I have been struggling … and I mean struggling … to study Leviticus this past week. Rules upon rules upon statutes upon laws; it is truly mind-boggling. It seems for every human movement, function or action, there was a law to purify and cleanse the offender. Without that purification and cleansing ceremony, a person would be exiled, considered unclean, and unholy. The map to reconciling the Israelites to God is twisting, turning, and very, very specific.

I wondered why all these specific regulations and rituals. Having never lived under Mosaic Law, we cannot know how difficult it would be to live by its regulation. But in my struggles to read through this chapter, I found this verse that seemed to sum up why everything had to be exactly as God said it should. "This is how you will guard the people of Israel from ceremonial uncleanness. Otherwise, they would die, for their impurity would defile My Tabernacle that stands among them." (Lev 15:31)

God is so holy, all these regulations had to be followed to the letter to keep the Tabernacle holy. It was only when God gave His only Son that we are free from the law, for Jesus made us holy through His sacrifice. All we have to do is accept Him. There is no way we could remember all these laws and the specific sacrifices that had to be made to restore us to God … until Jesus’ sacrifice upon the cross.