Leviticus Series #1
Why the LAW?
Galatians 3:24
CHCC: June 13, 2010
INTRODUCTION:
Recently I looked back over my records of all the sermons I’ve preached at Castle Hills Christian Church and realized that over the past 25 years, I’ve preached from all the books of the New Testament and most of the Old Testament. When Ronnie and I began to share the preaching schedule, I mentioned to him that I had preached from almost every book in the Old Testament but had just a handful of books left to preach from in order to preach from every book in the Bible.
When I listed the book of Leviticus, Ronnie got a doubtful look on his face. If you’ve ever read the book of Leviticus, you know why! How many of you have ever set out to read through the entire Bible … you flew through Genesis, you enjoyed most of Exodus … and then you got completely bogged down in Leviticus? You can probably figure out why Ronnie decided to allow me to have this series of sermons all to myself!
Reading through Leviticus always makes me think back to an old hymn that was titled “How tedious, how tasteless the hours…” My goal is to make sure these next 5 weeks are nowhere near as dry and dull as Leviticus can be. II Timothy 3:16 says, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.
In order to understand why God instituted the Levitical Law in all it’s tedious detail, we need to put it in the larger context of the whole Bible. Let’s take a peek back to the Garden of Eden, and the world’s first human residents. Let’s look at …
1. Why God created people (Adam and Eve)
Genesis doesn’t ever come right out and say “God created people BECAUSE…” But if we look at the first chapters, we can see God’s purpose. We know from Genesis 1:26 that God made man in his own image and after his own likeness. Chapters 2 and 3, reveal various interactions between God and his created beings. God gave Adam work to do (2:19-20) … things like naming animals and tending the garden; God provided for his needs; (1:29-30, 2:21-23); and God enjoyed continual conversations with these first 2 people … usually in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8). We can conclude from this that God created people to enjoy a constant, voluntary, relationship with God. People were made to live in constant connection with God.
There was only one rule for these first two people. Don’t eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Obedience to this one rule was the “voluntary” part of the plan. Adam and Eve could demonstrate their desire to depend on God …or they could demonstrate their desire to disconnect from God and declare their independence.
There’s an interesting thing about this first sin. We tend to think of sin as the desire to do something really bad. But here’s the temptation the serpent gave them: "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." The temptation was to be like God. Do you see? Adam and Eve wanted something that sounds good. In fact, they wanted to be Perfectly GOOD … like God … but they wanted to do it on their own, apart from a relationship with God.
They were the first to sing that classic line, “I did it MY way!”
You need to see the paradigm shift Adam and Eve brought on themselves. They enjoyed a simple and beautiful life of connection and complete dependence on God. Their one and only rule had just one purpose --- so they could show that they CHOSE to continue a close relationship with God. But they chose to break that connection.
I’m not convinced that they wanted to do wrong. But they wrongly assumed that if they could understand right and wrong for themselves, they would choose right and thus be perfect on their own. They were declaring, “We don’t need God.” And what they didn’t see was that this is the root of all sin.
In doing this, Adam and Eve became the first legalists. They wanted to come up with their own list of rules and then prove that they could keep them. Well, we all know how that turned out.
Fellowship with God was replaced by rules, rules, and more rules. Every new situation created a need for another rule. And with every rule came a corresponding need for a consequence if the rule was broken. And the more humans who came along, the more rules were needed. Cane killed his brother, so now there had to be a rule about murder, and consequences for doing it.
Still, God longed to enter into a new relationship with someone who would choose to know and love and trust Him. That man was Abraham. God’s relationship to him and his offspring fills most of Genesis.
Though there is much I could say about that, let me point out one central promise God made to Abraham. God promised, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you: and I will make your name great; and you shall be a blessing… and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 12:1-3
Now, let’s speed ahead some 400 years. The descendants of Abraham have grown into a nation of well over a million people. Unfortunately, they are not a free nation. They are living as slaves in Egypt. So God established a personal relationship with another man … his name was Moses. Moses led these people out of slavery and told them that God wanted to make them His own nation.
2. Why God created a Nation (Moses on the mountain)
If only Abraham had been alive to see the wonderful day when his offspring … a mighty nation … were gathered together before a holy mountain to meet God and begin a personal relationship with Him. Abraham had that kind of close connection to God, and so did Moses. They talked together face to face like friends. And now, Moses calls these people to draw near to God and worship him and to enjoy his love.
So picture this moment, because it’s important to understanding the book of Leviticus. The people are gathered around the foot of the mountain. God appears in thunder and lightning and smoke, and he begins to speak to the people. Deuteronomy 5 even tells what God was saying. The people heard God’s voice giving them the 10 commandments orally!
Here was the Lord God Almighty … who freed them from slavery, walked before them in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, fed them every day with manna … now He spoke directly to them from the mountain.
Moses hears God’s voice and draws near to God. But the rest of the people hear that same voice and jump back in terror.
Their response is recorded in Deuteronomy 5:23-27. I hope you’ll read this for yourselves, but in the interest of time, I’ll give you the Ed Skidmore paraphrase.
The people said, “Tell you what, Moses, you and God seem to have a good thing going. So… we’ll just leave this personal relationship thing to you and we’ll keep a safe distance! Next time, YOU talk with God, then when you’re all done … just tell us what He wants us to do, and we’ll do it.”
You can hear God’s disappointment in the way He answered: “Oh that there were such a heart in them that they would reverence me and keep my commandments so that it might be well with them and their children forever. Go. Tell them to go back to their tents again. But as for you, stand here by me and I will speak to you.”
The day of the great worship service between Jehovah and the Nation of Israel ended … not with a bang, but with a whimper. God dismissed them back to their tents and spoke quietly with Moses alone. God had offered them a relationship like Adam and Eve had in the garden originally. But obviously they weren’t ready for it yet.
The 10 commandments had been simple and direct, but because Israel wanted to keep their distance from God, God gave them a long and detailed set of Wise Laws that they would … unsuccessfully … try to keep for the next 1500 years.
3. Why the LAW?
So what was the Levitical Law, and why did God give it to the people of Israel? We get an explanation of the purpose of the law from Apostle Paul, in Galatians 3:24, “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”(KJV)
This verse is the Key to understanding the Old Testament Law system. Let’s start by asking, What is a schoolmaster? The “paedagogos” in ancient times was a household slave who would oversee the education and discipline of the children. He wasn’t their actual teacher, but he would walk the children to school and deliver them to their teacher. While a child was under the care of a paedagogos, he was literally in enslavement … completely under the authority of this steward.
The verses on each side of Galatians 3:24 give us more context:
vs. 23: Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.
vs. 25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the Law.
The Law itself was not our teacher, but rather the slave who walked us to the class room where the teacher could take over and lead us. The paedagogos’ job was finished when the children were safely delivered over to the care of the teacher.
What was the law able to do?
· The Law reveals God’s Perfection.
The curses and blessings attached to the law convinced the Nation of Israel that God was not to be trifled with. And … as much as they followed the rules and regulations of the law, they could have some order and justice within their nation.
What was the law unable to do?
· The Law could not justify anyone … because no one was able to keep it perfectly.
In other words, the Law is perfect, but it cannot make anyone perfect.
For 1,500 years of the Levitical Law, people tried to show that they could keep God’s Law. And for 1,500 years, they failed … over and over again … generation after generation. For 1,500 years the schoolmaster (the paedagogos) led God’s children until finally the Law led them to the foot of the cross where they could meet their true Teacher.
Oswald Chambers said this: “The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.”
The purpose of the Law was to prepare the people of the whole world to accept that truth. The Law shows us that no matter how hard we try … no matter how many wonderful RULES we can list … we can NEVER make it on our own.
Without connection to God … without TRUSTING in Him … our situation is utterly hopeless --- because at our best we fall far short of God’s perfect standard.
CONCLUSION:
In the next four weeks we’ll study the main elements of the Levitical Law … so we can understand what God had in mind when he instituted it. We’ll understand why The Law was never intended to be a permanent system for us to reach and satisfy God. And we’ll see how the Law points us toward the Cross.
Romans 5:6 says that at “just the right time” Jesus came and replaced the law with something new and better. Unfortunately, sometimes in the church we try to bring back just a touch of the Old Covenant.
There’s something in human nature that wants to find a list of RULES … and then try to impress everybody with how great we are because we can follow those rules.
When we wander back into the old legalistic ways, we need to remember what Paul said in Colossians 2:14, Jesus canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
We have been freed from a system we could never follow perfectly anyway, and placed into a relationship with the Living Christ … who is everything we will ever need … both now and forever.
