How to Be Clean

Any reader of the Bible knows the experience of reading through the book of Leviticus. Compared with the flowing narratives and fascinating character studies of Genesis and the first half of Exodus, Leviticus reads slow and sluggish. 

We lose ourselves in the fine, repetitive details of the varied offerings – burnt, grain, fellowship, sin, and guilt. Then we slog through the job description of the priests, interrupted by the quick drama of the death of Nadab and Abihu. After that, the purity laws drag on with lists of clean and unclean animals, and a step-by-step process for determining the nature of infectious skin diseases and mildew in the house. If we make it through all that, we are welcomed by a chapter on bodily discharges. 

And that is just halfway through the book! 

Since we know all of Scripture is profitable and none of God’s Word is wasted ink, we push ourselves through Leviticus, trying to make out the meaning of it all; trying to see the relevance of line after line detailing the rules of how to be ceremonially clean. 

Got mildew on a pot? Better go see the priest and have it examined. Woke up with a rash on your arm? Pay another visit to the priest. Sat on a bed with soiled sheets? Now you are unclean till the evening and you better bathe yourself and wash your clothes. 

So, we trudge through the thick underbrush of Leviticus, hemmed in on all sides by regulations, rules, and instructions, and feeling a tad bit claustrophobic as we imagine what it would be like to have life governed by this holy law. 

Then suddenly imagination turns to realization. Having meditated on the multitude of laws, we begin to feel anew the expansive freedom we have in Christ. We realize that Jesus sets us incredibly free from the purity laws, not because they no longer matter, but because he lived a pure life on our behalf. 

We don’t have to worry about remembering the exact steps for offering up a ram as a guilt offering, because Jesus, the Lamb of God, has already made a once-for-all sacrifice for us. And we don’t have to learn the hard lessons of holiness from a list of laws about itchy skin and fuzzy mould because Jesus is our Teacher and His Spirit instructs us from the inside out. 

At the end of the day, we are set free from the tiresome burden of purity laws because Jesus carried the burden of all our sins – including all the times we were impure in thought and deed. If you think Leviticus is a little too extensive in its coverage of laws and regulations, just remember that our sins are more extensive, and then remember, and praise God, that the sacrificial love of Christ is even more extensive – it makes perfectly clean the dirtiest of sinners. Hallelujah!