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Why Did God Stigmatize the Disabled? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Welcome back. In the next two episodes, we're talking about personal suffering.
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  Suffering so often feels meaningless. Suffering feels pointless, it feels feels being the
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  key word there. But no matter how our suffering feels to us, it's
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  not meaningless, not for the Christian. That's our topic up next time on
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  Monday. But today, if you're reading your Bible along with us using the
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  Navigator's Bible reading Plan, I'm glad you are. But for the second half
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  of February, we're in the thick of it reading through Leviticus. It's a
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  hard book, a notorious book that ends a lot of well meaning Bible readers
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  at this point in the year. But stick with it is worth it,
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  and as you stick with it in our reading tomorrow, I think it is.
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  We read Leviticus twenty one verses sixteen to twenty four, a difficult text
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  that makes any Bible reader scratch their head and wonder why did God God shun
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  the disabled in the Old Testament when such a Bible reader is a listener named
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  Gina. Hello, Pastor John, I'm reading through Leviticus in my Bible reading
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  plan. One thing that has confused me is why God would not allow people
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  with physical defects to approach the altar. In Leviticus twenty one, verses sixteen
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  to twenty one, the tone changes drastically in the Gospels. There, Jesus,
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  the True Temple, welcomes the blind, the lame, and the disease
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  right into his very presence. So why would God in the Old Testament not
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  allow them near the altar? It seems sad to me and compounds their suffering.
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  Those people would have felt worse for it and likely experienced heightened social alienation
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  too. I'm thankful for the New Testament because there are so many of us
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  with physical defects. But why this discontinuity? To what purpose? Good good,
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  good, good good question it is Leviticus twenty one, sixteen to twenty
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  four deals with whether priests. It's about priests, But her question is still
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  really valid whether priests who have physical disabilities or deformities can enter the Holy Place
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  to do the work of a priest. And I think Gina is probably right
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  that in reality, when priests with facial defects or crushed genitals or injured feed
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  or hunch back or scabby skin were forbidden from parts of the priestly service,
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  not all of them, but some of them. Probably they would have felt
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  sad and discouraged at times, and maybe even resentful. That would be a
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  normal human response, at least in our culture. Wei Shure feel that.
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  And my guess is it's pretty basic to human nature. So Gina asks,
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  why does God in the Old Testament apply such external restrictions for the priesthood and
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  in the New Testament we don't have that same kind of restriction. They don't
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  assume the same kind of excluding effect. So let me try to give an
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  answer that I think honors the intention of both the Old Testament and the New
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  Testament, because I think both are the inspired word of God, and what
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  God did when he did it was right to do when he did it,
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  and he had reasons for doing it, and it may not be right for
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  us to do it today because such profound things have changed. But let's look
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  at the key passage, and there's a ground clause that helps us really crystallize
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  the issues. Here's Leviticus twenty one, sixteen to twenty four, with just
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  a few verses left out. Collapse it down so you can see the clause
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  no man of the offspring of aaron. The priest who has a blemish shall
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  come near to offer the Lord's food offerings. Since he has a blemish,
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  he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. He shall
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  not go through the veil or approach the altar, because our ears should perk
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  up, because he has a blemish, in order that he may not profane
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  my sanctuaries. For I am Yahweh, the Lord who sanctifies them. In
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  other words, God says, I am the one who sets priests apart from
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  my service. I sanctify them. I have ordained, I have decreed or
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  instituted, or decided that a blemished priest will not blemish or profane my sanctuary.
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  In other words, God wants to make the perfections of the sanctuary so
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  symbolically and visibly clear that he establishes a correlation between the deforming of the physical
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  body and the deforming of the sanctuary. Or, to say it another way,
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  he insists that there be a correlation between the perfections of those who approach
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  the sanctuary and the perfection of the sanctuary itself, which is a reflection of
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  his own perfection. So it's entirely possible that the most godly and the most
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  humble deformed priests would not be offended by this divine order of things, but
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  would gladly acknowledge that it is fitting for those who approach a perfect God to
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  be free from outward and inward perfections imperfections. So I don't think there's anything
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  intrinsically wrong with God's Old Testament ordinances. In this regard, the question is
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  what's the ultimate meaning of it, especially in relation to New Testament changes.
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  Why my answer goes like this. In the Bible as a whole, there
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  are two dimensions to God's nature that shape the way he deals with mankind.
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  One is unapproachable holiness. That's one massive truth throughout the Bible. God is
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  holy. Sinners can't approach him, nothing imperfect can approach him, nothing evil
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  can approach God without being destroyed. And so it's fitting that in the presence
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  of God there can only be perfection, both moral and spiritual and physical,
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  which of course means no one qualifies now like some of these priests were perfect.
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  The other dimension of His nature is his overflowing mercy, and so those
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  are the two unapproachable holiness and overflowing mercy and grace, which reaches out to
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  the physically, morally, spiritually imperfect and finds a way in Jesus Christ to
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  declare them to be perfect. But the resolution of these two dimensions of God's
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  nature is not that the first one is replaced by the second one, like
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  holiness is kind of blunted and decreased in its importance, because mercy is going
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  to be the main thing. Now, that's not what happens. As though
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  the doctrine of justification by faith alone would be sufficient to create the new heavens
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  and the new Earth where God is present among justified sinners without his holiness being
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  compromised, that's not going to happen. That's not going to happen. No,
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  God also undertakes by sanctification and then by the recreation of everything that's broken,
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  physical dimensions of the world and moral dimensions of the world, and He's
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  going to make everything in his presence perfect forever. Not just justified sinners are
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  going to be in God's presence, But no sin is going to be in
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  God's presence. There won't be any people whose sin in God's presence, there
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  will be no defects morally, there will be no defects physically in the presence
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  of God in the age to come. So I think God highlighted the demands
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  for perfection in the Old Testament in an outward way, so as to make
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  really clear that no form of imperfection would ever stand in God's presence permanently.
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  That's how holy he is. He would one day not only justify the ungodly
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  and be willing to touch lepers, reach out and actually touch lepers, God
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  himself touching lepers in the flesh. But he would also utterly transform the ungodly
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  into sinless godly people and take away every leper see in every disease and every
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  disability, in every deformity. So the Old Testament and the New Testament make
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  both of these dimensions of God's character plain, it seems to me, by
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  putting the emphasis in different places. So the Old Testament is, as it
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  were, standing on tiptoes looking over the horizon of the future, waiting and
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  wondering how God could ever create a people all of whom could come boldly into
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  His presence. And God had put such amazing limits in the Old Testament.
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  So the Old Testament rightly makes this scene extremely difficult. I think that was
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  the point he wanted it to look like this can never happen. You can
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  never have anybody with an imperfection walking in here, just not going to happen.
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  God has put such amazing restrictions on it. And then in the New
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  Testament, the glorious reality dawns that God has provided away by Jesus Christ,
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  the very perfection that we must have to approach him now. And He has
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  provided by his spirit the sanctification and resurrection and perfection of bodily and spiritually newness
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  in the age that comes, that we can be in His presence forever.
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  So my bodyline conclusion is, we need the Old Testament to sober us about
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  how holy God is, and we need the New Testament lest we despair of
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  any hope that we could survive in the presence of such a holy God.
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  Let alone enjoy Him forever. Yeah, Ahimen, we need the Old Testament
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  to sober us about how holy God is, and we need the New Testament
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  lest we despair of any hope that we could survive in the presence of such
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  a holy God. Let alone enjoy Him forever. So good, thank you,
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  Pastor John for this powerful gospel centered reflection on Leviticus twenty one, a
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  text that we read tomorrow in the Navigator's Bible reading plan. And as you
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  read your Bible, if you come across something that you can't figure out,
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  even though you've tried, and you've tried to figure it out on your own,
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  ask Pastor John. Email us at ask Pastor John. It's Desiring goodt
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  dot Org. And speaking of the pain of suffering, oftentimes that suffering feels
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  meaningless, pointless, it's not. Next time, Pastor John will explain why
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  not from a very precious text to us at Desiring God two Corinthians four,
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  verse seventeen. I'm your host, Tony Rank will see you on Monday.