Chapter One
The Most Important Thing in the World
(Getting Acquainted with Leviticus)
We will stand and sing hymn 325,” announced the worship leader, “‘Take Time to Be Holy.’ We will sing verses one and four.”
If I had been sitting with the congregation instead of on the platform, I might have laughed out loud. Imagine a Christian congregation singing “Take Time to Be Holy” and not even taking time to sing the entire song! If we can’t take the time (less than four minutes) to sing a song about holiness, we’re not likely to take time to devote ourselves to “perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1).
Happiness, not holiness, is the chief pursuit of most people today, including many professed Christians. They want Jesus to solve their problems and carry their burdens, but they don’t want Him to control their lives and change their character. It doesn’t disturb them that eight times in the Bible God said to His people, “Be holy, for I am holy,” and He means it.
“He that sees the beauty of holiness, or true moral good,” wrote Jonathan Edwards, “sees the greatest and most important thing in the world.”
Have you ever thought of personal holiness—likeness to Jesus Christ—as the most important thing in the world?
In God’s kingdom, holiness isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). Yes, God wants His children to be happy, but true happiness begins with holiness. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6). “If I had my choice of all the blessings I can conceive of,” said Charles Spurgeon, “I would choose perfect conformity to the Lord Jesus, or, in one word, holiness.” Would you make the same choice?
Leviticus tells New Testament Christians how to appreciate holiness and appropriate it into their everyday lives. The word holy is used 93 times in Leviticus, and words connected with cleansing are used 71 times. References to uncleanness number 128. There’s no question what this book is all about.
“But wasn’t the book of Leviticus written for the priests and Levites in ancient Israel?” you may ask, and the answer is, “Yes.” But the lessons in Leviticus aren’t limited to the Jews in ancient Israel. The spiritual principles in this book apply to Christians in the church today. The key verses of Leviticus—“Be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44–45)—are applied to the New Testament church in 1 Peter 1:15–16, and the book of Leviticus itself is quoted or referred to over 100 times in the New Testament. Since all Scripture was given “by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16), then all Scripture is profitable for God’s people to use in developing godly lives. Jesus said that we should live by every word that God has given us (Matt. 4:4), and that includes Leviticus.
The book of Leviticus explains five basic themes that relate to the life of holiness: a holy God, a holy priesthood, a holy people, a holy land, and a holy Savior.
1. A HOLY GOD
What is “holiness”? Contrary to what you may hear today in some sermons and popular religious songs, the emphasis in the Bible is on the holiness of God and not on the love of God. “Love is central in God,” wrote American theologian Augustus H. Strong, “but holiness is central in love.”1 God’s love is a holy love, for the Bible states that “God is light” (1 John 1:5) as well as “God is love” (4:8, 16). Love without holiness would be a monstrous thing that could destroy God’s perfect law, while holiness without love would leave no hope for the lost sinner. Both are perfectly balanced in the divine nature and works of God.
God’s holiness isn’t simply the absence of defilement, a negative thing. The holiness of God is positive and active. It’s God’s perfect nature at work in accomplishing God’s perfect will.
The Hebrew word for holy that Moses used in Leviticus means “that which is set apart and marked off, that which is different.” The Sabbath was holy because God set it apart for His people (Ex. 16:23). The priests were holy because they were set apart to minister to the Lord (Lev. 21:7–8). Their garments were holy and could not be duplicated for common use (Ex. 28:2). The tithe that the people brought was holy (Lev. 27:30). Anything that God said was holy had to be treated differently from the common things of life in the Hebrew camp. In fact, the camp of Israel was holy, because the Lord dwelt there with His people (Deut. 23:14).
Our English word holy comes from the Old English word halig which means “to be whole, to be healthy.” What health is to the body, holiness is to the inner person. The similar word sanctify comes from the Latin sanctus which means “consecrated, sacred, blameless.” We use the word sanctification to describe the process of growing to become more like Christ, and holy to describe the result of that process.2
How does God reveal His holiness? The religion of the nations in Canaan was notoriously immoral and involved worshipping idols and consorting with temple prostitutes, both male and female. (The mythological deities of Greece and Rome weren’t much better.) For this reason, God commanded His people to stay away from their altars and shrines and to refuse to learn their ways (Ex. 23:20–33; Deut. 7:1–11). In many ways, God made it clear to His people that He was a holy God.
To begin with, He gave them a holy law that contained both promises and penalties, of which the Ten Commandments are the essence (Ex. 20:1–17). God’s statutes and ordinances governed the daily life of the people and told them what was right and wrong, what was clean and unclean, and what the penalties were for those who deliberately disobeyed.
At Sinai, God revealed His holy presence. “And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off” (20:18; see 19:14–25). He also revealed His holy power and presence when He judged the gods of Egypt (12:12), when He opened the Red Sea and destroyed the Egyptian army (14:13—15:21), and when He did miraculous works for Israel in the wilderness.
God is “glorious in holiness” (15:11), and His glory dwelt in the Holy of Holies in both the tabernacle (40:34–38) and the temple (1 Kings 8:10). The presence of the cloud of glory and the pillar of fire reminded Israel that Jehovah was a holy God and “a consuming fire” (Deut. 4:24; Heb. 12:29). In fact, the very structure of the tabernacle declared the holiness of God: the fence around the tent, the brazen altar where the blood was shed, the laver where the priests washed their hands and feet, and the veil that kept everybody but the high priest out of the Holy of Holies.
The whole sacrificial system declared to Israel that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23) and “the soul who sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:4 NKJV). God hates sin, but because He loves sinners and wants to forgive them, He provides a substitute to die in the sinner’s place. All of this is a picture of the promised Savior who laid down His life for the sins of the world.
You could never call any of the heathen deities “holy.” But “Holy One of Israel” is one of the repeated names of Jehovah in Scripture. It’s used thirty times in Isaiah alone.
In declaration and demonstration, Jehovah made it clear to the people of Israel that He is a holy God, righteous in all His works and just in all His judgments.
2. A HOLY PRIESTHOOD
The Jewish priesthood belonged only to the tribe of Levi. Levi, the founder of the tribe, was the third son of Jacob and Leah (Gen. 29:34; 35:23) and the father of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari (46:11). Since Kohath’s son Amram was the father of Aaron, Moses, and Miriam (Num. 26:58–59), Aaron, Moses, and Miriam belonged to the tribe of Levi.
Aaron was the first high priest and his male descendants became priests, with the firstborn son in each generation inheriting the high priesthood. (Every priest was a Levite, but not every Levite was a priest.) The rest of the men in the tribe of Levi (the “Levites”) were assigned to serve as assistants to the priests. The Levites were the substitutes for the firstborn males in Israel, all of whom had to be dedicated to the Lord (Ex. 13:1–16; Num. 3:12–13, 44–51). To facilitate their ministry, David eventually divided the thousands of Levi...
