God’s Kingdom of Priests and the Law (September 23, 2018)

Review: Last week we looked at the first half of Exodus. We saw that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, but God had a rescue plan for them. God rescued the Israelites from Pharaoh’s slavery, through Moses. We also learned that God has a rescue plan for us. Just like the Israelites were slaves to Pharaoh we all are born slaves to sin. God has provided a way for us to be free from this slavery to sin through the death and resurrection of his son Jesus (Romans 6). When we put our faith in Jesus, sin is no longer our master, Jesus is.
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So in Exodus, we left off with the Israelites being freed from Pharaoh. They now have left Egypt and are headed toward the Promised Land. During their travel God provides for his people repeatedly. He provides manna from heaven and quail when they are hungry (Exodus 16), He provides water from the rock when they are thirsty (Exodus 17: 1-7), and He gives them victory in battle (Exodus 17: 8-16). This is all in keeping with his promise to bless the family of Abraham. Then in chapter 19 God makes a new covenant with Israel.

Read Exodus 19:1-6.

As part of this new covenant God promises that he will love Israel and set them apart (they will be His treasured possession). He also says He will make them a kingdom of priests.

What do you think a priest is?

A priest is someone who has direct access to God. The people of Israel would therefore offer sacrifices and prayers to God through priests because they did not all have this access to God. Under this covenant in Exodus, the priests ministered in the temple, where the Ark of the Covenant was placed in a room called the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies through a large, heavy, ornate curtain. This curtain separated God’s presence from the people. If anyone but the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, they would die. The priests sprinkled the blood of sacrificial bulls on top of the Ark’s Mercy Seat to atone for the sins of the people.

From: https://visualunit.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/ark1.pdf

Do we still need priests to pray for us or offer sacrifices for us? Why not?

Read 1 Peter 2:9-10.

We no longer need priests to pray for us because every Christian is a priest. When Christ died the curtain was torn in two (Matthew 27:51), showing us that believers now have direct access to God’s presence through the blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:19-20).

Read
• Hebrews 10: 10-14
• Hebrews 10: 15-18

Christ’s death also wiped out the need for priests to offer sacrifices. These sacrifices only covered sins temporarily anyway, but when Jesus died, His sacrifice covered all sins of believers forever. Christ is our Great High Priest.

Going back to Exodus 19, we saw that God made this promise to make Israel a nation of priests but there was a condition to this promise, something the Israelites had to do. Look closely at the beginning of verse 5. What did they have to do? Obey God fully. 

As we continue to read in Exodus we find out what God wants his people to obey. Moses receives the 10 Commandments from God along with other laws showing Israel how they should live their lives.

* You can use these pictures to help you memorize the 10 Commandments.

Read the 10 commandments in Exodus 20: 1-21.

Do you think the Israelites were able to keep all these commandments? 

In Exodus 32, we see that Israel is already breaking the covenant they promised to keep. They make a golden calf to be their God which breaks which commandment(s)? The first and second commandments. 

How many of you think you would have done a better job of keeping the covenant than the Israelites? Look at the 10 commandments. How many of them have you broken?

Even if you think you do a pretty good job of keeping these commandments, God would require you to be perfect to keep this covenant (God said to obey Him fully). God also looks at your heart. So, for example, even if you have never murdered someone, God says in Matthew 5: 21-22 that if you have ever gotten angry with your brother you have committed murder in your heart and the punishment is the same (see also 1 John 3:15). So, we can see that keeping all of God’s commandments all the time is impossible for us to do. This is why under the old covenant, Israel had to continually offer sacrifices for their failures.

Read Hebrews 8: 6-13.

We do not have to offer animal sacrifices because we have a better covenant through Christ’s blood. We are promised that if we believe in Christ our sins are forgiven once and for all without these continual sacrifices.

So, because our sins are all forgiven, does this mean God doesn’t want us to care about the law anymore and we can sin whenever we want to?

Jesus himself answers this question in Matthew 5:17-19. He says:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Even though we cannot keep the law perfectly, the law is still important. Our inability to keep it points out to us our need of Christ.  God, however, still wants us to continue to strive to keep His commandments and resist sin by the power of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16), not so we can earn salvation but because we love God and want to please Him (1 John 5: 2-4). We will still fail but when we do we can still please God by confessing our sin to Him and He will be faithful to forgive us (1 John 1:9).

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Going Deeper

Psalm 119:11 says "I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you."
Work on memorizing the 10 commandments.When you are ready see if you can put the 10 commandments in order. You can use the worksheet below to test yourself.

https://biblepathwayadventures.com/activities/ten-commandments-3/

Praise God in Song:

To God Be the Glory
1
To God be the glory, great things He hath done,
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life our redemption to win,
And opened the life-gate that all may go in.

Refrain
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the earth hear His voice;
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice;
Oh, come to the Father, through Jesus the Son,
And give Him the glory; great things He hath done.

2
Oh, perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

3
Great things He hath taught us, great things He hath done,
And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;
But purer, and higher, and greater will be
Our wonder, our transport when Jesus we see.