Living a Life of Sacred Service (Leviticus 22:1-16)

 Someone is in charge of a kitchen in a church. Different dishes are assigned different people, detailing what is wanted in how to prepare the churches special celebratory meal. However, these people are not just told to make a particular dish, but they are given detailed instructions in precisely how to do it. The person in charge insisted that the recipe be followed exactly as they instructed.

Now, it seems to me that this is not a bad illustration of what's going on in the Old Testament. 

God said to the children of Israel in the Old Testament, 'Here are the sacrifices, and this is exactly how I want you to do it.' Yet, in some sacrifices, there were slightly different instructions. In this chapter we see how and why these small details mattered to God; and how He wanted his recipe to be followed precisely

Now, what I've just mentioned, we've already seen as we've been going through the book of Exodus but when you come to chapter 22, additional restrictions on the very thing I just mentioned, the eating of part of the sacrifice by the priest and, for that matter, some other people as well.

Now, as you well know, we're not under these rule. So, the specifics of this particular recipe don't apply to us directly. However, you can't read this chapter without concluding that there is a principle here. So, today I want us to go through the first part at least of Leviticus chapter 22, verses 1-16

Let's look at verse 1.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to Aaron..."'—you know, he was the head of the priests—'and his sons, that they may separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they do not profane My name by what they dedicate to Me. I am the Lord."

(Leviticus 22: 1-2)

A very interesting statement. What does He mean? Keep reading

Say to them: "Whoever of all your descendants throughout your generations, who goes near the holy things which the children of Israel dedicate to the Lord while he has uncleanness upon him, that person shall be cut off from My presence. I am the Lord.

(Leviticus 22: 3)

Alright, that's how the passage gets started. There's a penalty if you touch or eat that food that was dedicated to the Lord because you're ceremonially unclean. The penalty is in verse 3: 'that person shall be cut off from My presence”.

Alright, we're getting somewhere. It's now stated that he has become ceremonially unclean. But the penalty in this verse is that he is to be cut off from the presence of the Lord.  So, what in the world does that mean? I think some people would read this and say, 'Does that mean he loses his salvation? Does that mean he doesn't go to heaven?' 

The answer is no, no, to both those statements. Where did the Lord dwell in the Old Testament? In the Tabernacle, His presence was in the tabernacle. So, to be cut off from the presence of the Lord in the Old Testament meant you could not go into the Tabernacle. 

And if you said that to a priest, then that means you can't perform your priestly duties in the Tabernacle until you get ceremonially clean. 

So, what this passage is saying is: to touch something, to say this would include touching the Tabernacle furniture or the sacrifices, that you would sin while you were unclean. You could not perform your priestly duties. Therefore you were cut off from the presence of the Lord.

Now, look at verse 4

If a descendant of Aaron has a defiling skin disease[a] or a bodily discharge, he may not eat the sacred offerings until he is cleansed. He will also be unclean if he touches something defiled by a corpse or by anyone who has an emission of semen.

(Lev 22: 4)

As you can see, it's really getting into focus now. I mean, he's saying what makes you unclean is being a leper or having any from of bodily  discharge going on which mean you cannot do is eat the holy offering. So, this all really has to do with eating that portion of the sacrifice that they would normally be allowed to eat. 

He says whoever touches an unclean things like a corpse, remember, touching a dead body you were unclean. So, he is simply saying this includes anything mentioned prior to this that rendered a person unclean. 

Elsewhere in the book of Leviticus, we've seen that this included things like an infectious skin disease. Remember that. So, all of those things rendered you unclean and you could not eat that part of the sacrifice that was designated for the priest. Again, you couldn't perform your priestly function while you were ceremonially unclean.

So, what should you do? Leviticus 22:3 gives us the penalty, and verse 6 and 7 give us the procedure to get out of this penalty. 

The one who touches any such thing will be unclean till evening. He must not eat any of the sacred offerings unless he has bathed himself with water. When the sun goes down, he will be clean, and after that he may eat the sacred offerings, for they are his food.

(Lev 22: 6-7)

Now, it is really clear what we're talking about, and that is eating his food because that food that was part of the sacrifice. So, here's the procedure: if you do any of these things that render a person unclean, you're ceremonially unclean, but only until evening. So, what did you have to do? Go take a bath, and you're ceremonially clean again. 

Verse 8 and 9 cover other potential areas of uncleanness, like eating an already dead animal, or one killed by another animal. So, if it died naturally, if it came upon it in the woods, or it was killed by another beast, that rendered him ceremonially unclean. 

In other words, don’t eat dead body and if you did, again you had to go through this procedure again.

If you broke one of these Levitical laws, you were unclean, and you simply needed to wash yourself and become clean, right? Simple. But if you did not do that, then you've committed a sin.

So, there's a difference between being ceremonially unclean and committing a sin, and I think most Christians don’t understand that important point.

Alright, how do you apply that? Well, I think that this is telling us very simply that the Lord wants those that serve Him to be clean."

Simple enough, and I am reminded of John chapter 13. This is the night before Christ was crucified; they're in the upper room, and the Lord starts out by wanting to wash their feet. Jesus says, 

'You know, if you don't wash your feet, you're not going to have any part with me.' Well, then Peter jumps in with both feet; impetuous Peter says, 'Well, if that's the case, it must be all over.' And the Lord says, 'No, you don't need to be washed all over; you need just to have your feet washed.' 

Now, I think that's a good illustration of what's going on here. The point of that story is that when we come to Christ, we're cleansed. And then as we walk through life we still sin. Salvation isn't perfection; it's forgiveness and cleansing. But as you walk, you get your feet dirty. And so, what we need is we need to have our sins ongoing forgiven (which they are) we need to be cleansed. So, anybody who serves the Lord in any capacity needs to have periodic cleansing. I think that is the parallel to this passage.

So, how do you do that? Well, by the way, this is a verse I believe every Christian needs to have memorized. First John 1:9 says, 

'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us.'

Somebody pointed out to me years ago, 'The forgiveness is in heaven and the cleansing is on earth. He keeps giving; we get cleansed.' So, that's the way a servant of the Lord is made and kept fit for divine service. 

By this is one of Three verses I think all Christian believers should memorise first. 'These are the verses you ought to know by heart.

Repeat. 

Romans 3:23.'For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.' Romans 6:23. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

Romans 8:1. 'There is now therefore no condemnation.' 

I would also put John 3:16 

And Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works.' 

I would definitely put in 1 John 1:9. 

Hebrews 4:16. I think that's the key to the Christian life. 'Come boldly to the throne of grace, that you might obtain mercy.' That's cleansing and grace to help in time of need. 

I believe you're saved by grace, and I believe you should live by grace. And the way you live is by constantly calling on the Lord for grace. 

Alright, so if you're an unclean priest, you can't perform your priestly duties until you get clean. Clear? There's one more part of this passage I want to look at. Pick it up at verse 10."

Chapter 22, verse 10, 

—no outsider shall eat the holy offering, nor may the guest of a priest or his hired worker eat it. But if a priest buys a slave with money, or if slaves are born in his household, they may eat his food.

(Lev 22: 9-10)

Now, let me pause for a second. Granted, there are other things that could make you unclean and so forth, but the real focus in these first 16 verses of this chapter is about eating this food set apart form a sacrificial animal and deemed holy. 

Alright, back to verse 10. Verse 10 says a guest or a hired worker or his slave could not eat it.

Does that raise any questions in your mind? Have you ever had anybody challenge you by saying the Bible sanctions slavery? 

How do we answer that? I'm going to tell you in a minute but first I want to finish the passage. But before I close out today, I will come back and address that. I think it needs to be addressed because of the fact that some people challenge the Bible and say it sanctions slavery. 

People who are bought by the priest could eat the sacrifices. Now this is interesting. The hired servant couldn't. But the slave couldn’t."

So, servants visiting or guests with  slaves were not permitted to eat the holy food. However, a slave who had been purchased by the priest, or his children (as mentioned in verse 11), could. 

Any person the priest has serving in is house and those born in his house, encompassing the children of his lineage, may eat of it. Look at verse 12. 

But if the priest's daughter is married to an outsider, she may not eat the holy thing. Now, I guess this means a non-Israelite. So, if she married a stranger, she could not eat the food designated for the priest and his family. 

Then he says in verse 13,

But if a priest’s daughter becomes a widow or is divorced, yet has no children, and she returns to live in her father’s household as in her youth, she may eat her father’s food. No unauthorised person, however, may eat it.

(Leviticus 22: 13)

I find this verse fascinating. Let me explain. There's nothing new under the sun. Have you heard about children who grow up, leave home, and come back to live with Mum and Daddy, that become a common phenoneom today again. Well it is here in Leviticus 22:13. That's what it's talking about. 

In this case, if her husband died or her husband divorced her (as mentioned in Deuteronomy 24), or she has no children, or she just returned home, it says, she may eat the father's food,' So if she comes back, she can eat the consecrated food. That’s good news for millennials who come back home.

So no non-priest could eat the consecrated food the priest ate, except those who became members of the priest's immediate household, clearly defined for us here.

Now, there's one more thing. 

Anyone who eats a sacred offering by mistake must make restitution to the priest for the offering and add a fifth of the value to it.

(Lev 15: 14)

Let me explain. This section is talking about those not related to the priest. An outsider would come in, not understanding that the food was part of the sacrifice, and would perhaps take it and eat it as a hungry snack.

Very simply the Mosaic law says, provided he didn’t know the significance of what he was doing  then he just has to pay to have that food replaced and then add 20%. So, that's the penalty. 

So, restitution, plus 20% penalty because he made a mistake.

So, verse 15 says,

The priests must not desecrate the sacred offerings the Israelites present to the Lord by allowing them to eat the sacred offerings and so bring upon them guilt requiring payment. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.

(Leviticus 22: 15-16)

So, the priest was responsible to oversee the eating of sacred offerings to prevent any of these violations.

That's as far as I want to go today, but the point of this is really clear - only ceremonially clean priests and those properly related to them can eat the sacrificial food.  Summarizes what's going on in these 16 verses. 

Okay, that's just the way the Lord wanted them to do these things, that's all I can tell you. I think there's a principle here, and the basic idea is only the priest who is ceremonially clean can partake of this part of the sacrifice.

Now, I mentioned this passage brings up the issue of slavery, and that is something ww was Christians get challenged about. 

I would like to take a moment to address the issue of slavery.

I want to turn to 1 Timothy Chapter 6 for a moment and talk about slavery. Verse one says.

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be blasphemed.

(I Timothy 6: 1)

Interesting."

In honouring the master, slaves were honouring the Lord. The word 'blaspheming' actually means to speak lightly or profanely of sacred things, to slander, to revile. So, if this slave claimed to be a Christian and didn't honour the master, then that would reflect on the Lord. He is saying that in this situation, you need to honour the master.

Let’s be clear all the bible is doing here is acknowledges that there was slavery in that time. Some people who became Christians were slaves. Other passages tell the slave owners to be kind and treat their slaves fairly, so it's not condemned. 

So, what do you do with that? Well, it doesn't forbid slavery, but it does regulate it. Now, this is what is hard for some people to grasp—that Christianity is not trying to produce a social revolution or social change, a revolt against social norms, but a spiritual reformation. 

The issue is your relationship to the Lord. The scripture, especially the New Testament, is not trying to cause a social revolution; that's not its purpose. It's trying to get people to be in relationship with the Lord, and then it regulates the way people who are Christians should treat one another including masters and slaves.

That's what the scriptures always aim for: a loving relationship, regardless of the circumstances.

Now, having said that, turn to 1 Corinthians Chapter 7, verse 17: 

Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.

(I Cor 7: 17-20)

What is more important is your relationship to the Lord. You may be a slave to another  human, but you're a freeman as far as the Lord is concerned. That's what I'm interested in, but then he says this in verse 21: 'But if you can be free, good for you; do it.'

Now, I would like to just point out that slavery is as old as, I guess, Moses and beyond. Certainly, in Egypt, that were slave before Moses; the children of Israel were slaves. But in all the history of humanity, those who freed the slaves were generally Christians and it was being a Christian that motivated them to free slaves? 

If you know anything at all about the history of this, it was Christians that initially freed slaves. The first legislation to free slaves was done by the English parliament. 

But the sse of this was recorded back in the earliet meeting of Christian in small house churches (Expand personal greeting at the end of Romans 16, Phoebe a slave was a deacon was  a deacon in the house of Pricillia and Aquila who were slave masters).

Christianity, but it ultimately destroyed slavery without waging a war against it. It took time, but it was this verse and things like it, the teachings of the scripture,was the beginning of a view of our fellow humanity that would begin to undermine and eventually demolish slavery. 

So, I think the real point is Christianity didn't want to cause a social revolution; it wanted to cause a spiritual regeneration and reformation. 

I’ve taken a minute to talk about slavery, but let me come back to Leviticus for second.

What does that have to say to us well I've already made one point and that is that those who serve the today.

Well I’ve made the point we should be spiritually clean, right. But I think that there's another thing here and that is there some meticulous requirements in the Leviticus of serving the Lord. And the Lord wanted them to follow these regulations to the letter.

I think I walk away with this saying you know what the Lord wants us to be down to the little bitty detail that we need to do it with a clean heart and attitude and we need to do it down to the little detail.

Some people approach the Bible in cafeteria style and put on their plate what they like and leave what they don’t like. But that's not the way the Lord wants us to function, he wants us to be concerned about every little thing he said down to whether or not your daughter could eat the sacrificial meat that you brought home and everything else.

To close with analogy I used at the beginning or preparing the perfect meal God want us to follow the recipe to the exact detail, you would do it if you where asked to cook a meal for the family or even the prime minister or president, why not fo the king of Kings.

If your serving the king, you need to follow all his instructions and don’t forget the salt.