Does the grain offering depict the person and work of Jesus in a manner similar to how the burnt offering and other offerings do? One way to answer this question is to see if Jesus referred to himself as grain and we know that in John 12:24 he likened himself to a grain of wheat and likened his work to a grain of wheat that must die: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’ So we can use that verse from John as a key to opening up Leviticus 2 as far as understanding some truths about Jesus is concerned.
The grain offering could be presented uncooked or cooked and would suggest that the uncooked offering is a picture of Jesus’ life, and the cooked offering is a picture of his death. The uncooked offering had oil mixed with it and frankincense put on it. As we noted yesterday, oil often speaks of the Holy Spirit and the New Testament reminds us of several ways in which Jesus was linked to the Spirit: for example, his conception was by the power of the Spirit, and the Spirit descended on him at his baptism and anointed him to fulfil the role of Messiah. Concerning the frankincense, which speaks of prayer, we can see in the Gospels that Jesus was a man of persistent prayer, who spent many hours a day in communion with God. So we can say that when we bring an offering of gratitude to God, we give thanks to him for the holy life of Jesus.
What about the cooked or baked offering? I think it points to the sufferings of Jesus and the three utensils also indicate different aspects of his sufferings. For example, the grain that was baked in an oven was hidden from public view whereas the grain that was cooked in a pan or a griddle was open to others to see how it was being cooked. This would suggest that some of the Saviour’s sufferings were observable by others (such as those who stood around the cross and saw his physical distress) and some of his sufferings were hidden from the sight of all creatures (only God could see what was happening to Jesus’ soul as he bore the heat of the oven of the wrath of God).
There are some other ways in which the grain offering pictures what Jesus did, and we can think about them tomorrow.
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