Honoring God’s Holiness (Numbers 3:2–4)

These are the names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab the firstborn, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the anointed priests, whom he ordained to serve as priests. But Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord when they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. So Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the lifetime of Aaron their father.
—Numbers 3:2–4

So this chapter in the book of Numbers—Numbers 3—gives us a picture of the priests and the duties of the Levites and how they would minister, how they would serve in the tent of meeting and the tabernacle, the place where the glory of God, the presence of God, dwelled among his people.

They had a uniquely significant role because they represented sinners before a holy God, and they represented a holy God before sinners. They were the go-betweens, so to speak—the intercessors who stood in the gap between God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness.

This is the picture of God’s people throughout their history. That is what a priest was set up to do, which is why, when Nadab and Abihu did not honor God’s holiness with their service, they were immediately struck down dead. God does not take lightly this priestly duty of representing his holiness to his people and representing sinners before a holy God.

All of this in the Old Testament, though, points us to our need for a perfect priest—one that none of these priests could ever be. We need a perfect priest who perfectly displays the holiness of God to us and who is able to represent us perfectly before God the Father. Jesus is the perfect, the great high priest. He is the only one who is perfectly able to represent God’s holiness to us and the only one who is perfectly able to represent us before God the Father in all of his holiness. So we are driven by Numbers 3 to praise Jesus as our perfect high priest.

At the same time, these verses radically challenge us because the rest of the New Testament talks about how we, as followers of Jesus, are now a royal priesthood. This means we have the responsibility of bringing sinners to know the holiness of God and of showing the holiness of God with our lives, by the power of Christ in us, to sinful people around us.

So there is so much here that drives us to pray. First and foremost, to say, God, thank you for sending Jesus. Jesus, we praise you as the perfect high priest who has paid the price for our sins. We praise you, Jesus, as the Word made flesh, the tabernacle among us. We praise you for representing the holiness of God in the flesh to us and representing us in our humanity before God the Father, for paying the price for our sins with your blood—not the blood of another sacrifice, but with your own blood—and making the way for us to know God, to be forgiven of our sins, to be clothed in your righteousness, to have our sins covered by your blood. We exalt you as the great, perfect high priest.

And we pray that you would help us, then, as the overflow of your life in us, to carry out what Romans 15 talks about—this priestly duty. God, we see in your Word, in 1 Peter, that we are your royal priesthood. So we pray that you would help us to represent you well before sinners around us, before the world around us. Help us to represent your holiness. Make us holy as you are holy, we pray.

God, we pray that you would help us to be holy in ways that spur others on to be holy. Help us to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ to grow in holiness through our lives. And, God, we pray that we would be salt and light in the world around us so that people who do not know you might see our lives and be drawn to you. In that way, help us to be intercessors for them—to stand in the gap on behalf of others before you.

God, as we pray, we pray for people who do not know you in our lives. Please draw them to you. We intercede for them now—for friends, for family members, for co-workers, classmates, and neighbors.

A Prayer for the Waimiri-Atroari People

For our cities, for the nations—God, we pray specifically today for the Waimiri-Atroari people of Brazil, up in the Amazon, a small people group. God, we are interceding for the Waimiri-Atroari people. God, please, we pray that they would be reached with the good news of your love in Jesus. Please, God, bring it about.

Help us to be faithful intercessors, to carry out this priestly duty on behalf of people close to us and far from us. O God, make us a holy, royal priesthood as those who have been saved and reconciled to you through Jesus, the great, perfect high priest.

In his name we pray all these things, based on your Word in Numbers 3. Amen.