The Lord's Supper and the Peace Offering: One Sacrifice, Three Portions, One Table

Of the five offerings at the opening of Leviticus, only one was eaten by the man who brought it.

In every other case the worshipper handed the animal over and stood back. In this one he sat down and had a meal. God took a portion, the priest took a portion, and the offerer ate the rest — all three fed from the same sacrifice.

That is the offering standing behind the Lord’s table, and once you have seen it you will not sit at the table the same way again.

1. What the peace offering was

It appears in the third chapter of Leviticus and is opened up again in the seventh, and it differs from its neighbours in one visible respect: nobody went home hungry.

"And 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" (Leviticus 3:1)

God’s portion first. The fat: the richest part, what an ordinary man would have kept — was burned on the altar and reserved to Him alone.

"And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD’s" (Leviticus 3:16)

Then the priest’s portion. The breast and the shoulder were given to Aaron and his sons, and the two are not chosen at random. The breast is where affection lies and the shoulder is where strength lies, and those are the parts assigned to those who serve at the altar.

"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" (Leviticus 7:34)

And then the man who brought it ate.

"And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day that it is offered" (Leviticus 7:15)

Stand back and look at the picture. One victim, three parties, one table. What satisfied God satisfied the priest, and what satisfied the priest satisfied the worshipper. Nobody was fed on something lesser.

That is what the word communion means, and it is not a mood. It is a shared portion.

2. The offering had to come in the right order

There is an order in Leviticus that answers exactly to the order of a soul’s experience, and it is worth noticing before going further.

The offerings dealing with guilt — sin and trespass — had to be known before the peace offering could mean anything. A man with an unsettled conscience cannot sit down to a meal in the presence of God. He is not thinking about fellowship; he is thinking about whether he is safe.

Which is why the order in the New Testament is the same. Peace is made first, and then enjoyed.

"And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself" (Colossians 1:20)

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1)

Having made peace. Past tense, finished, before any of us sat down anywhere. The peace offering does not make the peace. It celebrates a peace already made, which is precisely what the Lord’s table is and is not.

3. The three portions at the Lord’s table

Now set the table beside the offering, and watch the three portions appear again.

God has His portion, and it is the first and the largest. Before the supper does anything for you, it presents to the Father what the Son did, and the fat was burnt to Him alone before anybody else touched anything.

This corrects the commonest fault in how the table is approached. Most of us come asking what we will get out of it. The first business of the table is not your benefit. It is His portion.

The priests have their portion, and under this arrangement, that is you. The breast and the shoulder went to the priestly family, and every believer now belongs to it.

Notice what they were given: the affection and the strength of the offering. That is what a believer feeds on at the table, not information about the cross, but the love and the power of the One who died.

And the worshipper eats.

"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16)

The apostle Paul then makes the connection to Israel explicit, in case anybody missed it:

"Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?" (1 Corinthians 10:18)

He is pointing at the peace offering. They which eat of the sacrifices: that is a man with meat in his hand at the door of the tabernacle, and it is offered as the explanation of what Christians are doing with bread and a cup.

4. One loaf, and why that matters

The peace offering was never a private transaction. A man could not eat a whole animal alone; the flesh had to be consumed that day, which meant he brought his household and whoever else was near. The offering created a table.

The apostle Paul draws the same conclusion from the bread:

"For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread" (1 Corinthians 10:17)

Read the logic in that verse, because it runs the opposite way from how we usually think about it. We assume we are one body and therefore share the bread. He says we are one body because we all partake of that one bread.

Which means the unity is not something the congregation generates by feeling warmly toward one another. It is created by the shared portion, and it is as real at a table of strangers as at a table of old friends.

And it also means the table is a poor place to sit while refusing to speak to somebody in the same room. You are both eating the same thing.

5. Leaven allowed, uncleanness forbidden

Here is the detail that answers the question people are most afraid to ask, and it has comforted more troubled Christians than any argument.

In the peace offering, and nowhere else — leavened bread was permitted.

"Besides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings" (Leviticus 7:13)

Leaven throughout Scripture pictures corruption. It was rigorously excluded from what went on the altar. Yet in the offering where the worshipper eats, leavened bread is brought, because the worshipper is a real man, and there is still sin in him.

But a few verses later there is an absolute prohibition:

"But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, that pertain unto the LORD, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people" (Leviticus 7:20)

Now hold the two together, because the distinction is exact and enormous.

Leaven was permitted, because there is sin in us. Uncleanness was forbidden, because there must be no sin on us.

Sin in the nature is a fact about every worshipper who ever came, and God made provision for it rather than barring the door. Sin on the conscience — unconfessed, unjudged, carried in deliberately — is a different matter, and it makes communion impossible. If sin is the question, communion is not.

This is exactly what the apostle Paul means, and it is why his instruction ends where it does.

"But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup" (1 Corinthians 11:28)

And so let him eat. The instruction after self-examination is to come, not to stay away.

So if you have been keeping away from the table because you know what you are like — understand that everyone who ever ate a peace offering brought leavened bread with him. Nobody at that table was sinless, and God knew it when He wrote the regulation.

What He asks is not that you be worthy. It is that you deal with what is on your conscience before you sit down, and the way to do that has not changed.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9)

6. What this changes on Sunday

Four things follow, and they are practical.

Come with something for God first. The fat was His before anybody ate. Before you examine your week or attend to your feelings, put something in His hands — thanksgiving, which is what this offering was chiefly for.

"By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name" (Hebrews 13:15)

Expect to be fed, not merely reminded. The worshipper ate. This is not a memorial service for an absent friend; there is a portion here for you, and you may leave the table strengthened rather than only solemn.

Look around the room. The peace offering was never eaten alone. Whatever you make of the person three seats away, you are eating the same portion, and that is a fact independent of your opinion of him.

And do not stay away because of leaven. Deal with uncleanness; bring the leaven and come. Those are two different instructions and confusing them has kept sincere believers in their seats for years.

One last thing, and it is the whole subject in a sentence.

At that ancient table a man sat down and ate the very thing that had just gone up to God in smoke. The same sacrifice that satisfied heaven fed him.

Nothing has changed except that the Offering is no longer an animal.

"For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come" (1 Corinthians 11:26)

Till he come. The peace offering had to be eaten the same day. Ours has a limit too, and it is not a date but a Person, and when He arrives the table will not be needed, because the One it was about will be standing in the room.

7. What this settles about the table — five things

It is a memorial, not a sacrifice. The peace offering was eaten because a sacrifice had been made, and nobody at that meal was offering anything. Any system in which the bread and cup become a sacrifice offered again has moved the table back to the altar and undone the very thing the offering was teaching.

God is served first. The fat went up before anybody ate. So the Supper is not primarily a devotional exercise for our benefit; it is first an occasion in which God receives what is due to Him, and our feeding follows.

Nobody sits at that table alone. The peace offering had no solitary version. If your understanding of the Supper is a private transaction between you and God with other people incidentally present, you have the Passover in mind, not the peace offering.

Self-examination is about manner, not worthiness. Israel had a rule that a man in uncleanness was to deal with it rather than stay away for ever, and the New Testament instruction runs the same way.

"But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup" (1 Corinthians 11:28)

And so let him eat. The instruction after examining is to come, not to abstain. Nobody at that table is worthy; that is why there is a table.

And capacity is not standing. Under the law every son of Aaron was a priest by birth. An infant in that family could not yet eat the wave breast, but he belonged to the house as truly as the grown man who could. The youngest believer at the Lord’s table belongs there as fully as the oldest, even if he takes in less of what is on it. Understanding grows; standing does not.

8. They did eat and drink, and He laid not His hand on them

There is a meal in Exodus that almost nobody notices, and it is the first time men eat in the presence of God without dying.

After the covenant was sealed with blood, seventy elders went up the mountain, saw God, and then this:

"And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink" (Exodus 24:11)

Read the order. He laid not his hand comes first, and the eating comes after. The safety is stated before the meal, not achieved by it.

They had every reason to expect otherwise. Men who saw God died. But blood had been sprinkled that morning, and on that ground they sat down on a mountain and had a meal in front of Him.

That is the Lord’s table in one verse, fifteen centuries early. Blood first, then peace, then a meal, and the eating is not what makes it safe. It is what proves it already is.

9. A lame man at the king’s table

If you want a picture of who sits at this table, Scripture gives one, and it is a grandson of the man who tried to kill David.

Mephibosheth was crippled in both feet, living in a place whose name means barren, and belonged to a house under judgment. David sent for him, and said this:

"And David said unto him, Fear not: for I will surely shew thee kindness for Jonathan thy father’s sake, and will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually" (2 Samuel 9:7)

Note the ground of it: for Jonathan thy father’s sake. Nothing about Mephibosheth is mentioned as a reason. He is invited on account of somebody else’s covenant.

And the chapter ends with a detail Scripture did not have to keep:

"So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem: for he did eat continually at the king’s table; and was lame on both his feet" (2 Samuel 9:13)

He was still lame. The invitation did not heal him. He came to that table crippled every single time, and sat with the king’s sons, and the lameness was under the table where nobody could see it.

That is the answer to the Christian who stays in his seat on Sunday because he does not feel worthy. Nobody at that table is there on his own merit, and the man who understands the arrangement best is the one who limps to it.

10. The night it was instituted

Three details of that evening are worth holding, and each of them says something about the table.

He gave thanks before He broke it. Knowing what the bread stood for, and knowing what was coming in a few hours, He thanked God first.

Judas went out before it. Scripture marks the moment with four words that carry more than the time of day:

"He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night" (John 13:30)

And it was night. The table is for those who stay.

And they sang. This is the detail that undoes any notion that the Supper is essentially a funeral:

"And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives" (Mark 14:26)

Hours from betrayal, arrest and crucifixion, the last recorded corporate act of that room was singing. The Man who knew exactly what was coming led the singing.

And He said one more thing, which points the table forward rather than only back:

"But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom" (Matthew 26:29)

He has an appointment to keep at a table with you. He said so, and He has not had that cup since.

11. The church that ruined it

The New Testament records one congregation that got this badly wrong, and the nature of the failure is not what most people assume.

"When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken" (1 Corinthians 11:20-21)

The problem was not doctrinal. It was social. The wealthy arrived early and ate well; the poor and the slaves arrived late and got nothing. The one loaf had become a picture of division rather than of unity.

And the apostle Paul says something startling about it: this is not to eat the Lord’s supper. Whatever they were doing, it had stopped being the thing they thought they were doing.

Which locates the unworthily of the following verses exactly. It is not about whether you feel good enough this week. It is about coming to a table that proclaims one body while treating part of that body as beneath you.

So the examination the chapter calls for has a horizontal component that is usually missed. Before you come, the question is not only whether you are right with God, but whether there is somebody in that room you have not spoken to.

And note what the peace offering pictured, which this section began from: the offerer, the priest, and God, all fed from one animal. A table where one part of the company goes hungry has contradicted the offering it represents.

"And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24)

12. The portion that had to be burned before anybody ate

There is an order in the peace offering that no worshipper was permitted to reverse, and it governs everything this article has to say about Sunday morning.

The fat was God’s. Not a portion of the fat — all of it, and it went up in smoke on the altar before one mouthful was eaten by any man:

"And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD’S" (Leviticus 3:16)

All the fat is the LORD’S. The fat was the richest part, the choicest part, the part a hungry man would want most. It was the one part he was forbidden to touch.

And Scripture calls it something startling: the food of the offering. God speaks of His own portion as food, and it is the excellence of the sacrifice — what the offering was in itself, inwardly, where no eye but His could see.

Now read the order, because it is the whole lesson. The fat went up first. Then, and only then, the priest received his portion. A man could not eat until God had been served.

Set that against how most of us come to the table. We come to get something. We come for comfort, for assurance, for a settled conscience, for the feeling that the week has been dealt with. All of that is real, and all of it is ours — second.

The first business of the table is not what you receive. It is what God receives. There is a portion of Christ that is His alone: the inward perfection of the Son, what He was in the years nobody watched, what He was in the garden when the disciples were asleep. No believer has ever tasted that portion and none ever will. It went up as a sweet savour to the Father, and our part is to stand still while it ascends.

Which is why a communion service conducted as therapy has the order backwards. Get the fat on the altar first. Give God His portion of His Son before you reach for yours, and you will find that yours tastes different.

13. The wave breast and the heave shoulder

Now the priest’s portion, and here Scripture becomes almost unbearably tender.

Two parts of the animal were given to Aaron and his sons, and God names them Himself:

"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" (Leviticus 7:34)

The breast and the shoulder. Of the whole animal, those two.

The breast is where the heart is. It stands for the affections, and it was waved, moved from side to side before God, a motion of love displayed.

The shoulder is where the burden is carried. It stands for strength, and it was heaved, lifted up before God, a motion of power presented.

So the portion God assigns to His priests, for ever, by statute, is the love of Christ and the strength of Christ. Not His teaching. Not His example. His heart and His shoulder: the two things a helpless man needs and cannot manufacture.

And note the order in which Scripture always names them. The wave breast comes first, and the heave shoulder second, and never the reverse. The affection precedes the strength, because every exertion of His power was set in motion by His love. He did not carry us because He was strong. He was strong on our behalf because He loved us.

Now notice what had to happen before a priest could eat any of it:

"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" (Leviticus 7:30)

The breast was waved before the LORD before it was eaten by the priest. God looked upon it first. He inspected what His servants were about to feed on, and He was satisfied with it.

Think of what that means at the table on Sunday. The love of Christ that you feed on has already been displayed before the Father and accepted by Him. You are not admiring something God has not examined. You are eating what He has already looked at and found perfect.

The Son could say of the Father, I love the Father, and the Father could say of the Son, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. That love passed between them before the world was, and the astonishing thing is that a statute for ever assigns a portion of it to men.

14. Three occasions, and the one that never expires

Scripture divides the peace offering into three kinds, and the distinction is worth having.

"If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil" (Leviticus 7:12)

It could be brought for thanksgiving, when God had done something and the man could not keep quiet. It could be brought for a vow, when a promise had been made and now had to be paid. Or it could be brought as a freewill offering, when nothing at all had happened and the man simply wanted to.

And there is a rule attached to the first that is easy to miss. The thanksgiving offering had to be eaten the same day it was offered. Nothing of it was to remain until the morning.

Thanksgiving does not keep. Gratitude that is postponed is gratitude that dies, and God legislated against storing it. If He has done something for you, the time to say so is now, in the assembly, out loud, while it is warm.

But the freewill offering is the one that should search us, because it had no occasion. Nothing prompted it. No deliverance, no promise, no crisis. A man simply wanted to bring something to God, and God made room in the law for exactly that.

Most of our coming to the table is thanksgiving, and thanksgiving is right. But a man who comes only when he has something to be thankful for has never yet worshipped for nothing, and worship for nothing, worship with no request attached and no benefit in view, is the purest kind there is.

15. Why the table has almost disappeared

Now the thing that has to be said, and it will not be comfortable.

In most churches that would call themselves Bible-believing, the Lord’s Supper is observed once a month, or once a quarter, and it is tacked onto the end of a service that was really about the sermon. It occupies eight minutes. The elements are distributed with a certain awkwardness. Somebody reads a familiar paragraph. And then everyone goes home.

Compare that with the practice of the New Testament church:

"And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them" (Acts 20:7)

Read the clause in the order Scripture puts it. They came together to break bread. The preaching happened because they were already assembled for that purpose.

The apostle Paul was present, he was leaving in the morning, and he was one of the greatest preachers who has ever lived, and even on that night Scripture does not say they gathered to hear him. It says they gathered to break bread, and he preached to a congregation that had come for something else.

And the first description of church life anywhere in the New Testament puts it in the same rank:

"And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42)

Four things, and they are given equal weight. Doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer. Nobody would call it a healthy assembly that had abandoned doctrine or prayer. Why is the third one alone treated as optional?

The honest answer is that we have built our services around the pulpit. The sermon is the event; everything else is arrangement around it. And that is a serious inversion, because preaching is God speaking to men, and the table is men responding to God. A church that only ever hears and never responds has made itself an audience.

There is a prophet who described worship gone thin, and the offence was not that Israel had stopped offering. They were still offering. They were offering carelessly:

"And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts" (Malachi 1:8)

Offer it now unto thy governor. Would you hand that to a man whose good opinion you needed? Then why is it good enough for God?

Eight distracted minutes at the end of a long morning, brought to the Son of God, offered to the memory of His death. Take it to your governor and see what he says.

16. What the church is actually for

Behind all of this lies a question about what an assembly is, and the New Testament answers it in a way most of us have never absorbed.

"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him" (John 4:23)

The Father seeketh such to worship him.

Read that clause slowly, because it reverses the direction we normally assume. We think of worship as something we bring because we ought to. Scripture says the Father is looking for it. There is a seeking on His side, and what He is seeking is worshippers.

And the New Testament assigns every believer an office in which to render it:

"Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5)

An holy priesthood. Not the pastor. Not a class of men. Every believer in the room, and the purpose stated is to offer up.

Which means the man who sits through a communion service without one thought rising from him to God has not merely missed a blessing. He has left his office unexercised. He is a priest who brought nothing.

And the sacrifice he is to bring is named:

"By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name" (Hebrews 13:15)

The fruit of our lips. It has to be said. Not merely felt — said, because fruit is what a tree produces where it can be seen.

So here is the plain conclusion of the whole matter. The table is not a small thing appended to the preaching. It is the highest act a company of believers ever performs together, because it is the only hour in the week where the assembly is not receiving instruction, not being organised, and not being exhorted, but is giving something back to God about His Son.

The last book of the Bible describes what the redeemed will be doing for ever, and it is not studying:

"Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen" (Revelation 1:5-6)

That is the occupation of eternity, and the Lord’s table is the rehearsal. An assembly that neglects it is neglecting the one thing it will still be doing when preaching, teaching, evangelism and every other work is finished for ever.

17. The offering that went stale

There is a regulation attached to the freewill peace offering that ought to be read aloud in every church that observes the table quarterly.

"It shall be eaten the same day ye offer it, and on the morrow: and if ought remain until the third day, it shall be burnt in the fire. And if it be eaten at all on the third day, it is abominable; it shall not be accepted" (Leviticus 19:6-7)

It is abominable. Not stale. Not less pleasing. Abominable: the same word Scripture uses of idolatry.

Consider what had actually gone wrong. The animal was the right animal. The blood had been rightly sprinkled. The fat had gone up to God correctly. Nothing in the ceremony had been altered. The only thing that had happened was time.

The offering had become a leftover. What began as an act of communion had turned into a thing sitting in a dish, eaten out of habit because it was there.

That is the exact peril of a familiar ordinance. Nothing in the form goes wrong. The bread is right, the words are right, the doctrine is right, and the whole thing has quietly become the third day, and God’s verdict on the third day is not indifference.

He says the same thing through a prophet, about a nation that had never missed a feast:

"Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts" (Amos 5:22)

I will not regard. Said of fat beasts, correctly presented, by people who thought the transaction was proceeding normally.

It is possible to hold the bread in your hand and be in Amos 5.

18. The most shocking verse about the peace offering in the Bible

This next verse is not usually preached, and it should be.

A young man is walking through the streets at night. A woman meets him, dressed for the purpose, and she opens her mouth to persuade him. Here is her opening line:

"I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows" (Proverbs 7:14)

Read what she has done. She has come from worship. She has been to the house of God, she has brought her offering, she has discharged her vow, and she is using it as her opening line in a seduction.

And notice the logic she expects to work. She has meat in the house. The peace offering had to be eaten, and she is inviting him to a meal that came off God’s altar. She is offering him a portion of a sacrifice as bait.

The Holy Ghost put that verse in Scripture deliberately, and it settles something. Attendance proves nothing. Participation proves nothing. A woman on her way to adultery had been at the altar the same day and had her paperwork in order.

Which is why the New Testament attaches the one warning it does to this table, not to keep people away, but to keep the thing from becoming what it became in her hands:

"But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup" (1 Corinthians 11:28)

Note who does the examining. Not the pastor, not the deacons, not the man beside you. Let a man examine himself, and then let him eat. The verse does not say let him stay away. The examination is so that he may eat, not so that he may be excluded.

And the consequence of ignoring it is stated plainly and then softened by nothing:

"For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep" (1 Corinthians 11:30)

God takes this table seriously enough to discipline over it. Which is, when you think about it, an argument for its importance rather than for staying away from it — men are not chastened over things that do not matter.

19. Where He was known

One last scene, and it is the answer to everything above.

Two men are walking away from Jerusalem on the afternoon of the resurrection, defeated. A stranger joins them and expounds the Scriptures from Moses onward: the finest exposition ever delivered, by the finest expositor who has ever lived, and at the end of it they still do not know who He is.

Then they sit down to eat:

"And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him" (Luke 24:30-31)

Read where the recognition happened. Not during the exposition. Not on the road. At the table, in the breaking of bread.

And when they ran back to Jerusalem, this is how they reported it:

"And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread" (Luke 24:35)

How he was known of them in breaking of bread.

Nothing on this page is an argument against preaching. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself preached to those two men for seven miles. But their eyes were opened somewhere else, and the New Testament records the fact without embarrassment.

There is a line in the Song of Solomon that says what this hour is meant to be:

"He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love" (Song of Solomon 2:4)

A banner is what an army marches under and what a stranger reads from a distance to know whose ground he is standing on. Over the table where His people remember Him, the flag flying is not doctrine, not denomination, and not discipline. It is love, and it is His.

So bring the fat to God first. Feed on the breast and the shoulder: His love and His strength, given to you by a statute for ever. Come as a priest with something in your hands rather than as an audience with nothing. And do not let it reach the third day.

He asked for one thing to be done until He comes, and it was not a lecture.

"This do in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19)

20. The offering that could not stand alone

Before going further it has to be said that the peace offering was never a solitary thing. It stood on two others, and a man who brought it without them had understood nothing.

Underneath it lay the burnt offering. That one was wholly consumed, no portion for the priest, no portion for the offerer, everything ascending to God:

"And the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD" (Leviticus 1:9)

All on the altar. That is Christ offering Himself to the Father, not primarily for our sins, but for God’s pleasure. The New Testament names it exactly:

"Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour" (Ephesians 5:2)

To God. There is an aspect of the cross that had nothing to do with us. It satisfied the Father, and it would have been perfect if not one sinner had ever been saved by it.

And underneath that lay the sin offering, and its treatment could not have been more different. It was not a sweet savour. It was burned outside the camp, in the unclean place, because it carried what God cannot look upon.

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21)

And when the hand of the offerer was laid on the head of the animal, one word is used for what happened next:

"And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him" (Leviticus 1:4)

Accepted for him. The man was accepted in the acceptability of the victim, not in his own. He laid his hand on it, and what was true of it became true of him.

Now put the three together, because this is the order of your Christian life. The sin offering dealt with what you were. The burnt offering satisfied God entirely. And only then does the peace offering open a table where God and the sinner eat the same sacrifice.

Which is why a man cannot work his way to the table. Peace is not made at the table; peace is announced there. The blood was shed elsewhere, the wrath fell elsewhere, and the meal is what remains when there is nothing left to settle.

"And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement" (Romans 5:11)

We joy in God. Not merely in what He gave us — in Him. That is the peace offering in one clause, and it is the only offering of the five where the worshipper himself sat down and ate.

21. Before you come next time

Three habits, drawn straight from the chapter.

Settle the peace question before you sit down. Not by feeling forgiven, but by looking where the offering looked — at blood already shed. If that is unresolved you will spend the whole time at the altar and never reach the meal.

Give God His portion first. Before you think about what you get out of it, spend a moment on what He receives from it. The fat went up before anybody ate, and worship that begins with our own benefit has the order backwards.

Look around the room. The same portion that feeds you feeds the person three seats away whom you find difficult. One loaf. If you cannot be reconciled to him, you have a problem the bread in your hand is preaching about.

And one closing thought, which is where the whole study has been going.

On the last night, before any of it happened, He said this:

"And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer" (Luke 22:15)

With desire I have desired. He wanted the meal.

The peace offering was never only about a worshipper being satisfied. It was about God being satisfied too, and the astonishing thing the Supper says is that He counts your company at that table as something He has wanted.

22. What one hour a week would do

Let this end practically, because a doctrine that changes no arrangement has not been believed.

Suppose an assembly gave the table one unhurried hour, weekly, with the preaching in its own place rather than in front of it. What would change?

The brethren would have to prepare. A man cannot bring the fruit of his lips having thought about nothing all week. He would have to come having considered his Lord, which is a discipline most of us have never once undertaken.

The quiet men would be heard. In a room where the assembly gives rather than receives, the labourer who never preaches can lead the company in worship, and frequently does it better than the man who is paid to speak.

The young would learn what worship is by watching it, which is the only way anybody has ever learned it. A child who sees his father stand and give thanks for the Lord Jesus Christ has been taught something no lesson conveys.

And offences would surface. A man cannot break one loaf with a brother he will not speak to, not honestly. The table exposes what a sermon lets us sit through undisturbed.

None of that requires a new building, a budget, or a single additional worker. It requires a decision about what an assembly is for.

The offering has been made. The fat is on the altar and the sweet savour has gone up. The breast and the shoulder have been waved before God and handed back to His priests, by a statute for ever.

The table is spread. What is wanted is worshippers.

Let us Pray:

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.

We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for Him who told the most religious man of his day that he must be born again. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "Ye must be born again" (John 3:7), and which cannot be broken.

We confess before You that we have trusted forms and ceremonies to do what only the new birth can do. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.

Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to bring every religious soul who reads it from ceremony to Christ Himself, for Your glory and not for ours.

We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The Most Important Prayer You Will Ever Pray

Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?

You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin, but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.

If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words, but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:

After You Have Prayed

1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).

2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).

3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.

4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved: you already are, but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.

5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).