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.