Posts from December 2022

Christians enjoy a blessing no Jew ever experienced, according to Hebrews 10:19-25. We are permitted to directly enter God’s presence – to “go beyond the veil” (a reference to the veil of the temple, that separated everyone except the High Priest from the “Most Holy Place” where the ark of the covenant represented the presence of God). Under the law of Moses, even the High Priest was allowed to “enter” God’s presence only one day per year, on the day…

Hebrews 10:1-18 presents one basic lesson that the Jewish Christians of the first century urgently needed to understand (and it’s the same lesson that most of modern Christendom needs to grasp as well). That lesson, stated in vs. 1, is that “the Law” – the one delivered to Moses on Mt. Sinai, the “ten commandments” law that had governed the people of Israel and Judah for ten centuries – was a figure, a “shadow” that had outlined what God planned…

Among the denominations of Christendom, one of the most overlooked lessons of the book of Hebrews is the statement in chapter 9:8-9 to the effect that the first tabernacle (the one revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and constructed under his supervision, Exodus 25-40) was intended to serve as a figure for the time of the church. (The Greek word for “figure” is para-bolay, a parable or comparison.) The tabernacle – or since the time of Solomon, the temple –…