Leviticus 11- Coram Deo: Life in God’s Sight #3

Reduced Price- Slightly Soiled! So reads the label on the expensive new coat.  The few slight stains on the otherwise pristine coat means it is put on sale at a greatly reduced price. The price is cut because the acceptability of the coat to most customers is reduced. Who wants to pay so much for a soiled coat?

Sin soils God’s creatures, and it greatly reduces their acceptability to Him.

Today we turn to the third major division of the book of Leviticus which deals with the whole concept of cleanliness and ritual purity in the sight of God. These strange laws are graphic symbols that were designed to reinforce the reality of sin’s effects upon all our relationships and all our circumstances.  They say loud and clear, of ever sphere of human activity and every situation, ‘these are soiled goods!’

But that does not mean that the objective of this 3^rd. part of Leviticus is simply to remind us of the all pervasive presence and power of sin.  In fact they are here in God’s word to speak to us about the holy life He requires of us in this sinful world. Leviticus 11-15 summons us all to holiness, and it does so by reminding us of three facts.

1. Sin is all pervasive.

2. Despite sin, the whole earth belongs to the Lord

3. Despite sin, God’s people belong to the Lord in a unique and special way.

The first two sections of Leviticus address the problem of removing the guilt and stain of sin and reconciling sinners to God. This third section of Leviticus deals with how we may remain in fellowship and communion with the Holy God.

And we’re going to look at chapter 11 as a sample of the material of this section of Leviticus and see together how these points are dramatically driven home.

So turn back with me once again to Leviticus chapter 11 and look with me first of all at the all pervasive presence and power of sin.

The first thing we need to notice in chapter 11 is the structure of the passage. It’s divided roughly into two. The first half categorizes animals designated clean and unclean. Israelites were free to eat the clean animals and were forbidden to eat the unclean. Then the passage moves on in verse 24 to outline how and under which circumstances uncleanness is transmitted from these unclean animals to us. Now here is the important point to notice. In the first section, that outlines which are clean and which are unclean, the animals are divided into three categories. First, there are land animals, in verses 4-8, second there are animals living in the water and seas, verses 9-12, third there are the flying creatures (birds- verses 13-19, and insects- verses 20-23). Now that threefold pattern deliberately parallels the pattern in which they were created in Genesis chapter one, only now the order is reversed.

Genesis 1: 20 “ Let the water teem with living creatures and let the birds fly above the earth across thee expanse of the sky.” God created the environments for the animals and then the animals to dwell in them. First came the sea creatures and the flying birds and insects. Then God created the land animals. Genesis 1:24, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground and wild animals according to its kind.”

Now it seems clear from the Biblical witness that in the beginning animals were not divided into clean and unclean categories. This was a world of unified harmony and integration. “God saw all that he had made and it was all very good”, we’re told at the end of the creation narrative. When Adam needed a companion God brought all the animals to him. None of them fitted Adam as a helper but all of them were proposed to him. There is no suggestion that any creature was seen as unclean or potentially defiling for him.

But then of course the original bliss and total harmony of the creation order was to undergo a cataclysmic change. Adam and Eve were tempted to disobey God by Satan, who used the form of one of these creatures, the snake. Our first parents broke their covenant relationship with God and fell into sin, and with that one act of rebellion sin and alienation and disruption entered the created order.

That alienation had far reaching consequences. Genesis 3 is the record of God’s initial response to sin and it begins with the curse of God on the snake in vs. 14 -15. It then records God’s curse on child bearing vs. 16, and God’s curse on the whole created environment vs. 17-19.   And it’s not incidental to see how in broad terms the pattern of Leviticus 11-15 follows the pattern of God’s curse. Animals are now unclean as well as clean, paralleling the curse on an animal in Genesis 3:14-15. In Leviticus 12, childbirth causes uncleanness, paralleling God’s curse on childbirth in Genesis 3:16. Leviticus 13-15 list various bodily and environmental causes of uncleanness, paralleling the environmental curse of Genesis 3:17-19. Things as well as people were affected by sin.

By the time of Noah, the fact of sin’s impact on every section of life had given rise to a tradition of distinguishing between clean and unclean animals. When God told Noah to enter the ark, in Genesis 7: 1-4, he commanded him to take seven of every clean animal and two of every unclean animal, and seven of every kind of bird.

And now here, in Leviticus 11, we have animals listed in a pattern reminiscent of the creation account, and a division of these creatures into clean and unclean. The message is clear; sin is so serious, so all pervasive, so far reaching, that it affects every sphere of creation, and every aspect of human existence, right down to which animals you can and cannot eat.

Every time an Israelite sat down to eat a meal with the thought had to be given to whether the food before them was ritually clean or not. Great care had to be taken to ensure that contact with animals, birds, and insects that were unclean were avoided.

To this day the dietary laws of Israel are one of the best known traditions of the Jewish people. They often go to great lengths to stay kosher! Now why? Why did God intrude so obtrusively into the daily routine and lifestyle of His people like this? He wanted them to see that sin is like a deadly virus.

Some of the world’s deadliest viruses began among the monkey population of sub-Saharan Africa. One of the worst is the Ebola virus. With no known cure it quickly spread. Whole villages were wiped out by this terrible infection.

Sin too has a single point of origin. No sooner did Adam eat the forbidden  fruit than  deadly strains of this spiritual virus were transmitted to every one of his descendants. Sin is now a universal pandemic! And the Lord was erecting signposts along every path of normal life that warned and reminded the people of Israel of the spiritual bio-hazard that has a 100% kill rate for everyone not immunized.

We bless God that unlike some of the deadly viruses in our world today sin has an antidote, and we’ve been looking at that antidote together over the last few weeks. Jesus Christ, his blood and righteousness, is the antidote, the immunization against the deadly effects of Sin.

Nevertheless sin remains toxic. And the Lord wanted His ancient people, and he wants us today, to grasp that. Every meal, every childbirth, every bodily emission, every death; mildew, skin infections, all kinds of animals and birds and insects; all were made neon signs to warn Israel of sin’s effects.

Whenever a smoker opens a cigarette packet they see a government health warning…smoking kills! Every time an ancient Israelite prepared a meal there was a government health warning from almighty God saying SIN KILLS!

And that’s a message we need to hear again. As God’s New Covenant people the Lord still wants to remind us that sin is deadly serious.

We can become blaze and flippant about sin. What does it matter how I spend the Lord’s Day? What matter if I lie here or cut corners there? God is surely not so rigorous. Anyway, were not under law any more were under grace. Don’t be such a legalist! Loosen up. These little sins are of no real consequence.

How easy it is to deceive ourselves into thinking that sin is not so all pervasive, so insidious and deadly after all. How easy to forget the far reaching impact that one bite from the forbidden fruit had! It was just a small thing, an insignificant bite. But that one brief action plunged the world into spiritual darkness.

 And how quick we are to undervalue the cross! The blood of Christ was shed to deal with my trifling, insignificant, sin. I am busy making excuses and trying not to be too hard on myself, Christ was busy giving himself up into the jaws of God wrath on the sin I treat so lightly!

Sin is all pervasive and sin is deadly. And like Israel of old we need to remember the warnings of God that say to us… ‘keep out… stay away… don’t touch…sin kills!’

Then secondly, despite sin, Leviticus 11 announces that the earth is still the Lord’s and everything in it.

It’s really easy to see passages like this one as an example of Old Testament rigidity, isn’t it? We scratch our head in concern, and say, ‘well this is impossible. No-one can live like this! Is there no part of life that is not caged in and shackled by law and regulation?’

And that’s one way to look at God’s Law, but there is another way. And that’s to see in the encyclopedic detail of God’s law, a basic claim being made. God is Lord of creation still.

Often one of the great problems we have with the detailed regulations of books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy is that we can see no rhyme or reason for them. These laws seem totally arbitrary. And there are several responses to that. Some of these laws had issues of health and safety at their root. Some of them had more directly religious significance. But there still remains a large body of regulations that have no other explanation apart from the decree, the sovereign prerogatives of Almighty God to decide how His people should live.

But that’s the whole point! Everything else is secondary to this one great fact. Sin and rebellion notwithstanding, God still rules! He gets to decide how we live in His world. He gets to say how we should treat it. It is his world. It all belongs to Him.

Nothing it seems is outside of the purview of these Old Testament laws. And we shouldn’t see that as restrictive, it is glorious. It shouts to the world that the God of the Covenant, the God who rescued Israel from Egypt rules over all things. Nothing is too small for His attention. He is concerned about our bodies and our physical welfare, and some of the laws in this section are all about that. He is concerned about animals, and about clothing and about relationships with other nations, and there are laws relating to all of these.

You may remember that we saw, when we studied Genesis 1-3, that one of the implications of the command to Adam and Eve to ‘fill the earth and subdue it’, and of Adam’s being placed in the Garden of Eden to ‘tend and care for it’, was God’s mandating of scientific and artistic and political activity. He was saying these are intrinsically good and laudable and worthy pursuits, these are things that I affirm and command and delight in.

And you might be forgiven for thinking that that emphasis can no longer be maintained now that sin tarnishes everything. ‘If sin is so all pervasive, surely God cannot delight in and affirm all of life in the way he once did?’

And the Book of Leviticus is part of God’s answer. Here the God of Creation announces in the face of sin, that He is also the God of Redemption. He has provided for sin’s undoing through sacrifices and a priesthood (chapters 1-10). He has provided for sin’s undoing in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ who is both the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and our Great High Priest who is able to save completely all who come to God though Him. And that is why he can still declare, sin and rebellion and the alienation it brings notwithstanding, I am Lord of all.

Leviticus 11-15 says for the Old Testament, what the great Dutch Reformed theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper said in the light of the New Testament, “there is not an inch in the entire domain of our human life of which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not proclaim, Mine!”

The earth belongs to the Lord. And knowing that should make us rejoice and thrill to serve him.

We needn’t second guess the validity and significance of our secular careers. We need not question the usefulness of art and science and politics and cultural pursuits of every kind. God rules over them all. He delights in them all. He regulates them all and speaks to their concerns in scripture. Leviticus is a mandate for obedient Christian living in the home and the school and the workplace, that’s the point that underlies the comprehensive regulations of these ancient portions of scripture.

It was an Old Testament way of recognizing the effects of the fall, but of saying, “while sin is a reality, God is at work to transform creation and restore it, and our obedience to His word is a part of His program to renew creation and restore what our covenant breaking first parents lost back in the garden of Eden.”

So Leviticus 11 teaches first, that sin is all  pervasive, and secondly that God still reigns over his world despite sin, and now thirdly that God reigns among His people in a unique and special way.

Notice that the animals that are defined as unclean  here were those that seem to break a norm. Verse 3 gives us the general rule that defines which land animals are clean and therefore edible. “you may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud.” Some animals have neither a split hoof nor chew the cud, others do not conform in various other ways. These animals are unclean. Vs. 9 defines which sea creatures are clean. “you may eat any that have fins and scales.” Some have neither, others have fins but no scales, or scales but no fins. Again these are unclean. They don’t conform to the norm of what was deemed whole and ordinary and normal.

The Lord is drawing a parallel here between the holiness looked for in human beings, and the cleanness of animals in Leviticus 11. Just as the animals were defined as clean or unclean because they conformed to a God given norm, so all people are deemed holy or defiled by their conformity to the norms of God’s law.

In other words, the animals listed in Leviticus 11 are symbolic of the human world. Just as they are either clean or unclean, so, in the same way, human beings are either in covenant relationship with God or not.

They say that you are what you eat, and for ancient Israel that was literally true. They were to eat only the food that conformed to God’s norms, only the clean food, to teach them that as a nation, among all the nations of the world, they were to conform to God’s norms, they were to be consecrated to God; holy. Their daily diet was a powerful physical reminder that God had redeemed them and called them into covenant relationship with himself in a unique way among all nations. They were God’s chosen and elect nation and Leviticus 11 made sure they did not forget it.

And in the New Testament these dietary regulations are seen in precisely that way. They represent the whole ritual system that set Israel apart from the gentile nations.

The difference is that in the New Testament the middle wall of partition, the distinction between Jew and gentile becomes obsolete. Belonging to the covenant people was no longer identified by external rituals and ceremonial laws. Belonging to the covenant people was now defined entirely on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ alone.

The classic passage dealing with precisely that point is found in Acts 10:9-15. The apostle Peter has a vision in which a sheet is lowered from heaven carrying all kinds of unclean animals. Peter is commanded to rise, kill and eat, to which he replies, “Surely not Lord! I have never eaten anything impure or unclean” The Lord answers “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean”. Immediately a messenger arrives asking Peter to visit the home of a Roman centurion named Cornelius. When Peter arrives at Cornelius’ house he finds a crowd gathered, waiting to hear the gospel from Peter.  And Peter begins by telling them in vs. 28, “ You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. So when I was sent for I came without raising any objection.”

Peter’s vision telling him that the distinctions over unclean animals no longer bound him, was intended to teach the deeper truth that now the doors of inclusion in the people of God have been flung wide. No longer are some classes of human beings to be considered outside of the reach of the covenant love of God. Now Peter realizes all people may come in and enjoy the blessings of God’s saving grace.

No longer do distinctions about food distinguish the chosen people of God from the rest of human kind. Now the covenant people are all who believe in Jesus Christ and who are consecrated to live lives of holiness and obedience to Him.

The message of the New Testament to you today, as it reflects on Leviticus 11 is that no matter who you are, whatever your background, however unclean you might know yourself to be, you need stand outside the loving embrace of God no longer. Through Jesus Christ the covenant grace of God is lavished upon all people on this basis alone; Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and all your household!

There is inclusion in the covenant family of God for you through Jesus Christ. Come to the One who is able to make you clean and become part of the new Israel of God with us.

At the end of Leviticus 11 the point of the whole passage is summed up. Vs. 44-45, “I am the Lord you God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves on the ground. I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy because I am holy.”

Israel was to abstain from unclean animals in order to remind them to live lives of universal holiness and consecration to the Lord. Their motive for being holy was God’s deliverance of them from slavery in Egypt.

So now all of us who are believers are called to be holy as the Lord our God is holy, not with the outward holiness of ritual purity, but by obeying moral law of God from a heart filled with His Spirit. And our motive for universal obedience to God’s moral law is the far greater redemption that has been accomplished for us, not from slavery in Egypt, but from sin’s slavery through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sin is all pervasive. Despite sin the earth belongs to the Lord. And the people of God belong to the Lord in a special and unique manner. That’s the message of Leviticus 11 and as we look at these strange and ancient dietary regulations let us hear in them the echo of God’s command to be holy as it is repeated again by the apostle Peter, “just as he who has called you is holy so be holy in all you do; for it is written, ‘Be holy because I am holy.”

Amen