Friday, January 13, 2012

New Testament relevance of commands in Leviticus

So, how should Christians apply the commands and instructions found in Leviticus (and other Old Testament books for that matter)?  Copied below is a section from the Introduction to Leviticus in The ESV Study Bible on the relevance for Leviticus today (Crossway, 2008) p. 212-213.  Here is a link to the article on the ESV Study Bible on-line site.

NT relevance of commands in Leviticus. 
What do these legislative texts of Leviticus have to do with the church today? At this point, only a broad picture may be presented, and it will be painted in three brushstrokes, merely offering examples of the value of Leviticus for the Christian believer.

First, the sacrificial system of Leviticus has ceased for the people of God; it has been fulfilled in the coming of Christ (cf. Heb. 9:1–14, 24–28; 10:1–14). Yet studying these laws is important because they enable the reader to understand how the work of Christ saves people, since the sacrifices point to different aspects of the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice of himself.

Second, the festal calendar of Israel enumerated in Leviticus (Lev. 23:1–44) has strongly shaped the Christian church’s traditional calendar. The three main national pilgrim feasts of Israel are the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Harvest, and the Feast of Booths. For those churches that follow the traditional calendar, these celebrations find their climax in Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost. To fully understand the Christian celebrations, one must see their initial purpose in the OT. At the same time, some aspects of the legislation in Leviticus (such as the laws regulating clean and unclean foods) had the goal of separating Israel from the other nations. Although this separation has been done away with in the Christian era, these laws still teach the people of God to be morally clean (see note on 11:1–47).

Third, the entire Levitical Holiness Code (chs. 17–27) deals with sanctification, i.e., the idea of holiness affecting how one lives in the covenant community. The NT applies to Christians the same principle of life stated in Leviticus 11:44, “be holy, for I am holy” (quoted in 1 Pet. 1:16). In fact, many of the moral requirements reflected in the Holiness Code reveal the kinds of moral conduct that are still either pleasing or displeasing to God (cf., e.g., Lev. 19:11–18, 35–36). On the other hand, several details of the Holiness Code concern more symbolic aspects of holiness that should no longer be followed in the Christian era (such as laws prohibiting garments of two kinds of cloth, 19:19; prohibiting the shaving of the edges of one’s beard, 21:5; and excluding people with physical defects from presenting offerings, 21:17–23). Further, the NT envisions a people of God that transcends national boundaries, and thus it dissolves the bond between the specifically theocratic system of government that was OT Israel. Therefore, current civil governments need not replicate the civil laws specific to the Mosaic theocracy (such as capital punishment for adultery in 20:10 or for blasphemy in 24:16, or the Sabbath year and Jubilee year in 25:1–22), although of course all governments must pursue justice (and Leviticus may certainly help Christians develop their notions of justice).

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