God Rules from Our Birth

God Rules from Our Birth

Leviticus 12:1-8

Main Idea: God is the sovereign ruler over every detail of our lives from birth, He calls us into a covenant relationship with Him in which we are separate from the sinful ways of the world, and He provides atonement for our sin so we can be clean and relate to Him.

I. God Commands Celebration of Childbirth.

II. God Requires Separation from Unbelievers.

A. Worship separates us.

B. Truth separates us.

C. Obedience separates us.

III. God States the Stipulations of His Covenant.

IV. God Provides Propitiation for Our Sin.

V. God Offers Salvation to All.

When we read a chapter like Leviticus 12 that addresses childbirth and uncleanness after childbirth, we ask questions like, What do we do with that? Why is it in the Bible? Is it important? What does it mean to us? What difference does it make? It is also especially challenging for a man to preach a sermon on experiences only women have, like childbirth and menstruation. Through the years I have preached from the various genres in the Bible—psalms, prophecy, Wisdom literature, New Testament letters, narratives, apocalyptic literature, and parables. But the legal sections of Leviticus like chapter 12 present a different kind of challenge. When I preached through Leviticus, I feel like a juggler who has juggled all kinds of objects for years, and one day someone asks, “I wonder if he can juggle chain saws?” When I agree to attempt it and make it through the first 11 chapters, someone else says, “Let’s crank the chain saws and see what happens!” As I prepared to preach on childbirth and what happens after childbirth, I knew it could go badly in several different ways. Part of me just wanted to get through it without hurting myself.

I also thought of the truck driver I heard about who had attended a week-long class on truck driving. At the end of the week the teacher gave a final exam, and the exam consisted of one question. The question was, “You’re driving down a steep road that winds around a mountain and has numerous hairpin curves. Just beyond the edge of the road, the shoulder is a cliff that drops for hundreds of feet, and the road has no guard rail. As you are descending that steep road, you lose your brakes. What do you do?” The truck driver taking the exam wrote just one sentence as an answer—“I would wake up Bubba.” The teacher saw his answer and asked him why he wrote it. The truck driver said, “Bubba and I drive together. When Bubba drives, I sleep, and when I drive Bubba sleeps. In that situation I would wake up Bubba because Bubba and I have been driving together a long time, and I know Bubba would want to be awake because he ain’t never seen a wreck as bad as this one is gonna be.”

I, like that truck driver, feared a wreck as I prepared to preach through some of the laws in Leviticus, especially those that are rather explicit. On the contrary, I learned that studying and applying these laws in the context of a new covenant church is actually very helpful for followers of Jesus. As we approach legal sections like this we should remember that 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable.” Since Leviticus 12 is included in “all Scripture,” then it is inspired by God and profitable. How is Leviticus 12 profitable to us?

God Commands Celebration of Childbirth

Since Levitical law states that a woman who bore a child was unclean with the result that she could not touch anything holy or come into the sanctuary, some people think these laws carry the message that birth is not a cause for celebration. Furthermore, since the woman who gave birth was to offer a sin offering, some may think that the process of conception involves sin. However, we should remember two facts. First, in God’s Word childbirth is celebrated. God was the One who commanded reproduction. In Genesis 1:28 God said to the first man and woman, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth.” Some people have said that is the only command God ever gave that humans have consistently obeyed. We have been fruitful and we have multiplied. So childbirth is the result of obeying God’s creation command. Also, Psalm 127 says that children are a heritage from the Lord and a reward. “Happy is the man who has filled his quiver with them” (v. 5). Childbirth is a cause for celebration. In the Old Testament, being without children is a great affliction; childlessness was a form of suffering. The book of Genesis says that Jacob’s wife Rachel was barren, and Rachel said, “Give me sons, or I will die!” (Gen 30:1). When God gave a child to a family, they received that gift as a great blessing.

The second fact we should remember is that in the book of Leviticus the word “unclean” does not always refer to sin. It is certainly not sin here. Uncleanness after childbirth is not the result of sin. Uncleanness was sometimes a moral category, but it was also a ritual category. People became unclean by sin and by their association with anything that resembled or represented the realm of death. In the case of childbirth, childbirth involves blood, blood was associated with death, so childbirth rendered women unclean because of the blood. The only blood God allowed in the tabernacle was sacrificial blood, the blood of animals shed for the purpose of atonement. Everything else that had to do with death was kept separate from the tabernacle.

Thus, childbirth rendered a woman ritually unclean but not morally unclean. God commands celebration of childbirth. Viewing pregnancy or the birth of a baby as an inconvenience or an unwanted expense is always against the will of God. The practice of abortion is the result of the opposite way of thinking about the birth of a baby. Instead of celebrating God’s gift of new life, those who abort kill God’s gift of new life. When they do so they dishonor God’s gift and put themselves in the place of God as if they had the authority to give and take life. God’s Word always leads us to celebrate pregnancy and the birth of a child as gifts from God. Psalm 100:3 says, “Acknowledge that Yahweh is God. He made us.” God makes us; babies are His work and His gift. God commands celebration of childbirth.

Some people are confused that a woman who gave birth to a boy was unclean for 7 days and continued in purification for 33 days, but a woman who gave birth to a girl was unclean for 14 days and continued in purification for 66 days (Lev 12:2-5). Why did God differentiate in that way between male and female babies? Does this suggest that females are more unclean, or inferior, to males? This last suggestion violates the balance of biblical revelation, so we should reject it. The text offers no explicit explanation for this law, so commentators have had to speculate. Some have attempted to offer a medical explanation based on ancient conceptions. Though this may have been the case, it seems to impose modern scientific categories on the text. A more promising explanation is that since the blood of childbirth renders a woman ritually unclean, the longer period of uncleanness for a baby girl anticipated the baby’s own ritual uncleanness when she gives birth in the future. A textual fact to consider that may be significant is that the circumcision of a baby boy was on the eighth day after his birth. If the mother continued in her uncleanness after the seventh day, she would not be able to approach the tabernacle on the eighth day and would thereby miss her son’s circumcision. Therefore, perhaps we should not conclude that the period of uncleanness for female babies was longer for an unknown reason, but that the period of uncleanness for male babies was shorter for a known reason—the necessity of obeying God’s command to circumcise on the eighth day after birth (Rooker, Leviticus, 183–84).

God Requires Separation from Unbelievers

In the last section we saw that one consequence of obedience to the Levitical laws was that God’s people would differentiate themselves from other groups. God’s people were about to enter Canaan, and God told His people numerous times not to adopt the ways of the Canaanites. The Canaanites worshiped idols and practiced virtually every kind of debauchery. They even practiced child sacrifice. God did not want His people to have anything to do with the Canaanites so that His people would not adopt their ways. God was separating His people from the Canaanites by their diet and by their worship.

Worship Separates Us

The Canaanites worshiped Baal, and the worship of Baal included blood. First Kings 18 describes the priests of Baal cutting themselves in a worship ritual (v. 28). God’s people would also encounter the Moabites, and the Moabites worshiped Molech, sometimes referred to as Milcom. The worship of Molech involved blood because it included human sacrifice. The priests of Molech killed people in the worship of their false god.

So the worship rituals included in the pagan religions of Israel’s neighboring cultures involved human blood. In contrast, the one true God declared the worship of His people would be different. The worship of false gods included human blood and death, but the worship of the one true God would include only animal death and would exclude all signs of human death, including blood and disease. It is not saying anything negative about childbirth, child-bearing women, or babies to say that childbirth involves blood and is a form of disease in that it is dis-ease. It involves a lot of pain—during pregnancy, during childbirth, and after childbirth. Blood and pain were parts of pagan worship in the ancient world, but God separated His people by giving laws separating human blood, pain, and death from worship. God said to regard women who had given birth recently as unclean because the blood of childbirth brought to mind connotations with the blood of pagan worship.

Worship still separates God’s people. False religion still exists in the twenty-first century. Many people worship themselves, but the church of Jesus Christ worships the one true God. Many people worship a hobby, money, notoriety, the body, or a human philosophy, and some people even worship their religious liturgy; but the church of Jesus Christ worships the one true God. Worship separates us. Even when our neighbors see that our cars are not in our driveways on Sunday morning, they know we are worshiping and they are not. A habit of worship separates us from other people.

Truth Separates Us

In the ancient world the mortality rate in childbirth was much higher than today. Childbirth put women and babies in danger of death. Therefore, ironically, childbirth was associated with death. Anything that was associated with that was not allowed to approach worship because from the beginning God communicated the truth that death is caused by sin. The first sin led to death, and sin has been leading to death ever since. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” Because of death’s association with sin, generally anything having to do with death was unclean and God required its separation from worship. Since childbirth was associated with death or the danger of death, God commanded women to stay away from public worship after childbirth.

The fact that death entered the human race through sin is the truth God communicated to humanity. That truth was reflected in the way Israel worshiped. Other religions in the ancient world had no doctrine of original sin or atonement for sin. Still today, Islam, Buddhism, and other religions have no doctrine of original sin. Followers of Jesus are separate from the world because we believe the truth that God has revealed in His Word and in Jesus.

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

1. How is childbirth celebrated in God’s Word?
2. Why did uncleanness result from childbirth?
3. How does Scripture challenge the practice of abortion?
4. Why do you think the time of uncleanness and purification was longer if a woman gave birth to a girl rather than a boy? How could circumcision have affected this?
5. What does your obedience to God communicate to unbelievers?
6. Why do you obey God? Is it because you have a relationship with Him and love Him?
7. Define propitiation. How does God offer us propitiation?
8. Why is childbirth a reminder of sin and an enduring symbol of sin?
9. How is the universal availability of atonement foreshadowed in Leviticus 12?
10. Second Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable.” How is Leviticus 12 profitable for you?