God's secret intended meaning in the commanded rituals, of the law of Moses.

Introduction

Dearest beloved great Almighty God; You know very well everything. You know that I have never fully enjoyed the study of the law of Moses, especially the study of the ritual animal sacrifices, and various things regarding the priesthood of Aaron and his sons, and the washings, and some things regarding the Tabernacle, the statutes, the ordinances, and the judgments. I have read them various times since you called me out of this world, but always with hesitation, because they leave me perplexed. I just don’t know what Your intended meaning is. You know Great God, that I believe You have such design, and ingenious purpose in everything You say and do and ordinate. You know my thirst to understand the many many secret things of Your purpose. I just know in my heart that the law of Moses is loaded with incredible, super interesting meanings, and here I am reading it again, and pausing, pausing, pausing, like a child in wonderment, because I don’t know what You intend by Your words and commands. I know that at the end of the book of Malachi, the last book in what we call the Old Testament, You say to us, “remember the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb, for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.” You had to say this for profound and powerful reasons. I desire to know the spiritual intent of all Your magnificent purpose in giving him these words. Please Dear Lord, let it be time now in these latter days, for a full explanation of these incredible truths. I am trusting You to teach me Lord, thank you.

I have developed a habit when I write. It’s just a little saying, but ever so true, and it is this: “where to begin, where to begin”? With this article, it might as well be with a question. What does it all mean? Surely you relate to me in a similar way when you read the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. What does it all mean? And also, where to begin? God has such purpose in everything He writes and records. This may sound strange, but this sentence I am writing right now, is at least a month or more from the last sentence. I only say that so I know, and you know, the time gap since my last opening of this article to write. And since that time, I made a discovery that helps me know “where to begin”, in the study of the law of Moses subject. And that is with the Passover. It is about the first ordinance God gave to the Israelites just before they were to leave Egypt. Interestingly, it is right now today, Feb. 27, 2021 and Passover is only about a month away. The meaning and significance of the Passover is primary in importance, and although I didn’t see it before, I can now see that it is the natural place to “begin”.

The animal sacrifices.

The explanation of the purpose for the law of Moses, and in particular the animal sacrifices, was not granted to the ancient Israelites. The ordinances of what they were to do and how to do it were, and their main duty was to obey. The purpose and meaning though were deeply spiritual, and were intended for the spiritual descendants. But just as they could not receive the statutes, laws, ordinances, and judgements until they kept the Passover and were all (in a sense baptized in the Red Sea) so, we also need to keep the Passover and be baptized (spiritually) in order to understand the deep purpose and meaning which God had sealed until now. Passover is a big subject and if I digress here and there, please forgive me.  

Now it is Mar. 4/2021, so I haven’t written much, but wow, has God helped me see so many things in about a week, and I’m again wondering where to begin with it all. I have said this before, (to the true lovers of God's Word), don’t even attempt to read this article, if you’re not going to check it out in your own bibles as we proceed, and have your concordances with you all the time too. In each article I attempt to write, I mention that God is the absolute Master of words, phrases, communication techniques, and explanations. And He uses metaphors, analogies, imagery, dualistic meanings, parallels, earlier and latter-day time frames, personifications, riddles, and so very much more when He speaks to us. I have referred to it as a “figure of speech language”. We should not be surprised that He does this. We do it ourselves all the time, but some of us expect Him to speak literally all the time. But why does He speak to us in mysterious ways? It must be to hide the meaning until a certain time and place in the history of His overall plan. And even then, He may intend that only certain individuals understand His messages as well. It says in two places in the bible, that He opens and no man shuts, and He shuts and no man opens. (Isaiah 22:22 and Revelation 3:7). He is enigmatic and stands alone as an absolute master mind, and mega  genius. I can’t think of a term to describe His level of genius.

There are a number of animal sacrifices that God ordained. They are not all found in the same book. The book of Exodus only covers the Passover sacrifice, and the Morning and Evening sacrifice. It focuses more on the place of worship getting built, that being the Tabernacle, and the establishment of the priesthood. These of course had to be in place first. Exodus also introduces something called the Freewill Offering, but this is not always a burnt offering such as an animal sacrifice, although it can be and most often was. Then the book of Leviticus introduces some of the other animal sacrifices. Starting in Leviticus 1, we have the Burnt Offering, (which is a free will offering), the Grain Offering, the Peace Offering, the Sin Offering, and the Trespass Offering. And we will find mentioned later some other offerings, such as the Drink Offering, the Guilt Offering and some others. They all have God's ingenious purposes somewhat hidden in them. They were physical rituals and exercises that God commanded the Israelites to do, but they all have a more spiritual intent. Just about everything must be “spiritualized” to understand God's intended literal meaning. This is a key principle to appreciate in coming to understand the many truths of God's Word. So, starting with the Passover lamb sacrifice, I will try to explain some of the more hidden spiritual meaning that God intended, for a place and time in history, which I am suggesting is now, in the early stages of the latter days. And since there are numerous animal sacrifices, I will introduce them with a heading, to maintain an orderly presentation of them.

Chapter 1, The Passover Sacrifice.

The first thing to say in describing all that the Passover symbolizes, (aside from the all important sacrifice of Christ), and then all that it literally means, is that everything belongs to God. Please bear with me while I go overboard in emphasizing this. The entire universe, and this planet earth, and everything in it, all belong to God. All the flora (the plant life), and the fauna (the animal life), and humankind, all belong to God. And if He chooses to grant or extend life, or terminate or shorten life, it is completely His prerogative to do so. If He chooses to terminate life just for a specific species of any of these categories, it is His prerogative to do so. If He chooses to separate just a faction, and then for His own reasons terminate them, such as “the first born”, of animals and humans, it is His prerogative to do so, because He owns them all. The dust of the earth (which all living matter comes from), belongs to God. He knows and accounts for all living things. Christ said that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without God knowing about it. Christ also said that even the hairs of our heads are counted, and known by God. How God knows all these things is incredible and miraculous to us, but it is the truth, so just accept it. If God decides to kill all the first born of a land (such as He did in Egypt), it is His prerogative to do so. And if God chooses to separate a certain portion of the first born, and “pass over” them, so that they are “not terminated”, then that is His prerogative also. When God performed the mighty miracle of the killing of all the firstborn in Egypt, His purpose at the time seemed only dualistic. Firstly, it showed Pharaoh and the Egyptians, (and the Israelites ), that He is God. Even in the Ten Commandments movie remake, there is a scene on the day after the killing of the firstborn, where the Egyptians in the court of Pharaoh, make this infamous statement, “Moses God '', “is God”. A very telling confession that almost had to be forced out of them through the ten plagues, which climaxed with the killing of the first born. They were almost certainly thinking: what god could know so exactly, who the first born of both man and beast are, and then send a plague that killed only them? And secondly, God made a merciful distinction between the first born of the Israelites, and the first born of the Egyptians, sparing the Israelites first born, provided that they put the blood of the Passover Lamb on the doorposts and lintel of their dwellings, so that the plague would “pass over” that house, and spare any first born in there. This too must have seemed like a great miracle to both the Egyptians and the Israelites, and especially, to a most incredibly stubborn Pharaoh. Almighty God was displaying His power and supreme authority over life on earth, and specifically in Egypt, and showing them that He alone “Is God''!

Now let’s talk about the Passover lamb for a bit. In the original event in Egypt, the physical Passover lamb symbolized certain spiritual things. It had to be a one year old male lamb, (or goat), without any defects. (This symbolized the perfect Passover Lamb, that being Christ). Both of these animals are very harmless creatures, with many character traits that make them the ideal animal “type” to portray characteristics that God wants humans to possess as they copy Jesus Christ (the most important trait being meekness). The lamb was to be selected on the 10th day of the month of Nissan, and was to be separated from the flock, and kept within the confines of the Israelite dwelling until the 14th of Nissan, living right amongst them for a short time more. On the 14th of Nissan at twilight, it was to be killed (and sacrificed), by being roasted in fire complete with head, tail and entrails. Its blood was to be captured in a basin. The lamb was likely hung head down, and its throat slit, in order to  drain the blood and capture it in a basin. And then using a bunch of hyssop like a brush, its blood was sprinkled or spread, across the doorposts and lintel of the house or dwelling, so that the destroyer (or death angel), would pass over that house, and not kill the firstborn in it. Now let’s do the spiritual comparison. Christ was also hung, and His blood was slowly drained from the wounds in his hands and feet, and side, and even from his scalp where the crown of thorns was puncturing his flesh. The one is just a type of the other. But some other interesting points to appreciate are: Christ also came into Jerusalem on the 10th of Nissan on that fateful year, riding on a foal, (which means one year old), and it was a colt, (which means it was a male), and it was of the equine kind (specifically a donkey), and that had never been ridden on before. References to these things can be found in the four gospels. And the prophecy of it can be found in Zechariah 9:9. And Christ was there dwelling amongst them in Jerusalem for four days also, and teaching them first hand, until the 14th of Nissan of that year, at which time, He was killed, becoming the real Passover Lamb of God, and their Passover sacrifice. And it is the spilling of His blood that causes God to “pass over” a spiritual first born, of which the physical first born was just a “type”. And as profound a teaching as the Passover is for true Christians, it is God's intended “deeper meaning”, of the segregation of the first born, that I hope to bring out in this article. But let me be clear about something. I do not think the Passover meaning itself is insufficiently taught amongst God's modern day people. But there is another aspect of what God intended to someday be brought out, which is also huge, that has to do with the first born. It will show His incredible forethought, and should stimulate us to give even greater glory to Him as we appreciate His genius.

Firstly, it was not the whole congregation of Israel in Egypt that was in danger of losing their lives, but just a targeted group; “the first born”. Did you ever think of that? I’ll ask again, did you ever consider why He singled out the firstborn? In a similar way, it is only the spiritual “first born”, of a spiritual Israel, that have any chance of being a part of the first resurrection, and, that need God to “pass over” our sinfulness so that we can be born again, and enter into eternal life, and reign with Christ for 1000 years in the Kingdom of God. Do you see the parallel? Do you see that God was ingeniously weaving the two firstborn concepts together way back then knowing we wouldn't "get it" for 3,000 years? There is so much meaning to the whole firstfruits-firstborn subject, and it doesn’t begin with the teachings of the apostles Paul and Peter and John. It goes all the way back to Moses.

So let’s go back into Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, and see what God's deeper intended meaning was in the giving of the ordinances in regards to the first born were, and what they were a “type” of. There are so many types to be appreciated, and I might mention some of them as we proceed, especially those that are specific to the Passover and the firstborn.

God cares about all people, but the firstborn are special; why?

I don’t want to give the impression that God only cares about the firstborn. God does care greatly about the whole community of Israel, and has a plan for all men eventually. But the firstborn are very special to God and have a very important firstborn purpose to accomplish as the new world order is established by God. God did make a distinction between the whole community of Egypt and Israel, by shielding the Israelites from the last seven plagues. And again He showed His commitment was to the whole community of Israel (including the strangers among them), by bringing them through a baptism of sorts at the crossing of the Red Sea. Although estimates vary, they were a group numbering somewhere between 3 and 5 million people, because the bible says some 600,000 men, plus women and children left Egypt. This is an incredible number of people that had to have all the day to day needs of your average human taken care of. Food, water, shelter, waste, bathing etc, are some seldom thought of needs, but God miraculously took care of them all. And He tested them some times too, to see if they were cognizant of His constant caring for them. He deliberately let them experience water shortages and food shortages to see if they would turn to Him for the supply of their needs. Sadly that was not their first reaction. Instead it was to contend with Moses and Aaron, sometimes  threateningly and violently. And God was not pleased, but He still provided for them anyway, and did perform great miracles, like making poisonous waters clean, making water pour forth from a rock, raining down quail and manna, and many other things. He was going to do those things irregardless of their faithlessness, but He wanted the experience to be positive, not negative. Their faith would have been joyfully developing, and God would be satisfyingly pleased. Think of it, they needed this and that, so if they would have just gone to God trustingly, (which is what He wanted), He would have provided, and the relationship between them and God would have developed on the positive, and God would have been glorified, and all on the positive. Oh that it could have happened that way. But it didn’t, it all happened the hard way.

Many many things were instituted between the time they crossed the Red Sea, and their arrival at Mount Sinai. All of those things have incredible purpose and meaning. They are what you might call “dry reading” to most bible enthusiasts, but I assure you, they are packed with spiritual meaning. It is not the purpose of this article to address all of them, but specifically the animal sacrifices. But many ordinances and other things needed to be in place before the animal sacrifices could logisticaly be done. I am passing by the study of them to stay on the topic of the Passover and the firstborn. The Passover is instituted in the book of Exodus, so we will spend some time there as it pertains to the subject. We will also look in the book of Leviticus and Numbers where the different animal sacrifices are first mentioned. Other sacrifices are mentioned in Exodus 29:38-46, but we will study them in the articles that pertain to them eventually.

Returning now to the Passover, and in particular, to the firstborn, we will actually find ourselves in the book of Numbers, and the first census that was taken to number the Israelites. Before getting into the census, let’s remember a basic thing; God did not have to single out the firstborn to die in Egypt. He chose to do that for a much deeper reason than we are initially aware of. Yes, He did want to show His greatness by displaying that He knows who every firstborn both of man and beast are, and that they all belong to Him, and that He may terminate there lives at any time He chooses, and that if He so chooses, He may spare the firstborn of a specific group, which He did with the Israelites by putting the blood of the Passover Lamb on the side posts and lintel of the doors of their dwellings. And remember that the blood of the Passover lamb was just a “type”, of the real blood of the real Passover Lamb, which is the blood of Jesus Christ. I will be reiterating this here and there as this article reaches completion. And also remember that what got “passed over”, or “spared”, was not the greater community of Israel, or even Egypt for that matter, but just the firstborn. (The greater community of both Israel and Egypt were in a sense, or as a “type”, already dead, or at least, “spiritually dead”, because all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God, so to speak). You may recall a little remark Christ made in Matthew 8:22 and in Luke 9:60, where He was telling a young man that instead of finding excuses, he should follow Christ now in life. Please read it. He basically said, “let the dead, (and He meant the spiritually dead), bury the dead”, (the physically dead), but you come follow Me. He was speaking with spiritual intent. He meant that since these people have not yet been called, and are not spiritually circumcised, and have not received God's Spirit, they are for all intents and purposes; dead already, (like “the walking dead”, if you will). Hopefully you see that parallel also. And we will come back to that eventually also. And one more thing to mention before focusing on the first census, is that a priesthood had to be in place. This too is a huge huge subject on its own, and I will only touch on it as necessary right now, before explaining God's deeper purpose in sparing the firstborn. But everything, just everything, has a greater spiritual purpose or meaning. (Please remember the principle; that the physical is just a copy, or type, of the spiritual). Aaron by the way, was a firstborn, and was God's choice for the first High Priest of the Israelite community. He was a Levite, (as Moses and Miriam were). Aaron was a “type”, of Christ, who was also a firstborn of Mary and Joseph, and spiritually was (and is), the “first '' of the firstborn, to God The Father. So the priesthood had to be put in place first, and that was by God's decree, and it was Aaron, and initially his two sons Nadab and Abihu. (Leviticus 8 and 9). And although I’m not covering it here either, the Tabernacle had to be built and functional along with the priesthood, (which was also a copy of something in heaven).

The first census; why?

Now we’ll go to Num. 1 and look at the first census, and see how this works into the Passover and the firstborn. We see in Num. 1:1-4, that God commands the census to be taken of all the males, and has three stipulations. It was to be taken by their fathers houses, according to the number of names, every male individually, from twenty years old and above, all who were able to go to war. (These sections of scripture may seem like dry reading, but I assure you, they are packed with God's incredible purpose). God is very organized, and plans way into the future. In Num. 1:1-4, It is the first day of the second month of the second year since they have left Egypt. The Tabernacle is now set up and operational, and all its articles have been made and are in place. The mainstay of the priesthood is in place and operational (the high priest and his assistants), (albeit the lesser operations of the priesthood, which occur outside the Tabernacle), are not yet in place). The Israelites have likely been camping in the same place for this whole first year, because no ordinances or methodologies of how they shall travel and transport such things as the Tabernacle have been set up yet. (The lesser priestly duties and the clans assigned to do them). And in Numbers 1, God is about to deal with that, and it first involves a census for various purposes. Now, the world is, and always has been a dangerous place, and war and killing is common. They will need to be ready for that likelihood, as well as a conquest of the land of Canaan in due time. Organizing an army of capable men is part of the purpose for the first census. As part of this effort to organize, there will need to be leaders chosen. And we see as we read the first verses of Numbers 1, that God chooses who from each tribe these leaders shall be. And as we get down to verse 46, we see that there were 603,550 men who could go to war. It is from censuses like this that we make our estimations of how large the overall community was. And when we factor in women and children, and the elderly men (too old for war), and the strangers within the community, we reach estimates that run into the millions.

As a side note, can we appreciate the miraculous thing God is doing? Millions of people are camping in a desert area, and will soon be marching. Can we imagine the logistics required to pull this off? Where did all the food and water, and wood for burning and cooking, and pasture for their livestock, and latrines, and many other things come from? Think of it in this day and age. If there were two to three million people there, let’s just reduce it to a tenth, and imagine trying to get it all done even for a camp of 300,000, never mind 3,000,000. This is one reason why there are so many skeptics out there. I could just go on and on talking about how great God is here, but let’s get back to the census, so we can see another great purpose God had in doing it. Notice verse 47; this 603,550 men did not include the tribe of Levi (the Levite’s). God had already chosen the Levite’s (when He chose Moses, Aaron and Miriam), to be the family that would represent the priesthood, and as we shall see, “the firstborn”. But not the firstborn in the context of “the rights of the firstborn ''. That was initially Reubens, except that he disqualified himself by his trespass against Jacob, (when he slept with Bilhah, Jacob's concubine). God determined that it would go to the firstborn of Jacob's beloved wife Rachel, and that is Joseph. We are talking about a spiritual first born.

In case you’re wondering why God chose Levi, with which to form the priesthood, perhaps it is a fitting place to say that God chooses whomever He chooses, and it is solely His right, and we ought not try and figure out His reasons why. Just accept it and be happy, because He knows what He is doing. So Levi is chosen to serve in a unique position, which we will get into. But we will see that this tribe, like all the rest, shall “type” certain things in the future, of which some are deeply spiritual. Just as Judah types spiritual Jews, and we know they are also the spiritual first fruits, so Levi types the spiritual priesthood and ministry of the tabernacle, and the firstborn whose sins are “passed over”, in the more spiritual Passover. We will see this and glorify God’s genius forethought in it. All the tribes type various things to God, which we will see some of going forward. In various places God has declared that Ephraim is His first born and He cherishes that very much. And Benjamin is His baby, (as he was Jacobs as well), and God gives him preferential treatment at times. And although we don’t read too much about Asher throughout the bible, there is a curious prophecy spoken about him by God through Moses in Deuteronomy 33:24-29. These are Moses' last words to the tribes of Israel before his death. Just compare God's words regarding Asher, to one short verse about Dan, and one about Naphtali, just before speaking about Asher, and ask yourself why God has so much to say about little insignificant Asher here. Incidentally, Asher's name means “happy”, and I’m not going to go deep into what Asher “types” at this time. But shallowly, I will say, he too types the victorious God cherished first born of the world, who will certainly be happy beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, when they, as the graduating class of first born humans, receive their inheritance, just as was spoken to Daniel in the last verse of Daniel 12:13. Go ahead and read it in Deuteronomy 33. And the only reason I am including a mention of it here in this article is to show that God chooses different tribes, at different junctures in history, to type something He is doing or portraying, and it is not according to a specific tribes righteousness, but just according to God's sole purpose and prerogative. And it appears that Asher's specific role type is way off into the future, at the time of Christ's return and victory.

Now, getting back to the census, and specifically to God's ordinances regarding the Levite’s. It continues in Numbers 1:46——. I will summarize, they were given the task of caring for the Tabernacle. The set up and take down, and transporting of all its articles, and the maintenance of it, was to be their responsibility. Their father had three sons, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. The duties of the care of the tabernacle were given to these three clans. Also, the set up of the camp was to be like this: the tabernacle was to be in the centre of the camp, surrounded by the tents of the tribe of Levi, and then, that centre, was to be surrounded by the tents of the tribes of Israel, according to their standards, and in the formation that God laid out for Moses, and again, all with God's amazing purposes. Now, on a human note, it could appear to humans, (and it did to many of them), that there was favouritism going on here, and a certain “politics”. Yes, isn't it just like us? There were those who thought that Moses (being a Levite), was favouring the Levite’s, when actually he was just following orders from God. But there were those even among the Levite’s themselves, that thought certain Levite clans were being favoured over other Levite clans, because Moses and Aaron were of the clan of the Kohathites. And it caused rebellion and death, but that’s all another story, about humans and our tendencies towards selfishness and envy. Numbers 1:54 ends the chapter with basically saying that the children of Israel did all that the Lord commanded them.

The second census, and the counting of The Levite’s; why?

Numbers 2 gives the breakdown of the set up of the camp, tribe by tribe. Numbers 3:1-3 reiterates that the Levite’s are to serve in the priesthood, with Aaron being high priest, and his sons Nadab, and Abihu, and Eleazar, and Ithamar being ordained to serve next to him. They would be officiating in the tasks in the holy place, and the “most holy” place, as well as with the sacrifices. Num. 3:5-13 breaks down the next line of the priesthood which would be divided between the three clans of the Levite’s. Now, please recall that there was no census commanded by God for the Levite’s at the time of the greater Israelite tribal census. But now, in Num. 3:14, God does command a census of the Levite’s to be taken. It will show you just how invisibly active God is in executing His will in this world; in its nations and people’s, and leaders etc etc etc. While the Israelites were in captivity in Egypt, God caused the Israelites to multiply rapidly. Remember how the Egyptian midwives told Pharaoh that the Israelite women were hardy and quick to give birth, and they (the midwives) could hardly keep up with them. But the Levite’s did not grow as rapidly as the other tribes. God graduated the birth rate of the Levite’s much slower than the other tribes of Israel, because He had already earmarked them for a purpose. Their census is now going to take place, and watch the incredible workings of God unfold. Num. 3:14-39 breaks down their numbers by clan, and they numbered 22,000. It also stipulates who their leaders are and what their jobs in the care of the Tabernacle will be. Now remember, because God spared all the first born of the Israelites, (provided that they put the blood of the Passover Lamb on their doors and lintels), that they now belonged specifically to God. I reiterate that God owns every human, and holds our very breath in His hands, but He was laying special claim to all the firstborn Israelites who He spared in Egypt, because it was ordained that every first born both of man and beast was to die. He redeemed the lives of the first born Israelites by the blood of the lamb. So now in Num. 3:40-43, He commands that a census be taken of all the “first born males” of the Israelites who are a month old or more. God knows the number already, but He wants us to know. And in verse 2 God makes a trade so to speak, of all the first born males of Israel, for the Levite’s, (and includes their respective livestock too). So Moses takes the census of all the “firstborn male Israelites”, and it numbered 22,273 males. That’s a difference of only 273, and I suggest that it is no coincidence that there just happened to be approximately 22,000 male Israelites spared, and 22,000 male Levites alive. (It does not say for sure, but the difference of 273 were likely born in the desert since that time, and there were certainly some females born as well since leaving Egypt). Then in Num. 3:44-46, God makes the trade, but since there is a difference of 273, and that difference must be accounted for, a redemption price is set for the difference. There is already a currency developed, (the sanctuary shekel), and the redemption price is set at five shekels for each individual, with the money to be given to the priesthood, that being Aaron and his sons.

So now I will ask us to go back in our minds, to the book of Exodus, and view the coming of the death angel, from another viewpoint; from “outside the box” so to speak. Because in our modern day keeping of the Passover, we give very little thought to the fact that it was not the whole community of Israel who was passed over, but just the first born. Viewing this spiritually, from outside the box, in our modern day, can we appreciate that God views the greater community of spiritual Israel, (and the spiritual Gentiles as well of course), as spiritually dead? And that unless one responds to God's calling, and accepts the blood of God's sacrificial lamb redeeming them, (that being the blood of Jesus Christ), and thus allowing them to become a candidate for the class of the first born, that they are as good as dead also? And another incredible spiritual “type”, which rarely gets talked about, is that the roasted lamb (picturing Christ, the Lamb of God), had to be eaten that night, the night of the Passover, because in type, we must eat the spiritual flesh of Christ, which once spiritualized, we realize that we are not literally ingesting Christ’s flesh, but we are ingesting into our hearts, the Word of God, the doctrine of God, and life giving way of God, (and all the rest etc, the physical being a “type” of the spiritual). And  yes yes, there is the second chance down the road for all who have lived but are not a part of the “first born”, but we’re talking about the first born here, and God's incredible ingenuity going all the way back to Egypt, and the wilderness, and the Levitical priesthood, who are a type of the spiritual Levitical priesthood spoken of in various places in the bible (at times not very glowingly, such as in Malachi, Nehemiah, and the gospels). So, it is the firstborn, both physically, and spiritually, that gets “passed over”. Now doesn’t that make sense, and doesn’t it also make being a firstborn child of God a lot more important? And shouldn’t it make us stand in awe of God more? And with all of this breakdown, isn’t it incredible, that anyone could not view the Passover service and tradition, as a Christian ritual of the utmost importance? How could anyone ever logically choose to keep Easter, (which doesn’t make any sense), in place of the Passover? (Even a deceived counterfeit Christianity should see the significance of the Passover and the ridiculousness of Easter). I guess that is one way to display the deceptive power of the devil, and the men that serve him; ie: his ministers.

So the Old testament Passover was just a type of the New Testament Passover. This we already know of course, but the old testament firstborn is also just a type of the new testament firstborn, or “first fruits' '. This was not quite as obvious. And it is God's ingenious involvement, and pre-thought of this whole incredible thing, going all the way back to the original happening of it, that I am trying to bring out. It was the first born that was passed over then, and it is a spiritual first born that is passed over again, showing the type. Amazing revelations like these help us to glorify God more. The rest of the animal sacrifices are also packed with deeper meaning than meets the eye. The next sacrifice, which is the morning and evening sacrifice, will display God's intended, somewhat secret meaning also. And oh how incredible is the intended spiritual significance of the morning and evening sacrifice. And with that, the explanation of the Passover and firstborn sacrifice is completed until there is more to add, which there possibly will be going forward. March 24, 2021.  

Edited again in May, 2022, and December 2023, and again in 2025.

Glen Clarke

Chapter 2: The Daily Offering: The Morning and Evening Sacrifice

March, 2021

The next animal sacrifice that God commanded the Israelites to offer up was the “daily offering”, also known as the “morning and evening” sacrifice. Like the Passover, this sacrifice has great spiritual meaning. Like the Passover, God reveals His incredible genius, planning, and forethought, in instituting this ordinance. Like the Passover, God had a spiritual intent, that was hidden in the keeping of this ordinance, that will become clear in this article. That spiritual intended meaning and purpose has been assaulted throughout history at various times, and will be assaulted again, at the very end of the whole controversy. This is spoken of in the Book of Daniel 8:11-14, 9:27, 11:31, 12:11, and referenced in a most curious manner by Christ in Matthew 24:15, and Mark 13:14. I say “in a curious manner”, because in both places, there is a little remark in parentheses which I will quote: “(whoever reads let him understand)”. This is God telling the reader to pay close attention, and to look deep, for a meaning to this reference which is not obvious.

March 27, 2021.

God gave the physical Israelites the ordinance of the keeping of the daily sacrifices, without them ever understanding the real intended purpose of it. In a way, it can seem like God toys with the human race. Let me be clear, I am not, and dare not, accuse my Creator with anything, no not anything. But I choose such language to get across to you, the reader, how humans think. God is so great, so very very great. He compares this planet, as great as it seems to be to us, to being likened to His footstool for Him. How much less the creatures on it, including humans made in His image. Various times in scripture, God says that He has to always remember that “they”, “we humans”, are just flesh. So if God chooses to take a nation that He has set aside for His own purposes, (such as the Israelites), and order them to do anything, then who are we to question Him. If He chooses to have them do exercises, or rituals, that have very little apparent meaning to them, who are we to question Him, let alone criticize Him, and accuse Him of toying with us. God was more concerned with them learning to obey, than understand what and why they were doing what they were told to do. I will quote from Isaiah 45:9-12 in the NLT in one long expression. Try and imagine God's voice saying this with all the emotion, and voice inflection, including sarcasm, that we humans utilize when we talk. “What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying stop you’re doing it wrong! Does the pot exclaim, how clumsy can you be? How terrible it would be if a newborn baby said to its father, why was I born? Or if it said to his mother, why did you make me this way? This is what the Lord says, - The Holy One of Israel and your Creator, do you question what I do for My children? Do you give Me orders about the work of My hands? I am the One who made the earth and created people to live on it. With My hands I stretched out the heavens. All the stars are at my command”, end of quote. The point of this is to help us understand that we belong to God, and He is supremely righteous and perfect in judgment, and we can not have any opinion about what He chooses to do with us. All will see this someday when we reach a point of comprehension about God that is similar to what Job came to realize, in Job 42:1-6. Please read it.

March 28, 2021.  

So God made the Israelites do many physical rituals, which all have logical and sensible purposes once God reveals it to us, but may have seemed somewhat mundane, like just ritual and religion to the ones originally carrying it out. Those ancients and ancestors, could still have lived out a fulfilling and fruitful life, even if it required them to perform certain God ordained tasks, whose meaning was deeply spiritual and futuristic. It might sound like I’m apologizing for God, who needs no such thing at all, but I’m not. I’m trying to help anyone who reads this article, not to judge God, or have an opinion that is directed at His thoughts and actions and deeds. With all that said, we can get into the deeper meaning of the “Daily Offering'', also known as the “Morning and Evening Sacrifice”. Once again, I request that you read along in your own bibles, having concordances handy for when we use them, and pay close attention to His instructions and any reasons “why” which He includes in His instructions, which will lead to a deeper “reasoning” of God's part.

The first mention of the Daily Offering is found in the Book of Exodus 29:38-46. It is also covered in the Book of Numbers 28:1-8. I will summarize the ordinance. Every day, two lambs without defect (also expressed sometimes as lambs without blemish), were to be offered as burnt offerings. One was to be offered in the morning, and the other was to be offered in the evening at twilight. They were to be accompanied by one ephah of fine flour, mixed with a fourth of a hin of finely pressed oil, and a fourth of a hin of wine, as a drink offering. Exodus 29:41-46 tells us why God commanded this offering. It says they were to be a sweet smelling aroma to God, and an offering made by fire, and that they were to be a continual burnt offering made throughout their generations at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, before the Lord where God would meet with them, to speak with them. And there, God would meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle would be sanctified by His presence and glory. And God would dwell among them, and they would come to know that He is The Lord their God, that rescued them from the land of Egypt, so that He could dwell among them.

Numbers 28:1-8 says the same thing except that it adds that God considers these daily offerings to be like food to Him, and again, He likens them to be like a sweet smelling aroma to Him. This is important: (I emphasize that they are “likened” to food to God as well as a pleasurable sweet smelling aroma, and not actually physically so for God, such as for we humans). These physical ordinances, which God commanded the Israelites to do, had a deeper spiritual intended meaning for the spiritual Israelites, and I reiterate that to know God's deeper spiritual meaning we must spiritualize all of it. We must be able to interpret the symbolism of it to know His true intended meaning. Firstly, this sacrifice, and these lambs without blemish, do not picture, or symbolize Jesus Christ. They symbolize our morning and evening prayer and worship. God desires to know us intimately, and for us to eventually know Him intimately. He desires to dwell amongst us as a collective group or congregation, and in us individually as well. He desires to meet with us very early each and every day before our day of labouring begins, and then to be the last One on our minds when the day of labour ends. He hopes that we will come to the same desire for Him in due time as well. That’s why there is an emphasis on meeting with us at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and dwelling amongst us. That’s why it was to be a continual practice throughout all our generations. In Psalms 141:1-2, David said: “Lord, I cry out to You, make haste to me. Give ear to my voice when I cry out to You. Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as “the evening sacrifice”. And again in Psalm 5:3: “My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and I will look up”. And Psalm 55:17: “Evening and morning and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud; and He shall hear my voice”. And Psalm 134:1-2: “Behold, bless the Lord all you servants of the Lord, who by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord”. And incense was to be offered in the mornings and evenings as well on the incense altar. Notice Exodus 30:7-8: “Aaron shall burn on it sweet incense every morning; when he tends the lamps, he shall burn incense on it. And when Aaron lights the lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense on it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations``. Also notice Luke 1:10, “And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense”. And also notice in Revelations 8:3, “Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne”. Now that is interesting, and I’ll tell you why. In God's true church, I have always been taught that incense pictures, or is in type, the prayers of God's holy people. And this is true. But I have read this scripture in Revelations numerous times and paused at it because it says the incense was to be offered “with” the prayers of God's people. And in my pause, I thought, but the incense “is” the prayers, (in symbolism), of God's people. So how do you offer it “with” the prayers of God's people. And now that God has granted me more understanding, I see that it’s not “all” the prayers of God's people, because the morning and evening sacrifice are “another” type of prayer and worship of God's people. Ahhhh, now it makes sense. While the lamb without blemish was being offered up, Aaron was burning incense on the altar in the holy place at the same time. But going on with another reference, Daniel 9:21, “Yes, “while I was speaking in prayer”, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the “evening offering”. And there’s numerous other references that speak of the morning and evening sacrifices. It seems to me to be powerfully implied that the sacrifice is a type of another spiritual exercise, and that is prayer and worship. But let’s look at some of the other symbols too. God wants His children to respond, or did you ever think of it as “a reply”? In this modern day and age of texting, messaging, and emailing, we’re all familiar with what a “reply” is. And God is hopeful, patient, and long suffering. He will even endure our tendencies to be repetitive, mundane, and futile with our prayers, until we learn to be fervently sincere, and genuine, and sensible and reasonable, and come to understand that He knows best, and pray accordingly. So in modern day vernacular, God wants to meet with us very regularly, and desires a worthy respectful reply. So just as the lamb without blemish typed Jesus Christ as the Passover Lamb, the lamb without blemish in the morning and evening sacrifice then types our unblemished motive and pure intent in our prayer and worship of God. That is the ideal that God wants us to strive for.

Now add to the daily sacrifice such things as an ephah of fine flour, mixed with a fourth of a hin of finely pressed oil, and a fourth of a hin of wine. What might these items symbolize? Since God does not really savour the barbecuing or roasting of animal flesh, and different grains mixed with salt and pure olive oil etc, that too is symbolic. We are flesh and most of us do enjoy and savour certain animal flesh barbecuing or roasting over open flames. But God is spirit and it is meant to be spiritualized, so that we understand that the savouring that God is really talking about, is “likened” to what we enjoy. The finely ground flour, and the finely pressed oil, are types also, of the quality and content of our prayers and worship. They are to be added to the lamb without blemish to make it even more savoury to our Creator. I have noted in previous articles that the bible compares the physical to the spiritual. Christ is the bread of life, and as the Israelites survived on the manna in the desert, so spiritual Israelites must ingest the Bread of Life, which is the Word of God. These metaphors go on and on and on. In Ezekiel 4, the grains that Ezekiel combines into one mixture, are not to be interpreted as literal. They are to symbolize defiled doctrine, which those Israelites must survive on for the stipulated time period. It’s too big a subject to go into here, but I have written an extensive article on it explaining it. I mention it here only to add to the overall effort to show that physical food which we cannot survive without, is only a type of the spiritual food, which is intended to be pure truth, which we also cannot survive into eternity without. There are many many scriptures that prove this principle. So, as God is willing to feed us with His pure word of truth, so He desires that our words, (or our reply), to Him, which is our prayers, also be pure, like pure flour beaten finely, mixed with pure oil, all sacrificed (or offered to Him), in a daily manner. Now add to it a fourth of a hin of wine. What is wine a symbol of? This is a very special kind of doctrine or knowledge. Grapes are a very special food group in God's creation. We could probably do a whole article on grapes, and the wine they can produce when fermented. They are a part of the food group categorized as “fruit”, which the bible has much to say about, both good and bad. When fermented, they can affect the mind and thinking process, and thus must be used with balance and caution. How might I compare wine, that can be physically ingested, to grains and oils, or animal flesh, that also may be ingested? Just as these other food groups type spiritual food, which both of can be good or bad, or clean or unclean, so wine types the more mysterious parts of doctrine or knowledge, which can be true or false, clean or unclean, holy or abominable, etc. One of these spiritual food groups would of course be the prophetic word, (or prophecy), and if you know your bible, (ie: the prophets), you will recall the many references to false prophets, (who are drunken on the wine of their own imaginations of prophetic things), and sometimes their views and judgments are actually compared to vomit, (because of their spiritual drunkenness, Isaiah 28:1-8). There are also true prophets, and the prophecy’s they utter are always messages from God and they are sometimes very mysterious, and can be compared to strong drink, and powerful wine, and not for babes or the immature, and must be ingested in balance, and in the right amount and timing. I could go on and on, and you might be thinking I’ve lost it, but I know that I am speaking the truth. But that is what the symbols of the daily sacrifice are really intended to mean. It is all about pure and truthful prayer and worship. I have said this before and will say it again now, and that is, that truth is absolutely paramount in importance to God. It is what the whole controversy is all about going all the way back to satan’s sin and rebellion. If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably heard the saying before, that “it’s all about government”. I agree with this statement, but the assault on truth gets to the cause of the assault on God's government. In John 8:44, John said that Jesus made this basic statement to the Pharisees regarding satan: “ You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it”. This strongly implies that there was a time previous to this, when no one lied, (and of course, I mean the beings that existed ), and no one altered the truth, because satan actually fathered the very concept. Can we imagine such a time? Now I could go to many scriptures to show that this is what it’s all about with God. “It’s all about truth”. And every idol, and every false image, and every false doctrine, is an assault on the very core of God's eternal existence. Let me give you one more example before we move on. Let’s go to Ezekiel 8. The heading in the NKJV is “Abominations in the Temple ''. Let’s jump down to 8:7, “So He, (God), brought me, (Ezekiel ), to the door of the court; and when I looked there was a hole in the wall. Then He said to me, “Son of man, dig into the wall”, and when I dug into the wall, there was a door. And He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there”. So I went in and saw, and there were every sort of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed all around on the walls. And there stood before them seventy elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. Each man had in his hand a censer, and a thick cloud went up. Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, the Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land”, end of quote. Now let’s break this down and spiritualize it to see what God is more literally portraying, because this is a vision, and the things that Ezekiel sees are symbolic.

First of all let’s appreciate that Ezekiel was a captive amongst the captives in Babylon at the time. Let’s also appreciate that Jerusalem, in real time, had not yet literally fallen to the Babylonians. There was a literal Jaazaniah, son of Shaphan.  Jeremiah was a prophet at the time, and was carrying out his God assigned mission in Jerusalem. Zedekiah was a puppet king in Jerusalem who was rebelling against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had set Zedekiah on his throne over Judah. Zedekiah had no backbone and was giving in to a corrupt establishment and priesthood under him. There was a total apostasy going on that would not listen to God, (through Jeremiah). They were completely deceived by false prophets, and unbeknownst to them, were bent on the self destruction that had been decreed by God because of it. God had already cleaned out most of the salvageable people from Jerusalem having sent them into exile in Babylon. There were a few still in the city, but not many. This Jaazaniah, (prophetically referred to in Ezekiel 8:7 and 11:1), was amongst the corrupt priesthood operating in Jerusalem. Our real time reference to him is found in Jeremiah 35:3. But there is some confusion in the scriptures at that juncture where he is mistakenly included amongst the obedient Rechabites. This is caused by the translators. He’s actually mentioned in that instance as a disobedient witness to the obedient Rechabites. It takes some digging, but the truth of this Jaazaniah is found in references to him as the son of Azzur and also as the son of Shaphan. Instead of trying to explain it in this article, I am just going to summarize events, because I’m really just trying to explain what the symbols of the vision of Ezekiel 8:7 actually mean, but I do know the truth regarding Jaazaniah, (and Pelatiah). This whole vision is about the assault on truth. If only we fully appreciated the hugely colossal, ginormous, all important subject to God, that truth is, we would better understand where God has been, where He is now, and where He is going. But here goes with the explanation of Ezekiel chapter 8. Walls, whether they be physical, or figurative, usually are meant to protect, or keep in, and keep out. The physical temple had walls. Jerusalem had walls. Everything physical is a copy of the spiritual, which is more often figurative, but with a literal purpose or intent. Figuratively speaking, there can be walls of truth which protect what really is, (some good intent), or there can be walls of lies, which protect some other motive and intent, almost always that being some evil intent. In the case of Ezekiel 8, the 70 men depict a priesthood that has apostatized. The (unclean), abominable creatures and creeping things which are on their walls, depict all sorts of false doctrines and errors, which their own superstitious minds have embraced in place of the truths of the real God. They secretly embrace them in the dark places of their minds or hearts, but think that no one can see them. They think it’s secret, and that even The Lord does not know. They have turned their back on God and worship the ideas of their own deceived minds, and are dedicated to this falseness, and in total vainness they worship and pray to a false concept of God; one of their own choosing. And worse yet, they are God's own priesthood, leading God's people down a stray path. That’s what this vision is depicting; false doctrine and false worship. God wants our worship and prayer to be true, honest, genuine, sincere, fervent, and sound minded. All of these are the figurative traits of a lamb without blemish, fitting to be offered up to God on a daily basis, both early in the morning, and later in the evening. And all the other things added to them, including incense, help embellish the offering. There are many other places in scripture where this principle is portrayed. I’m not going there, and again, I have written on it, but one place is in Malachi. (Albeit it is a negative example). Now let’s address the references to the daily sacrifice, which are found in the book of Daniel, and in the Gospels by Christ. I repeat, when Christ said in Matthew 24:15; “therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, (whoever reads let him understand)”, He was giving us a “heads up”, so to speak, that we are to pay close attention, to the overall prophecy, and not be deceived. Or, put another way, do not trust in the obvious, which the masses will be trusting in. Know the obvious, but that is not the intended spiritual meaning of the prophecy. Since Christ said that it was something spoken of in the book of Daniel, we must go there, and then combine what we learn there, with what Christ says in the Gospels. Before we go to Daniel, let’s appreciate something. Many people are watching end time events play out. They are watching for certain occurrences to take place. For instance, they are watching for a false prophet that will be granted powers to deceive, such as calling fire, (lightning), down from heaven, and various other miracles, (possibly healings etc). They are also watching for the Jews to either demolish the Dome of the Rock, take back the Temple Mount, and erect an end time Temple, or at least a place of worship, where they may reinstitute physical sacrifices such as the daily sacrifice, and other sacrifices. They are watching for the Jews to find a “red heifer”, (for reasons I won’t get into at this time), but it also has its part to play. There is much much more, but suffice it to say that they are watching for many physical “signs”. And I would advise that we do too, but they are the obvious, and it is “the not so obvious” that we must be watching for, even more so as well. The obvious are physical “types” of the spiritual. So now let’s go back to the Book of Daniel and see what Christ was referring to. The full explanation of the Book of Daniel has not yet been released by God. Some think they know a lot more than they actually do, and I would say beware what people tell you is the true interpretation of end time prophecy. For one thing, the messenger to Daniel, (it appears it was usually the archangel Gabriel, but also may have been The Lord of Hosts at times too), told Daniel on more than one occasion, that the vision pertained to the time of the end, and was sealed until God unseals it at some point in the time of the end. And there are plenty of modern day seers that say, “it’s the time of the end, so it’s unlocked then, and here’s what it all means' '. As I said, reader beware! I have also felt inclined to write an explanation of the book of Daniel. And one of the things I explain is that until God reveals certain things, I can’t explain everything, but quite a lot I can, many of which are corrections, mostly where many people get God’s intended meaning wrong. I would not be belabouring this, except that the daily sacrifice has something to do with end time events. But the places where God tells a very frustrated Daniel that the understanding of the visions are for the time of the end, and shut until then, are as follows: (and I am using the KJV, NKJV, NLT, NIV, and the NET). Dan. 8:17 All, 8:19 NLT, 8:26 NKJV, Dan. 10:1 (implying the time of this is way off into the future), and again in Daniel 10:14, then Dan. 12:1 (to show it is the same time spoken of by Christ and Jeremiah). And finally Dan. 12:4. So, there will be many things I will not explain, unless God releases that information, which He said He would, and I suspect that time is coming soon. But regarding the daily sacrifice, and it being forcibly taken away, or stopped, and the abomination of desolation being set up in its place; these things I can explain. Now remember, the physical is a copy, or “type” of the spiritual, but switches back after spiritual understanding is achieved, for a literal fulfillment . And remember, that the masses will only be looking for the physical, and will thus mis the spiritual. So the masses will be looking for an end time temple and altar, (which there will likely be one), which is a type of the spiritual temple, which is God's true church. They will also be looking for real sheep being offered in the morning and evening as a part of their daily worship, (which the Jews may very well reinstitute), which is a type of the morning and evening prayers and worship of the true saints of God. And the abomination of desolation, which was previously a physical abominable image or statue, is a type, (possibly of a man), who in the real end time will embody an alternate Jesus Christ, an alternate gospel message, an alternate array of doctrines, and an alternate concept of God and truth. It will be a continuation of the assault on truth in climatic fashion, and is a complete abomination to God just as it was in Ezekiel 8. So when the bible says that “he”, (and of course his whole establishment of co-conspirators), will forcibly stop the daily morning and evening sacrifice, it is talking about what they were a type of, which is the true prayer and worship of the saints. Now it may happen to the Jews as well, but that is just a decoy for those with eyes and ears of understanding to know in advance about. The institution which will be in place, and forcing a statewide religion, will not tolerate any other system. By the time this occurs, it will have smashed Islam, (which is the state religion of the King of the South). And it will not tolerate Judaism, or any perceived faction of it, such as Sabbath keepers. History knows an earlier type of this occurred in 168-167 BC, by Antiochus Epiphanes, but the bible clearly says these prophecies refer to the time of the end. We could ask, has there ever been a time when it was outlawed to pray according to one's own heart and conscience? Yes for sure! It was outlawed when Daniel was a respected administrator in the very court of King Darius. Most people have heard the story of Daniel in the lion's den. It all happened because he defied a law that said no one was allowed to pray to any god except the stipulated god of the state. How about more recently? Yes, as early as 100 AD, persecution began to occur against anyone who embraced the name of Christ calling themselves Christian (true or false Christians). And as history advanced, and Paganism adopted the fully apostatized faith of false Christianity by way of the Edict of Constantine in AD 313, it was proclaimed that Christians must not Judaize by worshipping on the Sabbath (etc etc etc), but must conform to the rituals and regulations of the newly embraced state religion; false Christianity, (which was none other than a not yet fully developed Catholicism). How about references by Christ? Did He speak about a time when the daily sacrifice would be outlawed? He told us to go to Daniel to consider it, and gave us that peculiar admonishment of “reader beware, or, reader pay attention”, in Matthew 24:15.

But He also implied many many times, in other places in scripture, that the true worshippers of God would suffer for their exercising of true prayer, worship, and obedience, to God's statutes, ordinances, judgments, precepts, testimonies, commands, laws and ways. Here are some places, but I won’t be going to all of them, but enough to make the point. In John 16:1-4, Jesus said “these things I have spoken to you, but you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogue; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God a service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them”. So if the morning and evening sacrifice are a type of our daily worship, and there is going to be a stop put to them, because it clashes with the idolatrous state religion, you can hopefully see the connection. And in Matthew 24:9-10,  Jesus said: Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all Nations for my name sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Paul quoted Psalms 44:22 in Romans 8:36, both prophetic references to the saints, and said: “For your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter”. Daniel 7:21 says. “I was watching; and the same horn was making war with the saints, and prevailing against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and a judgment was made  in favour of the saints of the Most High, and the time came for the saints to possess the kingdom”. And again at 7:25. “He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law. Then the saints shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time”. Revelations 13:7 says: “It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. And there are many more references to this same difficult time for the saints. This has been a long article and has gone off in a few places because I know it is all going on because of the original assault on truth, and God's governance over the entirety of reality. In concluding this article, I am going to try and sum up the morning and evening sacrifices. But I couldn’t have expected you to just believe a summation like I will offer, without having detailed it to the degree that this article has. God made man in His own image, and programmed us with the mental and spiritual capabilities and faculties, to carry on a relationship with Him. He chose one man (Abraham), and from him formed one nation, to model this relationship for all the other nations to learn from, and copy in due time.

This relationship was a communication method between God the designer and creator, and the living prototype-mankind. The morning and evening sacrifice were to type this daily active ongoing relationship of both worship and prayer. It would take place at the door of meeting at the Tabernacle, which was a type of God's Temple in the heavenly realm. It was to be a continuing ongoing thing, generation after generation, but it would also eventually become comprehensible on a spiritual level, so that the sons of God, the first born/first fruits, would expand the full meaning and intent of it, which would be the hoped for destiny of all men. (As God has said, He does not desire that any should perish). The same enemy that launched the original assault on truth and God's government is responsible for all the sabotage, and efforts to interfere and destroy God's efforts to salvage mankind, but as already decreed, that enemy shall fail miserably. The only thing his part will accomplish is to have provided the resistance God planned out for the development of character, and to weed out those not salvageable for various reasons. But along the way, he (the devil), will interfere with things, only to be outsmarted, and outmuscled by God at every turn, and all for the express purpose of declaring God's incredible greatness and glory. All the living beings both spirit and physical, both righteous and wicked, will be witness to this outcome some time before they enter into either eternal life, or eternal death. This is the explanation of the daily sacrifice, also called the morning and evening sacrifice. Like the Passover, it is loaded with deep meaning and purpose which I believe God revealed to me so that I could write this article, because I did not know what it meant when I sat down to write. There are numerous other animal sacrifices that God ordained the Israelites to do, and each one has some deeper God intended meaning to it. I asked God to show me what they mean, and I believe He has. I trust He will continue to show me the meaning for the next one, which is the “freewill offering”. We who are the ones to have to bear the worst time in all man's history, are also privileged to comprehend incredible knowledge. God said that in the last days, knowledge would be increased, and I submit to you, that He was not only talking about physical and materialistic knowledge, but spiritual knowledge also, and especially “truth”, which there is no physical substance, even the purest gold of Ophir can compare to. If some individuals want to view God's orders to the Israelites, as toying with mankind, they best beware. I advise them to remain quiet, and not argue with their Maker, saying why have You made me thus? I suppose the greatest thing that the Israelites could have profited from in doing the physical sacrifices, (since they were not granted the spiritual insight that God has granted us), was to learn obedience, which in itself, is invaluable.

Thank you for reading this article. I will move on to the “freewill offering” now.

Glen Clarke. Edited again in December 2023, and again in 2025.

Chapter 3: The Burnt Offerings – Specifically- The Free Will Offering

April 10, 2021

This is the third article on the subject of the animal sacrifices. As the title denotes, it is about free will offerings. Various things could be freely offered to God, but it was most common to offer a ceremonially clean living animal that would be slaughtered and burnt as a sacrifice to God. So it was a burnt offering, and a burnt sacrifice, and they were virtually the same thing, and in this case they were given voluntarily, freely, and willingly. Please keep these terms in mind, especially the terms “free will offering”, and then refining it down a bit to “free will”, and then refining it down even some more to “free”, and ”will”. I will explain this in due time. Free will offerings could be done individually or collectively. God takes offerings and vows very seriously because it all stems back to the subject of truth. The 2nd article on the animal sacrifices, (the morning and evening sacrifices),  brought this importance “on truth'' out a lot, as some previous articles that I feel God has inspired me to write have also. (Please don’t think it puffy of me to say “God inspired me to write”. I say it so that I make clear that I am not responsible for the insights, but God is.) Anyway, God takes these things seriously because His Word is pure, trustworthy, and sure. And He wants the same from us; just keep your word is what Christ meant when He said, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no”. Not all free will offerings were burnt offerings. A couple of collective “free will offerings” were taken up. In Exodus 25, God gives instructions for a congregation wide free will offering to be taken up in order to acquire the gold, silver, bronze, precious stones, fabrics, woods, and all the other materials necessary for the construction of the Tabernacle. God clearly states that it will be taken up from all those who have a “willing heart”. Ex. 25:1-2. But it is not taken up right away. God is giving Moses, and by extension, the whole assembly, instructions for what to do and how to do it. These instructions, starting with the taking up of the offering, and then for the construction of the Tabernacle and all it’s articles, and for the institution of the Priesthood, go on for 7 chapters, from Ex. 25 until Ex. 32, where they are interrupted by the golden calf transgression. But all the way through those 7 chapters you read a constant repeated expression by God, and it is this, “you shall ''. Please take the time to read those 7 chapters and “you shall” see it, (pun intended). It’s repeated so often, “you shall '' this, and “you shall” that. The actual “doing” doesn’t start until chapter 35. In real time, a lot transpires between chapter 32, (when God gets so angry at them), and chapter 35, when God, in a sense, does a reset. (I guess I’m going on a digression to cover something related).

Israel's first adulterous encounter breaks God's heart.

For 7 chapters, (from Ex. 25 to Ex. 32), God was laying down all the plans for how it was going to work out, (the “you shall” part), and then the golden calf incident occurred, and it was right after their marriage vows (or covenant) had been made. If you want to see this from God's point of view, it was like getting married, and the first time you turn your back, your bride has an adulterous affair on you. God has already experienced their stiff necked hearts on the journey to Mt. Sinai, but this is their first real congregation wide adultery. So yes, to say it interrupted things is possibly an understatement. Please read the account again from chapters 32 to 35, and try not to cry as you do, because it’s a heart-rending story. I will summarize it here but remember this important principle though, marriage covenants and vows, are just a type of a covenant, or promise of loyalty and devotion, to the word of our agreement. Marriage is the joining of something. Of course we think of it as the joining of a man and a woman. But you can marry two wires together, or you can marry ropes together, you can marry two pieces of steel together (by welding), or you can marry many many things together. So when God says He married Israel, He means by mutual agreement, they married together, as God and nation, but yes you can also portray it as husband and wife; it all means the same thing. So then, here in Exodus, we have a very fresh marriage that has already been defiled by adultery, disloyalty, and betrayal on the part of the people (these nouns describe what the essence of adultery is, whether physical or spiritual). And I would like to sympathize with the woman folk among us. Women in general, are not to be looked down upon here, like it’s in their nature or something. Unfortunately for you woman, you have to bear the adulteress wife “type”, because God has to bear the “type”, as the offended husband. But in real time, God has just had His heart broken. Yes He may have seen it coming because He knew the people's fickleness, but we too see things coming, and when it does, it still hurts a lot. Moses also is distraught and in shock, and angry, and in embarrassment before God. Initially, God wants to destroy them. He tells Moses in Ex. 32:10, just leave Me alone, that my anger may burn against them, and I’ll just destroy them. But Moses intercedes for them (as Christ does for us). And in verse 14, it says the Lord relented. I will reiterate the fact that God is a person, and a self. He made us in His image, and thus we are persons and selves. All our emotions and faculty’s are fashioned after His own. How unfair of us not to grant God a little sympathy, like “He’s God, He’s not supposed to feel things as we do''. So He relents, but like many jilted mates, He does not want to be amongst the people anymore, in their camp, or in their travels and journeys, or in any way. And Moses is distraught, but he goes down the mountain and deals with this situation the best he can, but he loses his cool in his anger, and he smashes the two tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them by God's own finger. And he destroys the idol they made and grinds it to powder and makes them drink it, and he rather quickly gathers a group of volunteers (mostly Levite men), and they take their swords in hand and go amongst the camp and kill about 3,000 men that day, (likely the ring leaders most responsible for this debacle). And he rebukes Aaron for letting it all happen, and although it’s not stated at this juncture, he had to intercede for Aaron with God, and somehow got Aaron off the hook from the death penalty. (This is mentioned in Deuteronomy 9:20). In Ex. 32:31 Moses said, these people have committed a great sin. There are “great sins”, (or offences), and smaller, or lesser one’s. Great ones, as we all know, can be harder to forgive. And in verse 32, we see Moses plead with God to forgive this “great sin”. And if not, he asks God to blot him (Moses) out of His book. Is that the Book of Life? Whatever, it pretty much means kill me, because a I can’t bear to live otherwise. And God corrects Moses' viewpoint in verse 33, but appreciates Moses' intent nevertheless. Then the Lord (in essence says), We’ll still go ahead with the plan, you will lead these people to the land that I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob etc. But God was going to hold them accountable, and there were going to be consequences as verse 35 shows. And He still did not want to be among them, at least not yet. They still had to build the Tabernacle and all its articles before they could leave, and set up the priesthood etc etc. In chapter 33 we see how hurt God is and how He could just consume them if He was to just let emotion and self desire rule, which of course He does not. But He does not yet want to be amongst them.

April 17, 2021

It’s been a whole week since I have written anything, and I’m trying to collect my thoughts. I know it seems like I have digressed, but for some reason, I have felt inspired to review this great trespass against God by his people shortly after their marriage covenant was made. Perhaps God wanted me to make mention of it in this article before I go on to break down the full spiritual meaning of the free will offering. God’s expression of His feelings and emotions regarding this trespass are contained in various places throughout the Bible, sometimes reminiscing and reminding their descendants of them. The chapters of Exodus 33 to 35 give us the initial breakdown of how God felt. Moses was very special to God and had a special relationship with him. I will try and provide a basic synopsis of what went on between Moses and God between chapters 33 and 35. After Moses had come down off the mountain and had broken the tablets containing the 10 Commandments, and dealt with the people, (and the 3000 people that fell that day), and dealt with Aaron, then God commanded Him to come back up the mountain, and bring two new tablets of stone, with which to carve the 10 Commandments out on again. God and Moses had their discussion where Moses interceded for the people and tried his best at a human level to express human reason with God. Moses found grace in God's sight, and managed to also find grace in God's sight for the people. Moses had a deep craving to know God even deeper, and in fact he wanted to see His face, and His glory. God told Moses that he could not see His face and experience His full glory and live, because no human could see His face and experience His glory and live. But God did make it possible for Moses to experience just a small portion of it, by passing in front of him, while He put Moses in the cleft of a rock, and protected him, by covering him with His hand, as His glory went past. When Moses came down off the mountain he did not realize that he himself had retained a small part of God’s glory, which caused his face to shine, and caused fear within the people, because of this supernatural thing. There had been no tabernacle constructed yet nor had any of the articles or instructions for the priesthood been assembled. Those instructions had all been given to Moses between Exodus 25 to Exodus 32 as things “you shall do”, but they weren't done yet in real time. Remember God did not want to be amongst the people yet. So Moses' tent was set up outside the camp, and that became the meeting place where God would meet with Moses until the tabernacle was constructed. A great bond between God and Moses had formed, a very special bond, and Moses face used to shine regularly, so much so that he had to put a veil on his face when speaking to the people. All this time the children of Israel were still camped at the base of Mount Sinai. Chapter 35 begins the point at which the children of Israel now began to construct all the articles for the tabernacle and the priesthood. The initial pain of the terrible disloyalty, transgression, and adulterous behaviour of Israel, was beginning to fade a little bit in God’s heart. Once the Tabernacle was completed, God did begin to dwell in the midst of the Israelites camp again, but as God often stated, He knew what they were truly like. The congregation-wide “free will” offering that God had commanded Moses to take up in Exodus 25, had not yet been taken up. Now, (ten chapters later), in chapter 35:4, after everything that has happened, Moses takes up the first free will offering. The remaining five chapters of Exodus cover the actual construction of the tabernacle, its articles, and the priesthood, with its garments and articles. These things all had to be in place before the children of Israel could continue on in their journey towards the promised land. Leviticus chapter 1 begins with the introduction of the more common “free will offering”, and from here we will continue on with the free will offering article, and its deep spiritual meaning.

The real “spiritual”, “Free Will” offering now.

As we begin, please remember that the words “free” and “will”, will be very important, in understanding the deeper spiritual intent and meaning of the free will offering. God gave Moses instructions to be given to the people regarding the animals that could be sacrificed by burning as free will offerings. These were not congregation wide free will offerings, but offerings that were given by individual members of the congregation. It is curious, and interesting, that God selected three specific types of animals that could be offered, (four actually if we consider sheep and goats separately). Here are the specifics. Lev. 1:1-3 NKJV. Now the Lord called to Moses, and spoke to him from the tabernacle of meeting, saying, speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: “when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the livestock - of the herd, and of the flock. If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own free will, at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, before the Lord''. Let’s now break this down. First of all let us understand that the stipulation that the creature be without blemish is not a type of Jesus Christ. The stipulation that the creature is to be without blemish is just to indicate that it is the very best that you have to offer. Simply put; that you are doing your best, which is all that God requires. Always remember the story of the widow's mite to ensure understanding of this principle. But why is it a bull without blemish that God commands the Israelites, (who happen to own cattle), to offer? What do bulls picture and symbolize, and are therefore a type of? They symbolize strength and power, and the seed of procreation in the cattle kind. Remember, this offering is called a “free will offering” and has to do with the word “free” and the word “will”. Similar to the Passover sacrifice, and the morning and evening sacrifice, the free will offering or sacrifice, has deep spiritual meaning, and they all flow together; this is something we shall see going forward. Once again we shall see there is a lot of duality involved in this offering. Yes God does want to see individuals come before Him with a free and willing generous heart, willing to give up things. A bull was quite an offering to give up, but only if you happened to own one to give up in the first place. Not everyone was a farmer of cattle and owned  bulls. The greater symbolism of the bull and the physical strength that it possesses, in the spiritual context, is to be interpreted as strength of will, or simply put, “strong willed”. Bulls can be stubborn and very strong-willed. Bulls were used, because of their great strength, to do a lot of work. They could be trained to plough fields, and pull carts and wagons. They could also be teamed together to double, or quadruple their combined  strength. To offer a bull was quite a sacrifice. People have sometimes been called bull headed, which again is a figurative way of saying they are strong willed.

And here's the amazing spiritual truth of it all.

The free will offering of a bull, is meant to typify the sacrificing of our own wills to God. It is one of the greater (getting closer to ultimate) sacrifices that we may offer: our wills, for His will. The sacrificing of our wills is a deeply spiritual exercise, and is likened by God to a sweet smelling aroma of the most pleasing kind. Of course the Israelites had no idea of this being the true significance of what they were doing, and yet it still had great meaning in the sense that you were giving up a bull for God, and just as its roasting flesh was a pleasant smelling aroma to the nostrils of your average human, so they thought it was to God also, (but in actuality, that is just a type. It is actually the sacrificing of our will which produces the pleasantness to God). Now let’s qualify some of these concepts from other biblical passages. There’s no better place to start than with Christ's own words. One of the most famous references is John 6:38. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me”. For context it would be helpful to read all of verse 35 through verse 40. And again in John 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work”. And in John 5:30. “I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgement is righteous, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of the Father who sent Me”. And then there’s the infamous prayer in Matthew 6:10. “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. And Matthew 7:21. “Not everyone who says to Me Lord Lord; shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven”. And one more by Christ from Matthew 26:42. “Again, a second time, He went away, and prayed, saying oh My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done”. This is the reference that most powerfully anti-types the sacrificing of the bull without blemish in the “free will offering”, because Christ really did sacrifice His will for the Fathers. There are many more references including all the similar references from Mark and Luke, and some others, but hopefully you get the point. And there are dozens of references from the Epistles that could be used to back this up as well. I will only reference one very famous one, and it is from Acts 13:22, where Paul is quoted as saying: “And when He had removed him (Saul), He raised up for them David as king, and gave testimony and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart who will do all My will“. And now a couple of references from the Psalms. 40:8. “I delight to do Your will O my God, and Your law is within my heart”. And Psalm 143:10. “Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God, Your Spirit is good, lead me in the land of uprightness”. Hopefully you’re getting the point, that the sacrificing of the bull is just a type, meant to represent the sacrificing of our will, so that God's will may be done, and that just like our Saviour and leader Jesus Christ, we may from that point on, be available to God to advance His will. It is also worth mentioning that the bull is one of the very majestic “cherubim like” creatures mentioned in the visions of Ezekiel, and again in Revelations. There has to be some purpose in that. And another interesting thing to consider, is that the image of Baal, is often portrayed as a man with a bulls head and horns. For some reason, the Israelites were often duped by satan into worshipping images like this going all the way back to the golden calf at Mt. Sinai, and then the Calves of Jeroboam, which were stationed in Dan and Bethel of the Benjamanites. So bulls are a symbol of strength and power and selfish stubborn will, and thus they are chosen by God to represent the offering, and sacrifice of such on the spiritual plane provided that the one making the sacrifice is in ownership of bulls in the first place. Let us look at the rest of the instructions God gave regarding the procedure when offering a bull in Leviticus 1:4-9. Notice that God instructed the one offering the bull to put his hands upon the head of the burnt offering; and it would be accepted for him to make atonement for him. But what does that mean? I have explored the possibilities for what atonement God could be referring to.

April 18, 2021

Please consider the motive and intent on the part of the one making this offering. It is after all, a free will offering, and implies that the one receiving the offering, (in this case God), should have even the smallest note of appreciation. Unless of course there is something that has been done that needs to be atoned for, (which we will see is the case). And if this free will offering is simply a gift from the one giving it, to the one receiving it, then why is there any need for atonement? This gets back to the deep spiritual meaning of the free will offering. And we will see that there is a pattern starting to form in the sequence of all the animal sacrifice offerings. What needs to be atoned for then, is the separation between the individual human being, and God the Father. And the freeing of our will, so that the Fathers will may rule, is all a part of the reconciliation process. And thus, we lay our hands on the head of the bull being offered in our place, and sacrifice our will, and the strength of our will, to God. So it is not only a free will offering on our part, but in the process of doing it, we are “freed” of our own will, that God's will may rule. This goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It is all a choice and a decision made by the individual themselves. This is brought out in Leviticus 1:5. Notice that it is the individual themselves that kill the bull, picturing them slaying their own will. And it was done before the Lord and before the priests, (Aaron and his sons, who type Christ). And the animal was killed at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before entering the tabernacle. Lev. 3:2. The altar was just inside the door of the tabernacle of meeting. There had to be an involved process developed to get this done. A bull is a large creature containing a lot of blood, even up to 10 gallons. The blood had to be captured and the whole affair could be very messy. Actual descriptions of how it was done are not available to us in the Bible. So we have to do our best to imagine it or put it together in a sensible and logical manner. There are sites available on the Internet making suggestions of how it was done but even they are not 100 percent accurate. In all likelihood the throat of the bull had to be cut, and the animal elevated from the hind legs in order to drain and capture the blood. Since the animal could weigh somewhere between 1000 to 1500 pounds it required some sort of hoisting mechanism to do this, and numerous men/priests with rope and tackle to hoist it up. Once the blood was captured in some vessel, then the priest would take some of the blood, and go sprinkle it on the altar, but not all 10 gallons of it. God considers blood to be very holy and says that the life of the flesh is within the blood. Leviticus 17:8-14 covers this in great detail. The sprinkling of the blood upon the altar is not meant to be offered up in place of the one offering it, but it is meant to represent their own blood, just as the strong will of the bull is meant to represent their own will. (Hebrews 10:4 says it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away, (or cover), (or atone for), sins and offences. It is meant to picture our own blood. This does not conflict with the truth that it is Christ's blood that atoned for our sins and offences. But that was two sacrifices back at the Passover. This is a spiritual process going on here. Can you see the pattern yet? First the Passover sacrifice, (paying the price for our sins), then establishment of the morning and evening sacrifices, (or daily prayer, worship, and intimacy with God), then comes the slaying of our will, (as Christ said, I do not exist to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me). But getting back to the free will offering sacrifice, and in  particular, the bull; so, a portion of the blood is sprinkled on the altar as representing the blood of the individual sacrificing their will. The remainder of the blood, possibly over 9 gallons, must then be poured out into the dust of the earth. This did not take place at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. The priest would take it to a fitting place outside the camp and dispose of it by burying it in the dust of the earth. Next in Leviticus 1:6, the individual offering the bull would “flay”, (or skin) the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. It is important to appreciate that it is the one making the offering that must slaughter the animal, and skin it, and cut it into pieces. For all intents and purposes it is a “self sacrifice”. Next in Leviticus 1:7-8, the priests prepare the altar, lay wood upon it, and put fire to the wood upon the altar. Then they arrange the parts with the head and the fat in order upon the altar and burn it as an offering made by fire to the Lord, and it is a pleasing thing to God, especially when one understands the spiritual intent of what is being typed. But notice one more ordinance regarding the offering. In Leviticus 1:9, God says the individual making the offering must do one more thing. God says, “but he shall wash its entrails, and its legs with water”. And then the priests shall also burn those parts on the altar as a burnt offering to God as well. The significance of this exercise is not completely clear, except that it creates a distinction between the outer and inner man. The outer man, complete with all of its muscles and flesh, types the strength of the man, (to actually “do”, or “act”, or “carry out” the will of the man). The inner parts type the heart, and the seat of the man's emotions, in the place where the man's will is conceived. It is no coincidence that God puts a special type of significance upon certain organs inside the creature, which are the same organs found inside the man as well. We have seen, and we will see some more, that God gives special ordinances on how to sacrifice organs such as the liver and the kidneys and the fat that surrounds them. Both of these organs are organs that cleanse blood, and remove and store harmful impurities from the body. Similarly when spiritual impurities come into us, they too must be separated from the inner man’s heart, and stored and removed. Actually they must be completely destroyed in fire; in spiritual fire. These impurities are always false doctrine or abominations to the truth, or evil attitudes trying to find a foothold in our hearts etc. God gave different ordinances regarding the animal sacrifices at different times for different reasons. For instance, not all the animal sacrifices were burnt inside the camp, or inside the tabernacle compound on the altar. Sometimes the animal was burnt outside the camp, but its entrails were burned on the altar after being cleansed with water. An example of this is found in Leviticus 8:14-17. This is also a good place to see that God places a special significance on the kidneys and the liver. This pretty much covers the ordinance of the free will offering, when it is of the herd, and when it is a bull without blemish, and very clearly portrays how much incredible meaning and purpose God had in commanding this exercise to be done by the Israelites. It is not likely that it was an everyday practice when the Israelites were in the desert. Consider some of these types and duality‘s. Just as there were not many farmers who were sacrificing 1500 pound bulls in the desert, so there are not very many people out there in the world, who sacrifice their own free will, so that God‘s will may rule in their lives. There are not many even amongst those who are called by God to this ultimate sacrifice, and who make this choice, and that go “all the way”. Perhaps you are seeing the types and duality that portray what the free will offering regarding the bull without blemish are meant to picture.  

April 21, 2021, why sheep and goats next?

Moving now to the second possible “herd”or “flock” creatures that could be used to represent a “free will offering”. It begins in Leviticus 1:10. “and if his offering is of the flocks, namely of the sheep or of the goat for a burnt sacrifice, he shall bring a male without blemish”. Leviticus 1:11-14, and for the description of the instructions here I will summarize. The instructions that God gives regarding the killing of a male lamb or goat without blemish, are all very very similar to the instructions that He gave for the killing of a male bull without blemish. Once again, its blood was to be captured and sprinkled about on the north side of the altar, and about the altar, and the rest of its blood disposed of, and then the head and body parts burned on the altar, and the innards were to be washed, and the legs washed, and then burned on the altar similar to the bull. Everything was very similar to the same instructions given for the bull. There might be a few small differences not mentioned for the bull that were mentioned for the lamb and the goat, such as the mention of the direction “north”, and the word “side”, but really these instructions were similar for all of the sacrifices. This point is made clearer in some other places in Leviticus. Since the instructions between the bull, and the lamb or the goat, are so similar, then what is the main difference intended by God, between the symbolism of the different creatures? Please recall that I said that not all farmers were farmers of the herd and owned bulls. And just as one of the main things that bulls pictured, was strength, stubbornness, and will, so lambs and goats pictured something specific also. All three of these creatures also picture a certain element of wealth, or possession of material things. All three of these creatures were clean for human consumption. The lamb and the goat were much more common as an animal to be slaughtered for food than a bull, cow, or calf were. There are peculiar references in the Bible to certain occasions being such special occasions that they dictated the slaughtering of the “fatted calf”. This implies that it was not an everyday affair to slaughter a fatted calf. I only say this to take the focus off the bull or calf, so that we can apply focus to the lamb and the goat. These animals are not nearly as strong, or stubborn as the bull is. They are much more docile and meek in their nature. So what might they be intended to picture, as something that the one offering the sacrifice, is giving up to God and here it is. It is a form of wealth, and material possession, and daily laboring. Besides the lambs being a source of meat for food, they also may be sheared for their wool, from which many many things are made. Similarly, she-goats may be milked daily for the very very precious food that milk is and can be made into. The main thing then, that the lamb and the goat picture, is the sacrificing of our wealth and our possessions to God for His purposes, and yet, when we make this sacrifice, God blesses us, so that in actuality, our wealth and possessions multiply many times over. And remember, just as the lamb without blemish in the Passover pictured the perfect Jesus Christ being sacrificed, so the lamb without blemish for the bull, the lamb, or the goat, all picture the very best that you have to offer.

And now, amazingly, why the young pigeon or the turtle dove?

And now we can move on to the third creature God authorized them to offer, which is the young pigeon or the turtle dove. It is common for us to conclude that God commanded them to offer a young pigeon or a turtle dove, because some people are poor, and do not have the resources to offer sheep, goats, or a bull. Although it is true that some people were not farmers, and some were poorer than others, and did not possess much livestock, that is not the reason for God ordaining the offering of these particular creatures. Once again, there is great meaning, and symbolism to God choosing these particular foul; specifically the young pigeon or a turtle dove. And although it is true that some people are poor and may only be able to afford a pigeon or a turtle dove, there is way more significance and meaning to this creature type than meets the eye. Remember we are exercising the practice of sacrificing something here. Remember with the bull, it was largely our strengths, and power to “do”, and our stubbornness, and certain characteristics of our wealth that were being pictured by our sacrificing of the bull. And similarly with the sheep and the goats, it was our possessions, and our ability to “produce” and “gather”, which were again characteristics of our wealth, that were being pictured by the sacrificing of the sheep and the goats. And it stands to reason that all of this takes time, so let’s not forget that it is our time that is also being sacrificed. Now what might a young turtle dove or pigeon most powerfully symbolize, which the other creatures cannot symbolize in the same way, that will also be sacrificed to our great Almighty God?

The answer is freedom. You only have to picture a pigeon or a turtle dove flying, diving, swooping, gliding, landing, and then launching back into the air at the whim of a whisk, totally free in the air, going in any direction it wants to go, anytime it wants to go, in order to picture the freedom that this may portray. But what about the symbolism of the unique things that God said were to be done when sacrificing this small creature? OK, let’s look at that. Leviticus 1:14-17. The first thing to notice, (which is obvious), is that the foul chosen by God, (the young pigeon or turtle dove), is another ceremonially clean animal. And one might think that there’s not much meat to be eaten on a pigeon or a young turtle dove. But it’s not all about eating. These creatures are very harmless, gentle, soft, and beautiful. Let’s review the instructions that God gave regarding the sacrificing of this creature. Leviticus 1:15-17. “The priest shall bring it to the altar, wring off its head, and burn it on the altar; its blood shall be drained out at the side of the altar, and he shall remove its crop with its feathers, and cast it beside the altar, on the east side, into the place for ashes. Then he shall split it at its wings, but not divide it completely; and the priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire. It is a sacrifice and an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord”. There is not a lot of mystery in the instructions given to the priest for this sacrifice. First let’s just try and picture this whole ceremony. It has to appear to us as a sad thing. Just imagine this little creature in the hands of the priest being cupped by his left hand and his right hand. And like almost any foul, the removal of the blood has to come from the decapitation of the head. When the head is cut off of any foul, the physical thing that its body does is spasm. This may be controlled and nullified by the priest, by simply taking its left wing and its right wing and breaking its back when it is spasming. But God clearly does not want the creature torn apart. Then the blood may be drained, and the feathers plucked and disposed of, and then the creature may be offered up as a burnt sacrifice. And again, it is pictured as a sweet smelling aroma to God. But we understand, that it is the sacrifice of our freedom to exert our own wills, so that we, like Christ, may “do” God's will, and that His will may be carried out, and that is what is really being portrayed, and that it is very pleasing to God, just as was reiterated many times by Christ in the Gospels. So the free will offering pictures the sacrificing of our will, for the will of God. And it involves the sacrificing of our strength, and power, and wealth, and possessions, and time, and freedom. This is summed up in Psalms 50:5, where God says in the Spirit, “gather My saints together unto Me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice”. This is what the covenant of sacrifice is. Can you see the pattern of the conversion process being displayed by God's ingenious design here in the animal sacrifices? First we have the Passover, then we have the establishment of morning and evening prayer as we develop a relationship with God, then as we grow, we have the sacrificing of our wills for the great will of God. And this may be more difficult for some than for others. God knows us deeply and knows what to do for each individual. Consider the examples of two very important servants of God, Peter and Paul. The Apostle Peter was a very strong willed man, and a very courageous leader, and God knew that he had to conquer Peter’s will, and that it would hurt somewhat, but in the end Peter would become the servant that God wanted him to be. Please recall the humbling experience Peter had to go through when he was told by Jesus that he would deny Jesus three times before the rooster would crow. And another part of the process of Peter's conversion is displayed for us in the book of John chapter 21 beginning in verse 15. I will quote it. “So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these? He said to him yes Lord, You know that I love You. He said to him, feed My lambs. He said to him again a second time, Simon son of Jonah, do you love Me? He said to Him, yes Lord, You know that I love You. He said to him, tend My sheep. He said to him a third time, Simon son of Jonah, do you love Me? Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, do you love Me? And he said to Him, Lord, you know all things, You know that I love You. Jesus said to him, feed My sheep. (And then Jesus added). Most assuredly I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you, and carry you where you do not wish. This He spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “follow Me”. These biblical stories portray for us the process of conversion that Peter went through including the sacrificing of his will for God‘s will.

Let’s also consider the story of Paul’s conversion. For Paul it all happened on the road to Damascus. The groundwork for his calling and conversion, and the process, was probably being laid out well before the road to Damascus incident, but that is where God makes it all happen. Like Peter, Paul had to first be humbled and broken. He had to face the fact that he had done many horrific things to God’s people. God struck him with blindness, but then he was baptized and became aware that Jesus Christ's death paid the penalty for his sins. Then his life of prayer, meditation and worship of God got established on a regular daily morning and evening and any other time basis. And then the humbling and meekness, and understanding that his will had to be sacrificed so that the will of God could rule was made known to him. Please recall in the book of Acts, where Ananias (speaking to the Lord), expresses his fear of going to face Paul. Acts 9:13-16. And the Lord says to Ananias, in verse 15, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake”. In both these instances we see how both men’s will had to be sacrificed, and we see the process, that it was first the Passover sacrifice, paying the price for their sins, and Christ’s blood covering them, and then came the set up of their life of prayer, meditation, worship, and intimacy with God, portrayed by the morning and evening sacrifices, and then comes the sacrificing up of there will, portrayed by the free will offering. And thus we see a pattern and a process happening that God had in mind, which couldn’t have been understood by the physical Israelites that were carrying out these rituals back in the day that they were instituted.

I would like to digress very briefly to show something very interesting about languages. First recall that Jesus Christ is the master of languages, and the master of all communication techniques, mannerisms of expression, and storytelling in general. Although the scriptures, (and thus, the Bible), is written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, it is no coincidence that the dominant language in the latter days is English, and that when it was time for the bible to go viral and spread around the world, it would be done largely in English. All men’s languages are imperfect including English, and have been made even worse by our tendency to corrupt everything. But English does lend itself to a wide array of various language characteristics and possibilities. And again, I do not think it is a coincidence, but because God planned it that way, and then made it happen. There’s a very unique play on words provided by the English language, which is no coincidence. That play on words that I am speaking of, is the “free will offering”. It is not only meant to imply that the person sacrificing the animal is doing it of their very own “free will”. This of course is the most understood meaning of the free will offering; that we are making an offering of our own free will, and thus displaying to God our love, dedication, and commitment. By getting out of the box though, of our basic viewpoint, and viewing it from outside the box, we can see that it is also meant to imply that we are being “freed”, of our own “will'', so that God‘s “will” may rule. This is a play on words that is made possible by the English language. It may be possible to infer it by use of other languages as well, but it certainly is possible in English. So in conclusion, we can see that God puts an incredible amount of thought, meaning  and design into all of His statutes, ordinances, judgments, precepts, testimonies, commands, and laws and ways. And we see a pattern of the conversion process that is ingeniously reflected in the animal sacrifices, and that it is a precious spiritual “gold find”, which God has been saving for us to discover in the latter days. And I submit to you that we are just scratching the surface of truths yet to be revealed. Or put another way, we are just dipping the cup, into an ocean of yet to be revealed truths, that God in His wisdom, and generous kindness will give to us through His Spirit. In Matthew 7:11, and in Luke 11:13, Jesus said, (I paraphrase to bring both scriptures together); “if you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven, give the Holy Spirit, and truly good gifts also, to them that ask Him”. The next animal sacrifice offering that we will look at (that involves an animal), is the “sin offering”. But there is another offering mentioned in Leviticus 1 before the sin offering is mentioned, which does not involve an animal sacrifice, and that is the grain offering. And this is really an incredible part of the free will offering, or an extension of it, or a fantastic spiritual outgrowth of it, and it really has its own expanded meaning. Or it could be thought of as a “maturing”, after the slaying of one's own will. A sort of, “where do we go from here”, concept. So I think it needs its own article, and therefore will not include it as a part of the “free will offering” explanation. The final thing I will say about the free will offering, is that in being freed from our own selfish will, so that God’s ultimate truly great will may preside,  we ironically achieve true freedom in this life, and in the life to come. And we will be rewarded a hundred fold as Christ said, “everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for My sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life” (Matt. 9:29). More could be said, but for now this is it until more valuable information is revealed by God. Thank you for taking the time to read thus far.

Glen Clarke

April, 2021 Re-edited in April, 2022 and December 2023, and February 2025

Chapter 4: The Grain Offering.

April 24 – 25, 2021

This is the fourth article on the offerings found in the law of Moses. It is also the fourth offering that God commanded the Israelites to do in the law of Moses. The first was the Passover, which covered God's intended spiritual meaning regarding the firstborn children of God, yet to be born (except for Christ). Then came the Morning and Evening sacrifice, which covered God's intended spiritual meaning of the relationship to develop between He and all the candidates of the class of the firstborn going forward, which would develop through close intimate contact with God through prayer, meditation, and worship. Then came the Free Will Offering, which covered God's intended spiritual meaning regarding the sacrificing of our wills, so that His perfect will could rule in the hearts of all the possible candidates of the class of the spiritual first born. These sacrifices were covered in the books of Exodus and then in Leviticus 1. The law of the Grain Offering is introduced at the beginning of Leviticus 2. One of my first thoughts was, why is there a grain offering right here in the middle of all these strictly “animal sacrifices”? Another one of my initial thoughts was that the grain offering seems at first, to be the least important, over offerings that involve living animals. Firstly though, I did read the verses on the grain offering, and then I wondered where to begin. I could see a few curious things that were different from the instructions given for the animal sacrifices, but I did not understand the spiritual significance of the grain offering yet. So the place to begin that occurred to me, was with prayer and meditation. That’s all I did with it on the Sabbath of April 24, 2021, and God was gracious to me because things did start to come to me. Humanly speaking, I was thinking that it might have less importance than the animal sacrifices because after all, it was just grain. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that is something we will see as we get into it. The first thing I would say, is that by the context, it very clearly seems to be an extension of the free will offering. Notice the way it begins in Leviticus 2:1 KJV. (It begins with the conjunction “and''). This connects it contextually with Leviticus 1:16, which is where the instructions for the free will offering seems to end. But it is men that put the chapter breaks in, so this seeming “break”, between the animal sacrifice, and the “meal'' or “grain sacrifice'', seems fitting. But we will see that the grain offering is really an extension, or outgrowth, or a maturing and refining, of the free will offering, and even more so, of the morning and evening sacrifice, and then even the Passover sacrifice, since they’re all spiritually connected. Another curious thing that might place greater emphasis in one's mind on the grain offering over the animal sacrifices, is that the instructions given for the free will offering in Leviticus 1 took 17 verses, and it covered three different creatures. By comparison, the instructions for the grain offering in Leviticus 2 takes 16 verses when the subject is just grain. (Albeit, it covers the various ways of preparing the grain). But there are some other very thought provoking instructions and comments by God, that as we shall see, place prime importance on the grain offering. And by prime importance, I mean “most holy”, and those are God's words, not mine, (again, as we shall see).

So let’s get into it by reading Leviticus 2:1 KJV. “And” when anyone will offer a meat offering unto The Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour, and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense there on it”. I should point out that I deliberately quoted the KJV because I wanted the conjunction “and” to be in there to support the view that the grain offering is an extension of the free will offering. It is not present in the NKJV, NLT, NIV, ESV, CSB, NET or the RSV. But it is present in most of the “older English” versions. It’s not terribly important but I just wanted to be upfront about my usage of it, and why. I want to mention another peculiar term or reference that God uses, which we will come back to in a big way later, but I want it to be in our minds before we get to that point. That is found in Numbers 28:1-2 KJV first, and then the NKJV. “Now the Lord spoke to Moses saying,  Command the children of Israel and say unto them; “My offering”, and “My bread”, for “My sacrifices” made by fire for a sweet savour unto Me, shall you observe to offer unto Me in their due season”. And now the NKJV. “Now the Lord spoke to Moses saying”, “Command the children of Israel, and say to them”, “My offering”, “My food”, from “My offerings” made by fire as a sweet aroma to Me, you should be careful to offer to Me at their appointed time”. The point to remember, is that these offerings of grain, God considers to be “His food”, (bread or food have the same meaning). And now just save that thought until we come back to it. Now we’ll go back to Leviticus 2. We were going over curious things that God commanded, that place prime significance on the grain offering . And I digressed to show that these offerings are viewed by God as a “type” of food, and especially so with the grain offering, and as we shall see, it was especially true for the priests to be able to keep the largest portion of the offering as a food source for themselves. Another point to keep in mind, is that in the common food groups, there are staple foods, which we consume almost daily, and then there are the wide variety of food groups we consume occasionally. Grains and fruits and vegetables, would be amongst the most common, with grain, (or cereal), as possibly the most common everyday, every morning food. With these things now in the back of our minds, let’s get deep into God's intended meaning of the grain offering. This is going to be intensely spiritual, and we will be going way outside the box of our traditional viewpoint on these things, and may very well be viewed as too incredible for some believers.

May 1, 2021

It’s been a week since I’ve been able to write, and for the whole week my mind has been swirling with the law of the grain offering, and various spiritual duality's, and wonderings of where to begin again. I know I’ve said this a lot, and I will say it again, that God speaks in figurative language often, and is the Master of all methods of expression, and He chooses to hide things at His own prerogative, and He uses a lot of metaphors and analogies and different techniques to do this, and to explain things to those He wants to understand, and the explanation of the grain offering is going to be replete with these things. After reading it over a number of times, in different translations as well, I think the place to start, is with identifying what grain itself, is meant to “type”, in the spiritual realm. In the physical realm, it is one of the most basic foods. With that said, consider sayings such as “food for the soul”, which refers to the things in life that feed our heart and mind and soul. We’re all very familiar with food idioms, and/or food metaphors. There’s too many to mention them all. The usage of them is usually to give meaning to words and concepts. One of our most basic needs as physical creatures, is the need to eat and drink on a daily basis. Since God fashioned the world and created the creatures on it after that which exists already in the spiritual realm, this physical realm must be some type of it, including some concept of eating as well. This subject could easily become very very broad, going all the way back to the garden of Eden (and beyond), and to the forbidden fruit known as the “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” in the midst of the garden. And I look forward to that dispensation eventually. But I will try and stay right with the grain offering and go to the scriptures that will best explain God's intended spiritual meaning of this offering. So let’s just get a spiritual concept or principle, right out on the table; (that is, the dinner table, pun intended), and that spiritual concept is this; “words”, are “food”, metaphorically speaking in the physical realm, but literally speaking in the spiritual realm. Just as we eat grains and other foods into our physical bodies, so we eat words and concepts, into our spiritual body; the heart, mind, and soul. To show this principle, let’s go to the scriptures, and let’s begin with Christ. He is the Word of God.

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. And John 1:14 says, “And  the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. So on the physical plain we have His flesh, and on the spiritual plain we have His Word, and they are one and the same, except as John 6:63 says; “it is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing, the words that I speak to you are Spirit, and they are life“. And again, in John 6:35 it says, “Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. And John 6:33 says, “For the “bread” of God is that which came out of heaven, and gives life to the world“. And John 6:41 says, “Therefore the Jews were grumbling because He said, I am the “bread” that came down out of heaven”. (The manna was just a type that came down out of heaven as Christ also did). Now going to John 6:55-58 it says, “For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh, and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever. And Jeremiah 3:15 says “Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will “feed you” on “knowledge and understanding”. So words are food for the soul, which it stands to reason, are “knowledge and understanding”, of either the good and healthy kind, or the bad and unhealthy kind, which leads to death. Some more scriptures supporting this are Matthew 4:4 where Christ answering the devil said; “But He answered”, “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”. We see in this scripture then a comparison between the words of God, and bread. Another one that I will quote now, and will bring back again when studying the instructions given to the Israelites for the grain offering is Matthew 16:5-12; “Now when the disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said to them, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves saying, it is because we have taken no bread. But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, oh you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand or remember, the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets you took up? How is it you do not understand, that I did not speak to you concerning bread, but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees? Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of “bread”, but of the “doctrine”, of the Pharisees and the Sadducees”. A long little bit of scripture, but it powerfully describes once again, the comparison of bread to knowledge or doctrine, or, just “words”, which convey meaning. Also Revelations 2:7, once again to contrast the eating of good knowledge versus wrong knowledge; “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree which is in the Paradise of God. This of course is the tree of life, and expanded a little, we could say, the tree of the true knowledge that leads to eternal life, as compared to, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which expanded a bit, we could say, is the tree of the knowledge of good, which has been defiled by mixing it with the forbidden knowledge of evil. (Mankind’s experience of life has been one of good and evil, and as leaven spreads and infiltrates the whole lump, so the knowledge of evil has infiltrated man's knowledge of good and defiled it). And one more just to show how God uses grains to picture a staple type of food such as grains. This reference is a little more mysterious because it is part of a prophecy. It is in Ezekiel 4:9-13. I have explained what this prophecy is about in an article entitled “There’s nothing new under the sun, Baal worship anciently and modernly, could this be true?”. So I will not be going through a lengthy explanation again here. But I will quote Ezekiel 4:9-13 and give a brief synopsis of it only. “Also, take for yourself wheat, barley, lentils, millet, and spelt. Put them into one vessel, and make bread of them for yourself. During the number of days that you lie on your side, 390 days, you shall eat it. And your food which you shall eat, shall be by weight, 20 shekels a day from time to time you shall eat it. You shall also drink water by measure, one sixth of a hin; from time to time you shall drink it. And you shall eat it as barley cakes and bake it using fuel of human waste, in their sight. Then the Lord said,  so shall  the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles where I will drive them”. To understand this, we must understand the symbols. The grains are false knowledge and doctrine, which have been defiled by what comes out of a man, (and which comes out of an oxen too), and the diet that they must survive on, is a spiritual diet of the skimpiest proportions, which pictures the skimpy defiled little bit of truth that Protestantism possesses, (which is modern day Baal worship, and easy to prove). The explanation I offer in the article addressing this goes much deeper, but this is a brief synopsis. Once again though, it magnifies the metaphorical usage of grain as food, which is a type of God's words, and laws and doctrines, and truth!

Up to this point, what we have been seeing come into understanding, is that physical food is a type of spiritual food. And all the scriptures we have used to reference this concept have had a “one way” flow  or direction to them. What I mean by that, is the flow seems to be from God the Father, and Christ, into us.

Think how many times Christ has admonished us to eat His flesh, which is food indeed, which is His word indeed, and all the many other analogies that He has used. But But But, the grain offering is not a one way feeding exercise, (such as from God to us). It is about individuals making an offering to God of various kinds of grain, prepared in various kinds of ways, (which we will see, that they portray that God is willing to ingest or eat something that we bring to the table for Him to eat into His heart as well).

So with all that we have come to understand, now let’s go back to Leviticus 2:1, and see what God's intended spiritual meaning is regarding the grain offering.

God gives many specific instructions regarding this offering, and there is much symbolism. Of course the Israelites had no idea what the deeper spiritual meaning of what the exercise portrayed. But once again, learning obedience by following God's instructions is priceless on its own, and anyone of them that learned that lesson even way back then will certainly not lose their reward in the resurrection to come. So the symbolism of the grain, which has been beaten into fine flour, is “words”. Not Christ's words though, but now it's our words. And the metaphor we have seen that is so prevalent in the New Testament, of God ``feeding us” with the words of life, “has flipped”, and it is us “feeding God” something, because remember, the grain, (which is really a physical food), symbolizes spiritual food, which is knowledge transmitted by words. And we know that God does not literally savour roasting grain any more than He does roasting flesh. And just as the lamb without blemish symbolizes the very best we have to offer with the animal sacrifices, so the grain (in this example), must be beaten finely, and embellished with fine olive oil and frankincense. And in a metaphorical sense, If these things are done with all the due diligence that is prescribed for a great individual such as God is, then He considers it to be likened to food that He is willing to ingest into His heart and mind and soul from us. Now that may be a hard explanation for you to accept (even incredible ), but if the metaphor fits on the one hand, then it is applicable on the other hand also. But to show you that there is scriptural support for this concept, I’ll ask you to harken back to page two of this article where I asked you to keep two words in mind. They were “bread” and “food”, so please now go back to Numbers 28:1-2, and we’ll read it again, firstly in the KJV; “And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, command the children of Israel, and say unto them, My offering, and “My bread”, for My sacrifices made by fire, for a sweet savour unto Me, shall you observe to offer unto Me, in their due season”. And now in the NKJV; “Now the Lord spoke to Moses saying, command the children of Israel and say to them, My offering, and “My food” for My offerings, made by fire, as a sweet aroma to Me, you shall be careful to offer to Me at their appointed time”. And for a most convincing translation of it, let’s read it in the NLT as well. “The Lord said to Moses, give these instructions to the people of Israel: “The offerings you present as special gifts, are a pleasing aroma to Me; they are “My food”. “See to it that they are brought at the appointed times, and offered according to My instructions”. These scriptures clearly imply that God considers their offerings to be a food that He is willing to “take in”, or ingest, or eat, or listen intently to, and consider; so to speak. But they are not a food of necessity like we humans must regularly take in, but one of desire by God, if attainable for us to possibly accomplish. What a thought, that we can offer God something likened to food, that He is willing to take in? Are you saying to yourself, “perish the thought?” I think not, but just as God's Word implies, it is the truth. But I said at the beginning of this article, that you had to come out of the box to see this. But, if God will accept it from us, He considers it to be an enjoyable, pleasing, aromatic savouring, “if you will''.

This concept is also mentioned in Leviticus 22:25, albeit on the negative side of His communication to us. In this juncture, it is mentioned in a long discourse by God, warning them not to come before Him with less than their very best. It’s worth reading Leviticus 22:17-25. But the poignant verse is in verse 25. That is the one where  God once again refers to these offerings as His “bread”. I’ll quote just verse 25 but please read the whole discourse to get the seriousness of not offering God your worth-less offerings. (I must very briefly digress, to point out that I hyphenate “worth-less”, not to imply “worth-nothing”, but to imply that they are literally worth “less” than their best. So many things get lost in translation). Now here’s the quote from Leviticus 22:25; “Nor from a foreigner's hand, shall you offer any of these, as “the bread of your God”, because their corruption is in them, and defects are in them. They shall not be accepted on your behalf”. I would like to digress again, very briefly to show that we humans use this kind of language with each other fairly regularly, only in the modern vernacular. For instance, we’ve all heard the saying; “don’t try and feed me that garbage”, or, “what kind of bleep bleep are trying to feed me”? These are dysphemisms, which are the opposite of euphemisms, of which there are hundreds and hundreds of both, and we use them all the time. So then, we cannot come before God with our words of praise, or prayers, or worship, and dump on Him with patronization, insincerity, self pity, self deception, or any other kind of defilement in our communications to Him. You have to bring your very best. And as an extension of the three sacrifices that came before it, they are our maturing, intimate, interaction with God, through prayer, meditation, and worship. And notice in Leviticus 2:2, that the finely beaten flour is to be embellished by pouring fine oil upon it, and frankincense is to be put upon it also. These enhancements are symbols for such things as honesty, truthfulness , sincerity, meekness, contriteness, fervency, passion, and any other characteristics that one could use to say that the offering becomes a sweet smelling aroma to God. There was one more place in scripture that I wanted to visit, before our continuation of Leviticus 2, to really nail down this concept of God feeding us His pure pure word of truth, and then God's willingness to eat what we respond back with, because remember, He said it is a type of His “food”, or His “bread”. And that is Malachi 1:6-14.

May 2,2021

Before looking at this, I would like to mention that I have written an article explaining the book of Malachi also. I do not intend to re-explain it here, but only to show that God addresses this eating and feeding metaphor, between He and His people in Malachi also, but in a very negative context, and since the book of Malachi is prophecy, it is describing a situation and condition that exists in the church in the latter days (prior to Christ's second coming). The beginning of Malachi 1:6 has a heading in the NKJV that says: “Polluted Offerings''. God is talking and is expressing very reasonable and logical sentiment as He is being disrespected by the actions of His own priesthood, who fail to properly honour Him. Let’s read it; “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am the Father, where is My honor, and if I am a Master, where is My reverence, says the Lord of Hosts, to you priests who despise My name? Yet, you say, in what way have we despised Your name”? (Here’s how firstly). Verse 7 “You offer defiled food on My altar, but you say, in what way have we defiled You? It is by saying, that the “table” of the Lord is contemptible”. (They offer defiled “food” on His altar, by offering animals that are in the very same forbidden condition that He covered in Leviticus 22:17-25). Go read it again if you need to. But the metaphor is that there is a table that has food on it. And God is at the table waiting and hoping for good food from His people. And God's people are at the table as well, and of course the food that they receive from God is always the absolute best. (But that is not necessarily so if His priests offer defiled food, and feed it to His sheep). But Christ said on many occasions that God's food was the very best. But it must be interpreted in the spirit, and then we understand that it is the words of life. The contrast though, is that although God feeds His people the very best food for them, they try to feed Him their worth-less food, or even their verbal garbage to use a dysphemism. But let’s continue; verse 8; “And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it to your governor! Would he be pleased with you, and would he accept you favourably, says the Lord of Hosts”? “But now, entreat God’s favour, that He may be gracious to us. But while this is being done by your hands, will He accept you favourably, says the Lord of hosts”? (And I would add, does anybody really think He will accept and eat what we are offering Him if it’s like this)? Let’s continue, and let’s make it real. Bring it into the context of our daily human to human interactions, and the dissing we can do to one another. Verse 10-12; But I’m switching to the NLT. I could have read the whole thing in the NLT, it would have saved me doing extra commentary. But really both versions convey the same message, just one a little easier in the modern day vernacular. Verse 10-12 NLT; “How I wish one of you would shut the temple doors, so that these worthless sacrifices could not be offered. I am not pleased with you, says the Lord of heaven‘s armies, and I will not accept your offerings”. “But My name is honoured by people of other nations from morning till night, all around the world they offer sweet incense and pure offerings in honour of My name, for My name is great among the nations says the Lord of heaven‘s armies”. “But you dishonour My name with your actions. By bringing contemptible “food”, you’re saying it’s all right to defile the Lord's “table”. We see the metaphor of Gods table and food and eating, is again being used to portray spiritual offerings, because remember, God is not about roasting lambs, goats, bulls and grains, but about sincere hearts and thoughts, and prayers and worship, all conveyed by words, which the staple of grain is the most prime symbol He has chosen for us to understand through. But continuing; verse 13-14; “You say, it’s too hard to serve the Lord, and you turn up your noses at My commands, says the Lord of heaven’s armies. Think of it! Animals that are stolen and crippled and sick, are being presented as offerings! Should I accept from you such offerings as these asks the Lord?” “Cursed is the cheat, who promises to give a fine ram from his flock, but then sacrifices a defective one to the Lord. For I am a Great King says the Lord of Heaven‘s Armies, and My name is feared among the nations''. Then Malachi chapter 2 begins, but we will not go into it any further. But I wanted to bring out the metaphor of God's table, and the spiritual food on it, both what God puts on it, and what we put on it. Hopefully you can see it, and also that the lamb without blemish principle is made very plain in verse 16, where God says cursed is the one who withholds his best offering and offers up something worth much less in its place, and in the process disses God in an inexcusable way, because he knows better, and that is why God says the Gentiles respect Him even more than His own people do. (Please understand that it is not an indictment of all God's people, but only those that do this, as Malachi chapter 3:18 points out, and as God said in Malachi 1:16, “cursed is the one that does this”).

And now, we’ll go back to Leviticus 2 and the grain offering, and specifically where God instructs them to pour finely pressed oil on it and garnish it with frankincense. There are a few more points I wanted to bring out between verses 1-3. Remember that Aaron was high priest, and served as a type of Christ. And Christ is the true, or real High Priest whom Aaron was just an earthly copy of. Also remember that Aaron’s sons were assisting priests, and they too are types. And Christ is the Mediator between us and God, and He is also our Advocate before God The Father. So just as the priests who officiate at the altar in the desert handle that portion of the grain offering that is to be sacrificed or burnt, so our High Priest handles our offerings and presents them to God the Father. (Remember such things as Christ is the vine, and we are the branches, and we cannot connect to God except through Christ etc, John 15:5-7). And the priests who assist Christ are likely not yet born, (but He is currently only dealing with the first fruits, eventually there will be many more). But if there are already some priests operational in God's kingdom, that shouldn’t be hard to envision, since the 24 elders that are present at God's throne, are “elders” after all, and we understand that elders in God's church are a type of the priesthood in our day and age. Now let’s focus on the word “memorial”, or “memorial portion”, which is in verse 2. (Numerous translations render it “memorial portion”). It just means a handful so to speak. I suppose we could fuss around with this meaning quite a bit if we wanted to. It is not crystal clear how much of it was to be burned. It’s called a memorial in most translations. The NLT calls it the representative portion. It appears that the priest may have scooped out a certain amount, and the remainder belonged to the priest to be eaten by them. And we know by scriptures, such as the throne room scene found in Revelations 4 and 5, that there are various created beings allowed into God's presence, of which the 24 elders are mentioned as some of them. And we see in Rev. 5:8, golden bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the saints. I can’t cover it here but suffice it to say that there is a great deal of things going on at the place of God's throne at this juncture in scripture. It is covered in Revelations chapter 4 through 9. And it seems that everyone present in Revelation 5, is still present in Revelations 8 and 9, because it is all covering the unsealing of the scroll by Christ. I would like to bring our attention to Revelation 8:3 where it says; “Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it “with” the prayers of all the saints, upon the golden altar, which was before the throne”. This little conjunction “with”, is fairly important. I have been traditionally taught that incense portrays the prayers of the saints, and this is substantiated in various places in the bible including Revelation 5:8. But curiously, here in Revelations 8:3, it is said that the incense is offered “with” the prayers of the saints. My point is that incense alone is not all the prayers and intimacies offered up by the saints. There are also specific animal sacrifices, grains which are embellished with holy oil, and salt and frankincense. And have you ever noticed, in Revelations 5:8, that the  twenty four elders, each have a harp in their hands? And what does a harp do but make beautiful music to the ears, which it is implied in this verse, is a “type” to add representation for the prayers and worship of the saints. Let’s read Rev. 5:8 NKJV. “Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures, and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls, full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints”. Again, incense alone does not picture all the prayers of the saints. Now, going back to Leviticus 2:3, we see the priests, like God, indulging in the eating of the grain offering, which once spiritualized, we understand is them indulging at the throne of God, “or”, listening to the prayers of the saints. As a little side note, truth is truth, and openness is openness, and there was no need or reason for covering up any private parts, before Adam and Eve sinned. Their shame, or guilt, or sin, is a “type” of nakedness, which they felt the need to cover up. This comparative comes out in Revelation 3:17 also, “Because you say I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked”. This nakedness is spiritual, not physical, and that means they are blind to the fact that their heart's more shameful character traits are exposed for all to see. It is figurative language to imply a literal thing. But in God's throne place, there is no need to cover up anything, not even our prayers. In Luke 8:17 Christ said; “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light”. Again then, we see in Leviticus 2:3, that Christ as High Priest, and other assisting priests, are privy to our prayers, and indulge in them also, and that is typed by the priests eating the remainder of the grain offering. And at the same time, God is providing for the Levitical priesthood’s physical needs just as He said He would. There is one more very curious thing I want to bring out in Leviticus 2:3 and that is that God considers the grain offering to be “most holy” of the things offered to God.

May 3, 2021 who would have thought that the grain offering is “most holy”!

Let us begin by reading the scripture Leviticus 2:3, “And the remnant of the meal offering shall be Aaron’s and his sons. It is a thing “most holy” of the offerings of the Lord made by fire”. So up to this point, we understand how the grain offering was to be prepared before it was brought to God through the priesthood. And we understand that God only required a memorial portion to be scooped, or taken from the offering to be offered up as a burnt offering, and provided it was all done properly and with due diligence, it is representative of a host of right motives, and intentions, and actions, and the words to express it all, and is interpreted by God as a sweet aromatic pleasurable thing. And to sum it up, God proclaims that of the things offered up to God as special gifts and foods, it is to be considered to be in the class of “the most holy” things offered up to God. This is a very significant statement. This was not said about either the morning and evening sacrifice, or the free will offering. Now granted, this commentary (about certain things being “most holy”), is used regarding some other animal sacrifices a little later in Leviticus, but not here, as the grain offering is being introduced in sequence behind the first three sacrifices. And this is called “most holy” by God for a reason. When we humans look at it, we wouldn’t think that a handful of grain offered up, could be considered more holy than a bull, a ram, or a goat. But when we spiritualize what is transpiring, and we put this into the context of a process of conversion, and growth in our relationship with God, then we can see how in God's eyes, it exceeds the first steps, and leads to what God is looking for, and that is a deep everlasting relationship with each of us. It is very typical of a child being born, and then gradually growing up to the point that it is able to interrelate face to face with its loving parent. And in Malachi 2:15 God says that He desires Godly children.

May 4, 2021

Let’s review the metaphor to firm up in our minds the intended meaning of these symbols. As has been shown, the foods we humans consume daily, which we need to physically survive, are a “type” of food for the soul which in the spirit, we also need to spiritually survive. The most basic staple of these foods is grain. We could never have made the connections of the physical to the spiritual, if we did not have the many references made by Christ Himself, found in the New Testament. But God has preserved it all for a time when knowledge shall be increased, and for a variety of benefits to His chosen witnesses at the end of the whole controversy, so that they may bring glory to His great Name, Person and Fame. Christ has shown us many many things in this analogy of God's word being likened to food or bread. And that we are to eat it (or take it in) to survive, and that the God kind is willing to eat (or take in) from us, our words of reply, and that even those surrounding God's throne take it in (so to speak). And God has pronounced the whole thing, and especially the grain offering, to be of the “most holy things” that are offered to God.

May 5, 2021

In essence, God counts our words of reply to Him, which are represented or symbolized by the grain offered up to Him as “very holy”, or “most holy“. I hope you comprehend the deep spiritual meaning of this concept, and have seen it in all the various scriptures. But this only brings us through to the end of Leviticus 2:3. There are still 13 more verses on the grain offering. Let’s now get into them, and see what God's intended meaning is for the remainder of what has been called “the law of the grain offering”, (which can also be translated, “the instructions”, regarding the grain offering). Leviticus 2:4-7, are a further explanation of how God wants grain offerings to be presented if the grain is prepared differently, such as having been pre-baked in an oven, or in a pan as cakes or wafers, or broken up into pieces etc. No matter how the grain is prepared for being burnt, it must still be of the finest stock, and finest flour, and embellished with oil, and frankincense, and salt for enhancement. All of this helps present the grain as a sweet smelling aroma to God, which again, is a type of enjoyment and pleasure, that in reality is experienced by God, as our honest, heart felt, genuine, prayers, worship and response to our Father God. And in Leviticus 2:10, God reiterates that only a memorial portion needs to be offered up to Him to fulfill the meaning, and the remainder must be eaten by Aaron and his sons, who represent the priesthood. Now please notice a few more explanations by God in Leviticus 2:11. “No grain offering which you bring to the Lord, shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering to the Lord made by fire”. This reinforces that our words to God, no matter what they are, must be pure, honest, heartfelt and genuine—, so then, “not leavened” in any way. And I did not understand God's instruction regarding honey, (have you wondered about it too?), so I studied honey to search it out and here’s what I found. There is a lot of science behind honey, and the making of it in nature, but I will quote just two references to show God's great foresight, which is almost always unbeknownst to us. The first reference: “Yeast naturally exist in honey, as well as most fruits. Below is a method to cultivate yeast from pure honey. It is critical that you use raw unpasteurized honey for this to work. You can also mix multiple honeys to improve your chances of getting a viable yeast”. That was from gotmead.com. and showed us that you can produce yeast (or leaven), from pure unpasteurized honey, thus it was not allowed to be spread on the wafers of the grain offering. If I were to continue quoting the article, then a recipe for making yeast, from pure honey would follow. But here’s the second reference; “One of the few things that can live in honey is yeast, although if the moisture content is below 18%, (as it normally is), the yeast cells cannot reproduce. All nectar, (the source for all honey), contains osmophilic yeasts, which can reproduce in higher-moisture content honey, and cause fermentation”. That quote was from beemaid.com. The point is this; that God knew that leaven, in the form of yeast, is present in honey, or can be made naturally in honey, and that would serve to spiritually defile the offering just as any other leaven would. And He knew that the most common thing for the Israelites to mix with their cakes and wafers etc. is honey, and especially so, if the grain offering that they were bringing to the Tabernacle to offer up, had been prepared beforehand, because the Israelites knew that only a memorial portion would be burnt, and the remainder would be eaten by the priest doing the representative work. Hopefully you see the reason for the disallowing of honey. (This is a side point, but unleavened bread, although purer, is not the most palatable food item, and embellishment with honey, would make sense humanly speaking. Even in this modern day and age, when we keep the Days of Unleavened Bread, many people spread honey over their Matzos etc to enhance flavour. We would be advised to make sure that it is pasteurized honey to be sure the leavening agents are not alive).

Leviticus 2:11 covers God's clear instructions regarding the grain offerings as they pertain to leaven, (and we are going to skip verse 12 for a curious reason, and come back to it after, and please pay special attention, so as not to miss God's intended meaning here). So that brings us to Leviticus 2:13, and God instructs and emphasizes that all the grain offerings are to be enhanced with salt, so we will look briefly at that. We know what salt is used for physically, but what is its spiritual application? Christ gives us the answer in Matthew, Mark and Luke, with the famous saying, “you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its savour, what good is it, for how shall it season anything? It is then good for nothing except to be thrown out, and trampled under foot by men”. And one reference from the book of Colossians 4:6, “let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each other”. And another to show how the figurative is used by God to portray the literal, in Job 12:11 “ does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes its food?” And again in Job 34:3 NLT, “ Job said, the ear tests the words it hears just as the mouth distinguishes between foods”. And we know that salt is a purifier of things and can also serve as a preserver of certain foods as well. I think that makes its spiritual usage quite clear, and if there is some other analogous usage for salt, when the focus is all on interrelationships maintained by words, then I’m not sure what it is.

That completes Leviticus 2:13 and answers why God emphasizes in 2:11, that the grain offerings must not contain leaven or yeast, but must instead be savoured with salt. But in order to complete the final 3 verses of Leviticus 2, we must first backtrack to verse 12, which we skipped over into verse 13 to explain the salt. But the first readings of verse 12 can seem to confuse and conflict with God's instruction for the grain offering in verse 11, because it clearly says something different regarding the “first fruit” grain offerings. Let’s read it and try to detect or appreciate the difference I am trying to point out. We’ll read it out of the NKJV first:  Lev. 2:12-16; “As for the offering of the first fruits, you shall offer them to the Lord, but they shall NOT be burned on the altar for a sweet aroma”. (This presents a different instruction, and makes a distinction between this grain offering, and the usual ones, because a memorial portion was to be burned on the altar). Continuing: “And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings, you shall offer salt”.

May 8, 2021

Leviticus 2:12-16 seems to be confusing. The instructions God gives regarding first fruit grain offerings seems to conflict between verse 12 and verse 14 with verse 11. The goal is to understand God's true intended meaning. But we must get His instructions right before we can hope to get His true intended meaning right. Whenever there is a seeming contradiction or conflict in scripture, the error lies with men. It is either a mistranslation, or a misunderstanding, or something is lost in translation, but the error is with men, not with God. My past experience with reading these particular scriptures, (in Leviticus), has been tediously done. And I found them to be dry reading, and undramatic, and hard to follow the purpose of them. And although I have no absolute sureness to say it, I think most people would say something similar. And the Bible translations don’t help much either. And especially the NKJV (in this instance), which just happens to be the most respected version in my church. In this confusing section of scripture, The KJV, (which can often make things read even dryer), is the one that actually contains more wording that should tip us off a little bit (which it does), and yet it does not succeed in clearing up the confusion. (But It does tip us off!). We must get into the Hebrew somewhat. An example of how the NKJV mistranslates is by translating different Hebrew words into the same English rendering, just because they “can be” rendered that way, or have related meanings. For instance, in Leviticus 2:12, the NKJV reads like this; “ As for the “offering” of the first fruits, you shall “offer” them to the Lord, but they shall not be burned on the altar for a sweet aroma”. And here is how it reads in the KJV; “ As for the “oblation” of the first fruits, ye shall “offer” them onto the Lord, but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savour”. The first notable problem is that the Hebrew words “oblation” and “offer” are different words, and the NKJV make them sound the same. We will look at some of the Hebrew words used in these few verses and observe the differences, and hopefully help clear up some confusion. “Oblation is H7133, “qarban”, and means; something brought near the altar, ie: a sacrificial present that is offered, or is an offering, (and is usually translated “offering”). Now contrast it to “Offer”, (used in the same sentence ), which Is H7126, “qarab”, and specifically means; to approach, to bring near, to draw near, to be at hand, to join, to offer, to make ready, and some lesser meanings. I ask, why are there two different words used in the same sentence, and yet the NKJV clouds any possible alternative thought by translating them the same? The next Hebrew word worth breaking down is the word “Offering” found in 2:11 and everywhere else in the chapter. It is H4503, “minha”, and means “to apportion”, ie; bestow a donation; euphemistically. Or a tribute; specifically a sacrificial offering, and some others. The next Hebrew words to mention in the verses is “First fruits”. It is used in Leviticus 2:12 and is H7225, “resit”, and means; the first, in place, order, time, or rank. (Specifically, a first fruit), or beginning, or chief(-est), or principal thing. And it is very different from the word for “first fruit used in Leviticus 2:14. Here it is H1061, “bikur”, and means; the first fruits of the crop – as in (ripe(figuratively)), hasty fruit. It is also rooted in H1069, “bakar”, meaning; properly, to burst the womb, ie (causatively) to bear or make early fruit (of woman or tree), and also (as denominative) from H6061), to give the birthright – make firstborn, be first king, bring forth first child, (new fruit). Now this has been a lot of breakdown, and “food for thought”, but what have we proved? Mostly why the translators confused things so bad. But also that there are distinctions to be appreciated in the choice of Hebrew words used in these instructions. And this is where their unusual instructions of verse 11-12 shed some light, because in the previous verse to 11-12, God is very clear that grain offerings must be prepared correctly, and must be unleavened, and a memorial portion must be burned as an offering to Him, and the remainder eaten by the priesthood. And then in verses 11-12, He seems to say that you must not burn them on the altar as an offering to the Lord, and here is what is truly going on. God is distinguishing between two different first fruits. That is why there is a clear instruction that no leaven or yeast from honey is to be placed on or mixed with this first fruit grain offering, and also that it is not to be burnt on the altar, which seemingly conflicts with His instructions about the first fruit offerings in verse 13-14 where they are to be salted and seasoned, and then burnt on the altar. Two different first fruit offerings. And the difference is that one offering symbolizes “people” who are “first fruits'', (who are imperfect, and whose lives are leavened with sins, offences and trespasses), and the other symbolizes what they offer up, which is their heartfelt prayers and worship, be it in words, songs or deeds. Now please bear with me as I try to explain this.

There’s no need to re-explain the grain offering which is always the finest flour or grain, (prepared different ways), which is seasoned with pure oil, pure frankincense and pure salt, and then always apportioned between God and the priests, and God's portion burnt on the altar, and the priests portion eaten by the physical priesthood. But there is a need to explain the exception we found in Leviticus 2:11-12. And I believe that God made me see it, through one lonely bible translation, and that was the NLT. Before we read the verses in the NLT, let me please say that I am not promoting the NLT above any other translations. But in its defence, (and it needs defending, at least in my church), it has no more errors than any other Bible translations. It definitely has its share, but it also clears up many things too. The reason I referred to it as “one lonely translation “, is because out of twenty seven translations that I used to compare verses 11-12 to, it is the only one that made an incredible, totally daring exclamation, that made total sense. And at first, I wondered to myself; where do they get off saying that when no other translations made any inkling at all about it. We will read it now, but before we do, so that there is a contrast, we’ll read it first in the NKJV. Leviticus 2:11-12 “ No grain offering which you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey in any offering to the Lord made by fire. (now verse 12).  As for the offering of the first fruits, you shall offer them to the Lord, but they shall not be burned on the altar for a sweet aroma“.

Now let’s read it in the NLT. 11-12, “Do not use yeast in preparing any of the grain offerings you present to the Lord, because no yeast or honey may be burned as a special gift presented to the Lord. (now verse 12). You “may add” yeast and honey to an offering of the “first crops” of your harvest, but these must never be offered on the altar as a pleasing aroma to the Lord''. This is the only Bible translation that just assumed it could say that in verse 12, (that you could add yeast and honey). How did the NLT make that assumption? And here’s the explanation. We have to go to Leviticus 23:9-22, where God gives instructions regarding the Feast of First-fruits, (also called the Feast of Weeks, and in the New Testament also called the Feast of Pentecost). Not all grain offerings were to be burnt, just like not all free will offerings were to be burnt. For instance, the Feast of First-fruits begins with the “wave sheaf offering” which is a symbol representing Christ, the first of the first fruits, and was waived by the priests up to God. This is covered in verses 23:9-14. Then God gives the instructions for the counting of The Feast of Weeks, (or Pentecost), and then the instructions for how to prepare the offering. And you will notice that it is to be two wave loaves of two tenths of an ephah of fine flour. And they shall be baked “with leaven”. They are the “first fruits'' to The Lord. And they shall be “waived, not burnt”. (verse 23:20, and which harken back to Leviticus 2:11-12). These symbolize the first fruits who follow Christ and include the New Testament church members, whose members are leavened, and will be leavened until made perfect by a resurrection to immortality. This is all covered in Leviticus 23:15-22. And although I’m not going to cover it in this article, there is a reason why there are “two loaves”, and it is because one loaf symbolizes the first converts to come to Christ which were physical Jews mostly and were shepherded by Peter's Leadership, and the other loaf pictures Gentile converts who came to Christ afterward, and were shepherded by Paul’s Leadership. There are some that think the two loaves picture the physical Israelites who Paul referred to later on as the “church in the wilderness”, as the first loaf, and then the second loaf pictures the “spiritual Jews” of the New Testament church, but this explanation does not make sense because both the loaves are being offered up to God by waiving them, which He clearly says in Leviticus 23-17, that they “are the first fruits” to the Lord. And the greater congregation in the wilderness are not first fruits to God. I expect Moses is, and Joshua, and possibly Caleb, and maybe a few others, but most of that congregation will be waiting for the great resurrection to occur at the end of the millennium. That’s all I will say about the two loaves in this article. Perhaps there will be a time and place to prove it is not referring to the church in the wilderness and the latter day church at some other time. There is also a mention of leavened cakes being offered to God in the instructions for “The Peace Offering”, which is found in Leviticus 7:11-21, but specifically 13-14. And once again, these cakes are to be waived, not burnt, and I will not offer an explanation for that until an article on the Peace Offering is written. To me it is a most curious thing that the NLT chose to go against the grain and say it that way. But it also made sense, and satisfied the apparent confusion between Leviticus 2:11-12, and 13-14. So God's mention of the exception in Leviticus 2:11-12, was simply to make sure that the Israelites understood that except for the leavened first fruit grain offerings, all other grain offerings were to be unleavened, seasoned, and burnt. This concludes the explanation of God's intended spiritual meaning of the grain offering. And again, I feel it is another wonderful “gold find” of spiritual knowledge, that God intended for us to discover when the time for it came due. Once again, there is likely more that could be said, and if I discover it, I will add it in. The next article is going to be The Peace Offering. Hopefully you can see how all the animal sacrifices and offerings flow together to reflect the journey, and conversion process of the saints of God, whether it be unbeknownst to them, (as in the past), or as God had planned to reveal in the future, which to we who are reading this, is the present, and which we are in the process of learning. Thank you for reading this article.

Glen Clarke.

Re-edited in April, 2022, December 2022, and December 2023, (where a little bit of truth regarding the two wave loaves was of necessity clarified).

Chapter 5

The Peace Offering, The Sin Offering, The Trespass Offering and The Guilt Offering

The Peace Offering

These are what I will call the fifth category of offerings which Almighty God gave instructions regarding to the Israelites in the book of Leviticus. It takes up all of chapters 3-7. Please allow me to express my perplexity here on May 15th, at explaining God's true intended spiritual purpose. I have read over it various times and am not yet confident of what to write. I have seen some curious instructions from God, and I know Him well enough to know that He has great purpose in all that He commands. The Peace Offering is bound to be as amazing as the four that preceded it, and I expect that it is completely linked to them as they also were to each other. I also expect that we will need to spiritualize the physical to understand the spiritual. Let’s begin by reviewing the first four sacrifices or offerings. First we had the Passover, which symbolized the unblemished Lamb of God, picturing Jesus Christ, who alone is acceptable to God, to pay the penalty for our sin, and the expanded understanding that was contained within this sacrifice regarding the first born/firstfruits. Second was the Morning and Evening sacrifice, which we understand pictured our daily prayers and worship of God, and the relationship that would form in the wake of the Passover, which would become a perpetual part of our life with God going forward. Third was the Free Will Offering which we understand pictured the sacrificing of our will, and the freeing of us from our selfishness going forward, so that God's perfect loving Will could now become paramount, and rule in our lives. Fourth was the Grain Offering which was an outgrowth of all the offerings that preceded it, and pictured our maturing of a two way relationship of true love and unbreakable bonding such as Christ and The Father have, which we are trying to duplicate. And we came to understand how deep “words” became in their power to convey meaning and understanding in a two way communication link between us and God. And now fifthly, we are at the Peace Offering, and does it seem likely that the purpose of the sacrifices is now going to take on a different purpose than that which has been the main goal of God, which is the ongoing development of His spiritual relationship with His potential first born children? I could ask, after coming to understand what God's deep spiritual meaning was, which was revealed in a figurative and metaphorical manner, throughout the previous four sacrifices, is He now going to switch to a literal meaning? But there are numerous different physical instructions given by God regarding the Peace Offering and the Sin Offering, and the Trespass Offering, and they will all have specific spiritual meanings, and what that spiritual meaning is, is what is behooving. And the place to begin with that challenge, is prayer, meditation, bible study, and then digging digging digging into the figurative meanings of so many literal instructions.

The first thing I am inclined to point out is that in the context of Leviticus 3:1, there is an unspoken, but completely different subject change from Leviticus 2:16 to the next verse in Leviticus 3:1. Maybe readers just assume that it is all just logical as they read the Bible, and specifically as they read Leviticus, but I think not. I actually think that there is likely such little interest, (due to lack of understanding), that readers are more likely to just skim through (or even past) the book of Leviticus. But In one quick verse, it just goes from the final instructions on the grain offering in Lev. 2:16, to another animal sacrifice in Lev. 3:1. After looking at Leviticus 3:1 in all 27 bible translations available in biblehub.com, I will summarize the verse with a little bit of expansion, to include some words found in various translations; and the first word to bring focus to is: “Now”, (it’s like a pause is intended as we go from Leviticus 2:16 to 3:1), so let's read it again with that thought in mind.

“Now, regarding offerings brought to Me as “peace offerings”, or “fellowship offerings”, that happen to be from the herd: it may be male or female, but it must still be one without blemish”. So the context is; what is the motive?  And the answer is, that it is a “peace” or “fellowship” offering. Once again, this is going to be very deep and spiritual. We’re really just continuing the development of the Father/child relationship, which The Father and Christ portrayed in perfection when Christ was a man on earth, and which we are trying to copy. In the last article, there was a heavy emphasis on words, and we saw how they are typed by grain. This offering will advance the relationship development beyond the “words of conveyance”, into the deeper subject, which is closer to the heart of the matter, and that is: motives, intents, sentiments, possibly causes, goals, mutualities, and likely more. This goes deep down, into the most inner place of the mind and self, (the marrow if you will). As a side note, if God is reproducing His own kind, and intends for them to be immortal and live forever, then He has to have a way of ensuring that they are aligned and in perfect agreement about how to live. God is not about to allow the universe, or the spirit realm, to be populated by a myriad of satan-like “adversaries “, who would continue to exercise eternal warfare and strife, in a selfish effort to have it their own way. If you read the last article, we went into Strong’s Concordance to go over some Hebrew words, such as “oblation “ and “sacrifice “. You can look them up again if you like, but I will not be going over them again here.

But I will take a good look at the translation of “peace offering “, found in Leviticus 3:1. It’s H8002 “selem”, (it is pronounced sheh-lem), and means properly, requital, i.e. “a voluntary sacrifice in thanks”: - “a peace offering”. Interestingly, it comes from a close relative word, H7999 “salam”, pronounced “Shaw-lam”. Modernly, it may also be rendered “Shalom'' and has a very similar meaning. It is long but worth quoting. “Shalam” means; “to be safe (in mind, body, or estate); figuratively, also, to be (causatively, make) completed; by implication, “to be friendly”, and by extension, to reciprocate (in various applications): - to make amends, (make an) end of, or finish, or full, or give again, or make good, or repay (again), and (make) (to) (be at) peace(-able), that is perfect, perform, (make) prosperous, recompense, render, require, make restitution, restore, reward”. That is quite a telling breakdown of possible “peace offering”, or “fellowship offering” motives. To me it sounds like some very wonderful motives. Oblation can mean something offered that is brought near, with a connotation of “approaching”, and peace offering means to be thankful, and to be friendly, and “a voluntary sacrifice in thanks”. Can you see where this kind of relationship is going, and how it is already connecting to the four offerings that preceded it? But let’s continue, because there is something allowed that is different from the previous sacrifices, and that is that the representative animals may be male “or” female, and again, without blemish.

May 16, 2021

Up until now, the only animals God allowed for sacrifice were males without blemish. And now we see God allowing males, and females, without blemish, to be offered. Before explaining why God allows female animal sacrifices, I have to say something. It is Pentecost morning, and quite early too, and I was praying to God about some of my perplexity regarding the Peace Offering this morning. Anyway, after my prayers, I went on to my bible studies, and many discoveries for me occurred, (revelations would be more accurate). I mean, they are discoveries, yes, but not due to my wherewithal, but due to God's graciousness to me. But as the morning proceeded, it occurred to me that I had to change the title of the article from The Peace Offering, to what it now is, which is an inclusive list of the remainder of the law regarding all the rest of the sacrifices, (or at least those in Leviticus 3 to 7), because they are all so totally connected to each other, and to the previous four as well. And although I do not have all the explanations firmly in mind yet, I honestly feel that this is going to be the most amazing uncovering of God's intended spiritual meaning of the animal sacrifices yet. And it is with the most fervent emphasis, that I express to any reader, that the uncovering, is by the hand of God, and expect that specifically, it is by the hand of Christ, since He is The Word, or The Logos, and the Executor of God The Father’s will. Now I know I’ve said my saying,”where to begin, where to begin”, so many times that it might be getting old. But I have so much swirling around in my mind this morning, that I’m saying it again. But not because of lacking this time, but from a desire to express what God has shown me in an orderly fashion. I guess we’ll just go back to where we left off in Leviticus 3:1, and pick it up with the allowance by God that the animal sacrifices, acceptable as peace offerings, could be male or female. But please remember the emphasis we learned about the rendering of the Hebrew wording for peace offering being, a sacrifice of thankfulness, accentuated by a spirit of friendliness. Think of it as the manner by which one of God's first fruits approaches Him. (Eventually, we will be adding to this mode of approaching God “apology” as well). Then we could sum it up as the expression of true thankfulness, and sometimes the expression of true apology, with true friendliness, to a true friend. (Simple right?), (well, it should be).

The simplicity of it all; again, who would have thunk it?

In a nutshell, to use an idiom, two of the greatest lessons of life, in maintaining love between people, are how to say “thank you”, and how to say “I’m sorry”. The Israelites never had a means for doing this with God. When you recollect deeply about the scriptures, there were very few people who actually got to speak to God face to face in a friendly setting. To name a few that we know or suspect we know, that had that privilege, there was Adam, possibly Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, (possibly David), Elijah, Elisha, some of the prophets, etc. But the point is that the Israelites did not. Now some “common people'' prayed to Him here and there, like Abraham's servant, (when he went to seek a mate for Isaac), and then there was Hanna, (when she was praying about being barren), and a few others etc, but it was not common. All the Israelites had was the sacrifices, to express something that they didn’t even know what the spiritual intent of it was. That is what these articles have been about; showing God's genius in using physical exercises, to portray spiritual intent. And God was not toying with the Israelites, for they had the opportunity to learn the wonderful lesson of obedience and reward. (But God needs no defending on my part or any mans, I’m just saying is all). We will see, that once we spiritualize this, that what is being portrayed is a teaching; which is that between us and God, and then by extension, between us and each other, there is a need to say thank you sometimes, and also to apologize sometimes. And the Peace Offering, the Trespass Offering, the Sin Offering, and the Guilt Offering, all depict that. And yet, I don’t want to imply that this spiritual understanding is all that they are about. There always needs to be atonement and retribution for sin, which Christ's sacrifice ultimately provides for, but there is more to it all than has previously been understood by us, (just as we have seen with the previous four sacrifices).

May 21, 2021

You might notice that I haven’t written for about a week. I have spent the past four days studying the Book of Hebrews. And not because I planned it that way, but because I had previously just finished the four Gospels and the Book of Acts, and was asking myself what to read next, and I chose Hebrews. And maybe there was some inspiration to read it, because it has so much to say about the sacrifices, and specifically the sacrifice of Christ. And it seems important to me to say that God always seems to have more purpose in everything He ordains or commands, than we initially see. To understand that Christ’s blood pays the penalty for our sins, is fundamental, and “first”, in our comprehension of the truth regarding sin. And the writer of Hebrews even says in Hebrews 6:1-3, “Therefore leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgement, and this we will do if God permits”. Similarly, there is a whole lot more hidden meaning to God's instructions regarding the sacrifices, than the penalty for sin alone. He has too many particularities for us to just skim on past it all forever, without pondering the “why “ of it all. That is what I prayed God would show me before I started this writing back at Passover time, and that is what He has granted. But it is imperative to understand the principle of “first things first”. Knowing that, helps satisfy any conflict in comprehension between the Book of Hebrews and the Book of Leviticus. (The New Testament should compliment the Old Testament, and not the other way around). Now why did I feel inclined to insert that little remark in parentheses? Because we will be talking about sin, and the unpardonable sin, and some seeming conflicts in what the NT says, compared to what the OT says, and implies.  But we will get to that when we get to that, which will be when we get into the Sin Offering and the Trespass Offering. With this little bit of spiritual prep, let’s return to Leviticus 3:1, and see what we can understand regarding the inclusion of female animal sacrifices. Firstly, let’s remember the motive of the peace offering. It is God's children, the first born, approaching God in thankfulness and friendliness. But why can it be either a male or a female?

 The reasonable answer is tied up in the word “value”.

We will be going off on various tangents to qualify some things, such as females, (and I will try not to go too far), because as we ponder why God allows female animal sacrifices to represent peace offerings, there can only be a couple of reasons. Either it has to do with the thankfulness of either men or women of the congregation, (like women offer female animals , and men offer males), or it has to do with “value”, and I will add, or “degree”. And if it has to do with “value”, or “degree”, then it is something God Himself has very purposefully decreed, lest men should puff up, (over women I mean), (which history shows they have). Let’s ask again, why would God suddenly allow female animals to be offered up as well? If they are acceptable with the implementation of the Peace Offering, (so long as they are without blemish), then why were they not acceptable for the previous four sacrifices? And we can’t just say, “it’s ok because it’s just a “peace offering”, because God allows it, and even commands it for the Trespass and Sin Offering as well (as we shall see). And now I will have to do what may seem like a digression, but I think it will help greatly to understand this “male and female” thing a little better. Please turn to Genesis 1:26. Before we read it, there is a blanket understanding that we need to get out in the open right away. And that is that women were not created inferior to men; just different. God deliberately made us different as we can clearly observe, and the story behind it is too amazing to include in this article. We will only touch on it. But I feel a need to defend the female side of God, and although He deliberately put that side of Himself in subjection to the male side of God, words like superior and inferior, are not the best way to describe our differences. Now let’s read Genesis 1:26-28. “Then God said, let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His Own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth”. This is a synopsis of God creating mankind, before He breaks down purposes and roles for each of them etc. The point I wish to bring out, is that the concept of male and female, was already a part of God's own inherent make up. (They were both made in His image). The word “concept”is rooted in the word “conceive”. So God had to conceive of how He would put a “copy”, or “type”, of His already existing inherent character traits, into physical copies, which we could call human-kind, or human beings, which in contrast, are types of the God-kind, or God beings. So He put some of His character traits in His concept of the “male” human, and some of His character traits in His concept of the “female” human.  And they were only a “completion”, as a “copy of God '', if they were united as one. And just as God's inherent character traits compliment each other, so the male and the female were to compliment one another. Now, it was God's prerogative to decide how the division of His character traits would be divided. He is a mastermind genius, unlike anyone we might think of as a genius, and so He put such thought and design into this part of creating what we will now call “the man” and “the woman”, that we can talk ever so briefly, in summary form only, about these character traits. But in an effort to express the difference God intended between man and woman, it is important to understand that by God's decree, that just as Christ is not inferior to the Father, but is nevertheless submissive to His ultimate leadership, so God intended the relationship between man and woman to reflect that same principle. And it makes total sense that someone has to lead. There has to be an origin. But in defence of woman, I will digress again very briefly, and say to my fellow men;——men men men, please please please, you surely see the beauty, both physically and mentally, that God intended to be some of the prominent character traits of women; character traits that we do not possess to the degree that they exist naturally in women. Or are you so obtuse, and hard hearted, and unappreciative of that part of God's nature? I can’t go on about this in depth, (but I will a little). Which side of God's nature was utilized to decorate the green pastures, with the flowers, shrubs and colourful bushes, and streams and waterfalls etc etc? Or how about the colourful pastels that happen in sequence as the sun rises on the backdrop of a most beautiful blue sky? Every painter knows what a backdrop is, have you ever looked at an incredibly blue sky, and seen it as a backdrop? And have you ever considered – why blue? Is blue the most significant colour in God's reality? Men, do you even appreciate colour, and have you thought deeply about how God did that in the physical realm? Can you imagine what the first people to see the earth from an orbit in space thought? Or the first photos sent back to those on the earth when they saw them? I would hope most of those who experienced that image gasped at the incredible beauty of the earth from outer space. It’s only been in the last century that any man has been able to view the earth from outer space. And how pompous science has made men become since that time. But God's prerogative was to place His strength, and hardness, and courage, and leadership characteristics in the male, and in contrast, His prerogative was to place His gentleness, and His softness, and His meekness, and His submissiveness, in the female. This is not a comprehensive list of the division of His character traits, but enough to make the point. And without belabouring it, God left the role of leadership within the male and made it very clear. But what is it that makes me think that God's allowance of female animals as sacrifices has to do with value or degree? It is because God places values on things in order to render just judgments about various things. It is so that such things as “punishments”, actually fit the crime, (so to speak). And the value of servants and beasts, and properties, and other things is justly assessed. To see an example of this value system we could consider the creation of the “sanctuary shekel”. Remember in the last article, that I commented that some reading of the Law of Moses could seem dry to a lot of readers? Well I think God's instructions regarding the “sanctuary shekel” might have been received that way. We are going to go into it a bit and I will try to keep it short, but if I don’t explain it sufficiently, then keeping it short will have been useless. But I reiterate right now, that once the sanctuary shekel has been explained, like everything else physical, it must be spiritualized to understand Gods greater intended meaning.

May 23, 2021

Any of us, who have come to know God to some degree, should not be surprised to hear that He is organized and meticulous. He holds Himself accountable, and so it is no surprise that He holds us accountable as well, and thus teaches us to be organized and accountable. The principle of accountability is everywhere throughout the scriptures. (He knows and has named every star, of which it has been surmised that there are humanly, a countless number of). There are various sources on the internet to trace the history of the shekel, and there are variations of its origin. But it is agreed by most that it was a measure of weight used to trade for various things. And many of the sources at least give credit to the bible for propagating its use, so that there is a reasonable amount of information about it. The Hebrew word for the English word “shekel”, is H8255, “seqel”, or “shekel”, and most agree that it was probably a weight used as a commercial standard. It is rooted in H8254 “saqal”, which means, to suspend or poise, (especially in trade), also to pay, to receive, to spend, to thoroughly weigh. If you were trading a goat for grain, you would either just barter it out, (and someone usually got the better of the deal), or eventually there became a standard. Historians can argue over how far back its first usage goes, but the first time I see the word used in the bible is in Genesis 23:15. It is the occasion where Abraham was purchasing a burial place to bury Sarah. And at that juncture, it is implied, that it is already well established and common, and possibly already gone through a metamorphosis from a standard weight, to a standard weight in either bronze, copper, silver or gold. So then it was well established by the time the Israelites left Egypt. It only stands to reason that God would give them a “just standard” to go by in placing value on various things. Justice was a key element of the society the Israelites were to become a model of. So numerous things would need to have a just “value” placed on them, and a “value”, or “degree” would also have to be determinable, especially in the case of offences, trespasses, and sins, so that a just retribution could be paid towards the atonement of such things. Remember that the Peace Offering, and its counterparts, The Sin, Trespass, and Guilt Offerings, are all about approaching God in a friendly and thankful way, or if the need be, in an apologetic, sorrowful, and repentant way. Simply put, how to say thank you, and how to say I’m sorry; two absolutely imperative capabilities that must be inherent in the candidates of the class of the firstborn. In a nutshell, we have just spiritualized the meaning of these particular offerings. But to see God's genius again, we will break down the scriptures because there’s a lot more. We still haven’t answered why God allows the sacrificing of female animals yet.

But it has to do with valuation, and thus the sanctuary shekel. God introduces this ordinance in Leviticus 27:25. Have you ever noticed a principle with God? It seems to be brought out here and there, but often enough to identify it as a principle. It is “obedience first”, and “understanding to follow”. In this case, He gave them the instructions for the offerings first, early on in Leviticus, and gave them the valuation of the sanctuary shekel at the end of Leviticus. (That was just a side note). But let’s read it, Leviticus 27:25. “And all your valuations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs to the shekel”. Let’s understand another principle of reason; putting a value on someone, or a beast of burden, or even “a thing”, had to have a “reasonable rational equator” in mind, and that concept was usually about “work”, or “productivity quotient”. (In our day and age it is often also about an “enjoyment quotient”, such as “man toys”, or exotic vacations, might bring), but back then it was all about “work”. With that said let’s go to some examples in the book of Leviticus. And I will ask you to just read Leviticus 27:1-25, rather than quote the whole thing here. But I will summarize a bit too just to show a pattern. A man twenty years old up to sixty years old was valued at fifty shekels of silver. A woman of the same age was valued at thirty shekels of silver. If the male was five to twenty years old, they were valued at twenty shekels of silver, and the female of the same age group, ten shekels of silver. Now this goes on to include animals, of both clean and unclean stature, (since mules and camels which were not clean, were still key beasts of burden), and properties, and belongings, and eventually slaves have to be valued and their offspring, and just about anything. And if the value of something was in question, then the priesthood was authorized to place a just value on something. If you would like to deeply explore the valuation system that God ordained, and the creation of the “sanctuary shekel”, then there is plenty of information out there to do it. I have summarized it to show that there is a need to “measure” things in the spiritual realm as well. Because we shall see that there are “degrees'' of sin and transgression. (Even in man's unjust system there is the concept of degrees, such as first, second and third degree, etc). There is a blanket scripture in Romans 6:23. It says “ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord ''. This needs to be explained in light of scriptures in 1 John 5:16-17, and also in the book of Leviticus chapters 4 to 7, where we see “degrees” of trespasses and offences, which require a “valuation” of the offences, so to speak. A more black and white viewpoint of Romans 6:23 leaves one to think that all sin brings about the death penalty. But that is not what the verse actually says. It says the wages of sin is death. That implies that one will come to earn it over time. Paul expands on this in other places, so we ought not draw such a black and white conclusion because of one statement.

May 24, 2021

1 John 5:16-17 says this: “ If you see a Christian brother or sister sinning in a way that does not lead to death, you should pray, and God will give that person life. But there is a sin that leads to death and I am not saying you should pray for those who commit it.  All wicked actions are sin but not every sin leads to death”. NLT. Another way of saying this, is that there are degrees of offence. We know this is true in our day to day life with other people. Some offences are harder to forgive than others, because some offences hurt more, and do more damage, and have longer lasting consequences. But with this said, let’s go back to Lev. 3:1. As I noted earlier, the day and age that the Israelites lived in was one of rabid superstition, and fear of the gods. This led people to do many things to avoid bringing wrath upon them. Sacrificing animals and even people was not uncommon. In reality it was nothing more than demon worship, even if done in fear and ignorance. Hardly anyone on the whole earth knew the real God, (except those very very few to whom God revealed Himself). As far as God has allowed us to know, Moses was the only one who knew Him at this particular time. Prayer and talking to God by any individual was just plain rare, as rare as it gets, (but not impossible). There was no giving of thanks to God such as we are accustomed to do. So the people gave sacrifices of things most valuable to them; their children, animals, and the fruit of their harvests. So God was dealing with this superstitious sector of the human race, and giving them the ordinances of worship that were acceptable to Him, and we see the breakdown of it in the law of Moses. And it would not only be drastically different than how the nations around them did it, (God was removing all the abominable things the nations do), but it would be filled with spiritual purpose and meaning, which they would not comprehend, but a people with God's Spirit inside of them eventually would. That’s why the word for “peace” offering carries the connotation of thankfulness and friendliness. And since that is the motive and intent, and it is a “giving thing”, then it is quite acceptable to offer a male or a female, of the herd or the flock, provided it is without blemish. As a side note, when we get into the animal sacrifices for the opposite motivation to “thankfulness “, which we can think of as “I’m sorry”, (due to an offence), then valuation, or degree applies, and a female animal might, or, might not be fair retribution to atone for the offence. But now Leviticus 3:2. There is an emphasis pointed out here which I will try and address. It’s not new, we have seen it already in the previous sacrifice a lot, but here I will try and explain it a little deeper. It is about blood. God created everything and has respect for His own work. God is alive. Let’s say that again with emphasis on the word “IS”. GOD IS ALIVE! He just is! And the word “life” is rooted in the word “alive” and vice versa. There are various definitions for “alive”, but the idea of it is that of “having life”, or just “existing”. The word ”life” on the other hand, carries a little different connotation; that being, the “period of time” during which a person or thing is alive or exists. Without going back to it, Christ said in John 8:56-59, (when speaking to the Pharisees about having previously known Abraham), “I Am”. If it was one of us speaking to the Pharisees, we might say, “He Is”. Now, getting back to blood, and God respecting His own handy work, or “hands on work”. The makeup of a physical living being, animal or human, is of various compositions. The most respected part of our composition is blood, because the life is in the blood, and life itself is what is the prized acquisition of all of our rationales.

Isn’t that the goal? To live forever? God told the Israelites at various times not to eat blood. But He explained it in detail, devoting one whole chapter in Leviticus 17 to emphasizing the sanctity of blood. I don’t usually like to make the articles even longer by quoting long parts of scripture, but in this case I will. Leviticus 17:1-16. “And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron, to his sons, and to all the children of Israel, and say to them, this is the thing which the Lord has commanded saying; whatever man of the house of Israel who kills an ox or lamb or goat, in the camp, or who kills it outside the camp, and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, to offer an offering to the Lord, before the tabernacle of the Lord, the guilt of bloodshed shall be imputed to that man. He has shed blood, and that man shall be cut off from his people, to the end that the children of Israel, may bring their sacrifices which they offer in the open field, that they may bring them to the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, to the priest, and offer them as peace offerings to the Lord. And the priest shall sprinkle the blood on the altar of the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and burn the fat as a sweet aroma to the Lord. They shall no more offer their sacrifices to demons after whom they have played the harlot, this shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations. Also you shall say to them, whatever man of the house of Israel or of the strangers who dwell among you, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice, and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of meeting to offer it to the Lord, that man shall be cut off from among his people. And whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. Therefore I said to the children of Israel, no one among you shall eat blood, nor shall any stranger among you eat blood. Whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust, for it is the life of all flesh. Its blood sustains its life. Therefore I said to the children of Israel, you shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. And every person who eats what died naturally, or was torn by beasts, whether he is a native of your own country, or a stranger, he shall both wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening, then he shall be clean. But if he does not wash them or bathe his body, then he shall bear his guilt”. That was a little long, but a clear explanation from God on the sanctity of blood.

It is likely the most respected physical part of our makeup. After it, there are other parts of our physical makeup that follow. Here are some but not in any order of superior sanctity: visceral fat, fat in general, the liver, the kidneys, the heart, the lungs, the stomach, the brain, the bones, and we could go on and on. And some of the lesser respected parts, (as identified by clean animal regulations), would be the offal, its necessary organs, and the hide etc. So blood is to a degree, “holy”.  And God who conceived of, and created colour, chose red for its colour, which is also a depiction of sin. God on the other hand is gloriously Holy. And His glory is likely best depicted by colour, as a type of blue. But not just any blue, but one that glows, and shines, and shimmers, and sparkles, and radiates an intense “glory”, like a “super sapphire”, or a “super energized lapis lazuli”. And it is interesting to note that when you mix blue and red you get purple. And the veil which was torn, which was a type of Christ, was a weaving of blue, purple and red yarn. We see this in Exodus 26:31 for the Tabernacle, and then again in 2 Chronicles 3:14 for the Temple. So then we have blue for God, red for man, and purple for Christ, of which the torn veil was a type of, and purple also depicted Christ as God in man. And we could go off on tangents about blue and red arteries and veins, and what science says about these things, but surely no matter what they say are the scientific causes for these colours, you must know that God's handy work is behind that too. Now this has been a lot of information about the sanctity of blood, but it was brought out to emphasize that there are degrees and valuations placed on things both offered as thanks, and offered as retribution’s. Blood and fat, and  especially visceral fat, and certain organs, have great spiritual meaning. The physical is a copy, or “type” of the spiritual. We will be getting into that to portray God's genius and handy work. So, the offering of a clean female animal without blemish, which has behind it a motive of thankfulness, is acceptable by God. And the sacrificing of it, is considered by God to be likened to a sweet smelling aroma.

May 25, 2021

And this expression by God portrays the reciprocity of the relationship. But it cannot be done just any old way. That is what the nations do and leads to defilement, corruption and polluting of the whole thing that’s being done. So God Almighty gives the method, and in it there is of course, great and wonderful purpose. Leviticus 3:2-3. We have already seen that the blood is given the most respect, thus it is sprinkled seven times round about the altar. We’ve already seen in the previous animal sacrifices that the blood needs to be drained. Next the animal needs to be cut open and to a degree dissected. We will see here again, that there is a special significance placed on the liver and the kidneys, and the visceral fat that surrounds them. These parts of the anatomy of the creature, (in this case, a bull or cow), must be removed and offered up to God as a burnt offering. And the instructions if the creature is of the goats or sheep, is the same. And we could ask, what do these specific instructions symbolize? I mean, are not the heart, the brain, the stomach, and the lungs some pretty important organs also? Yes of course, but the brain is a processor, the stomach a digester, and the heart and lungs are pumps etc. Now remember, things must be spiritualized. We are not talking about physical blood, fat, food, water and oxygen, etc etc. Remember the previous sacrifices and what they symbolized. It was all about knowledge, doctrine, truth, and words that convey meaning and “data'', (if you will). And now we are bringing in “motive and intent”. So then what do the liver and kidneys do? They cleanse blood, and store certain things, and govern, or manage fat. Again, what is special enough about these two organs for God to single them out? Since the physical is a type of the spiritual, we must always look to that comparison to find out the truth. Let’s review what blood does. It carries oxygen and nutrients throughout the body of the living being. As it circulates, it passes through specific organs that filter, and cleanse, and add more to the mix etc. In a similar way, God's Spirit circulates through a spiritually alive person, delivering essential spiritual nutrition also. But it is not physical food, water and oxygen, but spiritual elements, such as knowledge, doctrine and truth. And just as bad physical elements may enter the body, and are thus dealt with by these critical organs, similarly, bad elements of knowledge, and false doctrine may enter ones spiritual body, so to speak, and must be discovered, filtered, and cleansed out, and actually burnt, completely consuming them, or destroying them, so that they literally are, “no more”. Here is a brief description of what the kidney does: The kidneys main job is to cleanse the blood of toxins and transform the waste into urine. Each kidney weighs about 160 grams and gets rid of between one, and one and a half litres of urine per day. The two kidneys together filter 200 litres of fluid every 24 hours. The kidney is surrounded and cushioned by various layers of different tissues and fat. There are different terms for each of these, but we can collectively call them “visceral fat”, which we will come back to. Now here is a brief description of what the liver does: The liver regulates most chemical levels in the blood and excretes a product called bile. This helps carry away waste products from the liver. All the blood leaving the stomach and intestines passes through the liver. In simple terms it cleans your blood. It also stores energy in the form of a sugar called glycogen.

And I could give you a bullet list with many more specific functions of operation. But once we spiritualize this, and understand that just as the physical life is in the blood, carrying the oxygen, water, and nutrients of life to every part of our physical being; and then carrying away the toxins and poisons to be filtered out by our liver and kidneys, then hopefully we can make the connection of why the liver and kidneys are special organs to God to be sacrificed in fire as a “type”, of the spiritual impurities that must be “set apart “, or “sanctified”, or “separated”, and then destroyed in fire, so to speak. If there is some other reason for God to single out the liver and kidneys, I’m not sure what it is. I know God is ingeniously purposeful, and this explanation makes sense. And there’s more, because He also has sanctified fat, and forbidden man to eat it, and ordained that it too is to be burned as a sacrifice to Him, and it is considered to be a sweet smelling aroma. So let’s now look at fat, and especially “visceral fat”. The subject of fat, like blood, is a huge huge topic. We could go deep into the biological and chemical factors of fat, and make a host of spiritual connections of duality and “typing”. I will keep it very brief, and invite you to explore it should you wish to on your own.

Let’s first review God's instructions regarding fat in Leviticus 3:3-5. “Then he shall offer from the sacrifice of the peace offering, an offering made by fire to the Lord. The fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails, the two kidneys and the fat that is on them by the flanks, and the fatty lobe attached to the liver above the kidneys he shall remove. And Aaron’s sons shall burn it on the altar, upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood  that is on the fire, as an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord”. In these instructions we see again, the emphasis on the liver, the kidneys, and the fat that surrounds them. And once again, the blood that passes through them is filtered by them, and impurities are trapped or separated within them, and set aside for removal from the body where they will be “no more”, going back to the dust of the ground as waste. And we understand that all this physicality is dualistic, providing for the body of the host – the person within, and at the same time, representing a “type”, of the spirituality of God's parallel intended meaning, which the organs, the blood, and the fat represent. Now what about the fat? As I said, it’s a huge huge subject. And I’m keeping it brief, but enough to identify the spiritual intended meaning. There’s many definitions both physically and figuratively; here’s one physically: animal or plant tissue that is usually a greasy or oily material, solid or liquid. The body uses fat as a fuel source, and fat is a major storage form of energy in the body. Fat also has many other important functions in the body and a moderate amount of it is needed in the diet for good health. Figuratively, it is often referred to in the positive connotation, as the richest part of the land, or the choicest part of an edible creature, (or anything else for that matter), etc. There is no need to go into the negative connotation of it. But it is also a major cushioning element in animals and humans, to protect the inner organs of the body from impact that could damage them and cause them to dysfunction. It is this fat that I want to focus on, because it is this fat that God commands the priests to remove and burn on the altar with the organs themselves. As I studied this subject, and wondered about this fat, I searched for its physical characteristics and found that it is termed “visceral fat”. Everyone has it whether they be lean or plump, and it shrouds the vital organs in the lower abdominal region, so it is a “deeper fat”. In searching out the definition for visceral, I found the following: “Visceral fat is the fat that wraps around your abdominal organs deep inside your body. You can’t always feel it or see it. In fact you may have a pretty flat tummy and still have visceral fat”. (That’s spiritually interesting, that you can’t always “feel it” or “see it”, but it’s there nevertheless, but we’ll leave that alone for now). And although we won’t get deep into it, we know that too much visceral fat on your liver is dangerous, and is a condition called “fatty liver”. Now let’s get into the term “visceral” itself. Here are some definitions: “visceral – as in - felt in the deep internal organs of the body: figuratively, deep in visceral conviction. Also; it’s not necessarily intellectual, but instinctive, and sometimes unreasonable. Also; it’s dealing with crude or elemental emotions, like brought on by an earthy visceral novel etc. A couple of examples of it being used in speech might be as follows: “He had a visceral dislike of Europe'', or “ it added the visceral punch it needed”, and there are so many more examples but I hope your seeing the point, that once you spiritualize visceral fat, you see that God is talking about the deep seated matters of the heart, that are down in the innermost depths of our very being, and that if they are impure, they need to be burnt – sacrificed – if you will.

The animal sacrifice is representative of the human being, the child of God, the first fruit, and that is why we lay our hands upon the head of the beast before we kill it. And the pleasing aroma to God is the satisfaction He gets from seeing us burn the impure motives and intents of the heart. All these physical things come together to paint the picture for us of a deeper spiritual meaning that God designed into the whole animal sacrifices exercise. Even the washing we get from Christ's blood is a contrast to our blood, which must be filtered by the liver and kidneys because of the spiritual impurities within us. But His blood is undefiled and pure, and combined with the pure nutritious Word of Life, able to cleanse our hearts of wrong motives and intents. I will reiterate that we have been seeing a pattern that started with the Passover, which is a type of baptism of the first fruit, into the journey towards God and eternal life in His family. And then we grow day by day by day, by prayer, worship, and meditation etc, eventually seeing that we must sacrifice our wills, which we developed from physical birth up to this point, so that God's perfect will may preside, and we keep growing and getting so close to God and Christ that our communication goes way way deeper than we have yet experienced, so that we go well beyond our formal daily prayers, to walking in faith every living breathing moment of our conscious being. And all of these are typed by the first four sacrifices. And now with the fifth, which is a combining of the next four sacrifices, we see that the whole matter goes even deeper, or “visceral”, to bring into the development of the potential first born, the deep seated motives and intents of the heart. As a side note, God speaks about the deep seated motives and intents of the heart in other places and uses such terms as ”marrow”. Please recall that Christ has a figurative two edged sword which cuts deep down to the very marrow of the heart, discerning the motives and intents of the heart. Also it should be no surprise to learn that the definition of marrow has a figurative meaning as well as a physical one. Here is one of a few that I have read: “marrow is defined as the essence of something, the innermost, choicest part of the thing”, or the inner substance, the essential strength, the inner meaning and purpose, and there are more. Most often we associate it with the inner part of the bones where the red blood cells are actually produced, but we see the spiritual meaning of words such as visceral and marrow. And I submit to you that it is no coincidence that "blood", typing what we have seen that it does, should be produced in the bone marrow of the human being. This has brought us to the end of Leviticus 3:6. Although the chapter goes on for eleven more verses, there is no need for us to break it down, because it explains that no matter which of the clean animals that God allowed as a peace offering, the process and instructions were the same. And because the peace offering was an expression of thankfulness, gratitude and appreciation, with a truly friendly motivation behind it all, then female animals were acceptable too as long as they were without blemish. The concept of “degree” does not carry the same weight when it is a peace offering. This is not the same situation when the motive behind the offering is one of retribution because of an offence. This we shall see as we get into the Sin Offering in Leviticus 4 and onward. Remember that one of the most important lessons of life is learning how to sincerely say “thank you”, and on the other side of the pendulum, “I’m sorry”, which in a nutshell, at a most basic fundamental level, is what these offerings are all about. The Israelites did not have access to God to express such sentimentalities as these, but we do. The veil has been torn, baptism is available, spiritual circumcision is available, the table is set, God is willing, and we need to take the leap, (if we haven’t already). So Leviticus 3:17 simply ends with God explaining that this is to be a perpetual statue throughout their generations, and they are not to eat blood or fat, and now we know God's intended spiritual reasons for why. And I reiterate again, that the Israelites who exercised obedience to this statute, will by no means lose their reward. So next is The Sin Offering. I don’t know how long it will be yet, but I’m inclined to let the Peace Offering be read apart from the corresponding articles to follow, because as one volume, it might be large. So please keep in mind that these articles together form the subject of thankfulness and apology.

Glen Clarke.

May 2021

Re-edited in April 2022 and 2025 (but only grammatically).

Chapter 6: The Peace Offering, The Sin Offering, The Trespass Offering and The Guilt Offering

The Sin Offering

June 5, 2021

Before we begin, let’s remember that the physical rituals and ordinances we are going to be reading about, have a deeper spiritual intended meaning behind them, which Almighty God, the Mastermind true Genius, put into them for us to discover in due time. As is so often the case with God, there is duality to His instructions and ordinances, and the physical will have to be spiritualized to understand God's intent. On the one hand, there was a method to keep a physical people holy, through regular cleansing physically and spiritually (or at least an attempted method), and on the other hand, it portrayed for us the absolute need for it eternally. (God said, You must be holy for I am holy). But God knew there would always be offences, and there would always be a need for forgiveness, and yet acknowledgement of the cause must be out in the open, and every effort made to prevent its repeat going forward. God is The Great Teacher, and we are the learners, or, the disciples. And of course, the Sin Offering is connected to the Peace Offering (by contrast), and to all the previous four offerings as well. So let’s get into it. Let’s begin by reading Lev. 4:1-2. “Now the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel saying, if a person sins unintentionally, against any of the commandments of the Lord, in anything which ought not to be done, and does any of them”, NKJV. This could be translated a little simpler. Note that there is a coma after the last word “them” at the end of verse 2. Then verse 3 starts by singling out the high priest. But verse 2 begins with a more general inference towards “a person”. That’s a bit confusing. Let’s read Lev. 4:1-2 in the NLT: “Then the Lord said to Moses, give the following instructions to the people of Israel. This is how you are to deal with those who sin unintentionally, by doing anything that violates one of the Lord's commands”. That’s just a little clearer. And then it starts from the top down, that being; the High Priest, and then goes on down the line to individuals of lesser stature. Let’s consider three things from verse 2; “sin”, “un-intentionality”, and “violation” of Gods commands. First let’s dig into the word “sin”. It is a very weighty word. It’s a very common word. And just about everyone, religious or not, has a notion of what it means. The word is used a lot in both the OT, in the Hebrew, and the NT, in the Greek. We will be focusing on both, but initially the Hebrew. Starting with the OT, I’d like to just tell you how many times the word “sin” appears, and it appears a lot. But, there are so many different Hebrew words for it, that we will have to take a look at them. In Leviticus 4:2, the word “sin”, is H2398, “chata” (used 238 times), it is a primitive root, and is defined as: properly, to miss; hence (figuratively and generally), to sin; and by inference, to forfeit, to lack, to expiate, to repent. And (causatively), to lead astray, to condemn, to bear the blame, to cleanse, to commit sin by fault. Or, harm he has done, or loss, or miss, or offend. Also, to offer for sin, to purge, to purify(self), to make reconciliation, to trespass. That word H2398 has been used to describe all these varieties. Basically it means to sin, to miss, or to miss the mark, go wrong, incur guilt, to forfeit and to purify from uncleanness. The next word to focus on was H7684,  “shegagah”, “unintentionally ”, or “in ignorance”, and means, a mistake or an inadvertent transgression, or an error, ignorance, unawares and unwittingly. It’s rooted in H7683 “shagag”, and means to stray(figuratively), and to sin with more or less apology for it, and to have been deceived, and to err, to go astray, and sin ignorantly. The gist of it is in that it was done unintentionally. And the third word in Leviticus 4:2 was H6213, “asa” , to do or make, (and many more), but suffice it to say, to violate God's commands by doing what ought not to be done, even if done in ignorance. I’m not sure if this is the best place to bring up a contrast between God and man, but I will insert it here anyway. In Isaiah 55:8, God says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways says the Lord.” I mention this here, because humans can have a tendency to just ignore the existence of certain things, (for example, even offences sometimes). For instance, offences and trespasses where we might say, “it’s ok, don’t worry about it, because you didn’t know what you were doing, etc”. But the reality is that it still exists whether we ignore it or not. (I have my own little saying, as an alternate way of defining truth; it goes like this: “truth is, what really is”). God does not ignore the reality of a situation, and just “moves on” with life. He may tolerate it for an indefinite period of time, but He doesn’t just dismiss it as if it didn’t happen, or it no longer exists. But He does take into account such things as intent, or lack of it. Leviticus 4 is all about unintentional sin, or violations of God's ways which are  done in ignorance. But God does not just brush it under the rug. That’s just a figurative way of saying that the “dirt”, has been brushed under the rug, where it is out of sight, but still exists, right in your midst. (Something men do). God wants the dirt gone, and a lesson learned, so that hopefully, it will not be repeated. Or at least the community will be working towards that goal. Therefore, He instituted a method to help bring awareness to the offender, or offenders, to help bring about the desired result. I guess I will also bring out a spiritual principle here, and that is that we are not talking about sin that leads to death here, but sin that is repent-able of.

June 6, 2021

In the last article, I mentioned a couple of NT scriptures that I think we could do a better job of explaining. One was Romans 6:23. Another is 1 John 3:4. And James 2:10-11. And 1 John 5:16-17. I do not want to go over all of these and the many more topical scriptures that help us form our traditional views on these things (the subject and penalty of sin). But I just wish we would teach it better because there are sheep out there with some firmly held stances on sin, as if it is just black and white, and as simple as the nose on the end of your face. That’s just not the case. It involves motive and intent, and levels and degrees, and then “just values” placed on conclusions reached by “just judges” etc. I’m not debating what these scriptures say, just what God wants us to take away from it once we put it all together. There is such a thing as an offence that is unpardonable, but that is not what Leviticus 4 is talking about once it is spiritualized. Let’s get back to Leviticus 4:3 now, because the principle of unintentional sin has been introduced in verse 2. There are so many things for “just judges” to consider when sins and offences occur. And they can vary in the seriousness of the consequences, which they may or may not be responsible for. Some are: Did it defame God's great Person, or Name, or Word, or Spirit? Although anyone can sin by taking God's Name in vain, there is more damage done when it is done publicly, by a priest, or king, or representative, or a leader, or a celebrity, or anyone who has a bunch of witnesses willing to listen to them. Or if it is not defaming God, but misrepresenting what He said, or teaching an alternate doctrine to the truth, or allowing people to live an unacceptable lifestyle, or so many other things. The list is very long, and carries the connotation of degrees of offences that we humans tend to make. And the more stature God has allowed you to exercise in the midst of the people, the more responsibility God places on one to uphold the duty one may have to God and His people, and the more will be the penalty for missing the mark in some way. So Leviticus 4:3 starts with the possibility of the High Priest missing the mark in some way. Let’s read it in two different Bible translations. First the KJV: “ If the priest that is anointed, do sin according to the sin of the people, then let him bring for his sin which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish, onto the Lord for a sin offering”. (I quoted the KJV because the English word “sin”, or its derivative, appears 5 times in this verse, but with three different Hebrew words). For a second quote, I would like to quote the NET. (I didn’t use the NKJV because it doesn’t do much to help clarify the meaning). So, now the same verse in the NET: “If the high priest sins, so that the people are guilty on account of the sin he has committed, he must present a flawless young bull to the Lord for a sin offering”.

June 7, 2021

I want to look at the varied use-ages of the word for sin in this verse. But first, I would like to try and understand how the high priest's words or actions or deeds, can have an effect on the whole congregation, because as the NET expresses it, the effects of the offence are that, “the people are guilty on account of the sin he has committed“. Let’s consider this both anciently, and modernly. The high priest is a representative of God to the people. He is responsible to intermediate for the people. There is process and protocol, and it must be according to God’s approval. If the high priest somehow disrespects God, or misrepresents God, or misdirects the people, damage will be done affecting the people, (which are God's flock). It’s no different today except it’s spiritualized. If elders or deacons defame God's name, or misrepresent Him in some way, or teach doctrines that are faulty, or even completely wrong, then there will be consequences for that. It’s still God's flock, and one should ask themselves, now what am I feeding God's sheep? And although we could reason that it’s not the sheep’s fault, (and then ask), why are they defiled then. Well, that is just human reason and not God’s. (As He said, our ways are not His ways). To God, the actual situation of having done something like that, is that the sheep are now defiled to a degree. It’s just a reality, or a truism, and ignoring it  does not remove it. Another way of looking at it could be like this; if one, while working around a manure pit, falls into it by no fault of their own, it does not change the fact of how filthy they have become, or how much they stink. And an investigation may uncover that the fault lies with the owner for not securing the work space. Christ said something to the effect of: “to whom much has been given, much will also be required”. It is a much bigger deal when someone in a position of responsibility misses the mark.  Now let’s look at the usage of the word “sin”in Leviticus 4:3. We’ll read it again in the KJV stopping at that word and looking at it. “If the priest that is anointed do sin”. We already looked at this word from 4:2. It was H2398,:”chata” (or hata). And it meant to miss the mark, to incur guilt, to go wrong etc. But now continuing: “according to the sin of the people“. This word is H819, “asma” or “ashmah” , and means guiltiness, a fault, the presentation of a sin offering, to offend, cause of a trespass, and therefore a trespass offering. The strongest connotation is guiltiness brought on by an offence or wrongdoing. (And I especially appreciate the one short descriptor, that said “the cause of an offence”). And continuing: “then let him bring for his sin”. This is H2403, “hattaat”, or “chattath” , and means, an offence, (but sometimes habitual sinfulness), and its penalty, and occasion, sacrifice or expiation. Also (concretely), an offender, and their punishment for sin, and their purifying or purification for sin, and the sinners offering. Again, we see similarities and some differences. H2403 seems a little more serious than the other two words. As a side note, when I was looking at the bible usages and some of the places where these words were used, and I had started with H2398, (at this time I was not aware of different Hebrew words for sin), I noted that H2398 did not appear until Genesis 20:6 where God speaks to Abimelech, king of Gerar: “And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know you didst this in the integrity of your heart; for I also withheld thee from “sinning” against Me, therefore suffered I thee not to touch her” (speaking of Sarai, Abrams wife). Most often God just lets people live their lives and make their mistakes, and learn or not learn from their experiences. But there are times when He intervenes for His own reasons. In this case, the woman Sarai was barren, but her womb was lying dormant waiting for God’s preordained timing, at which time, He would cause her to become impregnated by her husband Abram, so that the Seed, that would eventually lead to Christ would occur. In this case, He was not going to allow Abimelech to ignorantly, and unawares, interfere with His preordained plan, by lying with Sarai and defiling her womb, which is intended to bring about the birth of the son of promise. So He intervened to prevent it, and in so doing, also prevented the unintentional sin (H2398), that would have occurred. But as I read this in Genesis 20, I thought to myself, I know I’ve seen the word sin before this, because what about the garden incident, and also, what about Cain and Able? Curiously, there is no word for sin mentioned in the garden incident. Oh there was a lot of sinning going on, and that is made clear by God when He says to all three of them, “because you have done this thing”, and “because you have hearkened unto your wife”. But the word sin does not appear until the next chapter in Genesis 4:7, quote KJV, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin, (H2403), lieth at the door.  And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shall rule over him”. This use-age of the word here carries a connotation of a dangerous destructive attitude, which God foresees is so possible and even likely. And to hear it said very clearly, let’s read it in the NLT: “You will be accepted if you do what is right, but if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master”. This is a reference to a different kind of sin. One of evil intent that is first conceived down deep in the heart, and if not resisted and dealt with, gives birth to evil actions, and ultimately death, and even an unpardonable state of being, whereby God's judgment is that a human being such as this, is not allowed to live on past a certain point. (Termination if you will). The fourth and fifth entries of the word “sin”, found in Leviticus 4:3, are H2398 fourthly and H2403 fifthly. It could be thought of like this: the H2398, which was an error or mistake made on the part of the high priest, which caused the H817, which is the mess of guilt, and defilement, which has spilt all over everyone that it could have spilt over, which has offended God, and has left everyone in this state of H2403, must be atoned for, and purified, or salvaged, and if not possible, then destroyed. God begins with about the highest position they have, the High Priest.

June 12, 2021

Leviticus 4:4, in summary, shows us that the high priest must present a young bull without blemish, as representative of himself, at the door of the tabernacle. He must lay his hands on the bulls head, as a type of confession of his guilt, and kill the bull there before the Lord. The bull without blemish does not picture Christ. It pictures the high priest, and must be without blemish so that it portrays his sincere deep regret for the offence. The high priest may not have been aware of the deeper spiritual meaning, but that is what is intended for us to understand. And because it is the high priest who has caused this offence, it cannot be atoned for with a creature of lesser worth. Even when we look deeper at the Hebrew words of “young”(bull), we see a connotation that the word young has to do with work. It is H1241 with H1121 attached. It is “baqar” and “ben”, baqar meaning an animal of the ox family (as used for plowing), and is derived from H1239, to plough. And ben means a son, grandson, colt, lamb, a calf, a kid, young . We know  that in reality, the blood of bulls and goats cannot truly pay for, or take away our sins. (Hebrews 10:4). But this exercise was to be a “type”, which spiritual Israelites would understand the true meaning of, but even the physical Israelites of that day would understand that there is a cost to errors and trespasses. Can you imagine a farmer in our day and age, sacrificing his very best bull to make amends for some miscue, error or mistake? Remember, these are unintentional mistakes. And as was covered previously in the Peace Offering, the sanctity of blood is again mentioned in Leviticus 4:5-7, but with a different emphasis on it than was brought out in the Peace Offering. Recall that the Peace Offering was an offering of thanksgiving and thankfulness, and gratefulness, from a standpoint of friendliness. In contrast, the sin offering is an offering of apology for an offence, and a method to express it, with a serious connotation that every effort will be made not to repeat it in the future. Now the sanctity of the blood is expressed to a greater degree. In Leviticus 3:13, the blood was only sprinkled around the altar of sacrifice. But in Leviticus 4:6 the priest must dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before The Lord in front of the veil of the inner curtain of the sanctuary. The exercise is now being directed at, or toward Christ, which the veil represents. He is the doorway that leads to God. Remember that the veil is made of blue, red and purple yarn, picturing Christ as God in man. The bulls blood pictures the blood of the offender (in this case the high priest), and it is sprinkled seven times before God (who is figuratively sitting on the other side of the curtain), as a trade so to speak, that trade being, His blood for mine. Of course, anciently, it was the ox-ens blood for mine. The priest also must put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of incense. This exercise sanctify’s the incense that is burned on the altar, which are the prayers and supplications of the saints, both collectively, and individually. It is through the Spirit of Christ that we have access to God, so the blood is sprinkled seven times directly at Him, which again, the veil represents. Now what about the ordinance of “seven”. A whole article could be written on this subject. And it is a great mystery to us as to what it means, and as to what God's intended multitudinous purpose of seven is. I will attempt to talk about it, but I don’t know how far God will allow me to take it, because it is a deep subject, and very special to God, and I’m more inclined to stay away from it lest I should mess up. I may talk about it with more questions than answers. So, what is so special to God about seven? Let’s first begin with the definitions and meanings of the Hebrew word and its relative roots and derivatives. The number seven has great meaning to God, and is very important to Him, and thus should be to us as well. It is a reality and has existed as a reality going way back before any of our times. There is an origin to it. Even if it has always existed, it would still have an origin to us.

June 13, 2021

The Hebrew word in Strong’s is H7651, “seba” , or “sheba”, it is from H7650, a primitive cardinal number; seven (as the sacred full one). Also adverbially – seven times; and by implication it can mean a week, and by extension, an indefinite number like seven fold or seventeen or seven times etc.  And H7650 is “saba”, a primitive root, properly meaning, to be complete, to seven oneself, ie: to swear (as if repeating a declaration seven times). And to adjure, charge by an oath, or with an oath, feed to the full, take an oath, straightly, cause to make to swear. The only derivative I will show is the number sevens ordinal number usage. That is H7637, “sebii”, or “shebiyiy”, meaning seventh, or seventh time etc. It is ordinal from H7657, “sibim”, or “shibiym”, meaning seventy, three score and ten.

I’ve spent a great deal of time this morning studying Strong's entries for the number seven searching for nuggets of truth to explain the sanctity of this number when it is used by God for any of His prerogatives. I initially found it a little strange that this number could have such a distinct collection of meanings. This made me search out the meanings for the ordinal usage of all the numbers from 1 to 12. And it is just mind blowing to read some of the details about God's usage of numbers. I won’t attempt to go into it here, but I can say that having explored it even a little, makes me feel so very very small, and God so very very big. We are such little worms next to God, and looking into these things sometimes helps us render a more just glorification of God. (Not a truly “just” rendering, but just a “little more just”, if you know what I mean). But the number seven stands out in the bible, as having distinction, and although I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to adequately explain why God has chosen this number to portray completeness and other things, it is a reality that He has. I will mention a few very curious things, which are food for thought. The Bible is replete with its usage in both the OT and the NT.

First, let’s ask, is God Almighty, also known as The Father, and The Ancient of Days, (just to differentiate Him from Christ, The Son), is He everywhere all at the same time, or is He in some distinct place, and maintains His awareness of everything going on everywhere, by some extrasensory perception? Is He in a heavenly Zion perhaps, and by a sevenfold Spirit of extrasensory perception, continuously scans the creation, making Him able to know, manage, rule, intervene, direct, alter, maintain, and etc etc etc, His whole creation? I’m just surmising, but He did make us in His image, and He did give us our little natural senses, of which there are seven, and by which we are able to experience perception in our little human way, (compared to His I mean). God does not reveal to us the truthful facts of some of (actually most of) these things. I suspect someday He will, and then we will know such things as origins, like the sanctity of the cardinal number “seven”, and its ordinal number usage “seventh”. But some more curious things are, that in certain books of the Bible, there are references of seven that sure do make us think. Some are: Zechariah 4:10, the context is a very mysterious series of visions that Zechariah is having, regarding the rebuilding of the temple, and the player’s involved in it, which in its earlier occurring of it, are a physical Zerubbabel and Joshua, but which the shear mystery of it imply powerfully that it is prophetic, and thus futuristic, and thus dualistic.

So we will cherry pick Zechariah 4:10 for the sake of the mention of a curious seven: “For who has despised the day of small things? For these seven, rejoice to see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are the eyes of the Lord, which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth”. The word for “eyes” is

H5869, “ayin”. (I have covered this in a couple of previous articles, but I will again). This word is commonly used to mean “eye”, but it has a figurative meaning as well. It is used some 887 times in the KJV of the OT, of which there are numerous different renderings for it, but the most common at 495 times is “eye”, and the second most common at 216 times is “sight”, and the third most common is “seem” at 19 times, and then the rest are a variety of meanings. And when I read many of them, it became clear that it’s most common figurative use, is that it is used to portray a viewpoint, or a perception on something, more often than to mean a physical eye. Expressions like, “in my view”, or, “in my sight”, or “the way I see it”, and “countenance” etc, became common usages for “ayin”. The purpose for this bit of digression is to show that God made us in His image. He gave us consciousness and self awareness, and the capability to be aware of that which is outside of self. But because we are physical, He needed to give us the physical means to be aware of our outer surroundings. In order for us to sense our surroundings, and for knowledge to enter into us, He gave us eyes for seeing, and ears for hearing, and you know the rest of the senses. (There are seven common ones we know of). I repeat, God made us in His image. We know very little about God's real true make up.

June 19, 2021

I reiterate that God made us in His own image, and that is a subject that goes deep, and we could go in many directions with it. But regarding the seven senses that He gave us, these too are a “type “, that cause us to reflect the God kind. To show this let us first go back to Zechariah 4. And I will summarize, for these scriptures are mysterious. Haggai and  Zechariah were two prophets God sent back to Jerusalem to invigorate and stimulate the physical Jews under a physical Zerubbabel and Joshua (and others), to get their priorities straight and get the rebuild project of the temple going again, and completed. There was much opposition from within and without, all of it mounted up by satan, using humans to do it. The opposition is spiritual, and satan is a spirit, and it was not going to be by human might or power that this job was going to get done, but as God said in verse 6, “by My Spirit says the Lord”, these things would get done. Then in verse 10, we see that God's Spirit is compared to “these seven”, which are the eyes, (ayin), of the Lord, which run to and fro throughout the whole earth. Now let’s jump to the book of Revelations, and we’ll cherry pick Rev. 4:5, and I will summarize again. But please do read it from the beginning of chapter 4. It is a scene of the throne of Almighty God the Father, the Ancient of Days, the most Supreme One of all or any. It is an incredible scene but in verse 4 it says there were seven lamps burning before the throne of God the Father which are the seven Spirits of God. We are left to imagine what this means in reality to us. John sees seven lamps, but we must appreciate that we are now in the Greek and not the Hebrew. Lamps give light by which we are able “to see”. And light exposes to those who “view”, by which they are made ”aware”. We could go on with more figurative expressions to portray what we are trying to understand. Personally, I don’t picture seven physical lamps, (like seven lamp stands), but more like seven pulsating, radiating, beams or balls of incredible light, just existing, or idling, and waiting on Gods will, and are an instantaneous extension of Gods will as well as an instantaneous source of all His insights over all that exists. Now let’s go to the next chapter and we’ll cherry pick verse 5:6 and again I will summarize. It is the same scene as chapter 4 only now Jesus Christ enters the picture symbolized as the Lamb of God who was slain and is now alive and the only One worthy to take the scroll out of the hand of God the Father. And notice in verse 6, He has seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. Are these the same seven Spirits that were mentioned in the previous verse which were symbolized by seven lamps of fire? I would say yes and no. We are just not thinking of it correctly. Try to look at it like this, to possibly see what’s outside the box so to speak. Just as each and every member of the human kind, have seven similar senses by which our consciousness is made aware moment to moment, so each and every member of the God kind have seven super extra sensory senses which make possible their total awareness of everything. The difference is that ours are fleshly, and weak, and fragile, with definite limitations, and Theirs are Spirit, and Almighty, and Powerful, and without any limitations, meaning the scope of their capabilities is infinite. Theirs are instantaneous anywhere and anytime, and there are seven Spirits of God, and just as they have seven, so humans made in Their image have seven senses. So yes, they are the same seven Spirits of God, (just as we all possess the same seven senses of men, but individually), and then, no, because both God the Father, and God the Son, possess the seven Spirits of God individually. Perhaps looking at it that way helps to understand, and the key to it is to understand that we are made in God's image, and awareness comes to our consciousness by way of seven major senses. We know that if we lose a major sense such as seeing or hearing, that we can still function, and be aware, but at a great disadvantage. But if your brain were to lose too many physical capabilities, your awareness of your surroundings would almost cease. All quadriplegics experience this to some degree but can still maintain a miserable awareness. And think of Helen Keller who from birth had no sight or hearing and no speech. She did eventually achieve an awareness level by the assistance Of Anne Sullivan, and together they left us with a remarkable legacy and story. The quadriplegic still has “awareness”, and “will”, but can no longer exercise their will, having lost their connectivity to their muscles and limbs. Now this has been a long digression in an effort to shed some light on the number seven. The big story behind it will require revelation from God, and I look forward to that. For now, suffice it to say that seven is a most holy number to God and is found everywhere throughout the scriptures. Blood is also most holy to God, and thus the high priest sprinkled it seven times before the veil.

June 20, 2021

Getting back to Leviticus 4:6-7 and the Sin Offering. So the priest, after having taken some of the blood of the bull, must enter into the holy place before the veil that separated the holy place from the most holy place, and anoint the four horns of the incense altar, and dipping his finger in the blood, must sprinkle the blood seven times at the veil. And then he must pour out the remainder of the blood (which has now become most holy), at the base of the altar of the burnt offering. The rest of the blood of the bull, (the main volume it), will be taken outside the camp to a fitting place, and buried in the dust of the ground. Then the priest must dissect the bull in order to remove the liver, the kidneys, and the visceral fat that surrounds them, just as he had to with the Peace Offering, and burn these upon the altar of burnt offering. (Leviticus 4:8-10). Then the whole remainder of the carcass of the bull with all its inwards, is taken outside the camp and burnt in the official ash heap. This is how atonement for a sin committed in ignorance, or unintentionally by the high priest, is atoned for and his sin is forgiven. (Leviticus 4:11-12).

And now Leviticus 4:13-21. Now if the whole congregation of Israel is sinning unintentionally through ignorance, then once it becomes known to them, they are to take a young bull without blemish and bring it to the door of the tabernacle of meeting. And the elders of the congregation are to lay their hands on the head of the bull and the bull shall be killed there before the Lord. It is representative of the whole congregation and in particular, the leaders who exercise governance, or policy, over the people. If we were to imagine what this sin might possibly be, it could be any number of things which ought not to be done (as God puts it). It could be a wrong set up of the camp, or wrong procedures for toileting needs for so many people, or wrong traditions adopted by the overall congregation etc. But the rest of the procedure for the bull is the same as for when the sin offering is for the high priest, and only a young bull without blemish was acceptable.

Now in Leviticus 4:22-26, we see that when someone of lesser stature, like just a ruler or leader, is the unintentional sinner (or offender), then the stature creature used to represent the offender is also lowered. It may now be a male goat with no defects or blemishes. And the sacrifice procedure is the same as for the young bull. And now in Leviticus 4:27-35, we see that if it is anyone of the common people that sin or offend unintentionally, they may bring a female goat or sheep that is without blemish to represent them and their offence, and the rest of the procedure remains the same. And the last half of verse 35 clearly says that through this process, the priest will purify the people from their unintentional sin, making them right with The Lord, and they will be forgiven. The main spiritual point for us to understand, with all of this process that the Israelites were commanded to do, for what is called the Sin Offering, is that there will always be offences, and they are forgivable, but the offender must express apology, after becoming aware of them. In simple terms, how to genuinely say I’m sorry, and to make amends, and cover losses and damages.

The Trespass Offering, Leviticus 5

I’ve read this chapter many times, previous to asking God for greater understanding and insight into His intended spiritual purpose, and never have I considered too much about it. In fact I likely skimmed over it to get through the sacrifices and on to something of more interest to me. Really though, all I lacked was spiritual understanding. And I couldn’t be granted spiritual understanding until God saw that I truly desired it. God is never mocked by us brethren, even unintentionally or ignorantly. He does not grant things of great worth if there is no true desire, appreciation, or thankfulness. There are variety’s, and mounds and mounds of truth about God and His realm, which are compared to such valuable things like gold, silver, gems and pearls. I’ll say it again, that everything must be spiritualized to understand God's true intended meaning. We are physical, and our surroundings are all physical. It’s only natural that we see things physically and literally. And God created this world physical. But God is spiritual, not physical, and to comprehend the spiritual, we must convert the physical. God made the world and the things in it, in such a way, that the things in the world are copies of the things in the spirit realm. And the pinnacle copy on this earth, of things in the spirit realm, are the copy of God Himself. Precious things like gold, silver, gemstones and pearls, are copies of something very precious in the heavenly spirit realm. They are things such as truth, doctrine, knowledge, wisdom, understanding, faith, hope and love. It is summed up in Proverbs 4:5-7: “Get wisdom, get understanding, do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you, love her and she will keep you. Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, and in and all your getting, get understanding”. Now why does God expand on the Sin Offering in Leviticus 4, and leave our translators to give a heading referring to Leviticus 5 as The Trespass Offering? What is God's intended spiritual purpose in expanding on the sin offering? The same Hebrew words for sin are used in chapter 5 as in chapter 4. I’ll list them again but not define them again. They are H2398, H819, and H2403, and they all define sin and its derivatives.

June 26,:2021

I ask again, why does God expand on the Sin Offering, using most of the same words for defining sin, (but there will be some new ones too)? And why is the connotation of it expressed with the English word “trespass”?  I will begin with a bit of a self explanatory statement. And that is; there is a reality to be realized, by the people that God intends to dwell amongst. We cannot walk around in God's presence in a defiled state in ignorance of the fact. And we cannot try and conceal it once we do realize that it exists. That just makes the matter worse. Once we become conscious of the defilement, which of course God is absolutely conscious of, we must correct it, and make amends, and repair the damages. Let’s go to Leviticus 5:1-5 and please read it in two translations. I suggest the NKJV, and then either the NLT or the NET. I prefer the NLT because they use the word “suppose” at the beginning of verses 2-4. God is implying that there are many many scenarios in everyday life, whereby people may in some way become defiled by their actions, words and deeds. (And even by their visceral thoughts if you extend it further). God was not about to make a list and mention a thousand different things. That’s why it’s expressed as “suppose a person this, or suppose a person that”. Now remember, God said that, “they”, the people, or I could say, “we”, the people, must be holy, because He is holy. And that He desires to dwell amongst them. For them, it is in the middle of the camp, in the Tabernacle, which is a type of Him dwelling within His people, who are a spiritual temple. And neither they nor we, can carry on life, goofing up here and there, even if by accident, and think we can conceal it from God. The reality is that it happened (whatever it is), and God knows it, and we need to realize it, and do something about it. We will see by the atoning sacrifices, that in some ways (humanly speaking), that these are some of the smaller unintentional offences in life. And God knows it when we have a guilty conscience about something (anything), and sees it as defiling the perfect state of being, which is the ultimate goal of perfect righteous character. Now let’s look at the different Hebrew words which make chapter 5 stand out as a little different from chapter 4, and see about this “guilty conscience” thing. To do that, we must go to the good old KJV where we have a trusty concordance to turn to. First we see the word for sin H2398, which we previously defined, is used in verse 1. But also in verse 1, we see at the end of verse 1, the first new word I want to bring out, and that is “iniquity”. It is H5771, “avon” and comes from H5753, “avah”, and both words mean similarly; perversity, moral-evil fault, mischief, punishment for sin, guilt, guilt of iniquity, guilt as of condition, and the second word can also mean; to crook literally or figuratively, do amiss, bow down, make crooked, commit iniquity , pervert, do wrong , or do wickedly. The next two words are very close relatives also. They are “guilty” which is H816, “asham”, found in verses 2,3,4, and 5, and the second word “trespass offering”, is H817, (which comes from H816), and is only slightly different in spelling and pronunciation. It is “asham” also but with different accents, and sounds like “ashawm”. Here’s what their combined meanings mean; to be guilty, by implication-to be punished, or made desolate, to be faulty, to offend, and acknowledge offence, to trespass, commit an offence, but also for H817, a sin offering, guilt ones, and an offering for sin, and a trespass offering, and compensation for an offence. There is a powerful “guilt” connotation to their usages though, and God does not want us to have guilty consciences, and just pretend it’s ok, or it’s ok to try and conceal it. And the last two words that help bring fuller understanding of what God is wanting us to spiritually comprehend by the Trespass Offering are two close relatives again. They are found in 5:15 and they are “commit” and “trespass”. Their Hebrew words are H4603, “maal”, and “maal”, but with differing accents, which I am not able to duplicate with this iPad. But their combined meanings are very similar and related. They are; H4603; properly-to cover up, to act covertly, ie: treacherously, transgress trespassing, to act unfaithfully against God, man, devoted thing or husband, and H4604; treachery, falsehood, grievously trespass, a treacherous act against God or man. The connotation is once again-guilty mindedness, with a connotation of covering it up. I mean, these states of mind can lead to serious sinful acts, but God wants it nipped in the bud, and pure mindedness to be the residing state of being in His people. So the correction of these spiritual conditions, and the purifying process is typed by more sacrificial offerings, which like all the previous offerings, are made by fire. For the Israelites, as a type for us, it is physical fire that purifies and cleanses. And the offering itself, must match the crime so to speak, so that righteous amending takes place between the offender and the offended, and God sets the example for us to follow. So from verses 5:6 through to 5:13, we see God give the instructions for these offerings with valuation incorporated into it. And we see female sheep, goats, turtle doves, pigeons, and even grains, being offered up to portray the making of amends for these types of offences. These offences will occur, they are a part of everyday life, but they must not be allowed to become so ignored, that a state of ignorance becomes the norm, and degeneration occurs. There is a standard and it must be maintained or else we know what will happen over time. Man has proved this principle in many degenerate societies throughout human history. And we are now seeing the like of it such as no one except God Himself would ever thought possible, and the slide into it has not yet reached its full disgusting maturity. As God said in Genesis 15:16, “The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete”. But the chapter and the instructions on the trespass offering is not yet complete either.

In Leviticus 5:14-19 God addresses a trespass that can occur that offends against “holy things”. In verse 5 it is H6944, “qodesh” and comes from H6942, “qadash”, their combined meanings are as follows: a sacred place or thing, rarely abstract, consecrated or dedicated thing, or hallowed thing. And H6942, to causatively make, pronounce or observe as clean. To hallow, to purify, to sanctify, and some more. These offences are always directed at God even if unintentionally or ignorantly. The list of things could vary by which someone may offend, but it would involve God's personal and or sacred property, such as the Tabernacle articles etc, or any of His ordinances or commands. The valuation of the atoning animal may not be satisfied by the previous list given in verses 5:6-13. Now it must be a ram without blemish out of the flocks, (because you may not own one), in which case you may purchase one from somebody by usage of the sanctuary shekel weight valuation method in silver, and add 20 percent to it to make restitution for the offence. The ram without blemish principle always exists no matter what it is you are representing your hearts intentions to God with. You always give your very best to God. It shows where your heart truly resides. We are at the end of Leviticus 5 now but not the end of the instructions God gave to the Israelites regarding trespass offerings.

We will now go into Leviticus chapter 6 and continue with this situation regarding trespasses against God and one another. And once again, the spiritual lesson which we must learn and internalize, is how to cohabitate peacefully. It is how to say thank you, and I’m sorry, and how can I make it up to you. Here’s another principle for us to appreciate. Every sin, offence, or trespass that we commit against one another, is by extension, a trespass against God as well, because our consciences become defiled, and we are then “guilty”, or “guilt stricken” (as they say). With having said that, we can now also consider that the “guilt offering”, is so closely associated with the “trespass offering”, and the Hebrew words used to describe them are also so connected and similar, then the offerings themselves do not mean some totally different thing either, but are the same, but they could involve variations just as much as the offences can vary. So there are a few more instructions which are found in chapter 6:1-7 which focus on the offences everyday people can do to one another. And again, I like the NLT method of using the word “suppose” to describe some of the predicaments we get ourselves into. And they all involve our minds getting defiled by guiltiness because of treachery or dishonesty or carelessness, or covetousness, or some other mind set. Remember that words play such a part in all this effort to cohabitate with one another, and with God. He takes our words very very seriously. Swearing falsely, or carelessly, or angrily, or rashly, are at the core of just about every argument. Wrongly verbalized word expressions cause spiritual fires and breaches, and we must be aware of them and have a strategy to combat them, and a system to make just amends. Rather than see these instructions by God as some harsh list of rules, we should see the value He put into them, in helping us with the inevitable relational problems, which diverse intelligent beings can get themselves into, and how much more so with a host of spirit enemies laying boobytraps for us. The remainder of Leviticus 6 is review and re-emphasis for the ones God has ordained to see that these things get done according to the instructions He gave Moses. Anciently it was Aaron the high priest, and his assistants, the priesthood. Our High Priest is Jesus Christ who mediates for us, and our priesthood should teach us the spiritual intent of these things as Malachi 2:7 speaks of.

June 27, 2021

Before concluding Leviticus 6, I would like to stop at verse 27 to point out something that will come up various times in other books and situations. It involves the English word “holy”. It is H6942, “qadash”, and we’ve already looked at its meanings. I just want to make sure we understand how to take this verse, because there’s numerous renderings in the various bible translations. The KJV causes some confusion. The way it reads, it seems to say that if holy meat somehow touches something or someone, they will become holy. This is not logical and is wrong. What if the person it touched is wicked, do they somehow become holy? But there are various other translations that make it read that way also. But the NKJV and the NET render it differently saying that anyone who handles or touches this holy meat must themselves be holy. This is a more correct way to understand the intent and it is backed up by a scripture where God asks this very question in Haggai 2:12. “If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread or stew, wine or oil, or any food, will it become holy? And the priests answered and said no”. That settles that. But it is important to emphasize that once something has been set apart to God, be it an offering, an article, a person, or a vow, it is holy and belongs to God, and He takes it very seriously, so be careful, and especially with your words and vows. I know people who have prayed to God for trials and got them. I have done it myself only once many years ago, and I am careful not to do that again. God knows when and how to test us. We cause enough of our own trials without asking God for them. So be careful with your words. And that concludes chapter 6 of Leviticus. That leaves us with only chapter 7 of Leviticus to complete the overall instructions of the animal sacrifices. Before getting into it, I would like to harken back to the beginning of this whole initiative, and to my initial prayer to God, to explain His deeper spiritual intended meaning, in granting me understanding of it, just because I expressed frustration at the reading of it so many times throughout the years. And I believe He answered my prayer and has explained it to me, and I am sharing it with you. You may say you already knew all that. (And at this point it’s only being shared with true ministers of God). But my reply to that is at least partially this: well I wish you would have shared it with us sheep, because I know I’ve been frustrated over the years with not knowing, and I’m inclined to think there’s others that have also been. But if on the other hand, this enlightens you as it has me, then good for you too. Now Leviticus chapter 7. I read it in preparation for this a few weeks back, which is when I realized that the sin offering portion of this article (including the trespass and guilt offerings), was going to be four chapters long. And please recall that I decided to split the article into smaller articles. But a more thorough reading of chapter 6 and 7 have shown me that it is a rather detailed re-emphasizing by God of all the instructions and ordinances that He gave to Moses. Chapter 7 is long at 38 verses, and is detailed, but there isn’t much added that God didn’t already explain. But God knows us so well, and knows that things need to be reinforced, and that is what chapter 7 largely is. It is basically saying the rules are the same for each and every sacrifice. The kidneys and the liver are sanctified for the same reasons no matter the motive and intent of the sacrifice, be it peace and thanks, or apology and restitution. Similarly the blood and the fat are sanctified no matter what creature, and the motive and intent of the sacrifice. It is a restating because God knows we have a proclivity to forget, to loosen up too much, and to let in liberalism. In God's own ways, using Moses as a man, with his own ways, it is, be careful, be careful! Enjoy living in God's presence, enjoy the fat of the land, and enjoy the rewards of your labours, and the “taste testing” of life that God grants us humans, but be careful, and especially because the enemy is out there booby trapping us every which he can. Let’s be reasonable, God did not have to allow us to “taste life”. It is not some human right when you get right down to it. It is all of His own prerogative, and none of us had anything to do with it. If everyone on the planet shouted “thank you God” at the same time, it would not do justice to His thoughtfulness and kindness. Ironically though, the billions are more inclined to think, “let’s kill the heir and get rid of Him, and take over the earth for ourselves and run it the way we see fit, and live life the way we want to. Here’s another irony; men have made many movies now (usually science fiction), where the basic storyline is that men have created theses human like copy’s or prototypes, that go rogue on them trying to take over, and some Hollywood stars have to play these action hero characters, that put down the rebellion by these created humanoid types. And here we are, as humans trying to do the same thing to The Creator. There’s just nothing new under the sun. But I consider this compilation of articles on the animal sacrifices, from the Passover Offering article, through to the Sin Offering article, to be complete. There is more in later chapters in Leviticus, and maybe some in the book of Numbers, but the general understanding of what God had spiritually intended, which portrays His greatness and genius, have been revealed by Him, at just the time in history that He planned. And He knows that the truth of these things is priceless in value, to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. And it is so simple in the end of it all. We needed a Saviour, who would take the heat for us. His death tore open the veil so we could come to our Creator and worship Him as He so justly deserves, and we could go on to develop a two way permanent relationship with Him and Christ, coming to understand that Father always knows best, so we had to learn to sacrifice our wills for His, so that we could live and cohabitate with Him forever, (and each other), but that we would have to also understand two more major principles, how to say thank you, and how to say I’m sorry sometimes, and that there is of necessity, a standard, which we all must buy into and maintain even at the cost of pain or death. Because you maintain it and eventually live forever, or you refuse it and die forever, and the standard will still be maintained by those who go on. Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Please remember that it is not complete without the articles that preceded it, which are The Passover, The Morning and Evening Sacrifices, The Freewill Offering, The Grain Offering, The Peace Offering, and now The Sin, Trespass and Guilt offering. Together they complete a spiritual narrative by God that I think has been hidden until God granted it to an “anybody”. If you should think to yourself; but what purpose does it serve? I could ask, are you not amazed day in and day out by God's many many accolades and accomplishments? I know I recently heard a sermon by my church's Presiding Evangelist, where he said, we ought to be in jaw dropping awe, continuously, no matter which direction we look at our world, its creatures, and the universe. And I am in complete agreement with him, and that is what happens to me figuratively speaking day in and day out, jaw dropping awe! But there are many scoffers and scorners, even in God's church, and amongst God's own people, and should that be any surprise? The very Saviour of the world walked among God's people at His first coming, and encountered mostly scoffing and scorning, and now just prior to His second coming, should we expect anything less? My instincts and inspirations from God tell me no, but to expect similar behaviour and conduct. With that I say again, thank you.

Sincerely,

Glen Clarke.

Edited again in Feb. 2025

Final Thoughts

This article started with a simple genuine prayer because after years of continuous rereading of the law of Moses, I still found it tedious and without clear purpose (other than ritualistic worship and obedience to God). I never dreamed it would unfold the way it has or be this long. If you have read it all then you are faced with a choice to believe or not believe. I believe it was all revealed and all I can say is it is literally incredible, and God is a Mega Mega Genius. And I also believe that we have only scratched the surface of all He has for us to eventually understand. And with that I will simply say, thank you Lord, yes thank you, thank you, thank you.