Leviticus (Prologue)

This post is a part of a series of articles looking at the book of Leviticus. The aim of these articles is fore Christians to have clarity when coming to the book of Leviticus and have the Word of God come alive for them as they see Christ in all of Scripture.

This fall and next spring, our church is embarking on a sermon series straight through the book of Leviticus. There are many reasons for this, but primary is the need to understand the Old Testament as a part of Christian Scripture. In so doing, we understand that Leviticus, like the rest of the Bible, is about Jesus.

But the way Leviticus is about Jesus is not the same way the Gospels or Romans is about Jesus. You won’t find his name printed in Leviticus anywhere. Rather, Jesus is present in Leviticus through types and shadows. That is, when we look at the sacrifices in the first few chapters, we really see sacrifices. But those sacrifices are shadows of something greater, namely Christ.

It’s important that we not forget that shadows are real things. They aren’t imaginary or conjured up. However, shadows are unclear things. Anyone who has ever made shadow puppets with a flashlight knows that something can look like a dog on the wall but is really a hand in front of a flashlight. So we should understand that while the shadows in Leviticus 1 are real, they are not ultimate.

This is the foundation for a Christian interpretation of the book of Leviticus. In fact, the same principles are applied when you read a book like Hebrews, which is a Christological interpretation of parts of the Bible like Leviticus.

So consider the following three principles for interpreting Leviticus before I make some comments on Leviticus 1.

1) What the text meant is not what the text means.

No one should feel led to bring a bull to the temple after reading Leviticus as Christian Scripture. While under the Old Covenant, Israel had to obey these commands. But now, in light of Christ, what the text meant for them is not what they meant for us. Rather, we are to see the Old Testament sacrificial system as an arrow or a pointer to Christ and his greater sacrifices.

2) The Grammatical-Historical method alone is insufficient to see Levticus’s meaning.

It is sometimes common to hear Bible commentators reference “authorial intent.” That is, what Moses intended to say to his original audience in Leviticus is what the original audience needs to hear today. Proponents of authorial intent often use what is called the Grammatical-Historical method to discern what the text really meant to its original audience. The Grammatical-Historical method looks at the original language, the usage of the text, the historical context, and other lexical tools to seek to discern meaning. Amazing advances have been made in Bible interpretation using the Grammatical-Historical method. However, this alone is not sufficient for a book like Leviticus. Why? Because there are things we don’t know historically and cannot find out. There are nuances in grammar that would have only been known to people living in that day and age that are lost to history forever. Finally, because that is not the way Jesus taught his disciples to read their Bibles.

3) Luke 24 is foundational for Old Testament interpretation.

How did Jesus read His Old Testament? Luke 24 tells us:

Luke 24:27 (ESV)

27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

For the Christian, the goal of studying Leviticus is not to have a better understanding of how the sacrifices worked in the Old Covenant. Rather, the goal is to see how Jesus is a better sacrifice than those of the Levitical order. When we read Leviticus, our hearts should swell with love for Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

One commentator from the 1800’s, Andrew Bonar, seems to take this approach in his commentary on Leviticus. Many modern commentators, however, seem to have stopped short of this kind of Christological exegesis. While there is much help in those commentaries as they exist, a more modern Christological approach could have a great benefit for the people of God.

This my aim in the following articles on the blog on the book of Leviticus. I pray God helps you through them.