Hebrews 9:1-10

Due to our annual Camp Burns next week, where we have 20 pre-teen and teen boys stay at our house for a spiritual and physical boot camp, I will be unable to post any devotionals next week.

9 Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. 2 A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand and the table with its consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place. 3 Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, 4 which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. 5 Above the ark were the cherubim of the Glory, overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.

6 When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. 7 But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. 8 The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning. 9 This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. 10 They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings —external regulations applying until the time of the new order.

Dig Deeper

My youngest son recently began taking lessons in Tae Kwon Do. He enjoys going a great deal and is doing pretty well so far. There is a routine and discipline to learning the art of Tae Kwon Do which he appreciates. The school itself is well-run and has friendly instructors who are not only well-versed in teaching Tae Kwon Do, they also expect and demand respect, honor, and integrity on the part of the students. As part of that, there is a whole system of hierarchy inherent into the martial arts that is rather ritualized. Those that have attained the level of black belt, for instance, have greater privileges and responsibilities that go along with their higher rank. They can do things that not all students can do, they stand in the front of line-ups while the lower ranks stand in the back, and so on. They also have a changing room that is only accessible to those of that rank. Other students are not ever allowed to even go into that room. I appreciate the whole idea of that because it serves as a powerful illustration and reminder for the younger students like my son that they have much more to work for and attain to yet. They don’t have access to that room but that is really just a picture. It’s a living illustration that they don’t yet have a high-ranking belt; they haven’t put in all the work necessary yet to have access to that level of belt, that level of respect, and that level of honor. But the fact that some can go in there also serves as a picture to them that some day they might be able to go into that room themselves.

In a sense, that was one of the purposes of the Tabernacle and Temple under the Old Covenant. They certainly served an important function during those times in and of themselves, and were, in a very real sense, the center of life in ancient Israel. But they also served as a powerful picture or illustration of the then current state of affairs between God and his people. The Israelites would have understood that of course and heartily agreed with that assessment. What they did not seem to fully realize was that the system of having the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place not only signified the state between God and men at the time but also was a picture of what was to come under the New Covenant. It was an illustration that the readers of Hebrews needed to understand because it was a picture of what was now available in Christ.

At first blush, following the author’s line of thinking from the last words of chapter 8 to the beginning of chapter 9, seems a bit disconnected. The author just completed a long quote from Jeremiah, pointing ahead to God’s promise of the New Covenant and the fact that those promises had now been fulfilled in Christ, the fulfillment of the better Covenant. How then does it make sense that he immediately launches into a detailed discussion of the procedures of the Tabernacle? The author himself will answer that question, but let’s try to follow along with his point first.

He has already laid out the idea that there are, in a sense, two covenants, although he will imply throughout the coming chapters that the second Covenant is really a fulfillment of and a bettering of the first Covenant rather than simply a replacement as though the second were something entirely new from the first. That first Covenant was full of regulations and specific stipulations for how God expected his people to come into his presence through the Tabernacle (and eventually the Temple which would replace the Tabernacle).

As the writer begins to mention the Tabernacle, he briefly describes the set up, the furniture, and some of the important items found inside. There were two inner rooms that were considered sacred and cordoned off from the rest of the Tabernacle. The first was called the Holy Place and it contained the lampstand and a table with the showbread on it. But there was a second curtain which closed off the Most Holy Place, or what was also called the Holy of Holies. That room contained the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant, which held a jar of manna from the Wilderness, Aaron’s staff, and the copies of the stone tablets of the Covenant. Covering the Ark was the lid crowned with cherubim. The purpose for the detail beyond just giving a clear mental picture of the two rooms is unknown. Just as the author lays out all of those details, he stops in the middle of his thought and says that there is no place for a discussion of those details. We can only imagine that the author felt that there was significance in those things but these were some of those deeper details of the faith that his readers were not quite ready for yet in their state of spiritual immaturity. We must also conclude that the Holy Spirit felt that the bulk of those details, as interesting as they might be, was unnecessary for us to know. So, we must humbly follow along with the author as much as we would like to know the rest of his thoughts on these matters.

He avoided the temptation to stray too far off track, however, and zeros in on the point he is making. In the Holy place, only the priests could enter into that part of the Tabernacle and carry on their ministry. And only the high priest could enter into the Most Holy Place and that was only allowed once a year by God. In addition to that, the priest could only enter after the shedding of blood and making an offering, albeit a temporary one, for the sin of the people and himself. The Most Holy Place was virtually closed to God’s people. They could never enter into that inner room and connect with God’s presence.

Verse 9, then, is the key to following the logic of this section. Why all of this discussion about the Tabernacle on the heels of talking about the superiority of the New Covenant? It was because the whole process was used by the Holy Spirit to provide an illustration for God’s people from which to learn. The existence of the two rooms was a picture of the two Covenants and their accompanying access to God. In the first room, only the priests could enter but even they could not go into the second room directly. They only had access to it by means of being represented by the high priest. This was a picture of the two covenants. The high priest, Jesus, had gone into the Most Holy Place and provided the blood and sacrifice so that all of God’s people could have access to God through him. The Old Covenant was pictured by all of the external ceremonies performed in the Holy Place but the New Covenant was pictured by the high priestly access to the Most Holy Place. Because of Jesus and his work to bring about the New Covenant, all of Jesus’ people could have access to God’s Most Holy presence.

No priest of the Tabernacle or the Temple would get the chance to go into the Holy of Holies and pass it up. Of course that would not have been an option for the average priest, but they certainly would not have been given the sanctioned opportunity to go in there and decide instead to just be satisfied with the Holy Place. The author doesn’t directly make that point, but that is his implication. If the two rooms of the Tabernacle were a picture of the two Covenants, then belonging to the second Covenant, where God’s people had direct access to the throne room of God through Jesus Christ and deciding to return to the first room, the first Covenant would be ridiculous. It would be to walk away from the real thing and embrace the shadow.

Those in Christ had indeed been allowed to enter into the Most Holy Place through the advent of the New Covenant and they needed to be quite clear about what they had and what they would be giving up if they took their eyes off of Jesus and grew weary in their faith. We too can get distracted by so many things in our lives that are far less substantial than the Old Covenant itself. The writer of Hebrews was implying that leaving Christ would be like walking out of the Most Holy Place and going back to the Holy Place. For us, though, it can be much more like strolling out of the Most Holy Place, striding out of the Temple grounds and boldly jumping into a mud pit. It is vitally important that we keep our gaze fixed on the superiority of Christ and his Covenant. He is not just greater than the Old Covenant but is far greater than worldly success, comfort, leisure, or anything else that the world can try to distract us with. In that truth we find one of the great themes that lies just beneath the surface throughout the book of Hebrews, but which will finally burst forth on the scene in chapter 12: Keep you eyes fixed on Jesus as the only one that can truly bring you into the presence of God.

Devotional Thought

What process do you have in your life to help you assess whether or not you have kept your eyes focused on Jesus and the wonderful benefits of his Covenant? Maybe you’re constantly assessing yourself against the Word of God, or through prayer, or with the input of other Christians. Whatever the means or combination of methods, when was the last time you really made sure that your eyes were still focused on Jesus and that your life matched where you think your eyes are?