For a tabernacle was set up; the first, in which [were] both the candlestick and the table and the exposition of the loaves, which is called Holy;
This verse opens a short tour of the old sanctuary: the writer lists what stood in the outer room of the tabernacle and gives that room its name. Two questions sit behind that list: what does "the first" mean, and what were the lampstand, the table and the bread meant to teach?
The verse says "the first" without saying the first what. One writer traces the missing word back to the previous chapter.
"The first what?" it may be asked. The common Greek text settles the question by supplying the word "tabernacle." The better text supplies no noun after "first." So the Authorised Version and the Revised reject "tabernacle" and supply in italics "covenant." This fits the last verse of chapter 8, where we read, "He has made the first [that is, covenant] old." Then it naturally follows that "the first" in 9:1 refers to "the first" in 8:13... All was appointed by God.
The tent had two compartments, and verse 2 describes only the outer one. That division carried a message.
The writer draws attention here to the two divisions of the first covenant: the Holy place (verse 2) and the Holy of Holies. Each was shut off by a door or veil; of the holiest of all we read, "after the second veil." Door and veil barred the entrance of man as such... How different from the bold access by faith we have as a settled title into this grace in which we stand! For now the veil is torn in two from top to bottom, ever since Jesus gave up His spirit on the cross.
The lamp burned inside a closed room. Its light never reached the crowds outside, and that shapes what it pictures.
The lampstand gave its light inside the holy place; it was the only light there. I do not think the lampstand pictures testimony in the world, but rather light in the circle where priestly service goes on... We need to move in the light the Spirit sheds in the divine circle if there is to be any response from our hearts for the pleasure of God.
The bread has several names in Scripture, and each one says something about it.
He is the spiritual food that sustains the new life. John 6:31-58. This was pictured in Israel by the showbread, the twelve loaves placed on the table in the holy place, new every Sabbath day: it was holy and was eaten by the priests only. Leviticus 24:5-9. It is literally "face or presence bread" (Exodus 25:30), and in the New Testament "bread of presentation." Matthew 12:4; Hebrews 9:2. It pictured the food God would provide for Israel in Christ, as well as the ordering of the twelve tribes before Him.
The table and the loaves point two ways at once: to what feeds God's people, and to how God sees them.
The table speaks of Christ in the perfection of His human and divine natures, as the One through whom we have communion with God. The life is given, but it needs to be sustained. The table suggests Christ, the food which the people of God enjoy. The showbread also reminds us how perfectly His people are presented in Him.
Verse 1 called the sanctuary "worldly." One writer explains what made it so.
The first covenant had many ordinances of divine service, and they were most instructive. Yet the sanctuary was, and could not help being, a worldly one. For God was not yet manifested in flesh here below, nor was man received up in glory... The veil therefore was still unrent, and the way into the holies was neither available nor made known. All was of the first creation, shadowy and provisional, at best the witness of good things to come.
Commentators read that word differently, and one finds grace in it.
People have made a difficulty of this last expression. But it seems clearly to refer to what the sanctuary was: a picture of heavenly things that went with the people all the way through the wilderness... We have such a world-sanctuary. It is a place where we can meet God and so enter by faith into heavenly things, while we know we are only passing through a world where we are pilgrims and strangers. This is the sweetest grace, that such a sanctuary is open to us even here.
- Covenant. "The first" reaches back to the first covenant of chapter 8. God appointed everything in this outer room.
- Barred. A door, then a second veil, kept man out. At the cross the veil tore, and faith now has bold access.
- Light. The lampstand shone only inside. It pictures light for those who serve God in His presence, not testimony to the world.
- Bread. The loaves were "presence bread," set out before God. They picture Christ as the food of His people, and His people presented perfectly in Him.
- Shadow. The sanctuary was worldly and provisional, a witness of good things to come. Others read the word as a meeting place with God for pilgrims still passing through.
but after the second veil a tabernacle which is called Holy of holies,
Hebrews pauses to walk its readers through the old tabernacle, room by room. Here it reaches the curtain that hung inside the tent. That curtain carries the weight of the whole description. It closed off an inner room, and so it told every worshipper how near he could come to God.
The name assumes a count, and the count starts at the entrance.
In Hebrews 9:3 the veil of the Temple is called the "second veil," the curtains at the entrance being counted as the first.
Each curtain let fewer people through than the one before. The last let only one man through, once a year.
The first entrance-curtain, the wide Gate of the Court, seemed to say "Come" to everyone. The second entrance-curtain, the Door of the Holy Place, seemed to say "Come" to any priest whose hands and feet had been washed at the basin. But the third entrance-curtain, the Veil of the Holiest of all, seemed to say "Not yet". The Holy Spirit taught men, by that excluding Veil, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made known. That Veil shut out every man except one. But the yearly entrance of that one man was "a shadow of good things to come". It pointed forward to the end of the "not yet" period, and pictured how the way into the Holiest would one day be shown.
The curtain was not just part of the building. God had a reason for hanging it there, and the reason was distance.
Within the second veil no one could enter. God gives His reason: the Holy Spirit was showing by this "that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made known." The purpose of the veil was to show that the people could not come to God. He could give them laws, punish them if they broke them, enable them to look to Him; but they could not come near.
Hebrews does not describe the two rooms evenly. One writer points to a small detail in the wording: gold.
In the outer sanctuary the lampstand was pure gold, and the table of showbread was overlaid with gold. Yet the gold is not mentioned in connection with these, while verse 4 mentions it three times in connection with the holiest… Gold is a picture of the glory of God. That glory was bound up with Judaism, yet God could not reveal it in any full measure under law and its shadows. So the Spirit of God would direct our attention to the greater revelation connected with the holiest. This is a picture of Heaven itself, while the outer sanctuary is a picture of the sphere of Judaism and the earthly priesthood.
One writer begins with what the tabernacle was for, then says what the veil stood for. The figure works two ways at once.
In general the tabernacle was where God dwelt and revealed Himself. The veil was, as we know on the same divine authority, the flesh of Christ. It concealed God in His holiness of judgment — in His perfectness as sovereign justice itself. But it showed Him in perfect grace to those to whom His presence revealed itself.
The cross changed that curtain, and one writer names what God did with it.
On the death of Christ the veil was torn from top to bottom, and God has come out in fullest light. In Christianity the believer has boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
Many readers hear that tearing as the veil being done away with. Another writer marks the difference between two words.
The veil is torn in Hebrews; and that is why, as has been said, it is not really "having boldness to enter into the holiest," but into the "holy places," because the two are now joined. Yet that does not mean, as it often seems to be taken to mean, that the veil is removed. "Torn" and "removed" are different things. If the veil is Christ's flesh, that is not removed, nor do we want it removed. By Him we draw near to God; but He had to die that it might be so.
- Counted — It is the second curtain because the count starts at the entrance. Each curtain let fewer people through, and this last one let only one man through, once a year.
- Closed — Its purpose was to show that the people could not come to God. By a curtain that shut them out, the Holy Spirit taught that the way in was not yet made known.
- Golden — Gold is named three times for the inner room and not once for the outer. Gold pictures God's glory, and the inner room pictures heaven itself.
- Flesh — The veil stood for the flesh of Christ. It hid God in His holiness of judgment and showed Him in grace.
- Torn — Christ's death tore the veil from top to bottom, but did not remove it. The two rooms are now one, and the way in is still through Him.