Leviticus 26

Obedience was always important to our relationship with God. This was not only true under the Law, but even in a religion of grace, which is the only religion of the Bible. The only question has always been this: Who would provide the perfect obedience that would allow God to justly give all His gifts of mercy to His chosen people?

The first answer to that question was that Israel would have to do all the obedience required. If the people of God obeyed, they would be blessed. If they disobeyed they would face curses. This could not be the final answer for the accomplishment of God's eternal purpose. Because of Israel's disobedience, only the curse would have resulted.

The true answer was generously testified to throughout the book of Leviticus. All this instruction about the blood of the sacrifice pointed to another way of satisfying the justice of God which would allow Him to be merciful to His people. That way of sacrifice would require a Law-keeping substitute. That Lamb would have to win the blessings of God for us by His obedience, and then take away the debt that we owed God by His blood. This was what Jesus did.

This costly decree of God to love us through the gift of His Son as a substitute makes all idolatry especially offensive. An idol made by man could never obey God and then die for us. To worship idols after God has provided such a perfect and costly sacrifice would be very insulting and offensive. The best and first response to the provision of Jesus Christ is to rest in Him who was revealed as our Sabbath when He rose from the dead on the first day of the week.

The Lord won for us the perfect promised land through His obedience and death for us as our Substitute. This victory of heaven has become visible through His resurrection. Heaven, and the eventual heaven on earth kingdom that will come when Christ returns, is a place of fruitfulness flowing from His obedience. We can use Leviticus 26 to imagine what God has in store for His beloved children: rains in season, trees with a bountiful yield, no time of lacking where families need to wait and hope that a new crop will eventually come, no allergies or diseases that display our alienation with God and His creation, no marauding enemies or dangerous beasts; but perfect peace with God, and a perfectly secure future of divine blessing, a close walk with the Lord who lives with us and loves us, with Him as the obvious and present answer to anything that we could ever need. In short, we will have all the perfect and perpetual liberty of the sons of God.

Israel was offered these blessings for her own obedience. But how could that ever have come to the nation when the sin of Israel, and of all mankind, was so deep and obvious?

No, what we deserved as our wage for our disobedience against the Almighty was death and all its accompanying miseries. But while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

What was the cross like for Him? We will never know the fullness of what He faced, but we have glimpses of it as He grants us fellowship in His sufferings. See Philippians 1:29.

One way to meditate on the love of Christ for us is to consider the punishments that were due to Israel as a nation under the Law. What would happen to the nation if they would not listen to God? What would they deserve for breaking His covenant, disobeying His commandments, and treating His voice as less than one among many?

There would be inner panic, wasting disease, consuming fever, heartache, ravaging enemies, starvation, captivity, loss of all fellowship with God, drought, fruitlessness, wild beasts that attack, plagues, depopulation, and everything that would make life pitiful.

The Lord spoke to Israel about a progressive experience of deeper and deeper discipline and misery. Even this discipline would not have been enough to give people a listening ear and an obedient heart. Repentance would have to come as a gift. But how could the gift be given. By law? No, not by law, but by grace, by God's gift, by God's love; but also by God's justice. Christ has provided the obedience necessary for God to be both just and merciful.

If we were left to ourselves, we would not win anything but death, devastation, and hell. But this was not the Lord's plan. That's why there was so much blood in the book of Leviticus. God was preparing us for the fact that it would only be through the shedding of the blood of a perfect Lamb that we could have eternal peace and the fullness of heavenly joy.

Imagine what it was like when John the Baptist pointed to the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

He is the only way for us to avoid the curses of the Law.

Best to rest in Him.