Title Leviticus 22:1-33
Contents
Hymn 149 “The Cross on which the Lord died”
Today's message in Leviticus 22 is the continuation of the holiness requirement for the priest who offers the sacrifice that began in chapter 21. If you look at verse 2 of today's text, you can see that the priest is speaking about the priest's own holiness by saying, 'Speak to Aaron and his sons... set them apart'.
God does not only mean that the offerings offered to God are clean and holy, but also that the priest in charge of the offering must be equally holy. Let's look at verse 3.
“Say to them, “Whoever among your descendants from generation to generation is unclean and comes near to the holy things that the children of Israel set apart to the Lord will be cut off from my presence, I am the Lord.”
Among the Levites, anyone who touches or takes an offering that is holy to God, even though his body is unclean, will be cut off from the sight of God. The details about the uncleanness of the body continue in detail in verses 4-9. If you look at this, you can clearly see that not all Levites are capable of fulfilling the office of a priest.
God wants to thoroughly filter out not only the external and objective holiness mentioned in Chapter 21, but also the uncleanness of his personal body and body problems. If such a person touches, eats, or intoxicates holy things in the sanctuary of God, he will cut them off completely.
This is not just about mercilessly cutting off those who have human weaknesses and handicap, that is, those who do not meet God's standards. This is not to say that we will reject the weak and poor who are hard-hearted and do not reach God's perfect standard, as if we were failing a test, and only take pleasure in the perfect and take his side.
God has perfect and terrible holiness that cannot tolerate every single point of sin or filth like the tip of a hair. Like a human being, he has the limit of not being able to pass it on, yield it, or make it something that was not there. It is said that it is a limit that cannot be expressed in other words, but this is the immutability and sincerity of God's disposition, and the absolute greatness of being different from humans.
Therefore, although God is a priest, he is a Levite, but he is an imperfect human and sinful being, so he knows his weakness and wants to protect him in advance. . Verse 9.
9 They shall keep my commandments, lest if they profane them, they will sin and die in them. I am the LORD who sanctifies them.
If you do not keep God's command, you will die, so a thoroughly holy person must stand as a priest. It means that a person who is thoroughly troubled, who is completely without blemishes, who is thoroughly clean, and who is thoroughly pure can touch the holy things and get drunk.
So the ephod worn by the priest had a rattle bell. If you enter the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy on the Day of Atonement once a year to perform a sacrifice before God, if there is any unclean or unholy thing, you die on the spot. When the priest moves, the rattle moves, but if the priest dies suddenly on the spot, there is no rattle. Then you're dead.
Then he takes a long pole, puts it inside the tent, hooks the priest and pulls it out. God is so holy. To protect the priests, these strict regulations are given.
God is funny