Yesterday we talked about the meaning of the fellowship offering and we learned that either a bull or a female cow could be brought, unlike with the burnt offering in which only a male could be brought.
Today we'll see that two other types of animal were acceptable for the fellowship offering: a sheep or a goat. Unlike with the burnt offering, birds could not be brought for a fellowship offering.
"If you offer an animal from the flock as a fellowship offering to the Lord, you are to offer a male or female without defect. If you offer a lamb, you are to present it before the Lord, lay your hand on its head and slaughter it in front of the tent of meeting." (Leviticus 3:6-8a) We've already learned in our study of Leviticus that placing one's hand on the animal's head signifies the person identifying himself with the animal. In the case of the burnt offering (an offering that symbolizes atonement) the person was acknowledging that the animal was standing in for him. The person's sins were symbolically being transferred to the animal as it stood in for the man. When it comes to the fellowship offering, putting one's hand on the animal's head represents the fellowship the man has with God.
"Then Aaron's sons shall splash its blood against the sides of the altar. From the fellowship offering you are to bring a food offering to the Lord: its fat, the entire fat tail cut off close to the backbone, the internal organs and all the fat that is connected to them, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which you will remove with the kidneys. The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering to the Lord." (Leviticus 3:8b-11) As with the bull or cow, after these specific parts of the lamb are offered to the Lord, the meat can be consumed by the bringer of the offering and the priests. The parts offered to the Lord were considered delicacies in ancient times but I think it's interesting that this left the leanest and healthiest portions of the lamb for the people to eat. They aren't eating blood or fat or organs.
"If your offering is a goat, you are to present it before the Lord, lay your hand on its head and slaughter it in front of the tent of meeting." (Leviticus 3:12-13a) The Lord doesn't say whether the goat can be either a male or a female but I think we can safely assume this is the case since this was acceptable in the first two types of fellowship offering we've studied in Leviticus 3.
"Then Aaron's sons shall splash its blood against the sides of the altar. From what you offer you are to present this food offering to the Lord: the internal organs and all the fat that is connected to them, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which you will remove with the kidneys. The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering, a pleasing aroma. All the fat is the Lord's. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live: You must not eat any fat or any blood." (Leviticus 3:13b-17) Sacrificial blood was to be considered holy. Pagan cultures sometimes drank blood in their religious ceremonies but the Israelites were never to follow their example. If they had begun to treat blood as something common, its use as an atoning substance would have lost its meaning for them. Since all these atoning sacrifices pointed toward the ultimate and eternal atoning sacrifice of Christ, it was imperative that they consider the blood holy.
The Lord is protecting not only the spiritual health of the people when He makes the decree that they aren't to eat blood, but He's protecting their physical health as well when He commands them not to eat the fat. A diet high in animal fat is known in modern times to be extremely unhealthy. In fact, many nutritionists and physicians have come to the conclusion that following the kosher Jewish diet, as given to the people by God, is a healthy diet to follow. The animals the Lord said were "unclean" are the ones most likely to raise our cholesterol and triglycerides or to potentially infect us with parasites. The fats in the kosher diet are healthy fats, such as olive oil, not animal fats. It's not possible for anyone to completely remove all fat or all blood from meat but the Lord was simply asking them to remove these ingredients to the best of their ability. Just as you or I might ask the butcher at the meat counter of our local supermarket to trim the fat off some steaks or a roast for us, the Lord wanted the people to trim the fat from the meat they ate.
I know it's disturbing to think about animal sacrifice. As an animal lover and pet owner I don't like to think about it. But we have to keep in mind that the Lord was speaking to an agricultural society. They were raising most of these animals for consumption to begin with. Some of them they kept to provide milk or wool, but if any of you have ever lived on a farm or lived close to a farm, you know that the farming business is a business and that these animals generally are not considered pets. They are being raised so the farmer can feed his family or so he can sell them to other people to feed their families. My parents raised chickens and hogs when I was a kid and I knew these animals were intended for food, with the exception of the good laying hens whose purpose it was to produce eggs. I grew up surrounded by farms where people raised cattle, where many of the cows and bulls were intended to end up on a table at some point with the exception of the dairy cows whose purpose it was to produce milk. We may not like reading about the sacrificial system because it offends our sensibilities, and it's okay if it does offend our sensibilities as we discussed several days ago. Sin itself is offensive and naturally the atonement made for sin has some offensive aspects to it so that we can recognize and repent of the ugliness of our sins. If the Lord had asked man to bring atonement offerings of flowers or cakes or pies we wouldn't consider our sins or the atonement made for them as anything very serious or troubling, would we? But sin is a deadly, bloody business and so is atonement. Atonement has always cost life: the life of the animals who stood in for man in Old Testament times, the life of Christ who stood in for man in the New Testament.
No comments:
Post a Comment