Peace with God

The act of laying on of hands . . . indicated that the animal was to be a substitute for the offerer. The act symbolized the transfer of sins from the worshiper to the animal. The sense would be that the animal is dying in the worshiper’s stead, or that it is subject to the death penalty because of the sins it has now received. (Leviticus, 87)

Leviticus 16:21 says that on the Day of Atonement when the high priest laid his hands on the goat, he confessed the sins of Israel. So confession may have been an understood, expected part of every sacrifice when worshipers laid their hands on the animal (Harris, “Leviticus,” 537). Both confession and laying hands on a sacrificial animal were acts that gave significant spiritual meaning to a sacrifice. First, worshipers who brought sacrificial animals were acknowledging they were guilty of sin. Second, they were affirming that God’s just penalty for their sin was death. Third, they were acknowledging the principle of substitutionary sacrifice—the animal’s death substituted for the death of the worshiper. Fourth, they were seeking atonement for their sin and peace with God. God alone gives atonement for sin, so they were bringing their lives to God. Romans 12:1 commands Christians to bring their lives to God: “By the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.”

We Submit to the Word of God

One question people ask regarding the levitical sacrificial system is, “Why are there so many details?” What does it matter exactly how they cut up the animal or what parts they burned on the altar? Actually, the details carry important messages. First of all, certain parts of the animal were associated with certain ideas and practices. The livers of animals, for example, were used by the Canaanites in pagan worship in a form of divination called hepatoscopy. Canaanite priests examined the livers of animals to divine the future or to determine the will of the gods. Archaeologists have discovered clay models of livers at ancient Canaanite sites. Evidently Canaanite priests used the models to teach apprentices how to read animal livers to divine the future (Yelton, “Cuneiform Texts,” 17–22). The one true God told His people not to save that part of the animal—not for divination or for anything else—but to burn the liver on the altar. They were not looking at a liver to determine the future; they were trusting in God for the future.

God also directed the priests to sprinkle the blood of the fellowship sacrifice “on all sides of the altar” (vv. 2,8,13). Leviticus 17:14 says, “The life of every creature is its blood.” So the blood represented the life of the sacrificial animal. The altar, as part of the tabernacle, represented God’s presence. Therefore, as the priests sprinkled the blood on the altar, worshipers surely would have thought of giving the life of the animal to God (Mathews, Leviticus, 38).

Following the details of God’s prescribed procedures must have evoked or expressed certain ideas in the minds of the worshipers. On the other hand, whether the details expressed a particular theological motif or not, observing them was significant because observance was obedience to God’s spoken word. God expected His people to submit to His word and offer the sacrifices He commanded in the way He commanded. While offering each sacrifice they had to stop and think exactly how and why they were offering it. The detailed instructions were a built-in safeguard against mindless ritual. The specific procedures forced them to slow down, follow God’s instructions, and remember that He was in control of the procedure, not them.

We Enjoy Fellowship with God

The order of the sacrifices in Leviticus may carry a message about a right relationship with God. Chapter 1 describes the first sacrifice—the burnt offering to atone for sin. Sin had to be removed before a person could be in the presence of God and be reconciled to Him. The next sacrifice is the grain offering, described in chapter 2. That offering expressed dedication and thanksgiving to God. Then, once sin was atoned for and the worshiper had expressed dedication to God in worship, he or she was ready to enjoy fellowship with God. The order is significant. First comes expiation for sin—the righteous wrath of God is satisfied and He removes our sin from us. Second is dedication—we express thanksgiving and worship to God. Third, we are ready for communion with God. We fellowship with Him. Fellowship with God is not like fellowship with anyone else. Because of His holiness, our sin must be removed, and because He is God, we have to come into His presence carefully.

Ecclesiastes 5:1 says, “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.” God tells us to enter His presence carefully. Why? We are coming into the presence of the almighty, holy God of the universe. As a young man I went on my first international mission trip. It was to Japan. I am tall, so Japanese people are generally shorter than me. I stood out in Japan because of my height. Little school children looked at me and actually laughed about how tall I am. My height created a problem that’s embarrassing to admit. Because Japanese people are shorter, their doorways are lower, so I had to bend down to get through many of the doorways. I should have remembered to bend down every time I went through one, but I forgot, so several times I scraped the top of my head on the doorway so hard that I cut the skin. It was especially embarrassing when I was entering a room to meet someone for the first time, grimacing in pain. I concluded that I am too tall for Japan. But I wasn’t really too tall. I just wasn’t careful enough as I entered houses. God’s Word says that it’s important to be careful as we enter God’s presence. “Guard your steps.” Atone for sin and dedicate yourself to Him. Only then are we ready for fellowship with Him.

Fellowship with God was the central theme of the fellowship offering. As mentioned earlier, the word shalom is often translated “peace.” That word referred to being in a state of well-being. In a relationship, it means to be on friendly terms. Genesis 37:4 says that Joseph’s brothers hated him, and they “could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him.” The word translated “peaceably” is the same word used in Leviticus 3 to refer to the fellowship offering. In the fellowship offering, people celebrated that they were on friendly terms with God. Throughout the Old Testament, when people asked about someone’s welfare, how someone was doing, literally they “ask about peace” (e.g., Gen 43:27; Exod 18:7; Judg 18:15; 2 Sam 11:7). They were asking, “Is it OK with you? Is everything going well?” The word “peace” expressed that everything was OK, everything was going fine. What a great blessing the fellowship offering was! It celebrated the fact that in the worshiper’s relationship with God things were OK.

The seventh chapter of Leviticus says that after the specified portions of the fellowship offering were burned on the altar, the rest of the animal was cooked as a meal for the worshiper, for the priest, and for other people. The only hint of the meal in chapter 3 is the addition of the Hebrew word for “food” to describe the offering in verses 11 and 16. The “food,” or meal, was eaten in the temple area, which symbolized eating in the presence of God, and eating in the presence of God symbolized fellowship with God—a happy, right relationship with God. When we eat with people, we talk with them, laugh with them, and listen to them—it’s an expression of a relationship. A meal is an act of friendship.

That was the main idea of the fellowship offering—enacting a reconciled relationship with God and experiencing fellowship with Him. Christians experience something similar in the Lord’s Supper. The bread and the cup represent Christ’s body and blood. When we take that into our bodies we’re symbolizing fellowship with Christ through the meal. We call it “Communion” because we’re experiencing fellowship, communion, with God. He’s with us, symbolized in the meal. He was also with His people in the meal of the fellowship offering.

We Express Thanksgiving to God

Chapter 7 of Leviticus says that one reason to offer the fellowship offering was to express thanksgiving. Of course they expressed thanksgiving to God! He had taken their sin away and allowed them into His presence to fellowship with the holy, almighty God of the universe! They were guilty of sin. God knew it and they knew it, but God in His grace forgave their sin and separated their sin from them as far as the east is from the west. He has done the same for us in Christ. Now we’re able to fellowship with Him as if we have not sinned, and that’s because of His love and grace. In God’s presence we express thanksgiving to Him.

We Give Our Best to God

In the fellowship offering worshipers burned the fat portions of the animals because the fat was seen as the best portion. They did not keep the best for themselves; they gave it to God. People today may think it’s strange that they regarded the fat as the best. We try to reduce the amount of fat in our diet; we do not think the fat is the most desirable part. However, in that place and in that time, fat was rare. Meat was an uncommon part of their diet, and the animals they ate were lean; they had little fat. People of that time, therefore, considered fat a delicacy. It was the best, so it was given to God. In fact, God said, “All fat belongs to the Lord. This is a permanent statute throughout your generations, wherever you live: you must not eat any fat or any blood” (vv. 16-17). We too give God our best when we are at peace with Him.

We Share Our Lives with the People of God

Worshipers ate the meal of the fellowship offering with other people—the priest and other worshipers. They celebrated the presence of God and His atonement for sin together. When the people of God follow the Word of God, they always get together for worship in God’s presence. God tells us to gather to worship Him and celebrate His salvation. Of course that involves attending worship services together, but it involves so much more. Consider all the “one another’s” in the New Testament. Pray for one another (Jas 5:16), encourage one another (Heb 10:25), bear one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2), exhort one another (Heb 3:13 ESV), love one another (John 13:34), serve one another (1 Pet 4:10), be kind to one another, and forgive one another (Eph 4:32). Clearly God intends for us to share our lives with His people.

We Find Peace with God through the Gospel of Jesus

God wants us to be at peace with Him, and we can be at peace with Him after our sins have been taken away. In the old covenant period God did that by means of the sacrificial system in all of its facets. Now God has come to us in Christ Jesus, and He has fulfilled every facet of the sacrificial system in His sacrificial, substitutionary death for our sins on the cross. Now we have peace with God through Christ, who is the perfect sacrifice for sin. As Colossians 1:20 puts it, Christ made “peace through the blood of His cross.” Ephesians 2:14 says of Jesus, “He is our peace,” and Ephesians 6:15 calls Jesus’ gospel “the gospel of peace.” Romans 5:1 says it plainly: “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now that Jesus has offered Himself as our sacrifice on the cross, we need none of the old covenant sacrifices, including the fellowship offering (Heb 9:11-15). We have peace with God through Jesus. We can look for peace from other sources, but they’re like applying a Band-Aid to cure cancer. If we look to possessions, power, or passion to bring peace we’ll live and die as fools and suffer eternally without God. That’s not peace, and it’s certainly not peace with God.

Through Jesus we have peace with God, and through Jesus we have the peace of God. Jesus said, “My peace I give to you” (John 14:27). According to Galatians 5:22, as we live in fellowship with God, His Holy Spirit produces in us the fruit of love, joy, and peace.

At the beginning of this section we referred to Joshua Liebman, who wrote a book entitled Peace of Mind and died under the stress of trying to help people find peace. Five years after Liebman died, Billy Graham wrote a book entitled Peace with God. Consider Mr. Graham’s final words in that book.

What a future! . . . What a life! I would not change places with the wealthiest and the most influential man in the world. I would rather be a child of the King. . . . I have peace in my heart. His peace floods my heart and overwhelms my soul! . . . In Christ we are . . . at peace. (Peace with God, 222)

Are you at peace? Do you have Christ as your Savior?

Reflect and Discuss