Category Archives: Bible Interpretation

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible

Why Are Old Testament Sacrifices Incapable of Completely Dealing with Sin? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Although virtually no Christians advocate a return to the sacrifices enumerated in the Law, especially in the Book of Leviticus, we should still ask ourselves why this system was not sufficient to completely deal with the sins of mankind.

Duane Lindsey provides a very helpful explanation of the issues in The Bible Knowledge Commentary. Lindsey first notes that the sacrifices did accomplish something. Atonement for sins is mentioned several times in Leviticus. According to Lindsey,

[S]acrificial atonement involved the actual removal of the guilt and punishment for the particular sin(s) involved. The broad scope of the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement . . . extended this principle to include “all the people” (Lev 16:33) and “all their sins” (v. 22), that is, “all the sins of the Israelites” (v. 34). The complete forgiveness of the Israelites’ sins for the past year is further described in terms of cleansing from sin in verse 30.

But Lindsey notes that there were several limitations of these sacrifices that made them unable to finally and completely deal with mankind’s sin problem.

First, the sacrifices were limited in their moral efficacy. Since empty ritualism was never an acceptable option to God, a truly acceptable sacrifice must have been prompted by genuine faith and moral obedience to the revealed will of God (26:14–45, esp. v. 31; Pss. 40:6–8; 51:16–17; Prov. 21:27; Amos 5:21–24; Heb. 10:5–10; 11:4, 6).

Sacrifices that were not brought in faith were perhaps sufficient at times for restoring ceremonial cleanness and meeting civil requirements (e.g., the restitution connected with the guilt offering), but did not really please God because they were empty formality. . . .

Second, with the possible exception of the Day of Atonement ritual, the sacrifices were limited in scope to certain kinds of personal sins. Theologically they did not atone for the sin nature, or for the imputed sin of Adam. Nor did they even include willful acts of sin which were committed in defiance of God (cf. Num. 15:30–31, and comments on Lev. 4:1–2). Therefore Levitical sacrifice was not a complete and final scheme whereby all forms of sin could be removed.

It was mainly concerned with sins of ignorance, accident, carelessness, and omission, including sins of ritual defilement and misdemeanors that violated property rights. Sins for which there was no individual sacrifice were those done in defiance of the Lord and His commands—willful violations of the Ten Commandments (except minor violations of the eighth and ninth commands), willful disregard for ceremonial regulations, and any other violations of covenant relationship between Israel and the Lord. Such sins could be immediately forgiven only on the basis of unqualified grace in response to faith and repentance (cf. Pss. 32; 51). Otherwise they awaited the cleansing of the Day of Atonement ritual.

We’ll look at three more limitations of the Levitical sacrifices in part 2.

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Sunday School

Commentary on Genesis 15 (Abrahamic Covenant)

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In verses 1-6 in Genesis 15, Abraham has an incredibly important conversation with God. First, in verse 1 God reassures Abraham that he should not be afraid, that God is his reward. In verses 2-3, however, Abraham questions God about the promise God made to Abraham previously. Recall that God promised Abraham that his descendants would become a great nation in Genesis 12.

Abraham complains to God that because he has no children, his only heir will be one of his servants, Eliezer of Damascus. How can God’s promise be fulfilled if Abraham has no children? He and his wife are very old and his wife is barren.

In verses 4-5, God reassures Abraham that a biological son would be his heir. In fact, God lets Abraham know that his descendants will be numbered like the stars in heaven. What is Abraham’s response to God’s promise?

In verse 6, we see one of the most important sentences in the Bible.  “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” It could be argued that the entire narrative of God’s redemptive plan for mankind revolves around this verse. Because Abraham believed God, he was known as righteous. Abraham’s obedience flowed from his belief, and this is why the person who believes will also obey. It is not either/or. It is both/and.

After God reiterated to Abraham that he would have natural descendants that would be numbered like the stars, God also reminded Abraham that he would receive the land promised to him in Genesis 12. When Abraham asks God how he will know that he will receive the land, God instructs Abraham to get a “heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

The heifer, goat, and ram were cut in two, but not the birds.  In verses 12-21, God makes a covenant with Abraham with an amazing pyrotechnical display. “A smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.” In the ancient world, parties to a covenant would sometimes walk between slaughtered animals as part of the ceremony. In this case, God is the only one passing through the animals, because he is making the promise on his own.

This covenant is an unconditional promise to Abraham that his descendants will be given the land of Canaan, land that is bordered by the Nile River and the Euphrates River. Notice that these borders are coincident with the borders around the Garden of Eden. God would return his people to a land of paradise.

Before all of this would happen, though, Abrahams’ descendants would be enslaved in a foreign land for 400 years. This, of course, foreshadows the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt for 400 years. Remember that the book of Genesis is being written to the Israelites prior to their entering the Promised Land. This covenant of God made with Abraham would be especially poignant to them as they wondered whether they would ever see the Promised Land. Moses, by recording God’s promise to Abraham, reassures them that they will.

God’s promises are always kept, but they may take longer than we like. Abraham would not receive the land immediately, but only after centuries would pass. Yet, we see that Abraham still believed.

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Sunday School

Commentary on Genesis 11-12 (Call of Abraham)

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

The calling of Abraham (his name would be changed from Abram to Abraham in Genesis 17) in Genesis 12 is one of the first biblical events that historians can date with any kind of precision.  Many scholars believe that Abraham moved to Canaan around 2100 BC, or 2100 years before the birth of Christ.

Ur of the Chaldeans, where Abraham’s family originated, is thought to be located southwest of  the ancient city of Babylon, located in what is now Iraq, near the modern town of Hilla, and on the eastern bank of the Euphrates river.  Babylon was founded near the end of the 3rd millennium BC, and lasted through the 2nd century AD.

On to the verses….

In chapter 11, verses 27-30 introduce the reader to Abram’s family (his name would later be changed to Abraham by God).  We learn that Abraham’s father is named Terah and that Abraham has brothers named Nahor and Haran.  Abraham’s wife is named Sarah (her name is changed from Sarai to Sarah in Genesis 17) and Nahor’s wife is named Milcah.

Then in verse 30, out of the blue, we read that Sarah cannot conceive children.  In the ancient near east, for a woman to be unable to conceive a child was devastating to her and her husband.  The author of Genesis 11 is letting the reader know that if Abraham is going to have any children with Sarah, God must intervene.  The need for God to intervene will strike the reader as we read the first verses of chapter 12, where Abraham’s descendants are promised blessings.  How can Abraham have any descendants if his wife is barren?

In verses 31-32, we learn that Terah actually had left Ur and made it as far as the city of Haran (not to be confused with Abrahams’ brother). See this link to a map showing Abraham’s journeys.

As we come to chapter 12, we read some of the most important verses in the entire Bible.  Here the author of Genesis tells us about God’s plan to bless mankind after the disasters that had occurred at the Fall, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel.  We learn how God will create for himself a people who acknowledge him as the one true God, and who have as their homeland a place called the Lord’s Land.

According to the Zondervan NIV Study Bible,

In the ancient world of the OT, all the various gods that were worshiped and relied on were gods of a particular place and/or a particular people (a family, tribe, or nation—the choice of the gods to be venerated by the social unit resting in the hands of the communal leader[s]). The most effective way for the true God to break into such a religious world and gain world recognition was to establish a relationship with a patriarchal head of household and call him away from his idolatrous clan and from the place(s) with which its gods were linked and to establish that patriarch’s household as the beginnings of a people who acknowledged only him as their God, and then locate them in a place/land that he claimed as his own. That is the program that Yahweh initiated with his summons to Abram.

Note the seven parts of God’s promise to Abraham in verses 2-3 of chapter 12.  First, “I will make you into a great nation.”  Second, “I will bless you.”  Third, “I will make your name great.”  Fourth, “You will be a blessing.” (Some scholars read this fourth part as a command to Abraham, not a promise).  Fifth, “I will bless those who bless you.”  Sixth, “Whoever curses you I will curse.”  Seventh, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”  Because of the Hebrew literary style used in this section containing the promises, the original readers would have understood the first and seventh promises to be the most important, that God would make Abraham into a great nation, and that all peoples on earth would be blessed.

In verses 4-9, Abraham’s journey into Canaan is described.  We learn that Lot, who is Abraham’s nephew, accompanies him to Canaan.  Lot will be an important figure in the coming chapters of Genesis, and that is why the reader is alerted to his presence.

There are three particular places mentioned in Canaan that Abraham visits, all of which are later visited by Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, when Jacob returns to Canaan, and all of which are mentioned as sites occupied by Joshua in the conquest of Canaan some 700 years later.  These three sites are 1) Shechem, 2) a place between Bethel and Ai, and 3) the Negev. At Shechem, and between Bethel and Ai, Abraham builds altars to the Lord.  At Shechem, God appears to Abraham to reassure him that his offspring would have the land.

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Sunday School

Commentary on Genesis 6-8 (The Flood)

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In verses 5-7 in chapter 6, we learn that God is deeply grieved by the wickedness of mankind.  Since the days of Adam and Eve, mankind has become more and more sinful.  The wickedness has become so extreme that God decides he will exterminate the entire human race.  Only one family will escape his judgment: the family of Noah.

Why is Noah to be spared from the impending flood?  “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.”  The answer is simple: Noah obeyed God, and this is what God desires from human beings.

In verses 11-22, Noah receives detailed instructions from God on how to build the ark that will house his family and the animals that God will spare from the flood.  The details are provided by the author to demonstrate the meticulous obedience of Noah.  Noah is an example to the reader of how a person is to follow God.

In verse 22, we read, “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”  The fact that Noah was spared from the flood because he did as God commanded is repeated three more times in chapter 7 in verses 5, 9, and 16.  Obedience to God is a central theme for the book of Genesis and the entire Pentateuch.

In chapter 7, the flood begins and Noah’s family is safe inside the ark.  God gives specific instructions about taking extra “clean” animals on board the ark so that Noah’s family will not have to eat “unclean” animals during the flood.  These instructions foreshadow the instructions by God to bring unblemished animals to be sacrificed at the tabernacle constructed by the Israelites as they wandered the desert for 40 years.

Remember that Genesis 7 was most likely given to the Israelites during the 40 years in the wilderness, so it is important to consider how they would have heard the account of Noah, given their experience in the wilderness.  Likewise, the forty days and forty nights of rain parallel the forty years in the wilderness.

As the flood is described, we don’t hear about those who perish until verse 21 of chapter 7.  Here we are reminded of the animals and humans that were killed, and that only Noah’s family and the animals on the ark are saved.

In chapter 8, the inhabitants of the ark are finally able to emerge.  Verse 1 reminds us that God remembered Noah and sent a wind over the waters so that they would recede (reminiscent of the parting of the Red Sea).  Noah must wait for God to act before the ark rests on dry land and everyone can exit.

Theologian John Sailhamer notes, “The image that emerges from this narrative is that of a righteous and faithful remnant patiently waiting for God’s deliverance.”  Henceforth, the Flood, in the Bible, symbolizes God’s judgment of sin, and Noah symbolizes the salvation of the faithful.

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Sunday School

Commentary on Genesis 3 (The Fall)

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Genesis 3 describes the rebellion of Adam and Eve against God and the immediate consequences of that rebellion.  In verses 1-7, we see Eve being tempted by a serpent, which the author describes as crafty.  Later in the Bible, in the book of Revelation, this serpent is identified as Satan.  The serpent tells Eve that she can become like God, knowing good from evil, if she will only eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree that God forbade Adam and Eve to eat from.  The serpent also denies that Eve will die, as God warned.

In essence, Eve wants to gain wisdom that she thinks God is withholding from her.  She takes the fruit from the tree and then gives some to Adam, who also eats the fruit.  Instead of becoming like God in wisdom, disaster occurred.  Before eating the fruit, they were unashamed of their naked bodies, but after eating the fruit, they became ashamed and hid themselves from each other and God.

God had already given them every good thing they would ever need, but they instead desired to know good and evil apart from God.  They thought they could improve themselves by eating from the tree that God had forbidden.  They doubted God’s promise of the consequences of their disobedience, and they believed the serpent’s lies.

In verses 8-13, God confronts Adam and Eve with their disobedience.  Notice what has changed.  Before, Adam and Eve conversed with God openly in the garden, and now they are hiding from him, out of shame.  Their newly gained knowledge of good and evil has not made them more like God, it has distanced them from God.  Not only are they distanced from God, but Adam now blames Eve for giving him the fruit, and he even blames God for creating Eve in the first place.  What a difference!

In verses 14-19, God explains to Adam and Eve the consequences of their disobedience.  The serpent is cursed, but in this curse God promises that Eve’s offspring will battle with the serpent’s offspring, and one day Eve’s descendant will crush the serpent – a foreshadowing of Jesus’s victory over Satan on the cross.

There were also consequences for Eve and all women after her.  First, the joy of childbirth would now be mixed with extreme pain.  Second, the perfect marital relationship that Adam and Eve possessed would be corrupted.  As Eugene Peterson paraphrases God’s message to Eve, “You’ll want to please your husband, but he’ll lord it over you.”

There were also consequences for Adam.  Because of his disobedience, the ground would be cursed, which meant that he would have to work extremely hard to get any food out of the ground.  In the garden, food was provided by God, but now man would have to “sweat in the fields from dawn to dusk.”

Finally, in verses 20-24 God banishes Adam and Eve from the garden so that they cannot eat of the tree of life, and live forever.  In addition, they would also be cut off from God’s immediate presence they had enjoyed in the garden.  The one silver lining is that God did not destroy the garden, so we are left with hope that some day we will be able to re-enter it.

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible

Commentary on Genesis 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In Genesis 2 the creation account of Genesis 1 is continued, but now with focus on the creation of humankind.  In Genesis 1, we saw that mankind was the pinnacle of God’s overall creative work, so Genesis 2 gives a more detailed account of how the first man and first woman were created.

In verses 4-7, we learn that before man is created, and before the Fall of mankind, the world is different.  Shrubs and plants of the field do not yet exist because there is no rain and no men to farm the fields. God takes dirt from the ground and forms man (Adam), and then God blows into his nostrils the breath of life.

Note that God is not described blowing into the nostrils of any other creatures.  Also, recall from Genesis 1 that only humans are made in the “image of god.”  The first two chapters of the Bible give great prominence to human beings during God’s process of creation.  Human beings are not a mere afterthought; they appear to be the very reason God created the heavens and the earth.

In verses 8-15, we are told that God places Adam in a paradise, a garden located in an area of the world called Eden.  There is plenty of food for Adam in the garden, food that God has provided for him.  There are also two trees in the middle of the garden, one called the tree of life and another called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam is told to keep the garden orderly, to take care of it.  The Hebrew in verse 15 can also be translated to indicate that Adam is to worship and obey God.  God is providing everything Adam needs at this point.

Foreshadowing the events of Genesis 3, the Fall, God commands Adam to “not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”  Aside from God’s desire for Adam to worship and obey him, and care for the garden, this is the first command God gives Adam with negative consequences if he fails to obey.

Verses 18-25 then shift the focus to the creation of the first woman, Eve. What is incredibly important to notice in verses 18-20 is that no animal is suitable to be a helper for Adam.  Although Adam is given the privilege of naming the other animals, Adam sees that he is completely unlike all the animals he names.

So God performs the first ever human surgery and creates Eve out of the bones of Adam.  When Adam sees Eve, he immediately realizes that she is just like him – “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”  Verses 24-25 introduce the institution of marriage between one man and one woman, and they indicate that one of the primary purposes of the married couple is to sexually reproduce.

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Sunday School

What Is the Point of Genesis 1?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

There are several possible interpretations of the individual verses in Genesis 1, but if we step back and look at the overall theme of the Book of Genesis, chapter 1, what is it about?

The creation account of Genesis 1, as the preamble to the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible), announces that the God of Israel, the covenant Deliverer of his people, is Creator of all that exists. The opening verse says it all: the God of covenant and the God of creation are one and the same.

God is depicted as the autonomous Master who has by his uncontested word commanded all things into existence and ordered their design and purpose. In the ancient near east during the second millennium BC, there were other creation stories.  In those, the ordered universe owed its existence to a struggle between a hero deity and a beast which represented chaos and disorder. The gods of creation were depicted primarily as re-ordering unruly matter, not creating matter.

The ancients’ understanding of origins was tied to their concept of the natural world as alive and personal. They believed that natural phenomena were related to the activities of the gods. Ancient myth, then, tells of a threatening and unpredictable world where the gods operate, placing society at their mercy.

Against this backdrop the Genesis 1 account speaks volumes regarding the uniqueness of biblical revelation.  Indeed, God’s Word was required to liberate antiquity from its superstitions and fear of the world that was viewed as a playground for fickle and cruel gods.  Genesis 1 teaches that God is and that he is Sovereign Lord above and over nature. God created the universe by his speaking it into existence.

In Genesis 1, God not only creates all matter out of nothing, he then orders and designs that matter to become productive. He separates light from darkness; the sky from waters below; the land from the waters. Vegetation, birds, fish, land animals, and finally human beings, fill God’s creation.

In summary, the God of Genesis 1 is not re-ordering an already existing natural world. He is not fighting against other pre-existing gods. The God of Genesis 1 is creating the natural world from scratch, and then giving it order and design – making it productive. Although Christians who take the Bible to be the Word of God may differ on the details, we should all agree that this is what Genesis 1 is ultimately about.

Bible Interpretation, Theology

How Does Job Slam the “Prosperity Gospel?”

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

I cringe when I hear preachers or evangelists promise their followers that if they will believe in Jesus, their lives will be blessed with material wealth and prosperity. I have decided that the only way the “prosperity gospel” can flourish is if absolutely nobody in those churches where it is preached reads the Book of Job.

See, the idea behind the prosperity gospel is that if you move from a sinful life to faith in Jesus (which gives you a righteous standing before God), your material wealth will immediately increase. Faith = righteousness = wealth.

How does the Book of Job flatly contradict this theology? Well, it’s simple. Job is called the most righteous God-believing man alive and God allows Satan to take away all of Job’s material wealth, not to mention all of his children. Let’s look at the verses.

In verses 1-3, look at what kind of man Job is:

In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

To strengthen the point, God himself says of Job, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

The author of Job is trying to make it clear that Job is a paragon of righteousness. Job is the kind of man who God wishes all of us would be like. So, according to the prosperity gospel Job should continue to prosper and never suffer. As long as he is blameless and upright, God will bless him.

But look what happens to Job next. God allows Satan to take all of Job’s blessings away in Job 1:13-19. First, Job’s oxen and donkeys are carried off by Sabean marauders, and the servants watching over them are killed. Second, Job’s sheep and more servants are killed by fire from heaven. Third, another group of marauders, the Chaldeans, steal Job’s camels and kill yet more of his servants. Fourth, Job’s children are all killed when a windstorm destroys the house they are feasting in.

Where is the prosperity? Where is the good life that God owes Job for his righteousness? What is truly fascinating is that for the next 30 chapters of the book, three of Job’s friends preach the prosperity gospel to him! What is their theology? Their theology is simple: God always and immediately punishes the wicked and always and immediately blesses the righteous.

But we know their theology is false because Job is a righteous man, and yet he is suffering enormously. Job continuously argues his case to his friends, but they will not listen. At the end of the book, God finally weighs in and agrees with Job that his friends’ theology is completely wrong. God says to one of the three friends, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”

Here is the bottom line: a person’s righteous standing before God is no guarantee of continuous material blessings. Job was as righteous a man as was alive at that time, and yet God, through Satan, took away all of Job’s material blessings. So if you believe in the prosperity gospel, I have a simple question for you: Are you as righteous as Job?

Bible Interpretation

How Should Christians Apply the Law? Part 4

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In part 3, we applied the first three steps of principlism to Lev. 5:2 in order to see how Christians should interpret and apply that passage. In this post, we will complete J. Daniel Hays’ analysis of Lev. 5:2.

Step 4:

How does the New Testament teaching modify or qualify this, principle? According to the New Testament, God no longer dwells among believers by residing in the tabernacle or temple; He now dwells within believers by the indwelling Holy Spirit. His presence, however, still calls for holiness on their part. He demands that they not sin and that they stay separate from unclean things.

However, the New Testament redefines the terms “clean” and “unclean.” “Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’ . . . What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean'” (Mark 7:15, 20-23). Believers under the New Covenant are not made unclean by touching dead animals. They become unclean by impure thoughts or by sinful actions.

The New Covenant also changed the way God’s people are to deal with sin and uncleanness. Rather than bringing a lamb or goat to atone for sin, a believer’s sins are covered at the moment of salvation by the sacrifice of Christ. The death of Christ washes away sin and changes the believer’s status from unclean to clean. Confession of sin, however, is still important under the New Covenant (1 John 1:9), as it was under the Old Covenant. So an expression of the universal principle for today’s New Testament audience would be, “Stay away from sinful actions and impure thoughts because the holy God lives within you. If you do commit unclean acts or think unclean thoughts, then confess that sin and experience forgiveness through the death of Christ.”

Step 5:

How should Christians today apply this modified universal principle in their lives? There are many possibilities, but one specific application relates to Internet pornography. Many Christians now have easy access to pornographic material in the privacy of their homes or dormitory rooms. This text teaches that the holiness of God, who dwells within believers, demands that they lead clean lives. Viewing pornography clearly falls into the category that the New Testament says is unclean. Such action is a violation of God’s holiness and it hinders one’s ability to worship or fellowship with God. Therefore believers are to stay away from Internet pornography, realizing that it makes them spiritually unclean, offends the holiness of God, and disrupts fellowship with God. However, if one does fall into this sin, he must confess it, and through the death of Christ he will be forgiven and fellowship with God will be restored.

Hopefully this example, provided by J. Daniel Hays, illustrates how a Christian should interpret and apply the Law. Even though the Law was not written to the Christian, we can still learn a great deal about God  and his expectations of us from the Law.

Bible Interpretation

How Should Christians Apply the Law? Part 3

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In parts 1 and 2, we looked at a method of interpreting and applying the Law (first five books of the Bible) to Christians living today. Theologian J. Daniel Hays calls the method principlism and refers to five steps in the process. In this post, Hays will take us through an example of using the method.

Leviticus 5:2 provides an example of how the method of principlizing can be used by believers today to apply legal passages without being under the Law. The verse reads, “Or if a person touches anything ceremonially unclean–whether the carcasses of unclean wild animals or of unclean livestock or of unclean creatures that move along the ground–even though he is unaware of it, he has become unclean and is guilty.”

The action required to correct one’s ceremonially unclean status in this verse is described a few verses later. So verses 5-6 should also be included: “When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned and, as a penalty for the sin he has committed, he must bring to the LORD a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.”

Using principlism, how should we interpret Lev. 5:2? Step 1:

What did the text mean to the initial audience? The context of Leviticus discusses how the Israelites were to live with the holy, awesome God who was dwelling in their midst. How were they to approach God? How should they deal with sin and unclean things in light of God’s presence among them? These verses are part of the literary context of 4:1-5:13 that deals with offerings necessary after unintentional sin. Leviticus 4 deals primarily with the leaders; Leviticus 5 focuses on regular people. Leviticus 5:2 informed the Israelites that if they touched any unclean thing (dead animals or unclean animals), they were defiled ceremonially. This was true even if they touched an unclean thing accidentally. Being unclean, they were unable to approach God and worship Him. To be purified (made clean), they were to confess their sin and bring the priest a lamb or a goat for a sacrifice (5:5-6). The priest would sacrifice the animal on their behalf and they would be clean again, able to approach and worship God.

Step 2:

What are the differences between the initial audience and believers today? Christians are not under the Old Covenant, and their sins are covered by the death of Christ. Also because they have direct access to God through Jesus Christ, they no longer need human priests as mediators.

Step 3:

What is the universal principle in this text? The central universal principle in these verses relates to the concept that God is holy. When He dwells among His people, His holiness demands that they keep separate from sin and unclean things. If they become unclean, they must be purified by a blood sacrifice. This principle takes into account the overall theology of Leviticus and the rest of Scripture. It is expressed in a form that is universally applicable to God’s people in both the Old Testament and the New Testament eras.

In part 4, we will finish up the interpretation of Lev. 5:2 using principlism.