Leviticus (Lesson One: The Foundational Message of Leviticus)

Holiness to the Lord: A Survey of Leviticus

Lesson One: The Foundational Message of Leviticus

1. Introduction

Leviticus is a foundational book in the bible, showing forth in graphic representation the most central and important truths of the gospel. The dominant theme and all-inclusive goal of the book is to make a people holy to the Lord, which is likewise the goal both of creation and redemption. The twofold means of making this people holy is atonement for the guilt of sin and cleansing from the pollution of sin, which is the essence of what Christ came to accomplish. The instrumentality by which this atonement and cleansing comes about is likewise twofold, being accomplished through priest and sacrifice; this priestly and sacrificial work of the Lamb of God, our great High Priest, is the scarlet thread running through the whole bible, giving coherence to all. To understand this book, therefore, is to understand the heart of the gospel.

Key verse: Leviticus 19:2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.

2. The goal: holiness to the Lord

God’s own holiness is utterly foundational to reality; included in this attribute is both his transcendence (the Creator/creature distinction), and his separateness from all sin and evil.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (God is utterly distinct from, superior to, and the reason for all else both in the heavens and in the earth.)

Isa 6:1-5 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. (2) Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. (3) And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (4) And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. (5) And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (the “trisagion,” indicating the essential holiness and transcendence of the triune God)

Hab 1:13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong… (indicating separateness from sin)

Our holiness to God is the purpose of creation: we were made in his image, distinct from and exalted above the rest of creation, separated to him for holy fellowship.

Gen 1:26-28 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (28) And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Our holiness to God remains his purpose in redemption: we are called out to be his peculiar people, separated from sin and the world.

Deu 7:6 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

1Pet 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Rev 5:9-10 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, (10) and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

Leviticus emphasizes the manifold way in which we are set apart as holy to God: there are momentary, imperfect ways in which a holy people are brought into holy places, for holy times and seasons, so that they might live a holy life; these ways look ahead to when holy time will be every day, holy space will be the entire new heavens and earth, and we will be perfectly holy in person and act, and hence enjoy perfectly the holy presence of God With Us (Immanuel).

3. The twofold means: atonement for sin and cleansing from impurity

Blood sacrifices were given to atone for sin; they deal with the legal, objective aspect of our transgression, provide the price that must be paid for our redemption, demonstrate that justice must be served because of our rebellion, show how the righteous wrath of God may be averted without compromise – in sum, they show forth in graphic representation the means for our justification.

Rom 3:23-26 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (24) and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (25) whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (26) It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

2Cor 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Ritual cleansings were provided to purify from sin and ceremonial uncleanness; they deal with the subjective, internal aspect of our moral corruption, wash away our sin and filth, change and renew our stained hearts – in sum, they show forth in clear imagery the means for our sanctification. The water for purification was provided by the ashes of the red heifer, signifying the Spirit of regeneration who would bear the effects of Christ’s death to his people as though by a stream of life-giving and purifying water.

Num 19:9 And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place. And they shall be kept for the water for impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering.

Eze 36:25-27 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. (26) And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (27) And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

John 7:38-39 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (39) Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Tit 3:5-6 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, (6) whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

4. The twofold instrument: priesthood and sacrifice

We have fallen in transgression, and hence need a representative to stand before God in our place, an advocate to plead for us, a mediator who has access to God and a joint identity with us, a person who can offer the justification and sanctification that we need, and on that basis bring us back to God: all this is signified by the priesthood.

We also need the substance for the plea that our Priest makes for us – the Mediator must have a perfect case, he must provide an acceptable defense, he must please the just and holy Judge and make the people he represents entirely acceptable to him: all this is signified by the sacrificial animals.

Jesus is the perfect and final fulfillment of both priest and sacrifice, and his priestly/sacrificial work is the scarlet thread running through the entire bible, giving sense and coherence to all.

Gen 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” 21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

Gen 22:7-14 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”

Psa 40:6-7 In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me:

Isa 53:1-12 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 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 crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with 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. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

Heb 9:12-15 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

Heb 10:12-14 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Rev 5:9-12 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

5. Basic Outline of the book of Leviticus

I. Instructions for the Various Sacrifices (1-7)
II. Instructions for the Consecration and Ministry of the Priests (8-10)
III. Laws of Ritual Cleanness and Uncleanness (11-15)
IV. The Climax of Leviticus: the Day of Atonement (16)
V. Laws of Moral Cleanness (17-20)
VI. Instructions for the Perfection of the Priests and Sacrifices (21-22)
VII. Instructions for Holy Times and Seasons (23-25)
VIII. Concluding Blessings and Curses, with a Foreshadow of Future Redemption (26-27)

6. Discussion Questions

Until today, what has your perception of the Book of Leviticus been? Has that perception changed?

What do you hope to gain from this course? What parts of Leviticus are you most excited about studying and why?

In the introduction, I stated that Leviticus is one of the clearest representations of the gospel-work of Jesus Christ anywhere in the bible. Normally, when people think of clear explanations of the gospel, their minds go to Romans, Galatians, or the Gospel of John (with good reason!). Do you agree that Leviticus is also one of the clear explanations of the gospel? Why or why not?

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