Beloved, if we had eyes to see—really see—we would fall on our faces this very moment.
Because this book we open is not just ink on paper. It is the living Word of the living God. And in Leviticus, we find ourselves standing on holy ground. It is no light thing to come into the presence of this God. The God who spoke and galaxies stood at attention. The God whose breath split the Red Sea and whose holiness shook Sinai. The God who is not tame, not safe, not adjustable to our modern preferences—but who is gloriously, terrifyingly, eternally holy.
And that raises a question—one of the most urgent, most soul-piercing questions in all of Scripture:
How can sinners like us survive in the presence of a God like that?
And not just survive—but draw near. Live. Worship. Delight.
Leviticus was written to answer that question.
Yes, this book may seem strange to us. Full of rituals, sacrifices, blood, fire, garments, and laws about food and childbirth. But that strangeness is not a problem to be fixed—it is a message to be received. God is not like us. And the gap between His holiness and our sinfulness is greater than we know.
Leviticus does not lower the bar. It raises it. It reveals with unflinching honesty that we are defiled, incomplete, guilty, and unclean. It shows us a God who dwells in fire—and dares to say: You can come near. But only through My way.
That is not legalism. That is grace. Holy grace.
In Leviticus 7–12, we are invited into a drama of divine mercy and blazing glory:
In chapter 7, we see sacrifices that rise as a pleasing aroma to the Lord
In chapters 8 and 9, we watch as priests are washed, robed, anointed, and ordained to stand between man and God.
In chapter 10, we tremble as Nadab and Abihu offer strange fire—and are consumed.
In chapters 11 and 12, we’re reminded that even the ordinary things of life—eating, giving birth—are touched by the Fall and must be cleansed before they enter God’s presence.
It all seems heavy—and it is. But here’s the miracle: beneath the blood and smoke, beneath the regulations and rituals, a melody plays—a melody of mercy, a foreshadowing of Christ.
Leviticus is not ultimately about shadows—it is about the substance. It is about a greater Priest, a better Sacrifice, and a final cleansing. It is about Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.
So I invite you to feel the weight of this book. Not so that you would be crushed by it, but that you would be drawn to the One who was crushed for you.
Let us look now into the holy Word, and behold a holy God, who invites unholy people to draw near—through the blood of a substitute.
Now, if God is this holy—so holy that even priests need blood on their ears, hands, and feet before they dare approach Him—then we have to ask: How in the world can worship be possible?
If we are defiled and He is pure… if we are dust and He is fire… if we are guilty and He is righteous… then how could He ever delight in anything we offer?
Leviticus 7 gives us a surprising answer: He does delight. He is pleased.
God not only tolerates worship—He receives it. He smells it. It rises before Him like incense, and He calls it pleasing. But not because the worshipers are pure in themselves. No. The pleasure of God in worship rises from His own provision—from the sacrifice, from the substitute, from the blood.
That brings us to our first point.
The Fragrance of
– Leviticus 7
Let’s begin by looking at Leviticus 7:5:
The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering to the Lord; it is a guilt offering.
That phrase appears multiple times in Leviticus. A pleasing aroma to the Lord.
Now, let’s stop and ask—what kind of God delights in blood and burning fat?
Is He gruesome? Is He arbitrary?
No. He is holy, and He is merciful. And what pleases Him is not gore—it is obedient, God-centered, atonement-rooted worship. It is faith expressing itself in submission to God’s appointed means of nearness.
A Holy God Who Delights in Substitution
These sacrifices were God’s idea. He gave the instructions. He ordained the fire, the fat, the portions, and the priests.
Why?
Because He desired to dwell with His people. And He knew they could not survive His presence unless something died in their place.
So He made a way—a system of offerings, a theater of grace, where justice and mercy would meet in every burning carcass. And when that system was honored with faith and reverence, the smoke that rose was a pleasing aroma to the Lord.
Not because the smell itself was sweet—but because it symbolized substitution, satisfaction, peace.
Ephesians 5:2
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
The ultimate pleasing aroma was not an animal—it was Jesus, the perfect sacrifice. When He bore our sin, it was not just payment—it was worship. His obedience, even to death, rose before the Father like incense. And the wrath of God was satisfied.
Worship Is Not Casual—It Is Costly and Consecrated
Leviticus 7 also shows us that true worship costs something.
The peace offering, for example, involved sharing a meal with the priest and the worshiper. Part of it was burned, part was eaten. It was a fellowship meal—a way to express joy in reconciliation.
But even that had strict boundaries. The worshiper had to be clean. The meat had to be eaten the same day. No leftovers. Why? Because this wasn’t your meal—it was God’s.
We don’t come to God on our own terms. We don’t shape worship by preference. We submit to what He has revealed.
John 4:24
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Worship must be sincere (spirit) and regulated by revelation (truth). And in Christ, we now come boldly, but never casually.
The consuming fire of Leviticus is still the God of Hebrews:
Hebrews 12:28–29
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
Worship Today: Still Fragrant, Still Serious
Now you may be thinking: But we don’t offer bulls anymore. We don’t burn fat on an altar. What does this mean for us?
It means everything.
Because you still come to God through a sacrifice—but it’s already been made. You bring nothing but your sin, and Christ brings His blood. And because He has been accepted, you are accepted. Because He was pleasing, you are pleasing in Him.
So when you sing, when you pray, when you open your Bible, when you gather with the saints—you are not going through the motions. You are stepping into the holy of holies through a living Way.
And your worship still rises before God. Not because it’s perfect—but because Jesus is.
So worship boldly. Worship reverently. Worship with trembling joy. Because the fragrance still ascends, and the fire still burns—not to consume you, but to cleanse you, and to fill your soul with glory.
But now we ask—what happens when we ignore this? What happens when we treat worship lightly, when we come near in our own way?
Leviticus 10 gives us the answer. And it is terrifying.
The Fire of Holy
– Leviticus 10
Let us now tremble.
Because in Leviticus 10, we move from pleasing aroma to consuming flame.
Leviticus 10:1–2
Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them.
And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
This is one of the most shocking events in the entire Bible.
Two priests. Two sons of Aaron. Two men just ordained in chapter 8. They walk into the tabernacle, offer incense—not because God told them to, but because they felt like it. And in an instant, they are gone. Burned alive by the presence of God.
We must ask: Why?
Because in their worship, God was not treated as holy. His commands were treated as optional. His presence was treated as common.
This is no small thing. This is the unmaking of Eden all over again. This is creatures standing before the Creator on their own terms—and being judged for it.
God Will Be Treated as Holy
Look at God’s response in verse 3:
Leviticus 10:3
Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.” And Aaron held his peace.
Let that sentence settle in your bones:
“Among those who are near me I will be sanctified.”
In other words: If you dare to draw near to me, you will treat me as holy—or I will show you that I am.
Worship is not a playground. It is not a concert. It is not a therapeutic moment. It is the place where the glory of God breaks in—and either transforms or consumes.
There are only two options when it comes to God’s holiness: reverent joy or righteous judgment.
Nadab and Abihu chose to come near without reverence. Without obedience. Without blood. Without the fear of God. They approached the blazing holiness of Yahweh as if He were tame.
And the fire that had once consumed the offering now consumes the offerer.
Hebrews 12:29
for our God is a consuming fire.
Let us not forget that this is New Testament language. God has not changed. His character has not softened. His holiness has not dimmed.
The difference between being consumed and being welcomed into His presence is not whether God is more relaxed—but whether we come in Christ.
Strange Fire Today
Now, what does “strange fire” look like today?
It may not be incense or censers. But strange fire is worship that treats God as common. It is when the form is present, but the fear of God is absent.
It is coming to church to be entertained, but not changed.
It is preaching that seeks applause, not repentance.
It is sacraments without submission, lyrics without love, attendance without awe.
It is innovation that replaces the Word of God rather than flowing from it.
You can sing the right songs with the wrong heart. You can read the Bible and never bow. You can say “Jesus” with your lips and still be playing with fire.
Matthew 15:8
“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
The danger today is not that we offer incense—but that we offer ourselves to God apart from the covering blood of Christ, thinking that sincerity or creativity is enough. It is not.
God says: You may only come near by the way I have made—the way of the cross.
The Fire Fell on Another
But here’s the glory of the gospel.
The fire of God’s wrath that fell on Nadab and Abihu—it fell again. But this time, it did not fall on the guilty.
It fell on the innocent Son of God.
Isaiah 53:5–6
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Jesus bore our strange fire. He became our guilt offering. The wrath we deserved for casual worship, for flippant reverence, for hollow songs—He took it all.
And now the fire of God’s presence that once consumed is the fire of the Holy Spirit—indwelling, refining, transforming.
In Christ, the fire is no longer your death—it is your delight. But apart from Him? There is no shelter.
So we’ve seen the fragrance of worship… and the fire of wrath. But now we must ask another question:If even priests die in the presence of God, what hope is there for ordinary people? If the holiest men in Israel tremble, what about mothers giving birth? What about meals? What about everyday life?
Leviticus 11–12 takes us into the world of uncleanness. And the question becomes: Can anything in this fallen world be made clean again?
The Uncleanness of Ordinary
– Leviticus 11–12
Now we come to what some might consider the strangest part of Leviticus—laws about food, animals, childbirth, and bodily fluids.
Let’s be honest: many modern readers stumble here. Clean and unclean animals? Defilement from touching a dead creature? A woman being unclean after giving birth?
This seems foreign, even offensive, to our modern sensibilities.
But hear me, beloved—this is not primitive superstition. This is holy instruction. These laws are God’s gracious teaching tools, designed to show Israel—and to show us—what it means to live in a fallen world before a holy God.
Let’s see it clearly: these chapters are not mainly about hygiene. They are about holiness.
God Is Holy in Every Sphere
Leviticus 11 and 12 proclaim that God is Lord over everything—not just the tabernacle, not just the Sabbath, not just the priesthood—but over your plate, your body, your home, your birth, your death.
Nothing is secular. All of life is lived in the presence of a holy God.
Leviticus 11:45
For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”
The laws about clean and unclean animals weren’t random. They were visual parables—daily reminders that God’s people are to be distinct from the nations. Set apart. Holy. That their holiness must be visible in what they touched, what they consumed, what they avoided.
And childbirth—why was a woman considered unclean after giving birth? Not because life is dirty, but because even the miracle of life is tangled in the curse of sin.
Genesis 3:16
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
God is not shaming the mother. He is showing Israel that even life’s most beautiful moments are touched by the Fall.
Everything needs cleansing. Everything.
And that’s the point.
Uncleanness Is Not Just Out There—It’s in Here
These chapters are not just about external contamination. They are about internal defilement.
This is where Jesus picks up the thread in Mark 7. The Pharisees accused His disciples of being defiled because they didn’t wash their hands properly before eating. But Jesus rebukes them:
Mark 7:15
There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”
Then He says
Mark 7:21
For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
In other words, the clean/unclean laws were types—shadows pointing to a deeper reality: you don’t just need your hands washed—you need your heart washed.
You are not unclean because of what you eat—you are unclean because of what you are.
Every sin, every stain, every unclean impulse flows from the poisoned spring of the human heart. And that means no amount of effort can fix it. No amount of ritual, rule-keeping, or scrubbing can cleanse you.
We need a deeper washing.
C*hrist, Our Cleansing*
Now, come with me to Luke 8:43–48. A woman who has been bleeding for twelve years—ritually unclean, untouchable by the standards of Leviticus—pushes her way through the crowd and touches the fringe of Jesus’ garment.Immediately she is healed. And Jesus says:“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
This is astonishing. Under the old covenant, touching the unclean made you unclean. But Jesus reverses the curse: He touches the unclean and makes them clean.
Why? Because He is the fulfillment of the law. He is the final priest. He is the ultimate cleanser.
1 John 1:7
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
This is the hope of Leviticus. That one day, a better sacrifice would come. One who could enter not just the holy place in the tabernacle—but the very presence of God. One whose blood would cleanse not only flesh, but the conscience. One who would make you clean forever.
Hebrews 7:27
He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.
Do You Know You’re Clean?
Christian, listen carefully:
If you are in Christ, you are no longer unclean. Not in your past. Not in your shame. Not in your body. Not in your thoughts. You are washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor. 6:11).
1 Corinthians 6:11
And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
So stop carrying the burden of your filth. Christ has carried it to the cross. Stop fearing that you’ll never be enough. Christ is enough. Stop living as if your dirt disqualifies you. His blood has made you new.
You are clean. Not because you’ve washed yourself—but because Jesus stooped down into your filth and made you whole.
But all of this—sacrifice, priesthood, fire, blood, defilement, and cleansing—points to one final question:
Is Jesus really enough to bring us all the way home? Can He truly stand in the fire and not be consumed? Can He carry our sin and still stand before the throne of God in our place?
Yes. A thousand times, yes. Let us look now at the supremacy of Christ—the One who fulfills it all.
The Supremacy of Christ Over It All
Let’s ask the question again—this time with the full weight of Leviticus pressing down on us:
If even the sons of Aaron are consumed for careless worship…
If mothers are unclean after birth…
If priests need blood on their ears, hands, and feet just to survive the holy place…
If every aspect of life—eating, bleeding, touching, dying—is stained with uncleanness…
Who then can stand before the Lord?
And the answer, beloved, is that only One ever has. And His name is Jesus Christ.
He Is the Better Priest
Aaron was washed with water. Christ was baptized to fulfill all righteousness.
Aaron was clothed in robes of glory. Christ was clothed in humility and then exalted to the right hand of the Father.
Aaron had to offer sacrifices for himself. Christ needed no sacrifice for sin—because He had none.
Hebrews 4:15
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
He doesn’t just sympathize. He represents. He doesn’t just enter the earthly tabernacle. He enters the heavenly holy of holies with His own blood.
He Is the Better Sacrifice
The sacrifices of Leviticus had to be repeated daily, yearly, endlessly. Blood upon blood. Fire upon fire. And still the conscience was not clean.
But when Jesus comes, He says:
Hebrews 10:5–7
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”
And He does. He offers Himself
Hebrews 10:14
For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Do you see the glory? One offering. Once for all. Forever.
No more altars. No more goats. No more blood that cannot cleanse. The fire of wrath has fallen—and it fell on Him.
He Is the Only Clean One Who Cleanses
Every person in Leviticus who became unclean had to wait, wash, offer sacrifice, and hope.
But Jesus comes into our uncleanness—not with fear, but with power.
He touches the leper, and the leper is clean.
He walks into the home of the dead girl, and she lives.
He bleeds on the cross—and that blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. It doesn’t cry for vengeance. It cries, “It is finished.”
Hebrews 9:13–14
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Jesus cleanses the conscience. Not just the body. Not just the reputation. Not just the memory. The conscience.
He Is the Fire That Consumes and the Fire That Cleanses
In Leviticus 10, fire falls in wrath. But at Pentecost, fire falls in power.
Why?Because the fire that once consumed the guilty now indwells the righteous—because Christ has stood in our place.
He is the wrath-bearer and the glory-giver.
He turns the fire of God into the fuel of worship. He turns the holiness of God from a death sentence into an invitation.
Now we can say:
Hebrews 4:16
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Not because we are clean in ourselves. But because He is our priest, our sacrifice, our cleansing, and our song.
Draw Near, and Live
So what do we do with Leviticus 7–12?
We stand in awe.
We tremble before the holiness of God.
We grieve the depth of our uncleanness.
We repent of casual worship.
And we rejoice with trembling, because Christ has made a way.
You were meant to draw near. Not stay distant. Not hide. Not wallow in guilt. But come.
James 4:8
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
And if you are in Christ, you are already welcomed. Already clean. Already beloved.
So sing like the fire won’t consume you—because it already fell.
Pray like the veil is torn—because it is.
Live like you belong in the presence of God—because you do.
Not because of what you’ve done.
But because of what He has done—once for all, forever.
Final Exhortation and Call:
Stop trying to bring strange fire. Come through Christ.
Stop trying to clean yourself. Come as you are—dirty, broken, unworthy—and be washed.
Stop standing at a distance. The curtain is torn. The priest is waiting. The blood has been spilled.
Come. Draw near. Rejoice in the supremacy of Christ over it all.