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God’s Discipline – Leviticus 26
God’s Discipline – Leviticus 26
God’s covenant with Israel stipulated both what God would do for them and what He required from them, along with the consequences of their not abiding by the covenant. The language used here in Leviticus 26 is the often used ‘if – then’ construction.
It begins in verses 3 -4: “IF you walk in My statutes and keep my commandments… THEN I shall give you…”
These great promises of blessings are then followed with the grave warnings of the consequences of their disobedience and unfaithfulness to this covenant. These ‘if…then” conditions are now ‘progressive’ in that God expected each one to result in the correction of their rebellion, after all, that is the very purpose of such discipline. Each ‘THEN’ is of greater consequence.
· 14-16 Here there are three ‘if’ statements, but they are followed with “I, in turn, will do this to you:…”
· 18 “If also after these things you do not obey Me, THEN…”
· 21 “If then, you act with hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, … I will….
· 23-24 “And if by these things you are not turned to Me… THEN I will act with hostility against you…”
· 27-28 “Yet IF IN SPITE OF THIS you do not obey Me… THEN I will act with wrathful hostility against you…”
When we come to verses 40-42, and we are surprised to find God yet holding out an offer of mercy and kindness to them: “IF they confess their iniquity… THEN I will remember My covenant with Jacob…” God is FAITHFUL and steadfast.
It is as if God was foretelling the very history of Israel! Time and again they rebelled and disobeyed the covenant, and they were disciplined by the hand of God. Sometimes it brought about a temporary change, but then they resumed their old ways.
After all of these warnings, God ends this instructive section: “Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. 45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 26:44-45).
Through all these years there was always a remnant. When we turn to the New Testament, we see God’s eternal purpose come to pass in the coming of Jesus. God now makes a new covenant that includes not only the faithful remnant of physical Israel but all of those who turn and become trusting disciples of Jesus. God still requires abide in and keep the teachings of Jesus (Matt. 28:18-20). God will yet discipline those who err (read the book of Hebrews!). We are warned to NOT follow the example of Israel of old (1Cor. 10). “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off” (Romans 11:22).
Hugh DeLong
