Blood Sacrifice
As I was reading the Bible this morning I got stuck on an idea. The idea is not so much an application idea as a theological idea.
In Hebrews 9:23 we read the following: “It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be
purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with
better sacrifices than these.”
The context of this verse is a discussion on the new and old covenants and the style of atonement, but that really isn’t what is tripping me up. What I am thinking about is “the copies of the heavenly things…” In Exodus, God tells Moses to tell the people to build the tabernacle and furnishings with exacting specifiactions. This was to be God’s very literal earthly dwelling place. So if God is laying out these exacting specifications for things on earth that are exact copies of things in heaven, is there a tabernacle in heaven? The author of Hebrews writes that as the earthly tabernacle was purified with sacrifices, the heavenly things were purified with an even better sacrifice, that of course being the blood of Jesus. I get the teaching here, I get that when you are speaking to a bunch of old school Jews you have to speak their language. But is this all that is? Is it contextualization?
Why do I care? Because my mind works in funny ways. This is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night (or day when I am working). I don’t lose a lot of sleep, but sometimes its tough to turn my head off. Really, I care because it is interesting to me to think of what Heaven is like. Maybe Randy Alcorn answers this kind of question in his book Heaven, anyone read it?
On a side note, I do think that it is interesting to think that if there is a tabernacle in heaven it has been gathering dust for over two thousand years. Christ’s once and for all sacrifice took care of any sin offerings that we might need. Or maybe God put white sheets over everything?
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