Last week, I proposed that Jesus is the best thing for your conscience because he provides an eternal redemption and he promises an eternal inheritance. This is what Hebrews 9 is all about. Let me now tackle the first part of that thesis.
Regulations for Worship and Place
Hebrews 9:1-14 has a tremendous amount of detail because the author is summarizing the entire ceremonial law of Moses for us. But his main argument consists of three pieces.
- Jesus’ redemption is eternal (Heb 9:11-14),
- because he provides better worship (Heb 9:6-10)
- in a better place (Heb 9:1-5).
That’s it. Amid all the detail, that’s all that he’s saying here. Jesus’ redemption is eternal, because he provides better worship in a better place.
The tricky part is to grasp what that means. And in order to grasp what that means, you’ve got to grasp the Old Testament system of worship.
Regulations for Place
Referring to God’s contract with his people in the Old Testament, the author reminds us that the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness (Heb 9:1). He then expands on the place first in Heb 9:2-5. Then he explains the rules for worship in Heb 9:6-7, before bringing the two (worship and place) together again in Heb 9:8-10).
With respect to the place, he describes the tabernacle Moses set up.
It had two rooms, with certain pieces of furniture in each room. The only doorway takes you into an outer room, with a lamp, and a table with bread on it. There’s a doorway with a curtain, going into a second, inner room, with an altar to produce a sweet-smelling cloud to cover the large golden box containing God’s personal belongings.
In Heb 9:5, the author states that “of these things we cannot now speak in details.” What he’s saying is not that the details don’t matter but that they do. We could study them and discuss them at great length. For example, see my series on the tabernacle in Exodus, beginning here.
But now is not the time to go into all of those details. The main idea in Hebrews 9 is simply that that old covenant had a place for worship.
This tent, with its two rooms, and all its furniture, provided a place on earth where God could dwell with his people, and they could come and enjoy a relationship with him.
Regulations for Worship
But beyond the place itself, we ought to consider the regulations for worship. In other words, what transpired in that place to enable God’s people to worship him?
Most people could not enter the tent, but had to remain in the front yard, where gifts and sacrifices were offered. But any priest could enter the first room (Heb 9:6). And only the high priest could enter the second room, and that on only one special day each year (Heb 9:7).
That high priest must offer blood to cover the sins of both himself and the rest of the people. If he tries to enter without the blood of a substitute, he dies.
The ritual described here is called the Day of Atonement, and you can read about it in Leviticus 16.
But what is the point? Why do we need to know about the place? And why do we need to know the regulations for worship?
According to Heb 9:8, as long as there is a temple in Jerusalem with two rooms (because the first, or outer room is still standing), that means that there is no way opened into the holy places. In other words, there is no access to God’s presence with his people. There is only a hint or shadow, a tease of his presence.
This is symbolic for the present age (Heb 9:9)! At the time Hebrews was written, the temple was still standing. The curtain between the two rooms had torn on the day Jesus died, showing that access was now granted. But the Jews had repaired it, and access to God’s presence was once more denied to God’s people.
The impact of all of this comes at the end of Heb 9:9: When gifts and sacrifices are offered in an earthly place with limited access to God, those gifts and sacrifices cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper. The best they can do is provide outward conformity to a ritual code (Heb 9:10).
So under the old system, you can conduct worship in a special place, and that worship will clean you up on the outside.
But it can’t do anything for you on the inside.
Your sin will still hound you, and your conscience will continue to convict you. That’s how it worked under the old system.
Eternal Redemption
But when Christ came along, to be a new high priest, he changed all that.
Jesus did not conduct his priesthood by entering the earthly temple in Jerusalem (Heb 9:11). He actually went into the true and original tent pitched in heaven! He conducted his ministry in a better place than the Jewish priests.
And he offered a better worship (Heb 9:12). He didn’t bring the blood of goats and calves, but his own blood.
And there’s the main idea of the entire section: Because our priest Jesus conducted better worship in a better place, he secured an eternal redemption. Jesus offered himself once and only once, and it worked!
The proof that it worked is that he doesn’t have to keep doing it! It worked, and our sins were forgiven, and therefore, he has purified our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Heb 9:14).
Do you get what this means?
Because Jesus your priest offered better worship in a better place, you can be with God forever. If you belong to Christ, your sins cannot ever be held against you. The accusations of conscience can be done away with forever. You can be free of the inner prosecuting attorney who claims you are a miserable excuse of a human being.
The blood of Christ, applied to the holy places in heaven, speaks on your behalf. It bears witness to the inhabitants of heaven that you are a child of God, and that nothing can ever change that.
You have been bought and paid for. Your redemption is eternal.
Application
If you do not yet follow Jesus Christ, I want you to know that it is possible to clean your conscience once and for all. When that nagging voice speaks up to condemn you for the things you have done, it is probably speaking the truth!
It is not healthy to suppress the voice of conscience. And what Jesus does is not suppress the conscience, but satisfy it.
If that voice speaks up to condemn you, but you have placed your trust in Jesus as your King and great high priest, then there is another voice — that of God’s Holy Spirit — who comes and argues with the voice of conscience. He shows forth the blood of Christ spilled once for all on behalf of sin, and then splashed onto the heavenly tent to make it welcoming and accessible to God’s children for the rest of time.
You don’t have access to God, or to the satisfaction of conscience, unless Jesus is your King and master.
So if you do follow Jesus, and you trust him as your high priest, then you can now serve God with a pure conscience.
You don’t have to worry about when the hammer will fall, or whether you will get swept away in the coming judgment. You have been rescued, redeemed, bought and paid for. And that redemption is eternal.
The blood of Jesus decorates the heavenly tent for the rest of time. And the resurrected Jesus himself dwells there, bodily, for the rest of time.
There is no outer room to keep you out, but only a single room, testifying forever to your eternal redemption. Such an eternal redemption does wonders for your conscience.
But That’s Not All
Now that would be wonderful enough — to have a redemption that can’t ever be brought into question. But our text doesn’t stop there.
It’s one thing to have judgment and accusation removed from you, but how do you ever know that it really worked? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a tangible and specific affirmation to signal your newfound security? Something to remind yourself of on those days when the voice of accusation rears back up?
That’s where he goes in the rest of the chapter, which I’ll cover in another post.
