Leviticus 21–24: What good is holiness?

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“Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” (Acts 20:28; cf. vv. 29–35)

Patterned after Heaven, the Tabernacle of Israel was a mobile home for the Presence of the Creator, YHWH. The symbols and rituals associated with that place were to emphasize how different the ways of Heaven are, and the way the Creator originally started things here, from how they are on Earth at that time and today.

The Torah reading אמר Emor (“say,” Leviticus 21–24) calls YHWH’s servants to model a different way of life and keep anniversaries of important things Heaven has done, is doing and will do to make things right again, particularly the mission of Yeshua haMashiakh (Jesus the Christ).

There are many instructions and patterns in what the priests do but when we talk about holiness and how it’s something set apart for a purpose. What makes the realm of God different from the rest of the world? We live in a world of death and we will see here that there are a lot of rules and meticulous care when dealing with death. What is the separateness about and what is God teaching us?

How does this apply to Yeshua as the High Priest when he touched the dead, etc? This is discussed in the book of Hebrews quite a bit.

The book of Leviticus is about how to come into the presence of God. Leviticus keeps unfolding the answers to how we come into God’s presence. What is holy, what is set apart and how to be separate from the world?

The entire tabernacle and all its ritual is about “what was shown (to Moses) on the mountain.” We need to keep in mind that the sanctuary service is a trailer of how the world made new will operate. This is a picture of the Kingdom of God.

Death is alien to the Kingdom of God. In the book of Revelation, we are told that death will be gone. The sanctuary pre-figures that future time. What happens in the Tabernacle and those who serve there are to be separate from death. We are not to consider death “normal.”

The Tabernacle is to show us how the world should be, an ideal. We are not to enter into God’s presence “as we are.” We are to approach Him in the manner He asks us to and how He asks the people to approach Him is not the same as how He asks the priests to approach Him.

The Torah and the instructions to the priests are an image of what is above, it has no authority of its own. The real thing is what is in the heavens. What we read in Torah is an image, it’s a small snapshot of the truth above.

There are those who make the accusation that if you have a defect you can’t worship god is a misrepresentation of what is actually written in Torah. Just because a near-sighted man couldn’t be a priest doesn’t mean he can’t worship God. He is just precluded from this one role.

Also, Yeshua being perfect and without sin was not made unclean when he touched a dead person or a leper, they were made clean by His touch. That’s something that none of Aaron’s sons could ever do. If the President of the United States or any head of state can choose the strongest and healthiest to protect them, why doesn’t God have the right to choose the healthiest and strongest to serve Him?

The common people were not compelled by God to live to the same standards as the priests and when the Pharisees were confronting Yeshua, many of those confrontations came when the Pharisees were trying to force these higher and more burdensome priestly standards on the common people.

These are rules for the priests and high priests, not the common people.

1Tim. 3:1-13 and Titus 1:5-16 are both written by the apostle Paul and give instruction about the roles of bishops/overseers and deacons (and their wives). Notice these standards were not as high as those for priests (or their wives). The assembly of Yeshua has one High Priest.

God’s name and His reputation deserves reverence. Torah says that we don’t חלל khalal, or “profane,” the name of God, but do קדש qadash, or “sanctify,” the name (Lev. 22:32). The word qadash (קדש) , from which comes qadosh/kadosh for holy, to set apart, make distinct.The verb חָלַל khalal (H2490) means to bore, pierce. The Hebrew word shem (שם), translated name, is used to mean identification and distinction.

What makes YHWH different from the deities and philosophies of the rest of the world? It’s about how you act. The apostle Paul tells the overseers and deacons and Moses tells the priests that they must treat the reputation of God as distinct. They are to ask themselves, “How is the way I act teaching others about God?”

Everyone has free will and can go off as they will, but in the Apostle Paul’s instruction, the overseers and deacons are to model good behavior, and kind respectable leadership in their own household.

When our parents, children and others see good changes in us because of God’s transformative power, that is a powerful testimony to others.

The מועדים moedim (“appointments” or “appointed times”) of the LORD in Leviticus 23 are sandwiched between Leviticus 21-22 and Leviticus 24, with all those instructions about how the priests are to conduct themselves.

If there are no priests then why do we still keep the moedim? If we don’t live in the land of Israel, why do we still keep the moedim. We are practicing for the kingdom and we have to know how to be citizens of the Kingdom of God.

The moedim are a hallmark of the past (what Yeshua has already done) and the future (what Yeshua will do). We also know that these feasts will be celebrated in the future Kingdom of God. We are going from the temporary to the permanent.

There’s a dichotomy. God wants to dwell in the midst of His people, but He can’t fully dwell with them in this age because of their sin. That is why God gave His own Son, His Messiah, so He could bring those who are far off back close to Him. He is setting things right, pushing the big reset button back to the way God created the earth. Do we really want to live with the Creator? That is a question that takes a lifetime to understand and answer.

God wasn’t going to let the children of Israel bring Egypt into the Promised Land and God is not going to let us bring this world into the world to come either.

Summary: Tammy.

Photo Credit: Illustration from the 1728 Figures de la Bible; illustrated by Gerard Hoet (1648–1733) and others, and published by P. de Hondt in The Hague; image courtesy Bizzell Bible Collection, University of Oklahoma Libraries via Wikipedia Commons.