Hebrews
Lesson 43 February 16, 2006
NKJ John 14:6 Jesus
said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through Me.
Hebrews
5
The focus of these first 10 verses that we began last
time is on the superiority of Christ’s priesthood. Just as the human priesthood
was under the Mosaic Law, the Aaronic high priesthood
was a priesthood held by a man on behalf of other men; but his office was held
at the authorization of God. In the same way Christ as a man represents other
men and His position as a priest was the result of
God’s appointment. That is the thrust of these verses. Just as God appointed
Old Testament priests, so God appointed Jesus Christ. It was not a matter of self-glorification, but a
matter of appointment under the authority of God within the framework of God’s
plan for human history. It has implications not only for you and me as
believers in the Lord Jesus Christ today in the Church Age, but also in terms
of our future destiny to rule and reign with the Lord Jesus Christ as kings and
priests as emphasized in the book of Revelation. The thrust of these first 3
verses is on the fact that every high priest is appointed by
God. This is a general principle.
That is, every high priest in reference to the Old
Testament was appointed by God. We covered that last time. There are
certain purposes for that priesthood. This is defined in both verses 1 and 2 in
chapter 5.
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.
That is offerings in reference to free will offerings and various
offerings outlined under the Mosaic Covenant and sacrifices for sin should be
taken for one phrase. That relates to the burnt offerings, guilt offerings,
trespass offerings and offerings related to the Day of Atonement. These were
all different sacrifices, blood sacrifices, that
foreshadowed the substitutionary spiritual atonement
of Jesus Christ on the cross. Last time we spent the time looking at the
background of the Aaronic priesthood and what is
taught about that in the Old Testament to give you background because the under
girding argument that runs from chapter 5 through chapter 8 is the superiority
of Jesus’ priesthood over that of the Aaronic
priesthood.
Now why is he arguing that? We sit here as gentiles 1900 years later
saying, “Okay. Why is that significant?” It was significant to them because
they were former Jewish priests saved out of a Levitical
system. That was their frame of reference. They had apparently left Judaism and
were in a Christian community of some sort. There are a lot of questions that
we have on exactly who these individuals were; but they were coming under
different kinds of pressure, persecution, adversity, and rejection from their
Jewish relatives – those who were still serving as priests. Because of
that pressure, they were on the verge of giving up this new faith in Christ and
going back under the Mosaic system. That is why the writer of Hebrews is
challenging them not to fall by the wayside, not to drift away as he says in
2:1, but to press on. As part of his rationale that he builds to encourage them
and challenge them is to emphasize the superiority of the new priesthood of
Jesus Christ. This is superior to that of the temporary priesthood that was
defined in the Mosaic Law in the Old Testament. To do that, he builds a case
through Old Testament scripture references. He does it by analyzing the
institution of the priesthood under the Mosaic Law.
So last time we looked at that background of the Levitical
priesthood and we noted several things. I am not going to go through every
point that I went through last time. We noted that there are three priesthoods
in the Old Testament. There was a patriarchal priesthood that came into
existence after Adam sinned. It was established. We know that Abel offered
sacrifices for himself and Noah offered sacrifices for the family. Abraham
offered sacrifices. Isaac offered sacrifices for the family. This was a
patriarchal priesthood that was based on the leadership of the father over the
family. In some cases, if it was an individual, they could offer sacrifices for
themselves
The second priesthood was the Melchizedekean
priesthood. Both the patriarchal priesthood and the Melchizedekean
priesthood were based upon regeneration. They were believers. The Melchizedekean priesthood was a royal priest. Melchizedek
was a Gentile. His priesthood was royal. He was the
king of Salem. The town Salem later became Jerusalem. So Melchizedek is the royal
high priest in Jerusalem. As a gentile that priesthood applies to all people,
not just the Jews.
Then under the Mosaic Law God instituted a temporary priesthood based on
genetics, based on their relationship to Levi as one of the 12 tribes of
Israel. So the priesthood in general is based on Levitical
descent. The high priesthood is based on descent from Aaron who is Moses’ older
brother. Moses was appointed by
God to be the high priest in Exodus 28. The priesthood would pass down through
his children. That will be the case even in the Millennial Kingdom. The Zadokite (those that followed David) priesthood is a
descendent from the priesthood Aaron.
Those three priesthoods are functional in the Old Testament. The one
that is under examination here is the Aaronic high
priesthood. The contrast is that
these men were used to the Mosaic system based on the Levitical
offerings of the Mosaic Law. It was a temporary priesthood. But, Christ’s priesthood
is superior because it follows the order of Melchizedek.
We also looked at the role of the priest. The priest
had a role to serve in the temple (the tabernacle and later the temple):
We also looked at the anointing of the priest at the
initiation of his responsibilities as well as some of the instances related to
the rebellion against Aaron’s priesthood. We will come back and look at that
some of that again this evening by way of review.
So there are 3 things that we learned from verse 1.
That is the thrust of verse 1.
NKJ Hebrews 5:2 He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since
he himself is also subject to weakness.
Then we have the purpose given in the opening part of
verse 2. Now if you are looking at your Bible, verse 2 probably stands as a
separate sentence.
That is not how it reads in the original. It begins in
the original with the present active infinitive of the Greek verb metriopatheo which is an infinitive of purpose here. This indicates a
purpose for the operation of the priesthood.
Literal
translation: In order
that he would have compassion on those who are ignorant.
It emphasizes that it moderates one’s feelings. It has
the idea of dealing gently with somebody, to bear reasonably with somebody, to
exercise moderation toward someone in relation to their
emotions and passions. The idea here is that the priest is not the one who will
come along and be judgmental. The individual comes along and brings his
sacrifice. He is going to admit his sins when he lays his hands upon the goat. For
example in the scapegoat offering he will rehearse his sins. The priest will
hear that. He will not act shocked. The priest is not going to judge him. It is
a matter between the individual and the Lord. So the priest is one who can have
compassion or understanding.
Then we have two words that come up - ignorant and led
astray. This relates to two different kinds of sins that are indicated in the
Old Testament. The first is a sin of ignorance. It is not that they are
ignorant people; it is that they have committed a sin and they are not aware of
the fact that it is a sin. Many times we may commit certain acts that we may or
may not know we are sins. We may not know that it is a sin. Other times we may
commit a sin right in the middle of an entire chain of sins and we don’t even
realize that we committed that sin. We are out there and we are gossiping or
slandering character assassination right in the middle with some blasphemy and we
didn’t even recognize that. We all do that. We get involved in a string of sins
at times. Rather than have to confess every one of them we use I John 1:9.
NKJ 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
He cleanses us from the known and unknown sins. So this
word here in the Greek is agnoeo. The “a” at the beginning serves like the “un” prefix
in English. It negates the word. Then the word noeo is from the root like gnosis
or epignosis. It is that word for knowledge. So it
indicates ignorance, to be uniformed, to not know something, to not be aware of
the fact that something is a sin.
So there is one class of sin that comes under unknown sins. They are not
willful sins.
The second class is defined by the verb planao - to be
misled, to be deceived, to cause something to go
astray in a specific way or from a specific way. This indicates a known or
willful path of sin. It covers both. It covers your unknown sins. It covers
your known sins. It covers you sins of ignorance. It covers your sins of
cognizance. So it is the role of the priest to be understanding
of those who have committed unknown sins and those who have committed willful
sins.
This is the verb perikeimai which indicates that he is surrounded by weakness.
The last word is astheneia. This is an interesting
word. I always have fun with this one. The “a” at the beginning is the same
alpha prefix that indicates a negation. The word stheneia is the word for strength. So literally it means without strength. Now
the word can refer to lack of physical strength in the sense of illness or
weakness or being crippled or anything like that. This is how it is used most
of the time in the gospels. However there it is one statement that Jesus says
that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. There it is talking about a
spiritual weakness or a spiritual inability. About 75% of the time in the Gospels
that word is used to refer to physical sickness. That is usually the word that
you find those who were sick came to Jesus and were
healed.
Then when you get into the epistles this percentage
does a fill flop. About 75-80% of the time in the epistles the word refers to a
spiritual weakness, a spiritual inability. It is rarely used to refer to a
physical illness. This is the same word that is used in that passage in James 5
that everybody gets curious about when it talks about sickness.
NKJ James 5:14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the
elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the
name of the Lord.
Everybody thinks it has something to do with physical
healing. But it doesn’t have anything to do with physical healing. The word
that is used there is asthenes.
It refers to a spiritual weakness. That is exactly what the whole book of James
is talking about – to persevere in times of testing. That doesn’t have anything
to do with being sick. It doesn’t fit the category of being a health test. It
is that if any of you are spiritually falling apart call for spiritually mature
believers to pray for them. It emphasizes that aspect of prayer. There are
synonyms that are used in the passage that are also translated sickness. But,
they don’t have anything to do with sickness; they have to do with weakness. So
that is the meaning of that passage in case that ever comes up. It doesn’t have
anything to do with physical sickness.
One of the hardest things that new pastors have to
deal with especially (old pastors do too) if a congregation is not very well
taught is to be in a situation like I found myself in when I first went to
Irving about 20 years ago to pastor a church. I was going back to Dallas to
work on my doctorate. About a month after I arrived (Of course I hadn’t had
much time to lay any ground work or deal with anything.) there was a young
woman in the congregation who was pregnant and she started to miscarry. She and
her husband went to the hospital. There is an interesting back
story. I really didn’t know this lady. She was 4 or 5 years younger than
me. She had grown up at Camp Penile. Her father was a well
known Sunday school teacher at Bethel Presbyterian here in Houston. Her
husband was well known because when he was at Baylor he was like a spy feeding
inside information on the liberals at Baylor to Paul Pressler
and some of the others who were leading the conservative side of the Baptists
resurgence of the orthodox view of the inerrancy of the Scripture. They were a
nice couple but they had some funny ideas. They called me and wanted to know if
I would come down to the hospital and pray with them. I did. I showed up and
there were two other men from the church there with a bottle of Wesson oil. It
was time to anoint with oil and pray for the sick. When a woman is about to
have a miscarriage this is not the opportunity to take time to teach them a
little doctrine. Trust me! That comes with experience as a pastor. You anoint
them with oil. You pray and you
wait until a more opportune time to straighten them out. That is what I did. I
had been a pastor long enough at that point to realize that there are times
when you suck it up and go with the flow because otherwise all you will do is
create trauma.
Every body gets messed up with English translations at
times because they have always been translated a certain way. Most people don’t
realize this – Bible translations are a money-making
business. Most of us don’t think about it that way, but it is. The number one
best seller is the Bible. And why do you think there are so many different
translations coming out? I know of two more translations that are coming out
this year. It is a money-making business. But, they
learned (at least the conservative evangelicals learned )
back in the ‘50’s that if you don’t translate certain verses the way they have
always been translated then some radical fundy is
going to accuse you of radical heresy and your Bible won’t sell. That is what
happened with the RSV when they didn’t translate Isaiah 9:6 with virgin. They translated it
with young woman. Ooooo! The conservatives just hit
the ceiling over that and the sales fell off. So Bible publishers learned back
then that you don’t change things up too much, especially well known familiar
verses because people won’t buy the translation. So some of these verses don’t
change a lot even though we have superior knowledge of Greek and theology
background studies and other things simply because they don’t want to lose
money on their investment. It is sad when it comes down to business.
This word astheneia is not talking about physical sickness; it talks
about spiritual weakness. The priest is a fallen human being just like the
fallen human beings that come to him. He shows a compassion
and an understanding for them rather than a self-righteous judgmental attitude.
He is the one who represents them before God as he brings sacrifices for sins
to God with reference to their sin.
Literal
translation: In order
to have compassion on those who are sinning out of ignorance and out of willfulness
since he himself is also subject to spiritual weakness
and failure.
NKJ Hebrews 5:3 Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself,
to offer sacrifices for sins.
He is from among the people and has spiritual
weakness.
The human priest has to offer sacrifices for his own
sins as well as well as for those who come before him because he is just as
much a fallen sinner as they are.
We get an example of this in Leviticus 16:6. So turn
with me in your Bible back to Leviticus 16. We are going to spend a little more
time looking at the background to the priesthood in the Old Testament.
In Leviticus 16 we have the initiation of the Day of
Atonement, Yom Kippur, the one time a year when the high priest would go into
the inner Holy of Holies. He would go behind the veil and put the blood on the
mercy seat, which pictured the propitiatory sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I always have fun on Thursday night when we have our
Hebrews class because I get to tell stories on my Thursday morning class at the
College of Biblical Studies. We all learned a new word today. I think that
there were three people in the class that had heard the word “propitiation”
before. I like to bring those things in because I want you to recognize that
the vast majority of believers out there are biblically illiterate. And it is
just getting worse. And I am not talking down on that group. They are there at
the college because they realize they don’t know anything about the Bible and
they need to learn something about the Bible. And that is why they are there. I
made the point today and I try not to be too heavy handed on this. I hadn’t
said this before with this class but I said it this morning. “Just a little
thought moment here. If you are here at the College of Biblical Studies because
you aren’t learning the Bible at your local church from you pastor then perhaps
(using that time honored Texas idiom of a double subjunctive) you might ought
to think about going to a church that teaches the Bible.” I saw about three
light bulbs go off today. It is amazing that people just don’t think about
this. Five people said that they had heard a sermon on propitiation. I was
pleased to hear that; but that meant that there were 11 people who had never heard
a message on propitiation. So we learned a new word today because we were going
through Exodus and I got into the basics of the furniture in the tabernacle as
we went through there.
NKJ Leviticus 16:1 Now the LORD spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when
they offered profane fire before the
LORD, and died;
That is a reference to what happens in Leviticus 10. Just
so we have a little background on this, let’s turn back to Leviticus 10.
All that goes on between 10 and 16 is instructional. It
is important for us to go back to see what happens in chapter 10 because all of
this relates to the principle that the writer of Hebrews is establishing in
these first four verses - that the priest is appointed by God. Nobody else has the right to appoint a
priest. Nobody can be self appointed as the high
priest. God is the one who determines who the high priest is. This goes back to
that wonderful principle of exclusivity that we find in the Scripture that
unbelievers hate. That is that there is only one way to God and He is the one
who defines what that way is. There was only one way on the ark and that was
through the door. There was only one way to survive the flood and that was on
the ark. There was only one way into the presence of God in the tabernacle. You
had to go through the gate. And to go through the gate the first thing that had
to happen was there had to be a sacrifice on the brazen altar. You can’t come
into the presence of God unless you do it on the basis of His rules and first
of all there has to be a blood sacrifice. After that there was the laver and
there had to be cleansing from sin before the priest can go into the presence
of God.
Now Aaron had four sons – Nadab,
Abihu, Ithamar, and Eleazar. Nadab and Abihu were as rebellious as the rest of the Exodus
generation. I think that was one of the key points that God was demonstrating
with this Exodus generation. He was demonstrating His grace in delivering them
from slavery in Egypt. But he was demonstrating the horrible consequences of
rebellion. They were the generation to exemplify rebellion. They were the
poster children of rebellion. I think that if you think about the plan of God, just
as Galatians 4:4 says that Jesus came in the fullness of times, I think that
God waited till this particular generation to deliver them from slavery in
Egypt. God is a multi-tasker. Part of what He was
doing is (they were now large enough to bring them back to the land), He chose this generation because He knew that they were so
rebellious. He didn’t start with their children who were not rebellious but
with them to demonstrate His grace to a rebellious generation. So often we
learn (I do, y’all probably don’t) from making mistakes more than from doing it
right. I think most of us are probably that way. After we have screwed up about
20 times or 20,000 times then we finally figure out why this is important and
why God said to do it a certain way. The basic issue in the angelic conflict is
authority orientation. This is why the Scriptures make such an issue out of
authority. That was the original sin of Satan. It was arrogance, but it was
directed in the rejection of God’s authority.
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.
So Nadab and Abihu decide that they are going to enter into the presence
of God on their own terms. Again it shows that God is the one who defines the
terms.
The result was divine judgment.
NKJ Leviticus 10:2 So fire went out from the LORD and devoured
them, and they died before the LORD.
Now here is Aaron. If you are a parent, put yourself
in Aaron’s place. Aaron has just lost two of his sons. What is God’s
instruction?
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.
So Aaron’s reaction as a human being and as a father
would be anger and resentment and grief and the overt expression of that. But
God says that you can’t do that because the issue was a higher issue. They were
violating God’s holiness.
I want you to pay attention to this statement that
Moses makes in verse 3. I must be regarded as what? Holy. Now we have studied this word before. Some of you may
need to be reminded that the word “holy” does not mean morally pure. That is
what most people think of as holy. Holiness is one of those words that are over
used in Christian vocabulary. Most people don’t know what it means. It is based on the Hebrew word qodesh which
means to be set apart. That’s the main idea. When it is applied to God the root
idea is to be unique. I think more and more that the distinction of God, the
uniqueness of God, relates to the fact that He is the creator. It reinforces the creator-creature
distinction. God is totally different. God is the creator. We are the
creatures. He is unique. He is distinct. He must be treated that way. One of
the things that makes Him distinct is His righteousness
and His justice. That is how righteousness and justice play in as a secondary
idea to the main idea of being set apart. But because we are called to serve
Him as believers we must align ourselves with His holiness. We cannot treat
that lightly. He is totally distinct and we must not treat Him in a profane,
light, or unworthy manner. That is really what it meant in the Mosaic Law not
to take the Lord’s name in vain. It doesn’t have the idea of fixing the name of
God or Jesus before a statement of profanity. It means to take His name or to
use it in a light manner. People who say, “Praise Jesus.” Or “Hallelujah!” as an
automatic response to everything without thinking about what those statements
mean are taking the Lord’s name in a light manner. You never thought about that
did you? They are treating it in just as much a light manner with no real
meaning as someone who uses God or Jesus as a curse word.
When do we come near to God? Every time we pray as
believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The word there for holy is related
to our other word, sanctify. That is why when we begin to pray we
confess our sins. That is experiential cleansing or sanctification. We
recognize that we are coming into the presence of a righteous and just God. There
must be cleansing of sin before we do that. We don’t come into God’s presence
after we have been running around in the yard so to speak and all dirty with
sin like it doesn’t matter. We must come to God the way He says we come to Him
and not treat Him lightly. This is what is pictured with Nadab
and Abihu. They want to come to God on their own
terms. The result was that God took them out immediately.
Now let’s go back to chapter 16.
NKJ Leviticus 16:1 Now the LORD spoke to Moses after the death of
the two sons of Aaron, when they offered profane
fire before the LORD, and died;
NKJ Leviticus 16:2 and the LORD said to Moses: "Tell Aaron your brother not to come
at just any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy
seat which is on the ark, lest he
die; for I will appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.
You see, this is really serious. You don’t come to God on your terms. You come to God on His terms. He
has the right to define how we come to Him. No man can come to God except
through Jesus Christ. He is the only way.
NKJ John 14:6 Jesus
said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through Me.
You can’t
come to God on the basis of your sincerity or on the basis of ritual you engage
in or on the basis of your own concept that “I am really a great and wonderful
person and I have given all this effort and energy to religious observance. God
ought to let me come into His presence because I am a wonderful person.” That
is how most people want to come into the presence of God. They never think of
the fact that this is a God who is holy.
Let’s turn for a minute to Isaiah 6. Sometimes I think
it is good for us to just reflect upon the holiness of God and what that really
means and how totally distinct and how radically other God is in terms of His
righteousness and justice. Isaiah is speaking.
NKJ Isaiah 6:1 In the year that King Uzziah
died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of
His robe filled the temple.
He has a vision where he sees the Lord or he is
transported in some way before the very throne of God.
NKJ Isaiah 6:2 Above it stood seraphim;
each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his
feet, and with two he flew.
NKJ Isaiah 6:3 And one cried to another and said: "Holy,
holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The
whole earth is full of His
glory!"
So the emphasis here is on the holiness of God.
NKJ Isaiah 6:4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the
voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
NKJ Isaiah 6:5 So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in
the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD
of hosts."
Isaiah just falls on his face. It is like an automatic
reaction. He is scared to death because he realizes how unworthy and unclean he
is to be in the presence of God. He screamed out.
This is his vision of the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the supreme incarnate Lord Jesus Christ.
NKJ Isaiah 6:6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from
the altar.
NKJ Isaiah 6:7 And he touched my mouth with it, and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; Your
iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged."
What are we talking about here? This is cleansing
– confession of sin. Isaiah is already a believer. The fact is that we
can’t come into the presence of God without cleansing because God is a holy God
and we have to take that seriously. There are too many believers today who have
so trivialized God in terms of the love of God and the friendship of Jesus
(“What a Friend We Have in Jesus”) that while these things are true; it
minimizes the significance of God in His holiness and His righteousness. Whenever
we see someone in the Scriptures like John as we will see on Sunday morning in
Revelation 1 see the risen Lord Jesus Christ in His holiness or the Lord Jesus
Christ or like Isaiah in Isaiah 6
- they fall on their faces. It’s the light of the glory of God. It
exposes our sin to the core of our being. It has to be an unnerving reality for
someone to be in this kind of light. It is a moral light. It isn’t just a
physical light. It exposes who we are. This is why people react to God. They
don’t want that. They don’t want to be exposed. But that is what the Word of
God does.
John says this in John 3.
NKJ John 3:19
"And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
The inclination of the sinful heart is that we don’t
want the exposure that comes from being in the presence of the light.
Back to Leviticus 16.
There is only one way before God. So Aaron has to come
into the ark. This whole passage in chapter 16 leads up to and describes the
operation on the Day of Atonement when the high priest goes in and presents this
sacrifice for the nation. But what precedes the sacrifice for the nation is
that he has to have a sacrifice for himself first. That is what Hebrews 5:3 is
talking about. The priest is required to offer a sacrifice for his sins before
he offers a sacrifice for the people because he has to be cleansed.
So God instructs Moses that Aaron can’t come inside
the veil except once a year.
NKJ Leviticus 16:3 "Thus Aaron shall come into the Holy Place: with the blood of a
young bull as a sin offering, and of a
ram as a burnt offering.
A sin offering was offered for unknown, unwilling
sins. A burnt offering was a symbol of one’s whole presentation of himself to
God in the sense that he is presenting himself to the service of God. So the
priest would come and offer a sin offering and a burnt offering for himself
first.
NKJ Leviticus 16:4 "He shall put the holy linen tunic and the linen trousers on his
body; he shall be girded with a linen sash, and with the linen turban he shall
be attired. These are holy garments.
Therefore he shall wash his body in water, and put them on.
Notice the detail here. He has to get dressed in a
certain way. You see God’s details on how we enter His presence extended in the
Levitical system down to how the priest dressed. He had to wear his priestly garments. He
had to put them on a certain way. And before he put them on he had to make sure
that he took a full bath. So he has to treat this with all of
the honor and respect that it is due because it is all holy to the Lord.
That is what was on the plate on the headdress that the high priest wore,
“Holiness to the Lord”. It is all about holiness. In fact that is the key word
in the book of Leviticus. Man just can’t come into the presence of God without there being a sacrifice.
NKJ Leviticus 16:5 "And he shall take from the congregation of the children of Israel
two kids of the goats as a sin offering, and one ram as a burnt offering.
NKJ Leviticus 16:6 " Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for
himself and for his house.
That comes first. Before he can function as a priest
to the nation, he had to deal with his own spiritual condition.
Now we are going to get into some interesting fun
stuff. The word atonement is always difficult word for people to get a grasp
of. It is an English word that is made up with the idea of at onement - the bringing together of two opposing parties. Atonement
was put together with those two words, at onement. It
has that idea of bringing things together. And for a long time (you probably
have been taught this) I used to teach this until I did some recent study. The
word for atonement in the Hebrew is the word kaphar. It was the idea of
covering. Now that was easy. When I was a first year Hebrew student memorizing
vocabulary kaphar
– cover. That works. I can remember that. But recent studies in cognate
languages (languages related to Hebrew just as you have romance languages
Latin, French, Spanish that are cognate languages. Many times if you are a
Spanish speaker you can hear Italian and work your way through what they are
saying. If you speak Arabic and you are listening to a Hebrew speaker you can
pretty much figure out what they are saying. The same thing is true with other
ancient Near Eastern languages like Ugaritic and
Acadian.) So traditionally the concept of atonement because of the picture that
you see with the Ark of the Covenant is a covering of sin.
Let me remind you what the Ark of the Covenant looked
like. It is a box. It is a wooden box covered with gold. That is a picture of
the hypostatic union. The wood represented the humanity of Christ. The gold represented
the deity of Christ. Inside the box were placed 3 things – the broken Ten
Commandments which took place after Mt. Sinai when
they rebelled against God and they had Aaron make a golden calf, manna, and
Aaron’s rod that budded that we will look at in a minute in Numbers 16. All
three of those things represent Israel’s rejection of God’s provision. They
rejected His provision of the Law. They rejected His provision of logistical
grace in terms of the manna. They rejected His spiritual leadership that He had
selected in terms of Aaron. That is what Aaron’s rod represented.
On top of the box was the mercy seat. On the top of
the mercy seat (we are all familiar with this) were two cherubs looking down as
it were on the sin of Israel. The high priest would come in on the Day of
Atonement and he would place the blood from the sacrificed Day of Atonement
lamb and place it on the mercy seat. It covers the sin as it were. Oh, that
makes sense.
But recent word studies have indicated that the word kaphar doesn’t
emphasize covering as much as it indicates cleansing. Now Aaron is already
saved. Aaron is already in terms of his priestly typology, is already redeemed.
Even if you had a priest who wasn’t truly saved the initiation into the role is
a picture of that salvation.
Remember, in the life of Israel one thing that will
always help you is to think of the history of Israel as a corporate people as a
picture of what happens to the individual believer in the Church Age. For
example as a nation they are called through Abraham. Following the calling of
Abraham, they are redeemed by the Passover lamb. He pays the price of their
sin. Then they are identified with Moses at the Red Sea. Then they go into the
wilderness of Sinai. They go down to Sinai and God gives them the Law which is the protocol plan for the Old Testament
believer. It is how the redeemed people are supposed to live. So the rest of
the story from the wilderness wanderings, the conquest, and judges is really
related to experiential sanctification issues. As a nation they are saved over
here on Passover. That is why they don’t get the law first and then get
redeemed. They get redeemed first and then they get the Law. The Law tells them
how a redeemed people that are adopted by God as the first born to be a kingdom
of priests, is supposed to live.
So in terms of the typology that the Holy Spirit is
presenting here, Aaron is already saved. The nation is already redeemed. The
Day of Atonement doesn’t have to do with justification salvation; it has to do
with post salvation cleansing year after year after year. One of the
interesting things that supports this is that when the Jewish rabbis translated
the Old Testament into the Greek Old Testament called the Septuagint for 70
(The legend is that 70 rabbis translated the Pentateuch in 70 days. That would
have been quite a feat) that when they translated that Hebrew word kaphar in to
Greek they used the Greek word katharizo most of the time. Now the Greek verb katarizo (katharos) is
the Greek word used in I John 1:9.
NKJ 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.
It has to do with that ongoing cleansing from sin
after salvation. So this is what is going on here. Every year there has to be this
national cleansing of sin. As the Hebrew writer says, the blood of bulls and
goats can’t really take away sin. It is an annual reminder that everybody in
the nation is a fallen sinner and there needs to be
ongoing cleansing for sin. So first Aaron has to go into the tabernacle and he
as to offer a bull as a sin offering. He has to make atonement for himself and
his house.
NKJ Leviticus 16:7 "He shall take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of
meeting.
NKJ Leviticus 16:8 "Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the LORD
and the other lot for the scapegoat.
This is a picture of confession because he is going to
lay his hands on both of these goats. He is going to confess sin. One goat is
going to go into the wilderness; one goat is going to be sacrificed. The
sacrificed goat is a picture that sin is dealt with. The fact that the other
goat goes into the wilderness is the fact that the sin is removed and it is no
longer an issue. It goes off and is taken out of the camp.
Chapter 16 in Leviticus goes on to deal with the whole
ceremony and ritual related to the Day of Atonement which is
a picture of national cleansing. This ritual has tremendous reality. Why?
Because as believers they would understand what it pictured. Now if you aren’t
a believer you don’t understand the picture so the ritual has no reality. So we
have to be careful when we use phrases like “ritual with reality” and “ritual
without reality” because all of the ritual in the Old Testament had reality if
you were a believer and understood what it pictured. But if you weren’t a
believer it didn’t have any reality because you didn’t understand the doctrines
that were embedded there. The same thing with the Lord’s
Table in the Church Age. If you’re not a believer, you don’t have an
appreciation of what is going on in the Lord’s Table because you don’t
understand the person and work of Jesus Christ and you haven’t trusted Him as
your savior. So it is meaningless ritual. But if you understand the gospel
message and you understand the person and work of Jesus Christ then that ritual
has reality. The same thing was true for baptism. Baptism was a ritual that had
reality if you understood what it was a picture of. It was a picture of the
believer’s identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. If
you don’t understand that this, it was ritual without reality. Every now and
then I hear people use that terminology very loosely. The reason ritual has
reality is because you know the doctrines that are pictured in the ritual. If
you don’t know those doctrines, it has no meaning. You end up emphasizing the
ritual as a means to gaining God’s approbation.
Last time we looked at Exodus 28. This time we looked
at Leviticus 10. There is this constant challenge to the exclusivity of Aaron’s
appointment by God.
Then in Numbers 16 there is the rebellion of Korah, Nathan, and Abiram where Korah, Nathan and Abiram want to
set up an alternative priesthood. There are 250 who follow them. Then God
isolates them once again demonstrating His exclusivity, demonstrating His righteousness
and His justice. He isolates them that and they stand out. Every time I read
that I think about what a scene that must have been. Picture the fact that you
have a couple of million Jews in the wilderness. Then in this one area of the
camp where you have a group that wants to set up their own alternative
priesthood and God announces that He is going to judge them. So, everybody
ought to back off. Now with what they have seen so far you would think that the
Jews would understand what it meant to back off. They do; they began to back
off. Moses comes along and Moses says that if this is true and they violated
the standard then the earth would swallow them up and if it’s
not true they would die a natural death like anybody else. At that point the
earth rumbles.
Let me back up. Before that each of these men, Korah, Nathan and Abiram and
their families including grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, children
and infants all stand out in front of their tents. It is like a procession. Everybody
is standing there at morning roll call. Moses makes His announcement and the
earth begins to rumble. It opens up and swallows them – babies,
grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. The whole clan of these 3 men gets
swallowed into the earth and it closes up on them. Nothing is left.
It doesn’t stop there. Then fire from heaven comes. Then
what happens? God evaporates the 250 other men who were following them in their
rebellion. So you get the impression that God really doesn’t like rebellion. He
has appointed Aaron to be the high priest. Do you get that message? I get that
message. But the next day the Jews get up and they grumble and complain all
over again. This must have been a
really tough crowd to work. After all of that they still grumble and complain
about Aaron.
This is the background. This is when God told Aaron to
take his wooden staff from a dead tree and put it into the tent of the meeting
along with the others who wanted to compete for the role of high priest. God
would perform a miracle and the dead wooden staff of the one God chose would
sprout green leaves and branches. It would start to grow again. That is what
happened to Aaron’s rod. When we
talked about Aaron’s rod that budded that is what we are talking about. It
symbolizes their rejection of God’s appointment of Aaron as a priest.
So we see all of this in the background to those first
four verses in Hebrews 5.
NKJ Hebrews 5:4 And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just
as Aaron was.
That is what was happening with Korah,
Nathan, and Abiram. That is what was happening with Nadab and Abihu. They wanted to take
that honor for themselves. They wanted to make themselves priests because they
didn’t understand that to function as a priest you had to be appointed by God. It
was not something that was generated by the individual. They had to be called
by God just as Aaron was.
Now that sets up the analogy. The rest of these verses
from verse 5-10 apply that analogy to the appointment of the Lord Jesus Christ
to His position as the Royal High Priest for all eternity. The key idea is that
only God as the right to appoint the high priest. He defines the terms on how we come before Him.
Let’s bow our heads in closing prayer.