My interest in theology is Spirit-driven, believing that Christ leads us into all truth. I acknowledge Him mapping my itinerary in the Word, moving me to clearer doctrinal discernment, with respect for those teachers who have inspired me thus far.

Yet often, when one expands on the law of God in relation to the gospel, there is a fear exhibited by the brethren of Antinomianism (the displacement of the law with the gospel). For this reason, I want to clarify my beliefs once and for all. As a Sabbatarian, which honours the fourth commandment, it is paramount.

If a man cannot distinguish between the law and the gospel, he can never understand any penetration depth of divine truth. If we cannot appreciate the holy law as meant to convict us of sin, and guide us to believe Christ, we cannot have spiritual transformation discoverable in the gospel in the face of Christ. If our view of the gospel is wrong, it often is because the law of God is misunderstood.

That which the precept of the law requires as a duty, the promise of the gospel, offers hope to meet the duty. Whatever commands the place of duty occupies in the law, the place of privilege is experienced in obedience to the call of the gospel. Duties required in the law, call for the insight of grace as it widens faith, articulated in the language of the gospel.

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (see Exodus 6:6; 20:2; 13:3; 15:13,16; 29:46) set the preface to the ten commandments as the rule of life to the faithful Israel of God, the children of Abraham, now offered to the true church among all nations. (Galatians 3:26, 29) The giving of the law at Sinai with this offering of Himself as redeemer is repeated many times in scripture!

According to the obedience of the redeemed of the Lord to the precepts of his law – the obedience is founded upon the recognition and respect of the articulator of the law, — Yahweh, Israel’s God, and redeemer.

In the laws of our redeeming God is the profound teaching in relation to his law, by which he would reform his people after many years of slavery. (Galatians 3:23-24) The offer to redeem his children and reform them in accord with his law was a type of his new covenant gospel, which he expressed and repeated to enforce our obedience to every commandment of his law as we enter and accept our duty bound to his privileged deliverance from sin in Christ.

Let us consider the law in the light of this privilege of the gospel’s offer of redemption in Christ, with help from my brother, the Puritan John Calhoun, as tightly edited herein to our current colloquium. Among my many studies on law and grace, John Calhoun excels. ¹

The law is God’s curriculum that he uses to teach us the primary covenantal progressive guidance that the Holy Spirit still uses to convincingly lead us into the confession of sin and full redemptive atonement and reconciliation with Himself when we observe Christ’s righteousness as he forgives and covers us with His love witnessed in the gospel.

Every passage of scripture is divine revelation, either by administration of law or of the gospel — different in some respects but in agreement by their mutual use of leading and calling his children unto himself.

If our knowledge of the law and the gospel is superficial and indistinct, we will be in danger of mingling one with the other, potentially misunderstanding both legalism and libertarianism, both antithetical to God’s love. Luther, in his commentary on the epistle to the Galatians noted, such an indistinct understanding “doth more mischief than man’s reason can conceive”.

If we blend the law with the gospel, mixing our good works with our faith to earn unmerited salvation, we may miss the fact that we are redeemed from the condemnation of the law, which we are now freed to respect, especially in the understanding of justification.

In the adherence to a lifestyle hoping for sanctification, we must allow the Spirit to work his good pleasure within us, rejoicing in and not obscuring Christ’s glory of redeeming grace, and obtain the joy and peace of his deliverance to the freedom from fear and penalty of the law to the reverence of his moral ethics found in the same law. If you can praise God when you read the Decalogue in Exodus chapter 20 or rejoice when you read Psalm chapter 119, you will understand this peace.

The self-accusatory carnal mind may blind one to the inestimable value of believing in Christ’s substitutionary death in our stead. Without the righteousness of Christ understood as imputed to us by faith, we wear the blindfold of legalism, which retards our progress in the peace and joy of aiming forward to the responsible reformation of trusting his working holiness within, from which good works follow as led by him (Proverbs 3:6; Matthew 6:33).

Conversely, if we can distinguish clearly between the covenant of law and the new covenant of the gospel and yet comprehend both being of grace, we will then come under the illuminating influences of the great light of the Holy Spirit urging us to obey our glorious Lord in all things, even as obedience pertains to His commandments which reveals our sin and our constant need of our Sovereign Lord Christ.

The understanding that the moral law of God is necessary to discern the glory of the whole progressive covenantal scheme of redemptive grace, reconciling all passages of law and grace in scripture which to some may appear contrary to each other – the gospel calming our consciences inspiring us to advance in sanctification toward holiness, which is the opposite of transgression of law (1 John 3:4; Romans 5:20).

As stated in the Decalogue, the law is summarized in the two primary royal laws to love God and our neighbour (Exodus 26:33; Matthew 22:40) — shared by Moses and later in the gospel restated by Jesus. It helps to view Christ properly as our creator (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16), the lawgiver at Sinai, and future judge and articulator of law (1 Corinthians 10:3; Romans 14:10).

In the Trinitarian form of His son Jesus, our Saviour-Redeemer, Yahweh, saved Israel from Egypt and further us from the world (. He advocates the same divine law yet expands the more formally articulated moral laws of the Ten Commandments, understood by those led by the Spirit in mutual synchronicity with the gospel when we are freed from the law’s penalty when we submit to Christ as Lord. The scripture attests that our salvation preceded human life on earth: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1: 3-6 ESV)

The moral law signifies God’s declared will, directing and obliging humanity to do what pleases Him and to abstain from what displeases Him.

The harmony of the law and the gospel indicates their mutual subservience to one another for securing and advancing the honour of each other, in subordination to the glory of the triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as displayed in the person and work of Christ, our Redeemer.

The law was initially presented as a covenant of works, but now, without the rituals of sacrifice finalized in Christ, is an ethical rule of life, which demands of sinners only that which is offered and promised in the gospel within which everything is freely promised and offered to them, which the moral law, in any of its forms, requires.

The gospel presents to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ, who met every demand of the law in its old covenant form, amending it to the status of the new covenant by grace with his blood (Hebrews 8:22; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25; Romans 3:25; Galatians 2:16). Jesus magnified the law via the gospel making the law honourable, holy, just, and good (Romans 7:12), while it offers and promises the infinite fullness of Christ, by whom Christians may be regenerated and sanctified by faith, enabled to yield obedience to the law as a rule of life as we progress in our relation to Christ in ongoing sanctification, being conformed to his image (Romans 8:29).

The gospel reveals and offers Christ’s righteousness to satisfy the law as a covenant; moreover, it promises and offers strength to obey the law as a rule. Via the Holy Spirit, written in all the divine promises of scripture, the gospel supplies the grace and strength necessary for the acceptable performance of every obedience that the law as a rule of life requires of believers (1 Peter 1:4).

Christ, as our sinless substitute, redeems a man or woman from the due penalty of disobeying God’s law, meeting the requirement of death in our stead, thereby presenting the good news of redemption, the assurance of our peace so that we may accept his substitute righteousness on our behalf (2 Corinthians 5:21; Romans 3:25).

The righteousness which the law as a covenant demands, the gospel affords, being imputed to believers (Philippians 3:9), as the only merits for the offence, being death; offering a continuum in holiness of heart and life, which the law as a rule requires, which the gospel promises and having accepted Christ is obtained (Romans 8:4). Thus, it is clear that the law and the gospel agree together as they mutually serve each other even now as sinners come to realize their need of a Saviour.

How does the law, as a covenant of works agree with the gospel? We cannot cordially believe the gospel without apprehending the need for obedience to the law (Romans 3:23-24). Nor can we yield obedience to the law unless we, by believing the gospel, are equipped by the Holy Spirit and scripture to fathom obedience to the law as a progressive state in the gospel (Romans 8:4). Although entirely distinct from each other, law and grace have no separate agenda, no interfering partisan interest to serve (Romans 3:31).

The principles of the law and the promises of the gospel harmoniously reflect the highest honour in each covenantal period (Galatians 3:21).

The law requires from the sinner perfect human righteousness, which the gospel affords to it— a righteousness which is perfect because it is divine (Romans 10:4; 2 Peter 1;1; Galatians 2:21; Philippians 1:1; Romans 5:21; Romans 3:22; Philippians 3:9; Romans 8:10; 1 Corinthians 1:30).

The grace revealed and offered in the gospel supplies a powerful motive and new disposition to “remember and turn to the Lord.” While the law commands penitential sorrow, the gospel’s grace promised by the Spirit inspires heartfelt sorrow and repentance (John 16:8- 9).

The law directs our mind to acquire all the grace offered in the gospel, while the gospel offers the precious blood of Christ all the requirements of the law (Romans 8:4). The law requires perfect and perpetual obedience as the condition of eternal life; whereas the gospel admits and asserts the necessity of such obedience by affording it to the believing sinner via the great and precious promises engaged by the Spirit in obedience (1 Peter 1:16; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 Corinthians 10:13). The condemnation of the law with its terrors of judgment, under the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit, serve, to show a convinced sinner his extreme need of the salvation which is presented to him in the gospel.

The law condemns all who reject the gospel, and the gospel, on the other, is antithetical to all who finally transgress the law (1 John 3:4). The terrors of the law frighten and impel convinced sinners to accept the offer of the atonement of Jesus Christ; with the redeeming love manifested in the gospel.

With its commanding and condemning power, the law is in harmony with the gospel as the law leads the sinner indirectly to Christ. The law is our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ so that we might be taught our absolute need of him; the gospel presents Christ as the end of the old covenant of works whereby man sought to keep the law, offering us accountability for an imputed righteousness, never achievable before Christ’s redemption (Galatians 2:21; Hebrews 7:19; Romans 10:4).

The law magnifies the grace of the gospel by showing the sinner his need for justification and salvation by that grace, and the grace of the gospel establishes and magnifies the law. While the precepts and penalties of the law serve as a guard to the gospel, the doctrines, promises, and offers of the gospel serve to support the authority and honourable respect of the law (Romans 8:4).

The threatening of the law and the mercy revealed in the promises of the gospel meet and are bound together in Him. The righteousness manifested in the law and the peace proclaimed in the gospel, offering the righteousness of Christ, do in him embrace each other. “Mercy and judgment kiss each other” (Psalm 85:10).

While the law is an infallible witness, sinners acknowledge that they indeed have no righteousness of their own, under which the offers and calls of the gospel are addressed to them (John 14:6; 6:37). The gospel exhibits in the wonderful person and work of Christ, the highest proofs of the infinite authority, and perpetual stability of the law whose demands Christ met on the cross. (John 19:30).

The righteousness of Christ offered believers the fulfilment of the law: the glory of the gospel on behalf of sinners, offering a proprietary surety of righteousness commanded in the law (1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10; Romans 3:25; Romans 8:4).

We are invited in the gospel to accept the gift of it and to present it by the hand of faith to be freed from the curse of the law, which is eternal death. In answer to its high demand, Christ’s infinite satisfaction for sin and His perfect obedience as the condition of eternal life is now presented to the Father as our righteousness, which he imputes (or covers us with). Thus, the law as it is the covenant of works is fulfilled in Christ in harmony with the gospel. Christ’s atonement on our behalf is advocated on our behalf before the Father. Christ, as our High Priest in heaven before God, ministers on our behalf (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17; Hebrews 6:19; 7:25).

When the law as a covenant presses a man forward or shuts him up to the faith of the gospel, the gospel urges and draws him back to the law as a rule. The law is his schoolmaster to teach him his need for the gospel’s grace; this grace will have his heart and his life regulated by no rule but the law (Romans 7:7-13; 1 John 2:1).

If the law commands believers, the grace of the gospel gently teaches them to love and to practice universal holiness. What the law, as a rule of life, binds us to perform, the grace of the gospel constrains and enables us to do via the Spirit in obedience (1 Peter 1:3- 5).

The commands of the law reprove believers for going wrong (Hebrews 12:10), and the promises of the gospel, so far as they are embraced, secure their walking in the right way (Ephesians 4:13, 24). The former shows them the extreme folly of backsliding; the latter is the means of healing their backslidings and restoring their souls.

The gospel or word of Christ, dwells only in those who have the law of Christ, put into their minds, and written in their hearts (1 Corinthians 3:16; Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 3:16,19; Psalm 51:10). The law cannot be inscribed on the heart, without the gospel, nor the gospel, without the law. Just as they are found together in the same Divine revelation, they dwell together harmoniously in the same believing soul. So great is the harmony between them that they can reside nowhere separate from each other.

While the precepts of the law show the redeemed how very grateful and thankful they should be for redeeming grace, the grace of Christ in the gospel produces praise with adoring gratitude. The law enjoins and encourages believers to receive daily by faith more and more of the grace of the gospel, qualifying them for more spiritual and lively obedience to its principles. The gospel supplies them with every motive preparative to seek this assistance, encouragement unto obedience.

The law reveals the believer’s duty, while the gospel is the focus of duty. It is by the almighty influence of the gospel, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, that the law is inscribed on the hearts of believers, and it is in consequence of having the law written on their hearts that they desire and trust in Christ for the blessings promised in the gospel.

The law enjoins the habit and exercise of faith; the gospel presents Christ, the glorious object of faith.

The law requires believers to love God with all their hearts, but it is the gospel only that presents God in such a view as to become an object of love to a sinner, namely, as the Father is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.

The law enjoins mourning for sin: the gospel presents Christ as wounded for our transgressions, who, when believers view with the eye of faith, mourn for him as for an only son and are in bitterness for him as for a firstborn.

The law commands them to worship Yahweh – the Father- as their God; the gospel discloses to them both the object and the way of acceptable worship of Him through Christ.

The law is a transcript of all God’s moral perfections representative of His character, and so likewise is the gospel and the representative man, Jesus Christ, the express image of the Father. The law is the image of Yahweh’s holiness, justice, and mercy, as revealed by Christ in the gospel, and, as such, is “holy, just, and good.”

All who are renewed after Christ’s image, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, do evidence this renovation of heart by delighting in his law and by loving and admiring his gospel; by rejoicing greatly in the imputed righteousness, which, the demands of his law as a covenant are all answered, and in salvation by sovereign grace, in which, the promises of his gospel, are all performed.

If a man has attained a saving and experimental knowledge of the gospel, he will undoubtedly evidence it by obedience of heart and life to the law in the hand of Christ as a rule of duty. A man can never perform holy obedience to the law so long as he remains ignorant of the gospel, but when he begins spiritually to discern the truth of the doctrine of redeeming grace, he will then move to begin to perform spiritual and sincere obedience, to the law of Christ as a rule as led by the Spirit of Christ.

The legalist expects happiness for his duties, but the true believer enjoys it in them, and the less he expects for them, the more he enjoys in them. The more he believes the gospel with application and trusts cordially in the Lord Jesus for salvation, the more his “faith works by love,” and the more he appreciates communion with Christ.

Because the law and the gospel harmoniously agree, believers need to be cautious so that they do not set the two in hostile opposition to one another. The opposite is true; one believer ought not to accuse another of being an Antinomian (the displacement of the law with the gospel) simply because he expounds the grace of the gospel’s purpose to be elevated in the means of obeying the gospel via revealing the empowerment of the Holy Spirit’s application of loving God and his neighbour as a fine summary of the law, as revealed by Christ to Moses at Sinai and later to us.

Clear and just views, especially of the agreement between the law and the gospel, under the influences of the Spirit of truth, promote a holy and cheerful frame of mind. Under such a view, you will be able to guard against setting the law in opposition to the gospel.

^{1 Colquhoun, John. A Treatise on the Law and Gospel,1890.}

Updated Theological Paper: Christ: High Priest of a New Covenant

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. (Hebrews 4:14 NASB)

This study will bring to light the importance of understanding that the new covenant is not simply an addendum to or a continuum of, the old covenant. We will look at the priesthood of Christ to help us determine the differences, as Yahweh was moving Israel out of a works-based law-keeping, view of life. The previous covenant was strongly bent towards the personal disciplined use of willpower alone. God used the old covenant system, with its sacrificial typology, led by the Mosaic written law, outwardly policed by the managing Levites, as a teaching tool to constrain his people as time progressed towards the first advent of the Messiah. My aim is to help nurture the paradigm shift based on scripture. There are many Christians who do not understand the huge shift in the covenantal progression that occurred at the cross when the law was written on the hearts of believers in Jesus Christ, encouraging Spirit-led motivation unto obedience now based on love for Him; concomitant to having love for others in His church.

Without an awareness of the distinctions of the two uniquely different covenants, many of the important doctrines of the church can be terribly misunderstood, namely: Christ’s Ascension, Christ’s Atonement, Responsible Sanctification, The Call of the Elect, and the Leading of the Teaching Spirit.

The Importance of the Truth of Christ’s High Priesthood

Our enemy, Satan attacks especially the doctrine of the High Priestly ministry of Christ because it is central to Christ’s atoning work on the cross to save mankind by faith, warping it into man-made myths. The Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, emphasized the importance of adhering to Biblical Truth, doctrines in accord with scripture alone:

We need to bind the girdle of truth more and more tightly around our loins. It is a golden girdle, and so will be our richest ornament, and we greatly need it, for a heart that is not well braced up with the truth as it is in Jesus, and with the fidelity which is wrought of the Spirit, will be easily entangled with the things of this life, and tripped up by the snares of temptation. It is in vain that we possess the Scriptures unless we bind them around us like a girdle, surrounding our entire nature, keeping each part of our character in order, and giving compactness to our whole man. If in heaven Jesus unbinds not the girdle, much less may we upon the earth. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth. (also see Ephesians 6:14, Isaiah 11:5, Revelation 1:13-14)

The Holy Spirit of Christ must give us Spiritual Eyesight to See

Hebrews 8:1–13 defines Christ’s High Priesthood on an entirely different spiritual plane, a new dimension never understood before the Messiah came to Israel. This occurred in the context of a wholly new, altogether different covenant: “in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13; 10:1).

As we study this with regard to Christ’s sacrifice which opened up a new and living way, we must seek to allow the Spirit to free our perception if it is bound to mirror the old covenant antitype of the initial priesthood of the earthly tabernacle in continuum right into heaven, moreover if it disallows the contradistinction of a new heavenly reality of the new covenant paradigm (Luke 22:20; Matt 26:28; 1 Corinthians 11:25).

If we place Christ as carrying on a similar old covenant priesthood in heaven, bear in mind that he could not be a priest according to the old law’s metaphorical methodology as Jesus was not of the Levitical tribe. The divine strategy to move out of the old covenant symbology into the realized actual spiritual sphere of the Holy Spirit working within the hearts of men and women encompassing the church on earth must operate in a non-symbolic new way.

Now, after the sacrifice on Calvary — a singular and final sacrifice once and for all, Jesus must be recognized as the giver of the Holy Spirit whom he breathed on, imparting the gift of the Spirit to the disciples before his ascension (John 20:22); and the church was blessed with the same receipt of the Holy Spirit after Jesus was glorified at the ascension when He sat down with His Father in heaven (John 7:39). Now we view Jesus as our “God, the Judge of all” and as we pray to him we are to know that, we are coming “to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant” (see Hebrews 12:23-24). And the Holy Spirit became the actualizing agent of the church of all the believers. (Galatians 3:2, 14; Acts 1:8; 2:38; 9:17; 19:2;10:47; John 14:17)

Hebrews, chapter 8, addresses the relationship between the sanctuary (or sphere of high priestly ministry) and the sacrifice. Since Christ now exercises His superior High Priesthood in the heavenly sanctuary (Hebrews 8:1–2) which the Lord set up.  His sacrifice differs from and surpasses Old Testament sacrifices which previously dealt with sin, and which priests offered routinely  in the earthly sanctuary (Hebrews 8:3–6).

Hebrews 8:1 introduces this detailed argument of Hebrews 8:1–10:18. The author’s main point is that we do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven. Psalm 110:1 and Hebrews 4:14-16 support this assertion. Psalm 110:4 assures us that our High Priest replaces the Aaronic high priest. Psalm 110:1 assures us that this superior High Priest has sat down at the right hand of the Father. The rest of Hebrews 8:1 through to Hebrews 10:18 shows the significance of His being at the right hand and the adequacy of the sacrifice which enables Him to be there.¹

These chapters demonstrate that, because of His sacrifice and heavenly position, He administers a covenant far superior to the old covenant priesthood which was entirely symbolic. Jesus was not a Levite so he could not enter history classified as one of the Aaronic priesthood who’d carry on the system established by Moses (Hebrews 8:4) installed as a system of law to lead Yahweh’s people through the use of symbols and recurring constraints, to lead them to Christ (Gal 3:24-25).

Carefully note the words, “Since then we do have” an active Lord Jesus Christ as our High Priest in the Presence of the Father in heaven, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (see Hebrews 4:14–16). The epistle describes the greatness of the High Priest that Christians have so that we understand that we are free to enter into the privileges of the kingdom. From Hebrews 8:1 running through Hebrews 10:18, we sharply focus on Christ’s sacrifice. Why dial in on Christ’s sacrifice? Because through it Christ has become the effective High Priest because His past sacrifice enables Him to help us via His advocacy with the Father today.

Hebrews 8:1–2 emphasizes the “location” or magisterial sphere and the authoritative governance that Christ’s High Priestly ministry holds. Predetermined according to Psalm 110:1, God invited Him to sit at His right hand first alluded to in Hebrews 1:3 describing God’s right hand as “the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”

The description in Hebrews 8:1 is even stronger: the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven. With these additional words, the author of Hebrews emphasizes even more strongly the significance of this place of Christ’s ministry. He underlines the sovereign authority and glory of God the Father in whose presence Christ ministers! Can there be any doubt that this is the sanctuary, and the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, absolutely not by man?

Most good English translations follow the Greek text conjoining the word sanctuary and the true tabernacle, for example, “a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent”. I particularly like the NASB’s correct use of “and” (Hebrews 8:2 NIV; Hebrews 8:2 RSV; Hebrews 8:2 NASB; Hebrews 8:2 ESV).

Where some interpreters get lost

An old school of interpreters believed the writer of Hebrews thought that heaven, where Christ entered, has two parts of which the two parts of the earthly Tabernacle are a copy. The analogical use of language proper to the earthly sanctuary might give the impression that the heavenly sanctuary itself is envisaged as a locality, but we need not suppose that our author thought of it absolutely in local terms.

 ^{1, 2}

The outer section of the earthly Tabernacle which Moses constructed was the Holy Place where the priests customarily ministered daily. A second or inner section of this Tabernacle was the Most Holy Place where in some sense God’s Presence dwelt (see Hebrews 9:1–10).

If the writer of Hebrews believed in a two-part heavenly tabernacle, then the sanctuary of this verse must designate the inner of those two parts, the heavenly most holy place where Yahweh God dwells. And if two-part, then it might be reasonable to hold the view that the true tabernacle could be the outer of those two parts — the heavenly holy place through which one must pass to enter the holiest place to be in the presence of Yahweh. Or perhaps consider that the true tabernacle could be a reference to the entire heavenly tabernacle, encompassing both holy place and most holy place. ³  Regardless of how the various schools of thought had viewed the sanctuary: When Christ sat down at the Father’s right hand He entered “heaven itself” to appear in the presence of God (Hebrews 9:24). Therefore it is only logical, that we must see the sanctuary, the true tabernacle as one single reality because Christ immediately ascended into the presence of His Father! Heaven in this view does not have two compartments.

The earthly tabernacle had two compartments indicating symbolically that access to God was not open under the old covenant (see Hebrews 9:6–10). None but the high priest could ever go beyond the first compartment. But now, Christ has opened the way for all to unify with the Father as one (John 17:20-21) through Christ (John 14:6).

The Most Holy Place in relation to The Holy Place

When we look back to the writing of Moses in (Exodus 25:10-22; 26:33–35;37:1-9) we see that only the Most Holy Place contained the ark of the testimony and the mercy seat. The Most Holy Place was separated by a veil from the Holy Place which included the altar of incense (see Exodus 30:1–10) in addition to the lampstand and table (see Exodus 25:23–40). Exodus 26:33 depicts the curtain separated access to all, except the specially qualified high priest (see Leviticus 16: 29-34;14-15), prefiguring that only Christ can open the way to the Presence of God (Hebrews 9:7–14; 10:20).

^{The Ark of the Testimony/Covenant and the Mercy Seat which is the traditional term for the gold lid on the Ark of the Covenant. Shutterstock sample.}

The Most Holy place along with the ark included the mercy seat which symbolized the redemption of Christ. Exodus 25:18–21 revealed that the high priest sprinkled the blood of a sacrificial bull onto the mercy seat as an atonement for the sins of the people of Israel. Today every Christian knows that Jesus Christ is the antitype of the High Priest typified in the old testament’s sacrifices for sin, that His death on the cross was the fulfilment of the most solemn of typified sacrifices on the annual Day of Atonement, for all Israel, extending to all the faithful believers who see this clearly in the Word or God, clearly incontestable when scripture frames this doctrine. Thus when he ascended to heaven Christ Jesus rightly went immediately into the presence of Yahweh, Father God, in the antitypical Most Holy Place as our anchor within the veil.

We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:19-20)

Jesus while praying for the unity of his disciples to be one with Him, as He was one with the Father, it was evident that this would soon occur because He stated: “I am coming to you now” (John 17:13) Jesus taught that He ascended to His Father’s presence, “to my Father”… My God…Your God”! (John 20: 17) I cannot imagine Jesus being relegated to an antechamber awaiting entrance to the presence of Yahweh God! Lenski, a theologian with a brilliant mind, excelling in the Greek language, destroys this viewpoint referencing scripture: By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing (which is symbolic for the present age). (Hebrews 9:8)

We decline to follow them. In Hebrews 9: 8 the very fact that in the earthly Tabernacle the Holy Place still has its position before the Holy of Holies is pointed out as evidence that the way into the heavenly Holy of Holies has not yet been made manifest. Are we now to believe that such an anteroom still has its position, an eternal position, in front of the Holy of Holies of heaven, and that despite this fact realized post-Calvary, that this anteroom is now not the evidence that it is in v. 8 of Hebrews 9, but rather the opposite, it is the evidence that the way into the heavenly Sanctuary has been made manifest? This anteroom logic surely cannot be the case. If there is an anteroom in heaven as there was in Moses’ Tabernacle, the two antechambers cannot have an opposite significance, to say nothing of this division of heaven apart from any significance regarding the way to the heavenly Holy of Holies. ^{3 (for cited context)}

Who goes to His Father at Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or a long-awaited home visit, and doesn’t aim directly to see him face to face in His presence? Similarly, doesn’t every “good father” long to see His son and embrace him? Even David disconnected from his rebellious son Absalom desperately asked “how is it with young Absolom” and soon wept over the decease of his son: O Absalom my son, my son! (2 Samuel 18:33) And did Yahweh-Father not work united as One with Christ, as the Father, with the Son, via His Spirit, evident in the prayer of Christ for his disciples that the same unity would be allowed for them — to abide in the presence of both the Father and Son together via the Holy Spirit as the portrayal of a church family.

There would be no point in an “outer compartment” in heaven before, at or after Christ’s Ascension after-which He is glorified with the Father for his Atonement work on  the cross. This heavenly sanctuary (Hebrews 8:2) is the place where God dwells, the reality pictured by the Most Holy Place of the earthly Tabernacle. The earthly Tabernacle was only a copy which is why the writer never calls it the true tabernacle. Any antechamber concept destroys the beauty of the anti-type realized now, as it was known doctrinally in Paul’s day and confirmed by the apostles reasoning, especially in the High Priestly prayer of Christ in John 17.

Again, the heavenly sanctuary is the place where God indeed dwells. Its reality clarifies the fact that it was set up by the Lord himself without the agency of man. It is, indeed, equivalent to the God-established permanent city (see Hebrews 11:9–10) or heavenly homeland (Hebrews 11:13–16; 12:22–24). There, God’s people finally find an eternal “rest” in His presence (Hebrews 4:1–11). Christ’s sacrifice belongs to a different dimension, to the realm of the eternal not the temporal. ⁴

Hebrews 8:3–5 begins to establish the fact of Christ’s High Priestly ministry in this heavenly sanctuary, especially defining His sacrifice.
If a person is a high priest at all, he has been appointed by God to offer both gifts and sacrifices. The phrase gifts and sacrifices is a comprehensive term that includes the various kinds of Old Testament sacrifices. Offering sacrifice describes, by definition, what it means to be a high priest (see Hebrews 5:1). Christ ministers in the heavenly sanctuary or sphere. If He is a High Priest, and He is, then it is logically necessary for Him, too, to offer something (Hebrews 8:3; 9:12–15; 10:5–10).

The writer of Hebrews clarified that this “something” Christ offers is not the same kind of sacrifice that the Aaronic priests offered! This truth is implied by Hebrews 8:4: If he were on earth, instead of in heaven, he would not be a priest of the Aaronic order at all, much less a high priest, for there are already those who offer the gifts prescribed by the Mosaic law. Christ’s kind of High Priesthood has a sacrifice, but it is a very different kind of sacrifice from that of the Aaronic high priest in the earthly sanctuary.

The necessary difference between their sacrifice and His becomes clearer when we look at the place where the earthly priests serve and its relationship to the heavenly sanctuary of Christ’s service. (Hebrews 8:5) teaches: They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. The New International Version has added the word sanctuary for clarity, but the Greek text is more accurately rendered by the New American Standard Bible: “who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” ⁵

Note carefully this distinction: The writer did not even call their location a “sanctuary” at all but only a “copy and shadow.” The scriptures do not imply that every piece of furniture and every detail of the earthly Tabernacle was a copy of something in heaven. He is not affirming exact correspondence between the two, but the inferiority of the earthly. The earthly Tabernacle Moses established mirrored the true approach to God in heaven but only in a shadowy way. It was only a symbolic copy.

We must be hearers of the gospel, to have eyes to see that Christ’s sacrifice must be something of a vastly different quality than the sacrifices appropriate for this “copy and shadow.” ⁶

We are called to the sanctity of our conscience

In the earthly sanctuary, sacrifices were indeed offered, but their efficacy was sadly restricted; they could not bring “perfection” to the worshiper because they did not affect his conscience. Now we see what our author wishes to teach his readers. The really effective barrier to a man or woman’s free access to God is an inward and not a material one; it exists in the conscience. It is only when the conscience is purified by Christ’s love and offering of His life for us that one is set free to approach God without reservation and offer him acceptable service and worship (Hebrews 10:19–25). We transit from the useless sacrificial blood of bulls and goats — useless in this regard. Animal sacrifice and other material ordinances which accompanied it could affect at best a ceremonial and symbolical removal of pollution. ⁷

For our author, as for Paul, these things were but “a shadow of the things to come” (Colossians 2:17). As regards the “various ablutions,” not only had the high priest to “bathe his body in water” after performing the ritual of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:24), similar purifications were prescribed for a great variety of actual or ceremonial defilements. Now, however, we are created anew within our hearts to serve the living God in holiness and righteousness, this righteousness imputed to us when we confess our sins, and accept Jesus as Lord (1 John 1:9; Ephesians 4:24; Romans 4:8,24; 2 Corinthians 5:21) We now have confidence that we have salvation, motivating us to come to the Lord (1 John 5:14; Ephesians 3:12; Hebrews 10:19). The good news of Christ activates our consciences (Acts 2:37, 23:1, 24:16; Rom 9:1, 14:22). Our conscience is led by the Spirit (Rom 8: 14) and the understanding of what His atoning blood has done on our behalf gives us the confidence to live for Christ with a clear, purified conscience as testified to us via the Holy Spirit (Gal 4:6; Hebrews 9:14; 10:9-10, 22; 13:18; 2 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Tim 1:9, 3:9; 1 Peter 3:16, 21; 2 Pet 2:19; 1 John 3:21). This is our ministry to live in a clear conscience before the world (2 Corinthians 4:2, 5:11).

In 2 Corinthians 5:21, we learn about Christ’s propitiation on our behalf, and imputation of righteousness, when we are accounted as righteous because God the Father looks to Christ who covers us with His atoning work, having died in our stead:

“He [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Here we have a double imputation. God imputed our sins to Christ who knew no sin. And God imputed his righteousness to us who had no righteousness of our own. The key phrases for us are “the righteousness of God” and “in Him.” It’s not our righteousness that we get here. It is God’s righteousness. And we get it not because our faith is righteous, but because we are “in Christ.” Faith unites us to Christ. And in Christ, we have an alien righteousness. It is God’s righteousness in Christ. Or you can say it is Christ’s righteousness. He takes our sin. We take his righteousness. ⁸

We must see that the Old Covenant as symbols for the times past

These purifications undoubtedly had great hygienic value, but when they were given religious value there was always the danger that those who practised them might be tempted to think of religious duty exclusively, or at least excessively, regarding externalities. But all these things were “outward ordinances” (NEB), “regulations for the body” (RSV), not for the conscience, with a temporary and limited validity until the “time of reformation.” By the rendering “reformation” we might understand “reformation” in the sense of “reconstruction”; the coming of Christ involved a complete reshaping of the structure of Israel’s religion. The old covenant was now to give way to the new, the shadow to the substance, the outward and earthly copy to the inward and heavenly reality. ⁹

The New Covenant Reality: the Living Way in Christ, our High Priest

“Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” (Hebrews 10:19-22 NASB). Dr. Keil of the renowned Hebrew Commentary Keil–Delitzsch sees the new Holy of Holies of Daniel 9 in the new covenant period after the ascension, to mean the Most Holy Place as the church where Christ is ministering to sanctify His people and make them holy by the indwelling Holy Spirit empowering them to have a clear conscience — to have “hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience”. :

We must refer this sixth statement (to anoint the Most Holy) also to that time of the consummation, and understand it of the establishment of the new Holy of Holies which was shown to the holy seer on Patmos as “the tabernacle of God with men,” in which God will dwell with them, and they shall become His people, and He shall be their God with them (Rev 21:1-3). In this holy city, there is its temple, and the glory of God will lighten it (Rev 21: 22-23). Into it nothing shall enter that defileth or worketh abomination (Rev 21:27), for sin shall then be closed and sealed up; there shall righteousness dwell (2 Pet. 3:13). ¹⁰

Our High Priest and our Royal Priesthood

By cooperating responsibly, motivated by grace (2 Peter 3:31), with the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work in the church which begins when we first believe (John 15:3; 1 Corinthians 1:2, 30, 6:11; 1 John 3:3), we are purified from the sins of the world by the indwelling Spirit (John 17:19; Ephesians 5:26; 2 Corinthians 7:1; 2 Timothy 2:19; James 4:8; 1 Peter 1:15). Our unity with Christ our High Priest, working within our hearts both individually, and collectively together in the church will be our hope until the Lord returns in glory (John 15:5; 1 Thessalonians 5:23).

As Paul noted, our sanctification will be the work of a lifetime of obedience, as we currently engage in spiritual warfare in our life now and progressively onward in our life- journey, as the Lord leads via His Spirit until we meet Him face to face. (1 John 3: 1-3; Philippians 3:13-15). In this way we also as a church can effectively minister to others the sanctifying Word of our Lord in the new covenant order of Melchizedek ¹¹ (Hebrews 5:9-19, 6:19-20; 1 Peter 2:9).

Corroborating study 1: Melchizedek: Divine Priest of Abraham

Corroborating study 2: The Old and New Covenant Distinctions 

¹ _{F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (New International Commentary on the New Testament)}

² _{Christ’ High Priesthood at His ascension noted in Hebrews 9:11, arks the symbolism of the curtain which was rent in two upon Christ’s decease (Matt 27.51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45), the curtain symbolizing being his rent body, a way confirmed by the Spirit (Rom 7:6; Hebrews 10:20)!}

³ _{Lenski, R. C. H. (1938). The interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the Epistle of James (pp. 290–291). Columbus, OH: Lutheran Book Concern, notes: They suppose that Christ went into the Holy of Holies in heaven (εἰς τὰ ἅγια, v. 12) by first going through something that corresponds to the Holy of the earthly Tabernacle of Moses. This anteroom they find in “the greater and more complete σκηνή or Tabernacle, not handmade, that is, not of this creation.”}

_{But what can this anteroom be? The idea that it is the body or the human nature of Christ is now commonly rejected and certainly has no support in 10:20. Since this σκηνή is “not of this creation” as the writer himself says, the created heavens cannot be referred to as they are referred to in 4:14: “having passed through the (created) heavens” in his ascension. So these commentators think that heaven itself, the uncreated place where God dwells, is divided into two parts that correspond to the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle of the wilderness. They think that the writer is exalting this heavenly anteroom “through” which Jesus passed in order to reach the heavenly Holy of Holies that was above the anteroom of Moses’ Tabernacle.}

_{We decline to follow them. In Hebrews 9: 8 the very fact that in the earthly Tabernacle the Holy Place still has its position before the Holy of Holies is pointed out as evidence that the way into the heavenly Holy of Holies has not yet been made manifest. Are we now to believe that such an anteroom still has its position, an eternal position, in front of the Holy of Holies of heaven, and that despite this fact this anteroom is now not the evidence that it is in v. 8 but rather the opposite, evidence that the way into the heavenly Sanctuary has been made manifest? This surely cannot be the case. If there is an anteroom in heaven as there is in Moses’ Tabernacle, the two antechambers cannot have an opposite significance, to say nothing of this division of heaven apart from any significance regarding the way to the heavenly Holy of Holies.}

⁴ _{Cockerill, G. L. (1998). Hebrews: a Bible commentary in the Wesleyan tradition (p. 167). Indianapolis, IN Wesleyan Publishing House.}

⁵ _Ibid

⁶ _Ibid

⁷ _{F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (New International Commentary on the New Testament)}

⁸ _{John Piper, Desiring God}

⁹ _{F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (New International Commentary on the New Testament}

¹⁰ _{Commentaries on the Book of Daniel, Vol II, trans. by Thomas Myers (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1948 [reprint]), p 349}

¹¹ _{The order of Melchizedek was symbolic of the new covenant order that Jesus would institute. The mystery of the gospel relates so well to the life of Abraham, a man of faith who trusted God’s Word to lead him (and view Melchizedek as a High Priest who entered into his life in his time of duress).}