Regarding God as Holy

Today, we’ll be moving on to Leviticus 10.

Chapters 6-7 gave more instructions on the sacrifices to be offered.

Chapters 8-9 were basically the ordination ceremony of the priests, the significance of which I’ve already covered in one of the Exodus blogs.

And so we come here to another uncomfortable story in the Old Testament.

Two of Aaron’s sons, came to offer incense, but did so in a way that was in direct disobedience to God’s commands and as a result, God took their lives.

Why did God do this?  Was what they did so wrong?  There are two things that should be remembered here.

First, they were God’s priests.  As such, they were held to a much higher standard than the rest of the people, as I pointed out in my last blog.

But also, this was no sin out of ignorance.  This was deliberate sin by Aaron’s sons.

They had been told in Exodus 30:9 not to offer any other incense than the one prescribed by God, and this was just what they did.

In addition, they also appeared to light their own fire instead of taking it from the one that God had started (in chapter 9 of Leviticus) and that the priests were to maintain.

This was again in disobedience to the Lord’s commands.

There is also the possibility that they did this because they were drunk.

In verse 9, God told Aaron that he and his sons were not to drink wine when coming before God in the tabernacle.

The key verse in all this is verse 3 where God said,

‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy,
And before all the people I will be honored.’’ (Leviticus 10:3, NASB)

In other words, by doing things their own way, instead of God’s way, they forgot that he was a holy God who is to be honored.

And for a priest, this was especially a serious offense because other people looked to them for spiritual leadership.

If the spiritual leaders don’t treat God as holy, what will their followers do?

How about us?  Do we regard God as holy?

So many times we talk about God’s love and grace, but we forget about his holiness.  That he is a God that hates sin.  That he is a God that is pure.

And because we forget it, we do things that are unholy and unpure.

By doing that, we bring dishonor to his name as God’s priests.

God told Aaron,

“You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, and you must teach the Israelites all the decrees the LORD has given them through Moses.” (10-11)

And we as God’s priests are also to distinguish between what is holy and what is not.  What is pure and what is not.

What’s more, we are to be a light to the people around us who don’t know these things.

But how are we to be light, if we are the same as everyone else?

God is a God of grace and love.  That’s true.

But it would be well for us to remember that he is a holy God too.  And as such, we are to treat him as holy as we live our lives.