Pastor Powell's Column

January 2008

How Many Channels?

Variety is an understatement when it comes to our television options: newscasts, news magazines, action-drama, reality, sit-coms, cartoons, religious, sports, infomercials, nature, educational, game shows, and so on. Variety: Anything and everything. Why? Different strokes for different folks.

Have you ever considered the variety we find in the Bible? There's history, letters, military battles, simple parables, genealogies, a love song, philosophy, prophecy, case law, worship songs, adventure stories, ceremonial procedures, sermons, laments, proverbs, apocalyptic symbols, family journal, and, of course, gospel. Over the centuries, God accumulated all kinds of things in His Book for humankind.

Why the wild variety?

God has a message to reveal, a message so massive and so foreign to the usual human thought forms, that He has to come at it from every conceivable angle. He wants to help us understand who He is, and His plan for our life.

Many people have a very thin Bible. It is little more than Psalm 23, Philippians 4, John 14-16, 1 Corinthians 13 - perhaps half a dozen well-worn favorite passages. They seldom venture into other, more challenging portions of God's Word. Theirs is a thin Bible.

Now admittedly, at first reading, some parts of the Bible are . . . well, puzzling. "Why did God bother with including such a passage in His Word? Does it have any meaning today? Why has God preserved such a passage for twenty to thirty centuries?"

So let's try one of those. If you read Exodus 28, it's a very detailed description of the garments worn by the Israelite high priest. Verses 15-30 go into almost tedious detail about the making of the breastplate. At first blush, you might think, "Surely God could use the limited space in the Bible to tell us something more important than this."

But let's look again. Verse 29 says "He will bear the names of the sons of Israel over his heart on the breastplate of decision as a continuing memorial before the Lord." In fact, God communicates words to this effect more than once in these verses.

We see God going to extraordinary lengths to make sure that for generations to come there will be a high priest who carries the names of the Israelite tribes over his heart, continuously. This will become firmly embedded in their mind, a part of the national psyche. Israel would have a High Priest, but not like the High Priests of other nations. Rather than pursuing prestige, power, or influence, this high priest will be one who has the people continuously on his heart.

Why did God want to establish this concept so firmly? Because some 15 centuries later, God Himself will visit this planet in the Person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is a Person unique in all of human history. God spent centuries making sure Israel was prepared as the landing pad for His visit to the planet. No, not prepared as far as wealth and power. Israel was poor and weak by earthly standards. But she was prepared with a culture, a heritage, a language, a tradition and a Temple that would help make it possible for us to understand the visit of Jesus the Messiah. This is true when it comes to ideas like holiness, atonement, grace, God's kingdom, sin, covenant and Lordship, to name a few. But let's return to our example in Exodus 28. What does it teach us?

One of the titles of Jesus is "our great High Priest." The high priest tradition was shaped by God to be used eventually to help us understand the wonder of Jesus. Is it not a marvel to contemplate our Great High Priest at the Father's right hand, and to know that He always carries the names of His people as a memorial before God? He is always remembering you and me. He never stops interceding for us (Hebrews 7:25)

Across the ages, whatever else the Lord is doing - creating, sustaining, ruling, redeeming, judging, inspiring - he never stops thinking of us. Read Isaiah 49:14-16. He remembers because we are engraved, not on the high priests breastplate, but on the palms of His hands! We know from John 21 that our Lord's resurrection body, glorious though it is, still bears the scars of the cross. The Book of Revelation suggests those scars may be eternal. Every time Jesus looks at His hands, he remembers the ones He has saved. The hymn writer suggests an image for the role those wounds play in His priestly intercession:

Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off thy guilty fears
The bleeding Sacrifice in thy behalf appears
Before the throne my surety stands
My name is written on His hands.

Five bleeding wounds He bears, received on Calvary.
They pour effectual prayers; They strongly plead for me.
"Forgive him, oh, forgive," they cry,
"Nor let the ransomed sinner die."

The Father hears Him pray, His dear Anointed One;
He cannot turn away the presence of His Son.
His Spirit answers to the blood,
And tells me I am born of God.