READING: Leviticus 8:22-24; Romans 12:1-2; John 17:19.
Referring to this passage in chapter 8 of the book of Leviticus, it is important to note what happened in the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood at that particular point. The ram of consecration was brought, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon it, and then it was slain, its blood was shed. That blood was then taken and sprinkled upon them at different points of their beings.
There we have two sides of consecration. The shedding of the blood is the death side, and the sprinkling of the blood is the life side. The blood poured out is the life poured out, delivered up, let go or taken away. Sprinkling is the making active and energetic of the ministry in a living power. When you recognise that, you understand what consecration is, and also the meaning of the act of identification through the laying on of hands with a life poured out, a life yielded up, a life let go, a life taken away unto death. In the act of sprinkling a new position is represented, which implies that now there is no longer anything of the self life, but all is livingly of God, active by God, and unto God alone. That is consecration.
Chapter 17 of the Gospel by John is known to us familiarly as the High Priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus. He is pictured therein as advancing to the altar in an act of consecration of Himself in the behalf of His sons whom He is seeking to bring to glory, that they may behold His glory, and that the glory which He had might be theirs. Here is undoubtedly that which is represented by Aaron and his sons. The High Priest is consecrating Himself, as He says, that they also may be consecrated. The rest of the prayer is a wonderful exposition of the inner meaning of this part of Leviticus 8. In the little while at our disposal we shall seek to understand it more clearly.
The whole man has come into that realm of consecration on both its sides; the death side, and the life side; the life poured out, and the life taken again; the life let go, and the life resumed, but on another basis; the whole man, represented by his ear, his hand, his foot. That has a simple and direct message to our hearts.
The Government of the Ear
We begin with the ear: "...upon the tip of Aaron's right ear." That means that the Lord is to have supreme control of the ear, that we must come on to the ground where the ear is dead to every other controlling voice, every other governing suggestion, and alive unto God, and unto God alone. It is quite clear that the governing faculty of every life is the ear in some way; not necessarily the outward organ, but that by which we listen to suggestions, that, as we say, to which we "give ear." The suggestions may arise from our own temperament and makeup; the constraining things in our life may be our natural inclination, the pull and the draw of our constitution, deep-seated ambitions, inclinations, interests, which are not cultivated nor acquired, but which are simply in us because we are made that way. To listen to these is to have our lives governed by our own interests. Or it may be other things, such as the suggestions, the desires, the ambitions of others for us, the call of the world, the call of human affections, consideration for the likes of others. Oh, how many things may come to us like the activity of a voice to which, if we listen, we shall become slaves and servants, and the ear, and the life with it, be so governed.
This illustrative truth in Leviticus 8 says definitely and emphatically to you and to me that that shedding, that slaying, was the slaying of our ear and our hearing in respect of all such voices, and that sprinkling meant that we now have an ear only for the Lord, and He is to have the controlling voice in our life. The right ear, as the right hand, is the place of honour and power so far as the hearing and the speaking are concerned. Then you and I, if we say that we are consecrated men and women, mean that we have brought the death of Christ to bear upon all the governments and domination of voices which arise from any quarter save from the Lord Himself. We are not to consult the voice of our own interests, our own ambitions, our own inclinations, or the voice of anyone else's desires for us. We must have an ear only for the Lord. That is consecration.
It is a solemn and direct word for everyone, and perhaps especially for the younger men and women, whose lives are more open now to be governed by other considerations, because life lies before them. It may happily be that the sense of responsibility about life is uppermost; the feeling is that it might be disastrous to make a mistake, and along with it there is a strong ambition to succeed and not to have a wasted life. Here is your law for life, and although the course of things may be strange, and the Lord's ways ofttimes perplexing, and you may be called upon in a very deep way to give ear to the exhortation addressed to us in the book of Proverbs, "trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding," nevertheless in the outworking you will find that God's success has been achieved, and, after all, what matters more than that, or as much as that. The course may be very different from what you expected, or thought, or judged would be the reasonable way for your life, but that does not matter so long as God is successful in your life, and your life has been a success from God's standpoint. This is the secret, an ear alive only unto Him and dead to everything that comes from any quarter other than the Lord Himself.
Chapter 17 of John's Gospel is an exposition of that. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." If we were of the world we should take the judgments of the world for our lives, what the world would suggest to be the course of greatest success, prosperity, advantage. The spirit of the world does sometimes get into our own hearts and suggests to us that it would be fatal for us to take this course or that. To give heed to that voice is to become conformed to this age. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service": and from the outset the point of supreme government is the ear. Put your ear under the blood, to be God's vehicle of government. It means that we must have a spiritual ear. As children of God we have, by reason of our new birth, a spiritual faculty of hearing, and we must take heed to develop it as the Lord would have us.
