How to get access to God

This week we continue to read the detailed instructions for the worship of God under the Sinai covenant. And, yes, it does read like DIY manual at times! To help you imagine what all this looked like, here is a picture of one reconconstruction of the tabernacle and its associated holy objects (the altar is in the foreground):

And here’s what Aaron’s garments may have looked like:

For an extended New Testament commentary on all of this, the best place to look is chapters 7-11 of Hebrews. Christ is both the perfect High Priest and the perfect sacrifice, the fulfilment of the whole sacrifical system under the old covenant. We’ll be reading a lot more about that system in the weeks to come. It’s a system that graphically represents a number of theological truths: (1) God is holy, (2) sinful people cannot approach a holy God without their sins being dealt with first, (3) this is done through sacrifice.

Unlike the sacrifices made by priests under the old covenant, which had to be made repeatedly, Christ’s sacrifice of himself needed only to be made once. In the words of Hebrews: ‘… he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. … The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves.’ (Hebrews 9:26b and 10:1, NIV).

In the New Testament we come to the end of Matthew’s gospel, with Jesus’ death and resurrection. And just to drive home the point that Jesus’ death has dealt with the separation from God caused by sin, notice 27:51 – at the time of Jesus’ death the curtain in the temple is torn in two, from top to bottom. This curtain is the equivalent of the one that hung in the tabernacle, separating off the Most Holy Place, where the ark of the covenant was and where God’s symbolic presence dwelt. We read about it in Exodus 26:31-33 last week. If you tear down that curtain it means that you have access to God. And that’s what Jesus’ death has done for us.