40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 96 (Exodus 27:9-28:43)

Episode Date: September 13, 2017

What is the purpose of the ornateness of the tabernacle? What is going on with everything the priests and high priest have wear? How do all of these things point to Christ, the cross, and our redemption? Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price talk about these things and more in this episode. Have a listen!

welcome to another episode of 40 minutes in the old testament i'm daniel mary price joined by chad bird chad are you getting excited about recording the 100th episode of this podcast which we are not doing today but we will be doing in just like five weeks down in san diego countdown is uh has begun it's getting very close yeah i'm excited i can't wait this is gonna be uh a first time for me i mean the first time uh recording a podcast in california first time recording a podcast uh live with with an audience and folks there who usually just listen to us but they can actually see us this time and it's going to be well i guess we have done this one more time with eric right yeah join us one other time so this will uh this will be the

second time where we've kind of brought together the the old and new testament guys into one podcast so yeah i mean it's it's pretty cool yeah people get to hear uh all the stuff i edit out yeah that's right you don't have to be careful no no editing it's gonna take place people don't realize these podcasts are actually live yeah these podcasts are actually an hour and a half long when we record them and then i just have to edit out about you know 50 minutes of stuff right right the process of purification right that's right i gotta have purifying on this is undiluted that's what's gonna take place in san diego yeah you guys hear like the uh the edited sanctified version of 40 minutes uh you'll get to hear the the raw uncut version they're probably

gonna check your ids at the door make sure yeah probably so 21 and older yeah but you guys should come out and uh and see that happen uh but uh that's not the best thing going on that's just that's just a pre-conference perk what you really want to come for is all the other speakers and all the food and all the hanging out and all the celebrating you know chad i saw an article and this is completely off topic not off topic of the conference but off topic of 40 minutes of the Old Testament but I'm going to say something about it anyway

it was in Christianity Today which is obviously about as mainstream of a Christian publication as there is and I don't know if you saw this but it was talking about Luther and the Protestant Reformation it was crazy they did a Pew Research poll

of Christians in America and found that 52% of Protestants do not believe that faith alone is enough to get a person into heaven that good works are also required so you tell me that 52 of protestants aren't protestants right it was you know i it was it was kind of interesting it's something i've been i've been saying that for a while that it seemed like sola fide and sola gratia were definitely waning within you know the church in america i didn't think the number was that high i didn't think it was over half that would

come right out you know and i sort of thought like functionally it was missing but you know if ash straight up is faith alone enough i figure most people most protestants say yes but functionally what they present is something else that's sort of how i looked at it i was I was a little shocked that when just asked, right, just point blank, can you get to heaven by just believing in God, or do you have to do good works, that over half said, no, you have to, yeah, good works are required as well. that was that was shocking and just lets me know that we kind of we kind of 500 years after the reformation we are apparently in need of another one to recapture some of these truths which is what i hope uh in the midst of celebrating the reformation and kind of everything that we do uh this podcast and christian old fast in general is to try to be one of the things that that that

contribute to that to kickstart that and i hope that this event just gets uh gets a fire going and people leave there um ready to go and and promote those those reformational truths uh because obviously with those with those numbers being what they are it's it's direly needed yeah i mean that's that's what we're all about is is getting the message out there to uh to help those 52 percent as well as everybody else realized what the reformation was was all about i mean it's all about the gospel it's all about uh grace alone it's all about christ alone it's all about faith alone but i mean that that runs so contrary to a lot of people have taught in churches and certainly it runs contrary to every every experience we have in the world that

you can't say it just once you can't just have it as sort of you know an important part of what your church is all about but not kind of essential no it has to be the driving force behind everything that the church teaches everything the church sings everything that this podcast is about everything that christ all fast is about it so yeah there's this is the ongoing need for reformation is is always going to be there this side of this side of glory yeah so if you guys want to be a part of that i recommend you come out to san diego you still got time you can still get in on that you can go over to here we still stand.org and uh and come and uh hang out with us and it'll be a a big huge party to celebrate what was done and hopefully uh an instigation

of uh of things to come and uh we'd love for you to come be a part of it here we still stand.org when you register if you want to get 10 off of that ticket price you can type in the code at check out 40OT, and that'll get you 10% off. Come hang out with me and Chad and a whole bunch of other people. All right, enough about that. We're six minutes in, and we haven't said anything about the Old Testament. Chad, where are we at in Exodus? We are about halfway through chapter 27, and we're going to finish up that chapter very quickly because there's just not a whole lot I have to say about it. And then we're going to jump into 28, where we will spend the rest of today, and possibly part of the next podcast as well.

So the first part of 27 takes us into a description of the altar. If you've been listening along, you know that we're right in the middle of a long section in Exodus which is God describing to Moses how Moses is to instruct the Israelites about how to make and put together the tabernacle, the tent itself as well as the furnishing, as well as everything else connected with it so we we've covered the uh the tent itself we've covered some of the material on the inside and now we moved outside to the altar the the outer altar or the altar of burnt offerings or the bronze altar it goes by all of those names

that's the first part of 27 and then the last part uh most of the last part verses 9 through 19 described for us what's called the the court of the tabernacle now you may have heard about the various courts in the plural of the temple of course the temple is the permanent structure that's built in jerusalem the tabernacle is the is the movable structure the the tent uh so that's that's later on later on the temple you had the priestly court you had the court of the men you had the court of the women you had the court of the gentiles so you had these concentric circles going out for various kinds of people as well as whether they were men and women but at the tabernacle you basically have just one court that is an it's an area that is around the

tabernacle it's in rectangular shape and this is basically the area immediately around the tabernacle where the priests do all of their work there's not a whole lot there really all that you have there are two main articles of sacred furnishings. You have the altar, and then you have what's called the labor. It's a big washing basin for the priests to wash their hands and their feet in. We haven't got to that yet, but that's really the only two things that you have out there. And this is surrounded then by a curtain that's high enough that you can't see over it so the whole area of the of the tabernacle court is screened off and it's inside this that the priests are engaged in sacrificing and getting ready to do what they have to do with the blood and

the the bodies of the sacrifices as well as going into the tabernacle itself and so this is the description basically of the materials that are used how it's all to be put together so on and so forth so it's all it's a uh it's completely enclosed now on the east side there is an opening it's screened off but that's where the that's where the priest would go in in and out so just like there was you kind of have if you can picture this you kind of have three different gates or veils if you will we talked about the inner veil that's the one between the most holy place in the holy place then you have another veil which is the veil in which you enter the tabernacle itself which you enter the tent into the holy place but then you also have a third veil or entrance and

this is the one into the court around the tabernacle so three different entrances there and depending on who you are and what your responsibilities are you might could go through one you might could go through two and if you're the high priest once a year you go through all three of these so that's it that's the uh the core of the tabernacle and then the chapter finishes off with just a couple of verses about the kind of oil that is to be used to light the the lamp inside the holy place the menorah it's supposed to be uh made from uh from olive oil there's there were different kinds of substances that were used to make oil in the ancient world but olive oil produced the cleanest and the purest oil and that's what was to be used in lighting in lighting

the menorah which was to be kept uh burning within the tabernacle itself was part of the priestly duty uh as they they ministered in the tabernacle was to keep that light going so anyway that's uh not a whole lot of theology there but that's that's the way that the chapter wraps up and And that kind of gives you a picture of the entirety of the tabernacle. So you have the screen around the court, you have the court itself, and then you have the tabernacle proper, the holy tent within that. So we kind of have now, at this point in Exodus, we've got the whole picture in our heads. And now we're going to switch gears. chapter 28 is going well chapter 28 and 29 actually are going to take a little bit different

focus for us we're going to begin to talk now more about not the not the structure itself but rather we're going to talk about the people who are involved in carrying out the various duties around the tabernacle and that is the priest so chapter 28 is going to describe the clothing that they that they wore and then in chapter 29 is going to get into the uh the ordination of of the priest so what we're going to spend the rest of the time talking about today is uh more or less what you find inside the closet of a regular priest and inside the closet of of the high priest now you might be thinking that you're going to sleep through the rest of this podcast because what what possible interest could there be and what old testament priests wore well

i think that you'll find this quite interesting uh at least i'm going to endeavor to uh to make it as interesting as i can because really what this is all about is not what kind of clothing the priest wore rather this is about how the particular clothing or vestments if you want to column this how this clothing in one way or another was a picture of the person in the work of christ because as god told them article by article what they were to wear what jewels were to be on there how many jewels what the words on some of these some of this clothing was was to be all of this was pointing forward to who the messiah the the great great high priest was to be and what his what is uh what his purpose was in coming to be that priest and to offer himself

as a sacrifice for us so that's really where we're going with all this is how the clothing that the priesthood would wear was was an icon of the priest who was to come that is christ himself so that's what we're gonna that's where to be diving into with uh with chapter 28 so as we do or i guess as a preface to uh to what we're what we're about to talk about with with the uh with the vestments of the priest i think it's it's good to just pause for just a moment and to remind ourselves really what what what the purpose of the priesthood was because this is something that It's really new for us. I mean, up to this point, the only priests that we've encountered in all of Genesis and, well, actually, there's two priests we've encountered.

All of Genesis and then up to this point, Exodus. We've got two. We've got Melchizedek that we met way back in Genesis 14. And then we met the father of Moses, Jethro, earlier in the book of Exodus. So we got these two priests, but we really haven't had any occasion to talk about an Israelite priest. And that's because up to this point, the people who were engaged in what we would now call priestly actions really weren't those who held any kind of office of priesthood. It was more or less either the patriarch of the family or it was the firstborn sons. they were the ones who were building altars and offering sacrifices and and things of that nature

it wasn't a a set apart group of people whose duty it was to serve the lord in the priestly office but that's about to change because aaron who is the brother of moses and then his sons after him throughout the successive generations they are going to be the ones who are set apart to serve as the priest of the priest of the lord part of what they did most of what they did was involved at the tabernacle and then later the temple i mean they would offer sacrifices they would uh they would pray they would lead the people and the singing of hymns they would teach the people all this took place at the tabernacle and temple and then after they served there they would go to their homes and they lived everywhere throughout the holy land but unlike the rest of

the tribes the tribe of levi where the priestly family came from they didn't have a specific part of the holy land that was theirs instead they had cities that were scattered all throughout the holy land and this is where they had their homes so it's it's almost like god god purposely spread out the the priests throughout the whole promised land so that they would have a chance to be really the teachers of israel they could be the ones who lived you know with it with the tribe of gad or with the tribe of benjamin or with the tribe of judah whoever whatever tribes they were they were living among they could be the ones who took the word of god and taught it back home and then when it was their duty they would serve at the tabernacle for about two weeks and then they'd

go back home so this was this was god's way of spreading out the priest most of the year so that they could teach the word of god wherever wherever they lived but most of their duties took place at at the tabernacle and later at later at the temple so let's uh let's get into chapter 28 and then as we as we go along we'll talk about more of uh more of their duties but this is the way the start chapter starts out uh god tells moses to to bring near aaron and his sons with him uh to have aaron you have nadab and abihu eleazar and ithamar so you have aaron and his four sons that goes on to verse two it says you shall make holy garments for aaron your brother for glory and for beauty so that's the that's one of the purposes of these holy

garments or these these vestments that the priesthood for glory and therefore beauty so just to pause there for a second i think i think this is significant this is this is not always something that uh that we we uh take time to concentrate on in the tabernacle itself and even in the clothing that the priests were wearing one of the purposes was to demonstrate seeing that there's gold all inside the tabernacle that the veil between the holy place the most holy place is embroidered with cherubim so one of the purposes was simply to be beautiful so god is concerned with beauty he's concerned with the beauty of the world he's concerned with the beauty of the beauty of his worship because this beauty is a reflection of of who he is everything that

is involved with his tabernacle and with his priest to reflect the beauty that is himself as well as the glory that is himself as it were a mirror reflecting the beauty of the one who is who was being worshiped that's one of the purposes that this that this serves now glory is connected with with god himself whose glory inhabits the tabernacle so these vestments as well as the tabernacle itself also are reflection of the glory of the one whose glory sits inside the holy of pull these so that's one of the one of the purposes of these of these vestments the rest of the purpose we'll get to as we talk about them item by item you know you know one thing i think is uh interesting is how you might think about uh your church and how maybe uh you probably don't

have like cherubim woven into you know stuff in your church or um or or maybe you don't have gold still you know most churches probably can't afford to have uh gold plated everything but we do well not every church does this but i think they they should because this is completely affordable and doable uh when you talk about the this this displaying the glory of god You are talking about a tabernacle that is pre-cross And when we talk about the glory of God So if they're thinking about the glory of God The best picture they sort of have of it is sort of the heavenly realm

They have like cherubim and these kind of things Like the glory of God is sort of up in the heavens, right? Now, the glory of God has made itself low in the person and work of Christ And when, as Christians, when we think about the glory of God, we don't have to think about angels up in heaven or the throne of God or something like this. No, we think about the cross, where the glory of God is actually best displayed. This is God's glory coming and manifesting itself among us is this gruesome scene on Calvary. and most churches now have crosses on them or in them uh so i think it's always weird when i go to

a church and there's like no cross anywhere uh it's super odd and and one of the reasons is obviously very practical that you have it there is to remind you so you have this this thing that's that's there to remind you what this is all about but also um if you are trying to have something going on that represents the glory of god as christians post post cross there's nothing that does it better than the cross which is counterintuitive because you would think that maybe a bunch of gold-plated stuff or angels woven into fabric would display the glory of god better but actually nothing displays the glory of god better than than a cross yeah you know there's even hints of this uh at least if you look at if you look at this part of exodus from the

perspective of its fulfillment there's hints of this as well in uh in the old testament in the vestments that the priest wore i was thinking about this uh i guess it was last week when i looked at this section when priests put these vestments on one of the things that's going to happen we're going to see this in the next chapter one of the things that's going to happen is they're they're anointed with oil but they're also sprinkled sprinkled with blood but it's pretty it's it's pretty amazing at least to me it is it's trouble to have these beautiful glorious perfect vestments made and then you sprinkle them with blood yeah so there's a there's this pretty in exodus there's this hint that that the glory of god and the beauty of god

is always a bloody glory and a bloody beauty there's always a blood of sacrifice that touches the glory of course this uh this is is uh most visibly seen in what you were just talking about it is finally in the cross of christ that we see the glory of god made made manifest so anytime we have a church you know across one of our churches or crucifix or however you want to present the death of christ visually that is the glory of god that is the that is the manifestation of the glory of god in his suffering yeah it's almost as if you do all these things uh it is very ornate and detailed uh and at the end of it uh god says you know none of this is actually acceptable to me apart from blood yeah you can make it as beautiful and you can plate it with

as much gold as you want but apart from blood none of this is good enough yeah yeah you know you see that uh the uh with the uh the mercy seat or the seat of atonement it i'm sure it was just you know astonishingly beautiful i mean this this is a gold gold plate and then what does god say i need you to put blood on that once a year the veil between the holy place the most holy place embroidered with cherubim you know the finest material they had and yet it gets sprinkled with blood the vestments get sprinkled with blood there's blood all over the altar now this isn't meant to be to be gross it's meant to underline the fact as leviticus is going to tell us that the that the life is in the blood and god has given it to the israelites on the altar

to make atonement for their sins and so the life of god for us is always in the blood of christ nowhere else so for us everything that is sanctified everything that is glorious everything that is beautiful made beautiful by god always has the blood of christ on it because that's the only means whereby we receive life and are are made holy is by that blood amen all right so let's get into what what some of these garments are that the rest of the chapter talks about so you you kind of got two different categories here most of the chapter is concerned with what the high priest is going to wear and just imagine what this would be like so if you're the high priest you have to have help getting dressed because there is so much to put on you've got

basically eight different articles of clothing that you're going to put on if you're the high priest if you're a regular priest then you got four uh three of which are the same one which is a little bit different so if you're the high priest the first thing that you're going to put on are uh this is kind of funny but you're basically it's your your linen shorts you that's that's the last part of this chapter we'll go ahead we'll start from the inside out here so you you you're kind of your your linen underwear if you will is it is this like is this like the uh the magic underwear of the mormons i think this is different yeah i believe this is different you know it is kind of is droxas is funny but this we've got we've actually already

seen a little bit of this uh in an earlier description of the altar uh god wants god doesn't want them to expose their nakedness around the altar i was doing some research about this this morning and there's there's ample evidence that at least in some parts of the ancient near east it was not uncommon for those who were engaged in worship or even leading worship around an altar to do so in the nude that's the way some pagan peoples did it and god says that's not the way we're going to do it at my tabernacle in fact i want to make sure that you know if you're wearing a loose robe something isn't uh revealed that shouldn't be revealed so i want you to put on these linen breeches these linen underwear i mean this is and this was unusual too because

we don't have any evidence zero evidence that i've been able to find uh in the ancient near east or or even anywhere else in the bible of anyone else who wore clothing like this i mean that the oldest the oldest kind of underwear if you will that people wore were loincloths uh in fact uh in the uh in the the tomb of king tut they found several linen lawn claws that i guess were popular with the egyptian royalty back then but there's no evidence of any kind of linen shorts that were designed to go from the waist down to the thigh to make sure everything got covered up but if you were a priest uh whether you were an ordinary priest or a high priest you had to put on so you slip on your sacred briefs in the morning if you're going to be serving you got

that and then kind of working your way out uh to everything else that you're that you're going to have on the uh you have a tunic that goes next to your skin which would reach all the way down to ankle length you've got a robe that goes over the top of that so you got your your linen shorts on you got your your uh your your tunic on and then you put a robe over that and then you've got uh this this what's called an ephod you can kind of think of it as a as a big vest that goes on and there's no sleeves on it just a vest and then on the front of it it has what's called an what's called a breast piece which we'll talk about in just a minute there's a little pouch inside of it and then so that basically has your body covered and you've got uh kind of a turban

some kind of head head piece that you put on and then uh you have a sash kind of a belt around your waist and then the last piece of of uh of the vestments was a you get a headband uh and and on this headband is written holy to yahweh so you got your your hat on you got your headband on you got your uh your inner and outer garment on you got your linen underwear on and then you have this big vest on that has the ephod on the front so all this is is is pretty heavy in fact there's gold in it there's no time how much weight this actually added to your body but this is what the high priest would wear when he was when he was ministering now you may have noticed if you're if you're paying close attention that there's one part of your body that's not covered that we

usually do have covered when we're dressed up and that is there's no shoes and that's because uh the the priests when they were ministering around the the tabernacle and then later the temple never wore shoes. They were always barefoot. In fact, I've read in some Jewish sources that there was actually a doctor employed at the temple in Jerusalem, one of whose duties was to care for the feet of the priest, because it didn't matter if it was, it was almost in just summertime. This was all year round, even the wintertime, the priest did not minister with shoes on. And the reason goes all the way back to exodus chapter 3 when moses is before god in the burning bush what does god tell him the first thing he says to do is take off your shoes because the place

where you're standing is holy ground shoes in that culture be very very unclean you know it sort of makes sense you go everywhere with your shoes on you walk into bathrooms you walk through mud it's all sorts of nasty stuff that your shoes come into contact with so the bottom of your shoes is considered to be unclean so you take them off when you are ministering around the altar and within the tabernacle and later in the temple so there is no priestly footwear they are always ministering barefoot and that's what they that's kind of the big picture what they wear if you're ordinary priest you have it much easier you put on your linen shorts you put on your tunic you put uh on uh your belt your sash and then you have a special hat a cap or something like that that

you wear that's different priest so that's that's kind of your if you can kind of visualize all that that's the that's what everybody is going to be wearing as they're as they're working at at the tabernacle you know the first go ahead well i was gonna say you know maybe you're going here i might be jumping the gun but uh that's what i'm here for uh it's just to steal your points hey jump that gun go ahead i i just i think it's super fascinating that you know the the priest and the high priest they have to put on all of these clothes to get ready to do their priestly work right but they don't do their priestly work apart from an elaborate coverings they have to cover themselves up and they go do their work uh which is completely the opposite of christ the great

high priest who does his work stripped down naked i don't know uh if you guys know this but uh jesus wasn't crucified with a discreet loincloth uh they just stripped that guy naked and hung him up hung him up on the cross and so uh while us uh we we are when we go to do the work of god are commanded to put on clothes and the the the priest and the high priest of old have to put on many many like layers of garments uh when the great high priest comes to do his work when it actually comes time to for all of this to be fulfilled the opposite happens and he's he's stripped down nude and nailed to a tree and his blood is cast all over everything because ultimately he's the only one that can really do this work

and he doesn't bear humanity. Yeah, it is. It's one of the ironic ways that God works is that when he brings everything to fulfillment, he does so in a way that is exactly the opposite of what we would expect. So this is the greatest sacrifice, but it's not a lamb, it's not a bull. instead it's a it's a human and uh it happens in jerusalem but it's really outside jerusalem it's outside the city gate and as you as you point out uh this great high priest is not uh

clad in all these various layers and whatnot instead he's stripped down to nothing so he's stripped down in order that he might then turn around and clothe us with uh with his own righteousness and make us into uh the priest who are of him and the kings and the queens who are of him of him as well so uh the first thing that's discussed in this chapter the first particular part of the high priest vestments is the ephod and this is the uh the vest like article that that also has on its on its center on the chest part what's called the breast piece now this is i don't know if this i'm having a hard time deciding which which is my favorite part of what the high priest is going to wear but this has to rank pretty pretty high it is the very

first thing that's discussed so you it's it's made out of gold and it's made out of the same stuff that the tabernacle is made out of uh blue purple scarlet material there's there's gold there's fine twisted linen so you can kind of think of the priest as this walking serving tabernacle i mean he's like he's like the uh a human being who is clothed in a tabernacle that's an that's one of the one of the ways in which he is uh pointing forward to to christ just like christ is the word made flesh who tabernacled among us so you have this high priest walking around ministering speaking the words of god serving at the altar and he's wearing the same stuff that the tabernacle itself is made out of it's pretty it's pretty phenomenal when you

when you consider it that way that you have the tabernacle yes but you also have a high priest who is like almost another tabernacle a human being who's wrapped in this this holy stuff that tabernacles made out of speaking the words of god representing god to the people offering sacrifices so in that capacity the high priest is also the one who is embodying this prophecy of the messiah and one of the things he wears is then this this ephod and this ephod has uh some stones on it uh there's there's first of all there's two onyx stones and on these you have the names of the 12 tribes of israel you have six names on one stone and six names on on the other stone and these go on the these go on the shoulder the shoulder straps that hold hold the ephod in

place now i'm going to jump ahead here because i want to talk about these both these at the same time you also have on the breast piece you have 12 stones so on the the the ephod itself which is the vest you've got these two stones six names on one six names on the other but then when you get to the breast piece you have 12 stones there's four rows of three stones each and these stones represent the names of the 12 tribes of israel so you really have the tribes of israel all 12 of them represented twice on the same article of clothing the breast piece which is a square which is a square patch it goes right on the chest it's attached to the ephod and on the shoulder straps of the ephod you have these two precious stones that have the names of the 12

tribes of israel engraved into them what's going on here well just picture this every time that the high priest is at the altar every time the high priest is walking into the holy place and consuming the sacred bread or trimming the lamps or standing in front of the altar of incense offering up prayers for the people and every time that the high priest walks into the most holy placed on Yom Kippur to sprinkle blood toward the mercy seat. He is not just a man. He's not just one individual. He bears on him the names of the 12 tribes of Israel, so that where he goes and what he does, he is the nation reduced down to one person. So when he steps into the presence of god all of israel steps into the presence of god with him their names are actually on his body

now when you think about this in relation to its to its fulfillment that's where you see this rich and beautiful christology because what was happening with the vestments of the high priest happens in reality with christ because he is humanity reduced down to one person and he doesn't just have our names on him. Instead, he has our own flesh and blood. And when he steps into the Holy of Holies, into the presence of the Father, when he offers prayers on our behalf, when he presents himself as the sacrifice, then when the Father sees him, he sees all humanity in him. And that's why we can say that when the Father sees us, he sees us in Christ, because he is our great high priest

who has our very flesh and blood the names of who we are in his own body so that where he is we are and when the father sees him he sees us in our great high priest Amen

and that is it that's where we got to end it 40 minutes is up that's good stuff though yeah there's more of it to come Yeah, well, Chad, thanks for hanging out. Everybody, come hang out with me and Chad in San Diego. We would love to see you.

But either way, we'll be back next week. See you then. Thanks for watching!