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Context No. 1471 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 8:12-19: in context

12“The Levites shall lay their hands on the heads of the bulls, and you shall offer the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering to the LORD, to make atonement for the Levites. 13You shall set the Levites before Aaron and before his sons, and offer them as a wave offering to the LORD. 14Thus you shall separate the Levites from among the children of Israel, and the Levites shall be mine. 15“After that, the Levites shall go in to do the service of the Tent of Meeting. You shall cleanse them, and offer them as a wave offering. 16For they are wholly given to me from among the children of Israel; instead of all who open the womb, even the firstborn of all the children of Israel, I have taken them to me. 17For all the firstborn among the children of Israel are mine, both man and animal. On the day that I struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them for myself. 18I have taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel. 19I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the children of Israel, to do the service of the children of Israel in the Tent of Meeting, and to make atonement for the children of Israel, so that there will be no plague among the children of Israel when the children of Israel come near to the sanctuary.”

This passage sets apart the Levites for the service of the tabernacle. Atonement is made for them with sin and burnt offerings, and they are presented before God as a kind of wave offering, given over to him. The reason God gives is striking: the Levites shall be mine, wholly given to me from among the children of Israel. He has taken them in place of the firstborn of all Israel, whom he claimed as his own on the night he struck the firstborn of Egypt. The Levites belong entirely to God, given to serve in the sanctuary and to make atonement for the people.

The phrase to catch is repeated: the Levites shall be mine, wholly given to me. They were not partly God's, dedicated in some respects and their own in others; they were wholly given, belonging entirely to him and set apart for his service. That total belonging is the heart of their consecration. And there is a substitution behind it: God had claimed all the firstborn of Israel as his own since the night of the Passover, when the firstborn were spared, and now he takes the Levites in their place, one tribe wholly given so that the whole people might be represented as belonging to him. The New Testament takes up this language and turns it toward every believer. We are not our own, Paul writes, for we were bought with a price; and Christ, the true firstborn, gives himself so that we might belong wholly to God. The pattern of the Levites points toward it: to belong to God is not a partial thing, a corner of life reserved for religion while the rest remains our own. It is to be wholly given, set apart entirely, our whole selves consecrated to him. The Levites were made God's completely, and the call that comes to us in Christ is of the same kind, to be not partly but wholly his, given over to God in every part rather than kept back in reserve. To be God's is to be wholly given.

Do I belong to God only in part, a corner of my life reserved for him while the rest stays my own, or am I wholly given to him, as the Levites were, consecrated entirely and kept back in no reserve?

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