Leaven in connection with the Peace Offering

John Nelson Darby

Besides the unleavened cakes leavened bread was offered (Lev. 7:12–13); here we have ourselves. I come with the offering that has been slain, with Christ in my hand, and I find too all the blessed perfectness of the meat offering, His perfection as man, the fine flour, no leaven at all — God delighted in Him as a living man. I get it anointed with oil, mingled with oil, the perfectness of His manhood; and besides that, now leavened bread. There am I, the worshipper. If I come to God, I own the sin, the leaven in me, but that cannot be burned as a sweet savour. I come with the leaven. I cannot say I am sinless, as Christ; I cannot be ‘that Holy thing’ (Luke 1:35), but I come with Christ in my hand. I come with the knowledge of my imperfection, but with that in which I am most perfectly accepted. God takes knowledge of that by which I come; all sins blotted out and forgiven, but I cannot say I have no sin (1 John 1:8), that is all a mistake; it is leavened bread, the leaven within, and we cannot help its being there, though not allowing it to act. The point is, I go with the sense in my soul that I have leaven: if I say I have no sin, as a present thing, I deceive myself, and the truth is not in me. There is no forgiveness for sin; for sins there is; but ‘God … has condemned sin in the flesh’ (Rom. 8:3). I get deliverance from any thought of this leaven hindering me, for I find God condemned it when Christ died. I do not talk of His forgiving it — it was all gone when Christ died. I cannot say I have none in me, but I can say I died with Christ, and I am not in it. 

I do not come denying that I am leavened; I own it; but what I present to God is not myself — it could not be burned for a sweet savour, and I have a title, in that sense, to forget it, because God has dealt with it in Christ, and then I come with unleavened bread to keep the feast.[1]

[1] From ‘The Burnt Offering; the Meat Offering; the Peace Offering (notes of addresses)’, Collected Writings of JND vol. 34 p. 373 (p. 240 in the re-published volume).

From: Truth and Testimony, 2023