Meaning of PEACE OFFERING

The peace offerings are different from both the burnt offering and the plant offering, although it is based on both. Its object was not to teach how a sinner could achieve peace or make atonement: it is rather the result of having received a blessing, the response of the heart to this blessing.

The soul enters into the consecration of Christ to God, the love and power of Christ as the blessing of the priestly family, and its own sustenance in life where death has entered. The peace offering could be from the herds or flocks, male or female.

The offerer laid his hands on the head of the offering, and killed it. Blood was sprinkled around the altar. All the fat, the two kidneys and the fat above the liver were to be burned on the altar, as a sweet-smelling offering to Jehovah.

This was God's part, lit. His bread. The breast of the offering was waved as a wave offering and was then used as food for Aaron, and his sons and daughters. The right shoulder was a raised offering, and was left for the priest who offered it.

On his part, the offerer and his friends also ate the offering that same day; If it was a vow or a voluntary offering, it could be eaten the next day. What was left of it had to be burned with fire: this indicates that for the communion to be real it has to be direct, not too separated from the work of the altar.

The peace offering was accompanied by an oblation of vegetable offering, consisting of unleavened cakes and unleavened puff pastries smeared with oil; Along with this, cakes of leavened bread were added.

The latter recognized the existence of sin in the worshiper (cf. 1 Jn. 1:8) that, if he was kept inactive, it did not disqualify him as a worshiper. Everything that typifies Christ was unleavened.

That the peace offering typifies communion is evident from the instructions regarding its use: part of it was accepted on the altar, receiving the name "the food of the offering"; another part was food for the priest (type of Christ) and the priest's children (the Christians); and another part was eaten by the offerer and his friends (the people, and perhaps also the Gentiles, who in the Kingdom "will rejoice with his people").

This thought of communion finds its expression at the Lord's table, in the communion of the blood and body of the Lord (1 Cor. 10:16). The peace offering is said to “belong to Jehovah”; In the same way all worship belongs to God: it is the fruit and expression of Christ in believers (Lev. 3; 7:11-21, 28-34).