Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 8:6-9

6 And Moses brought Aaron and his sons, and washed them with water.

7 And he put upon him the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and he girded him with the curious girdle of the ephod, and bound it unto him therewith.

8 And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim.

9 And he put the mitre upon his head; also upon the mitre, even upon his forefront, did he put the golden plate, the holy crown; as the Lord commanded Moses.

We already discussed the symbolic elements for each individual piece of the priestly vesture when we first read about them in Exodus. Today let us consider the significance of clothing as a general rule. Clothing has always been a symbol for taking on an identity, for becoming someone. Wearing clothes is like putting on a second skin or entering into another person.

As pointed out in yesterday’s post, Aaron and his sons were officiating in the place of Moses, and by extension, of God. Thus, Moses was enclothing the priests with himself and with the Lord. When the priest performed in his office, personal failings or scruples with other Israelites would need to be set to the side. It wouldn’t matter what you thought of Aaron or what he thought of you, because Aaron wasn’t really the one leading you through the ritual, God was. And you were reminded of that fact by seeing Aaron in these godly clothes.

Another universal symbol of clothing is uniformity. When people wear exactly the same articles, as the priests did, that would further reinforce the notion that these were not individuals anymore. They were one and the same: God. There was no advantage to being serviced by this priest, rather than that one, because the same clothes, therefore the same identity, therefore the same God, was through it all.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 8:1-5

1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, and the anointing oil, and a bullock for the sin offering, and two rams, and a basket of unleavened bread;

3 And gather thou all the congregation together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

4 And Moses did as the Lord commanded him; and the assembly was gathered together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

5 And Moses said unto the congregation, This is the thing which the Lord commanded to be done.

We heard about this event—the initial washing and anointing of Aaron and his sons—back in Exodus, but it was a very succinct description, basically just acknowledging that it did, in fact, happen. In this chapter we actually hear how the process was done, step-by-step.

Aaron and his sons may have been the first priests to officiate for the general population, but clearly Moses also had the priesthood, and he performed these rituals for the very first time, providing both the demonstration as well as the sanctification for Aaron and his sons. Only then would he hand the responsibility and duties to the priests. They would know what to do by what they had seen him do.

This calls to mind how Jethro taught Moses the principle of delegation when he was judging all the people on his own. Just as how God called and sanctified Moses to do the Lord’s work, Moses could now sanctify other servants to do the same. Obviously, any man can choose to serve God in a general way, and requires no authority to do so, but to be a representative of God, Himself, in these rituals required divine authority. This divine delegation flows down from heaven. As Jesus taught, “the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do” (John 5:19).

Posted on by Abe Austin

When I Feel Like It


There are things that I know are right to do, but which I do not feel like doing right now.

But when I examine myself, I realize that I will never feel like doing them.

And if that is the case, then they can only ever be done when I do not feel like doing them.

And then, I know that I must do it now.

Posted on by Abe Austin

What Darkens the Soul


You will at times be selfish. You will be unwise. You will believe wrong things. You will hurt those that you love. You will give in to fear. You will judge wrongly.

None of this is good, but it is common and accepted. Many of these sins will be committed without thought, without meaning to do wrong, but afterwards realizing that your behavior went astray. Do not worry. Christ has atoned for all of these and obtaining forgiveness is easy.

Much more significant are the moments where God has already granted you clarity, where you have a sure understanding of what is right, and you sin against that knowledge anyway. You feel the full weight of your conscience, and you defy it anyway. And you do so because following your conscience would come at great personal cost. You learn that your soul has a price, and you have just exchanged it for that price.

These are the moments that truly defile you. These are the infractions that darken the soul. These are the choices that sin against the light. These are the times that lead to true damnation.

Of course, even here, repentance is possible, but it will be at an even greater cost than what you first sold your soul for. You must go back and correct the very choice you made wrong, and the consequences for doing right will be even higher now. It will hurt, you may be sure of it, but you may also be sure that it will be worth it.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Haggling With Good and Evil

Haggling With Good)

Back when I studied the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, I noted how Abraham tried to plumb the depths of God’s mercy, seeing if He would spare the city for the sake of less and less righteous. But as I noted at the time, Abraham wasn’t willing to go so far in mercy as God was! Abraham tapped out at requesting that ten righteous be spared, but God went beyond that and had His angels draw Lot and his family to safety when they were the only redeemable people found.

So perhaps Abraham was trying to haggle with God, and that would suggest he had a misunderstanding of who he was dealing with. God doesn’t just have good qualities, such as mercy. God is the good. God is the mercy. As for us, we only have a part of those qualities, and so we cannot have more of a good and merciful nature than good and mercy itself. God’s goodness is affixed and we only move in relation to it, not the other way around.

Haggling With Evil)

But Abraham was not the only one to make this error. What just occurred to me this morning is that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah has a counterpoint to Abraham haggling with good. It is Lot haggling with evil!

When the angels come to the city to assess the number of its righteous, Lot hurriedly brings them into his home, presumably afraid of what mischief might befall them on the street. But the people of the city witnessed this and demand that he turns the men out so that they can be raped. And here, in the face of evil, Lot tries to haggle with them, offering his daughters instead. But that doesn’t work, in fact it makes things worse, with the people now breaking into the house, insistent on their initial plans, and further promising that they will now “deal worse with Lot, than with the strangers.”

Good and Evil Are What They Are

So what was Abraham’s mistake? He was trying to get good to be more good, but good was already more good than he could he ever want. And what was Lot’s mistake? He was trying to get evil to be less evil, but evil would always be more evil than he could ever want. We have to recognize is that good is just good, and that evil is just evil. And they are so perfectly. They are immovable. They are constant.

It is not for man to try and define or shift what good and evil are. It is a vain exercise at best, and dangerous at worst. Good and evil have already been set for an eternity. They have been explained to us as they really are, and their nature will not change. All that remains is for us to decide how we wish to orient ourselves to them.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Last Line of Defense


Being a person of conscience means being willing to stand up for truth if no one else will. Obviously, we hope it doesn’t come to that, we hope that our society will be a buffer against the waves of lies and sin, but if they will not, we still will. If nowhere else, the buck stops here. We are the last line of defense. The iron plate that will not yield while everything else breaks in pieces. We cannot bear the idea of having to face our Maker and having Him ask of us, “but why didn’t you say anything.” And so, whether we wanted it or not, we are the bearers of our generation’s public conscience, the ones who will not give silent, implicit consent to what we know is wrong.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 7:35-38

35 This is the portion of the anointing of Aaron, and of the anointing of his sons, out of the offerings of the Lord made by fire, in the day when he presented them to minister unto the Lord in the priest’s office;

36 Which the Lord commanded to be given them of the children of Israel, in the day that he anointed them, by a statute for ever throughout their generations.

37 This is the law of the burnt offering, of the meat offering, and of the sin offering, and of the trespass offering, and of the consecrations, and of the sacrifice of the peace offerings;

38 Which the Lord commanded Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to offer their oblations unto the Lord, in the wilderness of Sinai.

Verse 38 informs us that these details were part of the instructions given to Moses in Mount Sinai. We heard about that event back in Exodus, including a brief explanation of these offerings, but apparently that was just an abbreviated form of what Moses was actually told. Here we are getting the fuller picture. The previous account was more concerned with the larger narrative of Moses and the Israelite exodus, so it merely mentioned that Moses received those laws, but it was not a 1-for-1 transcript of what he was told.

This makes sense from a narrative perspective, but now that we are delving into the particulars of the law we get the richer details. Interestingly, these particulars do end up shedding some new light on the narrative as well. As we have seen, God was instructing Moses on rituals that would teach the Israelites to put their sins and desires upon the altar, to consecrate their hearts and lives to the Lord, and to recognize God as the benefactor behind every overflowing blessing. And at this same time, at least some of the Israelites were showing the absence of these qualities as they gave themselves to a strange god instead, the golden calf. The Lord, Jehovah was not the object of their attention and desire, they were not sacrificing their sinful tendencies to better follow Him, and they were not in a spirit of gratitude for the rich blessings He had already given to them.

The message here is clear. The principles that God was delivering to Moses were not only generally correct for man to live by but were also exactly what the Israelites needed in that specific moment. The rituals were tailored to help them overcome their exact failings, to grow them in the way that they needed. It was going to take time, repetition, and sacrifice to make these lessons settle into the heart, and that’s exactly what God was setting up for them. It was, as Paul declared, the schoolmaster to make them ready for Christ.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 7:28-34

28 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

29 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, He that offereth the sacrifice of his peace offerings unto the Lord shall bring his oblation unto the Lord of the sacrifice of his peace offerings.

30 His own hands shall bring the offerings of the Lord made by fire, the fat with the breast, it shall he bring, that the breast may be waved for a wave offering before the Lord.

31 And the priest shall burn the fat upon the altar: but the breast shall be Aaron’s and his sons’.

32 And the right shoulder shall ye give unto the priest for an heave offering of the sacrifices of your peace offerings.

33 He among the sons of Aaron, that offereth the blood of the peace offerings, and the fat, shall have the right shoulder for his part.

34 For the wave breast and the heave shoulder have I taken of the children of Israel from off the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them unto Aaron the priest and unto his sons by a statute for ever from among the children of Israel.

When the Lord says that He has “taken of the children of Israel” the “wave breast and the heave shoulder,” and “given them unto Aaron the priest and unto his sons,” it seems to suggest that he has taken their heart (breast) and their strength (shoulder) and assigned them to the tabernacle. That is where the people’s devotion and effort should be directed. Of course, they would have their own personal love and work in life, but even loving a child can be part of loving the ritual, and part of working for one’s livelihood can be part of working for the holy place. All of it could be directed through the personal towards the root covenant.

Of course, the priests and the tabernacle were not one and the same as God, but directing one’s devotion to them would be like having a signpost to follow, which would lead one to the actual destination. It would be like following a star, though the real target is the Messiah who lives beneath it. By giving their hearts and strength to the representatives that God had made accessible to them, the ancient Israelites would also be moving their spirits towards the unseen Father.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 7:22-27

22 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

23 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat.

24 And the fat of the beast that dieth of itself, and the fat of that which is torn with beasts, may be used in any other use: but ye shall in no wise eat of it.

25 For whosoever eateth the fat of the beast, of which men offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, even the soul that eateth it shall be cut off from his people.

26 Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings.

27 Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.

These verses repeat God’s commandment to not eat the blood or the fat of any animal. We have heard about this before, and I mentioned then that the blood and the fat seem symbolic of life and passion, and that these were forces too powerful for us to manage on our own, and which could only be properly managed when offered to God.

I’d like to expand that further by saying that eating blood and fat could be symbolically seen as consuming oneself. It is creating a loop of just one entity: the self. The self makes the demands of self-gratification, and the self devotes itself to that purpose, becoming both worshipped and worshipper in one. This is a self-terminating cycle that will bear no fruit and achieve no outside purpose.

This is, I would say, the greatest temptation that besets all mankind. Selfishness is the root of most every sin, and we all fall to it to some degree, even though we see that it is trended towards a quiet, lonely, grossly indulgent death.

God gave each of us tremendous gifts and it would be a waste to channel them back to the self, where no one else can ever see or benefit from them. That would be like taking a light and hiding it under a bushel.