Now if you would take your Bibles in hand once again and turn with me to the book of Leviticus. If you’re using a church Bible, you’ll find Leviticus 24 on page 102. Leviticus 24. We continue our examination of this Gospel-rich Old Testament book that deals with the ceremonies and rituals of worship and life in ancient Israel.
The first half of chapter 24 is about the maintenance of some of the articles, the lampstand, and the table found inside the tabernacle in the holy place where only the priests were allowed to go. And the second half of the chapter is about reverence for God’s holy name and the demands of His righteous justice. And together, these two parts of the chapter teach us that God is at once merciful and just. He is holy and He is full of grace. He is always with His people, but He is never to be taken for granted by His people. We are going to unpack all of that under three headings. First of all, I want you to see the rhythm that we must maintain. There is a rhythm of devotion that the people are called upon to practice here. The rhythm we must maintain. Secondly, the relationship we must enjoy. Much of the teaching of this chapter reminds us about the covenant bond between God and His people. And finally, there is the rebuke we must receive. God’s name is holy, and we are always to use it for His glory, with reverence and with awe. The rhythm we must maintain, the relationship we must enjoy, and the rebuke we must receive.
Before we get to all of that, let’s bow our heads and pray together and then we’ll read Leviticus 24. Let us pray.
Lord our God, we do praise You that You are both holy and merciful, righteous and abounding in steadfast love. You are full of grace, and so we ask You that You would show us something of Your glory in Your righteousness and in Your mercy from this passage. And bring us back to the one in whom righteousness and mercy meet and are perfectly reconciled and embodied. Bring us back to the Lord Jesus Christ we pray, for His sake, amen.
Leviticus 24 at verse 1. This is the Word of God:
“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. Outside the veil of the testimony, in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall arrange it from evening to morning before the Lord regularly. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. He shall arrange the lamps on the lampstand of pure gold before the Lord regularly.
You shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves from it; two tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf. And you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord. Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord’s food offerings, a perpetual due.’
Now an Israelite woman’s son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel. And the Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel fought in the camp, and the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name, and cursed. Then they brought him to Moses. His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. And they put him in custody, till the will of the Lord should be clear to them.
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.
Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life. If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.’ So Moses spoke to the people of Israel, and they brought out of the camp the one who had cursed and stoned him with stones. Thus the people of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses.”
Amen.
First of all, this passage reminds us of the rhythm we must maintain. The rhythm we must maintain. In the previous chapter, we looked, if you can remember a few weeks back, we looked at the seven great pilgrim feasts that marked the annual Hebrew liturgical calendar. And as we are going to see in chapter 25, the focus there will fall on the Sabbatical year. Every seven years, the land was to enjoy solemn rest from sowing and cultivating and harvesting. And then, the Israelites were to count seven weeks of years, a cycle of forty-nine years, and then on the fiftieth year was to be a special jubilee celebration. Alright, so there’s an annual calendar, there’s a seven yearly calendar, and there’s a half century calendar. And nestled in the midst of all of this is chapter 24 which focuses, at least in the first part of the chapter, on a daily and a weekly calendar.
If you’ll look at the text with me, let me show you that in verses 1 through 9. Moses takes us inside the holy place in the tabernacle where there are three pieces of furniture – only two of them are spoken about here. There is a golden lampstand, a table for the bread, and there is also an altar for burning incense before the curtain as the high priest entered the most holy place. So this passage deals with the table and the lampstand. Now just remember, this isn’t like the US Capitol building or the White House in Washington, DC. Even though it’s mostly only for our elected officials, for government leaders and politicians, not usually for the average citizen, you can still sometimes arrange for a tour and you get to see the sights for yourself. But if you were an ancient Israelite, you couldn’t call your congressman and get special access to the holy place. There were no school field trips to show the kids the tabernacle. Only the priests were ever allowed to enter into this room and to see the lampstand, the table covered in gold with the bread piled upon it in the holy place.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the ordinary people have no role to fulfill. In verse 2, the Lord says, “Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of beaten olives for the lamp that a light may be kept burning regularly.” And as we read the passage, you noticed, I’m sure, the repetition of that word “regularly” – verse 2, verse 3 and verse 4. Again and again and again, day after day after day, pure olive oil was gathered, the lamps were lit, the wicks were trimmed by the priests in the holy place. In other words, a lot of oil was required. And supplying it was the daily duty of the whole people of God, every day. Likewise, in verses 5 through 9, every Sabbath day – so once a week – twelve fresh loaves of bread were to be placed on the table in the tabernacle. They were unleavened flatbreads, likely stacked in two piles of six loaves. And at the end of each week, the priests were to eat the bread and it was to be replaced with fresh loaves. And verse 8 explains the bread was from the people of Israel. And so nestled between a chapter on the annual festivals – chapter 23 – and the seven yearly and fiftieth year festivals – chapter 25 – here’s a chapter reminding the people of God they have a daily and a weekly duty. Every day they are to supply oil for the lampstand and every week they were to supply bread for the table. They have a daily and a weekly duty.
And I think that fact provides a useful reminder for all of us still today, don’t you? We may be diligent in the big events, in the dramatic moments, in the special gatherings that tend to pepper the life of any faithful congregation. But are we faithful in the daily and the weekly rhythms? Now if you are a hardcore Presbyterian like me, at this point you are likely darkly muttering under your breath about how, “We no longer have a divinely inspired and mandated liturgical calendar. The only day that we are mandated to celebrate is the Lord’s Day on Sunday, the Sabbath day.” And you’re quite right; I agree. But even so, let’s all admit the inevitability in ordinary church life that some Sundays acquire special significance for a congregation. There are important cycles of ministry and rhythms of outreach that a church develops over time. In our congregation, we capitalize on the remaining cultural memory of Christmas and Easter in order to give some focused attention to the central facts of the Christian Gospel and to invite our non-Christian neighbors and friends to come and hear about Jesus. We celebrate Reformation Sunday with sister churches from around our presbytery. We have an annual Mission Conference. There is One Sunday, when both our morning congregations gather as one congregation and we reflect on the way the Lord has worked in our midst over the course of the previous year. So yes, it’s true, we do not have a divinely mandated liturgical calendar like ancient Israel did. But we do still have big Sundays in the life of the church, don’t we? And we love them. The sanctuary is full of people. We come with much anticipation. There is joy in being together. The singing is wonderful. The music, it’s an encouragement. Those times are a great encouragement; a real tonic, a shot in our collective arms.
And yet as helpful as those big Sundays can be, our chapter this week reminds us not to neglect the ordinary rhythms of daily duty and weekly devotion. Don’t be a Chreaster – have you heard that phrase? A Creaster – somebody who only comes at Christmas and Easter! A Creaster! Look, I’m glad there are people out there who will come, they won’t come any other time but they come and they get to hear the Gospel and that’s great. But everyday there is oil needed for the lampstand. Every Sabbath there is fresh bread required for the tabernacle table. Everyday and every Lord’s Day there are rhythms of devotion and duty that we must not neglect. If our faith in Jesus Christ is more than merely the last remnants of a dying cultural habit, if it is in fact the real thing, then it can never be satisfied with the mere traditionalism of a Creaster, can it? It wants to know Jesus everyday, and it wants to meet Him every Sabbath. An occasional Christian is no Christian at all. If you turn it on and turn it off, it’s not the real thing. An occasional Christian is no Christian at all. And so that’s the first thing that I want us to see here. I hope you get it. There are rhythms. There were rhythms in ancient Israel; there are rhythms still today – daily rhythms, weekly rhythms of devotion and duty as we serve the Lord together.
And secondly, our text reminds us not only about the rhythms we must maintain but a relationship we must enjoy. There are really two truths that come together at once in the symbolism of the lampstand and the bread that is piled on the table. On the one hand, the lampstand and the bread are clearly symbols for the people of God themselves. The Jews, the ancient Jews, understood the image of the lampstand, this great seven-branched menorah that was placed in the tabernacle. They saw that as a symbol of their national identity and life. We have coins from the first century BC bearing the imprint of a menorah on one side of them. It was an emblem of the people of God from ancient days. And along these lines, even the Lord Jesus uses the image of a lamp on its stand to describe the people of God. You remember He told His disciples, “You are the light of the world. No one lights a lamp and hides it under a basket but puts it on a stand and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men.” It’s a symbol of the people of God. Or later on in the book of Revelation chapter 1, the apostle John saw a vision of the exalted Christ, robed in kingly majesty, and He is walking – do you remember – between seven golden lampstands. It’s a beautiful image. The Lord Jesus tells John the lampstands are symbolic of the Church. And here is Jesus, in their midst, walking among them. He is with His people. But the lampstands were pictures of the Church, of the people of God. The lampstand here in the sanctuary is a symbol for the people of God, for Israel. And they themselves are represented in that symbol by the supply of the oil they are to provide every single day.
The same thing can be said for the twelve loaves that sat on this wooden table that is covered in pure gold. The number twelve is an obvious reference to the twelve tribes of Israel. And the bread, verse 8, is from the people. So they can’t go in there, the people themselves, they can’t go in there but they are represented there by these twelve loaves. One loaf of unleavened bread for each tribe, supplied by them personally, every Sabbath day. So the lampstand and the bread, they are symbols of the people of God.
And yet at the same time, on the other hand, they are also symbols not just of God’s people but of the people’s God. Think again about the lampstand. When darkness fell, the holy place in the tabernacle would always be bright with light. The way into the presence of the Lord was always to be illuminated by the lampstand. It’s a vivid picture of the grace of God at work, isn’t it? God Himself shines the way into His presence. He doesn’t leave us groping in the dark, trying to find our own way to Him. He shows us the way. He illuminates the path. And that’s why Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life.” Jesus is the lamp. The light of Christ shines, as John puts it, “in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” And the same is true of the bread, isn’t it? You remember that Jesus also said, “I am the Bread of life. I am the living Bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever and the Bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” God gives sustenance and life through the cross of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true light, and He is the true Bread. He is Immanuel, God with us, with His people, dwelling in our midst to sustain us and guide us and nourish us and keep us.
Now how can both be true at once? The people of God are represented by the lampstand, and God in Christ is represented by the lampstand. He said, “I am the light of the world,” and He told His disciples, “You are the light of the world.” Jesus is the Bread of life, but the twelve loaves also represent the twelve tribes of Israel. How can both be true? The answer, I think, is indicated for us in verse 8. Would you look at verse 8 please? “Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever.” There it is. The bread is a sign of the covenant that united God with His people. They were His and He was theirs. They were bound to the Lord in covenant love. The bread was a constantly renewed reminder of that sacred bond. God gave Himself to them and they gave themselves to Him. Jesus is the light of the world, and at the same time, we, His disciples, are the light of the world. The people of God – 1 Corinthians chapter 10 – the people of God are “the one loaf that we bless, so that we being many are yet one.” We are the bread. And yet, Jesus is the Bread of heaven who gives life. Both can be true at once, at the same time, because the people of God are united to Him according to the terms of His gracious covenant. We are the light, but only because we are joined to the light of the world. We are bread for a starving world, but only because Jesus is the Bread of life and we are in Him.
And so right there in the holy place, do you see, there were vivid symbols that spoke ultimately in view of the total teaching of holy Scripture, they spoke of the union of God in Jesus Christ with His redeemed people. And that truth, I think, stands even more markedly and clearly at the center of our worship and our lives today as we gather on this side of the cross and the empty tomb. We are chosen in Christ, crucified with Christ, united to Christ in His death and resurrection. We are justified and sanctified and adopted in Christ. Everything that is true of us is ours as Christians only because it is from Him and was first in Him. It comes to us because of our union with Christ. If we shine with the light of good news out into a dark world with any credibility at all, it’s only because we are joined, we are in Christ who is the light of the world. It is His light that we shine with. If we can give heavenly bread to soul-parched, sin-starved neighbors, it’s only because we are joined to the one who is the Bread of life and the Bread of heaven. You see, our religion is not a matter of ceremony and words, is it? It flows, rather, like water from the spring of our union with Jesus Christ. We are in Him.
Are you in Christ? You’re always going to walk in darkness until you have the light of life in Him. You will constantly spend your money for what is not bread and eat what does not satisfy until you come and buy and eat without money and without price and feast by faith on the Bread of life Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no joy in worship, no lasting peace in believing, no comfort in sorrow, no strength amidst weakness, no courage in the face of uncertainty, no rest, no life, no hope, none outside of Jesus Christ. “Apart from Me,” He said, “you can do nothing.” Are you united to Jesus Christ by faith in the Gospel or is your Christianity a cold, formal thing of social obligations, and ethical hurdles you must jump and appearances that must be kept up? That’s not Christianity, you know. It’s not. Christianity is a fellowship, a living communion with the risen Christ Himself. You must come to Him personally, intimately, honestly. That’s what these symbols in the tabernacle taught – covenantal union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. A real spiritual connection with the living God in Him. Do you know anything about that? A real, spiritual communion with the living Christ? You’re not really a Christian yet until you do.
There is a rhythm we must maintain, a relationship we must enjoy, and then finally, look at verses 10 through 23 and notice the rebuke we must receive. The rebuke we must receive. Verses 10 through 16 give us the second of only two narrative sections in the whole book of Leviticus. As we’ve seen, Leviticus is not a book of stories, is it? It’s a book of laws. And so when you do come across a story, we’re meant to sit up and pay attention. The other narrative section in Leviticus, you might remember, if sound back in chapter 10 when Nadab and Abihu, Aaron’s sons, offer strange fire on the altar. They perform a ceremony that God had not required. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them. And the story in our chapter, like Nadab and Abihus’s story back in chapter 10, our story is also an account of divine judgment falling because people defiled something holy. This time it’s not the altar of God; it is the very name of God.
Look at the story with me, verses 10 through 16. A woman of the tribe of Dan has a son by an Egyptian man. The son gets into an altercation with a Hebrew man and in the course of the fight, verse 11, he blasphemed the Name and cursed. Notice, by the way, that in retelling the story, the actually name of God is conspicuous by its absence. All Moses will say is that the man blasphemed the Name, as if to suggest that the name of God is so sacred that he won’t even utter it in such close proximity to an account of its abuse. Well, the man is arrested, he’s held in custody until a decision can be made. You see the verdict handed down in verses 14 through 16. All who heard the man blaspheme were to place their hands on his head, indicating their testimony against him and their concurrence in the judgment. And then the whole congregation was to stone the man to death.
Now to modern ears, this is a shocking moment, isn’t it? Stoned to death for blasphemy. We struggle with that, don’t we? And we struggle probably because we imagine that peppering your speech with “O God,” and “O Christ,” is a socially acceptable substitute for what we believe to be a far more crass expletive that might otherwise come to our lips. But here, the Lord wants His people to know that His name is holy. He is holy and we are always to speak His name and use His name only ever with reverence. We are never to be casual or flippant when referencing Him. We ought to flinch, our hearts should recoil, we should feel a wound when a friend rolls his eyes or rolls her eyes and casually uses the name of Jesus, who we profess to love above all others, as an expletive. Our culture tends to think the opposite, but actually, while an uncouth, foul mouth is indeed an offense not just a social etiquette but to God, the misuse of the name of God is not at all a benign substitute. It is an especially wicked affront to the Lord.
And to make that point crystal clear, the gravity of the misuse of the name of God, instead of fire consuming the offender from the presence of God Himself, this time the Lord requires the whole congregation themselves to effect the judgment. There is no escaping this painful lesson. There is a Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown is talking to Patty who is writing intently on two sheets of paper, one long and one short. “I’m making a list,” she says, “of all the things I’ve learned in life. Actually, I’m making two lists.” “Why is one list longer than the other?” asks Charlie Brown. Holding up the longer piece, Patty replies, “This is a list of all the things I’ve learned the hard way.” And I’m sure our lists of things we’ve learned the hard way are all generally much longer than the things we didn’t need to learn the hard way. God is teaching Israel a vital lesson the hard way. Pray God that you do not have to learn the lesson of reverencing His name the hard way. This is the judgment of God. And verse 15 makes clear the same rule is to apply for the sojourner, that is the non-native, as it does for the Hebrew. The Hebrew doesn’t get any special treatment. No exemptions. No “Get out of jail free” cards. Justice was to be done in Israel with an even hand.
To drive that point home, verses 17 through 23 articulate the famous lex talionis principle. That is to say, in general, when the ancient Israelite state – pause, not the individual but the state – enacted justice – pause again, not vengeance but justice – but in general, the punishment was to mirror the offense. “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life. If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” Now what are we being taught here? We are being shown, aren’t we, that alongside the beauty of God’s presence in the midst of His people in mercy, symbolized by the lampstand and the covenant sign of the twelve loaves on the table in the tabernacle, alongside the presence of God in their midst in mercy, the same Lord dwelt among them in indefatigable holiness and righteousness and justice. And they were never, therefore, to become flippant or casual with sacred things. Never to play with the name of God. Never to speak adoringly of Him one moment and then use His name as a curse word in the next. Justice and mercy – they are both here together, aren’t they? Grace and judgment, holiness and love, righteousness and compassion.
If in your vision of God you see only justice and judgment and holiness, and righteousness, your religion will likely be a cold, hard thing, full of fear for yourself and judgmentalism for others. But if on the other hand your vision of God contains only mercy and love and compassion, your religion will struggle to avoid collapsing into limp-wristed indulgence, weak-willed compromise, basic moral indifference. But the God of holy Scripture fits neither picture. He is the God of grace and wrath, love and judgment, holiness and tenderness. He is never to be trifled with, yet we need never run from Him if we repent and cry out for mercy. Do not presume upon Him, but do not despair of His grace either. His holiness is perfect. His mercy knows no bounds. A sinner who wants to flee from the wrath of God needs to learn to flee to the mercy of the same God. The mercy of God saves you from the wrath of God.
And there’s one last thing I want you to see in this chapter that might help make that last point clearer. You’ll notice the man was taken in verse 23, taken outside the camp in order for the death sentence to be carried out. Hebrews 13:12 says that’s where Jesus went at His crucifixion, outside the camp. He died like a blasphemer. In fact, that’s what the high priest accused Him of at His trial. Mark 14, after listening to Jesus describe Himself as the Son of Man, Mark says the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further witnesses do we need? You’ve heard His blasphemy! What is your decision?” And they all condemned Him as deserving death. So they condemned the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world and the Bread of life, they condemned Him under the provisions of Leviticus 24 as a blasphemer. And He suffered, Hebrews 13:12, “outside the camp in order to sanctify the people through His own blood.”
Now we know Jesus was no blasphemer, but we are. I am. You are. You don’t think you nice people are blasphemers? Let me ask you this. Haven’t you ever sung the praises of God and taken His name on your lips while your heart was flat and your mind was elsewhere? Have you ever found yourself singing, “Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah” with flack jawed indifference? Or repeating the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,” have you ever done that while you’re really thinking about lunch? Now what is that? That is taking the name of the Lord your God in vain. That’s what it is. How often we are all guilty of it. But do you see what happened at the cross? The death sentence, the death sentence pronounced on our sin, our blasphemy, fell upon Him. It fell on Jesus. So that like the prophet, Isaiah – do you remember in Isaiah chapter 6 – our unclean lips might be touched by His grace and our sin atoned for and out guilt taken away?
Are you guilty of being a man, a woman, of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips. Are you? Has salt water and fresh both been pouring from the same spring, praising your God here on a Sunday with the same mouth cursing others throughout the week? Are you perhaps the son of the Egyptian here in Leviticus 24? Well remember, please, that Jesus died under the blasphemer’s penalty so that blasphemes like me and you might be pardoned. God has given Him now the name that is above every name, “that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” It is time to come and bend your knee before Him and repent of your sin, your unclean lips, your blasphemous heart, and receive the mercy He died to provide. Our God is a God of righteousness and holiness and we are to worship Him with reverence and awe, but we must first flee His wrath into the arms of His mercy that are flung wide to you in the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord give us grace then to do just that. Let’s pray together.O our God, as we bow before You we confess to You how often we’ve prayed and sung and spoken of You, carelessly, thoughtlessly, half-heartedly, indifferently. Sometimes we’ve even used Your name in place of an expletive, thinking it was better. Forgive us. Have mercy on us for the casual way in which we have failed to reverence You who we profess so to love. Please forgive our sin, not because of any counterbalancing merits of our own. Our only argument now before You is that Jesus, who bears the great name, died as a blasphemer instead of sinners like us. For His sake, O our God, wash and cleanse us, purify us from our unclean lips and our wicked hearts. For Jesus’ sake, amen.