Published: April 11, 2024 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Leviticus - The Parable of Leviticus 1 - Part 11 | Scripture: Leviticus 6:24-7:10
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discussion of the Torah of the offerings and offerings and um as you look at the different sections in Leviticus 6 and
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7 um you know you get a very quick realization that this this is not a detailed procedure of how these uh
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offerings were to be um presented to the Lord there's a there's probably a whole lot that that was that had to be done uh just to to handle the volume of the
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animals that were being sacrificed the grain offerings and then all of the other the um uh wine offerings and and you know the different offerings it it
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would have been a cross between a slaughterhouse and a Bazaar uh it would have been very very active all the all day long uh and I
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imagine the the priests uh longed for that communal meal in the evening you know after the the evening lamb was was put on the burnt Altar and
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they probably got to sit down and and eat the portions because I don't think they were munching on them as they were working you know you know I think you know they they were supposed to eat in a
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holy and a clean place and and this was their uh this was their uh respit at the end of a very busy day uh so I think that's something to to um keep in mind
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that you know we read about these one sacrifice at a time but each of these sacrifices are being brought by Israelites and there's about six million of them okay so if the Israelites were
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being faithful to the law they would again it would just it would just been a a constant um constant traffic and then of course constant blood and constant
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bleeding uh not bleeding bleeding you know constant mooing and lo and it would have been quite a cacophonous um cacophonous um experience and I think the point of that
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is um this is this is all God dwelling with his people and you know when you when you read it and you think about the
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offerings and just their singular presentation is not what it must have been like at all it's far too uh antiseptic you know I bring a lamb
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everything's fine no it's lambs and Bulls and you know just again just constant slaughtering and and burning and blood sprinkling and blood pouring
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and Ashes being taken up and Ashes being taken out and then of course the way I Envision it as I'm reading this because you do notice that many of the offerings some of the offering uh and and some of
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them most of the offering was intended for the priests this was their meal again this was probably um after the evening sacrifice when they would they would sit down
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things would finally quiet down and they would have their communal meal uh now later on as the country grew and as the priesthood the family of Aaron grew they
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would be um chosen by lot they didn't they didn't all serve in the in the temple at the same time and we know that of course from John the Baptist father
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uh who was serving in the Holy place as as B lot his tribe his his family of of Aaron was chosen for that month um which is kind of interesting because knowing
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that information um we we can actually fairly accurately calculate the date of Christ's birth because we know that there's six months between John and and
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Jesus in terms of their birth and we know and I'm I'm not going to I don't remember it now but we can determine which month Zacharias would have been um on duty and that's when of course now we
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don't know exactly how long after he went home again even if it could took a couple months but um my thinking is somewhat like Hannah it didn't take a
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long time you know that when he went back um Elizabeth uh conceived so I mean we can have a fairly good estimate i' I've never read anybody do it that way
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but it seems to me that knowing when that tribe was you know that family not tribe but when that family was was up for service and the that would tell us okay and then six months and then
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okay here we go but that's that's neither here nor there um but as again the the the priests who were on duty it wouldn't have been the entire family of
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Aaron um but they would have that evening meal um that communal meal that was brought to them by the the Israelites and that's very important to the Lord
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because that's that's his meal these are his representatives and as he's consuming the burnt offering they're consuming the Priestly offering and next week we'll look at the um the wave and
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the heave offering uh and and how that all pans out but this evening we're looking at the sin and the guilt offering in in Leviticus chapter 7 having said that each of these Torah
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are um I don't want to use the word well let me use the word incomplete in the sense not that they're incomplete in the sense of Revelation they're incomplete in the sense that we can't we can't reconstruct exactly what they did from
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what is written and we can go to Exodus and Deuteronomy and numbers but even there we can't we can't piece it all back together again um so again that kind of points back to the regulative principle is that you got the basic
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guideline and you need to stick to that but then when you look for the details they're not there uh so there was some room for them to have to figure out Moses may have revealed it to them
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directly U and that may have been passed down from generation to generation uh oral tradition was very powerful in the ancient world and also very powerful among ancient priest casts so we we can
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assume that this was all done by Revelation just as the um Tabernacle and the temple were built according to the pattern that he received on the mount okay so you know he was there as the um
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master builder I guess but for some reason this has not been preserved for us I think one of the main reasons is we're not supposed to reproduce it we're not supposed to try to recreate it but
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in each of these sections these Torah of the offerings there does seem to be one particular point that is highlighted or
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highlighted or emphasized um and I mentioned the the clothing in the taking up and the taking out of the ashes of course that's mentioned with the law of the burnt offerings and that makes sense but the
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ashes were not just caused by the burnt offerings again there was there were offerings all day long on the altar creating those ashes it wasn't just the ashes of the of the evening lamb that
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had to be taken up it was the ashes of the altar but that's was highlighted under the burnt offering um and under the um what we're going to get to the
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peace offering the emphasis is on the meal and that's very very significant um in in um understanding the meaning of that particular sacrifice even though parts
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of the other offerings became Priestly meals it wasn't that the peace offering was the only one that others could partake of actually the burnt offering
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is the only one or the sin offering when it was for the high priest or for the congregation so there are caveats in there but for the most part most of the offerings only a small amount actually
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went to the Lord on the altar the rest went to the priesthood and it's highlighted under the peace offering because that's the only offering that the offerer the worshipper partakes of
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all the rest the partakers are either the ironic priests uh well generally the priests either the priest who offered it or the priests as a whole um but the
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peace offering is unique in that regard so when looking at um the sin and the guilt offering I want to I want to call our attention to uh the concept that that
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comes out in this section um with regard to um so we're looking at the guilt offering in chapter 6 not chapter 7 uh
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with regard to the fact that that within the the grain offering and right before the sin offering we have a section added called the consecration offering in uh
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Leviticus 6: 19 and that the notion of uh sancta contagion that I mentioned a couple weeks
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woven into the discussion or the Torah of the sin and the guilt offerings and so I want to continue the discussion with regard to this idea of
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Sacred Space and we' we've talked about this a little bit before um but when we look at the Tabernacle you know it's a it's a large
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tent and then within that tent are two tents oops that's
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backwards the inner the inner tent that one's actually it's about 1/3 2/3 I believe division in this and this is all covered with a veil um here and
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then of course the veil that we're very familiar with here there's the Laver where the priests would do their ablutions and then there's the The
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Altar and Altar and that's that is the the point the furthest point that an Israelite male is permitted to enter into what is the tent
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of meeting this is the tent of meeting right here or the Tabernacle so the
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can come up to that point but no further from that point
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Space this is and and rinic tradition um all the way from the solomonic period and on uh we'll we'll talk about this is where the priests would have that meal this is the holy place where they would
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be able to eat those meals uh now there there there are other things that go outside of the tent to a clean place where the remains of the sacrifice were
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to be burned after two or three days um and that that's all woven into this but in Beyond this Beyond The Altar Israelite men did not go Levites did not
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go except when the uh Tabernacle was being disassembled or reassembled that was their function but other than that the ironic family was was in charge of
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this Sacred Space and so the words that are used in um in the Hebrew and then later in the Greek all form around this
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this idea of of sacredness and it kind of leads us to this concept of a sanctuary and as what I've been trying to do as we've gone through this is try
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to touch upon um how the Christian church has appropriated levitical terms and levitical
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and levitical practices and whether or not these um Appropriations are in fact legitimate now I don't hear it much anymore but when we when we first
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started using this building um people would regularly refer to the upstairs room as the sanctuary and of course most churches still still have that idea in church
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architecture um this this kind of this idea of a Sacred Space and so I want to talk about where that comes from and then whether or not that's legitimate okay so the idea of a
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architecture from Cathedral on but really Basilica to the cathedral to church has this um well this sacred place now if you go into a cathedral and
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you walk down the um what is it the what's the big long the apps what is the big long that's the Nave oh okay you get up to the front there's going to be a
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fence and there's going to be a sign you don't go past here okay because beyond that is the sanctuary um and that's where the priest goes that's where the priests do their
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thing um and even whatever Ministry of the word the homy or the sermon whatever they that's on this side but the sacrament and whatnot that's on that side and you don't cross it so in in the
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Roman Catholic uh tradition as well as the Greek so both Greek and Latin you you have a a sacred place and
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you have a priesthood so we already talked about the priesthood and the garments that go along with that concept you know that that demarcate and I I noticed this week something that I actually found very disturbing again I
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won't name names um but someone who I greatly respect in terms of his teaching um was was on a little rle or whatever they called him and
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um he was looking remarkably clerical uh in his in his dress in his in his garments um some whatat Anglican didn't have a dog collar um but other
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than that that he like okay that's an interesting outfit that you're you're wearing you're wearing you're looking you're you're looking a bit clerical there uh not not like normally
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dressed and I mean this teaching is still excellent but I'm like like where where are you going with this you know it's like do you understand that that's that's a step we don't really want to
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make is to to look apart and I don't mean a well it is a part A Part and a part right so we look a part in order to be a part and that's not what we're
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supposed to be doing so we have of course the in fact it comes from the Latin this idea of a sanctuary which is of course the the the sacred place the place that has been
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Sanctified so we we get into that word sanctification which is where we're headed but even within the
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Protestant tradition um we may not call it a sanctuary in fact um the tradition from the Puritan Era would coming over into the colonies would would call the building a meeting house okay and and
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anabaptists still follow that they don't call it they don't even call it a church because the church is the body of Christ this is just a meeting house or an assembly house and if you go into some of the colonial um meeting houses or
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even um we had the opportunity to see Bethlehem Chapel in Prague and it's just a big room there's nothing holy about any part of it it's just one big room okay um and there's really not even a
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there's not even a demarcation within that room um because within that tradition uh there really wasn't a a Pulpit you know men would would teach from wherever they were sitting somewhat
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in the synagogue model but there was you know so there's that but that's a minority group most Church architecture from from the Early Middle Ages on that we can find from the again from the
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Basilica on begin to develop this Central area of the building that becomes a holy sacred
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place now again people still call it a sanctuary especially older people but it's also um even when it's not called a particular place it
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has it has filtered into the expectation of how people are supposed to behave in this room now I don't know if
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you've younger people have ever experienced this but you know you're supposed to be quiet and you're supposed to be reverent that's the word reverent you're supposed to be solemn okay uh
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there are people who would actually just die if they saw our congregation you know on a Sunday morning because it's it's not quiet or solemn or or they would say it's not
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reverent okay so even with the the Protestants you you have the idea of reverent behavior and of course we all know
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reverent Behavior means quiet right there's no reverence in children running around or people talking and smiling and laughing that's not reverent reverent means no smile and
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that's still a very powerful tradition and you can sometimes if you visit a particular denominations you can almost feel it you know when you walk into this room it's like okay all warmth is gone
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all right we're reverent now great whatever that means um and but you see it's all the same concept we've come into the presence of God okay we weren't
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in his presence during Sunday school okay or out in the hallway or the coat room we're not in his presence there we're in his presence now that's the idea I'm driving at and that is strictly
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from this because that's what this is they're in the presence of Yahweh here okay and and you know that we have we've Incorporated that idea into our
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architecture and into our mindset that when we come into again as Protestants especially reformed when we come into the room where the word is preached we have come into the presence
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of God now we've been in the presence of God the whole time right me that that's really what protestantism is kind of all
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about with respect to its original uh object objection to the Roman Catholic tradition is that you we're in the presence as Luther said we're in the presence of God when we're at our day
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job say that again to do what with prayer prayer the way they view prayer internally it's kind of like well I've said amen nowed the veil well yeah it's like hanging up
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amen uh send the text um yeah I do think we we do compartmentalize prayer um I was studying the for the passage in
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Romans 8 and um uh several commentators noted that there was no such thing as silent prayer in the ancient world no one prayed silently everything was
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verbal everything was oral I mean you see that in Jesus talking about the Pharisees um you know that they were praying out loud but they were doing it on the street corners to be noticed by men it wasn't the fact that they were
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praying out loud that there was problem is that they were doing it to be seen but we you know we do internalize it and then we also compartmentalize it with that amen and then our you know our prayers are done the prayers of David
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are ended okay the pray I said amen I mean what more do you want um but we're supposed to pray without ceasing you know and and that don't I
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don't think that means we pray aloud without ceasing uh that that that might be a problem at the office U but more like more like Nehemiah but the yeah there's a lot of
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Concepts that that have developed that if we study them if we look at them and we hold them up against scripture and the light of scripture we find out I don't think that's what that means you know I think we've allowed Traditions to
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come in and some of them are maybe benign but many of them are not many of them are very subtle and and in their subtlety they're very dangerous and I think this this whole concept that we're
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dealing with here in terms of levitical priesthood one of the reasons that I I make such an issue of the fact that I really don't think many of what many of the things that we're reading have any direct forward
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prophetic pointing toward or fulfillment by Jesus that what we're dealing with here is the fact that a absolutely holy God
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has chosen to dwell with an absolutely Unholy people and what does that require now all that we're reading going back to Hebrews and understanding that
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this is a parable this is a living story teaches us that what it actually requires these men were not able to deliver and in that sense they point
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forward to Jesus so in a general sense yes all of this points to Jesus and is fully fulfilled the writer of Hebrews makes that clear but then when we try to
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get down in the weeds and say okay what do the heave offering do with Jesus you know what does what does the taking up and the taking out of the ashes have to do with with Jesus no it has more to do
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with the insufficiency of the ironic priesthood though chosen by God but they were yet insufficient which is again what the writer of Hebrews says they have to do it day after day and
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then generation after generation this is proving that you must be holy to be in the presence of a holy
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God but that whole issue of Holiness is kind of where I'm headed this evening what what does that look like so this idea of of sanctuary and and a holy
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place um I I don't think has room in the New Covenant okay uh and we'll talk about that a little bit later when we talk about you know there I think we all
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know that the Tabernacle and the temple are now the body of Christ I think Paul makes that absolutely clear and so does John quoting Jesus with regard to tear
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down this Temple and I will rebuild it in three days days so any idea of Sacred Space or sacred architecture is a return to the
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to the shadows and cannot help but limit the understanding of the worshippers as to the true nature of God's holy place that
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we are living stones being fitted together into a spiritual habitation that has there's no room for that just like that there's no room for a Priestly
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cast and it is impossible in my opinion that there be such a cast or a a portion of the of the congregation and it not have a negative
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effect on the every member every ligament every joint teaching of the New Testament it it it just can't I I you know we're we're not we're
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not able to overcome the imagery of a sanctuary you know in some of these places yeah they they Fe feel you feel it not always good some of them quite
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good some I mean you were you said that about elely Cathedral that it just had a a good feeling you know many of the places we've been especially in Prague because of the mariolatry did not have a
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good feeling and we kind of stopped going to Cathedrals as you so gets gets kind of old after a while going in and seeing the worship of Mary everywhere CH this a little bit of a sideline but when we talk about holy
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in a holy you know there's in our culture all
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advertisements tours to go to isra yeah the Holy Land the Holy Land yeah kind of emphasiz one of the most Unholy places on Earth but it's a holy land yeah I mean that's really yep in that's a
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little different but it is it is no it's the same it's it's a little different but it's the same concept that there there is physical space in this u in this present time
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that represents a uh an approach and a and a presence of of the holy God and the idea that we go somewhere to be in the presence of God that was
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true because God caused his name to dwell in the Tabernacle and his presence dwelt there the shikina but again it's very significant that the
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the second temple never received received that received that shakina that's very very significant and then that was the temple that was visited by Jesus okay and and then
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Pentecost so that that changes the whole picture and and so as we're reading it you almost wonder so why do we why do we bother reading Leviticus if none of it applies to the church well it very much
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applies to the church in the sense that it shows us that we are a people dwelling in the presence of a holy God and that the parable this is you know really when the writer of Hebrews calls
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it a parable when there are so many other good words that could be used to just describe it as typology or symbolism and this is a parable which means just like The Parables of Jesus it
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has abiding meaning and that's what we're trying to tease out of the text without falling back into the shadows and thinking that we need to we need to do these things or have that special
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clothing when we come into the pulpit or have that special special room when we all heads bowed and quiet and reverent you know this no we're we're kind of
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dumb with
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that Financial Steward right that's kind of what you're decrying here is making the law Less on we need yeah EXA OPP exactly it's it's yeah
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it's straining at a knat and swallowing a camel the it really it it's very frustrating to to hear the and of course having gone to a presbyterian Seminary you know we we hear the justification
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behind this special Garb that the people need it well you know that's what the Roman Catholic Church said about the idols and the icons and the stained glass the people need it it's the Bible for the illiterate and the people need
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to see that man in his robe to get the sense of being brought into the presence of God like no that is that is absolutely not just wrong it's verging
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on Blasphemous I'm pretty sure that's what Aaron said about the yeah that people needed it you know they they needed some image yeah right Moses it's they needed it um but
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that's that's kind of what you hear is that that's what it's it's for it's to help the people right no the holy spirit is helping the people because he indwells them and guides them into all
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truth so um we have to be very uh I think as we read this we should see the commonality between what we read and what we see so so often in the modern
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church now we've gone the other direction of course in many churches where whereas some churches are very little different from the temple others are very little different from a rock
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concert okay and and I I'm not going to go there because that doesn't come out of Leviticus I don't know where that comes out of but it it has no roots the dangerous one and and hopefully that's not so dangerous because after a while
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you realize this is nothing but entertainment and and that's all it is this is this there's no meat here there's no teaching there's no there's no real life but at least it doesn't
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have any claim really to a Biblical Foundation when the churches have their architecture when the preachers have their Garb you know they they at least
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could look back and say well this is what the iron the ironic priests did and this was the tabernacle like okay it's still wrong you don't understand what the Advent of the Holy Spirit has done
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and what the what the true Temple means in terms of Sacred Space so so we look at that and
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um it it leads us to this idea again
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holy because this is called the holy place and this is the holy of holies they were to eat meals certainly some of them in a holy Place some of them were holy others were most holy so this word
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is used and then in the middle of chapter six you have that consecration of the priest now that's going to be elaborated in chapter 8 but Moses puts it in chapter
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6 right after the grain offering right before the sin offering so he changes up the order the order that he has been using in the first five chapters where he went burnt offering
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grain offering peace offering sin offering then guilt offering now it's
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grain consecration right there in the middle 19 through 19 through 23 then sin guilt and then last peace offering and I think there's a very
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powerful reason why the peace offering is last it was listed under the general offerings in the beginning because if you remember those three had no
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relationship to particular sins okay they did not they were not in atonement for a particular offense as the sin and the guilt offering were so
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that's why the peace offering was in that group but now it's taken out and it's put on the end and it's that's for a very very powerful reason um and one that I think transfers really more than
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any of the others into the Christian church and into our own practice but we'll get to that Lord willing next week so what we're dealing with here then is
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this concept of Holiness and in a particular format of Consecration and
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sanctification which are very very similar words in the Hebrew as well as in the Greek to consecrate is in a sense to sanctify it is uh fundamentally to set apart and biblically and levitic if
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that's a word uh it is to set apart for the service of Yahweh so that that is a fundamental meaning however when we bring this into the
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church um we've kind of redefined sanc
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ification in terms of a process that's what we're going to talk about some this evening now it's not to say that it isn't but it is to say that it it is not only that and not even
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primarily that as we look at the use of the word family in the levitical system we see that one family out of one tribe
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out of the nation is consecrated and the high priest wears a little little badge on his turban that
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says what holy to Yahweh okay what it doesn't say is this man's holy I mean in the moral sense that we
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tend to take that word it does not say this man leads a Sanctified life or this man has gained victory over sin it says holy to the Lord okay holy to
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Yahweh and and that's and that is not just I mean he's the high priest but as the high priest he represents the Priestly family and so that that Holiness that consecration that
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sanctification pertains to these men okay so looking at then the the kind of the def the def of the idea of
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holy um one writer says the root meeting of the Hebrew noun which is codes Holiness and the adjective holy kados is
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separation okay so this is where I think we've we've moved away from the idea uh the biblical idea of consecration
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not so much consecration as as sanctification we've separated the two okay so for example in the Roman Catholic Church you have the you have the the sacrament of
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ordination and and clearly that's a separation it is a separation of the clergy from the Le okay that's a consecration we do that also here when
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we lay hands on elders or deacons that it's a it's a Consecration and it's a it's an ordination so we're making a a distinction but hopefully the teaching
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is is at least thorough enough to understand that it is a distinction of service and of responsibility rather than of identity before the Lord okay
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that's kind of different between the Protestant and the Roman Catholic and sometimes I wonder whether as the anabaptists concluded that ordination is just too dangerous a thing to
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continue okay I mean we do have the idea you know Paul talking about the laying on the hands of the Presby um but we also know that that um Moses granted divorce because of the sin of the people
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you know that that that maybe some things and I'm not saying that this is the case but as I said earlier the clerical Garb the holy place the sanctuary and all of
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that can it when you when you ordain somebody can you do that and avoid the thought within the congregation that this person is taking on a mediatorial
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position position between them and God does that make sense you know it's it's a concern I have it really is that that when we do this are we not you know we
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have to be very careful as we do this that we make it clear that this is not some type of consecration in a Priestly sense where these people are now
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mediators between you and God but again the you know you can you can teach and teach and teach and people still have their Notions you know the prophets Moses
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teaching and teaching and teaching but they still have their Notions even Jesus you know have I been this long this long with you and you still don't understand okay so um we have to be careful about
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all these things because while they they they do represent as a parable the incredible Gulf between an holy people and a holy God and they also represent
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the incredible graciousness of a God who condescends not only to dwell with his people but to provide means by which his people can maintain that communion
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that's what we're reading here that's the parable but we have to be careful that as we read these things that we don't fall back into that mindset of putting a cast between the
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congregation and the Lord okay so when we talk about sanctification we talk about the idea of sanctification the traditional
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Protestant View whereas we know that the word means
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word means separation okay but what we have what we have um kind of evolved to is this idea
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sanctification the idea that our sanctification is a process that begins at the point of justification and ends at the point of glorification or at least putting off
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the body of this death there's different views as when it actually ends of course Roman Catholicism has thrown Purgatory in there for a few more tens of thousands of years of of what you couldn't accomplish in 70
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um uh but listen to um Lewis burkoff whose Systematic Theology is probably uh one of the most succinct representations of reformed theology so
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if you don't have any reformed systematics um I would recommend burkoff uh simply because it's fairly easy to read and and fairly historically um true
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to the reformed tradition but listen to his definition he says he says um he says sanctification is
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fundamentally and primarily a Define operation in the soul whereby the holy disposition born in
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regeneration is strengthened and it's wholly exercised are increased that's a very accurate statement of what most evangelicals
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think of when they think of sanctification okay so what we have here then is is a um process
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there was a time when we were unregenerate we were under God's Wrath we were without God and without hope in
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justification we might call it our conversion it happens at the moment of our regeneration
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justification is a one-time judicial statement this sinner is Justified in the presence of God okay um by the way I don't agree with what I'm saying I'm just presenting I'm just presenting the
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traditional Evangelical and especially reformed view but as burkoff is saying when he says okay so when he says the holy disposition born in regeneration
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okay so at this point we are given a disposition and we definitely take that by faith because no one around us can
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recognize it yet all right at least in my case they couldn't so what starts at this point
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consider sanctification and I drew it in that way because we consider to be Progressive right in reality
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it's all right we'd like to think it's a steady upward and hopefully when you do the uh what do they do the linear regression you get an upward slope m is
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positive so um but the idea is that it's Progressive it takes time and often take a lot of comfort in that that that you know I I'm not what I will be and that's that is true we are not what we will be so there is this is not uh unadulterated
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error it just doesn't actually match the biblical use in the New Testament of the term sanctification John Murray points this
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out and I'm surprised that burkhoff um who was roughly contemporary with Murray um but Murray points it out in an essay entitled definitive
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sanctification as opposed to Progressive which he does speak about in another essay actually right in his collected works it's right after that um but
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sanctification places sanctification at the same moment as justification now this is dangerous because the Roman Catholic Church teaches that a person is only
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justified in so far as they are Sanctified that make sense okay so that's why all of the things you have to do your your sanctification is actually
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bringing to you justification well the reformed teaching does not go there um and Murray's teaching doesn't doesn't equate the two that one is the is the source of the
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other or even that one is the evidence of the other sanctification we tend to think of as the evidence of justification but that's not
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infallible and especially when we look at what the scripture does say and how the words are used um especially by
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can okay um in First Corinthians there are two places there I want to read 1 Corinthians chapter 1 beginning in verse 26 is a little bit long for you
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see your calling Brethren that not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise and God
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has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are Mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen and the things which are not
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to bring to nothing the things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence now that right there that that statement is key to to so
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soteriology when you when you wonder about Armenian ISM versus Calvinism or whatever ISM no flesh shall glory in his
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presence none okay so um so Paul goes on he says um but of him you are in Christ
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Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and
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sanctification and Redemption that as it is written he who glories let him glory in the Lord Jesus has become for us sanctification he's not becoming for us
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sanctification and in this point yet he's no mention of the Holy Spirit which we personally consider okay Jesus justifies the Holy Spirit sanctifies right that's kind of a
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common paradigm that people fall into that the holy spirit is the agent of sanctification Paul says no Jesus Christ became our
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became our sanctification then in chapter six he says do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God okay so our Behavior does
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matter you know it's it's not a statement of of that you know how we act and how we behave doesn't matter it's very clear in Paul's letters that our Behavior do does matter but our Behavior
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does not sanctify listen to what he goes on to say he says the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God do not be deceived neither fornicators nor idolators nor adulterers nor homosexuals
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nor sodomites nor thieves nor Covetous nor drunkers nor revilers nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God and such were some of you but you
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were washed but you were Sanctified but you were Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God he actually put sanctification before
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justification and there are no textual variant like it's right there you were washed okay cleansed you were Sanctified set apart you were Justified declared
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righteous by Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that's all right here okay and there's many more passages that um the you can find that in fact um there
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are more passages that speak of sanctification in its definitive nature than in its Progressive nature so why have we gone to this basic
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concept that burkoff says is fundamentally and fundamentally and primarily when in the scriptures it's neither fundamental nor
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primary well it's the very same tendency of moralizing of moralizing religion we've just simp taken this word and we've we've said okay this is the moral element this is the ethical
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element of our religion we have been Justified At The Cross by Jesus that is arist that's the verb uh tense that it's it's a one-time thing okay it's been
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done once for all the writer of Hebrew says and now the holy spirit is progressively sanctifying us well you know in a sense yes he
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is so that we can read the the benediction from 1 Thessalonians well not even you know not even just the benediction uh 1 Thessalonians 4 where
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Paul says this is the will of God for you even your sanctification okay so we're not we're not denying um he says finally um then
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brethren we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God just as you actually do walk walk that you may excel still
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more for you know what Commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus for this is the will of God your sanctification that is that you abstain from sexual
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from sexual immorality so you know there is definitely an ethical component there's no denying that what I deny is that it's fundamental and primary what's fundamental and primary
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is what Jesus has done so that no flesh can boast so any any Progressive sanctification ification that happens is all predicated upon what Jesus has already done to become our
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sanctification okay so so again in in first Corin Thessalonians 5 um you know may the God of Peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and
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soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ okay so there's that there's Progressive May the
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God of Peace himself sanctify you entirely which is certainly implies that we're not yet Sanctified entirely Philippians 2 he who began or one he who
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began a good work in you will bring it to Perfection I was actually just looking at that
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the yeah the preser the preservation indicates indices yeah it's both it's not just Progressive um and and that is right it's it's actually both when he says may him may he sanctify you completely he
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immediately goes back to saying preserve you complete because he he says that he who Faithful is he who called you and he also will bring it to pass so it all
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anchors back to what God has done in Jesus Christ okay so it it it's it's not a progressive um Act primar Al that
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progressiveness is actually a result and really U because it is the holy spirit that is caused to be indwelling you it is an inevitable result he who called
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you is faithful and he will bring it to pass he who began a work good work in you he will bring it to Perfection the the agent of all of this is always the Triune God okay so that what no flesh
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May glory in his presence there's there's nobody going to stand before him and say you know I'm so glad we did this together Jesus thank you for helping me
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Holy Spirit to be holy no none there'll be none of that it'll be nothing but holy holy holy is the Lord God
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almightyy wild of what he had already done and that he had called them a people out of Egypt and now everybody knows yeah and if you K them in the wilderness the Nations will say he's not able right and
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and you know God brought Moses to that understanding um not that you know God never had any intention of changing his plans but he brought Moses to that understanding John Murray then writes as
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I mentioned in his essay we are thus compelled to take account of the fact that the language of sanctification is used with reference to some decisive
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action that occurs at the Inception of the Christian Life and one that characterizes the people of God in their identity as called effectually by God's
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grace it would be therefore a deflection from Biblical patterns of language and conception to think of sanctification exclusively in terms of a progressive
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work burkoff is wrong Murray is right okay to say that it's fundamentally in primarily a progressive work is as he I like the way he said it's a deflection
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from Biblical patterns of language isn't that a very intellectual way saying he's wrong okay it's not what it says okay it's a deflection okay U maybe he was
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just being generous because maybe he knew burkoff I don't know um I'm sure he did uh you know but but I I but I think that the idea of progressive sanctification has been so ingrained
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into modern evangelicals especially within the reformed tradition that you know we don't we don't we we lose sight of the fact that that it was God who
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consecrated the priests and that that consecration did not make them holy Leviticus 10 is going to show us that and then the the history of of the um of
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of Eli's family you know there was going to show us that these men themselves were actually like the Kings rarely
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righteous okay in and of themselves to say that that they were Sanctified is a deflection of the pattern of biblical language they were set apart they were
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consecrated and and in that respect um you know we can see ourselves in Christ and that's what I think Paul's trying to draw us to is to show that
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that where whereas we have systematized the systematized the language this is always the danger of of
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again systematics it helps us understand a concept more concept more clearly but there's always the danger that it will divide which what is
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indivisible again you can use the example of the Trinity you know the terminology that came out of the conflict over the deity of Christ and by extension of the holy spirit is
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theologically helpful that he is of identical nature with the father okay and yet when you read through it all you you kind of can't help coming away with
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three Gods okay equally God but they're not I mean they're equally God but there's one God so there you got always have to come back to the scripture and and leave the
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formulations where they you know where they belong they're they're they're their value was in the ref reputation of error but when they go from the reputation of error to the state
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statement of Truth they've gone too far okay often they do so whereas the Roman Catholic Church conflates sanctification
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justification the Protestants were correct in dividing them and saying that justification is not sanctification they are different terms and they pertain to different aspects of
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our Redemption but what we've then done is we' basically separated them in the sense that one happens and the other keeps happening whereas
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actually Paul almost never and the word justification is also very fluid in Paul and the word soter or soteria salvation
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he almost never uses except as a progressive term that will find its fulfillment at the last day you know we are you saved Paul was
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saying not yet yes but no that he really throw a lot of people you know evangelis explosion he'd explode them with his answers no no that's not what I said
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okay I said you're being saved and salvation is nearer than when we first believed what are you talking about I'm getting further away from my salvation as I get older right you know was 1978 and I'm getting further away from that
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no no I'm closer than when I first believed it seems even as much sanctification is more than a one time action it's more helpful to think
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of it as a repeated action as belever aive grow I'm thinking of says
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of says present sacrifice it's something that Christ has done for us to set us apart and it is something that we must
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consciously daily make the choice to be set apart because but it's it's not you know every day and every way I'm getting better
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better you you hit the verse that we're headed to Romans 12 because I think that where we have gone into
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gone into error in especially in in following birkhoff's line of thinking is we've we've almost used the idea of progressive sanctification as an
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excuse for not being what we ought to be because we're not quite where we're going to be be and we can hide behind that and and it's and it is we look at ourselves again that's the problem when
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we look at ourselves it is very erratic it is very inconsistent which is why we're supposed to fix Our Eyes Upon Jesus the author and finisher of our faith okay you know we're supposed to
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fix our eyes on the on the Alpha and the Omega of our faith and not on all the letters in between which is what we are okay so in that sense it's it's abs
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abely correct that um you know that we we are we are we are daily faced with um what we call sanctification but Paul
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doesn't use that word in Romans 12 and I think that's where I'd like to try toh over the next half hour direct our our conversation in terms of of what is
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going on in the Tabernacle okay so if we go back to the text again and return to that discussion that I started with in terms of of
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Sacred Space what do we learn when we come to the New Testament okay the Sacred Space that now exists for the people of God does not exist in a tabernacle or a
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temple nor in a particular part of a church building or a cathedral to consider any physical space to be sacred is to move back into the Shadows of the ironic priesthood and Tabernacle and to
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rebuild the barriers that Christ tore down and yet that is predominantly what we've done for 2,000 years in the teaching of the church is that we've
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rebuilt the the temple with its veils with its barriers we've rebuilt the clergy and the separation we've consecrated a whole Priestly cast and
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it's like every generation goes back into the into the Shadows the Protestants have done the same thing in fact most Protestant denominations are are not far in their
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ecclesiology and in their polity they're not all that far from from Catholicism so Catholicism so um The Sacred Space now applies to
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Believers Bo individually and corporately there's two places of course that you're very familiar 1 Corinthians 3 and 1 Corinthians 6 where
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Paul do you not know you know he's not teaching something new he's like do you not know that you are the Temple of the Holy Spirit you are Temple of the Living
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God in chapter three he's talking about the church corporately because he's talking about the ministers and their building and when so when he says if any man destroys the temple of God he will
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be destroyed he is not advocating against cigarette smoking I don't know if any of you have ever heard that but that's a that's a common one from from