Hebrews Chapter Nine, What The Law Imposed

 

Hebrews 9:10 concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation.

 

These fleshly ordinances are “imposed until the time of reformation.” Skipping to the latter half of the verse, we learn the very stark fact that, fleshly or otherwise, these ordinances were imposed. They were compulsory, enforced, or obligatory. Failure to participate resulted in being cut off from one’s people for the Jews. Even that fact reveals a spiritual truth. Only this method, at this time, made it acceptable to approach Israel’s covenant God.

Just as Jesus would more fully declare in the New Testament, He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him, John 14:6. No man could approach Yahweh, except he bring the blood of a lamb to atone for his sins; then, for the lamb’s sake, he would be accepted, because blood was shed on his behalf to atone for sin.

 

These ordinances were imposed, “until the time of reformation,” or when, “Christ came,” verse 11. Walking through the parade of evidence that explains the transient nature of the tabernacle, we read that the way to God’s unhindered presence, “was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing,” verse 8. The first tabernacle, “was symbolic for the present time,” (verse 9) whose cessation coincided with, “the time of reformation,” (verse 10) or when, “Christ came,” verse 11.

 

What compulsory or imposed ordinances terminated when the time of reformation arrived? Everything under the banner of the Old Testament Mosaic Law. These were not mandatory injunctions any longer. Despite this revelation, certain Jewish or Gentile Christians desired to continue imposing them. Paul combated this error in the church of Colossae: a small Phrygian city near Laodicea and approximately 100 miles from Ephesus in Asia Minor. Paul writes, “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance is of Christ,” Colossians 2:16, 17.

 

Notice the similarity in the language between Hebrews 9:10 and the passage cited in Colossians. Both writers mention food and drink. The author of Hebrews associates these (with various washings) with the fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation. Paul, using the same idea, goes on to associate them with festivals, new moons and even the Jewish Sabbath day, or Saturday. He states: “Let no one judge you.” If the Christian (Jew or Gentile) wished to observe a holy day, they did so not by injunction, but by volition; they did so not because they had to for fear of wrath, but out of love devoting their time to the Lord freely and without compulsion.

 

This passage succinctly states the Sabbath is no longer to be mandated. It was only for the Jews to begin with. And to clarify, God means the physical Jewish people, the actual, biological descendants of Abraham that covenanted with God on Sinai, received the Decalogue, heard the prophets, and begat the Christ according to the flesh. The conscientious Jew, having come to Christ, may keep the Sabbath, but he must know that it is not commanded to be kept as in Moses’ time, Exodus 20:8-11.

 

This goes for all of the Jewish holy days, such as the Feast of Weeks, Passover, etc. Yet certain Christian or pseudo-Christian cults, like the Seventh Day Adventists, insist that Saturday worship, or Sabbath keeping, is an absolute necessity for salvation, and failure to do so marks one out as part of the apostate church deluded by Satan. Sunday worshipers have fallen into a great deception, they say. Yet by Paul’s time we read the church assembled, “on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread,” Acts 20:7. Verse 8 clarifies that this is indeed a church service, similar to the proto-church, where the early disciples were gathered in an upper chamber before the coming of the Holy Spirit, Acts 1:13, 14.

 

Ellen White, a false propehtess for SDA, passed many judgments similar to this, well documented for anyone who wishes to read her works. But the SDAs are wrong about the Sabbath, and about a good many of their false and extra-biblical doctrines. The Seventh Day Adventists (and all similar cults) fall into the mire of works-religion, which Paul scathingly condemns in Galatians. The Galatian Christians, likewise seduced by Judaizers, as the Hebrew Christians were, wanted to add the Law to grace, to complete what Christ was apparently lacking. Paul tells them, “You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace,” Galatians 5:4.

 

The matter for the Galatians was apparently circumcision, Galatians 5:3. But circumcision was the spearhead for the acceptance of the entire Law, since Paul warns them in Galatians 5:3 that to accept one point of it is to agree to keep all of it. The Pharisees who believed, prior to the Jerusalem counsel likewise fell into this trap of attempting to mingle grace with works. “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses,” Acts 15:5. Here is the foundation for cult-like thinking. Christ is a good beginning, but it is NECESSARY to obey Moses’ law, too. Necessary means just what it says. “Do you want to be saved? Obey the Law and be circumcised. What about Christ? Believe in Him, obey the Law, and be circumcised.” When man begins to reinterprate truth, corruption and error abound.

 

What did these men, these Pharisees demanding law obedience, want? “And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage),” Galatians 2:4. First, the apostle relates that these men are false brethren. He accuses them of not genuinely believing the gospel. The rationale behind his thinking? Because they amplified the Law and put it on par with Christ’s atoning sacrifice. But the Law and Jesus our Lord are contrary. The Law commands; Jesus performs. The Law brings into bondage; Jesus sets us free.

 

Does your church command tithing, Sabbath worship, festivals or kosher foods? Is there a parade of legalistic rules one must stringently obey to be or remain saved? These are vestiges of Judaism, carried over into the church and never entirely relinquished like leaven working throughout until it contaminates everything. The Roman Catholic Church is a great offender here. They carried over the title of priest from Judaism, though no such title is properly given to elders or deacons in the first century church. Yes, the saints are called a royal priesthood, 1 Peter 2:9, 10. But this title given by the apostle Peter is for ALL the saints, not a special clergy caste set apart and above the laity. Christians are meant to be equals or brothers. As Billy Graham once said, “The ground is level at the foot of the cross.”