The book of Leviticus is the third book
of the Bible and it's set right after the exodus of the Israelites from their
slavery when God brought them to the foot of Mount Sinai and invited Israel
into a covenant relationship. Now they had quickly rebelled and broken the
covenant. And God had wanted for his glorious presence to come and live right in the
midst of Israel in the form of this Tabernacle, but Israel's sin has damaged
the relationship. So, at the end of the previous book, Exodus, Moses as Israel's
representative could not even enter God's presence in the tent. The Book of
Leviticus opens by reminding us of this fundamental problem. It says the Lord
called to Moses from the tent. So the question is, "How can Israel in their sin
and selfishness be reconciled to this holy God?" That's what this book is all
about--how God is graciously providing a way for sinful, corrupt people to live in
his holy presence. Now let's pause for a second and explore this really
important idea that God is holy. It's fundamental to understanding this book.
The word holy means simply to be set apart or unique. And in the Bible, God is
set apart from all other things because of his unique role as the Creator of all,
as the author of life itself. And so if God is holy, then the space around God is
also holy. It's full of his goodness and his life and purity and justice. So if
Israel, who is unjust and sinful, wants to live in God's holy presence, they too
need to become holy. Their sin has to be dealt with. Thus, book of Leviticus. Now the book has a really amazing symmetrical design. It explores the three
main ways that God helps Israel to live in his presence. The outer sections are
descriptions of the rituals Israel was to practice in God's holy presence. The
next intersections focus on the role of Israel's priests as mediators between
God and Israel and inside of that are two matching sections that focus on
Israel's purity. And then right here at the center of the book there's a key
ritual, the Day of Atonement, that brings the whole book together. The book
concludes with a short section where Moses calls on Israel to be faithful to
this covenant. Let's dive into the book. The first
section explores the five main types of ritual sacrifices that Israel was to
perform. Two of these were ways that, in Israel, I could say "thank you" to God by
offering back to God the symbolic tokens of what God has first forgiven them. Three other sacrifices were different ways of saying sorry to God. So here in Israel, I
would offer up the lifeblood of an animal while confessing that their sin
has created more evil and death in God's good world. But instead of destroying
this person, God of course wants to forgive them. And so this animal
symbolically dies in their place and atones, which means it covers for their sin. And so through these rituals the Israelites were constantly being
reminded of God's grace but also of his justice and the seriousness of their
evil and its consequences. The second set of rituals lays out the seven annual
feasts of Israel. And each of these retold a different part of the story about how
God redeemed them from slavery in Egypt and brought them through the wilderness
on their way to the promised land. And by celebrating these feasts regularly,
Israel would remember who they were and who God was to them. Now the sections
about Israel's priests: you have Aaron and his sons first ordained to enter
into God's presence on behalf of Israel and then in this matching section we
find the qualifications for being a priest. The priests were called to the
highest level of moral integrity and ritual holiness because they represented
the people before God but then also represented God to the people. Now we
find out why the priests' holiness matter so much. Back here in this first section,
right after the family of Aaron was ordained, two of his sons waltz right
into God's presence and flagrantly violate the rules. And so they are
consumed by God's holiness on the spot. It's a haunting reminder of the paradox
of living in God's holy presence because it's pure goodness, but it becomes
dangerous to those who rebell and insult God's holiness. And so it's
important that Israel's priests become holy and also that all of the people
of Israel become holy, which is what the next
intersections are all about. Chapters 11 through 15 are about the
ritual purity required of all the Israelites and chapters
18-20 are about the moral purity of the people. Here's what's
underneath all of this purity and impurity language. Because God is holy,
and he's set apart, the Israelites need to be in a state of holiness themselves.
When they enter into his presence, this was called being clean or pure. God's
presence was off limits to anybody who was not in a holy state. And this was
called being unclean or impure. Now in Israel I could become impure in just a
few ways: by contact with reproductive body fluids, by having a skin disease, by
touching mold or fungus, or by touching a dead body. Now for the Israelites, all of
these were associated with mortality, with the loss of life. Which gets us to
the core symbol of all these ideas. You become impure when you're contaminated by touching death, so to speak. And death is the opposite of God's holiness
because God 's essence is life. Now this is really key: simply being impure was not
sinful or wrong. Touching these kinds of things was a normal part of everyday
life and impurity was a temporary state. It just lasted a week or two and then it's
over. What was wrong or sinful was to waltz into God's presence carrying these
symbols of death and impurity on my body. Don't do that. Now the last way of
becoming impure was by eating certain animals. And the kosher food laws are
found right here in this section. Now there have been lots of theories about
why certain animals were considered impure and off-limits. To promote hygiene or to avoid cultural taboos--the text just isn't explicit. But the basic point
of all of these chapters is really clear. Altogether these work as an elaborate
set of cultural symbols that remind Israel that God's holiness was to effect all
areas of their lives. This corresponding section over here is
about Israel's moral purity. The Israelites were called to live
differently than the Canaanites. They were to care for the poor
instead of overlooking them. They were to have a high level of sexual integrity,
and they were to promote justice throughout their entire land. Now, here at
the center of the book we find a long description of one of Israel's annual
feasts, the Day of Atonement. Odds are that not every Israelite's sin and rebellion
would be covered through the individual sacrifices and so once a year the high
priest would take two goats. One of these would become a purification offering and
atone for the sins of the people and the other was called the scapegoat. The
priest would confess the sins of Israel and symbolically place them on
this goat and then it would be cast out into the wilderness. Again, a very
powerful image of God's desire to remove sin and its consequences from his people
so that God can live with them in peace. The book concludes with Moses calling
Israel to be faithful to all of the terms of the covenant and he describes
the blessings of peace and abundance that will result if Israel obeys all of
these laws. He also warns them that if they are unfaithful and dishonor God's
holiness, it will result in disaster and ultimately exile from the land promised
Abraham. Now if you want to see how Leviticus fits into the big storyline,
it's helpful to look at the first sentence of the next book of the Bible,
Numbers. It begins, "The Lord spoke to Moses 'in' the tent," so we can see that
Moses is now able to enter God's presence on behalf of Israel. The Book of
Leviticus, it worked! So, despite Israel's failure, God has provided a way
for their sin to be covered so that God can live with sinful people in peace. And
that's what the book of Leviticus is all about.
