Holy Things for Holy People: Leviticus 22:1-9
Introduction: The Grammar of Holiness
We live in an age that despises distinctions. Our culture is waging a full-scale war on boundaries. They want to blur every line God has drawn, whether it be the line between male and female, good and evil, or the sacred and the profane. The modern spirit wants a God who is an amiable, grandfatherly blob, a deity who makes no demands, who has no standards, and whose presence requires no preparation. In short, they want a God who is not holy. And a God who is not holy is no God at all; he is a projection of our own corrupt desires, an idol fashioned in the workshop of our rebellious hearts.
Into this sentimental, sloppy, and syncretistic mess, the book of Leviticus lands with the force of a meteor. And a passage like the one before us today is particularly jarring to our egalitarian sensibilities. It is a chapter full of rules about who can and cannot approach the holy things of God. It is about separation, about being careful, about the grave danger of treating that which is consecrated as though it were common.
To the modern reader, this all sounds terribly exclusive and fussy. It sounds like a list of arbitrary regulations designed to keep people away from God. But that is to read it exactly backwards. These laws were not given to keep people away from God, but to teach them how a sinful people could possibly live in the presence of a holy God and not be consumed. God had chosen to come down and dwell in the midst of His people. That is the central, staggering fact of the Old Testament. And because a holy God was in the camp, the camp had to be holy. These laws are the grammar of holiness. They are object lessons, teaching Israel in tangible, physical ways that God's holiness is a blazing fire, and one must approach Him on His terms, not our own.
This is not some outdated ceremonialism that we can safely ignore now that Christ has come. The ceremonial laws have been fulfilled in Christ, yes, but they remain as instruction for us. They teach us profound realities about the character of God and the nature of our salvation. If we neglect Leviticus, we will inevitably develop a low view of God's holiness, a low view of sin's defilement, and consequently, a low view of Christ's atoning work. These verses before us are a detailed schematic for reverence. They are God's instructions on how to handle holy things, and if we have ears to hear, they will teach us how to approach our holy God today.
The Text
Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "Tell Aaron and his sons to be careful with the holy gifts of the sons of Israel, which they set apart to Me as holy, so as not to profane My holy name; I am Yahweh. Say to them, ‘If any man among all your seed throughout your generations comes near to the holy gifts which the sons of Israel set apart as holy to Yahweh, and he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from before Me; I am Yahweh. No man of the seed of Aaron, who is a leper or who has a discharge, may eat of the holy gifts until he is clean. And if one touches anything made unclean by a corpse, or if a man has a seminal emission, or if a man touches any teeming things by which he is made unclean or any man by whom he is made unclean, whatever his uncleanness, a person who touches any such thing shall be unclean until evening and shall not eat of the holy gifts unless he has bathed his body in water. But the sun will set, and he will be clean. And afterward he shall eat of the holy gifts, for it is his food. He shall not eat an animal which dies or is torn by beasts, becoming unclean by it; I am Yahweh. They shall therefore keep My charge so that they will not bear sin because of it and die thereby because they profane it; I am Yahweh who makes them holy."
(Leviticus 22:1-9 LSB)
The Charge of Reverence (v. 1-3)
We begin with the central command, the principle that governs everything that follows.
"Tell Aaron and his sons to be careful with the holy gifts of the sons of Israel, which they set apart to Me as holy, so as not to profane My holy name; I am Yahweh." (Leviticus 22:2)
The first thing to notice is the subject: the "holy gifts." These are the portions of the sacrifices that were given to the priests for their sustenance. They were God's provision for His ministers, taken from the offerings of the people. But they were not just groceries. They were "set apart to Me as holy." The word for holy, qodesh, means set apart, consecrated, dedicated for a divine purpose. These things belonged to God in a special way. Therefore, they were to be handled with special care.
The central verb here is "be careful." It carries the idea of separation, of treating something as distinct. The opposite of this care is to "profane" God's holy name. To profane something means to treat it as common, to drag it down to the level of the ordinary. When a priest, who represented God to the people and the people to God, treated a holy object with casual indifference, he was not just mishandling a piece of meat. He was making a theological statement. He was declaring, by his actions, that the name of God was not to be feared, that His holiness was not that important. And God says, "I am Yahweh." This is the foundation of the command. It is not an arbitrary rule; it is rooted in the very character of God. He is the self-existent, sovereign Lord, and He will not be trifled with.
"Say to them, ‘If any man among all your seed throughout your generations comes near to the holy gifts... and he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from before Me; I am Yahweh." (Leviticus 22:3)
The warning is severe. To approach these holy things while in a state of ritual uncleanness results in being "cut off." This phrase could mean excommunication from the covenant community, or in some cases, capital punishment. The point is that it is a deadly serious offense. Why? Because uncleanness and holiness are antithetical. They cannot coexist. To bring the unclean into contact with the holy is an act of spiritual contamination, an assault on the divine order. It is like tracking mud into a sanitized operating room. God is establishing a physical, tangible lesson: defilement disqualifies one from fellowship with Him.
A Catalogue of Uncleanness (v. 4-6)
The next few verses provide a list of specific conditions that would render a priest unclean and therefore unfit to eat the holy food.
"No man of the seed of Aaron, who is a leper or who has a discharge, may eat of the holy gifts until he is clean. And if one touches anything made unclean by a corpse, or if a man has a seminal emission, or if a man touches any teeming things by which he is made unclean..." (Leviticus 22:4-5)
This list is not about moral sin in the first instance. Leprosy, bodily discharges, contact with a dead body, seminal emissions, or touching an unclean animal were not, in themselves, sinful acts. They were, for the most part, unavoidable aspects of life in a fallen world. They were, however, powerful symbols of that fallenness. They represented sickness, decay, death, and the loss of life-giving fluid. They were physical reminders of the curse of sin.
God was teaching His people a crucial distinction. There is a difference between being sinful and being unclean. A priest could become unclean without sinning. But if he ignored his uncleanness and presumed to approach the holy things, then he was sinning grievously. He was despising the holiness of God. This teaches us that our access to God is not based on our subjective feelings of worthiness, but on an objective state of cleanness that God Himself defines.
The remedy for this temporary uncleanness is prescribed:
"...a person who touches any such thing shall be unclean until evening and shall not eat of the holy gifts unless he has bathed his body in water." (Leviticus 22:6)
The uncleanness had a time limit, "until evening." And it required a specific action, the washing of the body with water. This is a beautiful picture of the gospel. Our defilement is not permanent, and there is a provision for cleansing. The setting of the sun marked the end of the day, a small death, and the beginning of a new one. The washing with water points forward to the cleansing we have in Christ, to baptism and the washing of regeneration by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5).
Restoration and Provision (v. 7-9)
Once the conditions are met, the priest is restored to fellowship and can partake of God's provision.
"But the sun will set, and he will be clean. And afterward he shall eat of the holy gifts, for it is his food." (Leviticus 22:7)
Notice the grace here. The goal of these regulations was not to starve the priests. The goal was to ensure they ate in a holy manner. God provides for His servants, "for it is his food." But that provision must be received on God's terms. This is a principle that runs all through Scripture. God invites us to His table, but we are not to come covered in the filth of the world. We are to come, having been cleansed by the blood of His Son.
The chapter reiterates another source of uncleanness, tying back to dietary laws that distinguished Israel from the nations.
"He shall not eat an animal which dies or is torn by beasts, becoming unclean by it; I am Yahweh." (Leviticus 22:8)
An animal that died of natural causes or was killed by a predator was not to be eaten because the blood had not been properly drained from it. Blood represented the life of the animal, and it belonged to God. To eat such an animal was to treat life, and the God who gives it, with contempt. It was to live like the scavengers of the world, not like the holy people of God.
The section concludes with a final, solemn charge.
"They shall therefore keep My charge so that they will not bear sin because of it and die thereby because they profane it; I am Yahweh who makes them holy." (Leviticus 22:9)
Here we see the progression clearly. To disregard the charge concerning uncleanness is to "bear sin." The ritual mistake becomes a moral transgression. And the consequence of that sin is death. Why? Because they "profane it." They profane the holy things, and in doing so, they profane the God to whom those things belong. The verse ends with a magnificent declaration: "I am Yahweh who makes them holy." Their holiness was not self-generated. They did not make themselves holy by following the rules. God made them holy. He set them apart. Their responsibility was to live in a manner consistent with the holy status He had bestowed upon them. Their doing was to flow from their being.
Christ, Our Cleanness and Our Holy Food
So what does a New Covenant believer, living thousands of years later, do with a passage like this? First, we must see that all of this points us directly to the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The Levitical priest, constantly susceptible to uncleanness, shows us the inadequacy of the Old Covenant priesthood. They were sinful men who needed sacrifices for their own sins. They were mortal men, subject to sickness, decay, and death. They could only approach God's holiness through an elaborate system of rituals, and even then, their access was limited and temporary. But Jesus Christ is our great High Priest. He is not a son of Aaron, but a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. He is the holy, blameless, pure, and undefiled one (Hebrews 7:26). He never became unclean. He was not a priest who avoided lepers; He was a priest who touched lepers and made them clean.
Second, we must recognize that in Christ, all believers are now a "royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9). We have been set apart as holy to the Lord. And therefore, this charge to "be careful with the holy gifts" applies directly to us. What are our holy gifts? They are the Word of God, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the privilege of prayer and corporate worship. How do we handle these things? Do we approach them with reverence, preparation, and awe? Or do we treat them casually, as common things?
When we come to the Lord's Table, we are partaking of the holiest food imaginable. We are eating and drinking symbols of the broken body and shed blood of the Son of God. Paul applies this very same Levitical principle to the church in Corinth. He warns them that "whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:27). To come to the Table with unconfessed sin, with bitterness in your heart toward a brother, is to bring uncleanness to the holy gifts. And the consequences, Paul says, are just as severe: "That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died" (1 Corinthians 11:30). God is still Yahweh, and He will not be mocked.
But the good news of the gospel is that, just as the priest had a remedy, so do we. Our cleansing is not temporary. It does not last only "until evening." We have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. Our cleansing is permanent and perfect. We do not bathe in water to become clean; we are bathed in the blood of Christ. Our confidence in approaching God is not in our own ability to maintain ritual purity. Our confidence is in Christ alone. He is our holiness. He is the one "who makes us holy." And because we have been made holy in Him, we are called to live holy lives, to handle holy things with care, and to worship our holy God with reverence and awe. For He is Yahweh.