Weekly Scriptures: Leviticus 26:3-27:34; Jeremiah 16:19-17:14; Matthew 21:33-46; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18
This week’s Torah portion completes our reading from Leviticus. Chapter 26 echoes Deuteronomy 28 (which comes later in the Torah cycle), being the covenant conditions for blessings or for curses. Chapter 27 covers various applications of the principle of redemption. Let’s see if we can discover a single theme from what seems like two separate themes.
Israel, Covenant and the Law
Chapter 26 is a useful chapter to quote when someone claims that the Christian Church has replaced Israel. The blessings of God have come upon Gentiles who live by faith in Jesus, but not to the extent that Israel is now lost and their blessings have been transferred to us. If so, then have the curses for disobedience been transferred as well? It can’t be that!
The fact is that Israel remains a distinct people. Even today, if Israelites seek to live according to the covenant God made with Moses, then Leviticus 26 applies to them until the curse of the law is removed.
Foreshadowing Jesus
This takes us to chapter 27, which deals with principles of redemption. Both chapter 26 and chapter 27 anticipate the ministry of Jesus the Messiah.
Many from the Tribes of Israel have come to faith in Jesus. Through the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood, foreseen by Jeremiah (Jer 31:31-37), those Israelites who live by faith in Jesus have been redeemed from the curse of the law.
Chapter 26, simple though it seems to fulfil in its requirements to keep God’s statutes, has proved too much for human flesh. It is not that the law is faulty (Psalm 19 and Psalm 119 still speak of the greatness of God’s Torah). But Israel had to learn that they needed help, to release them to walk with God according to the spirit of the Torah, free of the consequences of the curse of sin. Only Jesus could do this through his redeeming sacrifice, which fulfilled the requirements of the law once for all.
For Gentiles?
So how is this relevant to Christians from the Gentile world? There is a sense in which the laws of God apply to us too, though not in terms of the covenant made at Sinai. We managed to sin without knowing about the requirements given to Israel, but when we discovered what sin was – transgression of God’s law - we also were able to find redemption through Jesus.
We entered the same community of faith to which the first believers from the Tribes of Israel belonged. Until then, we (without knowing it) lived under a curse. That is, our future outside of Jesus was heading towards a lost eternity. Jesus took away that curse for us.
So, for both Jew and Gentile, though by different paths, chapters 26 and 27 of Leviticus point to our need of Jesus. The Jews suffered much so that we could learn from their failed attempts to live by the principles of chapter 26. One such lesson comes from the Babylonian captivity, fulfilling verse 35, as shown in 2 Chronicles 36:20-21:
And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfil the word of the Lord by Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept her Sabbath, to fulfil seventy years.
God’s Indescribable Gift
As we reflect on our Torah portion this week let us remember with thanks what it has cost Israel for us to inherit the blessings of the covenant God gave to Abraham. We have received full redemption by the power of Jesus’ blood so that we can enter God’s covenant family through grace, the curse of the law being removed.
A suitable New Testament reading to balance these perspectives for us is Galatians 3-4. Read both the Torah portion and the passage from Galatians carefully and prayerfully, giving thanks to God for his indescribable gift, and pray for those who are still living outside such wonderful grace, whether Jew or Gentile.
Author: Dr Clifford Denton
