God is like no-one else
Leviticus 19
This talk can be downloaded as an mp3 file here
Introduction
I was at a wedding just over a year ago in a village in the commuter belt around London. The wedding was in a sleepy little old church, beautiful both inside and out. It was one of those really hot (if you get them) English summer days but inside the church it was nice and cool, sat on the pews with the white painted stone walls and floors. In many ways it was idyllic.
As we sat waiting for the wedding to start, I was looking around the building at the paraphernalia and ornaments – memorials to various people, old flags, wall plaques and alike. Right at the front, behind the altar in the nave of the church was mounted a big, black, painted wooden screen with the 10 commandments painted in gold paint over it. In some ways the wall mounted screen was beautiful, but in other ways it made me feel quite uncomfortable.
I felt like it was saying to me – this is what you need to be like to come to church, this is what a Christian is like. Can you tick the boxes? Or are you feeling guilty?
For many people that is what religion in general, and Christianity in particular is all about. Maintaining morals, standards and ethics.
A few weeks ago at Bethany City Church, we saw a short video advertising the year of mission and social action - Hope 08. On the video, Joel Edwards who heads up the Evangelical Alliance in the UK commented on Hope 08 saying ‘it is about 2 million arms outstretched rather than 1 million fingers pointing.’
But how can this be when so much of the Bible appears to be about ‘thou shalt not’s!’ If we look at Exodus 20 we would find the 10 commandments and indeed, most of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy seem to be about rules, regulations and rituals – the books of the Law.
What should we do with these? Do we just ignore the first chunk of the Bible because it seems to ‘not fit’ with either what we seem to want it to say, or what we think the NT says?
The problem is, so often when we read the Bible we find ourselves, unknowingly travelling in the wrong direction.
Have you ever tried giving instructions to someone verbally when you think you are being very clear but they just don’t get it. You start at the same point but are facing different directions so end up travelling in opposite directions. It is possible to misunderstand the bible, even if we start in the right place. All we have to do is travel in the wrong direction.
So, no matter whether we feel guilt when we think about religion, we feel joy, or we feel nothing at all, let’s travel together as we consider the God who is like no-one else.
Knowing God
In the current series we have started this journey as we consider the highest calling for all mankind, in fact what we were made for – to know God. A few years ago, if you talked about ‘God’ to most people they would have some concept of the God of the bible, whether they believed in him or not.. Today this is much less true.
All the more important then to consider who God is – what are the different characteristics that make up the nature of God. But we are not talking about knowing about God – we are talking about knowing him personally. What does it mean to know the God who loves us – not from a cold clinical distance, but up close and personal.
So, 2 weeks ago we thought about the God who is, and was and is to come, Yahweh, the ‘I am who I am’ and then last week we considered the God who is creative. (The audio of both talks can be downloaded here)
This week we are thinking about the God who is like no-one else – the Holy God.
Holiness
The word holy means set apart, or separate. We use it to talk about holy people, or holy behaviour – but our understanding of holiness as a word describing impeccable morality and behaviour has been shaped by our understanding of the bibles use of the word – particularly in relation to God. The God who is like no one else, who is set apart, different, separate.
God is like no-one else
God’s holiness is shown in the bible in a number of ways.
I remember being a teenager and visiting Wembley stadium. There was no match on so we got to walk around the stadium, along the path but alongside the pitch. I still remember the feeling of wanting to step on the grass but knowing that I mustn’t. Holy ground?!
Often in the experience of God’s people in the Bible, God is signified by fire or smoke – purity, un-approachableness, even danger. In Exodus 3, whilst walking in the desert Moses sees a bush engulfed in flames but not burning. As he approached it he heard a voice that said – ‘Take off your sandals for you are standing on holy ground.’ (Exodus 3:5) This was no longer just any old patch of earth. Though still just dust and sand it was different, set apart.
What made this ground holy so that he had to remove his shoes in order to stand on it?
Simply because God was present there – the one who is like no-one else – Holy.
Moses response to God’s holiness is typical in the Bible – “When Moses heard this, he hid his face in his hands because he was afraid to look at God.” (v6)
God’s perfection, his holiness, his shining glory could never be compatible with weak fallen humans like Moses, or like you and me. God’s burning glory is dangerous, but because he is not like us. It is as though he is radioactive in his holiness.
We cannot live without the sun in all it’s glory. But neither can we look at it, or be in the direct presence of it. We need distance, atmosphere etc to protect us from it’s rays.
So too we need distance from Gods perfection. The temple is a good example of this – the place that marks out God’s presence can only be entered once a year, by one person on a particular day. Even then it was a dangerous and scary process.
The Bible in various places shows that God is like none else by comparing him to other people and other gods. And the conclusions the bible makes are clear.
‘This is what the Lord, Israel’s’ King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty, says: I am the First and the Last; there is no other God. Who else can tell you what is going to happen in the days ahead? Let them tell you if they can and thus prove their power. Let them do as I have done since ancient times. Do not tremble; do not be afraid. Have I not proclaimed from ages past what my purposes are for you? You are my witnesses – is there any other God? No! There is no other Rock – not one!’ Isaiah 44:6-8
There is no God other than the God of the Bible.
Be Holy because I am Holy
The book of Leviticus was written by Moses. It is a book that talks an aweful lot about the conduct of God’s people and what it means to be Holy. Chapter 19 is a very good example and raises some important issues as we consider God’s holiness
It is full of commands of different sorts.
In v5 we read - ‘When you sacrifice a peace offering to the LORD, offer it properly so it will be accepted on your behalf’. Instructions about how their religion and ritual must be appropriate to be acceptable.
In v11 we rear - ‘Do not steal, do not cheat one another, do not lie’. Instructions to Israel about how they must behave towards one another.
In v27-28 we read - ‘Do not trim off the hair on your temples or clip the edges of your beards. Never cut your bodies in mourning for the dead or mark your skin with tattoos, for I am the Lord.’ A good example of what to us seem like slightly more bizarre and apparently random commands about conduct in culture and society.
When considering Leviticus 19, the most important thing is to see the big picture first before considering the detail. The chapter starts in v2 by making a clear statement we hear repeated time and time again through the rest of the Bible and something equally as important to understand the rest of the chapter.
“Say this to the entire community of Israel: ‘You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.’
What follows is a description of what it means to be Holy – to be like God. As you read down the chapter it sounds tough. In fact just look at v13-19.
Don’t defraud, don’t hold back wages, don’t curse the needy, don’t pervert justice, judge fairly, don’t spread slander, don’t endanger others lives, don’t hate in your heart, don’t seek revenge, don’t bear a grudge, keep decrees – and the list goes on!
Even just those verses are – well, worse than tough! They are impossible and therefore because God tells his people they are to be like him, they are also terrifying verses.
Were it not for something that goes almost un-noticed. The repeated use of the word ‘LORD.’
Time and time again the name God gives himself is the name we considered in ‘God is…’
After God had shown himself to Moses in the flames of a burning bush he named himself to Moses, giving himself the name ‘I am who I am’ (Ex 3:14). He is self-defining and is always present, always independent, always active and always sufficient. Yahweh, the God who is… and therefore the God who can be trusted to do what he says.
And so, Yahweh became the name of the promise. If you like, the name God used when speaking to his children, to his people, the people of his promise. The name the Bible translates as LORD.
Just as the only person who can call a man ‘Daddy’ is the mans child, so only children who are God’s people can call him LORD, his covenant name.
This is so important because it means, when we read Leviticus 19, people who are already accepted by God will be Holy like he is Holy. The people of the promise.
What Leviticus hold is not a list of rules in order to be accepted by God.
One writer has put it like this -
‘The significance, then, of the recurring claim, ‘I am the Lord’, is not ‘You must do what I tell you just because I tell you – I’m your Master!’ but ‘You must be what you must be because I am what I am.’ Alec Motyer, Discovering the Old Testament (Leicester, IVP: 2006) 72
In other words, the law – these commandments along with everything else written within these books of Law is primarily an expression of God’s character, of what he is like and of what his people, the people of promise will be like.
The Law
When we think of the law we can think about it in 2 ways.
Firstly, a list of regulations we must keep (or not keep) like the law of the land. Every time I see a speed camera I feel nervous, even if I’m travelling at 25miles and hour, 5 below the limit, I still feel nervous of the law.
But there is another type of law – the law of gravity. The law of gravity as defined and written in a text book is not itself gravity, but a description of what gravity is, and what everyone who lives in an environment with gravity experiences and lives like.
In a similar way God’s law is his character expressed in commandments, so that, in obeying them, we (those who call him by his covenant name) display his likeness, and live out our true nature. The distinction is so important.
This makes sense, certainly of most of the law, the moral commands and instructions, but what about the more bizarre stuff.
Just a simple glance through Leviticus 19 shows that most of us don’t live like this. As I sit typing this I am wearing clothing of two kinds of material (Lev 19:19) and I have short hair and no beard. (Lev 19:27) I have no tattoos.
Regardless of my tattoo status I am blatantly breaking the law of Leviticus 19. How can I do this with a clear conscience?
Remember, God calls himself LORD – ‘I am who I am’. It is his covenant and his self-defining name. Later in Leviticus 20, Moses writes this
‘You must carefully obey all my laws and regulations; otherwise the land to which I am bringing you will vomit you out. Do not live by the customs of he people whom I will expel before you. It is because they do these terrible things that I detest them so much. But I have promised that you will inherit their land, a land flowing with milk and honey. I, the LORD, am your God, who has set you apart from all other people.
You must therefore make a distinction between ceremonially clean and unclean animals and between clean and unclean birds. You must not defile yourselves by eating any animal or bird or creeping creature that I have forbidden. You must be holy because I, the LORD, am holy. I have set you apart from all other people to be my very own.’ Leviticus 20:22-26
As Moses writes Leviticus, the people are soon to enter the land of Canaan. And the law is given into that context. When they enter the promised land, what are they going to meet there? Who are they going to meet? How will they react to them? Will they be absorbed into the culture or remain distinctive as God’s people?
God knows the answer and speaks to them accordingly. ‘Do not live by the customs of the people whom I will expel before you.’
God’s people are to be different because God is different.
In v 26 he puts it bluntly – “You must be holy because I, the LORD, am holy. I have set you apart from all other people to be my very own”
And that seems to be the best biblical definition of what is means to be holy. Set apart.
And why? Because God is set apart. Even the bizarre laws set the people apart from those into whose land they are about to enter.
But we are still left with a problem. We understand that the law is an explanation of what God is like, and that the children of the promise will be like their Father, but we are still inadequate. We still sit in old churches seeing lists of the 10 commandments feeling guilty that we don’t measure up. Don’t we?
Surely religion is still about guilt and about how God is like no-one else, isn’t it?
The problem with the law is not a list of rules and regulations that was ever designed to change us. Wielding a sword of the law is powerless to make any of us any more like God. As Paul puts it in Galatians
‘The law was our guardian and teacher to lead us until Christ came. So now, through faith in Christ, we are made right with God.’ Gal 3:24
It is a little like a thermometer. It shows the temperature very clearly, but without a thermostat it is powerless to change the temperature by a tenth of a degree.
Living under law or walking by the Spirit
Which brings us back to God’s name, Yahweh again. The name which signifies a covenant relationship – a relationship of the promise. It brings us back to grace.
And this is, I think the most significant way in which God is like no-one else.
Every other major religion of the world has a moral code that people are expected to live by. Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, most folk religions and animistic religions - if you meet the requirements then you will be accepted by God, if not then you won’t.
But God is like no-one else.
The culmination of God’s plan for history was a cross, the place where we see God’s holiness most clearly.
How deeply does God hate sin? Enough to kill his only Son as a consequence of our sin. When Jesus hung on the cross 2000 years ago it was the ultimate demonstration of God’s holiness. For God is like no-one else.
Sin is sin, and needs punishment.
But because God is like no-one else he has found a way to punish our sin, yours and mine, therefore maintaining his holiness. But he has done it without finishing us off. He killed his Son Jesus so that he didn’t have to kill you and me.
But why would he do that?
Because he is like no-one else – he acts in grace towards those who deserve judgement. He promises to save those who put their trust in Jesus cross. He becomes for them the God of the promise, the covenant God. Yahweh, the ‘I am who I am’.
As a consequence, when God says ‘be Holy because I am holy’, the person of the promise looks not to a list of regulations and laws as a means of pleasing or placating God. The New Testament is clear, we are no longer ‘under law’. Rather, they look to the cross and the nature of God and find that through the work of God’s Spirit in them they can now be the person they were meant to be all along.
One writer has put it like this -
‘...we are nevertheless not ‘without the law’ (as though the law had nothing whatever to say to us about our behaviour). Rather, the power of the indwelling Spirit makes it possible ‘that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who…live…according to the. The Spirit, far from removing us from any connection with the law, actually enables us to live in the way the law originally intended the Israelites to…this is ultimately possible only within the freedom of the new covenant relationship in Christ and in the power of the Spirit. Only, in other words, on the basis of God’s grace. …because of what the law was the expression of, and response to; namely, a redeemed, covenant relationship with God founded upon his initiative of grace.” Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God. (Leicester, IVP: 2004) 318
The law was used to define holiness by what happens externally – it had too as the people entered a foreign land. But now, by God’s Spirit, we can and are changed internally – we are made holy. We are called ‘saints’. So the external change is no longer required. We have been changed internally and permanently through the cross of Christ. But this does not mean we will not be different. We will be truly different, for the same reason – God is Holy, and we are changed.
Finally, a quick glance at the Sermon on the Mount shows Jesus repeating the assertion to be holy. In Matt 5:20 he tells the disciples
‘But I warn you – unless you obey God better than the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees do, you can’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven at all’
And this is after making clear that he came to fulfil, not abolish the law. Later on he stakes his expectations even more clearly.
‘If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different fro anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.’ (5:48)
So how is this possible?
Matthew records a little story immediately after the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 8:1-3). A man with Leprosy approaches Jesus, kneels before him and says ‘Lord…if you want to, you can make me well again’
Jesus response – ‘I want to’.
Let us praise God that we have a God who is like no-one else in his magnificent and radiant holiness and splendour. And let us praise God that we have a God who is like no-one else in acting in grace towards his fallen, sinful creation that he might make us clean before him…and confident!