Hebrews Lesson 42 February 9, 2006
NKJ
Isaiah 40:8
The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands
forever."
Hebrews 5
The
thrust of these next several chapters (chapter 5, chapter 6 and chapter 8 into
the dealing with the heavenly sanctuary and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and
chapters 9 and 10) all start growing out of this discussion related to the high
priesthood of Jesus Christ. This
is at the core of what the writer of Hebrews is saying - that there is a
superior priesthood in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is understanding that
priesthood and how it functions and the significance of it while He is sitting
in session at the right hand of God the Father that is crucial to understanding
the dynamics of the spiritual life today and what it is for and how it fits
into God’s plan for us and for history down through the future ages. So we
begin in chapter 5 continuing our study of the high priesthood of Christ.
NKJ Hebrews
5:1 For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for
men in things pertaining to God, that
he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.
Verse
1 begins with an explanation. The explanation is indicated by that first word,
for which translates the Greek word gar
which explains something that has been said already. What has been said already
focuses on the fact that we have a high priest.
NKJ
Hebrews 4:14
Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the
heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
We
are to hold fast to our confession. Why? Because we don’t have a High Priest
who is unsympathetic but one who is tested as we are yet without sins so that
we can come boldly before the throne of grace.
Now
he is going to back track a little bit to explain what goes on in terms of the
appointment of a high priest going back into the Old Testament in order to
remind them of certain foundational realities about the Old Testament
priesthood which then becomes a backdrop for understanding what he will say in
verses 5-10. This leads up to a discussion of the high priesthood of Christ as
a Melchizedekean priest. To summarize these 11 verses we would say that the
message of these verses is that the high priest of Israel, Aaron as a man on
behalf of other men, holds his office from God. So also Christ has been
appointed a priest by God the Father after a higher order, the Melchizedekean
priesthood. Though He is eternally the Son of God He becomes through suffering
and prayers in the days of His flesh the author of eternal salvation to us.
That is the thrust. It is talking about the fact that just as Aaron was a
priest in relationship to his race in relationship to Israel on behalf of
Israelites and held his office from God, so also Christ holds His office from
God. And the appointment for Jesus Christ was to be a priest after the order of
Melchizedek. Though He is the eternal Son of God and eternal deity He still has
to go through suffering and prayer in His humanity as preparation for His work
on the cross and His present priesthood. That summarizes what is going on here.
In terms of the major ideas that we see in these verses, there are just a
couple.
First
of all, the first three verses all revolve around the main verb that is given
in verse 1 that every high priest is appointed by God. That is what the first three verses are
all about. The focus of the first three verses is on the Levitical priesthood
and that every high priest is appointed by God.
Then
in verses 5 and 6 we have two Old Testament quotes that aren’t really
expositions of those two verses at all. The two verses are simply quoted which
is typical of rabbinic type of quotation to prove a very simple point. That is
that God appointed Jesus.
NKJ Psalm
2:7 "I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me,
'You are My Son, Today I have
begotten You.
NKJ
Psalm 110:4
The LORD has sworn And will not relent, "You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek."
He
is not really expounding on what those verses say, he is just focusing on that
one narrow point that in those two verses we see that God appointed Jesus
Christ just as Old Testament priests were appointed by God.
Then
there is a development of the significance of that in verses 7 and 8. The main
idea is in verse 8 – though He was a Son - He still had to learn
obedience through the things He suffered and as He learned obedience He was
brought to maturity. That is what those 10 verses summarized and brought down
to a basic level. That is what this section is all about. It sets the stage.
The whole thing is driving to one point – that Jesus Christ is appointed
a priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
Then
he stops and as it were he turns around and verbally slaps them and says, “But
you can’t handle this.” Then he gives them a hard rebuke for the next chapter
and a half before he comes back and talks about the Melchizedekean priesthood.
Why does he do that? Because they are believers; but before they were believers
this group came out of the Levitical priesthood. What they are doing is wanting
to go back to Judaism and back into the function of their Levitical priesthood
because of persecution, because of adversity, because of whatever the external
circumstances are. They want to give up their Christianity and go back to the Levitical
priesthood thinking that somehow this is superior. So what he is doing in
chastising them is telling them that they don’t understand the Old Testament
scriptures and the significance of this priesthood over the priesthood of Aaron
and the priesthood of the Levites and how temporal and limited that priesthood
is.
If
you can’t understand the superior priesthood of Melchizedek you can’t
understand the significance of what is happening in the Church Age right now
and what Jesus Christ is doing on your behalf in session at the right hand of
God the Father. So quit trying to go back to the things that were under the
Mosaic Law because they are simply the shadow of the reality that is in heaven.
So verses 1-4 focus on the human priesthood. That is what we are going to focus
on in our study this evening to make sure that we have the background to
understand what is going on under the Mosaic Law.
So
we will begin in verse 1.
NKJ Hebrews
5:1 For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for
men in things pertaining to God, that
he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.
This
is presented as a normative standard principle. Of course he is not talking
about pagan priesthoods. He is not talking about priesthoods in Greek religions
or Egyptian religion. He is talking about the Levitical priesthood as set forth
in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
The
main verb here, our finite verb that gives us the main action and the emphasis
on the main subject, is kathistemi.
Kathistemi means to assign someone a position of authority, to appoint them
to a position, to put them in charge, to authorize, to appoint, to sit down. It
is the idea of putting someone in a place of authority. It is a present passive
indicative indicating that it has an ongoing timeless result from the present
tense. It is passive in the sense that the priest receives the action of being
appointed. The indicative mood indicates that it is reality.
So
God is the one who appoints them. The purpose is then expressed in the last
part of the verse that He might offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. You
will note that in your Bible, in most of your Bibles especially if you are
using the King James or the New King James, there is a period at the end of
that verse. But, this isn’t the end of the sentence. So verses 1-3 are the
whole sentence in the Greek. The reason that is important is as I teach guys
grammar is that the basic unit of thought in language is a sentence. A sentence
expresses one idea and if it is a compound sentence it may express two ideas
that are linked together. You have a couple of ideas here that are linked
together in the object clause. But what happened with the King James especially
is there was a fundamental belief among the translators to try to make every
verse a complete sentence. The one I love to quote is Ephesians 1: 3-14 which
is one sentence in the Greek. That means that there is one idea there. Some of
these modern translations will break that one idea into as many as 13
sentences. Thirteen sentences mean that there are 13 ideas. Did the Holy Spirit
want to communicate one idea with secondary and tertiary supporting clauses or
did He want to express 13 ideas? So you see when you go to English translations
where the translators has broken a sentence into 4, 8, 10 or 15 sentences; then
in the English we lose something about the structure of the author’s thought.
So things get lost in translation. But the focal point here in these three
verses comes off of this main verb to appoint. Everything else relates to this
main idea that a high priest is appointed by God.
That
High Priest is appointed for men. Here we have the Greek preposition huper plus the genitive which indicates
substitution. We normally see this in relation to the substitutionary atonement
– that Christ died for man. But you see it relates to a priestly
sacrifice and that is what the priests did. They were appointed for a
substitute for other men in the nation so that those (we are not talking about
the males per say but all the people in the nation) who went to God through the
priest who was their substitute, their representative. So a priest is appointed
from among men. He has to be the same kind of creature as that which he is
representing.
So
he is appointed on behalf of or as a substitute for men in the things
pertaining to God. This is the Greek preposition pros which means orientation toward someone. This is his role. It
is restricted to the things that are oriented to God. He has a spiritual
function.
Then
his purpose is that he may offer both gifts. This has to do with sacrificial
gifts and offerings – free will offerings in the Old Testament as well as
sacrifices. You have a vast array of different offerings and sacrifices in the
Old Testament. You have burnt offerings. You have whole grain offerings. All of
these are brought under the category of these two words, gifts and offerings.
So it focuses on the fact that the high priest is appointed for a purpose. He
is the substitutionary representative of the people. His primary role is in
presenting gifts and offerings to God.
Now
this sets us up for understanding and going back to the Old Testament teaching
on priesthood. So we are going to break this down into a number of categories. One
last grammatical point, He offers gifts and sacrifices for sin. That is huper plus the genitive. The sacrifices are a substitution for
sins.
Principles
related to priesthood
The royal high priest was a
distinct priesthood that is indicated by Melchizedek. We don’t have anything
else on it in the Old Testament other than Melchizedek. He is royalty. He is
the King priest over Salem which is later called Jerusalem. His name
Melchizedek is probably a title - King of Righteousness - and not a personal
name. He is a Gentile. So it is a priesthood that is superior to that which is
restricted to only the Jews under the Mosaic Law.
That is the Aaronic or Levitical
priesthood. So that gives us a framework for understanding these three
priesthoods. The Aaronic-Levitical priesthoods are based only on their genetic
relationship to Aaron and the tribe of Levi. There is no indication anywhere in
the Scripture that they just have to be saved, that they have to be in right
spiritual condition. None of that is there. They just have to be connected
genetically to Levi and Aaron. Melchizedek, we don’t understand what the
dynamics were there. Patriarchal relates to any individual. Royal high priests
seem to be related to someone who is regenerate and someone who is saved.
NKJ Exodus 19:6 'And you
shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words which you shall speak to
the children of Israel."
The word “holy” there means a
nation set apart to the service of God. So the whole nation was viewed as this
corporate group that is set apart to the service of God. Hosea 4:6 comes toward
the end of the Old Testament period where there is the announcement of divine
judgment because of their failure.
NKJ Hosea 4:6 My people are
destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also
will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of
your God, I also will forget your children.
You see that the same principle
is true today. The reason you have such problems in Christianity is because
people are ignorant of the Word. They become more and more ignorant of the
Word. They are biblically illiterate. They are doctrinally impoverished. They
are theologically challenged and they don’t care about it. And pastors don’t
care about it. They are more concerned about getting more people in and being a
comfortable place where people won’t feel too uncomfortable. So they don’t talk
about sin. They don’t talk about the things that displease God. They talk about
how wonderful everybody is and let’s all have a big group hug every Sunday
morning. Everybody can go home and be warm and be filled. So everybody is
ignorant.
He will reject them from what? “From
being a priest before Me.” So God rejects Israel from this position of
priesthood because of their failure to fulfill the conditions of the Mosaic
Covenant in the Old Testament. So they don’t fulfill that until the future
Millennial Kingdom when they are restored to the land.
So
let’s spend a little time flipping through some chapters in the Old Testament.
I thought as I was putting this lesson together I could go really fast through
this, but that would assume that a lot of people understand their Old
Testaments. Most people just don’t know the Old Testament. They wander around
and wonder who these people are and what is going on. So let’s take a little
time and work our way through this to understand what the dynamics are.
Exodus
28 is the first reference that we have to a high priest in the Old Testament
but it doesn’t use the word high priest until we get over into Numbers. All we
have here is a reference to Aaron as the priest. There is no mention of a high
priest. In fact that word “high” isn’t even used in the Old Testament. You have
the word for great priest. It is literally great priest. So the word for priest
is the word kohen in the Hebrew. So
anytime you have a Jew who has a name that sounds like kohen, it is a form of the Hebrew word for priest. And they
probably have Levitical ancestry. They have been able to isolate a gene, a
genetic marker, today to indicate who is from the tribe of Levi. That will be
important to be able to reestablish the priesthood when they have the apostate
temple during the tribulation but ultimately they will need it in the
Millennial Kingdom. Of course then you don’t need it because you have an
omniscient Messiah sitting on the throne. He will know who is who.
NKJ
Exodus 28:1
"Now take Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the
children of Israel, that he may minister to Me as priest, Aaron and Aaron's sons: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar,
and Ithamar.
This
is where God appoints a priest. This is what we read in Hebrews 5:1. Every
priest is appointed by God. This is where it takes place in Exodus 28.
Now
that word minister as priest is the Hebrew verb kahan. You see a priest is a kohen
and he ministers as a kahan. That
is the word. It means function as a priest so it is almost a redundant
statement – the priest is going to act as a priest, function as a priest,
and serve as a priest.
This
is the same terminology that we have in Hebrews 5:1 that a priest is chosen
from among men, specifically from the children of Israel.
Here
we have four sons identified- Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Of course we
are going to see a little rebellion that takes place in the family. It is just
great to watch this because Aaron is getting ready to really mess up. While
Moses is up getting the law Aaron is going to lead the people into rebellion.
They fashion a golden calf and he leads them in a big orgy. Moses is going to
have to come down and discipline everybody. Is Aaron kicked out of the
priesthood? No. He still stays in the priesthood.
Then
you have family problems. Everybody has family problems. He’s got two kids that
are rebellious. They will lead a rebellion and get killed. It’s real messy when
you get over into Numbers. We will look at that in a minute.
So
you have the establishment of the priesthood here. They have specific garments
that they wear.
NKJ
Exodus 28:2
"And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and
for beauty.
NKJ
Exodus 28:3
"So you shall speak to all who are gifted
artisans, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make
Aaron's garments, to consecrate him, that he may minister to Me as priest.
Note
that phrase. This is not a filling of the Spirit that is related to their
spiritual life. Remember in the book of Judges you get people like Gideon who
is filled with the Spirit. What happens? “God, are you sure that you want me to
do this? Let me put this fleece out here and see if I can figure out a way to
come up with some conditions that are too hard for you to fulfill so that I
don’t have to go to war against the Midianites.” Then after he defeated the
Midianites he led the nation back into idolatry. He doesn’t come across as real
spiritual.
Then
you have Jeptha. Right after he is filled with the Spirit he says, “Lord, I
will sacrifice as a burnt offering whatever comes out of the front door of my
house to meet me when I come home after the war.” His daughter came out to
greet him when he came home from the war. He did unto her as he said. That is
what the Scripture says. Now there are a lot of squeamish Christians who say
that he didn’t want to kill her so he dedicated her as a perpetual virgin. But
they didn’t do that in Israel at that time. He took her like any pagan and
sacrificed her as a human sacrifice. Really spiritual there! He really
understands what is going on.
Then
you have Samson and Samson is filled with the Spirit. He is a womanizer and a
glutton and he can’t keep his vow. The filling of the Spirit in the Old
Testament doesn’t have anything to do with what we think of as spirituality in
the New Testament – spiritual maturity or spiritual growth. It had to do
with the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to some sort of theocratic
leader.
Now
what do I mean by theocracy? I mean the kingdom of Israel - its function, its
priesthood, the role of revelation to the prophets, leadership through Moses,
leadership through the judges, and leadership through the kings. It had to do
with empowering certain people who had a critical function within the
bureaucracy of Israel in order to enable them to carry out their God given
task.
Aholiab
and Bezalel are filled with the Spirit
so they can make the furniture and the gold craftsmanship doing all the metal
work and woodwork and everything inside the tabernacle - the same thing with
the artisans here.
These
are all of the tailors and those who will make all of the garments.
They
are filled with what? The spirit of wisdom. This is another aspect here. Not
only do they have the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is giving them
wisdom.
You
ought to be thinking, “Wisdom?
Huh. How does wisdom apply to being a tailor? How does wisdom apply to woodworking? How does wisdom apply to metalwork? How
does wisdom apply to being a goldsmith or a silversmith or a jeweler?” That is
because we need a little retranslation here. The word translated wisdom is the
Hebrew word hokmah. (The “h” is a
guttural) It is the word that is primarily translated wisdom. It gives us and
understanding of what the Jewish concept of wisdom was. It is skill at doing
something. Here we have skill at producing physical objects. It is an artistry
so that they produce works of art in wood and garments and gold and silver have
beauty and value. It brings out the whole aesthetic aspect here that is part of
the Christian life. Wisdom is the application of your basic principles of any
kind of work whether it is woodwork, carpentry, being a goldsmith or jeweler or
whatever it might be. It is being able to take those basic principles that you
learn in whatever the discipline is and being able to create something of
beauty, something that glorifies God, something that has tremendous artistic
value to it.
There
is something about aesthetics that Christians just don’t understand. You hear
folks talk about a church. “Let’s just go put up a metal building.” That is
great but you see when God created things He didn’t create things that were
just functional. He created a world of beauty. Aesthetics is part of our
creativity as being in the image of God. So when God is having the Jews build
the tabernacle, it’s not enough to go out and build it from its basic
structure. He wants everything to
be artistic and to be beautiful to reflect the aspect of man being in the image
of God and a reflection of His being a creator.
So
they make Aaron’s garments.
NKJ
Exodus 28:3
"So you shall speak to all who are gifted
artisans, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make
Aaron's garments, to consecrate him, that he may minister to Me as priest.
Then
it goes on to describe the garments. It is a breastplate which had 12 stones in
it, one for each of the 12 tribes.
It had an ephod that was a robe that he wore over that that hung down to
the mid-calf, sort of like a mini-skirt. Then another tunic that went over
that. Then there was a turban that he wore on his head that had a gold plate
that said, “Set apart to the Lord.” This was the uniform of the high priest. On
his epaulettes he had these two stones and on each side were inscribed 6 tribes
of Israel - 6 on one side, 6 on the other side so that he is covered by the
names of the tribes of Israel so that he goes into the tabernacle to represent
them before God. So it is all about his role as a substitute priest and a
representative for the entire nation. Then in the rest of the chapter it
describes the ephod that he wears and how that should be made and the memorial
stones that are on the ephod down in verse 12. Then there is a description of the breastplate and how it
was to be made - the colors and everything down in 15 and following.
Flip
over to chapter 29. We see how they are set apart and consecrated. Once they
made the uniforms, then they had to initially consecrate them. This meant they
had to be washed from head to toe. It was a baptism of sorts. It was a picture
of complete cleansing that took place at the initial part of the priesthood. It
initiated them into the priesthood and set them apart unto God. That was what a
complete washing was a picture of. Jesus uses that imagery in John 13 when He
is washing their feet.
You
remember that Peter said, “You aren’t going to get down there and wash my
feet.”
And
the Lord said, “If you don’t let me wash your feet, then you won’t have any
part with Me in My ministry.” He goes on to say, “All of you were cleansed.”
And
Peter said, “Give me a whole bath.”
Jesus
said, “No. You don’t need a whole bath. That has already happened. You have
already been cleansed from head to toe.”
He
uses the Greek word luo translated
the washing here meaning a complete bath.
“You
don’t need that. You have already had that indicating you are already saved.
You got a complete cleansing at salvation.”
Every
believer is completely cleansed from all sin at the instant of salvation. Sin
is no longer a factor in terms of that eternal relationship with God. There is
a complete cleansing; but afterward there needs to be periodic ongoing
cleansing based on the imagery of the priest. Every time the priest would
function as a priest he would go into the tabernacle or temple and he would
have to go to the laver and wash his hands and he would have to wash his feet.
That was a picture of the fact that we do things and go places that we
shouldn’t. We violate the law so there has to be cleansing before we can come
into the presence of God and serve God.
So
Jesus picks up on that imagery in John 13 saying that this issue of ongoing
cleansing, partial cleansing, (He used the Greek word nipto there meaning a partial washing.) is important for ongoing service
in the Christian life. If we don’t have that then he warns Peter that “he
wouldn’t have a part in My ministry.” The word for part there isn’t the word
for a role like you get a role in a play.
He isn’t talking about that.
He is talking about “you won’t have an inheritance.” It is the word meros indicating that portion of a will
that designates the inheritance share going to the survivor. It is the same
word used when the prodigal son comes to the father and says, “I want my meros. I want my inheritance now.”
So
what Jesus is saying to Peter is, “If you don’t go through this ongoing
cleansing then you won’t have an inheritance share in the kingdom because
everything that you are going to do is going to come out of the sin nature.” It
will all be human good and it will all get burned up at the Judgment Seat of
Christ. So there has to be ongoing cleansing. That imagery comes right out of
Exodus 29. All of this goes back to an understanding of the appointment of the
priest in the Old Testament and the setting apart of the priest in the Old
Testament. So we see from Exodus 28 that it is God who chose and appointed
Aaron as a priest.
NKJ Numbers 18:7
"Therefore you and your sons with you shall attend to your priesthood for
everything at the altar and behind the veil; and you shall serve. I give your
priesthood to you as a gift for
service, but the outsider who comes near shall be put to death."
Oops! Any other priest who comes
in anyone who tries to function as a priest who is not a descendent of Aaron is
going to be put to death. This happened on several occasions as we will see in
the Old Testament. God had to make it very clear that His rules were not to be
violated. Only those who were designated as priests could make atonement for
sin. Someone couldn’t go in and offer a sacrifice for just anyone.
NKJ Psalm
65:3 Iniquities prevail against me; As for our transgressions, You will provide atonement for them.
The context is talking to the
Levitical priests.
NKJ Exodus
29:36 "And you shall offer a bull every day as a sin offering for atonement. You
shall cleanse the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it
to sanctify it.
The instructions are directed to
Aaron. The word there for atonement is kaphar
and has the idea of cleansing from sin. Only the priests could make atonement
for sin. So what we have seen is that God appointed the priesthood. God says
that it is only going to be through Aaron and his sons. The ultimate purpose is
for atonement. There are other purposes that we will look at in just a minute.
NKJ Exodus
28:21 "And the stones shall have the names of the sons of
Israel, twelve according to their names, like
the engravings of a signet, each one with its own name; they shall be
according to the twelve tribes.
NKJ Exodus
28:29 "So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel
on the breastplate of judgment over his heart, when he goes into the holy place, as a memorial before the LORD
continually.
All of this had tremendous
symbolic value indicating that he was their representative.
NKJ Deuteronomy
18:5 "For the LORD your God has chosen him out of all your
tribes to stand to minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons forever.
So this was a designation to Aaron
and his descendents. A priest was also to pray for the nation - not to just
bring sacrifices and offerings but to pray for the nation.
NKJ Joel 2:17 Let the
priests, who minister to the LORD, Weep between the porch and the altar; Let
them say, "Spare Your people, O LORD, And do not give Your heritage to
reproach, That the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the
peoples, 'Where is their God?' "
This was a prayer. They were to
intercede for the people. This is what the Lord is doing as part of His high
priestly duties at the right hand of God the Father. He is interceding for us.
So the Old Testament priest was to intercede for the nation in praying for the
nation.
Further more they were to teach
the Law. They were to teach the Law to the people. This is indicated in two
verses.
NKJ Leviticus
10:11 "and that you may teach the children of Israel all the
statutes which the LORD has spoken to them by the hand of Moses."
So they were the Bible teachers
throughout Israel. So they would travel. They didn’t have their own land. They
didn’t have their own inheritance portion in the land of Israel because they
were to minister to the whole nation. They were to travel and teach the Word.
NKJ Malachi 2:7 "For the
lips of a priest should keep knowledge, And people
should seek the law from his mouth; For he is the messenger of the LORD of
hosts.
There is an indictment of the
priesthood in that chapter. The
reason for the indictment is because they weren’t teaching. So we get the principle in Malachi
2:7.
So he taught the Word. He is a
messenger from the Lord, but in a different way from a prophet. A prophet
basically functioned like a prosecutor who was charging the people, indicting
them for failure to follow the Mosaic Law. So the prophet’s role was directly
related to making statements either positive or negative in relationship to the
fulfillment of the Law.
One of the things that has
really hit home to me in the last year as I have been teaching this Old
Testament survey course is that in the Old Testament you look at books like
Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings. Now in the English
Bible we talk about those books as being part of history. They are part of the
historical section of the Old Testament.
And that makes sense to us. But in the Hebrew Bible there are 3 sections
– the Torah (the first 5 books.), the Nebiim (the prophets) and the
Kethubim (the writings). Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings are part of the
former prophets. We think of prophecy too much in terms of foretelling the
future or bringing an indictment from God against the nation because that is
what happens under the latter prophets including Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah,
Malachi, and Zechariah. All of the 12 minor prophets are bringing indictments
against Israel because they have failed to fulfill the Mosaic Law. What do you
see in Joshua? How is Joshua a prophet? Joshua shows how the people obeyed the
law and God gave them victory over the Canaanites and blessed them. Then what
happens in Judges? Judges is a picture of their failure to obey God and to
apply the law. The nation falls apart in complete anarchy because everyone is
doing what is right in their own eyes and there is no central government.
Because there is no central government there is anarchy and everything falls
apart. So you can’t have a society where you can trust people to be their own
authority because it is going to fall apart. There has to be government. God instituted government. Even though
there are failures in government, government is a divine institution. Even when
you have flawed government such as in the Roman Empire, in Greece or in various
human kingdoms; it is still the institution that God has established for the
order and preservation of mankind. Man is going to fail even under government.
Every institution is going to ultimately fail because of sin. But the
institutions when they are applied correctly do give stability to the nation.
So the priests are to pray for the nation. They are to teach the law. They are
to be an example of personal sanctification. They are to be an example to the others of spiritual growth
and advance to spiritual maturity.
NKJ Deuteronomy
33:9 Who says of his father and mother, 'I have not seen them';
Nor did he acknowledge his brothers, Or know his own children; For they have
observed Your word And kept Your covenant.
Deuteronomy 33:9 is addressed to
Levi starting in verse 8.
The focus of this verse is to
say that the priest who is obedient to his calling is going to put spiritual
priorities above even his family. They will be an example of obedience to the
Word and keeping the covenant.
NKJ Leviticus
10:1 Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his
censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before
the LORD, which He had not commanded them.
What that means by “profane
fire: is that this isn’t the incense that has been authorized by God to be
presented by Aaron and his family in the right way. They are thinking that they
can define a relationship with God on their own terms. Why is it so exclusive? Why
it is that Jesus is the only way. “We have a good way. We have good fire. Our
matches work just as well as anybody else’s. So why can’t we do it?”
NKJ Leviticus
10:2 So fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they
died before the LORD.
So God has to put an end to this at the very beginning. They
died before the Lord. I would love to see some good special effects on this.
This must have been incredible. Some of the things that took place at the
judgments of God on the rebelliousness of the Jews, you would think that you
would get the lesson that got to get authority oriented pretty quickly. But all through this period they
are rebelling against the priesthood of Aaron. They don’t like Aaron. They
don’t like Moses. Everybody wants
to do what is right in their own eyes basically.
NKJ Leviticus
10:3 And Moses said to Aaron, "This is what the LORD spoke,
saying: 'By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all
the people I must be glorified.' " So Aaron held his peace.
They were coming before God in
an inappropriate way without the proper cleansing and consecration. The same
thing happens with believers who are out of fellowship. It is treating God as
if you can come to Him and have a relationship with Him on your terms rather
than His terms. So that gives a little background. This happens early on right
after the consecration of Aaron and his sons.
Then we have another rebellion a
little later on as they are going through the wilderness. This occurs before
Kadesh Barnea in Numbers 16. So turn from Leviticus to the next book, Numbers.
Excuse me, this comes after Kadesh Barnea. That was in chapter 15. So now there
is a further rebellion. You would think that after God prohibited them from
going into the land that they would get the point, but they don’t. That is a
picture of all of us. We are all a lot more like this than we like to
think.
NKJ Numbers
16:1 Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of
Levi, with Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons
of Reuben, took men;
They are Levitical, but they are
not Aaronic. Only Aaron can go into the Holy of Holies and his
descendents.
NKJ Numbers
16:2 and they rose up before Moses with some of the children of
Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, representatives of the
congregation, men of renown.
They lead a revolt of 250
leaders thinking that they have just as a legitimate way to get to God as
anyone else’s. “Our way is a good way. All roads lead to God. All paths lead to
God so God is going to honor us for our sincerity.”
NKJ Numbers
16:3 They gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to
them, "You take too much upon
yourselves, for all the congregation is holy,
every one of them, and the LORD is among
them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?"
I just love it. Moses heard it
and he fell on his face. We are going to see some more fireworks from God. He
warns them that God will show tomorrow morning that He is holy and who is
authorized to come before Him and who is not. So he says, “Okay. You guys want
to go before God. So take your censers and put fire in them. (Put incense in
them like the earlier revolt that we read about in Leviticus 10) Come in and
come before God.” So they did that and again God judges them and wipes them all
out. As a result of that he brings judgment upon the people. But that is not
enough for God to wipe out Korah, Dathan and Abiram. He wipes out their
families. He wipes out their tents. He basically blots out anything that they
touched. That is described later
in the chapter. But the next day we get down to verse 41.
NKJ Numbers
16:41 On the next day all the congregation of the children of
Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying, "You have killed the
people of the LORD."
What part of divine judgment don’t you understand? People are stubborn in their sin. That
is what I like about the Scripture. We get a “high” view of who we are and how
“obedient” we are. This is a picture of the fact that we really aren’t.
NKJ Numbers
16:42 Now it happened, when the congregation had gathered against
Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tabernacle of meeting; and
suddenly the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD appeared.
The wrath goes out and Moses
calls upon Aaron to put a censer of fire before the altar in order to stop this
plague that goes out. Before that gets done 14,700 get killed in this
particular rebellion. But that’s not the end of it. So you would think that
they would get the point. But it just keeps going.
So they have questioned the
authority of Aaron. It is at this point that he tells Aaron to take his staff
and put it into the tent of meaning along with these other leaders who were vying
for this authority. God is going to create a miracle the next day. Overnight the dead stick is going to
produce life. That is the picture. God is going to bring life where there is
death. And God is going to bring life in this dead stick to indicate that Aaron
in His choice. So once again Aaron is chosen and appointed. It is clear that
this is God’s choice. But Aaron will revolt against Moses again. That is the
reason that he is not allowed to go into the Promised Land. But God doesn’t
remove the priesthood from Aaron or from his family.
Now the last point I am going to
make is that the term that is used to describe Aaron as the high priest is
really the term “great priest”. The first place that is used is in Numbers
35:25, 28. But when we come to Jesus He is the Great High Priest. We have an added term there to indicate
His superiority to all of the Old Testament great priests.
So Hebrews 5:1 talks about
reminding us of the basic principle which was clear to the original recipients
of this letter because they are all former Levitical priests. Every high priest
is appointed by God for men in things related to God that he may offer gifts
and sacrifices for sin. So the point that is being made is that God appoints
the high priest. And he has to have the same nature, the same makeup as those
whom he represents.
The reason for that is then developed in the next couple of verses. We will get there next time.