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Leviticus 25: The Hope of Jubilee
I invite you to turn with me to Leviticus chapter 25. Paul writes to Timothy, Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Leviticus 25 is not a short chapter by any stretch. I could be tempted, due to time to skip reading this chapter and simply summarize it. But we’re going to devote ourselves to the public reading of God’s Word first, before I attempt to teach and exhort from that Word.
So here we go. Please follow along as I read beginning at verse 1.
Read: Leviticus 25:1-55
We’re wrapping up our series on the Holy Calendar— holy because it’s been instituted by God. In chapter 23 we looked at the annual festivals. Last week, in chapter 24, we looked at the purpose of the Calendar, which is communion with God Himself. Today we’re looking at what we might refer to as the multi-year calendar, particularly the Sabbath Year and the Year of Jubilee, and how such was intended to offer a much needed regular reset so that God’s people could enjoy that communion.
SABBATH AND SEVEN: CREATION
One of the first things we notice as we begin this chapter is the emphasis on the Sabbath and the number seven. I’m not going to say much about this other than this emphasis should point us back to creation. On the seventh day, God had finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
WAS GOD TIRED
Now, was God tired? Is that why He rested? I mean, I understand, creation is pretty vast and varied. Consider its order and detail. I think of how physically exhausted I am after making something like a bookcase, or mentally exhausted from preparing today’s message. I can only imagine how tired God might have been. Well, of course, you and I know that God doesn’t get tired. Isaiah 40 reminds us that the everlasting God who is the Creator of the ends of the earth doesn’t faint or grow weary.
CONCEPT OF REST
So, if God wasn’t tired, if He didn’t need a break, what was the point of His rest? First, this idea of rest is not simply a tired sort of rest as much as it is a ceasing from an activity. God’s work was complete. So, rather than God’s rest being for the purpose of His refreshing, it means that He finished His work. Still, there is an idea of rest and refreshing built into the 7th day—a rest for God’s creation. The rest wasn’t only for mankind, but for the rest of creation as well. You see, the unrest brought about by the Fall didn’t only affect humanity; it touched upon the whole of creation. The Sabbath isn’t just about you and me.
SABBATH FOR THE LAND
Which brings us to the first section of Leviticus 25, picking up halfway through verse 2: When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land.
The first thing we need to recognize is that the land is a gift from God. The Creator of all things is also the Owner of all things. And this fact will come up again in our passage. For now, the Lord is giving this land to His people, and they are to care for the land. Why? Because God cares about His creation too. He doesn’t only care about His people.
GROWS BY ITSELF
Six years work the land, but in the seventh year, allow the land to rest. There was to be no plowing or sowing, no pruning or dressing of vines… not even the harvesting or gathering of what grows by itself.
Behind our house, they cleared most of the woods for development to the point that it was nothing but dirt. They even burned the brush. For almost a year, that land went untouched. But if you look out at the barren plot of ground, stuff has begun to grow. Now, I don’t believe we’re going to forage in it. But that’s because it wasn’t cultivated land before.
But if at the end of this growing season, Jenny or Bill or any of you who have a garden, let it die back to the ground, and don’t touch it the following year, you’ll have produce that grows. Those garden beds will be a mess. They likely won’t produce the abundance of a cared for garden. But food will grow.
ITS YIELD IS FOR FOOD
That produce that grows by itself is not off limits. It’s just not to be harvested. The difference is very much like the Israelites gathering manna. They could go out and gather what they needed for the day. They just weren’t to harvest and store it for future use.
But who is this food for? Is it for the landowners? Partly. But it’s for everyone else too, whether slaves or hired workers, or even sojourners. And it wasn’t just for the people, but also the livestock and the wild beasts. All that the land yields by itself while it enjoys its rest shall be for food for all of God’s creatures.
WHOLE OF CREATION
God cares about the whole of His creation. Sherif is getting ready to lead us through a study on the book of Jonah. Perhaps most of you know how the book ends. The Lord says to Jonah, Should I not pity Nineveh and its more than 120,000 persons who are lost… but the text doesn’t end with God’s concern for the people, he continues, and also much cattle or livestock. God cares about the livestock too.
BIRDS AND FLOWERS
Jesus makes this point about the birds of the air, they neither sow or reap or gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father cares for them. Even the flowers of the field that neither toil or spin, God delights to clothe them in beauty. Now, Jesus makes clear that you are of more value than any bird or flower, but that doesn’t negate God’s care of His creation.
The Sabbath year was not solely about God’s people. It was a means for God’s people to participate in God’s rest, God’s ceasing from His work, that creation might enjoy rest too.
GROAN OF CREATION
This actually portrays a much larger theological theme, and that is the whole of creation groans, awaiting redemption from its bondage to corruption. That’s Romans 8 for those taking notes. [Alright. Wait a minute, Josh. Are you saying creation needs redemption too? Absolutely!]Creation is awaiting redemption, not because creation sinned, but because our sin has brought about corruption to the whole of creation. Death and decay are a part of exile, not paradise.
TEND TO THE LAND, NOT DEVOUR IT
God’s people were to exercise a stewardship and a care for the land. That’s no different than the charge given to Adam in Genesis 2. But instead, with the Fall, we seek to devour the land. We attempt to suck every resource dry without any concern for anything but ourselves.
Creation groans for the Rest that will be New Creation when the true sons and daughters of God will be revealed.
SABBATH ON A LARGER SCALE
Although the Sabbath year is not solely about God’s people, I don’t want to diminish that the Sabbath year has everything to do with God’s people. The Sabbath year is much like the weekly Sabbath rest but on a larger scale. Just as the Sabbath day was a time to rest in God’s provision for His people, the Sabbath year shows an utter reliance on God to provide.
PROVIDE FOR OURSELVES 6 OUT OF 7 YEARS?
Now, we could quickly conclude that the Sabbath year suggested that we were to provide for ourselves six years and that God would then provide for His people one out of seven years. What’s the problem with this? God provides for all seven years, including the years the people are to sow and reap.
Skip down to verse 20. And if you say, “what shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop? Well, says the Lord, I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.
God commands His blessing, and the land produces. The converse is God withholding His blessing and there’s a famine.
COMMON GRACE OF GOD’S PROVISION
So, what does this have to do with us? We don’t live in an agrarian society. Refraining from sowing and harvesting has nothing to do with me! Well, 1) that’s nonsense. You tell that to the supermarket or restaurant. Let them skip a year of sowing and reaping and see how that impacts you. 2) The Sabbath is a reminder that the Lord is our provision. So, you don’t farm. Whatever means by which you put food on the table is a gift of God’s grace, regardless of whether you’re a believer or not. The Lord is the One who gives you the ability to generate wealth and make any kind of living at all.
PARTIAL RESET
But there’s more going on here with this Sabbath year. This rest for the land and for the people is kind of a partial reset. Again, we’re talking about an agrarian culture. The land is the means by which some would acquire a greater surplus, while those without land would fall further behind. But in the Sabbath year, not only was the land allowed to revert back a bit to a less cultivated time before we place our footprint upon it.
The Sabbath year place the inhabitants of the land on a somewhat equal footing for the year. And produce that grew was available to all without exception. A year where there was no more hording. No more, I got mine, now you go get yours. This partial reset restored the original Sabbath concept after Israel’s exodus from Egypt: whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.
YEAR OF JUBILEE: FACTORY RESET
But where the Sabbath year was a partial reset, the Year of Jubilee was meant to be a major reset. Sort of like, you computer or phone begins acting a bit buggy, so you do a partial reset that helps remove some of the glitches. But there comes a point where your device just isn’t functioning well at all. The hard drive is corrupted. A virus has plagued the whole system. The only option at that point is a factory reset. That is exactly what the Year of Jubilee is.
Verse 8. You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the days of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement, you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate [or set apart] the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family.
EXPANSION OF THE SABBATH
Every seven Sabbath years is the grand Sabbath year, the year of Jubilee. Anyone who lost property due to their poverty, anyone who had to sell their property in order to put food on the table, is to receive their property back. Anyone who became so destitute that they had to sell themselves into the service of another as a slave, is to go free and return to their family. In Deuteronomy 15, just in case it’s not quite as clear here, there is to be a cancelation of all debts. As such, the people were to proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants!
JUBILEE BLESSING OR NOT
First, notice how the idea of the Sabbath continues to expand from a Sabbath Day to a Sabbath year, and now every seven Sabbath years there’s the grand Sabbath year, the year of Jubilee, each one meant to equate a greater blessing for God’s people.
Wait a second Josh. You just mentioned the return of property and the canceling of debts. What about all that property I worked hard at acquiring? What about that money Tommy owes me? You saying I have to return that property to the original owner? And that I’m not going to recoup what’s owed to me? How on earth is that considered a blessing to me!
O, I see. You equate blessing with having more than your neighbor who has less. If that’s the case, you’re going to have a difficult time in God’s kingdom. In fact, it’s more likely that you have no desire or taste for God’s coming kingdom.
CORRECTING THE SYSTEM
The year of Jubilee was a correction to the system that allowed for the seemingly never-ending divide between the rich and poor, where the rich continue to increase their wealth and the poor continue to struggle. The year of Jubilee was a factory reset on the entire system corrupted by mankind’s selfish ambition. It’s a releveling of the playing field.
EQUALITY?
You see, even in the church, we have a distorted view of equality. One, for those of us who are a bit better off, we don’t like to talk about it, because, well, we kind of like what we got. And if I believe that God desires a degree of equity in the world, then the only solution I can come up with is giving mine away, and I’m not about to begin to consider that as an option. But then we have the flipside of those of us who have less.
And let me just pause and say, all of us fall into both of these categories to some degree, because there will always be those with more and those with less. But for those of us with less, we can have this notion that equality means you owe me some of what you got. So, whatever equality looks like in this fallen world, both sides have very corrupt views on what it looks like and how to make it work. And I’ll just say that the government isn’t the answer.
CAPITALISM/SOCIALISM
You love capitalism? Your capitalism is going away. What about socialism? Is that the system you wish you lived in? While some have suggested the early church was a model of socialism, that is an extremely distorted view and interpretation. The kingdom of heaven will look nothing like any socialism fallen man can concoct.
The New Creation is going to be drastically different from any form of commerce here, any economy we’d even try to implement ourselves, because due to the Fall, our best models still leave people in bondage; our best models leave people in want. And in Christ’s kingdom there will be no bondage; there will be no more want.
AMERICAN DREAM?
The day is coming for us in Christ when the amount you gather won’t adversely affect anyone else. Nor will it give you any perceived advantage. There’ll be no getting ahead in heaven. Do you get that! So, perhaps, you might want to let go of any notion of that idea now. The American dream isn’t the Christian’s dream. Ours is a Jubilee, that crushes trillion-dollar debts.
DO NOT WRONG
Now, the people could easily be of the mindset… we could easily be of the mindset that if the property is to eventually be returned to its original owner, then I better keep that in mind at the negotiating table, because I want to make sure I get the better end of the deal when its all over with. Verse 14. You shall not wrong your neighbor in this way, regardless of whether you’re the buyer or the seller. Instead, verse 17, you are to fear your God!
SELLING CROPS NOT LAND
So, don’t think of it as selling the land, but as selling the crops up until the year of Jubilee. In fact, verse 23, the land isn’t even for sale! It belongs to the Lord! This offers a correction to our often-distorted view of ownership. It all belongs to God. Therefore, have the mindset of a sojourner who simply dwells in the land—that you’re merely a steward of this property. God is the owner.
HELP YOUR BROTHER
Now, all of that is groundwork for the call to help your brother, verse 25, should he become poor and has to sell. But, 28, even if no one has sufficient means to help him, his property shall still be released in the year of Jubilee.
And the same goes for the one who becomes poor among you, verse 35, and cannot maintain himself. Well, then let him live with you!Don’t seek to make a profit off your poor brother.
NOT TO SERVE AS SLAVES
Even should he become so poor that he sells himself to you, 39, don’t make him serve you as a slave. Why? Verse 42. Because the Lord already redeemed your brother out of bondage in Egypt. God brought His people out to be His servants, not anyone else’s. They already endured their servitude, and I redeemed them, declare the Lord. And my redemption shall not be disregarded or reversed. They are not to be slaves again, so long as they observe my statutes and keep my commands.
NEED FOR A REDEEMER
But what about one of your brothers who sells himself to a foreigner? Well, this last paragraph, beginning at verse 47, reminds us of the need for a redeemer. But even should no one step up as a redeemer, the Lord’s Jubilee promised release.
FAILURE TO KEEP THE SABBATH
Sadly, Israel failed to keep any of these Sabbath commands. If we just turn a page to chapter 26, we find the blessings for Israel’s obedience and the punishments for their disobedience. And of the two commands specified for Israel to obey, the first is to avoid idolatry and the second is to keep God’s Sabbaths—which I take to mean not just the Sabbath day, but the Sabbath year and the year of Jubilee.
REJECTION OF THE LORD AND HIS SABBATH
How I come to that conclusion, and why this is such a big deal, is because the consequence for not keeping the Lord’s Sabbath was exile—a removal from the land—a removal from their dwelling in God’s presence. No more communing with the Holy One of Israel, not because God stopped communing with them, but because they’re rejection of His Sabbaths was a rejection of the Lord; it showed they had no desire to commune with God.
EXILE AND THE LAND’S SABBATHS
So, during their exile, the land God had given them would finally enjoy its Sabbath rest—it would enjoy all its Sabbaths that the people failed to keep. In fact, this is how Chronicles expresses it: The people’s going into exile was to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
DANIEL 9
So, what does this have to do with us? Well, with Israel’s failure, their moral inability to keep these Sabbath observances and the Year of Jubilee, came the need for a greater Sabbath rest and a greater Jubilee. At the end of Jeremiah’s 70 years, God sends Gabriel to Daniel to relay the message of a surpassing Jubilee, not seven weeks of years as the Jubilee here in Leviticus, but 70 weeks of years, in which to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy One.
JUBILEE OF JUBILEES
So, approximately 490 years after exile, the people were to anticipate the Jubilee of Jubilees. And such a Jubilee was needed because the people’s dwelling with God had been utterly lost, and it desperately needed to be restored. The people had become slaves all over again, and they needed someone to redeem them. And the debt was far greater than could ever be repaid.
And loved ones, that’s us. That’s the mess we were in outside of Christ. And that’s the mess you’re in now if you’re not in Christ.
ATONEMENT
Remember when Jubilee was to be announced? It was to be announced on the Day of Atonement. Jubilee is only possible with the covering of sin and sin’s consequences. That’s what this grand Jubilee promised, an atoning for sin. And how will it happen? Gabriel continues, the Anointed Oneor Messiah would be the literal translation shall be cut off and have nothing. Now you and I don’t have to struggle to grasp that this cut off Messiah is Jesus.
ISAIAH 61
But Daniel is not the only prophet who speaks of this greater Jubilee. It’s recorded in Isaiah 61. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, and to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. And that’s exactly what the year of Jubilee is— the year of the Lord’s favor.
And that’s exactly what Jesus read in the synagogue in Nazareth, and said, Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
AWAITING THE FULLNESS
Jesus has ushered in the year of Jubilee. O we await its final consummation, but he’s already done all that is necessary. He’s already proclaimed liberty, released from the prison bonds of sin. Do you know that liberty? Do you know that release? At least in part. Well, the fullness is coming!
CREATION’S HOPE
And we’re not the only ones anticipating it. Creation awaits the revealing of the true children of God. Why? Because with our redemption comes creation’s redemption. Creation is waiting to enjoy the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Our promised inheritance in Christ, should make us better stewards now, as preparation for our stewardship in the New.
OUR FUTURE HOPE
And because of the promised Jubilee, the fullness of our freedom to come, you and I can endure any servitude on this side of glory. We can pour out our lives without fear of giving it all away and falling into poverty, because our hope isn’t in some factory reset. Jesus has prepared an entirely new hard drive and operating system. The New Creation will have none of the corruption of the Old.
The Spirit applies this promise of Jubilee, this promise of future grace, as a resource and a desire for us to uphold the true character of the law by loving our neighbor well—helping our brothers and sisters in need—not taking advantage of them.
Where the Scribes and Pharisees devoured widows’ houses, we can offer up our last two copper coins, all we have to live on, if that’s what it takes to care for our struggling brother. Because, get this, the worldly riches of the greedy and the oppressors will soon perish, to paraphrase James, but in Christ, so will your poverty.
JESUS KEPT THE FULLNESS OF THE SABBATH
The one thing Jesus was accused of more than anything else, was that he didn’t keep the Sabbath—that he healed people on the Sabbath. But what’s the Sabbath principle we’ve seen throughout this chapter?
The Sabbath was to be a time of rest and restoration. It was to be a day of liberty—a call to help your struggling brother. It was not given as a means to keep your brother down!
Now, what did Jesus do on the Sabbath? He healed! He granted rest to those who knew no rest. He offered restoration, rescue, and redemption on the only day that made sense, the Sabbath day, because Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
And this same Jesus invites us into his Sabbath rest, that we might enjoy true Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/q5vzRJDO9xM
Leviticus 24:1-23 Lamps, Bread, and Blasphemy
I invite you to turn with me to Leviticus 24. Leviticus 24. It’s a longer passage, so I’m not going to ask you to stand. You know what a posture of reverence looks like, whether you stand or sit. In fact, we’ll be looking quite a bit at reverence as we work our way through this chapter.
READ: LEVITICUS 24:1-23
Ten Laws
If you were tasked to put a committee together, with the goal of coming up with ten laws which would serve as the summary for governing a people—ten rules by which every citizen and foreigner had to abide by, what would make your top ten? Don’t murder. Don’t steal. They’d likely make the list.
But how many committees do you think would place blasphemyon this list. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Well, this command didn’t just make the list; the consequence for breaking this command was nothing short of the death penalty, which we’ll get to later in the chapter.
We’re far removed from the days of Israel’s inception as a nation. You likely aren’t to be stoned to death for blasphemy here in the States. We’re too sophisticated for such an archaic law. I mean, we’re the nation of Free Speech… at least so long as that speech doesn’t offend the wrong group or party.
Now, I’m not about to argue that we should put such a law on the books. And I don’t believe the Bible makes a case for us to do so either. In fact, the case made in Scripture is that blasphemy deserves a far greater consequence than can be executed by the State.
We’re continuing to look at Israel’s calendar in Leviticus 23-25. Now, you’re likely thinking, what could blasphemy possibly have to do with Israel’s calendar? And if you’re not asking that question, you probably should, because part of our task as Bible readers, if we truly want to know the author’s intent, is to answer the question, Why is this text placed precisely where it is?
Israel's Holy Calendar
Now, I mentioned last week that chapters 23-25 all went together as a single unit in what I referred to as Israel’s calendar—the Holy Calendar—holy, because it is instituted by a holy God.
But when we finish reading through the annual festivals in chapter 23, and we turn the page to chapter 24, we’re looking at Lamps, Bread, and Blasphemy. So, at first glance, chapter 24 doesn’t seem to be a part of the calendar at all. In fact, much like certain other portions of Leviticus, it seems that perhaps Moses is just throwing stuff together without any rhyme or reason for doing so.
Chapter 24 appears to be completely detached from the Sabbath day and the Seven Festivals we looked at last week. And next week, in chapter 25, we’re looking at the Sabbath Year and the Year of Jubilee, those festivals that come around less than annually. So, what do Lamps, Bread, and Blasphemy have to do with that?
GOD-BREATHED
But here’s the thing. And I draw this out to offer us help in reading our Bibles well. Because, for most commentators, how chapter 24 fits with what comes before and after is quite elusive. And I’ll be honest, it is elusive if we simply approach the Bible as merely a human composition. And the Bible is written by men! But it’s more!
When we approach our Bibles as God-breathed, that every word, phrase, paragraph, and chapter, has been put in place exactly as it is and where it is under the superintendence of God the Holy Spirit, then we have ample reason to believe that Leviticus 24 is placed smack dab in the middle of Israel’s calendar for a divine purpose.
HOW CHAPTER 24 FITS
First, there’s a calendrical aspect to this chapter, at least regarding the Lamps and the Bread. When were the lamps to be tended to? Verse 3. Daily—every evening and morning. What about the bread? When was that to be replaced with fresh loaves? Verse 8. Weekly—every Sabbath. So, that’s our first clue that this chapter does indeed fit with Israel’s calendar.
Second—and this is the reason why I believe chapter 24 is placed in the middle of chapters 23 and 25 as a sort of climax or hinge tying the three chapters together—is because what’s the point of the holidays and festivals we looked at last week?
They weren’t given to Israel as a bunch of busy work—sort of like some substitute teacher at school assigns because she just needs to keep the kids busy over the next 45 minutes, so they don’t get into any mischief.
Perhaps some of you are thinking that appears to be my task up here week after week. Just ramble off for 45 minutes to keep us busy for a bit before turning everyone over to their next thing—whether that be mischief or lunch or a mix of both—you’ll have to decide! I’m looking at our youth, and I know what the answer is for some of them. They’re ready to rush out of here to the gym the instant we finish with the benediction!
Israel’s festivals—this holy calendar wasn’t given to somehow keep Israel—the people of God—preoccupied until God finally sent His Son and did away with the whole thing. Now, I use the example of a substitute teacher because the Law was very much like a substitute teacher until Christ came. But it wasn’t to preoccupy the people, but to prepare them and keep them forChrist.
The purpose of this calendar has everything to do with communing with God, and not just any God, but the Holy God, the great I AM, YHWH. And chapter 24 is a portrait of this communing with the Holy God.
COMMUNING WITH GOD
Now this word “commune” is a bit antiquated. We don’t use it much in our daily lives. But we do use forms of it. When we partook of the Lord’s Supper last week, we call that… communion. The Lord’s Supper is part of our regular communing or fellowshipping with our Lord Jesus.
There’s an intimacy and a closeness involved as we handle and consider the elements that represent Jesus’ body and blood. But our communion goes deeper than that. For us believers, his Spirit resides within us.
Commune is also where we get the term communicate. But to commune is much more intimate than the way we tend to think of communicate. It involves closeness. Much of our communication today, however, takes place online. And I’m just going to say that social media is not a form of communing with anyone! There’s no such thing as being close to someone through hashtags and hyperlinks.
I mentioned communion and the Lord’s Supper. Well, the church also has a term from removing someone from close fellowship, and that’s called: excommunicate. It’s a form of church discipline that removes an individual from the partaking of communion.
Why does any of this matter? Well, believe it or not, we have sort of an example of excommunication in this very chapter. And it’s instructive. But we’ll have to work our way there. Suffice it for now for me to say that what’s laid out here in chapter 24 is a portrait of communionwith the Lord and His people and a portrait of discommunion with the Lord and His people.
THE LAMPSTAND
So, back to verse 1 and the lampstand. (Read 1-4).
As mentioned, this is a daily task. Aaron is to arrange the lamps evening and morning so that the light from the lampstand wouldn’t go out. It’s helpful to know, and for those who went with us to see the model of the tabernacle here in Lebanon, you might remember, that the lampstand or menorah was the only physical light source within the tabernacle. So, Aaron, and by extension, his sons, were charged with tending the lamps.
But the people also had a role to play. They were to bring pure oil from beaten or crushed olives olive trees. So, the people provided the oil for the lamps, while Aaron and his sons tended the lamps.
Now, you might be a bit more sanctified than me when I first read this, but there’s a part of me that asks, if God is truly God, then why does He need the people to provide the light? The people were required to make the lampstand. Now they’re bringing the oil, and Aaron and his sons have to continually care for and attend to this source of light?
Couldn’t the Lord who provided manna in the wilderness, who parted the sea, provide them, not only with the light, but sustain that light day and night and keep it burning?
Well, what do you think God did on Days 1 and 4 of creation!
That Israel had to provide the oil for the lamps, and the priest regularly attend to the lamps, not only allowed them to participate in the grand enactment of God’s light—His presence shining upon His people—the twelve tribes of Israel, this participation served as a regular reminder of this very presence of God—a reminder that Yahweh is indeed in the midst of His people to commune and fellowship with them.
God doesn’t need the light of the lampstand. He speaks, LIGHT!And there is. In fact, God is Light. This setting up of the lampstand served to remind the people of His Light, His face shining upon the people. The regular tending of the lampstand was to remind the people of the God who sustains the sun, moon, and stars.
In fact, the same word used for lamp here in Leviticus 24 is the same word used to describe the sun and moon in Genesis 1. They are lamps for His creation, to mark appointed times. But also, this order of evening and morning is the way Genesis 1 marked off the days of creation.
The people and the priests are participating in a great re-enactment of God’s works! The priest was to tend to this lamp after the pattern God set forth in creation so that there would be light continually within God’s abode with His people. This work is no less than a reflection of God and His works. But there’s more!
THE BREAD
Which takes us to the Bread of the presence, verses 5-9. (Read 5-9).
How many loaves were placed on the table? Twelve. How many tribes of Israel? Twelve. (Now, we really got some Bible scholars here!) It doesn’t take a lot of consideration for us to see that, in at least some sense, the twelve loaves relate to God’s people.
Also, like the oil for the lamps, the bread was to be supplied by who? Verse 8. The people, as a covenant forever. Now again, the Lord didn’t need the people to provide Him bread to eat. If I were hungry, would I tell you? The earth and its fullness are mine, declares the Lord in Psalm 50. Remember, it is God who is providing manna for His people, not the other way around!
So, this weekly offering of the presentation of the loaves was an opportunity for Israel to participate in the cultic act of worship. But God designed this act of worship, not simply to give Israel just any means through which to worship, but it was specifically designed to communicate something of Him and His people.
First, the loaves were to be placed in two piles of six with pure frankincense on each pile. Why frankincense? That the bread might be a pleasing aroma before the Lord.
Which takes us to the location of the bread, which was to be placed on the table of pure gold, verse 6, before the Lord. And again, in verse 8, every Sabbath, Aaron the priest shall arrange it regularly before the Lord.
Now, this “before the Lord” recalls the layout of the tabernacle furnishings, which were quite sparse. In the tabernacle, there were only 4 pieces of furniture. The ark, which was placed in the innermost room behind the veil by itself, represented God’s throne on earth.
On the other side of the veil was the altar of incense, the table for the bread, and the golden lampstand. The lampstand and the table were to be placed directly opposite each other, with the lampstand shining on this table and the bread.
The portrait—this reenactment—the people are blessed to participate in is none less than the Lord’s fellowship with His people. It’s a picture of the light of God’s presence, the light of His face, shining on His people.
The renewal of the bread Sabbath by Sabbath is a reminder of the importance of the weekly rhythm of Israel’s life, in which the people were to be rested and refreshed as they broke from their regular duties and enjoyed a special time of communion with their God.
It’s a picture of the blessing which Aaron was to bless the people with: the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine on you.
That’s why, as believers, we have these weekly rhythms, these patterns of worship on the Lord’s Day—to remind us of our communion with God—that His face, His favor has shown on us and continues to shine on us, not through any lamps we set up and tend to, but through the Light of the World—Jesus himself.
It’s what the annual festivals all pointed to, climaxing in this picture of God’s people basking in the Light of God’s presence.
BUT this beautiful portrait of communion quickly turns to one of discommunion. Verse 10. (Read 10-12.)
BLASPHEMY AS DISCOMMUNION
Now, blasphemy is the exact opposite of communion and fellowship. In it’s most usual sense, it is a verbal display of contempt against God, though it doesn’t necessarily have to entail words. Blasphemy is a verbal revealing of the heart. It’s amazing how many people use God’s name and Christ’s name as a curse. But realize, as our Lord made clear, out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.
Blasphemy is nothing more than one revealing their displeasure, or rather, their hostility toward God. Cursing is an act of contempt. And when one uses God’s name as a curse, there is a recognition that they truly understand God’s sovereignty over all things… but get this… they hate it!
This man is a son of Shelomith, whose name means peace. Shelomith is the daughter of Dibri, whose name means to speak. The irony here is that the one thing this man didn’t do was speak peace. Instead, he was hostile to God’s people, and he was hostile to God. He blasphemed the Name, referring to “Yahweh.”
Now, notice, in verse 12, the people don’t automatically pronounce judgment themselves, but put the man in custody until the will of the Lord is made clear to them. What’s the Lord’s will in this matter? Verse 13. (Read 13-16.)
The entire congregation is to stone him. And this goes, not just for Israelites, but for both the native and the sojourner. Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death.
Now, let me ask you. Does that rub you the wrong way? Are you troubled by the fact that the sentence for this man who did nothing more than use God’s name as a curse word was that he was to be stoned to death?
Well, here’s the thing, the only reason why something like this troubles you and me is because we either don’t grasp God’s holiness, or we have a lapse of awareness of His holiness.
CONFESSION AND COMMUNION
You know why we take time to confess week after week? And I know, for some of you, it makes you uncomfortable. But I challenge you to ask yourself why? It has everything to do with a failure to see our life in the light of God’s holiness.
You see, our weekly confession—and really, it should be daily at a minimum, but I’m talking corporately as a body of believers—we confess:
1) because we haven’t arrived at perfection just yet. And except for the promised mercy of Christ’s finished work on the cross, the past week of any one of our lives is sufficient to condemn us, not to stoning, but to an eternity in hell. So, we need to confess.
2) Confession serves as a reminder of what Jesus saved us from—what he died for. His crucifixion wasn’t some empty unnecessary act that just might happen to add some minor benefits to an already pleasing life before God.
The twelve loaves of bread needed frankincense added, because in themselves, the people of Israel were a far cry from pleasing in God’s sight. And if left to ourselves, the same is true of us. Christ is our pleasing aroma before God—the Bread of presence offered before His Father.
Let me just say, many sects of the church hate that. For them, Christianity is more of a self-help make me feel better about myself religion. To them, there is something in me that God was already pleased with, so He sent Jesus to finish what was merely a struggle for me. Bologna!
God sent His Son because our lives were blasphemous before God. Outside of Christ, our every word, our every deed is one of contempt towards God. As Silas read from Romans 2, God’s name is blasphemed in the world because God’s people fail to live lives of faith, trusting in Him.
Blasphemy is more than our words; it’s more than using God’s name in vain. It’s a 180-degree turn from a disposition of communion and fellowship to a disposition of disunion, discommunion, and enmity. That’s what took place in the Garden when Adam and Eve ate. And that’s what takes place every time you and I sin.
Confession, and repentance, is our turning back to the Lord who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.
We turn back to have our sweet communion with the Lord restored. O what a gracious God. But understand this, to not turn back, is to remain at enmity with God. And God will by no means clear the guilty who remain hostile to Him. And there’s but one way to remove that hostility between you and God, and that is through the cross of Jesus Christ.
HOSTILITY WITH GOD LEADS TO HOSTILITY WITH GOD'S PEOPLE
Well, hostility toward God automatically leads to hostility among God’s people. Which is why blasphemy is followed up with the Lex Talionis—or the law of reciprocal justice. Verse 17. (Read 17-22.)
While blasphemy focuses on one’s hostility towards God, the laws here, an eye for eye, tooth for tooth, focus on justice concerning wrongful acts against image-bearers. But something to be aware of, these laws aren’t given for the purpose of individual vengeance. They are given as guidelines for the State as to what justice requires—nothing more, nothing less.
The world seeks to separate religion from the public sphere. The problem is that such is truly impossible. The one overflows into the other. Discommunion with God leads to discommunion with your neighbor.
Our relationships with our neighbors will be reflected in our relationship with Christ. Hate God, hate neighbor, but love God, you will love your neighbor. And you will seek to love them well by directing them to the path of communion with the One who gives them life and breath and everything else. Because a settled stance of discommunion will ultimately lead to excommunication.
EXCOMMUNICATION
Verse 23. (Read 23.)
Rather than being brought out of Egypt to enjoy God’s presence and fellowship with the people of God, this blasphemer is brought out of the camp of Israel in what is none other than a permanent form of excommunication. This man will not be rejoining God’s people in fellowship. It’s too late. His blasphemous stance against the Holy God led to his permanent removal from God, God’s people, and all the blessings that go with.
JESUS BORE OUR CHARGE OF BLASPHEMY
You know what is ironic about the whole death penalty charge for blasphemy? Blasphemy was the charge by which the Lord Jesus was sent to the cross. Jesus was condemned for blasphemy because by his claims, he made himself out to be none other than God.
But here’s the thing. Jesus was completely innocent. Why? Because he is God. There’s no contempt or insult to his Father in claiming to be who he is. Jesus was innocent of blasphemy. But you know who wasn’t? You and me.
God has provided us every opportunity to fellowship and commune with Him. And yet, we have blasphemed His holy name in both our words and our lives by making ourselves out to be our own gods. Stoning would be a light sentence. What we deserve is hell—excommunication—permanent removal from His Holy Presence and His every blessing that flows from His goodness. We deserve permanent removal from His kingdom and His people—every relationship you enjoy, severed for eternity.
Even on this side of the cross, I can’t count the times I have belittled his grace, and yet He continues to shower us with kindness nonetheless, with the kindest act of all, sending His own Son to pay for our charge of blasphemy. And Jesus paid it in full with his own life, in order that we might bask in the light of his glorious grace as he makes his beautiful scarred and bloody face to shine upon us.
If that doesn’t humble you to pour out your heart in confession, nothing will. O what God has accomplished in order for you and I to commune with Him.
Rejoice in this God of justice, this God of wrath who will not endure His great name being blasphemed forever, causing discord and disunity upon the earth. And rejoice in this God, who in His mercy and grace, poured out that wrath upon His Son.
That’s what this Holy Calendar has accomplished. Our communion with this Holy God. But we’re not done yet. We have one more week. Chapter 25, which I pray will be the most jubilant of all as we look at the year of Jubilee. Let us pray.
Leviticus 23:1-44
INTRODUCTION: Next week’s Mother’s Day. Two weeks after, Memorial Day. Then Father’s Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veteran’s Day, and that’s right, Columbus Day fits in there somewhere, added back in 1492, I think!
We order our lives around a calendar. Cheyenne’s birthday was Friday. Jenny’s and my anniversary is later this month. These are special days for us. But as a nation, as a people, those personal days don’t land on everyone’s calendar. But those other days are what we call national holidays. We pretty much celebrate, or at least acknowledge them, as a nation. Now, in Britain, they’re not likely to celebrate the 4th of July. Not because it has nothing to do with them. But it’s not a day they’re going to commemorate. They have their own holidays, and that’s not one!
Every nation has their own unique calendar. So, why do certain days make it to our national calendar, while others don’t? Well, in one sense, these days seek to unify a people. They serve as commemorative occasions for us to remember some event in history. They also provide a time of rest from regular work for many in the labor force.
Why do I bring this up? Because today, we’re beginning to look at Israel’s calendar and their particular holidays, or Holy Days, which is what the world holiday originally stood for. As such, we can rightly refer to this calendar as a Holy Calendar. “Holy,” because these are days and times appointed directly by the Holy God. These are indeed Holy Days. Holy occasions. And it’s our task this morning to understand what makes them holy and why it matters for us.
If you’re not already there, make your way to Leviticus 23. We’ll be looking at Israel’s Holy Calendar and how it relates to their communing with God, and in turn, our communing with God. Leviticus 23. If you would, please stand as you’re able. I’m going to begin at Leviticus 23, starting at verse 1.
Leviticus 23:1-5 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, these are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation.
You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places. These are the appointed feasts of the Lord, the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight, is the Lord’s Passover.
OVERVIEW OF CHAPTER: SABBATH AND SEVEN FEASTS
We’ll look at these festivals in summary, partly because that’s all that’s taking place here in chapter 23. We can find longer explanations of each of these elsewhere. But the point of chapter 23 is to bring them together as a whole.
If you notice, the chapter opens with a call to keep the Lord’s appointed feasts. That word “appointed” is where we get the word for the “tent of meeting.” The tent of meeting was God’s appointed place where He would meet with His people. Verse 2. These are the appointed feasts or simply, the appointments of the Lord. That’s what the tent of meeting was: an appointed place. These days are appointed times.
But this word, “appointed” also harkens back to Genesis 1 when God set up the lamps in the sky, which were to be for signs and seasons, or rather, appointed times. The celestial lamps, the sun and moon and stars, were to be a way of marking God’s appointed festivals. That’s the same word used here in Leviticus 23.
So, what are the appointed times that God has set apart as holy for His people? Verse 3. First is the Sabbath. Then glancing at the headings throughout the chapter, the Sabbath is followed by the 7 festivals to the Lord. Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Firstfruits, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Feast of Booths.
The first 3 festivals are related to Passover in the first month. The last three relate to the Day of Atonement in the seventh month. And the feast that is all by itself, that falls right in the middle is the Feast of Weeks or Feast of Harvest, or what we know as Pentecost. We’ll return to this.
OVERVIEW OF THE UNIT: CHAPTERS 23-25
Now, chapter 23 is the beginning of a larger section, chapters 23 through 25. We don’t have time to get to it all today. What we’ll cover today is really groundwork for this larger section, the whole of which serves as Israel’s calendar and how it relates to their communing with a Holy God.
Chapter 23 deals with Israel’s annualcalendar. And that’s all we have time to cover today. But this is Israel’s calendar not ours. So how does it apply to us? Well, in one sense, the annual calendar served as a reminder of God’s provision for His people. And it should remind us of that as well.
THE SABBATH
As such, we have the Sabbath. Verse 3 in chapter 23. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places.
The Sabbath served not merely as an annual festival, but it was part of Israel’s weekly rhythm of life throughout the year. Like the appointed times, the idea of Sabbath also takes us back to Genesis. God rested on the Seventh day, taking delight in His very good creation. And mankind was to rest in that fellowship, that communion with God. But of course, Genesis 3 and the Fall turned that rest into unrest.
But with the Exodus, the Sabbath gets reinstituted as a regular reminder that the Lord provides for His people. He is our provision—not our efforts to provide for ourselves. So the Lord provided manna in the wilderness for the people to remind them that He cares for His people and supplies their needs, the greatest need of which is Himself. Work 6 days. But week after week, remember your rest in Him, communing with Him.
The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, not a Sabbath to Minecraft, or Mission Impossible, or my favorite hobby! Now, I’m not at all saying you can’t do any of those on the Sabbath. But the point is to commune with God Himself. It’s not given as a free day to focus on YOU! It’s not a Sabbath to Josh, but to the Lord. Because what Josh needs isn’t more “ME TIME!” But more HIM TIME!
In chapter 19, which we looked at the last two weeks, love neighbor as self, so many have taken that to mean, “Well, I first got to love me!” But let me just say, Scripture’s stance is that nobody has a problem with loving themselves. They might not do so well. But the problem isn’t that we don’t love ourselves. Its that we tend to love ourselves at the expense of our neighbor! Treating all of life as about me!
Well, the Sabbath is a regular, weekly rhythm of laying aside my “me time” and whatever plans and agendas I’ve been pursuing and instead, be reoriented to the God who is my Provider and my Provision.
Now, on this side of the cross, the Sabbath looks different, but the point is the same.
There’s discontinuity. If you haven’t noticed, is that the day changed. The early church signified a major shift, that something was indeed new! Also, our Sabbath is not so much a day, but a person. Jesus is our Sabbath rest.
There’s also continuity. Where our whole lives should revolve around our fellowship with the Lord, finding our daily rest in Him, in Christ, there is a special communion with our Lord that we enjoy, and I believe, are to enjoy Sunday-by-Sunday as we gather as a church on the Lord’s Day to worship. Our worship is, in part, resting in Him.
REST IN THE FESTIVALS
Now, this idea of rest continues in the annual festivals. 1) Some of the days fell on the Sabbath. But even when the day doesn’t fall on the Sabbath, we read the words you shall do no ordinary work. In the seventh month, we have the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths falling on the 1st, 10th, and 15threspectively. Each of them says the same thing; you shall not do any ordinary work.
Now I might struggle with math, but the 1st, 10th, and 15th, which these feasts fall on, don’t share a common factor of 7 no matter how you want to slice them. Either one, two, or all 3 of them will fall on a day other than the Sabbath.
And regarding the Day of Atonement, in verse 30, it says that whoever does any work on that day, that person I will destroy from among his people. You shall not do any work. It was to be a Sabbath of solemn rest. Why? Because this day had the special significance of atoning for the people’s sins. To not pause from the ordinary routines of life and acknowledge this special day, any of these special days, by setting them aside as a time of worship, was to despise what God had done for His people. Such is to be indifferent to God’s mercy and reject His grace.
Now, I know, as Christians, we’re no longer under the law but under grace. But let me just ask, because Scripture makes clear the import of the regular fellowship of believers. And the New Testament points very strongly to that day being the first day of the week. While I want to avoid being a legalist here, and I know there are various circumstances in each individual’s life, but to regularly neglect the gathering with Christ’s church to worship and rest in Him, is likely due to failure to realize God’s provision for you in Christ, or an indifference to that provision.
THE FESTIVALS
Back to verse 5. Looking more closely at this annual calendar, verse 5, the year begins with Passover. Now, at first glance, it would appear that Moses pretty much passes over the Passover, because one verse and he’s onto the next festival. But the first 3 festivals all go together.
Moreover, the Passover has been covered in such detail earlier. Passover is THE festival, the day of all days that Israel remembers, or rather should remember. It’s the day that Israel was redeemed out of bondage, that they were set free from oppression and servitude. It’s the day Israel became a nation—a new nation—rather than a people living under another nation. The fact that Passover begins the calendar year, makes this festival a big deal!!!
Verse 6, Passover is immediately followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which also served as a reminder of Israel’s Exodus. For seven days Israel was to eat unleavened bread. Why unleavened? Because the people went up out of Egypt in haste. There wasn’t time to properly prepare bread, allowing it to rise.
While we likely don’t celebrate a week of unleavened bread, I hope you realize the haste of the New Exodus! The time to go up out of Egypt or Lebanon TN, or whatever City of Destruction you currently dwell in is NOW!
And then we have the Feast of Firstfruits. Verse 10. Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lore, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it. And then we have the offerings that go with this festival: a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering, as well as the grain/food offering and the drink offering.
Then verse 14. And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God; it is a statute forever.
The people were to each bring a single sheaf, or bundle of grain. This would be the amount equivalent to feed one person for the day. It was how much manna the Israelites were to gather per person in their household. So, it might not seem that big a deal. But this is the firstfruits of the harvest. And the people weren’t to enjoy any of the harvest until they brought their offering first to the Lord.
O the faith it takes to give first to the Lord before enjoying His provision. But let’s think about this. Does the Lord need their grain? Not at all. I can ask the same question regarding our offerings. Does the Lord need our money? Nope. Of course, we won’t keep the lights on if we don’t pay the electric bill. But if that happens, we’ll just move service to outside. Because God has already provided the Light we need! Seriously, the Lord needs absolutely none of what you and I have to offer.
And I hope, that when you give, you are not of the mindset that you’re giving to the church. That would be the same as Isael saying, we’re actually giving this to Aaron and his sons. Yes, the offerings of the people provided for the priesthood. But the point of the offering was very much like the Sabbath; the Lord Himself is the true provision. So, the people were to give to Him prior to baking any for themselves.
To wait and give after I have enough for both me and the Lord is to circumvent the system. It’s to completely miss the point. There’s no faith in giving after I’ve got mine, or taking my initial harvest and first leveraging it for more before I give to the Lord. Why do I bring this up? Because what you and I need more than anything else in this fallen world that seeks to lead us astray, seeks to lead us to depend on something other than the Almighty God is to have our faith increased.
[Faith — Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17).]
Something else to keep in mind, this first sheaf, this first bundle, likely wasn’t all that impressive to look at—the people bringing the very first of their harvest to the Lord, but there likely wasn’t much to gather for the making up of this first bundle. Yet this unimpressive bundle from the firstfruits was a promise that harvest was coming!
So, verse 15, we have the Feast of Weeks, seven weeks after that initial grain offering of a single sheaf. Rather than bringing a single sheaf to be waved before the Lord, the people of Israel were to bake twice as much into loaves to be waved before the Lord. But these weren’t just any sacrificial loaves. These were to be leavened loaves made with yeast. Not flat bread! But soft fluffy bread like the Hawaiian bread you pick up at Publix.
Something else that is striking here is the difference between this Feast and the previous Feast of First Fruits. The Sheaf presented as firstfruits was to be presented with a burnt offering, which we’ve come to know as the ascension offering in which the entire offering was transformed into a cloud of smoke to ascend before Yahweh as a pleasing aroma.
But here, for the Feast of Weeks, these leavened loaves, that’s bread baked with yeast, had to be presented with a sin offering, whereas the sheaf presented as firstfruits did not.
As this is the time of harvest, verse 22, the people are reminded, as in chapter 19, not to reap their fields right up to the edge, but to leave them for the poor and sojourner. The promised harvest has arrived. God had indeed provided. Therefore, this is a time to rejoice in the Lord, not to hoard it all for myself.
Moving on. Verse 24. The last 3 feasts fall on the seventh month. The Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths or temporary shelters.
Now, we’ve recently covered the Day of Atonementover the course of 3 weeks, so I’m not going to go into much detail here other than to say that where the Passover Festival was a reminder of release from bondage, the Day of Atonement was a reminder of the remittance of sin, or the forgiveness of sin.
The Feast of Trumpets which preceded the Day of Atonement was sort of a preparatory call that Atonement was near. The word trumpet isn’t even in the text. Rather, it’s best understood as a blast, whether that be from a ram’s horn or someone’s mouth, in both cases serving as an alarm. With the Day of Atonement around the corner, we might say that this blast of the trumpet was to prepare the people to enter God’s presence, because, as previously covered, the Day of Atonement was the one day of the year where someone could go behind the veil into the Most Holy Place.
The final festival, the Feast of Booths, reminded the people of their sojourn from Egypt to the promised land, a time when they had no permanent housing, no permanent dwelling place, no place of rest.
REMINDERS THAT POINT FORWARD
Now, while the holy calendar was meant to serve as a commemoration of what God had done, such as Passover, and His redeeming His people from bondage, these festivals also pointed forward to what we might refer to as God’s promised future grace for His people.
Again, taking the Sabbath as a reminder of God’s faithfulness week after week to provide for the needs of His people, allowed them to rest in the fact that God would continue to provide week after week in the future. Where many saw the Sabbath as a burden that kept them from pursuing their own agenda, the Sabbath was to serve as a reminder that you don’t have to! There is no agenda that is that important. You can lay your plans aside and enjoy a special time of uninterrupted communion with the Lord who will provide.
Likewise, the Day of Atonement not only reminded the people of the Lord’s provided means of forgiveness and cleansing so that they could dwell in His Holy presence, but that the Lord would continue to do so year-after-year, so long as they didn’t forsake Him by turning to foreign gods. Yahweh had provided future grace, the promise of future forgiveness for unintentional straying and unintentional sin.
The problem, however, is that our problem isn’t unintentionally going astray. It isn’t unintentional sin. We flee from God, running from this idol to that one as fast as our heart can manufacture them. We are so fixated on ourselves, that we intentionally put ourselves before others. So, while this calendar points to future grace, if the extent of the future grace promised ends with this calendar here in Leviticus 23, you and I are in trouble.
CHRIST’S FULFILLMENT OF THE CALENDAR
But praise God, this calendar doesn’t end here; it doesn’t end in Leviticus. The whole of Leviticus pointed to a greater appointed time—a most holy time—when God would satisfy all that this calendar merely pointed to—the true Passover Lamb who takes away the sin of the World! Jesus himself!
He is the Lamb offered as a substitute for the true sons of Israel, that we might walk out of bondage, not from Egypt, but from the enslavement of our sin.
And since our Passover Lamb has indeed been sacrificed, we are to become unleavened, as the apostle Paul says, as we truly are unleavened—pure in Christ.
And that Feast of Firstfruits with the seemingly unimpressive early harvest of that single sheaf… well, Jesus is that sheaf, the true firstfruits. There was a time he seemed so unimpressive… beaten, stripped, shamed. Could this man truly be the grain offering to God, this seemingly meager ration lifted up as a wave offering on a cross?
But Jesus himself said, that unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. With His death as the firstfruits, poured forth resurrection life, as Christ, the firstfruits rose from the grave and ascended to the Father.
And with the presentation of the firstfruits to God came the promise of a greater harvest, the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, in which, even on that first day of Pentecost 3000 souls were added to the harvest of the church!
The last three festivals have an already-not-yet aspect to them. To place them solely in the future as some do is to miss the point that the Day of Atonement took place with the cross. Our sins have been removed as far as the East is from the West! The penalty for sin has been fully covered.
Still, we await a time when we will physically enter into God’s very presence, when the trump shall resound, and the Lord descends with the clouds in the same way he ascended!
For now, you and I sojourn in booths, temporary shelters, the tents of our fallen failing bodies. But this is for but a short time, a single week in comparison to the eternity that awaits us when we will enjoy the fullness of Sabbath rest, communing with God in glorified resurrected bodies.
CONCLUSION
In Christ, we have a future hope! We are banking on God’s future grace, a grace that guarantees that this salvation doesn’t depend on me and my ability to accomplish a thing, but on God’s faithfulness. Therefore, we can rest and commune with Christ now… and in the age to come.
Israel’s calendar isn’t our calendar. And yet, it is! Our calendar is our Sunday-by-Sunday celebration of Jesus’ satisfaction of this calendar as we fellowship as Christ’s body, feasting on the Word made flesh. The Lord’s Supper is the Lord’s appointed Festival for His holy people, in which we remember… and look forward in hope of the consummation of all His precious promises.
Leviticus 19:1-18
So, last Sunday we began by looking at what it means for God to be holy. In Verse 2, the Lord commands Moses to speak to all the people of Israel and say to them, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”
HOLINESS — OTHERNESS — LIFE IN HIMSELF
As review, the simplest way to understand holiness, is that which is set-apart, or separate, or some theologians prefer the term “otherness.” What makes God separate or other from creation is that God alone has life in Himself. He is the very essence of life. All of God’s perfections flow from who He is, which is absolute life. Therefore, to reflect God is to reflect life in the fullest sense.
LAW PROMOTES LIFE
God’s law reflects just that; it reflects life, promoting what’s life-giving and condemning what promotes death. In fact, if you turn back a chapter to Leviticus 18:5, the Lord reminds Moses, concerning His commandments, that if a person does them, he shall live by them. So the commandments are intended to promote life, not death.
PAUL — LAW
Now the Apostle Paul picks up on this verse in his letter to the Galatians, making a point to say that the law is not of faith, but that everyone who relies on works of the law are under a curse. Some have taken this to mean that God’s law is irrelevant for those of the New Covenant, because, after all, we’re under grace; all that matters is faith. So, why waste your time walking through books like Leviticus.
ROMANS 7 – LAW IS HOLY
But understand, Paul doesn’t condemn the Law, or state in any way that this Law is unholy, unrighteous, or somehow bad. In fact, Paul says the exact opposite in Romans 7, that the law is indeed holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. So, the commandments here in Leviticus are holy and righteous and good.
PROMISED LIFE
Furthermore, Paul even captures the idea that the law held forth a promise of life. But that the very command that promised life proved to be death, not because of the law, but because of the sin within… the sin within him, within me, within you. So, get this. There’s nothing wrong with the law. The problem is our sin nature.
PORTRAIT OF LIFE OR DEATH
So, while the law doesn’t offer life in itself, the law is a portrait of what a holy life looks like—what God’s holiness demands, because to live contrary to God’s law is to promote death rather than life, and death is not a reflection of God.
ASPECT OF OTHER-WORLDLY
Now, if this law in Leviticus is indeed God’s holy law for His holy people, then there should be an aspect of this law that is separate or other-worldly from the way the world lives.
WORLD ACCEPTS
But here’s the thing. Many of these concepts we read about in these first 18 verses of chapter 19, especially verses 10-18, the world’s pretty much good with… at least to a degree.
ENCOURAGE TO SHARE
Take verses 9 and 10: Don’t strip your vineyards and fields bare but leave some for the less fortunate. The world is good with the concept of sharing. Before Jenny and I were believers, we encouraged our kids to share. Steve, you came to Christ later in life like me. When your kids were young, did you teach them to share? Absolutely.
In fact, most religions and worldviews promote nearly every word and concept from verse 11 through verse 18. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t oppress. Don’t act unjustly. Don’t show partiality. Don’t slander. Don’t hate. Don’t take revenge. But instead, love one another.
NOT LIVED OUT
But if the world knows these things, what is it that makes such commandments holy? First, because they aren’t lived out! Second, they aren’t kept as an act of worship to the glory of the living God.
DON’T NEED WRITTEN LAW
People don’t need Bibles to know how to treat others. The Buddhist in Laos doesn’t need a Bible to know stealing is wrong. The Hindu in Delhi doesn’t need a God’s written word to know that it’s not good to lie. The Shinto in Japan doesn’t need the Gideons to drop off a copy of the New Testament in their native tongue for them to hold a high regard for honoring the family. Your pluralist or agnostic friend doesn’t need you to quote Scripture to him or her to believe that loving others is a good idea.
WORLD KNOWS
The world knows, and it always has known. Paul makes this very point in Romans 2. When Gentiles (that’s non-Jews of any ethnicity), when Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
NO ADVANTAGE
Having the written law is no advantage to the Jew because he will perish just the same as the Gentile who never had the written law. Hearing the law is no advantage! I can stand up here and recite the laws in Leviticus until I’m blue in the face. But your hearing the law won’t benefit you at all … unless you live it out. Because it’s not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified.
GUILTY — STOPS SHORT OF CONFORMITY
So, while the entire world knows the rightness of these laws, it stops short of living them out. And so often, we do too. But get this. If you and I fail to grow into conformity with the moral character of these laws, we will perish along with the world. Because without holiness no one will see the Lord. Yes, in Christ, we have an alien righteousness. But if such righteousness remains alien, we will prove that we don’t truly belong to Jesus. Holiness is not optional for the believer.
WORK OF LAW UPON HEARTS
Now, I need to address a seeming conflict between what Paul says in Romans 2 about the work of the law being written on the hearts of even the Gentiles, and that of the New Covenant promise of Jeremiah 31, quoted twice in Hebrews, where God himself promises to put his law within his people, writing it on their hearts, because I think it’s helpful for us understanding the holiness code of Leviticus, and particularly this list of commands that don’t seem all that holy or different from what most of the world believes.
MARRED IMPRINT
First, in Romans 2, Paul doesn’t say that everyone has God’s law written on their hearts per se, but rather, he says the work of the law is written on their hearts. When God fashioned us in His image, He wrote His law on our hearts, or perhaps I should say, on Adam’s and Eve’s heart. But with the Fall, that law was severely marred. But the imprint is still there.
SHATTERED TABLETS
Think of it like the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written on the front and back, that Moses shattered due to Israel’s golden calf idolatry. While the tablets could no longer be read in the form the Author intended, huge traces of the law could certainly be made out. That’s the work of the law written on every human heart.
TRACES AND BROKEN IMAGE
Apart from Christ filling us with his Spirit, every human being on the planet still has traces of the law within. The imprint from chiseling is still there. But the beauty of the law fails to shine through as originally intended. Rather, we live out the law in brokenness—in trace amounts here and there because we don’t truly delight in the shards and fragments of God’s imprint on our broken lives. The Law is broken, and the image is broken.
RESTORATION
So, at the core of the holiness code is a restoration of the Imago Dei—the image of God. The law doesn’t restore the image. It reveals what the image is to look like—how the image is to show forth.
GOD SANCTIFIES
Doing the law doesn’t make you or me holy; God does. Leviticus itself seeks to hammer this point home, mentioning no fewer than 8 times over the next 3 chapters that it is the Lord who sanctifies or makes holy. Leviticus 20:8 reads, Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you. God alone makes a people holy, not the law.
However, upholding the law does reveal that we are indeed His, rather than counterfeits who merely espouse God’s law with our mouths, while our hearts fail to live it out because they are far from Him.
NEARLY EVERY WORD
Now, I mentioned that most religions and worldviews promote nearly every word and concept from verse 11 through verse 18. Nearly, but not every. You see, the basis for the laws in Leviticus 19 is that God is holy and therefore His people should be holy because He is the Lord.
If we take verse 18 to be the climax of the chapter, you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord, then that phrase, I am the Lord or I am the Lord your God, shows up 7 times on either side of verse 18. Also, Moses bookends the chapter with parallel phrases. Verse 2: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. And verse 36: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. That word “Lord”, if you look closely, you’ll see that your Bible likely records it in small caps. That’s because it stands for God’s covenantal name, Yahweh.
REJECTED FOUNDATION
Why do I bring this up? Because the world is perfectly fine with the idea of doing good to others. But what the world is not okay with is the foundation for doing good, that genuine goodness flows from the God of Israel, Yahweh. Morality doesn’t stem from some vague abstract deity. It flows from a God who is personal—the Lord of life, who created you and me to be a reflection of Him and the life that flows from Him. What makes the law holy is that it reflects God and thus, glorifies Him. But when the commands are obeyed as mere external motions and not as an act of worship to the Giver of life, then the character of the law isn’t truly lived out at all. It completely misses the point of the law. And that’s why, as much as the world may understand the outward precepts of the law, it fails to keep the holiness of this very law.
OVERVIEW
Now, what I want to do for the rest of our time, is briefly—don’t laugh—briefly look at how these laws listed in this first half of chapter 19 are laws that promote life, with the climax being that of loving our neighbor, and how the world’s concept of these laws fall short of holiness.
I’m not going to read through these verses again, since Caleb already read it for us. Rather, I want to look at them more broadly.
REVERE PARENTS
The first command after the call to be holy is verse 3, revering one’s mother and father. That word “revere’ is the same word used for “fear” as in “the fear of the Lord.” The law of life begins here because right up front it contrasts between a culture of life and a disposition of death.
To revere your father and mother is to reverence the means by which God granted you life. It is a portrait of fearing our heavenly Father. Failing to show such reverence is to despise the gift of life itself, and hence despise the Giver.
Does the world hold to this concept of revering one’s parents? It might give lip service to the idea, but we know it thinks very little of such. How many shows, movies, books, news and media feeds seek to do everything but show reverence to parents, especially the dad. And such mockery is really an overflow of what the world thinks of God as heavenly Father. I’m not at all saying there aren’t poor examples among moms and dads. But regardless of how imperfect your parents are or might have been, God Himself, of His own good will, placed you in that particular family for His good purposes, for your good, and for His glory.
SABBATH
As far as the Sabbath is concerned, and we’ve covered this in our Wednesday night classes, the Sabbath is actually the goal or the climax of creation. And that is no less true now than it was that very first week of creation. You and I were created to enjoy rest in God; that was and still is to be the very culmination of life for humanity. This is not an Old Covenant idea. It is at the heart of the New Covenant.
Hebrews 4 says that if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, (and here it is) there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest!
While the world may like the idea of regular times of rest, it doesn’t want to be told when such occasions should be. Moreover, the rest the world seeks isn’t rest in the holy One, but rather a rest in numbing their faculties through entertainment, food and drink, and substances.
But entertainment, regardless of how much the world seeks to promote otherwise, isn’t life. Food and drink, aren’t life. The kingdom of God isn’t a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, the presence of God within you. That’s your life. That’s the seal of the promised Sabbath rest we have in Christ.
IDOLATRY
Idolatry, if we’re looking at how these laws relate to that which is life versus that which promotes death, idolatry is the worship of dead things—false gods that have no breath in them—rather than worshiping the living triune God.
The world has no qualms about idolatry. Instead, the world seeks to promote idolatry, which is why every aspect of the world’s ethic ultimately leads to death, because every supposed good deed is not an act of worship to the living God, but an act of worship to whatever idols they have manufactured—with the most prominent idol being oneself.
PEACE OFFERING
Verses 5-8 have to do with profaning the peace offering—or the sacrifices through which the Lord brings His people near for fellowship. This provision was through the death of another that we might live. How might you and I profane the peace offering today? By treating our Lord’s sacrifice as common. By taking the amazing grace of the cross of Christ for granted. It’s through Jesus’ peace offering—his death in our place—that we’ve been granted life. That should leave us in awe.
O the world seems to show some esteem for Jesus of Nazareth. I mean, he was a good person. And yes, he was wrongly condemned. But they dishonor him because they reject his infinitely costly sacrifice of himself that they might be reconciled to the God they abhor.
OPPRESSION VERSUS LOVE
The remainder of these commands, from verse 9-18, I believe can be summed up as do not oppress but love. Stealing, dealing falsely, being slow to pay what’s owed to another, showing partiality, slander, bitterness, and personal vengeance all fall under the broader category of oppression—seeking my advantage over yours.
Oppression discounts another person’s life as less valuable than your own, which is the opposite of what our Lord Jesus did for us—not counting equality with God as a thing to be grasped but emptied himself as a servant for you and for me!
LOVE SEEKS WELL-BEING
Instead, we are called to love, and loving others seeks their good, and seeking one’s good seeks to promote that which is life—both physically and spiritually. So, verses 9 and 10, not stripping your fields and vineyards bare, are not simply a matter of sharing. They are a portrait of living open-handedly to all—for the people of God to live in such a way that recognizes that the resources God has provided for us are not for us alone, but to provide for the physical well-being—the life—of our neighbor, hence, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.
So, we’ll wrap of with this idea of living open-handedly with the resources of life as a means of loving our neighbor well.
JAMES
James 2 says, If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
FAITH
Do you know the context in which James shares this? The most immediate context is that of faith, a faith that fails to work, and therefore proves itself to be something other than salvific-or saving—faith. Rather, such is merely a lip-service type of faith, that sees faith in Christ as nothing more than fire insurance, because there’s no transformation in their life.
ROYAL LAW
But there’s another context from which James’ words flow, and that is what he refers to as the Royal Law and the Law of Liberty. What is this Royal Law? I’m glad you asked. It’s Leviticus 19. (James 2:8) If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well.
For James, every failure to keep the law is summed up as a failure to keep the royal law of loving your neighbor, whether that be oppression, partiality, murder, adultery, failure to live open handedly towards your brother or sister, and so on.
LAW OF LIBERTY
So, James goes on to say, Speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. Why? Because judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. But mercy triumphs over judgment.
JOHN — LOVE
The apostle John says something similar as to what love looks like. In 1 John 3, he writes, If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, (hear John’s plea!) Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
HYPOCRITICAL ADVOCATES
The world loves in word and talk. The world has no problem advocating what you and I should do with our possessions, our money, our time. Just look at our government here in the States! We have no problem spending other people’s resources. But we are far slower to put our own behind those same things we advocate so strongly for.
But God’s love flows from the recipients of His love. We live open-handedly with the physical resources of life because we know the Author of Life and the precious gift of life He has given us in Christ Jesus.
WORLD DOESN’T KNOW LOVE
Love—genuine biblical love—is a holy attribute, because it flows from knowing a holy God. Regardless how much the world talks up the idea of true love, the world doesn’t know genuine love, because the world doesn’t know the holy God who is love.
JESUS — LOVE ONE ANOTHER
In fact, this is how we know that the Bible promotes genuine love as other-worldly, holy, set-apart. Jesus says, that by our love for one another, people will know that we’re His. We are no longer of this world.
LOVING GOD AND NEIGHBOR
How big a deal is Leviticus 19? First, Not only does Jesus quote Leviticus 19 multiple times, he sets love of neighbor alongside loving God; the two cannot be separated; the one necessarily flows from the other.
Jesus says that on these two commandments—loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and loving your neighbor as yourself— on these two depends all the Law and the Prophets.
HE FIRST LOVED US
Second, Jesus pretty much says, how you and I live this out will show whether we truly belong to him. People will know we are his by our love.
We don’t seek to live out this law to earn Jesus’ favor and enter into heaven. Here me on this. We don’t strive to live the character of this out so that we might somehow garner Jesus’ favor and go to heaven rather than hell. We strive to live this out because he has already shown us such favor, has given us new life, and promised us a Sabbath rest in him.
And get this, this commandment to love is not burdensome; it’s life-giving. We love because we know love! We love because Jesus first loved us, giving himself for us.
CONCLUSION
You and I uphold the law—keeping Jesus’ command to love—as an act of worship to our triune God who loves us.
You see, our keeping of this law is indeed holy. It’s other-worldly because our love is other-worldly. And our love is other-worldly because it reflects the One who is other-worldly, Jesus Christ, who came from outside our world. The transcendent One became not only immanent, but perfectly intimate with His creation—with us!
In Christ, God came near in the greatest possible expression of both divine and human love. And as such, Jesus is indeed the holy fulfillment of this holy law. And because we have His Spirit dwelling within us, we must live out the holy nature of this law too, not in the way the world might keep some of these commands here and there, but in the way Christ lives out the holy character of this holy law.
Read Leviticus 18
I ran into a bit of a problem preparing for today. My intent was to cover Leviticus 19 this morning, but I got hung up on the chapters on both sides of 19 instead. So here we are. Leviticus chapters 18 and 20. But I assure you, these chapters are not at all detached from chapter 19. Nor are they detached from all that came before. The first 16 chapters focused on the provided means for God’s people to dwell with Him in the land of His choosing, a good land flowing with milk and honey, which is a way of saying, overflowing with abundance.
MOST QUOTED VERSE
Now, since we’re a Bible believing church, I’m confident that many of you are familiar with what is, the most quoted Old Testament verse in the entire New Testament: Leviticus 19:18, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, directly quoted 8 times.
Why do I bring this up? Because as we survey chapters 18 and 20, both of which mostly deal with the category of sexual ethics, it’s important to understand the structure of this section of Leviticus.
LOVING NEIGHBOR HINGE
While chapter 16’s Day of Atonement is the center or climax of the book as a whole, the subsections each have their own center. Chapters 17 through 22 are most often understood as the holiness code, with Leviticus 19 forming its climax, and verse 18’s “loving your neighbor” serving as the hinge of this larger section.
One way we can easily notice the centrality of chapter 19 from the repeated sexual ethics in chapters 18 and 20. No, Moses hadn’t forgotten what he wrote two chapters earlier. He has a purpose for doing so.
CHIASTIC MOUNTAIN
1) is the literary device the biblical authors often used called “chiasm” where an author would record a set of ideas and then retrace them in reverse order.
Think about it like this: As you walk up a mountain and then turn around and come down, you see many of the same things. But you’re seeing everything from a slightly different perspective than you did on the way up.
The peak of that mountain is the climax, where you can see the most complete view of the surroundings at one time. Loving your neighbor is that summit, that allows us the best view of the whole of this holiness code.
LOVING NEIGHBOR SANDWICHED BETWEEN
There’s a second reason for Moses presenting these same laws on both sides of Leviticus 19? If you look closely, you’ll notice that as similar as chapters 18 and 20 are, they aren’t the same. The list of sexual ethics in chapter 18 can be understood as the thou shalt nots, and chapter 20 as the consequences. Chapter 19 is likely sandwiched between because breaking the sexual ethics of chapter 18 is a failure to love your neighbor as yourself, making chapter 20 not so much a list of consequences for particular sins as much as the consequences of not loving your neighbor as you ought.
Rather than loving your neighbor, the refrain of chapter 18 is that sexual immorality uncovers your neighbor's nakedness; it shames your neighbor.
LAY A FOUNDATION
My goal this morning is not to articulate the individual statutes set forth. The sexual ethic of the Bible is quite clear. The only reason we have debates on such issues is because we suppress the truth because we don’t like the truth. So, we all know what sexual immorality is. My goal is to lay of foundation of why this matters.
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Now, many in our society would argue, Hey Josh, in case you haven’t noticed this is the 21st century. We’ve come a long way from the oppression of the patriarchal era. All this stuff about sexual ethics, well, isn’t that a private matter? I mean, it’s personal. It’s my body, and so long as it only involves me and other mutually consenting partners, then what’s the harm. Isn’t mutual consent a form of loving my neighbor?
STEWARD
1) That body, you call yours, only partly belongs to you. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that you are a steward of that body, not an owner of it, because our bodies, and our souls for that matter, ultimately belong to the God who made them.
CARRIES OVER TO ALL OF LIFE
2) As private and personal as you may deem your sexual activity to be, it carries over to other aspects of your life, impacting your witness to the world. [1 Corinthians 6:18, sin against the body — the church]
GOD SEES ALL / ANGELIC WITNESSES
3) There’s no aspect of your life that is absolutely private. There is a God who witnesses every detail of your life, and not just your actions, or even your words, but your every thought, dream, and imagination. And He demands that all of it be kept holy.
But here’s also a host of angelic beings, who, while not privy to a front row seat of your thoughts, are witnesses of your outward behavior. When you and I fail to act according to God’s design, we dishonor the One who fashioned us for His glory, before the rest of creation.
DEVIATION IS NOT LOVE
4) Deviation from holiness is NOT loving your neighbor well. Forget all of this nonsense about mutual consent. You’re supposed to be an image of God’s holiness to your neighbor. Mutually consenting to sin robs your neighbor of the very witness you are to display. In fact, you’ve become a stumbling block, leading others on a path to hell. And affirming others in their disregard for holiness does the same. And people will give an account for their causing their neighbor to stumble.
REST OF THE WORLD
Okay, Josh. So, maybe this whole idea of sexual ethics isn’t as personal and private as we pretend it to be. So, what! The rest of the world’s okay with it. So, what’s the big deal.
Look again at chapter 18, verse 3. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes.
PERVERSIONS
You’re right! The rest of the world is okay with perversions of God’s good design. That’s how the rest of the world lives. But you’re supposed to be set apart from this world!
EGYPT WHERE YOU LIVED
Notice—Egypt—where you lived! And Canaan—where I’m bringing you!
Let’s start with Egypt, where you lived. God ransomed His people out of bondage in Egypt. Now, in one sense, the people were in bondage to a ruthless king who oppressed them and put them to forced labor.
SPIRITUAL REALITIES
But the Bible rarely records events solely as a means of telling history. The Holy Spirit has a theological agenda. The recorded events are meant to convey something about God, ourselves, and our need for a Savior. Thus, it’s important to recognize that these historical portraits are intended to portray spiritual realities.
RANSOMED FOR HEAVEN
In the case here, with Egypt, Israel’s big issue wasn’t so much their physical bondage in Egypt. Rather, it’s the same as ours. We are oppressed and enslaved by our sin, much more than any pharaoh ever could. That’s where we lived before being ransomed by Christ. You and I no longer live there. We don’t live in Egypt anymore. Our residence is in heaven where Christ currently dwells. So, now, live as citizens of such.
CANAAN WHERE GOD IS BRINGING US
So, what about Canaan, where God is bringing us? God is driving the peoples who live there out because of their detestable practices. Jump down to verse 24. Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.
DRIVING OUT DUE TO WICKEDNESS
God is driving out the people of the land from before the Israelites that they might inherit the land. But get this! God is not driving the people out because Israel just so happened to be more righteous than the current inhabitants. He’s driving out the peoples because of their wickedness. God isn’t giving Israel the land because they somehow deserved or earned it, but solely on account of His good pleasure and grace.
WARNING
But understand! There’s a warning to Israel in this passage. Verse 28: If Israel makes themselves unclean by following the example of the peoples of the land, Israel too will be vomited out.
JOURNEY TO SANCTIFICATION / POLLUTE THE NEW
Christian, get this! You are on a journey to the promised land. But the journey is not so much to a location as it is to a sanctification. Your sojourn here—your pilgrimage—is for the purpose of developing a holiness that befits the promised paradise to which God is bringing you, which will be this very earth made new, free from all the corruption of sin and wickedness. But if you’re not sanctified, then to put you in this new purified creation will only serve to pollute it, placing us right back in Genesis 3 and the Fall all over again.
PAID PENALTY, NOT SO CONTINUE TO SIN
In Christ, holiness is not optional. Yes, Jesus paid the full penalty of the law on our behalf. But he didn’t pay the penalty for sin so that you and I could continue to live contrary to the law. Rather, his paying our penalty frees us from the penalty of the law so that we might actually uphold the moral demands and character of the law.
WITHOUT HOLINESS
You think that’s Old Covenant talk? Turn to Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12 hammers home this very point. Hebrews 12, verse 14. Strive for peace with everyone, and (here it is) and strive for holiness without which no one will see the Lord. You fail to be sanctified—conformed to God’s holy likeness—you won’t see Him! You won’t be allowed into His presence. Those first 16 chapters of Leviticus and the Day of Atonement won’t matter, if after the fact, you continue to walk in sin.
WALKING VS WAGING WAR
Now pause. By walking in sin, I mean, going along with sin, as a way of life. The expectation is not that you and I would be sinless this side of eternity. But we aren’t to walk in sin, like you would walk a dog. We’re to walk according to the Spirit. And that Spirit wages war against sin; it doesn’t go for walks with it.
OBTAIN GRACE
Continuing in Hebrews 12:15. Listen to this expectation. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. Fail to obtain grace? What? Am I now supposed to somehow earn grace? Doesn’t that make grace something other than grace? No! The text doesn’t say work for grace or earn grace but obtain grace. Grace has been freely extended to you. Don’t neglect it by failing to allow it not to have its desired effect in you. If you fail to be transformed by God’s grace, then you haven’t received it. You’re still of the world, not of the Spirit of Christ. You belong to the nations God is driving out of the land, which He’ll soon cast down into a fiery abyss.
MANNER THAT SENT JESUS TO CROSS
You and I can’t say we truly believe God sent His Son to pay the penalty for our sin, so that we might be forgiven every single act of rebellion and live an eternity with him in unimaginable bliss, and then go on living in the same manner that sent Jesus to the cross.
GRATITUDE OR REJECTION
That’s not a heart that’s been moved by love, that would do anything to express the overwhelming gratitude bubbling up from within like a fountain that can’t be contained. No! That’s a heart that spits in the face of the man on the middle cross, while he suffers in agony, pouring out his blood for the sinners who deserve to be up there in his place.
TRANSFORMATION / BITTERNESS
People fail to obtain the grace of God by spitting in the face of that grace. And anything less than utter transformation by such grace is evidence that you don’t truly get it. The author of Hebrews continues with bitterness. You hold on to bitterness, then Scripture’s clear. You have no genuine clue of the grace God has shown in the giving of His Son. Oh, you might intellectually be able to articulate some verses and doctrines. But this grace has never penetrated your hardened calloused heart.
Don’t fail to obtain God’s grace! You continue to walk in idolatry—covetousness—you’ve failed to recognize an inkling of God’s worth and the preciousness of His mercy.
SEXUALLY IMMORAL
In line with our text, Hebrews continues, see to it that no one is sexually immoral. You think the sexual ethics of Leviticus don’t matter for a New Testament Christian, then you’re not worshiping the God of the Bible. You’re worshiping the false gods of the nations God is vomiting out. And He’ll vomit you out too.
LOVE IS LOVE?
Our society is seeking to do everything possible to convince you and me that sexual norms are parochial and oppressive. I was at a house Friday, and the neighbors had a rainbow yard sign with a list of their personal maxims. One line read, “Love is love.” Of course, it sounds good to the undiscerning. But it suggests that I have the right to love whoever I choose, which they infer to mean marry or live with or, to be frank, participate in sexual acts with.
OBLIGATION TO LOVE
Let me just say, you and I don’t have the right to love whoever we choose. We have an obligation to love them! The issue is a distorted view of “love.”. The world tends to demote love to something like “feelings for someone.” That’s not even close to what love defined biblically is. If you truly love someone, you desire the best for them, and you behave in a way that demonstrates such by doing good to them. That’s loving your neighbor as yourself. And the best thing for everyone is a restored relationship with their Creator.
SELFISH LOVE / BEING LIKED
Any act that damages their relationship with God is not an act of love at all, but rather a selfish act on the individual’s part.
The current upheaval over gender falls in this same category. Someone recently shared that “any group telling you who you can love and what gender you are doesn’t give a rip about freedom.” But again, if you affirm people in their deception, you aren’t loving them; you’re being selfish. Selfish? How does that make me selfish when I’m just trying to make people feel good about themselves? Because you care more about being liked than loving them well. You make it about you.
SPEAK TRUTH
If you truly love someone, you speak truth to them for their good—especially for their eternal good. You don’t affirm them in a lie, especially a lie that’s marching them straight for hell.
VOMITED AND DETESTED
At the end of chapter 20, which allows us to see how these two chapters parallel each other, the Lord says, beginning at verse 22, You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. Verse 23, and you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.
GOD OF LOVE, GOD WHO DETESTS
Those are some pretty strong words coming from a God who is love. In fact, many have a difficult time reconciling that this same God who is love detests the wicked. This is why so many paint the God of the Old Testament as somehow a different God from the God of the New Testament. I mean, in the New Testament, God so loved the world! He doesn’t detest it!
SO LOVED THE WORLD
John 3:16 is certainly a perfect portrait of biblical love. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son so that our sins might be forgiven, and we might be restored to Him for eternity. In the context of Leviticus, God sent His Son to atone for sin so that His people could dwell with Him. What greater act of Love is there? God paid the highest possible price in expressing His love, giving His very own Son.
NOT BECAUSE PLEASED WITH HUMANITY
Now, get this! God didn’t send Jesus to die on a bloody cross because He was somewhat pleased with humanity. God sent His Son to die on the cross because He detested the works and practices of the people He created in His image and how they corrupted that image.
RESTORED IMAGE / TO BELONG TO GOD
God sent His Son to restore that image. To receive that love necessarily entails a separation from the people of the world. To reject that love is to remain among the detested who will be cast out.
Verse 26. You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
SEXUAL ETHICS NOT AN END
The sexual ethic of the Bible is not an end in itself. It goes back to creation, where God fashioned us in his likeness but as male and female for complimentary union, or we might say, for marriage.
PORTRAYS RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
This holiness code on sexual ethics is meant to portray something of our relationship, not just to one another, but our relationship with God.
MARRIAGE / SEXUAL IMMORALITY
One of the most common ways God’s relationship with His people is described is that of a marriage—both in the Old Covenant and the New. Yahweh was like a husband to Israel. The Church is the Bride of Christ. And the most common way the Bible refers to the breach of that relationship is sexual immorality.
IDENTITY
The media and the pundits have little regard for faithfulness. Rather, they’re more concerned with personal autonomy disguised as freedom. They put a great deal of effort into trying to convince you and me that our identity is found in determining our own preferred form of sexuality.
BROKEN RELATIONSHIP, BROKEN WORSHIP
This is completely upside down. Our sexuality is to be found in our identity as image-bearers of God, making this a relevant discussion for everyone.
The world’s sexual ethic is broke because its relationship with God is broken. And its relationship with God is broken because its worship is broken.
DISTORTED IDENTITY BY DISTORTED WORSHIP
And our identity is either found or distorted by what you and I worship, meaning our sexual ethic and practice has everything to do with worship. We were created to worship. But in our sin, we exchanged our worship of God for the worship of the creature. We tend to worship created things such as pleasure, entertainment, food, comfort, and yes, sex. And this idolatry has warped our identity as image-bearers.
CREATED SEX
Now, none of these created things are evil in themselves. Sex is not evil. God created sexuality. But God designed it that we might praise Him, not the act. God also designed it to communicate something about His holiness and His love for His people.
PURCHASE / SAVING HIMSELF FOR A BRIDE
Jesus came into the world to purchase a bride, to purchase her through the most costly means, his life. For thirty years, Jesus abstained from what is a good, natural, and godly desire, what some would call one of the greatest physical pleasures. But Jesus denied himself many of life’s physical pleasures, because what gave the Son the most pleasure was pleasing His Father. Jesus kept his body holy and pure, saving himself for his Bride, the Church—us in this room, that we might enjoy the most intimate union possible with the One who knows us inside and out.
CONCLUSION
Instead of casting the sinful nations out of the land because of their wickedness, Jesus allowed the sinful nations of both Jews and gentiles to cast him outside the camp. The Jews vomited out their king because they detested him. But while Jesus’ death on the cross declared God’s detestation of their adulterous practices, it also revealed God’s immense love far beyond any other act ever could.
Jesus allowed his nakedness to be uncovered on the cross, in order to cover ours. This is the Bridegroom of the church. This is the One you and I are to keep ourselves pure for. The Wedding Day isn’t that far off. Find your identity in Him.
INTRODUCTION: Leviticus 16:2-4
For many, access to God seems pretty irrelevant. So, I can easily understand their question: So, why are you guys studying the book of Leviticus? But I assure you, there are occasions, more than they’d like to admit, when the question of standing before God’s presence does come to mind, and it does so with force. And likely such occasions aren’t all that hopeful, because they have little, if any, assurance that such will be a good thing.
For the believer, we have already dealt with that question of whether we will stand before a holy God. And such a thought has caused us to flee to Christ to cover us, because we know, on our own, to stand before God is a terrifying prospect.
But here’s the thing. Life continues to distracts us. The serpent continues to deceive us. And our own flesh is weak and prone to wander. So we need to, not only be reminded of the assurance we have in Christ. We also need constant, fresh portraits of that assurance—of what Jesus has accomplished and how. If such wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t have such a large book of various portraits of our Lord.
Josh, last time I checked, there were only 4 gospels, and 3 of them are quite similar. Well, that may be true. But even the most similar aspects of each gospel are seeking to portray complimentary perspectives of the same Christ. And all 4 of them are drawing those portraits from the Old Testament and showing how Jesus is the finished painting, as it were.
And surprise! Leviticus, 16 is one of those primary texts the gospel writers grab hold of when they seek to present what Christ has accomplished and the glory of his accomplishment!
So, as the very least, I hope this short series helps bolster your assurance in what Christ has done on your behalf, that it would show you! And I hope you see all the more clearly, how this book we open Sunday by Sunday, is a literary masterpiece authored by One who is no less than Divine, that you might be in greater awe of Him.
So, why are we still looking at Leviticus 16? First, we haven’t come close to covering all that’s in this chapter, and we won’t. I can’t express enough the import of this book, and especially this chapter, which has been deemed by many to be the central text of the entire Pentateuch.
As a brief refresher of what we’ve covered so far: In our overview of chapters 1-9, we looked at the challenge of entering God’s presence, and specifically at the whole burnt offering, which is better translated and understood as the ascension offering.
In chapter 16, we quickly found that the tabernacle and the priesthood had become defiled, and thus the need for the annual cleansing that took place on the Day of Atonement. We also looked at the idea of atonement as covering: covering over sin and covering over wrath.
Last time we were here, we looked at atonement as both expiation—the removal of sin, and propitiation—the assuaging of wrath, God’s wrath. And we saw how such was illustrated in the two goats.
Today, we’re returning to chapter 16 to look at the approach of the priest, with a focus of his clothing, and the cloud of incense he was to carry into the Most Holy Place. We’ll wrap up by looking at how Jesus satisfies both of these.
READ: Leviticus 16:2-4
MEDIATORY ROLE
When we consider the priesthood, one way we can think about the priest’s role is its mediatory function, or how he serves as an intermediary. Take Moses for example. At the end of God declaring the Ten Commandments from atop of Mount Sinai, what did the people say? They told Moses, You speak to us, and we’ll listen. But don’t let God speak to us lest we die. Moses served as a mediator between God and the people. Now, it’s important to recognize that a mediatory role goes both ways. God to the people, and the people to God.
The priest mediates God’s presence to the people. Although Adam isn’t outright referred to as a priest, there are sufficient clues to affirm that he was. One of Adam’s roles was to mediate God’s presence to the rest of creation. That’s one of the reasons Adam was formed in God’s likeness.
ORNATE GARMENTS
One way in which the high priest did this, was in his ornate garments described in Exodus 28, which were fashioned for glory and splendor. Some of the items for the priest’s apparel were ornamented with gold and precious gems. These were the priest’s outerwear: the breast piece, the ephod, the robe, and the golden crown with the inscription, Holy to the Lord, which would be attached by a blue cord to the priest’s linen turban. In his usual dress for daily service, these are the items the onlooker would see. The priest would look very much like a king in all his glory.
When the people brought their gifts and sacrifices, they brought them to the priest who would offer them to God on their behalf. This was the priest representing God to the people.
But the priest was also to represent the people to God.
AMBASSADOR APPAREL
Now, if you and I were to gather a diverse group of individuals and brainstorm regarding what the proper apparel to approach the God of the universe should be, what kind of responses would we get? Forget the Sunday school answer for a moment, and let’s say, you’re asking people off the street.
Now, some would immediately start to think about what we wear in church. And we can look at that. But I’m saying, we are sending someone—tomorrow—to meet God on our behalf, to represent us. How might we dress such an individual?
Well, for starters, we’d likely tailor this person up in a fine Italian suit, so as to exude power, wealth, sophistication. If he’s representing me, I want him to impress! We know that’s the case, because when countries send out their diplomats, they don’t send them out in casual wear. (Or at least we didn’t until recently. But I’m not going there this morning.)
DRESSED AS A SLAVE
If someone’s representing us, we want them to represent us well. So, we’d likely take that high priest array of ornate garments and notch it up a bit for the one day a year we actually send the guy into God’s presence inside the Most Holy Place. But that’s the exact opposite of what God had prescribed. This priest who most days was dressed like a king, on the day he was to enter God’s presence, wore clothing more typical of a slave.
Look at verse 4. I’m going to read it from the CSB because the ESV and NASB add the definite article four times where there isn’t one. He is to wear a holy linen tunic, and linen undergarments are to be on his body. He is to tie a linen sash around him and wrap his head with a linen turban. These are holy garments; he must bathe his body with water before he wears them.
GLORY SET ASIDE
The high priest, in order to enter behind the curtain into the Most Holy Place, had to lay aside his garments of glory and splendor, and pretty much enter in his undergarments, with a simple tunic, sash, and turban. [You know that story of the priest who went into the Holy of Holies with bells and a rope? Stories like that come about from people who become disconnected with the text of Scripture. That robe with the bells on the hem doesn’t even get to go behind the curtain. The ephod with the onyx stones stays outside too, as does the breast piece with the twelve gems and the holy crown of gold. None of the ornate apparel gets to enter God’s presence!
IMPRESS GOD?
Josh, why does this matter? Well, let me ask it this way. What could you and I possibly present ourselves in that would even come close to impressing Him? There is nothing in any of us that can impress the One who made us.
All year long, the priest would be decked out in his more kingly attire. But when he approached the Lord of all the earth, he did so in humility, clothed in God’s prescribed fashion, and with the blood of another, a substitute, in this case, the blood of a bull.
The only thing in himself which the priest could bring before the Lord was his obedience, an obedience wrought by faith. And that’s all you and I can bring before the Lord. Your finest clothing will get you nowhere before a holy God. He sees right through it all. The same with your achievements, your skills, your bank account. Don’t come in here thinking you made a little contribution to a fake gold-plated bowl which we call an offering plate, and thing that you somehow impress God. You can drop $50,000 in it or $5. To the One who owns it all, it makes no difference. What matters is whether you come with a humble and contrite heart, led by faith that trusts this holy God will accept you, not on the basis of yourself, but on the basis of another.
To seek to enter God’s presence on his own terms, the high priest would go out like Nadab and Abihu—carried to his grave. God provided a humble dress for this priest, as a necessary covering to hide his nakedness, in order that he might enter God’s presence. You and I enter clothed in the humility of Christ, or we won’t enter. Or rather, it will be an entry we’ll regret.
CLOUDS
But even with such humble garments and the blood of a substitute, the priest’s entry into God’s presence was still limited. He entered behind the curtain, all right, but a cloud was stationed between the priest and the Lord; a veil of sorts remained.
Back up to verse 2. The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your bother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.
This cloud over the mercy seat was a sort of theophany, a manifestation of God’s presence, much like the Shekinah glory in miniature. But the cloud wasn’t God. Aaron couldn’t truly see God and live.
So, verse 12 and 13. The priest was to take a censor full of coals of fire from the altar and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small and bring it inside the veil. And he was to put the incense on the fire before the Lord, so that the cloud of incense would cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony, so that he does not die.
MERCY SEAT
Let’s unpack this a bit. First, the mercy seat is the atonement cover that sat on top of the ark of the covenant which held the tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments. That’s the testimony referred to here. On the mercy seat, we have the two cherubim. Remember that. It’s important. This mercy seat is the place where God meets with His people. However, the high priest was the only one to ever venture that far, and only once a year.
INCENSE
Throughout the year, when incense was placed on the altar of incense, it would be a handful at most. Here a double portion is placed on the altar, so that the cloud would shield the mercy seat from view. Now, I don’t have time to trace out all the implications here, how incense is related to prayer, and the fact that this incense is beaten small; it’s finely crushed. Suffice it to say, that where the prayers of the priest were lacking to provide a necessary shield between him and God, here the sweet-smelling incense provided a sort of substitute.
Josh, how do you know the priest’s prayers were lacking?Because Romans 8 says you and I don’t know what to pray for as we ought. Do you think the priest was any different. Let me ask, do you feel your prayers are adequate before this holy God? Jesus isn’t up in heaven interceding on our behalf as a sort of redundancy. The Spirit isn’t interceding on our behalf because you and I got this thing down. The priest, even with the weight of the responsibility to pray for the people, fell short. Just like you and I do when we intercede for our family, our friends, our church.
Like the prescribed clothing, this prescribed method of approach was so that the priest wouldn’t die, wouldn’t be consumed by gazing on the Lord without something to shield him from God’s glory.
NO ONE MAY ENTER
Jumping down to verse 17. No one may enter the tent of meeting from the time the priest enters to make atonement in the Holy Place until he comes out and has made atonement for himself, his household, and all the assembly. And afterwards—after making atonement, slaughtering the bull and the goat for the sin offering, and then sending the second goat into permanent exile…
Then, verse 23, Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting and shall take off the linen garments and leave them there. After which, verse 24, he shall wash and put on his own garments and come out and offer the ascension offering for him and the people.
ASCENSION OFFERING
We covered this before, but it’s important we understand that the whole burnt offering is literally an ascension offering. It’s root is the word for ascend. It’s the thing that goes up. This will matter as we tie all that we’ve covered thus far with the work of our Lord Jesus.
So, here’s our dilemma. You and I can’t enter God’s presence in ourselves, with any gift we have to present. Our sin has made us unclean. And we have no satisfying gift to bring.
If you don’t recognize that as a problem, you either have a way too low view of God or a way too high view of yourself. And to be content with the separation that keeps us from God’s presence is to be robbed from our greatest joy, satisfaction, and happiness.
So we need a high priest who can go into God’s presence, not symbolically by moving a fabric curtain to stand before some ornate box that holds a couple stone tablets with chiseled writing, as significant as those words might be. We need a high priest who can enter the true tent not made by hands. We need a high priest who doesn’t require a cloud created by two handfuls of finely crushed incense because he falls short on his prayers. We need a high priest who comes on the clouds of heaven to the very throne of the Ancient of Days. That’s the kind of priest we need as our intermediary. One who paves the way for us to follow after, that we might be assured entrance into God’s very presence.
And that’s exactly the kind of High Priest we have in Jesus Christ.
CHRIST OUR HIGH PRIEST
The letter to the Hebrews draws this out so beautifully for us, especially chapters 6-10. Jesus enters the true tent, the inner place behind the curtain as a forerunner on our behalf. Forerunner means we get to follow after!
DANIEL 7
We don’t have time to address sufficiently how our text relates to Daniel 7, but recognize that Daniel 7 draws off this Day of Atonement for the language of the Son of Man approaching the Ancient of Days. I understand that the Son of Man is the title for the coming Davidic King, but this King is also a priestly figure. When Jesus stands before the council and declares, from now on, you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, it’s because Jesus is about to enter this Day of Atonement as the true high priest who will enter into the true temple to present his sacrifice—Jesus being both the priest and the sacrifice.
JOHN’S GOSPEL
What I want to do now is show how John presents Jesus as the priest who completes the final Day of Atonement. John displays Jesus as the glorious one, opening his gospel with the incarnation of the Word, who is God, and stating, we beheld his glory. But as glorious as our Lord Jesus is, it wasn’t his outward appearance that was so glorious. Rather, the flesh he took on served as a curtain that veiled his glory.
In taking on fallen human flesh, Jesus had laid aside the glorious garments that only the 3—Peter, James, and John—were privileged to witness. And just to make sure we understand that Jesus set aside his garments of glory to make atonement for his people, John records, as does the other 3 gospels, that Jesus was wrapped in linen for his burial.
LAID ASIDE GLORY
Now, if you wonder what Jesus was doing between his death and resurrection, I think, at the very least, he was satisfying the portrait of this Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16. Remember, Jesus is stripped of the royal robes the soldiers had dressed him in to mock him, relating Jesus to the high priest who laid aside his more kingly garments and stripped down to the clothes of a mere servant.
Much like when Jesus stripped himself down to his undergarments to wash the disciples’ feet. Here in his burial, Jesus dressed in plain linen.
WHERE I’M GOING
Recall earlier in John’s gospel, Jesus had told the disciples, where I’m going, you can’t follow now, but you will after. Just as no one could enter the tent while the priest made atonement, neither could Jesus’ disciples until he finished his work of atonement, laid aside his clothes, and came out.
FOLDED UP CLOTHES
So, when Peter and John heard from Mary Magdalene that the stone had been rolled away, they raced to the tomb. And what do they find? John 20 verse 5. Stooping to look in, John saw the linen cloths lying there. And verse 6. When Peter enters, he sees the linen face cloth folded up by itself, apart from the other clothes. At the very least, this suggests that this high priest had finished his work of atoning for sin, and has now, as we read in Leviticus 16:23-24, took off the linen garments and set them aside. From the cross, Jesus declares, It is finished. And here the laid aside garments demonstrate such to truly be the case.
ANGELS AND MERCY SEAT
But there’s more. When the men leave, and Mary herself stoops to look in, John 20 verse 12, what does she see? Two angels, one at the head and one at the feet of where Jesus had lain. Why angels? Well, again, let’s think of the Day of Atonement. The priest was to go before the mercy seat. What’s on the atonement cover of the mercy seat? Two angels, or cherubim to be precise. John is showing us, in his narrative, that Jesus isn’t just the high priest. Jesus himself is the mercy seat that covered over the testimony of the Law that demanded the penalty of death.
ASCENSION
But there’s more. On the Day of Atonement, once the sacrifices for sin have been completed, and the high priest took off the linen garments and put back on his own clothes, what was he to do next? Leviticus 16:24, He was to come out and offer up the ascension offering. In John 20 verse 17, do you recall what Jesus tells Mary, when she finally recognizes the Lord and mistakes him for a gardener (though that shows Jesus to be a new Adam in a new garden). Jesus says, Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. That will take place in the first chapter of Acts. But John didn’t write Acts, so he records it here for us to see the entire portrait here.
FORERUNNER
Jesus continues, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. My Father and your Father. My God and your God. To quote Hebrews 6:19-20, In Christ, you and I have a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. Jesus is our great High Priest, who perfected the Day of Atonement. And as such, Hebrews 7:25 says, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
TWO HANDFULS OF FINELY CRUSHED INCENSE
Unlike the priestly line of Aaron, Jesus’ prayers are in no way deficient. He doesn’t require an incense cloud to shield him from the face of God. Jesus enters directly into the presence of the Ancient of Days upon the very clouds of heaven. That reference is to show the incomparable difference between Aaron’s priestly approach and that of Jesus’.
Instead of two handfuls of finely crushed incense, Jesus opened those two hands on the cross as he himself was crushed and poured out on the fire of god’s wrath on our behalf, as a pleasing aroma to his Father. This is our royal great High Priest who always lives to intercede for those who are his.
Hebrews 10:19-23.
Let’s close with Hebrews 10:19-23. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
Is your heart sprinkled clean? Do you have that full assurance of faith? Let’s demonstrate such by holding fast the confession of our hope without wavering. We know God is faithful. He’s proven such through His Son. Let’s lean into that faithfulness of God and Christ as we prepare to partake of the Lord’s Supper.
INTRODUCTION:
There’s truly no greater holiday for the believer than the Lord’s Day following Good Friday. But why is the resurrection such a big deal to us who are in Christ? Well, the resurrection is our hope. Who cares if your sins are forgiven if you’re just going to rot in the ground away from the presence of God. We need this hope. But when I say, “hope,” I’m not using hope as the world does. Ours is an objective hope.
We’re going to be in Mark’s gospel, chapter 16, looking at Hope Resurrected. How the resurrection:
1) offers the objective hope of a new day
2) speaks hope into our current fallen condition
3) assures us of the hope of a great exchange
4) vindicates from death and shame
and 5) calls for a response that proves such is truly our hope.
Mark 16:1-8
I. OFFERS OBJECTIVE HOPE FOR A NEW DAY (v.1-2)
First, the resurrection offers the objective hope of a new day. Verses 1 and 2.
After the horrific events of Friday, and a day of rest to dwell on those events, the sun comes up, and a new day begins, a new week dawns.
We love the hope of tomorrow. It’s embedded in our culture. We write books and movies about it. We sing songs about how Tomorrow’s Gonna Be a Brighter Day. We take out loans on what we can’t afford today because tomorrow, surely something’s got to give. Or at least I hope so. But on what objective grounds?
We know such is mostly an empty hope. That’s why, as much as we hope for a better tomorrow, we also dread that same tomorrow, living in fear of what tomorrow might actually hold. The bills that will become due. The relationship on the brink of falling apart. The health that can only last but so long. So we cover tomorrow over with fig leaves trying to hide tomorrow from view with our endless distractions.
But the empty tomb doesn’t offer the same futile wishful kind of hope that the world seeks solace in. This hope is grounded in an historic event, an objective reality that there will indeed be a resurrection of the dead.
Now, I find it a bit ironic that these women had come to anoint the Anointed One. But notice, these are the same women who had supported and ministered to Jesus along the way. And they are now the first to the tomb, purchasing aromatic spices out of their own purses, that they might continue that ministry.
As soon as the Sabbath’s over, very early in the morning of the first day of the week, they’re on their way to minister to their Lord’s dead body.
But this first day of the week is significant. It points to a New Creation. Why does that matter? Because there’s something terribly wrong with the Old. The resurrection offers objective hope of a New Creation.
Don’t tell me the world doesn’t long for a New Creation, that people are somehow satisfied with the present order of things. Read the news? Drive through your neighborhood? You don’t need to go far to see the need for a New Creation. You need only to enter the doors of your home, and if we’re honest, look through the window of our own soul.
The resurrection promises something better, something uncorrupted, that won’t decay, that’s no longer broken.
But these women weren’t going with a sense of hope. If anyone was aware of the current brokenness and need for New Creation, it was them. They had watched—from a distance—their Lord’s suffering as he poured out his life on the cross.
But little did they know that life that was poured out like a drink offering, watered the thirsty ground. New life was about to sprout. They weren’t yet hopeful in their approach to the tomb. Instead, they ask, Who will roll away the stone? Which leads to our second point.
II. SPEAKS HOPE INTO OUR CURRENT FALLEN CONDITION (v. 3-4)
The resurrection speaks hope into our current fallen condition. Verses 3-4. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large.
Mark’s is the only gospel that raises the question, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb.” While there is more loaded in this question than we can cover this morning, at the very least Mark is actually raising another question to the reader: “Where are the men?”
So, Jenny was preparing some Baalbaki yesterday, which requires a jar of sauerkraut. Which she wasn’t able to open. So, someone decided he wanted to show off his budding man strength. It was quite a humorous fiasco to watch. Rarely boring at the Lauder’s. To make a long story short, after striking the glass jar with a metal knife, we decided someone else would open the jar where such escapades weren’t needed.
The point being, while God has designed men and women both in His image, He has designed us differently—to compliment one another. Why were the women asking who will roll away the stone? Because it’s heavy. The text even makes it a point to note such.
Now Mark’s point is not at all about physical strength, as if this is some slight to the women. Rather the opposite. All the valiant men had fled. And that’s exactly what Mark is intending to draw our attention to.
There are specific responsibilities that God has tasked to men. And the failure of such responsibility shows up as early as chapter 3 of the Bible. When Eve was deceived by the snake, where was Adam? Certainly not protecting his wife. Certainly not laying down his life for her, like Christ did for His bride.
[Now, if you take these accounts as a slight against women, then you’ve allowed the culture to define your anthropology rather than God’s Word, or even His design.]
Women aren’t called to lay down their lives for their husbands. Men are to be the warriors who lay down their lives for them. Women are given a different complimentary role that is every bit as godly and Christ glorifying. Nevertheless, those roles are different.
These women are ministering to their Lord’s dead body—or at least that’s their intent. But all the male disciples have abandoned ship.
The resurrection reminds us of our fallen condition, highlighting once again the failure of the disciples, and calling us as readers to look introspectively at just how we are faring as disciples. These three women have replaced Jesus’ inner circle of three—Peter, James, and John.
Three men were invited into the garden to watch with Jesus as he prayed—but instead they slept. Now, three women are entering a different garden to watch over their Lord’s dead body. These women, who don’t even have the strength in themselves to roll away the huge stone, have mustered the courage the men lacked.
The fact that there’s a resurrection, means a death took place—a death owing to our sin. But so long as we justify and excuse our failures, the resurrection holds no promise for us other than a wishful prolonged existence in our fallen condition. Do you really want that? An eternity living in the filthy rags of our sin? Well that takes us to our next point…
III. ASSURES US OF THE HOPE OF THE GREAT EXCHANGE (v. 5)
The resurrection assures us of the hope of the great exchange. Verse 5. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.
When we dropped Cheyenne off for college back in the Fall, we found ourselves running around picking up last minute items for her dorm before going to the New Student Commencement ceremony. Between the traveling and the exhaustion of the busy day, I found myself holding a sleeping 3-year-old as we scanned the aisles of Walmart for what she needed.
Suddenly, my shirt begins to feel warm and then unexpectedly wet. We had already checked out of the motel room. So, we made a quick trip to the van to grab a fresh shirt for myself, and a change for the baby. No shower—just a quick swap—a soiled garment for a clean one. And that’s how we have to present ourselves at the commencement ceremony.
Well, the change of raiment we need, is not due to a wet toddler. And the clothing swap we need to stand before God, requires something much more than one can accomplish by digging something out of a suitcase.
Let me ask, why does Mark refer to this angel as a young man? Surely Mark knew. Don’t tell me, he’s the only gospel writer who thought this was just some young man who happened to wander into the tomb and took up a seat where Jesus had previously lay.
We know it’s not because Mark prefers not to refer to these angelic messengers as angels, because the other five times they show up in his gospel, he calls them such.
So why here does he refer to this particular angel as a young man? Well, that takes us back to chapter 14:51-52 and the account of the young man who ran away naked.
Now, before I lose any of you, I’m not at all suggesting that the young man who fled and the angel sitting here in the tomb are the same. But Mark is a literary craftsman, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he is seeking to make literary connections to express in pictures that which mere propositions cannot.
Mark has chosen a few select words to use only a couple of times in order to connect events in the reader’s mind. There are only two places in Marks’ entire gospel in which this particular word for young man is used. And that’s the young man in chapter 14 who flees, and the angel here in chapter 16.
But there’s more, which our English translations fail to capture. Mark uses another term to state that they are dressed a particular way, and he uses that term only in referring to these two young men. One has a linen cloth cast around him, the other a white robe.
Using this literary device, Mark expects us to connect the two young men.
Turn to chapter 14:51-52 and see if you can follow me on this. And a young man followed [Jesus], with nothing cast about him but a linen cloth. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.
I mentioned Friday, that initially the disciples had left everything to follow Jesus. Now, they were leaving everything behind, including the shirts off their backs to flee. No longer following but fleeing to their shame. Such is the point of the young man running away naked.
Our disloyalty to the Lord, leaves us naked and shamed. That’s what took place in the first Garden. That’s what took place in the garden of Gethsemane.
So, what happened to the linen cloth the young man left behind? I’m glad you asked. Mark’s not finished with his select use of terms. The word used for the young man’s shed linen cloth, shows up in only one other place. I bet some of you have already guessed it. It’s to cover another man who is stripped naked—One who bears the shame of his disciples disloyalty, our Lord himself.
Jesus, once robed in glory, will wear this young man’s linen cloth of shame to another man’s grave. Again, I’m not suggesting it’s the same physical cloth. But Mark intends for the reader to connect them in a literary sense.
But wait! The angel in the tomb isn’t wearing a linen cloth. He’s clothed in a white robe. You guys are perceptive! That’s exactly right.
Mark does it yet again, with his use of literary clues. The only other use of this word for white is found at Jesus’ transfiguration, when the inner circle of disciples—Peter, James, and John—witness Jesus on the mountain where his clothes became a brighter white than any launderer on earth could bleach them.
Let me try to tie this together for us. Jesus exchanged his glorious garments of righteousness, to bear the garments of shame and nakedness. But with the resurrection, he provides us with new fresh garments of glory, clothing us in his righteousness.
And notice where this young man is seated. He’s seated on the right-hand side. We know from the other gospels that there was more than one angel, but Mark wants us to recall James and John who previously requested such exalted positions—seated at the right-hand being a position of prestige and power, which is where Jesus takes his seat beside his Father.
But if you recall, when Jesus was crucified, the two men at Jesus’ right and left, weren’t James and John. But here this young man now sits at the right-hand side of where the resurrected Jesus once lay.
With this briefest account of the resurrection, Mark highlights the hope of exchange—the exchange of our filthy rags of shame for garments of glory, and our place of shame from fleeing in nakedness for an exalted position seated at the right-hand side of glory.
This young man clad in white has the honor of being the first to announce the vindication of the King, which is our next point.
IV. VINDICATES FROM DEATH AND SHAME (v. 6-7)
The resurrection vindicates from death and shame. Verse 6. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.
Reading the final hours of Jesus’ life is a painful experience. O it’s beautiful, but it’s painful to see our Lord looking as if He was nothing more than a failed Messiah—abandoned, rejected, scorned, shamed—all the while remaining silent before the mockers. The resurrection proclaims that we haven’t followed this Messiah in vain, that this King is the mighty One who holds the keys of death in his very hands.
The one who fashioned the tree to which he was nailed, who breathed life into the men who drove the spikes, even putting breath into the mouths of the very ones who mocked and chanted, “Crucify him!” remained on the cross, stripped naked in humiliation for all to see. Jesus was the only One fully obedient and faithful unto death. He could have come down, but he didn’t. He even allowed himself to be buried in another man’s tomb.
The resurrection is Jesus’ vindication. Jesus was judged by human courts, and His resurrection proclaimed that those human courts were wrong. And the courts of men are still wrong concerns Jesus. Jesus stood His trial before the courts of men. Now men and women of the world, prepare to stand before His court. The resurrection reminds us that justice will indeed be done.
But not only does the resurrection vindicate Jesus, who was unjustly condemned. The resurrection vindicates us who are. The verdict is that you and I apart from Christ are justly under a sentence of condemnation. But the resurrection promises something other than what we deserve. Look at verse 7. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.
Those who deserted Jesus and fled are still being referred to as disciple. Talk about GRACE! And Peter is even mentioned by name!
That the disciples failed to follow in faithfulness shouldn’t surprise us. If, in our fallen nature, we were morally capable to do so, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to die on the cross in the first place. And second, what need do you and I have for the Spirit if we are so capable without?
It’s a diminished form of Christianity, if it can even be called such, that believes we simply needed an example of what faithfulness looks like, but that such ability to morally follow Jesus already resides within everyone despite the Fall.
Discounting the doctrines of grace robs the cross of its grace. A false gospel that suggests that you and I can muster what’s needed in ourselves isn’t good news at all. Rather, it leaves one in a never-ending cycle of despair trying to accomplish that which is impossible with man.
I don’t know about you, but I find myself wrestling with Paul’s words in Romans 7. O how I need the Spirit to work in me that which my flesh cannot. The empty tomb resurrects hope!
Despite all your failures to follow Jesus in the past, the resurrection offers hope of vindication, where you and I will see our Lord. BUT… only if we continue to follow, and should we get off track, we repent and start following again. Which brings us to our last point.
V. CALLS FOR A RESPONSE THAT PROVES SUCH IS OUR HOPE (v. 8)
The resurrection calls for a response that proves such is truly our hope. Last verse, verse 8. And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
Mark, what is the deal with this ending? And I do think that this is the original ending of Mark’s gospel. We know the other gospel accounts have the women spreading this news to the disciples. So why does Mark end with their initial silence about such amazing news?
Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he couldn’t keep the people silent. Now, the only disciples brave enough to come to the tomb—these women—are too terrified to speak!?
Perhaps the best explanation, as always, is that Mark isn’t simply recounting the events that took place. He is sharing select events in such a way as to call the reader to respond.
The resurrection calls for our response. Will you flee or follow; herald this good news or hold back in fear.
Well, someone might say, I’ll follow Jesus, doing good to others, you know, like Jesus did. That’s following. I’m not sure, Josh, where you get this idea that heralding or proclaiming the gospel to others has something to do with following Jesus.
But proclamation is indeed a major aspect of what it means to follow Jesus. Otherwise, we’re no different than those who fled in fear and shame, denying that we even know him.
You don’t think proclamation is following? What do you think Jesus did throughout his ministry? He went around proclaiming, “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the gospel.” Every other aspect of Jesus’ ministry was directly connected to that proclamation.
Proclamation is not optional if you are to follow Jesus. And with Mark’s gospel, we have the fullness of this good news: That Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, and on the third day he rose.
CONCLUSION
Back to our young man. There are many theories as to who this young man is who fled naked. I’m not going to indulge in any of them, but rather offer this suggestion. The young man is left nameless purposefully, so that the reader might place himself in his shows.
We have all fled from God to our shame. The question is whether you and I remain in that shame, bearing our filthy rags of sin, or whether we accept Jesus’ blood bought robe of righteousness; whether we continue hiding from God in our nakedness, or receive the grace that exalts us to Jesus’ side.
Hear Jesus’ words to a couple churches in Revelation. The one who conquers, I take that to mean, he who remains faithful, following Christ to the end… The one who conquers will be clothed in white garments… the one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, just as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
This is the hope resurrected by an empty tomb vacated by the One who conquered even death.
The resurrection offers objective hope for a new day when we’re completely free from our fallen condition, clothed perfectly in the glorious image of Christ, vindicated from all our shame… and even death, all to the glory of Christ. But you must respond to this hope, taking up the cross and the charge to follow the precious Lord Jesus wherever he may lead—following him in his death that we might follow him in his resurrection.
In Christ, hope has been resurrected!
INTRODUCTION: Leviticus 16:7-10
Well, it’s Palm Sunday, and we’re in Leviticus 16. I debated whether to do a message geared specifically towards Jesus’ triumphal entry and passion week, and if you want that message, it’s on our YouTube channel, titled: The Arrival of the King. But I hope you realize that the Day of Atonement is not all that detached from Palm Sunday and what takes place on Good Friday.
In fact, if you look with me in Matthew’s gospel—jump to chapter 21 to where Bill just read—you’ll notice that the triumphal entry is immediately followed by the account of Jesus cleansing the temple, which is, as we discussed last week, the context of Leviticus 16 and the Day of Atonement.
RECAP
Recall that due to Nadab and Abihu’s unauthorized entry and sacrifice, the tabernacle and priesthood had both become defiled. Leviticus 16 was put in place as a sort of temporary resolution for this defilement. But as we saw last week, this entire sacrificial system was somewhat deficient to deal with that defilement. The system was deficient, but only to a point. It was deficient to truly atone for sin and the pollution caused by sin. But what this system was not deficient to do was to portray the high cost and the means by which God himself would ultimately—once and for all—atone for sin.
PALM SUNDAY
Jumping back to Palm Sunday, while Jesus is riding into Jerusalem, the crowds are shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” Now, one of the things the crowd is doing is quoting Psalm 118, which we read in our call to worship. The very next verse is about binding the festal sacrifice to the altar. Why? Because it’s through the festival sacrifices that God has provided atonement for sin. And Jesus comes as the sacrifice to which all other sacrifices pointed, including those offered on the Day of Atonement.
ATONEMENT
Even article 21 of the Belgic Confession, which Sherif read, goes by the name: The Atonement. So, I hope you’re starting to grasp just how central this event is.
Last week we looked at the priest’s need to first atone for his own sin before he could do so for the people. We also looked at atonement at a very basic level under the idea of covering— 1) atonement covers over the trespasses of one party, and 2) atonement covers the justified wrath of the other party due to those very trespasses. So, this atonement deals with covering both our sin and God’s wrath.
Today, we’re looking more directly at how Leviticus 16 deals with atonement for the congregation. We’ll look at by way of two goats and their opposite trajectories. We’ll also deal with the propitiation and expiation and how these goats address both.
READ: Leviticus 16:7-10
Then [Aaron] shall take the two goats [these were the goats two goats taken from the people for a sin offering] and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot of the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.
A SMALL THING TO COME BEFORE A HOLY GOD
I wonder what Charlie, some guy who likely lives down the street, might think concerning the book of Leviticus, this entire sacrificial system, and specifically this annual Day of Atonement.
Most likely Charlie isn’t thinking about it and hasn’t thought much about it. He slept in today. It’s Sunday, and he just happens to work a job where he has weekends off. Later he’ll perhaps mow the grass and watch some March Madness college basketball. But I doubt that Charlie’s thinking about Leviticus. And perhaps many who just happen to be in churches this morning aren’t thinking about it either.
Our culture tends to see it as a small thing to come into God’s presence. Being a God of love, God just naturally accepts everyone. He’s automatically pleased with you.
We know such is how most people think because if you go to any given funeral, odds are that regardless of how the deceased spent their life, regardless of whether they had any relationship with God at all, much less a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, the conversation in most circles will be something like:
Well, aunt Sally’s in a better place. Ole Bob, I bet he’s up there playing the round of his life. Miss Betty’s finally free of that pain and suffering. It’s assumed by most, at least verbally, that if there’s a heaven, everyone’s going. And when they get there, they’ll be doing whatever their favorite activity here on earth was.
So, when Charlie and the rest of the world, and even many in church this morning come across such an elaborate sacrificial system, not to mention the hundreds of laws recorded right here in Leviticus, they scoff. “What God would ever command or devise such jumping through hoops. And if there is such a God who requires such jumping through hoops in order to appease him, then He doesn’t deserve my attention, much less my affection.”
Such an attitude is because they think it a light thing to come before a holy God, that is, if they give any thought to God at all.
EXPIATION AND PROPITIATION
But let me just put this out there in case any of you wrestle this. If it’s such a small thing to come before this holy God, then why did Jesus have to die on a gruesome bloody cross? That’s where our two goats come in, as well as our two terms: expiation and propitiation.
Expiation has to do with removal. We can’t come into God’s holy presence with our sin. God is too pure. We’d be disintegrated. Our sin must be cleansed. It must be completely removed.
Propitiation, on the other hand, has to do with assuaging God’s righteous wrath towards the sinner. Now, if we merely think of sin as making a mistake, then this by no means makes sense. How could God be so incensed by your and my mess ups? Talk about someone who has a serious issue with temper and patience!
But sin isn’t a mistake. Sin is blatant rebellion. It’s treason. Sin is a willful act to overthrow God’s order and thus His kingdom. And because He is loving and righteous, He better be angry about it, because my rebellion harms others. And so does yours. The father who doesn’t get angry about the deliberate mistreatment of one of their kids, is a sorry excuse for a father. Don’t tell me that such a father is loving. But our heavenly Father refuses to turn a blind eye to such behavior because He indeed loves His children.
CASTING LOTS
So, back to our goats. Notice in Leviticus 16:7, that both the goats begin at the entrance to the tent of meeting. That’s significant, and we’ll return to it. Then, in verse 8, Aaron casts lots over them to determine which goat is for the Lord and which goat is to be sent into the wilderness.
First, what’s the purpose of casting lots? Casting lots, for those who might not know, is a sort of rolling of dice to determine who gets to go first. In our case here, with the two goats, most are probably thinking, if the one who gets to go first is the one who gets slaughtered, then I’ll pass. Let the other one go first.
SOVEREIGN CHOICE
We often think of casting lots as leaving something up to random chance. The Bible, in Ecclesiastes specifically, does say that time and chance happens to all. But the writer is not suggesting that time and chance is random and outside of God’s sovereignty. In fact, the same author makes it clear that God has set a time for every matter under heaven. So whatever time and chance mean, they don’t stand outside of God’s sovereign purpose. Even in Proverbs we read that the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
Thus, the entire purpose for casting lots, of which the priest would have pulled out their specially consecrated pair of dice—the Urim and the Thummim—was to determine God’s will in the matter. So, casting lots for these goats was to get God’s answer as to which goat was to be for the Lord and which would be sent away. There was nothing in the goats themselves to distinguish one from the other, only God’s sovereign purpose.
FIRST GOAT: SIN OFFERING
The first goat, to which the lot fell to, would be presented as a sin offering for the people. If we jump down to verse 15 and following, the blood of that goat was brough inside the veil to the Most Holy Place and that blood would be sprinkled on and before the face of the Mercy Seat. The blood would also be sprinkled on the tent of meeting itself, and it would be sprinkled on the four horns of the altar.
So, what does this first goat have to do with expiation and propitiation? Well, for one, the blood is used for cleansing. In chapter 17:11, we’re also told that it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s soul. So, there’s something, at least symbolic, about the blood of an innocent substitute being used to cleanse the guilty sinner. That’s expiation, the removal of sin.
But also, because the wages of sin is death, justice has been done, and God’s wrath has been satisfied. That’s propitiation. God’s righteous disposition is no longer against but for the sinner because the penalty has been paid.
SECOND GOAT: EXILE
So, what about the second goat? Well, he got to go free right? Well, perhaps. But more likely there’s something else going on here. To get a better picture of what that is, let’s look at verses 21 and 22.
And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.
The ESV likely doesn’t capture the end of verse 22 very well by stating he shall let the goat go free. While the word used here can mean that, it’s likely better translated, and he shall send the goat into the wilderness. The second goat isn’t set free so much as it is sent away.
We can better understand this, by considering the major themes of the Bible’s storyline, which we’ve been seeking to do on Wednesday evenings.
BIBLICAL STORYLINE
Look back at verse 7. Where do these goats start out? At the entrance of the tabernacle. Now, if we were to back up to Genesis 3, after they sinned, what happened to Adam and Eve? They were driven out east of the Garden Sanctuary. Do you remember which way the tabernacle faced? East. The entrance was on the east side. So, to enter the tabernacle would be towards the west.
In Genesis 4, we find that Cain and Abel were likely bringing offerings to the Garden entrance. But they could go no further because of the cherubim. After Cain rose up and killed Abel, however, he ended up further from the Garden, further east into the barren wilderness.
OPPOSITE TRAJECTORIES
Well, that’s what’s going on with these two goats. They’re on opposite trajectories. They both begin at the entrance outside the tabernacle. But the first goat enters by its blood into the very presence of God. While the second goat, loaded down with the sins of the people is driven further into exile, further east into an uninhabited or literally, a cut off land—a land completely cut off from God’s presence and all the blessings that come with such. Do you know what such a place is? Hell. Hell is absolute exile from God. Those living apart from God now, have no clue just how horrifying complete exile will be.
2ND GOAT PROPITIATION
So, how does this goat affect propitiation and expiation? Similar to the first goat, this second goat bears the penalty sin deserves but in a fuller sense. Understand that physical death is not the full penalty for sin.
God told Adam that on the day he ate from the forbidden tree he would surely die—or literally, he would die-die. How was that penalty enacted? Exile. Adam was removed from God’s immediate presence. But in God’s mercy and grace, Adam didn’t receive the fullness of the penalty he deserved. Yes, physical death is part of it. But physical death is nothing compared to what Revelation refers to as the second death. So, God’s wrath is portrayed as being satisfied in this goat’s complete exile.
2ND GOAT EXPIATION
But the second goat didn’t just receive the punishment of exile, it symbolically removed the people’s sin by carrying their sins away. That’s expiation. When this goat went into exile, it carried away the people’s sin as far as the east is from the west. That’s Psalm 103.
Psalm 103 points back to what the Day of Atonement anticipated, as well as points forward to this event finally realized in the person of Christ. As far as the east is from the west, so far does the Lord remove our transgressions from us.
JESUS’ PROPITIATION AND EXPIATION
That’s what Jesus accomplishes on the cross—satisfying the wrath of God towards sin and completely removing our sin from before God’s face. It’s symbolized in the stretching out of his hands on the cross but actualized in His Father turning His back on the Son. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me. Jesus endures the fullness of the exile you and I deserve, and in doing so, he carries our sins away completely.
So, if you’re in Christ, when God looks on you, He doesn’t see sin. He sees Christ. Your sin has been removed.
BUT!!! There are two things that must be said regarding this.
ARE YOU IN CHRIST
First, are you truly in Christ. Is it evident in your life? Are you bearing the fruit of the Spirit? Because this removal of sin and satisfaction of God’s wrath towards sin is only for those who are truly in Christ, who come in recognition that they not only need to be cleansed, but that God’s wrath needs to be removed. If you are among the camp that thinks such is light thing to come before a holy God, it’s very likely you’re not in Christ. The Bible is quite clear of God’s stance towards sin. And get this, God doesn’t throw the sin into hell; He casts the sinner into hell. Jesus opened wide his arms inviting you to receive his payment in your place, so that you need not be utterly exiled for all eternity.
NEED FOR SANCTIFICATION
Second, while God doesn’t look on you in your sin, it is understood that you and I still sin and need to be conformed to the image of Christ. We are to progressively move toward the image which God sees in us in Christ. As Paul says in Colossians, You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Now, put to death what is earthly in you. In other words, you and I need to start genuinely looking like we truly are in Christ. Sanctification is not optional.
RESPONSE
The Day of Atonement was marked not only by the sacrifices God himself provided, but there was to be a response from the people. Verse 30, it was to be a day of solemn rest and denying oneself, likely in the form of fasting.
The first half of this response was to be a solemn remembrance of the sin that required the Lord to go to such lengths. So, whatever this looks like for us, at the very least it suggests that we should have regular occasions where we enter a time of confession and mourn over our sin and the sins of others.
The other half of the response is that of dying to self. Whether that means a regular practice of fasting, I don’t know. But what I do know, is that the only way your life is hidden with Christ in God, is if you have died to self, meaning you’re no longer living for you; you’re living for Christ.
FEAST OF TABERNACLES / PALM SUNDAY / CELEBRATION
But the Day of Atonement was not a stand-alone event; celebration always followed. If we jump to chapter 23, we find that the Day of Atonement took place on the 10th day of the seventh month. Then, beginning on day 15 of the same month, there was the feast of tabernacles. Verse 40 reads as follows: And you shall take on the first day, the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.
While Palm Sunday took place immediately before Passover, Jesus’ triumphal entry cried out that the true Day of Atonement was here. Not only had the Messianic King arrived, but so too Our Great High Priest. He had come to make the once for all sacrifice for sin. But he wasn’t bringing bulls and goats. He was coming as the Lamb, offering up his own body.
As High Priest, he would carry his own blood through the veil of the true tent in order to secure eternal redemption for us. And as the man in readiness, he carries our sins away as far as the east is from the west. For that, you and I celebrate!
THE DOOR
I mentioned at the beginning, how some look at this elaborate sacrificial system and see it as nothing but a bunch of unnecessary hopes to have to jump through in order to appease God.
Well, there’s no elaborate set of hoops you and I must jump through. Only a door. And there’s no jumping involved. Because this door lies in the lowest place of all—the valley of humiliation. This door is nothing other than the entrance to a grave—the very tomb in which our dear Savior was laid.
TWO GOATS RESPONSE
There were two goats for which lots were cast. The one entered God’s holy presence, but to do so, it had to die. The other was sent into permanent exile loaded down under the tremendous weight of sin, never to come into God’s presence again. That exile is nothing short of hell.
Let me ask: which goat are you?
To enter God’s presence, you must die with Christ and die to sin.
Sadly, most will choose exile rather than dying to self.
Lots were cast. There was nothing that made one goat more acceptable than the other. Just as there is nothing in you that makes you more or less acceptable to God than someone else. Your sins aren’t greater; they aren’t less.
Lots were cast. There was nothing to differentiate one goat from the next… except this: one goat died; one goat wandered.
Your response will show which one you are.
INTRODUCTION:
Leviticus 16:1-6
Last week we looked at the context of Leviticus asking this question: Who is able to approach, much less fellowship, with a consuming fire. I believe that very much sums up the entire issue at stake, which the book of Leviticus seeks to resolve.
A HOLY GOD:
That question was presented in our call to worship passage—Isaiah 33:14. Who among us can dwell with consuming fire? Many balk at a text like this, or avoid it, or seek to explain it away by offering some cutesy understanding of this consuming quality of God to be nothing more than His burning love for His people. While there may be a modicum of truth in such a thought, the intent of such a sentiment is to circumvent any notion of the fear of the Lord. But the reason people lack a proper understanding of the fear of the Lord is because it is grounded in nothing less than God’s holiness.
People of the flesh don’t like the idea of a holy God. We tend to prefer a cuddly God who’s more like a gentle grandpa. Well, the God of the Bible is gentle and loving… but He’s also ferocious like a lion. Our God is indeed a consuming fire. And to approach Him is to have every impurity burned away like dross. Which means, if our whole being is corrupt and impure, then to come before such a holy God means that the entirety of who we are in our fallen flesh will be utterly consumed with nothing remaining.
LEVITICUS AS A RESPONSE:
Leviticus, as I mentioned last week, is a response… a resolution to this dilemma. From the various sacrifices, to the cleanliness laws, and even the holiness laws which show up in the second half of this book, the whole of Leviticus seeks to deal with this question of how you and I, in our fallen condition, can ever dwell and have fellowship with this holy God.
It has been argued by some—and I believe rightfully so—that Leviticus is the central book of the Pentateuch, that is, the Five Books of Moses. One day, perhaps in class, we’ll look at that more closely.
Not only is Leviticus the central climatic book of the Five Books of Moses, Leviticus 16, The Day of the Atonement, is the central chapter of Leviticus, which means whatever is taking place here in this chapter is not merely significant; this chapter—this Day of Atonement—seeks to resolve, or demonstrate just how—at least at this point in history—just how the Lord has resolved our greatest dilemma that keeps us form Him. But even more so, this chapter points to how God resolves such for all eternity in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Today, we’re going to focus on two things:
First, we need to look at the problem that arose since our reading in chapter 9 last week: The defiling of the tent and the defiling of the priesthood.
Second, we’ll begin to look at the (temporary) solution: the cleansing of the tent and the cleansing of the priesthood. And we’ll look at this under the term or idea of atonement.
THE PROBLEM:
The very first words in our passage remind us that we have a problem. Chapter 16 beginning at verse 1. The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died, and the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.
ALL SCRIPTURE:
Most people tend to think of the book of Leviticus as nothing more than a list of obsolete rules that have no consequence or significance for believers today. But not only is that not true—such an attitude arises from a very low view of Scripture—the same Scripture of which Paul wrote, “all of it is breathed out by God and profitable to make the man of God complete for every good work.” So, whatever our thoughts are on books like Leviticus and Numbers, and Song of Songs, and Nahum, we need to square that with Paul’s words in 2 Timothy.
NARRATIVE BACKGROUND:
While Leviticus is saturated with regulations, the narrative, that is the over-arching story, frames this list of rules, not the reverse. The laws laid out in Leviticus, and such would be true of all of Scripture, find themselves within a narrative framework. They are given to a people based on where they fell within that narrative. An easy example is the Ten Commandments.
When are they given? Not before God ransomed His people out of bondage, but after. Now, if you are to truly be my people, the Lord says, and I your God, then this is what that looks like. To ignore God’s commandments is to disregard His Lordship and reject what it means to be His people.
SHEKINAH CONTEXT:
Leviticus may have a bunch of regulations, but those regulations are part of a narrative context. Last week we began with an issue brought up in the first verse of chapter 1. The tabernacle had been set up, but due to the Shekinah glory of the Lord, no one, not even Moses, was able to enter. The tabernacle served as a dwelling place for God, but it had not yet become a tent of meeting in which the people of God, or more precisely, the people’s intermediary, could enter God’s presence.
The answer was the sacrificial system presented in the first 9 chapters—chapter 9 ending with Aaron and Moses finally entering the tabernacle, Aaron, the priest, lifting his hands to bless the people, and the glory of the Lord appearing to all the people, consuming the sacrifices. And the people fell on their faces in worship.
NADAB AND ABIHU:
Well, we only need to read the very next verse, the first verse in Leviticus 10 and see that as glorious as chapter 9 ended with Aaron entering the Lord’s presence, to do so was not to be taken lightly. Leviticus 10 begins like this: Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
APPLICATION:
Did I cover yet, that our God is a consuming fire? Yeah. Our God is a consuming fire. If you take away nothing else from this short series, I hope you get that, because apart from grasping a genuine sense of God’s holiness, you will never turn, at least not in a saving way, to His provision for you to shield you from His fierce holiness.
And get this; even on this side of the cross, our God is still a consuming fire. Jesus’ sacrifice hasn’t changed God’s nature. God is immutable; He doesn’t change. You seek to approach God apart from penitent faith in His prescribed sacrifice of His precious Son, you will most certainly be consumed—consumed for an eternity.
UNCLEANNESS:
The cleanliness laws in chapters 11-15, find their context in the sobering event that took place in chapter 10. But what’s more, Leviticus 16 is a part of those cleanliness laws. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that Leviticus 16 is the capstone of the cleanliness laws, because what has become unclean and defiled is nothing less than the abode in which God dwells among his people. The tabernacle itself has become unclean due to Nadab and Abihu’s irreverent presumptuous act.
To help you see that the cleanliness acts have everything to do with the Lord’s dwelling in His people’s midst, especially in regard to that of the tabernacle, all we need to do is turn back a page to chapter 15 verse 31.
SEPARATE:
Thus—referring to the cleanliness laws of the previous 5 chapters—Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separatefrom their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst.
That word, “separate,” is where we get the term Nazarite—one separated unto the Lord. While there was a special Nazarite vow, the entire people of God, in some real sense, were intended, and I would argue, still are, intended to be Nazarites—utterly consecrated to the Lord.
NEED FOR CLEANSING:
So, the people need to avoid becoming unclean. But should they become unclean, which they inevitably will, they need to be cleansed, and the tabernacle needs to be cleansed. We can even say, the priest and priesthood needs to be cleansed, and even the furniture within the tabernacle needs to be cleansed.
Thus the installation of this annual day of cleansing. Once a year, Aaron must first offer a sacrifice to make atonement for himself and for his house—his house being the entire priesthood.
We’ll come back to this word atonement shortly, but for now, understand that atonement deals with resolving the issue of uncleanliness and sin. Even if we said nothing else about atonement, we can make that much out by its context.
CLEANSING THE TABERNACLE
Looking down at verse 16, we can see that atonement must be made for the Holy Place because of the uncleanness of the people of Israel and because of their transgression, and all their sins. [The priest] shall do so or the tent of meeting which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleanness.
In verse 18, Aaron must even makes atonement for the altar that is before the Lord. In fact, in verse 20, we see that only after making atonement for himself and his household, and atonement for the Holy Place and the tent of meeting and the altar, then he shall make atonement for the people.
MORE COMPLICATED
Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Because Aaron is sinful, he must first be atoned for before he can atone for the tabernacle and its furnishings. But even Aaron’s atonement is somewhat lacking due to the deficiency of this earthly tabernacle. So after atoning for the sanctuary, Aaron must again be atoned for. But the sanctuary is still not fully cleansed and requires the atoning sacrifice from the people. And then even after all this, there’s still yet the burnt offerings that are needed to atone for both Aaron and the congregation. This whole process can seem a bit dizzying, and I think that’s part of the point.
I hope you see the deficiency in this and the dilemma of why we need a greater High-Priest, a greater sacrifice, and a greater Temple in which to offer it. And Jesus is the answer to all of these, because he comes as all three of these.
TERRIBLE HOLY OF HOLIES:
Back to verse 2. Aaron is not to come at just any time into the Holy Place inside the veil. You’ll often hear this “inside the veil” referred to as the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place. This is where the ark of the covenant rested, and where the Lord would appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. It is quite possible that this Most Holy place is the nearest a human was able to approach the Lord’s Shekinah glory since Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden Sanctuary.
If you think that such is an exaggeration, consider this: what was woven into the veil that guarded the entrance to the Most Holy Place? Cherubim—just as cherubim guarded the entrance into the Garden Sanctuary of Eden that prevented Adam and Eve from re-entering God’s holy presence after they sinned. And even the mercy seat or the atonement cover, had cherubim guarding the ark of the covenant.
CHERUBIM AS GRACE
Now, understanding this helps us see that the cherubim are in a very real sense and act of mercy. The cherubim weren’t so much to be feared, as terrifying as they might have been. They were to guard sinful people from God’s holiness so that they wouldn’t be consumed. And hence, we rightfully refer to that atonement cover as a mercy seat.
The cherubim were fearsome for the purpose of guarding sinful man entering God’s presence unatoned. Because to approach God’s shekinah glory in our sinful flesh is terribly dangerous, and will likely cause you to end up like Nadab and Abihu.
At the same time, being banned from the Lord of life leaves one in a perpetual state of something less than God intended for His people. So, if Aaron, the people’s intermediary, the priest, is to go before the Lord on behalf of the people, even his sin must be dealt with first.
So, verse 3, the way prescribed for Aaron to come into the Holy Place is with a bull for a sin offering. (The ram for the burnt offering is addressed later, actually after Aaron comes out of the Holy Place.
ATONEMENT / COVERING:
Jumping down to verse 6, Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. The shed blood of this bull, this innocent unblemished substitute is required to atonement for Aaron the priest and the priesthood.
So what exactly is atonement, which seems to be the universal translation found in all our English Bibles. It may be helpful to mention that this idea of atonement is found in our word mercy seat. Atonement and mercy seat are derived from the same word. So our understanding of one will better help us to understand the other.
KAPHAR
The word translated atone or atonement is the verb “to cover”—pronounced kaphar in the Hebrew. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, or we might say, “The Day of Covering.” Now we need to be careful in confining the use of a word to its etymology. But sometimes etymology is more helpful than others. And in this case, I think it’s highly significant. Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement has everything to do with that of covering; it’s a covering over of our sin before a holy God so that we are not consumed.
Hebrew has another word for “cover” that shows up more frequently, and this other word has nothing to do with sin. But our word for atonement, Kaphar, specifically has to do with covering over sin. Atonement is a covering of sin and all the uncleanliness that goes with it in such a way as to remove such sin from God’s face. Atonement also serves to appease or cover the wrath that such transgression rightfully deserves.
Now, of course, God has better vision than you and me. Nothing is hidden from his sight; everything is exposed and laid bare. So, how are we to make sense of this. How can something be covered from God’s face? And what possible covering could suffice to shield sinful people from God’s righteous wrath, while also allowing them into His holy presence?
Well, out of the 104 times this word “kaphar” is used, only 3 times does it not necessarily deal directly with our sin before God. And each of those 3 instances shine quite a bit of light on our understanding of this word as it relates to our sin before a holy God.
PROVERBS 16:14
In reverse order, the last of these uses of kaphar, which doesn’t necessarily have to do with our sin before a holy God, shows up in Proverbs 16:14. A king’s wrath is a messenger of death, and a wise man will appease it. This covering of the king’s wrath involves some sort of appeasement. Such is what a wise man does in order not to be in disfavor with the king.
JACOB APPEASES ESAU
Perhaps the easiest and most helpful of these occurrences is in Genesis 32 when Jacob is returning home, and he fears his brother Esau. If you recall why Jacob went away in the first place, it was because Jacob had cheated Esau out of his birthright and blessing. Esau made plans to kill Jacob, so Rebecca, their mother, sent Jacob away for his own safety. So, now that Jacob is having to face Esau,
Jacob comes up with a plan that he hopes will appease the wrath of his brother. He sends a multitude of livestock ahead of him as a gift for Esau: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.
COVER HIS FACE:
Genesis 32:20, which also has our word “kaphar,” expresses Jacob’s intent for this gift. Perhaps I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me. Again, the word, appease, is our word, kaphar, “to cover.” I want you to hear how the second half of this verse reads literally. This is my best attempt of a strictly literal translation:
I will cover (there’s our word)— I will cover his face with the offering that walks before my face, and following after, thus I will see his face. Perhaps he will lift my face. Jacob’s hope was that his offering, his gift, would cover over the wrong he had done to Esau, and that it would cover over the anger Esau had towards Jacob, because of Jacob’s wrong against him. And both of these aspects are needed to bring about reconciliation.
AT-ONE-MENT:
Our English word atonement captures it beautifully: at-one-ment. It means to be at one with one another. So, while the day of atonement might literally mean the day of covering, the word atonement seeks to express the result of that covering.
And do you recall Jacob’s words when Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him? That seeing his older brother’s face was like seeing the face of God. Because Esau had received Jacob favorably.
Jacob’s face had been lifted up by Esau. Before, Jacob’s face was cast down in fear and shame for his transgression against Esau. But now Jacob could look at Esau face to face… and live.
NOAH:
The last use of kaphar I’d like to look at, which is actually the earliest use, is when God spared Noah and his family from the flood of His wrath. Noah was instructed to make an ark—a box, not a boat—and to cover it with pitch both inside and out.
Again, this word for cover, isn’t the normal Hebrew word for cover, but our word for atonement. In fact, even the word translated “pitch” is from this same verb most often translated as atonement. Noah is told to cover the ark with covering.
The normal word for cover, which shows up in the very next chapter, will be used when the waters of wrath cover even the mountains. But the covering on the ark itself was an atonement type covering that shielded Noah and his family from God’s righteous wrath poured out in the flood. And it shielded Noah’s sin and uncleanness from God.
Why? So that humanity might continue on the earth until the final perfect atonement came, where sinful humanity could be perfectly reconciled and at-one with God.
High Priestly Prayer
Isn’t that what our great high-priest, Jesus prays for in his High-Priestly prayer in John 17? That we would be one with him… and through him… with the Father? In Christ, we are not just one with each other, but at-one with the God-head through Christ our intermediary.
JESUS, OUR ATONEMENT
That’s the atonement that Jesus provides for us. He makes us at-one with God by covering, with his blood and righteousness, our sin and God’s wrath.
So long as you are not at-one with God, you’re at enmity with Him. There’s no middle ground. You’re either reconciled or not.
No amount of bull’s blood or blood from any other beast could ever truly grant us at-one-ment with God. No number of livestock could ever suffice as a gift, like Jacob offered Esau, to cause our faces to be lifted, where we can gaze on the face of God in all His holiness and live. So Jesus presented himself as the true unblemished Lamb, and it is his blood that covers us and washes us clean.
And understand, it was the priest’s role as intermediary to make atonement for the people. The priest is the only one deemed Messiah in the entire Pentateuch. Leviticus is the first place where we come across the word Messiah, and it refers specifically to the high priest.
So while Jesus comes as the Messianic King, in the wisdom of God, he also comes as the wise high priest who appeases the wrath of the King of Proverbs 16:14.
Like the ark, which needed to be covered in and out with a covering of protection, the tabernacle needed a special covering to shield it from God’s holy presence. And that covering was nothing less than blood.
But no earthly sanctuary made by the hands of sinful men could ever serve as the meeting place in which God’s people could truly be at-one with Him. Try as we may, we could never cleanse it thoroughly enough.
But what this earthly sanctuary pointed to was the more perfect heavenly tabernacle which Jesus as our High-Priest entered to offer up his perfect sacrifice, himself.
From the cross, Jesus, our older brother, bowed his face in death… that he might lift ours… to his… to behold the very face of God.
INTRODUCTION:
Why Leviticus? Well for one, there is no Easter Sunday apart from Leviticus and the whole sacrificial system. It’s difficult to understand Jesus’ passion without understanding at least the central themes of Leviticus.
Second, Leviticus, in a very real sense, has everything to do with the goal of creation. What was the goal of creation? To put it simply, the goal of creation was for image-bearers to dwell and fellowship with their Creator.
FALL:
Of course, it didn’t take long for humanity’s dwelling in the presence of God to be quickly suspended and the intimate fellowship broken. Three chapters into this story, the man and woman are expelled from the beautiful garden sanctuary where the Lord walked with them in the cool of the day. From there the story only gets worse. The very next chapter, Genesis 4 finds Cain and his family even further exiled from God’s presence. Before long, humanity has become so corrupt, the Lord God has to cleanse the earth with a flood. From that time on, we don’t read about people walking with the Lord until when? The end of Leviticus (26:12). Instead, as the people grow more and more distant from the presence of God, knowledge of God becomes more and more scarce.
Here’s the thing: if we are to truly dwell and fellowship with God—if God with us is to truly become a reality, something must be done to close this ever-widening gap. So, God called a man, Abram, and over time, grew that one man into a nation, Israel. God even raised up a leader for this people, Moses. And through the leadership of Moses, God instructs the people of Israel to provide for and build a house—or more specifically, a tent, in which God might dwell in the midst of His people.
QUESTIONS:
But God is a consuming fire and humanity is corrupt, which raises three questions. 1) How can a holy God dwell in the midst of fallen creatures? 2) How can sinful humanity (even remotely) approach this awesome God? 3) Is there any possibility of genuine fellowship between God and man? And that is precisely what the book of Leviticus seeks to address. While each of these three questions are important and addressed, today, we’ll focus most of our time with number 2: Who can approach this awesome God, and how?
DILEMMA OF VERSE 1:
Look at Leviticus 1:1, The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting.
Already, this very first verse recalls a concern raised at the end of Exodus. If you turn back a page, to the last verses in Exodus 40, Moses and the people had just finished setting up this tabernacle. The end of verse 33 says, So Moses finished the work. Echoing all the way back to Genesis when God finished the work of creation where He would dwell with humanity, and mankind would enjoy Sabbath rest with their Creator. But this work of setting up the tabernacle, which is a sort of miniature cosmos, is on this side of the fall.
So, Verse 34, Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Did you catch that? And Moses was not able to enter this tent of meeting! Whatever this is, it’s not a picture of Sabbath rest, at least, not yet.
God’s dwelling among his people, His tabernacle, is set up. But the tabernacle isn’t yet functioning as a tent of meeting.
Moses, of all people, isn’t able to enter. This same Moses who ascended the mountain into the cloud. The same Moses who beheld the Lord’s glory in the cleft of the rock. And if Moses isn’t able to enter due to this fiery glory of the Lord, then who can?
SHEKINAH:
God’s Shekinah glory has filled His dwelling place erected in the midst of the camp of Israel. And such is absolutely glorious! But realize, such is a glory seen from afar. Such is not yet a glory that can be approached.
There’s a lot of discussion regarding the Shekinah glory of God. But I wonder how many understand what it is. The word shekinahcomes from the same root as tabernacle, which simply means dwelling. The tabernacle is a dwelling place. The shekinah is the dwelling presence of God, or we might refer to it as the manifest presence of God.
Many refer to the pillar of cloud and fire as the shekinah, and that’s true, but only to the extent that such refers to God’s dwelling or tabernacling presence. When the gospel of John records concerning Jesus, and the Word became flesh and dwelt or tabernacled among us, Jesus comes as the fullness of the shekinah, the tabernacling presence of God among His people.
But to see God’s glory only from afar isn’t the goal of creation. Nor is it what God is seeking to do in setting up residency in a tent among his people. Nor is such what God has planned for us in Christ! The expectation isn’t to simply have God dwell in His people’s midst, but for fellowship. (1 John 1:1-4). Immanuel isn’t “God among us” but “God with us.”
ILLUSTRATION:
Years ago, before Jenny and I were believers, a guy rented the house across the street. I’m not even sure of his name, but maybe it was James. James was somewhat elusive. He parked in the garage. When he left, we’d see the garage door rise, the car pull out. When he came home, we’d see the garage door rise, the car pull in. The garage door immediately closing before he ever stepped out of his car. We never spoke. We never saw his face. He never came over to our house, nor we to his. Yet we lived across the street from each other, as neighbors, for a year.
IS THAT IT?
Is that what God intended when He said he would dwell in the midst of His people? Is that really the fulfillment of the goal of creation? There were signs that God had moved in. The cloud would rise; the cloud would descend. But there’s no relationship unless one can truly approach into the other’s presence.
SECURITY
What if James was a police officer, had his cruiser parked in the drive, but nothing else changed as far as our relationship. Would that be any better? Sure, my family at least has some added sense of protection and security. But is God’s protection and security really all He meant for Israel to gain by His dwelling among them?
MATERIAL BENEFIT
What if James was wealthy and footed the bill for some nice communal amenities. How many would like a neighbor like James? Look at all the benefits, added security, added luxury, and what’s more, James doesn’t take up any of your time—no demands, no expectations. He simply leaves you alone to live your life.
APPLICATION
That, sadly, is the extent of relationship many want with God. But such is a far cry from paradise regained. Let me ask? What good is the extra protection and security from God, and what good are the benefits of a wealth of material goods, if you are denied the one thing for which you were created—an intimate relationship with Him!
BUILDING GOD’S HOUSE
Back in Exodus 25:8, the Lord says to Moses, “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. Exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it.”
Even if I had the distinct privilege of building James’ house and furnishing it, so that he’d have a place next to mine—and I’m sure many would find a bit of comfort in knowing God’s next door, BUT… if that’s all your relationship with the Lord is, a little comfort in knowing He’s near, but you never have any sort of fellowship with Him, then your relationship with God is a sorry portrait of what He desires for you. And what’s worse, it seriously belittles what He has done to provide you access to Him.
ALREADY, NOT YET
O, in this age we don’t have the fullness of this fellowship just yet. But we are to experience a degree of that intimate fellowship here and now. I want to be careful in suggesting that our experience of God is in anyway subjective (but that’s another message). What I want to get across, is that God has provided a way for you and I to have fellowship with Him now. And what’s taking place here in Leviticus is how access of that fellowship is made available.
APPROACH:
So, how does Leviticus resolve this dilemma? The sacrificial system, and more specifically, that of offerings.
Jump back to Leviticus 1 verse 2, When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock.
The word offering carries the idea of “approach.” Literally, it is a thing brought near. The idea of an offering is to present something to someone else. Such underscores a desire and need to approach God. The way the people were able to approach this consuming fire of a God, was to bring a gift other than themselves. But not just any gift, but a specific kind of offering which is to be offered in a prescribed manner.
As a brief overview, chapters 1-7 specify the different offerings and details how such are to be presented. We have burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. In chapters 8 and 9, Aaron and his sons are consecrated and make their offering before the Lord, and at the end of chapter 9 in verse 22 we see the order of sacrifice, which has important theological significance.
We’ll return to chapter 1 in a minute, but notice in chapter 9, verse 22, Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them, and he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings.
SIN OFFERING
The order of these offerings accomplishes the following: The first offering, namely the sin offering atones for sin. The sin offering is what allows God’s people to dwell in His presence without Him consuming them. The sin offering is required before one can even begin to approach the Lord in His holiness.
PEACE OFFERING
The last offering, the peace offering or grain offering is that of enjoying a fellowship meal in God’s presence, partaking of a meal with God. There are fewer ways in which to express fellowship than enjoying a meal together. (If you recall, that was part of the issue Paul raised against Peter when Peter suddenly refrained from eating with Gentile believers, because such was to withdraw fellowship. The gospel is meant to unite in fellowship, not divide. The gospel unites us first with God, so that we can fellowship with Him, and in turn, unites us with God’s people, His family, and as such, we should fellowship with one another. That’s what we did this past Wednesday. We ate a meal together and enjoyed each other’s company and conversation.)
BURNT OFFERING
What I want to focus on, is this middle offering, the burnt offering, which is the first offering addressed in Leviticus, and I believe the reason for such is because it addresses the impending dilemma: How can sinful humanity even remotely approach this God who is a consuming fire? That’s the question Exodus left us with. And it is the question Leviticus first seeks to answer.
Work your way back to chapter 1, verse 3. If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord.
Notice first that the tabernacle, when the prescribed offering is presented, becomes a tent of meeting. It’s no longer simply the dwelling place of God, but where God meets with the worshipper.
UNBLEMISHED
But what does it take to draw near? An unblemished substitute. This word, unblemished, means “perfect” and “complete.” When used of people, it’s usually translated as blameless. The reason you and I need a substitute to approach God, is because we aren’t blameless. We have proven such time and again.
But it’s not enough to say that the animal must be innocent. We know that animals aren’t sinful. But that doesn’t mean just any beast will suffice for a substitute. The animal must be “whole.” Chapter 22 records what constitutes an acceptable offering and what does not. To summarize, what is intended is that the animal must be full of vitality and health without defect.
Our sin brought death into God’s good creation. If we are to present an acceptable offering, it must be one that is full of life, not death. That’s partly why you and I are unable to present ourselves as substitutes. We can’t approach God in and of ourselves. To do so is to present that which is dead.
ASCENSION
Now, this idea of burnt offering needs explanation, because, although the idea is that of putting the offering on the fire so as to be burned, such can lead to a misunderstanding of the intent of this offering. The word here for burnt offering is the participle of the word to ascend or go up. In other words, the burnt offering is literally that which goes up. It goes up in smoke. It rises to the Lord as it is being burned.
Why is this significant? Because it captures the intent of the offering. The burnt offering is unique in that the entire animal is consumed on the altar’s fire in order for the whole of it to ascend to the Lord as a pleasing aroma. This is the one offering of total consecration.
This burnt offering, or rather, ascension offering is fully set-apart to ascend in smoke up to the Lord. It should not be confused with the sin offering, which is a substitute paying the penalty for sin. Rather, the beast, as a substitute is transformed, in some sense, from flesh to spirit, as it were, ascending as smoke up to heaven, the true dwelling place of God.
LAYING HANDS
The burnt offering is still a substitute. That’s what’s taking place in verse 4 with the individual’s laying hands on the head of the offering. But again, the wording here is not simply to place a hand on the sacrifice, but to lean upon or lean into the sacrifice. It carries the idea of identifying with the offering, that this offering is for me. The Lord’s acceptance of this substitute is the Lord’s acceptance of me, as the worshipper.
Verse 5, Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Verse 5 is really the last active participation from the one bringing the burnt offering before turning the remaining duties over to the priests.
But this is perhaps the most vital. The worshipper is required to kill the bull before the Lord. He can’t simply bring the offering and turn it over for others to do on his behalf. He must get his hands dirty with this sacrifice, identifying with the blood on his own hands.
COSTLY APPROACH
This portrays the high cost required to approach the Lord, to enter God’s presence. The offering must be perfect, and the worshipper must identify with this costly substitute.
I hope you notice the standard required for approaching the Lord. Such is not done casually, and not without cost. As a warning, there are two ways in which one might seek to present an unfit sacrifice to the Lord.
DISCOVERED DEFECT
Let’s say you have an otherwise healthy-looking animal, but upon inspection, the priest finds some defect. One of two things took place:
Either 1) you knew about the defect and were hoping such would go unnoticed, or 2) you failed in your due diligence to ensure the quality of the offering. While the first is certainly a high-handed sin, the sin of neglect is by no means trivial. Both fail to reckon with God’s holiness, as if approaching God is a small matter, and as such, belittles God’s worth. Neither should presume that the Lord will accept them, or that they might somehow approach God with such a heart. Such is the opposite of David, who declared, “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.”
ILLUSTRATION
My family has enjoyed the series, All Creatures Great and Small, based on a rural veterinarian practice in 1940’s Yorkshire. In one of the early episodes, a financially struggling family found out their bull was no longer fit for breeding. Otherwise, the bull appeared perfectly healthy. The family sought to sell the bull before the truth of the bull’s health was discovered. Such is the high-handed kind of sin that seeks to get one over on the omniscient God. We even have an example of such in the New Testament with Ananias and Saphira, both who were struck down for their dishonesty in offering their best.
UZZAH
As for the sin of neglect, which also belittles God’s holiness, we need only to think of Uzzah and the ark of the covenant. King David was having the ark brought to Jerusalem, but those who brought the ark neglected the Lord’s prescribed way in which they were to carry the ark. Rather than carrying it by poles, they put it on a cart pulled by oxen. When the oxen stumbled, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark to keep it from falling. And the Lord struck Uzzah down for his irreverent carelessness.
I confess, when I first read this, I became a bit incensed, frustrated over how a loving God could strike down Uzzah for doing what seemed like an honorable act—keeping this holy piece of furniture from falling on the filthy ground. O how slow we tend to be at times to trust the Lord in all His ways, even when we don’t understand. I can hear Jesus’ words, O you of little faith.
HOLINESS
My failure was that of discounting God’s holiness as well as my sinfulness. You see, the ground wasn’t stained with sin, Uzzah’s hands were. Mud couldn’t defile the ark; only sinful man could. The true filth wasn’t the ground, but Uzzah’s hands, and my hands, and your hands.
The account of Uzzah shows just how difficult it is for God to dwell with fallen people without consuming them. God even warned Moses after the golden calf incident of such a danger when He threatened not to go with the people of Israel any longer lest He consume them on the way.
PLEASING AROMA
Alright, verse 9, the priest shall burn all of it on the altar, as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. This word “burn” is the verb form for the word incense. The priest shall burn this offering as smoke or incense to the Lord. When offered according to the Lord’s prescription, such is a pleasing aroma to the Lord, and the worshipper accepted.
CHAPTER 9
Back to chapter 9, final verses. Having offered up the offerings in accordance with the Lord’s prescribed manner, verse 23, Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.
AARON RESTORED
The tabernacle, God’s dwelling among His people, had truly become a tent of meeting. Moses and Aaron both entered. Notice the significance of Aaron entering the tent of meeting in the presence of the Lord. You see, Aaron had recently failed big-time, fashioning the golden calf in which the people prostituted themselves. But in His mercy, the Lord prescribed a way—a way in which sinners might enter His presence. Even after such a horrendous sin, Aaron’s service as priest of God Most High is restored.
As such, Aaron lifts his hands and blesses the people, and the people witness the glory of the Lord which consumed—or we might even say—accepted the offerings. And when the people saw it, they fell on the faces and worshipped.
CONCLUSION
How does all of this apply to us in Christ? First, notice that Jesus takes this three-fold approach to the Father. And it’s through our union with Christ, our leaning into Christ, that we approach God.
Jesus is our sin offering, our unblemished Lamb slaughtered on our behalf, so that we aren’t consumed. He took that penalty for us.
When properly understood, Jesus is also the whole burnt offering, or better referred to as the ascension offering. Jesus’ entire life was consecrated to His Father, every aspect a pleasing aroma. As such, he ascends to the Father, also on our behalf. It is through Christ that you and I approach the Father.
And Jesus is our peace/fellowship offering—the true bread offered up. While we await enjoying the marriage meal face-to-face, we do enjoy a regular fellowship meal in that of the Lord’s Supper. But even more so, as Jesus ascends to the Father, He sends His Spirit to descend upon His church, granting us the fellowship of God through the Holy Spirit.
Hear how Luke’s gospel ends similar to that of Leviticus 9:
And lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God.
The disciples’ continual presence in the temple blessing God is not solely referring to their location, as much as what Jesus’ threefold sacrifice provided. The disciples could now approach this Holy God filled with joy and praise, serving once again in the restored priesthood which Adam had lost.
Realize that the church is the temple in which you and I currently approach God. Not church as in this building, but the body of believers. That’s not to diminish private prayer and devotion, but to understand God’s gift of the church to His people. And it is here where we offer up our corporate prayers and petitions as a royal priesthood.
Which is why our worship, how we worship, and even our order of worship matters. Such is not to be taken casually.
FULLY CONSECRATED
We’ll look more closely at Christ as our sin offering next week.
For now, while Jesus is our unblemished ascension offering, He is perfecting you and me to be unblemished living sacrifices fully consecrated to the Lord. That, Paul says in Romans 12, is our true spiritual worship. Everything about our lives should be sweet smelling incense to God. Yes, our prayers, but more than our prayers. In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul calls the very lives of believers, “the aroma of Christ.” But how are we to be the aroma of Christ unless we are utterly consecrated—set-apart for Him.
Which takes us back to the goal of creation. God has provided a way for us to not only dwell in his holy presence, but for intimate fellowship.
Our way back to God required the most costly gift of all, a perfect sacrifice, of which there was only one, His beloved Son, whom God did not spare, so that we might enjoy that which is most precious—fellowship with Him.