Hebrews 9:1-7 – The First vs. The Greater Tabernacle

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 28 Apr. 2019

Omitting greyed-out text should bring presentation time down to about 45 minutes.

Intro: This sermon is about Tabernacles

• What is a tabernacle? It is a place where someone camps out for a while. What we’re going to be looking at is the question of, “Where is it appropriate for the Almighty God to tabernacle?”

  • Perhaps He needs a building that is gigantic – like Mount Olympus because He is so big?

  • Perhaps He needs a place that is opulently decorated with gold like Solomon’s temple because His majesty is so great?

  • Certainly it should be suitable to His nature, and, of course, it should be immaculately clean.

  • Where does God tabernacle today?

• After contrasting the first covenant with the new covenant and its better promises in chapter 8, the apostle turns in chapter 9 to contrast the tabernacle of the first era with the greater tabernacle that is ours¹!

• Now, there is some debate between Bible scholars as to whether the word “first” in verse 1 is speaking of the first covenant or of the first tabernacle. The word “covenant” is not there in any Greek manuscript, but there are about twenty later Greek manuscripts which insert the word σκηνη (“first tabernacle”), and this addition made it into all the traditional Greek New Testament editions (including the Textus Receptus, and Greek Orthodox patriarchal).

  • It is understandable that an editor of the Greek New Testament would want to insert a noun here to explain the “first what?” and indeed, every English version of the Bible takes this very editorial liberty, but all the English versions insert the word “covenant” instead of “first tabernacle.”

  • The word “covenant” did appear four verses previous, and it matches this word for “first,” and the “new covenant” was the main topic of the previous verses², but, at the beginning of chapter 9, we are at a turning point which moves from the topic of the “covenant” to the topic of the “tabernacle/holy place/sanctuary,” and the next few verses focus on the tabernacle and the holy places it, so I think that is a better match for the word for “first” here.

  • The “covenant” and the “tabernacle” are integrally related, so this debate isn’t a theological game-changer; I’m just explaining why my translation is following the traditional Greek New Testament instead of the standard English versions.

v.1 So, in the same way, the first [tabernacle] contained the earthly sanctuary and regulations for service,

• We begin with a comparison of two things which the old and the new had in common. The two accusative objects of the verb “had” are: δικαιώματα/ordinances/regulations and τό ἅγιον - the sanctuary.

1. Both covenants and places of worship have ordinances/regulations/standards of what is right, governing the religious services of worship.

• That was true for the Old Testament:

  • The summary verse at the end of the book of Numbers reads: “These are the commandments, and the δικαιώματα/ordinances, and the judgments, which the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses...” (Numbers 36:13).

  • Then in the prologue to the law in the book of Deuteronomy it says, “And now, Israel, hear the δικαιωμάτων/ordinances and judgments, all that I teach you this day to do...” (Deuteronomy 4:1, Brenton)

• In the New Testament, we also have δικαιώματα

  • Romans 5:18 “Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act [δικαιώματος] the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.”

  • Romans 8:3-4 “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement [δικαίωμα] of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but accord­ing to the Spirit.” (NKJV)

1. The second thing that both the old and the new have in common is a sanctuary/holy place on earth³.

• In the Old Testament, the Holy Place in the tabernacle/temple was holy because the Holy God’s presence camped out there. It was made with human hands: Exodus 25:8 “...let them make Me a sanctuary [ἁγίασμα], that I may dwell among them… 28:26 “...when he goes into the holy place before the Lord… Aaron shall bear the judgments of the children of Israel on his breast before the Lord continually." (Brenton)

• In the New Testament, the Holy God came to earth in the person of Jesus, camping out in a human body⁴.

  • The angel [told Mary], "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One [τὸ ἅγιον] who is to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35, NKJV)

  • The Apostle Peter also testified in Acts 3:13-15, “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus... the Holy One [τὸν ἅγιον] and the Just [δίκαιον]... the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.” (NKJV)

• V.2 commences a description of the inner rooms of the tabernacle and temple of the O.T.

v.2 Indeed a tabernacle was furnished, in which, as for the front [room] which is called “Holy,” there was both the lampstand and the table with the layout of the loaves,

• The menorah/lampstand held seven oil lamps⁵ and was made of pure gold, ornately carved in the shape of almond blossoms.

• The table was a normal dining table, but made of acacia wood and overlaid with gold plating.

• On the table was placed 12 giant loaves of flatbread in two piles. The Greek phrase for them here in Heb. 9 is literally “the layout of the loaves” but different translators have used differ­ent words to bring out the special purpose of the bread: “shewbread/sacred/consecrated bread of the Presence.” This bread represented the 12 tribes of Israel before the presence of God⁶.

• God was very particular about how all these things were to be made and how they were to be set up, and who could tend them, and how all the tools for tending to it were to be cared for.

• The instructions for making that lampstand⁷ and table other stuff in that sacred space were given in Exodus 25 and 26:30-36 "And you shall raise up the tabernacle according to its pat­tern which you were shown on the mountain. You shall make a veil woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen. It shall be woven with an artistic design of cherubim. You shall hang it upon the four pillars of acacia wood overlaid with gold. Their hooks shall be gold, upon four sockets of silver. And you shall hang the veil from the clasps. Then you shall bring the ark of the Testimony in there, behind the veil. The veil shall be a divider for you between the holy place and the Most Holy... You shall set the table outside the veil, and the lampstand across from the table on the side of the tabernacle toward the south....” (Brenton)

• Leviticus 24:1-9 Now Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "Command the children of Israel that they get clarified, pressed olive oil to you for the lamp, in order to offer up light con­tinuously; Aaron must arrange it continuously before the face of Yahweh from evening until morning outside of the veil of the testimony in the Tent of Meeting. .. You must also get fine flour and bake it into twelve bread-loaves – two bags per one bread-loaf, and you must place them in arrangements of twos (six being the arrangement) upon the table of purity before the face of Yahweh... From Day of Rest to Day of Rest he shall arrange it [the bread] to be a lasting covenant before the face of Yahweh continuously from the children of Israel...” (NAW)

• I went into more detail on these furnishings in my sermon on Leviticus 24 two years ago, but here is my conclusion from that sermon, relating the furnishings of the Old Testament Holy Place to what we have in the new: “Jesus said... ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.’ (John 6:35), Jesus also said, ‘I am the light of the world.’ (John 8:12) Now consider this. Where is Jesus right now? Luke 22:69 ‘Hereafter the Son of Man will sit on the right hand of the power of God.’ Our “light” and our “bread” who is one of us, united with us by a human body, now that the ear­thly temple no longer exists, stands in the holy presence of God in heaven, continuing to rep­resent us, never sleeping, never failing to remind God to show favor to us! Jesus is the fulfill­ment of that light and that bread in the Holy Place. He is in the real holy place in heaven!”

v.3 then beyond the second curtain a tabernacle which is called, “Holy of Holies,”

• The first veil would be the exterior entrance between the temple courtyard and the front holy room of the temple building, and the second one would be the partition between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place.

  • This was the veil that was torn in two upon the death of Christ⁸,

  • and it was a copy of the heavenly veil entered into by Christ to make atonement for us in heaven: Hebrews 6:19 “which [hope] we have like an anchor of the soul, both unfailing and confirmed, even entering into the inner-place that was curtained-off" (NAW)

• The furniture which that inner room contained is described next:

v.4 containing a golden incense-altar and the ark of the coven­ant covered all-over with gold, in which was a golden jar con­taining the manna, and the rod of Aaron which sprouted, and the tablets of the covenant.

There were two pieces of furniture especially for the inner room of the Holy of Holies: an incense altar and an ark/memorial box.

• The incense altar was a little square table, gold-plated, on which incense was laid and burnt. The instructions for making it were in Exodus 30⁹.

  • Most versions¹⁰ of Hebrews 9 seems to describe the incense altar as being in the Holy of Holies rather than in the Holy Place,

  • but the instructions for its setup located it outside in the holy place: Exodus 40:2-6 "...set up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting. You shall put in it the ark of the Testimony, and partition off the ark with the veil. You shall bring in the table and arrange the things that are to be set in order on it; and you shall bring in the lampstand and light its lamps. You shall also set the altar of gold for the incense before the ark of the Testimony, and put up the screen for the door of the tabernacle...”

  • It’s also clear from other passages of scripture that the priests offered incense on that altar every morning and evening in the outer holy place, not the inner holy of holies¹¹.

  • I suspect that here in Hebrews 9, the altar of incense is lumped together with the ark of the covenant (which WAS in the Holy of Holies) due to the close association between the use of that altar of incense and the priest’s annual entry into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement¹², as described in Lev. 16:12-14. The priest was to "...take a censer full of burning coals of fire from the altar before the LORD, with his hands full of sweet incense beaten fine, and bring it inside the veil. And he shall put the incense on the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the Testi­mony, lest he die. He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side; and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.” (NAW)

  • Does the New Covenant have any such thing? Check out this passage from the New Testa­ment book of Revelation 8:3-4 “Then another [messenger], having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the [messenger’s] hand.” (NKJV) Incense symbolizes our prayers, and there is no longer a veil between our prayers and God’s ear, Jesus, our high priest brings our prayers directly to the right hand of God!

• The main piece of furniture in the Holy of Holies was the ark of the covenant, a rectangular, wooden box plated all over with gold-leaf and containing several special items that reminded the Jews of their covenantal relationship with God. Ex. 25 gives the spec’s on this piece of furniture and Heb. 9:3 lists the three things contained in that box:

1. A golden half-gallon storage-jar full of manna-meal that came as food from God while the Hebrews were wandering in the desert. This signified God’s provision for His people’s physical needs. (Exodus 16:33 And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a golden pot, and cast into it one full homer of manna; and thou shalt lay it up before God, to be kept for your generations” ~Brenton)

2. A stick with Aaron’s name carved on it and which had sprouted almond-blossoms and fruit, signifying God’s provision of a high priest for His people to make them right with God. (Numbers 17:2-11 “...take rods... from all their princes, according to the houses of their families, twelve rods, and write the name of each on his rod. And write the name of Aaron on the rod of Levi… And ... put them in the tabernacle of witness, before the testimony… And it shall be, the man whom I shall choose, his rod shall blossom... And Moses laid up the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness. And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi blossomed, and put forth a bud, and bloomed blossoms and produced almonds. And Moses brought forth all the rods from before the Lord to all the sons of Israel; and they looked, and each one took his rod. And the Lord said to Moses, Lay up the rod of Aaron before the testimonies to be kept as a sign for the children of the disobedient; and let their murmuring cease from me...” (Brenton)

3. Two stone tablets prepared by Moses on which God had carved the 10 Commandments, signifying that God had communicated His values to them in words. (Deut. 10:3-5 “So I made an ark of boards of incorruptible wood, and I hewed tables of stone like the first, and I went up to the mountain, and the two tables were in my hand. And he wrote upon the tables according to the first writing the ten commandments, which the Lord spoke to you in the mountain out of the midst of the fire, and the Lord gave them to me. And I turned and came down from the mountain, and I put the tables into the ark which I had made; and there they were, as the Lord commanded me.” ~Brenton, cf. 1 Kings 8:9)

• Each of these three items was a reminder of God’s grace despite the sin of the people, for it was their murmuring that precipitated the manna, their disputing that brought the almond blos­soms, and their idolatry that resulted in the first set of tablets being broken so that the second set was made and kept whole in the ark. Yet the grace we know is greater. (Chrysostom)

• The pot of manna and the rod of Aaron seem to have disappeared by the time the first temple was built by David & Solomon (1 Ki. 8:9), and even the 10 commandments and the ark itself were missing from the temple of Jesus’ day, but consider that in the New Testament, “the Christian who overcomes is promised that he will be given ‘the hidden manna’ to eat (Rev. 2:17)... And through union with Christ, he whose life previously was productive only of dead works (Heb. 6:1) is now enabled to bring forth much good fruit to the glory of God (Jn. 15:4, 5, 8; Gal. 5:22f.). The same power that caused Aaron’s lifeless rod to bud, blossom, and bear fruit (Num. 17) is even more wonderfully at work in his experience.” ~P.E. Hughes

v.5 and above it [f.s. referring to the “ark”], cherubim-angels of the Glory casting shade on the atonement-place, concerning which things it is not for now to speak down to the detail.

• The ark of the covenant was covered with a gold lid decorated with angel statues on each side, and it was upon that lid that the high priest sprinkled the blood to reconcile God and the people, thus the lid was called the hilasterion/the seat of mercy/the place of atonement, and it was from that very spot that God would speak to Moses.

• The design of the atonement-cover/propiatory is described in Exodus 25:16-20 “...And thou shalt make a propitiatory/hilasterion, a lid of pure gold; the length of two cubits and a half, and the breadth of a cubit and a half¹³. And thou shalt make two cherubs graven in gold, and thou shalt put them on both sides of the propitiatory…^. The cherubs shall stretch forth their wings above, overshadowing the propitiatory with their wings; and their faces shall be toward each other...” (Brenton)

• Fast-forward to Romans 3:25, the only other passage in the New Testament containing this Greek word hilasterion - “Jesus Christ, whom God set forth as [hilasterion, the mercy-seat, the location where atonement happens] by His blood...” (NKJV) Romans 3:25 says that Jesus’ body is the hilasterion where atonement happened. And, again, like the Old Testament hilasterion, Jesus’ body was also the location from which God spoke!

• “It was an eminent type of Christ, and of his perfect righteousness, ever adequate to the dimensions of the law of God, and covering all our transgressions, interposing between the Shechinah, or symbol of God's presence, and our sinful failures [regarding the 10 commandments], and covering them.” ~Matthew Henry

• Christianity has a mercy-seat who lives and breathes and produces His own blood to propi­tiate God and man, not some metal lid that needs a priest to come by with dead animals and drip blood on it.

• The way these things are being described, it sounds like the apostle is describing his own experience of having seen these things. It’s as though he’s saying, “I know what I’m talking about when I say that the worship of Jesus is better than the temple worship. I’ve seen the holy place myself, and I’m not impressed. I could go into details, but I’m not going to, be­cause I want to get on to the part about Jesus!”

v.6 Anyway, [ever] since these things were thus furnished, the priests have always been going into the front tabernacle accomplishing the services,

• Once Moses and Aaron and the other priests set up that system of worship, the Old Testa­ment priests were always/continually/regularly going into that outer holy place (the “first” or “front” tabernacle/room/section), every morning and every evening to keep the lamps and incense burning, and once a week they would also go in there to replace the showbread.

  • Exodus 25:30 “And thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before me continually…”

  • Exodus 27:20-21 “And... that a lamp may burn continually in the tabernacle of the testi­mony, without the veil that is before the ark of the covenant, shall Aaron and his sons burn it from evening until morning, before the Lord: it is a perpetual ordinance through­out your generations of the children of Israel." (Brenton)

  • Then, once they got their ritual duty done, they’d just have to go in and do it again the next morning.

• In the New Testament the same Greek words are used of God “accomplishing” our salvation from sin and of us offering the sacrifice of praise always to Him as we fulfill the role of the priesthood in the New Testament:

  • Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [accomplish/perform/carry it out] until the day of Jesus Christ.” (NKJV)

  • Hebrews 13:15 “Therefore by Him let us continually/regularly/always offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name." (NKJV)

  • These are the “regulations for service/worship” in the New Testament!

v.7 but into the second one, the high priest alone [goes] once a year - not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the errors of the people.

• Leviticus 4:13-20 “And if the whole congregation of Israel trespass ignorantly… [doing a] thing forbidden of any of the commands of the Lord... and the sin... should become known to them, then shall the congregation bring an unblemished calf of the herd for a sin-offering... to the doors of the tabernacle of witness. And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the calf before the Lord, and they shall slay the calf before the Lord. And the anointed priest shall bring in of the blood of the calf into the tabernacle of witness. And the priest shall dip his finger into some of the blood of the calf, and shall sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, in front of the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of the incense of composition, which is before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of witness; and he shall pour out all the blood at the bottom of the altar of whole-burnt-offerings, which is by the door of the tabernacle of witness. And he shall take away all the fat from it, and shall offer it up on the altar. And he shall do to the calf as he did to the calf of the sin-offering, so shall it be done; and the priest shall make atonement for them, and the trespass shall be forgiven them.” (Brenton)

• When the Old Testament high priests did this on the annual Day of Atonement, it was for the forgiveness of all the sin of the people of God, for as John Calvin pointed out in his commentary, “...no sin is free from error or ignorance...”¹⁴

• Hebrews 4:14-5:2 “Therefore, since we have Jesus, the Son of God, the Great High Priest who has crossed into the heavens, let us keep carrying through on our confession [of faith in Him]. For we do not have a high priest who is not able to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in all things, in the same way, without a sin. Let us therefore keep approaching the throne of grace with openness in order that we may receive mercy and find grace for the purpose of a timely rescue. For every high-priest taken from among men is made to stand in their stead on behalf of men regarding their issues before God in order that he might offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to be moderate toward the ignorant ones and erring ones since He Himself is also surrounded with weakness...” (NAW)

• This we have forever in Jesus!

CONCLUSION

• One challenge of applying this passage is knowing how far to go with allegorization of all these types and symbols. Some Bible commentators went hog-wild with finding points of comparison and contrast with every detail of the holy places, but that doesn’t seem to be the approach of the writer of Hebrews. He is very sparse and matter-of-fact about it all.

• The point I think, is the answer to the question, “Where is it appropriate for the Almighty God to tabernacle?”

• In the Old Covenant, God found it appropriate to tabernacle in the Tent of Meeting and in the Temple of Solomon.

• But then God found it appropriate to tabernacle in human form – the person of Jesus Christ. The human body was created in the image of God, so it suits His nature, and when it is free from sin, the human body is appropriate for Him to tabernacle in – indeed Jesus continues to tabernacle in a glorified human body even in heaven.

• If you can accept that, you can accept that Jesus is the one to go to find God, to get right with God, to speak from God to you.

• You don’t need priests; you don’t need altars; you don’t need incense; you don’t need stained glass or a band with a big P.A. system. You just need to trust Jesus.

• And when you do, you become part of His tabernacle with God the Holy Spirit camping out in you. When you walk around, you are carrying the presence of God around with you. Considering the cleanliness and order and beauty and reverence and diligence that were all part of the Old Testament tabernacle, should these not also be prioritized by us as human temples of God?

APPENDIX: Side-by-side Greek Text & English Versions of Heb. 9:1-7^A