Divine Providence # 123
123. 7. It is the unceasing effort of the Lord's divine providence to unite us to himself and himself to us in order to give us the joys of eternal life; and this can happen only to the extent that our evils and their compulsions are banished. I explained in 27-45 that it is the constant effort of the Lord's divine providence to unite us to himself and himself to us, and that this union is what we call reformation and regeneration. I explained also that this is the source of our salvation. Can anyone fail to see that union with the Lord is eternal life and salvation? Everyone can see this who believes that we were originally created in the image and likeness of God (see Genesis 1:26-27) and who knows what the image and likeness of God are.
[2] If we are truly rational and use our rationality when we think and use our freedom when we try to think, can any of us believe that there are three gods equal in essence and that the divine Being or divine Essence can be divided? As for a threefold nature in one God, that is something we can conceive and understand, just as we understand the soul and the body of an angel or a person and the life that they bring forth. Further, since this threefold nature in a single Being exists only in the Lord, it follows that any union must be a union with him.
Use your rationality and think freely, and you will see this truth in its own light. First, though, admit that the Lord, heaven, and eternal life are real.
[3] Now, since God is one and since by creation we have been made in his image and likeness, and since we have come into a love for all our evils through our hellish love, its compulsions, and their pleasures, thereby destroying the image and likeness of God within us, it follows that it is the constant effort of the Lord's divine providence to unite us with himself and himself with us and thereby to make us his images. It also follows that the Lord is doing this so that he may give us the bliss of eternal life, since this is the nature of divine love.
[4] The reason he cannot make this gift, cannot make us images of himself, unless we banish sins from our outer self in apparent autonomy is that the Lord is not just divine love but divine wisdom as well; and divine love does nothing unless it stems from divine wisdom and is in accord with it. It is in accord with divine wisdom that we cannot be united to the Lord and thus reformed, regenerated, and saved unless we are allowed to act freely and rationally. This is what makes us human. Anything that is in accord with the Lord's divine wisdom is also in accord with his divine providence.
Exodus 29
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"This is the thing that you shall do to them to make them holy, to minister to me in the priest's office: take one young bull and two rams without blemish,
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unleavened bread, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil: you shall make them of fine wheat flour.
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You shall put them into one basket, and bring them in the basket, with the bull and the two rams.
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You shall bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the Tent of Meeting, and shall wash them with water.
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You shall take the garments, and put on Aaron the coat, the robe of the ephod, the ephod, and the breastplate, and clothe him with the skillfully woven band of the ephod;
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and you shall set the turban on his head, and put the holy crown on the turban.
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Then you shall take the anointing oil, and pour it on his head, and anoint him.
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You shall bring his sons, and put coats on them.
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You shall clothe them with belts, Aaron and his sons, and bind headbands on them: and they shall have the priesthood by a perpetual statute: and you shall consecrate Aaron and his sons.
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"You shall bring the bull before the Tent of Meeting: and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the bull.
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You shall kill the bull before Yahweh, at the door of the Tent of Meeting.
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You shall take of the blood of the bull, and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger; and you shall pour out all the blood at the base of the altar.
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You shall take all the fat that covers the innards, the cover of the liver, the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, and burn them on the altar.
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But the flesh of the bull, and its skin, and its dung, you shall burn with fire outside of the camp: it is a sin offering.
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"You shall also take the one ram; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram.
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You shall kill the ram, and you shall take its blood, and sprinkle it around on the altar.
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You shall cut the ram into its pieces, and wash its innards, and its legs, and put them with its pieces, and with its head.
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You shall burn the whole ram on the altar: it is a burnt offering to Yahweh; it is a pleasant aroma, an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
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"You shall take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram.
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Then you shall kill the ram, and take some of its blood, and put it on the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and on the tip of the right ear of his sons, and on the thumb of their right hand, and on the big toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood around on the altar.
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You shall take of the blood that is on the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it on Aaron, and on his garments, and on his sons, and on the garments of his sons with him: and he shall be made holy, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons' garments with him.
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Also you shall take some of the ram's fat, the fat tail, the fat that covers the innards, the cover of the liver, the two kidneys, the fat that is on them, and the right thigh (for it is a ram of consecration),
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and one loaf of bread, one cake of oiled bread, and one wafer out of the basket of unleavened bread that is before Yahweh.
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You shall put all of this in Aaron's hands, and in his sons' hands, and shall wave them for a wave offering before Yahweh.
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You shall take them from their hands, and burn them on the altar on the burnt offering, for a pleasant aroma before Yahweh: it is an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
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"You shall take the breast of Aaron's ram of consecration, and wave it for a wave offering before Yahweh: and it shall be your portion.
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You shall sanctify the breast of the wave offering, and the thigh of the wave offering, which is waved, and which is heaved up, of the ram of consecration, even of that which is for Aaron, and of that which is for his sons:
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and it shall be for Aaron and his sons as their portion forever from the children of Israel; for it is a wave offering: and it shall be a wave offering from the children of Israel of the sacrifices of their peace offerings, even their wave offering to Yahweh.
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"The holy garments of Aaron shall be for his sons after him, to be anointed in them, and to be consecrated in them.
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Seven days shall the son who is priest in his place put them on, when he comes into the Tent of Meeting to minister in the holy place.
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"You shall take the ram of consecration, and boil its flesh in a holy place.
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Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram, and the bread that is in the basket, at the door of the Tent of Meeting.
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They shall eat those things with which atonement was made, to consecrate and sanctify them: but a stranger shall not eat of it, because they are holy.
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If anything of the flesh of the consecration, or of the bread, remains to the morning, then you shall burn the remainder with fire: it shall not be eaten, because it is holy.
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"You shall do so to Aaron, and to his sons, according to all that I have commanded you. You shall consecrate them seven days.
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Every day you shall offer the bull of sin offering for atonement: and you shall cleanse the altar, when you make atonement for it; and you shall anoint it, to sanctify it.
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Seven days you shall make atonement for the altar, and sanctify it: and the altar shall be most holy; whatever touches the altar shall be holy.
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"Now this is that which you shall offer on the altar: two lambs a year old day by day continually.
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The one lamb you shall offer in the morning; and the other lamb you shall offer at evening:
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and with the one lamb a tenth part of an ephah of fine flour mixed with the fourth part of a hin of beaten oil, and the fourth part of a hin of wine for a drink offering.
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The other lamb you shall offer at evening, and shall do to it according to the meal offering of the morning, and according to its drink offering, for a pleasant aroma, an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
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It shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the Tent of Meeting before Yahweh, where I will meet with you, to speak there to you.
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There I will meet with the children of Israel; and the place shall be sanctified by my glory.
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I will sanctify the Tent of Meeting and the altar: Aaron also and his sons I will sanctify, to minister to me in the priest's office.
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I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God.
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They shall know that I am Yahweh their God, who brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them: I am Yahweh their God.
