Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 22:21
And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the LORD to accomplish [his] vow, or a freewill offering in beefs or sheep, it shall be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no blemish therein.
Lev 22:21
It shall be perfect to be accepted.
A plain mans sermon
1. The ceremonial law, as ordained by the hand of Moses and Aaron, called the worshippers of God to great carefulness before Him. Before their minds that solemn truth was ever made visible, I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Nothing might be done thoughtlessly. Of every ceremony it might be said, It must be perfect to be accepted. God must have the minds and thoughts of men, or He counts that they are no worshippers. We need to think a great deal more about how we come before the Most High; and if we thought more and prayed more, we should become more certain of our inability to do anything as we ought to do it, and we should be driven to a more entire dependence upon the Spirit of God in every act of worship. This in itself would be a great blessing.
2. The ceremonial law also engendered in men who did think a great respect for the holiness of God. They could not help seeing that God required everything in His service to be of the very best. They must have felt that sin was not a trifle, but a thing for which there must be life given and blood shed before it could be removed; and that life and blood must be the life and blood of a perfect and unblemished offering.
3. Under the Jewish ceremonial law, one of the most prominent thoughts, next to a great respect for the holiness of God, would be a deep regard for the law of God. Everywhere that the Israelite went he was surrounded by law. If men do not understand the law, they will not feel that they are sinners; and if they are not consciously sinners, they will never value the sin-offering.
I. First, then, the rule of our text, it shall be perfect to be accepted, may be used to shut out all those faulty offerings whereon so many place their confidence.
1. It most effectually judges and casts forth all self-righteousness, although this is the great deceit wherewith thousands are buoyed up with false hopes. It shall be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no blemish therein. If you can come up to this rule you shall be saved by your righteousness; but if you cannot reach you must fail of acceptance.
2. Why, look, ye that hope to be saved by your own doings, your nature at the very first is tainted! There is evil in your heart from the very beginning, so that you are not perfect and are not without blemish. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.
3. Look again, for I feel sure that there must have been a blemish somewhere as matter of fact. As yet you are not conscious of a blemish; and possibly there is some justification for this unconsciousness. Looking upon you, I feel inclined to love you, as Jesus loved that young man who could say of the commandments, All these have I kept from my youth up. But I must beg you to answer this question–Has there not been a blemish in your motives? What have you been doing all these good things for? Why, that I might be saved! Precisely so. Therefore selfishness has been the motive which has ruled your life. Moreover, it is not only your nature and your motive which are imperfect. You certainly must have erred somewhere or other, in some act of your life. The Scripture also is dead against you when it says, There is none righteous; no, not one.
4. Methinks if I could read all hearts, there is not one here, however self-righteous he may be, who would not have to confess distinct acts of sin. I know how some of you have lived. You were amiable girls and excellent young women, and have grown up to be careful, loving wives; and therefore you say, I never did anybody any harm; surely I may be accepted. I wish that there were more like you. I am not condemning you; far from it; but I know that your tendency is to think that because of all this you must in yourselves be accepted of God. Give me your hand, and let me say to you, with tears, It is not so, my sister; it is not so, my brother. It must be perfect to be accepted; there must be no blemish in it. This is a death-blow for your self-confidence; for there was a time, some day or other in your life, in which you did wrong. What I have you no hasty temper? Have no quick words escaped you which you would wish to recall? What! have you never murmured against God, or complained of His providence? Have you never been slothful when you ought to have been diligent? Can you say that your heart has never desired evil–never imagined impurity? Have you never gone to live in an old house which looked like new? You had fresh paint, and varnish, and paper in superabundance; and you thought yourself dwelling in one of the sweetest of places, till one day it happened that a board was taken up, and you saw under the floor. What a gathering of every foul thing! You could not have lived in that house at peace for a minute had you known what had been covered up. Rottenness had been hidden, decay had been doctored, death had been decorated. That is just like our humanity. When lusts are quiet, they are all there. The best man in this place, who is not a believer in Christ, would go mad if he were to see himself as God sees him.
5. This text makes a clean sweep of all other kinds of human confidences. Some are deceived in this sort: Well, they say, I do not trust in my works; but I am a religious person, and I attend the sacrament, and I go to my place of worship pretty regularly. I feel that I must certainly be right. I have faith in Jesus Christ and in myself. In various ways men thus compose an image whose feet are part of iron and part of clay.
II. As this rule shuts out all other confidences, so this rule shuts us up to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Oh, if I had the tongues of men and of angels, I could never fitly tell you of Him who offered Himself without spot unto God, for He is absolutely perfect; there is no blemish in Him!
1. He is perfect in His nature as God and man. There was not the possibility of sinning about the Saviour–no tendency that way, no desire that way. Nothing that could be construed into evil ever came upon His character.
2. As He was perfect in His nature, so was He in His motive. What brought Him from above but love to God and man? You can find no trace of ambition in Christ Jesus. In Him there is no thought of self.
3. As His nature was perfect, so was His spirit. He was never sinfully angry, nor harsh, nor untrue, nor idle. Tile air of His soul was the atmosphere of heaven rather than of earth.
4. Look at His life of obedience, and see how perfect that was. Which commandment did He ever break? Which duty of relationship did He ever forget? He honoured the law of God and loved the souls of men.
5. Look at the perfection of His sacrifice. He gave His body to be tortured, and His mind to be crushed and broken, even unto the death-agony. He gave Himself for us a perfect sacrifice. All that the law could ask was in Him.
III. Listen, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that know the Lord! You are saved. You have not, therefore, to bring any sacrifice by way of a sin-offering, but you have to bring sacrifices of thanksgiving. It is your reasonable service that you offer your bodies a living sacrifice unto God. If you do this you cannot bring an absolutely perfect sacrifice, but you must labour to let it be perfect in what is often the Biblical sense of perfection. You must take care that what you bring is not blind, for the blind were not to be offered. You must serve God with a single eye to the glory of God. And as it must not be blind, so it must not be broken. Whenever we serve God, we must do it with the whole of our being, for if we try to serve God with a bit of our nature, and leave the rest unconsecrated, we shall not be accepted. Next, they were not to bring a maimed sacrifice: that is, one without its limbs. Some people give grudgingly, that is to say, they come up to the collection-box with a limp. Many serve Christ with a broken arm. The holy work is done, but it is painfully and slowly done. Among the heathen, I believe, they never offered in sacrifice to the gods a calf that had to be carried. The reason was that they considered that the sacrifice ought to be willing to be offered, and so it must be able to walk up to the altar. Notice in the Old Testament, though there were many creatures, both birds and beasts, that were offered to God, they never offered any fish on the holy altar. The reason probably is that a fish could not come there alive. Its life would be spent before it came to the altar, and therefore it could not render a life unto God. Take care that you bring your bodies a living sacrifice. We must not bring Him the mere chrysalis of a man, out of which the life has gone; but we must bring before Him our living, unmaimed selves if we would be acceptable before Him. It is then added, or having a wen. It does not look as though it would hurt the sacrifice much to have a wen; yet there must not be a wen, or spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Above all, avoid that big wen of pride. The sacrifice was not to be scabbed, or to have the scurvy. That is to say, it was to be without any sort of outward fault. I have heard men say, It is true I did not do that thing well, but my heart was right. That may be, but you must try and make the whole matter as good as it can be. What a deal of scabbed service our Lord gets! Men try to be benevolent to their fellow-creatures with an irritable temper. Certain people try to serve God, and write stinging letters to promote brotherly love, and dogmatical epistles in favour of large-mindedness. Too many render to the Lord hurried, thoughtless worship; and many more give for offerings their smallest coins and such things as they will never miss. God has many a scurvy sheep brought before Him. The best of the best should be given to the Best of the best. Would God that the best of our lives, the best hours of the morning, the best skill of our hands, the best thoughts of our minds, the very cream of our being, were given to our God! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Offerings to be without blemish
1. This law was, then, necessary for the preserving of the honour of the sanctuary and of the God that was there worshipped.
2. This law made all the legal sacrifices the fitter to be types of Christ, the great Sacrifice, from which all those derived their virtue.
3. It is an instruction to us to offer to God the best we have in our spiritual sacrifices. If our devotions be ignorant, and cold, and trifling, and full of distractions, we offer the blind, and the lame, and the sick for sacrifice. But cursed be the deceiver that doth so, for while he thinks to put a cheat upon God, he puts a damning cheat upon his own soul. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)
Blemishes in our sacrifices
All religious service is of the nature of sacrifice.
I. Read this requirement of perfect sacrifices, and by it let us test our regard for the sabbath services. God has once, at least, read us a very solemn lesson of the manner in which He regards lost Sabbaths. Seventy Sabbatical years the Jews allowed to drop out of their calendar. Seventy years were spent by them in captivity. A fearful presage to us of what might be the national judgment if, as a Church and people, we went on to blot out from amongst us our day of rest. Every one will agree that if the Sabbath be obligatory, then it is assuredly obligatory thus far–
1. That there be regular attendance upon public service.
2. Of the other hours of the day, that a part be spent in private devotional exercises, a part in religious reading; that a higher and more sacred tone of conversation be maintained; that some work of piety and love be performed.
II. By this test let us judge our sanctuary worship. Examine ourselves in the house of God. Difficulty of keeping the mind collected and devout results from want of due preparation.
1. Something may be said respecting the posture of body we assume in the sanctuary. Position of body reacts upon the mind. Indolence is associated with, and leads to, irreverence. Kneeling is required equally by the dignity of God and the weakness of our nature.
2. So with the voice. Difficult to overestimate how much is lost–
(a) to the beauty of our services;
(b) to the glory of God;
(c) to our own souls, by the silence so many of us maintain, both in the responses and in the service of song.
But there are more serious blemishes in our sanctuary sacrifices than these. Where is–
(1) The constant mental effort essential to true worship and proper in the presence of God?
(2) The self-distrust due from such sinful creatures as we?
(3) The self-discipline to bring ourselves into responsiveness to Gods Spirit?
(4) The inward up-looking for Divine light and grace?
(5) The frequent reminding our selves of what we are and what God is?
(6) The simple spirit of self-application?
(7) The faith to give wings to prayer?
Well might St. James say, Ye have not because ye ask not, or ask amiss. Blemish on sacrifice drives the flame down again.
III. By this test let us examine our observance of the sacrament of the Lords supper. A word in solemn affection to some. You never attend the sacrament to celebrate the Lords death at all. Others, if at all, so irregularly as almost to turn the attendance into a mockery.
1. Happy for us that we can turn from all our poor blemished sacrifices to that pure and perfect sacrifice of Christ, which has been offered without blemish and without spot for us.
2. Only let us never forget that he who would safely trust in the power of that Sacrifice for his salvation must take the spotlessness of that Sacrifice for his daily pattern. (Anon.)
Giving the worst to God
A pastor went one day to call on a member of his church, who was a farmer. During the conversation the work of Christian benevolences was touched upon, and the farmer proudly alluded to the fact that out of his few acres of ground he always set aside one acre to the Lords use. The pastor, hoping to here get the material for an illustration in his own work, asked the farmer brother, Which acre do you set aside? This was a question that came very unexpectedly, but the farmer was honest enough to tell the truth, and replied, When it is a dry season, I select one up there, pointing to a field on the hillside; and when it is a wet season, I choose one down there, pointing to a field of very low land which lay at the foot of the hill. I give this illustration, not on account of its rarity, but because it is a true picture of thousands of professed Christians, who give to Gods service that part of their time and means that is left after first satisfying their own personal selfish ends. (Sharpened Arrows.)
God ought to have the best
One cold morning a little ragged, woeful-looking child came in at our back door, begging for food. Please, maam, mend the children most starved. Only a bit o bread. Have you no father or mother, child? asked
I. Yesm, and a look of shame and despair mantled his hollow cheeks. Dont they work and earn money? Yesm, little; but they most allus spend it afore they gets home, at the Horn o Plenty. Immediately my heart became adamant. The miserable, drunken brutes, thought I, Ill not feed their children. Then I remembered there is a very stale loaf of bread in the cupboard, scarcely fit for toast. I gave that to the child, very glad to dispose of it. He grabbed it eagerly, with a clutch that reminded one of the grasp of the drowning, when they would fain save themselves. Little Gracie, our six-year-old darling, had been a silent spectator; but after the boy departed, she came to me with deep inquiry depicted upon her spiritual countenance, saying, Mamma, if Jesus Christ had come and said He was starving to death, would you have given Him that awful dry loaf of bread? Why, child, said I, why do you ask such a question ? Why, when we give to the poor, ought we not to think that we are really giving to Jesus Himself? I thought He said so when here upon the earth. Well, Gracie, said I, kissing her sweet, troubled face, I think you are right, and I will remember your lesson next time. Yes, Gracie, we, whom the Lord hath blessed in our granary and our store, would soon relieve suffering humanity if we gave our alms as if we really were giving to the Blessed Redeemer. We are too prone to forget this truth. The very best that we have in the house isnt too good for Him, is it, mamma? asked she. No, no, my precious child, replied I, clasping her to my heart and thinking, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength and wisdom. (Christian Age.)
Worthless offerings
A missionary in China, describing in the Sunday at Home, the sacrifices which are offered to Confucius at the usual and autumnal equinoxes, says, We looked at the victims, and they were diseased, scraggy brutes, worthless offerings. Oh, the mockery and the utter insincerity and indifference of the Chinese mind to all sense of honour I My friend explained the matter to me; he said they were allowed so much by the Treasury for this purpose, and the cheaper they could get the animals the more they could pocket. (J. Tinling.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
To wit, none of the blemishes mentioned Lev 22:22,24; for some blemishes did not hinder the acceptance of a free will offering, but only of a vow, Lev 22:23.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord,…. This, as Ben Gersom observes, is distinguished from a burnt offering; for though it was to be perfect, and without blemish, yet not obliged to be a male as that, Le 3:1. This was either by way of thanksgiving for mercies received, Le 7:12, or
to accomplish [his] vow; made in any distress, that if God would deliver him, then he would offer such a sacrifice:
or a freewill offering; either on account of favours received, or in order to obtain them: which sacrifice, whether
in beeves or sheep; whether in bullocks or sheep, under which are comprehended goats, both being of the flock, Le 22:19;
it shall be perfect to be accepted; perfect in all its parts, not only in those that are without and obvious to view, but in those that are within: wherefore the Jewish writers say w, if it had but one kidney, or the spleen was consumed, it was unfit for the altar; wherefore, in order to be an acceptable sacrifice to God, it was to be complete in all respects:
there shall be no blemish therein; which is repeated for the confirmation of it, and that it might be observed. Such sacrifices were typical of Christ, the immaculate Lamb of God, who offered himself without spot to him, 1Pe 1:19; and shows that no sacrifice of man’s can be so acceptable to God as to atone for him, since none of theirs are perfect, and without blemish.
w Maimon. Hilchot Issure Mizbeach, c. 2. sect. 11.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Every peace-offering was also to be faultless, whether brought “to fulfil a special (important) vow” (cf. Num 15:3, Num 15:8: , from to be great, distinguished, wonderful), or as a freewill gift; that is to say, it was to be free from such faults as blindness, or a broken limb (from lameness therefore: Deu 15:21), or cutting (i.e., mutilation, answering to Lev 21:18), or an abscess ( , from to flow, probably a flowing suppurating abscess).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(21) A sacrifice of peace offerings.(See Lev. 3:1.)
To accomplish a vow.In fulfilment of a vow made in time of impending danger (Gen. 28:20-22; Jon. 1:16, &c.).
Freewill offering.Generally brought in acknowledgment of mercies received.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
21. Peace offerings See chaps. 3 and Lev 7:11-21, notes.
Sheep Properly, small cattle, sheep and goats. See Lev 1:10.
It shall be perfect to be accepted God can demand nothing less without degrading his own majesty and fostering the selfishness of the worshipper. Hence this law is found among all nations that sacrifice victims to their gods. Herodotus records that the Egyptian priests carefully examined the animals brought for sacrifice. It was a law of Solon that none but select victims were to be sacrificed. These were distinguished by a mark. See Virgil’s Georgics, 3. 157, and 4:550, and AEneid, 4:57. The spiritual lesson is of great importance. See Mat 5:48; Rom 12:1, notes; Heb 10:22.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lev 22:21 And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the LORD to accomplish [his] vow, or a freewill offering in beeves or sheep, it shall be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no blemish therein.
Ver. 21. It shall be perfect to be accepted. ] Saints also are perfect in God’s acceptation, if harmless and blameless.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
peace: Lev 3:1, Lev 3:6, Lev 7:11-38
to accomplish: Gen 28:20, Gen 35:1-3, Num 15:3, Num 15:8, Deu 23:21-23, Psa 50:14, Pro 7:14, Ecc 5:4, Ecc 5:5
sheep: or, goats
it shall be perfect: This law is so founded on the nature of the thing itself, that it has been in force among all nations that sacrificed victims to their deities.
Reciprocal: Lev 1:3 – his own Lev 1:4 – be accepted Lev 19:5 – a sacrifice Num 19:2 – a red heifer Num 29:39 – beside your vows
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Lev 22:21. To accomplish a vow It was not unusual with them to make such a vow when they undertook a journey, went to sea, were sick, or in any danger. It shall be perfect That sacrifice was accounted perfect which wanted none of its parts, nor had any defect in any of them; so that perfect here is the same as without blemish, Lev 22:19. The design of this law was still to remind them that they ought to offer to God the most excellent of every thing in its kind, and to guard the worship of God from falling into contempt, as it might have done, had they been allowed to offer to their Maker what men despised, Mal 1:8. It served also to keep up a due distinction between things sacred and things common, for these same animals which were unfit to be offered to God might be used for common food.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
elete_me Lev 7:11-34
THE PEACE OFFERING
Lev 3:1-17; Lev 7:11-34; Lev 19:5-8; Lev 22:21-25
IN chapter 3 is given, though not with completeness, the law of the peace offering. The alternative rendering of this term, “thank offering” (marg. R.V), precisely expresses only one variety of the peace offering; and while it is probably impossible to find any one word that shall express in a satisfactory way the whole conception of this offering, it is not easy to find one better than the familiar term which the Revisers have happily retained. As will be made clear in the. sequel, it was the main object of this offering, as consisting of a sacrifice terminating in a festive sacrificial meal, to express the conception of friendship, peace, and fellowship with God as secured by the shedding of atoning blood.
Like the burnt offering and the meal offering, the peace offering had come down from the times before Moses. We read of it, though not explicitly named, in Gen 31:54, on the occasion of the covenant between Jacob and Laban, wherein they jointly took God as witness of their covenant of friendship; and, again, in Exo 18:12, where “Jethro took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses father-in-law before God.” Nor was this form of sacrifice, any more than the burnt offering, confined to the line of Abrahams seed. Indeed, scarcely any religious custom has from the most remote antiquity been more universally observed than this of a sacrifice essentially connected with a sacrificial meal. An instance of the heathen form of this sacrifice is even given in the Pentateuch, where we are {Exo 32:6} how the people, having made the golden calf, worshipped it with peace offerings, and “sat down to eat and to drink” at the sacrificial meal which was inseparable from the peace offering; while in 1Co 10:1-33, Paul refers to like sacrificial feasts as common among the idolaters of Corinth.
It hardly needs to be again remarked that there is nothing in such facts as these to trouble the faith of the Christian, any more than in the general prevalence of worship and of prayer among heathen nations. Rather, in all these cases alike, are we to see the expression on the part of man of a sense of need and want, especially, in this case, of friendship and fellowship with God; and, seeing that the conception of a sacrifice culminating in a feast was, in truth, most happily adapted to symbolise this idea, surely it were nothing strange that God should base the ordinances of His own worship upon such universal conceptions and customs, correcting in them only, as we shall see, what might directly or indirectly misrepresent truth. Where an alphabet, so to speak, is thus already found existing, whether in letters or in symbols, why should the Lord communicate a new and unfamiliar symbolism, which, because new and unfamiliar, would have been, for that reason, far less likely to be understood?
The plan of chapter 3 is very simple; and there is little in its phraseology requiring explanation. Prescriptions are given for the offering of peace offerings, first, from the herd (Lev 3:1-5); then, from the flock, whether of the sheep (Lev 3:6-11) or of the goats (Lev 3:12-16). After each of these three sections it is formally declared of each offering that it is “a sweet savour,” “an offering made by fire,” or “the food of the offering made by fire unto the Lord.” The chapter then closes with a prohibition, specially occasioned by the directions for this sacrifice, of all use by Israel of fat or blood as food.
The regulations relating to the selection of the victim for the offering differ from those for the burnt offering in allowing a greater liberty of choice. A female was permitted, as well as a male; though recorded instances of the observance of the peace offering indicate that the male was even here preferred when obtainable. The offering of a dove or a pigeon is not, however, mentioned as permissible, as in the case of the burnt offering. But this is no exception to the rule of greater liberty of choice, since these were excluded by the object of the offering as a sacrificial meal, for which, obviously, a small bird would be insufficient. Ordinarily, the victim must be without blemish; and yet, even in this matter, a larger liberty was allowed {Lev 22:23} in the case of those which were termed “freewill offerings,” where it was permitted to offer even a bullock or a lamb which might have “some part superfluous or lacking.” The latitude of choice thus allowed finds its sufficient explanation in the fact that while the idea of representation and expiation had a place in the peace offering as in all bloody offerings, yet this was subordinate to the chief intent of the sacrifice, which was to represent the victim as food given by God to Israel in the sacrificial meal. It is to be observed that only such defects are therefore allowed in the victim as could not possibly affect its value as food. And so even already, in these regulations as to the selection of the victim, we have a hint that we have now to do with a type, in which the dominant thought is not so much Christ, the Holy Victim, our representative, as Christ the Lamb of God, the food of the soul, through participation in which we have fellowship with God.
As before remarked, the ritual acts in the bloody sacrifices are, in all, six, each of which, in the peace offering, has its proper place. Of these, the first four, namely, the presentation, the laying on of the hand, the killing of the victim, and the sprinkling of the blood, are precisely the same as in the burnt offering, and have the same symbolic and typical significance. In both the burnt offering and the peace offering, the innocent victim typified the Lamb of God, presented by the sinner in the act of faith to God as an atonement for sin through substitutionary death: and the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar signifies in this, as in the other, the application of that blood Godward by the Divine Priest acting in our behalf, and thereby procuring for us remission of sin, redemption through the blood of the slain Lamb.
In the other two ceremonies, namely, the burning and the sacrificial meal, the peace offering stands in strong contrast with the burnt offering. In the burnt offering all was burned upon the altar; in the peace offering all the fat, and that only. The detailed directions which are given in the case of each class of victims are intended simply to direct the selection of those parts of the animal in which the fat is chiefly found. They are precisely the same for each, except in the case of the sheep. With regard to such a victim, the particular is added, according to King Jamess version, “the whole rump”; but the Revisers have with abundant reason corrected this translation, giving it correctly as “the fat tail entire.” The change is an instructive one, as it points to the idea which determined this selection of all the fat for the offering by fire. For the reference is to a special breed of sheep which is still found in Palestine, Arabia, and North Africa. With these, the tail grows to an immense size, sometimes weighing fifteen pounds or more, and consists almost entirely of a rich substance, in character between fat and marrow. By the Orientals in the regions where this variety of sheep is found it is still esteemed as the most valuable part of the animal for food. And thus, just as in the meal offering the Israelite was required to bring out of all his grain the best, and of his meal the finest, so in the peace offering he is required to bring the fat, and in the case of the sheep this fat tail, as the best and richest parts, to be burnt upon the altar to Jehovah. And the burning, as in the whole burnt sacrifice, was, so to speak, the visible Divine appropriation of that which was placed upon the altar, the best of the offering, as appointed to be “the food of God.” If the symbolism, at first thought, perplex any, we have but to remember how frequently in Scripture “fat” and “fatness” are used as the symbol of that which is richest and best; as, e.g., where the Psalmist says, “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house”; and Isaiah, “Come unto Me, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Thus when, in the peace offering, of which the larger part was intended for food, it is ordered that the fat should be given to God in the fire of the altar, the same lesson is taught as in the meal offering, namely, God is ever to be served first and with the best that we have. “All the fat is the Lords.”
In the burnt offering, the burning ended the ceremonial: in the nature of the case, since all was to be burnt, the object of the sacrifice was attained when the burning was completed. But in the case of the peace offering, to the burning of the fat upon the altar now followed the culminating act of the ritual, in the eating of the sacrifice. In this, however, we must distinguish from the eating by the offerer and his household, the eating by the priests; of which only the first-named properly belonged to the ceremonial of the sacrifice. The assignment of certain parts of the sacrifice to he eaten by the priests has the same meaning as in the meal offering. These portions were regarded in the law as given, not by the offerer, but by God, to His servants the priests; that they might eat them, not as a ceremonial act, but as their appointed sustenance from His table whom they served. To this we shall return in a subsequent chapter, and therefore need not dwell upon it here.
This eating of the sacrifice by the priests has thus not yet taken us beyond the conception of the meal offering, with a part of which they, in like manner, by Gods arrangement, were fed. Quite different, however, is the sacrificial eating by the offerer which follows. He had brought the appointed victim; it had been slain in his behalf; the blood had been sprinkled for atonement on the altar; the fat had been taken off and burned upon the altar; the thigh and breast had been given back by God to the officiating priest; and now, last of all, the offerer himself receives back from God, as it were, the remainder of the flesh of the victim, that he himself might eat it before Jehovah. The chapter before us gives no directions as to this sacrificial eating; these are given in Deu 12:6-7; Deu 12:17-18, to which passage, in order to the full understanding of that which is most distinctive in the peace offering, we must refer. In the two verses last named, we have a regulation which covers, not only the peace offerings, but with them all other sacrificial eatings, thus: “Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of the oil, or the firstlings of thy herd, or of thy flock, nor any of thy vows which thou vowest, nor thy free will offerings, nor the heave offering of thy hand: but thou shalt eat them before the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man servant, and thy maid servant, and the Levite that is within thy gates; and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God in all that thou puttest thy hand unto.”
In these directions are three particulars; the offerings were to be eaten, by the offerer, not at his own home, but before Jehovah at the central sanctuary; he was to include in this sacrificial feast all the members of his family, and any Levite that might be stopping with him; and he was to make the feast an occasion of holy joy before the Lord in the labour of his hands. What was now the special significance of all this? As this was the special characteristic of the peace offering, the answer to this question will point us to its true significance, both for Israel in the first place, and then for us as well, as a type of Him who was to come.
It is not hard to perceive the significance of a feast as a symbol. It is a natural and suitable expression of friendship and fellowship. He who gives the feast thereby shows to the guests his friendship toward them, in inviting them to partake of the food of his house. And if, in any case, there has been an interruption or breach of friendship, such an invitation to a feast, and association in it of the formerly alienated parties, is a declaration on the part of him who gives the feast, as also of those who accept his invitation, that the breach is healed, and that where there was enmity, is now peace.
So natural is this symbolism that, as above remarked, it has been a custom very widely spread among heathen peoples to observe sacrificial feasts, very like to this peace offering of the Hebrews, wherein a victim is first offered to some deity, and its flesh then eaten by the offerer and his friends. Of such sacrificial feasts we read in ancient Babylonia and Assyria, in Persia, and, in modern times, among the Arabs, Hindoos, and Chinese, and various native races of the American continent: always having the same symbolic intent and meaning-namely, an expression of desire after friendship and intercommunion with the deity thus worshipped. The existence of this custom in Old Testament days is recognised in Isa 65:11 (R.V), where God charges the idolatrous Israelites with preparing “a table for the god Fortune,” and filling up “mingled wine unto (the goddess) Destiny”-certain Babylonian deities; and in the New Testament, as already remarked, the Apostle Paul refers to the same custom among the idolatrous Greeks of Corinth.
And because this symbolic meaning of a feast is as suitable and natural as it is universal, we find that in the symbolism of Holy Scripture, eating and drinking, and especially the feast, has been appropriated by the Holy Spirit to express precisely the same ideas of reconciliation, friendship, and intercommunion between the giver of the feast and the guest, as in all the great heathen religions. We meet this thought, for instance, in Psa 23:5 : “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies”; Psa 36:8, where it is said of Gods people: “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house”; and again, in the grand prophecy in Isa 25:1-12, of the final redemption of all the long-estranged nations, we read that when God shall destroy in Mount Zion “the veil that is spread over all nations, and swallow up death forever,” then “the Lord of hosts shall make unto all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” And in the New Testament, the symbolism is taken up again, and used repeatedly by our Lord, as, for example, in the parables of the Great Supper {Luk 14:15-24} and the Prodigal Son, {Luk 15:23} the Marriage of the Kings Son, {Mat 22:1-14} concerning the blessings of redemption; and also in that ordinance of the Holy Supper which He has appointed to be a continual reminder of our relation to Himself, and means for the communication of His grace, through our symbolic eating therein of the flesh of the slain Lamb of God.
Thus, nothing in the Levitical symbolism is better certified to us than the meaning of the feast of the peace offering. Employing a symbol already familiar to the world for centuries, God ordained this eating of the peace offering in Israel, to be the symbolic expression of peace and fellowship with Himself. In Israel it was to be eaten “before the Lord,” and, as well it might be, “with rejoicing.”
But, just at this point, the question has been raised: How are we to conceive of the sacrificial feast of the peace offering? Was it a feast offered and presented by the Israelite to God, or a feast given by God to the Israelite? In other words, in this feast, who was represented as host, and who as guest? Among other nations than the Hebrews, it was the thought in such cases that the feast was given by the worshipper to his god. This is well illustrated by an Assyrian inscription of Esarhaddon, who, in describing his palace at Nineveh, says: “I filled with beauties the great palace of my empire, and I called it the Palace which rivals the World. Ashur, Ishtar of Nineveh, and the gods of Assyria, all of them, I feasted within it. Victims, precious and beautiful, I sacrificed before them, and I caused them to receive my gifts.”
But here we come upon one of the most striking and instructive contrasts between the heathen conception of the sacrificial feast and the same symbolism as used in Leviticus and other Scripture. In the heathen sacrificial feasts, it is man who feasts God; in the peace offering of Leviticus, it is God who feasts man. Some have indeed denied that this is the conception of the peace offering, but most strangely. It is true that the offerer, in the first instance, had brought the victim; but it seems to be forgotten by such, that prior to the feasting he had already given the victim to God, to be offered in expiation for sin. From that time the victim was no longer, any part of it, his own property, but Gods. God having received the offering, now directs what use shall be made of it; a part shall be burned upon the altar; another part He gives to the priests, His servants; with the remaining part He now feasts the worshipper.
And as if to make this clearer yet, while Esar-haddon, for example, gives his feast to the gods, not in their temples, but in his own palace, as himself the host and giver of the feast, the Israelite, on the contrary, -that he might not, like the heathen, complacently imagine himself to be feasting God, -is directed to eat the peace offering, not at his own house, but at Gods house. In this way God was set forth as the host, the One who gave the feast, to whose house the Israelite was invited, at whose table he was to eat.
Profoundly suggestive and instructive is this contrast between the heathen custom in this offering, and the Levitical ordinance. For do we not strike here one of the deepest points of contrast between all of mans religion and the Gospel of God? Mans idea always is, until taught better by God, “I will be religious and make God my friend, by doing something, giving something for God.” God, on the contrary, teaches us in this symbolism, as in all Scripture, the exact reverse; that we become truly religious by taking, first of all, with thankfulness and joy, what He has provided for us. A breach of friendship between man and God is often implied in the heathen rituals, as in the ritual of Leviticus; as also, in both, a desire for its removal, and renewed fellowship with God. But in the former, man ever seeks to attain to this intercommunion of friendship by something that he himself will do for God. He will feast God, and thus God shall be well pleased. But Gods way is the opposite! The sacrificial feast at which man shall have fellowship with God is provided not by man for God, but by God for man, and is to be eaten, not in our house, but spiritually partaken in the presence of the invisible God.
We can now perceive the teaching of the peace offering for Israel. In Israel, as among all the nations, was the inborn craving after fellowship and friendship with God. The ritual of the peace offering taught him how it was to be obtained, and how communion might be realised. The first thing was for him to bring and present a divinely-appointed victim; and then, the laying of the hand upon his head with confession of sin; then, the slaying of the victim, the sprinkling of its blood, and the offering of its choicest parts to God in the altar fire. Till all this was done, till in symbol expiation had been thus made for the Israelites sin, there could be no feast which should speak of friendship and fellowship with God. But this being first done, God now, in token of His free forgiveness and restoration to favour, invites the Israelite to a joyful feast in His own house.
What a beautiful symbol! Who can fail to appreciate its meaning when once pointed out? Let us imagine that through some fault of ours a dear friend has become estranged; we used to eat and drink at his house, but there has been none of that now for a long time. We are troubled, and perhaps seek out one who is our friends friend and also our friend, to whose kindly interest we entrust our case, to reconcile to us the one we have offended. He has gone to mediate; we anxiously await his return; but or ever he has come back again, comes an invitation from him who was estranged, just in the old loving way, asking that we will eat with him at his house. Any one of us would understand this; we should be sure at once that the mediator had healed the breach, that we were forgiven, and were welcome as of old to all that our friends friendship had to give.
But God is the good Friend whom we have estranged; and the Lord Jesus, His beloved Son, and our own Friend as well, is the Mediator; and He has healed the breach; having made expiation for our sin in offering His own body as a sacrifice, He has ascended into heaven, there to appear in the presence of God for us; He has not yet returned. But meantime the message comes down from Him to all who are hungering after peace with God: “The feast is made; and ye all are invited; come! all things are now ready!” And this is the message of the Gospel. It is the peace offering translated into words. Can we hesitate to accept the invitation? Or, if we have sent in our acceptance, do we need to be told, as in Deuteronomy, that we are to eat “with rejoicing.”
And now we may well observe another circumstance of profound typical significance. When the Israelite came to Gods house to eat before Jehovah, he was fed there with the flesh of the slain victim. The flesh of that very victim whose blood had been given for him on the altar, now becomes his food to sustain the life thus redeemed. Whether the Israelite saw into the full meaning of this, we may easily doubt; but it leads us on now to consider, in the clearer light of the New Testament, the deepest significance of the peace offering and its ritual, as typical of our Lord and our relation to Him.
That the victim of the peace offering, as of all the bloody offerings, was intended to typify Christ, and that the death of that victim, in the peace offering, as in all the bloody offerings, foreshadowed the death of Christ for our sins, -this needs no further proof. And so, again, as the burning of the whole burnt offering represented Christ as accepted for us in virtue of His perfect consecration to the Father, so the peace offering, in that the fat is burned, represents Christ as accepted for us, in that He gave to God in our behalf the very best He had to offer. For in that incomparable sacrifice we are to think not only of the completeness of Christs consecration for us, but also of the supreme excellence of that which He offered unto God for us. All that was best in Him, reason, affection, and will, as well as the members of His holy body, -nay, the Godhead as well as the Manhood, in the holy mystery of the Trinity and the Incarnation, He offered for us unto the Father.
This, however, has taken us as yet but little beyond the meaning of the burnt offering. The closing act of the ritual, the sacrificial eating, however, reaches in its typical significance far beyond this or any of the bloody offerings.
First, in that he who had laid his hand upon the victim, and for whom the blood had been sprinkled, is now invited by God to feast in His house, upon food given by himself, the food of the sacrifice, which is called in the ritual “the bread of God.” the eating of the peace offering symbolically teaches us that if we have indeed presented the Lamb of God as our peace, not only has the Priest sprinkled for us the blood, so that our sin is pardoned, but, in token of friendship now restored, God invites the penitent believer to sit down at His own table, -in a word, to joyful fellowship with Himself! Which means, if our weak faith but take it in, that the Almighty and Most Holy God now invites us to fellowship in all the riches of His Godhead; places all that He has at the service of the believing sinner, redeemed by the blood of the slain Lamb. The prodigal has returned; the Father will now feast him with the best that He has. Fellowship with God through reconciliation by the blood of the slain Lamb, -this then is the first thing shadowed forth in this part of the ritual of the peace offering. It is a sufficiently wonderful thought, but there is truth yet more wonderful veiled under this symbolism.
For when we ask, what then was the bread or food of God of which He invited him to partake who brought the peace offering, and learn that it was the flesh of the slain victim; here we meet a thought which goes far beyond atonement by the shedding of blood. The same victim whose blood was shed and sprinkled in atonement for sin is now given by God to be the redeemed Israelites food, by which his life shall be sustained! Surely we cannot mistake the meaning of this. For the victim of the altar and the food of the table are one and the same. Even so He who offered Himself for our sins on Calvary, is now given by God to be the food of the believer; who now thus lives by “eating the flesh” of the slain Lamb of God. Does this imagery, at first thought, seem strange and unnatural? So did it also seem strange to the Jews, when in reply to our Lords teaching they wonderingly asked, {Joh 6:52} “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” And yet so Christ and when He had first declared Himself to the Jews as the Antitype of the manna, the true Bread sent down from heaven, He then went on to say, in words which far transcended the meaning of that type, {Joh 6:51} “The bread which I wilt give is My flesh, for the life of the world.” How the light begins now to flash back from the Gospel to the Levitical law, and from this, again, back to the Gospel! In the one we read, “Ye shall eat the flesh of your peace offerings before the Lord with joy”; in the other, the word of the Lord Jesus concerning Himself: {Joh 6:33; Joh 6:55; Joh 6:57} “The bread of God is that which cometh down out of heaven, and giveth life unto the world My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he that eateth Me, he also shall live because of Me.” And now the Shekinah light of the ancient tent of meeting begins to illumine even the sacramental table, and as we listen to the words of Jesus, “Take, eat! this is My body which was broken for you,” we are reminded of the feast of the peace offerings. The Israel of God is to be fed with the flesh of the sacrificed Lamb which became their peace.
Let us hold fast then to this deepest thought of the peace offering, a truth too little understood even by many true believers. The very Christ who died for our sins, if we have by faith accepted His atonement and have been for His sake forgiven, is now given us by God for the sustenance of our purchased life. Let us make use of Him, daily feeding upon Him, that so we may live and grow unto the life eternal!
But there is yet one thought more concerning this matter, which the peace offering, as far as was possible, shadowed forth. Although Christ becomes the bread of God for us only through His offering of Himself first for our sins, as our atonement, yet this is something quite distinct from atonement. Christ became our sacrifice once for all; the atonement is wholly a fact of the past. But Christ is now still, and will ever continue to be unto all His people, the bread or food of God, by eating whom they live. He was the propitiation, as the slain victim; but, in virtue of that, He is now become the flesh of the peace offering. Hence He must be this, not as dead, but as living, in the present resurrection life of His glorified humanity. Here evidently is a fact which could not be directly symbolised in the peace offering without a miracle ever repeated. For Israel ate of the victim, not as living, but as dead. It could not be otherwise. And yet there is a regulation of the ritual {Lev 7:15-18; Lev 19:6; Lev 19:7} which suggests this phase of truth as clearly as possible without a miracle. It was ordered that none of the flesh of the peace offering should be allowed to remain beyond the third day; if any then was left uneaten, it was to be burned with fire. The reason for this lies upon the surface. It was doubtless that there might be no possible beginning of decay; and thus it was secured that the flesh of the victim with which God fed the accepted Israelite should be the flesh of a victim that was not to see corruption. But does not this at once remind us how it was written of the Antitype, “Thou wilt not suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption”? while, moreover, the extreme limit of time allowed further reminds us how it was precisely on the third day that Christ rose from the dead in the incorruptible life of the resurrection, that so He might through all time continue to be the living bread of His people.
And thus this special regulation points us not indistinctly toward the New Testament truth that Christ is now unto us the bread of God, not merely as the One who died, but as the One who, living again, was not allowed to see corruption. For so the Apostle argues, {Rom 5:11} that “being justified by faith,” and so having “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” our peace offering, having been thus “reconciled by His death, we shall now be saved by His life.” And thus, as we appropriate Christ crucified as our atonement, so by a like faith we are to appropriate Christ risen as our life, to be for us as the flesh of the peace offering, our nourishment and strength by which we live.