Transcript
(background chatter)
Ladies and gentlemen, would you turn with me once again to a passage that we have noted before it's found in the sixth chapter of the Book of Exodus and as we go over this passage again, I wish you would note how certain overtones tones and overtones are sounded here which were initially struck in the 17th chapter of the Book of Genesis which we were considering last time remember that the 17th chapter begins under the
name of El Shaddai, God Almighty, who enters into a covenant relationship with Abraham? We read in Genesis 6 at verse 2 and Elohim, God, said to Moses I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai but by my name Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan the land in which they dwelt as sojourners. Moreover, I
have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold in bondage and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from their bondage and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment and I will take you for my people and I will be your
God and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession I am Yahweh Last time we considered a third covenant model associated preeminently with the ancestor Abraham a model or a pattern of covenant symbolization which came to be
the dominant expression of Israel's relationship to God in the theology of the post-exilic period more and more the covenant model of Abraham the Abrahamic model or trajectory Dominated the thinking of post-exilic Judaism and it formed essentially the theological background against which the Christian gospel was formulated. I reminded you last time the John the Baptist isisted to the people of the time the Jewish people of the time that they could not claim their relationship to
Abraham as any guarantee of position in the elect community in the church as we would say the Ecclesia or the a thaw in the Old Testament terms for God in sovereign grace and freedom Can raise up children of Abraham to Abraham from the very stones we found last time that the classical passage for this covenant is in the 17th chapter of Genesis though this must be considered not by itself as a Particular episode of covenant making
but it must be considered in a larger Linguistic pattern a whole scheme of symbolic relationship which goes along with priestly covenant theology? Already some affinities with the Davidic covenant have become apparent to you Especially the view that the Abrahamic covenant is a bereith olam a covenant in perpetuity that is a covenant in which God is bound by sacred oath by the divine holiness unconditionally to Abraham and to the offspring of Abraham and that thus there is
the promise not only of stability and order in the community, but of continuity into the indefinite future so that this therefore is to be understood as a covenant in perpetuity. I wish we had considerable time to pause here and see how the motif of the land is related to each of these covenant Perspectives that we've been considering Perhaps this has already occurred to you as you've reflected upon the covenant perspectives clearly in the mosaic covenant owing
to its conditional character The possession of the land is conditional it is no guarantee which extends on into the indefinite future but rather so much depends upon the pain behavior of the people in the land and so the people are reminded again and again in mosaic sermons in the book of Deuteronomy that if they prove to be unfaithful if they forget Yahweh and all of Yahweh's gracious deeds and if they go and serve other loyalties other
gods, then they may be driven off from the land which was given to them as a gift a gift of grace but you see that gift of grace can be forfeited if the people proved to be irresponsible in the context of the royal covenant theology the Davidic covenant The land has I think a different function a different role we're told in Psalm 47 that Yahweh bestowed upon the people Israel a Land as an inheritance the pride
of Jacob as it's called and the notion seems to be in that context it's much more universalistic That Yahweh who is there identified with El Elion The high god of the ancient pantheon as it were at any rate Yahweh who is the high god the universal god has given to the Israelite people a Possession just as Yahweh has given to other people's a possession So that the land of Israel therefore is seen in the broader context
of the whole earth indeed of the whole cosmos and therefore we are apt to read in royal covenant theology that the erets, The--th-- the earth, is not to be identified with erets Israel but rather with the whole earth and thus we read in at the beginning of Psalm 24 that the erets the earth belongs to Yahweh and the fullness thereof. Everything that is in the earth belongs to Yahweh. So this is a much more universal perspective
in which to view Israel's sojourn on the land and then when you turn of course to the priestly Covenant symbolization, it's very clear from Genesis 17 Namely that the land the land of Canaan is given to Abraham and Abraham's descendants as an everlasting possession a possession in perpetuity which means to say therefore that there is nothing in History or in human performance can't which can take away Israel's legal claim to the land. Now I submit to
you that as you reflect upon the problem of the land as a Christian theologian you ought to have in mind these three covenant perspectives and To raise the question as to which of these theological perspectives is most consonant with the Christian faith. Remember that Rylaarsdam puts forth a very intriguing argument that the Christian community has at least initially latched on to the royal covenant theology n any case we do find in the writings of the
New Testament and especially in the writings of Paul the assertion that Yahweh is faithful to divine promises made to the ancestors. Yahweh is faithful. Yahweh is the God of chesed that resounds throughout the New Testament just as it does the old and yet it's precisely in that context that Paul makes the statement that all the promises made to Israel Have been ratified They have received their yay and their amen in Jesus Christ So where does that
leave us as Christian theologians as we reflect upon not only the whole earth, but upon Eretz Yisra'el. Now our attention is turning today to the way the Abraham Covenant is related to the cult to Israel as a worshipping congregation according to the priestly perspective that governs the Pentateuch or the Torah in its final form Priestly theology perceives the purpose of God in a broad and cosmic scope a scope as large as creation but it concentrates
on the announcement that the Holy God the creator of the whole cosmos has graciously Condescended to be present to the worshiping community Israel that is the theme the theological theme which governs the priestly writing as a whole and thus you have in the priestly writing a movement from the universal to the particular you can see that movement from the universal to the particular working out in the genealogies found at the beginning of the book of Genesis
the so-called begets you perhaps have noticed how those genealogies begin of course with Avam and Eve the the the primary couple and how then there is a gradual moving down from the representatives of humankind to the representatives of the Shemites the Hamites and the Semites and how then there is a concentration upon the line of the Semites until eventually the spotlight falls upon Abraham and Sarah and thus the line which goes through the ancestral period
so this is characteristic of priestly theology this movement from the universal to the particular and Thus the whole theme of this Tremendous presentation which we receive in the final form of the Torah is that the God the Holy God the creator has Chosen to be present you see to be God to a particular people a people who are congregated around a sanctuary or a tabernacle and Thus who celebrate the real presence of God in their midst
Now let's see how that works out in the priestly Torah or Pentateuch the distinctive feature of the priestly work beyond this thesis that I have been stating is the view of a temporal sequence a sequence of time punctuated by successive covenants Extending from the creation of the world to Sinai This is what Frank Cross Harvard University calls the priestly writers periodization of history History doesn't move in a straight line just an unbroken straight line, but as
it were it is punctuated. It is periodized into a succession of periods each of which is characterized by a bereith Olam a covenant in perpetuity this is a scheme of covenants, Wellhausen, Julius Wellhausen, who did a lot of work as you all know on the documentary hypothesis, once what used to refer to the priestly writing under the symbol Q not P, but Q. That's interesting. He meant by that Quator fedorum in Latin Lieber Quator Fedorum, which
means the book of four covenants he thought as the priestly work as a book of four covenants and accordingly used the symbol Q. Quator. But his notion was that first of all there was a covenant with Adam. Now that's there was nothing new Wellhausen was only picking up from a very long line of theological tradition going back to the time of the Reformation. Going back to people like Bullinger and Cocceius who thought that at the very
beginning there was really a covenant God made a covenant with Adam but where do you find in Genesis 1 2 3 4 anywhere in there a reference to a covenant between God and Adam it seems then that we have to forget the fourth covenant as it were and Think rather of three covenants which are explicitly mentioned in the priestly scheme and thus we have a division of the whole movement of history from creation to Sinai Periodized
according to the Covenant first with Noah Secondly the Covenant with Abraham Noah in Genesis 9 The Covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17 and then the Sinaitic Covenant which of course is discussed in a whole block of priestly material in the book of Exodus especially Exodus 19 through 40 Let's consider each of these covenantal periods The first period extends from the creation of the world to the end of the flood The distinctive mark of this period is
that Elohim God in the general sense is The Creator and accordingly the priestly writer does not use Yahweh at all as you will know from your previous studies but rather speaks of this as the period of creation and therefore the period in which Elohim or God was sovereign was known as the sovereign and worshipped as the sovereign God who is known as Elohim Gives the divine blessing to the fertile earth according to the Genesis creation story
and eventually Confers the divine blessing upon the fish and the birds and Eventually confers the divine blessing upon Adam male and female So that this is a time of creativity. It's a time of fertility be fruitful multiply fill the whole earth and it is also a time when the Sabbath was so to speak hidden in the creation That's not my formulation but a theological cliche the saddam the Sabbath which is hidden as it were in the
creation so you see according to the priests the Creation story which now begins this whole drama the very climax of God's creative work is the rest on the Sabbath and The Sabbath therefore is the sign of the sovereignty of Elohim over the whole creation we're going to see how the sign of the Sabbath hidden in the creation becomes explicit at Sani For it was really not until Sani. I according to the priests the theologians That the
Sabbath was actually instituted this Sacred peace or slice of time which is holy in a special sense to God and which reminds the whole worshipping community of the fact that on six days God created the heavens and the earth the seventh day However, is the day of the Sabbath it is the day of the Sabbath rest and if therefore at the very climax of God's creative work God Rested in Some mystical sense not that God was
tired and needed that kind of rest but if God enters into the rest of the Sabbath Then it is possible for people in the situation of worship Somehow to enter into the rest of God's creation That's a theme by the way, which is picked up in the epistle to the Hebrews well, this is the first period the second period begins with Noah and Extends to Abraham The flood is conceived as a new beginning in this scheme
almost a new creation For the flood according to the priestly presentation almost involved a return to pre creation chaos Owing to the increase of human violence on the earth Remember how the flood story is introduced when God saw that there was violence on the earth Corruption there was a kind of a disease as it were which had not only spread through humankind mind you but had begun had Started to corrupt the non-human creation all flesh
was corrupt That refers not just to human beings but the whole animal world So you see a kind of a cancer as it were had been at work in the whole creation and owing to that cancer There was the determination on the part of God according to this theological Presentation to make a new beginning and indeed to make a new creation we see the picture of the ark Noah's ark floating on the waters remember how the
priestly writer portrays the virtual collapse of the whole cosmos because waters were pouring down through the sluices of the heavens through the sluices of the firmament and waters were surging up from the primeval deep water from above water from below according to the ancient pictorial view with the threat of Returning the earth to that primeval tohu wa-bohu of Genesis 1 verse 2 So you see the ark then floating upon those waters of chaos and the world
on the verge of annihilation and yet God saves a remnant Not only a remnant of human beings, but a remnant of animals and birds and at the conclusion of the flood so we read Elohim gives a blessing The blessing which is essentially a renewal of the blessing given at the time of creation Namely be fruitful and multiply you find that right at the very beginning of Genesis 9 once again to Noah is given this imperative be
fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and at the very end of this chapter chapter 9 we read that God entered into a bereith olam with Noah and his sons and with every living creature This is an ecological covenant as I've said before Not just a covenant between Noah and his wife and the whole Noachic family. No, this is a covenant with that whole remnant of creation that was on the ark Floating upon the waters of
chaos and so God makes an unconditional covenant the sign of which is the rainbow There are various changes which are made in the relationship between Humans and one another human beings and one another and between the humans and the non-human world Suffice it to say though that this marks the beginning of a new period indeed a new creation The sign of which is the rainbow the third period begins with Avraham, Abraham, and Extends to Moses
and even beyond The everlasting covenant with Abraham had narrowed the focus from the universal to the particular From all peoples that on earth do dwell and the whole non-human creation to a single human family a Family that is to be the representative and the embodiment of the people of God in this period God is known as El Shaddai. El Shaddai as we read at the very beginning of Genesis 17 Abraham is called to walk before
El Shaddai in integrity that is in trust and obedience and Avraham is given a new name a new blessing namely I will make you exceedingly fruitful and above all the covenant contains the promises that El Shaddai will be God to Abraham and Abraham's people and That El Shaddai will give them the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession The sign of this covenant according to Genesis 17 is the sign of circumcision you see how each period
now has its particular covenant the Sabbath hidden in the creation and then the sign of the rainbow at the time of the Noachic covenant and now the sign of circumcision which is to be a Membership in the covenant community The final period then begins at Mount Sinai this is a covenant with Israel and Therefore the very climax of the whole movement of God's redemptive plan and history which was initiated at the time of creation according to
the priestly version all of these previous covenants remain valid each in their own way That is to say the Noachic covenant is not superseded by the Abrahamic covenant No, it remains a covenant that is binding upon all humankind and so in the New Testament you will find reference to the Noachic covenant a universal ecological covenant Nor is the Abrahamic covenant superseded by the covenant with Moses but rather the intention of this presentation is to say that
the Sinaitic covenant is Really the fulfillment of and the ratification of the Abrahamic covenant indeed the Abrahamic covenant is so central and so important in priestly theology that when we talk about The Sinaitic covenant in priestly terms. We're really talking about the Abrahamic covenant and the interesting thing about this period is that The Sabbath is Regarded as finally instituted we it might be helpful at this point to turn to Exodus 31 Exodus 31 verses 12 and
following a Priestly passage where we read and Yahweh said to Moses say to the people of Israel you shall keep my Sabbaths for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I Yahweh sanctify you that is make you holy You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you then we have this This strict and apodictic law everyone who profanes it shall be put to death whoever does
any work on it that person we read here that soul that person shall be cut off from among his people Six days shall work be done but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest Holy to Yahweh whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath Observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a Bereith Olam you ought to underline those words right there
as a as a bereith Olam a Perpetual covenant you read I suppose in your translation a covenant in perpetuity notice it is a sign forever that is to say into in the indefinite future it is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth and on the seventh day Yahweh rested and was refreshed So you see how the Sabbath as it were forms to use a literary
expression, an inclusio. That is to say a bracket which ties the whole priestly presentation of history together. In the beginning the Sabbath was hidden in the creation at the very climax of God's purposive plan to separate a holy people out from all of the peoples of the earth this institution of the Sabbath is introduced and it is to be a sign a perpetual sign for this people that Yahweh is the creator of the heavens and
the earth. Now, let us shift from that to another aspect of the priestly presentation, priestly covenant pattern of symbolization and that is the emphasis upon the presence of Yahweh in the midst of the people. Remember that one of the promises of the Abrahamic covenant was that El Shaddai would be God to you and your posterity The intention according to that chapter is that is to establish a cult or a service of worship The word for
worship in Hebrew is avodah it comes from the verb avad which means to serve So worship is regarded as the service of God well, even yet we speak of worship service. Do we not? so now the the whole intention of the selection of Israel out of all of the families of the earth and the sanctification of this people the making of this people holy is that they should be a worshiping people and The intention is that
of avodah or the service of God the service of the God who dwells in the midst of the people and who is accessible to this people so that they may call upon the holy name of God? Remember now that to call upon the name of Yahweh is an equivalent of worshiping God it's the it's the meaning of prayer the meaning of worship, but according to this priestly view The holy God has disclosed the name the personal
identity of God to this people Here we have in the previous period Elohim and then El Shaddai now Yahweh Discloses that sacred name to the people so that the people in worship May call upon the name of Yahweh creation then has as its goal this worshiping people this worshiping congregation The word for which in the Hebrew is edah as I said last time. Now this is stated in special priestly language the whole goal of divine
activity and revelation from the time of creation was that Yahweh the holy God might tabernacle in the midst of the people Yahweh is the tabernacling God and Therefore there is to be a tabernacle an earthly sanctuary which will be the place of God's sacramental presence? The holy God is to dwell in the midst of a holy people but how can this be? Unless there is an institution as unless there is is a sanctuary I invite you
to turn to a couple of passages in this regard both from priestly tradition first of all Exodus 29, beginning at verse 43, Exodus 29, beginning at verse 43. This has to do with offering sacrifices, but at verse 43 we read There I will meet with the people of Israel now that there refers to the tabernacle There I will meet with the people of Israel and it shall be sanctified by my glory, this is a very
important priestly word, the kavod or the glory of Yahweh, I will consecrate the tent of meeting. Now that's an alternate term for Tabernacle, Ohel Moed. You'll learn that in introductory Hebrew. Ohel that means tent. Ohel. One way to remember it. Moed is a place of assembly or meeting. So we have then the tent of meeting. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and The altar Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to
serve me as priests notice the importance of priestly ordinances Orders and now we come to the point and I will dwell among the people of Israel and I will be their God and They shall know that I am Yahweh their God who brought them forth out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them I am Yahweh their God The second passage which strikes that note of the tabernacling presence of God in the midst
of the people is found off here in the book of Leviticus Deep in priestly tradition as you all know so deep that very people ever reach this point in their reading of scripture Leviticus 26 beginning at verse 11 where we read and I will make my abode among you and my soul that is to say myself Shall not abhor you and I will walk among you Notice that motif isn't that interesting and I will be your
God and you shall be my people I am Yahweh your God who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt That you should not be their slaves and I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect So here then is the emphasis upon how the Holy God Has as it were condescended should we use that term? That's a very Calvinistic expression. Of course the divine condescension that the Holy God has Condescended
to dwell in the midst of a people so finite and human and fickle Yet you see this people become a holy people through the presence of the Holy God in their midst. That's what sanctifies them anything that is related to the Holy God becomes holy and if therefore God Elects this people and chooses to be in their midst this people becomes a holy people a holy church as you might say So Yahweh then is the God
who is in the midst of the people and who even walks about among them now another thing to notice in the priestly section is that there's some suggestion That the tabernacle is to be built according to a heavenly prototype we read for instance in Exodus 25 verse 9 That Moses is to construct the tabernacle and all of its furnishings according to the model or The tabneet that was given to him on the mountaintop So turn to
the end to 25 verse 8 where we read and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst according to all that I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and all of its furniture So you shall make it There's that word tabnit which is translated as pattern here. It could be model or prototype So you see the tabernacle then is to be built according to a heaven heavenly model as it
were a model given from above Model presented by God according to this story and This motif remember is picked up in the epistle to the Hebrews where we read that the earthly sanctuary is only a replica or a model of that heavenly sanctuary in which Jesus Christ serves as the high priest so it's interesting that this whole idea of the the macrocosm and the microcosm. The celestial and the terrestrial. A motif which Eliade deals with in
his book on cosmos and history, "The Myth of the Eternal Return". It's interesting that this appears here in priestly theology. This sanctuary is no ordinary human sanctuary No, it is modeled after that Sanctuary which as it were is presented from above However, even though we have that vertical correspondence between the above and below the between the celestial and the terrestrial it's my own view that the major Thrust of priestly theology is much more horizontal as it
were. Because this priestly writer wants us to understand how there is a movement in God's redemptive plan from creation through the ancestral period to that climactic time of Mount Sinai and it was at Mount Sinai that the various orders were given to the community The a though the community this holy community is not to be a disorganized community If it is a community that's holy to God Then it's going to be a community which has order and that
is why the priestly writers are so concerned about Priestly orders and ordination Not anyone, you know is entitled to officiate in a priestly sense in this sanctuary. No, there are orders of priests. That's very important Not only there are orders of priests, but there are also orders of days You make a distinction between the Sabbath and other days or between high holy days and the most holy days all of that is very important in priestly theology
because it's intended to show that this community at The center of which is God's tabernacle according to the presentation found at the very beginning of Leviticus and numbers This community is to be an ordered community with God at the center as I said last time and God at the center means not the center of my life for my heart No, it means God who chooses to dwell in the midst of the people in this sanctuary and
thus to tabernacle with them. Now let us conclude this discussion by Considering what all of this means in terms of the theology of divine transcendence and imminence as to say how the priestly writer is really dealing with the theme of the Holy God who is not a part or a phenomenon of this world who nevertheless becomes a part of this world That's a major problem. Is it not? How on earth can we deal adequately with transcendence
and imminence to use philosophical language and I have suggested to you all along the line that Fackenheim has reminded us that the root experience of the holy presence of God as redemptive concern and Ethical demand when it is subjected to theological or philosophical analysis displays these tensions and this is one that we have to deal with how can the Holy God, who is not really a part of the Israelite world or the human world? Nevertheless be
present in the midst of the people. Now Frank Cross to whom I have referred previously today Has written an article in which he makes an interesting distinction Verbal distinction you will have to bear with me as we go into Hebrew just a little bit here There is one verb in Hebrew Shakan which means to dwell and There is another verb Yashav which means to sit or to reside The question now is then is This sanctuary of
that is dealt with in priestly theology a place where God dwells Shakan or is it a place where God resides that is sits? He maintains that the priestly writers Consistently avoid speaking of the tabernacle the sanctuary as a place where God resides. Now there were tendencies to do that especially in royal covenant theology There the you might have the notion that that the the Davidic sanctuary is Really the place where? Yahweh is at home and therefore
it's this whole notion of the sanctuary Containing God as it were is subjected to various kinds of attacks and criticism but the priestly writer seems to avoid the notion of God sitting or dwelling in the tabernacle it's not the place of Yahweh's residence, but rather the place of Yahweh's dwelling and according to dr. Cross this old verb Shakan was used in early Canaanite literature and early Israelite poetry to mean to tent That is to lead the
roving life of the tent dweller now, we're in a different world of thought are we not If you think of the sanctuary as a permanent place as the Canaanites had their permanent Sanctuaries or the Babylonians or the Egyptians theirs then it would be possible To dispose perhaps that the deity dwells or sits or resides in that sanctuary but not so in the case of Israelite tradition here the notion more is that of God Tinting in the
midst of the people that is the idea of the tabernacle. It's not something that's fixed it's not something that can be located in one place No, the whole idea of tent theology in this tradition is that God is not contained in one place God cannot be localized, but as it were God is on the move Moving about in the midst of the people moving with the people into the future and Therefore the word for the tabernacle
in Hebrew is Mishkan That's the word in Hebrew theology not the word Moshav which is a different word entirely that would mean residents. No, it's the Mishkan. You'll find that consistently in priestly theology now what does all this mean then with respect to the sanctuary itself? It seems That the priestly covenant Symbolization has transformed the ancient theology of the ark of the covenant remember that was the old box the old Throne's tool perhaps on which Yahweh
was regarded as invisibly seated or enthroned during Israel's wilderness wanderings and during the wars Do you remember that story there at the beginning of first Samuel where the Philistines took possession of the ark of the covenant? Took it into their own territory and bad things began happening to them and they said why gods have come into our very midst The whole notion you see that God is seated somehow upon the ark could cause not only consternation
and the case of enemies as it were but in the case of the people it could it could occasion great Enthusiasm, you know the notion that God is really innocent with us in that very immediate sense Gerhard von Rott makes this point in his at one point in his Old Testament theology ark theology Then is theology which which? brings God very Immediately into the life of the people so much so that seated invisibly upon this throne
the ark of the covenant Yahweh goes about in the midst of the of the wanderings of the people and in their wars and so forth So originally then the ark was a portable throne on which Yahweh the divine warrior was seated However priestly theology is more concerned with the tent of meeting that word I referred to a while ago, the Ohel Moed. And that was a quite different institution theologically You remember the picture of the
tent of meeting which is given to us in the old epic tradition back there in about Exodus 33 we were told that it was located outside the camp remember That Moses would go there. He would go from the camp to the tent of meeting to officiate and That people would come out there from time to time to seek an oracular answer to a question or a problem and from time to time Yahweh in the cloud in
the glory would come to that tent of meeting and the cloud would settle down over it as it were from time to time To signify God's presence in the midst of the people at that particular moment. Now that's quite a different way of thinking or symbolizing theologically the tent is only the place of meeting between Yahweh and Moses and pitched outside of the time outside of the camp it was that shrine to which Yahweh would appear
or at which he would appear from time to time and while the people were at a distance and bowed in worship we read Yahweh spoke to Moses as one speaks to a friend. Now the priestly writer has inherited these two symbols these two items of tradition the ark and the Ohel Moed the tent of meeting He stresses that God is with us God is in our midst but in not in the sense that Yahweh abides or
dwells in the temple Rather Yahweh comes graciously and freely to meet the people in the context of worship in the sanctuary That happens from time to time it's not that the divine presence is constant there as though God were a resident there and contained within this sanctuary No, this priestly writer wants to say that from time to time the Holy God appears in the midst of the people and becomes enthroned upon their praises and when you
look at the structure of the temple according to priestly design The ark is right there in the center. Is it not? The ark is in the tabernacle it's still regarded as a very holy place. In fact, it is the most holy place we're going to have to go into this subject next time as we take up priestly theology of atonement and Especially when we deal with the whole subject of the mercy seat as it's called That
is to say that holy covering of the ark which was in antiquity Regarded as the throne stool of Yahweh. That is the most holy place and that is the most holy part of the ark and yet this priestly theologian has you see brought the ark into the tabernacle and Thus wants to say that the Holy God the transcendent one Comes in freedom and grace from time to time to be enthroned on the praises of Israel. I
hope that you all have a joyous and wonderful Easter. See you afterward.