Preaching Christ from Leviticus

Foundations for Expository Sermons

Sidney Greidanus

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780802876027
• eBook ISBN: 9781467461399
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

For pastors who take seriously the commitment to incorporate the entire  Bible into their preaching, Sidney Greidanus's books on preaching Christ from the major genres of the Old Testament have been a welcome gift. In his last such volume, Greidanus engages with the Old Testament genre of law and treats a book that is often seen as the most challenging of all: Leviticus. 

Preaching Christ from Leviticus reminds pastors and congregations that key christological themes—priesthood, sacrifice, atonement, holiness—first originated in Leviticus before they came to full flower in the New Testament with the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and his call to holiness. Greidanus provides the basis for fully understanding these and other themes with an exacting analysis of Leviticus and then provides the foundations for ten sermons on Leviticus through topics such as the burnt offering, the ordained priesthood, the day of atonement, the sabbatical year, and the year of jubilee, as well as the commandments to be holy, to love your neighbor, and to love aliens and enemies.

CHAPTER 1

Issues in Interpreting and Preaching Old Testament Law

In his Reclaiming the Old Testament for the Christian Pulpit, Donald Gowan writes, “How—and whether—to preach the laws of the Old Testament presents perhaps the most difficult theological problem we shall encounter in this book, since the place of law in the Christian life has remained one of the perennial issues of our faith since the time of Jesus himself.”¹ David Dorsey echoes this sentiment: “One of the most difficult portions of the Bible to utilize in Christian teaching and preaching is the corpus of Mosaic laws.”²

But it would be a mistake to focus only on the difficulties of preaching Leviticus. As pointed out in the preface, Leviticus “contains more direct speech by God himself than any other book of the Bible and it is placed at the heart of the Torah or Pentateuch …, which forms the foundation for all of Scripture.”³ Arie Leder underscores the importance of Leviticus for Israel by observing, “Without the instructions of Leviticus, Israel’s life before God has no chance of survival. She has been separated from the nations to receive the special instruction to live among the nations as God’s special people (Lev 15:31; 20:26, ‘to separate,’ or ‘to set apart’)…. Without Leviticus, Israel would be just another among many nations in Canaan.”⁴

In contrast to people who think that Leviticus is all about rituals, Jacob Milgrom points out that “values are what Leviticus is all about. They pervade every chapter and almost every verse…. Leviticus does discuss rituals. However, underlying the rituals, the careful readers will find an intricate web of values that purports to model how we should relate to God and to one another.”⁵

Skipping over Leviticus, as many preachers do, deprives congregations of essential biblical values on how we should relate to God and to each other. Disregarding Leviticus also deprives congregations of essential biblical foundations for understanding the work and demands of Christ. So it will be worth our while to work our way through the difficulties. Our congregations will be richly rewarded not only in better understanding the message of Leviticus and the mission of Christ but also in discovering what this book means for the church today. John Hartley summarizes its relevance: “Leviticus provides an understanding of holiness-sin-atonement, the essential elements of the divine-human relationship. Furthermore, just as Israel was called to be a holy nation in order to function as a royal priesthood to the nations, the church is called to be a holy people in order that it may serve all the peoples of the world as a royal priesthood.”⁶ We therefore begin working our way through the difficulties with solid hope for good and relevant outcomes.

Difficulties in Preaching Old Testament Law

The Issue of Continuity and Discontinuity

One of the problems in preaching Old Testament law is the lack of clarity in determining the continuity and/or discontinuity of God’s law, first given to Israel, for the New Testament church. For example, we are quick to invoke discontinuity when it comes to the dietary laws of Leviticus 11, which forbid the eating of pork, crab, lobster, rabbits, and water hens. We tend to do the same with laws about not reaping “to the very edges of your field” (Lev 19:9–10) and laws concerning religious feasts (Lev 23), Sabbatical Years, and the Year of Jubilee (Lev 25). We are a little more ambivalent about laws concerning the tithe (Lev 27:30–33). Most Christians don’t tithe, but many evangelicals do. How does one determine when a law is intended only for God’s Old Testament people or also for the church?

Our ambivalence regarding Old Testament law has led to various denominational practices: most Christian churches have worship services on Sunday, but Seventh-Day Adventists and Seventh-Day Baptists worship on Saturday (“the seventh day”). Most Christians don’t mind eating blood in rare steaks and blood sausage (contrary to Lev 17:10–14; cf. Acts 15:29), but Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse blood transfusions.

People have taken various positions on the issue of the continuity or discontinuity of Old Testament laws. The two extreme positions are, on the one hand, classic dispensationalism, which argues that the Jewish dispensation was characterized by law and the Christian dispensation by grace.⁷ That position does not seem to leave much room for continuity between Old Testament law and its relevance for the church today. On the other hand, theonomy or Christian reconstructionism argues for strict continuity: “the Old Testament laws and penalties are still in effect today.”⁸ Most denominations take positions between these two extremes.⁹

The major problem in resolving this issue is the discontinuity created by the historical-cultural gap that separates Old Testament Israel from the New Testament church. In fact, there are more gaps than just history and culture. Giving many examples, David Dorsey names five gaps between the body of Mosaic laws and the New Testament church:

First, the corpus is designed to regulate the lives of a people living in the distinctive geographical and climatic conditions found in the southern Levant [the East] and the majority of its regulations would be inapplicable, unintelligible, or even nonsensical outside that geographically limited locale…. Second, the corpus was designed to regulate the lives of a people whose cultural milieu was that of the ancient Near East…. Third, the corpus was designed to regulate the lives of people whose religious milieu was that of the ancient Near East (particularly Canaan) and would make little sense outside that world…. Fourth, the corpus lays the detailed groundwork for and regulates the various affairs of an actual politically-and geographically-defined nation…. Fifth, the corpus is designed to establish and maintain a cultic regime which was restricted to ancient Israel and has been discontinued in the Church (cf. Heb. chs 7–10).

Dorsey sums up: “Virtually all the regulations of the corpus—certainly ninety-five percent—are culturally restricted, geographically limited, and cultically and politically specific, and as a result are inapplicable to, and in fact unfulfillable by, Christians living throughout the world today.”¹⁰

The Issue of Law and Gospel

In the Reformed tradition the issue of continuity/discontinuity took on the form of law and gospel. In his “Preface to the Old Testament” (1523) Luther writes, “The Old Testament is a book of laws, which teaches what men are to do and not to do … just as the New Testament is gospel or book of grace, and teaches where one is to get the power to fulfil the law…. Just as the chief teaching of the New Testament is really the proclamation of grace and peace through the forgiveness of sins in Christ, so the chief teaching of the Old Testament is really the teaching of laws, the showing up of sin, and the demanding of God.”¹¹ Thus Luther saw two main functions of the law: first, usus civilis—to restrain evil in this sinful world; and second, usus paedagogicus—a schoolmaster convicting us of sin and driving us to Christ. Many Lutherans have followed Luther in advocating this limited use of Old Testament law for Christians. For example, William Thompson writes, “The point of Christ’s death and resurrection is that on the cross he satisfied the demands of the law. Paul put the argument insightfully and elegantly in Romans 8:2. ‘For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.’ … The intent of the law in Christian theology is to awaken us to our distance from the will and purpose of God; it is not to provide us with ethical instruction. The Ten Commandments do not primarily teach us how to live; they document the depth of our guilt before God.”¹²

John Calvin, by contrast, advocated a third use of the law: usus tertius or, more descriptively, usus normativus. Calvin writes, “The third and principal use, which pertains more closely to the proper purpose of the law, finds its place among believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already lives and reigns…. They still profit by the law in two ways. Here is the best instrument for them to learn more thoroughly each day the nature of the Lord’s will to which they aspire, and confirm them in the understanding of it.”¹³ Calvin’s positive assessment of Old Testament law is related to his view of God’s covenant: God first redeems Israel from slavery in Egypt and then makes a covenant with them at Sinai. Also in the Old Testament, therefore, God’s redemption (grace) is first and is followed by God’s law. In other words, God’s grace displayed in redemption requires a subsequent response of obedience to God’s law.

Proposed Solution: A Threefold Distinction between Old Testament Laws

Traditionally theologians made a threefold distinction between Old Testament laws: moral law (e.g., the Ten Commandments), which is valid for all time; civil law, which pertained specifically to the nation of Israel but not to the church; and ceremonial law, the sacrificial/ritual laws that were fulfilled by Christ’s sacrifice and therefore no longer hold for the church. If this distinction were valid, there would be little point in preaching Old Testament civil and ceremonial laws. Since large parts of Leviticus are “ceremonial” (e.g., Lev 1:1–7:38; 11:1–12:8; 16:1–17:16) and “civil,” much of Leviticus would be removed from the preaching agenda.

There are, however, major problems with this threefold distinction. First, as many authors have noted, it is not a biblical distinction.¹⁴ The New Testament nowhere makes this threefold distinction. And the Old Testament freely mixes so-called moral, civil, and ceremonial laws. For example, the “moral” law “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Lev 19:18) is followed by “You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your animals breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall you put on a garment made of two different materials” (Lev 19:19). The reason the Old Testament freely mixes these categories of law is that it considered all of life to be under God’s dominion; hence every part of life was regulated by God’s law.¹⁵

Moreover, it is difficult to clearly distinguish between moral, civil, and ceremonial law. For example, is the Sabbath commandment moral, ceremonial, or civil? Are the Old Testament laws regulating feasts only ceremonial or also civil? In addition, civil legislation frequently made concrete t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1. Issues in Interpreting and Preaching Old Testament Law
• 2. The Burnt Offering (Leviticus 1)
• 3. The Ordination of Priests (Leviticus 8)
• 4. The Lord Accepts the First Offerings (Leviticus 9)
• 5. The Lord’s Judgment on Unholy Offerings (Leviticus 10)
• 6. Be Holy, for the Lord Is Holy (Leviticus 11)
• 7. The Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16)
• 8. You Shall Love Your Neighbor as Yourself (Leviticus 19:1–18)
• 9. You Shall Love Aliens and Enemies as Yourself (Leviticus 19:1–2, 19–37)
• 10. The Sabbatical Year (Leviticus 25:1–7, 18–22)
• 11. The Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8–17, 23–55)
• Appendixes
• Select Bibliography