Category: Leviticus

Well, this is the last chapter of Leviticus, and it was not nearly as painful as I thought it would be. There were actually a number of things that were quite interesting. It gives me some hope for the rest of my reading.

This last part of Leviticus deals with vows. And one thing that it shows is how seriously God takes them.

God never requires vows from us, but it’s very clear from this passage that if we make them, he expects us to fulfill them.

There was some grace given in the fulfillment of the vows in the form of redemption.

If, for example, a person vowed to give his son or daughter to the Lord’s service (as was the case with Samuel), but the parent then wanted to have their child back, they could pay a redemption price for the child.

In that way, the vow was considered fulfilled.

And different laws were given here for redeeming whatever was originally offered to God as a vow, whether it was a person, an animal, a house, land, or whatever it was.

But when a vow was given to God, it had to be fulfilled, and not just in any way the person wanted to fulfill it. It had to be fulfilled in the way that God prescribed.

Once you made a vow, you couldn’t just change your mind.

What does this mean for us? I think we need to be very careful about the words that we speak before God.

I remember when I was in a Christian camp, one of our teachers talked about how he never sang the song “I Surrender All.” (Or some other song like that—I don’t remember the exact title.)

The reason was he felt that he was in effect praying those words and making a promise to God. So while he wanted to say those words, he didn’t feel he could keep them.

What was very amusing was that later that day, our camp leader then led us in singing that very song, and all of us campers felt very uncomfortable singing it because of what we’d just heard.

After the song was over, our camp leader wondered out loud if most of us had never heard the song before. (I’m sure our teacher and the camp leader had a good laugh about it later.)

At any rate, I suppose I take a modified view of it.

Whenever I sing these types of songs with such strong words, I’m often praying in my mind, “Lord, help me to keep these words. I’m weak. I often fail. But this is my heart’s desire: that I would surrender all to you.”

What promises do you make to God? Do you keep them? If you don’t, you’re better off not making them at all. In fact, Jesus said,

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’

But I tell you, do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.

And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black.

Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:33–37)

What if you’ve already made your vow and you find you can’t keep it?

Then I would suggest you go to Jesus, your high priest, and ask him what you should do.

When a person wanted to redeem his child or someone else he had dedicated but couldn’t afford the price, he was able to go to the priest, and the priest could change the price to something the person could afford.

I believe it’s the same with us. God will give us grace. He will help us find a way to keep our vows to him.

But quite frankly, it’s best to just keep your yeses yes, and your nos no.

Many times, when people think of God, they think of him as someone who’s ready to zap them as soon as they do something wrong.

I suppose passages like this don’t do much to take away that image. But I think there’s one thing we should keep in mind as we read this passage.

God is not talking here about a person who loves God and is trying to serve him with his or her whole heart.

Instead, he’s talking about people who are willfully setting their faces against him. People who “do not listen,” who “reject my decrees and abhor my laws,” and who ultimately are “stubborn and hostile toward me.”

It is to these kinds of people that God is addressing. And when we set our face against God and become hostile to him, he takes action.

But there are a couple of things that I think we should note here about God’s discipline.

One of the main things God is saying here is that by setting our hearts against him, we remove ourselves from his protection, and that is the reason that so many bad things happen to us.

How many people have faced the wasting disease of AIDS because they’ve rejected God’s teaching on sex, for example?

How many times do we live in fear, even without cause, because we are no longer relying on God but on ourselves?

How many times do we find ourselves attacked by Satan and are helpless to fight him because we’ve taken ourselves out from God’s protection?

And yet so often, when all these things happen, we blame God.

But another thing to note is God’s reason for allowing all these things to come into our lives. It’s not to destroy us.

Satan wants to destroy us. God doesn’t. Instead, he simply wants us to repent and turn back to him.

Even in our darkest times, when our lives are falling apart because of our sin, God never completely abandons us. We may break faith with God. God never breaks faith with us.

And if we’ll just repent, he’ll show his grace to us once again. He will forgive our sins and restore us, just as he did with the Israelites. The whole reason for God’s discipline in our lives is so that he might show us his grace once again.

And that’s how we are to live every day—under his grace. Even on our best days, we are in need of his grace.

God is not looking to zap us. Instead, he’s looking to give us more grace.

So don’t live in fear of God. He loves you. Instead, let us keep a heart that’s softened toward him and open to the grace that he longs to give to us.

“What does God want from us?”

That’s a question that many people ask. And as they look at this passage, they seem to find that answer. God wants our obedience. And so they put their focus on the laws of God and try their best to obey them.

But unfortunately, by focusing on the law of God, they find themselves overburdened and discouraged because they find that they can’t keep the law perfectly no matter how hard they try.

But as I look at this passage, I see the answer to another question: “What does God want for us?”

What does God want for us? I think the answer is found in verses 12–13, where he said,

I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high. (Leviticus 26:12–13)

What is God saying here about his desire for us?

First, he’s saying he wants a close, intimate relationship with us. One where he walks closely with us every day. One where we look up to him in love as his people, and he looks down at us in love as our God.

Second, he desires us to be free. That’s why he broke the Israelites’ bondage to the Egyptians. And that’s why he broke us out of bondage to sin and to Satan’s kingdom.

And third, he desires us to walk with heads held high.

No longer walking in the shame of sin. No longer wondering whether God accepts us and loves us.

But walking with heads held high because our sins have been atoned for and we have a right relationship with our God.

This is where a relationship with God starts.

Not with our own efforts to obey God’s commands. But by God breaking into our lives, setting us free from bondage to sin and the shame that comes from it. And by him walking in close communion with us.

As we walk with God as his people, and as we follow him, we find blessings in our lives. What blessings?

1. We find God’s provision in our lives, with him meeting our every need. (verses 4–5)
2. We find God’s peace. (6)

No longer do we need to fear what the future holds for us. Because we know God holds the future.

3. We find victory. (7–8)

In our battles against sin, and our battles against Satan and his demons, we not only win, but win overwhelmingly.

4. We find fruitfulness in our lives. (9–10)

In our families, in our work, and in the ministries God gives us, we bear much fruit for God and his kingdom.

5. We find God’s presence in our lives. (11–12)

As God has said, he will never leave us or forsake us.

That’s what God wants for us.

How much less of a burden would obedience be if we would focus on God’s desire for us and on what he’s already done for us?

We obey God not to free ourselves from sin. We obey God not to earn his love. We obey God because we’ve already been set free and have received his love.

And if we focus on and remember that, obedience no longer becomes a burden, but a joy. As 1 John 5:3 says,

This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.

In the United States, in Philadelphia, there is a bell. And on it is written these words: “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

This of course is the Liberty Bell. But to be honest, I never knew the words written on it (or if I did, it was long forgotten).

But these words come from Leviticus 25:10, where God said,

Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you.

What was this jubilee? It was a beautiful picture of the freedom we have in Christ.

Every seventh year, the Israelites were not to plow or reap in their fields. They were to let the land have a Sabbath rest, and to eat from the surplus of the sixth year. They were also allowed to pick things from the field for food as well.

Then, after seven Sabbath years, on the Day of Atonement, a trumpet was sounded, and that started the year of Jubilee.

During that year, any person who had sold himself to pay a debt was freed and could return to his family. And any land that he had sold in order to pay a debt would also be returned to him.

Thus, this year of Jubilee was one of freedom and celebration.

It’s very significant, I think, that this year of Jubilee started on the Day of Atonement. I believe God was giving us a clear picture through this.

On the Day of Atonement, sin was accounted for. The price of sin was paid. And with that atonement, the year of Jubilee began—a time of freedom and restoration. Restoration of relationships. Restoration of land.

And in the same way, after Jesus atoned for our sin by dying on the cross, it marked a new beginning for us.

A restoration of a relationship with God. A restoration of relationships with others that had been broken by sin. And a restoration of the inheritance that God has for us.

Not just heaven, although that is a part of it. But the life that God intended for us from the beginning.

All the things we lost at the fall are restored. The love, joy, peace, and satisfaction in life God intended us to have in the beginning are all given back to us.

But most of all, we’re given back the freedom of the children of God.

Freedom from Satan’s kingdom and from bondage to sin. We are free to love and serve God without fear of his anger and punishment.

Why? Because Jesus bore it all for us.

As Jesus said,

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19)

This is a somewhat shocking story, but one that I think teaches an important point.

There was a man who was the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father. Not much is told of the father other than his nationality.

One wonders whether the mother had left her husband behind and taken her son out of Egypt in the exodus. It is also very possible that the father came along too, but we just don’t know.

But this man got in a fight, and as he was fighting, he blasphemed the name of God.

What he said, we don’t know, but here’s what we do know. Blaspheming the name of God was not a common practice among the Israelites, as it is today.

God had specifically told the people that they were to honor his name in the Ten Commandments. The penalty for blaspheming God’s name was crystal clear among the Israelites. And so it simply wasn’t done.

Here’s what else we know. Jesus said in Luke 6:45, “Out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”

In other words, such words of utter disrespect, rebellion, and hatred toward God were not simply words. They came from the attitude of this man’s heart.

Perhaps for a long time, he hid his true attitude toward God. Perhaps he was taken out of Egypt against his will. Perhaps he wanted to stay in Egypt, and his mother (and perhaps father) forced him to leave.

It’s possible that because of all that, he held a resentment in his heart toward God. And at a time of great anger toward another Israelite, all of that boiled out of him, and he cursed the name of God.

Had a pure Israelite done that, he would’ve been put to death immediately. Perhaps because the man was half‑Egyptian, Moses wasn’t sure if the law applied to him.

But God said the penalty was the same for him as everyone else, and the man was put to death.

What do we take from this? There is an attitude that leads to death. And not just physical death; it leads to eternal death.

When we have a heart that is rebellious against God, and does not honor him, and we refuse to repent of that attitude, we will be separated from God for all eternity.

Some people openly flaunt that attitude toward God. They speak out against God and openly live in utter rebellion toward God and his Word.

Other people, like the half‑Egyptian, may hide it well. They go to church. They say the right things. They look like good Christians. But in their hearts, they curse God.

But hidden or not, eventually your attitude will be brought to light. You cannot deceive God, because he knows your heart.

What kind of attitude do you have in your heart toward God? Are you living with a heart that loves God and is soft toward him?

Or do you have a heart that is hardened toward God and refuses to acknowledge his lordship in your life? That refuses to honor him as God?

The apostle Paul wrote this:

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.

God “will give to each person according to what he has done.”

To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.

But for those who are self‑seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. (Romans 2:5–8)

Don’t harden your heart to God. That path leads to death. Instead, soften your heart to him that you might find life.

I think I have a pretty good memory, but as time goes on, some events do tend to go foggy on me. My wife tends to remember things in our relationship that I’ve forgotten or don’t really remember so clearly.

She remembers the day, for example, that we officially got married. We actually went to city hall to register our marriage before we had our wedding ceremony.

But because I consider the day of our wedding ceremony our actual anniversary, I don’t really remember at all the day of our “official” marriage. (Sorry, dear.)

God knows that we have a tendency to forget things, and so I think this is one of the reasons that he had the Israelites celebrate all of these festivals and special days.

The first day he mentions is the Sabbath. And it was first and foremost a day for them to remember that God was their creator. That he had made everything, and that on the seventh day he rested.

It’s something that we would do well to remember as well. That he is the one who has created all things. He is all-powerful. And through his wisdom and in his love, all things were created.

Because of that, he’s much bigger than any problems we may have, and if we’ll just turn to him, we can overcome any trial that comes into our lives.

The second thing he mentions is the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. These were reminders of all that God did to deliver the people out of Egypt from a life of slavery into a life of freedom.

In the same way, God delivered us from slavery to a life of sin in Satan’s kingdom, into the life of freedom of the sons and daughters of God.

And just as Israel celebrated their freedom from Egypt, we too are to celebrate the freedom in Christ that God has given us.

Then came the offering of firstfruits and the Feast of Weeks. These came during the times of harvest. And I think the thing that God wanted the Israelites to remember was that he was the one who provided their every need.

In the same way, we are to remember that God is our provider, and that because of that, we don’t have to worry as the rest of the world does.

Instead, if we seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness, then everything else we need will be provided for us (Matthew 6:33).

The next feast was the Feast of Trumpets. It marked the start of the New Year for the Israelites. And it was a time to reflect upon the previous year.

Why was it necessary to reflect? Because God created us and we are accountable to him.

A day of judgment is coming, and we will all stand before him and give an account of ourselves to him. And so before that day, we are called to repent.

That’s what the Israelites did between this feast and the next. What was next?

It was the Day of Atonement.

We touched on this earlier, but this was the day to remind the Israelites of their sin, and that someone had to do something so that their sins could be forgiven. They could do nothing to cleanse themselves.

And in the same way, we are to remember our need for atonement. That Jesus, 2000 years ago, died on a cross to take the punishment for our sins so that our sins may be covered.

That’s what communion is about. We remember with thanksgiving the work of Christ on the cross.

Finally came the Feast of Tabernacles, which was to remind the Israelites who would live in the Promised Land where they had come from. That God had led them through the desert into the land that they now possessed.

In the same way, we should remember all the things that God has brought us through since we were saved.

Remember how God has led us through the tough times. How he provided our every need. And how he saved us from the attacks of the enemy.

What happens when we forget all these things?

First, it’s easy to become proud. To think that we can live this life without God. To think that all we have came solely by our own efforts, when in fact everything we have comes from God.

Second, it’s easy to get worried. We worry about our jobs. We worry about our finances. We worry about our needs. All because we forget God has promised to provide for us.

Third, we forget we are accountable to God, and as a result start living for ourselves. But Jesus paid a great price for us on the cross, and as Paul says, we are no longer our own.

So every day, we need to come before him with humble, repentant hearts, while remembering with gratefulness all that Jesus has done for us.

Finally, we get discouraged. When times get hard, we forget how much greater God is than our problems and all the times he has helped us in the past.

Let us never forget that God is our creator, our provider, our judge, our redeemer, and our shepherd through this desert of life.

There are a lot of rules here for the priests, and essentially it came down to two things. As priests serving before God, they were to be clean and without defect.

As such, the regular priests were not to touch any dead bodies unless it was the body of a close relative. And for the high priest, he was not allowed to touch a dead body at all. To do so would make them unclean.

They also couldn’t marry a woman who had been a prostitute, or a divorced woman, or in the case of the high priest, even a widowed woman.

And priests could not have any physical defects if they were to serve before God. They couldn’t be blind, lame, or have any other such physical problems.

Why? I think it was because of who the priests were representing, particularly the high priest. The high priest in particular was a symbol of Jesus Christ. And Christ was perfect and untouched by sin.

Death was the result of sin, and so the priests were not to be touched by it, even to the point of marrying a widow, in the case of the high priest.

Marrying a prostitute was definitely out for obvious reasons. And marrying a divorced woman was also out, probably because God considered it adultery (as Jesus pointed out in Matthew 5 and 19).

And having a physical defect would mar the image of the perfect High Priest, although it was no fault of the Aaronic priest himself.

But there is one big difference between Christ, our High Priest, and the priests of that day.

When the priests of that day touched something unclean, whether it was a dead body, leprous skin, or whatever it may have been, the priest himself became unclean and needed to be cleansed.

But Jesus touched the leper, he touched dead bodies, he touched the lives of the prostitute and the sinner, but instead of becoming unclean himself, he made them clean. He made them whole. He made them holy.

And God does the same with us. He takes us in our sin, in our imperfections, he touches us, and makes us clean, whole, and holy. As God told the people, “I the LORD am holy—I who make you holy.”

Six times he repeats those words in these two chapters. We don’t make ourselves holy. It is God who makes us holy through the blood of Jesus.

As it says in Ephesians,

…Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25–27)

Every New Year’s Day in Japan, many people go to the Japanese shrines and get what is called omikuji.

Basically, people give a small offering, about 5 yen (5 cents or so), and get a piece of paper that tells their future, saying it’s going to be a great year, a so‑so year, or an awful year, and then gives perhaps a few more predictions about the future.

Most Japanese people I’ve talked to only take it semi‑seriously. Basically, if it’s good, they choose to believe it. If the fortune is bad, they tend to ignore it.

I’ve also seen fortune tellers around in the city while I was in Kobe, and I know of some people who are into astrology, tarot cards, and ouija boards, much like people are in the U.S.

Some people see ouija boards as a game. In the States, toy manufacturers like Parker Brothers and Hasbro have made them, and Hasbro still does, I think.

In most American newspapers there’s a little caveat that they add to the horoscopes: “This is for entertainment purposes only.”

In infomercials for fortune telling, they add the same caveat. I guess even fortune tellers don’t like getting sued.

But fortune telling isn’t a game, and God didn’t treat it as such. He said in verse 6,

I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people. (Leviticus 20:6)

He later said in verse 27,

A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.

Basically, mediums and spiritists were people who contacted the dead to get information, mostly about the future.

Why was God so against this? I think the key word here is “prostitute.”

As Christians, we are called the bride of Christ.

But when we consult fortune tellers, astrologers, and use other such means to try to find out the future, we are really dealing with demons.

We’re playing with spiritual forces that are definitely not from God, and that is always dangerous.

It’s been said that the door to the spiritual world (of demons) has only one doorknob, and it’s on our side. When we open the door of our lives to demons, it puts us in serious spiritual danger.

If we want to know our future, we shouldn’t be going to demons; we should be going to God. And if he decides that we shouldn’t know something, then we need to learn to walk in faith, trusting him.

As Proverbs 3:5–6 says,

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

One usually doesn’t think of Leviticus as a place to look for how to deal with the people in our lives. But chapter 19 does just that.

The main thing it teaches is to respect the people around you.

God talked about respecting the blind and the deaf (14).

He talked about respecting the elderly (32).

He talked about respecting those who are different from you (33).

But the first people he started talking about respecting were our parents.

That only makes sense; you spend most of your time with them. If you can’t learn to respect them, it makes it hard to learn to respect others.

I was talking with a guy recently who was saying he had problems with his parents. I don’t know any details, but he essentially said, “I’ve tried to make our relationship work, but it’s just not happening.”

Undoubtedly there’s some hurt on his side, and I would guess there’s hurt on the parents’ side as well.

The problem with relationships is that it is a two‑way street. We can do our best to make a relationship work, but unless the other party does so as well, things won’t get better.

But while we can’t control people’s attitude toward us, we can control our attitude toward them.

God said in verses 17–18,

Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.

I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:17–18)

Here God tells us the attitude we should have when dealing with difficult relationships and people who have hurt us.

First, do not allow hatred to seep into your heart.

Why? It is completely opposite to the life God wants for us.

John wrote,

“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.

For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:20–21)

God desires to fill our lives with his love, and that his love would pour out through us to the people around us. But that cannot happen if we hold hatred in our hearts.

Second, confront the problem; don’t avoid it. God said, “Rebuke your neighbor frankly.”

Jesus said much the same thing in Matthew 18.

If your brother sins against you, you are to go to them and tell them their fault. If they don’t listen, bring a witness. If that doesn’t work, bring it before the church.

If they still refuse to listen, he says to put distance between you and them. Why? Because you hate them? No, to keep yourself from getting hurt more.

If it’s not possible to keep your distance physically for whatever reason, put an emotional distance between you and them.

I’m not saying that we should be cold with them. But I do mean putting a protective shell around your emotions when dealing with them.

Know that they are hurtful people, and be prepared for any shots that they may take at you. Don’t fool yourself into believing they’ve changed until they prove themselves.

But whether they change or not, God says, don’t hold a grudge against them. Don’t hold bitterness in your heart against them. And don’t seek revenge.

In other words, forgive them.

Again, forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to put yourself in a place where they can hurt you. It doesn’t mean believing they’ve changed when they haven’t.

But it does mean letting go of bitterness. It means letting go of the idea that they owe you something. And letting go of the idea of trying to pay them back for the hurt they’ve caused you.

God finishes by saying that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. In other words, as Jesus said, treat others as you would have them treat you.

Don’t expect them to reciprocate, because many times they won’t. But treat them with the love and kindness that you yourself want.

They may change, they may not. You can’t control that. What you can control is your actions.

The question is not, “Will they change?”

The question is, “Will you?”

I have a Japanese friend who lives in Kobe, and he told me once about his coworkers approaching him about a trip to Thailand.

Basically, they were going there to hook up with prostitutes, and they were trying to convince him to come along.

He kept telling them no, but at first they thought he was just being polite. (It’s kind of typical for a Japanese person to refuse an offer several times before accepting.)

But they finally realized, “You’re serious. You really don’t want to go?”

And they were just totally shocked that he had no interest in going.

And that’s how the world often looks at us as Christians. They sometimes think we’re weird because we don’t think the same way as they do. Because we don’t have the same values.

But God has called us to be different.

He told the Israelites,

You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. (Leviticus 18:3)

He then gave them the reason why in verses 24–28:

Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.

Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

But you must keep my decrees and my laws.

The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled.

And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

By living their own way, the people defiled themselves and the land they were living on.

And so God warned them, if you follow these people in their practices, the same thing will happen to you.

The two main things God condemned here were sexual sin (incest, homosexuality, bestiality, and adultery) and the killing of children in sacrifice to their gods, namely a god named Molech.

It’s amazing how little things have changed in 3000 years. We still see the same kinds of sexual sin today.

And while we don’t see child sacrifice to idols, we do see millions of children sacrificed to the idol of selfishness in the form of abortion every year.

These things defile us and the countries we live in.

But not only do people do these things, they consider it “normal.”

Romans 1:32 rings especially true today.

Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

As Christians, we cannot follow our culture in these areas, nor in any area that contradicts God’s word.

Let us stay away from the things that would defile us.

Let us not just blend in with the darkness of the world around us, but like my friend, be a shining light in it.

In Japan, most people know their blood types. A common question that people ask each other is, “What’s your blood type?”

For years, people would ask me, “What’s your blood type,” and I would say, “I don’t know.” And they seemed shocked I didn’t know.

They would always ask, “But what if you’re in the hospital and you need a blood transfusion, and the doctor asks you your blood type?”

I always answered, “If I’m in that bad shape, I might not be conscious to answer the question anyway.”

I finally found out my blood type about five years ago or so. (I’m “A” for what it’s worth.)

Anyway, people here tend to associate blood type with certain characteristics.

For example, type A people are usually responsible but stubborn.

Type B people are active but can be irresponsible.

Type O people are sociable but indecisive.

And type AB people are sociable but jealous.

Who knew you could find out so much about a person by their blood type?

Anyway, God associated a totally different meaning to a person’s or animal’s blood.

In this passage, he gave a short and succinct reason for all the sacrifices and why they were necessary.

In verse 11, he said,

For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. (Leviticus 17:11)

Basically, God associated life with blood.

The idea was that since sin must be punished with death, in order for a sinful people to be forgiven, someone else who was innocent of any wrongdoing must take their punishment.

His blood, that is, his life, must be given for ours.

In the Old Testament, it was an animal’s life that was taken in place of the people’s.

But that was only a picture of the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus’ death on the cross.

And now because Jesus has died for us, there is no longer any need for animal sacrifices. Jesus was the final sacrifice.

The writer of Hebrews put it this way,

Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness…

But now [Jesus] has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:22, 26–28)

As the old song goes,

It’s your blood that cleanses me.
It’s your blood that gives me life.

It’s your blood that took my sin
In redeeming sacrifice.

And washes me whiter than the snow.
My Jesus, God’s precious sacrifice.

Once a year, the Israelites had a day of atonement. Basically, this was a day that people would confess their sins before God, and in a graphic way, God showed the people how true atonement would one day come.

Some interesting notes about the day of atonement. First, no one was to do any work on that day, because,

on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the LORD, you will be clean from all your sins. (Leviticus 16:30)

The picture was very clear here. The Israelites themselves could do nothing to atone for their own sin. Atonement would be made for them. No work they could do could purify their sins. Only the work of the high priest.

In the same way, no work we can do can purify us from our sins. Our own efforts can’t save us. Only the work of our High Priest, Jesus Christ, could, when he died on the cross.

Second, only the high priest would enter the Tabernacle into God’s presence. Not even the other priests could come in when the high priest went inside to make atonement for the people.

In the same way, when Christ made atonement for our sins on the cross, he was the only one who could do the work. No other person, not the apostles, not any of the priests, nor anyone else could do it. Only Christ. As Jesus said,

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

Third, two goats were chosen. One was chosen to die for the sins of the people. The high priest then put his hands on the head of the live goat and confessed all the sins of the people. The goat was then released into the desert, never to be seen again.

This is a beautiful picture of what Christ did for us. He took the punishment for our sins by dying on the cross. And as he bore our sins, he took them completely away from us.

As Psalm 103:12 says,

As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Lord, I thank you for your love for us, that as our High Priest, you atoned for our sin when we could do nothing to save ourselves.

Lord, I thank you for bearing our sin and taking them completely away from us, that as far as the east is from the west, so far have you removed our transgressions from us.

Thank you so much for your mercy and grace in our lives. For being our High Priest, for being our scapegoat, so that we could draw close to God. I love you and praise you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Speeding right along. Fifteen chapters in four days. That’s a record for this blog.

This section goes into great detail about something that was very important to the Israelites: the concept of clean and unclean.

The key verse to this whole section is chapter 11 verse 45 where God said,

I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy. (Leviticus 11:45)

In other words, the Israelites were to be pure as God is pure. Thus the idea of clean and unclean. In verse 47, he goes on to say,

You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean…

Why did God give all these rules on clean and unclean? I’m not going to pretend to understand all of them, because I don’t. In general, however, they were for health and sanitary reasons (food, mildew, skin diseases).

God, I suppose, could’ve given them detailed scientific reasons for these laws, but they probably would’ve gone over the Israelites’ heads, so he just said, “These are clean, and these are not.”

But there are a couple of points to be made about all of this clean and unclean business. First, there were things that made the Israelites ceremonially unclean. And God said in Leviticus 15:31,

You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.

In other words, the people needed to be pure in order to have a relationship with God. It’s the same with us.

But nowadays, God isn’t concerned with us being ceremonially unclean. He’s concerned with what truly makes us unclean. What makes us unclean? Jesus gives the answer. He said,

“What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’” (Mark 7:20–23)

In other words, the sin that comes out of our lives makes us unclean before God. And if we want to have a close relationship with God, we need to keep these things far from us.

Second, sin is like mildew or an infectious disease, and it will spread in our lives if we let it. Sin often spreads to others and causes them to become unclean too.

Children, for example, often pick up on the sins of their parents and start doing the same sins their parents commit. But sin also spreads in that it hurts the people it touches.

How often do we hurt people by our actions? And so sin needs to be radically dealt with just as mildew and infectious diseases were.

With the mildew, sometimes parts of the wall had to be taken out. If that didn’t work, the whole house had to be destroyed. In the case of disease, the infected person had to be completely separated from the community.

In the same way, we need to radically deal with sin. Jesus said that if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. (Matthew 5:29–30).

Jesus, of course, doesn’t mean this literally. But the idea is that we are to do everything necessary to keep ourselves from sin.

Again, the key idea in this whole passage is holiness. Are we holy before God? God said we are to be holy as he is holy.

He sent his Son to die on the cross for our sins so that we could be holy in his sight. He has forgiven us, and now he gives us the power to be holy. In 2 Peter 1:3, it says,

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

That’s the good news. We don’t have to try to be holy in our own strength.

God gives us the power to be holy.

So let’s live that way.

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 who hates sin. That he is a God who is pure.

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

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.

There are some interesting things in this passage concerning the sin offerings, and some interesting lessons we can learn about sin as well.

Depending on who committed the sin, different offerings were to be made.  For the priest, a bull.  For a leader, a male goat.  For the ordinary layperson, a female goat or sheep, doves or pigeons, or for the very poor, an offering of flour.

The idea here is that the greater the position and the greater the knowledge, the greater the accountability for your sin.

The priest, as a representative of God had the highest accountability.  The leader, as one governing the people, had slightly lesser accountability.  And the ordinary layperson had the least.

Jesus put it this way,

The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows.

But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.  (Luke 12:47-48)

A second point is that it didn’t matter if a person noticed their sin or not.  They were still guilty.  And as soon as they found out about their sin, they were to make it right.

The same can be said of us.  We cannot just ignore sin in our lives.  We can’t just say, “Well, I didn’t know any better at the time, so it’s not so important.”

Nor can we say, “Well, it happened so long ago.  Surely I don’t need to repent of that!”

Sin is sin, whether you noticed it or not, whether it happened a long time ago or not.  We’re still guilty.  And we need to make it right.

Another point is that sin is not just doing what’s wrong.  It’s also not doing what’s right.  God said,

If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible. (Leviticus 5:1)

In this case, if a person knew something about a court case, and refused to give testimony that had bearing on the case, they were guilty of sin.  They knew they should have said something, but didn’t .

James puts it this way,

Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.  (James 4:17)

A fourth point is that it doesn’t matter if you intended to sin or not, if you sinned, you’re guilty.

In Leviticus 5:2-5, talks about people carelessly or thoughtlessly committing sin.  They didn’t mean to sin, it just “kind of happened.”

But intentions or not, God said they were still guilty.

Finally, there are sins where you must make restitution.

In other words, there are times when saying, “I’m sorry” is not enough.

In Leviticus 6, for example, it talks about making restitution to people you have robbed or deceived.

In those cases, it wasn’t enough to make a sacrifice.  It wasn’t enough to say “I’m sorry.”

They had to make restitution.

And in the same way, if we’ve really hurt someone, we need to make restitution too.

The good news for us is that we no longer have to make sacrifices.  Jesus was the final sacrifice for our sins.

But just as the Israelites were required to confess their sins and repent, so are we.

In 1 John 1:9, it says,

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Lord I thank you for paying for my sin.  Lord, help me always keep a clean heart before you.  Please reveal my sin to me, and help keep my heart pure.

Keep me from willful sins and unwillful ones. And where I need to make restitution, let me be humble and do so. 

Thank you for your grace and forgiveness.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

And so we start Leviticus. I can’t say I’ve looked forward to this book.

As in parts of Exodus, it goes over the laws, rules, and regulations in exquisite detail, which can be a bit dry to read at times. But here we go, and today we start with the offerings.

The word “offerings,” I’ve found, is very interesting. It comes from a Hebrew word that means “to bring near.”

These offerings were used by the Israelites in order to draw near to God. We’ll take a look at the first three today.

The first was a burnt offering.

We’ve seen this before in Exodus, when a priest was consecrated. As with that offering, the animal had to be without blemish and it was to be completely burned up.

The ideas here were two‑fold.

One, it was used as atonement for a person’s sin, and in that way, the sacrifice was a picture of Christ, who was the perfect Lamb of God.

The second is the idea of complete surrender to God. That we hold nothing back from him, but give everything to him.

The second offering was a grain offering.

This was basically an offering of thanksgiving, and it was offered with incense to be a sweet‑smelling aroma to God.

The third offering was a “fellowship” or “peace” offering.

Again, as with the burnt offering, there was the symbolism of substitution, that the animal was taking on the guilt of the person it was dying for.

But unlike the burnt offering, the offerer would take part of the sacrifice home and eat it with his family.

The picture here is that with our sins taken care of, we can have peace and fellowship with God. Perhaps it points to the day when we will enjoy the great feast that is in heaven with God.

All three of these offerings were voluntary. They were given out of the love people had in their hearts for God.

And they are all pictures of our relationship with God. That first, through Christ, we can have peace with God (the peace offering).

In Romans 5:1, it says

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Second, it shows our complete surrender to him (the burnt offering). That our whole lives are his.

In Romans 12:1, it says,

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

And third, it shows our thankfulness to him for all he’s done, because he has provided not only for our spiritual needs, but for our physical ones as well.

In Romans 8:32, it says,

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Lord, I thank you that we can have peace with you through what Jesus did on the cross. I thank you that because of what he did, we can draw near to you and have fellowship with you.

Lord, help me surrender all that I am to you, just as those burnt sacrifices were completely given to you. And Lord, let me always have a heart filled with thanksgiving and praise toward you.

I love you and thank you for all that you’ve done. In Jesus’ name, amen.