The Whitefield Fellowship

The Tabernacle as a New Heaven and Earth

            One last connection before we get into the text of Leviticus.  We find the erection of the Tabernacle in Exodus 40 and one interesting feature is the Tabernacle is erected on the vernal New Year’s Day (Ex. 40.2, 17).  It reads, “On the first day of the first month you shall erect the tabernacle of the tent of meeting…In the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected.”  This, again, points in the direction that the Tabernacle is a new creation.  There are also similar patterns in the construction/creation of the Tabernacle and the construction/creation of the heavens and the earth.

Gen. 1:31 – “And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good     Ex. 39:43 – “And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the Lord had commanded, so had they done it.

Gen. 2:1 – Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.     Ex. 39:32 – Thus all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting was finished…

Gen. 2:2 – God finished his work   Ex. 40:33 – So Moses finished the work.

Gen. 2:3 – So God blessed            Ex. 39:43 – Then Moses blessed them.

Gen. 2:3 – And made it holy           Ex. 40:9 –  That it may become holy.

More could be added, but for our study of Leviticus, it is important to see the simple fact that God is bringing Israel back into an “Eden-like” state and that includes the original, priestly function of Adam.  Once this basic narrative is grasped, then we can see how Exodus ends with “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.  And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because he cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle…For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel.”  And it is from this Tabernacle that the Lord called to Moses and we find ourselves in Leviticus.

Conclusion

This is the setting of Leviticus.  The immediate backdrop of Leviticus is the creation of the cosmos, the Fall of Adam, bringing ruin and misery not only to himself, but to the cosmos, and the calling of Noah, Abraham, and, now, the Israelites are in light of the Fall.  God is restoring the Israelites into a “new heavens and new earth”, like Adam, and it is there that he speaks to Moses from the Tent of Meeting.

Redemption/Exodus as a New Creation

So far, we have creation and fall, and now look at the third component of the overarching narrative – redemption. An important element of the Israelites redemption is to see the connection in Genesis 1 and the Exodus in the redemption/re-creation motif that leads into Leviticus.  Genesis 1:2 is creation’s “exodus” or, preferably, Israel’s Exodus is a new creation, a restoration to Genesis 1.  Genesis 1:2 reads, “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”  Over the next 6 days God gives creation form and He fills the void.  This ends with the declaration that creation is “very good” and a place for God to dwell.  We often hear that “man is the pinnacle of creation”, but this is not true.  The 7^th Day, the Sabbath, is the pinnacle of creation.  It is there that God “puts his feet up” and rests in His temple.

So, the original creation was “formless and void” before God’s creative activity, and we read in Deuteronomy 32:10-11: “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.  Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wing, catching them, bearing them on its pinions.”  If you are like me, you are not a Hebrew scholar, but through the use of ordinary tools, one quickly learns the words highlighted only occur twice in the whole of the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible).  Moses is tying the two events together.  Israel was without form in the desert, like the creation, and just as the spirit “hovered” over the waters of creation, so the spirit “hovered” over the Israelites, bringing them through the Red Sea (“waters”) and into a good land.  The Spirit through the Word brought creation to a place where it was called “very good” and God rested.  The Israelites by the Spirit and the Word were going into a “good land” and God rests in the Tabernacle (Exodus 40).

Part of the fundamental teaching of Genesis 1-2 is that creation is “good” and YHWH, the redeemer of Israel, the one who created everything, made a place for God to dwell and for Adam to live, worship, and serve Him.  In redemption, YHWH is bringing the Israelites, a New Adam, into a new creation to live, worship, and serve Him.  That, I believe, is the thrust of Genesis 1 and the Exodus event.  The Exodus event is a “new creation”, a restoration of sorts to the original creation pattern, albeit a smaller scale.  There is a lot more that can be said, but I want you to see the goal of creation – a temple for God to dwell with His people.  This sets up the trajectory for the rest of the Bible, which is a retelling of this creation, fall & redemption.

Hopefully you can see the pattern – Adam is a priest and the Levites are a New Adam.  The original creation was a Temple and the Tabernacle is like a new creation.  Through water, the Spirit brought creation to its goal, and through the Red Sea the Spirit brought the Israelites into a “new creation”.

Adam, a Priest and the Fall

            The title Leviticus brings to mind priests, so how does Adam relate to the Levitcal Priests?  Or, why should you think of Adam as a priest?  There is much that can be argued and laid out, but for the purposes of this study understanding that Adam is a priest is important, because just as Adam was a priest in the original temple, so the Levites are priests in the new temple.  In Genesis 2:15 we read, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”  When these words are used together in the Old Testament, it usually refers to priestly activity.  You can see this in Numbers 3, 8, 18, 1 Chr. 23:32; Ez. 44:14.  Numbers 3: 5-9 reads, “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Bring the tribe of Levi near, and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister to him. They shall keep guard over him and over the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, as they minister at the tabernacle. They shall guard all the furnishings of the tent of meeting, and keep guard over the people of Israel as they minister at the tabernacle. And you shall give the Levites to Aaron and his sons; they are wholly given to him from among the people of Israel. And you shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall guard their priesthood. But if any outsider comes near, he shall be put to death.”  The work of Adam in the Garden was a priestly work.  In fact, the serpent, an outsider, should have been put to death by Adam, as the Levites are to put to death an outsider that came near.  Under this, you can see how the Levites are a “New Adam”, and how they are to keep the Tabernacle.  Yet, the First Adam failed in his priestly responsibilities and “grasped” for the knowledge of good and evil without God, bringing death and misery to his posterity, so we are all now born “east of Eden.”

Creation and Temple

            “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”  We hear that and we immediately set in the context of modern cosmogonies (story of origins), namely, Darwinism.  This text addresses those issues, but for now, I want to focus not on our apologetic, but our theology.  Why is the doctrine of creation so important to us?  In short – creation is a cosmic temple.  When you think of Genesis 1 and 2, do you see God creating a temple for him to dwell?  If not, you need to, because it is the primary thrust of the text and helps us understand the Bible.  How do I get to that conclusion?

To answer this, it may be easier to work backward from the Tabernacle and Temple.  Psalm 78:69 reads:

“He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,

like the earth, which he has founded forever.”

G.K. Beale says, “The psalmist is saying that, in some way, God designed Israel’s earthly temple to be comparable to the heavens and to the earth.”  The Temple and the Tabernacle are mini-cosmos, as the cosmos is really a temple.  Another key verse is Isaiah 66:1-2:

Thus says the Lord:

“Heaven is my throne,

and the earth is my footstool;

what is the house that you would build for me,

and what is the place of my rest?

All these things my hand has made,

and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord.

But this is the one to whom I will look:

he who is humble and contrite in spirit

and trembles at my word.”

Jon Levenson says, “The point [is not that God doesn’t need a Temple], but the [second] temple is superfluous because YHWH already has his Temple, ‘the heaven and the earth’-creation.”  So, God makes the heavens and the earth a place for him to dwell with his people.  This is important for Leviticus, because God calls to Moses from the Tent of Meeting, which is in the Tabernacle and the Tabernacle is a mini-cosmos.  Leviticus is all about God dwelling with the Israelites in the Tabernacle, which, in a sense, is a “new heavens and new earth”.  It is the dwelling place of God.  So, Genesis 1 is about creation and the creation is a temple.  Exodus ends with the creation of the Tabernacle, which is a mini-cosmos.

The Big Picture

If you are not familiar with the opening narrative of the Bible, now is a good time to read it.  Or, if you think are, then now is a good time to revisit it.  You cannot spend enough time in Genesis, especially the opening chapters.  However, since about 1859, we often misread the text – liberals seek to make it fit with modern times, conservatives seek to make it fit with modern times, and the world says it can’t fit with modern times.  The issues of that debate are beyond the scope of these posts, because I am primarily concerned with what it meant in ancient times and, once we’ve figured that out, we can bridge it to modern times.  What would an Israelite hear when he read or heard this text read?  This directly ties into our understanding of Leviticus, so it is important to lay a foundation to build upon.  Not only are these chapters important for understanding Leviticus, but central for understanding the Pentateuch and Bible as a whole.

The big picture of the Bible is creation, fall, and redemption/re-creation.  If you read the first 3 chapters of the Bible and the last 2 chapters of the Bible, they kind of mirror each other and you get a glimpse of the scope of creation, fall, and redemption.  The first thing you should notice is that creation, fall and redemption is far grander in scope than “saving souls” – it includes the whole cosmos.  The Bible begins with the cosmos and ends with the restoration of the cosmos, not merely the “soul” of man.  After Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve are evicted from Eden, the rest of the Bible’s story is about restoring creation and that finds its culmination in Revelation 21-22.  Let’s look at each of these components.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

We read this verse and don’t immediately think of Leviticus.  You turn to Romans, Exodus, the Gospels, maybe the Psalms, but rarely is Leviticus perceived to be a profitable study. Usually, when one thinks of Leviticus a bunch of strange rules pertaining to clean and unclean animals, offerings, blood, and a host of other antiquated laws come to mind.  Yet, if our Bibles were red-letter editions, Leviticus would be overwhelmingly red.  Some 45 times we read a variation of “God spoke to Moses, saying…” followed by paragraphs of God’s direct speech.  It is God’s Word and profitable, so we need to know it.  The primary reason we don’t know it is that we simply ignore it – we are ignorant, so we avoid it.  It is not easy to gain understanding, because it is full of regulations and instructions that we do not think immediately pertain to our daily lives, so it is not typical “devotional” reading.  Aside from knowing it has something to do with priests, sacrifices, and a foggy notion that Jesus did away with all of that, we ignore it.  My study of Leviticus has helped changed my understanding of the book, the Pentateuch, and the Bible, and the hope is that this study will help with yours as well.

If someone asked, what are the 5 offerings required in Leviticus?  What happens in each one?  What would you say?  How would you relate Jesus’ “I did not come to abolish but to fulfill…”?  Can you answer?  Why are some animals clean and others unclean?  Is “Well, that’s the Old Testament and for Israel” your answer?  If so, you need a better understanding of Leviticus.  The goal of these posts is to provide you with the tools to understand the different offerings, the ordination of the Levites, clean and unclean, and the holiness code that governs the last 10 chapters of the book and how it all relates to creation and to Jesus Christ.  Before getting into the specifics, it is important to set Leviticus in its Biblical and historical context, so you can see how Leviticus relates to the Pentateuch and the rest of the Bible.