Leviticus 3 · a question people ask
Is the peace offering a picture of Jesus?
Leviticus 3 doesn't mention a coming Messiah, and no New Testament verse names the peace offering. The New Testament does speak of peace made through Christ's blood. Paul writes of Christ, "through him to reconcile all things to himself by him… having made peace through the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20), and "he is our peace" (Ephesians 2:14). Christians read the link in two main ways. All agree that the peace Christ made came "through the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A picture of peace with God
Those who hold this view note that Hebrews calls the law "a shadow of the good to come" (Hebrews 10:1). In the peace offering the blood is sprinkled on the altar (3:2) and then the offering is eaten (Leviticus 7:15), and Paul sets Israel's eating of sacrifices beside the cup and the bread: "Don’t those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?" (1 Corinthians 10:18), after "The cup of blessing which we bless, isn’t it a sharing of the blood of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16). They read the peace offering as a shadow of the peace Christ made (Colossians 1:20).
Hebrews 10:1 · Leviticus 3:2 · Leviticus 7:15 · 1 Corinthians 10:16-18 · Colossians 1:20
Peace through the cross, without this offering's details
Those who hold this view note that the New Testament passages on peace speak of the cross (Colossians 1:20, Ephesians 2:16) without naming any one offering, and that when Hebrews explains Leviticus's sacrifices it points to the high priest going in "once in the year, not without blood" (Hebrews 9:7) and to "one sacrifice for sins forever" (Hebrews 10:12). They read the peace offering as part of the whole law that Hebrews calls a shadow (Hebrews 10:1), without drawing a line from its details in particular.
Colossians 1:20 · Ephesians 2:16 · Hebrews 9:7 · Hebrews 10:1 · Hebrews 10:11-12
The verses
“and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.”
“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility through it.”