Names of God, Part 67

Transcript Search

made with Proclaim

David Works

Trinity Bible Church

Names of God • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago • Presented 6 days ago • 1:02:01

Exodus 35

Names of God in the Old Testament

Names of God in the New Testament

YHWH - יהוה

Refiner -- M’tzaref מְצָרֵף

M’tzaref מְצָרֵף

0 ratings

· 81 views

We continue our study of YHWH - יהוה and the Tabernacle Furniture as seen through Hebrews 9. We spent time reviewing the use of frankincense as incense to the Lord and then continued our review of the table of shewbread. Our Special Name of God for the week was God our Refiner -- M’tzaref מְצָרֵף

Files

Notes

Transcript

Sunday September 22, 2024

TNOG 57

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 4

Review

Now that brings us to a division (a very subtle division, but nevertheless a division) between chapter 3 and chapter 4. This is seen because for the first time since 1:1 God speaks again in verse 1.

God speaks in verse 1.

Leviticus 4:1

Leviticus 4:1 Now the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

Leviticus 4:1–2 NKJV

1 Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If a person sins unintentionally against any of the commandments of the Lord in anything which ought not to be done, and does any of them,

So in Leviticus we have the explanation of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering.

Then there is a break.

“And now the word of the Lord spoke to Moses saying” and it indicates a distinction.

The first three are voluntary sacrifices and they represent the ongoing fellowship or relationship that the worshipper has with God.

But the Levitical sin offering in chapter 4 and the trespass offering in chapter 5… picture offerings that correspond to particular sins in the life of the believer after salvation.

Leviticus 4:2

Leviticus 4:2 NKJV

2 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If a person sins unintentionally against any of the commandments of the Lord in anything which ought not to be done, and does any of them,

There are sins of omission, sins of ignorance, sins that did not involve intention on the part of the believer; but they break fellowship with God. So, there is the need for ongoing cleansing.

In this next section in chapter four, you could really divide it into four different sections dealing with different people or different groups.

Verses 3 through 12 — High Priest

Verses 13 through 21 — Nation of Israel

Verses 22 through 26 — Ruler

Verses 27 through 35 — Person of the Land

The sin offering has to do with inadvertent sin or unintentional sin.

In verse 3 through 12, it deals with the sin offering in relationship to the sin of the High Priest.

Leviticus 4:3-12

Leviticus 4:3–12 NKJV

3 if the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, then let him offer to the Lord for his sin which he has sinned a young bull without blemish as a sin offering. 4 He shall bring the bull to the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord, lay his hand on the bull’s head, and kill the bull before the Lord. 5 Then the anointed priest shall take some of the bull’s blood and bring it to the tabernacle of meeting. 6 The priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of the blood seven times before the Lord, in front of the veil of the sanctuary. 7 And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of meeting; and he shall pour the remaining blood of the bull at the base of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. 8 He shall take from it all the fat of the bull as the sin offering. The fat that covers the entrails and all the fat which is on the entrails, 9 the two kidneys and the fat that is on them by the flanks, and the fatty lobe attached to the liver above the kidneys, he shall remove, 10 as it was taken from the bull of the sacrifice of the peace offering; and the priest shall burn them on the altar of the burnt offering. 11 But the bull’s hide and all its flesh, with its head and legs, its entrails and offal— 12 the whole bull he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn it on wood with fire; where the ashes are poured out it shall be burned.

All sin violates the righteousness of God.

Even the most common sins, the ones that we think really aren’t that bad – sins related to something as simple as eating a piece of fruit (hint, hint) - are sins that separate us from God.

It doesn’t have to be a great sin such as murder. It doesn’t have to be something horrible in terms of genocide. It doesn’t have to be any of these other things that man looks at as so terrible to be the cause of our separation from God. Just something, anything, no matter how innocuous it may seem - if is a violation of what God says. That’s what separates us from God.

So it all has to be paid for by Christ on the cross. But there is a recognition that some sins have greater consequences than others. So there is in terms of experience a scale of value in terms of the penalties for different sins and who commits them.

So the sin of the High Priest is mentioned in verses 3 through 12.

Then there’s the sin of the congregation when the congregation as a whole commits some infraction in verses 13-21.

Leviticus 4:13-21

Leviticus 4:13–21 NKJV

13 ‘Now if the whole congregation of Israel sins unintentionally, and the thing is hidden from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done something against any of the commandments of the Lord in anything which should not be done, and are guilty; 14 when the sin which they have committed becomes known, then the assembly shall offer a young bull for the sin, and bring it before the tabernacle of meeting. 15 And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord. Then the bull shall be killed before the Lord. 16 The anointed priest shall bring some of the bull’s blood to the tabernacle of meeting. 17 Then the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, in front of the veil. 18 And he shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar which is before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of meeting; and he shall pour the remaining blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. 19 He shall take all the fat from it and burn it on the altar. 20 And he shall do with the bull as he did with the bull as a sin offering; thus he shall do with it. So the priest shall make atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them. 21 Then he shall carry the bull outside the camp, and burn it as he burned the first bull. It is a sin offering for the assembly.

Then, the leaders of the congregation bring the offering to the Tabernacle and to the brazen altar.

Then there is the sin offering for the ruler. How’s that handled? That’s described in verses 22-26.

Leviticus 4:22-26

Leviticus 4:22–26 NKJV

22 ‘When a ruler has sinned, and done something unintentionally against any of the commandments of the Lord his God in anything which should not be done, and is guilty, 23 or if his sin which he has committed comes to his knowledge, he shall bring as his offering a kid of the goats, a male without blemish. 24 And he shall lay his hand on the head of the goat, and kill it at the place where they kill the burnt offering before the Lord. It is a sin offering. 25 The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and pour its blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering. 26 And he shall burn all its fat on the altar, like the fat of the sacrifice of the peace offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.

Then the sin offering for the individual who commits an infraction; then sin offering for specific types of offenses as described in chapter 5:1-13.

Leviticus 5:1-13

Leviticus 5:1–13 NKJV

1 ‘If a person sins in hearing the utterance of an oath, and is a witness, whether he has seen or known of the matter—if he does not tell it, he bears guilt. 2 ‘Or if a person touches any unclean thing, whether it is the carcass of an unclean beast, or the carcass of unclean livestock, or the carcass of unclean creeping things, and he is unaware of it, he also shall be unclean and guilty. 3 Or if he touches human uncleanness—whatever uncleanness with which a man may be defiled, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty. 4 ‘Or if a person swears, speaking thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, whatever it is that a man may pronounce by an oath, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty in any of these matters. 5 ‘And it shall be, when he is guilty in any of these matters, that he shall confess that he has sinned in that thing; 6 and he shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord for his sin which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin. 7 ‘If he is not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord, for his trespass which he has committed, two turtledoves or two young pigeons: one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. 8 And he shall bring them to the priest, who shall offer that which is for the sin offering first, and wring off its head from its neck, but shall not divide it completely. 9 Then he shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the side of the altar, and the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar. It is a sin offering. 10 And he shall offer the second as a burnt offering according to the prescribed manner. So the priest shall make atonement on his behalf for his sin which he has committed, and it shall be forgiven him. 11 ‘But if he is not able to bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons, then he who sinned shall bring for his offering one-tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a sin offering. He shall put no oil on it, nor shall he put frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering. 12 Then he shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall take his handful of it as a memorial portion, and burn it on the altar according to the offerings made by fire to the Lord. It is a sin offering. 13 The priest shall make atonement for him, for his sin that he has committed in any of these matters; and it shall be forgiven him. The rest shall be the priest’s as a grain offering.’ ”

So when we come to this offering (the sin offering), some have called it a purification offering because that is its consequence. The believer must be purified of the sin, must be cleansed from the uncleanness before he can be restored to fellowship with God. That is a picture that goes on throughout history.

Some may say, “Well you know, the reason they had to keep doing that in the Old Testament was that the blood of bulls and goats can’t take away sin. That’s what Hebrews says, right? So when you get to the New Testament the blood of Christ continuously cleanses from all sin (I John 1:7 ) so you don’t really need to confess your sins.

1 John 1:7, 9

1 John 1:7 NKJV

7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

That’s talking about something else. That’s just legalism because the work of Christ is completed, right?”

That’s what people have said. I’ve dealt with people who say that. Okay, if that’s true then the death of Christ is just as complete and sufficient for sin in the Millennial Kingdom as it is in the Church Age, right? Well of course it’s right. So why do the priests in the Millennial Temple have to have burnt offerings and sin offerings and guilt offerings in order to be cleansed of sin when they go into the presence of God serving in the Temple? Because, sin still corrupts a relationship with God even though we’re saved. It’s going to be just as true in the future kingdom as it is in the Church Age. Just because the dynamics in the relationship differ, there still needs to be this issue of cleansing.

People always wanted to focus on confession. But, confession is not actually the key word in I John 1:9. The key word in I John 1:9 is cleansing - and forgiveness.

1 John 1:9 NKJV

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

You trace those concepts from Genesis to Revelation, from the first dispensation into the Millennial Kingdom.

Whenever man commits sin there is a breach of the relationship with God and cleansing must take place. Even if there is positional cleansing, it still needs to be applied to the new instances of ongoing sin.

Very Great Reward -- S’khar Harbeh M’od שְׁכָר הַרְבֵּה מְאֹד

Genesis 15:1

Genesis 15:1 NKJV

1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

Some time later the word of Adonai came to Avram [Abram] in a vision: “Don’t be afraid, Avram. I am your protector; your reward will be very great.”

1 Samuel 26:23

1 Samuel 26:23 NKJV

23 May the Lord repay every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness; for the Lord delivered you into my hand today, but I would not stretch out my hand against the Lord’s anointed.

“Adonai will give every person a reward suited to his uprightness and faithfulness.…”

Isaiah 40:10

Isaiah 40:10 NKJV

10 Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, And His arm shall rule for Him; Behold, His reward is with Him, And His work before Him.

“Here comes Adonai Elohim [ Lord God] with power, and his arm will rule for him. Look! His reward is with him, and his recompense is before him”.

Matthew 5:12

Matthew 5:12 NKJV

12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

“Rejoice, be glad,because your reward in heaven is great…”

Hebrews 10:35–36

Hebrews 10:35–36 NKJV

35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:

So don’t throw away that courage of yours, which carries with it such a great reward. For you need to hold out; so that, by having done what God wills, you may receive what he has promised.

Rewards are given for acts of service, for helping to find a criminal or a lost puppy. The prefix “re” indicates that by their very nature, they are a return or recompense for something we have done. The rewards of this life pale in comparison to what God will give to those who follow him faithfully.

End of TNOG 57 9/22/2024

Sunday September 29, 2024

TNOG 58

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 4

Review

So in Leviticus we have the explanation of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering.

Then there is a break.

“And now the word of the Lord spoke to Moses saying” and it indicates a distinction.

The first three are voluntary sacrifices and they represent the ongoing fellowship or relationship that the worshipper has with God.

But the Levitical sin offering in chapter 4 and the trespass offering in chapter 5… picture offerings that correspond to particular sins in the life of the believer after salvation.

We are dealing with the sin offering in Chapter 4

Then the sin offering for the individual who commits an infraction; then sin offering for specific types of offenses is described in chapter 5:1-13.

1. So the first thing we note is that the terminology here is תֶחֱטָ֤א — THEHATA offering which is the word for sin. It literally means to miss the mark or target or lose the way.

It’s used that way in Judges 20:16 when it talks about the left-handed Benjamites who could throw a rock with their sling and not miss the target. So literally it has that meaning in Judges 20:16.

Judges 20:16

Judges 20:16 NKJV

16 Among all this people were seven hundred select men who were left-handed; every one could sling a stone at a hair’s breadth and not miss.

The Benjamites counted on seven hundred select men who were left-handed, which was an advantage since their shots would come from unaccustomed angles. Ironically, the name Benjamin means “Son of the Right Hand.

The target of course when it is applied to sin is the righteousness of God.

Romans 3:23

Romans 3:23 NKJV

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

We don’t hit the target and there needs to be a cleansing of sin. There needs to be an expiation of the guilt and someone else has to do that. That’s the picture in the purification offering.

2. So the purpose of this offering is to be cleansed so that fellowship can be restored.

The purification deals with removing the defilement or the impact that sin has had. All sin known and unknown must be forgiven.

3. The third thing that we note is that the sin offering is not a voluntary sacrifice as the first three were.

This is something that is mandated when somebody sins or if they are rendered unclean. Under those conditions, this offering was required of all. It’s required of priests. It’s required of the congregation, the rulers and individuals as you go through and read through the passage. The focus is always in relation to atonement and forgiveness. That sin is a crucial word in this cannot be doubted because it is used so many times in chapters 4 and 5.

Chapter 4 is the first time the word is used in Leviticus.

4. So the sin in question is one that was unintentional or one that is out of ignorance.

It is not a sin of commission, or a sin of the high hand, as used in Numbers 15:30 .

Numbers 15:30

Numbers 15:30 NKJV

30 ‘But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord, and he shall be cut off from among his people.

These are other categories of sin. This chapter is simply dealing with the sin of unintentional sin. It’s inadvertent. It’s not premeditated. It’s not intentional.

In Genesis 20:9 when Abimelech complains to Abraham… that was a sin of unintentionality.

Genesis 20:9

Genesis 20:9 NKJV

9 And Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? How have I offended you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done.”

Numbers 24 Balaam is unaware that God was the one who opposed him. That’s a sin of unintentionality.

Numbers 23:27–24:14 NKJV

27 Then Balak said to Balaam, “Please come, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there.” 28 So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, that overlooks the wasteland. 29 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build for me here seven altars, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.” 30 And Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on every altar. 1 Now when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not go as at other times, to seek to use sorcery, but he set his face toward the wilderness. 2 And Balaam raised his eyes, and saw Israel encamped according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him. 3 Then he took up his oracle and said: “The utterance of Balaam the son of Beor, The utterance of the man whose eyes are opened, 4 The utterance of him who hears the words of God, Who sees the vision of the Almighty, Who falls down, with eyes wide open: 5 “How lovely are your tents, O Jacob! Your dwellings, O Israel! 6 Like valleys that stretch out, Like gardens by the riverside, Like aloes planted by the Lord, Like cedars beside the waters. 7 He shall pour water from his buckets, And his seed shall be in many waters. “His king shall be higher than Agag, And his kingdom shall be exalted. 8 “God brings him out of Egypt; He has strength like a wild ox; He shall consume the nations, his enemies; He shall break their bones And pierce them with his arrows. 9 ‘He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him?’ “Blessed is he who blesses you, And cursed is he who curses you.” 10 Then Balak’s anger was aroused against Balaam, and he struck his hands together; and Balak said to Balaam, “I called you to curse my enemies, and look, you have bountifully blessed them these three times! 11 Now therefore, flee to your place. I said I would greatly honor you, but in fact, the Lord has kept you back from honor.” 12 So Balaam said to Balak, “Did I not also speak to your messengers whom you sent to me, saying, 13 ‘If Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the Lord, to do good or bad of my own will. What the Lord says, that I must speak’? 14 And now, indeed, I am going to my people. Come, I will advise you what this people will do to your people in the latter days.”

Not a sin of the HIgh Hand

But there is a contrast with sins with what the Bible calls sins of the high hand - Numbers 15:30 . So this offering deals with the sin of ignorance.

Numbers 15:30 NKJV

30 ‘But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord, and he shall be cut off from among his people.

5. What happens? A priest brings a bull, lays a hand on the bull, slaughters the bull, and takes some of the blood to the tent.

Inside the Holy of Holies he dips his finger in the blood and splatters the blood 7 times before the Lord on the veil of the sanctuary.

The priest was then to go out and put some of the blood on the horns of the altar as a fragrant incense.

All of the blood of the bull was then to be poured out at the base of the burnt offering.

But then all of the fat of the entrails, the kidneys, the loins, and the liver were to be offered up in the smoke of the burnt offering.

But, the hide, the flesh, the head, the legs and the entrails and guts were to be taken to a clean place outside the camp where they were mixed with the ashes from the other offering.

They are poured out and these parts were then burned on the wood with fire. The picture there is that the sin is removed from the individual. The guilt is removed. He is separated from the guilt. There it is dealt with completely and totally so that all of the sacrifice is consumed.

6. Now in the sin offering different animals were used. A bull was used for the High Priest or for the congregation, a male goat for the ruler, a female goat or lamb for the common person.

But, if they were poor they could also bring a pigeon or a turtle dove or if they were the poorest of the poor a tenth of an ephah of flour could be brought. So in other cases, for example with the congregational sin the elders would lay their hands on the head of a bull. They would also splatter the blood in the Tent of Meeting.

In the case of the sin of the ruler, the goat was a male without defect. It could not be a female. It had to be a male without defect. It’s slaughtered before the altar. The blood is not taken into the Tent of Meeting, but it’s all applied to the horns of the altar and then poured out on the base.

With the sin for the individual, he would bring a goat, a female goat (notice not male or female but in this case a female goat) without defect or a lamb (a female without defect) and then the blood was put on the horns of the altar and the rest of it poured out.

This describes the confession (we would say offering) offering. This is the restoration to fellowship.

So we have covered four of the offerings, four of the things that take place at the brazen altar. As a person would come into the Tabernacle, one or more of these four would take place there.

My Hope -- Tikvati תִקְוָתִי

Psalm 52:9

Psalm 52:9 NKJV

9 I will praise You forever, Because You have done it; And in the presence of Your saints I will wait on Your name, for it is good.

Psalm 52:9 CJB

11 I will praise you forever for what you have done, and I will put my hope in your name; for this is what is good in the presence of your faithful.

I will praise you forever for what you have done, and I will put my hope in your name; for this is what is good in the presence of your faithful.

Psalm 71:5

Psalm 71:5 NKJV

5 For You are my hope, O Lord God; You are my trust from my youth.

For you are my hope, Adonai Elohim [Lord God], in whom I have trusted since I was young.

Romans 15:13

Romans 15:13 NKJV

13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

May God, the source of hope, fill you completely with joy and shalom [peace] as you continue trusting, so that by the power of the Ruach Hakodesh [Holy Spirit] you may overflow with hope.

Hebrews 6:18–19

Hebrews 6:18–19 NKJV

18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. 19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil,

… so that through two unchangeable things, in neither of which God could lie, we, who have fled to take a firm hold on the hope set before us, would be strongly encouraged. We have this hope as a sure and safe anchor for ourselves.…

1 Peter 1:3–4

1 Peter 1:3–4 NKJV

Praised be God, Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, who, in keeping with his great mercy, has caused us, through the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah from the dead, to be born again to a living hope, to an inheritance that cannot decay, spoil or fade, kept safe for you in heaven.

Have you ever been disappointed? Have you ever lost heart, hoping for something that did not come about? To hope means to look forward to something, or trust in someone with confidence and expectation. We have a God that will never disappoint us when we put our hope in him.

End of TNOG 58 9/29/2024

Sunday October 6, 2024

TNOG 59

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 4

Review

Burnt Offerings, Grain Offerings. Hebrews 9:1- ; Leviticus 5-6.

In Leviticus 5 we continue our study on the Tabernacle in preparation for looking at Hebrews 9.

In Hebrews 9 the focus is on the Tabernacle.

So we’ve been studying the Tabernacle and the furniture in the Tabernacle. We started off looking at the outer courtyard and the curtains around the outer courtyard, looking at the spiritual principles that are exemplified in the construction of the Tabernacle, the materials that are used. Everything (just about) within the Tabernacle is designed to teach something about the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ through various visual aids.

It’s interesting to just stop and think about - why in the world did God do this? Why didn’t God come along and just spell things out for people? Why didn’t He send the Lord Jesus Christ sometime back in the Old Testament period? Why did He wait at least 4000 years from the fall of Adam until the time when Christ finally came? What are the implications of Galatians 4:4 that it was in the fullness of time that God sent His Son?

So there’s a plan. God is doing something in that process of time in order to prepare the human race and in order to teach certain things about who He is, about the basic problem that man has (which is sin) and about how that affects man’s relationship with God. We see exemplified throughout the Levitical offerings (sacrifices and offerings), this whole principle of the creator-creature distinction. As we’re looking at Leviticus and we’re looking at Leviticus because Leviticus describes all of the procedures and protocols for entering into ceremonial fellowship with God. I stress that because there’s a difference and we’ll see a little bit of that in one passage that we’re looking at tonight. There’s a difference between the experiential fellowship of the everyday believer in the Old Testament on the one hand and his ceremonial approach to God on the other hand.

I think most Christians when we read through the Old Testament get the impression that you can’t have fellowship with God unless you bring a sacrifice to the Tabernacle or to the Temple. Of course that would create something of a logistical problem because the land is quite large. You have Dan which is all the way in the north. That would take several days by foot (probably a couple of weeks by foot). Or, by horseback or donkey it would still take three or four days to make the journey from Dan down to Jerusalem. Or if you’re all the way in the south (in the Negev or Beersheba or Arad - somewhere like that), it would still take several days to get up to Jerusalem. If every time you sinned you had to go to the Tabernacle or the Temple and sacrifice, then you might spend most of your time going from the central part of Jerusalem to the outer border and then back without ever getting outside Jerusalem itself. A lot of Christians experience that as you’re in and out of fellowship frequently.

So it helps us to understand the difference between what we might call real fellowship or experiential fellowship and ceremonial fellowship. In the ceremony or the ritual of the Old Testament and the Mosaic Law, we see depicted in the sacrifices and offerings the reason for having to confess sin in the spiritual life and how sin is dealt with because God is of such a nature that He is completely distinct from man. He is holy.

So the key word in the book of Leviticus is the word holiness or holy based on the Hebrew word qadash which means – it’s usually translated holy, but that’s such a jargoned religious word that’s used by so many people and they don’t know what it means that it loses its real impact. The word holy really means something that is set apart to God. When it is applied to God it has this idea that God is Himself set apart. He is distinct or unique. He is totally apart from the creation. So this is one of the reasons we emphasize the doctrine of the creator-creature distinction – that God as the creator is totally distinct, totally apart from everything in creation. He is the God who made the heavens and earth and all that is in them.

So this is exemplified in the very structure of the tabernacle that there is a distance and a separateness between God and man. In order to come into the presence of God, in order to have fellowship with God, there must be a cleansing from sin. The sacrifices depict not only the work of Christ on the cross as it provides a positional cleansing, but also the ongoing cleansing that must take place in the life of the believer.

Often when we’ve studied this and maybe in the past when you’ve studied the sacrifices and offerings in Leviticus, you think that certain sacrifices or certain offerings were salvation related or depicted specifically what Christ did on the cross and then there were other sacrifices that had to do with the post salvation spiritual life – confession and growth. But in reality all of the sacrifices depict both. What we see when we look at it that way is that the foundation for all cleansing, the foundation for dealing with sin, is the work of Christ on the cross and that actual judgment that takes place. This is why in I John 1:7 John says:

1 John 1:7

1 John 1:7 NKJV

7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

That term means the death of Christ.

Present tense so it is a continuous action there.

That’s the positional. So we can call that positional cleansing that takes place at the instant we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. This is why Paul can talk about – we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin. This is a positional forgiveness because of our place in Christ. We are positionally sanctified, set apart to God. That whole word group (sanctified, saint, sanctification), all of those words come out of that same word group for holy. So they all have to do with being set apart for the service of God. As you approach the Tabernacle, we see that there’s only one way into the presence of God. What this tells us is God as the one who’s at the center is the one who defines who He is and how the creature can come into His presence and what the problem is.

The problem is not defined by the worshipper. The worshipper doesn’t come in and say, “Well, I feel good today so I can come in and worship God.” Or “Isn’t it a wonderful day and I’m just so filled with enthusiasm for God that isn’t He blessed for me to be able to come in and sing praises for Him today!”

I’m being facetious because that’s a dominant attitude that we find today among many Christians - is as though God is somehow privileged to have us come and worship Him. Isn’t it wonderful! There’s no understanding of the underlying dynamics related to sin and cleansing and the basic doctrines of justification, reconciliation, atonement - all of these things get lost in terms of being able to experience a wonderful warm relationship with Jesus based on how we feel about things on Sunday mornings.

So the Tabernacle is a great illustration of the fact that God has to be approached on the basis of set rules that He establishes.

And that’s not legalism. Some people would say, “Well, that’s legalism.”

No legalism is saying that God blesses me on the basis of what I do. This is the grace of God saying that God has provided a way whereby despite sin, we can come into His presence and we can have fellowship with Him and we can worship Him and He’s the one who does all of the work. We simply follow His directions so that we can avail ourselves of the work that He has done.

So we started looking at the Tabernacle because this becomes the foundation – the Tabernacle, the furniture in the Tabernacle, the things that go on in the Tabernacle in terms of the sacrifices and offerings, the priesthood – become the foundation for what the writer of Hebrews is going to develop in this section that we’re in Hebrews 9 and Hebrews 10. So, without a familiarity with the ritual and the function of the Levitical priesthood in the Old Testament, we will get lost when we go through Hebrews 9 and 10. So we’re taking time to go back and look at these things.

The first piece of furniture that we see when we go into the Tabernacle is the brazen altar. So right now, we’re looking at what takes place at the brazen altar. The altar itself is the place of judgment. That’s what an altar represented - something is being sacrificed there. Something is being judged there. In the burnt offering, the first one mentioned in Leviticus 1, the entire sacrifice is being consumed by fire. So, the altar has to be made of bronze to withstand the judgment's heat. I pointed out that that is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He can withstand the judgment of sin because of who He is in His person – that He is the God-Man. So, the brazen altar represents the fact that as God in His deity, He is able - in His perfection, He is able to handle the judgment that is placed upon Him.

The second offering we looked at was the meal offering, sometimes called the gift or tribute offering, as described in Leviticus 2. This is a bloodless offering where raw grain was offered - that had been mixed with oil was one form of that. Another form was that they would mix it with oil. They would grill it or pan-fry it. No leaven or honey was to be used. It was to be from the first fruits of the harvest. It was to be seasoned with salt as a reminder of the permanence of God’s covenant with Israel. I pointed out also that towards the end of Leviticus 2, there is an emphasis on the roasted grain offering.

I commented that if you look carefully at your text, it indicates that God at least has Southern tastes.

God likes grits. So that’s in the New American Standard. I’m not sure how some of the other translations translate that, but it must have been a southerner who translated that on terms of the roast.

So the meal offering is a memorial to God’s grace. It is a fellowship offering because the meal itself is then shared between the offeror and the priest. Sometimes there would even be a number of people who would eat together. So it is a fellowship offering.

Then you have the peace offering which is described in chapter 3 that’s also known as the fellowship offering where – excuse me I was getting ahead of myself. This is the offering where the believer shares a meal with others in the Tabernacle to celebrate the peace with God that was made possible by the death of a sacrifice. The previous offering which I mentioned was in the meal offering. A portion was given to the priests which indicated the sufficiency of God’s grace for all. The peace or fellowship offering - then there is a meal that is shared with others emphasizing the celebration of God’s peace that is the believers because the sin problem has been solved.

The key word that is used in the peace offering is the word salem which is where we get the word shalom. It’s all etymologically related which emphasizes peace.

Then, the fourth offering, which we looked at during the last lesson, is the sin offering. The emphasis here is on the word hatah, which is the Hebrew word for sin, which means to miss a mark. It is used in a literal sense in the book of Judges to describe the accuracy of the archers or the slingers (I guess you would say) in among Benjamin that they would not miss their target. They were extremely accurate.

vbring the offering.

So, the confession of sin can take place with the sin offering at the time of the offering. Still, with the guilt offering, there’s a separation in time, which indicates what I was pointing out in the introduction - is that the individual believer… For example, if David was out with his sheep in the fields of Bethlehem and committed some sin, he could confess that sin and be restored to fellowship in terms of his personal spiritual life. But then, the next time he goes to the temple in Jerusalem, he needs to bring an offering. That would be the sin offering or the trespass offering.

Now we looked at the sin offering that’s described in chapter 4. This goes from Lev 4:1 down through Lev 5:13. We covered most of this last time, so we’re not going to go into all the details. Still, the text will describe this in terms of the different people, the different individuals that are involved and it depends on where you fit within society in terms of leadership responsibility for one thing as to what sacrifice needs to be brought.

According to verse 2, the sin that is in focus in the sin offering is the sin of unintentionality, where someone commits a sin.

Leviticus 4:2-3

Leviticus 4:2–3 NKJV

2 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If a person sins unintentionally against any of the commandments of the Lord in anything which ought not to be done, and does any of them, 3 if the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, then let him offer to the Lord for his sin which he has sinned a young bull without blemish as a sin offering.

This is from verses 3 through 12 talks about what happens if you are a priest;

verses 13 through 21 if your congregation as a whole;

verses 22 to 26 the sin offering in relationship to the ruler;

and verses 27-35 if you’re just an everyday believer in the nation Israel. So, different offerings are prescribed for each of those particular sins.

In the process of those sacrifices, except for the one with the pigeons or turtle doves, where the priests would be the ones to break the neck of the bird, what you see is the individual. Or, in the case of the congregational sin, the elders lay hands on the head of the animal, indicating an identification with that animal. With that animal, the sin is transferred from the person to the animal, and the animal becomes the substitute payment for the individual's sin so that they are forgiven based on that sacrifice. Now, forgiveness is ultimately based on what that sacrifice represents, and that’s the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

So we covered that last time in chapter 4, and now we’re in chapter 5. Chapter 5 is sometimes - if you look, for example, in the New King James translation, the heading above the first verse is the trespass offering. The trespass offering is not defined until verse 14. Verses 1-13 continue to talk about the sin offering. If you look at verse 1, we read:

Leviticus 5:1

Leviticus 5:1 NKJV

1 ‘If a person sins in hearing the utterance of an oath, and is a witness, whether he has seen or known of the matter—if he does not tell it, he bears guilt.

This is the sin of someone who maintains their silence rather than speaking up. So, it’s a sin of omission rather than commission. The person then bears guilt. So, you look at that word guilt.

See, the trespass offering should be called the guilt offering, the sin offering, or the guilt offering. The word that’s translated as trespass offering is the Greek or Hebrew word אָשֵֽׁם׃--ASHAM. That is the idea of someone guilty or having violated the law. That is different than the word translated as guilt in verse 1 in the King James and the New King James.

The word translated as guilt at the end of verse 1 is the Hebrew word עֲוֺנֽ --AVON, which means iniquity or transgression. So, that should be translated:

If a person sins (that’s the Hebrew word חַטָּאת֥ --HATAH) in hearing the utterance of an oath and is a witness

This concerns the commandment not to bear false witness. This person could have testified of something that he knew, but he kept silent rather than speaking up about something he has seen or knows about, and he doesn’t speak up; he is a transgressor.

Literally, Avon --עֲוֺנֽ

He has committed iniquity. He has transgressed the Law.

So, just because he hasn’t overtly committed false witness, by not speaking up, he has. Therefore, he is guilty of violating the law.

In these first 13 verses here of Leviticus 5, we see other forms of sin, of inadvertent sins and sins of omission, that all fall under the category of the sin offering. So under the first point (trying to summarize this in a couple of points), the Hebrew word avon describes the guilt here, meaning iniquity, punishment of sin, or transgressions. So, the focal point is that the law has been violated - once again, the standard of God.

Then, various examples are given beginning in verse 2 and going down through verse 13 of different ways in which this may take place. The first verse describes someone who commits a false witness by maintaining silence. They don’t speak up.

Then, in verse 2, the act of a person who touches any unclean thing. Now, there’s a difference between a sin, which is a violation of God’s character in the first verse where you don’t speak up and you’re committing an infraction of the law or committing a sin, and someone who’s committing an infraction of the law by touching an unclean thing.

Touching an unclean animal, the carcass of a dead body, any of these things are not in and of themselves sins. There is nothing moral or immoral about touching a dead body, touching a carcass, or touching an unclean animal. But, usually, the animal is related to something dead. You have a dead carcass. Where does death come from? Physical death is a consequence of sin.

Unclean animals are usually animals that eat carrion. So you have shrimp, lobster, or swine, and who knows what they eat? There are different things of this nature. So, because the animal is associated with death (eating things that have already died), it renders them unclean. So, this is to demonstrate once again that God can’t have anything to do with sin. It’s a reinforcement for the Jew that anything that is touched by sin causes him to be separated from God.

Now, we have an argument that is often spoken: “Why do I need to confess all my sins? I spend all my time focusing on all the sins in my life. I get absorbed or wrapped up with that.”

Well, some people can carry it too far. Now, we’ve all known people who’ve done that. They sit around all day trying to figure out all the sins they’ve committed. The misunderstand the principle that lies in I John 1:9

1 John 1:9

1 John 1:9 NKJV

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

“if we confess our sins” - whatever we’re aware of at the time; then God is faithful and just to forgive us our other sins -

that is those 5 or 6 or 3 or 4 or that we remembered; then He cleanses us from all other unrighteousness.

So, you don’t have to sit around and keep a grocery list running and become obsessive about trying to name every single sin you can think of that you have committed over the last 15 minutes since the last time you confessed your sin.

But the point here is that it constantly reminds people that sin is pervasive. That’s why you have these images like leaven. Leaven is a picture of sin because it just takes a little bit of leaven and then permeates. When it’s spread into the flour, it permeates everything. So it’s a reminder to the people of the sinfulness of sin and the distinctiveness of God, and if there’s even the least bit of sin on the part of the worshipper, then they are prohibited from coming into the presence of God. This gets reinforced in some pretty strong ways in the early stages of the Old Testament.

I think it’s interesting that when you have a dispensational shift, there are some extreme ways in which God reinforces the principles in the new dispensation. For example, when Ananias and Sapphira lie about the money they will give to the church...Barnabas sold a bunch of property and gave money to the church. Everybody was probably talking about how wonderful and gracious Barnabas was because he gave so much money to the church.

So Ananias and Sapphira thought, “Wouldn’t that be nice to have all that adulation and praise? So we’ll sell our property and tell everybody we gave it all to the church.”

But they didn’t give it all. They held some back. So God the Holy Spirit killed them instantly for lying to the Holy Spirit. Now, why doesn’t that happen all the time? That’s not normative. If that were normative, we would probably have very empty churches worldwide.

So, at the beginning of the dispensation, God reinforced the principle of not lying—reinforcing the principle of sanctity. The Old Testament provides a similar example to illustrate this—that God makes it clear that sin affects not just us but permeates everything around us.

So in verse 2, one of the examples of the need for a sin offering is the touching of anything thing unclean, touching an unclean thing, whether it’s the carcass of an unclean beast, the carcass of unclean livestock, the carcass of unclean creeping things and he is unaware of it.

Leviticus 5:2

Leviticus 5:2 NKJV

2 ‘Or if a person touches any unclean thing, whether it is the carcass of an unclean beast, or the carcass of unclean livestock, or the carcass of unclean creeping things, and he is unaware of it, he also shall be unclean and guilty.

This deals with a sin that you may not even be aware of, yet nevertheless, it still renders you unclean and guilty. The same word in the Greek is found there. That’s the word AVON, meaning transgressed the law.

Under verse 3:

Leviticus 5:3

Leviticus 5:3 NKJV

3 Or if he touches human uncleanness—whatever uncleanness with which a man may be defiled, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty.

This is later spelled out in other portions of the Mosaic Law, different ways in which a human is rendered ritually unclean - a woman when she gives birth to a child, other things that take place render people ceremonially unclean.

Leviticus 5:4

Leviticus 5:4 'Or if a person swears,

Leviticus 5:4 NKJV

4 ‘Or if a person swears, speaking thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, whatever it is that a man may pronounce by an oath, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty in any of these matters.

This is not using profanity. This is the swearing of an oath in any judicial setting, whether it’s signing a contract or entering into a legal relationship.

Leviticus 5:4 NKJV

It’s whether you’re going to take a specific course of action – whether it’s going to buy a house, buy a car, buy a camel, whatever it might be.

Then if you enter into this contract and you say, “Yes, I will do something.” and then you didn’t think it through and you realize…You go home, and you think about it. “Oh, I really can’t do that.” So now you won’t keep your word, keep your contract. That would be a violation of this particular situation. I

Whatever it is that a man may pronounce by an oath, and he is unaware of it -- when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty in any of these matters.

So, the idea here is that we need to be people of our word. Our word is our bond. That used to be true in this country 40 or 50 years ago. Now, it’s not true anymore. Even if it is true of you, it’s not true of anybody else, so you can get into a lot of trouble if you think your word is your bond, and that’s good enough to go by. So the emphasis here is that each person should not commit, say they’re going to do something, promise something, or indicate a course of action unless they’re going to go through with it.

In the New Testament in James, James says:

James 5:12

James 5:12 NKJV

12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into judgment.

The point is to make sure that when you say you will do something that you will carry it out.

Leviticus 5:5

Leviticus 5:5 NKJV

5 ‘And it shall be, when he is guilty in any of these matters, that he shall confess that he has sinned in that thing;

So here’s the point of confession. When there’s a realization of this sin, then you confess it and verse 6 follows after that.

Leviticus 5:6

Leviticus 5:6 NKJV

6 and he shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord for his sin which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin.

This offering could be a female lamb or a kid of the goats.

as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin.

So it primarily focuses on that, but there’s always a grace provision for those who are poor and those who can’t afford to bring the lamb or the kid. They are to bring either two turtle doves or two young pigeons. This is described in verses 7 and 8.

Leviticus 5:7-8

Leviticus 5:7–8 NKJV

7 ‘If he is not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord, for his trespass which he has committed, two turtledoves or two young pigeons: one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. 8 And he shall bring them to the priest, who shall offer that which is for the sin offering first, and wring off its head from its neck, but shall not divide it completely.

So one goes as a sin offering; the other goes as a burnt offering. Then when you get down to verse 11, if you’re still so poor that you can’t bring two turtle doves or two young pigeons which means you are extremely impoverished then:

End of 10/6/2024

Sunday October 13, 2024

TNOG 60

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 5-6

Review

Burnt Offerings, Grain Offerings. Hebrews 9:1- ; Leviticus 5-6.

In Leviticus 5 we continue our study on the Tabernacle in preparation for looking at Hebrews 9.

We left off last week on Leviticus 5:11

Leviticus 5:11

Leviticus 5:11 NKJV

11 ‘But if he is not able to bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons, then he who sinned shall bring for his offering one-tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a sin offering. He shall put no oil on it, nor shall he put frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering.

An ephah is generally described as a bushel and a half. Other sources say it’s approximately 5 gallons. There’s a certain amount of uncertainty that we have as to exactly how some of these dry measurements equate to our English measurements. But if he couldn’t afford that, then he is to bring fine flour as a sin offering. The fine flour emphasizes the value of the flour. It is more valuable than your everyday flour.

He shall put no oil on it, nor shall he put frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering.

Leviticus 5:12-13

Leviticus 5:12–13 NKJV

12 Then he shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall take his handful of it as a memorial portion, and burn it on the altar according to the offerings made by fire to the Lord. It is a sin offering. 13 The priest shall make atonement for him, for his sin that he has committed in any of these matters; and it shall be forgiven him. The rest shall be the priest’s as a grain offering.’ ”

Now this word “atonement” is one that we have almost been trained to think of in terms of a soteriological term. We often refer to the death of Christ on the cross as atonement. There’s a big debate theologically in history over limited or unlimited atonement. But, there is no comparable word for atonement in the New Testament in any of Paul’s literature, in any New Testament literature describing the cross.

Atonement was an Old Testament concept and the Hebrew word is KAPHAR. The English word atonement is an invented word that was coined in the 9th or 10th century AD indicating the concept of bringing two things together so that they are at-one-ment. That is where the word atonement comes from – this English concept. So for a lot of time that you have heard atonement taught, you’ll hear it compared to covering – that KAPHAR means covering. Look it up in some of the older Hebrew dictionaries. It will list the term KAPHAR as covering. There is a use of the word KPH (It’s a p actually, but it’s usually a soft p.) that is used in Genesis 6 and Genesis 7 when it describes Noah putting pitch to cover the ark to waterproof it.

So we got that idea of covering. But it appears now that there were two homonyms, two different words in Hebrew - KAPHAR meaning to cover, which is what we have in Genesis; then a second word spelled the same way, which has the idea of cleansing. When you go to the Septuagint, which is the Jewish translation of the Old Testament that was translated in the 3rd century BC by the Jews in Alexandria, the rabbis there who knew Hebrew who were doing the translation translated this word KAPHAR with the Greek word KATHARIZO in numerous cases, not every case. But in numerous cases they translated KATHARIZO which is the Greek word for cleanse. That’s the same word in I John 1:9 that we are cleansed from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9 NKJV

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So, the emphasis on atonement has to do with cleansing, whether it’s positional cleansing when a person first becomes a believer or post-salvation cleansing, dealing with sins committed after salvation.

Now, in verse 13, we have the end of the discussion on the sin offering.

Trespass Offering - Leviticus 5:14

Leviticus 5:14

Leviticus 5:14 NKJV

14 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

In Verse 14 – we go into the next section on the trespass offering. This is covered in Leviticus 5:15-19 .

Leviticus 5:15-19

Leviticus 5:15–19 NKJV

15 “If a person commits a trespass, and sins unintentionally in regard to the holy things of the Lord, then he shall bring to the Lord as his trespass offering a ram without blemish from the flocks, with your valuation in shekels of silver according to the shekel of the sanctuary, as a trespass offering. 16 And he shall make restitution for the harm that he has done in regard to the holy thing, and shall add one-fifth to it and give it to the priest. So the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him. 17 “If a person sins, and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the Lord, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity. 18 And he shall bring to the priest a ram without blemish from the flock, with your valuation, as a trespass offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him regarding his ignorance in which he erred and did not know it, and it shall be forgiven him. 19 It is a trespass offering; he has certainly trespassed against the Lord.”

Then, in the first part of Leviticus 7:1-7 , we have the procedure given to the priest as to how he is to carry out this particular sacrifice.

Leviticus 7:1-7

Leviticus 7:1–7 NKJV

1 ‘Likewise this is the law of the trespass offering (it is most holy): 2 In the place where they kill the burnt offering they shall kill the trespass offering. And its blood he shall sprinkle all around on the altar. 3 And he shall offer from it all its fat. The fat tail and the fat that covers the entrails, 4 the two kidneys and the fat that is on them by the flanks, and the fatty lobe attached to the liver above the kidneys, he shall remove; 5 and the priest shall burn them on the altar as an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a trespass offering. 6 Every male among the priests may eat it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy. 7 The trespass offering is like the sin offering; there is one law for them both: the priest who makes atonement with it shall have it.

The trespass offering is also called a guilt offering or a reparation offering - a guilt offering or a reparation offering. Sometimes people get confused.

If the fourth offering is a sin offering, how does that differ from a trespass offering? Aren’t sin and trespass synonyms?

They are. So, the word here in Hebrew is ASHAM. It has to do with guilt, restitution, or expiation. So, it is sometimes translated as a reparation or a restitution offering. The main idea of ASHAM centers on the reality of guilt. But it is more than just the act of doing something wrong. It emphasizes the condition of guilt that exists from the violation of the law. So, it indicates a status of being under guilt -- guilty. This is a condition of every human being because of Adam’s original sin. Because of Adam’s sin, because that is imputed to every human being, we are all legally guilty and violators of God’s character. So, we’re all under sin and the guilt of sin. So, guilt, not guilt feelings, and emotions, but the reality of being legally guilty, has to be dealt with. So, this is dealt with, of course, permanently on the cross.

The sin offering focuses on sins against God whereas the guilt offering deals with sins against God and mankind.

In 5:15 we read:

Leviticus 5:15

Leviticus 5:15 NKJV

So, it also deals with unintentional sins.

Leviticus 5:15 NKJV

This could involve any aspect of the Mosaic Law dealing with an unintentional sin, so there is the presence of guilt.

Other examples that are given also relate to sins against other individuals. In Lev 6:1-7, we further develop the guilt offering.

In 6:2:

Levitucs 6:2

Leviticus 6:2 NKJV

2 “If a person sins and commits a trespass against the Lord by lying to his neighbor about what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or about a pledge, or about a robbery, or if he has extorted from his neighbor,

So again, this is a principle related to the commandment about false witnesses. You have given your word about something, and you violate that - a pledge in relation to something financial. It also relates to the sanctity of private property at the foundation of all freedom.

Have you been asked “Well, who should I vote for in the election? I’m not sure who I should vote for.”

You might try responding “Well, I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, but always remember that the key to freedom is private property ownership. Whoever will allow you to keep the most of your property, what you have worked for, is the person you should vote for.”

You have got to keep your eye on the ball – private ownership of property.

The Bible reinforces that. You can’t say that the Bible is a handbook on capitalism, but the Bible teaches the principles of private ownership of property, which is the foundation of our system—the modern system is known as capitalism or free enterprise.

The Bible also emphasizes the fact that people have a right to have what they should have, and unfortunately, when government comes along, God, in two great passages (I Samuel 7 and a couple of other passages in Judges), emphasizes the fact that when you have a large government, then the government takes away from people and increases taxes and raises taxes and people have less property and therefore they have less freedom. This is what our founding fathers understood. Our founding fathers understood this principle. That’s why they made such an issue out of taxation without representation.

Yet the level of taxation that they were subject to by the British Empire was minuscule compared to the level of taxation that the average United States citizen faces on a day-to-day basis. We need to go back and apologize to George III for our little tax revolt because today, we really don’t care. We want to give up our freedoms and let the government decide how to spend everything.

Private ownership of property, though, is clearly recognized in Scripture as something that needs to be protected. When it’s not and an individual lies about, breaks the pledge, or extorts money, there is to be a trespass offering.

Leviticus 6:4

Leviticus 6:4 NKJV

4 then it shall be, because he has sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore what he has stolen, or the thing which he has extorted, or what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or the lost thing which he found,

We need to notice the penalties in the Mosaic Law (We could spend a lot of time on this, and won’t.), you don’t have imprisonment as a penalty.

Imprisonment is an inhumane type of punishment. What you have in the Mosaic Law is restitution. So if somebody steals, defrauds, or destroys property, they must restore what they have stolen plus 20%. If they have committed murder or rape or some other kind of violent crime, then they forfeit their life. So, you have capital punishment and restitution, but you don’t have imprisonment. That is not part of the Mosaic Law. They had other forms of punishment. The punishment was swift and sure or was intended to be.

So, as you go through the guilt offering, you emphasize the fact that these are perhaps unintentional sins. In other cases, they are sins of culpability, and the solution is restitution plus 20% along with the payment of a guilt offering, a ram without defect. They don’t get the alternative here. It’s a more expensive form of payment. The offering is a ram without defect or the financial equivalent plus one-fifth, another 20%, for the priest.

So, these offerings, especially the last two, the sin offering and the guilt offering, emphasize the fact that there is restitution in our fellowship with God even when there is sin. Sin affects that relationship with God.

Let’s think about Israel as a whole. As a nation, they are analogous to the individual believers of the Church Age, so as a nation, they are viewed in the Old Testament after the Exodus as redeemed people. We would say they are saved. So, all of these offerings and sacrifices are designed to allow redeemed people (saved people) to continue and maintain fellowship with God after salvation. So it’s a picture of the fact that even in the Old Testament, God is emphasizing the fact that sin experientially breaks fellowship with God, and those who are experientially unrighteous cannot have fellowship with God who is righteous. And God gets pretty serious about demonstrating this point.

Let’s turn to the book of Joshua, Joshua 7. Now, this is after the victory at Jericho. In the instructions that God gave to Israel when they attacked Jericho, he put under the ban….the word there is the word harem in Hebrew. It’s the same word you have in Arabic for the harem, where you would set apart in a protected or isolated status all of the wives of the sultan. That’s the harem – same word. It means to set something aside and make it enviable. This is the instruction that God gave to Israel.

Joshua 6:17-19

Joshua 6:17–19 NKJV

17 Now the city shall be doomed by the Lord to destruction, it and all who are in it. Only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. 18 And you, by all means abstain from the accursed things, lest you become accursed when you take of the accursed things, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. 19 But all the silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are consecrated to the Lord; they shall come into the treasury of the Lord.”

So all that which is valuable (the valuable plunder that you take that) gets set apart for the Lord for the treasury of the Lord. And everything else was under the ban.

Joshua 6:21

Joshua 6:21 NKJV

21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.

Everything was supposed to be slaughtered because God wasn’t going to have them survive and live off that which was produced by the pagan culture. So this is the command. They are to destroy everything. But they don’t do that.

Joshua 7:1

Joshua 7:1 NKJV

1 But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things, for Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things; so the anger of the Lord burned against the children of Israel.

Notice that the children of Israel (the nation) are impacted by the sin of one man, Achan, because he disobeys God. What he does is when he sees his plunder, he decides that he’s going to dig a hole under his tent and bury it. He’s going to make off with some of the plunder, and nobody else knows about it. Yet, the whole nation is held accountable for that sin.

Joshua 7:1

Joshua 7:1 NKJV

The result was that when they went to the next battle at Ai, they went into battle and completely failed. They sent up 2 or 3 thousand men to go up and attack, but because of sin in the camp, they failed and were completely defeated.

Joshua 7:5

Joshua 7:5 NKJV

5 And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six men, for they chased them from before the gate as far as Shebarim, and struck them down on the descent; therefore the hearts of the people melted and became like water.

So now they’ve had this great victory in Jericho and are completely discouraged in their whining. It’s not just some of them; it’s up the chain of command to Joshua. Joshua turns around to God in verse 7 and says:

Joshua 7:7

Joshua 7:7 NKJV

7 And Joshua said, “Alas, Lord God, why have You brought this people over the Jordan at all—to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? Oh, that we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan!

Joshua tears his clothes. He falls to the ground before the ark, and he is entirely at a loss. So God responds to him in verse 10.

Joshua 7:10

Joshua 7:10 NKJV

10 So the Lord said to Joshua: “Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face?

Joshua ought to know better so God is reprimanding him.

Joshua 7:11

Joshua 7:11 NKJV

11 Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen and deceived; and they have also put it among their own stuff.

Now, the only one who has done this is Achan. But it shows that the sin of one affects and permeates everyone, so we often try to convince ourselves at times that “my sin is my sin, and it doesn’t have any impact on anybody else.” The principle that this is showing is that the individual's sin does impact others. Adam’s sin affected the entire human race. So there’s a solution.

Lion of Judah -- Aryeh Mishevet Y’hudah אַרְיֵה מִשֵׁבֶט יְהוּדָה

Genesis 49:9

Genesis 49:9 NKJV

9 Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him?

Hosea 5:14; 6:1

Hosea 5:14 NKJV

14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, And like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear them and go away; I will take them away, and no one shall rescue.

Hosea 6:1 NKJV

1 Come, and let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.

“For to Efrayim [Ephraim] I will be like a lion, and like a young lion to the house of Y’hudah [Judah]—I will tear them up and go away; I will carry them off, and no one will rescue.”

“Come, let us return to Adonai:

for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck, and he will bind our wounds.”

Revelation 5:4–5, 9

Revelation 5:4–5 NKJV

4 So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. 5 But one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.”

Revelation 5:9 NKJV

9 And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,

I cried and cried, because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look inside it. One of the elders said to me, “Don’t cry. Look, the Lion of the tribe of Y’hudah, the Root of David, has won the right to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

“… You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals;

because you were slaughtered;

at the cost of blood you ransomed for God

persons from every tribe, language, people and nation.”

The image of a lion has long been a Jewish symbol. It was used for King Solomon’s throne and is used today in ritual objects. These beautiful yet fierce animals represent power and strength. The mighty Lion of the tribe of Y’hudah allowed himself to be slaughtered as a gentle Lamb so we could be worthy to stand in his presence.

End of 10/13/2024 TNOG 60

Sunday October 20, 2024

TNOG 61

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 5-6

Review

Burnt Offerings, Grain Offerings. Hebrews 9:1- ; Leviticus 5-6.

Joshua 7:13

Joshua 7:13 NKJV

13 Get up, sanctify the people, and say, ‘Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, because thus says the Lord God of Israel: “There is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel; you cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you.”

That means they must undergo a cleansing process because of this sin. Otherwise, they can’t proceed with the conquest of the land.

This is the command that Joshua was to give them.

Joshua 7:13 NKJV

So there has to be – the sin has to be dealt with. There has to be an admission of the guilt and cleansing that takes place. So the following day, they come out and go through this whole process of elimination. They gather all the tribes before Joshua, and in some way, God communicates which tribe it will be. The tribe of Judah is indicated. Then, when Judah is brought before him, the Zarhites family of Zabdi indicated. Then, it finally comes down to Achan, and Achan is indicated. So Joshua confronts him with a sin in verse 19 and says:

Joshua 7:19

Joshua 7:19 NKJV

19 Now Joshua said to Achan, “My son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.”

So Achan answers Joshua and says:

Joshua 7:20

Joshua 7:20 NKJV

20 And Achan answered Joshua and said, “Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I have done:

That’s his confession of sin.

and this is what I have done:

Then, he explains in verse 21 what he has done. But the divine discipline (the judgment) will not be removed. There is forgiveness. Sometimes, when we confess our sins, God forgives us and removes the punishment. Sometimes, God lightens the punishment. Other times, we can commit a sin and receive divine forgiveness, but because of the nature of the sin, there still must be the carrying out of the penalty.

This happens in cases where you have a criminal who has committed murder, mass murder, or any number of horrendous crimes, and they receive the death penalty. There was a case concerning Carla Faye Tucker, who became a believer after she was in prison. So all of these pastors came out and said, “Oh! We need to let her live. Don’t give her the death penalty.” But the Scripture says she committed a crime. Just because she changed her spiritual status doesn’t mean the legal penalty goes away.

There’s a difference between personal forgiveness, divine forgiveness and legal or criminal forgiveness. In this case there could be personal forgiveness. There could be divine forgiveness, but a legal penalty still had to be paid. That’s the case of Achan. The legal penalty still had to be paid. So the penalty as defined by God was that (back in verse 15):

Joshua 7:15

Joshua 7:15 NKJV

15 Then it shall be that he who is taken with the accursed thing shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has done a disgraceful thing in Israel.’ ”

See that’s the picture of cleansing and purification.

Joshua 7:15 NKJV

So in verse 24:

Joshua 7:24

Joshua 7:24 NKJV

24 Then Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, the silver, the garment, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that he had, and they brought them to the Valley of Achor.

This includes his family.

Joshua 7:24 NKJV

and they brought them to the Valley of Achor.

Joshua 7:25

Joshua 7:25 NKJV

25 And Joshua said, “Why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day.” So all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones.

Now that’s a good double punishment. First they stone him, and then they burn him with fire. The burning with fire though is the depiction of purification from the sin.

Joshua 7:26

Joshua 7:26 NKJV

26 Then they raised over him a great heap of stones, still there to this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of His anger. Therefore the name of that place has been called the Valley of Achor to this day.

So the writer adds that point that those – that rock cairn is still there that set over his grave so if you doubt the story you can go down there and you can find that pile of rocks marking his grave.

Joshua 7:26 NKJV

So the point is that God takes sin a lot more seriously than we do. When we have sin in the life, it hinders our forward advance spiritually. This why the Israelites couldn’t go forward with their military campaign and their sin has to be dealt with. Cleansing has to be dealt with. Once that’s done, then we can move forward.

So even though this is an Old Testament illustration in the sin offering and the trespass offering and it’s an illustration from Achor, the same principle continues into the New Testament. You have various commands such as I Corinthians 11 where the Corinthians are coming to the Lord’s Table. They’re out of fellowship. They are abusing the Lord’s Table – getting drunk and they’re over eating at the Lord’s Table. Paul says:

1 Corinthians 11:30

1 Corinthians 11:30 NKJV

30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.

…indicating spiritual weakness.

and sick among you,

…indicating a physical weakness.

and many sleep.

…indicating sin unto death.

Then Paul said:

1 Corinthians 11:31

1 Corinthians 11:31 NKJV

31 For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.

So that is another synonym for confession of sin. Of course there is I John 1:9 and other passages in the New Testament that emphasize the importance of this cleansing so that the believer is experientially sanctified before he comes into the presence of God.

Hebrews 9:1 NKJV

1 Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.

We have reviewed the Brass Alter, and now step up to the Great Sea or the Bronze Laver.

Him Who Knows Everything -- T’mim De‘im תְּמִים דֵּעִים

Isaiah 55:8–9

Isaiah 55:8–9 NKJV

8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

and your ways are not my ways,” says Adonai.

“As high as the sky is above the earth

are my ways higher than your ways,

and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Job 21:22

Job 21:11 NKJV

11 They send forth their little ones like a flock, And their children dance.

“Can anyone teach God knowledge?…”

Job 37:14–16

Job 37:14–16 NKJV

14 “Listen to this, O Job; Stand still and consider the wondrous works of God. 15 Do you know when God dispatches them, And causes the light of His cloud to shine? 16 Do you know how the clouds are balanced, Those wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?

“… Stop, and consider God’s wonders. Do you know how God puts them in place, how he causes lightning to flash from his cloud? Do you know how he balances the clouds?

These are marvels of him who knows everything!”

Romans 11:33–34

Romans 11:33–34 O the depth of the riches

Romans 11:33–34 NKJV

33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?”

and the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How inscrutable are his judgments!

How unsearchable are his ways!

For, ‘Who has known the mind of Adonai?

Who has been his counselor?’

1 Corinthians 1:25

1 Corinthians 1:25 NKJV

25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For God’s “nonsense” is wiser than humanity’s “wisdom.”

And God’s “weakness” is stronger than humanity’s “strength.”

Libraries are filled with the wisdom of man, but God’s Knowledge is immeasurable and cannot be contained in any amount of books. He knows the intimate details of everything—infinitely more than we can fathom.

End of TNOG 62

Sunday October 27, 2024

TNOG 62

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 5-6

Review

Laver: Cleansing from Sin. Hebrews 9:1; Exodus 30:17 - 21, 38:8

We have been studying the Tabernacle for the last several lessons, trying to understand where the focal point becomes, not just the earthly Tabernacle, which is the shadow of the heavenly Tabernacle, which is something we will have to think through. But to understand this, we have to have a firm and solid foundation of what’s going on in the Old Testament in terms of the Old Testament tabernacle that God revealed to Moses. From what we learn in Hebrews, Moses saw a shadow image or a reflection of that heavenly archetype. So, we’ve been looking at the Tabernacle in terms of its composition. Then, once we enter through the gate (the one-way entry into the presence of God), we begin a study of the different articles of furniture in the Tabernacle.

The first piece of furniture we focused on was the brazen altar. The brazen altar is a type or picture of the judgment of sin. It is a picture of substitutionary atonement—at its very core, the fact that at the cross, Jesus Christ would bear the judgment for us of our sins.

But as you go through the first chapters of Leviticus, there are 5 different sacrifices that are outlined there.

Levitical Sacrifices/Offerings

Burnt Offering, Substitutionary Judgement,

Meal Offering, Bloodless/Value of Christ’s Death, Memorial to God’s Grace

Peace Offering, Fellowship, Shared Meal Celebrates Peace with God

Sin Offering, Forgiveness, Purification for Unintentional Sin

Guilt Offering, Forgiveness, Purification for Specific Sin

The only bloodless offering of the 4 was the meal offering.

The meal offering was an offering to God of the finest of meal. It could be mixed with oil. It could be baked. It could be fried. It could be broiled, and it would be brought to the altar, and there it would be consumed completely as a memorial to God’s grace. It is called the meal offering or a tribute offering. All these share the idea of sacrifice - the blood offerings are = the burnt, peace, sin, and guilt offerings. They all have at their base a picture of substitutionary atonement.

The burnt offering is foundational, and it is a picture of the complete payment for sin because the entire offering was consumed upon the altar. In each (in that the one0, who brings the sacrifice puts his hand upon the animal, indicating a transfer or identification of sin indicates the nature of that payment is that of substitution.

The peace offering is a picture of our fellowship with God… It is a shared meal. Part is consumed upon the altar, and the rest is shared with others in the family, friends, and priests. This was a celebration that the one bringing the offering now had peace with God. It is a picture of reconciliation.

The last two offerings (the sin offering and the guilt offering) both speak of forgiveness. The focal point of the sin offering is purification for unintentional sin, whereas the focus of the guilt offering is purification for specific sins. They each have a slightly different orientation, but the focus again is substitutionary atonement. So the first thing that happens, the first place of action and activity inside the courtyard, is the burnt offering.

But something else would transpire at the beginning of each shift as it were, as the priest would come in to prepare the sacrifices and the work at the offering. The first thing a priest would have to do would be to go to the second piece of furniture inside the courtyard, which was the laver. The laver was made out of bronze and filled with water. The priest would come in and wash his hands and feet before he could serve at the altar.

So, we need to examine the laver's significance. This picture of Christ as the one who cleanses us from our sins is instructive.

The laver isn’t mentioned that much in Scripture. There are a few passages I’m going to mention here in Exodus. There is briefly mentioned in terms of the consecration of the priests in Leviticus 8 , and it’s mentioned in terms of the architecture and the construction of the Solomonic Temple, and then some changes that were made to it a little later on…two or three verses in Kings. That’s it. It’s not mentioned anywhere else. But, it’s important to pay attention to what is going on here because the laver is designed to teach a crucial principle for the spiritual life.

In Exodus 30:17-20 we have the order from God for the construction of the laver.

Exodus 30:17-18

Exodus 30:17–18 NKJV

17 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 18 “You shall also make a laver of bronze, with its base also of bronze, for washing. You shall put it between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. And you shall put water in it,

"You shall also make a laver

The Hebrews word is כִּיּוֹר KIYYOR.

of bronze, with its base also of bronze, for washing.

Now bronze, as we saw earlier, speaks of judgment. It withstands the fire of judgment, the brazen altar. It speaks of judgment here, so something related to judgment takes place at the laver regarding the cleansing. It’s got a base of bronze for washing.

You shall put it between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. And you shall put water in it,

Now, the Hebrew word I want you to pay attention to in the original Hebrew text is the word for washing. The verb is rahas. It is a generic or broad-based term. It can refer to washing your hands or taking an entire bath. The Hebrew word does not distinguish between partial and complete or total washings. That comes when you have the Septuagint, though. The Septuagint, remember, is translated in the 3rd century BC. It was a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek because the Jews in exile (the Jews in the Diaspora) had lost their facility with Hebrew, and so they needed to have the Scriptures in the language that they were familiar with so they could understand it. So, the rabbis decided to translate the Old Testament into Greek. The story was that 70 rabbis in 70 days translated the Pentateuch from Hebrew into Greek. That’s why it’s called the Septuagint related to 70. It’s often abbreviated with the Roman numeral LXX for seventy. In the Septuagint, the rabbis who understood the nuance of the Hebrew text did not always translate rahas with the same Greek word. They understood that it was a complete washing or bathing in some passages. In other passages, it was only a partial washing, like the washing of hands or the washing of feet. So when they translated the Hebrew into Greek, they distinguished between these two types of washings. This is very important to understand because of how the Lord Jesus Christ will use this later on.

In Exodus 30:19 we read:

Exodus 30:19

Exodus 30:19 NKJV

19 for Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in water from it.

There the Greek word is nipto. Nipto is the word that refers to a partial washing – the washing of hands and feet. In fact, the root is used to describe the laver itself.

Exodus 30:20

Exodus 30:20 NKJV

20 When they go into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to the Lord, they shall wash with water, lest they die.

Notice the penalty. Failure to wash their hands and their feet, failure to have this partial cleansing every time they entered into the service in the tabernacle would result in the death penalty. God is really making a point here that these guys have to wash their feet and their hands every time they come in. They walk through the gate. They wash their hands. They wash their feet before cutting up the animals to put them on the altar before they go into the tent of meeting. Before they do anything, the first thing they have to do is wash their hands and wash their feet. It’s a picture of confession of sin. “How dull and boring and mechanical,” some say.

“Every time you start Bible class you always start with silent prayer. You say basically the same thing. We have confession of sin. It’s so mechanical.”

Well, that’s how you teach things. It’s called pedagogy. You go through things over and over and over again because, on the one hand, people need to be reminded of its importance; and on the other hand, new people are coming in who haven’t quite learned how significant this is. In the Old Testament the importance of experiential sanctification (because that’s the key word we’ll see here)…

The Old Testament uses the word to be set apart, sanctified, and made holy. The Hebrew word qadash is the counterpart to the New Testament word hagiazo. It has this idea of experiential or ongoing sanctification. Before priests can serve God, they must be set apart experientially to serve God for that day. The fact that it had happened the day before or the day before or that they had been completely bathed sometime in the past is another issue.

Now when you look at the Exodus 30:21, the text goes on to say:

Exodus 30:21

Exodus 30:21 NKJV

21 So they shall wash their hands and their feet, lest they die. And it shall be a statute forever to them—to him and his descendants throughout their generations.”

Nipto

and their feet, lest they die.

Repetition is the key to learning. When the Holy Spirit repeats things, you have to pay attention.

And it shall be a statute forever to them -- to him and his descendants throughout their generations."

Then we skip to the next passage. That’s all Exodus 30. That’s all we have is those verses 17-21.

The next mention of the laver is in 38:8. It adds something new about its construction. What was it made from? Okay. It’s made from bronze, but where did they get the bronze?

Exodus 38:8

Exodus 38:8 NKJV

8 He made the laver of bronze and its base of bronze, from the bronze mirrors of the serving women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

So it’s made from mirrors. So when you come up to the laver and look through the clear water, what are you going to see? You’re going to see a reflection of yourself. This is a function of the Word of God.

I want you to hold your place here and turn to the New Testament with me to James 1:22. The first chapter of James (all the way down through 2:13) emphasizes the application of the Word.

“Don’t be a hearer only” means don’t just come to Bible class, listen, take notes and accumulate a lot of intellectual knowledge about the Bible. You must have intellectual knowledge about the Bible before applying it. That’s the trouble today.

People say, “Ah, we know too much.”

If we only applied a tenth of what we know, think what great believers we would be. We don’t apply a tenth of what we know about any subject in life. The more we know (, the more the totality of our knowledge)… we only apply about maybe one-tenth of 1% at any given time. So the more total knowledge there is, the more significant that one-tenth of 1% will be.

So you continue to learn and grow, and you will apply more. But people don’t want to learn. I can’t tell you how many times….

A common statement addressed to the categorical grace pastors that we fellowship with is, “ You dump so much knowledge on us. It’s like an information dump.”

Well, apparently, these people don’t want to learn anything, do they?

James emphasizes. He doesn’t say don’t be a hearer of the Word.

He says, “Be a hearer and a doer.”

Add something to it. Don’t just collect information, but apply it.

He gives an illustration. He says in 1:22:

James 1:22

James 1:22 NKJV

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

The person who just comes and listens collects a lot of information about the Bible but doesn’t really consider its application.

I’ve sat next to people who were taking notes in Bible class before. Sometimes, just because of how we sat in Bible class, my eyes naturally fell on their notes. I have noticed that when they took notes, if the point was expressed in an impersonal third-person construction, they converted it into a first-person construction. “I need to do this.” They converted every point given into “I need to do this” if it made sense.

That makes it personal.

That’s convicting. Let’s move on.

James said be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

When you only listen to the Word, and you’re not thinking in terms of “how does that impact” or “how should that change the way I think, the way I relate to people, the way I respond to situations, how is that going to change me fundamentally?”; then you’re in self-deception. You’re just getting information and not thinking about how this information is designed to change “me.”

Then, James gives an illustration.

Now, if a person thinks that a hearer is somebody who attends Bible class, while a doer is a person who really understands what it says, then application is not related. Which is the argument of the objector over in James 2.

The problem comes in the next verse.

The next verse begins with an explanation:

James 1:23

James 1:23 NKJV

23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;

Explanation

If anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, not an applier of the Word, then he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;

James 1:24

James 1:24 NKJV

24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

So what James is saying here is you wake up in the morning, go into the bathroom, look in the mirror, and have bedhead. Your hair is pointed in different directions, and you need a shave. You’ve got that stubble starting to show up. See that’s the value - as we look a little fuzzier around the edges as we get older and our eyesight goes… I look in the mirror and can’t tell if I’ve shaved for four days. That’s the trouble. I had a beard for so many years when I didn’t need to shave. I look in the mirror and I don’t notice that I haven’t shaved.

I don’t look in the mirror and see myself anymore.

So this is a person who looks in the mirror and says, “You need a shave. Your hair is crazy. Okay.”

Now, what happens? You fix breakfast, have a cup of coffee, and forget what you looked at. Well, that’s the person who is a hearer, not an applier, or a doer. The person who is a hearer and a doer responds to that.

You look in a mirror and say, “Ah! I need to comb my hair. I look crazy.”

If you are a lady, you might need to put some makeup on. Men need to shave. Whatever it is, you recognize that as you see truth in the mirror, that truth tells you that you need to change something about yourself. The Word of God reflects reality, and so we see that which needs to conform to truth.

When you come to the laver, what is reflected in the laver's mirror is the individual's sin. He sees himself as he is. So there is a recognition there that we need to look at ourselves and reflect on ourselves to see if there is sin. If there is sin there, we need to confess it. That’s the point of application.

It’s made out of a mirror because we need to examine our lives and see if there is sin. If there is, we need to confess it.

Now, the next time we have the laver mentioned is in Exodus 40. This is at the consecration of the priest when he first enters into service. The laver is mentioned.

Exodus 40:7

Exodus 40:7 NKJV

7 And you shall set the laver between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar, and put water in it.

Exodus 40:12-13

Exodus 40:12–13 NKJV

12 “Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the tabernacle of meeting and wash them with water. 13 You shall put the holy garments on Aaron, and anoint him and consecrate him, that he may minister to Me as priest.

When the rabbis translated this into the Septuagint, they didn’t translate it with nipto. They translated it with louo. This is the initial bathing, the complete washing of the priest. He was bathed from head to toe. This is equivalent to positional sanctification.

Now, what does that mean? Those are big words. It means that our position before God is completely sanctified. God looks at us, as the believer, as being the same as our position as believers in the Church Age…our position in Christ is that we are completely cleansed of all sin. We are completely forgiven positionally. But this doesn’t have to do with the day-to-day experience of our Christian lives. That’s the point of comparison. At the beginning of Aaron’s ministry, he’s positionally cleansed. They are bathed from head to toe. Then, they would put on their sanctified, set-apart garments. They were anointed and consecrated so that they could serve as priests.

Now, other things happened as well related to different sacrifices and offerings. When we study priesthood, we will look at those. Next, let’s look at how Jesus picks up on this terminology in John 13. This is as they come together to celebrate the Passover the night before the Lord goes to the cross. He is with the disciples in the Upper Room. Jesus took the position of being the servant. The servant would come to wash the feet of the guests that would come in. But, he’s taking this to a new level and he’s going to use this to teach a principle.

John 13:1-2

John 13:1–2 NKJV

1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. 2 And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him,

So Judas is an unbeliever. He’s not just having the devil put ideas into him. That would be demon influence. But later on it says that the devil goes into him – eiserchomai, the same word used for demon possession. So he is an unbeliever.

John 13:3-4

John 13:3–4 NKJV

3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself.

So now, after supper, He is going to go through this process of washing their feet.

John 13:5

John 13:5 NKJV

5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.

The word for basin there is related to nipto.

and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded

So He goes from Matthew to Thaddeus to James. Each one sits there and says, “Well, this is interesting” watching Jesus watch their feet. He would wash their feet, wipe them off with a towel that He had.

Then He comes to Peter. Peter has been watching this. Peter’s not so sure that the Lord… remember, Peter is the one who realizes Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God … He’s not so sure this is the right thing for the Lord to be doing.

So, Peter from his human viewpoint, asks why the Lord is washing his feet

John 13:6-7

John 13:6–7 NKJV

6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” 7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”

Jesus was creating a teaching picture, but they were not going to understand it fully at this moment.

John 13:8

John 13:8 NKJV

8 Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”

“I’m not going to let you do this. You may be having a teaching point here or an analogy but I’m not going to let you do it.”

Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you,

Nipto – all these so far that’s the only word used, partial washing.

you have no part with Me."

Now that word “part”…in English, we tend to think of it like an actor has a part in a play. He has a role in the play. Too often, that’s the idea that we get. The Greek word here, though, is the word miras. Miras is a word used in legal literature, usually wills and testaments (last wills and testaments), to indicate the portion of the inheritance designated to a person.

When the prodigal son comes to his father and says, “Hey, Dad! I want to go live my life. I want to leave here. I want to go have fun. Give me my share of the inheritance.”

The word that he uses there is miras. It’s the same word that’s used here. Part is a bad translation.

Jesus is saying, “If I don’t wash with you, you have no share of inheritance with Me.”

That’s a powerful statement. It impacts Peter.

John 13:9

John 13:9 NKJV

9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!”

“Give me a bath!”

So he goes from one end of the spectrum to the other.

John 13:10

John 13:10 NKJV

10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”

Louo – that’s that word that described the complete washing of the high priest at the beginning of his service; but it only happened once – at the beginning.

needs only to wash his feet,

Nipto.

but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you."

That implies that he is only partially clean before the partial washing. The issue here is cleansing, and the noun here is katharos, related to the verb katharizo.

We say I John 1:9:

1 John 1:9

1 John 1:9 NKJV

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Cleanse us – katharizo. That’s that idea.

The important thing in I John - some years ago, there was a controversy, and this comes up every now and then – do we really need to confess our sin? Some of you remember there was a lot of discussion a few years ago about this. Everybody focuses on “ Well, it seems like confession is legalistic.” I’ve heard that many times. Why don’t you confess your sins? They miss the point. The emphasis in I John 1:9 isn’t on confessing. The issue is cleansing. What do you do with post-salvation sin? If you don’t need to be cleansed of it, does it impact your relationship with God?

In any relationship you have whether it’s marriage, whether it’s a parental relationship, whether you’re the child or the parent, work relationship - if you do something that offends the other person in the relationship, then something has to be done to clear that up before harmony is restored. That’s just the way life is.

It’s the same thing with God. To think that, “Oh, I can go out and I can sin the 7 deadly sins or whatever, and I don’t have to confess them or do anything. Just trust that God is going to automatically forgive me because Jesus died for me” is a recipe for licentiousness - much more so than people think that I John 1:9 is “just confess your sin and it’s okay” is a recipe for licentiousness.

Using I John 1:9 means every now and then, at least, you have to think about whether there is any sin in your life. If you don’t have to confess your sin, you’re automatically forgiven because you’re trusting God to automatically do it; you’d never have to think about the sin. You would have no recourse from falling into sinful behavior

John 13:10

John 13:10 NKJV

10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”

He says to Peter….

are clean

It’s not just about “you” to Peter. It’s a “y’all” there. It’s a plural. “Y’all are clean,” meaning all of the disciples. Y’all are clean.

but not all of you."

In other words, there is one of you who isn’t positionally cleansed, i.e., there’s one of you who’s not saved. But the rest of y’all are all completely clean and positionally saved.

Then John explains what he meant by this.

John 13:11

John 13:11 NKJV

11 For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”

He’s speaking about Judas.

Therefore, He said, "You are not all clean."

That is, you are not all positionally cleansed or saved.

Then verse 12:

John 13:12-14

John 13:12–14 NKJV

12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

"If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

This is a picture of divine forgiveness and forgiveness one to another. That’s what he will end up teaching after he identifies the betrayer and kicks Judas out between verses 18 and 30. Then, He gives the new commandment that we are to love one another as He has loved us. That relates to the grace orientation of forgiving one another, which He has illustrated. He is illustrating divine forgiveness.

When Jesus washes partially (nipto) and says, “You are all already bathed (louo), so you are all clean; he is using the same terminology and drawing a connection (a continuity) between the Old Testament priesthood service and the New Testament priesthood service and that there’s an underlying principle. For a priest to serve God, he has to be in a sanctified relationship. When we sin, that experiential sanctification is broken. We become, in terms of sanctification - we become unclean. But, when we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness so that we can then continue in our Christian growth and Christian service.

So, the laver is a picture and reminder that the believer needs to confess sin and undergo ongoing cleansing in order to serve God. It is a daily and significant thing that the believer needs to keep a close watch on his sins.

We have finished the outer courtyard. Next, we will examine what is happening inside the Holy of Holies.

The Wise God -- Elohim HeChakham אֱלֹהִים הֶחָכָם

1 Kings 3:28

1 Kings 3:28 NKJV

28 And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had rendered; and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.

Psalm 104:24

Psalm 104:24 NKJV

24 O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of Your possessions—

How many [of them there are]!

In wisdom you have made them all;

the earth is full of your creations.

Proverbs 3:19

Proverbs 3:19 NKJV

19 The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens;

Adonai by wisdom Adonai by wisdom founded the earth,

by understanding he established the heavens.

Daniel 2:20

Daniel 2:20 NKJV

20 Daniel answered and said: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, For wisdom and might are His.

Romans 16:27

Romans 16:27 NKJV

27 to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.

God knows best. Have you ever realized that the way God worked something out in your life was better than your own solution to a problem? Of course it was! God is pleased when we ask for wisdom. Do that so he can give you a wise and discerning heart.

Sunday November 3, 2024

TNOG 63

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 5-6

Review

Exodus 30:17-18

Exodus 30:17–18 NKJV

The Lampstand: Christ the Light of the World

Okay, we’re in Exodus 25 and we’re continuing our study of the Tabernacle. We have the diagram up on the screen to remind you of the layout of the Tabernacle. The outer courtyard is surrounded by a series of curtains that have only one entrance, emphasizing that there’s only one way to God. God has the right as God, as the creator of all things in the heavens, earth, and seas - He has the right to determine the circumstances and how somebody can come into His presence. Every single unbeliever that you know (especially this individual who’s got this silly lawsuit) wants to legislate how people treat them. Yet they don’t want to allow God to lay down regulations as to how people come into His presence. He has to go along with what everybody else thinks. So God emphasizes again and again this principle of exclusivity that just really irritates and antagonizes unbelievers.

There is only one way to God... The first thing that happens when a priest goes into the Tabernacle…as we saw last time, he goes to the laver (a bronze laver) made out of the mirrors that the ladies had taken out of Egypt and taken from the aristocracy in Egypt. That was used as a - it looked like a mirror. You would look into it. It would be a reflection upon yourself. The whole picture there is of cleansing and confession of sin (self-examination terminology) that is picked up in the New Testament, emphasizing that every single time a person is going to come into the presence of God, he must be cleansed of sin. It’s not just a matter of being saved, but after salvation, there’s ongoing sin in the life that renders us unclean, and there must be a cleansing. So that comes through the use of I John 1:9 in the confession of sin.

Once the priest did that, and every time the priest came into the Tabernacle, he had to on penalty of death - God was serious about this. And after he washed his hands and his feet… he was only washed - as we saw last time he was washed completely or bathed when he was ordained we might say or set apart (using the Hebrew word sanctify, consecrated, set apart) picturing that positional sanctification at the beginning of his ministry. But, after that, every other time He came into the Tabernacle or the Temple, he had to wash his hands and his feet, picturing partial cleansing, the ongoing cleansing.

This is the same imagery that Jesus used when he was talking to Peter and the disciples in the Upper Room after the Passover dinner as he washed their feet and Peter said:

John 13:8

John 13:8 NKJV

8 Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”

That Greek word for “part” doesn’t mean quite what we think it means. Most of us hear the word part, and we think of something in a play, a television show or a movie, or a film. Someone can have a part or a role to play, but that’s not what the word meros means. It is a word that’s used in wills and testaments indicating the portion of an inheritance. So what Jesus is saying basically to Peter is that if you don’t confess your sins on a regular basis so you’re in fellowship and walking by the Spirit; then you’re not going to produce any divine good and therefore there won’t be any inheritance for you when you get into heaven. I Corinthians 3:15 and following talks about the fact that at the Judgment Seat of Christ all of our works - everything that we do is burned. That which has eternal value, divine good pictured as gold, silver and precious stones endures the heat. All that is dross (all that is human good is just a product of the flesh) is burned up and destroyed. They’re going to be many Christians who never understood the dynamics of the Christian life, never were in fellowship, thought that the Christian life was based on the Law, was based on works, was based on man’s own personal effort; and so when they come to the Judgment Seat of Christ there’s not going to be anything there. But, they will be saved.

Verse 15 says they will be saved yet as through fire.

1 Corinthians 3:15

1 Corinthians 3:15 NKJV

15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

So they enter into heaven, but they don’t have anything that is rewardable and they don’t have any capacity really for where they are.

They’re going to be the people who said, “You know, I’m just glad I’m there and it didn’t really matter where I was once I got there.”

…very superficial, shallow mentality.

So the cleansing is important in our day-to-day walk with the Lord. After the priest came in and washed his hands and his feet, then he would go to the brazen altar which is the picture of the judgment of sin. The main idea for teaching on the brazen altar is the idea of substitution. There were 5 different sacrifices and offerings there that we have looked at. Not all of them pictured substitution. The fellowship offering did not picture substitution. The others did because of the nature of the person coming in, putting his hands on the lamb or the goat or the pigeon or the bullock. That transfer of sins - so substitution was there.

Now we come to the next part of the Tabernacle which is the inner sanctum called the Holy Place. It’s comprised of two compartments. The outer compartment is usually referred to a just the Holy Place. The entire structure there is actually the Tabernacle itself. This is the place where God dwelt. It’s not the outer courtyard. It’s the Tabernacle itself. In the Greek, two different words are used to describe the Temple as a whole and then the Temple in terms of the inner sanctum, the dwelling place itself comprised of the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.

The Holy Place overall is 30 feet long and 15 feet wide. The Holy of Holies is within that – on the back side of that and is 15 feet square I believe. The overall length of the Holy Place is 20 cubits which is 30 feet by 15 feet and the Holy Place is in the back which is 15 feet square. So the overall length is going to be 45 feet and the width is about 15 feet.

I have another picture here… shifting back and forth between some photos and the PowerPoint so we’ll see how that comes across. There’s an artist’s depiction of the Tabernacle in the wilderness and you see the cloud, the white cloud over the Tabernacle itself. You see the black smoke ascending from the brazen altar. This gives us some idea of what it looked like. You see the entry way. You see the blue and the gold and the red clothe here which is typical.

Now we want to talk tonight…we’re going to begin to talk about the Tabernacle itself, the inner sanctum and its construction.

If you look at Exodus 26 – Exodus 26, we’ll begin to look at the details of its structure. First of all it begins to… God begins to give instructions as to how the outer covering – what the outer covering would be like. There were two coverings. The inner covering was made up of curtains of fine linen. This is a very expensive linen that came from Egypt. It represents the value of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not every detail in the Tabernacle pictures something about the Lord Jesus Christ, but most of the major features depict something about the Lord Jesus Christ. The entirety of the Tabernacle is a picture of and depicts different elements of the Lord’s person and His work. So inside there are curtains of fine linen. They are embroidered with figures of the cherubim. This is mentioned down in verse 31 to 33.

So we read at the beginning:

Exodus 26:1

Exodus 26:1 NKJV

1 “Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine woven linen, and blue, purple, and scarlet thread; with artistic designs of cherubim you shall weave them.

This emphasizes again – the blue represents heaven, the dwelling place of God. The purple represents the royalty. This is a theocracy. This is where God dwells as the King of the Nation. The scarlet is a depiction of the blood sacrifice necessary, the substitutionary atonement necessary to cover sin. It has artistic designs of cherubim that are woven in them. So when the priest is inside looking up, he sees this linen fabric woven with these three different colors of threads and in them there are woven the images of the cherubim. The cherubim depict the holiness and righteousness of God. So the entirety of the Tabernacle (and the Temple later on) will emphasize the holiness (the righteousness and the justice) of God.

Then there are descriptions given about just how large each curtain will be.

Exodus 26:2

Exodus 26:2 NKJV

2 The length of each curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits, and the width of each curtain four cubits. And every one of the curtains shall have the same measurements.

A cubit is approximately 18 inches so you can just factor that out in terms of their general length. So if a curtain is 28 cubits just add 14 to that so it’s about 42 feet and the width was 4 cubits or 6 feet.

And every one of the curtains shall have the same measurements.

Exodus 26:3

Exodus 26:3 NKJV

3 Five curtains shall be coupled to one another, and the other five curtains shall be coupled to one another.

And then they would be laid over the top. Then there are descriptions.

Exodus 26:4

Exodus 26:4 NKJV

4 And you shall make loops of blue yarn on the edge of the curtain on the selvedge of one set, and likewise you shall do on the outer edge of the other curtain of the second set.

Exodus 26:5

Exodus 26:5 NKJV

5 Fifty loops you shall make in the one curtain, and fifty loops you shall make on the edge of the curtain that is on the end of the second set, that the loops may be clasped to one another.

Exodus 26:6

Exodus 26:6 NKJV

6 And you shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains together with the clasps, so that it may be one tabernacle.

So each of these curtains are then connected together.

The second layer of curtains is made out of goat hair. The goats of course were one of the animals for sacrifice, but it has a practical purpose as well because it would also help waterproof the Tabernacle to protect it, to cover it.

So the goat hair…and the goat hair is black. Goats in Israel that you see are black not white so this is a dark covering. Again there are 11 curtains each one approximately 45 feet by 6 feet. The eleven curtains, 5 on each side and then the 6th (the extra one, the 11th one actually; 5 on one side 6 on the other) …the 6th curtain comes around at the front so there is an overlap. Then there’s an overlap in the back mentioned in verse 12. This allows for complete enclosure of the Tabernacle itself. The covering over the top – you have the linen and then the goat’s hair. Then the next covering is rams’ skins dyed red, a picture of the blood atonement again, the ram skin being a picture of the sacrifice. We talk about the sacrifice of a ram. What should come to mind is the sacrifice of Isaac and God providing a ram as a substitute at the last minute so that Isaac does not have to die. The ram is provided. This depicts God’s grace provision for our salvation.

The next layer is porpoise skins or badger skins. There’s a lot of debate in the literature (Hebrew literature) on just what that would be; but again it provided something of a protection, a waterproofing on the outer level.

The inside of the Tabernacle, inside the clothe coverings, there was a wooden wall made of boards of acacia wood that are overlaid with gold. Every time we have this combination of acacia wood (which is an extremely dense wood, a hardwood that is not subject to any sort of rot), that’s a picture of the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity - that there was no sin there. Then it is covered with gold which is a picture of His deity. So you have the boards of acacia wood that are 15 feet high and 28 inches wide. Each one of them has two tenons that fit together into the other.

Most people don’t know what a tenon is so I got some diagrams to put here. This is like a dovetail when you see...sometimes when you look at a drawer at the back where the sides of the drawer join in a dovetail with the back of the drawer. This is how you join two pieces of wood together. The tenon is the piece that sticks out and then is joined into an opening on the inside. So this is described down in verses 16, 17 and 18 on the description of the boards.

Exodus 26:16-19

Exodus 26:16–19 NKJV

16 Ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half shall be the width of each board. 17 Two tenons shall be in each board for binding one to another. Thus you shall make for all the boards of the tabernacle. 18 And you shall make the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards for the south side. 19 You shall make forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards: two sockets under each of the boards for its two tenons.

It goes on to explain all of the details there. All of this shows the concern God has that everything is structured and it’s going to hold up and it’s going to be well put together, well-designed.

Each board stands upright and sits in a socket. This was a silver base for each board. Then each board was joined one to another. You had 20 boards on each side and six boards across the back or the rear of the Tabernacle. All of the boards are overlaid with gold.

Then you have an entry screen that was set on the exterior of the Tabernacle itself. Inside there’s a veil, but on the outside there was a screen that was made. Verses 36 and 37 describe this.

Exodus 26:36

Exodus 26:36 NKJV

36 “You shall make a screen for the door of the tabernacle, woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver.

Exodus 26:37

Exodus 26:37 NKJV

37 And you shall make for the screen five pillars of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold; their hooks shall be gold, and you shall cast five sockets of bronze for them.

So there’s a little more solid screen set across the front. This would allow the priest to move in and out, but no one could see into the Tabernacle itself.

Now that’s the structure of the Holy Place as we get into it.

The next thing is to go inside and see what is inside. There are three articles of furniture inside the first room. As you entered, on the left which would be the south side, you have the golden lampstand. On the far side you have opposite the entryway and before you go into the veil to the Holy of Holies, you have the altar of incense. Then on the right side there’s the table of showbread. Each of these depicts something about the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. The candlestick (the candelabra) depicts Christ as the light of the world. The altar of incense pictures prayer and depicts the Lord Jesus Christ in His ministry as our intercessor always praying for us. Then the table of showbread is designed to depict the fact that Jesus is the bread of life. So every facet here depicts something significant about the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. The description for the lampstand is given beginning in verse 31 – back up to the previous chapter.

Exodus 25:31

Exodus 25:31 NKJV

31 “You shall also make a lampstand of pure gold; the lampstand shall be of hammered work. Its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs, and flowers shall be of one piece.

So the candelabra weighed one talent of pure gold. Now one talent of gold is twice as heavy as a talent of silver. So a talent of pure gold at that time weighed approximately 190 pounds avoirdupois - that’s 16 ounces to the pound. So that would be about 3,040 ounces which at the price of $2,788 and ounce that comes to a little over $8.5 million dollars. The candelabras they built later in the Solomonic Temple and in the Herodian Temple were much, much larger than the original one that was in the Tabernacle. They have completed all of this furniture at the Temple Institute in Israel where they’re redesigning everything for the next Temple.

But they have a sign in the front for the temple store (It’s WWW.templestore.com if you want to go there.), but it says “Buy your temple now before the third temple is built and the prices go up.”

As we look at what God teaches about this, let me give you a picture. I have a couple of different pictures here that are current. This is a model of the actual candlestick (candelabra) that has been completed for a future temple, for the next temple. This is another artist’s depiction of the candelabra itself. As we read the description I’m going to leave that up on the screen so that you can see how the written description matches its depiction.

Sunday November 10, 2024

TNOG 64

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 5-6

Review

The lampstand is a hammered work. It’s one piece. It’s gold once again depicting the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s of one piece indicating the unity of His person and that God of course is one indicating a unity, not a singularity. The lampstand is a hammered work - its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs. Notice it’s not just functional; it is also artistically beautiful.

God is the most beautiful, most tremendous artist that’s ever been. Look at the world around us. So often we get consumed with things that are functional or pragmatic and forget to make them beautiful as well. So when we look at everything that’s in the Tabernacle, it was not only functional; it not only depicted the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ; but it was esthetically beautiful. It was gorgeous. It is designed by men who were given the Holy Spirit. Aholiab and Bezalel were given the Holy Spirit to give them skill at making these things. So God cares about how well we do things.

Exodus 25:32-35

Exodus 25:32–35 NKJV

32 And six branches shall come out of its sides: three branches of the lampstand out of one side, and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side. 33 Three bowls shall be made like almond blossoms on one branch, with an ornamental knob and a flower, and three bowls made like almond blossoms on the other branch, with an ornamental knob and a flower—and so for the six branches that come out of the lampstand. 34 On the lampstand itself four bowls shall be made like almond blossoms, each with its ornamental knob and flower. 35 And there shall be a knob under the first two branches of the same, a knob under the second two branches of the same, and a knob under the third two branches of the same, according to the six branches that extend from the lampstand.

In the upper area you would have a bowl where the oil would be poured. Only the finest of olive oil could be used; otherwise you would be producing a lot of black smoke and putting a carbon deposit on the inside of the fine linen inside the Tabernacle.

Almond blossoms are delicate flowers, usually white or pale pink, with five petals and a subtle fragrance. They bloom in early spring, creating a beautiful contrast against the bare branches and the bright blue sky.

So this was something that the priest had to take care of. It was a lot of work to be a priest. They would have to take care of this constantly trimming it, measuring it, making sure the oil was there because the light was never supposed to go out. There is some discussion about how this operated because of a couple of different passages in Scripture. So let me show you those very briefly.

End of Lampstand

Exodus 27:20

Exodus 27:20 NKJV

20 “And you shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually.

It would be extra virgin olive oil.

to cause the lamp to burn continually.

The light as we’ll see, the light represents two things in relationship to God. One has to do with revelation; the other has to do with holiness – with His righteousness. Both of those come together because when God reveals Himself, what comes with that is a realization of His righteousness and holiness.

It is to burn continually

Then in Leviticus 24:2:

Leviticus 24:2

Leviticus 24:2 NKJV

2 “Command the children of Israel that they bring to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to make the lamps burn continually.

But then we come to 1 Samuel 3:3 and Samuel is a young boy. He is in the Tabernacle sleeping and the text says:

1 Samuel 3:3

1 Samuel 3:3 NKJV

3 and before the lamp of God went out in the tabernacle of the Lord where the ark of God was, and while Samuel was lying down,

Wait a minute! I thought it was supposed to burn continually. This says the lamp had not yet gone out and Samuel was lying down.

in the tabernacle of the LORD where the ark of God was, and while Samuel was lying down,

So he’s sleeping in there. The text says it’s early because the lamp hadn’t gone out yet.

Remember this is in the period of the Judges when everyone is doing right in their own eyes and the high priest is Eli and his two sons Hophni and Phinehas are abusing everything - the people, the Temple, and all of their priestly privileges. So this shows that things have become so lax that they weren’t keeping the lampstand lit inside the Temple. That’s how to explain the discrepancy that it should have been lit continuously.

As we’ve read in chapter 25, the lampstand is made of pure gold. This depicts the Lord Jesus Christ as the light of the world.

Now when we look at Jesus Christ as the light of the world, we are reminded that there is one particular gospel that emphasizes this, emphasizes the whole doctrine of light and that is the Gospel of John.

So I want you to turn with me to the first chapter of John - the first chapter of John. We will begin to look at how light is used in the Gospel of John. To understand this whole depiction of light in John and when Jesus says that He is the light of the world, you have to understand the background that we get from the golden lampstand.

John 1:1 starts off emphasizing the eternality and the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. To get the context I’m going to start in verse 1.

John 1:1

John 1:1 NKJV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Now “In the beginning” is translated correctly. It is the Greek phrase en arche, and it is standard procedure in Greek that when you have certain nouns that have something about them that makes the noun inherently definite, the preposition replaces a definite article. So, it is not talking about the beginning, but in the beginning. Every time you have the word arche used in the New Testament with a preposition, there’s no article. It always has just the preposition because the concept of beginning is definite. There’s only one beginning. It’s the first thing. That makes it inherently definite.

In British English, they have more inherently definite nouns than we have in American English. You will hear the British talk about going to university – not the university. We put the definite article in there. But they’ll say they are going to university or to hospital because the noun is in and of itself inherently definite. It doesn’t need a definite article to make it definite. So we have the phrase en arche, which is a direct translation of the parallel in the Hebrew that we have in Genesis 1:1 , which is Bereshit. You have the preposition be which means in and reshith, which means beginning. There’s no article there either. So the idea though is it is the beginning.

Whenever creation began we have an imperfect tense of the verb meaning that the Word already was. The imperfect tense emphasizes continual action in past tense. The aorist tense summarizes it like a picture. The difference between the imperfect tense and the aorist tense (if you want to get it real simple) is the aorist tense is like a snapshot and the imperfect tense is like a video. It’s progressive. The aorist summarizes it. It doesn’t tell you anything about the action; it just takes a snapshot of it. So when we have the phrase here, “in the beginning was the Word”, to expand the translation, we would say, “At the time that creation began, the Word already was continually existing.” The emphasis is, therefore, on His eternality.

“And the Word was.” Again, you have that same verb there in the imperfect tense, indicating continual existence in past time. “The Word was with God.”

And then the last phrase – “and the Word was God”. Now and then, you’ll have somebody knock on your door. They have a New World Bible - a New World Translation.

They’ll come up, and they’ll say, “We believe Jesus was a god, but He isn’t the God. He’s not Jehovah.”

They go to this verse, and try to show that because theos (the word for God) doesn’t have an article in the Greek, it means “a god.” The Greek doesn’t have a definite article. It just has an article because it doesn’t have an indefinite article. So you just speak about it having an article. Because it doesn’t have an article, they want to translate it the same way you would translate an English word that doesn’t have an article, as if it’s indefinite. The word was a god. But in Greek, you have, first of all, certain nouns like God, which are inherently definite.

The second thing you have is that in this kind of construction where you have two nouns linked with an equative verb (and that’s what the “to be” verb is) … when you say the word was God, you can reverse the nouns on each side of the “was” and God was the Word. The Word equals God. God equals the Word. It’s called an equative verb. Whenever you have an equative verb, and you have a predicate adjective on the other side of the verb, you have to decide in Greek - how are you going to show which is the subject and which is the predicate adjective or predicate nominative? The way you do that is with the article. The noun that has the article is the subject. The other one isn’t. So it wouldn’t make sense to put an article with God (with theos) because the Word has to have the article to indicate that’s the subject of the clause. So it only makes sense if you understand Greek - that “the Word was God” indicating absolute and full deity. So John goes on to say:

John 1:2-4

John 1:2–4 NKJV

2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

So “In Him” is the verse we want to focus on here. In Him was life. Again, as we look at this, the word “was” is an imperfect tense, just as it has been through this section, indicating continual action that there always was life in Him. Life itself is integral to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, referred to here by the title of Logos. It is that life (the life of the Lord Jesus Christ) that is the light of men.

The use of the word light here emphasizes revelation. It is the primary function of the Second Person of the Trinity to reveal God to us. We see that in this very passage. So what we see in verse 5 is the light that is the Logos now is identified as the light.

John 1:5

John 1:5 NKJV

5 And the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

So it is the grace of God to reveal Himself to us continuously and that’s the primary emphasis of the symbol of light. Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness is a result of sin. The darkness did not comprehend it.

This is a historical summary by John that he’s emphasizing that when the light came to shine in the darkness in Israel, they did not understand who He was. Now, that’s not a comprehensive statement. He’s not saying nobody understood. He is making a generalized statement that most of the Jews did not understand and comprehend who He was.

In verse 6 we read:

Light of Israel -- Or Yisra’el אוֹר יִשְׂרָאֵל

Exodus 13:20–21

Exodus 13:20–21 NKJV

20 So they took their journey from Succoth and camped in Etham at the edge of the wilderness. 21 And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night.

They traveled from Sukkot [Succoth] and set up camp in Etam [Etham], at the edge of the desert. Adonai went ahead of them in a column of cloud during the daytime to lead them on their way, and at night in a column of fire to give them light; thus they could travel both by day and by night.

Isaiah 2:5

Isaiah 2:5 NKJV

5 O house of Jacob, come and let us walk In the light of the Lord.

Descendants of Ya‘akov [Jacob], come! Let’s live in the light of Adonai!

Isaiah 10:17

Isaiah 10:17 NKJV

17 So the Light of Israel will be for a fire, And his Holy One for a flame; It will burn and devour His thorns and his briers in one day.

The light of Isra’el will become a fire his Holy One a flame …

Isaiah 60:1

Isaiah 60:1 NKJV

1 Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.

“Arise, shine [Yerushalayim],* for your light has come, the glory of Adonai has risen over you.”

Revelation 21:22–24

Revelation 21:22–24 NKJV

22 But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.

I saw no Temple in the city, for Adonai, God of heaven’s armies, is its Temple, as is the Lamb. The city has no need for the sun or the moon to shine on it, because God’s Sh’khinah [Divine Presence] gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

God, with your light, you led the children of Isra’el thought the wilderness so they could travel during the night. Shine your light on my path so I can walk in your ways.

Sunday November 17, 2024

TNOG 65

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 5-6

Review

John 1:6-7

John 1:6–7 NKJV

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.

Again, we see the emphasis as we go all the way through the Gospel of John that the issue is believing in Christ. There are some 90 times the verb pisteuo is used in the Gospel of John. This emphasizes that salvation comes through faith alone, believing in who Jesus is and what He did. So many people want to try to express the gospel as giving your life to Jesus or inviting Jesus into your heart, or committing your life to God, or all these vague terms that are never found in the Scripture. It’s so easy and simple. How does somebody get saved? Believing in Jesus. It’s such a simple phrase, yet so many people have difficulty and trouble with it. John the Baptist is the witness to the light.

Verse 8 says:

John 1:8-9

John 1:8–9 NKJV

8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

As the New American Standard translates it - “this is the true light which coming into the world it enlightens every man.” This is common grace that God is making Himself known to everyone and it is through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, skip down a few verses. In verse 14, we come to one of the primary verses dealing with the incarnation.

John 1:14

John 1:14 NKJV

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

That’s the process of the incarnation, the virgin conception, the Virgin Birth, and the Lord Jesus Christ growing up living among men as a full human being.

and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth

John 1:15

John 1:15 NKJV

15 John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ ”

See how this section expands on the things said in the prologue in the first 13 verses.

He is the witness of the light.

and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.' "

John 1:16-18

John 1:16–18 NKJV

16 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

…New King James translates it. Do you know what that word is for “declare” in Greek? You hear this word, at least the English form of it, all the time. It’s ἐξηγήσατο—EXEGESATO. where we get our word exegesis. It is to explain something. It is to reveal the meaning of something.

The NASB says

John 1:18 NASB95

18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

The NET says:

John 1:18 NET

18 No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.

So, exegesis has to do with unpacking and explaining the meaning of Scripture. So Jesus Christ is the exegesis of the Father. That’s how we know the Father is because we see the Son. This is something Jesus emphasizes again and again in His ministry. So as the light, He is the one who reveals the Father.

But what happens when the Father is revealed? Well, He’s revealed in creation. Paul says in Romans 1 that what happens is that as men know Him because His invisible attributes are evident externally to us and knowledge of Him is within us, Paul says their response is that they suppress the knowledge of God in unrighteousness.

Romans 1:3-4

Romans 1:3–4 NKJV

3 concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 4 and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.

Well, this is exactly what John says in John 3:19-20.

John 3:19-20

John 3:19–20 NKJV

19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

This is the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ … “the light has come into the world.”

and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

So they hate the light. They want to turn the light off. They want to shut it down. They would rather stay in darkness.

The best illustration of this is walking into a deserted house. Nobody has lived there for a while. It’s in the middle of the night and it’s pitch black. You flip the lights on and all the roaches scurry for cover. Who are the Roaches?

When the light comes on, people hate it. They want to turn the light off and force darkness on others. So they live in a blind fantasy and want to force everybody else to hold to that same fantasy view. The Canadian Novelist Robertson Davies said, “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” The author Anais Nin is attributed with the statement "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." This is accurate of those who walk in darkness.

Verse 20 says:

John 3:20

John 3:20 NKJV

20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

General principle – those who are unbelievers who practice evil…what does the Bible mean when it says to practice evil, to do evil? How do we define evil? In I Kings 11, when Solomon introduces idolatry into Egypt, the text says that he did evil in the sight of the Lord. Again and again and again, as we go through I Kings, we will see that Jeroboam, who becomes king of the north and introduces idolatry in the north, did evil in the sight of the Lord and made them bow down to idols. That’s how evil is defined in Scripture. Evil isn’t defined in Scripture in terms of a mass murderer or somebody who commits genocide or any other of the horrible crimes that we think of in our society or our culture. Evil is defined foremost as worshipping something as god in the place of God. That is its foundation.

So when John says everyone who does evil, he’s talking about people who have substituted the worship of something in the creation for the worship of the creator. “For everyone who does evil, hates the light.”

It’s the same thing that Paul says in Romans 1 : that man worships the creature rather than the Creator. He is suppressing truth in unrighteousness.

Romans 1:18

Romans 1:18 NKJV

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

For everyone who does evil is parallel to the truth suppressor in Romans 1. Hating the light is the action of suppressing the truth. They do not come to the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.

We often ask the question - what in the world can be motivating these people that we see coming up in our culture like this man that I mentioned earlier who’s suing Zondervan and Thomas Nelson because they used the word homosexual when they translated the Bible and that’s giving him all sorts of trouble through his life? Well, that’s because he doesn’t want his evil deeds, his sinful deeds rather to be exposed. He wants to live as if what he’s doing isn’t wrong, and he doesn’t want anybody to tell him he’s wrong. So those who have replaced God with the worship of anything in the creation hate the light and they don’t want to be exposed. So revelation exposes the truth. It exposes us to who we are as sinners and that we have a need for salvation. That need has been supplied by the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins.

John 3:21 gives us the contrast that he who practices the truth… this is not the truth suppressor; but the one who practices the truth, the one who has positive volition at God consciousness. The one who wants to know about God comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God. This sets up the battle between the truth suppressor and the true truth seeker, not the seeker you have in church growth churches seeking his self-idolatry.

John 3:21

John 3:21 NKJV

21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

Okay let’s skip ahead John 8, the next major section that deals with the concept of the light in John. This is where Jesus is again speaking to the Pharisees and then He emphasizes who He is. He speaks again to them, verse John 8:12 outside the Temple. He is just outside the steps of the Temple.

John 8:12

John 8:12 NKJV

12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

So it connects again the concept of life and light. Truth is light. Light reveals the truth. When he says this, he’s actually making a messianic claim. And the Pharisees and Sadducees and rabbis would understand this.

Isaiah 9:1

Isaiah 9:1 NKJV

1 Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, As when at first He lightly esteemed The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, And afterward more heavily oppressed her, By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, In Galilee of the Gentiles.

The area of Zebulun and Naphtali is in the north. In Galilee, that’s where Nazareth was located where Jesus grew up and the area where He had His ministry from Capernaum.

The prophecy says in verse 2:

Isaiah 9:2

Isaiah 9:2 NKJV

2 The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined.

Yet as John says, they will reject it.

Isaiah 49:6

Indeed He says, 'It is too small a thing that

Isaiah 49:6 NKJV

6 Indeed He says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”

This is God the Father talking to His servant who is God the Son. You have plural deity in Isaiah. Don’t let anybody tell you that you don’t have the trinity in the Old Testament.

You

…addressing the Second Person of the Trinity.

should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.' "

You don’t say God didn’t have a missionary plan in the Old Testament. It’s very clear that He did. You see this come together in terms of the Christian life in passages like Ephesians 5:8.

Ephesians 5:8

Ephesians 5:8 NKJV

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light

Positionally

Walk as children of light

So, the picture of the golden candlestick is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who reveals the Father as the light of life and the light of the world, bringing the truth and the gospel into the world so that the unsaved can be saved so that that man can have hope and meaning and future destiny with God.

So, the light of the candelabra is a picture of God’s grace and initiative in providing salvation and a Savior. So we’ve looked at the first element in the outer compartment of the Holy Place. Next time, we’ll come back, and we’ll look at how the altar of incense depicts the intercessory ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is significant for our study of Hebrews. All of this is a good background to understand Hebrews 9 and 10.

Last week we had

Light of Israel -- Or Yisra’el אוֹר יִשְׂרָאֵל

This week we have

Light of the World -- Or Ha‘Olam אוֹר הָעוֹלָם

Psalm 27:1

Psalm 27:1 NKJV

1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?

… Adonai is my light and salvation; whom do I need to fear? Adonai is the stronghold of my life; of whom should I be afraid?

Psalm 18:28

Psalm 18:28 NKJV

28 For You will light my lamp; The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.

“For you, Adonai, light my lamp;

Adonai, my God, lights up my darkness.”

John 1:4–5, 9

John 1:4–5 NKJV

4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

John 1:9 NKJV

9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not suppressed it.

This was the true light, which gives light to everyone entering the world.

John 8:12

John 8:12 NKJV

12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

Yeshua spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light which gives life.”

Streetlights, traffic lights, and neon lights cause a city to glow from a distance. But they do nothing to remove spiritual darkness. Let Yeshua illumine the dark places in your heart. He is brighter and more powerful than any electric light!

Sunday December 8, 2024

TNOG 66

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 5-6

Review

Showbread

So far we’ve talked about the menorah on the left. That was the last lesson a couple of weeks ago. We missed out because of the storm last week. So tonight I want to focus on the table of showbread and its significance. This is a place where 12 loaves of unleavened bread were set out before the presence of God or before the face of God (as we’ll see) as a picture of the 12 of course depicted the 12 tribes of Israel. Then you would also have various instruments and vessels and bowls that were used in the making of the bread.

The last time we looked at the lampstand, which pictures Christ as the light of the world. All these elements picture something about either the person or the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We looked at what the Old Testament says about the lampstand and then tied that into Christ’s statements in John that He is the light of the world. We’ll do the same thing tonight, looking at the table of showbread. We’ll look at how it was used in the worship of Israel. We’ll look at all the descriptions and guidelines for its construction. Then we will see that that is the backdrop for understanding Christ’s statements in John 6 where He says He is the bread of life. So, He’s consciously identifying Himself with these different elements within the Tabernacle so that the Jews can make the connection and see how the Old Testament ritual depicted who He was and what He would do.

So, first of all, let’s look at the names of the showbread tables. In Hebrew, the spelling is different. You probably read this when you were young. When I was young, I would read shewbread (s-h-e-w) and wonder what in the world that was and how that differed from show (s-h-o-w). But it’s just the archaic English spelling. The Hebrew is the word lehem happanim. Lehem is the word for bread just like you have in the city - baked lehem – the house of bread, Bethlehem. Leham happanim - panim means face and the “ha” at the beginning is the article in the Hebrew. So it literally means bread of the face - that is bread that is set before the face or the presence of the God. The face of God of course (as we’ve studied for those of you who survived and made it through on Tuesday night with our in-depth discussion on figures of speech) that the face of God is an anthropomorphism. God doesn’t have a face as men have faces. This is an idiom for the presence of God. So the bread is set before the face of God or the presence of God. Some passages it’s referred to as lehem hammarecket which means the bread of the ordering. That’s mentioned in I Chronicles 9:32.

1 Chronicles 9:32

1 Chronicles 9:32 NKJV

32 And some of their brethren of the sons of the Kohathites were in charge of preparing the showbread for every Sabbath.

Numbers 4:7

Numbers 4:7 NKJV

7 “On the table of showbread they shall spread a blue cloth, and put on it the dishes, the pans, the bowls, and the pitchers for pouring; and the showbread shall be on it.

In Numbers 4:7 , it is described as the “continual bread” because there was always this offering of the showbread on the table before God. Each Sabbath, it would be taken down and replaced by fresh bread, and the bread that had been out for a week would not have grown stale anymore than the manna would have grown stale overnight on the Sabbath and the rest of the week, it did or that the Israelites clothes wore out during the time in the wilderness. God kept it fresh so the priests would have bread at the end of the week. The bread would go to feed the priests. So it was always to be before the presence of God; so it’s called continual bread. It’s a perpetual offering to the Lord, according to Numbers 4:7.

The idea of showbread refers to the arrangement of bread in rows in an orderly display before God, as mentioned in several passages in the Old Testament. Although the table of showbread, the altar of incense, and the golden lampstand are not in the Holy of Holies itself - which is actually where the Shekinah dwelt between the cherubs, God is enthroned between the cherubs on the Mercy Seat - because they were just outside of the Holy of Holies, they were spoken of as being in the presence of God. They were before God’s presence. That’s important to note when we think about our passage in Hebrews (just so you didn’t forget that we are studying Hebrews on Thursday night). In our study of Hebrews 9 we’re diverting ourselves just a little bit to go back and study the Tabernacle so we can make a little more sense of what is taught in Hebrews 9.)

In Hebrews 9:2 we read;

Hebrews 9:2

Hebrews 9:2 NKJV

2 For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary;

… or the holy place.

Hebrews 9:3

Hebrews 9:3 NKJV

3 and behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All,

Hebrews 9:4

Hebrews 9:4 NKJV

4 which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;

Now, the golden censer was actually in the outer place, but it was just up against the veil so that the incense would be drawn into and through the Holy of Holies, a depiction of prayers going up before God.

Now the description of the Temple is given in Leviticus 24:5-9.

Sunday December 15, 2024

TNOG 67

Names of God

YHWH - יהוה

Understand the Tabernacle of the Covenant viz a viz Hebrews — The Mosaic Law — Leviticus 5-6

Review

There are two central passages for the table of showbread. They are Exodus 25:23-30 and Leviticus 24:5-9 .

Exodus 25:23–30 NKJV

23 “You shall also make a table of acacia wood; two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its width, and a cubit and a half its height. 24 And you shall overlay it with pure gold, and make a molding of gold all around. 25 You shall make for it a frame of a handbreadth all around, and you shall make a gold molding for the frame all around. 26 And you shall make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings on the four corners that are at its four legs. 27 The rings shall be close to the frame, as holders for the poles to bear the table. 28 And you shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be carried with them. 29 You shall make its dishes, its pans, its pitchers, and its bowls for pouring. You shall make them of pure gold. 30 And you shall set the showbread on the table before Me always.

Leviticus 24:5–9 NKJV

5 “And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. 6 You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord. 7 And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the Lord. 8 Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. 9 And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the Lord made by fire, by a perpetual statute.”

In the description in Leviticus 24:5-9 we have a description of what they should do in preparing the bread and establishing it and placing it out on the table. In verse 5 we read;

Leviticus 24:5-7

Leviticus 24:5–7 NKJV

Now, the frankincense was also used to depict the fact that this was of value to the Lord - that it depicts this offering and that it is a pleasing aroma.

The actual resin has a warm, earthy, and woody aroma with hints of citrus, pine, and a subtle smoky fragrance. It's often described as grounding and calming.

The essential oil can vary in scent depending on the species of Boswellia used and the quality of the oil. Some frankincense oils may have a more woody, lemon grass, or verbena-like aroma.

All Arabian frankincense trees belong to one species: Boswellia sacra Flückiger, also known as Boswellia Carterii Birdwood.

Only in the middle part of the coastal region of Rainfall, temperature, and soil conditions in Arabia, on the island of Socotra, and in Somalia are in harmony, enabling the growth of the frankincense tree.

Arabia is modern Oman and Yemen.

The resin gathered from the 2 species of the genus Boswellia growing in Arabia and Somalia is the most highly valued frankincense and almost the only sort put on the market.

The word libān belongs to the Semitic root lbn, meaning “white, to be white,” and originally designates “milk-like (resin),” since bright frankincense was most highly esteemed and considered to be the best.

In Jer 6:20, Sheba is mentioned as the country from which frankincense comes,

Jeremiah 6:20 NKJV

20 For what purpose to Me Comes frankincense from Sheba, And sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, Nor your sacrifices sweet to Me.”

and in Isa 60:6, we learn that Sabeans imported the valuable resin to Palestine by camel caravans.

Isaiah 60:6 NKJV

6 The multitude of camels shall cover your land, The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; All those from Sheba shall come; They shall bring gold and incense, And they shall proclaim the praises of the Lord.

Behind the description of a procession in Cant 3:6, which is compared to something coming up from the wilderness like a column of smoke perfumed with myrrh, frankincense, and all the fragrant powders of the merchant, lies perhaps the picture of a rich and joyfully expected caravan loaded with spices.

Song of Solomon 3:6 NKJV

6 Who is this coming out of the wilderness Like pillars of smoke, Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, With all the merchant’s fragrant powders?

Pure and unmixed frankincense was the essential ingredient of the incense used in the Lord's worship in the Temple (Exodus 30:34 ).

Exodus 30:34 NKJV

34 And the Lord said to Moses: “Take sweet spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, and pure frankincense with these sweet spices; there shall be equal amounts of each.

The use of frankincense and the holy incense compound for cultic purposes other than those specified in the priestly legislation was forbidden, and any profanation of it was considered a capital crime deserving death (Exod 30:38 ).

Exodus 30:38 NKJV

38 Whoever makes any like it, to smell it, he shall be cut off from his people.”

When Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated the Jewish worship, it was felt to be a sacrilege that frankincense was burnt before the doors of the houses and in the streets (1 Macc 1:55 ).

1 Maccabees 1:55 NRSV

55 and offered incense at the doors of the houses and in the streets.

The difficult passage in Isa 66:3 where a memorial offering of frankincense is in parallel to the blessing of an idol might give a hint at the usage of frankincense in the cult of pagan deities.

Isaiah 66:3 NKJV

3 “He who kills a bull is as if he slays a man; He who sacrifices a lamb, as if he breaks a dog’s neck; He who offers a grain offering, as if he offers swine’s blood; He who burns incense, as if he blesses an idol. Just as they have chosen their own ways, And their soul delights in their abominations,

Frankincense and oil were added to the cereal offering, minḥâ (Lev 2:1–2 );

Leviticus 2:1–2 NKJV

1 ‘When anyone offers a grain offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour. And he shall pour oil on it, and put frankincense on it. 2 He shall bring it to Aaron’s sons, the priests, one of whom shall take from it his handful of fine flour and oil with all the frankincense. And the priest shall burn it as a memorial on the altar, an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord.

the priest took the fine flour, put the oil and frankincense on it, and then burned it on the altar (Lev 2:15–16 ).

Leviticus 2:15–16 NKJV

15 And you shall put oil on it, and lay frankincense on it. It is a grain offering. 16 Then the priest shall burn the memorial portion: part of its beaten grain and part of its oil, with all the frankincense, as an offering made by fire to the Lord.

Pure frankincense as fragrant offering was also placed by the priest with each row of the loaves of the bread of the presence before the Holy of Holies (Lev 24:7 ).

Leviticus 24:7 NKJV

7 And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the Lord.

Explicitly forbidden, however, was the addition of frankincense to an offering for sin (Lev 5:11 )

Leviticus 5:11 NKJV

and to an offering of jealousy (Num 5:15 ).

Numbers 5:15 NKJV

15 then the man shall bring his wife to the priest. He shall bring the offering required for her, one-tenth of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it, because it is a grain offering of jealousy, an offering for remembering, for bringing iniquity to remembrance.

Each kind of qĕṭōret, the incense compound, seems to have consisted to a great extent of frankincense. In the Temple of Jerusalem chambers are mentioned in which frankincense was stored (Neh 13:5, 9 ),

Nehemiah 13:5 NKJV

5 And he had prepared for him a large room, where previously they had stored the grain offerings, the frankincense, the articles, the tithes of grain, the new wine and oil, which were commanded to be given to the Levites and singers and gatekeepers, and the offerings for the priests.

Nehemiah 13:9 NKJV

9 Then I commanded them to cleanse the rooms; and I brought back into them the articles of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense.

over which Levites were appointed (1 Chr 9:29 ).

1 Chronicles 9:29 NKJV

29 Some of them were appointed over the furnishings and over all the implements of the sanctuary, and over the fine flour and the wine and the oil and the incense and the spices.

From these passages it can be concluded that the frankincense necessary for the sacrifice could be acquired in the Temple in case the ingredients for the offerings, including frankincense, were not brought by the pilgrims to the Temple, as it is described in Jeremiah 17:26 and Jeremiah 41:5 .

Jeremiah 17:26 NKJV

26 And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the lowland, from the mountains and from the South, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, bringing sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord.

Jeremiah 41:5 NKJV

5 that certain men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, eighty men with their beards shaved and their clothes torn, having cut themselves, with offerings and incense in their hand, to bring them to the house of the Lord.

It is reported (Baruch 1:10 ) that the Jews in Babylon collected money and sent it to Jerusalem to buy sacrifices and frankincense in order to offer it on the altar of the Lord.

Baruch 1:10 NRSV

10 They said: Here we send you money; so buy with the money burnt offerings and sin offerings and incense, and prepare a grain offering, and offer them on the altar of the Lord our God;

The mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense which occur together in Cant 4:6 are probably a picture of the two breasts of the beloved one,

Song of Solomon 4:6 NKJV

6 Until the day breaks And the shadows flee away, I will go my way to the mountain of myrrh And to the hill of frankincense.

and in Cant 4:14 frankincense wood is mentioned among the precious and valuable spices enumerated as metaphors of her beauty.

Song of Solomon 4:14 NKJV

14 Spikenard and saffron, Calamus and cinnamon, With all trees of frankincense, Myrrh and aloes, With all the chief spices—

In Sir 24:15 the personified wisdom which appears in the cult is compared to various aromata and finally to the vapor of frankincense in the holy tabernacle.

Sirach 24:15 NRSV

15 Like cassia and camel’s thorn I gave forth perfume, and like choice myrrh I spread my fragrance, like galbanum, onycha, and stacte, and like the odor of incense in the tent.

The Wise Men from the east offered to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem gold, frankincense, and myrrh as gifts (Matt 2:11 ).

Matthew 2:11 NKJV

11 And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

In Rev 18:13, where the merchants of the earth weep and mourn since the fallen Babylon does not buy their cargo any more, frankincense is also mentioned.

Revelation 18:13 NKJV

13 and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and bodies and souls of men.

Back to Leviticus 24, Verse 8 goes on to say:

Leviticus 24:8

Leviticus 24:8 NKJV

8 Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.

There’s another reference to continual sacrifice.

being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.

Leviticus 24:9

Leviticus 24:9 NKJV

9 And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the Lord made by fire, by a perpetual statute.”

That also happens to be the background for what Paul teaches in I Corinthians 9 that just as the priests lived off of the offerings to the Lord - Paul applies that to the New Testament church that the pastor (those who are serving the Lord in vocational ministry) has a right to earn their living from the gospel ministry. This is his precedent that he uses going back to Leviticus 24:9 .

Leviticus 24:9 NKJV

9 And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the Lord made by fire, by a perpetual statute.”

Now we see in these verses that the bread consisted of 12 loaves made of the finest flour. The fact that it is made from the finest flour emphasizes the value of the person of Christ.

There’s no leaven, so it’s a picture of His impeccability because leaven is always a picture of sin. There are only a couple of passages that indicate that it’s unleavened.

But it’s the finest flour. It pictures the value and the uniqueness of the person (the humanity) of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The second thing we note from these verses is that the bread of the presence consisted of these 12 very large loaves.

Each was made of 1/5th of an ephah of fine flour. Now, an ephah is just over a bushel. So, making a loaf of bread from one-fifth of a bushel of flour would make a rather substantive loaf of bread.

So, each of these loaves represented 2 ½ bushels of finely ground wheat to make these 12 loaves. They were flat and thin. They were placed in two rows of 6 each on a table in the holy place before the Lord and then sprinkled with frankincense.

This was a picture also of the value of the offering to the Lord. Each Sabbath according to Leviticus 24:5-9 each one was removed each Sabbath, and new ones were placed there.

Leviticus 24:5–9 NKJV

The former ones were to be eaten by the priests only in the holy place. So they were to eat the bread there in the holy place. Now, that’s going to become somewhat important in an episode that we’ll get to a little later on in the New Testament when Jesus takes His disciples, and they eat the grain as they go through the fields.

That’s on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees challenged them. We’ll look at that and its background in I Samuel 21.

So that gives us the basic descriptions and prescriptions for the provision of the table and its use.

The next passage that I mentioned as a central passage is in Exodus 25:23-30. That passage gives us the description of how the table was to be constructed. This begins in Exodus 25:33.

Exodus 25:23

Exodus 25:23 NKJV

23 “You shall also make a table of acacia wood; two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its width, and a cubit and a half its height.

In the Hebrew this is shittim. It is an extremely hard dense wood that is very resistant to any kind of rot or mildew or decomposition. The point of course is that the wood would also represent the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ as in impeccability. It’s not corruptible as He was impeccable. So the acacia wood that they used in the construction of the Tabernacle was designed to teach the impeccability of Christ and it would be overlaid with gold (pure gold) which would depict the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its width, and a cubit and a half its height.

So that means that the table would be approximately 3 feet long, 1.5 feet wide and 2.3 feet high. So it would come up – for me it would come up a little below waist high. It was probably over waist high for the Israelites, for the priests at that time. Archeologists have uncovered burial sites from this early period and so we know that the average height of an Israelite male at this time was about 5’ 6” or 5’7”. That was true even up through the period of David. But that’s not unusual in ancient times or even in more modern times. I’ve bumped my head on many an old door frame in an old house when I was up in New England. In the church up there which was built in 1811, they had to expand the doorframe somewhere along the way. You go into all these old houses and the door frame is set at about...the top of the door is about 6 foot. So if you’re not careful you think that you’re going to make it, but it takes you off right at the top of the forehead. So they were average height of the adult male was about 5 ½ feet tall. So that table would come up to your waist or a little higher.

Verse 24 says:

Exodus 25:24

Exodus 25:24 NKJV

24 And you shall overlay it with pure gold, and make a molding of gold all around.

Exodus 25:25-26

Exodus 25:25–26 NKJV

25 You shall make for it a frame of a handbreadth all around, and you shall make a gold molding for the frame all around. 26 And you shall make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings on the four corners that are at its four legs.

So there would be a finely constructed molding in the gold that would surround the table at the top and it was decorated in an artistic fashion. This is not just utilitarian or pragmatic. This would be designed with beauty for God the Holy Spirit specifically gave wisdom or skill…actually the

Hebrew says chokmah which has the idea in many passages of wisdom. The root idea is skill to Bezalel and Aholiab who were the goldsmiths, the jewelers, the designers and to the other craftsmen so that what they made was of beauty.

That relates to the whole doctrine of esthetics. How important that is in God’s creation! This is one thing I’ve emphasized when I’ve talked about music in the past and worship and even church architecture. To the degree that we can do it, we need to reflect the various attributes of God. One of those is that when God creates, He creates with beauty. It’s not just a pragmatic creation. We go out and look at flowers and trees. Everything in God’s creation has this remarkable, incredible beauty with it. It’s not just practical. It doesn’t just work. It has beauty with it. So that would be reflected in all the furniture in the Tabernacle.

Exodus 25:27

Exodus 25:27 NKJV

27 The rings shall be close to the frame, as holders for the poles to bear the table.

You can see in our model here that we have that was designed by the folks at Goodseed. We have the rings on the side and the two poles with the two lobes sitting on top of the table of showbread.

Exodus 25:28

Exodus 25:28 NKJV

28 And you shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be carried with them.

That is how they would carry it.

Verse 29 and 30 describe the other implements, the accessories that went with the table. These would be used in the baking of the bread.

Exodus 25:29-30

Exodus 25:29–30 NKJV

29 You shall make its dishes, its pans, its pitchers, and its bowls for pouring. You shall make them of pure gold. 30 And you shall set the showbread on the table before Me always.

So everything would be handled with these vessels made of gold other than when it was actually baked. Then the gold would not of course withstand the heat from that. The serving vessels are described in verses 29 and 30.

Dishes which were used as bread pans were made for carrying the bread into the holy place.

There were spoons for incense cups which would handle the frankincense which was poured on top of the bread.

Then covers that are mentioned there are pictured as bowls for pouring. All of these were made from pure gold.

By the New Testament period at least, or by the end of the Old Testament period, the priest had developed a set ritual and practice for removing the old bread at the end of the week and replacing it with new bread.

According to the Mishnah we have a description. Today I mentioned the Mishnah and Talmud. There are differences between the Mishnah and the Talmud.

The Mishnah was the record, the written record of the teaching of the rabbis. It wasn’t actually written down or much of it wasn’t written down and didn’t reach its final form until near the end of the 1st century after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and into the beginning of the 2nd century. But what is taught in the Mishnah was passed down through oral tradition and probably some written for at least two or three centuries prior to its final form in what we now call the Mishnah. The Mishnah records these debates among the rabbis.

Now in the Mishnah What you have typically is a question that is posed.

Then they’ll say, “Well, rabbi so-and-so said this and rabbi so-and-so said that and then rabbi such-and-such says this and this is what we’re going to do.”

A lot of times they don’t even come to a conclusion and you have different schools of thought following different rabbis. Now you pick up many commentators, many commentaries on the Bible and they’ll give you all the different positions or different interpretations on a verse.

Then they’d say, “Most likely it means this, but we’re not sure.”

That’s the implication. Unfortunately too many seminary students are coming out of seminaries today and they can tell you the 5 positions on this passage or the 4 positions on that passage, but they can’t tell you what it means because they don’t have an integrated consistent systematic theology to orient everything and to pull everything together. So you end up with this sort of spiritual agnosticism that we’re pretty sure what God means but so-and-so says this and this pastor says that. This other theologian says this. So how do you know?”

So the people in the pew are left thinking,, “Well, if these guys who know the original languages and have been to seminary can’t tell me what it means, then how am I supposed to know what it means? “

What this really reflects is not so much the fact that we have difficulty understanding what God is communicating as that modern man has a theory of knowledge that he doesn’t think can give him absolute truth. So just like the culture as a whole is impacted by relativistic views of knowledge, so too the seminaries are affected by relativistic views of hermeneutics. That gets into a totally different study.

So the Mishnah recorded what the rabbis said. Then in the subsequent centuries from about the 2nd century on down to the 5th or 6th century, you have rabbis writing commentary on the Mishnah. The commentary that they wrote on the Mishnah is called the Talmud. This is the development of rabbinical Judaism. Rabbinical Judaism has nothing to do with the Old Testament. It has to do with what the rabbis taught, much like Roman Catholics don’t have a clue what the Bible says. They can just tell you what their priest tells them or what the pope has said. But, they never read the text for themselves. The same is true of orthodox Jews. They debate among themselves the different rabbinical views, but they don’t ever really read the text or study the original text for themselves.

If you have a copy of a Talmud what you will see – you’ll have a large page and in the middle of the page there will be a square, double column square, which is the Mishnah. That will be bordered by a border of white space. Then around the outer border you have more text and that’s the Talmud. So they will come together in one book.

According to the Mishnah this is how they would conduct the ceremony.

Four priests entered the holy place, two of them carrying the piles of bread and two of them the cups of incense. Four priests would have gone in before them, two to take off the old piles of showbread and two to take off the cups of incense. Those who brought in the new bread stood at the north side facing southward. Those who took away the old bread stood on the south side facing northward. One part lifted off and the other put on the hands of one being over against the hands of the other as it is written. “thou shall set upon the table bread of the Passover always before Me.” The loaves that were removed were delivered to the priests for their consumption within the Tabernacle the whole quantity amounting to 75 pounds of bread per week.

So they had a very formal procedure for making sure that the bread was transferred properly.

Now when we look at any of these articles of furniture within the Tabernacle - as I pointed out at the beginning they picture something about either about the person or the work or sometimes both of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is called a type (t-y-p-e) which is sort of an old English word. We might use the word illustration or the word shadow image or a foreshadowing. But type is basically a more technical term. Now it’s based on the Greek word tupos. The “u” or upsilon is often translated with a “y” when it comes into English. Tupos can have a general meaning of example. It’s used that way several times in the New Testament. You have to be careful. Students of the Word have to be careful. Just because the Bible uses the word tupos doesn’t necessarily means it’s talking about a type of Christ. It may be a broader example or illustration. A type is a little more narrow (narrowly technical) depiction of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we look at all these elements (all these pieces of furniture) and these are types or pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ.

First of all what they depict is the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity. I have three points on that.

1. First of all the shittim (as I pointed out, the shittim) wood is hard, incorruptible, indestructible wood that grows in the Sinai Desert.

2. That pictures the incorruptible, impeccable humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. This depicts the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ in terms of its incorruptibility and impeccability.

3. The indestructibility of the wood pictures Jesus as able to withstand the temptations to sin and the ability to handle the judgment for sin as well as the decaying affect of the grave for according to Acts 2:31 and the quotation from the Psalms that His body did not under go corruption and His physical, bodily resurrection.

So, all of that is depicted through the use of the shititm wood or acacia wood.

1. In terms of the undiminished deity of Christ, we see that pictured in the gold. The gold in the table pictures Jesus’ deity. It emphasizes the value, the beauty and the glory of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. The Bible explicitly states that Jesus is fully God.

Passages like John 1:1, John 10:30-33 and John 10:28 specifically state that Jesus is fully God.

John 1:1 NKJV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 10:30–33 NKJV

30 I and My Father are one.” 31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. 32 Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?” 33 The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”

John 10:28 NKJV

28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.

Now what’s important here is (as Arnold Fruchtenbaum has pointed out) what happens in the early church. By the early part of the second century there starts to develop a split between Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians so that by the end of the 2nd century Jewish Christians have basically become isolated from their Gentile counterparts.

At this same there’s the introduction of allegorical interpretation. With that there begins to seep into Christianity a mild but definite anti-Semitism. As a result of this by the end of the 3rd century you have a primarily Gentile church that is so isolated from its Jewish roots that students of the Word no longer understand the culture out of which the Bible came. So they’re interpreting Jesus and His teaching and His ministry totally within the frame of reference that they have in terms of Greek or Roman culture and not in terms of the Jewish culture which is the immediate context at the time in which Jesus ministered. As a result of that, they don’t have the benefit of truly understanding these images and the typology in the Old Testament. That has always surprised me because we go back and we look at these depictions in the Tabernacle related to the humanity and deity of Christ. It just helps us understand the hypostatic union so much better. But it took these early Christians (because of the fact that they were divorced from the Jewish background it took them) a couple of hundred years to figure out how to properly articulate the hypostatic union. This is what gave rise to the debates surrounding the Council of Nicaea and then the Council of Ephesus and the Council of Constantinople and finally the Council of Chalcedon in 451 when the hypostatic union is finally settled and articulated.

So the definition that I use for the hypostatic union is one that borrows its language primarily from the Chalcedonian confession of 451 AD. So we define the hypostatic union as (relating to the incarnate Christ):

The hypostatic union describes the person of the incarnate Christ as the union of two natures, divine and human, in the one person of Jesus Christ.

It’s very important to talk about that and think about that precisely. The one person hungers. The one person is tired or weary. The one person turns the water into wine. The one person heals. But, some of these miracles that He did (for example the changing the water into wine) demonstrate that He is fully God and that there is a true undiminished deity as part of His nature. So His one person has a divine nature. The fact that He hungered and that He thirsted and that He was tired, that He came under emotional stress as He did in the garden the night before He goes to the tomb indicates that He is true humanity. But, He has a true human nature as well. So these two natures are both there within the one person. We always have to be careful how we articulate this and not talk about – “Well, Jesus did this out of His deity.” Well, the one person did it and that He did one thing may demonstrate He is fully God. That He did something else would demonstrate that He is fully man; but they come from the one person. We can’t fall into Nestorianism as if there are two persons and two natures. There is one person and one nature.

These two natures are inseparably united.

A billion years from “when we’ve been there 10,000 years bright shining as the sun”, Jesus will still be in hypostatic union. Ten thousand years later He will still be in hypostatic union. There will always be the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

without loss or mixture of separate identity

So, when the deity takes on humanity; the deity didn’t lose anything. It didn’t lose any of its divine attributes. Somehow the infinite took on affinitude without losing its infiniteness. There’s no mixture of characteristics or of attributes so that you don’t have a blending of the two. That was the error of Eutychianism in the early church.

without loss or transfer of properties or attributes,

So He remains fully God and He has true humanity.

the union being both personal and eternal.

That means that it is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ – that’s what’s meant by personal. And, it’s eternal. It is everlasting. There will never be a time when Jesus is no longer in hypostatic union.

So the conclusion:

Jesus is undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever.

That’s the short definition - John 1:14, Hebrews 1:2-3, and I John 4:2. So those are key passages on understanding the hypostatic union.

That is seen by the fact that the table made of wood is then overlaid with gold. That depicts that union between the divine and the human. And if the early church had just had a good handle on the imagery and the typology coming out of Exodus and Leviticus then that could have helped them understand so many things. It’s not till (It always amazes me.) the11th century that we have a clear articulation on substitutionary atonement by Anslem of Canterbury in his work Tri Deis Homo (Why the God-Man?) It’s not that they didn’t believe in substitutionary atonement. They taught that way. They used that language, but it’s used in a somewhat naïve or non-critical way. They’re just restating what the Scripture says – that Christ died for you. But they’re not really analyzing what that means and in what way Christ died for someone until Anselm comes along and writes a very clear articulation of substitutionary atonement.

When we look at the elements on the table itself, we have the showbread which is the bread of the presence. We see that this is unleavened bread. According to Numbers 6:15 this is a bread that is not leavened. Numbers 6:15 says:

NKJ Numbers 6:15 'a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and their grain offering with their drink offerings.

So the bread is unleavened. That’s again depicting the fact that Jesus Christ is without sin. To make the fine flour - several have pointed out that the fine flour, the fine meal has to be crushed, ground, and sifted which is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth in hypostatic union where He is sifted by Satan during the period of the temptations in Matthew 4:1-11. He is ground and crushed in the suffering and the buffeting in the beating and flagellation that occurred prior to going to the cross then His death on the cross and His crucifixion for mankind.

The bread also depicts the source of life. We need bread to live. So, it not only depicts the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ; we are to feed on that. That comes out of John 6 as well. Jesus says speaking metaphorically; it’s not the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Roman Catholic Church:

NKJ John 6:53 Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.

He precedes that by saying:

NKJ John 6:35 And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

This whole thing is a picture of taking in and receiving Christ as our own just as when we eat food we are taking the food in and it becomes part of who we are. That is the imagery that’s there. So the bread provides nourishment.

In Deuteronomy 8:3 we have the statement:

NKJ Deuteronomy 8:3 "So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.

So the bread depicts the spiritual nourishment that God provides in His Word. And, there is a certain ambiguity there because He provides that nourishment through the Living Word (the Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ) and through the written Word which we have which is the thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it pulls it all together.

The baking of the bread depicts the judgment of sin imputed to Jesus Christ. The baking pictures that judgment as the refined flour is baked into loaves. It is a picture of Jesus Christ who goes through the fires of judgment (speaking metaphorically) and suffering for us as Peter states in 1 Peter 3:18.

NKJ 1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,

The frankincense that’s sprinkled on the loaves pictures the value of Christ’s death. Frankincense was an extremely expensive spice in the ancient world. It’s a fragrant gum resin that has a silvery white cast to it. It’s ground into powder, burned at the altar while the priests would eat the showbread on the Sabbath. The fragrance from the incense (the frankincense) would fill the entire holy place and Holy of Holies. That relates to the continuing prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. The offering of the bread depicts grace oriented freewill giving – that this is given freely and it is not conditioned just as Jesus Christ was freely given by the Father for our salvation.

Then last but not least the eating of the bread is a picture of fellowship with God. Eating and having a meal together is a picture throughout the Scripture of our fellowship with God. As we come to the Lord’s Table what we are doing is we are just memorializing a portion of that meal that the Lord had with His disciples. It is a picture of our fellowship with God. That’s why it’s important for us to confess our sins and be in fellowship before we partake of the Lord’s Table. It is a picture of the fellowship that we have which is in Christ and on the basis of His work on the cross that fellowship in the body of Christ is not a social thing. It is fundamentally a relationship with God. Because we have that vertical relationship with God and we have peace with God; then as a result of that we have relationship with other human beings who are in the body of Christ. But that fellowship is always on the basis of God’s Word. Christians can get together and they can socialize and they can have a party. They can have a lot of good times together. They may not be in fellowship. That doesn’t have anything to do with biblical Christian fellowship - not that that’s a bad word. Some people think it is; but that’s not a bad word. It’s a good word. When you get together with believers and there is within that context of your time together a discussion of doctrine and the Lord and His Word, then what grows out of that is true genuine biblical fellowship because Christ is at the center of it. So it’s not social life, but it’s something that is integrally related and consciously tied to the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ within His body.

As we go through the Old Testament there are several other passages that talk about the table of showbread. The most significant is in 1 Samuel 21:1. The other passages just mention it as part of ritual. For example I Chronicle 9:32. But in I Samuel 21:1 we have an episode where David is fleeing from Saul. David at this point is the Lord’s anointed. God has had him anointed by Samuel to be the next king of Israel. He is the anointed king but not the reigning king. So he has been appointed, but he hasn’t been installed yet. That’s a great picture of the present ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ who has been anointed as it were; but He is like David sitting and waiting for God to give Him the kingdom which doesn’t occur until the end of the Church Age period. So He is seated at the right hand of God the Father waiting for God to give Him the kingdom. That’s the background for what we see in Revelation 4 and 5, Daniel 7 when the Lamb comes forward to take the scroll to enact the judgments in order to establish His kingdom.

So David in this in-between period when Saul is persecuting him (Saul is chasing him.) which is a picture of what happens during the Church Age when Satan is persecuting the body of Christ while the Lord is waiting for the kingdom.

NKJ 1 Samuel 21:1 Now David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech was afraid when he met David,

See Ahimelech is fearful because he knows that Saul has his army out looking for David and he’s made David public enemy #1.

and said to him, "Why are you alone, and no one is with you?"

NKJ 1 Samuel 21:2 So David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king has ordered me on some business, and said to me, 'Do not let anyone know anything about the business on which I send you, or what I have commanded you.' And I have directed my young men to such and such a place.

NKJ 1 Samuel 21:3 "Now therefore, what have you on hand? Give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever can be found."

NKJ 1 Samuel 21:4 And the priest answered David and said, "There is no common bread on hand; but there is holy bread,

That’s the bread on the table of showbread.

if the young men have at least kept themselves from women."

In other words if they have refrained from sexual activity recently, then we can distribute the bread. So the bread then is brought out and David’s men are fed. David says in verse 5:

NKJ 1 Samuel 21:5 Then David answered the priest, and said to him, "Truly, women have been kept from us about three days since I came out. And the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in effect common, even though it was sanctified in the vessel this day."

NKJ 1 Samuel 21:6 So the priest gave him holy bread; for there was no bread there but the showbread which had been taken from before the LORD, in order to put hot bread in its place on the day when it was taken away.

Now there are a lot of different elements in this story and I don’t want to get distracted with those. I just want to focus on the fact that David is in a position where he is taking his men and he is on this journey and he needs food. So because he is the Lord’s anointed, Ahimelech can give him the food, the bread from the table, and this is legitimate. This is used in a very sophisticated argument by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 12. The key verses in Matthew 12 are verses 3 and 4; but I want to read from the beginning of the chapter so that we pick up the context.

NKJ Matthew 12:1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.

Now this just really upset the Pharisees because they said that this was work and you couldn’t harvest grain. That is what they would define it as. Harvesting grain would be a violation of the Sabbatical law. So the Pharisees looked at him and used this to accuse Him of violating the Mosaic Law.

NKJ Matthew 12:2 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, "Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!"

NKJ Matthew 12:3 But He said to them,

Notice how sophisticated His argument is here.

"Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him:

So Jesus is comparing Himself as the Messiah, the Lord’s anointed to David who was the Lord’s anointed and David’s companions are compared to the Lord’s disciples. He says how David entered the house of God and they ate the consecrated bread which was not lawful for him to eat nor those with him, but for the priests alone. So he is saying that there are exceptions within the Law because this would be an application (They were starving. They were hungry.) of the principle of loving your neighbor as yourself.

So Jesus then is using this in a very sophisticated way. In verse 6, we go on to read there:

NKJ Matthew 12:6 "Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple.

NKJ Matthew 12:7 "But if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless.

In other words the point was that the technicalities of the law were overridden by the principle of mercy and grace. The principle of mercy and grace would be to love your neighbor as yourself and to provide for the needs of David’s the Lord’s anointed and his men on the basis of grace obeying the spirit of the Law and not the letter of the Law. So Jesus is giving the correct divine viewpoint interpretation of the Law at that point and pointing out that refusal on the part of the priests would have violated the essence of the Law.

So he concludes in verse 8 by saying:

NKJ Matthew 12:8 "For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."

As the Son of Man He is saying, “I am the author of the Law so I can determine how and why it is applied,”

He’s not turning the law (twisting it) to His own advantage; He is simply stating that this fits within His original design.

Now we just have a few moments left. I know we’re getting short. We don’t have a lot of time to get into it, but John 6 is the passage that deals wit the depiction of this in Jesus bread of life discourse. That is in John 6 and even though we’ve got about 5 minutes left I think I am going to go ahead and stop here because John 6 is a tremendous passage and there is a lot there. It begins with the feeding of the five thousand and then that sets the stage as Jesus feeds the 5,000. It sets the stage for His discourse that He is the bread of life, the one who of course provides that which sustains us in the last part of the chapter. But, we also get into one of those tremendous theological passages that come up in verse 44 where Jesus says.

NKJ John 6:44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.

This is a central passage that is used in Calvinism to substantiate the doctrine of irresistible grace that God is the one who draws people to Himself and He only draws the elect to Himself and He doesn’t draw anyone else to Himself. Now if you want to know the truth of that you’ll have to come back next time.

Living Bread Lechem Chai לֶחֶם חַי

John 6:31–35, 48–51, 58

John 6:31–35 NKJV

31 Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” 32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” 35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

Ex. 16:4, 15 ; Neh. 9:15 ; Ps. 78:24

Exodus 16:4 NKJV

4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not.

Exodus 16:15 NKJV

15 So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.

Nehemiah 9:15 NKJV

15 You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger, And brought them water out of the rock for their thirst, And told them to go in to possess the land Which You had sworn to give them.

Psalm 78:24 NKJV

24 Had rained down manna on them to eat, And given them of the bread of heaven.

John 6:48–51 NKJV

48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

John 6:58 NKJV

58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

“Our fathers ate man [manna] in the desert—as it says in the Tanakh, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” Yeshua said to them, “Yes, indeed! I tell you it wasn’t Moshe [Moses] who gave you the bread from heaven. But my Father is giving you the genuine bread from heaven; for God’s bread is the one who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.”

They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread from now on.” Yeshua answered, “I am the bread which is life! Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever trusts in me will never be thirsty.”

“I am the bread which is life. Your fathers ate the man in the desert; they died. But the bread that comes down from heaven is such that a person may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that has come down from heaven; if anyone eats this bread, he will live forever.…”

“So this is the bread that has come down from heaven—it is not like the bread the fathers ate; they’re dead, but whoever eats this bread will live forever!”

Some form of bread is used as a staple, the world over. Whether you buy it or bake it, that loaf of bread on your kitchen counter will eventually grow moldy. God gave us bread from heaven that will never spoil. Only Yeshua, the Living Bread, can satisfy our spiritual hunger.

Refiner -- M’tzaref מְצָרֵף

Jeremiah 9:6

Jeremiah 9:6 NKJV

6 Your dwelling place is in the midst of deceit; Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” says the Lord.

“Therefore,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot [Lord of Hosts],

“I will refine them and test them.

What else can I do with the daughter of my people?”

Zechariah 13:9

Zechariah 13:9 NKJV

9 I will bring the one-third through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them. I will say, ‘This is My people’; And each one will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”

“That third part I will bring through the fire;

I will refine them as silver is refined,

I will test them as gold is tested.

They will call on my name,

and I will answer them.

I will say, ‘This is my people’

and they will say, ‘Adonai is my God.’ ”

Malachi 3:2–3

Malachi 3:2–3 NKJV

2 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the Lord An offering in righteousness.

But who can endure the day when he comes?

Who can stand when he appears?

For he will be like a refiner’s fire,

like the soapmaker’s lye.

He will sit, testing and purifying the silver;

he will purify the sons of Levi,

refining them like gold and silver,

so that they can bring offerings to Adonai uprightly.

Psalm 66:10

Psalm 66:10 NKJV

10 For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined.

For you, God, have tested us,

refined us as silver is refined.

1 Peter 1:3-8

1 Peter 1:3–8 NKJV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8 whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,

James 1:3-4

James 1:3–4 NKJV

3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

When silver is refined, heat separates the precious metal from the dross. Too much heat harms the silver. Someone asked a silversmith how he knew when the process was complete. The silversmith replied, “When I can see my image in the silver.” Be open to God’s refining process and allow his image to be formed in you.

Related Media

Related Sermons