Among the many questions on which Christians of an earlier day made great mistakes was that of the Israelitish system of religion. By many it was accounted to be merely a pattern for the Christian Church, the priesthood being the model for the Christian ministry, the congregation of the tribes being representative of the Christian laity. A warranty was thus produced for the particular privileges which the ministry claimed as their special prerogative. Some, looking at the frequent effusions of sacrificial blood, considered this part of the system barbaric and revolting, and utterly unworthy of the Christian's God. In consequence, the Hebrew's God was accounted to be a mere tribal God—akin to Baal (the Assyrian God) and Dagon (the Philistines' God)—a God delighting in blood sacrifice and oft-repeated rite. The real reason for the institution of the Israelitish system was not to provide a pattern for the clerical and lay division of the Church in this present dispensation, nor were the constantly repeated sacrificings intended to teach that Jehovah was a mere tribal God. The object behind these things was to shadow forth the cleansing and adoption of that people—but in a later day—as the channel of Divine Love and Redemption for all the peoples of the earth. In thus becoming the adopted channel of the Lord, they would be the means of manifesting God's Holiness to man. In order to prepare them for that Millennial task, God began to teach them, in kindergarten form, the deeper values of life and liberty, of holiness and sin.

To teach them this elementary aspect of redemption truth, God took them apart from the rest of men, and instituted, with great care and detail, the system of the Priesthood and the Law. They needed also to learn that God was holy—a God who could not approve sin. Other peoples associated vile practices with the worship of their gods, and entertained no consciousness of sin therein. With Israel it was intended to be otherwise. Their God desired to erect the standard of purity and holiness in their midst, and to create within them an intense abhorrence for their sin.

In the wicked state of that ancient world, that was indeed a great and exalted lesson to be learned. In order to show them something of the vast difference between holiness and sin, God instituted a series of separations among men, each stage of which was intended to depict an increased degree of holiness, until, by the emblem of his own Presence in their midst the absolute degree was shadowed forth.

First of all, the entire nation was separated from the rest of men. When God's due time for deliverance had drawn near, God sent Moses to lead them out of Egyptian bondage. "Israel is my son, even my firstborn...let my son go" so said Moses to Egypt's king (Exo.4.22-23). Among the whole concourse of the nations of the earth to be regathered to the Creator-Father, Israel was intended to be the first. He broke the Egyptian yoke, and set his people free. He led them through the sea, and separated them into a place apart. After this He separated one whole tribe from among this separated people; then a separated family from among a separated tribe; and then a separated man from among the separated family. This man alone of the whole nation—nay of the whole world—was permitted to appear before that holy and mysterious Light wherein God had made his presence known.

In order to begin his great design of blessing all the nations of the earth, and winning back their hearts from sin, the Holy God, who because of Eden's sin withdrew into the distance and the dark, now began his approach to men. In keeping with the Promise made to Abraham, God made this first approach to Abraham's seed, in order to teach them how He hated sin. Accordingly He came and pitched his Tent within the circle of their camp. He came to dwell in that mysterious Light; to be the central feature of their life—to be their God, and take them to be his people. Yet though He came so comparatively near to his chosen people, how far away He really was! Around his Tent, a Holy-Court was marked. A holy fence prevented Israel's unceremonious ingress to the Sacred Court, save when presenting oblation before their God. None save the chosen tribe had daily access (of right and duty) to enter within that white-curtained space. But not all these, those Levi's sons, were privileged to tread the Holy Place within the Sacred Tent. None save the anointed Priest had right of access there. But deeper still, within the Most Holy Place (The Sanctum Sanctorum of Israel)—dwelt Israel's God, so near, and yet so far away. The separations among the people were thus augmented by the separations of these respective "places".

Again, the chosen tribe must show distinction in its dress. In robes of linen, pure and white, they trod the holy ground. No other men could wear this dress. Above all this, he upon whom fell the highest choice must dress in robes of even greater distinctiveness, to all else everywhere denied. A golden crown adorned his head—fit emblem of his Holiness to the Lord. Anointed with an holy oil, for other use forbidden, this special man stood forth as the Anointed of the Lord.

Yet even he, the final choice of all these stages of selection, was not permitted at any time, or at his own will or pleasure, to enter before the Holy Light. Not more than once each year, and even then not without the holy blood to make recompense for sin, this chosen Priest was admitted before the Holiness within to leave upon the Mercy Seat the "Kaphar" for himself and all the tribes of Israel. There was thus a way between Israel's need and God's abode, but how very narrow and circumscribed it was!

How far from the dark distance into which He had withdrawn the Holy God had come, that He might dwell with Abraham's Seed, and yet how far away his Dwelling-place was pitched! Too far for unaided, uninvited man to reach! That Holy Light, untended and unfed, enthroned aloft amid cherubic wings, was emblem of that Eternal Light in heaven above, the source and fount of Holiness Divine. This was the standard of the Absolute, the Sinless, the Incomparable. Here was All-Holiness, underived. No holy oil sustained the Light. Here was no consuming, nor diminishing, nor replenishing. Here was Fulness (Col.2.9). Exhaustlessness—Eternal Plenitude. Here was no enthronement of a tribal God. No festal days of Isis or Osiris, of Bel or Dagon could compare with this.

In His own good time the Eternal Custodian of Virtue and Truth began herein anew to grapple with the heinousness and sinfulness of sin. For full two thousand years since Adam fell, God made no effort to hold sin in check, except on rare occasions when vengeance fell on vile unholy men. Death reigned everywhere unchecked before Moses came, but God had sent no further enunciation of his Law (Rom.5.14). No sin-sacrifice was offered or accepted throughout those years, for without proclamation of Law, no charge of sin was laid. God gave no law adapted to man's fallen estate when Adam fell. Thus, without Law defined, no transgression could occur. Man was condemned already, in the first father's condemnation. Adam broke the Law, and the broken Law had spoken. Its Judge had issued his decree; its Executive Power had acted, and both the sinner and his seed were under penal claim. No man of Adam's seed could break the grip and power of sin within, nor lessen its contaminating effects without. Still, notwithstanding that man was vile, and wallowed pleasurably in his filth, God had taken no occasion to re-assert his Law, nor to adapt it to the needs of fallen man, until his own due time arrived. When Abraham's Seed had multiplied, and had smarted beneath the tyrant's whip, God's due time had come.

The due time come, the Holiness of God began to grapple with the sinfulness of sin. To show how far it separated God from men He drew around Himself the children of his faithful Friend (Jas.2.23, Isa.41.8). Though fallen like all other men, yet God devised a way to use this seed to serve his ends. By bringing them apart from other men, by clothing some of them in special robes, by teaching them a code of adapted Laws, by accepting animal blood as atonement for their sins, God clothed and invested this people, priest and laity alike, with ceremonial saintliness. If they would obey his voice, He promised to accept them as a holy nation, and as a community of Priests, and to place within their Camp his own holy Habitation. This procedure did not free their hearts from sin. It did not cleanse them, once for all, from sin's effects. Their taints remained within, and oft they fell. Yet in spite of this, if they would follow certain prescribed rites, God promised to account them clean, so that they might continue to serve his ends. How like a father, teaching his son to build! The nursery bricks—just tiny blocks of wood—are placed in this or that design, as doting sire thus teaches his little son to learn how it should be done. More than all else, the father seeks to cultivate his offspring's "building sense".

Building it surely is—but oh, how crude and immature, yet exactly the right thing for the untrained infant mind. In course of time the wooden blocks may be superseded by brick or stone and some imposing edifice, artistically constructed, may come forth from brain and hand, as consequence of that kindergarten cultivation of the "building sense". We speak of building sense illustratively here—now let us speak of "holiness sense", as God takes his family of pupil sons in hand. That it was nursery work and kindergarten instruction, all will admit. But in that far time, in no place else the wide world through, could anything to compare be found.

God was commencing a great design—of this Abraham had been told—but no effective instrument was ready to his hand. God must needs make that instrument in his own way. Hence, He gave them statutes and instructions to expand their minds, so that they could order their lives thereby. The exact value of this instruction is found in its results upon the lives of those rare souls who rose to heights of trust and faith—as Joshua, Samuel, David, Daniel, and others too, who shone like stars in a dark sky. Faithful men, of whom the world as not worthy; of whom God bare record that they had pleased Him, yet all in very truth, the product of Sinai's Law and Covenant.

This faithful few, and not the sinful mass, are token of the task God undertook when He began to "make" a people for his Name. That all the rest in Israel, the ox-like stubborn mass, were not pure in heart is only too painfully sure, yet in spite of all their sins and stubbornness, it still remained that they were accepted as the first-fruits, the firstborn, among all the people of the earth. Intrinsically no better than the rest, God accounted them as separate from their fellows, and invested them with an external holiness to make possible their participation with Him in his plans. "I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people...And ye shall be holy unto Me: for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine" (Lev.20.24-26). "Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the Lord your God...I am the Lord which sanctify you" (Lev.20.7-8). "I am the Lord your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy, for I am holy...ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy". (Lev.11.44-45).

These words, spoken to the whole nation, describe the whole nation's standing before God. The lesson we must learn in connection with their calling is that their lapses into sin and idolatry did not cancel out their position before God, nor destroy their holy standing as his people, and intended co-workers in the accomplishment of his plans. To enable them to maintain their national holy standing before their Holy God, the whole Levitical system was then set up. Though they were chosen to be a nation of priests, yet God appointed for them a chosen tribe to render priestly service, and a priestly family with its specially chosen priest to slay the sacrifice and offer the blood which ceremonially cleansed them from their sin. Themselves a nation of intended priests, yet God provided for them a family of priests. Israel was at school—its teacher was the Most High God—the Almighty God who had called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—its lesson, first, the exceeding sinfulness of sin; second, its converse postulate, the Absolute Holiness of God. To that end God surrounded them with holy things. He gave them holy days and holy years to keep; He gave them ordinances of service and ablutions to keep them clean, or to restore cleanliness when lost. He gave them holy fire to consume upon a holy altar the oblations which they brought. He gave them holy water wherein to wash after contact with the dead.

Looking back from our own fuller day, how hopelessly trivial and inadequate these carnal ordinances may seem. The constant round of sacrifice with its repeated effusion of blood—the slaughtering of bulls and goats, the repeated washing of hands and robes, the trimming and feeding of golden lamps: the swinging censer while incense burned, the regular eating of permitted foods—oh, how humdrum and monotonous it might seem; a constant round of tawdry ritual and fleshly ceremonial; but let us not forget even in this our "better" day, that this is the most advanced lesson in righteousness and holiness which the whole world of that distant day affords. In no place else than Israel did God condescend to set before the minds of men the first principles of that holier estate where man might live at peace with man, and in subjection to a Holy God. Count it elementary if we will; esteem it kindergarten as we please, but let it not he overlooked that here historic fact attests that in this way the chosen race first began within the bounds of post-Edenic times to lisp its alphabet in the deepest things of life. A people was set apart to God, to serve his deeper purposes; to throw upon the screen of life a picture of the present tragedy of sin and of its ultimate finale in righteousness, when once the "better things" have brought to pass the redemptive blessings for all the nations of the earth. Faulty and frail they were, so often falling as other men to worship idol gods, yet notwithstanding all, they were accounted holy unto God. Not holy in themselves, not undefiled in heart, but for the programme's sake, God took them as his own. Not from within, but from without that holiness derived. It came from God, and from his presence in their midst and from his expressed desire to have them cooperate with Him to out-work His great designs.

A great objective was set before them—and even in those early days the creditworthiness of the scheme was attributed to them for the scheme's sake. It was intended in future times to produce holiness in man—to conquer sin and make man whole and wholesome within. This holy "end" made holy the "means" thereto. And thus in those far-off primitive days, by means of elementary rites and sacrifices God set on record for such to read as can, the basic lesson concerning his own inner Self, and of his unfaltering intention to set man free from sin and death. Intrinsically unholy men were accorded extrinsic holiness, so that they might cooperate with God. Gathered round the emblem of his presence, within the hidden depths of the Holiest place, and set by God each in his own respective relation thereto, High-Priest, under-Priest, Levite, and tribesman, each and all, from centre to circumference afford a picture of holy means dedicated to a holy end. The lesson we must learn today is this, that those whom God calls to be associated with Himself in carrying forward his great design, are made Holy by that association, for the sake of the design.

TH