Torah:
Sh’mot (Exodus) 27:20-30:10
Haftarah:
Yechezk'el (Ezekiel) 43:10-27
B’rit
Chadasha: Hebrews 9:21-10:10
How can a mere man, let alone a sinful one--and we have
all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23)--stand before a
truly holy God? How can the Eternal meet with the time-bound, the Infinite
with the finite? The answer to this question is so elusive in philosophy
that many retreat from it altogether, supposing God to be so vast that He has no
care for mere humans, or even for whole worlds. But where Deist philosophy
despairs, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob provides the answer in the form
of a Mediator.
The Aaronic priesthood prefigured our great High
Priest, and to that end the Holy One took them from the people of Israel and
sanctified them even as the Tabernacle that represented both the heavenly throne
room and the Heavenly King was sanctified. The Hebrew word for
"sanctification" is the same as the word for holiness, kadosh (קדשׁ).
It means to be set apart, to be put to a special purpose. The cohenim
(priests) were set apart by a special ceremony involving multiple sacrifices
as a sign that it was only through the blood that they were made fit for the
Holy One's service.
Yeshua needed no blood of bulls or goats to set Him
apart--rather, He was set apart by the spilling of His own blood, which in turn
has set us apart from the present world. And just as Israel, which was set
apart from the Egyptians by the blood of the Passover Lamb, had to then come out
of Egypt and leave behind its ways to serve the God who redeemed them, so we too
must leave behind the ways of the world in order to serve Him who Redeemed us.
Ezekiel tells us that in the Millennium, the Holy One
will once again call out men to serve as ministers and priests before the throne
of His Son. Halleluyah that He will keep His promise to Aaron and Phineas
of an eternal earthly priesthood, for that means that He will likewise keep His
promise to us of the Resurrection and the restoration of all things.
