Proclaiming His Excellencies

It is easy to get lost in all the detail in the book of Leviticus and to miss what is really going on. So it is good to step back and remind ourselves of the "big picture". In Leviticus 19:2 we find the words, "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." Then throughout the chapter the Lord says over and over again, "I am the Lord". This central truth spoken over and over, not just in this chapter, is essential to take in, for our God is the LORD. And how is He the Lord? I believe Scripture would declare His lordship in at least two ways. First He is Lord in that He is creator or all things. We were reminded of this in Psalm 24 today, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers." Our God created all things; He founded them and established them, and because of this the psalmist declares that they are His. He owns them and as owner He has the right to expect that all He owns serves His wishes. That's what it means to be Lord. But our God is also Lord by virtue of His redemption. When God acted to redeem His people, first with Israel from the bondage of Egpyt, but later through Christ, from the bondage of sin, he became Lord of the people. He paid the redemption price to buy His people out of slavery and now they belong to Him. They are no longer their own; they have a new Master who bought them with precious blood. This truth requires that we, His people, now serve His wishes all the days of our lives. That's why all the commands in Scripture make sense. God owns us by creation. He has a right to rule and reign over us. He owns us, as well, through redemption, and again has the right to be our Lord and Master. So it is right that we look to His commands, embrace them and seek to walk by them. But there is more to this then the establishment of a Master / servant relationship. God is interested in spreading His glory throughout the nations, and the way He has chosen to do it is through a people - in the OT through the people of Israel; in the NT through the new Israel, the Church. And how does this work? As this people responds to the reign of their Lord in faith and obedience, as they walk in His ways, living out the "love" ethic so clearly seen in Leviticus 19, they will be showing how good it is to live under the reign of God. As the nations see that God's rule brings such wonderful blessing they will be drawn to want to know, and hopefully embrace this God, and eventually join the chorus of those who live to the praise of His glory. Peter captured this idea in his first epistle when he said, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." That is what was going on in Leviticus - God was forming a people who would be declaring how good it is to live under His reign. It is also what is to be going on in our lives as Christians. Having been redeemed, we now have a Lord, under whose reign we gladly submit, trusting that by doing so we will be providing a compelling witness to the world and a call to them to come with bended knee to this loving King. May God give us grace to live in light of this great truth!