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Parables can be tough to understand. What we read in Leviticus are not merely relics of a religion of the Ancient Near East. This is a bloody and gory parable. When Messiah Yeshua said, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood” (John 6:51–58), He drew on the parable of manna during Israel’s Exodus journey as a foundation for another parable. Many didn’t get the point of ancient Israel’s “daily bread” in the wilderness nor Yeshua as the “bread which came down from heaven.”
The blood and gore of Torah reading וַיִּקְרָא Vayikra (“and He called,” Lev. 1:1–6:7) and the rest of Leviticus make us recoil, and that is the point. It’s supposed to be gruesome, because these offerings graphically expose the real cost of sin to ourselves and all humanity.
Part of the Exodus experience was setting aside the firstborn of Israel because their lives and their freedom was bought with the blood of the firstborn of Egypt (Ex. 13:11–16). Those deaths were gruesome and horrifying.
Why are we here? What’s the purpose of the Tabernacle?
A key purpose of the Tabernacle is a place where one can meet with God and enter His presence. It’s a physical focal point of one’s relationship with God, but God is not limited to the Tabernacle. He is in the midst of the people and traveling with them, in the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.
The books of Leviticus and the first part of Numbers are book-ended by the cloud of Heaven’s presence descending and rising from the Tabernacle (Ex. 40:34–38; Num. 9:15–23).
The Tabernacle and later the Temple were built so people could meet with God, but God was not limited to encountering His people only in the confines of the Tabernacle or Temple. The pagans believed the temples of their gods were personification of their gods, but this was not to be the case with the people of Israel. The Temple was a place to meet God, but it was not a personification of God.
“Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it.”
Exodus 25:8–9 NASB
“But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, how much less this house which I have built!”
1Kings 8:27 NASB
The rituals and architecture of the Tabernacle reinforce how much more holy — separate — God is from us, yet He desires and works to dwell among us. That’s the “punchline” of the parable of the Tabernacle. It points to a time when
The parable of the Tabernacle burnt offering teaches us that when we approach God we are to be consumed and then go up to God.
When Heaven hates your offerings
There is a domain that is ours and domain that is not ours. We need to respect those boundaries to live in harmony. When our relationship with God is damaged, we have to listen and obey when God tells us where we went wrong and how to repent and make it right. That is, if our goal is fellowship with Him.
Our spiritual forefathers in ancient Israel were sent into exile because they were putting burdens on the captives, the slaves, the indentured servants, the widows and orphans. They disregarded God’s instructions to liberate the slaves, to let them go when they were to let them go and discharge the debts. This was because the people did not trust God.
The elites were supposed to shepherd the people but they oppressed them instead, so The exile was a reset button to reestablish the proper boundaries of the culture.
‘A shadow of the good things to come’ (Hebrews 10)
The “first” temple/tabernacle had to be carried away to establish the “second” body of Messiah. The temple/tabernacle were a foretaste of heaven but the Messiah is the embodiment of tabernacle/temple.
Neither the Tabernacle nor the Temple were special in and of themselves. They were only special when God dwelled in them. When God withdrew His presence (“the glory has departed”; “abomination of desolation”), those places were no longer special.
Similarly, when the United States establishes an embassy or consulate in a country and the ambassador or consul general is there, it’s a tangible presence of the United States in that country. But when the ambassador or consul general decommissions that presence and leaves it, it’s just a house or a building.
For those who thought the qorbanot were the only way to enter God’s presence, the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles of ancient Israel — and Roman destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 — were existential crises. But people like the prophet Daniel, who had faith in God’s future restoration, would face toward where the Temple had stood, and entreat their prayers in that direction. even from Babylon. Their goal was to continue to approach God in spirit and in hope.
When we think about what it means to approach God, Hebrews 10 draws from Psalm 40 to give us the template/pattern of one whose heart is in the right place, longing to be as close to God as possible.
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” And again, “THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:19–31 NASB)
Draw near in Heb. 10:22 is translated from προσέρχομαι proserchomai (G4334, “to come to,” i.e., to approach). That’s is how the Septuagint translates the Hebrew verbs קָרַב qārab (H7126) and נָגַשׁ nāgaš (H5066).1Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, paragraph 8099.
The general term for offering in passages such as Lev. 1:1–2 is קָרְבָן qorbān (H7133a), derived from qārab. Literally, an offering at the Tabernacle is a “thing that approaches.” It goes to places in the Tabernacle that only certain priests can go.
A key lesson of Hebrews 4–10 is that whether the Tabernacle/Temple is in operation or not, Heaven is still forgiving, still hearing. That’s because the offering Messiah provided — Himself, the One and Only Son of God — is better than any other offering ever brought. If we reject the Messiah, there’s no other way to draw near to God.
Do you have the guts to approach God?
When Psalm 51 talks about the offering of the “inward parts,” it literally refers to the kidneys and liver. It means that not only the parts that people can see is offered to God but those most hidden parts that people can’t see, are also offered to God.
The American Civil Way cost hundreds of thousands of lives to liberate the descendants of those who had been kidnapped from Africa and sent to our shores as slaves. How much more when we approach God do we give Him everything through the Messiah. It’s gruesome what it cost Him for our freedom, just as the liberation of the Exodus took a gruesome toll on the first-born of that nation.
Summary: Tammy