Title: Pure Olive Oil/Exodus 27:20-21
Content Subject: Pure Olive Oil
Text: Exodus 27:20-21
Key Verse: (Exodus 27:20) You shall also command the children of Israel to bring you pure oil, crushed from olives, for a lamp, and light the lamp without interruption.
The light using olive oil was always clear and transparent, and there was no soot. Therefore, this oil was always pure and clean oil and had the meaning of purity. Some commentators interpret this passage as foreshadowing the pure character of Jesus, who burned his whole body to illuminate the dark and sinful world of mankind. God's command in today's text was to prevent darkness from dwelling in the tabernacle where God was worshiped from evening to morning. And he commanded that the light be possible only with pure oil, not with the light of miscellaneous oil.
1. He asks for pure oil.
Purity is always required of those whom God extends his hand of service in the temple. God's word to use only pure oil for the temple as the oil for the lamp to light the tabernacle gives many meanings to today's churches.
Devotion honed in careful preparation and deep meditation is exactly what God wants. He demands the fruits of service and devotion with a pure spirit that cannot be involved in the calculation of miscellaneous interests or honor.
2. The blood of Christ as pure oil.
No one calls the blood of all the above death row inmates shed as pure blood or precious blood. Because the wages of sin is death. But the blood that Jesus Christ shed on the cross on Calvary's mountaintop was truly precious blood. The reason is that he endured death in the atonement with a sinless body. It was an event that forever lit the lamp of salvation on mankind as a truly pure oil. Because of that unquenchable lamp of salvation, today we have the privilege of worshiping God in His propaganda.
3. The lamp as a symbol of the church.
The tabernacle is recorded as a holy place that God revealed to the Israelites and was with them for about 500 years from the Exodus (1446 BC) to the completion of the temple (959 BC). The lamps lit here can be interpreted as a model of the church to light the world. This rationale can be easily understood when recalling the seven candlesticks that point to the seven churches of Revelation.
(Rev 1:20) What you saw in my right hand are the mystery of the seven stars, and the seven golden candlesticks;
The lamp in the sanctuary is an increase and a symbol of the church as believers. Just as the censer is a model of their role as intercessors toward God and the seven candlesticks are a model of their role as light to the world.
4. God's command not to allow darkness.
The light mentioned in the Bible has always been associated with the work of the Triune God. In the modern church, the Holy Spirit continues to be a source of light. Wherever there is poverty, disease, or suffering, what is seen in the suffering field of believers is the light of the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is a pure lamp that leads to a new world, whether in the tabernacle or in today's church. For those who saw this light and stood up and obeyed, God was always with them, and those who did not were destroyed in the world of darkness.
In the Most Holy of the Tabernacle in Israel, lamps were lit from the evening when the darkness began to the morning when the light began. Even today, we hear the following commands of God to burn the pure oil on the hearts of the people who serve God and light a lamp that emits light.
(Philippians 2:15) For you are blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, to appear as lights among them in the world.
apply
1) Purity is always an attribute and form that God desires. Find in yourself something that can be presented as being pure to God.
2) Think of the grace of salvation while thinking about the pure blood of Christ and the connection with yourself.
3) I check again whether the lamp lit by pure oil is lit on me.