Heb No.17 The Tabernacle Ch9

I'd be glad if you'd have your Bibles open at Hebrews chapter 9. The other day I received back several packets of photographs that I'd taken when I was away from you at the other side of the world. And of course in the return of my photographs they included the original negatives. Now if I was to show you the negatives, you wouldn't really appreciate much of the geography and scenery and indeed history of the country of Mexico, which all these photographs actually are taken from.

But if I were to show you the actual photograph itself, then you'd be able to say, well that looks like you at the front of the picture and it looks like part of a Mexican pyramid scene in the distance. And you would be quite right. The negative is very vital for the production of this photograph.

The photograph is the most important thing because the photograph is the fulfillment of the negative. So if you dispensed with that, then you wouldn't have this. And if you only had this, well it would be sufficient, it would be interesting, but if you wanted another copy, then you'd want to come back to the negative.

You say, you thought that this was going to be a Bible study on Hebrews and not a lecture on photography. Well you're quite right, because I know very little about photography. In fact, there's so much teaching in Hebrews, I'm not too sure that I know a great deal about this epistle, but I will share what little I do with you.

But you see, the analogy that I'm opening up with this evening is very relevant and perhaps in one sense it's very helpful, because the Old Testament is the negative. And when the negative goes through a certain prophetic fulfillment, when it's developed, then you get the photograph in all its plainness, in all its clarity. The Old Testament anticipates in negative fashion what shall be displayed clearly in the New Testament.

Somewhere in one of his books, I think it's his recent book on Knowing God, Dr. Jim Packer suggests that we should all be beavers for the Bible. And you know what a beaver is, it's a very industrious animal that just burrows its way through the earth. And Packer has the delightful thought that any person who is really filled with the Spirit of God has such a desire for the Word of God that he'll burrow back from the New Testament into the Old Testament, and the things of the new will become that much more precious and meaningful because of what he has gleaned from the Old Testament.

So, what I'm trying to do in this series of addresses from Hebrews is to show you how both parts of our Bible, the First and the Second, the Old Testament and the New Testament, are necessary one for the other. The Old is a negative, the New is the final print, but the two are integral, the two are related. And you can never really come to a full understanding of the majesty of the epistle to the Hebrews if you're ignorant of the Old Testament.

That's one of the reasons why I suggested that we read from that chapter which I brought to your attention a little while ago. And of course there are several other passages of Scripture that are really very basic in the Old Testament to our studies this evening. Well, thank God for the opportunity of, in studying Hebrews, being able to reflect back to the negative and see how Hebrews fulfills and makes plain what is perhaps a little bit obscure and unclear like this negative here in my hand is in the Old Testament.

You remember that last time I was talking to you about the covenant that the Lord Jesus Christ came to bring and represented in Himself, and how that new covenant made obsolete the old covenant which God enacted with Moses. But we didn't really start off, if your memory is good, on the theme of covenant. We started off in a building, and I had to describe a little bit about that building because the rest of the chapter necessitated such.

But it seems as though in the eighth chapter of Hebrews, having started with the building which is called the tabernacle, then our writer goes on to speak more about the covenant which was basic to the tabernacle. And now in the ninth chapter he's coming back to the building again, the tabernacle. And that's what I want to talk to you about this evening, because basic to the first eleven verses and indeed flowing on to some of the other verses in this chapter is the thought of the tabernacle, what it was, what it represented, what it became for those who have prophetic insight.

Let me remind you, just in case you weren't with us last week and in case your knowledge of the Old Testament is somewhat uneven, that the tabernacle was a sort of portable temple that the Hebrews erected in the wilderness of Sinai. They built it in a portable fashion so that as they went on their journeyings, which ultimately took them through into the promised land, they would have somewhere to worship the Lord. Eventually the tabernacle gave way to the temple and became therefore a very permanent structure until it was knocked down in Jerusalem.

But we're not thinking so much of the temple this evening as that tabernacle, that rather remarkable portable construction made by the Hebrews centuries ago as a band of pilgrims, they moved through the wilderness of Sinai. Now, this tabernacle was a very wonderful construction, but even more wonderful was what the tabernacle represented. Now it's what the tabernacle stood for that we find comment on in the previous chapter, in the eighth chapter.

So let's just turn back to that and dip into it for a moment or so. The point of what we're saying is this, this is Hebrews 8 verse 1. We do have such a high priest who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man. So there's another tabernacle, not just the portable construction that was erected from time to time by the Hebrews in various places in the wilderness of Sinai, but the tabernacle which that one, the earthly one, represented is in heaven itself.

So, in one sense, you could say that the tabernacle looks back, the earthly tabernacle, or perhaps more accurately, it looks upward. It looks to the place where God is. Now you know that when the Hebrews were using the tabernacle during their passage through Sinai, from time to time, once a year, they really believed that God came down literally into the tabernacle and there there was an audience given to the high priest.

And indeed on other occasions they saw the Shekinah, glory of God, surround the tabernacle. But the thing that is of course most interesting and of greatest importance is this, that where God is in the heavenlies, where His presence resides in heaven, there is a sanctuary akin to that earthly sanctuary. And the tabernacle on earth was a replica, inadequate but significant, of that tabernacle in the heavens.

So when you're confronted in Exodus with the thought of the Hebrews building this portable temple, then look up, because it represents something wonderful. But not only look upwards, look onwards, because the tabernacle is pointing forward in time to something wonderful that's going to happen. It's going to speak of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all the sacrifices that take place in the tabernacle, all the priesthood, is going to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Because in the Lord Jesus, of course, you have the embodiment of God. It's very interesting, isn't it? When in John's Gospel you read of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we come across that beautiful expression that the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, and taking that right back to the original language, it says this, the Word tabernacled amongst us. So have you got the thought? Here is this construction of the Hebrews in Sinai, the tabernacle, and it's a reflection of that great tabernacle in the heavenlies.

It stands for the place where God makes His presence dwell. But it points forward to the Lord Jesus, who is the fulfillment of everything that the tabernacle anticipates. The tabernacle is a negative.

The Lord Jesus is the full realization, the full development of all that the tabernacle anticipates. So then, you've got to have that in your mind. When you come to this ninth chapter, because as I say, the writer of the Hebrews, from the opening comment about the tabernacle in the eighth chapter, now returns to it and he tells us a little bit about the earthly tabernacle, its contents, and also what I've called its concepts.

Because the tabernacle itself teaches us prophetically certain things about the Lord Jesus, and it also anticipates certain blessings that shall come our way. I remember some while ago when we had a brother from India, Pastor Henry Nerella, with us. On the Monday after he'd ministered here on the Lord's Day, I went to London with him.

He'd never been in England before, and I thought, seeing as I had a day's spare, it would be a kindly gesture to take him to the metropolis and to do the sites, to quote an expression used very often by our American friends. We did London in about six hours. London did me as far as walking was concerned.

But we went into Westminster Abbey, of course. That was, I think, number one stopping off point. And I was able to take him around Westminster Abbey.

And that enshrines so much of English history. I could spend, I don't think I'm exaggerating, days in Westminster Abbey. I'm fascinated by the place because it has so much to tell of the drama of this country.

And so I took him, first of all, across that flagstone placed in memory of the unknown soldier and showed him various of the tombs and the memorial plaques. I told him a little bit, as much as I recalled of British history. And it seems to me that when you come to the beginning verses, the commencing verses of the ninth chapter of Hebrews, what you've got is a little tour of the tabernacle.

Not the whole thing, because there isn't time to see the whole. He's just doing the essentials as I was doing the essentials in London for Henry Norella. And we have in front of us, not the whole tabernacle area, for that was quite large.

But we have just to think about the heart of the tabernacle, which actually was an oblong or a rectangular shape. It was only some 30 feet long and 15 feet wide and 15 feet high. And it was in two parts.

The top part was curtained off, making a perfect square. And that was called the Holy of Holies. And the first part was called, I believe in the Hebrew tongue, the Debia, the holy place.

Into the holy place, the priests could go day by day. But into the Holy of Holies, where God manifested Himself from time to time, only the high priests could go once a year. So, that's the general outline of the tabernacle.

Let's just have another look around at a closer degree for a moment or two. If you were to go into the heart of the tabernacle, then the first thing you'd have to do is to push your way through the curtain that surrounded the whole of the rectangle. And immediately you went into the holy place.

Not the Holy of Holies, the holy place. You'd noticed something significant. There was no natural light at all.

There was light given, but not through nature. There was light given by a lampstand. A lampstand very beautifully constructed with seven individual lights.

The lampstand was made out of pure gold. You could look ever so carefully and you wouldn't find a joint. You wouldn't find a bolt.

You wouldn't find anything that connected one part to the other, because it was all made of solid gold. It was beautiful beyond degree. And it was from the lampstand that the light was given in the holy place.

Now, because the lamps were always kept burning, you would be able to pick up also a table. On the table, there was bread. To be quite accurate, there were twelve loaves.

They were arranged in series of two sixes. And, of course, they stood, as is obvious I'm sure to most of you who have knowledge of the Old Testament, they stood for the twelve tribes of Israel. God had said in the book of Exodus, as he gave instructions to Moses, that bread had to be shown in the holy place continually.

A representation, if you like, of the people in front of the presence of the Most High God. So, you've got the scene. You're in the holy place.

In the outer part of the tabernacle, you've pushed your way through the curtain and you can see the lamps giving out light and you spot the table on which is the showbread or the shoebread. Well, if you go a little further forward, you will then see a very majestic curtain that's almost like a tapestry. It's very thick.

It's beautifully embroidered. The tapestry itself is in blue and embroidered in gold across the curtain there are cherubim. You say, what are cherubim? Well, they're a special type of angel, perhaps the highest or one of the highest angelic orders.

And as you stand in front of the curtain, then you will find behind it the altar of golden incense. It belonged actually to the holy of holies, but it's found in the outer sanctuary. And there, as the name indicates, incense was burnt before the Lord as part of the Old Testament way of worship.

But let's suggest for a moment that you can do something that the high priest alone in Israel could do, as I say, every 12 months. Let's suggest that you push your way through that beautifully embroidered thick tapestry and you're going to the holiest place of all, the most sacred spot in the Judaic religion. And what confronts your eyes there? Well, you'll see the ark, the ark of the covenant.

Reference is made to it in the fourth verse of my chapter. The ark is made out of acacia wood. That's probably translated shitting wood in the authorized version of the Bible.

It is the hardest wood in Sinai. It's incorruptible wood. And it's overlaid by pure gold.

And at each corner of the ark, which is relatively a small box-like shape, there is a loop made of gold. And those loops are there so that the ark can be transported. For remember, this is a portable shrine.

It has to be because the Hebrews are just pilgrims going through the Sinai wilderness. That ark is the most sacred spot, as I say, in the whole of the Jewish religion. On the top of the ark, there's a slab of pure gold, which sits comfortably just on the surface, the top surface of the covenant.

But perhaps the thing that would catch your eyes most of all would be the cherubim. Those angelic creatures, two of them, who are facing inwards. They're facing towards one another.

And they're made integral with that gold slab. Again, there's no joint at all. The two cherubim, or the two cherubs, and the slab are all one.

And they've got wings, which flow out from their back. And they do an ark right over the covenant, the ark of the covenant. Itself.

And that is the mercy seat. It's a place where God contracts to meet with the high priest, to have mercy on him, his household, and by proxy on the Hebrew community, and to forgive them their sins that they have committed in their ignorance. Within the ark itself are two or three very significant things.

And perhaps the most important is the tablets of stone on which were engraven the commandments of God, the laws of God, the covenant that Moses entered into on behalf of the people with Jehovah at the summit of Sinai. The reason why the ark is called the ark of the covenant is simply because those two slabs, those two stones with the writing of the Lord's commands are kept within the box. There are also the golden jar of manna and Aaron's rod that budded.

You remember how the Lord in his mercy fed the Hebrews during the whole of the time in the wilderness with this miraculous provision of manna? Well, a golden representative of that was encased and placed in the ark. And then Aaron's rod that distinguished Aaron as being the true priest of God with his family and his descendants, that rod which miraculously budded, that too was kept in the ark. And when eventually the tabernacle gave way to the most permanent building, the temple itself, the ark was transferred into the temple and indicates, as I say, its importance for Jewish rites of worship.

Well then, I hope I've whetted your appetite. I wish I was an artist because I'd like to have drawn a little representation, but perhaps words have been sufficient to describe to you a little glimpse of what you would have seen had you entered the tabernacle in the days of the Hebrews' wanderings in the wilderness of Sinai. Now, all these various pieces of furniture and all the priestly sacrifices that would ensue in the tabernacle and around the tabernacle area, they stood for something.

That's what our writer is saying here in the fifth verse. We cannot discuss these things in detail now, but he does go on to tell us certain aspects of their significance. Now, if you check the commentaries, you will find that ingenuity knows no bounds among some people as they have got the most weird and fanciful interpretations from the minutest part of the tabernacle, and maybe they'd have done better if they'd have been as modest as the writer of the Hebrews, because sometimes the best prizes go to the ones with the most vivid imagination.

But there are certain principles that are embedded within the tabernacle, certain concepts, certain teachings, which anticipate the ministry of whom? Well, the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, having shown you something of the contents of the tabernacle, let me try to describe, or let me try to teach, some of the concepts that are embedded within this marvelous structure. Let's come to the sixth verse, and here we're told about the priests.

Now, the priests, obviously, were the people who looked after this portable structure. They were responsible for carrying it from place to place and for setting it up until eventually they reached the promised land. But there were other ministries, of course.

When it was set up, the priests were the people who would officiate. The priests were the people, for example, who would replenish the oil in the lampstand to ensure that the lights were always kept burning. They would look after the lampstand, and then they would place the incense upon the altar of incense so that God could be worshipped in the beautiful aroma which would pervade the whole of the sanctuary.

And what's more, they baked the bread. Such a domestic role as that fell to the lot of the priests. Every seven days, the showbread representing the Israelites, the twelve tribes, that would be replaced.

So, the priests would minister before the Lord in the tabernacle. Now, let's just pause there for a moment, because we're obviously not straining any interpretation. When I bring to you the blatant fact that you and I are priests unto the Lord, that's exactly what Peter says and why so often I get you to sing that little Scripture chorus.

Come and praise Him, royal priesthood. Come and worship, holy nation, for we are ministers of the Lord. We are priests of the Lord.

And as the lampstand had to be replenished with the oil, so we need to have in fillings of the Holy Spirit. So, we need to feed upon the bread of God's Word. So, we need to worship the Lord, not just because it's our duty, but because we're so full of His Spirit that we want to praise Him.

And the very incense of the Old Testament era becomes the praise that pours out of the lips of the children of the living God. What the tabernacle stood for, typically, we can outwork at a practical level in the new era because we are priests of the living God, and His presence is always wherever His people dwell. For where two or three are gathered together, says the Lord Jesus in my name, there am I in the midst.

There I tabernacle. That's why it's not the building like this, beautiful though our own church is here on the south coast of England. It's not the building that's important, it's the people because God is where the people are, and we minister to the Lord in His tabernacle as we come together.

But perhaps more importantly for us and the whole argument of Hebrews, we are to see in the seventh verse the scene of the high priest who's now moving from the holy place into the holiest place of all, the holy of holies. And he's bringing with him blood, the blood of an animal that he has slain for himself. And also he's going to bring the blood of a goat that he slain for the people.

It's the day of atonement. It's a special day in the year, in the calendar of the Jewish people. Listen to what happens on the day of atonement, and I'm reading a very accurate and a very precise summary from a commentary by Dr. Philip Hughes, which I use a great deal and thank God for.

Says Dr. Philip Hughes, the ritual of the day of atonement is described in Leviticus 16. First of all, the high priest offered a bull as a sin offering for himself at the brazen altar of sacrifice in the courtyard of the tabernacle, and carried some of its blood into the holy of holies, wherein the enveloping cloud of incense he sprinkled it on and before the mercy seat. Then he killed one of a pair of goats as a sin offering for the people, and repeated the same ceremonial with the blood from this victim.

This done, he came out and laid his hands on the head of the remaining goat, confessing over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel and all their transgressions and all their sins. This goat was then led into the wilderness, symbolically bearing away all their sins, never to return. Properly understood, the ritual of the day of atonement in its various parts was sacramental in character, inviting the people to look beyond the sign to the reality, yet to be fulfilled when the perfect high priest would come, able to represent them without hindrance of sin in the presence of God, and would offer the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness and removal of their sins forever.

That's a very interesting, helpful, albeit brilliant summary of what happened in the holiest place of all once a year. But you see, my friend, that was just the negative. It wasn't the full picture we were waiting for.

They were waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus. And when the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary offers His own body outside the holy city of Jerusalem, He is making that final sacrifice for sins forever. He takes upon Himself my iniquity and your iniquity.

He doesn't have to offer a sacrifice for Himself, for He never sinned. That was a problem with the Levitical priesthood. Aaron and all his descendants, they too were sinners.

They couldn't go into the holy place sinless. They could only bring the involuntary offering of a brute beast, the blood of a bullock, the blood of a goat. But that can never take away sins, not properly.

It can point to the one who might. It can speak eloquently of what is to come. It can be the negative that anticipates the full photograph, but it's inadequate.

But blessed be God, when the Christ comes and dies on Calvary's hill, the place of atonement is moved from the holy of holies in the temple to that skull-shaped hill and on the Roman gibbet, bloody spilt, which forever shall put away the sin of a believing humanity. The holy place, respected, revered, becomes a place of contempt where a hostile, contemptuous crowd spews up its indifference and its cynicism to the Lord Jesus. Little knowing that on that hill, He was fulfilling all that the tabernacle stood for down the centuries.

And what happened when the Christ gave up His life? That curtain, emblazoned with the golden emblems of the cherubim, was ripped, rent in sunder from top to bottom. And the prophecy that is really embedded within the tabernacle is fulfilled. Not just once a year, not just one person, but always, for every believer, the way is now open into the holy presence of the living God.

And of this, our author shall speak more fully and perhaps even more eloquently in the chapters that are yet to come. Now look, if you've followed me so far, and I don't want to insult your intelligence, but I don't really see how you could have failed to follow, because the whole thing is relatively simple once you do that initial tour of the tabernacle. If you've followed me so far, you will understand why it is now that the earthly tabernacle needs to be put down, so to speak, dismantled in favor of the true tabernacle, or if you like, in favor of the true picture.

While the former tabernacle stands, then all that Jesus has achieved shall never be realized in all its fullness, in all its benefits. That's precisely what our writer is saying in the eighth verse. 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 standing.

But remove the first tabernacle. Why? Because now it's no longer relevant. Now it's no longer necessary.

All that it anticipated, all that it looked forward to is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. The way into the holiest place has been opened up by the shed blood of the Lamb. And all the priestly functions referred to in the tenth verse, all the gifts and sacrifices referred to in the ninth verse, though they were significant, they had a limited value.

As the last part of the tenth verse is made plain in the NIV, external regulations applying until the time of the new order, or if you want it in the AV, imposed on them until the time of reformation. You thought that the reformation was something begun by Martin Luther and the baton caught by John Calvin not a bit. The reformation started when Jesus came, when our blessed Savior took flesh and tabernacled amongst men.

When Jesus, verse 11, Christ being come and the high priest of good things to come, when he manifested himself. I want verse 11 to be my starting point next week, and I trust that you'll all be here so I can continue something that so thrills my soul. I exaggerate now that I could go on for another hour or so with no problem at all.

This just so captures my emotions and my heart when I think of what Jesus Christ has done. But let me just pray, see what I've tried to share with you this evening. We've had in mind the earthly tabernacle, that little, well not so little, that rather remarkable portable temple in the days of Sinai when it was first constructed.

And it's got two looks to it, if you like. It's got an upward look and it's got a forward look. It reflects something of the presence of Almighty God, for the tabernacle is the place on earth where God shall manifest his presence.

But it also speaks prophetically of what is yet to be, when the earthly shall give way to the heavenly, when the man-made thing shall be replaced by the God-made structure, when Jesus shall come and manifest his glory. And when Jesus, having died, hear this, then is resurrected, forty-odd days later ascends. And where does he go? He goes back to the true tabernacle, made not with the hands of men, but constructed eternally by God.

And he not only enters the holiest place of the heavenlies, but he stays there. And he intercedes for you and for me. And I found that thought of the intercessory ministry of Christ so compelling last night that I was in my study until about one o'clock in the morning, just glorying in what Jesus is doing for me and for you right now.

And indeed, I want to share a little bit of that on Sunday evening because it's so evangelistic and it's so wonderful. Well, thank God for the tabernacle. The earthly tabernacle that the Hebrews knew.

But thank God that that's given way. The negative has been replaced by its fulfillment. God has tabernacled amongst us, and now there's a way through into the heavenlies for us to go spiritually and one day to be with the Lord eternally.

Amen.