Access All Areas: An Easter Reading in Leviticus

In the run-up to Easter, I decided to read through the book of Leviticus again. You may think, ‘What an odd decision!’ Perhaps you’re right—but bear with me for a moment. 

We all know—or think we do—that this tedious book is filled with pointless details about sacrifices and food laws, things we Christians don’t need to worry about anymore. Apart from the occasional curious interlude (like the Year of Jubilee in Ch. 25), we can safely skip over it and get to the interesting stuff. 

Maybe that’s what you think. Here’s why I think you’re wrong—and why it might just be worth your while reading this book as we head towards Easter. 

Something struck me afresh as I was reading chapters 1–16. Sure, there’s a lot of detail about sacrifices—whole burnt offerings, grain (or food) offerings, fellowship (or completion) offerings, sin offerings, guilt (or reparation) offerings—and how to offer them. There are all the regulations around the ordination of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood: what they can and cannot do, where they can and cannot go. There’s the long list of things they can and cannot eat, and the detailed description of what can make people and things ceremonially ‘clean’ or ‘unclean’. And then we come to Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) in chapter 16.  

The details are striking—but even more striking is how the book demonstrates how grace navigates dangerous holiness. 

Here’s what I mean. 

What we miss, I think (perhaps because it’s too big to see, so to speak), is the grace of God being present with Israel. Think about it. 

The very details of the sacrifices and priesthood that we find so off-putting actually allow Israel both access to God (limited though it may be), and life (rather than death) in the place where God—the Holy One of Israel, that God—has encamped. This, surely, is God’s grace. 

The ‘purity legislation’ aims at separating Israel from their uncleanness, as Lev 15:31 puts it (intriguingly, just before Yom Kippur). As a little aside, it’s important to recognise that uncleanness is not the same as sin, and nor is someone who is unclean necessarily under judgement. It does mean that they cannot come into the Tabernacle precincts, but that is to safeguard them (and the apparatus of worship) from the dangerous presence of God. 

The danger of the Presence is seen both in Yom Kippur and what precedes it. The instructions around food and ritual purity in Leviticus 11–15 seek to safeguard Israel’s access to the life-giving presence of God. Yom Kippur seeks to maintain it in the face of deadly threats against the sanctity of the Presence, as Lev 16:1–2 indicates: 

‘The LORD spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the LORD and died, and the LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.’

Leviticus 16:1-2

You can see the Presence there, can’t you? The visible appearance of YHWH, the God of the covenant. And you can see the danger, too. YHWH’s speech comes after the death of the two sons of Aaron—the story told back in Leviticus 10. 

There isn’t much narrative in Leviticus. This one tells the story of the death of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, for their failure to properly respect the divine presence in the newly constructed Tabernacle. Their actions threatened the integrity of the worship space and the holy Presence found there. Their deaths threatened the future of the priesthood that YHWH had just established—for only Aaron’s sons could function as high priest after him, a role required for the cleansing of Israelites from ritual impurity and the offering of the sacrifices that both expressed Israel’s relationship to God and were the means of God’s grace for them. 

In the midst of that threat, God provides access to Israel’s high priestly representative. That’s grace, isn’t it? Sure, the access is limited—only the high priest, only once a year, only in the context of the complex sacrifices and ritual acts that both remove residual impurity from the Tabernacle and its apparatus and enable the high priest to approach the Presence. But in light of the story that introduces it, we should be awestruck at the grace of God that allows sinful Israel any access to the one true and living God.  
 
Fine, you might say. But what does reading this most unapproachable book have to do with Easter, you may ask? 

Well, let me draw your attention to Heb 10:19–22:

‘Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.’ 

Hebrews 10:19-22

We have complete freedom.

The people of the old covenant knew God’s grace. Of course they did. They could not exist as the people of God without it.

But theirs was a grace that needed constant repetition.

Theirs was an access to God’s holy presence that was limited and partial (embodied in the high priests alone).

Theirs was a freedom, a cleansing from sin and brokenness that was partial and provisional.

Ours is so much more. 

That, of course, is a large part of the burden of the book of Hebrews. The priest who gives us access is God the Son enfleshed, who ever lives and intercedes for us. We don’t need to worry about succession planning. The tabernacle he entered is permanent and perfect. The sacrifice he offered was one-and-done. No need for yearly repetition; no need to worry that something may be left over to sully our access to God. And so the worship that he enables is perfectly acceptable to the One who is present, the Holy One of Israel. 

Of course, Israel knew God’s grace. Of course, Israel was invited into God’s freedom. We don’t need to belittle that in order to see how great is our experience of God’s grace is, how wonderful our freedom. Seeing the grace of God in the book of Leviticus helps us see all the more clearly the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that grace we celebrate at Easter. 

We have complete freedom. 

So, as we come to Easter, we’re reminded of the long faithfulness, the patient grace of our God seen from Leviticus onward. And we delight in the way it reaches its fullness and its goal in Jesus, and the new and living way he has opened for us. Perhaps taking a bit of time to read this neglected but wonderful book might help us see that a little more clearly.