Reading: Hebrews 9:1-10:18
As we saw yesterday, the second half of Hebrews’ main point (8:1-2) is that Jesus ministers in the heavenly tabernacle, the reality that Moses copied in Israel’s tabernacle. Even the earthly copy had a whole set of furniture and services, Hebrews says, but “of these things we cannot now speak in detail.” (That’s an invitation if there ever was one! If you want to read more, the description starts in Exodus 25. Notice that among all that furniture, there’s nowhere to sit. The work is never done!)
Once the furnishings were consecrated, then the sacrifices began in earnest. There’s a whole litany of services, pre-eminent among them the annual Day of Atonement sacrifice. No one ever entered the Holiest Place in the tabernacle, except on this day, when the High Priest would go in to present the blood of the sacrifice and cover the nation’s sins for the year. In that very service, the Holy Spirit showed the planned obsolescence of the Levitical order: the sins were only covered (not taken away) and only for a year. Next year, you had to do it all again….
…until Christ—”pleased as Man with men to dwell”—came into the heavenly tabernacle. He too bore the blood of a sacrifice, not of bulls and goats, but of a sinless man. Administering a superior priesthood in a better sanctuary, He offered the final sacrifice: His own innocent blood. The innocent man died for guilty mankind’s sin, and that’s the end of the matter. The stain is gone, the debt settled. And then Jesus sat down at God’s right hand, until His enemies are made His footstool (Psalm 110 again!). Remember how I said there’s nowhere to sit in the tabernacle? That’s not quite true. There is the Mercy Seat—the top of the Ark of the Covenant, between the cherubim, where God Himself sits. “Come and sit at My right hand” indeed!
Jesus sits, as no priest did before him, because He fully and finally settled the matter. Fulfilling Jeremiah’s New Covenant promise, God says, “Their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more.” When that happens, when Jesus puts paid to all the sin forever, there is no more sacrifice for sin. There’s nothing you must do—or can do—to expiate your sins and failings. It’s all been done. It’s over. That’s the best possible news.
If you’d like to hear more about this section of Hebrews, check out Episode Ten and Episode Eleven of my Hebrews podcast with Chris Morrison of Gulfside Ministries.
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