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LIVING WITH A HOLY GOD IS THE REASON FOR EVERYTHINGLeviticus 8:1 - 9:24INTRODUCTION Like many of you we had guests to our house for Easter dinner. My parents came to our house and Julia and Jordan came home from Madison. Jane and I and Joelle and Jaimee cleaned the house and Jane cooked a fabulous meal for us. We got the good dishes out and set the table with candles and such. Did we do all this preparation: the cleaning, the meal, the well set table because we wanted a clean house or a good meal? No. We did all the preparation so that we could honor our guests and enjoy their company. Most of the time, when you prepare to host valued friends and family, the purpose of the preparations is to honor them and enjoy their company. The last half of Exodus and the first 7 chapters of Leviticus are a description of the preparations Israel has to make in order to enjoy God's company. Back in Exodus 26-31 God instructs Moses on how to build the tabernacle, the various pieces of equipment to go into the tabernacle and the uniform of the priests. In chapter 29 God tells Moses how to commission or ordain Aaron and his sons to become the priests of Israel. At the end of chapter 29 God tells Moses why he wants Israel to build this tent with its surrounding curtain and to commission priests. This is what he says: Exodus 29:42-46, "For the generations to come this burnt offering is to be made regularly at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting before the LORD. There I will meet you and speak to you; there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by my glory. So I will consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. They will know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.” God says that the reason for all the preparations is so that he can come live among them and they can enjoy his company. During the months since God told Moses these things back in Exodus the tabernacle has been built and furnished and the instructions for how to do the sacrifices have been given. The clothing for the priests has been made. The oil and incense have been produced according to God’s specifications. Leviticus 8 and 9 now record the final preparations for God’s visit, the commissioning of the priests and the beginning of the offering of all the sacrifices. Notice, in 9:4-5 Moses tells Aaron, his sons and the elders of Israel that they are to begin the sacrifices because “ today the Lord will appear to you.” And then again at the end of v. 5, “This is what the Lord has commanded you to do so that the glory of the Lord may appear to you.” It's sort of like those last hectic minutes before the guests arrive when the final decorations are being arranged, the last dishes are being taken out of the oven and the last pieces of clutter are being shoved into the closet. These are the final acts that must be done in order for God to come dwell among them. In a very real sense these two chapters are the climax of the story of God’s bringing Israel out of their slavery in Egypt . God’s goal has been to take Israel as his own people and to come to live among them. At the end of chapter 9 he does exactly that in a very visible way. The glory of the Lord appears and fire comes out and burns up all the sacrifices that are smoldering on the altar of burnt offering in a brilliant flash of fire. God has come to dwell with his people. The honored guest has arrived for whom all the preparations were made. Now Israel can enjoy his company. God’s ultimate goal in creating this universe and in sending Jesus to this earth has been exactly what is portrayed here. His goal has been to live with his people, to reveal to us his glory for our eternal joy. Listen to how the Bible describes the final condition of the universe at the end of the last book of the Bible, Revelation. Revelation 21:3-4 & 22-24, “ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.…" I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light…” So here in Leviticus 8 & 9 God revealed to Israel and through them to us both his final objective and the means by which we will attain that final objective. As we begin this morning I want to ask you a question I’ve asked you before, why are you here this morning? The reason God says we are here is so that he can show us his glory. He says the only reason to care about the gospel or Jesus or the church or the Bible is because you want to see his glory. If you are here because you want to use God to get something else, you will be sorely disappointed because Christ came and he created the church because it is God’s highest goal to reveal his greatness and his glory to us, his church for our eternal joy. He wants to live with us so that we can enjoy his company. As we examine these two chapters we will discover what must happen in order for sinners like us to have God visit us. MAIN POINT God’s highest goal has always been to reveal his glory to his people for their eternal joy by…
I. Providing Christ as our obedient, holy priest (Leviticus 8 & 9) In Exodus 29 God told Moses how he was to commission Aaron to the priesthood. Aaron couldn’t just walk into the tabernacle in his “street clothes” and start performing his priestly functions. There was a week long process he and his sons had to go through in order to be ordained or commissioned as God’s priests. Now here in Leviticus 8 we are watching Moses actually do to Aaron what God told him to do back in Exodus 29. I want you to follow through this ordination ceremony with me to get the basic outline of the procedure. Then I want to draw your attention to three things that point ahead to Jesus from this ceremony. The Lord tells Moses to bring Aaron and his sons along with the various items he will need for their ordination to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting along with the congregation of Israel’s leaders to witness the process. The first thing that Moses does is to give Aaron and his sons a bath. Then he dresses Aaron in the spectacular clothing of the high priest. He dresses his four sons in the comparatively plain linen garments which the other priests were to wear. After bathing and dressing them Moses takes the anointing oil and splashes it upon the tabernacle, the table of incense, the table for the showbread, the lamp stand, the wash basin, and the altar of burnt offering. At the end he pours out the oil upon the head of Aaron. The oil runs down his head and his beard and drips onto his priestly uniform. Then Moses brings the bull for the sin offering, has Aaron and his sons lay their hands on it and he kills it. He rubs some of its blood on the horns of the altar and pours out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. Then he burns up the fat, the kidneys and the liver on the altar and the rest of the bull is taken outside the camp and burned to ash in a clean place. Then he takes the ram of the burnt offering and after Aaron and his sons lay their hands on it he burns the whole thing up on the altar. Then he brings the ram for the ordination and again, after they lay their hands on its head, he kills it. Then he does something very different from any other offering. He rubs some of the blood on the right ear lobe, the right thumb and the right big toe of Aaron and his sons. He burns up the fat and internal organs and the right thigh of the animal on the altar. Moses keeps the breast of the animal for himself and Aaron and his sons cook the rest of the ram at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and eat it in the courtyard. Prior to their eating of the ram, however, Moses sprinkles oil and blood from the ordination ram on Aaron and his sons. Finally, he commands Aaron and his sons that they cannot leave the courtyard for seven days or they will die. So for the next seven days they remain inside the curtains which surround the tabernacle. Each day they offer a bull for a sin offering and the two lambs for the morning and evening burnt offerings with their respective grain offerings. At the end of this week, on the eighth day Aaron and his sons begin their work as priests by offering for themselves and for the people sin offerings, burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. When they finish the offerings Aaron turns to the people and blesses them and then, after Moses and Aaron go into the tabernacle together, they come out and bless the people again. The result of the blessing of the priest of God is that God shows up. I want to draw your attention to a few things in these chapters that point to the glory of Christ as our high priest. The first thing to say, however, is what the letter to the Hebrews says several times. Jesus never had to offer any of these sacrifices for himself because he had no sins and thus needed no atonement, nor did he need any other ritual done to him to make him holy. Like Aaron, Jesus did go through a process to prepare him to be our high priest. Hebrews 5:8-10 describes that process: "Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek." The process Jesus went through was the suffering of his life and death through which he actually performed the obedience that made him fit to be our priest. You can see the obedience of Christ foreshadowed in Lev. 8 & 9. Almost 20 times in these two chapters we are told things like this from v. 4, “Moses did as the Lord commanded him…” Or as in 8:36, “Aaron and his sons did everything the Lord commanded through Moses.” Repeatedly we are informed that the only reason that God showed up was because Moses and Aaron did exactly what God said. The only way that God can come to live with his people is if they are represented by a priest who completely obeys without failure every command that God gives. So Jesus, we are told in Hebrews 4:15, “…has been tempted in every way that we are and yet was without sin.” In Hebrews 7:26 we are told that he was “…innocent, unstained, set apart from sinners…” In Philippians 2:9 we are told that Jesus “became obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Jesus himself said that he always said what the Father wanted him to say and did what the Father wanted him to do. Over and over again the NT tells us that Jesus fully obeyed God’s commands and thus he alone is able to be our faithful high priest. As we are going to see in the next chapter, these priests are not sufficient because they don't always do what God commands. However, Jesus always obeys and thus he is able to always be our priest who makes the necessary preparations for God to live with us. The second thing to notice relates to this. Two times in chapter 8 we are told that Moses, when he poured oil on Aaron’s head and when he sprinkled oil and blood on he and his sons, consecrated him or, literally, made him holy. To be made holy or to be consecrated does not refer to a person’s moral condition. Rather it is a word that describes a person’s standing in relation to God. Aaron and his sons are set apart from ordinary human beings and from ordinary human work and set apart to God and his work. Out of all the millions of people in Israel and the tens of millions of people on the face of the planet at that time they alone could represent men to God and offer the sacrifices that made it possible for God to dwell with man. The thing to note about Aaron and his sons is that their holiness was temporary. There were a number of ways in which they could become “common” and then they’d have to go through a whole process to be restored to the condition of holiness again. In addition, as we will see next week, they could move from the condition of holiness to becoming the object of God’s wrath in a moment. Jesus, we are told in the letter to the Hebrews is able to enter not merely a tent that symbolizes God’s holy presence but he, by virtue of his innate holiness is able to enter into God’s very presence in heaven itself. Both demons and disciples confess while Jesus is on the earth that he is “the Holy One of God.” Peter tells the Jewish leaders after the resurrection that they “disowned the Holy and Righteous one and asked that a murderer be released…” Aaron and his sons are made holy through these rituals but the Son of God who became a man is inherently holy, set apart from sin and to God and can never not be holy. Finally, in 8:12, Moses anoints Aaron with the oil of anointing, thus consecrating him. Throughout the rest of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy the high priest is often referred to as “the anointed one.” In the Greek translation of the OT that is "Christos," which is in English, Christ. Jesus is referred to as the “Christ” over 500 times in the NT. This title is given to him because he is our anointed one, our priest. He is the one who is the Holy One of God who is set apart from all other human beings in order to represent us to God. The message of Leviticus 8 and 9 is clear. God cannot come to live with his people, he cannot reveal his glory to us unless we are represented by an obedient, holy, anointed priest. Everything else was ready prior to the installation and ministry of Aaron but God’s glory was not continually present with Israel until Aaron was made holy by the anointing oil and obedience to God’s commands. It is only when the priest is present that God himself can make himself at home with sinners. Thank God that we have such a priest and so we can shout with joy and worship him as he reveals his glory to us. God’s highest goal has always been to reveal his glory to his people for their eternal joy by…
II. Making us holy priests by Christ’s work (vv. 8:6-9, 14, 18, 22-24, 30, 9:5-7) There is something happening in these two chapters that is not immediately obvious unless you have recently read through Exodus and Leviticus 1-9. Think back along the story line. When was the last time prior to this event that Moses was speaking with Aaron? Turn back to Exodus 32. Look at the opening verses (1-6) and then vv. 19-24. Aaron led the people of Israel in the worship of a bull calf which he made and designated as the God who had brought Israel out of Egypt. I don’t know about you but he does not strike me as a good pick for being the high priest. Not much time has transpired between the events of Exodus 32 and this ordination ceremony. It was maybe two months prior to this that Aaron was leading the people in the worship of a false god and now here he is being ordained to represent the people before the God who is a consuming fire. How in the world is this possible? God had said in the 10 commandments that he would punish any who worshipped idols. Aaron, rather than being punished is being commissioned to be the closest person on earth to this jealous God whom he has betrayed. Aaron being commissioned as priest is as crazy as President Bush commissioning Osama bin Laden as the Secretary of Defense. How is this possible? Does God mean what he says or does he not really care when people worship idols? Here is a passage in the OT that reveals the amazing grace of God and forces us to see that something greater is going on here than just what meets the eye. In Leviticus 8 Aaron is not only a type of Christ but he is also a picture of Christians. In Exodus 19:6 God told the nation of Israel that he was going to make them into “a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” This exact phrase is repeated by the apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2:9 when he says about us, Christians, “But you are a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a people belonging to God…” Revelation 1:5-6 says, “ To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father…” Christ our high priest by his ministry has made us to be a kingdom of priests. As we watch Moses prepare Aaron to be the priest we are watching our Lord Jesus prepare each one of us to be a priest. How do I know that? First, in Leviticus 8 it is clear that Moses is acting like the priest and Aaron is in the place of the average Israelite. One way this is shown is in how the ram of the ordination offering is divided up. God gets the right thigh that normally goes to the priest and Moses gets the breast that normally goes to the priest and Aaron and his sons get the rest of the animal that normally goes to the people. Second, in Deuteronomy 18 God, through Moses, tells the people of Israel, “ The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.” Then in Acts 3:23, Peter in a sermon to the Jews in Jerusalem quotes that verse, thus showing that Moses is a type of Christ. In this passage as Moses ordains his traitorous brother to be a priest to serve God we are watching how our Lord Jesus turns us into priests. Aaron does not deserve to be the high priest any more than any one of us deserves to be made into a priest of God. Aaron receives his priesthood as an act of grace, through the ministry of Moses just as we receive ours by an act of grace through the work of Jesus. The first thing that Moses did to Aaron was to give him a bath, to wash him. Do you remember how Jesus, at the beginning of the Last Supper, the night he was betrayed went around washing the feet of the disciples? Remember how Peter protested and wasn't going to let Jesus wash his feet. Then " Jesus answered, 'Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.'" Ephesians 5:25-27 says, "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." The only way that we are fit to stand in God's presence as priests is because our Lord Jesus Christ has washed us clean. The second thing that Moses did to Aaron was to dress him in the clothing of the priest. As we have previously seen this splendid clothing represents in part the glory of Christ's holiness and righteousness. The same verb used here for clothing Aaron is used repeatedly in the NT for our being clothed with Christ and his righteousness. In Galatians 3:26-27 we are told, " You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." Romans 13:14, "…clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature." When we place our faith in Christ we put him on. We are clothed in Christ, in his glorious holiness and righteousness. We can enter into the Most Holy Place now and forever because we are wearing Jesus. What is the significance of Moses smearing blood from the ram of ordination on the right ear lobe, right thumb and right big toe of Aaron and his sons? This is a symbol that Aaron's ears have been opened and dedicated to receive the word of God and his hands and feet have been purified to carry out what he hears. It is a symbol of the sanctifying power of the blood of Jesus which not only obtains pardon for our sins but also obtains for us the desire and power to hear God's word and to obey it. We can now, through the blood of Christ, listen to holy words, do holy work and walk in holy ways. Listen to Hebrews 9: 13-14, " The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!" Finally, in Leviticus 8:34 Moses says this about all these sacrifices that have been made and these rituals that have been performed, "What has been done today was commanded by the Lord to make atonement for you." Here is the ultimate reason that a traitor like Aaron, like John Swanson, like you can become a priest. Romans 3:25 says, "God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." God's accepting Aaron as priest calls into question his justice. He said that every idol worshipper would die. Aaron is not only an idol worshipper but the leader of idol worship. So when God not only does not punish Aaron but accepts him as his high priest who is the only one who can come into the Most Holy Place, God's reputation as a just God is in jeopardy. So what can God answer when he is accused of such a gross violation of justice? He simply says, "I killed my son in place of killing Aaron as he deserved." The animals sacrificed on this day of ordination are the symbol of that atonement that the sinless son of God made for Aaron and not only for him but for all who trust in Jesus. Our high priest has made us priests who can freely enter now into God’s very presence without any fear of being burned up. We have been washed clean from all the defilements of our sin. The death penalty that is due us for our many sins has been paid by Christ. We are holy as he is holy. We are no longer condemned but free from all accusation. We can offer a sacrifice of praise to God. We can represent God to others by prayer and by declaring the gospel to them. God’s highest goal has always been to reveal his glory to his people for their eternal joy by…
III. Making us holy priests by anointing us with the Holy Spirit (8:10-13, 30, 9:22-24) Throughout the Bible the act of anointing is often associated with the work of the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 61:1 which is quoted by Jesus as referring to himself when he reads Scripture on a Sabbath day in his hometown of Nazareth says this about God's Messiah, " The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners…" Peter in a sermon he delivered as recorded in Acts 10 says, "You know what has happened throughout Judea , beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached-- how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power…" But not only is Jesus anointed with the Holy Spirit but all who follow him are also anointed with the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, "Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come." 1 John 2:20 & 27, " But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth… As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit-- just as it has taught you, remain in him." Just as Moses anoints Aaron with the oil, so has our Lord Christ anointed us with his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who enables us to see Christ as our high priest and who is the one who guarantees that one day we will literally see the glory of God which we now see by faith. It is by the Holy Spirit's work that we now see the glory of God which has appeared in Christ and we shout for joy and fall down in worship. We know that he is present in our lives when we live as though seeing the glory of God is better than everything else in the universe. When your heart longs for God and not for his gifts, when you can be content with your life because you know God, when you find joy in being loved by God even when humans reject you, when you delight in the glory of Christ that you see in his word, when you are more shocked by your sins being forgiven than by the sins of others against you, then you know that you have been anointed with the Holy Spirit. It is by the work of the Holy Spirit that we know that God has come to live with us and in us. By the anointing of the Holy Spirit we know that all the work of preparation has been done by Christ and now the honored guest has arrived. Each day we draw near to fellowship with our great God and Father by prayer and word personally and in our families and each Sunday we gather as his people to see more of his glory and shout for joy and worship him together through the HS. By the Spirit, we live in the anticipation of that final day when his glory will be permanently present with us in the new heavens and the new earth. God’s highest goal has always been to reveal his glory to his people for their eternal joy by…
© Copyright 2008 John Swanson.
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