Leviticus 24:1 opens the Lord's directions to Moses regarding the continual sanctuary lamps and the bread of God's presence. The lamps were to be supplied with pure olive oil so that they would burn continually. The priests were to trim and refill them each morning and evening so the light would not go out, with Aaron and his sons tending them from evening until morning before the Lord. Because the tabernacle had no windows, the lamps were never all extinguished at once but gave light by day and night.
The ceremonial precept beginning here, commanding the setting forth of the showbread on the Sabbath, was given some time after Moses set up the tabernacle and placed the table and the showbread in it on the first day of the first month. Because that command did not yet exist when the tabernacle was set up, it furnishes no proof that that first day was the weekly Sabbath. Although the lamp command beginning here calls for the lamps to burn continually as a statute forever, forever and perpetual there do not mean unending duration. They mean only the utmost duration the person or thing allows, determined by its nature rather than by the words themselves.
Applied to the lamp service and to the passover, priesthood, trumpets, incense, sacrifices, and other Jewish institutions, forever means limited duration, because they originated with the Jewish nation as types and shadows pointing to Christ and their duration was fully accomplished when the substance was reached. Applied to the seventh-day Sabbath, forever means unceasing continuance, because the Sabbath is not a type, was made at creation before sin entered and before types were necessary, and is a memorial ever pointing backward to the fact that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and rested the seventh day. The Sabbath was made for man and is universal to all men and nations, rests on the same necessity and reasons today as thousands of years ago, and belongs to a law as eternal as God. The tending of the lamps illustrates Christ removing what hinders His people from shining and giving them more of the Holy Spirit, represented by the oil.
Leviticus 24:1 opens the Lord's directions to Moses regarding the continual sanctuary lamps and the bread of God's presence. The lamps were to be supplied with pure olive oil so that they would burn continually. The priests were to trim and refill them each morning and evening so the light would not go out, with Aaron and his sons tending them from evening until morning before the Lord. Because the tabernacle had no windows, the lamps were never all extinguished at once but gave light by day and night.
The ceremonial precept beginning here, commanding the setting forth of the showbread on the Sabbath, was given some time after Moses set up the tabernacle and placed the table and the showbread in it on the first day of the first month. Because that command did not yet exist when the tabernacle was set up, it furnishes no proof that that first day was the weekly Sabbath. Although the lamp command beginning here calls for the lamps to burn continually as a statute forever, forever and perpetual there do not mean unending duration. They mean only the utmost duration the person or thing allows, determined by its nature rather than by the words themselves.
Applied to the lamp service and to the passover, priesthood, trumpets, incense, sacrifices, and other Jewish institutions, forever means limited duration, because they originated with the Jewish nation as types and shadows pointing to Christ and their duration was fully accomplished when the substance was reached. Applied to the seventh-day Sabbath, forever means unceasing continuance, because the Sabbath is not a type, was made at creation before sin entered and before types were necessary, and is a memorial ever pointing backward to the fact that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and rested the seventh day. The Sabbath was made for man and is universal to all men and nations, rests on the same necessity and reasons today as thousands of years ago, and belongs to a law as eternal as God. The tending of the lamps illustrates Christ removing what hinders His people from shining and giving them more of the Holy Spirit, represented by the oil.