This series of posts will focus on Leviticus 3, which sets forth the requirements of the peace offering in the law of Moses. However, this post, specifically, will not immediately dive into that chapter.
And for full disclosure, I don’t even know if I will address everything found in Leviticus 3 in this series. One funny thing that the Lord has had me do in preparing to write-up this series is to arrange an appointment to observe an animal being butchered, which won’t happen until later this week, and who knows what I will learn from that experience or what the Lord will have me share as a consequence. But I feel comfortable writing up a few things in the meantime, reserving the right (as always) to change my opinions about things as the Lord leads me to new and better ideas. I feel like my thoughts on this topic are pretty solid, but the Lord has also changed enough things up in my life at various times for to me to know that “you never know.” :)
So let’s start with a few questions. First question:
Why are there so many, and so many different types of, sacrifices in the law of Moses?
This has been a very important question of mine while studying the law of Moses, and it was always very dissatisfying to me when people would answer it by saying that all of the sacrifices were a type and shadow of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. I could easily believe that about the Passover sacrifice, and I later learned about how the other Spring feasts mirror specific events of the life and mission of Jesus Christ. However, because the many other sacrifices do not mirror his life or his mission as well (to me, anyway), I had to conclude that there was something more to them. Were I to believe as others did, I felt it also necessary to believe in a God who was either inefficient in his teaching, at best, or bloodthirsty, at worst. I could believe neither, especially in light of both my experiences with him and the Lord’s own self-proclaimed feelings about the observances prescribed in the law. Let’s turn to Isaiah 1:
10 Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. (Isaiah 1)
The Lord doesn’t delight in bloodshed, and he isn’t an inefficient teacher. He is not even duplicitous in giving the law of Moses and then calling the observances in it “vain oblations,” “abomination,” and “iniquity.”
Why was the Lord “full” of sacrifices? After commanding the people to perform sacrifices, why would the Lord then accuse them of having their hands “full of blood?”
The answer is simple: the people did not understand the Lord’s purposes in giving them the law.
The particulars of Christ’s mission and atoning sacrifice are satisfactorily foreshadowed in the Passover and other Spring feasts. The Fall feasts foreshadow other events that I won’t address at this time (though, I have addressed them, somewhat, in other posts). The remaining observances symbolize other aspects of the gospel with which we are less familiar, owing (like the Israelites) to our misunderstandings of reality and the gospel of Jesus Christ in its purity.
It is not incorrect to say that, to the degree we have those misunderstandings, we are enemies to God because we are not able to fully comprehend and, therefore, engage in his work, which is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man—not the least of which is your own (see Moses 1:39; Mosiah 3:19; and Mosiah 16:5, 27-35).
Verse 16, above, is a call to repentance, and repentance is how we reconcile ourselves to God. It is how we align ourselves to him and his purposes. It is how we cease being an enemy to God—a peace treaty, of sorts…
…which brings us to Leviticus 3.
Leviticus, chapter 3, is all about repentance. The sacrifices prescribed in that chapter are called “peace offerings” because they serve as analogs to the correct principle and performance of repentance, which initiates a state of peace between God and a repentant sinner-turned-saint.