Welcome to Leviticus
Well, Cities Church, welcome to the Book of Leviticus. My goal this morning is to simply introduce this book to you, but before I do that, I wanna tell you three reasons why we are preaching this book. But then before that, I’d like to pray again and ask God’s blessing on this series.
Father in heaven, thank you for your church universal — for all Christians at all times and places whom you have saved by your grace in Christ; and thank you, Father, for your church local — for the brothers and sisters of this time and at this place. Thank you for your Word that has created us and brought us together.
We confess that we are here today because of you, and in this moment, by your grace, we seek to be humbled before your Word. Father, please open our hearts to receive the good you intend for us, both for today and over the next several weeks as we sit under the Book of Leviticus. Bless us, we ask, for your glory, in Jesus’s name, amen.
Why Leviticus?
So why are we preaching Leviticus?
I have three reasons, and if you’ve been part of Cities for a while, this will probably make sense to you, but if you’re a guest with us, or if you’re newer around here, I hope this will be helpful in telling you a little bit more about our church.
We are preaching Leviticus because…
1) Your pastors are committed to preaching “the whole counsel of God” (and not just the parts that fit well on coffee mugs or on house decor from Hobby Lobby).
Now when I say that phrase “the whole counsel of God” it comes from the apostle Paul in Acts Chapter 20. Paul had served at the church in Ephesus for three years, but he was preparing to leave, so he called together the elders of the church, to talk to them, and part of what he said, in describing his own ministry to them, was that
“I did not shrink back in declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”
Paul means that he didn’t hold back any biblical truth from the Ephesian church. He gave them everything that is there. And I believe Paul is a model for pastors.
We are to imitate him in this way, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we expound every single verse of the entire Bible, but it does mean that we give the full picture of the Bible; we preach every part of Scripture; we want the whole hog of what God has said to us! Everything that God has said, we want to hear it and know it.
Because of that commitment, it’s been our practice since the start to alternate back and forth between preaching an Old Testament book and then a New Testament book. In the Fall of 2015 we preached through the Minor Prophets; and then in the Fall of 2016, we started in the Book of Genesis, and since then we’ve spent some part of the last six years working through the first five books of the Old Testament, which is called the Pentateuch (or the Torah). And last year we finished Exodus, and Leviticus comes after Exodus, and so here we are, by God’s grace.
Leviticus is part of the whole counsel of God … including several verses that you’re never going to see decorating someone’s house. … such as Leviticus Chapter 3, verse 9, which says:
"Then from the sacrifice of the peace offering he shall offer as a food offering to Yahweh its fat; he shall remove the whole fat tail, cut off close to the backbone, and the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys."
These are the instructions for how the priest is to offer a lamb as a peace offering. This is Leviticus 3:9 — and my guess is that none of you claim this as your “life verse”?
This is not a very popular part of Scripture, and yet, this something we can’t ignore. There’s a reason behind everything that is said here. All of these details mean something, and, at the very least, verses like this in Leviticus 3:9 remind us that when we read the Bible we are reading primary source material.
Some of you have probably heard that phrase before, this idea of a “primary source.” It’s a research term, and it’s used for all kinds of research, but I’m focusing on the ‘field’ of ancient literature. In that field, there are basically two types of books in the world: there are books about books (or, books that interpret other books) and then there are books themselves (or, the primary sources).
And well when we read the Bible, we are reading the book itself. It’s the primary source. Which means, for the people who made these sacrifices, this is the book they read!
We’re not reading a “book about the book they used for the sacrificial system,” but we’re reading the actual thing itself. This is it!
We are reading the authoritative instructions that God gave Israel and the Levites — and look, they needed to know how to cut the lamb and what to do with the kidneys, and so this book tells them!
And yes, of course, it’s foreign to us. Yes, it’s weird. But that’s actually good for us because it reminds us that the Bible is not meant to be a feel-good therapeutic device, but it’s the word of God that tells us an ancient story … of which we’re a part.
The Bible is our book — so have your favorite verses and hang up those verses in your house and post those verses on your Instagram — that’s all great. But remember that this Book and its whole counsel is bigger than us. Leviticus makes that clear, and so that’s one reason we’re preaching it.
2) The Book of Leviticus is indispensable background to the meaning of the gospel.
There are several concepts fundamental to the gospel that we just assume. We know what they are because they’re so central to the gospel, but we seldom stop to wonder where they came from. Concepts like sacrifice, substitution, forgiveness, acceptance — these are all concepts that define the gospel, and they’re all concepts established in Book of Leviticus!
And when the New Testament uses these concepts, the New Testament has their Leviticus meaning in mind. In fact, one commentator said that the Book of Leviticus is “the basis of Christian faith and doctrine” and the New Testament book like Hebrews, for example, is basically a commentary on Leviticus! We simply could not understand the person and work of Jesus without Leviticus. Because everything the New Testament writers say about Jesus they say with Leviticus in mind!
So throughout this series, if you know the gospel, you’re probably going to realize that you know more about Leviticus than maybe you thought.
But then, also, after we really engage Leviticus, I believe it will help see the cross in more vivid color. It’s even possible that we might find that before understanding Leviticus we’ve only been seeing the gospel in black and white. What if that were so? Or what if this whole time the gospel is actually a 3D movie but we’ve been watching it without 3D glasses?
I think that’s possible! I think we’re about to put on some 3D glasses!
We’re preaching Leviticus because …
3) We as a church want to go deeper in our experience of life with God, which comes by our going deeper into the truth of God.
There is more for us in the Christian life.
There’s more maturity in Christ.
There’s more assurance of faith.
There’s more nearness we can experience with God.
There’s more of the Spirit’s power.
God has more for us — but none of it will come without us knowing more about God. And when I say “know” I don’t mean “know” as in just filling our heads with information, but I mean know as in know with supernatural faith. I’m talking about the kind of knowing that transforms your life. I mean the kind of knowing that might not be realized except through suffering.
As many of you have heard, last Sunday afternoon, after a five-year battle with cancer, Jen Jacobs finished her race and entered into the joy of her Master. Jen and her husband, Josh, were founding members of our church and we love their family.
Several weeks ago the Jacobs hosted some friends at their home to mark the five-year anniversary of Jen’s diagnosis, and some women of our church were there, and something that Josh said at that gathering was reported back to me, and I got permission to share it with you. At one point, when everyone was together for prayer, Josh said to them,
“Everything we have learned and read and believed and been told about Jesus has been true. All of it.”
It should be our dream in life to say that.
See, Josh knew truth about Jesus. He knew things! He knew them — and then God called his family down a path where what he knew went deeper. The Jacobs could not walk the path if they didn’t know the truth, and they could not know the truth more deeply if they did not walk the path. And so our late sister, Jen, and our brother, Josh, are models for us that what we know about God matters. It really matters.
And we need to know more; we need to go deeper … so that we can be ready for whatever path God might call us down — and so that we might be able to say what Josh said. It’s all true. All of it.
That’s why we’re preaching Leviticus. Because we need more of God. We need to know more of God. And this book will help us.
So those are three reasons why we’re preaching it. And there’s a lot here to pray about and expect in the coming weeks, and I hope you’ll stick with us.
But for now, for the rest of our time this morning, I want to mention what I think are the three biggest themes in Leviticus, and I say all of them by way of introduction. We’re gonna see these themes on every page, but I want to slow down and focus on them as an introduction, because we can’t afford to take these for granted. The first theme is God himself.
Three Major Themes
1) Holy God
Look at Leviticus Chapter 1, verse 1 again:
"Yahweh called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting"
This is a simple verse, but there’s a lot behind this. Remember before we read verse 1, we’re bringing all of Genesis and Exodus with us, and by now there are at least two things we’ve learned about God.
First, we’ve learned that God is Yahweh, the sovereign Creator of all things.
We see in Genesis that in the beginning was God, and everything else that is here is here because of him. God spoke the world and every living thing into existence with his words — the sun, the moon, the stars, ants, ladybugs, kangaroos — God created it all.
And then in the Book of Exodus, at the the Burning Bush, when God called Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, Moses wants to know God’s name.
Remember Moses said that when he speaks to the people on behalf of God, they’re going to ask him about God. They’re going to want to know God’s name. So Moses asked God: What do I say? Exodus 3:14,
“God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’”
Which means God is saying that he is irreducibly himself. He is saying that he exists outside of our pre-conceived categories. He is subject to no one. His name is: I Am who I Am. I Will Be who I Will Be. There is no other way to define Me other than in terms of Myself. I Am.
Which is where the name Yahweh comes from. Yahweh is the self-determining one. He’s wholly beyond the reach of any comparison or class. Yahweh is Creator of all things and he’s absolutely sovereign. We learn this in Genesis and Exodus.
And second, we learn that God has called a people to himself.
The pinnacle of God’s creation was Adam and Eve. God created humans to image him. Adam and Eve were worshiping and enjoying God in his presence in the Garden of Eden, and then as they imaged him, and as they were fruitful and multiplying, they were to extend Eden out into the rest of the whole world, so that, eventually, the earth would be filled with the knowledge of God’s glory as the waters cover the sea.
But through sin, this was lost. Rather than Adam and Eve extend the Garden, they were exiled from the Garden and no longer close to God — but God made a promise to send a Redeemer. There would be a son, a child, born of a woman, to redeem humanity from sin. And that son would come through a flesh and blood family tree, through the line of Abraham.
So God called Abraham and promised him, Genesis 12:3, through your offspring, all the families of the earth will be blessed. And this promise went from Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to the entire people of Israel who ended up enslaved in Egypt. But God called Moses to set his people free. And in this rescue mission, Yahweh says, Exodus Chapter 6,
"… I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians."
You hear that? God will have a people. They will be his people; he will be their God. And that was the point of the exodus. Through amazing signs and wonders God showcased his power over the world he created and he set his people free, and in Exodus 19, he comes down on Mount Sinai, and calls his people to himself, to have fellowship with him. He says,
“you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples … 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
If they could just obey God’s voice.
Can they do what God says, and in Exodus 19, when the trumpet blasts, can come up the mountain where God is? Can it be like the Garden again?
No, because the people were too afraid. They lacked faith. So they wanted Moses to stand in for them. And Moses did, and then came the law. Which was only by God’s grace. The people couldn’t be in God’s presence like in the Garden, so they needed a kind of buffer, and so God designed it.
This is all in Genesis and Exodus, and what we learn, by the time we get to Leviticus, is that God, Yahweh, the sovereign Creator of all things, is inexhaustibly powerful. There is no one like him. He doesn’t depend on anything to be who he is, but instead all things are dependent upon him. God is holy.
And God’s holiness means he is transcendently separate from everything else, but that doesn’t mean that he is distant and removed. He’s not. Because there’s this people. He has a people. He wants a people. And what we see over and over again, in God’s revelation of himself, is that he is moving toward people. He is the Holy One in your midst.
He’s the Holy God who has a people.
That’s another theme in Leviticus. It’s that there’s a people, but they’re a sinful people.
2) Sinful People
Now we know that sin is a problem as soon as Genesis 3. We see this in the days of Noah. We see it in the story of Jacob and his sons. We see this in the Israel’s grumbling, even after Yahweh rescued them from Egypt. Sin is a problem, but within the Pentateuch, the most vivid example of human sin is in Exodus 32, in the story of the golden calf.
Remember, Yahweh had invited the people up the mountain, to have fellowship with him, but they were too afraid. They wanted Moses to mediate. And so God, in his kindness, designed a whole plan for ongoing mediation. God would dwell among his people through the Ark of Covenant, which would be housed in the Most Holy Place, which was separated by the Holy Place by a veil, which was all part of the larger structure called the tabernacle. And the tabernacle would be administered by priests, who mediated the presence of God. This is how Yahweh, the Holy One, would be with his people. This is a way forward. And Yahweh is telling Moses all of this on Mount Sinai.
But here’s the thing: at the same time that Yahweh is telling Moses all of this up on the mountain, down below, Aaron and the people of Israel make for themselves a golden calf to worship in the place of Yahweh. They bring all their gold together, and they make a statute baby cow, and they say, “This is our God.”
It’s the worst moment in the Old Testament. Because here we see that the people of Israel are not just afraid; they don’t just lack faith; but they are bent away from Yahweh. They are a stiff-necked people. They have rocks for hearts. They are rebellious and toxic. We finish the Book of Exodus with this note. And so based upon what we know from Genesis and Exodus, now there’s this question:
How can Yahweh, the sovereign Creator of all things who is holy — how can this holy God be near and accessible to this kind of sinful people?
How will this work? How can it work?
That’s the question Genesis and Exodus leaves us with, and the Book of Leviticus raises its hand!
And that brings us to the third and final theme: the theme of Substitutionary Sacrifice.
3) Substitutionary Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the most obvious theme in Leviticus. It’s absolutely undeniable, but not just as a theme, but it’s actually the center of the book in terms of the structure. This is too fascinating not to mention, so back up for a minute and remember the five books of the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These five books form a chiasm, which we’ve talked about before.
Genesis and Deuteronomy are the bookends, and guess what — they’re similar. They both end the same way. Genesis ends with Jacob, on his deathbed, making a speech to his sons and blessing them. Deuteronomy ends with Moses, on his deathbed, making a speech to the tribes of Israel and blessing them. The bookends similar, and then the two books inside the bookends are Exodus and Numbers, and guess what — they’re also similar.
Exodus is about the people being set free from Egypt, coming to Mount Sinai, and building the tabernacle. Numbers is about the people leaving the Mount Sinai and preparing to move the tabernacle (and there are all kinds of other parallels and similarities).
So Genesis and Deuteronomy are the same; Exodus and Numbers are the same; and that leaves Leviticus right in the middle — which is different from the rest. It’s this bloody book full of sacrifices.
And then, within Leviticus there are three major parts:
there’s the first part, Chapters 1–7 which answers the question: How can we draw near to God?
Then there’s the third part, Chapters 17–27 which answers the question: How can we stay near to God?
And that leaves the central part of Leviticus, Chapter 8–16, which answers the question: How can we be made pure before God?
And the culmination of that question is answered in Chapter 16, which is the Day of Atonement. And that was the big sacrifice of all sacrifices, and it’s the direct center of the book.
Which means: the center of the center of the center — the heart of the Pentateuch — is sacrifice. It’s atonement.
It’s the one day of a year when all the sins of the people, and all the pollution from those sins, is atoned for and removed by the death of a substitute.
So that big question from Genesis and Exodus: How can this holy God be near and accessible to this sinful people?
Leviticus answers that question and says: Somebody has to die in your place.
It’s amazing.
And everything we read about sacrifice in the New Testament takes its cues from Leviticus.
And there’s more I wanna say about this, and more we will say, but not yet. This is just an Introduction. Keep in mind these three themes: holy God; sinful people; substitutionary sacrifice.
And in this moment, let’s come to this Table.
The Table
Something you already know, and something you’re gonna hear us say a lot, and hopefully something we will show you, is that the Book of Leviticus points to Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the sacrifice who died in our place — the sacrifice of all sacrifices — and that’s what we remember and celebrate in this meal. And I do think that this meal will take on deeper meaning for us over the next several weeks, because what we do here is very Levitical.
The bread represents the broken body of Jesus; and the cup represents his shed blood. And when we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are saying that we belong to Jesus. We trust him and we have fellowship with him.
And so if you do, if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, if Jesus is your hope, I invite you to eat and drink with us, and give him thanks!
His body is the true bread. Let us serve you.
