Leviticus 10 is an intrusion on ‘Safe-for-the-whole-Family’ Religion. The fact of the matter is that Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, became dangerously indifferent to the holiness of God. As a result, God judged them without mercy.
At the end of chapter 10 (verse 17), Moses asks why they are not doing what they should be doing. They are in effect, paralyzed. Aaron can hardly move.
Do you see how, without a perfect mediator, even the holiest men in Israel are frighteningly looking over their shoulders? Do you hear Aaron’s apprehension? You can almost hear his knees knocking and his voice quivering. Without assurances of God’s acceptance through a perfect representative or mediator they are paralyzed.
Can you imagine how valuable a perfect high priest would have been to Aaron, Eleazar and Ithamar that day? Consider how quickly they would shed their turbans, breastplates, and ephods, falling before the great High Priest?! O’ how they would flood the ground with tears of joy and thanksgiving if they were able to behold the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is in Jesus that all of these pictures, illustrations and types find their blessed end. All of these instructions, commandments, washings, uniforms, procedures, were all showing how unlike Jesus they were. They lacked the holiness that is in Christ. The judgments upon the priests were God’s dissatisfaction with them for lacking Christ-likeness.
The truth of the matter is that all people naturally offer up unauthorized or strange fire to the LORD. We offer up the incense of autonomous, self-righteous, self-promotiong, self-preserving, humanism. And like Nadab and Abihu, most are indifferent and rather flippant about it.
It is only the great High Priest Jesus who offered up the pleasing, and lasting incense, the eternally fragrant aroma of his obedient life, sacrificial death, and powerful resurrection.
Do not forget that this is not the only time that a priest was consumed by the wrath of God as he made an offering. Remember that fateful day on Calvary’s hill. Remember what happened:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2Co 5:21)
Christ became sin for sinners. He was judged in place of sinners like me and you. He offered up himself for our sins. Don’t miss this: He was both the high priest and the offering! Upon the cross Jesus, acting as the great High Priest, offered up the perfect sacrifice for sinners. He was and is the perfect mediator between God and men (1 Tim. 2:5-6).
God displayed his holiness in far more clarity on Calvary than in Leviticus. Sure it makes sense that a holy God would consume sinners who rebel against him. However, what is the payment to satisfy this seemingly unquenchable holiness? It is Christ. He, and he alone, satisfied holiness. It is Jesus who quenched the eternal thirst for holy vindication when he drank dry the fully fermented cup of God’s unmixed wrath. He is the only priest who truly deserves to wear the turban inscribed, “Holy to the LORD”.
And by virtue of faith in Christ believers are now holy to the LORD. There is now no need to be paralyzed. Instead we are to be overjoyed with the security in Christ because of the success of Christ.
