Hebrews 9.14
April 27th 2014
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Okay, we left off discussing some of the material items found in the ancient tabernacle/temple all of which pictured or typified of Christ.
Let’s carry on deeper into the ninth chapter of Hebrews, picking it up at verse 8 and reading through until verse, say, fourteen.
We remember that last week that the writer, speaking of the Holy of Holies in the temple, said:
Hebrews 9:7 But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:
At verse nine he actually continues the thought, and adds:
Hebrews 9:8 The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:
9 Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
10 Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.
11 But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Okay, lets go back to verse 9 where the writer says that
The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:
For me this was a difficult verse and so I had to study up and the consensus seems to be that under the Mosaic economy it was never revealed the final means or way in which people would or could enter into God’s presence.
One of the indicators of this, or a sign of it was the fact that the Holy of Holies was concealed by a veil and could only be entered once a year by the High priest bearing blood.
Of course we know when Christ died the veil was rent signifying that the way was now open to all by and through the death of God’s Son who shed His blood once and for all for the sins of the world.
Where it took a singular, male high priest, cleansed and washed and of the right genealogy to take the blood of bulls and goats into the veil, when it fell, all believers – male and female – of all races, of all social stature could now be admitted (into the heavenly holy of Holies) as members of a “royal priesthood” of believers.
While this temple or tabernacle remained standing it stood as a valid means or ordinance appointed by God to picture His Holiness and the sinfulness of Man.
This continued until the death of Christ where it was symbolically rent obsolete, with Christ (his flesh actually) now serving as the veil in the Holy of Holies on high.
(We’ll read about this concept later)
We don’t say much about this, and instead usually talk about how all these laws and ceremonies and rites ultimately served to create a very legalistic people, but the Jewish ritual was truly full of meaning and God used it to teach men about their innate sinful pollution, their need of spiritual cleansing, and the way in which this would be obtained, through the shedding of the blood.
When Christ came, was crucified on the Day of atonement, and the veil was rent in two, many truth seeking Jews, when they realized the fulfillment by Christ of all these types were lead directly to Him and the cross and their conversions established most of the early church believers – all for the first seven years before Cornelius and his family (Gentiles) were born-again.
It seems here that the write is saying that the Holy Spirit both appointed all of this and taught them using the types and pictures used in the ancient temple but affirming to them that the way into the Holiest of all was not yet made known.
. . . NOT until the first tabernacle was rent.
Until then, or as long as something was separating the common man from the Holiest place, the way to heaven was not freely accessible and it was the Holy Spirit that made this known.
But the writer doesn’t tell us HOW the holy Spirit made this known.
Maybe it was by and through the symbolism of a 4 inch thick wall separating God and Man.
Or maybe it was obvious by the fact that the High Priest only entered once a year and the Holy of Holies was not accessible to anyone at any other time?
Maybe it was obvious by the fact that only one man among millions who got to enter in, or even that the one man was a Jew of a specific lineage, excluding all others (in Israel) and in the world!
The idea seems to be that due to all of these types and shadows and rites there were a lot of things that prevented men from coming into the presence of the Divine, and astute and observant Jews understood this by and through the Holy Spirit.
Now, last week Allan asked me: “Did the High Priest only enter into the Holy of Holies once a year?”
My response was yes.
He then asked, “If he was the only one to enter and he only entered once a year, how did they move the tabernacle around so much?”
It was a great question and because of it I have learned a great deal this week. Let me go back to last week’s text to see what Paul says:
6 Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.
7 But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people.” (Hebrews 9: 6-7 )
According to verse 4 the Holy of Holies contained two things: the Altar to Burn Incense Upon, and the Ark of the Covenant.
Therefore anyone who wanted to burn incense in the altar of incense, had to enter the Holy of Holies.
So while it is true that the High Priest entered the Most Holy Place to make an atonement for the people, putting blood upon the horns of the altar of incense, once a year he also entered twice daily every day to burn sweet incense.
So the writer is not saying that the Most Holy Place could only be entered once a year. This was my mistake.
What he is saying is that the High Priest entered, only once a year, for atoning the people with blood upon the horns of the altar of incense.
(Exodus 30: 1-10 clearly describes the incense burning the High Priest was in charge of everyday in the Holy of Holies).
There are at least three passages that tell us that they entered the Most Holy much more frequently than once a year.
Nevertheless, it is also true that with the blood of the atonement (symbolizing Christ’s sacrifice for the whole nation (and ultimately the world), the High Priest did, only once a year, enter into the Most Holy place.
One more interesting point. If now we go to the New Testament we see that a man named Zachary ( Luke 1: 8-9 ), who was not the High Priest, was the one who burned the incense on the day described in Luke.
Do you know what this means? It means that by the time Jesus was on earth not only the High Priest, but specially selected priests could enter the Most Holy Place if he was elected to do so by the casting of lots.
I would therefore suggest that what only the High Priest could perform was to bring blood and put it on the altar of incense as an atonement for the whole people of Israel.
Additionally, by reading the Bible we know that during the exodus, the tabernacle was taken down every time the people moved.
Who knows what was allowed during that time but I think we can safely say that Aaron, who was 83 years old when he became high priest wasn’t the only one bearing the take-down and set up and transportation alone.
If we are going to be reasonable, I think there are some other things to consider when it comes to the “once a year ONLY teaching:
I would think that a cool contained sheltered place in an arid hot land would, if it went for a full year uninhabited, would be full of snakes and the like after a time . . . rats . . . monkeys.
What I am saying is I was wrong. The once a year was only for putting the atoning blood on the horns of the altar and others (in the Bible) who were NOT the high priest were allowed to go in throughout the year.
In the face of this I started wondering about the high priest rope around the waist deal. If he was going in and out of there every day was the rope really needed?
I learned I was fooled again – that there is no place where this was ever written while the temple tabernacle stood – and the story is myth.
I learned it from Chuck Smith and believed it without checking. I apologize.
I typically will check into most things but this was a failure on my part.
Every reputable researcher and scholar says the story is a Jewish/Christian myth.
We want truth – to worship in spirit and truth – there it is. Okay, speaking of the tabernacle and the things in it the writer goes on (verse 9) saying:
9 Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
The word for “figure” here in the Greek is quite similar to parable, meaning a side by side comparison.
In other words the tabernacle served as a side by side comparison of Christ and the Holy of Holies on high.
But the writer notes that even though “gifts and sacrifices” were offered therein it was not a service that could make the presenter (or anyone else) perfect (LISTEN) relative “to conscience.”
It could never take away sin nor remove the guilt that comes with sin.
They were outward ceremonially applied rituals which cannot truly erase sin or the stain of sin on the soul.
Now this point opens us up to a pretty heavy discussion. Allow me a few minutes because it is important in my opinion.
We know that we all have sin and fail. We also know that some people carry the burden of their sin over the course of an entire life and others appear to have little remorse for some of the most heinous crimes imaginable.
First of all, I would suggest that verse 9 here in chapter 9 is speaking of people who are looking to have the stain and guilt of sin removed . . . and that such ceremonial rites don’t stand a chance of being successful for those who are sincere, self-reflective, honest in conscience.
I say this because there are people who could give a rats tooth about animal sacrifice or the sacrifice of Jesus who sleep like babies at night, so I don’t believe the ceremonial rituals failing to alleviate sin and guilt is speaking to this sort – again, it’s speaking to believers or seekers of truth, or people who, whether believers or not, have a very acute sense of guilt in their lives.
For them no ritual will suffice – only the shed blood of Jesus. I am talking about this because I think it is elemental to the make-up of people who seek and find Jesus.
They are too honest, too in touch with their guilt against God and Man to allow form and ritual to appease them.
I was this way as a latter-day Saint. I tried and attended the temple and did the steps to repentance, but none of it worked.
I tried serving, giving my all to the church, whatever was recommended but looking back over my shoulder I could see that all of it was failing – every single bit of it.
I saw a psychologist for a number of years, in conjunction with a psychiatrist which greatly helped me understand all sorts of things relative to why I was who I was, and why I would do what I would do, and while their advice assisted me in making better choices in the future nothing either of them said or suggested allowed the stain of sins past (present or future) fade away.
So what happens in many cases is the tormented and tortured become seekers . . . I saw this in my own life and in the lives of many people since.
Some take pause or make permanent residence in philosophies or religions that appear to provide solace and comfort, others turn to drugs or alcohol or whatever feeds the demons – but I would suggest that there is only ONE way on earth to truly be freed from guilt IF A PERSON cares to legitimately be free from guilt (beat) . . . Him.
So in some sense it seems God allows for seekers to roil about in their own filth until they discover Him, and when He washes them clean they are clean indeed.
This is what happened to me on my so-called road-side experience. I have rolled in the mire for seventeen years and on that August day I was completely freed from every sin ever committed (LISTEN) without cost (to me) without price – free.
How?
It was the realization that Jesus never sinned (so He was an acceptable offering on my behalf) that He loved me as I was so much that He gave His life for all of mine, and that there was NOTHING I could ever do to either merit this gift He had given me and there was nothing I could do to maintain it.
It came when I realized that sin was my nature, selfless love was His, and in and through faith in Him alone I was redeemed.
Boom! When my eyes opened that day as I drove my daughters home the first thing I realized, experienced, and felt was the total release of all sin, of guilt, of fear, of the desire to try and save myself.
It was an absolute release from the failing ceremonies of religion by His love (evidenced by and through His life and death) filling my heart.
I am convinced that there is something singularly powerful and spiritually abiding over the ages in the actual blood of Jesus Christ, and when someone is bathed in it (for real) sin and guilt cease and the human conscience is cleared.
Referring back to the former elements of the Old Testament, the writer summarized some of them, saying:
10 Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.
Let me address each of these categories the writer uses – and I am doing this as a warning to all believers to beware of churches or pastors or religions that focus on such.
First he says, “which stood (only) in meats and drinks.”
This could have reference to the many meat and drink offerings the Jews would participate in ceremonially but it could also have reference to the dietary laws they were inundated with as a people.
Gone.
Every now and again people will rise up and try to impose such laws in the body.
I would place all such efforts on an incorrect focus on outward perfection, legalism, and moralism – which are done away with in Christ.
And I am talking about anything and everything that goes into the body.
Then He says “and divers washings.”
No people were more about washing the outer body then the Jews and their various ablutions which very much required in the service of the tabernacle and the temple.
They washed their hands, their pots, their plates, their bodies. They washed the animals being offered – they had a laver of water out from of the tabernacle for washing alone.
What it interesting is the Greek word the writer uses for washings is “baptisms.”
The writer adds, “And carnal ordinances.”
External ceremonies, rites, rituals that pertain to the flesh of Man.
These, the writer says, were all, “imposed on them.” Laid on them—“epi-ke-i-mena” which contributes to placing a yoke on them,” then the writer adds:
“Until the time of reformation.”
The Greek word for reformation is only used here in the entire New Testament and it means until the time of the improvement.
The total idea being present here seems to be that those ordinances were only temporary in their nature, and were designed to endure till a more perfect system should be introduced to replace it.
The old were of value and served to introduce that better system, but they were never meant to purify the human conscience or remove the stains of guilt from the soul.
Now verse 11 introduces us to a concept that is either really related to the present context the writer has been creating OR it refers to another facet that He will introduce to us in chapter 10).
Let’s read verse 11 first then talk about the two ways to understand it.
11 But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
Let’s cover the first line
“But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come.”
Now the Messiah (Christos in the Greek, so Christ) has come we have a more perfect system introduced which (as I intimated a minute ago) has the power to take the conscience and remove guilt and give those who enter it have direct access to God.
Then the write explains that Christ has become “a High Priest of good things to come,” by “a greater and more perfect tabernacle NOT made with hands . . .” and adds “and NOT of this former building or edifice we have been talking about that existed anciently.”
It’s where the verse says that Christ has become a high priest of good things to come “BY A GREATER AND MORE PERFECT TABERNACLE NOT MADE WITH HANDS . . . that there are a few interpretations.
The word “by” here (“dia”) means “through,” and the first interpretation is that Christ passed through a more perfect tabernacle on his way to the mercy-seat in heaven than the Jewish high priest did when he passed through the Holy place and in through the veil.
It is possible that the writer was thinking of the Lord passing through the visible heavens above us to the veil between eternal life in the presence of God and the material life her below separated from Him.
That is a reasonable presentation.
But there is another idea that suggests that the word “tabernacle” relates to the actual body of Christ and according to this the idea is that Christ, by means of his own body and blood offered Himself as a sacrifice and then entered into the Most Holy Place in heaven where He . . . now is the veil itself, through which all who have ever believed on Him must pass in order to enter the presence of God.
I appreciate either explanation but really enjoy the second for a couple of reasons.
First, throughout the Gospels (but especially in John) Jesus refers to Himself as the “door” and “way” the “sheepgate.”
Here this would be literally applied.
Also, while on earth, Jesus says something that has always been curious to me. In John 14:19-20 Jesus says to His chosen twelve. He says:
“Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. (This is the part that is unique to me) At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”
I get Him being in the Father (who is fire and light) and I get Him being in us (by the Holy Spirit which dwell in us) but I have always wondered how we are in Him?
His Spirit in us in Him I guess. But this second interpretation might add some dimension to this.
But then if we read ahead to Hebrews ten we hear the writer say:
Hebrews 10:19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.”
Taking these passages into account is it possible that all who enter into the Holy of Holies on High (not made with hands) will, at death pass through the flesh of Christ, who serves as the veil, upon entering the most Holy Place?
May the Holy Spirit teach.
(verse 12)
12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
We have covered this concept over and over in our study of Hebrews so I am convinced most know that the writer is reiterating that it required the shed blood of God, not the blood of goats and bulls, to make entrance to the most Holy place not made with hands.
The writer continues and reminds us:
13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
From this passage (and more) I am under the impression that the shedding of blood of animals was capable of purifying the flesh of men and women and the nation of Israel, the outer vessel, making life on earth possible to continue in the presence of God.
But it was only the shed blood of Christ Jesus that could cleanse the heart – and since God looks upon the heart, there was no way animal sacrifice would ever accomplish purifying that mattered eternally.
In other words under the Old Covenant nobody ever had their consciences cleared – just the sin that rested on their exterior person.
Yes, animal blood could remove ceremonial uncleanness and made it possible for those polluted by sin to approach God in the flesh but the writer goes on to argue that, if animal blood had such an efficacy, it was easy to see that the blood of Christ would have far greater efficacy, reaching into the heart and mind and conscience itself . . . and make them pure.
This is why he says:
13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ,
Then he adds, speaking of Christ:
“ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
“Who through the eternal Spirit.”
Two or three dozen differnet interpretations of what this means.
I want to do something here:
I want to turn it to you and ask you what you think it means. Most of you have been Christians for some time now.
So before we go into what others have said (going way, way back) let’s read this passage again and then open it up to you and what you think it means.
Ready?
Speaking of Christ’s blood being far more efficacious than the blood of animals, the writer says:
“who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Replies?
We’ll before we wrap up, let me pass on to you what I discovered and we’ll start with a few different translations of the verse.
Darby says
“how much rather shall the blood of the Christ, who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God, purify your conscience from dead works to worship [the] living God?”
The MNT and TCNT says
“how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through his eternal spirit offered himself free from blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works unto the service of an ever-living God!”
The WNT says
“how much more certainly shall the blood of Christ, who strengthened by the eternal Spirit offered Himself to God, free from blemish, purify your consciences from lifeless works for you to serve the ever-living God?”
And Young’s Literal translation says:
“how much more shall the blood of the Christ (who through the age-during Spirit did offer himself unblemished to God)”
Wetstein says “the Holy Spirit” while others say eternal spirit referring to Christ eternality.
Own Dodderidge and Archebishop Tillotson believe this is speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit in Christ accomplished His offering.
Beza, Ernesti, Wolf, and a number of others believe the passage speaks of the divine nature of Christ.
Grotius, Rosenmuller, Koppe, understand it as meaning “endless or immortal life” in contradistinction from the Jewish sacrifices which were of a perishable nature.
Some regard it as referring to the glorified person of the Savior Himself, meaning that, in his exited or spiritual station in heaven, he presents the efficacy of blood.
Some suppose that it means Divine influence; and that the idea is that Christ was actuated and filled with a Divine influence when he offered up himself as a sacrifice–an influence which was not of a temporal and fleeting nature, but which was eternal in its efficacy.
I would say it is impossible to know.
Reading it plainly as just the Holy Spirit seems easiest and most plain.
I would suggest that while the shed blood sacrifice and offering was to cleanse the heart and mind and conscience of human beings, the blood was not what appeased God but the heart (or spirit) behind the offering.
What I mean by this is while His physical shed blood purifies the soul of believing humans, it was the pure offering from His heart that pleased God, which, being spiritual, was offered through as the writer says here in verse 14, the eternal spirit.
Something to chew on.
Q and A – PRAYER
