Month: November 2022

Leviticus 16: And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shake send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.

The ceremony of the Day of Atonement pictures four believing responses for believers to make every day, not just once a year: confess all sins; put the sins on Jesus (“I Lay My Sins on Jesus”); send the sins away (“the Lamb takes away the sins of the world”); let go of the sin and guilt (“let go and let God”). We can do this every because Jesus is ever and always our scapegoat, the innocent, unblemished Lamb, who bears our sin and frees us.

The Christian does not ever have to allow guilt to continue. Deserved guilt and guilty feelings of shame are really and truly removed from our emotions when we confess and send away sin and guilt.

The Bible uses other images for this event: “He removes our sins as far from us as the east from the west” (infinity); “He casts our sins into the depths of the sea”; “He casts our sins behind Him”; “He remembers them no more.” We respond to this message of Gospel Grace by daily and weekly confession and absolution, repentance and faith. When we believe this Gospel we do not go into the wilderness looking for them or dredging them up again. We forget and go on with Jesus. A guilt-free life is the good life.

Leviticus 11:44-45 For I am the Lord your God: ye shall sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy; neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. For I am the Lord that brings the you up out of the land Egypt, to be your God: ye shall be holy, for I am holy.

The Torah generally, and Leviticus in particular, emphasizes the holiness of God. The Book leaves no doubt that God is HOLY! And if any sinful human approaches the Lord, he must be ritually clean, purified, washed of sin, and holy. And the Lord leaves no doubt as to what is clean and holy and what is not. There can be no leper in the camp, or mold, no dead bodies, and nothing unclean can be eaten, etc. In this chapter God gives extensive details about what is clean and unclean.

Why? Because God is HOLY. Get the point. And God will not tolerate anything in His presence that is unclean, impure, or unholy. But He wants you, and therefore He must make you holy. And this He did, by giving His Son to shed His blood and by sending the Spirit to bring you to faith in Christ. Once you receive Christ and believe that message you are declared holy and righteous, justified by faith. Then for the rest of your earthly life He sent the Spirit to bring your daily life more in line with your declared state.

Faith, then, is the response. We believe God is Holy; I am not; we believe the Son died and rose to earn God’s righteousness; and we believe that the Spirit is leading me into a more holy lifestyle. In this way, the command and predicted promise comes true: you shall be holy. By faith, we are. By life, we are getting there. We cannot reach holiness and perfection in this life, but we do respond by getting closer.

Leviticus 9:22-24 And Aaron lifted up his hand toward the people, and blessed them, and came down from offering of the sin offering, and the burnt offering, and peace offerings. and Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation, and came out, and blessed the people: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people. And there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

Well, who wouldn’t shout and fall down upon seeing the glory? The glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people after they had seen the tabernacle and the first sacrifices. What does glory look like? It involves fire. They saw fire come out from the Lord. Presumably, it came from above the Ark of the Covenant, where the invisible God resided.

Fire is beautiful, but terrifying. So is the glory of God more bright and beautiful than anything we have ever seen. It is also a most terrifying experience, inducing fear of God, a undoubtable faith in the realty of God. “Our God is a consuming fire [Hebrews 12:29].” “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God [Hebrews 10:31].” There an everlasting fire prepared for the devil, and the devil and all unbelievers will be cast into the lake of fire.

The glory and fire of God produces a shout of fear, and it also leads one to fall on his face in worship and submissive surrender. The glory of God is depicted in living technicolor on the cross, where, surprisingly, it looks like love, overwhelming love. In response to this Gospel we respond with a shout of joy and total worship of the living God. Every time we hear the gospel our heart burns within us. It burns up sin. May the Word never become old, dry, and boring. Let the heart respond with shouting, singing, rejoicing, and worshiping.

Leviticus 8:6-7 And Moses brought Aaron and his sons, and washed them with water. And he put upon him the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and he girded him with the curious girdle, and bound it unto him therewith.

Moses responded in obedience to God’s command to sanctify the priests in a particular, detailed way. The priest was ritually washed and clothed according to God’s instructions to be made Holy in order to come into God’s presence. The priest had to be holy to approach a holy God to represent the people. If not, The Holiness would consume the sinner.

The washing and clothing ritual does not inherently hold any value, but the holiness arises from the Word of God and the keeping of it. We don’t question why we must do it this way, we just do it because He says so. Obedience makes us holy.

The ritual preparation of the priest was, like everything in Leviticus, designed to impress upon us the holiness of God, and that no one could approach it without first being cleansed. The absolute purity of holiness demands rejection and punishment for anything unholy or sinful.

The thrice-holy God is also a God of limitless love. In Christ He creatively opened up The Way in which sinners may and must go. Jesus is the High Priest who goes between sinful man and holy God. By His holy life and obedient death He presents us washed and clothed before God the Father. This amazing gospel brings us to God.

Since the NT every believer is a priest, who enters God’s holy presence, according to God’s Word and Command. We wash in the water and the Word of Holy Baptism by remembering our baptism. We are clothed with righteousness by partaking of the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion as we “do this in remembrance of Me.” We respond to Holiness and Love by doing what He says: Believe in Jesus.

Leviticus 6:4-5 Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered to him to keep, or the lost thing which he found. Or all that about which he hath sworn falsely, he shall restore it in principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it to him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.

This principal response to the guilt of stealing could go a long way as a deterrent to crime: restore what was taken and add a fifth part of it. Why would one steal if he knew he would just return it all plus more? Of course, it would only work if it were done voluntarily from a heart that has been changed internally by the love of God. It wouldn’t work on the heart of the unbeliever as his heart is not affected by the operations of Law and Gospel. Thus the world must go to the great expense of using force through the law enforcement and judicial system.

What happens is that sin separates from God and from Life. Guilt reveals this miserable state and forgiveness because of the sacrifice of Christ restores life and a right relationship with God. The resultant new life is filled with so much joy that we desire to restore what we took and make right what we made wrong. This is the ideal world, heaven on earth, the kingdom come, but this kingdom life exists in the heart of the believer by faith. We respond to living in that kingdom by restoring what was taken.

Leviticus 5:15-16 If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the Lord; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flocks…for a trespass offering: and he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part thereto.

When a believer becomes aware of his trespass and sin, his response is to bring a ram without blemish for a trespass offering, and make amends for the harm and make restitution with an additional reparation. He does not make amends to earn forgiveness, but because he has been forgiven through the sacrifice.

This particular response was for a trespass in the holy things, but it applies to any trespass against a neighbor for his harm or diminishment. The believer will bring the Lamb of God and His offering to the Lord, receive forgiveness and restoration, and then make amends to the offended party for the loss. This is what Zacchaeus did after Jesus came to his house: “If I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” This is AA’s famous 11th step.

Making amends is not required for forgiveness and salvation, but as a response to salvation it makes life better in relation to God, self, and others. And that’s a good thing.

Leviticus 5:5-6 And it shall be, when he shall be guilty in one of these things, that he shall confess that he hath sinned in that thing: And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid from the goats, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin.

When a person is guilty of a particular sin, which he is aware of and feels the guilt for, his response is to confess the sin he is guilty of and bring his trespass offering to the Lord. The priest makes the sacrifice, makes atonement, forgives the sin, and takes away the guilt. God makes provision for known sin, to remove the guilty feeling and restore a right relationship. No Israelite (or Christian for that matter) ever needs to continue living with guilt.

Guilt can be a good thing, inasmuch as it prompts us to respond to the gospel by confessing our sin and bringing a trespass offering. Whenever we have a sense of guilt for a known sin we confess it specifically before God, or to one another. With the confession of the sin we, by faith, bring the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ to mind and plead the blood for forgiveness and removal of guilt. This trespass offering becomes real and alive to us daily and weekly.

Because of the trespass offering of Christ for us, we are encouraged and emboldened to “go into your room and shut the door and pray [Matthew 6:6].” We pray the Lord’s Prayer, specifically, “Forgive us our trespasses.” The word trespass is chosen, as it signifies going into a place you don’t belong and to trample on the possessions, rights, reputation, wellbeing and happiness of another. It involves going beyond the limits God has set for our good. Get rid of guilt: Confess sin and confess Christ.

Leviticus 4:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them: If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering.

A detailed description is given for the sin offering. The sin offering is meant for the person who commits an unintentional sin against any commandment. Sinning through ignorance is no excuse. No excuses or rationalizations or trivializations are acceptable when it comes to the Holiness of God. Sin is sin whether one knew of it or not. All sins separate us from God and His life.

Our only response to known and deliberate sin is to make a specific confession to God, which we do daily. We also respond weekly in the general confession in church to receive absolution for all sins, even those we do not know about. We bring a sin offering to God in the form of confessing that I am a sinner, and confessing my faith that Jesus is the perfect and final sin offering for me. I confess that the once for all sacrifice of the Lamb of God is for me, the sinner, and all my sins, known and unknown, are included in Jesus’ sacrifice.

The daily OT sacrifices are continued in the NT in our daily repentance and faith in Christ. The sacrifice of Christ is all we ever need, forever. Our faith response makes it personal and real through daily repentance and renewed faith. For the NT believer the sin offering response is to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship [Romans 12:1].”

Leviticus 1:2-3 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock. If his offering be burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord.

In one sense, the first response to God is to fear, love, and trust Him above all things. The believer expresses his response by bringing an offering of burnt sacrifice to the Lord. This may be regarded as the ultimate response, for the significance of the whole burnt sacrifice is giving oneself totally to the Lord.

And this sacrifice is voluntary, offered out of one’s own free will. It is not forced or coerced, but willing, as is obedience to all The Commandments. Living a holy life is not slavery nor forced labor nor taxation, but freely offered because He first loved us, for love compels us. Offering and sacrifice is the outward expression of inward love and faith. Love and trust is invisible, but it is seen in good works. Faith works.

In Leviticus, God describes in detail how the various offerings were to be done. All of it points to the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ for all sins of all people for all time. Jesus voluntarily sacrificed Himself out of love for sinners like us. A consequent result of Christ’s offering for us is our willing offering to lay down our lives for others. We give our time, money, effort, service, and help for other people; we even give up our right to live life our way for the good of others. We die to self. That is our sacrificial response to the sacrifice of Christ. We do not sacrifice so that God will favor us; we sacrifice because He already has.

Exodus 40:32-33 When they went into the tent of the congregation, and when they came near unto the altar, they washed; as the Lord commanded Moses. And he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work.

Moses and the people finally finished the detailed work of constructing and setting up the tabernacle, according to the commands of the Lord. The faithful, obedient response ended up with a holy place for the Holy God in the midst of the people.

Now Moses and Aaron and the priests were able to go into the tent and come near the altar. But they could go in to a holy place only after they washed according the Lord’s command. Along with the preparations of appropriate rituals and sacrifices they also washed themselves in the laver. It is not that God cares if you are physically dirty or not, but you must be spiritually clean. God’s Holiness cannot allow the presence of sin.

Therefore, we understand that we NT believers prepare ourselves to come before God by washing in Holy Baptism, called the washing of the Word. We are only baptized once, but we remember our Baptism daily by repentance and faith in the Gospel. Thus we are always ready to come to Him in prayer, praise and thanks. We prepare the heart for participation in the Lord’s Supper through the same repentance and faith.

We are allowed to go in to God’s Presence and come near to Him because the Blood of Christ has made us spiritually clean. The Blood has washed us clean, our faith has saved us. We respond by remembering our baptism and reaffirming our faith. Baptism is the Washing the Lord commands. Anywhere, at any time, in any need, we may confidently come before God, receive His blessing, pray in Jesus’ name, and receive the help we need. Wash = Remember your Baptism; then pray in Jesus’ name.