Day 15

There is a progressive element to the Gospel that we need to journey through.

‘I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.’ (LEVITICUS 26:12)

The book of Leviticus is not an easy book to read, but it has more of the words of God directly spoken than any other book in the Bible. It is built around five offerings – the guilt offering (our sins); the sin offering (our sin nature); the fellowship offerings (restored fellowship with God); the grain offering (our service to God) and the burnt offering (how we live as living sacrifices to God).

Each of these aspects, worked out in the Tabernacle, give to us the essential truths of the gospel. As the Israelites had to make the physical journey through these five offerings, so we must make the same journey spiritually. To only come to Christ for cleansing is to have a very superficial understanding of the gospel. We need to move beyond Christ dying for us (guilt offering); to understanding what it means for us to die with Christ (sin offering); and being reconciled to God in order to be saved by Christ’s life (fellowship offering); obeying Him in service (grain offering); and denying ourselves and taking up our cross daily (burnt offering). We find all of these aspects taught in the New Testament, but the disciplines of Leviticus teach us their sequence in a liturgical order that our own walk with God should parallel.

Help me, Lord, to identify with the whole sequence of salvation that is taught in the offerings in Leviticus.