Under the new covenant our sacrifices are not like what they were under the old. We do not offer up burnt offerings,sin offerings, and trespass (or guilt) offerings; however, blood sacrifices are needed for atonement according to the law. In this teaching I shall show how Christ fulfilled ceremonial requirements for the peace offering. Yet we still have sacrifices to make in our lives.
— Ceremonial Aspects
Fellowship offerings like peace offerings were voluntary sacrifices expressing thanksgiving and fellowship with God. Core text is in Leviticus 3.
Lev. 3:1-3:: Peace offering. When his offering is a sacrifice of a peace offering, if he offers it of the herd, whether male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD. He shall lay his hand on the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of meeting; and Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall sprinkle the blood all around on the altar. Then he shall offer from the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire to the LORD.
This sacrifice had to be offered without blemish before the LORD. So was Christ also without blemish?
tÄÂmîm (taw-meem’) does mean without blemish and is complete or whole. The word also means innocent, having integrity.
Heb. 9:14:: speaks of Christ through the eternal Sprit as offering Himself without spot to God
1 Pet. 1:19 describes Christ as “a lamb without blemish and without spot”
2 Cor. 5:19 speaks of “him who knew no sin becoming sin for us” and Heb. 4:15 as “he was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin”
So Christ was indeed innocent and spotless in all senses of the word.
Our response is to mimic Christ in character. This can mean making sacrifices in our lives: our time, our talents, our resources, coming together, etc… We read in Ephesians:
(Christ) might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:27).
We read “the priest shall lay his hand on the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of meeting”. So if Christ fulfilled this, then who laid a hand on his head and killed him?
I once watched a cow get slaughtered in Kenya. It was not a pretty sight. Christ was not killed in exactly the same way you would slaughter an animal (for his throat was not cut). Yet a messianic prophesy speaks about Christ this way:
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth (Is. 53:7)
Yeshua kept his mouth shut before the high priest.
Yet Apostle Paul quoted Psalm 44:22 to speak about Christians in the same way.
For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter (Rom. 8:36).
We also read ‘the priest shall sprinkle the blood all around on the altar’. Who then sprinkled the blood and where was the altar?
In the past I have said that the cross is the altar for it is the place of sacrifice. Christ’s blood got sprinkled at the base of the cross, not by human hands but because of the crucifixion. Actually, we hear of the curtain of the temple being torn from top to bottom during his crucifixion (Matt. 27:51, Mark 15:38, Luke 23:45). Matthew and Luke provide more detail but the point is triply important because it is mentioned in all three synaptic gospels. It is not that Christ’s throat was cut open but it is more like Abba’s throat is torn asunder, top to bottom.
— Christ the Peace Offerings
We should contrast this to what Apostle Paul said to there church at Ephesus:
Eph. 2:14-16:: For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.
Let’s not misread this passage. It does not say he abolished in His flesh the law of commandments. It says here he abolished the enmity which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances. I know I am making a big thing of a very small point. The point is the paragraph speaks of breaking down the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile. To say that the law is gone goes against another new testament verse:
For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled (Matt. 5:18).
Since heaven and earth are still here nothing has passed from the law. The point made in Ephesus and elsewhere is that Gentiles are not bound by the law. There should no longer be enmity or animosity between Jew and Gentile. The council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 shows that the early apostles came to such a conclusion.
Peace, like the peace offering, is something that Christ came to create. He was, as the peace offering, without blemish.
The last part of the peace offering is an offering made by fire.
Sources:
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11966-peace-offering