The Lord wanted the new generation to enter the Promised Land and enjoy it for many years, but that enjoyment depended on their obedience to His Word. Moses gave them four special instructions that believers today would do well to heed.
Please the Lord (vv. 1–21). The phrase “to make a sweet savor [aroma] unto the Lord” is found five times in this paragraph (vv. 3, 7, 10, 13–14) and means “an aroma pleasing to the Lord.” The five basic Mosaic offerings were the burnt offering, meal offering, peace offering, sin offering, and trespass offering (Lev. 1—7). The first three were “sweet savor” sacrifices, designed to please the Lord, but the sin offering and the trespass offering were not “sweet savor” because they dealt with guilt and sin, and there’s nothing pleasing to God about sin.
The burnt offering typified the worshipper’s complete devotion to God, for the animal was totally consumed on the altar. The meal (grain) offering spoke of the worshipper’s dedication of his labor to the Lord, and the peace (trespass) offering represented joyful fellowship and thanksgiving to God for His blessings.
The sacrifices discussed in these verses were spontaneous expressions of love and gratitude to God. Along with these sacrifices, the worshipper was instructed to offer two quarts of fine flour mixed with about a quart of oil, a portion of which was placed on the altar and the rest given to the priest. The worshipper also brought a quart of wine which the priest poured out at the base of the altar where the blood of the sacrifice was poured out. When larger animals were sacrificed, the amounts of meal, oil, and wine were increased proportionately.
The Jews wouldn’t become an agricultural people until they settled in the land, and then they could cultivate vineyards, olive trees, and fields of grain. In adding flour, oil, and wine to the sacrifice, the worshipper was bringing to the Lord the fruits of his labor and the evidence of God’s goodness. Today, we bring money as an offering to the Lord, but we wouldn’t have that money if He didn’t give us jobs and the ability to work (Deut. 8:18).
Christians today see in the fine flour a picture of Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life (John 6), who offered Himself to God for us “as a sweet-smelling aroma” (Eph. 5:2). The flour also acknowledges God as the generous source of all our food. The oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit (Zech. 4), and the wine reminds us of the joy of the Lord (Ps. 104:15). It pleases the heart of God when His people spontaneously thank Him for the material and spiritual blessings that He sends so faithfully and bountifully.
The drink offering, poured out at the base of the altar, symbolized life poured out for God. On the cross, Jesus “poured out His soul unto death” (Isa. 53: nkjv) so that those who trust Him might have eternal life. As we serve the Lord sacrificially, we’re like a “drink offering,” poured out in the service of others and to the glory of God (Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6; and see 2 Sam. 23:14–17).
The resident aliens who lived among the Jews were permitted to bring sweet savor offerings to the Lord (Num. 15:14–16), but nothing is said here about their having to be circumcised (Ex. 12:48). Even the Jewish boys weren’t given the mark of the covenant during Israel’s years of wandering because the nation had rebelled against God and broken His covenant. The males in the new generation were marked with the covenant sign when they entered the Promised Land (Josh. 5:1–8).
Finally, the women were commanded to give a portion of their dough to the Lord, an offering of firstfruits to acknowledge Him as Lord of their lives (Num. 15:17–21). “Honor the Lord with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase” (Prov. 3:9). This is the Old Testament version of Matthew 6:33.
Seek the Lord (vv. 22–29). The sacrifices described in Leviticus 1—7 took care of sins of commission, but the instructions here have to do with unintentional sins of omission, things that the people should have done but didn’t do. The sin might be corporate and involve the entire nation (Num. 15:24–26) or it might be the transgression of an individual (vv. 27–29). Even though the people who sinned didn’t realize their failure, what they didn’t do was still a sin and had to be dealt with. “I didn’t know” will not avail at the throne of God.
The sinners had to come God’s appointed way so He could forgive them and restore them to fellowship and blessing. If the whole nation sinned, they had to bring a young bull for a burnt offering (dedication), plus the required drink offering and grain offering, and a male goat for a sin offering (atonement). The individual who sinned had to bring a year-old female goat as a sin offering. God promised to forgive those who truly sought Him by faith (vv. 25–26, 28). Of course, forgiveness didn’t come because of the blood of animals, but because Christ shed His blood for sinners, fulfilling what these animals symbolized (Heb. 10:1–18).
Sometimes we sin against the Lord by what we do, and sometimes by what we don’t do (Luke 7:36–50). Sins of ignorance aren’t automatically forgiven just because we unintentionally forgot God’s commands; these sins must be confessed to the Lord just as we confess sins of commission (1 John 1:9). The fact that God forgave sins of omission didn’t mean He was “easy on sin,” because blood still had to be shed before the sinner could be forgiven.
Fear the Lord (vv. 30–36). To sin “presumptuously” means to disobey God’s law deliberately and arrogantly, knowing full well the danger involved. The Hebrew literally means “to sin with a high hand” as though the person were shaking his or her fist in the face of God, daring God to do something. Presumptuous sins are committed by people who have “no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18).
God commanded that such sinners be cut off from the nation, which means they were stoned to death. Not only had they disobeyed God’s law, but they did it in such a way that they defied God’s will and despised God’s Word. No sacrifices were provided for deliberate high-handed sins, so there was no forgiveness offered at the altar.
Moses records an example of high-handed sin in the account of the man who gathered fuel on the Sabbath (Num. 15:32–36). Certainly this man knew God’s commandments (Ex. 20:8–11; 31:12–17), and yet he deliberately disobeyed them. Apparently he was gathering sticks to start a fire, and it was unlawful to kindle a fire on the Sabbath (35:1–3). This was a new experience for the Jews, so Moses sought the Lord’s will, and God told him to have the people stone the impudent offender to death.
It’s a dangerous thing for Christians to say, “I’ll go ahead and sin, because afterward, I can ask God to forgive me.” They see God’s promise in 1 John 1: as a “religious rabbit’s foot” to get them out of trouble after they’ve deliberately disobeyed God. Professed Christians who repeatedly and deliberately sin probably aren’t Christians at all (Rom. 6; 1 John 3:7–10; 5:1–5, 18), and true believers who adopt that careless attitude will be chastened by the Father until they submit to His will (Heb. 12:3–15). When the German poet Heine said on his deathbed, “Of course God will forgive me; that’s His job,” he understood neither the awfulness of sin or the high cost of God’s grace.
Remember the Lord (vv. 37–41). A busy life has its share of demands and distractions, so the Lord gave His people a simple way to remember their obligation to obey His law. He commanded them to put tassels on the corners of their upper outer garment, with blue thread woven into each tassel. These tassels were reminders that the Jews were God’s covenant people and different from the other nations. (See Deut. 22:12; Zech. 8:23; Matt. 23:5.) Modern orthodox Jews have tassels on their prayer shawls.
When they dressed each morning, the Jews would see the tassels and be reminded that they were God’s people, obligated to obey His will. Perhaps the blue threads would remind them that their God was in heaven, seeing everything they did. As they walked about during the day, they would notice the tassels and remember God’s commandments, and likewise when they prepared for sleep at night. No matter how many idols they might see during the day, the tassels reminded them that it was Jehovah, the God of Israel, who had delivered them from Egypt, and they were to worship and serve Him alone. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Ps. 103:2).