“Only the things set aside for God which you have, and the vows you have vowed to make, you must take and go to the place which Adonai will choose. There you will offer your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the altar of Adonai your God. The blood of your sacrifices is to be poured out on the altar of Adonai your God, and you will eat the meat.”-Deuteronomy 12:26-27
Up until now, we’ve been dealing with the general rules governing the secular slaughter of animals for food.
However, from verse 26 a shift in content takes place where the focus changes over to the general rules for the sacred slaughter of clean animals for sacrificial purposes.
In this section, the Lord is specifically addressing the vow offerings and freewill offerings.
Here’s the thing.
Although the decision to make a vow offering or freewill offering is voluntary, once you make that decision God makes it clear that IT HAS TO BE DONE AT THE CENTRAL SANCTUARY (either the Tabernacle or the Temple).
I can kind of see where God is coming from here.
He’s basically saying just because I’ve relaxed the standards governing meat eating for practical purposes doesn’t mean you can apply that same looseness to matters concerning My Holiness.
When we come to sections like this, you’ll thank your lucky stars that you invested the time to study all the various kinds of sacrifices way back when we were in the book of Leviticus.
Because trust me, your average person when reading sections like this part of the Bible have absolutely no idea what’s going on.
So concerning the Vow and Freewill Offerings, just remember that the Israelites were not obligated to make vows or give more than the required tithes, feast sacrifices and first-fruits offerings.
Whether one would make a vow and/or free-will offering was completely up to the discretion of the worshipper and the Torah ruled that the majority of the meat from these types of sacrifices would go back to the worshipper and the priests for food.
Another reason why these voluntary offerings must not take place outside the central sanctuary goes back to all that we’ve studied about blood and holiness.
Do you recall what we learned?
Again, if the blood of the sacred offering is not splashed onto the Brazen Altar, holiness will NOT be transmitted to the blood.
And if holiness isn’t transmitted to blood, it is good for nothing but to be poured out onto the ground.
The bottom line is that God doesn’t want anyone to even think they can perform a sacred ritual in their own way or at some location of their own choosing.
When it comes to the Lord’s Holiness and its accompanying protocol, there is no relaxing of His standards at all.
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