God's people need leaders to show them how to be clean and acceptable to God.
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Leviticus 18:3-4 So do not act like the people in Egypt, where you used to
live, or like the people of Canaan, where I am taking you.
You must not imitate their way of life.
4 You must obey all my
regulations and be careful to obey my decrees, for I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 19:1-2, 37 The LORD also said to Moses,
2 "Give the following instructions
to the entire community of Israel.
You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. "You must be careful to keep all of my decrees and
regulations by putting them into practice. I am the LORD."
Also see: Leviticus 20:23-24, 26 and Leviticus 22:31-33
Malachi 2:5-7 “The purpose of my covenant with the Levites was to bring life and peace, and that is what I gave them. This required reverence from them, and they greatly revered me and stood in awe of my name.
6 They passed on to the people the truth of the instructions they received from me. They did not lie or cheat; they walked with me, living good and righteous lives, and they turned many from lives of sin. 7 “The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies."
From the very beginning God's people have wanted to do things their own way,
man chose to eat what he wanted (Genesis 3:1-19), which led to choosing how he
wanted to worship (Genesis 4:1-16), which eventually led to total wickedness
and evil until God destroyed the planet. (Genesis 6:5)
But wait, there's more, we are so bad that
even after the flood the world rebelled again very quickly.
The grand children of Noah are probably around to
tell their children and grandchildren about God's judgment yet they still refused to
do what God told them to do. (Genesis 11:1-9)
So God chose one man from out of the millions of people on earth to begin a new
people that would be called out of slavery to live by a different set of rules that
govern how they worship, how they treated each other and even what they were
allowed to eat.
The book of Leviticus tells us about the priest and the rules that they would use to govern God's people. God would be their king and the priest
would govern under his authority. The nation of Israel would have a far better
king that any other nation but later on they would demand to be like the other nations with their imperfect kings. (1 Samuel 8:19-20)
Deuteronomy 28:9-10 “If you obey the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways, the LORD will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the LORD, and they will stand in awe of you.
It may be difficult to read every rule of the book of Leviticus in your quiet
time, but don't worry, you don't need to know all of the rules but you do need to be aware of the rules and understand the purpose of them. (The Threefold Use of the Law ligonier.org)
God wanted a distinct people that were set apart, eager to love what he loves, a people that would show their loyalty to him and showed his goodness to the rest of the world. (Psalm 1:2, 40:8, 119:162, Hebrews 8:9-10)
The priest are supposed to use the rules that God gave even though some of them don't make any sense from our point of view. We might
wonder:
- Why would it make you unclean to kill an animal to make dinner but killing an animal at the altar in the temple made you clean?
- Why would God say that you cannot eat a pig or a horse but you can eat a cow?
- Why would God say that normal physical relations between a husband and his wife make them unclean?
- Why would a skin disease that you did nothing to cause be treated like you were being punished?
God wants us to do what he tells us to do just because he said to do it! The best reason for some of these rules is just so that you can prove your
allegiance to the God that saved you from slavery and gave you your freedom.
The best way to prove your belief in God and your loyalty to him is to conform your thinking to God's standards even when the rules don't make sense. (John 14:21-24)
God never tells Israel why something is clean or unclean. Think about God’s choice of Israel as a nation. Is there some reason why God chose Israel as opposed to the Canaanites? Did he choose the Israelites because they were so spiritually pure? It was just God’s choice. -The Clean and Unclean on Bible.org
The book of Leviticus helps us know that God's people were supposed to be a peculiar kingdom, their government
organization and the ruling hierarchy would be very different, their laws
would be peculiar, their worship and even what they would not eat would be peculiar.
God's people would be led by ordinary men that God set apart as holy despite their shortcomings, once again it is a matter of God said so and that should settle it. They had a sacred responsibility that required more of them, they couldn't perform their duties and live to tell about it if they were ceremonially unclean, higher privilege required higher standards. (Luke 12:48)
Jesus came to be our High Priest so that we can all be priest that do God's work, we are to go to the Holy of Holies to ask for
forgiveness, we are to carry out the task of revealing God to the rest of
the world as a royal ambassador and we are supposed to take a stand for holiness in this unclean
world. (2 Corinthians 5:20 / 1 Peter 1:15, 2:5, 2:9-10)
If we live up to the task we have been given then the world around us will take notice and check us out to see why we are not conformed to this world. (Romans 12:2)
If God's people would cooperate with him and live by his rules, then his glory and honor would be seen and praised around the world, just as it will be at the end of time.
God's people in the church era are all priest that have the awesome privilege to work under the great High Priest, the heart and purpose of the Old Testament priestly ministry should be adopted by each of us.
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