In addition to holiness in worship with the sacrifice system, God required His people to maintain holiness in purity with the laws of purification and the holiness of leadership (consecration of priests and the day of atonement). Jesus is indeed the substance of the laws of purification and all that the high priest was meant to symbolize.
Leviticus 1-7, Holiness (Part 1)
God’s presence among His people required holiness on the part of God’s people. This meant first and foremost proper sacrifices to make atonement sin and propitiate the wrath of God. All of this looked ahead to Jesus Christ and the fury of God that His death would one day satisfy in the place of sinners. Leviticus was God’s picture book for the precious sacrifice of Jesus and its outcome, reconciliation and peace with God. The LORD is the divine artist who has drawn for us a colorful portrait of Christ in the OT sacrifice system.
Exodus 25-40, God Dwells Among Men
With the tabernacle instructions, God reveals His stunning plan to have His presence to dwell among men. But all of this was jeopardized when Israel corrupted themselves and worshipped idols, thus, violating their covenant with Him. But even with this, the LORD was advancing His plan to bring His presence on earth through the Son of God incarnate in whom all His elect would become the holy dwelling place of God in the Spirit and in the end they will forever have God within and God without, His glorious presence inside and out.
Exodus 13-24, A Royal Priesthood
The LORD brought Israel, a seed of Abraham, out of Egypt to make them into His own possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. They would enter a covenant for this privileged relationship with the holy God, and they would do so on His terms, the law. Although they entered this covenant with their eyes wide open (informed and aware of the solemnity of this covenant), they failed to be faithful. They violated this covenant and demonstrated that they needed a new heart by the grace of God (Deut. 30:6). Though they failed to be God’s true son (4:22), that holy and royal priesthood, Jesus fulfilled. He became all that Israel should’ve been and thus fulfilled the Father’s plan for the ultimate seed of Abraham who blesses all the nations as their priest and king, and how Peter applies this reality to the church is most stunning.
Exodus 1-12, The Covenant Keeper
Genesis 37-50, The Providence of God
The final section of Genesis reveals us to the awesome providence of God at work in Joseph’s life. This is a window into the doctrine of providence that has and continues to hold true and cascade over all things for all time. As the bigger story of Genesis shows, divine providence ultimately culminates in Christ. For this reason even as Jacob expresses his longing for the salvation of the Lord at the end of the days, he unwittingly calls out for the name of Jesus (49:18).
Genesis 24-36, The Faithfulness and the Grace of God
God keeps HIs word. God who made a covenant with Abraham kept it over many generations. He is faithful. He also abounds with grace in that He chooses whom He will give this covenant blessing by His grace, not to be earned or merited by any human effort but purely based on His grace. These are the two attributes of God that are highlighted in this section of Genesis.
Genesis 12-23, Faith, Sin, and Promise
The central human figure of Genesis 12-23 is Abraham, but this is no mere biography of Abraham. It is a story of faith and sin on his part and the story of the astonishing promise of the LORD to bless all the families of the earth through him, even through the one seed which God will produce from him, the Lord Jesus Christ. The promise of the worldwide blessing in Abram is more specified to be the promise in his seed. All of God’s promises to him ultimately culminates in that final seed of Abraham. The seed of the woman is the seed of Abraham and it is in Him that the blessing of God comes upon all of God’s people from all the nations.