Come Boldly

Scripture Reading: Exodus 24:1-11

An interesting thing occurs in the account of Moses and the elders going up on the Mount of God. In verse one, they are told to “worship from afar.” They are warned not to draw near to the Lord. Yet, just a few verses later, in the same chapter we find that “Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.”

Even stranger it then tells us that they were very comfortable in God’s presence. Verse eleven continues: “He did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God and ate and drank.”

What happened between verse two and verse nine? What happened was the sacrifice and the offering of blood. In verse eight we are told that “Moses took the blood and threw it on the people…”

The reason they were able to go from standing at a distance, cowering in fear to drawing near with boldness to fellowship in the Presence was the blood. Now, if the ritual blood of animals, by which no one can be saved and which never cleansed guilt in a full and permanent sense, can allow for that kind of change, how much more the blood of Christ, God’s Son?

This is what the writer of Hebrews was getting at when he said Christ has opened for us a new and living way, and that we can now draw near to God through Jesus and come boldly before the throne of grace.

We can draw near and fellowship with bold confidence because Christ died for us. His blood is the way.