Hebrews Chapter Nine, The Symbol's Impotence

 

Hebrews 9:9 It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience

 

Pause for a moment to focus on the first three words of verse 9. “It was symbolic.” What was symbolic? The tabernacle, and everything that it represented under the Old Testament Judaic dispensation. While it still stood, the symbol, not the substance, was with Israel.

The next four words relate the duration that this symbolism was intended to last: “For the present time.” The present time’s duration terminated with a definite, historical moment. Verse 11 tells us, “Christ came.” The tabernacle stood as a symbol of things to come UNTIL the One whose shadow the tabernacle was finally arrived.

 

Two important lessons are taught here. One: the tabernacle and all it encompasses are symbolic of spiritual truth. Two: the tabernacle was not intended to remain forever, but would be eclipsed and put away by the perfect offering of Christ, Hebrews 9:14.

 

The writer’s exposition of Old Testament truth continues. The temporal symbol had both gifts and offerings involved. Yet both (gifts and offerings) could not make the one who performed these things perfect in regard to the conscience. Here we find that the term “perfect,” which normally means “complete or mature,” in fact infers something different. To make a valid contrast we must appeal one more time to Hebrews 9:14. The blood of Christ our Lord, offered to the Father as payment for sin through the mediation of the Holy Spirit, cleanses the human conscience.

 

Before approaching verse 14, the writer is emphatic in stating that the gifts and offerings under Judaism cannot remove the genuine guilt the offender feels. Conscience implies “consciousness of sin.” Killing a goat or bull and offering its blood in the tabernacle falls under the jurisdiction of what the author will term “fleshly ordinances,” verse 10. If the ordinances imposed upon Israel were fleshly, then they could not genuinely impact the worshiper’s spiritual state.

 

God told the Jews that the animal killed, or more specifically their blood, would provide atonement, the Hebrew “kaphar” or covering. The blood would cover (not remove) the penitent’s sins until the time of God’s appointment, when His Son would come to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, Hebrews 9:26.

 

What then was the purpose of offering sacrifices for hundreds of years? If one did not have the guilt of their sin taken away, what was the point? First, God commanded it. Like Adam in Eden, a command was given, and if the penitent performed the command by faith, it was imputed to them for righteousness. More plainly, if the Jewish worshiper sacrificed a lamb because he believed God’s word and obeyed the commandment, God viewed him as righteous, because one’s faith saves them. Again, more particularly, one’s faith in God saves them. This was how God’s legitimate children were separated from professors of the word. Those who by faith obey what is commanded reveal themselves as His sons and daughters. Those who provide lip service but refuse God’s lordship of their lives demonstrate themselves to be false confessors.

 

Mind you, this is from a purely human perspective, as James wrote, James 2:14-26. Paul addressed one’s standing before God in Romans chapter 4, and how works make us no better before Him. So while an utter lack of interest in anything pertaining to the kingdom of God seems inimical toward genuine conversion; we are cautioned in the New Testament that the saints may manifest no works, but be saved through fire still.

 

Second, the tabernacle, and the Law itself, was a teaching tool for Israel, as Paul related. One learns by repetition. Think back to our school days, and how letters and numbers and more advanced concepts were introduced little by little, as we could bear it. Rudimentary concepts were introduced, and then inculcated in our young minds until we grasped them fundamentally and were tested to ensure that we understood the material. Then, and only then, did we progress in the school system. Otherwise, we were held back to repeat simpler lessons before graduating to harder concepts. It would be pointless to teach a seven-year-old algebra if we don’t know what 1+1 is yet.

 

That is why the Bible is often referred to as a progressive revelation. God is the greatest teacher, and His chosen nation Israel had lessons to learn under the schoolmaster of the Law. Even before Moses, God drew out certain men, issued them commandments (such as circumcision) promising a future furtherance of their progeny’s fortunes. But Scripture and history function a little differently from the school system. The Jews didn’t have a graduating class; in fact, history attests that the Jewish people under the dispensation of the Law often failed their tests. In this case it wasn’t a passing or failing grade that progressed further revelation; it was God’s timing as He inspired His prophets to contribute more to the word, until the canon of revelation was complete.

 

God permitted time to elapse, sometimes long periods of it, between prophets and prophecies, perhaps to further demonstrate that the oracles given were not given by men’s whims or dreams, but by a greater power, a higher intelligence coordinating the messages into a seamless, unified whole, culminating with Malachi before God became “silent” for the space of 400 years. Like the Lord gave Canaan 400 years to repent before bringing in Israel for judgment upon them, He granted his people four centuries to consider the prophetic message and decide whether or not they believed Yahweh. Those who did, prepared by the Law and Prophets, would recognize and receive the Christ when He came. Those who did not, such as the collective Sanhedrin, would reject Him.

 

Third, the Law and temple sacrifice existed as a stout reminder of human sin and moral guilt. The blood of lambs and bulls was a reminder that sin’s penalty was death; God revealed no other punishment for sin outside of shedding of blood. Shedding of blood, He told Israel, remitted sin. In other words, the death of the guilty party satisfied God’s judgment. But what does it mean to die?

 

There is much speculation in Christendom about the nature of death, and the duration of God’s judgment. But a conscientious Christian is not permitted to go beyond the boundaries of what God’s word explains. We know that death does not involve annihilation of the soul, soul sleep, reincarnation, or anything remotely like these concepts. The human soul is conscious after physical death. This implies separation. Separation is what death means, and it is multifaceted.

 

First, a person’s soul is separated from their physical body. By this act, we are further separated from the world we lived upon until death took us. But there is more. The most important separation has already occurred in mankind, and it is one we suffer the moment we are conceived. Being born in sin, possessing a sin nature, we are separate from God our Creator. This fact is why the other two instances of separation occur to begin with. God cannot be joined to sin. Our original nature is sinful, and until we experience the new birth we are children of wrath, destined for eternal separation.

 

Yes, separation from the Lord is permanent. It is permanent in its only true sense, which means it is eternal. That is why Jesus contrasts eternal life, which is given to the righteous by faith, with eternal death, which is given to the lost by their rejection of the Son, Matthew 25:46, Mark 9:43-48, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Revelation 14:10, 11. Those who reject the Savior spend eternity in torment, separated from Him who is life, and conscious of the fact that they chose that it should be so.

 

The penitent Jew might consider these truths of separation from his Creator as he offered up his gift upon the altar, Isaiah 59:2. The animal being offered up by the priests represented that person’s death. The lamb died in the man’s stead. All that stood between man and God’s wrath upon sin was His command to offer up an animal on the Jewish altar, the lamb suffering the separation his own sins deserved. While this stirred up a reminder of sin and its consequence, it left the penitent still needing genuine freedom from it. Otherwise, as the writer himself remarks later, would they not have ceased being offered, Hebrews 10:2?