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Welcome to 5 -Minute Bible, your daily guide for your daily reading. Today's February the 8th and we'll be looking at Exodus 28 through 29.
Now today's reading shifts the focus from sacred space to sacred servants. Exodus 28 through 29 explains how sinful people may survive serving a holy
God. The tabernacle has been built, but furniture alone can't solve the problem of sin.
Somebody has to stand between God and the people as a mediator. Someone must enter
God's presence carrying the guilt and the names and the blood of the people. God doesn't invite volunteers for this role.
He actually appoints a group of people called priests. And He clothes them very carefully and He consecrates them through sacrifice because approaching
Him is never safe without a mediator. In Exodus 28,
God describes with incredible detail what the high priest is supposed to wear when he enters into the presence of God.
These garments are not ornamental. They're survival gear. The ephod and the breastpiece carry the names of Israel's tribes and they're engraved in stone so that the priest doesn't appear before God as a private individual.
He's actually bearing on his shoulders the names of the 12 tribes of Israel on his shoulders and over his heart so that if he's accepted, they're accepted.
If he's rejected, they're rejected. He bears his brothers into the presence of God.
The robe that he wears and the turban that dons his head all reinforce the danger. The bells announce the priest's movement inside of the holy place because silence would mean he had died.
The golden plate that was on his forehead reads, declaring that only consecrated life could stand before God.
Every detail of his outfit teaches Israel the same lesson that God's presence is glorious but it's also lethal to those who are unprepared.
Now Exodus 29 then explains how man can become a priest at all. The answer is blood and sacrifice and time.
Animals are killed. Blood is applied to his ears, to his hands, and to his feet.
The priest must be cleansed to hear God and to serve God and to walk before God and this process takes days, not just moments.
God is forming mediators who understand the depth of the cost of standing before his holiness with their sin.
And the chapter ends with God's promise that he will dwell among his people and that he will be their
God, but only through a holy priesthood that he has established.
Now, as you read today, I want you to ask the following question. Why does access to God require a mediator instead of sincerity alone?
Well Exodus 28 -29 answers that plainly. Because holiness must be carried, it can never be assumed.
You see, the central pattern in Exodus 28 -29 is representation under danger.
The priest stands where the people can't. He bears their names, he bears their guilt, he bears their responsibility into God's holy presence.
Nothing about the role is casual or even heroic. It's heavy, it's risky, it's costly, it's bloody.
Because blood always comes first and glory always covers human vulnerability.
And all of this speaks into our world today. We often believe that good intentions or authenticity or emotional vulnerability are somehow enough in order to satisfy
God. I did my best, we think, and maybe God will be happy. Well Exodus dismantles that assumption.
God is not enthused with our authenticity. He is approached through a mediator who he appoints to stand between us and God.
And if that mediator is accepted, then we will be accepted. And if that mediator is not, we will not.
Nearness to God is not seized by individualism. It's granted by grace through substitution.
So in Exodus 28 -29 we see that all of these things point to Jesus. The high priest is a shadow of him.
Christ is the substance of what the high priest was always meant to be. Where the priest carries
Israel's names engraved on stone, Christ carries his people's name on his blood -soaked back when he carried the cross up to the hill of Calvary.
Where the priests have to offer continual sacrifices, Jesus offers the once and for all sacrifice to end all sacrifices.
Where priests are clothed in symbolic holiness, Christ is holiness incarnate. The priest may enter into God's presence only briefly and with tremendous fear.
And yet Christ enters once and remains forever. He doesn't merely open access, he secures it.
And in Jesus, our mediation is no longer fragile and temporary and dependent upon the obedience of a human priest.
But now it's secured forever by the final high priest who brings sinners perfectly and safely into God's presence forever.
So as you read Exodus 28 -29 today, I want you to feel the weight of what it takes for a human being to stand before God.
Everything must be covered and coated. Everything must be cleansed. Everything must be mediated.
And tomorrow we're going to see how quickly glory is exchanged for ideology and why even the very best mediator must be more faithful than the people that he represents.
And with that, I want you to read your Bible carefully, devotionally, and joyfully. And may the
Lord use his word to sanctify you completely. And we will continue our journey tomorrow.