You Smell like Jesus!
August 19, 2023
If you want to send someone down memory lane, all you have to do is expose them to an odor that has a significant meaning to them. The smell of vanilla flavoring brings me immediately into the kitchen of my mother’s house. It is summer and I am baking oatmeal cookies as a 4-H project for the county fair. In my imagination, heaven will smell like fresh cut grass and baking with vanilla. However, in heaven, the grass won’t bring the sneezes of allergies and the cookies won’t result in gaining weight!
The Bible tells us in Exodus and Leviticus that the atoning sacrifices of animals offered to God were sweet-smelling to Him. ...And the priest shall burn it on the altar for a sweet and satisfying fragrance to the Lord; and the priest shall make atonement for [the man], and he shall be forgiven (Leviticus 4:31).
God’s nose must be very different than mine. I don’t consider the smell of burning hair and flesh to be sweet. But to God, the sacrifices were never about the burnt smell. They are a symbol of the attitude behind the offering. This is put into context in Ephesians 5:1-2, which carries this theme forward and applies it to Christ’s sacrifice.
1 Therefore be imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father]. 2 And walk in love, [esteeming and delighting in one another] as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a slain offering and sacrifice to God [for you, so that it became] a sweet fragrance. (AMPC)
As Christians, we believe that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ has the power to bring eternal life and to bring us into right standing with God. God knows this, and when we accepted Jesus as our Savior, God now sees us through a Jesus filter. We spiritually put on Christ and we are spiritually clothed in Him. Just as Jesus’ perfect sacrifice was sweet-smelling, so can we be a sweet smell to God and others, too. 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 puts it like this:
14 But thanks be to God, Who in Christ always leads us in triumph [as trophies of Christ’s victory] and through us spreads and makes evident the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere, 15 For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ [which exhales] unto God, [discernible alike] among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: 16 To the latter it is an aroma [wafted] from death to death [a fatal odor, the smell of doom]; to the former it is an aroma from life to life [a vital fragrance, living and fresh]. (AMPC)
I have heard of widows who have kept a shirt or jacket of their deceased husband because it smelled like him. That smell lingered beyond his lifetime, and they cherish it. It is the smell of life to them. Conversely, I have heard of women going through a nasty divorce who heaped up the clothing that belonged to their ex-husband and burned it up. They don’t want any memory of him, including any reminder of how he smelled. To them, that is the smell of death – the death of a marriage.
Ephesians and Corinthians hold reminders that when we walk in love, we are spreading the sweet fragrance of Jesus. Your walk of love doesn’t make sense to those who do not know Jesus. It seems like foolishness to be kind to others. Their lives are futile, and Paul describes them as perishing. The sweet fragrance of your kindness reminds them of that futility. If you have ever attempted to help someone and they reacted angrily to you, you have seen this in action.
But, don’t let that stop you! While the “perishing” person may have reacted angrily toward you, those who watched you try to be kind are moved by it. To God and to the saved, an act of kindness is the fresh fragrance of a purposeful life that is eternal – the smell of life to life. When others see your kindness, they will want to know more about it. That is the most powerful witness you can give. As we draw others to Christ by our example of love, they will catch a whiff of the sweet fragrance of Christ wafting from you because you smell like Jesus.