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2BC BIBLE STUDY NOTES

Wednesday in the Word

Second Baptist Church

May 8, 2019

Leviticus 22:23:1-22

  1. Verses 1-16. It has been a while since we have talked about the sacrifices that God required. Let us recap just a little. There were five sacrifices to be made. The burnt offering, meal offering, peace offering, sin offering and the trespass offering. The priest conducted these offerings on behalf of the people and were able to eat a portion of the offering except the burnt offering, which consumed the entire offering by fire. The priest didn’t have any land of their own so their food came from the offerings. This was their inheritance. The only person that could eat a priest share of the offerings were family members, and any other person who ate by mistake had to pay retribution for the food eaten. God was very specific about what could be offered, who could do the offerings, and in this chapter, who could eat the offering. The priests and their family were entitled to eat the offerings, but the priest had to remain ceremonially clean in order to make the offerings. This is why we saw all the restrictions in the last chapter. A priest couldn’t even make an offering if they were considered ceremonially unclean. If they were deemed to be unclean, they had to wash and wait an entire day before they could eat the offerings. All of these requirements were in place so that the priest would revere the holy sacrifices and not take their jobs or the sacrifices lightly. The job of a priest required a careful lifestyle. In the same way, we are priests unto God and are making a daily living sacrifice of ourselves. We need to maintain a careful lifestyle if we want our daily sacrifices to be pleasing to God. In these first set of verses we are reminded that the priest must be clean. Of course, the priest requirement to be clean is a foreshadowing of the true priest, JESUS CHRIST. He was perfect and wholly clean.

  2. Verses 17-31. In these verses, we are reminded that the sacrifice itself must be a proper sacrifice. The sacrifice must be of the best quality. The sacrifice wouldn’t really be a true sacrifice if it was something a person didn’t mind giving up. The sacrifice must be of a quality that giving up wasn’t easy, but a sign of faith in God. The significant sacrifice was also a picture of Jesus. Jesus was the perfect priest and the perfect sacrifice without blemish. All of these rules concerning the priest and the sacrifices are all foreshadows of Christ. Or as the Hebrew writer called it, shadows and types. The Israelites could not offer any animal that was substandard and not of the best quality.

  3. Chapter 23:1-3. God commanded the people to have several holy days. These holy days occurred weekly and at certain times in the spring and fall. All of these special days were pictures of God’s provision and signs of Christ. The first type of holy day was a Sabbath. This holy day occurred on the seventh day, and any other holy day in the week was considered a Sabbath as well. On a Sabbath day, one didn’t do any work, but would go to the temple or the synagogue for a time devoted to God. The idea that people who were used to working all the times as slaves would now rest was foreign to them. God wanted to teach the people that they didn’t provide for themselves, but God did. Resting from work and trusting in God was also a picture of how we are saved by grace and now live in the perfect rest of Christ. God commands no work as a way for the people to stop and mediate on what God has done and not their labors. This is a reminder that we have to focus on God’s work in our lives and remember that God provided not us.

  4. Verses 4-8. The Hebrew year began in what we now called April. Today we will look at the celebrations that happened in what we call the springtime. This was their first month, and in that month, the festivals began. The spring was a time of new life and refreshing and it was this time of year that God commanded the people to celebrate the provision God had given to the people and to foreshadow the Lord Jesus Christ. The very first festival of the year and time of celebration was the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. On the 14 day of the first month, the Passover lamb was slain and on the 15th day of the month, the people ate unleavened bread for seven days. This was a eight-day celebration that went from Sabbath to Sabbath. The Passover lamb and the unleavened bread were all pictures of Christ. The Passover lamb is a picture of the sacrifice whose blood that protects from death and the unleavened bread which symbolizes the true bread that takes you from Sabbath to Sabbath rest to rest.

  5. Verses 9-14. The next festival was the firstfruit offering. The day after that Sabbath, the people are to bring in a part of the grain harvest and wave it before the lord and make a sacrifice of another lamb together with a grain offering and drink offerings. This was a big celebration. This celebration is a picture of the resurrection. The Passover lamb is a picture of the death of Christ, but this is a picture of his resurrection and exaltation as Lord of Lords.

  6. Verses 15-22. The festival that comes after this is the feast of weeks. This festival is fifty days later and is the only sacrifice made with bread that has yeast in it. This festival is a picture of us being united with Christ and accepted before the Lord with our sins being taken away. Notice how the two loaves of leavened/yeast bread are held up with a slain lamb, a sin offering, and a fellowship offering. This is a picture of how after Christ is raised and exalted we too are able to be accepted by God. This was the day later that the people of God received the same spirit that was in Christ as a symbol of God uniting us with Christ.

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