Sacrifices (13): The Shelamim, or Peace Offering

Its Particular Emphasis

After the institution of the Levitical priesthood and the completion of the tabernacle at Sinai, God legislated five distinct sacrifices for the priestly service in his sanctuary. Four of these sacrifices involved the bloody slaughter of cattle, and the remaining sacrifice was a bloodless offering of grain and oil. We have considered the laws for the bloody burnt offering and the bloodless meat offering that are recorded in Leviticus 1 and 2, respectively. There are three more bloody sacrifices to consider: the peace, sin, and trespass offerings. In this article we take up the law for the peace offering found in Leviticus 3 and 7:11–34.

As a bloody sacrifice the peace offering taught the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction. What is meant by satisfaction is that God’s justice against an ungodly sinner receives all that it is due. Satisfaction has two aspects. First, God’s justice demands a complete payment of the sinner’s debt by sustaining God’s infinite wrath against sin. Second, God’s justice demands a perfect fulfillment of his law, so that the sinner loves God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength. When God’s justice is satisfied, God declares to the sinner, “You have done enough. You have suffered the penalty of my infinite wrath against your sins, and you are perfectly righteous before me.” What is meant by vicarious satisfaction is that another has stood in the place of the ungodly sinner to act in that sinner’s behalf and to make satisfaction for him. In order to make such satisfaction, that representative for the sinner must have both a legal and an organic relationship to him by God’s own sovereign and eternal appointment. And the peace offering taught vicarious satisfaction because it was a shadowy picture and an earthly impression of that Lamb who was slain from before the foundation of the world, being ordained of God as the mediator of his elect people to save them from their sins.

However, the peace offering by itself does not teach the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction. God gave to Israel four bloody sacrifices, and together these four bloody sacrifices teach one doctrine of vicarious satisfaction. These four bloody sacrifices constitute a single picture of the one offering of the Lord Jesus Christ unto the death of the cross in loving obedience to the will of his Father.

But why did the wisdom of God ordain four kinds of bloody sacrifices instead of only one? On the one hand, God gave to Israel multiple bloody sacrifices in order to remind Israel of the utter inability of these animal sacrifices to perfect anyone or anything. Israel was expected to look beyond the blood of bulls and goats and to see by faith the one offering by the seed of the woman, who would crush the head of the serpent. On the other hand, God gave to Israel multiple bloody sacrifices in order to show forth the manifold blessings that belong to vicarious satisfaction. To each of the four bloody sacrifices, God assigned a peculiar emphasis in order that Israel might understand all that was necessary to bring her out of her misery into his holy fellowship.

We have seen in a foregoing article that the bloody burnt offering emphasized the pure, vigorous, and perpetual zeal of consecration to God that God’s justice requires. The burnt offering brought the positive demand of God’s moral law to the foreground. When God legislated the law for the burnt offering, God testified to his people that in their behalf he would send the promised seed to give himself the loving obedience that he was due.

So what was the peculiar emphasis of the peace offering? That by vicarious satisfaction God perfects his eternal will that his people dwell with him in covenant fellowship. In the words of the epistolist to the Hebrews, the peace offering brought to the foreground that the one offering of Jesus Christ “hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14, emphasis added). When he says “them that are sanctified,” the epistolist refers to those whom God set apart for himself by his election as the ones he eternally embraces within his arms of love in distinction from those whom God rejected by his decree of reprobation. And these elect people are “perfected for ever,” which is to say, they are brought all the way to heaven itself. By vicarious satisfaction God’s people are made to sit in heavenly places together with Jesus Christ. By vicarious satisfaction God’s people have fellowship with him, have eternal life before his face, and have every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. The peace offering emphasized the weighty significance of this word that would soon be heard at the cross of Calvary: “It is finished.”

And in service of this peculiar emphasis, the peace offering involved a meal.

Its Law for a Meal

What was entirely unique about the peace offering was that it was the only bloody sacrifice wherein a portion of its flesh was given to the Israelite for a meal. The law regarding this meal is set down in Leviticus 7:15–17:

15. The flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day that it is offered; he shall not leave any of it until the morning.

16. But if the sacrifice of his offering be a vow, or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day that he offereth his sacrifice: and on the morrow also the remainder of it shall be eaten.

17. But the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burnt with fire.

What we observe in this passage are three things. The first two things we will consider later, namely, that there were three different kinds of peace offerings—a thanksgiving peace offering, a vow peace offering, and a voluntary peace offering—and that the peace offering had to be eaten within a day or two. But what we must note presently is simply that the flesh of the peace offering was eaten as a meal.

Prior to this meal the peace offering was sectioned into three distinct portions.

The first portion was the fat that the Israelite cut out of the animal and set aside for the priest to burn upon the altar. This fat portion is what receives primary attention in Leviticus 3, which passage details explicitly what parts of the animal constituted the fat portion. For example, here is what the law required the Israelite to do if he brought a bullock to God’s altar for a peace offering:

1. If his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord.

2. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron’s sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.

3. And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the Lord; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,

4. And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away.

5. And Aaron’s sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord. (Lev. 3:1–5)

The law of Leviticus 3 then repeats this procedure two more times but for a sheep (vv. 6–11) and a goat (vv. 12–15).

The fat portion of the peace offering was not ordinary muscle fat. Rather, the fat portion consisted of four things regardless if the animal was a bullock or sheep or goat: “The fat that covereth the inwards,” or the network of rich suet that covered the abdominal organs of the animal; “all the fat that is upon the inwards,” or the extra fatty deposits on the intestines; “the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them”; and “the caul above the liver, with the kidneys,” or the fatty covering attached to the liver that stretched down near to the kidneys. Additionally, the fat portion for sheep included the fat tail that the Israelite had to “take off hard by the backbone” (v. 9), which J. H. Kurtz said “frequently weighs fifteen pounds and upwards in some species of oriental sheep, and consists entirely of something intermediate between marrow and fat.”¹

Scripture often uses the idea of fat to refer to the richest and chief parts of something. When Pharaoh told Joseph’s father and brethren in Genesis 45:18 that they would eat “the fat of the land” in Egypt, then Pharaoh promised them Egypt’s finest productions. When God told Aaron and his sons in Numbers 18:12 that they would be given “all the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat,” the Hebrew uses the literal expression “all the fat of the oil and all the fat of the wine and of the wheat” to refer to the firstfruits of Israel’s harvest that God gave to the earthly support of the priests. So too, the blessing of God that is symbolized under the figure of “the finest of the wheat” in Psalm 81:16 and 147:14 is literally “the fat of the wheat.”

Likewise, the fat of the peace offering referred to the richest and chief parts of the sacrificial animal. As the law for the peace offering states in Leviticus 3:16, “All the fat is the Lord’s.” This fat portion of the peace offering is what God set apart to be burned upon his altar as a representation of the entire animal, using its richest and chief parts. You must think about the fat portion this way: It was the peace offering’s counterpart to the entire animal that was consumed by fire for a burnt offering. When the fat of the peace offering was burnt upon the altar, it was called “an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord” (3:5, 11, 16) just as when the entire animal of the burnt offering was burnt upon the altar (1:17).

Because the peace offering required a meal, the entirety of the animal could not be consumed upon the altar like the animal of the burnt offering. And because the burnt offering required the entire consumption of the animal upon the altar, there was no leftover portion for a meal. Therefore, God ordained these two offerings to complement one another in order to teach his people the complete doctrine of vicarious satisfaction. Accordingly, we find these two offerings frequently mentioned together in scripture.²

In sum we are to regard this first portion of the peace offering—the fat portion—as the richest and chief parts of the sacrificial animal that God set apart to represent the burning of the entire animal upon his altar unto him.

The second portion of the peace offering is set forth in Leviticus 7:28–36:

28. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

29. Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, He that offereth the sacrifice of his peace offerings unto the Lord shall bring his oblation unto the Lord of the sacrifice of his peace offerings.

30. His own hands shall bring the offerings of the Lord made by fire, the fat with the breast, it shall he bring, that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the Lord.

31. And the priest shall burn the fat upon the altar: but the breast shall be Aaron’s and his sons’.

32. And the right shoulder shall ye give unto the priest for an heave offering of the sacrifices of your peace offerings.

33. He among the sons of Aaron, that offereth the blood of the peace offerings, and the fat, shall have the right shoulder for his part.

34. For the wave breast and the heave shoulder have I taken of the children of Israel from off the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them unto Aaron the priest and unto his sons by a statute for ever from among the children of Israel.

35. This is the portion of the anointing of Aaron, and of the anointing of his sons, out of the offerings of the Lord made by fire, in the day when he presented them to minister unto the Lord in the priest’s office;

36. Which the Lord commanded to be given them of the children of Israel, in the day that he anointed them, by a statute for ever throughout their generations.

This passage teaches that God gave to Aaron and his sons for the support of their priestly ministry two choice cuts of meat: the breast and the right shoulder. The former cut, as Kurtz noted, “consisted of marbled and palatable gristly fat” and formed “one of the most savoury portions.”³ The latter cut should be understood as the thigh or shank of the hind leg and was another substantial and desirable cut for a hearty roast, the same portion that Samuel set aside to serve Saul before he told Saul that God had chosen him to be king over Israel (1 Sam. 9:23–24). In other words the priests were not given the leftovers. Rather, God set aside these goodly cuts of meat for the priests and commanded the Israelites to give them to the priests for the support of the Old Testament gospel ministry, even as the apostle states in the New Testament: “Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things” (Gal. 6:6).

This second portion of the peace offering that fell to the priests is frequently designated in scripture as “the wave breast and the heave shoulder” (Lev. 7:34). It is called thus because those two cuts of meat were subjected to a peculiar ceremony of waving and heaving, which ceremony I will explain later. After this waving of the breast and heaving of the shoulder, God instructed the priests to “eat in a clean place; thou, and thy sons, and thy daughters with thee: for they be thy due, and thy sons’ due, which are given out of the sacrifices of peace offerings of the children of Israel” (Lev. 10:14).

After the burning of the fat and the ceremonial waving and heaving of the priests’ portion, the remainder of the sacrificial animal was eaten as a meal by the Israelite family that brought the peace offering. God said to the Israelite when he brought his peace offering into God’s court: “There ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee” (Deut. 12:7).

Its Representation of Communion

Now, what was the significance of this meal? What that meal represented was communion with Jehovah himself.

That this meal represented communion between the Israelite and Jehovah God is evident, first, by what a shared meal represents in scripture: Joyful fellowship between those who share a meal. When Abraham saw the three heavenly visitors standing by his tent, he requested that they rest themselves under the shade of a tree while he prepared a hearty meal for them to eat so that he could enjoy warm fellowship with them (Gen. 18). And in the Lord’s parable, when the errant son returned to the warm embrace of his loving and forgiving father, his father commanded the servants to have a fatted calf prepared so as to make merry and to enjoy restored communion with his son. By means of the peace offering, God prepared a meal for his people in order to enjoy joyful fellowship with them.

The law for the peace offering specifically required that the Israelite eat his portion of the peace offering in God’s presence to stress that this meal was shared with none other than the living God. In Deuteronomy 12 God makes a distinction between meals that the Israelites could eat in their own homes and the meal of the peace offering. Concerning meals that the Israelites could eat in their own homes, God says, “Thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee” (v. 15). But concerning the meal of the peace offering, God says, “Thou must eat them before the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates” (v. 18). The altar in the court of God’s house was, as the prophets called it, “the table of the Lord” (Mal. 1:7, 12) and “the table that is before the Lord” (Ezek. 41:22), and at that table the Israelite sat as a welcome guest in God’s presence to commune with him.

That this meal represented communion between the Israelite and Jehovah God is evident, second, by the name of the sacrifice. What the King James Version translates as “peace offering” is the Hebrew word shelamim. Shelamim is a very rich concept that I will continue to unfold as I continue this treatment of the peace offering. But for the present discussion, part of the root idea of shelamim is the idea of friendship. Brown-Driver-Briggs’ lexicon identifies shelamim as “the sacrifice for alliance or friendship” and notes that the word speaks of “fellowship between God and worshippers.”⁴ The participle of shelamim’s verbal counterpart is translated in Psalm 41:9 as “familiar friend.” Shelamim could very well be translated as “communion offering.”

Therefore, that meal was God’s revelation of the life of the covenant that he makes with his people in Jesus Christ. Deeper yet, that meal was God’s revelation of his own covenant life within himself. Such a meal between Israel and Jehovah could only be possible because God is himself a God of communion. Communion is the heart of the Trinity. God is not three gods but one. He is one in being and three in persons. And when God calls himself Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then he reveals nothing less than that he is the God of communion. The Father fellowships with the Son in the Holy Ghost, and the Son fellowships with the Father in the Holy Ghost. God was testifying to Israel by means of that meal, “I am a God who delights in communion with you because that is who I am in myself eternally.” And for Israel to eat a meal before God was to say that there was a covenant of fellowship and friendship between the triune God and his people in Jesus Christ. That meal represented the most intimate communion with the living God: friendly intercourse, house and table companionship with him. The peace offering did not leave Israel at the door of God’s sanctuary, but the peace offering sat Israel down at God’s table.

Still more, that meal before God was a picture of eternal life in heaven. Communion with God is eternal life, the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. This picture of eternal life God gave to Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel as they sat on the top of Mount Sinai, eating a meal under God’s great sapphire pavement. God, as it were, welcomed these leaders of Israel into heaven to feast in his presence and to commune with him. This imagery of feasting with God as a picture of eternal life in heaven is what is shown to the prophet by vision in Isaiah 25:6–9:

6. In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.

7. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.

8. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.

9. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

This imagery of feasting with God as a picture of eternal life in heaven is taken up again in the apocalyptic vision of John in Revelation 19, wherein John is commanded to write, “Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb” (v. 9). That meal showed that communion with God is life eternal. To live apart from God—no matter how outwardly successful that life may appear to be—is death. But for Israel to eat that meal before God was salvation.

In other words God taught Israel by means of the peace offering’s meal that her salvation consisted in being brought all the way into God’s covenant for heavenly communion. That was her end according to election. And that rich Hebrew word shelamim speaks to this idea as well, for the verbal counterpart to shelamim means “to be complete” and “to be safe, secure, free from fault.”⁵ That verb is used when Solomon completed the building of the temple (1 Kings 7:51) and when Nehemiah completed rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 6:15). That verb is used to describe the perfect security and prosperity of the righteous (Job 8:6). Furthermore, when multiple kinds of sacrifices were offered upon God’s altar, then the peace offering with its meal always came at the end of the succession of bloody offerings. And God used that ordering of the sacrifices to illustrate that the goal of all God’s works is that his people might know him, fellowship with him, and participate in the blessedness of his own covenant life with Jesus Christ. Shelamim could very well be translated as the “made-heavenly offering.”

Its Testimony of Peace

However, the word shelamim was not translated as “peace offering” in the King James Version for no good reason. As I wrote earlier shelamim is abundantly rich in meaning, and another root idea of shelamim is “to be at peace.”⁶ The psalmist says, “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety” (Ps. 4:8, emphasis added). The prophet exclaims, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isa. 26:3, emphasis added). And this root idea of shelamim as peace is found in the name Jerusalem as the city of peace and in the name Solomon as the man of peace.

A meal shared between fellows presupposes that peace is between them. A meal is what Isaac shared with Abimelech and what Jacob shared with Laban after they, in each instance, swore to do each other no hurt and established peace between themselves. The state of peace between God and the leaders of Israel who ate before him at the top of Sinai is expressed this way: “Upon the nobles of the children of Israel he [God] laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink” (Ex. 24:11). Those leaders stood in God’s presence and were not struck down nor consumed because there was peace between them. So too, God testified to his church in the old dispensation that there was peace between them by preparing the meal of the peace offering for his people upon the table of his sanctuary.

God’s own life of communion is rooted in perfect peace. Repeatedly throughout scripture God says that he is the God of peace. And what that means, above all, is that peace characterizes God’s own being. There is in God no disharmony. There is in God no warfare. There is in God no arguments or strife. God is a God of peace because he is a simple God. All his perfections are fundamentally one in him, and all those perfections are in absolute harmony. God in his justice is not at war with God in his mercy. God in his grace is not at war with God in his holiness. God in his sovereignty is not at war with God in his omnipotence. God is a God of peace because there is absolute harmony between Father and Son in the Spirit. Those divine persons are of one mind, one will, and one decree. God is absolutely the God of peace in his own being.

Therefore, that meal testified concerning the state of the church’s relationship with God. The Israelites said by faith, “We have communion with God and we are saved and we are sitting together in heavenly places with God exactly because we have peace with him.” And what you must understand about that reality of peace is that it was not a mere feeling. That reality of peace was not, primarily, the subjective state of an Israelite’s soul wherein he or she was free from all disturbances and at rest. No, that meal was, primarily, the joyful announcement of a real peace that God established between himself and his people.

That announcement contrasted with the natural state of Israel. In Adam Israel was hostile toward God as an enemy of God, so that her natural relationship with God was one of enmity, hostility, and warfare. In Adam Israel was exposed in her sin to the wrath of God, so that as a consuming fire that wrath would take all of creation and turn it against Israel to bring her down into hell. That announcement contrasted with the accusation of an Israelite’s conscience, that he had grossly transgressed the law of God and kept none of his commandments and was still inclined to all evil.

And then by means of the meal of the peace offering, God announced to his elect people, “The state of your relationship with me is one of peace! That is simply a fact. You have peace with me. I have nothing against you. I behold you in my favor. I will take all things in creation and cause them to serve you and to bring you into heaven. I desire to commune with you.” The very act of sitting down to eat before the Lord announced that reality of a relationship of peace between Israel and her God, so that announcement then also brought peace to the troubled soul of the elect sinner by faith.

And that peace of the peace offering was unshakable. It was unshakable because of the truth of vicarious satisfaction.

That unshakable state of peace between God and his people was brought into being because of a sure and certain righteousness that God promised and sealed to his people under the shadowy substance of the sacrifices. What came before that meal were the sin and trespass and burnt offerings. What came before that meal was that the Israelite pressed his hands upon the head of his animal and symbolically burdened that animal with his sin—all his sin. What came before that meal was the slaughter of the animal as a consequence of its bearing the Israelite’s sin before God. What came before that meal was the rising of smoke from the altar unto heaven as a sweet savor unto God. What came before that meal was God’s own declaration, “I have not overlooked any of your sins. I have not overlooked any stray thought or any evil word or any perverse desire. I heaped them all upon that sacrificial victim. I have taken all your obligation to love me with every faculty and power of your being and I heaped it upon that sacrificial victim. The chastisement of your peace I put upon him.” What came before that meal was God’s promise and seal of a complete satisfaction of God’s justice by a sure and certain righteousness that covers all the sins of God’s people and involves perfect obedience to God.

If that Israelite did not have peace, then he or she was not living by faith in the reality of his or her perfect salvation that was coming in the promised seed and represented by the types and shadows of the bloody sacrifices. If a Christian does not have peace today, then he or she is not living by faith in the reality of his or her perfect salvation that God has now accomplished by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Such a one is not standing before the presence of God in Christ but is standing on some other basis. And there is nothing that is easier for us to do than to turn away from the perfect righteousness of Christ and to turn to something else. We so often rest in what we do and who we are. But if a man for one second stands on anything but the righteousness that is by faith, he destroys his own peace.

Moreover, that unshakable state of peace between God and his people was brought into being because of an unchangeable righteousness. That Old Testament peace offering was but the earthly impression of the eternal righteousness that God decreed to be worked out and manifested at the cross of Jesus Christ. That peace offering pointed to the heavenly reality of God’s eternal and unchangeable decree. That peace offering said, as it were, “You may have entered into warfare with God in Adam. You may have lived that warfare with God in your life. But God’s thoughts toward you were always of peace, for God never changes.” Why that peace of the peace offering was unshakable was because the righteousness of Jesus is an unchangeable righteousness.

And that unshakable peace of the gospel of vicarious satisfaction God instilled into the souls of his church in the old dispensation when he set a table before them and caused them to eat that peace offering, so that they were truly united to that peace offering: bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh. And today too, God feeds and nourishes the hungry and thirsty souls of his church by means of the preaching of the gospel and the holy sacraments, so that we are truly united to Christ who is our peace: bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.

But there is more of this peace offering that remains to be expounded, so I will conclude its treatment in the next article, the Lord willing.