Even with the sacrificial system, the people of Israel were not allowed to get too close to God lest he consume them. Only the priests were granted access to the tabernacle. These priests, however, were sinners themselves. Not only did they offer sacrifices for the people, they had to repeatedly offer sacrifices for themselves and go through repeated ritual cleansings in order to serve as mediators between the LORD and his people. What we will see in this message is that the priests and tabernacle point both backwards and forwards. They point back to the garden of Eden, but they also point forward to Christ as our great high priest and ultimately the New Creation.