Consecrating Ourselves To God

<Exodus 29>
1 “This is what you are to do to consecrate them, so they may serve me as priests: Take a young bull and two rams without defect. 2 And from the finest wheat flour make round loaves without yeast, thick loaves without yeast and with olive oil mixed in, and thin loaves without yeast and brushed with olive oil. 3 Put them in a basket and present them along with the bull and the two rams. 4 Then bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the tent of meeting and wash them with water.

7 Take the anointing oil and anoint him by pouring it on his head. 

8 Bring his sons and dress them in tunics 9 and fasten caps on them. Then tie sashes on Aaron and his sons. The priesthood is theirs by a lasting ordinance.

“Then you shall ordain Aaron and his sons.
10 “Bring the bull to the front of the tent of meeting, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head.

• <Ex 25-28>: Objects used in worship
• <Ex 29>: Persons (priests) serving God
• We NT believers are a “holy/royal priesthood” <1 Pe 2:5, 9>:
  • “offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”
  • “declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light”

The need for cleansing.

• Although the priests were Israel’s representatives before God, they themselves needed a representative because of their own sins.
• Jesus is our perfect representative.
• Spurgeon: Never let your joy concerning the atonement lessen your horror of transgression.
• We ourselves also need much cleansing.
• “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.” <Lev 11:44>
• 2 kinds of cleansing we need:
• 1) Regeneration, baptism of the Holy Spirit
  • <Titus 3> 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior
  • Once-for-all cleansing by Christ’s blood.
  • OT: Only selected individuals in the line of Aaron can be priests.
  • NT: Every Christian who are born again in Christ are priests.
• 2) Daily, ongoing cleansing of sin
  • “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” <Jn 13:10>

Consecrated to serve God.

• <Ro 6:18> “You have been set free from sinand have become slaves to righteousness.”
• Consecration:
  • to be separated from something (e.g. sin)
  • to be separated for something/someone (e.g. God)
• After justification, we should pursue sanctification.
• <Ro 12:1> Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship
• <Ex 29> 19 “Take the other ram, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head. 20 Slaughter it, take some of its blood and put it on the lobes of the right ears of Aaron and his sons, on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet. Then splash blood against the sides of the altar.
  • From top (ears/head) to bottom (feet), whole person to be consecrated.
• Be sanctified by God’s word.
  • <Jn 17:17> Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth (cf. <Ep 5:26>).
• <Ex 29> 32 At the entrance to the tent of meeting, Aaron and his sons are to eat the meat of the ram and the bread that is in the basket. 33 They are to eat these offerings by which atonement was made for their ordination and consecration. But no one else may eat them, because they are sacred.
• Spurgeon: Do not “give up attending the means of grace as hearers because they have so much to do as workers”.
• Not only “special Christians” are sanctified, but every Christian is set apart as God’s.
• <Ex 29:9> says of Aaron and sons: “the priesthood is theirs by a lasting ordinance”.
  • By faith, we also become a holy priesthood for life.

42 “For the generations to come this burnt offering is to be made regularly at the entrance to the tent of meeting, before the Lord. There I will meet you and speak to you; 43 there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by my glory.

44 “So I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. 

• Despite many human actions, God is the one who made things possible.

45 Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. 46 They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.