 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, go to NakedBiblePodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heiser's approach to the Bible, click on newstarthere at NakedBiblePodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 194, Hebrews Chapter 9. I'm the layman, Trey Strickland, and he's a scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser. Hey, Mike, you getting cold yet? Is it cold up there? It is. In fact, I'm doing this episode from my garage, so anybody who watches the live stream knows that it's cold in here. So I'm feeling it. I'm feeling the pain even as we do this. Do you have your gloves on? I don't have the gloves on. I made fun of you just for audience's sake for you wearing gloves in Boston while you were driving because it was cold, but I didn't think it was cold enough. That's what gloves are for. But you have gloves. When it's warm, did somebody say, hey, when it's warm, let's make these things called gloves? Kind of look like racing gloves when you had them on when you're driving, so I don't know. It's foreign to me because it doesn't get that cold here in Texas, so I mean, it does, but not glove cold wearing. I guess. I don't know. Well, those actually had a hole in them, so that's the one thing I asked my wife for Christmas this year, a good pair of leather gloves, so just thought I'd throw that in. You might want to ask for a fantasy win just for our listeners. I know they're just on the edge of their seat that we were in the playoffs. If we both win this week, next week, we will meet each other in the Super Bowl. So yeah, kind of looking forward to hopefully good luck to you this week and may we see each other next week in the Super Bowl. A lot of you. Yeah, that's what I'm hoping for. I don't want to lose to one of these other teams, so I don't want to lose at all, but especially not to somebody who has a worse record than I do. I hear that. Well, all right, Mike, well, yeah, let's get into some things that really are important, like revival. Yeah. There we go. There we go. We'll pull ourselves away here. So we're in Hebrews 9 this time for this episode, and it starts off, you know, kind of, you know, I won't say boring, but just sort of routine. It's a listing of tabernacle furniture. Now let's just jump in and I'll read the first five verses. There actually are a couple of interesting things in here, believe it or not. So it begins here. Now even the First Covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. For a tent was prepared, the first section in which were the lamp stand and the table and the bread of the presence. It is called the holy place. And the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place. Having the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant covered on all sides with gold in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that butted and the tablets of the Covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat of these things we cannot now speak in detail. And of course you might be saying, well, that's a relief, you know, I don't want to go back and just talk about all that furniture. We talked about some of it in our Leviticus series, but there are actually a few items of interest here. Firstly, did you notice the location of the altar of incense apparently, at least from this rendering, within the Holy of Holies? That's not where it is in the Exodus accounts and all the accounts of the most holy place, the Holy of Holies. The only thing in there is the Ark of the Covenant, but here I'll read it again starting in verse three. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place. Having the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant covered on all sides with gold in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that butted the tablets of the Covenant. So the Ark, well, we know that's supposed to be there, but having the golden altar of incense there, that has drawn some attention, as you might imagine, by a scholar's, both Old and New Testament, but laying in his word biblical commentary actually camps a little bit on this, and it's kind of interesting. So I thought I would read a little bit here to get, again, an item of interest out of the first few verses. He writes, the location of the golden altar of incense within the most holy place is problematical because it is well known that it stood in the holy place just before the inner curtain. It's Exodus 30, verse six, Exodus 40, verse 26. The scribal tradition represented by Codex B, that's a, again, a famous manuscript, an important manuscript, and certain of its allies recognized this problem and sought to resolve it by textual alteration. Now I'll just stop there. So what he's saying here is that there were some scribes, you know, copyists of the New Testament that saw this problem and actually changed the text to try to fix it. Again, scribes, you know, would do this thing on occasion, but it's easy for textual critics, you know, people who are reading and working in the original manuscripts to spot, you know, this, this effort, you know, to, to, you know, amend this problem back to lane. In the course of Israel's subsequent history, the golden altar was placed within the inner sanctuary. Now that's 1 Kings 620 and 22. Let me read that. The inner sanctuary was 20 cubits long, 20 cubits wide and 20 cubits high. And he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid an altar of cedar and in verse 22, and he overlaid the whole house with gold until the house was finished. Also the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary, he overlaid with gold. So there's an apparent change of positioning when you get to the temple, but the reason this is an issue is because up until this point, the writer of Hebrews has been talking about the tabernacle. Okay. So there's an issue here. So back to Lane. Again, in the course of Israel's subsequent history, the golden altar was placed within the inner sanctuary and one source nearly contemporary with Hebrews reflects that liturgical tradition. That's from the second apocalypse of Baruch. And again, there, he, there's a cross reference between chapter six and verse seven of that pseudopigraphical text and Revelation eight three, which mentions again that this, this golden altar before the throne. Okay. You might have wondered about that. If you're reading through Revelation, the throne of God, of course, in, in the temple context is going to be the ark, you know, the, the ark is his footstool or his seat, depending on which, you know, which historical situation you're in, but Revelation has this altar there as well. So it again, Lane is, is offering that as a cross reference to this pseudopigraphical tradition that apparently reflects a bit of a change in positioning in first Kings six. But again, we're talking about the tabernacle here in the context of Hebrews, which is why again, this draws attention. The, the, back to Lane, the ceremonial prescriptions for the day of atonement, however, plainly indicate that this altar was located in the holy place. Again, not the holy of holies. He's referring back again to the Torah descriptions of this, of the tabernacle. And this is confirmed by sources contemporary again with Hebrews, sources that are contemporary with the book of Hebrews who are commenting on the Torah, you know, on these Exodus passages and Leviticus 16 and whatnot. So it's pretty clear again, if you're talking about the tabernacle, that the, this altar doesn't belong in the holy of holies. But nevertheless, the, the wording of Hebrews nine at this point suggests that's where it is. Now back to Lane again. He says the description in verse four, this I find interesting, corresponds to the Samaritan Pentateuch, recension of Exodus. I'll stop right there. Remember, again, when we talk Old Testament textual criticism, when we did a whole episode on how we got the Hebrew Bible, most of the time that you talk about the transmission of the Hebrew text, you're talking about the Masoretic tradition and the Septuagint, the Hebrew base that under, you know, is lying underneath or from which the Septuagint was translated, but there was this third one, the Samaritan Pentateuch. It's just the Pentateuch like it sounds. That's a third different textual tradition. And they're all witnessed among the Dead Sea Scrolls. So they all hit the same chronological wall. There's, there's no one older than, than the other. They all hit the wallet around, you know, third century BC. So in this case, you actually have what's found in the book of Hebrews reflects the Samaritan Pentateuch text back to Lane. So the description corresponds to the Samaritan Pentateuch recension of Exodus in which Exodus 31 through 10 is inserted between Exodus 2635 and 36. This was one of the factors that led Scobie, it's a reference to a scholar there, to deduce that the writer of Hebrews was representative of Samaritan Christianity and that he cites an article. So there was at least one scholar that looked at this and thought, well, maybe the writer of Hebrews, you know, was sort of attached to this community back to Lane. The correspondence should be seen rather as evidence of the variety of text types in existence before the standardization of the Maseridic text. Although no Greek text reflecting the proto-Samaritan text of Exodus 26 has yet been recovered, it is probable that the writer of Hebrews was following this textual tradition. That's the end of Lane's quote. So what he's saying is it's probably too much to argue that the writer of Hebrews was somehow attached to the Samaritan community. He thinks it's just a better, it's better explained by textual plurality, that there were a lot of Old Texts, the Old Testament floating around. And the one that the writer of Hebrews happened to be referencing has this particular wording, which of course does correspond to the Samaritan Pentateuch recension. Now, again, you could say, well, well, isn't this a mistake? Well, again, if all the texts hit the same chronological wall, you can't necessarily say that the ordering of the material in the Samaritan Pentateuch is wrong. You can't really say that for sure. You can't say it's wrong just because it's not the Maseridic text. And this is an interesting example, again, of why I cautioned people repeatedly to not just give presumptive priority to the Maseridic text. And I'm not going to rehearse the content of the episode we did on this. First of all, there is no such thing as the Maseridic text. What we think of as the Maseridic text was created in about 100 AD in an attempt to sort of get rid of textual plurality. The scribal community, the scribes, the Pharisees, those who were heavily invested in one of these texts got together around 100 AD and said, hey, let's get rid of all this other stuff, want to standardize the text. And that's going to be our text from here on out in perpetuity. And that's when you have the rise of the class of scribes that we know as the Maserids. Hence, it was called the Maseridic text because it got passed on from family to family to family and professional scribes. But prior to that time, the Dead Sea Scroll era, again, the Second Temple era, you didn't have a standardized text. And so we don't know if we're going with the older material. If a detail like this was not actually original to the Torah. We just don't know that. We'd have to be omniscient to know that. So what we have again is just the writer of Hebrews using a particular text, and that's kind of where we're at. You know, with the whole thing. So we don't want to jump to conclusions in any direction that require omniscience. And again, without riffing on this too long, it's a myth. Again, to perpetuate this notion, the notion itself is a myth that there's one text that was never a copyist error from the hands of Moses all the way through the era of the Old Testament on into the Second Temple period and through it into the New Testament and through that up to our present day. That is a myth. It's a demonstrable myth. We have lots of manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible and we don't, none of us are omniscient. So that's really how we ought to be thinking about this. But again, I just thought I'd camp on that a little bit because it's kind of interesting, you know, that you actually have that reading there. Second thing in the first five verses, let's look at the reference to the Mersi Seed. This is more germane to the rest of the content and really what what we've been covering prior in previous chapters of Hebrews, it dovetails with the subject matter there, much more than a text critical issue. The mercy seat, again, is is alluded to here in Hebrew. If you remember back to our Leviticus series, the noun was Kaporot from KPR, PL, Keper, you know, to a tone. So it's the verb is to a tone is usually how it gets translated. If you remember back to our series, we talked about the Cadian cognate to this, the verb Kupuru, which does in fact correspond to Hebrew Keper. We, you know, quoted some things from Levine's Leviticus commentary, for instance, and that verb Kupuru clearly means to wipe off or burnish or cleanse, which is why a number of Old Testament scholars prefer to not translate Keper as a tone, but something like to purge, to cleanse, you know, this, this idea of purgation, to wipe away impurity or wipe away, get rid of contamination. Now the noun Kaporot was the lid of the Ark. Now, typically, if you've heard King James and I'm sure there are other translations to do this too, they take Kaporot and translate it mercy seat. Again, that's really not what it means. And you would ask, well, how'd they get this idea of a mercy seat and then this mercy seat idea? It's not a very good translation. It's a bit misleading, but not in a sinister way. It's only later with the, again, recall unseen realm, perhaps, or maybe you've run across this in some other source. It's only later with the giant cherubim in the temple that Yahweh is conceived as enthroned between the cherubim, making the lid of the Ark sort of a seat, or in other, in some passages, his footstool. At least he would be on top of it in a seated posture. Again, you get the giant cherubim that sort of forms the seat, which is positioned above the Ark and the Ark becomes either the footstool or still the imagined posterior of the deity would still be above the Ark. Now, that's the seated position clearly in the temple. In the Tabernacle, you didn't have the giant cherubim. You just had the Ark. And so the assumption was sort of made by the King James translators and lots of people that, well, without the giant cherubim, Yahweh was still in a seated posture. And so he must be sitting on the Ark between the cherubim because when you get the big giant cherubim, he's sitting there, they form a throne, and then the Ark becomes the footstool. Well, so therefore they extrapolate and say, well, back before we had the giant cherubim, we were just in the Tabernacle, Yahweh must still be conceived of as sitting. Hence, the lid of the Ark is a seat, and it's the seat where, you know, kippare, you know, where a quote unquote atonement or purgation happens on the day of atonement. So hence, mercy seat. You know, the mercy idea is kind of an abstract idea. It doesn't really reflect what the verb means. And certainly, it doesn't, what that means doesn't get taken into the now. So there's a bit of a history, you know, a little bit of a backdrop and some guesswork here that goes into a translation like mercy seat. Now to the point, the mercy seat, again, or the lid of the Ark was a factor on the day of atonement. Now it doesn't factor in other sacrifices, which were at the altar outside the holy place in the Holy of Holies. So normally a sacrifice is going to be outside the Holy of Holies. Again, we know this if we sort of have a basic understanding of, you know, the sacrificial system. The day of atonement though involved this object, the Ark with its lid, in a blood ritual so that it was unique there. If you remember back in the Leviticus series, the day of atonement was sort of the reset button for the nation. The sins of the people were carried away in combination with the comprehensive purging of sacred space. The whole idea was to make the sacrificial system and, you know, the holy objects in not only just in the Holy of Holies, but just the whole system and all the objects to sort of reset them as though they were they were brand new and like they're made like they were the first time the whole system was used. You know, that sort of idea. Now, again, the two goats in the day of atonement ceremony, the goat that wasn't killed is the one that carried the sins of the people that was driven outside the camp. The one that was killed, the blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat or the lid and again, the intersanctuary there to purge it of contamination. That had nothing to do with the sins of the people. It was that the blood is only placed on these objects again to purge it, to decontaminate it and again, hit the reset button so that now in the new year, everything, you know, returns full circle and we're all good again. Everything's clean. Everything's pure. Here we go again. That was the idea. Now, the Septuagint is a factor here. Hagner has a nice little summary of this. He says, the Septuagint regularly translates the noun, again, this kipporit, its mercy seat noun with the word hilasterion, which comes into the New Testament at two important passages. And frankly, those are the only two places where hilasterion are found in the New Testament. And they are Romans 3.25 and this verse here that we're talking about Hebrews 9.5. Romans 3.25 says this, talking about Christ, Christ, whom God put forward as a, the ESB has propitiation, the word is hilasterion. Christ, whom God put forward as a hilasterion by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. And Hagner adds, considerable debate about the meaning of the word in hilasterion took place between C.H. Dodd, who was a New Testament scholar who argued that the word meant expiation, i.e. a removal of the guilt of sin, and Leon Morris, another New Testament scholar who argued that it meant propitiation, the appeasing of the anger of God. The King James Version and the New American Standard Bible translate the word as propitiation and the RSB and NAB as expiation. In other words, you get to get a difference in translations here. Since both ideas back to Hagner are probably correct, one can do no better than to translate the word sacrifice of atonement as do the NIV and the NRSV. The word in Hebrews 9.5, on the other hand, is best translated as place of atonement. The NAB has place of expiation. That's the end of Hagner's quote. You know, I don't really like any of that, but I read it because it's common. You may have come across, you know, this discussion, but it really reflects kind of, it reflects a New Testament perspective. You have New Testament scholars who are working in Greek and the Septuagint. They're not going to go back to the Akkadian and you know, like, hey, what does this term actually mean? It's ancient Near Eastern context. So I would say if you go with the Old Testament meaning of the verb, again, from the Akkadian root, it doesn't mean either expiation removal of guilt because the blood isn't applied to anybody in the day of atonement ritual anyway. It really doesn't mean a propitiation like appeasing the anger of God. Again, there's no anger dealt with in Leviticus 16. These ideas are sort of imported because of terms like expiation and propitiation scholars trying to figure out, you know, what a Greek term means as opposed to going back and say, look, it means purge. It means to decontaminate. So again, I would say if you go to the Old Testament meaning of the verb in its own context, the ancient Near East, I think we can approach it a little bit differently. And again, I'm willing to say a little bit better. The point of its use, I think in Romans and here in Hebrews 9 and 5 would be that Christ's blood provides access to God's presence. The relationship is restored. It's not under threat of ruination as the year goes by so that it needs resetting every year. Rather, the relationship between sinner and God is permanently healed through Christ. In other words, the access to God is permanently provided. We don't have to worry about the access being contaminated again. Just like you did with the Old Testament system, you had to have this reset button event to again have things just sort of go back to their setting point, back to their original point. And we essentially start over again. Again, remember the blood in the day of atonement ceremony is not applied to a sinner. It's not even, it doesn't even come from the goat that carries the sin away. The blood is applied to the sanctuary and to the holy place, the most holy place, the ark, all that stuff. It's about purging, decontaminating the most sacred presence. And when you're equating Jesus with that through the use of hillosteria, which is the Septuagint word for this lid of the ark, I think that there's something really profound here, theologically, that Christ is better again. His sacrifice is better again because you don't need to repeat this every year. The presence, you know, the access to the presence of God has been decontaminated, has been opened up, has been, you know, what's the right word here, has been securely provided or made secure or made inviolate through this one sacrifice who is Christ, the great high priest who offers himself. So I think the use of this term, again, is really a good one. It's a nice one. It's a very theologically pregnant one because of this notion of what happens on the day of Atonement. Now drifting into Hebrews 9, 6 through 10, again, what I'm suggesting is the hillosterion here, again points to the superiority of Christ's sacrifice. And that helps us to drift into the next few verses, verses 6 through 10, where now it shifts from, instead of comments on the furniture, the old tabernacle versus, again, the new tent, I'm drawing that language from chapter 8, where Christ, you know, is seated in the heavenly tent next to the majesty on high. Okay, now we drift into specific comments about offerings, their nature and their efficacy. So let's read verses 6 through 10. The writer says, these preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, first section of the tent, tabernacle, performing their ritual duties, but into the second section only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. You know, reading a little bit, there's, this is Mina, there's a conflation there between the sort of collective sacrifices of the sacrificial system, because they were for people and, you know, unintentional sins. That's not actually what's going on in the day of purging, the day of Atonement, because again, the sins aren't applied to anyone, again, but it is a reset button, so everybody starts again from, you know, at the same starting gate. So in that sense, you could say it relates to people, but it's not a, it's not a direct, you know, for forgiveness of sins kind of thing, in the sense that it's applied to anyone, but he kind of conflates the whole system here with the high priest, and again, I think the reason he's doing that is because it's a start over event. So back to verse 7, into the second section only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this, the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the Holy Place is not yet opened, as long as the first section is still standing, which is symbolic for the present age. According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body, or for the flesh, the word there is sarks in Greek, imposed until the time of reformation. So that's verses 6 through 10. Now what the writer is doing here is he's setting up another comparison to the offering and priesthood of Christ, and that he's going to make the comparison sort of in force in verses 11 through 28, but verses 6 to 10 are kind of a setup for what's going to follow in verses 11 through 28. So I want to focus our discussion here, and then we'll read through verses 11 through 28 in light of some comments here. It's interesting just to sort of start off here with a bit of a random one, but I think one that kind of contextualizes the rest of the comments we'll make about verses 6 through 10. In verse 8 you have this comment, I'll just read it again, by this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the Holy Places is not yet open, as long as the first section is still standing, verse 9, which is symbolic for the present age, blah, blah, blah, blah. What you actually have here is sort of an inspired side note, an inspired editorial comment about the writer's apparent view of inspiration, the inspiration of his own writing. In other words, the inspiration of his own teaching. He's saying the Holy Spirit is speaking through me to tell you what this stuff meant, which again if you're into bibliology, if that's one of your big theological interests, this is an interesting verse because the writer apparently is conscious that the Spirit of God is giving them, or dispensing or using them, it's probably a better way to say it, to produce revelation that, again, God approves of, this whole lot of notion of inspiration. So the New Testament writer again has this side comment, and commentators will point out that the verb indicates here, go back to verse 8 just once again, by this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way the Holy Places is not yet open, indicates there is a present participle, and so the the grammatical observation many commentators will make from that is that this interpretation of the sacrificial system that the writer of Hebrews is engaged in, and again he's very conscious that the Holy Spirit is guiding him in what he says, that it's ongoing. It's not going to change. This is a transition into, you know, this future time, and since Christ's offering was eternal, the writer of Hebrews has already covered that. You know, since it satisfied God, he's already covered that since Jesus, you know, after he sacrificed himself and rose from the dead and ascended, he's seated at the seat of rulership, and also the seat of eternal perpetual intercession, and he's already covered that. This is now the new reality. This is the new ongoing, not going to be changed reality. So again, the grammatical observation is worth making. Now, this phrase, the way into the Holy Place, and this notion about, let me go back to verse 8, again, the way into the Holy Place not yet open for as long as the first section, first part of the tabernacle still standing, which is symbolic for the present age. Again, this notion of being in this transitional period. Guthrie takes this phrasing and he comments as follows. He says, what is specifically said to be signified is that an obstacle bars the way into the Holy of Holies, you know, this whole other section of the tabernacle, and thus into the presence of God. Let me just stop there. Remember, think of the Old Testament system that not only couldn't the average person get into the Holy of Holies, but none of the priests could either. Only the high priest could go there once a year. So this is an obstacle to the direct presence of God. Back to Guthrie, the way into the sanctuary must here be the inner sanctuary as compared with the outer tabernacle. The words as long as the outer tent is still standing seem to mean as long as the, as long as approach is dependent on the biblical type ceremonies, which barred all but the high priest from access to the presence of God, and even him for all but one day in the year. The words in parentheses, which is symbolic for the present age, that's the parenthetical thought there from Hebrews 9, gives some indication of the writer's approach to the whole of biblical system. It was a figure, Parabole, Guthrie notes. It was therefore suggestive of deeper truths than it was itself able to fulfill. Moreover, its symbolic purpose seems to be limited to the present age by which the writer seems to be contrasting it with the future age. He notes here Hebrews 6, 5, let me just read that verse to you. This is the verse that refers to having tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come. So it's like an eschatological flavor. Back to Guthrie here. So its symbolic purpose seems to be limited to the present age by which the writer seems to be contrasting it with the future age. In the context of thought in this passage, the present age was that which prepared for the appearing of Christ, as noted in verses 11 and following. After which the symbol was fulfilled and therefore ceased to have any function. That's the end of the Guthrie quote. So in verses 6 through 10, you have the priests who are allowed to go regularly into the first section. They perform their ritual duties, but only the high priest can go into the second and then only once a year. So you've got a bunch of obstacles to direct access to the presence of God. You have gradations of holiness. Even the high priest can go into the most holy place once a year. You have basically one shot at this kind of access. Now that is designed to set up a contrast with Christ, again whose priesthood we've been discussing since four or five chapters ago. I mean, Christ has provided this kind of access for everyone, not just year-round, but forever. So this is setting up another major point of contrast. Now we have one priest, one high priest, Jesus, who permanently is stationed in God's presence. He is the permanent mediator. He is the permanent intercessor. He is seated at the right hand of the majesty. Again, all these terms coming from earlier passages. The old sacrifices, quote, again to quote Hebrews 9.9, cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper, unquote. But instead, they deal with food, drink offerings, and washings, you know, again to quote the passage, regulations for the flesh or for the body. This points to Old Testament ritual being about access or restitution or decontaminating the sanctuary from defilement, and then in a very, in a progressively limited way. In other words, with all these limitations, it has no permanent value because it has to be repeated. It's incomplete. It requires, you know, again and again and again, even the access to the most holy place once a year has to be repeated, you know, once every year. Whereas with Jesus, none of that's the case. And not only is access eternal and permanent, you know, 24 7, 365, forever and ever and ever, not only is that the case, you know, to the writer of Hebrews, but what Christ did also covers or satisfies or addresses the conscience of the worshipper, where none of these sacrifices could. They were at best about unintentional sins and decontaminating a place at best. It has nothing to do with internal disposition. So this notion, again, of the conscience of the worshipper, this is referring, again, to internal disposition, cleansing of the conscience. You know, your feelings, your mind, your heart, you know, we would say. The Old Testament system didn't have anything to do with that. And the Old Testament system was operative, quote again, the last verse of Hebrews 6 through 10, verses 6 through 10. The Old System, you know, it operated until the time of Reformation. It's a term that could be translated New Order or New Age. It's an unusual expression. It's found nowhere else in the New Testament. Now Guthrie opines that it is akin to expressions like regeneration, again, the time of Reformation, de ortho seos, New Order, New Age, Reformation. Again, if this is if this is reflective of an internal disposition, sort of the inner life and now, again, in this New Age, the sacrifices provided by Christ directly address, they involve the heart, the mind, again, the inner life. Then I think Guthrie is onto something here that it is like this talk of regeneration. He cites Matthew 1928 here, which says, Jesus said to them, truly I say to you in the New World, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me also will sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. He refers there to the New World, again, this time in the future. This notion, again, when he says this, they're in the Gospels, he's still there. It's the period of incarnation. It's before the crucifixion, obviously, and all the rest of what would happen. The writer of Hebrews, again, is drawing on this idea that that was then and this is now. We are now in this time. It's the already but not yet. The kingdom of God has already come and it's progressing toward its final culmination, its final fulfillment when all of these things are made earthly, permanent in an earthly way. But we're still kind of there. We are now, again, able to have a system, have a sacrifice, have a high priest, have a means of resolution or absolution, again, whatever terms you want to apply here. That apply to the inner life, that apply to our hearts, our consciences. Again, for the writer of Hebrews, this time had come and he associates it with the work of Christ. They're already in this time when we are not only ruling with Christ, but we are also members of his kingdom. But again, for the writer of Hebrews in this chapter, what that means is that we are cleansed from within. We are new creatures. We are new creations. Again, that's where Guthrie's drawing on this notion of regeneration, that idea that we are made new from the inside out. And the Old Testament sacrificial system could not do this even on its best day, even on the single day when access to the most holy place was allowed. Couldn't do this. So it's a huge contrast. Now, in what follows in the chapter, verses 11 through 28, the writer sort of makes application of these ideas the rest of the way through the chapter, talking about, again, the tabernacle, the sanctuary, the sacrifices, all this stuff. Just listen to what he says in verses 11 through 20. And I'm going to read through it and make some comments as we go. Verse 11 starts, but when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands that is not of this creation, in other words, the heavenly tent, the heavenly sanctuary, God's house, where Jesus is seated at the right hand of majesty. When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, he entered verse 12, once for all, into the holy places. Not only is he in the better tent, but he doesn't have to leave. He's not going to leave. It's permanent. He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. Verse 13, for if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. I'm going to stop there at the end of verse 14. Now look at the difference again. Back in the Leviticus series, we talked about how so much of the sacrificial language was about purging sacred space, decontaminating it, or decontaminating people so that they wouldn't defile sacred space. And what defiled sacred space? Well, what made a person sort of a threat to sacred space back in Leviticus? Some physical deficiency, some deformity, the loss of blood, loss of semen, the menstrual cycles, all these things are associated with the flesh. None of it was associated with the inner life, the inner mind, the heart, the conscience. And so the writer of Hebrews, this is easy pickens for him. I mean now we're talking about again being renewed from the inside out. It is by definition inherently superior, because it addresses the heart. It addresses the soul, what Christ did, not just the outer body, the outer flesh. Now it's interesting in verse 14 he says that Christ through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God to purify our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God. It's interesting that he doesn't say that it was done to purify our conscience from sin. Now that speaks still of inner transformation. It's actually consistent. Paul's new creation, regeneration, why does it fit? How does it fit? Because only God can do that. Only God can make any of us a new creation from the inside out. It's a deep stark contrast to working, to works, to trying to resolve an inside problem by behaviors or rituals that we do in our body, with our body. So that's why that's the point of contrast. Our conscience is purified apart from dead works. Dead works couldn't pull that off. That's just going through the motions, again to use a modern phrase. It has nothing to do with the making new of what's inside, the heart, the soul, the conscience, the mind, again whatever terms that you want to apply to this, the spirit, again the internal life, the internal you, the real you, the you that's again trapped in a body. That is what has to be made new for eternal life and what Christ does make new for eternal life and your works can't touch that. Now all this is why the Old Testament separates again this internal disposition, the internal life, the internal transformation, the matters of the heart. It's why the Old Testament separates such things from sacrifices. Okay, Hosea 6-6, a very well-known verse even if people can't cite the verse reference, for I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Again, steadfast love, it's chesed in Hebrew, again this loving loyalty idea. That's what God wants, not sacrifice. And the knowledge of God, again this speaks of intimacy rather than burnt offerings. Again, those things arise from the life of the mind, the life of the heart, the inner life, not outer ritual. That's why again he's contrasting this. In verse 15 we'll start reading again. Therefore, he, Jesus in context, is the mediator of a new covenant which was associated with the spirit. You know, think about it. Therefore, he's the mediator of a new covenant. Last episode we talked about the new covenant a lot and we brought up, you know, not only the new covenant passage in Jeremiah, but verses like Ezekiel 11-19, I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36-26, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, so on and so forth. Again, this is to borrow New Testament language here. This is the language of regeneration. This is the language of being made a new creature, a new creation. Back to verse 15, therefore, Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, one that involves an internal transformation, not dead works, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. Again, no death of an animal could do that. Verse 16, for where a will is involved, kind of like think of the legal term now, a will, last will and testament, for where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not enforced as long as the one who made it is alive. That's the end of verse 17. A Hagner comments here, he says the argument of verses 16 and 17 is possible, because the Greek word d-f-a-k can mean either covenant or will, again that like a last will and testament, depending on the context. Our author now takes the word to mean will. Paul made use of the same double meaning of the word in Galatians 3, 15 through 17. I'm going to stop there in the Hagner quote. In Hebrews 9, he's been using d-f-a-k to speak of covenant, new covenant, and now he's getting into sort of like a legal context. Hagner wants to point this out. The writer uses the same term here to speak of two ideas, covenant or will. We know it's will here, verses 16 and 17, because he says things like, it involves the death of the one who made it. Will only takes effect at death. We know it's that kind of meaning, but it's the same word. Back to Hagner, he says Paul makes use of the same double meaning of the word in Galatians 3, 15 through 17. The will of a person takes effect only upon the death of the person. Likewise, a covenant can be established only by blood, that is by death. In the case of the first covenant by the death of animals, and the case of the new covenant by the death of God's son. It's the end of the Hagner quote. Verse 18, therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood, for when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hisop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you, and in the same way he sprinkled with blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Again, you needed, think back to our Leviticus series, you needed objects decontaminated to be used in the sacrificial system. You need sacred space, the tent itself, it's the holy ground. You needed that decontaminated to be able to do what needed to be done in the worship of the Lord and that sort of thing. It was referred to as forgiveness of sins. Again, if you remember the Leviticus series, 99.9 percent of the time, this wasn't referring to any sort of moral transgression. It was referring to some sort of defilement that you either incurred accidentally, typically, that would defile sacred space, or it referred to an actual episode of defilement of sacred space. So you were doing this really to protect holy ground, holy vessels, and what not. And if you decontaminated yourself, if you brought the right sacrifices, then you were okay. It was okay between you and God. You were allowed to participate. You were allowed on holy ground, but only so far, even if you were clean, because you have these gradations of holiness. The average person could only go so far approaching sacred space, and the priest could only go so far into sacred space, and only one of them could go into the most holy place once a year. So you had these different levels. But most of the system was about protecting holy ground, protecting the vessels, making sure you didn't defile it. And the only way we can make sure you don't defile it is if you bring a sacrifice and then you're decontaminated yourself. So most of this, again, wasn't about moral transgression. There were lots of parts of the law, again, thinking back to our series on Leviticus, that dealt with, well, if you do this particular sin, you make restitution. You know, restitution was the solution, and it would involve, you know, some sacrifice that, you know, it's okay between you and God. God knows that you took care of this, you made restitution, so on and so forth. And then there were a lot of sins for which there was no sacrifice. It was either the death penalty or exile. Again, it's quite a different system than what's being described here in the book of Hebrews. But his point here is that both the old system, the old covenant, and a new covenant were inaugurated. They were put into effect by blood sacrifice. But the new covenants is better, because it was an eternal sacrifice. Why was it eternal? Because it was Jesus. It doesn't have to be repeated. And bonus, it covers the inside, the life of the mind, the life of the heart, the life of the soul, the spirit. Again, the interdisposition. You are made new from inside out. Okay, that's why Jesus is better, because he's not doing that stuff in the earthly tent. The earthly tent is passing away and it really has passed away. As a result of the work of Christ, he is now in the heavenly tent. The superior tent, again, to mimic the language of Hebrews earlier, seated at the right hand of majesty on high. He's taken up his place in God's house, i.e. the heavenly temple. And that is now where you belong, because your family, your family because of lots of things. Yes, because he offered himself for sin to make you new from the inside out, to give you a new heart. That's true. But you also belong there because he became human. This is back to Hebrews chapter 2, the incarnation. All of this was aimed at humans, because Jesus became human. He didn't become anything else like an angel or something. This is why the whole system is targeted, one of the reasons why it's targeting humans. You belong there. You are part of the family now. This is why brother, sibling language is used of Jesus early on in the book of Hebrews. And God will keep his promises because Jesus did what he did. And our gateway to all of this is to believe. You either believe or you don't. Again, it's by faith. Even in Hebrews 9 here, he mentions that this is brought about by faith. So back to verse 23. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rights, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Again, we're brothers. We're siblings with Jesus. Hebrews chapter 2. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, this is verse 25, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own. For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. That's the end of the chapter. Now a few comments on verses 27 and 28, and just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes the judgment. Notice that the text doesn't say it's appointed for humans to die once, and then they get another chance. They get another chance at salvation. The text doesn't say that. Now we've had questions in Q&A about, well does this verse somehow speak of a new opportunity to be saved? Well only if you put words into it that aren't there. So Christ, verse 28, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, okay? Now I would say here, Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many, it's pretty plain inclusion of the idea of substitutionary atonement. This is why we just had a recent, our little thought experiment with Ron Johnson and Carl Sanders. I said a few times, look, I'm a big tent guy. I'm a kaleidoscope guy when it comes to the atonement. And I am. The atonement means many different things, one of which is substitution. The other views of the atonement do contribute something. They're different aspects, different ways of thinking about what the atonement means, what the sacrifice of Christ means. Unfortunately, the propensity has been both in scholarship and those who imbibe on scholarship or you know imbibe on how something is preached. The propensity has been, let's pick another view of atonement so we don't have to have this substitution idea because that just sounds awful. That just, you know, we're just so, we don't want to hear about violence. We don't want to hear about an innocent dying for the sins of somebody else. That's just icky, our culture just doesn't tolerate that. Well too bad, okay? That's just part, that's a legitimate part of what the atonement means. And you do have passages like this one and others that are pretty, use pretty clear substitution language. Again, that's not the only thing that atonement means, okay? Not the only thing, but it's part of what the atonement means. So my advice would be to not try to jettison or excise out of our atonement talk an idea that is clearly there in certain texts, but to include other ideas that can derive from other texts. Again, that's why I'm a kaleidoscope guy when it comes to the atonement. Now what about the, I should say something about the word many, you know, that he was, you know, he was offered once to bear the sins of many. You know, there's, obviously this gets into, you know, the whole, you know, limited atonement, Calvinistic, you know, kind of talk and whatnot. I think Hagner has a nice little sort of segue, a little sidebar on this, I'm going to read it to you. And he says this, the word many in 928 should not be taken literally as limiting at the scope of Christ's atoning death as though some were not meant to be included in its benefit. This is unmistakably clear from this statement in Hebrews 2.9, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. Hebrews 2.9, it doesn't say many, it says everyone, who pair Pontos. The word many Hagner continues, probably is to be explained by its occurrence in Isaiah 53-12, again quoting the Septuagint, of course. He bore the sins of many, a passage understood in the early church as referring to Christ. Depending on the context, many is a Semitic expression that can mean all. Thus, for example, many in Mark 1045, which says, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Hagner says, many in Mark 1045 very probably should be understood as meaning all, and then he has a cross reference here to 2 Corinthians 5, 14, and 15, which says, for the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who, for their sake, died and was raised. And then he also bore across references 1 Timothy 2-6, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. So basically, what Hagner's saying here is, the many can refer to all, and again, internally in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 928 is there, and Hebrews 2-9 is there. By the grace of God, he might taste it for everyone. It's very clear. So what he's saying is that this is probably, again, another way of expressing the same idea, even though the word is different, and we shouldn't create a contradiction between Mark 1045 and 2 Corinthians 5-14 and 15 and 1 Timothy 2-6. Hagner writes, the point is strikingly clear when the many of Romans 5-15 and 5-19 is compared with the parallel statement referring to all in Romans 5-18, right, in between those two other verses. All and many are interchanged, is his point. And so he's arguing that that's the way we should read this in Hebrews. I agree with him. Again, Hebrews 2-9 is there in the text. Talking about death, the same subject matter. So that's really, again, how we should be thinking about this. Now I want to wrap up with another thing that Hagner says. I think it's a good way to end our episode. He sort of summarizes, you know, Hebrews 9 this way. The reference to the appointed death of humans brings with it the thought of judgment, and this wants to die after this, the judgment. The prospect of the judgment that awaits all in turn sharpens the universal need of salvation. The final verse of the chapter offers welcome comfort. It is precisely because Christ in his single sacrifice was able to bear the sins of many, a Semitic expression connoting all, that he can appear bringing salvation. He no longer needs to bear a sin that has finally been accomplished for all time on the cross. But he will come a second time to bring salvation in its fullness and perfection to those who eagerly wait for him. In other words, those who believe. That will be the time Hagner writes, for the harvesting of the fruit already won by Christ, this thought reconfirms the finality and sufficiency of Christ's work on Calvary. So again, the chapter ends with a fairly simple point. Christ offered himself, he died, and he will appear again for those who believe. The contrast, of course, is that humans, just generally, are appointed to die. That's just the inevitability of human existence. And then they're going to be judged. But if they were believers, judgment isn't what would be awaiting them when Christ returns. They'd be saved when Christ reappears the second time. In other words, they won't suffer the second death described in Revelation. So Hebrews 9 again, just drawing out more points of the comparison. And I think, again, I just like the way Hagner puts that. He no longer needs to bear sin, but has finally been accomplished for all time in the cross. But he will come a second time to bring salvation in its fullness and perfection to those who eagerly wait for him. Okay, Mike. We're getting close to the end of Hebrews. That means we will be voting again. So everybody get ready for that next month. And then Mike, next week we're going to take a break from Hebrews again and do a special Christmas show. Can you tell us what we're going to be talking about? Yeah, I've decided we are going to do an episode on Is Christmas Pagan? For lack of a better way to put it, is Christmas Pagan? How should we be thinking about Christmas with all the various controversies about what people do to celebrate Christmas and the December 25th day and all that stuff. So we'll devote an episode to that. And we'll have a special guest, Dr. Burton, to help break that down for us. Is that correct? Jed Burton will be along with us and we're going to sort of tag team to that episode. But hopefully it'll be useful and instructive. Okay, I'm looking forward to that episode. I need to know if I need to take down my wreaths and stop doing anything that I shouldn't be doing. Maybe you don't want to just tell us everything you do, Trey. Knowing you that I probably wouldn't do a good idea. So let's just let's leave that there. Okay, sounds good. All right, Mike. Well, I just want to thank you everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. God bless. Thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit www.nakedbibleblog.com. To learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs, go to www.brmsh.com.