And if thou present an offering of an oblation baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.
Leviticus 2 describes the grain offering: bread, not a slain animal. Commentators read every detail of these baked loaves and wafers as a picture of Christ: the leaven left out, the fine flour, the oil, and the oven.
The cakes had to be unleavened. One writer takes the verse phrase by phrase, and points out that honey is missing too:
Now (verse 4) we get some details, to bring out Christ more perfectly. "Unleavened cakes." The general truth was there before, but here we see no trace or form of sin in Him. Nor is there any use of mere natural sweetness, or of what only refreshes nature; neither can have a place in a sacrifice. Unleavened cakes, with no honey in them. Leaven is found in no offering except on the day of Pentecost, when we come in; there it is present.
The material matters too. One writer compares this flour with the lives of even the most mature believers:
The unleavened cakes were to be made of fine flour. They were not to be made of rough or gritty meal. With the ripest and most mature of God's saints there is at times unevenness and grit in their lives. With our Lord everything was perfect. No failure whatever in His life. To use the figure of speech used in the type, the fine flour of His life was perfectly smooth.
Oil pictures the Holy Spirit. Mixing it into the flour points to how Jesus came into the world, and one writer marks off His birth from a believer's new birth:
In His birth, in His incarnation, the oil mixed into the flour was true as nowhere else. He was the true and only Son of God here below, as He was Son of God eternally. There is something like this in the believer, who is born of God. He is made alive by the Spirit's power, born of water and the Spirit; but this leaves his old nature where and what it was. Christ on the contrary had "no old man." By the Spirit's power His humanity was free from all taint and evil. Not only He sinned not, but no sin was in Him.
The verse allows a second form: thin wafers with oil smeared over them. One writer takes each form in turn, down to how the cakes were made:
If baked "in the oven," it was made of cakes, literally "pierced cakes." This suggests the opening of His inmost heart to the action of the heat. "Mingled with oil" speaks of our Lord's perfect humanity as conceived by the Holy Spirit. The "wafers," rolled out by pressure and anointed with oil, suggest that anointing of the Spirit in whose power He went through His ministry.
An oven hides what it cooks. One writer reads that closed heat as suffering no one could see:
Baked in the oven indicates that He is a Sufferer, exposed to the heat of hidden sufferings. Inside an oven the heat is fiercest. In the same way, the unseen sufferings of the Lord Jesus were greater than the sufferings men put on Him openly. He felt the condition of mankind far more deeply than appeared on the surface... His disciples did not enter into the sufferings of His heart, as in His weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44) and in His prayer in Gethsemane (Luke 22:41-46).
But this heat is not punishment for sin. One writer argues that from the wording of the chapter:
The process of baking suggests the idea of suffering. But the grain offering is called "a sweet savour," a term never applied to the sin offering or trespass offering. So there is no thought of suffering for sin here, no thought of suffering the wrath of God because of sin, no thought of suffering at the hand of infinite Justice as the sinner's substitute. The two ideas of "sweet savour" and suffering for sin are wholly incompatible.
(The older translation's "sweet savour" is "a pleasing aroma" in the ESV.)
In verse 6 the cake is broken into pieces. One writer finds meaning in that, and in who ate the rest of the offering:
I think the breaking in pieces (verse 6) may picture our blessed Lord's life looked at in detail. Every action, every word, bore the character of the oil — the blessed, dependent Man of Luke's gospel. The more we read His life the more do we see its divine beauty. The memorial was burnt on the altar, and the priests ate the rest of the offering. We too need, in this priestly character, to feed on the grain offering.
- Nothing added — no leaven and no honey: no sin in Him, and no mere natural sweetness offered to God in place of it.
- Nothing coarse — fine flour with no grit. The best of believers still show unevenness; His life was smooth all through.
- Oil mixed in — the Spirit at His birth, a humanity unique from the start, unlike a new nature laid alongside an old one.
- Oil brushed on — the wafer anointed: the Spirit's power resting on Him for public service.
- Oil under heat — the closed oven pictures suffering no one saw, deeper than anything men did to Him, yet still a pleasing aroma and never punishment for sin. Then the cake is broken up, so His life can be read in detail and fed on.
And if thine offering be an oblation [baken] on the pan, it shall be fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.
Leviticus 2 sets out the grain offering. Verse 5 gives one way to prepare it: the same ingredients as before, but now cooked on a flat pan over the fire. Why several methods for one offering, and what does the changing heat teach?
Unlike the sacrifices around it, this offering involves no death. Commentators read it as a picture of who Christ was while He lived among us, tested but never found wanting.
In all these cases it was the finest of the flour of wheat, properly sifted. In each of the three the baking had a different form according to intensity, display, or mixture. The perfect and sinless humanity of Christ is there in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is there in such fragrant grace as suited Jehovah, and only He appreciated it in full. But it was also tested in various ways here below, before the final burning on the altar.
Flour is ground until every particle is the same. One writer sees in that texture a life with no rough patches under any pressure.
Now the shadow of this perfect man passes before us in the "fine flour" which formed the basis of the meat offering. There was not so much as a single coarse grain. There was nothing uneven — nothing unequal — nothing rough to the touch. No matter what pressure came from outside, there was always an even surface. He was never ruffled by any circumstance or set of circumstances. He never had to retrace a step, or take back a word.
Another writer turns it around: we admire people for the opposite reason — for one strong quality that stands out.
Contrast this with any son of Adam. At once we admit how we value and rate a fellow man by his particular ability in some desired direction. We cultivate our strong points, and others value us for them. In the Lord Jesus we see no such strong points. The nature of fine flour tells of the perfect balance in Him of all the capacities and graces that belonged to His very being.
The flour had to be free of leaven — the yeast that spreads through dough and makes it rise. One writer gives the reason.
The grain offering had to be offered without "leaven," because nothing corrupting could picture the pure and spotless Son of God, whose flesh saw no corruption.
Here the oil goes into the flour before baking, not onto the surface. One writer ties this mixing to the start of Christ's human life, and sets the later anointing beside it.
"Mixed with oil." What does that speak of to us? Well, we know that the blessed Lord Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit, as the angel announced to Mary: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). So in His nature as a man, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and everything He did was by the power of the Holy Spirit. No doubt the mixing of the oil speaks to us of that. Some of the grain offerings were anointed with oil. The Lord was anointed with the Holy Spirit when He was about thirty years of age.
The oven of verse 4 encloses the dough; the flat pan of verse 5 leaves it out in the open. Commentators read the change of vessel as a change in the kind of testing.
In the second part, the oblation baked in the oven, the pan, and the frying-pan, we see the Lord as man exposed to various forms of severe trial. The oven shows trial applied in a way that men may not directly witness. The oven does not so much stand for public display; the pan does... Thus we have secret trial, public trial, and this to the utmost — the Lord Jesus tried in every possible way. What was the effect? It showed the perfection, and nothing but perfection, that was found in Him.
Another writer names what that exposure cost Him.
This offering baked in a pan (or griddle) indicates open sufferings which the Lord endured from human hostility. Men's hostile words ended in their spitting on Him, tearing out His hair, whipping Him, and crowning Him with thorns. Such sufferings draw out our deep admiration of Him, just as cooking the meal makes the result far more pleasant to the taste.
- One flour. The vessel changes; the ingredient never does. Fine flour speaks of a humanity with nothing coarse, uneven or out of proportion in it.
- One prohibition. No form of the offering may carry leaven, because nothing that corrupts can picture the One whose flesh saw no corruption.
- One power. The oil goes into the flour, not just over it — a life that began by the Holy Spirit and went on in His power.
- Many fires. The oven, the pan and the frying pan vary the heat, so that no form of trial is left out: hidden, public, and to the utmost.
- One result. Every fire only showed what was already in Him — perfection, and nothing but perfection.