Hebrews Lesson 79
NKJ
Psalm 119:9 How can a
young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.
It is 2007. I know that you
already knew that. We started our study
in Hebrews in 2005. That means we have
been going through Hebrews for two years and we have managed to work our way
through 6 chapters. We are going pretty
fast. We finished last time with the third
major section in the book. Actually we
finished the third major section last time.
We are getting ready to start the fourth major section. So that means it is time for review and over
review. This is the time in which you
get to buckle your seatbelts because we are going to fly through Hebrews
again.
I want to take some time to go back to remind us of where we have been
so that we can understand where this next section fits within the flow of
Hebrews. This next section is really the center of what the writer of Hebrews
is talking about. It is the largest
section. We start in chapter 7 and the teaching section (the explanation, the
didactic section of this portion) is from 7:1 down through
Let’s just kind of review what this is about. Hebrews as I said at the very beginning
doesn’t fit the normal pattern of an epistle.
We refer to it as an epistle because it has certain characteristics as
such. But, it doesn’t have the standard
greeting from the author, the salutation to a particular group of people at a
particular location - grace to you and peace in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ - there is nothing like that in the beginning of Hebrews. There is not a typical closing either. So there are elements of it that are
distinctly different.
We don’t know who wrote it. We
are not sure when it was written. We can
patch together certain things and come up with a fairly good guess. It was written before the temple was
destroyed in AD 70. It is written after
60. It is written before the revolt of
the Jews begins which is in 66. So we
can conclude that it is probably sometime around 63 or 64 AD.
Some people have thought that it was written by the Apostle Paul, but
we’ve looked at the fact that there are about 7 or 8 different people that are
suggested as possible authors. No one
knows who really wrote it and they don’t know to whom it was written although
we have a number of clues. It is most
likely written to a group of Jews, probably Levites or priests who trusted
Christ as their Savior going through some sort of persecution or rejection
because of their stand for Christianity in
So this is a book (an epistle) that is based on a message. It was probably based on an oral message that
was then taken and worked up into a written letter. I think James is much the same way. I John may be the same way as well – that
this was a message that had been verbally given because it has some of those
characteristics. Then it was written
down. It is primarily a message of
exhortation. By exhortation I don’t mean
that it is preaching. It is a challenge. That is what an exhortation is - to
personally challenge people to a certain course of action. It is not an emotion challenge. It is a content oriented challenge. Now that is something that fewer and fewer
people in our age understand today. In a
postmodern world there is less and less an emphasis on the content and more and
more an emphasis on the story.
In fact I am going to read an email to you on Sunday morning. As we have
been talking about worship I have touched on this whole aspect about
postmodernism and worldview and how that is important. I received an email from a friend of mine who
is an active duty major in the army. He has gone through Command and General
Staff School up at Fort Leavenworth and now he is going through a higher school
there dealing with overall strategy in the military. He sent me an email the other day detailing
in a general way how much postmodernism has influenced military strategy and
military thinking today. He just got
through going through a course where all the major figures are all mentioned
and talked about in his courses.
When we think about postmodernism, don’t just think of this as something
that somehow inhabits the halls of academia.
It has filtered down to the everyday person. The world today doesn’t focus on
content. It focuses on form. It focuses on the story. You watch commercials. It is more important
about how the commercial impacts you and how it makes you feel and stimulates
you through all the colors and movement and everything else than actual meaning
and content. Of course that isn’t
anything new. That has been going on for
awhile. That fits within our postmodern
mentality. We are not motivated by
content any more. We are motivated by
images. We are motivated by stories. We are motivated by emotion.
This is not an emotional letter. This is a content driven letter because
the God of the Bible motivates people through content, through knowledge,
through information. You go back to I
and II Chronicles. I and II Chronicles
were written to challenge and motivate the Jews who were returning from the
exile. They came back all fired up to
rebuild the temple and to rebuild
Modern man says that will never motivate anybody. What I have always said is that it is not the
Word of God is irrelevant to you; it is that you are irrelevant to God. We don’t think like God thinks. It is content. It is history. It is what is happened historically to
challenge us and motivate us to greater obedience in God’s Word because He is
taking us someplace in history. There is
a future destiny. Jesus Christ is coming
back to planet earth. Jesus Christ is
going to come back and establish His kingdom.
He needs a cadre of leaders who are going to rule and reign with Him.
That is the church. He is in the process of training us. In this time on earth whether it is
That is the theme of Hebrews. It
is the implication of the Savior’s session on the current sanctification of the
saints and their future service in the kingdom. It is all about living today in
the light of eternity. That boils it all
down and makes it all simple. Everything in this book hinges on what challenges
us to live today – to have that eternal scope - not just living for tomorrow or
next week or next month or the next decade but that we are living today in the
light of eternity.
Hebrews is structured
around 5 major sections. We have gone
through 3 of them. We are getting on to the fourth one. Each one of those contains a doctrinal
exposition or a didactic section from the Greek word didoskolos meaning
to teach. It is an instruction based on
Old Testament passages. In fact there are 35 quotations from the Old Testament
in Hebrews and over 53 allusions to Old Testament passages which combines to
make a total of a little over 88 Old Testament references. It is clear that the writer of Hebrews is
taking his readers back to all of these different Old Testament passages and
then weaving those doctrines together to show them how that affects the Church
Age.
Now remember the church wasn’t revealed in the Old Testament. He is taking all of these Old Testament
passages because they focus on the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Now that the person and work of Jesus Christ
(that period of the first incarnation) is over with and because of who He is
now at the right hand of the Father, there is a new dispensation oriented to a
new purpose based on a new foundation.
What we are going to see when we get into this next section in chapters
7, 8, 9, and 10 is a comparison to show the superiority of Christ in His person
over the Old Testament priests - Christ
in His priesthood over the Levitical priesthood - Christ in His priestly work
on the cross as superior to the Old Testament sacrifices – that the blood of
bulls and goats can not take away sin.
Then we are going to see the superiority of Christ’s completed work on
the cross and the implications that it has for the believers living in this
Church Age. It is four chapters - 7, 8,
9 and 10 - that are built on an understanding of the Old Testament. As we go
through these next four chapters, we will go back to major sections of Exodus
to understand the tabernacle and the tabernacle worship. That will be mostly the second half of Exodus
where you have all the instructions given by God on the priesthood, the
clothing of the priesthood, the tabernacle, and all of the construction. Basically God gives a verbal blueprint for
all of this and verbal patterns for all of the clothing and everything for the
priests. That is not the kind of
passages that you go through verse-by-verse and clause-by-clause, not unless you
want to have three people left in the congregation and have half of them
asleep.
It is important to understand this in sort of an overview capacity
because Christ is taught and revealed in the tabernacle, in the furniture, in
the structure. It is foundational to
understand that structure when we get into chapter 8 and then into chapter
9. That is what all of that is built
on. Then we deal with the covenant which
is the Mosaic Covenant. That is chapter
8 - most of chapter 8 – dealing with the issue that we are under a new covenant
that replaces the older covenant.
Because Christ has come, the older covenant is rendered obsolete. So we have this major shift that takes place
- because the priesthood changes, the law changes. The Mosaic Law is rendered null and void and
obsolete because Jesus Christ has come.
The implications for the Christian are brought out because Christ has
now ascended and He is seated at the right hand of the Father. We saw all of those major doctrines
foreshadowed in those early chapters of Hebrews.
In terms of the structure we looked at the first section which is 1:1
down through 2:4. That is really
comprised of three elements.
Section One: 1:1-2:4
Doctrinal Exposition
1:1-14
The first is the first 4 verses which is the prelude. The prelude sets up the focal point which is
on Jesus Christ. God has spoken in these
last days which refers to the last days of the church which is the whole Church
Age.
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;
Now remember this because every now and then I have somebody email
something to me or I read something that says, “Look at what is going on in the
world today. Look at all of the
corruption and perversion. We have got
to be living in the last days.”
Biblically speaking there are two periods of last days. We went over this in those first 4
verses. There are last days for
Then there are the last days for the church.
The writer of Hebrews says in verse 2, “In these last days.”
He considers himself to be in those last days. The whole Church Age is
considered the period of the last days.
There are trends and cycles of behavior, of spiritual growth and then
spiritual regression all the way through the Church Age.
Because we see a lot of perversion going on around us today, I often ask
the question, “How does that differ from perversion and cannibalism of the
Aztecs in
Of course you didn’t hear about that in school because that was not
politically correct.
“How does that differ from the degeneracy in
It is not any worse, you just know about it and get to watch it on TV -
especially if you are up about 2 in the morning and you watch some of those
infomercials. You really see how this
country has degenerated. Watch the
evening news. We hear about things that
we didn’t talk about at all 30 years ago. We didn’t mention them in mixed or
unmixed company. Now it is on the
evening news. We just see it. This isn’t new in history. We are just more aware of it now that we have
ever been before.
This prelude focuses on the God that has spoken to us by means of His
Son. We see the emphasis on the fact
that He appointed Jesus Christ as the heir of all things which focuses on the
future. In the ascension, He…
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 is the angels. So it sets up
the discussion of the next 10-12 verses on the superiority of the Son. So from verse 5 down to verse 14 the emphasis
is on the superiority of Jesus Christ. This is done through the use of a number
of Old Testament quotations that are woven in and out in this section. There are 8 Old Testament quotes here from
various psalms as well as from Isaiah in order to demonstrate the superiority
of Jesus Christ over the angels and therefore He is worthy to be obeyed. We should not fall away from that.
Practical Exhortation and
warning 2:1-14
Then there is a warning that comes in.
A practical exhortation and warning are combined in 2:1-14. It is a very short warning. Again it emphasizes hearing and word. A major thing to watch for as we go through
Hebrews is that it was set up in those first four verses that God has now
spoken.
The implication is that because God has now spoken, you have to
respond. You have to obey. We see this theme all the way through this
section.
NKJ Hebrews 2:1 Therefore
we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift
away.
NKJ
Hebrews 2:2 For if the
word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and
disobedience received a just reward,
NKJ
Hebrews 2:3 how shall we
escape 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 Old Testament brought such discipline on the Jews how much more
discipline is there in store for us if we neglect this salvation. It is not just salvation in terms of not
being appreciative or responsive to what happened in the past when we were
justified, but it is a focus on the future - salvation in its completion in
phase 3.
We come to the next section.
Section two: 2:5 – 4:13
In 2:5-13 the focus is on Jesus in the incarnation. He is made lower than the angels. The focus here is that God sent His eternal
Son to qualify for the Davidic sonship.
He qualifies for the inheritance.
In His deity He was already over the angels. In His humanity (because He passes all of the
tests) He is promoted over the angels as a man because He has qualified Himself
and He as been made perfect (or complete actually) by means of His
suffering. So He sets the course. He is the pioneer of our faith and the
captain of our salvation is a term that is used in the New King James in
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 means true humanity.
That is “in order that He might become.”
That is what He did by passing the test.
NKJ
Hebrews
That is part of His role as the high priest.
Then the next section in the first part of chapter 3:1-6 focuses on His
faithfulness in the incarnation. Because
He is faithful in the incarnation, He is faithful now.
Doctrinal Exposition
2:5-3:6
Practical Exhortation
and warning 3:7-4:13
Then we have our exhortation and warning that comes in 3:7 down through
NKJ
Psalm 95:7 For He is
our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His
hand. Today, if you will hear His voice:
NKJ
Psalm 95:8 "Do
not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As in the day of trial in
the wilderness,
You will find it again in 3:7 and again in
NKJ
Hebrews 4:9 There
remains therefore a rest for the people of God.
That is not the faith rest drill.
That is talking about a future rest in the
NKJ
Hebrews
That is not works in terms of trying to gain God’s approbation, but
spiritual application, spiritual growth, spiritual service in phase 2. Then we are to be diligent to enter that
rest.
NKJ
Hebrews
This is in Hebrews
4:11.
So that brings us to the third section.
Section three:
Doctrinal
Exposition:
Practical
Exhortation:
Warning 6:4-8
In the third section we have our doctrinal exposition or didactic
section from
NKJ
Hebrews 6:10 For God is
not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown
toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do
minister.
NKJ
Hebrews
That is the focal point – keep pressing on. Don’t give up. God will fulfill His promise to us in the
Church Age in the same way He fulfilled His promise to Abraham in the Old
Testament.
That brings us up to the start of our new section which is in 7:1 down
through
Section four: 7:1-10:39
Doctrinal Exposition
7:1-10:18
This is a deep section to cover. I
am going to try to cover all of this tonight just to give you a bird’s eye view
of what is taking place here. We will
probably be in this section for a number of months. There is a lot here. There are a lot of
doctrines that are referenced all in this particular section. Now the writer returns to his theme of
emphasizing the unique high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ in chapter
7:1. He brought us right back to talking
about the fact that he has become a High Priest forever according to the order
of Melchizedek in verse 20.
NKJ Hebrews
Let me remind you. In verse 20 he
talks about Jesus, not Jesus Christ or Christ.
The emphasis in Jesus is on the humanity of our Lord, not His deity. It is in His humanity that He becomes our
High Priest. The second thing that I
mentioned last time is that He has become a High Priest forever. This is eternal. He is going to pick up on the theme of
eternality of this High Priest. That is
why it is superior to the Levitical priest. Levitical priests died. But the Melchizedekean priest didn’t
die. The death of Melchizedek is not
recorded. Now there are some tricky
things going on in chapter 7. We have to
learn to think a little differently and we will understand what the writer is
saying.
People always get confused about Melchizedek.
In fact last week I got an email from somebody who said, “I have got to
talk to a Mormon tomorrow. What is this
thing about the priesthood of Melchizedek with the Mormons?”
The Mormons believe that all of their church workers basically enter
into one of two orders of the priesthood.
They just borrowed that from the Old Testament. You are either a priest
according to the Aaronic priesthood or the Melchizedekean priesthood. It has nothing to do with the Bible. It is just their gobble-dy-gook. You go and borrow a lot of terms from the
Bible and slap it on your heresy and you can create a new religion.
I used to have a professor at seminary that said, “You men are trained
so well that you can do great things for God or great things for the devil
because you know so much.”
He was right. Knowledge can lead you in two different directions.
At the end of chapter 6 the writer sets us up for the transition to go
back to the discussion about Christ’s superior priesthood. This is the focal point based on these
sections.
So the writer returns to his theme.
The principle that we find here in the first paragraph which runs from
7:1 to
NKJ
Hebrews 7:7 Now beyond
all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better.
What he is doing in these first 10 verses is showing that from the
historical incident between Abraham and Melchizedek that Melchizedek is
superior to Abraham because the Levites come from Abraham because they are his
descendents. If Melchizedek is superior
to Abraham then Melchizedek is superior to any of Abraham’s descendents. That is his whole argument. The priesthood of Melchizedek is superior and
it is not based on human lineage. It is
not based on any kind of human factor.
It is not based on ethnicity. It
is not based on tribal affiliation. It
is not based on who your ancestors are.
The Melchizedekean priesthood is unique in that way. He is basing this on an idiom. I pointed this out a minute ago.
In verse 3 we have the statement that Melchizedek was without father,
without mother, without genealogy.
NKJ
Hebrews 7:3 without
father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor
end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
So you always people come along and say, “Well, was he an angel? Well, that was the pre-incarnate Christ. He didn’t have a father or a mother.”
That is because you are interpreting a Hebrew idiom (a Middle Eastern
way of speaking) in a western mindset.
You think it says something it doesn’t say. What it is talking about is that these terms
are used to refer to an orphan or to a waif or to somebody who has no standing
in society because his parents didn’t do anything. They are not terms that said there was not a
literal mother or father, that he just kind of popped out of nowhere or that he
was an angel. That is not what it is
saying. There was no record of who his
father was. There is no record in the
Scripture of who his mother was. There
is no record of his death because the Scripture is setting Melchizedek up to be
used as a type of this order of priesthood in order to make this point later
on. So God doesn’t tell us who he
was. When we studied Melchizedek back in
Genesis 17 and I took you through that, you will remember that I said that the
Jews have a tradition. What is
interesting about it is that it is a unanimous tradition. All of the Jewish writings agree that
Melchizedek was Shem, the son of Noah.
Now nobody knows that for sure.
He may be. Biblically there is
no record of who he was. I think that makes a lot of sense. He may have been Shem. You see we have to stick with what the text
says. The text doesn’t tell us who his
mother or father was because it is not an inherited priesthood. That is the point. It is not an inherited priesthood like the
Levitical priesthood which is an inherited priesthood.
We are never told about Melchizedek dying. He was human so he died. We are not told
about it because it is setting up this sense of eternality. There is a sense of permanence with the
Melchizedek priesthood that is not there with the Aaronic priesthood. They died.
We read about the deaths of Aaron and numerous others down through the
Old Testament. So the emphasis in this
first section (the first 10 verses of chapter 7) is to show that Abraham was
subordinate to Melchizedek. It is
demonstrated by the fact that he comes back from defeating the alliance of the
four kings under Chedorlaomer that Abraham pays tithes. That means that he gives 10% of the spoil to
Melchizedek. Of course this one of those
passages where everybody wants to go to try to document tithing in the New
Testament. What is interesting is that there are 6 or 7 uses of the word tithe
in these 10 verses. It means that it is
a major element. That is what Abraham
did. He gave 10% to Melchizedek and then
Melchizedek blessed him.
Now there is another one of my little pet peeves. Everybody today keeps talking about how you
blessed me by giving me money.
Pastors say in some churches, “So-and-so come forward and he blessed me
with giving me this.”
Blessing is a word that is being over used.
Abraham gave money to Melchizedek, but Melchizedek blessed Abraham. Think about that. What we are going to see is that he prayed
for Abraham and commended Abraham to God.
That is what that means in this context.
So we are going to have to look at what blessing means. We are going to have to look at the doctrine
of tithing. We are going to have to go
back and review Genesis 17 as we come to understand the argument of the writer
of Hebrews in these 10 verses. What he is doing is simply establishing the fact
that Abraham had to be a subordinate to Melchizedek in order for this to
happen. Therefore anybody who descends
from Abraham is inferior to Melchizedek in terms of the priesthood. Levites are inferior to the Melchizedekean
priesthood.
So he then draws a conclusion in verse 11.
NKJ
Hebrews
If completion was possible through the Levitical priesthood, then there
wouldn’t have been a place for another order of priests. Yet in Psalm 110:4 is quoted twice in this
section. It is quoted in verse 17 and
again in verse 21. It is alluded to in
chapter 8:1. So there are three
references to 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."
Now that was written by David. So if there is a need for a
Melchizedekean priesthood at David’s time (approximately 1000 BC) then that
means that the Levitical priesthood that was established in 1440 BC at
So that next section from verse 11 down through verse 19 focuses on the
royal priesthood of Christ based on the Melchizedekean royal priesthood then
connecting that to the prophecy in Psalm 110:4.
Then in the next section from verse 20 down through verse 28 there is an
emphasis there again on the fact that this new priesthood of Jesus Christ was
made. The old priesthood was made without an oath. They became priests without an oath. He that is Jesus Christ was made a priest
with an oath. That is with a binding
statement.
NKJ Hebrews
Then we have verse 22.
NKJ
Hebrews
He has become the guarantor. This
is a word that is only used this one time in all of the New Testament. It translates the word egguos and it
emphasizes a unique dimension to this.
It emphasizes the fact that He is more of a mediator. It not only looks back to what He established
at the cross in establishing the New Covenant, but also it is a guarantee that
God will eventually fulfill His promise and bring forgiveness to those who are
saved. So it is a word that looks in two
different directions. It is a word that
is uniquely applied to the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of His priesthood and
what He does on the cross, verse 25 says...
NKJ
Hebrews
In other words there is nothing left out. It is a sufficient salvation that covers any
and every problems that mankind can have.
Again it uses that same root word sozo for salvation. But He is also able to save to the uttermost
which has again a future orientation in terms of phase three and the completion
of the entire saving plan of God.
Then there is another contrast brought out in verse 28.
NKJ
Hebrews 7:28 For the law
appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which
came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.
It focuses on His finished work and will eventually lead the writer to
talk about His ascension and being seated at the right hand of God the Father.
Then we come to Hebrews 8.
Hebrews 8 develops the concept that a new priesthood means a new
covenant. This was indicated and alluded
to back in verse 12 of chapter 7 where we read…
NKJ
Hebrews
Now he is going to develop that idea and what that means in chapter 8.
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,
So, he summaries what he has just said in chapter 7.
He begins to work out the implications of that session of Jesus
Christ. If He were on the earth He
couldn’t do what He is doing in heaven.
Because He is seated at the right hand of God the Father, He can do
unique things in relationship to the church.
So verse 6 concludes…
NKJ
Hebrews 8:6 But now He
has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a
better covenant, which was established on better promises.
Then we come to verse 7. He
argues for a new covenant. This is an
interesting passage because it is written so much from a Jewish
perspective. The writer of Hebrews
quotes a well-known passage in Jeremiah dealing with the New Covenant. Jeremiah 31:31-34. He quotes the entire section - all 4
verses. He quotes them verbatim. He starts off by saying...
NKJ
Hebrews 8:7 For if that
first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought
for a second.
He quotes from Jeremiah 31:31 and says…
NKJ Hebrews 8:8
Because finding fault with them, He says: "Behold, the days are coming,
says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of
Then he goes on and he keeps quoting the passage. But when it gets all said and done (You have
heard me do this. I will read 3 or 4
verses and say, “and the point of this is…”
I make one bullet and then we move on.
I am not dealing with every detail in those verses.) he does this. He quotes all 4 verses because they are the
foundation for the New Covenant for
In verse 13 he says…
NKJ
Hebrews
He quotes 4 verses and he says, “Okay.
I want to point out one thing.”
In that first clause he says, “I am going to make a new covenant.”
He uses the word new. It means that God always intended that the Mosaic
Covenant would not be eternal. It would
be replaced. It was a temporary
covenant. That was the point. That is the word we should use when we talk
about the Mosaic Covenant - not the word conditional or unconditional but the
word temporary. There were certain
conditions in all of the so-called unconditional covenants. For example, under Abraham the Jews could not
enjoy the blessings of the land unless they were obedient. You are not going to see them really enjoying
the land until they are obedient in the millennial generation. So there are
conditions attached - not to its ultimate application, but to its experiential
application. It is a permanent covenant. That means that it is never going to
stop. The Mosaic Covenant was
temporary. It was never intended to last
for very long. So that is chapter
8.
Then we get into chapter 9 where the writer is going to describe the
priestly function under the Aaronic priesthood in the tabernacle. (He never talks about the temple. That is interesting. He always goes back to the tabernacle.) He shows how the operation of the high priest
in the tabernacle foreshadows the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He talks about each of the different elements in the tabernacle. You have the tent. Literally it is the skene in the
Greek. The Greek word skene means
a dwelling place. You have a cognate for
it, even in the Russian. They borrowed
it from the Greeks. Skene didn’t
come from the Greek originally. Skene
has three consonants – s, k, n. Those
are the three consonants in the Hebrew word Shekinah. Shekinah means dwelling. It doesn’t mean glory. It means the
dwelling. Shekinah is the word that is
never found in the Hebrew Old Testament.
It is only found in rabbinical writings.
It was the word they used to develop a circumlocution to describe the
presence of God in the tabernacle and in the temple in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word Shekinah means the
dwelling. It came over to the Greek as skene.
The word skene describes the tent of meeting where God dwelt
inside the tabernacle. There were two
compartments in the tent of meeting, which we call the holy place. There was the outer place which we call the
holy place and then the inner room which we call the Holy of Holies. Sometimes
it is translated the most holy place.
The outer part of the tent of meeting had three pieces of furniture
according to Exodus - the lamp stand, the table of showbread. It is a hendiadys for the table of
showbread. It also had an altar of
incense that was right up against the veil.
The altar of incense pictured prayer that was going to God who dwelt
among the cherubim. So the writer of
Hebrews connects. We will have to get
into the technical exegesis because it looks like he is placing it into that
inner compartment, but he really isn’t.
He is identifying it with the inner compartment because that is what the
altar of incense (the intercessory prayers) was connected to – the presence of
God. The prayer is going to the God who
dwelt between the cherubs on the Ark of the Covenant.
Then you go inside that second veil to the Mercy Seat and the Ark of the
Covenant and the cherubim of glory.
Verse 6 and following talk about the earthly service of the
Levites. The Holy Spirit in verse 8 is
showing that all of this has a greater symbolic meaning. Verse 9 it was a symbol for the present time
to perform the service that completes the work of salvation. That is the idea that is brought about in
those next verses from verse 6 down through verse 10.
Then we have a reference to the heavenly sanctuary in verse 11.
NKJ Hebrews 9:11
But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the
greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this
creation.
That should be a more complete tabernacle.
That is not of this creation.
The verbiage that we see in this chapter shows that the earthly temple
or tabernacle is patterned after heavenly courtroom where we have the presence
of God and heaven. It talks about how He
enters into a holy place because the blood of the bulls and the goats couldn’t
take away sin.
NKJ
Hebrews
NKJ Hebrews
NKJ
Hebrews 9:14 how much
more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself
without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God?
In other words the Old Testament sacrifices where merely pictures. They
were shadows. They simply pointed to
what Jesus Christ was going to do.
NKJ Hebrews
So this word covenant doesn’t get introduced until chapter 8. But from chapter 8 on it is used over 20
times in these chapters showing us that it is a major theme in this particular
section.
NKJ Hebrews
So it is establishing the fact that this eternal covenant had to be
established by death. Then it is going
to talk about the blood of Christ and why that is significant. So we are going to have to take time to study
that doctrine of the blood of Christ. It
builds on this from verse 23 on.
All of this is under girded by the doctrine of atonement, the doctrine
of the Day of Atonement, and understanding those Old Testament images of what
happened at that time when the High Priest goes into the Holy of Holies and
would put the blood onto the Mercy Seat as an act that would propitiate the
Father.
This word atonement is a word that is only used in the Old Testament.
There is no Greek word for atonement.
The word atonement is never used in the New Testament. That is for a
number of different reasons. There has
been a lot of debate over the idea of atonement in Scripture. The concept that I was brought up on and that
you always heard is that atonement from the Hebrew word kaphar had the
idea of covering sin. What is
interesting is that it may have that connotation in a few places, but recent
studies over the last 20 years indicate that it probably is closer to the
meaning of purification which fits with the LXX. In a vast majority of places the LXX
translates kaphar with the Greek word katarizo meaning to be
cleansed. We confess our sins. God is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins. Katharizo means to cleanse
us from unrighteousness. That word kaphar
has the idea of cleansing us or purifying us from sin. That is what the picture is that we have on
the Day of Atonement. So we have to
pull all of those things together.
Now in verse 28 of chapter 9 we read…
NKJ
Hebrews
You don’t have it yet - not the way he is using the word salvation. It is a future oriented concept. Remember – phase one you are saved from the
penalty of sin (You are made spiritually alive when you were spiritually
dead.)- phase two we are saved from the power of sin in sanctification – phase
3 we are saved from the presence of sin (the old sin nature). That is glorification. That is how salvation is used in the book of
Hebrews. It is focusing on that
destiny.
Then we come to chapter 10 where we see that in the preceding section
the efficacy of the blood of Jesus has been emphasized and now the emphasis is
on the fact that this is a once for all sacrifice. It is not to be repeated. In the Old Testament those sacrifices had to
be repeated day in and day out. The
ritual went on again and again. One priest died and another priest took his
place. He died another priest took his
place. He died another priest took his
place. There is repetition; but it is
all inadequate. It goes on and on and
on. It was simply a shadow of what Jesus would do. Jesus on the cross provides the real
substance. So we come back to the fact
in verse 1…
NKJ Hebrews 10:1
For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come,
and not the very image of the things, can never with these same
sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach
perfect
There is that repetition idea.
NKJ
Hebrews 10:4 For it is
not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.
They cant’ do it!
NKJ
Hebrews 10:5 Therefore,
when He came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not
desire, But a body You have prepared for Me.
But Jesus came into the world in order to provide the perfect
sacrifice.
That is the focus of verses 5-7.
Verses 5 through 7 are a quote from Psalm 40: 6f.
NKJ
Hebrews 10:6 In burnt
offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure.
NKJ
Hebrews 10:7 Then I said,
'Behold, I have come -- In the volume of the book it is written of Me -- To do
Your will, O God.' "
Nobody in the Old Testament could say that. David was still a sinner. He couldn’t perfectly do the will of
God.
Only Jesus in all of human history could truly say perfectly, “Lord, I
have come to do your will. I have come
to fulfill the plan of salvation.”
So this psalm is put into the mouth of Jesus, into His thinking, at the
moment of the incarnation. So that is
developed.
Then we look down to verse 10.
NKJ
Hebrews
That is talking about our positional sanctification.
Then we come to the last section in the didactic part which is verses 11
through 18. They connect the work of
Christ to our sanctification which is related to His intercessory ministry and
His current priesthood.
Notice verse 11.
NKJ
Hebrews
This is the Levitical priesthood ministry.
This man in His humanity. He paid for our sins.
NKJ
Hebrews 10:12 But this
Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right
hand of God,
That goes back to Psalm 110:1.
NKJ
Psalm 110:1 A Psalm of
David. The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your
enemies Your footstool."
So that is alluded to there.
NKJ Hebrews
That’s phase 2.
So the connection is made with what Christ did on the cross. His high
priestly work, the completed once for all salvation on the cross, is connected
there to our spiritual life and spiritual growth. Out of that he is going to bring an
exhortation (a challenge) and then a warning.
This is one of the toughest warning passages to deal with. The exhortation covers the whole section from
That will finish up the fourth section and bring us up to the fifth
section, the last section that goes from 11:1 to
Next time we come back we will start getting into the details of the
Melchizedekean priesthood and what is going on there. We have to look at Melchizedek. Is he an angel? Is he Jesus?
Is he the pre-incarnate Christ?
Who is he? What is all of this
about? He is without father. He is without mother. Not only that, how does tithing fit in? What is this whole thing about Levi paying
tithes through Abraham? That is the
foundation for a view called traducianism - this whole debate over the
transmission of the soul. When does a
person become a living person? At
conception? At birth? What does the Bible teach? It is all tied up in the debate that has gone
on in the church for ages on traducianism verses creationism. That isn’t
talking about Genesis 1:1 creation.
There is a lot of stuff embedded in these first 10 verses that we will
have to touch on in the next couple of weeks.