It is good for us to notice carefully the beginnings of the chapters. In our chapter today we see that there is another message from God. Like all the others, it was given first to Moses, but it was to all the people, as well as to Aaron and his sons the priests, and the message begins,
“This is the thing which the Lord ‘lath commanded.”
There is no room left to decide for oneself, when the word is, “This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded.”
In the 16th chapter we found atonement, and what we read here is leading on from that picture of the one sacrifice of Christ, telling us more and more of God’s ways and His character, and what the ways and character of those whose sins have been put away out of God’s sight should be.
So we begin with two things in chapter 17.
First, the one true God was always to be in their thoughts, so that they would come before Him with thankful hearts, remembering that through the blood of a Substitute, they had a place of favor and blessing with Him.
Second, that life belongs to God, and the power of the atonement is in the blood of the substitute, “for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” In a word, They who knew God, were to honor God.
Do you, dear children, seek to honor God in your daily life?