Leviticus is full of laws to manage uncleanness and get people and their belongings back into acceptable condition. Being unclean was not the same as being in sin. There were many conditions in life that came about quite naturally, without any sin being involved, but made a person or object unclean.

The problem with uncleanness is that it disqualified a person from coming to the tabernacle. Whatever God declared was unclean could not come near him and the unclean person who violated that prohibition was in danger of death from God’s wrath.

This made people very careful with their behavior.

Contaminated Houses

God viewed mold that was found on clothing and the walls of a house as afflictions that made people and their belongings unclean. Mold and mildew called for quick action. Here’s what God said in Leviticus 14:34:

“When you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as your possession, and I put a spreading mold in a house in the land, the owner of the house must go and tell the priest, ‘I have seen something that looks like a defiling mold in my house.’“

When mold was discovered, everything had to be moved out of the house, including the occupants. A priest came and examined the problem. If mold was verified, the affected part of the wall was torn out and the homeowner had to rebuild. Then the homeowner and priest had to watch to make sure the mold didn’t return.

God wanted holiness, not just at the tabernacle, but even in the places people lived. They had to catch contamination early and deal with it while it only involved one stone in the wall.

There is a parallel here for us today. If we care about holiness, at the first sign that we have let the contamination of sin come into our lives, we need to reveal the problem, talk to others who are affected, and get the spiritual help we need. It may be inconvenient or embarrassing to let others know that we have a problem, but it’s important to deal with it without delay.

Natural Uncleanness

Leviticus 15:1-33 gives the laws concerning bodily discharges. These were laws that no one wanted to talk about. They concerned the most intimate parts of people’s lives, the ones they wanted to keep to themselves and out of polite conversation. But the Bible isn’t about being polite, it’s about truth and reality, and it’s about holiness before God.

Bodily discharges happened to men and women on a regular basis. They were associated with the reproductive organs and this was another case of uncleanness not necessarily being related to sin. People inadvertently became unclean from time to time and the list of procedures they needed to follow was very clear in Leviticus 15.

It would have been hard to keep one’s personal life secret under these laws. An unclean person had to warn others not to touch him or her lest they, too, became unclean. They had to wash their clothes and take baths, and tell other people to stay away from their beds or chairs all that day. They also had to wash anything they touched all day long.

The rules were so strict that it made couples think carefully about having sex. They had to consider what was coming up the next day and whether they should make themselves unclean until the following evening. They had to communicate openly with their spouses about the current state of their bodies and whether touching would make the other person unclean even if they didn’t have sex. The Law required a high degree of honesty and accountability.

It seems like about half of every month would have been off-limits for sex due to the woman’s menstruation, but because she was often carrying a child or nursing, menstruation was actually infrequent and might happen only a few times a year. No man who took a wife could think of her as merely a sex object.

G.J. Wenham says that these laws also put the brakes on casual contact between young, unmarried people. It would have been inappropriate for them to be open about whether they were clean or unclean on a given day, so unmarried, law-keeping young people kept a respectful distance from each other. This probably encouraged the practice of early marriages that were arranged by parents.

People were really in tune with their bodies under the Law. The normal cycle of life helped them know how to behave from day to day. Uncleanness wasn’t shameful, it was part of life and everyone had to cope with it. But it also made them intensely mindful of God as they practiced the rituals that made them clean again.

The Lord’s admonition to Moses was,

“You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.” Leviticus 15:31

The Day of Atonement

There was no way for the Israelites to come to the tabernacle without bringing some uncleanness with them. Even the priests made mistakes at the tabernacle, which is why Nadab and Abihu died suddenly. Over the course of a year, the precinct of the tabernacle became defiled by constant contact with sinful and unclean people. The Day of Atonement was the day that the tabernacle was cleansed from that defilement and Israel reset its relationship with God.

To avoid the sudden death of the high priest, God made the Holy of Holies completely off-limits to him except on the Day of Atonement. God didn’t want to destroy anyone for careless behavior.

On that day the high priest would come before God and atone for all of Israel’s sins of the previous year. The ceremony was elaborate and had to be performed perfectly, but once it was complete, the high priest could tell Israel that God had forgiven and accepted them. The tabernacle was purified and holy and the nation was under God’s mercy and grace.

Here was the order of the Day of Atonement:

• Aaron washed and dressed himself in a plain white linen tunic, linen undergarments, a sash and a linen turban. He didn’t wear the high priestly garments for this ceremony. He dressed like a humble servant of God and the people.
• The Israelite community provided Aaron with two male goats for their sin offering and a ram for their burnt offering. Aaron brought a bull for his own sin offering.
• Lots were cast to determine which goat would become the sin sacrifice for Israel and which would be the scapegoat that symbolically carried their sins away into the wilderness.
• Aaron slaughtered his bull and prepared some of its blood to be taken into the Holy of Holies where it would be sprinkled on the cover of the Ark and then sprinkled seven more times in front of it.
• Before he entered the Holiest place he took his censor and lit it with coals from the altar. Into the censor he put two handfuls of incense. This caused a billow of smoke that hid Aaron from the presence of God. He was not allowed to look upon God’s glorious presence, and he was mindful that he was a sinful man standing before a perfectly holy God.
• Aaron came back out of the tent of meeting and repeated what he had just done, by going back in with the blood of the goat offered for Israel’s sins.
• After Aaron made atonement for himself, his family and the whole community of Israel in the Holy of Holies, he took some of the bull and goat blood and atoned for the altar by putting blood on its four horns and sprinkling blood seven times in front of the altar.
• When all of that was done, Aaron took the second goat and laying his hands on its head he confessed wickedness, rebellion and all the other sins of Israel, transferring their sins to this goat who was then driven so far into the wilderness it could not return.
• Aaron took off the linen garments, bathed, put on his regular priestly garments and then offered the ram as a burnt offering to please the Lord.
• The man who drove away the scapegoat also bathed and washed his clothes before returning to the camp, as did the man who burned the bull and goat sin offerings outside the camp.

God never wanted this ordinance to end in ancient Israel.

“This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites.” Leviticus 16:34

Holiness in Christ

But the Day of Atonement did end for those who are in Christ. Not long after Jesus returned to Heaven the Temple was destroyed and there was no longer a place for the Day of Atonement to be observed.

Holiness is still vital to God. May he make each of us so sensitive to the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts that we are quick to identify sin and quick to repent . . . for the sake of Christ our Savior who died to make us holy.