Exodus 28-29

What’s Happening?

God has just given blueprints for the building he will live in. Now, he provides detailed instructions concerning Israel’s priesthood. God’s priests were meant to be gateways between heaven and earth. And facilitate relationship and communication between God’s world and ours. The priests will act as mediators between God and his people. Through the priest’s faithful mediation, God will live with his people (Exodus 29:44-46).

God gives detailed instructions for the sacred clothes the priests should wear when they are in God’s house. In some way, each item identifies the priests as a representative of God’s people. The first item is a priestly apron called an “ephod.” It’s a beautifully embroidered apron studded with onyx gems engraved with the twelve names of Israel’s tribes (Exodus 28:6-14). Similarly, the breastplate is an embroidered square worn over the ephod. It’s inlaid with twelve gems; each is also engraved with the names of Israel’s tribes (Exodus 28:15-28). As the tribes’ representative, he physically carries God’s people wherever he goes. Finally, the breastplate is called the “breastplate of making decisions.” It symbolizes the priest carrying God’s people’s concerns, guilt, sins, and questions and mediating God’s decisions back to them (Exodus 28:29-30).

Underneath the breastplate of decision is the priest’s pure blue robe (Exodus 28:31-35). The blue represents the sky, making the gems in front like stars. The robe is also fringed with pomegranates and gold, reminding its wearer of Eden. He’s dressed as if heaven and earth combine and meet in him. On the priest’s head is a turban with a golden plate centered over the priest’s forehead. Etched on the gold are the words “Holy to the Lord.” In this context, “holy” means singled out or set apart for mediation between a perfect God and his imperfect people (Exodus 28:36-38). Finally, the priest’s undergarments are described. They’re described in such a way to remind a careful reader of the clothes God gave his first representatives, Adam and Eve (Exodus 28:42-43; Genesis 3:21-22). Even the priests’ underwear communicates they are mediators between God and his people.

But before the priests can wear any of these sacred clothes and walk between God’s realm and ours, they must be ceremonially set apart for the sacred role they are about to play (Exodus 29:1-9). God prescribes a series of three sacrifices. A bull is offered for their ritual purification. Then, two rams are slaughtered to ratify and celebrate the priests’ position as God’s mediators. One is entirely burned as if God “consumes” the ram in the fire, while the priests eat the other ram in a ceremonially intimate meal with God (Exodus 29:10-34). The priests then immediately prepare a similar meal for God to share with all his people. Every day, they are to offer lamb, bread, and wine on the altar as a daily representation that through their leadership, God lives with, and even eats with, his people (Exodus 29:35-46).

Where is the Gospel?

The ultimate priest in whom both God’s realm and ours meet is Jesus. More than simply dressing as if he was the combination of heaven and earth, Jesus was God in human form (John 1:1-14). As the priest symbolically carried the concerns and sins of Israel to God when he wore the engraved stones, God carries all our human frailty in Jesus’ body (Hebrews 4:15-16). Jesus is the ultimate mediator between God and his people because he is both fully God and fully human.

And like the priests of Israel, Jesus prepares a sacrificial meal for God’s people. Jesus’ meal is not a ram but his own body. And when we “eat” his flesh and “drink” his blood, God lives with and in us. Jesus’s priestly sacrifice is the gateway between heaven and earth; by eating his meal, we will live with God forever (John 6:53-58). Jesus is a better mediator than the priests of Israel because he is both a man and God himself. Through his mediation, Jesus always provides unmediated access to God.

Even more than eternal access to God, Jesus’ sacrifice is how we are ceremonially set apart to become priests ourselves. Jesus died like the bull to purify us from our sins and guilt. But he also died to be a celebratory meal that ratified our position as God’s mediators in the world. Through Jesus, God’s people become an entire kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9). We are now gateways between God’s world and the world around us. We can bring our neighbors’ concerns, guilt, sins, and questions to God in the hope that God will answer our prayers with his presence.

See for Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to see the God who wants to live with his people. And may you see Jesus as the one who died so that we could be God’s priests.