Key Verse: Leviticus 20:26
Themes to Track: “Be holy for I am holy”
Before you read this, be sure to have read Part 1 so that you may gain a foundation for the book before getting into the text.
The Israelites have been told that the God of all creation wants to set them apart as His own people, be their constant Guide, and dwell with them forever. They have been told of this God who has been pursuing them since the far back days of Abraham. They have been reminded by their leader Moses in the books of Genesis and Exodus of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness to them in being true to His promise to preserve them as a people. They have heard the many stories told by their parents about the time when God parted the Red Sea in order to get the Israelites safely out of slavery in Egypt.
Indeed, this God is pursuing the worship of their hearts. He is pursuing them to respond in fullness to His outpouring of mercy on them. He is seeking their acknowledgement of their need for a restored and flourishing relationship with Him, their Holy and perfect God. He is a lover after the hearts of His children.
It is not hard to see that the book of Leviticus contains many dos and don’ts. When I read Leviticus, I can’t imagine if we were still living under the system in Leviticus today and were required to sacrifice animal after animal for every sin we became aware of. (We can thank Jesus’ death on the cross for that!)
But remember—God never created human beings to be robots. God created man for relationship with Him, a relationship that flows out of a pure and undivided heart toward the King of Kings. The dos and don’ts in Leviticus provide a way for the Israelites to see the ugliness and selfishness in their hearts and turn to a holy God—the only One in the universe who can turn the ugly into beauty, restore the heart of mankind, and bring an individual into an intimate friendship with Him in which the individual’s actions are the overflow of love for his Savior, enabled through the life of Christ within him.
God was always, always after the hearts of His people. It was never the action, but the attitude of the heart.
God did not want them to obey these rules just because He told them to.
God wanted the Israelites to obey these rules out of worshipful hearts who realized the magnitude of the holiness of their God, hearts crying out, “You are holy, we are not. Restore us to You, God, and help us to be more like You in holiness!”
In the book of Leviticus, there are three different kinds of laws:1
- Moral laws — These laws are what we refer to as the Ten Commandments. They are laws that reflect right and wrong in the way Israel was to relate to God and man.
- Civil/case laws — These laws were given to the Israelites to guide them in the areas of social, political, and economic life.
- Ceremonious/religious laws — These showed Israel how to worship God through sacrifices and offerings, carried out through the establishment of the Levitical Priesthood (see chapters 1-10).
Many people get confused when it comes to chapters 11-15, where all the laws about cleanliness are given. Why were women “unclean” during their monthly cycles? Why was pork considered “unclean” to eat? Why such an extreme process for becoming “clean” after a bout of leprosy?
It is important to remember that in these times, the people had no concept of germs. They have no concept of good hygiene. They don’t know what certain foods will do to their bodies. God is not only looking out for their spiritual well-being, but their physical well-being as well. If the people had not obeyed these laws, many diseases would have easily spread around.
However, I think these laws do more than help the Israelites’ health. They point back to the entire theme of the book—the perfect, complete, and absolute holiness of God. God is holy, they are not.
Right in the middle of the book, chapter 16 serves as the climax of Leviticus, followed by the civil and spiritual laws, as well as commandments to annually celebrate festivals in remembrance of God’s faithfulness.
In Chapter 16, God commands the people how to carry out something that was called the Day of Atonement. You see, God knew beforehand that, despite being given the law, the Israelites were still going to mess up. They were still going to make mistakes and break laws because of their sinful human nature. Because of that, God established a day during the year on which the high priest would go into the holiest place of the tabernacle—the Holy of Holies—where the very presence of God was dwelling. There the priest would make a sacrifice for ALL the sins of ALL the people.
When the high priest came out, he confessed all of the sins of the people over a goat, which he would then send into the wilderness, as a symbol of something else taking on the sins of the people so that they could be forgiven.
In 16:34, we read that God commanded the people to keep the Day of Atonement every year. There was never going to be a year in which they stopped sinning. They were always going to be humans in need of atonement and a right relationship with God.
Guess what? We also are humans. We mess up. We make mistakes. We are sinners. But there’s a big difference between us and the Israelites—because of the amazing, sacrificial work of Jesus Christ on the cross, we no longer have to have a Day of Atonement each year. If it were not for the cross of Jesus Christ, we would still be living under this system in Leviticus. The book of Leviticus is a book that should arouse a magnitude of thankfulness for what Jesus did on the cross. ALL sin was atoned for ONE time with ONE sacrifice and it is effective for ALL time. Jesus’ blood has made us right with God, our Father, Creator of the Universe.
How much do you value the cross the blood was spilled upon?
If you want to go a step further with Leviticus, I challenge you to read it along with the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. Hebrews goes into greater depth about the magnitude of the sacrifice of Jesus and what it accomplished. It shows more of how the system in Leviticus is a foreshadow of the one-time work of atonement through Jesus Christ, God’s ultimate plan of redemption for all people He has called to be set apart as His own.
Because we are living in the New Covenant, we are no longer “under” the Mosaic Law found in Leviticus. However, there is common confusion about how the Mosaic Law relates to a believer’s life, such as the Ten Commandments. There is not room to go into detail about that matter here, but I definitely encourage you to check out the article I used to help me understand this further. I found it very easy to understand and helpful. It’s a lengthy one, but worth the read! You can find it at http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=880.
1The Mosaic Law: Its Function and Purpose in the New Testament, by J. Hampton Keathley, III , Th.M., http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=880
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