If you’re a Christian like me, then you’ve probably thought the following at one point or another:
This walk with Jesus would be a lot easier if I had a burning bush to tell me what to do. Or the people of the bible were lucky because God revealed himself in such physical ways where today all we have is the Holy Spirit.
Sifting through the dense judicial laws of Leviticus has been a huge reality check in relation to those thoughts. Previous to the last few weeks, diving into the Old Testament was something I avoided, intentionally. I didn’t have the tools to do it and so reading the Old Testament looked and felt like a chore. And while I very much did and still do believe that the entire bible is important and that there is more to learn from it than I’ll ever be able to comprehend, I was lacking in spiritual maturity around the Old Testament. That changed thanks to some close spiritual family and my mind is completely blown away by all that’s been reveal in what’s been dubbed the least read book of the bible.
The Old Testament is significantly longer the New Testament and that seems justified because until Jesus atoned for our sins, it was much more difficult to get close to God. It’s a picture of how difficult that relationship is because of our inherent nature to sin. That’s very quickly made it clear to me how significant Jesus’ sacrifice was for way more than just the obvious.
The Old Testament is heavy with context especially in relation to the Jewish culture in which it was written in and for. You don’t have to be Jewish to understand the context, but you do have to be willing to dig in deeper than just the words on a page. It’s these symbols and illustrations that I believe were built to entice us to chase him down. I think this plays into how we can read part of the bible at a certain time in life and see or learn something but then come back to it later and see something completely new. The more we chase down the Lord, the more He reveals because we’re spiritually mature enough for it. It’s all part of the process of sanctification and moving the bible from simply being words on a page to a mirror of our life and finally a window to view the world.
While Leviticus is a deep dive into rules and practices for various scenarios, it’s also been one long story about how gosh dang powerful the blood of Jesus really is in this world of sin and hate.
I’ve quickly discovered that praise is the proper response to all of God’s action, no matter if we understand or agree with them. And while I knew this previously, I didn’t understand it. I have a better understanding of it now thanks to Leviticus and it’s something that I can’t even explain because you have to learn it for yourself.
In the Old Testament, God chose and called the Israelites. He made a royal priesthood among them so He could draw closer to them. The unsustainable structure for that closeness eventually broke down and God found another way to purify us so we would “deserve” to be close to Him. The blood of Jesus is heavy! But that’s why we don’t carry it, we can’t handle it. While the Jews were the chosen people in the Old Testament, now we’re all a chosen people if we decide to change our mind and believe the good news:
1 Peter 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.”
It’s easy to get bogged down by the details of Leviticus, especially when it’s so repetitive. If there was a book to memorize, this one might be a good start because things get repeated so often. That being said, repetition is significant. If God says something, it’s important. If He repeats it, then it’s on a whole new level of important.
In Chapter 15, Moses writes about diseases and how God told him to handle it among the 3 million+ Israelites he was leading. While the practices don’t exactly seem scientifically sound or effective, it appears significant to me that the people had to willingly approach the priest about their disease. I’m sure sometimes people would get called out for their health issues, but those can be easy to hide. That’s similar to how I believe we view sin. We can tuck it in our coat and nobody has to know about it except for us. That’s an unhealthy way to live with a disease, both physically and metaphorically. This chapter made it very clear to me that we are supposed to bring our sins before God on our own accord.
This is probably the most important revelation so far and the whole reason why I started writing this in the first place: recently I’ve been wondering why the people continued to listen to Moses when he kept bringing them all these intense laws they had to follow. But then I think about how the church works today. Lots of people tend to approach God like they can’t have a direct connection with Him and so they have to go to church to get that. The Israelites were connected to God through the Levites, who were the appointed priests for them. The Holy Spirit was not the same back then as it is today. The Israelites had to connect to God through Moses and the priests. It sounds very similar to individuals who attend church on Sunday morning to get their information about God for the week. It’s easy to understand why a pastor seems more qualified to have a direct connection to God, but that’s not true at all. A pastor is no different from you and me apart from formal training. A pastor is still inherently sinful and still needs God’s grace every single day to be closer to Him. The difference between a pastor and most of his congregation (on average, not all) is simple: he sits in the word of Jesus and draws closer to Him. Or at least that’s what we hope a pastor is doing in preparation for Sunday morning.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is this: if Jesus had not atoned for our sins on the cross, we would still need people like Moses and the Levites to connect us to God. Thankfully, Jesus died for our sins and washed us clean through His blood, which has given us the unique ability to draw closer to Him through our own accord. This isn’t something the people of Israel had the ability to do (at least how I understand it). My mind is just completely blown by this now that I better understand all the hoops the Israelites had to jump through to draw closer to God when all I needed was a bible and a few pieces of paper.
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