In the meat (meal) offering there was the prohibition of “any honey.” It means a thing pleasant as to nature, and not wrong, but incapable of being offered to God. There cannot be a finer proof of the absence in Christ of a sweetness merely natural than the way He acted even where His mother was concerned. Scripture has recorded that she did ask our Lord for special favors, but her requests were not granted. He came to do the will of Him that sent Him and to finish His work. As a child He lived subject to Joseph and Mary, but when He entered on the service of God, it would have been mingling honey with the meat offering if He had answered her petitions. What an anticipation, and indeed rebuke, for the vain superstition of men who would make Mary the chief means of access to God by influencing His Son! He was perfect. He did not come to gratify even the amiable side of human nature; He came to do the will of God. This He did, and the oblation or meat offering shows it.
There was the unction of the Spirit, not leaven, and the salt of the covenant, not honey. This did not exclude, as we are told, the offering of honey as firstfruits, or even loaves baked with leaven, but they could not be burned, as not being in themselves a sweet savor (Lev. 2:1212As for the oblation of the firstfruits, ye shall offer them unto the Lord: but they shall not be burnt on the altar for a sweet savor. (Leviticus 2:12)).
W. Kelly (adapted)