Exodus 29:1-14 Click here for Bible Verses
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Today’s passage is Exodus 29:1-14. Let’s go!
Exodus 29:1-14 (NIV)
1 “This is what you are to do to consecrate them, so they may serve me as priests: Take a young bull and two rams without defect.
2 And from fine wheat flour, without yeast, make bread, and cakes mixed with oil, and wafers spread with oil.
3 Put them in a basket and present them in it–along with the bull and the two rams.
4 Then bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water.
5 Take the garments and dress Aaron with the tunic, the robe of the ephod, the ephod itself and the breastpiece. Fasten the ephod on him by its skillfully woven waistband.
6 Put the turban on his head and attach the sacred diadem to the turban.
7 Take the anointing oil and anoint him by pouring it on his head.
8 Bring his sons and dress them in tunics
9 and put headbands on them. Then tie sashes on Aaron and his sons. The priesthood is theirs by a lasting ordinance. In this way you shall ordain Aaron and his sons.
10 “Bring the bull to the front of the Tent of Meeting, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head.
11 Slaughter it in the LORD’s presence at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.
12 Take some of the bull’s blood and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, and pour out the rest of it at the base of the altar.
13 Then take all the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver, and both kidneys with the fat on them, and burn them on the altar.
14 But burn the bull’s flesh and its hide and its offal outside the camp. It is a sin offering.
Today we turn our attention to the consecration of the High Priest. Here God ordered Moses how to consecrate Aaron and his sons in detail. The word “to consecrate” in verse 9 means to sanctify, to prepare, to dedicate, to honor, or to treat as sacred. In other words, being consecrated means being sanctified by and dedicated to God. Therefore, “being consecrated as the High Priest” means “being set apart to be given the authority and duties of the High Priest.” God gave Aaron and his sons the right of the High Priest and the priesthood, which enabled them to render his people the remission of sins.
What we must realize here is that even the High Priest had to lay his hands on the head of the sacrificial offerings before he killed them to offer their blood to God, all in accordance to the very sacrificial system He had established. For seven days, the High Priest had to give such offerings as the sin offering along with the burnt offerings, the wave offerings, and the heave offerings for his consecration.
This laying on of hands and the bloodshed of the offering constituted the essential elements of the sacrificial system set by God. Even before the foundation of the world, God set this plan in Jesus Christ to remit all our sins with the truth hidden in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine woven linen. God promised the people of Israel that He would meet them whenever they give Him the burnt offering. Exodus 29:42 states, “This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the LORD, where I will meet you to speak with you.” God is telling us that He would meet us through these offerings.
God said, “I will meet you there.” He said this not only to the High Priest, but also to every common people, meaning that God would give the remission of sins to all of us and thereby make us His own people. How then does God meet us? Because God has the plan of salvation for us, He surely meets only those who give their sin offerings according to the sacrificial system which was established by Him.
Because God knew very well that human beings are born sinners and that they are bound to sin as well, He wanted to wash away all our sins according to His mercy which is manifested in His sacrificial system of salvation, and thereby make us His own children. This was why God had established the sacrificial system through which countless people of Israel could pass their sins onto their offering of sacrifice as they laid their hands on its head.
All such facets of the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle were set by God beforehand, and the people of Israel could be washed from all their sins by laying their hands on the head of their sacrifice and thereby pass all their sins onto it according to the method set by God. Because God enabled all those who came to Him by believing in the power of the laying on of hands and the bloodshed established by Him to be washed from their sins, those who believed in this Truth could walk with the holy God. Without the offering that was given with both the laying on of hands and bloodshed, God could not dwell with the people of Israel.
God the Father meets us when He finds this faith in our hearts that believes that Jesus our Savior has remitted all our sins away. In accordance with the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ came to this earth in His time and accepted all our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist at the beginning of the New Testament era (Matthew 3:15). This is why Jesus said, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). By believing in this gospel Truth, we could be freed from all our sins and be cleansed from them perfectly.
In the Old Testament, when a sinner passed his sins by laying his hands on the head of the sacrificial offering, the offering then was put to death by shedding its blood and burnt by fire. Anyone who sought to be remitted from his sins had to put his hands on the head of the sacrificial offering without fail to pass his sins onto it. When people laid their hands on the head of the sacrificial offering, it meant that their sins were passed onto it. And, on the Day of Atonement, Aaron the High Priest had to lay his hands on the head of the scapegoat to pass all the yearly sins of the Israelites onto it.
Here also, the laying on of hands was indispensable, and it means, spiritually speaking, the transfer of sin. John the Baptist passed all our sins onto Jesus through His baptism, and through this baptism Jesus accepted all the sins of the world and then shed His blood on the Cross. By being baptized by John the Baptist and thereby taking upon all our sins, and by shedding His blood on the Cross and rising again from the dead, Jesus Christ has become our perfect Savior.
The High Priest and the sacrificial system were set by God. Hence, the earthly High Priest did what God commanded him to do, and by doing so he fulfilled his priestly duties to remit the sins of his people. How did Jesus Christ the Son of God then blot out all our sins as the High Priest of Heaven? Instead of using an earthly sacrificial offering, He took His own unblemished body as the sacrificial offering and put all our sins onto it. Jesus took upon the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist, shed His blood and died on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved us from all the sins of the world. How amazing is this love, and how marvelous is this salvation!
