Old Testament Worship: Honoring The Trinity

  

    

Photo of Ark replica by Ben Schumin 2007

God is a Triune Being – God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All of His creation reflects His three-part nature, and the attributes of God the Father and names of Jesus also echo their three-fold Divinity. 

Not surprisingly, God designed our worship of Him to praise and to celebrate the three facets of His Being, beginning in the Old Testament, and continuing through the New Testament and into the future.

The benediction given by God for Aaron to speak unto the Hebrew people used the name of Jehovah (the LORD) three times, each with a different blessing:

Numbers 6: 24 The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:

25 The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: 
26 The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Another Old Testament type, or precursor, to the ultimate worship believers will experience in Heaven appears in the Tabernacle that God instructed Moses to build as the place of worship (Exodus 25). He ordered Moses to collect from the people the materials for the Tabernacle as an offering to Him: three fine metals (gold, and silver, and brass, v.3); fine linen (made from the hemp plant) in three colors (blue, purple, and scarlet, v.4) and coverings of three animals (goats' hair, rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, v.5). These offerings represent the Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal categories of His creation over which He gave man dominion (Genesis 1:26-28).

The holiest place in the Tabernacle was the most holy (Exodus 26:33), or Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum approached only by the high priest, and only once each year, to make an offering to atone for the sins of the people. This atonement for sin by the shed blood of a sacrificed animal foreshadows the ultimate atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, once and for all, as the perfect, sinless sacrifice to pay for all our sins, past, present and future (Hebrews 9:11-15).

Within the Holy of Holies was the ark of the covenant, with the finest gold overlaying shittim wood (Exodus 25:10-22) to symbolize the mystery of Christ in His divinity becoming human flesh (Isaiah 9:6; John 1:14). The ark contained three items (Hebrews 9:4): the stone tables on which God engraved His law to give to Moses (Exodus 25:16, 22); the golden pot containing manna (Exodus 16:33-34) that God provided to feed the Israelites on their journey through the desert to find the Promised Land; and the rod of Aaron that budded forth with almond blossoms (Numbers 17:10), symbolizing purity and eternal life.

Thus, these three items symbolize God’s judgment in His Ten Commandments that no one (except for Jesus) can keep perfectly (Romans 3:23); God’s sustenance and provision for all our needs (Ephesians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 9:10-12); and God’s reconciliation with sinful man through His Son (2 Corinthians 5:18-19; Hebrews 2:17). Through Jesus’ sinless sacrifice, His perfect righteousness is attributed to our account (Romans 4:22-24), allowing us eternal life with Him in Heaven.

Moving outward from the Holy of Holies was the sanctuary, or holy place, containing three pieces of furniture: the table of shewbread (Exodus 25:23-30), the lampstand (Exodus 25:23-31), and the altar of incense (Exodus 30:1-10). In Hebrew, the word for “shewbread” means "bread of the face of the Lord," foreshadowing Jesus as the bread of life (John 6), the only sustenance the believer needs. The loaves of shewbread were set before God for one week before the priests were allowed to eat of it, suggesting that worship should come before fulfilling our daily needs (Matthew 6:33).

The lampstand, which later symbolizes the church (Revelation 1:12-20) was the only source of light in the holy place, just as Jesus Christ will be the only source of light in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:23). The altar of incense symbolizes the prayers of men rising as a sweet-smelling savour to God, as an act of worshipping Him (Psalm 141:2; Revelation 8:3-4).

Like the Tabernacle, the Temple was also designed by God in three parts: the outer Court surrounding the Holy Place, and the innermost Sanctuary or Holy of Holies), with the Holy of Holies in the shape of a cube of three equal dimensions (1 Kings 7).

God prescribed and ordained not only these places and articles of worship, but also times and holy days of worship. These were needed before the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins reconciled sinful man to Holy God, allowing believers instant, continual access into His Presence. Praise God that we may now enter boldly unto the throne of grace! (Hebrews 4:16)

© 2012 Laurie Collett

Reposted from the archives

Water and Oil: Sacrifice and Worship: Part 1 – Old Testament

Samuel anoints David as God's chosen king

Throughout the Bible, water and oil are used figuratively and literally not only as symbols of God’s provision and healing and instruments of His judgment, but also as offerings of sacrifice and worship. Water cleanses from impurity, symbolizing God’s holiness, and oil adheres to sweet spices added to it, offering a “sweet savor” to the Lord and symbolizing His goodness (Leviticus 6:15). Oil is also a fuel that can be burned as a source of light (Exodus 25:6; 27:20; Leviticus 24:2), also representing God Who is light (1 John 1:5).

In Old Testament worship, water was used to purify the temple (Exodus 29:4; 30:18,20), the priests (Leviticus 8:6, 16:4.24), and the offering (Leviticus 1:13; 8:21; 14:5, Numbers 19:9 etc.). Water can even be used as an offering when it is scarce and precious, as when David’s soldiers endangered their lives to bring him water, and he poured it out to the Lord as an offering (1 Chronicles 11:18).

Oil was to be given to God as a firstfruits offering (Deuteronomy 18:4; Nehemiah 10:37), meaning that we should honor God with the first returns from our labor. Oil was an integral part of many temple sacrifices (Genesis 28:18; 35:14; Exodus 29:2, 23,40, etc. Leviticus 2:15.16 etc. Numbers 28, etc.) but had to be omitted from the sin offering (Leviticus 5:11; Numbers 5:15), suggesting that oil symbolized God’s holiness and purity.

Similarly, oil was left out of the jealousy offering given for suspected adultery, and bitter water was substituted as a symbol for sin (Numbers 5:12-31). When the men of Jericho asked Elisha for help with the barren ground and bitter water in that city, God healed the land by instructing Elisha to cast salt in the water (2 Kings 2:19-22). This foreshadows how believers in Jesus Christ can be the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13), spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ to a sin-sick world.

During a great drought, Elijah saturated the altars with water as He prayed to God to show His power by bringing down fire from heaven onto the drenched altars, and He did so. In this showdown between Jehovah God and the pagan god Baal, water poured on the altar made the display of God’s power in fire even more intense (1 Kings 18:32-39)

Even after Gideon saw the angel of the Lord bring forth fire from a rock (Judges 6:19-22), he prayed to God – twice – for a sign that God would indeed deliver Israel. Each time God honored Gideon’s unusual prayer requests, first that a fleece he laid on the ground would be soaking wet while the ground all around it was dry, and second that the fleece would stay dry while the ground around it was drenched with water (Judges 6:36-40).

When warriors in Moses’ day returned from the battle, they had to purify all their gear before they could bring it back into the camp, by fire if it was made of metal that would withstand the heat, or by water if it would not (Numbers 31:21-25). Now we realize the health benefits of cleansing blood-stained items that have endured battle, but there is also a spiritual significance to purifying these from the bloodshed, violence, and pagan customs where the war was fought.

When a man took a vow to be a priest or a king, he was considered to be God’s chosen, set apart from the sins of the people in a sanctified state as His representative. Anointing oil (Exodus 25:6; 29:7,21; 30:25,31) placed on his head symbolized this commitment and transferred God’s holiness (Exodus 40:9; Leviticus 21:12) to priests (Leviticus 8:12,30), kings (1 Samuel 10:1  [Saul]; 1 Kings 1:39  [Solomon]; 2 Kings 9:1-6 [Jehu])  and even the tabernacle (Leviticus 8:10). When the prophet Samuel anointed David with oil as the king God had chosen, “the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.” (1 Samuel 16:13).

Sacrifice and worship in the Old Testament foreshadowed the appearance and revelation of Jesus Christ, God the Son, in the New Testament. Ritual purification and offerings in the temple were only temporary, covering sins for a time but not removing them. Only His shed blood washed away our sins, reconciling us to Holy God (Hebrews 2:17). Now when He looks at those Who place their faith in Christ as Lord and Savior, He sees only His Son’s righteousness, and we are as far removed from our sins as the East is from the West (Psalm 103:12). Now believers are indwelled by the Holy Spirit throughout our lifetime.

May we have the heart of David, the psalmist and king who longed for God so intensely that he wrote “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God” (Psalm 42:1). May we find joy in worshipping Him as we “draw water out of the wells of salvation!” (Isaiah 12:3). 

© 2013 Laurie Collett