Leviticus: Overview
Leviticus: Jesus the Sanctifier
Outline:
- Chapters 1-17 The Way to God: His sacrifice
- Chp. 1-7 Five ways Jesus offered Himself
- Chp. 8-10 Jesus our Great High Priest
- Chp. 11-15 The purity of the person of God
- Chp. 16-17 Altered by the blood
- Chapters 18-27 The Walk with God: Our sanctification
- Chp. 18-20 Purity in intimacy (With fellow man and with God)
- Chp. 21-22 Purity in our service
- Chp. 23-24 Purity in our worship (Seven feasts that remind us of Jesus)
- Chp 25-27 Purity in living in His provision
In Exodus we saw that Israel was redeemed, in Leviticus we see the purpose of their redemption was that we would be whole. In Leviticus 19:2 The Lord spoke to Moses saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” 87 times the word “holy” appears in the book but what does being “holy” mean? The word’s root in Hebrew speaks to being whole, complete, or perfect. I suggest to you that if you substitute the word “Whole” for the word “Holy” with regard to God’s declaration concerning Himself you gain a greater understanding of the word “holy”. “For I the Lord your God am Whole”, you see God is complete, He lacks nothing, needs nothing, He is perfect in every way. Ah but read carefully the first part of God’s words to the nation that He has just redeemed from bondage where He proclaims, “You shall be whole”. That suggests to us that they weren’t, that they weren’t whole, they weren’t functioning as they were originally designed. In the words of the 1990’s “Life Alert” commercial God declares that mankind “Has fallen and they can’t get up”. Dear ones right here in Leviticus God is deciding to fix what is broken about mankind. As you go through these 27 chapters you will discover that God’s way to fix what is broken is twofold.
- Chp. 1-17 First Tells them that the only way we can become whole is if He does the work. We only become “whole” complete people through the provision of His sacrifice.
- Chp. 18-27 The second part of this involves the day to day walk in wholeness where we trust in His provision.
Isn’t it wonderful that God never tells us how we are to live whole before Him until He first has provided the means to do so?
The word “Leviticus” is the Latin translation from the Greek word which means “Pertaining to the Levites”. The Hebrew title is translated “And He called” again after the first few words of the book. Again the book is attributed to Moses and for good reasons as 56 times in these 27 chapters we are told that God imparted these words to Moses covering the economic, civil, moral and religious law to God’s people. Based upon the book we know that no geographical migration took place during the time the book was composed thus it was written while Israel was camped at the foot of Mount Sinai. The book reveals the more difficult work of God with regards to His children which is not their salvation but rather their sanctification. Think of this folks God delivered Israel out of Egypt in one night but it took over 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel. Oh how true this is for us as God’s design for us is far more than delivering us from bondage, He desires to deliver us into the sanctuary of His love. He wants more for us than just our redemption He wants more than our deliverance He wants our devotion!
- Chapters 1-17 The Way to God: His sacrifice
- Chp. 1-7 Five ways Jesus offered Himself
Chp. 1 Burnt offering: Leviticus 1:3 we read that the “burnt sacrifice of the herd” had to be “a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own free will at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord.” The burnt offering was the only offering that was fully consumed upon the altar. The name of this sacrifice in Hebrew is that “which ascends” because not only was it carried to the altar by the priests the smoke of its sacrifice ascended into Heaven. It speaks of Jesus’ sacrifice, suffering and death, as the fire of God’s wrath consumed all of Him because of our sin. Jesus was without blemish and offered Himself of His own free will thus He became the only door for us to enter into an abiding relationship with God. Since God’s design for us is our “Wholeness” only that which is whole and perfect can be offered to mend our brokenness.
Chp. 2 Grain offering: Leviticus 2:5-6 says
that the “grain offering baked in a pan, it shall be of fine flour, unleavened, mixed with oil. You shall break it in pieces and pour oil on it; it is a grain offering.” This offering speaks clearly of the character of the sacrifice as it was “fine flour, unleavened, mixed with oil”. The purity, sinlessness and grace of our Lord Jesus is on view in this offering that was baked and broken on our behalf. This offering gives us the picture of Jesus described by Paul in 2 Cor. 5:21 where we read “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Chp. 3 Fellowship offering: Here the focus is not upon the specifics of the sacrifice as much as that it was to be laid upon the wood and burnt and the blood sprinkled upon the altar. Here we see that we have fellowship with God, peace with Him because Jesus our sacrifice was laid upon the cross and His blood was sprinkled upon the Mercy seat. In Ephes. 2:15-16 Paul wrote that Jesus “abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.”
Chp. 4-5:13 Sin offering: Leviticus 4:7 tells that “The priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of meeting; and he shall pour the remaining blood of the bull at the base of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.” This offering shows the intercession of Christ, signified by the altar of sweet incense, proceeds upon the foot of his blood and sacrifice; Here we see that Jesus bore our guilt, our sin. His faithfulness covers our failure. In 1 John 2:1-2 John wrote with regards to this offering that “If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”
Chp. 5:14-6:7 Trespass offering: Leviticus 5:15-16 says that “If a person commits a trespass, and sins unintentionally in regard to the holy things of the Lord, then he shall bring to the Lord as his trespass offering a ram without blemish from the flocks, with your valuation in shekels of silver according to the shekel of the sanctuary, as a trespass offering. And he shall make restitution for the harm that he has done in regard to the holy thing, and shall add one-fifth to it and give it to the priest. So the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him.” Here in view is that Christ’s sacrifice not only covers the penalty do me it covers the damage that my rebellion has caused. Oh dear ones Christ’s sacrifice pays for the damages that our sin caused. The Lord spoke in Joel 2:25 promising that He would “restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten”.
- Chp. 8-10 Jesus our Great High Priest
Vs. 8-10 This section focuses on the priesthood which was only from the tribe of Levi. Not everyone could be a priest they had to come from the right ancestry and so too with Jesus. In Leviticus 8:6-9 we are told that “Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water. And he put the tunic on him, girded him with the sash, clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod on him; and he girded him with the intricately woven band of the ephod, and with it tied the ephod on him. Then he put the breastplate on him, and he put the Urim and the Thummim in the breastplate. And he put the turban on his head. Also on the turban, on its front, he put the golden plate, the holy crown, as the Lord had commanded Moses.” The author of Hebrews in chapter 3:1 says, “consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus” The author goes on to say the difference between the Aaronic priesthood and Jesus as high priest in Hebrews 10:12 say that “this Man (Jesus), after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God”. It is because of this truth that Peter says in 1 Peter 2:5 that we are “living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
- Chp. 11-15 The purity of the person of God
In these chapters we see that the way to God is a way of purity provided by way of His sacrifice. It is in this understanding that we realize the nature of God, the problem with mankind and the wonder of His love that has transformed us according to Col. 1:13 “from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love”. God would have His children according to Leviticus 10:10 be able to “distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean”. So that we may be able to maintain unbroken fellowship.
- Chp. 16-17 Altered by the blood
Finally, in these two chapters we see that the only way to God is through His Son’s sacrifice on our behalf. In Leviticus 17:11 we are told “The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” The Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur is the only day that the high priest entered into the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the people. In the 16th chapter, we are told that the High Priest would take one lamb and kill it sprinkling its blood over the Mercy Seat on the Arc of the Covenant. The other lamb the High priest would confess the sins of the nation over then lead it out of town and release it into the wilderness. The idea here is that not only the penalty of sin being atoned for but also the offering of forgiveness. In Psalm 103:12 the psalmist declared “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” And the Lord said through the prophet Isaiah said in 43:25 “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins.”
- Chapters 18-27 The Walk with God: Our sanctification
The second half of this book, chapters 18-27, describes what kind of life those who have entered into a relationship with God through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God will have, WHOLE! Those whom God has redeemed will live lives set apart and walk in obedience to His word. God does not tell us how to live until He has first told us about the way we come to Him. How great is our Lord that He first provides the way by which we can live for Him before He ever speaks of how that will look. Far too often the church has insisted folks behave a certain way before they have ever explained the power availed to them to live the way that God commands. It is God’s provision that enables us to live the way that He has designed us to live and apart from Him we can do nothing. These chapters deal with our separation from the world but also our separation to the Lord.
- Chp. 18-20 Purity in intimacy (With fellow man and with God)
In this section, we see how deep our sin runs within our fallen nature and we see the need to have a sanctified life and practice love in every area of our relationships with our fellow travelers in His grace. God’s word is intensely practical and is not as interested in what you do at Church as it is interested in what you do outside of Church after having spent time with Him while at Church. So in these chapters, God outlines God’s design for purity within human relations as well as our relationships with the rest of His creation along with our relationship with Him. The common denominator of all of this is “intimacy” be that social, sexual, or spiritual God’s design for all intimacy is purity and wholeness. We can truly see the effects of the fall of man and our brokenness the most in the area of the world’s view with regard to intimacy.
- Chp. 21-22 Purity in our service
Next concerning our walk with God, He addresses our service and clearly God has a higher standard for those who serve Him and His people. God desires His servants to live with Him in His Joy and experience His power and these chapters set guidelines on how to maintain His presence and power in our lives. Folks the most important thing in life is not rituals and laws but a continual experience of the living God who is behind all the laws and rituals. In other words, it is what these laws and rituals pointed to and directed us towards not the law or ritual itself.
- Chp. 23-24 Purity in our worship (Seven feasts that remind us of Jesus)
Next God address who we worship and the way we worship. Make no mistake about it friends we are designed to worship the only question is who or what are we worshiping! These chapters cover seven feasts (some of which overlap) that directed the nation’s worship concerning seven specific aspects of Jesus:
- Passover: The Feast of Redemption Speaks of the substitutionary death of the Lamb of God Jesus. In 1 Cor. 5:7-8 Paul spoke of it this way saying, “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
- Feast of unleavened bread: Just prior to the Passover the house was to be swept clean of all leaven in preparation for the sacrifice of the Lamb. It is also known as the bread of affliction and speaks of Christ sinless life and suffering on our behalf.
- Pentecost: Also called the feast of the harvest the day of first fruits or the. It was during this feast that the nation came together to thank the Lord of the harvest for His provision of Bread. Both the bread of the word of God and the fruit of the grain harvest. It is the combining of Jesus being the grain of wheat that was buried in the earth. That combined with the word of God and the Spirit of God poured out upon people that produce a great harvest.
- Feast of Trumpets: Also known as Rosh Hashonah follows right after the three weeks of mourning where the nation recalls the time when both temples were destroyed. In this, the nation remembers that though there is a time to sorrow joy will come in the morning. This feast proclaims the creator as the King. It also was a memorial of the giving of the law as well as to the sacrifice provided for Isaac who was bound upon the altar. It points to the future coming of this Sacrifice to rule and reign as the King of Kings.
- Day of Atonement: Also known as Yom Kippur which means the day of coverings. It is on this feast day that the nation realizes its sin and that God has provided Himself to cover for that sin, as well as remember our sin no more.
- Feast of Tabernacles: This feast was also known as the Feast of Booths where for seven days the people would stay in their booths. On the final day of the feast there was the reading of the Law and as the scrolls went around men followed singing, “Save now, give success now, answer us when we call”. To the Jews, it spoke of a time when as Jeremiah spoke of in 31:31-34 of the New Covenant where God would be so near then as to write His words upon their hearts. We know him as when He came to dwell in us and made His home in our hearts.
- Chp 25-27 Purity in living in His provision
The final section deals with the sanctification of the land that God has blessed us with. God calls us to Himself and calls us to a whole life which will be seen in how we live toward our fellow man then it will be seen in how we treat the things God has blessed us with.