The worship of Israel, under the law, was on a principle of far greater distance from God than that of the fathers, when they sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange land. Wherever Abraham went in the land, he found room to pitch his tent, and build his altar; and there he called on the name of the Lord. The intercourse between Abraham and the Lord was much more free, and much more confidential, than any Israelite under the law could possibly attain to. Abraham knew the Lord only in grace. It was grace which had called him from his idolatry; and it was grace which had made him so many precious promises. And on this ground Abraham could stand before the Lord, and plead with Him for Sodom, although he was himself but dust and ashes.
But to man’s eye, the service of God connected with the tabernacle, would be by far the most attractive. It would be thought an advance in the order of worship on the rude altar of the fathers. But the order of the tabernacle was, in fact, restriction on the liberty of worship. And yet it is to this that the human mind so constantly and naturally turns. This is the pattern which man proposes for himself; the necessary consequence of which is, that his worship is in the spirit of bondage. A devoted Israelite, though he stood purified as to the flesh, might have looked back with regret on the far happier and nearer worship of the fathers. After all that the high priest had done for him, he could only approach the outside of the tabernacle, he dare not enter within. The law, in all its institutions, preserved that element which was so conspicuous at its promulgation—bounds were set around the mountain, lest the people should break through to gaze. Near and intimate approach to God was unceasingly denied by some divinely appointed bound.
It is, indeed, true, that an Israelite enjoyed nearness to God, when compared with the inhabitants of the nations around him; for the world having fallen into idolatry after the flood, God had given it up to its own lusts; and having called out one nation, and constituted that a nation of worshippers of the true God, He thus distinguished them from all other nations on the earth. Thus Israel nationally stood before the Lord, and worshipped Him, whilst all other nations bowed before their idols.
But although, compared with others, Israel stood so nigh, they were nevertheless denied, by most solemn statutes, free access to the presence of their God. They must approach with measured steps, never passing the appointed limit. There was the outer circle of a worshipping people, and the inner circle of worshipping priests; while, nearest of all, and the only one who durst draw nigh, the high priest ministered alone in the holiest. Thus while Israel, as a nation, was taken from all other nations as God’s peculiar heritage and witness, yet it was within that nation that God fixed the clearest testimony, that no way was yet opened into the holiest of all. Distance and restriction were most forcibly taught amidst the only nation brought nigh.
But Israel has become corrupt; and as God gave up the Gentiles to their lusts, so has He scattered for a time His chosen nation, and set aside its polity. Now corruption in worship has almost always consisted in re-establishing what God has disowned. Just, therefore, as natural religion is the assertion of man’s ability to take that place before God as a creature, which as a sinner he has lost, so national religion is the return to Judaism which God has disowned. People-worship without, and priest-worship within, is not now the order of God; nor has God now any other worshipping nation, than that which is formed by the whole body of believers, called out of every nation, and people, and tongue, to worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
But let us come to the tabernacle itself, to learn what is God’s present order of worship, and what are the good things to come, which are now freely given to us. We have already noticed, that there were in Israel the worshipping people outside the tabernacle, and the worshipping priests within. It is with the latter we have now to do; for our present good things constitute blessed contrasts, even to the then privileges of the priests themselves. Let us dismiss, therefore, from our minds, the people worshipping without, whilst priestly ministry was accomplished within, and let us fix our attention, as the Holy Ghost in this chapter leads us to do, on the tabernacle itself, and the priestly family serving in its holy places.
The tabernacle was of most exquisite beauty. This could be discerned in some degree even by the eye of an outside worshipper. But the holy place, in which the priests habitually ministered, was furnished with the exquisitely wrought golden candlestick, the table of shewbread overlaid with gold, and the golden altar of incense. These things their eyes constantly looked upon, and they must have felt that they were amidst things peculiarly belonging to God, though denied entrance into that holy chamber in which God’s glory visibly dwelt. They must have always felt near God, though never immediately in His presence. From the holiest of all, the beautiful veil still separated them. Into that most holy place, within which were the golden censer, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim overshadowing the mercy-seat, they never entered. They had no access to the mercy-seat. There was one indeed, the high priest, who had access even there—who could pass within the veil, and minister before the mercy-seat itself in the actual presence of God. But this was only once a year. At all other times Aaron could only minister among his priestly family in the holy place. Bounds were thus set, not only around, but also within the tabernacle; and set, not only on the priests, but even on the high priest himself.
Now let us well mark the comment of the apostle on this order of worship. “The priests go always into the first tabernacle accomplishing the service (of God); but into the second the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people, the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holies hath not yet been made manifest, while as the first tabernacle is yet standing.”
What could more forcibly testify, that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest, than such facts as that none but priests could enter the holy place? and that those very priests, so constantly serving there, could never pass on into the holiest and again, that the high priest himself must not enter “at all times” into the holiest, but only “once a year?” Enough, indeed, was permitted to constitute the tabernacle, and its order, a “shadow of good things to come;” but that tabernacle ever testified to those who worshipped in it, that it was but a figure for the time then present, and that it knew of no service by which, as to the conscience, they could be made perfect. Its holies were not thrown open even to those who had services appointed them therein: no liberty to go in and out was there allowed; no way to the mercy-seat, free to all, or open at all times, could be found there.
The annual solemnity of the great day of atonement must indeed have been bright in prospect, not only to the people and the priests, but to the high priest himself; but after it was over, it must have been a day much regretted, especially to him who had for that day such peculiar access unto God, but who was afterward cast into comparative distance from God to exercise his ministry outside the veil. Aaron’s privilege was one of very seldom occurrence, only once a year.
But the Holy Ghost declares that now the way into the holies is open, through Jesus, the High Priest of good things to come. The redemption found by Aaron in the blood of bulls and goats did not avail to give access to the mercy-seat, nor to purge the worshipper’s conscience; but Christ has found “eternal redemption;” and having thereon entered into the true holies, He has become the High Priest of those most precious “good things,” liberty and peace in the presence of God. As long as the first tabernacle was standing, these things could not be known—no redemption had been found on which they could be based—no high priest anointed by whom they could be ministered. The whole order of that first tabernacle spoke of restriction, not liberty; and so far from providing purgedness of conscience, its very offerings for sin brought the remembrance of sins upon the offerer.
And what then must be the consequence of taking the pattern of that tabernacle as the model for the worship of Christians? Must not the holiest, that is, the very presence of God, be barred against their approach? This must be so, even if they are allowed to be God’s holy priesthood. But as this is not allowed, but only a certain class are admitted to be priests, the holy brethren must be denied all place whatsoever within the holies, and kept, like the congregation of Israel, without. Take the tabernacle and its order as the pattern instead of the contrast of Christian worship, and these consequences must result; and have they not abundantly resulted? Do we not see the laity without, the priestly clergy within? And are not souls fettered, and consciences unpurged, just as though the High Priest of good things to come had never entered on His blessed ministry at all?
But that High Priest has come! He is now the minister of the holy things; and, therefore, the blessed testimony of the Holy Ghost is, that “the good things to come” are present good things to faith. And what “a good thing to come” made present to us, that our abiding-place is now the holies, with the veil rent and thrown open, so that the mercy-seat is ever free to us, and the countenance of God ever lifted up upon us! What a present consequence to us of eternal redemption having been obtained, and of our great High Priest having passed through the heavens!
The priests in the tabernacle might have looked back to the freer communion with God enjoyed by the fathers, or they might have looked forward to a still more blessed thing, even the day when Israel shall nationally be a kingdom of priests, according to the promise, “Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God;” but between these good things past away, and good things not yet come, they stood fettered and unpurged. But what they then looked forward to, as a good thing yet to come, is substantiated to us at present, because Christ has already entered on His ministry as the High Priest of good things to come. All Israel’s blessings are suspended on Israel’s new order of priesthood—of which priesthood the High Priest alone is actually in His heavenly place of ministry, His fellow-priests (that is, all who believe in His name) approaching there now only because He appears in the presence of God for them. But these priests do now, by faith, enjoy present liberty and perfect peace in that most holy presence, though still, as to fact, sojourning and serving on earth. Israel nationally may be still beneath judicial darkness; the nominal church may be blindly, though industriously, groping amidst its own patterns of God’s shadows; but the High Priest of the good things themselves having come, faith receives from His hand its rich and living portion, and renders back its praises unto God.
But let us look at other contrasts drawn in this chapter by the Holy Ghost.
As to the way in which the holiest of all was entered on the day appointed for that solemn service, how many preliminaries had to be attended to by Aaron! First, he must himself be provided with a sin-offering and a burnt-offering, as well as take of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin-offering, and one ram for a burnt-offering. Then he had to bring the bullock which was for himself, and to make an atonement for himself and for his house. This being done, he took a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the Lord, and put the incense on it, that the cloud of the incense might cover the mercy-seat; and under the shelter, and amidst the fragrance of this, he sprinkled the blood of his sin-offering both upon and before the mercy seat. But his work did not end here. He had to go out again, and to go through the same service for the people, offering their offerings as he had his own. And when the services of that day were completed, he must go out from the holiest, and again be occupied with his ceaseless round of ineffectual offerings—the holiest of all being closed against him until another year had run its course.
(To be continued.)