Hebrews Lesson 123 April 24, 2008
NKJ Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
As I said before we prayed, we are
in Hebrews 9:1 now. But, before we go into any detail in Hebrews 9:1 we need to
take a little time to go back and see where we’ve come from in the first 8
chapters of Hebrews. We have spent about 3 months or so – maybe 4 –
on the New Covenant. I don’t know about most of you, but this morning when I
started getting into Hebrews 9:1 I had to take a lot of time to go back over
and get reoriented to just where the flow of thought was by the author of
Hebrews. So often we don’t take that time to go back and resettle. So I want to
do that before we get started. So you can just open your Bibles if you want to
follow along in our review to Hebrews 1.
So we’ll go to Hebrews 1. We’re
going to sort of walk our way (or run our way) through Hebrews. As I pointed
out at the beginning, we have these various sections in Hebrews. These sections
in Hebrews are built around a teaching portion or a didactic portion where the
writer of Hebrews is explaining doctrine.
Much of this is being taken out of an Old Testament context.
We have to remember that he is
writing to Jewish believers. It is assumed by the content of the book that
these are priests (former priests) who are now wondering if they should not go
back into Judaism, go back into (and desert Christianity) service in the
Temple. That concept of serving in the Temple – that word “service” is a
key word that is going to take on more significance as we get into chapter
9.
So each of these sections has a
teaching portion and then at the end of the teaching portion there is an
application, an exhortation. An exhortation is really nothing more than a
challenge – a challenge to put into practice or to apply the principles
that have just been laid out. So we have a teaching portion and then an
exhortation. In most of the exhortations there is a warning – a warning
not to fall away (not to become passive in your Christian life, not to just
slip into neutral and kind of go through the motions), but to continue to
pursue spiritual growth, spiritual maturity because we have a destiny with the
Lord Jesus Christ to share in His inheritance to be joint heirs with Christ in
the Millennial Kingdom and to serve with Him. What we are doing right now in
our Christian lives is preparing us for that future time to rule and reign with
the Lord Jesus Christ.
So the book begins with a four verse
prologue in the first section (the first four verses) which focuses our
attention on the Son. He is
identified as being the flashing forth of God’s essence. He is identical with
God’s essence. The focus is on His sonship. That sonship isn’t that He is the
Son of God (which is the eternal aspect), but that He is the future heir which
relates to the fact that He is the Son of Man. As the Son of Man He will ascend
and sit at the right hand of God the Father. As the Son of Man, He will come
back and He will establish His kingdom. As the Son of Man, He receives the
inheritance.
So the focus in the first four
verses is on Him as the future heir who is now seated. We are seated in Him. So
we learn from these four verses that God has now spoken definitively and
completely and finally in His Son.
NKJ Hebrews 1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in
time past to the fathers by the prophets,
NKJ Hebrews 1:2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of
all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
Nothing could surpass that so this
is one argument for the cessation of revelation. The Son is appointed the heir of
all things, we learn here.
When He had made purifications, He
sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
NKJ Hebrews 1:3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person,
and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself
purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
That is a key phrase that we run into again and again
and again through our study of Hebrews.
NKJ Hebrews 1:4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance
obtained a more excellent name than they.
That inheritance can’t relate to His
deity because in His deity He has always been better than the angels. So that
inheritance has to be related to what He accomplished in His humanity.
Then in the next section we go down
to verses 5 to 11. As you can tell looking at the text with the indentation
these are comprised of a series of Old Testament quotations. What the writer
does is he weaves together approximately 8 Old Testament quotations. He has 7
psalms and one quote from Isaiah (51:6) and he weaves these together in order
to establish and document his point that the Messiah was expected to come and
to rule and that He would fulfill all that God had intended for man. The
conclusion comes in the last verse of the chapter, which is verse 14.
NKJ Hebrews 1:14 Are they not all
…referring to the angels.
ministering
spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?
Key word there – service for
the sake of those who will inherit salvation. Jesus Christ in 1:4 is the heir.
We will inherit salvation. It’s a future concept. So we look at this idea of
salvation as something that is future. It’s phase 3. It’s what we are rewarded
with at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Having laid out this foundation of who
Jesus is (is higher than the angels, as the one who is seated at the right hand
of the Majesty on high), the writer of Hebrews then goes into the exhortation
and warning and says that if God has done all of this - sending the Second
Person of the Trinity to become a man, having Him live His life on earth during
the whole period of the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, His
present session in heaven - if God has done all of this to establish this
inheritance that we are going to get this inheritance salvation, how can we
neglect it? If we’re in this training process - how in the world once we grasp
what God has provided for us - can we possibly let that just slide and become
complacent about our destiny, our eternal destiny, what God is doing in our
lives?
So we have a challenge then in the
verse that is well known to many people. But usually it is applied to phase 1
salvation (justification-salvation) and it’s verse 2:3.
NKJ Hebrews 2:3 how shall we escape
…some kind of judgment, some kind of
discipline.
if we neglect
so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and
was confirmed to us by those who heard Him
The point he has made here is if Old
Testament saints didn’t listen to God and they were disciplined, how can we
escape when we have a much better package than they had? This picks up one of
the main themes that we have in the introduction in the first four verses: God
has now spoken in His Son.
NKJ Hebrews 1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the
fathers by the prophets,
If God has spoken that implies a
response on our part to obey what He has spoken.
Verse 2 says:
NKJ Hebrews 2:2 For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every
transgression and disobedience received a just reward,
How can we neglect our salvation? So
we are challenged to press on.
Then we came to the second section.
The didactic section here is a little bit longer. Each section gets a little
longer. This is from 2:5 to 3:6. In chapter 2:5 the subject shifts to the role
of man. Man is man. Why did God create Adam? Why did God put humanity on the
planet? As God’s representative we were destined to rule and reign over this
planet. But when Adam sinned and caused the fall, the human race collapsed
under the condemnation of sin. We were spiritually dead, separated from God. So
for God to fulfill His plan He sent Himself (the Second Person of the Trinity)
to become incarnate, to become a human being, to go through the whole life
testing-suffering process to pass the test that Adam failed so that Christ then
could succeed as the Second Adam to be the one who would as a human being rule
and reign over the planet and fulfill God’s initial plan for man. That’s the
theme of this whole section. It culminates in His royal high priestly
ministry.
So in verses 5 through 9, (chapter
2:5-9) we see Jesus set forth as the one who is to fulfill the destiny of man
to rule. He’s the one - man is the one that God has appointed to rule over the
works of His hands.
NKJ Hebrews 2:7 You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him
with glory and honor, And set him over the works of Your hands.
NKJ Hebrews 2:8 You have put all things in subjection under his feet." For in that
He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do
not yet see all things put under him.
But what we see in verse 9 is that
He who is made a little lower than the angels - that the Second Person of the
Trinity (Jesus)…
NKJ Hebrews 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the
angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by
the grace of God, might taste
That is fully experience.
death for
everyone.
NKJ Hebrews 2:10 For it was fitting for Him,
That is God the Father.
for whom are all
things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain
of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
So if Jesus has to go through the
suffering and go through this process to be mature, how much more must we who
are fallen and under the dominion of slavery to sin? So the point in verses 10
through 13 is that Jesus had to be a man and mature the same way we do and pass
the test that Adam failed.
NKJ Hebrews 2:17 Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren,
that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to
God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
That is verses 14-18. We see here
that He shares in the same flesh and blood that we do. The result of this (vs. 17)…
that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest
Now stop a minute. Think about this.
What the writer is doing so far up to 2:17 is to build a case. He is laying out
a trajectory that is pointed to this whole Doctrine of the High Priesthood of
Jesus Christ. That becomes the underlying doctrinal foundation for the rest of
this epistle - working out, unpacking the implications of Christ’s present high
priestly ministry: that He went through all of these things in phase 2 of His
life during the incarnation so…
in things pertaining to
God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
NKJ Hebrews 2:18 For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid
those who are tempted.
So His priestly ministry is related
to His sustenance, His aid to every believer in their spiritual life because He
has gone through and been tested as we will see in chapter 4 – every way
as we are. We have a High Priest who can identify with our testing. Once again
it comes back to the high priestly idea.
So down through verse 18 we see the
teaching about Jesus and His maturity. This leads to His role as a merciful and
faithful high priest.
As we follow His pattern (We get
into chapter 3), then we also will grow and we will share in that ruling
destiny.
Again you should underline and point
out and highlight in your Bibles (3:1 and again in Matthew) the mention of the
fact that Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession.
Now there is another word. This word
“confession” pops up – that we are to hold fast to our confession later
on. That means that we are to hold fast to our doctrine, to what we affirm to
be true. If we believe something is true and it doesn’t impact our lives, then
does it really matter if we believe it’s true? We ought to think about that. If
you say you believe something is true (even if it’s not something too earth
shattering), if it’s true it ought to change things in your life if you didn’t
believe it was true before. But if you believe something is true that is of the
magnitude of what the Bible teaches and it doesn’t change anything about your
life or how you carry out your life or how you conduct yourself socially, how
you conduct yourself in business, how you conduct yourself in your marriage, in
your family, in things like that; then does it matter whether you believe it or
not?
That’s the kind of world in which we
live. People want to compartmentalize our faith. For 200 years the pressure of
the cosmic system has been to get Christians to go into a closet and
compartmentalize their Christianity from everything else. It doesn’t matter
what you believe. That’s fine - just keep it to yourself on Sunday morning. But
don’t get out into the marketplace of ideas and think you have the right to
impact anybody else or challenge anybody else on the basis of what you believe.
I mean they can impact people on the basis of what they believe and that’s
fine; but if you try to impact people on the basis of what you believe as a
Christian - well, that’s not acceptable. That’s really where we are and where
we’ve come in our culture.
It’s been interesting the last week
to watch and to read some of the responses to the Ben Stein film Expelled because
the other side just doesn’t get it.
One of the things that they don’t
get is they keep responding by saying, “Well, what these people want to do is
introduce God into the classroom.” They are right. They understand that in
intelligent design, if there is an intelligence out there, the kind of
intelligence out there that would design everything has to go beyond any
creature. So they understand accurately that’s where this automatically and
necessarily goes. But you see, the failure that they have is that they think
that it’s wrong to have any kind of theistic, any kind of theism in the
classroom because that’s bringing religion into the classroom. But what they
fail to understand (which shows the inherent irrationality of their whole
thinking) is that if anything that is stated positively belongs in a category
of thought, then if that same thing is stated negatively it also belongs in
that same category of thought. In other words, if theism is religious; atheism
is just as religious. A statement “there is a god” is just as religious as the
statement “there is no god.” So to take God out of the classroom and to take
God out of biology is just as religious as putting God into biology. They don’t
want to understand that.
“Well, whose god are we going to put
there?”
Well, then you have a problem
because whatever you put in there (even if you don’t put anything there), there
is a religious statement. There is no neutrality. Secularism isn’t
neutral.
There as a 1973 decision by the
Supreme Court of the United States that stated that secular humanism was
religious. It fit all the categories and all the characteristics of a religion.
We live in a world that just wants to compartmentalize Christianity and put us
in the closet. Unfortunately too many Christian have fallen prey to that
because that is sort of the trend of our sin nature. It will gravitate to that
because that’s always that part of spiritual warfare that, “Well, I can
compartmentalize my life.” There is a trend there. There’s an affinity in our
own sin nature to sort of accept that and to pick up these ideas from the
culture. But, whenever we are living on the basis of the ideas that our
atheistic culture puts out, we just become functional atheists. It doesn’t matter
how much doctrine we have, how many times we go to church. When we’re living on
the basis of the world system it’s functional atheism. Or, we can even press it
further as we’ve seen. It is thinking like the devil. It is another form of
demon influence.
So we are to recognize that we are
partakers (participants), metachoi in the Greek. We are partners in this future kingdom rule
that Jesus is going to have. So if
we follow in His pattern of growth we will share in His destiny.
Then when you get into 3:7 down
through 19 which is another long section, there are several quotes (at least
three quotes from Psalm 95:7) to listen to the Word. That’s the whole thesis
here going back to the Jews in the Old Testament that they failed to listen to
the Lord. So we are warned not to harden our hearts as they did, but to listen
to the Lord.
NKJ Hebrews 3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you will hear His
voice,
NKJ Hebrews 3:8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in
the wilderness,
The result was that they didn’t
enter into God’s rest. That Exodus generation failed to listen to God and so
they failed to experience the blessing that God had for them in going into the land.
So there is a waning there in this section of the dangers of starting in 3:7
down through 4:13 as the warning section. This is where you have the dangers of
falling away, not believing God and no listening to God. Again in 3:15:
NKJ Hebrews 3:15 while it is said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden
your hearts as in the rebellion."
Again and again there is this
reiteration of this particular warning. Then chapter 4 picks it up again and
reiterates this one more time. In 4:7:
NKJ Hebrews 4:7 again He designates a certain day, saying in David,
"Today," after such a long time, as it has been said: "Today, if
you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts."
The point is that if you harden your
hearts you will miss out in that blessing. If we become complacent in our
Christian lives, then the result is that we will miss out in rewards, in
responsibilities, in privileges of ruling and reigning with Christ when He
comes in His kingdom.
Then in 4:14 we come to the next
section. It begins with a “therefore” so we know that the writer is drawing a
conclusion out of everything that he has said before. He says:
NKJ Hebrews 4:14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest
Once again we ought to circle,
highlight that phrase, and connect it back to the earlier uses of high priest
because everything that he is saying is connected to the fact that Jesus Christ
is our present high priest.
who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of
God, let us hold fast our confession
There is that word again - not to
fall away from what we believe.
Then there is an explanation in
verse 15.
NKJ Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a High Priest
He’s been through every kind of test
– category of test that we face.
who cannot
sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Therefore we can go with confidence
to the throne of grace. Now remember that in 4:16 because we pick up the same idea
- because He is High Priest we can go with confidence before the throne of God
a couple of more times in Hebrews.
So we come down to chapter 5. We get
to chapter 5, again developing the idea of the high priesthood. In chapter 5 he
talks about the limitations of the human high priest in the first 5 verses
– that one of their limitations is they’re sinners and they have to offer
sacrifices for their own sins.
Then we come into chapter 5 (verses
5 through 10) which focuses not that kind of high priest; He is designated by
God.
NKJ Hebrews 5:5 So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High
Priest, but it
was He who said to Him: "You are My Son, Today I have begotten
You."
This is the second time that Psalm 2
is quoted. Also Psalm 110:4 is brought in.
NKJ Hebrews 5:6 As He also says in another place: "You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek";
So he introduces now this
Melchizedekean high priesthood category. But the people aren’t ready for this,
and so he is going to have a diversion at this point because he says that
they’re not ready to listen to this. He has built up to this point, and then in
verse 11 he says:
NKJ Hebrews 5:11 of whom
That is Melchizedek.
we have much to
say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
Then we basically have a reproof
section in the exhortation from 5:11 down through 6:8. Starting in verse 9 he’s
going to talk about the fact that he is really convinced of better things. But
first he has to give them a little bit of a verbal discipline. In 5:5-10 he
talks about the Second Person of the Trinity – that He is a High Priest
after the order of Melchizedek. In His incarnation he offered prayers and
supplications, which is what is related to the role of a high priest. He is qualified to be a high priest and
learned obedience through suffering in 5:8. He is also matured in 5:8 that He
might provide salvation.
NKJ Hebrews 5:8 though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.
Then starting in 5:11 we have the
exhortation and challenge. The warning is in the middle of 6:4-8. The rest of
it is a challenge to obedience. It focuses on the idea of the need to press on
beyond the basic doctrines they’ve already learned.
Therefore 6:1:
NKJ Hebrews 6:1 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to
perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and
of faith toward God,
Let’s not get wrapped up in going back
and doing everything all over again. In verses 4 through 8 we have a warning
section that is a difficult challenge for a lot of people. They think this
indicates that you can lose your salvation or that these recipients of the
letter may not have been genuinely saved. As I have pointed out, the terms all
indicate full genuine salvation. The warning isn’t that they might lose their
salvation; the warning isn’t that they weren’t really saved; the warning is if
you fall away, if you do not hold fast to your confession, if you are not
consistent in going forward, if you do not maintain your walk with the Lord and
you just let it slide and you begin to backslide; then you can reach a point in
carnality as you back up in your spiritual life under divine discipline that is
tantamount to a point-of-no-return where you can’t recover and you’ll be taken
out under the sin unto death. That is verse 4 through 8.
But the positive side of it is the
writer says:
NKJ Hebrews 6:9 But, beloved, we are confident of better things
concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this
manner.
NKJ Hebrews 6:11 And we desire that each one of you show the same
diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end,
This is the introduction here, this
idea of hope – a confident expectation of something in the future.
I want you to notice as I went
through the text I started highlighting different phrases. I didn’t start
picking up on this and decide to do this until I got down to chapter 6. You’ll
notice that I tried to use some different colors to bring out some different
ideas. That’s the kind of thing that you should be doing as you’re listening
and as you’re reading through the text. The focus here in this encouragement is
that we are to realize eventually future ideas – looking toward our
future destiny we will ultimately realize that expectation we have in terms of
our eternal destiny. The precursor to that though is that we have to exercise
diligence in our spiritual growth to realize the full assurance of hope until
the end. That “hope” is a key word.
NKJ Hebrews 6:12 that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith
and patience inherit the promises.
That’s another key word to highlight
– promises, promises, promises become a key part of this next
section.
NKJ Hebrews 6:13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no
one greater, He swore by Himself,
Verse 15, we have promise again.
Verse 17 we have promise again. So we see how this idea is picked up and in the
encouragement section here the key words are hope and promise.
Now when we get down to the end of
chapter 6, these last two verses here are critical to the transition to
chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7 and chapter 8 become the next part, the first part
of the next section. We’ve looked through three sections now. Chapter 7:1
begins the next section. This is the transition. This hope we have is an anchor
of the soul. An anchor is that which gives stability to the ship. Even if a
ship is out on the open sea, if there is a storm they will often throw the
anchor overboard in order to give some balas to the ship and to give it some
stability in the midst of stormy seas. So hope – that future destiny - no
matter how tough the storms of life may be, no matter how rough the adversities
get, no matter how overwhelming life seems, that which gives stability and
confidence to us now is an understanding that God’s in control. Jesus Christ
controls history. Jesus Christ controls the details of our lives and Jesus
Christ is the one who is going to get us through the storms of life.
So that hope is an anchor of our
souls, a hope that is sure and steadfast and one which, what? Enters within the
veil.
NKJ Hebrews 6:19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and
which enters the Presence behind the veil,
Now he starts to introduce a little
more of this tabernacle terminology. I have pointed out a little bit as we’ve gone
through here. But, when we get to chapter 9 we are right in the middle of the
tabernacle and all the terminology.
But one reason I wanted to do this
review is so we’d go back and see how this writer is gradually laying the
foundation, and has laid the foundation, for what he is going to do in chapter
9. So that hope is sure and steadfast and one that enters within the veil where
Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us.
NKJ Hebrews 6:20 where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest
forever
What?
according to the order of Melchizedek.
…another key phrase to emphasize.
We’ll see it repeated four or five times in chapters 7 and 8 leading up to
chapter 9.
So now we go back. Remember he had
introduced Melchizedek back in chapter 5. But then in verse 11 he says, “Well,
you are just dull of hearing so I can’t tell you about Him.” Then he gives them
a little verbal discipline for chapter 6.
Now he comes back to the topic of
Melchizedek. In chapter 4 the focus is on the Melchizedekean priesthood versus
the Jewish Aaronic high priesthood and Levitical priesthood – that the
Melchizedekean priesthood was not based on physical requirements, on parentage,
on genealogy, on any of those factors but was a divine appointment. It was also
a royal priesthood and the Levitical priesthood (or Aaronic priesthood) was one
that was passed on from generation to generation. It had physical
qualifications. It was limited in its application so he is going to demonstrate
the Melchizedekean priesthood is superior to the Aaronic priesthood.
So in the first 4 verses he
introduces us to Melchizedek and explains why he is significant. Just those few
verses in Genesis are all we know of Melchizedek. But he shows that Melchizedek
must clearly have been superior to Abraham if Abraham brought tithes to
Melchizedek.
Then when we get to verse 4, chapter
7:4 through 10, we see the superiority of Melchizedek to Aaron. This is where
we have the comparison and contrast between the descendents of Levi and the
Melchizedekean priesthood. The author is pointing out that there is a need for
a superior high priest. When we get down to verse 12 he says:
NKJ Hebrews 7:12 For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change
of the law.
There is a shift that’s occurred
from the Levitical priesthood to the Melchizedekean high priesthood of Jesus
Christ. A change of priesthood causes a change of the Law.
Now there is another key word that
needs to be identified and traced through here: this concept of law and
covenant and promise. Those are key ideas that run through this section. There
is a shift with a new priest who arises according to the likeness of
Melchizedek.
NKJ Hebrews 7:15 And it is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek,
there arises another priest
NKJ Hebrews 7:17 For He testifies: "You are a priest forever According to the order of
Melchizedek."
We have a repetition from Psalm
110:4.
NKJ Psalm 110:4 The LORD has sworn And will not relent, "You are a priest forever According to the
order of Melchizedek."
Then verse 18 picks up this legal
terminology. It is so important to notice all the times you have law,
commandment, oath, sworn – all these terms relate to legal action. The
legal action is that to change the priesthood, you change the law. The covenant
shifts. So now he is in the set up for why there has to be a New Covenant and
that the New Covenant brings in a new high priesthood.
In verses 23-25 his basic argument
is that the former priests were mortal, the Levitical priests were mortal;
Jesus is eternal. As such He is able to save forever.
NKJ Hebrews 7:25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who
What?
come to God
through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Now that picks up the same
terminology that we are “to draw near to God as our High Priest” and “that we
can go to the throne of grace to obtain grace and mercy”. So he picks up the
same ideas related to the high priestly ministry of Christ. Now here in verse
25 it’s talking about those who draw near to God through Him. That salvation
here isn’t justification in phase one; salvation continues to be talked about
in terms of spiritual growth and the future destiny.
Then verses 26 down through 28 he
comes to a summary of this argument he has presented.
NKJ Hebrews 7:26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens;
NKJ Hebrews 7:27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to
offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people's, for this
He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
See back in chapter 5 he had made
point that the human high priest was an inadequate priesthood because they had
to offer sacrifices for their own sins. He concludes.
NKJ Hebrews 7:28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word
of the oath,
God’s oath.
which came
after the law, appoints
the Son who has been perfected forever.
That leads up to what he points out
in the beginning of chapter 8. Now the main point: the summary. What have I
been saying?
NKJ Hebrews 8:1 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a
High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in
the heavens,
Where did we see phrase? That takes
us all the way back to the introduction. See how he is laying all these things
out. This is brilliant literature. There are so many threads interwoven
together here.
who is seated
at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
He is a minister in the
sanctuary.
Here we pick up another new word
group – this word group for minister. The word group that we have here
that is brought in at verse 2. This is the word leitourgos. Now we’re going to see this
word as a noun for minister. We’re going to see the verb form leitouro for
service. We’re going to see the word leitourgis for ministry. And then we’re going
to see the word latreia
for worship. Now all those words are the same basic root. The idea has to do
with our whole life of service.
This is the same word that’s used in
Romans 12:1 when Paul says:
NKJ Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service.
That’s the word there, service to
God. That’s the word related to worship, related to our ministry. It’s the same
basic word group.
So in verse 1 of chapter 8, Jesus is
focused on as the one who is seated as the High Priest at the right hand of the
Father.
In verse 2 He’s a minister in the
sanctuary. The word there is hagios, the holy place. I just wish translators would be
consistent. We get into chapter 9 and we talk about the place in the Tabernacle
and it’s the same word hagios. So if you translate it “sanctuary” here and “holy place”
there and it’s the same word, people miss the connection.
NKJ Hebrews 9:1 Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and
the earthly sanctuary.
The word translated “tabernacle”
here is the Greek word skene. The Greek word means a tent or a dwelling place. This word
comes across in theater to describe part of the stage. It’s picked up in
Russian. It has the same idea there, but it all goes back to the basic Hebrew
word which is shakan
which means the dwelling place which is the word from which we get the word
Shekinah. We’ll look at that in a minute in terms of the Hebrew. So Jesus is a
minister (leitourgos)
in the Holy Place (the hagios) in the true tabernacle.
In the third verse then the writer
of Hebrews states out in a general principle. He is going to explain. He says:
NKJ Hebrews 8:3 For every high priest is appointed to offer both
gifts and sacrifices.
Offering gifts and sacrifices is the
service that He does. That’s that latreuo that he does – to offer gifts and
sacrifices. That’s the function of the leitourgos. So he goes on to say in the last part of verse 3:
Therefore it is necessary
that this One also have something to offer.
What’s he going to offer? That
question is left hanging here. We don’t get to it until the middle of chapter
9.
Then verse 4.
NKJ Hebrews 8:4 For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are
priests who offer the gifts according to the law;
So here he comes back and says (It’s
a little bit of an side.), “Look if He were just a human, He couldn’t do this.
It would not matter. He could not function as a priest. If He were on earth He
wouldn’t be a priest at all because He doesn’t fit the qualifications of the
Law.
Then in verse 5 he says:
NKJ Hebrews 8:5 who
The Levitical priests.
serve the copy
and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was
about to make the tabernacle.
So that the tabernacle (and later
the temple on the earth) is introduced here as a copy and a shadow of a
heavenly archetype – a heavenly tabernacle.
So Levitical priests simply served a
copy, but He as high priest has entered into the true tent or dwelling place of
God. So verse 5 says that these
human priests.
For He said,
"See that
you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain."
So the pattern comes out of the
heavenly archetype.
Then the conclusion of this point
was:
NKJ Hebrews 8:6 But now He
Jesus
has obtained a
more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant,
which was established on better promises.
What’s it based on? It’s based on
better promises and a better covenant. That legal foundation is established.
He has a more excellent ministry
– leitourgos.
Again the emphasis all through here has been on that service in terms of His
ministry. It is a service of worship.
Then there was the digression
related to the New Covenant. The author goes through this digression to show
that all of this, the new High Priesthood, the new structure of things relates
to this New Covenant that God is making with Israel. The conclusion of that we
touched on last week in verse 13 when he said:
NKJ Hebrews 8:13 In that He says, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete.
Now what is becoming obsolete
It hasn’t fully passed from the
scene yet, because they are still sacrificing and serving and functioning on
the Temple Mount; but it’s the closing days of the Temple because divine
judgment is on the way.
and growing old
is ready to vanish away.
Now that brings us to where we
stopped last time in 9:1. We’re still in the middle of the fourth section. The
fourth section doesn’t end until 10:39 and the exhortation (the challenge)
doesn’t begin until 10:19 so we still have all of 9 to go through and the first
18 verses of 10 before we hit the exhortation. He’s still teaching them and
explaining the impact of Christ’s high priestly ministry.
If you look at the proportion within
the layout of Hebrews, this is the core issue in the book of Hebrews – understanding
the significance of Christ’s present high priestly ministry for the Church Age
believer. But the backdrop for this has to be somewhat of an understanding of
what was going on in the Old Testament in the tabernacle and in the temple. But
he focuses his thinking on the whole worship in the tabernacle.
So he writes. Let’s just read these
first 5 verses here.
NKJ Hebrews 9:1 Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine
service
Guess what that Greek word is that
is translated “divine worship”. It is the Greek word latreia. We have introduced this whole
terminology now that was lying there in those first 6 verses of chapter 8. So
this connects right back. Instead of translating it the way they did in chapter
8, they translated it with “worship” which was never there in chapter 8. It
should be “had regulations of divine service.”
and the earthly sanctuary.
2 For
a tabernacle
or a dwelling place
was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread,
which is called the sanctuary;
3 and behind the second veil,
the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All,
It only focuses on two things
– the lampstand which as you went in was on the left side and the table
of showbread table of sacred bread. That was on the right side. This is the
outer section of the Tent of Meeting called the Holy Place. Then there was a
second veil in the tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies.
4 which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all
sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron's rod that budded,
and the tablets of the covenant;
5 and above it were the
cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.
Now he’s going to build everything
out of this. This isn’t the first time the writer of Hebrews has said, “Well,
we’re not going to talk about it too much now.” Then he pauses and comes back
and talks about it in detail.
When God would come, His presence
was often indicated by a cloud. Shekinah is the word for His dwelling presence.
Shekinah doesn’t mean glory in and of itself. It just emphasizes His dwelling
presence. But there is always a manifestation of His dwelling presence and that
is indicated usually by a cloud or by smoke. If it’s dark, it’s indicated by
lightening or fire. Light was used as a symbol or representation of God’s
essence. So it would look something like that. It would be what the Israelites experienced with the pillar
of fire hovering over the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle.
In the outer court there were two
basic things that were there. There is the laver. We have everything set up
down here. Here is a model that we use in prep school to teach the Tabernacle.
It has the Holy Place of the Tent of Meeting here and the various different
coverings. We’ll go into those as to what their significance was, why each one
had to be made a certain way. It was made out of different fabric, made out of
different animal skins. Then in the outer court you have the laver and the
altar.
Now over here these are built to
scale. This is a set that was made by Goodseed and was designed. They did a
tremendous amount of research on this to make sure that they could build a set
that would be all proportional according to the descriptions in Scripture. So
in the outer court you had the brazen altar and the laver. You can see by
looking at those that the altar was enormous. Later on in the Solomonic Temple,
the First Temple and the Second Temple you could probably put 20 to 30 priests
up on top of the altar. It was huge. When there were the high feast days, they
would set up stations around the altar where they were sacrificing the lambs;
and then they would pass up what was going to be burnt as a burnt offering on
the altar. Then there was the laver which was set out in front for the washing
of the hands and the washing of the feet for the ceremonial cleansing before
the priests could go into the presence of God.
Now once he went inside the Tent of
Meeting, there are two rooms. There is on outer veil that he goes through into
the first room called the Holy Place.
Then there is an interior veil that separated the Holy Place from the
interior Holy of Holies. Inside the outer section were three things –
only two are mentioned here. There is a little bit of a description challenge
in the way this is written. You have two things. You have the Table of
Showbread. The bread had to be continually changed. All of these things say
something about Jesus. The altar represents Jesus in terms of His being a
sacrifice. The laver is Jesus’ death that cleanses us from sin. The Table of
Showbread represents Jesus as the bread of life. The lampstand (the candelabra,
the menorah) represented Jesus as the light of the world. Then right next to
the veil you had the altar of incense. This was to represent Christ’s priestly
ministry of prayer and intercession for us continuously. The smoke from the
incense would go up, pass through the veil into the Holy of Holies.
Inside the Holy of Holies you had
the Ark of the Covenant which looked like this. It was a box made of acacia
wood covered with gold representing the hypostatic union of Christ. Inside the
box were placed a pot of manna, Ten Commandments which were broken, and Aaron’s
rod that budded. Each of those represented sins. Then the Mercy Seat (the lid
that covered it) represented the mercy of God. The blood on the Day of
Atonement was placed on top of the Mercy Seat. The cherubim represent the
justice, the righteousness of God. The blood covers the sin. This is a picture
of atonement and the cleansing of sin that comes from atonement.
These are the basic pieces of
furniture in the Ark. I’ve got some pictures here, some diagrams of the laver.
Some of these pictures are from a tabernacle in the wilderness that was set up
down – it used to be set up down in the southern part of Judah not too
far from a place called the Pillars of Solomon. So this is a picture of the
laver they built there so you can get an idea of its size and proportion.
This is a picture from up above
looking down on how they had constructed this. This was all built according to
the patterns laid out in the Scripture. You can see the brazen altar and the
laver out in front. (Pictures are shown.) This is a picture of the altar with
the horns of the altar prominent. Then inside, the walls were of gold and on
the left side you have the golden candlestick (the candelabra), the Table of
Showbread representing God as the one who provides life and the means for life
and the altar of incense. Then inside the Holy of Holies you have the Ark of
the Covenant.
So what we have done so far in terms
of the introduction to the Tabernacle is just run through some of the main
furniture, looked at the key words in point 1. Point number 2 talked about the indwelling presence of God.
3. The
term Shekinah comes out of the intertestamental period between the Old
Testament and New Testament. It’s never used in the Old Testament. It’s a rabbinical term that gets
introduced based on the verb shakan, to dwell indicating the dwelling presence of God. 4. All this is just 4 points of introduction. There was a temporary Tent of
Meeting that was set up by Moses during that year when they were constructing
all of the furniture for the Tabernacle. If you go into Exodus you’ll see that
right after God comes down before the Tabernacle is built Moses is meeting with
God in the Tent of Meeting, but they haven’t even built the Tabernacle. So it
was a temporary meeting place. So apparently before they created the mobile
worship center, they had one of these temporary buildings outside that people
could put in their backyard that was sanctified. That’s where Moses went to
meet with God. It was a genius system to break everything down and to be very simple
and transportable while they were going through the desert.
All of this becomes the backdrop for
explaining critical doctrines in the New Testament related to the spiritual
life, related to Christ’s present high priestly ministry. All of this is embedded
within all of this ritual that occurred in the Old Testament. So before we get
into a lot of the details of Hebrews 9 we’re also going to spend some time
going back into Exodus and developing this in a little more detail to
understand the dynamics of this whole ministry. One of the things that I want
to do is not only look at the basic function or the operation of the tabernacle
itself, but also look at the offerings and the sacrifices that are laid out
later on in Leviticus so we can have some understanding. You have these
different offerings – the burnt offerings, peace offerings and grain
offerings and what is the significance to each of those. So that just gets our
taste buds oriented to the little next section before we get started.
So let’s bow our heads in closing
prayer.