Why Study the Offerings? (Part 2)

In the first part ofthis introduction to God's offertory system, I briefly mentioned that the sacrifice of Jesus was much more than just an offering for sin. Meditating on this aspect of God's law reveals the depth of meaning that God has poured into the work that Jesus Christ accomplished on our behalf as well as the work that we ourselves do! Last time, I asked a question that I failed to address: is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the entire substance of God's system of offerings as it relates to the New Covenant? 

For those in the Church of God, you may recognize that we use the word "offering" to refer to the money that we give on God's Holy Days. But have we considered the full biblical context of what an "offering" is in the New Covenant? A review of the New Testament scriptures about offerings reveals that the apostles deeply understood God's offertory system, and we will readily see that we cannot hope to grasp the apostles' meaning without studying that system for ourselves. 

Be Holy, for I am Holy

1 Peter 1:15-16
Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

What does it mean to "be holy?" God actually told to Israelites to "be holy, because I am holy" many times in the course of giving them His law.  I did a study of all of the times that God instructed people to "be holy" in the Old Testament and came up with the scriptures listed below. In each case, the verse was in the midst of specific commands; therefore, I have summarized the context along with the verse in the following list:

The Fire of the Holy Spirit

In the midst of Paul’s closing remarks to the Thessalonians, he likens the Holy Spirit to a fire that dwells within us:

1 Thessalonians 5:19

Do not put out the Spirit’s fire

It’s easy to read this and say, “Oh, I get it. The Spirit is like a fire and we’re supposed to always have the Spirit in us, like not letting a fire go out” (this was my first thought, anyway). But then I remembered something from the Old Testament. God gave the Old Covenant law for very deliberate and specific reasons. Every sacrifice in Leviticus reveals something special about Christ. Every article of the tabernacle in Exodus reveals something about how we are to live, since we are now the temple of God. Recall one of the Lessons from Psalm 1: we should delight in God’s law, but we cannot delight in the law if we do not know the law. When we read that the Spirit is a fire that we must not put out, then we should remember what is written in the law: