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The meat of the word, part 6

Types and shadows are given to challenge men and women to pray for greater understanding and to prepare them for that which is real. Types, then, are only forecasts and lack the ability to perform the task of the antitype. In this way, types are like signs of things yet to come. Signs have value, but they are not meant to be a substitute for that which they point to.

When Bible teachers refrain from studying the Old Testament—especially the law—they fail to grasp the prophetic meaning of the types and shadows that that law reveals. Worse yet, many end up thinking that the types are indeed the real, and so they teach their students that the types are the end of the matter.

Old Covenant teachers, whether in Judaism or Christianity, inevitably set forth animal sacrifices as the ideal which God has ordained. In either case, since sacrifices were abolished many centuries ago, they look ahead to the day when they will be restored as the foundation of their religious system of worship. For Jews, this is understandable, given the fact that they have rejected the great Antitype. But for Christians, who have accepted the book of Hebrews as part of Scripture, this is inexcusable. Such Christians need to go back to the milk of the word in order to be able to digest the meat.

Animal Sacrifices are Mere Types

Hebrews 10 explains how sacrifices were offered twice daily, because they can never perfect anyone.

² Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sin?

The author then quotes Psalm 40:6-8,

⁶ Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; my ears you have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required. ⁷ Then I said, “Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me, ⁸ ‘I delight to do Your will, O God; Your law is within my heart’.”

The author of Hebrews changes “my ears you have opened” to “a body you have prepared for Me.” Dr. Bullinger’s note on Psalm 40:6 explains it this way:

“Heb. 10:5 is not a quotation of this verse. It is what Messiah ‘said’ when He came into the world to perform what Ps. 40 prophesied, when He had become incarnate, and could say ‘I am come.’ He must change the word ‘ears’ for the ‘body’ in which that obedience was to be accomplished, and He had a right to change the words and thus adopt them.

So we read in Hebrews 10:9, 10,

⁹ then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. ¹⁰ By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

We must also note David’s New Covenant statement: “Your law is within my heart,” something that the prophet restated in Jeremiah 31:33, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it.”

The Gospel

The next verse, Psalm 40:9, receives no comment in Hebrews 10, but it forms the context:

⁹ I have proclaimed glad tidings [basar, “the gospel”] of righteousness in the great congregation [kahal, “church”]; Behold, I will not restrain my lips, O Lord, You know.

This is the gospel according to King David. It is the same basar (“good news”) in Isaiah 61:1, which Jesus came to proclaim in Luke 4:18, where the word is translated “gospel.” What gospel is this? David says it is the gospel—good news—that God does not require animal sacrifices. It was required temporarily until the coming of the Messiah’s “body,” who came to be the final Sacrifice for sin.

The Hebrew word basar has a double meaning: “gospel” and “body.” The good news of the gospel proclaims that a child has been incarnated in a body so obedient that He was willing to die on the cross for the sin of the world.

Again, we read in Hebrews 10:14-16,

¹⁴ For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. ¹⁵ And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying [in Jeremiah 31:33], ¹⁶ “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put My laws upon their heart, and on their mind I will write them.”

The gospel ought to be classed as the milk of the word, since one must believe this gospel in order to be justified by faith in Christ and His sacrifice. Unfortunately, there is often much confusion or ignorance about this core belief, as evidenced by Scofield’s assertion that animal sacrifice will be resumed when Christ returns.

The Triumphs of Faith

Hebrews 11 lists many men and women of faith in the Old Testament. These believed the promise of God and were therefore declared righteous. Their faith was not based on their own vows of obedience but upon God’s promise to them. So we see that even though the Old Covenant was instituted by the promise of men in Exodus 19:8, it did not overrule or eradicate the New Covenant that had been established earlier.

Both covenants existed side by side, even as they do to this day. It is up to us to choose which covenant forms the foundation of our faith. Do we have faith in our promise to God or in God’s promise to us? Is our promise to God the cause of our justification or the result of God’s promise to us? Which came first? Which takes precedence?

We might focus upon the promise to Abraham, since he is the prime example of New Covenant faith. Under the Old Covenant, he was Abram, but under the New Covenant he was Abraham. By the Old Covenant, he inherited the land of Canaan; but by the New Covenant, “he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). Those who share Abraham’s vision “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16).

Those who can see no further than their Old Covenant vision are focused upon the original land of Canaan, and their Zionistic view of prophecy reflects this. They do not understand, nor can they digest, the meat of the word.

The heavenly Jerusalem is a spiritual city—a way of life and a way of thinking—that is heavenly in its origin. This new city must come to earth (Revelation 21:2). Heaven must be reflected in the earth, for that is our purpose and is the focus of the gospel itself. Just as Christ came to earth, so also all things in heaven must be transferred to the earth in order that the earth may fulfill its purpose for creation.

Therefore, our calling is to bring heaven to earth. We are not here as in an incubator awaiting the time that we can go to heaven. We are not here simply to endure the pain of earth so that we can rest later on a cloud in heaven. Far from it. We are here to transform the earth into God’s Kingdom. This has taken a long time already, and it will still require two more ages to come before all things will be put fully under the feet of Christ. Nonetheless, we are here as active participants in the redemption of the earth. We are here to be a blessing to all nations.

This is the meat of the word.