Shadow of Heavenly Things
Reading: Hebrews 9.1-17; 10.1-4, 11-12
Hebrews tells us that the Tabernacle and Temple and sacrifices were a shadow
- they were a faint copy or image of what was real, in the spiritual world
- we might imagine we can work out what the reality is like from the image
- but this is likely to be harder than we think.
If I wanted to explain to Moses how I produced this sermon, I’d have problems
- how do I tell him about using a keyboard instead of a stylus or pen?
- what about writing it on a screen instead of on wet clay or on paper?
- and looking up things in the Bible, which he knows nothing about yet?
- having access to thousands of books, when he’s only seen a few scrolls!
- or checking facts by using Google to search billions of web pages !
- or adding pictures which are taken by digital cameras and kept on servers
- it all becomes more and more impossible
So I’d probably just say that I consulted many experts and wrote it down
- I might add that I had access to the scrolls and tablets of a king’s palace
(there was no such thing as a library, and only a king could own many scrolls)
- and of course many artists worked to paint exact images on glass
- then many lanterns shone through the glass to shine the pictures onto the walls
Would this be a lie? No, it would be telling the truth in his language
- but now consider how God could tell us about how he removes our sins
- God has to use our language and our experience to explain it
- we can’t see our sins except by the minor effect they have in our lives
- we can’t see any of the spiritual world where sins and goodness are real
- where bricks and trees and years are merely things in the physical world
- the spiritual world is full of different realities like God and angels and sin
How can God tell us about the important stuff going on in an invisible universe
- a universe which affects us now, and which will affect us for eternity
- a whole world of spiritual realities which are actually more real than this stuff
- this stuff the physical world is made of is really quite limited and short-term
- but this is the only stuff we can see and touch at present, or know much about
- so God has to tell us about the spiritual reality of himself and eternity and sin
- but he has to do it using the stuff we know about – families, food, and death etc
- all things which will be vague memories in eternity, but important to us now.
When Israel came out of Egypt they needed to know how God would save them
- they’d been saved from the Egyptians, but what about saving them from sins?
- this was very heavy on their minds because Egyptian religion was big on sin
- when you died, your sins were weighed by Anubis (the jackal) on the scales of Ma’at (the goddess of justice) and if it weighed more than a feather, you failed
God had a plan, but one which wasn’t ready yet. He was going to send Jesus
- but, in the mean time, he wanted to assure the Israelites that it would be OK
- so he showed them through sacrifices what was going to happen.
In Egyptian temples there were thousands of sacrifices being made continuously
- but God changed that, because he wanted to point to only one sacrifice - Jesus
- so, in the Law given to Moses there were only a handful of sacrifices each day
- there were lots of others, but they were for meals – to feed yourself or priests
- there was only a morning sacrifice, an evening sacrifice plus a few at festivals
- compared to Egypt, the sacrifice system of Moses was very minimal
When it came to sin, there was really only one sacrifice, - the Day of Atonement
- of course there were other ‘sin offerings’, but these weren’t for moral sins
- they were for times when you broke specific laws accidentally
- like carrying stuff on the Sabbath or eating the wrong kind of food
- but not for moral sins, like hitting your wife, or coveting your neighbour’s wife
- for this kind of sin you had to repent and wait – till the Day of Atonement
That’s why Hebrews says “without blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (9.22)
- but there were sin offerings which had no blood (eg ‘meal offerings’ Lev.5.11)
- there were many different grades of sin offering, from doves to bulls
- so most sin offerings involved blood, but not all
- the point is that sin offerings weren’t really how sin was dealt with
- all sins were dealt with all at once by the Day of Atonement offering
I think this is a really powerful picture: of waiting for Jesus, the one sacrifice
- they could repent immediately, and in some ways they had finished their bit
- but they knew that the sin was still on their account till the Day of Atonement
- and when that day came they had to still be repentant – and then it was cleared
- it was a great way to show that Jesus’ future death will remove all repented sins
Well, it is a great way for us to look back and see that it told them about Jesus
- but for them, it was impossible to work out what God was pointing towards
- no-one could have figured out that the Day of Atonement pointed to a single future offering which would deal with all the sins of the past and future
- and certainly no-one would figure out that it would be a person, not an animal
- and absolutely no-one would figure out that it would be God’s Son as a human
- the picture is great, but no-one could use it to work out the reality it pictured
And the picture is also flawed, like all pictures are
- the one sacrifice couldn’t tell the whole story, so it was doubled
- instead of a single lamb, they were told to find two identical lambs
- one lamb was killed as a sin offering, and one escaped with his life
- this was called the “Escape Goat” or “Scapegoat” for short.
Yes, I know our translations call them ‘rams’ but they were 1-year-old rams
- these were referred to by the same word as young sheep – ie ‘lambs’
- “Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” (John 1.29)
- John doesn’t mean Jesus is a Passover lamb, because that doesn’t remove sins
- he means that Jesus is the Day of Atonement lamb - but which one?
The insistence that the two lambs had to be identical points to the one fulfilment
- Jesus is both the one who died for our sins, and also the one who is still alive
- try explaining that to Moses by means of a single sacrifice
- you can’t tell the priests to kill an animal and then bring it back to life!
- so they had to have two of them, in order to picture Jesus’ death & resurrection
Hebrews certainly identifies Jesus as the Day of Atonement lamb who was killed
- the carcass of the sin offering lamb was burned outside the city walls
- this was a biggest spectacle of the day, because it was visible to the crowds
- so Hebrews points out that Jesus suffered ‘outside the gate’ (13.12)
The image is also flawed in that Jesus is not just the offering, but also the priest
- as Hebrews puts it: “He offered up himself” (7.27)
- this makes it sound reasonable but really it is a play on words
- Jesus was both the priest who killed the animal and the animal who was killed
- this represents the reality that Jesus willingly came to die for us
The point is that this is only a picture, a shadow, of a reality which is different
- the picture can tell us many things, but it cannot accurately represent reality
- the further it is from the reality it describes, the more differences divide them
- and there isn’t much more different than the fallen world and God’s perfection
- whatever picture God could give us will be only a ‘shadow’ of that reality.
The tabernacle itself is also said to be a ‘shadow’ of what is in heaven (8.1)
- Hebrews reminds us that it was divided into a Holy Place and a Holy of Holies
- a curtain or thick veil hid the Ark of the Covenant with its golden angels on top
- the outer ‘Holy Place’ had a lampstand and table of bread and incense altar
- outside this was a courtyard with the altar where priests burned sacrifices
- and outside this was the area where worshippers could watch
We often think of this as showing how our holy God is separate from us
- but actually the lesson we should learn is the opposite of this.
- it is a picture of how God wants to bring us into his presence, closer to him
The pattern of the Tabernacle wasn’t modelled entirely on heaven
- Moses was told to make everything as he was shown on Mt Sinai (Ex.25.9)
- but the outline model already existed all around him
- in some royal Egyptian tombs you find the remains of portable worship tents
- the idea of the Tabernacle wasn’t new – it was based on things in Egypt
- and the layout of Holy of Holies with an outer Holy Place is found frequently
- this is the floor plans of many ancient temples found by archaeologists
- and ones found in Palestine are extremely similar to the Tabernacle+Temple
So the message of God doesn’t lie in the way this layout divides into sections
- that layout was inherited from others. What was God saying that was different?
- I think the veil is the clue, because these temples had walls of separation
- their Holy of Holies were separated from the rest by walls a door
- but in the Tabernacle, and in the Temple which followed, it was only a veil
The message is not separation, but invitation. A veil separates less than a wall
- but getting through the veil was still almost impossible
- only the High Priest was allowed through it, and only once a year
- nevertheless, it suggested that some time in the future the way would be open
Hebrews says we should also think of the layout in chronological terms
- the outer Holy Place is how things used to be (9.8-9):
8 The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing, 9 which is a symbol for the present time.
Actually, this is a little tricky to translate.
- it could mean that it WAS a symbol for the time-being, but not now,
- or it could mean that is IS a symbol for the present-time now
Either way, the point is that the outer Holy Place is history.
- God’s aim was to open up the Holy of Holies
- and Hebrews tells us how this happens – by removing the veil in between
Hebrews 10:19-20 We have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, (20) by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,
So this veil is an amazing picture for us, of how Jesus brings us to God
- we are brought right into God’s presence by going through the veil
- and how do we get through the veil ? The veil is Jesus’ flesh
- and what happened when Jesus died? The veil was torn.
- Matthew lists a number of amazing things which happened at his death
- including “the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (27:51)
- so the veil shows that the death of Jesus removes a barrier between us and God
Now, at this point, things are a little complicated, and we still aren’t sure.
- because actually there were two veils, and it isn’t certain which is which
- Hebrews tells us there are two veils in 9.3: "Behind the second veil there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies, "
- this isn’t anything new. Everyone knew this, because the first veil was visible
- anyone looking at the Temple from the outer courtyard could see the first veil
- Josephus describes it clearly and he says it is identical to the inner veil (War 5.4)
The question is, which veil is the one Hebrews refer to as “His flesh”
- which is the veil which was torn in two when Jesus died?
- if it was the outer veil, then Jesus’ death brings us into the Holy Place
- and if it was the inner veil then Jesus’ death brings us into the Holy of Holies
Most commentaries don’t discuss this, because they forget there’s two veils
- I’ve discussed it a lot with Dan Gurtner who’s the world expert on the veil
(yes, there is an expert for everything nowadays, and he’s studied this topic more than anyone alive or in history). He didn’t convince me
- he takes the traditional viewpoint that it was the inner veil.