Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Grace and Peace

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 11

Lesson: 11

Dictation name: RR172F11

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing, enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations. Let us pray.

Oh, Lord our God, we give thanks that Thy truth endureth to all generations, that Thy truth shall confound all the workers of iniquity, that Thy truth shall stand when all things else shall perish. That Thy truth has declared that all things shall be made new, that the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Establish us, oh Lord, ever more firmly upon Thy Word, Thy truth, Thy Son, that in Him we may be more than conquerors. In His name we pray. Amen.

Our scripture is from Leviticus 7:11-21, and our subject: grace and peace. Leviticus 7:11-21:

“11 And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he shall offer unto the Lord.

12 If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, fried.

13 Beside the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings.

14 And of it he shall offer one out of the whole oblation for an heave offering unto the Lord, and it shall be the priest that sprinkleth the blood of the peace offerings.

15 And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day that it is offered; he shall not leave any of it until the morning.

16 But if the sacrifice of his offering be a vow, or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day that he offereth his sacrifice: and on the morrow also the remainder of it shall be eaten:

17 but the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire.

18 And if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings be eaten at all on the third day, it shall not be accepted; neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth it: it shall be an abomination, and the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity.

19 And the flesh that toucheth any unclean thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burnt with fire: and as for the flesh, all that be clean shall eat thereof.

20 But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, that pertain unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.

21 Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which pertaineth unto the Lord, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.”

Before we analyze these rules and requirements for the peace offerings, a very important question needs to be raised. Why were the peace offerings necessary? Given the fact of the various sacrifices requiring atonement and restitution, to establish peace between God and man and between man and man, was not peace gained by them? Why another offering? This is an important question. But before we turn to that question, some basic aspects of the offering:

Three kinds of peace offerings are cited here.

1. Verses 12-15 the praise or thank offering.
2. The votive offering, in verses 16 following to fulfill a vow or a promise made during a time of need.
3. The free will offering, also in verses 16 following, to express gratitude.

For this free will offering, a perfect animal was not required, as was the case with atonement.

The animal offered for atonement had to be without blemish because it represented God’s sinless substitute, his perfect substitute, Jesus Christ. However, man’s peace offering, his free will offering, represented his thanksgiving, and as a result, it could be blemished, it could be a blind animal, it could be slightly lame it could have some defect, provided the meat were good. This offering was to be eaten together with the needy or the poor. And the peace offering was always a joyful occasion, because it celebrated not only peace with God, but community between (to use a modern term) the haves and the have-nots, because you expressed your gratitude for the grace of God to you by manifesting grace toward someone else.

The Psalms mention this offering many times, and one psalm, Psalm 100 was designated to be sung at the time of this offering. Psalm 100, a very short one, reads,

“1 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.”

It is noteworthy that this psalm, and many other verses which reflect the peace offering, have entered into the liturgy of the church, in particular, The Book of Common Prayer and Psalm 100 is used in morning prayer, and is called, “Jubilate Deo.”

The worshiper killed the animal, he dressed it out, the priest sprinkled the blood round about the altar, the fat was burned on the altar, and the rest belonged to the priest who waved it toward the altar and away (a heave offering), and then it became the property of the priest to be eaten by himself and his associates.

The votive or free-will offerings were not required to be eaten on the same day, they could be finished on the second day, but failure to consume it on the second day would render the sacrifice null and void. In other words, this could be eaten in part at the sanctuary with some of the needy there and the rest taken home to be eaten on the second day, if they were close by to be eaten with others there.

F.W. Grant some time ago commented about the peace offerings, and his comment was to the point. He said, “Peace with God is never merely peace. God can never be simply not at morass with his creatures; there is in Him and His nature, no indifference, no neutrality. What He is, He is with His whole heart, and of all things he nauseates lukewarmness. So to be at peace with Him is to have His love poured out upon us. It is to be brought into His banqueting house, and to be made to sit at His table. And thus, it is pictured here. The peace offering is the only one in which the offerer himself partakes of his offering, and this partaking shows him not only brought into a place of acceptance, but in heart reconciled and brought nigh. That which has satisfied God satisfied him also. Peace has become communion.”

This offering is also called a praise offering. Psalm 119:108 refers to it as a state of mind and a state of heart as well as an offering, declaring, “Except I beseech Thee, the free-will offerings of my mouth, oh Lord, and teach me Thy judgments.” Hebrews 13:15, 16 speaks also of this same offering and of its meaning, declaring, “By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But to do good and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” In other words, God’s peace with us presupposes the atonement and thus requires praise and thanksgiving from us together with doing good toward others. The Berkley version of Hebrews 13:16 is very specific and reads, “Do not forget the benevolences and contributions, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”

In verse 19, we see the double aspect of holiness. The sacrifice must be clean, and also those who eat it. This is the only animal sacrifice which did not make atonement for sin but furthered instead, peace with God and with man, and our well-being.

Now we can, knowing these things, return to our original question. Since the atonement brings peace with God, and since the restitution required with the various other sacrifices brings peace with man as well as God, why a special offering for peace with God? There is no insufficiency in the atonement. Restitution clearly furthered peace. Why another offering?

Well, to understand it, let’s begin by turning to two verses in Hebrews 12:28, 29, a book which has much to say about the sacrificial system. And it concludes its comments by declaring, “Wherefore, we, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.” We are here told by Paul and the apostolic fellowship, that we are heirs of an unshakable kingdom. Therefore, second, we must serve God acceptably and godly fear requires grace. Third, this kingdom which is ours shall stand forever in all its power and glory, but if we depart from it, or we sin against it, we face the judgment of God, who is a consuming fire. The peace offering, thus, reminded the worshiper constantly of his need for grace and the fact that he walked by grace. The praise of Psalm 100 celebrates God’s grace and His loving-kindness, his care for us.

Perhaps the best way for us to understand why the peace offering, which became among those who were faithful believers in Israel, the most popular of the offerings of covenant man.--because it was a praise and thanks offering. We can understand why it was needed by looking at others, because sometimes the sins of other people, if we are observant, reveal best to us our own disposition, sometimes because they carry things to their logical conclusion.

Louis XIV, in a sentence I’ve used more than once, because I find it so telling, after two successive military defeats which confounded his foreign policy, declared, in some bitterness, “God seems to have forgotten all I have done for Him.” Men are ready to affirm salvation by grace, and then to believe that they have now merited various blessings. ‘Ok, God, you saved me by grace, but I’ve been such a remarkable person ever since. Why aren’t you showering blessings on me? I should be rewarded for so many things.’ This is true in every sphere of life, and we are to live by grace in the totality of our lives. Men and women marry, feeling at the time that they are getting married, privileged to have one another. Then, their relationship turns to expectations and to man’s. I have very routinely told couples in pre-marital counseling that one of the greatest problems is that couples marry expecting to be loved, rather than to love. And so they sit back, waiting to be rewarded for being what a marvelous person they are! The same is true in every other sphere. Men feel elated at first when they get a position that they have long coveted. Then they are resentful that they are not showered with advantages and special privileges for having done their work. The economy of our lives always shifts, after we get what we want, from grace and gratitude to expectations, demands.

This should not surprise us. We are told in Genesis 3:5 that our original sin is to play god, to want life on our terms—law, morality, everything—as we require it. And we live in terms of demands and expectations, not under grace.

The peace offerings and all the psalms which reflect it, and in Hebrew by their wording, make clear that they are referring in passing to the peace offering, require us to live in gratitude toward God and in community with grace, one with another.

In popular thought, this sacrifice came to be regarded as central, as I pointed out, to the covenant people. The atonement gives us salvation. Praise, thanksgiving, and communion in community apply and develop the meaning of our atonement. That’s the communion dinner, because it was a meal. The covenant man and his needy friends celebrated the praise of God, the peace of God, the grace of God. Not surprisingly, the peace offering was very popular, because it established ties and strengthened community.

Very wisely, The Book of Common Prayer give us Psalm 100, “Jubilate Deo,” the peace offering psalm, just before the creed, with its great conclusion, “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.” The peace offering, thus, as it began with a sacrifice and ended with the dinner, the priests having their share, and the needy having their share, and communion in community was an affirmation of the glory of our faith and so it is fitting that the psalm, the peace offering psalm, “Jubilate Deo,” should be followed in morning worship with the creed. The affirmation of the faith in which by grace we stand. Let us pray.

Make us ever mindful, Oh Lord, that basic to our peace with Thee is gratitude and thanksgiving, praise, and giving grace to those around us as Thou hast given grace to us. Make us ever mindful of the grounds of our peace, that through us the peace may be established among men and nations, that we may be vehicles of Thy grace; channels through which Thy praise may be extended and may resound among all men. Bless us to this purpose, we beseech thee. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about this?

Yes

[Audience] The modern life, especially in the United States is, ah, absolutely barren of liturgy and in England they still use the, ah, at the end of every public showing, “God Save the Queen.”

[Rushdoony] Umm-hm. Yes, ah, a sad fact is though, everywhere it is disappearing, most rapidly where democracy is strongest, because, the essence of Christian liturgy has been the fact of hierarchy: God above us, and each of us recognizing the grace above us, and passing grace on to those below us and around us. Without that, unless it is a part of the living faith of a people, the liturgy and the ritual become dead and meaningless. And this is why in all circles today, Catholic and Protestant, whether they are liturgical or non-liturgical, this fact is gone. Life has ceased to have the rhythm that, ah, Christian ritual has historically given to it. It no longer moves, for example, in terms of a Christian calendar. We have virtually terminated Easter and Good Friday as a part of the Christian calendar and have so commercialized Christmas that now it’s hard, even on radio, to hear many Christmas carols at Christmastime. And on television, they’ve virtually disappeared.

So with a Christian calendar gone and being replaced by a secular calendar, ah, life has changed. The interesting fact is that the most significant day on the civil calendar is no longer what it once was, the 4th of July and Washington’s Birthday. Those were once the two key days on the civil calendar. It is now April 15th – income tax time. And it does what the Day of Resurrection and the day of our Lord’s birth once did. It reorients all of life in terms of itself. Now individuals and corporations all govern their operations and their business in terms of tax time. So that the calendar today is a tax calendar, which tells us how far gone we are, because there is nothing more barren of meaning than that! At least when the 4th of July and Washington’s Birthday were the key days of the civil calendar, you could say it celebrated freedom. And it celebrated the man who did so much for the founding of our country.

Yes.

[Audience] {?} more liturgy in the Soviet Union …

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] … they have those parades, they have those icons with the name, and so on, they have the mausoleum, which his tomb is in, they go, they line up, they have what amounts to a mass …

[Rushdoony] Yes, I can recall when I was in high school, up to World War II, Memorial Day was still celebrated in the cemeteries, the high school students would be there, the churches would be there, a minster would preside, the public officials were all there, it was a very important occasion. But the civil calendar today is basically tax time, and the only other days that are on the civil calendar are important because it provides for a long weekend from work for people. That’s their only significance.

Yes.

[Audience] I’ve never seen an article about the disappearance of the cross from the military cemeteries of the United States. That was an enormously expensive thing, to remove all those crosses …

[Rushdoony] Yes it was.

[Audience] … and yet I’ve never seen any reference to it, I don’t even know when it was accomplished!

[Rushdoony] It was done after World War II in the beginning of the 50s, about the same time that the Truman Court began the de-Christianization of our laws.

[Audience] …Under Vinson?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Vinson began the denial of moral absolutes. It was part of the philosophy of Holmes, of course, much earlier, but the, ah, systematic de-Christianization began in 1952.

[Audience] … In the Eisenhower Administration…

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes. Very definitely. Vinson laid the groundwork and Warren furthered it. That’s an aspect of Warren’s work that we don’t hear much about.

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

Our Lord and our God, we thank Thee that Thou art on the throne. And though men seek to abolish Thy Son and Thy kingdom from this world, Thy reign continues, and Thy judgment shall overwhelm all the workers of iniquity like a flood. Make us strong and zealous in Thy service, and able in the day of adversity to stand by Thy grace.

[Recording abruptly ends]