READINGS ON HEBREWS (8)
READINGS ON HEBREWS (8)
BTF Would you say the chapter had in view the remarkable change that had taken place?
JT Change of priesthood, do you mean?
BTF I mean the change of the whole system and the new being introduced.
AFM So that the idea of a summary is very important to notice.
JT Christians generally do not know what we have; the “we” includes all Christians. What we have as indicated here would deliver us from human organisations and church dignitaries. The greatest dignitary is eclipsed by the High Priest we have. He is not presented here from God’s side, but from ours. In the earlier chapters we get what helps a Christian in the detail of his experience, but this summary is that all might know what we Christians have; it says, “We have such a one High Priest who has sat down on the right hand of the throne of the greatness in the heavens; Minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched, and not man”. We have Him, and He has sat down in heaven in relation to all this. And it says, “Minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched”.
ARS I notice our High Priest has sat down. In the Jewish order the priest had to stand up.
JT Denoting an unfinished service; there was always something ahead.
AFM This would include the dignity of His Person. He has sat Himself down — no place is too high or too great for Him.
ANW We have here almost the identical words [p. 116] found in the opening of the epistle, but not so much in relation to us there, but in relation to God.
JT Yes, the position in chapter 1 is viewed from God’s side. What believers need to know is what they have.
AFM His service in this priestly character is not exercised from the standpoint of God’s throne, but as before God.
JT His service as Priest is towards God. His position on God’s throne implies authority.
CAM He is “Minister of the holy places”.
JT What was foreshadowed in Aaron. One on whose shoulders rests the great burden of the service of God in the holy places. Today many dignitaries are recognised, but their service is not in relation to holy places.
HG Are the holy places and tabernacle all one?
ANW Why holy places? Does the expression include the holiest?
JT Yes. The holiest and holy place. Christianity is connected with the holiest.
AFM Do you think the holy places and true tabernacle would include the court?
JT He is Minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle; the court is included; His service extends outward.
ANW You do not mean to include the court in the holy places?
JT No. I think the allusion would be to the tabernacle proper. We know from chapter 9 that “Christ is not entered into holy places made with hand ... but into heaven itself”, Hebrews 9:24 What is your thought about the true tabernacle?
JT It is that which the Lord has pitched — it would refer to the things unfolded by Christ. Leviticus 8 links up the tabernacle typically in relation to Christ personally. It is a question of things [p. 117] unfolded, and includes all that the Lord Jesus spoke here. He unfolded the mind of God; it is all those things put together. They took a different form after He went on high in that they were put together in the saints; but the tabernacle represented the things spoken. He spoke the mind of God, and was anointed in relation to that.
CAM It is tabernacle conditions in Hebrews, not temple ones?
JT It is the wilderness position. I think the tabernacle “which the Lord pitched” refers to what the Lord unfolded in His ministry. He was anointed by the Spirit in relation to that. Compare Leviticus 8: 1 - 12. Peter said, “Let us make three tabernacles” (Luke 9:33); but the voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, hear him”, Luke 9:35. He was the tabernacle.
AFM He was the expression of all He spoke.
JT Exactly, He was all that He spoke.
AFM So that the tabernacle of old was a pattern of the Man, the Lord Jesus Himself.
JT Every feature in the tabernacle might be traced in the Lord personally; but Hebrews contemplated Him in heaven and things set up here; therefore, it refers to Christianity as it was set up at Pentecost. Christ is Minister of that.
HG “The Word became flesh and dwelt [tabernacled] among us”, John 1:14.
JT Yes, “Word” there would denote what He was the expression of.
HG Coming out from God Himself He is the expression of God and His will.
JT Moses is “the man of God”. He says, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations”, Psalm 90:1. The next Psalm opens with: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”, Psalm 91:1. Moses got the pattern of the tabernacle and set it up, but he does not say in that prayer that the tabernacle was our dwelling place, but “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations”, Psalm 90:1. So “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”, Psalm 91:1. I suppose the secret place would apply to the holiest, where the wings of the cherubim would extend. The dwelling in the secret place came out perfectly in the Lord. In fact, Psalm 91 refers to Him — “because he hath set his love upon me”, (Psalm 91:14) God says in verse 14, “therefore will I deliver him”, Psalm 91:14. Hence the declaration of God, “the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”, John 1: 18. That is, the declaration brings out the thoughts of God, and He through whom they were brought out, dwelt in the bosom, fully answering to Moses’ reference. Jehovah was His dwelling in all generations.
JS The heart that knows God would find a dwelling place there.
JT This dwelling in the secret place brings in the thought of God being the abode. In John we have the same idea. Jesus said: “What seek ye?” (John 1:38); they say, “Where abidest thou?” (John 1:38); nothing is said about the temple or tabernacle; He says, “Come and see ... and they abode with him that day”, John 1:39.
HG Exodus chapters 25 - 27 present typically the coming out of God; chapters 28 and 29 bring in the priests, their garments and consecration for service to God; all finding its fulfilment in the Lord, and in the saints.
JT Just so; all was the result of the knowledge that Moses had of God. He was on the mount with God when those communications were made. We know of his experience before that at Horeb, he turned aside to see the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed, for God was there, and he inquired as to God’s name, and He said “I AM”. What He had been to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
[p. 119] This ever present God, known to those who love Him; and Moses, I think, referred to that in saying “thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations”, Psalm 90:1.
AFM At the end of that Psalm reference is made to the “work of our hands” (Psalm 90:17); Moses says, “establish thou it”, Psalm 90:17. Do you think it has any reference to the tabernacle structure?
JT I think so. The abode of the Lord had been there; but it could not be on the ground of man, as he was — mortal man. It is on the ground of God’s work in His people: “Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it”, Psalm 90:16,17. Think of all that would underlie the truth of these verses!
BTF You connect the dwelling place of God with the assembly?
JT It is connected, but it is the work of the Lord — “Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children”, Psalm 90:16. It is what God is to the saints, and what He does in them.
HG John helps as to the dwelling, he says, “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him”, 1 John 4:16.
JT Yes, it all works out as based upon the knowledge of God revealed, the knowledge we have of Him. God being declared in Christ, we have the true tabernacle.
JS It is wonderful that it is brought in now, before the eternal day.
AFM The new covenant is very suggestive as coming in here: “all shall know me in themselves”.
JT Yes, it underlies the truth of the pitching of the tabernacle; as in Exodus the covenant is made before the tabernacle was constructed.
HG It shows the necessity of the covenant in order to be in accord with Christ in view of approach.
WB-[p. 120] w Do the holy places refer to what is private, and the true tabernacle to what is public?
JT The holy places are heaven itself; the tabernacle would refer to what is here on earth. The Mosaic structure helps, but that is not the point here. What we need is to see the great change which Christianity brings in.
JS To transfer the mind from the earthly to the heavenly.
JT And also to free us from material things in order to get an apprehension of the dwelling; “No one has seen God at any time”, 1 John 4:12 It is not what you have seen with your eyes, but what is spiritual.
WB-w How does this ministration go on at the present time?
JT The Lord is over it, as Aaron was over all in the Mosaic system; the Lord, although in heaven, is over all here. The saints on earth are all known to Him, and in the measure in which they are walking in or governed by the light of the tabernacle they come into direct benefit of the Lord’s ministry.
AFM Does it not also revert to God? Ministry as well as being valuable for believers, brings about results for God.
JT You might introduce the first book of Chronicles here if you wish to enlarge on the great subject touched on. The writer herein Hebrews 9 is touching on things and cannot go into them in detail. The service of God is introduced and enlarged on in 1 Chronicles. Moses’ ministry is recognised, but David introduces a new order of service. The king is priest; he is clothed with a linen ephod. David recognised what was due to God, not because of commandment, but because of his spiritual stature and intelligence; he was properly a head. I think the apostle Paul is aiming at the very thing in 1 Corinthians. All the features of the service of God are touched on in chapters 10 to 15,
[p. 121] and even including chapter 16, which suggests the sentiments which should govern the hearts of the singers. No one sings better than when he is touched by sentiment. In chapter 15 the strings of the instrument are tightened by the truth of resurrection. Chapter 16 is what you do at home on the first day of the week you “put by” as prospered; so that there is a sentiment attached to that day. Think of all that Christ is to the assembly on that particular day! So that, like Habakkuk, we walk on our high places and we have our stringed instruments; which I think is chapter 15 of that epistle.
AFM Will you connect the chapters to show how this is obtained?
JT Chapter 10 separates from the world; it treats of consistency, which is a great thing in an instrument. Chapter 11 brings in the love of Christ, and love for Him as the Ark, and the ritual which governs the saints — what is comely amongst us. Chapter 12 is unity. Chapter 13 you might say is very testing and practical, it is what should actuate us all — love. In chapter 14 the sounds are harmonious.
BTF Could you speak of sentimentality in a spiritual way?
HG There is a difference between sentiment and sentimentality.
JT Chapter 15 tightens the strings, so to say, and would save us from sentimentality. In the systems of men there is a large preparation made of the vehicle; but the different vehicles or modes of so-called worship are spurious in that way; there is so much human sentiment in the hymns and forms of prayer; and I think 1 Corinthians 15 would be a corrective of that. You are brought into new thoughts. Poetry, or hymns written in the spirit of that chapter, would be free from natural sentimentality, and would belong to high places to be sung with the stringed instruments. “I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing also with the understanding”,(1 Corinthians 14:15) is the language of chapter 14; that is, what you sing is intelligent, it is in keeping with the “high places”.
CAM Good manners come in chapter 15; things are regulated.
JT In reading Mr. Darby’s hymns you are struck that you are outside the range of natural sentimentality; there is that which appeals to you spiritually in every word and line.
ANW “Where, O death, is thy sting? Where, O death, thy victory?” That is sentiment of the right kind.
JT That is a noteworthy verse in that chapter, illustrating what we were saying. All these things are present with us on the first day of the week. Chapter 15 is an unfolding of the great truth of resurrection, and it is only as on resurrection ground that you can join in with Paul and say: “Where, O death, is thy sting? Where, O grave, thy victory?” You are moved in your affections; it is a very real thing to be able to say that. Now we have the Minister of the sanctuary, the covenant next. The writer has to come back to the saints. He touches high things, as the High Priest sat down on the right hand of the throne of the greatness in the heavens; but he has to come back to the saints — what we are, and the need of the covenant. I think he touches the kernel here which leads up to chapter 10, where he again touches on the new covenant, and then passes on to the holy places. In this chapter Christ is Minister of them; in chapter 10 we learn the way into them.
DMR In speaking of the Lord as Minister of the sanctuary, it would be His service Godward; like Aaron’s God said, “that he may serve me as priest”, Exodus 28:1.
JT It is, but this is more His general service, I think. How is He going to get the sons in? It is by [p. 123] the ministry of the covenant. The new covenant is the great burden from this chapter to chapter 10.
Ques Is the Lord sitting or standing now?
JT He has sat Himself down, in the right of His Person; but John 20 helps us as to what is going on now, the Lord is seen standing; “Jesus came and stood in the midst”, John 20:19.
CAM Mark shows Him sitting and working.
JT It is the same thing in principle. Having finished His work, He sat; but as regards His position among the saints, He is active.
WLP Is that why Stephen sees Him standing?
JT That has a Jewish reference, and is a striking testimony to the Lord’s love to His murderers; He was ready to return to them upon their repentance. This is His present service. Our great High Priest has perfect right to sit down, and we know He comes to us.
HG The new covenant is brought in that there might be no disparity on our side; what Christ as Man enjoys in the presence of God, He would have us share.
JT He is Minister of the holy places. Chapter 10 shows we have access there, the word is “Let us approach”, Hebrews 10:22. The great thing is to get the saints in accord with that, so that chapter 10 is introduced to set us at liberty.
AFM What does He offer? “Every high priest is constituted for the offering both of gifts and sacrifices; whence it is needful that this One also should have something which he may offer”.
JT I suppose it is the offering of Himself. There is a sense in which the saints are brought in, and possibly the ministry of the new covenant effects that. He brings the saints in as well.
WB-w Is the Minister at the present moment preparing the saints for service?
JT The first great thing is the covenant: “Now [p. 124] he has got a more excellent ministry, by so much as he is mediator of a better covenant, which is established on the footing of better promises”. Having the covenant, He would make it effective; He has laid the foundation, for He established it in dying, but His great service now is to make it effective this is the more excellent ministry.
AFM In offering Himself He lays the basis, and now as risen He is the Mediator to make it effectual.
JT Yes, so we should look for effective ministry amongst us, so that we should not be worldly Christians; the system is heavenly and He would have us to take part in it.
DMR The children of Israel were not to make any covenant with the nations around; Deuteronomy 7:1,2.
ARS Where the Lord is in the midst of the assembly there will be the singing of praises to God.
JT That, I suppose, is the highest point reached in His people.
HG Man is recovered to God in mind and heart. The whole man is morally intelligent in affection: “Giving my laws into their mind, I will write them also upon their hearts”. In chapter 8 the mind comes first, in chapter 10 the heart comes first. It is an important thing that we should be intelligent in love.
JT When the laws are in the mind the saints know what to do.
AFM What about the heart?
HG When the mind governs us it is not a question of sentimentality, but of doing things intelligently.
ANW I suppose the heart would suggest something more responsive than the mind. He gives the law into their minds, but writes it in their hearts.
JT The love of God could never become effective in the soul of man without the service of the Mediator;
[p. 125] there must be the writing through ministry, which is based on mercy; hence the word; “their sins and their lawlessnesses I will never remember any more”.
WLP How do we come into the true knowledge of God?
JT The Lord gives you true knowledge of God. He has revealed Him; but then there is not only revelation, but teaching, and hence the great importance of not only looking at things in their grand total features, but the teaching of them in detail. We all know in natural affairs how slow the process of learning is. The Lord Himself said, prophetically, “he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned”, Isaiah 50:4. The process is tedious with us, but we have to be brought into the knowledge of God, and the Lord is patiently bringing that about.
HG In a sense the covenant is set forth objectively; God’s love is commended to us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. It is in connection with the action of the Spirit that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts.
JT In Old Testament times things were slow. There was formation, but in a man like Enoch three hundred years would not bring about what the work of the Spirit brings about in a much shorter time now. Things are done more speedily, the Holy Spirit being here and Christ having been glorified. Things are done methodically, too, but the whole thing is worked out in a man in a comparatively short span of time. Men do not live three hundred years now. Look at the effects of the Spirit’s work in a man like Paul, whom we take as an example; how quickly he matured as the Holy Spirit had liberty with him. But we all have to learn, and many do not begin at the bottom. Paul says, “Ye have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed”, Romans 6:[p. 126] 17.
AFM At the end of Matthew 11 we find that the Son who knows the Father is pleased to reveal Him; and then the exhortation follows: “Come to me”, and “learn from me”, Matthew 11:28,29.
JT There it is the Model; at the end of Luke 10 it is the Teacher. Mary sat at His feet and heard what He was saying. In the next chapter He is seen praying, and one of His disciples says, “Lord, teach us to pray”. We shall never be effective priests unless taught how to pray by the Lord; that is one example of learning from Him.
AFM Do you not think we have taken too much for granted? There is no limit to God’s love, and the Holy Spirit is given to shed it abroad in our hearts, this is from the divine side; but there is the subjective work on our side by which room is made for the Spirit to carry on His work.
JT The knowledge of God is to be sought after by us, and is the result of divine teaching. We need to be in school for this, and we learn much better in class than at home; so that the circle of the saints is the place to learn this great lesson.
HG There are many agencies active in connection with it; in 2 Corinthians 3, where the ministry of the new covenants is enlarged upon, the Lord is said to be the Writer, and with the Spirit of the living God, this would be effected by the ministry of the apostles, no doubt, but prior to that there had to be the preparation of heart and a broken will. What hinders very largely is the unbroken will.
JT A great thing has come to us when the light of God enters the soul. The next thing is to be on the lookout for teaching. In 1 Corinthians 11, it says that even nature itself teaches. Are we prepared to be learners? In the ordinary affairs of life we learn from things around us. Spiritual intelligence is that which God would bring about in us.
HG There is not only the paternal but [p. 127] the maternal side. The Proverbs speaks of “thy mother”, (Proverbs 1:8) and not forsaking her law (chapter 1:8). The new covenant spirit amongst the brethren would be an effective way of teaching souls.
JT In chapter 5 of our epistle it says, “for when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have again need that one should teach you”, Hebrews 5:12. Every Christian should be able to teach something. The elder women were to be “teachers of what is right” (Titus 2: 3); to exhort the young women how to be attached to their husbands. The writer here desires that they may be divinely taught.
CAM Do we arrive at a time when we shall not need teaching?
DMR The only way to be taught is to learn in meekness.
JT You may learn something from the simplest Christian, and you never give up learning while here.
JS It is of all moment to take God into account in what we seek to learn.
JEH Our chapter turns from the subject of the Minister to that of the Mediator of a better covenant.
JT The Mediator is One who makes the thing effective.
JEH Would it be manward? It has often been said that it requires two parties to make a covenant.
JT Here I think it is seen as on God’s side. The Mediator makes the thing effective. He did it actually by dying. “Minister of the holy places” refers to His service Godward in resurrection.
HG Paul speaks of himself and others as “ministers of the new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit”, 2 Corinthians 3:6. In the next chapter he speaks of the life of Jesus being manifested in their mortal flesh.
JT It was the true spirit of the Mediator. Alongside the giving of the law, the Hebrew servant is presented, Christ in type — he loved his master, his [p. 128] wife and his children, and would not go out free. That is the spirit in which the new covenant ministers carry on their work; they are ministers of that kind.
DMR Is it right to say that the covenant is for all men?
JT I do not think the covenant is made with all men; here it is made in regard to the house of Israel and in regard to the house of Judah. The “Mediator of God and men” 1 Timothy 2:5 does not connect with the new covenant. He gave Himself a ransom for all, but I do not think it goes beyond that there.
AFM Why mention the two houses?
JT It is like the message of Joseph, which was an adjusting one, bringing the tribes together by his own influence. Israel and Judah will be brought into unity under Christ.
CAM The truth of reconciliation runs that way in both Ephesians and Colossians.
JT One has been struck by the skill with which Joseph brought out brotherly conditions amongst his brethren; and that is what will be brought about in the house of Israel and in the house of Judah; all distance will be gone.
At the end of our chapter we have an important statement: “In that he says New, he has made the first old; but that which grows old and aged is near disappearing”. It is a word for each Christian linked with what is old. A thing may be old and yet of value, like an antique; but the reference here is not to that kind of thing, but to what had served its end had become aged and was disappearing.
ANW It is not a second now nor a better, but new. The Lord introduced the thought in instituting the Supper.
JT He said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”; and it suggests also the part He has in it in that He effected it by dying. It is “the new covenant in my blood”. That endears Him to us.
AFM “According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise”, Psalm 48:10. I suppose every family will know God, as being the subjects of new covenant teaching, and knowing Him contribute to His praise.
WM Speaking of antiques, I suppose you see them in chapter 11. What is seen is not exactly old, but antique.
JT That is where you see them. God introduces things to abide. All that is of faith will shine out in a coming day. Nothing in us of the work of God is old, rusts nor becomes useless.