Sermon Tone Analysis

Exodus 33:1–7 (ESV)

1 “And Yahweh said to Moses, “Go up from this place - You and the people whom YOU have brought up from the land of Egypt - to the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob saying, ‘To your seed I will give it.’

2 I will send before you an angel, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

3 To a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up in the midst of you for you are a stiff-necked people.”

4 And when the people heard this disastrous word they mourned and no man put on his ornaments

5 For Yahweh had said to Moses, “Say to the sons of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I went up in the midst of you, I would consume you.

So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’”

6 Thus, the sons of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb.

7 And Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, at a great distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting.

And when anyone who sought Yahweh would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp.

Introduction

After finishing First Thessalonians, I spent a great deal of time and prayer seeking for the next book to preach from.

God led me to Leviticus, and I approach this with great fear and trepidation.

Leviticus where Bible reading plans go to die.

Leviticus a book with no poetry and barely any narrative.

Fortunately, I don’t preach every week, so we will have long interludes between sermons.

I do believe, however, that this book is an important one for us to study as 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” reminds us.

In his commentary on this book, Andrew Bonar writes, “The Gospel of the grace of God, with all that follows in its train, may be found in Leviticus.”

Indeed, one might call this book the Gospel According to Moses.

How is this so?

It is present through what theologians call “types.”

Types are anticipations of things to come - shadows of the full substance that will be realized.

Leviticus is filled with types of Christ, His redemptive work, and even the promise of His return.

This sermon will be unusual for a number of reasons.

One, I normally preach expository sermons, and I cannot call this sermon expository.

It better called a textual sermon in which several key elements of this text will help understand the place of Leviticus in Scripture and its thematic importance.

Two, for a sermon that introduces Leviticus, it is unusual in that I will not directly quote or explore Leviticus.

Rather, the emphasis is to see the role of Leviticus plays in Scripture and its main points.

Our passage gives us relevant context.

Following the incident with the Golden Calf, God speaks to Moses regarding His dwelling among them.

This sets the background for the need for Leviticus

I. Two Problems That Leviticus Must Solve

Leviticus presents two problems that must be solved and both relate to the function of the Tabernacle.

On one hand, the Tabernacle was to function as the dwelling place of God in the midst of His people.

This was promised by God just a few chapters earlier.

God would dwell in the midst in the sanctuary.

He gave Moses clear and intricate designs for this, and Hebrews 9:23 tells us that these were copies of the heavenly tabernacle.

This would be how God would dwell in the midst of His people in a partial imitation of how He had done so in Eden.

This dwelling would show that Israel was indeed His people and that He was indeed their God.

What other nation had enjoyed this intimacy with their Creator since the Fall?

Exodus 29:45–46 (ESV)

I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God.

And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them.

I am the Lord their God.

However, in our passage God refuses to go up in the midst of the people, and instead, He resides at a great distance from the people.

At the end of Exodus when the Tabernacle is finally set up in replacement to this temporary tent of meeting, it is implicit that it is still outside the camp since nothing had been changed since then.

This is a problem left open by Exodus.

However, in the book of Numbers, this had changed.

The second problem that Leviticus must address is the function of the Tabernacle as the tent of meeting.

This too had been promised previously.

Here God promises to meet with Moses specifically, but He also promises to meet with all Israel in the tent of meeting.

However, the conclusion to the Book of Exodus further shows that this is not the case.

Not even Moses can enter the tent under these circumstances.

However, once again, in Numbers we see this reversed.

What happens between these concluding events of Exodus and the introductory events of Numbers?

The book of Leviticus.

Leviticus must account for the difference in these changes.

II.

The Underlying Problems that Leviticus Must Solve

However, these two differences are merely the external representation of a much deeper problem.

Why is it that God cannot dwell in their midst nor can He meet with His people?

Our primary passage tells us: Yahweh is Holy, and the people are sinful.

Unless something changes, His wrath will consume them.

Only shortly after our passage, God describes part of what His holy character encompasses.

This passage shows forth the wonderful mercy of God, but it leaves us with something that should make our hearts drop.

He will by no means clear the guilty.

These are the fundamental problems that must be dealt with, and these are the fundamental problems of humanity.

God cannot become less holy nor more tolerant of sin, and in truth, such a thing would be terrifying to contemplate.

No, instead, the people must face two changes: their sin must be dealt with, and they must become holy.

The guilty must be made innocent, and more than that, they must reflect the character of their God.

III.

How Leviticus Solves These Problems

Leviticus begins to help us to understand the solution to these problems.

However, it being a part of the Old Covenant, it does not deal with it directly but rather points to that which does.

Leviticus like much of the Old Testament is filled with what theologians call “types.”

Types are anticipations of something greater that will come that will do in whole what the type only does in part.

They are a sign that points to a greater thing signified.

When we look at Leviticus, it may be hard to see these things, but they point to their realization in the New Covenant.

The guilt of sin must be dealt with - the guilty made innocent.

To do this, the guilt must be transferred to a spotless substitute who will bear the penalty in place of the guilty.

In Leviticus this is typified by sacrifices.

A spotless intermediary must offer the sacrifice on behalf of the guilty.

In Leviticus, this is typified by the priesthood.

The people must learn to distinguish between the clean and unclean, the holy and the common.

They must be made holy through the seasons and festivals that sanctify them by fellowship with the Lord their God.

I’ve begun to realize that the greatest commentary on Leviticus is the Book of Hebrews.

Regarding these types it says,

Here is how Leviticus solves the problem posed by Exodus: it points us to the perfect salvific work of Jesus Christ, who is both sacrifice and priest.

It is He who writes upon the hearts of those whom He is sanctifying the principles and precepts by which we may be made holy.

Hebrews 8:10–11 (ESV)

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:

I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

Perhaps more clearly than any Old Testament book, Leviticus points gloriously and unequivocally to Christ and His glorious work of redemption.

By what then were the saints of the Old Covenant redeemed?

Was it by the sacrificial system laid out in Leviticus?

No, rather they were saved by faith in what it pointed towards.

Instead, in Christ they were counted righteous and made holy.

Application

Now, you may be thinking, “That’s great.