The following is a sermon preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi. considering chapters 9 and 10, which you'll remember record the inaugural worship service in the tabernacle in the wilderness under the leadership of the newly ordained high priest Aaron and his sons. And in chapter 10, verses 10 and 11, Moses gave these new priests some additional specific instructions about their duty in the tabernacle in the tabernacle, excuse me, they were to distinguish between holy and common things and between clean and unclean things. But that was an involved process, making those distinctions. A complicated business, and as you might imagine, it would have dramatic implications for day-to-day life for the average Israelite in ancient Israelite society. And so it really mattered that the priests got those distinctions right. And so chapters 11 through 15, which is our portion for this morning, they provide a kind of directory for the use of the priests and for the instruction of Israel to guide them in making these important distinctions. Now, I think we can admit that for most modern readers, These five chapters have to be among the least understood sections of the book of Leviticus. The reasons for the various distinctions between what is clean and what is unclean, those reasons are not always clear to us. And given the fact that the dietary laws and rules for ritual purification no longer apply today in the New Covenant, Isn't it easy to scan over this material, sort of scratch our heads a few times in confusion, stifle a bored yawn, perhaps, and move right on? Clearly, this part of Leviticus has nothing to teach us. Well, I want to show you how wrong that is. This part of Leviticus, like all the other parts actually, is rich in gospel truth. It's rich in gospel truth. We'll sum up the teaching here under three very simple headings. First of all, chapter 11, which deals with the famous Jewish dietary laws, the kosher In chapter 11, we're taught about what we'll call distinguishing grace. The grace of God makes His people distinct from the world, distinguishing grace. Then in chapter 12, which stipulates that mothers in ancient Israel were ritually unclean after childbirth, we'll learn about generational grace, so distinguishing grace, generational grace, and then finally chapters 13 through 15, which talk about how to become clean again after disease or bodily discharge, we have infectious grace, grace that overcomes our uncleanness. So, 11 through 15 is about distinguishing grace, generational grace, and infectious grace. We're not able to read all of the passage. We'll read some selected portions. Before we do that, let's bow our heads and ask for the Lord to help us. Let us all pray. Our God and Father, as we bow before You now with Your Word open in our hands, we ask that you would work by the Holy Spirit, giving us understanding of a difficult passage, but more, leading us by your Word back to the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is able to make the foulest clean. Would you do that, please, for your great glory? In Jesus' name. Amen. We begin our reading of Leviticus chapter 11 at verse 1. This is the Word of God. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, Speak to the people of Israel, saying, These are the living things that you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. And then verses 3 through 43, We have three classifications of animals, those that walk on the land, those that swim in the waters, and those that fly in the air. Each classification is further divided into clean and unclean animals. The Israelites were permitted to eat the clean but not the unclean of each class. Then we pick up the reading again at verse 44. For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy. For I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy. For I am holy. This is the law about beasts and bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms on the ground, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature that may not be eaten. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days, as at the time of her menstruation she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. then she shall continue for 33 days in the blood of her purifying. She shall not touch anything holy, nor come into the sanctuary until the days of her purifying are completed. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation, and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying for 66 days. And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering and a pigeon or a turtle dove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her. then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtle doves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her and she shall be clean." And then chapter 13 is about skin diseases, their diagnosis by the priest, and the implications for the one who has contracted such a disease for their seclusion and for their uncleanness. They will contaminate people, clothes, homes, everything they touch, sit on, interact with. Then chapter 14, 1 through 32, gives the procedure to the priest to make atonement and to provide ritual purification for a person who has contracted a skin disease after their disease has cleared up. in 1433 through 57. The same procedure even applies to a house that has mildew in it. It's treated like it has a skin disease, and cleansing is required. Chapter 15 deals with the discharge of bodily fluids, both for men and women, that also makes them unclean, and they can make others unclean, and how they can be declared clean again. And we pick up the reading in one verse, chapter 15, verse 31, which summarizes really the whole section of 11 through 15, 1531. Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst. Amen. And we praise God for His holy, inerrant words. Food, like language, is one of the things that distinguishes cultures and peoples, isn't it? What one culture finds repellent in their diet, another calls a delicacy. You probably recoil in horror at the thought of haggis. And that's fair enough, but before you get too high and mighty, let me remind you about chitlins. And while we're speaking about American horror foods, I was once in a supermarket in North Mississippi and noticed these very large mason jars filled with pink pickling liquid. As I got a little closer to see what in the world was in there, I discovered they were filled with pickled pig's lips. I'll take haggis any day, thanks. Food separates people. It marks them out. It distinguishes them one from another, doesn't it? And that's never been more true throughout human history than in the case of the dietary laws that we find in Leviticus chapter 11. They have singled out the Jewish people across all the ages, haven't they? So here, first of all, as we look at chapter 11, is distinguishing grace. Distinguishing grace. If you cast your eye over chapter 11, you'll notice the animals are listed, as I think I mentioned earlier, in three groups, three classes. There are land animals, 3 through 8, water animals, 9 through 12, winged animals, 13 through 23. and each are then further classified as either clean and therefore to be consumed, or unclean and to be avoided. What is important not to miss is the echo in the structure of those classifications, this threefold categorization of animals into land, water, and winged creatures, the echo there of the creation accounts. It's the same classification used in Genesis 1, 20 through 25 in the creation story. Only now, remember, at creation, when God made His creatures, what did He say about them? They are good, He said, only now here in the wilderness of Sinai, as God gives His law to His people, now there's something wrong. Some animals are not good. Now there's a note of threat, the possibility of contamination, of uncleanness. Now clearly, Israel is being reminded, the world is broken. It's broken. But why exactly are some animals clean and others unclean? What is the logic at work here? Well, scholars debate, and there are various proposals that are made. I won't trouble you with all the different opinions, but it does seem the best thinking, I believe, suggests that the clean-unclean distinction has to do with a norm from which the unclean animals depart. So the norm for clean land animals in verse 3 is that they are to park the hoof and chew the cud. So animals like cows and sheep and goats. Remember, Israel is a pastoral society, and likely these are the main animals that constituted Israelite diet. But camels, rock badgers, hares, pigs, they either have cloven hooves, or they chew the cud. They don't do both, and they don't, therefore, conform to the rule and are considered unclean. Likewise, the norm for fish is that they must have fins and scales, but some water creatures have fins and no scales, or they have neither fins nor scales, and so they are unclean. And the unclean birds are called detestable here, probably because they're all birds of prey that eat carcasses, blood, or prey on things that were themselves also considered unclean. The only exception, possibly, is the bird in verse 16 called an ostrich, although that's almost certainly a mistranslation, given that all the other birds there are birds of prey. This one is likely too. The point, as one scholar sums it up, is that, quote, in general, the underlying principle of cleanness in animals is that they shall conform fully to their class. Those species are unclean, which are imperfect members of their class, or whose class itself confounds the general scheme of the world. So part of the big idea in Leviticus chapter 11 is that conformity to God's rule is what makes something holy and acceptable and clean. And the echoes of creation here remind us that Adam's primordial sin in the Garden of Eden was his failure to conform to God's norm, God's rule. And these dietary laws teach us that Adam's sin brought not just condemnation to all human beings, but also disorder into the very fabric of the created world itself. The curse on Adam's sin has broken nature. Even nature, these laws were saying, no longer conforms to the way things were originally meant to be. And so every time an Israelite family sat down to have dinner together, according to the kosher laws of Leviticus 11, they were reminded, as the Apostle Paul will put it in Romans 8.21, all creation has been subjected to futility in hope. The creation itself one day will be set free from bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Until then, the creation itself groans. longing for the world to come, when Eden will be restored and surpassed in the new creation, and all things at last are made new once again. The world now is a broken world longing for deliverance, and we are to long for it too. But even with that explanation, to modern ears, sometimes these lists still feel a bit arbitrary. Wouldn't you agree? So you can't eat a hare, but you can eat locusts and grasshoppers? The logic of that doesn't seem at all obvious to us, does it? And that's why if you're looking for an explanation for why this is forbidden and this is allowed in the food itself, you're going to be frustrated. it's better to realize that the importance of the command lies in the command itself. In other words, it was the act of obedience Obedience to God at this most basic, elementary level of eating and being sustained in life on God's terms rather than our own terms, that was the command to obey that really mattered. And the principle behind that is very simple, but it is vital that we grasp. Here's the principle. Our obedience does not require our understanding of why God wants this and not that, why this is forbidden and that is permitted. God doesn't owe us an explanation before we are required to obey Him. Sometimes we need to remember the godlike wisdom of the mom who finally breaks the endless loop of, but why, from their little child with the definitive answer. You remember the definitive answer? What is it? Because I said so. Obey because God says so. It may be that some of God's rules, like the laws of Leviticus 11 through 15, perhaps, have actually been designed, at least in part, precisely in order to force God's people to this conclusion. I don't always need to know why this is required of me. I do need to know who has said so. My God and Savior has said so, and that settles it." Is that your attitude toward God's law, or do you find yourself constantly trying to renegotiate the terms of your obedience? Now, you may recall that in Acts chapter 10, the apostle Peter had a vision in which he was told by the risen Christ to rise, kill, and eat unclean animals, prohibited by Leviticus chapter 11, and Peter refused to do so. He was a devout and faithful Jew. And then he was told by his lords that what God has cleansed, no one may call common. And at first glance, that episode, the vision, appears to be saying that in the new covenant, the Levitical laws of Leviticus 11 have been abrogated, and they have been. Peter is commanded, after all, to eat unclean animals. But as the rest of the story in Acts chapter 10 unfolds, we discover that the removal of the restriction on diet is actually symbolic of a far more profound widening of the scope of the covenant of God. it was symbolic of the inclusion of non-Jews into the covenant people. And so Peter was sent to minister to Cornelius, a Gentile Roman, whom Peter baptizes and enfolds into the church when he sees that the Holy Spirit had been given to him just as it had been given to Peter. Luke is confirming for us that the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 were intended indeed to single Israel out, to separate them from the nations. The clean food was symbolic of the chosen race, and the unclean food were like the unclean Gentiles to be shunned. But now that Jesus has come, that distinction has been dissolved. ethnicity no longer has any bearing on membership in the kingdom of God. All are invited from every tribe and language and nation to come and bend the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ and to be welcomed into his covenant people. But that doesn't mean that obedience no longer matters. When Jesus told the apostles in Matthew 28, 19 to go into all the world and make disciples, they were still required, do you remember, to teach them whatsoever I have commanded you. Adam, do you remember, Adam had a food law in Eden, didn't he? He was allowed to eat the fruit of any of the trees in the garden except for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told him, in the day that you eat of that fruit, you will surely die. Adam's food laws were the condition of eternal life for him. He was to obey there if he was to live. It was a condition, you will recall, that he failed to meet. But now our obedience Our obedience rests on a different basis. It rests now on the redeeming grace of God, who gives us eternal life freely as a gift, as a consequence, not of anything that we have done or could ever do, but because of the perfect obedience of our second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. We obey now because we've already been given eternal life. And living by His grace, we want to please the One who has saved us. That's the force, actually, if you look at 1144 and 45, isn't it? This was true for Israel as well as it is true for us. Why should the Israelites keep these dietary laws and obey God in this exacting detail? They should obey because I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy." God redeemed them, and so they should live for Him and keep His words. Christians no longer are required to keep the ceremonial laws of the Old Covenant, including the food laws of Leviticus 11. Jews and Gentiles alike may belong by faith in Christ to the people of God, and yet the church is still distinguished from the world by its careful obedience to the moral law of God. And it is an obedience we are to render gladly, because He has redeemed us from the bondage of slavery to sin and death and hell through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 11, do you see, is about distinguishing grace. God's redeeming work is meant to make us different, to make us stand out, not blend in. Which means, of course, We have some hard questions to ask ourselves about our lives day by day. How distinctive are we really? Can anyone see in you, in me, the radical, renovating power of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ? Where is the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, against which there is no law. Do you stand out from the crowd? Do you? likeness to Christ in the office, in the classroom, in the living room ought to be at least as striking to our non-Christian friends and family as the Jewish kosher laws made the Jews throughout human history. Do the people in your life know that you follow Jesus? And can they see it in your daily habits, distinguishing grace. Now look with me at chapter 12, distinguishing grace in chapter 11, now chapter 12, generational grace. When a woman gave birth to a male child, she was unclean seven days, verse 2. The child is circumcised on the eighth day, verse 3. The mother is to remain under the requirements of ritual purification for an additional 33 days, verse 4. If she has a baby girl, those requirements are all doubled. And the implication of uncleanness after childbirth is that the mother is barred from touching or handling holy things and prohibited from participating in worship in the sanctuary. Now, why does childbirth bring uncleanness? Well, again, it's not entirely clear, and there are a range of opinions. Although fundamentally, I think the ritual here is symbolic of the fact that sin is generational, not just environmental. as the Westminster Shorter Catechism reminds us, all mankind descending from Adam by ordinary generation sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression. That's what this is about. We are guilty from the get-go Psalm 51, 5, "'Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.'" We are sinners as parents, and our children are sinners by birth, and so it's fitting that there should be some symbolic acknowledgement of that reality as these children enter the world. The mother is unclean because the life she brings into the world is a life already guilty and subject to sin and death. Matthew Henry, the Puritan commentator, suggests that the ritual seclusion that the mother was to undergo provided her with a vivid reminder of the curse back coming from Genesis 3, verse 16. In pain you shall bring forth children. That word pain refers not just to bodily pain, physical pain, it meant toil, sorrow, travail, trouble. And that's what she would experience. in these days of ritual seclusion. Because of Adam and Eve's sin, the propagation of the race, which should have been a cause of unmitigated joy, now has mixed throughout it pain and sorrow and weariness and uncleanness. Now, before you ask me at the door, nobody knows why the period for uncleanness for girls is twice as long as the period for boys. Nobody knows. There's certainly no suggestion here or in Scripture anywhere that women are of lesser value than men. That's not what's going on. But what this difference, I think, certainly does underscore is that men and women are not the same. by divine design. Different rules apply for a baby girl and for a baby boy because, Genesis 1.27, God created man in his image, in the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them. Everything about this ritual drives home that point at least. Men and women both share the image of God, equal in dignity and worth in his sight, and yet different in fundamental ways. Sometimes part of why we find texts like this so offensive today is that we have uncritically bought into the notion that the sexes are essentially interchangeable. But gender, according to God's holy Word, is not a free-floating idea mysteriously discerned and chosen for oneself. It is given by God in the basic genetic binary of maleness and femaleness, and whatever else it means, this ritual here in chapter 12 certainly underscores that distinction. It's a distinction very well worth remembering in these strange days in which we live. And now look at verses 6 through 8, the other half of chapter 12. A sacrificial offering was required at the conclusion of the period of purification. The mother was to bring a lamb for a burnt offering and a pigeon or a turtle dove for a sin offering. In verse 8, provision was made, if she was too poor to provide all of that, she could bring two turtle doves or two pigeons, one for the burnt offering, one for the sin offering. And in this way, we are told, the priest shall make atonement for her and she shall be clean. At baptisms in the Presbyterian church in America, we ask Christian parents Do you acknowledge your child's need of the cleansing blood of Christ and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit? And do you claim God's covenant promises in his or her behalf? And do you look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for his or her salvation as you do for your own? In many ways, this ritual here in Leviticus 12 is asking the same question of a mother. You need cleansing. and your child needs cleansing, and Jesus' blood alone can provide it. Luke to him, that's part of the message, surely. It is interesting to me that in Luke chapter Verses 22 through 24, Mary, the mother of our Lord, brought her son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to the temple after her own period of ritual purification, according to Leviticus 12. And you remember her offering? She brought a pair of turtle doves because she was too poor to afford a lamb. The great irony is that it was her own son who would be the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. The real source of her cleansing did not come from the blood of pigeons or doves. It came from His blood shed in her place at the cross. Here is the hope for you and for your children after you. It's not a worthy pedigree It's not a good upbringing. It's not a fine education. Your only hope for yourself and for your children lies in the blood of the Lamb. He, the Lord Jesus, only He, makes atonement and makes us clean. You need Jesus. I need Him. need Him. Pray them into His saving arms. Point them every day to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and make sure you get yourself to Him also. Distinguishing grace, generational grace, and then finally and briefly, infectious grace. In chapter 13, we have detailed instructions for the priests to help them determine whether a skin disease is infectious and makes a person unclean. In chapter 14, we have instructions for what the priest is to do once the disease has cleared up. After examination, there is an elaborate ritual prescribed in 14.4 through 20. for their cleansing. The blood of two clean birds is to be sprinkled on them. The blood of two lambs is smeared on the right earlobe, the right thumb, and the right big toe. So the whole person is symbolically cleansed, literally head to toe. In 21 through 32, provision is made for someone, just like in chapter 12, for someone who can't afford to do all of that. And in 33 through 57, a similar procedure is provided even for houses where mildew or mold has been found. Mold in a home was treated much like it was leprosy in a person. And then in chapter 15, it's not disease, but bodily emissions that make a person unclean, but just like an infectious disease, everything this person touches, every other person with whom they might come into contact, they make them unclean too. But after a week, after a discharge has ceased, such people are to bring two turtle doves or two pigeons for a sin offering and a burnt offering to the priest. He will make atonement for them and declare them to be clean again. In an ancient society, like the Israelites in the wilderness, you can see the wisdom of God in these regulations, can't you? If nothing else, these rules would certainly have protected the community from potential epidemics of infection and disease. But what to me is so very striking as you read through these rules, in the case both of infectious skin diseases in chapters 13 and 14, and bodily discharges in chapter 50, what's so striking is that the priest can't actually deal with the problem. He can't deal with the problem. All he can do is apply the sacrifices for ritual cleansing after the fact. once the problem has already resolved itself. Now, keep that in mind and listen to Matthew chapter 8, verses 1 through 4. Matthew 8, 1 through 4. When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed Him, and behold, a leper came to Him and knelt before Him, saying, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean." And Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, I will. Be clean. And immediately the leprosy was cleansed, and Jesus said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a proof to them. The priest can't do anything, but notice what I have done. Everybody who touches a leper becomes unclean. No one has likely touched this man for who knows how long. But Jesus touches him. And Jesus is not made unclean. He is not polluted. Instead, the man, the leper, is made clean. And it's no mere symbolic cleansing after the fact, is it? No, no, this man is made clean in his flesh. The source and not just the symbol is changed by the infectious grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Or listen to Matthew 9.20 with Leviticus 15 in mind. Behold, a woman who had suffered from, this is the language of Leviticus 15, who had suffered from a discharge of blood for 12 years, came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of his garment. For she said to herself, if I only touch his garment, I will be made well. Jesus turned and seeing her, he said, take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well. And instantly the woman was made well. According to Leviticus 15, she's been unclean for 12 years. Can you imagine? She's been excluded from worship for 12 years. No one has touched her, no one has hugged her, no one has held her hand for 12 years. Everything she wore, everything she touched, everybody with whom she had contact, She has contaminated everyone except Jesus. Jesus' holiness, His wholeness was infectious. He does what the law of Moses couldn't do. The law shows us how much we need cleansing, but it can't effect the cleansing. Jesus is the remedy. Jesus is the remedy. Friend, have you come to Jesus yet? Like the leper, your sin really has made you shut out from the presence of God. You can come to Him and say, Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean. Everyone who ever did that hears His answer, I am willing. Be clean. He will make you clean. He died under the curse that you might live under the bright sunshine of God's blessing. Come to Christ. He will make you clean. Come to Christ, you'll sing with Wesley. He breaks the power of reigning sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest clean, and His blood availed for me." Can you say that today? Come to Jesus, and you will. Let's pray together. O Lord our God, as we bow before You, we know, we know in the light of Your holy Word to us this morning that we are sinners by nature, sinners by inheritance from our first father Adam, sinners by culture and training, by environment and habit and preference, and we are in our bones. We are unclean. Would You wash us? and cleanse us, purge us with hyssop, and we shall be clean. Cleanse us and wash us and we shall be whiter than wool. O God, have mercy on us. How we praise you that there is a fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. a fountain flowing from the wounds of Jesus Christ. We come to Him to wash and be clean again. Forgive us. Save us. By Christ alone we pray. Amen.