So you shall keep My commandments, and do them; I am the Lord. You shall not profane My holy name, but I will be sanctified among the sons of Israel; I am the Lord who sanctifies you (Leviticus 22:31-32).

The LORD tells the people of Israel that they needed to sanctify the LORD because it was the LORD who sanctifies them. In other words, they needed to treat the LORD as holy because it was the LORD who makes them holy. In other words, since God had chosen them to be His holy people, they needed to obey Him with all their hearts. 

I find a similar passage in the New Testament:

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Philippians 2:12-13).

Paul tells believers to work out their salvation because it is God who works in them. In other words, since God had chosen them to be His people and was working out His good purposes through them, they needed to obey Him with all their hearts. 

What must not be missed in both the Old and New Testament passages is this. It is not simply that God sanctified the people of Israel once when He called them to be His people. The verb is in the present progressive tense ("who sanctifies you" not "who sanctified you"). This means that God was continually working in them to make them holy. And the people of Israel needed to obey God, because it was only through the LORD that they could and would be made holy. 

Paul writes something similar when he points out that "it is God who works in you..." He does not write that God "worked" in them, as though this was a one time act in the past, but that He presently and actively "works" in them. 

This suggests to me that God is continually active in the lives of His children to bring about obedience. What is remarkable is that God not only works to fulfill His good purpose in our actions but also in our very wills. In other words He shapes both our wills and our actions so that they fulfill His good purpose.

Friends, what does this mean for us? It means that there is both a responsibility and an assurance. Since God has saved us, we are responsible to honor and obey God. Paul writes "with fear and trembling" because there is the continual recognition that the One who saves us has the power also to destroy us.

At the same time, there is an assurance, because the One who commands obedience is also the One who Himself insures that there is the necessary willing and acting on our part to accomplish what He purposes for us, which is at least in part the completion of our salvation. That is why Paul can also write elsewhere,

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).

Thus, we are both saved by grace and sanctified by grace. Likewise, we can say that we are saved through faith and sanctified through faith:

For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last (Romans 1:17).

Therefore, friends, we can neither boast of our salvation nor of our sanctification. All glory belongs to God, whose grace has achieved the one and continues to bring about the other in us.

And this is how we know that God has so worked is us and is working in us: We continually work out our salvation with fear and trembling. In other words, as we daily trust and obey God's Word, we are daily assured that God has both saved us and is working in us to sanctify us. But if we disregard His Word or we are trusting in our own good works, then we have no such assurance.

The priests must follow my instructions carefully. Otherwise they will be punished for their sin and will die for violating my instructions. I am the LORD who makes them holy (Leviticus 22:9).

One unmistakeable emphasis of the Law is the requirement of complete obedience, whether referring to priests, kings or the people at large. Consider some other passages where you see this emphasis. I picked these out just from Exodus through Deuteronomy using a search on the word "careful" in biblegateway.com. Notice how many passages there are even within these few books. If you get tired of reading these citations, you can just skim down past them:

He said, “If you listen carefully to the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you (Exodus 15:26).

Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips... If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you (Exodus 23:13,22).

You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the LORD your God (Leviticus 18:4).

Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land (Leviticus 25:18).

If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. (Leviticus 26:3-4).

So be careful to do what the LORD your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left (Deuteronomy 5:32).

Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you (Deuteronomy 6:3).

And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness (Deuteronomy 6:25).

If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors (Deuteronomy 7:12).

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors... Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day (Deuteronomy 8:1,11).

If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow—to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him— ²³ then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you (Deuteronomy 11:22-23).

Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God (Deuteronomy 12:28).

if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today (Deuteronomy 15:5).

It is to be with him [the king], and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees (Deuteronomy 17:19).

The LORD your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws;carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 26:16).

If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth (Deuteronomy 28:1).

However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you (Deuteronomy 28:15)

If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God— the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses (Deuteronomy 28:58-59).

Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do (Deuteronomy 29:9).

Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of this law (Deuteronomy 31:12).

Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law (Deuteronomy 32:46).

God commanded the people to carefully obey everything in the Law. If they succeeded, they would be richly blessed. If they failed, they would be terribly cursed. With every generation, we know the result. They failed miserably to completely obey the Law. 

As one of our members shared with me in our Bible study last night, even Joshua, who succeeded Moses as leader of Israel, recognized that the people of Israel would fail. This is his testimony in Joshua 24:19,

Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.

This is what the people also needed to understand. They were not able to completely obey the Law of God. And because they were not able to do so, they fell under the curse associated with failing to obey the Law. This is why Paul writes in Galatians 3:10,

All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”

It was not that the Law was bad. The Law was good, but the people were bad. God did this on purpose. He wanted people to see their inability to obey so that they might rely completely on His providence and grace. So Paul continues in Galatians 3:11-14,

Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because “the righteous will live by faith." The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “Whoever does these things will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole." He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

The law was designed to lead people to the place of faith:

Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.

Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was put in charge of us until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law (Galatians 3:21-25).

Unfortunately, the people of Israel did not understand this and continued desperately to seek righteousness through keeping the Law:

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes (Romans 10:1-4).

In one of the most bittersweet commentaries in Scripture, we read what happened to Israel:

What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written:

“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble 
and a rock that makes them fall, 
and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.” (Romans 9:30-33).

The Gentiles received righteousness through faith but the Jews failed to achieve righteousness through the Law. The former received it as a free gift, while the latter failed to earn it through their good works. The Jews are said to have stumbled, because they thought they had the ability to make themselves right with God by obeying the Law. But the Law was not given to show their ability but rather their inability and the necessity of trusting completely in Christ Jesus. 

The Jews had zeal, but it was not combined with right knowledge. This is instructive for us too. Zeal is good only if it is combined with right knowledge. Therefore, let us all be more diligent to read, study, meditate, and apply the Word of God, so that as we zealously follow God, we might not be found to be on the wrong path. 

Three, Seven, and 12 are what we would call God's favorite numbers. The Trinity is Three. Christ was pierced in three places by the nails. In Hebrew culture, God institutes three festivals of Pilgrimage:   Shavuot, Sukkot, and Yom Kippur. Shavuot commends the day that God gave the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai and is called the Feast of Weeks. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement (v. 26-32). This day is the one day of the year when all sins are forgiven, and this is why I mentioned it here. Sukkot is the Feast of Tabernacles, and God lays out in v. 33-44.

There are feasts laid out here in 23.  The word convocation is "to Call" or literally "a gathering in response to a summons".

The feasts of Unleavened bread and Passover are the second feasts mentioned. Passover is the evening before the feast of Unleavened bread, so it's really two separate occasions that happen beginning at twilight and lasting for seven days.

During the feast of Unleavened Bread, Christ was offered up as our living sacrifice.  He was the perfect lamb without blemish. Jesus died at the end of Passover.

The feast of firstfruits is the next feast and it happens the day after the feast of unleavened bread ends to celebrate the barley harvest. In the Bible, the Jesus was resurrected on the feast of Firstfruits. (John 12:24; 1 Corinthians 15:16-20). Yeshua celebrated the festival of First Fruits by offering Himself as the first fruits to all future generations (Matthew 27:52-53).

The feast of Weeks is the next Feast. Shavuot commends the day that God gave the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

The feast of Trumpets is also known as Rosh Hashanah. It commemorates the Jewish New Year.

I put the Day of Atonement first and the Feast of Tabernacles last, but Moses mentioned it last. It is the one day of the year when ALL sins are forgiven.

In Leviticus 22:31-33, we read,

“Therefore you shall keep My commandments, and perform them: I am the LORD. You shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel. I am the LORD who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the LORD.”

As I read what many consider a very difficult, tedious and boring segment of Scripture, I am reminded of the sovereignty and holiness of God. Throughout the Law we will find repetitions, perhaps because what God deems important for us to know He tends to repeat.

One of those repeated things is the phrase "I am the LORD." As bookends of a summary command to "keep My commandments," this phrase appears to provide the motivation for it. They were to keep God's commands not because it made sense to them, not because it sounded just and right to them, not because it was easy to do, but because it was the LORD who commanded them. He is the "I AM," the sovereign God, the Alpha and the Omega, the Creator of the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water. In one sense it is like a parent saying to his child, "Listen to me and obey me because I'm your dad." In the midst of a flurry of childish "whys" that never seem to be completely satisfied, the dad finally says, "Because I (i.e. your dad) say so." Likewise, there is much that is not explained with respect to the laws, many whys that are not answered, but God says, "Because I am the LORD." That was to be sufficient reason for Israel to whole-heartedly trust and obey God.

As New Covenant Christians, the Lord Jesus commands us to love one another as He loved us (cf. John 13:34). He commands us to make disciples of all nations (cf. Matthew 28:19). And there are many other New Covenant commands. Let us not obey because it makes sense to us, nor because it sounds just and right to us, nor because it seems easy for us to do, but because it is the Lord Jesus, the Savior, the First and the Last, the Ruler of God's creation, who commands us.

I share this because of the dangerous tendency for some Christians to base their convictions on what sounds logical, seems sensible, or feels right to them. As James reminds us, "There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy" (James 4:12). Therefore, rather than testing God's Word by our personal ability to discern, let us rather test our discernment by His Word, and subject our convictions to what is written (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:6).

As I read these chapters, I thought of previous comments. Remember we talked about the Laws given for health reason and other stuff. But, I feel that if followed some of things that we could be healthier today and the land would be healthier as well.

Yujin responds... That's not a wrong thought. Even when the primary reasons for God's commands are not as we think, it does not mean that they are arbitrary and ONLY carries spiritual significance. Even though the food laws may primarily have been given to differentiate God's people from the Canaanites, could God not have provided improved health as well for those who obeyed? The same could be said with respect to giving the land a Sabbath year's rest. While the primary reason may have been to memorialize God's resting on the seventh day of Creation (Exodus 20) and His deliverance of Israel from Egypt (Deuteronomy 5), the various Sabbath observances would also have the benefits of providing rest both for the people, the animals, and the land to their benefit.