Exodus 28:30 And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron’s heart, when he goeth in before the LORD: and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the LORD continually.
31 And thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue.
32 And there shall be an hole in the top of it, in the midst thereof: it shall have a binding of woven work round about the hole of it, as it were the hole of an habergeon, that it be not rent.
33 And beneath upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about:
34 A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round about.
35 And it shall be upon Aaron to minister: and his sound shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before the LORD, and when he cometh out, that he die not.
36 And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD.
37 And thou shalt put it on a blue lace, that it may be upon the mitre; upon the forefront of the mitre it shall be.
38 And it shall be upon Aaron’s forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall be always upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the LORD.
God’s design for a nation is a Theocracy. God should be in charge and He appoints human leaders. That is how He designed Israel. He chose Moses to be the first human leader of the nation. Several generations prior to that Joseph had been in charge of the food supply in Egypt and he distributed food to the Egyptians and to other nations that came to Egypt looking for food during the seven year famine. After Joseph died, there was no human leader for the nation of Israel until Moses was appointed by God. Every Hebrew household was to be governed by the father of that household. Grandparents were also important in the spiritual life of the nation. That design of God broke down because all people are born as lost sinners, and the Hebrews were no different in that sense than Gentiles. God had given some instruction to Abraham, but that was not accepted by his descendants.
Due to Moses’ unwillingness to take the leadership, Aaron was appointed by God to be co-leader under Moses’ direction. Eventually Moses took his role as God intended and Aaron became the first high priest. The high priest was to lead the other priests in their duties of offering sacrifices and of teaching the people the law.
The high priest’s garments included the Urim and the Thummim. There does not seem to be any clear description available as to exactly what these were, but we know they were part of the breastplate of the high priest. They were representative of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides the spiritual leaders, giving them discernment.
The priests were not to act independently. They were to do their work in accordance with the Word of God. Israel does not have a priesthood today. There are Jews that would wish there was a temple and a priesthood, but there is none. Hundreds of years ago a cult called Catholicism tried to get rid of the Jews and they developed a false religion that claimed to replace the Jews and thus claimed the promises that God made to Israel. Catholicism developed a phoney priesthood and topped that off with a pope whom they claim is the “vicar” of Christ. Catholicism is a lie that needs to be exposed as such. There is no such a thing as an evangelical Catholic. A Catholic that gets saved is no longer a Catholic.
As we have noticed in this chapter, God gave very clear instructions to Moses regarding the religious life of the nation of Israel. God is a God of order. He did not throw it open for the nation of Israel to develop whatever religious ideas they wanted. He did not tell them to draw from the “best” of what they observed in Egypt. God commanded Moses to give leadership to the priesthood and to tell them what they must do and what they must wear.
When there would be decisions that needed to be made, the leadership of the nation of Israel was to consult with the high priest and he was to consult with God to receive the right counsel. The Urim and Thummim were God’s design to direct the priest in giving the right counsel to the people.
God’s way always works. He was not conducting an experiment to see if this might work. All of this was typology for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who would send another Comforter after His ascension. That “another Comforter” is the Holy Spirit.
Today we have a completed Word from God. The devil does not want man to believe that and thus we have over one hundred perversions of God’s Word on the market. There are always more perversions coming. We also have the Holy Spirit, Who indwells every born again Christian. Within that realm, we have a God Who calls certain men to be evangelists, pastors and teachers. Self-appointed men will make a mess of the facts. As mentioned, true Christians have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. True Christians also have the Word of God. True Christians do not take the ambiguous route that we just don’t know what God said. The indwelling Holy Spirit does not lie. He guides God’s children into the truth.
True Christians do not understand everything that God has said, but they know that God said something. They know His Word is absolute and can be studied and much of It can be understood by the humble servant of the Lord.
The details God gave Moses with regard to the priesthood, all point to the fact that God wants man to honour Him. Nadab and Abihu would later try to play around with matters of the priesthood. God showed Aaron and the nation that this is unacceptable. It is still unacceptable today. Just because there are thousands of heretics standing in pulpits today, does not mean that God does not care. He has shown us His standard. He holds us all to that same standard. Judgment day is coming. Many will be shocked but there is no need for that shock. We have the truth available to us. If we choose pride over humility, that is our problem, not God’s.
In verse 36 of this passage we see a key factor in all of what God commanded Moses to tell Aaron and his sons. The priest was to be “HOLINESS TO THE LORD”. It was not holiness to the priest. The Catholics have usurped God’s place and they want holiness to the pope and the bishops, etc. They readily accept reporters talking about “his holiness”.
God-appointed priests were to remind the people of the holiness of the LORD. The garments they put on were to help them to remind the people and themselves of Who they were to represent. The priests were never told to invent truth. They were given the truth by God and they were to repeat that truth to the people.
Pastors today are not priests. Through Jesus Christ, the “great high priest”, every born again Christian has access to God’s throne of grace. God-appointed pastors are God’s chosen vessels to teach the people the Word of God. They have no authority from God to try to invent truth or to try to alter truth. God’s truth is eternal. In every generation, God’s truth is in opposition to the lies of the devil. The heart of man is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked. When God’s Word is preached, it exposes that wicked heart. Generally speaking, that wicked heart hates the truth. God is gracious and merciful. He continues to work with that wicked heart and a few people in any generation will be broken through the work of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the truth. They will be saved and they will then teach others the truth.
We need to have great respect for the truth. We do not worship the Bible. We hold it in high esteem because God gave us the truth so that we can know Him. When we try to corrupt the truth, we put a stumblingblock before the people. Those few people who truly love the Lord, understand that salvation is a personal matter. The love of God motivates the true child of God to desire to help the many who are lost and deceived, to know and accept the truth. We cannot force anyone to believe. We are called to keep the truth before people and trust in the Holy Spirit to do His Work in the heart of others.
True saints need to understand and accept God’s order and enjoy the blessings of submitting to a holy and righteous God. When we do that, we can help others to see the importance and the blessing of knowing the truth and living in the truth.
Pastor Bartel
