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Hebrews 8:6-7, Matthew 26:27-28, Exodus 24:8

Jesus: A better ministry & covenant!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 13, 2020

The conditional covenant that God established with Israel at Sinai was inadequate. It could not make anyone righteous. It could not be maintained by sinful man. This was not a surprise to God because He had informed Moses after the whole nation signed the covenant with an oath saying “we will keep the laws of the Lord” at the end of Deuteronomy, that they would not keep their promises. The law was the basis upon which God’s people could enjoy life to the fullest extent possible in the land but it had a more permanent purpose; to reveal to all mankind their sinful nature. God wanted the law to break them with failure. The High Priest’s ministry was to intercede with God on behalf of sinful people. He did that through the sacrificial system. The conditional covenant failed, as God foretold. The ministry of the blood of animals accomplished nothing. This necessitated a better ministry and a better covenant. Jesus brought both. Hebrews 8:6-7 says, “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.”

Jesus’ ministry involved a far superior sacrifice. His perfect body. The sign the shepherds looked for in Bethlehem was that the baby would be swaddled. To us that seems to be a strange sign. But it wasn’t to those shepherds. The Bethlehem shepherds kept the flocks raised by the priests for sacrifices. When a lamb was born it was inspected for flaws. If there were any, the lamb was left to its mother and could easily injure itself as it stumbled around learning to walk. If it qualified as a sacrificial lamb it was swaddled to protect it from harming itself as it grew. The shepherds knew this baby had a perfect body acceptable by God as a sacrifice for sin.

Jesus’ ministry involved a far better Covenant. The old one was dependent on the actions of the people. This one, as the covenant with Abraham, was a promise by God that He would bring about a specific result regardless of the behavior of others. It was totally dependent on the unshakable promise of God from Genesis 3 through the rest of the Old Testament.  The blood of the Levitical sacrifices sealed the old covenant. Jesus’ blood seals a far superior unconditional covenant! Stedman observes, “On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took a cup of wine, passed it to his disciples and said: ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Mt 26:27–28). With those words and that symbolic action, he borrowed the phrase used by Moses when he took the blood of an animal, sprinkled it on the people and said, This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words’” (Ex 24:8).[1] Fruchtenbaum concludes his study on this passage by saying, “the earthly Tabernacle must give way to the Heavenly Tabernacle. The temporary Tabernacle must give way to the eternal one. The system that rested on a temporary, conditional covenant had to give way to a system that rested on an unconditional, eternal covenant.”[2]

[1] Ray C. Stedman, Hebrews, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 1992), Heb 8:1.

[2] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, The Messianic Jewish Epistles: Hebrews, James, First Peter, Second Peter, Jude, 1st ed. (Tustin, CA: Ariel Ministries, 2005), 110.

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Hebrews 8:5, 1 Thessalonians 4:13

Jesus is the real thing!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 13, 2020

God instructed Moses in great detail regarding the construction of the tabernacle.  It seems to have been more than just instructions or blueprints because Moses was shown a “pattern” by which he should model the earthly sanctuary in which the Levitical priests would perform their intercessory ministry for the people. When God finished His instructions to Moses, He concluded His remarks in Exodus 25:40 by saying, “And see that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain.” God actually showed Moses a model by which he would design the residence of God’s mercy seat on earth. The model that God showed Moses was the real deal! Moses’ reproduction on earth was just a shadow or a reflection of the real thing. Again quoting from the Old Testament the writer of Hebrews 8:5 says, speaking of the Levitical priests, “They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’”

Plato is famous for his allegory of the cave. People were chained facing a wall on which their shadows were reflected. The shadows were all they knew and believed the shadows to be reality. Since they spent their lives in the cave they knew and could not imagine anything else. Although there were others in the cave, the prisoners could only see their shadows moving around on the walls. Their reality was only a shadow of what actually existed. Justin Martyr, an early church father around 125AD, thought that Plato got his idea from Moses. He writes, “And Plato, too, when he says that form is the third original principle next to God and matter, has manifestly received this suggestion from no other source than from Moses, having learned, indeed, from the words of Moses the name of form.”[1] The author of Hebrews explains that the “shadow” of reality is the earthly tabernacle.  The “form”, the “pattern”, the real thing is the one where Jesus the High Priest ministers in heaven.

There is another reality! The heavenly reality is more real than the shadowy world in which we live. We now “walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” But Jesus has conquered death and it is merely a means by which we leave this life of shadows and enter into real life with Jesus.  Jesus is for real! Everything on earth is simply a passing shadow. The prisoners thought that the shadows were reality but they were wrong. We see the things of this world and say they are reality. We too are wrong. We are seeing only the shadows, the temporary manifestations, rather than the real things laid up in heaven for us. When the prisoners are released and see the reality in the light of the sun, they stand amazed. They could never have imagined the beauty and the glory of reality. The liberated slaves of Plato’s analogy can’t help but go back into the cave to tell the others. Paul explains in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 that we “do not grieve like those who have no hope” at the loss of loved ones. We know they have just passed from the shadows into the glorious reality of the place that Jesus has prepared for them for all eternity.

[1] Justin Martyr, “Justin’s Hortatory Address to the Greeks,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. M. Dods, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 285.

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Hebrews 8:3-4

Jesus is enough!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 13, 2020

The veil that separated the holy place from the most holy place in the tabernacle represented the separation of sinful man from God. God resided in the most holy place above the mercy seat. No one could come near to God at any time. But the high priest would do that for the people once a year only. He would offer sacrifices for his own sins first and then offer sacrifices for the sins of the people and then he’d sprinkle the blood upon the mercy seat as a symbol that God has accepted man’s sacrifice and forgiven their sins. According to tradition, this was true only if the priest came out of the Holy of Holies alive! Tradition says that the priests who entered had a rope tied around their leg so that if they died in the presence of God they could pull him out by use of the rope. He had bells along the bottom of his robe so that his movement could be heard. If it went too long without any movement they feared he might have died in the presence of God and they would need to retrieve his body. The sacrifice for the sin of the people had to be acceptable to God. If the priests followed Moses’ instructions and if the sacrifice was acceptable, the Priest would come out alive. There had to be a blood sacrifice and it had to be acceptable.

Just as the earthly priests had to bring an acceptable sacrifice so too does our High Priest, Jesus as He resides in the presence of God. Hebrews 8:3-4 says, “For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.” Jesus offered Himself, the perfect Lamb of God, to take away the sins of the world. His sacrifice was not an earthly, temporary one like the Levitical priests offered. He wasn’t even qualified to offer that kind of a sacrifice. His sacrifice had to be different and of course it was. The earthly priests brought “gifts and sacrifices,” but our heavenly high priest only brought one, Himself! All the offerings of the OT: guilt, thanks, trespass, and all the others, have been satisfied completely by the singular “something to offer” that Jesus brought. No other sacrifice is necessary!

Jesus was the breach between the heavenly and the earthly. At His birth, He took on a human body and brought divinity to man. He lived on earth for 33 years as a divine human with all the signs and miracles of God. He took His life, the ultimate sacrifice for sin, into the grave and offered the sacrifice that sets men free. Then to prove that the sacrifice was acceptable, He came back to life! He lived! He stayed for another 40 days as the God-man with a transformed body capable of managing both realms and then ascended to His rightful place at the right hand of God. The pattern established by God through Moses to deal with man’s sin through a blood sacrifice had been fulfilled. No other sacrifice or offering is needed. Jesus is enough!

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Hebrews 8:1-2

Grounded in Jesus!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 13, 2020

Hebrews chapter 7 dealt primarily with Jesus’ priesthood and its superiority to the Levitical priesthood. Jesus’ Melchizedekian priesthood was superior for many reasons. It was permanent not temporary. It involved a perfect sacrifice that was offered once and for all instead of the sacrifices of the old covenant being required over and over again. The high priest under the Levitical system had to offer sacrifices for his own sin. Jesus had no sin that required a sacrifice. Jesus has entered into the very presence of God Himself on our behalf and has remained there; whereas the Levitical priests had to enter again and again, year after year. Chapter 8 continues the theme of Jesus’ superiority by pointing out that Jesus priestly duties take place not on earth but in heaven. This is how the author of Hebrews begins chapter 8. Hebrews 8:1-2 says, “Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.”  Guzik observes, “The tabernacle and the temple of the Old Covenant had beautiful furnishings, but no place for the priests to sit down because their work was never finished. The work of Jesus is finished—He is seated in heaven.”[1]

God has established a heavenly dwelling place for His Son and believers. Our author refers to it as the “heavenly tabernacle.” That’s the place where God dwells. God gave Moses the blueprints from which to build the earthly tabernacle to serve as a picture of the heavenly one. There are two realms with which we have to deal; the earthly one and the heavenly one. Moses, his covenant of law, and the Levitical priests serve in the earthly tabernacle. Jesus serves in the true presence of God in heaven. We deal with the Law covenant in this life. We reap what we sow. We get what we deserve! We make our beds and have to sleep in them. We make atonement for our sins in this life in prison, on the gallows, or in just plain consequences of daily life. But there’s a new realm that relates to each of us in a different way through our faith in Jesus.

Ray Brown explains the situation for us emphasizing the truth in a way that helps us through our daily struggles today. He writes, “We may feel crushed, dejected, bewildered or broken, but our eternal salvation has never depended on our vacillating moods or our changing circumstances. Christ has entered the heavenly sanctuary; ‘once and for all’ he offered his blood for us. There he has appeared for us and now he is praying for us. We are ever remembered at that throne and our names are enrolled in heaven. This is our confidence. Our faith is grounded not in what we are or what we have done, but ever and always in what he is, God’s perfect Son, and what he has done through his perfect, eternal sacrifice.”[2]

[1] David Guzik, Hebrews, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Heb 8:1–2.

[2] Raymond Brown, The Message of Hebrews: Christ above All, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 146.

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Hebrews 7:14-17, John 14:6

Jesus opens the door for us!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 7, 2020

The writer of Hebrews makes it perfectly clear that the priesthood of Jesus was different, radically different, from the priesthood of Levi. According to law, He could never have served in the Levitical priesthood because of His lineage. Hebrews 7:14 says, “For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.” No priests were to come from Judah, only Kings! Yet the intercessory ministry of Jesus replaces that role and established a permanent one which was not alien to the writings of the Old Testament. In fact, His ministry fulfills the role established previously by Melchizedek. Hebrews 7:15-17 says, “This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.  For it is witnessed of him, ‘You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.’”

Jesus priesthood is different in many ways but first of all, His is eternal. There are no time restrictions of any kind. He is once and for all established as the one and only priest who can make sure atonement for our sins with God and give us access to His heavenly presence for all eternity.  Also, His priesthood doesn’t separate us from God, but opens the way to God. The Levitical priesthood separated people from God. They stood at the door as doorkeepers who would deny access to all except those born of the correct line. Only the Levitical priests could come into the presence of God. But Jesus rent the curtain that separated the people from their God. Jesus defrocked the door keepers who kept sinners away. Jesus opened that way and made it possible for all of us through faith in Him to enter into God’s presence knowing we’re accepted as His children. In John 14:6, Jesus said, referring to His eternal role as Priest, “no one comes to the Father except through me.”

Jesus is not a door keeper but a door greeter! I like the way Richards explains the situation established by Jesus’ new and permanent priesthood. He writes, “Because of Jesus, the door to God is always open, and so we always have hope. The old doorkeepers, the Aaronic priests, are gone. Their struggle to keep open the crack that the Old Testament opened in relationship to God is ended. Jesus has come, and He has not only thrown open the door, but He stands in it to welcome us personally when we turn to Him.”[1]

[1] Larry Richards and Lawrence O. Richards, The Teacher’s Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1987), 1003.

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Hebrews 7:28, Jude 24-25

Thank You, Jesus!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 6, 2020

There aren’t any among men who are “righteous.” There aren’t any who measure up to the standard God has set for full acceptance by Him. Paul makes that perfectly clear in Romans 3:23-24. The Living Bible puts it this way, “Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal; yet now God declares us ‘not guilty’ of offending him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins.” This has been true since the beginning of creation with the first two people on earth and stands true for us today: “All have sinned.” This is even true for the holy tribe of Levi and the priestly line of Aaron. They were sinners like the rest of us. It is within the full realm of our sin that they operated. No one has lived up to God’s ideal except one! The law exposes all of our sins and operates in that environment. But God promised us redemption through the work and sacrifice of the one and only perfect one. Hebrews 7:28 says, “For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.”

Sinners come to God bowed and contrite. That’s our only approach to God. When Jesus was in the temple with his disciples he pointed out the publican and the Pharisee. The Pharisee prayed a prayer focusing on his own goodness, reciting the good things he did and the bad things he avoided. It was all about his efforts and deeds and he presented himself as deserving of God’s acceptance. The Publican, the tax collector, the sinner, bowed his head in deep remorse and acknowledges his profound sinfulness. He didn’t confess a particular sin, he just acknowledged the true condition of his sinful heart. Luke 18:13-14 recounts Jesus’ explanation of the story for us. It says, “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.”

But Jesus is the perfect sacrifice and the perfect savior. He makes us something we could never be or never make ourselves. He makes us perfect. In Jude’s closing verses (24-25), he praises God for this truth and says, “Now to Him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless and with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever.” What the law and the works of man could never accomplish, Jesus accomplishes for us. We can’t add anything to it and we can’t take anything away from it! All sinners can’t even lift their eyes to heaven but are bowed under the weight of their sin whether they know it or not. But Jesus is able to make us “stand” in God’s holy presence, blameless! Thank you, Jesus!

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Hebrews 7:27, James 2:21-23, Joshua 2:1f

Jesus’ Sacrifice is enough!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 6, 2020

Jesus’ sacrifice is sufficient. Not one sacrifice offered by any of the Levitical priests including Aaron himself was sufficient. Year after year, actually day after day, the priests continued to offer sacrifices over and over again for their own sins and the sins of the people. Sacrifice is not necessary any longer! Jesus’ sacrifice is enough for now and all eternity. Hebrews 7:27 says, “He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.” The laws around the sacrificial system have all been fulfilled in Christ. We need not attempt to add to his sacrifice by offering our own sacrifices to what has been done for us. It’s enough in that Jesus offered himself for us on Calvary. When he said “it is finished” he meant it!

Many argue that it’s faith plus works that save us and often refer to James chapter 2 where Abraham’s sacrifice of his son was what justified Abraham because his faith climaxed with works. James 2:21-23 says, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’” But please note that Abraham did not sacrifice his son! God provided the actual sacrifice, the lamb caught in the thicket that was offered on the same mountain that Jesus would be crucified on. It was not Abraham’s sacrifice of his son that mattered. It was God’s sacrifice of his son that mattered. It wasn’t Abraham’s faith and Abraham’s works that led to his being justified by God. It was Abraham’s faith in God’s sacrifice. It was Abraham’s faith and God’s works.

When James goes on to refer to “faith and works” in relation to Rahab at Jericho, it’s not Rahab’s faith and Rahab’s works. It’s Rahab’s faith in God’s work of giving the land to His chosen people. She professed her faith acknowledging that God had given the land to the Israelites and recognized that “…the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” In faith she hung out the scarlet cord as directed and was saved from the destruction that befell Jericho. Even the scarlet cord which Israel gave to her is symbolic of the blood of the lamb on the doorposts in Egypt as well as the blood of the Lamb of God that will take away the sins of the world. Just as the ram caught in the thicket saved Abraham’s son, so too did the bloody colored cord save Rahab and brought her into the genealogy of Jesus. It’s all about Jesus! He was sufficient to save Abraham! He was sufficient to save Rahab and He is sufficient to save you and me. Believe it, because it’s by faith we are saved!

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Hebrews 7:26, Hebrew 12:2-3

Look only to Jesus!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 6, 2020

Jesus’ complete sufficiency to save us was fully demonstrated in his perfect life. He was the only one capable of saving to the “uttermost” those who believe in him.  He lives eternally making intercession for us and our sins at this very minute and into eternity. His resurrection from the dead makes him the guarantor of our eternal security.  He lives forever, making intercession for us because he lived a perfect life. He was not infected by the sin of our fathers as we are. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The temptations that trip us all up did not defile him. Pink writes, “He was never infected by the evils around Him. He touched the leper, and the leper was cleansed. He came into contact with death, and death was conquered. He was in the presence of the Devil for forty days, and was as spotless at the close as He was at the beginning of them.”[1] The writer of Hebrews turns to point out how appropriate it is for Jesus to reign in Glory forever because of his life on earth. Hebrews 7:26 says, “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.”

When Pink comments on Hebrews 7:26, he follows the example of the author of Hebrews who interprets the Old Testament Christologically. He’s sees the presence of Christ in all its glory and recognizes that the Bible is truly all about him as Jesus said it was. This is how Pink handles Psalm 1. Commenting on the statement that Jesus is “separate from sinners,” Pink says that “…it gives a summary of what Christ was in Himself, emphasizing His uniqueness and demonstrating His fitness to officiate as Priest. He was the ‘Blessed’ Man of the first Psalm: He walked not in the counsel of the ungodly, stood not in the way of sinners, sat not in the seat of scorners…Though He lived amongst sinners, He was infinitely apart from them, in nature and character, motive and conduct. He was in the world, but not ‘of’ it. Thus was He qualified to act as Mediator between God and sinners.”[2]

The writer of Hebrews began his letter emphasizing the superiority of Jesus over prophets, angels, Moses, and the Law itself including the Levitical priesthood. The closing statement of this verse “exalted above the heavens” is the continuation of this truth. It’s not just the things mentioned earlier that Jesus was superior to! This helps understand Paul’s words in Philippians 2:9-11. He says, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” But the author of Hebrews doesn’t say “in heaven.” He says, “above the heavens.” The Bible is all about Jesus. We need to take our eyes off of ourselves and look to Him only. Our writer will say just that later in Hebrews 12:2-3, “…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

[1] Arthur Walkington Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews (Swengel, PA: Bible Truth Depot, 1954), 407.

[2] Arthur Walkington Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews (Swengel, PA: Bible Truth Depot, 1954), 408.

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