Have you read all of the tabernacle stuff? There’s so much detail. Everything is spelled out down to the cubit. There are lampstands and incense stands and multiple altars. There are hangings and vestments and, of course, the ark itself. There is wood and gold and bronze and linen and blue and crimson yarns. It all has to be made correctly, it all has to be positioned correctly, and then it has to be anointed and consecrated and it just gets really complicated really fast. There are four full chapters of assembly instructions – and then they have to tear it all down, move it, and put it all back up again when the Lord signals that it’s time to migrate.
And that’s just the table stakes. Next comes all of the purification stuff – who can enter God’s presence, under what circumstances, and how to do it without getting burnt up – plus the whole sacrifice system, where the goal is for things to get burnt up, at least a little bit, so that people can avoid it. There is a ton of complexity here.
Then Jesus came along and simplified everything.
For one thing, he was the temple. When he wanted to move, he moved, no Allen wrench required. In becoming our “great priest”, he granted us access to God’s presence perpetually, and in sacrificing himself for our sins, he made the earlier rules obsolete.
But there’s comfort in complexity. When things are complicated, we have an excuse for not getting them right. How could anyone possibly expect us to follow four chapters of instructions? We can barely keep up with the happy Swedish man assembling a bookshelf.
We don’t have that luxury anymore. Jesus died and the curtain was torn, and now we have nowhere to hide.
— MeganPrestonMeyer
And that’s just the table stakes. Next comes all of the purification stuff – who can enter God’s presence, under what circumstances, and how to do it without getting burnt up – plus the whole sacrifice system, where the goal is for things to get burnt up, at least a little bit, so that people can avoid it. There is a ton of complexity here.
Then Jesus came along and simplified everything.
For one thing, he was the temple. When he wanted to move, he moved, no Allen wrench required. In becoming our “great priest”, he granted us access to God’s presence perpetually, and in sacrificing himself for our sins, he made the earlier rules obsolete.
But there’s comfort in complexity. When things are complicated, we have an excuse for not getting them right. How could anyone possibly expect us to follow four chapters of instructions? We can barely keep up with the happy Swedish man assembling a bookshelf.
We don’t have that luxury anymore. Jesus died and the curtain was torn, and now we have nowhere to hide.
— MeganPrestonMeyer
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