The blood is precious
Foreshadowed
Every time the priest’s knife cut the bull’s throat, it was a foreshadowing of Christ. When the veil was pulled back once a year to allow the priest to bring the blood to the mercy seat for the day of atonement, it was a foreshadow of Christ. Everything in the temple pointed to Christ, and so did all of the scriptures (John 5:39).
Christ kept us from God
Even the veil pointed to Christ. The veil that kept us from God. I shied away from that picture at first. Could Christ have actually been keeping us from God?
Yes.
All of history beforehand led to the final moment when Christ made the final sacrifice, Himself. Until Christ was torn for us, man had no free and confident entrance behind the veil. If Jesus avoided the cross, even healing 10 million more paralytics would not bring us closer to experiencing delightful communion behind the veil.
Power unleashed to fulfill
More than 12 legions of battle-ready angels looked on as Christ suffered to fulfill scripture. No wonder the earth quaked and dead men came out of their graves when Jesus was on the cross. Power unseen was ripping through the body of Jesus, tearing the veil as the final blood sacrifice was spread over the mercy seat.
What the danger and delight reveal
The danger and delight of entering God’s presence reveal to us that the blood of Jesus Christ is both powerful and precious. Without it, we are exposed to immeasurable danger, and deprived of unfathomable delight. Covered by it, we confidently draw near to delight in God.
Get lost in an awesome narrative
If God was writing history prior to the cross to point to Christ, then certainly now God is working to point us back to that message and bring it to bear on us today. Life is no more about me than the Bible is. The Bible is about Christ. History is about Christ. Right now is about Christ. Get lost in that narrative instead of choked in a personal agenda that is blind to the glory of our purpose within God’s sovereign plan.
Hebrews 10:19-23
19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
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Excellent meditation, brother. I hadn’t thought of the veil quite like that before.
Barry, your feedback and presence on the blog are a welcome blessing.
“Christ kept us from God”
What a staggering, and strange, thought. A thought that would likely never occur to us naturally because, as we in our fallen state look at it, life is all about us. If there is a God, why wouldn’t He want us to be near to Him? WHY would Christ want to keep us from God?
We forget Moses. We forget that, although he was God’s chosen man to lead His people out of Egyptian bondage, Moses was a sinful man who, when He pleaded with God to let Him see His face, was refused. But WHY? God told Moses that if he, a sinner, were to look on God’s face he would die. As it was, being only allowed to behold the afterglow of God’s passing by, Moses’ face glowed so brightly that he had to be veiled to keep from blinding the people of Israel.
Why did Christ keep us from God? To save our lives. If we, as sinners, had approached and looked upon the brightness of the glory of the Holy One of Israel in the beauty of His righteousness and holiness, our eyes would have dissolved in their sockets, the flesh would have been blasted from our bones, which would have crumbled to fine dust and ashes. But the greater horror is that our souls would have been damned for eternity without hope of recourse.
Yes, Christ had to keep us from God until He Himself had been in every way tempted as we are, and yet remained without sin; until He had completed His course as “very man,” having learned obedience through suffering; until He could die as a fully formed, fully developed, perfect human being who, because of His purity before the Father, was fit and able to bear our sins and God’s judgment upon them and us, FOR us.
Only THEN could the veil (His flesh) be torn to allow us access to the Father, because in bearing what He bore on our behalf, He was able to impute to us His righteousness, enabling us to live in, and not die from, the presence of the Living God, who is a consuming fire. We dare not take for granted our invitation to appear in the divine Presence, for it is the gift of God’s Providence, given to us at His own expense– at the greatest cost the universe will ever know.
Hallelujah! What a Savior.
Excellent, excellent post. Helpful insights. I agree that we get de-railed by personal agendae. Thanks for the reminder that we should not.
Elizabeth, I am grateful you stopped by. From the bio on your blog, it looks like God has done a lot with you.
Yep, you are correct. God has done a lot with (and “to”) me. The “to” story is not on the blog; it is in my book. But I will probably get around to putting it on the blog at some point. It’s a bit long, and I am a bit new to blogging, so I don’t quite know how to put long stories for optional reading online.