20. The Cross in Leviticus
The Cross in Leviticus
Let us turn to Leviticus, and see that in Leviticus 1:1 God is in the tabernacle and is speaking to the people from the place of indwelling. Now what is the message of Leviticus? The key verse is usually taken to be Leviticus 19:2, “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.” Now join with that Leviticus 26:12, “And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.”
Leviticus claims the closest connection between God and His redeemed and delivered people. But what is God? “I am holy,” God says, and therefore He requires a holy people. The offerings mentioned in the first seven chapters of this book speak of the perfection of relationship which existed between God and His divine Son, and the perfection of relationship which He insists shall exist between Himself and His human sons.
In Leviticus 11:45 you will get the link between Leviticus and Exodus, “For I am the Lord that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” It shows that the aim of God with His people was not the mere deliverance of them from the taskmasters of Egypt, but it was that they might become holy so that He should be able to walk among them and be their God and call them His people. The aim of divine deliverance from sin is holiness of life.
All the teaching of the New Testament proves that if God is to be at the back of things, of men, as Genesis shows, is to indwell the believer as Exodus reveals, life must be impregnated and guided by the Spirit of holiness, and therefore the call of Leviticus, just as it is the call of the cross, is for a people separated unto God, separated from everything that can displease Him and hinder the outworking of His purpose (2 Corinthians 6:16). “What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God ….” And Leviticus reveals this to us, that there are two factors in that great work of separation—the blood and the oil.
Now the distinct command of God inExodus 30:32is, “Upon man’s flesh shall it [the oil] not be poured.” InLeviticus 8:23we see on whom the oil was to be poured, upon the one on whose hand and foot and ear the blood had come. What is the teaching of the New Testament? It is very important to notice this. The Holy Spirit never separates to God the flesh, He never separates to God the old man, He never separates to God the uncrucified soul. It is only when the flesh, the old man, has gone to the cross, and the attitude of death on our part to the forms and demands of the self life is taken up and maintained, that the Holy Spirit can fill and possess and sanctify the believer. That is the message of the cross inRomans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” The point of contact for the Holy Spirit is the cross, and if you and I ever get away from the cross we get away from the Holy Spirit.