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| > Sermon Archive > Sermons by Author > Dr. Wes Bredenhof > To come into God’s presence you need a High Priest | Previous Next Print |
| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) Psalm 95:1-3 Psalm 130 (after the Law of God) Psalm 110:1,4 Hymn 38 Psalm 98:1,2 Scripture readings: Exodus 28, Hebrews 7:23-28 Text: Leviticus 8:1-9 |
Beloved congregation of Christ,
If you ever end up in court before a judge, they say that one of the worst things you can do is represent yourself. There’s a saying in legal circles, “He who represents himself in court has a fool for a client.” It’s always better to have a lawyer. A lawyer knows the law, knows the protocols for the court, knows how to speak to the judge, knows how to make your case in the best possible way. Without a lawyer to speak on your behalf, you’re almost guaranteed to end up in trouble.
It’s a similar situation with us before God. If you were to represent yourself before him, you would be guaranteed to end up in trouble. It would be completely foolish for you to come into God’s presence by yourself without an advocate, without a Mediator. This is because there is such a vast gap between you as a sinner and God as the infinitely Holy One. Someone once said, “The sun will burn out your eyes from 93 million miles away and you expect to casually come into the presence of its maker?” God is majestically, gloriously and infinitely Holy. You’re not. Someone has to bridge that gap for you to be able approach him in any way.
The book of Leviticus addresses a problem. The problem is how to be able to enter into God’s presence and dwell with him. The tabernacle and its system of sacrifices was the Old Testament answer to that problem. But for that system of sacrifices to function in the tabernacle, there also had to be a priesthood. There had to be men set apart from the rest of the people of Israel who knew the laws around sacrifices and who would follow them. They would make sure the system worked so that the gap between God and humanity could be bridged. And over the priesthood was one man, the High Priest. The High Priest was essential for allowing the sinful people of Israel to come into God’s holy presence. In this way, the High Priest of the Old Testament was pointing ahead to the greatest High Priest in the New Testament, our Saviour Jesus Christ. We’ll see that this morning as we spend some time in Leviticus 8. We’ll see how to come into God’s presence you need a High Priest.
You need a High Priest:
- Purified and prepared
- Bearing and bringing
- Serving and supervising
Our passage is about preparations for the ordination of Aaron and his sons. God’s will for these preparations was communicated to Moses earlier. It’s recorded in chapters 27 to 29 of Exodus. So Leviticus 8 is about implementing all of that, all of those laws about the ordination of the priests.
The first verses of Leviticus 8 set the stage. God told Moses to gather Aaron his brother and Aaron’s sons, along with the priestly garments, the anointing oil, and the sacrificial animals. Just mentioning these things together would make it clear that this was ordination time. Then God told Moses to assemble the people together at the entrance to the tabernacle – and so he did. When it says that “all the congregation” was to be gathered, we have to remember the size of the people of Israel at this time. There were upwards of 600,000 people. The tabernacle wasn’t all that big -- it was about 46 meters long and 23 meters wide. So it would be impractical for all those people to gather at the entrance to the tabernacle. Likely there would have been elders or tribal leaders representing all the people at the front, with everyone else behind. Only those close to the front would have been able to actually observe the ordination ritual. Nevertheless, it was done as publicly as it could have been under those circumstances. Making it public ensured the people knew that there was a priesthood to enable entrance into God’s presence.
In verse 5, Moses said, “This is the thing that the LORD has commanded to be done.” When he said that he was saying none of this was his idea. It didn’t come from any human source. Instead, the priesthood was something coming from God’s initiative. By providing a priesthood, especially in providing the High Priest, God had graciously made a way for sinners to come into his presence. He wants to have fellowship with his people and he does what it takes to make it happen.
The first thing that had to happen was purification. Aaron and his sons were sinners like the rest of the people of Israel. To be set apart for the priestly work, they had to be ritually washed, purified. Moses did this work of washing. We’re not told exactly how he did this. Did Moses wash their whole bodies or only their hands and feet? We don’t know. If it was their whole bodies, did Moses do this in private or in front of everyone observing? Again, Scripture is sparse on the details. The important thing is not how it was done, but that it was done and what it meant. Having been purified with water, these sinful men were ceremonially ready to be ordained to the work of the priesthood.
This is an important point of difference with the great High Priest Jesus. He was sinless. Being perfect, he had no need to be purified before he could serve as our High Priest. Later in Leviticus, we read about sacrifices that the priests needed to offer for themselves because they were sinful men too. But our reading from Hebrews 7 reminds us that Christ had no need to do that. He could instead offer up the perfect sacrifice of himself once for all for us. This makes Christ the greatest High Priest, the one who has secured permanent access to God’s holy presence for sinners like us.
Going back to Leviticus 8, verses 7 to 9 are all about the garments of the High Priest. Before we look specifically at some features of those garments, there’s an important detail we need to note in general from what we read in Exodus 28. In verse 2 of Exodus 28, we’re told that Aaron’s holy garments were to be made “for glory and for beauty.” Notice that. The same is said for the garments of Aaron’s sons in verse 40, “You shall make them for glory and beauty.” In preparation for service as priests, Aaron and his sons would be clothed gloriously and beautifully. The rest of Exodus 28 fills out what that would have looked like, how there were to be “gold, blue, and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen,” and so on. If you need a picture of what it may have looked like, the ESV Study Bible has a good illustration on page 208. The point here is that the High Priest wasn’t dressed shabby and dreary. He had a gloriously beautiful priestly uniform to wear in his service for God and the people.
That points ahead to the glorious beauty of our great High Priest Jesus Christ. As the prophet Isaiah reminds us, he had no earthly beauty to look upon. However, he was dressed in glorious beauty, so to speak. He adorned himself with a heart that loved God and loved us. Christ beautified himself with a life dedicated to obeying God’s commands. He prepared himself for his High Priestly work with a perfectly obedient life. Christ is beautiful because he humbled himself, both in body and soul, to make the once-for-all sacrifice to pay for our sins on the cross. Jesus is the most beautiful High Priest you could ever imagine and it’s because he does what no other High Priest could. The High Priests of the Old Testament era may have looked beautiful in their garments, but Christ is far more beautiful in his heart, his life, his death, his resurrection, and his present intercession on our behalf in heaven. No one is more beautiful than Jesus. He’s the High Priest we need for us to be able to come into God’s presence.
In verse 7 of Leviticus 8, we read how Moses was to dress his brother Aaron, starting with a coat or a tunic, and then a robe, and then the ephod. I want to focus our attention on the ephod. The ephod was a garment that was much like an apron. It hung from the shoulders of the High Priest by a couple of straps. It was worn over the robe and extended down from the shoulders to the thighs. Now we learn an important detail about this ephod from Exodus 28. It tells us that two onyx stones were attached to it by corded chains of gold. Onyx is a type of stone usually with bands of black and white. On these onyx stones were engraved the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, six on each one. Then it says in verse 12, “And Aaron shall bear their names before the LORD on his two shoulders for remembrance.” When he was wearing the ephod, the High Priest was literally bearing the names of God’s people before him.
But there’s more. Verse 8 also mentions the breastpiece. Again, if we go back to Exodus 28, we learn that this breastpiece contained twelve precious stones. Each name of the twelve tribes of Israel was inscribed on one of those stones. The reason why is in Exodus 28:29, “So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgment on his heart, when he goes into the Holy Place, to bring them to regular remembrance before the LORD.” So whenever the High Priest would enter into the tabernacle, God’s people could be encouraged to know that their names were before him. He would never forget them. One commentator I read noted that the High Priest always did his work in silence, but the engravings on the stones spoke to God instead. The engravings spoke the names of God’s people in his presence. That would have been such an encouragement to Old Testament believers.
In the New Testament, believers have even more encouragement in the High Priestly work of Christ. The Old Testament High Priest didn’t have room on his uniform for all the individual names of the Israelites. So he could only carry the names of the tribes. But the New Testament tells us that Christ has room in his heart for the names of all his people. When this High Priest offered the once-for-all sacrifice on the cross, he was bearing the names of all who believe in him. This is so encouraging. He said in John 10 that he lays down his life for the sheep. The sheep are those whom he knows and calls by name. When Christ died on the cross, he didn’t die for a nameless mass of people. If you believe in him, he died with your name on his heart. He knew your name and in love he bore it, he carried it and he carried the curse that came with your name. Your High Priest has done what you needed in order that you, a sinner, can come into God’s holy presence. You can do that now by prayer already. Later after you die, you’ll come into God’s holy presence in a fuller and more meaningful way. You’ll enter his heavenly dwelling – all because of what the High Priest has done in bearing your name while he made his sacrifice on the cross.
There’s one more feature of the High Priest’s breastpiece we need to look at. It contained the Urim and the Thummim. When I was in seminary, my Old Testament professor was the world’s leading expert on the Urim and the Thummim. Dr. Van Dam wrote a highly regarded academic book on the subject. Let me summarize some of what he said about the Urim and the Thummim. Urim and Thummim means something like “perfect illumination.” They were tangible and had a physical identity. They were probably a special type of precious stone. They were an Old Testament means of revealing God’s will. The Urim and the Thummim were connected with prophetic inspiration. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the High Priest would be speaking on behalf of God, revealing God’s answer to some question that had been posed. As Dr. Van Dam wrote, “…a special or miraculous light was somehow involved in the functioning of the Urim and the Thummim to verify that the message given by the high priest was from Yahweh.” So you might imagine these stones lighting up or glowing. This seems to be the best explanation given everything the Bible says about it. Eventually, prophets arose in Israel and they took the place of the High Priest speaking with the Urim and the Thummim. So the Urim and the Thummim were connected with revelation from God, essentially prophecy. So the breastpiece of the High Priest’s uniform showed how he had a dual function. He represented the people before God, but he also revealed God’s will to the people. The High Priest functioned not only as a mediator but also essentially as a prophet.
Here too the Old Testament High Priest was pointing ahead to Christ. When Christ came, he came as what our Heidelberg Catechism calls in Lord’s Day 12 “our chief prophet and teacher.” As such he “has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption.” Christ has laid open exactly what God wanted for us in terms of our salvation. He has shown us that salvation is not to be sought or found in anyone else other than the great High Priest Jesus Christ. He revealed the will of God when he said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” In Christ we have a High Priest who has not only opened the way, but also told us about the way that has been opened. You could also say that he is both High Priest and Prophet.
Our text from Leviticus 8 ends by speaking about the last bit of uniform for the High Priest. It was a turban, a length of cloth wrapped around the head of the High Priest. On the front of the turban, there was a golden plate, also described as “the holy crown” in verse 9.
We again learn some further details about this piece of the High Priest’s uniform by referring back to Exodus 28. Exodus 28:36 says, “You shall make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it, like the engraving of a signet, ‘Holy to the LORD.” When Moses put this on Aaron’s head, everyone would have known that Aaron was set apart to serve. He was reserved for God’s service in the tabernacle, consecrated for his worship. His whole life was to be dedicated to the work of going between God and his people – interceding for the people at times, and at other times, bringing God’s will to the people. Being set apart to serve – that’s what “Holy to the LORD” meant. To come into God’s presence in the Old Testament, you needed someone who was “Holy to the LORD.”
The same is true for us in the New Testament era. We need a High Priest “Holy to the LORD.” We need one who is dedicated to being a Mediator between the Holy God and us sinners. We have that holy High Priest in Christ. He didn’t wear a plaque on a turban announcing that he was “Holy to the LORD.” His whole life and ministry announced this fact.
Finally, the High Priest in Leviticus 8 was said to be wearing “the holy crown.” Along with the turban, we’re given a picture with royal overtones. A king wears a crown. In what sense did the High Priest have a royal function in the Old Testament? The High Priest supervised the priestly ministry in the tabernacle and later on in the temple. He was called the “High” Priest because he had a leadership role in overseeing the sacrifices and so on – he was ruling over those things.
You could think of the High Priest Eli in the book of 1 Samuel. Eli was the High Priest in Shiloh, where the tabernacle was at the time. His two sons Hophni and Phinehas were priests under his supervision. But they were evil men. They were religious men doing religious things but Scripture says in 1 Samuel 2:12, “They did not know the LORD.” They spiritually abused the people of Israel and were sexually immoral. God rebuked Eli as High Priest for not doing enough about it. Eli was supposed to be a leader, supposed to rule over the tabernacle ministry, but he was weak and unfaithful. So God told him his sons would die and God would raise up a faithful priest who would do his will.
These royal overtones of the High Priest can also be seen in the person of Melchizedek in the book of Genesis. In Genesis 14, Abram was blessed by this mysterious priest Melchizedek. Melchizedek’s name means “King of Righteousness” and he was the King of Salem, which would later be known as Jerusalem.
In the New Testament, Christ is said to be a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Just like Melchizedek was a king, just like the Levitical High Priest had royal overtones, so Christ is not only High Priest, but also King. Our Great High Priest Jesus has made the sacrifice to pay for our sins, but now he also protects us in our salvation. He rules over everything in such a way that nothing can endanger those whom he has redeemed with his sacrifice. He rules over us so that nothing can jeopardize our standing before God and our privilege to come into his holy presence. He is supervising everything so we will never be lost. What a comfort to know our great High Priest also does this kingly work on our behalf!
So what are we supposed to do with what God reveals here in Leviticus 8? I want you to note what the people of Israel were supposed to do in Leviticus 8. Have a look for a moment and think about it…. The congregation assembled and watched while Moses did what God had commanded. The congregation watched as their High Priest was prepared for them. They did nothing else. To do justice to this text, we have to have an application which follows the same lines. There is nothing for us to do but look at the High Priest God has provided us, the one we need. The only thing for us to do is to look to him in faith, believe that he is the one High Priest we need to come into God’s presence. So, loved ones, let me encourage you again to do exactly that. If you want to come into God’s presence through prayer or through worship, look to Jesus Christ. If you want to come into God’s presence after you die, look to Jesus Christ. There is no other High Priest, no other way. AMEN.
PRAYER
Our great High Priest Jesus,
We praise you as the sinless High Priest who has opened the way for us. We give thanks that through you, we have access to the throne of grace. You are beautiful Saviour, because through you and your glorious and beautiful deeds, we can pray with confidence and we can die with comfort. Thank you for bearing our names on your heart when you went to the cross. We’re grateful for the great love you’ve shown in revealing to us everything we need to know about our salvation. We worship you as our High Priest and King, for not only saving us, but guarding us in our salvation. Please work in our hearts with your Holy Spirit so we always place our faith and trust in you. If there is anyone here right now who does not yet believe in you, we pray for your mercy on them. We pray for the work of your Spirit in their hearts. Please give them the new birth and open their eyes to their need for you.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Dr. Wes Bredenhof, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
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