The Peace Offering, No. 3

Colossians 1:25-29

COL-439

Our topic is "The Error of Legalism," number 51.

The peace offering was a voluntary offering in the Mosaic Law. It portrayed the removal of the wall separating God from man. This was done by the fact that the penalty of death for sin, which this wall represented, was paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ. This also portrayed the reconciliation that then took place between a holy God and sinful man. The result was that God and man can now come to a condition of peace.

This is the point at which, of course, Satan does all that he can to confuse people. He brings in a variety of emotional appeals that simply lead people into religion and into experiences, but do not lead them to where they are trusting in Christ for their salvation. This will be a great tragedy for many people, when they come out into eternity, and they discover that they have been conned, and they have been trusting in the wrong thing.

Now, it is very common here, in Berean Church, for us to understand the doctrine of the grace of God. The reason we get those deeply moving letters, like the one we read to you this morning from India. It is because this is not to be found in every street corner. And here, of all places, for us to get that kind of a communication from a theological institute where one student is telling another: "Do you know about this church in Irving, Texas? You can write them," and the tapes are being passed around, as they indicated. And what are they discovering? They're discovering the real meaning of salvation, by the grace of God. And along with it, they're learning the wonderful power system of the church age, where you could actually walk with God hand-in-hand now. There is no more separation. You have a hand which God will never release. You can tug it, and go your way. But He'll hang on, and keep dragging you in the right direction. The result is that there is tremendous capacity for having a significant and satisfying life. God was propitiated. The lost sinner was reconciled to God. Absolute righteousness was imputed to the believing sinner who trusted in Christ as Savior.

The Peace Offering

The peace offering of the Old Testament Mosaic system was an offering which was designed to portray what God had done in reconciling man to God. And the offerings were one of three kinds of animals. It could be from the herd – a bull cow; it could be sheep; or, it could be a goat. It could be a male animal, portraying the authority of Jesus Christ in choosing to die for sin – active obedience. Or this time, it could be a female animal, portraying the willing reception on the part of Christ of the punishment for the sins of the world. This was passive obedience. The animal offered, as always, had to be physically perfect, to portray the sinlessness of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The worshiper would lay his hand on the animal that he had brought to the priest at the temple, to symbolize that he was transferring his moral guilt to this animal. Then he would pronounce, also at that time, some special reason for which he was giving this offering: "God, I give you this in thanksgiving; I give you this in thanks for the victory in battle; or, I give you this for giving me my good health." Whatever it was, often a vow that was being fulfilled, the peace offering showed that God and man were in tune with one another.

However, before he could make the peace offering, something else had to come first. And that was the burnt offering. This was the offering that reminded the Jew that someone had to pay the penalty of death for sin. And when the burnt offering had been made on those ashes, then they brought the peace offering. Now there can be peace between God and man.

Many time, people who are not going to live much longer are told to make their peace with God. And they haven't got the faintest notion, or the foggiest idea how that should be done. Generally, what they think they means is to make promises to God – mostly pleading. And as always, the way of salvation is one of the hardest things for unsaved people to get out of Christians. Christians are so confused on it.

Well, having placed his hand on the animal, and having made his declaration to God, the offerer then killed the animal, and the priest caught the blood, and sprinkled it around the altar of sacrifice. The most important part (the most valuable part of the animal) was the fat. This was the best part, and, therefore, it was placed on the flames as representing Jesus Christ – the perfect human being. The Jew could not eat the fat. Furthermore, the kidneys were also placed there, because, in the Old Testament, the kidneys were viewed as the center of human emotion.

So, the love of God, which was tenderly portrayed by this action, and later fulfilled by Christ, was symbolized by putting the kidneys, and the fat that surrounded them, and the shield of fat from the lobe of the liver, as well. The peace offering of the fat and the kidneys, as we have read, was a sweet odor sacrifice to God the Father. And he was as happy as the offerer was, to know there was now peace between them.

Now we go over to Leviticus 7. The peace offering created a basis for fellowship on a human level – in fact, a social event. Leviticus 7:11: one of the reasons for bringing the peace offering was to express one's thanksgiving to God: "This is the law of the sacrifice of peace offering, which will be presented to the Lord." Now, I want to pause to remind you to notice that, in your English Bible, the word "LORD" is all in capital letters. Anytime you see that in your English translation, it is letting you know that that is the most sacred and the highest name of God in the Hebrew language. It's the Hebrew word "Yahweh." It is often translated as "Jehovah." but that's not correct. It's "Yahweh." And this was the name of the special relationship that God had with Israel. God is also called "Elohim." And that's the word you have in Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's His power as the Creator. But when it comes to this very special relationship, and a very holy relationship, this is "Yahweh:" the Lord. So, we're dealing here with the Most High God in the most holy relationship that human beings can have with the deity.

Verse 12 says, "If he offers his peace offering by way of thanksgiving (to express thanksgiving to God), then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, he shall offer unleavened cakes, mixed with oil (unleavened wafers spread with oil), and cakes of well-stirred fine flour, mixed with oil." What he is referring to there is to the meal offering – the three types of baked offerings, which we've already looked at. So, here, if it's a thanksgiving where the offerer say to God: "I want to thank you for something:" whatever he declares when he puts his hand on the animal, he not only presents that animal in sacrifice, but he presents one of each of these three kinds of baked offerings.

So, the peace offering is to be accompanied by the meal offering. What is the meal offering about? The meal offering is about, again, the sinlessness of the person of Jesus Christ. And it shows that the sinlessness of Christ goes with our reconciliation. It is because through Him, His senselessness, there is reconciliation. You cannot be reconciled to God if you cannot have sinlessness. That's why, without what Christ did, there's no way for us to find peace with God. If you want peace with God, it takes Someone Who is sinless to achieve it for us. They offer these cakes upon which the sinlessness of Christ was portrayed, one of each type.

Then Leviticus 7:13-14: "With the sacrifice of his peace offering for thanksgiving, he shall present his offering with the cakes of leavened bread." Now, here's an interesting observation – that he does not only have the three kinds of baked offerings, which were unleavened, with no yeast, which is a symbol of evil, but now, with this offering of thanksgiving, he is to include leaven in the bread. Why? Why is the yeast there? Because it is reminding us that while there is reconciliation with God, as we well know from the New Testament, there is still the sin nature in man.

So, he was a magnificent way in this offering that portrayed Christ in these three forms of the baked meal offering, and the sacrifice of this animal as an expression of thanksgiving to God, celebrating the peace that man and God had, and that you have that while there is a sin nature within you. If you do not understand this, then you will fall into the trap of thinking that you can lose your salvation. And then you fall into the trap of thinking that when you're a Christian, you will now be perfect, and you will now be sinless. And that is not the case.

Verse 14: "And of this, he shall present one of every offering as a contribution to the Lord. It shall belong to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the peace offering." The priest gets what was placed upon this offering. And the priest would gather to eat this, and he would eat it with the man who was offering this. And He could invite his friends in.

Verse 15: "Now, as for the flesh of the sacrifice his thanksgiving peace offering, it shall be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it until the morning." So, here's a social celebration. The offering part has been made. Now, the rest of the offering, the priest and the person who is making the offering eat it, and invites his friends too, if he wants to: "But if the sacrifice of his offering – and it has to be done that day. But if this is an offering of a special kind: "God, I'm thanking you because I am now fulfilling my vow." That's a special thanksgiving offering. So, that one is a votive (filling a vow, or a free will offering), it shall be eaten on the day that he offers the sacrifice, and on the next day, what is left of it may be eaten." So, it can be eaten that day, and what you have left over, it can be eaten the next day, because it's a special thanksgiving offering. But now what happens the minute you start repeating things?

What do you think would happen if, at every service here, we all stood up, and we recited the Lord's Prayer together: "If I would stand up and said, "Now, we're going to recite the Lord's Prayer," how many eyes do you think would glaze over?" That's what happens at liturgical services. If you haven't been reared in that kind of a system, you don't know what it is to open the song book to page 35, and you know that the priest is going to say something, and then you're going to say something back. That is very, very monotonous. And now it has no spiritual meaning. It's just ritualistic.

So, here, you have this celebrating of eating this meal together. And you know that that's what you do. Enemies don't eat meals together. But when enemies become friends, they go to Burger King. That's scriptural. They sit down, and they have a meal together. They share a feast. It's a fellowship.

Now, the third day, if you haven't eaten it (verse 17): "But what is left over from the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burned with fire." You can't eat it on the third date. There's no ritualism. You're not going to say, "Oh, every day I'll eat a little bit of this, and praise God a little more with my votive offering." You can eat it for two days, then the meaning is gone. But you say, "I don't like to throw this away. Look at how good this stuff is. We'll just eat it on the third day." The minute you've done that, you've entered human effort. And the whole way of God has been bypassed, and the whole peace offering now comes crashing down. So, there's no blessing.

Verse 18: "So, if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering should ever be eaten on the third day, he who offers it will not be accepted, and it shall not be reckoned to his benefit. It shall be an offensive thing, and the person who eats it shall bear his own iniquity." When you deal with God, you do it His way. And you do not lie to yourself, and say that what you're doing is OK. And you do not make pompous declarations of how you think it should be done. That's only your sin nature clouding your mentality. You do it God's way. And if you take off on your own, then you're following the sin nature, not the Spirit of God. And it's no good.

You can give great sums of money to God, but you do it in the sin nature way, and not the Holy Spirit-led way. And that offering is a condemnation against you. Do you remember Ananias and Sapphira? Did they given offering from the property they sold? You betcha they did. It probably wasn't all that small, but they were greedy, and they didn't want to give it all, which is the way the other people were doing. Nobody made them do this. Nobody required it. It was their money. Peter says, "It was your property. It belonged to you. It was your money before you sold it. It was your money after you sold the property. Why did you lie to the Holy Spirit?" Wait a minute. Did they talk to the Holy Spirit? No, they talk to Peter, when Peter said, "Just how much did you get for the property you sold?" The Holy Spirit had talked to Peter, and said, "I want you to interrogate these people. They're trying to pull a shenanigan." Then they said, "Yes, we received this amount for the property." Then Peter said, "Why did you lie to the Holy Spirit, because He was God's spokesman?"

So, before you try to get around somebody who's teaching you the Word of God, you better be sure he's wrong. They should have, first of all, made very sure that Peter was not speaking for God before they tried that stunt. Now, there was nothing wrong with their giving that offering, and it would have been to the great benefit and pleasure, and eternal reward. But instead, they did it (a good thing) in the wrong way.

So, here, the Jews were told: "There's a way to have a peace offering such that you really will get peace with God, and that really will be honored. But there's a way that you turn it into a ritualism, and into a sham, and it will not be to your blessing. It will go against you." So, there was no eating of this on the third day. There was no pointless ceremony.

So, what was happening here was that God had feasted on whichever kind of animal was put on that offering. The priest had feasted now with the offerer, and his family, and his friends, perhaps, all joining in, and celebrating in a social way the sacrifice of peace. It's a lot of fun to sit down with Christians at a meal event.

You just watch next Sunday night, when all these tables are up, and all that long line of tremendous food are popping up. And all these women who were already behind the scenes, planning what they're going do. I hear it all the time at home. And all of that magnificent stuff is out there. This place will be abuzz with social fellowship and camaraderie of the highest type in the Lord. This is what happened at the end of the peace offering. The religious leader and the people for whom he had carried out the ceremony got together, and the rest of what was brought – that which was not put on this sacrifice, was for their blessing, and for their enjoyment.

So, God doesn't expect you to give all of your material goods to him. He expects you to enjoy whatever you have that He does not ask you to give to His work. And you can enjoy that to your heart's content, governed only by the will of God. I wouldn't spend money, that you do not feel free, is the will of God. I would not buy things such that you can't say, "This is the will of God for me." You are, after all, paying for those things with what He has entrusted to you.

So, this portrayed a camaraderie a piece on a social level, all because people had been reconciled symbolically to Jesus Christ.

However, now there was another condition. For these people, it was all symbolic. You and I will jump right on this. You'll know exactly what verse will come to your mind, because now there was a problem – a warning. And that was simply this: "You don't participate in the peace offering if you're out of temporal fellowship with God the Father. You do not participate in such a sacred demonstration of saying, I'm at peace with God." That's a lie, if you are not in fellowship with your Heavenly Father, because you have no ground for God. And here in the Old Testament, you could become spiritually and ceremonially unclean – like if you touched a dead body. And then, you had to go through a ritual ceremony of purification. But while you're in that condition (and there were several other things that would put you in a condition of uncleanness), you better not participate in these sacred rites.

Contamination

Verse 19: Also, the flesh that touches anything unclean (like a dead body, for example) shall not be eaten." Here it says, "If the animal was brushed up against something unclean, you don't eat it: "It shall be burned with fire. As for other flesh, anyone who is clean may eat such flesh. All the other, you may join with the priest, and enjoy eating this food. But if it's unclean, or if it's contaminated, and you don't eat it. So, don't bring an offering to God that's contaminated.

Billy McCarroll was the pastor of the Cicero Bible Church. Cicero was a place, in the early 1900s, just outside the city of Chicago, It was famed because it was the headquarters of one of the great gangsters of the era: Alfonzo Capone. Alfonzo Capone was famous in the days of bootlegging. And people were breaking book making bootleg booze in their bathtubs at home. And they were bringing it to agents, or agents of Capone would come around, and they'd pick it up, and they'd pay these people for it. In the Chicago area, he was the king. He ran things. He ran the speakeasies. And he had his territory, and nobody dared cross Alfonzo Capone.

One of his henchmen, one of his agents, one of his thugs, happened to wander into the Cicero Bible church when they were having a revival meeting, as they called it (an evangelistic meeting). And this guy got saved. And the transformation was enormous. He realized the terrible things that he had done; the terrible lifestyle he was in; and, the terrible association that he had with Capone. And he decided he had to cut loose. So, he goes to Al, and he stays with Al for a while, and he sees that this guy is really trustworthy. His mouth is clean, and his habits were changing. There something about him. Finally, he tells Al: "I can't work for you. I'm a Christian now."

So, Capone very impressed with this: "That's some kind of religion (because all those guys are Catholics), such that it should have transformed in such a way. So, Capone bids him good fortune, and lets him go on his way. But Capone has his bookkeeper write a very large check to Cicero Bible Church, in honor of his associate's conversion. Billy McCarroll, the pastor, said, "What shall I do with this money? Is it OK to take this? This is an offering. Has this offering been brushed up against contaminated, unclean subject matter, so that it is unclean?" You betcha, it had. Billy McCarroll knew it had been gotten through breaking the law; through selling illegal alcohol; through murder; through beating up people; and, through imposing the rule of the mob on innocent people.

So, the result was that Billy McCarroll said to the man who came to deliver it, "You can take that back to Al, and say, "We don't want money that has been earned the way he earns his money." That was not a popular thing to do in Chicago in those days. In other words, "Al, you can stuff it." And that's the word that came back to him. Did McCarroll do the right thing? You betcha. He was following this very principle here. If the thing is unclean, you don't eat on it. And if the thing is unclean, it may be very tempting, especially if it's a monetary thing, but if it's not of God, and you know how it came in the wrong way. Don't touch it. Just tell them to keep it.

Well, that applies to all kinds of things in life. It may not be money. It may be prestige, or it may be position. And if you're working in something that you know is a dishonest thing, what should you do? Just think of all the people who have lost money in the stock market, and some of these things that have been going on with these big corporations, that have been manipulating their stock. And people behind the scenes work there. What should they do? Oh, just tell the people to keep doing it, knowing that it's wrong?

For a while, when Tilton was running big in this area, one of the people who used to attend our church was on his phone bank. And one day, our man who attended church here at Berean (before he used to attend church here), answered the phone, and this lady said, "Six weeks ago, I sent my seed money in to Reverend Tilton, and he said it would be doubled (God would multiply it) and nothing has happened." So, this poor guy didn't know what to say to her. So, he checks up with Tilton's secretary, and she confers with Tilton, and this man was told: "Tell the lady, why don't you make another offering to reinforce your faith the first time?" And this poor guy said, "What? Tell this lady to send us more money, with a promise that we cannot keep, and that is not true – that just because you give money, God is going to prosper you?" No, there's nothing in the Bible that ever says that. That's only preacher talk.

So, he told his supervisor: "You have to get somebody to take my station here. I'm going to have to leave." So, he walked out. That was a big operation in those days, and big money for everybody who is working in it.

Well that man knocked on my door, and told me that story, and said, "What should I do?" I said, "That's contaminated product. It's false. It's a deceit. You should not be part of it. Cut out, and start over with the Lord on a clean basis. He never went back. And for years, he was with us here. But he did the right thing to say, "That's contaminated, and that is not an offering from God. And I won't touch it." So, it is very easy for us to deceive ourselves – that's something we have mental reservations about taking, and we should not.

So, here, in verse 19: "The flesh that touches anything unclean, shall not be eaten. It shall be burned with fire. As for other flesh, anyone who is clean, and who is in fellowship with God, you may eat that flesh" – this which had been brought for the peace offering.

Then verse 20 says, "But the person who eats the flesh of the sacrifice of the peace offering which belonged to the Lord, in his uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from his people. If you act out of fellowship, and if you participate in Christian service, out of fellowship, so that you're in an unclean condition, then God will discipline. If you give your money under that condition, you will be you'll not be rewarded for it.

So, here's the principle that we know so well in the New Testament – that you keep your nose clean, and you stay in fellowship with God the Holy Spirit. And when the Old Testament text says, "Anybody who eats of this sacrifice, when you're out of fellowship, in an unclean condition, out of fellowship with God, and it says, 'You'll be cut off from the people,' they mean: you're going to die." God will bring that kind of summary judgment.

Verse 21: "And when anyone touches anything unclean, whether a human uncleanness, or an unclean animal, or any unclean, detestable thing, and eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the peace offering, which belongs to the Lord, that person shall be cut off from the people here." Here, gain, there is ceremonial uncleanness here. But there was a reality behind it – you don't participate in the offering.

So, here you are. This man has made his peace offering. The priest is ready to participate with him in the social celebration. He is ready. He brings his family in. Here's one person in the family who's unclean: ceremonially unclean; internally unclean; mentally unclean; and, in resistance against God. He has sin in his life. What should he do? Sit down with the rest of the family, and participate in the peace offering as if he were in step with the Lord? Not if he's smart. He will excuse himself, and get things right between him and God first. It is a very serious thing to be out of fellowship with God, your Heavenly Father, and to be there in that spiritually unclean condition, and you go about doing the Lord's work.

So, you are not to feast on a peace offering when you're out of temporal fellowship. You have no ground for that fellowship. This is the same thing, of course, in the New Testament. Your mind has probably already gone to 1 John 1:6: "If we say that we have fellowship with him (Jesus Christ), and yet walk in darkness (we're in sin, walking in some sinful thing), we lie, and do not practice the truth." When I tell you that we lie to ourselves, I'm not making this up. That's exactly what the Holy Spirit says here: "If we say that we have fellowship with Christ: "I'm in I'm in tune with God; I'm at peace with Him. I'm living my life the way He wants me to do," and you are lying about this, like Ananias and Sapphira did. You do not practice the truth: "But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin."

So, fellowship with God can never be separated from the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The peace offering was eaten as for what Christ was, and not what we felt about it.

The fat and the blood were not to be eaten by the Jews. We already saw that in Leviticus 3:17. And here it is, in Leviticus 7:22: "Then the LORD (all capital letters – the most sacred God) spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'You shall not eat any fat from an ox, a sheep, or goat. Also the fat of an animal which dies, and the fat of an animal torn by beasts may be put to any other use, but you are certainly not to eat it." If an animal that has been torn by beasts died, you could put it to other use. You could melt it down, and use it for oil in your lamps. But you cannot eat it in worship: "Whoever eats the fat of the animal (which is an animal given in offering to God, in the peace offering): whoever eats the fat of the animal from which in offering by fire is offered to the Lord, even the person who eats shall be cut off from his people." And there you have it again: cut off, which implies death.

Leviticus 7:26: "And you are not to eat any blood, either a bird or animal in any of your dwellings. Any person who eats any blood, even that person shall be cut off from the people." They cannot eat the fat, and they cannot eat the blood. Fat and blood belong in a very special way to God. The fat represented the best of the person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who had satisfied the Father. That was a relationship that only God the Father preserved for Himself. And it was for Him to enjoy alone.

Of this animal (whatever kind was brought to the sacrifice), the breast and the right guy in the peace offering went to the priest first. Leviticus 7:28: "Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'He offers the sacrifice of his peace offering to the Lord, shall bring his offering to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offerings. His own hands are to bring offerings by fire to the Lord.'" The man brings this himself to the priest. He shall bring the fat with the breasts, that the breasts may be presented as a wave offering before the Lord." The priest holds up the breast; waves it before the altar; and, it becomes the priest's personal food.

Verse 31: "The priest shall offer up the fat in smoke on the altar. But the breast shell belong to Aaron and his sons." The fat goes on the fire, and that's where that phrase comes from: "The fat is in the fire" – from this offering originally: "And you shall give the right thigh of this animal to the priest, as a contribution from the sacrifices of your peace offerings. The one among the sons of Israel, who offers the blood of the peace offering in the fat, the right thigh shall be his portion." This is how the priest got paid. He got the breast, and he got the right thigh of this animal.

Verse 34: "For I have taken the breast of the wave offering, and the thigh of the contribution from the sons of Israel, from the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and given them to Aaron the priest, and to his sons as their due forever from the sons of Israel." God has always made arrangement for those who are in Christian service (those who are in the service of God). We call it the formal ministry, such as the priests were at the temple. The people support them in their livelihood.

Paul makes it clear that the pastor-teacher is not to be out there, running a job on his own, or running some empire of his own. He is to apply himself to learning the Word of God. This is a constant job, and a constant to man. And sometimes it is harder than at other times. And he needs to be occupied with presenting the mind of God through expository preaching. That is a very demanding chore. It takes time. And please remember that psychologists will tell you that intense mental effort is worse than a lot of physical exertion. If you do a lot of physical exertion, and you hit the sack, you you'll drift off to sleep. But if you do a lot of heavy study, and mental exertion, and you hit the bed, and you'll toss and turn, because of the intensity of the drain on the system.

So, what did the breast represent? The breast is the area of affection. The right thigh is the area of strength. So, here, the Lord Jesus Christ is providing for the priest at the temple, the love of God, and the strength (the capacities of God).

In 1 Peter 2:9, you should remember that you too are a priest of God. And there is where the application comes: "But you are chosen race, a royal priesthood, and our God provides us with His love – the breast of the peace offering. And we enjoy the divine power of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives. We enjoy the power system of the Holy Spirit, and there is the strength of the right thigh.

All of this had symbolism that they did not understand. But it is very clear to us. And the rest of the animal – that went to the offerer, and to the family, for them to enjoy together. The blood represented the work of Christ on the cross. No one could share in that. So, the blood was not eaten by the Jews. It was God's special possession. This prohibition declared this warning against uncleanness. When you participate in a peace offering, saying, "Hey, I'm at peace with God. You get up and make a testimony, and there is sin in the life, then you're not at peace with God. And you're not free to get up, and stand, and speak, as if you are walking in fellowship with Him. That is a dangerous thing to do. So, the prohibition declared that only saved people (saved apart for many works on their own) – those are the ones who can say, "I have peace with God."

Ephesians 2:8-9 points that out, and Titus 3:5 says, "We have peace with Him.

Peace with God

Now, we'll tie this up. We have two kinds of peace. Just to remind you again, this is something that you know. There is peace, first of all, Romans 5:1: "So, therefore, having been justified (declared absolute righteousness – imputed absolute righteousness to you), by faith (faith in Jesus Christ as Savior, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." So, the first kind of peace is the peace with God (Romans 5:1). Peace with God relates to personal salvation. This is the condition of eternal fellowship.

At the point of accepting Christ as personal Savior, you enter into eternal fellowship, which is represented by the outer circle. And with this outer circle, through faith in Christ, we enter peace with God. That means that our destiny is now settled. Nobody ever has to tell you, as a Christian: "Make your peace with God, because you have done that at the point of trusting in Christ as your personal Savior. So, this relates to God's grace alone. Romans 11:6 says: "If it's by grace, it's not by works; and, if it's by works, it is not by grace." You cannot make your peace with God by any works.

The channel of peace is the Cross (John 3:16). There it is. You believe the gospel. You believe that Christ bore our sins on the cross. And with that, believing (not praying to be saved). That means to accept the offer of eternal life. We believe the gospel: "And whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. So, the result is that, when we believe in Christ, the wall has been removed, and you step across the line, and you find yourself in peace with God. You're a Christian. That's a peace that you can never lose.

The Peace of God

But now here's another peace. This is what the peace offering is all about. This is we're talking about being contaminated. This talks about being unclean. There is another piece, and this one is in Philippians 4:7: "And the peace of God." Now it is the piece of God. You're no longer an enemy of God. He is now your Friend. You're on a good basis with Him. But here's another kind of peace: "The peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, and shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." It will guard your emotions, and it will guard your thinking – that you have the peace of God. What is that? Temporal fellowship. The outer circle is eternal fellowship. The inner circle is temporal fellowship (Philippians 4:7). The outer circle relates to the Christian's personal spirituality. The inner circle relates to confession of known sins. 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanses from all unrighteousness." This is a peace which is an inner happiness. And it gets deeper as we grow through the Word of God. This is the piece for the Christian who is filled with the spirit.

Ephesians 5:18 says, "Do not get drunk (don't get high – don't get emotional) with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. The charismatic movement thinks that it is high on this Holy Spirit. No, that's a human spirit kicked up by the sin nature. Those poor folks very often do not understand what it is to be filled, or controlled, by the Holy Spirit. This is the condition of uncleanness. It is very dangerous to be relating yourself to God, just as it was to touch the dead animal, or dead body, and to be unclean, and you participate in the meal of the peace offering.

Now, what meal do you and I share as Christians? That's right. The Lord's Supper meal. Therefore, maybe you understand more clearly 1 Corinthians 11:27 now, where they're giving directions on how to conduct yourself at the Lord's Supper: "Don't come to the Lord's Supper when you do not have the peace of God;" that is, temporal fellowship, in your life:, "Therefore, whoever eats the bread, or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord." That is serious business. You're out of temporal fellowship; into immorality; resisting the Word of God; resisting the will of God; doing your thing, when you know God is calling you for doing something else; associations you should not have; and, a lifestyle that is degrading – unChristlike. So, you better not reach out and eat that bread, and drink that grape juice. This is a dangerous thins. And as this passage goes, it tell us what will happen to people who do that.

Verse 32 says, "For this reason, people who are coming in an unclean condition to the Lord's Supper, are saying, "I'm at peace with God," when you're not at peace with God – coming in an unclean condition. For this reason, many among you are weak; you are physically weak; you are sick with disease problems; and, some die. They sleep.

Verse 31 said if we judge ourselves, then God will not have to judge us with such condemnation. Verse 32 say, "When we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord, in order that we may not be condemned along with the world." God does not want his children to be condemned with the world system.

1 Corinthians 10:16 says, "Is not the cup of blessing, which we bless, a sharing of the blood of Christ? Is not the bread, which we break, a sharing of the body of Christ?" Yes, it is. And that sharing is saying, "I'm at peace with God my father."

Therefore, the application of the peace offering, coming to it in a contaminated way for us, is coming to the offering, the meal that we share together of the Lord's Supper. If you're out of fellowship, you don't pray to be forgiven. Confession is the way. If you simply pray to be saved, you're not admitting that you're a sinner. If you pray for God to forgive you your sin (and don't say, "Here's what I did); and, if you don't confront yourself with what you did, then that confession is not self-judgment. And what it is, is a way of covering up. You cannot be saved by praying. That's a human work. You're saved by trusting in Jesus Christ as personal Savior. You're not forgiven your contamination by asking God for forgiveness. You name the issue.

So, there's the peace offering, with more significance to the Jews than they understood. But as we go through their procedures, we see how one step after another was completely fulfilled in Chris. And the principles for us to Him, when the Bible says: "To whom much has been given of Him, shall much be required. You know a lot more than those Jews did. So, don't think that you and I are going to get away with an uncleanness and a lifestyle that is not Christlike.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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