Leviticus 24

God created man to live in time and space. One day we will live with Him and with each other in a renewed heaven and earth, but we will still live in time and space. He has chosen us for a particular temporal and spatial life together prior to the return of Christ. This is our training ground for eternity.

We do not live in the wilderness of Sinai centuries before the coming of the Messiah. We live in some nation of this world well into New Testament times, a spiritual era when the Apostle Peter could say in 1 Peter 4:7, “The end of all things is at hand.” We learn about how we should live together in godliness and sincerity in our era by making profitable use of the whole counsel of God. As the Lord's sheep who are moving toward the real Promised Land, we hear the voice of our Shepherd even in Leviticus. He knows us, and speaks to us, and we follow Him.

Our understanding of what we can expect as a community of faith over the centuries is made richer by seeing the movement from Passover to Pentecost to Tabernacles in the ancient calendar of the Old Testament given to us in Leviticus 23. We also have an expectation of the greatness of the glorious life ahead of us through meditating on the year of Jubilee. See Leviticus 25. The world around us, and even many within the church, may not share this vision. We live out our brief lives in this strange wilderness with a hope that comes to us from the Scriptures and from a life of communion with the Lord. With all the confusion around us, with such irreconcilable versions of future hope in the world and even within the body of Christ, how ought we to live in the brief moments of life in the place where God has chosen to plant us? In between the annual calendar of Leviticus 23 and the generational marker of the year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25, the Lord granted to Israel images of what Israel and the church were to be like as strangers and sojourners, living godly lives of self-control with a sure and sober-minded hope of a coming place and time of perfect glory.

We are to be a shining lamp as the light of the world. God used the gifts of His people to supply the oil needed so that the worship of Israel would be a shining beacon in a dark place. At just the right moment in His eternal plan, His Son, the Light of the world, came to His people Israel. He was not only their light, but a light to the Gentiles. Now the church which is His body is to reflect His glorious resurrection light, though many around us in every place and time do not have eyes to see that light. By the grace of God, Jesus shines through us. We need the continual oil of the Holy Spirit if we are to live as we should as we look for the return of our Messiah. In Him, we are a lamp of purest gold, shining with the light of heaven.

The priests in Israel were to set holy bread before the Lord every Sabbath with frankincense as a memorial portion for the Lord. The bread was to be eaten by the priests in a holy place. The New Testament church gathers every Sunday in the rest that has been won for us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We eat of the Bread of Life. We feast on the Word from heaven, and we partake in the communion of the One who gave His body and blood for us. This is a holy ordinance, and an expectation of glory that we share in as the priesthood of all who have faith. We draw near to the God of eternity, believing that He is our present help and our everlasting life. He will reward those who diligently seek Him.

We are to be a people that love the Name of God, and have been baptized in the one Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Israel, a man was to be put to death for misusing the holy Name of God. This was confirmed by the Lord in a specific case recorded for us in the days of traveling through the wilderness. The Lord used the hands of the men of Israel as instruments of justice against the blasphemer.

But when the perfect One came, the Man who was the Word of God, the leaders of Israel determined to see Him as a guilty blasphemer when He revealed Himself as the Son of God. They envied Him and hated Him. They did not receive Him as their Almighty Lord and Redeemer. But by His death He secured an eternal salvation not only for Jews but also for Gentiles who would believe in His Name.

Israel was to be a place of holiness in word and life. Can the church of Christ be less than this? Despite all our sad blemishes, we are the light of the world. We testify that the death of Jesus was for our sins. We proclaim the power of the cross when we eat together the sacramental bread that stands for our Savior's body. But we must live out our worship. We are not to walk as murderers or thieves, but as sons of the Most High God. We are to love His Name, not only in ceremony, but in the integrity of a pure life.

This is how we ought to live in our appointed place and time as those who look for the coming of the Lord. In the words of the apostle Paul in Titus 2:11-14, “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”