Bible

Sermon Notes: Christ’s Consecration is Our Confidence (NT)

/ davidsschrock

Picking up where we left off, the New Testament comes in looking backward, looking at God’s covenantal promises, and then it begins to show how Christ fulfills them all.  So we move from prophetic anticipation, to Christotelic (Christ in the end) fulfillment.

4. Christ fulfills Zechariah 3.  Not simply by being a perfect Levitical priest, Jesus far exceeds the old system.  Hebrews records that he is a priest not because of genealogy, but because of living a perfect life.  He is called a priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Hebrews 7:1-9. Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. For it is witnessed of him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek” [Psalm 110].  For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.

But even more to the point, in connection with the consecration of the high priest, is Hebrews 10. There, the priest it says is not acceptable to God on the basis of a sacrifice or sacrifices made for him.  He doesn’t need a sacrifice.  Christ is accepted because of his perfect obedience.

Hebrews 10:1-10. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?  But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.  For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

 “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.'”

When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The beauty of Hebrews 10, in relation to Exodus 29, is that Christ does not need to be cleansed of sin.  He is clean.  Thus, his consecration does not depend on the blood of animals; his purity emits from a life that has displayed perfect obedience to the father.  God accepts Christ’s priestly sacrifice and representation, because he is His Son, in whom he is well-pleased.  This is far better than the Levitical system.

 5. The Gospel: We have a priest that is acceptable to God and sympathetic to us.  The promises and invitations to approach the Lord in Hebrews about this are astounding.  Hebrews 7:25, “He lives to intercede for us.”  What does that mean?  Consider how he prays in John 17.

(1) He prays for our protection from the world (17:15)
(2) He prays for our sanctification (17:17)
(3) He prays for the effectiveness of our evangelism (17:20)… which means
(4) He prays for the salvation of those given to him
(5) He prays for the unity of the church (17:23)
(6) He prays for his saints to know his love (17:26)

6. The Application: Draw Near With Confidence.  The New Testament calls us to draw near to God (James 4:8), but such a command would have been absolutely terrifying to the Old Testament people (and maybe even the priests).  Entering God’s presence in any unclean manner resulted in death (cf. Lev 10:1-3).  However, Christ takes away that threat.  Through his perfect consecration, he stands at God’s right hand and bids us come.  He clothes us, who trust in him, with his righteousness and makes us acceptable in God’s sight. Thus, Christian have full access and assurance that our prayers, petitions, and confessions will be heard and received.  This is great news, and one that comes at the end of the line that begins in Exodus 29 passes through the OT and finds fulfillment in Christ in the NT.

May we draw near to God in Christ today, because of his perfect consecration.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Read the Bible with the Church: A Wise Word from Charles Hodge

/ davidsschrock

Protestant Christians have always believed in Sola Scriptura, but they have also read the Bible with the Church.  Until recently (since the American Revolution and the Enlightenment), the idea of “Me and My Bible” Christianity, or Solo Scriptura, has not been advocated.  Like the Jews who plugged their ears and stoned Stephen, when we read the Bible without listening to the men who have gone before us, we endanger ourselves of committing many errors and foolishly rehashing untold biblical-theological arguments.

In this vein–reading the Bible with the light of Church History–is helpfully represented by American theologian, Charles Hodge.

Protestants admit that as there has been an uninterrupted tradition of truth from the protevangelium [Genesis 3:15] to the close of the Apocalypse [Revelation 21-22], so there has been a stream of traditionary teaching flowing through the Christian Church from the day of Pentecost to the present time. This tradition is so far a rule of faith that nothing contrary to it can be true. Christians do not stand isolated, each holding his own creed. They constitute one body, having one common creed. Rejecting that creed, or any of its parts, is the rejection of the fellowship of Christians, incompatible with the communion of saints, or membership in the body of Christ. In other words, Protestants admit that there is a common faith of the Church, which no man is at liberty to reject, and which no man can reject and be a Christian (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:113–14).

To learn more about the value of Charles Hodge for today, read my review of  Paul Gutjahr’s recent biography, Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy.  Another fresh biography on Charles Hodge is Andrew Hoffecker’s Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton. 

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

(HT: J.T. English)

Sermon Notes: Christ’s Consecration is Our Confidence (OT)

/ davidsschrock

TEST CASE # 1 :: Exodus 29: Consecration of the Priests

Following the five-fold model (Law, Prophets 1 &2, Christ, Gospel, Christian Application) presented in the last few days, I will today try to give a “test case” for getting from the consecration of the high priest in Exodus 29 to Christ to Christians today.

1. Exodus 29 gives explicit laws for consecrating the priest. 

Exodus 29 is an exposition of Exodus 28:41, “And your shall put them”—that is the priestly garments— “on Aaron your brother, and on his sons with him, and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests.”  The point of the chapter is to explain how the high priest might be received into the presence of the Lord.  And it is an incredible process. To begin with, verses 4-9 give a point by point process for cleansing the priest.

Verses 4-9: Five Steps for Consecration

Verse 4. The priests are washed.  In a hot, dusty desert, these men needed a bath. This would not be sufficient, but it was a necessary beginning.

Verse 5. The priest is clothed.  All the garments made for “dignity and honor,” or “beauty and glory” were put on the priest.

Verse 6. The priest is crowned. The most significant element of the apparel was the turban.  It was put on last, and it essentially crowned the priest (Zech 6).

Verse 7. The priest is anointed.  With the anointing oil, the priest is ordained, as God’s chosen vessel to represent the people before him.  This anointing is defined with greater detail in Hebrews 5, where it says that the priest did not appoint and anoint himself.  As one commentator has said, this anointing basically stamped the priest with heavenly approval.

Verse 8-9. The priest is supported. Each of the priests are dressed and ready to serve him, in the service of the temple.

Verses 10-28: Six Atoning Sacrifices

Now everything was ready for the offerings.  In verses 10-28, Moses lists six different kinds of offerings that were involved in the priests ordination.  Most of these would be further explained in Leviticus 1-7, but let’s take a short survey here to simply mention the complexity of all the sacrifices involved.

Sin offering.  Unclean sections of the animal are taken outside the camp and burned.

Burnt Offering. First ram is completely consumed, symbolizing the priest’s total devotion

Ram of Ordination.  Only for the priests, this lamb was slaughtered and the blood applied to their ear lobes, thumbs, and big toes.  All the exposed parts of the priest are cleansed by the blood.

Wave Offering.  Taking the cooked meat and bread, the offering was waved before the Lord. Walter Kaiser describe them like this: “The waving was not from side to side but toward the altar and back, showing that the sacrifice was given to God and then received back by the priest for his use” (Exodus, 470). This food is then burned up on the altar as a Food Offering.

Peace Offerings.  Included in the consecration was the eating of the food before the Lord.  This ‘portion’ to eat represented the kind of peace the priests (and Israel) had with God through the atoning sacrifices.

Verses 29-42: Further Priestly Instructions

After the offerings came another round of detailed instructions.  Everything from how to boil the food that the priest would eat with God to directions on the daily offerings.

Verse 29-30.  God gives instructions concerning the garments, and how they are to be passed down from one generation to the next.

Verse 31-35.  The priests have instructions for boiling the meat and eating it.

Verse 35-37.  This ordination takes 7 days, again showing how weak the sacrifices were and how great was the need for cleansing.

Verse 38-42. On top of the ordination service, there is the morning and evening sacrifice, which twice a day provided atonement for the holy place.

This elaborate system, along with everything else in Exodus 25-40, was put in place to teach Israel about the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and what it takes to get into God’s presence.  In one sentence, the message was this: You need a priest who will represent you before God, and that priest needs the highest degree of cleansing.  Now the question becomes, “How did Israel do with this?”  Let’s see.

2. Malachi 2:1-9 shows how the priests failed to keep covenant with God. Reciting the covenant God had with Levi, Malachi indicts the sons of Levi for their corrupted service.

 And now, O priests, this command is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the LORD of hosts. My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction.

3. Zechariah 3 promises a new priest who will be pure and devoted to God. In a book full of Messianic promises, the hope of a royal priest who will cleanse the people is especially prominent, because God’s dwelling with his people depended on the people’s purity.  Verses 6-10 read,

Thus says the LORD of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.

At this point in redemptive-history, the people of God wait for a pure priest.  God’s promise is sure, but the fulfillment is still future.  The flow of the narrative builds anticipation for the arrival of the Messiah.

Following the lead of the inter-testamental period, we will pause here too, and come back in our next post.

dss

Sermon Notes: How to Avoid Getting Lost on the Way from Leviticus 15 to Luke 15

/ davidsschrock

On Monday, I suggested a five-fold system, a Gospel-Positioning System (GPS), to get you from obscure passages in the Law through the Prophets to Christ and the Gospel.  These five-steps are listed again.

1. Law
2A. Prophets: Judgment
2B: Prophets: Salvation
3: Christ
4: Gospel Response
5: Spirit-Empowered Action 

Today, I want to suggest four common errors that plague evangelicals today. Four ways we misread the Scriptures.

1. We skip from 1 to 5.  In pursuit of application and life-change, we read a command, a law, even a story, and we immediately move to application. Instead, of asking how the said pericope fits into the flow the Bible (i.e. textual, epochal, and canonical horizons), many of us move straight to activity.  This is wrong.  It misses the power of the law, the promise of the gospel, and the person of Jesus.  In effect, it makes the Bible about us, and no longer about Jesus.  The solution?  We must move from law through the prophets to Jesus Christ and then to us.  Personal application is vitally important but only after we encounter Christ.

2. We are afraid of 2A & 2B.  The prophets frighten us.  They are strange.  They don’t talk normal. They are hard to understand.  I get this!  I remember reading Isaiah 13-20 one time.  As I read the pronouncements against Babylon, Damascus, and Moab, I got upset.  Not because God was punishing these sinning nations, but because, “I needed a word from God, and this was not it”–so I thought.  I closed the Bible (for that day) upset, because I hadn’t seen how those words related to the rest of the Bible or my life.

If you have had an experience like that with the Prophets, it makes it hard to be a regular reader of that challenging genre.  Yet, to neglect the prophets is to neglect the greatest section of the Bible for fueling Christ-centered hope.

Maybe this will help: The prophets get a lot easier if we remember two things. First, they are speaking a word of judgment, based on the law against sinners like us.  Their words condemn covenant-breakers, social injustice, and unfaithful worship.  They speak to us about our sin.

Second, they are speaking a word of Messianic hope, based on the gospel. They give us glorious images of the Christ who is to come.  They offer salvation to sinful people, and the reality that God is going to bring recreate the world.  If we remember these two things and tie a rope from the law to the gospel, we can learn to walk thru these strange books.

3. We minimize 3.  This may sound strange, to minimize Jesus, but I have heard countless evangelical, Baptist preachers (and you have too) who preach and never mention Him.  Instead they list moral instructions from the life of Joseph or Caleb, and at the end say, “Unless you are Christian you cannot do what I just said.  So become a Christian.”

Friends, this is Christ-less preaching.  It has no power and I can hardly believe that a message without the content of Christ, will bring anyone nearer to our Lord and Savior.  In fact, it is disingenuous, to tell anyone to become a Christian after you have spent 40 minutes preaching moral lessons and not telling them about Christ.  Yet, this happens all too often.

4. We divorce 1-4 from 5.  If we are tempted to skip Jesus, we are more culpable of divorcing the gospel from application. In other words, we read the Bible for application, and we find all kinds of commands that say—Make disciples.  Love one another.  Be unified.  Forgive your enemies.  Turn the other cheek.

Yet, those commands have ZERO POWER, in and of themselves. These biblical commands are good, but in Scripture they are always set in relation to gospel promises.  To say it another way, imperatives are always grounded in gospel infinitives.  Why?  Because laws never produce godliness!  Grace produces godliness (Titus 2:11-13).

Jesus commands his disciples to be witnesses to all the nations, but he commands them to stay in Jerusalem until the Spirit comes so they will have power to do what he commands.  Paul tells us to forgive one another as Christ has forgiven you.  The power is in the gospel.  Failure to couple commands with Christ’s antecedent work, will lead earnest Christians to live the Christian life in the power of their own strength.

Instead, we must move to application and action, but as we do so, we must continue to walk in faith, loving others out of the love that has been poured into our hearts.

This is my prayer and hope!  That as we read Scripture, our minds are not just informed.  Rather, our eyes are opened to behold Christ and to become like him. Indeed, Jesus prayed that we would be sanctified by his word (John 17:17), and that comes to fruition when in his word, we see Jesus (2 Cor 3:18).

Open our eyes, Lord to see the wonder of Christ in the pages of Scripture, dss

Sermon Notes: From Miscellanies to the Messiah

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

These are a shadow of the things to come, 
but the substance belongs to Christ.
Colossians 2:17

Here is a PDF that I put together that gives a series of biblical texts that flesh out the Gospel-Positioning System I described yesterday.  They each start in the law of Moses (Exodus 30-31); they move through the prophets to Christ and the message of the gospel that is foreshadowed in the various elements described in Exodus.

Exodus 30-31: Miscellaneous Instructions That Shadow The Messiah

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

What Does the Tabernacle Symbolize?

/ davidsschrock

Justin Taylor has a helpful post on the meaning of the tabernacle on his blog today.  As we have seen in our study of Exodus, the tabernacle is filled with imagery that helps us better understand our own relationship with God.

Here is the ESV Study Bible note that he begins with on Exodus 25:1-31:17:

First, the tabernacle is seen as a tented palace for Israel’s divine king. He is enthroned on the ark of the covenant in the innermost Holy of Holies (the Most Holy Place). His royalty is symbolized by the purple of the curtains and his divinity by the blue. The closer items are to the Holy of Holies, the more valuable are the metals (bronze→silver→gold) of which they are made.

The other symbolic dimension is Eden. The tabernacle, like the garden of Eden, is where God dwells, and various details of the tabernacle suggest it is a mini-Eden. These parallels include the east-facing entrance guarded by cherubim, the gold, the tree of life (lampstand), and the tree of knowledge (the law). Thus God’s dwelling in the tabernacle was a step toward the restoration of paradise, which is to be completed in the new heaven and earth (Revelation 21-22).

The explanation continues here with a full-color picture of the tabernacle.

For further reflections on the tabernacle see:

The Tabernacle as Typological Model

The Tabernacle as Holy Abode

The Tabernacle as God’s Meeting Place

The Tabernacle as a Royal Victory Palace

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Redemptive Roadmap: A Gospel Positioning System

/ davidsschrock / 2 Comments

When Having a GPS Makes All the Difference

A few months ago, our family traveled to Chicago.  Somewhere near Indianapolis, we learned that there was a major accident on the highway in front of us.  Fortunately, we had the information ahead of time and were able to get off the interstate in time to miss the heavy traffic.  Or so we thought.

Misjudging the exits, we got caught with all the other cars and trucks on a side road.  Nevertheless, we still had our GPS.  With our global positioning device we were able once again to get off the side road and find our way on a dirt road back to the highway.

Certainly when we set out for Chicago, we did not expect ourselves to be traveling on a dust-covered dirt road in the middle of an Indiana cornfield.  And yet that was exactly where we were.  It was a place that was totally unfamiliar to us, and one that without the GPS we would have no idea where we were.

I think this is often how we feel when we open up the Bible.  Seeking to get to the City of God, namely Jesus Christ, books that contain instructions for bodily discharges (Leviticus 15) and chapters that describing flying scrolls (Zechariah 4) can seem as out of place as the road we found in Northern Indiana.

What we need when we get into the more “remote” places in the Bible is what we have in the car.  We need a positioning device that will help explain how to get from our current location–Exodus 31, Leviticus 15, or Judged 19 to Christ. What we need is a Gospel-Positioning System.  Anyone know where to find one of those?

I didn’t.  But this week, I have attempted to put something together that may function like that.  It has six steps, and it serves as a general rule of thumb for getting from obscure OT laws all the way to Christ.  It’s aim is to avoid the traps of hasty application and mere moralizing.  It’s goal is to find Christ in all Scripture, but not by making strange leaps and speculative links.  Rather, its aim is to follow the flow of redemptive history and present a gospel-patterened schematic (another GPS), that can benefit any reader of Scripture.

Redemptive Roadmap: Gospel-Positioning System

1. Law.  In the law, you find instructions for living in ancient Israel.  These rules and commands were part of the covenant framework of Israel.  They were given so that people could live in God’s presence.  They were also given, so that the people with sinful hearts would learn that they needed something greater.  In both cases, they were designed to point people to God–to his holiness and his mercy. They list the standard expectations of God, and they point out our failures.   (Romans 3:20; 5:20; Gal 3:21)

2A. Prophets (1). Next, when Israel broke the law, God sent prophets to warn and later condemn Israel.  The purpose of the prophets was to incite repentance, but knowing the hearts of the people, God also sent his prophets to pronounce judgment (Jeremiah 25:4-5; 26:4-6).

2B. Prophets (2). At the same time that he sent prophets to proclaim judgment, he also sent prophets with a message of hope and salvation.  These prophets were given to Israel to point them to the Messiah who was to come (1 Pet 1:10-12).

Together, the prophets proclaim a message of salvation through judgment.  But this is only takes us to the end of the Old Testament.  These first three steps are what Mark Dever calls Promises Made.  What comes next are Promises Kept.

3. Christ.  God’s word of hope is always fulfilled in Christ.  He is the end of the law, and he is the one who fulfills all the predictions of the prophets.  He is the long awaited Messiah, and all the promises of God are yes and amen in him.  Thus he is the center of all the Bible.  (2 Corinthians 1:20).  

4. The Gospel.  Finding Christ in Scripture brings you to the door of the gospel.  The only question that remains is what will you do when you come to Christ?  Will you simply try to imitate his life and work?  Or will you humble yourself, repent of your sin, and believe that his obedient life and substitutionary death have effected your good standing before God?  If the latter, you have followed the Gospel-Positioning System to the right address.  You have found rest in Christ.

This is so vital, because so often we can miss Christ and the gospel, especially when we begin in the OT.  Too many Bible-believing Christians and preachers miss Christ and settle for  moral lessons and spiritual examples in the Old Testament .  But to do this ignores the way the way Christ intended for us to read Scripture (John 5:39; Luke 24:27, 45-49).

How does this kind of reading differ?  Well, a GPS reading of the Old Testament moves from the text, through redemptive history, to Jesus Christ. Call it Christotelic if you like.  A GPS reading also sees how the Law is fulfilled (Rom 10:4) and the Prophets realized in Jesus Christ (Rom 15:4), and makes us all wise unto salvation (2 Tim 3:14-16).  It does not take the short-cut to Jesus, but it follows the long road through the Scriptures until it comes to faith and repentance in Christ.  And then from there it calls us to action.

5. Christian Application.  Once we have rested our heart, soul, mind, and strength in the completed work Christ has done for us, then we are ready for action.  This is what Paul calls “Faith working itself out in love” (Gal 5:6).  It always flows out of the gospel, and it is also energized by the gospel.  It is filled with love and good works, but they are works that do not justify.  They are works that testify to the grace of God and the love of his Son.

A Final Caveat

Now let me say it: This is cheesy.  Any time you devise a system for reading the Bible, you are in danger of draining its spiritual power.  Any time the Spirit who leads us into all truth is replaced by a systematic method, something of the life of the reading experience is lost.  I get that.

Nevertheless, I am willing to take a risk, because for too long, too many people have read “by the Spirit” and have totally missed Christ, or just treated parts of the OT like ancietn ancestors.  They may be necessary for my existence, but I don’t know or care anything about them.

With that real danger in place, I think that memorizing this 5-fold pattern can make you and I far better readers of Scripture.  By seeing how the law was given to increase our trespass (1), to heighten our condemnation and our need (2A), to point to a later, greater hope (2B), to finally culminate in Christ (3), to trust in him and his work (4), and to live according to the gospel he proclaims (5), that I believe, will not have a spiritually-stultifying effect.  Rather, it will help our minds better understand the long history of the redemptive history, and how to get from places like Exodus 31 and Leviticus 15 all the way to Christ.

Tell me what you think!  Is this is a helpful tool?  What would you add?  Edit? What else needs to be said?

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Sermon Notes: Holy to the Lord

/ davidsschrock

Aaron’s priestly work brings holiness Israel

In our last reflection on Exodus 28, we see that verses 36-39 describe the priest’s turban. Front and center in this brief description, and on the priest’s head, is a the mention of a golden plate.  Engraved in this golden crown is the inscription, “Holy is the Lord.”

From this statement, it seems that Aaron and his sons’ ability to enter the holy of holies and not die, indicates that he was given the status of holy and pure. Does this anticipate imputed righteousness? Perhaps, but clearly from the surrounding context (esp. Exod 29), he is not intrinsically holy, but covered in the blood of sacrificial bulls and goats, and wearing his priestly apparel, he is “holy to the Lord.”

More importantly though, he is not just representing himself.  He is approaching the throne of God on behalf of Israel’s twelve tribes.  Their names are on his heart. Thus, his status of holy is representatively communicated to the people of God as well.  As the mediating priest for this people, he maintains or establishes the ongoing holiness of God’s treasured possession (cf. Exod 19:5-6).

Christ’s priestly work does not depend upon bulls and goats

Again in Exodus, we are working in types and shadows.  So, it must be asserted that at the same time that the priestly work effectively preserves the people of Israel–God really does dwell in their midst–the sacrificial system given to Moses on Sinai cannot really make Israel holy.  The blood of bulls and goats cannot cleanse from sin (Heb 10:4).  But as they point forward to Christ, God accepts these offerings for his people, until the fulness of time, when his own Son would come and fulfill the law.

In fact Hebrews 10:1-10 explains how Christ’s priestly service depends not on animal sacrifice, but rather his own holy life.

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.'” When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

With Christ as our perfect high priest, his holiness extends to all those for whom he represents.  As Hebrews 10:14 declares, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”  To say it another way, the priestly work of Christ is particularly for those designated by God to receive the benefits of his atonement, not his enemies (v. 13).   Still, the effect of his purification goes even farther.

Christ’s priestly work purifies all of heaven and earth

There is only one other place in the Bible where an inscription reads, “Holy is the Lord.” It is in Zechariah.  Consider the what the prophet sees,

And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “Holy to the LORD.” And the pots in the house of the LORD shall be as the bowls before the altar. And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the LORD of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day (14:20-21).

The question is what does it mean that “Holy is the Lord” is inscribed on the bells of horses?  What is Zechariah, the prophet, telling us about the age to come?

Consider a couple things. First, the bells are on a horse, not a human.  Though, I have had little experience with horses, the smell of Mackinaw Island stands out.  There on that little island, cars are not permitted, and thus the island has a certain “horsey” smell.  In other words, horses are not clean, and the bells on their bodies would certainly not, of themselves, have the kind of cleanness needed to enter the courtyard, let alone the holy of holies.

More biblically, the mention of horses in the Bible, though variegated, is often not holy.  In the law, kings were not meant to collect horses as a means of strength (Deut 17:16).  In the Psalms, there is exists a contrast between trusting in horses, or trusting in the LORD (20:7).  In the prophets, this sort of distinction, plays itself out with regularity (cf. Isa 31:1).  While not attempting to draw out a “theology of horses,” there is a certain kind of tension in the text, that the inscription of the priest is now engraved on the bells of horses.

Moreover, as verse 21 continues, this holiness is not limited to horses.  Rather, it is an example of how far-reaching this holiness is.  What does this mean?

Here is my proposal: This prophecy magnifies Christ’s priestly work!  So great is Christ’s priestly work that not only will his people be eternally redeemed by his blood, but all heaven and earth will be cleansed as well. His blood perfectly atones for the New Israel (Gal 6:16), but it also makes a way for all the earth to be purified.

Has this happened yet?  No, but the text in Zechariah is eschatological.  It is looking forward to “that day.’  The cleansing of the universe has not taken place yet.  New Creation is still forthcoming; and yet Christ’s new creation work has begun in the individuals who have been made priests by the blood of his atonement (1 Pet 1:18-19; 2:5, 9).  Thus, while we have not seen Zechariah 14 yet, we have every reason to expect that it will come to fruition “on that day.”

In the meantime, we have confidence that if Christ’s blood has the power to make horses clean, his blood has the power to make the worst sinner clean.  In other words, if the atonement is so extensive as to clean all the universe, than it must be have such an intensive power, that there is not one sin that God cannot forgive in Christ.

Indeed, that is the promise: For anyone who confesses there sins to God, he is faithful and just to forgive their sins and cleanse them of all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).  This is the good news, and it seen in the tabernacle of Exodus 28, on the bells of horses in Zechariah 14, and throughout the rest of the Bible.

What could be better knews than that?

Soli Deo Gloria, dss


How Should We Talk About God?

/ davidsschrock

A few weeks back I read Psalm 78, and came across this strange verse.

Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a strong man shouting because of wine. And he put his adversaries to rout; he put them to everlasting shame (Ps 78:65-66).

What does that mean?  And what does that say about God?  I wrote a few reflections on what this verse means and how we should get our “God-talk” from the Bible.

Check it out: God Is No Drunkard; Or, What’s with Psalm 78?

Let me know what you think.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

 

 

 

 

Sermon Notes: The Priest’s Particular Work (OT)

/ davidsschrock

In typological fashion, the names of Israel engraved on the breastpiece & ephod show how the priest represents God’s people before YHWH.  In other words, in Exodus 28 we learn that the priestly duty was to represent Israel before God in the holy of holies (cf Heb 5:1).  Specifically, verses 12 and 29 say that Israel was to remember them as they were kept on Aaron’s heart as he entered the holy of holies.  In this way, he made atonement for Israel.  Notice, in the OT, he didn’t make atonement for Egypt, Assyria, or Babylon.  He only represented those who were redeemed from Egypt, who passed through the sea, who were in covenant with God at Sinai.  It tells us that the priestly service was for those who are in covenant with God.  In fact, the Exodus 28 is a very strong typological argument for definite atonement.  Let’s consider.

To start, the priestly garments are made “for glory and for beauty” (28:2), but they are not simply for aesthetics; they are highly symbolic and even instructive for discerning what the priest did behind the veil.[1]  As Carol Meyers puts it, “priestly office and priestly garb are inextricably related.”[2]  G.K. Beale has developed the connection between the priestly garments, the temple and the universe,[3] but there is also good reason to examine the relationship between the priest and the covenant people.

In this regard, the priestly attire ‘visualizes’ the particular nature of the atonement.[4]  It does so in this way: From head to foot, the priest is to wear the holy attire designed and decorated to teach Israel and later generations what the priest is doing as he enters into the holy of holies.[5]  Of greatest interest (and illumination) are the “shoulder pieces” and the “breastpiece of judgment.”   Concerning the former, YHWH instructs,

And they shall make the ephod of gold, of blue and purple and scarlet yarns, and of fine twined linen, skillfully worked. It shall have two shoulder pieces attached to its two edges, so that it may be joined together… You shall take two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel, six of their names on the one stone, and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, in the order of their birth. As a jeweler engraves signets, so shall you engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel… And you shall set the two stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod, as stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel. And Aaron shall bear their names before the LORD on his two shoulders for remembrance (Exod 28:6-12; cf. 39:2-7).

The purpose of the shoulder pieces is far more than ancient Near Eastern fashion or utilitarian function.  The names of the twelve tribes were “deeply and permanently cut into the onyx,”[6] signifying the priest’s intimate connection with the people of Israel. As the priest of the covenant, he mediated for the people of the covenant.  Of this “corporate solidarity” that the priest shared with Israel, it was a necessary function of his office to be in communicative relation with those whom he represents. In other words, the priest does not mediate for an unspecified group or number, the “stones of remembrance” were designated to represent “the sons of Israel”—one stone for each tribe.  So that, when the priest entered the tabernacle, and later the temple he did so with Israel on his heart and mind.[7]

In the same way, the high priest’s breastpiece of judgment functioned as a symbol of the high priest’s covenantal representation.[8]  Moses records,

You shall make a breastpiece of judgment, in skilled work… It shall be square and doubled, a span its length and a span its breadth. You shall set in it four rows of stones. A row of sardius, topaz, and carbuncle shall be the first row; and the second row an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond; and the third row a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst; and the fourth row a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper. They shall be set in gold filigree. There shall be twelve stones with their names according to the names of the sons of Israel. They shall be like signets, each engraved with its name, for the twelve tribes… So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgment on his heart, when he goes into the Holy Place, to bring them to regular remembrance before the LORD (Exod 28:15-30; cf. 39:8-21).

Like the shoulder pieces, the breastpiece is designed to bring the sons of Israel into “regular remembrance before the Lord” (v. 29).  Again, as a priest chosen from his brothers for his brothers and their families, he does not generally atone, intercede, or minister.  Rather, God has appointed the high priest to make atonement for God’s particular people, people who knew they had a priest.  Rightly, D.K. Stuart says, “the high priest symbolized Israel” and “that whatever he did, he did as the people’s representative, and his actions would have the same essential effect that they would have if all of them, one by one, had done the same thing.”[9]  This, by itself doesn’t prove definite atonement, but it does show the exact representation of his priestly office.  It is not general, but particular.[10]

In fact, this notion of personal relationship between priest and people has been forcefully argued by Hugh Martin as evidence against indefinite atonement. Unpacking Hebrews 5:1, which develops the Levitical priesthood, Martin argues that the law of the office of the priest “rests on personal relation,” and this relation is not abstract.  Rather, the priest represents “individual men, particular persons.”[11]  Moving from textual observation to dogmatic assertion, he concludes,

If the atonement of Christ falls under the category of His Priesthood, it is impossible it can be impersonal, indefinite, unlimited; for the priesthood is not.  In order to its very constitution, it pre-requires personal relation; and the same must be true of the Atonement, unless the Atonement transpires outside the limits and actings and conditions of the priesthood…The pre-requisite of personal relation to particular persons is so indispensable in all real priesthood whatsoever.  It is true of “every” priest that is taken from among men [Heb 5:1].  Any “general reference” contradictory to this, or in addition to this—except simply community nature, secured by his being taken from among men—violates the very first principles of the office.[12]

While the priestly garments do not give conclusive evidence for Christ’s particular work on the cross; they are very suggestive.  Moreover, the fact that Christ, as the antitype of Israel’s high priest, wears the golden plate on his head declaring ‘Holy to the Lord’ and the names of his covenant people on his chest; there is great reason to see in his attire the inseparable union of Christ and his elect from every nation.

What do you think? Would love to hear how you think Christ’s priestly garments typify the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

[1]They also connote a strong sense of authority.  See Douglas Stuart, Exodus, New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2006), 604.

[2]Carol Meyers, Exodus, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 240.

[3]G.K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 39-45.

[4]For instance, speaking of the priest in his vestments, Alec Motyer writes, “he is the visual display of the Lord’s ‘judgment,’ his opinion regarding his people” (J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today, ed. J.A. Motyer [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005], 279.

[6]Stuart, Exodus, 609.  Stuart’s offhand comment about the engraving does not in itself signify anything about the definite nature of the atonement, but it does add to the mounting evidence that the priestly work was for a people whom he would not forget (cf. Isa 49:16).

[7]“This feature [the names engraved on the priestly attire] has commemorative symbolic value, bringing all Israel into the tabernacle with Aaron as he carries out the rituals thought to help secure the well-being of the people or adjudicate their conflicts” (Meyers, Exodus, 241).

[8]“The breastpiece was not merely a patch on his ephod but a square frontal vest, a very prominent, central, expansive, symbolic display of the covenant relation of God to his people” (Stuart, Exodus, 610).

[9]Stuart, Exodus, 611.

[10]On this point, it should be noted that the priests served the covenant people only, and they stood against those who were outside the people of God (David Williams, The Office of Christ and Its Expression in the Church, 13-14).

[11]All these quotes are taken from Hugh Martin’s discussion of the nature of Christ’s priestly office in The Atonement, 58.  Martin ties this particular relationship to the definite nature of the atonement.  Speaking of the Levitical priests, he says, “The priests of Levi were chosen for, or in lieu of, the first-born [Num 3]; and they were ordained for [Lev 8-9], or in room and on behalf of men, even for the Israel of God collectively and individually.  They acted for individuals; and besides such action, they had no priestly action whatsoever, no official duty to discharge.  The introduction of a ‘general reference’ into the theory of their office is an absurdity” (The Atonement, 65).

[12]The Atonement, 63-65.