Perrydox.com is devoted to the pursuit of truth, whether plain or paradoxical, whether simple or sublime, or simply absurd yet absolute.
Leviticus 1:1 – Location, Location, Location
Location, location, location. Those are the three rules of real estate. Sometimes the most innocuous statement can have great meaning. Sometimes from where something is said is as important as what is said. Would anyone deny where Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech gave the speech even more gravitas both historically and relevancy?
In Exodus, God speaks to Moses from a burning bush. Then God speaks from a burning mountain. Then Leviticus opens with these simple little words – Then the LORD summoned Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting (Leviticus 1:1 HCSB). This is the beginning of the Tabernacle being finished. Exodus ends with God filling the Tabernacle and Leviticus begins with God speaking from His new “home.” This location is important for another reason. Where is Israel located at the time of Leviticus? Are they marching towards Canaan? No. They are still at Mt. Sinai. But God has come down.
“Before this, a distant God has spoken from ‘the mount that burned with fire;’ but now – as we see at the end of Exodus – the Tabernacle is erected ‘according to the pattern showed in the mount,’ and a God who dwells among His people in fellowship with them speaks ‘out of the Tabernacle. The people, therefore, are not addressed as sinners distanced from God, like those of other nations, but as being already brought into a new relationship, even that of fellowship, on the ground of a blood-sealed covenant.” (J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore the Book, Leviticus, p.116)
In Exodus, God comes down to Egypt to bring out His people with a strong hand. Then He brings His people to His Mountain, a mountain Israel cannot touch. Finally, God comes down from the Mountain, leaving the isolating and formidable mountain. God is now in their midst, among His people. Israel is home even before they reach the Promise Land. God speaks from His new home among His people.
Leviticus is about being in God’s presence through the sacrifices within the Tabernacle, and through holiness by remaining morally and ceremonially clean. While we can get bogged down in the rituals and rules, the blood and the gore, ultimately the message is, “be holy for I am holy.” God is now in fellowship with Israel, and all the boring details are really about being holy, by blood and death, and by living God’s way. God is “from above and without” and is now “from within.” Man’s holiness “from within” leads to how he lives “from without.” God is living among His people and that determines how His people will live among Him. Location, location, location.
Comments