Priest

Text: Exodus 40:12-15

“Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meeting and shall wash them with water and put on Aaron the holy garments. And you shall anoint him and consecrate him, that he may serve me as priest. You shall bring his sons also and put coats on them, and anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may serve me as priests. And their anointing shall admit them to a perpetual priesthood throughout their generations.”

The OT priesthood is central to Christianity all the way into the New Creation. If you’re a Christian, God has big big plans for you. And those plans are intertwined with the priestly role.

1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Revelation 1:6
and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Not only that, but Jesus is called the Great High Priest. To understand Christ, we need to have some understanding of the OT priesthood.

So what shall we say about the priests? There’s a lot of material here, and even more in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Three basic ideas represented in three words:

Priority, Protection, Presence

Priority – They were uniquely the Lord’s.

Deuteronomy 18:1-2
“The Levitical priests—indeed, the whole tribe of Levi—are to have no allotment or inheritance with Israel. They shall live on the food offerings presented to the Lord, for that is their inheritance. They shall have no inheritance among their fellow Israelites; the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them.”

Protection – They were to guard and keep the temple.

It would not be surprising if, when thinking about a priest, to find your mind going to some kind of effeminate man in a collar. But the Levites were chosen by God explicitly because that particular tribe had a history of violence. As the great patriarch Issac issued blessings to each of his 12 sons, Levi was singled out as being a man of war.

Zach Garris writes, “The Levites were not just priests—they were warrior-priests. Their priestly origin is based in righteous violence. But God put the violent nature of the Levites to good use. Not only would the priests among them slaughter animals on a regular basis for sacrifice, but also all the Levites would guard the tabernacle/temple and the cities of refuge. Yahweh ordained and scattered the Levites throughout Israel in order to guard His worship.”

Numbers 3:5-10
“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Bring the tribe of Levi near, and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister to him. They shall keep guard over him and over the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, as they minister at the tabernacle. They shall guard all the furnishings of the tent of meeting, and keep guard over the people of Israel as they minister at the tabernacle. And you shall give the Levites to Aaron and his sons; they are wholly given to him from among the people of Israel. And you shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall guard their priesthood. But if any outsider comes near, he shall be put to death.”

Presence – They were responsible for entering the presence of the Lord. Which, under the old covenant, was a very risky mission. They were appointed to do the very thing the rest of the people feared to do. Remember Exodus 20

Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.”

When you search the word “die” in Exodus you wind up with a bunch of instructions for the priests:

Exodus 28:35 – And it shall be on Aaron when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard when he goes into the Holy Place before the LORD, and when he comes out, so that he does not die.

Exodus 28:43 – and they shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they go into the tent of meeting or when they come near the altar to minister in the Holy Place, lest they bear guilt and die.

Exodus 30:20 – This shall be a statute forever for him and for his offspring after him.When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to the LORD, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die.

Echos of Eden

While we’re thinking about these things, I want to take a bit of a side quest into once concept I feel it is important for you to understand….

I don’t think most Christians understand that the tabernacle/temple were in some respects, designed by God to be an echo of Eden.

Work & Keep

I mentioned a moment ago that the Levites were supposed to guard and keep the temple. The phrase in the Hebrew is “‘ābad and šāmar” – which is exactly what Adam was charged with in Genesis 2:15: “And the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

Eden was the place of God’s localized presence. The place where God dwelled among men

Flaming Cherubim

The tabernacle/temple was exactly that. And as the high priest went beyond the great veil hung at the entrance to the holy of holies – he would pass two flaming cherubim embroidered in the veil. Which brings to mind Genesis 3:24, when after the sinned, God drove out Adam and Eve from the garden (from God’s localized presence) and “...He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”

Clothed in Jewels

When the high priest entered the holy of holies, he was made ceremonially sinless – he took on Adam’s original splendor. In Ezekiel 28:11-14, God, in a round about way, tells us how he viewed Adam before the fall…

Thus says the Lord GOD: “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.

That description maps on pretty well to the priestly garments prescribed in Exodus 28.

28:2 – And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty.
28:15-20 – “You shall make a breastpiece of judgment, in skilled work. In the style of the ephod you shall make it—of gold, blue and purple and scarlet yarns, and fine twined linen shall you make it. 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.”

I wanted to take a moment to discuss this because I think it is hard to understand what we, as human beings, were before the fall. We were, in God’s eyes, bejeweled beings. Perfect in beauty – covered in precious stones. The crown of his creation. When he made man and said, “this is very good” – he really meant it.

So when God appointed one man to enter the Holy of Holies once a year – as a kind of symbolic Adam – we are able to see the heights from which we’ve fallen. The jewels and intricate clothing is just an external way of revealing the inherent splendor of our original sinless state.

But you also have what is essentially a very brief imaging of curse reversal. What if none of this had happened? What if man was not cursed with sin? What if he was still able to commune with God?

Which of course brings us to Jesus

He is the new and better Adam. And he is the great high priest. And John 17 is a pretty good passage to reveal some of that.

John 17:1-5
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

Priority – “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” (17:4)

Jesus only did the Father’s work. He had no other mission. No inheritance. He did not take a wife. Etc…

Protection – In John 17, we see the guard and keep language. Look at vs. 10-11: “And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”

Now pay attention to what he is guarding and keeping. The Levites guarded the Old Testament temple – Jesus is guarding and keeping the New Testament temple – which is the church – where each individual believer has become the dwelling place of God.

He isn’t guarding a place. He is guarding a people. Specifically, he is guarding his people against the three great enemies to our soul. The world, the flesh, and the devil. Look at vs. 14-17

But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

Presence – What about the presence of God? Well, there’s too much that could be said! Remember how the Old Testament priests were symbolically glorious – symbolically sinless – and all of that was reflected by the splendor of their physical appearance.

Well in the New Covenant, God flips the script a bit. Jesus comes as externally inglorious. No form or majesty. First as a baby born in a manger, then as a servant. Outwardly he is a carpenter. Inwardly, he is pure glory, a kind of glory that would make diamonds and sapphires look absolutely dull.

In the Old Covenant, the garment was passed down from priest to priest, year after year. They put on an external form that represented sinlessness. But Jesus has an inherent glory. And this is the glory he is passing on to his people.

Look at vs. 22 – “The glory that you have given me I have given to them…”

And all of this is leading to a great great future for those who are in Christ. Look at vs. 24 – “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

And so in the end, Jesus is the curse reverser. He is not just the redeemer of many souls, but he is actually redeeming mankind’s original dignity and destiny. And all of this will lead to our great future described in Revelation 5:9-10

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

Now, in the meantime, we, being made into a nation of priests, have a clear sense of what our life is supposed to look like.
All of my life belongs to the Lord

In his classic work entitled Practical Christianity, William Wilberforce writes..

It is the grand, essential, practical characteristic of true Christians, that, relying on the promises to repenting sinners, of acceptance through the Redeemer, they have renounced and abjured all other masters, and have cordially and unreservedly devoted themselves to God.

Christians are become the sworn enemies of sin; they will henceforth hold no parley with it, they will allow it in no shape, they will admit it to no composition; the war they have denounced against it, is universal and irreconcilable.


But this is not all—it is now their determined purpose to yield themselves without reserve to the reasonable service of their rightful Sovereign. ‘They are not their own:’ their bodily and mental faculties, their natural and acquired endowments, their substance, their authority, their time, their influence; all these, they consider as belonging to them, not for their own gratification, but as instruments to be consecrated to the honour and employed in the service of God.

This must be the master principle to which every other must be subordinate. Whatever may have been hitherto their ruling passion, or leading pursuit, whether sensual, or intellectual, of science, taste, fancy, or feeling…must exist only at the pleasure, and be put altogether under the control and direction of its true and legitimate superior.

I am called to guard God’s temple-people
Prayer is supposed to be a big part of my life

Spurgeon: “If any of you should ask me for the epitome of the Christian life, I would say that it is in one word-prayer.”

Why do I say that? Because as priests, you are meant to spend time in God’s presence. This is what Jesus has paid for. Hebrews 4:14-16

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

COMMUNION:

One way to think about the cross is that in a spiritual sense, Jesus entered the Holy of Holies with your sin on him… and this is why he was destroyed.
But now you get to enter the holy of holies with his righteousness on you