Israel went from slavery into a covenant with God. The people had been slaves in Egypt for over 400 years! This generation of people had only known slavery and had never been free. It would be a very ambitious goal of making a group of people who had only known slavery into a nation. But Israel was not going to be just any nation. They were to be a nation that belonged to God.
It is important to understand that while God had already made a covenant with Abraham – a promise that was repeated to Isaac and Jacob – God made another covenant with the people of Israel after bringing them out of slavery in Egypt. It is very important to see this distinction between the covenant with Abraham, which was really a Divine promise, and the covenant God then made with the people after the Exodus from Egypt. The covenant of Law made through Moses was not like the promise God has previously made with Abraham, though both covenants were part of the Divine purpose. Israel was going to enter a covenant based on Law. The covenant God made with Abraham was based on a promise.
Like Israel we were once in slavery and we have been set free to be in covenant with God. However, the covenant we have entered into is not the covenant God made with Israel through Moses. We are the children of the Promise. What God promised Abraham has been fulfilled in Christ. Israel came out of slavery to enter a covenant of law. We have come out of slavery to sin to be sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
They were set free from slavery to worship and serve God. God made this very clear to Israel. Israel was delivered from Egypt by God to be used by God for His own purposes. Israel was not set free from Egypt to do whatever they wanted to do. Israel’s election was for Divine service, which included great responsibility.
Israel was free from slavery, but this freedom was not for Israel to chart their own course in the world. God has a specific purpose and work for the nation of Israel and they had no right to do anything else since they belonged to God. Israel belonged to God because it was God who had redeemed them from slavery in Egypt. God had purchased Israel for Himself. Israel already belonged to God. But God had purchased Israel again when He brought them out of Egypt. God’s claim on Israel was based on redemption.
Suppose there was a person in great, mortal danger who was rescued by someone else’s intervention. In some way the person who had been rescued would owe his or her life to the one who provided their deliverance. How could you repay someone who had actually saved your life? You would probably be willing to do anything for them if they asked!
In the same way we have been redeemed, or purchased by God, through the blood of Christ. Jesus gave His life to save our lives. And this means that Jesus now has a claim on our lives, in an even deeper sense than God had a claim on the people of Israel after bringing them out of Egypt. Jesus did not save us so we could go on our way and live our own lives as we desire. Redemption means that we now belong to the Redeemer to do His will and live for Him.
They built the Tabernacle so that God could dwell with them. A large portion of the book of Exodus contains the detailed plans for this portable Tent of Meeting. It was called the Tent of Meeting because that is where God would meet with the people. God’s presence would be localized there in the Tabernacle. This Tent of Meeting would literally be the center of the Israelite community as they were even commanded to arrange their own camp around the Tabernacle. Moses was told repeatedly to make the Tabernacle exactly like the pattern he was given. We now know that this Tabernacle was a kind of earthly copy of heaven itself. The Tabernacle was arranged to show what it would take to come into the presence of God, which was no small matter!
The whole Tabernacle was an illustration of the holiness of God and all of the elaborate preparations that had to be made if a holy God was to dwell with the people. In the prologue to his Gospel, the Apostle John writes “the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us.” The original word “dwelt” literally means “to pitch a tent” and this was a direct reference to the Tabernacle. In other words, just as the glory of God once dwelt in the Tabernacle, the glory of God dwelt in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the real Tabernacle – the place where God came to dwell with men – of which the Tabernacle built by Moses was merely a foreshadowing. God’s purpose has always been to make a people for Himself with whom He can dwell. So in the New Creation it is said “now the dwelling of God is with men.”
The whole point of the Tabernacle was the Most Holy Place where the Mercy Seat was located. The Tabernacle was really an object lesson about approaching the presence of God. It was not a simple or easy thing to come into the presence of God. Sin has caused alienation between God and men and something must be done about sin before God can receive men. God really cannot receive us as we are and the Tabernacle illustrates this principle.
The first object lesson was the basin for washing. In order to come into the presence of God you must first be washed and cleansed.
The second object lesson was the altar of sacrifice. In order for us to come into the presence of God, blood had to first be shed to atone, or cover, our sins.
We should remember that the people could not all come into the Tabernacle. There was a special class of people who represented the people of Israel before God. The priests from the tribe of Levi were to care for the Tabernacle and all of its services. This illustrates for us our need for a mediator before God. Someone must go in before us to represent us in the presence of God. In the Most Holy Place was the Ark of the Covenant over which there was the Mercy Seat, which represented the very Throne of God in heaven. Access to the presence of God was restricted as long as that Tabernacle stood.
The entire message of the Tabernacle was the fact that God and men were separated by sin. The priests and all of the sacrifices of the Tabernacle were just reminders of the people’s sin in the presence of a holy God. But God was making a way for His presence to be there and the people to not be consumed. The full remedy for sin was not provided in the Tabernacle.
There was a veil that separated the people from the presence of God. Only the High Priest, and only once per year of the Day of Atonement, could enter behind the veil into the Most Holy Place. And the High Priest had to take blood for the sins of the people, as well as for his own sin. This veil between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place was symbolic of the separation between God and the people as long as the Tabernacle was standing.
This veil continued to separate men from the presence of God until the day Jesus died. We are told in the Gospels that when Jesus breathed His last, the veil in the Temple was ripped in two from the top to the bottom. When Christ had offered Himself for sin there was no longer any need for this veil to separate God from men. The way into the very presence of God has at last been opened and we can enter in to the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus!
And so the writer of Hebrews tells us to draw near to God because this is our right in Christ Jesus.
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:19-22).
No comments:
Post a Comment