The Origin and Meaning of the Peace Offering
Sacrifices were not new to the Israelite, nor to the pagan, for that matter. The laws of Leviticus which pertain to the offerings do not initiate sacrifice, they merely seek to regulate it. The reason for these regulations, as for most all laws, is that men are abusing certain privileges. Before we seek to discern the meaning of the Peace Offering, let us take a moment to trace the history of sacrifice from the biblical data we are given.
Sacrifice was first offered by Adam and Eve and by their sons. Animals had to be slaughtered for the skins which covered the nakedness of Adam and his wife (Gen. 3:21).51 Then, in Genesis chapter 4, Cain and Abel made offerings to God (Gen. 4:1-5). Abel offered a blood (animal) sacrifice. It is especially interesting to note the wording here: “And Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions” (Gen. 4:4a, emphasis mine).
In the first recorded animal sacrifice by men, we are told that the “fat portions” are offered. And thus we read in Leviticus, “… all fat is the LORD’s” (Lev. 3:16b). Then, after the flood, Noah offered animal sacrifices to God as burnt offerings (Gen. 8:20), and as a result, God made a covenant never to destroy mankind in this way again (Gen. 8:21-22). God then pronounced a blessing on Noah and his sons, and gave the animals to them for food, seemingly for the first time (Gen. 9:1-3). There was the stipulation, however, that the blood of the animals could not be eaten (Gen. 9:4-5), which, if it is not the precedent for this command in Leviticus, is surely somehow related: “‘It is a perpetual statue throughout your generations in all your dwellings; you shall not eat any fat or any blood’” (Lev. 3:17). The prohibition against shedding man’s blood is then stated, along with the institution of capital punishment, as the penalty for murder (Gen. 9:5-7).
It is my speculation that from this time on, no animal was sacrificed apart from some kind of sacrificial ceremony, at which time the blood was poured out, and perhaps the fat was offered up in fire to the Lord. I believe that this practice persisted, in a perverted form, by the pagans who descended from Noah and his sons. I say this on the basis of two biblical texts:
So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play (Exod. 32:6).
“The reason is so that the sons of Israel may bring their sacrifices which they were sacrificing in the open field, that they may bring them in to the LORD, at the doorway of the tent of meeting to the priest, and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the LORD. And the priest shall sprinkle the blood on the altar of the LORD at the doorway of the tent of meeting, and offer up the fat in smoke as a soothing aroma to the LORD. And they shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the harlot. This shall be a permanent statute to them throughout their generations” (Lev. 17:5-7).
Before Moses had descended from Mt. Sinai with God’s instructions, which included the sacrifices, the Israelites were offering “peace offerings” as a part of their heathen worship. They did not learn to make peace offerings from Moses, and so they must have known similar offerings from their past. The text in Leviticus 17 is even more explicit. The reason why God ordered the Israelites to slaughter every animal as a sacrifice before the tent of meeting (Lev. 17:1-4) was because they were slaughtering their animals outside the camp in the open field, not in a neutral way, but as a part of a heathen ritual which involved the worship of “goat demons” (17:7). Thus, the regulations of Leviticus pertaining to the offerings were to deal with the corrupted form of offering, which I believe stems from the sacrifices of Able, and later of Noah.
The killing of animals by the shedding of their blood thus was originated by God, and was normally associated with atonement (covering sin) and with God’s blessing, as expressed in His covenants. The Book of Genesis thus laid a vital foundation for the origins of worship and of sacrifice, intended to correct the distortions and perversions of it over time by sinful men. Much of Israel’s understanding of the Peace Offering (and the rest) was therefore based on the divine revelation of Genesis.
I love that the Lord does not condemn us for all of the ways we fall short, but he does give us direction on how to live for him, and if they should so choose to make sacrifices, that they would make them unto the Lord so that he may be blessed. If sacrificing was not already in practice I wonder if it was truly something the Lord would require of us? However, it does provide a good picture on how Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross to save the world. Just food for thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment