Thankfulness and the Levitical Peace Offerings

Introduction:

We often think of sacrifice in the Old Testament as a necessary rite that is engaged in for the temporal atonement of Human sin; however, Leviticus also contains stipulations for blood sacrifices that fall outside of this category.

The peace offerings are offered to strengthen fellowship with God. They are not sin offerings but play an important role in reconciliation with God.

Though the elaborate sacrifices that were performed in the Old Testament to reconcile God to man have passed away in the Christian age, God still wants Christians to show gratitude to God.

In these Mosaic laws, we will see three things about God and what he wants from man.

God wants us to be thankful for the specific blessings he has given us.

God wants us to acknowledge answered prayers.

God wants us to be express thankfulness to God generally, simply because he is God and he has created us.

Each of these three points will be considered in application to the three peace offerings given in the book of Leviticus.

Thank offering (Leviticus 7:11-15).

Votive offering (Leviticus 7:16-27).

Free will offering (Leviticus 7:30-31)

Body:

The Thanks Offering and Blessings

In Leviticus 7:11-15 we have the stipulations given for the thank offering. There are two significant differences between this offering and sacrifices that were required because of sin and uncleanness.

The offering is given out of thanks for God’s blessings: Leviticus 7:12 (a positive reason to sacrifice, rather than a negative one).

Significantly, the offeror could consume a portion of the sacrifice (Leviticus 7:15).

2. The significance of this first difference is that God wants us to come to him when he has blessed us.

It is the unfortunate habit of many Christians to thank God only when we are in trouble.

We may prayer to God in adversity and when we have sinned but how often do we feel the urgency to pray a prayer of thanks?

The Apostle Paul often offered up prayers of blessings in the prologues of his epistles. For example in Ephesians 1:3 (read).

Here, Paul give thanks for the spiritual blessings that Christians have in Christ. The Psalmist also often uses the phrase “give thanks to the Lord,” emphasizing the significance of thanksgiving in the minds of the prophets and apostles of God.

The bible often equates being thankful with being blessed, this brings us to the next difference.

3. The significance that the offeror could consume a portion of the sacrifice is important.

In the blood sacrifices that were given to atone for sins and transgressions of the Law, the offeror could not partake in the sacrifice. The sacrificed animal would be partially burned and partially given to the priest.

This makes sense, where there is sin, there is no benefit. God requires a sacrifice for evil, we are owed nothing if we sin.

However, with the offering of thanksgiving, the remainder that was not consumed by the priests was given to the offeror.

From this we can learn that God is willing to reward those who acknowledge his goodness. Ultimately all things are God’s; therefore, though he owes us nothing, he cares for us and wants us to partake in the blessings of his creation.

Votive Offering

The second peace offering is the votive offering, this offering is mentioned in Leviticus 7:16. A votive offering is an something offered in fulfillment of a vow.

At the heart of the votive offering was the acknowledgement of something that was fulfilled, in the worldly life of a Mosaic Jew, this could be any vow, secular or religious.

God wanted the children of Israel to acknowledge the fulfillment of oaths and vows, we can assume he still wants to make these same acknowledgements.

When we have prayed for something and God has answered our prayers we need to acknowledge God’s answer as a fulfillment of what we have requested.

Most importantly perhaps, we need to thank God for fulfilling his promise to bring his son into the world to save mankind.

Consider 2 Peter 3:9 (Read) This scripture acknowledges God’s forbearance and patience in his promises, this is certainly something we ought to be grateful for.

Free Will Offering

The free will offering was a completely voluntary offering to God regulated in the Mosaic law that has no special day or commandment attached to it (Deuteronomy 16:10).

Its purpose was solely to show a general thankfulness to the Lord.

From the free will offering we can learn that God loves those who are obedient to him out of genuine love not just obligation.

Those who recognize that all blessings are from God show genuine spirituality.

Let us be like the Psalmist and proclaim with him Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all, And His mercies are over all His works.”

Importantly, in the New Testament we have a renewed continuation of the free will offering.

In the spiritual worship of the New Testament with the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God no longer demands blood sacrifice from us, nor does he regulate our offering in the same way.

In the New Testament, we have an apostolic command to give on the first day of the week (read 1 Corinthians 16:1-2).

Under the new covenant we are to give of what we intend to give in our heart, our only offering is now one that comes from our heart (i.e. out of our own free will.)

God expects us to be spiritual givers, he wants us to recognize that when we are blessed they come from him, not us.

Therefore, we ought not to take the liberty God has given us for granted. God will judge our hearts. Consider, Jeremiah 17:10 “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.”

We cannot cheat God, he knows our intentions and if our intention is to take him for granted instead of generously offering up gifts of thanks for his many blessings, he will judge our intentions accordingly.

Conclusion:

Ultimately our thankfulness and willingness to sacrifice is connected.

As we have seen, from the stipulations of the Mosaic law, God has always wanted something for us.

Whilst, God commands some things of us, he wants to see the genuine character of our heart by giving us the opportunities to give freely to him.

From the three peace offerings in Leviticus we have learned that...

From the thanks offering we learn that God wants us to thankfully acknowledge the specific blessings he has bestowed upon us.

From the votive offering we learn that God wants us to be appreciative of fulfilled oaths and promises. Ultimately, we ought to think of those promises God himself made to humanity.

From the free will offering, we learn that God want us to show a general thankfulness to him out of a sincere love for him in our hearts.

As we conclude, I would like us to evaluate our own attitude towards giving and thankfulness. Do we give out of a rote obligation to a command? or do we give as we ought to “from our hearts.”? Do we offer up prayers of thanks regularly for the blessings of life? As we have seen from scripture, we certainly ought to if we wish to be the people God wants us to be.