My Something Old: Leviticus 14:35 The owner of such
a house must then go to the priest and say, 'It appears that my house has some
kind of mildew.' How am I contaminated? What
kind of “mildew” (sin) has my “house” (heart) sprouted? Pride, judgment,
resentment, rebellion, anger, stubbornness. OUCH! I may need some mildew
remover!
My Something New: Leviticus 16:15-16 “Then Aaron
must slaughter the first goat as a sin offering for the people and carry its
blood behind the inner curtain. There he will sprinkle the goat's blood over
the atonement cover and in front of it, just as he did with the bull's blood. Through
this process, he will purify the Most Holy Place, and he will do the same for
the entire Tabernacle, because of the defiling sin and rebellion of the
Israelites.
I never really thought about the Holy of Holies or the Tabernacle as becoming
defiled and having the need to be purified Matthew Henri’s Commentary states
the following:
When the priest had come out from the sprinkling the blood of the bullock
before the mercy-seat, he must next kill the goat which was the sin-offering
for the people and go the third time into the Holy of Holies, to sprinkle the
blood of the goat, as he had done that of the bullock; and thus he was to make
atonement for the holy place (Lev_16:16); that is, whereas the people by their
sins had provoked God to take away those tokens of his favorable presence with
them, and rendered even that holy place unfit to be the habitation of the holy
God, atonement was hereby made for sin, that God, being reconciled to them,
might continue with them. He must then do the same for the outward part of
the tabernacle that he had done for the inner room, by sprinkling the blood of
the bullock first, and then that of the goat, without the veil, where the table
and incense-altar stood, eight times each as before. The reason intimated is
because the tabernacle remained among them in the midst of their uncleanness.
God would hereby show them how much their hearts needed to be purified, when
even the tabernacle, only by standing in the midst of such an impure and sinful
people, needed this expiation;
My Something to
Do: Although these may be Old Testament restrictions the
spirit of these principles still apply to my life today. Examine the mildew,
scrape the area, remove the stone!
