God Made Known, Christ Kept Secret
Our twin boys are now 12, and participating in the family deer hunt for the first time this fall. Last month I took them to their final firearms safety class, in the basement of the Hopkins VFW. I set up at a table in the back, hoping to work on a few items while eavesdropping on the class here and there. In fact, I had started working on this sermon on Leviticus 21–22 and brought a commentary with me.
The guest speaker that night was a DNR conservation officer. He talked about the difference between preservation and conservation of natural resources. At one point, I looked up at the screen, and he had a slide about Minnesota’s laws against “wanton waste” — “a person may not wantonly waste or destroy a usable part of a protected wild animal.” Strange enough, I had my Leviticus commentary out and was reading about 22:28:
“you shall not kill an ox or a sheep and her young in one day.”
And I read this in the commentary,
"More than mere sentimentality seems to underlie this law. It is in conformity with other laws as that forbidding men to take a bird and its eggs (Deuteronomy 22:6–7), or to cook a kid in its mother’s milk (Exodus 23:19; 34:26; Deuteronomy 14:21), or wantonly to destroy trees (Deuteronomy 20:19-20). . . . Every Israelite was expected to do his part in conservation by avoiding wanton destruction of the God-given creation" (Wenham, 296).
There I was, planning ahead for this sermon, assuming that Leviticus will be mostly obscure to modern life, and there in the basement of the VFW in Hopkins, of all places, a conservation officer is addressing one the topics of Leviticus 21–22.
Two Dangers
I mention this surprising encounter because some truths in Leviticus can pop off the page at times today. Some truths here seem to come “straight to us,” as it were. When this happens, the danger can be to read them “straight through” to ourselves, and not press to see how they are at work in God’s unfolding plan to prepare the way for, and develop categories for, and cultivate longings for Christ, and help us know our deep, multi-dimensional needs designed to bring us to him.
But on the other hand, many truths in Leviticus are more obscure and distant. Then our danger can be to read the text at arm’s length and not work to bring it home to ourselves through Christ. If 22:28 popped with unexpected relevancy at the VFW, perhaps 21:9 would be the verse that’s most unnerving of all to our modern sentiments:
“the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.”
The apostle Paul’s great doxology at the end of his greatest letter gets at this reality of God both making himself known to us in the Old Testament, while also keeping certain mysteries secret until the coming of Christ. Romans 16:25–27:
"Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen."
Paul says that the “gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ” is both according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages past but also has been “made known to all nations,” and that “through the prophetic writings” of the Old Testament. As Christians, as we read the Old Testament, including Leviticus, we find both promises to be fulfilled in Christ as well as mysteries to be revealed in his coming and new covenant.
Let’s approach Leviticus 21–22 with this framework in mind: promises to be fulfilled and mysteries to be revealed. What are these chapters making known about our God and his salvation? And what here is mysterious, or kept secret, to the first readers but now made known to us in Jesus?
But first, let’s do a quick flyover of the terrain of these two chapters.
Holy Priests and Sacrifices
We saw last week that chapters 18–20 addressed the holiness of “all the congregation of the people of Israel” (Leviticus 18:1; 19:1; 20:1). Chapters 21–22 now turn to the holiness of the priests and the sacrifices.
In 21:1–8, we have stricter funeral and marriage requirements for priests, compared to the rest of the people.
Verses 1–6: priests may leave their duties to participate in death and burial rituals only for members of their immediate household. Why?
Verse 6: “They shall be holy to their God” — distinct from the common people. As for marriage, again the standard is stricter than the rest of the people. Why?
Verses 7–8: “the priest is holy to his God. You shall sanctify him . . . .”
Verses 10–15 give even stricter standards for the high priest. After all, there is only one of him. He cannot just up and leave tabernacle during his time of service. So, as for funerals, verses 10–12, he shall not participate in death rituals at all — even for his father or mother. As for marriage, verses 13–15, the high priest may not marry any previously involved, even a widow, to prevent any uncertainties about the high priestly line.
Verses 16-23 prevent any priest with physical blemishes from active service: no blind, lame, deformed, diseased, or otherwise disabled man is to go through the veil or serve at the altar.
Chapter 22, verses 1-9, addresses what to do when priests become ritually unclean. They must abstain from active service, and from eating holy food, until they are clean.
Verses 10–16 answers, Who may eat from the priestly food? Only those of a priest’s immediate household who are ritually clean. And if someone eats of it by accident, and then realizes it, then, according to verse 14, he should add a fifth to its value and give to the priest.
The last major section is 22:17–25: as with blemished priests, so blemished sacrifices are not appropriate to the system. And the deformities list here overlaps with the one in chapter 21 about priests, which is telling, as we’ll see.
Already we mentioned verse 28. Verses 26–30 is a more general section, not only to priests, but clearly important to the priests who are handling sacrificial animals. Whether exercising dominion over creation, or executing the activities of the cultus, God’s people are to be respectful and restrained, not violent or wanton.
Finally, verses 31–33 capture a summary for the whole two chapters.
So then, what might we highlight there that God makes known to his people to prepare them for the coming of Christ, and what mysteries are kept secret?
1) God Is Holy.
Chapter 21, verse 8, is programmatic for the whole of these two chapters, and picked again in the summary at the end of chapter 22. First, look at 21:8, which is God’s explanation for why he has stricter standards for the priests:
“You shall sanctify him [the priest], for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy.”
The central teaching of the whole book, as we’ve seen again and again, is that the Lord, the one true God — whose covenantal name is Yahweh — he is holy. That is the bedrock of these chapters. Verse 8: “I, the Lord, . . . am holy.” And the refrain, “I am the Lord,” twelve times in these chapters, is an abbreviated reprise of verse 8: “I, the Lord, . . . am holy.”
What does it mean that God is holy? What Leviticus has made clear is that God’s holiness relates to his being separate or distinguished from his created world and his covenant people. As God, he is unique; he is utterly distinct from, and above, all else. He is holy; he is other. None is like him.
But holiness means more than just separate and unique. When the seraphim in Isaiah 6 cry out in worship, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” they are not just saying, “Separate, Separate, Separate.” God is not only separate from all else; he is not only other, but he is other and better. His holiness is not only the fact of his unique genus as God; his holiness is also a reason to worship. His holiness, we could say, is his infinite value and worth. Yes, he is other. But his otherness is not lesser, or neutral. He is other and better. Separate and greater. Unique and glorious.
What, then, does holiness mean for his people? Go to the chapters’ other bookend in 22:31-33:
“So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the Lord. And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the Lord.”
Note here, as in verse 8, the bi-directional use of the word “sanctify.” God’s people sanctify him:
“that I may be sanctified among the people.”
And God sanctifies his people:
“I am the Lord who sanctifies you.”
Sanctify has one meaning when God’s people sanctify him, and it has another meaning when he sanctifies his people.
For the people to sanctify God means that they acknowledge his holiness and treat him as holy. God’s people don’t make him holy. He is already holy, to put it mildly. Rather, his people acknowledge his holiness, and they adore him for it. They see his worth and delight in it. They set him apart as other and better in their minds and in their hearts and through their words and through their actions. And so, in time, the surrounding world will be confronted with God’s infinite value and worth as his people treat him as what he is: holy, infinitely and uniquely valuable and worthy. They sanctify him.
But what does it mean for God to sanctify his people? That’s the second main theme in these chapters.
2) God Makes His People Holy.
The main refrain of these two chapters, coming six times, at the end of each section is “I am the Lord who sanctifies you.” We saw it in 21:8; it comes again in verses 15 and 23. Then in chapter 22, verses 9, 16, and 32.
So, the people sanctify God by treating him as the holy one who he really is, and he sanctifies his people by making them the holy ones that they are not. Mark the difference. Our sanctifying him acknowledges and adores who he is in himself. His sanctifying us makes us what we are not in ourselves. And his sanctifying of his people happens in two ways, both equally precious. One is instantaneous; the other is progressive.
In 22:32, God refers to his instantaneous sanctifying of his people, in the past, when he says, I “brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God.” That was a one-time event. He delivered them, and made them his own, and thus sanctified them. He made them other and better than the Egyptians and Canaanites — not that his people were deserving, but because they were his. He sanctified them.
Also he sanctifies his people progressively, in the present tense, as he says six times,
“I am the Lord who sanctifies you.”
This is what Leviticus is doing: the tabernacle, the sacrifices, the priests, the regulations — the holy God, otherwise unapproachable, is making a way to sanctify his sinful people that they might dwell near and with him.
So first, they were not holy, but common, and he took them as his own, making them holy. And now, he draws near to them in this tabernacle arrangement that they might increasingly be holy and draw near to him. He not only graciously makes them holy once, by rescuing them, but also graciously makes them holy incrementally and continually that they might know and enjoy him.
Which corresponds to two important categories of salvation for us as Christians today: we call them justification and sanctification. In justification, our God rescues us by faith alone, apart from our action, as in Exodus 14:
“see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. . . . you have only to be silent.”
Then in sanctification, as in Leviticus, he makes us progressively holy and involves our efforts and actions.
And don’t miss this: these are both graces from God. Justification by faith, apart from our doing, is grace. And God making us practically holy, through faith, including our efforts, is grace. This is double grace: the exodus and the tabernacle — instantaneous justification and progressive sanctification. It is grace to be delivered from Egypt while you stand and watch and only have to be silent. And it is grace to be delivered from the sins of Egypt that still cling to you, as you draw near to God through his appointed means and are changed from one degree of holiness to another.
Remember, holiness is not just otherness. It is other and better — in God and in us. So brothers and sisters, let’s get to know the joy of holiness. Why would we settle for only half of his grace? Why would we want only half of Christ? Why would we want forgiveness of our past sins without also rescue, through holiness, from the misery of more sin? Let’s prize the double graces of both justification and sanctification.
But we haven’t yet addressed the main problem underpinning these chapters. God is holy, unblemished, but his people are not. Not only do they need to be made holy to dwell with him, but also their moral blemishes, called sin, must be dealt with. Which moves us toward the “secrets kept” in these chapters, and in particular the call in these chapters for the priests and sacrificial animals to be without blemish.
This is right at the very heart of how Leviticus works — how God setup this temporary system to create categories in our minds and point forward in history and anticipate the coming of his Son, and all the while show us the depth of our sin and need for Jesus.
The reason that the priests on active duty must be without blemish is because the people are blemished. And the reason the animals that are offered must be without blemish is because the people are blemished. The sacrifices are substitutes for sinful people. Gracious and accommodating as the whole system is, it is fitting that physically unblemished animals stand in for God’s morally blemished people. And that physically unblemished priests (though morally blemished themselves) handle at the altar those unblemished sacrifices for God’s blemished people.
The reason for emphasizing this now is the repeated phrase in chapter 22:
Verse 19, about a burnt offering:
“if it is to be accepted for you it shall be a male without blemish.”
Verse 20:
“You shall not offer anything that has a blemish, for it will not be acceptable for you.”
Verse 25, about any animals blemished by a foreigner:
“they will not be accepted for you.”
Verse 29:
“you shall sacrifice it so that you may be accepted.”
God’s system requires unblemished priests and unblemished sacrifices because his people are blemished. And if God’s blemished people are to dwell near him, and with him, to know him and enjoy him, then the penalty for his people’s blemishes must be transferred to an unblemished substitute through an unblemished priest. However, Leviticus could only point.
And so, says Hebrews 9:14,
“if the blood of goats and bulls . . . sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
God’s own Son, come in human flesh, morally unblemished, without sin, made atonement fully, as both priest and sacrifice, in a way that Leviticus could only anticipate.
And so we have moved from what here is “made known” to the “secrets kept.” Let’s close, very briefly with three. Three contrasts here that accentuate the glory of Christ and his new covenant.
The Priests
In Leviticus, the priests have a critical part to play as the human instruments who accomplish the everyday work to keep the tabernacle and sacrificial system continually operating.
In the New Testament, we have one priest: Jesus, our great high priest. Nowhere does the New Testament call any local church leaders, or even apostles, priests. Instead, the lead or teaching office is called variously elder, overseer, and pastor. And these pastor-elders are not a separate class in the church. They are first and foremost sheep. In Christ, our formal leaders are not technically held to higher standards, but held more strictly to the same essential standards as the whole church (1 Timothy 3:1–8; Titus 1:5–9). And they are not priests. Rather, all the church is a royal priesthood, together showing our God’s holiness to the world — as a holiness that is not only other but better.
The Disabled
What are we to say about the exclusion of the disabled in this chapter? So 21:18:
“no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease . . .”
First, remember 21:18 is talking about priests on active duty at the altar. This is not about exclusion from God’s people, or exclusion from the priestly tribe, or even being cut off from priestly food (21:22, “He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things”). Remember the symbolism of the system. The reason the priests serving at the altar, and the sacrifice on the altar, must be physically unblemished is as a substitute for God’s blemished people.
And, then, stand in awe of the contrast we see in the new covenant, as Christ himself, our great high priest, comes among us and, moved with compassion, touches lepers, heals invalids (John 5), restores sight to the blind, make the mute to speak, the deaf to hear, and says in Luke 14:13,
“when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed . . . .”
The Prostitute
Finally, what about the priest’s daughter in 21:9?
“And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire”
No funeral for her father to attend.
First of all, this is not to be harder on daughters than sons. Just a chapter before, in 20:10:
“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
So, do not read 21:9 as if the woman should be punished for fornication but not the man. Rather, the context in chapter 21 is the holiness of the priests. She is a daughter of a priest. Whereas a son would presumably grow up and become his own priestly household, a daughter who remained unmarried would stay in her father’s household. Apparently, the live threat was a priest’s daughter being drawn into prostitution, and profaning her father, the priest, sanctified to God among the people.
Whatever the details, Yahweh’s punishments are never unjust. And yet what mercy we have in Christ, and what glory he demonstrates through his sanctifying grace. When Paul writes in Ephesians 5 about Christ’s care for his bride, he does in strikingly Levitical terms:
“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
Apart from Christ, God may justly burn a whoring daughter of a priest with fire, and do her no wrong, but in Christ, he washes his sinful bride with water that he might present her to himself in holiness, without blemish.
The Table
And as his bride, we come to the Table, receive his holy food, as members of the great high priest’s household: bread to symbolize his broken body. And the cup, for his shed blood. This Table is not another sacrifice but a reminder and means of his ongoing grace for the sinful people he is making holy and without blemish.