What a privilege that the Lord our God receives our giving as an act of spiritual worship unto Him! May we be faithful to such an awesome responsibility—the priestly ministry of offering spiritual sacrifices to God! May we not defile His table, and may we not defile ourselves, by taking those resources which God gives us and, as Calvin says, squander them on worldly luxuries while our brothers suffer need.

“But I have received everything in full and have an abundance; I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.”
– Philippians 4:18 –

In the final phrases of Philippians 4:18, Paul describes Christian giving in the language of Old Testament sacrificial worship—language that originated all the way back in Genesis 8. After Noah and his family emerged unharmed through the flood of God’s judgment, he worshiped God: “Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. Yahweh smelled the soothing aroma (same as “fragrant aroma” in Phil 4:18) and Yahweh said to Himself, ‘I will never again curse the ground on account of man…’” (Gen 8:20–21).

This was the essence of worship under the Old Covenant. God’s people were commanded to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, and strength (Deut 6:5), to worship and serve Him only (Deut 6:13; cf. Luke 4:8), and to have no other gods before Him (Exod 20:3). And a principal way in which His people demonstrated that He had occupied first place in their hearts was by offering up to Him of the firstfruits of their livestock, by dedicating animals to God that would have otherwise been used for food or for securing profit through labor. As an act of worship—as a lived-out demonstration that they regarded God as more worthy than their own possessions—like David (cf. 2 Sam 24:24), they gave God that which cost them something.

The one who recognized God’s worth above all things and thus could part gladly and even eagerly with a portion of what God had given to him. And because that was the heart attitude of a faithful worshiper who brought a sacrifice to God, when the odor of the burnt flesh of an ox or a bull or a ram ascended into the heavens, rather than a disgusting stench, the text says it reached the nostrils of God and was to Him a soothing aroma—a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.

Paul uses this very same imagery and applies it to the giving of God’s people in the service of the Gospel. He says, in effect, “Dear Philippians, when Epaphroditus arrived in Rome and laid before me the gift that you had sent with him, it was as if my physical needs were an altar, and your gifts were the sacrifice laid upon that altar. And because your gift was rooted in true fellowship, because it was driven by the Gospel, because it was generous and sacrificial and came from a glad and willing heart—when Epaphroditus set those coins before me to meet my needs, a soothing aroma wafted into heaven. God smelled the sweet-smelling aroma of a spiritual sacrifice, and He smiled. He was pleased.”

And this is the way the New Testament speaks about you and me. We are a kingdom of priests to God (Rev 1:6). The sacrifices we bring before Him are not the carcasses of bulls and goats, but our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice,acceptable (there’s another phrase from Philippians 4), which is our spiritual service of worship (Rom 12:1). 1 Peter 2:5 says that the people of God “are are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer upspiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” And Hebrews 13:15–16 specifies those spiritual sacrifices: “Through [Christ] then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” So the sharing of the needs of the saints are sacrifices, well-pleasing to God.

All of this vivid imagery teaches us plainly that true Christian giving is a sacred act of spiritual worship to God. Whatever benefit our gifts bring to fellow believers, the ultimate recipient of all of our giving to Gospel efforts is none other than God Himself.

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