I want to be honest, Leviticus is not the most exciting book to read. Historically many pastors have strayed from teaching its contents and when they do they teach it as moral case studies. Unless we view the Scriptures as Christian Scripture we too will fall into this category of ignoring one the many books of our “bible”. I want to attempt to help you see this a bit clearer with today’s reading.

Put yourself in the shoe of a Hebrew. You have been delivered from the slavery that has oppressed you your entire life, you have seen plagues utterly abase the greatest kingdom ever, you have seen the mighty Pharaoh (a god in and of himself) humbled, broken and eventually drowned in the same waters that were miraculously parted and then released on the greatest military around. Later this God that Moses has talked about you have heard, you have seen Him come down in a cloud, feed you from the sky,  give you water from a rock and graciously enter into a relationship with you by the way of a covenant.

Now, you will begin to understand just how Holy this God. He is terrifying, all powerful, all knowing but in spite of all of this He is full of grace. However this grace is not free, something (and later someone) has to pay for God not to utterly obliterate you and that is where I want to pick up.

Death is forever before the Hebrew. As you read through Leviticus I want you to keep the concept of DEATH before your eyes, it is the scarlet thread so to say of our biblical narrative and will unfold beautifully in the person and work of Christ.  So go back a few thousands years.  I want you to see the knife slit the throat of the lamb, bull, goat and ram,  I want you to see the blood trickle down their neck as they scream and kick. I want you to hear the squealing, see the priest wrestle with the animal. I want you see the pools and pools of blood. Now I want you to smell these animals. I want you to smell the blood. Look at the heart, look at the liver, look at the kidneys, look at all that blood. Look at the blood on Aaron’s ear, his clothes are saturated in blood, he stinks. The smell is nauseating, it is disgusting to see the animal, with all of its skin, eyes, ears and teeth, being cut up. Now I want you to see the fire that is kindling, I want you to see the priest THROW all of this stuff into the fire, I want you to see the remainder of some of these animals, thrown outside of the camp, look at the dung smell it, touch it, let the scent soak into your skin.

Now, see a HOLY GOD only blinking at your sin, because tomorrow it is going to happen again, and the next day, and the next year, year after year, day after day, the smell, the death, the sacrifice is perpetuated. And day after day, sin is before God and He graciously accepts this sacrifice but only temporarily. These scents, these deaths, these innocent animals, are a PLEASING sacrifice to the Father. Because HE HATES SIN! And He WILL NOT be approached, talked with, bargained with until His wrath and hate for sin has been propitiated!

Now after all of that, think of His Son Jesus Christ, who was also innocent who bore the wrath of His Father, agonizing in the garden, beat, mocked and spit on and nailed to a cross. And much like the sacrifice of these animals just became another thing, they got used to the scent. Many today are used to the story of our Lord, they come Easter after Easter, Christmas after Christmas, they drive pass church after church, they hear the stories, hear the songs, they know all about this and guess what? They too have grown cold!  But not only them those who have experienced this grace are bored with the story of Jesus. We say “I get it He died on the cross, I got it already, can’t we move on”. But our actions show we haven’t got it. We see the obedience of the Lamb and yet don’t follow in His footsteps. Yes we need to hear more of this Jesus. Our reading in Matthew deals with this. Much like God judged the Hebrews for their passivity, Jesus will judge others for theirs! Lets not take Leviticus too lightly my friends.

Atonement, Propitiation, Sacrfice, Wrath

Today’s reading has us listening in to the conversation God had with Moses. God is giving details on how He is to be worshipped and not only that, who is allowed to approach Him. We have before us the purification of the priest, the instruments of worship, how God is to be approached and what must be offered to Him as acceptable. You see God gave CLEAR details and nothing else will be accepted. The result of approaching God wrong, offering something unacceptable, using the wrong instruments and even substituting something else for what HE has commanded resulted in only one thing. DEATH!

Today; however, many believe they can worship God however they please. You hear “come as you are” or even worse, many teachers in the body of Christ feel that anything and everything is acceptable. Others say “don’t judge”, this my friend is in a specific context and it is not that we don’t judge, we don’t judge wrongly or hypocritically. But we MUST make a judgment call on what God calls acceptable worship and what He does not. As ambassadors of His word we have no choice. And just in case we believe that God only kills in the Old Testament we only need to read Acts 5:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 11:27-32.

But why we must ask? Because God is Holy, Righteous, Just and Perfect and He is not to be played with. God is not a nice cosmic teddy bear that you can hug whenever you are feeling down, nor is He like Santa Claus, big jolly with a red suit bringing gifts and candy to good little boys and girls. Nor is He like a jolly ol’ grandpa who allows the children to behave unruly when they are with Him. God is not like us and any God who does not look like the God of Numbers 16:25-35 is a god of our imagination. However….

God has provided a way. We will see a High Priest who does not need to offer up atonement for Himself  (Hebrews 9:11-28). He will be the all sufficient, ram, lamb and bull. No need for bells to be tied to Him, no need for Him to kill a bull at the opening of the tent, no need for Him to slay a young ram and poor its blood on the alter, nope! He is all sufficient 100% God and 100% Man. We will see the blood of bulls and goats can never atone for the people. It will tell us in Romans that God only winked at our sin, but every year more bulls, more goats, more doves, more lambs had to die. More incense, more perfume, more anointing oil, had to be burned and poured. Thank God of Jesus Christ.

Finally in our NT reading we see this “come as you are” also being rejected. There is a parable about a great wedding. The original invitees not only rejected the invitiation but killed the King’s servants. You see what the response to that was right (Matthew 22:7). He then went out and called those who were not invited and many came; however, one “came as he was”. And the results were tragic for that fella.

God will only be worshipped on His terms. He is too Holy to negotiate with man. Do not be fooled that you can come as you are, you must come, covered with the blood of Christ or you will hear on that day “depart from me, I never knew you”. Don’t be numbered in that number friend. Trust wholly in the Lord Jesus, He has approached God on your behalf, you only need to be sprinkled in His blood.

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After reading Lionel’s comment about the parallels between Joseph and Jesus, I have reassessed the story in light of the similarities, and I can barely keep my seat! I saw some connection before, but as the story progresses the connection is getting deeper and more glorious than I’ve ever seen before.

The Lord God used Joseph to preserve a remnant and save the lives of the very men that betrayed him. Let me say that again. By divine intention Joseph was rejected (Isaiah 53:3; John 1:11), falsely accused (Matthew 27:11-26), and bore the punishment of sins he did not commit so that a remnant could be saved (1 Peter 2:24)!

Joseph realized that it was the Lord’s doing that he should suffer separation from his beloved father and the rest of his family so that he could bring deliverance (a salvation of sorts) when the time was right (Romans 5:6). So, when he met up with his brothers again, he did not make them suffer for their former sins. He was so overwhelmed with joy that they would be saved; he wept and hugged them and immediately began making provision for them.

When I see these glimpses of the Savior throughout redemptive history and cannot help but rejoice because I see Him more clearly and love God more deeply.

Allegory, Sovereignty, Suffering

Today’s reading has us finding Abraham on a journey again (the pilgrim motif is throughout scripture). Again when Abraham is faced with opposition he crumbles under the pressure. He has Sarah collaborate with him on the same lie he spoke earlier in our readings. Because he feared his life he tells Abimelech that his wife is really his sister (a half-truth is a full lie). Because of this Abimelech takes Sarah because she is beautiful with the full expectation to make her one of his wives.

That night God appears in a dream and scares Abimelech out of his socks. It is funny that God says “I did not allow you”. Often times we think we have free will; however, our free will, will NEVER complicate the plans and hand of God. We see here the protection of the seed. In spite of Abimelech’s anger he does not lay a hand on Sarah nor Abraham. If it were not for God’s hand Abimelech most likely would have slayed Abraham on the spot!

A quick side note is that Abimelech says that he is “innocent”. This is not totally true, yes, he may have been innocent in this act; however, no one is innocent. The true seed of Abraham will prove this by His death, burial and resurrection. Often times today we hear “why does bad things happen to good people”. This is a theological error. No one has been innocent since the fall as Paul rightfully points out “all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23).

Next in spite of Abraham’s sin God provides for the promise seed with the wealth of Abimelech (actually God owns all the wealth). This again shows us God’s provision for His people. Paul says to Timothy  “when we are faithless He remains faithful”. We will see that throughout the OT God will continually provide for His people Israel in spite of their failures.

The next provision has Gospel implications. After the promise child is born, God comes to Him and says “offer up your son for a burnt offering”. We can assume that Abraham wrestled with this idea; however, the scriptures never express this. Abraham moves collects the wood, gathers his knife and is ready to offer Isaac up. Immediately God rebukes Abraham and tells Him not to touch the child and provides a ram for him. It is funny that earlier Abraham ensures Isaac that “God will provide a lamb for Himself”. This lamb unfolds to be the Lord Jesus Christ.

However we will later see God will not spare His own son like He did Abraham’s. But what we do see in Hebrews 11 is that Abraham at this point in time was already trusting in the resurrection, he was sure if God told Him to do that He would raise Isaac from the dead, the promise depended on it and God had proved Himself faithful.  God would have raised Isaac just like the promise to us to be raised. Isaac and the ram are pictures and Jesus is the fulfillment.

Today’s reading has shown us that God’s promised plan given back in Genesis 3 is unfolding and we are getting closer and closer to that seed which will crush the serpents head. We see that God will not be prevented from accomplishing His promises. We can rest assure that what God has promised us He will do. He will protect and provide for this promise and through our faith we have been added to this promise.

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