Were animal sacrifices offered at the door or at the gate of the tabernacle? And does this have implications for being washed in blood?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1991.
The door of the tabernacle (see Exodus 26:36) was different from the gate of the tabernacle (see Exodus 27:16).
When Leviticus talks of the animal sacrifices being offered at the door of the tent of meeting, as in Leviticus 4:4, it means, 'by the altar that is at the door of the tent of meeting' (see Leviticus 1:5). The laver, we are explicitly told (see Exodus 40:7), was 'between the tent of meeting and the altar'. The laver, therefore, was nearer the door than the altar was. The altar is described as being 'at the door of the tent of meeting', and not 'at the gate', because the phrase 'at the gate' would imply that it stood just outside the gate. In fact, it stood inside the gate in the court and, therefore, 'before' or 'at' the door of the tent of meeting.
If someone were to take 'at the door' to mean 'just in front of the door', then two questions would arise:
When Israel were directed to kill their animal sacrifices before the door of the tent of meeting, would this imply that the animals were brought close up to the door of the tent of meeting, even beyond where the laver stood, and slain there? Or were they actually slain by the altar which, though it stood before the door of the tent of meeting, stood at some distance from that door? Surely the latter is more reasonable.
When Exodus 29:4 specifies that Aaron and his sons were bathed with water at the door of the tent of meeting, would that mean that they were bathed by the altar at the same place where the animal sacrifices were killed? Or were they bathed much nearer to the door and, therefore, much nearer to the laver than the altar was? Again, the latter is more likely.
You regard the bathing of the priests in water as a type of our being bathed in blood. If that was what the type was meant to portray for us, why do you think that the priests were bathed in water, when there was plenty of blood around to bathe them in blood? When you say that the phrase in Hebrews 10:22 'our bodies bathed with pure water' refers, in fact, to our being washed in the blood of Christ, how do you explain that to a congregation? Do you say that water in this verse really stands for blood, and not water?
It is, after all, the fact that nowhere at all in the Old Testament was there any ritual in which someone was bathed in blood.
Very truly yours in Christ,
