The Message of the Pentateuch
The Lord Jesus in the Books of Moses
Introduction
The first five books of the Old Testament, the books of Moses, the Pentateuch, which means “Five Scrolls,” are foundational to the entire Bible. While each book contains much and varying material, there is a central theme in each one. In addition to setting forth these major themes, these books lay the foundation for the coming of the Lord Jesus. They are ultimately about him. In these pages we will seek to discover and understand these issues.
The Gist of Genesis
We begin our study of Genesis by stating at the very beginning what is the very beginning, the major theme of the book. It is set forth in chapter 1, verse 1: “In the beginning Elohim…..” Elohim is the Hebrew description or title of God. The word is in the plural (Gods), but is used with singular verbs, indicating that it was considered to be singular, God. It is first applied to the one God, the only God, the God of the Bible, but over time it was corrupted in being used for false gods (see, for example, Ex. 12.12, 23.24, 32.3-4, Lev. 19.4). God made it clear, though, that he is the only Elohim: Dt. 4.39, 32.37, 39, 2 Kings 19.18. [Robert B. Girdlestone, Synonyms of the Old Testament, 19-21]
What is Moses telling us when he begins his voluminous work with, “In the beginning Elohim…”? He is telling us that everything, the entire universe and all of history, is from God and about God and what he is doing. This universe which Elohim created, as Gen. 1.1 continues, is theistic. That is the chief theme of Genesis.
What do we mean by theistic? This word comes from the Greek word for God and god, theos (qeovς). It means “having to do with God” or “believing in God” (or a god, or gods). The atheist believes there is no God or god (Greek “a” in this use negates the word it precedes, that is, “a,” no, “qeovς,” god – no god). The theist believes in God or a god or gods. Gen. 1.1 tells us that everything that exists was made by God and is about God. It is theistic.
It is also teleological. That is, it has to do with purpose. God is a God of purpose. Everything he does, everything he allows, has purpose, a good purpose, and ultimately that purpose is to bring his Son into the highest place (Phil. 2.9), and conforming his people to the image of his Son (Rom. 8.28-29).
This truth is the foundation for everything else in the Bible. Indeed Genesis is foundational, the foundation of all history and especially of salvation history. If there is no God, the Bible is a nice (sometimes!), meaningless story. If there is no God, creation has no purpose. Indeed it is not creation, for it had no creator. If there is no God, our lives are meaningless. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die. Live it up while you can.
But people by the millions, probably billions, testify that there is a God, that they have met him personally, and that he gives purpose and meaning and fulfillment to their lives. Even pagans who have never heard of Elohim testify that there is a God or god or gods. If this is true, and it should be obvious that I believe it is, then the meaning of everything does not come from human reasoning and philosophy (“philosophy” means “love of wisdom”), from riches, from power, even from human relationships, though they are of utmost importance in the meaning that God gives to this creation. All of man’s search for truth and peace and great struggles for world domination and the bringing in of utopia and all that are nothing but “sound and fury, signifying nothing,” except as God may be at work in them.
That is the fundamental message of Genesis. It is ALL about God.
Let us now go through the book, not verse by verse, but in some detail, to see how this truth works out. The first thing we learn is that God exists: “In the beginning God….” Then that he is Creator of all things: “In the beginning God created….” Then we have a very curious statement in 1.26: God said, “Let us.” Why would the only God there is and the only being there was before he began to create, say “Let us.” Who are “us”? We are shown here at the very beginning that there was relationship within God before anything else existed. We hear in 1.2 of the Spirit of God. This could be just another term for “God,” such as, “I know something in my spirit.” That is, “know something in me.” But when we add that to 1.26, “us,” we begin to see that there is more to this God than at first appeared. We could not explain it with only that information, but as the Bible unfolds we realize that God is a Trinity, three in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We cannot understand or explain how there could be one God and three persons, or three persons and one God, but it is plain to see in the Bible. There are theological statements that may help, but in the end this Reality is beyond us. We believe it or we don’t!
This God in whom there is relationship made human beings for each other, and to reproduce, their purpose being that they are to be a reflection of what God is, related, an expression of love.
Much later on we learn that God is love (1 Jn. 4.8, 16). Just as God knew that it was good for him to be related within himself, so he knew that it was not good for the man he had created to be alone, so he made a woman to be with man. She was taken out of him to be one with him. Such is our God.
We also see that man was made to rule over God’s creation (1.26-28). Man, of course, failed in this assignment and allowed Satan to usurp that place, and he is now the ruler of this world and the god of this age. (Jn. 12.31, 2 Cor. 4.4) But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Having made these few observations about God, let us now turn to the truths unveiled in the stories of Genesis. I will not quote Scripture at length, assuming that you know these stories, but just refer to the facts presented. I am driving at the meaning of what took place. If you do not know the stories, you can easily follow them in your Bible, beginning with Genesis chapter 3.
Adam
First, of course, after the creation is the record of the fall of man. God had put his man and woman into an ideal environment and had told them they could eat of any tree of the garden except for one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He warned Adam that on the day when he ate from that tree he would die. We know from later Bible information that this included both spiritual and physical death. Adam did not die physically as soon as he sinned, but lived for 930 years. He did, however, die spiritually. His spirit that had been in such wonderful, intimate fellowship with God and with his wife Eve, died on the spot. Almost immediately he was hiding from God, then blaming his fall on Eve (3.12), showing the cloud that had already come over their relationship. He also showed the break with God in saying in the same statement, “The woman whom you gave me….” He blamed his sin on God and on his wife. He was dead spiritually. Eve was no better off. She blamed the snake. So both Adam and Eve were driven from the garden and the long, sordid history of fallen mankind began.
One of the instructive aspects of the Old Testament is what is called typology. I won’t go into a detailed explanation. Simply put, typology is the foreshadowing in the Old Testament people and institutions of aspects of the Lord Jesus, among other things, but our concentration is on Christ when he would come to this earth to reverse the damage done by Adam. What I will share here will be simple and brief, not a detailed typology, which can get rather involved sometimes. Paul called the Lord Jesus the second man and the last Adam. (1 Cor. 15.45, 47) That is, Adam foreshadowed the Lord Jesus. How so? Not in his fall into sin, of course, and here we see that typology can include both comparison and contrast.
Adam was put into an ideal environment and given the task of managing it, of being fruitful so as to populate the earth, and of not eating of that one tree. Adam is what is called a federal head.
That is, all mankind is included in him. We are all sons and daughters of Adam and were designed to do the tasks he was given, to rule over God’s creation and to populate the earth. And as we know, of course, Adam did the one thing he was told not to do and brought himself and Eve and all creation into a fallen condition.
The Lord Jesus was the last Adam, that is, a federal head. He was to give his life for the forgiveness of our sins, be raised from the dead, and be the Head of a new race, the race of born anew people, that is, born spiritually, from above. We were born physically of our earthly mothers; we are to be born spiritually also. All who have faith in him are included in him. In Adam, in Christ. He was brought into an anything but ideal environment, a world full of sin and of all the suffering and sorrow that result from it. He was driven into a wilderness, not a garden, to be tempted, but unlike Adam, he did not eat of the tree. He overcame temptation there and throughout his life and, dying without sin, he became that federal Head God sent him to be. The comparison: headship of the race. The contrast: Adam sinned and passed death, spiritual and physical, on to his seed, whereas the Lord Jesus overcame temptation and passed eternal life, his life, on to all who are in him by faith.
All creation and all history are from God and about God and what he is doing, and we see in Adam that all men were called to be what God made Adam to be, people who trusted in and obeyed God. But sin came in. All history is the terrible story of sin and its results and of God’s plan for dealing with it and gaining the people he sought after. The first Adam prefigures the last Adam, the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 15.45)
Abel
Adam was the first type of Christ. The second was Abel, the son of Adam and Eve. Abel and his brother Cain brought offerings to God. Cain’s was rejected. Abel’s was accepted. We are not told why, but the generally accepted thought is that Cain offered the fruit of his own labor, salvation by works, and Abel offered the product of his herd, a blood sacrifice, salvation by faith in something produced by God and shedding its blood. Abel is a type of Christ in that he brought to God an acceptable sacrifice, a blood sacrifice. The Lord Jesus offered himself as an acceptable sacrifice, one who was sinless and without blemish. And he and his sacrifice were accepted by God (Rom. 1.4). Thus we see the blood sacrifice of the Lord Jesus prefigured in the fourth chapter of the Bible.
All creation and all history are from God and about God and what he is doing, and we see in Abel a man of faith who trusts in God, not in his own works, and the one who shows us the Lord Jesus who would offer the acceptable blood sacrifice, his own blood.
Enoch
Gen. 5.24 tells us that Enoch walked with God and was not, because God took him. That is, he did not have to die, but was caught up to Heaven alive because he was pleasing to God. He is a type of the Lord Jesus as one who walked with God, and though the Lord did have to die, that death was in itself obedience to the Father, and he was raised back to life and was caught up to God.
All creation and all history are from God and about God and what he is doing, and in Enoch we see what God wanted, people who would walk with him and be caught up to him. He prefigures the Lord Jesus being caught up to Heaven.
Noah
Then we come to Noah. There are two major representations of the Lord in his story. One is Noah himself. He was the one who was taken safely through the waters of death in the ark, because he was seen by God to be righteous, while all those outside the ark were judged and died. The Lord Jesus went safely through the waters of death and was raised to resurrection life because he was righteous, fully and perfectly trusting in and obeying his Father. Christ is also the Ark itself, for it is in him, as with Noah in the ark, that we all go safely through the waters of death.
In addition to these truths, we see that the name “Noah” means “rest.” He is a type of Christ in that Christ is the one in whom we rest for salvation. We are not saved by our works, but by our rest in the Lord Jesus by faith. He is our rest.
All creation and all history are from God and about God and what he is doing, and Noah shows us that God wants a righteous people who are at rest in the Lord Jesus and who safely pass through the waters of death in him. He prefigures the Lord Jesus as our rest.
Abraham
Abraham is next in line. Abraham was originally Abram, “exalted father.” Ironically, he had no children, and he was old in years and his wife Sarah was beyond the child-bearing years. Then God called him and promised him a son. Because he responded with faith and obedience to God, Abraham is known preeminently as a man of faith. The great statement of the Bible about Abraham is found in Gen. 15.6, “Then he had faith in I AM, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” [I AM is the English translation of the personal name of God, Ex. 3.14.] God made him an impossible promise, impossible to men, but Abram exercised faith in God. As a result, he was credited with righteousness and because he had faith in God and his word, he was given a son by his wife Sarah, became the father of a nation, Israel, given the name
“Abraham,” which means “father of a multitude,” became that father of a multitude of nations (Gen. 17.5), and is known as the father of those who have faith (Rom. 4.11).
Abraham is a type of Christ in that he lived by faith in God. I believe that our Lord Jesus lived on this earth as a man, not using his divine power, though he was God in flesh, but walking by faith. Hebrews especially shows us the Lord’s humanity in 2.10, 14-18, 4.14-15, and 5.8. There is more to the typology connected with Abraham, but this is the primary aspect for our present purpose.
All creation and all history are from God and about God and what he is doing, and Abraham shows us that he wants a people who believe him and walk by faith. He prefigures the Lord Jesus who was the ultimate man of faith.
Isaac
Next is Isaac. How is he a type of Christ? He is the son of promise. Matthew begins his account of the good news with the words, “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham.” Our Lord Jesus is the Son of promise, the Son promised by God who would provide salvation by faith for all. Isaac was the son promised to Abraham and Sarah when it was impossible for them to have a son by birth. Paul the great Apostle makes much of this matter in Gal. 4.21-31, pointing out that we, too, are sons of promise because we are children by faith in the promise of God.
All creation and all history are from God and about God and what he is doing, and Isaac shows us that God wants a people who are born of promise, those who are not seeking salvation by the works of the flesh, but by faith in the Lord Jesus. He prefigures the great Son of Promise, the Lord Jesus.
Jacob
How do we deal with Jacob as a type of the Lord Jesus? He was anything but! He was a swindler and a user of people, even trying to use God himself to get what he wanted (Gen. 28.20-21). He is more a type of the man of the flesh. But there is one thing in Jacob that God valued and it shows us why things went the way they did according to God’s plan. Gen. 25.27 tells us that Jacob was a complete man. What could that mean? We know that Esau is preeminently a type of the flesh. (Heb. 12.16-17) Jacob had no interest in submitting himself to God to do his will, but he did have a belief in God and an interest in spiritual things. He valued God and the things of God, if only for selfish purposes. God used Jacob’s history to bring him to the point of seeing that God was his only hope and that the flesh had to go. Jacob’s thigh is a picture of the flesh,
and when it was finally crippled and Jacob was weak in the flesh, but strong in the spirit, instead of the opposite, then he began to prevail with God. Is. 33.23 gives us the wonderful outcome: “the lame took the prey.” Jacob’s life ends with his passing on the blessings to his sons and worshipping God as he held onto his staff.
We see nothing of Jacob in the Lord Jesus but this one thing. The Lord was, and is, a complete man. He was all God made man to be. He was the only man who has ever lived who was fully human as God intended. He trusted in God totally. He said nothing but what he heard his Father say. He did nothing but what he saw his Father do. His only interest was in doing “the will of the one who sent me” and finishing his work. (Jn. 4.34)
All creation and all history are from God and about God and what he is doing, and Jacob shows us that God wants people who are complete men and women, those who value the spiritual and the things of God. He prefigures the Lord Jesus who valued the things of his Father above all else.
Joseph
Joseph was a man whose life was filled with trial. First of all, when he was a young boy his mother died in childbirth (bearing Benjamin). No one can know that sorrow who has not experienced it. What a loss that must have been for him. Then, because he was his father’s favorite, since Rachel had been his true love, he was hated by his brothers. Then the outcome of that was that he was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers after they had plotted to kill him. After he had served his master faithfully and well, he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. He was such a model prisoner that the jailer put him in charge of the prison. Then when he interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker, which interpretations were accurate, he asked the cupbearer to remember him to Pharaoh when he was restored to his office, and the cupbearer promptly forgot him. Ingrate!
What did Joseph do in response to all these trials? He remained faithful to God and kept doing his best and what was right in every situation. The Bible does not record a single complaint, especially against God. We see that Joseph was a man who overcame, and in that act he is a type of the Lord Jesus, the preeminent Overcomer. We will never know the half, the smallest fraction, of the trials that he went through, the bitter sorrows he tasted, the deep, deep suffering of body, soul, and spirit that he went through. Yet we never once read of a complaint. It was the will of the Father and he accepted it and carried it out without protest. He overcame totally, the only man who ever did. He was The Overcomer.
All creation and all history are from God and about God and what he is doing, and Joseph shows us that God wants a people who will overcome. He prefigures the Overcomer, the Lord Jesus.
Conclusion
How do we sum up what we have written about Genesis? What is the Gist of Genesis? We have said that all creation and all history are theological and teleological. They are theocentric, centered on God and his purpose. What is that purpose? It is to have a people who will manifest his glory by living in the way set forth in these eight men. They are types of the Lord Jesus and he is the fulfillment of each and all of them. But far beyond that, God is determined to have a Man who will be all of this, and this as the federal Head of a new race, a born-from-above race, in whom those people will be such a people. In the end, all God’s purpose is centered in his beloved Son. We did not deal with the matter of inheritance, but it is a very important one in Genesis, such as Jacob inheriting the blessing, and Heb. 1.2 tells us of the Lord Jesus that God “appointed him Heir of all.” Do you realize that God owns everything? He is rich beyond comprehension, and he intends to give all of it to his Son. We are not thinking about material wealth, as we humans are so caught up in, though all that is God’s, too, but of treasures that we have no idea of in this age. Only the Kingdom Age and eternity will reveal the riches of God. And it is all for his Son and his people (Rom. 8.17). May we be found in him!
What does all this say about the Lord Jesus? He is the foundation of all (Ps. 102.25, Heb. 1.101 Cor. 3.11, Eph. 2.20). He is the Man that God wanted Adam to be. He is the blood sacrifice of Abel, offering himself, the Lamb of God. He was the one most pleasing to God, like Enoch. He is the one who passed through the waters of death to resurrection life because he was righteous, as was Noah. He is the Ark in whom we are saved. He is our rest, the meaning of the name Noah. He is the preeminent Man of faith who trusted in and obeyed his Father in every respect, fulfilling the type of Abraham, and he is worthy of our faith. Like Isaac he is the Son of Promise. He is the complete Man who valued above all the things of God, but unlike Jacob, who had to learn this the hard way, he put no confidence in the flesh (Phil. 3.3). He is the Overcomer, fulfilling the type set forth by Joseph, and he enables us to overcome as we trust him and obey him.
Such is the message of Genesis.
The Essence of Exodus
We are taught that Exodus is the book of Redemption because it tells the story of the redemption of the Israelite slaves in Egypt into freedom. It is without doubt true that Exodus tells this story, but it is only a part of the story. The deeper meaning of Exodus is the story it tells of the constituting of the people of God, of what constitutes the people of God.
There are three main sections to Exodus. First is the redemption. The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt, the greatest world power of that day. God raised up Moses and used him miraculously
to bring deliverance to his people. He sent plagues on Egypt, but only when he sent the plague of the death of all the firstborn in Egypt did Pharaoh relent and let the people go. Even then he changed his mind and after they had left he went after them. God miraculously divided the waters of the Red Sea and the people went through on dry ground. When Pharaoh’s army attempted it, they were all drowned as the waters returned to normal. Thus were the people free.
But there was a particular aspect of the redemption that is the first step in the constituting of the people of God. When God told Moses that all the firstborn of Egypt would die, he also told him that all the firstborn of Israel would also die unless they sacrificed a lamb on the eve of the exodus and put some of the blood on the doorposts and lintels of their houses, and we have that wonderful statement of God, “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” Thus our word “Passover.” These people had to be under the blood of the Passover lamb to avoid the death of the firstborn.
That is the first factor that constitutes the people of God. They must be under the blood of the Lamb, but now the Lamb is not an animal, but the Lord Jesus (Jn. 1.29). If you are not under his blood, you are not a part of the people of God. That is an essential. We must be forgiven of our sins by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus to have a place among the people of God.
The second major section of Exodus is the story of the giving of the law. God wrote with his finger on the tablets of stone the Ten Words, as the Hebrew says, the Ten Commandments as we usually say, and he spoke to Moses the fuller development of the law in Ex. 19-24. The point is that God spoke and that thus the people had the word of God. Have you given thought to the fact that we, unlike most peoples in the world, have the word of God to instruct us as to who and what God is and what he requires of us? Most people are dependent on a priest, and believe me, many of those priests know how to use that position to their own advantage. Throughout history people have paid the priests handsomely for their direction. They did not have the word of God and so had to rely on what “the holy man” said. Even in Roman Catholicism, which claims to be Christian, the “church” (falsely so called: it is anything but a church) reserves the right to interpret Scripture to itself, and the authority rests in the “church,” not in the Scriptures. Thus are its people bound to priests, which, by the way, the Lord Jesus died to do away with as such. We are all priests who are the Lord’s (Ex. 19.5-6, 1 Pt. 2.5, 9, Rev. 1.6, 5.10). We can all speak to the Lord and hear from him and read his word for ourselves. But I digress!
This fact of the word of God shows us that God is a speaking God. He tells us what he wants us to know through his written word, and we are free to study it and to seek the direction of the Holy Spirit to do so. Heb. 1.2 tells us that at the last of these days God has spoken to us in his Son. He is the full revelation of God. This having of the word of God is the second factor in the
constituting of the people of God. We have heard from God. Without that we have nothing. It is a cardinal doctrine of our faith that the word alone is our authority. We do not rely on men, though God certainly does use men to study, teach, and proclaim his word to us. But because we have the written word of God, we have an authoritative authority (!) that frees us from the whims of men and the winds of doctrine. Without that we are not the people of God. Anyone can believe anything, and my opinion is just as valuable as yours, both of which are worth nothing! God has spoken and thereby called into being a people for his own possession. Praise him!
The third constituting factor of the people of God is pictured in the Tabernacle. What is the Tabernacle? It is a type of the Lord Jesus. Everything in the Tabernacle, the materials, the articles of furniture and service, the colors, everything, is a picture of the Lord Jesus. Just for example, the color blue shows us his heavenly origin; white, his purity and pure righteousness; red, his shed blood; purple, his royalty, though he is far beyond what we mean by “royalty”: he is divinity, King of kings and Lord of lords.
And what is the Lord Jesus? He is Emmanuel, God with us. The Tabernacle was the place in which God dwelt among his people. So is the Lord Jesus. He is the one in whom God dwells among us. The Tabernacle and the Lord Jesus are the presence of God, and that is the third factor. Without the presence of God we are not the people of God. Recall that in Ex. 33.3, after
Israel’s great sin of idolatry, God told Moses to go on to the Land of Promise, but that he would not go with them. Moses’ answer to God was,
If your presence does not go, do not take us up from here. For in what now will it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in that you go with us, so that we are separated, I and your people, from all the people that are on the face of the earth?
And see Rom. 8.9, 11, 2 Cor. 6.16, Eph. 3.17, 1 Jn. 4.13, and especially Rev. 21.3: “And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! The Tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them.’”
And one final word. Perhaps Ex. 33.13 is the most important verse in Exodus: “Now therefore I pray you, if I have found favor in your eyes, show me now your ways, that I may know you, to the end that I may find favor in your eyes, and consider that this nation is your people.” We have just seen the constituting of the people of God, and now Moses adds that since these are his people, he, Moses, must know God in order to lead them. One comes to know God by knowing his ways, how he deals with us and how he works to bring about his purposes. And
perhaps God’s greatest desire for us is that we know him, through his blood, his word, and his presence.
The Essence of Exodus is that the people of God are constituted by blood redemption, the word of God, and the presence of God, that we may know him and be of “the people who know their God” (Dan. 11.32). May we know these realities deep in our hearts to the glory of God!
What does this tell us about the Lord Jesus in Exodus? He is the Lamb of God, the blood sacrifice. He is the Word of God. He is the presence of God – Emmanuel, God with us.
The Light of Leviticus
Leviticus is a difficult book for many Christians. It is mostly a recitation of the laws of Israel. People become bored reading it and so do not see the spiritual truth of this book which is God’s word. However, there are great lessons in this wonderful book.
It begins with the Jewish sacrificial system, the offering of animals, grains, produce, wine, and so forth to God. This was actually the worship system of Israel. This was how the people worshipped. They continually brought sacrifices to God to atone for sin or to express thanksgiving to him or to represent fellowship with him in the eating of a meal together. Sacrifice was the heart of Jewish worship in the Old Testament, and in the New up to the destruction of the temple.
It is very instructive that the first use of the word “worship” in the Bible is in Gen. 22.5. When Abraham was about to take Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him to God, he told his servants to stay where they were while he and his son went to worship! He was going to sacrifice his son and he called it worship. That shows us that sacrifice is at the heart of worship, and the sacrificial system of Leviticus underlines and extends that truth. And Paul challenges us in Rom. 12.1: “I urge you therefore, brothers, through the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your logical worship.” If what Paul has written in Romans is true, then it is only logical that we present ourselves as a living sacrifice. And Paul calls this worship, just as Abraham did.
I take this living sacrifice of Romans to be the whole burnt offering of Lev. 1. This was not an offering for sin, but actually a giving of oneself wholly to God, which is what Paul is calling for. You will find it interesting that the Greek word for this whole burnt offering in the New Testament is holokautoma, from which we get the word “holocaust.” Our worship ought to be a sacrifice of ourselves wholly to God. This word is used in Mk. 12.33 and in Heb. 10.6 and 8. [In these three verses, by the way, the word of God tells us that love of God and neighbor is far more than whole burnt offerings, and that God has not desired them or taken pleasure in them.
This shows the New Testament concept of worship under grace beyond the legal teaching of the Old Testament.]
This is how Leviticus begins and it shows us that the foundational truth of this book is that worship is sacrifice, the giving of ourselves to God as whole burnt offerings, except that in the New Testament we are to be living sacrifices, not bleeding and dying sacrifices, though some of us have been called on to die for the Lord, and many more will be, according to Scripture.
After the laws concerning sacrifices, most of the rest of Leviticus lists many of the laws governing the life of the people of Israel. This goes on for seventeen chapters. The main point of all these laws, like all good law, is a good one: they show how the people of God can live lives pleasing to him and live together in harmony. They are simply a codifying of what is right. It is only reasonable that a holy and righteous God would require such of his people. Indeed, one of the central verses of Leviticus is 11:45: “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (See 1 Pt. 1.16)
And thus we come to the second major word of Leviticus, holy. Worship and holy. “Holy” first of all means “unique,” and refers to God who alone is holy (Rev. 15.7). Then it means to be set apart for God. We usually think of a holy person as one who does not sin. None of us can meet that standard. We are all born sinners. But we can be set apart for God. However, the requirement for a holy life, living as we should, is still there. We are to live in obedience to God so as to bring honor to him. Thanks be to God, we are not under the law, by which we would be condemned by one failure, one sin (Ja. 2.10), but under grace, by which the Lord Jesus took away our sins and left us acceptable to God. He is in the process of sanctifying us, that is, making us holy in deed as well as in our position in Christ. The words “holy” and “sanctified” mean the same thing. “Holy” is Old English and “sanctified” is Latin, e.g., Sanctus Spiritus – Holy Spirit.
So – how do we bring all this together? What is the Light of Leviticus? The word “Levi” (the root of “Leviticus”) means “joined” (Gen. 29.34). One of the great, and astounding, statements of the New Testament is 1 Cor. 6.17: “Now the one who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” That is, those who are born from above are one spirit with the Lord – oneness with the Lord Jesus. How can that be?!!! Leviticus is the book that shows us how to have access to God, how to be joined to him. We are saved by grace through faith, but we come into intimate relationship with God by worship, giving ourselves wholly to him, a whole burnt offering, and by holiness, being set apart for him and living in obedience to him.
Please do not take this as irreverent, but the context of 1 Cor. 6.17 is Paul’s dealing with immorality. A saved man who joins himself to a prostitute is joining the members of Christ to a prostitute (v. 15). In other words, this matter of being joined to the Lord is not just being saved, but is a matter of the intimacy of marriage. That is the closeness that the Lord wants to have
with us, and indeed he intends for us to be his bride. We are to be joined to him. That is the access we are to have to him, and he to us also. That is the Light of Leviticus: access; we come into intimacy with the Lord by worship and holiness, by giving ourselves wholly as a sacrifice to him and by setting ourselves apart, or by yielding to his efforts to set us apart, for him, and living in obedience to him.
And let me just say that the Lord Jesus is access to God: he is the way, the truth, and the life. “Having therefore, brothers, assurance for the entrance of the Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus, which he inaugurated for us, a new and living way through the veil, that is, his flesh, and a great Priest over the house of God…,” (Heb. 10.19-21). Hebrews goes on to say in 12.10, “… that we might receive of his holiness,” and in 12.14, “Pursue holiness, without which no one will see the Lord….” Let us be joined to the Lord by this access to him through worship and holiness. (It is enlightening what is pointed out by my dear brother Stuart Lane, that the verb for “joined” in 1 Cor. 6.17 comes from the Greek word for “glue”: be glued to the Lord!)
What do we learn about the Lord Jesus in Leviticus? He is the Whole Burnt Offering, wholly given over to God. He is holiness, completely set apart for God and the completely unique Man.
The Nugget of Numbers
The nugget of Numbers is Nevertheless. Let me explain. We are told by various writers, for whom I have utmost respect, that Numbers is about the walk and warfare of the Christian in the wilderness. The book begins with the words, “And I AM spoke to Moses in the wilderness….” Remember, though, that the wilderness in this symbolism refers to the place of defeat. Israel spent thirty-eight years wandering in the wilderness because they did not trust and obey God. It is not about the walk and warfare of the Christian in the wilderness of this world, a different symbolism, which implies victory, but about the constant failure and defeat of the Lord’s people. Yes, they were his people, but they were walking in defeat, not in victory.
The first chapter sets forth the numbering (which is why the book is called Numbers) of all the men twenty years old and up who were able to go to war, and we learn that there were 603,550 of them. This was a formidable force in that day of small wandering tribes and small towns. It would appear that Israel should have been able to take the land with ease by their own strength. But Numbers shows us that victory in the Old Testament and in the Christian walk and warfare does not come by our own strength. The arm of flesh will fail.
Just look at the contents of the book. After the opening chapters that deal with the commands of God regarding the census, the arrangements of the tribes, and various laws, the first matter we see in the behavior of the people is this:
And the people were as complainers, speaking evil in the ears of I AM, and when I AM heard it his anger was kindled, and the fire of I AM burned among them and devoured in the outer part of the camp. And the people cried to Moses, and Moses prayed to I AM, and the fire sank down. And the name of that place was called Taberah [burning], because the fire of I AM burned among them. And the mixed multitude that was among them desired a desire, and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, “Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for free, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our soul is dried up. There is nothing at all except this manna to look at.” (11.1-6)
The Lord sent them meat to eat, but then he sent a plague among them that killed many who had lusted for meat.
Without going into continued detail, let us just note the ongoing failures of the people: 12.1-15: Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses and Miriam became leprous as a result.
13.25-14.45: The spies who surveyed the Promised Land gave a bad report and the people rebelled against Moses. God declared that the people of that generation would not enter the Land, the ten spies who gave the bad report died by a plague, and the people, in regret, tried to invade the land anyway after God told them not to, and were defeated.
15.32-36: A man broke the Sabbath and was stoned to death.
16.1-40: Korah’s rebellion.
16.41-50: The people rebelled against Moses after the death of Korah and his family and the rebels, saying it was Moses and Aaron who had caused their death, and God sent a plague among them that killed another 14,700.
20.2-5:
And there was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people contended with Moses, and spoke saying, “Would that we had died when our brothers died before I AM! And why have you brought the assembly of I AM into this wilderness that we should die there, we and our beasts? And why have you made us to come up out of Egypt to bring us in to this evil place? It is not a place of seed or of figs or of vines or of pomegranates, nor is there any water to drink.”
This was the occasion on which Moses lost his temper and struck the rock when God had said to speak to it, and thus was also banned from entering the Land.
21.4-9:
And they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom, and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread and there is no water, and our soul loathes this miserable food.”
Then came the fiery snakes and many deaths and the bronze snake that saved the people when they looked to it.
25.1-9: Perhaps the most sordid incident occurred when the people worshipped the gods of Moab and committed immorality with their women. The plague killed 24,000.
There were a couple of victories, but they were few and far between: 21.1-3, 21.26 and 31.1-20.
What are we to make of this continual record of failure of the Lord’s people? Take note of why they failed. They did not trust and obey God. Faith begins with belief. Belief is not faith, but it is the beginning of it. Faith believes God and acts on that belief. The people did not believe God. They did not believe that he would take them safely through the wilderness and into the Land, and then give them victory in the Land. They preferred to go back to the safety and security of slavery in Egypt to going on with God because of the perceived danger. Since they did not believe God they did not trust him. There was no faith. Because there was no faith, there was no obedience. Heb. 3.18-19 read, “And to whom did he swear that they would not enter into his rest if not to those having disobeyed? And we see that they were not able to enter because of lack of faith.” No faith, no obedience. Thus there was failure on every hand. They were a defeated people. We are told in 1 Jn. 5.4, “And this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.” We overcome because we believe God and act on that belief. That is faith.
All of this shows us that Numbers is about overcoming and failing to overcome. Remember Joseph in Genesis? He trusted God and he overcame. He went from slavery to the throne.
I wrote at the beginning that the nugget of Numbers is Nevertheless. Let us look at the Lord Jesus. In Lk. 22.42 he prayed, “Father, if you will, take this cup from me. NEVERTHELESS, not my will, but yours be done.” [emphasis mine] The Lord Jesus did not want to drink the cup of the cross. He had just said, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, unto death.” His whole being shrank from the cross. His entire life came down to this point and victory or defeat hung in the balance. If he had insisted on his own will, to avoid the cross, all would have been lost. But he believed God and he acted on that belief. He exercised faith. (Faith must be exercised, by the way. It doesn’t just happen.) He believed Ps. 16.10-11a: “For you will not leave my soul to Sheol,
nor will you give your Holy One to see decay. You will show me the path of life….” (See Acts 2.27-28, 31) That is, he believed that though he died, his Father would raise him from the dead. Because he was a man of faith, he uttered that “Nevertheless” and won the victory, not just for himself, but for all men. Would that all would receive that victory.
It is just the same for us. When we come to those points in life when we must face something we would rather not face, make a decision we do not want to make, we must insist on our own will or say, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will,” instead of complaining over everything from the little irritations of life to the major difficulties and rebelling against God, can we not say to him, “Dear Lord, I do not ask you to get me out of this situation, but to use it for your glory and my good”? Can we believe Rom. 8.28-29, “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to purpose, for those whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,” and act on that belief by saying, “Nevertheless”?
Our salvation and our eternity hang on the Nevertheless of the Lord Jesus. Our victory in this life hangs on our Nevertheless, obedience based on faith. That is the nugget of Numbers.
What does Numbers tell us about the Lord Jesus? He is the one who said, “NEVERTHELESS, not my will, but yours be done.” He is victory.
The Directive of Deuteronomy
The directive of Deuteronomy can be set forth in very few words, mostly just the word of God itself. Deuteronomy, meaning “second law,” is a restatement of the law of God through Moses and a recounting of all that God did for Israel in making her his people. He delivered them from slavery in Egypt. He led them through the wilderness of this world to the Promised Land. He gave them great promises that would bring great blessing if they listened to his voice and obeyed. Then he challenged them.
I AM your God will make you have excess of good in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, for I AM will again rejoice over you for good, as he rejoiced over your fathers, if you will listen to the voice of I AM your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law; if you turn to I AM your God with all your heart and with all your soul. For this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, nor is it far off. It is not in Heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up for us to Heaven and bring it to us and make us hear it, that we may do it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us and make us
listen to it, that we may do it?” But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil, in that I command you this day to love I AM your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, that you may live and multiply, and that I AM your God may bless you in the land which you go in to possess it. But if your heart turn away and you will not listen, but be drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, you will surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land which you are crossing over the Jordan to go in to possess it. I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses to you this day, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore CHOOSE LIFE, that you may live, you and your seed, by loving I AM your God, by listening to his voice, and by clinging to him; for he is your life and the length of your days, that you may dwell in the land which I AM swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. [Dt. 30.8-20, emphasis mine]
That is the directive of Deuteronomy: CHOOSE LIFE, which is to choose I AM your God, for he is your life. CHOOSE LIFE!
And how does this preach Christ to us? In Rom. 10.5-8 we read,
For Moses writes, “The righteousness which is of the law, the man doing these things will live by them.” 6But the righteousness which is of faith speaks thus, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into Heaven?’ that is, to bring Christ down. 7Or, ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ that is, to bring Christ up from the dead” [plural]. 8But what does it say? “The speaking is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” That is, the speaking of faith which we are preaching.
Choose life. That is, choose Christ. He is life. CHOOSE LIFE!
Copyright © 2018 by Tom Adcox. All rights reserved.
Old Testament quotations are the author’s update of the American Standard Version. New Testament translations are the author’s.