Heb No.16 The New Covenant ch8

Well, I think you'd find it helpful if you had your Bibles open at Hebrews chapter 8. And as such a long time has elapsed between our previous study and this one, maybe I should just spend a moment or two sketching in a little of what we have negotiated regarding the teaching of this glorious epistle. So, one of the main intentions of the person who wrote this letter is to show how Jesus Christ is God's final word to this world. In fact, all that is gathered up in the first few verses of the opening chapter where we find God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times passed unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, and so on.

It's very true to say, as I once heard David Pawson make allusion, that generally speaking, God is always generally speaking. If you think that through, it's not only quite clever, it's very accurate. God is always speaking to his people, and he speaks to us through his Son.

And we read of his Son obviously in the Word of God in both Testaments, for the Old Testament anticipates the ministry of Jesus and the New Testament makes that ministry very plain indeed. And what Jesus has to say is contemporary to us because the Holy Spirit plays upon the Word and upon our minds, and as we read the Word of God, it becomes God's own message to us in which he talks to us a great deal about his Son and about the salvation which the Lord Jesus Christ offers. Now there were, of course, many other people who predated the ministry of Jesus.

They were used by the Lord God to reveal partially what his plan of salvation was. But they were only just a few pieces of the jigsaw concerning the total revelation of God. It was to become clear, it was to become precise, it was to focus and have color and texture in and through Jesus.

And every person who went before the ministry of our Lord, be he ever so great, be he from heaven or on earth, he is inferior to the Savior. So in the opening chapter of Hebrews, references made to the mighty ministry of angels, these celestial beings who from time to time visit earth and are used by God, particularly in Old Testament days and at the beginning of the birth of our Lord Jesus, to communicate something from the Lord. But Jesus is superior to the angels.

That's what the writer says in the first chapter. And then he goes on and he talks to us about other great men. For example, Abraham, perhaps the greatest Jew that there ever was outside our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of the Jewish race, a man who was the friend of God.

But Jesus is greater than Abraham. And that's what the writer is saying in the second chapter. But what about Moses? Because Moses maybe vies with Abraham for the supreme position of importance in Jewish history.

For it was through Moses that the Lord gave the Ten Commandments and the rest of the legislation that we find in the first five books of the Old Testament. Moses, this meek man, this wonder man, this man who was saved at his birth because he should have been drowned in the River Nile, and yet the river that was meant to kill him became in the sovereignty of God his means of salvation as that little babe rests in a tar pitched cradle boat and eventually is adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh and is brought up as a prince in Egypt. This man who has an incisive mind and a great education, who has natural gifts of leadership and who is used by the Lord to rescue the Hebrews from the bondage of Egypt.

He, too, cannot hold head nor shoulders over against the height of Jesus Christ. Great man that Moses is, Jesus is superior. And so, from the fourth and on to the fifth and into the sixth chapter, our writer takes us, talking about several things, about the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, telling us a little in the seventh chapter about that great mysterious man Melchizedek, comparing Melchizedek's priesthood with that of Aaron, and yet coming always relentlessly to the same conclusion that no matter how great these men were, no matter how pregnant the Old Testament sacrificial system was and what its achievements might have been, all the men and all the things are inferior to, inadequate, compared with that of the achievements and the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In fact, you can almost feel the surge of pride that there is within the heart of our author as in the seventh chapter and the twenty-fourth verse of this letter, he speaks again about Jesus and he says, but this man, this man, because he continues ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood, wherefore, verse twenty-five, he is also able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them, for such an high priesthood became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens. I can think of hardly no scripture that compares with those three verses in Hebrews that extols so eloquently our Lord Jesus Christ. If the writer of Hebrews lived in the twentieth century, then I tell you his favorite hymn would be that which we often sing here in the tabernacle, Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of Nations, Son of God, and God the Son.

There's no one to be compared like our Lord Jesus Christ. So if you want one word that summarizes the whole argument up to the seventh chapter and will continue to act as a praese from the eighth and through to the last chapter, it's that word supremo, supreme, superior, for that is what Jesus Christ is. And that's what we're bearing in mind then as we come to examine the eighth chapter, and it's my intention to take you through all these thirteen verses this evening, and then next week we're going to slow down because the ninth chapter is perhaps a little bit more difficult to grasp, and there's a great deal of teaching in that ninth chapter, so I want to be a little more deliberate and take a little longer time when we come to expound it.

But from the eighth chapter right through really to the tenth chapter, you'll find that the writer is going to run an analogy between the Lord Jesus Christ and the tabernacle of Old Testament days, and what's more, he's going to talk to us a great deal about the Mosaic covenant and the New Covenant. You say, I've lost you already. You don't know what the tabernacle is and you don't know what the covenant is.

All right, let's stop and let's explain those terms. The tabernacle was a sort of portable shrine, a portable temple, which the Hebrews erected centuries ago when they were moving from Egypt to the promised land Canaan. Eventually it gave way to a more permanent structure.

When the Hebrews conquered Jerusalem, the temple was built and all that was contained and all that the tabernacle stood for was taken over by the temple. But the tabernacle itself, during the days of the wilderness wanderings of the Hebrews, it became the place for them where God manifested His presence. And as such it was highly important, so important that God spent some forty days telling Moses how to have the tabernacle constructed.

And that's rather interesting because God only took six days in building or creating the world, but forty days in revealing how the tabernacle was to be created or was to be built. And that tabernacle had really two aspects to it. I'm going to deal more with this next week, but here's just a little bit of information that I shall be repeating then.

It has two aspects inasmuch as the tabernacle looks back, or if you like it looks heavenwards, because in one sense it is a reflection of the very place where God exists in the celestial realm. And that's why it was so important that when it was constructed on earth, when a copy of it was made, Moses carried out the instructions to the last detail. But in another sense the tabernacle not only looks backwards and heavenwards, it looks forwards and particularly to the coming of our Lord Jesus.

Because as you'll discover next week, I'm really selling the study for next week now so that you'll all come along, as you'll discover in seven days time all that was prefigured in the tabernacle in its furnishings was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. And ultimately therefore the tabernacle would have to disappear. It would have to be dissolved.

It spoke of heaven and the celestial realm. It predicted Jesus who will make it possible for the likes of you and me to go into the celestial realm. Therefore the tabernacle has great significance and importance indeed.

But there was a second thing that I said you needed to have in mind. Not only the idea of this portable shrine, the tabernacle, and what it stands for, what it prefigures, what it anticipates, but also the covenant. What is a covenant? Well I made a covenant some fourteen years ago, fourteen not forty, just in case some of you were wondering if I'm not a little older than I look.

I made one of the best covenants in my life. I went abroad and I engaged in getting an import from South Africa and brought that precious commodity, my wife, back to this country. And she's mine by contract.

She's mine by covenant and I've got a ring as well as a little bit of paper that indicates that she's mine and vice versa. Though I reckon she didn't get much of the bargain, I also belong to her. That's an illustration of a covenant.

But in the Old Testament, the covenant to which I'm referring is that covenant that God made with His children Israel on Mount Sinai when they pledged to be His children and He pledged to be their God. And that covenant was based on law. It was based on keeping the Ten Commandments and attending to the ritual, the sacrificial system that was to be carried out in the tabernacle, that portable temple to which I made reference.

But that covenant was going to be replaced one day by a better covenant. That's what the writer of the Hebrews is talking about in the last verse of our chapter. It's going to be replaced by the Gospel covenant, a covenant not based on keeping the law, but a covenant based on believing in Jesus Christ, a far, far superior covenant to the old one because it's a covenant that Jesus, the Supreme Person, inaugurates.

So then, you've got to have these two concepts in your mind, that of the tabernacle and that of the covenant, right at the forefront of your thinking as you examine the contents of chapter 8, 9, and chapter 10 of these three separate chapters of the Hebrew Epistle. Now as we come to the contents of Hebrews 8, as is my custom, I've tried to divide them or divide what is taught here into little headings. I'm not suggesting that these headings are watertight, but they're helpful because they act as pegs on which you can hang your own understanding and maybe when you're thinking of the particular teaching then these headings will come back to your mind.

And when you read through this chapter, as I was reading through it aboard the doulos because I prepared this some two or three weeks ago, you will discover, I think, that quite naturally the teaching flows into three headings. For first of all, in the opening verses there are several propositions which the writer has to share with us. And then there are a number of parallels, a number of comparisons that he makes between what Jesus has done and what the Levitical priesthood was able to do.

And then conveniently from the 7th verse to the 12th verse and perhaps dipping into the final verse, the 13th, there is reference to certain prophecies. So let's take the teaching then under these three headings. There are certain propositions which our writer has to share with us concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.

And the first proposition is this. We have a great high priest. Look how it's put in the authorized version of the Bible.

We have such a high priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man. What is our writer here saying about our Lord Jesus Christ? Well, first of all, we've got a great high priest and he uses the qualifying word that we've discovered before in the 7th chapter. He calls him such a great high priest.

Look at the 27th verse where again reference of the previous chapter where again reference is made to what our Lord Jesus Christ has done. And in the 26th verse, for such a high priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled. We've not just got an ordinary high priest.

We have such a great high priest who's in heaven at this moment. And where is he in heaven? Where particularly does he position himself? Well, our writer tells us he's sat down on the throne of the majesty in the heavens. Why is that important? Well, some of you who are more informed perhaps than others know that in that tabernacle to which I made reference that the Hebrews had at Sinai as they made their way through the wilderness, the high priest once a year would go into the holiest place of all, the holy of holies, and there he would stay just for a while and he'd make an atonement symbolically for his sin and for the sin of the people.

But he couldn't stay in the presence of God. But this high priest that we have is of such great quality that he's entered into the immediate presence of God and he hasn't made an exit. He stayed there.

He sat down at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens. And whereabouts or how rather are we to consider of the place in which our Lord dwells, our Lord Jesus Christ? Well, the latter part of the second verse tells us. He is there in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man.

Let's just stop there for a moment in case you've not understood this. You remember I said that the tabernacle not only pointed forward but it also points backwards and upwards. In fact, I suppose you could really narrow that down and just say that it points upwards.

When the writer of the Hebrews is referring to the celestial realm, he speaks of it in terms of the sanctuary in the heavens. Look at the twenty-fourth verse of the ninth chapter. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.

Do you get the point? The tabernacle on earth was a copy of the celestial realm where God is. Now on earth the high priest was able to enter into the holiest place of all once a year, meet with God and make atonement for the sins of the people. But the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't go into the ordinary earthly tabernacle.

That's now dissolved. That's taken away. That's now no longer important.

The amazing thing about the Lord Jesus Christ is He's gone to the real tabernacle, the true tabernacle, the one which the second verse of Hebrews 8 says, the Lord made, the Lord pitched, and not man. And when Jesus went there, He stayed. He stayed and sat down at the right hand of the heavenly Father, and there He intercedes for us.

So here are three glorious propositions. We've got a great high priest, such a high priest, well, there's no one else that can compare with Him. Why do we know He's so great? Well, He holds a position of high honor.

The highest place that heaven affords is His by sovereign right, says Wesley in that great hymn. He stays in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle which is in heaven, of which the earthly tabernacle was but a pale, inadequate, but useful copy. So, then, here's wonderful teaching, just to whet our appetite to start with, three glorious propositions that tell us something about the greatness of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

But not only are there propositions here, there are certain parallels, certain, if you please, for an easier word, certain comparisons which the writer starts to make between those ordinary priests who officiated in the earthly tabernacle and our Lord Jesus Christ as He officiates in the heavenly tabernacle. And once again, conveniently, the writer must have just had threes in mind as he was making this point, because it so happens that there are a trio of comparisons, or they boil down to three basic parallels that he draws between our Lord Jesus Christ and the earthly priests. So, we're now looking at what? From verses three to six.

And what does the writer have to say in the third verse? Well, he makes an obvious point. Every high priest, every ordinary human priest that officiated in the tabernacle in days gone by and in the temple which supersedes, as I reminded you, the tabernacle, every high priest has a specific function. What is that function? Well, it's to offer gifts and sacrifices.

You can't be a priest and have nothing to bring. That would be a very contradiction of your job description. If you're a priest, then you do something.

You bring something before the Godhead. Well, it's necessary, says the writer, that this man, this great person, this supreme high priest has something to offer. Well, what did Aaron bring? Well, he brought the blood of a bullock and of goats.

But Jesus has got something far more important of much greater value than this. Well, what does Jesus present as he ministers as a priest before the Lord? Well, he brings himself. The old priestly sacrifice had to be a perfect one, a perfect bullock, a perfect goat, a perfect lamb.

Ah, turn back to that great verse of the twenty-sixth in the previous chapter and listen again to the description of Jesus. For such a high priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens. These are the excellences of the Christ.

There's nothing that tarnished him. There's nothing that made him inferior. There was nothing that caused him to lose his purity on this earth.

Well, what does he bring to the Father? The twenty-seventh verse tells you. He needs not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the people's. For this he did once when he offered up himself.

Can you believe it? He took his own body and he offered it on your behalf and on my behalf. The priest became the victim. The holiness was besmirched.

A sacrifice was made for the Christ. I accepted the iniquity of your sin and of mine and hung on Calvary's cross. But none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters trod, how dark was the night the Lord went through to find the sheep that was lost.

Praise God for what our high priest has done. He's offered a superior sacrifice to that of any of the other priests in the Old Testament era. His offering is the greatest.

But let's have a look at his credentials. Look at the fourth verse and the fifth verse here. For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest.

Seeing there are priests that offer gifts according to the law, who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things as Moses was admonished of God. Can you really believe your eyes there? Do you know what it says of Jesus? If he were on earth, if he remained on earth, he wouldn't be a priest. You say, that doesn't make sense.

He's prophet, priest and king. Ah, but he's that on the divine level. At the ordinary human level, in the way that Moses understood the priesthood, has it ever occurred to you Jesus couldn't be a priest? Why not? Well, from which tribe came Jesus? The tribe of Judah.

From which tribe came the priest? The tribe of Levi. And so F.F. Bruce brilliantly makes the comment that Jesus on earth, in one sense, was a layman. He couldn't be a priest.

Thank God he couldn't be. Not according to the Levitical priesthood. Does that mean to say then that he's not a priest at all? Of course it doesn't.

It means to say that he's a priest, but with a more superior ministry than any of the Levitical priests. Because, you see, they are priests, staying with verse four, that offer gifts according to the law, who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was instructed of God when he was about to make the tabernacle. But Jesus, verse six, hath obtained a more excellent ministry.

Why? By how much also he is the mediator of the better covenant, which was established upon better credentials. Why is Jesus a greater priest than any of the Levites? Why ought we to thank God that he didn't come from the tribe of Levi? Well, listen to the quote that I give you in your notes. I forget who I took this one from.

But a high priesthood exercised in any earthly shrine is far inferior to that heavenly high priesthood which depends for its exercise on a perfect sacrifice offered once for all. You see, Jesus is not the priest of the earthly sanctuary, of the earthly tabernacle. Jesus is the priest in the heavenly sanctuary, in the heavenly tabernacle.

We've got a man in the glory. We've got a priest in the glory, not an ordinary Levitical priest. But rather one who comes from the tribe of Judah at the human level, who is the son of God at the divine level, and who becomes not just priest and victim, and carries the benefits of his atoning death at Calvary into the heavenly sanctuary itself.

And because he died once, he's able to offer atonement for the sins of the whole world, for the sins of believing mankind. So then, here are two rather glorious parallels. The offerings which the ordinary priest brought, and the offerings which Jesus brought, or the offering which Jesus brought.

The credentials of the ordinary priest trace back to Levi. They exercise authority on earth. They officiate at the tabernacle and in the temple.

But Jesus, his origin is with God. And on the human level, he comes through the tribe of Judah. But his priesthood is not any wit behind that of the Levites.

Indeed, it's far more superior. Well, what about origins? Which you get in the fifth and the sixth verse. And really, I've touched on them.

I've already stolen a lot of what I was going to say in this area in making my last observation. The point really is quite plain. The origin of the vitical priesthood, the origin of the tabernacle, well, it was from God to Moses.

And it constituted the earth and human beings. Moses was instructed by God when he was about to make the tabernacle. And he's given a specific commandment.

He says, when you supervise this, ensure that everything you do is according to the instructions that I have given you. So, the origin of the earthly tabernacle and the business of the priests, it came from the Lord. But it was not earthly.

Earthlings were used, ordinary men. Earthly things were used for the construction of the tabernacle. And Moses was very, very diligent to ensure that everything that God commanded was put into practice.

And our Lord Jesus Christ, too. He has his origin in the heavens. And as Moses precisely fulfilled God's plan on earth regarding the Levitical priesthood and the tabernacle, so Jesus precisely, more than adequately, did all that the Father wanted him to do on this earth.

To the extent that Jesus was able to say almost the final cry that left his lips, it is finished. I've done what you told me to do. I worked according to your plan of salvation.

A plan that was first of all conceived in the heavens. So you see these three parallels. They're rather glorious.

The writer compares what happened in Old Testament days with the ministry of the Lord Jesus. In no way does he belittle the priesthood of the Levites. In no way does he belittle the usefulness of the tabernacle.

But he shows us how the Lord Jesus comes along and he fulfills adequately all that was predicted in these Old Testament rites and in this Old Testament building. And that's the reason you see why the tabernacle must now be dissolved. Because something better has taken its place.

We have the Lord Jesus Christ and the presence of God mediated through Jesus wherever two or three people are gathered together. That's why we as Christian people, and here I just digress, which isn't an exactly uncommon occupation of mine, that's why we Christian people should always war against those who would bring us back to some sort of liturgical, superstitious brand of religion. I speak with feeling because of my experiences in Mexico and seeing some shrines that claim to be Christian and they reminded me more of Hinduism.

We have a plain religion. We don't need any artifice. We don't need any statues.

We don't need any ritual because we have in and through the Lord Jesus Christ the mediation of God's presence wherever His people are. Very often I refer to this building as being the sanctuary. In one sense I shouldn't do that because I would hate you to think, as some people have and I've tried kindly to correct them, that God lives here.

He doesn't. We could meet in Caffyn's Garage on a Sunday and that would be as holy a spot because we are the people of God. We are the church of God.

God dwells amongst His people. His sanctuary becomes wherever His people dwell on this earth and an extension therefore of His sanctuary in the heavens. Well, this is glorious teaching.

Let's move on. And we discover from the seventh verse and onwards that all this is not exactly new because it's been anticipated. The prophets of old, as we might have expected from what the writer said in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 1, they foresaw the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Jeremiah is referred to now and his prophecy is dipped into and there's a pretty generous quotation from Jeremiah chapter 31 verses 31 to 34. That constitutes most of what you find from the seventh verse down to the twelfth verse of Hebrews 8. All right, well if you look at this passage or if you look at the Old Testament passage of Jeremiah, what is predicted? Well, the new covenant, the better covenant, that which will undergird the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. It will be a covenant not built upon the sacrificial system, not built upon works, but it will be a covenant built upon the finished work of Jesus and our faith in the living Christ.

What are the distinguishing marks of this covenant? Well, look at verse 6. We'll dip back to that before we get to the seventh. Jesus hath obtained a more excellent ministry than the Old Testament priests. And He's got a better covenant, and He's the mediator of this covenant, which was established upon better promises.

And it's that word promise that enables the writer to dip into Jeremiah to prove his point. And he goes on to say, if you follow his argument, there needed to be a better covenant, because verse 7, the first covenant was not faultless. What does he mean by the first covenant not being faultless? Well, it didn't achieve what it might have achieved.

There was nothing wrong with the covenant in itself, but there was a lot wrong with the people that were involved in the making of the covenant. Romans 8 chapter 3 makes some reference to the covenant and the weakness of human flesh. Men and women just couldn't keep that covenant, so something better had to be inaugurated.

So, the eighth verse. For finding fault with the old covenant, God says through Jeremiah, behold the days cometh the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Well, what is a distinguishing mark between this old covenant and the new covenant? Well, this old covenant, verse 9, will not be according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

They broke that covenant, they couldn't keep it, but the new covenant they'll be able to keep, because it's going to be based on the finished work of Jesus, and it will do something far more wonderful than the old covenant ever could do. Well, what will it do? Well, I suggest from verse 10 to the twelfth verses, three little adages, three little expressions which help to sum it all up. Look at my comment at the side of verse 10.

This new covenant will be internal and not external, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. In other words, there will be a change in the hearts of the folks who receive this new covenant.

Let me use an illustration to underpin what I mean. By a change of heart as opposed to something that's purely an external regulation that's imposed on someone. You ever seen a youngster when he's about 12 or 13 years of age, a young fellow, he doesn't understand why it is that his mom's always telling him to wash his neck, to put on a clean shirt, and to look reasonably tidy when he goes out, maybe to church or some other engagement.

And then suddenly, almost overnight, perhaps he's 14 or 15, he smartens himself up and starts to comb his hair, and he starts to look pretty handsome and tidy. What's happened? Well, you see, there's a certain young lady who's taken his fancy, and as a result of that, he's gone through a change of heart. What mom was unable to do in 13 or 14 years, a girl can do in 24 hours.

Mom came along with external regulations, put on a clean shirt, put on your tie, have your hair combed, look nice, and he thought it's so, so irksome to do what mom says. Because he doesn't want to do it. You see, it's all external, but when he falls in love, it's internal.

He wants to improve himself, because there's an object of his affection that's captured everything. And he wants to look nice, because he wants to win the love of the girl that he's fallen for. So it is with this new covenant.

It's something of the heart. It's God entering into the being of an individual. It's not a question of regulations, though the Ten Commandments will still have their value.

They'll still be loved by those who've trusted Jesus as Savior. But the fact is that what was external has become internal as the Spirit of the living God has entered into the experience of the person who's trusted Jesus. Therefore the comment's made, I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts.

I will be to them a God, and they will be to me a people. And what's more, this new covenant is going to be direct. It's not going to be communicated.

It's not just a question of someone coming along and telling you what he knows, passing on his own experience. That won't be good enough. No, everyone shall know the Lord, for all shall know me, verse 11, from the least to the greatest.

And that, of course, is the chief essential of the Christian faith, that living experience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not communicated by someone else, but felt experimentally by oneself. And this is life eternal, says Jesus, that they might know thee, that they might know God for themselves.

And the 12th verse, well that captures it all. It's not going to be incomplete, it's going to be partial, it's going to be complete. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

This is going to be the marvelous thing about the new covenant. We won't need a priest to go in and offer a sacrifice before the Lord every year. We will have no doubts as to our salvation, our cleansing from sin.

It won't be partial, it won't be something that's promised in the future, it will be something that's real and complete and immediate. That will be the benefit of the new covenant. So you see, and here we come right to the end of our study this evening, the reason why this grand conclusion can be drawn at the end of the 8th chapter.

There's no point in looking back to the old covenant and to the old tabernacle. It's not just that God's made another one. It's not just that He's put a second one in its place.

Rather He's made a new covenant and the old is now obsolete. The old is old. It's passed away.

It doesn't need to be returned at all. All those Old Testament sacrifices, all the lack of security of the Old Testament people as to whether they'd really done enough to ensure their salvation, all that is a thing of the past. Because Jesus has come and He's bled and He's died.

And the Spirit of Jesus has entered the heart of the Christian. What was external has become internal. What was in the future has now become the present.

And it's possible for us to know, always and ever, and for it to get better and better, the presence of the living God. We have not just a high priest. We've also got a sanctuary, for wherever God's people are, there He dwells.

And one day, in God's grace, we shall be taken from the presence of God that we understand, impart, and experience, and enjoy here on this earth, into heaven itself. And we shall know it fully. We shall know it completely.

We're bound for that city whose Maker and whose Builder is God. We're going to the same place as Jesus went to, when in the 24th verse of the 9th chapter, we read, and I repeat it again, Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. And where Jesus is, one day, blessed be God, we shall be.

And until that day, by the power of the Spirit, we can still know the nearness and the closeness of the living, loving Lord Jesus Christ. Thank God for the new tabernacle. Thank God for the new covenant.

Amen.