Posts Tagged ‘Jesus is our great High Priest’

It is finished and He is seated!

Posted: September 13, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Hebrews, September
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Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. —Hebrews 8:1-6

The Levitical priests always stood when they were in the tabernacle or temple, indicating that their work was never done. But look at Hebrews 8:1: Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God’s throne!  He has done everything to accomplish our redemption. “It is finished” (John 19:30) is what Jesus cried out from the cross.  He is done, and is seated at God’s right hand.  The right hand of the throne is a place of honor, power, and exaltation.

ark.priest

Human priests would enter the Holy of Holies once a year, and never stay there for long.  It is thought that a rope was tied to the leg of the priest, so in case he died, the other priests could haul him out!  But Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens! The point of Hebrews 8:1-6 is, “Why would you even want an inferior, human priest, when you have a high priest permanently seated in such an exalted position?”

Why indeed? “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.”

Our high priest, perfect sacrifice and Victor over sin and death!

Posted: April 9, 2012 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Joshua
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Having just celebrated Jesus’ death and resurrection, it is exciting to have passages of Scripture that point us to Christ.  Sometimes verses jump right off the page at us, even though we have read it before and didn’t see it.  Such was the case when I first read about the cities of refuge.  But in my research, I came across this insight from Kim Riddlebarger, senior pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, California, and visiting professor of systematic theology at Westminster  Seminary California. He is also a co-host of the White Horse Inn radio program, which is broadcast weekly on more than fifty radio stations.

While in chapters 13-21, we have the legal record of Joshua dividing the land among the tribes of Israel in fulfillment of God’s promise to his people, in chapter 20, we read of Joshua establishing the six “cities of refuge” which provided legal protection for anyone who accidentally took the life of another–in modern parlance this is known as manslaughter or negligent homicide.  Since nothing in redemptive history is accidental, with the establishment of these six cities, we are pointed ahead to Jesus Christ–the great high priest. In the case of someone who commits manslaughter, they must flee to one of these cities of refuge and remain there until the death of the high priest. The symbolism here is obvious and powerful.

Clearly, the death of the high priest in a symbolic sense sets the man-slaughterer free.  This points us ahead to the death of Jesus, who is both the great high priest and at the same time the divinely appointed once for all sacrifice for sin. That God provides for relief from sins such as manslaughter is a good thing and demonstrates that even though Israel was under the blessing-curse principle based upon the covenant God made them at Mount Sinai, the covenant of grace (first made with Abraham) was never annulled, and still remained in force, ensuring the salvation of believers within Israel.  It was Jesus after all who said that anyone who was angry with his brother or sister was just as guilty of murder as the one who actually took life (Matthew 5:21-22).  Therefore, as the death of the priest in one of the cities of refuge allows the manslaughterer to go free, so too the death of Jesus frees us from the guilt of our sins, including the hatred of our neighbor.  With images like this found throughout the Book of Joshua, we are  reminded that the Canaanites were not Israel’s greatest enemy–sin and it wages are our greatest foe. And now, the greater Joshua (Jesus) has defeated both sin and death.

To read more of his comments, or to go to the sermon on Joshua 20-21, click here:

Why would you even want an inferior priest?

Posted: September 13, 2011 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Hebrews, September
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Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,  a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. —Hebrews 8:1-6

The Levitical priests always stood when they were in the tabernacle or temple, indicating that their work was never done. But look at Hebrews 8:1: Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God’s throne!  He has done everything to accomplish our redemption. “It is finished” (John 19:30) is what Jesus cried out from the cross.  He is done, and is seated at God’s right hand.  The right hand of the throne is a place of honor, power, and exaltation.

ark.priest

Human priests would enter the Holy of Holies once a year, and never stay there for long.  In fact, a rope was tied to the leg of the priest, so in case he died, the other priests could haul him out!  But Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens! The point of Hebrews 8:1-6 is, “Why would you even want an inferior, human priest, when you have a high priest permanently seated in such an exalted position?”

Why indeed? “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.”

 

Jesus: Greater Joshua, Great High Priest and Once-For-All Sacrifice

Posted: April 9, 2011 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Joshua
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During these weeks leading up to our celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection, it is exciting to see passages of Scripture that point us to Christ, even though we may not have seen it at first.  Such was the case when I first read about the cities of refuge.  But in my research, I came across this insight from Kim Riddlebarger, senior pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, California, and visiting professor of systematic theology at Westminster  Seminary California. He is also a co-host of the White Horse Inn radio program, which is broadcast weekly on more than fifty radio stations.

While in chapters 13-21, we have the legal record of Joshua dividing the land among the tribes of Israel in fulfillment of God’s promise to his people, in chapter 20, we read of Joshua establishing the six “cities of refuge” which provided legal protection for anyone who accidentally took the life of another–in modern parlance this is known as manslaughter or negligent homicide.  Since nothing in redemptive history is accidental, with the establishment of these six cities, we are pointed ahead to Jesus Christ–the great high priest. In the case of someone who commits manslaughter, they must flee to one of these cities of refuge and remain there until the death of the high priest. The symbolism here is obvious and powerful.

Clearly, the death of the high priest in a symbolic sense sets the man-slaughterer free.  This points us ahead to the death of Jesus, who is both the great high priest and at the same time the divinely appointed once for all sacrifice for sin. That God provides for relief from sins such as manslaughter is a good thing and demonstrates that even though Israel was under the blessing-curse principle based upon the covenant God made them at Mount Sinai, the covenant of grace (first made with Abraham) was never annulled, and still remained in force, ensuring the salvation of believers within Israel.  It was Jesus after all who said that anyone who was angry with his brother or sister was just as guilty of murder as the one who actually took life (Matthew 5:21-22).  Therefore, as the death of the priest in one of the cities of refuge allows the manslaughterer to go free, so too the death of Jesus frees us from the guilt of our sins, including the hatred of our neighbor.  With images like this found throughout the Book of Joshua, we are  reminded that the Canaanites were not Israel’s greatest enemy–sin and it wages are our greatest foe. And now, the greater Joshua (Jesus) has defeated both sin and death.

To read more of his comments, or to go to the sermon on Joshua 20-21, click here:

The Red Heifer points to Christ, but Christ is MUCH MORE!

Posted: March 8, 2011 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, March, Numbers
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Look closely at Numbers and you will see a beautiful portrait of Jesus Christ!  In Chapter 19, we read:

Tell the people of Israel to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and on which a yoke has never come. 3 And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered before him. 4 And Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. 5 And the heifer shall be burned in his sight. Its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned. 6 And the priest shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet yarn, and throw them into the fire burning the heifer. 7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. But the priest shall be unclean until evening. 8 The one who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be unclean until evening. 9 And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place. And they shall be kept for the water for impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering. 10 And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. And this shall be a perpetual statute for the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.

Adapted from a sermon by J. Ligon Duncan III, “The Red Heifer”-

1.  Notice that as the heifer was to be without spot or blemish, so also Christ was without spot or blemish.

1 Peter 1:18-19….. you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

And so even as this red heifer is required (like all of the sacrifices of the Old Testament) to be without blemish, an absolutely spotless sacrifice, so also Christ is without spot or blemish.  He is without defect or sin. Christ himself fulfills the symbolism of this red heifer.

2. Notice in Num.19:19…. a death in the past continues to effect cleansing later.

The red heifer is sacrificed, but the ashes go on as long as they last serving the function of ritually cleansing someone who has become defiled. So a death in the past effects a cleansing later.

Hebrews 7:27, we read that Jesus

“…does not need daily, like those high priests, who offer up sacrifices first for their own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered Himself.”

Hebrews 9:12, 26

“…not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood He entered the Holy Place once for all, so that His one-time sacrifice availed for sins for all time, for all His people.”

“Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

Hebrews 10:10:

“By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

3. Notice that the only person who can administer the ashes, who can sprinkle the blood, who can deliver the cleansing potency and effect of this sacrifice, the only person who can administer it is a clean person?

In Hebrews 4:15, we read:  “We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness. He was tempted in all things as we are…yet without sin.”

He was clean.

Again in Hebrews 7:26:  “It was fitting that we should have a high priest“…holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens.”

He was clean.

I John 3:5:  “You know that He appeared in order to take away sins;…and in Him there is no sin.”

Jesus Christ is the only one who is truly clean.

4. Notice that  everyone involved in this ritual designed to cleanse those who have come into contact with death becomes unclean themselves, as if they “absorb” the impurity in the process of “decontamination.”

2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

5.  BUT Jesus is radically different…Though He absorbs our sin, though He bears our sin, though He bearsour punishment and our guilt….He is clean, unblemished.

In the Gospel of Luke we see Jesus being touched by a woman with a bodily discharge of blood and doesn’t become unclean….she becomes clean! And then He touches a leper, and He doesn’t become unclean; the leper becomes clean! And then He stretches His body over a dead little girl, and He doesn’t become unclean; she lives! Jesus Christ  is radically different– everything He touches becomes clean, and He does not become unclean.

6. Separation from God is costly.
In the very process of making the unclean clean, the priests and others become unclean, and for a time they cannot go into the presence of God.

“My God! My God! Why have You forsaken Me?” God pours out His wrath on His Son, Jesus. This is a cost that we will never ever fathom, even in eternity.

6. Notice that the red heifer is slain outside the camp; not at the altar, but outside the camp.

Hebrews 13:12-13  So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

VII. The red heifer points to Christ, but Christ is MUCH MORE

Hebrews 9:13-14  For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

The red heifer could make you ritually clean. But that heifer couldn’t clean your conscience, “nor all the blood of bulls and goats” sacrificed for thousands of  years. But Jesus’ blood cleanses from all sin and gives us a clean conscience!

A sermon by Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III , titled “The Red Heifer,” was very helpful in writing this post.  You may like to read the entire sermon by clicking here:

 

The picture of the priest found in Leviticus displays New Testament truth — in a detailed form.

Posted: February 18, 2011 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, February, Leviticus
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Coty Pinckney helps us understand Leviticus 8-10

Like the offerings, the picture of the priest found in Leviticus displays New Testament truth — in a detailed form. Once again, Leviticus brings out a human need — the need for a priest, the need for another human being to help us to see ourselves, and to apply biblical truth to our lives. The New Testament presumes our familiarity with the priesthood — but many of us know little about it. So in this study we will learn about ourselves as priests, and, furthermore, learn about Jesus’ role in our lives as high priest.

In this series of messages, we will consider chapters 8 & 9, where Aaron and his sons are ordained as priests, then offer their initial offerings to the Lord: chapter 10, when two of Aaron’s son act presumptuously before God and are immediately killed; and chapters 21 and 22, which lay down requirements for those of Aaron’s descendants who would serve as priests. I commend all of these passages to you for your personal study.

God’s Plan for a Kingdom of Priests

 

Before we turn to Leviticus, I want to introduce this series by examining God’s plan for a kingdom of priests. The idea that the office of priest is shared among a large number of believers did not begin with the New Testament. From the time that the Israelites stood before God at Mt Sinai, this was God’s plan.

We see this first of all in Exodus 19:3-6:

3 And Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: 4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. 5 ‘Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; 6 and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”

God says, “If you obey my voice and keep My covenant, then you will be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” Did they obey his voice and keep God’s covenant? No — as we’ve noted before, God knew they could not keep this covenant; he had already planned to send His son to deal with man’s sin. He instituted the entire sacrificial system because of man’s weakness, foreshadowing what Jesus would accomplish on the cross — meeting our need for acceptance, our need to respond, our need for peace, our need for forgiveness, and our need for reconciliation. The Israelites, like the rest of us, were not able to live up to God’s holy standard — but God instituted the law as our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, to show us our need for a savior.

So God’s plan was to establish a kingdom of priests. But the nation of Israel did not and could not fulfill that plan. So God said through the prophet Jeremiah 31:

31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, “declares the LORD. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

In this new covenant, by writing the law on the hearts of his people, God would fulfill the plan laid out in Exodus 19, the plan to establish a kingdom of priests. Peter declares the fulfillment of this plan in chapter 2 of his first letter, beginning in verse 4 (by the way, this passage also shows that Peter understood that he himself was NOT the rock on which the church would be built):

4 ¶ As you come to him, the living Stone– rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him– 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” 7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,” 8 and, “A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message– which is also what they were destined for. 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Peter tells us in verse 5 that we are being built up as a “spiritual house for a holy priesthood,” and then in verse 9 he quotes directly the Greek translation of Ex 19:6: We are (right now! this is not future tense, but present!) We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. God’s plan expressed at Mt Sinai and prophesied through Jeremiah has been fulfilled: Now God has a kingdom of priests.

John echoes this theme in Revelation chapters 1 and 5. Verses 4-6 of chapter one constitute John’s greeting to the recipients of this letter, the seven churches in Asia. He concludes that greeting by saying, “To him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood — and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father.”

Note he did not say: “He has made SOME of us.” or “He has selected from among us certain ones to be priests to God.” All of us are priests.

So God from the beginning intended to create a kingdom of priests, a holy nation for his own possession. The Israelites thought that they could become that nation by obedience to the law, but they never did and never could. The purpose of the law was to show us our inability to be holy and righteous before God, to show us that we can only become holy and blameless by throwing ourselves on the mercy of God — as David did in Psalm 51. We, like David, need for God to create in us a clean heart, we need God to wash us and make us clean, we need God to put His Spirit in us and to write his law in our hearts. And when God sanctifies us, when God saves us by the blood of Jesus, we become a kingdom of priests, dedicated to His service.

So, if you are saved by the blood of Jesus, you are a saint and you are a priest.

So we are priests: who now is the high priest? The book of Hebrews makes this very clear: Jesus himself is our “merciful and faithful high priest (2:17).” He is “our great high priest who has passed through the heavens (4:14). “He is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. (7:25)”

Therefore, we need no superpriests or human high priests today; Jesus accomplished everything necessary for our forgiveness and salvation. Indeed, the primary purpose of the Jewish high priest was to foreshadow Jesus himself.

So all believers are priests, with Jesus as our high priest. We will use these insights to help us interpret these five chapters on the priesthood in Leviticus. Statements about the priests in general are symbolically true of all Christians; statements about the high priest alone are symbolically true of Jesus.

To read the rest of the sermon, or more sermons in the series on Leviticus, click here:

Shadow has Become Reality!

Posted: September 14, 2010 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Hebrews, September
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John Piper, on Hebrews 8, in a sermon “Jesus:Mediator of a Better Covenant, Part 1″

shadow crossRemember from Hebrews 8:5 that the priests serve a copy and a shadow of heavenly things. The tabernacle and temple were a shadow; the official priesthood was a shadow; the animal sacrifices were a shadow; the feasts and dietary laws were a shadow. And when Christ came, the shadows began to fall away, because Christ himself is the Reality. He is our temple and tabernacle, our focus and place of worship. He is our High Priest and Mediator and Intercessor. He is our atoning sacrifice. He is our Passover feast and spiritual food. He is our purity and holiness that sets us off from other people.

And we saw last week that there’s a reason why the worship and focus of the New Testament is so radically spiritual, rather than ritualistic and traditionalistic. The reason is that Christianity is a missionary faith. That is, the message of the New Testament is meant to be preached to all peoples, and the radical worship of the New Testament is meant to be incarnated in all cultures. That was impossible in the Old Testament. The tabernacle, priesthood, sacrifices, feasts and dietary laws could not be transferred to other peoples and cultures. It was a come-see religion. Christianity is a go-tell religion. That is why Christianity is radically spiritual. Radically internal. Radically personal. And we could add radically ethical, lest anyone misunderstand “internal” to mean “private.” It is meant for all peoples, tribes, tongues and nations. So almost all the mandated ritualistic, formal, external aspects of worship life are gone. What remains is a radically spiritual, internal, personal joyful dependence on all that God is for us in Jesus, and the outworking of love and justice in community.

Now this week, the writer takes us down this same path a little further. He says that this radically spiritual, internal, personal way of relating to God is, in fact the fulfillment of the promised New Covenant. That’s what today’s text is about. And we are going to spend two weeks on it….

The faultiness of the first covenant—the Mosaic law—was not that God gave bad commands, but that the people had bad hearts. There was divine forgiveness and patience in the first covenant (Exodus 34:6-7). There was the call for faith in the first covenant (Numbers 14:11; Hebrews 3:19; 4:6). There were promises of God’s love in the first covenant (Exodus 34:7). But, by and large, these things did not get into the people’s hearts. It was mainly external rather than internal. Obedience by will-power rather than by reliance on the Spirit; and ritualistic rather than personal.

What Was the Flaw in the Old Covenant?

What was wrong? What was the flaw? There are two ways to answer that question. From the human side and from God’s side. From the human side the problem was unbelief and hard-heartedness (Hebrews 3:8,15,19; 4:7). From God’s side the problem was that God withheld the sovereign enablement of his Spirit.

Listen to Deuteronomy 29:4. Moses is speaking as he looks back over forty years of rebellion in the wilderness: “To this day the LORD has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear.” That was the ultimate reason why the old covenant was inadequate. God had lessons he meant to teach in the Old Testament and they involved enduring generations of stubbornness and rebellion and hard-heartedness until the time the new covenant should come.

But now it comes with Jesus Christ, the Mediator of a new covenant. Let’s read the description of it in verses 10 and 11 (and save verses 12-13 for next week):

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them upon their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them.

He says three things about this new covenant: First, the will of God is going to be written not just on stone tablets or white Bible paper, but in the mind and on the heart. Second, the new covenant will establish a relationship of ownership of us by God: “I will be their God and they will be my people.” And finally, the new covenant will be personal and intimate. When it is perfected we won’t have to exhort each other to know the Lord, because we will know him intimately and personally. “All shall know me from the least to the greatest.”

We Need God’s Will Written on our Hearts

So you can see the new covenant is exactly what we need if God is going to replace shadows with Reality. If God’s will is that we be free from externalism and formalism and ritualism and traditionalism, so that our faith and our corporate worship and our life can be radically spiritual and personal and internal, then we need more than the blowing away of the shadows of the Old Testament. We need for God to write his will on our hearts. We need for him to assert himself powerfully in our lives as our God. We need for him to see to it not just that he is knowable, but that we know him.

“Our Greater Joshua”-Jesus, Our Once-For-All Sacrifice

Posted: April 9, 2009 by 4theloveofgod in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Joshua
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During this week leading up to our celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection, it is exciting to see passages of Scripture that point us to Christ, even though we may not have seen it at first.  Such was the case when I first read about the cities of refuge.  But in my research, I came across this insight from Kim Riddlebarger, senior pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, California, and visiting professor of systematic theology at Westminster  Seminary California. He is also a co-host of the White Horse Inn radio program, which is broadcast weekly on more than fifty radio stations.

While in chapters 13-21, we have the legal record of Joshua dividing the land among the tribes of Israel in fulfillment of God’s promise to his people, in chapter 20, we read of Joshua establishing the six “cities of refuge” which provided legal protection for anyone who accidentally took the life of another–in modern parlance this is known as manslaughter or negligent homicide.  Since nothing in redemptive history is accidental, with the establishment of these six cities, we are pointed ahead to Jesus Christ–the great high priest.  In the case of someone who commits manslaughter, they must flee to one of these cities of refuge and remain there until the death of the high priest.  The symbolism here is obvious and powerful.

Clearly, the death of the high priest in a symbolic sense sets the man-slaughterer free.  This points us ahead to the death of Jesus, who is both the great high priest and at the same time the divinely appointed once for all sacrifice for sin.  That God provides for relief from sins such as manslaughter is a good thing and demonstrates that even though Israel was under the blessing-curse principle based upon the covenant God made them at Mount Sinai, the covenant of grace (first made with Abraham) was never annulled, and still remained in force, ensuring the salvation of believers within Israel.  It was Jesus after all who said that anyone who was angry with his brother or sister was just as guilty of murder as the one who actually took life (Matthew 5:21-22).  Therefore, as the death of the priest in one of the cities of refuge allows the manslaughterer to go free, so too the death of Jesus frees us from the guilt of our sins, including the hatred of our neighbor.  With images like this found throughout the Book of Joshua, we are  reminded that the Canaanites were not Israel’s greatest enemy–sin and it wages are our greatest foe.  And now, the greater Joshua (Jesus) has defeated both sin and death.

To read more of his comments, or to go to the sermon on Joshua 20-21, click here: