Leviticus 11-15 addresses the issue of clean versus unclean. These five chapters are extremely detailed about all the myriad ways you could become unclean!

Chapter 11: Clean and unclean animals, insects, dealing with carcasses, etc.
Chapter 12: Uncleanness following childbirth
Chapter 13-14: Sores, scabs, leprosy, boils, burns, mildew
Chapter 15: Sexual uncleanness

Please scan through these chapters in your Bible and wonder to yourself: What would it be like to live under this system?

Remember, these laws of clean and unclean were in addition to the sin and guilt offerings in previous chapters. These issues of clean and unclean were something that, other than the food they ate, the people had little to no control over. Even if you had meticuously tried to keep the law and had kept from sinning, uncleanness was a daily part of life.

An unclean bug dies and falls into your favorite pot while you’re cooking lunch, and now you have to break your pot and throw out the stew. Then later in the day, you see some mildew in the corner of your house. When you grab your cloak to go get the priest to examine your house, you realize that the mildew is also on your clothes! After ripping it out, you’re on your way to the tabernacle and some unclean guy spits on you, so now you’re unclean… You get the picture. In fact, in these 5 chapters, the word “unclean” is used 70 times!

What is God trying to accomplish here? Why did He make it impossible for them to stay clean? First of all, remember that there are many facets to why God gave them the law.

• The law reveals who God is – He is holy – there is nothing impure in His nature!
• The law shows them how to live in relationship with Him – Nothing impure can enter His presence!
• The law makes sin obvious – Even when we haven’t intentionally sinned, we are by nature sinners – we are unclean!
• The law prepares the nation to want the Messiah – He is the only one who could cleanse us from our sin and uncleanness
• The law isolates and protects them from other cultures and belief systems – Oh, you’re having a pork roast? Sorry, we can’t come over for dinner…
• Provide law and order in society – Make sure highly contagious people aren’t living in close contact with the rest of society!

The first four points are what I want to emphasize here.

Our God is Holy. We are inherently unclean. Since that first fatal moment when Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit in the garden, we have all been born in a state of uncleanness. We are infected with sin, even without a conscious choice on our part. And because of that inherited sin nature (and our own very deliberate choices to sin and disobey), we can never, NEVER be holy like our God. We can never, NEVER have a relationship with Him without Someone to pay for our sin and wash away our uncleanness. And the “Someone” had to be clean, pure, and sinless in order to truly be able to wash away our sin with His blood. And in order to conquer death and enable us to have life, He had to defeat death for all time and rise from the dead.

That’s why we need Jesus, friends. Even your very best attempts to be good will leave you unclean. Psalm 58:3 says, “The wicked are estranged from the womb; They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.” How we need you, Lord Jesus! How can we thank you for the gift you have given us? Take and use us for your glory – you have purchased us with your blood and we are yours.

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:4-6

Crack your Bible open to Leviticus (I’m sure it naturally falls open to Leviticus chapter 1 because you read it so often!), and check out the first word of the book. Depending on what translation you use, it may say, Now, And, or Then. (Some less literal translations just jump into the story line with something like, “The Lord called to Moses…”) Implication? It connects to the end of Exodus!

So, what was happening at the end of Exodus? The cloud and pillar of fire were leading the Israelites, and verse 35 says, “And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” If we continue with our marriage analogy back in Exodus (refer back to “Covenants, Old and New“) this is a pretty rotten honeymoon! They can’t even approach Him!

Enter Leviticus. There are constant barriers to close communion with God – He is holy, we are not. We cannot just saunter into His presence as sinful people – some people tried, and they ended up dead! Leviticus gives the answer to the question, “So, how are we supposed approach and have fellowship with God?”

The text jumps right into all kinds of offerings you could bring. There were free-will sacrifices, which were not offered to cover sin, but rather to allow the worshipper to have fellowship with God, express thanksgiving, recognize His sovereignty.

There were many, many sacrifices to cover different kinds of sin. The cost was greater for intentional, rebellious sin than it was for “normal” sin that people find themselves in. (ie: intentionally slandering with malicious intent versus “everyday” lies which people find themselves saying without meaning to.) Both are still sinful, both caused death, but the cost was greater for intentional sin. In the same way, those in higher position had a greater price to pay for their sin (4:3,13,22,27). Position and influence mean greater accountability.

There are lots of details I could point out here, but please just get the gist: Our sin means death. Something has to pay! Our God is HOLY. We cannot have a relationship with Him, we cannot fellowship with Him, without our sin being covered by the blood of another. Why? Because it should have been our blood! We deserve death when we sin. What a humbling daily experience this would have been for a faithful follower of God – constantly falling into sin, constantly bringing an animal sacrifice to the tabernacle, watching it be killed, and understanding full well that it should have been me up on that altar.

When Jesus comes and offers Himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, this was no small thing. He was the ultimate sinless sacrifice, the only one that could wash away all our sin for all time.

In Romans 12:1, the Apostle Paul writes, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

Recognize the mercy of God – He has offered us absolutely undeserved forgiveness. We deserve to be on that altar ourselves, and Jesus willingly suffered death on our behalf. What should our response be? Be a living sacrifice. Offer your whole self, your whole life, on that altar as an act of daily worship. It’s the ultimate free-will offering!

I once heard a speaker talk about this passage and point out that the trouble with a living sacrifice is that we often try to crawl off the altar! :) It is a daily choice. Offer yourself – I am yours, Lord! I’ll do whatever you call me to do, I will go wherever you call me to go, I will obey you completely and hold nothing back. That might sound pious, but does Paul say this is “your extraordinary service?” Or “the service offered by super- Christians?” No! He says it is our reasonable service. If we truly understand the mercy and grace of God, it is unreasonable to offer anything less than all that we are.

You would not be pleased with sacrifices, or I would bring them.
If I brought you a burnt offering, you would not accept it.
The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit.
A broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise.
Psalm 51:16-17, NLT

This essay is a piece that I wrote a few years back for a National Public Radio project called “This I believe.” I couldn’t pass up the invitation to share my faith in writing! It didn’t make it onto NPR, but it was published in our local paper a year later, much to my surprise! (I was pregnant with AG when this was written).

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I am 25 years old. I am still young, but my dark brown hair has a few strands of gray finding their way to the surface, I have scars and the stories that go with them… and now I have my own little one being formed inside of me.

At times, I fear the world we are bringing our little child into. But the things I have believed since childhood, and which have grown stronger and more firmly set into my heart and mind as I have grown older and seen the joys and pain of this world, have given me hope – and I know that they will be the greatest gift I give to our children.

I believe that no matter how hopeless, how painful, how purposeless this world may seem, there is a loving Creator behind it all, offering to give us life in the midst of our living. For I have discovered that life is much more than the breath I breathe or the steps I take. True life is found when I reach back up to the God who made me and live each day knowing Him, and therefore seeing myself and the purpose with which I was created more clearly as time goes by.

Some may think that I believe this because I have never seen the reality of this world. But I have held dying children in my arms, wondering how long they will live before starvation and disease take them away. I have cried along with dear friends who are suffering the deep, searing consequences of their own choices – and I have cried with those who suffer due to the choices others have made for them and evil committed against them. I have wrestled with the reality of death, cancer, pain, evil, poverty, and injustice. Perhaps the things I have been allowed to see in my 25 short years have brought a depth of understanding along with the strands of gray shimmering in my hair.

Yes, it is not naivete which causes me to passionately believe this. It is looking in the face of the realities of this world which causes me to realize that the only explanation for all of this is a loving God’s relentless pursuit of a creation in rebellion, and I thank Him every day for not giving up the pursuit of my own rebellious heart.

And so, I rest my hand upon my swelling belly and entrust this tiny human being into the hands of my loving Father God who has brought me safe thus far, knowing that He will do the same for my little child.

My little one, my dearest prayer is that you trust Him. For whatever suffering and pain you will face in this world, you can find hope, meaning, purpose – and real life – in the hands of the God who has never lost control… and will never stop pursuing you.

This I believe – and always will.

(copyright 2005)

Hopefully the England/ United States analogy helped clarify some things in our mind about the law. Now… there are so many different laws – why in the world did all of these things matter? There is no one answer to that question. We will discuss several of these points more in depth as we study Leviticus, but I will just mention them here.

*The law revealed who God is (God is supreme, so “You shall have no other gods before me.”)
*The law guided Israel and showed them how to live with God as their King (what does a theocracy, with God physically living in their midst, look like?)
*The law made sin obvious (the law never required sinless perfection – it assumed sin on the part of the people and told them about God’s redemption)
*The law made the people long for the Messiah’s coming (They needed a better High Priest, a better Atonement Day, a better sacrifice to cover all their sin and uncleanness!)
*The law isolated and protected them from the theology and immorality of surrounding nations (Close interactions would, and often did, end up causing them to get caught up in idolatry.)
*The law provided for law and order in society (Ie: build a railing around your 2nd story porch so that no one falls off.)

One more point. Many of the laws given are “case law.” If A happens, B is the result. Just like our own legal system, which refers back to prior decisions for precedence, these laws were not exhaustive of every kind of violation that could take place. These laws are like the poles in a chain link fence – they mark out the general boundary. The chain link fencing that stretches in between the posts are like “the spirit of the law.” There are almost unlimited implications or parallel cases which should be obvious to the sincere reader. If I’m driving down the highway next to a row of construction barrels, I know that I am not supposed to be driving in the blocked off lane! If I decide to swerve into the lane between the barrels and then get pulled over, I should not expect the policeman to sympathize with my defense that I didn’t knock over a barrel to cross into that lane. No, there wasn’t a barrel at the exact place I entered, but the boundary and intent had been obvious – I just chose to ignore it!

This is what Jesus was addressing in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). He would say, “You have heard it said…” and then follow up with “But I say to you…” He was NOT comparing the Old Testament law with His own. He was contrasting a legalistic misunderstanding of the letter of the law (just the poles) with the true meaning, the Spirit of the law (the chain-link fencing, too). And yes, what Jesus was teaching seems “stricter” than what is said in the Old Testament. He equates lust with adultery, contempt with murder. Why? Because the heart attitude starts from the same place. If I look down upon and ridicule another human being, I am basically showing a heart attitude that sees their life as less valuable than my own. The extreme result of that attitude? Murder. Your life doesn’t matter. Jesus is teaching the “Spirit of the law” – challenging them to understand that God isn’t just giving a list of rules to obey, with loopholes for those who were smart enough to work the system. The law was revealing the sinful intent of their hearts.

We can fairly easily follow rules but miss the inherent point entirely. Even in our day, there are many people who believe they are saved because they have never done anything “that bad.” They haven’t murdered anyone, had an affair, embezzled from their company. They haven’t knocked over any of those big barrels, and they get offended and angry with anyone who implies that they are sinners. Some people have been “good church people” their whole lives. Maybe they don’t even go to dances or see movies or play cards! They feel confident and secure in their goodness.

Jesus frequently attacks the Pharisees for this attitude in the gospels. His words are extremely harsh at times! These men were the elite law-keepers of their day. They even made more rules to keep themselves from breaking God’s rules! But they missed the spirit – they missed God’s heart. Instead of being humbled by the law and realizing that their hearts were far from flawless, they felt prideful because they had kept those rules oh-so-well. They were self-righteously driving in that barricaded lane, smugly pointing out that they hadn’t run over the barrel. Oh, Father, open our eyes to your Truth! May our hearts be humble and open to your rebuke. Our righteousness is like filthy rags before you.

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.
The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous.
They are much more precious than gold, than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.
By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.
Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me.
Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer.
Psalm 19:7-14