Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

The Meaning of Peace

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q&A

Lesson: 4

Track: 04

Dictation Name: RR172B4

Date: Early 70s

[Introduction]The Meaning of Peace, the Law of Holiness and Grace

Leviticus 3

[Rushdoony] Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made Heaven and earth. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. He also will hear their cry and save them. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name,” saith the Lord Jesus, “there am I in the midst of them.” Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God according to Thy Word we come unto Thee to cast our every care upon Thee. We thank Thee that Thou art mindful of us. We know that we are often so mindless concerning ourselves. Prosper us in Thy service. Give us ever-growing faithfulness and zeal and make us joyful in obeying Thee. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.

Our scripture this morning is Leviticus the third chapter. Our subject: the meaning of peace. The meaning of peace. This chapter, the third chapter of Leviticus has to do with peace offerings.

“1And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd, whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord.

2And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.

3And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the Lord; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,

4And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.

5And Aaron’s sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord.

6And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord be of the flock, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish.

7If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the Lord.

8And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron’s sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar.

9And he offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the Lord; the fat thereof, and the whole rump, it shall he take off hard by the backbone; and the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,

10And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.

11And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire unto the Lord.

12And if his offering be a goat, then he shall offer it before the Lord.

13And he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation; and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about.

14And he shall offer thereof his offering, even an offering made by fire unto the Lord; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,

15And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.

16And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savor: all the fat is the Lord’s.

17It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.”

The purpose of the sacrificial system is the restoration of peace and communion between God and man. This relationship between God and man was destroyed by man’s sin, and the penalty for sin was and is death. Man cannot make an atonement for his own sin because man is not at peace with God and is at enmity with God. As Romans 8:7 declares, “the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, and be.” Only with Christ is this enmity ended.

Pross noted with regard to this sacrifice that first the Biblical sacrifice sets forth the fact that the gift is a gift of life to God, either in expiation or in consecration and the gift of life is necessary to restore communion. The second only, the sinless one who typifies Christ can make atonement. And third, there is a cost factor that still remains that although the atonement is by the grace of God through Christ the animal sacrifices must come from the worshiper’s sacrifice, his sustenance; must be a product of his work. There are responsibilities involved in the fact of atonement.

The laying on of hands in the peace offering as in verse 2 is accompanied by praise and thanksgiving. The peace offering, a most common type of sacrifice, was followed by a covenant meal of the worshipers eating together. In Leviticus 7:15-36, there is more on this particular factor and the laws concerning peace offerings are detailed, including the priest’s portion.

Now fat and blood are forbidden foods. Parasites are more often to be found therein but there is more to it than the hygienic aspect, as we shall see later on in Leviticus. The priests dash the blood against the altar, but according to verses 2, 8, and 13, the worshiper killed the animal. This is a routine matter for Hebrews who were, for the most part, farmers and herders. It was also a reminder of the necessity of death for peace with God. The fact of death is a taboo in the modern world. In the instant of Phinehas in Numbers 25:1-18, we have a very revelatory account of how God views sin. The Moabites were determined to destroy Israel. They did not feel they could do it in battle. And so they resorted to a devious method to corrupt Israel. They sent in women to further the worship of Baalpeor which was a fertility cult. Which meant that because it was a religious act for these women to indulge in sexual activity, then it made it easy for all the Israelites to feel, ‘Well, this is not a sin, it’s a religious act with these people, so why not?’ This worship of Baalpeor had eating as a part of their communion service and a bowing down to Baalpeor, sexual acts, fertility cult practices, and a general surrender of the person to his impulses. In other words, be yourself. This is the highest law. God sent a judgment on Israel and the plague killed 24,000. It was continuing to kill. But the plague was stopped by a high official, Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, who killed a prominent Israelite, a prince, Zimri, and the woman he was copulating with in the name of worship. And peace was brought by death.

Psalm 106:28-31 comments on this (as well as Numbers 25).

“28They joined themselves also unto Baalpeor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead.

29Thus they provoked him (God) to anger with their inventions, and the plague broke in upon them.

30Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment; and so the plague was stayed.

31And that was counted unto him righteousness unto all generations for evermore.”

Now for modern man, peace comes through talk and compromise. The methodology is to meet with all—Marxists, murderers, criminals—and be compliant; talk things out with them all—talk things out with juvenile delinquents. If a person commits adultery, theft or arson, find out what is lacking in their life, in their lives and seek to remedy it. And so on, and on. Now, Phinehas’s act of judgment was a legal act, and we’re not to imitate him lawlessly, but to follow him in his faithfulness. Men today believe in peace at any price but instead of peace they bring in greater troubles. They have no peace; they have instead a growing judgment. It is an illusion to believe that evil can be reasoned with or bribed or persuaded into goodness, but this is the essence of modern human relationships on a man-to-man or a man-to-child or a nation-and-nation basis. Such assumptions despise God.

Now a significant fact of the peace offering and the sacrificer’s meal afterwards is that birds are not listed as an acceptable sacrifice. Fowl could not be used. Why? Only larger animals, because after the peace offering, there was a communion meal with others, and a sacrificed animal was shared with others. The use of fowl would have prevented sharing. This is a very interesting fact, because God says to the poor, ‘You can bring a pigeon or a dove, and render atonement with that; establish communion with me with that.’ But in the peace offering with God and man, it has to cost man something. He has to share. And if it’s a pigeon or a dove or a chicken, there’s not much to share. There’s nothing to share. And so God required that communion between man and man, peace between man and man calls for giving; sharing.

S.C. Gayford wrote with respect to verse 5, “The fat is often used figuratively to describe the best part of anything. The expression ‘the fat of the land’ is passed from the Bible into English. The fat of an animal was regarded as the center, and source of its life--in almost as great a degree as its blood. Hence like the blood it was given to God and forbidden as human food.” I do believe some place down the road medical researchers will find that a degree of fat on our bodies is not all that bad. We’ve heard all kinds of things condemned and then a change made as they’ve had to revise opinions in terms of facts. The priest received portions of the meal, but he was normally a participant in the peace offering meal as well.

{?} commented, “The peace offering is often called the ‘thank offering.’ While in all the offerings there is a recognition and consciousness of sin and the need for atonement, the peace offering stresses that fellowship which is the portion of that individual who is in a right relationship with God. The peace offering appears to have invariably followed other sacrifices. This is true on the occasion of the consecration of Aaron and his sons in Leviticus 8, and the services of the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16. Those sacrifices which set forth the concept of atonement from sin logically precede those which stress the joy of fellowship in holy things.

Now, the altar in Malachi 1:7 is called the Table of the Lord, the Communion Table; so that the purpose of the peace offering was communion.

Verse 9 has a reference to the word ‘rump.’ In the Hebrew it is literally, ‘the tail,’ and it has an interesting reference. It refers to a particular type of sheep. There are very few of this variety in this country, and the very few that there are will be found only at some university experimental farms. The sheep has a name in English (I know the Armenian name of it, Dumak) and my father was very fond of this particular type of sheep, having as a boy, before he ever reached his teens, shepherded a small flock of them in the summer. All the boys were given a part of the herd to take out into the hills all day long. Now during the summer, this particular variety of sheep, which is a high mountain country variety, highly adaptable to cold country; this particular sheep stores up in its tail a great deal of fat! So much so that after a few weeks of browsing on the fresh green grass its tail has grown so fat and heavy that a support has to be put under it with a little wheel and it goes around like that for the rest of the summer and winds up with an enormous tail. Then during the winter when it is completely snowed out from any, ah, fresh fodder and is within a stone barn and is fed some of the hay cut up, ah, during the summer, it also lives off the fat of its tail. So that it lives quite well and healthy except that by spring its tail is a little nub. It has absorbed all that fat into its body and has gone through the winter in excellent health. Very interesting variety. Well, this is what is referred to here in the text, because this was the variety even there, although in Palestine they did not have the heavy snows—15, 20ft depth in the high mountain country of the Caucasus’s.

The fact that this offering is a peace offering also requires us to look at the word ‘peace.’ Lofthouse commented on this, “The root of the Hebrew term for peace offering denotes not simply peace in our sense, but being quits with another. In the Old Testament generally the peace offering is a common meal wherein God, priests and worshipers sit down, as it were, together in token that there is nothing which separates them, and that all causes of displeasure on the part of God are at an end. This offering is often spoken of as sacrifices par excellence.” Now consider the meaning of this. Very literally, peace means, as it is used in the Hebrew in this chapter, “being quits.” Our word peace has come to mean simply, “a cessation of physical hostilities, or the absence thereof.” It means that we’re not shooting at each other. But when people are not shooting at each other there can still be subversion and hatred and a preparation for massive retaliation. But we still call this ‘peace.’ We are ostensibly at peace with the Soviet Union. In terms of the English word, that’s true, but in terms of the Hebrew word that’s used here, we are not at peace with them. The Biblical term is more like our word, ‘requite’ which means to repay good or evil, to make a return for good or evil. In this sense, therefore, peace is the establishment of justice.

By His grace, God provides the atonement. Man by his response becomes separated unto the Lord, holy unto Him, keeping the covenant laws of justice. This is God’s required requital. Peace in the Biblical sense is thus inseparable from justice. It begins with the atonement as the satisfaction of God’s judgment. It is followed by our regeneration so that we are now empowered to live by the laws of justice. And these laws of justice are set forth by God in His Law. Our Lord in speaking to His disciples of His coming death, makes clear that because He is leaving them, two things are being opened up to them by His atonement: the communion of the Holy Ghost and true peace in Him. We read in John 14: 26- 27, “But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Peace, both as our Lord uses the word, and peace as the Old Testament peace offering speaks of it, means ‘justice.’ Our Lord says He is giving peace because He was going to the cross.

But today peace is a propaganda word, a much-abused term. It means anything the person wants to mean by it. The very expression, “Let’s have some peace and quiet around this house,” doesn’t mean let’s settle anything but shut up and get out of sight, you kids. That’s not peace in the Biblical sense. The politics of peace in our time is the policy of injustice and death. There is no Phinehas to stay God’s judgment now. Both the meaning and the fact of peace escape us in our time. A generation and nations at peace with abortion and homosexuality are at war with God, who will not stay the plague. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God give us peace with Thee and peace one with another. Make us ever mindful that apart from justice there is no peace. Apart from Thy law, peace is an impossibility. Give unto us grace to seek after Thy peace, Thy justice, Thy law. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] Well, conflicting ideas of justice makes peace impossible.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And the Humanistic doctrine of justice is something that changes from court to court, justice to justice, and ah, one professor of law to another. So, how can we have peace in our time? It’s ironic that ah, the law which is supposed to set forth justice no longer now is concerned with the subject. Professors of law never discuss the subject, except for a handful, and then we wonder why we have problems in our time.

Yes.

[Audience] Right now in 4th of July celebration and all this that we’re hearing, that this ‘inalienable rights,’ I think this creates a lot of problems too, that man wants his rights, unless he gets, he thinks it’s his right, then it’s not justice unless he gets what he thinks he ought to get.

[Rushdoony] Yes. What we have is a perversion of the whole Doctrine of Rights. This past week in Washington, I was told that, ah, our borders, the Canadian and the Mexican are worse than a sieve now. From one small country alone, four thousand terrorists have come in. Seven thousand came in, they rounded up three and they don’t know where the other four thousand are. That’s just from one small country. Now these people who come in illegally have so many rights according to the courts, that their rights have to be read to them if they are caught coming across the border, in their own language! Well, this is easy enough with Mexicans. But well in excess of fifty nationalities are crossing the border regularly. And these people have to be house and held in protective custody until they can find out what language he understands, send for example, somewhere to a university for someone who speaks Iranian, bring him so he can read the man his rights, once they find out that he is Iranian.

Now consider the nonsense this has reduced us to. These people are crossing the border illegally. They cannot simply be shipped back. Their rights have to be read to them. And if they have any ailments when they are picked up, they have to have full medical treatment. So whether you want to come into this country or not, it’s a very rewarding thing to come in just to get treated. Now this just scratches the surface of the abuse of the Doctrine of Justice.

Are there any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Oh Lord our God, we thank Thee that Thou doest rule and not men. For the folly of men is great, and grows greater continuously. We thank Thee for Thy judgment. We thank Thee that Thou He who shall shake the nations, for in Thy sight they are less than nothing. Give us grace to grow in Thee, to trust in Thee, to know Thy peace for the world can give us none; to rejoice in Thy justice, because the world can give us none; to delight in Thy law, for the world can give us none. Bless us, oh Lord, in Thy service. And now go in peace God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always, amen.