April 22: Leviticus 26

Leviticus 26; Psalm 33; Ecclesiastes 9; Titus 1

Photo by Rob Curran on Unsplash

In Leviticus 26 promises His people blessings (1-13) for obedience and curses for disobedience (14-39) of the covenant He is making with them. Then the chapter ends with how to “cure” the covenant if it is broken (40-46).

We are tempted to say that covenants are just the way ancient peoples arranged an agreement between an overlord and an underling, be they people or nations. And therefore God condescends to use the models we understand in His own arrangements with His people. We therefore say that this covenant is “anthropomorphic” - God takes the form (“morphic”) that man has invented and understands (“anthro”).

I believe, however, it is more accurate to say that the concept of a covenant is “theopomorphic.” Man engages in covenants because God (“theos”) works this way in His world. Man’s covenant-making is only reflecting the unchanging character of His Creator, whether he realizes it in the moment or not.

Thus we should not dismiss these blessings and curses as only applying to the nation of Israel, since we, on the other side of the cross, are under a NEW covenant (Jeremiah 31:31). Note that in the new covenant, there is still, you know, a covenant in place.

What’s Changed?

True, the parties to the covenant have changed. When I say “God’s people,” I no longer mean a nation-state like Israel, but I still mean “Israel” - the church. We are the new “holy priesthood . . . a chosen race . . . a holy nation . . . a people for His own possession” (1 Peter 2:5, 9). And when you have a nation-state with a lot of God’s people in it, the blessings and curses bleed over and have effect on that nation-state. In other words, in a nation with a lot of Christians, if all the Christians commit idolatry, the curses of Leviticus 26:14-39 will appear.

We saw this during COVID: “. . . you shall flee when no one pursues you” (17b). Make no mistake: the United States is in the middle of this process: “. . . and I will break the pride of your power” (19).

We must repent. We. Us.

We must begin with the church. After all, the book of Revelation begins with blessings and curses promised, not to individuals, but to churches. It is only American individualism that causes us to read our Bibles with reference only to the unholy trinity of me, myself and I. Yes, we must repent individually, but we must see to it that there is corporate repentance, too.

A Metaphor

It’s like my son’s football coach, and his approach to disciplining the team for missing homework assignments in school. If there are a certain number of assignments not turned in on time, the whole team runs sprints after practice. Why? Because he thinks it best to deal with the team as a team. And the implied message is that each teammate is responsible for himself, and for helping his teammates understand the importance of homework. “Who isn’t turning in their homework?” is not an unfair question in such a situation.

Three points of application:

1. You and I must get over our individualism. We are an us.

2. What we experience in this life is affected greatly by what the whole is doing, and not just me.

3. It is good and right, therefore, to call the group to repentance, to walk in faith in God’s promises of blessings and curses. Therefore it is good and right to call our church and nation to hope and fear in God.

We Fall Down

This last bit we fall down on, because we have made “being nice” the 11th commandment. Yet if we are to call our church and our nation to repentance, then that means we must name what we are to repent of. We must call out specific sins. And that, we say, is not nice.

Well, OK. I can’t speak for you, dear reader, but I want to live in the blessing of God. And because of His love for me, I want my neighbor to experience the same. Do you want to truly love your church, and your land? Dig into God’s Word. Understand His law. Hold yourself to it, and call your church and your county to do the same.

One last thing. Let’s flip over the whole system, and ask: how to obey His law? It’s by belief, by faith. God tells His people about these blessings and curses because He wants them to believe these promises. Faith begets obedience, because belief first begets hope in the blessings, and fear of the curses. And this is right where we flourish - between these two horns, between hope and fear - “we” being ourselves, our church, and Lord willing, our nation.