21st January Morning
Exodus 40-LEVITICUS
I want you to read the last chapter of Exodus preparing for the new book we are going to start. I told you in the chapters 34-39 that Israel has now put in place the most important thing in the history of their nation. Israel, through Moses, has done something that the Patriarchs, however great they were, did not do. They have built a center of worship and instituted Priesthood, as well as put in place various elements of worship in place. This was the religion of Israel at its civil stage. They did what other nations had already done. The nomadic Yahweh has finally been given a place of dwelling where his Shekinah will be appreciated and he now has a literal and consecrated place which is to function as the meeting place of the righteous God and the guilty sinner.
In Chapter 40, Moses is told to publicize this and to make it official that now the God whom we could see, and he who spoke and mountains shook, has set means by which he can dwell and tabernacle with his people. Whatever the book of Leviticus has for us, is all about this place. The Tabernacle is the modern church building. This building is important to each of us. And it is what the book of Exodus winds up with.
We need to appreciate the truth that, the secret is not in these walls and all the objects we might place in the church buildings but as the NT says, the power is in the people.What was important then in the wilderness was not the tent and all that in it but what it symbolized. I think this is the NT argument about the church being us, we are the Tabernacles of God in which he dwells.
The next book addresses the issue of Levites who were actually the Priesthood that run the place. So as we read this new book in the Bible we will spend too much time on not so many things but: the priest, the sinner, their offering, the laws, and some feasts of course. You and I should know that God is not constrained and limited to geographies. Therefore, God is not in a building but a building is a symbol of his presence and his business.
Like I have always said: remember that a teaching aid should not take the place of the lesson. So the next time you go to any geography called church, remember that he is not limited to that place. Do yourself a favor and behave right everywhere not just at church premises only. Many people dress for church and they come back home to dress for other places. The church here tells us of the God Emmanuel. He is God with us, do not buy clothes you know you cannot wear on Sunday/Saturday at church. God tabernacles with us wherever we are.
21st January Evening
Leviticus 1-3
Allow me to use the help of my friend Harding Wood and summarize for you the book. But first, I need to remind you that the book of Leviticus is the third book in the first volume of the Bible known as the Pentateuch (first five books). Leviticus is therefore at the center of the first five books and it is not at the center due to any other reason but due to the fact that it concerns the most central aspect in the economy of Israel.
The word Leviticus means ‘the book of Levites or priests’, it comes from the name Levi one of the twelve boys of Jacob. And it is this boy who gave birth to the priestly tribe. So the word LEVITICUS is a development of the Septuagint (Greek translation and editing of the Masoretic writings), and therefore a combination of two words: Levi a name and teukos a book. While in the Book of Exodus we dealt with the standard of good and bad through the initiation of the Legal system, in this book we are going to address the issue of the criminal, their crime, the righteous judge and his worship. This will include a consecration of the sinner, offerings, the sacrifices, the worship and all these will rotate on one fundamental thing: THE BLOOD.
What we have covered so far in these first and those to come (to the extent of the Pentateuch) is that:
- In Genesis, man is ruined by Sin.
- In Exodus man is redeemed from the Consequences of Sin by God.
- In Leviticus, man is restored to communion with God.
- In Numbers, man is ready for the Journey to Canaan.
- In Deuteronomy, man is reminded about his belief system before he enters Canaan.
The book of Leviticus has 27 chapters and if one is to outline this book we would not look for a better option than the following:
- OFFERINGS (1-7): Burnt (1:4), Meal (2:1), Peace (3:1), Sin (4:3), Trespass (5:6), The Laws of Offerings (6-7).
- PRIESTHOOD (8-10): Consecration (8-9), Condemnation (10).
- LAWS (11-22): Ceremonial= food (11), Persons (12), Lepers (13-14), Diseases (15). The Day of Atonement (16-17). Moral= Separation (18), House and Field (19), Immorality (20), Priests (21-22).
- FEASTS (23): Passover (v. 5), Pentecost (vss. 15-22), and Tabernacles (vss.23-34).
- FINAL INSTRUCTIONS (24-27): Blasphemy (24), Jubilee (25), Promises and Punishments (26), Property (27).
By the time you read through the book, you will agree with Wood that the book has two keywords that are recurrent through it: the first is ATONEMENT, which appears at least forty times. And the ground of atonement is BLOOD, and that is why the book is filled with sacrifices. The second key word is HOLINESS (to mean purity), and this appears eighty-seven times. And because of the importance of holiness (read purity), God’s demand upon worshippers is cleansing, therefore the book is teeming with washings.
The Book of Leviticus, therefore, is one book that addresses the issue of dirt on man. As someone living beyond New Testament times, I have, however, to point out a few things: first the dirt that is dealt with in the Old Testament is external dirt and not necessarily internal dirt. Man always sacrificed and offered for the sake of the consequences of sin. He sacrificed because if he did not do so then he was to be stoned and killed due to his sinning and failure to atone for his sin. The OT mode sounded like your economy sustained your life. Since sinning was inevitable, you had to keep in place all sorts of offerings and sacrifices to keep you living. This was a very tense community. These were days when people understood what it meant to sin and the cost of fixing your sin.
I wish we all understood the cost of sin upon us and what Jesus did for us. Imagine if not visiting the bathroom to bathe resulted in being stoned to death. Imagine if you stood a risk of being stoned just because you told a lie on a phone call. In the book Leviticus, you are guilty and dirty publicly, there are no secret sins. The sins that you handle are those that majority have witnessed.
Let me ask you, how many sins of yours do your friends and family know? Trust me you and I would be dead if we lived in this community. This was a community that took sin and sinning seriously. It was a community that never took anything for granted, everything was consequential and deadly. There was no opportunity for dilly-darling with sin and sinners. Do you take sin seriously, or you are this kind of person who assumes can manage and control sin.
Let us assume you know smoking is wrong, are then this kind of person who argues that too much smoking (and not smoking altogether) is wrong? Is alcohol consumption wrong, or just too much of it? Are you this kind of person who argues it the brand which bad and not the content? How serious do you take sin and sinning to be in your life? in the book Leviticus, external dirt resulted into death, I wonder whether you and I would be living today?
Secondly, the dirt dealt with in the OT is symbolic to the real dirt of man which is none other than Sin. The Old Testament dealt with the products of the sin within each of us which is Sin. It was adultery, lying, cheating, etc. that the OT dealt with, and this was symbolic to two facts:
First that whatever we do has its source and that is the reason why we do whatever we do. Some are sins we like and actually intend, others are deeds beyond our control but practiced by us. There is a power in us that functions thus, and this is what Paul argues in Romans 7.
Secondly, the dealing with the external dirt was symbolic to the fact that, eventually God will deal with the internal dirt (Sin) once and for all through his sacrifice.
Another important theme we see in this book is the restoration of our most fundamental relationships. One being our relationship with God and the other being our relationship with our environment. It is, however, important to understand that emphasis is focused on the restoring our relationship with our God. The reason for this is simple, our relationship with our God does not merely influence our relationships with the environment (people and things) but it also determines its quality. People relate to other people and their environment depending on how right their gods are and how staunch they are with those gods.
Now I have just warned you about the potential murderer in your community if you have neighbors who believe in gods that demand human sacrifice. Those who worship gods that ask for human blood for wealth. I have warned you against chauvinists who worship a male god. I have warned you against gods who are conservative with certain special days, that you cannot do any salvific or developmental activity like writing your exam or looking for food. I have just warned you against gods that are opposed to medical treatment, academics, critical thinking and logic. I have just warned you against gods in your community who evangelize through bombs and bullets in the name of Allah.
Stand warned about the gods who manifested through women, like the holy Mary and all sorts of venerated saints and idols. I wish I could continue. All am telling you is that: HOW YOU RELATE TO PEOPLE AND THINGS, IS, A DIRECT/INDIRECT PRODUCT OF THE KIND OF DEITY YOU BELIEVE.
Chapter 1 is about restoring that divine-human relationship, and that is why it begins with the priests being busy since they are the ones to reconcile a sinner to the pure God. and the sinner has to categorically give five offerings and these are they, I will handle next:
21st January Evening
Leviticus 4-7
In the first five chapters, we see the five offerings that the sinner had to respectively give and these offerings were categorically: Burnt, Meal, Peace, Sin and Trespass. And after each category is explained in these chapters, then chapters 6-7 give the laws of these offerings. They stipulate the how. And we can trace these laws in chapters 6 and 7 in the following verses:
- Leviticus 6:9: the law of the burnt offering.
- 6:14: the law of the meal offering.
- 6:25: the law of the sin offering.
- 7:1: the law of the trespass offering.
- 7:11: the law of the peace offering.
And eventually, all are put together in one verse 7:37. This is the law of the burnt offering, of the cereal offering, of the sin offering, of the guilt offering, of the consecration, and of the peace offerings,
It important to understand what each of these offerings meant, and the chronological understanding of these offerings will help us appreciate these offerings. We might not always take our relationship with God seriously but God does. It might happen that our sinning does not matter to us, but to God, whom in principle we sin against, it matters a lot. We might not need to sacrifice like the Old Testament people did since Jesus dealt with all these in his new ultimate sacrifice; however, this does not mean we become insensitive about these two important issues of our relationship with God and our sin and sinfulness.
These are what the five offerings are about and arranging them chronologically would make a procedural sense. This how I would personally arrange them:
| THE OFFERING | ITS EXPRESSION | GOD’S REACTION |
| BURNT | A sense of devotion to the will of God | OWNERSHIP |
| SIN | A sense of guilt and sinfulness | PARDON |
| TRESPASS | A sense of sorrow and penitence over some act of wrongdoing | FORGIVENESS |
| PEACE | A sense of distance and foreignness from God | RESTORATION |
| MEAL | A sense of Gratitude because of indebtedness to the love and Grace of God | ACCEPTANCE |
These offerings did not concern any person who never claimed to belong to God or actually be owned by God. All of us must have the mindset of Joseph that says: No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? (Genesis 39:9 NIV).
Joseph always knew that people and environments are just but of a secondary relationship. His primary relationship was with his God. Whatever sin he committed, he knew it was directly against God. He looked at the people he hurt and the environment he abused as mere instruments and objects tampered with just to hurt God. Do you have such an attitude? Did you know that the things you do to people are a direct or sometimes an indirect attack to God the creator?
The Israelites understood that. That is why according to me, the first offering that a person could offer to God was the Burnt offering. First to declare that they still believed they belonged to this God and had not alternated their faith in other deities.
Look at it from this angle: supposing I Isaiah- White a Christian committed adultery. On the first day, I would offer a burnt offering to declare my belonging and belief. This would first establish my allegiance and declare to the world that I am an adulterer who, however, belongs to God. And by this I would be expecting God to recognize me still as one of those under his custody.
On the next day, I would come back and offer a sin offering through the priest, to demonstrate that I am guilty and that I have that sense of sinfulness. I would ensure that, because of my sin, nothing is all right in my life and I would love to fix it. In addition, by this I would be expecting God to pardon my sin.
On the third day, I would again come back to the priest with the offering of trespass. Moreover, by this I would be exhibiting how grieved I am, how sorrowful and the magnitude of my penitence over the wrongdoing. Through these moods, I would confirm that I am not arrogant nor indifferent about my adultery crime. Moreover, like every other trespasser, I would love to see God forgive.
The next day I would come back and explain that; in spite of having received the identity card of belonging, having been pardoned and forgiven, I still feel a sense of distance and estrangement between God and me. (Am sure you have felt so sometimes in your Christian walk). This the time when you bring in the peace offering. You make peace with the God who owns you, pardoned and forgave your sin. In this, the result is that God restores you whole and his attitude to you.
And finally, you go home celebrating and at the family altar, you offer a meal offering. Just to say thank you. You look back and see how deep sin had taken you and how far God fetched you back, and then you burst into praise and worship. This is gratitude you offer to God and you expect nothing from God but his acceptance.
Now if you were keen enough, I just demonstrated what true repentance is about. It is a procedural U-Turn in your life. you need to be processed through those modes and then get to know what sin means and how important your relationship with God is. Please join me in: taking your relationship more serious than any other. In taking sin and sinning serious, and in repentance.
God bless you. I invoke TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, and FAITH.
Am Pr. I.T.White. THE GOSPEL HAWKER
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