The Holiness of God

I have never read through the entire Bible from cover to cover. I have done tons of Bible Studies, but I have never completely read the Bible. About a year ago I decided that enough was enough and I needed to get to it and get the Bible read. My goal was to have it finished by the end of 2007. I'm not even close. But that is OK, because I have spent many months of 2007 facilitating Bible Studies that were all very edifying. And just being a mom has taken up a lot of my time. But I'm not giving up, I'm still going to get it all read.

By the way, I really think that Christians should spend more time reading the actual Bible, and less time reading books written about the Bible or inspired by the Bible. Those books are usually excellent and can be very helpful. But I have found that the Holy Spirit has blessed my actual reading of scripture much more than my reading of someone else's interpretation of scripture. They are both good, but one is better.

So anyway, in my quest to read the whole Bible, I read through Leviticus the other night. I hope you have read it too. (I was talking about it in a MOPS group yesterday and I got a bunch of blank stares. Oh well! ) Leviticus deals primarily with the ceremonial law that God established during the time of Moses. It is really specific and very weird to an evangelical Christian living in the 21st century. But like all scripture, there are many lessons to be taken from it. Consider these two passages.

Leviticus 8:18-21

"Then he brought the ram as the burnt offering. And Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram, and Moses killed it. Then he sprinkled the blood all around on the altar. And he cut the ram into pieces; and Moses burned the head, the pieces, and the fat. Then he washed the entrails and the legs in water. And Moses burned the whole ram on the altar. It was a burnt sacrifice for a sweet aroma, an offering made by fire to the LORD, as the LORD had commanded Moses."

Leviticus 9:12-14

"And he killed the burnt offering; and Aaron's sons presented to him the blood, which he sprinkled all around the altar. Then they presented the burnt offering to him, with its pieces and head, and he burned them on the altar. And he washed the entrails and the legs, and burned them with the burnt offering on the altar."

Eew. Gross. I get queasy when my steak is too rare. While I was reading these passages (and I purposely tried to pick two of the more graphic passages) I just kept thinking about how disgusting I would find all this blood, and gore and cutting up of animal body parts. Really, this was not a grocery store package of meat neatly wrapped in plastic and sitting in a white styrofoam tray, complete with a pad underneath the meat to soak up any offensive looking blood. These were real live animals being slaughtered and cut up.

I imagine that the smell of blood would be overwhelming. They didn't live in a cold place that would naturally dampen down the smell of blood and body parts.

BUT, I bet they had a pretty good understanding of what sin was. They had a very graphic and up close view of the price that had to be paid for sin. Notice, that they would lay their hands on the head of the animal to be killed. It doesn't get any more up close than that. I doubt that they found these animals adorable and cuddly, the way that we sometimes think of animals in our culture, but still, the picture of what was necessary for atonement was very clear.

Blood and death were required in order for the people to approach God. And that blood and death was necessary because God is so holy. I think we lose that sometimes in our modern culture. We tend to focus so much on God's love and His grace, that maybe we don't spend enough time contemplating His holiness. I think both are essential to a clear understanding of God. You can't really appreciate His grace until you begin to comprehend his holiness.

That is why the Old Testament has been so intriguing to me. I feel like I have a good understanding of grace, but I need a better understanding of holiness. I will have to spend some time elaborating on that in another post. My little ones are going to be up soon.