Chapter Eighteen<\/p>\n
Pharisaism and the Law
\n(Leviticus 10:12\u201320)<\/p>\n
12. And Moses spake unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons that were left, Take the meat offering that remaineth of the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and eat it without leaven beside the altar: for it is most holy:
\n13. And ye shall eat it in the holy place, because it is thy due, and thy sons\u2019 due, of the sacrifices of the LORD made by fire: for so I am commanded.
\n14. And the wave breast and heave shoulder shall ye eat in a clean place; thou, and thy sons, and thy daughters with thee: for they be thy due, and thy sons\u2019 due, which are given out of the sacrifices of peace offerings of the children of Israel.
\n15. The heave shoulder and the wave breast shall they bring with the offerings made by fire of the fat, to wave it for a wave offering before the LORD; and it shall be thine, and thy sons\u2019 with thee, by a statute for ever; as the LORD hath commanded.
\n16. And Moses diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and, behold, it was burnt: and he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron which were left alive, saying,
\n17. Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin offering in the holy place, seeing it is most holy, and God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD?
\n18. Behold, the blood of it was not brought in within the holy place: ye should indeed have eaten it in the holy place, as I commanded.
\n19. And Aaron said unto Moses, Behold, this day have they offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD; and such things have befallen me: and if I had eaten the sin offering today, should it have been accepted in the sight of the LORD?
\n20. And when Moses heard that, he was content. (Leviticus 10:12\u201320)<\/p>\n
For some reason, Moses felt it necessary now to repeat God\u2019s law concerning \u201cmeat\u201d or cereal offerings, and the priests\u2019 due, as well as the wave and heave offerings (vv. 12\u201315). It is possible that Nadab and Abihu, before the strange fire incident, had been careless with respect to these laws also. Sin is usually not an isolated act but a pattern of life and a way of life.
\nMoses stresses the fact that his reminder represents no personal perspective but a mandate from the Almighty, \u201cfor so I am commanded\u201d (v. 13). The law in its totality is God\u2019s word and commandment.
\nParker\u2019s comment is again excellent:<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Moses spake unto Aaron \u2026 Take the meat offering,\u201d\u2014and he adds,\u2014\u201cfor so I am commanded.\u201d Moses was not the fountain of authority. There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding. This was not a clamorous interference with Aaron, an interference merely for the sake of tumult or the assertion of endangered right; it was the representation of a divine purpose and a holy command. This is an instance which shows how the law was looked after. Men make laws and forget them; they refer to statutes three hundred years old, venerable with the dust of four centuries, and they surprise current opinion by exhumations which show the cleverness and the perseverance of the lawyer. Men are fond of making laws; when they have ignoble leisure, they \u201cimprove\u201d it (to use an ironical expression) by adding to the bye-laws, by multiplying mechanical stipulations and regulations, and forgetting the existence of such laws in the very act of their multiplication. God has no dead-letters in his law-book. The law is alive\u2014tingling, throbbing in every letter and at every point. The commandment is exceeding broad; it never slumbers, never passes into obsoleteness, but stands in perpetual claim of right and insistence of decree. It is convenient to forget laws; but God will not allow any one of his laws to be forgotten. Every inquiry which Moses put to Israel was justified by a statute; he said, \u201cI do but represent the law; there is nothing hypocritical in my examination; there is nothing super-refined in my judgment; I am simply asking as the representative of law how obedience is keeping up step with the march of judgment?\u201d<\/p>\n
Moses, however, did more than remind the priests of certain aspects of the law: he checked up on their obedience. The result was that a breach of ritual became evident, and Moses was angry. The priests had not eaten a portion which was for their consumption but had rather burned it. Samuel Clark summarized ably what was at stake:<\/p>\n
The Law had expressly commanded that the flesh of those Sin-offerings the blood of which was not carried into the Sanctuary should belong to the priests, and that it should be eaten by them alone in a holy place. See on 2:3. The Sin-offerings of which the blood was carried into the Sanctuary were those for the High-priest and for the people, 4:5\u201316. But on this occasion, though the Sin-offering which had been offered by Aaron was for the people (9:15), its blood was not carried into the Tabernacle. See 9:9, 10:18. The priests might therefore have too readily supposed that their eating the flesh, or burning it, was a matter of indifference. A doubt was in some way raised in the mind of Moses as to the fact, and he \u201cdiligently sought the goat of the Sin-offering, and behold, it was burnt.\u201d In his rebuke he tells them that the flesh of the Sin-offering is given to the priests \u201cto bear the iniquity of the congregation to make atonement for them before the Lord.\u201d The appropriation of the flesh by the priests is thus made an essential part of the atonement. See on 6:25.<\/p>\n
Clark\u2019s point was especially important in calling attention to the fact that the priests were \u201cto bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD\u201d (v. 17). As types of Christ, this was basic to their function. In a restricted sense, this is still true. A pastor, in hearing confessions and requiring repentance and restitution, becomes a burden-bearer of the people\u2019s sins. He cannot make atonement for them, but he has a ministerial function in declaring to them that, when they meet the requirements of God\u2019s law-word, their sins are remitted to them, or, when they refuse to meet God\u2019s requirements, their sins are retained or bound to them. According to our Lord,<\/p>\n
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:19)<\/p>\n
Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18:18)<\/p>\n
And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained. John 20:22\u201323)<\/p>\n
This is not a legislative power: it does not give the power to define sin or to absolve it on man\u2019s own grounds, in terms of his self-made law, i.e., autonomously. This is a ministerial power. In terms of God\u2019s definition of sin in His law, and in terms of His definition of restitution and forgiveness, we have the confidence of perfect agreement between what we do on earth and what God does in heaven. Thus, if a man steals $100, he is bound; his sin is not remitted and forgiven, and when a pastor tells him so, he knows that his word is in consonance with heaven. What he binds on earth is bound in heaven. Likewise, if such a man restores $200, then his sin is loosed, remitted and forgiven, and we can be certain that it is remitted in heaven. Christ asserts here the perfect consonance between God\u2019s law, our faithful application of it, and what occurs in heaven. Our God is the God who is faithful to His revealed word, and we have the assurance of His faithfulness.
\nWhen Moses found that Aaron, Ithamar, and Eleazar had neglected a point of law in the ritual, he was angry and rebuked them (vv. 16\u201318). Aaron\u2019s answer was a simple one. Not a spirit of disobedience but a fearfulness and a sense of sin had led to the failure to eat their portion of the goat of the sin offering. Given the sin and death of two members of the family, Aaron, Ithamar, and Eleazar identified themselves with the sin of the people rather than with their office as priests. According to John Gill, rabbinic teaching turned this episode into a legal precedent: \u201cThe Jews say, a high-priest may offer, being a mourner, but not eat; a common priest may neither offer nor eat; and which they illustrate by this passage, that Aaron offered and did not eat, but his sons did neither.\u201d This view is an error, however, in that it assumes that the human condition outweighs the power of grace. While Moses accepted or was satisfied with Aaron\u2019s answer, he does not give us a legal precedent. Lange referred to Hosea 9:4 in justification of Aaron\u2019s act. The reference in that text is to sacrifices and offerings made without repentance and does not apply to Aaron\u2019s case.
\nWenham has called attention to the relationship of Leviticus 10 to the New Testament, not in the form of explicit references but as underlying the text. Our Lord tells the disciples that He must have priority over their families (Matt. 8:21\u201322; cf. Lev. 10:6\u20137). Christ\u2019s servants must be temperate, according to Paul (1 Tim 3:3, 8; Lev. 10:9). Furthermore, the fact that greater responsibilities incur greater culpabilities is referred to in Luke 12:48, 1 Peter 4:17, and in James 3:1, \u201cWe who teach shall be judged with greater strictness.\u201d
\nFurthermore, the condemnation of Pharisaism is in all the Gospels, and in the Epistles also. The requirement of unswerving obedience to God\u2019s every word is declared by our Lord in the temptation, \u201cIt is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God\u201d (Matt. 4:4). Christ had just been tempted by Satan\u2019s \u201cgood\u201d word: you, Jesus, being hungry, can now appreciate the hunger of the poor. If you are a son of God, do the \u201cright\u201d thing and turn these stones into bread and relieve world poverty miraculously. The devil was hoping to use Pharisaism to \u201cconvert\u201d Christ to an anti-God position in the name of humanitarianism. In all three of the temptations, our Lord\u2019s answer is in terms of the strict word of God: \u201cIt is written.\u201d This is the meaning of Leviticus 10.<\/p>\n
Chapter Nineteen<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy Will Ye Die?\u201d
\n(Leviticus 11:1\u20138)<\/p>\n
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them,
\n2. Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.
\n3. Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.
\n4. Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
\n5. And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
\n6. And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
\n7. And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.
\n8. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you. (Leviticus 11:1\u20138)<\/p>\n
In chapters 11\u201316 of Leviticus we have laws concerning uncleanness and its remedy. The word unclean is tawmay in the Hebrew, meaning religiously and morally defiling and polluted, or so it is usually defined. This definition is formally correct, but a Greek dualism of mind and body underlies it, because for Scripture that which defiles a man religiously or morally defiles him totally. He is then unclean or polluted. He is then separated from men totally, in the physical as well as spiritual sense. Thus, any interpretation which does not stress the total nature of uncleanness will misinterpret this chapter, and others like it.
\nAnother problem confronts us with this chapter. According to many, the New Testament ostensibly invalidates the dietary laws. Three texts are commonly cited. First, Mark 7:14ff. is used, because our Lord declares that \u201cThere is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him\u201d (Mark 7:15). Such a text proves too much! Did our Lord mean that eating or drinking poison or human feces will not defile us? By taking the text out of its context, the text is misinterpreted. At issue in Mark 7:1\u201323 is the criticism by the Pharisees and Scribes of the disciples for eating bread \u201cwith defiled, that is to say, unwashen hands\u201d (Mark 7:2). Thus, it was not Leviticus 11 which was under discussion but \u201cthe tradition of the elders,\u201d \u201cthe tradition of men,\u201d \u201cthe commandments of men,\u201d etc. (Mark 7:3, 7, 9, etc.). By means of these, our Lord says, they were \u201cMaking the word of God of none effect.\u2026\u201d (Mark 7:13). Our modern commentators, in discussing uncleanness, separate the moral and religious from the physical uncleanness. The Pharisees had reduced uncleanness to a physical fact and supplanted God\u2019s law with their tradition. Our Lord asserts the priority of the religious and its total application. \u201cThat which comes out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men,\u201d comes all forms of defilement and sin, all lawlessness (Mark 7:20\u201323). Thus, in spite of the fact that \u201csome\u201d (Mark 7:2) of the disciples had not followed the Pharisees\u2019 ritual of washing (their hands may still have been clean), they were not unclean. Uncleanness begins in the heart of man, and his disciples were not unclean, whereas the punctilious Pharisees and scribes were. To read more into the text is invalid. Had our Lord meant that pork was now \u201ckosher,\u201d he would have been charged with contempt of God\u2019s law. On the contrary, however, He charged the scribes and Pharisees with exchanging God\u2019s law for their traditions.
\nSecond, Acts 10:15 is cited, Peter\u2019s vision. Peter, however, does not see the vision as permission to eat forbidden meats. Rather, he sees it as the destruction of the nationalistic separation from the Gentiles as unclean:<\/p>\n
34. Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
\n35. But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. (Acts 10:34\u201335)<\/p>\n
To treat all Jews as clean and all Gentiles as unclean is invalid, Peter recognizes. The point of the vision is not diet but the world mission of the church and the common standing of all believers in Christ.
\nThird, 1 Corinthians 10:23ff. is used against the dietary laws. Here again, the issue is not the dietary laws; it is meat offered to idols and then sold \u201cin the shambles,\u201d the meat market of the day (1 Cor. 10:25). Paul is discussing the legitimacy of eating meats which, as a matter of course in Gentile cities, were butchered before a pagan altar and then sold. The issue is not forbidden meats. The issue is rather whether or not such otherwise properly killed and bled meats were \u201ckosher\u201d if slaughtered at a pagan altar. This is a very different question. The question, as Paul sees it, is this: is the idol something, and does a man who eats the meat simply as food purchased in the shambles or market thereby participate in the sacrifice? To introduce another meaning is not a valid interpretation.
\nA fourth text is sometimes cited, Titus 1:15, \u201cUnto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.\u201d There is no reference here to diet; the reference is \u201cto Jewish fables\u201d (Titus 1:14) which denied the fact that all things were created by God \u201cvery good\u201d (Gen. 1:31), and which saw metaphysical rather than moral evil in creation.
\nA fifth text is 1 Timothy 4:1\u20135. The practices Paul condemns are ascetic celibacy and vegetarianism, both aspects of Eastern thought which had moved westward. To use such a text means straining for excuses to set aside God\u2019s dietary laws.
\nReturning again to the Biblical view of man, we must remember that uncleanness is a religious fact which affects man totally. Socrates could give a discourse on virtue while engaged in homosexuality because the Greek view located virtue in the spirit and depreciated the body. No such thinking is permitted by Scripture. The careful Biblical legislation of things physical is offensive to the Greek mentality, which believes at times that a man\u2019s life is as noble and virtuous as a man thinks himself to be. Thus, these laws are religious, moral, hygienic and more, because God gave them.
\nIn v. 1, we see that \u201cthe LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron.\u201d Normally, God spoke to Aaron through Moses. Here, however, as in Leviticus 13:1, 14:33, and 15:1, He speaks to both. Hoffman suggested that this was because these sections deal with uncleanness, and the priests were commissioned to distinguish between the clean and the unclean and to instruct Israel. This seems unlikely, because the sacrificial laws involve the priests as much if not more, and yet they are primarily addressed to Moses, and to Aaron through him.
\nDiet is very personal, and, in a sense, very private, no matter how publicly we may dine. What we eat is governed by our particular tastes, and it affects us personally. When we speak, our words can please or hurt others, inform or misinform them. When we eat, however, we affect our personal health, not public health, whereas our words have a clear public impact. Eating is thus in a sense a very private affair.
\nAt the same time, it is the fact of eating, or nourishing ourselves, which is made central to our worship of God, the communion service. The very private act is made a public sacrament, because we are required to serve God with all our heart, mind, and being, i.e., from the privacy of our lives to the most public of acts, we must be totally the Lord\u2019s.
\nA sentence by Pfeiffer sets forth both the problem and the answer: \u201cTo the Israelite, every detail of life must be governed by the law of God, and lived to the glory of God.\u201d In this sentence, we see the church\u2019s disaster. Why should this requirement to live all of life, governed in every detail by the law of God, be limited \u201cto the Israelite?\u201d How can it be? Precisely because we are the people of Christ, it is all the more applicable to us.
\nThe concepts of holy and unholy (or, profane) and of clean and unclean are related but not identical. The word holy means dedicated, sacred, or separated; it implies a positive character, and to be holy means to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, or it can refer to a place or thing set apart for God\u2019s use. Clean means free from that which is polluting, free from sin or from wrongful use. According to Noordtzij, the relationship between holiness and cleanness can be stated thus: \u201cno holiness without cleanness.\u201d
\nFinally, it is noteworthy that Joseph Parker felt that this chapter shows \u201cthat laws were not bound by local circumstances.\u201d Things were forbidden which were beyond availability in the wilderness. If \u201cwe deny the whole of the eleventh chapter of Leviticus,\u201d if we see it as unworthy and as \u201cfrivolity,\u201d then \u201cthe frivolity \u2026 is on our part.\u201d Then too, \u201cWe do elect and we do reject.\u201d Parker continued:<\/p>\n
A very popular argument is upset by this chapter. There is an argument which runs in this fashion: Why should we not eat and drink these things, for they are all good creatures of God? The temptation of man is to find a \u201cgood creature of God\u201d wherever he wants to find one.<\/p>\n
The very fact that God could take such pains in keeping us back from the use of such animals, begins the infinite argument that his anxiety is to save the soul from poison, corruption, death. \u201cTurn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?\u201d<\/p>\n
Parker was quoting, in his concluding words, Ezekiel 33:11. This is the issue.<\/p>\n
Chapter Twenty<\/p>\n
Clean and Unclean
\n(Leviticus 11:1\u20138)<\/p>\n
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them,
\n2. Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.
\n3. Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.
\n4. Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
\n5. And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
\n6. And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
\n7. And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.
\n8. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you. (Leviticus 11:1\u20138)<\/p>\n
Noordtzij has called attention to the far-reaching implications of uncleanness. The worship of foreign gods was uncleanness, and it polluted both a people and their land (Jer. 2:7, 23; 3:2; 7:20; Hos. 6:10; etc.). Turning to mediums and prophesying spirits (Lev. 20:6), pagan mourning rituals and forms (Lev. 19:27\u201328; Deut. 14:1), and religious prostitution (Lev. 19:29), were forms of uncleanness. Other forms of uncleanness included contact with death or decomposition (Lev. 11:8, 11, 24\u201340; 21:1\u20134, 11; Num. 6:6\u20137; 9:6\u20137; Lev. chs. 13\u201314); bodily discharges, menstruation, and copulation (Lev. 15); the eating of some meats (Lev. 11; Deut. 14:4\u201321); etc. Some of these were things which were \u201cnatural\u201d in and of themselves, such as menstruation and copulation, but still had to be separated from worship. No aspect of the fertility cult faith could be allowed near to God\u2019s worship; fertility cults stressed the power of human acts to determine God\u2019s actions.
\nIt is noteworthy that some of the forbidden animals had a place in pagan cults precisely because they were regarded as allied to demonic powers. Most notable of these was the pig. This, however, was not the reason for God\u2019s prohibitions.
\nIt is interesting to note how Jews in the intertestamental period regarded the dietary laws. According to 4 Maccabees 5:19\u201326, Eleazar told Antiochus, in defending the whole of God\u2019s law,<\/p>\n
Accordingly, you must not regard it as a minor sin for us to eat unclean food; minor sins are just as weighty as great sins, for in each case the Law is despised. You mock at our philosophy as though living under it were contrary to reason. On the other hand, it teaches us temperance so that we are in control of all our pleasures and desires; and it gives us a thorough training in courage so that whatever our different attitudes may be we retain a sense of balance; and it instructs us in piety so that we most highly reverence the only living God. Therefore, we do not eat unclean foods. Believing that God established the Law, we know that the creator of the world, in giving us the Law, conforms it to our nature. He has commanded us to eat whatever will be well suited to our souls, and has forbidden us to eat food that is the reverse.<\/p>\n
In very recent years, Harrison has called attention to the hygienic aspect of the dietary laws, noting that these laws \u201chave been amply justified by subsequent studies in the general area of preventive medicine.\u201d
\nIn vv. 1\u20138, we have a statement with regards to judging clean and unclean animals. This is neither a scientific nor an unscientific statement, because it is not intended for scientific experts but for the people, to guide their daily lives. As a result, it is an empirical description, i.e., describing what an animal is visibly. To be clean, the animal must part the hoof and chew the cud. Thus, the coney, or rock-badger, and the hare, animals we may or may not have correctly identified, empirically seem to chew the cud, but they are unclean all the same. Most but not all the clean animals were also those which could be offered as sacrifices.
\nIt is noteworthy that all over the world diet is normally determined by three things: availability, taste, and custom. The Bible requires that God\u2019s judgment determine the diet. One consequence of this was a more systematic attention to food production and development by ancient Israel, and by Christendom since then. Because God\u2019s law sees religion as a matter of action and life, diet is an inescapable part of the life of faith. It is not an accident that the word unclean (or defiled) is used over 100 times in chapters 11\u201316. When we are linked with God by His covenant, we cannot be linked to anything outside His will. This is very strongly stressed in Leviticus 20:24\u201326:<\/p>\n
24. But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people.
\n25. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.
\n26. And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.<\/p>\n
The dietary laws have as their purpose our cleanness so that we can be separated into association with God the Lord. This holy association is their essential reason. Physical benefits clearly flow from the observance of these laws. R. E. McMaster, Jr., in The Reaper, vol. X, no. 11, 6 March 1986, has summarized important medical research by The Livington-Wheeler Foundation on the relationship between the eating of pork and cancer (among other things). Because ours is a total faith, and because of the unity of our being as mind and body, we must recognize that the law is a unity which speaks to our lives as a unity. These laws thus speak for our physical health, but, above all, for our necessary holiness before God.
\nWe must remember another important fact. A donkey or ass was and is unclean as food, but not as a living, working animal. A lamb is a clean animal, but, if found dead in the field, or killed by a wild animal, it is unclean (Ex. 22:31).
\nIt is noteworthy that the rules of clean meats excluded all beasts of prey.
\nIt is important to remember that while the dietary laws are given in detail in Leviticus 11, and summarized in Deuteronomy 14, they were not new when given to Moses. The distinction between clean and unclean animals was familiar to Noah (Gen. 7:2\u20133, 8\u20139; 8:20). Nothing in the text warrants limiting the distinction in Genesis to animals for sacrifice: the reference is to \u201cevery clean beast\u201d (Gen. 7:2). Noah thus knew the distinction between clean and unclean animals. Again, when Noah is told to abstain from eating blood, the law is given together with the prohibition of murder (Gen. 9:4\u20136). However, it is obvious from Genesis 4:8\u201314 that men from the beginning have known that murder is against God\u2019s law.
\nIn Genesis 9:4\u20136, God separates blood, which means life, from man\u2019s power, whether that blood be of animals or men. Blood can only be taken or shed in terms of God\u2019s law, not in terms of man\u2019s will. The sacredness of life means that man cannot treat blood as his to control and shed. According to Stigers, Genesis 9:6, \u201cWhoso sheddeth man\u2019s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man,\u201d means that \u201cthe murderer has assaulted the government of God and so lies beyond the protection of the divine will.\u201d Because all life is God\u2019s creation, the shedding of blood is subject to God\u2019s government.
\nMany pagans believed that the drinking of blood gave them the power of the life taken. Thus, in such instances, two evils were present: first, the taking of life, the shedding (and drinking or eating, in some instances) of blood in contempt of God\u2019s law, and, second, the attempt to gain lawless power.
\nAccording to God\u2019s law-word, He alone is the source of power. If His people should come to believe that health, power, and wealth can be gained in contempt of Him, then God\u2019s judgment follows:<\/p>\n
18. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
\n19. And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.
\n20. As the nations which the LORD destroyed before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 8:18\u201320)<\/p>\n
Chapter Twenty-One<\/p>\n
Immunity
\n(Leviticus 11:9\u201328)<\/p>\n
9. These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
\n10. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
\n11. They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
\n12. Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.
\n13. And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray,
\n14. And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;
\n15. Every raven after his kind;
\n16. And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,
\n17. And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl,
\n18. And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle,
\n19. And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.
\n20. All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.
\n21. Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;
\n22. Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.
\n23. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.
\n24. And for these ye shall be unclean: whosoever toucheth the carcase of them shall be unclean until the even.
\n25. And whosoever beareth ought of the carcase of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even.
\n26. The carcases of every beast which divideth the hoof, and is not clovenfooted, nor cheweth the cud, are unclean unto you: every one that toucheth them shall be unclean.
\n27. And whatsoever goeth upon his paws, among all manner of beasts that go on all four, those are unclean unto you: whoso toucheth their carcase shall be unclean until the even.
\n28. And he that beareth the carcase of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: they are unclean unto you. (Leviticus 11:9\u201328)<\/p>\n
The first dietary law of Scripture appears in Genesis 1:29f., which declares that all fruits and vegetables are permitted as food.
\nIn Leviticus 11, all herbivorous animals which meet the two specifications of a divided hoof and chewing the cud are clean; ten animals, both wild and domestic, are specifically named in Deuteronomy 14:4\u20135.
\nAll birds of prey are forbidden. Since the rabbis held that whatever comes from an unclean thing is unclean, the eggs of forbidden birds have usually been held to be unclean.
\nWith respect to fish, the requirements are fins and scales. Here some division has existed among Orthodox and Conservative Jews; in England, the sturgeon is banned, but in America both the sturgeon and the swordfish are permitted.
\nFour kinds of insects, all locusts, are permitted, and these were usually desert fare in difficult times (Matt. 3:4). The bee is not included in the list of clean insects, but, because the honey is a \u201ctransferred nectar,\u201d it is clean.
\nNot all portions of clean animals can be used as food, i.e., the sciatic nerve (Gen. 32:32), and abdominal fat (Lev. 3:17, 7:23\u201325), are forbidden. Blood is of course also forbidden as a food, and in Ezekiel 33:25\u201326, the eating of blood is equated with idolatry and murder, and also with adultery. The rabbis taught that obedience to the dietary laws had to be theological. Rather than saying, \u201cI do not like the flesh of swine,\u201d it is better to say, \u201cI like it but must abstain seeing the Torah has forbidden it.\u201d In most cases, Jews have in past centuries erred on the side of over-strictness in order to be safe. Thus, in the late ninth or early tenth century A.D., Daniel Al-Kumisi held, \u201cin general he who fears God must keep away from all things subject to doubt as to their permissibility.\u201d Some rabbis saw physical and spiritual consequences, including a blunting of intellectual powers, in the eating of forbidden foods. Maimonides gave an exclusively hygienic explanation, as did others in the medieval era. This was easy to do, given the extensive immunity of Jews as against Christians in the times of epidemics and plagues.
\nIn the last century, Reform Jews began to abandon the dietary laws as unspiritual and as debasing to true religion, as John D. Rayner stated it in 1968. At about the same time in the past century that Reform Jews separated themselves from the dietary laws, an American Presbyterian scholar, Samuel Henry Kellogg (1839\u20131899), called attention to their validity, and the better health and longevity of Orthodox Jews:<\/p>\n
In this matter we are not left to guessing; the facts are before the world, and are undisputed. Even so long ago as the days when the plague was desolating Europe, the Jews so universally escaped infection that, by this their exemption, the popular suspicion was excited into fury, and they were accused of causing the fearful mortality among their Gentile neighbours by poisoning the wells, and springs. In our own day, in the recent cholera epidemic in Italy, a correspondent of the Jewish Chronicle testifies that the Jews enjoyed almost absolute immunity, at the least from fatal attack.<\/p>\n
Kellogg cited data concerning the mean average of Jewish and non-Jewish lifespans in Prussia, Hungary, Croatia, Germany, and elsewhere; the data was markedly in favor of the Jews, and this despite the fact that the Jews \u201cgenerally are poor, and live under much more unfavorable sanitary conditions than their Gentile neighbours.\u201d
\nWith the modern emphasis on health foods, it is a remarkable fact of human perversity that God\u2019s proven dietary laws are so commonly bypassed.
\nVery early, Jews added intelligent methods to the care and preparation of the permitted meats:<\/p>\n
To render meat \u201ckosher,\u201d both of mammal and fowl, it must be put in cold water for an hour, then an hour in salt, and finally be set on an earthen vessel having holes for draining. Lastly it must undergo another washing in cold water.<\/p>\n
The historical data makes it clear, as does also recent research, that the forbidden foods have a destructive effect on the immune system of our bodies. As such, they are a form of poisoning, a food-type which goes counter to the body\u2019s normal working and vitality. The word abomination is applied to the forbidden foods. A more modern translation is filth. This word, shegats, appears only in Leviticus 11, although there are two others words translated as abomination. Our separation from filth unto holiness and God\u2019s service not only makes us useful to the Lord, but also gives us health and life in His service.
\nWenham, in his comment on vv. 24\u201345, calls attention to four aspects thereof. First (vv. 24, 27, 31, 39), it is dead animals which pollute men. Second, all dead animals, unless killed according to the law, are unclean. If clean animals die a natural death, they are unclean (v. 39). They cannot be eaten, and they render a man unclean when they are handled (vv. 39\u201340). Third, such an uncleanness is temporary, lasting only until evening of the day it occurs (vv. 24\u201325, 27\u201328, etc.). Other forms of pollution can last a week (15:13), two months (12:5), or indefinitely (13:45\u201346). Fourth, household articles become unclean on contact with unclean carcasses and must be washed (vv. 25, 28, 32, 41). Unclean animals do not pollute when alive, but they do pollute when dead.
\nIt is noteworthy that the Biblical classification of animals is an important means of knowledge. Too often, modern classifications represent evolutionary ideology; they rest on older classifications but have been subjected to new frameworks. C. D. Ginsburg gave us a summary of the definitions of clean and unclean fish, as established in the era of the second Temple:<\/p>\n
(1) All fishes with scales have invariably also fins, but fishes which have fins have not always scales. Any fish, therefore, or even a piece of one exposed by itself for sale in the market, which exhibits scales may be eaten, for it is to be taken for granted that it had fins, or that the fins cannot be seen because of their extraordinary smallness. But, on the other hand, a fish with fins may exist without scales, and hence is unclean; (2) Clean fishes have a complete vertebral column, but the unclean have simply single joints, united by a gelatinous cord. To the former class belong, (a) \u201cthe soft fins,\u201d or the salmon and trout, the capellan and grayling, the herring, the anchovy and the sardine, the pike and carp families, the cod, the hake and the haddock, the sole, the turbot, and the plaice; (b) \u201cthe spiny fins,\u201d as the perch, the mackerel, and the tunny. To the latter class belong the shark tribe, the sturgeons with their caviare, the lamprey, and the nine-eyed eel; (3) The head of clean fishes is more or less broad, whilst that of the unclean kinds is more or less pointed at the end, as the eel, the mammalian species, &c.; (4) The swimming bladder of clean fishes is rounded at one end, and pointed at the other, whilst that of the unclean fishes is either rounded or pointed at both extremities alike. It is in allusion to this law that we are told in the parable of the fisherman, which is taken from Jewish life, that when they drew to shore the net with every kind of fish, the fishermen sat down (i.e., to examine the clean and the unclean), and gathered the good (i.e., the clean), into the vessels, but cast the bad (i.e., the unclean) away (Matt. 13:48). The orthodox Jews to this day strictly observe these regulations, and abhor eating those fishes which are enumerated under the four above-named criteria of not clean. It is moreover to be remarked that fishes without scales are also still regarded in Egypt as unwholesome, and that the Romans would not permit them to be offered in sacrifice.<\/p>\n
Such a division and classification has as its purposes man\u2019s holiness and health. The result of such a classification, when respected and applied, is our sanctification, and also our immunity. The fact that recent studies have shown that obedience to God\u2019s dietary laws strengthens our immunities should not blind us to the fact that though this may be a new \u201cdiscovery,\u201d it is also an affirmation of God\u2019s law, namely, that obedience gives health, prosperity, and fertility:<\/p>\n
11. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them.
\n12. Wherefore, it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the LORD thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers:
\n13. And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.
\n14. Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.
\n15. And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee. (Deuteronomy 7:11\u201315)<\/p>\n
Chapter Twenty-Two<\/p>\n
Diet and Religion
\n(Leviticus 11:29\u201347)<\/p>\n
29. These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind,
\n30. And the ferret, and the chameleon, and the lizard, and the snail, and the mole.
\n31. These are unclean to you among all that creep: whosoever doth touch them, when they be dead, shall be unclean until the even.
\n32. And upon whatsoever any of them, when they are dead, doth fall, it shall be unclean; whether it be any vessel of wood, or raiment, or skin, or sack, whatsoever vessel it be, wherein any work is done, it must be put into water, and it shall be unclean until the even; so it shall be cleansed.
\n33. And every earthen vessel, whereinto any of them falleth, whatsoever is in it shall be unclean; and ye shall break it.
\n34. Of all meat which may be eaten, that on which such water cometh shall be unclean: and all drink that may be drunk in every such vessel shall be unclean.
\n35. And every thing whereupon any part of their carcase falleth shall be unclean; whether it be oven, or ranges for pots, they shall be broken down: for they are unclean, and shall be unclean unto you.
\n36. Nevertheless a fountain or pit, wherein there is plenty of water, shall be clean: but that which toucheth their carcase shall be unclean.
\n37. And if any part of their carcase fall upon any sowing seed which is to be sown, it shall be clean.
\n38. But if any water be put upon the seed, and any part of their carcase fall thereon, it shall be unclean unto you.
\n39. And if any beast, of which ye may eat, die; he that toucheth the carcase thereof shall be unclean until the even.
\n40. And he that eateth of the carcase of it shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: he also that beareth the carcase of it shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even.
\n41. And every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth shall be an abomination; it shall not be eaten.
\n42. Whatsoever goeth upon the belly, and whatsoever goeth upon all four, or whatsoever hath more feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth, them ye shall not eat; for they are an abomination.
\n43. Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be defiled thereby.
\n44. For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
\n45. For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.
\n46. This is the law of the beasts, and of the fowl, and of every living creature that moveth in the waters, and of every creature that creepeth upon the earth:
\n47. To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten. (Leviticus 11:29\u201347)<\/p>\n
Most of the comments on Leviticus 11 are embarrassing to read. We are told that the lack of refrigeration is responsible for the dietary laws. This is absurd, since most of the laws cannot be related to the lack of refrigeration. One seminary professor has read these laws as having a symbolic meaning; thus, \u201cIn Leviticus 11, meditation, which is pictured by chewing the cud, is a primary mark of cleanness.\u201d If God wanted us to \u201cmeditate,\u201d He would have told us so without this elaborate dietary symbolism! Yet, we are assured, \u201cthe strongest aspect of the dietary regulations is symbolic.\u201d
\nNoordtzij was wiser in noting, \u201cImplicit in these verses is the notion that uncleanness was something contagious.\u201d Leviticus gives us basic laws concerning sanitation and contagion which have to varying degrees governed Christendom until recently and greatly furthered social protections.
\nSome of the requirements set forth in these verses are, first, that dead animals, insects, etc., pollute. Whatever they touch must be washed, and the person involved must bathe. Second, porous pottery vessels must be broken. What can be washed must be, but porous items can absorb infectious bacteria. Third, death is a form of pollution and comes from some kind of ailment. It is not a natural fact of creation but rather of the Fall, and hence represents something wrong. As a general rule, then, death is to be viewed as involving disease, and hence cleansing is the rule. Fourth, all \u201ccreeping things,\u201d mice, rats, and the like, are forbidden as food. Fifth, physical contacts can convey contagion. Sixth, health is a goal of holiness, because the resurrection of the body is our future. This does not mean that sickness is sin, but that sickness is an aspect of the fallen world we live in, and we must seek holiness, and God requires this as His right over us.
\nSince the rise of Romanticism, one area of life after another has been reduced to feeling. Romanticism is hostile to law and regards the orderly life of law as repressive and at best inferior. The nature of man is held to reveal itself in its passions, not in the \u201csubmissive\u201d life of law, virtue, and reason. The effect of Romanticism has been great on churches and on synagogues, so that a religion of feeling has replaced ancient orthodoxies. About thirty years ago, one Jewish writer on the dietary laws observed:<\/p>\n
There is a well-known story about a rabbi who, upon coming to a new congregation, was taken aside by the president and in a friendly manner advised not to talk about certain topics from the pulpit: Hebrew Schools\u2014because the children had to take music and dancing lessons and needed the afternoons for play; the Sabbath\u2014because in America one was compelled to work on the Sabbath to make a living, and making a living came first; the Dietary Laws, Kashrut\u2014because it was only an ancient health measure, out of place in modern times, and, furthermore, too much trouble for the women to bother with two sets of dishes. The rabbi, surprised at the counsel he was receiving, asked anxiously: \u201cIf I cannot talk about the Hebrew Schools, and I cannot talk about the Sabbath and I cannot talk about Kashrut, what can I talk about?\u201d The president replied in mild astonishment: \u201cWhy, that is no problem at all, Rabbi; just talk about Judaism!\u201d<\/p>\n
This story, bitter though it may sound, reflects a good deal of what has passed for Jewish life in the past decades in America.<\/p>\n
The same story can be duplicated in the churches: no preaching about the law, no preaching on Romans, no preaching on controversial subjects, and so on and on. Faith has been separated from life and action and reduced to feeling. Many who identify themselves as Jews or Christians are truly ignorant of the essentials of their faith. In marriages, men and women guilty of all kinds of offenses still feel that all kinds of actions can be wiped out by the simple statement, But I love him, or her. Feeling replaces faithfulness.
\nAs against this emphasis on feeling, which is not a new one in history, there have been reactions again and again in both Judaism and Christianity to a substitution of tradition for law. Very early, for example, some groups in Judaism became rigid and extreme in their interpretations of the law, seeking in effect to be holier than God; this has also taken place within the church.
\nThe precision of God\u2019s law has as its purpose the simple obedience required. For example, when the law was given to Moses on the mount, certain requirements were made of the people who were to receive the covenant law. First, they were to consecrate themselves to God, to prepare to receive and obey God\u2019s covenant law. Second, they were to don freshly washed clothes to mark this new relationship. Third, to avoid associating their covenant with fertility cults, they were to avoid sexual relations for the time (Ex. 19:14\u201316).
\nThis separation of their reception of God\u2019s law from anything which could resemble fertility cult practices is a simple fact. It has, however, been used to vindicate asceticism, which means importing an alien matter into a simple fact.
\nGod\u2019s requirement is, \u201cye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy\u201d (v. 45). Holiness is freedom from sin and conformity to God and His law with all our heart, mind, and being, in word, thought, and deed. It is a consequence of grace and the working of the Holy Spirit in us (Rom. 6:22, John 3:5). We are commanded to \u201cFollow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord\u201d (Heb. 12:14).
\nDiet is an aspect of holiness. Every major religion has dietary laws: Judaism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and so on, are marked by strict rules concerning acceptable foods. Among other cultures, food taboos are commonplace. Ceremonies of eating are worldwide, and a sacredness is often attached to shared foods because it means a sharing of life. In some instances, the marriage ceremony has involved sharing a meal together. Eating a meal together has been a common ratification of an alliance. Food is often figuratively used for life, salvation, and for Christ, as the Welsh hymn shows:<\/p>\n
Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
\nPilgrim through this barren land;
\nI am weak, but thou are mighty;
\nHold me with thy pow\u2019rful hand;
\nBread of heaven, Bread of heaven,
\nFeed me till I want no more,
\nFeed me till I want no more.
\n(William Williams, 1745)<\/p>\n
In the Old Testament, the shewbread, and in the church, the sacramental bread, attest to the relationship of food to religion. We do not need to agree with the doctrines of transubtantiation and consubstantiation to recognize that food is typical of a variety of things in religion, and that material food and spiritual food are closely linked.
\nThe current widespread separation of diet from religion is an unusual fact of history. Because religion is total in its relevance, diet is a normal aspect of religious regulations. Particularly when the Biblical rules have been so demonstrably important in maintaining life and health, their neglect is amazing. G. Campbell Morgan said of these laws:<\/p>\n
It may at least be affirmed that these requirements were based on the soundest laws of health. God, who perfectly understands the physical structure of man, knows what is good and what is harmful. There can be very little doubt that a careful examination of these provisions will demonstrate the sanitary wisdom of them all.<\/p>\n
Not too long ago, a woman took legal steps against a church which suspended or excommunicated her for adultery. Her attitude was expressed very bluntly: \u201cWhat has God to do with my sex life?\u201d If God\u2019s purpose in Christ is to provide us with fire and life insurance and no more, then God has nothing to do with our sex life or our diet. In which case we have only an imaginary god, not the Sovereign and triune Lord and Creator.<\/p>\n
Chapter Twenty-Three<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Churching of Women\u201d
\n(Leviticus 12:1\u20138)<\/p>\n
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
\n2. Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean.
\n3. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
\n4. And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.
\n5. But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days.
\n6. And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest:
\n7. Who shall offer it before the LORD, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female.
\n8. And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean. (Leviticus 12:1\u20138)<\/p>\n
We come now to the laws of the purification of women after childbirth, a regulation very alien to the modern mind. Ironically, this was once a very understandable rule to many cultures, and it was readily acceptable to the European converts. The Book of Common Prayer has a rite for \u201cThe Thanksgiving of Women after Child-Birth; commonly called The Cherishing of Women.\u201d Anthropologists have given all kinds of fanciful interpretations to such rites, and their interpretations are better at \u201cconfirming\u201d their preconceived theories than at explaining the rites.
\nPerhaps the best way to approach these laws is to begin with the basic division between clean and unclean, since such is the concern of this law and many others. Nathaniel Micklem\u2019s comment is a good place to begin:<\/p>\n
12:2. The translation unclean is peculiarly infelicitous here, for it inevitably suggests disapprobation or disgust, and it anticipates a Manichaean view of evil inherent in the flesh. The passage might be paraphrased: \u201cWhen a woman has borne a son, proper feeling requires that she remain in seclusion for a week: then the child is to be circumcised: even then she is to stay at home for a month, and her first journey abroad shall be to church.\u201d<\/p>\n
Micklem\u2019s statement is very important in that it strikes against any implicitly Manichaean interpretation of the text. However, his paraphrase, \u201cproper feeling requires that she remain in seclusion for a week,\u201d gives the text a humanistic frame of reference. The term unclean cannot be read in Manichaean terms, but its meaning is still a broad one. It can refer, for example, to things immoral and to things which cannot be called immoral. Thus, leprosy is not immoral, but it is unclean. Incest, bestiality, and sodomy are both unclean and immoral. Childbirth, menstruation, and nocturnal emissions by men are not immoral, but they are unclean. Thomas Scott called attention to the fact that a woman\u2019s uncleanness after childbirth is ceremonial, not moral or essential.
\nIt will enable us to understand the particular kind of uncleanness referred to in Leviticus 11 and 12 if we realize what it has reference to. The leper\u2019s uncleanness means contagion. The woman after childbirth may be liable to contagion but is not a source of it. In fact, for certain religious observances, the unclean and the clean ate together even as they lived together. Thus, in Deuteronomy 15:19\u201323, we read:<\/p>\n
19. All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep.
\n20. Thou shalt eat it before the Lord thy God year by year in the place which the Lord shall choose, thou and thy household.
\n21. And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God.
\n22. Thou shalt eat it within thy gates: the unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike, as thy roebuck, and as the hart.
\n23. Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.<\/p>\n
What, then, does cleanness and uncleanness have reference to? According to Maimonides,<\/p>\n
All Israelites are warned to be clean at the three feasts, since they must be ready to enter into the Temple and eat of Hallowed Things. And insofar as it is said in Scripture, and their carcases ye shall not touch (Lev. 11:18; Deut. 14:8), this applies only to the duration of the feast. Even if a man becomes unclean, he does not become liable to punishment by scourging. But about other days of the year not even a warning has been given.<\/p>\n
This enables us to understand an instance of uncleanness, although the word is not used, in one of our Lord\u2019s Parables, the parable of the marriage feast (Matt. 22:1\u201314). One guest arrived in his own clothing and refused to don the King\u2019s gift of raiment. As a result, he is cast \u201cinto the outer darkness,\u201d bound \u201chand and foot\u201d (Matt. 22:13). The meaning was not lost on the people, nor on their leaders. To come into God\u2019s presence claiming an independent righteousness was a declaration of independence from God. To illustrate, over the years, I have heard many say that, although they are not Christians, they are \u201cnot worried\u201d about the afterlife \u201cif there is one,\u201d and they will take their chances; while \u201cnot proud\u201d of everything in their lives, \u201con the balance\u201d they feel that their lives stand up very well, and, if there is a heaven, they will be there. Such statements are an assertion of autonomy from God; this was the stand of the indicted wedding guest. Men are not clean before God because they believe they are, but only because God in Christ regenerates and cleanses them.
\nIn Leviticus 12, the uncleanness comes from childbirth, an uncleanness with reference to the Temple or sanctuary and rituals comparable to communion. Why so for childbirth, as well as other aspects of sexuality? The cleanness and \u201cundefiled\u201d nature of marital sex is plainly stated, as in Hebrews 13:4. Again, we are told, \u201cLo, children are an heritage of the LORD; and the fruit of the womb is his reward\u201d (Ps. 127:3). True, this is a fallen world, and man is a fallen creature, but the truth lies deeper. Over the centuries, people have associated childlessness with being accursed, as witness Rachel (Gen. 30:1) and Hannah (1 Sam. 1:4\u201310). At the same time, many have seen the ability to have many children as the greatest of blessings. Both attitudes are false, because Scripture, in the rite of circumcision, makes it clear that our hope is not in generation but in regeneration. All too many religions have exalted generation.
\nThe wedding guest, satisfied with himself and his own righteousness or justice, was cast out of God\u2019s presence. The requirements for approaching the Lord\u2019s Table stress the necessity of coming into God\u2019s presence worthily (1 Cor. 11:20\u201334), which means not by self-righteousness but by God\u2019s grace. Hence, the stress on confession, whether private, corporate, or to a pastor or priest, is a necessary part of eliminating uncleanness and coming before God as clean in Christ.
\nIn Luke 2:24, we see Christ, Mary, and Joseph fulfilling the requirements of Leviticus 12; the sacrifice of a pair of turtle-doves indicates that they were poor.
\nTwice the time for purification is required for a woman after giving birth to a girl as to a boy. Here as in other laws there are physiological aspects as well as ecclesiastical ones. The fact that we are ignorant of these as yet should give us the humility to reserve judgment and to accept the fact, hard as it is for the human mind to accept, that God is wiser than we are. In Paul\u2019s words,<\/p>\n
23. But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
\n24. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
\n25. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:23\u201325)<\/p>\n
If we begin with the premise that God is wise and just, even when we cannot understand Him, we may do badly in the sight of men, but we will be blessed by God.
\nAn interesting perspective on this chapter comes from Rabbi Hertz, in his latter years chief rabbi of England. He cited, with reference to v. 4, the fact that \u201cThe meaning is here that by virtue of the offerings, the cause which had made it impossible for her to come to the Sanctuary was obliterated.\u201d With respect to the doubled time span prior to the Temple purification after the birth of a female child, he noted, \u201cIt cannot be because a female was regarded as more defiling than a male, since the mother\u2019s purification was the same for either sex.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chapter Twenty-Four<\/p>\n
The Laws on \u201cLeprosy\u201d
\n(Leviticus 13:1\u201359)<\/p>\n
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying,
\n2. When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy; then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priests:
\n3. And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh: and when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy: and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean.
\n4. If the bright spot be white in the skin of his flesh, and in sight be not deeper than the skin, and the hair thereof be not turned white; then the priest shall shut up him that hath the plague seven days:
\n5. And the priest shall look on him the seventh day: and, behold, if the plague in his sight be at a stay, and the plague spread not in the skin; then the priest shall shut him up seven days more:
\n6. And the priest shall look on him again the seventh day: and, behold, if the plague be somewhat dark, and the plague spread not in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean: it is but a scab: and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean.
\n7. But if the scab spread much abroad in the skin, after that he hath been seen of the priest for his cleansing, he shall be seen of the priest again:
\n8. And if the priest see that, behold, the scab spreadeth in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a leprosy.
\n9. When the plague of leprosy is in a man, then he shall be brought unto the priest;
\n10. And the priest shall see him: and, behold, if the rising be white in the skin, and it have turned the hair white, and there be quick raw flesh in the rising;
\n11. It is an old leprosy in the skin of his flesh, and the priest shall pronounce him unclean, and shall not shut him up: for he is unclean.
\n12. And if a leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague from his head even to his foot, wheresoever the priest looketh;
\n13. Then the priest shall consider: and, behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean.
\n14. But when raw flesh appeareth in him, he shall be unclean.
\n15. And the priest shall see the raw flesh, and pronounce him to be unclean: for the raw flesh is unclean: it is a leprosy.
\n16. Or if the raw flesh turn again, and be changed unto white, he shall come unto the priest;
\n17. And the priest shall see him: and, behold, if the plague be turned into white; then the priest shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: he is clean.
\n18. The flesh also, in which, even in the skin thereof, was a boil, and is healed,
\n19. And in the place of the boil there be a white rising, or a bright spot, white, and somewhat reddish, and it be shewed to the priest;
\n20. And if, when the priest seeth it, behold, it be in sight lower than the skin, and the hair thereof be turned white; the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a plague of leprosy broken out of the boil.
\n21. But if the priest look on it, and, behold, there be no white hairs therein, and if it be not lower than the skin, but be somewhat dark; then the priest shall shut him up seven days:
\n22. And if it spread much abroad in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a plague.
\n23. But if the bright spot stay in his place, and spread not, it is a burning boil; and the priest shall pronounce him clean.
\n24. Or if there be any flesh, in the skin whereof there is a hot burning, and the quick flesh that burneth have a white bright spot, somewhat reddish, or white;
\n25. Then the priest shall look upon it: and, behold, if the hair in the bright spot be turned white, and it be in sight deeper than the skin; it is a leprosy broken out of the burning: wherefore the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is the plague of leprosy.
\n26. But if the priest look on it, and, behold, there be no white hair in the bright spot, and it be no lower than the other skin, but be somewhat dark; then the priest shall shut him up seven days:
\n27. And the priest shall look upon him the seventh day: and if it be spread much abroad in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is the plague of leprosy.
\n28. And if the bright spot stay in his place, and spread not in the skin, but it be somewhat dark; it is a rising of the burning, and the priest shall pronounce him clean: for it is an inflammation of the burning.
\n29. If a man or woman have a plague upon the head or the beard;
\n30. Then the priest shall see the plague: and, behold, if it be in sight deeper than the skin; and there be in it a yellow thin hair; then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a dry scall, even a leprosy upon the head or beard.
\n31. And if the priest look on the plague of the scall, and, behold, it be not in sight deeper than the skin, and that there is no black hair in it; then the priest shall shut up him that hath the plague of the scall seven days:
\n32. And in the seventh day the priest shall look on the plague: and, behold, if the scall spread not, and there be in it no yellow hair, and the scall be not in sight deeper than the skin;
\n33. He shall be shaven, but the scall shall he not shave; and the priest shall shut up him that hath the scall seven days more:
\n34. And in the seventh day the priest shall look on the scall: and, behold, if the scall be not spread in the skin, nor be in sight deeper than the skin; then the priest shall pronounce him clean: and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean.
\n35. But if the scall spread much in the skin after his cleansing;
\n36. Then the priest shall look on him: and, behold, if the scall be spread in the skin, the priest shall not seek for yellow hair; he is unclean.
\n37. But if the scall be in his sight at a stay, and that there is black hair grown up therein; the scall is healed, he is clean: and the priest shall pronounce him clean.
\n38. If a man also or a woman have in the skin of their flesh bright spots, even white bright spots;
\n39. Then the priest shall look: and, behold, if the bright spots in the skin of their flesh be darkish white; it is a freckled spot that groweth in the skin; he is clean.
\n40. And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean.
\n41. And he that hath his hair fallen off from the part of his head toward his face, he is forehead bald: yet is he clean.
\n42. And if there be in the bald head, or bald forehead, a white reddish sore; it is a leprosy sprung up in his bald head, or his bald forehead.
\n43. Then the priest shall look upon it: and, behold, if the rising of the sore be white reddish in his bald head, or in his bald forehead, as the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh;
\n44. He is a leprous man, he is unclean: the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean; his plague is in his head.
\n45. And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.
\n46. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.
\n47. The garment also that the plague of leprosy is in, whether it be a woollen garment, or a linen garment;
\n48. Whether it be in the warp, or woof; of linen, or of woollen; whether in a skin, or in any thing made of skin;
\n49. And if the plague be greenish or reddish in the garment, or in the skin, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin; it is a plague of leprosy, and shall be shewed unto the priest:
\n50. And the priest shall look upon the plague, and shut up it that hath the plague seven days:
\n51. And he shall look on the plague on the seventh day: if the plague be spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in a skin, or in any work that is made of skin; the plague is a fretting leprosy; it is unclean.
\n52. He shall therefore burn that garment, whether warp or woof, in woollen or in linen, or any thing of skin, wherein the plague is: for it is a fretting leprosy; it shall be burnt in the fire.
\n53. And if the priest shall look, and, behold, the plague be not spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin;
\n54. Then the priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the plague is, and he shall shut it up seven days more:
\n55. And the priest shall look on the plague, after that it is washed: and, behold, if the plague have not changed his colour, and the plague be not spread; it is unclean; thou shalt burn it in the fire; it is fret inward, whether it be bare within or without.
\n56. And if the priest look, and, behold, the plague be somewhat dark after the washing of it; then he shall rend it out of the garment, or out of the skin, or out of the warp, or out of the woof:
\n57. And if it appear still in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin; it is a spreading plague: thou shalt burn that wherein the plague is with fire.
\n58. And the garment, either warp, or woof, or whatsoever thing of skin it be, which thou shalt wash, if the plague be departed from them, then it shall be washed the second time, and shall be clean.
\n59. This is the law of the plague of leprosy in a garment of woollen or linen, either in the warp, or woof, or any thing of skins, to pronounce it clean, or to pronounce it unclean. (Leviticus 13:1\u201359)<\/p>\n
In Leviticus 13 and 14, we have extensive and specific legislation on what is called in the English leprosy. This term is misleading. First of all, words change their meanings, or are applied to different objects as time passes. The older term, rheumatism, is now obsolete, although it was once a good medical term. Arthritis replaced it, and one doctor has predicted that this latter term, because it describes several ailments, will in turn be replaced. Other instances of words with changed meanings include buffalo; the American buffalo is actually bison. Second, the English word leprosy comes, not from the Hebrew text, but from the Greek lepra, which in Greek referred to a disease very unlike those described in Leviticus 13. Third, as Wenham has pointed out, in Leviticus 13 a variety of diseases are described, twenty-one different cases in vv. 2\u201346, and three in vv. 47\u201358. Fourth, what we now call leprosy, or Hansen\u2019s disease, may have been unknown before the fifth century A.D. According to Harrison, however, clinical leprosy was known in Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C., and one case in an Egyptian mummy is said to be documented. However, the evidence seems clear that Hansen\u2019s disease is not the subject of this chapter. Moreover, the evidence points to a variety of related ailments covered by the one general word, in English leprosy. Noordtzij noted, \u201cThe Meshuah (Negaium I 4) thus asserts that there were no fewer than 16, 36, or even 72 types of sara \u2018het, and this could never be the case if the term referred solely to leprosy.\u201d Fifth, many medical and Biblical scholars have sought to identify the ailments described, with limited success. It is not unreasonable to assume that many of these ailments are no longer with us; hence, to assume that they must be identified in terms of diseases we know is perhaps an error.
\nWhat we do know, according to Hertz, is that the \u201cleper\u201d suffered from a physical infirmity; this infirmity barred him from the sanctuary; while so infirm, he was accounted as dead with respect to membership in the Kingdom of Priests, since physical defects disqualified a priest. On recovery, the man was formally rededicated as a covenant man. The text is very precise in providing the means of diagnosis; the priest thus had a medical function.
\nIt is important to note that the concern is for the welfare of the family and the community; neither can be sacrificed out of pity for the victim. It is thus noteworthy that we have here the source of the idea of quarantine. The concept is Biblical. As applied by Orthodox Jews and by orthodox Christians, it has included the quarantine not only of infected persons but also of infected animals and plants. The quarantine of ships is a centuries-old practice. Quarantine laws can, where required, supersede property rights. Such laws have been important in the development and progress of Christendom over other areas. It is significant that a concern for quarantine laws declines as Biblical faith wanes. We must recognize that there is a correlation between the decline of quarantine and the decline of a victim\u2019s rights. The criminal has been given more and more \u201crights\u201d by the courts, and the victim\u2019s right to restitution has declined with the rise of modernism.
\nQuarantine, it should be noted, is a moral fact: it asserts that there is a good and an evil response to a situation. Quarantine does not say that the sick man is evil, but that to expose others to a serious illness or disease is evil, and therefore separation is good, healthy, and necessary. To punish or execute criminals, and to require restitution, is a form of quarantine in that it separates wrongdoers by court action and judgment from the rest of the population until either execution is carried out or restitution is made. It is not an accident that quarantine is under attack, and that it is not used with respect to the AIDS epidemic; it is a logical concomitant of the moral relativism of our time.
\nIn vv. 1\u20138, before a confirmed diagnosis, there was a week of isolation pending further medical evidence. At the end of that time, there was either a discharge from quarantine, or an exclusion from community life.
\nSome forms of these ailments infected clothing. The clothing had to be quarantined also, inspected after a week, and then either washed and restored, or else burned (vv. 47\u201359). We are ignorant of the nature of these infections. Tests of the person apparently infected concentrated on the skin and the scalp, and also the hair. On occasion, the quarantine could be continued for another seven days (v. 33). It was recognized that contagion could be spread by both contact, hence isolation, and also breathing, and hence the necessity of covering the mouth (v. 45). No one, however important, was exempt from quarantine. It was applied even to Miriam, Moses\u2019 sister, for one week (Num. 12:9ff.).
\nThe priest had a part here, even though doctors were common enough in antiquity, because the priest is the guardian of the faith and of the sanctuary. Whoever else took part in the diagnosis, it was therefore the priest who pronounced the decision. The total health of the people had to be his governing concern, both spiritual and physical health. An exclusively spiritual concern meant an abdication of responsibility.
\nG. Campbell Morgan said of this chapter and its regulations:<\/p>\n
In the instructions two principles of perpetual importance are manifested. The first is the necessity for guarding the general health of the community and the second is that no injustice be done to the individual in the interest of the community. These two principles are perpetual in their application.<\/p>\n
Morgan was right on both counts. However, these laws had as their essential purpose the holiness of God\u2019s Kingdom and covenant people. Animals used in sacrifice had to be unblemished. The priests had to be whole men, undeformed, and morally upright. Sanitation was set forth in God\u2019s law as an aspect of holiness. The rigorous nature of these laws is noteworthy. Soon after they were given, Miriam, Moses\u2019 sister, was barred from the community for a week. Although Uzziah was one of Judah\u2019s greatest kings, he was, after being stricken with \u201cleprosy,\u201d kept \u201cin a several house, being a leper\u201d (2 Chron. 26:21), i.e., in a segregated house. In non-Biblical cultures, such quarantines were not normal, and emphatically not the case for powerful rulers.
\nA very common temptation of many older commentators has been to read all kinds of meanings into the text. The starting point is usually the fact that these aliments called leprosy mean a form of living death, and hence leprosy is made a type of death. So much is true, up to a very limited point. But the simple and blunt fact is that we have here laws governing an important area of personal health and community safety. The text means nothing more. Calvin gave healthy corrective to such misinterpretations, one too seldom heeded. He said in part:<\/p>\n
I am aware how greatly interpreters differ from each other, and how variously they twist whatever Moses has written about LEPROSY. Some are too eagerly devoted to allegories; some think that God, as a prudent Legislator, merely gave a commandment of a sanitary nature, in order that a contagious disease should not spread among the people. This notion, however, is very poor, and almost unmeaning; and is briefly refuted by Moses himself, both where he recounts the history of Miriam\u2019s leprosy, and also where he assigns the cause why lepers should be put out of the camp, viz., that they might not defile the camp in which God dwells, whilst he ranks them with those that have an issue, and that are defiled by the dead.<\/p>\n
Thus, there are two extremes which must be avoided. First, we must not see these as allegorical statements and thus neglect their plain and obvious meaning. These are sanitary regulations. Second, we cannot see these laws are merely sanitary rules: they are a part of the laws of holiness, and laws of clean and unclean. Although they are terms having a physical as well as a moral and spiritual implication, they have an essential relationship always to holiness. The goal of God\u2019s creation is a mature and godly man developing, in religious and physical health, all the potentialities of his being and of the material world around him. All God\u2019s laws have this focus and purpose.<\/p>\n
Chapter Twenty-Five<\/p>\n
The Ritual of Cleansing
\n(Leviticus 14:1\u201357)<\/p>\n
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
\n2. This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:
\n3. And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper;
\n4. Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:
\n5. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water:
\n6. As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water:
\n7. And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field.
\n8. And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean: and after that he shall come into the camp, and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days.
\n9. But it shall be on the seventh day, that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off: and he shall wash his clothes, also he shall wash his flesh in water, and he shall be clean.
\n10. And on the eighth day he shall take two he lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, and three tenth deals of fine flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and one log of oil.
\n11. And the priest that maketh him clean shall present the man that is to be made clean, and those things, before the LORD, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation:
\n12. And the priest shall take one he lamb, and offer him for a trespass offering, and the log of oil, and wave them for a wave offering before the LORD:
\n13. And he shall slay the lamb in the place where he shall kill the sin offering and the burnt offering, in the holy place: for as the sin offering is the priest\u2019s, so is the trespass offering: it is most holy:
\n14. And the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot:
\n15. And the priest shall take some of the log of oil, and pour it into the palm of his own left hand:
\n16. And the priest shall dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and shall sprinkle of the oil with his finger seven times before the LORD:
\n17. And of the rest of the oil that is in his hand shall the priest put upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot, upon the blood of the trespass offering:
\n18. And the remnant of the oil that is in the priest\u2019s hand he shall pour upon the head of him that is to be cleansed: and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the LORD.
\n19. And the priest shall offer the sin offering, and make an atonement for him that is to be cleansed from his uncleanness; and afterward he shall kill the burnt offering:
\n20. And the priest shall offer the burnt offering and the meat offering upon the altar: and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and he shall be clean.
\n21. And if he be poor, and cannot get so much; then he shall take one lamb for a trespass offering to be waved, to make an atonement for him, and one tenth deal of fine flour mingled with oil for a meat offering, and a log of oil;
\n22. And two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, such as he is able to get; and the one shall be a sin offering, and the other a burnt offering.
\n23. And he shall bring them on the eighth day for his cleansing unto the priest, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, before the LORD.
\n24. And the priest shall take the lamb of the trespass offering, and the log of oil, and the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the LORD:
\n25. And he shall kill the lamb of the trespass offering, and the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot:
\n26. And the priest shall pour of the oil into the palm of his own left hand:
\n27. And the priest shall sprinkle with his right finger some of the oil that is in his left hand seven times before the LORD:
\n28. And the priest shall put of the oil that is in his hand upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot, upon the place of the blood of the trespass offering:
\n29. And the rest of the oil that is in the priest\u2019s hand he shall put upon the head of him that is to be cleansed, to make an atonement for him before the LORD.
\n30. And he shall offer the one of the turtledoves, or of the young pigeons, such as he can get;
\n31. Even such as he is able to get, the one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering, with the meat offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for him that is to be cleansed before the LORD.
\n32. This is the law of him in whom is the plague of leprosy, whose hand is not able to get that which pertaineth to his cleansing.
\n33. And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
\n34. When ye be come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession;
\n35. And he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house:
\n36. Then the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest go into it to see the plague, that all that is in the house be not made unclean: and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house:
\n37. And he shall look on the plague, and, behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow strakes, greenish or reddish, which in sight are lower than the wall;
\n38. Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days:
\n39. And the priest shall come again the seventh day, and shall look: and, behold, if the plague be spread in the walls of the house;
\n40. Then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city:
\n41. And he shall cause the house to be scraped within round about, and they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place:
\n42. And they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of those stones; and he shall take other mortar, and shall plaister the house.
\n43. And if the plague come again, and break out in the house, after that he hath taken away the stones, and after he hath scraped the house, and after it is plaistered;
\n44. Then the priest shall come and look, and, behold, if the plague be spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy in the house: it is unclean.
\n45. And he shall break down the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the morter of the house; and he shall carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place.
\n46. Moreover he that goeth into the house all the while that it is shut up shall be unclean until the even.
\n47. And he that lieth in the house shall wash his clothes; and he that eateth in the house shall wash his clothes.
\n48. And if the priest shall come in, and look upon it, and, behold, the plague hath not spread in the house, after the house was plaistered: then the priest shall pronounce the house clean, because the plague is healed.
\n49. And he shall take to cleanse the house two birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:
\n50. And he shall kill the one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water:
\n51. And he shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times:
\n52. And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and with the cedar wood, and with the hyssop, and with the scarlet:
\n53. But he shall let go the living bird out of the city into the open fields, and make an atonement for the house: and it shall be clean.
\n54. This is the law for all manner of plague of leprosy, and scall,
\n55. And for the leprosy of a garment, and of a house,
\n56. And for a rising, and for a scab, and for a bright spot:
\n57. To teach when it is unclean, and when it is clean: this is the law of leprosy. (Leviticus 14:1\u201357)<\/p>\n
One of our problems as we approach Biblical law is that we face centuries of error on the subject. First, when Paul attacked the law as Pharisaism redefined it, he made it clear that his purpose was not to multiply or make void God\u2019s law but rather to establish it (Rom. 3:31). Too many churchmen saw fit to see this as the elimination of God\u2019s law. Second, in the late medieval era, pietism undermined the law, as did mysticism, so that a ladder of ascent to God began to govern popular thought. Again, more than a few saw the \u201cremedy\u201d from the medieval view as freedom from God\u2019s law together with the church\u2019s law. The Lutheran attack on the penitential system became in time an attack on God\u2019s law as Protestant pietism sought to rid itself of non-pietistic elements in the faith. Third, the rise of dispensationalism, modernism, and premillennialist expectations of the end all worked to make law unimportant. Fourth, when the state is maximized, Biblical law is minimized. God\u2019s law provides us with government and with the means of government in all the spheres of life: personal, familial, educational, ecclesiastical, vocational, societal, and also in the civil realm. Because government in these areas is preempted by the modern state, God\u2019s law is minimized, and in large part declared to be obsolete.
\nOne of the more striking aspects of Leviticus 14, which deals with the cleansing of disease, is that the matter of discharging a person who has had one of the ailments described in Leviticus 13 is both a health examination and a ritual. To pass from quarantine to freedom is thus more than a medical discharge. It is a ritual or a rite. The word rite comes from an ancient Greek word akin to arithmetic; it means a number, a precise calculation in its root form. A rite is the form of worship, an English word made up of worth, and ship, i.e., the worthy vessel or ship. Thus a rite of worship is the correct or proper means of approaching God. In its Biblical meaning, the rites of worship require an inward faithfulness with an outward fidelity to the forms of worship. Thus, the rite whereby the diseased person was given a clean bill of health marked his readmission into the covenant fellowship and worshipping community. When we look at the liturgies of the early church, we find that they were marked by a prayer of intercession for all God\u2019s people, a continuing prayer in many churches.
\nFour mandatory sacrifices took place prior to readmission to the covenant community: the purification offering, the burnt offering, the reparation offering, and the cereal offering. The man about to be discharged had to live in a segregated manner, separated both from the diseased community and the healthy one, for seven days, and on the eighth day he brought his sacrifices and was a free man (v. 8).
\nInfected houses are dealt with in vv. 33\u201353. The house carrying an infection is quarantined. The diseased portion of the house, or all of it, may be destroyed if the infection remains.
\nHoliness involves wholeness, and this is the goal of the law. We have a summary of Leviticus 13\u201314 in 14:54\u201357.
\nIt is noteworthy that Maimonides, in The Book of Cleanness, spoke of an infected man as a \u201cFather of Uncleanness,\u201d and he applied the same term to an infected house. Because a father is the progenitor of children, so too the infected man or house is a progenitor or father of uncleanness.
\nThis law is the most minute and detailed of all the forms of purification. Only the form for the purification from contact with a dead body (Num. 19) and for the cleansing of a defiled Nazarite (Num. 6) are comparable. But there is much more here. As F. Meyrick noted,<\/p>\n
The whole nation was in a sense a priestly nation, and the restoration of the lapsed member to his rights was therefore a quasi-consecration.
\nAfter seven days\u2019 sojourn in the camp, but not in his own tent, the leper was allowed to approach the tabernacle with two he-lambs without blemish, one ewe-lamb without blemish of the first year, and three tenth-deals of fine flour, mingled with oil, and one log of oil. These were to be used as a trespass offering, a sin offering, and a burnt offering. These suggest respectively a sense of unprofitableness or shortcoming, atonement, and personal consecration. The blood of the trespass offering is to be applied to the right ear, thumb of the right hand, and great toe of the right foot, and the oil of consecration to be added thereto. This corresponds exactly to the consecration of the priests (ch. 8). It suggests that it is out of a sense of past unprofitableness that future consecration comes (cf. Luke 17:5\u201310).<\/p>\n
The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers is clearly set forth in both Testaments, and, in the ritual of cleansing, the healed man is confronted by the fact that he must see himself as God\u2019s priest, required to dedicate the totality of his life and calling to the triune God.
\nMany commentators have seen the forms of \u201cleprosy\u201d or diseases described in Leviticus 13\u201314 as types and symbols of sin. However, as Harrison reminds us, the Bible never does so. Disease is simply presented as disease, one consequence of a fallen world. Quarantine is a separation of disease, and moral quarantine is a separation of evil from society. This is very important to note. We do not flee from disease and sin, but rather separate sin and contagious disease from the community. Our Lord says, \u201cI pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil (or, the evil one)\u201d (John 17:15). Modern separationism too often quarantines the healthy and the moral, not the diseased and the criminal members of society.
\nIn these chapters, the \u201cleper\u201d or diseased person is described as unclean, not as immoral. It is noteworthy that, as Parker observed, \u201cMen turn away from the perusal of such chapters, and look complacently upon moral leprosy.\u201d
\nIt is also important to note that the observance of these laws helped eliminate Hansen\u2019s disease, or true leprosy, faster in Europe than in other continents. In Europe, there were at least 9,000 hospitals for leprosy alone, maintained by Christian charity. Louis VII of France left legacies to more than 2,000 hospitals for lepers in his country; no ruler of our times has manifested any comparable charity. The Normans in France applied quarantine strictly, both in Normandy and in England. Thus, the very wealthy and influential Knight, Amiloun, was expelled from his castle to become a beggar when he contracted leprosy. The Lateran Council of 1172 required that special churches be built for lepers, and, in time, both hospitals and churches were available for lepers.
\nIn looking at the modern application of this law, we must recognize, first, that the sacrificial rites are no longer valid, since Christ\u2019s sacrifice replaces them all. This, however, does not eliminate the necessity of a Christian ministry to the sick, and a ritual for restoration to health is certainly in order. Second, as has been noted, the fact of quarantine is of Biblical origin and rests on a Biblical doctrine of order. As the Biblical world and life view is undermined, so too is the concept of quarantine. The refusal to apply quarantine to AIDS patients is symptomatic of a disregard for Biblical order. It goes hand in hand with disregard for moral order. The consequences of such a disregard can only be deadly.<\/p>\n
Chapter Twenty-Six<\/p>\n
Holiness and Health
\n(Leviticus 15:1\u201333)<\/p>\n
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying,
\n2. Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When any man hath a running issue out of his flesh, because of his issue he is unclean.
\n3. And this shall be his uncleanness in his issue: whether his flesh run with his issue, or his flesh be stopped from his issue, it is his uncleanness.
\n4. Every bed, whereon he lieth that hath the issue, is unclean: and every thing, whereon he sitteth, shall be unclean.
\n5. And whosoever toucheth his bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n6. And he that sitteth on any thing whereon he sat that hath the issue shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n7. And he that toucheth the flesh of him that hath the issue shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n8. And if he that hath the issue spit upon him that is clean; then he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n9. And what saddle soever he rideth upon that hath the issue shall be unclean.
\n10. And whosoever toucheth any thing that was under him shall be unclean until the even: and he that beareth any of those things shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n11. And whomsoever he toucheth that hath the issue, and hath not rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n12. And the vessel of earth, that he toucheth which hath the issue, shall be broken: and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water.
\n13. And when he that hath an issue is cleansed of his issue; then he shall number to himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean.
\n14. And on the eighth day he shall take to him two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, and come before the LORD unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and give them unto the priest:
\n15. And the priest shall offer them, the one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the LORD for his issue.
\n16. And if any man\u2019s seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall wash all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n17. And every garment, and every skin, whereon is the seed of copulation, shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the even.
\n18. The woman also with whom man shall lie with seed of copulation, they shall both bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n19. And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even.
\n20. And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean: every thing also that she sitteth upon shall be unclean.
\n21. And whosoever toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n22. And whosoever toucheth any thing that she sat upon shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n23. And if it be on her bed, or on any thing whereon she sitteth, when he toucheth it, he shall be unclean until the even.
\n24. And if any man lie with her at all, and her flowers be upon him, he shall be unclean seven days; and all the bed whereon he lieth shall be unclean.
\n25. And if a woman have an issue of her blood many days out of the time of her separation, or if it run beyond the time of her separation; all the days of the issue of her uncleanness shall be as the days of her separation: she shall be unclean.
\n26. Every bed whereon she lieth all the days of her issue shall be unto her as the bed of her separation: and whatsoever she sitteth upon shall be unclean, as the uncleanness of her separation.
\n27. And whosoever toucheth those things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
\n28. But if she be cleansed of her issue, then she shall number to herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean.
\n29. And on the eighth day she shall take unto her two turtles, or two young pigeons, and bring them unto the priest, to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
\n30. And the priest shall offer the one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for her before the LORD for the issue of her uncleanness.
\n31. Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness; that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle that is among them.
\n32. This is the law of him that hath an issue, and of him whose seed goeth from him, and is defiled therewith;
\n33. And of her that is sick of her flowers, and of him that hath an issue, of the man, and of the woman, and of him that lieth with her that is unclean. (Leviticus 15:1\u201333)<\/p>\n
This is one of the chapters in the law often cited by people who argue that the law is impossible nonsense. The very precision and subject matter condemn it for many, who feel, as did Viscount Melbourne, that, \u201cThings have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life.\u201d Melbourne\u2019s statement highlights a curious fact: he objected to allowing Christianity any role in a man\u2019s private life: for him it was a formal fact of public life. Twentieth century man denies to Christianity any jurisdiction in public life and relegates it to the private sphere for those who choose to allow it there. In reality, the jurisdiction of Biblical faith is cosmic and total, and therefore inclusive of both public and private spheres.
\nIt is noteworthy also that Knight cites this chapter as one of the sources of near immunity of Jews from plagues and epidemics over the centuries. He observes, \u201cthe near immunity of the Jew from infection in reality sprang from the fact that he kept strictly the laws on hygiene that we find in our book of Leviticus.\u201d
\nThere are several distinct sections in Leviticus 15. First, in vv. 2\u201315, we have reference to a diseased sexual discharge in men. The Septuagint seems to identify this as gonorrhea, and most commentators agree. However, the requirements of this law are clearly applicable to all sexual diseases. The law specifies various sanitation requirements for the course of the disease. On being pronounced clean, various sacrifices are required. Treatment is not prescribed, but the prevention of contagion is stressed. The priest formally readmits the cured man to covenant life and pronounces him cured; the treatment was left to practitioners.
\nSecond, vv. 16\u201318 require purification, simple bathing, after normal sexual relations in marriage. The key to this section as to all of this chapter is v. 31, which makes it clear that it has reference to the Sanctuary; people were unclean in relation to the Sanctuary for these specified conditions. Their condition might be, as in vv. 2\u201315 and 25\u201330, a diseased one, or it might not. There were hygienic considerations in the laws, but the common factor in all is also the requirement of purification before participating in the life of the Sanctuary. This is still the practice in Orthodox Judaism, and was for centuries a church requirement. This meaning in Jewish practice over the centuries is noted in Hertz\u2019s comment that the reference is to the Sanctuary. Hertz said also:<\/p>\n
The uncleanness described in v. 16\u201318 did not apply to laymen. It involved merely absence from the \u2018camp\u2019, which in Rabbinic exegesis was taken to mean the Sanctuary proper and the Levite encampment around the Sanctuary. It also involved abstention from sacrificial food (terumah and maaser). If the prescribed priestly ablutions had been taken, the prohibition ceased in regard to the Levite encampment and masser.<\/p>\n
The sections which refer to women and their discharges apparently have a like reference, given the statement of v. 31. They echo also the commandment of Exodus 19:10\u201315, which, among other things, barred the fertility cult belief that sexuality is a central means of communion with God. There is no hint that sexuality is other than God-created and good. There is, however, a strong bar against the association of sexuality with worship. Pagan antiquity, and continuing cults to the present, have viewed God essentially as the generative source and hence best served and worshipped by generative acts. Thus, the practice of prostitution, and often of various perversions, was a part of temple or shrine devotion. In such faiths, prostitution by the woman and castration by the man constituted the supreme acts of religious devotion. God\u2019s law bars all such practices.
\nThird, in vv. 19\u201324 we have laws concerning menstrual discharges. Again, this has reference to the Sanctuary. In Leviticus 18:19 sexual intercourse during menstruation is banned, and in 20:18 we have reference to this as a violation of the separateness and integrity of a woman. Thus, while she cannot, if a Levite\u2019s wife, partake of the Sanctuary meals, she has in relation to her husband the affirmation of freedom. She is not his creature but God\u2019s, and both man and wife are under His law.
\nFourth, in vv. 25\u201330 we have a general reference to abnormal discharges by a woman, and these may or may not be contagious and\/or diseased. Again, the required precautions follow.
\nFifth, in vv. 31\u201333, we have a summary statement. In v. 31 the central purpose is given, to maintain the holiness of the Kingdom of Priests and of the Sanctuary. This makes clear an important fact: for modern man, health concerns are essentially personal and then social. For Scripture, health is a religious matter. Holiness requires our total dedication to God, and our total health, moral, physical, and theological, so that we may render the best possible service to the triune God. By making health an essentially personal concern, we have made it clear that man\u2019s chief concern is his own well-being in terms of purely personal goals. When a wife tells her husband to take better care of himself for the family\u2019s sake, she is aware, however fragmentarily, that health is more than a personal matter. Scripture tells us that it is a religious one, a matter of holiness and service to God.
\nAt this point an important distinction must be made again. Sickness and death exist because this is a fallen world. They are in origin the results of sin; as we contract ailments, these may or may not be the results of sin. A disease contracted can be a consequence of sin, as are the majority of cases of sexually transmitted diseases. A cold or the flu may be a result of carelessness, and it may not be; we live in a world which, being fallen, exposes us to some hazards. Thus, particular instances of sickness cannot be per se defined as immoral; to do so is immoral. What must be stressed is that holiness requires that wholeness of person which sets forth the total health of man.
\nThe quarantined persons are not, if godly, separated from God; they are separated from the covenant community in order to preserve the general health and the working ability of society.<\/p>\n
Chapter Twenty-Seven<\/p>\n
The New Beginning
\n(Leviticus 16:1\u20133)<\/p>\n
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they offered before the LORD, and died;
\n2. And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.
\n3. Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place: with a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering. (Leviticus 16:1\u20133)<\/p>\n
One of the damaging aspects of modern church practice and of popular thought as well is the separation of the incarnation and the atonement. To separate the two is to do serious injustice to Scripture. In the early church, more than a few problems existed, due to Greco-Roman influences, and, as a result, the understanding of many doctrines was primitive and fragmentary. At this point, however, the unity of the incarnation and of the atonement, of Christmas and Easter, was clear for them. Thus, St. Ephrem the Syrian, in all his writings on the incarnation, hails the unity of the birth and the crucifixion as God\u2019s saving act. In his \u201cRhythm the Second,\u201d on the subject of Christ\u2019s birth, Ephrem declared:<\/p>\n
Let us praise Him, that prevailed and quickened us by His stripes! Praise we Him, that took away the curse by His thorns! Praise we Him, that put death to death by His dying! Praise we Him, that held His peace and justified us! Praise we Him, who rebuked death that had overcome us!\u2026 Glory be to God that cured weak humanity!\u2026 His Son became a Medicine, that sheweth sinners mercy. Blessed be He that dwelt in the womb, and wrought therein a perfect Temple, that He might dwell in it, a Throne that He might be in it, a Garment that He might be arrayed in it, and a Weapon that He might conquer in it.<\/p>\n
Such a unity is implicit in Leviticus 16, the ritual of the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. In these first three verses, we are reminded of Leviticus 10, of Nadab and Abihu, and their sin and death. We are, in fact, told that these words of Leviticus 16 were spoken by God to Moses immediately after that episode. According to Rabbi Hertz, the two men were executed by God for \u201cintoxication, unholy ambition, arbitrary tampering with the service, and introducing \u2018strange fire\u2019 into the Sanctuary.\u201d He added, \u201cThe story of Nadab and Abihu is a parable for young Israel in every generation.\u201d
\nOur concern here is with the fact that the ritual of atonement is given \u201cafter the death of the two sons of Aaron\u201d (v. 1). Sacrifices of atonement had been previously given and long practiced. Now a day of atonement, an observance by the covenant nation and by all the covenant people, is required. The fact of atonement was not new; the day of atonement, Yom Kippur, was. Moreover, it was linked to the death of Aaron\u2019s two sons. The reference to their death is deliberately tied to this new observance.
\nIn Genesis 4:1, we read, \u201cAnd Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.\u201d Eve\u2019s statement is an important one. Cassuto\u2019s analysis of its literal meaning is telling:<\/p>\n
\u2026 the first woman, in her joy at giving birth to her first son, boasts of her generative power, which approximates in her estimation to the Divine creative power. The Lord formed the first man (2:7), and I have formed the second man \u2026 (literally, \u2018I have created a man with the Lord\u2019): I stand together (i.e. equally) WITH HIM in the rank of creators.<\/p>\n
Clearly, Eve regarded Cain as in some sense a personal triumph and a future hope. God had created, and now she had also created, and history now had a new beginning because of her son. Cain, of course, was the first murderer, and a man in flight from God and man.
\nThe institution of circumcision is clearly related to this fact. It is a covenant rite, and it is a symbolic castration whereby parents declare that neither for them nor for their posterity is there hope in generation but only in regeneration. Circumcision in its meaning is thus a renunciation of any humanistic hope. It means that our future can only have promise if it is in the triune God.
\nMen commonly corrupt their own futures and their own potentialities. Gies, in her study of knighthood, tells us how knights changed when that status, after 1050, became hereditary, handed down from father to son: \u201cwhat had been a rank became a hereditary caste,\u201d and ability was replaced by birth. In time, their lives and their tournaments became \u201can adjunct of theatrical productions and partook of their character.\u201d When men seek to be their own gods, they turn their lives into theater, acting out their imagination and seeing their realization, not in truth and service, but in name and renown. The builders of the Tower of Babel said, in part, \u201cLet us make us a name\u201d (Gen. 11:4).
\nGod confounds all such plans and hopes. With Aaron, whose sons God had ordained to be a hereditary priesthood, it no doubt seemed to indicate an institutionalized holiness in his bloodline. The incident of the golden calf made Aaron\u2019s sin clear, and the incident of Nadab and Abihu undercut any necessary personal holiness in the persons filling holy \u201coffices\u201d or functions. In fact, Aaron is told that he has no admission into the Most Holy Place except once a year, on the tenth day of the seventh month (v. 29 and 34; Lev. 23:26\u201332; 25:9; Ex. 30:10). According to v. 3, preparatory sacrifices had to precede Aaron\u2019s entrance into the Holy of Holies, God\u2019s presence.
\nIn v. 2, we have a reference to the \u201cmercy seat,\u201d a translation that goes back to Martin Luther. We do not have two words in the original Hebrew, but one, Kapporeth, meaning covering. Knight\u2019s comment here is especially important: God\u2019s atoning grace and love cover, not the sin, but the sinner. As Knight says, \u201cthere is no such thing as sin without a sinner. \u2018Sin\u2019 is only the symptom of a diseased personality,\u201d so that the Kapporeth covered the sin because it so covered the sinner. Roman Catholic versions usually translate the word as \u201cthe propitiatory,\u201d which is good, and the recent Jewish rendering of the Torah gives it very literally as \u201cthe cover.\u201d However, Luther\u2019s translation was not an arbitrary one. It was based on Psalm 99:1,<\/p>\n
The LORD reigneth: let the people tremble: he sitteth between the cherubims; let the earth be moved.<\/p>\n
The sinner is covered from God\u2019s judgment by God\u2019s atoning grace and mercy. Man\u2019s future is therefore seen in terms of God\u2019s grace and man\u2019s response of faithfulness in exercising dominion by means of God\u2019s law. Man is restored by grace and regenerated to do God\u2019s work. There is no validity to Eve\u2019s hope in Cain, no hope in generation, only in regeneration.
\nIt is, however, at this point that the offense of the faith is particularly strong. Vinnie Ream, the young woman who sculptured Lincoln, was internationally honored for her art. Like most Americans, she was a churchgoer and sang in choirs. On one occasion, while in Europe, she took to church with her the skeptic, George Brandes. In this instance, it was Vinnie Ream who was angry, calling the pastor \u201cthe most stupid donkey I have ever heard in my life.\u201d The pastor\u2019s sermon was on the text, Christ\u2019s words, \u201cThy sins are forgiven thee.\u201d Vinnie Ream declared, \u201cWhat am I benefited if ever so many heavenly beings say to me: \u2018I pretend you have not done it,\u2019 if I know that I have!\u201d
\nEve begins life outside Eden confounded in her hopes by the child of her hopes, Cain; the priesthood of God\u2019s covenant people began its history confounded by the sin of Aaron with the golden calf, and the sin of Nadab and Abihu. The new beginning is not of man nor of generation, but by God\u2019s atoning and regenerating grace.
\nMan and history have a new beginning, and it is from God, and it is His atonement.
\nTurning again to the separation of incarnation and atonement, Christmas and Easter, it is important to note its implications. The separation began to a large measure with St. Francis, who made the cr\u00e8che, and the humility of the incarnation, a popular object of piety. This affected the unity of emphasis on the incarnation as God\u2019s invasion of history to destroy the power of sin and death, the atonement and resurrection as the destruction of both, and the Last Judgment as the total triumph and righting of all things. The Spiritual Franciscans, in faithfulness to St. Francis, favored an early form of Kenosis, forsaking property, progress in Christian culture, and the development of dominion, in favor of an abandonment of this world. In the course of time, Kenosis affected the Easter event: the emphasis centered on the humiliation of the cross, sometimes to the downgrading of the empty tomb. The sign of triumph, the empty cross, became a crucifix with a dead Christ. Not triumph but humiliation became the gospel for some. Such an emphasis did much to break down the medieval culture, and to damage both the Reformation and the Counter\u2014Reformation. To separate the incarnation, atonement, resurrection, ascension, and Last Judgment one from the other is to damage their meaning.<\/p>\n
Chapter Twenty-Eight<\/p>\n
The Scope of Atonement
\n(Leviticus 16:4\u201310)<\/p>\n
4. He shall put on the holy linen coat, and he shall have the linen breeches upon his flesh, and shall be girded with a linen girdle, and with the linen mitre shall he be attired: these are holy garments; therefore shall he wash his flesh in water, and so put them on.
\n5. And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.
\n6. And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.
\n7. And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
\n8. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.
\n9. And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the LORD\u2019S lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.
\n10. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:4\u201310)<\/p>\n
We have here, as a key part of the Day of Atonement, the scapegoat ritual. As Calvin noted, \u201cThis was the only expiatory sacrifice in the Law without blood.\u201d However, the fact that the two goats accomplish a common task of atonement means that the scapegoat is involved in the shedding of the blood by the other goat. The term \u201cscapegoat\u201d has passed into common usage with the clear awareness of its meaning. A scapegoat is someone who is innocent but upon whom all the guilt and punishment falls. The scapegoat is made the sin-bearer for the sinning and guilty parties. The term scapegoat translates Azazel, the meaning of which none know, though many give various imaginative renditions. Scapegoat tells us clearly what this goat was.
\nIn v. 4, we see that the high priest, except for his mitre, was dressed on the Day of Atonement like an ordinary priest. The central focus on that day was not on himself but on atonement, and on the sin-bearer. On this day as always he began by bathing, a prerequisite for all on approaching the Sanctuary. This law was observed into this century in that, however often people bathed otherwise, they bathed before the Sabbath observances.
\nBefore beginning the ritual of the scapegoat, the high priest made sacrifices for himself (v. 3), and only then proceeded with the atonement for the people. Kellogg commented:<\/p>\n
There are three fundamental facts which stand before us in this chapter, which must find their place in any explanation which may be adopted. 1). Both of the goats are declared to be \u201ca sin-offering;\u201d the live goat, no less than the other. 2). In consistency with this, the live goat, no less than the other, was consecrated to Jehovah, in that he was \u201cset alive before the Lord.\u201d 3). The function expressly ascribed to him in the law is the complete removal of the transgressions of Israel, symbolically transferred to him as a burden, by the laying on of hands with confession of sin.<\/p>\n
In vv. 20\u201328, we have more on the scapegoat.<\/p>\n
In v. 6, we are told that the high priest\u2019s sacrifices were for himself and for \u201chis house,\u201d i.e., including his wife as well as his children. At this time, according to Hebrew tradition, he made a confession of sins:<\/p>\n
In the traditional account of the rites of the Day of Atonement, preserved in the Mishnah, the High Priest made this confession: \u2018O God, I have sinned, I have committed iniquity, I have transgressed against Thee, I and my household. I beseech Thee by Thy Name, grant Thou atonement for the sins, and for the iniquities, and for the transgressions wherein I have sinned, and committed iniquity and transgressed against Thee, I and my household.\u2019 In his confession, the High Priest used the ineffable Name of God, the Tetragrammaton, in its true pronounciation; whereupon the assembled priest and people of the Court prostrated themselves to the ground, and exclaimed, \u2018Blessed be His Name, Whose glorious Kingdom is for ever and ever.\u2019<\/p>\n
As we have previously noted, confession is tied always to atonement. Grace brings forth confession, because grace clearly reveals to us our sin and lawlessness.
\nThere is a separation, in this ritual, of sin from the people and the land. Oehler said,<\/p>\n
By the application of the blood of the first goat to the second, it was moreover declared, that only in virtue of the atonement effected by the blood of the first goat are the people placed in a condition to send away their sins as forgiven.\u2026 The act of sending away the goat is thus described (Lev. 16:21 sq.): \u201cAnd let Aaron lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions according to all their sins, and let him put them upon the head of the goat, and send him away by a man ready at hand into the wilderness.\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
We must not forget that the very ground is cursed because of man\u2019s sin (Gen. 3:17). Again and again, Scripture speaks of the link between man\u2019s sin and the land:<\/p>\n
24. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:
\n25. And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.
\n26. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations: neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:
\n27. (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;)
\n28. That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.
\n29. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.
\n30. Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 18:24\u201330)<\/p>\n
At the very least, these verses tell us that God has established a symbolic relationship between man and the land, and, as a result, man\u2019s sins recoil on him in a number of ways.
\nThe ritual of the scapegoat is very much in mind throughout the New Testament. It is very plainly referred to by St. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5:21, as the climax of a passage:<\/p>\n
17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed; behold, all things are become new.
\n18. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
\n19. To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
\n20. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ\u2019s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
\n21. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:17\u201321)<\/p>\n
Jesus Christ, says Paul, is our scapegoat, the One whom God \u201chath made \u2026 to be sin for us,\u201d i.e., the sin-bearer. Because He is our sin-bearer, we are now justified. In fact, we have been \u201cmade the righteousness (or, justice) of God in him.\u201d This is a startling statement. The sin-bearer or scapegoat removes our sin from us to make us God\u2019s justice! We are new creatures, or, a new creation, the justice people, a part of the new creation. We have a work of reconciliation as ambassadors of Christ, acting \u201cin Christ\u2019s stead,\u201d summoning all peoples to this cleansed and renewed status and to the ministry of reconciliation. It must be stressed that this reconciliation is to God; it is God\u2019s law we have offended, and God whom we have rebelled against. Thus, we must be reconciled to Him and then do His work on earth.
\nThe iniquities of the people were laid upon the head of the goat. The two goats are in a sense one goat, with a common function. The sin of the people requires two things. First, the death penalty must be executed on all sinners. This is done vicariously; the goat represents the people and dies for their sins. Second, the living goat is separated from the land and the people. We are made a new creation and are no longer the old man but a new man in Christ.
\nAs Knight has pointed out, atonement is not a passive act:<\/p>\n
The verb \u201cto make atonement\u201d (kipper) describes an actual action. In the same way, the New Testament insists that Christ\u2019s death on the Cross was not a passive acceptance of the forces of evil; it was a deliberate action on Jesus\u2019 part in obedience to the will of God.<\/p>\n
It is thus a deliberate action with a deliberate end: a renewed people, and a renewed land. We cannot limit the scope of the Gospel and of atonement to man: it is cosmic in purpose.
\nPaul tells us that Christians must be the justice people. An archaic English word for judges was justicer. This is the calling of all Christians. The people who are justified are to be God\u2019s justice people. For people who call themselves Christians to be indifferent to justice is to deny their Justifier.
\nAtonement exists in other religions, but it is essentially an amoral practice whose concern is \u201cto placate evil and to propitiate powers that are or may become unfriendly.\u201d This is the concern of \u201cprimitive\u201d atonement according to Alexander. However, even in those non-Christian religions where a recognition of sin in some sense existed, and confession was necessary, there was a serious problem. The god or gods represented certain forms of power and were not necessarily moral power. To illustrate this on a very human level, one can offend a Stalin on the one hand, or a St. Paul on the other; the offenses can be almost identical, but the character of the relationship and the nature of the meaning of the offense will be radically different.
\nThe God of Scripture is Almighty and all righteous. The gods of other religions do not offer this fact, i.e., the holiness of God. Holiness in paganism is essentially a sense of dread. Holiness in Scripture is a total separation to God\u2019s justice and truth.
\nFalse atonement propitiates evil. A culture without Christ\u2019s atonement will seek to placate evil. This can mean being more kindly towards a criminal\u2019s \u201crights\u201d than those of a victim. It can mean a generous treatment of Marxist tyrant states. It is a logical necessity for unatoned men to placate evil, because for them evil is the locale of power. They seek power from below, not from God Almighty.<\/p>\n
Chapter Twenty-Nine<\/p>\n
Vicarious Atonement
\n(Leviticus 16:11\u201328)<\/p>\n
11. And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house, and shall kill the bullock of the sin offering which is for himself:
\n12. And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the LORD, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail:
\n13. And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not:
\n14. And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.
\n15. Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat.
\n16. And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness.
\n17. And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in the holy place, until he come out, and have made an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel.
\n18. And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the LORD, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about.
\n19. And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.
\n20. And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:
\n21. And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:
\n22. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
\n23. And Aaron shall come into the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall put off the linen garments, which he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave them there:
\n24. And he shall wash his flesh with water in the holy place, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering, and the burnt offering of the people, and make an atonement for himself, and for the people.
\n25. And the fat of the sin offering shall he burn upon the altar.
\n26. And he that let go the goat for the scapegoat shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward come into the camp.
\n27. And the bullock for the sin offering, and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall one carry forth without the camp; and they shall burn in the fire their skins, and their flesh, and their dung.
\n28. And he that burneth them shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp. (Leviticus 16:11\u201328)<\/p>\n
Leviticus makes it very clear that sin is not a casual matter, and it is also costly. The sinner had to do two things: first, he made restitution to God, with confession and a sacrifice. Since a bullock could cost, in terms of 1986 prices, $300\u2013$500, depending on its size and weight, and sheep did not come cheaply either, the monetary price of sin was a very serious one! Second, restitution had to be made to man, and, since it ranged between a twofold and a five-fold restitution, this meant that sinning was very expensive! Since New Testament times, both Judaism and Christianity have cheapened the meaning of sin. What is said here gives only the personal side of the cost. In Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28, and many other passages, we are bluntly told of the even greater social costs and consequences.
\nBut this is not all. In the Old Testament, five different Hebrew words describe with differing emphases what is translated by the one English word, transgression; in the New Testament, there are four words which are translated as transgression, and this can be called five if we include anomos and anomia as separate words.
\nIn v. 16, the word transgressions is a word used by prophets to describe Israel\u2019s sin. Pesha means rebellion; it refers to a personal break from, and action against, the personal God. It is used here in the plural and means rebellious actions. Snaith said that it meant \u201csin against a personal God rather than a transgression of laws laid down by him.\u201d It means, rather, that man has rebelled against the personal God by breaking the laws laid down by Him. God\u2019s law is a very personal fact: it is the expression of His holiness and justice.
\nOn the day of atonement, the priest entered the most holy place. Oehler\u2019s comment here is important:<\/p>\n
\u2026 on the day of atonement, the priest who approaches with the blood of atonement must envelope himself in a cloud of incense (Lev. 16:13) when he raises the curtain. This expresses the fact that full communion between God and man is not to be realized, even through the medium of the atonement to be attained by the Old Testament sacrificial institutions\u2014that, as is said in Heb. 9:8, as yet the way to the (heavenly) sanctuary was not made manifest.\u2026<\/p>\n
The kapporeth rests on the ark, in which are the tables of the law, the testimony. This means that God sits enthroned in Israel on the ground of the covenant of law which He has made with Israel. The testimony is preserved in the ark as a treasure, a jewel. But, with this goes a second consideration; while the law is certainly, in the first place, a testimony to the will of God toward the people, it is also (comp. what is said in Deut. 31:26f. of the roll of the law deposited beside the ark of the covenant) a testimony against the sinful people,\u2014a continual record of accusation, so to speak, against their sins in the sight of the holy God. And now, when the kapporeth is over the tables, it is declared that God\u2019s grace, which provides an atonement or covering for the iniquity of the people, stands above His penal justice.<\/p>\n
Among other things, it is important to note that Oehler called attention to the relation, first, between law and mercy. The law is given as covenant law: it is God\u2019s grace to his people. In the law, God gives to covenant man the way of life. God declares:<\/p>\n
4. Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God.
\n5. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD. (Leviticus 18:4\u20135)<\/p>\n
Again, in Deuteronomy 4:1, God says, concerning His laws, \u201cdo them, that ye may live\u201d (cf. John 15:4). The law is not given as a burden, although it is such to the rebels, but as a blessing. If we do not sin presumptuously, then the grace of the law manifests itself to us as mercy.
\nSecond, the law is a treasure to the covenant people, and hence the law is in God\u2019s most holy place. The cover of the law is atonement or expiation, so that the law is given as an act of grace, and mercy continues to flow to the people of the covenant. To be brought into the grace and salvation of God is to be made a part of the realm of mercy and law; the law was given in grace and mercy, and the people of the law live under grace and mercy.
\nThird, the law is judgment against those who despise it, for to despise the law is also to despise God\u2019s mercy. The mercy seat is on the ark of the covenant; its treasure is the law, and it is the Great and Supreme Judge who gives mercy, not an anti-judge who is hostile to the law.
\nFourth, at the same time, on the day of atonement, all the iniquities of the covenant people are confessed by the high priest on the head of the goat to be sent away, the scapegoat. These iniquities mean crookedness, \u201cwillful departures from the law of God.\u201d The ordinary sacrifices did not include presumptuous and high-handed sins. The day of atonement purged away all sins. Atonement affects our total lives; it is our entrance into the Kingdom.
\nA startling aspect of the ritual is in vv. 16\u201319, one common to most sacrifices but especially noteworthy here. The altar itself is covered by the atonement by sprinkling it with blood seven times. To use W. F. Lofthouse\u2019s term, this altar of burnt offering is \u201cunsinned.\u201d Atonement is the beginning of the reconstitution of all things, visible and invisible, physical and spiritual.
\nIn v. 21, we see again the ritual of the laying on of hands. This implies an identification in judgment, i.e., the death of the sacrificial animal is accepted as one\u2019s own deserved death penalty. It is also a transfer; in some services, sin and guilt are transferred, in others power and station. Vos\u2019s comment here is especially important. A transfer involves two parties, the one transferring, and the one receiving. Thus, the recipient is not a mere double of the man who makes the offering: it is a second person. What is here transferred is the sin and \u201cthe liability to death-punishment on the part of the offerer.\u201d In the ritual of the two goats, the penalty of death was transferred to the goat which was to be sacrificed. With the other goat, the sins were ritually removed from the people and the land. The two goats were \u201cin reality one sacrificial object.\u201d
\nWe have here vicarious atonement. The subject is offensive to fallen man, because he loves to see himself in a godlike isolation. But, \u201cThe vicarious principle has a large place in the Kingdom of God on earth. Involuntarily and also voluntarily we suffer for others and others for us. Man bears the penal consequences of his brother\u2019s sins.\u201d
\nOtto Scott has called attention to the fact that inheritance is in a sense a vicarious element in our lives. We not only suffer vicariously for what others have done, but we also gain what others have done. Thus, to reject the atonement because it gives us a vicarious benefit is to deny a commonplace fact of our lives, namely, that remotely past events benefit us today. Such a denial is a rejection of history. We may have been against every president of our lifetime, but we bear vicariously the burden of their sins long after their deaths. We may hate the economic beliefs and practices of our era, but we bear the burden of those sins all the same. Vicarious suffering is a commonplace fact. Only God can provide vicarious atonement.
\nThe consequence of atonement is freedom. This deliverance is a freedom from the sin and guilt of our past. Only with this freedom can we find ourselves able to use the past successfully in forging the future. Only with the atonement is it possible for all things to work together for us in Christ. (Rom. 8:28).
\nThe order of the ritual is well summarized by Samuel Clark:<\/p>\n
It is important, in reference to the meaning of the Day of Atonement, to observe the order of the rites as they are described in these verses. (1) The Sin-offering for the priests (v. 11). (2) The High priest enters the First time, within the vail, with the incense. (vv. 12\u201313). (3) He enters the Second time with the blood of the priest\u2019s Sin-offering (v. 14). (4) The sacrifice of the goat \u201cfor Jehovah\u201d (v. 15). (5) The High priest enters the Third time within the vail with the blood of the goat (v. 15). (6) The atonement for the Tent of meeting (v. 16). (7) The atonement for the Altar of Burnt-offering in the court (vv. 18\u201319). (8) The goat sent away to Azazel (vv. 20\u201322). (9) The High priest bathes himself and resumes his golden garments (vv. 23\u201324). (10) The Burnt-offerings for the High priest and the people, with the fat of the two Sin-offerings, offered on the Altar (vv. 24\u201325). (11) The accessory sacrifices mentioned Num. 29:8\u201311, appear now to have been offered. (12) According to Jewish tradition, the High priest again resumed his white dress and entered a Fourth time within the vail to fetch out the censer and the bowl.<\/p>\n
The goal of all of this was, in Wenham\u2019s words, \u201cThat sin be exterminated from Israel.\u201d According to Psalm 103:12, \u201cAs far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.\u201d Micah 7:19 declares, \u201cThou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.\u201d Atonement has as its purpose the freedom of man and the earth from sin for God\u2019s Kingdom and justice, for the dominion of righteousness. The vicarious atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ leads to our vicarious righteousness, our justification, and to our freedom to become Christ\u2019s instruments and members of righteousness or justice, to bring about His dominion of justice and truth in all the earth.
\nWe cannot escape God\u2019s order. It is inherent in every atom of being. God\u2019s order is inescapable order: to deny it or rebel against it is to invite judgment and reprobation. Atonement is central to God\u2019s order, and men cannot escape its force. They may seek atonement through sadomasochistic activities or variations thereof. In commenting on the ideas of William Blake, Schulz noted:<\/p>\n
The point to keep in mind is that self-annihilation represents an alternative to the hated doctrine of atonement. In demanding of every individual the exercise of selfless love, the principle of self-annihilation brings the sacred hierarchy of the Christian mystery within the grasp of every person. It reduces holy exclusivity to the scale of humanity.<\/p>\n
Self-annihilation, and Kenosis is a form of it, accomplishes only a sustained defeat. The alternative to the \u201chated doctrine of the atonement\u201d is death.<\/p>\n
Chapter Thirty<\/p>\n
Atonement, Freedom, and Justice
\n(Leviticus 16:29\u201334)<\/p>\n
29. And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you:
\n30. For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the LORD.
\n31. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever.
\n32. And the priest, whom he shall anoint, and whom he shall consecrate to minister in the priest\u2019s office in his father\u2019s stead, shall make the atonement, and shall put on the linen clothes, even the holy garments:
\n33. And he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation.
\n34. And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year. And he did as the LORD commanded Moses. (Leviticus 16:29\u201334)<\/p>\n
Wenham renders \u201ca statute forever\u201d as \u201ca permanent rule.\u201d This requirement is stressed in vv. 29, 31, and 34. The day of atonement is to be observed permanently with fasting (\u201cafflict your souls\u201d), abstinence from work, and with rest. In terms of this, at one time Good Friday was a holy day; later, the respite from work was limited to three hours, from noon to three o\u2019clock in the afternoon; now even that is rapidly disappearing. The fasting was to promote humility: man\u2019s salvation and his freedom from the fall came at the price of atonement, the vicarious sacrifice of God\u2019s appointed and unblemished One. F. W. Grant wrote, concerning the cessation from work:<\/p>\n
Lastly, in connection with all this, we have a sabbath of rest appointed, in which all work is solemnly forbidden. In connection with atonement the meaning is most simple. Whether for Israel or for the believer now, no work of man must supplement the glorious work which has been done for sinners.<\/p>\n
Man can add nothing to God\u2019s work of atonement: he must rest in it and place his total trust in its sufficiency. Paul echoes this requirement when, after setting forth Christ\u2019s work of justification for us, he declares, \u201cStand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage\u201d (Gal. 5:1). Our rest is in the finished and complete work of atonement. The atonement is the justification of man. Man, the condemned rebel, is made righteous, just or innocent by God\u2019s grace. Man is made a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). He is released from the death penalty: he dies in Christ, and he is made a new man by Christ\u2019s regenerating power. We are converted from outlaws into the people of the law.
\nAt two critical points, churchmen have gone radically astray. First, men have set a contrast between God\u2019s law and freedom. To do so, God\u2019s law is called Jewish, and God is portrayed as having outgrown His own justice by the time of the New Testament! This is at the least blasphemy. Second, to cite Richard Overton, a seventeenth century English radical, it has often been held that, \u201cjustice is my naturall right, my heirdome, my inheritance by lineall descent from the loins of Adam, and so to all the sons of men as their proper right without respect of persons.\u201d Overton went on to assert that liberty and justice are human rights. He insisted on \u201ca natural innate freedom,\u201d and that \u201cevery man by nature \u2026 (is) a King, Priest and Prophet in his owne naturall circuite and compasse.\u201d As Mullett noted, \u201cOverton universalized freedom and gave it an entirely natural base.\u201d In terms of this, the moral universe was turned upside down. In the name of the gospel, man was freed from God\u2019s law, God\u2019s justice. In the name of natural rights, justice and freedom were converted from moral attributes into abstract rights. Freedom is then defined as a freedom from some outward restraint, and justice as something the environment must provide for us. The state claims to be that environment, and, quite logically, it increasingly sees the restraint to freedom and justice as coming from the triune God.
\nSuch a perspective makes freedom and justice less and less likely. It is a way of saying that the world must be virtuous in order to make our sins safe. Woodrow Wilson gave us a political version of this great heresy in his messianic effort to make the world safe for democracy by a war to end wars and a League of Nations. It has become a humanistic commonplace to view freedom and justice as abstract things unrelated to the heart of man and his moral nature. The fact of atonement tells us that only by means of atonement can justice and freedom enter the world. The atonement is the moral renewal of man; he is made a new creation ethically, not metaphysically. This atonement requires the moral death of the old man, and the creation of a regenerate man by God\u2019s grace. Louis Goldberg has commented:<\/p>\n
There is tragedy in the current attempt to have a Day of Atonement without the shedding of the blood of a sin offering. While repentance, prayer, and good deeds, used by the Jewish people today as a substitute for the ritual of Leviticus 16, demonstrate a search for God, they are not enough to effect atonement for sin.<\/p>\n
The requirement for observing the day of atonement stresses the need for man to recognize that he can never justify himself before God, or have any legitimate claim against God. Man must recognize that he stands justified entirely by God\u2019s sovereign grace. No man can make atonement for his own sins, because no man can obligate God, or impose necessity upon Him, which self-atonement would do. The issue is at heart the same as that described by Otto Scott with respect to Galileo. Pope Urban VIII favored Galileo\u2019s theories and encouraged him to publish them. As Scott notes:<\/p>\n
He made only one stipulation, saying that Galileo could not \u201creally maintain that God could not have wished or known how to move the heavens and the stars some other way.\u2026 To speak otherwise than hypothetically would be tantamount to constraining the infinite power and wisdom of God within the limits of your personal ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Galileo chose to do precisely that, and to disseminate his manuscript as widely as possible. Urban did not object to Galileo\u2019s theology, whereby God was limited to what Galileo chose to believe. Urban\u2019s angry and justified comment went to the heart of the matter: \u201cHe can not necessitate Almighty God.\u201d Those who believe in self-atonement believe that they can necessitate God and compel His favor. At the same time, by making freedom and justice into abstract conditions and rights, men can indict God for slavery and injustice without admitting that these are moral conditions created by man.
\nIt is, however, the insistence of Rabbi Hertz that the initiative on the day of atonement is with man; although v. 30 says clearly, \u201con this day shall atonement be made for you,\u201d Hertz still held that atonement rests on human initiative. In this he followed Rabbi Akiba. Within the church, Arminianism has also stressed human initiative, whereas some non-Arminians have dropped the law of God and looked for concepts of abstract natural justice to replace it.
\nIt should be noted that the sacrifices of the day of atonement are the only ones connected with the ark. This is also the only required fast day in the Bible. In practice, exceptions were traditionally made for pregnant women, the sick, and children. In some churches, the food money for Good Friday was given by the family to further missionary work or to alleviate some need in Christ\u2019s name.
\nIn conclusion, it can be said that the meaning of atonement is the re-establishment of freedom and justice in man and society. More accurately, it is the reopening of the possibility of freedom and justice for man, society, and God\u2019s earth. By means of atonement, God reestablishes His dominion over us in the form of His covenant of grace. By His sovereign grace, we are taken out of our moral slavery and injustice and commanded to grow in holiness and knowledge so that we might establish justice and dominion under Christ over all things.
\nWith the atonement, man is justified, and by God\u2019s regenerating power, man is morally renewed and made a new creation. He is now a man with a different nature, and he is a member of the new humanity of the last Adam, Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:20\u201322; 45\u201350). As a member of Adam\u2019s humanity, his nature had the governing quality of sin, of the will to be his own god (Gen. 3:5). Now, his governing quality, his nature, is not sin but justice, or, righteousness. Sin is not something which has an abstract, objective existence; it is a moral, or, immoral quality of man. All too many people see sin in Platonic terms, as an abstract and governing Idea in being. This leads to the absurdity and immorality of objectifying sin and separating it from man\u2019s moral nature. It results in the common belief that \u201cwe should love the sinner and hate the sin.\u201d But if a man commits murder and adultery, those sins are not things that have an existence apart from the man; they do not act out crimes without a criminal. There is no sin without a sinner. Sin is the word, thought, or deed of a man; it is the expression of his immoral nature. Murder is evil, and therefore murderers are evil; no man commits murder out of the goodness of his heart! Rape is evil, and it is an expression of the evil in a rapist. Sin in a man commonly results in an objective act, murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and the like. Sin can manifest itself in words, thoughts, and deeds, in historical events or results, but sin itself gains no independent or metaphysical being thereby. Only by positing a metaphysical ultimacy to evil, as in Manichaeanism, can man give it an independent being, and the statement, \u201chate the sin, but love the sinner,\u201d has a Manichaean root.<\/p>\n
Chapter Thirty-One<\/p>\n
Blood and Life
\n(Leviticus 17:1\u201316)<\/p>\n
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
\n2. Speak unto Aaron, and unto his sons, and unto all the children of Israel, and say unto them; This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded, saying,
\n3. What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it out of the camp,
\n4. And bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to offer an offering unto the LORD before the tabernacle of the LORD; blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people:
\n5. To the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they offer in the open field, even that they may bring them unto the LORD, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest, and offer them for peace offerings unto the LORD.
\n6. And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and burn the fat for a sweet savour unto the LORD.
\n7. And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations.
\n8. And thou shalt say unto them, Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers which sojourn among you, that offereth a burnt offering or sacrifice,
\n9. And bringeth it not unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, to offer it unto the LORD; even that man shall be cut off from among his people.
\n10. And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people.
\n11. For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
\n12. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood.
\n13. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust.
\n14. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.
\n15. And every soul that eateth that which died of itself, or that which was torn with beasts, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger, he shall both wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even: then shall he be clean.
\n16. But if he wash them not, nor bathe his flesh; then he shall bear his iniquity. (Leviticus 17:1\u201316)<\/p>\n
Men in many an age have flattered themselves and believed that wisdom was born with them, and that they represent the dawn of a higher consciousness. Job satirically answered Zophar\u2019s self-assured wisdom with words relevant for the Zophars of our time: \u201cNo doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you\u201d (Job 12:2). The conceits of self-assured wisdom lead to a remarkable blindness. This is certainly true where the laws of blood, as we find them in Leviticus 17, are concerned. Supposedly, these laws represent a primitive outlook which we have outgrown in our wisdom.
\nBut so-called \u201cprimitive\u201d peoples were often more self-conscious and self-aware than modern scholars! Blood meant life to them. Frazer, in writing on \u201cIncarnate Human Gods,\u201d reported:<\/p>\n
One of these modes of producing inspiration is by sucking the fresh blood of a sacrificed victim. In the temple of Apollo a woman, who had to observe a rule of chastity, tasted the blood of the lamb, and thus being inspired by the god she prophesied or divined. At Aegira in Achaia the priestess of Earth drank the fresh blood of a bull before she descended into the cave to prophesy. Similarly among the Kuruvikkarans, a class of bird-catchers and beggars in Southern India, the goddess Kali is believed to descend upon the priest, and gives oracular replies after sucking the blood which streams from the cut throat of a goat. At a festival of the Alfoors of Minahassa, in Northern Celebes, after a pig has been killed, the priest rushes furiously at it, thrusts his head into the carcase, and drinks of the blood. Then he is dragged away from it by force and set on a chair, whereupon he begins to prophesy how the rice-crop will turn out that year. A second time he runs at the carcase and drinks of the blood; a second time he is forced into the chair and continues his predictions. It is thought that there is a spirit in him which possesses the power of prophesy.<\/p>\n
The goal in such practices is that of Genesis 3:5, to be as God, to exercise divine power by consuming life. The power to kill has always been important to fallen man because it is the exercise of the control of life. What God reserves to Himself, man claims. The first murder in history took place soon after the fall (Gen. 4:8). Lamech boasted of his power to kill (Gen. 4:23\u201324). Murder is the exercise of ultimate power as fallen man sees it, to take life.
\nIn some societies, those who exercised power had a restricted diet in order to heighten their powers.<\/p>\n
The Gangas or fetish priests of the Loango Coast are forbidden to eat or even see a variety of animals and fish, in consequence of which their flesh diet is extremely limited; often they live only on herbs and roots, though they may drink fresh blood.<\/p>\n
American Indians carried on a quest for scalps as a means of manifesting their power and prowess; some Western gunmen notched their guns to boast of shed blood. The triumph manifested by many abortionist doctors is in this tradition. It is one of the ironies of the twentieth century that men have most abhorred war and killing, and have most commonly indulged in it. Obviously, their professions of peace have shallow roots.
\nThe Bible is neither respectful nor flattering where man is concerned; this makes its thrust seem ugly and primitive to the genteel humanists, with their self-assured moral refinement and benevolence.
\nLeviticus 17 regulates man\u2019s behavior with respect to blood. First, sacrifices could only be made at the sanctuary in the wilderness, and, on entry into Canaan, at designated places (Deut. 12:5\u20136), which included for a time Bethel and Shiloh. Failure to comply meant excommunication.
\nSecond, no sacrifice could be offered in the fields or at pagan altars, but only at God\u2019s appointed places (Lev. 17:7; Deut. 12:5\u20136, 11\u201314).
\nThird, blood or life is God-created and can only be taken in compliance with His law. Blood cannot be eaten without blood-guiltiness. The penalty is cited as excommunication, but the sin is equated with manslaughter and murder. In v. 4, we see that failure to abide by this law is equated with shedding blood. When a man killed a game animal, the blood had to be drained and covered with dirt or dust (v. 13). To respect blood means to respect God and His creation.
\nConcern over blood has long been lacking in Christendom. The Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, although given to many heresies, have been unique in their respect for Biblical laws on blood, and their opposition to blood transfusions. Their basis has been Leviticus 17:14 and Acts 15:28\u201329; taking blood \u201cin any form\u201d has been wrong for them. The possibility of acquiring AIDS through transfusion (as well as hepatitis B) has begun to make an impression on others now. Dr. Henry B. Solomon, M.D., editor of the journal, Pathologist, has raised questions about the value of blood transfusions. Such transfusions have never been as safe or as necessary as routinely asserted. Dr. Solomon has written:<\/p>\n
There is a significant survival disadvantage when \u2026 transfusions are given to patients undergoing surgery for cancer of the lung, breast, and colon.\u2026 Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses have insisted \u2026 that transfusions are a bad idea. Perhaps one of these days they will be proved to be wrong. But in the meantime there is considerable evidence to support their contention, despite protestations from blood bankers to the contrary.<\/p>\n
It is particularly noteworthy that these restrictions on the eating of blood (vv. 10\u201316) are applied not only to believers, but to all within the land, including all aliens who were settled among them. It is a danger to all, both religiously and physically.
\nThere are five specific regulations in Leviticus 17. The first, vv. 3\u20137, requires sacrifices to be made only where God\u2019s law so specifies. When separated from God\u2019s appointed place, demonic and alien practices intrude, as men practice will-worship and assert the sufficiency of their wisdom.
\nSecond, vv. 8\u20139, these requirements apply to all, Israelites and foreigners alike.
\nThird, vv. 10\u201319, the eating of blood is forbidden to all. Because all creatures and all life are God\u2019s property and creation, no man has any claim or jurisdiction over life apart from God\u2019s law. Blood is the life of every creature (Lev. 19:26; Deut. 12:23\u201325; Ezek. 33:25; Zech. 9:7). Obedience to God is a condition of a continuing possession of the land:<\/p>\n
25. Wherefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD: Ye eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood: and shall ye possess the land?
\n26. Ye stand upon your sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbour\u2019s wife: and shall ye possess the land? (Ezekiel 33:25\u201326)<\/p>\n
Fourth, vv. 13\u201314, animals unsuitable for sacrifice, i.e., game animals, could not be treated callously; their blood had to be drained and then covered.
\nFifth, vv. 15\u201316, clean animals which met their death other than by human hands are not to be eaten.
\nA very practical consequence of these laws was to make the butchering and preparation of foods, and meats in particular, a matter of religious and hygienic concern. It is not surprising, therefore, that observance of these laws has led to better health. Even in recent history, in Soviet Armenia, all farmers routinely went to a stone butchering block near the door of their church to kill the animal, shed the blood, and to leave the priest\u2019s portion as the law prescribes.
\nKnight has called attention to an important aspect of these laws. Leviticus 17\u201326 is commonly called the Holiness Code, although the whole book\u2019s concern is holiness. In paganism, the meaning of holiness is comparable to the Polynesian word \u201ctaboo,\u201d meaning, \u201cDo not touch, or you are in danger.\u201d It is also the Maori \u201cmana,\u201d an impersonal power. But God, who is called the Holy One of Israel, is the covenant God, whose law is grace, mercy, and life to His people. \u201cSo God\u2019s holiness was the power of his loving, righteous, saving presence in Israel\u2019s midst.\u201d \u201cThe law is God\u2019s gracious gift.\u201d Israel was not a superior nation or people; its advantage was the grace of God, and the law is an aspect of that grace. We are thus required to be holy and dedicated to God in all our lives and being, including our diet.
\nKellogg titled Leviticus 17 \u201cHoliness in Eating\u201d and said, in part:<\/p>\n
The moral and spiritual purpose of this law concerning the use of blood was apparently twofold. In the first place, it was intended to educate the people to a reverence for life, and purify them from that tendency to bloodthirstiness which has so often distinguished heathen nations, and especially those with whom Israel was to be brought in closest contact. But secondly, and chiefly, it was intended, as in the former part of the chapter, everywhere and always to keep before the mind the sacredness of the blood as being the appointed means for the expiation of sin; given by God upon the altar to make atonement for the soul of the sinner, \u201cby reason of the life\u201d or soul with which it stood in such immediate relation. Not only were they therefore to abstain from the blood of such animals as could be offered on the altar, but even from that of those which could not be offered. Thus the blood was to remind them, every time they ate flesh, of the very solemn truth that without shedding of blood there was no remission of sin. The Israelite must never forget this; even in the heat and excitement of the chase, he must pause and carefully drain the blood from the creature he has slain, and reverently cover it with dust;\u2014a symbolic act which should ever put him in mind of the Divine ordinance to the forgiveness of sin.<\/p>\n
Let us remember that this prohibition against eating or drinking blood was stressed by the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:29. Given this fact, our Lord\u2019s words in John 6:53\u201356 are all the more striking:<\/p>\n
53. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, Verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
\n54. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
\n55. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
\n56. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.<\/p>\n
It was more than a little offense these words carried to their hearers: by New Testament times, the prohibition against blood was strictly observed. At the same time, nothing more clearly sets forth the meaning of these laws of Leviticus 17 than our Lord\u2019s words. The life is in the blood, and God is the author of all life. In idolatry, humanism, and the eating or drinking of blood we seek life below the level of life that God has ordained. Jesus Christ declares, \u201cI am the way, the truth, and the life\u201d (John 14:6). Man outside of Christ will look for life in evolutionary terms, backward in time and downward into \u201cprimeval chaos.\u201d In Cornelius Van Til\u2019s words, he integrates himself downward into the void. Our Lord\u2019s reference to the elements in the sacrament of communion is an obvious one. To seek life by integration downward is death. To seek life in blood rather than from the source of life, the triune God, is evil, and it is death. To observe Leviticus 17, in its fullest sense, means to live in Christ; to live in Christ means to reject the eating of blood and every quest for life outside of Christ. It means recognizing that only the blood of Christ can make atonement for sin; otherwise, as our Lord says, \u201cye have no life in you\u201d (John 6:53).
\nIn the bloody sacrifices, the blood was drained, i.e., shed; it was then taken to the altar. Leviticus 17:11 is echoed in Hebrews 9:22, \u201cAnd almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.\u201d This statement has reference to the law, to God\u2019s altar, and God\u2019s provision. The mere shedding of blood by man can effect no remission of sin but rather aggravates it. When the blood is applied to the altar, the blood of the unblemished sacrifice, then there is remission of sin and the offering of one\u2019s life to God who made and remade it.
\nThe word devils in v. 7 (seirim) means shaggy goats, goat-like deities, or demons. Pan, Silenus, satyrs, fauns, and like gods were worshipped in ancient Egypt and thus were known to the Hebrews. The reference of early Christians to pagan deities as demons thus had an Old Testament origin. These pagan goat-deities were fertility cult gods. Just as drinking or eating blood was held to be the appropriation of life and divine powers, so too sexual perversions and ritual prostitution invoked the life force as a means of personal and social renewal. Of these devils referred to in v. 7, John Gill wrote:<\/p>\n
The word here used signifies goats, and these creatures were worshipped by the Egyptians, and so might be by the Israelites, whilst among them; this is asserted by several writers. Diodorus Siculus says, \u201cthey deified the goat, as the Greeks did Priapus, and for the same reason; and that the Pans and the Satyrs were held in honour by men on the same account; and Herodotus observes, that the Egyptians paint and engrave Pan as the Greeks do, with the face and thighs of a goat, and therefore do not kill a goat, because the Mendesians regard Pan among the gods; and of the Mendesians he says, that they worship goats, and the he-goats rather than the she-goats; wherefore in the Egyptian language both Pan and a goat are called Mendes; and Strabo reports of Mendes, that there Pan and the goat are worshipped: if these sort of creatures were worshipped by the Egyptians in the time of Moses, which is to be questioned, the Israelites might be supposed to have followed them in it; but if that be true which Maimonides says of the Zabii, a set of idolators among the Chaldeans, and other people, whom they supposed to be in the form of goats, the Israelites might have given in to this form of idolatry from them.\u2026<\/p>\n
It should be remembered that the law associates bloody sacrifices with peace offerings. The goal is not death but salvation, life, and peace.<\/p>\n
Chapter Thirty-Two<\/p>\n
The Ground of Law
\n(Leviticus 18:1\u20135)<\/p>\n
1. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
\n2. Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the LORD your God.
\n3. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.
\n4. Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God.
\n5. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD. (Leviticus 18:1\u20135)<\/p>\n
Leviticus 18 is a catalogue of sexual sins and thus not a popular chapter. Within the past decade, a Chalcedon supporter, then pastor of a large fundamentalist church, was dismissed by the congregation a week after reading and preaching on this chapter. He was accused of engaging in negative rather than positive ministry, and the initiative for his dismissal came from men clearly guilty of some of these offenses.
\nThis chapter is notable also because it follows immediately after the ritual for the Day of Atonement. Moreover, the old Jewish rituals give Leviticus 18 as one of the Readings of the Day of Atonement. Atonement mandates certain things: it is a moral fact with moral consequences. Hence, the covenant people, as the just people, are told bluntly that their lives must be radically different from the lives of Egyptians and Canaanites (vv. 3\u20135).
\nThe premise of all law is, \u201cI am the LORD your God\u201d (v. 2), words which precede the Ten Commandments and the whole of God\u2019s law. Because God is the sovereign creator, and their covenant Lord, He must be obeyed. Oehler commented:<\/p>\n
The words in ver. 2 have a double import. They apply, in the first place, to the whole Decalogue; thus they contain the general presupposition of the law, the ground of obligation for Israel, which lies in the nature of his God and the fact of his redemption. But, in the second place, they are the special ground of the command not to worship other gods besides Jehovah.<\/p>\n
As we have noted, the foundation of all law is the Lord God, and we are His people. Two emphases are made. First, that this God is our covenant God, and hence He must be heard and obeyed. God never gives advice: He commands us. Second, God is the holy God, the only true God, and His holiness requires our holiness. Without holiness, there can be no communion. Biblical holiness is moral, whereas pagan doctrines of the holy stress dread, paranormal incidents, and the like. We are commanded to keep God\u2019s law in order to live. God says of His law, \u201cif a man do, he shall live, (or, be kept alive) in them\u201d (v. 5). Life is linked to law and morality. Of the pagan cultures, it is said, \u201cneither shall ye walk in their ordinances\u201d (v. 3), i.e., you shall not live by their laws. The law we live by manifests our religion. Thus, where two religions exist side by side, one must convert the other, because a land cannot function long if two contradictory systems of law prevail. Because the churches of the modern era have been content to live in terms of humanistic law, they have escaped full-fledged conflict at the price of surrender.
\nPorter called attention to the meaning of the words, \u201cshall have life through them\u201d in v. 5, stating: \u201cKeeping the divine commandments brings prosperity and success, which is what the Hebrews primarily understood by life.\u201d Life is thus not seen as a marginal existence but as a triumph in the Lord.
\nThe laws of marriage are given after laws relative to worship and atonement because true worship has moral results. Modern thought has tried to separate religion and ethics and to make worship an aesthetic concern. While worship is not to be unaesthetic, to reduce religious worship to an aesthetic experience is to say that it is man who must be pleased, rather than God worshipped. Such an emphasis makes man sovereign, whereas the repeated declaration of the law, \u201cI am the LORD your God\u201d (vv. 2, 4\u20135), tells us that God is the sovereign. While dullness is not a merit in worship, the belief that worship must interest a congregation is both false and evil. For men to seek personal pleasure and gratification as the grounds for worship is to say in effect that worship must be pleasing to man, not God. Such an assumption is all too common.
\nMan-centered worship, humanistic worship, is a lie, Paul tells us. To serve man in worship becomes idolatry:<\/p>\n
22. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
\n23. And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things,
\n24. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves;
\n25. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 1:22\u201325)<\/p>\n
Man-centered worship, Paul says, leads to idolatry (which can mean worshipping graven images, or enthroning our own will, tastes, and wants as supreme). Such worship also leads to a moral degeneracy which culminates in homosexuality. Just as Leviticus 18 prefixes its commandments concerning sexuality with the requirement of strict adherence to the covenant God and His law, so Paul declares that the just shall live by faith, and then he cites the degeneracy of the faithless. In both instances, a strict correlation between faith and life is declared.
\nThe sexual practices forbidden in Leviticus 18 were common to both Egypt and Canaan. The Biblical doctrine of man finds easy verification in all of history. Man\u2019s total depravity means that every aspect of his being is infected, corrupted, and governed by his sin, and hence the necessity for God\u2019s law.
\nMan, having been created in God\u2019s image, is born with a desire for dominion. Fallen man, however, does not want godly dominion, only ungodly dominion, and hence his desire for lawless sexuality as a means of dominating and exploiting others.
\nIt should be stressed that Leviticus 18 gives us laws concerning marriage rather than sex as such. Paganism always deals with sex per se and views sexuality as a resource whereby man can find pleasure and self-realization. In such a perspective, marriage becomes merely one sexual option among many. The goal of present legislation is to broaden the sexual options of men, women, and children as a step in human liberation.
\nImplicit in this trend is a concept of sovereignty, the sovereignty of man and his freedom to express his nature. It was in some degree the premise of ancient paganism. In Genesis 19:4\u20135, the men of Sodom demanded the right to sodomize Lot\u2019s guests; they declared that Lot saw himself as morally superior (Gen. 19:9), and they were going to humble him and demonstrate their power. Man, by declaring himself sovereign, rejects God, and with God, His law. Camus stated it bluntly: \u201cSince God claims all that is good in man, it is necessary to deride what is good and choose what is evil.\u201d
\nBut God declares that He alone is sovereign, and it is His will that must be done. This holy and good will of God is His law.<\/p>\n
Chapter Thirty-Three<\/p>\n
Laws of Marriage
\n(Leviticus 18:6\u201318)<\/p>\n
6. None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.
\n7. The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
\n8. The nakedness of thy father\u2019s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father\u2019s nakedness.
\n9. The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.
\n10. The nakedness of thy son\u2019s daughter, or of thy daughter\u2019s daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness.
\n11. The nakedness of thy father\u2019s wife\u2019s daughter, begotten of thy father, she is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
\n12. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father\u2019s sister: she is thy father\u2019s near kinswoman.
\n13. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother\u2019s sister: for she is thy mother\u2019s near kinswoman.
\n14. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father\u2019s brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt.
\n15. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she is thy son\u2019s wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.
\n16. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother\u2019s wife: it is thy brother\u2019s nakedness.
\n17. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son\u2019s daughter, or her daughter\u2019s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness.
\n18. Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time. (Leviticus 18:6\u201318)<\/p>\n
The first thing to note with respect to these laws is that they govern marriage. We are given a list of forbidden marriages. All non-marital sex is illicit; not all unions of male and female are permitted, i.e., not all men nor all women are eligible marital partners.
\nIn the earliest days of mankind, the genetic potentialities of Adam and Eve carried all the possibilities of all races and peoples; hence, close marriages then were not as genetically close and consequently hazardous as marriage today between two Irish or two Germans. After the expansion of the human race, closely related unions were banned by God, and, all over the world, were recognized in time as wrong. They did persist, however, in certain elements of society, namely royalty, nobility, and the very wealthy. As a student, I recall the contemptuous amusement of a professor as he described a list, posted from the medieval era, in a cathedral; it began with the commandment, \u201cThou shall not marry thy grandmother.\u201d He would ask his classes each year, \u201cAnd who would want to marry his grandmother?,\u201d and then proceed to comment on the stupidity of medieval Christians. His attitude rested on ignorance. In many societies, the compelling reason for all incestuous unions was the consolidation of power and property, and marriage was seen, not as an end in itself, but as an instrument towards power and property. As a result, the medieval church, to prevent continual inbreeding, went beyond the forbidden degrees of Leviticus in its rules on marriage. Despite the church\u2019s efforts, the nobility and especially the royalty of Europe contributed substantially to its own irrelevance and its physical and mental deterioration by its inbreeding. The history of Europe might well have been different had the royal families been less inbred and less unstable and stupid.
\nSecond, these laws are all addressed to men. The Bible never denies the guilt of women in sexual offenses; if the woman is promiscuous, she is often seen, as in Proverbs 7:1\u201327, as the aggressor and primary offender. Normally, however, the primary guilt is the man\u2019s, and hence these laws are directed to men. The Bible gives headship in marriage to men, and this also means greater responsibility and culpability. The establishment of a family normally requires a man\u2019s initiative, and hence the law speaks here to men.
\nThird, we have the repeated use of the phrase, \u201cuncover the nakedness,\u201d which, we are told, \u201cis a synonym for sexual intercourse.\u201d However, as Noth noted, in some cases, \u201cthe \u2018nakedness\u2019 of a woman was considered to belong to her husband.\u201d Illicit relations with a woman are seen as in part an aggressive act against the husband or father, so that a woman is sexually exploited, and a man shamed and degraded. Since neither men nor women are seen in Scripture in atomistic terms but as members of families, a sexual offense involves more than the man and woman engaged in a sexual act. To a degree, only the female prostitute and the male prostitute or sodomite are considered as isolated and non-familistic individuals. This is why the common opinion that these are simply laws dealing with illicit sexuality is wrong. All the possible unions cited here, as well as those implied, are certainly illicit, but the focus is on marriage. The focus of sexuality in Scripture is the family, and Biblical law mandates the permitted forms thereof.
\nFourth, the Biblical laws concerning marriage are all God-centered, not man-centered. Historically, the laws of marriage have been, in non-Biblical cultures, governed by human needs and desires. We have seen that unions within the forbidden degrees have occurred to retain property and power. This was common in the royal families of ancient Egypt and Persia, where brother and sister marriages were routine, and in recent centuries as well, at least among the chiefs or rulers in Siam, Burma, Ceylon, Uganda, and the Hawaiian Islands. In Pentecost Island of the New Hebrides, it was the custom to marry the daughter\u2019s daughter of a brother. Polyandry, in which all brothers share a wife in common, has existed in order to preserve property intact over the generations. Ancestor worship was once very widespread and was a means of insuring the centrality of the family in humanistic terms. In such cultures, ultimate authority normally resided with the family and its customs and traditions. This view of authority did more than give stability to society; it tended towards fixity, as in pre-Marxist China. The family assumed responsibility for its members, so that a man without a network of kinship could not be readily trusted, because no one was accountable for him. As Margery Wolf noted, \u201cWealth cannot make up for this deficiency (of a family) any more than it can make up for the loss of arms and legs. Money has no past, no future, and no obligations. Relatives do.\u201d Without question, this kind of family network gave security, but it failed to give moral strength to society. The strength of family networks as the basis of society is no more a moral force than is the totalitarian control of a power state. Moral force comes from the triune God.
\nIn a God-centered society, the rites and ceremonies of marriage make it clear that marriage is under God and according to His laws. Christian marriage and Biblical law place both husband and wife, and their children as well, under God\u2019s law. Marriage is a restraint upon both husband and wife, and it imposes duties and responsibilities. It is more the assumption of mature tasks under God than it is self-fulfilment, and only as the tasks and duties are assumed and continually met does it provide self-fulfilment. As Foley noted,<\/p>\n
\u2026 we are taught by the gospel that restraints are imposed and self-denial demanded, not for their own sakes, but as a means to truer and more abiding blessedness. Holy matrimony has been divinely instituted for man\u2019s good, and to be a source of blessing. In happy married life man is to find his truest and most lasting happiness, and to reach the fullest perfection of which his nature is capable.<\/p>\n
In humanistic cultures and marriages, the inability of husband and wife to transcend themselves and their egocentricity is a source of continual problems of an insoluble nature. Problems are common to all marriages; in a Christian marriage, they are normally soluble. It is an ironic fact that, whereas earlier the modern temper saw marriage as the bondage of a woman, the newest bit of pseudo-wisdom declares, \u201cmarriage is the best revenge.\u201d It was men who, with the rise of humanism, began to speak of marriage as bondage. It should not surprise us that, after a few centuries of such idiocy on the part of men, women should begin to voice a like stupidity. All such thinking is anti-Christian; it presupposes a war of the sexes, not their harmony. For the fallen man, all creation is at war with him (\u201cthe stars in their courses fought against Sisera,\u201d Judges 5:20), because the fallen man is at war against God. The consequence of the fall is total, blind, and insane warfare: man against God, man against man and woman, man against the world around him, and man against himself. Fallen man, in his blindness, stupidity, and sin, works to turn God\u2019s magnificent harmony in creation to a realm of war. In the end, he kills himself, not God, and not God\u2019s purposes in creation.
\nFifth, it must be recognized that not every forbidden degree of union is listed. Thus, the union of a father or mother with a daughter or son is not listed because it is assumed to be forbidden. Better, it is all banned in v. 6, which reads, in Robert Young\u2019s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, \u201cNone of you unto any relation of his flesh doth draw near to uncover nakedness; I am Jehovah.\u201d \u201cRelation of his flesh\u201d is translated by Noordtzij as \u201cflesh of his body,\u201d and the word translated as body has reference at times to sexual organs. The family is a physical unity, and \u201csexual relations with such a close blood relative really constituted nothing more or less than sexual intercourse with oneself.\u201d Thus, all close relatives are excluded as marital partners.
\nIt has often been noted that similar laws existed in many cultures of antiquity. This is not entirely true: for slaves, who were commonly non-persons before the law, such laws did not apply if the man guilty of the offense were a free man cohabiting with slave women. There are several examples of this in various cultures, as witness the following from Hittite laws:<\/p>\n
194: If a free man cohabit with (several) slave-girls, sisters and their mother, there shall be no punishment. If blood-relations sleep with (the same) free woman, there shall be no punishment. If father and son sleep with (the same) slave-girl or harlot, there shall be no punishment.
\n195: If however a man sleeps with the wife of his brother while his brother is living, it is a capital crime. If a man has a free woman (in marriage) and then lies also with her daughter, it is a capital crime. If a man has a daughter in marriage and then lies also with her mother or her sister, it is a capital crime.<\/p>\n
200: (A): If a man does evil with a horse or a mule, there shall be no punishment. He must not appeal to the king nor shall he become a case for the priest.\u2014If anyone sleeps with a foreign (woman) and (also) with her mother or (her) sister, there will be no punishment.<\/p>\n
Examples of people being non-persons before the law are not uncommon in Christendom. In the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court declared slaves to be property and not persons in the Dred Scott Case, and the unborn were denied personhood in Roe v. Wade.
\nThe only exception made with respect to the forbidden degrees is the levirate, which requires, when a close relative dies without an heir, that the next of kin take the widow and provide an heir (Deut. 25:5\u201310; cf. Matt. 22:23ff.).
\nIn v. 18, we have a prohibition of polygamy. It is of note that, while adultery was condemned as treason to marriage and society, polygamy was tolerated as a lesser form of marriage. However, we have two interesting statements made concerning polygamy: (a) a second wife will vex the first. The word vex has lost much of its force in today\u2019s English; in the Hebrew tsarar comes from the word to cramp; it means adversary, enemy, afflict, besiege, bind up, and oppress. It is at least an evidence of disrespect if not a hostile act to add wife to wife. Moreover, (b) it means \u201cto uncover her nakedness,\u201d which means, at the very least, to shame her. If this is what a plural wife means to the first wife, we are told implicitly that adultery is an even greater act of hostility and shame. What is required of godly marriage is holiness; what unlawful sexuality results in at the least is shame.
\nWe have seen that union within the forbidden degrees is common as a means to consolidating power and property. Rabbi J. H. Hertz called attention to this, noting:<\/p>\n
It was a practice among Eastern heirs-apparent to take possession of the father\u2019s wives, as an assertion of their right to the throne, that action identifying them with the late ruler\u2019s personality in the eyes of the people. This explains Reuben\u2019s conduct in Gen. 35:2.<\/p>\n
There is a sixth fact to be noted. As Wenham has pointed out, in the Bible, marriage establishes a new life and a new relationship. Marriage makes a girl more than a daughter-in-law; she becomes a daughter to her husband\u2019s parents (Ruth 1:11; 3:1). Biblical law thus literally applies Genesis 2:24, \u201cthey shall be one flesh.\u201d Hence, the forbidden degrees include in-laws. The modern perspective bypasses this Biblical fact entirely. Atomistic man feels no ties to family, kinfolk, and in-laws are trifles so he severs them readily. In contrast, paganism has often made ties of blood and marriage ironclad and irrevocable. The Bible tells us that they are very real but still not determinative, because man and marriage must be under God\u2019s law. The faith establishes a new relationship:<\/p>\n
46. While he yet talked to the people, behold his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.
\n47. Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.
\n48. But, he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? And who are my brethren?
\n49. And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
\n50. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. (Matthew 12:46\u201350)<\/p>\n
On another occasion, our Lord goes further to declare,<\/p>\n
26. If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
\n27. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26\u201327)<\/p>\n
Our supernatural relationship to God and our supernatural family in Christ must take precedence over and govern our relationship to our natural family.<\/p>\n
Chapter Thirty-Four<\/p>\n
Sin and the Land
\n(Leviticus 18:19)<\/p>\n
19. Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness. (Leviticus 18:19)<\/p>\n
The transgression cited in this law is referred to also in Ezekiel 18:5\u20139:<\/p>\n
5. But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right,
\n6. And hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither had defiled his neighbour\u2019s wife, neither hath come near to a menstruous woman,
\n7. And hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment;
\n8. He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man,
\n9. Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the LORD God.<\/p>\n
Clearly, by citing this law of Leviticus 18:19 as one of the marks of a righteous man, Ezekiel tells us of its importance in the sight of God. Because in Institutes of Biblical Law I have a chapter based upon this text, I found how important sexual intercourse during menstruation is to many people, especially feminists; there was an aggressive insistence on the validity, and, with some, the necessity for this practice as a proof of love. Other references to this offense include Leviticus 12:2; 15:24; and 20:18; and Ezekiel 22:10.
\nThere is a marked difference between animals and human beings in this sphere. As Burns wrote:<\/p>\n
With female animals who ovulate, this second period is often accompanied at its close by a flow of blood from the vagina\u2014but make no mistake, this is not true menstruation. Ovulation bleeding and menstrual bleeding are basically different phenomena, although some nature writers have confused them as being the same. Menstruation does not occur in mammals below primates. With these subprimates, vaginal bleeding occurs at the time of heat and ovulation rather than during the period of infertility as in the human female, when the unfertilized ovum is sloughed off, accompanied with a discharge of blood.<\/p>\n
To confuse the distinction between men and animals is in itself an act of lawlessness.
\nChristian commentators have usually said little about this law. Because of the indictment of Ezekiel, post-exilic Hebrew commentators had much to say, and Maimonides went into the matter at length.
\nThe reference in this law is to both menstrual and post-childbirth bleeding and discharge. The reference to this in Leviticus 15:24 is to ceremonial uncleanness; in Leviticus 18:19, it is cited as a moral offense. Rabbi Hertz called attention to the physical benefits of obedience to this law. An investigation over a number of years of 80,000 Jewish women who observed this and related laws showed a dramatically lower uterine cancer rate, and the rate of cancer for their men was even lower. In recent years, this conclusion has been questioned. However, what we can say is that the faithfulness to the whole law, i.e., dietary as well as sexual, results in better health, although it may be difficult to say that one aspect of the law or another is primarily responsible. For unwitting violations of this law of Leviticus 18:19, a man was ceremonially unclean for seven days (Lev. 15:24); willful violation led to being \u201ccut off\u201d (Lev. 20:18), an expression which could mean death, excommunication, or exile. Leviticus 18:24\u201325 indicates expulsion from the country or exile. We are clearly dealing with a matter much more serious than is normally recognized, and, because of this neglect, we should give especial attention to this law.
\nEzekiel 18:5\u20139 tells us how serious this law is. In Ezekiel 18:4, God declares bluntly, \u201cthe soul that sinneth, it shall die.\u201d In vv. 5\u20139, the conditions of life and justice are set forth: faithfulness to God\u2019s law (v. 9) is the heart of the matter; the man who is obedient \u201cshall surely live.\u201d This obedience is in word, thought, and deed; it is faith and life.
\nWe have specific laws cited in vv. 6\u20138. First, we have idolatry (v. 6); to eat on the mountains has reference to idolatrous sacrifices and their communion meals. The idols are those of Israel; thus the reference is to syncretistic religion, to the amalgamation of pagan faiths with the worship of the covenant God.
\nSecond, we have sexual offenses which involve more than sexuality. Adultery is a sin against God and against man, i.e., one\u2019s neighbor as well as one\u2019s wife. Sexual intercourse with a menstruous woman is against God\u2019s law, and is a degradation of both the woman and the man.
\nThis sin is all too common in the twentieth century. Men demand it as an act of aggression and domination, precisely because the woman is offended by it, and, with feminism, many women demand it as a proof of love for the same reason, i.e., because it is offensive to the man. Ezekiel calls adultery defilement; the Hebrew word tame (taw-may), means to pollute, to make unclean. The same word is used in Ezekiel 18:6 and Leviticus 18:24\u201325, 27, 30. We are plainly told that all the sins cited in Leviticus 18 defile the land. Men now are beginning to recognize that there is a symbiotic relationship between trees and rainfall; the destruction of forests can destroy rainfall and the soil\u2019s fertility. Scripture tells us that there is a far stronger relationship between man\u2019s moral nature, his obedience to God\u2019s law, and the defilement and destruction of the land.
\nThird, we have been told that the righteous do not take part in idolatrous feasts and sacrifices, look to idols, commit adultery, or violate the prohibition concerning the menstruant woman. Now other areas are cited, ones dealing with our relationship to other people in commerce, neighborly relations, and charity. Debt exploitation and interest are cited as central sins. So, too, are the maltreatment of people and the lack of charity. The lack of charity does not refer to a lack of charitable feelings but the lack of charitable acts, giving bread to the hungry, covering the naked with a garment, and so on.
\nFourth, in v. 8, we are told that the righteous man \u201chath executed judgment between man and man,\u201d or, as Greenberg rendered it, \u201carbitrates faithfully between men.\u201d This arbitration is not in terms of making peace for the sake of peace, irrespective of justice, but in terms of peace with justice.
\nIt should be noted that the stress in these verses is on action. A man\u2019s faith reveals itself in action, \u201cby their fruits ye shall know them\u201d (Matt. 7:20), because \u201cfaith without works is dead\u201d (James 2:26), i.e., it is nonexistent. Pharisaism has as its premise the belief that works can be a substitute for and can exist without faith, without strict fidelity to God\u2019s law as our life. Pietism assumes that faith can exist without works, an equally false assumption.
\nAnother means of seeking to evade the plain meaning of the law is symbolic interpretation. Thus, Eisemann, following the Talmud (Sanhedrin 81a), interpreted v. 6 in terms of a previous assumption or presupposition. With respect to v. 5, the \u201cjust\u201d man or the true zaddik, he said, \u201cSurely a person would have to go beyond these simple requirements to be considered a true zaddik.\u201d In terms of this, the man who does not \u201ceat upon the mountains\u201d is a man \u201cso completely good that he can stand completely upon his own merits,\u201d without drawing on his father\u2019s works of supererogation. The man who does not lift up his eyes to idols is a modest and humble man. Defiling a neighbor\u2019s wife is read as \u201cinterfering with his livelihood,\u201d and approaching a menstruating woman is \u201cpermitting oneself to be supported by charity.\u201d Supposedly all this sets a much higher standard than does God\u2019s simple meaning!
\nNot all rabbinic scholars follow this kind of interpretation. Thus, Rabbi Fisch saw the meaning in terms of Leviticus and a faithful reading of the law.
\nThe emphasis here as throughout the law is on the inescapable connection between man\u2019s morality and the physical world around him. Without a recognition of this relationship there can be no true understanding of Scripture, or of Christ\u2019s work.<\/p>\n
Chapter Thirty-Five<\/p>\n
Abomination and Confusion
\n(Leviticus 18:20\u201323)<\/p>\n
20. Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour\u2019s wife, to defile thyself with her.
\n21. And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.
\n22. Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
\n23. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion. (Leviticus 18:20\u201323)<\/p>\n
These verses are titled by Wenham, \u201cOther Canaanite Customs to be Avoided.\u201d In v. 21, we have the heart of the problem, Molech worship, which could mean child sacrifice, as in Carthage. It could also mean, as Snaith suggests, that possibly children were given to the authorities to be trained as male and female prostitutes; the fact that this law comes together with prohibitions of various forms of sexuality and is followed by references to sodomy and lesbianism certainly is evidence of this.
\nThe word Molech (Melek, Milcom, Melcom) means king, the king as a god, and the primary reference is to state worship. Normally, passing a child through the fire to Molech was not human sacrifice, although emergency situations could lead to such acts; under normal circumstances it was the dedication of the child to the state, a statist analogue to baptism whereby the child was to live and die for the state. While Snaith\u2019s suggestion is valid, and some children were dedicated to prostitution, this was not true of all children, and yet all had to be taken to the fire of Molech for dedication in this religious faith. If the central meaning were sexual, the law would openly say so. We have such a law in Leviticus 19:29, \u201cDo not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore: lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.\u201d Thus, the primary reference is to Molech worship. At the same time, it is set in the context of a table of sexual sins. What is the connection?
\nMolech worship shifts the center of the moral universe from God to the state. Molech worship is very much with us in the ancient and modern priority of the state over the triune God. By giving centrality to humanistic concerns, men enthrone Molech and his worship. Those who champion cultural conservatism are thereby affirming Molech because they shift their moral concern from the will of God to pragmatic considerations. Thus, Finn believes that the goals of Christians can be achieved by an abandonment of a Christian perspective for \u201ccultural conservatism.\u201d In every such compromise venture, the goals of the lowest common denominator prevail.
\nMolech or state worship gives priority to political and pragmatic considerations and is thus the analogue to all the sexual sins cited in Leviticus 18:6\u201319. These practices are man\u2019s property and power considerations made paramount, and they also involve his perversity in setting his will against God\u2019s moral law.
\nThis is what Paul tells us in Romans 1:16\u201332. Men who will not live by faith change the truth of God into a lie; they enthrone the creature rather than the Creator. This is the greatest act of perversion. It leads logically to the burning out of man; the Greek word in Romans 1:27 is exekauthesan, to burn out, from ekkaio. This burning out begins with the abandonment of God\u2019s law for man\u2019s will, and it concludes with homosexual practices. Such people receive for their practices, in their bodies, \u201cthat recompense of their error which was meet.\u201d (Rom. 1:27). There is no reason to suppose that diseases like AIDS did not occur in earlier eras, as in the Roman Empire. The poet Catullus, for example, belonged to the \u201cbisexual\u201d set where, according to Horace Gregory, \u201csex and madness, art, beauty, grief, guilt, slander, even murder were accepted as the order of the day or night.\u201d It must be added that disease was an even more present fact.
\nThus, Leviticus 18:21 cites Molech worship as the prelude to the burning out of man and the defilement of the earth which leads to the expulsion of man.
\nTurning now to v. 20, the law against adultery, it is important to note that in Biblical law adultery means sexual intercourse with a married or betrothed woman. With an unbetrothed girl, the law specifies the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chapter Eighteen Pharisaism and the Law (Leviticus 10:12\u201320) 12. And Moses spake unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons that were left, Take the meat offering that remaineth of the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and eat it without leaven beside the altar: for it is most holy: 13. And … <\/p>\n