Annual Bible Reading 2017: Leviticus 8-22

22^nd January Morning

Leviticus 8-10

These three chapters are about the office of the priesthood something of importance in the theology of the book of Leviticus. Like I had argued earlier, Priesthood is not original with the Israelites but it was an established system within the Ancient Near East people the Semites and the religions around that region had priests installed. Priesthood in the Israel mode of worship was something officially launched and established after Jethro and Moses worked towards the development of the religion of Israel.

To argue that Israel through their patriarch Abraham knew a thing about the priesthood just because the brother tithed to a certain mysterious priest known as Melchizedek is an elementary and kindergarten approach to Bible study. It is somewhat arguing that the events in the Bible are strictly chronological.

If we know that the Patriarchal religion was the one from which we have the religion of Israel developed, and we believe that Abraham was the sole nucleus of that religion, then one wonders to whom was Melchizedek a priest before he met Abraham after the battle!! Not until Psalm 110 is Melchizedek referred to again, and much is made of this order of priesthood in the Book of Hebrews (chapters 5-7).

The Aaronic Priesthood is just being formally established in Leviticus chapter 8, but the concept of priesthood is not new to the Pentateuch. Many historical facts prove that priesthood was already in place and actually the concept of priesthood like the ten laws, was borrowed, edited and tuned to the theological understanding of the religion of Israel. The Bible implies this in the following reports: Joseph’s wife was the daughter of an Egyptian priest (Genesis. 41:45, 50; 46:20), and Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, was known as “the priest of Midian” (Exodus. 2:16; 3:1; 18:1).

At Mt. Sinai God proclaimed that He had delivered Israel from bondage and set her apart to be a “kingdom of priests” (Exodus. 19:6). Most interesting is the fact that there was some order of priests before the Aaronic Priesthood was officially instituted. Again, I emphasize; As in other instances, it would seem that the Mosaic Covenant formalized and regulated institutions and practices which already existed prior to the making of this covenant.

Man has always been a worshipping beast and due to this instinct, he has always organized his worship system and put systems in place. All cultures had their priesthood and what we see in the Bible is the same principle, however, with another approach altogether. Biblical scholarship says:

“In the pagan countries surrounding Israel, such as Egypt and Babylon, priesthood was closely connected with magic and superstition. Numerous examples are available to illustrate the firm tie between the priesthood and the occult in ancient religions. The priesthood in Israel takes into account another dimension in the religious world, that of supernatural revelation.”

As I had put it earlier, the word Leviticus derives from the tribe of Levi, whose members were set aside by the Lord to be His priests and worship leaders. They were not set aside because they were of any peculiar status, but it was something connected to the declarative words of Leah who was hated by her husband. And when she gave birth to Levi, she perceived him as one who was going to reconcile her with her husband. It is in this spirit that, Levi grew and all his descendants were perceived as reconcilers and mediators.

According to the Encyclopedia of the Bible:

“The office of priesthood was vested in the tribe of Levi. The Levites traced their origin to a common ancestor (Genesis 49). Deuteronomy 33:8-10 indicates broadly that the priests were to minister at the altar, burn the sacrifices, and teach the law. Although the Levites have been defined as the descendants of Levi (Genesis 29:34), some consider that Levi was an ideal personality (eponym theory). Levi was the third son of Jacob by Leah, and the ancestor of the tribe of Levites. The curse of Jacob on Levi (34:25. 49:5.) was turned into a blessing by Moses (Exodus 32:29; Deuteronomy 33:8, 9). They were given no tribal inheritance in Canaan.

There were three families: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. It was Kohath who supplied the actual priests. Other Levites helped as their assistants around the sanctuary (Numbers 3:5.). When Hezekiah and Josiah instituted their reforms (2Kings 18:4; 23:8.), the Levites who were ministering at other sanctuaries in the land lost their positions. Priesthood was restricted to descendants of Aaron. However, some non-Levites performed priestly functions on occasion: the son of Micah an Ephraimite (Judges 17:5); David’s sons (2Samuel 8:18); Gideon (Judges 6:26); and Manoah of Dan (Judges 13:19).”

The priesthood was divided into three groups: (1) the high priest, (2) ordinary priests, and (3) Levites. All three descended from Levi. All priests were Levites, but by no means were all Levites priests. The lowest order of priesthood was the Levites who cared for the service of the Sanctuary. They took the place of the first-born who belonged by right to God (Exodus 13:2, 12, 13; 22:29; 34:19, 20; Leviticus 27:26; Numbers 3:12, 13, 41, 45; 8:14-17; 18:15; Deuteronomy 15:19).

The sons of Aaron, who were set apart for the special office of priest, were above the Levites. Only they could minister at the sacrifices of the altar. The highest level of the priesthood was the high priest. He represented bodily the height of the purity of the priesthood. He bore the names of all the tribes of Israel on his breastplate into the sanctuary, thus representing all the people before God (Exodus 28:29). Only he could enter the holiest of all and only on one day a year to make expiation for the sins of the entire nation.

22^nd January Evening

Leviticus 11-22

Duane Lindsey says:

“The book of Leviticus was the first book studied by a Jewish child; yet is often among the last books of the Bible to be studied by a Christian.” Today’s readers are often put off by the book’s lists of laws regarding diet, sacrifice, and social behavior. But within these highly detailed directives we discover the holiness—the separateness, distinction, and utter “otherness”—of God. And we learn how sin devastates humanity’s relationship with their Creator. God established the sacrificial system so that His covenant people might enjoy His fellowship through worship; it also allowed for repentance and renewal: When an Israelite worshiper laid his hand on the animal victim, he identified himself with the animal as his substitute . . . this accomplished a symbolic transfer of his sin and a legal transfer of his guilt to the animal victim. God then accepted the slaughter of the animal . . . as a ransom payment for the particular sin which occasioned it.

Many years after Moses wrote Leviticus, Jesus came to offer Himself as the ultimate sacrifice, holy and perfect, once for all, fulfilling the Law and rendering future animal sacrifices unnecessary and void (Hebrews 10:10)”.

According to the Bible Encyclopedia, when you read from chapters 11-22 there is a change in style and the language becomes sermonic. “the change to sermonic style in chapters. 18-20 is appropriate to the subject matter. In these chapters. Yahweh prohibits the Israelites from conforming to the corrupting practices of their pagan neighbors. Because of the temptation to conform to their degraded practices Moses is not content simply to explain what the laws of God are, but he earnestly enjoins them upon the conscience of the people, and urges them to take with utmost seriousness God’s call to a holy life. In a word, the change in subject matter readily accounts for the change in style and vocabulary”.

These laws are fundamentally about one thing. To rectify the fact that God is right and man is wrong. To ensure that man understands that the gap between him and his creator is too wide and it can only be fixed by life itself. Which life is represented in the symbol of blood.

It is in Exodus chapter 28 that legislation concerning the Aaronic Priesthood begins with a description of the garments which will set Aaron and his sons apart as a priesthood: The overall message of Leviticus is sanctification and I prefer to use the term consecration. The book communicates that receiving God’s forgiveness and acceptance should be followed by right living and spiritual growth. Now that Israel had been redeemed by God, they were to be purified into a people worthy of their God. and God was working on them as a demonstrative project. Wanted he wanted the entire world to be, he made Israel. “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy,” says Leviticus 19:2.

In Leviticus, we learn that God loves to be approached, but we must do so on His terms. Leviticus is a collection of enactments enabling the holy Yahweh to live in residence amid His unholy subjects. Cautioning the people to keep this covenant, Yahweh concludes that if they keep it: “I will make my abode among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people” (26:11, 12). For this reason, Yahweh legislates the cultic, civil, social, moral, and economic life of his redeemed people. Exodus concluded with the account of the completion of the Tabernacle.

From the Tabernacle rendered glorious by the divine Presence, issues the legislation contained in Leviticus. As Yahweh draws near to the people in the Tabernacle, so the people draw near to Yahweh in the prescribed offerings (chapters. 1-7), and through the prescribed priesthood (chapters. 8-10). Moreover, Yahweh demands cleanness (chapters. 11-15), and provides for their pollution through the Day of Atonement (chapter. 16).

To enjoy His fellowship His people and priests must be holy in all particulars in contrast to their pagan neighbors (chapters. 17-25). Blessings and curses will be determined by their response to the law (chapter. 26). The laws concerning devoted property (chapter. 27) stand apart from the prerequisite standards for Yahweh’s residence among the people.

The Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 22:40 that the entire law and prophets depend on Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. The second injunction, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” is repeated in Matthew 19:19; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14. When He cured the leper he instructed him to carry out the law regarding leprosy (Leviticus 14). In the Sermon on the Mount to His disciples He demanded the righteousness obtained by these laws (Mathew 5:18-20, 44, 45).

The apostles saw much in Leviticus as a type, a divinely inspired picture, of their doctrines; e.g., the priests and sacrifices connected with the Tabernacle shadowed the work of Christ in connection with heaven (Hebrews 3:1; 4:14-16; chapters 9, 10); the presence of God in Israel (Leviticus 26:12) prefigured the temple-hood of Christian believers (2 Corinthians 6:16). The apostles also insisted that these enactments were not binding on the Church but had been superseded in Christ and through the indwelling Holy Spirit (Acts 9:9-16; 15:1-21; Galatians 2:11-3:5; 1Tim 4:1-5; Hebrews 9:10).

Now as I wind up, allow me to discuss two concepts that are actually revealed in this book. These concepts are: 1-The Law and 2- Holiness/Purity. I tried to say something about the Law in the book of Exodus, allow me now contribute to that, since the biggest part of the book of Leviticus is about the law. This time round I want to demonstrate the evolution of what we know as the law. As we talk about the law, I want you, my reader, to understand that we are talking about no specific law but the concept of the law. The legal system stressed or implied. There are four factors that initiate what we term as law. Before any law is formulated and established, there must be:

• Power
• Interest
• Decision
• Behavior

Every law, be it religious, social or political, begun in some sort of power. The species that amasses power and supersedes all others in strength and resources directly or indirectly controls its environment and the content therein. Power is the justification of any functional law. This organ with the instruments of power evolves to the secondary stage known as Interest. This interest does not have to be right or wrong, it just has to be what the powerful wills and wants. Normally as Edward W. Y says, “Laws should be the objective expressions of the nature of reality rather than merely the subjective prejudices or whims of some person, group of people, or society as a whole.” But this is not always the case.

You must understand that am talking about sociology law (common law), the law that concerns our behavior, and this law is dynamic as opposed to fixed natural laws. The natural laws also, as a Christian who is a Creationist, I do subscribe to the fact that natural operates under the supervision of the supreme power of their creation and design. Human beings on the other hand given their conscience element and their historical relationships both vertical and horizontal, evolve law, through the four channels (Power, Interest, Decision, and Behavior) that I have listed above.

The evolution of the law that governs human Anthropology and Sociology starts with a particular power. For the case of the Bible, the laws stipulated there are attributed to a power known as Yahweh. So all laws in Exodus 20, (which are explained in the book of Deuteronomy) and all the laws concerning priesthood in the book Leviticus, is the law that has its source in the power known as God (Yahweh) and channeled through his agents Moses and Aaron.

Just as in politics gunmen take on power, and exercise their interests through what they call the constitution. God is depicted as the sovereign power that gives all the law. The contradiction, however, arises when the law that we are told represents the Lord, clashes with reality. That is why I warned my reader about the 10 laws of Exodus 20. We should not rush to attribute these laws to God, since they collide with the theological theme of the word of God.

All cultures in their anthropology had laws which they attribute to their deities and the reason for this was to ensure that the subjects understand the power that put in place these laws, norms, and regulations. The credibility of every law depends on the power and structure that puts it in place. So the laws in the book of Leviticus are attributed to a power known as Yahweh and they are assumed to serve the interests of the very Yahweh. In a sense then the laws that we read in the Bible, might not necessarily, in their literal form, be established by God (for they actually contradict with reality) but they are pointers to a supreme being whose interest is with us.

In that sense then, the law is not the reality, but a harbinger of the ought to be and soon to be. This is why we no longer practically do all that was done in the days of Leviticus since all these were mere symbols of the reality of the God who died to save his creation.

Now this brings me to the third stage of the formation of law after there is a Power that has an Interest, that power due to its interests makes a Decision. The decision that this power makes depends on its interests and this decision can influence action basing on the rewards or penalties or it can coerce action through the aggression of its power over the inferiors. Let me talk about what I mean by influence here: the power in charge considers its interests as JUSTICE. This power, therefore, is to ensure through influence that what it defines as justice is exercised. And this influence can be exercised through promising rewards to those do your will (interests) and penalties to those who disobey.

This psychology influences particular action and behavior. This is why we have modern evangelical issues with those who believe we are saved depending on how we behave while some of us argue that heaven is not a reward but a gift. The interests of the supreme power can be exercised under coercion, and this what in the legal world we call the Decree.

In Uganda (East-Africa), there was a time when there was no constitution in practice but the law that operated was one of a decree by President Idi Amin Dada. Whatever was done, was not necessarily an agreed upon decision but the interest and will of Idi Amin. Both influence and coercion are principles that frame all the law (Moral, Ceremonial, and Levitical code) in the Bible. This is why I have always insisted that no law is original with God, but these socio-anthropological tenets that God utilizes to reveal to us how different and distant his mind is and his ways are from ours.

After that decision of a power individual or group of people is practiced, it evolves into a basal referential Behavior of individuals and societies altogether. Behavior is not about any other thing but two: 1-what is right and 2-what is wrong. Like I said earlier, the problem with the concept of the Law is that what is right or wrong does not always have to be coherent and corresponding to reality but it must suit the interests of the power that instituted that statute.

Let me again give an example that I earlier used in the book Exodus. If the law says, “Thou shalt not kill” and the penal code (attributed to the same power-Yahweh) of that laws says: “Whoever kills his neighbor shall be stoned to death”, what the law is telling us here is that: the action of killing your neighbor is wrong. Well, but if you do this wrong thing, the right thing to do with you is to kill you (penalty). Have you noticed the kill-him, be-killed thread?

What is the interest of he who gave this law, is it life or death?  Well, that is a difficult question to answer for anyone who does not know that God never takes life but he gives life. He never takes life but gives and gives it all, abundant and once he is left with no life to give he gives his own life.

This is the reality that the New Testament comes with in contrast to the infancy revelation about God in the Old Testament.

So the laws that are stated in chapters 11-22 are an emphasis of the evolution of what we call the law and the use of the law. They are here to do two things, 1- Serve the interests of those in power (in this case it was God, Moses and Aaron) and 2-to keep and maintain order for proper functionality. Am I then saying that all these laws (Moral, Ceremonial, and Levitical) were not given by God? Yes, they were not. These were socio-anthropological laws of leadership put in place by the leadership of Moses and Aaron under the influence of the civilized Jethro.

And these laws in their edited form (different from all other pagan codes) were endorsed by a deity (Yahweh) whose interest was to reveal who he really (reality) was as opposed to who these people understood him to be. Next, I will exhibit this in my explanation of how the book of Leviticus defines what purity is. The book of Leviticus one about how we should deal with dirt. And to do that it centers on the fact that God is clean, and pure. The book uses the term ‘HOLY’.

This word Qōdes in Hebrew (depending on the context and structure of the word itself) can have more than one meaning. But all its meaning can be summed up under two categorical meanings. The word can mean: BEING SET APART and it can also mean PURITY. When the Old Testament says that God is Holy, it has a lot to communicate about God, but most of all, his distinctiveness in nature compared to us and the entire universe. The word Holy refers either to God Himself, or to what has been sanctified by Him. Primarily, however, it is God who is holy (Exodus15:11; Isaiah 6:3). There is no holiness unassociated with Him.

Holiness is not a human quality, nor is it an impersonal concept. Its divine provenance is everywhere insisted on in the Old Testament. Holiness as the central idea of the OT faith in God. God is described as “the Holy One of Israel.” The title recurs twenty-four times in Isaiah (cf. also 2 Kings 19:22; Job 6:10; Psalms 71:22; 78:41; 89:18; Proverbs 9:10; 30:3; Jeremiah 50:29; 51:5; Ezekiel 39:7; Habakkuk 1:12; 3:3). Holiness is not merely one of God’s attributes. It represents His essential nature. Holiness is His selfhood. When He swears by His holiness, He swears by Himself (Amos 4:2; 6:8; cf. Genesis 22:16; Psalms 89:35; 108:7).

“The ‘godness’ of God is highlighted by the word ‘holy’ when it is used in connection with him” Holiness is what makes God who He is. As holy He is thus unique and incomparable (1 Sam 2:2; 6:20; Job 25:5; Isa 40:18-20, 25, 26; Habakkuk 3:3). God’s holiness marks Him off from angels (Job 4:17, 18; 15:14, 15), from heathen gods (Exodus 15:11; Ps 77:13), and from men (Job 4:17; 15:14; Eccl. 5:2). It is His active self-differentiation.                                                               When the book of Leviticus emphasizes holiness; it sets that as a practical way to worship and be accepted by God. Leviticus 11:45 “

When the book of Leviticus emphasizes holiness; it sets that as a practical way to worship and be accepted by God. Leviticus 11:45 “For I am the LORD who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.” You must be holy because God is Holy. It is the central and repeated theme and that theme is Holiness. Jews said to each other, our holiness is required because we are God’s people and he is he who redeemed us. Throughout the book this theme is recurrent and is therefore emphasized:

• Leviticus 11:44 – “For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.”
• Leviticus 19:2 – “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”
• Leviticus 20:7 – “You shall consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am the LORD your God.”
• Leviticus 20:26 – “‘Thus you are to be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine.”

The theology is a straight one, since God is holy and you claim or would prefer to be his people, then the obligation is to be Holy. And the practical bit of Holiness is not any other thing but staying pure. This purity, ranges from diet (clean and unclean), bodily cleanness, health (free from disease), and not lame or crippled in any way. This cleanness also involves strict caution with all fluids that come out of man like: sweat, excretion, rhinorrhea (nasal mucus), menstrual blood, and saliva. Purity (read holiness), culminated in what most of us know as ‘Moral Purity’.

IMPURITY TYPE	SOURCE	EFFECT	RESOLUTION
RITUAL	·         Bodily flows, like I listed above ·         Disabilities, like crippled/lameness. ·         Corpses ·         Skin diseases, like leprosy etc.	Contagious and Contaminating impurity	ü  Bathing ü  Washing ü  Quarantining ü  Sacrifices and offerings.
MORAL	Sins: idolatry (Leviticus. 19:31; 20:1-3), Sexual sins (Leviticus. 18:24-30), Murder (Numbers. 35:33-34), etc.	·         Defilement of the guilty sinners (Leviticus. 18:24). ·         Defilement of the Sanctuary (Leviticus. 20:3) and the Land (Leviticus. 18:25)	ü  Atonement ü  Absolute exile ü  Punishment by death.

Moral impurity differs from ritual impurity not simply because of its origin in sin, but also in the fact that it’s not contagious, alright? You don’t contract impurity by touching a murderer, the way that you contract ritual impurity by touching somebody with gonorrhea. Also, moral impurity is not removed or reducible through rituals, through washings and launderings, ritual ablutions and the like. That does not touch moral impurity in a person. Moral purity of persons can be achieved only by punishment for

Moral purity of persons can be achieved only by punishment for heinous sins-a divine punishment of being extirpated from the House of Israel; death, alright, that’s one way to be rid of moral impurity. Also, it can be achieved by simply avoiding or abstaining from defiling, immoral acts in the first place- that’s another way to achieve moral purity. Also, if you atone for unwitting sins that you perhaps later realize and regret; acknowledge and confess, then that can also have a reduced moral impurity.

Professor Jacob Neusner says:

“The sources of uncleanness are specified in Leviticus 11-15 and Numbers 19. These include unclean animals, improperly slaughtered animals, certain bodily excretions, sexual activity (seminal emissions), and the like, as well as the corpses. Rites of purification, furthermore, are fully spelled out in context, washing with water (in an immersion pool), use of purification-water (Numbers 19), and so on.

Priests could serve only if they were bodily whole and complete; they could contract corpse uncleanness only for immediate family members; they had to keep the foods set aside for their consumption pure and had to eat those foods with purified utensils. In these and numerous other ways, the written Torah spells out the conviction that the priesthood is required to preserve purity in the Temple rites and in personal life as well. There is no priesthood that can function unless the purity laws are observed.”

While the book is focused on what should be done to avoid any kind of impurity, its intention and goal is dual: first it intends to help us understand that God is a high standard, beyond our imagination. Secondly, the book wants us to know that we can only approach God not our terms but on his. The book, therefore, warns against all sorts of moral impurity. In its effort to put this across, the book warns us that, impurity is both contagious and contaminating. Impurity is contagious but purity is not. (I hope you noticed) When you touch any unholy person or thing, regardless of how pure you have been, you automatically and with immediate effect become impure. The Encyclopedia Judaic says:

“Ritual, or permitted, impurity is distinguished by the following features: (1) it is contagious, transferred from one person or object to another in a variety of ways, such as physical contact or sharing space within a covered area; (2) impurity contracted from a source of ritual impurity is impermanent and can be reduced and removed by some combination of ablutions, time, and/or the performance of specified rituals; (3) ritual impurity can defile sancta and must be kept separate from it. More severe forms of ritual impurity can also defile common (non-sacred) objects as well, and thus may require isolation or exclusion.”

The point that the book wants to make clear to all of us sinners is that, God is not comfortable with our ordinary ritual uncleanness and by that alone we deserve destruction. This was not merely a sanitation program but a demonstration of how God takes seriously every dirt in our lives. God wants you and I to be ritually clean in all aspects of sanitation. Look around your house, and your body parts, and imagine if you were in the Old Testament times. The second impurity is that of moral impurity, which the guilty sinner could only fix, through sacrifice.

Praise be to the lord, for the coming of Jesus Christ solved these two kinds of impurity. Jesus sorted the problem of Sin by his ultimate sacrifice. Patrick Stefan explains why:

“This is why Hebrews 9 and 10 are so important in the history of redemption. Because the OT makes it quite clear that moral impurity has no remedy outside of punishment, so, as the writer of Hebrews reminds us “indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (9:22), and why he follows up by saying “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins . . . but when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (10:4, 12-14). In other words, Jesus Christ solved the previously unsolvable problem of ritual and moral impurity! Praise be to our savior!”.

We all know we are saved by Grace through faith that is because of the sacrifice of Jesus’ death and resurrection. When Jesus began his ministry, the religious leaders of his day were very focused on purity and cleanliness. The world in which Jesus began to minister was one which was equally sensitive to dirt as it was to cleanliness. Professor Douglass (one of my professors) says: Dirt implies two conditions: a set of ordered relations and a contravention of that order. “Dirt, then, is never a unique isolated event. Where there is dirt there is a system. Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements”

Jews had systematized the problem of dirt and warned all its constituency about it, through what is known as Judaism. Judaism had drawn lines in it world, and this world was relative to things, persons, places, activities and times. These lines determined to Jews what and who to belong to when and where. A place for everything and everything in its place. In the Old Testament, we regularly come across statements such as “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2 as we saw) and “Their flesh you shall not eat, their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean to you” (Leviticus 11:8).

There is no doubt that ancient Israel had a keen sense of purity and pollution and to them Purity Meant Boundaries. According to the New Testament, there were purity boundary markers on each of the following groups:

Those with Dirt

• Dead Israelites: concern over Jesus’ dead body (John 19:31);
• Morally unclean Israelites: tax collectors & sinners (Luke 15:1-2; Mathew 9:10-13);
• Bodily unclean Israelites: lepers (Mark 1:400-45; Luke 17:11-14), Poor, lame, maimed, blind (Luke 14:13; see Leviticus 21:18-21), Menstruates (Mark 5:24-34);
• Unobservant Israelites: Peter and John (Acts 4:13), Jesus (John 7:15, 49);

The Pure

• Observant Israelites: the rich young man (Mark 23:50-51), Joseph of Arimathea (Luke 2:25-38);
• Pharisees: (Mark 7:3-5; Luke 18:11-12);
• Scribes and Priests: (Luke 10:31-32);
• Chief Priests: (John 18:28; Hebrews 7:18-28).

The world in which Jesus lived and ministered in was one whose purity boundaries were declared and established. It is surprising to see that according to the system, even Jesus was categorized under the dirt. The Justification for these boundary markers was to avoid contamination and contagious dirt. Judaism believed that, once Holiness/purity got in touch with Dirt, or impurity, Holiness was always affected. The behavior of Jesus was therefore geared to answering the question of: Between Holiness and Dirt, what really affects the other?

Now given our ordinary thinking, we all know dirt taints a white cloth, but according to Jesus, a white cloth fixes the taints of mud. Jesus viewed contact with lepers, tax collectors, and prostitutes differently than he did the religious leaders of his day. Instead of being afraid that contact would make him unclean, Jesus used contact to influence and effect change. Instead of being changed negatively by the people he came into contact with, Jesus changed them in a positive way. The religious leaders kept their distance from unclean people. The fear was that if they came into contact with unclean people, this contact would make them unclean. Jesus did things differently. He engaged, touched, and shared meals with unclean people all the time.

Instead of separating and staying away, Jesus engaged and moved toward. Instead of erecting a boundary, Jesus broke down existing boundaries and connected. Instead of turning away in disgust, Jesus turned toward and loved. Now this is what the Gospel of Righteousness by Faith is about. It is a process where your sin does not affect God’s righteousness but one in which the righteousness of God affects your sin. While in the book of Leviticus you had to clean yourself to approach God, in the New Testament system of the Gospel, you have to come as you are so that God’s holiness can affect and damage your sin terribly.

The Gospel is the good news that a sinner with a sin he cannot fix has been saved by the contagious righteousness of the Jesus Christ this sinner has believed. You need the righteousness of God apart from the law to contaminate your sin and through the Holy Spirit empower you to bear the fruit of the Spirit. We also need to emulate Jesus Christ and impact evil with good, darkness with light. We are not called to be clean and isolated purists, but rather we are called for involvement. We are sent into the world not besides the world. We are the salt that should flavor the world and not the reverse. Joshua Hook said:

“My sense is that we often act like the religious leaders instead of Jesus. We’re afraid of engaging and connecting with people we consider unclean because we think they might negatively affect us. They might mess up our tidy lives and communities. However, by separating ourselves, we lose out on the opportunity to be like Jesus and engage and love a world full of people in need.”

If you think you are clean, do not avoid, but get involved and effect change in Jesus name.

God bless you. I invoke TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, and FAITH.

Am Pr. I.T.White. THE GOSPEL HAWKER

@Think and Become (Inspirational Link)
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