As Yourself
Ask a room full of Christians to quote a verse from Leviticus and most of them will come up empty. Then read them this one: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). Pretty much everyone knows it. Jesus called it the second great commandment (Matthew 22:39), and Paul said the whole law is fulfilled in it (Galatians 5:14). Very few people know where it comes from. It is in the part of the Bible most of us skip, at the end of a paragraph about grudges, a few verses after a law about leaving grain at the edge of a field.
Leviticus 19 opens with the sentence the rest of the chapter is built upon. "Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy" (19:2). When I read it this week, it took me back to the burning bush, where God gave Moses His name. When you see LORD in capital letters in your Bible, that is the name. It also took me to Jesus, who said something just as demanding: "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).
Both sentences sound impossible, and they are, if holiness is something we have to produce. Leviticus never grounds its commands in what we produce. After nearly every paragraph in this passage God says, "I am the LORD," or "I am the LORD your God." He says it seven times in sixteen verses. He never says, "Do this and I will be your God." He says, "I am your God," and then He describes what His people look like.
The people listening that day were still camped at Mount Sinai. Within the past year, at that same mountain, they had made a golden calf and worshiped it (Exodus 32:8). Right after the calf, God told them, "You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal" (Exodus 34:17), and Leviticus 19:4 repeats those exact words. The congregation hearing "You shall be holy" was the congregation that had bowed down to the calf. God still called Himself their God. They also had no fields yet. They were living in tents in the wilderness, and God was already telling them how to harvest land He had not yet given them. He was describing a people in a specific context before that context existed.
The commands themselves are more ordinary than most of us expect. When you harvest, don't reap your field right up to the edge, and don't go back for the grapes that fall. "You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner" (19:9-10). The book of Ruth shows what that looked like in a real field. A widow from Moab went out to glean behind the harvesters, and Boaz told his men, "pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean" (Ruth 2:16). He kept the law and then went past the edge. Don't steal, don't deal falsely, and don't lie to one another. Don't keep a hired worker's wages overnight (19:13), because, as Deuteronomy explains, "he is poor and counts on it" (Deuteronomy 24:15). Withholding a paycheck until morning costs the employer nothing, and yet it might cost the worker his dinner. "You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God" (19:14). Don't tilt the courtroom toward the poor or toward the powerful, and don't go around spreading what you heard about someone (19:15-16).
The chapter moves inward as it goes. It starts at the edge of a field and ends inside a person.
"You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD." (19:17-18)
The alternative to hating someone in your heart is not pretending everything is fine. It is going to them and saying it, honestly, to their face. Jesus gave the same instruction: "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone" (Matthew 18:15).
No court in Israel could enforce any of that. Nobody can see a grudge. The deaf man never hears the curse, and the blind man never learns who moved the stone, but God hears and sees all of it. That is why "fear your God" sits right where no one else would ever find out. Holiness in Leviticus was never only about what people could see. It reached all the way into the heart, long before anyone heard the Sermon on the Mount.
These commands also show what God Himself is like, which is the point of "be holy, for I am holy." Moses describes the LORD as the God "who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing" (Deuteronomy 10:17-18). Leviticus 19 tells Israel not to be partial and to leave food for the sojourner. To be holy like God is holy is to treat people the way He treats them.
This is where the chapter is hardest on me. Of everything in these verses, the two I most need to hear are the command to revere my mother and my father (19:3) and the command not to hate my brother in my heart. And I think because I need to hear them, they are the ones I wish to pass over most quickly. And this isn’t even because I come from a bad family. Leviticus is speaking to the reality of the family, in that it is the Lord who has placed you in the specific context of community, and your job is not to manufacture your own familial holiness, but rather, our responsibility is to learn to love and respect our family members because God is the one who placed you in that specific community. Our reverence for our parents does not derive from our parent’s holiness, but rather the Lord’s. Our love for our brother is not because our brother is worthy of affection, but because God has called us to love.
Almost every command in this passage has another person in it: a parent, the poor, the foreigner, a worker, the deaf, the blind, a neighbor, a brother. And God spoke it to "all the congregation." The "you" in "You shall be holy" is plural. Holiness in Leviticus is not something you do alone in a room. God's people live it together, with each other and for each other, in the field and the marketplace and the courtroom and the family.
Some of you are just starting to understand that God is holy and that you are not, and that Christ has made you clean. This chapter raises the next question, which is how anyone is supposed to live like this, and what living by the Spirit even means.
Leviticus answers part of that question itself. In the very next chapter God says, "Keep my statutes and do them; I am the LORD who sanctifies you" (20:8). The command to keep the Sabbath in 19:3 uses the same words God spoke at Sinai, when He called the Sabbath "a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you" (Exodus 31:13). You are called to be holy as God is holy, but this holiness is not achieved by your own power. It is achieved by the power of God. The prophets saw the day coming when He would do it from the inside: "I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes" (Ezekiel 36:27).
Jesus did not set this chapter aside. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17). We aren't here to change the statutes, and neither was Christ. He was interested in making sure we understood the heart of the law, and when He preached on the mountain, Leviticus 19 ran all through His sermon.
Read Leviticus 19:1-18 this week, then read Matthew 5 and look for Leviticus in it. (The rest of chapter 19, including the stranger who is to be loved "as yourself," comes on October 25.) Come Sunday ready to talk about the edge of your field, the grudge you've been keeping, and what it means that the God who said "You shall be holy" is the God who makes us holy.
Leviticus 19 opens with the sentence the rest of the chapter is built upon. "Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy" (19:2). When I read it this week, it took me back to the burning bush, where God gave Moses His name. When you see LORD in capital letters in your Bible, that is the name. It also took me to Jesus, who said something just as demanding: "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).
Both sentences sound impossible, and they are, if holiness is something we have to produce. Leviticus never grounds its commands in what we produce. After nearly every paragraph in this passage God says, "I am the LORD," or "I am the LORD your God." He says it seven times in sixteen verses. He never says, "Do this and I will be your God." He says, "I am your God," and then He describes what His people look like.
The people listening that day were still camped at Mount Sinai. Within the past year, at that same mountain, they had made a golden calf and worshiped it (Exodus 32:8). Right after the calf, God told them, "You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal" (Exodus 34:17), and Leviticus 19:4 repeats those exact words. The congregation hearing "You shall be holy" was the congregation that had bowed down to the calf. God still called Himself their God. They also had no fields yet. They were living in tents in the wilderness, and God was already telling them how to harvest land He had not yet given them. He was describing a people in a specific context before that context existed.
The commands themselves are more ordinary than most of us expect. When you harvest, don't reap your field right up to the edge, and don't go back for the grapes that fall. "You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner" (19:9-10). The book of Ruth shows what that looked like in a real field. A widow from Moab went out to glean behind the harvesters, and Boaz told his men, "pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean" (Ruth 2:16). He kept the law and then went past the edge. Don't steal, don't deal falsely, and don't lie to one another. Don't keep a hired worker's wages overnight (19:13), because, as Deuteronomy explains, "he is poor and counts on it" (Deuteronomy 24:15). Withholding a paycheck until morning costs the employer nothing, and yet it might cost the worker his dinner. "You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God" (19:14). Don't tilt the courtroom toward the poor or toward the powerful, and don't go around spreading what you heard about someone (19:15-16).
The chapter moves inward as it goes. It starts at the edge of a field and ends inside a person.
"You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD." (19:17-18)
The alternative to hating someone in your heart is not pretending everything is fine. It is going to them and saying it, honestly, to their face. Jesus gave the same instruction: "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone" (Matthew 18:15).
No court in Israel could enforce any of that. Nobody can see a grudge. The deaf man never hears the curse, and the blind man never learns who moved the stone, but God hears and sees all of it. That is why "fear your God" sits right where no one else would ever find out. Holiness in Leviticus was never only about what people could see. It reached all the way into the heart, long before anyone heard the Sermon on the Mount.
These commands also show what God Himself is like, which is the point of "be holy, for I am holy." Moses describes the LORD as the God "who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing" (Deuteronomy 10:17-18). Leviticus 19 tells Israel not to be partial and to leave food for the sojourner. To be holy like God is holy is to treat people the way He treats them.
This is where the chapter is hardest on me. Of everything in these verses, the two I most need to hear are the command to revere my mother and my father (19:3) and the command not to hate my brother in my heart. And I think because I need to hear them, they are the ones I wish to pass over most quickly. And this isn’t even because I come from a bad family. Leviticus is speaking to the reality of the family, in that it is the Lord who has placed you in the specific context of community, and your job is not to manufacture your own familial holiness, but rather, our responsibility is to learn to love and respect our family members because God is the one who placed you in that specific community. Our reverence for our parents does not derive from our parent’s holiness, but rather the Lord’s. Our love for our brother is not because our brother is worthy of affection, but because God has called us to love.
Almost every command in this passage has another person in it: a parent, the poor, the foreigner, a worker, the deaf, the blind, a neighbor, a brother. And God spoke it to "all the congregation." The "you" in "You shall be holy" is plural. Holiness in Leviticus is not something you do alone in a room. God's people live it together, with each other and for each other, in the field and the marketplace and the courtroom and the family.
Some of you are just starting to understand that God is holy and that you are not, and that Christ has made you clean. This chapter raises the next question, which is how anyone is supposed to live like this, and what living by the Spirit even means.
Leviticus answers part of that question itself. In the very next chapter God says, "Keep my statutes and do them; I am the LORD who sanctifies you" (20:8). The command to keep the Sabbath in 19:3 uses the same words God spoke at Sinai, when He called the Sabbath "a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you" (Exodus 31:13). You are called to be holy as God is holy, but this holiness is not achieved by your own power. It is achieved by the power of God. The prophets saw the day coming when He would do it from the inside: "I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes" (Ezekiel 36:27).
Jesus did not set this chapter aside. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17). We aren't here to change the statutes, and neither was Christ. He was interested in making sure we understood the heart of the law, and when He preached on the mountain, Leviticus 19 ran all through His sermon.
Read Leviticus 19:1-18 this week, then read Matthew 5 and look for Leviticus in it. (The rest of chapter 19, including the stranger who is to be loved "as yourself," comes on October 25.) Come Sunday ready to talk about the edge of your field, the grudge you've been keeping, and what it means that the God who said "You shall be holy" is the God who makes us holy.
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