Should Christians obey the Levitical law?
Question 07109
The Levitical legislation is perhaps the most practically puzzling portion of the Old Testament for modern readers — chapters of regulations governing sacrifices, priestly garments, clean and unclean animals, skin conditions, and mould in houses that seem remote from everyday Christian life. The question of whether Christians are obligated to observe this material deserves a clear answer.
What the Levitical Law Was For
The book of Leviticus sits at the heart of the Mosaic covenant and has a single governing concern: holiness. Its opening chapters establish the sacrificial system through which a sinful people could approach a holy God; its middle sections regulate the distinction between clean and unclean; its later chapters address the priestly calendar and the jubilee. Every element was designed to teach Israel that access to God is not casual, that sin is serious, and that forgiveness requires the shedding of blood. Hebrews 9:22 states the underlying principle plainly: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Leviticus is, in this sense, a sustained commentary on that truth.
Fulfilled in Christ
The New Testament’s answer to the question of Levitical obligation is given at length in the letter to the Hebrews. The Levitical priesthood has been superseded by Christ’s high priesthood “after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 7:11–17) — a superior order, unchangeable, not contingent on physical descent. The repeated animal sacrifices, which could “never take away sins” (Hebrews 10:11), have been replaced by Christ’s one offering “for all time” (Hebrews 10:12). The earthly tabernacle and its rituals were “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (Hebrews 8:5); the reality is Christ Himself. Colossians 2:16–17 applies this directly to practice: Christians are not to be judged with respect to food, drink, festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths because these are “a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”
The language of shadow and substance is the key. A shadow is real — it corresponds to something genuine — but it is not the thing itself. When the thing itself appears, the shadow has served its purpose. Observing the Levitical system now would be, in effect, insisting on the shadow after the substance has arrived. It would be analogous to reading the signpost after you have already reached the destination.
What Christians Should Not Conclude
The answer “no, Christians are not under the Levitical law” does not license dismissing Leviticus as irrelevant or as a curiosity from a distant past. It is God’s Word, profitable for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16), and reading it theologically rewards serious attention. The Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16 illuminates Hebrews 9 in ways that nothing else does. The grain offerings, the peace offerings, and the structure of the sacrificial calendar disclose dimensions of what Christ accomplished that cannot be seen as clearly from any other angle. The purity laws teach that God’s presence is not approached carelessly. The Jubilee provisions reflect God’s concern for justice and restoration that finds its ultimate expression in the proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favour (Luke 4:18–19).
The Christian reads Leviticus not to find rules to follow but to see Christ more clearly and to understand more deeply the seriousness of sin and the costliness of forgiveness.
So, now what?
Christians are not under an obligation to observe the Levitical law — not the dietary restrictions, not the purity regulations, not the sacrificial system, not the priestly calendar. These were covenant obligations specific to Israel under the Mosaic arrangement, and that arrangement has been fulfilled and superseded in Christ. What remains is the theological substance they were pointing toward all along: a holy God who takes sin seriously, a sacrifice that truly and finally atones, and a high priest who has entered the true holy place on our behalf. Leviticus, read in the light of Hebrews, is one of the richest Christological texts in the Old Testament.
“For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Hebrews 10:4