It is not safe for a sinful people to be in the presence of a holy God.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Leviticus 9:15-10:3
On this first day of "normal operations" for the Tabernacle, we see the first sacrifices being made and God accepting them -- because they were all done according to the instructions God gave. Unfortunately, we also see that two of Aaron's sons did not follow God's instructions, and they paid for it with their lives. God's presence is dangerous for sin.
Fire came from the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. (9:24)
When We Studied This Passage in 2017
I'm disappointed to say that Lifeway put this exact passage in their last cycle on Leviticus. There are so many great chapters in this book! Branch out!
Anyway, here's what I put in that post:
"You might be a teacher if" / "You might be a Christian if"
Jesus and Leviticus
"Holy"
"Atonement"
Communities who have set themselves apart
Here are some new ideas for starting your group discussion this week. They might not work for your group, but my intention is to get your creative juices flowing to help you find the idea that will.
Do You Wash Your Hands Enough?
In reading a few sources for this simple, innocent discussion idea, I learned that I don't wash my hands enough. And therefore I don't need to be saying anything about washing your hands.
(That Mayo Clinic article also has a video titled "You're Washing Your Hands All Wrong". So, yeah.)
If your group has the stomach for it, have a discussion about why it's important to wash your hands. (This week's passage is about the rules for the "proper handling of sacrifices" and other matters adjacent to cleanliness.)
And if everybody in your group has wonderful and admirable handwashing habits, then ask them about their practice of prayer, Bible reading, and personal evangelism. And if they're all champs at those things, then congratulations, y'all have passed Sunday School. Go get a donut. Then start new Sunday School groups.
Jobs with Strict Cleanliness Rules --or-- What's the Last Place You Want to See Rat Poo?
Here's where I'm going with this one: the priests were given very strict rules how to handle their responsibilities in worship. (And if you know Leviticus, you know this extended to things like how to handle animal sacrifices, dead bodies, infectious disease, etc.) Why? Because they were dealing with the presence of God, and they needed to get it right.
What are the kinds of jobs you really hope people are taking seriously? That can mean any number of things, so for the sake of this week, let's focus on cleanliness. I.e., what's the last place you want to see rat poo?
My guess is that group members will focus on food service, healthcare, or medical technology. And amen to that!
I grew up in Houston, and a fixture in our news was Marvin Zindler, who somehow made failed restaurant inspections appointment viewing every Friday night. "Slime in the ice machine" gives me nostalgia tears. (He's also famous for breaking an unbelievable story that really doesn't belong in a Bible study post.) If you know, you know.
The point being that there are certain places where we hope people are taking cleanliness seriously. Should we be surprised that God expected His priests to take their jobs very seriously? Maybe it's not slime in the ice machine, but it's sin in the presence of God.
Dedication Ceremonies
I've suggested this one a few times, ans if you haven't used it, it's always valuable. Have you been to building/business dedication? What's the purpose and value of such an event?
This was pre-hurricane, so it seems like a lifetime ago, but last fall, Thomson had a dedication ceremony for a road bordering church property; it was renamed for a war hero who has lived and served in Thomson for decades. It was a very nice event; the community was able to say "thank you" for his service, and we also prayed that this road would be safe for everyone who used it.
In my experience, dedication services/ceremonies are very meaningful to the people who participate in them -- especially if it's their business/facility being dedicated.
The event we cover in this week's passage is basically a dedication ceremony for the Tabernacle, and it was so important for the people to know they had gotten it right. (Spoiler: they didn't.)
Surgery without Antiseptics (enter Joseph Lister)
Not too long ago, I read an article about advancements in surgery techniques, and it did a survey all the way back to when doctors didn't believe that germs were a thing. Which was about 150 years ago. (I couldn't find that article, so here's a different article on the same topic -- Joseph Lister’s antisepsis system | Science Museum)
Long story short -- doctors once believed that "open-air surgery" was the safest way to do surgery. And that probably means what you think it means. (Additionally, they "shared" instruments between surgery teams.) People had a better chance of surviving on a field of combat than they did surviving surgery!
A young surgeon named Joseph Lister heard and believed Louis Pasteur's "controversial" germ theory of disease and applied it to surgical techniques. He used carbolic acid to disinfect instruments and gloves, and also sprayed the air around the surgery. The irrefutable decrease in surgery-related infections led to the widespread acceptance of different types of sterilization in surgery wards.
My point: we probably shudder at the thought of any kind of surgery without sterilization/antiseptics/antibacterials. And we should! Thank you, Joseph Lister. But how flippant are we about bringing sin into God's presence? Should we be?
This Week's Big Idea: Leviticus!
Last week, as we ended Exodus, I noted that Leviticus bridges the gap between Exodus and Numbers. At the end of Exodus, the Tabernacle is complete but no one can enter. At the beginning of Numbers, God is dwelling in the midst of His people and about to go with them into the Promised Land. Leviticus explains all of the rules necessary for the people to live and worship safely in God's presence.
I found this chart on the Bible Book Club website (which I otherwise don't know anything about) and found it easier to follow than the Bible Project poster. Both explain the obvious chiastic structure (that's a poetry term; go down that rabbit hole), but this simple word-based chart makes it easy to see.
As I said at the top, we only have three lessons in the book of Leviticus, and you can see that there's actually a lot to cover.
Nutshell is this: It is not safe for a sinful people to be in the presence of a holy God, so God provided rules to make that safe.
A sacrificial system to identify the cost of sin.
A priesthood to keep the people and worship on track.
Rules for holy living for all of the people.
Christian readers get hung up on the stranger rules in Leviticus ("All animals that have hooves but do not have a divided hoof and do not chew the cud are unclean for you. Whoever touches them becomes unclean." "When a person has a swelling, scab, or spot on the skin of his body, and it may be a serious disease on the skin of his body, he is to be brought to the priest Aaron or to one of his sons, the priests." "Every person, whether the native or the resident alien, who eats an animal that died a natural death or was mauled by wild beasts is to wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will remain unclean until evening; then he will be clean." "You are not to marry a woman as a rival to her sister and have sexual intercourse with her during her sister’s lifetime." "Do not crossbreed two different kinds of your livestock, sow your fields with two kinds of seed, or put on a garment made of two kinds of material.")
Here's my very simple take on all of that: Christ has fulfilled the law, and now Christians are not obligated to the law for salvation. Any of the law. Instead, we are able to look at these laws for the purpose behind them. Some have very practical purposes:
Kosher laws turn out to be very useful or health and food-borne disease.
Laws about infectious diseases (for people who knew nothing about infections or contagions) are lifesaving.
Laws about sexual behavior tend to be pretty universally valuable.
But there are two big things going on in the background of all of these laws:
Separation/holiness. A lot of these laws simply make the point that there is to be a separation between unlike things -- just as the Israelites are not like the people around them. These laws build "holiness" into their ways of thinking.
Identity. These laws bake into the people's entire existence that they belong to the Lord. There is nothing they do -- not in their business life, their farming life, their personal life -- that doesn't belong to the Lord.
Looking at it that way, I hope you see how the principles behind these laws still apply to Christians today --
1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. (Rom 12)
18 Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. 19 Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body. (1 Cor 6)
21 Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. ... 24 Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. (Matt 7)
As Christians, we still have "laws", but we also have forgiveness. And that forgiveness should motivate us to desire all the more to live the holy life God wants for us. But -- more about holy living in two weeks.
This Week's Bonus Big Idea: The Sacrifices
That Bible Book Club website also had this chart. It's pretty similar to the chart in my old study Bible, so why recreate it? I like how it spells out that some of the offering "stuff" went to God, some went to the priests, and some was allowed to go back to the people. Remember that the priests were not allowed to have land, so their livelihood was directly related to these sacrifices.
Sacrifices had three main purposes:
to praise/thank God
to supplicate
to atone for their own sin
We will talk much more about atonement next week.
I have shared this Bible Project video more than a few times, and I think it does a tremendous job explaining why God gave the people the sacrificial system.
Without the history of that system, the people would never understand what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Think about it -- without the Passover or the Day of Atonement or any of that, would we have any idea what Christ accomplished?
The Week's Extra Bonus Big Idea: Holiness
The specific application of "holy living" will come up in two weeks, but we can't introduce Leviticus without saying a few things about "holiness" in general.
To be "holy" is to be "set apart". Only God is truly holy in its purest sense, but God has called people to reflect His holiness in the world --
44 For I am the Lord your God, so you must consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy. 45 For I am the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God, so you must be holy because I am holy. (Lev 11)
26 You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be mine. (Lev 20)
Israel was not to be like the rest of the nations. This had to do with how they behaved, how they worshiped, and how they thought of themselves.
Israel's repeated failure to accomplish this revealed to the world our desperate need for a Savior, and that's why God sent Jesus -- His plan all along.
My NIV Study Bible gives a very handy summary of terms that show up throughout Leviticus:
We start with descriptions of "status":
holy / sacred // common / profane
consecrate / sanctify: move from common to holy
desecrate / profane: move from holy to common
And then we have descriptions of "condition":
clean / pure // unclean / impure
purify / cleanse: move from unclean to clean
defile / pollute: move from clean to unclean
A holy thing can be clean or unclean, and a common thing can be clean or unclean. There were rules in place for unclean things to be made clean. There was nothing "wrong" with being unclean. It really couldn't be avoided. Someone had to touch the dead body. Priests were supposed to have sex. But -- Anything unclean could not come into the presence of God. God's holiness destroys sin, so anything sinful brought into God's presence would be destroyed.
Brief Summary of Everything We've Skipped in Leviticus
Here's a nice outline of the book:
Laws for the Tabernacle (1-16)
The Sacrifices (1-7)
The Priests (8-10)
Purity Regulations (11-16)
The Day of Atonement (16)
Laws for the Community (17-27)
Our lesson comes from chapters 9 and 10. We've basically skipped the description of all of the offerings/sacrifices and the ritual of ordination for Aaron and his sons as priests.
Aaron had four sons: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. They were the beginning of the Levitical Priesthood. (Two of them are about to prove unworthy of the task.) Each of them had to be consecrated to the task of being a priest, and they had to be purified. Looking at the list of terms above, Aaron and his sons were "unclean" and "common", and they had to be made "clean" and "holy" in order to come into God's presence for the sacrifices.
The author of Hebrews realized the true meaning of the priests:
23 Now many have become Levitical priests, since they are prevented by death from remaining in office. 24 But because he remains forever, he holds his priesthood permanently. 25 Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them. 26 For this is the kind of high priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do—first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all time when he offered himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak, but the promise of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son, who has been perfected forever. (Heb 7)
In other words, Aaron and his sons pointed to Jesus.
Anyway, after the priests have been consecrated, they are able to begin ministering in the Tabernacle. And that's where this week's passage picks up -- the first day of "normal sacrifice" in the Tabernacle.
Part 1: The First Offerings (Leviticus 9:15-21)
15 Aaron presented the people’s offering. He took the male goat for the people’s sin offering, slaughtered it, and made a sin offering with it as he did before. 16 He presented the burnt offering and sacrificed it according to the regulation. 17 Next he presented the grain offering, took a handful of it, and burned it on the altar in addition to the morning burnt offering.
18 Finally, he slaughtered the ox and the ram as the people’s fellowship sacrifice. Aaron’s sons brought him the blood, and he splattered it on all sides of the altar. 19 They also brought the fat portions from the ox and the ram—the fat tail, the fat surrounding the entrails, the kidneys, and the fatty lobe of the liver— 20 and placed these on the breasts. Aaron burned the fat portions on the altar, 21 but he presented the breasts and the right thigh as a presentation offering before the Lord, as Moses had commanded.
Long story short -- you can look at that chart to see that the priests offered the first four offerings on this first day of service in the Tabernacle.
Why didn't they also offer a guilt offering? Because the guilt offering was in response to a specific violation of the law. It was "occasional". The offerings this time were just the "normal" sacrifices.
So, instead of diving into the details of these verses, I recommend doing an overview of the sacrifices. The chart above gives a nice overview of key passages to study.
The point of this section is that the Tabernacle is now "open for business with God" so to speak. This would be a central part of Jewish identity for a long time. And importantly, Aaron did things the way he was told.
Part 2: The First Offerings Are Accepted (Leviticus 9:22-24)
22 Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them. He came down after sacrificing the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the fellowship offering. 23 Moses and Aaron then entered the tent of meeting. When they came out, they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. 24 Fire came from the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell facedown.
The Lifeway material rightly points out that Aaron wasn't the source of the blessings but God. He was voicing the blessing already made by God (in this case, it is the general sense that God has chosen them to be His people -- what greater blessing can one have than that?).
I've always had questions about this: who could see what? If there's a fence around the Tabernacle, who could see what?
Let's go back a few verses:
1 On the eighth day [after their purification time was complete] Moses summoned Aaron, his sons, and the elders of Israel. 2 He said to Aaron, “Take a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, both without blemish, and present them before the Lord. 3 And tell the Israelites: Take a male goat for a sin offering; a calf and a lamb, male yearlings without blemish, for a burnt offering; 4 an ox and a ram for a fellowship offering to sacrifice before the Lord; and a grain offering mixed with oil. For today the Lord is going to appear to you.”
5 They brought what Moses had commanded to the front of the tent of meeting, and the whole community came forward and stood before the Lord. 6 Moses said, “This is what the Lord commanded you to do, that the glory of the Lord may appear to you.” 7 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Approach the altar and sacrifice your sin offering and your burnt offering; make atonement for yourself and the people. Sacrifice the people’s offering and make atonement for them, as the Lord commanded.”
So, somehow the whole community has gathered. All 2 million, I guess? They would have overrun poor Reuben's and Judah's tents 😊 if indeed they were all on the gate side of the Tabernacle fence.
In researching this, it looks like I've had some things wrong. The Tabernacle courtyard was large enough for a few thousand worshipers, and apparently any Israelite was allowed to enter the Tabernacle for the purpose of bringing a sacrifice. It looks like I was wrong in suggesting that only priests were allowed to enter the courtyard. But a few thousand out of two million is still a select group.
A couple of things: Aaron doesn't have to "see" all of the people to be able to lift his hands and bless them. And, the fire would be visible above the fence to everyone in the camp.
(I wonder if the gate was pulled open for this day so more people could observe? If anybody out there knows, please tell me.)
It's a big deal that Aaron went into the tent of meeting with Moses -- this is God's tacit acceptance of Aaron's consecration as priest.
And then verse 23 is the fulfillment of everything that has happened. God had promised that if the people completed everything He told them to do, His glory would appear. And sure enough, His glory appeared. So, what exactly does that mean?
Here's James Hamilton's nice over-arching paragraph:
What is the glory of God? The answer is as infinite as God's glory itself, so the question can never be answered exhaustively. Some key aspects of God's glory, however, can be summarized as follows: the glory of God is the weight of the majestic goodness of who God is and the resulting name, or reptation, that he gains from revealing himself as Creator, Sustainer, Judge, and Redeemer, perfect in justice and mercy, loving-kindness and truth. God's glory elicits praise.
In other words, there's no one answer to what happened at the Tabernacle. But this is certain: the people had no doubt they saw God's glory! The fire is just one part of the full revelation of God's glory there. And indeed the people worshiped -- out of fear as much as anything, I'm sure! Think about it -- how would you react if you saw fire from heaven consume an offering placed on an altar?
All of the artwork I saw that tried to capture this was extremely disappointing (including for the similar event that happened in 1 Ki 18 during Elijah's contest with Baal's priests). This is the least-disappointing of the bunch:
Proof of God's Acceptance -- the Resurrection
The biggest deal, by far, of all of this is God's acceptance of the sacrifice. He said that the sacrifice was to make atonement for the people's sin. By consuming the sacrifice with fire, God visibly demonstrated His acceptance of it.
It's a really good time to remind everyone why the resurrection of Jesus is so important. Our salvation was accomplished by Jesus' death on the cross, right? If Jesus had not been raised, our sins would still have been paid for, right? So why do we have to believe in the resurrection in order to be saved (Rom 10:9-10)?
Here's the simple answer: God raising Jesus from the dead is His "fire from heaven" action. It is His proof that Jesus' sacrifice was accepted, that the price has been paid in full. That's why we care about this fire from heaven, and that's why we care about the resurrection.
(Well, that and the fact that Jesus' resurrection is also proof that our own salvation will be accompanied by our future resurrection. So, that's good.)
Part 3: But Sinners Gonna Sin (Leviticus 10:1-3)
Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his own firepan, put fire in it, placed incense on it, and presented unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them to do. 2 Then fire came from the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has spoken: I will demonstrate my holiness to those who are near me, and I will reveal my glory before all the people.” And Aaron remained silent.
And then there's this horrible coda to everything. We don't know exactly what Nadab and Abihu did, but it's some combination of using instruments that had not been purified and/or incense that didn't follow the recipe God had given.
Whatever they did, I can assume that they didn't think it was a big deal. It reminds me very much of poor Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6:
3 They set the ark of God on a new cart and transported it from Abinadab’s house, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the cart 4 and brought it with the ark of God from Abinadab’s house on the hill. Ahio walked in front of the ark. 5 David and the whole house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all kinds of fir wood instruments, lyres, harps, tambourines, sistrums, and cymbals. 6 When they came to Nacon’s threshing floor, Uzzah reached out to the ark of God and took hold of it because the oxen had stumbled. 7 Then the Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah, and God struck him dead on the spot for his irreverence, and he died there next to the ark of God. 8 David was angry because of the Lord’s outburst against Uzzah, so he named that place Outburst Against Uzzah, as it is today.
Uzzah wasn't intending to do anything wrong -- he was trying to protect the ark. BUT God had given specific instructions how the ark was to be handled and transported, and they did not follow those instructions. Uzzah was the one to absorb the consequences.
The point then as always, if God gives instructions, He expects them to be followed. There is no favoritism with God.
But I think it's worth spending some time on Aaron.
Aside: Unimaginable Grief
"Aaron remained silent." He knows that his sons were wrong. He knows they deserved what happened to them. But how awful. On this day of celebration, to have this happen, how terrible. Let your heart break with Aaron's for a moment. (And think of all of the ways Aaron failed to live up to his position.)
And this reminds us that the priesthood was and must always be fallible. The priests always had to make a sacrifice for their own sins before they would be able to make a sacrifice on behalf of anyone else.
Which is why we need Jesus.
Closing Thoughts: Unauthorized Worship ("Strange Fire")
The Worship Artist Nouri Who Is Actually a Muslim
I have been challenged over the years by people who want certain songs used in a worship service in my churches. Sometimes is a choir song written for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. More often than not, it's a song written by a Unitarian.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic -- written by a Unitarian
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear -- Unitarian
Holy Ground -- Unitarian
and plenty more.
This is the simplest way I know to say this: those songs were written to/for a different god. We should not be using those to offer praises to the One True God. We wouldn't sing something by a Muslim, would we?
Well, about that.
I've discovered that there is a singer/songwriter named Nouri who is being played on Christian radio stations, and her song "Change in Your Name" is being used in some churches.
Well, she's a Muslim, and she's not hiding it.
Clearly based on her interviews, she doesn't believe there's a big difference between Allah and God, so she wrote a song that's generic enough that anybody could sing it and feel good about it.
Look I believe in every church's freedom to sing whatever you want in a worship service. That's between you and God. But I also believe that I will be held accountable by God for decisions I've made for my church. And a song written to a god that is not my God seems very clearly to fall into this category of "strange fire" / "unauthorized fire". Why would I even want to offer a song that was written to another god? There are plenty of wonderful songs written by true and faithful Christians, are there not?
Now more to the point -- what if you've been using this song in your church and you didn't know that it was written by a Muslim?
Similar things have happened to me as I have researched songwriters. When I find that a song was written by someone with what I consider "problematic" beliefs, I just remove it from my rotation. I'm not a legalist -- I believe in God's forgiveness. And sometimes, I learn that a songwriter has taken some unfair criticism, and his/her song is actually okay.
In other words, I believe that what happened to Nadab and Abihu matters to us today. They used something in worship that seemed okay to them. But here's our guiding principle: the question is not "do I think this is okay?" but "does God think this is okay?"
If anyone has any questions about this, please feel free to get in touch with me.
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