Holiness and Leadership

Holiness and Leadership

Leviticus 21–22

Main Idea: God calls His people to a high standard of holiness in every part of our lives—including marriage, death, and worship—and Jesus defines holiness and makes us holy.

I. God Calls Spiritual Leaders to a Higher Standard.

A. God says all Christians are spiritual leaders in the world.

B. God gives spiritual leaders to the church.

II. God Calls Us to Reflect His Truth in Our Grief.

III. God Calls Us to Represent His Design in Our Marriages.

IV. God Calls Us to Present Acceptable Offerings to Him.

V. God Calls Us to Know Him through His New Covenant in Christ.

A. Jesus is our high priest.

B. Jesus is our perfect sacrifice.

C. We worship through Jesus.

D. Jesus defines holiness.

1. Holiness is not elitism, but humble submission.

2. Holiness is not externalism, but heart transformation.

Leslie Holmes is a pastor and professor of preaching who was born and raised in Belfast in Northern Ireland. Holmes has written that in the forests near where he grew up, the ermine is known for its snow-white winter fur. An ermine will do whatever is necessary to protect its pure white coat. Fur hunters have learned how to take advantage of the ermine’s commitment to the cleanness of its fur. They don’t set traps for ermine. They find the home of an ermine in some rocky crevice, and they smear the entrance to its home with grime and dirt. Then they set their dogs loose to sniff out and chase the ermine. When the creature scurries toward its home for protection, he sees the grime all over the entrance, and he refuses to walk through it and risk getting dirty (Holmes, “Saving Our Own Souls”). Rather than soil his white fur, he allows himself to be captured to save his purity. For the ermine, purity is of greater value than life itself.

God wants us to value purity highly. The largest themes of the book of Leviticus are God’s holiness and the holiness that God requires of His people. In the last section we pointed out that in Leviticus God says, “Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy” four times. God also repeated that command in the New Testament in 1 Peter 1:16. God commands us to be holy because He is holy.

God directed His command to be holy to all of His people. In chapters 21 and 22 God specifically addressed the priests. He called them to be holy—set apart from the world and consecrated to Him. If God intends for all His people to be holy, certainly He intends for their spiritual leaders to be holy. Robert Murray M’Cheyne was a Scottish pastor in the nineteenth century. With reference to his leadership in the church, M’Cheyne once wrote, “The greatest need of my people is my personal holiness.” I believe he was right. The personal holiness of church leaders may not be everything, but without it they have nothing. Leviticus 21 and 22 are about the holiness of the leaders of God’s people.

God Calls Spiritual Leaders to a Higher Standard

The latter verses of chapter 21 state that God wanted only men who had no blemishes to serve as priests. If they had a visible infirmity like a crippled hand, a skin disease, paralysis, or blindness, they were not to lead in worship. Those who served in the tabernacle as priests had to be unblemished. That does not mean that God regarded people with infirmities as inferior. His requirement to be unblemished was not about worth; it was about symbolism. The tabernacle, everything that happened in the tabernacle, and everybody who served in the tabernacle symbolized the presence of God. God is holy; He is without blemish. To represent the fact of God’s perfection, only what was unblemished could be a part of the worship of God. If we ever read this passage in Leviticus and are tempted to think that people with a handicap are inferior, we should remember that the Old Testament repeatedly calls God’s people to treat the handicapped with kindness (e.g., Lev 19:14; Jer 31:8). We should also remember the ministry of Jesus; He showed compassion to the weak and healed them (e.g., Luke 14:12-15).

Thus, the old covenant priests symbolized the presence of God. God is perfect, and to symbolize His infinite perfection the priests were to have no visible imperfections. The New Testament church no longer has such a requirement for spiritual leaders. Our high priest is Jesus. He represents the presence of God, and He is perfect because He is God.

Still, in the New Testament church God holds spiritual leaders to a higher standard. Several years ago, people in our culture were debating whether young people should look at professional athletes as role models. Charles Barkley recorded a commercial for Nike in which he said, “I am not a role model.” However, public figures and leaders do not have an option about whether they are going to be role models. They are in public view, so at least some people are going to look at them as examples and follow their example. The same reality holds true in the church, and God says explicitly that He holds spiritual leaders in the church to a higher standard. James 3:1 says, “Not many should become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive a stricter judgment.” God calls spiritual leaders to a higher standard.

At this point it is helpful to recall two New Testament truths concerning spiritual leadership in the church.

God Says All Christians Are Spiritual Leaders in the World

First Peter 2:9 calls the church “a royal priesthood” and Revelation 1:6 refers to Christians as priests. Every follower of Jesus is a priest in that we lead people to God and speak to God about people. We are a royal priesthood. We lead people spiritually in obedience to Jesus’ command to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matt 28:19). Second Corinthians 5 says, “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself,” and He has given to all followers of Jesus the ministry of reconciliation. “Therefore,” Paul wrote of Christians, “We are ambassadors for Christ” (vv. 19-20). As Christians relate to people in the world, we are all spiritual leaders. We are ambassadors for Christ and we make disciples.

On the other hand, the New Testament affirms another truth.

God Gives Spiritual Leaders to the Church

Ephesians 4:11-12 says that God “personally gave” to the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. In passages like Acts 20, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, and 1 Peter 5, the two types of leaders in the church are “elders/pastors/overseers” and “deacons.” We could refer to elders/pastors/overseers as spiritual and strategic leaders, and deacons as servant leaders. Paul wrote to Titus in Titus 1:5, “Appoint elders in every town.” Every church was to have elders, spiritual leaders, and the New Testament describes them as leading.

To return to Leviticus 21 and 22, our main point is that God calls spiritual leaders to a higher standard, and that is still true of leaders in the New Testament church. The qualifications for pastors and deacons in 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, and 1 Peter 5 do not have to do with “leadership skills” or formal education. They are not job descriptions with lists of duties. Instead, the qualifications for the roles of pastor and deacon are godly character traits, attributes of the holy life God requires of leaders in the church. Leviticus 21 and 22 communicate the truth that God calls spiritual leaders to a higher standard. God gave specific laws to govern the lives of priests, and those laws communicate New Testament truths.

God Calls Us to Reflect His Truth in Our Grief

Attending funerals and therefore being around corpses is part of life for virtually everybody, but in verses 1-6 of chapter 21, God said that priests in the old covenant period were not to have anything to do with death or the dead unless the deceased was part of the family. Verses 10-12 have rules that are even stricter for the high priest. He was to have nothing to do with the dead, not even his parents.

It is likely that one main reason God told priests to be separate from funerals is that such rules made Israel’s priests different from priests in pagan religions. Priests in pagan religions were involved in ceremonies for the dead. The religions of Canaan, Egypt to the south, and Mesopotamia to the north had extensive cults of the dead and ancestor worship. Some funeral rites sought to maintain contact with the deceased and to give the deceased provisions like food and drink for the afterlife. Some of the practices mentioned in Leviticus 21, like shaving the head or making cuts on one’s body, were likely part of pagan funeral practices (Gane, Leviticus, Numbers, 372–73). God was telling His people to have nothing to do with pagan ways, including the ways they mourned.

The way we behave after the death of a loved one reveals what we believe about life, death, and God. Maybe you heard about that man who was terminally ill. He was on his death bed and was not expected to live more than a day or two. The family had gathered in anticipation of his passing. Lying on his bed at home, for a moment he was awake, and he smelled the aroma of chocolate chip cookies. He realized his wife had made cookies, and he thought how wonderful it would be to taste a chocolate chip cookie before he died. He mustered enough strength to roll to the floor, he began to crawl slowly, and he finally made it to the kitchen. With great effort he reached up to the counter for a warm cookie. But his wife suddenly appeared, slapped his hand, and said, “Don’t eat those! They’re for the funeral!”

Funerals can reveal a lot about our character. God calls us to reflect His truth in our grief. First Thessalonians 4:13 says that followers of Jesus “will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.” Why is our grief different from those who don’t know Christ? We have hope! God tells us in His Word that when we put our faith in Jesus He gives us eternal life. So Philippians 1:21 says that for followers of Jesus, “Dying is gain.” First Corinthians 15:53-54 beautifully affirms the reality of eternal life for Christians:

For this corruptible must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal must be clothed with immortality. When this corruptible is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory.

God says His people will live forever after death, and we reflect God’s promise in the way we grieve. Of course we mourn the death of a loved one, but our grief changes dramatically when we know that our loved one knew Jesus and is living forever in heaven after death. We don’t grieve in the same way as those who have no hope. We reflect God’s truth in our grief.

God Calls Us to Represent His Design in Our Marriages

In Leviticus 21, verses 7-9 state that priests were not to marry a prostitute or a divorced or defiled woman. The standards for the high priest were even higher. Verses 13-15 say the high priest was to marry only “a virgin from his own people” (v. 14).

In the New Testament church all Christians are priests, and God calls all of us to maintain the purity of our marriages. If you have been through the pain of divorce, that’s in your past. From today on, God calls all of us to represent His design in marriage. Second Corinthians 6:14 says that followers of Jesus are not to be “mismatched” with unbelievers. God tells His people not to marry anyone who doesn’t follow Jesus. The Bible also tells us in Ephesians 5 that once we are married, our marriages are pictures of Christ’s relationship to the church. Husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, and wives submit to husbands as the church submits to Christ (vv. 22-25). First Timothy 3 says God requires leaders in the church, elders and deacons, to have exemplary marriages (vv. 2,12). In the old covenant God held a high standard for the marriages of priests. In the new covenant God continues to hold a high standard for the marriages of all followers of Jesus, who are a royal priesthood.

God Calls Us to Present Acceptable Offerings to Him

In the latter half of Leviticus 22 God addressed the subject of acceptable offerings. Animals that were lame, blind, or in some other way blemished were not to be offered to God as sacrifices. Verse 20 says, “You are not to present anything that has a defect, because it will not be accepted on your behalf.” God was telling His people to give Him only the best—nothing second-rate or sub-standard. Why not? He is God. When we recognize His greatness and glory we give offerings that are great and glorious—the best we have.

During the lifetime of the prophet Malachi, God’s people were disobeying this command. They were bringing blind, lame, and sick animals as sacrifices. Through Malachi God reminded them they were not honoring Him by offering such sacrifices. God said they would not offer second rate gifts to their governor. They naturally respected their governor, and if they respected God they would not bring their leftovers to Him as offerings.

Vance Havner wrote a book entitled Lord of What’s Left. The title refers to the way many people treat God. They make Him the sovereign King, the Master, of their leftovers, while they take the best for themselves. “God, You are the Master, the Lord, the God of everything I don’t care about and don’t want.” We dishonor God when we give Him the leftovers instead of our best. God concludes His words about offerings by saying, “You must not profane My holy name; I must be treated as holy among the Israelites” (22:32). Profaning God’s holy name is a very serious matter. To profane God’s name is to misuse His name, to desecrate His name. God’s name represents His character; it represents God Himself, and desecrating God is a serious sin. The prophets explain that God says that He sent His people into exile to prevent them from further profaning His name (Isa 42:24-25; 43:27-28; Jer 7:30-34; 27:15; Ezek 43:8).

Sub-standard sacrifices, second-rate offerings, profane God’s name. We give Him the best, the first, and we give Him obedience because He is God. Romans 12:1 calls us to give not just our gifts but our lives to God. It says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” Have we given ourselves to God? Are we daily placing our lives on the altar as gifts to Him? That is the offering acceptable to God, and God calls us to present acceptable offerings.

God Calls Us to Know Him Through His New
Covenant in Christ

In Leviticus 21 and 22 God addressed the worship practices and the priesthood of the old covenant. God’s commands about those worship practices and priests are helpful to us since they symbolize the way God relates to His people. On the other hand, the old covenant sacrificial system and priesthood have been superseded by the new covenant in Jesus. The New Testament states that fact numerous times. However, the book of Leviticus is valuable because it is doubtful we will understand much of what the New Testament says about Jesus unless we know and understand Leviticus. How does Jesus fulfill the laws in Leviticus 21 and 22?

Jesus Is Our High Priest

The seventh chapter of the book of Hebrews refers to the imperfection of the priesthood described in the book of Leviticus (v. 11). The same chapter also describes Jesus as the perfect high priest. It refers to Him as “holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens” (v. 26) and “perfected forever” (v. 28). Jesus is our high priest, the one mediator between God and humanity (1 Tim 2:5) who goes into the most holy place and intercedes for us.

Jesus Is Our Perfect Sacrifice

When Jesus died on the cross, He died for our sin. He made Himself a sacrifice, and He was the perfect sacrifice. Hebrews 9:14 says that He “offered Himself without blemish to God.” Hebrews 9:26 says, “He has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” He is our perfect sacrifice.

We Worship through Jesus

The message that how we worship matters to God is very clear in Leviticus. He requires that we worship Him according to His commands. His commands do not have to do with what kind of music He likes; they address the condition of our hearts and our behavior. God is perfectly holy, so our sin must be put away before we can offer worship that is acceptable to Him. To offer right worship we must realize we are in the presence of the holy God, see our sin as He sees it, confess our sin to Him, and ask Him to forgive. We cannot offer right worship with unforgiven sin. God gave the sacrificial system to show us the need to atone for our sin in order to worship Him. God says in chapters 21 and 22 that if we come into His presence in worship unsubmissive to His commands, neglecting His holiness, living with unconfessed sin, offering Him less than our best, then we profane His great name.

Now, God has come to us in Jesus, God the Son. He lived a sinless life, endured persecution by sinful men, and allowed Himself to be tortured and crucified to provide the final and perfect sacrifice for our sins. To overlook what God has done in Jesus also profanes His name. The book of Hebrews refers to Jesus as God’s final and perfect revelation of Himself and His salvation plan. Can we offer right worship while neglecting Jesus? The book of Hebrews answers that question. The tenth chapter of Hebrews refers to God’s punishment for sin under the old covenant, and Hebrews 10:29 asks, “How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, regarded as profane the blood of the covenant?” Therefore, Hebrews 13:15 exhorts us to worship through Jesus: “Through Him let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of our lips that confess His name.” We know God through His new covenant in Jesus, and we worship through Jesus.

Jesus Defines Holiness

Lastly, Leviticus 21 and 22, indeed the entire book of Leviticus, is about holiness. God says that He is holy, He calls His people to be holy, our worship of Him is to be holy, and everyone and everything connected to worship is to be holy. In the old covenant period God chose for that holiness to be expressed by means of symbols—special garments on the priests, special ceremonies, and a tabernacle that represented His holiness.

Now God has come to us in Jesus. Jesus did not symbolize the presence of God; He was God among us. As the Gospel of John says, Jesus tabernacled among us (John 1:14). In the old covenant period, holiness was defined according to the law of Moses. In the new covenant in Jesus, holiness is personified. This is another reason it is so important to understand Leviticus: only with Leviticus will we appreciate the nature of the dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees. Much of Jesus’ conflict with the Jewish leaders related to the way they interpreted and applied the book of Leviticus regarding holiness.

According to Jesus and in contrast with the scribes and Pharisees, holiness is not elitism, but humble submission. Leviticus 21 and 22 focus on the priests and the high priest. In the time of Jesus the high priest came from the Sadducees, and the Pharisees saw themselves as dedicated completely to God’s law. Therefore, the Sadducees and Pharisees understood Leviticus 21 and 22 to be about them. They saw themselves as the inheritors of the obligations and privileges of the Aaronic priesthood. When they read Leviticus 21 and 22 they saw that the standards God gave for priests and for the high priest were higher than God’s standards for non-priests. Therefore, they saw reasons to regard themselves as higher and better than the rest of God’s people. Luke 18:9 says they “trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else.” The seventh chapter of John records the way the Pharisees looked at non-Pharisees; they said, “This crowd, which doesn’t know the law, is accursed” (v. 49). They were elitists.

How odd Jesus must have seemed to them. He said that He came to give His life for that crowd who did not know the law. He described Himself as a servant. He said blessed are the poor in spirit and the meek, and He said the kingdom of God belongs to people who become like little children. Who was holier—the Pharisees and Sadducees or Jesus? Jesus shows us that higher standards do not necessarily assure holier people. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day assumed that their position proved their piety. They were wrong. Satan delights in putting his people in prominent places of religious leadership. As proof, look at Judas or the high priests who sentenced Jesus to death. Leviticus 21 and 22 are not intended to teach that priests are holier than laypeople. They teach that with higher position comes greater responsibility. As Jesus put it in Luke 12:48, “Much will be required of everyone who has been given much.” God gave the priestly laws of Leviticus to create in the priests a greater sensitivity to holiness and corruption, not to create pride or elitism as though the priests were better because God required more of them. All of God’s commands should result in humble submission, our obedience to His Word.

How did Jesus apply laws like those in Leviticus? How did He define holiness? Holiness is not externalism, but heart transformation. Most of the laws in Leviticus have to do with external matters—the correct food to eat, handling the sacrifices in the correct way, uncleanness based on the condition of the skin or an emission of blood. However, God never said that observance of external ceremonies made someone righteous. All the external matters were symbolic; they taught the truth that God is holy, He is separate, and He wants His people to be separate from the sins of the world. Separation from ceremonial defilement was symbolic for separation from sin.

However, it has always been easy to equate religious ceremony with personal holiness. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day made that mistake too. The connection is so simplistic and reductionist, but the Gospels record that the Pharisees made that connection—they observed religious rituals correctly, therefore they considered themselves spiritually pure. Since the Pharisees believed rituals led to purity, ceremonial washing was highly important to them, a fetish. It is not surprising, then, that they rebuked Jesus’ disciples for not washing correctly, and they were repulsed that Jesus ate with sinners and touched lepers to heal them. The Pharisees failed to understand, as many people today fail to understand, that ceremonial correctness does not constitute holiness. The ceremonies of Leviticus are symbols. God intended to use them to teach that there is a difference between clean and unclean, holy and profane, good and evil. Recognizing that difference is the beginning of holiness, not the end. Leviticus defines holiness in concrete, visible ways, but as God’s revelation in the Old Testament continues to unfold God teaches that He is not nearly as interested in external ceremony as He is in internal reality. He is interested in the condition of our hearts and righteous behavior like loving God and people, not just our participation in holy ceremonies.

Jesus consistently taught the priority of the condition of our hearts. The heart, He said, is the source of sin.

You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. . . . You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matt 5:21-22,27-28)

Jesus prioritized the condition of our hearts. He said, “From the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile a man” (Matt 15:19-20).

We stated at the beginning of this section that the largest themes of Leviticus are the holiness of God and the holiness God requires of His people. The problem is that God’s people are not perfectly holy, not even holy enough to come into God’s presence. We are sinful. However, because God loves us He has provided a way for our sin to be taken away. In the old covenant that way was the sacrificial system. Now Jesus is the perfect sacrifice. He died for our sin so that when we put our faith in Him He forgives our sin, reconciles us to God, and gives us the gift of abundant and eternal life. The church father Augustine said, “Nothing whatever in the way of . . . real holiness can be accomplished without grace.” He was right, and thank God He has provided that grace in Jesus who offers us eternal salvation and a holy transformation of our hearts!

Reflect and Discuss

1. Why did God restrict priestly service to men who had no blemishes?
2. According to Scripture, why should we not view people with a handicap as inferior?
3. Explain how all Christians are spiritual leaders in the world. Why is this important to remember?
4. What spiritual leaders does God give to the church? To what higher standards are they held?
5. How should we reflect God’s truth in our grief?
6. According to Romans 12:1, what is acceptable, spiritual worship? Have you given yourself to God?
7. How does Jesus fulfill the laws in Leviticus 21 and 22?
8. According to the book of Hebrews, can we offer right worship while neglecting Jesus? Explain.
9. How can you guard against equating religious ceremony with personal holiness?
10. How does Jesus get to the heart of the matter in Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28; and 15:19-20?