I recently finished reading Leviticus as I’m making my way from Genesis to Revelation. The book is fascinating in its detailed explanation of how Yahweh, the Lord, established his relationship with the people of Israel. Every word in the Bible, every jot and tittle in the KJV version, is Jesus’s declaration about the relevance of the law and its ultimate fulfillment in him. This fulfillment relates to God’s people of the covenant, those the Lord promised to Abraham’s seed, his offspring, what we now call the church. You can read about these promises in Genesis 12, 15, and 17. It is upon those promises, Paul tells us in Romans 4, that because of the integrity of Almighty God our faith thankfully rests upon him and not on us!
Which brings me to an amazing theology lesson in Leviticus 26 that is in some ways so counter intuitive to us it has to be true. What really gives it verisimilitude (the key concept in Uninvented that makes the Bible like no other ancient book) is how contrary it is to our natural inclinations and perspective on things. The theology we glean from this chapter just doesn’t seem like the way things should be.
If the Bible was made up by human beings, we would expect it to read like it was made up by human beings. It doesn’t. The Bible itself claims to be the revelation of God to man, and it reads exactly like that. The contrary, counter intuitive ideas in this chapter are a perfect example, coming in the use of the word abhor, which appears five times (and once in chapter 20). I would argue this word doesn’t show up in a fictional account of God and man, even in ancient times, in the way it does in this chapter.
The word abhor perfectly captures sinful humanity’s relationship to a holy God. To squeeze the meaning out of it, we can think of synonyms like loathe, despise, detest, hate, abominate, and other such terms of endearment. The tendency of sinful human beings is to think, you know, me and God, we’re ok. Sure, I’m not perfect and all, but really, all things considered, I’m not that bad. A question I was asked at 18 years old makes the point. Standing outside of a party with a friend, a VW Bug stopped across the street, a guy got out of the back, and walking up to us said, “If you died right now, would you go to heaven?” My reply was typically human: “Well, I guess so. I’m a pretty good guy. I go to church, and I haven’t killed anybody.” Now that’s a high bar, isn’t it! Until God transforms our hearts from spiritual stone to flesh, we have no idea just how sinful we are, and how loathsome our sin is to a holy God. Nor, in our natural sinful state how loathsome God is to us. The feeling is mutual. We can neither know or accept this apart from special revelation (God’s written word) and the Holy Spirit opening our hearts and minds.
This mutual hostility seems wrong to us. It’s sort of disturbing when we learn our Creator and we could be, literally, at war. No, that is not hyperbole. According to the Apostle Paul we are by nature, born, as objects of God’s wrath. This alienation we have with God is not a simple misunderstanding. It is, rather, an implacable hostility. Paul says in Colossians 1:21: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” The word the NIV translates as enemies is no minor thing. It is someone openly hostile (at enmity), animated by deep-seated hatred. It implies irreconcilable hostility, proceeding out of a “personal” hatred bent on inflicting harm. Is that how you think of your relationship to God apart from Christ? You should because it’s true! Without grace and God’s initiative to fundamentally change the relationship, which he did for us in Christ, there is only alienation, however it manifests itself.
I’ll leave it for you to read Leviticus 26 yourself, but we might think this mutually hostility between the gods, or God, and man was common understanding in the ancient world. Making sacrifices to the gods was after all a common practice. They had no problem believing God or the gods were angry with them. In fact, all ancient pagan religions were driven by attempts to appease the gods. That was the core of the idolatry that was Israel’s constant temptation. If the people jumped through certain hoops, then the gods would no longer be angry with them, and it would rain or the crops would be abundant, or children born, or wars won. Israel’s God, Yahweh, appeared to be the same way, except his law was much more stringent, and moral, than the pagans. Morality was basically irrelevant to pagan religion.
The radical difference was that Yahweh, the Lord, could not be appeased by sacrifice alone; obedience was required. This becomes abundantly clear in Deuteronomy, where we read of the blessings and curses, and if we’re honest it’s kind of depressing. What the Lord is commanding of the Israelites, his people, those he rescued from Egypt out of slavery “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” is perfection! No wonder we have a problematic relationship with this God. Perfection is required! Someone might say, like I did, I’m a pretty good guy, decent fellow, don’t torture cats or anything. Sorry, not good enough. If we stop at every red light our entire lives, and then run just one, we are guilty, we have broken the law. In God’s economy, one slip, and we’re out. The reason we don’t naturally like God, in fact hate him, is because he is our judge, jury, and executioner!
The answer to our dilemma is, of course, the gospel, and Deuteronomy 26 is preparation for it. In Luke 24 after Jesus was raised from the dead, he explained this:
25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
The only logical explanation for the abhorrence we read in this chapter is Jesus. What appears so strange and counter intuitive, now makes perfect sense. As we say in the vernacular, you just don’t make this stuff up!
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