Old Covenant priests worked in the literal tabernacle
9
📚Then indeed the first covenant also had regulations for divine service, and an earthly sanctuary 📖.9:1 In this chapter the writer continues the comparison between the priesthood of Christ and that of the OT. He speaks of the old tabernacle and the services of the priests there – vs 1-7. Then he shows what service and worship in the tabernacle signified – vs 8-10. Then he speaks about Christ’s one sacrifice as high priest and His entry into the heavenly tabernacle – vs 11-28.⚜
2 📚For a tabernacle was constructed. In the first part were the lampstand 📖, and the table 📖, and the showbread. This is called the Holy Place.
9:2 Exodus chapters 25–40 describe the tabernacle and its construction. See notes there on the significance of the items connected with it. Much of Leviticus and parts of Numbers deal with its ministry. The amount of space given to it indicates its importance in God’s program of instruction for His people. Some forty chapters are given to it in the Bible. Only two chapters are given to describe God’s creation of heaven, earth and man (though creation is referred to many times in the Bible after Genesis chapters 1 and 2). See the note at the end of Additional notes on 'A Spiritual Exercise' on how to use the tabernacle as a spiritual exercise today.⚜
3 📚And behind the second veil 📖, there was that part of the tabernacle called the Most Holy Place. 4 📚This had the golden censer 📖, and the ark 📖 of the covenant completely covered with gold in which were the golden jar containing manna 📖, Aaron’s rod 📖 that budded, and the tablets 📖 of the covenant, 5 📚and over the ark the cherubim 📖 of glory 📖 overshadowing the mercy seat. About this we cannot now speak particularly.
6 📚Now when these things had been prepared like this, the priests went at any time into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the service 📖 of God.
9:6 The “first part” means the “Holy Place” – v 2.⚜
7 📚But into the second part only the high priest went just once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the people’s sins of ignorance 📖.
9:7 The “second part” means the Most Holy Place – v 3. Leviticus chapter 16 describes this once-a-year work of the high priest. That chapter should be studied with this one for the full understanding of this one.⚜
8 📚In this way the Holy Spirit 📖 was showing that the way into the Most Holy Place was not yet revealed, while the first tabernacle was still standing. 9 📚The tabernacle was a symbol for the present time. Both the gifts and sacrifices offered in it could not make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience,
9:9 The Old Testament sacrifices were not able to take away the consciousness of sin and guilt. So they were not able to cleanse the conscience – Heb 10:2. And if the conscience is not clean, there can be no going into God’s presence with “full assurance of faith” (Heb 10:22). Note on conscience at Acts 23:1.⚜
10 📚but had to do only with foods and drinks, and various washings, and regulations about the body, imposed on them until the time of reformation.
9:10 The Old Testament regulations concerning food, etc (Lev 11; Num 6:15, 17; 28:7-8; Ex 30:17-21; Lev 16:24) were also only types, shadows and pictures of spiritual things. They had no spiritual value in themselves but were only external “regulations”. And God did not give them for His people forever – only until the “time of reformation”. The Greek word translated “reformation” means “making straight”. The Old Testament regulations were only meant to last until God introduced a new arrangement (the new covenant established by Christ).⚜
Christ’s work is in the spiritual, heavenly tabernacle
11 📚But Christ has come as a high priest of good things to come. Going through a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, 12 📚and not with the blood of goats and calves 📖, but with his own blood 📖, he entered in once for all into the Most Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption 📖 for us.
13 📚For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of a heifer 📖 sprinkling the ceremonially unclean, sanctifies to the extent of outward bodily purification, 14 📚how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot 📖 to God, cleanse your conscience 📖 from dead works to serve the living God?
15 📚And for this reason 📖 he is the mediator of the new covenant 📖, so that as a result of his death as a ransom 📖 for sins committed under the first covenant 📖, those who are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance 📖.
16 Now where there is a testament 📖, of necessity there must also be the death of the one who made it. 17 📚For a testament is in force only after men are dead. It has no power at all while the one who made it is living.
18 📚For this reason even the first covenant was not dedicated without blood. 19 📚For when Moses had spoken every commandment to all the people, according to the Law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, 20 📚and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you”.
9:18-20 See Ex 24:1-8. The writer now speaks of the old covenant (Ex 19:5), as if it were a will or testament. God made this covenant and in it promised an inheritance to Israel (Deut 12:8-10; Josh 1:6; 23:4; Ps 105:11). But God did not die in order that this covenant or “will” should come into effect. Instead He ordained that animals should die. How can the death of animals bring God’s testament into effect?
We must keep in mind that all that was a type or picture or shadow of things to come (vs 23,24; Heb 8:5; 10:1). Israel’s inheritance was a picture of the eternal heavenly inheritance promised to believers now. And the sacrifice of animals was a picture of Christ’s sacrificial death. God knew then that later in time He would become a man and die, and gave that illustration of His coming death. Moses sprinkled literal blood on the people’s bodies (Ex 24:8). Christ sprinkles His blood (spiritually, figuratively) in the inner parts – the heart and conscience of believers (v 14; Heb 10:22).⚜
21 📚Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels used in its service.
9:21 This is not recorded in the Old Testament. The writer obtained the information from some other good source.⚜
22 📚And according to the Law almost everything 📖 is cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness 📖. 23 📚It was therefore necessary that the copies of things 📖 in the heavens should be purified by these sacrifices, but the heavenly things 📖 themselves by better sacrifices than these.
24 📚For Christ has not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are only copies 📖 of the true, but into heaven itself, to appear now in the presence of God for us 📖. 25 📚And it is not that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with the blood of other sacrifices. 26 📚For then he would have had to suffer often since the beginning of the world. But now once for all 📖, at the end of the ages, he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27 📚And as it is appointed to men to die once 📖, but after this the judgment 📖, 28 📚so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many 📖. And to those who look for him he will appear the second time 📖 for salvation, without bearing sin.
9:11-28 The writer takes up again the subject of Christ as high priest and shows how His ministry accomplishes what all the activities of the priests under the old covenant did not accomplish.⚜