You know, dear readers, that as a man hailing from a Dutch Reformed background and with a Baptist education, I come from a theological past coated in “level-canon” conceptions and obsessions with affirming the supposedly equal value of every scriptural text. And, even though I reject all of that out of hand for several reasons, it’s never been something I could kick as a functional way of living. Of course, I bow to the lectionary in all its ways. But privately (aside from the daily lectionary, and the Liturgy of the Hours), when I read the Holy Bible I read that things cover to cover from Gen-Rev and I rinse and repeat generally 3 times a year. That means that even though I cognitively know that it’s of infinitely more value for me to read the epistle to the Galatians 30 times than to read Leciticus once, that my own theological upbringing has forced me into the rediculous and unhelpful habit of reading them the same amount.
And? Well, I have something to report to you in way of positivity about this today
As I was reading, in my 1560 Geneva facsimile (I also blame my theological background for this ultra-cringe LARP behavior), I found myself just wraping up the last 10 chapters of Leviticus. And as I was doing so, I found myself first thinking to myself how right we are in pushing people away from reading this text DEVOTIONALLY. And how, although we should of course teach this text in Bible study and encourage others to study it with commentaries alongside it, that it wasn’t exactly he kind of thing we would prescribe to Christians as daily readings for spiritual health. But, to my surprise, while I was reading these texts, God decided to reveal to me that as always, His Word never comes back empty and is at all times efficacious. And as such, just as I was thinking to myself about how little devotional value Leviticus have, the Lord slapped me on the back of the head with His Word. And there I saw it: the devotional value. There I saw it; hidden in all the texts about how the one offering or partaking of the sacrifices to the Lord needed to be holy, blameless, perfect, and unblemished, things that I can never and will never be, and about how the sacrifices must be spotless, and about how the priests and laity must be washed to be made clean, and about the anointing of oil upon the priests by which God sanctified them for His purpose that there I saw it all
There in these things I saw law and gospel. There in these things I say my own sinfulness. My lack of perfection and the law which condemned me for it. Not worthy, not worthy not worthy. Cut off from the presence of God. But there also I saw the grace of God, the baptismal washing that has made me clean. Not only in flesh but in spirit. There I saw the sacrifice, not of goats or bulls, but of the Lamb of God. There i saw my cleanness in the messiness of the perfect one. The one who was without blemish. The one who was without sin. The one who was without death. Who for me, took on, and became all these things, that I might take and be what He is and what He has. Praise be to God. There in these things I saw the faith of the small catechism. There in these things I saw the simple kerygmatic preached faith of the chruch in law and gospel, sin and salvation, justification by grace, sanctification , consecration, bestowed holiness, unconditional belovedness, the mediation of christ, baptism, crucifixion, confirmation, and ordination, and tbe office of the Holy minister.
My brothers… there in leviticus I saw it all.
But would I have seen it if i hadn’t read it repeatedly every year? Would I have seen it if i didn’t know the faith? Would I have seen it if I didn’t meditate daily on the faith we confess?
The more we read the more we see.
Keep reading 📚
For in these Scriptures you will find Christ for you if you read them with the eyes of faith.
