Freedom For Today

“The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared. But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. “

I wear glasses to see things that are far away. Without them, objects in the distance are a blur of shapes and colors. I can see faintly, and perhaps if I really squint I can make out a few details. Seeing clearly only comes when I put my glasses on. Similarly, the systems of the Old Testament — prior to Jesus’ life on earth — were blurry shadows of God’s kingdom. There were fuzzy images of concepts like atonement for sin and a Messiah to come, but nothing was quite clear.

Year after year, God’s people continued to offer sacrifices to him as prescribed in the law. I’m sure it would have been easier if they could have just brought in a sacrifice that would have covered everything — past, present, and future sins. Maybe some people wanted to say to the priest, “Can you just apply this to next year, too?” Unfortunately, the old system didn’t work that way. No sacrifice was ever perfect enough. Instead, offering sacrifices just cemented their reality of being sinners. That much was not blurry at all.

We live on the other side of history. Jesus has come to earth and we have the privilege of living in God’s new covenant. Our sins are paid for once and for all time. We are still sinners, but we get to experience and understand grace in a whole new way. The Holy Spirit dwells in each one who follows Jesus, so that we can have full access to God. It’s an incredible time to live. Jesus brought into focus what they could not possibly see in the Old Testament. However, we still only see partially what we will fully see when Jesus returns and God’s kingdom is brought fully to earth. Get ready for an awesome “aha moment” because it’s coming!

Take a moment to read Hebrews 9:11-28 before reading the devotional below.

Today’s passage is a bit longer, but this section has one main idea: Jesus is the perfect sacrifice. In modern America, we don’t really have a good framework for the idea of ceremonial sacrifices (specifically involving killing animals). But the first-century Jewish readers of this letter would have a very visual concept of a sacrificial system. It was messy. It was bloody. It was very specific and precise. The death of an animal was considered a payment for sin because sin and death are intertwined. God established that reality very clearly the moment Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden.

Verses 16 and 17 offer an analogy we might understand better: a legal will doesn’t go into effect until a person dies. Death activates a specific legal contract that is binding. When we think about the payment collected for sin, it is important to understand that death activates that payment. Jesus’ death was far more valuable than the death of any animal or any of us. His was the ultimate death because of his divine status as God. His death paid for all sin for all time. The old sacrificial system is no longer needed.

Jesus is the priest, the sacrifice, and the God to whom the sacrifice is offered as payment. He fills every role in the play. He’s the judge, the defense lawyer, and the jury. I love the way this chapter ends in verse 28: “He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation…” Jesus has dealt with your sin. It’s taken care of. He’s not coming back to yell at you or to condemn you. If you are “eagerly waiting for him” then he’s coming to rescue you. He is everything you will ever need.

“That first covenant between God and Israel had regulations for worship and a place of worship here on earth. There were two rooms in that Tabernacle. In the first room were a lampstand, a table, and sacred loaves of bread on the table. This room was called the Holy Place. Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was the second room called the Most Holy Place. In that room were a gold incense altar and a wooden chest called the Ark of the Covenant, which was covered with gold on all sides. Inside the Ark were a gold jar containing manna, Aaron’s staff that sprouted leaves, and the stone tablets of the covenant. Above the Ark were the cherubim of divine glory, whose wings stretched out over the Ark’s cover, the place of atonement. But we cannot explain these things in detail now.

“When these things were all in place, the priests regularly entered the first room as they performed their religious duties. But only the high priest ever entered the Most Holy Place, and only once a year. And he always offered blood for his own sins and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. By these regulations the Holy Spirit revealed that the entrance to the Most Holy Place was not freely open as long as the Tabernacle and the system it represented were still in use.

“This is an illustration pointing to the present time. For the gifts and sacrifices that the priests offer are not able to cleanse the consciences of the people who bring them. For that old system deals only with food and drink and various cleansing ceremonies—physical regulations that were in effect only until a better system could be established.”

When God’s people (the Israelites or Jewish people) were wandering in the desert after being set free from slavery in Egypt, God set up a tent so that he could camp out with them in the midst of the wilderness. You can see exactly how this all went down by reading Exodus 24-40. You can also check out my previous series on Exodus by using the “Search by Category” feature on the right side of FreedomForToday.com.

God’s instructions were detailed. There are instructions for the types of fabrics and threads to use. There are instructions for priests, right down to their underwear! God was extremely specific with them. However, these were merely physical rituals rather than supernatural ones. Why would God bother to go to all this trouble if it didn’t matter? What was the point of the old system in the first place?

God isn’t in a rush. He doesn’t get straight to the point. He was setting up a system as an object lesson for his people. If they could successfully be “good enough” and follow his laws perfectly, then they would have no need for a Savior. Ultimately they would have no need for God. Recall that when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, the rules of the world fundamentally changed. Satan was given power on earth (by Adam and Eve abdicating their authority to him) and this created a separation between God and humanity. God was not defeated in that moment, humans were. God has never had any desire to give up his creation or ditch humanity. Rather, he set up a system in which humans could choose to return to him. Jesus created the path by which we can now access God. But without the old system, we would not see a need for a path. The reality is that we cannot overcome the devastation we caused. The old system proved that repeatedly. We have to turn to God for salvation. It’s the only way. That was God’s plan all along.

“If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it. But when God found fault with the people, he said:

‘The day is coming, says the Lord,
    when I will make a new covenant
    with the people of Israel and Judah.
This covenant will not be like the one
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    and led them out of the land of Egypt.
They did not remain faithful to my covenant,
    so I turned my back on them, says the Lord.
But this is the new covenant I will make
    with the people of Israel on that day, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds,
    and I will write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
And they will not need to teach their neighbors,
    nor will they need to teach their relatives,
    saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’
For everyone, from the least to the greatest,
    will know me already.
And I will forgive their wickedness,
    and I will never again remember their sins.’

When God speaks of a ‘new’ covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear.”

Most of today’s passage is a quotation from Jeremiah 31:31-34. Although I recently wrote about the empathy I feel for first-century Jews who saw Jesus as a threat, the reality is that God had been telling them about what was coming for a long time. The book of Jeremiah was written around 626 B.C., so the Jewish people had over six centuries to ponder the idea of God introducing a new covenant. Certainly there is also a lot of prophetic writing about a coming Messiah as well. God was not throwing a sudden curveball when Jesus came to earth.

The old covenant needed to be replaced because the contract had been violated, rendering it null and void. Who broke their promises? The people of Israel. God remained faithful and he saw that a covenant between himself and his people could not rely on their ability to keep their end of the deal. God had to guarantee BOTH sides of the contract. These laws, once written on stone, now needed to be imprinted directly into the hearts and minds of the people.

God isn’t a big mystery in the sky that we have to figure out. While he is infinite and mysterious, he has revealed a lot about himself and he wants you to know him. The Holy Spirit is now at work directly in your heart and mind, which is unprecedented access to God that was made possible through Jesus’ death and resurrection. God created a covenant in which he made it possible to know him and he promises to forget all your sins. This new system replaces the old covenant, so we no longer have to worry about keeping up our end of the bargain with God. He’s got the whole thing covered.

“Here is the main point: We have a High Priest who sat down in the place of honor beside the throne of the majestic God in heaven. There he ministers in the heavenly Tabernacle, the true place of worship that was built by the Lord and not by human hands. And since every high priest is required to offer gifts and sacrifices, our High Priest must make an offering, too.  If he were here on earth, he would not even be a priest, since there already are priests who offer the gifts required by the law. They serve in a system of worship that is only a copy, a shadow of the real one in heaven. For when Moses was getting ready to build the Tabernacle, God gave him this warning: ‘Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I have shown you here on the mountain.’ But now Jesus, our High Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on better promises.”

I love it when an author gives signposts to help the reader understand their point. Today’s passage gets right to it: Jesus is our High Priest who sits directly beside God’s throne. If you thought the earthly Tabernacle (or Temple) was impressive — it was! — just imagine a heavenly one. That Temple was just a shadow compared to this true place of worship that God built. Anything man made is going to be far inferior to the direct handiwork of God.

The earthly priests are kind of like actors, mimicking the real worship happening in heaven. If Jesus were only an earthly human, he wouldn’t have even been eligible to be a priest at all because he was not from the tribe of Levi. However, because Jesus is someone completely different from any other priest, he doesn’t follow the earthly rules. He oversees an upgraded contract between God and his people, with a whole lot more in store for those who follow him.

If you use what you see around you on earth as a gauge for reality, you’ll be limited in what you can see. There is beauty here on earth, but there is also pain. There’s never enough time or resources to do everything that we could imagine wanting to do. We are limited by time, space, and human frailty. Jesus has something supernaturally better. This new covenant, or promise, from God is full of hope. Jesus has more for you than you could think to ask for or imagine. It will blow your mind! Don’t settle for what you see around you. Reality is so much bigger than that.