiation borne up to heaven, offered before God for the sins of our people [1 Corinthians 15:3].  And a type also of the resurrection of our Lord [Matthew 28:5-7], who was slain [Matthew 27:32-50] and arose, ascended into heaven [Acts 1:9-10]. Well, that was last Sunday morning.  We looked at those double types, how God would take two things in order to present a full picture of a great truth.

            Now this morning, we are going to look at a grouping of types.  That is, there will be a common element in a great many numbers of them.  There will be one detail that is all alike.  This morning, we are going to look first at things bruised, beaten, broken; then another one, we are going to look at all kinds of types in which bread, the corn of wheat, the sheaf is used.  And they all will portent the same thing; they will all picture the same thing.  In themselves they are greatly different, but they have that common element, that common teaching, there will be one common detail or characteristic in all of them.

            Now the first one, things bruised, things broken, things beaten: that, of course, will be a type, a picture, of the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ.  "By His stripes we are healed,He was bruised for our transgressions" [Isaiah 53:5]. And He went to Gethsemane – oil press, grinding of oil – Gethsemane, and John says, "He resorted often there." Not just one time did He go, but "often times" [John 18:2].  And Paul will say, "That I may know Him, and the fellowship of His sufferings" [Philippians 3:10]. 

            Now, things bruised, things beaten; look here in the thirty-seventh chapter of Exodus, at the making of the mercy seat with the cherubim on either side.  In Exodus 37 and the sixth verse:

And he made the mercy seat of pure gold,

And he made two cherubim of gold, beaten out of one piece made he them, on the two ends of the mercy seat.  

One cherub on the end on this side, and another cherub on the end on the other side,

And the cherubim spread out their wings on high, and covered with their wings over the mercy seat, with their faces one to another; even to the mercy seat were the faces of the cherubim.  

[Exodus 37:6-9]

 

            The mercy seat was the lid of the ark of the covenant.  It was the only piece of furniture in the Holy of Holies.  John says he saw it in the heaven, in the Book of the Revelation [Revelation 11:19].  I have often wondered, like you have, what became of the ark of the covenant.  It is in heaven.  John saw it in heaven.  And that top, which is called the mercy seat, with those cherubim, the wings outstretched and their faces looking down upon it, it was beaten out of pure gold [Exodus 37:7].  It was not made out of gold, just pure gold, but it was made out of beaten gold, pounded gold! 

            Now, look at the candlestick, the lampstand.  In Exodus 37, the seventeenth verse:

And he made the candlestick, the lampstand, of pure gold

– then he adds not only "pure gold" –

of beaten work made he the candlestick; the shaft, the branch,

the bowls, the knobs

– those little swelling out places –

and his flowers, were of the same

– not only pure gold, beaten gold! –  

The six branches going out of the sides thereof; three on one side, three on the other side, and the stem in the center.    

Three bowls made after the fashion of almonds, one branch and a knob and a flower; three bowls and all of them like that.

[Exodus 37:17-19]

Now the twenty-second verse:

Their knobs and their branches were of the same;

all of it was one beaten work of pure gold.

[Exodus 37:22]

 

            Not only pure gold, beaten gold; many, many other things of gold were made in different ways, but here this is beaten, a picture of our Lord, a picture of the bruising, the beating of our Lord [Isaiah 53:5].  They didn’t have to make it that way.  Could have made it in half a dozen other kinds of ways – could have cast it, if nothing else.  But the Lord said, "Make it just as I tell you, and beat it!" [Exodus 25:40].  And they made it just that way. 

            Now, in these offerings for our Lord, look at some of these offerings for our Lord: here in the thirty-first chapter of Exodus you have the holy ointment that is made, there to be offered in the tabernacle [Exodus 31:11].  Now, the thirty-fourth verse of the thirtieth chapter of Exodus, the thirtieth chapter of Exodus, and the thirty-fourth verse:

 

And the Lord said unto Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, stacte, onycha, and galbanum;

[Exodus 30:34]

 

All I know about those three things is how to pronounce them, and I know that because I looked them up in the dictionary and learned it.  But even the dictionary could not tell me what those three beautiful perfumed spices are.  It just said, "It is a perfume in the Bible, a spice in the Bible."

Stacte, onycha, and galbanum; these sweet spices with pure frankincense: of such there shall be a like weight, just take a like weight of each of them:

And thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, tempered together, pure and holy: 

 

"And thou shalt beat," now that word "some"  there, a fellow just added that:

And thou shalt beat of it very small, and put of it before the testimony in the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with thee: it shall be unto you most holy. 

And as for the perfume which thou shalt make, ye shall not make it to yourselves according to the composition thereof: it shall be unto thee holy for the Lord.

 

It is to be made just for the Lord, just like this:

Whosoever shall make like unto that, to smell thereto, shall even be cut off from his people.

[Exodus 30:34-38] 

 

            It was to be made only for the Lord, and it was to be beaten very small, all of this holy perfume was to be beaten very, very small.

            Now, over here in the twenty-seventh of the Book of Exodus, in the twentieth verse you have an example of how God says to make the oil.  Exodus 27:20, "And thou shalt command the children of Israel that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always."  And in Numbers 28:5 you will find that the oil that was offered at the meal offering was to be beaten oil!

            Now, do you see in all of these things, the oil is to be beaten oil, the perfume, the ointment, holy unto the Lord, is to be beaten!  The lampstand is to be beaten out of pure gold.  The mercy seat and the cherubim are to be beaten out of one piece of pure gold, not two pieces, one piece and beaten.  All of those things have a common denominator – things beaten! 

            Now, we are going into another element, and it will be the same thing.  In the eleventh chapter of the Book of Numbers beginning at the seventh verse, you have the story of the manna: 

And the manna was as coriander seed, and the color thereof as the color of bdellium. 

And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil. 

And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it.

[Numbers 11:7-9]

 

            Now look at that.  There is that same thing again: Numbers 11:8, "And the people went about, and gathered the manna,"   And look what they did with it, "and they ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar."  What they did with the manna, the bread of God that came down from heaven, they beat it, and ground it in a mortar.

            All right, now look at this same thing in the cereal offering, the meal offering.  In Leviticus 2:14 – 16, the second chapter of Leviticus the fourteenth verse, "And if thou offer a meat offering,"  Now, other versions will translate that "meal," or "cereal."  In 1611 when the King James Version was made, "meat" referred to just food, a food offering.  Well, we today would call it a "meal offering," or a cereal offering. 

Now look: "If thou offer a meal offering of thy firstfruits unto the Lord, thou shalt offer for the meal offering of thy firstfruits new ears of corn,"  Corn always, in the Bible, refers to wheat or some kind of grain like wheat.  If you have it translated there "green," it means new, "new ears of wheat, dried by the fire, even wheat beaten out of full ears" [Leviticus 2:14].  

            Now the sixteenth verse:

And the priest shall burn the memorial of it,of the beaten wheat, corn thereof, and of the oil and the frankincense: it is an offering made by fire unto the Lord.

[Leviticus 2:16]

 

            When a worshiper offered a cereal offering unto the Lord, it was to be beaten!  It was to be new corn, and it was to be beaten.  It was to be bruised!

            Now look in that same second chapter of the Book of Leviticus, at the way they will describe these offerings that contained with them things made out of flour.  It will be ground flour, translated here, "fine flour."  And look at Leviticus 2:1: "And when any will offer a meat offering unto the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour; ground up fine, he shall pour oil upon it," and so forth.  Now look there in the fourth verse:

And if thou bring an oblation of a meal offering, baked in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour, ground flour, mingled with oil.

[Leviticus 2:4]

 Now, the fifth verse –

And if thy oblation be a meat offering baked in a pan, it shall be of fine flour, ground flour of unleavened bread, mingled with [oil].

[Leviticus 2:5]

Now look at the seventh verse –

Now if thy oblation be a meat offering, baked in a frying pan, it shall be of fine flour with oil.

[Leviticus 2:7]

 

You have that same thing over here; you may not have time to return to it, in Leviticus 24:5, as it describes how to make the showbread.  Leviticus 24:5-6:

And thou shalt take finely ground flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth deals shall be in one cake. 

And thou shall set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table, the showbread table in the Holy of Holies, before the Lord. 

[Leviticus 24:5-6]

 

            In 2 [Chronicles 2:4] it is called a continual showbread.  All of that, without exception, was to be made out of fine ground flour, all of it.  There was nothing that was not bruised, and crushed, and ground, and broken!  But all of it was made out of things, wheat, corn, grains that were ground, and crushed, and bruised, and broken.  That is a picture of the bruising, the crushing, the breaking of our Lord [Isaiah 53:5]; and that fine flour, even and smooth – a picture of the purity, the perfectness of His character.  There is unevenness in us, but there is perfect evenness in the character of our Lord.

            When you describe somebody, if he is able for the compliment, worthy of it, you will say, "He has thus and so," and you will pick out a fine characteristic.  Well, that means that in other things he does not have that splendid and beautiful characteristic.  He may have it in this instance and in this category, but he does not have it in all instances and in all categories.  We are like that; we may excel in one thing, but we are so imperfect in so many other things. 

            Not so our Lord.  He was like fine flour, smooth and even of wonderful quality throughout.  Any part of it that you looked at, or touched, or saw, or felt, He is perfect in all ways.  How did He become that?  The Book of Hebrews tells us.  Listen.  Hebrews 2:10, "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings," the grinding of the flour.  In the fifth chapter to Hebrews, in the seventh to the ninth verses:

In the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared. 

Though He were a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered:

And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him. 

[Hebrews 5:7-9]

 

            Through the sacrifice, the sufferings, the bruising, the breaking, the grinding of our Lord, He became even and smooth and perfect.  All of those things back there, and I just read just a few of them, many, many of them, whether it was the manna, or the golden candlestick, or the mercy seat with it’s cherubim, or the oil, or the perfume, or the offering of the firstfruits, or those many, many cakes offered with those sacrifices, or the showbread on the pure golden table in the Holy [Place], all of it was made by grinding and by beating.  It is a picture, a type, of the bruising and the suffering of our Lord, "By His stripes we are healed" [Isaiah 53:5]. 

            Jesus is no martyr.  He is no hero.  He is not another Socrates.  He is not another sacrifice for knowledge, not another gift of men to some noble experiment.  But all of those things were pictures of God that we might be taught that in His death, in His suffering is the remission of our sins [Matthew 26:28, Hebrews 9:22].  Jesus came into the world to suffer and to die for us [Hebrews 10:4-14; John 12:27].  That is the gospel, and it is writ in every page of the Bible.

            Now, I have done something this morning that I hope God will bless.  We are going to take another one thing.  We have just looked at a thing, things that are bruised and broken and ground, typifying the sufferings of our Lord. 

            Now there are many, many different instances here in the Word of the Lord where bread is used, wheat is used, a corn of wheat, a sheaf, many, many instances.  And they all typify the story of our Savior.  And in those typifying, in those pictures of bread, of wheat, of the corn wheat in the ground, of the resurrection of that corn of wheat into the sheaf, you can see the whole story of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

            Now, I say, it is all through the Bible, over, over again, bread and wheat.  In the Passover, the unleavened bread [Exodus 12:8], and in the Feast of the Passover – the Passover was just one meal, the feast thereof is called the Feast of the Unleavened Bread [Leviticus 23:6-8] – in the manna that came from heaven [Exodus 16:4], in the corn of wheat sown into the ground and raised again, in the sheaf of the firstfruits [Leviticus 23:10],  in the cereal offering, the meat offering, the meal offering [Leviticus 6:14-23], grinding and offered before God the bread of heaven [Leviticus 2:1-6]. 

            "This is My body, broken for you: take, eat, in remembrance of Me" [1 Corinthians 11:24].  "We being many are one bread in Christ" [1 Corinthians 10:17]. There were twelve loaves representing twelve tribes of Israel, but His church, His body is just one.  "We being many are one body in Christ."

"To Him who overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna" [Revelation 2:17].  Oh! I wouldn’t have time to refer to it.  All through the Bible, beginning to ending, you will find those types, those figures of bread, of meal, of flour, of the grinding and bruising of the grain. 

            Now I have picked out seven, and we are sure going to have to go rapidly to cover them.  You could spend an hour on each one.  I have picked out seven of those pictures out of the bread, out of the grain, out of the flour.  I have picked out seven, and I see in them, each one of the seven, I see the story of the Lord in each one of those seven, typifying our wonderful Savior. 

            All right, the first one: the first one is manna.   And I read out of the seventy-eighth Psalm and the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses, "And the Lord God rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them of the corn of heaven.  Man did eat angels’ food: He sent them meat to the full" [Psalm 78:24-25].  Now look at that.  It calls the manna "corn of heaven." It calls the manna "angels’ food," up there in glory.  Then I can see in that manna, I can see our Lord pre-existent in heaven, angels’ food, corn of heaven, bread of heaven, wheat of heaven, up there.  That’s our Lord pre-existent.  That’s our Lord coming down in His incarnation, manna here, bread of heaven, angels’ food up there in glory – it speaks of our Savior coming down from heaven.  So I see in that, I say, a picture of the pre-existent Christ coming down from heaven, His incarnation [Matthew 1:20-23].

            All right, another one of bread: here in the story of Ruth, I see His nativity.  I see His birth.  In the story written in the Book of Ruth, because there was a famine in the land, Elimelech and Naomi and the two sons go away and away into a strange country.  Now look over here in the sixth verse [chapter 1], "And Naomi arose and her daughters-in-law, and she turned her face back to her little town."  What was the name of that town?  The "house of bread," in Hebrew, Bethlehem.  "Because she had heard in the far country how that the Lord had visited His people in giving them bread" [Ruth 1:6], so, she turned her face to Bethlehem, for she had heard how the Lord had visited His people in giving them bread. 

            Who is that bread that God had given His people in Bethlehem?  There did Ruth, a Gentile, gather sheaves in the field [Ruth 2:2] and became the wife of Boaz, a Gentile wife [Ruth 4:10-13].  Wonder what that could be a picture of?  And there did David guard the flocks and feed the sheep of whom God said, "He shall feed My people, Israel" [1 Chronicles 11:2]. And there on those fields did the angels sing of the new Redeemer and Savior born in Bethlehem [Luke 2:13].  "And she turned her face to Bethlehem, the House of Bread, for she had heard how that the Lord had visited His people in giving them bread" [Ruth 1:6]. So, I say, I can see there a picture of the coming of our Lord in His nativity, the birth of our Savior [Matthew 1:21-25].

            All right, another one: here in the second chapter of the Book of Leviticus, a thing we have already mentioned, I can see here in this cereal offering, made of new corn, beaten out of the full ears and offered unto the Lord [Leviticus 2:14-16], and in those many offerings of the fine flour I can see the sufferings of our Lord portrayed, bruised and beaten, wounded and crushed for our transgressions [Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24] and sacrifice offered up unto the Lord. 

            Now, here in the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus and the tenth verse is the story of the firstfruits [Leviticus 23:10].  And in the fifth chapter of the Book of Joshua is the story of when they crossed over the Jordan.  "They did eat of the corn of the land on the morrow after the Sabbath, after the Passover, they did eat of the corn of the land, the bread of the land" [Joshua 5:10-12].  Now, I see in that the resurrection of our Savior [Matthew 28:5-7].  The sheaf of the firstfruit offered on the morrow after the Sabbath, and again the going over the Jordan, and the eating of the corn of the land when the manna ceased [Joshua 5:12]; there is the resurrection of our Savior.  On the first day of the week they went over Jordan, on the tenth day of the month, it was in the time of harvest [Joshua 4:19].  On the fourteenth day of the month, the Passover was sacrificed; and on the first day after the Passover, on the morrow after the Sabbath, they ate of the corn of the land and the manna ceased, a picture of the resurrection of our Lord [Joshua 5:10-11].

            Now look again, in the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus and the sixth, seventh, and eighth verses in there, you have the story of the Feast of Unleavened Bread [Leviticus 23:6-8], and that is a picture of our feasting upon the Lord, "This is My body given for you" [1 Corinthians 11:24].  We are to eat of the Lord, "This is the true bread from heaven" [John 6:32-33].  And the Feast of Unleavened Bread is a picture of our feeding upon the Lord.  Now again in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Book of Leviticus, you have again the offering of the showbread on the beautiful little golden table in the Holy of [Place] [Leviticus 24:5-6].  And this is a picture of our Lord who is in the presence of God for us.  In the Holy Place, hidden away, but there our Lord is – in the presence of God up there in glory, the showbread – there making intercession for us [Romans 8:34].

            And then the seventh one, the last one:

And He took bread; and brake it, and they ate of it. 

For as often as ye eat this bread,

ye do show the Lord’s death ’til He come.

 [1 Corinthians 11:23, 24, 26]  

 

And in the fifteenth chapter of the first Corinthian letter, "Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming" [1 Corinthians 15:23].  The burying of the corn of wheat in the ground and the resurrection of the corn of wheat, this is typified in the firstfruits, Paul says, which was offered on the morrow after the Sabbath after the Passover, on the first day of the week, the firstfruits offered unto God.  And Paul says that is a type, a picture, of Christ in His resurrection, and a promise of all of us who are going to be raised at His coming. All of those things are pictures of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus – the bread, the sheaf, the offering of flour; in how many ways does it picture our Savior!

            Well, we must stop.  But when you read through the Word of God, these things were not just accidentally or fortuitously described, but when God said, "You are to grind it, you are to beat it, you are to crush it," when God said, "It is to be offered without leaven," all of those things had a marvelous meaning.  They were pictures; they were types of the great revelation and truth of God in Christ Jesus.  And whether you read it in the New Covenant or in the Old, it is the same story, one by type and shadow and picture, the other by substance and reality.  But it is the same God-given truth and revelation throughout the whole blessed Word of the Lord.

            Now while we stand and sing our appeal, somebody to give his heart to the Lord this morning in confession of faith, somebody to put his life in the fellowship of the church while we stand and sing this appeal.  Into the aisle and down here to the front, you come and stand by me, while all of us stand and sing our hymn together.

A
GROUPING OF TYPES

DR. W.A.
CRISWELL

Leviticus
2:14-16

9-22-57

 

I.             
Things crushed, bruised, beaten, pictures the suffering of Jesus

1.    Gold beaten to
cover the Mercy Seat

2.    Oil for the holy
ointment, for the offering, for the candle beaten

3.    Spices, incense,
frankincense must be crushed, beaten very small

4.    Manna was
ground, crushed and beaten in mortars

5.    Grains of the
meal offering crushed and beaten

6.    Fine flour,
shewbread of the cereal offering beaten

II.           
Pictures of Jesus

1.    No unevenness in
Christ, beautiful characteristics in the beaten, bruised and crushed grains,
olive oil and spices

2.    Perfect through
suffering, fine flour perfectly smooth

III.          
Corn of wheat, bread in various forms

1.    Unleavened bread
of the Passover

2.    Manna

3.    Corn of the land

4.    Fine flour in
cereal offering

5.    Sheaf of
firstfruits

IV.         
Types covering the whole life of Christ

1.    Manna – His pre-existence
in eternity

2.    Naomi to
Bethlehem – His birth

3.    Fine flour – His
suffering, perfect life, and death

4.    Corn of the land
– firstfruits, resurrection

5.    Meal offering,
Feast of Unleavened Bread – Christ the food of His people

6.    Shewbread –
Christ’s presence

7.    Sheaf of
firstfruits – His coming again