It can be intimidating to read the Old Testament, sometimes. Often, God seems much sterner and stricter than Jesus in the New Testament. It can feel as if he requires a lot of people, and we know how inept we are to live perfectly.
So we hesitate to spend much time in those books of the Bible.
But did you know Jesus in the New Testament is living out the God of the Old Testament? He is God, after all. The exact imprint of his nature (Heb. 1:3).
God didn’t switch from being a God of requirements to being a God of grace. He’s been a God of grace all along. Let’s take a closer look at this, beginning in Genesis 15.
God Calls a Curse upon Himself
From Genesis 3 to 11, we see humanity spiraling further and further into chaos. Cain kills Abel (Gen. 4), the earth becomes so corrupt God sends a worldwide flood (Gen. 6-7), Ham has some sort of inappropriate sexual interaction with Noah (Gen. 9), and all the people of the earth come together in the plain of Shinar to make themselves great and build a tower so they could reach the heavens—attempting to be divine, themselves (Gen. 11).
Within this context, the story shifts to the call of Abraham (Gen. 12). God has a plan to redeem the broken creation, and it starts by him making a covenant with humanity.
In chapter 15, God enters into his covenant with Abraham by initiating this eerie ceremony. Abraham is supposed to gather a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon. Then God tells him to cut each in half and lay one half on one side and the other half on the other side (Gen. 15:7-11).
When the sun goes down, there appears a fire pot which passes through the halves, and God tells Abraham his promise to restore his offspring (Gen. 15:12-16).
But consider this whole ceremony for a moment. What in the world is going on? The picture I get as I read this is one bloody mess—why is God having Abraham do all of this?
This was a common way of entering into a covenant with someone in the ancient world. The two individuals covenanting together would then walk through the middle of the halves, calling down a curse upon themselves if they ever failed to keep their end of the covenant.[1]
If you notice, however, God never asks Abraham to call down the curse on himself. Only God passes through the middle. Only God invites a curse on himself if he ever broke his promise.
He was laying everything on the line; essentially saying to Abraham, “I will do this. And if I don’t, may all of who I am be entirely destroyed.”
In other words, God took full responsibility for restoring mankind. He knew humanity was unable to restore itself.
It was not Abraham’s responsibility to make sure everything worked out. Neither is it our responsibility to change our hearts from self-centered rebels to God-centered worshipers. Faith, for Abraham, was accepting what God said he would do. Faith, for us, is simply accepting what God has already done.
God Gives the Law
God’s covenant doesn’t stop with Abraham, however. Later, when Moses comes onto the scene, God gives the law and confirms this covenant with all of Israel (Ex. 19, 20, 24, 32-34).
We can tend to think of the Old Covenant Law as a bunch of requirements mankind must abide by if he’s going to be accepted by God. But that view of the Law exposes our presupposition that God doesn’t already accept us.
No, the Law is not God pushing humanity away unless he cleans himself up just right. The Law is a holy God trying to make a way for his broken, sinful creation to be able to stand in his presence and once again enjoy the goodness of his relationship with them.
Another word for Torah (Hebrew, which gets rendered “Law” in English) is instruction. The Old Covenant Law is God’s instruction to humanity how to live so they can experience the best of his design.
The great problem with humanity—with all of creation—is that it is broken, in bondage to corruption.
Sin has penetrated every human heart and now those who have been made in God’s image and commissioned to represent him throughout the world instead represent their own selfish natures.
God seeks to bring his people—all of his creation—back to him. So he gives them his instructions.
God Comes to Dwell with Israel
But these instructions are not the end in themselves.
No, they’re preparing God’s people for the Messiah—the Anointed One who will crush the head of the serpent and free them from the bondage of sin. In preparation for his coming, God chooses to descend as a cloud among the people of Israel and dwell among them in the Holy of Holies (Ex. 40:34-38).
He’s not letting this people go. He will restore them. He will demonstrate his glory by redeeming them from the inside out. To do that, he must be with them.
God Makes a Way of Atonement
To help his children better understand the immense consequences of their sin, the depth of their brokenness, God institutes the Day of Atonement where the high priests offer a bull and a ram as a burnt offering for the sin of the people (Lev. 16).
For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict yourselves; it is a statute forever. -Leviticus 16:30-31
He could have tried wiping humanity off from the world, again. He could have turned his face away and refused to care anymore for his creation.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he initiated redemption.
God Wants You to Experience His Best
The whole story of the Old Testament reveals how God deeply loves you and I as a part of his creation. He wants each of us to experience his best.
Next time you get exhausted reading through Leviticus, remember that all of these ceremonies are listed because God wants you to thrive in life. Some of the ceremonies were necessary because of our sinfulness as humanity. Some of them were necessary because of the wisdom found in them.
All of it is God sending the message that, as the prodigal father ran toward his son, Yahweh runs toward us with open arms, welcoming us back into the family if we only turn back to him.
Have you ever seen the Old Covenant Law as God’s act of grace on humanity? How does this change the demeanor you perceive him to have? Share in the comments below.
[1] Bill T. Arnold and Bryan E. Beyer, Encountering the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 68-69
