Part VIII in The Theology of the Pentateuch
Everyone has a theology of holiness.
In his excellent book, The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that everyone has the sense that some behaviors are wrong because they defile us. But modern ethics, based on concepts of autonomy and harm, struggles to explain these moral intuitions. The mantra is, “Everything’s okay as long as you don’t hurt anyone.” Haidt gives some extremely graphic and chilling examples that undercut that simplistic assumption. For now, we can probably all agree that it would be wrong to urinate on a grave (even if no one saw you) in the same way that it would be wrong to use a nation’s flag for toilet paper. And we would all feel that it was “just wrong” to eat lunch while sitting on the toilet.
Everyone has a theology of holiness. The concept of the sacred is buried deeply in humanity. You can’t ultimately explain these feelings without recourse to God. Holiness operates in this matrix. The spectrum from God above to pure evil below structures our experience of repugnance. Defiling agents are actions, events, and objects that move you “down” the scale, degrading your humanity.
When God says, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev 19:2; 1 Pet 1:16), he calls us to reflect his character and his nature by being like him. The book of Leviticus guides us in this by rightly orienting our disgust mechanisms so that we recoil from sin and move toward God.
Holiness All the Way Down
The word “holy” in the Old Testament isn’t really an abstract noun, i.e., “holiness.” Instead, the bare noun means “holy place” or “holy thing,” but more often it is used as an adjective. It also frequently occurs as a verb, i.e., “holy-ize,” or consecrate/sanctify. Only in a few places, where God is described as swearing by his holiness, do we find something like the abstract concept (Ps 89:35; Amos 4:2). And this leads to the fundamental point: Only God is inherently holy, i.e., holy in and of himself. Everything else (objects, people, time, space) has a derived holiness that comes from God. It is typically argued that to be holy is to be separate, but since God is the fundamentally holy one and all other holiness is derived, it may be more accurate to say that to be holy is to be like God.
What is it about God that makes him uniquely and definitionally other? The revelation of God’s name in Exodus 3 and 34 is a good starting point. God is holy because he is self-defining. He is himself. He is Creator—outside of creation and distinct from all that is. He is morally perfect and the definition of morality. He is good when all else is corrupt.
But as Leviticus 10 vividly and poignantly shows us, God’s nature presents a problem for sinful humans.
Leviticus 10:1–3
Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke of when he said: “‘Among those who approach me I will be proved holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.’” Aaron remained silent.
God cannot be in the presence of sin—not because the sin will corrupt him—but because his purity will destroy and burn up what is sinful. The sun is an excellent analogy. It is life-giving and powerful, something that brings massive good to us, light, warmth, life. But if you get too close to the sun you die. You die because of all the properties that make it beneficial.
So how can the holy God dwell with a people corrupted by sin, unclean and impure from the inside out? This is the fundamental theological problem that is symbolized in the burning bush (Exod 3:1–6). The entire book of Leviticus can be understood as an answer to that question, and the answer is found in the structure of the cultic system and ritual law.
As Baruch Levine writes in the Anchor Bible Leviticus commentary, “The way to holiness, in other words, was for Israelites, individually and collectively, to emulate God’s attributes” (Levine, 256). This makes sense to us with regard to moral law (i.e., “Thou shalt not murder”), but how does ritual law connect (i.e., “Do not trim the edges of your beard”)?
Here’s the key to the ritual system: Since holiness calls us to imitate God, and some of God’s holy attributes are incommunicable (i.e., humans cannot share in them, such as eternality or omniscience), they can only be imitated analogically through symbolism.
There is an encoded symbolic logic to ritual. The basic organizing principle seems to be that holiness is associated with life (as opposed to death), and purity and wholeness (as opposed to dilution, separation, or mixture). Death is the consequence of sin, and impurity is the symbolic representation of death. Defiling agents all seem to be related in one way or another to symbols of death, mixture, or dilution. Therefore sin makes you ritually dead, i.e., impure. Defiling agents (which symbolize death) make you ritually dead, i.e., impure.
Sin and impurity are not the same thing. Sin and pollutants both make you impure, but impurity is not sinful. The classic example is childbirth (Lev 12:1–8). Childbirth is not wrong, but it does make you impure because the blood reminds us that we are finite and on the edge of death because of our sin.
Because sin and pollutants both make one impure they are dealt with side by side. Leviticus links every aspect of life to our ability to dwell with God. The Israelites were meant to be a people rooting out sin, defying death, and orbiting the LORD’s holiness. Holiness is not asceticism, deprivation, or dourness—but a radical affirmation of life. Holiness is not passive, it does not draw back. Rather it is active, burning up sin and impurity.
God makes us holy.
The book of Leviticus is structured in seven sections with an epilogue to show how God makes his people holy. (This structure comes from Tim Mackie at the Bible Project).
A. Ritual: Sanctifying People and Space: The Sacrificial System (Leviticus 1–7)
B. Priesthood: Ordination of the Priests (Leviticus 8–10)
C. Purity: Ritual Codes (Leviticus 11–15)X. The Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16)
C.’ Purity: Moral Codes (Leviticus 17–20)
B.’ Priesthood: Maintenance of Holiness (Leviticus 21–22)
A.’ Ritual: Sanctifying Time: Feasts & Things (Leviticus 23–25)Epilogue: A Call to Covenant Faithfulness (Leviticus 26–27)
There are three solutions to the problem: the ritual (A), priestly (B), and purity systems (C). Each “solution” is handled in two corresponding sections. The whole thing is centered around the ritual of the Day of Atonement—the holiest day in the Jewish year—when the High Priest sanctifies the whole nation and the Holy of Holies.
You might think of all of this as the LORD’s gracious concession to human sin. The elaborate system of sacrifices and ritual cleansing is established by God to allow impurity and sin to be dealt with in a meaningful way. It’s a set of symbolic actions that show how God will make his people pure and clean so they can dwell with him. When his people enter into these actions and go through the rituals, we embody them in faith. These rituals are not magic—they don’t work on their own apart from faith and apart from God’s grace. They are a symbolic system in the embodied world that the LORD has blessed and established as a gift so that he can dwell with Israel (Lev 17:11; cf. Heb 9:11–14; 10:1–10).
Remember that the book of Leviticus is part of a story. Israel arrives at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19 and remains there until Numbers 10. This comprises fifty-eight chapters (31%) of the Pentateuch and a full year of these people’s lives. The center chunk of that material is Leviticus. It isn’t just a sacrificial handbook—these rituals move the plot forward.
At the end of the book of Exodus after the Tabernacle is completed, Moses is not able to enter the tent to meet with God because God’s glory—his holiness—is there (Exod 40:35). Four verses later, in Lev 1:1, God calls to Moses from inside the Tabernacle. Then we read all the laws and provisions of Leviticus, which conclude with these words:
Leviticus 27:34
These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.
Now read across the page to the very next verse.
Numbers 1:1 (cf. 7:89)
The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting […] after they had come out of the land of Egypt.
The difference between “from” in Lev 1:1 and “in” in Num 1:1 is a subtle but clear distinction in the Hebrew. Moses can now enter into the LORD’s presence. What this shows is that the book of Leviticus works. Through the ritual system of Leviticus, the holy LORD can dwell in the midst of his people, “tabernacling” with them as John 1:14 says. The LORD accomplishes what he commands (Heb 10:19–23).
LORD, give us a deep reverence for you and your holiness. May we be properly disgusted by sin and death. Draw us toward you. Help us to reflect your character in all we do—how we speak, how we work, how we dress, how we eat, how we worship. Rest us in the confidence that you have made and are making us holy in Christ. Bring us to live with you.
Alex Kirk is the Visiting Professor of Old Testament at William Tennent School of Theology. He has been married to Meghan for over ten years, and currently lives in Durham, England, where he is nearing the completion of his Ph.D.. Alex is most passionate about leading people deeper into the literature of the Old Testament as the living and active word of the LORD to his people.