Passage: Exodus 30:17-21
The Big Idea
The bronze laver stood between the altar and the holy place, a basin where the priests washed their hands and feet before serving. It pictures how Jesus, through His Word, shows us what’s wrong and then cleans it. We’re already forgiven at the altar; the laver is about enjoying ongoing fellowship with God.
Anti-Virus Software
Anti-virus software is supposed to do two things: show you the problem, then fix it.
Except that one time I downloaded some to fix a virus on my wife’s computer, and it wiped the whole hard drive. That’s not what it’s supposed to do!
It’s supposed to find the problem and fix it for me, because I can’t. I don’t know how to find malicious code, or how to change it. I don’t even really know what code is. But I know there’s a tool that can do it for me.
The bronze laver is that tool. It shows the problem, and it fixes the problem.
Clean Hands
David asks who may climb the Lord’s mountain and stand in His holy place. The answer: the one with clean hands and a pure heart (Psalm 24:3-4).
Fellowship with God requires clean hands. God wants fellowship with us, but He’s still God, and we must be holy to stand in the presence of a holy God.
Communion with God happened in the holy place. The laver stood right outside its entrance, so the priests could use it every time they went in.
Wait, weren’t they already clean?
“I thought they were already forgiven at the altar?”
They were. That’s justification. Today we’re learning about sanctification: the practical cleansing that lets us enjoy God’s presence continually, without anything in our lives that offends His holiness.
Read: Exodus 30:17-21
God told Moses to make a bronze laver with a bronze base, place it between the tabernacle and the altar, and fill it with water. Aaron and his sons were to wash their hands and feet whenever they entered the tabernacle or came near the altar to serve, “lest they die.” It was a permanent statute.
Between the altar and the holy place
Even though we’re forgiven by faith in the blood of the sacrifice, there’s a washing away of things that offend God.
A holy life is God’s will for His servants. And He gives us the tool to make it happen. You are now the priests. You’re being built up as a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5). This laver teaches us how to be holy priests, ready to serve God and hang out with Him.
Made of bronze
Bronze always speaks of judgment in the tabernacle.
“But wasn’t my sin already judged at the altar?” It was. This is a truthful look at your life now. You’re forgiven, but you still live in a corrupt world, and you still fall short.
So the laver is bronze because God sees the kind of life we’re living, even after we’re saved. He knows the dirt on your hands and feet. The bronze pictures the unbending righteousness of Jesus, who is sinless and sees our failures clearly.
That’s the diagnostic part of the software.
Filled with water
Water speaks of the Word of God, and more practically, of how the Word cleanses the sin Jesus finds in us. Christ cleanses His church “with the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26).
That’s how the virus actually gets removed. God’s Word is what He uses to transform our daily walk.
So look at the tool again: it reveals the problem, then fixes it.
How wonderful God is! He doesn’t show us a perfect life and leave us struggling to reach it. And He doesn’t fix everything behind the scenes so we never learn to receive His grace. He supplies the cure for the very things He exposes. How merciful!
How Do We Use It?
Aaron and his sons were to wash their hands and feet in it (Exodus 30:19).
We use it by coming to Jesus, placing our feet in His hands, humbling ourselves before Him, and asking Him to clean our walk.
Jesus is the cleanser of His people, and the Word is His instrument.
Why hands and feet?
On the night before the cross, Jesus got up from supper, wrapped a towel around Himself, poured water into a basin, and began washing the disciples’ feet (John 13:1-10).
Peter objected that Jesus would never wash his feet. Jesus told him that unless He washed him, Peter had no part with Him. So Peter swung the other way and asked for his hands and head too. Jesus answered that someone who has bathed only needs his feet washed, because he’s completely clean (John 13:8-10).
Hands and feet are the parts of us that touch the world. Jesus loves to wash the dirt of the world off of us every day. You’re already bathed: saved and forgiven. But His work of transformation continues as long as we live.
“Lest they die”
The laver stood at the entrance to the holy place, where the priests ate the bread and offered incense in communion with God. Twice they’re warned they’ll die if they don’t wash.
Paul gives a similar warning about the Lord’s Supper: let a person examine himself before eating the bread and drinking the cup, because some were treating it carelessly (1 Corinthians 11:27-29).
Communion is a big deal. You’re meeting with the God of the universe. Even though you’re invited, you’d check for stains and dirt before an important meeting, right?
Sometimes we say, “Yeah, I’m a Christian, but I don’t talk to God much because I feel guilty about what I still do. I feel ashamed in His presence. So I avoid Him. Maybe I’m not even saved?”
We’re the ones who suffer when we avoid communion with God. And God is the one who keeps inviting us in, and even provides the tool so we can be clean in His presence.
Made from Mirrors
What was the laver made of? Bronze, from the bronze mirrors of the women who served at the entrance of the tabernacle (Exodus 38:8).
Mirrors!
Something used to look at yourself, to make yourself more beautiful, to try to fix yourself, was given to God and reshaped into something He could use to show the truth.
The mirrors could only show things. They needed to become something that could hold water, the water that actually cleans.
James says that anyone who hears the Word but doesn’t do it is like someone who looks in a mirror, walks away and forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it will be blessed (James 1:23-25).
- A mirror relies on self: your sight, your coordination, your effort.
- The water of the Word just needs you to receive it. Jesus sees our faults, and He’s willing to wash them. We sit there in humility and faith and let His Word do its work.
A hearer knows Jesus could clean them. A doer actually sits down and lets Jesus do the washing: asking for it, delighting in it.
- Humility: “Jesus, I’m dirty.”
- Faith: “Jesus, wash me again.”
What Keeps Us from the Laver? Pride.
- Pride says, “I don’t need to soak in the Word. I’m fine. I’m not that dirty.” So we avoid God’s presence because deep down we know we smell.
- Pride says, “I’ll decide for myself what God should accept in my life.” So we avoid the searching gaze of Jesus, so we can keep doing what we want.
- Pride says, “I’m forgiven. Now watch how well I can clean myself up!” Have you ever watched a little kid try to wash his own face? How does that go?
- Pride says, “You shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus says, “Let Me. I want you to have real fellowship with Me. This is the only way.”
A River
John was shown a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Revelation 22:1).
The heavenly reality behind the laver is a river: refreshing and cleansing forever, flowing from Jesus Himself, available to every child of God.
You hold a form of that river in your hands: your Bible. His Word. Refreshing, cleansing, transforming. (Read Psalm 119 to see how much the psalmist loved it.)
Grace Takeaway
You don’t have to scrub yourself clean with a mirror. Jesus already bathed you, and He loves to wash your feet. Come to His Word humbly and say, “Jesus, I need You to clean me. I trust You to clean me through Your Word.”
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