Now, for the last phrase
in Leviticus 19:18
—“But you shall love your
neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.” The second of the great
commandments, and the one that Jesus said was just as important as the first.
Let’s talk about this meeting between Christ and the Pharisee for a moment.
Before we do, though, let’s frame it in its historical context. At the time, as
you may well know, the Pharisees placed a huge premium on keeping the outward
commandments of the Law. In His listing of woes to the Scribes and Pharisees (Matthew
23:13-36), He blasts them for doing, doing, doing the outward rituals in
order to become righteous. He even prefaces His monologue by teaching His
followers to not be like those scribes and Pharisees. Matthew 23:1-12—1 Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His
disciples, 2 saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees
sit in Moses' seat. 3 Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe
and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. 4
For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but
they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 5 But all
their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and
enlarge the borders of their garments. 6 They love the best places at
feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, 7 greetings in the marketplaces, and to
be called by men, 'Rabbi, Rabbi.' 8 But you, do not be called 'Rabbi';
for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. 9 Do not call
anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. 10
And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. 11 But he
who is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 And whoever exalts himself
will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” The reason
Jesus was about to castigate the religious crowd of the day was they had
forgotten the reason God gave them the Law. It was not as a way to become
better than others; it was not meant as a way for them to measure themselves
against others as a sort of contest to see who could be “more righteous” (a
game still played, by the way, only now they call themselves ‘Roman
Catholics’). The Law was actually meant as a way to humble the people, and to
show us how utterly detestable we are.
But at this time, the
Pharisees had elevated certain parts of the Law, and downgraded others. And
among the rabbis, there were many debates about how to arrange the commands in
the Law according to their importance. And apparently this fellow wanted to
hear Jesus weigh in on the subject. So he asks Christ, in Mark 12:19—Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them
reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him,
"Which is the first commandment of all?" Look at what Mark
says about the man. Then one of the scribes came,
and…perceiving that He had answered them well. He was not
trying to trap Christ in His words; he was not tempting or testing the Lord. He
was seeking to hear more. He realized that Jesus was speaking words of truth.
And so Christ answers, and I'm sure many of us can tell this off the top of our
heads, Mark 12:30-31—29 Jesus answered him,
"The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear,
O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30 And you shall love the LORD
your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with
all your strength.' This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this:
'You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than
these." Notice how
He phrased His answer: He says the first command is to love God, and then He
says the second is like it. This makes the one intertwined with the other, so
that if you do not love God, you cannot love your neighbor. And, if you do not
love your neighbor, you do not love God (see James 3:9).
This man went on, and
paraphrased the words of the prophet Hosea, who wrote these words from God, in Hosea
6:6—“For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and
the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” And in paraphrasing
this passage, he told our Lord, Mark 12:32-34—32 So the scribe said to Him, "Well said,
Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other
but He. 33 And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with
all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself,
is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." So out
of all these commands we’ve studied since Exodus 20:1 up until now,
having lost count of how many and how diverse they have been—out of all these
commands, including the Ten Commandments, this command here, to love your
neighbor as yourself, is placed above all the commands against murder, theft,
idolatry, homosexuality, bestiality, and eating shrimp. Paul would echo Jesus’
words, in 1st Corinthians 13:1-13. We all know, of course,
that 1st Corinthians 13 is “The Love Chapter” and Paul says that even
if he could do just about anything—speak with the tongues of angels, prophecy,
have the gifts of knowledge and wisdom and understand all the mysteries of God
and give everything he had to the poor and even give his body to be burned—if
it were possible for him to do all those things but lack one, he would be as lost
as the worst infidel. And what was that one thing he could not lack? Love. He
would be a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal; in fact, he said if he had not
love he would be nothing. If it were possible for him to keep the other 612
commandments in the Law, if he did not love his neighbor as himself, he would
be consigned to the fires of Hell. Loving one’s neighbor was just as essential
to one’s salvation as loving God with all heart, soul and strength. All other
commands paled in comparison to these two.
Leviticus 19:19—“‘You
shall keep My statutes. You shall not let your livestock breed with another
kind. You shall not sow your field with mixed seed. Nor shall a garment of
mixed linen and wool come upon you.’” Remember the commands against
eating certain animals? What was the lesson God was teaching them at that
point? Was it a lesson in lowering their cholesterol? Was it a lesson in some
sort of health concern? If they ate a clam were they going to be struck down
dead? No. The purpose behind the prohibitions was to teach them a lesson about
separating things. Keeping themselves separate from sin; differentiating
between clean and unclean, between holy and profane (Exodus 11:45-47).
Same here. God made nature in a certain order. He made cows; He made horses; He
made dogs (poodles, however, are an aberration of nature and therefore
unexplainable by humans); He made snakes. He made all these things to multiply
after their own kind (see Genesis chapter 1). He also made man. And out of all
the tribes of man, He took the Israelites, separated them from any other people
on earth—doing so, in fact, hundreds of years before they got to Mt. Sinai (see
Genesis 12:1-3). But God also knows the mind and the heart of man. He
knows that even though He had separated these people out from the other
peoples, the men would have a proclivity to go after the women from the pagan
nations. And did they ever. David. Solomon. And long before them, the people of
Israel went whoring after the women of Moab— even after God had spared them from being cursed by
Balaam, who was trying to lure them into being seduced by the women of Moab
(see Numbers 22-25)! So here, God gives them another object lesson about not
mixing the people of God with the unholy pagans.
Let’s take a quick look at each one of these. First, God forbids them from unnaturally mating with beasts of the field. Think of a cow. What kind of animals do cows, by their own natural inkling, mate with? “Ummm…cows.” Good answer. Do you think a cow would ever try to mate with a horse? Or a donkey? No. But, in much the same way that Egyptian mythology was filled with creatures half-human/half-animal, many other mythologies have been filled with fantastical creatures which were some combination of animals. This was a way of discouraging such heathenish practices among the people of God.
Second, He warns them not
to mix the grain of the field. Many of the pagans surrounding them worshipped
some sort of fertility god, who they believed would give them abundant crops
and thus these people would take up a sort of agricultural alchemy, combining
all different kinds of seeds, hoping that their ‘god’ would give them some new
kind of crop that would produce far greater numbers than before. But we have a
couple New Testament passages that deal with seed and with grafting one tree
into another—and how it is God who produces the desired results. First, we have
Jesus’ parable of the soils. He tells of a sower that goes out and sows seed (which
is the Word of God). Some of it lands by the wayside and is snatched away by
Satan. Some of it lands on rocky ground, where it has no depth and when the
heat of persecution comes it withers and dies. Some of the seed falls among
thorns, and when they are persecuted for the word, their life is choked out.
But the seed that lands on good soil—that is the seed that
grows thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold (Matthew 13:8). Was there
anything different about the seed? No. Same seed. If you
want to think of the good soil as the “control group” (to use a research term),
then that seed falling on good soil tells us that it is not the seed that
causes the problem—rather, the soil must be prepared for the seed. And if the
soil is bad, then the seed, no matter how good and pure and perfect, cannot
grow because the soil is not usable. So who is it that makes the soil ready?
Who is it that is the real source of life, the One who causes the seed to grow?
It is none other than the Great Husbandman. 1st Corinthians 3:5-6—5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers
through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? 6 I planted, Apollos
watered, but God gave the increase.
And when we combine the
parable of Christ with the warning from Leviticus, we actually see a warning to
the church—that a sower of the seed (the Word of God) is not to mix the good
seed (the Word of God) with any other kind of seed. Satan does enough of that,
and we can see the results today (see the parable of the wheat and the tares, Matthew
13:24-30). A passage that talks about grafting two trees is found in Romans
11:17-24—17 And if some of the branches were
broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and
with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, 18 do
not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not
support the root, but the root supports you. 19 You will say then,
"Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in." 20 Well said.
Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be
haughty, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not
spare you either. 22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on
those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His
goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. 23 And they also, if they do not
continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in
again. 24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature,
and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more
will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
Paul compares the church to the wild olive tree, and old covenant Israel to the
natural olive tree. The point Paul makes is that God, being the great
Husbandman, knows how to graft the two olive trees together to get one tree
that will bear fruit for all eternity. And even though, in nature, these two
trees would reject each other, it is God who causes all things to work
together, and create from two trees one tree to His glory (see Ephesians
2:11-14).
Third, God tells the
people not to wear clothing made from mixing wool and linen. You can wear wool.
You can wear linen. But do not mix the two. To many, this may be the most
perplexing of the prohibitions in Leviticus 19:19. “What’s the big
deal about mixing fabrics? I mean, don’t we all wear some kind of
cotton/polyester blend clothing all the time?” That may be true—if we
didn’t go beneath the surface and find what God is actually trying to tell us
here. What this is, beyond the pale of human understanding, is a warning to all
Christians—do not mix Law and Grace. “OK, what in the world are you talking
about? How do you get ‘don’t mix law and grace’ from ‘don’t mix wool and
linen’?” Well, what is the source from which wool comes? Well, wool comes
from sheep. Is not Jesus our Good Shepherd? Is not Jesus our Savior? And how
are we saved? By grace through faith (Ephesians
2:8). So then, wool is symbolic of the fact that we are His sheep, saved by
grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Now, the linen—this was
the material which made up the priestly garments. Do we now take an animal to a
priest to be killed, cut up and burned in order to atone for our sins? No.
Christ has done that already. That was the Law—you sin, you kill an animal. Yet
there are many, still today, who mix law and grace, who say “We are saved by
faith in Christ—but you still gotta keep the rules to keep yourself saved.”
If you remember the late Garner Ted Armstrong, or his father Herbert W.
Armstrong, they were in the line of the Worldwide Church of God (otherwise
known as the Philadelphia Church of God, and its offspring which go by many
names. It now bills itself as Grace Communion International. Hmm, Grace
Communion…how ironic). They teach that Christians are commanded to keep the old
covenant feasts, and that if you don’t you're not saved. That, my friends, is
the very definition of mixing wool with linen—wanting to mix the wool of
Christ’s grace with the linen of the Law. And by doing so, one will not be
saved. Galatians 5:1-4—1 Stand fast
therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be
entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if
you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify
again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the
whole law. 4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be
justified by law; you have fallen from grace. Emphasis on verse 2, if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you
nothing. Nothing. If that little clause is not enough to make people go
running and screaming away from any group that tries to foist the bondage of
the Law upon them, and go running toward the cross and hang their arms about
the neck of our dear Savoir—I don’t know what will. Nothing. You can believe in
Him all you want—but if you still cling to the Law, then Christ will slip from
your grasp, and you will be left holding the wind. Period. They have clothed
themselves in garments of wool mingled with linen. And those garments will
shield them from neither the stain of sin nor the wrath of God.
Part 4 next week
