GOD HAS SPOKEN BY HIS SON
Meditations in Hebrews
Hebrews 9:1- 10
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THE Apostle now goes on to show the inadequacy of the old covenant and the greatness, effectiveness and blessing of the new. He commences where the Jews were. The tent or tabernacle, which was the centre of their life in the wilderness of Sinai when they were traveling to the promised land, and the focal part of the temple when the temple was built, was the essence of the covenant made with them in the wilderness in the time of Moses. We are given here a brief description of the tabernacle highlighting its essentials.

The first thing to notice is how these regulations set forth in the tabernacle are spoken of here. Verse 1 commences "Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary". The Apostle speaks of this covenant in the past tense. He uses the word ‘had’, and so speaks of it as having passed. This covenant had had its day, and that day was now ended. The old covenant had no place or use now that Christ had come, even though it had been ordained of God when it was first set up. The argument that the Jew would have brought for holding on to the covenant they had known would have been that it was by divine appointment. This is an argument which we would use also, but in this case it fails to take account of the fact that God never meant this covenant to be permanent, and therefore there would be a time when it would cease. That time had now come because Christ the mediator of a better covenant had come.

This speaks of the close of the Jewish nation as being the chosen people of God. The purpose for which they had been chosen had now been realised, so they ceased to have this privileged status. They had been chosen to preserve the line of the Messiah. When he had come and done his work, and brought in the new covenant, the place for the old and all that went with it ended. Jesus points this out in John 18:37 when he tells Pilate that he is indeed a king, and that his subjects listened to him. This points out the fact that the Jews were not his subjects because they did not listen to him. The Jews were no more the people of God. The people of God, the Israel of God, are all those who listen to Jesus and own him as their king.

As we read through this brief description of the ritual of the Old Covenant made in the time of Moses we are first struck with the elaborateness of it. In each room of the Tabernacle everything was laid out and furnished in a specific way. Then only the priests were able to go into the first room, and they had special duties to perform each day according to the days and months. Then the Most Holy Place also was set out in a very special way, and contained special furnishings of which the ark of the cherubim of the Glory was central. This room was separated by a curtain from the first room, and nobody but the chief priest entered this special room, and he only entered it once a year, and could only enter when he carried the blood of sacrifice, which was sprinkled on the lid of the Ark, the mercy seat for all the sins of ignorance he and the people had committed over the past year.

Here was a ritual and duty which was cumbersome and a heavy burden to bear, and which, no doubt, was hard to carry out with the perfection that was required. All this symbolised the difficulty of this was of coming to God, and in the end, because everything was repeated time and time again, and every year, showed that, even with all the effort, it never achieved the reconciliation with God that it set out to achieve. God’s just anger against sin was only pacified temporarily.

The other thing which this elaborate system specially emphasised was the holiness of God and the fact that the people, because they were sinners, could not really come into his presence, and the gulf between the people and God was very great. So in verse 8 the conclusion is made specific - "The Holy Spirit was showing by this that they way into the Most Holy Place had not been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still standing. This revealed that the way into the favour and presence of God for sinners had not yet been provided, and so God’s wrath against sin was still evident, and his judgement still hung over the people.

It follows from this, as we read in verse 9, that this old way of ritual and human priests could never clear the conscience and give peace. In spite of all this religious life and activity, the end of it and the purpose of it was not achieved, and sin still remained staining the heart, and troubling the conscience of the worshippers.

All this was temporary - a stop gap - until the new order (v.10) had come and been inauguarated. It pointed to what was needed. It pointed to the need of a priest to mediate between God and sinful humanity. It pointed to the need of sacrifice to atone for sin. But it never actually provided these blessings. The human priests were never true mediators or effective mediators, and the sacrifices they offered never made propitiation for sin - that is appeased the just anger of God against sin.

We need to be warned here about the danger of going back to reliance in any form on an earthly human priesthood for our mediation before God. The religious duties they perform and the sacrifices they supposedly offer, can’t achieve the mediation before God we sinners require. Let us hold on to the new covenant, which provides in Christ a perfect priest, and in his sacrifice of himself, an all-sufficient and perfect sacrifice for sin. It is only having Christ as our priest that we have reconciliation with God.