“Leviticus: Thanksgiving Offerings (Leviticus 2 - 3)" | 1/21/24
Leviticus 2 - 3 | 1/21/24 | Will DuVal
I believe there’s a strong case to be made that the two most underused and perhaps even the most important words in the English language are: “THANK YOU”.
Gratitude is the #1 KILLER of the twin-lies of entitlement and self-sufficiency.
And gratitude is the #1 PRODUCER of the twin-virtues of contentment and JOY.
If you’re MARRIED, you ought to thank your spouse, every day, for going to work to provide for you and the family. Or for staying home, to take care of the kids. If you’re retired, thank them that they USED to do it, so you can now enjoy RETIREMENT.
Parents: you ought to thank your kids, when they listen and obey (and just for being who they ARE, and bringing JOY into your life).
Kids: you ought to thank your parents, for the roof over your head, the food in your belly, the clothes on your back, the unconditional LOVE in your HEART.
Employers: you ought to thank your employees regularly for their dedication and hard work…
Employees: you ought to thank your boss regularly for the opportunity to serve the company, the customer, and the Lord in your meaningful work.
We PASTORS: ought to thank you congregants more often for your faithful love, service, prayers, and tithes. [I truly couldn’t say it enough: I am so “THANKFUL” for each ONE of you!]
And the CHURCH ought to thank its pastors & staff for our care for the flock.
With every mailman’s delivery, every garbage man’s pickup, every police officer’s patrol, every soldier’s service, every teacher’s tutelage, every waitress’s refill… we ought to be saying “Thank You” DOZENS of times every DAY! Just think what a better, HAPPIER place the world would be…
But MOST of all, we ought to be saying “Thank You” constantly and SPECIFICALLY to… THE LORD! We ought to praise GOD, from whom ALL blessings flow!
God tells us, in His WORD, the BIBLE, that he LOVES it when we THANK Him:
Ps 100 “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!” (v4)
Ps 136: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good…
Give thanks to the God of gods… Give thanks to the Lord of lords” (1-3)
Eph 5:20 “Giv[e] thanks always and for everything to God the Father”
1 Thess 5:18 “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God… for you.”
God wants us - REALLY wants us - to be GRATEFUL. And to EXPRESS our gratitude to Him in TANGIBLE ways.
That’s what Leviticus 2 & 3 are all about. We began our study of the book of Leviticus last week in ch1 with its “whole burnt offerings”, the most popular and paradigmatic of all the OT sacrifices. But as we’ll see, there are FIVE sacrifices outlined in these opening chapters of Leviticus and while they do share some features, all of them have certain unique, distinctive traits. And this morning we actually need to EXPAND our understanding of the very nature and meaning of the word “sacrifice” that we introduced last week. Last Sunday we defined “sacrifice”, at least in PART, as our means of restored, reconciled relationship with a holy God. Remember:
God gave us life in order to serve and worship HIM.
We have all FAILED to give God our whole “heart, mind, soul and strength”; we hold BACK much of our lives for our own SELFISH purposes.
So God graciously devised a means of our repaying this “life debt” that we owe him, through SACRIFICE - life for life.
That is all TRUE and ESSENTIAL. But as we see this morning, it’s not comprehensive. Sacrifice isn’t LESS than that, but it does mean even MORE than that. And specifically, in chs2 & 3, we discover that sacrifice was ALSO a way - a TANGIBLE way - for the ancient Israelite to tell God “THANK YOU”.
Every day (almost every day…) my kids tell me “Thank You”. For their food. For helping pick up their toys. For helping wipe their butt. But every once in awhile, they’ll go BEYOND that; their “Thank You” becomes more than just words - they cook me BREAKFAST, maybe on Father’s Day… or they make me a CARD.
Every day, these ancient Israelites would pray and TELL God “Thank You” (as WE should, today). But every so often (these weren’t DAILY offerings we’re gonna be looking at) but every now and then, they would go beyond that, and bring God a gift.
And we can and should TOO, by the way - as always, we’re gonna seek to make this message PRACTICAL for US - “What are the PRINCIPLES here, that God wants us to glean from these sacrifices, and then APPLY them, practically, in our OWN lives?”
We find TWO offerings outlined here, with FOUR principles to glean from EACH (although we’re gonna see a LOT of overlap /repetition, so we’ll spend MOST of our time in ch2).
Would you STAND… Leviticus 2-3; the word of the Lord:
““When anyone brings a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour. He shall pour oil on it and put frankincense on it 2 and bring it to Aaron's sons the priests. And he shall take from it a handful of the fine flour and oil, with all of its frankincense, and the priest shall burn this as its memorial portion on the altar, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 3 But the rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the Lord's food offerings.
4 “When you bring a grain offering baked in the oven as an offering, it shall be unleavened loaves of fine flour mixed with oil or unleavened wafers smeared with oil. 5 And if your offering is a grain offering baked on a griddle, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mixed with oil. 6 You shall break it in pieces and pour oil on it; it is a grain offering. 7 And if your offering is a grain offering cooked in a pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil. 8 And you shall bring the grain offering that is made of these things to the Lord, and when it is presented to the priest, he shall bring it to the altar. 9 And the priest shall take from the grain offering its memorial portion and burn this on the altar, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 10 But the rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the Lord's food offerings.
11 “No grain offering that you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey as a food offering to the Lord. 12 As an offering of firstfruits you may bring them to the Lord, but they shall not be offered on the altar for a pleasing aroma. 13 You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.
14 “If you offer a grain offering of firstfruits to the Lord, you shall offer for the grain offering of your firstfruits fresh ears, roasted with fire, crushed new grain. 15 And you shall put oil on it and lay frankincense on it; it is a grain offering. 16 And the priest shall burn as its memorial portion some of the crushed grain and some of the oil with all of its frankincense; it is a food offering to the Lord.
Ch3, v1: “If his offering is a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offers an animal from the herd, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord. 2 And he shall lay his hand on the head of his offering and kill it at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and Aaron's sons the priests shall throw the blood against the sides of the altar. 3 And from the sacrifice of the peace offering, as a food offering to the Lord, he shall offer the fat covering the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails, 4 and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys. 5 Then Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar on top of the burnt offering, which is on the wood on the fire; it is a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
6 “If his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering to the Lord is an animal from the flock, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish. 7 If he offers a lamb for his offering, then he shall offer it before the Lord, 8 lay his hand on the head of his offering, and kill it in front of the tent of meeting; and Aaron's sons shall throw its blood against the sides of the altar. 9 Then from the sacrifice of the peace offering he shall offer as a food offering to the Lord its fat; he shall remove the whole fat tail, cut off close to the backbone, and the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails 10 and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys. 11 And the priest shall burn it on the altar as a food offering to the Lord.
12 “If his offering is a goat, then he shall offer it before the Lord 13 and lay his hand on its head and kill it in front of the tent of meeting, and the sons of Aaron shall throw its blood against the sides of the altar. 14 Then he shall offer from it, as his offering for a food offering to the Lord, the fat covering the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails 15 and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys. 16 And the priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering with a pleasing aroma. All fat is the Lord's. 17 It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood.””
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Now, I wanted to find a way of distinguishing these sacrifices from one another, so consider THIS format:
Every offering is a way of saying: “God, 1) you ARE ___ 2) and you HAVE ___, 3) so I WILL ___.”
So LAST week, in ch1, we had the Burnt Offering:
“God, 1) you are LORD; and 2) you have given me LIFE; 3) so I will BELONG TO you.”
But this week we START in ch2 with the GRAIN or meal or TRIBUTE offering, which was a way of the offerer saying to God:
“1) You are KING; 2) You have PROVIDED for me; 3) So I will THANK you.” HONOR you.”
Or as I’ve worded it there in your bulletins, to continue our “P” alliteration from last week: in the Grain Sacrifice one offered her PLEDGE & PRAISE to God for His PROVISION.
That’s what this offering was all about: giving God both your PLEDGE of allegiance, and your PRAISE and thanksgiving, in response to His gracious PROVISION.
We check the commentaries:
Allen Ross (98): “Th[is] offering was an acknowledgement that everything the offerer had and was belonged to God; and now, a portion of that substance was given back to God as an expression of the belief that God was the source of and the provider for life.” (i.e., Praise for provision… BUT ALSO…)
As Allan Moseley points out (20): “The Hebrew word for grain offering is minchah. [**Say it with me: minchah] Elsewhere in the OT minchah is used to refer to gifts people gave to a king. Vassal nations paid TRIBUTE to kings whom they recognized as their lords or superiors (ex: Moabites → King David in 2 Sam 8; Or King Hoshea → Shalmaneser king of Assyria in 2 Kgs 17).” So in ADDITION to praise, there’s ALSO this connotation of TRIBUTE inherent to this offering. A pledge of allegiance and servitude.
Moseley puts both meanings together for us (20): “The purpose of the grain offering was NOT atonement, but worship. God provides the produce of the land… As [God’s people] brought the sacrifice, they were thanking God for His provision, dedicating their harvest to Him, and symbolizing their dedication to Him. [Then Moseley suggests the PRACTICAL relevance for our lives today; he notes…] That’s what God’s people do in worship today [as well]. We bring a gift to God as an act of dedication to God.”
If you want to think about the NT parallel for each of these sacrifices, I told you in the case of the whole burnt offering last week, it’s Romans 12:1 – “present your bodies as a living sacrifice… which is your spiritual worship”; we bring our whole LIVES to God, to be used for His glory.
Well, the best NT parallel for the GRAIN offering, now, more specifically, is two-fold: it’s 1) our TITHE, and 2) our SERVICE to the Lord and His church. It’s your WALLET and your WORK for God. But I’m skipping ahead…
The FIRST principle of this grain offering, reiterated from LAST week and true of ALL sacrifices in general, is that #1- It must be PRECIOUS. (1, 12, 14-15)
V1 says: “[your] offering shall be of fine flour.” Moseley explains (22): “The [Hebrew] word [here] (soleth)... refers to the finest flour ground exclusively from the inner kernels of the wheat… It was expensive and considered a luxury item [typically reserved for ROYALTY] (see Ezek 16:13; 1 Kgs 4:22).” He adds (22-23): “When God gave these laws to His people, [remember] they were in the wilderness… They weren’t growing anything. They were nomads… [So] initially the grain they gave to God as grain offerings had to be the SEED grain that they were planning to plant once they arrived in the promised land. Giving [it] was an act of faith; they were trusting God [to] provide for them so they would have enough left to plant a crop in Canaan.” It was extremely PRECIOUS.
Then God instructed them in v1 to “put frankincense on it”. Sklar explains (108): “Frankincense was a costly spice: [it had to be imported] from Southern Arabia… therefore it was both valuable and expensive. Mentioned in later texts alongside such costly gifts as gold and myrrh, it was considered… to be a gift befitting [of a] KING.”
We offer God our BEST. And not just our BEST, but if we skip down to vv12-15 now, we are to offer him our FIRST as well: ““If you offer a grain offering of firstfruits to the Lord”.
Notice, again, like last week with the burnt offerings: Israel wasn’t COMMANDED to make this offering (at least not initially, here in Leviticus). God says, “IF you make… WHEN you make…”. These thanksgiving offerings in particular were to be VOLUNTARY. How much does a “Thank You” MEAN when the person is MADE to say it?
“Johnny, tell Pastor Will THANK you…”
**“I don’t WANT to!”
“You tell him or no screen time.”
“...**thank you…”
No, thank YOU, Little Johnny. That means nothing. God wants our gifts to come from the HEART.
2 Cor 9:7 “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
That’s what the OIL in v1 symbolized, by the way, all throughout the Bible: “Oil signified JOY (Isa 61:3; Ps 45:8; Pr 27:9).
[It] was [also] used to represent things set aside or consecrated [specifically] to the LORD….” Practically speaking, “olive oil… [is also] combustible”, so it helped the offering actually BURN. (Ross, 103)
But I think as much than ANYTHING, God wanted them to mix in the oil to represent their JOY in giving.
Cuz He LOVES it when we CHEERFULLY give Him our BEST, and our FIRST. Our “firstfruits”; not whatever is leftover after the government and the bank and the creditors and the utilities and the groceries all take their cuts. What do you TITHE on? “Tithe” means 10%; but 10% of WHAT? Is it your FIRST? Your BEST? Are you CHEERFUL about it? Is it a beautiful reminder to you, writing that check every month, of God’s GENEROSITY - that he actually lets YOU keep 90% of it, even though ALL of it came from him, and ALL of it truly belongs to Him? What a generous God we serve!
And notice this too: if they couldn’t AFFORD the expensive “fine flour”, the “frankincense”, then “vv4-7 say that they could cook their grain into unleavened bread… If we have the money to get the best, we will spend it [on God],” Moseley points out, “and if we DON’T have the money, we’ll spend the TIME to make our gift the best we can make it.” (22)
That’s why I mentioned not just our GIVING but our SERVING as well. Some of you are able to demonstrate your GRATITUDE to the Lord by writing $225,000 checks that help cut our church’s mortgage in half. We praise God for you! But for the OTHER 99.9% of us here, we give what we can, and then we roll up our sleeves and we bake our bread to bring God, don’t we? You rock crying babies in the church nursery (and you do it CHEERFULLY) you freeze your butt off to hold the door open for strangers (and you do it with a SMILE!), you serve as marriage mentors for all the young couples coming to the church, wanting to learn from someone else’s mistakes.
This is all really getting us, now, to principle #2 about the grain offering: 2) It served as a PORTRAYAL (2, 13, 16). A SYMBOL of one’s pledge and praise.
One’s thanksgiving, which would arise, v2 says, as a “a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” God loves a cheerful giver, a cheerful SERVER.
And God calls it a “memorial portion” - our small gift BACK to God is supposed to REMIND us of His LAVISH gifts toward US.
But that’s not the ONLY thing being portrayed here; look at vv13-16 now: “You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering”; what’s going on there?
The phrase “salt of the covenant” appears a NUMBER of times throughout the OT (Num 18:19; 2 Chr13:5). Gordon Wenham explains (Leviticus, 71): “In [every biblical use of the phrase], the language of ‘permanent’ or ‘eternal’ appears. Salt was something that could not be destroyed by fire or time or ANY other means in antiquity. To add salt to the offering [then] was a reminder that the worshipper was in an eternal covenant relationship with his God.”
So by offering this sacrifice, one portrayed the EXTRAVAGANCE of God’s provision… the ENJOYMENT of giving a portion BACK to him, the ETERNALITY of God’s covenant relationship with them - ALL of that is here; you see how RICH this sacrifice was with MEANING?
But it wasn’t just symbolic; it was also practical. Because the THIRD principle is that this offering also served as #3- PROVISION, specifically, God’s means of providing for the LEVITES, the PRIESTS, who served him and the people, in the tabernacle and later in the Temple; God provided for them through the REST of his people and THROUGH this sacrifice. (3)
V3 says that AFTER a memorial portion had been set aside and burned for the LORD, that “the rest of the grain offering shall be for Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the Lord's food offerings.”
In ch3, we’ll see that SOME of these “food offerings” were shared by the whole congregation of Israel. But THIS one, the “grain offering” - what was LEFT after GOD got the first and the best portion - it was designated specifically for God’s holy priests.
You may recall from our study of Exodus, that when the Israelites rebelled, as God was delivering the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and they convinced Aaron to build them the Golden Calf to worship instead, Moses got angry and asked, “Who is on the LORD’S side?” And it was the LEVITES, the third of the 12 tribes of Israel, who said, “We repent; we’ll take YHWH over this silly idol.” And as a RESULT, God chose THEM, the tribe of LEVI to serve him as priests. But what that meant for them, practically, was that when the Israelites arrived in CANAAN, Levi was the only tribe that was NOT allotted any LAND. They didn’t NEED land, to ranch and farm like everyone else, cuz they worked for GOD. So the priests depended on God’s provision through the rest of his people and specifically, through SACRIFICES like this. This is how God would answer their prayers: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Someone had to come and offer a minchah.
And you can probably already GUESS the NT application of THIS principle - Paul references it explicitly in 1 Corinthians 9 when he pushes for a PAYCHECK! “Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? 14 In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.” (9:13-14)
So let me just pause and take this opportunity to practice what I preach, and say “THANK YOU” to you all, for being such a GENEROUS church, specifically, to ME, as your pastor. For taking such good care of my FAMILY - for blessing me with the ability to “earn my living” by proclaiming the gospel - I actually get PAID to do what we’re ALL supposed to be doing anyway! I’d do this job for FREE! (SOME days, anyway) But you PAY me. What a blessing. And I appreciate y’all… SO dearly.
Lastly (still on the “grain offering”!): #4- It must be PURE. (4-11)
V4: “...it shall be unleavened loaves… or unleavened wafers smeared with oil.”
“Yeast was associated with CORRUPTION. The process of leavening involves fermentation, which is a form of decay and therefore is related to DEATH.” (Moseley, 23) So Jesus warned his followers to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Lk 12:1). The apostle Paul cautioned the Corinthians against allowing unrepentant SIN in the church because “a little leaven leavens the whole LUMP”. (1 Cor 5:1-8) Sin SPREADS, like a FUNGUS (which is what yeast IS!).
That’s why their grain offerings had to be unleavened - they had to be PURE. Same thing with the HONEY; Ken Mathews explains (38): “Honey was a common feature in pagan offerings to the gods, [so] it could lead to confusion with idolatrous worship.”
YHWH wanted his people’s pure, adulterated worship of HIM ALONE!
Just as he STILL does today, from US. We can make this personal and practical again: Are the gifts that WE bring God PURE?
When we drop that check in the offering box, do we linger a little, to make sure others around us notice? Or do we give “in secret… not [even] letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing”, as Jesus put it (Matt 6:3-4).
When we ROCK those crying babies, do we secretly want others to NOTICE us, the SACRIFICE we’re making? (Perhaps that’s a bad example; you might NOT want them to notice if the babies are crying… But listen: if you can get MY baby to stay in the nursery without crying, I will absolutely test the purity of your heart, cuz you better believe you’re gonna get a “shout out” from the pulpit - we’re gonna find out if the public praise goes to your head…)
When you take NOTES - when Jesus criticized the Pharisees, he said, “They do all their deeds to be seen by others. They make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long…” (23:5) - I wonder if the modern-day church translation would be something like: “They sing their worship songs extra LOUD and make their sermon notes COPIOUS”. “That gal must be SUPER holy; have you seen her Study Journal? Her note-taking? And that’s on LEVITICUS!”
It’s not just enough to bring God our gifts; he wants us to do it in the right MANNER, with the right MOTIVE. He wants pure gifts from a pure heart.
And please note: that is what our worship here is FOR. Don’t get it twisted: we call this a “worship service”, not because I’M here to serve YOU but because WE’RE here to serve GOD! To offer HIM our gifts, to offer HIM our worship, to offer HIM our pledge of allegiance and our praise of gratitude. I’ve only ever had one EX-congregant tell me they were leaving our church because *quote* “I’m just not getting as much OUT OF the worship services anymore…”, and my response was: “Maybe that’s cuz they’re not FOR you.” If you want a “worship service” designed for your enjoyment, then by all means, you need to find another church; WE’RE here to worship and serve THE LORD.
Lastly, and then we’ve GOTTA move on: we saw last week with the burnt offering how God made the offering POSSIBLE for everyone, regardless of their financial status - “Bring your best, whether that’s a BULL, or just a goat or sheep, or even just a BIRD…”
We see something similar here with the grain offering. Not only does God provide an alternative if they couldn’t afford the “fine flour” and frankincense - just bake me unleavened bread instead - but he EVEN gives them different options for BAKING it.
V4: if you’ve got a full-on OVEN, then use that…
But v5: if you’ve only got a GRIDDLE, then use that…
And v7: if all you’ve got is a PAN, then use that.
No matter your means, whatever equipment you’re working with, EVERYONE has SOMETHING to offer GOD! And that’s just as true today, church. God wants YOUR pledge and praise, your “thank you” gift. However small and insignificant YOU might think it is; God LOVES it - it is a “pleasing aroma” to Him.
Now, we turn to ch3, and the PEACE offering or “fellowship” offering, and we’re gonna FLY through this one because ALL of the 4 principles that are highlighted here are REPEATED from one or BOTH of the previous two sacrifices - the burnt and grain offerings. So I would remind us, once again, that the Bible REPEATS things for EMPHASIS - that makes these 4 principles all the more IMPORTANT. But to be honest, there’s really not a TON that is NEW with this offering, other than its distinctive PURPOSE:
The Peace/Fellowship Offering was a way of saying (ch3): “GOD, 1) You are my FATHER; 2) because you have given me PEACE; 3) so I will CELEBRATE you.
It was a CELEBRATION of one’s restored RELATIONSHIP - “FELLOWSHIP”, being at PEACE - with God, our heavenly Father.
Or to continue the “P”s: PARTICIPATION & PRAISE for God’s PEACE.
We PRAISE God that we can now PARTICIPATE in friendship and family life with him, as our heavenly Father, thanks to the PEACE that he has brought us, restored to our relationship with Him.
Here’s what the commentaries say:
Moseley (35-6): “Fellowship with God was the central theme of this offering… People celebrated that they were on friendly terms with God. Throughout the OT, when people asked about someone’s welfare, how someone was doing, literally they ‘ask about peace’ (e.g., Gen 43:27; Ex 18:7; et al).... The word ‘peace’ expressed that everything was OK… The fellowship offering celebrated the fact that in the worshiper’s relationship with God, things were OK.”
Sklar (116): “This offering functioned as a shared meal by which the Israelites celebrated and reaffirmed their covenant relationship with the LORD and with one another.”
Mathews (39): “The fellowship or peace offering was a voluntary expression of the worshiper’s praise for God’s deliverance in his life… It was the only offering that BOTH the priests and the worshiper ate, signifying the fellowship of the Israelite with GOD (7:31-35).”
Harper (84): “The language of ATONEMENT is absent here in Leviticus 3. These sacrifices are not for making peace with God; rather, they celebrate a peace with God that already exists. This logic can be glimpsed in the order in which sacrifices were made: first, a purification offering to restore relationship [we’ll get to that sacrifice NEXT week, in ch4]; second, a [whole burnt offering] to express selfless devotion; third, a fellowship offering as a tangible expression of having been made right with God.”
Harper goes on (85): “[This offering is] the very embodiment of restored relationship - with God and neighbor. In the beginning, in the Garden, Adam and Eve enjoyed plentiful food in the presence of God. Subsequent to Genesis 3, however, eating with God occurs only [rarely]. Leviticus 2-3 initiates regular table fellowship… Creation blessings are being recovered as a foretaste of the messianic banquet on the day the world is remade.”
And I love how Harper puts BOTH of these big ideas, from the grain offering in ch2 AND the peace offering here in ch3 together; he says (85): “Yahweh is King and tribute is rightly offered to honor and venerate Him (Lev 2). Yet, Yahweh also extends an open invitation to all His people… to come and eat at His table, enjoying communion with Him and with one another as a foretaste of cosmic renewal.”
I can’t top that! So let’s quickly REMIND ourselves, now, of four principles that God emphasizes with this sacrifice:
#1- It must be PRECIOUS. (1, 6)
Same language here in vv1 & 6, as with the BURNT offerings: your animal must be “without blemish”. And once AGAIN: you bring your BEST. A bull if you can (v1), but a SHEEP if not (v6), and if not a sheep, then a GOAT (v12) - the most precious, valuable animal you could afford.
#2- As with the burnt offering in ch1, once again, in SOME sense, this peace offering served as - or more likely, was a REMINDER of - one’s PROXY. (2, 8, 13)
We see the same “hand-laying” ritual going on here in vv2, 8, & 13 as was outlined in ch1. Remember: “This… established a relationship between the offerer and animal so that the animal would be accepted on the offerer’s behalf… [It signified both] Transference: the offerer is transferring something - [his] sin / impurity - to the animal [AND] Substitution: the offerer is saying “this is me”.” (Sklar, 91)
“This animal now STANDS IN MY PLACE. It should be MY blood, MY LIFE on this altar, because it was MY SIN that caused this SEPARATION between me and God.
But in the case of the PEACE offering, it was a reminder - a CELEBRATION! - that that sin had ALREADY been satisfied, that divorce had ALREADY been dealt with, that rift had ALREADY been repaired. Such that the worshiper now enjoyed PEACE with God.
And yet, as Allan Ross points out (117): “The shed blood of the sacrifice was both the BASIS and the MEANS of celebrating what it meant to have peace with God. To enter the sanctuary and celebrate with a communal meal still required that BLOOD be applied to the altar.”
#3) As was AGAIN the case with the BURNT offering, the PEACE offering had to be Personal yet also Priests-Mediated. (2, 8, 13)
Again in vv2, 8, and 13, we see the offerer being instructed to do the KILLING, yet the PRIESTS had to be the ones to sprinkle the BLOOD on the altar. And once AGAIN, for the time being, I’m going to PUNT further explanation of that principle to later weeks in Leviticus, where we’re gonna find MULTIPLE chapters on the PRIESTHOOD. But for now I’ll just leave it at the high level reminder that: we cannot be PASSIVE in our worship. It is only an ACTIVE, personal faith that saves us; your parent’s faith can’t save you… your PASTOR’s faith can’t save you; YOU’VE gotta get your OWN hands bloody.
And YET, at the SAME time, it’s a reminder that you can’t even approach God’s ALTAR… without a PRIEST. We need a MEDIATOR. We’ll come BACK to that…
But #4- as with ALL these offerings, the peace offering also served as a PORTRAYAL. It too was RICH with symbolism (3-5, 9-11, 14-16)
Specifically, what’s with all the FAT?? V3 “the fat covering the entrails”... v4 “the two kidneys with the fat that is on them”... v9 “the whole fat tail”... v16 says “All fat is the Lord's. It shall be a statute forever… that you eat neither fat nor blood.” Why?
Moseley explains (37): “In that place and time, fat was rare. Meat was an uncommon part of their diet, and the animals they ate were lean; they had little fat. People therefore considered fat a DELICACY. It was the BEST, so it was given to God.”
Sklar adds (125-127): “The Israelites used the word ‘fat’ to describe the very best part of something, such as the “fat” of the wheat (Ps 147:14) or… “the fat of the wine (Num 18:12).” By giving the fat to the LORD, they honored him as the one worthy of the very best… Should an Israelite child ask why the fat and blood were never eaten, a parent could explain: The fat is the very best part and therefore belongs to the one most worthy of honor: the LORD… The blood represents the animal’s LIFE, which belongs to the LORD. He allows us to use it to make atonement for our OWN lives, giving it back to him on the altar, but not to eat it as though it belonged to us. We honor his lordship over ALL of life when we refuse to eat meat with the lifeblood in it.”
Now, as for this being a “STATUTE FOREVER”, Sklar points out (127-8): “This is part of the Mosaic covenant and was to be observed ‘perpetually’ as long as that covenant endured. Because that covenant is no longer in force (Heb 8:6-13; “obsolete”, having been FULFILLED by Christ…), the believer today is not… required to follow these laws.” So at lunch today, you can feel free to enjoy your steak as FATTY and as RARE as you like it. Just remember that “consuming undercooked meats may increase your risk of foodborne illness”, and even MORE importantly, remember that it is only because of CHRIST’S SACRIFICE - his offering of his OWN lifeblood, for YOU - that you are now able to enjoy that beautifully-marbled, bloody steak.
There is SO much more symbolism going on here. “The kidneys were seen as the seat of the emotions, much like we refer to the heart as the center of feelings.” (Mathews, 40) So they were symbolically offering their HEARTS to God. “The livers of animals were used by the Canaanites in pagan worship in a form of divination called hepatoscopy. Canaanite priests examined the livers to divine the future or to determine the will of the gods… [YHWH, however,] told His people not to save that part of the animal… They were not looking at a liver to determine the future; they were trusting in GOD for the future.” (Moseley, 34)
Notice in v5 that the peace offering was to burned “on top of the burnt offering”; Mathews notes (40): “That the burnt offering PRECEDED the peace offering conveyed to the worshiper that the BASIS for his fellowship with God was the atonement and forgiveness of sin that the burnt offering represented.”
We should ALSO note that “This [would have been] a lot of meat. Imagine sitting down to eat an entire cow, by nightfall! (see Lev7:15-16). Implied, then, is the communal nature of the eating. A person’s entire family, maybe even village, would need to assist. This was a meal to be SHARED.” (Harper, 83) No DOGGY-bags! That’s why this was the ONLY sacrifice that lay Israelites were allowed to HELP eat! It was one giant COMMUNITY party, to celebrate their communal relationship with the Lord and one another, as His holy people.
But the most important symbolism going on here, to bring us back to the meaning and SIGNIFICANCE of this offering, was that of fellowship.
V5 calls this a “food offering”. Sklar explains (126): “This does not imply that the LORD was hungry and needed sustenance. He makes this abundantly clear in Psalm 50: “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the WORLD and its FULLNESS are mine! Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? [Of course not!]]” (vv12-13). Rather, the word ‘food’ here emphasizes that the [peace] offering is like a MEAL [which] expressed covenant relationship and fellowship.”
Moseley adds (36): “A meal is an act of friendship. That was the main idea of the fellowship offering - enacting a reconciled relationship with God and experiencing fellowship with Him. Christians [he explains] experience something similar in the Lord’s Supper. The bread and the cup represent Christ’s body and blood. When we take that into our bodies we’re symbolizing fellowship with Christ through the meal. We call it “Communion” because we’re experiencing fellowship, communion, with God.”
So there’s your NT parallel, for the PEACE offering. THAT’s what we receive from God in this service; we BRING him our worship, our thanks, our PRAISE for his provision. And we RECEIVE a REMINDER of His provision - when God provided for our greatest need of ALL on the cross: forgiveness for sin, restoration of relationship with Him, PEACE with God. And how’d he DO it?
In Conclusion: Both these offerings are PICTURES, prefigurings, pointings AHEAD to JESUS! The one “through [whom, God has now] reconcile[d] to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (Col 1:20). Jesus “Himself IS our peace” (Eph 2:14). Romans 5:1 puts it clearest of all: “we[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Praise GOD for His provision of His Son JESUS!
PLEDGE yourself to him in offerings of worship.
And PARTICIPATE in renewed relationship, FELLOWSHIP with Him, because of the PEACE that Christ has PURCHASED for you, with his blood.