INTRODUCTION TO PART 3
Therefore shall ye keep my commandments, and do them: I am the LORD. Neither shall ye profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the LORD which hallow you, That brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD (Lev. 22:31-33).
Separation: this is the heart of the Book of Leviticus, the third book of the Pentateuch. The biblical meaning of holiness is to be set apart by God, i.e., hallowed. Separation and holiness are inescapably linked; or, we might say, inescapably bound. Leviticus 17-22 presents the laws of separation.
Leviticus 22:31 speaks of profaning God's name in relation to obeying the commandments. This points back to the third commandment, which prohibits the taking of God's name in vain (Ex. 20:7). God places a boundary around His name; to violate this boundary is to profane it. That this law is recapitulated in a passage mandating obedience to God's commandments should not be surprising. Point three of the biblical covenant model, ethics, is related to the third commandment. It is also related to the eighth commandment, "thou shalt not steal" (Ex. 20:15), the Bible's supreme affirmation of the rights of private property, i.e., the right of individuals to own, use, and sell (disown) property.(1)
The separation described in Leviticus is multifaceted. Separation was judicial: sacred, common, and profane. It was geographical: the holy of holies in relation to the temple; the temple area in relation to the rest of the nation; each tribe of Israel in relation to the other tribes; walled cities in relation to the countryside; the very land of Israel in relation to the land outside the boundaries. Tribal separation was in turn prophetic, relating to the promised Seed (Gen. 3:15; 49:10). Separation was priestly: Aaron and Levi; Levi and the other tribes; Israel and the nations. Separation was chronological: the three mandatory yearly feasts, the sabbatical year, and the jubilee year. It was biological: breed vs. breed. It was dietary: clean and unclean. It was physical: clean and unclean. It was ritual: clean and unclean. It was economic: rich and poor. It was political: citizen and non-citizen. It was above all ethical: good and evil.
It is in these chapters that the hermeneutical problem with Leviticus -- and with the Mosaic covenant generally -- presses the commentator. Which of these laws were cross-boundary laws? Which applied both inside and outside the nation of Israel? The geographically cross-boundary laws were universal moral laws, and as such, their binding character has crossed over into the New Covenant. To use a New Covenant metaphor, these laws were resurrected with Jesus.
Footnote:
1. Gary North, The Sinai Strategy: Economics and the Ten Commandments (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1986), ch. 8.
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