God’s Glory Through the Law
Leviticus 19, Matthew 5:17-48, 1 Peter 1:13-21
The Law of God gets a pretty bad reputation in the world today. If I am tabling on campus, and someone approaches us clearly looking to pick a fight with the church group, they are almost always coming to me quoting some passage from Leviticus, or Deuteronomy. “Do you really think your God is worth following if he treats women who are slaves differently than free women (Leviticus 19:20-22)?” But it isn’t just outside of the church that the law gets a bad reputation–I can’t count the number of jokes we make in our church about how we don’t read the law or how leviticus is our “favorite book” when the reality is we haven’t cracked it open since we quit our “read through the Bible in a year plan” halfway through Leviticus 2. We have little to no value for the books of the law in the Old Testament, and if we are honest the concept of God’s law in and of itself is a huge barrier for us. We are constantly caveating to our friends that Christianity isn’t really about following a bunch of rules (which is true, mostly), and bristling any time anyone sets out a page of regulations for us as members of the body of Christ. “Doesn’t this ownership commitment/leadership commitment/huddle conversation about the spot in my life that is sin/sermon on submission of our sexual desires (or health habits or time management or relationships with our friends or commitment to discipleship) to the will and way of Jesus seem just a little legalistic to you?” See, I think in our right efforts to acknowledge our salvation by grace through faith as all sufficient we have made any mention of submission to the law of God seem pharisaical. We have thrown out not just the books of the law, but also obedience to the will of God, because they seemed antiquated and antithetical to the purpose of God in the world. And this couldn’t be further from the truth!
Before we see Israel in Leviticus 19, a few things have already happened in their story. They had been ransomed from a life as slaves in Egypt to a life as free people, and God had come to make his home with them, filling a tent at the center of their camp with his manifest presence. The law that is given in Leviticus comes after that moment and it existed for one aim–to make them holy, like God so that they might make the glory of God evident to the nations around them; They realized that if God was going to live in their midst then every part of their life, from the clothes they wore to the people who they slept with and the way they treated their neighbor needed to be transformed. Every bit of their life had to make it clear, this was a set apart people, they had been purchased by God and so they lived and acted like the glorious and good God who ransomed them. And if an Israelite asked why in the world it mattered that they looked different, and that their life was transformed into a holy one, the response was simple: “I am the LORD” and “you shall be holy for I the LORD your God am holy.” They were told that they needed to be transformed because of who God was, and while our lives may look a whole lot different than that of the ancient Israelites, our God hasn’t changed, and neither have his standards. See, while we may not have rules about how we trim our hair or how much blood can be in our meat, Jesus by no means abandons the instruction of God. In fact he embraces, explains and escalates the commands of God! When Jesus is explaining how we should live in his longest teaching in the New Testament, he goes above and beyond the standards set by the law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and tells us that each of us should not relax those commands, but should embrace them, and teach others to do likewise! And, as we ask why, why should we follow these new even more difficult commands, he responds the same way his Father does “you therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” See, Jesus and the Father know that God is perfect, he is glorious, and his law is right, and they want the people of God to display that to the rest of the world. They want it to be clear that God is glorious and worthy of our obedience from the way we live our lives. Our acknowledgement of the commands of God and obedience to them magnify the glory of God to a world that refuses to acknowledge him; and if we ignore the commands of God, the very words from his mouth, do we really display a belief in a perfect and glorious God or do we show that we think of God as so insignificant we can ignore him? Peter I think sums this up the best in his letter to first century churches. He starts by making it clear that us being made holy, while guaranteed by the grace of Jesus, also means that we should become like obedient children. And when pressed why we should be made holy, Peter elaborates a bit more. He says “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ”. For Peter it is clear. God has ransomed us and is living in us now, and we acknowledge and affirm just how precious the blood of Jesus is by our obedience to him–we show its inherent worth and value, its glory, when we have lives that treasure that gift and the transformation it brings above our personal preferences and our anti-authority attitude.
Wonder:
Do you find yourself obeying God in light of his goodness and glory or out of some other motivation (impressing leaders, trying to earn favor etc.)? Why?
Where in your life do you need to obey God out of reverence to the good and glorious God who bought you with the precious blood of Christ?
