Leviticus 7

Leviticus 7:1-38

Leviticus 6:8-30; Leviticus 7:1-382. The Laws of the Offerings (Leviticus 6:8-30; Leviticus 7:1-38) “ The laws of the offerings” are found as follows: The law of the Burnt Offering (Leviticus 6:8-13); of the Meal Offering (Leviticus 6:14-23); of the Sin Offering (Leviticus 6:25-30); of the Trespass Offering (Leviticus 7:1-7); of the Peace Offering (Leviticus 7:11-34). The laws of the offerings concern themselves, first, with the sacrifices known as the bloody offerings, namely, the Burnt, Peace, Sin, and Trespass Offering. Our attention is drawn to two main thoughts regarding these offerings: first, the kind; second, the process of the offering. (a) The Law of the Bloody Sacrifices They may be of the cattle, the flocks, or from among the fowls. All those animals which live by the death of others, the carnivora, are excluded from these sacrifices, for they could not in any sense represent and typify our Lord Jesus Christ. The animals offered must be clean and without blemish. The reason for this also is because they represent Christ (Hebrews 9:14). Further, we should not offer to God what we cannot use ourselves. It is a fault as serious as this that God finds with the people of Malachi’ s time (Malachi 1:6-13). Even in the unbloody offering when wheat was presented, it must be the best of the product-of fine flour. Only those animals among the clean animals which were domesticated could be offered, thereby indicating that we should offer to God that which has cost us care and love. So is it in the Meal Offering-not that which grows spontaneously, but that which is of cultivated growth and requires labor is allowed to be offered. Attention is drawn to the fact that there are different grades of offerings. No one is so poor as not to be able to bring an offering. No poverty can debar anybody from availing himself of God’ s offer of redemption. (b) The Process of the Offerings (cf. Leviticus 1:1-17) This process consists of five steps: First. The presentation of the offering. The offerer must bring his own offering and present it himself (Leviticus 1:2-3). There were other parts of the ceremony which could be performed by proxy, which the priests could perform in place of the offerer, but the victim must be brought by the one offering it. The presentation must be in faith. It is to be “ accepted for him” or in his place. Further, it must be presented at the door of the Tabernacle (cf. Leviticus 17:3-5; Leviticus 17:9), that is to say, it must be presented publicly. Death was the penalty for presenting the offering elsewhere. The lesson we learn from the presentation of the offering is that every man must accept Christ personally for himself. He must, by faith, look upon Christ as the One provided as his substitutionary offering. He must not only receive Christ personally, but must also make public confession of that acceptance. Second. The laying of the hands of the offerer upon the head of the sacrifice (Leviticus 1:4). No proxy was allowed in this act. It must be the offerer’ s own hands that are laid upon the offering, thus signifying his identification with the victim, and the transference of his sin and guilt to the innocent victim (cf. Leviticus 16:21; Psalms 88:7). Such an actual identification was necessary in order to make atonement, that is, to cover the sinful offerer from the gaze of God who is of too pure eyes to behold evil. The eye of God then rests upon the victim and not upon the offender. So in Isaiah 53:6 -“ All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” -we are taught that Christ is the One on whom our sins were laid (cf. Psalms 88:7; 2 Corinthians 5:21). My faith would lay her hand on that dear head of thine; While like a penitent I stand, and there confess my sin. I lay my sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God; He bears them all and frees me from the accursed load. Third. The killing of the offering. The offerer must kill it himself (Leviticus 1:5-6). On the victim with which he has identified himself must the stroke fall. Shall we ever see Christ as our own personal Savior until we have realized that it was our personal sin that nailed Him to the cross? Not so much the sins of the world, nor the sins of others, but my sin nailed Him to the cross. We are crucified with Him. Fourth. The sprinkling of the blood (Leviticus 1:5). This was the work of the priest. The work of the offerer was done when the sacrifice was killed. It was necessary, however, that the blood of atonement be sprinkled on the altar, and thus the blood, which represented the life, be brought into the presence of God. This the priest alone could do, for the way into the holiest was not yet made plain for all men. So is it with us. Having become by faith identified with Jesus Christ as our sin-bearer, we must then leave it to our great High Priest to intercede for us in the holy place into which He has entered with His own blood. Fifth, and finally. The burning of the offering (Leviticus 1:6-9; Leviticus 7:13; Leviticus 7:17). The burning indicated the complete consecration of the victim and the life to God, such a consecration as is always absolutely necessary to true worship. The burning was, in a sense, God’ s acceptance of the offering. In the Burnt Offering the entire sacrifice was burned; there was nothing left for offerer or priest; everything was for God. The burning indicated also that the offering had passed even beyond the recall of the offerer.

So God accepted Christ’ s work for us, the proof of which lay in the resurrection from the grave, the exaltation to His own right hand, together with the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is given to us as a seal of the acceptance of Christ’ s work with God (Acts 2:32-34; Romans 8:14-16; Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 1:13-14).