back to indexWed Bible Study - Leviticus Lesson 12
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The uncleanness of woman after she gives birth. 00:00:07.000 |
Okay, so that's what we're going to talk about. 00:00:11.000 |
All right, so obviously this is one of those subjects, 00:00:14.000 |
if I was giving topical Bible studies, that we would avoid the rest of my life. 00:00:20.000 |
But we are going through it chapter by chapter. 00:00:24.000 |
And I'm sure you probably had very significant questions about what's going on here. 00:00:31.000 |
And we'll try to address it to the best of our ability. 00:00:43.000 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this evening 00:00:46.000 |
and bringing our brothers and sisters here together. 00:00:49.000 |
That we may focus our attention, our mind, our hearts toward your word. 00:00:55.000 |
Help us to understand the hidden treasures, Lord God, of your word. 00:00:59.000 |
That we may have better insight as to who you are and what you are doing. 00:01:04.000 |
We pray for wisdom. Help us to not to go beyond your words. 00:01:08.000 |
Help us to dig and to find, Lord God, the mystery that is hidden in all of these things, Lord, 00:01:17.000 |
So we pray for your blessing and your Holy Spirit to guide. 00:01:22.000 |
Alright, so when you studied this, my guess is that you had one of the bigger questions 00:01:40.000 |
that you came up with is why is the woman unclean twice? 00:01:50.000 |
Why is she considered unclean for twice as long as when she has a male son? 00:02:04.000 |
I think even before we get to that question, we have to answer even a bigger question. 00:02:09.000 |
And that bigger question is why is she unclean in the first place? 00:02:14.000 |
Before we even get to the question of male or female, why is she unclean? 00:02:18.000 |
Because if you think about, if there's any time for a woman that we would consider our culture to be sacred 00:02:29.000 |
Yeah, I mean that's a, you know, if you've ever been in the hospital or if your father or, you know, 00:02:35.000 |
have brother or sisters and you go to the hospital and if there's any period where you think 00:02:42.000 |
the highlight of a woman, you know, and her sacredness, you think when she gives birth. 00:02:47.000 |
But instead you take this sacred period after she gives birth, the time of recuperation, 00:02:57.000 |
So the bigger question, even before we get to the male and female, is why is she considered unclean 00:03:02.000 |
to begin with when something so sacred and so precious of delivering a child after going through 00:03:09.000 |
such just pain and to experience something so beautiful as delivering a child. 00:03:16.000 |
And then as soon as the baby comes out, the Bible says that anybody that she touches becomes unclean. 00:03:22.000 |
And then again, so we get to that distinction between male and female. 00:03:31.000 |
So let's see if we can do our best to try to answer this question. 00:03:38.000 |
So Leviticus 11 dealt with the clean and unclean food, which was meat, 00:03:44.000 |
different kinds of food that we're able to eat. 00:03:47.000 |
But this and subsequent chapters address clean and unclean people. 00:03:52.000 |
So up to this point, the main point of it was about addressing what you can and cannot eat. 00:03:57.000 |
But chapter 12 through 15 is addressing clean and unclean people. 00:04:02.000 |
What makes people clean? What makes people unclean? 00:04:04.000 |
So chapter 12, obviously today is what we're going to tackle, is the ritual of defilement that follows childbirth, 00:04:16.000 |
Why is this time that's so sacred to--and it's not just our culture, it's everywhere else in the world, 00:04:23.000 |
delivering a child is sacred, but again, today we're going to be talking about the uncleanness of that. 00:04:28.000 |
And then chapter 13 and 14 deal with uncleanness caused by skin disease. 00:04:32.000 |
And which skin disease is he referring to specifically? 00:04:36.000 |
So we'll get to that in the next couple weeks. 00:04:40.000 |
And then chapter 15 deals with uncleanness associated with reproduction, 00:04:45.000 |
including the women's monthly cycle, another topic that I'm very eager to get to. 00:04:57.000 |
And just to kind of give a heads up, the purity laws identify life's brokenness due to human sinfulness, 00:05:03.000 |
while holiness laws identify sins like sexual immorality. 00:05:07.000 |
So again, I want you to understand the distinction between the uncleanness versus unholy. 00:05:17.000 |
And we'll get to that when we talk about it. Uncleanness and unholy. 00:05:21.000 |
And those are two completely different things. 00:05:23.000 |
Unholiness is referring specifically to a violation that's a moral violation of some sort of law, right, 00:05:32.000 |
Unclean doesn't necessarily mean that you've sinned. 00:05:36.000 |
It's just that in God's eyes, it is not pure. 00:05:41.000 |
So as we are going along, I'm going to make sure that we make that distinction. 00:05:46.000 |
Unclean does not mean that they violated a particular law, willfully sinned, 00:05:53.000 |
But it's just that in God's eyes, it is not pure. 00:05:57.000 |
So this is the general outline of the next four or five chapters. 00:06:03.000 |
Remember we talked about the kiastic outline, where it begins with the point, 00:06:07.000 |
and then it kind of has sub-points, and then where's the highlight in the kiastic? 00:06:13.000 |
In the middle. And then it repeats the same outline in a reverse order. 00:06:18.000 |
So starting from chapter 12 to chapter 15, we have the reproduction, discharge, the childbirth, 00:06:24.000 |
and then the leprosy laws, right, in chapter 13. 00:06:27.000 |
And then chapter 14 talks about how to heal, how to deal with that. 00:06:31.000 |
And then in reverse order, chapter 14, the second part of it, 00:06:35.000 |
leprosy laws and how it pertains to the house, how to clean the house. 00:06:39.000 |
And then finally, in chapter 15, it talks about, again, reproduction discharges, 00:06:45.000 |
meaning having sexual relations, right, and then the woman's monthly flow. 00:06:51.000 |
So it kind of has a kiastic order, just to kind of keep the line in mind. 00:06:55.000 |
And then the main point of it, so as we are studying it, 00:07:00.000 |
the main point that, not that there isn't points in each of these chapters, 00:07:05.000 |
but again, just like the whole book of Leviticus, it's in the kiastic form. 00:07:09.000 |
And what is at the center of this kiastic form in the whole book of Leviticus? 00:07:15.000 |
Chapter, what chapter? What is at the center? 00:07:21.000 |
The Day of Atonement, which is chapter 16, right? 00:07:27.000 |
So before we get to the main point of the whole book of Leviticus, 00:07:31.000 |
in this chapter 12 through 15, we're getting to the main point of this section, 00:07:41.000 |
And in a sense, what is the Day of Atonement? 00:07:48.000 |
But this is talking about very practically, specifically, 00:07:51.000 |
that when these things happen, how to be restored and to get unto God. 00:07:56.000 |
So in another sense, what he's going to be talking about in this kiastic outline 00:08:00.000 |
in the beginning of chapter 14 is a subplot of the Day of Atonement. 00:08:08.000 |
Where sin is revealed, and then it talks about how to remedy this sin. 00:08:16.000 |
So this is kind of like a microcosm of what is happening in the larger book of Leviticus. 00:08:21.000 |
That's the kiastic form. So we'll get to that when we get to that. 00:08:26.000 |
So the law that is given, and then we'll talk about the meaning behind it. 00:08:32.000 |
So first of all, a woman who has just delivered a baby is considered unclean 00:08:36.000 |
for seven days if the baby is a boy, and 14 days if the baby is a girl. 00:08:44.000 |
If it is a boy, baby boy, he's to be circumcised on the eighth day, 00:08:51.000 |
Just in case you were wondering why God waited eight days before a Jewish child was circumcised, 00:08:58.000 |
it was because for seven days she was considered unclean. 00:09:01.000 |
So as soon as that period is done, he would get circumcised on the eighth day. 00:09:07.000 |
Circumcision was a mark of God's covenant people, commanded to Abraham and his descendants, 00:09:13.000 |
again in Genesis 17, 10-14. So every Jewish male was to be circumcised. 00:09:19.000 |
Was circumcision unique to the nation of Israel? 00:09:25.000 |
No. Other nations did get circumcised, so it wasn't like the nation of Israel 00:09:29.000 |
were the first group to ever circumcise their children. 00:09:32.000 |
It was the first group commanded by their religion to be circumcised. 00:09:39.000 |
Now why did God choose circumcision? It doesn't explain. 00:09:43.000 |
One thing we do know about circumcision is that it was a blood covenant, 00:09:47.000 |
so the spilling of the blood in the child was part of him coming into the covenant community, 00:09:53.000 |
the spilling of the blood. I think, again, this is not explained in the scripture, 00:09:57.000 |
but another reason maybe is one of the big promises that God made to the nation of Israel 00:10:02.000 |
is that they would be fruitful. They were going to multiply in great numbers, 00:10:07.000 |
that they were going to be able to have many children and be able to be reproduced rapidly. 00:10:12.000 |
And so if you remember, when they were coming out of Egypt, 00:10:15.000 |
remember what the Jewish women were known for? 00:10:19.000 |
They delivered so quick, boom, boom, boom. That's what they were known for. 00:10:24.000 |
The Jewish women had very healthy babies in delivery, 00:10:29.000 |
and so when Pharaoh wanted to kill the firstborn children, they couldn't get to them fast enough. 00:10:34.000 |
But that was a very specific blessing that God gave the nation of Israel. 00:10:38.000 |
So the fact that the circumcision is a covenant symbol, one is shedding of blood, 00:10:47.000 |
So when a male Jewish boy was born, after the seven days of uncleanness, 00:10:52.000 |
on the eighth day, he would immediately get circumcised as a covenant sign. 00:10:56.000 |
But this circumcision symbolized more than just physical. 00:11:00.000 |
It was a spiritual surgery that God wanted to perform on their human heart. 00:11:05.000 |
So God uses this concept of circumcision repeatedly in the Old Testament and the New Testament 00:11:21.000 |
So in Deuteronomy 10.16 it says, "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, 00:11:31.000 |
So in other words, the covenant symbol, again, that every Jewish child had, 00:11:36.000 |
that it should ultimately, what God is looking for is a circumcision of the heart. 00:11:41.000 |
And then in Jeremiah 4.4, "Circumcise yourself to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your heart, 00:11:46.000 |
O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go forth like fire, 00:11:51.000 |
and burn with none to quench it because of the evil of your deeds." 00:11:55.000 |
So when it says to circumcise the foreskin of your heart, it's talking about the excess 00:12:05.000 |
So again, we see that in the New Testament where over and over again, 00:12:09.000 |
the idea of circumcision is used to refer to a covenant symbol, 00:12:16.000 |
And what is the covenant symbol in the New Testament for a believer? 00:12:27.000 |
So the Holy Spirit is the symbol of the new covenant for the new covenant people 00:12:36.000 |
So the law says that for 40 days, which is 7 days plus 33 for boys, 00:12:42.000 |
after the birth of the son, or 80 days, so it's 14, 2 weeks for a girl, plus 66, 00:12:51.000 |
which would come out to 80 days after the birth of a daughter, 00:12:54.000 |
the mother and father were required to go to the sanctuary 00:12:57.000 |
and offer the sacrifices for the mother's cleansing. 00:13:01.000 |
So the distinction is when she has a boy child, for 7 days she's considered unclean. 00:13:08.000 |
And then after that, the boy is circumcised on the 8th day, 00:13:11.000 |
but for the next 33 days she's considered unclean, but not like the first 7 days. 00:13:18.000 |
So the first 7 days she's unclean to the point where if somebody touches her 00:13:21.000 |
or she touches somebody else, you would become unclean. 00:13:24.000 |
So you weren't allowed to be around people, you weren't allowed to sit where she sits, 00:13:31.000 |
But the second part of it, the 33 days, it was ceremonial, 00:13:35.000 |
meaning that you weren't allowed to come to the temple and give sacrifice. 00:13:39.000 |
You could make contact, you could have sexual relations with your husband, 00:13:42.000 |
you could be at the home, you could do all these other things, 00:13:45.000 |
but you weren't allowed to come to the temple to make sacrifices. 00:13:53.000 |
Do you understand the distinction between the first 7 days and the next 33 days? 00:14:00.000 |
So the first 7 days, you're unclean, like unclean where you can't touch anybody, 00:14:08.000 |
If you touch them or they touch you, they also became unclean. 00:14:13.000 |
The next 33 days was specifically ceremonial, 00:14:17.000 |
that you weren't allowed to come to the temple, 00:14:20.000 |
and if you did, you would end up defiling whatever it is that you came into contact with. 00:14:24.000 |
But you were allowed to do your normal daily chores in those 33 days. 00:14:33.000 |
So the whole period is 40 days, but 7 days specific and 33 days general. 00:14:43.000 |
For 2 weeks, you're not allowed to touch, wherever you sat, 00:14:47.000 |
somebody else can't sit there, and so typically, 00:14:50.000 |
you would have to be in a separate room or go somewhere 00:14:54.000 |
where you wouldn't have that kind of contact for 2 weeks. 00:14:56.000 |
And then after that, the second period is 60-60s, which is 80, if you were a girl. 00:15:03.000 |
Now we're going to get to that, because I'm pretty sure, 00:15:06.000 |
somebody already asked me last week about that, why is that? 00:15:12.000 |
And I'm going to tell you now that some part of it is going to satisfy you 00:15:17.000 |
So I'm going to give you a heads up on that already. 00:15:20.000 |
So after that period, the law says that a year old lamb was to be offered 00:15:27.000 |
as burnt offering and dove or pigeon as a sin offering on the mother's behalf. 00:15:37.000 |
So as soon as it was over, the very first act that they did 00:15:41.000 |
when they went to the temple for a child, whether it was male or female, 00:15:52.000 |
Basically acknowledging needing God's forgiveness and to blood to cover that person. 00:15:57.000 |
And that was the most frequent sacrifice that was given all throughout the sacrifices. 00:16:04.000 |
In fact, sometimes they would give peace offering, 00:16:08.000 |
So you had to be forgiven of general covering in order to even enter into his presence, 00:16:14.000 |
and then you would give a specific offering of sin offering or peace offering or other offerings. 00:16:19.000 |
So burnt offering was oftentimes given first and then you give the specific offering. 00:16:24.000 |
So in this case, they are to give the burnt offering to cover her generally 00:16:29.000 |
and then to give what? Sin offering on her behalf. 00:16:37.000 |
She delivers a baby, which is considered in almost every culture that you and I know 00:16:43.000 |
to be one of the most sacred time for her and for the child. 00:16:48.000 |
In fact, we would probably go so far as to say, 00:16:52.000 |
if there's any time where she is considered more holy in her life than any other time, 00:16:58.000 |
it's probably at the end of nine months giving birth. 00:17:01.000 |
Because she just went through purgatory, right? 00:17:05.000 |
And pushed this baby out and she did something that almost every human being on earth would acknowledge, right? 00:17:14.000 |
But for the Jewish community, the very first thing that she does is she gets isolated. 00:17:19.000 |
Then after the period of cleansing, she comes to the temple and has to give a sin offering, 00:17:34.000 |
The reasoning behind that period that we are given the first, 00:17:38.000 |
whether it's 60 days or 40 days or 80 days, it says that lokiah is a discharge from a mother. 00:17:44.000 |
So those of you guys who had no idea what that was, 00:17:47.000 |
which I didn't know either until last night, okay? 00:17:55.000 |
So I guess, I'm going to gross you out and not gross you out. 00:18:00.000 |
Okay, after you give birth, and so some of you ladies have given birth, 00:18:06.000 |
Basically, there's a flow that happens, and that flow is called lokiah. 00:18:15.000 |
Look it up yourself. I'm just going to read it, okay? 00:18:19.000 |
Lokiah is a discharge from a mother who just delivered that continues for several weeks, 00:18:25.000 |
And the second period of uncleanness, during that period, 00:18:30.000 |
the second period of uncleanness had dual purpose. 00:18:32.000 |
The first one, it allowed the new mother to regain her health and strength. 00:18:37.000 |
Now the scripture doesn't spell that out, but it's pretty clear that if she has to rest 00:18:41.000 |
and she can't go out anywhere, she can't touch anything, she can't cook, 00:18:44.000 |
it automatically gives her a period to be restored. 00:18:50.000 |
Whether you do it because the law told you to do it or not, 00:18:54.000 |
as soon as a mother gives birth, she's isolated because you don't want her to get sick. 00:18:58.000 |
She's breastfeeding, and so automatically we practice this anyway. 00:19:02.000 |
But this is written into the law in Israel, for cleanness, 00:19:07.000 |
and so she's completely isolated from other people for, again. 00:19:11.000 |
So if you think of it that way, so if you have a male child, you're isolated for 40 days. 00:19:17.000 |
And if you have a female child, you get isolated for 80 days. 00:19:21.000 |
So if you see it from that perspective, why only 40 days? 00:19:31.000 |
I'm just trying to prepare you for what's coming, okay? 00:19:38.000 |
So one of the reasons is she's probably able to get restored 00:19:46.000 |
And again, obviously the second part of it is to restore her to ritual purity, 00:19:51.000 |
to get her back and running like she was before. 00:19:58.000 |
So the two main questions that we should be asking, 00:20:04.000 |
if you studied it or if you read it, you probably came up with, 00:20:07.000 |
why would a woman bearing children make her unclean? 00:20:13.000 |
In every other circumstance, we would think that that period, 00:20:16.000 |
she was probably more sacred and more honored and more special than any other time. 00:20:21.000 |
But why in the Israel law is she considered unclean at that time? 00:20:26.000 |
Now, this command should not be regarded as something negative. 00:20:31.000 |
It's not something that, well God says she needs to be unclean, 00:20:35.000 |
so bearing children from God's point of view is unclean. 00:20:40.000 |
Remember we talked about the distinction between unholy and unclean? 00:20:44.000 |
Unholy is specific willful sin against God that needs to be repented of. 00:20:48.000 |
Unclean is where God looks at it and it's just not pure in his eyes, right? 00:21:00.000 |
In fact, the scripture where God's the one who commanded Adam and Eve 00:21:04.000 |
to be fruitful and multiply, to have multiple children, Genesis 128. 00:21:11.000 |
In Psalm 127 verse 3, children are to be regarded as gifts from God. 00:21:18.000 |
And then in Psalm 123, a woman with many kids is considered to be blessed. 00:21:26.000 |
So all throughout scripture, having children, having many children, 00:21:31.000 |
at least in the Old Testament, was considered a blessing. 00:21:34.000 |
So don't take from this law that God had a very negative view of having children. 00:21:41.000 |
Now having said that, what does this point to? 00:21:44.000 |
Remember everything that God does in the book of Leviticus, 00:21:54.000 |
Every part of the book of Leviticus that we've been studying points to something. 00:22:04.000 |
It points to--instead of generally pointing and saying, 00:22:07.000 |
"You know, God loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life, 00:22:09.000 |
and he's going to die for your sin, he's going to come." 00:22:11.000 |
All of that is true, but Leviticus goes into the detailed matters of what sin, right? 00:22:18.000 |
What kind of sin? How is the sin going to be atoned for? 00:22:29.000 |
So the book of Leviticus is the gospel message in detail. 00:22:36.000 |
the cross isn't just a generic or general sense of God's goodness and kindness towards sinners. 00:22:52.000 |
what does God's anger look like, what does God's goodness look like. 00:22:55.000 |
He goes into detailed description of every part of the gospel message. 00:23:02.000 |
So when he is talking about this particular thing, 00:23:04.000 |
obviously he gave these laws, but there was a reason. 00:23:08.000 |
And in this, it points to something very specific in the gospel message. 00:23:15.000 |
So what do you think that this would point to? 00:23:20.000 |
You don't have to answer, but just think about it. 00:23:23.000 |
If every sacrifice, if every law points to something specific. 00:23:27.000 |
Remember last week we talked about the different dietary laws that God gave? 00:23:31.000 |
And one of the things that we found out is anything that was not natural or normal, 00:23:37.000 |
or something kind of went wrong, God created his order, 00:23:40.000 |
and something in his order that went kind of astray was considered unclean. 00:23:45.000 |
And so all the animals that didn't fit the normal pattern of that category was considered unclean. 00:23:52.000 |
But the other part of it was that giving of the sacrifices caused the nation of Israel to clamp down 00:23:58.000 |
and gather together, and the outsiders couldn't break in, 00:24:03.000 |
You couldn't eat with them, you couldn't go to their houses, and so he kept them separate. 00:24:07.000 |
But then we come to the new covenant, and the new covenant God says to what? 00:24:13.000 |
So you look at redemptive history, mankind falls from God, 00:24:19.000 |
God makes promise and he begins to draw near to him, 00:24:23.000 |
he gives the law, tells him how this is going to be restored, 00:24:26.000 |
Leviticus actually gives him an avenue for them to come to him, 00:24:30.000 |
and then after he delivers he begins to call people to the sanctuary. 00:24:37.000 |
And then when Christ comes, he comes and he basically cuts the curtain in half, 00:24:42.000 |
saying that these sacrifices are no longer necessary, 00:24:45.000 |
and he's no longer calling them just to himself. 00:24:50.000 |
And then in order for them to go, what happens? 00:24:59.000 |
that was the primary thing that they were wrestling with. 00:25:04.000 |
Do the Jews have to continue to eat these things? 00:25:09.000 |
And one of the first visions that Peter gets is, 00:25:11.000 |
what I declare to be clean, don't declare it unclean. 00:25:18.000 |
So what aspect of the gospel does this point to? 00:25:28.000 |
This command points to the idea of original sin. 00:25:35.000 |
it's a reminder that another sinner is entering into the world. 00:25:52.000 |
if you have an electronic Bible, just type it in 00:26:12.000 |
Okay, so David in his repentance describes how his sin was, 00:26:21.000 |
As soon as he was conceived, he recognizes that there was a sinful nature in him. 00:26:26.000 |
And so this particular law is a reminder to the nation of Israel 00:26:32.000 |
that even though a sacred child is coming into the world, 00:26:39.000 |
Physically, socially, in every way, it was considered a blessing from God. 00:26:44.000 |
From God's perspective, another sinner is coming into the world. 00:26:53.000 |
The sin offering for sins that were coming, if you remember, 00:26:59.000 |
the sin offering points to the fact that there was some sin 00:27:02.000 |
that needed to be atoned for that was related to the childbirth. 00:27:05.000 |
So again, she had to give the whole offering, the burnt offering, 00:27:11.000 |
as a general atonement to be able to enter into his presence, 00:27:14.000 |
but the specific offering that was to be given was the sin offering. 00:27:22.000 |
Remember, they made a distinction between a willful rebellion against God 00:27:30.000 |
So the sin offering that the woman is to give is not because 00:27:37.000 |
but it was to recognize that there was sin, that this child, the sinner, 00:27:44.000 |
and it is to cleanse her from that particular act, right, 00:27:51.000 |
for unintentional sin that made her unclean and defiled before God. 00:27:56.000 |
That's what the sin offering specifically was for, 00:28:00.000 |
So this whole process is reminding the nation of Israel of the original sin. 00:28:08.000 |
The child doesn't come into the world precious and clean until you defile it. 00:28:14.000 |
The child comes into the world from day one, and as David says, 00:28:21.000 |
And this was embedded into Israel's culture, right, 00:28:26.000 |
where today, you know, a child comes into the world, 00:28:28.000 |
and the first thing we think of is all the hopes and dreams we have for this kid, right? 00:28:33.000 |
And even when we raise our kids, what do we do? 00:28:36.000 |
We try to keep them protected from the filth of the world, 00:28:39.000 |
make sure he doesn't associate with friends who are going to defile him. 00:28:45.000 |
Every parent goes through the same thing, but in the nation of Israel, 00:28:49.000 |
from day one they are taught that a sinner is coming into the world, right, 00:28:56.000 |
who needs to be atoned for, that only hope for the sinner is ultimately the blood of Christ. 00:29:09.000 |
Two different situations cause uncleanness, the moral transgression and ceremonial defilement. 00:29:15.000 |
Right, moral transgression caused spiritual defilement. 00:29:19.000 |
However, the ceremonial defilement did not necessarily mean that the defiled person had sinned. 00:29:36.000 |
Later on, this is not today, but in chapter 15, it also talks about the reproduction is essential to survival of the human race, 00:29:44.000 |
yet intercourse makes man and woman unclean, in chapter 15, verse 18. 00:29:53.000 |
It begins with the uncleanness that comes with the birth, but it also, in chapter 15, 00:29:59.000 |
says uncleanness comes with the very inception, right? 00:30:03.000 |
And all of this to remind the nation of Israel, as the human beings multiply, what also multiplies? 00:30:13.000 |
You know, in the book of Genesis, where it says that the mankind, as it was multiplying, 00:30:17.000 |
and the more they multiplied, the more what happened? 00:30:22.000 |
And then when they got gathered and they got organized, what did they do? 00:30:29.000 |
And so this particular law embedded into Israel's history, a constant reminder that they are in the need of atonement, even from birth. 00:30:42.000 |
The second question, which is, I'm sure you guys were thinking, 00:30:45.000 |
why does bearing a child, girl child, require twice as long a period of uncleanness as a boy? 00:30:51.000 |
Now, let me tell you right off the bat, okay, that there is no clear consensus on this. 00:30:59.000 |
So, some of it is going to be satisfying, some of it may not be satisfying. 00:31:03.000 |
But, let me begin with the challenge of this, okay, with this challenge, 00:31:09.000 |
which is one of the questions that I ask for our discussion questions. 00:31:19.000 |
Do you have a sense of fairness that you project onto God? 00:31:23.000 |
Or do you understand a sense of fairness because God told you? 00:31:30.000 |
I want you to think about that for a minute, right? 00:31:33.000 |
Do we bring our understanding of fairness and then we look to see if God is fair, 00:31:38.000 |
or do we come to the Word of God and let the Word of God dictate what I should be considering to be fair or unfair? 00:31:47.000 |
So, having said that, even before we go through the discussion, 00:31:52.000 |
if God says men have more value, how would you respond? 00:32:09.000 |
I just want you to challenge your paradigm, I just want to challenge your thinking. 00:32:14.000 |
If God said that females require the double number of cleansing because God sees greater value in men, 00:32:35.000 |
I mean, like you want to throw something at me. 00:32:39.000 |
Okay, I just want to throw that out there because as we are studying this section, 00:32:45.000 |
I already told you that there is no clear consensus on this, 00:32:49.000 |
but if we come before God to understand a difficult text with a preconceived notion of what I believe to be good, 00:32:57.000 |
and if God doesn't answer my question to my satisfaction, then I question God. 00:33:02.000 |
Then you have to take a step back and ask yourself, where do you stand before God? 00:33:07.000 |
Are you standing before God, or is God standing before you? 00:33:12.000 |
Now, I'm putting that out there as a foundation before we even get into this. 00:33:19.000 |
I'm not going to answer these questions just to satisfy you. 00:33:24.000 |
I'm going to tell you what it says, and then you wrestle with what it says. 00:33:31.000 |
Why does bearing a girl child require twice as long a period of uncleanness as a boy? 00:33:39.000 |
There are many different thoughts behind this, but the first, 00:33:45.000 |
"The longer period of ceremonial uncleanness to the birth of a daughter may point to the fact that Eve was the one who was initially tempted and introduced sin to mankind." 00:34:30.000 |
"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. 00:34:35.000 |
For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 00:34:42.000 |
Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control." 00:34:48.000 |
So, the first thing that we know, again, this is not just 1 Timothy, but the scripture talks about how Eve brought temptation into the creation, 00:35:01.000 |
and she said it was you who submitted, and as a result of that, Adam fell. 00:35:07.000 |
So that's the reasoning behind it that's given to us in this text. 00:35:23.000 |
"But I am afraid that as a serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from the sincere and pure devotion to Christ." 00:35:31.000 |
So again, repeated to emphasize that Eve was the one who was first tempted. 00:35:38.000 |
And I'm going to go even further than that. If you could turn to the second passage in Leviticus chapter 27, 2-7. 00:35:53.000 |
Go to Leviticus chapter 27, 2-7. We're going to get to that when we study it later, but I want to read that section to you. 00:36:04.000 |
I'm going to already tell you, you're not going to like it. Leviticus chapter 27, 2-7. 00:36:09.000 |
It says, "Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, 'If anyone makes a special vow to the Lord involving a valuation of a person, 00:36:15.000 |
then let the valuation of a male from 20 years old up to 60 years old shall be 50 shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. 00:36:25.000 |
If the person is a female, the valuation shall be 30 shekels." 00:36:29.000 |
So if it was a male, between the age of 20 and 60 is 50 shekels. If it is a female, it is 30 shekels. 00:36:40.000 |
Now, the vow that he's talking about is a dedication. If someone is dedicated for the service of the Lord, 00:36:47.000 |
and you're offering that, the value of a male servant who is being dedicated is 50 shekels. 00:37:04.000 |
Don't say anything. I just want you to digest it. 00:37:21.000 |
Because everything in our culture has been working toward equality between men and women 00:37:27.000 |
to the point where any mention of any inequality of any kind, it seems unrighteous. 00:37:36.000 |
And we're not talking about a hint of this. We're talking about outright, women are worth this much and men are worth this much. 00:37:51.000 |
Now, again, taking our concept of what we think is right and wrong, no matter what the circumstance, 00:37:59.000 |
everybody should be equal, just think emotions taken out of it. 00:38:09.000 |
I'm going to get in trouble, but I'm going to say it anyway. 00:38:11.000 |
If you're purchasing a horse, and one horse is stronger than the other horse, 00:38:18.000 |
and that first horse can pull twice the weight as the second horse, 00:38:26.000 |
and so I ask, when I'm selling this horse, this horse is worth $100, the second horse is going to worth $50, 00:38:46.000 |
If you take emotions out of it, and you're just, "Oh, they're human beings, they're not the same thing." 00:38:54.000 |
But we're talking about work, dedication, a vow to serve the Lord, 00:38:59.000 |
and it says the male servant is going to be able to do more work because physically strong. 00:39:04.000 |
Now, maybe if they're going to be nurturing the baby, or something that requires a female touch, 00:39:10.000 |
they can do a better job, but specifically for the purpose of farming, 00:39:16.000 |
and that requires physical strength, and I know you feminists, 00:39:21.000 |
if you have some feminism in you, and maybe you're angry, don't be angry with me. 00:39:28.000 |
Get on your knees and ask God, "Why is this in here?" 00:39:34.000 |
How much of your understanding and my understanding of fairness is implanted in you from the world? 00:39:44.000 |
And how much of it ultimately comes from God? 00:39:49.000 |
I'm not making any statement, I'm just asking you. 00:39:55.000 |
How much of your understanding of fairness is really dictated from the world that you grew up in, 00:40:02.000 |
what you have embraced, and how much of it is directly coming from God? 00:40:05.000 |
Let's say you had no influence from the world, 00:40:11.000 |
and your idea of right and wrong was strictly coming from scripture, and you read that. 00:40:20.000 |
You wouldn't have this knee-jerk reaction, right? 00:40:27.000 |
Because this is what's being taught in the scripture, 00:40:30.000 |
your right and wrong is being dictated by what you see in scripture. 00:40:34.000 |
But the reason why there's a reaction is because certain things that I'm reading in the scripture 00:40:38.000 |
is just not meshing well with things that I was taught, that I've embraced. 00:40:45.000 |
Now, I'm going to wrap this up, but before I wrap this up, I want to challenge our thinking. 00:41:01.000 |
So our idea of power is tainted with our idea of sinful nature. 00:41:11.000 |
So automatically, when a man is given authority, he's thinking authority in a very sinful way. 00:41:19.000 |
When you give somebody power who has sin in his heart, automatically he thinks in a sinful way, 00:41:30.000 |
So part of sanctification is that whatever we had before we met Christ, 00:41:37.000 |
he says to do what? To renew of your mind, to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. 00:41:43.000 |
So our idea of where do we get morality of right and wrong? 00:41:48.000 |
From God. God is the ultimate lawgiver. He's the only one who is just. 00:41:53.000 |
He's the only one who's ultimately fair, because he's the only one who sees all things. 00:41:59.000 |
So if I'm truly submitted and he's my Lord, my Lord dictates to me what is right and what is wrong. 00:42:06.000 |
The Lord dictates to me what is fair and what is unfair, 00:42:09.000 |
because he sees beyond just a superficial service. 00:42:12.000 |
So much of what we bring in is because this is what we've been taught. 00:42:25.000 |
There is a theory out there, and again, whether you believe this or not, that's up to you, 00:42:30.000 |
but another theory, J.P. Magnet has a theory that since some vaginal bleeding can occur 00:42:38.000 |
on the part of the newborn girl, the double time of the mother's purification 00:42:42.000 |
could be based on the actual and potential genital discharge of both females. 00:42:48.000 |
It is something that people in your medical profession, 00:42:51.000 |
they said there are cases when a young girl is born that she has potential of discharging, 00:42:57.000 |
and so the reason why it's double the time is because it's two females instead of one. 00:43:05.000 |
This is one of the theories. I just thought it was interesting. 00:43:12.000 |
The point of all of these laws, ultimately, is to point to something very specific 00:43:22.000 |
If we apply the concept of value and good and bad based upon our fallen idea of what's bad and good, 00:43:29.000 |
then Jesus is a subordinate of God the Father, and he has lesser value than God, 00:43:42.000 |
Then the Holy Spirit, out of the three, he's the third younger brother, 00:43:45.000 |
and so God the Father is worth $100 and the Son $50 and the Holy Spirit maybe a few dollars. 00:43:54.000 |
If we apply our sinful understanding of value, Jesus said the complete opposite. 00:44:02.000 |
He said the reason why he said he who serves is the greatest in the kingdom of God, 00:44:06.000 |
he's basically challenging the worldly idea of what is great. 00:44:13.000 |
Your concept of great and good is tainted by sin. 00:44:17.000 |
In the kingdom of God, that thing is completely flipped. 00:44:20.000 |
If we were to flip this around and apply a perspective that Jesus gave in the New Testament 00:44:27.000 |
of what is and is not, then it begins to look a little bit different. 00:44:34.000 |
I'm not saying that's the answer, but if we apply how Jesus taught us how to value things 00:44:41.000 |
in the New Testament and you begin to apply and begin to see that in the Old Testament, 00:44:46.000 |
first of all, we wouldn't naturally have that knee-jerk reaction because Jesus himself, 00:44:51.000 |
who was of the greatest value, became nothing. 00:44:59.000 |
Having said that, that's all just philosophical things to help us to understand what's going on 00:45:04.000 |
because we look at all of these things and we're applying the worldly principles of right and wrong, 00:45:09.000 |
just and unjust, into the Old Testament where we ought to be applying a new paradigm 00:45:15.000 |
into how we look at the kingdom, which was the paradigm that Jesus taught us. 00:45:22.000 |
Ultimately, all of this points to original sin. 00:45:25.000 |
Ultimately, it points to how we got here in the first place because of what Eve did. 00:45:31.000 |
Was Eve the only one that sinned? No, but it initiated with her because she brought it in. 00:45:38.000 |
So, if the point of all of this is for the purpose of reversing the curse, 00:45:44.000 |
the thing that gets the most attention is what brought the curse in, which was Eve. 00:45:52.000 |
So, if you go to the New Testament and God places the order and tells the men to submit to Christ 00:45:58.000 |
and the women to submit to the church, and all of this is a reversal of what happened at the fall 00:46:05.000 |
where the woman takes charge, or Eve takes charge, and then causes Adam, 00:46:11.000 |
not causes, but initiates and brings it in, and Adam basically listens to her 00:46:16.000 |
and then brings the curse upon mankind, when you come to the New Testament, 00:46:20.000 |
the order that God establishes is the order to reverse that curse. 00:46:24.000 |
So, even in this, when a male comes in, it's 40 days. 00:46:31.000 |
When you have a girl, it's not because, again, you can talk about all the physiological, 00:46:35.000 |
medical reasons behind that, but ultimately, those are all just guesses. 00:46:41.000 |
But the spiritual meaning behind it, I think, is pretty clear. 00:46:45.000 |
It's pointing to original sin, it's pointing to how original sin first came in. 00:46:50.000 |
And all of this is to highlight the reversal, the redemption that Christ was going to bring. 00:47:06.000 |
But when we come to the New Covenant, Jesus himself says in Galatians 3.28, 00:47:11.000 |
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, 00:47:14.000 |
there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ." 00:47:19.000 |
You know how incredible that would have sounded to anybody at that particular time? 00:47:31.000 |
Clearly, if you're a slave, you have lesser value, because the slave owners own you. 00:47:36.000 |
But Jesus says, in the kingdom of God, there is no slave, there is no free. 00:47:46.000 |
Men could pretty much treat his wife and his children like his own property. 00:47:50.000 |
But Jesus, in the New Covenant, right, when the curse is reversed, 00:47:54.000 |
and we're back into what God intended in the Garden of Eden, 00:48:01.000 |
There is no value between a slave and a slave owner, male or female. 00:48:08.000 |
All of these things are things that point to a specific thing that went wrong 00:48:27.000 |
And then the other part that I want to finish with is Jesus' parents. 00:48:33.000 |
When he is born, he is circumcised, and then on the eighth day, 00:48:37.000 |
they take him to the temple, and they go through the purification process also for Jesus. 00:48:42.000 |
In other words, Jesus came through this system that God has established, 00:48:48.000 |
He said, "I didn't come to abolish the law, but fulfill it." 00:48:51.000 |
Because everything that is taught in the Scripture ultimately points to the fulfillment in Christ. 00:48:56.000 |
And when it is fulfilled, and it is restored the way God originally intended, 00:49:04.000 |
So let's not get caught up in the details, and because of the paradigm that we have, 00:49:10.000 |
but ultimately recognize that all of these things ultimately is because Christ is coming to redeem us. 00:49:18.000 |
Like I told you, some of it will be satisfying, some of it you still may have an answer, 00:49:22.000 |
but ultimately I want to challenge even the way that we ask questions. 00:49:33.000 |
Does the Word of God have final authority on how you determine if something is right or wrong, 00:49:37.000 |
or do you think you put more weight on your sense of justice? 00:49:41.000 |
How do you determine if you lean more toward one or the other? 00:49:46.000 |
Number two, the doctrine of original sin means that there is no human being who is born innocent, 00:49:52.000 |
How do you think this inclination toward sin affected how we determine what is right and wrong, 00:50:00.000 |
So that second question is similar to the first one, but how do you determine that? 00:50:05.000 |
What specific examples can you give in how you came to a conclusion, 00:50:12.000 |
Number three, does salvation do away with the original sin nature completely? 00:50:17.000 |
If we are a new creation according to 2 Corinthians 5.17 and are born again according to John 4, 00:50:26.000 |
How has the way you deal with sin changed after you became a Christian? 00:50:30.000 |
So take some time to discuss that in your group. 00:50:33.000 |
Let me pray for us and then we'll release you to your small group. 00:50:39.000 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your living word. 00:50:43.000 |
And we know that there's a lot of things that we read, especially even today, 00:50:49.000 |
that may disturb us and may be difficult to understand. 00:50:57.000 |
But we pray, Lord, that you would sanctify our thoughts, 00:51:01.000 |
that even our ability to understand who you are, 00:51:05.000 |
we're completely dependent upon your Holy Spirit to teach and to open our eyes. 00:51:13.000 |
and not to try to put you in a box that we understand, 00:51:18.000 |
but to recognize, Lord God, that you are sovereign 00:51:22.000 |
and that your weakness is infinitely greater than our ability to even understand. 00:51:31.000 |
Help us to understand who you are. Help us understand your economy. 00:51:35.000 |
Help us understand your heart and your plan of salvation, Father, 00:51:39.000 |
that all of these things would only add to understanding your kingdom 00:51:44.000 |
that will eventually come, that as he is glorified, we will be glorified with him. 00:51:49.000 |
We thank you, Father in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.