The Priest's Personal Burnt Offering Text: Leviticus 6:19-23
Introduction: The Logic of Holiness
We come now to a portion of Leviticus that the modern mind, what little is left of it, finds particularly baffling. We are in the thick of the priestly code, the detailed instructions for the various offerings. To our generation, which has rejected the very idea of objective holiness, this all seems like so much tedious and arbitrary religious busywork. Why the obsession with flour, oil, and griddles? Why does God care about such things?
But to ask that question is to reveal a profound spiritual ignorance. It is like asking why a surgeon obsesses over sterile instruments or why an engineer obsesses over the tensile strength of steel. God is building a house, a holy habitation for Himself among a sinful people. And in order to do that, He must first teach them the grammar of holiness. He must teach them the fundamental distinction between the clean and the unclean, the holy and the profane. This is not arbitrary; it is the architecture of reality. The universe is not a meaningless jumble of particles. It is a cosmos, an ordered and beautiful creation, and at its center is a holy God. To approach this God requires a holy protocol.
The pagan nations surrounding Israel had their own rituals, of course. But their rituals were designed to manipulate their gods, who were nothing more than super-powered, petulant children. Their worship was a mixture of fear, flattery, and bribery. But the worship of Yahweh is entirely different. It is not about manipulating God, but about being transformed by Him. It is about learning to think God's thoughts after Him. Every detail in these sacrifices is a lesson. It is a picture, a type, a shadow of a greater reality to come. These offerings are all arrows pointing forward to the one, final, perfect sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In this particular passage, we are given the instructions for the grain offering that the priest himself must make on the day of his anointing. This is not an offering for the sins of the people, but an offering tied to the priest's own consecration. And as we will see, it contains a crucial, built-in confession of the inadequacy of the entire Levitical system, and it preaches the gospel with stunning clarity.
The Text
Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "This is the offering which Aaron and his sons shall bring near to Yahweh on the day when he is anointed; the tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening. It shall be prepared with oil on a griddle. When it is well stirred, you shall bring it. You shall bring near the grain offering in baked pieces as a soothing aroma to Yahweh. And the anointed priest, who will be in his place among his sons, shall offer it. By a perpetual statute it shall be entirely offered up in smoke to Yahweh. So every grain offering of the priest shall be burned entirely. It shall not be eaten."
(Leviticus 6:19-23)
The Consecrated Life (vv. 19-21)
We begin with the particulars of the offering itself.
"This is the offering which Aaron and his sons shall bring near to Yahweh on the day when he is anointed; the tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening. It shall be prepared with oil on a griddle. When it is well stirred, you shall bring it. You shall bring near the grain offering in baked pieces as a soothing aroma to Yahweh." (Leviticus 6:20-21)
This offering is tied directly to the anointing of the priest. The anointing with oil is a sign of being set apart for a special task, empowered by the Spirit of God. This is the priest's inauguration into his office. And the very first thing he does is offer this grain offering. This is not a sin offering. The grain offering, or Mincha, is an offering of tribute, of devotion, of consecrating one's life and work to God.
Notice the ingredients. It is "fine flour." This is not just any flour; it is the best, the most refined. It represents the best of a person's labor, the fruit of their life. This is a picture of the life of Christ, who was perfectly refined, without any coarse sin or imperfection. It is mixed with oil, which is a consistent type of the Holy Spirit. This signifies a life lived in and through the power of the Spirit. The entire life and ministry of the priest is to be saturated with the Spirit.
The offering is to be continuous, "a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning and half of it in the evening." This frames the entire day. The priest's devotion is not a one-time event, but a constant, perpetual state of being. His whole life, from sunrise to sunset, is to be an offering to God. This is what Paul is getting at when he tells us to pray without ceasing. It is a life of unbroken communion and dedication.
The preparation is also significant. It is prepared "on a griddle." This speaks of trial, of testing by fire. A consecrated life is not an easy life. It is a life that is tested and proven. It is "well stirred" and brought in "baked pieces." This points to a life thoroughly worked by God, broken and submitted to His will. A life that is whole, unbroken, and self-sufficient cannot be a pleasing offering to God. It is the broken and contrite heart that God will not despise. All of this combines to produce a "soothing aroma to Yahweh." This is an anthropomorphism, of course. God does not have a physical nose. It means that the offering is acceptable, that it is pleasing to Him. It is a life lived in accordance with His will, and this brings Him delight.
The Perpetual Statute (v. 22)
Next, the Lord establishes the ongoing nature of this ordinance.
"And the anointed priest, who will be in his place among his sons, shall offer it. By a perpetual statute it shall be entirely offered up in smoke to Yahweh." (Leviticus 6:22)
This is not just for Aaron. It is for the entire line of high priests who will succeed him. It is a "perpetual statute." This points to the enduring nature of God's requirements for His priests. The standard of holiness does not change. The need for a life wholly consecrated to God is a permanent fixture of His covenant.
But like all the perpetual statutes of the Old Covenant, this one finds its ultimate fulfillment in Christ. Jesus is the great High Priest, the one who stands in the place of all his sons. He is the one who offered the perfect life of devotion. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that the Levitical priesthood was temporary and flawed precisely because the priests kept dying. But Christ "has a permanent priesthood" because He "lives forever" (Hebrews 7:24). He is the fulfillment of this perpetual statute.
The offering is to be "entirely offered up in smoke." The Hebrew word here is for a whole burnt offering. Nothing is to be held back. This signifies total consecration. The priest is not giving a portion of his life to God; he is giving all of it. This is the logic of Romans 12:1, where we are called to present our bodies as a "living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God."
The Gospel in the Grain Offering (v. 23)
Now we come to the most striking and crucial part of the instruction, the verse that unlocks the whole passage.
"So every grain offering of the priest shall be burned entirely. It shall not be eaten." (Leviticus 6:23)
In many other offerings, the priests were given a portion of the sacrifice to eat. This was their provision from the Lord; they were to live off the altar. It was a sign of their fellowship with God, eating at His table. But here, in the case of the priest's own grain offering of consecration, a different rule applies. It must be entirely burned. He is not permitted to eat any of it.
Why? This is a profound theological statement. In this specific act, the priest is functioning solely as the offerer, the one giving the gift. He cannot simultaneously be the recipient of the gift. When he offers for himself, he cannot also be the one who benefits from the meal. He is on one side of the transaction only. This rule is a built-in admission of the priest's own need and his inability to be both mediator and beneficiary in the same act.
This is a glaring pointer to the deficiency of the Aaronic priesthood. The priest offers for himself, but he can't complete the loop. He cannot fully represent himself and then also receive the benefits on his own behalf. The system cries out for a better priest, a perfect mediator who can bridge this gap.
And this is precisely who Jesus is. The author of Hebrews makes this exact point. "He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself" (Hebrews 7:27). The Levitical priest had to offer for his own sins and his own consecration. Jesus, being sinless, had no need to offer a sacrifice for Himself. His entire life was the perfect grain offering, a soothing aroma to the Father.
But more than that, Jesus is both the Priest and the Offering. And because He is also God, He is the one who receives the offering. He perfectly fulfills every role. He is the one who offers, He is the one who is offered, and He is the one to whom it is offered. And because He has done this, He can now invite us to the table. He is the bread of life, the grain offering from heaven, and He says to us, "Take, eat; this is my body" (Matthew 26:26). The Levitical priest could not eat his own offering of consecration. But we, through our great High Priest, are invited to feast on the offering of His perfect life. The prohibition in Leviticus becomes the glorious invitation of the gospel. What the law forbade, grace provides freely.
This is the logic of holiness. Every detail is designed to show us our need and to point us to the perfect provision of God in His Son. The priest's grain offering, wholly consumed, declares that a man cannot save himself. He cannot be his own mediator. But it also declares that God has provided a Mediator, a Priest who is perfect, whose offering was complete, and who now invites us to a fellowship meal that the priests of old could only dream of.