Holiness Desires Perfection
Leviticus 22:31-33
Introduction.
In Lev. 21 and 22, we see the standards given the priests and the high priest are even higher than that of the general public.
Since we are a royal priesthood, the rules given to the priests are of special interest to us today.
Last week we covered the sexual purity that the Israelites were to possess.
Today, we will note some of that as well, but to a higher standard.
This was because of their duty as representatives of God among the people.
Their character, their lives, even their physical bodies had to be above reproach.
We will consider the applications that this has for us today.
These two chapters are divided up in a particular way.
Lev. 21:1-6, 10-12 deal with death rituals.
Lev. 21:7-9, 13-15 deal with sexual purity.
Lev. 21:16-24 deals with priestly defects.
Lev. 22:1-16 deals with eating holy bread.
Lev. 22:17-30 deals with proper worship.
There is a level of perfection that must be maintained for the priests and for their sacrifices.
Perfect Cleanness.
Perfect Purity.
Perfect Priests.
Perfect Food (next week).
Perfect Sacrifices (next week).
Body.
Perfect Cleanness (21:1-6, 10-12).
Recall the sudden deaths that occurred in Lev. 10:1-2.
Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord, something that He had not commanded them.
As a result, they were killed by fire from the Lord.
There the Lord tells them how to handle it—let other family remove the bodies.
They were also not to show signs of grief or leave the sanctuary.
Those rules, along with some others, are reiterated here.
They were not to touch any dead human bodies at all.
The only exception was for the priests in taking care of a close relative who had died.
Those close relatives were: mother, father, son, daughter, brother, or virgin sister.
Presumably the married sister would be taken care of by her husband and children.
It was important for the priest to be able to take care of close family.
Here we see the priorities one had—cleanliness had to be maintained for the priest, but their families must be taken care of.
Yet the high priest was not allowed to touch any dead bodies whatsoever, not even of family.
This showed his priority needed to be in service to the Lord.
He wasn’t even to leave the sanctuary, for His place was there, to serve the people in the offering of sacrifices to God.
Mourning rituals.
Again, in Lev. 10, Aaron and his other two sons are told not to leave the sanctuary, nor perform any mourning rituals for the dead at this time.
They were engaged in worship at that time, and had to complete it, and were told to eat of the sacrifice.
Here, this command is more general.
The priests were permitted to tear their clothes, but the high priest was not.
The priests, however, were forbidden from shaving their heads or the edges of their beards and from cutting themselves.
These were forbidden for all the children Israel, too (Lev. 19:27-28).
These were, again, pagan rituals that were practiced by the death cults around in the nations around them.
Application.
Our High Priest is Jesus Christ.
He died and became the curse for us, yet He was stronger than death and sin, and defeated them when He rose again.
He is now in heaven serving as our high priest, never to die again.
His last enemy is death, and He gave it a severe blow when He was raised from the dead.
Death will be defeated on the Last Day!
Of course, in this age, we are permitted to bury the dead—there’s nothing forbidding a Christian from being a mortician, for instance.
But as we read this morning from Mark 7, we need to keep away from what truly defiles.
Perfect Purity (21:7-9, 13-15).
This is concerning the wives and daughters of the priests.
The priests and the high priest were to take wives who were virgins.
They could not be harlots, defiled in some way, divorced, or widows when the priest marries them.
The reason is not because of anything lewd, but because “he is holy to his God” (21:7).
For the high priest, it was because he would otherwise, “profane his posterity among his people” (21:15).
The priesthood was a hereditary office, so the women involved in that were very important.
If the woman had a child before, that would complicate the bloodlines and inheritances.
If a widowed woman did not have a child before, then by the custom of the levirate marriage, the first child belonged to the deceased man, further complicating things.
As we see with Hosea and Gomer, taking a wife of harlotry has its own issues.
She would be prone to return to that life, and who knows whatever sons she had were yours and legitimate heirs to the priesthood?
So for all these reasons, the priests were to marry virgins who had no prior romantic entanglements that could seriously complicate matters.
If the daughter of any priest goes into harlotry, that’s a sign of pagan worship, and confusing for the Israelites who were already prone to such flirtations with false gods.
She also brings reproach upon the priest and their family—the penalty is burning, likely done after death, perhaps from an execution, though not explicitly stated.
Burning her body would cleanse the land of her sin.
The priest and his wife was to be the model for the relationship between the Lord and Israel.
The figure is used often in Scripture that the Lord is married to Israel, and her idolatries compared to adultery, unfaithfulness to their God.
There is warning of divorcing Israel and marrying another one, a faithful one—the church.
Application.
We can see in Eph. 5 that we are indeed the bride of Christ, once again likened to a married couple.
Jesus is the husband, the church is His bride (Eph. 5:25-27).
Paul states that he might present the Corinthian church as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2).
The virgin is symbolic of purity, in this case of moral and doctrinal purity.
But we know what the Corinthian Christians used to be like (1 Cor. 6:9-10).
They used to be idolatrous, adulterous, engaging in homosexual activities, drunkenness and extortion—how could they be a chaste virgin?
This can only be done through the blood of Christ.
Recall, He purchased the church with His own blood (Acts 20:28).
Only then, if we remain faithful, can we be presented as such, the bride of Christ.
For us as individual priests in His kingdom, we are not required to marry a virgin.
Otherwise, Paul would not have advised younger widows to marry (1 Tim. 5:14).
But it would certainly behoove us marry one who has been covered in the blood of Christ, that is a Christian.
Paul does not want us to be unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14).
If you should decide to marry, life is so much easier if you marry a Christian.
We do see for elders and deacons the requirements the Bible places on them for their spouses and children—must be the husband of one wife, ruling their own houses well (1 Tim. 3; Titus 1).
Perfect Priests (21:16-24).
The priests were to have no physical defects among them.
There is a long list of defects that the priests were not to possess.
Many of these defects would make doing their job difficult from a practical perspective: blind, lame, broken foot/hand, hunchback, dwarf.
With such handicaps, it would be difficult to make the sacrifices and all the other requirements of the job.
The eczema and the scab could be a form of leprosy or confused for leprosy, so a priest couldn’t or shouldn’t serve in that case.
Eunuchs were not even allowed into the assembly to participate in public worship (Deut. 23:1), so one certainly couldn’t serve as priest.
He was to be a whole man, an image of the God whom they serve, not diminished in any way, morally or physically.
Even then, the man with the defect was still able to eat the holy bread.
Applications.
A couple years ago when my foot was caught in a lawnmower, a lady at church showed me this passage and told me I couldn’t preach anymore because I had a broken foot.
She was joking, of course, but we should note that such physical limitations no longer prevent us from service to God, aside from obvious ability.
I know of a blind preacher in Clinton, SC – memorized the whole Bible so he could preach without having to read Braille from the pulpit.
But how should we apply this? After all, since we are all priests, there will inevitably be some who have these issues.
We must exercise moral uprightness!
We should be striving and growing and improving.
Will we have setbacks? Will we mess up? Oh very likely, but we get up and we keep going.
Conclusion.
God wants us to be holy as He is holy.
That holiness requires righteousness, requires perfection.
We saw the different ways in how that manifested itself for the priests under the Mosaic system.
For us, while the particulars are not the same, the spiritual applications are very much applicable.
We are to work to maintain righteousness, purity, and moral excellence.
Christ has already taken care of things from His end, now we much return the favor, treating Him with the holiness and reverence that He deserves.
We are human beings and prone to failure.
We know that we will not live perfect lives, so what’s the point?
The Lord knows this, and made provisions for this in the Mosaic Law knew this.
The people and the priests were to offer sacrifices to make them clean and holy.
The Lord has made provision for us, too, in this Christian age with the blood of Christ.
As we quoted this morning, we are not to continue in sin.
But John says that if we do sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
Let us take full advantage of His advocacy by becoming a Christian, and making things right with God through Christ today!