Jesus Christ, the eternal High Priest, died to set us free from the penalty for all the sins we have committed. God promises us an eternal inheritance. God’s people are now responsible to honor Him. We are free men and women, awaiting God’s return.
Hebrews is required reading for every growing Christian. I love chapters 7-10 regarding the new covenant of Christ. We won’t grow, I suggest, if we don’t understand this. Indeed, as explained in this Scripture, the rampant moral therapeutic deism, so common in the modern church, must be refuted with God’s truth.
Thankfully God makes his point clear so that even a simple farm boy from Saskatchewan like me can grasp it. The main point is that Christians have a High Priest who ministers from the heavenly tent (Tabernacle) (8:2). Where Jesus ministers today is the true place of worship. It was not built by human hands. It was built by the Master Carpenter himself, Jesus Christ. Jesus is not only our High Priest. He is our Mediator, our Lawyer (Lamentations 3:58), our God (8:10), and our Brother (Hebrews 2:11, Romans 8:29, etc.).
I pray we grow in Christ today and worship God in spirit and truth with humble confidence. May we trust God and ask Him for all we need to be useful to Him.
The old system (of priests, regulations on worship, laws, sacrifices, and a place of worship) was faulty. It was weak and faulty because of the weakness and sin of the priests and the people. It was a foreshadowing of the perfect covenant given to us by Jesus.
The new system and covenant between God and His people is not faulty. It makes us new creations - brothers and sisters in Christ. It cleanses us from our sins because of Jesus's sacrifice.
Jesus ministers right now. God reigns. Jesus intercedes for us in the heavenly Tabernacle. And we, His people, are to worship him. Not through priests and not through Hebrew worship regulations, via a certain tribe and certain cows of a particular color.
I don’t pretend to be a Hebrew scholar. But I’ll share with you what I see from reading the Bible. For almost two thousand years God has instituted and mediated a far better covenant to build His Kingdom. Jesus promised to return and destroy this earth and make a new heaven and new earth. God’s patience in returning is a very good thing as it means more and more people are made new as they hear God’s message and put their eternal hope in Jesus.
We see in Scripture that it often takes the strong arm of God to intervene and humble arrogant leaders (Lamentations 2:10). That's too bad, but it's reality. God will use the authorities of this world to implement His justice (Romans 13). So we live in reverent fear and thankfulness for the Grace given to us by our God, but also for the country we live in and the laws of this land. May they reflect God’s truth.
We know the heavy responsibility of the church to stay on fire for God. We've seen over the last hundred years the terrible consequences for Christian denominations that turn from obedience to God to lukewarm reverence.
No amount of human wisdom or argument can turn a person or a people to God. Yes of course God uses our capabilities and He will do so today, but it requires the Holy Spirit to draw people to God and to give people new hearts. In the first three chapters of the Revelation of Jesus Christ and multiple times in Hebrews, we hear a warning about lukewarm faith and turning away from God.
It’s a good day to turn to God. Lamentations 3:40 says, “Instead, let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the LORD.” Amen to that.
The alternative (turning away) is abominable. We hear God warning King Solomon of the consequences of turning away (1 Kings 9). It can happen to even the wisest of the wise. Don't think it can't happen to you. Time and again, God's people grow lukewarm and shame the name of Christ by idolatrous scandal and disunity. Sadly that was the ending for King Solomon who “...did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done” (1 Kings 1:4-6).
God did help Solomon build a Temple. I wish I could have seen it. We know from Scripture that there was a brief period of peace in all of Israel (the time of David and Solomon from 1031 to 931 BC). And we know how fast it all fell apart. Right after Solomon, we see the ten tribes of the North (under Jeroboam) and the one tribe of the South (under Rehoboam) quickly turn to disunity. In short order (722 BC) Assyria conquered the North. By 606 BC, Babylon enslaved Judah and destroyed Solomon’s temple in 586 BC (just as Jeremiah said would happen).
We don’t need to be Bible scholars to know that in 539 BC Cyrus the Persian King conquered Babylon (again as prophesied in the Bible) and allowed the Jews to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple (what would be called the second temple (Ezra 1:3)).
Just 70 years after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple the Jews rebuilt it under Ezra and Nehemiah. Later (much later under the Roman governor Herod "the Great") the Temple got a major facelift.
But what would happen to this Second Temple? Just ten years after the Temple was renovated, the Temple was completely destroyed - forever destroyed - by Titus and his Roman army in AD 70. This was just as Jesus said it would happen in Mathew 24:2.
So why this trip down memory lane. It is because of how important it is to know what Jesus did for us - once for all time - in the next few chapters. The power of Jesus resurrected life. We will celebrate that shortly! There are many teachers, falsely I believe, that claim there will be a third and even fourth temple and that all the rules and sacrifice regulations will be reinstituted here on earth. I don’t believe that. Indeed, the next few chapters make clear that there will be no third temple on earth. That type of thinking and teaching shows not just biblical illiteracy, it is reverting back to the old covenant - that Jesus obliterated - tore apart (Galatians 3-5, Hebrews 5:11-6:12; 10; 12:14-29).
We no longer sacrifice birds and cows and sheep - thank God! Now we celebrate what Jesus Christ did, once and for all time on the Cross. Jesus' body is broken for us. His blood was shed for us. Do not partake in the legalists' rebuilding of the temple here on earth. Doing so mocks the sacrifice of our Savior.
Just like we see in Romans 1 every man and every woman knows the truth about God because God makes it obvious to us. We all see the earth and the sky. We see God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power, and divine nature.
Through the Good News of Jesus, God is at work saving everyone who believes - the Jew first and also the Gentile (Romans 1:16).
God’s way, Jesus’ covenant with His people is that we can have eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. But God is tolerant, kind, and patient with us for a reason. It's not because he wants to tolerate our sin. On the contrary, God's patience is so that we will stop sinning (Romans 2).
Don’t mistake God’s character and His mercy with tolerance for sin. While the old system of rules and regulations was declared obsolete, God instituted a new way that He planned from the beginning. For the last 2,000 years, God’s laws have been placed by our Savior into the minds and hearts of those who know and trust Him. By God's grace, we are His children.
Lord Jesus, thank you for your grace and mercy - only You can give us life, freedom, and peace.
Help us today to obey you, to remain faithful to your covenant with us. We do not know how long it will be until you return - today or a thousand more years - we don’t know and we don’t need to know. But we do know you give each of us this one life to live. And then we are judged. Please show your might today King Jesus and strengthen us. Amen.
Kari and her friends from work.
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