In this message we shall give an introductory word to the Life-study of Leviticus.
As we come to the book of Leviticus, we first need to have a general idea about the advancement of the divine revelation. All students of the Bible know that God’s revelation in the Bible is progressive. God does not reveal anything fully in just one book of the Bible. Thus, we cannot see a complete view of God’s revelation in one book. The divine revelation advances from one stage to another stage, from one level to another level, from one point to another point. Only when we reach the last chapter of the Bible do we have a complete view of God’s revelation.
The divine revelation in the Bible advances continually. The Bible was written over a period of more than fifteen hundred years, beginning at the time of Moses and ending at the time of the Apostle John. Within this long period of time, the divine revelation was completed, and the books of the Bible were eventually arranged in a meaningful sequence. In tracing the advancement of the divine revelation, we need to follow the sequence of the Bible. Let us now consider how the divine revelation advances in the first three books of the Bible-in Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus.
The book of Genesis reveals God’s creation and man’s fall. According to Genesis, man fell step by step: from God to the conscience, from the conscience to human government, and from human government to rebellion. In this rebellion man forsook God and turned to the worship of idols. After man rebelled against God at Babel, God gave up the created race; however, He could not and did not forsake His purpose. Therefore, after giving up the created race, God called out a new race, a selected race, beginning with Abraham. To Abraham God promised that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3). Eventually the race selected and called by God fell from God’s selection and calling into Egypt, that is, into the world.
In Genesis we see that man fell from God to the conscience, from the conscience to human government, from human government to rebellion, and from rebellion to the world. Today’s world is the expression of man’s fall to the uttermost, for the world is the ultimate expression of the steps of man’s fall.
The first verse of Genesis says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and the last verse tells us that Joseph “was put in a coffin in Egypt” (50:26). In the first verse we have God’s creation, and in the last verse we have the issue of all the steps of man’s fall-a man put in a coffin in Egypt. This is the clear revelation in Genesis.
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