A Riddle: What is as bitter as wormwood and as sweet as honey at the same time?

I got this email question the other day from Rick who teaches about the Tabernacle of Moses in his church. Allow me to share my answer with all of you. — Natan

While teaching on the offerings when I presented the “meal offering” I had a few questions. Since the meal offering was fine flour, green ears, frankincense, oil, or salt, I mentioned that there was not supposed to be any leaven or honey put on the sacrifice. Questions follow;

  1. Why couldn’t honey be put on the offering?
  2. I was also asked “no shedding of blood there is no remission of sin”? I think I know why this is, and that is, that this is a meal offering of fellowship and not for trespass or sin offering. Am I correct in my thinking?

I have looked for the answers to both these and can’t seem to find the answers to either. Can you help? I appreciate your answers to questions I have had so far and am thankful that I have someone that I can call on. I think I have as much curiosity about a deeper study as my class does. Any help, I would be grateful.

Honey is sweet  and delightful to the taste and such has nothing to do with the death or is not an attribute of Yeshua’s death. His atoning death for sin was not a sweet or delightful thing and is therefore not an apt symbolic prophetic representation of his horrific death on the cross! That’s why I believe it was a prohibited ingredient for the meal offering.
The meal or grain offering (it was like matzah) was part of the twice daily (olah-tamid) sacrifices and was baked on the altar of sacrifice, which represented Yeshua’s death on the cross. In fact, Yeshua was crucified during the evening sacrifice at about 3:30PM. The meal offering was also part of the fellowship or peace offering and didn’t represent Yeshua’s death per se. It was as barbecue among friends celebrating a reconciled relationship (now that our sins are forgiven and we’re redeemed and can come into the presence of YHVH in right relationship). Thus, the meal offering was part of both both the expiatory and fellowship aspects of the sacrificial system. Why is that? This is because there are two aspects to Yeshua’s death on the cross: the blood/wine and his body/the bread—which are the communion elements we take during the Passover seder meal as per Yeshua’s command. First, our sins are  remitted by his shed blood, not by his  broken body. His blood is for atonement of sin—it paid the legal debt of our sin. His body, on the other hand, was for our healing (“by his stripes we are healed”). Now that our sin debt has been paid, we can be healed by his life flowing through us unhindered by sin. His body also resurrected. Bread is the staff of life. Our sins are washed away by his blood, but his body or His Word brings us life and resurrection once redemption has occurred. This is why the meal offering was part of the sacrificial and fellowship offerings. It speaks not to redemption, but to life in Yeshua now that we’re redeemed. This is what the communion elements represent. Together, they speak both to the idea of redemption from sin and new life as a result. HalleluYah!
Answer to the riddle: The death and resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah!
 

1 thought on “A Riddle: What is as bitter as wormwood and as sweet as honey at the same time?

  1. As your “header” above (Psalms 119:103) to this page proclaims, the Bible states that God’s “words” are sweeter than honey! Yeshua’s (the Word incarnate) resurrection totally “fits” with the answer to the riddle, as you noted.

    Note that the “land of milk and honey” (milk as a physical life-sustaining food analagous to God’s Word as a spiritual life-sustaining food) also refers to land promised in God’s Word!

Share your thoughts...