Not a Savage Party...

Leviticus 22:26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “When an ox or sheep or goat is born, it shall remain seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on it shall be acceptable as a food offering to the Lord. 28 But you shall not kill an ox or a sheep and her young in one day. 29 And when you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, you shall sacrifice it so that you may be accepted. 30 It shall be eaten on the same day; you shall leave none of it until morning: I am the Lord.

As we have seen repeatedly, life in Israel was to be far different than life had been in Egypt or in the land of Canaan they were inheriting.  Many of God's laws on purity had to do with making that distinction and with the sanctify of and respect for human life.  Pagan sacrifice and fertility rites often violated that. They were not worship like God is to be worshipped, but reckless and ruthless perversions involving abuse and disrespect.  When sacrifice was conducted in Israel the aftermath was to be a purity that prevailed.

...That You Should Be Mine

Leviticus 20: 22 “You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them. 24 But I have said to you, ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. 25 You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. 26 You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.

After listing all the penalties for breaking His laws, God says "Look, this is all about your being My people.  You represent Me to the world.  I'm cleaning out this land for you. Keep it clean for Me.  Keep your lives clean for Me." This defines our purpose in living. He has made a place for us and a purpose for us and purity for us.  We do this in response to what He has done for us.  It is part of the privilege of being His.

That Fruit Thing Sounds Nutty?

Leviticus 19:23 “When you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, then you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden to you; it must not be eaten. 24 And in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat of its fruit, to increase its yield for you: I am the Lord your God. 26 “You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. 27 You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.

At first glance this paragraph on fruit trees sounds strange, until you put it in context. Besides the following verses about eating blood and cutting oneself, this passage is surrounded by prohibitions against other practices involved in idol worship: immorality, prostitution, calling up the dead, etc. It was all about cleansing the land of the sins of the past and setting a new course distinguished from the way things had been.  There is a consistent pattern of cleansing, consecration, and then enjoying the fruits of the land. It sounds strange, but God has a reason.

Moral Purity

Leviticus 18:24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.

Just as certain animals were deemed clean or unclean according to their use in pagan worship, there were sexual practices which had been a part of the pagan peoples who had inhabited the promised land prior to the entrance of Israel. This chapter talks about adultery, incest, bestiality, homosexuality, and other sexual perversions which were (and are) not to be practiced.  As usual, God has a picturesque way of telling what will happen when these practices are welcomed: they would be "vomited out" of the land. May we heed this warning in our own culture.

Total Cleansing

 Leviticus 16:23 “Then Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting and shall take off the linen garments that he put on when he went into the Holy Place and shall leave them there. 24 And he shall bathe his body in water in a holy place and put on his garments and come out and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people. 25 And the fat of the sin offering he shall burn on the altar. 26 And he who lets the goat go to Azazel shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. 27 And the bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the Holy Place, shall be carried outside the camp. Their skin and their flesh and their dung shall be burned up with fire. 28 And he who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp.

The procedures for offerings on the Day of Atonement are fascinating.  After bringing sin offerings for himself, he then would bring sin and guilt offerings for the people. One goat was a consumed offering and the other sent out of the camp with the guilt of the people. Repeated washings and clean clothes were involved and some even had to be burned. The picture was that there was to be no sin left among them. But there was. They had to do it every year. The blood was insufficient, the cleansing incomplete.  Christ took care of these offerings and cleansings once for all. "Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing flood?"

Prolonged Issues...

Leviticus 15:25 “If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean. 26 Every bed on which she lies, all the days of her discharge, shall be to her as the bed of her impurity. And everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanness of her menstrual impurity. 27 And whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. 28 But if she is cleansed of her discharge, she shall count for herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean. 29 And on the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and bring them to the priest, to the entrance of the tent of meeting. 30 And the priest shall use one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her before the Lord for her unclean discharge.

This is the fourth section of this chapter, which deals with both male and female discharges. God, through Moses, made it clear that natural normal cyclical discharges were not a problem; there was no cleansing needed for them. What he was addressing was prolonged, abnormal issues.  Flash forward to when Jesus dealt with the woman who had a chronic issue of blood, which had haunted her for years, which he healed. Jesus also said it is not what goes into the body, but what comes out which is a problem. What God is looking for is purity and humility of our hearts before Him. 

Not Hopeless after All!

Leviticus 14: 24 And the priest shall take the lamb of the guilt offering and the log of oil, and the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the Lord. 25 And he shall kill the lamb of the guilt offering. And the priest shall take some of the blood of the guilt offering and put it on the lobe of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. 26 And the priest shall pour some of the oil into the palm of his own left hand, 27 and shall sprinkle with his right finger some of the oil that is in his left hand seven times before the Lord. 28 And the priest shall put some of the oil that is in his hand on the lobe of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed and on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot, in the place where the blood of the guilt offering was put. 29 And the rest of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall put on the head of him who is to be cleansed, to make atonement for him before the Lord. 

This chapter follows yesterday's discussion of leprosy and other skin conditions. There was a clear path to being declared clean, which very much parallels that of sanctifying the priests. You couldn't get any more "holy" than that.  So often we come to see people as hopeless, when God clearly says: "There is a way," and that way is also clear: Christ can do it. May we believe and act accordingly.