Drawing Near to a Holy God

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Well, we are starting the fun book of Leviticus this week. Yahoo! I know it's a

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tedious book to read through, but together we were going to highlight the

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importance of this book and what God was revealing to his people through it. So

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welcome to this week's Shabbat Shalom devotional when I seek to bring just a

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little inspiration and a little peace to the close of a very busy week. You know,

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over 50% of the Bible is historical narrative or stories. Also, there are

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prophetic passages, poetry, there's wisdom, and finally there is legal code, and

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that's what we're going to be reading in Leviticus. Now in Hebrew, Leviticus is

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called a veyekrah because that's the very first words of the first verse and

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he called. But when it was translated into Latin, it was taken from the Greek and

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they named the book Leviticus or pertaining to the Levites. It is also

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known as the Torah of the Levites. It's very instructional of the priest how to

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carry out the various functions within the tabernacle. Now Christians struggle

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with the law and don't know how to relate to it often. The law of Moses, what

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we're going to be reading in Leviticus, was not given to everyone to obey but it

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was given for everyone to learn from. God was revealing himself to his people

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and we should all want to learn from that revelation. So over the next few weeks

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we're going to be doing just that. Now this week's reading, we start out reading

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about the offerings, the burn offering, the grain offering, peace offering, sin

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offering, trespass. It gets so technical and it is so easy to just skim and we

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lose the details. Let me just point out that these offerings, many of them,

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involved animal sacrifice but never does the Bible use that term animal

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sacrifice. The word for these offerings, what we're calling a sacrifice, is korban

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which means an offering but it comes from a word or there's a very close

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Hebrew word to it called karov which means close. So the korban, the offering,

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wasn't about sacrifice or giving God a gift. It was about how to draw near to

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God. It was about relationship. Now I bet you haven't thought about that before.

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Also in the death of the animal, there is a chance for us to, number one, reflect

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on our own mortality to also come to appreciate the price that this animal is

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paid on our behalf and it should motivate one to live a life in the grace

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of God. So there should be a transformation during the actual sacrifice

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and then there is the teaching of the idea of blood for blood. There is a price

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tag for sin and we come to understand that price tag when we have to sacrifice

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this animal because of our sin. So the sacrifice becomes spiritual. It's not a

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physical thing of just making a sacrifice and then you're done and over

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with it. It's a spiritual exercise during which you are actually to reflect

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upon your sin, repent for your sin and leave there transformed. Now for those of

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you listening, you're probably a Gentile Christian and this is the basis for

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Jesus's substitutionary death for us. If we don't understand Leviticus, we will

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not understand Jesus, who he was and what he came to do for us. So it's very, very

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important, foundational. Now the first sacrifice is called the Ola Corban, the

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elevation offering or the going up offering. You know the first time this

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term is used in the Bible, it is about Abraham when he went up on top of Mount

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Moriah in order to sacrifice his only son and of course God provided a ram

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instead. So he sacrificed this ram in what's known as an Ola offering. Well

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now here in Leviticus, the Israelites are taught how to do this and later once the

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Israelites possess the land, they build the temple. It's believed the temple was

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built over the very rock, the very place where Abraham had carried out the first

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Ola offering. So this means that every time the priest would present this burnt

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offering, this Ola offering, he was reenacting Abraham. He was remembering

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what had happened there initially on that very rock and he comes away from it

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transformed. Attitude towards life is changed. So you remember the day that you

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realized Jesus had paid the price for your sin? You came away humbled and

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transformed. Well this was to happen on a smaller scale with every sacrifice. So

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you know life is not just about belief. Walking with God is not just about having

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the right beliefs. It's about also our actions and right actions unite our body

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with our belief. So if we believe something but we go and do the opposite,

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we're not in harmony. We're not doing this right but when our actions are

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based on our right beliefs, we are in harmony and this is what makes the

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mundane holy. You know Jewish law does not try to escape the world but it tries

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to sanctify the world. It tries to bring the holiness of heaven down into the

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everyday thing and this whole ritual of doing the offerings in the tabernacle

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were a way of sanctifying the everyday life. And you know for the Jewish people

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Torah or the law is not seen as a burden. It's seen as a gift and the love of life

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it's not about pleasure but sanctifying life making the world a better place. So

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that's our first lesson from Leviticus. I hope that you have a nice Shabbat break

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this weekend and with that I wish you Shabbat Shalom.