Year 1, Week 14, Day 5 Bible Reading Observations

Year 1, Week 14, Day 5

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Leviticus 21-22.

Today’s reading explores some of the requirements and obligations for the Levitical Priests. In the structure of Leviticus, Leviticus 21-22 parallel Leviticus 8-10 as both sections pertain to the priesthood.  Leviticus 21 states the standards that the priests were required to adhere. The status of the priesthood was that of holy as opposed to common. Therefore, the priests were to adhere to standards that reflected the holiness of the LORD. While all of Israel was to reflect the holiness of God, the priests were required to reflect that holiness to a greater degree and with a greater sensitivity because of their function in the Tabernacle. The Priests were set apart as holy to the LORD in their Tabernacle service. Leviticus 22 applies the standards of holiness to how the priests were to regard the sacrifices that they offered at the Tabernacle. The sacrifices that the priests offered were holy to the LORD and therefore, they were to be handled in accordance with the LORD’s holy standards.

What struck me in today’s reading was the LORD’s holy standards for His priesthood as well as His worship: “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts! Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!” (Psalm 96:8-9). The closer one was to the presence of the LORD and the more involved one was, just as the priests, to the activities surrounding the worship of God, the more alert one needed to be concerning matters of holiness, for the LORD was holy: “Exalt the LORD our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!” (Psalm 99:5). The Levitical Priests, who by the way, were automatically priests by virtue of their ancestry; nevertheless, were to concern themselves with holy safeguards and qualifications: “They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. For they offer the LORD'S food offerings, the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy…You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the LORD, who sanctify you, am holy.” (Leviticus 20:6).

Some of the standards of holiness for the Levitical Priests may seem unusual, perhaps even uncharitable: “Speak to Aaron, saying, None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles.” (Leviticus 20:16-20). While the priesthood was restricted to the Levites, not any and every Levite was permitted to perform the Tabernacle service. In particular the qualifications for the line of Aaron was even greater due to the Aaronic Priests even greater access to the presence of the LORD and nature of Tabernacle service: “No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the LORD'S food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things, but he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am the LORD who sanctifies them.” (Leviticus 20:21-23).

The external nature of these standards may strike us as odd. After all, doesn’t the LORD consider the heart and not such externals: “But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)? I would suggest that what today’s reading is teaching is not something about how the LORD judges. I suggest that we understand external standards surrounding the Tabernacle and the priesthood as instructional pictures that represent important realities. As we have previously seen, the Tabernacle pictured Eden and the priests picture Adam. The priestly work at the Tabernacles reflects the work that Adam was called to perform in the garden. The unblemished requirements of the Tabernacle priesthood was meant to reflect back on what the garden consisted of prior to the entrance of sin. The garden was free from sin and all of the effects of sin’s fallen consequences. The Tabernacle priests served as portraits of a past time without the ruinous consequences of sin—a time that all that the LORD made was holy. All that unfolded at the Tabernacle was to reflect what holiness consisted of when the world was not groaning under the ravages of sin: “So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the LORD. And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the LORD who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 22:31-33).

But the priest safeguards and obligations for Tabernacle service, do not merely look back at the holy, sin-free garden, the also point ahead to a time yet to come in which all will be made holy to the LORD and thus, sin and its effects will be gone: “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:2-4).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe