- Today’s passage goes over the 5 offerings again: burnt offering, grain offering, fellowship (peace) offering, sin (purification) offering and guilt (reparation) offering, emphasising certain aspects and adding more detail. As you read through the passage, is there anything that stands out for you?
“it is most holy” is repeated numerous times except when speaking about the fellowship offering. Likely because of the likelihood of people transgressing unintentionally. However, those who are ceremonially unclean must refrain from eating the fellowship offering.
“Anyone who touches something unclean—whether human uncleanness or an unclean animal or any unclean creature that moves along the ground—and then eats any of the meat of the fellowship offering belonging to the Lord must be cut off from their people.” It is important to be conscious of our own standing when being involved in holy activities. I need to be especially careful when called upon to lead worship or preach.
- It can be said that we as Christians no longer need to offer such sacrifices because Christ is the perfect sacrifice for us all. Do you think Christ’s sacrifice satisfies all 5 sacrifices? In what way?
I think the 5 sacrifices restores our relationship with God dealing not only with sin and our resultant estrangement from God (atonement, purification and reparation), but also with restoring our relationship with him as his vassals, and restoring our relationship with him as his children and his people.
- The burnt offering is about restoration of a relationship severed, the grain offering emphasises our dependence on God for our sustenance, the fellowship offering emphasises the joy and the enjoyment of our communion with God and one another, the sin offering deals with our sinfulness and its consequence on us and those we serve, and the guilt offering emphasises that God and all matters associated with him must not be trifled with. All of these describe the relationship that God wants to have with us. What do you think?
I don’t think the way I frequently talk and discuss with God in my mind no matter where I am and what I am doing is an issue. I very much doubt that God sacrificed his Son only to put impediments between us again. I suspect that he would welcome more and not less interaction and fellowship. However, there are more formal occasions in my relationship with him, especially in church, and of course there are the times when I am aware of sin in my life, and I think I should be more deliberate, more conscious of his holiness and my unworthiness. This is not something that is easy to install into my lifestyle but knowing that he cares about these matters must mean that I care about them too.