The Book of Hebrews 8:1-6 A copy & a shadow
Hebrews 8:1-6 · Vern Peterman · Nov 17, 2013
Hebrews, No. 30
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49264778027

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. First going to start off just letting you know these are the electives and the elective teachers that We have lined up starting for next year. In order not to get too many sign-up sheets in the lobby there, we're going to hold off on getting sign-ups for that and let you focus on the one for the Christmas party. But just so you can begin considering this, Roger and the co-teachers with him will be teaching through the Book of Acts, which is a book that covers from the time that Christ ascends up until Thirty years later approximately, when the Apostle Paul is in Rome, Mike and his co-teachers will be going through the book of Colossians. and taking a very careful look at that book. Randy and I will be doing a Bible survey, an overview of what does the Bible teach in general, and what's the progressive revelation that's in the Bible. So you have those three to pick from. We like to pick them so that it's hard to choose. So we'll give you a little bit of time to think about it, right? Now, to begin talking about our Hebrews passage, I want to first tell you a story.

This is a story about something that happened near a little town called Philo. And we used to live like seven miles from this little tiny town. And this was during my high school years. So here's Philo. And the scenario I'm about to describe for you happened right about here. So we'll zoom in there. I went over to a friend's house, and he said he had a go-kart, and I was welcome to come over and give it a try. Well, when I got there, he told me, this go-kart's a little strange.

The transmission's in backwards. It has three speeds in reverse. And only one forward. Okay, so I can get over that. I'm not sure how fast I'll go in reverse, but that was only one mechanical defect. I was to discover the next one later. So anyway, I started down the driveway, and as I got towards the end of the driveway, the driveway takes a little turn, as you can kind of see, and then what you can't quite see is that it goes towards the highway. There's a downhill, right? So it goes faster. So, as I got right towards the highway, I began to notice the other mechanical defect. No brakes.

So, I'm coming up at a pretty good rate of speed and an increasing rate of speed towards the highway in this funny little go-kart and right in front of me, a logging truck goes by. And I go, zoom, and then another logging truck goes by the other direction, right behind me. And so it was one of those things where I almost met disaster. Now, why am I telling you this story?

It's because there's some analogy to what these readers of the book of Hebrews were going through. That is, they were thinking of going backwards, backwards to the old sacrificial system, right? back to the temple in Jerusalem with the Jewish sacrificial system which would soon meet in its disaster right and so because it was at 70 AD that the Romans came in now they had offerings there and these readers were thinking of going into the sacrificial system with all its offerings and the priesthood and everything else that was there and of course it was all to come to a disastrous end like I almost did In this Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the Romans came in and not only did they defeat the people of Jerusalem, but they took all the stones, as Jesus said would happen 40 years earlier, all the stones of the temple and dumped it all off the edge. And that's where the archaeologists have found them, is all dumped off the edge, not one left up on the top. So that's the perspective they were coming from. They were trying to go back to a system that it would soon end, as it turns out. One of the other things we've been pointing out as we've been going through the book of Hebrews is that Hebrews has this pattern. There's a pattern first of explanation, and then there's a pattern of exhortation following. And so we've been through that.

We're actually right now in Hebrews 6.13 through 10.18. We're about roughly at the halfway point. And so we're getting explanation. That's what's in this passage. We're getting explanation. We won't get into the exhortation part until we get into chapter 10, the last half of chapter 10. But the passage we're going through today, we're actually going to go through today and then revisit that next week to draw out some other things.

The pattern that you see here in Hebrews chapter 8 is this. First, in the first five verses, most of which we're covering here in the next couple weeks, Christ the ministering priest, 8, 1-5, and the breakdown in that is first with Christ a new ministry, and then following that in verse 3-5, which is set in opposition to the old ministry. So here's Christ as a new ministry, here is the old ministry. In addition to that, as we go through the chapter, Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, and in verse 6 it says it's a better covenant, and that is set in opposition to the old covenant. So we'll be proceeding through chapter 8, and that's the pattern that we're going to be following here as we go through that.

Christ is seen here as the ministering high priest forever, unlike there's a series of high priests that Judaism went through in the temple. Christ, however, is one high priest forever. He's in the heavenlies right now, ministering on your behalf and mine, in a priesthood that is superior to the earthly priests of the tribe of Levi. It always was, and it always will be. Christ is the mediator of a new covenant and a better covenant that will replace the old covenant, the one under the law of Moses.

And we'll be taking a closer look as we proceed through chapter 8. We'll be taking a closer look at what that new covenant is and what the old covenant was. So Hebrews 8, 1 through 6, as Randy read for us here, we'll actually be covering it in two parts. The author of Hebrews is showing that this Jewish sacrificial system is inferior to what the believers have under grace. So that's part one.

That Christ was crucified and he is the priest who offers himself as the sacrifice. This passage shows that Jesus serves as our High Priest in the true tabernacle in the heavenlies and not just an earthly copy. This is a new distinction but one that's going to continue to be made and that is what Christ is doing now is the real thing. And what they were doing in the temple was simply a copy. It was a shadow.

And so we're going to be looking at that. We're going to study this passage in two parts, the heavenly reality and earthly shadow today. And then next time, look at Jewish high priests and Jesus as our high priest and make that comparison. So we'll do part one today.

So we're reading through Hebrews 8, 1 through 6. We're going to be focusing primarily on verses 2, 4, and 5 today, and then verses 1, 3, and 6 next time. okay so verses two four and five are conveying that the real tabernacle is in heaven made by God himself that's the real thing that's the real the real place where things happen things actually do happen there the tabernacle that was built and furnished on earth was a mere copy of the heavenly one and here's another interesting pattern while there was a temple in jerusalem and the readers of Hebrews were thinking of going back to those temple ceremonies, the author of Hebrews never once mentions the temple. He goes instead to this tabernacle in the wilderness. The first one, okay? The first one. The tabernacle was described as heavenly in Hebrews 8 and 9, and in Revelation we find that several times, 7, 15, 13, 6, 15, 5, and 21, 3.

We find that this idea of a tabernacle, which is a sacred tent, is used as a synonym for the temple in these places. So, we have a question. A tent in heaven? In our culture, a tent is an informal structure. A tent is something where we go camping and we get grubby in and we throw down sleeping bags and hopefully get some sleep. Sometimes you just don't. I can tell you about the first time Nancy and I went camping. I won't. Anyway, a tent is informal in our culture for the most part. We don't think of a tent as something formal. But that wasn't true throughout most of biblical times. A tent was a formal structure. As a matter of fact, we find like the patriarchs would actually have tents as a lifelong dwelling. They would spend their whole lives living in tents.

And there were even social codes regarding its use. And you couldn't just walk into a tent, into any part of the tent. If you were coming in as a visitor, they had various things you had to practice regarding social codes regarding a tent. It was something about which people took it seriously as if it were a house. And of course, you wouldn't just walk into someone's house.

So this idea is still carried on in some parts of the world among nomadic peoples. And those are quite a bit of furniture. And they even have things placed and orderly and all that. So a tent is a formal structure that actually has a long history of tradition of being a formal structure.

And so that's why it would be considered even a tabernacle, a sacred tent, even up in heaven. would be considered, oh, that's OK. It's all right for God to do that. So what we see in the Old Testament and on into the New Testament is that the sacred tent, or tabernacle, is described as being in heaven. Interestingly, this tent idea is much of it in the Old Testament, through the book of Psalms. God is said to dwell in a tent, believe it or not. And being in the third heaven, where God dwells, and Christ is the high priest.

And that's the description that we see starting in the Old Testament, carried on into the New here. The Apostle Paul, as a tent maker, was making formal structures. And I think that's something we think of as a tent maker. He makes these things that people go camping in. Well, they didn't think of it as camping. They thought of this as a formal structure in that culture. So it was like he was building houses, so to speak, because it was thought of as a formal structure.

So the Bible, as we pointed out last week, has three heavens that it refers to consistently. I was asked last week, well, why is that important? And the reason is because the Bible speaks of all three of these heavens, and when we read them, we can know which one it's talking about. I'm not seated with Christ and the heavenlies, and it's about 20 feet above the ground. I'm seed with him in the third heaven.

So let's go through that. The second heaven, I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens. This is the second heaven. So the stellar or astronomical heaven. Outside the atmosphere and out into the solar system and out into the galaxies. This is the second heaven.

The third heaven, and Paul even calls it that, also called paradise. The third heaven is the heaven where God dwells. This is the heaven where in the book of Revelation, judgment comes down out of this third heaven out onto the earth. And by the way, nothing comes from earth and goes into heaven. It's always God out of the third heaven bringing things down on the earth.

So the third heaven here is what we're talking about where Christ is serving as our high priest in the tabernacle of the third heaven. So here's the way Hebrews 8, 1, and 2 goes, is now the main point in what has been said is this, we have such a high priest, Christ, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man."

Now notice that word pitched, that fits with the tabernacle being a sacred tent. So a minister in the sanctuary. Let's take a look at that. Christ is a minister in this heavenly tabernacle in the sanctuary. The sanctuary is a holy place. It's a holy place because that's where God dwells. It is from this place that the angels are sent. Now, Christ has already begun his high priestly ministry before he ascended.

That's something else that we pointed out and I think it's important for people to get One is when he prayed for himself, the disciples, and also for us. That's John chapter 17. In John 17, sometimes called the High Priestly Prayer, some people would even go so far as to say that's the Lord's Prayer, right? Because this is the high priestly prayer, where he first prayed to the Father for himself, then he prayed for the disciples, and then he prayed for you and me. A high priestly prayer.

Representing us to the Father. Bringing the concerns of his heart about himself, about the disciples, and about you and me before the Father. So he had a high priestly ministry begun even before he was crucified. Next when he motivated by love and joy offered up himself to die on the cross So on earth that was then the next day, right? Was then the next act of his high priestly ministry where he offered up not a sacrifice of some animal like all the other priests did But himself as the Lamb of God It says he motivated by love and joy.

Where do I get that a Galatians 2 20 and He loved and gave, Galatians 2.20.

I go to Ephesians 5.2, He loved and He gave.

And 5.25, Ephesians 5.25, it says He loved and He gave. And it's the exact same order and it's the exact same word in all three places.

And one very close to it, John 3.16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Same word, same order.

So Christ presented His own body deliberately and intentionally as a sacrifice that was a high priestly act he was not a victim he was not a victim he died voluntarily for you and for me Christ our great high priest ministers in the sanctuary that holy place there in the heavenlies where the tabernacle is the sacred tent on our behalf for you and for me he's ministering there now for you and for me He's done ministering for the Apostle Paul and all who have gone before. He's ministering right now for you and for me.

Now, let's take a look at the words of the true tabernacle. The tabernacle in the heavenlies is the genuine sacred tent. It is the reality. That's the real place. That's the real place. Christ having been crucified, already having offered Himself, does not need to continue making offerings, making sacrifices.

But He ministers there for you and for me. It's the place where Christ ministers on our behalf, having already offered up Himself as the once and final sacrifice. This is the place where real spiritual accomplishment is ongoing and continues on into the future.

You see, the reason that the priests had to keep sacrificing again and again and again and again, having this deja vu experience, haven't we done this before? Yes, we have, right? It's because those sacrifices never got it done. They simply pointed to God's sacrifice. And so they had to keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it. But once Christ had made the sacrifice, that's why in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three, the veil was torn in two. The end of the sacrificial system. Oh, the priests kept going through the motions for 40 years. They kept going through the motions. But the real sacrifice, to which their sacrifice is all pointed, had already been made and done and complete. Anything done here points to what has already happened, or what is happening, or what will be happening.

What do I mean by that? I better explain myself. When we take the Lord's Table, as we customarily do the first Sunday of each month, when we take the Lord's Table, are we doing something? No, we're not accomplishing something spiritually. What we're doing is in remembrance of Me. We are remembering His accomplishment. It's His accomplishment that really does something, doesn't it? It's what He did that we're remembering. So what we do here isn't to accomplish anything further. It's to remember His accomplishment and what He did. Let me give you another example.

This week Nancy and I will have been married for 40 years, okay, and One of the things looking at that okay, so we got married for 40 years ago this week And it's a great thing after 40 years believe it or not. I'm even more excited about being married to Nancy It's great, but you know what's really great about it, and what's really great about it is We get to live out in time the eternal romance of Christ in the church the church is the bride of of Christ, and Christ is the bridegroom.

And that's the reality. That's the reality Nancy and I are living out an analogy. We're living out an analogy of that reality. So what we do here is we are often copying and living out in symbol the reality that God has already done or is going to do in the future. That's often what we're doing here. And these are just examples of that kind of thing.

The tabernacle in the heavenlies was created and established by the Lord himself. We think about God creating the world and everything that he did in creating this physical realm. But there was also a creation in heaven. There was a creation in heaven. And this making of this sacred tent and making of this place called heaven And even creating angels as servants in it is something that he also did at the same instance or in the same way. He brought those things about as a creative act.

The Lord himself did, and as the scripture makes clear, It wasn't a human act. You and I didn't make those galaxies out there. The sun that's shining out there, we didn't make that. We didn't make this earth that we're standing on. God made that. The people who made the temple that was in Jerusalem that the readers of Hebrews were thinking of going to, they didn't really create that and bring it into existence, did they? They took things that existed nearby and brought it together The stones and you even see gold work and there was things made of bronze. Oh, by the way, you see those little kind of peaks on the roof? Those were, it looks kind of fancy and nice, but really it's to keep bad birds off. But they made things out of things that were already in existence that God created. God is the creator and what we do that is creative isn't bringing something into existence. It's simply rearranging what God has already made.

But there's no touching this tabernacle on the heavenlies. There's no way we can touch that. That's where the place where you and I are blessed, and where we are seated, and where we have our heavenly citizenship. And as Hebrews points out, where we have a heavenly calling. It's that place. It's from that tabernacle. So spiritually, we are already there in that heavenly tabernacle. If you're a believer here today, that's true of you. It's the place where all of our spiritual blessings are right now.

You have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, Ephesians 1.3. It's where you are seated with Christ because you've been identified with Him.

Right now. It's a place where we have our citizenship. That's home. That's home. Because that heavenly place was made by God, and we are blessed, and we are seated, and we have a heavenly citizenship there, and a heavenly calling, and I could go on, and Christ ministers there as our High Priest, no earthly human being is going to mess with it or mess it up. Can't touch it. Untouchable in the heavenlies. We can't goof it up. Isn't that great? Can't mess it up.

God isn't going to somehow, you know, send us a message and we get it in the mail, it gets delivered and say, you know, I really tried to keep things cleaned up up there, but I'm sorry, things are a bit of a mess. Don't pray for a while because I don't have anything to do with it. Right? It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. This is untouchable in the heavenlies. Nothing will mess it up.

Now let's look at Hebrews 8, 4, and 5. Now if he, and in the context Christ, were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle. For see, he says, that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain. This is what Moses was told.

Now let's take the first part there, if he were on earth. When Christ was on earth, he didn't qualify to act as a priest in the temple. Oh, he could cleanse it, did that a couple of times, right? But he wasn't qualified to act as a priest in the temple, and he never tried.

Why? He was of the tribe of Judah. That's very clear. This verse sets out the hypothetical. If he were on earth, which he hadn't been for over three decades, And Christ was not, so this is a hypothetical. He still could not have been a priest in the temple. Even coming back into that system, he couldn't. Why? Because he's still of the tribe of Judah and not the tribe of Levi. Wrong tribe.

According to Matthew 1, that's true. Luke chapter 3, that's true. Hebrews 7, 14, that's true. Revelation 5, 5. The genealogies of the day, which were destroyed as far as we know in 70 AD, Jesus was of the tribe of Judah. Multiple evidences of that. We, two weeks ago, showed this chart and had it included in your handout.

And so we see here, here is the right tribe, the tribe of Levi, for there to be Levites and priests and high priests. If you were of the tribe of Levi, you could be a priest. If you were also descended from Aaron, excuse me, a Levite. If you were descended from Aaron, you could be a priest. And if you were further descended from Zadok, you could be a high priest.

So those distinctions. Now here's Jesus descended from King David through the line of Judah. He just simply did not qualify. So the law of Moses would allow only those of the tribe of Levi and also descended from Aaron to serve as priests and those further descended from Zadok to be a high priest. Earthly lineage was an absolute requirement of the Law of Moses. It was one of their 613 laws. You must be of this particular group and tribe. It isn't that big a deal, however, when it comes to Jesus that he wasn't qualified to be a Levitical priest.

There's nothing to cry over. There's no tsk-tsk to be done. What we find here is one of the reasons why it doesn't matter that much is everything here is a copy in the shadow including all the things that the law of Moses spelled out about the temple and the priests and what they were supposed to do the calendar that they were supposed to keep the Levitical priests who serve in the temple in Jerusalem were serving in a copy and a shadow of the real place where Christ now serves as our heavenly high priest And one of the reasons it becomes evident that it's a copy in the shadow is they'd sacrifice and then the next year they do it all over again. And the next year they do it all over again. They kept having to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice again and again and again because it never got it done. Christ, however, gets it done. Okay? Gets it done completely.

The earthly temple pointed to God's heavenly temple and the tabernacle in the wilderness where Aaron once served was only a copy and a shadow of the heavenly tabernacle. This is copy and shadow. That's the real thing. You have here, and this is the last page on your handout, a diagram of the tabernacle. And we're going to be actually going through that in a little more detail in weeks ahead, all the different elements that are there. But we want you to have that so you can begin taking a look at some of the different aspects of this tabernacle out in the wilderness.

Now, the one thing they had in the tabernacle they didn't have in the temple is this column of fire at night. Can you imagine? Can you imagine having a tent nearby and here's a little Jacobus telling his dad, man dad I can't go to sleep this big column of fire out there just keeps roaring and it's so bright You know, can't we get farther away? Oh, no, no, no, son So you can imagine what it was like they had the tribes arranged around each side and assignments where each one was supposed to be So here is this diagram of the tabernacle.

We'll go into more detail in the weeks ahead. Here's another kind of drawing during the day, what that might have looked like with the tribes given their assignments all around. And so in the middle of their encampment would be this tabernacle. And Moses was given specific instructions about here to do this, and here to do this, and here to do this, and build this this way, and make it out of this material, and here are the dimensions. And so we'll be looking as we go into this into more detail. There's a cutaway view of what it was like inside. And so we'll be looking at that in the weeks ahead.

Then, after several centuries, finally Solomon built an actual temple, but still with all the dimensions and the instructions that were to be followed. So he built the temple. The Babylonians, a few centuries later, destroyed it. And so the Jews were exiled and their temple was ruined.

The inside of Solomon's temple also had a glorious structure, lots of gold and lots of bronze. And we'll be taking a look at that. The temple during Herod's time, this was the second temple, Had been constructed before, but starting about 20 BC, Herod began a process of upgrading the temple. So all during the time of Christ and the book of Acts, when events take place in the temple, they were in the middle of a temple that was being upgraded as they were using it. So it was an operational temple.

But so we'll take a look at that as well. You have a diagram that shows the layout of Herod's temple, the one that Christ walked in. And by the way, you may wonder why they were able to pick up stones in the temple courtyard to throw at Jesus, because that's what you see described in the Gospels. Reason?

They were building the temple. And so they had parts and pieces of things still laying around in this temple under construction. That will be there for you to look at, and we'll go in more detail on that as well. Here's another cutaway view of Herod's temple, and again we'll go into more detail with that in the weeks ahead here. Now, Moses was shown a pattern.

Hebrews 8.5 is quoting Exodus 25.40. Similar words are also used. This pattern that was shown on the mountain. in Exodus 26 30 and 27 8 so it's something that was Repeated to Moses. Here's the pattern use it. Here's the pattern use it. You've seen it use that pattern So Moses was shown the tabernacle.

That was the heavenly reality. Isn't that something he was shown in a vision of some kind This this heavenly tabernacle and it was to make one following that pattern. Okay It's to make one following the pattern Everything earthly, even if it was prescribed by the law, was inferior in a copy and a shadow of the heavenly reality.

So here's the author of Hebrews telling his very Jewish-minded readers, he says, look, you guys are thinking of going back to the copy and the shadow when you've got the real thing in Christ. And so you're being tempted to go backwards. And you're losing something if you go in that direction. Not gaining.

And one of the points we make here is only what God does gets it done. Only what God does gets it done. We can go through the motions on all kinds of things. We can try to accomplish various things. But spiritually speaking, it's what God does that counts. It's what God does that actually accomplishes something. Everything that we can try to do is merely a copy and a shadow. We try to reproduce something but it's symbolic. God is the one who gets it done.

So the priesthood, the sacrifices, the temple, the tabernacle here on earth did not do anything spiritual. Only pointed to the real things that God has done, is doing, and will do through Christ. So here are the priests going through these motions again and again and again for for almost forty years after the time when God had made his sacrifice through Christ. Going through it again and again, even back in the tabernacle in the wilderness, it didn't get anything done. In the end, Christ's offering of himself was the only real sacrifice that got it done. Once and final. And that's why he could say when he was done, It is finished. It's all paid to tell us die. It is His sacrifice that got it done. His tabernacle and temple there in the heavenlies is where He really serves as our High Priest now, representing us before the Father.

All the time, all the time, every day, continuously. Isn't it wonderful that we have this awesome privilege of going before the Father because we're represented by Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you've spelled out here marvelous truths. We thank you that we can rely entirely upon what you've done and accomplished and know that it truly is accomplished. We thank you, Lord, that you have seen fit to make Christ as our High Priest forever. He always represents us before the Father. And that we can count upon His righteousness and His sacrifice. And we can count upon His making intercession for us. And we thank you for that. What an awesome privilege. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.