We’re in the thick of what makes Leviticus so dreadful. If God can reveal something relevant and helpful or profound to us in this, we have no reason to avoid any other passage in this book or anywhere in Scripture!
The dietary laws God gave reflect His concern for practicality and the health of His people. Before God revealed to man insights about germs and good and bad fats, He built protection into their dietary laws. While the laws were restrictive, they demonstrate His protection of His people when they didn’t realize they needed protection! What restrictions do you suppose He has imposed on you for your protection? What restrictions do you resent, in which you could look for His protection instead?
Adherence to the dietary laws might at times require a sacrifice: when one is hungry he doesn’t want to have to be too choosy about what he finds to eat. One also didn’t want to have to waste or eat one’s wealth when something else was available. And sometimes His people simply didn’t want to be different from other people.
But God didn’t give them explanations or share with them about His protective intent; no, the only justification He gave for the laws is, “I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves, and be holy; for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean…. For I am the Lord, who brought you up from (bondage), to be your God; thus you shall be holy for I am holy.” If that is a good enough reason for His Old Testament people to make sacrifices in what they put into their mouths and to stand out from others, is it a reasonable expectation for His New Testament people to make sacrifices for the privilege of relationship with Him?
Requirements for cleansing following childbirth and for diagnosing leprosy remind us that life is messy. We live in a sin-cursed world that exposes us to base realities with which a holy God has no contact. Yet God addresses them, and provides a way for man to be cleansed from his uncleanness. We may think that it’s unreasonable of God to consider one unclean because she has given birth; would He rather we not give birth and remain clean? Not so. Just because it’s an inevitable part of life doesn’t mean that God can tolerate its presence on us; rather, He is good to give us a way to remedy the uncleanness. To think otherwise is to buy into Satan’s lies like Adam and Eve did.