Well, as you remember, the main issue in the book of Hebrews, why it was written, is because it is written, as you know, to Jewish Christians, thus the name Hebrews, and it is written to Jewish Christians who were considering returning to the Old Covenant in order to avoid the persecution that had come to them by identifying with Jesus Christ. And their unbelieving fellow countrymen were not at all happy about their coming to Christ. And so this book is written to show them that everything about the New Covenant that was brought in by Christ is superior to the Old Covenant.
Don't return to that one. It's inferior. In fact, it's even worse than inferior.
It is obsolete. Old Covenant worship did not accomplish salvation. Old Covenant rituals only provided a covering for sin, not a cleansing. Old Covenant worshipers who were saved, and certainly there were genuine born-again believers during the time of the Old Covenant, but those who were saved were saved by faith in the promises of God about the coming of Christ and the ushering into the New Covenant. In other words, they were saved under the terms of the New Covenant, which had not yet been inaugurated and which had not yet been fully disclosed, but nevertheless, that is the basis of their salvation, just like ours. Jesus Christ, when he came, accomplished what the Old Covenant did not do, what the Old Covenant could not do. In fact, as we are learning more clearly, moving along in the book of Hebrews, we realize that the Old Covenant was primarily an elaborate cluster of symbols pointing to Christ. The first part of the book of Hebrews, chapter 9, verses 1 through 5 that we covered a couple of weeks ago, talks about the facility and furnishings of Old Covenant worship, the facility being first the tabernacle, and that's all that is mentioned here, but of course, after that, the temples built upon the same structure, the same basic blueprint as the tabernacle, and the furnishings that were in it that all related to the various ceremonies and rituals, and so the writer of Hebrews talks about that facility and he talks about those furnishings as he shows the Hebrew Christians that though those were God's appointed rituals, God's appointed way of worshiping him under the Old Covenant, they were not designed to be permanent. They were always designed to be temporary.
They were always pointing to something else which was better and which was actually permanent. And so coming to our portion for today in Hebrews, chapter 9, verses 6 through 10, we move beyond the facility and furnishings of Old Covenant worship to the activities and significance of Old Covenant worship. Now moving from the structure, the building where they worshiped the tabernacle, and the furnishings, the various objects that were constructed for the worship in the tabernacle, we are moving today into the activities of the priests, what they did in that tabernacle, and the significance of all of this.
What was it all about? And these details are given to us by the writer of Hebrews in order to demonstrate the inadequacies of the Old Covenant. And so looking today at verses 6 through 10, we will see two things. Number one, activities of Old Covenant worship verses 6 and 7, and number two, significance of Old Covenant worship verses 8 through 10. Activities of Old Covenant worship.
And there are three areas involved. Number one, the activities of the courtyard surrounding the main structure of the tabernacle. Number two, the activities of the holy place, the first compartment of the tabernacle. And then finally, the activities of the holy of holies, the inner and most sacred compartment of that tabernacle. The activities of the courtyard are not actually spelled out in the same way that the other two locations are, even as in dealing with the facility and the furnishings in the first part of the chapter, the writer of Hebrews did not specifically deal with what took place in the courtyard.
And yet in this case, the activities of the courtyard are actually alluded to in our passage, even if they're not spelled out exactly. When we see in verses 9 and 10, it, the tabernacle and its worship, was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices were offered. That is what took place in the courtyard, the sacrifices offered on the altar, the brazen altar.
Gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. Concerned only with food and drinks, those are elements of the Mosaic covenant that are not connected directly to the tabernacle, but were part of the day-to-day activities and requirements for old covenant people. Various washings, which involved both the oblations, I should say, in the courtyard at the brazen labor, as well as those that took place at various times in the homes of old covenant people, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation. So that verse talks about activities in the courtyard and activities beyond the facility of the tabernacle. And so the activities of the courtyard, though not spelled out, are alluded to here, but I think it helps us to review what took place in the courtyard. The courtyard was a very, very busy place indeed.
And we'll consider the people, the schedule, and the activities. What people were allowed in the courtyard? Priests, worshippers, and Levites. All the priests were Levites, but not all the Levites were priests. The priests were the ones who could actually offer sacrifices upon the altar. The Levites did all the work that was necessary to make the altar function, bringing in the wood and carrying away the ashes and all the work that was involved in that. And when the people of God conquered some in the promised land that they did not execute according to the command of God, those people became servants who also, in some cases, served in the functions of the courtyard.
Hewers of wood, carriers of water, people had to bring in water, lots of water involved in what went on there. And so the people in the outer courtyard were priests, worshippers, Levites, and various laborers. The schedule of activities in the courtyard is all day, every day, seven days a week.
Always something going on in the courtyard. The number of animal sacrifices that took place there on a daily basis would astonish us if we knew the number. An awful lot as people brought their animals and they were sacrificed upon that altar. And so it was a very busy place.
And as far as the activities, two things primarily. The burning of the sacrifices upon the altar, slaying the animal, the draining of the blood, the application of the blood upon the altar, around the sides of the altar, and the washings that took place there because of that great basin, that great brazen laver that was found in the courtyard. But moving from the activities of the courtyard, we now move into the activities of the holy place, which are spoken of in verse 6. Verse 6, now when these things had been thus prepared, the facility and furnishings described in the first five verses. When these things had been thus prepared, the priest always, or we might say continually, went into the first part of the tabernacle performing the services. The activities of the holy place, the first compartment of the tabernacle, the part that was a rectangular room that was 30 feet long and 15, or 30, let's see is it feet or cubits?
I have to stop and think about this. 30 cubits long and 15 cubits wide, translate that into feet by multiplying it by 1.5. And also the ceiling was 15 cubits high. And in that first room, furnished as we learned last week by a lampstand, which gave light, a table upon which the bread of presence was laid, and an altar of incense that was right in front of the opening into the Holy of Holies. And in this holy place, the activity was not nearly as great, as busy as that which took place in the courtyard, but it was certainly a moderately busy place. Not as busy as the courtyard, but busy.
And what were the activities that took place there? Well in regard to the altar of incense, priest brought coals to that altar and sprinkled incense upon the coals which caused a cloud of sweet smelling smoke to arise from that altar twice a day. Once in the morning at 9 a.m., once in the afternoon at 3 p.m. We read about that in the New Testament in connection with the birth of John the Baptist, whose father Zacharias was a priest who was serving in the temple and went in to offer the incense upon the altar. And there he was met by an angel of God who told him that he and his wife Elizabeth, now well past their child bearing years, were going to have a son and that he would be the forerunner of the Messiah. And Zacharias, as you remember, was doubtful that that could happen. The age of his wife, he and his wife, making that unlikely. And in communicating his doubt to the angel, he was struck dumb.
He couldn't speak. And because of the time he was in there was longer than normally took place and there were people outside and you get some idea of what was going on here. Out in the courtyard, people waited while the priest went in to burn this incense upon the altar, which was a visual representation of the prayers of the people being lifted to God. And once the priest had done that, he came back outside and he pronounced a blessing upon the worshippers. That blessing from Numbers chapter six.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and give you peace. That wonderful Aaronic blessing, that Levitical blessing. And the worshippers who came were waiting for that blessing. That was important that they received the blessing and Zacharias came out and couldn't pronounce the blessing.
Couldn't say anything. But that's just a reminder of what was going on in regard to the altar of incense in the holy place. But in addition to the incense, there were the lamps that needed to be maintained. And so also twice daily, priests would come and restore the oil that had burned. These are oil lamps, seven of them on this large candlestick, lampstand, menorah, seven burning lamps, oil lamps, all with their wicks. And since we don't have oil lamps or don't use them much anymore, they're certainly available, you might have something like that when you go camping or to keep handy when the electricity goes out. But a lamp of that variety needs to have the fuel replenished.
It needs to have the wicks trimmed. And so that was done twice a day, morning and evening in the holy place. And then a third activity was the replacement of the bread, the bread of presence, sometimes called the showbread, which would be removed from the table on the Sabbath day and replaced with fresh bread. And then the priests were invited to eat the bread that was removed. And there may have been other activities that took place there as well.
There's some allusion to them in the scriptures, but I won't get into those now. But the holy place was a place of moderate activity compared to the courtyard. But then we come to the activities of the holy of holies, verse seven. But into the second part, the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance. The holy of holies was a very quiet place.
In fact, nothing of human activity occurred there 364 days a year. Courtyard, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy all day long, seven days a week. Holy place, moderately busy as the priest came and went with the various activities that were prescribed for that location. Holy of holies, quiet. In the holy of holies, there was the Ark of the Covenant, as we were told in the first part of the chapter, in which, at least for some time, were placed the tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments, a pot of manna from the wilderness wanderings, the manna that God had supplied, and Aaron's rod that budded, that determined that God had chosen Aaron and the tribe of Levi for priestly service and none other. And that was a chest, and on the lid of that Ark, that chest of the Covenant, there were two cherubim, golden cherubim, above it. And that was the place where the visible presence of God was, took place with his people.
The Shekinah glory of God would come and rest upon that Ark of the Covenant. And into that holy of holies, the high priest was the only one allowed. We're talking in each of these locations about who was allowed. Courtyard, priests, worshippers, Levites, and even other laborers. Holy place, priests alone. Holy of holies, high priest only, one time a year only. On the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, as it is called, and some of you are familiar with that name, the tenth day of the month Tishri, the high priest would perform the specified activities that took place in the holy of holies. And the priest had to enter the holy of holies on that day, how many times?
That was a question, isn't it? And it depends on who you read. Some of my commentaries said he entered two times. Some of my commentaries said he entered three times. And one of my commentaries said he probably entered four times, drawing upon an extra biblical Jewish source that said he entered four times. And as I look at all of this, I say, well, it's impossible to know for sure because the Bible doesn't tell us. But as I describe for you what the high priest did, it does seem to me that he more likely entered four times, certainly than two.
I think it would have had to have been at least three and probably four. Because to do what he had to do in less than four trips into the holy of holies would have been difficult. So what was he doing?
What were the activities that the high priest carried out on the Day of Atonement, the annual Day of Atonement? Well, the first thing he did was take an incense sensor that would be like a small metal shovel. And having taken coals from off the altar of bird offering out in the courtyard, he would then go to the altar of incense that was right before the holy of holies and get a good handful of the incense, which was a powder, which was constructed according to the recipe that God designated for that.
And he would open the door, the veil, into the holy of holies. And he would take that sensor in there, just voluminously filling that whole space with a cloud of fragrant smoke. And that fragrant smoke needed to continue burning and filling that place during all of the activities that took place while he was there. So he would no doubt have laid down that sensor, probably on the floor.
I don't think there's any other place he could have laid it. And there would have been enough incense on that sensor, on that shovel, to continue to burn for quite a while, which was to prepare the way for his entrance after all this incense spoke of prayer. But also to veil that sacred ark and the Shekinah glory of God from the eyes of the priest, who himself would not be able to look upon that without something to partially obscure it.
So I think that was visit number one. Then he would go back out and he would take the blood of a bull which he had previously sacrificed in the courtyard upon the altar of incense for his sins and the sins of his family. And some commentators think maybe his family included all of the priests because they all descended from Aaron and were therefore part of his family. But at any rate, he took the blood of the bull that had been shed for his sins, because he couldn't properly enter into the presence of Almighty God without a covering for his own sins first, before he represented the people in that place. And so he came in with the blood of the bull that was shed for his own sins, and he sprinkled that blood seven times.
Four, five, six, seven. Some of it on top of the mercy seat, some of it sprinkled at the side of the mercy seat, maybe even at the base of the mercy seat. And then he had to go back out and get the blood of the goat. Because also on the altar was a goat sacrificed for the sins of the nation. So first of all, he brought blood to cover his sins, and then he brought blood that dealt with the sins of the nation. Now, when we get to the goat, there actually were two goats.
You remember that? How God specified how that should be done? They selected two goats, cast lots to decide which one was going to be sacrificed, and which one was going to be what the Bible calls the scapegoat.
Or we would say the goat that escapes. And the goat that was selected for sacrifice would be slain upon the altar. His blood would be collected by the priest. The priest would then go back into the Holy of Holies. Now I think probably for the third time, this censer still billowing smoke throughout that space, that cubical space, the Holy of Holies. And he would go back in there with the blood of the goat, and he would sprinkle it seven times upon the mercy seat.
Same thing. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Not that quickly, I'm sure. But the other goat, at some point, I don't know, probably waited until all this was done. And then the next operation of the second goat probably took place. But at some point, that second goat, the high priest would come and lay his hands upon that second goat and confess the sins of the nation. And in that symbolic act of laying his hands upon the goat, he was transferring the sins of the nation from the worshippers, the members of the old covenant community. He was transferring these sins from them to the goat. In fact, every time anyone brought an animal to sacrifice, that's what he did. The worshipper would come and lay his hands upon the animal, transferring symbolically his sins upon the animal. And then the animal was shed as a substitute in his place. The animal died. The animal shed his blood rather than the guilty sinner who deserved to die and to have his blood shed.
So now this is being done for the entire nation. And then someone would lead that scapegoat far enough out into the wilderness that he couldn't find his way back and left him there. And that goat was gone. And having had a little bit of experience with goats myself, which I won't get into now, but I can tell you, the goat I had was very eager to get gone. He tried to get gone all the time. I had trouble keeping him at home.
So I don't think this goat would have any great desire to come back. He was freed! Freed! Freed! He'd been in captivity all this time. Freed! And off he went. And that symbolized the sins of the nation being carried away from the nation, from the people, and therefore not being charged against them any longer. But now what?
The priest has sprinkled the blood of the goat in the Holy of Holies. But wait! He's still got a censer in there billowing this smoke. He's going to have to go, it seems to me like he's going to have to go back again and retrieve that and bring it back out of the Holy of Holies. So I think it's likely that he went in there four times. And to carry out all of these activities that I've described would take a certain amount of time. But once that was done, the Holy of Holies was closed and no human activity would take place there again for another year.
That was a quiet place, relatively speaking. But it's clear from all of this, and we'll see this more as we get into the last portion of our message, it's clear that all of these things which were prescribed by God, nevertheless, were not fully efficacious for the removal of sins. They were picturing something, they were pointing to something, they were teaching something about the one way for removal of sins, which was not the blood of bulls, not the blood of goats, not the blood of sheep, not any of these rituals, but which required the coming of the promised Messiah who had not yet come. And how do we know that these rituals were not efficacious for what they symbolized?
Because they never stopped. The sacrifices in the courtyard had to be done again and again and again and again and again and again. Activities in the holy place had to go on every day after day after day after day after week after week, and even the activity one time in the Holy of Holies was only good for one year, and then the next year it had to be done again, and the next year it had to be done again, and the next year it had to be done again. That is the activities of Old Covenant worship, and now we move to the significance of Old Covenant worship in verses 8 through 10.
And I'll read these verses. The Holy Spirit standing, it was symbolic. For the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience, concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of Reformation. What is the significance of Old Testament worship?
Well, in a nutshell, it is this. It manifested the need for something better. It was elaborate, but it didn't fully deal with sin. It made provision for an escaping of judgment for sin for those who participated in this. Their sins were atoned, their sins were covered, but they were not cleansed, they were not removed. They could not be until the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, shed his blood upon the cross of Calvary. And then the sins of those who believed the promises of God from all time, from Old Testament time to New Testament time, Old Covenant worship, New Covenant worship, all those who by faith believed the promises of God had their sins now fully cleansed by the blood of Christ, not by the blood of bulls and goats.
So this manifested the need for something better. In fact, in these three verses, we have indications pointing to three areas of need for something better. Number one, another way of reconciliation, verse eight. Number two, another way to remove guilt, verse nine. And number three, another way to worship God, verse 10.
Another way of reconciliation, I read verse eight again. The Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. The Holy Spirit was indicating that the way into God's presence had not yet been revealed. Sin is the barrier between men and women and God. Sinful sons and daughters of Adam cannot come into the presence of a thrice holy God. And everything about the Old Covenant worship was pointing to that.
You can come to the courtyard and bring your sacrifice, but unless you're a priest, you can't come into the holy place. And if you are a priest and come into the holy place, you can't go into the holies, which is the place of the presence of God, except for the high priest once a year, and he better get out of there and not return again for another year. Everything was indicating the distance between men and God. The barriers between men and God. The fact that there was really no way for the people of God in the sense that they were the designated people, the nation which God chose and the people who were worshipping God under the Old Covenant, but there was no way for all these worshippers doing exactly what they were instructed to do. There was no way for them to come into the presence of God.
They had to worship him from afar. The way into God's presence had not yet been revealed, which is another way of saying that under the Old Covenant, sinners were not reconciled to God. To be reconciled to God is to have the barrier removed and there be no barrier. We are reconciled to God. We come into the presence of God. We do that by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and by his righteousness applied to us. His death dealing with our sin in a perfect cleansing from our sin. And so we who trust in Christ are reconciled to God.
And so sinners though we are in our activities and in our nature are nevertheless made by grace qualified to come into the very presence of the Holy God. We are reconciled to God, but Old Covenant worshippers were not reconciled to God. The way to reconciliation had not yet been made manifest.
Jesus Christ must come and provide the true and living way into the presence of Almighty God. The Old Covenant symbols pointed to something more being needed. Another way of reconciliation is needed because all of this, as elaborate as it is, as meticulously as it must be followed if you are a believer, if you endeavor to worship God in the way that he has prescribed, but all of this is not sufficient to reconcile you to God. You must wait for the coming of the Messiah to shed his blood and to inaugurate the New Covenant as a replacement for the Old Covenant. Another way of reconciliation is needed.
Number two, another way to remove guilt is needed. Verse nine, it was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. The actual word that is used here, symbolic, is the Greek word parabola, from which we get the word parable. These are symbols. These are figures. This is a parable.
This is an object lesson to show us that something else is needed. And what we're told in verse nine is that the guilty conscience of Old Covenant worshippers could not be appeased. They would, if they picked up on the meaning of the symbols, the parable that was being laid out before them in elaborate design, they would realize that though their sins were covered, that was temporary, and they'd have to be covered again and again and again and again. And since they had to be covered again and again and again and again under these symbols, then evidently their sins were never completely removed.
They were just mercifully covered by God who made a provision for their covering. And so what are they going to do about their guilty soul? They know they have sinned. They have a guilty conscience.
They're doing what they're told. They realize that God has covered their sins and His wrath, His judgment, is not going to fall upon them if they will do what He said under the terms of the Old Covenant. But that deals with things externally and it qualifies them for the covering, the temporary covering which God provided. But what about a permanent cleansing? What about a clearing of the conscience? What about being able to say, my sins are gone, gone, gone, gone, gone? Yes, my sins are gone, buried in the deepest sea. They're gone.
As far as the east is from the west, they're gone. The Old Covenant worshiper couldn't say that. The Old Covenant did not provide cleansing from guilt, did not provide for a complete removal of fear of the judgment of God. The Old Covenant did not provide for an actual operation to make the people of God not only cleansed but sanctified, holy, at least progressively holy day by day.
There was no provision for that under the Old Covenant. Jesus Christ is the only way of cleansing and He had not yet come. But when He is trusted, having now come, guilt and fear are removed. For those who understand the gospel, those who trust in Him, our consciences are clear. Not because we haven't sinned, we have. Not because we're not guilty of sin, we are. But because we know that in Christ our sins are not just covered, they're gone. We can have a clear conscience before a holy God. That's amazing.
That's amazing. And so there's a need for another way of reconciliation, verse 8, and another way to remove guilt, verse 9, and another way to worship God, verse 10, because they were concerned only with foods. Remember the Mosaic dietary law and drinks, part of that. Various washings, they had to do ritual cleansings for this and that and the other. You can read all about that in the Old Testament scriptures. Fleshly ordinances, they had to do with external things.
It had to do with the body and various external activities imposed until the time of Reformation. These were all temporary and they came to an end when Christ came and the Old Covenant was made obsolete and the New Covenant was inaugurated, then all these things changed. But until then there was another way needed to worship God. The Old Covenant laws and ceremonies and cleansings were not true worship. They were not heart worship. They were not the worship of the soul. They were not inward worship. They were not coming into the presence of God.
And would not and could not until the time of Reformation, or that might better be translated the time of Reconstruction. There was a time coming when Jesus Christ is going to completely reconstruct the way that God's people worship Him. But until that time of Reconstruction, all of these rituals, the foods and so forth, it's the required way to worship God, but it's not the true and living way of worshiping God that Jesus Christ brought. Remember when Jesus talked to the woman at the well?
They talked about what's the right way of worship. Our Father, she said, tell us that we should worship God on Mount Gerizim. Jesus said wrong.
Nobody has ever been instructed to worship God on Mount Gerizim. The Jews have it right. The central place of worship now is Jerusalem.
So they have that much right. But he said the hour is coming. And yes, in fact, already is because he's here. When neither on that mountain nor in Jerusalem shall men worship him. All of that's going to be done away because now men shall worship him not in ritual, but in spirit, inwardly and in truth.
The truth of scripture applied to our souls and believingly rendered in worship to God. The New Covenant brought entirely different structures of worship. That's why we don't worship the way the old covenant people do. That's why we don't bring sacrifices. That's why we don't worship at the temple. That's why we don't go through the incense and all of these things that were part of old covenant worship. The time of reconstruction has come 2,000 years ago and more. And that's all gone.
It's all done. We don't worship God that way anymore. Jesus Christ brought in an entirely new structure as to the way of worship. He, in one of his parables, talked about it in terms of new wineskins. You don't put new wine into the old wineskins.
You break them. That breaks the wineskins. The New Covenant must not be placed in old covenant wineskins. The New Covenant requires new wineskins. It requires a new structure, a new way to worship God in spirit and in truth. And so a new and proper way to worship God will be brought in, the writer tells us, with the time of reconstruction.
And that time had already come when he was writing these words. The old covenant gave way to the new. The shadow gave way to substance. External ceremony gave way to inward reality. And now we worship God in spirit and in truth.
We worship God from our hearts. Now let me give you two extended quotations. I'm sure you'll benefit from these that I think help summarize what is said in this passage.
The first one comes from Zane Hodges. He says, restricted access to the Holy of Holies demonstrates that a true entrance into God's presence had not yet been disclosed. The Levitical arrangements were designed to communicate that the true way to God did not lie in them. The Levitical arrangements were designed to communicate that the true way to God did not lie in the Levitical arrangements.
Secondly, from F.F. Bruce, the author does not mean that there was no experience of gospel grace under the Old Testament, but that unimpeded access to the presence of God was not granted until Christ came to accomplish his sacrificial ministry. I'll read it again. The author does not mean that there was no experience of gospel grace under the Old Testament. In other words, people were saved. You can't read the Psalms of David without realizing here is someone who worships God in spirit and truth, but he didn't learn that from the old covenant regulations and ceremonies. He learned that by a work of God's spirit in his heart, and he was looking forward to the coming of Christ.
The author does not mean that there was no experience of gospel grace under the Old Testament, but that unimpeded access to the presence of God was not granted until Christ came to accomplish his sacrificial ministry. Now, let me touch upon three areas of application as we bring this to a close today. First of all, I see lessons, important lessons, about religious ceremonies.
There clearly is a strong tendency to replace the invisible, invisible truth, invisible God, invisible worship, to replace the invisible with the visible. We are physical beings. We have five senses. We like to see. We like to smell. We like to touch.
We like to hear. And we are very easily drawn into a style of worship that that focuses upon these five sensory perceptions. But if we're not careful, we're going to make the same mistake that the old covenant worshippers were making in resting upon all these things that were given to them by God, but by them failing to see the spiritual truths that they all represented, getting hung up in the ceremonies and rituals and not understanding the invisible, the inward, the spiritual that all of these things pointed to.
Ceremonies are symbols to point us to something greater. The old covenant sacrifices and washings and incense and feast days, the Passover and so forth, were given to point to new covenant truths. They didn't spell it out clearly like we have in the new covenant scriptures, but they were pointing to the same new covenant truths. So it was there, as we say, the new is in the old concealed.
But it was there. And at least could be partially understood by those who had faith in God. The old is in the new revealed. The New Testament scriptures reveal all these things. But you see, in the new covenant, though we don't have all of the plethora of ceremonies and rituals that the old covenant people had, we do have some, don't we? At least a couple simple ones, say water baptism and the Lord's table. And isn't it amazing that just having those two simple things, that there are many people in Christian churches today who think that water baptism is what qualifies them to be right with God, or think that partaking of the elements of the Lord's table is what qualifies them to be right with God.
Why do they think that? This is something they can see, feel, taste. And they miss what can only be seen by the eye of faith, that they must believe the word of God.
And so be careful about this. We love the wonderful, beautiful music that God has created for us to enjoy and for us to worship Him. But don't make that the essence of worship. Some people can't worship God unless they're in a cathedral-like building with a pipe organ. Well, I pity you, because though that's lovely, that's not the essence of worship. And if you're in a beautiful building with a pipe organ, but you're not hearing the truth of God's word, you're in a dangerous place. Get out. Don't substitute those beautiful stained glass windows and that beautiful pipe organ and that beautiful architecture for the truth of the gospel.
That's always a danger, isn't it? You say, why do some so-called Christian denominations or groups or whatever you want to call them, why do they have priests in their system? I don't know.
You'll have to ask them. I don't find any in the New Covenant. I think they're stuck in the Old Covenant. That's where they're drawing that from.
And on and on and on we could go. Now, why do some of them like to have a procession down the aisle swinging an incense container with that incense blowing and glowing? Just got to have that as part of their worship.
Why do some do that? Because they are wanting to cling to the Old Covenant ways of visible, tangible, smellable things, rather than to worship God in spirit and in truth with the eye of faith meditating upon the revealed word of God. It's a danger. Religious ceremonies. There are lessons here for biblical revelation. I think this is important.
I'll touch on it quickly. But this passage, along with many others in the New Testament, tell us that we need the New Testament for the clarification and completion of what is written in the Old Testament. The Old Testament was divine revelation, but it was partial revelation. The New Testament is divine revelation, but it is completed revelation. When the Old Testament was given, there was a new one coming.
But there's not another new one coming. There's not a Third Testament coming. The New Testament is the completed revelation of God.
We've got everything God intends for us to have. The Old Testament was divine revelation, but in some respects was intentionally obscure because God did not intend to reveal all of it until his son came. The New Testament is divine revelation intended to complete and clarify. The New Testament is clearly intended to guide us in properly interpreting Old Testament obscurity. So if you think you understand something from the Old Testament scriptures, but it is contradicted by the New Testament, you better drop your supposed understanding of the Old Testament and accept the New Testament clarity and revelation. If you're not willing to do that, in some respects, you're like the Hebrews, but I've got to hold on to at least this part of the old covenant. I have understood this from these scriptures, and I am determined I'm going to hold on to that, and I'm going to bring that into the New Testament no matter what the New Testament says, even if it says that no new covenant believers or no new covenant members are unbelievers.
They're all saved and therefore don't qualify for baptism like the old covenant children qualified for circumcision. There's been a huge change that has taken place, and if you won't accept that in that regard, you are defying the word of the living God. You are an unbeliever. You are rejecting New Testament clarity for your preferred and comfortable Old Testament misunderstanding. And I close with this. Salvation is not by anything we can do.
It is entirely in what He has done. We must trust in Christ alone. Most religions, including even improper versions of Christianity, insist that salvation is at least in part in something we can do. Do this. Do this.
Do this. This is the right way to be saved. And the gospel comes along and says, nothing you can do. It's done by Christ in Him alone. Believe it. Salvation is by grace alone, in Christ alone. So believe it for the salvation of your soul. Let's pray. Father, help us to have these truths deeply implanted within our souls as we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
