Up until this point in our study of Leviticus, we’ve encountered a lot of laws that no longer apply to us.
We no longer need instructions on how to make offerings. We no longer need to worry about ritual purity. We no longer observe the Day of Atonement.
The laws in chapters 1-16 were mostly concerned about the people’s ritual holiness.
But chapter 17 is where this changes. We are still concerned about holiness, but it is no longer ritual holiness that we are talking about. Starting with chapter 17, the laws outline for the people of Israel how to be morally holy.
The laws about moral holiness still very much apply to us. We are still called to be God’s holy people. We are still called to live differently than the world around us. We are still called to be a light and an example to the watching world.
Now it’s true, sometimes the letter of the law no longer applies to us. In Leviticus 19:9-10, for example, the people are told not to reap to the edges of their field to leave some gleanings for the poor. The letter of this law no longer applies to us – meaning we no longer need to leave gleanings in the field. But the spirit of the law still applies to us today, which is: take care of the poor.
We are still called to observe the spirit behind all of these laws. So it’s important that we pay attention and discover the reason God created these laws for his people.
Chapter 17 gives us some additional laws concerning the offerings and what to do with sacrificial animals. Chapter 18 deals with laws against sexual immorality. Chapter 19 outlines some laws for different areas of life including: family, business, worship, social interactions, and treatment of the poor. And chapter 20 spells out the penalties for not following these laws.
The Place of Sacrifice – Chapter 17
Chapter 17 deals with some laws regarding the offerings that the Israelites were to bring before the Lord. The main purpose of these laws is this: to keep people from offering sacrifices to other gods.
To deter them from doing this, God made a law that said that if an Israelite (or an alien or stranger in their midst) wanted to slaughter and eat any of the animals that could be offered as a sacrifice to the Lord (cows, sheep, goats), they had to bring it and offer it to the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting first.
The idea of bringing offerings to fake gods is completely foreign to us. We can’t understand why anyone would do this, much less why there needed to be a law to deter people from doing this. But as Jay Sklar (2014) says, “polytheism was to ancient Israel what materialism is to many today; it was so much a part of the cultural air they breathed that they were very slow to turn from it, even after deciding to follow the Lord (p. 218)”.
The letter of this law no longer applies to us. We no longer have to offer our meat to the Lord before eating it. But the spirit of the law is this: God alone is worthy of our worship. We should bow down to nothing and no one else. Not only that, but it is God who has given us everything we have. So even if we no longer physically offer him what we’ve been given, we should still give him thanks for his gracious provision.
Keep Yourselves from Sexual Immorality – Chapter 18 (and 20)
If you were to summarize chapter 18 in just a few simple sentences, you might say something like this: Do not marry (and therefore have sex with) a close relative. Only ever have sex with your wife and no one else.
The instructions in chapter 18 are given specifically to the men of Israel as to who they can and cannot have sexual relations with. Flipping forward to chapter 20, we see the consequences of not following these laws namely, death or exile. These consequences seem harsh to us. And people who do not follow God’s design for sexual intimacy are quick to point out just how harsh and unfair these laws seem. But Mark Dever, in his sermon on “The Message of Leviticus” (which you can listen to here), makes this important point:
“The quality of [the Israelites] lives mattered more than the duration”
The people had to put an end to any deviation from God’s intended design. These people were to be the representatives of the one true God and they must accurately represent his holiness by being morally holy themselves.
Below is a table I created that shows which relatives were off-limits as well as the penalty for breaking any of the laws on sexuality.
Chapter 20 also addresses the penalties for sacrificing a child to Molech and turning to mediums or necromancers (sorcerers). In both cases the person is to be put to death.
Laws for Every Area of Life – Chapter 19
Chapter 19 outlines laws for different areas of life. There are laws about familial relations, laws about caring for the poor, laws about dealing in business, and laws about acceptable worship practices. Most of the laws in chapter 19 spell out how to follow the command given in verse 18:
“…you shall love your neighbor as yourself (19:18).”
This is the first time this command is given in the Scriptures, but it’s probably not the first time you’ve heard it. Jesus was having a conversation with the Pharisees, when one of them asked him,
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:36-40
Jesus refers back to this verse in Leviticus, calling it the second greatest commandment. Leviticus chapter 19 gives some examples of what it looks like to live out this command.
I made a table of all the laws in Leviticus 19, what they tell us about God, where else this law is referenced in Scripture, and what the spirit of the law is. You can see my table by clicking the image below.
Application – The Second Greatest Commandment
Sometimes it’s difficult to know which laws in Leviticus still apply and which laws we are no longer obligated to follow.
The world likes to accuse us of picking and choosing which laws we want to follow. If we still hold to some laws in Leviticus, why don’t we hold to all of them? (The argument usually goes, if we hold to the law that forbids homosexuality in Leviticus 18:22, why don’t we hold to the law that forbids eating shellfish in Leviticus 11:12? Aren’t all of the laws outdated and therefore obsolete?)
Here is what we need to remember about the laws in Leviticus: the God who gave the Israelites the laws outlined in the first 5 books of the Bible is the same God we are called to worship today. His character has not changed. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). So a good question to ask of each law is: what is God’s heart behind this law? What does this law reveal about his character and the things he sees as good and righteous? This is what I mean by the “spirit” of the law. God’s heart and what he sees as good and righteous informed the Israelites on how they were to act as God’s holy people, and it should still inform our actions today.
We also know that many of the laws that we are still called to follow are affirmed in the New Testament, sometimes by Jesus himself. These are the laws we really need to pay particular attention to. If it was important to Jesus, it should still be important to us.
And what did Jesus say was the greatest commandment?
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-40)
This command summarizes all the other commands. This command gives us a glimpse into the heart of God. He wants us to love and worship him with all of who we are and love our neighbors as much as he loves us. If we aim to follow these commands with all of our hearts, then all of the other laws will fall into place. And we will be living the life that Jesus came to bring us, life to the full (John 10:10), and we will spread God’s kingdom of love, justice, and righteousness here on earth.
Homework
In the next part of our study we’ll be looking at Leviticus Chapters 21-24. Your homework is below.
If you’ve been following along in your Leviticus Bible Study Workbook, you may have filled out a table for this section looking at the laws in chapters 17-20 (page 35). To see how I filled out my table click here!
Homework Assignment #6
Read Leviticus chapters 21 – 24 and complete Observation, Interpretation, and Application for these chapters (workbook pages 40-46)
Works Cited
Sklar, J. (2014). Leviticus: An introduction and commentary. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.
