Hebrews 9, verses 1 through 15. Hebrews 9, 1 through 15. And I've titled this talk, Christ and the Tent in the Desert. Christ and the Tent in the Desert. And so let's read together Hebrews 9, verses 1 through 15. There the writer of Hebrews says, then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary. for a tabernacle was prepared. The first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary. Behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant, and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail, but we will tonight." That's the good thing. Now, when these things had been thus prepared, the priest always went into the first part of the tabernacle performing the services. But into the second part, the high priest went alone, once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance, The Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the holiest of all, was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. It was symbolic for the present time, in which both gifts and sacrifices were offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience, concerned only with food and drink, various washings, fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of Reformation. He's not talking about John Calvin, he's talking about Jesus, the time of Reformation, the first Reformation. But Christ came as high priest of the good things to come, not with the greater and more perfect tabernacle, I'm sorry, but Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, he entered the most holy place, once for all, having obtained eternal redemption, For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? For this reason, he is the mediator of the new covenant by means of death for the redemption of the transgression under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of eternal Now turn over to chapter 10 just briefly. I think that the writer of Hebrews is sort of picking up his thought here. He says, for the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never, with these same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to have been offered. For the worshippers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sin every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin." And the writer will go on again to say that's why a body was prepared for Jesus, so that he could be the once for all sacrifice for sin. I wonder if we didn't have the book of Hebrews if we would really understand the Old Testament. Now, I say that carefully because God, the Holy Spirit, is the one that gives understanding. And everything that we read in Hebrews was always true of what we read in Exodus about the tabernacle and in Numbers and in Leviticus about the sacrificial system. It's not something new. The apostles weren't saying, OK, it meant this, but now we're going to say it means this. It always meant that. But we are so blessed to live on this side of the cross and to see the full revelation and the full light of, oh, that's what it was about, in the full sense. Now, I believe believing Israelites could have gotten a whole lot of this, but not to the same degree as we get it. We get it in a much fuller, clearer, we see through the glass a lot less darkly than they did. But believing Israelites would have understood it's not about the tabernacle, this is prefiguring something. Now, it's interesting because in the Old Testament, I've given you guys a lot of this over the last weeks, but when we talk about the tabernacle, we can't understand that or the temple without understanding Eden. And remember, we said all of those things are little stepping stones in the restoration of God's dwelling with man, ultimately in the new heavens and the new earth. which will be better than Eden because Eden could be lost because it was lost. But in Eden, Eden was a temple. It was a temple. Eden was the garden where God dwelt with Adam. He created his image bearer, created him for fellowship. God dwelt with man. I will be with you. I will be among you. I will be your God until Adam disobeys. breaks the covenant, is kicked out of the garden, cherubim put there, flaming sword, and the rest of human history is God restoring, redeeming a people and restoring his dwelling place with them. Sacred space is what heady academic theologians call it, sacred space. Sacred time would be the Sabbath, sacred space would be the garden, the tabernacle, the temple, Jesus, the church, heaven, the new heavens and the new earth. the sacred dwelling of God, the Holy Land, in the Old Covenant. It was before there was a temple. It was where God was going to dwell with Israel, and then He narrows it down to the temple. There's something very similar, though, in the Old Testament between the tabernacle and the temple that's different than anything else God does, really from Eden till Christ. What's interesting is that the tabernacle is a tent, and it's a tent like, just like the tents that the Israelites had. That's going to become enormously significant. The temple is a house, just like the houses the Israelites have. The significance, in one very obvious sense, is that God is going to dwell with his people. In order to dwell with his people, he has to become like his people. Now all of this is going to prepare us for Jesus who tabernacles among us, right? John 1, the word became flesh, and literally in Greek, he tabernacled among us. He was enfleshed. God came and dwelt, and in order for him to do that, he became like us. He took flesh and blood to himself. Hebrews 2, just as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same. And so all of this is preparing us for the coming of Jesus. But one very obvious point that we don't want to miss is that God is about being with his people, and God is going to identify with them in some way. They were traveling through the wilderness. And so what God says is, I am going to travel through the wilderness with my people. God has promised to give them the promised land. They are heading to the promised land. God is going with them to the promised land. The pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud and then the cloud pillar coming down on the tabernacle. God is saying, I am with my people. The Israelites should have seen the tabernacle and said, God is with us. They should have said, God is with us. That's the great covenant promise. I will be your God. You will be my people. I will be with you. You will be my sons and daughters. I will never leave you nor forsake you. I am with you always, even till the end of the earth. It's all the same covenant promise. And what God is doing is giving Israel a tangible expression in one sense, giving them a tangible expression that He's with them in the tabernacle. Now, the tabernacle was like every other tent in Israel. You actually had three parts to it. It had a courtyard and it had two rooms. And that was the tabernacle. And if you read books about ancient Near Eastern people, a lot of them had a little courtyard out front. And they had rooms in their tent. God, in that way, was identifying. But God was putting a distance at the same time between himself and Israel because of his holiness. You couldn't go into God's tent unless you were the high priest going in with the blood for the sacrifice, going through the first room with the showbread and all of the lampstand, and then going into the most holy place with the Ark of the Covenant. There was also something interesting. I'm not going to take you, obviously, through a comprehensive study of the tabernacle tonight, but if you look back in Exodus, all those chapters in the 20s, 24 and following, I think 26 specifically, where God is giving instructions about the building of the tabernacle, and even before that with the Ark of the Covenant and the altar, One of the things you notice is that all of the measurements that God gives are all square or rectangular, but they're all symmetrical. They have the same sides. Now, that's important because when the temple was built, the most holy place is a perfect cube. And when we come to the book of Revelation, and we see the glorified church, the New Jerusalem, and John sees her coming down out of heaven like a bride, and she's measured, she's a cube. She's the dwelling place of God. That's symbolic. In the Old Testament, though, when God gives these, just like with the Ark of the Covenant, these precise measurements, I think a very simple explanation is that God is showing that his redemptive work is complete. It's going to have a completeness and a perfection to it. So the altar was a symmetrical box on which the sacrifice was made. The Ark of the Covenant, much like the altar, was a very symmetrical box. with the law inside and the manna and Aaron's rod that blossomed and the measurements of the courtyard and the measurements of the two rooms. It was all cubes and symmetrical in every way. And I think very simply that just shows the completion, the wholeness and the perfection of God's redemptive work and what he's going to do. Now, the writer of Hebrews is going to tell us that it was never about the tabernacle. I think it's interesting that the writer of Hebrews goes back to the tabernacle when talking to the new covenant church and not to the temple. Have you ever thought about that? That the temple came after the tabernacle. The tabernacle was like pre-temple temple. And then there's the temple. And the temple's the temple. And that's not going anywhere unless God has it destroyed, and he does. And that's the most significant thing in Israel's past. Now, the writer of Hebrews is writing to a people who have been redeemed out of Judaism, which is a false religion, not old covenant Christianity that it should have been, but Judaism, which was rejected Christ, rejected the meaning of Scripture, trusted in all of those things that God had given Israel to point beyond themselves to Christ, instead of trusting in the coming Christ. And so remember the Old Testament prophet says, To apostate Israel don't say the temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord the temple of the Lord are these Basically don't trust in your sacrifices. Don't trust in the temple. That's what self-righteous Israelites did they trusted in their rituals and and what the writer of Hebrews is saying to a people who are now being tempted to go back and He's reminding them of that wilderness journeying in toward the conquest of the promised land, which is all typological. Remember, the true promised land is heaven, he's going to say in chapter 11. And we're traveling there, and we're going there by faith in Christ. We're going there because of Christ, and Christ alone, and Christ is supreme, and Christ has come, and Christ has fulfilled everything. And Jesus is better than all of it, because all of it was what the writer will say is a shadow. Notice in chapter 10, the law, and there he's talking about the ceremonial law. So festivals, worship rituals, priesthood, sacrifices. I think he means ceremonial here. The law having a shadow. of the good things to come and not the very image of those things. It's written to me. It's all about Christ, right? That's Psalm 40. You know what's amazing about that? Notice how that quote from Psalm 40 is set up in verse 5. Now, remember, David wrote this under inspiration of the Holy Spirit a thousand years before Jesus came. And notice what the writer of Hebrews says about Jesus in verse 5. Therefore, when he came into the world, he said, That's amazing. What he's saying is that it was Jesus speaking through David about the time when he was coming into the world and a body would be prepared and he would tabernacle with his people. Now, a very, I think, interesting observation in all of this is what was the tabernacle covered with? Well, no, it had a specific covering. Skin. Skin. It had goat skin, badger skin. That is a picture of the enfleshing of Christ. Now I know those are animal skins, but remember animal skins went on Adam and Eve. Remember, God covered them with those typical animal skins. And now the tabernacle, the place where God's going to dwell, is covered in badger skin. And God is going to choose to live in there with his people. He's going to come down when the sacrifice is made. Now, let's talk just briefly tonight. And I, again, at least just want to introduce some of this. There's so much. But let's talk about what the writer of Hebrews says there at the beginning of chapter 9. When he talks about the... outline of the tabernacle, the blueprint, he explains that, right, there were these rooms, the tabernacle was prepared, there were three parts really, the outer court, the inner, and then the most holy place. Now, remember I've taught some of you in the past that there's this interesting thing in the Old Testament where God has this three-stage temple motif, three levels. Remember when Moses goes up into the most holy place on Sinai, as it were, and the cloud comes down just like on the temple? Moses has a veil just like in the temple, in the tabernacle, and he's the mediator going into the most holy place, and God says, take your sandals off your feet for the place where you walk is holy ground, and he's in the most holy place, and he's there with God on the mountain. Well, he had taken Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu up to the second level, He had left all the other elders, and then the people were off from the mountain. And the mountain really was the temple. For that moment in redemptive history, that was the dwelling place of God. And the mediator was there, mediating between God and the people. And it was terrible, and there was thunder and lightning, and the people couldn't touch it. It was the temple. The ark that Noah was in had three levels. And I surmise that there's an identity to that. The tabernacle has the outer court and then the two rooms, the holy place and the most holy place. The temple has the court of the Gentiles and then the holy place and the most holy place. Now, when the writer of Hebrews is really developing this, he tells us about all those various vessels or instruments or objects that God commanded to be put into the holy place and the most holy place. And I imagine some of you are going to say, yes, I know what that symbolizes and I'm sure you do. I think it is interesting that the writer of Hebrews says at the end of verse 5 of these things we cannot now speak in detail and I remember meditating on the tabernacle and going back and reading it and thinking about the gospel as a young Christian and realizing these things are related to Christ and to heaven and they have a specific purpose and to us I think in part. And I remember going to a guy who had discipled me and saying, I think this is what this means. And he said, well, we can't go beyond scripture. I disagree with that completely. I mean, scripture gives us the guideline to build on. The Bible is not a comprehensive exposition of everything in the Old Testament. It's comprehensive revelation of God to us, but God gives us principles and then we're to compare scripture with scripture and we're to draw deductions and say, okay, what would the candlestick, what would the lamp stand represent? Obviously, God is light and in Him is no darkness. And His presence is denoted by light and glory. And Jesus comes and He says, I am the light of the world. And what is that light? That light is to direct you to God and to the presence of God. What would that candlestick have, who would that have helped in its typical form? The priest. And where did that priest need to see to go? to the presence of God. He needed light. And I think there's so much more to it than just that. Jesus also says, you are the light of the world by union with him. Union with Christ. He is the light of the world. We are the light of the world. We show the way to the heavenly temple when we proclaim the gospel. I think there's lots of fulfillment, symbolic fulfillment. The showbread, an obvious one. What is the showbread representing? Christ, I am the bread that came down from heaven. Your fathers ate the manna, they died. And the manna was in the pot, in the Ark of the Covenant. That was pointing to Christ, John 6, we're told. He gives his flesh for the life of the world. The bread that you eat is my flesh. And so I think that the people of Israel were to see, and the priest was to see, that God was going to nourish his people through his redemptive work. And they were going to have, just like bread would satisfy and would nourish, he was going to satisfy and nourish through the Redeemer. I think the most interesting of all is in the holiest of all is the Ark of the Covenant. Now I read a little article at Ligonier on the Ark of the Covenant, which I would encourage you to read. It's real short, but I'll just tell you what I think the symbolism of the Ark is. And again, I could be wrong. And some of this obviously is speculation, but let me go in reverse order from how I would do it normally. You had in the temple and tabernacle these cherubim, the curtains. That should take your mind back to Eden and the cherubim guarding the way into the presence of God. So again, the Eden garden temple, tabernacle is the stepping stone in the restoration of that, pointing to the Redeemer. And then you had these cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat. And what would happen is when the blood was shed, and we'll come back to that, when the blood was shed, God showed up. Yom Kippur. Day of Atonement, sacrifices made, the pillar of cloud comes down and the smoke and the cloud fills the tabernacle and God appears. And what the writer of Hebrews says is, notice verse 5, above it, above the ark, that box, the golden box, were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. It's the Shekinah we call that, the Shekinah glory. And God's glory was manifested there. Richard Sibbes, an old Puritan, and Gerhardus Voss, my favorite theologian, both point out that the glory of God is manifested most fully to us You'll notice in the death and resurrection of Jesus He is the glory of God and his glory God's glory is most fully more than at the transfiguration in the death and the resurrection because that's the center of everything and when Jesus is raised from the dead and Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb and she looks in I'm sorry Peter and John look in and One of them sees the two angels one at the head one at the feet where the body of Jesus lay and the glory of God Has been manifested in the resurrection An angel at the head, an angel at the feet, looking in. longing to look into the things of redemption. I think the Ark of the Covenant is preparing us for the fruition and the fruit of redemption. Because the blood gets shed, Jesus sheds his blood, he dies, he rises, the angels appear, the glory is manifested, he is glorified, we receive glory, he brings us into the new creation. Now, let me work backwards now from that. Obviously, Jesus is the presence of God. That's clear. I mean, Paul makes that abundantly clear, that God has shown in our hearts to give us the light and the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the glory of God. He is the brightness of his glory, Hebrews 1.3. He is the outshining of God's perfections. He is God manifest in the flesh. He is God indwelling man to be the Redeemer. And so knowing that, and knowing that the Shekinah glory, therefore, the dwell in the most holy place over the Ark is a picture of the coming Redeemer dwelling with his people, God reestablishing his presence with his people, God with us, Emmanuel. Knowing that, what goes into the Ark? What does God put in the Ark? Three things. Ten commandments. the golden pot with the mana and Aaron's rod that budded. Now, I think... The law, the moral law going into the Ark showed two things. One, it showed that in order for a holy God to dwell with man, there had to be blood between transgression of the law and his presence. So the mercy seat covered the Ten Commandments and the blood went between God and our standing because of our violations of his law, his holiness. had to be upheld, his wrath had to be averted, our sins had to be atoned for. So the blood on the mercy seat enables God to dwell with us without destroying us because of his holiness. I think the manna is also covered by the blood because Christ's flesh is given us to eat. He has to shed his blood in order for us to be nourished on that. He is the true manna. Remember, manna meant, what is it? When the Israelites got the manna, manna literally in Hebrew, it means, what is it? They were like, what is this? When Jesus came, they were like, who is this? We don't know who you are. We don't know where you came from. So there's this clear typological parallel between the manna and Jesus. Jesus draws that parallel for us and teaches that. But it is interesting that that manna, which God sustains his people with, it's like an endless supply of sustaining nourishment, is kept in the ark because I believe Christ, through his saving work, is that for his people forever. Aaron's rod that budded is a little bit harder, and the best explanation I can come up with, and this is just in my own thinking about the incident, if you go back to the original incident in the Old Testament, what happens is you have these guys, they're always jealous, everybody's jealous, everybody wants to be a minister until they become a minister. And then they don't want to be a minister anymore, because it's hard. And everybody wants to be high priest, even though the high priest had to do a ton of work, and he got no land, and everybody complained against you. And some of the Levites got jealous of Aaron being high priest, and they wanted to be high priest, and so they came and they grumbled, and so Moses and Aaron came up with that scheme, we're gonna put our rods out, whoever's rod blossoms, that's the one the Lord has chosen. the whole point of the rod. Now remember, the rod is also probably the rod used against Egypt, too. The rod of justice bears fruit for the people of God, which is pretty cool, because that's the rod of judgment and wrath, and yet it bears fruit. So if it's the same rod, you have that interesting connection. I think it's the same purpose of Hebrews. What is the point of Hebrews? God chose his son to be high priest. That nobody takes that honor to himself. And so Christ keeps the law in himself. Christ pays for the law. He keeps the law. The law is kept in him. He pays for our transgressions of the law with his blood that cover our transgressions in God's presence. Christ is chosen to be the high priest and the sacrifice. Aaron's rod that budded I think is showing that God chooses the one who will be the high priest and then obviously the manna, the fruit of Christ's saving work for us. And so I think the ark is in every way showing us various aspects about Christ's person or work in different ways. Now, you probably have heard a lot of that. The writer of Hebrews does teach a lot of this. Do y'all have questions or things you would like me to clarify or things you want to add to this right now? I'll just add also that the budding of the rod also was the resurrection. Yeah, right, the fruit of the new life. The Bible says in the Gospel of John, a branch away from has no life. Yeah, yeah. But yet this dead branch. Yeah, there's fruit. Christ lived a perfect life in his acceptance of the resurrection. Because a lot of times we talk about the death, burial, and resurrection, but we don't talk about the fulfillment of perfection. Yeah, the second Adam, which you already uncovered. Yeah, it's the new creation, right? New life. He kept the law, A lot of times we. zoom in on the first Adam, but we never zoom in on Israel being the Adam that was in the wilderness too. Because the same testing that the first Adam went through is the same testing that Israel. Same thing, one in the wilderness. And in a special way, yeah, that's absolutely right. Israel's God's son, Adam was God's son, Jesus is the Son of God, and that's clearly parallels. But there is an interesting connection with the priest and Adam. G.K. Beale and a number of writers that I tend to agree with on this stuff will say that Adam was a priest in the temple. And so some of the ways that we see this, when God says, tells Adam to guard and tend, if you look at those Hebrew words, Those are only used in connection anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible with the priest in the Levitical ordinances. So that guard and tend there to do the work of guarding and keeping the tabernacle and the temple and the work in there. And so Adam I believe was a priest, prophet, priest, and king, but he was a priest in the temple and he was to work that. He was to be a prophet to his wife, obviously, but he was to be the priest who offered sacrifices of praise to God and kept defilement out of the temple when Satan came Adam should have driven him out as a good priest. And now here's some interesting connections. One of the dress things that the priest, one of the, God gives the dress code to the priest in the Old Testament. And one of the things is that his nakedness is not to be seen when he goes up on the altar. And a lot of commentators make a big deal about Adam's nakedness and the nakedness of the priest and the biblical theology of nakedness, spiritual and physical nakedness and what that entails. It does seem to be these strong parallels that, you know, not just Adam and Israel, but Adam and the priesthood, and then Jesus comes as the great priest, second Adam, true Israel, all of those things. And he has those garments, right? The seamless robe. Spiritually, obviously, you could say his seamless righteousness, but it's also priestly garment. And then in Revelation, what do we see? Jesus, his head and hair are white like wool, his eyes like a flame of fire. He's clothed down to the feet and guarded around the waist with a golden band. He's a king priest. And so you do see all of that moving in Israel's history. It's amazing. One more thing that while you're studying the tabernacle, just as well as in Hebrews chapter 10 when he was talking about how it was foreshadowing. If you ever look at how David was speaking already about Christ, now we can go something a little further than that. If you look at the gospel of John, you can almost see him as the Holy Spirit is walking and seeing. Here it is, the gospel of John. He's seeing Christ, but he's seeing the temple at the same time. What is it? What's the first thing you see? The altar. What do you need at the altar? a lamb. So he says, behold the lamb of God. Yeah, John's gospel moves through the temple motif. Yeah. And then when you ultimately get through the I Am's, the vine and all of that, the bread. The vine was around the temple too. It is. John 17 is a high priestly prayer. He's entering into, and then there he is being glorified. Yeah. In the apex of his chapter 19, his death, their resurrection. Yeah, a number of guys, I think maybe D.A. Carson I've read, point out the temple, John's gospel especially, the light, light of the world, and the lampstand. You can find all the different sanctuary types in John's gospel fulfilled in Christ. Even the Passover land in 19. It's interesting in John's gospel a lot of Bible translations have heard this but Jesus says, he doesn't say, in my father's house are many mansions. He says, in my father's house are many dwellings. Meno is a form of the Greek word for abiding or remaining. A.W. King says the only other times that the words my father's house are mentioned, it's always with reference to the temple. And so when Jesus says, in my Father's house, he's talking about the heavenly temple. In the earthly one, the type, there were little rooms for the priests to stay in. And Pink says, Jesus is saying, I'm going to the cross to make a place for you. And in my Father's house, there's many dwelling places so that you're going to dwell in the temple. And that's in John's gospel.