“A Priestly Prefiguring” (Leviticus 21-22) | 3/24/24
Leviticus 21-22 | 3/24/24 | Will DuVal
While many churches, this Palm Sunday morning, will be celebrating Jesus as KING, we are continue our study of the book of Leviticus by examining and exalting Jesus as PRIEST.
Some sections of Leviticus are easier to interpret and apply to our lives than others. Last week in ch19, God exhorted us to “love our neighbor as [ourselves]” (19:18); that one is pretty straightforward. Not SO with the passage before us this morning: the prerequisites for Levitical priests. It is DIFFICULT to make sense of God’s requirements here for these OT priests. The laws range from the BIZARRE - priests “shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards” (21:5) - to the downright UPSETTING - priests with physical “blemishes” (the blind, the lame, hunchbacks, dwarves…) were forbidden from “drawing near” to God’s tabernacle (vv17-23); is God prejudiced against the disabled?
What are 21st c. Christians to DO with such laws? I’ve reminded us many times throughout our study of Leviticus that according to the NEW Testament, these laws are now OBSOLETE (Heb 8:13). As God’s NEW covenant people, in CHRIST, we are now under the covenant of GRACE; we’re no longer under the LAW, no longer obligated to follow them.
But as I’ve ALSO pointed out for 20 chapters now, these laws DO tell us something about the HEART of God, because God does NOT change; He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The rules in the DuVal household TODAY - with kids aged 8, 4, and 16 months - are NOT the same rules that will be in effect 10 years from now, God willing, when our kids are 18, 14, and 11. And yet, if my children 10 years from now were to look BACK on the rules from a decade prior, they ought to be able to discern something - to get confirmation of - my loving, fatherly heart toward them at that particular time in their development.
THAT’s what we’ve been doing all throughout Leviticus. But the question still remains this morning: how are we to not only INTERPRET (& make sense of), but to actually APPLY (put to use, to practice) Leviticus 21 & 22 and these principles concerning the OT priests?
I think there are 3 possible ways to do so:
First, we could look to the NT - specifically, 1 Peter 2 - and remind ourselves of the “priesthood of ALL believers”; that as God’s NT people, those of us who now belong to Christ have ALL been made into “a royal priesthood”. So we could look beyond the specific laws here in Leviticus for the universal principles that ought to characterize our OWN priesthood. That’s how I exposited chapters 8-10 which concerned the priests, you may recall.
A second option, though, is to see the priestly requirements here in chs21 & 22 as specifically highlighting the UNIQUE qualifications expected of those called to LEAD God’s people. YES, we belong to the “priesthood of all believers”, just as God had deemed all of ISRAEL to be “a kingdom of priests” (Ex 19:6). But then God specifically commissioned the Levites to be the “priests OF the priests”, and he gave them special requirements and laws that applied only to them. And while God calls ALL his people to “be holy as I am holy”, God enforces His expectation of holiness with a greater strictness and severity for those who LEAD. James 3:1 warns us, “Not many of you should become teachers [ / leaders], because we… will be judged with greater strictness.” 1 Timothy 3 & Titus 1 include long lists of qualifications - character traits - that OUGHT to be true of EVERY Christian, but they MUST be true of the church’s LEADERS - her elders and deacons.
So a second way of interpreting Leviticus 21 & 22, then, is to try and identify the distinct principles that define godlyleaders. That’s how most pastors and commentators interpret these chapters, as aimed at leaders, specifically.
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So I TRIED, this week, to make sense of the passage in that way, because it’s usually safest to be in the majority when it comes to biblical interpretation. But call it “vacation brain”, call it SICKNESS brain… but I really STRUGGLED to understand the passage that way. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I HAVE a bald head and I DID shave the edges of my beard this morning before church. I’ve also got like 20/600 vision, without my contacts in; I would have DEFINITELY been considered BLIND 3,500 years ago. There’s no WAY that I’d be allowed in that tabernacle!
But why NOT? What’s the POINT?!
I think the point is that these laws POINT us to a THIRD interpretation, friends. Where these priestly principles apply not primarily to THE CHURCH (the “priesthood of all believers”), and not primarily to its LEADERS (our pastors, elders), but first and foremost, these chapters are meant to point us to JESUS, our GREAT high priest. The ONLY way I can make sense of some of these laws and even the principles behind them is if they’re here to prefigure the person and work of JESUS, HIS priesthood.
But let’s actually read the passage together before we go any further. Would you STAND… Leviticus 21-22:
“And the Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, No one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people, 2 except for his closest relatives, his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother, 3 or his virgin sister (who is near to him because she has had no husband; for her he may make himself unclean). 4 He shall not make himself unclean as a husband among his people and so profane himself. 5 They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts on their body. 6 They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. For they offer the Lord's food offerings, the bread of their God; therefore they shall be holy. 7 They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled, neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband, for the priest is holy to his God. 8 You shall sanctify him, for he offers the bread of your God. He shall be holy to you, for I, the Lord, who sanctify you, am holy. 9 And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.
10 “The priest who is chief among his brothers [the HIGH priest], on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes. 11 He shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean, even for his father or for his mother. 12 He shall not go out of the sanctuary, lest he profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him: I am the Lord. 13 And he shall take a wife in her virginity. 14 A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin of his own people, 15 that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the Lord who sanctifies him.”
16 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “Speak to Aaron, saying, None of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. 18 For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, 19 or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, 20 or a hunchback or a dwarf or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. 21 No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord's food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. 22 He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things, 23 but he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.” 24 So Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the people of Israel.
ch22:1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to Aaron and his sons so that they abstain from the holy things of the people of Israel, which they dedicate to me, so that they do not profane my holy name: I am the Lord. 3 Say to them, ‘If any one of all your offspring throughout your generations approaches the holy things that the people of Israel dedicate to the Lord, while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord. 4 None of the offspring of Aaron who has a leprous disease or a discharge may eat off the holy things until he is clean. Whoever touches anything that is unclean through contact with the dead or a man who has had an emission of semen, 5 and whoever touches a swarming thing by which he may be made unclean or a person from whom he may take uncleanness, whatever his uncleanness may be— 6 the person who touches such a thing shall be unclean until the evening and shall not eat of the holy things unless he has bathed his body in water. 7 When the sun goes down he shall be clean, and afterward he may eat of the holy things, because they are his food. 8 He shall not eat what dies of itself or is torn by beasts, and so make himself unclean by it: I am the Lord.’ 9 They shall therefore keep my charge, lest they bear sin for it and die thereby when they profane it: I am the Lord who sanctifies them
10 “A lay person shall not eat of a holy thing; no foreign guest of the priest or hired worker shall eat of a holy thing, 11 but if a priest buys a slave as his property for money, the slave may eat of it, and anyone born in his house may eat of his food. 12 If a priest's daughter marries a layman, she shall not eat of the contribution of the holy things. 13 But if a priest's daughter is widowed or divorced and has no child and returns to her father's house, as in her youth, she may eat of her father's food; yet no lay person shall eat of it. 14 And if anyone eats of a holy thing unintentionally, he shall add the fifth of its value to it and give the holy thing to the priest. 15 They shall not profane the holy things of the people of Israel, which they contribute to the Lord, 16 and so cause them to bear iniquity and guilt, by eating their holy things: for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.”
17 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 18 “Speak to Aaron and his sons and all the people of Israel and say to them, When any one of the house of Israel or of the sojourners in Israel presents a burnt offering as his offering, for any of their vows or freewill offerings that they offer to the Lord, 19 if it is to be accepted for you it shall be a male without blemish, of the bulls or the sheep or the goats. 20 You shall not offer anything that has a blemish, for it will not be acceptable for you. 21 And when anyone offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering from the herd or from the flock, to be accepted it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it. 22 Animals blind or disabled or mutilated or having a discharge or an itch or scabs you shall not offer to the Lord… [And vv23-25 just expand on that, and vv26-30 review some OLD sacrificial laws we’ve already discussed in prior sermons, so let’s skip down to v31 now…]
31 “So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the Lord. 32 And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you, 33 who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the Lord.””
[This is the word of the Lord…]
The main point we ought to take away from this text is that these OT Levitical priests, and all of God’s requirements OF them, are all intended to point us to JESUS, our greater high priest.
The NT confirms such a reading, a “priestly prefiguring” interpretation, especially in Hebrews 8, which states that “the priests who offered gifts according to the law… serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things… But Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old” (vv4-6). In other words, the entire Levitical priesthood was just a “copy”, a “shadow”, a “PICTURE” and foreshadowing of the One True Priest to come, Jesus. And to the extent that that’s TRUE, I think the priestly qualifications listed for us here in Leviticus 21 & 22 reveal SIX THINGS about God’s final, ultimate, Priest-to-end-all-priests:
#1- They remind us that: Jesus is LIVING. (21:1-6, 10-12)
God’s first point of emphasis for these priests was that they were to AVOID DEATH… at (almost) all cost: “No [priest] shall make himself unclean for the dead”. That’s what all the weird stipulations in v5 are about - “mak[ing] bald patches on their heads, shav[ing] off their beard edges, mak[ing] cuts on their body” - these were all common pagan FUNERAL rituals.
Now, vv2 & 3 lay out the exceptions, for a priest’s “closest relatives” (by the way: interestingly, v4 seems to suggest that priests weren’t even allowed to bury their WIVES, although scholars disagree on how to interpret that).
But in the case of the CHIEF priest, the HIGH priest, vv10-11 make it clear that he “shall not go [near] ANY dead bodies to make himself unclean”.
And v12 gives us a hint as to why not: “He shall not go out of the sanctuary, lest he profane it”. Remember the end of the book of EXODUS, where God gave Israel instructions for building this sanctuary, the tent of meeting, where God would MEET with his people? Remember the cherubim and the GOLD and the pomegranates - ALL the rich symbolism - what was this tabernacle supposed to remind Israel of? This place of MEETING with God?
It reminded them of the Garden of EDEN! Of HEAVEN! The tent of meeting was intended to point them both BACK to the LAST time man had experienced perfect relationship in God’s presence, in the Garden, as well as point them FORWARD to their FUTURE hope of restored relationship, when they would again enjoy fullness of joy in God’s presence, one day in Heaven.
But perhaps the most distinctive thing about future life in Heaven, that was also true back in the Garden, but has NOT been true at ANY point in BETWEEN, from Genesis ch3 - Revelation ch20, is the striking LACK of DEATH!
NO death back in the Garden; NO death ahead in heaven, - that’s why the attending priest in the tabernacle couldn’t go near death: it would “profane” God’s sanctuary; tell a LIE not only about God’s holy place, but about God HIMSELF - He is a God of LIFE; Jesus said, “He is not God of the dead, but of the living. ” (Mk 12:27)
And yet, because of SIN, “death reigned from Adam to Moses” (Rom 5:14). And actually, according to Scripture, death reigned ESPECIALLY… SINCE Moses, because the Law - the very Law that God gave to bring us LIFE - instead brought DEATH because of our failure to KEEP it (2 Cor 3:6; Rom 7:10). So death reigned and reigned and reigned…
UNTIL. The God of Life LEFT immortality in Heaven to ASSUME mortal life here as a man so that he might DIE in order to put DEATH TO DEATH once and for all. Did you get that?
JESUS is God made flesh, who DIED and then CONQUERED DEATH, by triumphing over the grave, in order to KILL DEATH forever, for all who belong to him.
That is the gospel we’ll celebrate next Sunday at Easter, but as believers, we celebrate the glorious truth of Easter EVERY day: that Jesus is not here; he is RISEN! “Don’t bother looking for the LIVING among the DEAD” - He’s ALIVE!
And BECAUSE Jesus is alive, the Bible promises that you and I can now be raised to new life in Him as well. Romans 6:4 “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too [now] walk in newness of life.” Eternal life.
The CONTRAST is so STARK: for thousands of years you had all these priests who avoided DEATH like their LIVES depended on it. And then here comes Jesus, SEEKING OUT death. Seeking out the blind, the lame, the lepers, the DEAD… so he could heal them, RESURRECT them. Prove his power OVER death. And then he proved it MOST decisively, most efficaciously, in his OWN death and resurrection.
That’s why, once again in contrast to these LEVITICAL priests, who “were prevented by death from continuing in office”, Jesus on the other hand “holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever… since he always lives to make intercession for [us]” (Heb 7:23-25).
#2- These priestly prerequisites remind us that Jesus is PURE. (21:7-9, 13-15)
That’s the main focus of vv7-9 and 13-15 now: PURITY.
The priests’ WIVES had to be pure - no prostitutes or skanks; priests couldn’t even marry a widow or divorcee; “he shall take a wife in her virginity” (v13).
Their KIDS had to be pure - “if the daughter of any priest,” v9, “profanes herself by whoring, she profanes her father”.
Now, again, I look at this and ask, “What’s the takeaway for us today?” and as important as it is to me that my own WIFE, that my DAUGHTER, remain PURE, I just don’t think that’s the best application of the text.
I think it’s TELLING that the focus in these particular verses isn’t even so much on the purity of the priest himself as it is on his FAMILY’S. THEIR purity. Why?
Well, it makes perfect sense, if this is all a prefiguring, a “copy”, a “shadow”, of CHRIST, because HIS purity isn’t even in QUESTION.
Hebrews 7 says, “we have a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners… He has no need, like [the FORMER] high priests, to offer sacrifices daily… for his own sins” (vv26-27) because Jesus didn’t HAVE any sins! He was perfectly PURE, holy, innocent, “unstained”, “separated from sinners”.
The only question is: will his BRIDE be? Who’s the “Bride of Christ”? WE are! The CHURCH! (Eph 5:22-33) The apostle Paul wrote of the church: “ I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Cor 11:2). He wrote: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her… [and] present the church to himself… holy and without blemish.” (Eph 5:25-27)
Jesus DIED - “gave himself up” - for our PURITY, Church, to make us “HOLY, without blemish”.
Will we BE the kind of BRIDE that he DIED to take for himself?
Will we be the kind of CHILDREN - we are Jesus’s spiritual offspring; 1 Jn 3 marvels: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God!” (vv1-2). But the very NEXT thing John reminds us of is that “everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as [God] is pure” (v3).
So as much as these priestly requirements point us to Jesus’s purity, they also force us to consider our OWN purity, as his BRIDE, his OFFSPRING.
May we NOT be GOMERs. You remember the story of the prophet Hosea, who God called to marry the town whore, GOMER, as yet another sign - a symbol - to his people, Israel, of their spiritual adultery, their infidelity to him, as their covenant God and Groom. May we not be GOMERS, like Israel proved to be, formerly. May we instead be the kind of Bride depicted in Revelation 19 at the “marriage supper of the Lamb”, who “makes herself ready… [by] cloth[ing] herself with pure linen… the righteous deeds of the saints.” (vv7-8) Holiness. Purity.
#3- Not only is Jesus PURE; He is PERFECT. (21:16-24)
That is the point, the prefiguring, of vv16-24 here, with all of these priestly prohibitions against anyone with a “blemish” approaching God’s altar.
I just don’t know how we are to make SENSE of this, unless it’s about JESUS. I sure HOPE it’s not about ME, cuz otherwise I am FOR SURE sinning this morning, by preaching to you SICK! I’ve got a BLEMISH, a BUG; am I “profaning God’s sanctuary” this morning?
I don’t think so. Because for ONE thing, let’s remind ourselves of THIS important truth: where IS God’s sanctuary, his dwelling place, today? Is it a BUILDING? Used to be. God’s presence USED TO reside above the mercy seat, on the ark of the covenant, inside the Holy of Holies, which was was inside the tent of meeting, and later, inside the TEMPLE.
But what happened when Jesus took his last breath on the cross? The Temple CURTAIN - that SEPARATED the Holy Place from the HOLIEST Place, that separated GOD from MAN - that curtain was RIPPED in two, from TOP to BOTTOM, to make it clear that God had LEFT the building, and taken up residence instead in the HEARTS of his PEOPLE. 1 Corinthians 3:16 - “Do you not know that you [plural] Y’ALL are God's temple,” Church; “God's Spirit dwells within y’all”.
So TODAY, we “profane God’s sanctuary” not by being blind or lame or SICK in church - I had a congregant once complain to me about another congregant who they had noticed ] had worn SWEATPANTS to church, and they thought that was just so disrespectful. And I had to gently explain that this particular congregant was brand NEW to Christianity and probably had no IDEA about anyone else’s unspoken dress code for church, and even if she DID, based on what I knew about her, I wasn’t sure if she even OWNED “respectable” clothes, and even if she DID, she was trying to care for her newborn BABY! Sweatpants might be the best she can MANAGE right now. And guess what: her SWEATPANTS don’t “profane God’s sanctuary” as much as your self-righteous JUDGMENTALISM does; SHE is God’s sanctuary - His “temple” - don’t disrespect HER like that.
[I don’t think I said it quite like that… I did it GENTLY, like I said…]
But to bring us back to the point at hand: God is NOT prejudiced against the disabled. That is clear all OVER the place in the Bible, including LAST week, in ch19, where God commanded Israel: “You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind… I am the Lord.” (v14) God LOVES and cares for, he even has a SPECIAL compassion and concern for the broken and the afflicted. Notice v22 here: God still allows the disabled priests to EAT the holy bread; God provided for, CARED for them. They just couldn’t OFFER the holy bread. Why?
Allan Moseley explains (192): “[these priestly prohibitions] do not mean that God regarded people with infirmities as inferior. His requirement to be unblemished was not about worth; it was about symbolism. The tabernacle and everything that happened in [it] symbolized the presence of God. God… is without blemish. To represent God’s perfection, only what was unblemished could be a part of their worship.”
It is yet another symbol, a POINTING. God COULD have made it even CLEARER, by preventing anyone with SPIRITUAL blemishes from entering the tabernacle, except then there would have been no priests AT ALL. So he gave them the SYMBOL instead: no physical blemishes.
And yet, that symbol would ultimately find its FULFILLMENT in a Priest who was NOT without physical blemish - as a matter of fact, the prophecies said of Jesus that “he had no [OUTWARD] form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa 53:2), so these producers who keep casting Jim Caviezel and Diogo Morgado and Jonathan Roumie - these certified hotties to play Jesus; that’s just historically inaccurate; he was UNATTRACTIVE, physically. But “MAN looks on the OUTWARD appearance; GOD looks on the HEART” (1 Sam 16:7b). And when it comes to INNER beauty, friends: JESUS takes the cake. He was, He IS, PERFECT.
1 Pet 2:22 “He committed no sin”.
1 Jn 3:5 “in him there is no sin”.
Heb 4:15 “we… have a high priest who… in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
And that’s really good news for US, because only a PERFECT priest could secure for US, perfect redemption. Hebrews 5:9 declares of Jesus: “being made perfect… [and] being designated by God a high priest… he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him”. And we’ll see how in just a moment.
But FIRST, #4- These laws suggest that Jesus is WORTHY. (22:1-9)
vv16-24 were all about who could OFFER gifts to God (“the LORD’S food offerings”); vv1-9 of ch22 now are all about who is worthy to RECEIVE these holy “gifts”. Remember, the priests would actually receive the sacrifices and offerings from the people of Israel FOR the Lord, on God’s BEHALF. But they had to be HOLY - “If any one of you… approaches the holy things that the people of Israel dedicate to [me… to] the Lord, while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from my presence” (v3). No leprosy, or discharges, or contact with the dead, or recent ejaculations, or unkosher animals… and he goes back through the list, of potential ritual impurities. V7: “he shall be clean, and afterward he may eat of the holy things”.
And don’t forget what these dedicated food offerings were - they were the ancient Israelites’ expression of WORSHIP. These priests were symbolically receiving WORSHIP on behalf of God himself.
But Jesus IS God himself! So there’s no longer any symbolism, no need to act on God’s behalf; Jesus now receives our worship for HIMSELF, because he is WORTHY of it!
““Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”” (Rev 5:12)
Jesus is worthy of it ALL!
BECAUSE he is living and eternal... BECAUSE he is pure, holy... Because he is PERFECT... Jesus is WORTHY.
And the good news about Jesus just keeps getting better, because #5 - Jesus is also WELCOMING. (22:10-16)
V10 warns that “lay people”, “foreign guests”, “hired workers” were NOT allowed to receive, to eat the dedicated food offerings.
BUT, v11 says, “if the priest buys a slave… he may eat of it”.
The REASON that you and I can now SERVE as “temples” of the Holy Spirit, Church, is because God BOUGHT us: 1 Corinthians 6 says “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (vv19-20).
ROMANS 6 says, we “have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God” (v22).
We don’t have time for a whole thing on SLAVERY here, but suffice it to say: EVERYONE is a slave to something. Most people are enslaved to SIN, to their FLESH, their own self-centered desires. But God offers to set us FREE of that bondage, to serve HIM instead, to be his “SLAVE”. Let GOD be your Master, and guess what: you get to “eat of his food”. That’s the symbolic truth and power of v11: you and I now get to share in all the benefits of belonging to God’s FAMILY. Because we DO!, according to Jesus, and THANKS to Jesus - it was HIS precious blood that PURCHASED us (1 Pet 1:18-19), not JUST as slaves, but as God’s adopted children, who nevertheless stand to inherit ALL of the family blessings.
Romans 8 declares: “we are [now] children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ… He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us… how will he not also… graciously give us all things?” (16-17, 32)
And that’s exactly what 1 Corinthians 3 promises us: “all things are yours… [because] you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.” (vv21-23)
Church: Jesus now WELCOMES us at his dinner table.
But only IF he has purchased us with his blood; only IF we truly belong to him - if He is our Lord and Savior.
Which brings us to a final prefiguring here: these priestly requirements are meant to point us to the truth that…
#6- Jesus is SAVING. (22:17-33)
Why does ch22 end with all these laws about SACRIFICES? We’ve already read NINE chapters of laws about sacrifices in Leviticus, including the stipulation here that they must be “without blemish”. Not only must the PRIEST be “without blemish” - no blindness, lameness, disability - but the ANIMAL for SACRIFICE must be too. But God’s already EMPHASIZED that, MANY times before. So why repeat it again here?
To remind these PRIESTS that they were ONLY as good, as effective, as “acceptable” as the SACRIFICE they brought. That’s what sacrifice is all about: v21, being “ACCEPTED” by God.
We SIN and break relationship with God.
But God graciously provided a way for us to repay the LIFE DEBT we owe him, not with our OWN lives, but with that of ANOTHER.
Such that our sins might be FORGIVEN, and we might once again be reconciled, ACCEPTED back into relationship with Him.
But the Bible makes it clear: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb 9:22).
And by ending ch22 with these SACRIFICES yet again, God is pointing us ahead to the coming Messiah who would serve not ONLY as our priest, but as our propitiation, as our final, once-for-all-time SAVING SACRIFICE for sin.
The book of Hebrews declares that “when Christ appeared as a high priest… he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption… For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins… But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God… For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified… he has appeared once for all… to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (9:11-13; 10:4,11-14; 9:26)
Church: ““Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29) Who SAVES us - who “brought us out of the land of Egypt”, v33 concludes, and DELIVERED us from the bondage of sin, thus securing our ETERNAL redemption.
CONCLUSION - Jesus is the LIVING, PURE, PERFECT, WORTHY, WELCOMING SAVIOR.
Repent and believe, and he can be YOUR savior this morning as well.