Hebrews Lesson 140
NKJ John
Tonight we’re going to get into
the first part of Hebrews 9 again. But,
the class is called “Corrections and Conclusions.” So we’re going to correct a lot of stuff you
thought you knew about the Tabernacle - after 4 months of studying the
Tabernacle, you’re going to find out is wrong.
So we’ve got to start over.
We are in Hebrews 9:1 and
we’re going to start looking at these verses and work our way through
verse-by-verse which is our normal plan.
This is starting to move into an exhortation section. I think chapter 9 is a transition from
chapter 7 and chapter 8 which are talking about the shift in the covenant from
the from the old covenant to a new covenant established by the Lord Jesus
Christ which establishes a new priesthood and now the writer concludes or
begins:
NKJ Hebrews 9:1 Then indeed, even the first covenant
(which was the Mosaic Law)
had
ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.
NKJ Hebrews 9:2 For a tabernacle
So now what he is doing is he
is going to go back to the Tabernacle regulations for worship and he’s going to
develop those and make application for the Church Age.
“For” - explanation of the
sanctuary.
He’s going to talk about an
outer one and an inner one. What we call
the holy place is the outer room or vestibule; and then the inner room in the
Holy of Holies – the holy place and the Holy of Holies.
was
prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table,
and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary;
NKJ Hebrews 9:3 and behind the second veil, the
part of the tabernacle
So he’s viewing this as two
tents or temporary dwelling places.
which is called the Holiest of All,
NKJ Hebrews 9:4 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;
NKJ Hebrews 9:5 and above it were the cherubim of
glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.
Okay. Tonight is “Corrections and
Conclusions.” We have to go back and
wrap up some things that we’ve studied on the Tabernacle that are
misconceptions. Some things it’s just so
obvious. It’s sort of like - why didn’t
I ever do this before?
The first thing we’re going
to learn is that a brazen altar never existed.
It never did. Yeah! A brazen altar never existed. You’d think after all these years that
someone would take the time to just look up the word brazen. Brazen is an English word that means it’s
made of brass. It’s not what the Hebrew
word means. This entered into English
translations back during the late Middle Ages probably with the original
Tyndale translation and then with the King James Version because about 80% of
the words used in the King James Version came out of the Tyndale.
The Hebrew word is which is nihosheth which means it’s made copper
or bronze – not brass. Bronze is a metal
alloy made up of copper and tin. Brass
is made up of copper and zinc. Brass is
not found in the
In fact, most of your modern
translations have all fixed this. There
are even some that in the heading (which whoever edits the study Bible in the
little italics heading where they give you an outline), they’ll call it the
brazen altar. But then they use the word
bronze all the way through. If you go
back and listen to the lessons I did on it, I would switch between bronze and
brazen. So many people think that brazen
means bronze. It doesn’t. So we have to clean up everything.
That’s the beauty of being
able to go off to someplace like Goodseed and teach in an intensified way with
no other distractions something you’ve already taught because you get to go back
and kind of chase down all these little details that somehow got away from you
when you were teaching it the first time because you didn’t have enough time to
run it all down. I kept thinking about
this for three days before. When I got
on the airplane I got out my computer and that was the first thing I
checked.
When I told John Cross about
that he sort of stopped. He went and
grabbed his book Stranger on the Road to
Emmaus and said, “I’ve got to change it.” because he would have brazen in
one place and bronze in another.
It’s all through the
literature. It’s in the Bible
encyclopedias and in your Bible dictionaries.
It’s this thing that we picked up from the King James Version. The King James Version consistently calls it
brass. But it’s not brass; it’s bronze.
That is interesting in itself, there is a spiritual application.
One other archeological note,
it’s been discovered that in the middle second millennium BC (which is about
1400 - 1500 BC roughly the time of the Exodus) that the Phoenicians coming out
of the area around
What was the age that
preceded the Iron Age? Brass Age,
right? No, it was the Bronze Age. So
that’s the era. So it’s a bronze altar. I really had to work hard all weekend trying
to make sure I didn’t say brazen altar.
So it’s the bronze altar.
Now why was it bronze? You ought to remember this. Why was it bronze? Both articles of furniture in the outer
courtyard are made of bronze. Now that
was interesting. Why are they both made
of bronze? All the furniture inside the
Tabernacle is made of gold over acacia wood; but the metal that’s used in the
outer courtyard is bronze over acacia wood so that all of that blending of the
metal and the wood speaks of something about the Lord Jesus Christ in terms of
His humanity and His deity. But the
bronze on the bronze altar is there because bronze can handle the heat that
gold can’t handle. Gold will melt. So the bronze handles the heat which is a
picture as I taught of the Lord Jesus Christ being able to handle the heat of
the punishment for our sins on the cross.
So bronze speaks also of judgment.
Now we’re going to go to the
next piece of furniture that’s in the outer courtyard. That was the laver. This isn’t a correction; this is an
addition.
Once I started focusing on
that, something else occurred to me. You
have the bronze altar that is made for washing and it’s put between the bronze
altar and the tent according to Exodus 37:18.
But, it Exodus 38:8 we read:
NKJ Exodus 38:8 He made the laver of bronze and its
base of bronze, from the bronze mirrors of the serving women who assembled at
the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
So you have 3 things about
the laver. Number 1, it’s bronze and
bronze speaks of judgment. It’s made of
the shiny polished metal that the women used for mirrors. Now in the ancient world they used silver and
they used copper and they used bronze and they used gold – a variety of metals
for mirrors. But they took only the
bronze mirrors which tells me that that was important that it was bronze. So the bronze speaks of judgment.
The mirror speaks of
what? You look in the mirror you see
yourself. It is self-analysis,
self-examination. Paul uses the words
“examine yourselves” in I Corinthians 11.
So there is judgment. There’s
self-examination and then there’s the water for cleansing. These are the elements that you have in
confession of sin. There is
self-reflection and self-judgment. Then
we confess our sins and there is cleansing.
So you have this tremendous
picture of the whole process and significance of confession that has to be gone
through before the priest can go into the tent of meeting itself. Otherwise,
he’s going to die. God makes it very clear
that confession or cleansing from ongoing sin is very important. So it’s self-judgment, self-reflection,
self-analysis, confession, cleansing.
Now that takes us to the next
element. My second point that we’re
going to get a little clarification on - there is an order in the
offerings. Now when you go back – way
back to May when I did the offerings that were performed at the bronze altar;
there are five offerings that are mentioned in Leviticus 1-6. First of all there is the burnt offering, the
olah from the Hebrew word alah meaning to go up. I’ve noticed that current writers on the
subject are calling this the ascension offering because the focus is on that
which goes up. Everything was consumed on
the altar. The picture there is that the
offeror is stating symbolically that all that he has, all that he is belongs to
God. So there is a statement of
commitment. But even more basic than
that is the whole concept of substitutionary atonement that is pictured by
everything that happens on the bronze altar - that Christ died in our
place. It’s a reflection upon the fact
that who we are and what we have is because Christ died for us.
Okay. So we’re at the bronze altar. The bronze altar has these 5 sacrifices - the
burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering, the guilt offering and
the trespass offering. Those are the 5 offerings. Now the first three (the burnt offering, the
grain offering, and the peace offering) were sweet savor offerings. The last two are non-sweet savor
offerings. They had to do with
primarily willful sin.
Now I’m going to challenge
you tonight. It’s
Moses’ sin when he got angry
the second time the children of Israel (right before they went into the land)
when they complained about the lack of water and – the first time remember
they’re coming out of Egypt God said, “Strike the rock.” The second time He said, “Speak to the rock.” But Moses lost his temper with the people
and he got angry. It’s not so much that
he struck the rock (although there are a lot of people who want to make a
typology there); it is that he got angry and he raised his hand. The
terminology that’s used there is the same basic terminology and idiom you have
for the term “sin of the high hand”. He gets mad, he raises his hand, and he
strikes the rock. He is willfully
disobedient to God. That’s the sin that
is the reason he cannot go into the Promised Land.
So we have to answer the
question - if the guilty offering trespass offering take care of inadvertent
sins, what takes care of the sins of the high hand? We’ll think about that.
Okay. So you have these sacrifices. Now the interesting thing is every time you
go through Leviticus and Numbers and on into Samuel and Kings and you’re
dealing with these different sacrifices, they don’t appear in the order that
you have them revealed. That is a
logical order. The burnt offering is
logically the foundational offering. The others are all variants of that. So it’s logically laid out in Leviticus –
burnt offering, grain offering, peace offering, and then you go to the trespass
offering. But, every single time you see
more than one of those in operation; it’s always first the sin offering, then the
burnt offering and then the fellowship offering (the peace offering). Why is it done in that order? It’s the same thing we do every time we’re
going to pray and we get back in fellowship.
First we have to confess our sins.
There’s an admission. There has
got to be cleansing from the sin. So the
sin offering pictures that.
We recognize - I John 1:7
says:
NKJ 1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light as He
is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus
Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Now that doesn’t mean that
you don’t have to confess your sin. Some
people take it that way – that… There is
some guy names Bob George who’s been on the radio since I was in seminary. His whole ministry is built on telling people
you don’t have to confess your sin and he gets everybody all confused. He
always goes to 1 John 1:7 and says, “See 1 John 1:7 says the blood of Christ
continually cleanses you from all sin.”
I’ve heard this from other people.
Well, if the blood of Christ
continually cleanses you from all sin and you don’t need to do anything else;
then what is John talking about two verses later? Is he just stupid? Is he just all of a sudden he’s older and he
just forgets that he just said that the blood of Christ cleanses you from all
sin and now he’s going to tell you - you have to confess your sins to be
cleansed. No, he’s laying out the
positional reality which is what happens at the altar in the Old Testament that
every time the priest went in he has to perform the sin or the guilt offering
and confess because it’s a picture of the fact that what ultimately covers us
and cleanses us is the death of Christ on the cross. But then what does he have to do? He also goes to the laver and he has to wash
his hands and his feet. So they work
together. Both depict different aspects
of the whole process of the confession of sin.
So first there is the sin
offering and then there’s the burnt offering.
The burnt offering is a picture of the fact that - you know we don’t say
this when we confess our sins but this is sort of what’s implied in the
process.
We’re saying, “Father, I
committed this sin. This sin is covered
by the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross and I’m confessing my sin
because I want to be in fellowship with you and I recognize that if I’m going
to live my life so it has any kind of spiritual or eternal value; then I have
to live it totally committed to you.”
Now we don’t say it like that
and I’m not using “commitment” there in the way the revivalists do. But, that’s what’s implied there. That’s what’s depicted in the burnt
offering.
Then the next offering is the
peace offering which pictures fellowship with God. So it just pictures what we’ve been learning
all our lives – that you have to confess your sins to have fellowship with
God. When you confess your sins it is a
recognition that you know you can’t live walking by the flesh and you have to
be filled with the Spirit.
So those three offerings work
together and they’re always in that same order – always in that same order and
that is such a tremendous picture for the necessity for the confession of sin
before fellowship.
Then you have the whole
imagery of what happens as you go into the tent. Remember those outer two things are both made
of bronze and what’s inside the tent is made of gold. Those outer two things speak of
judgment. What goes on outside of the
courtyard has to do with getting back in fellowship so that you’re back in
right relationship with God. Well, after
there’s been that reflection on the fact that Christ died for my sins and I’m
cleansed; then I go inside the tent. The
priest goes inside the tent. He’s inside
the tent and outside the tent it doesn’t look like much because the outer
covering was that badger covering and the outer covering doesn’t look that
beautiful. Nobody saw it. But once you get inside there’s all that
beautiful embroidery work and the cherubim and all those brilliant colors. It’s absolutely gorgeous.
It’s - on the left hand side
you have the golden menorah which pictures the light of God. The illumination we receive from God from the
light of His written Word and the light of the Living Word which is the Lord Jesus
Christ. And because - it’s teaching
that we can’t have a relationship with God, we can’t worship Him or serve Him
or learn about Him apart from the light that He provides on the one hand and
ongoing fellowship which is pictured by the table of showbread on the right
hand side.
So what’s happening right
there is a picture of the Christian life.
It’s based on the Word of God and fellowship with God in the Church
Age. The fundamental issue there is
going to be the filling of the Spirit.
So that’s what we see happening in the pattern of the sacrifices. It’s not that what I taught was wrong. I’m just bringing out some new elements
there.
But, now we have something
new that we have to get into in Hebrews 9:3.
This is the third point I’m making tonight and this has to do with a correction. That is the location of the golden altar, the
altar of incense.
In Hebrews 9:3 we read and I
pointed this out when we were studying this early on in the study - behind the
second veil there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies. So now we are going from outside to
inside. The question you have to ask,
answer is - what’s the perspective here?
Where’s the person standing who says “behind the veil?” Is he standing in the Holy of Holies or is he
standing outside? He’s outside - here.
He says:
NKJ Hebrews 9:3 and behind the second veil, the
part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All,
What does it have? It has a
golden altar of incense. Wait a
minute! How’s that inside the Holy of
Holies? Every picture I’ve ever seen of
the Tabernacle and the
So this sets up a major
conflict and scholars have tried over the years to try to figure out what is
going on.
I offered what I thought at
the time was the best solution to this - is that there is such a tight
connection between the altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant that the
function of the altar of incense on the Day of Atonement is that as the priest
brings incense to burn on the coals of the altar of incense; it’s supposed to
fill the Holy of Holies will smoke to the extent that he can’t get a real clear
view of the Ark lest he die – Leviticus 12:13.
God says, “If you have a
clear shot (100% visibility) on the Ark of the Covenant you’re going to die.”
So we have to make sure that
the whole Holy of Holies is filled with smoke so that the function is what I
pointed out and I thought that was the best solution. Well, when I was up in
He said, “Well, I hadn’t
heard that take on it. I’d just heard
the view that because they were associated with the Day of Atonement because the priest was
supposed to put blood on the Mercy Seat and also put blood on the 4 horns of
the altar of incense that that connects them together so they were just viewed
that way.”
He said, “I like what you say
because the functionality is a little stronger.” “But,” he said, “I’m still not satisfied.”
I said, “Well, I’m not
either.”
So on the way back I started
doing a little work and then I guess it was Tuesday morning or Wednesday
morning - I was working out early in the morning and I kept thinking about
this. I said, “I need to go home and
start digging through these prepositions again in Hebrew back in Exodus
25.”
So I came up with another
option, but it’s not original with me. I
hadn’t read anybody else so I sort of came up with it. But, others have as well and I didn’t realize
that. But it’s not a well-known
option. So let’s work through this.
What we have from the writer
of Hebrews is a very clear statement where he puts the altar of incense in the
Tabernacle inside the Holy of Holies - not out in the holy place. So we have to figure out what he means by
that.
Now one problem that people
have is that they come to this thinking about this on the basis of what is said
in Hebrews 9:7 in relationship to the work of the high priest.
Hebrews 9:6 says:
NKJ Hebrews 9:6 Now when these things had been thus
prepared, the priests
That’s all the Levitical
priests, not the high priest.
always went
into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services.
NKJ Hebrews 9:7 But into the second part
That is into the Holy of
Holies.
the high
priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for
himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance;
And so we read that and what
we see it saying is that the high priest can only go into the Holy of Holies
once a year for the Day of Atonement. He
can’t go in there any other time.
What’s interesting is that
word “only.” That word only is the Greek
word monos. It is an adjective. In Greek – just like Spanish or French or
German – the adjective has to agree with the noun in case, number and gender -
or at least case and number. Now “year”
has a different word with it. It has the
word hapax which indicates once –
once a year. But, the “only” is a
masculine nominative and year is a masculine genitive. So the “only” isn’t talking about “only” once
a year. It’s talking about “only” the high priest can go in there on the Day of
Atonement which is the focus of Hebrews 9.
What the writer is saying is
only the high priest can go in on the Day of Atonement and do this. He’s not talking about the fact that high
priest can only go into that room once a year.
There’s another problem that we
have and that’s seen in a verse in Leviticus.
Leviticus 16:2 says:
NKJ Leviticus 16:2 and the LORD said to Moses:
"Tell Aaron your brother not to come at just any time into the Holy
Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark,
lest he die;
Serious punishment!
for I will
appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.
Now that also appears to mean
that the high priest can’t go in there at any time. But is God saying in the context of Leviticus
16 which is the regulations on the Day of Atonement – is God saying you can’t
go in there at any time or you can’t go in there at any time and do the ritual
of the Day of Atonement? Is the “at any
time” related to the function of the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement or is it
related as a universal principle that you can only go in there on Yom Kippur,
the Day of Atonement.
I think that the context
indicates that it’s only – it’s saying that he can only do the Yom Kippur
sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. He
can’t do that at any time. When there
are sin offerings, there is the suggestion (you can’t be dogmatic about it, but
there is an indication) that the sin offering he’s got to go in - for the sin
offering of the high priest he has to go into the Holy of Holies.
So let’s stop a minute and
see where we’re going here. What this
does is it sets up a problem that we have to resolve by some close analysis of
Scripture. As I pointed out there are
several different solutions that are made or attempted. One is the idea that it’s because of the
close association of the altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant and
because the function is related to the Holy of Holies the writer of Hebrews is
saying that. But, he’s using a
preposition of location and it’s awfully strong if the altar is out in the holy
place and he’s just talking about the smoke going into the Holy of Holies.
One of the reasons that we
look at it this way is that we have examples from the first century of Philo of
Alexandria who was a Jew in northern Egypt and Josephus who both state that the
altar of incense in the Second Temple (that’s what’s important) in the Temple
they saw the altar of incense was in the holy place. But what I’m going to argue is that was true
for the Second Temple. But it wasn’t
true for Solomon’s Temple and it wasn’t true for the Tabernacle.
Now the other option which
you have which I sort of dismissed is that the writer of Hebrews is completely
unfamiliar with how the Temple is laid out.
That just doesn’t fit the scenario.
He knows too much detail about other things.
So, you can’t say, “Well,
he’s just an Alexandrine Jew and so he’s ignorant.”
Franz Delitzsch of the Keil
and Delitzsch commentary fame said, “It would have been a monster of ignorance
and forgetfulness to be capable of such a mistake.”
Now there’s another way in
which this is handled and that is because the Greek word that is used there to
translate the “altar of incense” isn’t the normal word for altar of incense.
The normal word that is translated altar of incense is the word thusiasterion. The word that you have here is thumiamatas.
So some people have said,
“Well, see that word is translated censer in some places.”
But the problem here is that
in Hebrews 9:4 it’s called a golden altar of incense. But if that word translated altar (which is
sometimes used for censer) should be translated censer then it would be the
golden censer. A censer is a
firepan. That’s what you carry the hot
coals in from the bronze altar inside to the altar of incense. But there were no golden censers or golden
fire pans in the Tabernacle. They only
had bronze firepans to handle the heat.
You didn’t have gold. You didn’t
have gold until you got into the Temple.
So that sets up a problem. But you also have a realization that both
Josephus and Philo used the term for censer to talk about the altar of
incense. So it’s a word that was used as
a synonym for altar.
Also, in the 2nd
century versions of the Old Testament (the 2nd century Greek
versions) of Exodus 30 of Theodocian and Semicus, they both use the word for
censer for the altar of incense. The
Septuagint uses both words for the altar of incense calling it the thusiostereon thumiamatas. In other words both words are used in the
Septuagint to describe the altar of incense.
Then in the end of the 2nd century into the early 3rd
century both Clement and Origen used the term thusiasterion to refer to the altar of incense. So thumiamatas
is the word for censer and thusiasterion
- I think I got that reversed a minute ago.
Thusiasterion is the word for
altar. Clement and Origen used the word
for censer as a synonym for the word for altar.
So just because it uses a word that can be translated censer doesn’t mean
anything due to the fact that there is this usage going on.
Now let’s look at the Old
Testament for a minute. Turn in your
Bibles to Exodus 26 – Exodus 26:34. God
is giving Moses instructions on how to arrange the things (the furniture) in
the Tabernacle.
In Exodus 26:34 He says:
NKJ Exodus 26:34 "You shall put the mercy seat
upon the ark of the Testimony in the Most Holy.
The mercy seat was just the
lid. Where is my Ark of the Covenant
over here? Here’s the Ark of the
Covenant. The mercy seat is just a solid gold lid – one piece that sat right on
top of the Ark of the Covenant.
So God is saying:
NKJ Exodus 26:34 "You shall put the mercy seat
upon the ark of the Testimony in the Most Holy.
NKJ Exodus 26:35 "You shall set the table
outside the veil,
Okay, now listen. Where are you standing if the table of
showbread is standing outside the veil?
What is the perspective here?
You’re inside the Holy of Holies.
That is crucial to this.
and the
lampstand across from the table on the side of the tabernacle toward the south;
and you shall put the table on the north side.
Now let’s turn to Exodus
30. Turn in your Bibles to Exodus
30. While your turning there let me
explain the structure of Exodus. In
Exodus 25 it begins with God telling Moses how he’s basically going to raise
the money and get all the materials to build the Ark - Exodus 25. The offerings begin - the first 9
verses. Then he describes the
construction of the Ark of the Covenant down to verse 22. Then he describes the construction of the
table of showbread in verses 23 to 30. Then he describes the construction of the
golden lampstand (the golden menorah) in verses 31 down to 40. What’s he left out? He hasn’t talked about the altar of incense
yet. Then he starts talking about the
veils, all the curtains, all the fabrics in chapter 26 all the way down through
the end of chapter 26. Then chapter 27 -
we’re outside with the altar of the – the bronze altar. Then there’s the outer court and the outer court
hangings. Then there’re descriptions of
the care of the lampstand and then chapter 28 talks about the priesthood and
its ephods and its robes and breastplate and the other priestly garments. In
chapter 29 we talk about Aaron and his sons being consecrated to the priesthood
and the instructions on the daily offerings.
It’s not until we get to chapter 30 that it talks about the altar of
incense and the bronze laver. They are
separated from the other furniture.
Now what’s important – the
other thing that’s important to understand here is there is a reason why the
description of the Tabernacle begins with the most important piece because the
focal point of the Tabernacle is on our worship of God. So it starts with the Ark of the
Covenant. So the orientation (the
perspective) is from the Ark of the Covenant which is at the center of the Holy
of Holies.
Now look down to 30:1.
NKJ Exodus 30:1 "You shall make an altar to
burn incense on; you shall make it of acacia wood.
NKJ Exodus 30:2 "A cubit shall be its
length and a cubit its width -- it shall be square -- and two cubits shall
be its height. Its horns shall be of one piece with it.
So it’s not very big. It’s the tallest thing in there as I’ve
pointed out before. It’s a foot and a
half wide – I mean a foot and a half square and about 3 feet high.
Then look down to verse
6. Now the New King James says:
NKJ Exodus 30:6 "And you shall put it before
the veil that is before the ark of the Testimony, before the mercy seat
that is over the Testimony, where I will meet with you.
Now where are you
standing? You’re standing - the
perspective is from the Ark of the Covenant.
But it’s not before the veil. The
Hebrew preposition there is a compound of le
plus paneh. Paneh
means face. So it is “to the face of” or
in front of. So it should be translated
“and you shall put it in front of the veil that is before the Ark of the
Covenant.” Now if you’re standing in
the middle of the Holy of Holies and the table of showbread is outside the veil
and the altar of incense is in front of the ark, where is it in relation to the
veil? It’s inside of the Holy of
Holies. This should be translated “you
shall put it in front of the veil” not behind the veil. Behind the veil would be over in the holy
place. So it’s in front of the veil that
is before or in front of the Ark of the Covenant. When you have that same phrase “in front of”
used in Leviticus 16, it’s used in the description of what the priest does on
the Day of Atonement. He goes into the
Holy of Holies and he puts blood on the mercy seat. Then he splatters blood 7 times in front of
the mercy seat - same prepositions, same phrase. Where is “in front of the mercy seat?” It’s in the Holy of Holies. It’s not in the other room. So when it says in front of the mercy seat,
it’s right there. There is the close
proximity between these two things – the altar of incense and the Ark of the
Covenant.
Now Aaron is supposed to burn
incense on it – a perpetual incense. He
is to go in there every morning and every night. Notice verse 9.
He says:
NKJ Exodus 30:9 "You shall not offer strange
incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering; nor shall you pour a
drink offering on it.
You’re not going to go get
the incense and the coals from someplace else.
You’re going to get it from the coals from the burnt offering that are
out at the bronze altar.
Then, verse 10:
NKJ Exodus 30:10 "And Aaron shall make atonement
upon its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonement;
That’s the four things on the
corners here that indicate the direction of the prayers. Horns usually stand for power and the power
of the intercessory prayer. So Aaron is
also once a day on the Day of Atonement going to put blood on the horns of the
sin offering of atonement.
once a year
he shall make atonement upon it throughout your generations. It is most
holy to the LORD."
Okay. So what I’ve said is that the Exodus passage
indicates (because the perspective is from inside the Holy of Holies) that when
it talks about putting the altar of incense in front of the veil, it means right
there in the Holy of Holies.
Now let’s turn over to
Leviticus 4 – Leviticus 4. Leviticus 4
is talking about the procedures for the sin offering. It begins with the sin offering to the
priest. You have sin offering for
different levels of people within the society of Israel. The priest is the most important and so the
instructions come out at the beginning.
NKJ Leviticus 4:2 "Speak to the children of
Israel, saying: 'If a person sins unintentionally
So the sin offering had to do
with dealing with unintentional sin, inadvertent sin.
against any
of the commandments of the LORD in anything which ought not to be done,
and does any of them,
First example:
NKJ Leviticus 4:3 'if the anointed priest sins,
bringing guilt on the people, then let him offer to the LORD for his sin which
he has sinned a young bull without blemish as a sin offering.
NKJ Leviticus 4:4 'He shall bring the bull to the door
of the tabernacle of meeting before the LORD,
Now, what does that
mean? That means that he comes to the
front entryway – outside the holy place.
He presents the sacrifice. He doesn’t kill it. He offers it. He sets it up before God.
“Here Lord! Here’s the sacrifice. It fits your qualifications.”
lay his
hand on the bull's head,
Identification of his sin
and kill
the bull before the LORD.
NKJ Leviticus 4:5 'Then the anointed priest shall take
some of the bull's blood and bring it to the tabernacle of meeting.
NKJ Leviticus 4:6 'The priest shall dip his finger in the
blood and sprinkle some of the blood seven times before the LORD, in front of
the veil of the sanctuary.
Where is in front of the
veil? We saw that same term in
Exodus. In front of the veil - a lot of
people will say he goes into the holy place and he just splatters it on the
ground. But I think that what he’s doing
because he’s the high priest and because it’s his sin, he goes into the altar
of incense which is in the Holy of Holies and he is splattering the blood in
front. It would be the same ground. If you’ve got the Ark of the Covenant here
and the altar of incense here and out there is the holy place and I come in
here and I’m the high priest and I’m splattering the blood 7 times on the
ground, it’s in the same place, right?
It’s not that big in there folks. You’re going to be splattering the
blood in the same place. This is the sin
offering for the priest.
Now let’s go to the Day of
Atonement. Turn over a few chapters to
Leviticus 16. This is the other element
in this and this is an important element.
In the process of all the things that he has to do on the Day of
Atonement after he has the burnt offering for himself and the burnt offering
for the people; he begins the process of sacrificing the goat. He hasn’t sent out the scapegoat yet. It’s right in the middle of the process.
NKJ Leviticus 16:12 "Then he shall take a censer
full of burning coals of fire from the altar before the LORD,
Now what altar is that? That’s the bronze altar.
with his hands
full of sweet incense beaten fine, and bring it inside the veil.
So now he’s inside the Holy
of Holies.
NKJ Leviticus 16:13 "And he shall put the incense
on the fire before the LORD,
It’s pretty clear where he
is, isn’t it? He’s inside the Holy of
Holies.
that the
cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the Testimony, lest
he die.
Now if the altar of incense
is out in the holy place and there’s a veil between the holy place and the Holy
of Holies; it’s going to be a lot smokier in the holy place than it is in the
Holy of Holies. Right?
But we have an even greater
problem. Hold your place there and go to
1 Kings. We’ve been there a few times
lately. Isn’t it interesting how all
this stuff starts coming together?
You go over to 1 Kings 6
which describes the construction of the Temple.
We’re going to start with verse 18.
NKJ 1 Kings 6:18 The inside of the temple was cedar,
So that’s the inside of the
main center building which is comparable to the tent of meeting.
carved with
ornamental buds and open flowers. All was cedar; there was no stone to
be seen.
NKJ 1 Kings 6:19 And he prepared the inner sanctuary
inside the temple,
Inner sanctuary means Holy of
Holies. He prepared the Holy of
Holies. So what’s he talking about in
verse 19? Holy place or Holy of
Holies? Holy of Holies
to set the
ark of the covenant of the LORD there.
NKJ 1 Kings 6:20 The inner sanctuary
What’s he talking about in
verse 20? The Holy of Holies
was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits
wide, and twenty cubits high.
Or, 30 feet by 30 feet.
He overlaid
it with pure gold, and overlaid the altar of cedar.
NKJ 1 Kings 6:21 So Solomon overlaid the inside of
the temple with pure gold. He stretched gold chains across the front of the
inner sanctuary, and overlaid it with gold.
What’s he talking about? What room?
The Holy of Holies - Holy of Holies 19; Holy of Holies 20; Holy of
Holies 21.
NKJ 1 Kings 6:22 The whole temple he overlaid with
gold,
That’s outside.
until he had
finished all the temple; also he overlaid with gold the entire altar that was
by the inner sanctuary.
Where is he now? He’s back in the Holy of Holies. Where’s the altar? It’s in the Holy of Holies. He never talks about the holy place at all
here.
Then what’s really
interesting is he talks about these two huge 15-feet winged span cherubs that
he puts inside the Holy of Holies.
Then skip down to verse
31.
NKJ 1 Kings 6:31 For the entrance of the inner
sanctuary
That’s the Holy of Holies.
he made
doors of olive wood; the lintel and doorposts were one-fifth
of the wall.
Wood doors, walls - not a
veil. The word veil is never used. Poreketh
is never used in 1 Kings. Not once! There’s no veil in the Solomonic Temple. So now you have two rooms separated by a wall
with a big wooden door.
If the altar of incense is in
the holy place, how much smoke is going to get into the Holy of Holies? None!!
Not unless they cut a ventilation shaft.
It’s going to be real hard to figure out how to get enough smoke in
there so he can’t see the Ark of the Covenant.
So see we’ve just been wrong all of this time.
Now when I started working my
way through this and looking at this I decided to something. I had done it through one source, but I had
not done it in another source. I wanted
to search all my Hebrews commentaries (and I picked up a few more since then)
in my Logos program to see where what was said about Hebrews 9:3 and “behind
the veil.” What I discovered is that
there were two commentaries that wrote in detail about this and took this same
position. One was written by somebody at
Dallas Seminary named Dwight Pentecost who is now 93 years old and still
teaching the Bible at Dallas Seminary.
That’s Dr. Pentecost to you. The
altar of incense in the Tabernacle and in the Solomonic Temple was in the Holy
of Holies. It was not in the holy
place.
Now what happens is when the
Jews come back from captivity and Zerubabbel builds the Temple, there’s
something that’s missing. Remember what
was missing? They didn’t have the Ark of
the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant
may have been buried directly below the foundation stone, but they didn’t have
the Ark of the Covenant. So if they
don’t have the Ark of the Covenant, they aren’t concerned about all the smoke
filling up the Holy of Holies. So they
probably put the altar of incense into the holy place which is where it was in
63 BC when Pompey conquered Jerusalem and he wanted to see the Ark of the
Covenant so he marched into the Temple and into the Holy of Holies and he said
it was just an empty, dusty room. Nothing there!
So in the Second Temple the
altar of incense is in the holy place but not in the Holy of Holies as it was
in the First Temple and also in the Tabernacle. So that gives us a slightly
different perspective.
Now why is it there? It’s
there because in the process of the Day of Atonement there is this intimate
connection between the ongoing prayer for Israel pictured by the incense and
the blood on the mercy seat because on the Day of Atonement once a year, every
year the high priest goes into the Holy of Holies and he puts blood on the
Mercy Seat – splatters it 7 times on the ground in front of the Ark of the
Covenant and then he puts blood on the four horns on the altar of incense. It’s that picture of that blood (the death of
Christ) that is the foundation for prayer and for propitiation. So they link together there.
Now the fourth point. The
fourth point has to do with the order of events on the Day of Atonement. Now I have taught this three times. Maybe I’ll get it right this time.
When I taught this three or
four weeks ago – it’s terrible when you’ve got 9 points. They did it this way. You’ve worked over and over it and you get half
way and you go, “Wait a minute I know I missed it.” So I redid everything, thought I had it
right, missed it the other night when I taught it. I didn’t miss it by much. When I went back
and looked at it and had only one thing out of order. So we’re going to try it one more time.
The Day of Atonement is
described – the actions of the priest are described in Leviticus 16 – Leviticus
16. This is the center chapter,
centerpiece of the book of Leviticus – is what happens the Day of Atonement.
NKJ Leviticus 16:1 Now the LORD spoke to Moses after
the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they offered profane fire before
the LORD, and died;
Remember that was Abihu and
Nadab because they brought the strange fire into the altar of incense.
NKJ Leviticus 16:2 and the LORD said to Moses:
"Tell Aaron your brother not to come at just any time into the Holy
Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark,
lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.
See you’ve got to have before
the mercy seat in there. It can’t come
at just any time related to the mercy seat sacrifice. There was only one time a year he could do
that and that’s on Yom Kippur. So when
he comes in on Yom Kippur the first thing he has to do is he has to select a
bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. That’s what’s indicated in verse 3.
NKJ Leviticus 16:3 "Thus Aaron shall come into the
Holy Place: with the blood of a young bull as a sin offering, and
of a ram as a burnt offering.
But see that’s not the first
thing that happens. He doesn’t sacrifice
him first. That’s what gets
confusing. This is just a summary of the
basis for his being able to do all of this is the shed blood of those two
things because it’s not until you get out of verse 11 and afterwards that he
actually sacrifices it. So it is easy to
get confused.
The basis is the sin offering
- the bull for the sin offering and a ram for the burnt offering. Notice the order – sin offering first, burnt
offering second. Atonement is made in
this passage to cleanse the furnishings of the Tabernacle. One time it’s mentioned in verse 20. The atonement was made for the high priest
himself and his family four times in verse 6, verse 11, verse 17 and verse
24. Atonement was made for the people
three times in the chapter in 16:10, 16:17, and 16:24.
The other thing you should
notice as background is all the other feast days of Israel – the Passover, the
Feast of First Fruits, the Feast of Pentecost, the Festival of Booths - these
are all celebrations; but Yom Kippur wasn’t a celebration. Look down at verse – right there at the end –
in verse 29.
NKJ Leviticus 16:29 " This shall be a
statute forever for you: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the
month, you shall afflict your souls,
That’s not the normal terms
you use for a pardon.
and do no
work at all, whether a native of your own country or a stranger who
dwells among you.
NKJ Leviticus 16:30 "For on that day the priest shall
make atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all
your sins before the LORD.
NKJ Leviticus 16:31 "It is a sabbath of
solemn rest for you, and you shall afflict your souls. It is a statute
forever.
It’s a day of
reflection. It is a day of being somber and
thinking about sin and think about what God has done for you. Sound like something we do? It’s like the Lord’s Table. It is a time for quiet reflection. So Yom Kippur is a day of solemn rest to
teach humility. So he comes in. He offers or presents for approval as it were
a bull for sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.
So I have – I’m going to run
through the 14 steps very quickly.
NKJ Leviticus 16:11 " And Aaron shall bring the
bull of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself
and for his house, and shall kill the bull as the sin offering which is for
himself.
In verse 16 we read:
NKJ Leviticus 16:16 "So he shall make atonement for
the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and
because of their transgressions, for all their sins; and so he shall do for the
tabernacle of meeting which remains among them in the midst of their
uncleanness.
NKJ Leviticus 16:18 "And he shall go out to the
altar that is before the LORD,
What altar is that? That’s the bronze altar.
and make atonement for it, and shall take some of the blood
of the bull and some of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the
altar all around.
Now
most commentators will connect that putting the blood on the horns of the altar
with Exodus 30. At the end it said:
NKJ Exodus 30:10 "And Aaron shall make
atonement upon its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of
atonement; once a year he shall make atonement upon it throughout your
generations. It is most holy to the LORD."
But in
Leviticus there is only one time the word altar means altar of incense. It says the altar of fragrant incense at the
beginning of Leviticus 4. In the other
80 times that the word altar is used in Leviticus, it refers to the bronze
altar. So what he’s saying here is – so
what happens is he’s going to put blood on the horns of the altar of incense
because of the Exodus passage and he’s going to put blood here. This is the purification of the bronze altar
and he’ll put blood on the horns of the bronze altar. That was the 9th point.
But, what about those
intentional sins? See there were the
sacrifices for the unintentional sins.
But, what about David when he sins with Bathsheba and he has a conspiracy
to murder and eventually accomplishes the murder of Uriah? That’s a sin of the high hand. He has to go directly to the Lord on the
basis of the blood on the mercy seat on the Day of Atonement. That’s what covers the sins of the high
hand.
There is forgiveness for
every sin. There’s a sin offering and
trespass offering for those that are unintentional. But the only thing that handles it is that
yearly blood that’s put on the mercy seat.
Now all of that is important for when we continue our study in Hebrews 9
which we’ll get to next time and we’ll continue to go through this.
We’ll review this again and
again because that’s what Hebrews 9 is all about – is applying that to what is
happening in the spiritual life. We see
those patterns there even though we’re not sacrificing. We still need to be cleansed and our life
after salvation is based on understanding the realities of what these Old
Testament pictures depict so that we can press on. That was the problem with the Hebrews. They didn’t want to press on in their
Christian life.
Okay, we’ll come back to that
next time. Let’s close in prayer.