And thou shalt say unto them, Every one of the house of Israel, and of the strangers who sojourn among them, that offereth up a burnt-offering or sacrifice,
Leviticus 17 opens with a rule: no one could kill an animal fit for sacrifice wherever he liked, but had to bring it to the door of the tent of meeting. Verse 8 states that rule again and widens it — the foreigner living among Israel is bound by it too.
Verses 8 and 9 are not a repeat of what came before. They form a separate address, and they stretch the rule to cover people who were not born Israelites.
The next proclamation concerned the stranger living among Israel (8, 9) as well as the Israelite. It dealt with burnt offerings and peace offerings. In the wilderness these could only be offered on God's altar. That guarded them very effectively against idolatrous altars as they moved from place to place. In the land some change was allowed about the first of these (Deut. 12:21-25). Otherwise it would have been almost a ban on eating from their own flocks and herds, except for the favoured few who lived near the tabernacle or the temple.
The offering itself was not the issue. The place was. God gave His people a way to Him, and only one.
Verses 8 and 9 take in the strangers living among the Israelites as well. They condemn the evil of offering a burnt offering or a sacrifice anywhere except at the one meeting place with Jehovah that He Himself had appointed. How sad, when someone claims to own Jehovah by bringing an offering, that he should ignore His goodness in giving one place — and only one — of outward access to Himself! The unseen enemy is busy and cunning in everything, and not least in the outward worship of God, to pour scorn on the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So it was in Israel then. So it has always been, and with just as dismal success, in the church from near the start until our own day.
These rules were not there to clean up defilement. They were there to keep it away, and to keep the heart from drifting to demons.
After the special instruction about the day of atonement come some directions (Lev. 17). They are not meant to cleanse from defilement, but to keep either the people or the priests' service from it. Their aim is to keep Israel a people holy to God, and to keep them from everything that would dishonour Him in their dealings with Him, and dishonour themselves in their dealings with others. Life belongs to God. And where life is taken, it must be offered in sacrifice — and of course offered to God... So these rules guarded against the danger that the heart would secretly slip away to demons. They upheld God's title to life and the truth of sacrifice — all vital truths.
That danger was real, not theoretical. Verse 7 shows the people had already been drawn into sacrificing to demons, and the ban of verses 1–9 met a habit they had actually picked up:
This shows how much the prohibition of verses 1-9 was needed, and how it was disregarded by some, though perhaps not in a public way.
Israel had already copied the nations around them. The foreigner living in the camp came under the same rule, and the same penalty.
The ungodly sacrificed to demons when they honoured idols, and Israel had clearly followed this evil example. But verse 7 tells them to stop this unfaithful association. In fact, not only the people of Israel but also any Gentiles living among them had to bring their sacrifices to the door of the tabernacle to be offered to the Lord, or suffer the death penalty (vv. 8-9).
One standard binds the outsider. It also opens a door to him:
"One ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation, and also for the stranger that sojourns with you, an ordinance for ever in your generations: as you are, so shall the stranger be before the Lord." (Num. 15:15.) In this way God's heart always reached out, in His indescribable grace, beyond His chosen people. He provided blessing for those who were "alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world."
The door of the tent was a picture. God still appoints one place to meet sinners.
The moral of this is plain. There is one place where God has appointed to meet the sinner, and that is the cross — the counterpart of the bronze altar. There and there alone has God's claim upon the life been properly recognised. To reject this meeting place is to bring judgement down on yourself. It tramples on the just claims of God. It claims a right to life that everyone has forfeited.
- One place. God gave Israel one point of outward access to Himself. Taking an offering anywhere else was not devotion. It despised His goodness.
- One reason. The rule kept the heart from slipping away to demons. Verse 7 shows the people had already started.
- One rule. The Israelite and the foreigner stood under the same command, and the same penalty.
- One open door. That same equal standard is where grace shows. God's heart reached past His own people to bless those who had no hope and no God in the world.
- One cross. The appointed door still stands. The cross is where God meets the sinner, and to refuse it is to invite judgement on yourself.
and bringeth it not to the entrance of the tent of meeting, to offer it up to Jehovah -- that man shall be cut off from his peoples.
Leviticus 17 allows only one place for sacrifice: the entrance of the tent of meeting, God's tabernacle, where He met His people. Verse 9 warns that anyone who offers elsewhere, Israelite or foreigner, will be cut off from his people — which raises two questions: why one place, and why so heavy a penalty?
One writer sees God's goodness in the restriction itself:
Verses 8 and 9 take in the strangers who lived among the Israelites too. They condemn the evil of offering a burnt offering or a sacrifice anywhere except at the one meeting place with Jehovah that God had appointed. How sad for anyone to claim to acknowledge Jehovah with an offering, and yet to disregard His goodness! He gave a place — and only one place — of outward access to Himself.
The rule sounds like a question of geography. One writer treats it as a question of ownership:
This was a most solemn matter. We may ask what was involved in offering a sacrifice in any other way than the one prescribed here. It was nothing less than robbing Jehovah of His rights and presenting to Satan what was due to God. A man might say, "Can I not offer a sacrifice in one place as well as another?" The answer is, "Life belongs to God, and His claim to it must be recognised in the place He has appointed — before the tabernacle of the Lord." That was the only meeting place between God and man. To offer elsewhere proved that the heart did not want God.
One writer points to verse 7, which names the practice this rule was aimed at:
Chapter 17 acts as an appendix to all this, guarding against abuses that could so easily creep in. Anyone who offered a sacrifice had to present the animal at the door of the tabernacle. He could not kill it elsewhere in the camp or out in the open field. Verse 7 reveals the evil practice this guarded against, and it also discloses that the people had already been infected with idolatry. We may remember how Stephen in his address — Acts 7:42-43 — charged the people with idolatry even in the wilderness. This shows how much verses 1-9 were needed, and how some disregarded them, though perhaps not in public.
Another writer reads the same chapter as preventive rather than cleansing — keeping the people from defilement rather than washing it away:
Life belongs to God. And where it is taken, it must be offered in sacrifice — and of course in sacrifice to God. The blood had to be sprinkled and the fat burned on the altar. In this way the danger of the heart secretly turning aside to demons was guarded against, and God's title to life and the truth of sacrifice were maintained — all vital truths.
The rule covered the foreigner living among Israel as well as the Israelite. One writer notes that it also belonged to the wilderness years:
The next proclamation concerned the stranger who lived among Israel (verses 8, 9) as well as the Israelite. It dealt with burnt offerings and peace offerings. In the wilderness these were only to be offered on God's altar. This guarded them well against idolatrous altars as they travelled from place to place. In the wilderness, gathered round the tabernacle, these laws could be kept by the whole congregation. In the land God allowed a change about the first of these (Deuteronomy 12:21-25). Otherwise the rule would almost have banned them from eating their own flocks or herds, except for the favoured few who lived near the tabernacle or the temple.
Did this verse ban every altar for ever? The same writer points back to an earlier permission:
This second command did not cancel the law of Exodus 20:25, which allowed altars to be built for certain sacrifices on special occasions. Leviticus 17:8-9 only forbade such altars while the people were in the wilderness. Since they must at times have met the wandering peoples of the desert (Deuteronomy 10:6), God reminded them that no altar was open to them but the bronze altar in the camp. After they had entered the land, believers such as Samuel, David and Elijah acted, when needed, on the permission granted to Israel in Exodus.
One writer carries the principle forward to the one place where God now meets people:
The moral of this is plain. There is one place where God has appointed to meet the sinner, and that is the cross — the reality that the bronze altar pictured. There, and there alone, has God's claim upon life been properly recognised. To reject this meeting place is to bring down judgement upon oneself. It is to trample the just claims of God underfoot and to claim for oneself a right to life that all have forfeited. It is important to see this.
- One place. God gave Israel a single point of access to Himself, and the restriction was a kindness, not a burden.
- One owner. Life belongs to God. To sacrifice anywhere else was to rob Him and hand Satan what was His.
- One danger. The rule kept the people from altars to demons. That idolatry was already at work in the wilderness.
- One door, open to all. The same command bound the foreigner among Israel and the Israelite alike.
- One meeting place still. The cross is where God's claim on life has been met; to refuse it is to be left outside, as the cut-off man was.