The robe is to be on Aaron as he ministers, and his sound will be heard when he enters the Holy Place before the Lord and when he leaves, so that he does not die… These [linen undergarments] must be on Aaron and his sons when they enter the tent of meeting, or when they approach the altar to minister in the Holy Place, so that they bear no iniquity and die. It is to be a perpetual ordinance for him and for his descendants after him.
— Exodus 28:35,43
My first thought when these verses were pointed out to me was of some sort of hazmat or biohazard suit. The sort of thing you’d wear to protect yourself from ebola.
My second thought was that this metaphor would have God in the place of ebola. That seems quite wrong, theologically, so I went with the image of a steelworker instead.
Molten metal can range from 1,200°F to 6000°F. Early industrial steelworkers (for example, in Carnegie’s 19th century steel mills) had minimal safety gear, perhaps just two layers of wool long-johns, but later steelworkers wear layers of FR (flame-resistant) clothing, an apron (sometimes), hood, gloves, and steel-toed boots, all engineered to protect against flames and splashes of molten metal and reflect heat. Depending on the era, clothing would be made of leather wrapped in wet burlap, or asbestos, or aluminized Kevlar capable of withstanding 3000°F of radiant heat and 1100°F of direct contact. Some walking surfaces could be hot enough to melt rubber, so steelworkers could wear wooden shoe guards around their boots for further protection. Melters at the furnace itself would wear cobalt-colored melter’s glasses to let them look directly at molten iron to check its temperature. All of this is to deal with the fact that steelworkers work daily with forces and energy far too powerful for humans to withstand unaided.
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| Photo by Francisco Fernandes on Unsplash |
Reading the Old Testament, it seems that this is an accurate metaphor. God wanted to, and chose to, dwell with his people and walk among them as their God (Lev. 26:11-12). To show this, he placed his presence in the tabernacle and the temple, even though (as Solomon said when dedicating the temple) “heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that” Solomon built (2 Chron 6:18). Yet God’s power, holiness, and glory, when encountering human sin and frailty, are simply not safe. No one could see God’s face and live (Ex. 33:20); even hearing him speak or seeing his messenger brought fear of death (Deut. 5:24-26, Jdg 6:21-22). When God came down onto Mount Sinai to deliver the Law to Moses, anyone who touched the mountain would be executed; otherwise, God would “break out against them” (Ex. 19:12-13,24). Mishandling the ark of the covenant, which symbolized God’s throne within his dwelling place of the tabernacle or temple, resulted in death (Num 4:5, 20; 1 Sam 6:19; 2 Sam 6:6-7). Even the chosen high priest could only enter the most holy place, the place in the tabernacle or temple where the ark of the covenant was kept, once a year. There’s a story that the high priest would tie a rope around his ankle when entering the most holy place so that, if he was struck dead by God’s holiness, his body could be safely dragged out; this is apparently a myth from the Middle Ages, but the Bible does record several priests and would-be priests who died because they failed to properly follow the rituals laid out in the Law.
Read within this light, the rules regarding the priests’ garments in Exodus 28 and the rituals for consecrating priests in Exodus 29 make more sense. The different elements of the high priest’s clothing - a breastpiece of gold and semiprecious stones, an ephod of woven gold and cloth with engraved onyx stones, a robe decorated with golden bells and pomegranates made of yarn, a turban with an engraved golden plate - have symbolic importance (some of which may be unclear now), but besides any specific symbolism, the details of the precision, artistry and expense that went into the garments served to demonstrate the care and value needed to properly approach God in his holiness.
Reading the Old Testament gives me the impression that the priests were closer to the long-john-clad laborers of Carnegie’s day, one mistake away from disaster, than to the drilled, carefully protected steelworkers of today. This is probably an unfair impression, since tabernacle and temple worship continued for roughly one thousand years, and we see mostly low points from its early days.
It does, however, bring us to the New Testament. Christ, as our great high priest, fulfills perfectly the role which Aaron and his descendants did with fear and trembling.
More than that, Christ let us “confidently approach the throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16). What the high priest could do only once a year, painstakingly clothed in his safety gear, at the earthly representation of God’s throne, we can now do with freely and confidence at the throne of God itself.
More than that, we’re told to clothe ourselves with Christ (Rom 13:14, Gal 3:27). It’s as if the high priest’s safety garments are turned inside out - instead of dressing up to protect and isolate ourselves from God’s holiness and power, God enables us to dress up as Christ, the image of God. As described by C.S. Lewis, “If you like, you are pretending. Because, of course… you are not being like The Son of God, whose will and interests are at one with those of the Father: you are a bundle of self-centered fears, hopes, greeds, jealousies, and self-conceit, all doomed to death. So that, in a way, this dressing up as Christ is a piece of outrageous cheek.” As outrageous, perhaps, as thinking we could sculpt a suit of molten steel. But Lewis continues, explaining what it means to put on Christ:
A real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has… Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity. (Mere Christianity, p. 146-147, 149)
This gets at a truth which we sometimes neglect in Western evangelical churches. We describe salvation and the Christian life as being freed from sin, receiving the promise of eternal life, and being sanctified to be more moral people. And it is all of these things - but not just these things. 2 Peter 1:4 says that we will become “partakers of the divine nature.” Orthodox Christians refer to this as divinization. It’s not that our fundamental nature is changed, that we cease being humans and become divine; instead, through union with God, we are suffused with his grace and holiness. Orthodox Christians use the analogy of a metal in fire; it doesn’t stop being metal, but it’s suffused with the fire’s energy, like molten steel, radiating light and heat to all around it.
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