Reading the whole text. Hebrews 9.

I hope by now you're getting a good idea of how much better Christ is than the old system. Certainly the readers of Hebrews couldn't miss it. But we never lived under the old covenant, so what's significant for us? One answer we had in class last Sunday is that this letter provides a lot of encouragement. That's truth and a vital insight.

I'd like to answer that question with one small idea. We have a complete Bible that we carry around with us. It contains all of the oracles, the words, of God. Some of those words in the old half, are difficult to understand. (Truth to tell, some in the new half are too.) Some of God's actions seem odd, or arbitrary, or contrary to what we know about God from His Son. For some of us, it's just easier to skip those old words. Here's a place where the letter to the Hebrews can help.

This letter helps us understand the role of the old covenant. It helps us see the relationship between the covenants. It opens up the old half of the Bible in a new way. Look at how the author deals with the tabernacle in chapter 9. Here are some things we learn about it:

• It was the place for worship under the old covenant
• The daily coming and going (of worship) was not allowed at the mercy seat, the place of God's presence, but only in the outer tent.
• To enter God's presence, the inner tent, the high priest had to be cleansed of all impurity, and so a sacrifice was made for him. And he could enter but once a year.
• No one else could enter the holy place. In other words, individuals never had full relationship with God.
• This tabernacle was just a shadow, a taste of God's true tabernacle.
• Jesus entered the true tabernacle once for all time.
• Just as there was shed blood for the high priest, Jesus entered by virtue of His own shed blood.
• Because He did, we can now enter that holy place, and enjoy full relationship with God.

In other words, the tabernacle is a picture of reality, and something that helps us understand more about God. Now one of the hard parts of this picture is "the shedding of blood." I'm going to cop out on that for the moment, but we'll look at it later. The important part here, is that we can see the consistent message of God, through the lens Hebrews provides, tying old and new covenants together. When we read the Old Testament -- through the ritual law, and the carrying of the tent, and the building of the temple, we can have an enriched view of what God was doing. All of which was perfected in Jesus. We have these truths from this chapter of Hebrews to apply to that reading:

• God desires relationship.
• Because of His very nature, pure and holy, and our own impure and unclean nature, there is a separation that exists. God lives in the holy of holies, and we can't enter.
• An offered sacrifice allows one individual to be pure long enough to enter on our behalf.
• That's not good enough and so the new covenant, mediated by Christ, and inaugurated by His sacrifice, takes care of our sin for all time, and now we can enter into God's presence (v.4:16).

Even though we haven't lived under the old covenant, Hebrews helps us to better understand it, and to open up the Bible Jesus used. That's a powerful contribution to our relationship with Him.