Lecture 16: The Way to God and the Walk with God: The Shape of Leviticus and the Day of Atonement

The lecture, section by section

1. The purpose in one sentence

   Leviticus is Yahweh's instruction that enabled him to live among his chosen people. The order never reverses: God does not say, offer these offerings and live this way and then I will come; his glory already fills the tabernacle from the end of Exodus. Everything in the book serves the fellowship already established, the practicalities of actually being the special treasure, the kingdom of priests, the holy nation that Exodus 19 declared.

2. A coherent book, not a filing cabinet

   Against the claim that Leviticus is miscellaneous laws collected and dropped into the Torah, the book has a definite narrative structure: it follows the construction of the tabernacle and Yahweh's entrance into the midst of his people, and it sits inside the covenant narrative that runs from Exodus 19 to Numbers 10. Israel, corporately indwelt, must now learn how to take advantage of that indwelling.

3. Chapter 17: the hinge

   Leviticus 17 is the book's hinge, and Essex reads it as the introduction to all that follows. It also sums up everything since the golden calf: covenant broken, Moses' intercession, covenant renewed, tabernacle built, and yet Israel still unfaithful, for verse 7 says they were sacrificing to the goat idols, playing the harlot. Hence the chapter's demand: every sacrificial animal comes to the doorway of the tent of meeting, nowhere else, on pain of bloodguilt and being cut off.

4. The blood is the life

   With the demand comes the prohibition, binding Israelite and sojourner alike: no blood may be eaten. Hunted animals may be eaten, but the blood must be poured out and covered with earth. The reason is theological: the life of the flesh is in its blood, and it is the blood, life surrendered, that makes atonement on the altar. Blood is too sacred to the system's meaning to be food.

5. The walk that follows

   From the hinge the book turns outward to daily life. Chapters 18 through 20 fence Israel off from the abominable practices of the nations; 21 and 22 make the priests distinct from the priests of the nations; 23 and 24 set the appointed times and the seriousness of faithfulness within the camp; 25 extends the Sabbath principle to the sabbatical year and the Jubilee; 26 lays out the covenant's blessings and curses, echoed later in Deuteronomy 28; and 27 closes with vows, which no one is required to make and everyone is required to keep.

6. Two parts: the way, then the walk

   The resulting outline has two movements. Chapters 1 through 16 are the way to God: the offerings, so sin need not be a barrier; the priests, chapters 8 through 10, because access runs through mediation; and cleanness, chapters 11 through 15, a representative sample, foods, childbirth, skin disease, bodily discharges, since the unclean cannot approach the holy. Chapters 17 through 27 are the walk with God: the set-apart life of a people who live every day in his presence.

7. The Day of Atonement

   The first movement culminates in chapter 16, the most important day of Israel's calendar under this covenant: the tenth day of the seventh month, a sabbath of solemn rest on which all Israel humbled their souls, for on this day atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you shall be clean from all your sins before the LORD. The high priest made atonement first for himself, then for the nation, and for the tabernacle and its vessels standing in the midst of an unclean people.

8. The goat that carried sin away

   The day's unforgettable picture is the second goat. Aaron laid both hands on its head and confessed over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, all their transgressions in regard to all their sins, and the goat was led away into the wilderness. Israel watched their sins, witting and unwitting, carried off before their eyes. The believing Israelite could know himself completely clean before Yahweh, the barrier down, fellowship maintained.

9. One Israelite's very bad week

   Essex tells a parable of the system's limits. A man walking home from the Day of Atonement trips over a carcass: unclean, but the sin and guilt offerings handle such things; the way back is short. But suppose he then discovers whose carelessness left the carcass, seeks the man out, and in premeditated anger defames him. That is no unwitting sin; it is sin with a high hand, and for it no offering exists. He must carry it a full year, until the next Day of Atonement, when the priest again confesses all the transgressions of Israel, and then live toward the year after that, praying the priest still lives and the tabernacle still stands. The Old Testament saint could only ever look forward to forgiveness; he could never look back on a finished sacrifice.

10. The privilege of looking back

    Here is the privilege the New Testament believer has that the Old Testament saint did not: our sacrifice for sin stands in the past tense, given and accepted at the cross, so we confess our sins knowing he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Asked what became of the Israelite who died mid-year, Essex answers honestly: Scripture's later light suggests the man of faith went to Abraham's side; the man without faith, to await judgment. But assurance that rests on an accomplished sacrifice belonged to neither; it belongs to those who live on this side of the cross.

11. A generation newly equipped

    The closing bibliography celebrates a quiet change: twenty-five years ago almost none of it existed. Mark Rooker's commentary earns the star as the first read; Gordon Wenham's volume from the late seventies remains the work all evangelical commentary on Leviticus answers to; Hartley and Kiuchi carry the exegesis further; and Allen Ross's Holiness to the Lord leads the preacher from exegesis to exposition. Perhaps, Essex suggests, the next generation will stop skipping Leviticus.

1. Israel watched the goat carry their confessed sins out of sight. What does God's care to make forgiveness visible say about how he deals with tender consciences, and how does the cross complete that picture?

2. The system had no offering for premeditated sin, and the man had to carry it for a year. How should that shape your gratitude for 1 John 1:9, and your seriousness about sins of the high hand?

3. Leviticus orders life as way then walk: access to God secured, then holiness lived out. What happens to a believer, or a church, when the order is reversed?