The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 300

The beautiful way the Lord secured his own recognition as the bountiful Giver was by enacting that blood, since it is the means used in atonement, must be devoted to no meaner use. Hence it was to be carefully put away, either by the priest at the taber- nacle, or by the huntsman in the dust of the wilderness, and the animal used as a peace offering before God (ver. 5). What we have consequently in this chapter is the religious use offood, or, as we have put it, " Grace before meat." In this connection let us observe- !. THAT GoD HAS IMPLANTED SOME MEMENTO OF HIMSELF IN ALL oun FOOD. Vege- table as well as animal life, of which we are reminded at every meal, is the sign manual of the living God. It is worse than stupidity not to recognize in the food we eat the gifts of his bounteous hand. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither ~ho.ilow of turning" (Jae. i. 17). Why personify nature into a giver as a mere sub- terfuge for gross in;?:Tatitude? '!'he Divine hand is behind the whola, and an honest hL·art can see it and will bless it as the source of all I Il, GOD REMINDS UB AT EVERY MEAL OF ATONEMENT AB THE PRELIMINARY TO PEACE. AND FELLOWSliIP, For all our food once thrilled with organic life. There is literally the sac1i.6.ce of life, vegetable and animal, in every meal. Vegetarians sacrifice micro- scopic life, after all their efforts to sacrifice nothing but vegetable life, Thus our raca is reminded of the first principle of atonement, every time we sit down at the tal>le which a bounteous providence has spread. In fact, it is our own fault if every feast b~ not in a certain sense sacramental. 'l'hc Supper of the New 'l'estament, as well 11s t~o Passover of the Old, em bodies the sacrifice of lifo in order to the support of man, It 1s on this principle that the world is constituted. If, then, we listened to the voice ol :Nature as we ou;,,ht to do, we would bear her calling in every feast for the grateful reco~nition of that principle in atonement to which we havo r~ferred. _Peace, n~d C?m- muruon ~e really based in the order of nature upon the eac11fice of life, ' V1canoua llll, XVII, 1-16,] THE BCJOK OF LEVITICUS. 265