Reluctant Believers

God's people continue to have problems being loyal to him.

Numbers 25:1-5 While the Israelites were camped at Acacia Grove, some of the men defiled themselves by having sexual relations with local Moabite women. 2 These women invited them to attend sacrifices to their gods, so the Israelites feasted with them and worshiped the gods of Moab. 3 In this way, Israel joined in the worship of Baal of Peor, causing the LORD's anger to blaze against his people.

4 The LORD issued the following command to Moses: "Seize all the ringleaders and execute them before the LORD in broad daylight, so his fierce anger will turn away from the people of Israel." 5 So Moses ordered Israel's judges, "Each of you must put to death the men under your authority who have joined in worshiping Baal of Peor."

In my recent post we saw that God was in control of situations and protecting his people at times that they didn't even know about. Israel wasn't aware at all that King Balak was trying desperately to have God's chosen people get "unchosen" with a curse from Balaam. The king was desperate to keep his job because he saw the success of the Israelites in recent battles but God never changed his mind about Israel despite the fact that they changed their mind about him.

• God was not reluctant to bless Israel, he went to great lengths in dealing with Balaam to bless Israel and to announce one of the first prophecies about Jesus.      
• Balaam was reluctant to bless Israel, he didn't care about the people he was asked to curse and he was careless about his own life because of the greed in his evil heart.       
• Israel was not reluctant to give in to their neighbors when they received an invitation to join them in worship, despite God's loyalty to them.

In Balaam's last prophecy he told about Israel's amazing future and the coming Messiah but right after he tells about it they are sinning against God the same way their ancestors did at Mt Sinai. I started to compare the two eventsfound in Exodus 32 and Numbers 25.

Comparison of the Rebellions at Sinai and Moab

1. Both of these rebellions took place immediately following a great display of God’s care for His people. 

• At Sinai, He performed miracles to deliver them from Egypt and brought them through the Red Sea. 
• At Moab, He reaffirmed their blessed future by turning Balaam’s intended curse into an amazing blessing.

2. Both of these instances reveal the wickedness of our hearts, our desire to worship but our lack of wisdom about worship, that's why the first of the Ten Commandments told us to worship the one and only real God. 

3. In both instances worshiping false gods led to immorality, the Bible shows us a very strong link between satisfying our desire to worship the wrong way and satisfying our desire for physical pleasures the wrong way.

4. Moses ordered the death penalty in both situations. The reaction of certain people to this command proved their loyalty to God and earned them a special place of service in the temple.

• At Mount Sinai, the Levites' killed the people involved and they were designated as the tribe that the priest would come from. It is important to know that all priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests, just the Levites that were sons of Aaron.
• At Moab, Phinehas was the zealous priest, a grandson of Aaron, that executed judgment. Moses had just told the judges to judge but before they could start judging somebody comes along and jumps to the front of the line to be executed.

5. What a contrast between Phinehas and his grandfather. Aaron was responsible for bringing judgment on God's people due to his role in the creation of the gold calf but Phinehas quickly reacted to the man's sin and killed the Israelite man and the woman both at the same time. 

As you can see, it only took them one generation to forget about the rebellion at Sinai and do it all over again at Moab, this pattern continued throughout the Old Testament as God's people were reluctant to trust and obey. Breaking the first commandment caused so many deaths in the wilderness and it was the reason that God's people were in exile before Jesus' arrival.

God's People Continue To Be Reluctant

Matthew 11:2-3 John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the Messiah we've been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?"

Even a man as great as John the Baptist (Matthew 11:11) was not immune to wavering in his faith when Jesus actions were so confusing. Early in his ministry John stated that his reason for coming was to reveal the Messiah to Israel (John 1:29-31) but he was still overcome with doubt as he sat in prison without any assistance from his cousin. I'm sure that John had no idea how true his words were when he said "He must increase, but I must decrease." (John 3:30)

Even the twelve men that gave it all up to follow were not sure about Jesus and struggled with faith even as they were experiencing him in supernatural ways. Jesus did miraculous things that prove his identity but nobody was as sure as the evil spirit that Jesus cast out. The evil spirit knew but a few chapters later the disciples are asking "Who is this man?" (Mark 1:23-28, 4:35-41)

We Are Reluctant Disciples

Even today with all of the evidence we have in God's word:

• We are reluctant to worship properly. It is easy to look back at the people that God chose back in the Old Testament and be amazed that they worshiped wrong after all of their supernatural experiences with God but we are the same.
• We are reluctant to trust and obey. Doing things our way will never measure up to God's ways and his plans, it is so hard to let go of absolutely everything and acknowledge that God is in control, instead we want our way just as much as Balaam and Jonah did. 
• We are reluctant to get rid of our pride. As we look at our evil hearts and see the darkness within, it should help us defeat our pride but instead we embrace it and it is a strong proof that Jesus was right when he told Nicodemus that we love the dark. (John 3:19)

Our own lives prove to us what the Bible shows: the ongoing struggle to trust and obey God. We are just like the people in Scripture, but the good news is that God is just as faithful as He was back then. Their imperfect faith and God's perfect, gracious response to it should be a great source of encouragement for us today when we struggle to fully believe.

The wilderness is still God's classroom where he leads us into situations that give us opportunities to exercise our faith, helping us become less reluctant to believe and trust Him. We will always have room to grow in this area, it's a slow, lifelong process that we can't simply check off of our to-do list and move on.

Mark 9:23-24 "What do you mean, 'If I can'?" Jesus asked. "Anything is possible if a person believes." The father instantly cried out, "I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!"

Just like the believing father that desperately wanted his son to be healed, our belief will always be tested with some degree of unbelief that we should pray to overcome. Despite our imperfections and inconsistant faith, we can expect the same grace and faithfulness that God offered His people long ago as he takes us to the Promised Land.

Do Not Do As Egypt Or Canaan

It is easy to imitate the ways of this world but God wants his people to be like him.

Leviticus 18:1-5  Then the LORD said to Moses,  2  “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. I am the LORD your God.  3  So do not act like the people in Egypt, where you used to live, or like the people of Canaan, where I am taking you. You must not imitate their way of life.

4  You must obey all my regulations and be careful to obey my decrees, for I am the LORD your God.  5  If you obey my decrees and my regulations, you will find life through them. I am the LORD.

Leviticus 18:30 So obey my instructions, and do not defile yourselves by committing any of these detestable practices that were committed by the people who lived in the land before you. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 19:1-2 The LORD also said to Moses, 2 "Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.

Leviticus 20:7-8 So set yourselves apart to be holy, for I am the LORD your God. 8 Keep all my decrees by putting them into practice, for I am the LORD who makes you holy.

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The good news is our holy God loves us so much that he wants to have a close intimate relationship with us. But the bad news is because he is holy we cannot have an intimate relationship with him. But we don't have to live in the reality of the bad news!

Holiness is the most important truth that you must comprehend about God, it is a huge kindness on God's part to give us his instructions on how to safely draw near to him. The book of Leviticus is the first record that we have on how to live to please God. 

I have to wonder how God's people knew what God's standards are before the exodus from Egypt when he began teaching them at Mount Sinai. It seems that somehow people knew about God and what he expects from mankind before the law was revealed. 

How did:

• Abel please God and how did Cain know what was right and yet he chose the wrong way?
• Enoch have close fellowship with God so that he would be taken directly to Heaven? 
• Noah know how to have God's favor when everyone around him missed the boat?

God's people today have the luxury of looking back at thousands of years of history that God has preserved for us in the Bible to give us a clear picture of how to have his favor. 

The Old Testament shows us a very clear picture of the difficulty mankind has in living up to God's standards. By the end of the book of Genesis (Genesis 46:1-34, 47:1-12) we see that God's people wound up in Egypt for their own good so they would escape the famine in Canaan, but later on we see that while they were in Egypt they started to live like Egyptians.

God's people are conformed to the world when they leave Egypt, their character was proven very quickly and with great repetition. After 400 years of Egyptian influence, God's people didn't look much like God's people, Israel needed to get out of Egypt but God knew that he needed to get Egypt out of Israel.

Deuteronomy 18:9  “When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there.

Perhaps that is the reason God did not take them directly to the Promised Land. (Psalm 106:35, Ezekiel 20:7-8, 23:8) God used the wilderness to get his people away from everyone else so that they could be taught how to live by his rules so that they could live long, prosper and be a blessing to the other nations. 

God's people need to be transformed, this goes way beyond nonconformity to the world, this is way more than withdrawing from the world or living by a list, this is a rebirth that comes from a new nature.

Romans 12:2 Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

A change of character is exactly what God requires for his people but don't be confused, the change is not a requirement to have a relationship with him but rather it is proof that you do have a relationship. Your obedience will be a natural outcome of the transformation of your character.

God is perfect in holiness to the point that all of his divine attributes are holy attributes, because he loves us and wants the best for us, God wants us to also be holy. This is a condition that mankind doesn't long to achieve, our carnal minds are more concerned about happiness and pleasure, we want ease and comfort.

Everybody has a choice to make, we can behave like Egypt or Canaan or we can be renewed with a new nature by the power of the Holy Spirit so that we will be a reflection of God for the world to see. We struggle with this decision because we want God to solve our problems and carry our burdens, we want our best life now and that doesn't include a God that demands control our lives and a huge change in our character.

Ephesians 4:17, 23-24  With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God-truly righteous and holy.

Paul repeats the warning from Leviticus in his letter to the Ephesian church, it was still an issue hundreds of years later, as long as we are in this world we will struggle with this decision. God's people still need the encouragement to make the right choice:

• Will we allow the Holy Spirit to renew our thoughts and attitudes? (Ephesians 4:23)
• Will we desire to put on our new nature which was given to us to make us like God? (Ephesians 4:23)

Instead of saying "don't do as the..." it's still a good idea to ask yourself, WWJD? Jesus is the only man that God fully approved so that makes him the perfect example for us to follow. (Matthew 3:17)

We will mess up as we continue to grow, the Bible makes it clear that God's people will not automatically or perfectly implement the practice of being like God, it takes time to change our minds about the ways of Egypt and Canaan. We must remember that God is just as patient with us as we wonder around in our wilderness on the way to our Promised Land.

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The Priest Govern God's People

God's people need leaders to show them how to be clean and acceptable to God.

Leviticus 10:10-11 You must distinguish between what is sacred and what is common, between what is ceremonially unclean and what is clean. 11 And you must teach the Israelites all the decrees that the LORD has given them through Moses."

Leviticus 18:3-4 So do not act like the people in Egypt, where you used to live, or like the people of Canaan, where I am taking you. You must not imitate their way of life. 4 You must obey all my regulations and be careful to obey my decrees, for I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 19:1-2, 37 The LORD also said to Moses, 2 "Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. "You must be careful to keep all of my decrees and regulations by putting them into practice. I am the LORD."

Also see: Leviticus 20:23-24, 26 and Leviticus 22:31-33

Malachi 2:5-7  “The purpose of my covenant with the Levites was to bring life and peace, and that is what I gave them. This required reverence from them, and they greatly revered me and stood in awe of my name. 

6  They passed on to the people the truth of the instructions they received from me. They did not lie or cheat; they walked with me, living good and righteous lives, and they turned many from lives of sin.  7  “The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies."

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From the very beginning God's people have wanted to do things their own way, man chose to eat what he wanted (Genesis 3:1-19), which led to choosing how he wanted to worship (Genesis 4:1-16), which eventually led to total wickedness and evil until God destroyed the planet. (Genesis 6:5)

But wait, there's more, we are so bad that even after the flood the world rebelled again very quickly. The grand children of Noah are probably around to tell their children and grandchildren about God's judgment yet they still refused to do what God told them to do. (Genesis 11:1-9) 

So God chose one man from out of the millions of people on earth to begin a new people that would be called out of slavery to live by a different set of rules that govern how they worship, how they treated each other and even what they were allowed to eat.

The book of Leviticus tells us about the priest and the rules that they would use to govern God's people. God would be their king and the priest would govern under his authority. The nation of Israel would have a far better king that any other nation but later on they would demand to be like the other nations with their imperfect kings. (1 Samuel 8:19-20)

Deuteronomy 28:9-10 “If you obey the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways, the LORD will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the LORD, and they will stand in awe of you.

It may be difficult to read every rule of the book of Leviticus in your quiet time, but don't worry, you don't need to know all of the rules but you do need to be aware of the rules and understand the purpose of them. (The Threefold Use of the Law ligonier.org)

God wanted a distinct people that were set apart, eager to love what he loves, a people that would show their loyalty to him and showed his goodness to the rest of the world. (Psalm 1:2, 40:8, 119:162, Hebrews 8:9-10)

The priest are supposed to use the rules that God gave even though some of them don't make any sense from our point of view. We might wonder:

• Why would it make you unclean to kill an animal to make dinner but killing an animal at the altar in the temple made you clean?
• Why would God say that you cannot eat a pig or a horse but you can eat a cow? 
• Why would God say that normal physical relations between a husband and his wife make them unclean? 
• Why would a skin disease that you did nothing to cause be treated like you were being punished?

God wants us to do what he tells us to do just because he said to do it! The best reason for some of these rules is just so that you can prove your allegiance to the God that saved you from slavery and gave you your freedom. The best way to prove your belief in God and your loyalty to him is to conform your thinking to God's standards even when the rules don't make sense. (John 14:21-24)

God never tells Israel why something is clean or unclean. Think about God’s choice of Israel as a nation. Is there some reason why God chose Israel as opposed to the Canaanites? Did he choose the Israelites because they were so spiritually pure? It was just God’s choice. -The Clean and Unclean on Bible.org

The book of Leviticus helps us know that God's people were supposed to be a peculiar kingdom, their government organization and the ruling hierarchy would be very different, their laws would be peculiar, their worship and even what they would not eat would be peculiar.

God's people would be led by ordinary men that God set apart as holy despite their shortcomings, once again it is a matter of God said so and that should settle it. They had a sacred responsibility that required more of them, they couldn't perform their duties and live to tell about it if they were ceremonially unclean, higher privilege required higher standards. (Luke 12:48)

Jesus came to be our High Priest so that we can all be priest that do God's work, we are to go to the Holy of Holies to ask for forgiveness, we are to carry out the task of revealing God to the rest of the world as a royal ambassador and we are supposed to take a stand for holiness in this unclean world. (2 Corinthians 5:20 / 1 Peter 1:15, 2:5, 2:9-10)

If we live up to the task we have been given then the world around us will take notice and check us out to see why we are not conformed to this world. (Romans 12:2)

If God's people would cooperate with him and live by his rules, then his glory and honor would be seen and praised around the world, just as it will be at the end of time. 

God's people in the church era are all priest that have the awesome privilege to work under the great High Priest, the heart and purpose of the Old Testament priestly ministry should be adopted by each of us. 

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The Priest Begin Their Work

God draws near when his people worship him correctly.

Leviticus 8:34 Everything we have done today was commanded by the LORD in order to purify you, making you right with him.

Leviticus 9:5-7 So the people presented all these things at the entrance of the Tabernacle, just as Moses had commanded. Then the whole community came forward and stood before the LORD.

6 And Moses said, "This is what the LORD has commanded you to do so that the glory of the LORD may appear to you." 7 Then Moses said to Aaron, "Come to the altar and sacrifice your sin offering and your burnt offering to purify yourself and the people. Then present the offerings of the people to purify them, making them right with the LORD, just as he has commanded."

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We saw in the previous post that the Priest are supposed to be radically different people, holy, cleansed and anointed for service. We learned that God's people today are supposed to be just as radically different so that they can also serve God and the people around them. We should be like priest working under the leadership of our Great High Priest.

A seven day ordination ceremony was completed in that post and now in our scripture today it is time to begin on the eighth day. The eighth day is used in the Bible to suggest the beginning of something new, a day of completion of a process having to do with dedication, purification or cleansing.

It is a long process to become ceremonially clean, imagine going through the same routine for seven days without anything miraculous happening, hopefully the priest realized through this long process how incredibly far away we are from God's standards and how serious he is about our holiness.

There must have been great anticipation as the priest finally begin their work. The reason they told Pharaoh that they needed to leave Egypt was so that they could worship God but they had no idea that it would be delayed for so long and what would be involved. 

They are probably thinking about the last time the glory of the Lord was seen. God took the first step towards his people when the Tabernacle was completed and now it is time for his people to draw near to him.

But they must have been a little nervous about this worship service, this seems to be the first worship service since the golden calf worship experience, when three thousand people died. God's people were quick to go back to the way of worship they learned from the Egyptians despite the miracles that God performed that proved that the Egyptian gods were no God at all.

God's Awesome Glory Revealed

Leviticus 9:22-24 After that, Aaron raised his hands toward the people and blessed them. Then, after presenting the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering, he stepped down from the altar. 23 Then Moses and Aaron went into the Tabernacle, and when they came back out, they blessed the people again, and the glory of the LORD appeared to the whole community. 24 Fire blazed forth from the LORD's presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When the people saw this, they shouted with joy and fell face down on the ground.

God's people listened to God when he told them how to worship and because they did they saw God's approval manifest among them. Back in the day, it was much easier to know when God accepts your offering, his pleasure was displayed in powerful ways that cannot be mistaken. 

The people that God chose to be his own people have connected with him in a real and personal way. It is interesting that the awesome display of God's power somehow did not cause fear, this must be a sign that the people were forgiven of their sins and they knew they were in right standing with God.

The pagan nations around them had priests and sacrifices, but they didn’t have the glory of God.

-Warren Wiersbe Old Testament Commentary

If God's people performed these rituals with the proper attitude then they would see the glory of God and be assured that their God is real, he is loving and he is powerful to protect them. This should have given them great courage when it comes time to enter the Promised Land.

God's word has made it clear that we need an intercessor to allow us to have an intimate relationship with our holy God. The picture of the High Priest in the Old Testament points to the ultimate fulfillment of the High Priest.

God's Perfect High Priest Revealed

Matthew 24:30-31 And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world-from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.

The ultimate revelation of God's glory is on the way! Do you have a great High Priest that will allow you to experience this magnificent occasion with great joy or will you meet him in anguish? Are you set apart as one of his children so that you can be with him forever in the Promised Land? 

My High Priest is also the holy sacrifice for my sins, he allowed himself to be brutally murdered to satisfy the holy justice of God so that I can have peace with God. Although I have not attained it yet, my position in Jesus is holy because the most holy sacrifice was made for me. (Deuteronomy 33:3, Revelation 1:6, 5:10)

Because of this, I am commanded to live a holy life, I am a priest serving under the Great High Priest to point others to God. I must be free from sin, holy and set apart so that I won't be disqualified to serve. (1 Peter 1:15-16, John 17:19, Titus 2:14)

My position as a royal priest was given to me so that I can be the connection between Heaven and Earth that points others to God's glory so that he will also be revealed to them. (1 Peter 2:5, 9-10)

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The Priest

My relationship with God requires a great High Priest.

Leviticus 8:1-5 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 "Bring Aaron and his sons, along with their sacred garments, the anointing oil, the bull for the sin offering, the two rams, and the basket of bread made without yeast, 3 and call the entire community of Israel together at the entrance of the Tabernacle." 

4 So Moses followed the LORD's instructions, and the whole community assembled at the Tabernacle entrance. 5 Moses announced to them, "This is what the LORD has commanded us to do!"

Exodus 28:1-3 "Call for your brother, Aaron, and his sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Set them apart from the rest of the people of Israel so they may minister to me and be my priests. 

2 Make sacred garments for Aaron that are glorious and beautiful. 3 Instruct all the skilled craftsmen whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom. Have them make garments for Aaron that will distinguish him as a priest set apart for my service.

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When we think of the word priest we think of a messy occupation that would gross us out if we had to do it today, we think that priest are no longer needed and we are so thankful that we don't need to provide an animal sacrifice anymore. But the work of the priest is much more than that, we need to expand our thinking of who a priest is and what they do so that we can see why we still need priest today.

The history of God's priest in the Bible shows us that the qualifications for the job has changed many times. The first time that the function of a priest is mentioned is way back in the garden when God shed the blood of animals to extend forgiveness and to make clothing for Adm and Eve. 

Outside of the garden a little later Cain and Abel would be acting as their own priest and then Noah, Abram, Isaac, Jacob and also Job were all making sacrifices to God. First the Bible shows us individuals functioning as their own priest and then later it shows us the head of the family doing this work. (Genesis 8:20, 12:7, 13:4 26:25, 31:54, Job 1:5).

After God chose a people for himself he gave them rules about how to live a new way to please him that would make them different from the rest of the world. They would have a new worldview, a new civilized way of loving God and their neighbor, new food rules and also new rules about how to worship.

God's rules for worship began with the worship leaders back in the book of Exodus, next he gave them his rules about how to worship, including the sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7, and now they are ready to ordain the first High Priest and the first priests that will serve under him.

The preparations for the ordination:

• Washed (Leviticus 8:6)
• High Priest Garments (Leviticus 8:7-9)
• Anointing (Leviticus 8:10-12)
• Priest Garments (Leviticus 8:13)

The offerings for ordination:

• Sin offering (Leviticus 8:14),
• Burnt offering (Leviticus 8:18)
• Ordination offering (Leviticus 8:22)
• Wave offering (Leviticus 8:25-29)

God's priest are ordinary men that need to be forgiven and cleansed before they can put on their priestly garments. The priest must be sanctified by the Sin Offering and the Burnt Offering before their special Ordination Offering and Wave Offering. These rituals would last for seven days and Aaron and his sons would have to stay at the Tabernacle the whole time.

The fact that Aaron was chosen as the first High Priest is an amazing symbol of God's mercy and grace, as the leader of God's people while Moses was away, Aaron led the people to idol worship. But instead of being disqualified, by God's grace he was elevated to a position of honor that he didn't deserve.

Malachi 2:5-7  “The purpose of my covenant with the Levites was to bring life and peace, and that is what I gave them. This required reverence from them, and they greatly revered me and stood in awe of my name. 

6  They passed on to the people the truth of the instructions they received from me. They did not lie or cheat; they walked with me, living good and righteous lives, and they turned many from lives of sin.  7  “The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies."

God's chosen people (the nation) would have a chosen people (the priest) to be the ambassador between God and his people. They will lead them in worship, teach them truth and govern their everyday life. The priest would focus on helping the people maintain a clean and holy life that would please God and bring him glory that would be seen among the nations.

There Is A New High Priest

Hebrews 9:11-12 So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. 12 With his own blood-not the blood of goats and calves-he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.

As I said earlier in this post, the priesthood has changed, it was originally the work of the individual or the head of the family, later it became an official occupation of a few men but now it has changed again. Because of Jesus the priesthood that God initiated in Exodus and Leviticus is now obsolete.

Jesus would die as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, but he wasn't just the perfect lamb that covered our sins, because of his sacrifice and resurrection from the dead he is now our ultimate High Priest that was chosen by God and because of his perfect obedience he is now interceding for us at God's throne in Heaven.

If you know your Bible a little bit you may wonder "how can Jesus become the High Priest if he is from the tribe of Judah? Didn't the priest come from the tribe of Levi?"

Melchizedek and the Priesthood of Christ is a great essay that explains how and why Jesus replaced Aaron's lineage. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the High Priest, he met all of the credentials, but he came from the tribe of Judah through the lineage of the kings. (Psalm 110:1-7, Hebrews 7:11-28)

God's People Serve As Priest

1 Peter 2:9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

All of God's children are a chosen people that live as members of a holy nation that serve as royal priest so that the people that are not a part of this holy nation can see the goodness of God.

I think that it is a shame that most of us think about ourselves when we hear that we are priest or we hear about the priesthood of the believers. We think about the fact that we don't need to go through another human in order to talk to God or to receive forgiveness. But if we are true to the original priest in the Old Testament and apply their job description to ourselves then we will see things differently.

Direct access to God is just one of the benefits that we have as priest that are working under the great High Priest.

We are supposed to be:

• A set apart people that live to serve God and others.
• A light to the dark world around us so that they can God's goodness.
• A blessing to our neighbors and family, helping them to know how to please God.
• A multiplying people, making more and more priest to serve God and others.
• An encouraging people, nudging others to good works and holiness.

Salvation is a free gift but, as you can see from this list, it is so much more than a fire insurance policy. Obedience to God's commands should be a natural reaction when you understand how tremendously ugly your sin is next to God's holy standard. If you don't feel an urgency to live God's way then you may not be his child.

Titus 2:14 He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds. 

1 Peter 1:15-16 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, "You must be holy because I am holy."

The proper Old Testament priest were radically different people, holy, cleansed and anointed for service. Shouldn't we be just as committed to the same high standards? 

The Old Testament commands to be holy are repeated in the New Testament so why don't we consider holiness as a requirement in our own lives?

RELATED ARTICLES

In the Beginning God Created a Priest (crossway.org)

Were Adam and Eve Priests in Eden? (bibleproject.com)

10 Things You Should Know about the Priesthood of Believers (crossway.org)

The Purification Offering

The King offers cleansing when we become stained with sin.

Leviticus 4:1-2 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 "Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. This is how you are to deal with those who sin unintentionally by doing anything that violates one of the LORD's commands.

Leviticus 5:13 Through this process, the priest will purify those who are guilty of any of these sins, making them right with the LORD, and they will be forgiven. The rest of the flour will belong to the priest, just as with the grain offering."

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The most important thing we need to know about God is that he is holy. His holiness is at the core of who he is and it is the driving force behind his righteousness, justice, mercy, wrath, compassion and all the other attributes of God.

Because of God's holiness we cannot approach him in an impure state or we will be consumed similar to the way that the sun would destroy us. We know that the sun is powerful and good but you would need something to cover you to allow you to have access without burning up.  

So far in this series from the Book of Leviticus we have seen the rules for worshipping God:

• The Burnt Offering shows us that God is merciful in providing a way for us to approach him through the blood sacrifice.
• The Grain Offering shows us that we need to be grateful for his mercy in providing us everything that we have.
• The Peace Offering was a celebration of our renewed fellowship that we have because of God's mercy.

Our next lesson in how to worship God tells us how to continue to receive God's mercy when we fail him. 

The sin offering was actually a purification of God's people and God's places that he has designated as holy. The purification rituals were done so that God could inhabit those holy spaces and come close to his people without jeopardizing their safety.

The purification offering had different sacrifices required for different people and the amount of purification that would be needed:

• the high priest (vv. 3–12)
• the congregation (vv. 13–21)
• a tribal leader (vv. 22–26)
• an individual member (vv. 27–35)

The application of blood to the holy areas of the tabernacle restores the sacred space that was defiled by the sins of the priest. The blood was applied to the veil, the incense altar, and the altar of burnt offering so that the sacred space would be cleansed.

As you move on from the priest to the congregation, to the tribal leaders and then to an individual's sin you see a decreasing level of threat to holiness. The lack of holiness in Israel's leaders required more blood to be applied to more places, including the holiest places, whereas the sins of one ordinary person required less.

The popular notion theses days is that sin is sin, no matter which one you commit, is terrible theology. God's law shows us that sin has various levels of consequences, in this chapter we can see that unintentional sin and defiant sins are not treated the same. There are premeditated sins that the Bible says puts us in great harm and there are smaller sins that you are not even aware of such as accidently taking a pen home from work.

Another popular idea is that my sin is my sin and you should stay out of my business. We think it doesn't concern anybody else but God's word shows us that the individual sinner has a negative affect on the whole community. When God sent the Jews into exile, many good people suffered and died as a result of national sins. It's not just a personal thing, individual sins affect the tribes and the entire nation, that's why we have the responsibility to look out for each other. (2 Samuel 12:1-10, Galatians 6:1-3)

This offering shows us our sin nature, our natural ability to do wrong by God's standards, we don't need to learn how to sin, we can do it without any effort. The old definition of sin that I learned in Sunday school is not good theology. I was taught that sin is when you know what is right and you don't do it. This definition is completely discredited by the demand for a sacrifice that covers unintentional sins. (Also in Psalm 19:12-14)

The Old Testament shows us that the purity of God's places and his people could only be restored through the blood sacrifice. In Leviticus four we see that the result of these sacrifices was forgiveness of the sins of God's people. (Leviticus 4:20, 26, 31, 35; Leviticus 5:10,13; 6:7)

Pardon for sin was accomplished to some degree through the animal sacrifices, otherwise the High Priest wouldn't be able to come into the most holy places in the Tabernacle and the Temple, but the New Testament tells us that these sacrifices didn't forgive our sins. (Romans 3:20, Hebrews 10:1-23)

It seems to be a contradiction but maybe what looks like a contradiction is actually a difference in perspective. The Matthew Henry Commentary shows us the difference in the types of forgiveness that we are talking about.

Under the old, sacrifices must be often repeated, and after all, only pardon as to this world was to be obtained by them. Under the new, one Sacrifice is enough to procure for all nations and ages, spiritual pardon, or being freed from punishment in the world to come.

-Matthew Henry Commentary

The sacrifices of the Old Testament when done with the right motivation clearly brought them forgiveness from punishment in this world (1 John 1:9) but the sacrifice wasn't enough to obtain pardon that would free them from punishment in the after life (John 3:16).

Offering the Old Testament sacrifices flowed from the life of one rightly related to God by faith, but was not the means of the right relationship, just as Abraham was counted as righteous by his faith. Doing good, even following the rituals of the law, didn't get anybody into Heaven.

1 Timothy 2:5  For, There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus.

The perfect sacrifice is the only one that will get you to a forever home with God, it had to be the sacrifice of the perfect God/Man that could forgive us and give us the right to be God's children living with him for eternity. 

Have you found the perfect lamb for sacrifice? 

RELATED ARTICLES

The Purification Offering (meetinggodinthemargin.com)

The Provision of Sacrifice in the Old Testament (crossway.org)

Was There Forgiveness Under the Law of Moses? (christiancourier.com)