INTRODUCTORY
"And the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the
tent of meeting."- Lev 1:1
PERHAPS no book in the Bible presents to the ordinary reader so many
and peculiar difficulties as the book of Leviticus. Even of those
who devoutly believe, as they were taught in their childhood, that,
like all the other books contained in the Holy Scriptures, it is to
be received throughout with unquestioning faith as the very Word of
God, a large number will frankly own in a discouraged way that this
is with them merely a matter of belief, which their personal
experience in reading the book has for the most part failed to
sustain; and that for them so to see through symbol and ritual as to
get much spiritual profit from such reading has been quite
impossible.
A larger class, while by no means denying or doubting the original
Divine authority of this book, yet suppose that the elaborate ritual
of the Levitical law, with its multiplied, minute prescriptions
regarding matters religious and secular, since the Mosaic
dispensation has now long passed away, neither has nor can have any
living relation to present day questions of Christian belief and
practice; and so, under this impression, they very naturally trouble
themselves little with a book which, if they are right, can now only
be of special interest to the religious antiquarian.
Others, again, while sharing this feeling, also confess to a great
difficulty which they feel in believing that many of the commands of
this law can ever have been really given by inspiration from God.
The extreme severity of some of the laws, and what seems to them to
be the arbitrary and even puerile character of other prescriptions,
appear to them to be irreconcilable, in the one case, with the
mercy, in the other, with the dignity and majesty, of the Divine
Being.
With a smaller, but, it is to be feared, an increasing number, this
feeling, either of indifference or of doubt, regarding the book of
Leviticus, is further strengthened by their knowledge of the fact
that in our day its Mosaic origin and inspired authority are
strenuously denied by a large number of eminent scholars, upon
grounds which they claim to be strictly scientific. And if such
Christians do not know enough to decide for themselves on its merits
the question thus raised, they at least know enough to have a very
uncomfortable doubt whether an intelligent Christian has any longer
a right to regard the book as in any true sense the Word of God; and
- what is still more serious-they feel that the question is of such
a nature that it is impossible for anyone who is not a specialist in
Hebrew and the higher criticism to reach any well-grounded and
settled conviction, one way or the other, on the subject. Such
persons, of course, have little to do with this book. If the Word of
God is indeed there, it cannot reach them.
With such mental conditions so widely prevailing, some words
regarding the origin, authority, purpose, and use of this book of
Leviticus seem to be a necessary preliminary to its profitable
exposition.
THE ORIGIN AND AUTHORITY
OF LEVITICUS
As to the origin and authority of this book, the first verse
presents a very formal and explicit statement: "The Lord called unto
Moses, and spake unto him." These words evidently contain by
necessary implication two affirmations: first, that the legislation
which immediately follows is of Mosaic origin: "The Lord spake unto
Moses"; and secondly, that it was not the product merely of the mind
of Moses, but came to him, in the first instance, as a revelation
from Jehovah: "Jehovah spake unto Moses." And although it is quite
true that the words in this first verse strictly refer only to that
section of the book which immediately follows, yet, inasmuch as the
same or a like formula is used repeatedly before successive
sections, -in all, no less than fifty-six times in the twenty-seven
chapters, -these words may with perfect fairness be regarded as
expressing a claim respecting these two points, which covers the
entire book.
We must not, indeed, put more into these words than is truly there.
They simply and only declare the Mosaic origin and the inspired
authority of the legislation which the book contains. They say
nothing as to whether or not Moses wrote every word of this book
himself; or whether the Spirit of God directed and inspired other
persons, in Moses’ time or afterward, to commit this Mosaic law to
writing. They give us no hint as to when the various sections which
make up the book were combined into their present literary form,
whether by Moses himself, as is the traditional view, or by men of
God in a later day. As to these and other matters of secondary
importance which might be named, the book records no statement. The
words used in the text, and similar expressions used elsewhere,
simply and only declare the legislation to be of Mosaic origin and
of inspired authority. Only, be it observed, so much as this they do
affirm in the most direct and uncompromising manner.
It is of great importance to note all this: for in the heat of
theological discussion the issue is too often misapprehended on both
sides. The real question, and, as everyone knows, the burning
Biblical question of the day, is precisely this, whether the claim
this book contains, thus exactly defined, is true or false.
A certain school of critics, comprising many of the greatest
learning, and of undoubted honesty of intention, assures the Church
and the world that a strictly scientific criticism compels one to
the conclusion that this claim, even as thus sharply limited and
defined, is, to use plain words, not true; that an enlightened
scholarship must acknowledge that Moses had little or nothing to do
with what we find in this book; that, in fact, it did not originate
till nearly a thousand years later, when, after the Babylonian
captivity, certain Jewish priests, desirous of magnifying their
authority with the people, fell on the happy expedient of writing
this book of Leviticus, together with certain other parts of the
Pentateuch, and then, to give the work a prestige and authority
which on its own merits or over their own names it could not have
had, delivered it to their countrymen as nearly a thousand years
old, the work of their great lawgiver. And, strangest of all, they
not only did this, but were so successful in imposing this forgery
upon the whole nation that history records not even an expressed
suspicion of a single person, until modern times, of its non-Mosaic
origin; that is, they succeeded in persuading the whole people of
Israel that a law which they had themselves just promulgated had
been in existence among them for nearly ten centuries, the very work
of Moses, when, in reality, it was quite a new thing.
Astonishing and even incredible as all this may seem to the
uninitiated, substantially this theory is held by many of the
Biblical scholars of our day as presenting the essential facts of
the case; and the discovery of these supposed facts we are called
upon to admire as one of the chief literary triumphs of modern
critical scholarship!
Now the average Christian, whether minister or layman, though
intelligent enough in ordinary matters of human knowledge, or even a
well-educated man, is not, and cannot be, a specialist in Hebrew and
in the higher criticism. What is he then to do when such a theory is
presented to him as endorsed by scholars of the highest ability and
the most extensive learning? Must we, then, all learn Hebrew and
study this higher criticism before we can be permitted to have any
well-justified and decided opinion whether this book, this law of
Leviticus, be the Word of God or a forgery? We think not. There are
certain considerations, quite level to the understanding of
everyone; certain facts, which are accepted as such by the most
eminent scholars, which ought to be quite sufficient for the
maintenance and the abundant confirmation of our faith in this book
of Leviticus as the very Word of God to Moses.
In the first place, it is to be observed that if any theory which
denies the Mosaic origin and the inspired authority of this book be
true, then the fifty-six assertions of such origin and authority
which the book contains are unqualifiedly false. Further, however
any may seek to disguise the issue with words, if in fact this
Levitical ritual and code of laws came into existence only after the
Babylonian captivity and in the way suggested, then the book of
Leviticus can by no possibility be the Word of God in any sense, but
is a forgery and a fraud. Surely this needs no demonstration. "The
Lord spake unto Moses," reads, for instance, this first verse; "The
Lord did not speak these things unto Moses," answer these critics;
"they were invented by certain unscrupulous priests centuries
afterwards." Such is the unavoidable issue.
Now who shall arbitrate in these matters? who shall settle these
questions for the great multitude of believers who know nothing of
Hebrew criticism, and who, although they may not well understand
much that is in this book, have yet hitherto accepted it with
reverent faith as being what it professes to be, the very Word of
God through Moses? To whom, indeed, can we refer such a question as
this for decision but to Jesus Christ of Nazareth, our Lord and
Saviour, confessed of all believers to be in verity the
only-begotten Son of God from the bosom of the Father? For He
declared that "the Father showed unto Him," the Son, "all things
that He Himself did"; He will therefore be sure to know the truth of
this matter, sure to know the Word of His Father from the word of
man, if He will but speak.
And He has spoken on this matter, He, the Son of God. What was the
common belief of the Jews in the time of our Lord as to the Mosaic
origin and Divine authority of this book, as of all the Pentateuch,
everyone knows. Not a living man disputes the statement made by a
recent writer on this subject, that "previous to the Christian era,
there are no traces of a second opinion" on this question; the book
"was universally ascribed to Moses." Now, that Jesus Christ shared
and repeatedly endorsed this belief of His contemporaries should be
perfectly clear to any ordinary reader of the Gospels.
The facts as to His testimony, in brief, are these. As to the
Pentateuch in general, He called it {Luk 24:44} "the law of Moses";
and, as regards its authority, He declared it to be such that "till
heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise
pass away from the law, till all be fulfilled". {Mat 5:18} Could
this be truly said of this book of Leviticus, which is undoubtedly
included in this term, "the law," if it were not the Word of God,
but a forgery, so that its fifty-six affirmations of its Mosaic
origin and inspired authority were false? Again, Christ declared
that Moses in his "writings" wrote of Him, -a statement, which, it
should be observed, imputes to Moses foreknowledge, and therefore
supernatural inspiration; and further said that faith in Himself was
so connected with faith in Moses, that if the Jews had believed
Moses, they would have also believed Him. {Joh 5:46-47} Is it
conceivable that Christ should have spoken thus, if the "writings"
referred to had been forgeries?
But not only did our Lord thus endorse the Pentateuch in general,
but also, on several occasions, the Mosaic origin and inspired
authority of Leviticus in particular. Thus, when He healed the
lepers {Mat 8:4} He sent them to the priests on the ground that
Moses had commanded this in such cases. But such a command is found
only in this book of Leviticus. {Lev 14:3-10} Again, in justifying
His disciples for plucking the ears of corn on the Sabbath day, He
adduces the example of David, who ate the shew bread when he was a
hungered, "which was not lawful for him to eat, but only for the
priests"; {Mat 12:4} thus referring to a law which is only found in
Leviticus. {Lev 24:9} But the citation was only pertinent on the
assumption that He regarded the prohibition of the shew bread as
having the same inspired authority as the obligation of the Sabbath.
In Joh 7:32, again, He refers to Moses as having renewed the
ordinance of circumcision, which at the first had been given to
Abraham; and, as usual, assumes the Divine authority of the command
as thus given. But this renewal of the ordinance of circumcision is
recorded only in Leviticus. {Lev 12:3} Yet once more, rebuking the
Pharisees for their ingenious justification of the hard-hearted
neglect of parents by undutiful children, He reminds them that Moses
had said that he who cursed father or mother should be put to death;
a law which is only found in the so-called priest code, Exo 21:17
and Lev 20:9. Further, He is so far from merely assuming the truth
of the Jewish opinion for the sake of an argument, that He formally
declares this law, equally with the fifth commandment, to be "a
commandment of God," which they by their tradition had made void.
{Mat 14:3-6}
One would suppose that it had been impossible to avoid the inference
from all this, that our Lord believed, and intended to be understood
as teaching, that the law of Leviticus was, in a true sense, of
Mosaic origin, and of inspired, and therefore infallible, authority.
We are in no way concerned, indeed, - is it essential to the
argument, - to press this testimony of Christ as proving more than
the very least which the words fairly imply. For instance, nothing
in His words, as we read them, any more than in the language of
Leviticus itself, excludes the supposition that in the preparation
of the law, Moses, like the Apostle Paul, may have had co-labourers
or amanuenses, such as Aaron, Eleazar, Joshua, or others, whose
several parts of the work might then have been issued under his
endorsement and authority; so that Christ’s testimony is in no wise
irreconcilable with the fact of differences of style, or with the
evidence of different documents, if any think that they discover
this, in the book.
We are willing to go further, and add that in the testimony of our
Lord we find nothing which declares against the possibility of one
or more redactions or revisions of the laws of Leviticus in
post-Mosaic times, by one or more inspired men; as, e.g., by Ezra,
described {Ezr 7:6} as "a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which
the Lord, the God of Israel, had given"; to whom also ancient Jewish
tradition attributes the final settlement of the Old Testament canon
down to his time. Hence no words of Christ touch the question as to
when the book of Leviticus received its present form, in respect of
the order of its chapters, sections, and verses. This is a matter of
quite secondary importance, and may be settled any way without
prejudice to the Mosaic origin and authority of the laws it
contains.
Neither, in the last place, do the words of our Lord, carefully
weighed, of necessity exclude even the possibility that such
persons, acting under Divine direction and inspiration, may have
first reduced some parts of the law given by Moses to writing; or
even, as an extreme supposition, may have entered here and there,
under the unerring guidance of the Holy Ghost, prescriptions which,
although new as to the letter, were none the less truly Mosaic, in
that by necessary implication they were logically involved in the
original code.
We do not indeed here argue either for or against any of these
suppositions, which were apart from the scope of the present work.
We are only concerned here to remark that Christ has not
incontrovertibly settled these questions. These things may be true
or not true; the decision of such matters properly belongs to the
literary critics. But decide them as one will, it will still remain
true that the law is "the law of Moses," given by revelation from
God.
So much as this, however, is certain. Whatsoever modifications may
conceivably have passed upon the text, all work of this kind was
done, as all agree, long before the time of our Lord; and the text
to which He refers as of Mosaic origin and of inspired authority,
was therefore essentially the text of Leviticus as we have it today.
We are thus compelled to insist that whatever modifications may have
been made in the original Levitical law, they cannot have been,
according to the testimony of our Lord, such as in any way
conflicted with His affirmation of its Mosaic origin and its
inspired authority. They can thus, at the very utmost, only have
been, as suggested, in the way of legitimate logical development and
application to successive circumstances, of the Levitical law as
originally given to Moses; and that, too, under the administration
of a priesthood endowed with the possession of the Urim and Thummim,
so as to give such official deliverances, whenever required, the
sanction of inerrant Divine authority, binding on the conscience as
from God. Here, at least, surely, Christ by His testimony has placed
an immovable limitation upon the speculations of the critics.
And yet there are those who admit the facts as to Christ’s
testimony, and nevertheless claim that without any prejudice to the
absolute truthfulness of our Lord, we may suppose that in speaking
as He did, with regard to the law of Leviticus, He merely conformed
to the common usage of the Jews, without intending thereby to
endorse their opinion; any more than, when, conforming to the
ordinary mode of speech, He spoke of the sun as rising and setting,
He meant thereby to be understood as endorsing the common opinion of
men of that time that the sun actually passed round the earth every
twenty-four hours. To which it is enough to reply that this
illustration, which has so often been used in this argument, is not
relevant to the case before us. For not only did our Lord use
language which implied the truth of the Jewish belief regarding the
origin and authority of the Mosaic law, but He formally teaches it;
and-what is of still more moment-He rests the obligation of certain
duties upon the fact that this law of Leviticus was a revelation
from God to Moses for the children of Israel. But if the supposed
facts, upon which He bases His argument in such cases, are, in
reality, not facts, then His argument becomes null and void. How,
for instance, is it possible to explain away the words in which He
appeals to one of the laws of Exodus and Leviticus {Mat 15:3-6} as
being not a Jewish opinion, but, instead, in explicit contrast with
the traditions of the Rabbis, "a commandment of God"? Was this
expression merely "an accommodation" to the mistaken notions of the
Jews? If so, then what becomes of His argument?
Others, again, feeling the force of this, and yet sincerely and
earnestly desiring to maintain above possible impeachment the
perfect truthfulness of Christ, still assuming that the Jews were
mistaken, and admitting that, it so, our Lord must have shared their
error, take another line of argument. They remind us of what,
however mysterious, cannot be denied, that our Lord, in virtue of
His incarnation, came under certain limitations in knowledge; and
then urge that without any prejudice to His character we may suppose
that, not only with regard to the time of His advent and kingdom,
{Mat 24:36} but also with respect to the authorship and the Divine
authority of this book of Leviticus, He may have shared in the
ignorance and error of His countrymen.
But, surely, the fact of Christ’s limitation in knowledge cannot be
pressed so far as the argument of such requires, without by logical
necessity nullifying Christ’s mission and authority as a religious
teacher. For it is certain that according to His own word, and the
universal belief of Christians, the supreme object of Christ’s
mission was to reveal unto men through His life and teachings, and
especially through His death upon the cross, the Father; and it is
certain that He claimed to have, in order to this end, perfect
knowledge of the Father. But how could this most essential claim of
His be justified, and how could He be competent to give unto men a
perfect and inerrant knowledge of the Father, if the ignorance of
His humiliation was so great that He was unable to distinguish from
His Father’s Word a book which, by the hypothesis, was not the Word
of the Father, but an ingenious and successful forgery of certain
crafty postexilian priests?
It is thus certain that Jesus must have known whether the
Pentateuch, and, in particular, this book of Leviticus, was the Word
of God or not; certain also that, if the Word of God, it could not
have been a forgery; and equally certain that Jesus could not have
intended in what He said on this subject to accommodate His speech
to a common error of the people, without thereby endorsing their
belief. It thus follows that critics of the radical school referred
to are directly at issue with the testimony of Christ regarding this
book. It is of immense consequence that Christians should see this
issue clearly. While Jesus taught in various ways that Leviticus
contains a law given by revelation from God to Moses, these teach
that it is a priestly forgery of the days after Ezra. Both cannot be
right; and if the latter are in the right, then-we speak with all
possible deliberation and reverence-Jesus Christ was mistaken, and
was therefore unable even to tell us with inerrant certainty whether
this or that is the Word of God or not. But if this is so, then how
can we escape the final inference that His claim to have a perfect
knowledge of the Father must have been an error; His claim to be the
incarnate Son of God, therefore, a false pretension, and
Christianity, a delusion, so that mankind has in Him no Saviour?
But against so fatal a conclusion stands the great established fact
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; whereby He was
with power declared to be the Son of God, so that we may know that
His word on this, as on all subjects where He has spoken, settles
controversy, and is a sufficient ground of faith; while it imposes
upon all speculations of men, literary or philosophical, eternal and
irremovable limitations. Let no one think that the case, as regards
the issue at stake, has been above stated too strongly. One could
not well go beyond the often cited words of Kuenen on this subject:
"We must either cast aside as worthless our dearly bought scientific
method, or we must forever cease to acknowledge the authority of the
New Testament in the domain of the exegesis of the Old." With good
reason does another scholar exclaim at these words, "The Master must
not be heard as a witness! We treat our criminals with more
respect." So then stands the question this day which this first
verse of Leviticus brings before us: In which have we more
confidence? in literary critics, like a Kuenen or Wellhausen, or in
Jesus Christ? Which is the more likely to know with certainty
whether the law of Leviticus is a revelation from God or not?
The devout Christian, who through the grace of the crucified and
risen Lord "of whom Moses, in the law, and the prophets did write,"
and who has "tasted the good word of God," will not long hesitate
for an answer. He will not indeed, if wise, timidly or fanatically
decry all literary investigation of the Scriptures; but he will
insist that the critic shall ever hold his reason in reverent
subjection to the Lord Jesus on all points where the Lord has
spoken, Such everywhere will heartily endorse and rejoice in those
admirable words of the late venerable Professor Delitzsch; words
which stand almost as of his last solemn testament:-"The theology of
glory, which prides itself upon being its own highest authority,
bewitches even those who had seemed proof against its enchantments;
and the theology of the Cross, which holds Divine folly to be wiser
than men, is regarded as an unscientific lagging behind the steps of
progress But the faith which I professed in my first sermons,
remains mine today, undiminished in strength, and immeasurably
higher than all earthly knowledge. Even if in many Biblical
questions I have to oppose the traditional opinion, certainly my
opposition rests on this side of the gulf, on the side of the
theology of the Cross, of grace, of miracles! By this banner let us
stand; folding ourselves in it, let us die!" To which truly noble
words every true Christian may well say, Amen!
We then stand without fear with Jesus Christ in our view of the
origin and authority of the book of Leviticus.
THE OCCASION AND ORDER OF
LEVITICUS
Before proceeding to the exposition of this book, a few words
need to be said regarding its occasion and plan, and its object and
present use.
The opening words of the book, "And the Lord said," connect it in
the closest manner with the preceding book of Exodus, at the
contents of which we have therefore to glance for a moment. The
kingdom of God, rejected by corporate humanity in the founding of
the Babylonian world power, but continuing on earth in a few still
loyal souls in the line of Abraham and his seed, at last, according
to promise, had been formally and visibly reestablished on earth at
Mount Sinai. The fundamental law of the kingdom, contained in the
ten commandments and certain applications of the same, had been
delivered in what is called the Book of the Covenant, amid thunders
and lightnings, at the holy mount. Israel had solemnly entered into
covenant with God on this basis, saying, "All these things will we
do and be obedient," and the covenant had been sealed by the solemn
sprinkling of blood.
This being done, Jehovah now issued commandment for the building of
the tabernacle or "tent of meeting," where He might manifest His
glory and from time to time communicate His will to Israel. As
mediators between Him and the people, the priesthood was appointed,
their vestments and duties prescribed. All this having been done as
ordered, the tent of meeting covering the interior tabernacle was
set up; the Shekinah cloud covered it, and the glory of Jehovah
filled the tabernacle, -the manifested presence of the King of
Israel!
Out of the tent of meeting, from this excellent glory, Jehovah now
called unto Moses, and delivered the law as we have it in the first
seven chapters of the book of Leviticus. To the law of offerings
succeeds (chapters 8-10) an account of the consecration of Aaron and
his sons to the priestly office, and their formal public assumption
of their functions, with an account of the very awful sanction which
was given to the preceding law, by the death of Nadab and Abihu
before the Lord, for offering as He had not commanded them.
The next section of the book contains the law concerning the clean
and the unclean, under the several heads of food (chapter 11), birth
defilement (chapter 12), leprosy (chapters 13, 14), and unclean
issues (chapter 15); and closes (chapter 16) with the ordinance of
the great day of atonement, in which the high priest alone,
presenting the blood of a sin offering in the Holy of Holies, was to
make atonement once a year for the sins of the whole nation.
The third section of the book contains the law of holiness, first,
for the people (chapters 17-20), and then the special laws for the
priests (chapters 21, 22). These are followed, first (chapter 23),
by the order for the feasts of the Lord, or appointed times of
public holy convocation; then (chapter 24), by a historical incident
designed to show that the law, as given, must, in several respects
noted, be applied in all its strictness no less to the alien than to
the native-born Israelite; and finally (chapter 25), by the
remarkable ordinances concerning the sabbatic year, and the
culmination of the sabbatic system of the law in the year of
jubilee.
As a conclusion to the whole, the legislation thus given is now
sealed (chapter 26) with promises from God of blessing to the nation
if they will keep this law, and threats of unsparing vengeance
against the people and the land, if they forsake His commandments
and break the covenant, though still with a promise of mercy when,
having thus transgressed, they shall at any time repent. The book
then closes with a supplemental chapter on voluntary vows and dues
(chapter 27).
THE PURPOSE OF LEVITICUS
What now was the purpose of Leviticus? In general, as regards
Israel, it was given to direct them how they might live as a holy
nation in fellowship with God. The keynote of the book is "Holiness
to Jehovah." More particularly, the object of the book was to
furnish for the theocracy set up in Israel a code of law which
should secure their physical, moral, and spiritual well being. But
the establishment of the theocracy in Israel was itself only a means
to an end; namely, to make Israel a blessing to all nations, in
mediating to the Gentiles the redemption of God. Hence: the
Levitical laws were all intended and adapted to train and prepare
the nation for this special historic mission to which God had chosen
them.
To this end, it was absolutely necessary, first of all, that Israel
should be kept separate from the heathen nations. To effect and
maintain this separation, these laws of Leviticus were admirably
adapted. They are of such a character that obedience to them, even
in a very imperfect way, has made the nation to this day to be, in a
manner and degree perfectly unique, isolated and separate from all
the peoples in the midst of whom they dwell.
The law of Leviticus was intended to effect this preparation of
Israel for its world mission, not only in an external manner, but
also in an internal way; namely, by revealing in and to Israel the
real character of God, and in particular His unapproachable
holiness. For if Israel is to teach the nations the way of holiness,
in which alone they can be blessed, the chosen nation must itself
first be taught holiness by the Holy One. A lesson here for every
one of us! The revelation of the holiness of God was made, first of
all, in the sacrificial system. The great lesson which it must have
kept before the most obtuse conscience was this, that "without
shedding of blood there is no remission of sin"; that God therefore
must be the Most Holy, and sin against Him no trifle. It was made,
again, in the precepts of the law. If in some instances these seem
to tolerate evils which we should have expected that a holy God
would at once have swept away, this is explained by our Mat 19:8 by
the fact that some things were of necessity ordained in view of the
hardness of men’s hearts; while, on the other hand it is certainly
quite plain that the laws of Leviticus constantly held before the
Israelite the absolute holiness of God as the only standard of
perfection.
The holiness of God was further revealed by the severity of the
penalties which were attached to these Levitical laws. Men often
call these harsh, forgetting that we are certain to underestimate
the criminality of sin; forgetting that God must, in any case, have
rights over human life which no earthly ruler can have. But no one
will deny that this very severity of the law was fitted to impress
the Israelite, as nothing else could, with God’s absolute
intolerance of sin and impurity, and make him feel that he could not
trifle with God, and hope to sin with impunity.
And yet we must not forget that the law was adapted no less to
reveal the other side of the Divine holiness; that "the Lord God is
merciful and gracious, and of great kindness." For if the law of
Leviticus proclaims that "without shedding of blood there is no
remission," with equal clearness it proclaims that with shedding of
blood there can be remission of sin to every believing penitent.
And this leads to the observation that this law was further adapted
to the training of Israel for its world mission, in that to every
thoughtful man it must have suggested a secret of redeeming mercy
yet to be revealed. Every such one must have often said in his heart
that it was "not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats
should take away sin"; and that as a substitute for human life, when
forfeited by sin, more precious blood than this must be required;
even though he might not have been able to imagine whence God should
provide such a Lamb for an offering. And so it was that the law was
fitted, in the highest degree, to prepare Israel for the reception
of Him to whom all these sacrifices pointed, the High Priest greater
than Aaron, the Lamb of God which should "take away the sins of the
world," in whose person and work Israel’s mission should at last
receive its fullest realisation.
But the law of Leviticus was not only intended to prepare Israel for
the Messiah by thus awakening a sense of sin and need, it was so
ordered as to be in many ways directly typical and prophetic of
Christ and His great redemption, in its future historical
development. Modern rationalism, indeed, denies this; but it is none
the less a fact. According to the Apostle, {Joh 5:46} our Lord
declared that Moses wrote of Him; and according to Luke, {Luk 24:27}
when He expounded unto the two walking to Emmaus "the things
concerning Himself," He began His exposition with "Moses" and (Luk
24:44) repeated what He had before His resurrection taught them,
that all things "which were written in the law of Moses" concerning
Him, must be fulfilled. And in full accord with the teaching of the
Master taught also His disciples. The writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, especially, argues from this postulate throughout, and also
explicitly affirms the typical character of the ordinances of this
book; declaring, for example, that the Levitical priests in the
tabernacle service served "that which is a copy of the heavenly
things"; {Heb 8:5} that the blood with which "the copies of the
things in the heavens" were cleansed, prefigured "better sacrifices
than these," even the one offering of Him who "put away sin by the
sacrifice of Himself"; {Heb 9:2-6} and that the holy times and
sabbatic seasons of the law were "a shadow of the things to come."
The fact is familiar, and one need not multiply illustrations. Many,
no doubt, in the interpretation of these types, have broken loose
from the principles indicated in the New Testament, and given free
rein to an unbridled fancy. But this only warns us that we the more
carefully take heed to follow the intimations of the New Testament,
and beware of mistaking our own imaginings for the teachings of the
Holy Ghost. Such interpretations may bring typology into disrepute,
but they cannot nullify it as a fact which must be recognised in any
attempt to open up the meaning of the book.
Neither is the reality of this typical correspondence between the
Levitical ritual and order and New Testament facts set aside, even
though it is admitted that we cannot believe that Israel generally
could have seen all in it which the New Testament declares to be
there. For the very same New Testament which declares the typical
correspondence, no less explicitly tells us this very thing: that
many things predicted and prefigured in the Old Testament,
concerning the sufferings and glory of Christ, were not understood
by the very prophets through whom they were anciently made. {1Pe
1:10-12} We have then carefully to distinguish in our interpretation
between the immediate historical intention of the Levitical
ordinances, for the people of that time, and their typical intention
and meaning; but we are not to imagine with some that to prove the
one is to disprove the other.
THE PRESENT DAY USE OF
LEVITICUS
This very naturally brings us to the answer to the frequent
question: Of what use can the book of Leviticus be to believers now?
We answer, first, that it is to us, just as much as to ancient
Israel, a revelation of the character of God. It is even a clearer
revelation of God’s character to us than to them; for Christ has
come as the Fulfiller, and thus the Interpreter, of the law. And God
has not changed. He is still exactly what He was when He called to
Moses out of the tent of meeting or spoke to him at Mount Sinai. He
is just as holy as then; just as intolerant of sin as then; just as
merciful to the penitent sinner who presents in faith the appointed
blood of atonement, as He was then.
More particularly, Leviticus is of use to us now, as holding forth,
in a singularly vivid manner, the fundamental conditions of true
religion. The Levitical priesthood and sacrifices are no more, but
the spiritual truth they represented abides and must abide forever:
namely, that there is for sinful man no citizenship in the kingdom
of God apart from a High Priest and Mediator with a propitiatory
sacrifice for sin. These are days when many, who would yet be called
Christians, belittle atonement, and deny the necessity of the
shedding of substitutionary blood for our salvation. Such would
reduce, if it were possible, the whole sacrificial ritual of
Leviticus to a symbolic self offering of the worshipper to God. But
against this stands the constant testimony of our Lord and His
apostles, that it is only through the shedding of blood not his own
that man can have remission of sin.
But Leviticus presents not only a ritual, but also a body of civil
law for the theocracy. Hence it comes that the book is of use for
today, as suggesting principles which should guide human legislators
who would rule according to the mind of God. Not, indeed, that the
laws in their detail should be adopted in our modern states; but it
is certain that the principles which underlie those laws are
eternal. Social and governmental questions have come to the front in
our time as never before. The question of the relation of the civil
government to religion, the question of the rights of labour and of
capital, of land holding, that which by a suggestive euphemism we
call "the social evil," with its related subjects of marriage and
divorce, -all these are claiming attention as never before. There is
not one of these questions on which the legislation of Leviticus
does not cast a flood of light, into which our modern lawmakers
would do well to come and walk.
For nothing can be more certain than this; that if God has indeed
once stood to a commonwealth in the relation of King and political
Head, we shall be sure to discover in His theocratic law upon what
principles infinite righteousness, wisdom, and goodness would deal
with these matters. We shall thus find in Leviticus that the law
which it contains, from beginning to end, stands in contradiction to
that modern democratic secularism, which would exclude religion from
government and order all national affairs without reference to the
being and government of God; and, by placing the law of sacrifice at
the beginning of the book, it suggests distinctly enough that the
maintenance of right relation to God is fundamental to good
government.
The severity of many of the laws is also instructive in this
connection. The trend of public opinion in many communities is
against capital punishment, as barbarous and inhuman. We are
startled to observe the place which this has in the Levitical law:
which exhibits a severity far removed indeed from the unrighteous
and undiscriminating severity of the earlier English law, but no
less so from the more undiscriminating leniency which has taken its
place, especially as regards those crimes in which large numbers of
people are inclined to indulge.
No less instructive to modern lawmakers and political economists is
the bearing of the Levitical legislation on the social question, the
relations of rich and poor, of employer and employed. It is a
legislation which, with admirable impartiality, keeps the poor man
and the rich man equally in view; a body of law which, if strictly
carried out, would have made in Israel either a plutocracy or a
proletariat alike impossible. All these things will be illustrated
in the course of exposition. Enough has been said to show that those
among us who are sorely perplexed as to what government should do,
at what it should aim in these matters, may gain help by studying
the mind of Divine wisdom concerning these questions, as set forth
in the theocratic law of Leviticus.
Further, Leviticus is of use to us now as a revelation of Christ.
This follows from what has been already said concerning the typical
character of the law. The book is thus a treasury of divinely-chosen
illustrations as to the way of a sinner’s salvation through the
priestly work of the Son of God, and as to his present and future
position and dignity as a redeemed man.
Finally, and for this same reason, Leviticus is still of use to us
as embodying in type and figure prophecies of things yet to come,
pertaining to Messiah’s kingdom. We must not imagine with some that
because many of its types are long ago fulfilled, therefore all have
been fulfilled. Many, according to the hints of the New Testament,
await their fulfilment in a bright day that is coming. Some, for
instance, of the feasts of the Lord have been fulfilled; as
passover, and the feast of Pentecost. But how about the day of
atonement for the sin of corporate Israel? We have seen the type of
the day of atonement fulfilled in the entering into heaven of our
great High Priest; but in the type He came out again to bless the
people: has that been fulfilled? Has He yet proclaimed absolution of
sin to guilty Israel? How, again, about the feast of trumpets, and
that of the ingathering at full harvest? How about the Sabbatic
year, and that most consummate type of all, the year of jubilee?
History records nothing which could be held a fulfilment of any of
these; and thus Leviticus bids us look forward to a glorious future
yet to come, when the great redemption shall at last be
accomplished, and "Holiness to Jehovah" shall, as Zechariah puts it,
{Zec 14:20} be written even "on the bells of the horses."
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