Leviticus 02

     Leviticus
Leviticus – Sanctification (Leviticus 18 – 27)
● The first seventeen chapters of Leviticus dealt with the sacrificial system by which the Israelites were to get into fellowship, both covering over their sins with regular sacrifices, and covering over things that they had done in between the national times of atonement.
● The last ten chapters teach the Israelites what it means to be holy, and attain to God's holy standard.
 It is important to remember what the function of the Law is as Christians. We must always remember that we are not to be under any kind of law, that Christ died to free us from the Law, and his sacrifice is sufficient for our redemption. 
 In the book of Galatians Paul even goes so far as to write that anyone who would try get themselves back under law saying that Christ's sacrifices on the cross is worthless.
 There are some who teach that believers are to be under the moral law, but not the ceremonial. Others may teach that believers are to be only under the Ten Commandments. However, neither of these views are valid. You cannot cut the law up and say: “This part applies to Christians and that part doesn't.” 
 As a Christian you are not being conformed to the point where you can keep a list. The Holy Spirit wasn't given to you as an earnest so that you could keep those Mosaic rules better than the Israelites before you. You are being conformed to a person: Jesus Christ. You are being made more and more like him every day, and as you surrender to the Spirit, spend time pursuing him in Bible reading, prayer and fellowship with other believers you will be more and more conformed to Him. Remember always: Keeping a list of rules is not the goal for which God saved you. Becoming more and more like Christ; that was what Christ came to earth and died on a cross for. That was worth it. Making good “rule followers” would never be a big enough calling for the Son of God to sacrifice himself.
● The Laws of Sanctification for the People (18:1 – 20:27)
 Laws of Sexual Sins (18:1-30)
■ This is, of course a big and touchy area for us. In America sexuality is a taboo subject. People are becoming more and more afraid to set forth any standard of right and wrong, and the attitude of: “Who am I to say?” is keeping people from doing what they know is right out of cowardice.
■ God is very clear that sexuality is something that is very important. It is one of the wonderful gifts that He gave us BEFORE the Fall of Mankind in Genesis 3. God designed sex and made it to be good, however, it can also be perverted just as quickly and God takes the perversion of His good gifts very seriously!
■ Many of these distinctions were about things that we would call commonplace now: don't have sex with close relatives, don't share sexual partners, don't have sex with your siblings' spouses. These things we may call common place.
■ Among these we see two of the things that are truly detestable to the Lord: Do not have sex with animals, and men should not have sex with men, nor women with women.
● Bestiality (having sex with animals) is very likely what gave us such diseases as AIDS and Syphilis. But it is detestable in the Lords eyes to lie with any beast sexually. God gave us sex as a gift of intimacy, within the context of marriage. That we would have a clearer picture of what true intimacy is, and how wonderful true intimacy is. To share that intimacy with a beast is disgusting and repulsive, no matter who feels like it should be a personal preference.
● Homosexuality is overtly condemned in the Word of God. It is a vile perversion of God's plan for marriage (see Genesis 2). It is an insult to God and an insult to the opposite sex. 
 This is incredibly unpopular news today, and few would like to admit it. Many try to get around it by saying that the Bible was speaking in it's own historical context and that if you get it out of that time then God would say that homosexuality is fine, but promiscuity is bad. This is hogwash. There was homosexuality as much then as now, and up through the ages it was MORE accepted by the ancient cultures than it is now. God was making a strong counter-cultural statement, not just a suggestion. To say that homosexuality is OK with God is to say that you don't believe in the Bible.
 All this is true, and this is God's view of homosexuality, however it does not mean that we are to hate people who are homosexual. Remember that it is, in God's eyes, a sin. Sin, in any context, grieves God and separates people from Him. A person who is homosexual needs the same thing that you and I need: A relationship with Jesus Christ. And just as God doesn't as you to clean up your act before coming to Jesus, He doesn't ask that of the homosexual. He loves them, just as he loves you and I, and he longs for them to repent and come to Him, just as he longs for you. 
 We must not be wishy washy about sin, however we must also not be angry, hateful people who go around judging and condemning. We have the opportunity to love everyone around us, every day, with the infinite and powerful love of Jesus. If it comes up in a situation don't feel you need to “back down” about what you believe, but don't let anyone get distracted with specific sins, when what they need is to focus on Christ and he will work on them from there.
 Laws of Social Order (Leviticus 19:1-27)
■ This Chapter starts off with a very powerful verse:
● The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: 'be holy because I, The LORD your God, am holy.'” Leviticus 19:1
● This is an amazing and wonderful verse, that is even repeated in 1 Peter 1:15 and it shows us at least two very important things:
 God is Holy! He cannot unite himself with anything that is unholy, or imperfect. If He did either the thing that he united with would be destroyed or God would cease to be God. This is why all of these rules and laws are put into place, and all of the sacrifices, this is the only way that God can even have a small inkling of fellowship with sinful man. And even this is only possible by the fact that these things are all looking forward to the perfect sacrifice of Christ.
 The other thing that we will look at today is that it shows us the only true and good reason for being holy: To have fellowship with God. Many attempt to be holy, or look holy simply because they want others to look up to them, or want to be admired. God is clear that the real reason to be holy is because he is holy and we want to know him. Holiness without love, holiness with pride are not true holiness at all. They are simply Sinfulness wearing a pretty mask. True holiness never glorifies the self, it always points to God, man made “holiness” is just a sad imitation, leading only to death and separation from self, separation from others and separation from God.
■ This chapter also tells us a great deal about how people were to relate to one another. There are some wonderful commandments in this chapter that could be heeded by any who seek to live godly lives. Not that we are under law, but God's standard is revealed here and we can see what way he expects people to treat one another.
● Verses 9-10 talk about leaving some of your crops when you harvest your field so that people who are poor and needy can go through and pick up the excess.
● Verse 11 emphasizes the importance of truthfulness: “Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not deceive one another.” 
● Verse 16 is a warning against slandering others: “Do not go about spreading slander among your people. Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. I am the Lord.”
● Verse 19 talks about purity. God's purity extended to not even mixing two different types of cloth in one garment, or planting one field with two different crops. The demands of holiness are too high for anyone to bear. If a person were ever to tell you that we must be under law ask them how they are doing with this verse!
● Witchcraft and mediums (people who communicate with the dead) are also strictly forbidden. It is clear that the Lord only wants his people to rely on him for spiritual power and entrust the future into his hands. There is no place in the godly life for a fortune teller.
 Laws of Penalties (Lev. 20:1-27)
■ This chapter clearly tells us that sinning (missing the mark) is something that needs to involve sacrifices and often punishment. The punishments were often severe, even going so far as the death penalty in many cases!
■ In this chapter we see the same command that we see again and again in this wonderful book. “Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy.” (20:7-8) 
● God continually hammers away at the fact that it is HE who makes them holy, and He who has set them apart. He is the Lord, and fellowship with Him is the only reason to be holy.
 Special Number Seven
■ We see the number seven popping up again and again in scripture. Let's look at some of the sevens:
● God created the earth in Seven days. Seven means completeness, holiness and perfection.
● Jacob served Laban seven years for Leah and for Rachel. That was a complete amount of work for the bride.
● We have seen that God declared that on the seventh day everyone will rest and not do work, but rest on that day.
● After seven sabbath days was the feast of weeks with special significance and sacrifices.
● Every seven years was to be a Sabbath year in which the land wasn't farmed, but the people were to live off of what grew naturally that year.
● Every seven sets of sabbath years (50 years) was then proclaimed the year of Jubilee in which all Jewish slaves were set free, land that had been bought returned to it's original owner, or family, and all debts were canceled! This was an amazing time and would serve to keep the rich from getting to rich and the poor from getting too poor, also being a great example of the power of Christ to set slaves free, pay off all debts and return to each what is theirs!
 Reward and Punishment (Leviticus 26)
■ In this section the Lord promises the Israelites what will happen if they keep his commands and what will happen if they do not.
■ If they keep the Lord's commands they are promised rich and full physical, earthly blessings. They are promised that there will be abundant crops, safety from animals, and military power.
■ However if they choose not to keep the Lord's commands then they can expect: war, defeat, famine, plague, deportation from the land, inability to have babies and many other difficult and horrible things.
● Here is a key point: Many people today want to put believers under the law, saying that we must keep the law for one reason or another. Many will then sight the first half of Leviticus 26 telling of all of the blessings that we will get if we keep the law more perfectly. This is hogwash!
 We know that it is impossible to keep the law perfectly (Romans 3) and that if you break even the slightest bit of the law you are no longer under the blessings but rather under the curses. 
 Furthermore, they will often try to say that only this part of the law is applicable (such as the 10 Commandments or the “moral” law) and say that only part of the results are applicable (namely – the rewards) and ignore everything that is inconvenient.
 This is an insult to God's law. To high-grade just the parts that are easy or convenient so that we can feel better about ourselves is deeply sinful and shameful. By saying that only parts of the Law apply they nullify all of it. This is why we have been redeemed out from the law, because we could never attain righteousness by it!
 The Law was given to Israel, Galatians tells us that it was a tutor to bring the Jews to Christ. The promises of blessing tied to obedience are promises made to the Jews. We cannot claim them. Imagine if a major company promises a great sum of money to it's new CEO. Can you walk up and claim that money? They would say that they did promise, but they did not promise to give it to you! Claiming God's promises to the Jews is like that, it is sinful and wrong, and leads to horrible theology.
Take Home
In this book we see the stunning demands of a holy God. We behold in greater detail the depths of His holiness that cannot be fooled with, tricked or ignored. God cannot close his eyes to sin, nor can he simply dismiss it. The only answer is death. Got can have no union with any unholy thing: perfection is the mark. Perfection is what is given to us in Christ. God so loved you that he gave his only Son to live a perfect life. When you believed in Christ you were united with Jesus in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seating. At that time you were given a new history: Christ's. God no longer sees a sinner when he looks at you. He sees all the perfection of His Son Jesus and wants you to rely on that fact. No longer being conformed to any law or set of rules, but being conformed in your day to day walk to a person: the person of Jesus Christ! 

Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Romans 6:3