A Tabernacle In Heaven – Hebrews 8:1-6

Kootenai Church

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the book of Hebrews chapter eight, and before we read, let's bow our heads in prayer.

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Our Father, it is our desire that we would be granted the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit this morning and helping us to understand your word.

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As the psalmist prays in Psalm 119, open our eyes that we may behold wonderful things from your word. For in your word we see light and we see truth and we need you to help us to understand those things.

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Help us to see the significance and the meaning of various Old Testament things and their various Old Testament revelations and features and help us to appreciate that in light of Christ and what he has done and may, through our time here, may you turn our hearts and incline them to you and to your word and to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to appreciate, again, the great salvation that has been wrought for us, your people. And we thank you for this and ask your blessing upon this time in Christ's name, amen.

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Hebrews chapter eight, let's read the first six verses together. Now the main point in what has been said is this.

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We have such a high priest who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the

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Lord pitched, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, so it's necessary that this high priest also have something to offer.

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Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are those priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle.

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For see, he says, that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain. But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.

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As we've been working our way through Hebrews seven and eight we have come across a lot of elements from the old covenant with which we are not really immediately familiar.

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They're somewhat foreign to us. And we've looked at some of those, like priests and priesthoods, and tabernacles, and temples, and sacrifice, and offerings, and incense, and feasts, and festival days, and the day of atonement,

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Yom Kippur, and what that meant, and the idea of animal sacrifices, and ceremonial washings.

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We've talked about a lot of those things, and now we come across yet another one, and that is the Old Testament temple, or tabernacle,

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I should say, the Old Testament tabernacle. I was a Christian for a number of years before I had any idea what the tabernacle was, and if it weren't for a

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Bible college class in my first year, first semester of Bible college called Pentateuch, I didn't even know what the

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Pentateuch was, I couldn't even spell that or pronounce it when I took it. But if it weren't for Pentateuch class and going through the first five books of Moses, which is called the

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Pentateuch, that is the five books, if it weren't for going through that and having the illustrations, and the drawings, and everything of the tabernacle, the

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Jewish tabernacle in the wilderness, I wouldn't have had any idea what I was reading about when I read through the book of Exodus and started reading about all the gold -covered rings, and poles, and curtains, and coverings, and posts, and tent curtains, and all of that stuff.

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I would have no idea what that stuff was. So I was a Christian for quite some time before I was even introduced to the idea of a tabernacle, and I even remember listening to what the tabernacle was and studying it, and I had to memorize all the furniture in the tabernacle and what its use was, and where it was at in the tabernacle.

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We had a little drawing that we had to identify where each piece of furniture went in the tabernacle, and the courtyard, and all of that.

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Went through all of that, and I still had no idea of the significance of it. I thought, why did the Jews have this? What was

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God's purpose in having them build the tabernacle in the wilderness? And you can read about the construction of the tabernacle in the book of Exodus, and honestly, unless you have done some sort of research ahead of time and looked at some sort of illustration or drawings, you're gonna read through Exodus, and you're still not gonna be able to envision, or picture in your mind what that tabernacle looked like, or even really to know the significance of it until you get to the book of Hebrews.

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Now, the tabernacle is probably not something that we would initially take a lot of time to study or to think through.

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We're 2 ,000 years removed from the tabernacle, ourselves, or the existence of the tabernacle, which really later became the temple, but these two are synonymous in terms of their function in Jewish history.

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We're 2 ,000 years removed from those pieces of furniture and the significance of them. We're a whole culture away, and we're a whole covenant, and the new covenant, we're not in the old covenant, so those things are distant to us, and we probably wouldn't spend any time really looking at the details of them, unless we were to go through Hebrews chapter eight and read about the tabernacle, and then most of us would say, so what is the tabernacle, and what was its significance?

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Well, if you got up this morning and you're thinking to yourself, I sure hope that we figure out what the tabernacle was at church today, because I've always wondered that today is one of your days, this is the day for you, because that's what we're looking at, is we're in Hebrews chapter six.

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We've come across this passage that speaks of it in detail, and in these first six chapters, sorry, Hebrews chapter eight, in these first six verses of the book of chapter eight, we have seen that Jesus Christ, having completed his redemptive work, has taken his heavenly seat, he performs a heavenly ministry, and he does this in the heavenly tabernacle or the true tabernacle, and those were the three points that I gave you three weeks ago when we started talking about these first six verses of chapter eight.

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Jesus Christ has taken his heavenly seat, and there he performs his heavenly ministry, which is intercession. It is a specific, it is a limited, it is an intentional intercession for his people that he does, part of which secures and sanctifies us, that intercessory work, and where does he do this?

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It is in a heavenly tabernacle. So we've looked at verses one through four, and now we are looking at today, at really verse two mentions it, and verse five, this heavenly tabernacle, and it deserves a little bit of our attention, because we need to have some clear thinking in terms of what the tabernacle was and what its significance was, and how it ties into the new covenant, and what the realities of the new covenant are intended to fulfill of the

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Old Testament tabernacle, and lest we get this idea that in heaven there is some sort of a bigger, greater tabernacle that was identical to the one on earth, we need to think clearly about this so we don't get confused as to what exactly is in heaven.

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There is a significant, there is a significant connection between the earthly tabernacle and heavenly realities, and how we draw those connections and to what extent we draw those connections is very important.

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It can lead us into sound doctrine, or it can lead us into a lot of false doctrine, and we wanna think carefully about this, so we're gonna take some time today to talk about the tabernacle.

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So let's look at this heavenly tabernacle. It's referenced in verse two, where after saying that Christ is such a high priest who has taken a seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, verse two says he is also a minister, that is he is a servant, who does this intercessory work, but look where he does it, in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle.

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I just want you to notice that there is reference here to the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle. These two things are synonymous.

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They're not different locations. The tabernacle, the true tabernacle, and the sanctuary, they are one and the same. And verse five says that those priests on earth who were part of the

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Aaronic priesthood, they served or they offered the gifts and the sacrifices of God. In verse five, they served a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things.

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So verse two makes mention of the true tabernacle or the true sanctuary, which was not pitched by the hands of men.

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This was something that God made. It is something where God is. It is not a structure which was created by human hands.

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That is intended to contrast where Christ is now with that which was on earth. And as I said, there is a connection between these two things, the earthly sanctuary and the heavenly reality.

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Where is it that Christ serves? He serves in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle. What would that be?

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Where would this true tabernacle be? It has to be heaven. If he is there seated at the father's right hand, at the right hand of the throne of the majesty, in the heavens, if that's where he's seated, that's where the true tabernacle is.

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So heaven is the true sanctuary. Heaven is the true tabernacle. Whatever existed on earth was in some way, in the words of verse five, a copy, a shadow, or made after the pattern of that which existed in heaven.

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And that's what we're looking at today. So verse five refers to it as a copy and a shadow, something made after a pattern.

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The tabernacle was a feature of the old covenant. And you can read all about it in Exodus 25 through 27, where the details of the tabernacle were given in terms of its construction.

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It is connected to the Aaronic priesthood. So we've talked about the two different priesthood, the priesthood of Aaron and the priesthood of Melchizedek. Melchizedek being the greater priesthood, initiated by an oath of God, not by genealogical descent and by law.

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So we have a greater priesthood. Then we've talked about the difference between two sacrifices. We have Christ's sacrifice, which was made once for all.

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And that is contrasted with the sacrifices which the priests made, which were made every year, year after year after year, without end, because they could never take away or deal with the sin issue.

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So we've contrasted two priesthood, and we've looked at a contrast between two sacrifices. And now we're looking at a contrast between two tabernacles.

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This tabernacle that exists in heaven, which is called the sanctuary of the true tabernacle, and then the earthly expression of that.

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And the tabernacle was a feature of that old covenant, because that was where all the ministry happened. So I've described over the course of the last several weeks, the offering of sacrifices, all of the many animals that were offered, and the blood sacrifices, and the incense offerings, and the grain offerings, and everything that was brought to the priests, and the fact that the priests did this, and they interceded for the people for whom they made the sacrifice, and that all of this was done, this perpetual ministry of the priest, every morning and every night, and the high feast days, and all the festivals, and all of that, going on and on for hundreds of years, one and a half millennia, 1 ,500 years this happened, and it went on continuously.

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The work of a priest was never done. And maybe in your mind you're thinking, okay, where was that work done? Did they just go up on a hilltop somewhere, find a tree, go offer a sacrifice underneath the tree?

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Did they go to the individual Israelite's tent or doorstep and make these sacrifices? Was there some central location?

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Was it in the marketplace or the butcher shop? Where were these sacrifices made? If you have a priest, and intimately connected to the work of a priest is the offering of sacrifices, then there has to be a place to offer these sacrifices, and that's what the tabernacle was.

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The tabernacle was the place where the Jews would come to present their sacrifices to the priest, so that all of the animal sacrifices were made inside the temple sanctuary, inside the tabernacle, and the tent of meeting, it was called.

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So that's where the work of the priest was done. You can't discuss the priesthood, and you can't discuss the sacrifices without discussing where it is that they did their work, and that was inside the tabernacle.

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So let me give you a few details on the tabernacle. Because I've talked a lot about tabernacle, and if you're keeping track of tabernacle, as some of the kids are writing furiously right now, trying to keep track of that word of the day, then you might be wondering, what does the tabernacle look like?

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And maybe you've never seen a picture of it, you've never understood what the significance of it, maybe you have some vague idea of what that might have looked like.

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Was it a temple structure made of marble? What was the tabernacle? Let me give you, we won't call it an introduction to the tabernacle, because that assumes that nobody here has studied what a tabernacle is, so shame on you, but let's call it a refresher course on the tabernacle.

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That way we're all up to speed, it's just a refresher, this is just what we need to bring us all up to speed on what the Old Testament tabernacle was.

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The instructions for it are given in Exodus 25 through 27. It was given in connection with the giving of the priesthood, the ordinances regarding the priesthood, and the ordinances regarding the sacrifices.

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So you had a priest, you had what he was to offer, and God also instructed them as to where they were to offer those sacrifices.

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And that's in Exodus. And it comes, it goes all the way back to the time right after the children of Israel came out of Egypt, when they were at Mount Sinai.

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The giving of the 10 commandments of the law is Exodus chapter 20. The details for the tabernacle are

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Exodus 25 to 27. The construction of the tabernacle, according to the instructions that God gave them, is later on in the book of Exodus.

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Moses eventually finds the most skilled craftsman to create this tabernacle and to build it according to what

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God had shown him. So the timing of this is 1500 years BC, 15 centuries before Christ was born.

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To us, that's 3 ,500 years ago that the instructions for the tabernacle were given. And it was replaced by the temple, the

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Jewish temple in David's day around 1000 BC. So for roughly 500 years, the tabernacle was the place where these sacrifices took place.

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Later on, that was made into the temple. So, or later on, that was exchanged for the temple. And all of the furniture that I'm gonna talk about in a moment that came out of the tabernacle, that went out of the tabernacle and right into the temple structure.

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And the temple, Solomon's temple, which Solomon built it after the time of David, Solomon's temple was roughly constructed after the same sort of pattern or a schema of as the tabernacle was.

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So it was basically a more permanent, more glorious house for God's furniture and his worship than the tabernacle was.

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That's what we read about in Psalm 132, where David talks about having a place where God would rest and the desire to build him a house.

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And you read about that in 1 Chronicles 29. And of course, God told David, you're not gonna build me a temple because your hands are covered with blood.

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But your son who will come after me, Solomon, he shall build me a temple. And so then David made all the preparations for the temple and the offerings and collected the money and all the materials and put out the plans and gave it over to Solomon and said, after I die, you're gonna build this temple.

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And that's exactly what Solomon did. And David, of course, wanted to build God a temple because David lived in a nice paneled cedar house.

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It was beautiful, glorious palace. And he lived in that palace, but God's tent was just a tent.

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It was just a tabernacle out there and didn't have anything really glorious or beautiful. And so David had a desire to build God a nice place for those things.

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And God blessed that, but not from David's hand. Remember, it was from Solomon's hand. Well, that was 1 ,000 BC. And it's probably worth taking a little bit of time to explain some of the furniture.

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I want you to look down at chapter nine. Read verses one through five with me because this idea of the

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Old Testament tabernacle and the features of it being a pattern after the heavenly realities, this is described multiple times in chapter nine.

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Look at chapter nine, verse one. Now, even the first covenant, that's the old covenant, given through Moses, had regulations of divine worship in the earthly sanctuary.

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That's the tabernacle. For there was a tabernacle prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the sacred bread.

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This is called the holy place. Behind the second veil, there was a tabernacle, which is called the Holy of Holies, having a golden altar of incense and the

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Ark of the Covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden jar holding the manna and Aaron's rod, which budded, and the tables of the covenant.

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And above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. But of these things, we cannot now speak in detail.

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Now, he gives us the information that we have here, only speaking of what he reads in Exodus, because when the author wrote this, chapters, chapter nine, verse one through five, the tabernacle no longer existed.

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It had been replaced for 1 ,000 years by Solomon's temple. So he says, we can't speak in detail of these things. We can just tell you what scripture says about what that old tabernacle looked like.

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And then he goes on to draw some parallels and some lessons from that in chapter nine. When we get into chapter nine, against my better judgment,

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I think we're either gonna take a Sunday school class to go through all the furniture of the tabernacle, or we'll do it here on a

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Sunday morning for the worship service and do something that I never have ever done. I say that I've never done this?

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I don't think I've ever done this in the history of preaching, and that's to put pictures on the screen behind me while I'm preaching, so that you can see what we're talking about.

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We might do that, because I think it would be good when we're going through chapter nine, verses one to five, to kind of have in our mind's eye what it is that the author is describing here.

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I'm not settled on either one of those yet, but you'll find out when you show up which one we've decided to do. Let me talk for a moment about the building, the structure of the tabernacle itself.

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The tabernacle in the wilderness that Moses had constructed and first erected out there before they did any of the sacrifices and they sanctified it, it was a tent in the wilderness, but it was surrounded by what was called the tabernacle courtyard.

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That was 75 feet by 150 feet. Now, to put that into perspective in terms of size, this room from this wall over here to this wall is 75 feet, so it was this wide, as wide as this room.

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Ignore for a moment the angled walls at the front and the back. 75 feet across here, that's the width of the courtyard, and the length of it was 150 feet.

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That is 25 feet longer than our building, so our whole building is 125 feet long, so if you add another 25 feet to that, which is the distance between these two upright pillars, you add another section like that out to the end of that, that's about the size of just the courtyard of the tabernacle.

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That was just the outer wall of it. That wall was made of curtains that hung on poles that were put up, and these poles were posted and tied down every so many feet, and the curtain hung over top of that which sort of fenced it off.

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The curtain, I think, was taller than most men would be, so you couldn't see over it or see inside of it, and that circumvented, went all the way around the outside of that courtyard.

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So 75 feet by 150 feet, that was the outside of it. Now I want you to keep in mind for a second, this is the only worship facility where all of the worship for the people of Israel, a nation in the wilderness, of roughly 1 .5

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million people took place. That's pretty small. If this were the only worship facility for 1 .5

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million people, and this were the only number of people that came here on a Sunday morning, what would you say about the faithful remnant that was actually believing

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Israelites that followed the law? That's a pretty small facility for a nation of 1 .5

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million people, which tells you something. Not all 1 .5 million

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Jewish Israelites were bringing their sacrifices to the temple. The believing remnant who obeyed the law and offered the sacrifices and walked after Yahweh was a small number.

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The remnant is always a small number. It's not the mass of people. So that was the courtyard, 75 feet by 150 feet.

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Now inside that courtyard was a tent. That was what was called the tabernacle, that tent.

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And to give you some idea of the dimensions of that tent, that tent was 15 feet by 45 feet. So I'll paste that off for you.

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15 feet is from this wall to about right here at the front row, the front corner of this aisle here.

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Or if you just picture this center section, this section over here, from the width of the aisle all the way to that wall, that's about 15 feet.

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45 feet would be from that back wall all the way up to the front step of the stairs right here. That would be about 45 feet.

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So that tabernacle was about 15 feet wide by 45 feet long. It didn't sit right in the middle of the courtyard.

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It sat to one end of the courtyard. So you can picture it down at that end of our building, roughly centered between the walls on each side of the 75 foot dimension here.

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And it's in the back part of that. Up here on this end of the temple courtyard would have been the curtain through which people would have walked to get into the temple courtyard.

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So now I want you to take a mental tour with me. Oh, by the way, that tent is basically, if you've seen pictures of it or artist renderings of it, it basically has a peak in the middle and the roof kind of comes out like this and then comes down to the ground and it was staked to the ground.

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That covering was made up of four different layers of skins, actually three layers of skins and then a layer of embroidered cloth on the inside so that when you walked in, there was very pretty cloth that was the roof of that, very fine linen that was the roof of the tabernacle, but on top of that were three layers of animal skins dyed according to certain specifications and in certain colors and that those skins were put down in a certain layer of orders on top of that and then staked down to the ground.

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And then in the front of that tent, when you walked through the door, you had to go through a veil into that. Inside of that was called the holy place.

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I want you to take a mental tour with me as we come in the edge of the, or the end of the temple courtyard.

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You walked in the curtains of the end of the temple courtyard, the first thing you would see was the altar which would be right sort of just inside the tent, that was where, or the courtyard.

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That is where the offerings were made is on top of that altar. You could look down at the other end and you would see the tabernacle sitting down there, 15 feet wide, 45 feet long.

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It's got a curtain in the front so you can't see into that and it's covered with those coverings like I described, staked down to the ground. That's right in the middle down there at that end by the

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Sunday school classrooms. So as you walked past the altar, the next thing you would hit was the laver which was the washing place where they did ceremonial cleansings and washings.

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And if you went further toward the tabernacle, and it said that, and by the way, before we step into the tabernacle, it is said that after the time of Moses, there were tables that were laid on the outside of the courtyard out here where other offerings were made.

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So an animal would be offered here and obviously if you have one altar, one place where you're sacrificing animals, it's very difficult to crank off 120 ,000 of those like we talked about a couple weeks ago when they would have these big festivals, these big days.

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So they had tables lined up along the edges of the courtyard where an animal would be sacrificed and then it would be moved over and further processed on those tables to make room for more high production.

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So as you're walking toward the tabernacle, you get up to the curtain of the tabernacle and as you would step inside, you would see to your left, the menorah or the lamp stand made according to certain specifications.

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Then you would see to your right, the table of showbread where bread would be placed. And then right in front of you would be against a curtain which blocked off the last quarter of that tent.

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Right in front of you would be the altar of incense where incense was to be burned continually. Made a very sweet smelling savor and that incense you remember was specific only for that.

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You weren't allowed to burn that outside of the tabernacle. On one day a year, one man, the high priest would step behind that curtain.

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And what was behind that curtain? The Ark of the Covenant. That's where the Ark sat was behind that curtain. On one day of the year, the high priest would step behind the curtain and he would apply the blood first for his own sins and then he would come back and offer another sacrifice and then go in and apply that blood for the sins of the people.

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You remember that? Now that's the temple and that's the tabernacle and that's what it would look like as you walk through it.

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Everything about that tabernacle was symbolic of something. It represented something else.

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It wasn't an exact copy of what is inside the heavens, what is in heaven. It was made after a pattern which was revealed to Moses, he says in verse five, the true tabernacle that Moses saw in some way.

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That was revealed to Moses and Moses made it according to specific instructions because that tabernacle was supposed to be instructive to the children of Israel.

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They were supposed to learn something from all the realities of that earthly tabernacle. So do you have that in your mind's eye of what that looked like and how big that was?

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Okay, later on all of that became Solomon's temple where the same sacrifices were taking place and the tabernacle as it was 500 years after it was made, it went away and replaced by Solomon's temple.

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So verse two describes this as a true sanctuary, the one where Christ is seated. He is in the presence of God and notice that it is described as the true sanctuary or the true tabernacle and that word true is intended to contrast it not with something that is false.

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The idea of the author in verse two is not that the tabernacle that was in the wilderness was a false tabernacle of a false

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God and that Moses made something that was inevitably evil or wrong. That's not the idea. The idea is a contrast not between true and false but between true and that which is a shadow or symbolic or something that is temporary or illusory or illustrative.

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In other words, the tabernacle on earth was an illustration of something greater, something bigger, something truer, something that would later on be fulfilled and it was not pitched by man, the one in heaven and the one here on earth was made by man and so this tells you something about the difference in nature between the earthly tabernacle and the heavenly tabernacle.

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Now, what was it intended to serve as a copy of because you'll notice verse five, he says the priests on earth, they serve a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle and then he quotes from Exodus 25 verse 40 and in Exodus 25 verse 40,

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Moses wrote those words after God had given him instructions for the construction of the Ark of the Covenant, the table of showbread and the golden lampstand.

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Those were the three main things inside of the tabernacle itself. The Ark of the Covenant behind the curtain, the lampstand on the left and the table of showbread on the right.

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After all of that, God says to Moses in Exodus 25 verse 40, see that you make them after the pattern of them which was shown you on the mountain.

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Now, here's the mystery. In some way, Moses when he was up on Mount Sinai receiving the law, he saw something that was a pattern of what it was that he was to make.

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Now, here's what divides Christians on their understanding of the tabernacle and its purpose. Did Moses see like blueprint drawings of something or a miniature model of it?

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Did God reveal to him pictures or images of what it was that he was supposed to make? Or did

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Moses see into heaven itself and see the realities that he was to make symbols of on earth?

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I think it is the former. I think what Moses was shown, because this is what the word pattern means, is some sort of a drawing, a schematic, some sort of a picture of what it was that he was to make.

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And God was very specific with Moses. See that you make it according to the pattern. In fact, the author of Hebrews says,

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Moses was warned to make it according to that pattern. I always encourage people to read through the

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Bible every year, right? You get through Exodus and you get into Leviticus.

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If you make it all the way through Deuteronomy, you're persevering. Because you get into Exodus and Leviticus and you start to wonder,

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I don't understand why I'm reading about bowls and poles and rings and animal skins dyed and draped over a tent and the curtains and the tabernacle and showbread and arcs of the covenant and all that stuff and the number of buds and flowers off of the bottom of the menorah.

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Why am I getting, why all of the detail? And here's one thing that you and I can know for certain from all of that detail that is given.

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God cares very much about how it is that he is worshiped. That's why all the detail in the

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Old Testament. He didn't just say to Moses and the children of Israel, look, worship me however you worship me.

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You just come in there, bring an animal, some kind of an animal, doesn't matter what it is, just bring it in, kill it, sing whatever you wanna sing, put up whatever kind of building you wanna put up to make it work, just whatever feels good for you, just come in and do it.

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That was not the instructions for worship. God spelled out in exact detail in the Old Testament how the children of Israel were to worship him.

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And you know what was never considered under all of the instructions given to the children of Israel of how they were to worship

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God? You know what was never considered? How they felt about it. Or how they felt in doing it.

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Or whether they felt it in their hearts. Or whether they liked it. Whether they liked the animals, whether they liked the blood, whether they liked the tabernacle or the skins or the offerings or the grain or the smell of the incense, none of that mattered.

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Because all of those details were given not to convince the children of Israel that this is to worship God how they want to worship him, but this is how

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God wants to be worshiped. And the children of Israel, in being obedient, would worship him as he had revealed himself to be worshiped.

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So you read all of that detail that's given in that tabernacle, and you and I are to conclude this. God is concerned and he cares about how he is to be worshiped and listen, if God cares about how he is to be worshiped by a bunch of people under the

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Old Covenant, how much more does he care how he is worshiped by us under the New Covenant? We know so much more.

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We have so much more. Yes, we have freedoms under the New Covenant that they didn't have under the Old Covenant, but God is no less concerned about how he is represented in our worship today than he was back then.

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He cares about how he is worshiped. That's why all the detail, and that's why he warned Moses, you make sure that you do this exactly according to the pattern which

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I have shown you. Moses had zero freedom to do what he wanted to do with all of the furniture of the tabernacle, zero.

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God was concerned with that. So Moses was shown a pattern on Mount Sinai, and this is the picture that the tabernacle was intended to communicate, and that is the very presence of God himself.

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And this is the likeness that is made here, the parallel that is drawn between Christ being in the true tabernacle, the true sanctuary, where God is in God's presence, and the

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Old Testament tabernacle or sanctuary, and that was God's presence. So under the Old Covenant, where was the glory of God?

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Where was the Shekinah glory of God manifested? It was between the wings of the angels over the mercy seat, which sat over the

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Ark of the Covenant, which was behind that curtain, shut off from the people for every day of the year except for that one day when one man could go back there and offer blood twice, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people.

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But other than that occasion, that was shut off from all of the people of Israel. They couldn't go back, and they couldn't see those things.

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They didn't enter into that curtain or behind that curtain. And so what was the sanctuary and that presence of God intended to communicate?

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That was on earth a visible representation of a heavenly reality, namely that God dwells amongst his people, and that everything about that tabernacle and the construction of it and the orientation of it, everything was intended to point forward to specific realities that would fulfill it.

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And so the tabernacle was intended to be the presence of God amongst the people. The people were to come there to the presence of God and to worship him, and they were to offer a sacrifice, which would be mediated through a priest.

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And here's the New Covenant or New Testament reality. We too gather together as the people of God to worship him, not in one central location, because God is omnipotent, or omniscient,

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I'll try it again, omnipresent. It's a bunch of omni words, and I named all three of them for you, he is all three of those things, plus he is omnipresent, and so he doesn't dwell in one specific location between the wings of the cherubim anymore, but now our high priest, like that Old Testament high priest, has entered behind the veil, he has provided a sacrifice, the merits of which have atoned for our sins, and there he makes intercession for us in the very presence of God.

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So that tabernacle was supposed to picture something that was to come, something greater. What was that which was greater? That the presence of God would be amongst his people, and that Christ is the one who would come behind that veil, and the merits of his sacrifice would avail for us, and he would make intercession for us, and he would atone for our sin back there behind that curtain.

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This is what Hebrews is describing in chapter six, when it says this is hope we have as an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast, and one which enters within the veil.

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Who has entered within the veil? Our high priest, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Christ has gone back into that tabernacle. When you're raising kids, one of the very first things that you do in teaching kids is you show them pictures of things, and the pictures of things helps them to make concrete connections between the picture and the reality.

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So when we taught our kids how to read, we had A, which was for apple, I guess, was a picture of an apple, and we had a piece of paper that had a picture of an apple on it, and they got to color that, and then they saw the letter

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A, they saw the physical token, the representation of that sound, and it was A, or it was ah, and then they would learn the letter

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B and what that looked like, and it was ball, and so they communicated B with ball, and the sound, et cetera. We used pictures to communicate spiritual truths.

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Infants and spiritual things needed pictures in order to communicate spiritual truths, and this is the purpose of the tabernacle. The tabernacle was a picture.

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If Jesus Christ had just been born a Jew in the time of Moses, and said, I'm here, and then he died a horrible death and shed his blood and went back to heaven, would any

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Jew have understood any of the significance of what he did? No. But you give that nation and the world 1 ,500 years to look at a priest offering sacrifice after sacrifice, going behind the veil, stepping into the

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Holy of Holies, applying the merits of that sacrifice to the broken law and the Ark of the Covenant, and coming back out again, and all of the cleansing and the animals and the different pictures of that in the presence of God, that blood applied in the presence of God to atone for their sin, you give them 1 ,500 years of looking at that picture, and then when the

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Messiah shows up, and he offers one sacrifice, one time for all sin, and sits down at the

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Father's right hand, where he stands at the presence of God and applies the merits of that sacrifice to those who are his, and pleads our case and intercedes for us, you can see the fulfillment, can't you?

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Can you then see the greater reality that the tabernacle was intended to picture? The tabernacle was kiddie pictures, it was the elementary things, it was learning how to read, it was the picture connected with the reality, it was all intended to point to something else, a greater fulfillment, and the greater fulfillment that we have is

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Jesus Christ. In chapter nine, there are a bunch of other references to this copy, this tabernacle, chapter nine, verse 11, when

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Christ appeared as a high priest to the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, that's chapter nine, verse 11.

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Chapter nine, verse 23 and 24, it was necessary for the copies of the things in heavens to be cleansed with these, but heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these, for Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself.

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See the contrast between the copy and the heavenly reality? The tabernacle was the copy, it pointed to a heavenly reality, that is that God was there and that a sin that needed to be atoned for and that a sacrifice had to be made, an intercession had to be provided in order for people's sins to be forgiven.

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And along comes Christ and he fulfills all of that. So what would this then mean to a

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Jew who would understand the Old Testament sacrifice and the Old Testament tabernacle and what it was intended and what

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God was doing there? Here's what the point of this passage would be to a first century Jew. The point of this passage would be to call a first century

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Jew to abandon all of his trust and all of his confidence in that old dead covenant.

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The priesthood, the tabernacle, the temple, the furniture of that, the animal sacrifices, the day of atonement, the feast and the festivals, everything that was connected with that tabernacle and its courtyard, a

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Jew was commanded to turn his back on all of that and trust in Christ and in Christ alone.

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A Jew could not keep his feet in both of these covenants. He couldn't say I'm going to go

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Monday through Saturday, I'm going to go to the temple and I'm gonna worship according to all of the Old Testament law and trust in the

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Aaronic priest and the high priest and what he's doing on the day of atonement and then on Sunday come and say, then

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I'm also trusting in Jesus to save me just in case that's not adequate. And see if I keep my feet in both of these camps and I'm trusting in both of these systems, old covenant, new covenant, old priesthood, new priesthood, old sacrifices, new sacrifice, old intercession, new intercession, old tabernacle, new tabernacle, if I keep my feet in both of these camps, then

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I'll have all my bases covered. The scripture says no, you cannot do that. You must abandon the dead covenant with all of its rituals and all of its liturgy and all of its symbols and signs and tokens and you must embrace the reality which is in Jesus Christ and you must do that fully.

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That's what a Jew is to understand. Can't keep your feet in both of these because one of these covenants is dead and it does absolutely nothing.

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I was asked this last week, would it be evil or sinful or wicked for a Jew to try and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and to start offering animal sacrifices again?

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Now from what scripture says, they're going to attempt to do this. There's a whole segment of Jewish culture, Orthodox Jewish culture in Jerusalem right now that is preparing to build the temple.

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They're just waiting for something to be done with the Dome of the Rock for that to come down so that they can build a temple back up there on the Temple Mount where they want it.

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So there's a whole segment that wants to do this. Would it be wrong or sinful for Jews to do that and for them to offer animal sacrifices again in that temple?

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What's the answer to that? Yes, it would be. It would be sinful and wrong.

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Why? Because that's not the path to God. That is not how God is worshiped. Today, God is worshiped in and through Jesus Christ who is the only high priest who has done the only work necessary for our salvation and he has entered behind the veil and there the merits of his sacrifice are pled on our behalf and we are saved through that work.

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So any attempt to trust in the rituals or the liturgies or the formulas or the works of somebody else on our behalf is in itself idolatrous sin.

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And so the message to the Jews would be that. The message to us is very similar. You and I cannot try and keep one foot in our trust in our own self -righteousness and the righteousness of Jesus Christ or one foot in our trusting in a priesthood with liturgies and smells and bells to do all of that work for us and trust in Jesus and his righteousness just in case that is not enough.

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We are called to abandon all of our trust in all of our works and all of our righteousness and trust in Christ and Christ alone.

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Why? Because he alone has made the sacrifice which atones for sin, which cleanses us from unrighteousness so that all your law -breaking, your adultery, your fornication, your lust, your stealing, your blasphemy, your greed, your idolatry, your selfishness, your slander, your vileness, all of your sin, your disobedience to your parents, every last bit of it can be paid for and atoned for because of what

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Christ has done. And if you're an unbeliever and you're not trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation, that is your only path to God.

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God honors no other path. There is no other path because no other high priest has offered a sacrifice that can atone for sins and take it out of the way to deal with it finally and fully.

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And so we are commanded in scripture to come to this high priest and to trust him and what he has done on our behalf so that we may have eternal life.

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You need somebody to make a sacrifice for your sins. You need somebody to provide you righteousness. You need somebody to wipe out your sin debt so you can have everlasting life.

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And no earthly priest is going to do that. No earthly priesthood is going to do that. No system of man -made works is gonna do that.

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None of your righteousness can do that. Only Christ and Christ alone can do that. Trust in him and believe that his sacrifice is able to pay the price for your sin, no matter how much, no matter how grievous.

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You trust that, repent of your sin and trust him and he will give you eternal life. That is his promise. We have such a high priest who has done this for those who are his.

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Let's bow our heads. Father, we praise you for your goodness and your grace and your glory. We thank you again for a salvation so rich and so free, one that has paid the price for our sins.

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We thank you that we have a high priest who has fulfilled all of the symbolism of the Old Testament, that all of that is no more, and that now we can enjoy the reality which is in Jesus Christ.

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The reality of our sins forgiven, the reality of trusting in a sacrifice, a single sacrifice made once and for all, that perfectly atones for our sins.

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Thank you that we have the fullness of our debt paid by Jesus Christ and that nothing else is necessary.

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And for us to trust in anything else is nothing but an affront to your grace and the sufficiency of the work of Christ. So we pray that you would take away from us all of our confidence in our own self -righteousness, the righteousness which is filthy rags, and place our faith and confidence entirely in Jesus Christ and him alone.

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And may you be glorified through that confident trust that we have in him and the lives that we live in obedience to your grace and your great calling.

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We ask it in his name, amen. Please stand. ♪

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Thou hast saved, thou hast all things created ♪ ♪

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Thou hast created all things, sure they are created ♪

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Let's sing that again. ♪ We see glory has created, has all things created ♪ ♪

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Thou hast created all things, sure they are created ♪