Torah portion: Leviticus 26:3-27:34

B’Chukatai ('In my statutes')

The seriousness of obedience to God’s commands is central to this week’s Torah portion. First there are the wonderful out-workings of God’s blessings for obedience that touch every part of life. But then there are the awful consequences for disobedience. Both of these are summarised in Leviticus 26.

In chapter 27, values are placed on those things that can be redeemed (i.e. bought back) when a person has, through a vow, temporarily consecrated them for the Lord’s use. One visualises, say, a field being given by a person for use of the priests but then required for the person’s own use again, recovered by the payment of the prescribed amount. All this is to do with temporal matters, but then there are also the permanent matters, pointing to eternal principles that we too should consider.

There is a distinct difference between the dedicating of people, animals, buildings or family land to God, and the devoting of them to God. Those which are dedicated may be redeemed, but those things devoted to the Lord may not be sold or redeemed. They belong to the Lord and are holy to the Lord - there is no means of reversing the decision (vv28-29).

Similarly, if something, through the ban, is excluded from God’s presence, then there is no way back. This principle surely points to the separation of those who are devoted through Yeshua to God for all eternity and those who, in the final reckoning, are excluded from the Kingdom – the sheep and the goats, as Yeshua called them, to be separated on judgment day (Matt 25:31-32).

For those of us who are devoted to God through Yeshua, there is a warning to persevere in Hebrews 6:4-6: “For it is impossible for those who were enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame.”

Matters of life and death are as important in the New Testament as they are in the Old.

Author: Sally Bolton