The following is a sermon preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi. Please take your copies of God's Word in your hands. Turn with me, if you're using a church Bible, to page 99 and 100. as we continue to examine the teaching of the book of Leviticus. The final section of the book, chapters 17 through 26, is seeking to answer the question, how then should we live in light of the sacrifices in chapters 1 through 16 that secure forgiveness for sinners? chapters 21 and 22, which are the subject of our attention this morning, direct us to the holiness that God requires of His priests, those who minister in the tabernacle. These are men set apart for the holy ministry, and so naturally they have something to say to those who today continue whom God continues to call into full-time Christian work and Christian service. Of course, in the New Testament age, among God's people, we no longer have a special class or caste of Levitical priests. It's not that there are no priests, you understand. Rather it is, if we are believers in Jesus Christ, we are all priests now. God has made us, Revelation 5.10, a kingdom and priests to our God. And so, understood in the light of the work of Christ, these chapters speak not only to those who are engaged in full-time Christian ministry, and they certainly do that, but they have a good deal to say to all of us, as together as followers of Christ we seek to live devoted lives for His praise and glory. Of course, the ultimate message of these verses isn't about us at all. but they speak to us of our great and final priest. They preach Christ to us. And unless we can see him here, rest on him here, whatever other lessons we may legitimately draw will do us no good at all. And so with all of that in mind and those three lines of application in view, let's look together at the text. I want you to see with me three aspects of priestly holiness that are especially emphasized in this part of Leviticus. First, there's holiness in the relationships that the priests conduct. then there's holiness in the qualities that the priests embody, and finally there's holiness in the activities, the business that the priests perform." So these are the three things—holiness in the relationships they conduct, in the qualities they embody, and in the activities that they perform. That's where we're going. Before we get to all of that, however, let's bow our heads and then we'll read some selected portions of these two chapters together. Let us all pray. Lord our God, Your Word is living and active and sharper than a double-edged sword, and it pierces, penetrates to the division of joints and marrow, soul and spirit. It lays us bare before Your gaze, and so we ask You that under your scrutiny, the scrutiny of your holy word, as the light of truth shines into our hearts and exposes much that we wish never saw the light of day at all, we ask you to draw near to us in mercy and grace and bring us back once again to the Lord Jesus, our great high priest, who in his obedience and blood has secured pardon for sinners like us, and resting on him, cause us to go in His name as a kingdom and priests to our God, to live for Your glory before the eyes of the watching world. Do this, we pray now, by Your Word and Spirit in all our hearts, for the glory of the name of Christ, in whose name we ask it. Amen. Leviticus 21, at verse 1, this is the Word of God. And the Lord said to Moses, speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, no one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people, except for his closest relatives, his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother, or his virgin sister who is near to him, because she has had no husband. For her he may make himself unclean, he shall not make himself unclean as a husband among his people, and so profane himself. They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts on their body. They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. For they offer the Lord's food offerings, the bread of their God, therefore they shall be holy. They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled, neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God. You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy. And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father, she shall be burned with fire." Then skip down to verse 16, "'And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron, saying, None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near a man blind or lame or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles, no man of the offspring of Aaron, the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord's food offerings. Since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things, but he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries. for I am the Lord who sanctifies them." And then chapter 22, picking up the reading at verse 31. So you shall keep my commandments and do them. I am the Lord. and you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord. Amen. Last week I was sitting at my desk in my study at home when I got a call from a sergeant at the Hinds County Sheriff's Department. He was, of course, he was looking for my wife. She wasn't home at the time. He explained it was imperative that he speak with her as soon as possible on an urgent confidential legal matter. He gave me an identification number. He asked me to have her call him at her earliest possible convenience. It felt really heavy, but something about the call just seemed off. And so I called the Heinz County Sheriff's Department and got about six words into my explanation when the officer on the phone interrupted me, sir, let me stop you right there. This is a scam, it's been happening a lot lately, and you need to disregard it completely. Well, needless to say, I was relieved. Sheena, who thought she was about to get arrested and sent to a prison in El Salvador, she was really relieved. But I have to tell you, this guy on the phone, he was convincing. He had a tone of authority. He had the vocabulary down. He was persuasive. He sounded like the real thing. When these chapters before us this morning were first written, there were pagan priests serving the false gods of the nations all around ancient Israel. How can you tell the real thing from the counterfeit? How were the priests of the one true living God to be distinguished from those of the nations? And still today, in the church of Jesus Christ, there are false teachers, aren't there? And there are many who have become skilled at putting on a show in public, but who have lived secret lives of wickedness and moral compromise. And we need to be aware of the counterfeit. We need to know how to spot the scam. We need to know the marks of a leader whom God has truly called. Leviticus 21 and 22 can help us to do that. Let's look at them together. First of all, I want you to consider with me the holy relationships that God's servants conduct, the holy relationships they conduct. In 21, 1 through 4, you'll see that priests are to avoid ritual uncleanness through proximity to a dead body, unless, of course, it is the body of a close relative, a wife, a child, a parent, a brother, although in verse 11, the high priest was given even more restrictive requirements. He wasn't even allowed to contract ritual uncleanness in the case of the deceased of his own immediate family, not his parents or his children or his spouse. Now that, to us at least at first glance, seems painfully exclusionary, even hurtful, doesn't it? We want our ministers to be with us when the people we love die, don't we? And we can't imagine telling someone else that they were not allowed to be with their own loved ones in such circumstances. But it might help us feel a bit more sympathy for these rules when we realize that the priests of the various pagan cults all around Israel considered it part of their role to attempt to transcend the fixed boundary that God has put in place between life and death. They sought to contact the dead. And as we've worked through this part of Leviticus, Over and again we've seen the law of God prohibiting the use of mediums and the practice of necromancy. These were the things that the pagan priests trafficked in, dealing with the dead which, by the way, is why verse 5, the priests were not to make bald patches on their heads or shave off parts of their beards or make cuts in their bodies. These were the behaviors of the pagans during their funerary rituals. But Israel's priests were forbidden to contract uncleanness from the dead or to join in any of the rituals of pagan mourning because they were to be the custodians of true worship and the honor of the name of the one true God. And so they were to conduct themselves in such a way that all could see that they were the real thing. in contrast to the counterfeits of the world. And so, verse 6, they shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God, for they offer the Lord's food offerings, the bread of their God, therefore they shall be holy. God's ministers then and now are to be distinctively, manifestly, wholly, and separate from the world. They're not to traffic in the world's counterfeits. That's part of the lesson here, certainly. But steering clear of the uncleanness of death also served to underscore the point that God's priests at this time were meant to be ministers of life. Kingdom life, redeeming life, the life of fellowship with God by His grace. Life was their sphere. But remember, these are still ordinary men, weak men, sinners. All they could do as ministers of life, all they could do is avoid death, stay away from death. They couldn't really do anything about death. As ministers of life, the best they could do is stay in the realm of life and stay away from death. But when God's final priest the true and perfect minister of life, the Lord Jesus Christ, came at last. You remember, He never shrank from contact with the dead when the demands of gospel love required it, did He? You might remember the account in Luke chapter 7 where Jesus went to the town of Nain. And Luke says, a man who had died was being carried out. This is his funeral procession. The only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, do not weep. And then he did something extraordinary. Luke says, he came up and touched the beer, They were carrying the body, and he touched the beer on which the body was set, and Luke says, the bearers stood still. The music stopped. Nobody moved. The crowd held its breath. He touched the beer. They're looking at each other in astonishment and perplexity. hardly able to believe what they were seeing. Was Jesus really making himself unclean? What kind of holy man does that? It was a shocking moment. And then Jesus spoke to the deceased man. Young man, I say to you, arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all. And they glorified God, saying, a great prophet has arisen among us, and God has visited His people. You see, Jesus is the true final High Priest of whom all the others before Him in the law of Moses were mere pictures and types and shadows. And unlike all of them, uncleanness cannot contaminate him, no, it's his cleanness that is infectious. His indestructible life makes death work in reverse. The living One, the Lord of life, chases death away with a word and a touch. The best the law of Moses could do was forbid the Levitical priests from contact with the dead. But it couldn't reverse death. Only Jesus does that. He is the resurrection and the life. He makes the dead to live. Imagine being an ancient Israelite and you're, you know, the family priest And someone you love dearly has died, and the family priest isn't allowed to come and comfort you, isn't allowed to be in the home where your loved one has been laid out for, we would say, for visitation. He's not allowed to be there. It's heartbreaking, painful. But Jesus Christ is our perfect priest. And by his own death and resurrection, he has defeated death. While the Levitical priests had to stay away, Jesus draws near. He presses close to us in our grief and in our sorrow. He comforts us with his presence and by his Word. We do not have a Savior. a high priest who is aloof and distant, withdrawing from us in our most urgent moments of need, unable to sympathize in our weaknesses. No, he is one who comes near, to whom we can turn, on whom we may rely, who is full of grace and compassion for us. He has Himself tasted death and triumphed over the grave and brought life and immortality to light, and so when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, as we all must do at some time or another, now, because of Jesus, we need fear no evil. He is risen indeed, and He promises to all who live and believe in Him that they shall never die. And when our loved ones fall asleep in Jesus, although we do still mourn now, we do not mourn like the pagans who have no hope. We have the hope of glory because of Christ, our perfect priest. And so the priests were to be holy in their funerary practices. They were also to be holy, notice, in their marital practices. Look at the text again. The rank-and-file priests are addressed in verse 7, the high priest in verses 13 through 15. They are forbidden to marry prostitutes or divorcees. The concern here is for the moral integrity and public credibility of the priest's household. They are engaged, remember, in ministry, and their homes and families, as well as their own lives, are to be examples to the flock. And you'll notice in verse 9, the priest's daughter is especially warned about prostitution. Now, at first glance, these warnings seem a bit extreme to us, even a bit far-fetched. I mean, at least I find it hard to imagine a scenario from our contemporary vantage point where a command forbidding a minister's daughter to turn to prostitution would really even be necessary. But again, keep the ancient Near Eastern context in mind. Temple prostitution was part of the worship of the pagan fertility cults. It went along with the lifestyle and customs of the pagan priesthood. They would have been considered a perfectly suitable role for a pagan priest's daughter. But once again, God's priests were not to be like them. Among them, marriage was to be held inviolable. Sexual chastity and purity were non-negotiable. The moral standards of a priest's household mattered for the credibility and effectiveness of his ministry. And we need to be clear, that standard has never been relaxed. They're not priests, of course, but the New Testament makes very similar points about the qualifications for office in the church of Jesus Christ, doesn't it? 1 Timothy 3 says a pastor or an elder is to be the husband of one wife, or as J.B. Phillips famously paraphrases that expression, he is to be a one-woman man. That's what we're looking for in elders and deacons and ministers of the Word. We're looking for one-woman men. And what's more, Paul says, he must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? And so sexual purity and marital fidelity and the godly leadership of children in the home are all part of the minimum requirements for anyone called to gospel ministry in the church of Jesus Christ. But these principles apply not just to spiritual leaders in the church, but of course they apply to the whole people of God, to you as well as to me. In Christ, remember, we are all a kingdom and priests to our God. Holiness at home, the sanctity and inviolability of marriage, sexual purity, the Christian nurture and moral instruction of our children, these things really matter. If we are to be holy and to serve the Lord faithfully and hold his name in honor and stand apart from the world, these are the issues on the very front line of the spiritual combat zone in which we find ourselves. And we need to hear the clear call of God to stand firm for godliness in those areas. And so that's the first thing that I want you to see in these chapters, holiness. in the relationships that God's servants must conduct. Then secondly, these chapters teach us about holiness in the qualities that God's servants embody. You'll notice that beginning in verse 16 of chapter 21 and really running right through verse 9 of chapter 22, there are two sets of issues that could exclude a priest from being able to fulfill his ministry and serve in the tabernacle. First, in chapter 20, 16 through 24, there were physical defects resulting either from injury or birth. These did not make him unclean, but they did make him ineligible to offer sacrifices. The second category, chapter 22, 1 through 9, has to do with contracting ritual uncleanness from a disease or an infection through bodily emissions or from contact with a dead body or from creatures that were considered themselves already unclean. Now, what are we supposed to do with all of that? Well, I find it helpful when you meet passages like this one that seem very culturally remote from where we are, I find it helpful to remember that the tabernacle and the priesthood and the sacrificial system and the various ritual requirements of the Mosaic law, they're designed to be a kind of picture book for the people of God in the Old Covenant. These various external rituals provided little vignettes, little living illustrations, tableaus, teaching vital spiritual truths. And so while we may not be required to fulfill the ritual requirements of the Mosaic law any longer, the spiritual truths they are designed to teach us do very much still obtain. And here, what we're being given is not a comment about the comparative worth or value of a special-needs person in ancient Israelite society. That's not the point. Rather, as one scholar puts it in Leviticus 21, physical integrity was viewed as symbolic of moral integrity. symbolic of moral integrity. That's what this is all about. It's meant to give Israel a picture, albeit a limited and imperfect one, of the moral perfection of the priest that God requires. God was teaching Israel that the one who is to come near to Him must be truly and completely holy. But now listen to this from another scholar. quote, no matter how many purity laws like this there are in the Old Testament, the reality is that there was no priest who was without defect. The author of the epistle to the Hebrews says, the law appoints men as high priests who are weak and who are beset with weaknesses. And so in one important sense, this call for physical perfection was an impossible law to fulfill. Everyone has physical flaws and weaknesses, which is sort of the point. This law is designed to flag the inability of even the holiest individual in Israelite society to perfectly conform to God's moral standard. Someone else is required, one without these flaws who was, as Hebrews 7, 26 through 28 puts it, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. who, as Hebrews 9.14 puts it, offers himself without blemish to God. All of this is preparing the people for, speaking to them about their need of the Lord Jesus Christ, a lamb without spot or blemish. And listen now, because of Jesus, our perfect High Priest, who offered himself without blemish to God because of him. Now, in his kingdom, all we blemished, broken souls, we're all welcome. We're welcome. In Luke 14, Jesus gives a parable. He likens the kingdom of God to a man who hosts a great banquet. All the invited guests refuse to come, and so the man tells his servants in Luke 14, 21 and 23, go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in, listen to the language, bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame. And the servant said, Sir, what you have commanded has been done, and still there is room. And the master said to the servant, Go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. Now, do you see something of the glory of the gospel there? Those who, when Jesus told this parable, would have been prohibited even from entering the temple precincts, the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame. They are brought, Jesus says, they are brought by His grace to far greater privilege. We can push our knees up under the banqueting table in the nearer presence of Almighty God Himself. because of Jesus Christ. Only Christ is a spotless, perfect man. Only He can do in truth at the cross what the priests symbolically performed on the altar in the tabernacle. But through Him, by faith in Him, the door of entry into the presence of God has been opened wide, so that all may come in. not just the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame, but sinners of every stripe and background and history and pedigree. And still there is room. It's a precious, a precious word, full of hope, isn't it? Still there's room. Still room for you at the Father's feast table. Still room right now, today. because Christ our perfect High Priest has opened the way. Come in. Come in and be welcome and join the feast." Instead of taking offense at what the easily triggered among us might on a superficial reading consider the political incorrectness of Leviticus 21 and 22, I want you to see the gospel picture that is really being painted here. I want you to look at the reality to which this is all meant to point you, and remember how Christ, the perfect priest, he was utterly ruined in body and soul at Calvary, lacerated and torn, battered and broken, bearing our infirmities. And so he was excluded and shut out and died accursed. so that we who are guilty, vile, and helpless might be welcomed in. The temple curtain was torn top to bottom, torn in two. The way was made open. The doors were flung wide so that you might be invited in. You invited in. Come to the banquet table. All things are ready. Still there is room, still. come to God in Jesus Christ. He will save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him. So the main point here is that God's priests must be perfect, which only Jesus can be. There is a secondary point that we mustn't miss before we move on. Since the outward physical integrity of the priests was meant to be symbolic of inner moral integrity, we need to let it register that the Scriptures everywhere insist on the highest standards of purity and moral integrity among those who aspire to sacred office. The New Testament, no less than the Old, calls for manifest, observable, growing personal holiness from men who wish to be God's ministers, elders, or deacons. It expects exemplary lives of Christian godliness from anyone and everyone, men and women both, who seek to be spiritual leaders or mentors or disciples or gospel servants in whatever capacity in His church. Let us guard our hearts lest we begin to use the clear connections to the perfections of Christ in this passage as a way to let ourselves off the hook. This passage does point us to Him, but it also reminds us that we who speak in His name and serve in His name and minister in His name, we must strive by all the means of God's appointment to become like Him. in heart and word and works. Holiness in the relationships God's servants must conduct. Holiness in the qualities God's servants embody. And finally, and very briefly, notice what we learn about holiness in the activities God's servants perform. In chapter 22, 10 through 16, There are some rules about who is entitled to eat the priestly portions of food. Only members of the priest's extended household are entitled to eat it. And then in 17 through 33, there's a list of regulations about which animals may be selected for sacrifice in the tabernacle. And at first glance, this last section, 17 through 33, seems like it doesn't entirely fit with everything else. So far, it is the priests who are being addressed about their behavior, and now suddenly we're back to thinking about sacrificial animals, until you realize that the food the previous section is talking about comes from these sacrifices. It was a portion of this meat these priests were to consume. So these sections do actually belong together. But what's much more important to see is that the list of physical defects that might exclude an unclean animal from sacrifice exactly mirrors and maps onto the defects that would prohibit a priest from serving in the tabernacle. It's not enough that the priest must be perfect, the sacrifice must be perfect So, no shortcuts in the offering that you bring to God. No getting rid of the lame or the sick and the flock or the herd by presenting them to the Lord at the temple. No disposing of the runt of the litter. In fact, Malachi 1.14, God rebukes the priests for doing exactly that. Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock and vows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished. In worship, we are to bring to God our best. When it comes to the way the people of God serve Him and praise Him, we mustn't bring to Him our second best, not an afterthought, not the dregs and leftovers of our energy, our attention, our affection. You might need to go to bed earlier on Saturday night. You might need to rise a little earlier on Sunday morning to quiet your heart and open the Scriptures and seek His face. to come ready to give yourself, not just your words but your very self, our bodies, Romans 12. Living sacrifice is holy and acceptable to God. But like all the rest of this chapter, these verses point us finally not to our work for God at all. They point us once again to Christ, not just our perfect priest but our perfect sacrifice. who offered himself without blemish to God. 1 Peter 1.9 speaks of the blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish. Here's the message. Here's the message of Leviticus 22, 17 through 33. Here it is. Are you ready? Guilty, vile, and helpless we. Spotless Lamb of God was He. Full atonement. Can it be Hallelujah, what a Savior. That's the message. Do you see it in all its beauty? Come, the invitation is extended, still there's room for you, room for you to come and be reconciled to God. We are to be holy in the relationships we conduct, in the qualities we embody, and in the activities we perform. But our holiness is only ours in Christ. and there is no lack in Him, no imperfection in His work. He is priest and sacrifice both. Everything you need is in Him. Look to Him. Rest on Him. May the Lord help us to do just that, let us pray. Our God and Father, how we bless You for Christ, who is priest and sacrifice both, perfect in all His words and works, in His person and perfections. We adore You for Him. Teach us to cling to Him and rest on Him, to turn from sin and self and to hide ourselves in Him. Thank You that the lame and the blind and the crippled, sinners of every stripe, who would otherwise have been shut out are welcomed in. There is still room, even for us. Help us now, all of us, to hear His invitation and to come to you through Him. For Jesus' sake. Amen.