Thoughts on Numbers 7 & Mark 15

Today’s reading: Numbers 7; Mark 15

Numbers 7 and Mark 15 are really perfect chapters to be reading on the same day as they give us both the inauguration and the fulfillment of the sacrificial system in Israel.

For as slow (and boring) as it feels reading it, Numbers 7 is incredibly important.

I have already written about this previously in my post on Exodus 37, so I won’t dig into it too much here, but the summary of it is that when we hit passages like Numbers 7 that seem really slow, it is essential to know and remember that they are slow on purpose. In Hebrew writing the pace of the story is used to draw your attention to more important events, so the slowing of the pace of the narrative is an indication of the importance of the event being described.

Here in Numbers 7 the author could very easily have said, “Each of these twelve tribal leaders brought this gift {PARAGRAPH OF OFFERINGS}, one each for twelve days to dedicate the tabernacle.” This is what I always would have preferred every time I hit this passage in my reading, but we have to realize that the writer knew this was an option as well and chose, instead, to draw it out.

Rather than being annoyed when we hit these long, slow sections, we should ask, “What is going on here that is so important the narrative seems to have dragged to a crawl?”

The answer to that question here in Numbers 7 is the dedication of the tabernacle, which is, arguably, one of the single most important events in all of human history. These twelve days of offerings established the tabernacle for use, meaning they inaugurated the sacrificial system in Israel, and that very system looked forward to, and laid necessary theological groundwork for, the work that Jesus would do on the cross.

Jesus told his listeners that He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it, and we see an important piece of that in Mark 15. Near the end of the chapter, as Jesus breathes His last breath, Mark tells us that “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” This is the curtain that separated the holy place from the most holy place where the presence of God was supposed to reside. The tearing of that curtain indicates, at least in part, the fulfillment of that system, as Jesus’ sacrifice is the ultimate sacrifice, and the ultimate cleansing, granting full access to the most holy place, the throne room of God, by His blood.

Between Numbers 7 and Mark 15 today we see both the inauguration and the fulfillment of the system God established to prefigure the work of Jesus on the cross and to facilitate His presence among His people until the day came when the system was fulfilled and His Spirit could reside, not among His people, but in them.

We have seen and talked so much lately in our Old Testament readings about how aspects of this system protected sacred space from defilement by uncleanness and unrighteousness, but we have also seen lately in our readings in Mark that Jesus is the unique One who cannot be defiled, and instead imparts cleanness to others. Originally, that curtain in the tabernacle separated the most holy place to guard it from defilement, but now it is torn, not causing sacred space to be contaminated, but in order that sacred space might now “contaminate” the profane. By the cross, God’s Spirit is on the move, establishing every believing heart, cleansed by the blood of Jesus, as sacred space.

The curtain is torn because the system is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, and His Spirit is on the move!