Regulations for Worship

Now the first covenant also had regulations for ministry and an earthly sanctuary. For a tabernacle was set up, and in the first room, which is called the holy place, were the lampstand, the table, and the presentation loaves. Behind the second curtain was a tent called the most holy place. It had the gold altar of incense and the ark of the covenant, covered with gold on all sides, in which was a gold jar containing the manna, Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. The cherubim of glory were above the ark overshadowing the mercy seat. It is not possible to speak about these things in detail right now.

This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

I am going to admit, I struggled to figure out what to do with this passage in Hebrews 9. I have spoken very recently in a sermon about the different articles of the tabernacle and how they represent the tabernacle in heaven. However, I did not want to just gloss over what the author of Hebrews is trying to say in this passage.

As I read these verses over and over again, there was one part of this passage that kept sticking out. In verse one, we see the author state that the old covenant had regulations for worship and ministry. Why? Why were there rules for how the people were to worship God? It is because the way in which we worship God matters to him.

Big Idea: God cares about how we worship him.

As we go through our passage today, as well as the passage we will look at next week, I want us to see that God had specific regulations for how the old covenant worship was to be conducted, and that the reason God wanted worship to be conducted this way is that it was representing something specific.

Hebrews 9:1

Now the first covenant also had regulations for ministry and an earthly sanctuary.

The author of Hebrews starts getting into the details of the ministry within the tabernacle of the First Covenant period. He states that there were regulations for the ministry. You may remember a couple of weeks ago, in one of my sermons, where the author of Hebrews refers back to Exodus 25 and God's instructions to Moses on how to build the Tabernacle.

Exodus 25:8-9

“They are to make a sanctuary for me so that I may dwell among them. You must make it according to all that I show you—the pattern of the tabernacle as well as the pattern of all its furnishings.”

God had set up rules for how he was to be worshipped because he cares how we worship him. We can see examples all over scripture of instructions on how we are to worship God.

Old Testament Regulations for Worship:

Exodus 20:3-11 (The first four Commandments)

Exodus 25-31 (Building the Tabernacle and its furnishings)

Leviticus 1-7 (Types of sacrifices)

Leviticus 16 (The Day of Atonement)

Leviticus 23 (Festivals and Holidays)

So we see throughout the first few books of the Old Testament that God has very specific regulations on how the people of Israel were to worship him. These were not suggestions to the Israelites on how they could worship God. These were specific commands, written in stone, to instruct God's people on how he wanted them to worship Him.

There were consequences for breaking these commands. A couple of weeks ago, I shared the story of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, who did not present the proper incense before the Lord in the temple. The Lord got angry with them and burned them up where they stood.

Another example would be King Saul in 1st Samuel 13. Saul had the Israelite army attack a garrison of the Philistines. When the rest of the Philistine army heard about it, they sent about 3,000 troops to combat Israel. King Saul’s troops became frightened because they were vastly outnumbered, hiding in caves, thickets, holes, and cisterns. The prophet Samuel said that he would come in 7 days to help seek the favor of the Lord in this battle. When Samuel didn't show, Saul offered the burnt sacrifice himself, which was the duty of the priests. When Saul had finished offering the sacrifice, Samuel showed up. And this is what Samuel said to the king:

1 Samuel 13:13-14

Samuel said to Saul, “You have been foolish. You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. It was at this time that the Lord would have permanently established your reign over Israel, but now your reign will not endure. The Lord has found a man after his own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over his people, because you have not done what the Lord commanded.”

Saul lost his kingdom because he did not obey the Lord's commands for how God was to be worshiped.

There was also a man named Uzzah. When Israel was bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem, he was a Levite who had been trained his entire life on how the ark was to be transported (with two poles, on the shoulders of four Levites). The cart that the ark was being moved in, pulled by oxen, hit a bump in the road, causing the ark to shift, looking like it was going to fall over. To keep that from happening, Uzzah stuck out his hand to stabilize the ark. But when he touched the ark, he immediately fell down dead, because nothing unholy was allowed to touch the ark.

Many non-Christians use stories like these to claim that God is unjust, or just an evil tyrant. Atheists find it hard to believe in a literal Adam and Eve. But then to say that Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden simply for eating a piece of fruit, that seems beyond their comprehension. However, if we as Christians have even a minor understanding of how holy God is, we will see that God's punishment for disobedience is just, it is righteous.

Now, these regulations that I have given from the Old Testament were part of the old covenant. And some pastors believe we should “unhitch” ourselves from the Old Testament. But if we are going to have a complete and solid understanding of the New Covenant in Christ, we have to know what the old Covenant said and why.

In John chapter 4, we see the story of Jesus speaking with a Samaritan woman. She recognizes Jesus as a prophet after she claimed that she did not have a husband, and Jesus said, “Correct, you have had five husbands, and the man you live with now is not your husband.”

Since she knows Jesus is a prophet, she asks him where the proper place to worship is. The Samaritans had set up a place to worship God on Mount Gerizim. The Jews stated that the place to worship God was in Jerusalem. And Jesus responds to her this way:

John 4:23-24

But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.

Jesus says that true worshipers will not only glorify God in a spiritual sense, but they will also worship in truth. Reality corresponds to truth. If something is true, it is real.

Greg Koukl is a Christian apologist who started the organization Stand to Reason. In 2017, he wrote a book called The Story of Reality in which he presents Christianity not as a mere religion, but as the true, comprehensive narrative of the universe.

There is truth in this universe, no matter what we may believe that truth is. Christians believe that what the Bible lays out as the narrative of God creating and working for and through his people is the truth of our world. If that is the case, which I believe it is, then we should believe that God tells us how we are to worship Him, even in the New Testament.

New Testament Regulations for Worship:

Matthew 6 (How to give, pray, and fast)

1 Corinthians 14:26-40 (Orderliness in worship)

Ephesians 5:18-20 (Be filled with the Spirit; sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs)

Hebrews 12:28-29 (Serve God with reverence and awe)

Romans 12:1 (Offer your bodies as living sacrifices)

This last verse listed here actually tells us what true worship is in the sight of God.

Romans 12:1

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.

Presenting our bodies as a Living Sacrifice means that we are not holding anything back for ourselves. It means living in complete submission to the commands of the Lord. In Old Testament sacrifices, an animal would have to physically die and be put on the burning altar for the sacrifice to be accepted. However, Paul calls us to be living sacrifices. And while some Christians may die for proclaiming the gospel, sacrificing their own life here on Earth to point others to Jesus, this verse is also speaking of spiritual sacrifice.

When we submit our lives to Christ, we are laying down our wants, our desires, our ego, our entire selves on the altar before God. We are telling him that every part of us belongs to him. Through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the Lord starts burning up the false ideas of self-worship to refine us and recreate us in the likeness of his Son. We stop doing the things that we want to do for our own sake and begin to do what the Lord has commanded. That is what it means to be a living sacrifice. That is true worship!

Jesus told the Samaritan woman that True Believers would worship in both Spirit and Truth. That means that the spirit of God within us will not contradict what is true. In Ligonier Ministries’ State of Theology survey that they put out last year, ⅓ of all respondents either agreed or were not sure when given the statement, “The Holy Spirit can tell me to do something which is forbidden in the Bible.” If God says that something is forbidden, then the Holy Spirit, who is one in essence with the Father and Son, will not tell us to do something that God has forbidden in Scripture. The voices or feelings telling you that the Holy Spirit can contradict Scripture are giving you lies from the pit of hell.

In the same survey, ⅔ of respondents either agreed or were not sure when presented with the statement, “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.” This cannot be the case! The texts of Islam, the Quran, the Sunnah, and the Haddith say that Islam is the true religion of God. However, the Quran denies the trinity, the crucifixion of Jesus, as well as his resurrection. The Bible and the Quran cannot both be true if they make contradictory statements about who God is. While Judaism is the Old Covenant belief system, it also denies that Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, the Messiah who would take away the sins of the world.

Reformers and the 5 Solas of Salvation:

Sola Gratia - Grace aloneSola Fide - Faith aloneSolus Christus - In Christ aloneSola Scriptura - According to Scripture aloneSoli Deo Gloria - For the Glory of God alone

Worshipping in both Spirit AND Truth means that you are following and listening to the Holy Spirit and doing what God says is true. There is no dualistic nature to Christianity. We do not walk in obedience to the Spirit, and at the same time deny reality. We cannot separate spirit and reason. Living in accordance with how the Holy Spirit is working in our hearts and Minds, pointing us to the truth of scripture, and how God is moving and working in our world, is understanding Ultimate Reality.

Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Christianity is not a blind faith. We do not step off the cliff of faith, praying that God will catch us. We are to use our minds that God gave us to reason and to contemplate the things of this world, comparing them to what God has revealed to us in scripture, and discerning whether those things glorify him.

Discernment Ministries often get a bad rap in Christianity these days. These are Ministries that look at what people are saying or doing in the name of God and compare it to what God says in scripture. The leaders of these types of Ministries often get called Pharisees for being too rules-focused. And though these Ministries do not always get everything right, I do admire those who are trying to guard Christians and keep them in line with what scripture says.

Hebrews 9:2

For a tabernacle was set up, and in the first room, which is called the holy place, were the lampstand, the table, and the presentation loaves.

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at the specifics of the Tabernacle and the various instruments for worship that were contained within it. In that sermon, I talked about how the different aspects of Old Testament worship pointed to what Christ would do for us on the cross. That the various aspects of Old Testament worship were always meant to point us to Jesus. There is meaning behind every part of God's commands for worship.

Here in verse 2, we now see the specific description of the earthly tabernacle, starting with the first room, which contained the lampstand and the table with the presentation loaves that would be placed there every Sabbath.

The lampstand in the Holy place is often associated with the Holy Spirit. We see the Holy Spirit described as fire or as a flame throughout the New Testament. The seven lamps on the lamp stand are associated with the completeness or Perfection of God. The lampstand was to provide the light in the first room, the holy place, for the priests as they performed their duties.

I can't help but think about The Sermon on the Mount when Jesus told his followers that they were the light of the world. When the Holy Spirit dwells within us, God's light begins to radiate out of us. People start to see that we are different. Some people may see us as different from them, while others will see us as different from what we used to be before we gave our lives to God.

Right after calling his followers the light of the world, Jesus then tells them that a city on a hill cannot be hidden. A city in the ancient world, lit up by the torches at night, could not be hidden from Man's eyes. In the same way, the light of Christ, the Holy Spirit, should be so evident in our lives that we cannot hide it.

This bread that was placed on the table every Sabbath was only to be eaten by Aaron and his sons, the high priest and the priests. Many people associate the bread in the Holy place with Christ's statement in John 6:35 when Jesus tells his followers that he is the bread of life.

John 6:35

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again.”

True Food is found in Christ. Jesus, calling himself the bread of life, should point us to when he was being tempted by Satan in the desert. Remember, Jesus had been fasting and was hungry. Satan told him to turn stones into bread so that he could feed himself. But Jesus responds by saying, “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus is saying that God's word is what sustains us. And how does the beginning of the Gospel of John describe Jesus?

John 1:1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Scripture is God's word because it all points to Jesus. Paul's second letter to Timothy says that scripture contains everything we need for life and godliness. If we want to have a truly sustaining life, we must feed ourselves on the bread of life, the word of God.

Hebrews 9:3-4

Behind the second curtain was a tent called the most holy place. It had the gold altar of incense and the ark of the covenant, covered with gold on all sides, in which was a gold jar containing the manna, Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.

Next, we see the mention of a curtain or veil. This curtain separated the holy place from the most holy place. It symbolized a separation from God's presence because of our sin. God's holiness is so intense that he cannot be around sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were banished from the garden and from the Lord's presence. Humanity has been subject to the separation from God ever since.

However, when Christ died, there was no longer a separation between God and us due to sin, because Christ had paid the price for all of our sins.

Matthew 27:50-51

But Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit. Suddenly, the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth quaked, and the rocks were split.

Christ paying the debt that we owed for our sin allows us to come into the presence of the Father, our sins having been atoned for through Christ's sacrifice.

The golden altar of incense that the author mentions was not technically within the Holy of Holies. It was just outside the curtain in the holy place with the lampstand and the table of bread. However, this altar was essential for the burning of incense on the Day of Atonement, and so it was associated with the ministry of the Most Holy Place. The high priest would take coals from the altar of incense and put them in a censor, or firepan. He would then take the fragrant incense and place it on the coals so the smoke of the incense would cover the mercy seat, or the lid, of the ark of the covenant while he was in the Holy of Holies.

The ark of the covenant was a wooden chest, completely covered in gold. There were 3 artifacts, or treasures, kept inside the ark.

The first one was a golden jar of manna. Manna is described in Scripture this way:

Exodus 16:31

“It resembled coriander seed, was white, and tasted like wafers made with honey.”

Israel would find it on the ground every morning after the dew had dried up as they were wandering in the desert. After leaving Egypt, the people complained to Moses that he had led them into the desert to die of starvation. So God provided the manna for them to eat. The word “manna” actually means: “What is it?” That is what Israel said when they first saw it on the ground, so that is what they named it. This jar symbolized how God had faithfully provided for Israel as they wandered through the desert.

Jesus tells us of God’s faithful provision in the Sermon on the Mount when he talked about anxiety. He tells his listeners, “Why do you worry about where your next meal is coming from? Why do worry if you are going to have clothes for tomorrow? God feeds the birds and clothes the grass with flowers. Aren’t you more important than flowers and birds? Then he says:

Matthew 6:33

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.

Aaron's staff that budded was the second of these treasures. This staff was part of God's showing his choice for who should be priests in his temple. We see this happen in Numbers 17. The reason for this is in Numbers 16. This is where we see a man named Korah, a relative of Moses and Aaron, a fellow Levite, and even a fellow Kohathite. Korah was mad that Moses and Aaron were being appointed as the leaders and priests of Israel, so he staged a rebellion. He got 250 men to follow him and accuse Moses of not being fair.

After speaking with the Lord, Moses instructed Korah and the 250 men he had gathered to use incense burners with coals and incense in front of the tabernacle. If God accepted their incense offering, He would spare them and eliminate Moses and Aaron. Moses and Aaron then approached the two men who supported Korah, having them stand outside their tents with their families. The Lord opened the ground, swallowing their entire families, including Korah’s, along with all their possessions, and then closed it up. The 250 men at the tent of meeting were consumed by fire from God. Aaron’s son was tasked with collecting the firepans from their ashes to be hammered into plates for the holy altar.

Following this, the people accused Moses and Aaron of killing the Lord’s people, prompting God to unleash a plague upon the Israelites. Moses instructed Aaron to take a firepan filled with coals and incense and rushed into the crowd to make “atonement” for their sins, standing between the dead and the living to stop the plague, though nearly 15,000 had already died.

The following day, the Lord commanded Moses to have each tribe leader present their staff, inscribing their names, and place them in the tabernacle. The staff that produced a flower bud would be God's chosen priest. Amazingly, Aaron’s staff not only budded and flowered but also grew almonds overnight. Aaron’s staff was to be kept with the ark of the covenant as a sign to Israel, serving as a reminder not to complain about or question God's choices.

In the New Testament, Paul mentions not complaining about God’s decisions in Romans 9 when he quotes what God said to Moses about God’s choices:

Romans 9:15

For he tells Moses, “I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”

While God can take our questions and unbelief, he does not have to take our complaints about how he works.

The Stone tablets of the covenant were the third treasure in the ark. These were the tablets with the law written upon them. These were to remind the people of God's expectations. However, with the new covenant in Christ, God’s law is now written on the hearts of those who believe in him for salvation, which we saw last week.

Hebrews 9:5

The cherubim of glory were above the ark overshadowing the mercy seat. It is not possible to speak about these things in detail right now.

Before we look further at the cherubim and the ark of the covenant, I want to address this final comment the author makes in our passage today. Though he says he could not go into great detail about the articles of worship, he is writing to Jews who would have been taught from a young age about how the sacrifices in the Old Covenant worked. He was trying to get to more important matters of what the system was pointing to. As we will see again next week, the author’s whole premise is that the Old Covenant was pointing to Christ.

The lid of the ark of the covenant was a symbol of God’s presence, an earthly representation of the throne of God. We can see this by the placement of cherubim above the ark. Their wings overshadowed the top of the ark, which was called the mercy seat. This picture makes me think of Isaiah’s vision of the throneroom of God.

Isaiah 6:1-2

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphim were standing above him; they each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.

This place on the lid, the mercy seat, was where God’s presence appeared on earth. Though the lampstand gave light to the holy place, God’s presence gave light to the Holy of Holies. This was also why the priest burned incense in the Holy of Holies, allowing the smoke to cover the mercy seat, acting like a veil between God’s presence the High Priest. This was also where the high priest would sprinkle blood of the sacrifices for the sins of the people.

The word that we find here for “mercy seat” is the word hilasterion.

Mercy Seat - ἱλαστήριον - hilasterion - place of propitiation. place of expiation.

We can see two different ways that hilasterion has been translated into English. Some Bibles use the word propitiation, while one major translation use expiation. There are slight differences in their definitions.

Propitiation - gaining or regaining the favor or goodwill of someone (or a god) by appeasing them, especially after a wrong has been done.

Expiation - the act of atoning for sin by removing or canceling its guilt and consequences, often through a sacrificial offering that covers or cleanses the offense.

When we look to the cross of Christ, we see BOTH propitiation and expiation. Jesus removed the debt that we owed to God for our sins, the cost of our own lives, by offering his own life to the Father. That sacrifice erased our guilt. Our sins were expiated by Christ. However, there is no guilt if God is not angry at sin. I stated earlier that God’s holiness cannot be near sin without his anger and wrath burning against it. So, Christ’s sacrifice also turned God’s anger toward sin away from those who have believed in him for salvation, because Jesus paid the required price for those sins.

There are a lot of people who do not like the term propitiation because of the implication of God having wrath. But as I said last week, without God’s wrath against sin, we can’t truly know the love he has for those who submit to him. This is why Paul starts with how humanity abandoned God in his letter to the Romans, and then goes on to how Christ paid for that wrongdoing.

If you don’t know something is wrong, you won’t feel the need to change.

Some Bibles translate hilasterion as “mercy seat” as our version this morning. The NIV translates it “atoning sacrifice” or “sacrifice of atonement.” The NLT “sacrifice for sin.” All of these terms really envelope both propitiation and expiation in their meaning.

The artist who created the graphic that we use for our sermon series has a graphic for this idea of the mercy seat, or hilasterion, in Scripture.

In the graphic, we see the ark of the covenant, with the cross of Christ anchored in the lid between the wings of the cherubim. You see, there is only one other place in the New Testament where this specific term is used.

Romans 3:25

God presented him as the mercy seat (hilasterion) by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed.

Christ was the atoning sacrifice that paid for the sins of humanity, canceling our debt and turning God’s anger against sin away from God’s people. Christ, as our great high priest, took our sins upon himself, presented his own blood, sprinkling it on the throne of God, the mercy seat, satisfying God’s wrath, and wrapping those who have trusted in his sacrifice in the righteousness that Jesus earned through his perfect life and sacrificial death.

The root word of hilasterion is:

Root of ἱλαστήριον

ileōs - ιλεως - grace, or mercy.

It is God’s grace that gives us eternal life through Jesus Christ that we do not deserve. Our good deeds cannot bring us close to God. It is God’s mercy that saves us from his wrath against sin that we do deserve, through the work of Christ. All of this happens because God’s justice is met through Christ, taking the punishment of God’s wrath that you and I deserved for our sins.

There is meaning behind everything that God does here on earth. There is meaning to every aspect of our worship of God. It all points to his love, his grace, and his mercy that can be found in Christ alone.

Do you know the wonderful grace of God? Do you understand your need for his mercy? Today is the day to receive both his grace and mercy, realizing that Jesus has satisfied the justice of God for you and for me. As the prophet Isaiah says, “Though your sins may be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” You can have forgiveness through believing in Christ and his substitutionary death on the cross for you.

Next Step: I will repent and submit my life to Christ.

Let us pray.

(Communion)

Related Media

Related Sermons

Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.