120305 - Exodus 24-25 - purified by a better sacrifice

Monday SOAP: One Bible teacher has a saying he attributes to Jewish rabbis: they say that they will not understand the Scriptures until the Messiah comes. But when He comes, He will not only interpret each of the passages for us, He will interpret the very words; He will even interpret the very letters themselves; in fact, He will even interpret the spaces between the letters! Bible believing Christians understand that Jesus IS the interpretation of many details in the Old Testament narratives. In the case of the inauguration of the Mosaic covenant, the sprinkling of blood served to show the New Covenant's superiority - because of Christ's superior sacrifice, to which that inferior sacrifice pointed.

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S: And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words." (Exodus 24:4-8)

O: The Lord institutes practices and records details to pick up later - and often, the details have to do with our Savior. This is referenced in the New Testament in Hebrews 9:17-23, to show why we call the Old Testament and New Testaments "testaments" or "wills" and why the New Testament is better - because it is by Jesus' blood and not the blood of oxen:

For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you." And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. (Hebrews 9:17-23)
A: "Every word of God" is what we live by - if we dared "abridge" the Bible, surely we would leave such an event out -- and miss an important point the Holy Spirit was making:

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:2)
P: Lord, I want to be sensitive both to what Christ called the "weightier matters" of the Law - judgment, mercy and faith - and also the details; because I am not qualified to know what details are more important than others. I acknowledge every word of your mouth as more important than my daily food.

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