Ephesians 4:3-6; One baptism, part 2. Levitical washings and true cleansing.Wednesday May 5,2021Baptism meaning: immersion, identification, abiding condition, and controlling influence.
Though a transliteration into English, the many uses of the word in Greek literature make the meaning clear. It is a perfect word to describe our baptism into Christ, having clothed ourselves with Him, Gal 3:27.
Water baptism is always a ritual, and must continue to be in the age of the church.
All four gospels and Act 1 distinguish John’s baptism from the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Mar 1:8 "I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
It is clear that the baptism of John was temporary, while the baptism of the Holy Spirit was to continue. Still, water baptism continued in the church.
All ritual from God points to a reality.
The Levitical offerings were more than simply killing an animal but they were to depict a reality in the heart of the offeror, just as David wrote in Psa 51.
Psa 51:1-4 Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Thy compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me. 4 Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, And done what is evil in Thy sight, So that Thou art justified when Thou dost speak, And blameless when Thou dost judge.
Psa 51:16-17 For Thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; Thou art not pleased with burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.
Every part of the Tabernacle and every act in the Tabernacle depicted a reality, and if that reality was unknown, its nothing more than an elaborate tent. The same was true of the Levitical washings.
Levitical washings: an unclean person could not enter the Tabernacle, could not offer, could not celebrate festivals. God is holy.
In Israel, uncleanliness greatly restricted fellowship with God and fellowship with men. This should cause in us a great relief in the age of the church, since all believers are made clean by the blood of Christ. When God commands, “You are to be holy, for I am holy,” He is desiring for us to be with Him. When He first tells this to Israel it is in Lev 11, immediately after He begins to tell then what animals are clean and what are unclean. We have unrestricted fellowship with God and with one another thanks solely to the finished work of Christ because He alone has made us clean. We don’t always experience it because we sometimes choose things that are ungodly, which do not separate us from God (like an Israelite who could not enter the Tabernacle), but gets our eyes off of God and onto someone or something else.
The unclean person was given instructions in ceremonial cleansing, and if he did not strictly follow them, he remained unclean. The point to glean from this is that none of us could live in the presence of God unless we were pure and clean. In Israel, actually none of them were since in Adam all die, but God was covering their sin with ritual until the appointed time when Christ would once and for all cleanse through His blood, Rom 3:25, 1Jo 1:7.
Levitical Washings. Touching the carcass of an unclean animal, a dead person, a human bone, a grave. Man’s discharge (flow from flesh), woman’s menstruation … and all things and people who touched the “unclean.”
When we leave the Old Testament and come to the New Testament, we once again find that the definition of clean and unclean is critical to our understanding. We find these issues discussed and debated heatedly between the scribes and the Pharisees, and our Lord had to deal with their ideas of cleanness and uncleanness—particularly the area of ceremonial uncleanness as defined by Jewish tradition, not so much as defined by Old Testament revelation.
Clean and unclean classification of animals begins with Noah. He was to bring seven of each species that was clean onto the ark. Out of the clean, offerings would be made to God, so more were taken.
The theme of clean and unclean is taken up again in Leviticus. In chapter 4 the sin offering is to be taken outside to a clean place. In chapter 6 the ashes of the burnt offering are to be taken outside to a clean place. In chapter 7 regarding the peace offering, only he who was clean could eat of it. Then in chapters 10-15 the laws concerning what is clean and unclean are given. Still the idea remains overt and ceremonial, until we progress to the end of the section, chapter 16, in which the cleansing of the people takes on a whole new dynamic.
What can easily be seen from our point of view in the church, is that this section in Leviticus as a whole (10-16) speaks of something transcendent and full of love and mercy.
Lev 10:10 – the priest is to be sober so he can judge between clean and unclean.
Lev 10:8-11 The Lord then spoke to Aaron, saying, 9 "Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you may not die — it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations — 10 and so as to make a distinction between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean, 11 and so as to teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them through Moses."
In Lev 10, it is the priest that is given the charge of not drinking wine or strong drink when he enters the Tabernacle because he will be the judge over what is clean and unclean; what is profane and what is holy.
Then, in Lev 11-15, God reveals His laws concerning that which is clean and unclean.
Lev 11:1-2 The Lord spoke again to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, 2 "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'These are the creatures which you may eat from all the animals that are on the earth.
In the section about clean and unclean animals, there are subsections. The initial animals are described as simply clean or unclean, but when we move to the animals of the sea, the birds, and the insects, they’re called detestable and abhorrent.
Lev 11:8 'You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.
Lev 11:10-12 'But whatever is in the seas and in the rivers, that do not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the water, and among all the living creatures that are in the water, they are detestable things to you, 11 and they shall be abhorrent to you; you may not eat of their flesh, and their carcasses you shall detest. 12 'Whatever in the water does not have fins and scales is abhorrent to you.
The Israelite was to detest what was unclean, not just avoid eating it.
There is really no good explanation for why God determined one animal to be clean and another unclean. None of the offered solutions by writers are sufficient. It could imply that though we don’t understand all the reasons for a command, we should loathe breaking it because it is from our Father. What these food restrictions would definitely have done, if they were adhered to, is to distinguish Israel from the other nations. What we eat is closely connected to our homes, our culture, and our social life. Israel, if they followed the law, would have had a barrier established by God that would have separated them from mingling with the other nations in the Land. It is interesting to note that when we are dealing with a change of God’s law with regard to food it is often a signal that we are dealing with a change in dispensation.
The section ends with the solemn Day of Atonement, which would “cleanse” the people.
Then the section ends in Lev 16 with the feast of the Day of Atonement, in which by the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the scapegoat, the high priest and his house, all the priests, and all Israel would be atoned for and cleansed once a year.
Lev 16:29-30 “And this shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls, and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you; 30 for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you shall be clean from all your sins before the Lord.”
The obvious fulfillment is in the one sacrifice for all time of Jesus Christ, Heb 10.
Heb 10:1 For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.
Heb 10:14 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
And God promised Israel that He would cleanse them, and that of the heart within.
Eze 36:25-26 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you;”
This is the New Covenant, the spiritual aspects of which have been given to mankind even though Israel rejected the first presentation of their Messiah.
The issue of “purification” was intensely argued in Christ’s day, but only on the shallow ceremonial, traditional level, Joh 3:25.
The New Testament brings the Old Testament’s revelation to fruition by making men holy through the blood of Christ. The issue of OT purification, of which the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes would only view ceremonially and by tradition, was debated so prevalently that when they viewed John’s and Jesus’ water baptisms, it led them to discussion.
Mat 23:25-26 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.” |