Lessons From The Tabernacle – Hebrews 9:8-10

Kootenai Church

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Will you turn now please to Hebrews chapter nine, Hebrews chapter nine. Before we begin, we'll bow in prayer and ask the

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Lord's blessing on our time. Father, it's always with great expectation that we can come to your word with hearts that desire to hear from you, hearts that desire to understand truth and even complex and intricate things.

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It is our desire that you would help us to do that this morning, that your Holy Spirit would be our teacher. We know that when your word is rightly and accurately preached, that your voice is truly heard.

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And so we pray that we may hear you in the pages of scripture this morning and that you would open our eyes and our hearts to understand the truth and to see in it the glory of Christ and what he has accomplished on behalf of all those who are his.

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May you be honored and glorified through this time of study and meditation and reflection, we pray in Christ's name, amen.

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Well, we have been studying the tabernacle and its services here in Hebrews chapter nine and in verses one through five, we saw the tabernacle very briefly described, some of the furniture that was associated with the interior, the inside of the tabernacle.

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And then in verses six and seven, we looked at the services that took place at the tabernacle, first the daily services and then the yearly service, the day of atonement.

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And now we come to the significance of those things and what the Holy Spirit was intending to teach to us in those symbols and in that tabernacle and in the old covenant and the structures and features of it.

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And let's not forget that the author's intention here is to contrast the old covenant with the new covenant. And he is intending without disparaging the old covenant, he is intending to show the weaknesses and limitations of the old covenant.

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And really everything he's saying in chapter nine and 10 is an explanation of the last verse of Hebrews chapter eight where he says that that old covenant is obsolete, it is growing old and it is ready to disappear.

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And now it is entirely disappeared. It is gone, it is no longer valid, it's no longer in operation, it's no longer binding.

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And the best way to demonstrate the limitations of that old covenant was to use the tabernacle and show that all of the features and the fixtures and the functions of the tabernacle have all been fulfilled in the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

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And he does all of this without running down the old covenant because the point of the author is not that the old covenant was horrible, it's not that the

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Jews were trying to claw their way to some God that they perceived in the heavens, it's not that they were stumbling around in the darkness.

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The old covenant was revealed religion, it was revealed worship. And as long as that old covenant was functioning, it did what it was intended to do.

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But honestly, there are weaknesses and limitations to the old covenant and that's why a new covenant was necessary and that's why a new covenant has been initiated.

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And so the question then becomes in verses eight through 10, what is the significance of the old covenant? The tabernacle and the furniture of it, the symbolism of it, the sacrifices and the priesthood, the altar, the fire, the blood, all of that, the mercy seat, the

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Ark of the Covenant, what was it symbolizing? What was the significance of it? What did the Holy Spirit have in mind in giving to the children of Israel for 1 ,500 years that expression of divine worship?

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The institution of that covenant, what was it intended to communicate to us? That is the question that is answered in verses eight to 10.

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And we're gonna notice this morning that there are three limitations that are described here with the old covenant. We've already looked at some other limitations earlier, back in chapter eight, you remember.

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We looked at the priesthood and what the priesthood meant in the Old Testament under the old covenant, the

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Aaronic priesthood. We looked at some of the limitations of that. We looked at some of the limitations of the law. We looked at some of the limitations of the priests.

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They were mere men. They died. They didn't continue forever. They were not perfect. They didn't do a perfect work.

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We saw that back in chapter seven. Well, the author kind of returns to focusing on the limitations of that old covenant in chapter nine.

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And here he focuses in on three separate and distinct limitations that the old covenant had.

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And all of these are intended to show us God's mind, God's intention in giving those things to us.

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There were lessons that we were to be learned. The tabernacle and its furniture and its priesthood, they all communicated certain things.

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And there are three of them here that are listed. Number one, you'll notice in verse eight, well, let's read through the text. And in fact, as we read through the text,

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I'll give you the outline. That should make it easy to kind of connect what we're gonna be looking at to what you find in the passage before you.

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So in verse eight, the author shows that the old covenant did not give us access directly to God. Verse eight, the

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Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing, which is a symbol for the present time.

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The access to God was not directly given under the old covenant. It didn't provide access to God. And as long as that tabernacle was functioning, it demonstrated something, nobody could approach

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God. Second, the old covenant could not cleanse the conscience. Look at verse nine. Accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience.

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The old covenant could not cleanse the conscience of the guilty sinner. And then third, the old covenant was external and temporary.

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That's verse 10. Since they, that is the sacrifices and the features of the old covenant, relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body, imposed until a time of reformation.

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It was external. The old covenant was external, not internal. And the old covenant was temporary and intended to be temporary.

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It was imposed until a reformation could come, a change could come. So those are the three things.

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It couldn't give us access to God. It couldn't cleanse our conscience from sin, and it could not, and it was temporary and external.

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Those are the three weaknesses. So let's take each one of those. First, verse eight. The old covenant did not give us access directly to God.

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Now, there are a couple of translation issues that you need to be aware of in all three of these verses. And as we go through them,

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I'm not going to, you may notice that your translation, if you have an NIV, an ESV, a King James, or something other than the

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NASB, there may be some variety of ways in which this is translated. I'm not gonna take the time to get into the weeds on all of that because the main point of the passage does not depend upon how you translate it in one particular version or another.

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In other words, regardless of how you translate certain of these issues, these translation issues, regardless of how you deal with them, the main point stands, and it doesn't change the meaning of the passage.

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The meaning of the passage is the same regardless of what translation you use. And we'll kind of, I'll kind of highlight them, but I'm not gonna get down into the nitty gritty of them like we have in times past when the understanding of the passage hinges upon the right interpretation or translation of the words.

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All right, so look at verse eight. The Holy Spirit is signifying this. Now, remember, he has in mind everything he's told us since the beginning of chapter nine.

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The tabernacle with the lampstand and the showbread and the Ark of the Covenant, the altar of incense and the incense that burned and the fire and all of that, the

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Ark and the Covenant behind the veil, the first veil, the second veil, the tabernacle, the courtyard, the sacrifices, the priest, the worship services, the daily sacrifices, and the

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Day of Atonement, all of that's in the first eight verses, seven verses. He has in mind all of that. And now the question becomes, what is in the mind of the

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Holy Spirit concerning these things? What was the Spirit of God intending to tell us? Well, here it is, verse eight.

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The Holy Spirit is signifying, he is indicating this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing.

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Access to the holy place, this is the symbolism the Holy Spirit has in mind with the tabernacle, that access into the holy place has not yet been disclosed as long as that tabernacle is functioning.

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And here's one of the translation issues. You'll notice if you have the ESV, the English Standard Version, which is a good translation, that it says the holy places, it's plural.

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In the Greek, it is actually places, so that's a better translation than holy place because there's some question, is he talking about the outer part of the tabernacle?

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Is he talking about the inner veil behind the second veil in the holy of holies part of the tabernacle? Or is he talking about the whole tabernacle itself?

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I think it's the whole tabernacle itself. Access to the holy places was not revealed. In other words, it was not known to the common person.

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It was not, no common Jew could walk up to the temple and say, I'd like to step into the holy of holies today. I have a little blood that I would like to throw up on the mercy seat.

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No Jew could do that. No Jew could step into even the outer courtroom, outer portion of the tabernacle, and say,

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I have some blood I would like to put on the altar of incense. In fact, I'd like to smell the incense up close and personal.

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I'd like to see the lampstand. I'd like to pour a little oil into the lampstand. No average Jew could do that. Only the priest could enter behind that first veil into the tabernacle itself.

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Only the priest. All the other Jews had to stay outside. And only a high priest, only one man who served in that office could enter behind the second veil, and then only on one day out of the year, the day of atonement.

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The way into the presence of God, access to those holy places, whether you're talking about the outer portion of the tabernacle or the interior portion of the tabernacle, it was not yet revealed.

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It was not made open. Only the priest could enter the outside one, and only one man could step behind the inside one.

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And what was that signifying? That as long as that tabernacle stood, access to God was barred to all of the common men.

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Only the priest could come into that access. Only the priest could step behind the veil. And here's what the tabernacle was demonstrating.

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Two seemingly contradictory truths. That number one, God desires to dwell with his people in order to bless them.

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And number two, that sin separates us from God so that we are not able to access him.

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We cannot come into his presence, and yet he wants to dwell with us. That's what the tabernacle shouted to everybody who would look at the structure of it and how it functioned.

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God is there, he's within arm's reach of us, but we cannot access him because our sin separates us from him.

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And as long as that old system with all of its sacrifices and priesthood, as long as that was functioning, access to God was barred.

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The way into God's presence was not yet revealed. And this really, the words not yet describe all of the

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Old Testament religion. They all looked forward to something. It was coming, but it was not yet. And so as long as that tabernacle was functioning, as long as that first covenant was in place, this one truth stood, sin separates you from God, that sin has not been taken out of the way, and you are barred from his presence.

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And for 1 ,500 years, that's what the Jews had to deal with. That is almost unimaginable.

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That is why I say that in the mind of a Jew, the kind of access that you and I enjoy to the presence of God, to the throne of his grace, walking directly as it were spiritually into his presence and speaking to him directly face to face, that is an access that no

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Jew could even in their mind comprehend. They could not fathom that kind of access. And yet it is our day to day reality.

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So it has not yet been disclosed, the passage says, access to the very presence of God was barred.

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And the old covenant could not give us access to God. It was unable to do that. It didn't provide it. It symbolized what access would look like.

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In fact, if you looked at the functioning of the tabernacle, here's what accessing the presence of God would look like. Number one, you would need blood to remove sin.

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Number two, you would need the blood of a sacrifice to remove sin. Number three, you would need a priest who could stand in your stead and enter in on your behalf.

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You had to have access only to God through some other means, through some other way, through some other person.

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That's what the tabernacle demonstrated. Sin separates you from God. You must have a mediator. He must be a priest.

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He must come with blood, and that blood must be applied to atone for the sins of people. That was the picture.

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But all of that never actually did any of that. It just pictured what it would look like when access to God came into view.

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And it's not until Christ came in that we say, oh, now we see it. He's a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

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He enters into the holy place. It's the blood of his sacrifice that avails for us. It's his righteousness that is given to us.

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And so now we come not on the merits of our own merits, but on the merits of another. Now we come not because we're holy, and we're righteous, and we're good enough, but because somebody else has gone ahead of us, behind the veil, applied the blood to that mercy seat, atoned for sin, taken it out of the way, and now the veil's torn from top to bottom, and we have wide open access to God.

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That's what it looks like. Now we can put the two together and see that everything in the old covenant, what it anticipated and what it pictured, is now fulfilled in Christ.

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But as long as that tabernacle was standing and the old covenant was in place, the way into the presence of God was not yet revealed.

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But when Christ said it is finished, and the veil was torn from top to bottom, and access was granted, then we see what it looks like, right?

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Then the way into God's presence is revealed. It's revealed in the new covenant. It's not revealed in the old covenant.

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And so the author says in verse eight, that it has not yet been revealed while the outer tabernacle is still standing. I think that just refers to the tabernacle tent itself, while that tabernacle was still standing.

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And it doesn't mean as long as that tabernacle was erected and physically there, physically existed. It refers to the covenant being in place which the tabernacle represented.

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Because you remember, even in the time of Jesus, the tabernacle was not standing. It hadn't for hundreds of years. It had been replaced by Solomon's temple, which was sort of structured similarly and basically had the same symbolism and the same function.

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But Solomon's temple replaced the tabernacle. And after that, another temple, the second temple, and then Herod's temple after that replaced all of that.

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So the tabernacle hadn't been standing for hundreds of years. His point is not that as long as the tabernacle exists, that the access to God has been barred, but as long as the covenant, which the tabernacle represents, as long as that is valid and functioning, access to God is barred.

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It's not until Christ comes and removes that barred access that we can now come in and now the access to God, the way into his presence is clearly revealed.

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The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the most holy places, to the holiest of holies, into the very presence of God is not disclosed as long as that Old Testament, that Old Covenant was functioning.

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But once God said, I make a new covenant with you, and once Christ has initiated that new covenant, then access is wide open, and now we see what it looks like.

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Now it has been revealed. And he says this, the tabernacle and all of its features are a symbol for the present time.

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Look at verse nine. This is a symbol for the present time. The symbol there is, the word symbol there is the word from which we get our word parable.

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Parable A, I think is how you pronounce it in the Greek. It's the word from which we get our word parallel. Parallel means an illustration, something you set alongside something else to kind of illustrate the truth is the idea.

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It's a parable of the present time. And by present time, he's not talking about our present time, it's actually the way that it's structured.

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Here's the translation issues that I talked about. The way that the sentence is structured, what it is communicating is that while the tabernacle was still standing, while the covenant that it represented was still in place, during that time when that was present, and that was the reality, access to God was barred.

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It was a symbol. The tabernacle was a symbol for the time that it represented, for the time that it was valid.

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But now that it is not valid anymore, that symbol has been taken out of the way. That symbol no longer stands.

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That reality is no longer true. Now we have access directly to God. That's the idea. So under the old covenant, there was no access because sin separated us from God.

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And the old covenant pictured what access would look like, but it did not provide that access. Didn't matter how many animals you offered, access was still barred.

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Sin was never taken out of the way. In contrast to that to the access that we have, I'm gonna read you a couple passages from Hebrews because the author in Hebrews has already spoken of the access that we have to God, and he has bid us to draw near to God through the person of Christ.

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So in Hebrews chapter four, verse 16, therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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Hebrews seven, verse 19, for the law made nothing perfect, and on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God.

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Hebrews 7, 25, therefore he is able to save forever those who draw near to God through him. And then later on in chapter 10, he's gonna return to the same theme of drawing near through the blood and the sacrifice of Christ.

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In chapter 10, verses 19 through 23, he says, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through his veil, that is his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

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Every time Hebrews bids us, commands us, and encourages us to draw near, it's always in the context of discussing the priestly work of Jesus.

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Chapter four, chapter seven, chapter 10, chapter nine, that access to God is described in the context of Christ's sacrifice and his priestly work.

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You see, we don't just draw near because we are spanky and God loves us so much, and if he had a refrigerator, have our picture on it, and he just wants us to come boldly into his presence, that's not it at all.

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We draw near to God on the merits of another. We have no right in and of ourselves to come to God's presence.

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That's what the tabernacle demonstrated. For 1 ,500 years, that was the object lesson. I will dwell with my people, but you cannot come into my presence.

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That was a 1 ,500 year object lesson. And now we have access, not because we are great, but because we serve a great savior, a high priest who has already entered into the holy place, not with the blood of bulls and goats, with his own blood.

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That blood, he has presented the presence of the Father, which atones for all those who are his, all that the

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Father has given to him, that blood avails for them. And now we have access to that throne of grace.

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Why? Because the sin that was once a barrier has finally been taken out of the way. It has finally been dealt with in total.

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And that is why we have access. The first lesson the tabernacle taught us, God wants to dwell with his people, but people are barred from entering his presence.

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You cannot come to God, not without a mediator, not without blood, and not without entering in with the blood that will atone for sin.

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That was the lesson. There was a second weakness or limitation of the old covenant, and that is that the old covenant did not cleanse the conscience.

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Look at verse nine, accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience.

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The gifts and the sacrifices of the old covenant could not make the worshiper perfect in conscience. Now, the author here is just being honest about the limitations of the old covenant.

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He's not running it down. He's not disparaging it. See, the old covenant was not intended to cleanse the conscience of the sinner.

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So it's not like God intended the old covenant to cleanse the conscience, or to remove sin, and that it failed to do that, and that this was in some way a surprise to God.

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That's not it at all. The old covenant was not intended to do this, and so it was not able to do this, and the author is just being honest about the weaknesses of the old covenant.

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It couldn't perfect the conscience of the worshiper. It couldn't cleanse the worshiper's conscience. You could offer sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice, and still have a guilty conscience under the old covenant, because those animal sacrifices could not cleanse the conscience of the guilty worshiper.

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There was always a recognition and an acknowledgment of sin.

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There was always an understanding of the presence of sin, and always an understanding that that sin barred us from entering into God's presence and enjoying his blessings in full.

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That was always part of the old covenant, and when he talks about gifts and sacrifices, he's lumping together there, in the most generic and general way possible, all the gifts and sacrifices.

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Remember, there were a variety of sacrifices. There were daily sacrifices, morning sacrifice, and evening sacrifice.

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Then there was the yearly sacrifice, the day of atonement. There was the Passover sacrifices. There were the sacrifices that you might bring as a family.

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There was a sacrifice that you would give after a child was born. There was a sacrifice that you would give for ceremonial uncleanliness.

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There was a sacrifice that you had for intentional sins. There was a sacrifice that you had for unintentional sins. There were sacrifices that the priest made for themselves, on behalf of just themselves, and not on anybody else.

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There were sacrifices of plenty. There were bread sacrifices, and wine offerings, and grain offerings, and incense offerings.

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There were tithes and offerings that you would give unto God. There were all kinds of sacrifices and offerings. And what is he saying?

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He's lumping them all together. All the gifts and sacrifices. None of them, not one of them.

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Not the daily ones, not the yearly ones, not the personal ones, not the impersonal ones, not the ones for intentional sins or unintentional sins.

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Not bread, not grain, not wine, not incense, not animal. None of them could cleanse the conscience of the guilty worshiper.

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There was always a consciousness of sin under the old covenant, and it was intended to be so, that the sinner would recognize his culpability, his guilt, his condemnation, his sinfulness.

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This is what the tabernacle reminded them of. The weight of that sin, and the reality of it. And those sacrifices never removed guilt.

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Those sacrifices never cleansed the conscience, and those sacrifices never granted access to the presence of God.

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Something else was necessary. See, the worshiper never had confidence that his sins were forgiven.

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This is what is described in chapter 10, verses one to four, which we read at the beginning of the passage. Listen to this again.

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With that in mind, listen to this again. For the law, since it is only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very form of the things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually, year by year, perfect those who draw near.

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Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered because the worshiper, having once been cleansed, would no longer have consciousness of sins?

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But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sin, year by year. Listen, not an atonement for sin, not a cleansing from sin.

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There is what? In those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sin, year after year. You don't remind somebody of sin that has been taken out of the way.

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Those sacrifices could not atone for sin. They didn't remove sin. They reminded you of sin. They reminded you of the sin that kept you away from the presence of God, though he desired to dwell with his people.

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Couldn't cleanse the conscience. Four verses, four says, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

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So those sacrifices didn't cleanse you of sin. They didn't take away the guilt. They didn't cleanse the conscience.

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They just reminded you, year after year, day after day, that's right, I'm a sinner.

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I'm condemned, I'm guilty, and my blood guiltiness is everywhere. That's what those sacrifices did.

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Didn't take it away, just reminded you of it. I want you to imagine for a moment.

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I won't ask you to imagine this. Let me just run a scenario for you. Do you think that there was ever a time under the old covenant when the high priest would step out of the

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Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement, having done all of his work, and get to the end of that day, the sacrifices have done, and the sun has set, where the high priest would then step out and say to the children of Israel, all those who were gathered there to worship that day, say to them, can

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I have your attention please? Atonement has been made, so now we can all access the

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Holy of Holies. So we're gonna be taking, I'm gonna be leading tours behind the Holy Place, into the

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Holy Place, all of you in groups of five to eight, maybe 10 if you have a large family, which some of you

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Jewish people have large families, all your kids, you can all come back at one time, but just in groups of tours, we're taking one at a time back through the

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Holy of Holies. I'll show you the lampstand, the table of bread, maybe you can have a little bread on the table of bread. Then we're gonna step back behind the veil into the

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Holy of Holies, and you can all touch the ark and look at it and see it, and you can see the presence of God there between the cherubim.

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Tours of the Holy Place, come on in, because atonement has been made. Did any high priest ever say such a thing? No, could never say that.

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Even while the blood was still wet on the mercy seat from the sacrifice, he knew when he got done with atonement, and his work was done,

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I gotta do this again next year, the same day, same ritual, the same thing, and he would know, and everybody would know that even though the blood was still wet on the mercy seat, they still didn't have access to God, because even though the atonement had been made, the blood had been applied, they still couldn't go back into the

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Holy of Holies, nobody could. Only one guy, one time, on one day got to go back there.

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And you might say, but Jim, I watched the high priest do his thing, I mean, he did a ceremonial cleansing, he offered the bull, he came in, he applied the bull, the blood of the bull to the horns of the altar, the incense behind the veil, applied the blood to the mercy seat for himself and for his whole household with the incense from the altar there, and then he came out and he sacrificed a goat for the sins of the children of Israel, for the nation, he took that blood in, he applied that to the horns of the altar, took the incense again off of the altar of incense, walked behind the veil, applied that blood the second time for there, for the sins of the people, and then he stepped out, and then we came out and we took the scapegoat, he put his hands on the scapegoat and sent the scapegoat off into the wilderness and finished up the evening sacrifices, the day of atonement is done, atonement has been made, all the sacrifice has been fulfilled, it's all done exactly according to how the law prescribed, how come

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I can still, at that moment, not go back into the holy place? This is the reason the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin.

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So you can offer a blood of the bull and a goat, but you still can't get into the holy place. Why? Because access to the presence of God was still barred as long as that covenant was in place.

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The access to the holiest places is not yet disclosed, it's not yet made available, doesn't matter how many animals you offer on the horns of that altar, doesn't matter how much blood you apply to that mercy seat, you would know that when you got it done with it on the day of atonement, you had to do it again next year.

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Well, how about the daily sacrifices? You do the morning sacrifice and the evening sacrifice, and guess what? When the priest, after going in on the morning sacrifice and offering the animal and applying the blood and taking the incense in there and burning the incense and trimming the wicks and filling the lamp stand, then he would go out and later on that evening, he'd wrap up his day after doing a bunch of other sacrifices by doing the same thing, another evening offering, another animal offered, blood placed on the horns of the altar of incense, and incense burned again, and the lamp stand checked one more time, and then it was done for the day.

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But every priest knew when he put his head on the pillow that night, I gotta do the same thing all over again the next day.

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Day after day, year after year, for 15 centuries, there's an object lesson there.

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What is it? As long as that first covenant is in place, the access to God has not been revealed.

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Something needed to happen to take the first covenant out of play, to give us a new covenant by which we can have access to God.

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And even your personal sacrifice could not gain you access to the presence of God. No sacrifice removed sin.

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They couldn't give tours of the holy place because they knew that when they got done with the altar of incense and they got done with the

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Ark of the Covenant, the Mercy Seat, even while the blood was there, there was still no access. They said, well, maybe my personal sacrifices, maybe, what if I were to walk up to a priest?

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Here's a scenario you can imagine. Imagine you're a wealthy person. You walk up to the priest and you say, I have a lamb to offer.

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I would like you to apply this to the horns of the altar. Walk behind there and apply it to the Mercy Seat so that I personally can have access to the very presence of God in the

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Holy of Holies. What would the priest tell you? No, you can't have that. God will strike you dead if you walk behind there.

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It doesn't matter if you offer a lamb. What if I offer 10 lambs? What if I give my whole flock of lambs? I have 1 ,000 lambs.

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I will come and I will keep the entire priesthood busy all day long for a week. Every last priest, anybody of the tribe of Levi, they'll all be busy.

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I will turn the tabernacle into a slaughterhouse for a week's time, offer all of that.

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I'll bring all my bread, all my grain, all my wine, all my money, I'll give it all if I could just walk behind the veil.

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What would he say? It doesn't matter what you offer. You cannot access the holy place.

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Why? Because as long as that first covenant is in place, it says this, access to God has not yet been disclosed.

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You can't enter in. That tabernacle could not give us access to God and it could not cleanse the conscience because every sinner knew no matter what

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I offer there, there's still a barrier there. As long as that barrier is there, I cannot know in my heart that my sins are forgiven because it doesn't matter how many animals

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I offer. It doesn't matter how many animals are offered. It doesn't matter if it's been one day of atonement or 1 ,000 days of atonement or 1 ,500 consecutive days of atonement, no amount of blood, no amount of sacrifices, no amount of offerings can possibly give me access to God.

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And if you cannot have access to God no matter what you offer, then you cannot have a cleansed conscience, can you?

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You cannot know the blessed liberty of knowing that all of your sins are taken out of the way, all of them have been forgiven forever.

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You can't know that. As long as you know that having offered one sacrifice, I gotta do this again next week or I gotta do it again tomorrow or I gotta do it again next year, as long as that is in front of you, as long as that is a reality, you can never have your conscience cleansed because your sin, that sacrifice, that animal sacrifice doesn't take away your sin.

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It just reminds you of your sin. So therefore, the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin nor can it cleanse the conscience of the worshiper.

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Now does this mean, quickly, that no Old Testament saint ever had their conscience clean?

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Because that would be a horrible way to live, wouldn't it? If no Old Testament saint knew that their conscience was clean? That's not what this means.

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But it does mean that the Old Testament sacrifices and the old covenant did not provide a clean conscience. So for instance, when you read in Psalm 51 of David's confession after his sin with Bathsheba, he says in verse 10, created me a clean heart,

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O God. He wanted a clean heart. He knew that that was possible. He desired it. Verse 14, deliver me from blood guiltiness,

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O God, the God of my salvation. But then David recognized in that same psalm that the sacrifices of bulls and goats and blood could not possibly make his conscience clean and they could not possibly forgive him of his sin.

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He wouldn't be forgiven by that old covenant. It would just remind him of his sin. He needed to be forgiven and made cleansed and made new by something else.

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So he says in Psalm 51, verse 16, for you do not delight in sacrifice. Otherwise, I would give it.

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You're not pleased with burnt offering. Listen to what David is saying. It's not God's, God's delight is not in the animal sacrifice.

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Otherwise, I would just take from my multitude of animals and offer up another animal and it would all be good. And then I could cleanse my,

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I could wash my hands. I could have a clean conscience. The sacrifices could not do that. David says you don't desire or delight in those things.

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Otherwise, I would just give you an animal sacrifice. So he says in verse 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.

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A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. What justified the

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Old Testament saint? An animal sacrifice? They could just walk in and offer an animal and now I'm good,

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I'm good with God? That was never the intention. That was never the lesson. That was never the religion, ever.

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What made an Old Testament saint acceptable to God was a broken and contrite heart. That sacrifice reminded of his sin and that would break him down.

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I need forgiveness. I need God to cleanse me. I can't just offer another sacrifice and call it good. I need cleansing, something that the sacrifices, the blood, the offerings, the priesthood, the old covenant, none of that can provide it.

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I need something provided outside of that. What an Old Testament saint needed was what all of those things pictured or pointed forward to, which was ultimate cleansing.

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That's what the Old Testament saint needed. So it doesn't mean that nobody ever had a clean conscience. It means that that conscience, that cleansed conscience and that forgiveness was not provided on the basis of those animal sacrifices.

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They were a reminder of sins year by year. Here's the third thing. Here's the third thing, the third weakness of the

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Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was external and temporary. The regulations of it were external. Look at verse 10.

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These things cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, verse nine, since they relate only to food and drink and various washings and regulations of the body imposed until a time of reformation.

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The Old Covenant had numerous external requirements and regulation. If you read through the first five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, if you read through those five books, the

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Pentateuch, you'll notice all kinds of regulations of all kinds of things. There's food and drink regulations.

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You weren't able to eat certain foods and you were able to eat certain foods on certain days. And at certain times of the year, you had certain sacrifices whose food you would eat.

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All those regulations were in food and drink. There were certain types of food that you couldn't put together and eat together. And you couldn't drink alcohol if you were under the

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Nazarite vow, or if you were a priest involved in priestly work, you couldn't drink alcoholic beverages. All those regulations with food and drink, those were external.

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And then there were various washings. You would be unclean on how many different levels you could be made unclean.

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Read through the Levitical code all the ways that a person could become unclean. Somebody dies in your arms, you're now touching a corpse and you're unclean.

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You touch a dead animal, you're unclean. You sit down on the wrong chair that somebody else has sat on and they're in a certain time of month and I'm not going into any more details, then you become unclean.

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You lay down on a bed at a certain time of the month when somebody else is unclean, you become unclean. You touch something that somebody else has touched, or you are involved with a leper, or you brush by somebody.

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You can become ceremonially unclean in ways that you intend to and know to, and know you have, and then you could become ceremonially unclean without even thinking about it.

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Not even aware that you had done or touched something wrong. What were all of those ceremonial uncleanliness laws intended to do?

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They were intended to communicate to us that we are always unclean before God. And we always need that sacrifice.

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Because sometimes we know that we have been made unclean, and sometimes we're not even aware that we have been made unclean.

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We don't even know it. But we're always unclean. And because I'm always unclean, I always have a guilty conscience.

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And because I always have a guilty conscience, I have to give the animal sacrifices, which don't take away my sin, they just remind me of my sin and remind me again that my access to God is barred.

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Why? Because we are unclean. So the washings and the regulations of the body, the ceremonial cleansing, the ceremonial baths that they had were connected, some of them, with the sacrifices that the priest would give.

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They were required if they touched something wrong to go out and to cleanse themselves with water and then to be away from somebody for seven days so that they might be made clean.

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And all of those regulations which regulated the body and the washings and the food and the drink, none of it dealt with the heart.

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None of it did. It was all external. All of it was superficial. You could be, as a

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Jew, you could be meticulous with the law, almost blameless in terms of the ceremonial law, and yet have a wicked and unregenerate heart.

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Isn't that what Paul says in Philippians chapter three? Pertaining to the law, I was blameless.

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Nobody could point a finger at him and say, you're unclean, or you haven't done this, or you haven't fulfilled that. And yet the man was out murdering

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Christians. An unclean and wicked heart, and yet when it came to the details, the ceremonial details of the law,

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Paul was meticulous. At the same time, you could be a devout, pious, God -fearing, God -loving,

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Yahweh -worshiping Jew who offers your sacrifices and tithes regularly and gives to the

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Lord and leads your family in worship and teaches your family the law, and you could be made ceremonially unclean in some way that you're not even aware that you were made unclean.

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Because it wasn't about, the uncleanliness was not necessarily about the heart issue. None of those things dealt with the heart.

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It was all external. Second, it was all temporary. All of it was temporary. Again, verse 10, it says it was these things were imposed until a time of reformation.

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These things were not the Jews making these things up. God imposed these under the old covenant, all these regulations, the sacrifices, everything attached with what we've been talking about.

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All of that was imposed upon the Jewish people. When? Until a time of reformation. The old covenant was never intended to be permanent because all of it was imposed until forward -looking to a time when something would change, something, a time of reformation.

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The word translated reformation there refers to being made right or made straight, a rectification.

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It meant establish something new, which is why the NIV translates it something like until the time of the new order has come or until the new order has come, something like that.

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I think that's how it refers to it, the new order. That's what it describes. Until that which is new has come, until the order which is new has arrived, those things were imposed.

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But now in Christ, that new order has arrived. It has come. And so now, the first covenant has been taken entirely out of the way.

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It is gone. Christ, the high priest of a better covenant, offering better sacrifices, granting better access, has come, and having laid down his life, having atoned for sins, he has done the work that all the

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Old Testament sacrifices could never do, and now he has established the new covenant. And we are not under the old, we are under the new.

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And listen, any attempt to turn back to the old covenant is nothing less than a tacit admission that you do not believe that the death of Christ is sufficient for you.

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It is a tacit denial of the sufficiency of the death of Christ. Any desire to go back and to place yourself under the constraints, the regulations, the rules, and the guidelines of the old covenant is a tacit admission, a tacit denial of the sufficiency of Jesus Christ.

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That old covenant is gone. None of it has been carried into the new.

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All of it was intended until the new has come, until the reformation, until the new order has been established, and now the new order has been established.

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So now I ask you, are you in Jesus Christ, and are you part of that new covenant? Have you trusted

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Jesus Christ for salvation? Are your sins forgiven? Is your conscience cleansed? Have you been born again?

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Do you know forgiveness and salvation through Jesus Christ and him alone? The Old Testament condemns you.

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The law cannot save you. Keeping the 10 commandments cannot make you righteous. The law cannot sanctify you.

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The law cannot bring you to God. The law cannot perfect you. The law cannot take away your sins. Nothing of that old covenant can avail or meet your needs, avail for you or meet your needs.

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Are you in Jesus Christ? Has your blood guiltness and your transgressions been wiped out? Are you still under your sin and under the wrath of God?

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Your conscience bears witness to the fact that you are a sinner and that you're guilty before God. You're lying, you're thieving, you're blasphemy, you're lustful thoughts, you're hateful thoughts.

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All of those condemn us. The law condemns us. We stand condemned under the old covenant. Only in Jesus Christ is there sacrifice for sins and a price that has been paid sufficient to atone.

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There is grace in Christ. There is abundant grace and forgiveness in the atonement which he has provided. And I beg of you not to think of yourself as being too vile for God to save.

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That is a slight blasphemy against the grace of God to think that you are a greater sinner than he is a savior and to think that he is not gracious enough, righteous enough, powerful enough, or kind enough to save you if you will repent of your sins and trust in him.

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It's a blasphemy against God to say I'm too vile, I'm too far gone, I'm too much of a sinner. You're not.

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You may be a great sinner, but Christ is a great savior and therein lies our hope. I beg of you today as the day of salvation, come to him, decry your own wretchedness, call out to God, he will save you, he will forgive you of your sins, repent of them, turn from them, and trust in the savior who died a death on a cross to pay the price for all and any who will believe.

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You come to him, he will not cast you out. He will embrace you and he will give you eternal life. That is his promise. Now I say to you who are

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Christians, the elements of the new covenant are before us for our communion service.

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His body was broken and his blood was shed. And while we partake of communion, we are recognizing and reflecting upon the significance of that.

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That that tabernacle does not stand, that that veil does not separate us from God anymore, all of that has been taken out of the way, all of the old covenant taken out of the way.

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Jesus said this is the new covenant in my blood. And in that blood and because of that blood and that sacrifice, we have complete forgiveness of all sins, past, present, and future.

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And not only that, but we enjoy infinite, perfect, imperishable, untainted, undiminished righteousness because of what

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Christ has done. His perfect obedience and his perfect righteousness is ours because he has suffered and died in our stead.

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That is what we celebrate. That is what we glory in, full forgiveness and infinite righteousness, a cleansed conscience, no more sacrifices ever.

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One sacrifice offered one time. So this is not a sacrifice for sins. This doesn't forgive sins.

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This is a reminder, not of sin, but of the sacrifice that has cleansed our sin.

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See in the Old Testament, the sacrifices were all a reminder of our sin. When we celebrate communion, we're not reminded of our sin, we are reminded of what has taken our sin away from us.

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And so before we partake of communion, we are going to bow our heads, we are going to confess our sin, not because we are beating ourselves up over it, not because we have sin that still stands and separates us from God in any salvific sense, but we confess our sin because we acknowledge that even though we have been forgiven of our sins, we confess all of those things which do hinder our relationship with God in terms of our fellowship, not in terms of our salvation.

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And we recognize the ongoing presence of sin in our lives as we confess that. If you are not a believer,

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I would beg you and ask you not to partake of communion because this is not for you. This is for those who are saved.

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For these elements remind us of the sacrifice that Christ paid to atone for sin and to take it away entirely.

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It doesn't remind us of our sins, it reminds us of our Savior. There's a world of difference between those two things.

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So I will bow my head and then I will step down and ask the ushers to come forward and help serve communion. So let's bow our heads and pray together.

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Our great God, so glorious is your love for us and so infinite your grace and righteousness that you would save wretched sinners such as us.

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We marvel at that. We thank you for the blessing that it is to be in the new covenant and not under the old.

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We thank you again for the lessons that we learned from your word about what was required in order to atone for our sins, for it all points to Christ, it all anticipates him.

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And now he has come and done that work on our behalf and we are grateful for a salvation that is full and free to all who believe.

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We thank you for the blessing of that sacrifice which has taken our sin away. And we come to you and acknowledge that, yes, we do continue to sin, we do continue to fail you, to not do what we are commanded to do and to violate your commandments on a daily basis.

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And as long as we are in these bodies of sin and death, we will wrestle against the flesh, we will wrestle against that sin and we must mortify it.

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And so we confess to you our iniquity and we confess to you that those transgressions and we're just grateful that we can continue to look to Christ and Christ alone for all of our hope of forgiveness and righteousness, for in him all our forgiveness and righteousness is found.

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So we glory and rejoice in that sacrifice and in that atonement and that perfect shed blood, that perfect sacrifice which has taken our sin away.

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We glory in that, we delight in it, we thank you for it. We love you on the basis of that, we thank you that you have first loved us so that we can love you in return.

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And we thank you for this great reminder of the grace that has been bestowed upon us and the shed blood and the broken body of that perfect sacrifice.

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We thank you also for the resurrection of Christ that he did not stay dead, but that by that resurrection he has justified us and he has declared that victory and we look forward to that day when we will be resurrected as well and we will eat and drink of these elements in the kingdom with you.

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We praise you and we glorify you in the name of Christ, thanking you for his grace, for your mercy, for that sacrifice and for the forgiveness that we enjoy so rich and free.