God Rules from Our Birth

Obedience Separates Us

Beginning in Leviticus 11, God gave numerous laws to His people. Those laws were comprehensive in that they governed every major area of life—commerce, family, childbirth, religion, clothing, and even diet. God’s laws were so comprehensive that every day, several times each day, God’s people had specific commands to obey regarding what they were doing at that moment. Every time they ate a meal they had to make sure they were eating according to God’s law. When they worked the fields, paid their workers, and related to their neighbors they thought of God’s laws that applied to those activities. Living in that way impressed on all the Israelites that the whole of life is under God’s rule. It was as if God was saying that nothing in their lives was so small that He did not care about it. God is involved in every detail of our lives, He cares about every detail, and every detail is an opportunity to obey God.

Our obedience to the Lord in all things will separate us from unbelievers, and separation from unbelievers is a fundamental principle in the old covenant and in the new covenant. God commands the new covenant followers of Jesus to love the people of the world as He loves them. God also commands us not to love the sinful ways of the world. First John 2:15-16 says,

Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For everything that belongs to the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s lifestyle—is not from the Father, but is from the world.

If we love and worship the one true God and follow His ways, we will not love the ways of the world. A separation will always exist between followers of Jesus and those who do not know Jesus. We separate ourselves from the world by our worship, by our belief in the truth, and by our obedience to God’s rules. God requires such separation from unbelievers.

God States the Stipulations of His Covenant

When we read the detailed laws of Leviticus, we should not forget the covenantal context of those laws. God gave His laws in the context of His covenant relationship with His people, Israel. His rules were stipulations of His covenant, and a covenant exists in the context of a relationship.

The blood of childbirth was not immoral, so keeping it away from worship was not a moral matter. The absence of the blood of childbirth from worship was a relational matter. God said to keep uncleanness away from worship, and if the Israelites failed to obey God they were guilty of rebelling against their covenant relationship with God. Obedience to God’s laws was a relational matter because God’s laws were stipulations of His covenant with His people. In interpreting and applying Leviticus we must always consider the personal, redemptive relationship between God and the people to whom God gave His law. To disobey God’s laws was to dishonor that relationship.

A member of our extended family does not like certain words. The words are not crude or curse words; they are normal words that people use almost every day. Still, this family member does not like them; for some reason they grate on her. I am aware that she does not like those words because she has told me so. Hence, if I use those words around her I am not doing anything morally wrong but I am sinning, if you will, against our relationship. I am not even breaking a rule of etiquette, but I am doing something I know she doesn’t like. So I try not to use those words because I love her—not because the words are intrinsically sinful but because I love her and she does not like them.

Our relationship with God is both like and unlike our relationships with people. God is a Person, but God is also God. When He says that He does not like some word, deed, or thought, obeying Him is not merely a matter of being nice to Him, it’s a matter of obligation because He is God. Not all the rules in the Old Testament have to do with intrinsic morality. For example, God told His people not to eat certain kinds of food. Those foods were not intrinsically immoral. However, God said not to eat them, so eating them was a violation of a relationship with Him. When God’s people were obedient they did not eat that food, and they didn’t go near the tabernacle when He said they were in a condition of uncleanness. We obey God’s law because we have a relationship with Him and we love Him. His laws are stipulations of His covenant.

God Provides Propitiation for Our Sin

Propitiation means to satisfy God’s righteous wrath against sin through sacrifice. In Leviticus 12, verses 7 and 8 have the word atonement. Propitiation is the New Testament word for atonement. The word atonement, however, is broader in meaning than propitiation. Atonement refers to reconciliation, two estranged parties coming together, becoming “at one” with each other. Atonement refers to doing what is necessary for two parties to be reconciled. Atonement usually refers to covering sin, or taking away sin, so we can be reconciled to God. It also refers to taking away uncleanness. In Leviticus 12 childbirth is not sin; it is uncleanness. Atonement in Leviticus 12 refers to removal of uncleanness and return to the state of cleanness.

So why use the word propitiation in a section on Leviticus 12, since propitiation refers to satisfying God’s righteous wrath against sin? Childbirth certainly is not sin, but it is a reminder of sin and an enduring symbol of sin. After our parents Adam and Eve sinned, God announced His judgment on their sin. One of the consequences of Eve’s sin was that her pain in childbirth would be great. God said to her, “I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children in anguish” (Gen 3:16). The pain and blood of childbirth were reminders of the reason for increased pain in childbirth, and that reason was original sin. The pain of childbirth reminds us of the presence of sin in the human race because of the original sins of Adam and Eve.

When a baby is born, family members visit the hospital immediately after the birth to celebrate the arrival of the baby. When they see the mom in her room, she is typically very tired but also very happy. She asks family members, “Have you seen the baby?”

“Yes, we just saw him in the nursery on our way here!”

Her second question is not always as easy to answer. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

Grandparents can probably answer honestly, “Yes, he’s so beautiful!” but we grandparents are delusional. The truth is that the baby is red, wrinkled, bald, and his head is shaped like a football. When our grandchildren were born and we heard, “Isn’t he beautiful?” I told my wife in private, “Not really.”

Despite all of our fawning and cooing over newborns, we know those newborns are sinners. We are born in sin. Ephesians 2:3 says we are “by nature children under wrath.” We are born with a sin nature. King David recognized that. He wrote of his own birth in Psalm 51:5, “I was guilty when I was born.” The moment we are born, we are sinners. We inherited a sin nature from Adam and Eve, and every single one of us chooses to sin. As Stan Norman has written,

Opinions that regard human beings as morally neutral are at best naïve and superficial or at worst defective and delusional; all such assessments are unbiblical. . . . Sinfulness is part of the warp and woof of our existence. Sin is a corrupting presence in each human being. We are infected and enslaved by sin. (“Human Sinfulness,” 475)

When a child is born, we know that child is a sinner, and because sin leads to death that child is born to die. Ironically, birth is a reminder of our death, and our death is because of sin. Sin leads to death. Thank God, He provides propitiation for our sin; He provides for the satisfaction of His righteous wrath against sin because He loves us! First John 4:10 says, “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Because God loves us He incarnated Himself in human flesh as Jesus the Messiah, He took our sin on Himself on the cross, and He died as the sacrifice for our sins. First John 2:1 refers to “Jesus Christ the Righteous One,” and verse 2 says, “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins.” Jesus satisfied the wrath of God toward our sin; He paid the debt we incurred through sin. Jesus accomplished that saving work when He died as our sin sacrifice on the cross, and His atonement for our sin is made effective when we put our faith in Jesus.

God Offers Salvation to All

The atonement Jesus accomplished through His sacrificial death on the cross is available to all people. First Timothy 2 says God “wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” and Jesus “gave Himself—a ransom for all” (vv. 4,6). The universal availability of atonement is foreshadowed in Leviticus 12. Verse 8 says, “If she doesn’t have sufficient means for a sheep, she may take two turtledoves or two young pigeons.” God made provision for the needs of the poor. Financial condition never excludes someone from the atonement God provides. God offers it to every person free of charge.

Luke, the Gospel writer, recorded the experiences of one particular young woman who went through the experience of childbirth. She faithfully observed the ceremony of purification, and she and her husband were so poor that they could not afford a lamb for a sacrifice. Her name was Mary, her husband’s name was Joseph, and their son’s name was Jesus. Luke 2:22-24 says,

When the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were finished, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord . . . and to offer a sacrifice (according to what is stated in the law of the Lord: a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons).

The law Luke cited was God’s law in Leviticus 12. How do we know that the atonement God offers in Christ is for everyone, even the poor? One way we know is that He was poor. His mom offered the sacrifice of a poor person. Second Corinthians 8:9 says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.” The atonement for sin and reconciliation to God He offers is for all; no one is excluded.

What do we do with laws like these concerning uncleanness and purification after childbirth? Do we ignore them? Do we include them in the by-laws of our churches? Do we crochet them, frame them, and hang them on our front doors? The apostle Paul wrote in Galatians that the law is a schoolmaster that leads us to Jesus. So we note the principles God teaches in each of these laws and we read the New Testament to learn how those principles are fulfilled in Jesus. Leviticus 12 reminds us that God is the sovereign Ruler over life—every detail of life from the very beginning. Leviticus 12 also reminds us that He intends for us to be separate from the sinful ways of this world. So much about our lives resembles death and the sinful ways that lead to death. We are unclean. We are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. We are sinners. However, God provides the way for our sin and mortality to be removed. That way is Jesus, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Jesus reconciles us to God. That’s what God says. And God rules.

Reflect and Discuss