The 3 Types of Sweet-Aroma Offerings

As I explained in The 2 Types of Sin Offerings, there are two main categories of offerings described in the bible: those that were offered because of sin and those that are a "sweet aroma" to God. These "sweet aroma" offerings often involved the sacrifice of an animal, but not for the purpose of forgiveness! They are found in Leviticus 1, 2, & 3 with no mention of sin or forgiveness whatsoever. Rather, these were pure acts of worship intended to highlight different aspects of the worshiper's ongoing relationship with God.

Jesus Christ is the one-and-only offering for the sin of all mankind, meaning that no other person needs to make a sin or guilt offering ever again. By contrast, the sweet-aroma offerings reveal elements of our walk with God that we must strive to perfect. We can and do bring burnt offerings, grain offerings, and peace offerings before our God in the New Covenant!

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. 

Why Study the Offerings? (Part 1)

The first 7 chapters of the book of Leviticus describe the main types of offerings that God commanded for Israel under the Old Covenant. Many more chapters throughout the law provide additional instruction. Why did God direct Moses to spend so much time writing about them? Do they have significance for God's people in modern times?

If I were to ask whether there are still sacrifices in the New Covenant, hopefully you would answer yes - with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins being the chief example. But did God devote so many chapters in the law and put so much ceremony into the daily lives of Israel for hundreds of years just so that we, two thousand years later, could give mere passing acknowledgement to this fulfillment in Christ? Moreover, is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the entire substance of God's system of offerings? I hope to not only persuade, but to convict you otherwise!

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: