In discussing the role of High Priest, we could perhaps
take a brief detour to discuss something of the role of the altar; in
particular what we might term altar
etiquette. A passage which reveals the
insufficiency of our own altars and also how we should approach the altar at
which the superior High Priest ministers, is described for us:
“And the LORD said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the people of
Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from
heaven. You
shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves
gods of gold. An altar of earth you shall make for me and
sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and
your oxen. In every place where I cause
my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. If you make
me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield
your tool on it you profane it. And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that
your nakedness be not exposed on it.” (Ex.20:22-26)
(I am indebted to some of these themes from R. Kendall
Soulen’s book, “The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity”[1])
Everything begins with the revelation, as we saw in the
Prologue to the letter of the Hebrews, that God has spoken - “I have
talked with you from heaven”. That
statement demands our attention. We must
listen to what follows!
No idols. God is unique and must be held so. There must be nothing of our self-creation or
our own design; we must put nothing alongside
God, whether family, career, personal time, finances, or anything else. Those things that we put alongside in reality
are the real gods in our lives. To put
anything alongside Him will eventually lead us toward apostasy.
No dressed
stones. God is present with us, so we bring nothing
of self-making, nothing added to God;
none of our own works. Oh and how easily
we think that we can offer something better, sometimes even thinking we are a
new-and-improved Jesus-model! We try our
best to impress, when we should do our best because we are impressed!
No nakedness. We ought not to reveal our shame on
the altar as it is the place where
God blesses us. We must not bring
anything of self-revelation; nothing against
God. The hiding of genitalia became a
sign of shame for Adam (and mankind) in his sin as he realised he and the woman
were naked (Adam didn’t say, "God I disobeyed", but, "God I'm
naked"!). It became a picture of
that which alienated Man from God, and at the altar God does not want our shame
to be the focus, because as High Priest Jesus has purified us from our sin.
[1] Soulen, R. K. “The Divine Name(s)
and the Holy Trinity: Distinguishing the Voices, Vol.1”, (WJK, 2011)
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