February 16, 2018
Salt was the opposite of leaven. Salt was always to be added to the sacrifice, but never leaven. Salt represented purity and preservation, but leaven represented impurity and sin. Salt was a sign of God’s eternal covenant. It was even mentioned as a sign of the eternal covenant God made with David that the throne belonged to his descendants forever (2 Chron. 13:5). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told His disciples that they were the “salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13). We are to be agents of Christ in this world, representing His gospel to the nations.
February 16, 2016
Leaven is a substance, typically yeast, that is added to dough to make it ferment and rise. It helps make bread light and fluffy and more tasty. So, why does God prohibit its use in the grain offering? The Bible doesn’t answer this question directly, yet it does offer several hints. Consider how Jesus used the symbol of leaven to describe the false teaching and hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt.16:6,12, Mark 8:15, Luke 12:1). He warned his disciples to “beware the leaven” of their teaching. In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he used leaven to illustrate how a little wickedness and corruption will “leaven the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5:6-8). So, he warned them to purge it out and become a “new lump.” If leaven is the biblical symbol for sin and death, then it would be taboo to offer it on the altar of blessing and life.