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Ephesians 2:14
For he himself (Messiah) is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. Everything about the Tabernacle was designed to mirror immortality. It is the reason why offerings were salted and why honey and leaven were forbidden on the altar. Resinous shittim wood also like cedar is resistant to corruption. On the third after the offering meat turns rancid, so after two days (on the third day) any meat from peace offerings was to be burnt. Anyone who partook of the meat of a peace offering on the third invalidated the offering and was regarded as cut off (Lev. 7:16—21). This brings us into the third day reoccurring theme of the Tanach. Rather than seeing corruption, on the third day meat from a peace offering put on incorruptibility through being burnt. The fire of the altar, a fire which originated from heaven, lifts the offering back to heaven in the form of smoke (Lev. 9:23-24). In the story of Samson, we see an example of the Angel of the Lord, rising back to heaven through the smoke of a burnt offering called in Hebrew the olah or that which rises (Judg. 13:20). The peace offering is the only one in which the offerer partakes. It is symbolic of communion and fellowship with Hashem through a meal. Hospitality was a big thing in the East and to invite someone to eat showed a great level of acceptance and relationship. In the same way eating with God shows he accepts us. Moses and seventy-three other people ate with Hashem on the mountain and the whole congregation of Messiah’s people will eat with him at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Exod. 24:11; Rev. 19:9). The Passover Lamb is a shadow of Messiah, a peace offering that people partake of. Paul often used the imagery of the peace offering to describe Messiah’s role in our lives (1 Cor. 10:18; Rom. 5:1; Eph. 2:14; Col. 1:20). In the manner of a peace offering, the Master's body was not allowed to see corruption (Ps. 16:10; 49:9) but rose from the tomb on the third day. Hoseah prophecied on the resurrection of Israel’s great Diaspora (exile) in the following words, Come, let us return to ADONAI; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him (Hoseah 6:1-2). Seeing as with Hashem one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (2 Pet. 3:8), the prophet prophesied of the resurrection of Israel on the third millennium of the present exile, third millennium in which we presently witness the resurrection of the Jewish state which contains a strong Messianic first fruit element of believers which brings it incorruptibility. In this day, in our day, the peace offering is finally being consumed. At the time appointed, at the sound of the great shofar of the Last Day, it will rise to him in immortality and find fellowship with Hashem. All those who partake of Messiah’s offering of peace are part of this everlasting promise.
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Hebrews 9:28
Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. The middle verse of the Hebrew version of the Torah, or the ‘Teaching’ says, Now Moses diligently inquired about the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it was burned up! (Leviticus 10:16). To understand what happens in this passage we must go back to chapter 9 when the grand-priesthood inauguration begins. God, being a ‘consuming fire’ (Deuteronomy 4:24) had established a very serious protocol whereby Israel was to approach Him and Moses gave very specific instructions about it. Nadab and Abihu, two of the sons of Aaron were careless in their application of the protocol and were utterly burned by the fire of God as they approached the Sanctuary in an unauthorized manner (Leviticus 10:1-3). Aaron was obviously devastated and in mourning but he and his other two sons were in the middle of the grand inauguration (Leviticus 9) so they couldn’t stop for mourning; Aaron therefore held his peace (Leviticus 10:3). Some may argue that God’s punishment of Nadab and Abihu was out of proportions and to be qualified as the tantrums of a capricious deity, but instead of reviewing God’s actions, maybe we should review our own sense of what is important and what is not. Intersection with God is not to be taken lightly. There may also be more to the event than meets the eye! Part of the priesthood’s inauguration was that Aaron and his sons were to eat sections of the goat offered as a ‘ollah’, burnt offering inside the Tabernacle precinct. Moses couldn’t find that goat so he searched diligently for it until he discovered that it had been fully consumed. The patriarch then got angry and asked for an explanation to which Aaron answered, "Behold, today they have offered their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD, and yet such things as these have happened to me! If I had eaten the sin offering today, would the LORD have approved?" (Leviticus 10:19). What happens here is that Aaron reminds Moses that it was unpleasing to God for a priest to do office while in sadness or mourning (Deuteronomy 26:14; 16:11), a theme even found later among Semitic kings (Nehemiah 2:1-2). So because he was uncontrollably saddened at the death of his two sons, Aaron felt he could not do proper justice to that part of the service which he then forewent. Moses was pleased with the explanation (Leviticus 10:20). What is to be noticed here is that this center verse of the Torah verse tells us to ‘search diligently’ for the goat of the sin offering which is an early representation of Yeshua’s atonement. Therefore the central goal of studying to Torah is the search for Messiah. The Talmud explains that the death of Aaron’s sons is not really justifiable, so that it can only be counted as the ‘death of the righteous which creates atonement for others’, a very prevalent theme in Biblical text. Whether we agree or not with the Talmud’s interpretation, since Yeshua is our High-Priest as well as our atonement (Hebrews 9:25), this is an idea that very much fits the theme of the priestly inauguration. May we also spend our lives seeking diligently to approach God through the atonement of Yeshua. |
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