Clean Flesh, Dirty Conscience

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Hebrew writer continues, in the section before us, to expound the differences between Jesus' priestly work and the priestly work of the Aaronic-Levitical priests. The first fourteen verses of this chapter present a systematic, point-by-point comparison between the old and new covenants across three categories: sanctuary, priest, and worship. As you know by now, the Hebrew writer will end up stating clearly that the new covenant has the advantage in all three categories. We will look at that systematic comparison in more detail next week. Today, though, we are going to look at what the writer says specifically about the tabernacle as the sanctuary of the old covenant. Intriguingly, he labels the tabernacle and its rites as a "parable" (v. 9) and says that the Holy Spirit used this parable to teach a lesson. That lesson is that old covenant worship was earthly and physical, and therefore though it cleansed the body and even made it holy, it could not ease the conscience the way Jesus does. We will look at this in two points: what the first covenant had, and what the first covenant meant.