The Qualifications of a Priest

Okay, grab a Bible, something to write with, we're going to get started.

We will be in Leviticus.

We'll kind of skim through what we did in chapter 6, jump into 7, and then we'll take a look at the

concept of ordination in 8 today.

That's if we don't get derailed in the questions.

6, you know, just keep a finger on 6, we'll skim through some of that because we've already done it,

just to kind of get our bearings.

Oh, yeah, that's how the Boy Scouts do it, right, yeah, yeah,

yeah.

This little light of mine, or I could always pull the pastor stunt, I'll just start praying

and everyone goes, oh, we've got to pay attention.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, we come before you in humble awe.

You are the one true God, there is none like you.

Come, we pray, and bless our hearts and our minds as we study your word.

Send your Holy Spirit into our lives that we may grow in love and grace, that we may go forth into all the world

proclaiming your gospel so that others may learn of your saving.

Grace.

Amen.

Okay, before we dive into our study in Leviticus, any questions come up as a result of

the sermon?

Little bit of a note here, I did receive a minor correction.

Garrison Keillor said that the experience of ice fishing involved, if you want to figure out what that's like,

it's like sitting on the end of your bed and looking at the carpet or the, you know, but I

apparently have created my own version of that, and it's best if we not remind everybody what I said.

So

yeah, no one will come to my house for a fish fry.

That's all I'm just saying, but those days are now in my past.

So okay, any questions?

If not, then we're going to dive into Leviticus.

If you remember last time we were in Leviticus, we've been working our way through it, we were in chapter six, and

we kept noting that it seems to be that Leviticus is not one of these linear

books, it seems to be circular, where we talk about a particular set of sacrifices

and the emphasis changes with the next iteration, same sacrifices, and then things will

change.

So we got pleasing aroma, we've got, you know, a food offering, then you had the emphasis

of they shall be forgiven, and so we're wrapping up kind of this iteration of looking at

these atoning sacrifices in the book of Leviticus, and if you remember in our pre -work in it, we

looked at the book of Hebrews to note how all of this is type and shadow pointing to our true high priest who is Christ,

and his once for all sacrifice for our sins.

And now as we're moving forward, we're going to kind of wrap up kind of like the first round of this, and we're going to see some of these

sacrifices be put into play, especially as it relates to ordination.

Now before I go anywhere, does anyone know what ordination is,

what it's really all about?

It's a powerful $6 theological term, you know, it's in the Bible.

If you were to boil it down to its simplest components, you have an office

within an institution.

Okay, let me give you an example.

Here in the United States of America, we have the President of the United States.

President of the United States is an office that is established by our constitution, and how

is one placed into that office?

Well, they're elected first, but when they're elected, they're not...

So you remember when Trump was elected, he was President Elect Trump.

When did he become President Trump?

When he was inaugurated.

So in his inauguration, he was placed into the office of the President of the United

States.

So in the Old Testament, the Levitical priesthood was an established

institution created by God for the purpose of conducting the work in the tabernacle, and all of these

sacrifices and prayers and offerings, and all of the things that went along with that, the smells and bells of the

Old Testament worship of God, if you would.

And priests couldn't just show up and start working.

They couldn't just show up and say, you know, I had the day off, you know, we got the crops out of the

field.

Maybe, you know, would you guys mind if I just kind of helped out here, you know, with the offerings and stuff like that, and

I'll go grab an ephod and, you know, we'll get.

Started.

Is that how that works?

No.

In order for somebody to be doing priestly work, they have to be

ordained.

They have to be placed into that office.

And so there were sacrifices, there were actual rituals that go along with this.

And you're going to note something here is that Moses is the one who's received the command of God, and

Moses is in what office in the Old Testament?

What's his office?

Prophet.

That's correct.

Moses is a prophet.

And you're going to see something interesting, and that is that prophets, those who are called by God, and the word of the Lord comes to

them, prophets then become the normative fellows who place people into

their offices.

So Moses is going to be tasked with the job of taking the Levites and presiding

in their ordination service.

He's the one who's going to be doing all the work and then placing them into their office.

Once they're placed into their office, they're up and running and they're ready to roll and they get to work.

Now, kings.

This is another interesting office.

So God, because the children of Israel said, we want a king, said, fine, give them what they want.

So the king, you know, the office of king was set up in the nation of Israel.

Who placed kings in their office?

Prophets.

Yeah.

Samuel the prophet placed Saul and David into the office of king, and they were anointed.

And so you note then that kings are anointed, placed in their office.

You were going to see priests, they're anointed, placed in their office.

Prophet priests, so prophets are called by God directly.

So the office of priest and king is set up there.

Then here's the last question.

Who placed Jesus into his office as Messiah?

John the Baptist.

And what was he?

He was a prophet.

He was the last of the prophets, last of the Old Testament prophets.

So you know kind of how this works.

So as we move forward, yeah, so yeah, usually the answer is Jesus, but today it's

prophet.

So I just thought I'd mix it up a little bit.

So all right, with that, let's take a quick look just to review Leviticus 6.

I'll start in verse 24.

We'll do a little skimming work here and then get into seven.

The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron, his sons saying, this is the law of the sin offering and the place

where the burnt offering is killed, shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord, Yahweh, it is most

holy.

The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it.

So we again noted the fact that the Old Testament sacrifices were intended to be consumed.

This is the same with the Passover.

This is the same.

So Passover lamb, you eat your Passover lamb, and that's a sacrifice.

Here you have a sin offering.

It's to be consumed.

The offering of the New Testament is Jesus Christ, and we

consume him when we have the Lord's Supper, you know, so what

I, Gene, you have that look on your face.

So I come around to the altar, you know, when you're at the altar and I say, take, eat, this is the true body of Christ given for

you for the forgiveness of your sins, right?

And you sit there and you say, thank you, or amen, or you start chewing.

You know, right?

And so the idea here is that in the types and shadows in the Old Testament, sin offerings are consumed.

Our sin offering is consumed as well in the Lord's Supper, all right?

So in a holy place, then it shall be eaten in the court of the tent of meeting.

Whatever touches its flesh shall be holy.

And when any of its blood is splashed on the garment, you shall wash that on which it was splashed in a holy place.

So note, whatever touches the flesh of a sacrifice is holy.

Remember in our Old Testament text today, and we talked about Isaiah, that hot burning

coal that the seraphim came with tongs, you know, coming right at the face of Isaiah,

touches his lips with it, and he's holy.

Your sins are atoned for, you're forgiven.

That's kind of the same idea.

So type and shadow, then, when the flesh and blood of

Christ touches your lips in the Lord's Supper, he's your sacrifice.

What does that make you as a result?

Holy, holy.

And consider the words in our Old Testament text today.

This has touched your lips.

Your sins are atoned for.

If that's what happened with a coal from the altar, imagine how much more so

with the actual offering itself, the actual sacrifice of the altar, which is Christ.

See, all of this points, then, to that.

Yes.

All right, so the fire is what consumes the offering, right?

It creates the pleasing aroma to the Lord.

But note, then, that while the sacrifice is being consumed, I mean,

it doesn't take much imagination.

If you've done any barbecuing, you know what happens, right?

The offering is sizzling, the grease is coming off it, you know, it's dripping onto the coals.

And so the idea, then, is the reason why that coal is holy is because parts of the sacrifice have fallen in

the consumption of the sacrifice itself on the altar.

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

And over and again, and I think this kind of fits with the kind of structure that we saw in Isaiah 6, I

made the point today that in Isaiah 6, Isaiah never describes the Lord.

Never.

We don't get any kind of visual depiction except for the train of his robe filled the temple, there was seraphim,

they were calling back and forth to each other, he was high and lifted up.

What's he look like, Isaiah?

I can't tell you, all right?

And so I kind of think that in painting terms, what do they call that?

That's negative space, right?

So if we were painting a picture, he's painting a picture in negative space.

And so you get the shape of the Lord from what's around him, but you can't really make it out.

In the same way, then, that same negative space motif comes then with the coal, because the coal

itself is not the offering on the altar, but it has been in the presence of

and touched that offering, or parts of that offering have touched it, making it holy.

And so it's still kind of working with that negative space motif of Isaiah 6.

Does that make sense?

So because you would expect he would have taken part of the sacrifice and touched his lips with it, but

instead he takes a coal, which has touched the offering itself, but the offering is not mentioned.

It's in the negative space, which that might be part of what's going on here, because Christ the

Lord, Jesus, is the offering that makes us holy.

So sometimes, you see what I'm saying?

It's a fascinating text in that sense.

So

what makes it powerful is the word of the Lord.

And you'll notice that that word of God is really sloppy.

It's like spread everywhere.

You're going to run into contact with it all over the place.

And it's kind of the idea.

But yeah, you're right.

It doesn't take much.

And what does Jesus say?

Faith of a mustard seed.

Faith of a mustard seed.

You can move a mountain.

I don't even think my faith's that big yet.

It may not be ever, right?

So I got the faith of a, well, a microscopic thing, you know, of

Whoville.

I got the faith of Whoville.

Yeah. Right.

All right.

Continuing then.

So whatever touches its flesh shall be holy.

And it is because God says it is.

And any blood that is splashed on the garment you shall wash.

And the earthenware vessel in which it is boiled shall be broken.

If it is boiled in a bronze vessel, that shall be scoured and rinsed in water.

Every male among the priests may eat of it.

It is most holy.

But no sin offering shall be eaten from which any blood is brought into the tent of meeting to make atonement for the holy

place.

It shall be burned up with fire.

Next chapter, Leviticus 7 then.

So this is the law of the guilt offering.

It is most holy.

In the place where they kill the burnt offering, they shall kill the guilt offering and its blood shall be thrown against

the sides of the altar.

And all its fat shall be offered.

The fat tail, the fat that covers the entrails, the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins

and the long lobe of the liver.

I feel like I'm getting an anatomy lesson.

Reminds me of the Moby Dick.

Have you ever read that?

You learn all about whale anatomy.

I hated that book.

Anyway, the priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering to the Lord.

It's a guilt offering.

Every male among the priests may eat of it.

It shall be eaten in a holy place.

It is most holy.

The guilt offering is just like the sin offering.

There's one law for them.

The priest who makes atonement with it shall have it.

The priest who offers any man's burnt offering shall have for himself the skin of the burnt offering that he has offered.

And every grain offering baked in the oven and all that is prepared on a pan or a griddle

shall belong to the priest who offers it.

Every grain offering mixed with oil or dry shall be shared equally among the sons of Aaron.

So you know, then, you know, sons of Aaron, they get free groceries

every time they work.

Yeah.

No, priests and their whole families.

They're taking, they're taking stuff home from work to their whole families.

Yeah.

That's in the later parts.

You'll see that there's a portion then that's saved out also for the family who, for the people who bring the offering itself.

So when this is all done, the way the picture kind of works is, is that the people offering, making the

offering are, are eating it, their whole families.

It becomes kind of a family meal.

The priests, they get portions of it.

But they're eating it.

It's a food offering.

It just, you know, we're, we're not talking about animals that are wasted in that sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Now I don't know if that's, Michael, when you were in Rome, were they doing a community in

both kinds or just one?

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

In Tincture.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, I was, I thought that, that not that long ago that Rome opened it up

so that you can have communion in both kinds.

It was Rome's practice for a long time that if you are a lay person, you get the bread,

but you don't get bread and wine.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, yeah, and, and I know that, that Rome now does allow for

both.

So, and I'm not sure what brought on that change.

You know, I'm not, I'm not much of a Rome.

Good question.

I'm trying to think.

In Rome, the last time I've been to a Roman service was my grandmother's funeral, which was

epic.

But I'm trying to remember.

Yeah, I think everybody drank from one chalice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

People, so people, some people are nervous about the idea.

So every Lutheran church I've been a part of it until here, it's always been,

you have the option of individual cups or the chalice.

You pick which one you want.

And and then, you know, so this is the first church I've been in where you only have the individual cups.

So but every other, every other church I've been a part of.

And when I first came into the Lutheran church, it was the individual cups for me.

No way that chalice was freaky.

And then I got to the point where when I kind of understood, you know, that everything you do in church kind of

confesses something.

And so and so this is kind of an important thing is, is that why does your pastor wear vestments

because he's a sinner?

You got to cover him up.

Why does he wear a stole?

Well, that harkens to the fact that he's he's yoked up into his office.

That means he's a beast of burden.

You know, I love how you throw all these things on the pastor in order to devalue him as you should.

And so everything you do confesses something.

And so the idea then is, is that biblically Christ, it's very

clear in the text that Christ took the cup and it was the cup of blessing.

It was the cup of Baruch, Barak, it's a cup of blessing and that all of the disciples drank from

the same cup.

Paul picks up on that same imagery then in First Corinthians and notes the fact that the one cup

symbolizes then the unity that we have with each other within the body of Christ.

And and so I kind of warmed up to the idea.

And so from time to time I would take the chalice, but still it kind of creeped me out, especially in cold and flu season, you know, because I,

you know, my luck, you know, it's like I'm going to be at the altar, you know, on my knees and the guy next to me is going to

be going, yeah, give me that cup, you know, you know, that, that,

yeah, yeah.

And so later, though, I, you know, the other

piece of this that I found fascinating for me was that I noticed that those who take the common cup, the

pastor has to assist.

And if you have a pastor who knows what he's doing, he's able to actually give you the blood of Christ without your assistance.

That that takes some practice, by the way.

And and so the idea then is, is that that, you know, that actually I like the thing I like about that is

it kind of symbolizes the idea that we're receiving rather than doing it, then that becomes a visible

representation of me receiving these things from Christ by grace and not by works.

And so this that's how and once I kind of embraced that idea behind it, I went chalice the whole way

until I got here.

But, you know, but so my preference personally is that, but I would never put that on anybody because it took

me years to warm up to it.

So,

right,

right,

right.

Yeah.

And I would also note that most chalices are silver, you know, which does a very good job of like, you know,

on its own killing bacteria and stuff like that.

I've never gotten sick as a result of the chalice.

I've always gotten sick from shaking people's hands and then doing this.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let me put it this way, Gene, at my grandmother's funeral, the the priest who was presiding over her

funeral mass, he did something I've never seen before.

And that is and they were they had white wine in that in that church.

It was St. Hedwig's Roman Catholic Parish in New Hyde Park, Long Island in New York.

And when it came to the mass, after he consecrated the elements, he poured himself a

whole chalice of wine.

He swirled that thing.

He sniffed it to see what kind of bouquet it had.

And I am not joking.

He went.

And then when he was done, he poured himself another class.

I am not making that up.

It was horrifying.

So and I have all members of my family.

We still talk about it to this day.

But that's a different story.

It's a different story.

OK, coming back then, Leviticus 7 .11.

So this is the law of the sacrifice of the peace offerings that one may offer to Yahweh.

If he offers it for Thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the Thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves mixed with oil,

unleavened wafers smeared with oil and loaves of fine flour well mixed with oil.

So you note then that these particular types of offerings, when it comes to grain offerings,

unleavened and leavened in scripture, not 100 percent consistently, but

oftentimes leaven is a symbol of sin.

So the idea then is, is that as you are going to the Passover season in the Old Testament, all the leavens got to come out of

your house, which means if you've been working on that sourdough sponge for a while, that's got to go.

Bummer.

Those things are hard to get going.

OK.

Huh?

The 12s.

I wish I had a whiteboard right now.

I follow the 11s have to go.

What about the 12s?

Did I hear you right?

You said you were a sinful guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

OK.

Oh, that's funny.

All right.

Unleavened wafers smeared with oil and loaves of fine flour well mixed with oil.

The sacrifice of his peace offerings.

For Thanksgiving, he shall bring his offering with loaves of leavened bread.

And from it, he shall offer one loaf from each offering as a gift to Yahweh.

It shall belong to the priest who throws the blood of the peace offering and the.

Flesh.

The sacrifice of his peace offering for the Thanksgiving for Thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering.

He shall not leave any of it until morning.

Hope you're hungry.

Come to work hungry.

Right.

If you're a priest, at least the guy who gets to actually throw the blood against the altar.

But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow offering or a free will offering, it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his

sacrifice.

And on the next day, what remains of it shall be eaten.

Now, a little bit of a note here.

Free will offering is not an offering that is for the purpose of

atoning for sins.

So the idea then is that you're making an extra sacrifice, not necessary,

but out of your own free will.

You're, you're, you're adding on top of, so you got your sin offerings has got to be taken care of.

That's.

But then the next part of it, this is just purely because this is an act of worship on your part and God allows that

God permits that.

Okay.

So it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice.

And on the next day, what remains of it shall be eaten.

But what remains of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burned with fire.

So there's a time period.

You got to eat it within a certain amount of time, which also makes sense.

There were no refrigerators back then.

So meat didn't keep for very long.

If you didn't salt it and turn it into beef jerky.

So if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering is eaten on the third day, he who offers it shall not be accepted.

Neither shall it be credited to him.

It is tainted and he who eats of it shall bear his iniquity.

So now you've got a sin that, you know, that you've committed.

Flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten.

It shall be burned up with fire.

All who are clean may eat flesh, but the person who eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of Yahweh's

peace offerings, while an uncleanness is on him, that person shall be cut off from his

people.

So you're going to note then, not only do you have to be ordained then as a priest, there are certain particular

offerings for your own sin that have to be conducted.

And there has to be certain washings, washing ceremonies for the purpose of removing

uncleanness that then are required as part of your, so you don't get to kind of show up and, you know,

your bibs all got blood on it.

You know, you see that like the butcher, you know, L &M meets like, like halfway through the day that guy comes out and says, yeah,

I've been cutting up Buffalo.

Would you like some samples?

You're going, yeah.

Right.

But you, you know, it's like, keep your distance there, dude.

You know, cause you know, he's got the blood splattered on him and so you're.

Not talking about, right.

Is it just me?

Okay.

All right.

So if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether human uncleanness or an unclean beast or any unclean detestable creature,

unfortunately lobster falls into this category.

So you can't, you can't serve as a priest and have a lobster steak dinner the night before

and, and eat some flesh from the sacrifice of the Lord's peace offering.

That person shall be cut off from his people.

So the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel saying, you shall eat no fat of

ox or sheep or goat.

The fat of an animal that dies of itself and the fat of one that is torn by beast may be put to any

other use, but on no account shall you eat it.

You can turn it into soap.

You can turn it into all kinds of different things.

You just can't consume it.

Every person.

Oh yeah.

The Israelites were not allowed to eat bacon.

Yeah.

So it's, you know, this is the reason why God had mercy on you and you were born in the new Testament era so that you can have bacon.

You would not have made it.

I couldn't have made it in the old Testament era.

This is no way, you know, bacon is like its own thing on the food pyramid.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

Okay.

All right.

No account shall you eat the fat.

Every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which a food offering may be made to the Lord shall be cut off from his

people.

Moreover, you shall eat no blood, whether a foul or of animal in any of

your places, whether whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from the people.

And yeah, you're going to get executed.

No eating blood.

That's bad.

You're going to get cut off.

There are, there's ways of coming back by the way that, you know, but, um, you're going to be cut off and you're, this is a major sin

that has to be addressed.

And so you'll note that in the old covenant, and I've made the point before that, and this is where we've seen an instance of it.

You do not eat the blood.

Why the life is in the blood.

And this is a recurring theme in scripture.

And there was one particular instance where Saul, King Saul did not obey the Lord.

And, uh, and he did, he came up with this just off the cuff, stupid thing that he

made everybody make a vow.

Have you ever worked for a boss that just made no sense?

Okay.

You guys in the Navy, we don't have to talk.

Then, you know, but you know, where your boss says, I have this idea,

let's all promise that we're going to do this thing.

And, and, and, and then you get halfway through whatever the time period of the thing you're in, you're going, why did I make this

promise?

Right.

So there was a battle where Saul made, he basically bound his men to an oath that anybody who

eats anything prior to the victory of that battle, that that

person was to be killed, right?

Just a rash vow.

And of course, who ate during the battle, but Jonathan, the son of the son of Saul.

And of course the people had to step in.

But what, as a result of that particular thing, by the end of the battle, all the guys, all the soldiers were like shaking.

They were so hungry that when they killed the animals for food, they didn't take the proper time to drain

the animals of their blood.

And so they were eating meat with blood still in it.

And, you know, even causing a greater sin and all, it was a mess.

The best way I can put it.

We do that at my house.

No, I'm kidding.

Beatings will continue until morale improves.

Yes. Yes.

It's a pirate theme, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now the Lord then spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel, saying whoever offers the sacrifice of his peace offerings to

Yahweh shall bring his offering to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offering, his

own hands shall bring the Lord's Lord's food offering.

He shall bring the fat with the breast that the breast may be waved as a wave offering to

Yahweh.

The priest shall burn the fat on the altar, but the breast shall be for Aaron and his sons and the right

thigh you shall give to the priest as a contribution from the sacrifice of your peace offerings.

And whoever among the sons of Aaron offers the blood of the peace offerings and the fat shall have the right thigh for

a portion for the breast that is waved in the thigh that is contributed.

I have taken from the people of Israel out of the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and I've given them to Aaron,

the priest and to his sons as a perpetual do from the people of Israel.

This is the portion of Aaron and of his sons from the Lord's food offerings from the day they were presented to

serve as priests of the Lord.

And the Lord commanded this to be given them to the people of Israel from the day that he anointed them.

It is a perpetual do throughout their generations.

So this is the law, the burnt offering of the grain offering of the sin offering of the guilt offering of the

ordination offering and of the peace offering, which Yahweh commanded Moses on Mount Sinai

on the day that he commanded the people of Israel to bring their offerings to the Lord Yahweh in the wilderness of Sinai.

So, you know that here we are in Leviticus.

Now we're going into chapter eight and the people of Israel are still camped at the foot of Mount Sinai.

Now, a little bit of a note, it's going to be a long time before they leave.

They were out of slavery for two years, two months and 20 days

before they left Mount Sinai.

All right.

So that was like almost the first stop, not quite.

But after their crossing of the Red Sea, that was very close.

That was very close.

After that, they get to the base of Mount Sinai.

They were there for two years.

So, you know, keep that in mind.

That's where they're still at.

So the Lord then spoke to Moses saying, take Aaron and his sons with him and the garments and the

anointing oil and the bull of the sin offering and the two rams and the basket of

unleavened bread and assemble all the congregation at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

And Moses did as Yahweh commanded him.

And the congregation was assembled at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

And Moses said to the congregation, this is the thing that Yahweh has commanded to be done.

So Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water.

Okay.

You see a little baptismal imagery here.

And so thus now is beginning the ordination of these priests.

Now, a little bit of a note in the New Covenant, we don't have any living apostles.

Prophets of the Old Testament are gone.

They've they're still continuing to teach us through the written word of God.

So in the church today, what's the office that exists within the congregation?

Pastor.

Right.

So the idea then is this, is that Kongsvinger Lutheran Church,

138 years old, right?

138 years old over that period of time has had multiple men

filling the pastoral office that exists within this congregation.

So where there is a congregation that exists, there is an office and there are men that have to be qualified

for that office.

And then you'll note then that in the pastoral epistles, it talks about how Timothy himself was

placed into the office of pastor by the laying on of hands.

All right.

So the way the ordination then works in the New Covenant is, is that a congregation where congregation exists,

a congregation can call a pastor to fill that office when that office is vacant.

So they look at the qualifications for a pastor.

They say, we want that guy.

See if he'll come.

You extend the call to him and he says, sure, I'll be your pastor.

He comes first order of business.

He's not your pastor until what?

He's installed in the door, he's ordained.

All right.

And so when I was called, first order of business was the laying on of

hands.

And that is, and you'll note then that this is a public thing.

The pastoral office in a congregation is in public.

And so you can honestly say, Roseboro just didn't show up and start being the pastor.

He was rightly called.

He was properly installed into the office with the laying on of hands.

Everybody in the community was present to see it.

And so there's no doubt in your mind.

Yeah, he's called and has been ordained into the proper office.

Right.

So I have a right call.

A retable katus is, you know, you're number 23.

So I'm, I should get a hat 23, right?

So I'm the 23rd.

Yeah.

So 23rd pastor here.

And, you know, when I'm done, probably die in the pulpit.

But when I'm done, then what will happen is, is that there'll be a vacancy within the office that exists in this

congregation.

And the present congregants will gather together and say, we need to call a man to fill the vacant office.

And that fellow will receive a call.

If he accepts the call, he comes.

First order of business is he's publicly placed into the office with the laying on of hands.

Pretty simple.

Right.

So in the New Testament era, with the death of the apostles, there are no apostles.

Prophets are of the Old Testament.

The office, the office of note then is the pastoral office.

Now, a little bit of note, church history.

There was a distinction very early on in the church.

You could do this a little easier in Greek than you can in Latin.

But the difference between presbyter and bishop, episkopos.

And so the way it worked in the ancient world, and you can see this especially in like places like

Constantinople.

There's, you know, wonderful histories that capture this idea.

The way it would work in the ancient world is that you would have churches

in a particular region.

So like if you had multiple churches in the city of Ephesus, and they did.

So there were multiple congregations in the city of Ephesus.

There would be one fellow who would be chosen by all the congregations to be the bishop.

And so the bishop had his own special congregation that he would serve at.

And then the bishop would choose the presbyters.

The bishop would choose who the pastors were of the local congregations.

And so there was some kind of parity in the sense where the congregations would group together.

They would elect a bishop and the bishop would choose the presbyters.

And so, you know, that's kind of how that worked in the ancient world.

And so this is one of the reasons why you would see, you know, you'd see things kind of structured in a way that

we've kind of lost that concept a little bit.

But in reality, technically, bishop and presbyter, episkopos and

presbyteroi are technically synonymous terms.

The difference is that a bishop would be somebody who had the authority to then place other

men into offices in local congregations.

And that's how that worked out.

And then this is one of the reasons why then in cities that were fairly large in the

ancient world, where there were multiple Christian congregations, where there were multiple churches,

certain bishops had a lot more power than others.

So and those bishops oftentimes will be called papas or popes.

So the Bishop of Ephesus, Bishop of Constantinople, Bishop of Alexandria,

Bishop of Rome, these guys were constantly fighting with each other.

Man, there was a lot of internecine stuff.

But then Islam came and wiped out a whole bunch of the competing

bishops when they were taken over by Sharia law.

And as a result of it, the balance of power shifted dramatically in favor of the Bishop of Rome.

So that's one of the reasons why he's kind of like the last man standing.

You sit there and go, why is it that everything has to come back to Peter?

Right.

You know, Rome even recognizes that there were other apostles that had the same authority that he did.

But, you know, it's just it's just crazy how this all works out.

But so in the ancient world, then, the two main offices were bishop and presbyter.

And technically, all bishops were presbyters, but all presbyters were bishops.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Okay. Just a little history lesson.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a bad thing.

Yeah, you know, technically, there has to be some kind of accountability with the congregation that they're serving.

So we live in a world where entrepreneurism is really well celebrated and

kind of, you know, established as a fact.

You've got to be careful with that, is the best way I put it.

So, you know, oftentimes the pastor who's doing that is a rogue pastor who doesn't want accountability, which is why he's doing his

own thing.

So I think about, you know, kind of the upstart, purpose driven, you know, churches with

vision casting leaders.

They're not part, you know, oftentimes they're not even part of any denomination at all.

Some fellow who is behaving narcissistically oftentimes has decided, you know,

I'm just going to go set up shop and do my own thing.

I feel like I have a vision from God to do this, so I'm going to do this thing.

That's just, no, that's not bad.

Mui malo malo.

So, and...

Yeah, remember, we got rid of the 11s.

So, yeah, that's not the best route.

And you sit there and go, but what about you Lutherans?

Because Martin Luther was excommunicated.

Yeah, he said there, yeah, that's true.

But, you know, so you kind of have to take these things.

Martin Luther did not set out to start a denomination.

That was not his intent.

And with other pastors and priests and people in Rome who were hearing the

word of God in the gospel and believing that, they would defect and take their whole congregations with them, and they kind of joined together.

So, you know, and so the very first Lutheran confederation was kind of a

ragtag group.

So, best way I can put it.

You could pray for fish.

That's funny.

Okay. Okay.

Okay, all right.

There we go.

Okay.

Back to the text.

All right, so Moses brought Aaron and his sons, washed them with water.

He put the coat on him, tied the sash around his waist, clothed them with the robe, put the ephod

on him, and tied the skillfully woven band of the ephod around him, binding it to him with the

band.

So you'll note, he washed them, he put them in their uniforms, all right?

Moses himself was the guy who clothed them in their uniforms, in their ephods.

He placed the breastplate on him.

In the breastplate, he put the urim and the thumen.

He set the turban on his head, and on the turban in front, he set the golden plate

and the holy crown as Yahweh commanded Moses.

Then Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the tabernacle and all that was in it and

consecrated them.

Now, remember what it said about this anointing oil.

Anything that touches it is holy.

Then he sprinkled some of it on the altar seven times, anointing the altar and its utensils and the

basin and its stand to consecrate them.

And he poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron's head and anointed him to consecrate him.

So what do we now know about Aaron now that this oil, this anointing oil, has touched him?

He's holy, right?

So Moses brought Aaron's sons, clothed them with coats, tied sashes around their waists, bound caps

on them as Yahweh commanded Moses.

Then he brought the bull of the sin offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the bull of the sin

offering, and he killed it.

So this is the point of, you take your sin, and the sin gets placed on the sacrificial animal.

The sacrificial animal then becomes the substitute for the sinner.

So he killed it.

Moses took the blood with his finger, put it on the horns of the altar around it, purified the altar, poured

out the blood at the base of the altar, consecrated it to make atonement for it.

He took all the fat that was on the entrails and the long lobe of the liver and the two

kidneys with their fat, and Moses burned them on the altar, but the bull and its skin and its flesh and its dung,

he burned up with the fire outside of the camp as Yahweh commanded Moses.

Now a little bit of a note here is that one of the features of

the city dump in Jerusalem in the ancient

world, it was constantly burning.

There was a constant fire going on inside of that.

Why?

Because of the requirement to burn parts of the sacrifice outside of the tabernacle facility or the

temple facility itself.

There were certain parts that God required they be burned, and so the city dump in Jerusalem,

it was always on fire.

There was always a fire burning and smoke coming up from it, and that becomes

a picture then of hell, funny enough.

Christ picks up on that imagery of that dump that's always on fire, and that becomes a part of

the imagery used to depict hell.

Kind of interesting.

So he presented the ram of the burnt offering.

Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram.

He killed it.

Moses threw the blood against the sides of the altar.

He cut the ram into pieces.

Moses burned the head and the pieces and the fat.

He washed the entrails and the legs with water.

Moses burned the whole ram on the altar.

It was a burnt offering with a pleasing aroma, a food offering to Yahweh as Yahweh commanded Moses.

Then he presented the other ram, the ram of ordination.

And Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram.

He killed it.

Moses took some of its blood, put it on the lobe of Aaron's right ear, and on the thumb of his

right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.

And then he presented Aaron's sons and Moses.

A little bit of a note here.

Ear, thumb, toe.

Huh?

Yeah, the right side.

It's a little pushing the typology a little bit, but I think about Christ.

He's on the cross.

He's pierced.

He's got a crown of thorns on his head and blood's running down.

And his hands are pierced.

And so you've got the blood there and you've got the blood on the feet.

I just can't help but think about Christ's crucifixion in one way as somehow being tied to this.

So then he presented Aaron's sons and Moses put some of the blood on the lobes of the right ears, the thumbs of the right hands, on the big

toes of the right feet.

So then Moses threw the blood against the sides of the altar.

And then he took the fat and the fat tail, and all the fat that was on the entrails, and the long lobe of the liver, and the two

kidneys, and their fat, and the right thigh, and out of the basket of unleavened bread that was

before the Lord, he took one unleavened loaf, one loaf of bread with oil, one wafer, and placed them on

the pieces of the fat and on the right thigh.

And I'm thinking sandwich here, but that's just me because it's almost lunch.

Bread and meat together?

Come on.

Tough crowd, tough crowd.

So he put all these in the hands of Aaron and the hands of his sons, waved them as a wave offering before the Lord,

and then Moses took them from their hands, burned them on the altar with the burnt offering.

This was an ordination offering with a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the Lord.

Moses took the breast, waved it for a wave offering before the Lord.

It was Moses' portion of the ram of ordination as the Lord commanded Moses.

I'm kind of glad that New Covenant ordination services are not this elaborate.

So, yes.

Facing the presence of the Lord, yeah, they're waving it.

For real.

Okay.

Let's try this.

There we go.

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

All right.

Let's see.

All right, verse 30.

Moses took some of the anointing oil and of the blood that was on the altar, sprinkled it on Aaron

and his garments, and also on his sons and his son's garments.

So he consecrated Aaron and his garments and his sons and his son's garments with them.

Moses said to Aaron and his sons, Boil the flesh at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

There eat it, and the bread that is in the basket of the ordination offerings, as I

commanded, saying, Aaron and his sons shall eat it.

I told you it was a sandwich.

Okay, okay.

Tough crowd, tough crowd.

All right.

So what remains of the flesh and the bread you shall burn up with fire.

You shall not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting for seven days until the days of your ordination are

completed.

For it will take seven days to ordain you.

As has been done today, Yahweh has commanded to be done to make atonement for you at

the entrance of the tent of meeting.

You shall remain day and night for seven days, performing what Yahweh has charged so

that you do not die.

For so I have commanded.

And Aaron and his sons did all the things that Yahweh commanded by Moses.

Seven day ordination.

Seven day ordination.

Why seven days?

What day do they begin work then?

On the eighth day.

Eighth day is new creation.

Seven days is the complete week, and oftentimes is representative of the current era that we live in.

Eighth day is the first day of the new creation.

Jesus Christ rises from the grave on the eighth day, or the first day of the next week.

So seven full days of ordination, in a sense numerically pointing to the

creation we're currently living in.

They begin work then with the sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins on the eighth day, or

the first day of the following week.

And now this is all kind of pointing to the fact that forgiveness of sins, eternal life, new

creation.

That's the symbols of it.

All right, we're going to...

Yep, we're going to stop there.

We're going to stop there.

Yes sir.

Yes sir.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The right way to think about it is all of this is...

I like the word you use, orientation.

Like when you start a new job, or you've got a new piece to your job that's added in, and you've got to learn a whole new skill

set, right?

So you were telling us about all of the regulations regarding transportation

that exist in all the big books, right?

All right.

So if you are now required at your job to pay attention to whether or not you're breaking

any laws regarding transportation, you're going to need to be trained in it.

All right?

You're going to have to know what to look for.

And so any good orientation is going to teach you basic categories to think in,

and then kind of work out some kind of a decision -making grid that you can figure out, okay, when this is happening, I need to look

here to see if this is happening, right?

In the same way, Leviticus is giving us an orientation to the New Covenant through the Old.

These sacrifices are teaching us how to think in terms that God wants us

to think.

It's training us to think of offerings as food.

It's trying to teach us that certain things that are attached to the Word of God, that these

are mysteriously able to make somebody holy.

So it's beginning to introduce us to sacramental theology to be understood, so that when Christ

shows up, you have this type of thinking in your mind, and then you see that Christ is the fulfillment of all

of it, and all of this is pointing to Jesus.

Then you're able to make those connections and not buck against how God

thinks in what He's revealed.

Yeah. Exactly.

Christ fulfilled all of this.

All right, any other questions?

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

In fact, the book of Hebrews itself is written to Jews who believed

in Christ who were missing the smells and bells

and the rites and rituals of the Old Covenant, because the New Covenant is so simplified,

you don't have any of that.

Christ is the fulfillment of it, and in the New Covenant, there's the Lord's Supper and preaching of the Word, and you

don't have to travel places, and you don't have to do all of these things, and they were kind of missing that.

And so whoever wrote the epistle of the Hebrews wrote it to them to

get them to understand that all of that was the type and shadow and the fulfillments in Christ.

You can't return to that now, now that Christ has fulfilled all of it.

That's the whole thrust of the book of Hebrews.

You'll note then, Christianity, very portable.

Very portable.

Judaism, yeah, not so much.

Not very portable at all.

It was never intended to be.

All right, we'll pick this up next week.