No meat-offering, which ye shall bring unto the Lord, shall be made with leaven, for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the Lord made by fire. Leviticus 2:11
Many businesses have special bins set up where customers can dispose of their used ink cartridges, their spent batteries, old electronic devices, and other items. Such bins are a convenience for those of us who have been told that we are not to dispose of such things in the regular garbage. There are good reasons for diverting these things from the regular disposal system. The most prominent reason is the dangerous fumes and the risk of explosion that result from these things being burned. Our text tells us that God also has is limitations on those things that can be burned in the Old Testament offerings. And there are good reasons for those limitations.
The meal or grain offering – translated ‘meat’ in our KJV – is different from the burnt offering in that it does not speak of the death of the Lord Jesus and the offering of Himself as a substitute for us. The meal offering speaks of the life and character of the Lord Jesus. And, while He took on Himself humanity when He came to earth, He was unlike the rest of humanity in several important aspects. The prohibition of the leaven and the honey from the meal offering help us to appreciate those remarkable differences that we see in Christ.
Perhaps the most important aspect of our Lord is His sinlessness. Although He lived in a sinful world, He was never tainted by it, nor could he ever be. The Lamb of God, who was made sin for us when He died on the cross, had no sin of His own. Leaven in the Bible always speaks of sin, or evil. It speaks of that which corrupts or spoils food. So it is entirely appropriate that leaven be absent from a sacrifice that is a type of the life and person of the Lord Jesus. It is also appropriate that as we seek to become like the Lord Jesus, and present our lives as an offering to Him, that we strive to eliminate sin from our lives.
Bees produce honey from the nectar that they gather from the many thousands of flowers they visit. Although beautiful, those flowers grow from an earth that is groaning under a curse of sin. You and I are also born under that same curse, which dooms us to death. But the Lord Jesus was not. His birth and His life were free of the curse, and its consequences of death. Not until Calvary did He place Himself under sin’s curse voluntarily, that He might lift the curse from us. So it is appropriate that honey be excluded from the meal offering. It is also appropriate that you and I exclude from our lives those things that are tied to sin’s curse, and live in the power of Christ’s resurrection.
The meal offering contains many interesting lessons about the Lord Jesus, and about how we should live for Him.-Jim MacIntosh