The main categories of offerings display Christ’s saving work on the sinner’s behalf. The first three offerings are characterized as a sweet-smelling savor to the Almighty. They emphasize the Father’s special appreciation of the Son, apart from a direct contemplation of His work as the sin-bearing substitute. The burnt offering was the basis of the other offerings: everything must first be offered acceptably to God. Believers are accepted in the Beloved One (Eph. 1:6). He offered Himself without spot to God and therein lies the foundation of our salvation. The meal offering was bloodless and pictured the impeccable purity of Jesus’ humanity. It typifies His life as an obedient, suffering man throughout His earthly sojourn. The sin and trespass offerings demonstrate the Lord’s putting away of sin – both the root and the fruit – by His vicarious suffering and death on the Cross. The peace offering depicts God’s tremendous work of reconciliation through His Son’s redemptive work. Christ’s death and resurrection unites God and mankind and enables Jews and Gentiles to experience eternal peace, prosperity, and fellowship.
Biblically speaking, peace goes beyond the mere absence of strife or the cessation of combat. Real “Shalom”1 is an expression of well-being, flowing from fellowship with God our creator and redeemer. Among the Levitical offerings, the peace offering2 uniquely provided a portion for the offerer, the priest, and the Almighty, so that they feasted together at table.3 The peace offering was to be from the herd or the flock; turtledoves were possible in other offerings but not this one. Because a bird would provide little sustenance to share among others, it was likely excluded from this type of sacrifice.
The Blood Speaks of Pardon Now for Me
The peace offering depicted the new status of believers: they are justified by faith and are forgiven and reconciled to God; in a phrase: they “have peace with God” (Rom. 5:1). This has been accomplished by “the blood of His cross” – a way of describing the sacrificial death of Christ which settled the sin question, simultaneously vindicating divine justice and opening the way for divine mercy (Col. 1:19-20).⁴ Blood was uniquely reserved as an offering for the Lord, for He alone is the life-giver and sustainer of humanity and He has set it apart as a symbol of atonement (Lev. 17:11). Additionally, Gentiles who were far from God, strangers to His promises and covenants, and estranged from Jews, are reconciled to the Almighty. Further, they are united in the Body of Christ with their former enemies (Eph. 2:14-18). The seemingly intractable division between these groups is healed through the Lord’s peace offering work. Antisemitism, general racism, and ethnic chauvinism have no place in the Church. God has made peace and brought unity within His new creation.
Sweet Feast of Love Divine
Each participant in the peace offering received something. God symbolically received the sprinkled blood, and the kidneys and fat that were burned on the altar (Lev. 3:3-4). This was described as “a sweet aroma to the Lord” (v. 5) and was also called “the food” (vv. 11, 16). These two expressions show the Father’s pleasure in His Son’s work. To ancient Israelites, the word “kidneys” – rendered “reins” in older translations – were the seat of the human emotions and will.⁵ This highlights Christ’s obedience to His Father (John 5:17-30; 17:4). In the Near East, the fat was viewed as the animal’s richness.6 Along with the blood, the fat was reserved for God (Lev. 7:22-27). The Lord Jesus’ interior life was filled with a richness that only His Father could appreciate: “Lord, Thy heart alone can measure / What Thy Father found in Thee.”7
The “sons of Aaron” were given the sacrificed breast, after it was first presented to the Lord as a “wave offering.” The priest who sprinkled the blood received the right thigh, after it was offered as a “heave offering” (Lev. 7:30-31).8 He also received some of the offered cakes (Lev. 7:12-14). The breast would seem to point to our Lord’s compassionate affection (Isa. 40:11); by contrast, the thigh speaks of His incomparably holy walk (1 John 1:7). As in the meal (grain) offering, the cakes, with their fine flour and oil, point to our Lord’s sinless humanity and His complete cooperation with the Holy Spirit (John 3:34; Acts 10:38). In the peace offering, however, leavened cakes were presented with unleavened cakes. The former speaks of our sinful humanity; the latter shows His impeccable humanity linked with our still fallen condition. Yet in Christ, we are seen as unleavened, being sanctified in Christ (1 Cor. 6:11).
Feasting on the Riches of His Grace
The offerer received the balance of the edible portions of the offering. He would bring the offering for thanksgiving, for a voluntary occasion, or in conformity to a vow (Lev. 7:15-16). Sin often manifests itself in ingratitude (Rom. 1:21). Correspondingly, salvation brings thankfulness.⁹ As for the voluntary offering, believers willingly present their worship and praise to the Almighty in response to His reconciling work (Heb. 13:15-16). Furthermore, redeemed people consecrate themselves to God as “living sacrifices” (Rom. 12:1-2).
The peace offering demonstrates God’s unwavering commitment to forgive, reconcile, and have fellowship with mankind. Through Christ’s sacrifice believers enjoy peace with their Creator and with their fellow creatures. As Josiah Conder’s hymn, “The Everlasting Word” says:
“Throughout the universe of bliss,
The center Thou, and Sun;
The eternal theme of praise is this,
To heaven’s beloved One.”
In Christ’s peace offering work, believers are forgiven, justified, and reconciled to God. Now they are free to thank, praise, and worship Him by giving back from what they first received from Him. But our fellowship also extends to our fellow humans, linking Jew and Gentile in Christ as one Body before God.
Endnotes:
1Meaning “peace” in Hebrew.
2In Leviticus 3, it is alternately rendered “sacrifice of well-being” NRSV; “fellowship offering” HCSB, NIV’11, LEB, NCV, GW; “sacrifice of prosperity” J. N. Darby’s French version.
3“This was the offering that anybody would have offered when he paid his vows to God. So the psalmist was going to bring his peace offering to fulfil his vow before God, and it was a happy occasion. It brought a sense of forgiveness from God, of well-being in the heart through peace with God. But not only peace. Here we meet another meaning of the word, peace and plenty. Shalom has that connotation too. As the man was given back a huge part of this offering and was able to eat it, he had a tremendous sense not only of peace but of plenty. He had joy in his heart that overflowed to his wife and family and friends, as they ate this sacrificial meal and enjoyed the peace and harmony and plenty: the integration and the wholeness that this sacrifice had produced. As we read the details of it, two things must stand out in our minds: 1. It was a fellowship offering, providing fellowship with God, fellowship with his priest, fellowship with family and neighbor. 2. It was in part an atoning sacrifice, for you will see the directions regarding the blood.” David Gooding, Prepared For Glory: A Myrtlefield House Transcript. (Myrtlefield Trust, 2019), p. 30.
⁴The priests would sprinkle the blood from the offering around the altar (Lev. 3:2, 8, 13, 17; 7:14).
⁵Commenting on Psalm 16:7: “‘Heart and reins’ denote the whole innermost self, thought and will (Ps.7:9)”. A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Book of Psalms. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1906), p. 76. (Italics original).
⁶The metaphor of richness is even used metaphorically: e.g., “finest wheat” is more literally, “fat of the wheat” (Ps. 147:14, NKJV margin).
⁷Miss C. A. Wellesley, “Gathered in Thy name, Lord Jesus”.
⁸“Wave” and “heave” are terms associated with the priest’s motions while symbolically elevating or moving the sacrificed portions before the Lord.
⁹“A Christian, waving the offering of his gratitude before God, ought to be the happiest being on all the earth”. S. H. Kellogg, in Joseph Exell, The Biblical Illustrator, Vol. 1. (Anson D. F. Randolph, n.d.), p. 114.