Names of God: YHVH, part 6. The unfathomable riches of Yavah given to the church; Heb 10:19-25.

Title: Names of God: YHVH, part 6. The unfathomable riches of Yavah given to the church; HEB 10:19-25.

 

Vv. 19-20: the gospel given to the Jew. Behold His face.

 

When a Gentile like the Philippian jailor finds his soul in the balance and is offered the gospel, the approach is "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved."

 

To have a richer experience from this passage, one can imagine himself as a Jew in Jerusalem in the first century. Some of his friends and family have become convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Messiah promised from their nation’s birth. You are not completely antagonistic toward them, but you are not yet a believer either. You may have attended a few Christian assemblies and heard the gospel and heard the arguments that show Jesus fulfilling the prophecies of the OT, prophecies you have known and heard for many years. You are told that the law is fulfilled in Jesus and that the rituals and ways of the law, which you have lived under and have been warned and warned never to violate or ignore, are no longer to be practiced. Not practicing them must surely bring the terrible curses of the law down upon you, but you are told by them that no curse will come, but to the contrary you will be greatly blessed with the freedom of being complete.

 

This is a much different experience than that of the pagan when he hears the gospel. You are caught between the many of your fellow Jews who have believed in Jesus as Israel’s promised Messiah and the many Jews who have denied this as blasphemy and have warned you of its deceptiveness and evil. Much of the epistle to the Hebrews is for you.  

 

Yet in the book of Hebrews the call of the gospel is given to Jews and the approach is in the typology of the OT.

 

HEB 10:19 Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,

 

HEB 10:20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,

 

The exhortation to enter into the Holy of Holies of heaven by the blood of Jesus would bring the Jewish reader's mind to the high priest entering the sacred chamber for him.

 

Every year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies behind the veil. No other could enter, but the high priest represented every Israelite. He first offered a sacrifice for his own sins and was thus accepted by God, and then he offered for the people’s sins. Therefore, the high priests presence in the Holy of Holies meant the presence of each Jew.

 

The individual Israelite who trusted that someday Yavah would offer the one sacrifice that would actually pay for his sins, trusted Yavah for his salvation. Thus, he stood symbolically with the high priest in the presence of God as a saved person, but actually the coming Messiah would in that day become the one real High Priest.

 

To actually enter the Holy of Holies themselves, as they are exhorted to here, would have been unthinkable. Moses couldn’t see the face of Yavah and neither could he enter the Holy of Holies. But, at the death of Christ, the veil was torn and we are invited in to behold the face of God.

 

The high priest in Israel beheld the Shekineh glory, a manifestation of God, but the Tabernacle spoken of here that we are invited into is not the old one. It is not even on earth.

 

The writer makes it plain that he does not have reference to the earthly Holy of Holies.

 

HEB 9:11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;

 

Two things clearly stand out to the Jew who is trapped in the first testament.

 

In the first place, it is by means of the blood of Yeshua Hamoshia (Jesus the Savior) or Yeshua Hammashiach (Jesus the Messiah) that he is to enter, not the blood of animals.

 

This is why the phrase “the blood of Christ” is so important. It means far more than His actual physical blood. It is not the blood of a man versus the blood of an animal. It is the God-Man willingly and obeyingly offering Himself as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world and also willingly and obeyingly operating as the High Priest. He is the offerer and the offering. It is not physical spilled blood that atones but the entire thing. There is no need to dissect it and then argue about it. From the upper room to the resurrection we have the Messiah’s work for salvation: the preparation for the cross, the physical suffering both before and on the cross, the actual atonement in spiritual death being judged for the sins of the world, His physical death, and His resurrection. Could any of it have been removed without consequence? His preparation of the apostles reveals His love for the church. His prayer in Joh 17 reveals His deepest desires. Gethsemane reveals His deepest weakness and ability to trust in His Father’s will. His physical suffering and His quietness in it reveals His obedience. His trials reveal His willingness. His prayers from the cross reveal His love. His question to the Father reveals His being completely forsaken and judged for the sins of the world. The piercing of His side reveals His physical death, and that a bride will come from Him as Adam’s rib was a type, and that not a bone of Him was broken. His resurrection reveals our justification. Which of these is unimportant enough to count as inconsequential in His work for the salvation and deliverance of all mankind?

 

All of Him and all that He does brings salvation and the forgiveness of sins to the world.

 

HEB 10:19 Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,

 

HEB 10:20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,

 

The first striking change was that entrance into the Holy of Holies was not by animal blood but by the blood of Christ.

 

In the second place, he calls the road into the Holy of Holies, "a new and living way." "way" is ‎hodos‎, "a road."

 

The Greek word translated "way" is ‎hodos‎, "a road."

 

Christ certainly gave us a new way, which is the plan of God for the church, under grace and not under the law. However, that is not what is emphasized here. The way or the road would be impossible for us if we were not given entrance into the Holy of Holies. It would be terribly cruel to give us a way and then not allow us to walk it or find it.

 

Reading the sentence in the English, like the NASB has it, one might refer the word "which" to the word "way", but as the Greek plainly reveals, "which" refers to "enter".

 

Correct word order in Greek:

Having therefore brethren confidence to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, which [entrance] He inaugurated for us, by a new and living way through the veil, that is His flesh.

 

This is another instance where the translators are altering the sentence to their own understanding, and when they do, something is lost.

 

We actually would not say that the “way” has been inaugurated for us, because “the way” has always been. The “way” is God. It is Christ. What is new due to His blood is the entrance to that way.

 

God’s way is not new. Ehyeh asher ehyeh. I am that which I am. I always was, am now, and always will be that which I am. The way is not new. The entrance into the way is new. Christ the Shepherd said that He was the door of the sheep.

 

JOH 10:7 Jesus therefore said to them again, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

 

JOH 10:8 "All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.

 

JOH 10:9 "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

 

JOH 10:10 "The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.

 

JOH 10:11 "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

 

The unsaved Jew of the first century who had made a profession of Messiah but had not placed faith in Him for salvation, is now exhorted to do so in the person of Jesus of Nazareth as the Jews would have known Him at the time. The writer is using Jewish terminology and typology in his exhortation.

 

HEB 10:21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,

 

HEB 10:22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.