GOSPEL MEDITATION

Hebrews 10:1–18

Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture. Recommended Passages: Psalm 40:6–8; Jeremiah 31:31–34; Phil. 2:5–11; Rev. 12:7–12.

1.         This letter (epistle in Greek) is addressed to Jewish Christians, likely second-generation Christians and likely living in Rome. At this point in history there is no Bible or collection of writings of the original apostles or their disciples.

2.         The author of Hebrews wants his readers to know that there is no longer any need for daily and yearly sacrifices of animals to be made at the temple. (There is a debate as to whether the Temple in Jerusalem yet stood or if the dating of the letter was after 70CE.)

3.         One thing is clear, the “blood of bulls and goats” cannot cover or take away sin. Psalm 40:6–8, written 1000 years earlier teaches this very thing.

4.         The daily and yearly (Yom Kippur) sacrifices are prophetic, a looking ahead to the one supreme sacrifice, the Messiah who is both priest and king.

5.         The work of Christ stands forever. And those in Christ have had their sin, shame, and guilt forever taken away.

6.         Now we are in “waiting” until all the enemies of Messiah Jesus are completely defeated, and by this is meant not only Satan and the entire demonic kingdom but death itself, that eternal separation from the presence of God.

7.         The author of our passage points, as before, to the prophet Jeremiah and the passage 31:33–34, clearly one of the most incredible verses in the Hebrew Bible. And the key statement is: “I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.” Herein is the core meaning of what we call “Amazing Grace.”

Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.

1.          In this lengthy passage we find that Jesus is both high priest and sacrifice.

2.          “Redemption” is a word found in Scripture that theologically contains the effect of Jesus’ death on the cross. 3.  To redeem means “to buy back.”  Our sin brings us under the authority and power of Satan, the enemy of God. The first covenant, or the Old Testament, meant that on a   continuing basis, sacrifices, or payments, had to be made in order to satisfy the demands of the Creator God.

4.          The blood of goats, calves, and bulls were never intended to be a final solution however, but served as a shadow or pre-cursor of that which was to come.

5.          The blood of Christ alone purifies “our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” This is the blood of the covenant.

6.          The high priest entered, on the Day of Atonement, into the inner sanctum and sprinkled blood on the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat. Christ how enters into the very presence of God and acting as our high priest.

7.          This sacrifice was a one-time event.  “He appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

8.          He, Christ, will appear a second time, which we refer to as the “Second Coming” in order to “save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

9.          This salvation extends to all those who have been called and elected throughout the entirety of world history.

Hebrews 9:1–10

Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.

1.            Reminder: the unknown writer of Hebrews is writing to a Jewish Christian audience, and it is most likely he or she, or a husband-and-wife team, but the author(s) is Jewish.

2.          The focus of this first part of chapter 9 is the “earthly holy place,” that tent or tabernacle wherein God dwelt while the people of Israel, and for forty years, were wandering in the wilderness. The “Temple,” Solomon’s, would not be built for another five hundred years, and which was destroyed in 587 BCE. What came to be known as Herod’s Temple would be begun when the captives came back to Israel about 530 BCE. This was the temple in Jesus’ day.

3.          That tent in the wilderness had a court about it, a space where people would gather. Then the single tent contained two rooms, one the Holy Place and the other the Most Holy Place. The Holy Place was twice the size of the Most Holy Place, and the two were separated by an ornate and thick curtain or vail.

4.          Ordinary priests, of the tribe of Levi, entered the Holy Place often, carrying out the offerings and sacrifices we read about in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

5.          The Most Holy Place, wherein were the stone tablets upon which the 10 Commandments were written and the “Mercy Seat” flanked by representations of magnificent angels, the high priest of Israel entered once a year, on the Day of Atonement otherwise known as Yom Kippur. He sprinkled the blood of a sacrificial bull and later blood of a sacrificial lamb, thus atoning for his sins and the sins of the people. This ceremony would take place every year.

6.          Now then, the author of Hebrews understands that the way into the holy places are not yet opened; at this point in history there is no Temple, 80 to 95 CE, there is no holy place. Israel is then without hope.

7.          Paul, in referring to the above, put it this way in his letter to the church at Colossae: “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” And by this he means that the earthly holy place pointed ahead prophetically to another Temple, a New Covenant, wherein Jesus Christ is the great high priest.

Hebrews 8:1–13

Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.

1.     A “priest” is one who stands between people and God. Aaron, the brother of Moses, a Levite, was the first high priest appointed by God. The Law demanded that the high priest make a sacrifice, the shedding of blood, of an animal to atone for his own sin and then and only then could he make an atoning sacrifice for the people of Israel.

2.     The descendants of Aaron, and it is recorded that there were 83 of theses between the days of Aaron and the last high priest in 70 CE, which is the date of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

3.   In Jesus we have a high priest who is “seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven.” (“Majesty” is an indirect Semetic term for God.)

4.   Jesus alone, who as deity, is in the Holy of Holies in heaven, ever interceding for us.

5.   His sacrifice stands for all time and is the basis of a new covenant since the old covenant had been broken as it depended upon a priesthood that was not without sin.

6.   Indeed, a new covenant would be made and Jeremiah the prophet spoke of it in chapter 31 of his prophecy, verses 31–34, which the writer of Hebrews quotes.

7.   Even in Jeremiah’s day, the 6^th century BCE, the old covenant was treated as obsolete, but he looks ahead to the ultimate sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus the Messiah, which would never be obsolete.  

8.   John the Apostle summarized this great and eternal truth when he quoted Jesus as saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

      (John 14:6)

9.   We then have no need of any sort of human priest, or institution, to stand between us and the Father.