Leviticus, Spiritual and Physical reality

Review

Genesis: Door number one or door number 2. Will you have God or not?

Exodus: Who is God and what does He want?

Leviticus: How to be in fellowship with Him.

Physical reality and Spiritual reality are intertwined

All of the commands in regards to being clean are built on this idea. God tells Israel to be Holy as I am Holy. But what does that mean? In order to understand we have to realize that the physical and the spiritual are tightly woven together.

Some of the most surprising ways: Prove it!

God’s salvation is represented by every stone and stitch in the garment of the high priest. It is a metaphor but not just a metaphor it’s a shadow.

People with disease must be put outside the camp and visited by the priest for medical evaluation. The phrase used is “defiling disease”, the next passage is about “defiling molds”. It reads the same. 13:59 these are the regulations for pronouncing them clean or unclean. (ceremonially and physically) A sacrifice is required if a person goes from unclean to clean. A guilt offering is required.

Right after 14:33 “If I put a spreading mold in a house in that land” go to a priest. Process of physical cleansing then “to purify the house he is to” make a sacrifice… for the house. 53: “in this way he will make atonement for the house.”

14:54 “these are the regulations for any defiling skin disease, for a sore, for defiling molds in fabric or in a house, and for a swelling, a rash or a shiny spot, to determine when something is clean or unclean.

If a priest sins he brings guilt on the people and must sacrifice a young bull to atone.

God only allowed sacrifices at the tent of meeting.

God’s home was in the Tabernacle and with the ark of the covenant even when it wasn’t with His people.

If you were going to sacrifice an animal it must be clean, literally and ceremonially. An animal being sacrificed could not have spot or blemish. Couldn’t have any broken bones. It had to be the best. The oil needed to be the best, the flour had to be made from the finest grain. It couldn’t have touched an unclean animal since being sacrificed or it became unclean.

Physical death and spiritual death are linked. 8:34 atonement. “Do what the Lord requires, so you will not die.” Nadab and Abihu offered unauthorized fire before the Lord and fire consumed them and they died.” Others are removed from the camp, separated from the people and never able to offer sacrifice.

Sin is spiritual death and to atone for that something must die. We learn later that all of these animals were shadows of the true sacrifice that took away the sins of the world. I think the fire of fellowship was the Holy Spirit.

6:8-13 The fire of fellowship must never go out

You can dedicate a person, child, animal, house, or piece of land to the Lord all the same.

Leviticus 26:1–29 (NIV)

1 “ ‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God. 2 “ ‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord. 3 “ ‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land. 6 “ ‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you. 9 “ ‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high. 14 “ ‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you. 18 “ ‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit. 21 “ ‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted. 23 “ ‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied. 27 “ ‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over.

Imagine what the tabernacle looks like with all these sacrifices going on

Ceremonial clean and actually clean have the same requirements. No blood, no disease, no fungus, washed in water or burned thoroughly in a clean environment. To the point where people think that’s one of the reasons God gave them these laws. To protect them from disease. Others, errently but importantly, think there is such a correlation between the physical and the spiritual that the food restrictions were actually metaphors for sins.

You need this for the rest of the Old Testament. They pick kings based on height. If you leave the land you were leaving the presence of God. They didn’t take the whole land so they never experienced right relationship. God purified His people with spiritual and literal fire. - We see it going back also. When Adam and Eve died, did they spiritually die or physically? When God lamented over the sin of man did mankind fall into physical or spiritual sickness? When God judged the God’s of Egypt were they physical or spiritual judgments?

You cannot distinguish, unless you’re going to make up arbitrary rules that scripture doesn’t give us. However if you recognize the relationship you see that the Land is relationship with God. So when Israel doesn’t fully take the land they are not in right relationship with God and that is one reason they are never in right relationship with Him. When people leave the land, like in the book of Ruth, it won’t be like someone moving to a different state but it’s synonymous with leaving God and it becomes a story of redemption. There’s so much to unlock…

When the disciples asked who sinned this man or his parents Jesus didn’t say, you idiots there’s no correlation between spiritual and physical matters.

John 9:1-6 “1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.”

11:44-45 be holy because I am holy

6:17 “it must be holy” here holy means without yeast and set apart but also ceremonially and spiritually holy… there is no distinguishing among the two

Next time we’ll look at Leviticus again, the entire thing and look at the other foundational principle. Holiness. The point of all of this is Holiness. It’s to be set apart for a purpose. Once we see the physical and spiritual relationship between holiness and our fellowship with God the rest of the Old Testament will align.