Offerings, Leprosy, And Issues Of Blood

On one Christian radio program I listen to, the pastor did a “fly by” of the entire Bible so that listeners could get the panoramic view of Scripture. Not only do we need to see the particulars of an individual passage or its immediate context, his reasoning is, we also need to see how it fits in with the big picture.

No disagreement. But far better than listening to someone else sketch out the whole, in my view, is to read Scripture in its entirety and see the big picture for myself.

Hence I find myself reading in the book of Leviticus, that portion of Scripture I used to skip lest it defeat my entire journey through the Bible. The fact is, as I’ve put in various other pieces to the grand view of God’s revelation, without realizing it, I was laying the necessary framework to understand, at least in part, this book of Israelite laws for living in community as God’s chosen people.

From the kinds of sacrifices and how they should be performed, on through to the treatment of “leprosy” (which may have included the disease we know as leprosy today, but was not limited to it) and the religious cleansing from handling anything unclean like a dead body or human waste to the same cleansing after sex or childbirth, Leviticus is regulatory.

In reading the book, it doesn’t take long to realize that no one was ever going to be exempt from the need to perform cleansing sacrifices. In other words, Leviticus shows how inescapable sin is.

No, having an infection wasn’t sin, and neither was childbirth. But these human conditions required cleansing–not just physical but religious. They stood as reminders that God is pure and Man is not.

Eventually we come to the passage about bodily discharges and the process of cleansing for each. Then this verse: “Now if a woman has a discharge of her blood many days, not at the period of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond that period, all the days of her impure discharge she shall continue as though in her menstrual impurity; she is unclean” (15:25). Unclean people were forbidden to be a part of worship activities. Anything they sat on or lay on would become unclean, anyone who touched them would become unclean.

Flash forward hundreds of years to a dusty Judean street where crowds pressed in around Jesus as He made His way toward Jarius’s house and the little girl who lay dying. From among all those people, a woman with a hemorrhage, who had sought help from the physicians for twelve years, reached out and touched the fringe of Jesus’s cloak.

Twelve years! This woman didn’t just have a medical condition. According to Levitical law, she was cut off from worship and isolated from normal community activities. Anyone touching her would become unclean.

But what happens when that human contact has a reverse effect and instead of the other person becoming unclean, she becomes healed, whole, and clean? Is the other person still unclean? This, I suspect, was one of the dilemmas the Pharisees grappled with when it came to Jesus, because He was constantly touching people that by Levitical law should have made Him unclean, and yet the diseased became well.

What a vivid picture of Jesus imparting His righteousness to those who stand before Him helpless and hopeless and forever cut off from worship because of our uncleanness. What we cannot accomplish, He does with a touch.

At the cross, however, He bore our sins.

Back in Leviticus, a chapter after the law about discharges, God instituted an atonement ritual that involved two goats–one to be sacrificed and one to be released bearing the sins of the nation:

Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities (Lev 16:21-22a)

Christ imparting righteousness, Christ bearing our sins in his body on the cross (see 1 Peter 2:24)–it’s all pictured in Scripture. Leviticus sets it up, the gospels take it home, and the epistles explain it all.

Sixty-six books, but one grand story of God redeeming a people for Himself.

This post first appeared here in September 2012.

Forgiveness And Atonement

There’s a difference between forgiveness and atonement. The latter requires payment, the former does not. Interestingly, God gives both, but He tells us only to give forgiveness to one another.

I’m not aware of any place Jesus required His disciples to make atonement for their sins in order to make things right, either with God or with each other. But He was quite clear about forgiveness.

Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors . . . For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. (Matt. 6:12, 14-15)

Jesus told a story about an unforgiving servant to illustrate this point.

one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made.

So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’

And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt.

But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’

So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’

But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed.

So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened.

Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ (Matt. 18:24b-33).

The problem is, many have turned the act of forgiving other people into a form of atonement for our sins. That’s not it. Jesus never said we are to atone for our sins. He Himself was the atonement.

Someone who’s received atonement doesn’t need a second dose of atonement. Either Jesus “paid it all” or He didn’t. And if He paid it all, it means we owe nothing because of our sin—past, present, or future.

It’s not like Jesus paid for our sins up to the point of our entering into a relationship with Him, but from then on it’s up to us either to live perfect, sinless lives (as some believe) or to pay for our sins if we “slip.”

Atonement is the very thing that is beyond our ability to make. We can’t give to God what is required—a perfect life—because we don’t have it.

Our forgiveness, then, comes with no strings attached.

But wait a minute. Don’t the passages in Matthew say just the opposite—our forgiveness is contingent upon our willingness to forgive others?

Actually, that’s backwards:

Dangling bitterness and broken relationships are inconsistent with grace receivers. Jesus taught that we are to love and pray for our enemies because this is the appropriate response to being a recipient of God’s grace, forgiving others. (Donald Smith, The God of Grace, Chap. 10)

In other words, a lack of forgiveness is a sign that a person is not a recipient of God’s grace—not that he received grace but God took it back because his actions weren’t acceptable. Instead, God offered forgiveness, and by the act of not forgiving others, a person shows he is spurning God’s forgiveness.

In fact, in another passage in Matthew, Jesus was teaching about prayer, telling His disciples they needed to believe and not doubt and they’d receive what they ask.

Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you. (11:24)

He immediately moved to this:

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. (11:25)

Was Jesus changing the subject? I don’t think so. I think He was illustrating that real faith has legs. Faith is not saying, “I believe” and then acting as if I don’t believe. Rather, faith must be demonstrated by action, as James so clearly spelled out (See James 2:13ff).

In the same way, we demonstrate that we understand our need for forgiveness by our willingness to forgive others. We are not in a position to hold others accountable for their misdeeds against us if in truth we have understood how God no longer holds us accountable for our misdeeds against Him.

That’s like the pot calling the kettle black! We aren’t without the black stain of sin searing us, so who are we to point to others and say, You have this nasty black stain, so I can’t accept you.

But if we are indeed the recipient of God’s grace, and our black stain has been removed, we are in a position to mirror the forgiveness we have received. We want to pay forward what we’ve been given.

Paul clarifies the issue:

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Eph. 4:31-32, emphasis added).

Just as Christ did for us, so we are to do for others.

Offerings, Leprosy, And Issues Of Blood

On one Christian radio program I listen to, the pastor is doing a “fly by” of the entire Bible so that listeners can get the panoramic view of Scripture. Not only do we need to see the particulars of an individual passage or its immediate context, his reasoning is, we also need to see how it fits in with the big picture.

No disagreement. But far better than listening to someone else sketch out the whole, in my view, is to read Scripture in its entirety and see the big picture for myself.

Hence I find myself reading in the book of Leviticus, that portion of Scripture I used to skip lest it defeat my entire journey through the Bible. The fact is, as I’ve put in various other pieces to the grand view of God’s revelation, without realizing it, I was laying the necessary framework to understand, at least in part, this book of Israelite laws for living in community as God’s chosen people.

From the kinds of sacrifices and how they should be performed, on through to the treatment of “leprosy” (which may have included the disease we know as leprosy today, but was not limited to it) and the religious cleansing from handling anything unclean like a dead body or human waste to the same cleansing after sex or childbirth, Leviticus is regulatory.

In reading the book, it doesn’t take long to realize that no one was ever going to be exempt from the need to perform cleansing sacrifices. In other words, Leviticus shows how inescapable sin is.

No, having an infection wasn’t sin, and neither was childbirth. But these human conditions required cleansing–not just physical but religious. They stood as reminders that God is pure and Man is not.

Eventually we come to the passage about bodily discharges and the process of cleansing for each. Then this verse: “Now if a woman has a discharge of her blood many days, not at the period of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond that period, all the days of her impure discharge she shall continue as though in her menstrual impurity; she is unclean” (15:25). Unclean people were forbidden to be a part of worship activities. Anything they sat on or lay on would become unclean, anyone who touched them would become unclean.

Flash forward hundreds of years to a dusty Judean street where crowds pressed in around Jesus as He made His way toward Jarius’s house and the little girl who lay dying. From among all those people, a woman with a hemorrhage, who had sought help from the physicians for twelve years, reached out and touched the fringe of Jesus’s cloak.

Twelve years! This woman didn’t just have a medical condition. According to Levitical law, she was cut off from worship and isolated from normal community activities. Anyone touching her would become unclean.

But what happens when that human contact has a reverse effect and instead of the other person becoming unclean, she becomes healed, whole, and clean? Is the other person still unclean? This, I suspect, was one of the dilemmas the Pharisees grappled with when it came to Jesus, because He was constantly touching people that by Levitical law should have made Him unclean, and yet the diseased became well.

What a vivid picture of Jesus imparting His righteousness to those who stand before Him helpless and hopeless and forever cut off from worship because of our uncleanness. What we cannot accomplish, He does with a touch.

At the cross, however, He bore our sins.

Back in Leviticus, a chapter after the law about discharges, God instituted an atonement ritual that involved two goats–one to be sacrificed and one to be released bearing the sins of the nation:

Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities (Lev 16:21-22a)

Christ imparting righteousness, Christ bearing our sins in his body on the cross (see 1 Peter 2:24)–it’s all pictured in Scripture. Leviticus sets it up, the gospels take it home, and the epistles explain it all.

Sixty-six books, but one grand story of God redeeming a people for Himself.