Temple law

One of the talks during our church's summer series on prayer was on Abraham speaking with God on Lot's behalf, when God was intent on destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot and his family lived. At one point George, the speaker, mentioned about how the progress of Abraham's story takes us eventually to a point where God's presence was 'located' in the ark of the covenant, and latterly the temple in Jerusalem. It got me thinking about how much changed between the story we were considering (Genesis 18 and 19) and the experience of the Israelites living in Jerusalem with the temple system.

The two experiences are so different. Abraham has seemingly open access to God - a man who's faith counted him as righteous, able to stand with God and make his plea, humbly yet boldly - "now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord". Abraham knows who he is talking to but he also knows where he stands before him, as one who God will listen to. Abraham is also able to beseech God using God's own character - "Far be it from you [to do such a thing]! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" There's no ceremony, no traditions or rituals to perform, just open and honest conversation between the two.

In comparison, the experience of the Jews living with the ark of the covenant and temple systems was very different - George pointed out that people had died from touching the ark when they shouldn't have, and that only the high priest could enter the inner sanctuary of the temple, once a year. The people were given ways of purifying themselves before God in this system, and places to pray, but the connection that Abraham once had with the Lord has disappeared. He is a holy and distant God, not one who is knowable.

What happened in between these two times? One major thing - the law was introduced. Moses established the law for God's people, which set out the ways in which they are to remain clean and pure before God. Now the law is good, but it causes a problem - the people were not good, or clean, or pure! Instead of the open relationship between God and Abraham (and this despite Abraham not always trusting God's plan for him), the law now showed how far God's people were from his standard of holiness, and defined a new type of relationship between them. Not a relationship based on faith and intimacy, but one based on keeping the law yet having to offer sacrifices because it can't be upheld.

In that moment it struck me in a fresh way how Jesus changes all this. By the time Jesus comes on the scene, the Pharisees and other leaders have established many more rituals and traditions than even the law demands, further alienating the people from God. He is not a God to be approached like you would a good friend, he is holy and just and pure and doesn't want you to come close. Best stay back, do the right rituals (and pay the right amount at the temple) and we'll take care of the rest.

But Jesus came to show us that the relationship between God and man was always meant to be like that which Abraham enjoyed. He is a holy and pure and just God, but he is also a God of love and compassion and intimacy, who yearns to make himself known and show that he knows us. Jesus demonstrates this in his life: spending hours with the poor, sick and lost, teaching the crowds the way they should live, and spending many hours in prayer with his Father, whom he relied on completely for his life and ministry. Jesus spoke openly and honestly with the Father, expressing joy, expectation, humility, grief and sorrow at the things he was experiencing and the situations he was dealing with. He responds to what he hears his Father saying and sees his Father doing. It goes even beyond what Abraham experienced.

But for humanity there's still a problem - the law exists and condemns those who try to follow it, and stands in the way of being known by a pure and holy God. If we're honest, we know we don't and can't live like Jesus by ourselves. But if Jesus' life modelled what a relationship with God should look like, then his death and resurrection made it possible for us to enjoy that as well. On the cross sin was dealt with: our position before God is completely realigned, and we enter into a completely different relationship with him. We can now call him Father, like Jesus did, speak to him openly and confidently, like Jesus did, and live lives that please him, just like Jesus did. What an amazing truth! Jesus wasn't just modelling the way things should be in our relationship with the Father, as important as that is. He was achieving that reality for us too, by taking on himself, the anger of God against sin, that which separated us from it. We don't get to experience this by trying to copy it, we enter into it by Jesus' sacrifice, and then get to find out more and more what Jesus experienced in his earthly life.

Thanks be to God who has set us free from a life in slavery to the law, in order to enjoy the experience of a loving relationship with Him!