THE BEAT e131 God is in the Details (Leviticus Covers Holy Ground)

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  

Season 2 Episode 131 

THE BEAT | God is in the Details (Leviticus Covers Holy Ground)

Quick Take 

Hey human, in this episode we do the unexpected. Learn about holiness in Leviticus. You heard me right. Probably the most skipped book in the Bible. Yet, as it turns out, obedience is in the details. And it foreshadows what Paul tells us, that our bodies are a living sacrifice. You just may come away with a little more love for Leviticus, and for sure, our God. Join us in e131. Thanks for listening.

How has God showed you his holiness today?

I’m Kathryn Bise, your host.

Reading Leviticus is like living in the tabernacle courtyard, as if I were a priest spending my days and nights at the altars with animals, hundreds of thousands of animals, about to be sacrificed.

That’s my first thought. Why am I jumping into a book of the Bible people avoid? A book rarely draw inspiration from. I am on my Bible read-thru journey, reading it in 2+ months as God’s story, and his power in it. A deep immersion. And we are approaching Easter. The death, burial, and resurrection of the Holy One. The ultimate and only sacrifice that answers to separation from God.

So, I jumped onto the bloody stage of Leviticus with a prayer, to know my God better. Pg 40 – 117 in my Bible. 77 pages. That’s a lot of blood and unclean behavior. And a worthy way to prepare for Easter.

My second thought? I wouldn’t have wanted to be a priest overseeing the burnt, grain, fellowship, sin, guilt offerings. Attending to God’s bloody details. Constant slaughter, blood, the foul smell of organs, and the fear of fatal violation before God. I learned more about the priests’ offering, how this came about, that they were supported through the offerings right down to one breast and one thigh for a meal. And about not eating fat or blood, and that “the life of the creature is in the blood.” So many of the offering criteria were about being “without defect” and the finest flour, no yeast, and timing of what could be eaten, when, and what was a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

In case you were wondering, the Hebrew name for the book of Leviticus means “And He [God] called”. The book is also known as Torat Kohanim, which means “law of priests”.

And if that is not enough, the priests oversaw the defiling disease inspections, with specific instructions on when someone should be cast out of the community for seven days or indefinitely. And the cleansing that was to be followed. The same with bodily discharges, all with the goal of going from the designation of “unclean” to becoming “clean” again.

Clean and unclean animals, bodies, surroundings. What is this about? Clean and unclean takes on the Old Testament expression of sinner and saved. Before the Messiah. Before the blood of the divine Lamb. It foreshadows the New Testament call to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.

Romans 12:1

 

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

 

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

 

19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.

 

All the Leviticus rules about daily conduct, and specific new rules on sexual relations within a family, and the punishments are about one thing. Purifying God’s chosen nation. A new way of daily life that must have seemed restrictive after so many years of yielding to sexual desires. What a hold this way of life had on all the people of the earth at this time. And still.

The Sabbath is again defined, the Sabbath year, and the year of Jubilee, which brings the importance of God’s land into focus, and the freedom of the individual (the slaves).

My Dwelling Place Among You

Yet Leviticus is taking that next step beyond the tabernacle courtyard and showing the Israelites how to live for God to dwell among them. Because God is holy.

 And as he says in this book, he tells Moses he wants his people to be holy.

Leviticus 19:2:

 

“Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.'”

 

He is teaching them about repenting with a holy heart, sacrificing their “best” in their offerings, following God’s commands so that blood, soiled garments, defiled approaches to his presence will cause the only thing that can happen. Death. 

Two of Aarons’ sons die—God uses the priesthood as his example, this is so powerful—they die from not following God’s procedures and offering “unauthorized fire” to which God killed them with his fire, his HOLY fire. Aaron’s sons die, with a father who gathered gold, created a golden calf, and then became the top priest in God’s chosen nation.

Reward for Obedience, Punishment for Disobedience

What do these detailed instructions develop? An understanding that obedience is in the details. In the process of doing what God as commanded. Every step. With this immersion into the exacting nature of how to worship God and honor God in daily life, Chapter 26 starts by summarizing obedience like this:

No idols. Observe Sabbaths. Revere my sanctuary.

I am the Lord your God.

Then, how God will respond to this obedience.

Listen with me.

Leviticus 26:1-13

 

Reward for Obedience

 

1 “‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.

 

2 “‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

 

3 “‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.

 

6 “‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.

 

9 “‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place[a] among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.

 

God clearly defines the consequence of obedience, but this is the first time I have thought of obedience as the counterweight to disobedience, like the scales of justice. But it is pretty cool to think about God’s ability to provide divine balance, by this I mean, “just” rewards for either.

Then Chapter 26:11 – “I will put my dwelling place among you and be your God, and you will be my people.”  

Long before this verse, I was asking questions like this: Why would God put his people through so much detail in their offerings? Make so much of what was clean and unclean?

And why would he say throughout this book: I am the Lord your God. A thousand times?

Before I got to this point, the word “dwell” flooded my consciousness, and I knew the point of all of this. If God is to dwell with us, we must be, our surroundings must be holy.

So, the scales of justice then focus on the consequence of disobedience.

Leviticus 26:14-9

 

14 “‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.

 

18 “‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.

 

21 “‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.

 

23 “‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.

God goes on with more, and much worse circumstances.

God is very clear about, as he says in verse 15, what happens when Israel violates his covenant. He goes on to say “I myself will be hostile toward you…” if you do not respond to God’s requests.

God says the consequence of disobedience will be seven times more… seven is the cycle of creation, of being made in his image. He says “I will break down your stubborn pride.” Strength will be in vain, your efforts will produce nothing. This would be like death to me. Producing nothing. I am so goal driven. I am tagging this, “stubborn pride” for return. Especially the “stubborn” part of it.

Remember the Covenant, I am the Lord

But all of this book leads to the power of the covenant, the purpose of the covenant, the divine premise of his story. This is set up as an IF/THEN:

Leviticus 26:40-46

 

The “IF”

 

40 “‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, 41 which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin,

If they confess sins, unfaithfulness and hostility toward God,

And the “THEN”

42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. 44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. 45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’”

46 These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established at Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses.

In verse 44 God says he WILL NOT break his covenant with his people, in spite of it all.

Redeeming What is the Lord’s

Chapter 27 is titled Redeeming what is the Lord’s. In my opinion it is a feast of introspection and reflection. God addresses the value of devoting a person or land to him and reveals the critical importance of a special vow. I will return to this, but not today. It breaks down what it means to devote someone, something to the Lord. Tag this human, to read. It is one of the gems in a book that doesn’t get enough credit.

Leviticus 27:28

 

28 “‘But nothing that a person owns and devotes to the Lord—whether a human being or an animal or family land—may be sold or redeemed; everything so devoted is most holy to the Lord.

 

I completed this book, thinking, I cannot contain the nature of God. New concepts? Not really. The details and descriptions of offerings, conduct rules, priesthood responsibilities, obedience, disobedience, vows, were not new by definition. But, new by details that pulled me into the center of the Israeli culture, and a God that defines holiness, and how to act to be in the presence of holiness.

The mind-blowing revelation that takes us from altar sacrifices to living sacrifices. Jesus. Then us, human.

Jesus became the sacrifice. So, we could sacrifice. Why? To be in God’s presence. To dwell with him.

Leviticus holds his presence, his holiness, his power and his judgment, good and bad. I can’t contemplate it all. Not a hundred readings will do it. And it became the clearest it has ever been on Leviticus reading day that I will not need Leviticus when I am in his presence in his Kingdom. I will not be referring to a chapter or page number.

I will not need my Bible.

I will be in full devotion mode. By the blood of our high priest, Jesus, the Lamb of God.

What a witness that will be.