Hebrews 9:8-12 – The Way In

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 05 May 2019

Omitting greyed-out text should bring spoken presentation down around 45 minutes.

Intro: Way Out/Way In

• I grew up in the 1980’s, and one of the expressions we used back then to indicate that some­thing was very interesting or amazing was to say that it was “way out.” “Oh man, did you see Tron?” “Yeah, that movie was way out!” Now, imagine my amusement when, during a mission trip through London, I encountered signs in the subway proclaiming “way out.” What was this new wonder to which the “way out” signs pointed? It was nothing more than the way out of the underground subway tunnels to the streets above.

• More than finding our “way out” from underground to the open light of day, we all long for a “way in” to interpersonal relationships. We want to be loved by somebody, and we will do just about anything in order to be the object of someone’s love. Ultimately, we find that no human can satisfy that craving for love and acceptance; it can only be filled by God’s love for us, but most folks are stymied by that. How can a mortal enter into a relationship with a spiritual being? The way in to a holy relationship with God is kinda hard to grasp. We have seen, however, in the book of Hebrews that it comes about through covenants which God makes with us.

• 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 ours.

• Now, in v.8 we move to the interpretation and fulfillment of the Old Testament temple and its rituals¹ in the person of Jesus Christ as the “way in” to a holy relationship with God in which we can experience ultimate love and acceptance.

v.8 The Holy Spirit is showing this: the way of the holy places has not yet been brought-to-light while the front tabernacle still has standing.

• The Holy Spirit is the one who inspired Moses (2 Pet. 1:21) and all the rest of the writers of Scripture, so the ceremonial laws regarding worship in the Old Testament tabernacle were God the Holy Spirit showing all of us something. To ignore those parts of Scripture is to miss out on what the Holy Spirit can show you!

• What is the Holy Spirit showing us by instructing the Levitical priests to go into the front tabernacle every day to tend the lamps and incense burner and by instructing the High Priests to go into the holy of holies once a year to sprinkle blood? He is showing that the road/the means of access of the Holy Places – particularly of the Holy of Holies – was not manifest/ disclosed/opened as long as the first tabernacle (or front chamber, depending on your translation) had standing (or was standing, depending on your translation).

• Despite the restrictions of the Mosaic law, which only allowed a priveleged few into the holy places, it was nevertheless God’s plan for His holy places to have a regular thoroughfare going in to them. The thrust of the Greek words is that this road belongs there².

• But that thoroughfare was not manifest/disclosed/Πεφανερῶσθαι/literally “brought to light” or made visible. The Greek Perfect tense indicates that it was built to be obscure and that it stayed obscure for some time in the past.

  • Hebrews 9:26 “...now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared/ πεφανέρωται to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." (NKJV)

  • “The context [of this Greek verb] in all of the Gospels is almost exclusively Jesus appearing, becoming manifest, revealing God's glory, revealing God's name… Jesus, as we will see, is the symbols made manifest, the real thing behind them, God Himself.” ~V. Scharping

• But the first tabernacle “had standing” as the holy place for meeting with God until the rev­elation of Jesus.

  • All the standard English versions render the Greek participle ἐχούσης with the English verb of being (“is/was”), but it is actually the Greek verb for “having/possessing,” and the object possessed by the tabernacle is the noun στάσιν, which is related to “standing.”

  • This, kind of standing, however, is relational; it is a standing in relation to something or someone else. It’s the kind of “standing” that a member of a group has. If I am “a member in good standing” of a club, I have a right (and even an obligation) to attend their meetings and to vote as a member. I have a function in that group.

  • (Conversely, to say that the way into the holy places was obscured as long as the temple was “standing” - in terms of being intact as a physical structure - runs into problems because the physical structure of the temple remained standing for decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, but it was Jesus’ death and resurrection which brought that new way to light.)

  • I think that here it means the temple “standing” in a function of service belonging to its role. In other words, the grand opening into God’s Holy Places would not be revealed as long as the Holy Place in front of the Holy of Holies had a legitimate function in God’s order for worship.

  • Do you understand now how significant it was that the veil of the temple was torn in two when Jesus died?

    • It meant that the temple Holy Place was no longer in service; it had been replaced by a “new and living way,” the person of Jesus Himself

    • who said, “I am the way... no man comes to the Father but through me!” (John 14:6)

    • And thus the prophecy of Isaiah came true that the “way was opened up as a highway to our God!” (Isa. 40:3)

  • “He hence concludes, that while the tabernacle under the Law was standing, the sanctu­ary was closed up, and that only through that being removed could the way be open for us to the kingdom of God. We see that the very form of the ancient tabernacle reminded the Jews that they were to look for something else. Then foolishly did they act who, by retaining the shadows of the Law, willfully obstructed their own way.” ~J. Calvin

• Jesus is the “way in” to the sanctuary of God, but this “way in” was arranged before the foundation of the world, so God gave clues in the Old Testament as to the nature of this new and living way before revealing it in the coming of Jesus.

• Verse 9 starts with a Greek relative pronoun translated “which/it/this.” It is feminine singular, referring back to the tabernacle and declaring that the tabernacle was a kind of parable which taught a lesson about spiritual things through a parallel physical symbol:

v.9 Up to the present time this has been a parable in which both donations and sacrifices are being offered that are not able to perfect in conscience the one who ministers.

• The next relative pronoun in v.9, translated “in which/indicating that/according to this” is feminine in every known Greek manuscript from the first millenium, referring to the feminine word “parable,” and that’s the way I rendered it,

  • but practically every Greek manuscript in the second millenium spells this pronoun masculine, which would refer it to the masuline word “time,” and that’s the way the King James versions rendered it.

  • Thankfully, it doesn’t make much difference because, what was going on at the time of the Jewish temple - contemporary to the writing of the epistle of Hebrews - was the same enacting of this “parable/figure/symbol” of offering animal sacrifices to atone for sin.

• Animal sacrifices pointed toward the way of salvation, throughout history until Jesus died on the cross; then the era of the temple-as-forerunner-of-the-Gospel ended, and the Gospel era began.

  • A new "era" was begun with Christ, also called the "time of reformation" in verse 10,

  • and in v.14, we also see Christ stated as the archetype of this parable: “the blood of the Christ… purifies our conscience from dead works for the purpose of ministry to the Living God.” (NAW)

  • What the animal sacrifices in the Jewish temple did not have the power to do, the blood of Christ DOES have the power to do, which is...

• Τελειῶσαι/finish/complete/clear/perfect the conscience.

  • The high priests in the Old Testament were spoken of using a form of this same Greek verb ἐτελείωσαν³, but only in terms of having had outward rituals done to them, never of perfection in their inner conscience, and, not even the outward perfection was ever attributed to the body of the Old Testament church/people.

  • Throughout the New Testament, this verb is used to speak of sanctification with its ultimate goal of reducing sin to 0% and faith to 100%.

    • In John 17:20-23, Jesus speaks to His Heavenly Father concerning “...those who will believe in [Him]” saying, “[T]he glory which You gave Me, I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect [τετελειωμένοι]...” (NKJV) This perfection is a gift from Jesus!

    • 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…. [skip down to v.11] And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man [speaking of Jesus], after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God...[v.14] For by one offering He has perfected [τετελείωκεν] forever those who are being sanctified.” (NKJV)

  • “This verse seems to be emphasizing the prior arrangements’ inability to actually ... mend... the mind of the worshiper, that it can merely atone for evil (negative[ly]), but cannot fix, heal, or grow you (positive[ly]), which is typical of all things that are sym­bolic—they can serve a negative purpose, but cannot provide in-and-of-themselves the positive reality of the thing of which they are a symbol. Thus the significance of the successive verse which says that the prior arrangement deals only with physical-level things. This is what makes them symbolic: they are types of genuine sanctification and positive growth, not the real or substantive... parallels and copies of the true thing in Heaven, which is the actual source of power.” ~V. Scharping

  • Now a second (nominative plural) participle appears at the end of verse 10 in parallel with the first (nominative plural) participle in v.9 which stated that the sacrifices could not perfect the conscience. The second participle states that the gifts and the regulations regarding them were “imposed” in such a way as to be limited.

v.10 and that are only being imposed until a time of rectifica­tion, in regards to foods and drinks and various baptisms [and] regulations concerning the flesh.

• The dative phrases “in foods, in drinks” etc. are in contrast to the phrase “in conscience” from v.9, accentuating the fact that the Old Testament ordinances were physical and out­wardly-oriented. They were, of course intended to prompt inward obedience and righteous­ness, but they did not actually attain them.

• I think that the adverb “only” goes with the only Greek verb in this verse, namely the parti­ciple translated “imposed,” and that goes together with the prepositional phrase “until the time of reformation” - or more literally, the time of correction/straightening out.

  • The NIV’s rendering “the new order” is a bit “way out.”

  • The root of that Greek word is ortho-, from which we get orthopedics - straightening out bones, orthodoxy - correct theology, and orthography - proper handwriting.

  • The sacrificial system was intended to go only for a time and then to undergo a correction, an unfolding, a thorough straightening-out (this word does not imply a total re-make).

• This change may be foreshadowed in the following Greek Old Testament verses which also used the Greek root “ortho-”

  • Prov. 4:27b “God... will make thy ways straight [ορθας... τροχιας], and will guide thy steps in peace.”

  • And Jeremiah 31:9⁴, where God promises regarding Jews who went into exile in Babylon, “They went forth with weeping, and I will bring them back with consolation, causing them to lodge by the channels of waters in a straight way [‘οδω ορθη], and they shall not err in it: for I am become a father to Israel...” (Brenton)

  • God “unfolded” the meanings of these symbols and prophecies when Jesus was revealed.

• What were the particular O. T. “ordinances regarding food and drinks and baptisms”?

  • Leviticus 11:34 is the only passage in the Septuagint that mentions both “food” and “drink,” saying that if an unclean creature crawls into a jar and dies, then any food or drink in that container is unclean and must be thrown out.

  • (It’s possible, however, that these “foods and drinks” are referring to meat and grains as well as oil and wine that were burned on the temple altars or given to the Levitical priests.)

  • The Greek word for “washings” is βαπτισμοῖς - the same word translated “baptism” else­where, and I think it is helpful for English readers to realize that baptisms were not a new concept invented in the New Testament but are a carry-over from the Old Testament.

    • In the Greek Old Testament, there are various actions associated with this root, including sprinkling, pouring, partial immersion, and full immersion.

    • There are a couple of other Greek words more properly translated “wash” which are also used in reference to the Old Testament worship system, but I’ll limit myself to the two places where the baptw root from Hebrews 9:10 occurs in the Mosaic law:

    • Leviticus 4:6-7 describes the basic pattern of the sin offering and what to do with the blood: “The priest shall baptize his finger in the blood, and sprinkle the blood seven times before the LORD in front of the curtain to the holy of holies. The priest shall also smear some of the blood on the horns of the altar of incense in the tent of meeting and then he shall pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering….” (cf. Lev. 4:17, 9:9)

      • Blood was applied in just about every way you could think of all over the taber­nacle, from the outer courtyard to the curtain of the holy of holies, but it only touched the priest’s flesh and the temple altars.

      • Such ceremonies were only “imposed until a time of reformation”

        • when Jesus would take on flesh and blood,

        • His blood would be poured out on the ground at the altar of the cross in the earthly “courtyard” as it were,

        • and then He would sit down at the right hand of God, sprinkling and smearing His own blood there, as it were, in the holy places of heaven,

        • erasing once-and-for-all the guilt of His people’s sin.

        • Do you see how the sin offering was a parable for what Jesus would do?

    • The Greek word for “baptism” also shows up in the Levitical purification ceremonies, such as the cleansing of persons after they had touched a dead body, or from leprosy, and even in cleansing houses. These were more water-based, and the sprinkling and smearing and pouring were applied to the worshipper’s body instead of to the tabernacle.⁵

      • Once again, these purification ceremonies were only only “imposed until a time of rectification,”

        • as the prophet Joel (2:28) prophecied, when the Messiah would “pour His Spirit of Holiness out” upon His people,

        • and, as John the Baptizer prophecied, when Jesus would “baptize” His followers “with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Luke 3:16),

        • and, as Paul said, that we might be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18),

        • so that, as Hebrews says, we could “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Heb. 10:22, ESV)

      • Do you see how these Old Testament baptisms pointed to the archetypical New Testament fulfillments in Jesus and the Holy Spirit?

• The application for the First Century readers of this letter was to abandon the temporary, imperfect, figurative, and fleshly ordinances of the Old Testament ceremonial law for the substantial, eternal, spiritual realities of worshipping Jesus.

  • “No copy has any power in itself except that which it gets from the real thing. For a time, the copy may serve in the place of the real, in an unfinished state. But given the real, would you go on with the copy? Though meaningful while you have not the real thing, copies become meaningless when next to the real thing. Do you want the symbol of sanctification (various washings), or do you want sanctification?” ~V. Scharping

  • The call to worship Jesus remains for us today, and it is to Christ that our next verses turn:

v.11-12 But Christ, the high priest of the good things which are about to happen, having come along through the greater and more perfect tabernacle - not the hand-made one (that is, not the one of this created-order), 12 entered once-for-all into the holy places, and not by means of the blood of goats or calves but by means of His own blood, after having obtained eternal redemption.

• Verses 11-12 go together as one sentence with three verbs and one subject. Christ is the one subject doing the three actions, and the main verb is in v.12 “he entered once-for-all into the holy places/the Most Holy Place.” But there are two supporting verbs, the Greek form of which (aorist participles) indicate that He did them before His grand entrance:

1. He “came along/arrived” in a human body, and

2. “He found/obtained/secured eternal redemption.”

3. Then “He entered into the holy places” and sat down at the right hand of God.

• Let’s look at each of these three actions in turn:

1. Παρα-γενόμενος – “having come/arrived/happened along⁶” through the greater and more perfect tabernacle.

• Commentators are divided as to whether this is speaking of Jesus’ ascension through the skies – assigning the “greater and more perfect tabernacle” to heaven⁷, or whether this is speaking of Jesus’ incarnation, assigning the “greater and more perfect tabernacle” to the glorified human body of Christ.⁸ I lean towards the latter, but...

• Both the Ascension and the Incarnation are Biblical doctrines:

  • Hebrews 9:24 equates the temple sanctuary with heaven: “For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us," but

  • Mark 14:58 equates the temple with Jesus’ body: "...I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands." (NKVJ)

  • Now, if it be objected that Jesus’ body was “of this created order,” the church father Chrysostom would reply that the angel told Joseph in Matthew 1:20 that Jesus “was brought into being from the Spirit,” and was thus “not man-made or of this creation.”

  • All the same, here in Hebrews, there seems to be an intentional blurring of the distinc­tion between Jesus, the person of God, and heaven, the place of God. I suspect that when we get to heaven and see more-clearly what it means that God is omnipresent, we will be able to see more clearly how Jesus can both be in the tabernacle and be the tabernacle of God, but for now it is a bit mysterious.

• Verse 11 here says that Jesus is the high priest of “the good things.”

  • Under the Mosaic old covenant, the “good things” involved the physical possession of the promised land, which is called “good” in Ex. 20:12 and Deut. 6:18.

  • The New Covenant, on the other hand, is called “better” in Hebrews 7:22, and it brings “good things” inside of us:

    • The Apostle Paul wrote to Philemon [1:6] of “the knowledge of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus." (KJV)

    • The phrase occurs again in Hebrews 10:1, equating “salvation” and “perfection” with the “good things to come.”

• The Greek word here for “made with hands” [χειρο-ποιήτου]

  • is used throughout the Greek Old Testament to mean an “idol,” and indeed the temple building seems to have become a sort of idol worshipped by some people,

  • but the early church preachers emphasized that God wasn’t focused on temples built by human hands: Steven said in Acts 7:47-49 "...Solomon built Him a house. However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says: `Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the LORD, Or what is the place of My rest?’” (NKVJ, cf. Acts 17:24)

  • The focus in the New Testament is not on what is done with human hands, but what is done by Christ’s hand, for instance, in Colossians 2:11 “...the circumcision made without hands... the circumcision [of our hearts by] Christ.” (NKVJ)

• “In stark contrast to the unfinished, waiting-till-the-time-of-reformation symbols just dealt with, Christ has come. No priestly symbol has any power except by the real thing of which it is a symbol. So of all the symbols mentioned (tents, holy places, animal's blood), Christ is the finisher, author, fulfill-er, linked inextricably with them by the author reminding us again that Jesus is the High Priest over these things now. If Christ the high priest has "come," (1) with his own blood (2) from the non-symbolic tent and (3) the non-symbolic Holy Place, what need have we of any symbols? What power have they in themselves? Christ's coming is the author's consummation of the implied lacking (need of reformation) in the prior verse.” ~V. Scharping

• Now, the second thing Jesus did before entering the holy places is at the end of v.12

2. αἰωνίαν λύτρωσιν εὑράμενος -"finding/attaining/securing an eternal redemption"

• The verb root heuriskw connotes that a search has been made and that the object of that search has been discovered and obtained.

• “Redemption” just means buying something back from someone else who had taken over rightful posession.

• But how can a redemption be “eternal”? How could anyone ever pay enough money to ensure that an item would remain in their possession - and never pass into anyone else’s possession - for the next 100,000 years, let alone for eternity? That’s the very question posed in Psalm 49, the only other passage in the Greek Bible where the words “eternal” and “redemption” occur together: “Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multi­tude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him-- For the redemption of their souls is costly, And [basically it says, “For­get it,” if you want him to] continue to live eternally, and not see the Pit. For... men die... and leave their wealth to others.” (Brenton, Ps. 49:6-10 – Ps. 48 LXX)

• But what sinful mortals can not do, Jesus did! Jesus “uncovered” and “revealed” the “way” to God, granting access to those He loves by buying them back from their bondage to sin with the infinite value of His blood. This was also prophecied in the Psalms:

  • Psalm 130:8 “And He shall redeem Israel from all [its] iniquities.”

  • Psalm 111:9 “He sent redemption to His people: He commanded His covenant for ever: holy and fearful is His name." (Brenton)

• When we get to the New Testament, the father of John the Baptizer was given further insight into the redemptive work of Jesus: Luke 1:67-75 “...Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying: ‘Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, For He has visit­ed and redeemed His people, And has raised up a horn of salvation for us… To perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant... To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.” (NKJV)

• Now then, after “coming” and “obtaining redemption,” Jesus...

• εἰσῆλθεν ἐφάπαξ εἰς τὰ ἅγια - entered once-for-all into the holy places

  • There is a comparison and a contrast drawn here in terms of the means of entry into the holy places and the Holy of Holies:

    • The comparison is the common element of blood.

      • Death, realized and symbolized in the shedding of blood, is the only way that we humans, born with the guilt of Adam’s sin (and adding our own offenses against God on top of our original lack of righteousness), can have that sin properly punished and removed.

      • Genesis 2:17 “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

      • Ezekiel 18:20 “The soul that sinneth it shall die.”

      • Romans 6:23 “The wages of sin is death.”

      • The only way to get right with God is through a death.

    • But there is also a contrast drawn in where the blood came from: The Old Testament priests entered the holy places of the temple “with the blood of goats and calves,” but Jesus entered the holy places of God’s presence “with His own [human] blood.”

      • The shedding of the Messiah’s blood is a very important point, because, just like the Muslims, the Jews have had difficulty accepting the doctrine of a Messiah who was put to death as a criminal. They focus instead on the expected worldly triumphs of the Messiah in terms of conquering the world and making everything good and right. They are looking for a Messiah who looks outwardly like a winner and not like a looser, and Jesus looks like a looser to them, so they don’t want to follow Him.

      • But, in God’s economy, the problem is not how to muster enough power to bring bad-guys to justice (That’s easy for God!); the problem is how to reconcile to Himself the rebels who hate Him, a problem that is inside every one of us, and the only way to satisfy God’s justice on that account is for the rebel to be put to death.

      • The good news is that, in God’s economy, a human without any sin can die on behalf of a sinner and make that sinner right with God again.

      • The author of Hebrews is leading His fellow Jews to see the necessity of Jesus the Messiah being...

        • righteous enough to be acceptable to God,

        • human enough to die as the penalty for other human’s sin, and

        • divine enough that His death would be of such infinite personal value that it could pay for more than one other person’s sins and reconcile all of us to God.

      • Jesus fulfilled all three necessities of being righteous, human, and divine and thus He entered into the holy places of God’s presence in heaven in order to minister as our high priest and reconcile us to God, applying His own blood to pay the penality of our sins, and interceeding on our behalf non-stop at God’s right hand.

CONCLUSION

• It is awesome to see this grand parable played out in history in which the majestic temple made of stones lost its standing in a reformation masterminded by Jesus who became our “way in” to God.

• But many Jews in the first century missed it, and so will many others in our own century. Two common ways people today miss the “way in” to being accepted and loved by God include preoccupation with religious symbols or preoccupation with lesser relationships⁹:

  • The first is very similar to the temple system, idolized by Jews to the point of failing to recognize Jesus as the Messiah when He came, and that is our own New Testament symbols like the church and baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Some Christians get so fixated on church duties or on sacramental theology or on other religious things that they miss relating personally with Jesus as the way in to God’s love and acceptance.

  • Many others try to find in other human relationships the love and acceptance which only can be found in God’s love and acceptance through Jesus. Work and friends and marriage and children are all good gifts from God, but it’s all-too-easy to make them the main focus and try to get from them the love and acceptance that only entrance into the holiness of God can give.

  • How can you keep from missing out? Listening to the Spirit of Prophecy deepens our appreciation for Jesus. Meditating on scriptures like this from Hebrews focuses us on the one relationship that will be most important for eternity, and that is Jesus, from whom alone is eternal redemption.

  • There is much more to this passage, but we’ll have to save it for later.

APPENDIX: Side-by-side Greek Text & English Versions of Heb. 9:8-12^A