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The incense kindled on the coals taken from the altar of burnt-offering, where the
sacrifices had beenbrought, typified the accepted mediatorial intercession of our great
High Priest. And now, whenthere was absolutely no plea upon earth, this typical
pleading of His perfect righteousness andintercession prevailed. Never before or after
was the Gospel so preached under the OldTestament as when Aaron, at Moses'
direction, took the censer, and, having filled it from the altar,"ran into the midst of the
congregation," "and put on incense, and made an atonement for the people"(16:47).
And as he stood with that censer "between the dead and the living," "the plague,"
which had alreadyswept away not less than 14,700 men, "was stayed." Thus if Korah's
assumption of the priestlyfunctions had caused, the exercise of the typical priesthood
now removed, the plague.
But the truth which God now taught the people was not to be exhibited only in
judgment. After thestorm and the earthquake came the "still, small voice," and the
typical import of the Aaronicpriesthood was presented under a beautiful symbol. By
direction of God, "a rod" for each of thetwelve tribes, bearing the respective names of
their princes, was laid up in the Most Holy Place,before the Ark of the Covenant.
And on the morrow, when Moses entered the sanctuary, "behold the rod of Aaron for
the house ofLevi had budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and
yielded almonds." Thesymbolical teaching of this was plain. Each of these "rods" was
a ruler's staff, the emblem of a tribeand its government. This was the natural position
of all these princes of Israel. But theirs as well asAaron's were rods cut off from the
parent-stem, and therefore incapable of putting forth verdure,bearing blossom, or
yielding fruit in the sanctuary of God. By nature, then, there was absolutely
nodifference between Aaron and the other princes; all were equally incapable of the
new life offruitfulness. What distinguished Aaron's rod was the selection of God and
the miraculous giftbestowed upon it. And then, typically in the old, but really in the
new dispensation, that rod burst atthe same time into branches, into blossom, and even
into fruit - all these three combined, and allappearing at the same time. And so these
princes "took every man his rod," but Aaron's rod wasagain brought before the Ark of
the Covenant, and kept there "for a token." Nor was even thechoice of the almond,
which blossoms first of trees, without its deep meaning. For the almond, whichbursts
earliest into flower and fruit, is called in Hebrew "the waker" (shaked, comp.
Jeremiah1:11,12). Thus, as the "early waker," the Aaronic priesthood, with its buds,
blossoms, and fruit, wastypical of the better priesthood, when the Sun of
Righteousness would rise "with healing in Hiswings."
(^)