So the first message boils down to: draw near to God. In fact, you need to draw so near to God that you become one with the divine, human, universal incorporation of the Triune God. Distance, remember? Well, there’s problem. God is love, light, holy, and righteous. Because God is all of these things, fallen man cannot have access to Him. Romans 3:23 states, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all sinners. And even if we haven’t sinned (in the last day or two, anyway) guess what? We FALL SHORT of God’s glory. The first message told us to eat the hidden manna within the golden pot, within the ark, but if you were to enter into the Holy of Holies, you would see that on either side of the Ark keeping watch over the contents of the Ark were two cherubim made of beaten gold. These were the cherubim that made sure that anyone who came forward met the high standard of God’s divinity.
In Old Testament times, the high priest would enter into the Holy of Holies once per year. Upon the skirt of his robe there were bells. These bells would ring as the priest worked. However, if the priest did not match God’s standard of glory, he would die when he entered the Holy of Holies. Hence, the high priest would always come forward with fear and trembling, fearing whether or not he matched God’s glory. The high priest would sprinkle the blood upon the “kapporeth” or cover, that is the expiation cover of the Ark. This lid, “covered over” or rather appeased God’s requirements so that the high priest would be able to come forward to the Holy of Holies. Appease. What a wonderful word. Appease means to pacify or placate someone by acceding to their demands. The standards of God’s glory are demands upon us which we cannot fulfill. However, the blood upon the cover appeases God’s demands and allows God and us to meet together to fellowship and allows God to speak to us and lead us.
Today, Christ is the great High Priest who through His own blood has opened a new and living way for us to come forward, not with fear and trembling but with boldness. We come forward not to a throne of judgement and condemnation that judges how much we fall short of God’s glory, but rather to a throne of grace where we find mercy and receive grace (Heb. 4:16). He is the propitiatory sacrifice whose blood was shed for our redemption. He is also the expiation cover, where the blood is sprinkled to appease God’s righteous requirements. Christ is also the propitiation place, the place where God’s presence is and where we come to fellowship with God and listen to His speaking. Finally, today He is the throne of Grace installed in our spirit where we can come to experience all the reality of these marvelous promises.
Let us therefore come forward with boldness! To live our Christian life, a life of purpose and truth, we need to be a person who receives God’s infusion in the Holy of Holies, then we will be a person in the Lord’s ultimate recovery that will terminate this age and usher in the age of the kingdom and ultimately the New Jerusalem.
Crumbs & Bits 