Priests: Mediators of Relationship With the Holy One
Nick Owens, October 5, 2025
Priests: Mediators of Relationship with the Holy One
Lev. 8-9
Imagine you’re having a conversation with your neighbor or someone in your neighborhood – and they find out that you are a Christian, and let’s assume, which actually may be more and more the case as the years and decades go on, that this person doesn’t have really the faintest idea about God or Christianity – and they ask – so you believe in God? “Yes,” you say….
And they respond, “I know some people meditate or others believe in a life force that we can tap into through prayer or nature or various holy writings – but I’ve always wondered, what actually are people supposedly connecting with, like what do you think God is like?
I wonder how many of us would say – “our God is a consuming fire.” That’s intense! I mean, the bible literally says that – Hebrews 12:29. And think about this passage we just heard read – it’s an accurate description….. But it doesn’t sound nice….. it doesn’t make me feel very good…… it sounds aggressive or destructive or dangerous.
If you’re someone who wouldn’t call yourself a Christian, maybe you’re trying to ask questions to understand more about the Bible and Christianity – I’m assuming this notion of God as a consuming fire is about the last thing…..the very bottom of the list of what you’d like God to be….. if he indeed exists. You may even believe in God generally, but this doesn’t sound like anything you want God to be.
And even for those of us who are Christians, who are aware of verses and parts of the Bible that describe God in this way – we probably like to think of God and highlight the ways God is loving; he’s the author of life; he’s faithful and good….
But here we need to bring together two things the Bible doesn’t separate – It’s not as if God being a God of love or the author of life, or truly and supremely good is somehow opposed to this other picture of God as consuming fire.
No, think about fire – fire is pure and fire consumes. Fire consumes all that is not pure. The God of love and life and goodness, in those very attributes, is a consuming fire. He consumes the impurities and distortions of love; he is for life as it was meant to be; he is pure goodness and so he is against all evil and sin – every distortion of life as it was meant to be, every distortion or twisting of what is really true and good and beautiful.
In the presence of this God – sin and evil cannot stand, it is consumed. As darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, so sin and evil cannot exist in the presence of God.
This is a theme throughout the Bible and central to Leviticus – God is Holy.
When we speak of God’s Holiness – one of the things we’re saying is that God is unique. He’s not like us; he’s not like anything in this world. He is radically different. He is in a class all his own – Nothing can compare to him. We are alive – but he is the very source of life. He is the creator and sustainer of this world and all life. He is far above us, far greater than we can imagine. When we even begin to recognize who it is we are talking about – we can only respond with wonder and awe. God is a being who overwhelms us and our categories.
But in addition to this – and especially in light of human sin – all the ways we have failed to be who God made us to be – the response to the Holy God we see so often in the Bible is one of terror – of being undone – because we’ve been exposed – like all the impurities and crookedness and distortions in us are exposed.
We see in Scripture, when God’s Holiness, his unique beauty and purity, breaks into the life of a sinful person – when sinful people catch even a glimpse, they are undone.
Recall Isaiah’s experience from our opening Scripture this morning. Isaiah sees a vision of God in the temple, he catches a glimpse. The God who is Holy, who is real and true and pure – in a moment the reality of this God breaks into Isaiah’s life and he is undone. He says, “Woe is me! I am ruined! I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. He’s exposed.
You see, all the ways we can sort of cover or hide, or put our best self forward and not show the parts of us that we’d rather not have other people see and maybe we can even sort of hide about ourselves – in the presence of God – all this is brought into the light, it is exposed before the Holy God.
There’s a ministry called “The Bible Project” that some of you may be familiar with. They produce all sorts of short videos and other resources to help people understand the Bible – its various books and themes. And probably one video that I’ve watched most with my kids is the one on God’s holiness.
In it they compare God’s holiness to the Sun – SUN. In our solar system – our Sun is unique. It is the source of life for our planet – without the Sun we couldn’t live, plants couldn’t grow, all life would die out. The Sun is incredibly powerful. You could say the Sun is Holy. And similar to what we see in the Bible, the area around the SUN, near the Sun, you could say, is holy. The closer you get to the Sun, the more intense it gets. And we see a similar thing with the Holy God – When flawed, sinful people draw near there is a heightened danger –
And this is important – it’s not dangerous because God’s holiness is bad or there’s something wrong with God – drawing near to the Holy God is dangerous because he is so good…………… and his holiness threatens to consume all that is not Holy and Pure and Good and Right and True.
Now with the Sun, that’s not too much of a problem – none of us are planning a trip to draw near to the sun. We’ll keep our distance from the Sun and wear sunscreen and – all is good.
But the HOLY God of the Bible wants to be in relationship with people. He made human beings to be in relationship with him, to draw near to him – it is our greatest need to be able to know this God and have communion with this God – and yet in our sin we are alienated from God and to come near to God is dangerous.
And this reality leads us back to the central theme of the book of Leviticus. How is it possible for a sinful person to draw near to God?
If you’ve been with us, we’ve seen how the various sacrifices and offerings that the book begins with are these relationship enablers, making it possible for sinful people to draw near to God – to be cleansed, set apart as his, and to be able to feast in his presence and celebrate restored relationship with God.
In this next section of Leviticus – We are given another aspect, another piece regarding what sinful people need to draw near to God. And it is: mediation. Sinful people need mediation. Which is to say, they need priests.
You see, there needs to be a go-between between God and the people – someone who can represent the people before God, and yet someone who can also represent God to the people. To draw near to this Holy God, sinful people need mediation.
So I want us to look at these two chapters first considering The Need for Mediation, and then The Work of Mediation.
The Need for Mediation –
If we went back in the story before the book of Leviticus – already in Exodus, Moses has been the mediator between God and the people. At Sinai, after they have been saved by God from the Egyptians at the Red Sea, Moses and the people come to the mountain and the people are warned not to get too close, but Moses is called by God to come up the mountain. Moses represents the people before God – he prays for the people, he intercedes for the people. And Moses also represents God to the people – he brings God’s words, God’s instructions to the people. He’s like a buffer in this role of mediating.
Look with me at chapter 8 of Lev. The text is very long… so this is the part I didn’t have Gretchen read this morning.
Here’s what I want us to see – The Need for Mediation – it goes deep – The need for mediation – is vast and great, because the problem of sin, like cancer that just won’t quit – has spread everywhere) – the problem is greater than we imagine.
So if you were reading the opening chapters of Leviticus, ch. 1-7 – they regularly talk about Priests – it all assumes Priests and their work to help the people make these various offerings so that sinful people can draw near to God. But as we turn to ch. 8 – where Aaron and his sons are consecrated to serve in this role – perhaps the first thing we ought to recognize in this passage about ordaining the first priests is that priests need a priest. These future mediators, themselves, need mediation.
None of the people are “naturally” fit to fulfill this role.
And so in ch. 8 we see this process, where Moses mediates, doing the priestly work for these future priests so that they can serve.
Read with me, starting in the beginning of ch. 8 – notice all that Moses must do.
Lev. 8:1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments and the anointing oil and the bull of the sin offering and the two rams and the basket of unleavened bread. 3 And assemble all the congregation at the entrance of the tent of meeting.” 4 And Moses did as the LORD commanded him, and the congregation was assembled at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
Lev. 8:5 And Moses said to the congregation, “This is the thing that the LORD has commanded to be done.”
God calls for a public ceremony – the people will witness what is necessary for someone to serve as a Priest – as a mediator.
We see in v. 6 – they must be washed, cleansed
6 And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water.
In v. 7-9 – Moses clothes the future priests – and you may or may not know the symbolic significance of these various elements – but just to mention one – the priest wore a breastpiece, over their chest, that had the names of the tribes of Israel – each one etched on a precious stone – so that as they ministered and prayed, and went into the tabernacle to perform the various offerings – it was as if they were bringing the people with them – into the presence of God.
In v. 10ff – not only do the priests need cleansing – but the tabernacle itself – Moses, using oil, anoints the tabernacle and all that is in it. The anointing with oil would signify that all these objects, as well as the priests whom Moses anoints as well – are being set apart as holy.
You’ll notice that after v. 13 there’s a break in the text. I decided since this text was already long to not print these verses in the bulletin.
But if you go back later to look at this or you have your Bible, you will see that basically the 3 main offerings we’ve already talked about – Sin offering, Ascension offering, and Peace offering – those that Leviticus opened with – all these sacrifices have to be done for Aaron and his sons.
They needed a sin offering done on their behalf to purify them and cleanse them. They needed an ascension offering to devote them to God. Then, finally there was the ordination offering – which was similar to the Peace offering – because it was an offering they ate and celebrated communion with God. All of this must be done for them.
And we read in ch. 8 v. 33 ff, that this will go on for 7 days – the sacrifices will keep happening because it will take 7 days to ordain them.
33 And you shall not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting for seven days, until the days of your ordination are completed, for it will take seven days to ordain you. 34 As has been done today, the LORD has commanded to be done to make atonement for you. 35 At the entrance of the tent of meeting you shall remain day and night for seven days, performing what the LORD has charged, so that you do not die, for so I have been commanded.”
Why 7? Seven days? And did you notice the mention of 7 earlier? – v. 11 the altar is sprinkled 7 times.
In the mysterious and strange world of Leviticus we are to understand that what God is doing is a work of new creation. The symbolic number 7 points back to the 7 days of creation. In the book of Exodus ch. 25-31, the instructions for the tabernacle are given in 7 speeches, harkening back to creation. The tabernacle is being set apart like a new creation, like a new Eden, where God originally dwelt with humanity. The priests go through a 7 day period of cleaning where atonement is made for them so that they, like a new Adam, a new humanity, can dwell with God and mediate relationship so God’s people can draw near.
All of this is necessary because sin has spread and spoiled everything.
All of these instructions are from God, given in love, because he wants to make a way for humanity to draw near to him.
And this greater nearness to God is what we see the “Work of Mediation” accomplished in ch. 9
So 2nd – The work of Mediation –
God through Moses communicates exactly what will result from the Priests doing the work of Mediation – ch. 9 v. 4 – “The LORD will appear to you.” v. 6 – “This is the thing that the LORD commanded you to do, that the glory of the LORD may appear to you.”
So for the bulk of this chapter we see all the sacrifices and offerings we’ve already covered.
- First – Aaron must make sacrifices for himself – even as the cleansed, set apart, the High Priest – Aaron still must make offerings first for himself …………and then for the people.
- And so we see he makes a sin offering v. 8 and then the ascension or burnt offering v. 12.
Then after making atonement for himself he makes offerings for the people.
- v. 15 – he presents the people’s sin offering, then the ascension, and grain offerings, finally , v. 18 the peace offerings. All of this is done as the text repeatedly says – “As the LORD commanded.”
Now look with me at v. 22 ff and what results from this –
Lev. 9:22 Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them……
Perhaps using the very words of Numbers 6 – the blessing we frequently use to conclude our service – Aaron lifts up his hands, saying – “The LORD, bless you and keep you, the LORD, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, The LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” He prays and blesses the people……. And then v. 23 we read ….
23 And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting.
Wait what?!!! Where did they go? “into the tent of meeting”!!!!
Do you remember the first sermon in this series where we looked at the end of Exodus, Ex. 40 where Moses couldn’t enter into the tent. This is the dramatic problem that has been left hanging since Ex. 40. But now, something is different. God has given instruction, God has spoken, God has revealed the way. Through his instruction and the work of these mediators something is different. Moses and Aaron go into the tent of meeting.
And then we read…
and when they came out they blessed the people, (once again they pronounce the blessing of God and then we read…..) and the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people.
We should probably imagine something like the glory cloud of God’s presence over the tabernacle, now lighting up with flashes of lightening and activity….. and then fire comes from the glory cloud and bursts out – we read v. 24
24 And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar,
You see, it’s not just that now Moses and Aaron can go into the tent with God’s glory present, but the glory bursts out in the presence of the people, consuming the offering in a moment – communicating – yes, you are accepted, you are my people; rejoice, for I am your God.
The people see it, and they shout – they shout with joy, as is clear from the way this Hebrew word is used elsewhere – they shout with overwhelming joy and praise because the Holy One dwells with them. They fall on their faces in wonder and awe.
You see – Leviticus 8-9 – we are to see that a greater nearness, a greater experience of God’s glory has happened. There has been an advancement in Israel’s relationship with God. You could say, there is a way people are experiencing God’s presence and nearness that hasn’t happened since humanity fell from God in Gen. 3.
We are meant to see in this text – God desires to dwell with his people and so he gives all the instructions needed! And when you have a high priest who mediates according to God’s instructions – when they listen and do the will of God – the result is a greater experience of God’s glory of God’s presence. There is rejoicing and joy in the fellowship that becomes possible.
And what we must see is – if this is what is possible, through priests who themselves are sinful, fallen human beings – if it is really true that these sinful men following God’s gracious instructions could advance the relationship between God and his people – so that they taste and see and experience greater glory, greater nearness to God –
Then what must be possible through Jesus – Jesus who the writer of Hebrews says is – Our Great High Priest. What kind of nearness and fellowship and confidence and joy in God can be ours through Jesus?
Let me apply this in two ways.
First, I want you to imagine a person who finds the God of the OT troubling, to say the least, and Jesus and the God of the NT much more approachable or desirable…..
One thing the Bible makes abundantly clear is that God doesn’t change. If we sense there is a difference between the kind of relationship an Israelite could have with God and the greater nearness, warmth, comfort, joy, confidence that can be had through Jesus – it is not because God has chilled out or changed – it’s not because he considers sin any less terrible – it is because of the surpassing greatness of the salvation in Jesus.
It is because we underestimate and underappreciate what God has done through Jesus, his Son.
And to try and even begin to appreciate this – we can turn to the Letter to the Hebrews in the NT where the writer reflecting on the very things we’ve been considering this morning wants us to see the Greatness of Jesus who is our High Priest.
Jesus is the ultimate Priest, the ultimate mediator – because he is the Son of God.
- As we confessed earlier – he is God from God, light from light – He is the shining glory of God, the exact representation of what God is like.
- Everything he says to us and everything he does perfectly communicates to us what God is like.
- HE is the one who reveals God perfectly to us that we might know God.
Jesus is the ultimate Priest, the ultimate mediator – because He is the Son of God who took on flesh. He is fully human.
- He can identify with us. He is like us in every way except for sin. He knows what it is like to live in this world, to face pain and trouble in this world, to suffering and loss. He is equipped in every way to represent us and minister on our behalf before our Father. God himself sent his Son for this very purpose.
His sacrifice is superior –
In the OT there is no sacrifice that was final and once for all – the sacrifices are ongoing, always needing to be made. But Jesus gave himself once for all – and he didn’t give the blood of animals – he gave his own blood – Hebrews 10:11 – Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…… for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
His Intercession for us is greater –
The Priests of the OT all died – and so they could never continue in their office forever. But Jesus having died, risen, and ascended will never die again – Hebrews 7:24 says – He holds his priesthood permanently, because he lives forever. Therefore, he is able to save completely those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
His Priestly ministry is greater because of its location –
The priests in the OT did their ministry in the earthly tabernacle or temple – but Jesus we are told – in his ascension, ministers on our behalf in God’s presence. Hebrews 9:24 – “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands…. But into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.”
There is a greater nearness, a greater confidence, a greater joy that you can have through Jesus – it isn’t because God is any less serious about sin, or God is any less Holy, it is because the salvation in Jesus is so much greater.
But let’s imagine a second person – and this is a person who feels deep down their unworthiness. They are aware of their sin. They feel broken and stained by sin. They feel like there are things that just cannot be undone, and it is incredibly hard to imagine that God could ever want them, that they could ever really draw near to a God so holy, so perfect, so….unlike them.
Let me tell a little story…..
When I first started college at DePaul university, I was a jazz performance major studying guitar. And my guitar prof. Bobby Broom, used to play this weekly gig at a restaurant in Evanston. And me and some friends would go pretty often to hear his Trio play – guitar, bass, and drums. And I think we all know this, but the bandstand – the place where the musicians play – that’s a holy space. Now maybe you wouldn’t normally use that word, but what I mean is – you don’t just walk up there on your own initiative. And the instruments up there are “holy” too. Even if you play one of the instruments, on the set break, you don’t just walk up and start playing “stairway to heaven” on the guitar.
I remember being there with friends and occasionally a grad student, one of the older, really great players at our school, would be there and they would be in the audience and Bobby might invite them up to play a tune – and if one of the musicians invited you up, though you may tremble a bit as you step forward to play – you were all good, because you’d been called.
Well, late into my first year of school, I was at the restaurant, watching Bobby’s trio – and he called me to come play. He welcomed me to the sacred space of the bandstand, he handed me the sacred instrument – his guitar – I called the tune we would play and we started playing. And though I was incredibly nervous and a bit in awe to be up there – the band was great and covered anything I was going to mess up – I got to share in the fellowship of the music that night, because the leader of the band called me.
You see where I’m going – Jesus calls you – he says, “Come, you who are tired, broken, stuck, – come to me and I will give you rest. Come and I will cleanse you. I will restore you. I will give you life. Come and draw near to God through me.”
He is the only mediator who has made the way…… so we can come before God with confidence, knowing that we will be accepted.
“Since we have such a great high priest – let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (4:14, 16)
Let me invite us all now to do this very thing we just heard Hebrews call us to do. I’ll give us a few moments for silent prayer and confession and then lead us in prayer.