In the sermon this week, I focussed on the key idea running through this passage – the importance of ensuring that Christ is exclusively shaping and structuring our relationship with God. This is linked to His office as our ‘great High Priest’ (Heb.4:14). That’s why Aaron is the focus of this latest outbreak of grumbling and resentment in the Church. He is the ‘actor’ who represent Christ in the drama of worship that is played out at the Tabernacle. He is like a living, breathing visual aid, and when we watch him fulfilling the office and ministry of High Priest, we are being shown what Jesus will do. It’s an important – if often neglected – dimension to the corporate worship of the Church that it is designed to teach us the Gospel. If it doesn’t model the Gospel, it is immediately sub-Christian!
Of course Aaron is only an actor. As Hebrews teaches us many generations later, those like Aaron who play the part of Jesus are themselves ‘subject to weakness’. Consequently, they have to offer sacrifices again and again, ‘for their own sin as well as for the sins of the people’ (Heb.5:2-3). When Christ is called as High Priest, He sacrifices for the sins of the people once for all when He offers Himself (Heb.7:27). But for all the inbuilt inadequacies, there is much about Aaron that helps us understand Jesus. And because of that, it is incredibly important that the ancient Church learns to accept his role, and to learn from it. The LORD has chosen who will be holy and who will come near to Him (16:5). It is Christ. And anyone else who wants to approach the Living God must do so, and can only do so through Him.
That – in part – explains what happens in the rest of Numbers 16-19. In the wake of this rebellion (see Num.26:9), the Lord re-iterates in a number of ways the centrality of the ministry of the High Priest. It is the High Priest alone who can make atonement, and who stands between the living and the dead, and who alone can stop the plague that is the expression of the wrath of God (16:42-50). It is the High Priest that can bring life out of death (17). And after these drama-tic teaching moments, the Lord then hands down a raft of new legislation that relates to the Levitical Priesthood.
All are powerful and pictorial representations of Christ’s ministry. He has forged the way into the Presence of the living God. Our sincerity is not the criteria by which God accepts us. Neither is what may seem meaningful, or spiritual to us. The only grounds for acceptance by God is the question fo whether it is structured and mediated by the High Priest, His beloved Son, who He gave to death on the cross. To spurn this is indeed ‘insolent’ (16:1)
Questions:
In 16:3, the reason given for rejecting the High Priesthood of Aaron is ‘the whole community is holy, everyone of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD’s assembly?’. What contemporary equivalents of this argument have you come across over the years? Why is this spurious reasoning?
What is going on in 16:12-14? Why do they describe Egypt the way they do? How can they have such a ‘romanticised’ view of Egypt when it was actually a place of slavery and death? What is the charge they are bringing against Moses and Aaron (and by implication, against the Lord)?
Why is Moses so angry in 16:15? Is it appropriate for him to ask the Lord not to receive the worship of others in the people of God? Is that something we could ever pray today?
Why does the Lord invent a ‘new thing’ to deal with those caught up in Korah, Dathan and Abiram’s rebellion? What is the significance of their going ‘down alive into the realm of the dead’ (16:30 & 33)? Does the Bible really think the ‘realm of the dead’ is under the ground?
It is a bit harsh to say they treated the Lord with contempt (16:30)?
What would you say to someone who called themselves a Christian, but who didn’t allow Jesus to structure their relationship with God, or the way that worked out in their lives?
What would you say to someone who said they didn’t need to become a Christian because they had their own genuinely meaningful spirituality that they felt connected them with God?
Read Jude 11. Why does Korah get a mention here? What does that teach us about how to apply this story into the life of the New Testament Church?
And if you still have time:
In the sermon, I also mentioned the Sons of Korah and their stepping back from their family’s fate (Num.26:11). The appearance of their work in the Book of Psalms is an important testimony to the grace of God in the face of judgment, and reminds us that there is no necessity for any to face that judgment. It takes a deliberate defiance to refuse to repent. Ps.42-49 explore what its like to live in this fallen world waiting for the return of Christ in glory, anticipating various aspects of the Church’s destiny when He does return. Ps.84-5 speak of the kind of longing for the Lord that only comes from those who have sacrificed much for Him. Ps.87 rejoices in the international nature of the Church. If you have time though, it might be worth turning up Ps.88, and reading it in the light of Numbers 16.
Questions:
What stands out to you with new meaning, or what takes on a new signifigance, when you do that?
In what sort of situation would you find Psalm 88 useful to read?
What can you learn from Ps.88 about the experience of stepping away from family and friends to be identified with those who trust in Christ as high Priest?
How do you think the Sons of Korah would have felt looking back on the events of Num.16? How would it have shaped the way they lived and worshipped?
