Gospel of John, 2:1-17

We are at lesson number five, which starts chapter two. Chapter two is two basic things going on in chapter two. One, he may not make some. I don't I don't have any. Is there any on any of the tables around? Yeah. Who needs a lesson? Five. There's one, two, three, four, five. And you didn't get notebooks either, did you? All right. I'll get some notebooks together for you and get all the lessons in. OK. Anybody else need a notebook? OK. One, two, three, four. OK.

The two major events that go on in Chapter two, one is the turning of the water into wine, and the second event is the cleansing, as we know, is the cleansing of the temple. Both of those are miracles, and both of them have tremendous Jewish significance. So as we go through them, I want you to think a couple of things.

Why would John pick those events? He's writing 30 years after Paul probably went home to be with the Lord and nobody else has written anything. So he's kind of Monday morning quarterbacking things 30 years later. And so he's got the whole scheme and plan and agenda of all the events that have gone on to write about. And he specifically picks certain events and leaves others out. And so Canaan is one that he picks that when you first read it you think, So, what significance? It has a lot of significance from a Jewish viewpoint.

So, I started out with probably a really easy question. How many days have passed since the beginning of Christ's earthly ministry? On the third day. It's a tough one. I hope you all got it right. So he's into his ministry three days, and when you think about it, a lot's happened already in just three days. He's called his disciples, he's moved. Why were his whole entourage invited to this wedding?

Anybody know why? There's some relations there. If you look at John 21.2, It says, there were together Simon Peter and Thomas, called Didymus, and Nathanael of Canaan in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Nathanael was from Canaan, small community. But obviously, there was a connection between whoever the participants in the wedding and the family, and Mary, because Mary is there. hosting the wedding.

She's in charge of making sure the food is catering. Maybe she's the caterer. So she consults the Lord Jesus when they run out of wine. She immediately goes to the Lord Jesus and says, we don't have any wine. Why did she do that? Understand now, Jesus is three days into his ministry Has he done any miracles yet? No. He hasn't done a thing.

When I took New Testament in college, I don't know if this is correct or not, but different people were responsible for the wine at different periods of time. Yeah, and she's responsible for the wine as much as we know. But my question is, why does she turn to her son and say, hey, we've got a problem with the wine. Fix it.

She knew who Jesus was. She knew who he was. Did you think she understood that he could do miracles? No. Has he done any? She knew he was divine. Do you really think she knew he was divine? Oh, absolutely. What makes you think that? Well, Joseph certainly was his father. That's true. And she knew that. That's true.

She knew he was the Messiah of Israel. Did you think she knew he was the Son of God? Like we know him? She knew he was not an ordinary guy like you and me. That's for sure. So he's not an ordinary guy and she knows it, probably knows more about him or of him than anybody on the planet. And she's watched him for 30 years grow up. She's got to be scratching her head saying, does this guy ever sin? George. That's right. That's exactly right. So I don't think she knows the fullness of who he is, but she knows that if there's a problem that he can fix it.

So she does turn to him, but I think there's another motive here too. I think she's observed that he has started his ministry because he's gathered disciples around him and he has been baptized and he's been out in the desert and back, right? And so she knows that he's now beginning to do what he's been sent to do. So, I think she would like him to manifest some of his power. Not for her, but so that other people could see, hey, the Messiah is here, and this is him right here.

So, the Lord Jesus answers her when she says, And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, Woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. What does this, my hour has not yet come, mean? I think it contributes to maybe understanding what Mary was trying to accomplish. What is my hour has not yet come? Not ready to reveal himself. Get your fingers ready.

John 12, 23, and 24 on this side of the room. On this side of the room, John 13, 1. And I'll look up 17. So, John 12, 23, and 24. Whoever gets it can read it. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. So by the time you get to chapter 12, the Lord Jesus says, The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. John 13 warning. Anybody on this side? So here's another reference to his hour.

John 17.1, in the Lord's Prayer, he says, These words spoke Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify thy son, that thy son may also glorify thee. So I think when he refers to his hour has come, he's talking about the manifestation of the glory of God in the Lord Jesus Christ and what he's going to do, which is his death, burial, and resurrection. So it's interesting, Mary says, Well, can you do something about the wine? That's what led me to think that maybe what she's trying to do is to get him to manifest his glory right now, which he does. But from his perspective, the manifestation of the glory of God has to do with what he's here to do, which is to go to the cross. So, the three references in the rest of John that have to do with this. The second part about this. There's an understanding here, I think, that may be, and I don't think I'm reading this into this, but put it this way.

The first Adam always fails. And at the middle of a wedding feast is when the wine is to be, in the Jewish system, wine is a symbol of what? What did the Jews think wine was a symbol of? Joy. So right in the middle of a joyous occasion, the wine runs out, which sort of symbolizes the capacity of Adam.

But the Lord Jesus will meet all the wants and all the needs of every human being, even though faith, however, never looks at him in vain. It always looks as to what God can do or has already done. The blessing that he would show, it comes down from the Father. And so, you have to look at this Mary as kind of a shadow, but not the very image of what's going to happen with the nation of Israel when the Lord comes to rule and reign. He's just kind of giving a testimony, and the second thing he's going to do is he's going to show a sign here. Signs are really big, as we've talked about. And he's going to manifest his glory, but this is just kind of a foreshadow.

Notice how he went to the servants, not to the headman, and the headman didn't really know what was going on. I'm wondering if maybe he and his mother talked it over and said, this is what we're going to have to do in the background. Well, Mary turns a little later and says, whatever he says. To the servants, whatever he tells you to do, you do it.

So maybe they had a conversation on how to handle it. They may have. And we'll talk in a second about the pots of water, because they're significant too. Practically, they were very poor. Mary and Joseph were very poor, and if she was really providing the wine, perhaps they ran out, or they did run out, and perhaps they couldn't afford anymore. Could be that. Canaan and Galilee wasn't a very upscale neighborhood.

So do you think Mary was disturbed when Jesus answered her request where he says, Woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour's not yet come. Do you think he's sort of shunning her and saying, Sounds pretty harsh to me. Does it sound harsh to you? I don't think so.

I spent some time looking at this term, woman, and you could translate it here, my lady, what is it that you would have of me? You could translate it that way, which is a very polite way, or he could have been saying, what's in your heart? The one I read said, woman, that concerns you, not me. Oh, interesting. So you know what's interesting about Mary? She has a place in the Lord's life at the beginning of his ministry here and also at the end because she's at the cross. So she's special but she's not Catholic special. Now let's talk about the water pots. What does the word say that the pots are for?

No. What are they for? Purification of the Jews. What's that purification thing about? They're for washing, right? So here are these pots of water and they're for purifying people, washing their feet, washing their hands. And again, we're looking at this thing from a Jewish standpoint. Purification would be part of what? Where did the Jews come up with purification? They got it out of the Mosaic law system. So the water pots represent the law system, right? And when they're filled with water and then the Lord Jesus does something to them, it changes the system. See that? They're no longer used for purification.

So my question number six, What would you say was the content of the miracle Jesus performed? Now, some have said, well, all he really did was speed up the process from the growing of the grapes, from the water that goes into the vine, and zingo, we have wine. Let me give you some things.

Galilee is always connected with the remnant of Israel. in contrast to Jerusalem which is connected with the Pharisees. The performance of a miracle in Galilee points to the order in which the blessing is going to be brought to Israel in the latter days. It's going to come from that direction because that's where he came from. The joy represented by the wine fails in the middle of the feast as we've discussed, even as Israel's joy fades in the middle of her most favorite season.

The water pots which are for purifying of the Jews, represent the ordinances of the law. Now listen to this part. These were empty unrealities until filled with the living power of divine truth. So the Lord says, fill them up and then go pour them out. Then when they're drawn out, this truth becomes the wine of joy for Israel and for Israel's feasts. That's really what they represent because these pots represent the law system to purify you.

Under the system that we live under, are we cleaned up, washed, or are we filled with entirely newness? Newness. Newness of life. And that's why the pots are really important here, because what the Jews used them for, and what the Lord Jesus did with them, I often thought, well gee, I don't know how many people are at this wedding, but if there's two or three of these pots and he changes the water into wine, it took him months to drink this up.

So I think the pots are maybe like this big. Does everybody understand the span I just made from the old system to the new? This isn't a span from old Mosaic law to Christianity. This is a span from old Mosaic system to millennial system. See the difference? We're only focusing on Judaism here. John does not focus on Christianity.

So why did Jesus perform this miracle? Why did he do it? You already have the answer. He does it for the benefit of Israel. The other reason is that in order to verify the ministry of a prophet to Israel, what does he have to be able to do? He's got to be able to perform signs.

You will see this all through the Gospels. You really see it a lot in the book of Acts, at least the first 10-12 chapters, when it's all about Peter and the ministry to the Jewish nation, there's lots of miracles going on. But when Paul starts to come into the scene, and the Gentiles start to come into the body of Christ, the miracles start to decrease. Because Gentiles don't need miracles, they want wisdom. The Jews always want a sign, and so he starts his public ministry with a sign. In John chapter 1, verse 14, The word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Will there be a day when the Lord Jesus will bring joy to Israel and to the world? The answer is yes. So he'll do it by reversing the sorrowful history of man. In other words, the line isn't going to fail. when he reigns, the joy of God and man in happy communion together, Jesus will furnish all to the glory of God the Father. In that day, too, he himself will be the bridegroom and the master of the feast. It will be both. And the joy of that day will find its root not only in the glory of his person, but in the depth of that work of humiliation already brought on the cross. There will be no secrets then, It will not be servants only who will then know, but all, from the least to the greatest.

This is the beginning of the signs that Jesus did in Galilee. He manifested his glory and his disciples believed on him. What do you think the disciples believed? When the word says that the disciples believed on him, what did they believe? But he was going to be the king of the Jews. He was going to be the king of the Jews. Nathaniel had already called him the son of God.

Now, put it this way maybe. They've been hanging around with Jesus three days. One day. So they go to this wedding in Canaan. And these disciples see him perform this miracle. Then the Word of God says, and then they believed. So what did they believe? Well, they believed simply that he could turn water into wine. They believed that much.

What I want you to notice, and you'll see this going through the rest of the chapters, that the disciples would believe him when he, like any good Jew, they believed him when he performed signs. but they didn't have a heart attachment to him like we do. As long as he kept performing, they were in the mix. And you'll find too that the Jews, the Pharisees and the Jewish people will continually come to him and say, well, we don't believe now, but do one more miracle and then we will. He would do it and they'd say, well, maybe another one.

And that little scenario goes on all the time. I don't think the disciples are any different. I think that they are needing miracle after miracle after miracle to hold them steady. There aren't any stupid questions. Everybody hear the question? When they believed on him, did they receive the Holy Spirit? Answer, no. So that's probably why they weren't so close.

When we receive Christ as our Savior, then we receive the Holy Spirit. There's a couple things here with that, and that's a great question. The fact that these men believed in various, that he was powerful, that he was the Messiah, that he could do miracles, that he was the son of God. But there were lots of... we could go through a thing about what Jews thought the sons of God were. They weren't deity in human flesh. And their faith in who he was was not faith to cause them to be believers.

And we're going to study in chapter 3 when Jesus says to Nicodemus, if you want to see the kingdom of God, you must be born again. The difference between believing at this point in the Lord Jesus and us is more than, in terms of intimacy with Christ, is more than receiving the Holy Spirit. Because those of you who have been in the identification class, and if you listen to the class that's going on upstairs, they're going through the 33 things or 34 things that happen to you when you believe.

And what's significant about all of those things is not a single one of those are true of a Jew. Not a single one. The most important thing, I think, is the fact that you have been recreated in Christ with his very resurrected life. And you are not who you think you are. You are not a saved sinner. You are a brand new Kainos creature who has the capacity and the privilege of intimacy with Christ on his level.

There isn't a Jew alive that can do that. Not one. Because the impediment was in them. They're from Adam. We are from Christ. And because we are from Christ, our capacity and our privilege of intimacy with the Son of God is the same capacity that the three persons of the Trinity have with each other. That's the huge difference, I think.

You mean a non-believing Jew? Say that again? A non-believing Jew. What about? You said there isn't a Jew alive. Oh, I meant a believing Jew, sorry. Non-believing. If they're a believing Jew, they're a Christian. Oh, you mean today? Yeah. You're making me nervous. I had three hands go up. I've got to be very careful when I say something, right? Thank you.

Maybe we could say the Kingdom Jew, like you said earlier. Kingdom Jew doesn't happen. A Kingdom Jew. Yeah, and that's important from a stewardship or dispensational viewpoint to understand that those Believing Jews in the Millennial Kingdom do not possess the intimacy with Christ that we do. And they won't. It doesn't mean they're second class or short-changed or anything like that.

God in his marvelous way has diversity in his creation that's such that every creature is fulfilled over the capacity that he created them, especially us. Just the question about whether they received the Holy Spirit or not is a pretty clear indication of when that occurs in Acts. It's not a subtle effect. So it would be difficult to say that that happened back here. It happens again later in Acts to the same people.

Well, and also towards the end of John, he says to his disciples, receive ye the Holy Spirit before before Pentecost. There's a difference between some of the Old Testament saints had received the Holy Spirit so that they could build the temple, make it plumb, so that it would be perfect. Is that the same thing as we have?

No. I've always asked this question and it kind of creates some controversy. What's more important to you? Both are true. Which is more important? Christ in you or you in Christ? Yeah, me in Christ. Sure it is. Both are true. Both are over-the-top magnificent. But the Spirit can be in me and I can do wonderful things without me being in Christ. You see that? It's just like these disciples. I would say that these disciples didn't have the full knowledge that was involved, and yet a divine work had been done in them. They'd been called. Because of the miracles their faith was growing, they, being Jews, were always looking for signs and wonders. I would say this is not saving faith. You agree? What do you think? You think this was saving faith? These guys are going to be They're called out ones. Judas is in this group.

What's this first miracle in the contents of what it was? Changing water into wine. What does that tell us about the Lord Jesus as to who he is? In the beginning was the word, not anything was made that was not made by him. I think it shows that he's the creator and that he's the upholder of all things. and the One who provides for all our needs. All the physical world is subject to Him. Even as the Son of God on the earth, as man, setting His glory aside, He still, all of material world, all the universe is subject to His command.

So, list the travelers that went with Him up to Capernaum. It's interesting that John remembers, well, let's see, there was, you know, there was, who were they? His mother went, and his brothers, James. Now it's interesting, other places in the Word of God it says that his brothers didn't believe who he was until after he was resurrected. But they're going with him, they're hanging with him. his mother, his brothers, and the disciples.

So there's a pretty cool band and they're going up to Capernaum. Now at this point we've just seen a partial display of the glory of the kingdom. The next thing we're going to see is judgment in the temple. So the first Passover is about to take place and remember we talked about that you can trace how long the Lord Jesus' ministry is by the number of Passovers that John mentions that he attends, three of them, this is the first one he's going to go to.

It's the first Passover noted since his childhood. John is careful to mention these feasts throughout. So what does the Passover represent? Now we're up in Jerusalem and he's about to go in the temple. He went up there to celebrate the Feast of the Passover. What was the Passover about? They're in Egypt. The angel of death was going to come to Egypt and he was going to kill every first born male of everybody. Egyptians, Jews, everybody. Every first born male was going to die.

Except when what? There's blood over the doorpost, the lintel of your house. If he's coming down your street and he sees the blood, he passes you by. This is, what's it represent to the Jews? Atonement. Say that again. Atonement. Atonement. Okay. Covering. Covering. Yeah, covering. It shelters them from the angel of death. the wrath of God against sin, they're under the covering of the blood of the Lamb and the punishment won't get to them.

That's what they understand. Is this the number one Jewish feast? I think so. And they were required to remember it every year because of the significance of it and it points to what? points to the death of Christ on the cross for sin. It's an example of what Jesus would accomplish on the cross to forever deal with sin and death. He's going to deal with both of those. So for anybody in 2008 to be protected from the wrath of God against sin, you've got to get under his blood, right?

You have to come to him. His blood is the most precious commodity there is, and boy, it's not on the exchange. You can't buy it and sell it. It's free. It's really cool. Why does he say in verse 13, Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, And Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Why does he use the term Passover of the Jews? It's a religious feast. Now, wait a minute. Who gave him the feast? Moses got it. Who did he get it from? Who did he get it from? He got it from God.

Well, how come the word Jesus refers to it as a Jewish feast now? He's distancing himself from the Feast. How come? It's something you Jews are doing. The Jews had turned away from the Lord Jehovah and his ordinance given to them at Sinai. The keeping of the Feast had become a formality and therefore the Lord no longer owns it as his own. the Jews didn't enter into its meaning. He calls it a Jewish feast.

In other words, it's your deal. It's not mine. Because it isn't what I originally gave to Moses and to you as a nation when we first got going here. And it isn't the same thing that we talked about back in Egypt when I gave you the lamb to cover your household. You don't understand. It's a formality.

We're going to do the Lord's Table this morning and I'm going to talk a little bit about the formality of the Lord's Table. It's so easy for us as human beings to want to learn the system and get into the tradition of it rather than understand what it really means and why we do it. So he's in 14 and he found the temple He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers doing business. And he made a whip cord, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. Now, let's set the scene for you. The temple itself isn't very big. It's like 30 by 90. But there's all of this building and outer court and stuff around it. These people had encroached in the temple themselves and set up corrals, I suppose. If you've ever been down to the stock show, there's little pens and they've got animals in them.

And if you happen to be a Hellenistic Jew and you're in town for the Passover, where are you going to get a lamb? You're going to have to buy it from one of the local Jews. Well, the Jews being enterprising like they are, they set up out there so you can buy them. So if you show up and you're from Rome and you've got drachmas and no shekels, there's got to be a guy there that's going to exchange your currency. That's who the money lenders are. So it's a really smart economic system.

The problem is that it encroached on the house of God. and commerce was being done in the house of God. Now you see how the Jews have turned what is supposed to be an environment that God gave them to cover their sins into a way to make money. And the Lord Jesus isn't real happy about that. I wouldn't be either. You're not coming over to my house and sell stuff. And then he says, he said to those who sold doves, take these things away, do not make my father's house a house of merchandise. So what they were trying to do was turn the temple into Walmart. That's really what they were doing. And his disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house has eaten me up. What role does the Lord Jesus assume in driving the thieves out of the temple? Now think about this. The Lord Jesus has had his ministry going just a few days.

Very few people know who he is. He goes up to the first Passover. He sees this thing. He makes a whip. Now, where's he from? Nazareth. Not cool. and he goes into the temple by himself and he drives all of the merchants out of there. Don't you think the Pharisees and people around are thinking, who is this guy? What? Who is this guy think he is? But he assumes a role by doing that. What's the role? Ownership. It's his father's house.

He's executing judgment on Israel is what he's doing here. And if Israel is to receive blessing in the future, that temple has got to be purged. The Lord justifies the judicial act before their eyes by his relationship to God as his father. This is the first time he says this. They know what he's talking about. He's claiming to be the Son of God. He asserts himself also as the Lord of the temple. It's his father's house and he says, it's my house. I'm thinking about this happening in the environment that it's in and the reaction of all of these so-called religious Jews hanging around the temple. It's the beginning of Passover and they're thinking, this guy, I don't know who he is.

He had a fervor and a fire about him that everybody did leave. He did throw him out. He made these statements. He either struck fear in people's hearts, or right away, the ruling Pharisees and the Sadducees are saying, we're going to have to do something about this guy. This is really a bold move on his part.

How do you think the temple got so messed up by this time? in the whole Jewish system? What's that? Lots of tradition. No prophet in Israel for 450 years, so there's no direct communication from God to the Jews for 450 years. They developed this whole synagogue system.

They had created a whole system of laws so that if you If you didn't break those, you wouldn't break the mosaic law. And they were, you know, year after year separating themselves farther and farther away from the will of God. So the system is so flawed by this time that they don't even realize. I mean, they're arrogant about the privilege that they have, but they are so far away from what God intended it to be that they have no understanding and which leads to all kinds of abuses, such as you know, making a shopping mall out of the temple under the guise that it was selfish. Selfishness is what it is.

Well, I'm not sure a Nazarene and being from Nazareth are the same thing. Nazareth, how do I describe Nazareth? Yeah, that's right. Nazareth is, now don't take offense, Nazareth is like being from Commerce City, or where I grew up in Illinois, the south side of town. You don't want to be from that part. It's the other side of the tracks.

It's where all the ignorant, uneducated, the criminals all come from there, the barrio. That's what Nazareth is. So whenever there's a statement Jesus of Nazareth. No wonder Nathaniel said, can anything good come from Nazareth? You see the same thing, the really cool thing, we're studying Acts on Tuesday, when Peter gives his message about who the Lord Jesus is. Over and over and over again, he does two really interesting things. In the message, he will always start out and refer to Jesus as Jesus of Nazareth. You know, that's how he describes him. And then the next thing he does is he says, here's what you did. Here's what God has done. You killed him. God raised him up. You've impugned him. God has glorified him. You have shunned him. God has made him.

And oh, by the way, he's from Nazareth. And I think he uses that to show the contrast that the Messiah and the Son of God, the Savior of the world, really is from the lowest part of Israel that you could possibly be. And look what God has done. And so I think that that's why that contrast is there all the time. If you read the first ten chapters of Acts, whenever Peter's talking about the Lord Jesus, whenever he's evangelizing, That's what he always refers to the Lord Jesus as, Jesus of Nazareth. And that's why he does it, I think, to show the distance. Now, how sacred a place do you think that this temple was?

Solomon had acted at the beginning with a vitality which drove out the unworthy high priest in his day. So he kept it pretty straight, although he ended up worshipping idols. When the kingdom was divided, Hezekiah and Josiah, sons of David, had each sought to vindicate the glory of Jehovah. Nehemiah, under the protection of the Gentiles, had not been lacking when the returned remnant so quickly manifested that the captivity on the one hand and God's mercy on the other hand had failed to lead them to repentance. Now the Son gives a sign as a solemn, gives a sign, solemn for proud religious Jerusalem as the miracles of the water change into wine was full of bright hope for despised Galilee. The deal is going on here.

When you think about the temple, it really is God's house. Now, there's another book that we've studied that talks a lot about God's house. Anybody remember what it was? It's in Hebrews and talks about being master over the house. and that the Lord Jesus is not only the master of his house, but he's the builder of it, which is different than Moses was the master over God's house, which was Israel. This is a very special place to the Lord. It's his father's house. Now, why? What made it? What is a temple, by the way? What does it do?

It's where God dwells. It's a place. In this case, a building in which the presence of God actually inhabits it, the Shekinah Glory. So, when the temple was first occupied, or the tent, there was the Holy of Holies, and in the Holy of Holies was the very presence of God, the Shekinah Glory, right?

Now, from there, moving outward, the next thing was this really huge thick curtain. And what was the curtain for? It was to protect men. And what else? Separate man from God and God from man. What's interesting about the temple is that its construction and its conception puts in place the closest that God could get to his creation and the closest they could get to him, separated by a curtain. But because of who man was and who God is, there was only one guy a year that could go in there, the high priest, to do what?

To sprinkle blood for the sins of the people. So the essence of God dwells in the temple. So it's God's place, so to speak. It's his house. It's where he lives. for the son of God to come on the earth and to see this stuff going on in his father's house, in his house, it would be like somebody doing it on your house. You get upset when somebody TPs your front yard. This is God's very own place.

So Holly Hills must be the next step. in God's house, right? Why not? Because we're the temple. We're the temple. Isn't that interesting? And magnificent when you think about it. God has a dwelling place on the earth now. It's you and me. It's our bodies. That the Shekinah glory, the very essence of God's house is you and me. What you do with your house is kind of important, don't you think?

Because God is there. I mean, I don't know about you, but every once in a while I'll be in the middle of something and I realize, my goodness, I'm standing in this location and this time doing this activity and the God of the universe is right here. He's in me. No Jew could ever say that.

Can you explain the significance of the curtain game for him? Yeah, I think the most significant part of that is the fact that it was ripped from the top to the bottom. And if you've ever studied the curtain, the curtain is is, I don't know, like this thick. And you trust me, a chainsaw couldn't cut through this thing, you know, the way it was constructed. And it was behind. There's a hook behind it. When it ripped at the death of Christ, it ripped from the top to the bottom, which did two things. One, it allowed what was inside to come out, and it allowed what was outside to come in.

Once the sin issue is resolved, there's no need for a barrier. You see that? Because now God can be merciful and gracious to his people, Because sin, His righteousness, the 25 cent word is propitiation, He's been propitiated. He's satisfied about sin now. So He can come to humanity and humanity can come to Him. There's no need for this place anymore. See that? So that was the significance. The curtain, I think, represents the closest God could get to people and the closest people could get to God.

But because God's holy men are sinful, they couldn't cross that barrier. See? Well, I think his righteousness and his holiness had to be satisfied before he could exercise grace to you and me. Because the work of the cross was not gracious. It was very costly. The most the most expensive thing ever. But once it's finished, then God can act graciously. It's part of his nature to be gracious, so he has to resolve the impediment to start with so that he can act graciously.

So, I don't think we really grasp, for us as believers, how wide open the entrance into the presence of God is available to you and me. I don't think we appreciate that. We appreciate all that God has done for us. But I don't think we appreciate, like we should, the fact that we can go in, like in Hebrews 10, with boldness, enter into the Holy of Holies. That's home we never have to leave. That's the Holy of Holies. And as a matter of fact, it's the only place we're suited for anymore.

Let's close. Our dear Father, how we thank you for all that you've done through your Son that we are now. by your spirit in him, which affords us the privilege of beholding his glory and communicating and communing and being loved and loving you as you are. We thank you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.