Leviticus Overview
Introduction
This lesson is the first of two on the book of Leviticus, so named for its focus on the activities of the priestly tribe of Levi, though it’s only mentioned by name in two verses. As the third book of the Pentateuch or Torah, it continues from Exodus with detailed instructions from God to Moses, not just for the priesthood but also for the people. Please refer to these resources as well: this commentary, the NETS Bible, and this LXX Interlinear.
The book of Leviticus needs a lot of context. Constable’s introductory notes include a very good quote: Leviticus has been called the Bermuda Triangle of the Bible, because many Christians get lost in here. Yet the New Testament book of Hebrews draws heavily from it, so there is something to gain from basic familiarity with it.
If Exodus was the preamble of the law, Leviticus is the formal legislation, and nobody likes to trudge through a long legal document. Every detail of worship is spelled out in fine detail, so there could be no need to guess how or whether anyone was pleasing this holy God who keeps them alive in spite of themselves. Unlike other religions, where the adepts and priests hold secret knowledge the unwashed masses are deemed unworthy to receive, the Levitical system is written out for all the people to see.
But keep in mind that what we as Christians can take from this study is the emphasis on holiness and respect for God, not that we must know and practice this law for ourselves. Hebrews 7 explains that with a change of priesthood comes a change of law, and as Jesus taught in parables, you can’t mix the old and the new. Above all, the sheer volume of details makes Jesus’ fulfillment of it that much more impressive.
Constable also points out that to us today, Leviticus reads in a haphazard and repetitive way, but in fact the various chapters and sections each have their own literary structure, just as any legal document would have different styles of presentation for different aspects of the contract. Constable’s notes include a handy outline of the entire book, but we won’t be going verse-by-verse through Leviticus as we have for previous books; we will only pick out particular areas of controversy or difficulty.
The Big Picture
Probably the most important point to grasp is that these rituals and requirements only cover sin rather than cure it, or they wouldn’t need to be repeated as the book of Hebrews points out. We could think of this as renting or leasing legal pardon until actual payment in full could be made at the right time through Jesus, who shouted that legal term on the cross at the very moment it was being shouted by the priests sacrificing the Passover lambs.
The sacrifice of animals, which actually began when God covered Adam and Eve with animal skins, illustrates the substitutionary atonement of the innocent for the guilty. Our society bristles at such an idea on the surface, yet we practice it on some level ourselves. For example, if a child breaks a neighbor’s window, it is the parents who make restitution since the child cannot, since the child is not a responsible party under the law.
This is a matter of inability to pay, not a method of teaching children to be reckless and irresponsible, provided of course that the parents then discipline the children responsibly. It is an act of mercy, both to the child and to the neighbor as the injured party. In the same way, God provided a way for Israel to compensate him for their offenses on credit so to speak, rather than striking them dead at the first offense. And as with the child needing to see how much it cost the parents to replace the window, so also the Israelites needed to see the terrible price of rebelling against their Creator.
But like anything else put on credit, payment eventually comes due, and the Israelites would be forever unable to make it, so they would need to be redeemed. And of course it isn’t just Israel who would need help, so God also would pay the ransom for the whole world held under the power of the evil one, leading to reconciliation between God and all mankind. These three Rs sum up not only the laws of Moses but also the reasons Jesus had to sacrifice himself.
This may be a good point at which to define some terms. Pardon or forgiveness takes away the penalty of a crime but not the guilt, whereas justification takes away the guilt as well, so justification means dropping the charges. But to drop charges when there is still an injured party to compensate would be unjust, unless the injured party accepts the pardon out of mercy. What this means spiritually is that the laws of Moses could bring pardon or forgiveness, but God as the injured party is still owed something— something only the perfect, sinless God-Man could provide. And that is reconciliation with the souls he created.
But what does it mean to be sanctified? Its literal meaning is to be set apart or aside, and it includes the idea of being separated or distinguished for a spiritual purpose, good or bad. But it can also be applied to objects and animals and days, so it isn’t necessarily a term of morality or restraint from sin, but more of an identification. At the very least, it signifies the intent or beginning of a spiritual task or state. Ideally, it also includes the completion of that task, or maturity in that state.
1 Cor. 6:11 Paul puts it all together: “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” This accomplishment of Jesus is the final goal that the laws of Moses could never reach but only rent. So the laws of Moses serve to sanctify and at least temporarily pardon the people of Israel, but they can’t justify them so they could live forever in God’s direct presence.
Now we need to address the current resurgence of the so-called Hebrew Roots movement, which teaches that Christians must obey at least some of the laws of Moses in order to please God. Yet passages such as Rom. 7:1 and Gal. 2:11-21 make it very clear that such a teaching belittles Jesus’ sacrifice, since in Christ we died to the law. How can we please God by taking to ourselves a law that was not only specified for the nation of Israel alone, but was superceded by Jesus’ sacrifice? When Paul confronted Peter, it wasn’t because Peter was trying to save or justify himself, but because he had lapsed back to practicing the laws of Moses. We cannot please God by doing something that got Peter a rebuke.
Context is everything, and the context of the laws of Moses and the whole Levitical system is the nation and people of Israel, with a physical temple in a physical place on earth, the practice of which would bring physical blessings to the people and land, and the neglect of which would bring physical curses. Some quote Habakkuk 2:4 to claim that salvation was by faith even before Christ, but it doesn’t say that; it says that righteous people live by faith, not “go to heaven” by faith.
In hindsight we can all agree that spending eternity in God’s presence is granted to “saints” in any era, but they were designated such on account of their good deeds if done in faith. Even so, their souls could not enter heaven until Jesus made his sacrifice and “took captivity captive” per Eph. 4:8. But you will find nothing about eternal salvation of the spirit in this law. You will only find the detailed laws of an earthly theocracy.
Yet again, such a system was designed to keep the relationship between God and Israel as close as possible in this life, so that when people died they could rest in peace knowing God would judge them by how they lived and why. For Israel it meant living according to the whole law; for everyone else, it meant living with a clean conscience, per Rom. 2:14. But for us in the age of grace, it means resting in the finished work of Christ, a gift to be received with gratitude, rather than a wage to be earned by performing good deeds. And the way we please God is not with rituals or by pretending to be Jews, but by being God’s hands in this world.
As pointed out in earlier lessons, the purpose of some of these laws is to regulate rather than establish socio-economic norms such as slavery and the status of women as property. Jesus himself said in Mat. 19:8 that Moses allowed divorce only due to men’s hard hearts (ref. Deut. 24), and God’s habit is to always choose the lowly and despised to humble the proud and esteemed, per 1 Cor. 1:27-29. 1 Peter 5:5 states that God opposes the proud but defends the humble. If anyone thinks they’re granted entitlement because of their flesh, they’ve missed the point of not only these laws, but ultimately also the Gospel of Grace. We need to keep all this in mind as we study Leviticus, which at least will turn out to be the settled practice of Jewish life for many generations to come.