Does the Old Testament Alienate the Disabled?
00:00:00.000 | Why Did God Alienate Disabled Persons in the Old Testament?
00:00:08.600 | It's a really good question today from a listener named Gina.
00:00:11.960 | "Hello Pastor John, I'm reading through Leviticus in my Bible reading and one thing
00:00:15.760 | that has confused me is why God would not allow people with physical defects to approach
00:00:21.280 | the altar, specifically in Leviticus 21, 16-21.
00:00:27.280 | The tone changes drastically in the Gospels, there Jesus welcomes the blind, the lame,
00:00:32.600 | and the diseased right into his own very presence.
00:00:35.880 | So why would God in the Old Testament not allow them near the altar?
00:00:39.800 | Seems sad to me.
00:00:41.080 | Those people would have certainly felt even worse for it and likely experienced heightened
00:00:45.640 | social alienation too.
00:00:48.600 | I'm thankful for the New Testament because there are so many of us with physical defects.
00:00:53.520 | But why the discontinuity?
00:00:55.720 | To what purpose?"
00:00:57.440 | Good, good, good, good, good question.
00:01:01.160 | Leviticus 21, 16-24 deals with whether priests, it's about priests, but her question is still
00:01:11.600 | really valid, whether priests who have physical disabilities or deformities can enter the
00:01:20.920 | holy place to do the work of a priest.
00:01:24.040 | And I think Gina is probably right that in reality when priests with facial defects or
00:01:31.440 | crushed genitals or injured feet or a hunchback or scabby skin were forbidden from parts of
00:01:40.520 | the priestly service, not all of them, but some of them, probably they would have felt
00:01:45.600 | sad and discouraged at times and maybe even resentful.
00:01:51.520 | That would be a normal human response, at least in our culture, we sure feel that.
00:01:55.800 | And my guess is it's pretty basic to human nature.
00:01:59.800 | So Gina asks, "Why does God in the Old Testament apply such external restrictions for the priesthood?
00:02:09.480 | And in the New Testament, we don't have that same kind of restriction.
00:02:13.960 | They don't assume the same kind of excluding effect."
00:02:18.600 | So let me try to give an answer that I think honors the intention of both the Old Testament
00:02:24.800 | and the New Testament, because I think both are the inspired Word of God, and what God
00:02:29.200 | did when He did it was right to do when He did it, and He had reasons for doing it.
00:02:34.720 | And it may not be right for us to do it today because such profound things have changed.
00:02:38.440 | But let's look at the key passage, and there's a ground clause that helps us really crystallize
00:02:46.080 | the issues.
00:02:48.040 | Here's Leviticus 21, 16 to 24 with just a few verses left out.
00:02:52.000 | I'll collapse it down so you can see the clause.
00:02:54.760 | No man of the offspring of Aaron, the priest, who has a blemish shall come near to offer
00:03:01.840 | the Lord's food offerings.
00:03:03.840 | Since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God.
00:03:09.640 | He shall not go through the veil or approach the altar because, and our ears should perk
00:03:17.240 | up, because he has a blemish, in order that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am
00:03:27.080 | Yahweh the Lord who sanctifies them.
00:03:31.360 | In other words, God says, "I am the one who sets priests apart for my service.
00:03:37.440 | I sanctify them.
00:03:38.560 | I have ordained, I have decreed or instituted or decided that a blemished priest will not
00:03:47.720 | blemish or profane my sanctuary."
00:03:51.080 | In other words, God wants to make the perfections of the sanctuary so symbolically and visibly
00:04:00.400 | clear that he establishes a correlation between the deforming of the physical body and the
00:04:09.080 | deforming of the sanctuary.
00:04:12.000 | Or to say it another way, he insists that there be a correlation between the perfections
00:04:19.400 | of those who approach the sanctuary and the perfection of the sanctuary itself, which
00:04:25.720 | is a reflection of his own perfection.
00:04:28.240 | So it's entirely possible that the most godly and the most humble, deformed priests would
00:04:37.080 | not be offended by this divine order of things, but would gladly acknowledge that it is fitting
00:04:45.520 | for those who approach a perfect God to be free from outward and inward imperfections.
00:04:55.040 | So I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with God's Old Testament ordinances
00:05:01.700 | in this regard.
00:05:02.700 | The question is, what's the ultimate meaning of it, especially in relation to New Testament
00:05:08.920 | changes?
00:05:10.360 | My answer goes like this.
00:05:12.360 | In the Bible as a whole, there are two dimensions to God's nature that shape the way he deals
00:05:20.240 | with mankind.
00:05:22.320 | One is unapproachable holiness.
00:05:26.640 | That's one massive truth throughout the Bible.
00:05:30.020 | God is holy.
00:05:31.360 | Sinners can't approach him.
00:05:33.200 | Nothing imperfect can approach him.
00:05:35.860 | Nothing evil can approach God without being destroyed.
00:05:40.920 | And so it's fitting that in the presence of God, there can only be perfection, both
00:05:48.280 | moral and spiritual and physical, which of course means no one qualifies.
00:05:55.760 | It's not like some of these priests were perfect.
00:06:00.080 | The other dimension of his nature is his overflowing mercy and grace.
00:06:05.960 | So those are the two.
00:06:07.760 | Unapproachable holiness and overflowing mercy and grace, which reaches out to the physically,
00:06:14.520 | morally, spiritually imperfect and finds a way in Jesus Christ to declare them to be
00:06:22.360 | perfect.
00:06:24.920 | But the resolution of these two dimensions of God's nature is not that the first one
00:06:32.280 | is replaced by the second one, like holiness is kind of blunted and decreased in its importance
00:06:39.500 | because mercy is going to be the main thing now.
00:06:43.760 | That's not what happens.
00:06:45.800 | As though the doctrine of justification by faith alone would be sufficient to create
00:06:52.840 | the new heavens and the new earth where God is present among justified sinners without
00:06:58.720 | his holiness being compromised.
00:07:00.800 | That's not going to happen.
00:07:02.560 | That's not going to happen.
00:07:03.560 | No.
00:07:04.560 | God also undertakes by sanctification and then by the recreation of everything that's
00:07:12.360 | broken, physical dimensions of the world and moral dimensions of the world, and he's going
00:07:17.980 | to make everything in his presence perfect forever.
00:07:24.900 | Not just justified sinners are going to be in God's presence, but no sin is going to
00:07:29.920 | be in God's presence.
00:07:31.240 | There won't be any people who sin in God's presence.
00:07:36.480 | There will be no defects morally.
00:07:39.480 | There will be no defects physically in the presence of God in the age to come.
00:07:45.720 | So I think God highlighted the demands for perfection in the Old Testament in an outward
00:07:53.900 | way so as to make really clear that no form of imperfection would ever stand in God's
00:08:02.740 | presence permanently.
00:08:04.600 | That's how holy he is.
00:08:06.280 | He would one day not only justify the ungodly and be willing to touch lepers, reach out
00:08:12.560 | and actually touch lepers, God himself touching lepers in the flesh, but he would also utterly
00:08:19.560 | transform the ungodly into sinless godly people and take away every leprosy and every disease
00:08:27.560 | and every disability and every deformity.
00:08:30.740 | So the Old Testament and the New Testament make both of these dimensions of God's character
00:08:37.420 | plain, it seems to me, by putting the emphasis in different places.
00:08:42.180 | So the Old Testament is, as it were, standing on tiptoes, looking over the horizon of the
00:08:48.620 | future, waiting and wondering how God could ever create a people all of whom could come
00:08:54.880 | boldly into his presence, and God had put such amazing limits in the Old Testament.
00:09:01.220 | So the Old Testament rightly makes this seem extremely difficult.
00:09:06.620 | I think that was the point.
00:09:07.840 | He wanted it to look like this can never happen.
00:09:10.580 | You can never have anybody with an imperfection walking in here.
00:09:14.340 | Just not going to happen.
00:09:15.440 | God has put such amazing restrictions on it.
00:09:18.520 | And then, in the New Testament, the glorious reality dawns that God has provided a way
00:09:25.620 | by Jesus Christ, the very perfection, that we must have to approach him now, and he has
00:09:34.980 | provided by his Spirit the sanctification and resurrection and perfection of bodily
00:09:40.320 | and spiritually newness in the age to come so that we can be in his presence forever.
00:09:45.600 | So my bottom line conclusion is we need the Old Testament to sober us about how holy God
00:09:53.980 | is, and we need the New Testament lest we despair of any hope that we could survive
00:10:00.780 | in the presence of such a holy God, let alone enjoy him forever.
00:10:05.500 | Amen.
00:10:06.500 | That's really helpful.
00:10:07.500 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:10:08.500 | Well, there's a horrifying story out of Colorado that has grabbed headlines since it happened
00:10:14.180 | in August, a story of a man who killed his entire family, his wife of six years, their
00:10:20.020 | unborn child, along with their two really young daughters.
00:10:24.880 | It is sickening.
00:10:27.240 | And just a few months later, he is now in prison for the rest of his life, and he has
00:10:30.580 | also recently claimed to have found God.
00:10:34.060 | Can such a malicious animal be saved, and how should we Christians process that possibility?
00:10:39.340 | It's a raw and honest question, and it's up next time on Wednesday.
00:10:44.780 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, and we will see you then.
00:10:46.740 | Bye.
00:10:47.740 | Bye.
00:10:47.740 | Bye.
00:10:48.740 | Bye.
00:10:48.740 | Bye.
00:10:53.740 | [BLANK_AUDIO]