Tuesday, February 16th - Guest Post by Miriam

Today's readings from the One Year Chronological Reading Plan are Numbers 8:1-9:14 and Leviticus 1-3.

The chapters from Numbers cover setting up the lamps in the tabernacle, making sure once again to point out that God's instructions were followed to the letter.  Following that is a section on consecrating the Levites to be God's priests, and then the first anniversary of the Passover.  It has now been a year since the Lord led his people out of Egypt.

The first three chapters of Leviticus are detailed instructions on how offerings are to be handled.  I'm not very familiar with Israelite customs in general or offerings in particular, so I'll be relying on information from articles on bible.org for the key points about each type of offering.  There is a separate article for each chapter, surprisingly, so I'll just be touching on mainly the purpose of the offering.  I'll try to keep it short.

BURNT OFFERINGS
According to this article on burnt offerings, the offerings they're talking about in this chapter are personal offerings by an individual on behalf of himself or his family rather than corporate offerings, or offerings that encompass the whole people.  Burnt offerings were the most common, and performed for a wide variety of reasons, often in combination with another offering depending on the "offense".  For example, if a woman had borne a child, she was considered unclean.  A burnt offering AND a sin offering had to be performed on her behalf. 

The reason for describing the burnt offering first is that it was the commonest of all the sacrifices, performed every morning and evening, and more frequently on holy days. … This makes it plausible to suppose that the sacrifices in chs. 1-5 are arranged according to their various theological concepts, so that it is easier to remember their distinctive features. It may be that they were grouped in this way to help the priests learn their tasks.

In the case of a burnt offering, the entire offering was burnt away and none was saved or eaten either by the offerer or the priests.  There were other offerings that the priests or sometimes the offerer partook of, but not the burnt offerings.  More from the above-referenced article:

When we come to the point of trying to discern the meaning of the burnt offering (or any other offering, for that matter) to the Israelites of Moses’ day, we tend to forget a very important fact: they understood this sacrifice in the light of what they already knew about it, not in terms of its future fulfillment.  (Referring to redemption of sin by the blood of Christ.) 

Thus, the key to understanding the meaning of the burnt offering for the ancient Israelite was what had already been revealed about it before the regulations of Leviticus. Leviticus 1 informed the Israelite how the burnt offering was to be offered, not what it meant. I believe that the two major interpretive keys to the meaning of the burnt offering are to be found in the “burnt offerings” of Noah in Genesis 8 and of Abraham in Genesis 22.

The sacrifice which Noah offered was the basis for the covenantal promise of God that He would never again destroy every living thing by a flood (Gen. 8:21). This promise was not due to the fact that all sin had been destroyed from the face of the earth.

The basis for God’s promise to Noah is not the goodness of man, for man’s depravity is specifically stated. This basis for God’s covenant promise is the result of the burnt offering offered up by Noah. Thus, the Israelites saw that the burnt offering was a means of avoiding God’s wrath and of obtaining God’s favor. God’s blessing was the result of a burnt offering, not of man’s good deeds.

In what way did this account of the offering up of Isaac as a burnt offering instruct the Israelites about the meaning of the burnt offering? I believe that it taught them several important lessons. First, they could have seen that the promise of God’s blessing to all the earth, the promise of the Abrahamic Covenant (Gen. 12:1-3), involved the death and resurrection of Abraham’s offspring. Secondly, the Israelites saw that in the “burnt offering” the sacrificial animal died in place of the man. Isaac didn’t die because God provided an animal to take his place. So when the Israelite place his hand on the head of the sacrificial animal, he should have known that this animal was dying in his place, just as the ram died in the place of Isaac. He should also have seen that something must take place in the future, so that the death of Isaac, which was prevented by the sacrifice of the ram, could be carried out in some greater way.

GRAIN OFFERINGS
Here is the link to the second article The Grain Offering, located on bible.org.  The grain offering was different from the burnt offering in several key ways, the most obvious of which is that the grain offering consisted of grain (imagine that!), likely barley or wheat, and the burnt offering consisted of meat.  A point the author makes is that the Israelites were wandering about in the desert and not planting or harvesting crops, so the grain offerings were likely taken from the seed they had with them to plant when they reached their destination.  The grain offering was a demonstration of their trust in God to provide for their needs.  I have to remind myself of this almost every time I'm writing that cheque for the offering at church... "I know there are other things I could and would like to do with this money, but I must trust God to provide for my needs," is basically what I tell myself.

The second difference is that the grain offering contained no blood, so it was not an offering to make atonement for sin.  Only blood sacrifice will blot out sin.  As touched on in the previous section, some offerings were partaken of by the priests.  Grain offerings fell into this category, where burnt offerings did not.  Also, the grain offering was in part offering the fruits of labour, which a burnt offering was not.

The Burnt Offering allowed men to participate in the ceremony of the sacrifice, but not to add anything to the sacrifice. This can easily be understood in the light of the purpose of atonement and attaining divine favor. For sinful man to attempt to contribute to an atoning sacrifice would only defile that sacrifice. The Israelite could add nothing to that sacrifice which atoned for his sins, just as we can contribute nothing to the work of Christ, which atones for our sins.

The purpose of the Grain Offering is not atonement, but worship, acknowledgment of God’s divine provision of the needs of the Israelite for life itself. The Grain Offering praised God for His abundant supply of the “daily bread” of the Israelite. But while men do not contribute to their redemption, they do participate in the growing of the crops by which God sustains their life. Thus, the human element is present in the Grain Offering in a way that it is not in the Burnt Offering.

FELLOWSHIP or PEACE OFFERINGS

The peace offering was an offering of meat, but different from a burnt offering in that the animal could be male or female, and was shared by the priests and the offerer.  There was also a meal associated with this offering, which is not the case with either the burnt or grain offerings.  Excerpts from The Fellowship Offering at bible.org:

“Any man from the house of Israel who slaughters an ox, or a lamb, or a goat in the camp, or who slaughters it outside the camp, and has not brought it to the doorway of the tent of the meeting to present it as an offering to the LORD before the tabernacle of the LORD, bloodguiltiness is to be reckoned to that man. He has shed blood and that man shall be cut off from among his people” (Lev. 17:3-4).

These are strong words indeed! Any animal that was slaughtered had to be offered to God as a sacrifice. Any blood that was shed, was shed as a part of a sacrifice. Thus, any meat that was eaten (at least from the cattle of the Israelites) had to be that which was first offered to God as a part of a sacrifice at the tent of meeting. And since the Peace Offering was the only sacrifice of which the Israelite could eat, every time the Israelite wanted to eat meat for dinner, he had to offer a Peace Offering.

Every offering has very exacting rules as to what is offered, how it is offered, and by whom it is offered. For example, the Peace Offering could be eaten on the day it was sacrificed, or on the day after, but not on the third day. To eat this sacrificial meat on the third day would have serious consequences (Lev. 19:5-8). A burnt offering had to be a male, while the Peace Offering could have been a male or a female, but not a bird. An ox or a lamb with an overgrown or stunted member could be offered for a freewill Peace Offering, but not for a votive Peace Offering (Lev. 22:23). Because of the consequences for failing to observe the “laws” of the offerings, one must be very certain what offering he was making, and then do it in accordance with all the laws God had laid down.

You could offer a Peace Offering as an act of thanksgiving (Lev. 7:12; 22:29-30), or to fulfill a special vow (Lev. 7:16; 22:21), or as a freewill offering (Lev. 7:16; 22:18, 21, 23). These were all optional offerings, which an Israelite could offer at any time, except for the feast of Pentecost (Lev. 23:19) and the fulfillment of the Nazarite’s days of separation (Num. 6:13-20), when the offering was mandatory.

If you would, the law prescribed the plan, the way in which every offering was to be made. Before men could follow the plan, they had to determine the purpose, that is they had to decide which offering they were about to make, and why. Thus there was a built-in safeguard against mindless ritual, in which one went through the motions of making an offering without really thinking about what he was doing or why. The Israelite’s worship was to involve his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. The precise regulations encouraged the Israelite worshipper to engage his mind in his worship.  (emphasis mine)

I find it incredibly discouraging in some ways to read the books of the law.  There were so many rules ... it seems impossible that one could remember them all, much less follow them.  And the consequences for breaking those rules involved death quite a bit more than I'm personally comfortable with.  But the benefit, as mentioned above, is that obeying God was uppermost in their minds a lot more so that it is with many of us today.  Their daily lives revolved around following God's law. 

All to often we reserve our thoughts of God for when we're doing our devotions, or worse, for a weekly church service.  It's so easy to let everything else we have to do get in the way of remembering to seek his face.  I wish obeying God and following his will for my life was uppermost in my mind a lot more than it usually is.  That is one of the reasons I've been so happy to participate in this blog.  It's held me accountable more so than anything has in the past.  I've seen differences in my attitudes and patience level since spending time reading God's word on a daily basis, for which I'm thankful.  I pray that you are learning and understanding as much from this journey as I have been.

Tomorrow's reading from the One Year Chronological reading plan is Leviticus 4:1-6:30.