BASIC - Week 5 (Leviticus)

Bible - Leviticus

Context

Historical Context

Still at the foot of Mount Sinai

 At/In the tabernacle

Redemptive-Historical Context

     Promises are being fulfilled!

         Israel getting ready to enter the land Yahweh has promised.

        Israel instructed in how to be holy. 

Theme

Yahweh is holy, and therefore His people must be holy too.

Question: Why is it important for God's people to be holy?

The Offerings at the Tabernacle – Leviticus 1-7

- Burnt offerings: atonement for sin. (1:3-5)

- Grain offerings: acts of devotion (2:1)

- Peace offerings: Israel belongs to Yahweh (3:1)

- Sin offering: covers unintentional sin (4:2-3)

- Guilt offering: highlights wickedness of sin and atones (particularly for uncleanliness). (5:6)

Chapters 6-7 describes how the offerings are made.

Regulations for Aaron and His Sons – Leviticus 8-10

Yahweh Will Show Himself Holy – Leviticus 9:22-10:3

- Nadab and Abihu: Strange Fire (10:1-3)

o Strange fire? Worship that God has not commanded.

o “Emotion felt does not equal worship accepted.”

The Holiness Code – Leviticus 11-15, 18-27

· What makes some things holy, and other things not? (11:44-45)

- Distinct, different, separated.

o Outward expression of spiritual standing. (20:26)

· Are we still to obey these laws?

- 1 Peter 1:14-16

The Day of Atonement – Leviticus 16

- One day out of the year where God would provide a way by which everyone’s sins would be covered—atoned for—and the nation made holy again.

- Most Holy Place – (16:2)

o Why can’t Aaron enter in? (16:3-6)

- High Priest must atone for his own sins. (16:11-14)

o Smoke covers the Shekinah Glory of God so that it does not consume The HP.

- Now, the HP may atone for the sins of the people.

o Two goats: one for the sins of the people, and one scapegoat. (word created by the Bible)

- Once the sin offering is made, the HP deals with the scapegoat. (16:21-22)

o Visual parable: The people would all see their sins being transferred to the head of this goat, and watch as their sins were, metaphorically, taken away – never to be seen again! 

What did all of this point towards? (Hebrews 10)

- The Law was never intended to be something that would be kept perfectly by anyone except Jesus.  It was there to show our need for a Savior.  And the Day of Atonement was the clearest expression of that.

A Study Outline for Leviticus

I. Leviticus 1-15 – LAW*

A. Chapters 1-7: Offerings

B. Chapters 8-10: Obedience of Priesthood

C. Chapters 11-15: Separation from the Unclean

II. Leviticus 16-17 – GRACE

The Day of Atonement

III. Leviticus 18-27 – HOLINESS

Ethical Purity of the People & Religious Festivals

*Notice that the flow of the book follows a real gospel train of thought:  First there are laws to tell the Israelites how they might approach Yahweh (part I).  But when they fail in their obedience, provision is made for them in the form of a substitutionary sacrifice (part II).  Then, from that position of forgiveness and grace, the people are called to live holy lives (part III).

Doctrine - Who is God?

God’s Spirituality

God is spirit. (John 4:24)

God has no body.

Luke 24:39 “…for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”

Physical bodies exist in particular places and times. God created all places and physical matter, and started time itself (Gen. 1:1)

Some people object that God must have a body because he appeared to people as a man (Gen. 18:1–2) or a glorified man (Ex. 24:10). But God’s visible appearances do not teach that he has a body, just as the visible appearances of angels do not prove that they have physical bodies. Like God, they are spirits (Ps. 104:4; Heb. 1:7). God appeared in a variety of forms in the Old Testament, including a cloud and a consuming fire (Deut. 4:11–19), to show he has no body.

God is Invisible

God’s invisibility means that he has no size, shape, or color that our eyes can behold. His attributes are made known through the things that he has made, but his “eternal power and Godhead” are themselves “invisible” (Rom. 1:20). We perceive God in this age in the same way most saints have through history. It is “by faith” that we see “him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:27).

God’s invisibility shows how different he is from us and our world. It is one reason why we worship him. Paul says, “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Tim. 1:17).

God is Intelligent and Personal

When Christ says, “God is a Spirit,” he also shows that God is a personal, conscious being. The word translated as “spirit” commonly refers to a person’s inner life, what he thinks, loves, and chooses (Luke 1:46–47). Charles Hodge said, “If God be a spirit, it follows of necessity that He is a person—a self-conscious, intelligent, voluntary agent.”

God’s very name means “I AM” (Ex. 3:14), not “It Is.” For anyone to say “I am” is to show that he is a person who is aware of his existence. God says, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isa. 45:22).

God is Alive

To say that God is spirit is to say that he is life—mighty, immortal life. The word translated as “spirit” sometimes means “wind,” which suggests energy and motion (John 3:8). It can also mean “breath,” indicating life (6:63). When Christ says, “God is a Spirit,” he has just spoken to the woman at the well about “living water” that satisfies every thirst and becomes in a person “a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (4:10, 14). Therefore, Christ’s words teach us that God is a living, powerful being who gives life to others.

What does that mean for us?

First, God’s spirituality prohibits idol worship.

Second, God’s spirituality demands simplicity in his worship. - God made the old covenant ceremonies obsolete by the finished work of Christ (Heb. 8:13; 9:1–14). He replaced them with worship in spirit and truth, the new covenant form of worship that is remarkably simple (see chap. 80). We no longer need holy places such as temples or sacred mountains (John 4:20–24). We have Christ.

Third, God’s spirituality calls for worship marked by sincerity and understanding.

Fourth, God’s spirituality implies that true worshipers bear holy fruit.

God’s Simplicity

God’s simplicity means that he has no parts. His attributes are not what God has so much as who he is.

Christ does not say that God has a spirit but that “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24). John says, “God is light” (1 John 1:5). Light refers to God’s knowledge and moral purity as opposed to the darkness of lies and sin (vv. 6–10). John also says, “God is love” (4:8, 16).

The Scriptures do not say that God is partly spirit, partly light, and partly love. Rather, the whole of God is spirit. All of God is light. Everything in God is love. Each of his attributes describes the other attributes, so that his power is “eternal power” (Rom. 1:20), and in his love he “loveth righteousness” (Ps. 33:5).

However, simplicity does not mean that God’s attributes are all identical. The word “power” does not mean the same as “wisdom” or “love.” Each attribute of God is a distinct way in which he reveals himself on a human level. Yet all God’s attributes are one in his one simple essence.

God’s simplicity fits with other truths about him. This simple God is the Trinity. God the Father is pure light without change or shadow (James 1:17). God the Son, incarnate in Jesus Christ, not only brings the light but also is the light (John 8:12). Similarly, “the Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:6). The doctrine of the Trinity does not divide God into three parts. Rather, the three persons share one simple and undivided divine essence. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit have one goodness, one power, one eternity, and one wisdom.