THE HALLOWING OF THE PRIESTS
We have not here types of how a sinner can be cleansed from sin so as to be found amongst the people of God as forgiven and justified. We are reading of how priests are hallowed and consecrated.
The first thing is moral cleansing. “And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring near the entrance of the tent of meeting, and shalt bathe them with water.” But this is done, we may say, in the light of all that Christ is as seen typically in verses 1 and 2. What a wonderful cluster of types of Christ is introduced there!
“One young bullock” – a large type of Christ as the One capable of being made sin and glorifying God in bearing its judgment. This is a most important apprehension of Christ in the soul. “Two rams without blemish” to set Him forth in His maturity and energy as the burnt-offering, and the One wholly devoted to God and to His saints. “Unleavened bread” to speak of what He was as without sin in holy humanity. “Unleavened cakes mingled with oil,” typifying what He was as conceived by the Holy Spirit. His humanity was such as could only have been produced in the power of the Holy Spirit. Then “unleavened wafers anointed with oil” speak of Him as the blessed Man anointed by the Holy Spirit. The bread and cakes were all to be put “into one basket”; every feature of the holy humanity of Christ is to be held together. It was holy and sinless, produced in the power of the Holy Spirit, and found suitable to be anointed by the Holy Spirit after being tested in the circumstances of human life for thirty years.
As Christ in these varied aspects is before the heart, we are prepared to see the necessity for the complete setting aside of all that man is according to the flesh. The bathing, so far as Aaron is concerned, signifies that it is Christ as having gone through death that we know and are identified with. He went through death that the moral cleansing of His death might become effective in us; that is, that we might be cleansed in mind and affection from that for which He died. He came into death for all that in us which is contrary to Himself – and that means everything that we were according to the flesh – that the Spirit might give our souls to know the import of the water from His side. He “came by water and by blood” (1 John 5:6). The blood is put first in the Gospel (John 19:34) because it meets the glory of God as to sin, but the water comes first in the Epistle because what John has in view there is moral cleansing. The order in 1 John 5:8 is “the Spirit, and the water, and the blood”. It is as having the Spirit that “the truth” of the water and the blood can be in our souls.
The death of Christ effected sacrificially the complete removal of the man after the flesh from before God, but this may be known by the Spirit for moral purification. Christ has died as in the place of that man and is eternally free from him, but he died that His death might free us. We are entitled to be with God for His holy service completely apart from man after the flesh. …
What is not according to Christ will not do for God, nor for the heart that loves Him. Then the Spirit makes good to the soul the meaning of the water which, as well as the blood, flowed from the side of the dead Christ. All that we were according to the flesh must go; it has gone in the death of the Son of God; it cannot have any place in His service.
There must be some consciousness of this in order to be free to contemplate Christ as He is introduced to us here. We see Him invested with all the priestly characteristics and glory of which the holy garments speak; and we see Him as the One anointed. It is the glory of Christ as the anointed Priest in heaven that is here presented to us. God would enrich us in a blessed way with the unsearchable riches of Christ. One covets to be so enriched, and that saints should be so enriched, that when we come together Christ comes out because our hearts are full of Him. That is greatly to God’s delight.
Then we see how “Aaron and his sons” are linked together; it is a very characteristic phrase of this chapter. It is God’s pleasure that there should be a priestly family identified in affection with Christ; and it is due to Christ and to the blessed God that we should be available thus for priestly service in the beauty of holiness. God has brought into being a generation capable of appreciating Christ, and this could not be without a nature that was kindred with Him.
There can be no doubt that God is working in a special way to bring about priestly state and conditions in His saints. Priestly conditions and sensibilities were lacking at Corinth; hence the Apostle wrote the first Epistle to bring about self-judgment, that they might come into the good of the washing – that there might be moral purification. Then the second Epistle is more like bringing out the priestly garments, and clothing the saints with them.
Then as clothed the priests “lean with their hands upon the head of the bullock” – a large type of Christ as sin-offering. This indicates the great sense God would give to the priestly company of the ability of Christ to deal with sin, and entirely to remove from before God what is offensive to Him. The dealing with sin must be according to divine holiness. And the priests have to identify themselves with it before God. …
The blood and the anointing oil being sprinkled upon Aaron and his sons and their garments, would show how the Spirit is connected with all the value of the sacrifice of Christ. Indeed, the fact that there is a company under the priestly anointing is the most wonderful evidence of the value of that sacrifice. If God has anointed us it is because He delights to give this testimony to the value of what Christ has done. But here it is the Spirit as power to take up priestly relations with God. The death of Christ in its true import as known in the power of the Spirit is to mark the persons and associations of the holy priesthood. They are to be known as having died with Christ from the elements of the world, and as judging that if “one died for all, then all have died; and he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised.” …
Moses was to take the breast of the ram of consecration and wave it before Jehovah; “and it shall be thy part”. The ram of consecration had a peace-offering character, and what marks the peace-offering is the participation of all concerned. Jehovah had a portion, the priest had a portion, and the offerer had a portion; it spoke of communion. And I think we have a type here of the portion which Christ as Mediator has in relation to the consecration of the priesthood. As Mediator He has brought the love and mind of God to us; that is the divine side. But the breast of the ram of consecration is, if I understand it aright, the love disclosed in death which ere long will be the main-spring to set the whole reconciled universe in movement responsively to the love of God. That love is known today by the assembly, and it has become there the living spring of all that is pleasurable to God. And I think the Lord finds, and ever will find, His peculiar and personal satisfaction in having brought in the powerful impulse of His own love to quicken in the priestly company, and eventually in the vast universe of bliss, affections appreciative of, and responsive to, the love of God. The love of Christ which surpasses knowledge gives impulse Godward to all that comes under its power, and I believe it is His peculiar satisfaction that it should do so. It is very blessed to think of the love of God being perfectly revealed, but it is also most blessed to think of full response to that love being secured. There is something for God in that. The love of Christ will yet fill the universe of bliss with affections responsive to God. At the present time His love is the spring of all priestly affections and service; it sets all in movement Godward. And He has His own portion in having secured it by His love for the pleasure of God. …
And bringing in here the food of the priestly family is very important as connecting the strength of the priesthood with the communion of the people of God. Priestly vigour is dependent on right conditions of christian fellowship. It is an instructive connection. The more energetic and faithful we are in promoting fellowship, the more nourishment will there be for the priests.
The first character of the peace-offering was that it was “for a thanksgiving” (Lev.7:12). This would correspond with “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of the Christ?” (1 Cor.10:16). As brought into the common joy of the love of God made known in the blood of Christ, believers can have fellowship in thanksgiving. So we bless the cup together. Then, further, the peace-offering might be “a vow, or voluntary” (Lev.7:16). This implies more energy in the affections, and it involves the devoted recognition of what is due to the Lord. It is not only that He has been for us, but it is due to Him that we should be for Him. It is essential to christian fellowship that we should maintain together what is due to the Lord. Whatever is inconsistent with the rights of the Lord is an offence against christian fellowship, and if it is allowed there is not the true character of christian fellowship, though there may be a believers’ meeting. A vow is an evidence of devotedness in the affections. We read of some that “they gave themselves first to the Lord, and to us by God’s will” (2 Cor.8:5). If you have really come under the influence of the grace and love of God it becomes a joy to dedicate yourself. J.N.D. used to say that in Romans 6 God sets a man free, and then the question is, What is that free man going to do? He yields himself to God. We are to present our bodies a living sacrifice. What has once been dedicated cannot be withdrawn. If a man who has yielded himself to God is afterwards found doing his own will, Scripture would regard him as a fool. … Fellowship is greatly promoted by devotedness. We are to be for the Lord individually and together.
C. A. Coates ‘Outline of Exodus’ pp.233 – 243.
(Quotations from Scripture in this article are from both the Authorised Version and the Darby Translation).
Edited and published monthly by Alistair Brown and Paul Martin
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