Exodus 28-29: God's Priest

  • Christopher Rich
  • Jun 28, 2009

God’s Priest

(Exodus 29-30)

Introduction

Good Morning! Today, we’re going to be continuing our walk though the book of Exodus in Chapters 28-29. These are chapters that don’t get taught on a lot, and are seldom preached. For those who have endeavored to read the Bible from cover-to-cover, especially the first time, these are difficult and challenging chapters for most of us. You’ve made it though the narratives in Genesis, and all the events surrounding God delivering Israel from Egypt and now it’s a lot of detailed instructions about priestly garments, various ritual cleansings, and bloody animal sacrifices. We see words, like ephod, signet, consecrate, and wave offering, and most of our eyes start to gloss over. We either skim them over, until we find a spot where “something is happening”, or we skip all the way to the New Testament so we can read about Jesus, or give up reading all together, until the next, sermon, bible study, or retreat gets us fired up to try again. I’ve been right there with you.

Most people, don’t really know what do with a lot of the Bible, and it leads to a lot of errors when it come to reading or studying the Bible, particularly the OT

  • Guide to Human Happiness- Instruction manual for life
  • Collection of inspirational statements, stories, and rules for morality.
  • Old Testament is either brutally mishandled by legalists who use text from Leviticus to support capitol punishment. Televangelists use it to claim it holds the secrets to earthly prosperity.  
    • Bible won’t tell you who to marry, where to live, what job to take.
    • Man-centered, not God centered
    • Turns God into a genie in a bottle that you’ve got to rub the right way, who is easily manipulated by following certain rules/actions.
    • Reduces the Bible to less that what it is, THE foundational story.

All of us have a foundational story, a narrative, shaped by our experience, influences, knowledge, and condition of our heart, on how we see the world, others, God, and ourselves. Even for most Christians, it’s the humanistic, narrative of modern western culture that dominates our thoughts, opinions, and actions so comprehensively that it acts as the world-view, or filter, that we process all things through, scripture included. When reading the Bible, listening to Biblical teaching, or receiving Biblical counsel, consciously or not, we’re letting ourselves and our story dictate who God is, who we are, and how we should respond, rather than submitting to our lives, our understanding of the world, and God, to God’s Word as revealed in the Bible. This happens for two reasons, Pride, and failure see the Bible not just as a collection of independent nuggets of truths, stories, instructions, and principals, but as links in a chain strung together into a Meta-narrative. A story of God’s Glory, with Creator/God’s creation rebelled breaking their relationship plunging the world into a fallen/broken state, God enacting his plan for redemption/reconciliation through a family, tribe, nation, and through his Son Jesus, his life, and death on the Cross/resurrection, establishing new kingdom, and ultimately new creation.

The climax, the panicle is the Cross of Christ, so we read, teach, and proclaim the Bible as Meta Narrative where the OT foreshadows/anticipates/cries out for the need for the savior/king Jesus and the Cross. We do this because Jesus tells us too.

John 5:39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,”

Luke 24:26-27 (p1504)

We look at the NT as reveling Jesus, who’s fingerprints are all over the OT, and unpacks the implications of who he is and what he accomplished on the Cross.

At Damascus Road we’re big on the Bible, because we’re big on Jesus, and we get met Jesus as he’s revealed in Scripture.

Review OT offices of Prophet, Priest, and King

As we look back through the OT we see God interacting with humanity, usually through his chosen people/Israel, with a diverse collection of men as leaders, teachers and intercessors as representatives of Israel and the world. These men, usually, fit in to one of three distinct offices in the nation of Israel.

King-  Saul, David, and Solomon who ruled over the people as God’s representative. This is similar to our modern President, or head of State, yet distinctive in that rather than ruling from there own authority they ruled from God’s authority and attempted, for better or worse, usually worse, to rule in a way that God approved or ordained.

Prophet- Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, spoke God’s word to the people and their rulers. Prophets were controversial, unpopular, and reviled as they spoke hard truth to power and society, without the authority, resources, or influence of a king. Like talk radio, or late night hosts, but rather than shaping pop culture, they we’re usually rejected, beaten, cast out and often feared for their lives.

Priest- Aaron, Eli, Ezra offered prayers, praises, and sacrifices to God on behalf of the people. Chosen by God to be set apart, they acted as a representative, mediator, or intercessor for the people standing in the gap between a just, powerful, perfect God, and a fallen, broken, and sinful humanity.

These offices are of tremendous significance as they not only show characteristics of God, and how we’re to relate to him, but in the light of Jesus and the Cross, these offices foreshadow Christ’s work in different ways. We’re going to look specifically at Priest.  As we dive into Exodus 28 and 29, we’re not going to look at them as ritual practices to be observed, archaic lists of instructions to be ignored, but rather as a system that God set up for his people that acted for them, and acts for us, as a window to man’s sin vs God’s perfection, our need for a mediator between us and God, how Jesus Christ fulfills the role of High Priest, and how we’re to act as priesthood of believers.

Priest Garments Ch 28 Overview

Ex 28:1-4

So right away we see that God tells Moses that he’s chosen a head mediator God specifically tells Moses that these priests are commissioned to serve the Lord in mediating the His relationship humanity, and Israel specifically. Why is the relationship broken to the point that direct interaction is no longer possible and why does God select the mediators?  In Gen 3 we see man’s active rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden, by disobeying God’s word/command humanity falls into a constant state of conflict with the Creator. It’s called sin and it’s the just consequence is death and eternal separation from God.  But we begin to see God’s grace, that while he is not the offending party, he initiates a reestablishment of the relationship. The priest represents God first because, sinful man cannot come to God without suffering God’s righteous wrath, so God lays down the foundation for a restoration of relationship.

As God’s representatives, the priests are to have holy garments to set them apart from the rest of the people. Unlike the garments of animal skin God made for Adam and Eve after the fall, representing the sin and death of creation, verse 2 tells us that the priestly garments are to stand for both the glory and beauty of the Creator. V 3 again not by an act of man, but by God’s gifting.

Ex 28:9-10, 12

Now we start to get into the details of what these garments are going to look like and represent. In these verse we see that the ephod, basically a long ornate apron, is going to have onyx stones with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.  Aaron the High Priest, and those that would follow him will wear this in remembrance before the Lord. So the priest, while first a representative of the Holy God are also representing a specific people. But why these people? Why do the stones have the names the 12 tribes of Israel and not of the nations/ tribes of the world? Where is Egypt or the Philistines? What’s special about Israel?

So we look at this in light of the greater narrative of Scripture and we see that back in Genesis 12 and 22, God makes a covenant with a man name Abraham, that through his seed “all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” And God renews this covenant with Abraham’s son Isaac, and his son Jacob, called Israel, who’s twelve sons become a nation of people, chosen by God to bless the world. Showing that God is NOT a Universalist! God as Creator, not man, will set the terms for how we’re to see him. Israel, was no better than any of the other nations/tribes, in fact looking at the rest of the Bible they’re pretty much the most adulterous people in terms of remaining faithful to God. Again we see God’s grace, that in there infidelity God is faithful to the covenant, while also showing his exclusivity in interacting with a specific people. That theme continues as he lays out the Breastpiece of Judgment

Ex 28:15, 21, 29-30

While the priest is first a representative of the Holy God, to be a worthy mediator they also represent man. Even as Israel, God’s chosen people, as sinners, both collectively and individually they are still subject to God’s judgment. Priest would wear this piece v29 says “on his heart” literally as reminder of the nation/people they represent as they regularly come into the presence of the Lord. In addition to the stones representing the 12 tribes, it also had Urim and Thummim that Aaron would also have on his heart. When ever I’ve read though this quickly I’ve always read “Uma Thurman” and wondered how she made it into the Bible, but like all the details of the priestly garments, these two stones are chosen with, I think, great intentionality as they have significant meaning, particularly as a pair. Urim and Thummim, literally mean ‘light’ and ‘perfection’, additionally the words begin with the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in Greek it would be the Alpha and Omega. This not only points to the eternal Creator who is Holy and perfect, but also points to Jesus who in John 8:12 says “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  Jesus who lived a perfect sinless life who says in Rev 1 “I am the first and Last” and “I am the Alpha and Omega…who is and who was and who is to come” Additionally we see the bookends of the Gospel/Bible as God in Gen speaks ‘light’ into existence and in Revelation restores creation into to a glorified state of ‘perfection’, while still being reminded that in between there is a broken relationship, leading to judgment and a people that need a mediator. The priest is instructed to keep all three things, the imperfect people, the perfect God, and to “bear the judgment of the people” on his heart regularly. These are each deep, weighty things for the priest to bear, and the burden of each if carried should break a man’s heart. Does it break yours? When you see the brokenness of humanity, on the news/in your family, to do you let it get to your heart? Do you look at darkness humanity and compare it to the light and perfection of God? Are you overwhelmed by God’s righteous judgment due a creation that has rejected the design/purposes their Creator? If you forget either, you’ll not care much for God, or much for people. God is telling us that we are to remember each at with such a depth and regularity that leads us to serve the Creator and love his creation.  

Ex 28:36-38

This last item of the garment, this gold plate engraved with “Holy to the Lord”, it is translated in Ch29 and elsewhere as a crown. Without a King, Aaron/High Priest would be the highest representative before God for Israel. V 38 shows that, God would be dealing directly with the High Priest for the guilt of sins committed by those he represents, regardless of if the priest was involved in committing the sins or not. We see this in the Garden that while Eve engaged the serpent and ate the fruit first it’s Adam, as the head of the first family, which God deals with as the guilty party. Later, Israel will see God deal with another man, bearing the guilt of others, though blameless, as a Holy priest. Instead of a crown of Gold reading “Holy to the Lord”, his will be a crown of thorns and a sign will proclaim him as King of the Jews.

Consecration of the Priests 29 Overview

Ex 29:1-9 focus on v4

Consecrate is not a word that we use much in our culture but just means “make holy” or “set apart” in this case from there fellow countrymen for God’s service. V4 tells us before the priests could put on their priestly uniforms they should be washed with water. Before they could come in the presence of God in the Tent/Tabernacle they had to be clean, ceremonially and literally. But there current state of cleanliness wasn’t good enough because God is eternal. He doesn’t just know the priests as their cleaned and dressed up selves for when they want to be presentable in front of the people and God, He knows their past, their mess, their failures, their brokenness, their imperfection, their sin.  

Ex 29:10-14

A sacrifice had to be made on the priests behalf to come before the Lord. God is telling them that they can’t come to God to do business for their people because as sinners the priest had their own personal debts with God that had to be settled. It would be like trying to pay someone else’s credit card while having an overdue balance yourself, you’d have to be settled up first. The priests lay their hands on the bull to symbolizing their personal identification with this animal as a substitute sacrifice necessary as a consequence of their Sin. They’re saying, “God we understand that the consequence of our sin is death, and we offer this animal to you as our substitute to stay your righteous wrath.” PETA would not have been too excited about this, especially considering they offered similar sacrifice with two different rams as well. This was bloody, bloody work. Work that reminds us of two very important things 2 things:

  1. God takes Sin very seriously and sees it as very disgusting.
  2. God is not impressed with religious observance.

For both, atonement needs to be made to restore right relationship with God.  

Ex 29:15-23(Summarize), 24-25

After killing the rams, taking the blood and putting on the tip of the ear, big toe, thumb, and sprinkling it on the clothes they were considered cleansed of their impurities, their sin and were ready to come before God and begin to give offerings to the Lord on Israel’s behalf, and it says that their offerings were a pleasing aroma before the Lord.

V 29-30 God lays out a succession plan, that Aaron’s son’s will follow in his footsteps and that the High Priest, and this priesthood will continue in Aaron’s family being from the tribe of Levi.

Ex 29:35-37, 38

The priesthood would continue, and so would the sacrifices. All this blood all this sacrifice wasn’t a one time deal, because our Sin isn’t a one time deal, but rather an ongoing, terminal, condition. V 38 says “day by day regularly.” There is no rest, no restoration, no newness of life, no perfection, no communion with God. The necessity of repetition shows just how insufficient theses sacrifices are, and how laborious the roll of priest would be as each day he’s reminded of the sinfulness of the people and himself.  I am guessing there could have been a sense among the priest and the people of, “ok, this is going to be difficult, repetitious, but if we white-knuckle it we may be able to make this work, yea this can work, we can follow God’s instructions.” But this isn’t good news, this isn’t the Gospel! This is legalism at finest, this is religion, that says do this and God will be happy with you.  Again just like the fall in Genesis, just a few chapters later Israel, lead by her High Priest would chuck this system entirely in-favor of getting drunk and getting laid. Oh the OT is so out dated to today! How many of us have tired religion only to follow a cycle of pride, self righteousness, and despair only to chuck it all out the window and say “forget about it let’s eat drink and be merry”, only to find that what you thought was freedom was really just another kind of slavery, to lust, greed, and idolatry.

Ex 29:42-46

In the last few verses of the ch 29 God tells Moses that the purpose of the priesthood and all that it entails is so his people can be close to Him and so “they shall know that I am the LORD/YHWH their God, who brought them out of Egypt/slavery..that I might dwell among them.” But religion didn’t work for Israel, like it doesn’t work for us. This system is screams “there has to be something better.”  They couldn’t measure up, like we can’t measure up. So generations go back and fourth between legalism and license.

Israel tells God, “Hey this Priest thing is working out so well, if you would just give us a King we wouldn’t have to deal with all of our individual rebellion we could just have one guy rule over us. We’ll still do the priest thing on the side, just give us a King like everyone else has and it’ll be great.”  God says, “Haven’t you seen how much kings all over the world have jacked up their people? It will go for you worse than it’s gone for them, in fact it will be so bad that your nation will fall a part and you’ll be drugged to the ends of the earth and ruled over by all the kings you despise” But they persist, “Give us a king, give us a king.” So God gives them over to the desires of their heart, he gives them a king, and it goes exactly as God said it would. They exchanged religion for government thinking new laws and authority would solve everything, but the brokenness of the nation/humanity was, and is, just a reflection of the brokenness of the hearts of the people. So Israel went back to God and said we’ll try religion again, and dusted off the ephods, lit up the holy BBQ and started waving bloody lamb chops in the air again. But God has turned his back on them and send them only Prophets to speak his words, his truth, to them that this system has not and will not work because their heart has always been the issue.

Isaiah 1:11-17 (p951)

Even though Israel usually ignored, rejected, beat prophets, we still see God’s grace in that they’re not left without hope. God tells them that the old covenant was not faultless a new covenant will come, making the old obsolete.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (p. 1099)

And he will deal directly with our hearts

Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to obey my rules.

And after generations rejecting God’s word spoken by his prophets, Israel keeps playing their religion game, the rest of the world continues in spiritual darkness/idolatry, God goes silent for 400 years until he reenters human history as his son Jesus Christ. Through out the OT we see Kings constantly leading Israel away from God, Prophets tormented or ignored, and Priests as insufficient mediators, but Jesus perfectly fill all three offices.

King- “seated at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things the church.” Eph 1:20-22

And Jesus came to them and said to them, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” Matt 28:18

Prophet- Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son 1:1-2

  • He is the one whom all the prophecies of the OT were made.
  • Not merely messenger of God’s word, but the source of God’s Word.
  • OT prophets said “Thus says the Lord,” Jesus says “Truly, I say to you.”

Jesus as High Priest and Sacrifice

He is embodiment, mediator, guarantor, and sacrifice of a new/better covenant. A covenant paid not by the blood of bulls or goats “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Heb 10:4

  1. Jesus offered a perfect Sacrifice for Sin (Grudem p.626)

Heb 7:26-27 (p 1787)

Heb 9:26-28 (p 1790)

By his death on the cross, as our substitute, he was both the perfect sinless priest that offered the sacrifice on our behalf, but by giving himself he was also that complete and sufficient sacrifice never to be repeated as it ended the need for any further sacrifices.

  1. Jesus Continually brings Us Near to God

He entered once and for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood…the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, (to) purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Heb 9:12,14 paraphrased

His cross bridges the gap between the Holy perfect God and humanity. We don’t have need of a temple, Holy of Holies/curtain to stand between us and God. When Jesus died the curtain covering the Holies of Holies was torn from top to bottom. We can come near to God not by any earthly priest, good works, but by His shed blood.  God doesn’t see our sin our mess, or brokenness, but he see the perfect righteousness of His son Jesus that has been imparted too us as a gift of his grace.

 

Heb 10:19-22 (p1791)

 

  1. Jesus is our mediator in prayer

With the old broken covenant God said through Isaiah that he wouldn’t even listen to the prayers of those offering sacrifices let alone the people. With relationship restored though Jesus as our eternal High Priest he is able to make intercession for us, in the Greek it means to “petition” or “plead” on our behalf. (Heb 7:25) and is able to do so with complete understand if the human experience .

Heb 4:15-16

We also know from his prayers in the Gospels that Jesus is always praying according to the Father’s will so we can know that he’s praying for us better than we could pray for ourselves. Lewis Berkhof says it this way,

“It is a consoling though that Christ is praying for us, even when we are negligent in our prayer life; that He is presenting to the Father those spiritual needs which were not present in our minds and which we often neglect to include in our prayers; and that He prays for our protection against dangers of which we are not even conscious, and against the enemies which threaten us, though we do not notice it. He is praying that our faith may not cease, and that we may come out victoriously in the end.”

Jesus as our high priest is good news. Religion won’t please God, and because of Christ sacrifice, if our faith in him, God doesn’t see our sinfulness, he sees Christ perfection. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor 5:21

Praise God the old covenant, the old High Priest, the old priesthood, while pointing as an imperfect shadow to Christ, has past. By Christ’s work on the Cross and though his resurrection, there is a new better covenant, a new perfect High Priest, and new priesthood. You yourselves like living stones are being built up as spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God though Jesus Christ. 1 Pet 2:5

Our Role as Priest

If you’re a Christian you need to understand that your part of a new priesthood. One where your chosen status isn’t defined like the old priesthood by birth into the Tribe of Levi, but it comes though your new birth to a living hope though the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You come to God not by ritual cleansing, the blood of sacrifices, or the holiness special garments. You come before him cleansed by the word of God, drenched in the blood of the Cross, clothed in the righteousness of Christ. While none of this is of our own doing, it does not leave us with out a response and responsibility to act in a small way as priests, pointing to the atoning work of the High Priest. Jesus is the offering for sin, but people still need to be led from sin and loved in there sin by walking with them in the process of confession, repentance, and restoration.  We don’t offer sacrifices, we mediate the truth of the Gospel in what we say and how we live. We preach the atonement of Christ and speak of confession and repentance. We live transparent lives, admitting our weaknesses, dependence on the cross, and commitment to godliness. We model humility constantly coming to the cross of Christ to deal with our own sin before engaging in the sins of others. We face our depravity so we don’t get prideful in helping others.  We’re called to be priest first in our home, second in our church, and third in our community. We don’t invert the order or ignore the responsibilities.

Home- We have a responsibility to pray for our families, intentionally teach our children and lead in an example of priestly confession and repentance.

Church- This looks different for each individual. What is common to all is it requires relationship.  If we are going to, as James asks, “confess our sins one to another” we must know each other, care for each other, and love each other.

Community- Preaching and living isn’t confined to these walls or where we’re comfortable.  Our faith in Christ is personal but not private. People need love in practical “social justice” ways and they need God’s truth spoke into their lives.

Honestly, I think in some ways the old priests may have had it easier, clean up, dress up, offer some sacrifices, sprinkle some blood around, follow the rules. It isn’t nearly as difficult, as dealing with our own sin and pride, as rigorous as daily leading our families, as messy as working with others in their recognized or unrecognized sin, or as uncomfortable and inconvenient as engaging with the brokenness, suffering, and idolatry of our community and world while proclaiming Jesus as King, Prophet, and Priest.

I am going to pray through Jesus as our intercessor, we’re going to sing praises and rejoice in Jesus as our High Priest for his work on the Cross for our behalf.  

We going to give our offerings recognizing that all we have is from Him and we’re thankful our justification isn’t in our giving but what Christ gave for us.

We’re going to take communion as a remembrance of the new covenant marked by His broken body and shed blood.

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