Chapter 3 LEVITICUS
Leviticus is about the standards of behaviour, first in the temple then in the hearts of the people
The key verse is “Be Holy as I am Holy”. You will remember the people of Israel had been camped at the foot of Mount Sinai and God had come to dwell in the tabernacle in their midst. By the end of Exodus the people had fallen out with God so not even Moses was allowed to enter the tent. Leviticus begins with the Phrase:
The Lord called Moses from the tent of meeting,59
By the end of the book, fellowship is restored and the relationship is restored. Leviticus is about how to restore fellowship. The first seventeen chapters of Leviticus deal with laws and rules relating to Israel as a Holy Nation, especially with regard to their worship in the Tabernacle.
There are five types of sacrifices the Israelites were to make, The first three offerings are regularly made by a person who is still in fellowship with God and wants to show gratitude. These were: Burnt offerings,60 which were usually cooked on the altar and shared; Grain offerings,61 which were waved before the altar and shared with the clan; and Peace offerings,62 which were cooked or baked Grain and then shared. Each of these would be taken to the priest and offered to God, one part would be kept back for temple tax, the rest would be handed back to the family to share.
The last two types of offerings are made when a person is out of fellowship with God. Sin offerings,63 and Guilt offerings,64 These were sacrificial offerings in which the whole offering would be consumed by fire and nothing should be left. These offerings were only for unintentional sin. There was no sacrifice for deliberately sin.
A Closer look at the ups and downs of sin shows a difference between the common view of sin today and the Hebrew understanding. The main difference is that we have a black and white view of behaviour, grey areas are shunted into one or other category by the person doing the judging. The Hebrew people had the doctrine of sin and judgement laid out in the garden of Eden. God reserves the right to judge between good and evil and he allows for grey areas through confession and repentance. When God clarifies something it becomes black or white. Until then there is a range of behaviour between Clean and Unclean which Hebrew thinking called “Common”.
Figure 12: The Hebrew understanding of Sin
Figure 13: Clean to Holy needs assistance
Results of contact always take the lowest level and are therefore downward in direction. When Holy things65 are profaned they become common. When common66 things are polluted they become unclean67. This a natural process that happens to anything that is alive. It is as natural to nature as gravity pulling a falling Jam sandwich until it lands on the floor to be contaminated. It is the downward movement itself that is marked as sin because it leads to death.
By will and self effort humans can reach the standard of clean or common because there is a social drive. Society has learned to be decent to one another because it is mutually beneficial. But to become holy or pure requires the Holy to consume all impurities as we saw from the illustration of the sun in the last chapter.
There are three pictures of cleansing is Scripture. In the sacrifice the Priest who represents the Holy, reaches down to touch the offering. The touch of the pure can cleanse the impure. That is why Jesus was so keen on touch when he healed someone. That we must explore later. The second picture is fire, not only because burning consumes anything combustible and leaves only the pure but also because it puts all that is consumed beyond reach of the impure. In Isaiah chapter-six-verse-seven, the burning coal purified the lips of Isaiah but penetrated down to include thoughts. The third picture is Water. In Revelation a stream is seen coming from the throne of the Holy-One. It enlarges, deepens and widens, spreading through the land. Baptism is also a picture of the process of purifying. Going down into the water and rising again is symbolic of dying to rise again. You will remember Pharisees abused the principle of purifying by declaring something “Corban” rather than giving it to its rightful owner.68
God’s people were called to live differently to all other nations. They were called to be a Nation of Priests and so much was expected of them. As an expression of the fruit of this calling, they were to care for the poor instead of overlooking them as others did, They were to have a higher moral and sexual integrity than other nations and they were to maintain social justice through their entire living.
God is not looking for clean people but Holy People. The significance of Abraham offering Isaac is not in the fact that he was prepared to sacrifice his son but that he recognised only a sacrifice provided by a Holy God could replace the death of Isaac.
59 Leviticus 1: 1.
60 Ch 1: 3-17.
61 Ch 2: 1-16.
62 Ch 3: 1-17.
63 Ch 4: 1-35.
64 Ch 5: 1-6: 7.
65 Sometimes called sacred or Godly in translation.
66 Sometimes called Clean in translation.
67 Sometimes called sinful or bad in translation.
68 Mark 7: 11.