Third Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 7:1–38 — Leviticus Series November 14, 2021 Let's open with prayer. Our Father, we’re just so thankful You give us the opportunity, once again, on this morning, brisk air, beautiful foliage, reminder, not only of the changing of the seasons, but of our own temporality. Father, recognizing that we, too, are like these leaves Father, we pray to receive as much of your Word as we may until that day when we see You face to face. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. So, as we're studying Leviticus and we are studying the law as it was given to Israel in preparation for Israel's arrival in the land of promise, as we are looking word by word and line by line through this amazing book in which we see a yearning for Christ that we immediately recognize. We have seen it in so many different aspects. First of all, just in the sense of sin and guilt, it brings about the necessity of the entire sacrificial system, and then of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of humanity that cries out for some remedy. There has to be some rescue and that rescue cannot come from the human center. The rescue has to come from God Himself. Is there anything I can do, guys? Is there anything here? Okay. The yearning for atonement actually becomes very clear, as we saw as we got to chapters five and six, where the priest makes atonement. And there's the promise of an atonement, a peace with God, the problem of our sin and our guilt being removed. That raises the issue of the guilt, and, as it turns out, the guilt is not just a subjective experience of feeling and perceiving one's sinfulness. It is the actual objective reality that our sin creates this affront to God that He cannot accept. But we see it over and over again because it happens over and over again, the sacrifices. By the time you get to chapter seven in Leviticus, we have the recognition that this is the daily life of Israel. This is the center of the daily life of Israel. The daily life of Israel is largely consumed in the process of these sacrifices. And you say, well, this is where the Levitical priesthood. Yes. But notice who's bringing all these animals to the Levitical priests and notice how the preparation, the actual conducting of these sacrifices is going to require the attention of the people. And there are certain sacrifices in which all the people are called to draw near. We're going to see one of those this morning in chapter seven. We've also seen, and this is perhaps the greatest theological insight thus far as we're going through Leviticus. We've also recognized that for all of the atonement that is promised, for all of the effect of the sacrifices, for all of the sin that is dealt with here, nothing is dealt with permanently, and the priest needs a priest. And that's also going to become more clear. Now, we have chapter seven before us, and after that, of course, chapter eight. Chapter eight's a decisive break in the book of Leviticus. So, after chapter eight, that is starting with chapter eight, we will be looking at instructions directly to the priesthood, which means that even as God called to Moses and spoke to Moses, this is instruction for all of Israel. And that includes chapter eight and what follows. This is not just given for the priests. It's not a secret knowledge. Something else is really important. There is no secret priest book in Judaism. There is no secret preacher book in Christianity. Now that needs to be understood because over against the various priesthoods of paganism, there is almost universally—and I don't think I actually need the ‘almost’—there is practically universally, a secret meaning, a secret code, a secret cultus known to the priesthood and not known to the people. That's a part of the priesthood’s powers, a part of the priesthood’s stewardship is that they know things. They have access to truths. They know ancient books, ancient writings, ancient authorities. They know how to read ancient stones. Whatever it is, they have knowledge that the people don't have. Have you noticed that that's not true of Israel? I mean, have you noticed that in Genesis and in Exodus, and we'll see it everywhere in Scripture. But in other words, it doesn't just come to us in Leviticus, but it comes to us in a big way in Leviticus, because we recognize how different this is than a traditional priesthood. A traditional priesthood is not only set apart, it is a cult unto itself. And what it does is the cultus, and the priesthood is usually entered by some form of initiation in which you enter as a novice and as a novice, you are taken into the mysteries in an ever deeper way. You see this in Buddhism, for example, in most of its classic forms. But even in ancient paganism, such as the Canaanite religions, there's every reason to believe that the priests knew things that the people were never to know. That is just not the case in Israel. The law is given to Israel. The law is not given to the priest. There are instructions to the priest in the law given to Israel, but every single member of the covenant people has equal access to God's Word, equal access to these instructions. Now, as you fast forward in biblical history, then you go to a couple of things that become very clear in the New Testament, and especially in the writings of the apostle Paul, because he will say, “At various times there is a mystery, but it's the mystery we proclaim to you.” So, in other words, it's only a mystery to the unbelieving world. The gnosis, the epistemological tribal reality, is the entire people. The gnosis is given to the entire people, not just to the priesthood. This sets Israel apart. And not only that, it's a public book, which means even though the knowledge is given to Israel as a part of God's covenant gift, it's shared with others. The Torah was not something secreted away. It eventually became known. And of course, we have a relationship to it in which we speak of it in terms of Old and New Covenant, Old and New Testament. This gets back to the fact that, as the reformers had to make very clear, based upon the clear verdict of the Holy Spirit led earliest church, based upon the teaching of the apostles, based upon what they had received from Christ, all of Scripture belongs to the church. The church is accountable to all of Scripture. But as we are in Leviticus, coming to chapter seven, this is the continuation, and indeed the conclusion, of the opening section of Leviticus, about the nature of the sacrifices, the nature of the offerings. In chapter seven, verse one, we read, “This is the law of the guilt offering. It is most holy.” Now wait just a minute! In the previous chapter, we had details about the guilt offering. Yes. And so, one of the things that we will find is that there's, it's not just the repetition. A lot of this language by now is quite familiar to us. It is also the fact that there are different questions answered in different portions of Leviticus. Who—that is, who is to do this? The priest, in one case the high priest. Who is to do this? When is it to be done? Well, when the sin happens, when the sin happens, when someone's expressing thanksgiving, et cetera. The how is very important. Chapter seven says in verse two, “In the place where they kill the burnt offering, they shall kill the guilt offering, and its blood shall be thrown against the sides of the altar. And all its fat shall be offered, the fat tail, the fat that covers the entrails, the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys. The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering to the Lord; it is a guilt offering. Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy.” Now, remember that we have this, this kind of concentric set of circles, and the innermost circle is the Most Holy Place. So, as you think about even the geography or the topography of the temple. But this is also related to Israel's own identity and experience—there's a ‘holy’. Then there's a ‘most holy’, in the New Testament often referred to as the Holy of Holies. Well, when you see the phrase ‘most holy thing’, that means particularly set apart. Now, that also means that Israel is issued a particular warning, lest Israel handle most holy things in a way that is unworthy. In verse six, “Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy. The guilt offering is just like the sin offering; there is one law for them [both]. The priest who makes atonement with it shall have it. And the priest who offers any man's burnt offering shall have for himself the skin of the burnt offering that he has offered. And every grain offering baked in the oven and all that is prepared on a pan or [in] a griddle shall belong to the priest who offers it. And every grain offering, mixed with oil or dry, shall be shared equally among all the sons of Aaron.” So again, a lot going on here. But in the sin offering and the guilt offering, which we are told follows one law, so it is one pattern. The priest who performs a sacrifice, eats the meat of the sacrifice—that is allowed to him. And remember, that's a restricted amount of the animals, we shall see. What's also important here is that the skin of the animal sacrificed is given to that priest. These skins are very, very important. You'll remember in the book of Genesis when Adam Eve in their embarrassment, after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they made—you got to love the Geneva Bible in its modesty—they made ‘aprons for themselves’. And they did make aprons for themselves, but they were made out of leaves. They were not going to be very substantial. And remember, after the Lord confronted them in their sin, a part of th
