Alright, so Leviticus. Now, as I was saying before prayer, this isn't people's usually favorite book, right? They're like, I'd rather read almost anything in the Bible rather than Leviticus. Because, you know, there's some very strange stuff in there.
It's just happened a long time ago. These are laws from a long time ago from a religion that has been drastically changed since the destruction of the temple. I see you've got all this, because current Judaism doesn't have sacrifices. But you know, back then you've got all of these laws of sacrifices, very detailed descriptive, gory stuff.
If you're a hunter, it doesn't bother you at all. But if you are not a hunter, then having all these descriptions about the blood and the gore and the guts might turn your stomach a little bit. Then there's all these laws about cleanliness and holiness, things that make you impure like bodily fluids and puss and leprosy and things that you would think are very normal and blessed by God, which are like marriage and family. Like so if a woman gives birth and she's rendered impure unclean and she has to go through a purification process.
If you engage in sexual intercourse with your spouse, you're unclean. But these things are good, right? So why are they unclean? All of these things here.
Those are just a few examples, right? There's a lot of goody stuff in here. These are all examples of, wow, this book doesn't seem to be very relevant to me at all as a Christian, as a Catholic in the 21st century. Why would I read the book of Leviticus?
Because it just doesn't pertain. We don't have sacrifices in the mass, the mass is the holy sacrifice of Jesus. But what I mean by that is I don't come to mass and bring a goat and slaughter it there in the vestibule right there and then take the blood and spread it all over the altar. And it's a here father, here's a lamb.
Enjoy. You know, here's a lamb leg. Enjoy it. You've got bellowing smoke coming up.
We don't do any of this kind of stuff anymore. So how is it relevant? We're going to go through this first section of the notes here. Why do we study the book of Leviticus?
If it seems so distant and archaic. And so you're relevant. Why study at all? I'm going to give you a number of reasons why just to kind of start this off the right way.
Okay. So number one, and this is the most important reason, it is the inspired word of God. If we love scripture, we should love Leviticus because scripture, or Leviticus is part of scripture. And Paul will say very famously in 1 Timothy 3 15 or 3 16, all of scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work.
So he says all of scripture and that my friend includes Leviticus, right? So Leviticus also is inspired by God and it also is profitable for teaching for reproof correction and training righteousness that the man of God or woman of God may be complete. So the implication here is that if you're a disciple of Jesus Christ and you don't know Leviticus, at least in its fundamentals, you are incomplete. That's a pretty profound syllogism right there.
So if you love scripture, you've got to even Leviticus. Now, granted, you might love other books more than Leviticus. We have our favorite books. We have our favorite scripture passages.
And you might love the gospel of John more than Leviticus. I happen to love John more than Leviticus, but I also love Leviticus because of what it teaches me about the gospel of John. And that actually brings us to this next point. So Leviticus is at the background of so much of the New Testament.
The law of Moses in general, yes, we can apply these same principles to when we do our Bible study on the book of Deuteronomy, but Leviticus is in the background is the foundation of so many of those New Testament stories that you love, that you grew up with, that you meditate and pray over. So if you didn't have Leviticus, you're really not going to understand so many of those other passages and stories and realities and theological concepts of what it means to be a redeemed son or daughter of the heavenly father here. So if we we'd be greatly impoverished in our understanding of Jesus Christ and the church and salvation, if we didn't have Leviticus. And so here's a couple of things that a number of things that consider as a matter of fact.
And your notes point A here is that Jesus fulfills all the law on the prophets. That includes Leviticus. Okay, really trying to include Leviticus here and all this stuff. So Leviticus is fulfilled by Jesus Christ.
He says explicitly in Matthew 5 17, do not think that I've come to abolish the law on the prophets, I've come out to abolish them, but to fulfill them. So you're like, okay, Jesus, you're going to fulfill the law and part of the law of Moses is Leviticus. What are you fulfilling? You're fulfilling the various dietary laws.
And so you're fulfilling the various sacrifices and you're fulfilling the various fees to the Sabbath on the weekly level and then the annual feast, the liturgical calendar and the sabbatical year, the jubilee year, you're fulfilling all of this stuff. Well, I'm not going to understand what Jesus is doing. I'm not going to understand what Jesus is fulfilling if I don't understand Leviticus. Okay, and these next three verses comes straight from Paul, Colossians, Hebrews and Romans, I decided to throw them all in there.
They're all kind of explaining the same basic point but they're powerful. And Colossians 2, Paul says, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come but the substance belongs to Christ. Now what Paul is talking about here are concepts that go back to the law in Leviticus, right?
So questions about food and drink, well, that's the dietary restrictions and laws festivals and new moons and Sabbath. That's the various feasts and the calendar that's set forth here in this book as well. They are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. They're a shadow in other themselves.
The substance, the fulfillment belongs to Jesus. So now all of these things have meaning now in relation to Christ. Again, they're not passed. They don't pass away.
They're not abolished. Jesus says they're fulfilled. The same concept is here in Hebrews 10 one, since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never by the same sacrifices which are continually, continually offered year by year make perfect those who draw near. So the law is a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form.
The true form is Christ. Then finally, one more verse for you, Romans 10, 4. Christ is the end of the law. Notice it's the fulfillment of the purpose of the law that everyone who has faith may be justified.
Okay, so all three of these verses, Colossians, Hebrews, Romans, talking about the shadow of things to come, the substance belongs to Christ. The true form of these realities is Christ. Christ is the end of law. That's what we call typology.
That the things in the Old Testament, the persons, places, things, events, they all point forward to Jesus Christ, the mystery of Christ, his Paschal mysteries and the church and how we live in him as members of his one body. Typology, if you've studied anything with me before on church.com, you know, typology is so exciting, it makes it come alive. Because you can see what God is doing in the Old Testament beginning with the people of Israel, even before that was Genesis, of course, he's preparing for the coming of the Messiah that's going to come many, many years later, right, two millennia later. So he's preparing for Jesus Christ, but he's teaching the people and educating them and preparing them in that way so that when Christ comes, like, oh, I get what his sacrifice means because of the sacrifices that we have been following for so many years.
So Leviticus teaches us about Jesus reveals to us the true meaning or the deeper meaning about Christ's sacrifice and his redemption and atonement and all these different things. Okay, so this is the biggest point, right? Jesus fulfills the law and the prophets and the law and the prophets point forward to Jesus Christ. There are a shadow of the true things to come in Jesus Christ.
Okay, so more examples here to try to drive home my point. The second greatest commandment, when Jesus talks about the first and greatest commandment, he's quoting the law, the first greatest commandment comes from the uronomy six, love the Lord your God, with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. Okay, then the second greatest commandment comes from Leviticus. Leviticus 1918, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
You're like, wow, that seems pretty important. Jesus says it's important and it comes from Leviticus. I wonder what else important comes from Leviticus. Why is this super important commandment?
The second greatest commandment, love that neighbor as I self, coming from the book of Leviticus. What else does Leviticus have to teach us about love? Like, what other great commandments are there in Leviticus? And there are more.
So that should tip us off that we should be reading the book. Also, the New Testament standard of spiritual perfection, of holiness, we all agree with whether you're Catholic or non-Catholic, we're Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, whatever, if you believe in Jesus and you believe the Bible, you know that we are called to be holy. All right, nothing impure, nothing unholy goes and stands before the presence of God. We must be sanctified.
That concept is rooted in Leviticus. In Leviticus 19, too, it says, say to the congregation, you shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, in holy. And again, we know from Isaiah, God is holy, holy, holy. He is the superlative of holiness.
He is holiness itself. And so you shall be holy because I am holy. And that in fact is the title of this whole Bible study, a holy people for a holy God. So you got to be holy because I am holy.
Now, it's interesting in the New Testament, in first Peter, our beloved Peter says, as obedient children, 1st Peter chapter 1 verses 14-16, as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. So Peter quotes Leviticus 19, too, in his application of holiness and a virtue of living a right life as a Christian, in Jesus Christ, he's quoting Leviticus.
So like, wow, what else do you think Leviticus has to say about holiness? Well, I'll tell you what, a whole lot of things to say about holiness because to be with God, we must be holy. There's no if ands or buts about it. That's the requirement.
Okay, and Jesus himself will say at the end of the circle in the middle of the circle in the middle of the circle of the mouth. Matthew chapter 5 verse 48, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. That is the requirement of Christianity. If you want to be with God, if you want to go to heaven, spend eternity in the presence of the Almighty, you must be spiritually perfect.
You must be holy. We tend to give ourselves too much credit and say, oh, well, no one's perfect. We justify our actions. But hey, you're going to we have to atone for that imperfection.
You know, we have to turn to Christ, ask for forgiveness, and we got to offer penance for that imperfections. We must be completely sanctified. If we're not sanctified when we die, that's what purgatory is all about. Pergatory is a grace.
There are many Protestants who even understand this. Pergatory makes perfect sense. Nothing in pure can go and nothing in holy can go before the presence of God. Well, if we died, we're imperfect and impurefied if we're stained by sin.
Well, guess what? We got to go through the divine car wash of purgatory before we can get into heaven. So this standard of perfection and holiness is rooted in the book of Leviticus. And there's so much more to I can't get into all these stories, but they're referenced in your notes.
The spiritual jubilee of Jesus is proclaimed in Luke chapter four. This is the great story of Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth. He sits down, he takes his scroll from Isaiah, he reads it and he says today this passage is fulfilled and you're hearing. Well, this is all about the great jubilee year because when the Messiah comes, he's going to proclaim the ultimate spiritual jubilee where there's going to be release from sin, all right, release of debt, spiritual debt, okay, and there's going to be the return to the land, return to God.
There's a lot to say about this. We're going to talk about the jubilee year later on and a few lessons down the line here. So don't worry, we will talk about this later. But Jesus is proclaiming himself as a Messiah with the authority to inaugurate the great spiritual jubilee.
If you don't know Leviticus, you have no idea what he's talking about, but they all knew Leviticus and they're like, well, holy smokes, I mean, you're just this dude from Nazareth. Let's throw you off the cliff and they reject him. Okay. So again, the background to his entire public ministry, the ministry of redemption is found here in Leviticus, the spiritual jubilee.
And then there's all these liturgical things we find in the New Testament and they got just prima face, on a face value, you've got all of the temple ceremonies and feasts and things going on liturgical things going on in the gospels, yes. But even when you go to the book of Revelation, there's all kinds of liturgical imagery that's all rooted in Leviticus. Okay. And then you've got the threefold structure of the priesthood in the Old Testament.
You've got the high priest, you've got the priest, these are sons of Aaron, and you've got all the rest of the Levites, which are basically servants helpers. That threefold structure of the Levitical priesthood is fulfilled and completed in the New Testament sacrament of holy orders with bishops, priests, and deacons. So when you're reading like the pastoral epistles, for example, the first and second Timothy Titus and elsewhere, okay, you've got these orders, you've got the Episcopoi, which are the Episcopacy, the bishops, you've got the Presbyterian, that's the Presbyterian, the priest, and then you've got the diaconoid, the deacons, bishops, priests, and deacons. That mirrors the Old Testament structure of high priest priests and Levites.
So again, like here we are in the New Testament, we've got holy orders now. Well, it's rooted in the Old Testament. All right. Then finally, the point G, I say the book of Hebrews describes in detail how the Old Testament priesthood and sacrifices are fulfilled in Jesus.
Now, instead of providing a bajillion very long quotes, basically reproducing the book of Hebrews, I'm just going to give you this great quote here from your Catholic introduction to the Old Testament that I recommend. It basically summarizes it very, very well. And as we go through the study of Leviticus, I'm going to take, we're going to go to Hebrews often, but Hebrews is amazing, talking about how Jesus fulfills Leviticus, the priesthood, the sacrifices, everything, right? So this paragraph from your commentary does a great job.
It says, the teaching of the New Testament asserts that Jesus Christ is our high priest, who makes a tome and for sins by the sacrifice of himself with the result that his blood affects the cleansing of those who believe in him and consecrates them to a priestly status within the church, communicating to them God's own holiness via his spirit. Our theological vocabulary would be severely impoverished without the matrix provided by Leviticus in its religious worldview, in quotes. And that's really, really true. I mean, just a cursory reading through Hebrews, and there's other references to other books, of course, but Hebrews is like dynamite.
This is exactly what's going on. Jesus is our high priest and is greater than the priesthood of Aaron. He's the order of Melchizedek and the sacrifice once and for all all of this stuff. Now, you've got to have Leviticus to understand it.
So let me ask you, like, how are all of these topics, just a slattering of them here, a smattering? How are all of these topics not relevant to us today as Christians? It's Catholic Christians. They're 100% relevant for us.
So I'm really trying to drive home the point, right? Stick with this Bible study on Leviticus. I wish more people study Leviticus, but again, it's not the kind of thing you pick up for devotional reading, but it does help you to understand the devotional reading for the New Testament. And there's all these amazing verses, like even just what I've picked out for you right now.
Love your neighbor as yourself. Be holy for I am holy. That's something to really meditate and pray over to you, like, say, you know, over. Okay.
So this is why we study Leviticus. It's the inspired word of God. Therefore, it is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction that we might be complete in Christ, but it also serves as the background for everything that we love in the New Testament as well.