Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Reverence and God’s Order

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 53

Track: 53

Dictation Name: RR172AC53

Date: Early 70s

Oh Lord, our God, we give thanks unto Thee for Thy providential care, for Thy government which cannot fail, and for the certainty of Thy victory, and our victory in Thee over sin and death. We thank Thee that the gates of Hell cannot hold out against Thy kingdom. Give us grace therefore, our Father to walk in this confidence, to work in this confidence, to pray in this confidence and to know that in Jesus Christ, we are more than conquerors. In His name we pray, Amen.

Our scripture is Leviticus 22:1-16, our subject, “Reverence and God’s Order.” “Reverence and God’s Order.” Leviticus 22:1-16,

“1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me: I am the Lord.

3 Say unto them, whosoever he be of all your seed among your generations, that goeth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord

4 What man soever of the seed of Aaron is a leper, or hath a running issue; he shall not eat of the holy things, until he be clean. And whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead, or a man whose seed goeth from him;

5 Or whosoever toucheth any creeping thing, whereby he may be made unclean, or a man of whom he may take uncleanness, whatsoever uncleanness he hath;

6 The soul which hath touched any such shall be unclean until even, and shall not eat of the holy things, unless he wash his flesh with water.

7 And when the sun is down, he shall be clean, and shall afterward eat of the holy things; because it is his food.

8 That which dieth of itself, or is torn with beasts, he shall not eat to defile himself therewith: I am the Lord.

9 They shall therefore keep mine ordinance, lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, if they profane it: I the Lord do sanctify them.

10 There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing.

11 But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house: they shall eat of his meat.

12 If the priest's daughter also be married unto a stranger, she may not eat of an offering of the holy things.

13 But if the priest's daughter be a widow, or divorced, and have no child, and is returned unto her father's house, as in her youth, she shall eat of her father's meat: but there shall no stranger eat thereof.

14 And if a man eat of the holy thing unwittingly, then he shall put the fifth part thereof unto it, and shall give it unto the priest with the holy thing.

15 And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel, which they offer unto the Lord;

16 Or suffer them to bear the iniquity of trespass, when they eat their holy things: for I the Lord do sanctify them.”

Colin Dalglish aptly titled this section, “Reverence for Things Sanctified.” The Law, basically in its bare bones first is that no priest who had become unclean was to eat or touch things sanctified. This is verses 2-9. Now, remember, this is case law, so that if it applies here, it applies across the boards. It applies to any immoral act which would render him unclean, any ceremonial uncleanness; everything. Second, no one could eat of holy things, of the priest’s portion unless they were a member of the priest’s family, according to verses 10-16. The penalty for violation was excommunication.

Now this is a passage which people who read the Bible from cover to cover (as we should), read dutifully without bothering to think about. It’s just one of those things which was said once and is no longer important but they read it because they feel it is their duty to read. And this kind of mindless approach to the Bible does it a serious injustice, because this is a very important passage. We have to recognize what it is saying and not be dull-witted as we read it. Men do demand that their will be taken seriously. When any law is passed by men, they demand obedience. But God’s Laws are taken casually, unless they coincide with man’s will. Men are ready to say it’s a good thing that God said, “Thou shalt not steal,” because it protects their property. But when God speaks as He does in these verses, they are ready to say it’s of little account; it is trivial, it is unnecessary. But they forget that the honor of God is involved, and that God has a purpose in this. What is the meaning of this? These and similar rules, but this is the heart of it, militated, and militate against ecclesiastical pride.

Priest are told here, the clergy are told, that they too can be defiled, that the purity and the holiness of their office does not insure their personal purity. Now this is a very important point. It means that it is God who sanctifies, not an office, not a person, not the clergy. This has been a problem over the centuries, in that when people get an office—and if it’s true of the priest, it’s true of the civil official, of any one in any office, in any position of dignity—but people feel that because they are a public official it means that they have a holiness or a sanctity or a separateness or a dignity apart from their office; as though they themselves are something rather than the office. And they feel there is a special holiness about it.

I had a call this past week from a minister who in that particular state (Pennsylvania) was facing all kinds of regulations that would’ve governed every aspect of the life of the church, down to the fact that the people doing visitation for the church on the sick, on the shut-ins, on new-comers, any kind of visitation, had to be registered with the police. Their driver’s license and their car license had to be registered. They had to be subject to all kinds of controls by whatever department in whose jurisdiction ostensibly they operated. And when this pastor go up, after they had twice referred to Tammy Bakker as justification for this, to say that Tammy Bakker, however morally wrong, had committed no crime, had not been indicted nor convicted. But right there, in their own midst, there were policemen who had been convicted of theft and rape, firemen for setting fire to houses, public officials for theft, for misappropriation of funds and more at every aspect of the civil government. How dare they feel they had a righteousness whereby they could control the church? They continued the meeting as though he had not spoken. They were justice!

Now this is what this passage is talking about. It applies to priests and to people, to civil officials and to officials of organization. An office does not give sanctity or dignity or anything else to a person who does not earn it. The Law here has its purpose to protect the holiness of God from presumptions of the clergy and to protect every kind of office from the officeholders. They are unclean in God’s sight if they violate the purpose of their office.

This has been a real problem over the centuries, in church and state and all kinds of organizations, and in the family with men feeling that because they are a man that automatically gives them a status of holiness and justice, or something special. Boccaccio called attention to the pretentions of evil priests, that their office gave them virtually an inherent sanctity. This is an attitude that I’ve often encountered among the Protestant clergy. To be in a holy cause does not in and of itself make a man holy. One of the great horrors of war is that soldiers assume the justice of a cause means the justice of themselves and whatever they do. They are on the right side, the other side represents evil, and therefore anything they do is acceptable.

But we are told here that to profane an office through which God’s justice, God’s righteousness, His holiness is to be manifest, is to sin. And there is a penalty: death. This does not mean by sentence of a court, but death in the sight of God and by His judgment. How it is meted out and when is in God’s hands. He reserves that to Himself, but He says those who defile their office are in my sight deserving of death.

Now in Leviticus 16—ah 21:16-24, which we considered previously, the involuntary, the physical impediments to the priesthood were cited. But there was no moral blame in them. God simply said a perfect specimen alone can serve me, the others are to be cared for, but they cannot hold office. It is the moral impediments that defile and bring judgment.

In verses 15 and 16, the priests or clergy, by profaning the sanctuary and worship have an impact on the people. They suffer them to bear the iniquity of trespasses, we are told in verse 16. So this is an important point because it means that a people who will not defend the purity of the sanctuary will suffer from the tolerated sins of their clergy. So what this verse is saying (its idiom is not the best in English), that when a people will tolerate wrong in the pulpit or in any office as in the State or in any organization, they themselves are polluted. They may be clean as far as their moral conduct is concerned, but they have incurred the moral guilt of their officials and of their clergy if they do nothing about it, if they are indifferent to it. Judgment begins with the clergy and then it extends to the church and then to the ungodly. We are told this very clearly in many passages and also in I Peter 4:17, “for the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”

To be careless where God’s honor is concerned is sin. Carelessness even with respect to the details of worship shows contempt for the honor of God. The physical and the spiritual are on the sight of God inseparable. What we do with things physical is a revelation of our moral perspective. Geerhardus Vos commented on this, stating, “The spiritualizing of the ritual vocabulary is further carried out by the prophets and psalmists. Isaiah speaks of unclean lips in an ethical sense. The earth is defiled by transgression of the fundamental laws of God. Blood (that is murder) defiles the hands. The temple is defiled by idolatry. The people pollute themselves by their sins. Ethical purity is symbolized by clean hands and a pure heart. The ethical cleansing is described in terms of ritual purification. So speaks Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah and the Psalms.” Thus, the terminology of ritual and morality is interchangeable.

In verses 10-16, we have the particulars of participation in the priestly allowance and the penalty for any unwitting, unknowing transgression. If a man eats what is a priest’s portion when he is visiting the priest, not knowing that this is his (the priest’s), but assumes that because he perhaps is a day laborer that it was a part of what was set aside for him, he must pay the equivalent amount for the food, plus a fifth more or a double tithe. There is a very important emphasis besides this in these verses which must also be cited. Langey stated it with very telling clarity, so I shall quote him. “The center of the whole Levitical system is rather the sacrifice than the priest, and the priest is for the sake of the sacrifice, as is distinctly brought out in this chapter rather than the reverse.”

All the same in verses 10-16, we see an important stress on the human side of the whole matter. Those who can partake of the priest’s portion of the sacrifice are carefully defined in their relationship to the priest. And there is a reason for this. To city Langey again, “The house appears in its full theocratic significance.” For better or worse, the man defines the household. For this reason, just as judgment of a society begins at the church. So judgment in a family begins with the man. As our Lord tells us, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required, and to whom men have committed much of him they will ask the more.” So speaks our Lord in Luke 12:48. It is God who commits authority to the man in the house, and it is God who holds the man accountable, and the qualified members who have a right to the priest’s portion are defined in terms of him. By analogy, the members of any man’s house must be supported by him. The reference in verse 10 is to the stranger or foreigner, according to some, but it does not mean a foreigner in our sense but any non-member of the family.

In brief, this text, Leviticus 22:1-16 requires respect and reverence for those things pertaining to God. At the same time it defines the necessary privileges of family members. God in requiring respect and reverence for Himself does not thereby diminish the integrity and authority of the family, nor any other order of life which He has created and ordained. The service of God cannot be used to undermine God’s order, and our Lord commends all such false piety, declaring in Mark 7:9-13,

“9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:

11 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free.

12 And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother;

13 making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.”

What we see thus in this text and in all the references to it throughout the Old and New Testaments is this: God requires us to reverence His order. We cannot assume that because we hold a holy office or an office related to justice or any kind of authority, that makes us holy or just, or gives us any authority in our own person. Moreover, it makes clear that the household and all those under us in any capacity have their just claims also on us. God sets forth His doctrine of order and summons us to live by it.

Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, Thy Word is truth, and Thy Word sets forth the way and the order, the truth and the life in terms of which alone man can life. Give us grace to delight in Thy Word and to know that there is no good in and of ourselves but what we have, we have received by Thine ordination and therefore should serve Thee and glorify Thee, for Thine is the power, the glory and the kingdom now and forever more. Amen.

Are there any questions at this time?

Yes.

[Audience] {?} office confers no special dignity or privilege or holiness, what is the purpose of an office? And how is an office distinguished a vocation?

[Rushdoony] All vocations are God’s calling. And an office is also a part of God’s calling. Now, I use the word office, but in terms of scripture, the better word is ‘function,’ because we tend to see an office in terms of a dignity, a status, whereas God sees it in terms of its function in serving Him. That’s why the—our all, whatever our calling, great or small, called callings. Because their center is not of us, it’s of God. And so when men hold high office, they’re holding a high function, or calling, in terms of God’s ordination and therefore they are accountable. They have to look for the Law elsewhere—to God. They have to look for the authority elsewhere—to God. They have to look for the holiness or justice or knowledge elsewhere—to God; so all offices are callings. Every kind of work must be seen as a calling.

[Audience] Is there a hierarchy of offices {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes. The term hierarchy must be contrasted to elitism. The world favors elitism. Scripture enforces hierarchy, and hierarchy means sacred rule, rule in terms of God’s will. Elitism says I am important. I am better than you are because of what I am. Hierarchy says I have a calling, a vocation; an office in terms of God’s order, in terms of His will and in terms of His Word and it’s not of myself. So in terms of hierarchism, we do not have anything except what God gives us for His purpose. So as Christians we have to believe in hierarchy, not in elitism.

Any other questions or comments?

Yes.

[Audience] The whole idea of office is being denied in the United States.

[Rushdoony] Is what?

[Audience] …is being denied in this country at this point. Rebellion against authority runs through the American society and a resentment of offices runs through this society, including the office of the President and anything that emerges from that particular office is treated by the press as a violation of the order. To separate offices from order; you don’t have any order.

[Rushdoony] Very good. Very true. That’s why de Tocqueville wrote his Democracy in America, because he could see that the future was democracy. And he was afraid of it, he knew that what was existing was dying, and therefore he studied this country and he felt that apart from a strong Christian faith, there could be no democracy functioning, and uh, his great fear was that it would be replaced by Equalitarianism. And now the basic religion is equality. And yet, we have an elitism with it, because no true equalitarianism can ever function.

[Audience] An Orwellian equality—some pigs are better than others.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes. So, ah, de Tocqueville was quite prophetic in his book, because he saw the problem and he saw the dangers.

Today it’s almost seen as a moral duty to despise order and authority. Now that is, on the part of the Left.

Well, if there are no further questions or comments, let us conclude now with prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks that in spite of all that men may do, it is Thy kingdom which shall come and Thy will which shall be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Teach us to rest in Thee, to work in Thee, and to rejoice in Thee. And give us, oh Lord, tokens of victory that we might see as Moses looking into the Promised Land, the shape of things to come, that we might rejoice in Thy victory, even as it dawns. Bless us in Thy service; give us grace to serve Thee, and to do what Thou wouldst have us to do, and to rejoice in Thy will. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.