Our mini-series on Leviticus has obviously not been the last word on such a complex Bible book - we'll no doubt be returning to it in the future.
For now it might be worth seeing how four simple questions might help us when reading it in the future and wondering whether specific commandments apply to us as God's people today:
1) Did Jesus replace it?
This is the reality when it comes to the rules setting up the sacrificial system that is the focus of so much of Leviticus: Jesus has replaced them all with his sacrifice of himself on the Cross - as we saw when we looked at Leviticus 1 and Hebrews 10.
2) Did Jesus repeal it?
This was the case when it comes to the food commandments we looked at together in Leviticus 11: Jesus' words in Mark 7 make it fine for us to enjoy pork and prawns. His actions in touching lepers, bleeding women and dead bodies would also seem to indicate the repealing of a whole host of the other laws on ritual uncleanliness too.
3) Did Jesus reschedule it?
This is how we understood the death penalty demanded in Leviticus 20 - that Jesus has delayed it for the sins listed there. But that it is still the divine punishment for those sins - and for all human acts of rebellion against our loving God and his good Word - in the light of what the rest of the Bible teaches us: that the "wages of [all] sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
4) Did Jesus repeat it?
One reality we potentially underplayed is that Jesus often reaffirms commands in Leviticus. The early part of Mark 7 gives us a good example of this as he criticises the people of his day for failing to honour their parents - quoting Leviticus 20:9 as he does so. So much of the moral teaching of Leviticus is repeated by Jesus and his apostles throughout the rest of the New Testament.
So let's keep reading Leviticus and let God tell us about himself and ourselves through it's pages. Most of all let's keep letting God use it to point us to our need of Jesus and how wonderfully God's Son has met all our needs through his perfect life, death and resurrection.
