David Pawson - Leviticus Pt1

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THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 25.9.26 BY JOHN DUNNING.

JESUS IN O.T. ‘SHADOWS’ - (Leviticus Pt 1)

WEEKEND THOUGHTS

PROLOGUE

All Christians know the story off by heart of the passion of Christ. But have we ever stopped to consider the meaning of the Temple curtain being torn in two… In summary, it means you and I no longer are under the 613 laws of Moses in order to be in a covenant relationship with God. At the moment Jesus died He said “It is finished” and the Temple Curtain was torn in two from the top down, by God. That curtain was a very thick heavy curtain. That meaning is why at the Last Supper, Jesus said He was bringing in a New Covenant. 

INTRODUCTION

Christians almost never read Leviticus now because it is all about the law of Moses. But, that is why Synagogues still read it right through every year. It tells of the law we would still be under if Jesus hadn’t established the New Covenant. For the practicing Jew, obedience to the Law of Moses is still critical for their “Old Covenant” faith. Leviticus teaches them what kind of worship God told Moses to teach the Israelites to have in the Old Testament.

But we can still learn from it, as the principle of holiness still applies today if we want to worship God in a way that is acceptable to Him. 

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MONDAY’s THOUGHTS

“SCHOOLING”

Forgiveness back then was quite a process involving animal sacrifice, but it did at least teach the seriousness of sin;- (compare Romans 6:23 which says “The wages of sin is death”). The people are being taught that sin is a killer, so sin must not be taken lightly. When God chose to intervene to make forgiveness possible, it cost the life of Jesus the Christ. Forgiveness was an expensive gift for God to give us. 

Now, some may think that because we didn’t pay for our forgiveness then it must be free. Well, it is only free for us if we are repentant, but in fact, forgiving us cost Jesus His life. So is there any reason why Leviticus should be read now by Christians? Well, Leviticus is the one book that enables us to understand the book of Hebrews! Because of that, Leviticus and Hebrews go together as a “pair”, like two sides of a coin. The writer of the book of “Hebrews” calls the law of Moses being delivered in Leviticus, a ‘shadow of the good things to come’. We have been talking a lot about “Shadows” in the Old Testament. The book of Hebrews explains more about that. For example, we learn from the book of Hebrews in chapter 10 that there is to be no more sacrificing. That was hard for the Jewish religious leaders to swallow. It only stopped in AD 70 when the Temple was demolished, and sacrificing animals cannot be restarted because a mosque on the Temple Mount prevents it! For us now of course, we know that Jesus said, “No man comes to the Father except through Me”. 

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TUESDAY’s THOUGHTS

LEVITICUS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT!

Aaron’s sons in Leviticus 10:1-3 dropped dead when they were not being obedient priests. Priests don’t drop dead now when they are sinful because God isn’t involved in what they are doing anyway, as that route is closed off now. If God was in it, unholy priests would drop dead like Aaron’s sons when they pretend to re-sacrifice Jesus' body. However, remember that Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11 dropped dead when they lied to the Holy Spirit and Peter, – which tells us that God was in that meeting, as the unclean must never come into contact with the holy. It is Hebrews we can thank for teaching us that the system of using religion as a way to get forgiveness is man made religion. Forgiveness cannot come on that “lay-by” way any more, and Hebrews explains why. 

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The old way of doing things is no longer valid, yet even some churches pretend they are turning the wafer and wine into the body and blood of Jesus at a Mass, pretending they are re-sacrificing Jesus’ body and blood over and over and over again, which we know it is wrong, because Hebrews says there is no more sacrificing. Although on the one hand we learn in Leviticus a system of sacrificing was created for forgiveness, Hebrews tells us that it has all been done away with. What more, when Jesus was crucified, God ripped down the temple curtain to declare that system abolished.

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WEDNESDAY’s THOUGHTS

GOD’S PROVISION…

Before Jesus came into the world, the teaching from Leviticus was all they had to work with regarding what they were required to do in order to be in relationship with God. That old sacrificial system was what American shops call a “lay by”, where something is not yet paid for, but it is being held on one side for you, until payment is received. Now in the case of sin, it was because God knew He would be paying for sin later, that He accepted this “shadow” (as Hebrews calls it), of what was to come. Hebrews tells us that God has paid in full for our sin, there is no more need for the old “lay by” system. No more re-sacrificing. “It is finished”, as Jesus said… done, done, done, done. I once met a badly taught Christian who boasted that he had been circumcised. I told him that Paul taught that those that did that put themselves under the Old Testament curse that went with the law of  Moses. He walked away. Jesus said from the cross as He died, “It is finished”,  about the old covenant. 

What we do need to learn from Leviticus is the holiness of God. God will not come near whoever is unclean, as we must be forgiven first, and then live life His way, with the help of His Holy Spirit, (Acts 2:38), and that’s the deal, which hasn’t changed. 

I can’t copy Hebrews 10 in the space available so you’ll have to read it for yourself. In addition, in 1 Peter 2:5, Peter teaches the “Elect”, that all believers are priests because they pray for others. So if you are a disciple of Jesus, you too are a priest in the New Testament sense of the word, but not the Old Testament sense. 

Every year in Israel there is a “Feast of Booths”, immediately after the Feast of Tabernacles, remembering the time the people lived in the desert, and the people put up a temporary structure to remind them of their humble beginnings. The Jews remember that God fed them and protected them. It helps them to remember where they came from and what they owe to God. Perhaps that humility is something we can learn of next!

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THURSDAY THOUGHTS

HUMILITY

While the Israelites were camped out in the desert wondering what to do next, God used that time to take them to school and teach them how to live life God’s way. Leviticus is that account of the laws that they had to live by, right down to the last detail, and it shows us where we have come from in our faith in God who is holy.

There are more of the spoken words of God in this book than in any other book in the Bible. The reason we find it boring is because we can’t relate to it now, but think of it like parents doing “home-schooling”. That picture might help us see what was happened to the people who had been brought up in Egypt, where there were many idols, and the people needed to re-learn what the Patriarchs knew, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, and I might add, to God’s servant, “Job” as well, who knew a lot about God even though he lived well before Moses, somewhere around Abraham’s era. 

Paul tells us in Romans that everyone has some knowledge about God based on creation, and with a moral compass from a built-in conscience. 

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One example that comes to mind is that of a brother of my grandfather. Upon leaving school, the grandfather on my father’s side, skipped higher education and went out to work because his parents could not afford to put both sons through college. My grandfather helped his father pay to send the first born to go to theological college…

Decades later my grandfather was being made the mayor of a town in southern England, and there was a great celebratory meal. My grandfather invited his brother to say “grace” before the meal started… and all his brother could do was to show off the Latin he had learned at college. Showing off his education helped no-one look to their Father in heaven. I felt for my grandfather who we had come to celebrate, and who had enabled his brother’s higher education.

At the end of my grandfather’s life he was in a hospice when I visited him. As I entered the door he was singing the Hallelujah chorus, and when he saw me he said, “I’m ready to go”.

Next week when we look at the “scapegoat” in Leviticus, as a picture of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Do share this study with your friends… 

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

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PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

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