Priesthood - Part 2 — Ron Bailey

I was talking about priesthood and whenever you talk about priesthood you need simply because I don't know everyone who is here to be sure that we know what we're talking about, that we're using the same words in the same way.

And I'm not talking about Roman Catholic priesthood or Anglican priesthood or Greek Orthodox priesthood. Those really, and I don't mean this in an unkind way, those are really just outward imitations of people who are trying to copy something because they believe that is the way that certain things can be effected.

The Blessing Given to Aaron and His Sons

There's some there are some words in the book of Numbers. If I could turn to the book of Numbers with me, this is chapter six, and there are some people with some kind of background and if I were to say to them, let us say the blessing, almost automatically they would lock into a certain pattern of words in their minds and they would be the words that you find at the end of chapter six of Numbers.

But I want to tell you that you cannot communicate this blessing, you cannot make this blessing a reality just by saying the right words. You have to be the right kind of person. And that's one of the things I want to talk about a little bit tonight.

Numbers 6 and the Limits of Ritual Words

But this is Numbers chapter six. You'll know these words well, but I wonder whether you've ever looked at them really to kind of think through the significance of what we're being told here. This is chapter six, Numbers 22.

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and his sons. Now this blessing that God is going to give to them is uniquely given to Aaron and his sons. It isn't a blessing that anyone can just simply turn to this passage of the scripture and say, well I'll do that.

I'll say these words. These words aren't magic. This isn't a magic spell that if you say the right words you get the right results. These words only work, if that's the words, were people who had been uniquely commissioned by God.

Uniquely brought into a unique relationship with him that set them apart for a particular work and a particular function. I often think when we're looking at the scriptures, it's really so important that we ask these kind of questions.

Who is this talking about? What was the context? Can I take these words to myself? Do I fit this thing? I think I've said something like this before. If I were to invite just one of you to my birthday party, and then the person who receives the invitation drops it, and then someone decides they'll make kind of photocopies of it and distribute it all around Lanark, and you all turn up, I shall say, well what name does it say on this invitation?

Because the invitation was given to a specific purpose, and the invitation will only work if it's the right person who's presenting the invitation. Now here this is addressed not just to anybody, not even to any Israelite.

This is addressed to Aaron and his sons. You know that Aaron and his sons were the priests. There was one man, the high priest Aaron, and then there were his four sons, and those five men worked together, and they were the heart of a wonderful priestly system that God gave to his people.

Priests as Mediators of God’s Presence

A priest, like we said last night, is really an in-between man. He's a mediator. He's someone who can link two people together, two parties together, and because he's rightly related to both, he can bring the blessing of the one to the other.

If he isn't rightly related, if this connection is broken at either end, these are just words, and this is true for Aaron and his sons. If they weren't rightly related to God, these would just be words.

But if they were rightly related to God, just listen to what he goes on to say. Speak to Aaron and to his sons saying, on this wise you shall bless the children of Israel, saying to them, the Lord bless thee and keep thee.

The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. And then he says this, and they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.

This is an amazing statement. This is God saying to his people, I will, to these five men in particular, I will endorse the blessing that you pronounce. If you speak these words as my representative, if you say this thing, I will do the thing that you say.

You say it and I will do it. Isn't that what it's saying? This is an amazing statement. Remember, this is not magic. This is not a spell. This is because these five men were to be in a unique relationship with God, and as a result of that unique relationship, they would be able to speak for God.

And what they said, it was as though God was saying it. And what they promised, God would endorse it. It's an amazing promise. I know they're beautiful words. The Lord make his face shine upon them. We were saying last night, we talked a little bit about propitiation.

We talked a little bit about the way in which God has made it possible for us to have eye contact with him, so that we should no longer need to be ashamed and embarrassed because of what we have been, but we should be able to look him in the face.

And I've said that, and it's interesting, it goes right to the book of Leviticus, this little phrase all the time, in the presence of the Lord, in the presence of the Lord. Literally, it means before the face of the Lord.

It's this whole picture, and these people, these priests, who lived and worked and spent their lives in the presence of the Lord, these people were now able to pronounce this blessing which has to do with the presence of the Lord.

Only the people who have been in the presence of the Lord are able to communicate the presence of the Lord. It's not because they've got the right titles or labels, or because they can produce the right word.

It's not because they've got the right doctrine, or the right tone of voice. It's because they're rightly related. Look what it says here. The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee.

The Lord lift up his face upon thee, and give thee peace. I've wondered for a long time whether Paul's little greeting that he gives, in fact, not just Paul, I think all of the New Testament letter writers, that they give at the beginning of our letters, aren't almost a shortened version of this.

You remember how Paul always says, and Peter always says, grace and peace to you. These priests said, the Lord be gracious to you, the Lord give thee peace. It's this double blessing, this twin blessing that comes from people who are rightly related with God, and it's this amazing thing.

They shall cut my name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them. Let me go back a little bit and show you something about Abraham. We're going back to sort of quite basic things, but I'm using, perhaps, Bible pictures that we don't usually use to say these things.

Abraham’s Revelation of Jehovah

Come back with me to the story of Abraham. In Genesis chapter 12, Genesis chapter 12 is the beginning of the story of Abraham, and the way that God called him, and drew him to himself, and made a pilgrim of him, so for the rest of his life Abraham was on the move.

It's good to be pilgrims, and not just settle down to things. It's very, very easy, you know, for a monument to settle down, and suddenly become a movement to settle down, become a monument, and that's the epitaph.

God was here, but this is Abraham. He's on the move. He's always on the move. In chapter 12 and verse 7, it says this, it's talking about Abraham actually being at a place called Shechem, and the Lord appeared to Abraham and said unto thy seed will I give this land, and there he builded an altar for the Lord who appeared to him.

The Lord. This is the word Jehovah. This is the proper name of God. God revealed himself to Abraham. God appeared to Abraham. This is really important for us to understand, that you can only really have faith in the God who has appeared to you, and the God who has revealed himself to you.

This is not textualism. This is not believing the right Bible words, and being able to produce the right theology. This is people who have had a revelation of God. Now have you had, have I had, a revelation of God?

I don't even mean can I put all the truth together and produce an evangelical consensus of some sort. What I'm saying is, am I conscious that I know something about God, that I know something about the person of God, the character of God, that I know because he has revealed himself to me?

Not because other people have told me about him, but because I've read wonderful things or heard wonderful sermons. It may have been through the reading or through the sermons that God revealed himself to me.

But what I'm really saying is, have I had, have you had, have we had an encounter with God? Have we had an encounter with God? Have we met him? Has God appeared to us? God appeared to Abraham and he never recovered from it.

And if God appears to us, if God reveals himself to us, if we see something true of God, if we see it in our spirit, if God opens the eyes of our spirit, that was always Paul's prayer. Always his prayer.

He was praying for revelation, that the saints would have it revealed to them, just who God was and what God was doing. Now Abraham had a revelation of God and this revelation of God was summed up in this name, Jehovah.

The Name of the Beloved in the Song of Solomon

How can I associate that to you? And we're going from a tangent to a tangent here, so I'm not even started on what I wanted to say. I'm getting farther and farther away from my beginning and I haven't even started yet.

Turn with me, we'll come back to Genesis. Turn with me to the Song of Solomon. This is Psalm, Song of Solomon, chapter one. You know how this begins, it's a wonderful passage of scripture. The song of songs which is Solomon's let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for thy love is better than wine.

And then it says this, because of the sweet smell of thy good ointment, thy name is as ointment poured forth. Now we sing this, but do we understand what we're singing? What is this verse saying? Because of the sweet smell of thy ointment, thy good ointment, thy name is as ointment poured forth.

I'll tell you what it's saying. What has happened here with this young woman who is singing about the beloved, who we're calling Solomon just to kind of keep it nice and easy, what's happened is that the scent of Solomon has become so identified with the name of Solomon that they're no longer separable.

So that when she sees Solomon, when she smells the scent, she knows that it's her beloved. And when she speaks the name of Solomon, it's almost as though it provokes within her the scent. Do you know what I mean by that?

Scent is a very powerful, evocative kind of memory arouser. In all kinds of ways I can remember when I used to go down to the South Pole fairly frequently, and that's their industrial area. And it is pretty industrialized.

And when you're down there, the air is pretty thick with kind of coal smoke and sulfurous fumes that are coming from the various chemical processes that are going around. And when I was there, the brothers were always apologizing to me and saying, we're really very sorry that it's like this.

We're sorry, but it's just like this. And I said, please don't apologize. This is wonderful. I grew up with this, because I come from smoke on stench, you see, this place that was famous in the 40s for being one of the most polluted parts of the world.

And I would walk to school and have this wonderful kind of burning in my lungs. It was like a fisherman's friend all the time on the inside. And of course it brought back to me, just every breath I breathed, it brought back to me wonderful kind of pictures and emotions and memories of childhood, and it was wonderful.

Well, the name of Solomon evoked in this woman a sweet scent. And the sweet scent evoked the name of Solomon. So, you said the name Solomon, and you got the sweet scent. Maybe it shocks you still when someone speaks of Jesus and uses his name as a curse word or something like that.

They have no idea who he is. You see, the name Jesus has no sweet smell for them. It has no ointments. They have no experience of it. It's just a name, like any other name, and there's no special significance.

But how sweet the name of Jesus sounds to the believer, do you? It's not a game, because there's anything magic about his name. I don't want to stumble you, but you know his name wasn't Jesus. It was Joshua.

Now, I'm not saying everyone switched to Joshua. That's not the point. You can't do it, in fact, because Joshua would not have the connotations now in your mind that Jesus would. The name Joshua would not evoke the sweet memories of God's goodness to you in the way that Jesus does.

It's an amazing thing. There's an old story told about Paget Wilkes, you know, the missionary to Japan. And at one point he was living in London, and some Japanese visitors came to see him, and they stepped into his hall, and they said, you've had a member of the Japanese royal family here.

And Paget Wilkes said, well, how do you know? And they said, well, there are unique ointments that only members of the royal family are allowed to use. And when I stepped into your hall, I smelled them.

And they were absolutely right. He had a member of the Japanese royal family there. There are unique scents to the name of Jesus. For the Christian, you just breathe the name, and it's saviour. It's a prayer.

Just the word. I hope you don't kind of just use it as a fill-in in the gas, but that whenever you say the word Jesus, you say it thoughtfully and with your heart open to bring back to your memory all these sweet smells, all these sweet scents that are part of who he is.

Calling on the Name of the Revealed God

Now, God revealed himself to Abraham and gave himself this name of Jehovah, by which Abraham knew him, and later on the people of Israel knew him in an even greater measure in some way as a result of that name.

The consequence was that when you said Jehovah, you knew exactly who you were talking about. It had all these memories locked into it. Are you following me with this? You know how places can have memories locked into them?

You know, maybe I say the Loch Lomond or something, and that was your honeymoon, and it's not just a place on the map, on the A, whatever it is. It's a whole vista of memories and pictures that flow through your mind.

Now, God was beginning to build up a picture of himself, and a characterization of himself that was all captured in this word Jehovah. And he reveals himself to Abraham, I've gone back to Genesis chapter 12 now, he reveals himself to Abraham as Jehovah in verse 7.

You know this word Lord, whenever you get it in capital letters, it really means just the word Jehovah. There he built an altar to the Lord who appeared to him. You cannot sacrifice to someone that you haven't met.

You can't get people to give themselves to an idea, a concept. It's only the one who has seen him who can ever surrender to him. And here's Moses. He's seen him, he builds his altar, which is a kind of a picture of his own givenness to God, and then it says in verse 8, and he removed from thence to a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Hai on the east, and there he built an altar unto the Lord, to Jehovah.

This God who has revealed himself, Abraham now built an altar to this God, and then it says this, and he called upon the name of the Lord. And the scripture says that those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Abraham isn't just praying a prayer, he's not going through some ritual, he is reaching out to a God who has revealed himself to Abraham. This process began with God's initiative. God appeared to Abraham.

It wasn't Abraham that discovered God, it was God who revealed himself to Abraham. But God having revealed himself to Abraham, now Abraham begins to know who this Jehovah God is. And when he's in this particular circumstance, he calls not just on God, he calls on the God who's appeared to him, the God he's begun to know.

Why am I saying all this? Well, sometimes I think we are too quick to get people to a place of decision. I think we try to get people to put their trust in someone they've never met, and someone of whom they have no revelation, they have no idea who he is, they've just been told that if they do this and this, they won't get to hell, and there's no promise in the book anywhere that such a thing will actually save people.

What the book does say is those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Those who have had the beginning of a revelation as to who God is, and then who are beginning to know who God is, reach out to him at the time of their need.

These are the ones who are saved. Not the ones who pray a vague prayer up into the ether to see where it lands, but those who pray to the God that's revealed himself to them. Now this whole idea of, go back with me now to Numbers chapter 6, this whole idea of God revealing himself in his name is key right through the scripture.

Jesus Reveals the Father’s Name

Maybe you remember when the Lord Jesus prayed in John chapter 17, he said, I've revealed to them your name, and it goes on, he says, now I will reveal it more to them. He is constantly unveiling what God is like to us, and each time we see him in a new aspect, it's never so that we should be better educators, it's never so that we can be better theologians, it's always so that we can call upon him.

If you see some aspects of Jesus that you've never seen before, it's because God is encouraging you to call upon the name of the one that you've just seen. So if you see that he is the one who can save you from all sin, not because the verse says it, but because the truth is revealed to your heart, that's your moment, that's your day of salvation.

That's when you call upon the Lord with all of your heart and he'll do it. If you see him as the one who will sustain you, the one who will deliver you, whatever it is, if you see him as that one, call on him.

Those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. There's no promise for those who pray the sinner's prayer, or come to the front of the meeting, or put their hand up, or sign a decision form, or make a commitment, or join a church.

No promise is for any of those. But there's a promise of life for those who call upon the name of the Lord. I like the word call. There's energy in it. There's desperation in it. This isn't a pretty prayer.

This isn't something carefully planned and then spoken out in some beautiful cathedral so that everyone can say, isn't the English language wonderful? This is the cry of a man's heart who finds himself in a situation of desperation and he calls out.

I guess one of the most kind of profound prayers in the Bible is that one of Peter when he's sinking beneath the waters and he says, Lord save me. There's not much pretty language in that. There are no F's and Shouts and will to thou's and all the rest of it.

There's desperation. Lord save me. This is the call as we call upon God. As we call from our extremity into his provision to rebuild himself to us. God will do it. But he'll only do what he's shown us he will do.

And so it's not a question if you're kind of working through a list of Bible verses and ticking little boxes, I pray for that, pray for that, pray for that, pray for that. It will have to be as God reveals himself.

And in that moment of the revelation you can call upon him. Let me say the same thing in a different way. You know when Peter writes he speaks about the revelation of Jesus Christ and he speaks about grace that will come to us in the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Now I know he's talking about the second coming. But I don't think he's only talking about the second coming. I think there's grace that comes to us in every revelation of Jesus Christ. Whenever we see him, that's who he is and what he's reaching out his arms to do for us.

Whenever we see him there is built-in grace so that we can reach out and receive what God has for us. But let's get back to these priests and look what it says here. In Numbers chapter 6 he says, verse 24, The Lord bless thee and keep thee.

The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious. The Lord lift up his face upon thee and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel and I will bless them. I don't know whether this captures you in the way it captures me but I this is just an amazing thing that how often these men chose to say these words.

Moses Pleads for God’s Presence

God would bless them. If these men are rightly commissioned and stand in right relationship with God and speak the words that God has given them to speak, it will convey a blessing. Not just a nice feeling, it will convey a blessing which is the presence of God himself.

It will put my name upon these people. What does that mean, putting his name on them? Well have you ever had something that was perhaps given to you and you think oh that's nice but it could be mistaken for the one that my brother's got or my sister's got so you put your name on it.

And putting your name on it says this is mine. Keep your hands off, this is mine. This is the people of Israel, these are the priests and they're putting the name of God upon his people. This is God through the word of the priests, this is God through his servants who are rightly related with him, identifying himself with these people and saying this is mine.

These are mine, these are my people, these people will be blessed. These people will have the blessing of my presence, of my face. Do you remember the story of Moses as they were coming out of Egypt and beginning to kind of move through the land and there was this time when they had sinned against God yet again and Moses pleads with God to forgive them and God says well I'll take them to the land, I'll send an angel before them, I'll fulfill all the promises I've given to them but I'm not coming.

Do you remember this? God says I'm not coming with you unless I consume you. I'm going to send an angel with you and Moses and the people are horror stricken. They kind of take off their ornaments, they go through all the acted out ceremony of mourning, grieving, they're going to lose God's presence and Moses sets himself to seek God and he pleads with God and the pattern of his prayer is this and he says Lord he says acknowledge, recognize that these are your people, these are the people that you've put your name on.

They're not waifs and strays, they're not a caste, they're yours. This is the only thing that gives them significance and he pleads with God and God says all right I'll come with you and then Moses makes this extraordinary statement and to me I love him to bits for it.

He says, I'm putting into my words, he says God if you don't come with us leave us here, there's no point. These people have come out of bondage and slavery, they're now in the midst of a desert land that has nothing at all to offer them and up ahead of them is a wonderful land that flows with milk and honey and it's everything they've ever wanted and God's promised them that he will give them continual victory, he'll put the land into their hands and they'll have more than they could ever dreamed of and Moses says if you're not going I don't want to go.

I don't want the blessings, I don't want the milk and the honey, I don't want the prominent land, I don't want the victory, I don't want any of those things. If you're not going leave us here and then Moses says this, he says what is it that distinguishes us from all the other people of the earth?

He's a question for us. You know as we kind of look at our identity sometimes as fellowships or as churches, what's our answer to that? What is it that identifies us, distinguishes us from all the other people of the earth?

I'm not going to answer that question, I'm going to answer this question instead. What is it that distinguishes God's people, God's presence? Not his blessings, not his promises, not his miracles, that's what distinguishes these people and God gave to these priests the power to speak words in his name that would bring the consciousness of his presence upon his people so that the people would know that they weren't orphans, they were gods, that God had put his name on them, that God had blessed them.

Consecration of the Priests in Leviticus 8

Now would you like to have a power like that? Would you like to have the kind of power that whenever you speak, God does the thing that you say? Where God builds in this absolute guarantee, you say it and I'll do it, says God.

That's what he's saying here to these priests. You say it and I'll do it. You pronounce the blessing, I'll bless them. Would you like to be like that? Well, there is a way. Turn back with me, we'll just spend a, maybe not too long a time, but come to Leviticus and chapter 8.

I know some people who when they get to Leviticus in their daily readings breathe out a big sigh. I say, wow, wonderful, here we are again. This is a wonderful passage of scripture. You've probably heard me say this before.

I sometimes think that we have three testaments. We have an Old Testament and we have a New Testament. And we have an Old Testament read in the light of the New Testament. An Old Testament interpreted to us by the truth that God has revealed in the New.

And that is a most thrilling book. And here what you've got in chapter 8 of Leviticus is the consecration of the priests. You've got the time when five men were changed forever. Up until this time they were no different from anybody else.

They were people who had families and responsibilities and a few chickens and a, I was going to say a pig, but they would have had a pig, and a few sheep or whatever it was. They would have been indistinguishable from anybody else.

But as a result of what happened in this chapter, they were changed forever. There's a symbolism of it in the fact that when this consecration ceremony had taken place, these five people were then required to remain in the presence of God for seven days.

Now, seven in the Bible is a picture of completeness. It's really a picture of saying, these people no longer have any life of their own. They have no rights of their own. They have no responsibility of their own.

From this time on, these are my people. I expect to be able to have them at my beck and call any moment of any day. They are mine continually. They are here 24 by 7, as we say now in our modern generation.

They are available to God. Do you remember that there was a kind of a tragedy that took place very soon in the midst of all this, when two of Aaron's sons died as a result of their presumption? And Aaron wasn't allowed to mourn because Aaron had another responsibility.

He was God's servant now. His prime thing was that he was no longer his own man, no longer in the world, no longer of the world. The only thing that mattered to him now was that he had to remain in the presence of God so that he could be available to God.

It's a very powerful picture. Let me just go through one or two things. We need to blend pictures together in this. This consecration of the priest, this thing that makes people priests, is effected by, and you can run ahead of me now and see where I'm going, is effected by the mediator of the old covenant.

Now I call them that particularly, purposefully, so that you'll begin to think about the mediator of the new covenant. Because the mediator of the new covenant makes men and women priests in the same way that the mediator of the old covenant did it.

In fact, this old covenant consecration of the priests with its mediator Moses is a picture, it's a type, it's a shadow of the true priesthood. God said to his people of Egypt, when he brought them out of Egypt, you are going to be to me a kingdom of priests.

But they were going to be quite different to any other nation. In any other nation you take a select group of people and that select group of people are your priests. But this whole nation were going to be priests.

This whole nation were going to be mediators. This whole nation were going to be people who would be able to link with God with one hand and the world with the other hand and bring the word of God to the world.

They were to reveal the nature, the purpose of God. They were intended to be able to speak the blessing of God. When God took the people of Abraham, and Abraham himself, he said to Abraham that he would bless Abraham.

And he also said to Abraham, and Abraham, be thou a blessing. Abraham was to be a blessing as a result of having been blessed. And you and I are to be a blessing as a result of having been blessed. As a result of being in the right relationship.

Let me just show you one or two things. We won't go into all of it and it doesn't matter whether you understand all of it or not. I hope it will provoke you to read it. This is Leviticus chapter 8. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, and the anointing oil, and a bollock for a set offering, and two rams, and a basket of unleavened bread.

And gather thou all the congregation together to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Moses did as the Lord commanded him. And the assembly was gathered together to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

And Moses said to the congregation, This is a thing which the Lord commanded to be done. And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water. If you're going to be a priest, you're going to have to allow the mediator of the new covenant to bring you to water and strip you of everything that you have tried to cover your sin with and let him wash you.

The Laver of Regeneration and Salvation

In the tabernacle of old, there was only one source of water. It was a thing called the laver. It was like an artificial pool available so that people could be thoroughly washed in this thing. What happens here is that Moses brings Aaron and his sons.

He brings them to this place, and he washes them. Now, this is a thorough washing. I used to say when my youngsters were younger, only teenagers can kind of wash with all their clothes on. Not teenage boys, not even girls can do it, but boys can do it.

But this washing is a strong implication that obviously these people were stripped of all that they had upon them, and they were washed. That can be a very embarrassing experience. We have to allow God to deal with us.

We have to allow him to peel off the layers of things that we put around ourselves to hide ourselves from him. We have to be honest with him. Everything is open and open with the one with whom we have to do as the writer of Hebrews says.

We have to be and allow him to do what he will. He won't abuse us. He won't be unkind, but he will deal thoroughly, and he'll bring us to this laver of regeneration. Why do I call it that? Well, that's what Paul calls it when he writes to Titus.

He talks about salvation, and he says that salvation is effected by the laver of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit which is poured out to us by the Holy Ghost. Keep that picture in your mind.

Let me turn you to it. We'll come back to Leviticus in a moment. Turn to Titus and see how the Lord, he is speaking through Paul, describes salvation. I don't know whether this is the way you would describe salvation, but this is the way Paul does it.

It's a lovely passage. It begins here. I'll read chapter 3, and I'll read from verse 5. After that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man has appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, Titus chapter 3 and verse 5, according to his mercy he saved us.

Is that what you put? He saved us. He was merciful because he saved us. Now he's going to tell us how he saved us. He saved us by the laver of regeneration, that's what it really says, and renewing of the Holy Spirit which he has poured on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So, apparently, in order to have, what shall we call it, full salvation, you have to have this entire work worked out in your heart, in your life. You have to be brought to the laver of regeneration and have all the old stripped away and be completely washed, and then you have to be renewed in the power of the Holy Spirit who is poured out from us, it says here, through Jesus Christ our Lord.