The Temple and its sacrifices served God's purposes to reveal the cost of sin. It revealed the need for the shedding of blood to provide atonement for sin.
And it prepared people for the coming of the ultimate sacrifice which would provide full, complete, and everlasting redemption. Through the death and resurrection of Yeshua.
The Temple was so important because until Yeshua came, it was the only way for mankind to have a relationship with God. However, it was temporary and a shadow of what was to come. It was designed to be removed when what it represented came to pass.
Remember this letter was written to Jewish Believers who were alive when the Temple was still functioning. The writer is explaining to the Messianic Jews of the first century why atonement for sin can no longer be found in the sacrifices offered there.
The ministry of the tabernacle and later the Temple are explained in Hebrews to shed light on what they pointed to in the work of Yeshua the Messiah of Israel.
So, continuing with the tabernacle as the backdrop, the writer of Hebrews directs our thoughts once again to Yeshua. In developing his theme, he touches on an area of life that all of us must deal with:
The conscience deep within us. The conscience can prod or punish us. It
can be manipulated to make us feel guilty when guilt is undeserved. On the other hand, the conscience can be hardened so that we can feel internal approval when we should feel guilt and the need to confess our sin to God.
In Heb. 9 we’re given valuable instruction regarding the conscience. Most of us are aware of the external reality we have – that which is seen. But we all have an internal person that is not usually seen.
Personality is one aspect of the internal person seen in some way. But something not seen is our conscience. It’s our conscience that gives us signals of peace or condemnation.
Scripture contains many examples of the internal and external – in relationship to one another for example 1 Samuel 16:1‑7
The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.” But Samuel said, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me.” The LORD said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.” Samuel did what the LORD said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, “Do you come in peace?”
Samuel replied, “Yes, in peace; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the LORD.” But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
Matt. 23:27‑28 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
2 Cor. 4:16 “Though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner is being renewed day by day”.
So we know that there is an outward as well as an inward person. The conscience is an inward unseen force.
Lady Macbeth was wracked with so much guilt that it led her to sleepwalking. In one of those episodes she cried “out out damn spot” because she was tormented with guilt over her role in the murder of King Duncan, trying to wash imaginary bloodstains from her hands.
No human doctor can perform surgery on the conscience, even though it may give us great pain. Man tries to ease this agony and guilt with drugs and alcohol, but the conscience cannot be completely subdued.
In Heb. 9 The Tabernacle is used as an illustration or a type of a relationship between that which is external and that which is internal.
VV. 1‑10 discuses the Tabernacle. VV. 1‑5 deal with the arrangement of the furnishings in the Tabernacle.
The Tabernacle was a temporary, portable tent. Within it were a variety of furnishings placed in particular positions to assist Israel in their worship of God. Show Illustration
Heb 9:1‑5 Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand, the table and the consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, which had the golden altar of incense and the gold‑covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. Above the ark were the cherubim of the Glory, overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.
In Lev 16:12‑13 we learn more details about the procedures for the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. “He is to take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the LORD and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain. He is to put the incense on the fire before the LORD, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the Testimony, so that he will not die.
The details described here are some of the details required for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Then we have a description of the activities of the priests. 6‑10.
Heb 9:6‑10 When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. 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. This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings‑‑external regulations applying until the time of the new order.
Even with all the ceremonies and rituals, perfect cleansing from sin could not be fully accomplished. Specifically in v. 9 we are told that these imperfect offerings are inadequate for the conscience.
This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.
The word symbol is also translated Parable in some translations and refers to the setting side‑by‑side for the purpose of comparison. The Old way vs. the new.
The conscience of the person sacrificing was never free from the feeling of guilt because the guilt itself was never removed. The cleansing was only external.
The ritual of the Levitical priesthood had two primary limitations
1. The outward rituals changed nothing inside a person.
2. They were symbols of what was yet to come.
Remember the context, Jewish believers who were thinking that if they could worship in the Temple, the old way, they would have a correct relationship with God and clean conscience.
The point made here is that you cannot by doing something external, solve a problem that is internal. We love symbols. However, we tend to become more attached to the symbols than to the realities that they represent.
The Bronze serpent was a type or a symbol of something that was to come in the future. When the children of Israel were dying in the wilderness fixing their eyes on the bronze serpent saved them from death. Num. 21:8.
Yeshua said that the bronze serpent was a picture of His work on the cross in John 3 “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”
Heb. 11:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
He provides Internal Restoration ‑ The Messiah (11‑14) “But When Messiah Appeared.
With these 4 words we are introduced to the significance of the inner person, which is of far greater value
When the Messiah died and rose again, the symbols were replaced with something of lasting reality.
But when Messiah appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
There are 4 ways that the sacrifice of the Messiah differs from the animal sacrifices of the Levitical priesthood:
1. The sacrifice of Yeshua was voluntary. An animal dies because it had to. Yeshua chose to die. An animal’s life is taken from it, but Yeshua laid down his life willingly.
2. The sacrifice of Yeshua was the fruit of God’s love for us. But the animal sacrifices were entirely the product of the requirements of the law.
3. Yeshua sacrifice was rational; the animal did not know what it was doing. There was no forethought or reason on the animal’s part.
On the other hand, Yeshua knew exactly what He was doing. He died purposefully.
4. Yeshua’ sacrifice was supernatural. His sacrifice was as v.14 tells us “Through the eternal Spirit of God”.
The result was eternal redemption. His blood unlike the blood sacrificed in the Temple cleanses our consciences from works that do not give life. v. 14
God wants us to turn our attention to the internals not the externals. But How do we do it?
By ceasing to emphasize and concentrate on religious rituals that we often think is pleasing to God. Just merely coming to worship services is not what God has in mind.
Yes, reading your Bible, and being in fellowship with one another are essentials, but they are external. Man loves religion but God wants us to have a personal relationship with Him.
Scripture tells us this comes by not just by a profession of faith coming but by surrendering our lives to Him.
Rom 12:1‑2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, which is holy and pleasing to God‑‑this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is‑‑his good, pleasing and perfect will.
If we want God’s peace and a clean conscience we need to stop focusing on only the externals and foundationally focus on the internal. Go beneath the surface of the symbols and seek to understand what they point to.
Place more value on a transformed heart seen by God than what is seen by men.
Why would one ever wish to go back to an earthly sanctuary and its
outward practices?
Let’s understand and appreciate what God had provided in Messiah, and
the kind of worshippers God desires. As Yeshua told the Samaritan
woman at the well...
"But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will
worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking
such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." (Jn 4:23-24)
Are we worshipping God the way He desires? If we will come to God in His appointed way He is able to cleanse our consciences in a way that outward religion and practices never could or ever will.
He is the way the truth and the life, it is through Him and abiding in His Holy Spirit that we can experience the abundant life that God has for us.
