The Priest to Be Above Excitement. Lev. 10:8-11
We have seen how the priest is called to respect the presence of God supremely, even if death touch ever so closely: Jehovah will be hallowed in those that come near Him. None can enjoy this privilege without the obligation it involves. Not only is sense of bereavement allowed, but bewailing is enjoined on all others even where it was the evident stroke of Gad. For He abides in His own majesty above sin and its effects; and those chosen to minister in the sanctuary must yield witness to that nearness by their bearing according to His will.
They were no less warned against all natural excitement in the performance of their proper functions. Permissible at other times, it is strictly precluded from the sanctuary. The injunction is remarkable as the first to Aaron after his consecration.
“And Jehovah spoke to Aaron, saying, Thou shalt not drink wine nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tent of meeting, lest ye die: an everlasting statute throughout your generations, and that ye may put difference between the holy and the unholy, and between the unclean and the clean, and that ye may teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which Jehovah hath spoken to them by the hand of Moses” (vers. 8-11).
Literal as the prohibition was to Aaron and his house, it has of course a large and momentous meaning figuratively to the Christian. “Wine and strong drink” cover the wide circle of all incentives to fleshly exhilaration. The most refined are as much proscribed as the gross, and manifold are its kinds which lie between. The first man in his evil or its consequences, its sorrows or its joys, has no right to intrude into the sanctuary.
There is One, and but One, Who suits God's presence; but He is the Second man. It is the offering of Himself for us which fits us for it. His sacrifice is our sole, our sufficient, and our perfect title to draw near; and this is most pleasing to the God Who gave and sent Him expressly for this end, though for others worthy of both. Therefore God would have us filled with His praise when we thus approach. Have we not boldness to enter into the holies in virtue of the blood of Jesus, a new and living way which He dedicated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh? Nor this only; for we have Himself there, a great priest over the house of God. We have thus the same object of delight as our God and Father. What communion! The Holy Spirit too, Who beareth witness with our spirit that we are His children, is our power of worship; as it is written, we worship by God's Spirit, and boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in flesh (Phil. 3:3). Does He not abide in and with us forever for this as for all else? It is heavenly joy.
But for this very reason fleshly pleasure, human gratification, earthly satisfaction, natural joy, all that answers spiritually to the effect of wine or strong drink on those who thus indulge, is abhorrent to God's presence. There is, there ought to be, joy in the Holy Spirit. And so the Ephesian saints were exhorted to be filled with the Spirit, speaking to themselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with their heart to the Lord, giving thanks at all times for all things to the God and Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. God cannot but be jealous that the Holy Spirit be honored here as Christ is on high; and the Spirit is here to glorify Christ. Yet praise should be holy.
But it is easy to be excited by a multitude keeping holiday, by a grand building with religious associations, by music pathetic or overpowering, to say nothing of the display of wealth, rank, or fame. Even if one begin in the Spirit, how readily one may slight the divine thanksgiving and praise by admiration of the singing or even the music Fine appeals may be a feast to the taste, and eloquence may fire the spirit; but these excitements, what are they but veritable drafts of wine and strong drink? They are alien to the sanctuary and forbidden.
Nor is this only aimed at, but its consequence. The priests were charged to “put difference between the holy and the unholy, and between the unclean and the clean.” No doubt here was a question of meats and drinks, of ordinances of flesh, as Heb. 9, 10 calls them in (accordance with Israel's standing as an outwardly holy people). Equally sure is it that we as Christians are sanctified by the Spirit to obedience and sprinkling of Christ's blood, which imports a far deeper and higher holiness typified thereby. Excitement would unfit for spiritual discrimination. Practical life would thus be ruined as well as worship. It was not so that the apostle sought the Corinthians, as he tells us in 1 Cor. 2. Nor did he gratify Athenian vanity by his appeal in Acts 17 but spoke to conscience.
So here we see the type pursued in this abstinence, “that ye may teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which Jehovah hath spoken to them by the hand of Moses.” Still more is spiritual abstraction needed for the vast and profound range of Christian truth.