Tag Archives: Moses

Stephen’s Speech as Legal Argument/Story Part 2

21 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by in Acts, Uncategorized

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THE SAVOIRS/REJECTIONS

At this point, Stephen a series of three saviors who are rejected: Joseph, Moses & and then Jesus. The odd movement here is between the Temple to Jesus

Joseph the Rejected Savior

In verses 9-16, Stephen speaks of Joseph who was sold by his brothers into slavery. From his state of slavery, Joseph rises to ruler and saves the people of Israel. Joseph is then brought back to Shechem and buried in Abraham’s tomb (the only part of the promised land which Abraham obtained was a grave, Gen. 24):

Acts 7:9–16 (ESV)
9 “And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him 10 and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. 11 Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. 12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. 13 And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. 14 And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all. 15 And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, 16 and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

Thus, the man rejected was their savior.

Moses the Rejected Savior

The story begins with the miraculous salvation of Moses to also rise to a position in Egypt. The story proceeds to Moses:

Acts 7:23–25 (ESV)
23 “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. 24 And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.

Moses is rejected as a savior by Israel:

Acts 7:26–29 (ESV)
26 And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ 27 But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

Here it appears that the plan of salvation has failed, but God returns Moses to Egypt as savior:

Acts 7:30–34 (ESV)
30 “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. 33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’

The Israelites reject Moses who saved them and also reject God:

Acts 7:35–43 (ESV)
35 “This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. 37 This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’ 38 This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. 39 Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, 40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 41 And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. 42 But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:
“ ‘Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices,
during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
43  You took up the tent of Moloch
and the star of your god Rephan,
the images that you made to worship;
and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’

This passage is interesting for many reasons. Here are two. First, Stephen notes the prophecy of Deuteronomy 15:

Deuteronomy 18:15–22 (ESV)

15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— 16 just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

The second point of interest is the way in which Stephen uses Amos to tie the Golden Calf to the subsequent history of Israel:

Amos 5:25–27 (ESV)
25 “Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26 You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god—your images that you made for yourselves, 27 and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

The rejection of Moses was the rejection of their true savior God.

The Temple

At this point, it would seem that Stephen could merely move to Jesus and say, In like manner, you rejected the salvation of God in Jesus Christ. But he does not. Stephen moves to the temple. This is peculiar. The people — who have already and continually rejected God — have brought into the land the Temple (and I don’t see the temple as a negative here):

Acts 7:44–50 (ESV)
44 “Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen. 45 Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David, 46 who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 But it was Solomon who built a house for him. 48 Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says,
49  “ ‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord,
or what is the place of my rest?
50  Did not my hand make all these things?’
The people have come into the land, built a temple to worship — and yet as Stephen has already said they turned back in their hearts to Egypt and have been worshipping false Gods.

The solution here goes back to Acts 7:7 where Stephen reworks the original material in an interesting way:

The Lukan Stephen also paraphrases the quotation from Exod 3:12. First, note that a quotation from Exodus has been retrojected into the time of Abraham, to explain that the act of Israel’s worship went right back to the time of the Abrahamic covenant. Second, the phrase in Exod 3:12, “on this mountain,” has been replaced with in this place as the site of the returning exiles’ worship (7:7). In the immediate context, “this place” is to be understood as referring to “the land” promised to Abraham (Johnson 1992, 116), but the connection back to the accusation in 6:13–14 (“this man never stops saying things against this holy place”; “we have heard him saying that this Jesus, the Nazarene, will tear down this place”) cannot be missed. First, Stephen again forcefully but indirectly addresses one of the charges against him. He acknowledges that the command to worship in the temple goes back to the very origins of Israelite faith. By making such a positive statement about the temple Stephen creates more tension: “How could the same God command the Israelites to worship Him in this place (indeed, he set them free so that they could do this) and then, at the high point of Israel’s history (in Christian eyes), intend the destruction of the holy place of worship?” (Kilgallen 1976, 39). Stephen’s explanation and resolution of this problem will come later in the speech.

Mikeal C. Parsons, Acts, Paideia Commentaries on The New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 92–93.

The coming into the land was for worship which did not happen.

This leads to the question: How does this involve Jesus?

Wilderness Allusions in John 7

16 Wednesday Mar 2016

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Rough notes:
John 7 comes immediately after the feeding in the wilderness of John 6, where Jesus claims for himself the status of the bread in the wilderness. He also says, 

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. http://esv.to/John6.35
Jesus is walking around in Galilee: there is not much direction indicated (though not pointlessly). He cannot go to the Feast of the Booths (a feast which signifies, in part, wilderness wandering). 
Like Moses, Jesus cannot go the capital lest he be killed.
Jesus performs miracles to those who will not believe it is God’s work (like the miracles of Moses which did not convince the Pharaoh). 
The people murmur about Jesus (and thus about God). 
Jesus is the water (just as Moses had to give them water). 
They do not do the Law which Moses gave (unlike Jesus who does the will of his Father). 
They ask if Jesus could be the Prophet foretold by Moses (Dt. 18).
Something to flesh out later.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditations XXI

20 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in Culture, Ecclesiology, Ministry, Uncategorized, William Spurstowe, Worship

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Upon the Golden Calf and the Brazen Serpent

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Photo: Wheat-field trespasser, Jenny Downing

The makers of these two images were Moses and Aaron, such a pair of brothers as history cannot parallel for eminency and whose names outshine greatly all others of like alliance that have honorable mention in the Book of God. Where are their two brothers in that sacred Chronicle so renowned for the many miracles done by then? Are so highly dignified by titles given to them by the Spirit of God as they?

Moses being styled signally the Servant of God; and Aaron, the Saint of the Lord: and yet has strangely differing are these two images: they are unlike in the matter: the one being of gold and the other of brass; unlike in the figure, the one at calf, the other is serpent; but most alike in their effects, the one killing, the other healing. The golden calf that kills, and the brazen serpent that saves alive.

One would think that the same fountain should as soon send fourth salt water and fresh, as either of these to do anything that should terminate in such effects, by whose harmonious conduct Israel had been led as a flock of sheep through the wilderness.

But what if their actions did jar? Yet, who could readily conceived that Arron’s calf should be essay destroying poison? Or that Moses’s serpent should be in an effectual antidote to save alive? Did he not flee from his rod when it turned into a serpent, as fearing to be hurt by? And was not this brazen serpent and shaping figure like to those fiery serpents that had stung many Israelites to death?

From whence then comes this strange difference between the one and the other? Is it not from hence: Aaron’s calf, though made of gold, was without, even against a commandment of God. But Moses’s serpent, though of brass, was by his special appointment. Let the institutions of God being never so mean [low, despised] and despicable to the eyes of sense; yet they shall obtain they’re designed end. And let the inventions of men be never so rich and costly, they should be found to be no other than hurtful vanities.

Who is so small and insight in the mystery of idolatry and superstition, as to not observe how they affect I pump and splendor in their religion as if when they had made it gay, they had made it good? And how greatly they despise the simplicity of that worship which is not clothed and decked with an external grandeur? But will it close in the mouth cure the unsavory breathings of corrupt lungs? Or will the leper’s making of himself brave with the finest garments cause the priest to pronounce him clean, when he comes to the hold is sore? Then may such arts and palliations of men, wedded to idolatrous practices vindicate the evil of their doings, and justify them to be such as God will not condemn.

But as religion is not a thing left to any man’s choice, to pick out from that diversity with which the world abounds what best pleases himself; so neither are the ways and mediums of the exercise of it at all in his power. As God is the object of worship, so the means by which he is honored and his servants benefited that use them must be appointed by himself. For all ordinances do not work necessarily, as the fire burns or as the sun enlightens the air; nor do they work physically, as having an inherent power to produce their effects; but they are operative, by way of institution, and receive their virtue from God, who therefor appoints weak and insufficient things to the I have reason, that himself maybe the more acknowledged in all.

What could be more unlikely to heal the Vikings of a fiery serpent, then the looking up on only to a brazen serpent? Or to restore the blind man his sight, then the anointing of his eyes with clay and spittle? And yet these things God and Christ are pleased to make use of; not from indigency [any lack of other means], if they could not work without means, but from wisdom and counsel, to show that they can work by any [means, or without means].

Let no man then fondly [foolishly] make it his work, or counted his duty to honor God with his inventions, though specious [apparently useful] and beautiful in his own eyes; but let him value and prize God’s institutions, though to outward appearance they be contemptible. The blue bottles and in the field are more gaudy and delightful to the eye then the corn amongst which they grow; but yet the one are worthless, and the others full strength and nourishment.

 

 

Philo, On Creation.9

25 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Genesis, Greek, New Testament Background, Philo

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So, that part which suffers of itself can neither live nor move; rather it moves, is conformed and lives by means of the mind — which recasts it as a perfect work: the world.

Some say the world is unbegotten — those who don’t realize that they are undercutting the obligation and necessity of piety: foreknowledge. For reason says that the Father and Creator concerns himself with what has been brought to be.

τὸ δὲ παθητὸν ἄψυχον καὶ ἀκίνητον ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ, κινηθὲν δὲ καὶ σχηματισθὲν καὶ ψυχωθὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ νοῦ μετέβαλεν εἰς τὸ τελειότατον ἔργον, τόνδε τὸν κόσμον· ὃν οἱ φάσκοντες ὡς ἔστιν ἀγένητος λελήθασι τὸ ὠφελιμώτατον καὶ ἀναγκαιότατον τῶν εἰς εὐσέβειαν ὑποτεμνόμενοι τὴν πρόνοιαν· τοῦ μὲν γὰρ γεγονότος ἐπιμελεῖσθαι τὸν πατέρα καὶ ποιητὴν αἱρεῖ λόγος·
As in the preceding verse (8), I have translated “patheton” as the part which suffers. It is possible to translate this as “that which is passive”. However, Philo does use the word “that which suffers”. In addition, he seems to be setting up a contrast between passions and reasons — that which suffers & the mind. The parts are passive & active, but such a translation seems to miss passion/reason contrast.

metaballo: literally to change & to throw. It is used in the NT to refer to a change in thinking (metaphorically). It is more than just to “transform” (Yonge) for which there is an adequate Greek word.; it is more like “trans-throw”. I have opted for “recast” to reach for some active transformation. Colson & Whitaker simply translated it as “change” which seems too weak.

Pronoian: foreknowledge, forethought. The word for knowledge or thought looks and sounds similar to the the word for “mind”. Noia (thought) and nous (mind). Thus, there is a bit of pun: by denying the operation of the mind, such persons deny the intention of the mind.

The previous post can be found here:https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/philo-on-creation-7/

Philo, On Creation 3-5

07 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by in Genesis, Greek, Literature, New Testament Background, Philo

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The previous post in this series may be found here.

Now, just as I explained, the start of Moses’ account is most remarkable, since it concerns the making of the cosmos, showing the cosmos in conformity to the law: the law also to the cosmos. The man regulated by that law, being conformed to the purpose and practice of nature, becomes a citizen of the cosmos which is so administered.

Now, the intellectual beauty of making the cosmos is such that no poet, no writer would be able to praise. It exceeds speech and hearing; being greater – more august – than any mortal means could possibly adapt.

 Yet this must not be a cause for silence. Rather, on account of the one loved by God, we must speak even beyond our ability. We will take nothing of ourselves. In place of much, we will come to what little is possible for human thought driven by love and desire for wisdom.

 Greek Text & Notes:

Continue reading →

Philo, On Creation.1-2

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in Greek, New Testament Background, Philo

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On the Creation 1-2

Now concerning the other lawgivers, some set out their code for virtue, unadorned and naked. Others tied-up their thoughts with heavy weights, mythic lies which hid the truth.

Moses refused both of those options. The first one is thoughtless, careless, and unphilosophical. The other is the work of liars full of witchcraft. Instead, he began the law with all beauty and dignity. He didn’t immediately set down “Do this” and “Don’t do that”; nor did he make up a myth (he didn’t even use existing myths).  It was necessary, first, to form their minds for the use of the law.

 

The Greek Text and Translation Notes:  Continue reading →

George Herbert, Prayer II (Annotated)

21 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in George Herbert, Literature, Prayer

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This poem on prayer by George Herbert builds its case upon a dense theological argument and biblical allusion. Without rightly understanding the theological and biblical case being made by Herbert, one will misunderstand Herbert’s praise. Herbert’s access to God in prayer comes directly through the incarnation and atonement of Christ. 

¶    Prayer. (II)

       OF what an easie quick accesse[1],
My blessed Lord, art thou! how suddenly
       May our requests thine eare invade![2]
To shew that state dislikes not easinesse,
If I but lift mine eyes[3], my suit is made:
Thou canst no more not heare, then thou canst die[4].
       Of what supreme almightie power
Is thy great arm[5], which spans the east and west,
       And tacks the centre to the sphere!
By it do all things live their measur’d houre[6]:
We cannot ask the thing, which is not there,
Blaming the shallownesse of our request[7].
       Of what unmeasurable love[8]
Art thou possest, who, when thou couldst not die,
       Wert fain[9] to take our flesh[10] and curse,[11]
And for our sakes in person sinne reprove,[12]
That by destroying that which ty’d thy purse,
Thou mightst make way for liberalitie![13]
       Since then these three wait on thy throne[14],
Ease, Power, and Love; I value prayer so,
       That were I to leave all but one,
Wealth, fame, endowments, vertues, all should go;
I and deare prayer would together dwell,
And quickly gain, for each inch lost, an ell.[15]

For annotations,  Continue reading →

George Muller, and Contending With God in Prayer

25 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Faith, George Muller, Ministry, Prayer

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In 1838, the Boys’ Orphan House lead by George Muller found itself very short of funds. Yet rather than make a plea for money — which Muller knew would be successful — he continued to trust the Lord’s provision even when such trust was strained by the circumstance: “Less than two months later the money-supply ran so low that it was needful that the Lord should give by the day and almost by the hour if the needs were to be met.” Arthur Tappan Pierson. George Müller of Bristol.

While making a public demand would be seemingly prudent, Muller did not take that solution:

He saw at once that this would be finding a way of his own out of difficulty, instead of waiting on the Lord for deliverance. Moreover, he also saw that it would be forming a habit of trusting to such expedients of his own, which in other trials would lead to a similar course and so hinder the growth of faith.

Rather, Muller turned to prayer:

At this time of need—the type of many others—this man who had determined to risk everything upon God’s word of promise, turned from doubtful devices and questionable methods of relief to pleading with God. And it may be well to mark his manner of pleading. He used argument in prayer ….

This method of holy argument—ordering our cause before God, as an advocate would plead before a judge— is not only almost a lost art, but to many it actually seems almost puerile. And yet it is abundantly taught and exemplified in Scripture

When we look to Scripture, we do find argument used throughout. For examples, Abraham uses such argument when pleading for the city of Sodom:

27 Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.
28 Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”
29 Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.”
30 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.”
31 He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.”
32 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”
33 And the LORD went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. Genesis 18:27-33

Moses argues with the Lord, when he contends for the people of Israel:

11 But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.
13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.'”
14 And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. Exodus 32:11-14

When we begin to realize how common such prayer is, we will find it everywhere.

Why then should one contend with God in prayer? Pierson explains that such prayer both exalts God & prepares our faith:

Of course God does not need to be convinced: no arguments can make any plainer to Him the claims of trusting souls to His intervention, claims based upon His own word, confirmed by His oath. And yet He will be inquired of and argued with. That is His way of blessing. He loves to have us set before Him our cause and His own promises: He delights in the well-ordered plea, where argument is piled upon argument.

…….

We are to argue our case with God, not indeed to convince Him, but to convince ourselves. In proving to Him that, by His own word and oath and character, He has bound Himself to interpose, we demonstrate to our own faith that He has given us the right to ask and claim, and that He will answer our plea because He cannot deny Himself.

Arthur Tappan Pierson. “George Müller of Bristol.”

Joy.1

17 Friday May 2013

Posted by in Augustine, Deuteronomy, Ecclesiastes, Exodus, Faith, Hope, Joy

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The book of common prayer (the graveside service) reads, “In the midst of life we are in death”. How then can joy be found in such a world? The world itself cannot rightly be the source of joy, as Augustine notes, vita misera est, mors incerta est (“Life is miserable, death uncertain”‘ Confessions Book VI, chapter 11). How then can joy be found? For some perhaps joy will be their privilege by disposition or circumstance — but such joys will necessarily be “vain” as Ecclesiastes says — vaporous, for the inexorable weight of death will strangle a joy of circumstance. At some point we will end alone.

So how and where can joy be found? The Scripture commends joy throughout, yet it is a joy of which rests not in circumstance but a joy which rests in God. How is this demonstrated and how is such joy obtained?

Consider the Feast of Booths commanded in Leviticus 23:39-43:

39 “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the LORD seven days. On the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth day shall be a solemn rest.
40 And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.
41 You shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month.
42 You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All native Israelites shall dwell in booths,
43 that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”

The Israelites are to rejoice as they remember that God had rescued them from Egypt. It was this which caused Jethro to rejoice:

8 Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the LORD had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the LORD had delivered them.
9 And Jethro rejoiced for all the good that the LORD had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.

Exodus 18:8-9. The story of God’s rescue was a cause to rejoice. How then could the people rejoice — even in the wilderness (as Bunyan wrote, “the wilderness of this world”)? We may rejoice when we remember and discuss what God has done.

Note that this does not negate the tragedy of life or the pain of this world. Rather, the pain and sorrow of life forms the contrast which makes the joy possible. You see, joy points to what God has done in the midst of trial: They are to rejoice when they recall that God “brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:43).

Such memory may be most necessary in the midst of present trial and sorrow: in the middle of pain, the pain can overwhelm one’s sense of all else. The pain seems as if it could never end. The future looks hopeless. That is when memory can be of great good. Memory reaches back to what has happened; it reaches outside of the present and demonstrates, It has not always been as this. Joy fetches strength from the past. Joy flowers from the faith and hope which comes from knowledge who God is (note that the ground of joy in Leviticus 23:43 ends with “I am the LORD your God”) and what God has done.

Meeting God at the Mercy Seat

25 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in Exodus, Hebrews, Preaching, Uncategorized

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Exodus 25:

17 “You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth.
18 And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat.
19 Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends.
20 The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be.
21 And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you.
22 There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

God meets with and speaks to the people from the mercy seat — even the commandments come from mercy seat. That reminds me of this:

14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:14-16. This is a comparison that will take a little thinking.