Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today’s Old Testament reading might seem off-putting to us. I must admit, this is the kind of passage I tend to pass over. ‘No thanks!’ I find myself thinking, ‘Let’s write about something else.’

Read Leviticus 18:1-18 here.

However, if we bring ourselves to read this list of moral laws for the Jewish nation, we may discern an underlying principle that opens our understanding to them. First, God clearly told the people that he wanted them to ‘be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy’ (v. 2). Later, he summed up the laws by telling them to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ (v. 18). In fact, this latter statement appears only once in the Old Testament, and this is the passage to which Jesus refers.

The reality is that God wanted the Jewish nation (and us too) to become ‘like him’, to become what God is, in a real sense. Such a reality goes way beyond a simple legalism, a mindless enumeration of rules and regulations. There is a certain wholeness present in the law’s purpose — as difficult as it was to live by it. That wholeness is the same thing as the ‘righteousness’ which was the purpose of the law.

But, thanks be to God, Jesus died and atoned for the sins of all, allowing us to acquire this righteousness, the wholeness, through Christ, the One who totally fulfills the law. This, as St. Paul tells us, is through faith in Jesus. Listen to St. John Chrysostom:

‘There is no long journey to go on, no seas to sail over, no mountains to pass, to get saved. But if you be not minded to cross so much as the threshold, you may even while you sit at home be saved. For ‘in your mouth and in your heart’ is the source of salvation’.

Does this mean there is nothing to do? Far from it! The law that Christ articulated was more rigorous, in some ways than Moses' law; however, the underlying purpose is perfectly clear. We do not save ourselves by keeping the law. Rather, we are saved by Christ, whom we are becoming like in a process: that of loving God and our neighbor.

That brings us to our Epistle for the day, which is a beautiful summary of life in Christ:

Read I Thessalonians 5:12-28 here.

Yours in Christ,
Justin