Exo 21:1-6 KJV Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. (2) If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. (3) If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. (4) If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. (5) And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: (6) Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.
Ex 21 speaks of the law of the Hebrew servants. A Hebrew could be bought as a servant by another Hebrew, but only for 6 years since God forbids his people to be enslaved since the Egyptian Exodus. The seventh year was year of release from the servant, who must be considered debt free at that point.
If the servant arrived at the master's house as a single man, he had to leave the seventh year single. This was so even if the man married a woman whom the master gave to him for wife and had children! He had to leave single if he came single.
The alternative was to remain a servant for the rest of his life, signified by boring a hole through his ear against the doorpost of the master's house. His love for his master and wife and children could move him to choose to sacrifice his entire freedom and remain a servant forever. The Lord impressed on me that something about Jesus and the cross is in this picture, and I could not get it. He told me to keep reading.
It was not until I saw a cross reference to
Psalm 40:6-8 that it hit me.
Psalm 40 is the prophecy saying Jesus declared that God did not want sacrifice and offerings. Jesus came to do the will of the Father instead. The part that connected this to the
Exodus 21 law of a Hebrew servant was the phrase "Mine ears hast thou opened". The Hebrew for OPENED is "DIGGED", as in bored through, from the law of the servant.
Psa 40:6-8 KJV Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. (7) Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, (8) I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
To bore the ear through with an awl against the doorpost of the master indicated a readiness and commitment to HEAR every command from the master, and to be ever ready to serve and obey. And of course this was the sense of the Lord when He decreed that the Father's will was not for sacrifices and offerings, and that he had arrived to do the will of God in being the sacrifice for sins, Himself.
Hebrews 10 picks this prophecy up and interprets it as the changeover from Law to Grace by the cross. The Old Law had offerings that could never take away sins, and that was the reason God did not will for sacrifices and offerings. They could never satisfy God to move Him to forget our sins.
Hebrews 10 says there is a remembrance of sins every year with old covenant sacrifices. It was God's will to cause sacrifices to CEASE. And Christ's single sacrifice would cause that will to be fulfilled.
Heb 10:1-10 KJV For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. (2) For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. (3) But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. (4) For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. (5) Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: (6) In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. (7) Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. (8) Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; (9) Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. (10) By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
So the Psalm that is related to the law of the Hebrew servant was a prophecy about the changeover of entire covenants and cessation of sacrifices with Christ's single sacrifice.
The law of the Hebrews slave suddenly came alive to me! Covenants changed and sacrifices ceased due to a sacrifice that was akin to the love slave. To sacrifice his entire freedom and life BECAUSE OF LOVE for his master, wife and children, was an image of Christ sacrificing the ultimate sacrifice due to His love for the Father, His bride the church, and his children the believers. For Christ's sacrifice to satisfy God after 1,500 years of sacrifices since Moses, and 4,000 years of sacrifices since Adam, that could never take away sins, and move God to REMIT SINS, there had to be INCREDIBLE sacrifice due to LOVE! Such a holy God with such extremely unbelievable sensitivity to sin that would move Him to not be satisfied with the millions of sacrifices under Law, and remain full of memory regarding the offerers' sins, could only be moved to remit them entirely in ONE sacrifice DUE TO TREMENDOUS OBEDIENCE inspired by unearthly LOVE!
It was not only the cross that showed Christ's obedience. It was his entire holy life without sin that would make him a perfect sinless sacrifice. And the law of the servant helps us understand how such a sacrifice could be made. BY LOVE. Imagine the degree of his unbelievable love that would cause him to live a sinless life for 33 years, not mistaking anything one single time, and to be THAT holy a sacrifice so as to move God to remit sins!
What a SACRIFICE due to LOVE! There is no way we could fathom that level of love! It caused entire covenants to change! It stopped sacrifices! It moved God to no more remember sins, but FORGET and REMIT THEM!
And we think we disappoint God sometimes and must improve our behaviour. Yes, we need better behaviour, but that is not what God looks at to be pleased. HE LOOKS AT THE CROSS AND THE OBEDIENCE UNTO DEATH by Christ, due to the LOVE Christ had for us to be pleased with us. We need to look there as well, and stop looking at our own efforts to please Him.
If 1,500 years of law's sacrifices and 4,000 years of sacrifices since Adam did not move God to remit our sins, we're certainly not going to please Him by our own puny efforts. The law of the servant shows us that a sacrifice due to LOVE was made towards a God who caused COVENANTS TO CHANGE and end any further need of sacrifices by the Son of God who was obedient unto death!
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