Leviticus (Lesson Seven: The Dire Need for Moral Holiness, Part One [Chapters 17-18])

Holiness to the Lord: A Survey of Leviticus

Lesson Seven: The Dire Need for Moral Holiness (Part One, Chapters 17-18)

1. The Sanctity of Blood (Chapter 17)

The portion of Leviticus immediately preceding its climax in the description of the Day of Atonement (chapter 16) detailed the ceremonial laws on ritual purity; the portion immediately following details the moral laws of actual purity. Therefore, there is usually a much more direct application of these following portions to us today, although we must not make the mistake of assuming that every law given in this portion of Leviticus applies to us in precisely the same way as it did to OT Israel.

The following moral commandments (chapters 18 and following) are clearly tied to the sanctity of blood and its sole appropriate use to provide atonement. Moral unholiness is “bloodguiltiness,” and demands the forfeiture of the offender’s life; but “the life of the flesh is in the blood,” and hence, that forfeited life may be bought back for the offender by substitutionary blood (Note: this chapter is a key defense for the penal, substitutionary aspect of the OT sacrificial system, a crucial doctrine that is often under attack today). This is so precious a redemptive promise that to use blood in any other way is to despise God’s grace and redemption, and demands a “cutting off” from God’s people. If the typological blood of bulls and goats, which cannot really take away sin (Heb. 10:4), was to be treated with such respect, what will be done to him who tramples on the sanctifying blood of Christ (Heb. 10:28-29)?

All blood shed sacrificially had to be offered at God’s chosen place, according to God’s prescribed methods, and not in various places, as Israel had done before the establishment of the tabernacle and priesthood. This was a preventative to idolatry, and taught that any religious service offered apart from God’s prescriptions is really nothing but demon-worship. What is spoken of here must be blood shed for sacrifices, not blood shed for ordinary meals, cf. Deut. 12:21-22. This held good for sojourners as well: app., there is one way of salvation, which came first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, and no person may reject it for a substitute of his own design without forfeiting his life and being cut off from God’s presence and people.

There is a strict prohibition against eating blood and a weaker prohibition against eating anything strangled or that died of itself (probably just because the blood would not have been properly drained from such animals immediately). Even in the prescribed Old Testament rituals, the blood was “out of reach”; it was sacred and redemptive, given to atone for sins, but it never got “inside” the worshiper – it never atoned for the inward crimes of his soul. How shocking must Jesus’ proclamation have been that if we would be forgiven, we must drink his blood (John 6:52-58)! Christ’s blood really is effective to cleanse our inner man and give us eternal life and nourishment.

2. Sexual Holiness (Chapter 18)

Many of the laws for ceremonial purity had to do with sexuality and reproduction; now, laws pertaining to actual sexual holiness are implemented, so there is a movement from ceremonial to actual. But ultimately, that trajectory will only be brought to completion in the ministry of Christ, who changed the outward form of the law to its inward essence (see Mat. 5:27-32). Thus, climaxing in the Sermon on the Mount, there is a progression from ceremonial to actual to essential.

There are laws against incest, ceremonial infractions (v. 19), adultery, destruction of the fruit of sexual union (offering children to Molech, which has its modern counterpart in the practice of abortion), homosexuality, and bestiality. With the exception of the brief allusion to the ceremonial regulations in chapter 15, we would understand the same laws in this chapter to be morally binding today (see 1 Cor. 6:12-20).

3. “If a person does them, he shall live by them”

In Lev. 18:5, the key phrase of the introductory material, “If a person does them, he shall live by them,” is used by the apostle Paul (Rom. 10:5-13) to show the two contrary ways of being in a right relationship with God; the one way, which reiterates the Covenant of Works established with Adam in the Garden, says, ‘Do this and live!’; the other way, fulfilling the promise made to Abraham (and Adam and Eve, Gen. 3:15), says, “Believe, and righteousness will be imputed!”. The Covenant made on Mount Sinai (which Leviticus is explicating), is a repetition of the Covenant of Works within an ongoing establishment of the promissory Covenant of Grace, that has a specific, instructive intent. The Covenant made on Sinai, as a Covenant of Works, gave a typical example, in the history of the nation of Israel, of how such a covenant can only lead to death and exile; it also taught the need for the Savior promised in the Covenant of Grace and showed just what he would have to accomplish in fulfilling the Covenant of Works for us. It did not, however, replace the Abrahamic Covenant of Promise, but on the contrary, showed the nature of that covenanted promise, which retained ongoing validity, far more clearly than ever before, in the historic acts of redemption (cf. Ex. 20:2) and the detailed sacrificial system and promises of Christ. See Galatians 3-4. For further study, I recommend The Law is Not of Faith, P&R, 2009.

Every person alive relates to God on the basis of one or the other of these covenants: if we are in Adam (as all natural men are), we are covenantally obligated to obey God perfectly, but we have already failed hopelessly in our first father; if we are in Christ, his perfect obedience is imputed to us, and we are freely accepted.

The Covenant on Sinai may be seen as the first, imperfect, and typical fulfillment of the Covenant of Grace promised to Abraham but not yet perfectly realized; God fulfilled the Abrahamic “covenant of promise” typologically, and truly made his seed a nation where he himself would dwell among them; but that typological fulfillment was imperfect, and so he promised a “new” covenant, that really would make good upon the Abrahamic promise forever. In promising this “new” covenant, he proclaimed that the first covenant intended to fulfill the promise was old and destined to pass away (Heb. 8:13).

4. Discussion Topic: The Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace

What is the essential difference between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace? Rom. 10:5-13; 1 Cor. 15:22

How many covenants has God made with mankind? Is it appropriate to speak of the different “administrations” of the Covenant of Grace? What about the Covenant of Works? Gal. 3:17-29; Eph. 2:12-13; 3:6

What kind of covenant was made on Mount Sinai? What kind of covenant is at the heart of Leviticus? Ex. 24:3; Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:7-13; compare and contrast Lev. 18:5 and 17:11

Is there an appropriate way to use the Covenant of Works today? Luke 10:28; Rom. 2:12-16; Gal. 3:10

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