The Tribute of Our Hands: The Grain Offering Text: Leviticus 2:1-3
Introduction: Worship is Work
We live in an age that has completely detached worship from the rest of life. For modern man, worship is an ethereal feeling, a sentimental mood, an emotional experience cordoned off into an hour on Sunday morning. It has nothing to do with his Monday morning, his checkbook, his garage, or his kitchen. It is a head-trip, a spiritualized sentiment, and it is utterly useless.
But the book of Leviticus will not let us get away with such nonsense. Leviticus is God's instruction manual for how a redeemed people are to approach a holy God, and it is earthy. It is full of blood and guts, fire and smoke, flour and oil. It teaches us that worship is not a feeling but an action. It is not an abstraction but a presentation. It involves our bodies, our property, and the work of our hands. After the fundamental sacrifice, the burnt offering, which deals with the problem of sin and establishes our acceptance before God, the very next thing God institutes is the grain offering. This is not an accident. Atonement must be followed by grateful service. Justification must be followed by sanctification. Being saved is the prerequisite for doing good works.
The grain offering, or the tribute offering, is all about the work of our hands. It is about taking God's raw provision, the grain from the field, and dedicating our labor back to Him. It is about acknowledging that He is not only our Redeemer but also our King. The modern world wants a God who saves them from hell but who makes no demands on their life. They want a Savior but not a Lord. But Leviticus chapter 2 demolishes that idol. Once you are His, everything you have and everything you do is also His. This offering teaches us the grammar of Christian service, showing us what makes our work acceptable, what taints it, and who it is ultimately for.
The Text
‘Now when anyone brings near a grain offering as an offering to Yahweh, his offering shall be of fine flour, and he shall pour oil on it and put frankincense on it. He shall then bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests; and he shall take from it his handful of its fine flour and of its oil with all of its frankincense. And the priest shall offer it up in smoke as its memorial portion on the altar, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to Yahweh. And the remainder of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons: a thing most holy of the offerings to Yahweh by fire.
(Leviticus 2:1-3 LSB)
A Gift for the King (v. 1)
We begin with the nature of the offering itself.
"‘Now when anyone brings near a grain offering as an offering to Yahweh, his offering shall be of fine flour, and he shall pour oil on it and put frankincense on it." (Leviticus 2:1)
The Hebrew word for this offering is minchah. While it is a "grain offering," the word itself simply means a gift, a present, or a tribute. This is the word used for the gift Jacob sent to Esau, or the tribute a vassal king would pay to his sovereign. This is key. The grain offering is not primarily about atonement for sin; the burnt offering in chapter 1 has already dealt with that. This is an act of worship from someone who has already been accepted. It is an act of homage, a pledge of allegiance. It is the worshiper acknowledging Yahweh's total sovereignty and goodness. He is our King, and we owe Him tribute.
Notice the components. First, it is "fine flour." This is not raw wheat, tossed on the altar. This is grain that has been harvested, threshed, winnowed, and ground. It represents human labor. The worshiper is not just bringing God's creation back to Him; he is bringing the product of his own work, applied to God's creation. This sanctifies our daily labor. Your nine-to-five job, your work in the home, your efforts in the yard, all of it is raw material for worship. God is not interested in a "spiritual" life that is detached from your actual, working life. He wants the fruit of your labor offered to Him.
Second, he is to "pour oil on it." Throughout Scripture, oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, of consecration, and of gladness. This teaches us a vital lesson: our work, our labor, is unacceptable to God on its own terms. It must be anointed. It must be empowered, guided, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Work done in the flesh, no matter how impressive, is just dead works. But work done in the Spirit, no matter how humble, is a holy tribute. As Zechariah says, "'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the LORD of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).
Third, he is to "put frankincense on it." Frankincense was a costly, fragrant resin. When burned, it produced a beautiful aroma and smoke that ascended to heaven. It is a picture of prayer and intercession. Our work must be saturated with prayer. Paul tells us to pray without ceasing, which doesn't mean we must be on our knees 24/7. It means our work should be an ongoing conversation with God. The frankincense represents the sweet fellowship with God that should accompany all our labors. The work and the prayer are not separate activities; they are one offering.
The Memorial Portion (v. 2)
Next, we see what is done with this tribute.
"He shall then bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests; and he shall take from it his handful of its fine flour and of its oil with all of its frankincense. And the priest shall offer it up in smoke as its memorial portion on the altar, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to Yahweh." (Leviticus 2:2)
The offering is brought to the priests, God's designated mediators. We do not approach God on our own terms or through our own self-invented rituals. We come through the mediator God has appointed. For us, this is the Lord Jesus Christ, our great High Priest. All our works, all our tribute, must be offered up through Him to be acceptable to the Father.
The priest takes a "handful" of the flour and oil, but notice, he takes "all of its frankincense." This handful is the "memorial portion." It is the representative part that is offered up on the altar. By burning this portion, the entire offering is symbolically given to God. But all the prayer, all the fellowship, all the frankincense, goes directly to God. This signifies that while our work is done on earth, the communion we have with God in that work is the central point. The aroma is what matters most to Him.
And the result is a "soothing aroma to Yahweh." This phrase does not mean God has olfactory senses that are pleased by smoke. It is covenantal language. It means God accepts the offering. It is pleasing to Him. He looks upon the tribute of His child, offered through the proper mediator, anointed by the Spirit, and accompanied by prayer, and He is well-pleased. This is the goal of the Christian life: to live in such a way that our very existence is a pleasing aroma to God. As Paul says, Christ's own sacrifice was "a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:2), and because we are in Him, our spiritual sacrifices of praise and good works are also acceptable (Heb. 13:15-16).
Provision for the Priesthood (v. 3)
The destination of the remainder of the offering is profoundly significant.
"And the remainder of the grain offering belongs to Aaron and his sons: a thing most holy of the offerings to Yahweh by fire." (Leviticus 2:3)
The memorial portion was burned, but the rest of the offering was not thrown away. It became the food for the priests. This is a foundational principle of covenant economics. When you give to God, you are providing for the work of His kingdom. The Levites had no inheritance in the land; the Lord was their inheritance, and they were to live off the offerings of the people. Our work, offered as tribute to God, is the very means by which God sustains the ministry of the Word.
Paul picks up this principle directly when he argues for the support of gospel ministers: "Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel" (1 Cor. 9:13-14).
But notice the designation: it is "a thing most holy." This was not just priestly leftovers. This was consecrated food. It could only be eaten by the priests, in a holy place. This teaches us that the fruit of our labor, when dedicated to God, becomes a holy thing. It is set apart. And it sustains a holy work. This elevates our understanding of tithes and offerings. It is not merely paying the bills. It is participating in a sacred transaction, offering up a holy tribute to our King, which He then uses to feed and sustain His servants who minister on our behalf.
Christ, Our Grain Offering
Like every part of the sacrificial system, the grain offering is a magnificent portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate minchah, the perfect tribute offered to the Father.
Jesus is the "fine flour." He is the Bread of Life (John 6:35). His humanity was perfectly refined, without any of the lumps or impurities of sin. He was ground and crushed in the suffering of His life and the affliction of the cross, all to become the perfect offering.
He was anointed with "oil." At His baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him without measure (John 3:34). His entire life and ministry were conducted in the power of the Spirit. He was, quite literally, the Messiah, the Anointed One.
His life was a constant offering of "frankincense." He lived in perfect, unbroken communion with His Father. He was always about His Father's business, and His prayers were a constant, sweet-smelling aroma to God.
His life was the ultimate "soothing aroma" to the Father. At His baptism and transfiguration, the Father declared from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17). His perfect obedience was the tribute that satisfied God completely.
And He is the "most holy" food for God's priests. We, who are a royal priesthood in the New Covenant (1 Peter 2:9), now feed on Him. His body is true food and His blood is true drink (John 6:55). The memorial portion of His life was offered up on the cross, but the remainder, His resurrected life, is our sustenance. We partake of Him, and in doing so, we are nourished and strengthened to offer our own lives as a tribute offering back to God, through Him.