Leviticus 17, 24, 27: Holy Spaces & Places: The Tabernacle and the Geography of Worship

OT Reading Leviticus 17; NT Reading: John 4:1-26

Introduction

I hate the board game 'monopoly'. Only one person ever enjoys the game. For everyone else, the game is pure torture. Every time we play it in our family, someone ends up in tears. The people who invented it were teaching about the evils of capitalism. And they sure did. There is no game more able to bring to light greed, competitiveness, and the desire to dominate all human life, than monopoly.

One of the objectives of monopoly is restraint of trade. You want to gain so much property that no one else owns any property. That way, you don’t have to pay rent. You only receive rent. And so you become the monopolist. You own the whole board, and everyone must come to you and pay you, and serve you. In other words, you become god. That was what monopoly was invented to show.

Our economists say that competition is good, monopoly is bad. So Telstra was sold and now we have Optus and Vodaphone. You can’t just have Qantas, you need Virgin too. When competition is concerned, more is better.

But not when it comes to God. In terms of the OT sacrifices, only in one place were sacrifice to be brought in ancient Israel. At only one place were the priests to do their sacrificing and interceding. Only one tent was to be set up, and there was to be only one altar for sacrifice. There was to be no local sacrificing outlets, no corner store sacrifices. You were never to hear, ‘Go to your local stockist, available from an outlet near you’. No, there was to be one place alone in the nation Israel, for sacrifice to Yahweh. There was to be a monopoly, a restraint of trade on sacrificing, limiting sacrificing in all Israel to one central place.

The Sacrificial Monopoly and Geographical Restraint of Trade in Israel

In Leviticus chapter 17 verses 3 to 5 we read:

³ Any Israelite who sacrifices an ox, a lamb or a goat in the camp or outside of it ⁴ instead of bringing it to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting to present it as an offering to the LORD in front of the tabernacle of the LORD-- that man shall be considered guilty of bloodshed; he has shed blood and must be cut off from his people. ⁵ This is so the Israelites will bring to the LORD the sacrifices they are now making in the open fields. They must bring them to the priest, that is, to the LORD, at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and sacrifice them as fellowship offerings. (NIV)

We need to get a bit of background about this idea of a ‘holy place’.

In the Garden of Eden, the whole Garden was holy. There was no sin, so there could be complete fellowship with God. Adam and Eve had complete fellowship with their maker. Everywhere was holy.

However, Adam and Eve sinned. God kicked them out of the garden. They no longer walk in God’s presence.

After the fall, God’s presence was symbolized by altar building. God revealed himself at a place to one of his chosen people, and then God commanded the people to build an altar there. And the reason they built an altar was to sacrifice. So Exodus chapter 20 verses 24 to 26.

"`Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honoured, I will come to you and bless you. (Exodus 20:24 NIV)

And so, after the flood, Noah built an altar and offered sacrifice (Genesis 8:20). Likewise, Abraham built altars as he travelled through the promised land. He built the altars in places where God appeared to him to commemorate that appearance (Genesis 12:7; 13:4; 13:18, 22:9). He built one, for example, on Mount Moriah, where he was prepared to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God. Jacob likewise built an altar where God appeared to him (Genesis 35:1-7). Altar building thus created a special, holy place. God’s people could come into God’s presence and remember God’s covenant with them for the generations to come.

But after Moses receives God’s law from Mount Sinai, there is only to be one sacrificing place for Israel. Those other places, those other altars, become memorials. They are to be inactive as sacrificial places. But once the tabernacle, or temple, comes, and once God gives his people the priests in Leviticus, not just anyone can sacrifice just anywhere. The priests have to do it, and only in God’s place. They have a priestly monopoly on sacrifice in Israel. God puts restraints and prohibitions on others sacrificing at other places.

The tabernacle became the place where Yahweh dwelt among his people (Exodus 25:8). But remember, the tabernacle was a tent. And there are lots of disadvantages about living in a tent, but there is one advantage. It can move. So for as long as Israel had a tabernacle, they had a portable place of sacrificing, a portable altar, a portable place to meet God. The bronze altar at the entrance to the tabernacle became the one and only place where God’s people could offer sacrifices to God, but that place could move to the people or come to the people, following the guidance of God.

After hundreds of years of the place where God dwelt moving around in a tent, David decided to build Yahweh a permanent sanctuary, a temple, to replace the tabernacle. That meant that the bronze altar at the entrance to the tabernacle would also then have to stay in one place only.

And David was rebuked for this idea. He himself was not permitted himself to build a temple (1 Chronicles 22:8). But God did acquiesce ot the idea. God did eventually allow a single, permanent place of sacrifice. It was Solomon, the King of peace, David’s son, who would build it. It became known as Solomon’s temple.

In our reading in Leviticus, and 40 years later in Deuteronomy, God looked ahead and commanded that there would be a time of a single place of worship. So Deuteronomy chapter 12 verses 5 to 7:

⁵ But you are to seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; ⁶ there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. ⁷ There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the LORD your God has blessed you. (NIV)

The ‘place’ chosen, many hundreds of years later, was Jerusalem, or more specifically, Mount Moriah. You can still go and see it on Google Earth, if you like. It is now called the ‘Temple Mount’. And there are two mosques on it.

Prior to being the place for sacrifice, it was the threshing floor of a man named Araunah. It is chosen in a time of disaster. David sinfully engages a census of the fighting men. He did not do it according to God’s law. And so God sent a plague, just like he promised. But it was at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite that David and the elders prayed and begged for God’s mercy, and God told his destroying angel to stop (2 Chronicles 3:1-2). King David then purchases the site and sets it apart from the tabernacle, which will become the temple, in Jerusalem.

However, the significance of Jerusalem as a special place has a long history. Jerusalem is a most fitting site for the temple. For it was on Mount Moriah, the same hill, in Genesis 22, where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac at the command of God. Further, even before this, Melchizedek, King of Jerusalem, called ‘priest of God most High’, refreshed Abraham with bread and wine after his victory in battle. Melchizedek becomes a model, a type. Melchizedek, king of Jerusalem is the model of one man, both Priest and King, reigning in Jerusalem (Genesis 14: Psalm 110:4; compare Hebrews 5-7).

The temple and tabernacle symbolized God’s dwelling among his people. The temple was a stone tabernacle. The only difference between temple and tabernacle was portability. And most importantly, both had the bronze sacrificial altar.

Jesus, the Place where we Meet God

And thus it remained until our Lord Jesus came to earth. Jesus strides into the temple of Jerusalem as if he owns it. He comes into it and says, ‘How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market (John 2:16). Jesus is the son of God, God the Son, claiming possession of the temple, with it’s altar. Jesus, when he comes, asserts that a newer, better temple has come. His body is the replacement of the temple that God gave Israel. Jesus boldly says he himself replaces the temple. 'The temple is all about me', says Jesus. ‘I am the replacement temple’.

Which means, if you are a Christian, no building can ever be a temple anymore. There is no building where we must go to meet God anymore. Stones and mortar and bricks aren’t where you go to meet God. Not even Warragamba fibro is good enough. Now, we must go to Jesus. Old Testament believers were told to pray toward the temple. The temple towards which we pray is Jesus. He is our way of access to God. Jesus is how you get close to God.

Can you see what arrogance, no, lunacy, this is, if it were not true? Don’t tell me you like Jesus as a person, but can’t believe he is God. If Jesus is not God, he is an insane lunatic who today we would lock up, or else, worse, a narcissistic egotistical attention grabbing control freak, who believed that the whole world revolves around him. Christianity is not merely some moral code about how to be good. (Although Christianity contains the most searching ethical demands possible). No, Christianity is Christ.

Who is this Jesus? Is he mad or demon possessed? Every world view or system of thought must have an opinion about him. Christianity is Christ.

What do we confess Christ to be? Very God become human, the Word become flesh, the only Son of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, who only ever can speak the truth. John’s Gospel makes it abundantly clear. Jesus is either liar, lunatic, or Lord. And we confess him Lord. That is what a Christian is, someone one who confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead.

Jesus, in his death and resurrection, becomes the replacement for the temple, the replacement one holy place to meet God. The monopoly, the restraint of trade on where you must meet God, is still in force. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’. There is the restraint of trade. Only come to God through me. And it is still in force. But now the place has become a person, the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

Jesus is another temple, a better temple. The temple is Jesus’ body, which was destroyed in Jesus’ death for our sins, and on the third day was raised from the dead. There is only one name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved, the name of Jesus. So Jesus has a monopoly on access to God.

That is why Christianity is not about fighting for little bits of real estate. The temple mount doesn’t matter anymore, because Jesus has come and replaced it.

But Jesus is risen. We can’t physically go to his body anywhere on earth. Jesus is away. But because he is God, not only man, but God also, he is everywhere. And he sends his Spirit to all who trust in him. The Spirit of Christ is how we approach God.

And so, in John chapter 4, our New Testament reading, Jesus looks forward to a different way of worshipping God, without temples and mountains and sacrifices. John chapter 4 verse 23:

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. (NIV)

Soon, sacrifice in Jerusalem won’t matter, because Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Soon, the temple building in Jerusalem won’t matter, because the body of Jesus is the true temple. And mountains won’t matter, because God is spirit. John chapter 4 verse 24:

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. (NIV)

God the Holy Spirit, like the wind, blows and goes wherever he likes (John 3:8). God is not limited to any geographical place. It has always been the case. And so worship ‘in spirit and truth’ is not limited to any place. And by extension, it is not limited to any building or part of building. It is not limited to any particular posture. It is not limited to any particular liturgy or rituals. What then is true worship?

Well, John’s Gospel tells us. It is faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus will say later, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’. It is Jesus’ person and words that are truth. True worship of God comes through Jesus. And if you trust in Jesus, you’ve got it.

I hope you’ve come to the one and only place to meet God, Jesus Christ. It is quite easy to do. You can do it anywhere, because Jesus is everywhere by his Spirit. Jesus is the one and only place you must go to, but you can do it anywhere. And I’m going to do it now, by praying in his name. Won’t you pray with me, and come to that place now?

Let’s pray.