CHRIST IS THE END OF THE LAW
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
THE writer proceeds to compare, or rather contrast, the ordinances of ministration under the two priesthoods.
1. The older ceremonial indicated that the way into the holiest was not made plain. In Christ it is made plain.
2. The whole service of Judaism was outward and ceremonial. That of Christ is spiritual.
3. The older sacrifices were of unwilling beasts. That of Christ was the sacrifice of His own will, “His own consenting personality.”
4. Salvation and pardon were associated with blood or yielded life. This is, in the deepest, the most spiritual sense, true of Christ’s salvation.
5. The older sacrifices were numerous. Christ’s was a single sacrifice, and offered once for all.
6. The old sacrifices had their spiritual power only as typical of Christ’s sacrifice. Christ’s sacrifice is the antitype.
7. The cleansing efficacy of the old sacrifice was only partial and temporary. In Christ is perfect and final cleansing.
8. The old priests were ever at the altar. Christ, having offered, is seated on His throne. Hebrews 9:1-10 contain descriptions of the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies; but it should be noticed that only a brief, not a complete, recapitulation of the furniture and service of the Temple is attempted.
Hebrews 9:1. Then verily.—Or, “to resume our comparison then.” The first.—Some would supply the word “tent,” “tabernacle,” but the word “covenant” is preferable. See Hebrews 8:6-7; Hebrews 8:13. Ordinances of Divine service.—Or, “a service conducted by definite rules.” λατρεία signifies the public service of the tabernacle; δικαιώματα the formal rules which regulated it. Worldly.—Or material, as opposed to “heavenly,” or spiritual. A rhetorical description of the enclosed sacred area, with its tent, in which the daily Divine service was carried on. κοσμικόν means, “of a terrestrial nature.” If the meaning had been “ornate,” “elegant,” the adjectival form would have been κόσμιος.
Hebrews 9:2. Tabernacle.—This was made after the pattern showed to Moses in the mount; the later Temples were but enlarged copies of it. It is to the point, therefore, that the writer should take his illustrations from the original work. It was an oblong tent divided, by thick veils, into two chambers. The first.—Not the most important one, but the one that presents itself first to a visitor. For the furniture of the σκηνή, see Exodus 25:23-29; Exodus 25:31-39; Exodus 37:17-24; Leviticus 24:4-9; 1 Kings 6. The altar of incense is omitted, and the altar of burnt-offering. This was in front of the tent, not within it. Candlestick.— Exodus 25:31-39; Exodus 37:17-24. Table.— Exodus 25:23-29; bread consecrated to Jehovah was regularly placed upon it. For exhibition of the bread, see Exodus 25:30; Leviticus 24:5-9. The earlier Hebrew name was “presence-bread.” Sanctuary.—ἅγια, Holy Place. Distinguished from ἅγια ἁγίων of Hebrews 9:3.
Hebrews 9:3. Second veil.—One was at the outer door of the Holy Place; the second, which was a double one, divided the Holy Place from the Most Holy. The Hebrew name of the inner veil is given in Exodus 26:31-33; Leviticus 16:2. The Hebrew name of the outer veil is given, Exodus 26:31-33; Exodus 36:35-36. Holiest of all.—R.V. “Holy of Holies”; ἅγια ἁγίων. “A common form of expression in Hebrew, in order to denote intensity.” This apartment was regarded as the earthly dwelling-place of Jehovah. In Solomon’s Temple the inner chamber was called the “Oracle.”
Hebrews 9:4. Golden censer.—No such utensil is mentioned by Moses. Moulton renders “having a golden altar of incense,” but the altar of incense was in the Holy Place, not in the Holy of Holies. The Rabbins say that a golden censer was used by the high priest on the Day of Atonement. Alford suggests reading “having belonging to it,” rather than “having in it.” Farrar suggests some sort of stand on which the priest placed the incense-pot, or censer. Or the altar of incense may be referred to, and treated as “belonging to” the special ceremonies of the Holy of Holies. See 1 Kings 6:22. Ark of the covenant.—κιβωτός a chest made of wood, and covered with laminæ of gold (Exodus 25:10-16; Exodus 37:1-5). Within it were placed the two tables of the covenant, and the lid was regarded as the mercy-seat. Golden pot.—See Exodus 16:32-34. It is not spoken of as “golden” in the Hebrew, but the LXX. render στάμνον χρυσοῦν. Other ancient religions represent their supreme mystery by a closed box. The idea may have been Egyptian. It is disputable whether the pot and the rod were within the box, or placed beside it—but this writer distinctly understands the original arrangement to have included all within the box. Aaron’s rod.—See Numbers 17:1-10. The manna and the rod were Divine covenant seals. Tables.—Stone tablets; best represented by modern slates.
Hebrews 9:5. Cherubims of glory.—Stuart, “splendid cherubim.” Barker, “not splendid cherubim, but cherubim that were recipients of the glory, i.e. of the Divine manifestation, the Shekinah.” Farrar, “cherubim of the Shekinah.” (Exodus 25:18-22; Exodus 29:43; Numbers 7:89; Ezekiel 10:19-20.) The glory-cloud was the visible symbol of God’s presence, and was regarded as resting, protected by the outspread wings of these representative figures. The cherubim were “emblems of all that was highest and best in animated nature—the grandest products of creation combined in one living angelic symbol.” Mercy-seat.—The lid or covering of the ark, which was of pure gold (Exodus 25:17; Exodus 25:21). The place of propitiation whence mercy was dispensed. “Over this mercy-seat the Divine glory was seen, i.e. a supernatural, excessive brightness, and hence God was supposed to be seated on it, as His throne, and from it to dispense His mercy, when atonement was made for the sins of the people, by sprinkling it with blood.” Particularly.—In minute detail. The writer does not propose to deal with all the Mosaic service; he can illustrate his point from the greatest day of the ritual—the Day of Atonement.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Hebrews 9:1-5
The Mission of the Symbolical.—It must have been a cause of much pain to the pious Jews that it had been found impossible fully to restore the old tabernacle conditions in the Temple built after the Captivity. “When Pompey profanely forced his way into the Holy of Holies, he found, to his great astonishment, nothing whatever (vacua omnia)” This writer does not therefore refer to any of the Temples—not even to Solomon’s—but deals only with the original tabernacle of Moses, that was fully fashioned and furnished “according to the pattern shewn him in the mount.” There only could the symbolic system be seen in its completeness. In making comparison between the old material and the new spiritual dispensations, it was quite possible for the writer to leave the impression that he underrated the old, and this impression might cause offence, and hinder men from receiving his teachings and persuasions. Christian teachers need to be anxious not only concerning the precision with which they state the truth, but also concerning the impressions that are received, and the ideas that are taken up, by those who hear them. They should watchfully avoid all occasions of offence, while keeping absolutely loyal to God’s truth. This fear influences the writer here, and leads him to give, in a very reverent and sympathetic way, his estimate of the real value and significance, as religious teaching, of the old symbolic system. True, it was temporary, educative, and preparatory, but it was the precisely fitting thing for its time and place; and it enshrined the great primary truths connected with God’s actual and possible relations with men, that could be liberated, illustrated, glorified, and made the universal heritage of men, when the spiritual High Priest had come, and had taken His place in the spiritual and eternal temple. This paragraph brings before us the furniture of the two chambers of the first tabernacle, and reminds us that each article carried a spiritual suggestion.
I. The symbolical meanings of the things in the first chamber, or Holy Place.—It is singular that the writer does not mention the “altar of incense,” which stood in the centre of the Holy Place, immediately before the veil, but brings in the golden censer, which carried fire from this altar into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement, and so was thought of as properly belonging to the “Most Holy Place.” There were three principal articles of furniture in the first chamber, or Holy Place.
1. The altar of incense. A double cube, with horns, made of shittim-wood, overlaid with gold. No burnt-offering, meat-offering, or drink-offering was to be laid upon it; but the blood of the sin-offering of atonement was sprinkled upon its horns once a year. Incense, a sacred composition of spices, was offered by burning every morning and evening, as a symbol of the daily thanksgiving and prayer of the people.
2. The table of shewbread. This was placed on the right, or north side of the chamber. The table was oblong, and stood on legs. It was of shittim-wood, and was furnished with dishes, spoons, covers, and bowls, of pure gold. Upon this table were placed, every Sabbath Day, twelve cakes of fine flour, in two rows of six each, with frankincense upon each row. This constant offering of a representative of the people’s food before the Lord sanctified their common eating and drinking. Man’s time was consecrated to God by the separation of the Sabbath for His entire service. Man’s body was consecrated to God by the devotion of his possessions as sacrifices. Man’s food was sanctified by the presentation of this shewbread, this representative bread, before the Lord.
“How can I, Lord, withhold
Life’s brightest hour
From Thee; or gathered gold,
Or any power?
Why should I keep one precious thing from Thee,
When Thou hast given Thine own dear Self for me?”
C. E. Mudie.
3. The golden candlestick. Placed on the left or south side of the altar of incense. Made of pure beaten gold, having a straight centre rising from the stand, and three curved branches on either side. The lamps were lighted at the time of the evening oblation. The Rabbins say that only the central lamp was kept alight during the daytime. The famous figure of the candlestick on the Arch of Titus cannot be an exact representation, seeing that it has marine monsters carved upon its pediment, which would have been a direct violation of the second commandment. “As in a house light is as necessary as food, and the lampstand with its lighted lamp was a piece of furniture as necessary as the bread-vessel, so in the house of Jehovah the candlestick symbolised the spiritual light of life, which He gives to His servants with the words by which they live.” The candlestick symbolised the people, who were thus represented as always in the presence of Jehovah, and as always alight, with the light of their faith, and love, and obedience.
II. The symbolical meanings of the things in the second chamber, the Holy of Holies.—That chamber itself represented the truth that, while man’s sin had not so broken relations with God that he might not offer worship, or the service of his life, it had made impossible those close relations of personal friendship which God gave His creatures in Eden. Man’s sin had made the “veil” necessary, which could be passed only on well-defined conditions, and only representatively by the priest. The chamber was without windows, or ventilators, and absolutely dark, save for the glory of the Shekinah-cloud. The ark was the chief thing in it. It symbolised Jehovah’s throne; the cover was the seat, or mercy-seat; the cherubims represented the attendants on the throne; and the tables of the law inside the ark declared the foundation principles on which He who sat on the throne ruled His people and dispensed His mercy. “Justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne.” The golden pot with the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, may have been placed beside the ark, rather than within it, and were representative of the history of God’s people, and of His special dealings with them. They, as it were, kept God reminded of the people’s needs and the people’s frailties. Perhaps the golden censer is mentioned with a special purpose. The writer wants to make clear how limited access to God was under the old system, and how free it is under the new; so he reminds us that even the old high priest could not go into the Holy of Holies without the shading of the glory of God with the smoke of incense. He must take the censer, and put incense on the coals just as he took the veil aside, so that he might not see undimmed the glory over the mercy-seat. The old symbols dealt with the primary truths that are now fully brought to light by Jesus Christ.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Hebrews 9:2. Types in the Holy Place.—“The candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread.” The furniture of the court was connected with sacrifice, that of the sanctuary itself with the deeper mysteries of mediation and access to God. The first sanctuary contained three objects: the altar of incense in the centre, so as to be directly in front of the ark of the covenant; the table of shewbread on its right or north side; and the golden candlestick on the left or south side. These objects were all considered as being placed before the presence of Jehovah, who dwelt in the “Holiest of all,” though with the veil between. The daily rite for the altar of incense was as follows: The priest took some of the sacred fire off the altar of burnt-offering in his censer, and threw the incense upon it; then, entering the Holy Place, he emptied the censer upon the altar, prayed, and performed the other duties of his office. Meanwhile the people prayed outside; and thus was typified the intercession of Christ in heaven, making His people’s prayers on earth acceptable. The shewbread (and, connected with it, the drink-offering of wine placed in the covered bowls upon the table) represented under the old covenant the same truths which are set forth by the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper under the new.—From “Student’s Scripture History.”
Ministry in the Holy Place.—The Holy Place was used for the more delicate sacrifices which the priests alone offered, and the rest of the people, including the Levites, never saw with their own eyes. The Holy Place was a dark chamber, and a lamp was necessary to enable the priests to discharge their functions. The golden altar became an altar for the priests alone, at which nothing but the most delicate substances might be offered—namely, incense. It is significant that the shewbread was called “bread of the face,” “bread of the Divine presence,” “loaves of the setting-forth.”
Hebrews 9:3. The Typology of the Veils.—Inside, the Holy of Holies was separated off only by a drop-curtain. This was made of byssus, and was fastened by golden hooks to four pillars of acacia-wood, which, like the planks, were covered with gold-leaf, and carefully secured in the ground with silver sockets. The drop-curtain was undoubtedly fixed behind them, so that the pillars would stand outside the ten ells, while a trifle farther to the front hung the ornamental junction of the curtains of byssus. In front of the whole tabernacle an outer drop-curtain of greater strength, probably twofold, was hung on to five pillars of acacia wood, which were set up across the entire breadth of the tabernacle. It displayed the same colours as the internal curtain, but no embroidered cherubs; the pillars were in other respects adorned like the four internal ones, but had only brazen sockets.—Ewald.
The Use of Veils.—Curtains, or veils, must be studied in view of their use, and of the sentiments concerning them in tent life. They were in effect as our shut and locked doors. They represent—
1. Claim to privacy
2. Hindrance to admittance, which can be only on conditions.
3. And they suggest mystery, something purposely hidden from view.
Hebrews 9:4. Types in the Holy of Holies.—There was but one object, the ark of the covenant, a sacred chest, containing the two tables of the law, the cover of it being called the “mercy-seat,” and the cherub figures making a sort of canopy over it. The cover was a plate of pure gold. This was the very throne of Jehovah, who was therefore said to “dwell between the cherubim.” It was also called the “mercy-seat,” or “propitiatory,” because Jehovah there revealed Himself, especially on the great Day of Atonement, as “God pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin.” Nor was it without the profoundest allusion to the coming dispensation of the gospel that God’s throne of mercy covered and hid the tables of the law. The attitude of the cherubim was significant of the desire of angels to learn the gospel mysteries that were hidden in the law.
Contents of the Ark.—“Nothing is more characteristic of the earliest Jahveism, nor yet of greater historical truth and certainty, than that in place of the idols in which common heathenism took delight, and of certain artificial symbols which served the same purpose for a heathenism which was aiming at something higher, it was only the documents of these purest truths, and of these contracts, concluded as it were for all eternity, which acquired the most precious value, and the highest sanctity,” by being placed in the sacred chest.—Ewald.
Hebrews 9:5. The Suggestion of the Cherubim.—No actual knowledge of the forms of the figures which shadowed the mercy-seat can be obtained. The common Jewish tradition is, that they were human figures, each having two wings. They must have been of small size, proportioned to the area of the mercy-seat. Comparing the different references to form, in this verse, in 2 Samuel 22:11 (Psalms 18:10); Ezekiel 1:10; Revelation 4, it would appear that the name “cherub” was applied to various combinations of animal forms. Similar combinations were made by most ancient peoples in order to represent conceivable combinations of powers, such as are denied to man in his earthly state of existence. It is remarkable that amongst the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Greeks, as well as the Hebrews, the creatures by very far most frequently introduced into these composite figures were man, the ox, the lion, and the eagle. These are evidently types of the most important of familiarly known classes of living material beings. The Rabbinists recognised this in the cherubim as described by Ezekiel, which they regarded as representing the whole creation engaged in the worship and service of God (Revelation 4:9-11; Revelation 5:13). It would be in harmony with this view to suppose that the more strictly human shape of the cherubim of the mercy-seat represented the highest form of created intelligence engaged in the devout contemplation of the Divine law of love and justice (1 Peter 1:12). They were thus symbols of worship rendered by the creature in the most exalted condition. It is worthy of notice that the golden cherubim, from between which Jehovah spoke to His people, bore witness, by their place on the mercy-seat, to His redeeming mercy; while the cherubim that took their stand with the flaming sword at the gate of Eden, to keep the way of the tree of life, witnessed to His condemnation of sin in man. The most perfect finite intelligence seems thus to be yielding assent to the Divine law in its twofold manifestation.—Speaker’s Commentary.
The Offices of Cherubim.—The special offices of the cherubic figures in the tabernacle appear to have been, first, the watching and guarding of the ark, and the sacred law deposited within the ark, towards which they are represented as looking, and over which they spread their outstretched wings; and, secondly, to attend and bear up that mystic presence of God which appeared in the cloud of glory over the mercy-seat. When the tabernacle is set up, the law is deposited in the ark, the cloud is promised to rest upon the covering of the ark, and, as the cherubim guard the law, and the testimony of God, so they may be supposed reverently to surround the throne of His glory, perhaps they were supposed to bear up the throne of God upon their wings, and to carry Him when He appeared in His glory.—Ibid.
Cherubim as Guardians.—As this chest was to have contents so precious, two cherubim were fixed over it, to symbolise the fact that Jahveh had, as it were, descended upon it, and eternally protected what was contained in the chest. For the cherub signified in the first instance the descent of the Deity, and consequently the spot whither it had descended and would again descend perpetually, and there manifest itself. In this symbolical application the cherub was also much utilised elsewhere—in the sacred tent and in the Temple. But its primary and most significant position was over the ark of the covenant, where, for artistic reasons, two were placed face to face, and in this application they indicate, in the first instance, how strict is Jahveh’s watch and guard over the sacred words contained therein. So far, no doubt, the sphynxes lying facing one another over a sacred shrine or sepulchre, etc., are very similar. There is a remarkable representation of Garuda (i.e. a cherub) as the altar for the ancient Indian horse-sacrifice, Râmâyana. But the greatest resemblance of all is found in some lately discovered Assyrian pictures. See Layard.—Ewald.
Cherubim as Representative Worshippers.—The cherubim were representatives of the angelic hierarchy worshipping the Divine Majesty, and adoring His love to man in Christ, and devoutly looking down into the mysteries of the gospel. Josephus says that they were not like any creatures ever seen on earth by human eyes, but that Moses had seen their prototypes near the throne of God.—Bishop Wordsworth.