Leviticus 2

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:32:03utc

b. The Grain Offering 2:1-16.

In this chapter, five different kinds of grain offerings which the Israelites were allowed to bring are mentioned. In vs. 1 fine flour is mixed with oil; in vs. 4 it is cakes or wafers without yeast, baked in an oven. In vs. 5 baked grain from the griddle is brought, and in vs. 7 the grain offering is cooked in a pan. The offering mentioned in vs. 14 is not part of these regular offerings. First fruits were harvested only once a year.

All these offerings consisted of the same basic elements: flour and oil with salt. Added to this was incense. Yeast and honey were forbidden articles. In the case of the first fruits, the grain did not have to be ground finely. All these offerings were bloodless; they were the fruits of the earth: wheat or corn and olives, in either crushed or ground form. It is not too clear at this point whether these offerings could be brought separately, as sacrifices in their own right. They were, probably, always connected to a bloody sacrifice that was brought at the same time. In Numbers the law links the grain offering to bloody sacrifice.[ 1 ]

The grain offering does not refer to the sinful condition of man. They were "a pleasing aroma" to the Lord. The grain, which is the main element in this offering, is a produce of nature. Jesus uses the image of the grain for His own life. He says: "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."[ 2 ] This reference, as well as the parables of the sower and of the weeds in the field, give a deeper meaning to this sacrifice.

The grain is uniquely a symbol of the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as of our own humanity. The purpose of grain is to be eaten. It is also our "reason d'être" to present ourselves as a sacrifice to God. The reason for our being created is that we give our body and our human nature over to God. That was God's expectation when He breathed the breath of life into Adam and made Adam and Eve into living beings. God waited in vain for this surrender. He is still waiting in vain for most people's surrender. Even if sin had not entered the world, God would have expected us to give our body to Him as a sacrifice. Paul expresses this in Romans, where he says: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your spiritual act of worship."[ 3 ] Now, since sin has become a major issue in our lives, this sacrifice is the even more urgent.

We could say that there is a three-fold death in the grain offering: In John's Gospel Jesus speaks about the need for the kernel of corn to fall into the ground and die in order to produce fruit.[ 4 ] Secondly, the grain was ground into flour, and the olives were crushed in order to make oil, and, finally, the sacrifice was put on the fire and burned. It is this last act which symbolizes complete surrender which makes this sacrifice "a pleasing aroma to the Lord." It is clear that Jesus fulfilled these three facets of the sacrifice. His humbling Himself in His baptism, His suffering of hardship, His self-denial and, ultimately, His death on the cross give the complete picture of what is expressed in this grain offering. Psalm Forty must have played a decisive role in Jesus' decision to be baptized in the river Jordan. We read: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Then I said, 'Here I am, I have come-- it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.' I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, as you know, O LORD."[ 5 ] It was His insight in God's intention with His incarnation that brought Him to this fundamental surrender of Himself, of which, ultimately, the result was His death on the cross.

The principle is the same for us. Our understanding of God's plan for our life as a human being is the basis for the surrender of ourselves. It would be impossible that, when we, consciously and systematically, put on the altar all the members of our body with the functions they perform, that our ambitions, our complexes, both good and bad, would not be involved in this.

If the fine flour represents the broken body, Jesus' body and ours, then the oil stands for the surrender of the human spirit. The crushing of the olives, which is necessary to produce the oil, indicates the price that has to be paid. Here also, our sinful condition adds urgency to this surrender. When David says in the Psalms, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise,"[ 6 ] this has to be seen against the background of his sin with Bathsheba. Yet, sin is a foreign element in this sacrifice. Apart from sin also, our spirit becomes free only in surrender to God.

The brokenness of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross is the key that opened the gate for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. In our identification with the grain offering, we find that "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."[ 7 ]

The incense that had to be added to the grain offering represents the divine element in this sacrifice. Just as the Holy Spirit complements the surrender of our human spirit to the Father, so is the incense God's finishing touch to this sacrifice. This is the element that transforms food into an offering. We read in Revelations the following: "Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake."[ 8 ] It is the mixing of the prayers of the saints with the incense that has such a tremendous effect upon the earth. Without the incense the grain offering would be a senseless burning of food. It is the incense that makes the burning of the flour and the oil into a "most holy part of the offerings made to the LORD by fire."

We see this principle of God adding His sanction in events such as the new birth of a man who turns to Him in conversion. The golden lampstand in Revelations expresses this same principle.[ 9 ] If we give our body and soul and spirit, that is our whole human nature, to God He answers with the testimony of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. We see this illustrated in the baptism of the Lord Jesus. In the Gospel of Matthew we read: "As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.' "[ 10 ]

In vs. 11-13 we find two ingredients that were forbidden in the sacrifice, yeast and honey, and another one that was required: salt. Yeast is a symbol of sin in the Bible. The Feast of Unleavened Bread, we read about in Exodus, was directly connected with the Exodus from Egypt. Yeast was not even allowed to be in the house during this feast.[ 11 ] Paul's interpretation of this feast is that people who have been delivered from the slavery of sin should remove malice and wickedness out of their lives and lead a life of sincerity and truth. In I Corinthians we read: "Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast-- as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth."[ 12 ] The grain offering has nothing to do with man's sinful nature. It could not even contain any reference to it. The sacrifice points to the human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, the man after God's heart, in whom no malice of wickedness was found. In the bringing of this sacrifice to God we identify ourselves with Him. He and we give ourselves to the Father, not because we are sinful, but because we are human. The reference in vs. 12 is to the Feast of Pentecost which is described in ch. 23:15-22.

Honey was also a forbidden item. It seems harder to determine why this was so. Nowhere in the Bible is honey used as a symbol of something bad. In the Psalms a parallel is drawn between honey and the Word of God. "The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb."[ 13 ] The comparison is favorable. Maybe honey stands for the perfection of God's character. To use it as a sacrifice would be forbidden because it is incongruent with our present condition. Or, we could say that we are not advanced enough yet to do such a thing.

Vs. 13 speaks about salt as an ingredient that should never be lacking in any sacrifice. It symbolizes the covenant God made with man. The terms of this covenant are not referred to here. This is not the point where we should dig into the different theological nuances of the various covenants in the Old Testament. The main common factor in all of them is the fact that God revealed Himself to man and that the man to whom this revelation is given becomes himself part of the revelation. God reveals Himself to man in order that He may reveal Himself to others through that man. God called Abraham blessed because he would become a blessing to others. God says to Abraham: "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."[ 14 ]

In as much as all sacrifices are an image of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the salt is, no doubt, a reference to the "Eternal Covenant"[ 15 ] mentioned in Hebrews, of which all covenant made between Heaven and earth are derived. The grain offering is the sacrifice of our human nature, the sacrifice of the creature to the Creator. It reminds man of the fact that God bound Himself in love to man whom He created. The salt speaks of God's intention for man: to redeem, rehabilitate, and glorify him.

Finally, the term "memorial portion" is used three times in this chapter. (Vs. 2,9,16). The "memorial portion" is the part of the sacrifice that is burnt on the altar. It is to be a reminder, in the first place, for man. The omniscient God does not need to be reminded of anything; but forgetful men need to have their memory refreshed from time to time. The grain offering reminds us of the fact that He is God and we are men. We owe our existence to Him. "In Him we live and move and have our being,"[ 16 ] as the apostle Paul says in Acts. We come from Him, and we shall return to Him. It is for this reason that we are to present our bodies to Him as a sacrifice. That is our spiritual or reasonable sacrifice. The Greek word that in Rom. 12:1 is translated as spiritual is logikos which means "rational" or "logical." The grain offering is the most logical of all the sacrifices.

The last three verses deal with the first fruits of the harvest. Thus God opens a window to eternity. The sacrifice refers to the Feast of the First Fruits, which we read about in ch. 23:9-14. It is a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Who is called "the first born from the dead."[ 17 ] He was the first one to conquer death. Since, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we are partakers of His resurrection life, the Feast of the First Fruits is very relevant to us. It speaks of our own resurrection. That is why James calls us "first fruits of all he created."[ 18 ]

The offering of the grain of first fruits is also a reference to our status in life on earth. Fire is involved. The grain was, first, roasted and then crushed. This speaks of testing and hardship. It is not easy to be a first fruit. In this instance, however, the crushing is not the result of our own choice as with the fine flour in vs. 1. The roasting and crushing is not something we do to ourselves. The pressure comes from the outside. This sacrifice is an acknowledgment of the fact that the hardship and persecution to which we are exposed are not there as a freak fate, as Shakespeare describes: "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Our hardships and persecutions represent the hand of the divine Potter who is preparing us for the glory of our resurrection. We ought to understand that difficulties and hardships are ours for Christ's sake, as Paul elaborates in his epistles. This is what is expressed in this offering of the first fruits. Our hardships and trials should strengthen our hope of the resurrection of the dead, in which Jesus went ahead of us. In this sacrifice too, salt and incense are present.

We will see later, in ch. 6, what the share of the priest was in this sacrifice.

[ 1 ] Num.15:1-16

[ 2 ] John 12:24

[ 3 ] Rom. 12:1

[ 4 ] John 12:24

[ 5 ] Ps. 40:6-9

[ 6 ] Ps. 51:17

[ 7 ] Rom. 8:16

[ 8 ] Rev. 8:3-5

[ 9 ] Rev. 2:5

[ 10 ] Matt. 3:16-17

[ 11 ] See Ex. 12:15-20

[ 12 ] I Cor. 5:7,8

[ 13 ] Ps.19:9,10

[ 14 ] Gen. 12:2,3

[ 15 ] Heb. 12:2,3

[ 16 ] Acts 17:28

[ 17 ] Rev. 1:5

[ 18 ] James 1:18