Dr Hollisa Alewine – Footsteps of Messiah 119 (The Filling Station) for week of July 21, 2024

The Filling Station When I was around four years old, my aunt borrowed my dad’s work truck, probably to carry a load of tomatoes to market. If you’ve never had a freshly-picked southwest Arkansas-grown Bradley tomato, you don’t know what you’re missing.    My Aunt Frances took me along, and she pulled into a filling station to get gas. For those of you too young to know what a filling station is, it’s a lot like a gas station, but there’s someone there to pump the gas, often dressed in a uniform. He checked the tire pressure and cleaned the windshield while the gas pumped. Eventually, they called that “Full service.” Back then, it was the only kind of service.    The attendant asked my Aunt Frances what kind of gas she wanted. My aunt wasn’t sure what Dad used, so she asked me, “Hollisa, what kind of gas does your daddy put in this truck?”   Happy to have the right answer to a very adult question, I replied, “He gets Fillerupregular.”    Nowadays, I suppose it’s even more important to select the right kind of fuel for different kinds of engines.    In the Kingdom of Heaven, often disputes arise about grace vs works because we are pouring the wrong kind of fuel. The fuel is wrong because the question is wrong. The question is wrong because of a misunderstanding of the fundamentals of salvation, grace, obedience, and holiness. Like my four-year-old understanding of gasoline, often we simply parrot what we’ve heard someone say, someone older or wiser than we. We memorize the answer before we understand the words.    There is a reason two cheruvim guard the entrance to the Garden. Death cannot dwell there. Sin falls under the legal purview of death. Rebellion and transgression sins transfer a person under the custody of death. To allow a sinner to enter the holier spaces of the Presence is to consign them to the custody of death. It’s like trying to drop a quarter into the slot only big enough for a dime. The way to the most powerful dwelling of the Divine Presence grows narrower as we walk with Adonai.    Salvation begins the walk, but sanctification is a lifelong process of letting the Ruach HaKodesh shape us and strip away impairments that might delay our ability to stand and serve in holier places of the Presence. Adonai does not want us foolishly scampering into a holier place than that for which our obedience has prepared us. Just as there is glory to glory, life to life, growth to growth, so there are different kinds of “death.” Death is a matter of separation.    The Mishkan drew levels of holiness in the Camp of Israel. The pattern of the kohanim illustrates how a nation of priests should approach the holy spaces of ministry in holy garments so that they are not cut off...   You shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty. You shall speak to all the skillful persons whom I have endowed with the spirit of wisdom, that they make Aaron’s garments to consecrate him, that he may minister as priest to Me. These are the garments which they shall make:..(Ex 28:2-4) ... “They shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they enter the tent of meeting, or when they approach the altar to minister in the holy place, so that they do not incur guilt and die.” (v. 43)   Even the Kohen HaGadol could die from his service!   It doesn't mean he wasn't saved from the second death, but that he couldn't fit into that holy space in disobedience.   Rashi comments to the passage above:  “When they enter the Tent of Meeting...and die.” See that you have learned from this verse that a Kohen who performs the service lacking any of the Kohen’s garments in subject to death.” This is a death “at the hands of Heaven,” not execution by the courts.    It may or may not have an immediate visible effect to the natural eye.   Rashi to Ex 28:41  “With them you shall dress Aaron your brother and his sons with him; you shall anoint them [with anointing oil], and you shall fill their hand, and you shall sanctify them, and they