Sermon Notes: Exodus 30:11-33 - Ransomed. Washed. Anointed
The Bible records for us the good news of God’s saving work in history for mankind who has been infected with the curse of sin resulting in death.
The good news is the best news ever. The good news is THE metanarrative, the true story of all things, and thus the determiner of what is true and what is not true.
Creation/Fall/Redemption/Restoration as revealed in the Bible.
This good news is a multi-faceted history of God’s glory on display in saving people and restoring all of creation to its perfect Edenic state. The good news is so powerful it can resurrect a dead heart toward God in an instant.
If by God’s choosing, the gospel will do the powerful and supernatural microscopic work to awaken a person over God’s perfectly designed timeline. This good news is the power of God for salvation for all who believe in all ways the Lord determines.
We can see these multiple facets of the powerful gospel in the parts of the metanarrative.
In creation, a gospel facet is that Jesus creates man in his image for his glory and their joy in being his co-regents in creation. That truth can bring light to dark eyes who don’t know Jesus is the God of the Old Testament and Creator of all things and not some 1960’s pacifist hippie coopted by communists. That truth can cause a naturalist Darwinian evolutionist communist to question their presuppositions and their worldview and transform them as they see Jesus for who he is.
In the fall, a gospel facet is that mankind’s sin has alienated them from Jesus and brought his just condemnation on them. This truth can bring powerful conviction of sin.
In redemption, there are many gospel facets we are more used to. A few are the substitutionary atonement of Jesus, justification, reconciliation with the Father, adoption, union with Christ, new birth, forgiveness, propitiation, victory over sin, God’s grace, and peace with God. These truths display the wonders of the cross and can warm and awaken man’s will and emotive capacity to receive the love of God.
In the restoration, a couple of gospel facets are our glorification, that is our being fully restored to being fully human culminating in a supra-natural resurrected state with no sin to hinder us, and our inheritance of new creation to do eternally what we had the ability and access to do in Eden forever. These truths can cause a person to think about death and what happens after we pass and look for the truth of how we make sure we are not condemned at our death.
Today in Exodus 30:11-33, we discover 3 other glorious redemptive facets of God’s good news from the tabernacle that are a little less familiar: Ransom, Washing, Anointing.
We are going to spend a good chunk of our time on “ransom” because it is more complicated, and breeze through washing and anointing.
Let’s read about it in Exodus 30:11-33. We will read verses 11-16 together, then I will read the remainder for us.
Galatians 3:24 (NASB) Therefore the law became out tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.
Let’s get after it. What gospel, good news, facets do we see in the tabernacle today?
(1) Ransom: The census requires a ransom that redeems the people. There are multiple layers to verses 11-16.
One layer is the ransom that is required as atonement for the lives of those taken in the census. This census is for military purposes, and we’ll speak to that in a moment. God requires a ransom to be paid so that no plague breaks out on the people for the work they will be called on to do in the conquest of Canaan.
Another layer is the amount of the ransom and how the ransom money is used practically in the function of the tabernacle.
Another layer is the fact that the ransom paid by those who serve in the army results in redemption for all the people by atoning for them all and bringing them all to remembrance before the Lord. One for all is a good news pattern you should pay attention to throughout the Bible. In this case it is one army (made up of many) that atones for a nation of many.
Finally, a vital layer is that the census is for civil military purposes. Numbers 1:1-3 and 26:1-2 make this clear. Men only are to be counted for war. We don’t send our women to combat. The age requirement is 20 years old and up for the army in the conquest. Exodus gives us the overview of what Moses makes more clear in Numbers about the census, thus the title of that book as “Numbers”. NOTE: Use the Bible to interpret the Bible as your first interpretive effort.
NOTE ABOUT THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN: We have to assume that this recruiting for war is for the conquest of Canaan and the dispatching of the remaining Nephilim tribes and the hybrid Nephilim tribes that plague the land, and the first will be Og of Bashan, who is a giant hybrid called a “Rephaim”.
English does not quite capture the full picture of the Hebrew language found in the translated phrase, “Each one who is numbered” when it speaks about the census. In Hebrew it is literally translated “each one who crosses over”. So, the picture is that the men are gathered who match the age requirement, and they are crossing over from their civilian life to military life.
At this point the men 20 years old and up can volunteer based on other criteria. Deuteronomy 20:5-8 separates out those who have just dedicated a house, planted a vineyard, taken a wife, or are fearful. NOTE: The principle that there are reasons to not do certain necessary tasks as part of the whole is important in life together in the kingdom of God. We don’t make excuses for not serving when we should. And there are times in life when we should step back and refrain from the most costly of tasks to invest in something else. This takes wisdom and discernment, yet it is a law God wired into creation for us to understand and apply when necessary.
Those who are left for service in the army pay the required ransom money to prevent a plague from God breaking out on them.
A ransom is a price paid to deliver someone from punishment. And those taken in the census pay a half shekel for their ransom. Hang with me. The shekel was normally a measurement, and in this instance, it is not a measurement, it is a silver coin. We know this because verse 16 calls this half shekel “atonement money”, and the word “money” in Hebrew is a word for a silver coin. So, the ransom paid is a 1/50-ounce silver coin used for currency.
The ransom required is to be paid equally by all who serve whether rich or poor. It is not too much that the poorest can’t afford it.
The ransom amount is enough when given by every volunteer for the army, in addition to other offerings that constitute the tithe, that it will supply for the service of the tent of meeting. The total of the ransom and offerings are to supply to pay the Levites, supply resources for worship, and have enough to also do the work of the nation. It sounds like how the New Testament church works.
The army is ransomed from the death of plague for their work of necessary fighting and killing, and because of them, the entire nation is remembered and atoned for through the price of ransom paid by those who are going to do the fighting and killing for the rest of the people.
Now, an important question: Why would there be plague for a military census to get men who will go eliminate a host of nations of hybrid Nephilim and humans who serve those evil beings?
Because death is not normal, and killing is not normal, and those who are called on to do it have the dark weight of being sent to do something contrary to God’s kingdom and contrary to their nature in killing.
So, God makes a way to atone for the work he is sending them to do on behalf of the people in such a way that the ransom and resulting redemption from the plague of death is effective for the army and all of the people also.
Why did God choose ransom with currency as the way to bypass the plague of death? Because redemption is costly. The reversing of the curse of death is not free.
Redemption is being freed from or delivered from something owed, so there is a price to be delivered, there is a ransom. We incurred a debt for sin and there is a price to pay off the debt. NOTE: God wired creation to work this way. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. We know this primarily from physics and finances: debit and credit. And it is also a spiritual law. Sowing and reaping. These things are results of how God wired all things to operate.
The looming conflict with the forces of evil in Canaan required a fight, and there would have to be some men willing to pay the price of their resources and lives that would be effective for the rest of the people, and that payment is required by God, thus he requires a ransom.
The ransom of lives through finances and the spilled blood of those who go for and on behalf of the rest, results in redemption from the plague of death for all who are represented by those paying the price.
The fighters who conquer the enemy pay the price for everyone else who don’t have to fight and purchase the benefit of redemption for themselves and those who they represent.
That’s a lot. Ransom and redemption.
You can see this clearer if you contrast Exodus 30:11-16 with the census David took that is recorded in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21.
Somehow the Accuser has played his evil hand against David and the people as Israel has angered the Lord in their ongoing rebellion by participating with the Accuser’s ways, and David is led into taking a census. David does not require his men to pay the ransom as he grows his army his way for purposes that are not stated. We can presume that David has his eyes on expanding his kingdom beyond the borders God gave him. This may be due to sinful pride. We can safely presume this because of how Joab apposes David’s action. The king prevails over Joab’s opposition. After Joab, the military commander, is finished with the census (because the census is military in nature), David’s conscience is bothered. David confesses and is faced with a choice of disciplines from the Lord. David chooses the plague from the Lord because he knows the Lord is merciful.
David’s decision to grow his army when not necessary cost Israel 70,000 men. David abandoned the intent of the census and its gospel implications from Exodus 30:11-16 for his own agenda, and Israel pays a steep price for his sin. The sin of one affects the whole, and the whole suffers.
Can you see it? The cost of one person’s affects the whole, and the ransom payment of one faithful army will atone for the whole.
Listen to how the New Testament takes the ransom from the census and the pattern of one for all and interprets it for us: Matthew 20:26-28 (ESV) 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
1 Peter 1:17-19 (ESV) 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
1 Timothy 2:5-6 (ESV) 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
Hebrews 9:15 (ESV) 15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 9:15 connects Jesus’ death, already connected as the ransom payment, to the redemption of the people of God from the penalty of sin.
Jesus, being the faithful and obedient Israel of God, volunteers to pay the ransom of the Father’s census and go be the warrior King who will faithfully defeat the enemy by warring against the principalities and powers arrayed against him and us in his death on the cross, and by the war of the cross, he makes sure all those who come to him in faith are atoned for and remembered before the Father.
Listen to the census ransom Canaan conquering good news warfare language of Colossians 2:13-15 (ESV) 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (How did he do this?) 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Jesus is our faithful Israel who goes in our stead, pays the ransom for us, defeats the enemy, and purchases our freedom from the penalty of death.
We will make some application in just a moment. So, hang in there.
(2) Washed: We are being sanctified. “The emphasis of the passage is, in fact, not on the design of the basin at all but on its (practical) purpose: to provide a water supply for washing hands and feet in connection with any holy purpose in the tabernacle or tabernacle courtyard.”
God cares about cleanliness, and there is a practical purpose in washing for the priests. The reason is because they are not only leading in the worship. They are also preparing some of the animals and other food items offered to the Lord that God has designated for their families for their income. Most of the sacrifices belonged to the tribe of Levi as their income because they were given the work of the tabernacle and were not given an inheritance among the people. So Levi and Levi’s families did not have the normal vocational work of the other tribes to provide.
The tabernacle, the worship system, the mediatorial labor to and for the Lord was their inheritance and labor and God commanded their income be provided from the abundance of what was given to the Lord. So, the food they handled needed to be treated with appropriate care. By the way, this is Paul’s justification for “not muzzling the ox as it treads out the grain” when speaking about abundantly compensating elders in the church.
Above this practical purpose, the redemptive emphasis stands out when verse 21 says that they are to wash their hands and feet so that they may not die (30:20, 21).
God does not and will not allow impurity into his presence and will not allow impurity to mingle with his worship. They are to wash their hands that do the preparation and their feet that carry what is prepared for the Lord into his presence for offering.
The basin is located between the tent of meeting and the altar of sacrifice. This made for lots of movement between parts of the system of worship. Their shuffling through the dirt and slaughtering animals ensured they were probably a little gritty, grimy, and musty. So, they are always washing as they come and go in the continual worship activity of the tabernacle.
The text doesn’t tell us how they changed the water to keep it clean, but we must presume they did or somehow believe the Lord did something to keep it clean, otherwise the practical purposes of physical purity seem to vanish with filthy water.
The priests had already been appointed and their sin atoned for. We saw that in Exodus 29. Now they were doing the work, and their ongoing purity is required and made possible in the Bronze Basin. They were moving about and getting stained and filthy in the work, and they needed to have that impurity washed away.
What is the Lord saying about the need for purity? We can see in the washing required in the Bronze Basin the ongoing good news gift of sanctification.
No doubt God cares about proper clean hygiene. But there is good news glory here too.
When we believe the good news, we are justified and made right before the Father through the work of Jesus Christ for us. Yet we are not made practically holy. We still wrestle with our flesh that has the viral infection of sin in it. We are frail and limited and we give in to sin. When we do sin, we confess that sin and receive the relational forgiving grace of the Lord that keeps us in fellowship with God.
Our sanctification, our practical growth in purity, is the ongoing work of the Spirit where he makes us more aware of and sensitive to impurity and increases our desire for purity before God so that we are always washing up in the confession and forgiveness purchased for us at the cross.
Listen to how Jesus takes the Bronze Basin’s function and applies it in washing the disciple’s feet at the Passover meal just before his arrest: John 13:6-10 (ESV) 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.
Their life together was shaped by the word of God. Don’t believe Jesus is just taking cultural cleanliness rules and gospeling them. Jesus is working from the text he has inspired. His upcoming death on the cross is so sure that he can declare that once they are washed, they are completely clean. As he washes their feet, Peter is starting to see the connection and wants his hands washed also like the priests in the tabernacle. He even throws his head in there because he's prone to let his words out run his thinking. Peter wants as much of Jesus as he can stand.
Jesus will bathe us in his righteousness by faith and as we follow him, we are going to get dusty with the impurity we are fighting, and we need him to keep us clean even when we won’t keep ourselves clean, and that is what God does for us in sanctification.
He who began the good work will complete it (See Philippians 1:6).
Sanctification is simultaneously our labor to wash in God’s provided forgiveness and his work to keep us washed because the depth of our impurity is so deep that we often can’t sound its depth. So, we must strive and depend on God to stive for us.
Listen to how God calls us to strive for the washing of sanctification: 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 (ESV) 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor,
List to Paul in Romans about God’s work to keep us washed and growing in sanctification: Romans 8:29-30 (ESV) 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Romans 8:29-30 may be the greatest passage in the whole Bible on sanctification even though it doesn’t use the word. It doesn’t have to because it’s describing sanctification. God’s elective grace is so powerful that it ensures our conformity to Jesus’s image. He will see that his elect hear the good new and responds in faith, are justified, and make it to completion in glorification, and he uses our striving in conjunction with his power to get done what he’s determined to get done.
The washing of sanctification. He will get us there as we strive with him.
This is one of the Bible’s great paradoxes. We strive to wash ourselves in his provided grace for us like the priests, and we receive his striving for us. Don’t fight it. Receive it. Jesus purchased it for you.
(3) Anointed: Set apart as holy to the Lord by the Spirit. The Lord prescribed a special oil that was to be only for splattering on the tabernacle, its parts, and Aaron and his sons who serve there.
The anointing oil was not for ordinary things or people who were not set apart for priesthood. The word for anointing is the root of the word “Messiah”. “Messiah” means the anointed One.
Everything and everyone that gets the splattering of this special oil is anointed and is set apart in such a way that they are counted as holy.
This oil is to be treated as in a set apart way like the incense, and anyone who copies it and uses it must be cut off from the people.
Let’s get right to the point. The Lord is showing us the work of Messiah Jesus as the anointed One who serves as the Great High Priest and what he does for those he gives the Holy Spirit to, which is all those who repent and believe in him.
In Luke 4:18 Jesus declares that Jesus is the anointed One from Isaiah 61:1-2 who is thus appointed as the preacher of and means of the good news. Jesus is claiming he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (which he gave Isaiah). The people know what that means, which is why they attempt to kill him for blasphemy after he says this. Jesus is the anointed One and shows us what we receive then when we are in him.
When the New Testament declares that those who are in Christ by the Spirit are also anointed, it is declaring that we are in Christ and set apart of the work of Jesus’ kingdom and counted as holy to the Lord.
This truth does not make us equal to Jesus as Messiah. That’s not the point. Don’t think that. It does mean that we are set apart priests of the Lord who have also been anointed with the Holy Spirit.
Listen to 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 (ESV) 21 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22 and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
1 John 2:20 (ESV) 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.
The giving of the Spirit and our reception of the Spirit upon salvation is one of the reasons the whole people of God are priests and not common. In Christ we are a royal priesthood and a holy nation that make up the church. The church is the holy nation of priests in Christ who is the faithful Israel of God.
God gave the anointing oil and it’s use in the tabernacle to prepare us to receive the good news and the gift of his anointing by the Spirit for service in his kingdom.
Application
1) Jesus paid the price of our deliverance from the debt of sin, and he did the dirty work of triumphing over the enemies of his kingdom for us, he provided the washing of his word, and he has given the Holy Spirit to be received by all who turn to him in faith.
Repent. Believe. Worship.
2) There is a place for war and holy violence for the sake of good and right. Boys and young men, you have been taught to sit down, shut up, be passive, take a beating, and just pray about it as a “Christian” way to live. That’s not God’s way. That’s the dark kingdom’s way to emasculate you and keep you from becoming a king under the sovereign reign of King Jesus in his kingdom and doing things his way.
Don’t use turning the other cheek and living by the sword against the rest of Scripture and thus abuse them. There is a difference in persecution for the sake of the gospel and taking a beating from fools for no reason. One we gladly receive, and one we make sure we win.
Live in such a way that you are holy before God and men and can win when you have to. Just because the world and our culture doesn’t want men to be able to fight for and defend right doesn’t mean we don’t need men who are willing to fight for and defend right.