The uncleanness of woman after she gives birth. Okay, so that's what we're going to talk about. All right, so obviously this is one of those subjects, if I was giving topical Bible studies, that we would avoid the rest of my life. But we are going through it chapter by chapter.

And I'm sure you probably had very significant questions about what's going on here. And we'll try to address it to the best of our ability. So let me pray first and then we'll jump in. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this evening and bringing our brothers and sisters here together.

That we may focus our attention, our mind, our hearts toward your word. Help us to understand the hidden treasures, Lord God, of your word. That we may have better insight as to who you are and what you are doing. We pray for wisdom. Help us to not to go beyond your words.

Help us to dig and to find, Lord God, the mystery that is hidden in all of these things, Lord, which is ultimately revealed in you. So we pray for your blessing and your Holy Spirit to guide. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, so when you studied this, my guess is that you had one of the bigger questions that you came up with is why is the woman unclean twice?

Why is she considered unclean for twice as long as when she has a male son? Correct? Yes. Okay, so you had that question. Okay. I think even before we get to that question, we have to answer even a bigger question. And that bigger question is why is she unclean in the first place?

Before we even get to the question of male or female, why is she unclean? Because if you think about, if there's any time for a woman that we would consider our culture to be sacred is when she gives birth. Correct? Yeah, I mean that's a, you know, if you've ever been in the hospital or if your father or, you know, have brother or sisters and you go to the hospital and if there's any period where you think the highlight of a woman, you know, and her sacredness, you think when she gives birth.

But instead you take this sacred period after she gives birth, the time of recuperation, and the scripture says she's unclean. So the bigger question, even before we get to the male and female, is why is she considered unclean to begin with when something so sacred and so precious of delivering a child after going through such just pain and to experience something so beautiful as delivering a child.

And then as soon as the baby comes out, the Bible says that anybody that she touches becomes unclean. She's not allowed to come to the temple. And then again, so we get to that distinction between male and female. So that's a really a bigger question. Why is she considered unclean to begin with?

So let's see if we can do our best to try to answer this question. So Leviticus 11 dealt with the clean and unclean food, which was meat, different kinds of food that we're able to eat. But this and subsequent chapters address clean and unclean people. So up to this point, the main point of it was about addressing what you can and cannot eat.

But chapter 12 through 15 is addressing clean and unclean people. What makes people clean? What makes people unclean? So chapter 12, obviously today is what we're going to tackle, is the ritual of defilement that follows childbirth, which is again a huge question. Why is this time that's so sacred to--and it's not just our culture, it's everywhere else in the world, delivering a child is sacred, but again, today we're going to be talking about the uncleanness of that.

And then chapter 13 and 14 deal with uncleanness caused by skin disease. And which skin disease is he referring to specifically? Leprosy. So we'll get to that in the next couple weeks. And then chapter 15 deals with uncleanness associated with reproduction, including the women's monthly cycle, another topic that I'm very eager to get to.

So we have the 15. So that's kind of like the outline. And just to kind of give a heads up, the purity laws identify life's brokenness due to human sinfulness, while holiness laws identify sins like sexual immorality. So again, I want you to understand the distinction between the uncleanness versus unholy.

And we'll get to that when we talk about it. Uncleanness and unholy. And those are two completely different things. Unholiness is referring specifically to a violation that's a moral violation of some sort of law, right, that causes him to sin. Unclean doesn't necessarily mean that you've sinned. It's just that in God's eyes, it is not pure.

So as we are going along, I'm going to make sure that we make that distinction. Unclean does not mean that they violated a particular law, willfully sinned, and therefore they needed to find atonement. But it's just that in God's eyes, it is not pure. So this is the general outline of the next four or five chapters.

Remember we talked about the kiastic outline, where it begins with the point, and then it kind of has sub-points, and then where's the highlight in the kiastic? In the middle. And then it repeats the same outline in a reverse order. So starting from chapter 12 to chapter 15, we have the reproduction, discharge, the childbirth, and then the leprosy laws, right, in chapter 13.

And then chapter 14 talks about how to heal, how to deal with that. And then in reverse order, chapter 14, the second part of it, leprosy laws and how it pertains to the house, how to clean the house. And then finally, in chapter 15, it talks about, again, reproduction discharges, meaning having sexual relations, right, and then the woman's monthly flow.

So it kind of has a kiastic order, just to kind of keep the line in mind. And then the main point of it, so as we are studying it, the main point that, not that there isn't points in each of these chapters, but again, just like the whole book of Leviticus, it's in the kiastic form.

And what is at the center of this kiastic form in the whole book of Leviticus? Chapter, what chapter? What is at the center? The Day of Atonement, which is chapter 16, right? So we're getting to that. So before we get to the main point of the whole book of Leviticus, in this chapter 12 through 15, we're getting to the main point of this section, which is restoration and healing, right?

And in a sense, what is the Day of Atonement? Restoration and healing, right? But this is talking about very practically, specifically, that when these things happen, how to be restored and to get unto God. So in another sense, what he's going to be talking about in this kiastic outline in the beginning of chapter 14 is a subplot of the Day of Atonement.

Does that make sense? Where sin is revealed, and then it talks about how to remedy this sin. Yes? So this is kind of like a microcosm of what is happening in the larger book of Leviticus. That's the kiastic form. So we'll get to that when we get to that.

So the law that is given, and then we'll talk about the meaning behind it. So first of all, a woman who has just delivered a baby is considered unclean for seven days if the baby is a boy, and 14 days if the baby is a girl. If it is a boy, baby boy, he's to be circumcised on the eighth day, after the seventh day of purification.

Just in case you were wondering why God waited eight days before a Jewish child was circumcised, it was because for seven days she was considered unclean. So as soon as that period is done, he would get circumcised on the eighth day. Circumcision was a mark of God's covenant people, commanded to Abraham and his descendants, again in Genesis 17, 10-14.

So every Jewish male was to be circumcised. Was circumcision unique to the nation of Israel? No. Other nations did get circumcised, so it wasn't like the nation of Israel were the first group to ever circumcise their children. It was the first group commanded by their religion to be circumcised.

Now why did God choose circumcision? It doesn't explain. One thing we do know about circumcision is that it was a blood covenant, so the spilling of the blood in the child was part of him coming into the covenant community, the spilling of the blood. I think, again, this is not explained in the scripture, but another reason maybe is one of the big promises that God made to the nation of Israel is that they would be fruitful.

They were going to multiply in great numbers, that they were going to be able to have many children and be able to be reproduced rapidly. And so if you remember, when they were coming out of Egypt, remember what the Jewish women were known for? They delivered so quick, boom, boom, boom.

That's what they were known for. The Jewish women had very healthy babies in delivery, and so when Pharaoh wanted to kill the firstborn children, they couldn't get to them fast enough. But that was a very specific blessing that God gave the nation of Israel. So the fact that the circumcision is a covenant symbol, one is shedding of blood, second is very specific to God's promise.

So when a male Jewish boy was born, after the seven days of uncleanness, on the eighth day, he would immediately get circumcised as a covenant sign. But this circumcision symbolized more than just physical. It was a spiritual surgery that God wanted to perform on their human heart. So God uses this concept of circumcision repeatedly in the Old Testament and the New Testament to talk about circumcision of what?

Circumcision of heart, right? So in Deuteronomy 10.16 it says, "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn." So in other words, the covenant symbol, again, that every Jewish child had, that it should ultimately, what God is looking for is a circumcision of the heart. And then in Jeremiah 4.4, "Circumcise yourself to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your heart, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it because of the evil of your deeds." So when it says to circumcise the foreskin of your heart, it's talking about the excess that is not needed in your heart.

Give the Lord the covenant symbol. So again, we see that in the New Testament where over and over again, the idea of circumcision is used to refer to a covenant symbol, not just external, but internal. And what is the covenant symbol in the New Testament for a believer? The Holy Spirit.

So the Holy Spirit is the symbol of the new covenant for the new covenant people in the New Testament. So the law says that for 40 days, which is 7 days plus 33 for boys, after the birth of the son, or 80 days, so it's 14, 2 weeks for a girl, plus 66, which would come out to 80 days after the birth of a daughter, the mother and father were required to go to the sanctuary and offer the sacrifices for the mother's cleansing.

So the distinction is when she has a boy child, for 7 days she's considered unclean. And then after that, the boy is circumcised on the 8th day, but for the next 33 days she's considered unclean, but not like the first 7 days. So the first 7 days she's unclean to the point where if somebody touches her or she touches somebody else, you would become unclean.

So you weren't allowed to be around people, you weren't allowed to sit where she sits, you were not allowed to eat at the table. But the second part of it, the 33 days, it was ceremonial, meaning that you weren't allowed to come to the temple and give sacrifice. You could make contact, you could have sexual relations with your husband, you could be at the home, you could do all these other things, but you weren't allowed to come to the temple to make sacrifices.

Do you understand the distinction? No? Do you understand the distinction between the first 7 days and the next 33 days? Okay, I got like 4 of you. So the first 7 days, you're unclean, like unclean where you can't touch anybody, you can't be around anybody. If you touch them or they touch you, they also became unclean.

The next 33 days was specifically ceremonial, that you weren't allowed to come to the temple, and if you did, you would end up defiling whatever it is that you came into contact with. But you were allowed to do your normal daily chores in those 33 days. Yes? Okay. So the whole period is 40 days, but 7 days specific and 33 days general.

For the girl, it's 2 weeks. For 2 weeks, you're not allowed to touch, wherever you sat, somebody else can't sit there, and so typically, you would have to be in a separate room or go somewhere where you wouldn't have that kind of contact for 2 weeks. And then after that, the second period is 60-60s, which is 80, if you were a girl.

Now we're going to get to that, because I'm pretty sure, somebody already asked me last week about that, why is that? And I'm going to tell you now that some part of it is going to satisfy you and some part of it is not. So I'm going to give you a heads up on that already.

So after that period, the law says that a year old lamb was to be offered as burnt offering and dove or pigeon as a sin offering on the mother's behalf. So as soon as it was over, the very first act that they did when they went to the temple for a child, whether it was male or female, they would have to give a burnt offering.

What was the burnt offering for? General atonement, right? Basically acknowledging needing God's forgiveness and to blood to cover that person. And that was the most frequent sacrifice that was given all throughout the sacrifices. In fact, sometimes they would give peace offering, they would give the burnt offering first. So you had to be forgiven of general covering in order to even enter into his presence, and then you would give a specific offering of sin offering or peace offering or other offerings.

So burnt offering was oftentimes given first and then you give the specific offering. So in this case, they are to give the burnt offering to cover her generally and then to give what? Sin offering on her behalf. So let's think about that for a second. She delivers a baby, which is considered in almost every culture that you and I know to be one of the most sacred time for her and for the child.

In fact, we would probably go so far as to say, if there's any time where she is considered more holy in her life than any other time, it's probably at the end of nine months giving birth. Because she just went through purgatory, right? And pushed this baby out and she did something that almost every human being on earth would acknowledge, right?

That it's something sacred. But for the Jewish community, the very first thing that she does is she gets isolated. Then after the period of cleansing, she comes to the temple and has to give a sin offering, recognizing her sin after she gives birth. We'll get to that in a minute.

The reasoning behind that period that we are given the first, whether it's 60 days or 40 days or 80 days, it says that lokiah is a discharge from a mother. So those of you guys who had no idea what that was, which I didn't know either until last night, okay?

Because I had to do some research. So I guess, I'm going to gross you out and not gross you out. Okay, after you give birth, and so some of you ladies have given birth, so you know what happens. Basically, there's a flow that happens, and that flow is called lokiah.

Look it up yourself. I'm just going to read it, okay? Lokiah is a discharge from a mother who just delivered that continues for several weeks, sometimes from two to up to six weeks. And the second period of uncleanness, during that period, the second period of uncleanness had dual purpose.

The first one, it allowed the new mother to regain her health and strength. Now the scripture doesn't spell that out, but it's pretty clear that if she has to rest and she can't go out anywhere, she can't touch anything, she can't cook, it automatically gives her a period to be restored.

That happens today anyway, right? Whether you do it because the law told you to do it or not, as soon as a mother gives birth, she's isolated because you don't want her to get sick. She's breastfeeding, and so automatically we practice this anyway. But this is written into the law in Israel, for cleanness, and so she's completely isolated from other people for, again.

So if you think of it that way, so if you have a male child, you're isolated for 40 days. And if you have a female child, you get isolated for 80 days. So if you see it from that perspective, why only 40 days? Alright, that's just my point of view, okay?

I'm just trying to prepare you for what's coming, okay? Just to get perspective, okay? So one of the reasons is she's probably able to get restored and to recuperate from what just happened. And again, obviously the second part of it is to restore her to ritual purity, to get her back and running like she was before.

So the two main questions that we should be asking, if you studied it or if you read it, you probably came up with, why would a woman bearing children make her unclean? In every other circumstance, we would think that that period, she was probably more sacred and more honored and more special than any other time.

But why in the Israel law is she considered unclean at that time? Now, this command should not be regarded as something negative. It's not something that, well God says she needs to be unclean, so bearing children from God's point of view is unclean. We shouldn't view it that way.

Remember we talked about the distinction between unholy and unclean? Unholy is specific willful sin against God that needs to be repented of. Unclean is where God looks at it and it's just not pure in his eyes, right? So this is obviously not unholy but unclean. In fact, the scripture where God's the one who commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, to have multiple children, Genesis 128.

In Psalm 127 verse 3, children are to be regarded as gifts from God. And then in Psalm 123, a woman with many kids is considered to be blessed. So all throughout scripture, having children, having many children, at least in the Old Testament, was considered a blessing. So don't take from this law that God had a very negative view of having children.

Now having said that, what does this point to? Remember everything that God does in the book of Leviticus, it has a larger purpose. And what does it ultimately point to? Every part of the book of Leviticus that we've been studying points to something. What does it point to? It points to the gospel, right?

It points to--instead of generally pointing and saying, "You know, God loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life, and he's going to die for your sin, he's going to come." All of that is true, but Leviticus goes into the detailed matters of what sin, right? What kind of sin?

How is the sin going to be atoned for? Like what requires punishment? How do you approach God in worship? What was lost? So the book of Leviticus is the gospel message in detail. So that when we look to the cross, the cross isn't just a generic or general sense of God's goodness and kindness towards sinners.

He specifies how he saved us, what he saved us from, what the wrath looks like, what does God's anger look like, what does God's goodness look like. He goes into detailed description of every part of the gospel message. So chapter 12 is no different. So when he is talking about this particular thing, obviously he gave these laws, but there was a reason.

And in this, it points to something very specific in the gospel message. So what do you think that this would point to? You don't have to answer, but just think about it. If every sacrifice, if every law points to something specific. Remember last week we talked about the different dietary laws that God gave?

And one of the things that we found out is anything that was not natural or normal, or something kind of went wrong, God created his order, and something in his order that went kind of astray was considered unclean. And so all the animals that didn't fit the normal pattern of that category was considered unclean.

But the other part of it was that giving of the sacrifices caused the nation of Israel to clamp down and gather together, and the outsiders couldn't break in, because you couldn't eat with them. You couldn't eat with them, you couldn't go to their houses, and so he kept them separate.

But then we come to the new covenant, and the new covenant God says to what? To go. So you look at redemptive history, mankind falls from God, God makes promise and he begins to draw near to him, he gives the law, tells him how this is going to be restored, Leviticus actually gives him an avenue for them to come to him, and then after he delivers he begins to call people to the sanctuary.

And so that's Old Testament history. And then when Christ comes, he comes and he basically cuts the curtain in half, saying that these sacrifices are no longer necessary, and he's no longer calling them just to himself. What is he doing? He's telling them to go. And then in order for them to go, what happens?

The dietary laws no longer apply. And that was, remember, in the book of Acts, that was the primary thing that they were wrestling with. Do the Gentiles have to keep this law? Do the Jews have to continue to eat these things? And one of the first visions that Peter gets is, what I declare to be clean, don't declare it unclean.

So all of that pointed to the gospel, right? So what aspect of the gospel does this point to? This command points to the idea of original sin. With the birth of every precious child, it's a reminder that another sinner is entering into the world. I don't think I have the verse.

Psalm 51, verse 5, what does David say? Turn your Bibles to Psalm 51, verse 5. Can somebody who gets there first, if you have an electronic Bible, just type it in and then just read it out loud for us? Psalm 51, verse 5. Okay, so David in his repentance describes how his sin was, goes how deep?

To his mother's womb. As soon as he was conceived, he recognizes that there was a sinful nature in him. And so this particular law is a reminder to the nation of Israel that even though a sacred child is coming into the world, he's coming in as a sinner. Physically, socially, in every way, it was considered a blessing from God.

From God's perspective, another sinner is coming into the world. And that's why she became unclean. The sin offering for sins that were coming, if you remember, the sin offering points to the fact that there was some sin that needed to be atoned for that was related to the childbirth.

So again, she had to give the whole offering, the burnt offering, as a general atonement to be able to enter into his presence, but the specific offering that was to be given was the sin offering. And what was the sin offering for? Remember, they made a distinction between a willful rebellion against God versus unintentional, right, or ignorant.

So the sin offering that the woman is to give is not because she willfully rebelled against God, right, but it was to recognize that there was sin, that this child, the sinner, she's just given birth to a sinner, right, and it is to cleanse her from that particular act, right, for unintentional sin that made her unclean and defiled before God.

That's what the sin offering specifically was for, and that's what is commanded for her to do. So this whole process is reminding the nation of Israel of the original sin. The child doesn't come into the world precious and clean until you defile it. The child comes into the world from day one, and as David says, in his mother's womb he was defiled.

And this was embedded into Israel's culture, right, where today, you know, a child comes into the world, and the first thing we think of is all the hopes and dreams we have for this kid, right? And even when we raise our kids, what do we do? We try to keep them protected from the filth of the world, make sure he doesn't associate with friends who are going to defile him.

Every parent goes through the same thing, but in the nation of Israel, from day one they are taught that a sinner is coming into the world, right, who needs to be atoned for, that only hope for the sinner is ultimately the blood of Christ. Two different situations cause uncleanness, the moral transgression and ceremonial defilement.

Right, moral transgression caused spiritual defilement. However, the ceremonial defilement did not necessarily mean that the defiled person had sinned. We talked about that already. Later on, this is not today, but in chapter 15, it also talks about the reproduction is essential to survival of the human race, yet intercourse makes man and woman unclean, in chapter 15, verse 18.

So this is kind of related to this, right? Remember we talked about the chiastic form? It begins with the uncleanness that comes with the birth, but it also, in chapter 15, says uncleanness comes with the very inception, right? And all of this to remind the nation of Israel, as the human beings multiply, what also multiplies?

Sinners are multiplying. You know, in the book of Genesis, where it says that the mankind, as it was multiplying, and the more they multiplied, the more what happened? Sin multiplied. And then when they got gathered and they got organized, what did they do? They started challenging God, right? And so this particular law embedded into Israel's history, a constant reminder that they are in the need of atonement, even from birth.

The second question, which is, I'm sure you guys were thinking, why does bearing a child, girl child, require twice as long a period of uncleanness as a boy? Now, let me tell you right off the bat, okay, that there is no clear consensus on this. So, some of it is going to be satisfying, some of it may not be satisfying.

But, let me begin with the challenge of this, okay, with this challenge, which is one of the questions that I ask for our discussion questions. Where does your sense of fairness come from? Do you have a sense of fairness that you project onto God? Or do you understand a sense of fairness because God told you?

I want you to think about that for a minute, right? Do we bring our understanding of fairness and then we look to see if God is fair, 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?

So, having said that, even before we go through the discussion, if God says men have more value, how would you respond? Don't stone me yet. I just want you to challenge your paradigm, I just want to challenge your thinking. If God said that females require the double number of cleansing because God sees greater value in men, how does that affect you?

Not good, huh? I mean, like you want to throw something at me. Okay, I just want to throw that out there because as we are studying this section, I already told you that there is no clear consensus on this, but if we come before God to understand a difficult text with a preconceived notion of what I believe to be good, and if God doesn't answer my question to my satisfaction, then I question God.

Then you have to take a step back and ask yourself, where do you stand before God? Are you standing before God, or is God standing before you? Now, I'm putting that out there as a foundation before we even get into this. I'm not going to answer these questions just to satisfy you.

I'm going to tell you what it says, and then you wrestle with what it says. Why does bearing a girl child require twice as long a period of uncleanness as a boy? There are many different thoughts behind this, but the first, "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." 1 Timothy 2, chapter 13 and 14.

Let me just start reading from verse 12. "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control." 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, and she said it was you who submitted, and as a result of that, Adam fell.

So that's the reasoning behind it that's given to us in this text. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 3. "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." So again, repeated to emphasize that Eve was the one who was first tempted.

And I'm going to go even further than that. If you could turn to the second passage in Leviticus chapter 27, 2-7. 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. I'm going to already tell you, you're not going to like it.

Leviticus chapter 27, 2-7. 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, 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.

If the person is a female, the valuation shall be 30 shekels." 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. Now, the vow that he's talking about is a dedication. If someone is dedicated for the service of the Lord, and you're offering that, the value of a male servant who is being dedicated is 50 shekels.

The value of the woman is 30 shekels. How does that sit well with you? Don't say anything. I just want you to digest it. Does God seem unfair? Don't lie to me. Because He does. Because everything in our culture has been working toward equality between men and women to the point where any mention of any inequality of any kind, it seems unrighteous.

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. Now, just to explain this particular law. Now, again, taking our concept of what we think is right and wrong, no matter what the circumstance, everybody should be equal, just think emotions taken out of it.

If you are purchasing a horse, I'm going to get in trouble, but I'm going to say it anyway. If you're purchasing a horse, and one horse is stronger than the other horse, and that first horse can pull twice the weight as the second horse, and so I ask, when I'm selling this horse, this horse is worth $100, the second horse is going to worth $50, because he can only do half the work.

Is that unjust? You don't want to see it. If you take emotions out of it, and you're just, "Oh, they're human beings, they're not the same thing." But we're talking about work, dedication, a vow to serve the Lord, and it says the male servant is going to be able to do more work because physically strong.

Now, maybe if they're going to be nurturing the baby, or something that requires a female touch, they can do a better job, but specifically for the purpose of farming, and that requires physical strength, and I know you feminists, if you have some feminism in you, and maybe you're angry, don't be angry with me.

Get on your knees and ask God, "Why is this in here?" How much of your understanding and my understanding of fairness is implanted in you from the world? And how much of it ultimately comes from God? I'm not making any statement, I'm just asking you. How much of your understanding of fairness is really dictated from the world that you grew up in, what you have embraced, and how much of it is directly coming from God?

Let's say you had no influence from the world, and your idea of right and wrong was strictly coming from scripture, and you read that. You wouldn't have this knee-jerk reaction, right? Because this is what's being taught in the scripture, your right and wrong is being dictated by what you see in scripture.

But the reason why there's a reaction is because certain things that I'm reading in the scripture is just not meshing well with things that I was taught, that I've embraced. Now, I'm going to wrap this up, but before I wrap this up, I want to challenge our thinking. We've all fallen, men and women.

So our idea of power is tainted with our idea of sinful nature. So automatically, when a man is given authority, he's thinking authority in a very sinful way. When you give somebody power who has sin in his heart, automatically he thinks in a sinful way, and he applies it in a sinful way.

So part of sanctification is that whatever we had before we met Christ, he says to do what? To renew of your mind, to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. So our idea of where do we get morality of right and wrong? From God. God is the ultimate lawgiver.

He's the only one who is just. He's the only one who's ultimately fair, because he's the only one who sees all things. So if I'm truly submitted and he's my Lord, my Lord dictates to me what is right and what is wrong. The Lord dictates to me what is fair and what is unfair, because he sees beyond just a superficial service.

So much of what we bring in is because this is what we've been taught. This is our sense of fairness. Now, I'm going to wrap this up. There is a theory out there, and again, whether you believe this or not, that's up to you, but another theory, J.P. Magnet has a theory that since some vaginal bleeding can occur on the part of the newborn girl, the double time of the mother's purification could be based on the actual and potential genital discharge of both females.

I didn't know this either. It is something that people in your medical profession, they said there are cases when a young girl is born that she has potential of discharging, and so the reason why it's double the time is because it's two females instead of one. Now, true or not, I don't know.

This is one of the theories. I just thought it was interesting. Let me wrap this up. The point of all of these laws, ultimately, is to point to something very specific that God was going to fulfill and restore. If we apply the concept of value and good and bad based upon our fallen idea of what's bad and good, then Jesus is a subordinate of God the Father, and he has lesser value than God, which you and I would admit is heresy.

That would be absolute heresy. Then the Holy Spirit, out of the three, he's the third younger brother, and so God the Father is worth $100 and the Son $50 and the Holy Spirit maybe a few dollars. If we apply our sinful understanding of value, Jesus said the complete opposite.

He said the reason why he said he who serves is the greatest in the kingdom of God, he's basically challenging the worldly idea of what is great. He's flipping it completely upside down. Your concept of great and good is tainted by sin. In the kingdom of God, that thing is completely flipped.

If we were to flip this around and apply a perspective that Jesus gave in the New Testament of what is and is not, then it begins to look a little bit different. I'm not saying that's the answer, but if we apply how Jesus taught us how to value things in the New Testament and you begin to apply and begin to see that in the Old Testament, first of all, we wouldn't naturally have that knee-jerk reaction because Jesus himself, who was of the greatest value, became nothing.

Then he told his followers to do the same. Having said that, that's all just philosophical things to help us to understand what's going on because we look at all of these things and we're applying the worldly principles of right and wrong, just and unjust, into the Old Testament where we ought to be applying a new paradigm into how we look at the kingdom, which was the paradigm that Jesus taught us.

Now, what does all of this point to? Ultimately, all of this points to original sin. Ultimately, it points to how we got here in the first place because of what Eve did. Was Eve the only one that sinned? No, but it initiated with her because she brought it in.

So, if the point of all of this is for the purpose of reversing the curse, the thing that gets the most attention is what brought the curse in, which was Eve. Correct? So, if you go to the New Testament and God places the order and tells the men to submit to Christ and the women to submit to the church, and all of this is a reversal of what happened at the fall where the woman takes charge, or Eve takes charge, and then causes Adam, not causes, but initiates and brings it in, and Adam basically listens to her and then brings the curse upon mankind, when you come to the New Testament, the order that God establishes is the order to reverse that curse.

So, even in this, when a male comes in, it's 40 days. When you have a girl, it's not because, again, you can talk about all the physiological, medical reasons behind that, but ultimately, those are all just guesses. It may or may not. But the spiritual meaning behind it, I think, is pretty clear.

It's pointing to original sin, it's pointing to how original sin first came in. And all of this is to highlight the reversal, the redemption that Christ was going to bring. But the...oh, I had this first. But when we come to the New Covenant, Jesus himself says in Galatians 3.28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ." You know how incredible that would have sounded to anybody at that particular time?

How can there be no slave, right, or free? Clearly, if you're a slave, you have lesser value, because the slave owners own you. But Jesus says, in the kingdom of God, there is no slave, there is no free. There is no male, there is no female. Female at that time couldn't own property.

Men could pretty much treat his wife and his children like his own property. But Jesus, in the New Covenant, right, when the curse is reversed, and we're back into what God intended in the Garden of Eden, he says there is no hierarchy. There is no value between a slave and a slave owner, male or female.

All of these things are things that point to a specific thing that went wrong because of the curse, because of the sin. What God intends is this. What God is trying to bring us to is this. And then the other part that I want to finish with is Jesus' parents.

We see in Luke 2, 21-24. When he is born, he is circumcised, and then on the eighth day, they take him to the temple, and they go through the purification process also for Jesus. In other words, Jesus came through this system that God has established, ultimately to fulfill the law.

He said, "I didn't come to abolish the law, but fulfill it." Because everything that is taught in the Scripture ultimately points to the fulfillment in Christ. And when it is fulfilled, and it is restored the way God originally intended, we get Galatians 3.28. So let's not get caught up in the details, and because of the paradigm that we have, but ultimately recognize that all of these things ultimately is because Christ is coming to redeem us.

I hope that makes sense. Like I told you, some of it will be satisfying, some of it you still may have an answer, but ultimately I want to challenge even the way that we ask questions. So three discussion questions today. Does the Word of God have final authority on how you determine if something is right or wrong, or do you think you put more weight on your sense of justice?

How do you determine if you lean more toward one or the other? Number two, the doctrine of original sin means that there is no human being who is born innocent, but with a sinful nature. How do you think this inclination toward sin affected how we determine what is right and wrong, our sense of justice and injustice?

Give specific examples. So that second question is similar to the first one, but how do you determine that? What specific examples can you give in how you came to a conclusion, or maybe an observation of something else? Number three, does salvation do away with the original sin nature completely?

If we are a new creation according to 2 Corinthians 5.17 and are born again according to John 4, why do we still have desires to sin? How has the way you deal with sin changed after you became a Christian? So take some time to discuss that in your group.

Let me pray for us and then we'll release you to your small group. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your living word. And we know that there's a lot of things that we read, especially even today, that may disturb us and may be difficult to understand. But we pray, Lord, that you would sanctify our thoughts, that even our ability to understand who you are, we're completely dependent upon your Holy Spirit to teach and to open our eyes.

Help us, Lord God, to submit to you, and not to try to put you in a box that we understand, but to recognize, Lord God, that you are sovereign and that your weakness is infinitely greater than our ability to even understand. Help us to understand who you are. Help us understand your economy.

Help us understand your heart and your plan of salvation, Father, that all of these things would only add to understanding your kingdom that will eventually come, that as he is glorified, we will be glorified with him. We thank you, Father in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.