Reformation Baptist Church

As we go back to Leviticus, we need to remember that the Levitical priesthood and High Priest were to teach us about Christian priesthood and the effectual High Priest of the order of Melchizedek, Jesus Christ. After Leviticus 19 talking about how individuals needed to be holy and Leviticus 20 talking about how the society had to enforce holiness, we now come to how the priests need to be holy. The first picture is about a separation from the world. They still have connections to the world, so they can defile themselves for a dead body such as their mother or father, but not even for a married sister, since she is now part of a different family. When we think about applying this, we should consider ex-communication and what that means. Obviously, a believing child doesn't have to leave home if their father is excommunicated so that they do not have fellowship with them. This gives parameters to a question that often comes up when people are excommunicated. God then continues and commands, as He did for all of Israel, not to have tattoos, cuttings or cutting the edges of their beards which are acts of worship to false gods. God connects it to offering the bread of God. When we think of the bread of God in the Old Testament, we should always be thinking about the word of God. Hypocrisy, by rebelling against the word while it is being taught is against the priesthood. A priest is not allowed to take a defiled woman as his wife, which is a picture of equal yoking. Also, the daughter of a priest is held to a higher standard, so if she acts as a harlot, then her body is to be burned. God then sets an even higher standard for the High Priest as a picture of Christ. He cannot def