The New Testament
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 20 October 2024
Now to the author of Hebrews, the most important truth is access to God. He uses the terms access to God, salvation to the uttermost and perfection. And those three are really synonymous terms having to do with entering into the presence of God. And He shows that it is impossible except through Jesus Christ. All of the old priesthood, sacrifices and the old covenant could not bring people to God.
Jesus himself said, “No man comes to God but by Me.” So He begins with a presentation of the superiority of Jesus Christ that he is superior to everything and everyone. And then He shows us the things by which Christ had made this access possible. First by his priesthood, and this through divine mediation. Hebrews 7:27 says, “For this He did once when He offered up himself.”
He talks also about a new sacrifice in Hebrews 9:22, “Almost all things are by the law purged with blood and without shedding of blood is no remission.” And in Hebrews 10, Jesus says, “I am the final sacrifice.” Then thirdly there is a new covenant, or divine promises. Jesus says, “I bring a better priesthood, a better sacrifice and a better covenant.” There is access through Jesus Christ.
Remember that He quotes Psalm 110:4, “The Lord swore and will not repent. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” If there needs to be a different order that means the Levitical order is not sufficient. We need a new priesthood, which provides divine mediation that is eternal. And He uses the Old Testament prophesy that there would be such a priesthood.
The God of the Old Testament never intended the Old Testament priesthood and sacrifices to be the ones that brought final access to God; there had to be better ones. He wants to prove there needs to be a better covenant by quoting Jeremiah 31:31, “Look, the days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.” As soon as the new one comes, the old one vanishes.
That’s the basis of the discussion of Hebrews 9. So was the old covenant of no worth? The answer is no, of course it was good. It has its purpose, and that’s in Hebrews 9:1-14. The Hebrew’s faith is their failure to see that everything in the ceremonial law was only a ritual. It was only a type. It was only temporary and transient, and it needs to be done away when the reality comes.
Now in verses 11-14 He outlines the characteristics of the new covenant. In verses 1-10, he just talks about the old covenant. Verse 1, “Now the first covenant also had regulations for ministry and an earthly sanctuary.” It also had ordinances of a divine service, even though it was an earthly sanctuary. God instituted the old covenant. But it was temporary because it was earthly.
It is typical of Hebrews to draw comparisons. He compared Israel’s prophets to Christ, angels to Christ, Moses to Christ, Joshua to Christ, and Aaron to Christ. But you have never once heard Him depreciate any of those others by comparison. He exalts the old covenant. The more they are legitimately magnified, the more Jesus is magnified when He is proven to be superior.
Now He proceeds to describe the three earthly patterns: The sanctuary, the services, and their significance. Then when we go to the new covenant we’ll see the same three things: The sanctuary, the service, and its significance. Let’s read verses 2–5, “For a tabernacle was set up, and in the first room, which is called the holy place, were the lampstand, the table, and the presentation loaves.”
“3 Behind the second curtain was a tent called the most holy place. 4 It had the gold altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant, covered with gold on all sides, in which was a gold jar containing the manna, Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. 5 The cherubim of glory were above the ark overshadowing the mercy seat. It is not possible to speak about these things in detail right now.”
In verse 2 it says, “For a tabernacle.” Now we’re talking about the ceremonies and rituals of Israel. He’s dealing here with the tabernacle rather than the temple, because he wants to pull out the things that God placed initially in that tabernacle, and it was the earthiest of the two between the tabernacle and the temple. It was the most transitory thing because of its mobility and the substance of which it was made.
The tabernacle is important, because the tabernacle is really a picture of Jesus Christ. It is a portrait of Christ in detail. For example, this was a big tent. It was 150 feet long and it was 75 feet wide. And there was only one gate on the east. Now that is a picture of Jesus Christ who said, “I am the way,” who also said, “I am the door.” To the tabernacle or the place of God there was only one door.
Let’s start at the east and we were going into the 150-by-75-foot tent. We would move into the outer court of the tabernacle. And we would see some furniture there. But as we walk in, we would come to the altar made of acacia wood. It was seven-and-a-half feet square. It stood four-and-a-half feet off the ground. The top was covered by a brass grate, and the coals were underneath.
The sacrifice was placed on the grate. On the four corners of the altar were the horns to which the sacrificial animal was bound. This is a picture of Jesus Christ, who was the sacrifice for our sin. After that, we would come to the wash area. In it the priest washed their hands and their feet as they went about the services of sacrifice. Once we have received forgiveness for sins, we are not through.
We still need to go to the laver for the daily cleansing for restoration and joy. It is a picture of Jesus Christ, the cleanser of his people who provided forgiveness and cleansing in the cross. Then we come to the tabernacle itself which is 45 feet long, 15 feet wide and 15 feet high. The holy of holies was a perfect cube, 15 feet by 15 feet by 15 feet, the other part is 15 by 15 by 30 feet.
We would go into the holy place, and we would find three pieces of furniture, and here the writer only mentions two. First on the left side is the seven-lit golden lampstand with the pure olive oil that was placed there for the fire. To the right is the table of showbread made of acacia wood overlaid with gold. It was three feet long, one-and-a-half feet wide and two-and-a-quarter-feet high.
And on it every Sabbath they laid 12 loaves, one for every tribe in Israel. And at the end of the week only the priests were allowed to eat it. Then at the center is the Altar of Incense which was made of acacia wood and sheathed in gold. It was one-and-a-half feet square and three feet high. On this were placed the burning coals from the altar out in the courtyard where sacrifice was made.
Again, they are pictures of Jesus Christ. In the outer courtyard, all these things are connected with salvation and the cleansing of sin. Where did Jesus accomplish salvation and the cleansing of sin? On the earth. And that’s the courtyard, outside God's presence. It was the outer court, accessible to all the people, pictures Christ in the world openly manifesting himself before men.
But when He goes into the holy place, He is shut off from the men of the world. And so whatever is going on in the holy place has to do with when He gets back to heaven. And what are the three things that Jesus does? Number one, He lights our path. Number two, He feeds us. And number three, he intercedes for us. And so the three pieces of furniture in the holy place are pictures of Jesus Christ.
The golden lampstand is Christ, the light of life, not the light of the world. He’s not the light of the world when he’s in there. He said in the Gospel of John, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” But when he left the world, the world was left in darkness, and He is only for the believer, the light of life. He is the one who through the Spirit illumines our mind, who understands spiritual truth.
And then we see the table of showbread and Jesus is our sustenance. He’s the one who sustains us with the Word. In fact, the Word is not only our food, the Word is our light, and the oil is the Spirit of God who lights the Word for us. And then we come to the altar of incense which pictures the sacrificial coals placed there and the incense smoke rising, and this is Jesus interceding for us.
Verse 3, “We go through a second vail, which is called the holy of holies.” And we get in there and there’s the Ark of the Covenant overlaid with gold (verse 4), and it contained Aaron’s rod that budded, and manna, and the tables of covenant law. Verse 5, “The cherubim of glory were above the ark overshadowing the mercy seat.” And over the mercy seat were cherubim, angels whose wings almost touched.
In Exodus 25:22, God said, “I’ll commune with you from above the mercy seat from between the cherubim.” And if God and man were to have a meeting place, they only met there. What did the Ark represent?” It represents Jesus Christ who is the true mercy seat. When you meet Jesus Christ as Savior, you are ushered into the presence of God. God communes with men in the name of Jesus Christ.
Verse 6, “With these things prepared like this, the priests enter the first room repeatedly, performing their ministry.” The first room was called the Holy Place. They went in there every day to trim the oil on the lampstand and the incense on the altar of incense, and they had to go in every Sabbath day to change the 12 loaves of bread. So they were in and out of there every day.
It’s again a picture of Jesus Christ who does not cease lighting, feeding and interceding on our behalf. Verse 7, “But the high priest alone enters the second room, and he does that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.” It refers to the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, which is again a picture of Christ.
Very early the priest arose, and he cleansed himself by washing. Then he put on the robes of glory that were reserved for this day. On the robe of the ephod were two onyx stones, with the six names of the tribes engraved on them. And there he is a picture of Jesus Christ who takes us not only on his heart, but on his shoulders, which means he’s not only willing, He’s able.
And the Priest went all through the sacrifices, and when he was done, he removed his robes. He bathed himself again so that he was completely clean, and then he put on pure white linen with no decoration at all, and it was a symbol of holiness and purity. And it is a symbol of Jesus Christ who in the work of atonement stripped of all of his glory and became the humblest of human flesh.
Jesus after He’d come to the cross and he said in John 17, “Father, I finished the work you gave me to do, now glorify me with the glory that I had before the world began.” Father, give me back my robes. That’s what the priest pictured. And the picture of incense is the picture of prayer and intercession. So He makes sure that the picture of Christ interceding before God opens the way for Him to come in.
Verse 8, “The Holy Spirit was making it clear that the way into the most holy place had not yet been disclosed while the first tabernacle was still standing.” First, that worship of God was limited in the old covenant. Secondly, the Holy Spirit wanted to teach them imperfect cleansing was connected with the old covenant. Thirdly, the Holy Spirit meant to teach that the old covenant was temporary.
Without a redeemer, without a Messiah, without a Savior there’s no access to God. What is the most holy place? It’s heaven. But the Jews didn’t go to heaven because of Judaism, they went to heaven because Jesus died. When Old Testament saints died, they went to a place called Sheol. And it wasn’t until Jesus died that He went into Sheol and gathered them up and took them to heaven.
Verse 9, “This is a symbol for the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the worshiper’s conscience.” They couldn’t bring perfect cleansing. It was only an object lesson to explain the reality. So the Spirit meant to teach by that very thing itself that it had limits because it couldn’t bring access and it couldn’t bring perfect cleansing.
Verse 10, “They are physical regulations and only deal with food, drink, and various washings imposed until the time of the new order.” All these things are just temporary. Foods, that’s temporary. Drinks, temporary. Various washings, temporary. Carnal ordinances, or fleshly ones, temporary. The whole thing was only a temporary thing until the time of the new order.
Then He comes to His comparison. Verse 11-12, “But Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come. In the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation), 12 he entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.
Verse 13-14, “For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow, sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God?” It’s heaven.
Before Christ, men did good works through their limited strength of their human nature. But when you become saved, you do the things that please Christ not through your human nature but through the new nature God gave you. That’s why in Romans 13 Paul says, “But you have a new capacity, and all you got to remember is this, love everybody and you’ll keep all the commandments.” Let’s pray.