Why does Leviticus matter and how can we read it?

The law, the presence, the people...all from the first word.

“Leviticus is therefore more than a description of past historical events and more than a collection of dated laws. It tells us about God’s character and will, which found expression in his dealings with Israel and in the laws he gave them.”

- Gordon J. Wenham¹

This “Cut for Time” post is material that didn’t fully make it into the final version of my sermon, “For the Sake of the World: The Least of These.”

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I am on a quest to Make Leviticus Great Again. I preached out of the book this past summer with our teaching team at Imago Dei in Portland, Oregon, and the more I study this book, the more I love it.

Not everyone does. According to Ellen Davis, “Leviticus might be the one book of the Bible that most non-Jewish readers ignore unapologetically, and even on principle.” She goes on to tell of an old professor of hers who scoffed at the book saying “it’s just a bunch of laws” (something I hear from many Christians today). “Yet there is a profound irony to the failure of Christians to take the book seriously,” says Davis,

“for it lies at the root of the most serious interpretive controversies and even permanent divides in the church. In the first century, Jewish Christians broke off from other Jews largely over the central question of dietary practice: Could Jews eat as Gentiles do without unacceptable religious compromise (Acts 11:1–18)? Even in our own century, many of the issues that divide Christians from one another—the role of women in worship, the religious legitimacy of same-sex (sexual) relations, the divorce and remarriage of clergy, wine or grape juice in the communion cup—stem at least indirectly from interpretations of the regulations in Leviticus.”²

We often bore or confuse ourselves with Leviticus when it becomes all about “what can I do and what can I not do.” Reading Scripture through such a fundamental moralist lens will exhaust you and bring you to madness. Such are the endless suggestions to read this book as a division of laws that are “moral” or “civil” or “ceremonial.” It just doesn’t work.

Wenham counters: “Instead of distinguishing between moral and civil laws, it would be better to say that some injunctions are broad and generally applicable to most societies, while others are more specific and directed at the particular social problems of ancient Israel. In this commentary the following position is assumed: the principles underlying the OT are valid and authoritative for the Christian, but the particular applications found in the OT may not be. The moral principles are the same today, but insofar as our situation often differs from the OT setting, the application of the principles in our society may well be different too.”³

The BibleProject (helpful as always) offers another route too:

Our misunderstandings start with the title of the book itself. The book we call “Leviticus,” had a different Hebrew title at first: “The first word of the book serves as its Hebrew title, wayyiqrā [which means] “and he called.”⁴ The first scene of this difficult book is the voice of YHWH: “The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent” (Leviticus 1:1). The people of Israel have disobeyed the foundational covenantal responsibilities given to them from God at Mt. Sinai. This sets up the whole problem Leviticus tries to solve: what generous accomodations might God set up in order to be present with his people?

Here’s BibleProject’s summary: “Moses’ inability to enter the tent is an image of the relational rift between God and Israel. How can God’s peo­ple, who have proven selfish and rebellious, be recon­ciled to the holy God? That’s what the book of Levit­icus is all about­—how God graciously provides a way for sinful, corrupt people to live in his holy presence.”⁵

From this perspective, we start to see ways in which we can read Leviticus well. We read Leviticus well when see it as the good news of a God who makes a way to commune with him where there is no possible way to fellowship in his presence. God reconciles sinful people to his holiness.

Tidball picks up on this: “Leviticus serves as a preliminary sketch of the masterpiece that was to be unveiled in Christ…While the New Testament draws up new maps to guide the moral and spiritual life of the Christian, it does so by making use of the earlier charts of Leviticus. Particular applications may have changed, but the guiding ethical principles remain as firm as ever. Without Leviticus our Christian experience would be a house without a foundation.”⁶

That’s a remarkable statement that is backed up by many Christian scholars of this book. Without Leviticus, we just don’t have the Christian faith. We lack the book’s most remarkable commands that are found later in the New Testament—commands we love. But it also shows us Christ so clearly.

And this reveals yet another trick with reading Leviticus: to read it through the lens of Jesus Christ’s redemptive work on the cross. Yes, this is how we read all Old Testament texts, but Leviticus can be seen best through it. Nearly everything in this book is preparing us with a future Messianic metaphor from which new insights can be found because it is showcasing the generous accommodations YHWH makes in order to reconcile sinners with his holy nature and presence. Nowhere clearer is this than in Christ’s work on the cross, which NT authors saw as saturated in the metaphorical language of the tabernacle.

Finally, we read Leviticus well when we see it as a window into the very heart of God. What does God care about? What matters to him? Leviticus shows us through the various laws and stipulations put upon the tabernacle. God cares about sinners. He is invested in offering them atonement for sins, reconciliation with him and with one another. He cares about the poor, the widow, the stranger, the sick, the outcast, the vulnerable, and all those suffering. He cares about sexual fidelity, marriage, and our bodies. He cares about civilization, politics, and leadership. He cares about worship, devotional practices and prayer. He cares about spiritual leadership—priests, pastors, worship leaders, and those overseeing ministerial work. And he cares about human life. He loves humanity and desperately cares to have fellowship with them forever.

With what I have just written out, consider these questions as your read Leviticus:

1. What does this law or section of verses tell me about the character and heart of God? How can I know about what God cares about from this?

2. How might I practice what God told his people to practice in my context and not theirs?

3. What specific practices were made clearly obsolete by Christ and the New Testament writers (dietary laws, sacrificial system, priestly order)?

Perhaps these questions can get you started reading the book of Leviticus, but only with God’s help will you ever finish it.

1. Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1979), 16.

2. Davis, Ellen F., 'Leviticus: Embodying Holiness—Leviticus 1–15', Opening Israel's Scriptures (New York, 2019; online edn, Oxford Academic, 20 June 2019), https://doi-org.proxy.lib.duke.edu/10.1093/oso/9780190260545.003.0007, accessed 22 Aug. 2024

3. Wenham, 35.

4. Wenham, 3.

5. The link up there (and here) will take you to BibleProject’s fantastic page of resources around this book, including some lenghty and interesting podcasts.

6. Derek Tidball, The Message of Leviticus: Free to Be Holy, ed. Alec Motyer and Derek Tidball, The Bible Speaks Today (England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2005), 18.