Join our hosts as they delve into the often misunderstood book of Leviticus, famously known as the ‘graveyard of the Bible.’ Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates discuss the purpose and significance of Levitical rituals, shedding light on why they were crucial for the Israelites and how they still hold relevance today. Bob, who is writing the commentary on Leviticus for the Old Testament commentary series, shares his insights and experiences, promising a perspective that might just revive your interest in this book.
The following is a listener-supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society. What is the book of Leviticus about? What is the method in all of the madness of all of the sacrifices and ceremonies found there? Certainly it has value and importance. Let’s think about this today here on Grace in Focus. Glad you’re joining us today, friend. Grace in Focus is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We have a website that is faithalone.org. We’d love you to go there and find out more about us. Right now we are promoting our soon upcoming national conference, May 19th through the 22nd. Early bird registration is still in play for a few more days. Take advantage of that. And if you’re a first-timer, registration fees are waived. It’s a great conference. Find out all about it at faithalone.org. Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates.
SPEAKER 03 :
We are dealing with some Old Testament passages just to give an idea of what the Grace Evangelical Society Old Testament commentary is going to address. And for this episode, we’re going to talk about a book that I’ve heard has been called the graveyard of the Bible. Right. And what I mean by that is it’s said that many people have sat down to say, I’m going to read the Bible this year. And they sat down and they start off in Genesis. They get through Exodus and then they get to Leviticus and they go, OK, I’m going to stop right now. It’s the graveyard. People, I can’t read through this. I did hear one preacher one time who lied. He said that his favorite book of the Bible was Leviticus. And I remember when I heard him, I said, you’re not serious. You’re just trying to sound holy or something. But anyway, the reason we picked Leviticus is because we’re going to say, well, maybe it’s more exciting that we give it credit for. But also, Bob is the one who’s writing Leviticus for the Old Testament commentary.
SPEAKER 02 :
I am. And I’ll give you a Jeopardy question. This came up on Jeopardy. I’m kind of revising it. But the question would be, why is it called Leviticus? I mean, that’s an odd name for a book. Why call it Leviticus? Well, I’m assuming because of the Levites, right? Exactly. The question on Jeopardy, if I remember right, was there’s a book in the Old Testament that’s named after the Old Testament priests. What book is that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, was that the question?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Oh, wow. And they said Leviticus, and that was the correct answer. Anyway, I took Leviticus under Dr. Alan Ross, the Hebrew course from him when I was in the doctoral program. I had to write a longer paper than the master’s students. And I found it fascinating and excellent. It is not my favorite book in the Bible, but it is an important book. All scripture is profitable. And I was just going to give a little overview. Now, the book of Leviticus doesn’t indicate within the words of Leviticus who the author is. But the New Testament tells us that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch or the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. You can see that in Matthew and Luke and John and in 2 Corinthians 3.15. And also Jewish rabbis and Christian theologians have long held that Moses is the author of Leviticus. So there’s not much question there. One of the bigger issues is what’s the purpose of Leviticus? Why was Leviticus written? It was most likely or almost certainly written during the 40 years that Israel was in the wilderness between leaving Egypt and getting into the Promised Land. between around 1440 and 1400 BC. Moses would have been writing this during their stops along the way when they had lots of delays in their 40 years. And so he was ultimately writing for the young people. Because remember, everyone at Kadesh Barnea, they rejected God’s promise to give them the promised land. They rejected the testimony of Caleb and Joshua. And they listened to the ten spies, and they wanted to go back to Egypt. Remember that, Ken?
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. They would say, well, let us go back to Egypt. It was so good there.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, we like the fruit and the veggies or something. God says because of this, everyone under the age of 20 is going to go in, and everyone over the age of 20 is going to die in the wilderness.
SPEAKER 03 :
And it was partly because they said all of our children will die if we go in there and go, okay, well, I’ll just take your children into the land.
SPEAKER 02 :
And the result was the children went in, but the adults didn’t. And by the way, some of the rabbis hold the view because of that incident that the age of accountability is 20. And I think that’s right, that the age of accountability is way beyond when a person is able to believe. And there’s a lot of grace there. But in any regard, he was writing to these people. The oldest, when they went into the Promised Land, would have been around 57 or 58, because they would have been 19 at Kadesh Barnea, the oldest. And it was 38 more years that they wandered before they went to the promised land. So around 57 or 58. And the purpose of this was to move the nation to obey the Lord and to be a set apart holy people that was living by faith in Yahweh.
SPEAKER 03 :
And you’re talking about the purpose of the book of Leviticus. Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
So let’s talk about a few key words and expressions, and then I’ll talk about free grace issues that we find in Leviticus. Probably the key word in Leviticus is the word kadosh, or kadesh, which means holy. It’s used 92 times in the book of Leviticus. Holiness in Leviticus is kind of summarized in Leviticus 19.2, which is quoted in the New Testament by Peter in 1 Peter 1.16. Very well-known verse. Right.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. What a lot of people think that means is you should be very righteous, for I am very righteous. Or you should be very much away from sin, for I don’t sin. That’s not what it’s talking about. The word holy means set apart. And so to be set apart means to be distinct, right? to be unique. The people of Israel were not only to be set apart morally, they weren’t to be involved in the perverse sexual practices of the Gentile nations around them, but they were also to be set apart in terms of their diet, in terms of their worship. They would only worship the one true God. They were not to worship idols, which set them apart, right? It made them a distinct people. They had lots of rules and regulations, regulations about mildew in the house, regulations about skin disorders, bodily discharges, all kinds of things.
SPEAKER 03 :
What clothes they could wear.
SPEAKER 02 :
What clothes they could wear. That’s right. And how to be ritually cleansed. And so we need to understand that you should be holy as I am holy was more than simply moral purity. It was a complete set-apartness because God wanted Israel to be a distinct nation that did not intermarry with the Gentiles, but that Israelites would be only marrying other Israelites. The Jews would be a pure race. And, of course, that didn’t happen. But for the most part, they did. What’s interesting, I’ve heard they’ve done a study of all the people in the world named Kohen, the Hebrew word for priest. And they’re all genetically related.
SPEAKER 03 :
So Leviticus, then, is a book that is part of this. What does that look like, that a nation would be separate?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, for one thing, they should be morally separate. So they would be following God’s commandments and laws. And that would include sexual purity. So they’re not going to be involved in bestiality, which the nations would be involved in. They’re not going to be involved in homosexuality, which the nations around them were involved in. They’re not going to be marrying close kin, which the nations around them were involved in.
SPEAKER 03 :
But what about the sacrifices? It sets them apart from the other nations as well.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, the other nations all had sacrifices and offerings and animal sacrifices, but they did not sacrifice to Yahweh. They sacrificed to all of their so-called gods. And so they had gods for the plains and gods for the mountains and gods for the rivers and the god of this and the god of that. The sacrifices of Israel were different. They were never to anyone except for Yahweh. And there were various types of sacrifices. There were whole burnt offerings. There were peace offerings. There were thank offerings. There were grain offerings. There were just lots of different offerings that the book of Leviticus talks about.
SPEAKER 03 :
And as we were talking about in the pagan countries, they would do it in many different places. These sacrifices were to be done at the tabernacle.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly, because God had the chosen place. Initially the tabernacle, and then later it became the temple. Right. The tabernacle would move around, but once they had a fixed location in the temple, then that was the chosen place. Sure. In the chosen city. And by the way, the word offerings occurs 419 times in Leviticus. So let’s talk about free grace theology in Leviticus as we close. One of the big elements is the blessing and cursing motif. The word motif basically means theme or concept. And in Leviticus 26, there’s a whole chapter dealing with if the nation obeys me, I’m going to bless them. And the beginning, opening 13, 14 verses talk about those blessings.
SPEAKER 03 :
Kind of like Deuteronomy 28 through 30, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly. Yeah. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 are parallel. And then when you get into the curses section, there are seven cycles of curses, which are each worse, which were fulfilled in Israel’s history. They had these kinds of things that actually happened. And God promised that if they rebelled against him, he was going to judge them. And then if they continued to rebel, it would get worse and worse and worse and worse. And finally, he said, when you return to me, then I will return to you. And so you see that at the end of Leviticus 26.
SPEAKER 03 :
And the cursing there then, and this is important, is not hell, is not the lake of fire. which becomes important when people talk about that, even in the New Testament.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, for one thing, Leviticus is talking about national issues. They do have some individual, but mostly it’s national. The blessings and curses were national blessings, national curses. And yes, it’s nothing to do with the lake of fire, eternal condemnation. It’s here in this life. The sacrificial system in some ways is similar to 1 John 1, 9, in that every time they brought a sacrifice, they would be acknowledging and confessing their sins. And of course, Yom Kippur was a way in which the whole nation would be recognizing national sinfulness. And I guess one other point to make is that the book of Hebrews makes the point there are no more sacrifices for sins in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 17, and also verses 18 through 30. And the idea there is that the sacrificial system is no more for us. We don’t offer animal sacrifices anymore. Those animal sacrifices anticipated the blood of Christ, Hebrews chapter 10.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Bob, we appreciate it, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you say in the book of Leviticus, and maybe I won’t look at it as the graveyard of Bible reading. Until that book comes out with the commentary, let’s keep grace in focus.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
The preceding has been a listener-supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society.
What Is the Book of Leviticus About?
Join our hosts as they delve into the often misunderstood book of Leviticus, famously known as the ‘graveyard of the Bible.’ Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates discuss the purpose and significance of Levitical rituals, shedding light on why they were crucial for the Israelites and how they still hold relevance today. Bob, who is writing the commentary on Leviticus for the Old Testament commentary series, shares his insights and experiences, promising a perspective that might just revive your interest in this book.
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