Bible Studies

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I'll continue to quote from what Andrew Murray said under Heb. 8:10 here in Part 4.

" 'This is the covenant I will make, saith the Lord.' And God hath given His own Son with an oath to be of that covenant a surety! And of that covenant He, the High Priest upon the throne is the Mediator! Oh, what think you? Will God fail in the very thing the covenant was devised to provide? Will He disappoint us in the one thing in which, as it deals with our experience, the new covenant is better than the old? In the one thing His heart and our heart longs for, to serve Him in righteousness and holiness all the days of our life, - is this one thing the very thing we are not to realize? God forbid. He hath said - 'This is the covenant I will make'; and He will do it.

Let us look up to the Mediator of the covenant, our High Priest upon the throne in the heavens. When He was with His disciples on earth, the law was not yet put into their hearts. How often they failed in humility and love and boldness. But when He sat down upon the throne, He sent down the Holy Spirit from heaven in their hearts, and all was new. They were full of humility and love and great boldness. The law of God was in their hearts as the power of a life that knew, and loved, and did His will. Christ dwelt in their hearts by faith. The power of the endless life from the throne of God had taken possession of them. Oh, let us not doubt. Let us plead God's promise, 'I will make a covenant.' Let us trust God's Son, the surety of the covenant, and receive God's Spirit [Let us receive and cooperate, by faith, with all the work the Spirit is sent to do in us, and through us, as we walk by the Spirit on a continuous basis, which we are commanded to do (cf. Gal. 5:16).] - we shall be brought into the covenant, and into the sanctuary together, and have grace to continue to abide continually" (pages 213, 214).

I'll also quote most of a paragraph that Murray has under Heb. 8:10, 11 (page 281): "There are not a few who know indeed what the greatness of God's pardoning love is, who yet never reach out to claim, as equally sure, the greatness of His sanctifying grace. The necessity of daily sinning, the impossibility of living for one day without actual transgression is such a deeply-rooted conviction, and there is such confidence that God's word teaches it, that the mind cannot for a moment enter into what the word has said of the radical difference between the old covenant and the new in this respect. The confounding the freedom from any sinful tendency [[We need to know that born-again Christians have a "sinful tendency" (cf., e.g., Gal. 5:16; 19-21) - this is a point Murray is making here; the old man has not been annihilated; that is why we are required to walk by the Holy Spirit, by faith, on a continuous basis (cf. Gal. 5:16). We also need to know that being tempted to sin isn't sin, but if we yield to sinful desires, for example, it becomes sin.]] and freedom in the power of Christ's indwelling from actual sinning, even with the sinful tendency still remaining, is so universal, that every attempt to press home the promise of the law written in the heart, in its contrast to the Old Testament life, is regarded as dangerous. The wonderful promise is leveled down to the ordinary experience of the ordinary Christian life. No wonder then that the crowning promise, 'They shall not every man teach his brother, Know the Lord,' with its direct teaching [enablement, etc.] of the Holy Spirit, and its direct fellowship with God through the Spirit, is neither valued nor claimed, and the entrance through the rent veil into the Holiest of All and the presence of God postponed to another world."]] (11) AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN, AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, 'KNOW THE LORD,' FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM. [[All born-again Christians have the privilege to know God though the indwelling Spirit and the Word of God; we literally have access to Him in Christ Jesus and by the Holy Spirit. After we are glorified, we will know Him on a much deeper level (cf., e.g., 1 Cor. 13:12); we will even be reigning with Him (cf., e.g., Rev. 22:5).]] (12) FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES, AND I WILL REMEMBER THEM NO MORE.' [[Total forgiveness for our past sins is a super-important part of the gospel. We will also be forgiven for any sins we commit after becoming Christians when we repent, but we must put the emphasis on what the writer of Hebrews said in verse 10, which is the heartbeat of the new covenant. God hates sin, and He paid an infinite price in the incarnation and sacrifice of His Son to give us the victory over sin (all sin) and Satan's kingdom of darkness.]] (13) When He said, 'A new covenant,' He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear." [[The old covenant, which was established on the Mosaic Law, was terminated with the sacrifice of the Lamb of God; the Law (and the old covenant) was nailed to the cross (cf. Col. 2:14). However, God is not done with Israel: For one thing, the time will come when the (remnant of) the nation will repent and submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and be saved with new-covenant salvation (cf., e.g., Zech. 12:10-14 with most of Zechariah chapters 12-14 [these chapters are discussed in my book, "The Mid-Week Rapture," which is available on my website and at amazon.com]; Matt. 23:37-39; and Rom. 11:25-32). The temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. I agree with the widespread viewpoint that Hebrews was written before the destruction of the temple.]]


Hebrews Chapter 9

"Now even the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and the earthly sanctuary. (2) For there was a tabernacle prepared, the outer [literally "first"] one, in which were the lampstand [Ex. 25:31-40] and the table [Ex. 25:23-29] and the sacred bread [Ex. 25:30; Lev. 24:5-9; Matt. 12:3, 4]; this is called the holy place. (3) Behind the second veil [Ex. 26:31-33; 40:3. This is the veil (not the actual veil that existed in the later temple of Jesus' day) that was torn in two from the top to the bottom when Jesus died (Matt. 27:51; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:45). His death opened the way, beyond the second veil, into heaven (the presence of God) for all believers.] there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies [Ex. 26:33], (4) having a golden altar of incense [[Ex. 30:1-10; 37:25-29. It is clear that the golden altar of incense was located in the "holy place," not in the "Holy of Holies." If it had been located in the "Holy of Holies," the high priests (Ex. 30:7, 8) or later, the priests (Luke 1:8, 9), would not have had access to the altar to offer incense on it every day (Ex. 30:1-7). Apparently the writer of Hebrews said it this way because the incense altar was closely associated with the presence of God and the ark of the covenant with the mercy seat and the golden cherubim at the ends of the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies. 1 Kings 6:22 shows that the incense altar was closely associated with the Holy of Holies. The NIV translates "the altar that belongs to the inner sanctuary." The Hebrew could be translated "the altar for the inner sanctuary." The NASB translates, "the altar which was by the inner sanctuary" in 1 Kings 6:22.

The incense was clearly being offered before God. I'll quote Ex. 30:6 and 8, "You shall put this altar in front of the veil that is near the ark of the testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is over the ark of the testimony, where I will meet with you. (8) When Aaron [the first high priest] trims the lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense. There shall be perpetual incense before the LORD [Yahweh] throughout your generations." Exodus 30:6 and 40:5 show that the altar of incense was closely associated with the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies and the presence of God.]] and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold [Ex. 25:10-16; 37:1-5], in which was a golden jar holding the manna [Ex. 16:31-36; this passage does not say that the golden jar was put into the ark, but that it was placed before the ark; so too for "Aaron's rod which budded"], and Aaron's rod which budded [Num. 17:1-11], and the tables of the covenant [Ex. 25:16; 31:18; 32:15, 16; Deut. 9:9-17; 10:1-5]; (5) and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat [Ex. 25:17-32; Lev. 16:2, 13-15; 1 Kings 8:6, 7]; but of these things we cannot now speak in detail. (6) Now when these things have been so prepared, the priests are continually entering the outer [first] tabernacle [the "holy place"] performing the divine worship, (7) but into the second [the "Holy of Holies"], only the high priest enters once a year [on the Day of Atonement], not without taking blood, which he offers for himself [the blood of a bull (see Lev. 16:6, 11-19, 27, 28; I'll quote Lev. 16:6: "Then Aaron shall offer the bull for the sin-offering which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and his household."] and [the blood of a goat (Lev. 16:15-19, 27, 28)] for the sins of the people committed in ignorance. [[(This double bracket goes on for three paragraphs.) Above, at the end of the lengthy discussion under Heb. 8:7, under the heading "Were the Believers Forgiven Through the Sacrificial Offerings Under the Old Covenant?" we discussed deliberate, intentional, rebellious, defiant sins (sinning with a high hand) and unintentional sins, "the sins of the people committed in ignorance." As I mentioned, there were no sacrificial offerings under the old covenant to take away the deliberate, defiant sins. But as I also mentioned, this did not mean that a person could not be forgiven by God, as King David, for example, was forgiven, after his sins involving Bathsheba and Uriah, her husband.

I mentioned that I would comment on unintentional sins ("sins of the people committed in ignorance") here under Heb. 9:7. Many sins committed under the old covenant were totally unintentional. For example, if a person was in the tent of a dead person, even though they didn't realize that a dead person was in the tent, they became unclean, and if they went to the tabernacle in that unclean state they committed a serious sin (see Num. 19:14). However, it is clear that many sins that could be atoned for by sacrificial offerings were not always fully unintentional or "committed in ignorance." Leviticus 6:1-7 provide several clear examples of serious sins that were far from being unintentional that could be forgiven through making restitution and guilt offerings. Those sins were not in the category of being defiant, rebellious, with a high hand against God; God knows the heart, and He is the One who forgives, or doesn't forgive. I'll quote LEVITICUS 6:1-7: "Then the LORD [Yahweh] spoke to Moses, saying, (2) 'When a person sins and acts unfaithfully against the LORD [Yahweh], and deceives his companion in regard to a deposit or a security entrusted to him, or through robbery, of if he has extorted from his companion, (3) or has found what was lost and lied about it and swore falsely, so that he sins in regard to anyone of the things a man may do; (4) then it shall be, when he sins and becomes guilty, that he shall restore what he took by robbery or what he got by extortion, or the deposit entrusted to him or the lost thing which he found, (5) or anything about which he swore falsely; he shall make restitution for it in full and add to it one-fifth more. He shall give it to the one to whom it belongs on the day he presents his guilt offering. (6) Then he shall bring to the priest his guilt offering to the LORD [Yahweh], a ram without defect from the flock, according to your valuation, for a guilt offering, (7) and the priest shall make atonement for him before the LORD [Yahweh], and he will be forgiven for any one of the things which he may have done to incur guilt.' "

I'll quote what F. Delitzsch said regarding the meaning of the Greek noun "agnoemata," which was translated "sins committed in ignorance" in Heb. 9:7 ("Epistle to the Hebrews" [Klock and Klock, originally published in 1871], pages 64, 65): "is a general term for all such offences as are not committed with a high hand, in open defiance of the divine law, but through human infirmity, or with a half consciousness only of their moral turpitude, and for such as, when recognized, are truly repented of."]] (8) The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place [see under the following verse] has not yet been disclosed [or, manifested] while the outer tabernacle [literally "the first tabernacle

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