Leviticus 27: Coram Deo: Life in God’s Sight # 6

The singer Rod Stewart has reportedly said, ‘I think [marriage] vows should be changed, because they've been in existence for 600 years, when people used to live until they were only 35. So they only had to be with each other for 12 years, then they would die anyway. But now, it's a big commitment because you're going to be with someone for 50 years. It's impossible. The vows should be written like a dog's license that has to be renewed every year."

Vows should be written like a dog’s license that has to be renewed every year. That was his perspective on his own marriage vows. They were a big commitment. They were onerous and unrealistic. After he had made them he came to regret them. 

But as we turn to the final section of the book of Leviticus, in chapter 27, we will learn that God takes our vows with absolute seriousness.

Over the past 6 weeks we’ve looked together at sacrifices and priests, at substitution and mediation. We’ve looked at the holiness God requires of us and the details of all that was involved in making atonement for sinners. And we saw last time that God calls us to obedience and covenant keeping in the light of all of these great provisions of his grace.

And you will perhaps have noticed that throughout all of this there is a kind of momentum being built, a logical progression  from one subject to the next in this book that seems to reach its crescendo in chapter 26 with the promises of covenant blessing for obedience and covenant curses on disobedience.  And having reached the giddy heights of chapter 26 we’re left wondering, ‘what could possibly cap that? What possible dramatic conclusion could be found to bring this magnificent book to its conclusion?’ Andrew Bonar calls Leviticus a ‘pictorial gospel’. It sets before us in vivid symbols, types and pictures, the person and work of Jesus Christ. So, what vivid image will we be given that, like the final scene in an epic drama, will bring the whole to completion?

Well, what we get is a long chapter that lists in detail the regulations governing sacred vows. “But how does that fit? There must have been a better ending than this for this ‘pictorial gospel’?”

But in some ways it is in the mundane, ordinary and anticlimactic character of this material that its real appropriateness as the conclusion of Leviticus is seen. After the momentous promises and threats of chapter 26, Leviticus 27 calmly makes provision for Israel to honour God and make binding commitments that will serve to aid them in staying faithful and inherit the blessings.

And that is one of the remarkable features of God’s Word generally, not only does it set before us the law of God to expose our sin, grace of God in the death of Christ to remove our guilt, and the call of God to live holy lives, it also provides practical advice on actually living lives of holiness and faithfulness.

So, while it may offend our aesthetics to have Leviticus conclude on so mundane a note, God has finished this ancient book like this to furnish us with practical and challenging helps to enable us to continue on the path of faithful obedience, and in this case that advice centres on making vows to God.

So let’s look at the chapter before us and notice first of all that these vows are intended to entail commitment before God.

As the wealthy oil tycoon lay on his deathbed, his pastor talked of God's healing power. "Reverend," he gasped, "if God heals me, I'll give the church a million pounds." Miraculously, the man revived and within a few short weeks was out of the hospital. One day, several months later, he and the pastor chatted on the pavement in front of a hardware shop. "You know," the pastor said, "when you were in the hospital dying, you promised to give the church a million pounds if you got well. We haven't got it yet." "Did I say that?" the tycoon asked. "I guess that goes to show how sick I really was!" 

It’s easy to make promises to God in the heat of the moment. When we’re desperate we will promise such lofty acts of dedication and service to the Lord, ‘only, get me out of this fix…’ But when we are in fact delivered, our vows are soon forgotten.

Rod Stewart knew what it was like to make binding vows in the heat of the moment and live to regret them later. He wanted his marriage vows to be written like a dog’s licence that had to be renewed every year in case he changed his mind.

But in this chapter there is a sustained emphasis on the binding nature of the promises and vows we make to God. Look for a moment at verses 2-8.

Now the vows in question here are vows of dedication. In this vow a person dedicates themselves to God’s service. The procedure seems to have been that in making the vow the person was required to pay a fixed sum of money depending on the value that person would fetch in the slave market.  The vows they were making was in effect a vow of selling themselves into God’s slavery. And the sums required of those making such vows were incredibly high. The average wage of a worker in biblical times was about one shekel per month. The value of a male between twenty and sixty years of age was fifty shekels of silver! To make this vow a twenty year old male would have to pay approximately four years wages!

One did not make such vows lightly. God is underscoring the seriousness and solemnity of making a commitment to God.

Later on when the chapter discusses the dedication of an animal the possibility of the one who made the vow changing their minds is raised. You might have vowed to sacrifice the prize bull in thanksgiving to God for a good harvest. But now that you have in fact had a good harvest and its time to fulfil your vow, you are beginning to think that you have been excessive in the vow you have made, after all it’s your prize possession. Surely another will do just as well?

Not according to Leviticus 27:10. If someone exchanged a good animal for a bad one, they would discover that both become holy and therefore the possession of the Lord. Both animals are forfeit.

Not only is it a serious business to make a vow to the Lord, it is a dangerous affair to make a vow rashly. A vow however rashly made is binding and attempts to change it are costly.

Leviticus 27 is really the legal version of Ecclesiastes 5:4-5, “When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfil your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfil it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, ‘my vow was a mistake’ Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand I awe of God.”

And the issues that are raised here, are raised again by our Lord Jesus who said in Matthew 5:33-37, ‘Do not swear…but let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’, ‘no’, anything beyond this comes from the evil one.’

Now, here Jesus is condemning, not the taking solemn vows before God as such, but the kind of lifestyle that necessitates strong oaths to lend our promises some semblance of credibility whenever we give our word. A Christian, Jesus says, should give their word, and their word should be their bond. They need do no more than say ‘yes’, and their ‘yes’ should carry all the force of a solemn oath.

Now how very searching is that?  Your promises are binding before God. He expects you to keep your word. He is a covenant keeping God. He keeps his promises to you. He looks to you and me to keep your promises before him.

Do you keep your vows? Is your ‘yes’, ‘yes’?  Are you good for every one of your promises even when it costs you to fulfil them?

If we are honest are we not all promise breakers at the end of the day? Is there anyone here who can say I have never broken my word?

So bless God, that Jesus Christ has been faithful where we have failed. He has kept the covenant promises he has made on our behalf. He has been obedient to God in every way, so that now he is the refuge for every one of us oath breakers before a holy God.

So first these vows entail commitment before God. Then secondly these vows express gratitude to God.

The reason for the placement of this chapter at the end of the book of Leviticus is to impress upon us an order in all our dealings with God.

 The dominant note of the Book of Leviticus is grace. It resounds with notes of covenant love and mercy from God. It is full of image after image that points to the then distant future and the coming of Jesus Christ. There are sacrifices, and priests, there is the Day of Atonement there are promises of a day of rich blessing on a faithful covenant keeping Israel.

All of these things were fulfilled in Jesus Christ who was the great High priest who offered himself unblemished to God on our behalf. He came as the embodiment and personification, as the substitute and representative of Israel before God, and was obedient where they failed. He received the blessings of the covenant and poured them out upon us when He gave the Spirit to the Church at Pentecost.

And having filled our vision with view upon view of the Grace of God, Leviticus wants to point us to patterns of response that are fitting and appropriate. And so it takes up the subject of voluntary vows.

And it is salutary to notice that in every case the vows address the material prosperity of the person making the vow.  These are not vows to ‘be good’, or vows ‘to say their prayers regularly’. They are physical, costly, substantial commitments to give or even to be themselves given up in entire dedication to the service of God. Family, homes, land, animals, even their very selves; these were to be the substance of the voluntary dedications of God’s people to his praise.

Its easy for us, is it not, when we are challenged to new depths of Christian commitment, or when we are deeply impacted by some act of God’s grace and mercy towards us, to rededicate ourselves in ways that are not very tangible and that don’t actually touch the material plenty with which we comfort ourselves in a cruel world.

It’s easier to commit to praying more than to giving more. It’s safer to commit to reading the Bible more often, than to opening your home to others, in the service of God.

We love our possessions. It’s hard to be radical about material things in an affluent society like our own. We know that, as Jesus taught us, a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of things. We recognise that where our treasure is there our hearts will be also.

But actually living with a loose attachment to the accumulated stuff with which we fill our lives; actually being prepared to give sacrificially and unreservedly, and to make a deliberate commitment; a vow to use my car, or my home, or my income, or my free time, in specific acts of Christian service, well that’s hard.

And it’s hard to be so radical because possessions seem to offer security and comfort. They ease our lives, and make us feel safe and secure.

“Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety“, wrote Deitrich Bonhoeffer. “Yet all the time they are the very source of all anxiety.  If our hearts are set on them, our reward is an anxiety whose burden is intolerable. Anxiety creates its own treasures and they in turn beget further care. When we seek for security in possessions we are trying to drive out care with care, and the net result is the precise opposite of our anticipations. The fetters which bind us to our possessions prove to be care themselves.”

Material plenty is attractive, and seems to offer the antidote to a life or care. Sacrificial living and giving threatens the apparent security material prosperity gives. But Leviticus 27 punctures that illusion when it calls us to respond to God’s grace in Christ with a voluntary dedication of our material prosperity to God’s glory.

Paradoxically, as Bonhoeffer saw, it is when we gladly surrender our ‘abundance of things’ to the service of Christ’s kingdom, that we are delivered from the anxiety that led us to pursue material prosperity in the first place.

The attitude Leviticus 27 seems to call for, finds its echo in the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 6:19-34.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is there your hearts will be also. …Seek first the Kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”

A heart that has been gripped by the free grace of God in Jesus Christ is a heart that responds with gratitude, Leviticus 27 seeks to direct the flow of our gratitude so that it runs along channels that are real and sometimes costly, so that we never forget that the thing we give thanks for is precious and worthy of the greatest sacrifice.

Jesus Christ has given himself for you. He has as it were made a vow to the Father to dedicate himself to the service of the Lord. That service involved him in total self sacrifice. And that self sacrifice at the cross obtained your salvation. God the Son did not hold back anything of himself in procuring your salvation. and will you hold back anything of yourself from Him now that you have received it?

Gratitude is easy to talk about. It is cheap to sing words of thankfulness. It is costly to live a life of gratitude that demonstrates our thanks in sacrifice. Leviticus 27 recognises that the thankful heart is the sacrificial heart.

So first of all these vows entail commitment before God, secondly they express gratitude to God. Then thirdly notice that these vows enable service of God.

In Leviticus there are sacred people, sacred animals, and sacred places. The sacred people are the priests and Levites, the sacred animals are the clean animals designated for sacrifice and the sacred place is the Tabernacle where god met with Israel.

But Look at verses 2-8. Theses verses list vows dedicating persons… an Israelite could dedicate himself or his family to become the servants of the LORD. In fact the language used here is used most often to refer to slaves. What’s envisaged in this vow is a level of self dedication to the service of God that it means becoming his slave. In practice that probably involved an Israelite taking service to the priests at the tabernacle

Not only sacred people had a role in the service of God.

Or look at verses 9-13, and the regulations covering the vowing of an animal. Ritually clean animals were vowed to God for use in sacrifices, as thanksgiving for God’s help in an occasion of special need, for example. These were the sacred animals.  But unclean animals too could be vowed, and they would become the property of the priests who would use them or sell them.

Not only sacred animals but even unclean animals could be used to bring God glory.

Then in verses 14-22 there are regulations about dedicating a house or a field to the Lord in a vow.

Not only the sacred place of the temple, but all ordinary homes and land could be given over to the glory of the LORD.

Not only the sacred people, animals and places can be used in the service of God. Anyone can dedicate themselves or their family to God. Anyone can dedicate their property to the Lord, and animals, even unclean animals, can be vowed to the Lord in an act of thanksgiving and gratitude.

Leviticus 27 is saying to us, ‘OK so there are some who are called and gifted fro special service. But no matter who you are and no matter what you have to offer, it all has a role in the service and honour of God’.

 And notice too how all encompassing these laws governing vows were. They covered every aspect of life. Nothing was excluded.  Not clean animals or unclean animals. Not property. Not family. Not even ourselves. In other words everything could be vowed to God in acts of thanksgiving.

Nothing was exempt from being vowed to God in praise of his grace and goodness.

And that should remind us that God is not so interested in how great your gifts are. He less concerned about the level of your material prosperity. He is not interested in what resources you have, whether material or personal and spiritual, so much as he is interested in how you use them.

God has made, in this chapter, a provision for Israel to honour him with absolutely everything that they had, even with their lives and families.

Some of you feel that you have no role. Some of you feel that who you are and what you have are insignificant and worthless in God’s service. ‘What can I contribute?’ you ask.

Let Leviticus 27 remind you that God is pleased to accept everything and anything that is dedicated to his service. Everything that you are and have, He has made you! And all of it is invested with significance and a place in the building of His kingdom.

God has made provision for you to use whatever you have and are in his service. The question we need to face is not, ‘do I have the right gifts’ but ‘am I using what gifts I have in the service of the Lord?’

 So, Leviticus 27 is a call to you and to me to look at the grace of God freely given in the Lord Jesus Christ as he is pictured in the types and shadows of the Levitical law, and respond to Him in grateful thanks.

You know Psalm 22, that great Messianic psalm, puts these words in messiah Jesus’ mouth, “from you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfil my vows.”

Christ is pictured as having taken vows to offer praise to God in response to His deliverance from death. The risen Jesus fulfils those vows in the presence of his people. The pattern our saviour set when he gave himself for our salvation was a pattern of making and fulfilling vows before God.

Look at everything you have, see them as gifts from his gracious hand, and resolve now to answer the love of God in Christ towards you with the glad and complete surrender of yourself and your material possessions to His praise. Let’s resolve to make free vows to God to honour Christ with our whole lives, knowing as we do that He has first loved us with his own life all the way to the cross.

Amen.