Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Holy Burnt Offering

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 8

Track: 08

Dictation Name: RR172D8

Date: Early 70s

[Rushdoony] Let us worship God.

Our help is in the name of the Lord who made Heaven and earth. Thus saith the Lord, “ye shall seek me, and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Jesus said, “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we thank Thee for the multitude of Thy mercies and the assurance of Thy Providence. We pray, our father, that by Thy grace and spirit we may be armed this day and always to face the floodtide of evil in our time, that we may be more than conquerors in the face of all these things. Thou knowest, oh Lord, how the heathen rage and take counsel together against Thee, against Thine anointed, against Thy people. Make us ever zealous and strong in Thy service, confident in Thy word, zealous to the end that we may triumph, and give us joy, Oh Lord in the promises which are ours in Christ Jesus. In His name we pray, amen.

Our scripture is Leviticus 6:14-23. Our subject is the holy burnt offering.

Leviticus 6:14-23:

“14 And this is the law of the meat offering: the sons of Aaron shall offer it before the Lord, before the altar.

15 And he shall take of it his handful, of the flour of the meat offering, and of the oil thereof, and all the frankincense which is upon the meat offering, and shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savor, even the memorial of it, unto the Lord.

16 And the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: with unleavened bread shall it be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat it.

17 It shall not be baken with leaven. I have given it unto them for their portion of my offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as is the sin offering, and as the trespass offering.

18 All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute forever in your generations concerning the offerings of the Lords made by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy.

19 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

20 This is the offering of Aaron and of his sons, which they shall offer unto the Lord in the day when he is anointed; the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a meat offering perpetual, half of it in the morning, and half thereof at night.

21 In a pan it shall be made with oil; and when it is baken, thou shalt bring it in: and the baken pieces of the meat offering shalt thou offer for a sweet savor unto the Lord.

22 And the priest of his sons that is anointed in his stead shall offer it: it is a statute forever unto the Lord; it shall be wholly burnt.

23 For every meat offering for the priest shall be wholly burnt: it shall not be eaten.”

For us today, these sacrifices are no longer a part of our religious duty. But their meaning and their importance remains. While it is difficult to remember the distinctions between them, the meaning of them, however, is more easily remembered and is more commonly neglected in our day. In many churches, there are all kinds of studies of the supposed symbolism in the sacrifices and in the priestly garb, and so on, with little attention paid to the meaning. The sacrifices required a man’s faith to be central to his life. Whereas modern churchmen want their religion to settle some basic questions for them, to free them for the business of life, the Law requires the totality of our lives to be under God. Today people want the question of life after death and the question of the relationship of themselves to their children, a few essentials, settled. But the Bible doesn’t stop there. It encompasses the totality of our life and our world.

The instructions here are to the priests concerning meat, or meal, offering, because meat here has the connotation of our modern word ‘flour’ or any kind of grain. This was to accompany the burn offering. No leaven was to be used because while leaven under certain circumstances is an acceptable offering when it represents what we bring to God, it cannot represent Christ and His substitutionary offering for us. Hence Christ, speaking of the meal offering, says, “I am the bread of life.” He is the offering we make. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:16, “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” Hence, unleavened bread is used in the communion service. All who touched the offerings had to be of the priestly line and must have sanctified themselves. There could be no casual approach. An unblemished offering requires an unblemished service. This meant personal and physical holiness. It is what God requires that must be offered, not what we choose to offer.

In verses 19 – 23, the meal offering for the priest is set forth. It was to be offered perpetually, which translates better as ‘regularly.’ Since it is offered for the priests, by the priests, they cannot eat of it, and we are told, it had to be wholly burnt--entirely burnt. The word translated as ‘wholly,’ w-h-o-l-l-y, is in Hebrew, ‘khalil,’ which we have still as a common name in the Middle East. Once such instance of it is very well-known, because of a mystical writer who became very popular in this country; Khalil Gibron. Khalil means “total”. George A.F. Night, in commenting, has said, “The offering by the priest is to be Khalil—total. So again, it is stressed, God’s judgment is upon the entire people of Israel. It is a total judgment. Therefore, because God is God and not man, his mercy can only be total also.” Total judgment and total mercy are God’s way. And man must live in recognition of this fact.

In our time of course, we do everything to destroy total judgment. And we feel we are merciful when it is not mercy. We condemn men who have committed murder, but there is not total judgment upon them. And the mercy we show is evil. As Solomon said, “The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” So we have by tampering with God’s total judgment and total mercy created in our day one evil after another. The priest’s meal offering set forth the fact that the priest, like all other men, requires atonement and the priest must dedicate the totality of his life and being to God the Lord. Langey commented, “The priests and the high priests, like the people, must offer oblations and sacrifices. They were separated by the people only in so far as the functions of their office required. In the individual relation of their souls to God, they formed no caste and stood before Him on no different footing from others. This is a fundamental principle in all the divine dealings with man: there is no respect of persons with God.”

This is a distinction which is basic to scripture, and which we have swept under the carpet ever since: function and office must go together, and office without function is an evil. It was because the medieval era recognized this fact that tyrannicide was justified by many a Christian writer. We don’t have to agree with their conclusions, but what they did recognize in the process was precisely what this chapter teaches us. Namely, that office and function must go together and the priest’s office does not give him exemption to anything so that he must make the same kind of offering as all others. With respect to personal status before God, the priest had no advantage. In fact, the priest’s function gave him greater responsibilities, and hence greater culpabilities.

In antiquity, and now, function has been replaced by status. And status is everything. It is so important that to have a high office is now a status symbol, and the function is very quickly forgotten. For example, as State Senator Bill Richardson has commented, and others have confirmed his observation again and again, once men are elected to any office, it is rare that any of them then are responsible in terms of the function and of the people who elected them. Peer pressure governs them. They respond in terms of status. They are status-conscious.

The whole burn offering of the priests has a very important meaning. The meal offering as a whole, whether for priests or for people means first, that our daily life in the form of our daily bread (because this is a flour, a bread offering), is surrendered to God. It means moreover, second, that the totality of the offering to God requires the totality of our lives to be His. Third, our lives are acceptable only because God provides the atonement. The meal offering was not in isolation from atonement. And fourth, it is acceptable because of God’s redeemer and His grace.

The priest’s offering, as we have seen, meant that he had no privileged status from anyone else. No exemption from a total need for God’s grace.

Now this same point is made very clear by our Lord in Luke 17:7-10, and it provides us the background of the meal offering. Our Lord says,

“7 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?

8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?

9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.

10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.”

The word ‘unprofitable’ can also be translated ‘useless.’ It tells us plainly that God the Lord needs none of us—priests, prophets or people. We are His creation, and we require His grace to have any place in His work and kingdom. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what has thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why doest thou glory as if thou hast not received it?”

The meal offering requires us to acknowledge we are chosen by God’s grace, not because we are superior. We are totally His creation. We have no independent sphere. There is no part in our being where we can say metaphysically we are self-made. We are totally His creation. And predestination means that God’s grace chooses us in mercy, not in approval.

Too often in history we’ve had the ‘Chosen People Syndrome.’ When people take God’s electing grace to mean that God chose them because they were superior, and if you knock out predestination, as the Armenians do, this is what you get! Because then what they say is that God foresaw who was going to be good and superior and chose them. And then you establish man’s self-salvation. The ‘Chosen People Syndrome’ destroyed Israel. They saw themselves as the superior people. It has destroyed many a Christian people—very far advanced. We forget how far in advance of other parts of Christendom North Africa once was. And then the Arabs overwhelmed it, and then in other areas, as in Ethiopia, they were over-run again and again and became, while, the State became nominally Christian. A people of very nominal Christianity. And why? All you have to do is to listen to the liturgy of the Ethiopian Church. And at one point the monks in the mass sing, “Worthy, worthy, worthy are Thy saints, oh Lord.” God chose them because He knew they were the superior people. Well, we can see where this superiority led them. The essence of British Israelism is baldly stated by some that salvation is by race, not by grace, that God knew that they were the superior ones and ordained their place from all history. Whether it be with the ancient Greeks who had the same mentality, and the Romans, and the Nazi Germans, or with Americans or with any other group anywhere in the world, or on any continent, the “Chosen People Syndrome” denies the predestinating electing place of God’s grace.

It is interesting that despite their high function, priests are seldom seen in a favorable light in scripture. And for that matter, the same is true of kings. God makes clear that when men forget their function and stress their office or status, it is a prelude to stupidity and sin, and to their self-destruction. In scripture, office requires a function, and if men exalt themselves in terms of their office, they are then an obstruction to God’s kingdom. There are literally thousands of verses throughout the Old and New Testament to document this. To cite three of them:

Isaiah 42:8 “I am the Lord. That is my name, and my glory will I give to another neither my praise to graven images.”

In Matthew 6:2 our Lord says, “Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily, Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.”

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 1:27-29, “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen, and things which are not to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

But the scriptures tell us that when men see their status, their office, their position, their wealth, anything you name, as entitling them to privileges before God and man, God moves to destroy them. God does not tolerate man’s arrogance, and in due time brings forth judgment. The prophets have a centrally important function in scripture, but they are never allowed to see themselves as important or having any life apart from God’s Word.

We have some telling examples of this. The most dramatic is in 1 Kings 13, when a prophet is sent from Judah to Israel to speak to the king concerning God’s judgment and he is told, “You are to say to the king what I tell you to say, you are neither to eat, nor drink, nor turn aside. You have only one purpose up there—to do what I tell you to do—and none other.” And the prophet turned aside because, having pronounced God’s Word to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. He went aside to eat with another prophet because it was honoring to him. We are told that God killed the disobedient prophet. His status as prophet gave him no independence from God’s Word and commandment—only a greater responsibility and therefore a greater culpability. There is no reason to doubt that this episode in 1 Kings 13 was in Paul’s mind, knowing scripture as he did, and also the episode of Balaam in Numbers 22–24 when Paul wrote in Galatians 1:8-9, “But though we, or an angel from Heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” What Paul is saying is if the words and traditions of angels from Heaven cannot be added to God’s Word, how much less our opinions.

The total offering, wholly burnt, signifies the total judgment of God upon all; His total mercy upon whom He will have mercy, and our dependence upon His total Word and sovereign grace. God will not allow any flesh to glory in His presence. Let him that glories, glory in God, and in His Word. Hence, the stress throughout these offerings, that not even the high priest, is to an iota exempt from the judgment of God; he is more vulnerable if he strays.

Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we live in a day when men seek their own glory and seek to exalt themselves rather than to serve Thee. We thank Thee that neither the word, nor the will, nor the office of men can stand against Thy judgment that Thou hast ordained. That the things which are shall be shaken so that only those things which cannot be shaken might remain. Establish us ever more firmly on Thy word so that in the time of stress and of shaking we may, by Thy grace and mercy, by Thy Word and by Thy Spirit, be unshakable! Grant us this we beseech Thee in the name of Jesus Christ or Lord. Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] {?} a total absence of sacrifice in modern culture.

[Rushdoony] Yes and the very word is, ah, seen as connoting primitivism. The concept is alien to our day, very alien.

Any other comments or questions?

Yes.

[Audience] In a reconstructed Christian society, would there be a role for sacrifice?

[Rushdoony] We are the target of venom and hatred in such a society, but we are also the object of God’s grace and His protecting care. So we live in a time when judgment is already begun. And we live in a time when the hatred of the World is against us. Their world is breaking up around them.

In the news this morning, I was amused to see that the economic analysts are befuddled, employment is up, but it’s in the service industries. All the basics—manufacturing, the producers, agriculture, things are dramatically down. And they don’t know what to make of it. They don’t know how to read the signs. Well, when men are fearful, they are going to look for scapegoats, and we must remember that towards the end of the first century, Rome entered a depression from which it never emerged. It tried everything in the way of economic controls to alleviate that. And their tolerance ended as the times got worse. So their answer to all problems was: “The Christians to the lions, the Christians to the lions.” I think we are likely to see as a result, more such cries in our day; somewhat differently worded, but all the same, very real. In fact, I leave Tuesday for a trial, and the interesting part of it is that, ah, the state authorities know that their law violates every kind of precedent they have, but they are determined to enforce it, because they are hostile to the Christians.

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

Oh Lord our God, in whom we live and move and have our being, give us eyes of faith so that, like Elisha’s servants, we may see that the hills are peopled with Thine army, with Thine hosts, that Thou art moving in judgment against Thy enemies, and that Thy will shall be done on earth, as it is in Heaven. And all who wage war against Thee shall be broken. Strengthen us in faith; give us joy in Thy Word, and strength by Thy spirit. 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.