Ex. 32:1-6; 1 Ki. 12:25-33, Transition Between Covenants (2)

We did a survey in short order of worship in the world before Mt. Sinai.  I want to add one thought, concerning a priest named Melchizedek.  He was “the priest of God Most High” (Gen. 14:18).  In other words, he/He (some think Melchizedek was a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ) only worshiped and offered sacrifices to the true God.  This is what Jethro came to see and believe in Ex. 18.  YAHWEH, the God of Israel, is also known in the Bible as “God Most High.”  Jethro said, “Now I know that YAHWEH is greater than all gods” (18:11).  Therefore, on the spot, he did what he did as an occupation: he conducted a worship service attended by “Aaron … with all the elders of Israel” (18:12).

After Exodus 28:1, what Jethro did would have been false worship.  “Now take Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, that he may minister to Me as priest.”  The old way was: every man was a priest for his own household.  The new way was: the only priests in the worship of YAHWEH were Aaron and his descendants.  Furthermore, the old way was: when you want to worship YAHWEH, build an altar somewhere.  But effective Exodus 40, when the tabernacle was put together, the new way was: YAHWEH will dwell over the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle; so the only altar for sacrifice is the one just outside the door of the tabernacle.

All this makes sense out of the first two of the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before Me.  You shall not make for yourself a carved image” (Ex. 20:3-4).  Every nation had their gods.  But God, the Creator and the God who promised to provide an adequate atonement for sin, had determined to attach Himself to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac AND Jacob.  Worship was now exclusive.  All other gods and altars and religions were idolatrous.

Wow!  What a change.  But we started this discussion talking about “transition.”  So, in case you missed it, there was a transition from the old to the new at Mt. Sinai, even as there was after the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).  Did you know that Moses served as “priest” for the people of Israel after they left Egypt?  He chose some young men of Israel to do the hard work (what would become the work of the Levites), and then Moses sprinkled “the blood of the covenant” on the altar of sacrifice that would eventually be used by Aaron (Ex. 24:5-8).  And there’s more.  Moses also put his own tent at the outskirts of the camp of Israel and called it “the tabernacle of meeting” and that was where he met with God (Ex. 33:7-11).  These were “transitional” but were not permanent because God had another plan.

Now, think about the golden calf (Ex. 32:1-6).  What happened?  The people, and apparently even Aaron, began to question God, and reverted to the old way.  They designated a god and offered sacrifices.  And there’s no time to go into this, but if you read about Jeroboam establishing the religion of the Northern Kingdom, he did the same thing: he reverted to the gold calves and even established a feast to rival the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem (1 Kings 12:25-33). 

There is a simple principle here having to do with interpretation of Scripture.  We learn doctrine from passages that teach doctrine, not from passages that tell stories.  It really is simple.  Just because something happened, and seemed to have God’s blessing (young men serving as priests and Moses meeting with God in his own tent; some, but not all believers, receiving the Spirit by the laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, etc.), does not make it the norm for God’s people.  The “norm” is laid out clearly by Moses who met with God on the Mountain in the Old Testament and the Apostles of Christ in the New Testament.  “Be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior” (2 Peter 3:2).

Exodus 18:1-12, Transition Between Covenants (1)

The “Acts of the Apostles” is a book of transition.  There are things in Acts not necessarily meant to be “normal” for the Church.  In my view, the miraculous signs (including speaking in tongues) are part of that transition.  Maybe that makes me a “cessationist,” although I’m not sure what that entails.  You can agree or disagree, but for now, I’m interested in the idea of “transition.” 

Did you know that there was a “transition” into the Old Covenant (the Mosaic Law) from the way God was worshiped prior to that time?  What we call “religion” began in Gen. 4 with Cain and Abel.  By “religion” we mean the way a person approaches God.  By “God” we mean: 1) the Creator of all, including people; and 2) the One who provides an adequate Savior to make atonement from our sins against the Creator.  That was “God” for Cain and Abel, who were seeking to atone for their sins.  They came to God, the Creator, because He had promised to provide an adequate Savior (Gen. 3:15).  And they were doing what made sense: when you come to God don’t come emptyhanded; come with gifts so as to give Him thanks.

It turned out that God required the worshiper to come with a blood sacrifice, something which Abel had done and Cain refused to do.  Thus, as we said, religion had it’s beginning.  From that time on, religion involved building altars, bringing live animals, killing the animals and thereby, worshiping God.  Not only did Abel do this.  Noah did it (Gen. 8:20), Abraham (12:7,8 and several other times), Jacob (Gen. 35:1) and Job (Job 1:5) did it.  And finally, Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, also called “the priest of Midian” (Ex. 18:1), offered burnt offerings to the LORD (Ex. 18:11-12).  Be sure you note as well: in all these situations the men who built the altars also acted as priests.  A man was priest for his family and household.

Meanwhile, and the Bible doesn’t say much about this, people all over the earth were doing the same thing: building altars and offering blood sacrifices.  They were not necessarily worshiping YAHWEH.  Egypt had a religion, and it involved blood sacrifices.  But it also revolved around the Pharaoh.  And there was a class of priests who oversaw the religion (Gen. 47:22).  There was something similar in all religions because they all had their start in Gen. 4 (Cain and Abel) when both religion and religious persecution had its start.

Did you pay attention to Jethro’s words today?  “Now I know that the LORD (YAHWEH) is greater than all the gods” (18:11).  Each of the Ten Plagues in Egypt were an attack on gods of Egypt.  Moses had just told Jethro all that YAHWEH had done in delivering them, and Jethro, being a priest, sees the “theology” in it all.  Surely, Jethro had offered sacrifices to other gods, for himself and for others.  Remember: Abraham (at least while he was in his father’s house) had worshiped false gods before he came to know the true God (Josh 24:2).  What today’s passage reveals is the “coming to Christ” of Jethro.  More on this in the next post.

1 Jn. 4:12-19; Eph. 3:14-19, Similar Truth in Different Words

(We are traveling.  I had intended to continue and complete our studies in John 12.  However,  I have had some issues with the laptop and have been unable to resolve them.  Thus, I am going to post on various topics until the first of next week.  Thanks.)

When recently working through 1 John I remember thinking sometimes: John and Paul don’t seem to speak the same language.  Their letters don’t sound alike.  Shouldn’t they, since they are Apostles of the same Lord and Gospel?  But as I continued my studies, I came to realize: they were both on the same page!  To show what I mean, here are a few comparisons of 1 John and Paul’s epistles for you to think about and on which you can meditate.  The Bible, with all the different human authors, is such a powerful and consistent message!  It is the Word of One God.

JOHN	NOTES	PAUL
”abide” meno 1 Jn. 2:24	Paul sometimes uses meno but he also uses katecho, as does the writer of Hebrews (3:6).  Both mean to continue something already begun.  Both refer to the “present” tense of salvation; having been saved (past), I am being saved day by day as I continue to believe in Christ.	“hold fast” Katecho 1 Co. 15:2
1 Jn. 3:1-3	The Spirit/Anointing reminds us that we are sons of God, having been born of God.  This explains our ability to have deep fellowship with God.	Ro. 8:4-17
1 Jn. 4:1-6	One says “greater is He that is in you” and the other “if God be for us …”	Rom. 8:31
1 Jn. 4:7-11	Both passages speak of the greatness of God’s love, as seen in the work of Christ and its eternal benefits to the believer.  God’s love abides (remains).  Nothing can separate us from God’s love.	Rom. 8:32-39
1 Jn. 4:12-19	(v12) Both address unity of believers (v14-15) (v13) Both see need of the Spirit’s work (v16) (v14-15) Christ at home in the believer (v17a) (v16-18) Love must be perfected (v17b-19a) (v19) Joyful fellowship with God (v19b)	Ep. 3:14-19

The point, of course, is that there is a consistency with the Apostles.  Even though they come at a topic from their own, Spirit-led position, the NT is clear and there is no contradiction: our salvation must be worked out day to day, and it is done in the same way that we first came to Christ.  We must continue to have a "gospel focus," with our eyes set upon Jesus.  In this way, we are being transformed into the image of Christ.

John 12:12-19, Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem

The story of the “Triumphal Entry” is recorded in all four Gospels.  Here is a “timeline,” harmonizing the accounts.  While all saw the same event, they described the ongoing reactions of the crowd in different order.

·       It happened on the day following Jesus’ anointing by Mary in Bethany.

·       As they came from Bethany, climbing over the southern end of the Mt. of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples to Bethphage, further north on top of the mount, to get a donkey and it’s colt.

·       The disciples threw their outer garments on both animals.  Jesus rode on the colt, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9.

·       People accompanying them from Bethany spread garments and palm branches on the road (Lev. 23:40, a symbol of joy).  It’s a few days before Passover, by which time the city of 65-70,000 would grow to a million or more.

·       Meanwhile, pilgrims inside the city went out to meet the procession (12:18).

·       Enthusiasm mounted as people shouted joyfully (12:13, from Ps. 118:25-26, a Psalm the Jews recognized as Messianic as announcing the glorious day of the ascension of the Messianic King (118:24).

·       Another source for the crowd involved the large number who had witnessed the raising of Lazarus.  They were giving testimony to what they had seen (12:17).

·       The envious Pharisees appealed to Jesus to rebuke the crowd (Lk. 19:39-40).

·       Having crossed the Kidron Valley Jesus ascended up toward the city gate and wept over the city, knowing that the crowd did not realize what was being offered to them (Lk. 19:41-44).

·       Upon entering the city, many in the crowd were asking who He was.  The answer was, “the prophet, Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee” (Mt. 21:10-11).

·       Having arrived at the temple, Jesus cleansed the temple and healed the sick, again resulting in shouts of praise, including from children whom Jesus saw to be a fulfillment of Psalm 8:2 (Mt. 21:12-16).

·       The result of all this was greater resignation on the part of the Pharisees, that they were getting nowhere in their opposition to Jesus (Jn. 12:19).

·       At evening, Jesus and the Twelve returned to Bethany (Mt. 21:17).

·       The Twelve did not understand the full significance of all this until after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension (Jn. 12:16).

Jesus made a credible offer of Himself as King to Israel, fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament.  The crowd had the right words.  But what was missing was what John the Baptist had said in his ministry: receiving Christ as King requires a heart of repentance.  By the day of crucifixion, it was evident that many in this crowd were not ready to receive Jesus in that way.