Alright, so I've been wanting to by the new hand-held video game system from Nintendo, the 3DS, for a few months now. I don't have a job at this time, so the only way I'm able to earn money is by doing odd jobs for family members and friends from church. I had a big one that I just finished, which was supposed to put me just twenty dollars short of the price of the 3DS, but it took me so long to finish this job that I had forgotten how much money me and the person I did the job for had agreed upon, which was twenty-five dollars less than what I thought. Now I'm about forty-five dollars short of my 3DS. I get twenty dollars tonight for another job, and as soon as I finish two other jobs, forty more, but that could be weeks. I've probably already missed the free download of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures by now, which is a game I really wanted to play. I'm crazy about Zelda, for those of you who don't already know. I'm desperate for cash right now. Only twenty more to go! Why?! WHY!?!?!?! *Sad face* If you have any jobs for me that won't take more than a week or that you can pay me in advance for, or if you'd like to just give me money I would be very grateful. You'd be helping the overall happiness of my life a lot.
Last week, I promised a more in-depth explanation of the Tabernacle and why it keeps coming up in the book of Hebrews. If you're anything like me,the Tabernacle is one of those things in the Bible that holds significance to you but you never fully understood. I still didn't quite understand what it was, besides a place where they killed animals, until last year in school when I did an intense study on it and the Israelite people. The connections between the Tabernacle and the “new covenant” and Jesus as our new “high priest” are so evident and so important in comprehending what it is that Jesus did for us on the cross.
The Tabernacle was basically a very beautiful and detailed tent. The Israelite people used it while they were on their way to the promised land, and then while they were wandering in the desert or forty years, so it had to be portable. To get a better picture of how beautiful this tent was, you can read Exodus 36:8-38.
It's a little hard to get a visual of the tent without seeing a model of it. Before I wrote this post I ran around the house panicking because I had to do a description of the Tabernacle and I hadn't seen my fold out pamphlet of it since we moved a couple of months ago. I finally found it last night at around ten o'clock, and right at this moment in time, it's nearly midnight on Thursday, so I hope I make sense. It shouldn't be a problem though, I'm very jacked up on a delicious caramel frappe right now. I'm literally twitching in my chair.
Anyways, the Tabernacle was just a big tent, like I said before, with a large outer courtyard that the people could enter into to make their sacrifices. The actual Tabernacle where God dwelt was inside this larger courtyard. In the courtyard, there was an alter where the people made their sacrifices. The offering had to be a perfect animal without any faults, and as it died the people would place their hand on its head to symbolize their sin going into the animal. This method of sacrifice only lasted the people a certain amount of time, so sacrifices were offered daily. Beyond this alter there was a large basin of water that had a mirrored bottom for the priests to wash themselves in before entering the Tabernacle. The purpose of the mirror was to remind the priest, as he made himself physically clean, that the Lord sees what's in the heart, and not just what's on the outside.
Once inside the tabernacle, there were a few other furnishings like the lamp stand, the table of showbread, and the alter of incense. Farther than this, at the very heart of the Tabernacle, was the Holy of Holies, where God's presence dwelt. The priest would only enter this place once a year to sprinkle blood on the Ark of the Covenant, which held the ten commandments inside of it and was the only piece of furniture in the Most Holy Place. The lid of the Ark is called the Mercy Seat, and this is where the glory of God dwelt. The blood sprinkled here covered the sins of the priest and the people for the rest of the year. It was only by these daily sacrifices and shedding of blood that God was able to dwell among the sinfulness of the people.
I know this is intense and maybe confusing stuff, but stay with me here. It's all going to come together as we read the seventh chapter of Hebrews.
1-10 Melchizedek was one of the priest that served in the Tabernacle. Pay attention to how he's being likened to Jesus here. His name means “king of righteousness”, and he was given a tenth of the plunder Abraham had gained from his battles. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be making a connection to tithing or not, but every priest collected a tenth of everything from the people while they were in service.
11-17 No matter how many sacrifices were made at the Tabernacle, there still had to be sacrifices for the sins of the people daily. It was an imperfect system based on the law. If this was a flawless system, why then did it have to be repeated with more bloodshed so often? When Jesus became our high priest, there had to be a change in the way things were done, just as there was a change in the priesthood. Jesus did not become a priest because of his ancestry, but because God his Father told him to so he could perfect His relationship with His people.
18-19 These are the key verses that bring it all together. The former way of doing things, the daily sacrifice of blood, the limited access to the Mercy Seat and to God's presence, all changed with this new way of doing things.
20-22 Each priest gained his title simply by being of the line of Levites, which was a tribe in Israel. But Jesus became a priest because he was promised with an oath by God. He was the guarantee of a better covenant before he was even born. Your salvation is a rock solid, promised by the God of the universe thing, guys. We shouldn't take this stuff lightly. This is powerful.
23-25 Priests die because they are human like you and me. But Jesus lives forever, and is therefore our priest forever. What he did cannot end, because he will never end. He has completely saved those who have called upon his name. When he died, the curtain that separated us from God's presence was ripped in half, and full access to the Mercy of God was granted to us. Oh man, I don't know if it's the coffee or the Spirit, but something is getting me hyped up!
26-28 The best part of it all, Jesus, our new High Priest, the one who took all our sins on himself and died once and for all to save us. Unlike the animal sacrifices that had to be offered multiple times, Jesus died one time and took EVERY SINGLE SIN away. This means all the sins you have committed, the sins you are committing, and the sins you will commit, already washed away more than 2,000 years ago on the cross. This perfect sinless man became our sin, and died in our place. He offered the blood we should have paid. He walked this earth and experienced all the things we experience. And now he's alive, bridging the gap between sinful man and a holy perfect God. The curtain was torn. The way is opened. WE ARE SAVED!
Now that that's over with, let me make some connections between Jesus and the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was the place were God dwelt, Jesus came down from heaven to dwell among the people, and Jesus is God in the flesh. The high priest offered sacrifices for the people, Jesus offered himself as our final and perfect sacrifice. The place where God was, the Ark, held the ten commandments or the law. Jesus came to fulfill the law. (Matthew 5:17) When you sum it all up, Jesus completely replaced all that stuff. He made it so simple. He's the reason we're not still dragging animals to the alter to sacrifice for our sins.
The law shows us how imperfect we are, and how badly we fail with each passing minute to be worthy of entering the presence of God. It's like looking into a mirror and seeing all the dirt of our life. But Jesus washed us clean. His grace covers us. Like my pastor said on Sunday, “Grace doesn't give us an excuse to sin, but rather gives us the means by which we can keep it.” In other words, without grace, we would never be able to show our faces in the presence of God because we are not capable of keeping the law by ourselves. I thank the Lord for sending His son to make me perfect.
Last week, I asked for prayer requests as the challenge. I only got one, and I'm pretty sure it's been taken care of, so I'll let it go. The only challenge this week is getting through this blog, so if you made it this far congratulations, here is your virtual cookie. Now I must be going. It's almost one in the morning.
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