Gooding, David: 3 - Understanding Leviticus - Part 1

This is now the third of our sessions, and as usual, we start with an Old Testament book, and today it is the book of Leviticus. And we ask, as we have already done on the other occasions, why on earth should we as Christian people study Leviticus? Goodness me, you can get to heaven without studying Leviticus, can't you? But why on earth should we study it? And then there's the added phenomenon that, of course, uh, in large sections, it goes into detailed anatomical, uh, structures of the insides of animals, do you see? And that is, uh, perhaps not in the best Western taste, do you see? So, why should we study it? Doesn't the New Testament itself say that all the animal sacrifices that Leviticus talks of are all passe? We no longer need them anyway. We have a far better sacrifice, namely the sacrifice of our blessed Lord. So why should we bother with these ancient institutions? Let me mention the fact that among our Jewish friends, there is a tradition that Leviticus was the first book that they gave to their children to study. You might ask why Leviticus of all books should you give to your children to study? But of course, the book of Leviticus is not simply about the sacrifice of animals. It has as its major theme the holiness of God, and therefore our obligation to be holy ourselves. So the famous chapter nineteen of Leviticus hammers home by constant repetition, you shall be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord. Time after time, God repeats through those instructions, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord. Be you holy, for I am holy. This is an exhortation that is repeated for us in Paul, in Peter's first epistle, chapter one, verses fourteen to sixteen, where Peter quotes this exhortation. You, be you holy, for I am holy, saith the Lord. Immediately we see that, uh, Leviticus has practical implications for us as Christian believers. And therefore, God in his mercy, wishing to make his people holy, instituted these sacrifices such as are described in the early chapters of, uh, the book. And one of the things they do is to help them, and therefore us, to analyze what sin is. For if, if we are to take God seriously and follow his injunction, be holy, then of course we shall k- need to know, living in this present evil world, what sin is and how God would analyze it. And so in the early chapters of the book, we are given an array of sacrifices that help us to see some of the basic i- i- implications of sinfulness. For instance, in chapter four of this book, we have directions for the sin offering. And the offering they had to bring varied according to who it was that had done the sinning. If it were a private individual, such and such an offering was required. And it was normally less than some of the other sin offerings. But if a priest sinned so as to bring guilt upon the people, he had to bring an offering as large as, if not bigger, than the whole congregation brought. It establishes the principle that the gravity of sin depends on who does the sin. If an ordinary citizen sins, that is serious enough. But if the judge, who is responsible for the law and its interpretation, if he sins, and he has convicted many other people of similar wrong behavior, then obviously it's a much more serious defect if the judge sins than if the private individual sins. That is why James gives us some advice in his epistle. My brothers, he says, be not many teachers. Why not? Well, knowing this, that we shall receive the greater condemnation. It is a risky thing that I do now in standing publicly to teach God's word. Because if a teacher sins, who has told other people how they ought to behave, then he shall receive the greater condemnation. That is a relevant to us as it was to ancient Israel. There is another offering for sin at the beginning of Leviticus, and it is, uh, called the guilt offering or the trespass offering. Like the sin offering, it has a gradation of offerings to be offered. But here it is not a question of who does the sin. It is rather a question of the damage sin does. That is an exceedingly important thing. Which is why in everyday business transactions, if a man sins, according to this chapter five, it is not enough to bring a sacrifice. He must first restore everything that he has falsely taken. In other words, he must, as far as he is able to, correct the damage that his sinfulness has done. The directions for this sacrifice show the compassion of God. For in certain respects it is written, but if the person's means are not sufficient, what then? That is a serious aspect of sin, isn't it? Take, for instance, a teacher. And he is not only a confirmed atheist, but like some professors that we know a lot about, is determined to break other people's faith. And this teacher takes a delight in his sixth form to try and destroy the faith in God that some of his pupils have, and with one of them succeeds and turns him into an atheist. Both live on for a while, of course. And then the young man that he has, whose faith he has broken and turned him into an atheist, dies. Dies. The teacher lives on and gets converted in later middle life. What then? Can he undo the damage he's done? Where Where is the young man whose faith he broke? Where is he now? This is a serious matter, the damage that sin does. And justifies the advice that the Old Testament gives. Break off, break off your young, your wrongdoing before it is meddled with. And moreover, there were positive responsibilities. And failure in them was regarded as a trespass before God. So the section begins, if anyone should hear the voice of adoration, he's put on oath in a court, for instance, and has to, uh, and is, uh, put on oath and charged with speaking the truth. Then says scripture, he must stand with the truth publicly. There was a very famous occasion in the New Testament where that happened. Matthew tells us that when our Lord stood in the high priest's court, various witnesses brought charges against him. He said nothing himself. He remained silent. The high priest, president of the court, complained. And since our Lord still said nothing, he put him on oath and charged him by Almighty God that he told the court what he claimed. Christ then had a decision to make, didn't he? He knew quite well, as everybody knew in the court, that if he told the truth, that would be an end of him. They would crucify him. What should he do? But the scripture was clear. If someone is put under oath to speak, then he or she must stand with the truth. Surely you find it we- welling up in your heart at this moment, to admire the Lord Jesus, that knowing full well the consequence of his confession, confessed the truth. We have it easy in this country, of course. We must remember our brothers and sisters elsewhere, who find themselves in situations where to tell the truth would mean execution. So these chapters then... fit into the scheme of Leviticus, which is God, which is that God now takes his redeemed people, rescued from slavery in Egypt, and began to teach them what it means to be holy. There is another category in the early chapters of Leviticus, not only the guilt that sin, uh, uh, produces, but a slightly different category of the defilement that sin produces. The uncleanness. This is not necessarily something that we constantly think about. But, for instance, in the New Testament, the Epistle to the Hebrews warns believers, lest a root of bitterness should arise among them, and many be thereby defiled. When arguments arise of serious depth, and so discord amongst the people of God, and people get involved, almost inevitably. Ah, but watch this feature. There is a danger that many be defiled. And you will not need me to remind you that believers in this modern age are assaulted at every level in this unclean world, with the possibility of mind and emotions being defiled. But of course, these sacrifices help us on the positive side. The first very chapter of Leviticus is given over to the description of the burnt offering that Israel had often, uh, to provide. It was called the burnt offering, the ascending offering, because among its features was this, that the whole animal had to be sacrificed, except for its skin and certain other parts. You see. It stands first. And reminds us of our duty as redeemed people to devote ourselves entirely to God. Though, of course, we often come short of it. We too are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. But Israel came short of it and were allowed to bring this particular offering, as verse four of chapter one says, to make atonement for them. And that, uh, puts us, uh, uh, uh, uh, into the practical situation. Lack of keenness for the Lord is number one sin. It is easy to get the impression that so long as I have not murdered my mother-in-law, if I had one, or cheated the bank, or failed to pay my income tax, uh, or done some other horrible thing, then I'm okay. But you see, that is not necessarily so. Our blessed Lord is on record in his address to the churches in Asia Minor. He's on record as saying this of one church: You are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were one or the other. I can't stick this neither hot nor cold attitude. I shall vomit you out of your, out of my mouth, says Christ. That behavior is so distasteful. What would you think, um... Not that I've ever done it, you know, but if I went to a recently married husband and wife, and I said to the husband, you must be a fortunate man to get a wife like that. You must be madly in love with her. And he replied, well, of course I'm not against her. And, and, and when she gets up, I, I open the door for her, I mean to say. Then, on the other hand, I'm not madly keen on her. Oh, you see. You are neither hot nor cold. What a charge to bring against us. If the speaker is Christ himself. Of course I'm not against Christ, but I'm not like some of these others, madly keen on him. Oh. I repeat, Christ says it is so distasteful to him that he will vomit such people out of his mouth. I see- need say no more. To make my first major point, that the sacrifices at the beginning of Leviticus help us to analyze what sin is. Therefore, in Israel, morning and evening, as the Israelites went about their daily work, in the temple, the priests offered what is called the continual burnt offering, the tamiz. In morning, they sacrificed a burnt offering, holy to God, and in the evening they offered another tamiz, the whole of it for God, to atone for Israel, as they got occupied in this and that and other, and their devotion to the Lord slipped a bit, or more than a bit. I beseech you, says Paul in his famous passage in Romans chapter twelve, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice to God. That is only your rational service. If he gave everything for me. How shall I not give everything to him? But of course, these sacrifices at the beginning of Leviticus and elsewhere do not merely help the Israelites and us to analyze sin. They were God's answer. Sacrifices for sinners who came short. Sacrifices, therefore, that while they couldn't put away sin, it symbolized, even in those far off days, God's provision for his failing people, and become for us as Christians prototypes of our blessed Lord Jesus. And if you fear that I am now about to go off into the quagmires of fanciful interpretation, do they? Let me cite you some actual statements of the New Testament. So says Ephesians chapter five. We are to love one another, as Christ also loved you, says Paul, and gave himself up for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweet smell. That is a description given particularly of the first offering, as the whole of it ascended to God. It was a sacrifice of a sweet smell, a fragrance that caused rest, that God should be satisfied. And oh, when we think of it, what a story this is. And what a very careful and rich and heart-moving illustration and prototype. As sinners came and offered their burnt offering because of all their shortcomings. It moves us to think of our blessed Lord, who never came short, cost what it may. As he knelt in the garden of Gethsemane, and the stones hurt his knees. He prayed his heart out, did he not? Father, Abba Father, you love me. By your love I plead. Let this cup pass from me. And secondly, he prayed, all things are possible within your power, Father. By your very power I plead. Let this cup pass from me. But added triumphantly, nevertheless, thy will be done. And for, uh, amidst the moral Fury. fury. The bad smell of man's behavior at Calvary. There came up to God a fragrance. Look at him. Sinless himself. And giving himself for the very people that had nailed him to the tree. Don't you admire the Lord Jesus? And you'll see, God is beginning by these pictures to move our center from ourselves onto Christ. It is the devil's tactic that when we fail as believers, as we often do, to get us constantly thinking about ourselves and what we've done wrong and how rotten we are and all such things. Well, there is time for repentance, of course. But if we go on thinking of ourselves like that simply, we shall become very much like ourselves, which isn't always a good thing to be. Ha. God's attitude. When we have sinned. Oh, he says that through the sacrifice of Christ, we can have forgiveness. Well, we know that. Yes, but, says God, let me show you the wonder of the Lord Jesus. That where you failed, he didn't and doesn't. And God does it to provoke our admiration in his son. What was involved in his sacrifice for us? Until our admiration becomes Becomes worship. worship. And we become like what we worship. Hence the wisdom of our Lord's request to us before he left, that we should we w- meet regularly and remember his giving of his body and his blood for us. That we may admire him and worship him, and little by little become like him. Let me illustrate that to you, if I can, by taking one particular sacrifice. This is Leviticus and chapter four. And it begins like this: And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, If anyone shall sin unwittingly in any of the things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and shall do any one of them, if the anointed priest shall sin so as to bring guilt upon the people, you see. Verse thirteen: and if the whole congregation of Israel shall err, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly. And verse twenty two, if and when a ruler sins. And chapter five and verse one, and if anyone sin. That's a theme taken up in the New Testament, isn't it? What happens if anyone sins? Says John, you see, this I write unto you so that you don't sin. And then, being a realist as he is, he adds, but if anyone sin, what then? And adds, if anyone sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. Let's think for a moment, therefore, of this central sacrifice. If anyone sins, if a priest sins, if Tom Jones sins, or Maggie Brown sins, whoever, what happens? Well, I tell you what happened in Israel's day. If a priest sinned, then it began a journey. We must be reminded that these sacrifices, though as described on the page, might look dull and uninteresting, were full of drama. And symbolism. So that as people saw the sacrifice and understood what happened to it, they should be moved, both in their consciences and in their imaginations. You'll say I find it very difficult. So, particularly when I read what they had to do with some of these sacrifices, you know, they had to cut them up and then disembowel them, and then worse than that, they had to in- investigate the kidneys and, uh, oh dear, dear, dear, the innards of animals. That isn't a sort of a normal drawing room sort of subject to get on. Well, first let me point out to you that in Hebrew, Hebrews talk of our psychological and spiritual experiences in terms of the physical organs of our body. Now, if you don't like that, well, it's not for me to apologize. They did it anyway. And the New Testament uses that same language. Writing a letter to the church at Thyatira, in the book of the Revelation, our Lord says to that church, I shall deal with you and your flagrant idolatries and disloyalties, so that everybody shall know that I am the Lord which searches the kidneys. Now, I'm sure you have a modern translation that gets you out of that difficulty, and it says nothing about kidneys. The delightful Old English authorized version translates it, of course, into technical terms. I, the Lord, search the reins, it says. R-E-I-N-S, reins. Nothing to do with the reins you have on a horse to guide it. Rains in Old English is the English equivalent of the Latin renes, which means kidneys. As you will recognize, of course, if your Aunt Matilda is diagnosed with having renal failure. Well, you'll know what that means. She, uh, her kidneys have failed. I, the Lord, search the kidneys. Your modern translations, uh, will have something like, I, the Lord, search the minds and hearts. But it's good for us to know what, uh, lies behind it. In the, uh, Greek, I, the Lord, search the kidneys. Because Hebrews thought of psychological things in physical terms. Kidneys are, to the Hebrew, our inner thoughts and thinkings and motivations, why we do things. And our motives can be healthy or unhealthy. I, the Lord, search the inward motives. I search the kidneys. Says Paul, writing to the Philippians. I long after you, my brethren, in the bowels of Jesus Christ. I can guarantee your modern translations don't put it that way and find some modern substitute for it. But that's what Paul originally wrote. I long after you in the bowels of Jesus Christ. How does that make sense? Well, I don't know about you, but if you get some very moving experience, maybe a shock or some special delight, or you feel a special affection for somebody or other, it can get you sort of in the lower part of your anatomy, so to speak, um, produce all sorts of feelings there, do you see? I long after you. In the bowels of Christ. Your blessed Lord was no unfeeling monster. He had his feelings. Is your eye evil, says Christ in his parable? Has nothing to do with witchcraft. For a Hebrew, the evil eye represented jealousy. If some gifts are being distributed, you see, and you see what the other chap has got, and you look at him jealously, the Hebrew would call that an evil. So for the ancient Israelite, the details of these sacrifices were not gruesome. They carried their meaning, of course. And I suggest to you that our need in reading Leviticus and these early chapters, our need to use our imagination and to observe the drama of the occasion and what it will signify to us. So let us take chapter four, which is the sin offering. And if a priest sinned, what happened then? Well, he had to have an anointed priest to act for him, another priest to act on his behalf. And you see, this is, is, um, um, he shall offer for his sin, verse three, which he has sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering. And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tent of meeting before the Lord, and shall lay his hand upon the head of the bullock and kill the bullock before the Lord. Oh, how dramatic it is. It is specifically described. It must be a young bullock. I hesitate to say now what I'm going to say because some of you may be farmers and knowledgeable more than I, but I was a farmer's boy for four years and observed the ways of young bullocks. God, they were full of life. I envied them sometimes, jumping all around the place, not to any particular advantage, but that that was life, you see, life. Mm, mm-hmm. Uh, you mustn't draw too close, uh, an analogy between young bullocks and young people, but then they do have a lot of life, yes. And you should bring the young bullock. I know if that young bullock caught the smell of blood, it could be difficult to control him. To bring it before the Lord. And now the text used a very violent word, not sacrifice it, kill it. It's the first stage in the journey. You have to stand by and see a young bullock full of life killed. Will be a solemn reminder that sin is a murderer. And then, you see, the blood was taken by the priest, and now he was to take it inside the holy place, right up to the veil. This is part of the journey from the altar where it was killed, and its blood now taken inside, as far inside as any ordinary priest could ever go in those far off days, right up to the veil. What a thing it is in the drama. What happens if, uh, anyone sin? If we sin, for instance, we get a bad conscience. And perhaps we feel, well, we better, you know, not get too near God just yet. That wouldn't be a good thing to do, perhaps. No, no, says God. If you have a sacrifice for sin, being our Lord Jesus, what you want to do now is to come as close into the presence of God as you can get. Wonderful, isn't it? And the priest shall take of the blood and splash it on the veil. And here I must use the shorthand of the New Testament, which tells us that the veil was a divinely engineered symbol of the humanity of Christ, who became human, that he might pour out his blood for us. All the tremendous journey. We can scarce follow the priest, but what we shall see endless implications for us. Blood on the veil. That is Christ in life for us. For this sinful priest. Not merely in his perfection, but in his perfect- fiction, but carrying, so to speak, the blood which is scattered across the veil. Christ in his life for us, in his humanity. He is human still. And then the priest turned round and put some of the blood on the horns of the incense altar. And anyone who knows the symbolic language of the Old Testament will know that that was the place where the priest stood daily to offer prayers at the time of the burning of incense on the behalf of his nation. It was therefore the altar of intercession. What happens if I sin? Well, I am to realize that my sin is a murderer. It killed Christ. But because it killed him and he died willingly for me, I have access to God. And Christ in his life was for me. Ah, but now Christ risen at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Or for me. Failing sinner though I am. Our present Lord in heaven interceding for me. Yes. Then the priest came out and took the rest of the blood and poured out the whole of it at the base of the altar. But one sin, and then the whole blood. The hymn writer has encapsulated the idea for us, teach me that if none other had sinned, but I alone, then the only way out was for Christ to give his blood for me. That wasn't the end of the journey. For in sacrifices where the blood was brought into the holy place. The animals had not to be burnt on the altar. They had to be taken away outside the camp and there burned to ashes. And I am now on very safe ground. You see, I stand here afraid that you will accuse me of wild symbolism. Well, this bit isn't wild. The Epistle to the Hebrews says the bodies of the sacrifices whose blood was brought in to the holy place. Were taken outside the camp. Jesus, therefore, so that he might s- be a sacrifice for our sin, suffered outside the gate. You will remember it, won't you? When he died, he didn't die as a great hero, surrounded by the mass bands of Israel, singing his triumph as a noble hero. He was found by the highest court in the land to be guilty of heinous sin, was bustled out of the gate of the city to Golgotha. He suffered without, outside the gate. My dear brother and sister, what effect does this drama have upon you? For I think now of the reality, not simply the Old Testament picture. Do you see Christ? Carrying the cross they put on him, bustled outside the gate, taken to Golgotha, crucified with that wild, gruesome crew. And you say Christ did that for you? How moving it is. I fancy if I've read your heart all right. When the Holy Spirit has brought that home to you, you will say, well, God help me. I never want to sin again. I will in this world go forth unto Christ outside the gate and stand with him, because he did this all for me. This is in God's word of Leviticus, the initial stages in what the book has to say about our becoming holy as God is holy.