Obedience in Offering

17 The LORD spoke to Moses: 18 “Speak to Aaron, his sons, and all the Israelites and tell them, ‘When any man from the house of Israel or from the resident foreigners in Israel presents his offering for any of the votive or freewill offerings, which they present to the LORD as a burnt offering, 19 if it is to be acceptable for your benefit it must be a flawless male from the cattle, sheep, or goats. 20 You must not present anything that has a flaw, because it will not be acceptable for your benefit. 21 If a man presents a peace-offering sacrifice to the LORD for a special votive offering or for a freewill offering from the herd or the flock, it must be flawless to be acceptable; it must have no flaw.

22 “ ‘You must not present to the LORD something blind, or with a broken bone, or mutilated, or with a running sore, or with a festering eruption, or with a feverish rash. You must not give any of these as a gift on the altar to the LORD. 23 As for an ox or a sheep with a limb too long or stunted, you may present it as a freewill offering, but it will not be acceptable for a votive offering. 24 You must not present to the LORD something with testicles that are bruised, crushed, torn, or cut off; you must not do this in your land. 25 Even from a foreigner you must not present the food of your God from such animals as these, for they are ruined and flawed; they will not be acceptable for your benefit.

because on the one hand the Gentile might think such sacrifices would be acceptable, since he might have been used to offer such to idols, also the sacrifices offered by foreigners can escape inspection because of the priests being so overwhelmed by the shear number of sacrifices that they may miss an imperfect animal thereby making the person to whom the sacrifice was performed unforgiven.

Before an animal was to be sacrificed there was one thing that had to be done; the transferring of the sin to the animal in;

Leviticus 1:4 AMP

4 And he shall lay [both] his hands upon the head of the burnt offering [transferring symbolically his guilt to the victim], and it shall be an acceptable atonement for him.

What are the sacrifices that we are to present to God in this new dispensation says

Believer’s Bible Commentary (D. Exhortation to Various Christian Graces (13:1–17))

There are at least three sacrifices which a believer-priest offers. First, there is the sacrifice of his person (Rom 12:1).

Hebrews 13:15 (AMP)

15 Through Him, therefore, let us constantly and at all times offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name.

These sacrifices are offered to God through the Lord Jesus. All our praise and prayer passes through Him before it reaches God the Father; our great High Priest then he removes all impurities and imperfections making it perfect and adds His own virtue to it as well.

Believer’s Bible Commentary (D. Exhortation to Various Christian Graces (13:1–17))

Believer’s Bible Commentary D. Exhortation to Various Christian Graces (13:1–17)

The third sacrifice is the offering of our possessions. We are to use our material resources in doing good, and in sharing with those who are in need. With such sacrificial living God is well pleased. It is the opposite of accumulating for self.

Leviticus ((4) Inappropriate Sacrifices (22:17–25)) Those eight verses that we read at first. repeats much of what is found in Leviticus 1 -7 regarding the correct way to present burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to fulfill a vow to the Lord. This however, adds too, the earlier law because it focuses on those blemishes that would disqualify an animal from being a sacrifice {May be they were getting blemished offerings and had to stipulate what was acceptable.} The animals, like the priests, must be without defect. A physical defect barred a man from the service of the priesthood—blindness, lameness, facial deformities, a deformed limb, foot or hand injuries, hunchbackedness, dwarfism, defective eyes, itching diseases, scabs, or injured reproductive organs. Any son of Aaron who was defective in any of these ways could share the food of the priests, but he could not actively serve as a priest before the Lord

MacDonald, W. (1995). Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments (A. Farstad, Ed.; pp. 157–158). Thomas Nelson. Lev 21: 23 (Lev 22:19-22), Jesus is the perfect example of the correct sacrifice in, Heb 9:14; I Pet. 1:19. To bring a defective gift to God would be disrespectful, insulting. This shared similarity between the priest and the sacrificial offering brought to light the close relationship between the two. As noted above, the requirement that the priest and the animal be without defect foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ, who was an unblemished high priest and sacrificial lamb (Heb 4:14–15; 7:26; 1 Pet 2:22;). As the head of the church he is purifying his bride so that she may become holy and without defect (Eph 1:4; 5:25–27; Col 1:22). As believer-priests (1 Pet 2:4–10; Rev 1:6; 5:10; 20:6) Christians are to conduct themselves with all purity (2 Pet 3:11, 14; Phil 1:10; 2:15;).

Amplified Bible (Chapter 22)

31 So shall you heartily accept My commandments and conform your life and conduct to them. I am the Lord.32 Neither shall you profane My holy name [applying it to an idol, or treating it with irreverence or contempt or as a byword]; but I will be hallowed among the Israelites. I am the Lord, Who consecrates and makes you holy,33 Who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord. (An Exposition of the Old Testament, Vols. I–VI (Chapter 22)

That brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God, &c.] Thereby shewing himself to be their covenant God and father, who had a kind and gracious regard for them, and which laid them under obligation to fear, serve, and worship him as their God: I am the Lord; that hath sovereign right over them, and claim upon them, and therefore they ought to be subject to his will, and observe his laws and ordinances; Lev 21:6. The foundation and motivation for obedience is the deliverance from Egypt, the formative saving event in the Old Testament.

PREPARING THE LESSON:

Today’s Aim

Facts: to see the instructions for giving and the principles behind those instructions.

Principles: to show that when we comply with God’s instructions and expressed principles, we are obeying him and acknowledging him as our God.

Applications: to arrange our thinking and actions so that when we do give, we do it as he instructed, not as we think.

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